Resisting Climate Hysteria

[bryansmith]

Actually what are the symptoms of hysteria

 

[trainspotter]

Actually what are the symptoms of hysteria

Posting in here with an opinion counts.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Let us hope Tony gets in and finally finishes off what he correctly describes as " a load of crap".

Many in the ALP agree but don't have the ovaries or balls to disagree with the Greens.

gg

 

[ghotib]

LOL

Anything against your opinion is a lie.

Oh no. Sometimes it's just a mistake

You might want to check the New Zealand Journal of Science, 1980, Vol. 23, 1 – 9 where there is a peer reviewed paper by JWD Hessell (a NZ meteorologist), essentially trashing the NZ temperature because of inappropriate maintenance of sites and completely arbitrary adjustments.

More here http://business.scoop.co.nz/2010/08/16/court-asked-to-invalidate-niwa-temperature-record/

The paper - http://www.investigatemagazine.com/hessell1980.pdf

The Watts study (which warmers like to unjustifiably discount) shows similar factors in the US temp record.

I was going to write my own reply to this, but while I've been getting around to that the Skeptical Science website keeps publishing relevant articles - something like five in the last two weeks. You can get to them easily from the home page by clicking Climate Skeptic Argument 6 - "The temperature record is unreliable", which leads to this http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements.htm.

My extremely shortened version is that the temperature record has been checked sixteen ways from Sunday and it continues to show that the average temperature of the planet is going up.

A slightly longer but still extremely shortened version adds that the temperature record has been analysed to take account of the results of the "Watts studies" (I take it you mean the volunteer effort of examining individual weather stations?). Removing the stations that Watts regarded as "bad" gives a slightly higher warming trend than leaving them in.

Cheers,

Ghoti

 

[Mofra]

Might be an interesting read:

http://www.news.com.au/world/top-climate-change-sceptic-does-u-turn/story-e6frfkyi-1225912590257

AN ECONOMIST dubbed the world's most prolific climate change sceptic finally admitted global warming was the biggest threat to the world and called for a $US100 billion ($112 billion) fund to fight it.

 

[Agentm]

we know that co2 levels have been far higher in the ice ages, up to twice the levels today, so the co2 debate and the debate whether co2 is a cause or an effect of climate change is basically irrefutable, its an effect.. always in a lag..

but the desperation by governments to generate cash from carbon is what needs to be debated.. it concerns me more than the futile debate on carbon..

its cool to see that the melting of glaciers and icecaps is way less than reported, at least half.. so hysteria over global sea level rises are really overstated..

 

[Knobby22]

we know that co2 levels have been far higher in the ice ages, up to twice the levels today, so the co2 debate and the debate whether co2 is a cause or an effect of climate change is basically irrefutable, its an effect.. always in a lag..

but the desperation by governments to generate cash from carbon is what needs to be debated.. it concerns me more than the futile debate on carbon..

..

The problem is that Governments do not want to wean the populations off cheap fuel (coal) because they are generally in debt and do not want to spend the money to do this while they are struggling. Not the other way round.

Your first paragraph makes no sense. We are not in an ice age so why is it relevant? It is true that rising carbon levels allowed the ice ages to end but why does this mean we have nothing to worry about rising CO2 levels today when we are not in an ice age??

 

[derty]

we know that co2 levels have been far higher in the ice ages, up to twice the levels today, so the co2 debate and the debate whether co2 is a cause or an effect of climate change is basically irrefutable, its an effect.. always in a lag..

Which ice ages are you talking about Agentm having twice the current CO2 levels? The oldest ice cores go back 800ka and iceage periods all seem to have CO2 concentrations around 200ppmv Co2 or less, even the interglacial periods only seem to get up to 300ppmv CO2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co2-temperature-plot.svg

Do you have a link to these claims?

 

[Dunger]

Piers Corbyn is a scientist that's not getting caught up in the hysteria.

Man made global warming is a pretty arrogant attitude. To think we have the ability to change the weather of the earth that's managed itself for billions of years is laughable.

The pdf attached is a good read.

