Global warming’s glorious ship of fools

jaffa99

I have a computer model that suggests the planet will be attacked by wave after wave of aliens and it’s hopeless because every time we destroy one incoming wave the next is stronger and faster, the consequences are inevitable – we will lose and we will all be killed – the model proves it. Oh wait – I’ve just realised I was playing space invaders. Panic over.

Guenier

Well said, jaffa99. But, as you know, for the global warm-mongers the panic is far from being over.

As I said in my comment on Ross Clark’s recent Coffeehouse piece on the same subject (and I apologies for continuing to bang on about it), this incident may be funny but what’s at stake is deadly serious. Because of people like Professor Turney, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition and their media supporters such as the BBC and the Guardian, the UK has imposed upon itself the “world-leading”, hugely expensive, potentially disastrous and completely pointless Climate Change Act. “Completely pointless” because – even if Turney and co. are right about the dangers of mankind’s contribution to climate change – reducing Britain’s tiny 1.3% share of global emissions cannot possibly make any difference. Countries responsible for nearly 70% of emissions have said they’re not interested in reduction: China especially (alone responsible for 27% of emissions and ironically Turney’s saviour last week), having humiliatingly defeated the West at the “make or break” climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, made it clear, together with the so-called “developing” economies, at the UN’s Warsaw conference a few weeks ago that it had no intention of reducing its CO2 emissions in the foreseeable future.

Yet still we plough on with our absurd policy – apparently because we pathetically believe we’re setting an example to the world. I suppose that too would be funny – if it were not so serious.
- Guest
  
  “Yet still we plough on …” because gov’t looters know how to loot.
  
  The only thing that matters is the number of these carbon cultists prosecuted for their taxpayer funded frauds, which is ZERO, which is the same number of hoax-spawned government bureaucracies shut down.
  
  Until the citizenry-turned-peasantry sprout the will to punish the kleptocrats and restore a representative government, the climate for liberty is only going to get worse.
  - Guenier
    
    I believe that referring to AGW as a hoax is inaccurate and unhelpful.
    - jaffa99
      
      I believe tagging your unrelated opinion onto my comment to make it more visible then ticking others off about their equally valid opinion says something about you.
    - Guenier
      
      Not unrelated at all. Yours was “well said” – see my comment. But I think that treating the Climatic incident as simply comical – which it undoubtedly was – risks overlooking the serious issue behind it. As I said, it’s because of people like Turney that we are putting our economy and society at serious risk. In my opinion, that’s something that cannot be said too often or too prominently.
      
      If that upsets you for some reason, I’m sorry.
    - steamboat
      
      Well we have to agree. You are SORRY !
    - Guenier
      
      My apology was addressed to jaffa99, not to you. In any case – as I suspect jaffa99 might perhaps agree – my tagging onto his original comment has lead to a most interesting thread.
    - Guenier
      
      Deleted – my comment here was addressed to the wrong person.
    - Timbones
      
      Nonsense, the world’s temperatures has not increased in any significant manner, What has increased is the level of money falling into the hands of corrupt climate hucksters of all shapes and sizes.
    - Guenier
      
      You’re right about temperatures: 0.8deg C in 150 years is of little consequence. You might even be right about those hucksters. But now explain to me how asserting that is going to persuade our political leaders to reverse policies that, as I said, are putting our economy and society at serious risk. Changing those policies is a vital and urgent task. What are you going to do about it? Or are you happy just to sit on your hands and moan about how ghastly it all is?
      
      I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.
    - Baron
      
      Guenier, common sense’s missing, again. Just think what you’ve just said. A 0.8deg C increase in world temperature in 150 years. One couldn’t accurately measure the temperature in the corner of a room in a stone castle over that span of time. More to the point, if one were to do it and come up with a change of the smallness we are talking about, one would be surrounded with men in white coats in no time, carted away.
      
      And the climate ‘scientists’ are telling us they can measure the hike in the temperature of the world, over one and half century, and it’s 0.8deg C (one single mistake could have been responsible for it, it’s marginal), and they are still here, still peddling the same nonsense. Arghhh
    - Guenier
      
      As I commented to you a moment ago, you may be right.
      
