October 31st 2008     

Early Snow As UK Pushes $$ Global Warming Law

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1. dg
   

   November 2nd, 2008 at 11:27 pm

   Laer, you really need to educate yourself on the science supporting the view that Global Warming exists, is driven by man, and is a serious threat before you go off on legislative actions designed to address it.  That it snowed in the UK and it had a mild summer has as little to do with the reality of Global Warming as pointing out that there were no nuclear weapons falling to justify spending money on defense during the Cold War.  The fact is that climate models do not call for uniform warming on all parts of the planet–Europe, according to the models will actually grow colder, for example.  Nor do they call for every subsequent year to be warmer, given the inherently volatile nature of climate (so you focus on longer term trends rather than every data point or oscillation).  The overwhelming evidence, which is backed by the vast majority of the world’s leading experts, is omitted from your post, in favor of the testimony of Inhofe, who is not an expert on the subject.  You do your readers a disservice when you ignore the evidence that matters while pointing out irrelevancies like a single snowfall in the UK or the uninformed opinion of a single US Senator.

2. Laer
   

   November 3rd, 2008 at 7:56 am

   DG, you really have to stop assuming the worst of people.  Do you really think I would write that piece as a Johnny Come Lately who has read nothing, thought nothing, seen one piece and drawn conclusions?  You might want to read the skeptical scientists – there are a lot of them, and they cite much harder evidence than the whimsical computer models used by the high priests.
    
   And please – it wasn’t one snow on Parliament.  The last hottest year we had was 1995; since then all have been cooler.

3. dg
   

   November 3rd, 2008 at 9:28 am

   I’ve read the counter arguments in the literature, including Lindzen at MIT.  I also am friends with the leading atmospheric scientist at CalTech who is a thought leader on Global warming, and have had him explain to me where the controversies amongst the scientists lie.  People like Lindzen are in the minority, and they do not cite “harder evidence” than the majority of scientists, despite your claim.  Lindzen, for example, thinks we are still seeing noise in the data and believes there are negative feedback loops that make the models’ dire predictions unlikely.  He is entitled to that view, but it is hardly based upon better evidence but rather a minority interpretation of evidence that all scientists are looking at.  By the way, all scientists rely on “hard” evidence, so I am not sure what you are referring to.  Perhaps you can enlighten me on why you feel the skeptics’ arguments are more compelling, but to call the majority of scientists “high priests” when their discipline is anything but faith-based shows a decided lack of respect for them and their work (speaking of assuming the worst in people) or perhaps a lack of understanding on how science is actually done.  For me, the reasons to be very worried are simple: first, CO2 concentrations are at the highest levels in 750K years; second, the linkage between CO2 concentrations and warming are as strong a physical certainty as atomic theory; and third, given that there is no back-up planet to live on, we should be very “conservative” in evaluating the risks and dangers of warming, and that we shouldn’t deny it on the basis of a few snowfalls in England or even the views of a minority of smart people.  The bar should be higher for the skeptics, since the costs of a false negative are much, much higher than those of a false positive.  I find it a little strange that so-called conservatives reject undertaking even those programs that make sense in the event that Global Warming turns out to be false or over-stated (e.g., conservation, improved efficiency, research, etc.)–a very cavalier view of risks to our planet, in my humble opinion.  Finally, as I mentioned before, the climate models do not predict a warmer Europe, a point you still have not acknowledged or recognized given your commentary on 1995 being the hottest year in the UK.  By the way, in the US the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 1980, and the models do predict a warming US, a fact you’ve conveniently ignored or omitted…

4. Laer
   

   November 3rd, 2008 at 1:40 pm

   The cyclical nature of climate change argues against everything you have stated, and if the longstanding cycles remain as they have been, we are headed toward an ice age, not an age of increased heat.

   My position on global warming is also influenced by policy considerations.  The punitive measures and astronomical expenditures the global warming lobby would impose on the world come at considerable human and capital cost, and the return on investment is laughable. Hundreds of trillions of dollars for a degree or two of temperature?  Why not spend the money on malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, or for that matter infrastructure improvements for better water quality, flood control, etc.?  You will end up saving far, far more lives for far, far less money.

   Further, global warming “solutions” are uniformly command and control regulations of the economy, which have proven less effective than free market solutions.  Industrial society has marched relentlessly towards greater efficiency since the dawn of the coal-fired steam engine and that march will continue with or without a big government hand, so let’s have it without the Big Hand (especially the one in our pockets).  There’s a rule of thumb that government comes with a 30% cost premium; let’s try to avoid that, shall we?