 

[basilio]

Man made global warming is a pretty arrogant attitude. To think we have the ability to change the weather of the earth that's managed itself for billions of years is laughable.

The pdf attached is a good read.

Hi Dunger. I noticed that you attached a paper by Christopher Monckton which appears to decry global warming. Christopher Monckton has no respect amongst scientist because, put quite simply, he just makes up his "facts" to suit his conclusions. The complex graphs he sets out to justify his conclusions don't correspond to original data or in some cases any data.

I attached an introduction to a paper which examines in detail Moncktons graphs and explains where they have been frabricated.

Monckton makes it up

Guest commentary by Barry R. Bickmore, Brigham Young University

If you look around the websites dedicated to debunking mainstream climate science, it is very common to find Lord Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Brenchley, cited profusely. Indeed, he has twice testified about climate change before committees of the U.S. Congress, even though he has no formal scientific training. But if he has no training, why has he become so influential among climate change contrarians? After examining a number of his claims, I have concluded that he is influential because he delivers “silver bullets,” i.e., clear, concise, and persuasive arguments. The trouble is his compelling arguments are often constructed using fabricated facts. In other words, he makes it up. (Click here to see a number of examples by John Abraham, here for a few by myself, and here for some by Tim Lambert).

Here I’m going to examine some graphs that Lord Monckton commonly uses to show that the IPCC has incorrectly predicted the recent evolution of global atmospheric CO2 concentration and mean temperature. A number of scientists have already pointed out that Monckton’s plots of “IPCC predictions” don’t correspond to anything the IPCC ever predicted. For example, see comments by Gavin Schmidt (Monckton’s response here,) John Nielsen-Gammon (Monckton’s response here,) and Lucia Liljegren. Monckton is still happily updating and using the same graphs of fabricated data, so why am I bothering to re-open the case?

My aim is to more thoroughly examine how Lord Monckton came up with the data on his graphs, compare it to what the IPCC actually has said, and show exactly where he went wrong, leaving no excuse for anyone to take him seriously about this issue.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/monckton-makes-it-up/

Cheers

 

[derty]

Piers Corbyn is a scientist that's not getting caught up in the hysteria.

Man made global warming is a pretty arrogant attitude. To think we have the ability to change the weather of the earth that's managed itself for billions of years is laughable.

The pdf attached is a good read.

To add to what basilo has said Monckton is no more than a very eloquent con man.

If you get the time, watch the following youtube video of one of Monckton's speeches http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOXmJ4jd-8 and then view this measured rebuttal by John Abrahams of the points put forward in Monckton's presentation http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/

Take note of Monckton's methods of delivery too, he is a very good speaker. He starts by pandering to his clearly right-wing republican audience by making a birther joke and making creationist overtones. He waffles on about the disingenuous scientists/left wingers that killed millions of people by banning DDT and not segregating AIDS victims in colonies (as he advocated). His claim that DDT was banned due to bogus science of the environmental damage it was causing (banned with the purpose of killing millions of third world children) when in fact the main reason for the discontinuation of the widespread use of DDT was that the mosquito population had developed resistance to the chemical. He carries on to address the errors that Gore put forward in his Inconvenient Truth, though he seems to spend more time ridiculing Gore's accent rather than just addressing the points. Not really how a scientist would go about it.

He is a con man, he is slick, effortlessly spiels off very complicated monologues and at times uses technical jargon, he obviously has a very good memory. It is very easy to see why someone would walk away from one of his talks and be convinced Monckton is 100% across this and the scientific community is rotten to the core. But at the end of the day he cherry picks and misrepresents a lot of what he delivers and is a charlatan.

 

[Smurf1976]

The problem is that Governments do not want to wean the populations off cheap fuel (coal) because they are generally in debt and do not want to spend the money to do this while they are struggling. Not the other way round.

The whole world is in debt with tomorrow's growth as collateral for today's debt. The system creates the debt but not the interest that must be paid on it, thus requiring constant growth to keep the game going.

That's really the crux of the entire environmental / resource problem. Either we have constant growth or the financial system falls in a spectacular heap.