      But now consider for a moment the challenge we face in the UK. In 2008 our politicians almost unanimously imposed on us a piece of legislation that threatens our economy and our society. No other country in the world has burdened itself with anything like it – indeed countries responsible for about 70% of the dreaded CO2 emissions have made it clear they have no serious intention of making cuts. So, even if there were a problem, a reduction in our tiny 1.3% share wouldn’t make any difference.
      
      So how can we put a stop to this insanity? In a rational world we’d do so by attacking the validity of the science at the heart of the policy. Pointing out, as you might, the absurdity of claiming to measure temperature with the accuracy claimed would be an example. But people have been trying that approach for years. And it’s achieved nothing. Our opponents just trot out the usual defences: that “overwhelming” 97% consensus, the “unimpeachable” authority of the Royal Society … etc. You know what I mean. And that’s how they treat a serious criticism of their science. But claim, for example, that AGW is a “hoax” and you’ll be treated with contempt.
      
      We need a fresh approach – one that will have some impact on politicians who have no scientific training – i.e. almost all of them. We need an approach that is within their understanding and outside that of their scientific advisers.
      
      So my proposal is this: move the main focus from the inadequacies of the science to the consequences of the policy. One example (of many) might be that it’s the poorest and most vulnerable people (the sick, the elderly, the disabled) in our society who are suffering the most from increasing fuel costs and who could be devastated by power outages.
      
      It’s a long shot. It may not work. But it’s a lot more likely to work than moaning about the nonsense of the alleged science – even if the moan is 100% valid.
    - Baron
      
      Agreed fully, and apologies for the misunderstanding, Guenier.
      
      You right trying to switch the the debate to the misery the policy causes. Life itself will shift it that way for it’s genuinely crippling for some on low income, or a single state pension. Moreover, it often prevents the poor countries of Africa getting out of poverty.
      
      But, Baron feels the tide may be beginning to turn, the political gnomes are registering more than a whiff of anger amongst the masses. In the constituency next to Baron’s the voters in a by-election just kicked the Tories out, put UKIP in in a massively impressive turnaround. There’s hope, Guenier, there’s hope.
    - Guenier
      
      Thanks, Baron – I suspect I may not have made my position clear in earlier comments.
      
      I’m glad you mentioned Africa. I consider it immoral that, given the evidence from China which has lifted about 500 million people out of poverty largely by giving them access to cheap reliable energy derived almost entirely from burning coal, comfortable people in the West, people who take reliable energy for granted, by trying to deny them such access to some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the Third World. More expensive or non-existent energy (a consequence of CO2 restriction) means that clean water, proper sanitation, fresh food, adequate health care, better education, etc. will be either unavailable or hopelessly expensive. Moreover, inadequate energy supply is a major cause of political instability and violence, affecting, in particular, some of the world’s poorest and most helpless people.
      
      As for the tide turning – let’s hope so. But, although the turnaround in that by-election was indeed impressive, I understand the turnout was a mere 17%.
      
      BTW – despite my earlier comment – I have tried to fight back against the 97% consensus claim: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/4191 (see in particular section 3.)
    - Baron
      
      The more you talk, Guenier, the more embarrassed the barbarian from the East feels. He takes his hat off to you, the submission must have taken some time to prepare, is hard hitting, the dissection of the credibility of the 97% consensus ranks amongst the best Baron has come across.
      
      There’s one aspect of the AGW supposedly scientific evidence that has always puzzled Baron. In the original report that contained the laughable hockey stick there is no mention of precipitation, the correlation is that purely between tree rings’ thickness and temperature. Isn’t that a false assumption? If you ask any gardener in which year do trees grow faster, one warm and wet, or one hot and dry, the answer would be the former.
      
      If they are still around, perhaps one of the ecochondriacs could enlighten us about it.
    - Guenier
      
      Thanks.
      
      Re the relationship between tree rings and weather I’m ill qualified to provide an answer. I suspect that only a few of us are still reading all this stuff – but there may be someone out there who can provide an answer. Let’s hope so.
      