   The worst case scenarios of the global warming hawks are overstated.  Warming will help many areas of the world.  People will adapt, changing crops, applying new technologies. There won’t be any less water on the planet. There won’t be any less soil.  There won’t be anything near the negatives of having ice sheets cover continents.  Warm periods have historically been up periods for the planet.

   It’s interesting that despite all this overwhelming science you cite, you’re losing the people.  Polls in England are showing a massive swing away from the global warming position, and I expect this will be the case as more polls are done.  Global warming is plummeting in the “most concerned about” polling, so expect to see political support for high-cost solutions whither.

5. dg
   

   November 3rd, 2008 at 4:42 pm

   Laer, I hate to say it, but everything in your last post was wrong.  I mean everything.  First, the cyclical nature of climate does not negate a warming planet at all.  The cycle of ice ages is roughly 100,000 years long; given that all of recorded human history is less than 10,000, it would seem pretty foolish to be citing the next ice age as prospective relief from our current problem.  Now many conservatives point to fears in the 70s about an ice age (perhaps you are referring to this) as proof that scientists don’t know what they are talking about; the problem, however, is that most scientists were not warning of an ice age; it was the uninformed media that was promoting this concern.  In contrast, the broad consensus on global warming today is unprecedented versus any scientific examination of climate in human history.  Second, where is your data showing the cost-benefit analysis of dealing with global warming?  The Economist magazine ran a piece last month on various measures that might help address climate change, and many of them appear to have positive IRR’s.  And I haven’t stated which policies should be implemented, while the group of climate change believers have highly heterogenous proposals to address climate change.  It is disingenuous to paint them all as doomsayers that want to send us back to the stone age to address the crisis.  Third, not all of these proposed solutions are command and control, but harness market forces.  The trading caps for carbon used in Europe employ the market, just like the air emissions to control acid rain that were employed in the US successfully since the 1970s.  The only command part is the government requirement that a market externality be internalized into the price of a good or service, but this is necessary since global warming like all tragedies of the commons are caused by an inherent market failure; beyond that externality, the pricing is market based and therefore efficient.  Fourth, you say people will adapt, but you don’t know what they are adapting to since you do not understand the climate models or what they say (and, it seems, you don’t believe them either), so I wonder how you know that we can adapt.  Why don’t we also just adapt to al Qaeda taking down a plane once a month?  Under some scenarios, climate change could cause that type of human and economic cost.  Finally, I really don’t care what the polls in England say.  There was a time when the majority of the planet believed the earth was flat.  Believing it didn’t make it true.  Markets populated with laypeople, which polls attempt to assess (although decision markets handle better), are very good at sorting out decisions that do not require specialized knowledge but fail miserably on more technical issues.  This is why courses of medical treatment or surgery are not decided by vote or popular committee.  Clearly, climate change science looks more like medicine than a beauty contest.  High cost solutions may lose support because of polls, but that says nothing about their necessity.  One thing is certain, the continued politicization of the issue is harmful.  That the Bush administration regularly censored its own scientific reports because they found the conclusions politically or ideologically unpalatable is one of the worst sins committed by that administration.

6. Laer
   

   November 4th, 2008 at 7:02 pm

   DG — check this out:
   http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2008_09/contoski-warming.html

7. Laer
   

   November 4th, 2008 at 7:04 pm

   My cost benefit analysis, btw, is the UN’s own report and Bjorn Lomborg.