Any real solution to resource / environmental issues, beyond purely localised issues, requires fundamental monetary reform in my view. Constant growth on a finite planet isn't going to work and we'll consume everything we can get our hands on if we try.

 

[Julia]

Hi Dunger. I noticed that you attached a paper by Christopher Monckton which appears to decry global warming. Christopher Monckton has no respect amongst scientist because, put quite simply, he just makes up his "facts" to suit his conclusions. The complex graphs he sets out to justify his conclusions don't correspond to original data or in some cases any data.

I attached an introduction to a paper which examines in detail Moncktons graphs and explains where they have been frabricated.


http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/monckton-makes-it-up/

Cheers

Your source is Barry Bickmore of Brigham Young University.
Why should we believe what he says any more than we believe Lord Monckton?

Brigham Young University is owned and run by the Mormons.
I have no idea what stand this university takes on global warming, but given some of the peculiar ideas the Mormons have (including polygamy), I hardly think this is an impeccable source to be quoting.

In saying this, I'm not defending or criticising Lord Monckton. I'm agnostic about the whole climate thing until someone shows something definitive either way.

 

[derty]

The whole world is in debt with tomorrow's growth as collateral for today's debt. The system creates the debt but not the interest that must be paid on it, thus requiring constant growth to keep the game going.

That's really the crux of the entire environmental / resource problem. Either we have constant growth or the financial system falls in a spectacular heap.

Any real solution to resource / environmental issues, beyond purely localised issues, requires fundamental monetary reform in my view. Constant growth on a finite planet isn't going to work and we'll consume everything we can get our hands on if we try.

Nicely put Smurf, that sure makes a lot of sense.

With the head in the sand trajectory we seem to be on, fundamental monetary reform will most likely be undertaken after the financial system falls in a spectacular heap.

Surely we will not be able to maintain the level of growth required for long with the limit of hydrocarbon extraction looming. Mind you sky rocketing energy prices may drive an inflation cycle that will inflate away a lot of the current debt (surely I got something wrong there in that logic).

 

[Smurf1976]

My observations on the resource development life cycle.

1. The industry is established and new uses for the resource are found. Production grows but the industry is yet to achieve any broader economic significance.

2. The boom arrives and strong growth ensues. At this point the industry becomes important economically, in some cases to the point of becoming the dominant economic, political and even social force in the regions producing the resource.

3. Attempts to maintain constant annual % growth clash with the reality that the higest grade, most easily accessible resouces are almost always developed first. More and more effort is required for a given increase in output, and with the increase in output each year being greater than the year before, the whole thing starts to become impossible both physically and economically, often due to availabilty of capital and equipment to facilitate ongoing expansion, such that the growth rate inevitably falls.

4. Some sort of economic, political and/or social (eg unemployment) crisis results, particularly where production of the resource is a key local economic activity. Efforts are made to regain past glories, resulting in:

5. A final surge back to or even above historic growth rates for a relatively short period, after which growth sharply slows or even ceases entirely.

6. Another crisis results. But this time a return to past high growth rates is no longer achievable even briefly without going into:

7. Overshoot. Faced with economic difficulties, extraction of the resource is pushed beyond sustainable limits whilst that can be achieved.

8. Decline. Once the overshoot has consumed stored grain in the silos, stored water in the dams, easily accessible coal in previously "off limits" areas etc then the inevitable happens. Production must decline to match a reasonably sustainable rate (in the case of minerals, a rate broadly equal to the rate of new discoveries).

There's plenty of examples. Oil in the North Sea and USA have reached point 8 quite some time ago and globally it I'd estimate it's at point 7, having reached point 4 in the 1970's.

Brown coal in Victoria is also at point 8 now, since everything already built is maxed out and new construction is uneconomic.