      But have you read Andrew Montford’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion”? If not, you should. Andrew (who hosts the excellent Bishop Hill blog – http://www.bishop-hill.net) deals with the limiting factors associated with tree rings on pages 41-42 and 283-284. Obviously I cannot cite it all here, but here’s a taster. Commenting on the QiLian Shan proxy series (which he describes as “extremely suspect”), he notes that “a number of authors had reported that the growth of trees in the area [semi-desert in Wester China] was in fact limited by rainfall, as would be expected from a tree in this kind of terrain.”
    - Baron
      
      Baron has read it, he has read almost everything published on the subject, checked the passage you quote, but neither it or anything else deals with the key objection of Baron’s. The original tome co-authored by Mann that used the tree ring proxy doesn’t include precipitation as a key variable. It should.
    - Guenier
      
      That sounds like an interesting point. Perhaps you should consider raising it under “Unthreaded” on the BH blog.
    - Guenier
      
      I’ve emailed a few contacts for help. If I get anything useful how can I advise you?
    - Baron
      
      Thank you, Guenier, you are a more determined fighter than Baron.
    - Guenier
      
      It’s not very difficult to email a few people. How can I advise you of anything useful?
    - Baron
      
      Thank you, Guenier, if it’s pointing to a book or a source, please do a posting here, the Disqus set-up will let Baron know automatically. If it’s something different, just post here, too, the barbarian will have another suggestion.
      
      But don’t spend too much time or effort on it, sooner or later we’re bound to learn more about the inadequacy of the con.
    - John Stevens
      
      It is nearly impossible to get people to stand on principle anymore.
      
      You have to provide them with an alternative, one that is preferably better:
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power
      
      Nothing is perfect, but of all the realistic answers, this one seems to be the best.
    - qdalgado
      
      The sheer pomposity of your moniker, aggravated by referring to yourself in the third person, makes me laugh. Unintended humour is still funny…
    - Baron
      
      Laugh as much as you like, qdalgado, it’s a free country even for people like you.
    - DarrenD
      
      While there is plenty of fertile ground to be ploughed debating policy related to climate change, I have yet to hear a sensible argument for denying the science of it. It always reeks of ideology, vested interests, nostalgia and fear.
      
      The fears of Climate Change deniers and those who take the science as valid are two sides of the same coin; all of them fear change. This is nothing new.
      
      Lest we forget, environmentalists latched onto Global Warming/Climate Change because the science suggested an opportunity…a threat that could impact every community on the planet…to move past the challenge of raising awareness, funds and the political will of fighting a series of piecemeal local environmental issues. A spotted owl here, a tree frog there (feel free to pick you local cause of choice).
      
      Which means that the science started out as science. Whether we are believing it or denying it, we are laying our own biases and agendas onto it.
      
      Scared of the policies that might come out of such information? Fine.
      
      But don’t sit here and suggest that the same scientific practices that led to things like space based telecommunications, technologies to improve our ability to access hard to reach fossil fuels, advances in medicine or any of the other more mundane or exotic things that reliably support our daily lives somehow, magically, becomes an unreliable hoax when it come to this issue. It just isn’t.
      
      So I agree completely with you. Focusing on the policy arguments is the place to be, because the science really is going nowhere but forward. What we know today will shift and change as new information becomes available through time. Like it or not, we will continue to hear more about the science of this. What we do with that information is another thing.
    - Guenier
      
      Hmm … some interesting observations.
    - Sez Eye
      
      My major problem with what you call climate “science” is that it is, at it’s core, based on purposefully manipulated “data”, intended to “prove” AGW. The IT world has a word for this sort of activity – garbage in – garbage out.
      
      This AGW “settled science” is a conglomeration of theories and speculations, unproven and unprovable, yet is being treated as gospel, not to be argued with.
    - DarrenD
      
      The core of what is referred to as climate science is the same physical, chemical and biological sciences that underpin…well…you name it. The examples are all around us everyday so I am not sure when these fundamental sciences broke down so completely.
      
      The whole point of science is that it is a continual search for better understanding. The notion that any scientific theory, or model based on it, is settled is a political notion not a scientific one. Whatever the current model is, it awaits the challenge of a better one.
      
      If you think current climate models…or more predictive ones to come…would benefit from more and better data, I don’t think you will find any argument from scientists. They would likely appreciate the additional funding implied.
      