8. dg
   

   November 5th, 2008 at 5:39 pm

   Laer, I took at look at Contoski’s piece.  I have lots of problems with it, and even more with the idea that you would rely on a non-expert for your assessment of the problem.  Contoski was written up in the press when he petitioned to cut down a tree with a bald eagle’s nest, thereby hastening the removal of that bird from the endangered species list; no where is he described in the press or elsewhere on the web as being an environmental expert, but as having done urban planning for an environmental consulting firm.  You would not cite a layperson to comment on the best method of performing brain surgery or diagnosing a tumor, so why use such a non-expert to evaluate global warming?  Sorry for the lenght, but the rebuttal follows.  On to his piece…he writes:During the 20th century, the earth warmed 0.6 degree Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit), but that warming has been wiped out in a single year with a drop of 0.63 degree C. (1.13 F.) in 2007. A single year does not constitute a trend reversal, but the magnitude of that temperature drop — equal to 100 years of warming — is noteworthy. Of course, it can also be argued that a mere 0.6 degree warming in a century is so tiny it should never have been considered a cause for alarm in the first place. But then how could the idea of global warming be sold to the public? In any case, global cooling has been evident for more than a single year. Global temperature has declined since 1998. Meanwhile, atmospheric carbon dioxide has gone in the other direction, increasing 15–20%. This divergence casts doubt on the validity of the greenhouse hypothesis, but that hasn’t discouraged the global warming advocates. They have long been ignoring far greater evidence that the basic assumption of greenhouse warming from increases in carbon dioxide is false.
    As I wrote previously, there is a substantial amount of volatility in the climate, so scientists do not look at one or a few years to determine the trend.  The author states that the decline in temps in 2007-08 has wiped out 100 years of warming, but this makes no sense for two reasons:  1) 100 years of warming have melted away ice, impact ecosystems, etc., and no reversal is occurring in the last 18 months or over the next several years; and 2) the volatility seen in the last 18 months, while rare, is not unprecedented so it doesn’t call into question the statistical significance of the larger trend.  The author claims that global temperature has declined since 1998 but he is cherry-picking the data, since 1998 was anomolously hot while 2007/08 is irregularly cool; he is picking high and low points rather than looking at the trend over time.  This is data mining and is dishonest and statistically unsound.  To call into question the linkage between CO2 levels and temperature requires more than a demand that every year shows nearly 100% correlation.
    Manmade emissions of carbon dioxide were not significant before worldwide industrialization began in the 1940s. They have increased steadily since. Over 80% of the 20th century’s carbon dioxide increase occurred after 1940 — but most of the century’s temperature increase occurred before 1940! From 1940 until the mid-1970s, the climate also failed to behave according to the greenhouse hypothesis, as carbon dioxide was strongly increasing while global temperatures cooled. This cooling led to countless scare stories in the media about a new ice age commencing.His claim that over 80% of the 20th century’s CO2 increase is misleading and likely not true.  CO2 concentrations have been rising rapidly since the middle of the 19th century (see http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.smooth20.gif) and currently stand at the highest levels seen in 750,000 years, based upon a record of atmospheric concentrations found in ice cores.  The author does not address the chemistry or physics of the greenhouse hypothesis, which are founded upon very strong science, nor does he offer an alternative explanation that preserves our strong knowledge of the chemistry and physics while making his claim.  It is a faith-based argument that CO2 levels do not impact temperature levels in the absence of such an explanation.
    
   In the last 1.6 million years there have been 63 alternations between warm and cold climates, and no indication that any of them were caused by changes in carbon dioxide levels. A recent study of a much longer period (600 million years) shows — without exception — that temperature changes precede changes in carbon dioxide levels, not the other way around. As the earth warms, the oceans yield more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, because warmer water cannot hold as much carbon dioxide as colder water.
    
   It is a well-known fact that water holds less gas (O2, CO2, etc.) when it is heated.  This does not refute the possibility that a separate warming process caused by rising atmospheric CO2 is also ongoing.  In fact, what the author is identifying is a feedback loop that can accelerate warming and be a cause for greater alarm, much like the melting of ice caps reduces reflective white snow and ice and causes greater absorption of heat by the Earth (increasing the greenhouse effect).  The author is proving the opposite point.The public has been led to believe that increased carbon dioxide from human activities is causing a greenhouse effect that is heating the planet. But carbon dioxide comprises only 0.035% of our atmosphere and is a very weak greenhouse gas. Although it is widely blamed for greenhouse warming, it is not the only greenhouse gas, or even the most important. Water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas and accounts for at least 95% of any greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide accounts for only about 3%, with the remainder due to methane and several other gases.
    
   The physics and chemistry of CO2 yield greater greenhouse impacts than H2O vapor, and the relative concentrations do not refute this any more than saying that the LD-50 (lethal dose to 50% of the population) of arsenic is greater than sodium.  Pointing out “puny” concentrations does not logically lead to “puny” effects.  Again, the author needs to show an alternative scientific mechanism to preserve 500 years of chemistry and physics knowledge while showing that our understanding of the greenhouse properties of CO2 are incorrect.  He fails to do this.Not only is carbon dioxide’s total greenhouse effect puny, mankind’s contribution to it is minuscule. The overwhelming majority (97%) of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere comes from nature, not from man. Volcanoes, swamps, rice paddies, fallen leaves, and even insects and bacteria produce carbon dioxide, as well as methane. According to the journal Science (Nov. 5, 1982), termites alone emit ten times more carbon dioxide than all the factories and automobiles in the world. Natural wetlands emit more greenhouse gases than all human activities combined. (If greenhouse warming is such a problem, why are we trying to save all the wetlands?) Geothermal activity in Yellowstone National Park emits ten times the carbon dioxide of a midsized coal-burning power plant, and volcanoes emit hundreds of times more. In fact, our atmosphere’s composition is primarily the result of volcanic activity. There are about 100 active volcanoes today, mostly in remote locations, and we’re living in a period of relatively low volcanic activity. There have been times when volcanic activity was ten times greater than in modern times. But by far the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions is the equatorial Pacific Ocean. It produces 72% of the earth’s emissions of carbon dioxide, and the rest of the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the other oceans also contribute. The human contribution is overshadowed by these far larger sources of carbon dioxide. Combining the factors of water vapor and nature’s production of carbon dioxide, we see that 99.8% of any greenhouse effect has nothing to do with carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. So how much effect could regulating the tiny remainder have upon world climate, even if carbon dioxide determined climate?
    