Hydro-electricity in Tasmania is a renewable resource but still not exempt from the overall pattern:

1 - 1893 - 1938
2 - 1938 - early 1970's during which time it was the state's main means of economic development
3 - early 1970's to 1982 amidst rising environmental opposition
4 - early 1980's with the great dams debate, industry closures, soaring unemployment
5 - mid-1980's
6 - 1992 - 1997 amidst the seemingly endless recession
7 - 1997 - 2002
8 - 2002 - 2008, after which production stabilised at a sustaiable level.

And as everyone in Tas will be well aware, the timber industry has recently hit point 8 as well.

1 - 1788 - 1938 when the paper industry commenced
2 - 1938 - 1976 when paper production growth slumped
3 - 1976 - 1980 with permanent closure of the East Mill.
4 - Early - mid-1980's amidst temporary shutdowns and job losses
5 - Late 1980's - early 1990's with the woodchip boom and revival of a previously closed pulp mill
6 - 1990's with mill closures and job losses
7 - 2000's with another woodchip boom and a blaze of environmental controversy.
8 - Present and almost certainly forever after given that even the strongest industry supporters seemingly acknowledge that it's over in terms of growing, or even sustaining, past production volumes. The paper mill which started it all in 1938, closed forever a few weeks ago as did another mill which operated since the 70's.

The key point here is that the causes of transition may be many factors. Resource depletion is one, environmental concerns are another, so too are economic factors.

The USA, North Sea etc are indeed running out of oil since it is a non-renewable resource. As production gets harder and harder from diminishing resources, economic production rates inevitably fall.

Brown coal is a different one. There's plenty of it, but it simply became uneconomic to build new production facilities. As existing plants wear out, production will decline.

Hydro-electricity and timber are different again. It simply comes down to the best sites being used first, slowly eroding the economics of further development. Add in concern for the environment, and a point is reached where the industry hits the wall. It is still raining and there are still trees growing in Tasmania, but much of the low hanging fruit has been picked and what remains is locked up for conservation, thus rendering growth impractical given competition from interstate and overseas energy and timber producers with better remaining accessible resources.

The same scenario applies to virtually any resource in my opinon. Natural gas globally is entering phase 3, coal will follow. Nuclear power is probably only really just ending phase 1 at the global level.

The above is simply my own opinion, having spent rather a lot of time looking at resource issues. They all follow the same basic pattern, although the timing of the stages varies depending on circumstance. And they all have in common a political influence of some sort (eg OPEC controlling the oil market, environmentalists, governments nationalising / privatising industries etc) in addition to the pure resource issues.

Eventually, every resource on the planet will end up in phase 8 if we keep going as we are...

 

[ghotib]

Your source is Barry Bickmore of Brigham Young University.
Why should we believe what he says any more than we believe Lord Monckton?

I think that's the first question for those of us who are not specialists in relevant fields: how do I know who to trust. I've been wrestling with it here ever since Wayne posted a link to The Great Global Warming Swindle and I still don't have an easy guideline for myself, let alone anyone else. The closest I can get is something like "never trust only one"; not only one paper, not only one person, not only one line of evidence, not only one argument.

For me trusting a source requires digging into what they say in their own words. Sometimes that's quite hard to find, but in this case, everything is free on the Web. Basilio linked to an article in which Barry Bickmore attempts to show that Christopher Monckton has deliberately misrepresented part of the IPCC 4th report. That article contains links to the source of the graphs by Christopher Monckton that he's discussing, and to the relevant sections of the IPCC report. I can fairly easily check whether Bickmore is misquoting Monckton and whether either of them is misquoting the IPCC.

That's a useful starting point: if I find misquotations by one and not the other I think I can dismiss the article by the misquoter out of hand and I'm justified in being doubtful about their other work. If I don't find that, I need to try and understand the meat of the arguments and follow up their references. When that process gets me out of my depth, which happens less quickly now than it used to but still doesn't take long, I have two choices. One is to look for other discussions of the issues. The other is to look for information about the people involved and their affiliations.

My preference has been to look for other discussions because I find the science of climate fascinating in its own right, quite apart from the enormous policy questions. However it looks as though Julia has chosen to look at people and affiliations.