      We got here (climate debate) in no small part because a guy named Willi Dansgaard thought that a new discovery of his might help us understand something about past climate conditions. He was looking into the past and it didn’t look too Machiavellian. Not like, say…the building of the atomic bomb.
      
      I bring that up because nuclear weapons, another manmade production, unarguably pose a threat to our existence. Where is the argument that nuclear science is a garbage science? It produces plenty of waste:-)
      
      It goes boom of course so it is easy to see now that nuclear theories and modelling were valid. Science, going back to its infancy, has always helped us discover things that we can’t easily see. Not sure how that stops being the case when the subject is climate.
    - Sez Eye
      
      I see you have missed my point entirely:
      
      It matters not what types of scientific disciplines are used to model climate changes if the “scientists” investigating the phenomenon purposefully corrupt the data set that they use to “prove” their theories.
    - DarrenD
      
      So by corrupting the data set you are saying that:
      
      (a) Actual observed and recorded data was physically altered and changed before it was fed into predictive models.
      (b) The predictive models that data is fed into were designed specifically to deliver a political result no matter what the nature of the data being fed into them.
      (c) Results of good scientific analysis and modeling have been purposely misrepresented to the global community for political purposes.
      (d) All of the above.
      
      Is that a better representation of your feelings on the subject…and that the larger scientific community was complicit in this?
      Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network
    - Sez Eye
      
      My comment relates directly to your (a) above. No mention was made of your (b) and indeed is unnecessary when the “predictive” models are based on unproven, and unprovable, theories. However, since they have been the center of the AGW argument, corrupting the base data before feeding it to the “predictive” models to obtain a desired effect invalidates any results obtained. Your (c) makes an assumption not in evidence – that there is “good
      scientific analysis” anywhere near the AGW money machine. It is easy to “prove” something when you control the data set and purposefully ignore anything that doesn’t fit your theory. And here I thought that the purpose of scientific inquiry was to challenge the status quo, opening up new lines of thought and scholarly discourse. Silly me.
    - DarrenD
      
      You do of course get the irony in your statement right? The currently accepted (by scientists) theory of Climate Change is the challenge to the status quo and new dialogue of which you speak; like it or not.
      
      It was unclear in your previous post what you meant by “manipulated data”. Thus my options list.
      
      Luckily, according to you, the data has been altered before being fed into the models. This will, of course, be the easiest manipulation to prove. Did they input xxxxx or did they substitute xxxxy? Basic fraudulent activity and something that should be picked up easily in peer review.
      
      My question to you though, goes back to an initial observation about base science. At what point did the science start to go bad for you in this whole thing?
      
      Was this an original sin sort of deal, where the moment they started pulling ice cores out of glaciers scientific practice was contaminated? Or was it when someone looked at the accumulated data and first noticed what looked like a rising temperature trend and thought to ask “I wonder why that is happening?” Or was it the moment that a scientist first postulated that this trend was something that we might all want to pay attention to?
      
      When exactly, along this decades long path, did the AGW money machine step in and corrupt science?
    - Sez Eye
      
      You dissemble. The corruption of the data is “not according to me”. It is well documented by emails written by the “scientists” and many of their own papers. Ignoring the “adjustments” in the data does not make them go away. Funny how all of these “adjustments” raise temps rather than the other way around.
      Money machine? How many grants are available for those that don’t believe in the cult of AGW? How many folks are getting wealthy by not participating in the selling of so-called “carbon credits”?
      You can argue the AGW meme as long as you want, but when the argument is based on provable falsehood, everything that rises from that lie is meaningless.
    - DarrenD
      
      No dissembling necessary. I am just curious about where in the timeline you think it all started to go wrong. When did science really stop being science and become the fraud you suggest? When did science stop being open to valid data that truly challenged a currently held consensus? When exactly did science become religion in that context?
      
      Science still seems to be producing the goods every day and all around us. It even helps…gulp…oil and gas companies find and more efficiently extract and use resources. Hmmm….
      
      How many grants are available to those who don’t believe in AGW?
      
      I would argue that any new research into the subject is another opportunity to produce new data that contradicts the current consensus. That is what science does.
      
      Not sure what you are doing?
      