   I believe the author is an economist by training, so this argument is surprising in that it shows a great lack of understanding for marginal change.  Unless he can show how man can eradiate termites without harming the ecosystem, or stop the flow of lava underneath the Earth’s crust, we cannot offset our own contributions to CO2.  Hence, the argument that the Earth itself naturally produces more is irrelevant.Since carbon dioxide is a very weak greenhouse gas, computer models predicting environmental catastrophe depend on the small amount of warming from carbon dioxide being amplified by increased evaporation of water. But in the many documented periods of higher carbon dioxide, even during much warmer climate periods, that never happened. During the time of the dinosaurs, the carbon dioxide levels were 300–500% greater than today. Five hundred million years ago, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 15–20 times what it is today. Yet the catastrophic water-vapor amplification of carbon dioxide warming never occurred. Today we’re told catastrophic warming will result if carbon dioxide doubles. But during the Ordovician Period, the carbon dioxide level was 12 times what it is today, and the earth was in an Ice Age. That’s exactly opposite to the “runaway” warming that computer models predict should occur. Clearly the models are wrong; they depend upon an assumption of amplification that is contrary to the climate record of millions of years. There is no reason to trust the computer predictions — or base public policies on them. Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, has stated, “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.”
    The Ordovician Period is characterized by Early and Late time periods, with the former being the one with high CO2 levels, warm climate and moist air, and the latter characterized by lower CO2 levels, an ice age and dry air.  It is less clear that the models are incorrect than the author’s climate history. 
   There are other examples where the computer models fail to agree with reality. According to the greenhouse hypothesis, the warming should occur equally during day and night. But most of the warming that has been observed has occurred at night, thus falsifying the models.
    
   This is a new one.  I’ll have to investigate it further…All of the models agree — for sound theoretical reasons — that warming from a greenhouse effect must be 2–3 times greater in the lower atmosphere than at the earth’s surface. This is not happening. Both satellites and weather balloons show slightly greater warming at the surface. These atmospheric temperature measurements furnish direct, unequivocal evidence that whatever warming has occurred is not from the greenhouse effect.
    
   This claim is not true, although I am assuming that by “lower atmosphere” the author in fact means upper atmosphere.Everyone knows the sun heats the earth, but the public is generally unaware that the sun’s heat is not uniform. Solar radiation is affected by disturbances on the surface of the sun, called “sunspots,” which correspond to the sun’s 11-year magnetic cycle. There are also several solar cycles of longer duration. Superimposed, these cycles might augment or cancel each other. There are also periods when sunspots “crash,” or almost disappear, which can lead to dramatic cooling of the earth for several decades. This is what happened 400 years ago during the Maunder Minimum, which was the coldest part of the Little Ice Age. During one 30-year period during the Maunder Minimum only about 50 sunspots were observed, compared to a typical 40–50 thousand.
    
   This is true, but represents a separate impact, which, unlike our CO2 emissions, we do not have control over.  There has been ongoing observation of the sun, and no one is claiming that the warming seen in the last 100 years is due to a hotter sun.  Atmospheric temperature measurements furnish direct, unequivocal evidence that whatever warming has occurred is not from the greenhouse effect.   Sunspots have now virtually vanished. You can check out pictures of the sun day after day after day for the last few years here. Very few show more than one sunspot and many show none. We are currently at a solar minimum, awaiting the start of the next solar cycle. If sunspot activity does not pick up soon, we could be in for some seriously cold climate. The jury is still out on sunspot numbers.
    
   If the author is correct, and there is great debate on the linkage between sunspots and strength of radiation from the sun, then global warming will be even greater as the sun “normalizes” to a hotter state.  Again, the author is making the opposite point of what he intended.In any case, some climate scientists believe the length of past solar cycles points to a cool phase in this century. Professor Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory in Russia, believes a slow decline in temperatures will begin as early as 2012–15 and will lead to a deep freeze in 2050–60 that will last about 50 years. Climatologist Tim Patterson thinks that by 2020 the sun will be starting its weakest 11-year sunspot cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on earth. He says, “If we’re to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than ‘global warming’ would have had.”
    