Brigham Young University is owned and run by the Mormons.
I have no idea what stand this university takes on global warming, but given some of the peculiar ideas the Mormons have (including polygamy), I hardly think this is an impeccable source to be quoting.

In saying this, I'm not defending or criticising Lord Monckton. I'm agnostic about the whole climate thing until someone shows something definitive either way.

I think each of us has to find our own criteria for "definitive", but while we're looking it's useful to try and apply the same tests to all the data we get. So if we use Barry Bickmore's academic affiliation as a test of his credibility, we should look at Christopher Monckton's academic affiliation as well.

Over to you Julia

Ghoti

 

[basilio]

Re Who to believe and why.

Earlier in this discussion I pointed out that Christopher Monckton was just an out and out liar with zilch credibility. I quoted a particular paper by Barry Brickmore which examined Monckton's graphs ect and discovered just how mythical this information was.

Julia suggest that because Barry comes from a Mormon University we should treat Barrys paper with caution because the Mormons have some pretty strange beliefs.

The main reason I cited Barrys paper was because it was published on the Real Climate blog and the scientists who run this blog are amongst the best credentialed in the field of Climate Science. So if they check this out and run it I'm pretty happy with the quality of the work.

In fact however the paper that Derty quoted from John Abrahams is the clearest explanation of just how how distorted and untrue Christopher Moncktons statements are with relation to climate change.

So what happens when a person like Christopher Monckton is show to be have systematically produced completely deceptive information to promote the view that Climate Change is not really happening?

Well naturally you attack with all the indignity that only a true conman can muster. And because many, many people want to believe that climate Change is a load of bollocks they will allow themselves to believe the demonstratively untrue - because I suppose the reality would be very hard to bear.

George Monbiot(again) looks at how Christopher Monckton responded to the devastating dissection of his work. Along the way he looks at the myriad other falsehoods Christopher Monckton propagates as well at the very strange views of other people in the climate denial camp.

This is all a round a bout way of responding to Julias suggestion to look at some of the context of where ideas are coming from. ie a Mormon University.

Check out George's story and ask yourself "Are these the sort of people I would believe ?

Monckton's response to John Abraham is magnificently bonkers

Monckton fails to provide a convincing refutation of Abraham's criticisms but does throw a great deal of dust into the air

Say what you like about Viscount Monckton, he never fails to entertain. His response to the devastating critique of his claims about climate change by the physicist John Abraham is magnificently bonkers.

To give you a flavour of Monckton's reasoning, here are some examples of what he cites as evidence of Abraham acting out of malice:

• Abraham pointed out that Monckton "has not written a single peer-reviewed science paper on any topic";

• Abraham stated that Lord Monckton "presented a lot of data with no citations or no explanation";

• He pointed out that "if you don't tell us where it's from we can't assess the data";

• He explained that a graph displayed by Lord Monckton was "almost off by 100%".

These are all straight statements of fact. It is impossible to see how they could be construed as malicious, unless you regard all criticism of your views and credentials as illegitimate.

Throughout these 99 pages, Monckton ducks, dives and, like Ian Plimer, avoids answering Abraham's questions by asking questions of his own: Monckton asks almost 500 of them. As far as I can see, he fails to provide a straight or convincing refutation of any of Abraham's criticisms, and succeeds only in throwing a great deal of dust into the air.

......One of the characteristics of the foot-soldiers of climate change denial seems to be their startling inability to spot a wrong 'un. As well as publishing a long series of falsehoods about climate change, Monckton has falsely claimed to be a member of the House of Lords (although you can read his explanation here); falsely claimed to be a Nobel laureate; falsely claimed to have won the Falklands war (by suggesting to Margaret Thatcher that the SAS introduce a mild bacillus into the water supply in Port Stanley); maintained that he has invented a cure for HIV, multiple sclerosis, influenza and other diseases; and grossly exaggerated his role in shaping Margaret Thatcher's views. Yet none of this seems to have discouraged his disciples one jot.