      What ills you are hoping to avoid by undermining the science on this subject? Are you afraid that policy based on it will result in lost jobs, a change in lifestyles, a shift in geopolitical power, what?
    - Sez Eye
      
      Interesting read for you and the other warmers:
      
      http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/just-hit-the-noaa-motherlode/
    - DarrenD
      
      And you followed that up of course with this
      
      http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/
      
      which very publicly makes available their code and takes you through an explanation as to why the data sets have been revised.
      
      If what you are proposing is true, then the least of our problems is AGW theory. What is a bigger risk is that this data is being used to predict and forecast extreme weather events. If manipulated data is resulting in less accurate forecasting of these events, the resulting deaths and destruction of properties will be on the heads of NOAA…in the most libellous society on the planet.
      
      That should be your question. Has NOAA’s predictive ability been improving or deteriorating over the last decade?
      
      Where you are calling modified data corrupted, NOAA is saying that its models are taking account of weaknesses in the positioning, equipment and host of other influences that may have been giving an inaccurate view of the reality. Not sure that this deviates from any other science out there.
      
      Again, you can call me names all you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that you haven’t made a case for how AGW theory is any different, or departs in any way, from what you seem to think of as real science. You actually refuse to even address the question.
      
      How do you accept that these same techniques help us find more oil and natural gas reserves, improve our ability to improve medicine, or any of the host of other examples, but find them fraudulent in this case?
      
      The truth in this is that both environmental groups and people with vested interests in maintaining the status quo have been manipulating, sensationalizing, or outright lying about any number of things that support their vested interests for years.
      
      Funny that isn’t it? Committed people on both sides of an argument pushing ethical boundaries to influence an outcome.
      
      My question, again, is how have you determined that this science is not in fact science…and when did this divergence take place?
      
      Just saying so doesn’t make it so.
    - DarrenD
      
      Here is a fun one for you.
      
      http://esciencenews.com/articles/2013/11/05/bringing.out.best.x.ray.crystallography.data
      
      Note how other science is manipulating data to give them a clearer picture of complex structures and systems. It’s not just those climate wackos.
    - Sez Eye
      
      What I find interesting in the story is the following comment: “The main advantage of our method is that it can aggressively optimize models to fit the data…”. This is in contrast to the warmer “scientists” who “optimize” the data to fit their models and theories.
    - Sez Eye
      
      You again compare the AGW theory with real scientific inquiry. I have nothing against science and scientific inquiry. As stated several times, modifying the data set to fit your theory is not science, it is fraud. Aren’t scientists supposed to develop theories to fit the observed facts rather than changing the “facts” to fit their theories? If so, then AGW “science” is nothing more than bad fiction and outright fraud.
    - John Stevens
      
      What experience do you have with computer modeling?
      
      Do you actually know how it works? A video game is a computer model. A fatal defect in a program is not, in point of fact, an invalid program . . . it is just a program that does something other than what its writers intended.
      
      Do you have any idea at all why software is the most defect ridden product mankind has every produced?
    - John Stevens
      
      Feel free to build a model of the Solar System that models said system all the way down to the sub-atomic level, and run experiments on that to test your theories and prove out your conclusions.
      
      But until such time as you can do so, climate science isn’t a science, it is the equivalent of the “flat earth” theories of past millennium . . . a conclusion drawn from too little knowledge taken from a too limited viewpoint.
    - jdahunt
      
      You can’t always defeat the uninformed….sometimes you have to just let them destroy it so that it can be rebuilt…….something those in Europe should be used to by now.
    - Guenier
      
      True – but, in this case, it would be irresponsible not to try to persuade the uninformed to reconsider.
    - qdalgado
      
      Much, much better. Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?
    - Guenier
      
      Is this patronising comment intended for me?
    - John Stevens
      
      The poor, the sick and the elderly will die because the rich don’t care about global warming, and aren’t doing “their share” to combat it.
      
      The beleaguered government did everything in its minimal powers to try to fix the problem, but the evil rich fought them and won. So the only workable answer will have to be to take even more control over everything, including and most especially “the rich.”
      
      /sarc
      
      Sure, and you didn’t already know that, from having seen it play out over the last 70 years?
      