   Again, the logic here is that because some impacts on climate are out of our control we should also ignore the ones that are in our control.  This is analogous to saying that other people could drive drunk and kill me on the road, so I will drive drunk, speed and not wear a seat belt.  I do not understand nor agree with the prudence of relying on a cooler sun and ignoring our impacts on climate.The global warming advocates make all sorts of false claims about dire consequences of global warming. They claim it will result in the spread of malaria, food shortages, more human deaths, more violent weather, and a loss of biological diversity through the extinction of species. All untrue. The largest number of species — the greatest biological diversity — is in the tropics. As you move away from the equator, you find fewer and fewer species, until you reach the earth’s poles, where there is zero diversity because nothing can live there.
    
   The spread of infectious disease is absolutely correlated with warmer temperature since the typical vectors for such disease (e.g., flies, mosquitos, rats) proliferate in warmer climates.  Food shortages are most often caused by drought or insect plagues, both of which are more likely in a warmer climate.  Most mass extinctions in the fossil record are caused by rapid climatic change, and were believed to be caused by supervolcanoes, meteor impacts or other phenomena; man-made rapid climate change would just be another trigger to a long series of climate-related losses of bio-diversity.  That bio-diversity declines as you move to the poles does not refute this and is a logical non-sequitur.Agricultural productivity is also reduced by cold climate, not a warmer one. That’s why Siberia and Alaska are not noted for agricultural abundance. A warmer climate would mean longer growing seasons and would make agriculture possible in areas where it isn’t today. And there are at least 300 studies showing plants and forests grow faster and more luxuriantly under conditions of increased carbon dioxide.
    
   This is possible, but it depends on how quickly climate changes.  One would be rolling the dice to assume that global agriculture would be made net positive as a result of global warming, and I know of no responsible person making that claim confidently.  I have seen studies showing that the disappearance of the snowpack in Tibet and neighboring countries would dry up the four major rivers of Asia and threaten the irrigation feeding four billion people on this planet.  The author should show where those crops will come from to support two-thirds of humanity.The argument that a warmer climate will bring more violent weather can only be made by people who have no knowledge.   Our bodies require heat. We are warm-blooded and have no fur. We wear clothes, build homes, and heat them with fires, all as protection against the cold. Far more people move to Florida, California, or Arizona because of warm climate than move to Alaska, North Dakota, or Montana. Canada is the world’s second largest country, but 90% of the population lives within 100 miles of its southern border. Worldwide, far more people die every year from cold than from heat. So why should global warming be bad for us?
    
   This argument is idiotic.  Humans can live in a very narrow band of possible tempeartures.  Outside of this range, up or down, is fatal or life shortening.  Also, the negative impacts of climate reflect more than just whether people an tolerate a given temperature, but on whether that temperature yields enough food, clean water, lack of disease, flooding, etc.Global warming will not result in the spread of malaria. Paul Reiter, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, is one of the world’s foremost experts on insect-borne diseases. He says, “The global warming alarm is dressed up as science, but it is not science. It is propaganda. I was horrified to read the [IPCC] 2nd and 3rd Assessment Reports because there was so much misinformation.” For example, the IPCC states “mosquito species that transmit malaria do not usually survive where the mean winter temperature drops below 16–18 degrees C.” This is “clearly untrue,” says Reiter. “In fact, mosquitoes are extremely abundant in the Arctic. The most devastating epidemic of malaria was in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. There were something like 13 million cases a year and something like 600,000 deaths, a tremendous catastrophe that reached up to the Arctic Circle. Arkhangel [a city 300 miles further north than Helsinki, Finland] had 30,000 cases and about 10,000 deaths. So it’s not a tropical disease. Yet these people in the global warming fraternity invent the idea that malaria will move northward.”
    
   I will not argue with the world’s expert on malaria, but merely point out that he has been criticized for being selective in his own critique of other scientists.  (see page 8 of the official UK report that responded to Reiter’s claim, at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/71/71.pdf, noting that the UK government has said that Reiter “does not accurately represent the current scientific debate on the potential impacts of climate change on health in general, or malaria in particular. He appears to have been quite selective in the references and reports that he has criticised, focusing on those that are neither very recent nor reflective of the current state of knowledge, now or when they were published”).  Reiter could be correct, but one criticism does not a complete refutation of global warming make.
   New York City and Boston had long histories of malaria. In 1933, when President Roosevelt authorized the Tennessee Valley Authority, a third of the population in the area had malaria. Malaria was not eliminated in the United States until 1951. It was done through the use of DDT — which the environmentalists prevailed upon the United States to ban, resulting in 40–50 million unnecessary deaths from malaria since 1972.