There's a pattern here too. Those who insist that sea levels are not actually rising, for example, often cite the work of Nils-Axel Morner, who maintains that his work in the Maldives proves that it's all a false alarm. Our old friend Christopher Booker claimed that Morner "knows more about sea levels than anyone else in the world", that he "has been using every known scientific method to study sea levels all over the globe" and that his findings demonstrate that "all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story."

Morner's work in fact consists of indirect measurements in just a few locations, which reveal the sum total of zilch about recent changes in sea level and have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But the interesting thing, which connects this to the Monckton issue, is that Morner has also made a series of wild claims about other matters. He maintains that he possesses paranormal abilities to find water and metal using a dowsing rod. He also insists that he has discovered "the Hong Kong of the [ancient] Greeks" in Sweden. Working with a homeopath called Bob Lind, Morner inflicted unauthorised damage on an Iron Age cemetery in order to try to prove his thesis.

Similarly, Peter Taylor's claims that the planet is in fact cooling down have been given prominence by the Daily Express and other outlets, though they are unfounded in science. His book Chill has been a hit in the denier community. Taylor has also claimed to have uncovered toxic dumping by venturing into the astral realms. He has speculated that a Masonic conspiracy was tuning into his thoughts, and had sent a "kook, a ninja freak, some throwback from past lives" to kill him. He has also maintained that plutonium may "possess healing powers, borne of Plutonic dimension, a preparation for rebirth, an awakener to higher consciousness".

As these examples suggest, those who lead the movement which claims that manmade climate change isn't happening often seem to entertain a number of other irrational beliefs.

In May, New Scientist interviewed the social psychologist Seth Kalichman, who has studied HIV denialist groups. He found that the leaders of these groups "display all the features of paranoid personality disorder".

These features include an intolerance of criticism and an inflated sense of their own importance. They succumb to what psychologists call "suspicious thinking".

The cognitive style of the denialist represents a warped sense of reality, which is why arguing with them gets you nowhere … All people fit the world into their own sense of reality, but the suspicious person distorts reality with uncommon rigidity.

I'm no psychologist, but the wide range of crazy beliefs the gurus of climate change denial entertain suggests that something of the kind that Kalichman identifies is likely to be at play. The question which bugs me is this: why, when it seems so obvious that men like Monckton, Morner and Taylor have serious issues with reality, are so many people prepared to follow them?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jul/14/monckton-john-abraham

 

[Knobby22]

The question which bugs me is this: why, when it seems so obvious that men like Monckton, Morner and Taylor have serious issues with reality, are so many people prepared to follow them?

I think the answer is simple. Many people form a belief and then try to justify that belief. I know someone who believes that the ozone layer is still be destroyed and scientists have failed. He has taken this belief from the 1970s to today and I have shown him the facts and he just says it is lies. It is amazing to what lengths some people will go to hold onto their beliefs.

Cognitive dissonance - people are good at it. Especially people who are not scientifically trained.

 

[Knobby22]

The whole world is in debt with tomorrow's growth as collateral for today's debt. The system creates the debt but not the interest that must be paid on it, thus requiring constant growth to keep the game going.

That's really the crux of the entire environmental / resource problem. Either we have constant growth or the financial system falls in a spectacular heap.

Any real solution to resource / environmental issues, beyond purely localised issues, requires fundamental monetary reform in my view. Constant growth on a finite planet isn't going to work and we'll consume everything we can get our hands on if we try.

We are like rats -we will consume our food source. However we are smart rats. I have faith that we will work it out. Even the naysayers in the environment debate are working on reversing climate change by adding compounds into the air showing that they are really worried and don't believe there own propaganda. (refer earlier in the thread for details). Also, many Republicans are stating climate change is false while they invest their public fortunes in industries such as solar panels and electric cars.

People will say one thing but do another. That (surprisingly) gives me heart.

Then maybe I am an optimist.

 

[Julia]

Over to you Julia

Ghoti

Sorry,Ghoti, I'm just not sufficiently interested to get involved in this.
Quite happy for everyone to believe what they want to.
I have clearly said I am agnostic on the subject. Nothing to add.
Just was vaguely curious about the significance of Brigham Young University.
Forget I uttered a word.