      We have two choices going forward: science fiction, or nuclear power. Guess which one the ‘mongers are going to choose?
    - Shadeburst
      
      Back off Baron, no fighting in the ranks. Guenier is one of the good guys. He’s saying that even if Global Warming was real, the real danger is the totally ineffective and ruinous measures being taken to prevent it. (I manfully resisted the temptation to put scare-quotes around “prevent.”)
    - Baron
      
      Baron did just that, backed off, and with a groveling apology for Guenier is right to redirect the debate.
      
      Also, instead of fighting the swings in climate shouldn’t adapt to them. Isn’t this what Darwin told us? Species that have survived were those that adopted to the changes in the environment not confronted it head on.
    - deadmanvoting
      
      It was warm enough and long enough in what is now Alaska for enough plant life to form coal at one time, and we have had countless warm cold spells since…..the arrogance these iceholes display, thinking man can affect the climate…….
    - Baron
      
      Quite, deadmanvoting.
      
      The blob in the universe we call earth is around 4.5bn years old. Since it first appeared it must have gone through massive changes, and not only in climate, it has had enough time to fine tune its ticking, evolve enough checks and balances, ‘learn’ how to deal with events that to us may appear lethal.
      
      The humans as humanoids began prancing around the earth some 2.5mn years ago, have survived in one form or another to get where we are today. Compared to the age of earth we are but babies, more susceptible to perish than the earth, we haven’t yet the time to adjust as much as the earth has had.
      
      But you ask a man to drink a glass of water doped with 0.08% of arsenic, or another one with 0.06% of the same compound and the outcome will not differ in either case, the hit on the organic form which the human body is will be the same, zilch, nothing, hardly registered. (For a bodyweight around 70 kg (155 lb.), the lethal dose of arsenic would be closer to a gram than 100 mg).
      
      If the fragile body of a human being cannot register the miniscule change in a chemical that’s deadly in large quantities how could anyone argue that an identical change in the level of CO2 in atmosphere, a compound that’s hugely beneficial to plants could in any way damage the 4.5bn years old colossus, life on it, or the humans? We eat plants, feed them to animals, then devour them.
      
      The ecochondriacs should take a running jump. Preferably from as high a cliff as they can find.
    - deadmanvoting
      
      Sans parachute of course……
    - Baron
      
      Not exactly Baron’s preference, my blogging friend.
    - deadmanvoting
      
      🙂
    - Tom M
      
      I’ve been saying the same thing for long enough. I couldn’t measure the temperature in my living room to any degree of accuracy. Certainly a point in the room but not the temperature of all the room so attempting to measure the temperature of the planet to such a degree of accuracy (and with such a lot of importance attached to the result) strikes me as less than possible.
    - rudehost
      
      I am unclear how treating special interest funded junk science seriously is going to help defeat it. In my experience if you want to defeat a liar you call him a liar. You don’t pretend he is telling sincere truth.
    - Guenier
      
      But rudehost I’m not pretending anything about our politicians veracity. My whole point is that we should sideline discussion about the science.
      
      Why? Well, I suggest that you go back and read my initial comment – the reply to jaffa99 that started this thread. Then go down about seven posts and read my exchange with Baron, starting where he accuses me of lacking common sense onto my comment about the relationship between tree rings and weather. But, in particular, read the post where I asked him to “consider for a moment the challenge we face in the UK”.
      
      As I say there, if we are to have any hope of overturning the UK’s absurd climate policies, I believe we need a fresh approach – one that prioritises the policy and sidelines discussion of the science. In other words, far from treating our opponents’ scientific claims seriously, I suggesting we don’t deal with them at all.
    - Marketthinker
      
      We need to shift the debate to cost benefit analysis, i.e let’s say I agree with ‘science” (which I don’t) and even if I agree with the IPCC forecasts for the impact (which I don’t either), I will let the warmists have that part of the argument, after all they are scientists and I am an economist. Now however, the debate about what we should do about it is out of their hands, after all they have just admitted that their expertise is in science not the allocation of resources. My question then, to be discussed by economists and politicians is now, “if reducing the warming of the planet over the next 30 years by nine thousands of one degree (IPCC numbers) is costing the UK 20bn pounds a year in transfers from poor people to rich windfarm campaigners is that a good allocation of resources?” (no scientists allowed to reply, thanks)
    - Guenier
      