    

    
    
   The environmentalists have also invented the idea that the polar bear is threatened by global warming. Today there are 22–25 thousand polar bears, compared to 8–10 thousand 40 years ago and only 5,000 in 1940, before the big rise in carbon dioxide. Eleven of the 13 polar bear groups in Canada today are stable or increasing. The two that are decreasing are in an area where the climate has gotten colder! Furthermore, the polar bears survived many periods of much warmer temperatures, some lasting thousands of years. They survived the Medieval Warm Period a thousand years ago, when the Vikings settled both Iceland and Greenland. Greenland actually was green then and could support agriculture; but when the cold returned a few centuries later, the people there all starved to death. Today Greenland is covered by a sheet of ice. Six thousand years ago the earth’s climate was much warmer than now, and the polar bears survived. Ten thousand years ago the earth’s climate was a whopping six degrees C (11 degrees F) warmer than now, and the bears survived. Polar bears have been a distinct species for 125,000 years (they descended from grizzly bears) and they’ve survived far warmer climates than anything they face today or in the foreseeable future. A Canadian polar bear expert, Mitch Taylor, says, “They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected.”
    
   Without examining the population of polar bears one can safely conclude that the ice caps have melted and the consequences of this are sea level rise, greater warming (that positive feedback loop again, and a host of other results we do not fully understand.  The US Navy has been keeping records of ice thickness for decades (since they can only surface subs under ice that is so thin), and they have published clear data showing this melting.NASA has “adjusted” recent temperatures upward and older temperatures downward, which creates the appearance of warming.  The argument that a warmer climate will bring more violent weather can only be made by people who have no knowledge of climate history or simply dismiss it because it contradicts their propaganda. And they rely on the public — and the media — being uninformed enough and gullible enough to believe them. There is abundant historical evidence that the earth had far more violent weather in times of colder climate, such as the Little Ice Age, than in warmer times. It is well known, too, that what determines violent weather is the temperature differential between the equator and the poles. All the computer models predict the greatest warming from the greenhouse effect will be at the poles, which will reduce that differential and violent weather.
    
   Where is the evidence of more violent weather during Ice Ages?  Might it be caused by underwater earthquakes and therefore not be relevant to the linkage between storm intensity and climate?  Also, NASA’s head publicly came out against Global Warming, so I am not sure that it is the organization to hold up as fudging the numbers to support the greenhouse effect.  It could be that they are fudging numbers to undermine theory for political reasons.  But there are other sources of independent study on the subject to rely upon.There are four sources of global temperature measurements: NASA, The UK Meteorological Office’s Hadley Center for Climate Studies, the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems). NASA is out of step with the other three. The others show global temperatures declining since 1998 while NASA shows them increasing at a record pace. How can that be? Statistician Steve McIntyre tracks climate data closely at http://www.climateaudit.org. Recently he ran an article titled “NASA is Rewriting History, Time and Time Again.” It explains that NASA has “adjusted” recent temperatures upward and older temperatures downward, which creates the appearance of warming. The man behind these changes is James Hansen, the scientist who started the whole global warming hysteria by testifying before a Senate committee in June 1988 that he was “99% sure” greenhouse warming was already under way. The same media which scarcely a decade earlier were touting a coming ice age now seized upon Hansen’s unsupported testimony and began touting global warming. Hansen has been trying ever since to come up with evidence to support his claims, now even tampering with the actual temperature record. Steven Goddard asks, “How could it be determined that so many thermometers were wrong by an average of 0.5 degrees in one particular year several decades ago, and an accurate retrofit be made? Why is the adjustment 0.5 degrees one year, and 0.1 degrees the next?” Statistically, the odds are 50/50 of an error being either up or down. But Hansen adds an upward correction to the average of thousands of temperature measurements annually across the globe in more than 55 years out of 70. That’s like flipping a coin 70 times and having it turn up heads 55 times. The odds of that happening are about one in a million.
    
   Like people in the 15th century believing the Earth is flat, it is irrelevant to the reality of climate change what Hansen does with his models.  Hansen is highly regarded as a scientist (unlike the author), but even if the claim that he is fixing the data were true, it does not change the larger sources of data he does not impact.Nor is that the only example of manipulation of data for the good of the cause. The centerpiece of the IPCC Third Assessment Report was the “hockey stick” graph by Michael Mann, et al. It showed a thousand years of “reconstructed” global temperatures as a long horizontal trend looking like the long handle of a hockey stick — with a sharp rise since 1900 looking like the blade of the hockey stick, due to global warming. This work has now been thoroughly discredited. It was the product of multiple inaccuracies from errors, omissions, obsolete data, and manipulations in “reconstructing” data, all of which was then processed through an invalid statistical procedure. That procedure was found to produce a “hockey stick” even from random inputs, and Mann himself later admitted it would find a “hockey stick” where there wasn’t one. The National Academy of Sciences found a “validation skill not significantly different from zero.” The issue was presented to the National Academy of Sciences by the Wegman Panel, consisting of three independent statisticians chaired by an eminent statistics professor, Edward Wegman, who also testified about it at a congressional investigation. After explaining the incorrect mathematics in Mann’s procedure, Wegman stated: “I am baffled by the [Mann] claim that incorrect mathematics doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway[!]” Ideology trumps mathematics! (Incidentally, this graph is still being used on TV programs on global warming. I was on one such program less than a year ago that displayed this graph four or five times in an hour and allowed Mann plenty of airtime to tout it, and the program provided no rebuttal. And I have been told by students and parents that the “hockey stick” graph is still being used in schools.)
    
   Examples of mistakes in the scientific study of climate change does not refute the trend of higher temperatures today versus 100 years ago.  I am not sure whether the author is trying to make the claim that temperatures have not risen since the industrial revolution.  If he is, then he would be in a very small minority.Here’s an example of the global warming alarmists completely ignoring contrary data, or even denying it exists. Some scientists assert that the current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (about 380 parts per million) is the highest in 800,000 years. The media sucks this up and broadcasts it all over the airwaves and the newspapers, and the public, not knowing any better, believes it must be true. But how could such learned men be so ignorant in their own field of expertise as to not know of the abundant temperature records that give lie to their claim? How could they not know of the monumental compilation by Ernst-Georg Beck of more than 90,000 direct carbon dioxide measurements, between 1812 and 1961, from 175 published technical papers? Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., says these measurements were ignored for three decades “not because they were wrong. Indeed, these measurements were made by top scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners, using techniques that are standard textbook procedures. . . . The only reason for rejection was that these measurements did not fit the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming. I regard this as perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time.”
    
   What about the ice core samples? Same story: omission or denial of whatever doesn’t fit the global warming doctrine. 
    What about the ice core samples? Same story: omission or denial of whatever doesn’t fit the global warming doctrine. The 2007 IPCC Summary report states: “The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280 ppm to 379 ppm in 2005. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years (180 to 300 ppm) as determined from ice cores.” In fact, the ice cores show measurements of over 400 ppm as recently as about 1700 A.D. and 420 ppm about 200 A.D. Ice cores show similar carbon dioxide levels intermittently over the last 10,000 years. So who is wrong, the ice cores or the IPCC? Just who are the “deniers” of reality?
    
   Jaworowski has studied climate for over 40 years, organized 11 glacier expeditions researching 17 glaciers in the Arctic, Antarctic, Alps, Norway, Himalayas, Peruvian Andes, and other mountainous regions. He has also published about 20 papers on climate issues, most of them about ice cores. He writes that the ice core information in the 2007 IPCC Summary Report was “plagued with improper manipulation of data, an arbitrary rejection of high readings from old ice, and an arbitrary rejection of low readings from young ice, simply because they did not fit the preconceived idea of man-made global warming .”
    
   Furthermore, from over 90,000 direct measurements of carbon dioxide, Beck graphed five-year averages, which further discredit the IPCC claim. These show 440 ppm carbon dioxide for the years 1820 and 1940, and 390 ppm for 1855. Can there be any doubt that the IPCC is distorting science for political purposes?
    
   The author cites ice core studies from a discredited scientist.  Jaworoski’s criticism of relying on ice core data–that pressure and decoring change the CO2 levels and make the studies unreliable has been disproven, most notably by climate scientist Hans Oeschger.  Jaworoski is likely also the source of the author’s concerns about sunspots and an upcoming ice age–revealing a troubling lack of diversified data sourcing–which are also highly controversial.  Jaworoski also famously refused to put his money where his mouth is by betting that the climate would be cooler in 25 years than it is now.Why is it that the global warming advocates are unfazed by any contrary evidence, no matter how strong? All their claims of disasters from global warming have been debunked. All their computer models have been shown to be false, to be based on flawed assumptions, incapable of being reconciled with the observable facts. Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic and a university professor before he became president, is the author of a book on global warming and has spoken often on the subject. He says, “What frustrates me is the feeling that everything has already been said and published, that all rational argument has been used, yet it does not help.” It does not help because global warming alarmism is not based on rational argument. It is not based on science. It is not based on reality. It is based on political ideology. If rational argument doesn’t fit, then phony arguments must be invented: the spread of malaria, the loss of biological diversity, polar bears disappearing, etc. If computer models can predict disaster scenarios only by programming unrealistic assumptions, then that will be done. If global warming does not fit the observable temperature measurements, then a new “reality” must be invented to fit the ideology: the actual temperature records must be altered or dismissed. The global warming advocates are not disturbed by all this because, in their view, ideology trumps reality.
    
   I completely agree with President Klaus’ sentiment, but find the author fails to provide an honest assessment of the science.  He has a clear ideological motivation for holding the views he does (largely libertarian), and lacks the scientific credentials to enter the debate.  He only presents dissenting scientists’ opinions and consistently characterizes the mainstream view as alarmist.  This is similar to the behavior President Klaus warns about in the minority of citizens concerned about climate change who are indeed alarmist.James Hansen revealed his hatred of capitalism in an impassioned email denouncing the attention paid to errors in NASA data.   Patrick Moore, a cofounder and director of Greenpeace, resigned because of its “trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas.” After the failure of communism, he says, there was little public support for collectivist ideology. In his view, a “reason environmental extremism emerged was because world communism failed, the [Berlin] wall came down, and a lot of peaceniks and political activists moved into the environmental movement bringing their neo-Marxism with them and learned to use green language in a very clever way to cloak agendas that actually have more to do with anticapitalism and antiglobalism than they do anything with ecology or science.”
    
   “I think if we don’t overthrow capitalism, we don’t have a chance of saving the world ecologically,” said Judi Bari, principal organizer of Earth First!
    
   James Hansen revealed his hatred of capitalism in an impassioned email denouncing the attention paid to errors in NASA temperature data: “The deceit behind the attempts to discredit evidence of climate change reveals matters of importance. This deceit has a clear purpose: to confuse the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to mitigate climate change. The danger is that delay will cause tipping points to be passed, such that large climate impacts become inevitable . . . the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children.”
    
   Klaus states:
    
   We succeeded in getting rid of communism, but along with many others, we erroneously assumed that attempts to suppress freedom, and to centrally organize, mastermind, and control society and the economy, were matters of the past, an almost-forgotten relic. Unfortunately, those centralizing urges are still with us. . . . Environmentalism only pretends to deal with environmental protection. Behind their people and nature friendly terminology, the adherents of environmentalism make ambitious attempts to radically reorganize and change the world, human society, our behavior and our values. . . .
    
   The followers of the environmentalist ideology, however, keep presenting us with various catastrophic scenarios with the intention of persuading us to implement their ideas. That is not only unfair but also extremely dangerous. Even more dangerous, in my view, is the quasi-scientific guise that their oft-refuted forecasts have taken on. . . . Their recommendations would take us back to an era of statism and restricted freedom. . . . The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical — the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of the proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality. . . . We have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society. . . . It is not about climatology. It is about freedom.
    
   Do you ever wonder how communism could last for 70 years in Russia? Surely there was plenty of evidence, for decades, that the system was failing: food shortages, declining life expectancy, increased infant mortality, low standards of living, primitive hospitals, and sanitation facilities lagging far behind those in Western Europe and America — not to mention pollution far worse than in the West. But to diehard communists, the facts did not matter. All the observable negatives of collectivism were trumped by ideology. The same is true of the ideology behind global warming.
    That Hansen hates capitalism may or may not be true, but (again) has no relevance on the soundness of the scientific work being done by thousands of scientists around the world, the vast majority of whom are not Marxists.  The author gives his own political biases away in the last paragraph by comparing global warming researchers and advocates of the greenhouse hypothesis to Marxists.  Such a blanket statement shows extreme ignorance, bias or both.  And also calls into question his credibility on the issue.  Like President Klaus, he believes the question is one of climatology versus freedom, science versus ideology.  And, like Klaus, he stands on the side of freedom and ideology.  I stand on the side of science.  If the science ultimately shows a dramatic danger to our survival, then our behavior will have to be curtailed accordingly.  Few conservatives (perhaps the author included) were concerned about curtailing their civil liberties after 9/11, but they blindly label all scientists who believe in global warming Marxists.  How hypocritical.  Of course, the dicotomy between climate and freedom is a false one propogated by partisans for political ends.  The reality is that freedom, the markets and the profit motive can be harnessed to search for solutions to global warming, and many smart people who understand the problem and potential solutions better than the author will employ them.  The fear-mongering does not help the progress of science nor the search for practical solutions.  The author’s biases and intent are clear, and unhelpful.Laer, if you would like a more balanced assessment of the science, including the limits of current knowledge and the policy options that can be tailored to account for them, I’d be happy to provide a list.  Relying exclusively on this particular author–not to mention Lomborg, another non-scientist without credibility–will not serve you well in obtaining a deeper understanding of the issue.

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