      Yes, that’s an interesting approach. But I prefer not to concede anything about their scientific claims. In contrast, my approach is to say that, even if the scientific claims were valid, (a) the expense and dangers that are the consequences of politicians’ policies are (for the reasons I detail above) unacceptable and (b) in any case, they are pointless because countries representing about 70% of emissions are not interested in CO2 reduction – so any reduction in our 1.3% share cannot make any practical difference.
    - gfw88
      
      How about this:
      
      1) primary RINO candidates with conservative candidates;
      2) never vote for a candidate who believes AGW is a real thing
      3) never vote for a “green” candidate
    - Guenier
      
      Disagree. My MP is Peter Lilley. He doesn’t believe that catastrophic global warming will be the consequence of CO2 emissions. He accepts, however, that man’s CO2 emissions probably contributed something to recent temperature increases – i.e. he believes in AGW. He’s a good guy – one of the few MPs who voted against the CCA. I’d certainly vote for him again.
    - Michael Kosak
      
      Guiner, how did they record measurements 150 years ago?
      Are you familiar with the concept of ‘significant figures’? It means that you cannot specify a measurement that is MORE accurate than your measuring device.
      If all you have is a yardstick, then you cannot measure the width of your kitchen table down to thousandths of an inch.
      150 years ago there was not enough precision to measure temperature to within 0.8 degrees accurately, averaged over the entire planet. So how can they claim to ‘measure’ so small an amount of increase over 150 years?
    - Guenier
      
      You may be right. But my point is that, after years of trying, it’s clear that arguing about the science is not going to persuade our politicians to change the absurd, damaging and pointless policies they’ve imposed on us (in the UK). See my (many) posts above.
    - John Stevens
      
      Perhaps it is time to point out to them, once again, that the numbers don’t lie.
      
      After all, that’s what the are loudly proclaiming, right? That the numbers don’t lie, and that the science is settled?
      
      The most effective, efficient, non-AGW causing replacement for hydro-carbons is nuclear power.
      
      When you tell them that . . . dead silence. Irony can be a terrible and beautiful thing.
    - deadmanvoting
      
      It must be a hoot to get money hand over fist for fudging a few numbers……….and they call it “work”…..sheesh!….
    - strongmind
      
      I am not getting involved in the back and forth with jaffa99. I will say that your summation is totally accurate and something that cannot be said too often or too prominently.
    - Guenier
      
      Thanks.
    - jdahunt
      
      What do you have to say about the man made global warming hoaxers who have been stealing us blind and want to take more money from us.
      All the while they all drive around in big SUV’s, jet around in private jets and have huge 10,000+sf mansions…you have any words of wisdom for them?
    - Guenier
      
      No – my sole objective is to persuade UK politicians to reconsider their absurd policy.
    - Michael Kosak
      
      HERE is what is wrong with treating this HOAX seriously, Guenier.
      Lets say there is a lake near you with dirty water. So you spend a $million to get it 99% clean. Then you have to spend a $billion to get it 99.9% clean. Then you have to spend a $trillion to get it 99,99% clean… Its called “diminishing returns” and the $trillion you spent could have been used to make a million other lakes 99% clean rather than ONE lake 99.99% clean.
      There is NOT an infinite amount of money available to spend, no matter how stupid your government officials are.
      All the $Trillions spent on ‘global warming’ because of FAKED data has made those funds unavailable for a million other good things!
      See what LYING about scientific data causes?
    - Guenier
      
      See my earlier reply.
    - Guest
      
      “I believe that referring to AGW as a hoax is inaccurate and unhelpful.”
      
      If you like your beliefs, you can keep your beliefs, but I’ll stick with science. ACTUAL science, not the junk spawned by UN bureaucrats at IPCC
      
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2425775/Climate-scientists-told-cover-fact-Earths-temperature-risen-15-years.html
      
      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/20/its-the-sun-stupid-the-minor-significance-of-co2/
      
      http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/a_tale_of_two_climate_hockeysticks.html
      
      http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/14/nobel-prize-winning-physicist-resigns-from-top-physics-group-over-global/
    - Guenier
      
      You’ve completely misunderstood my position.
      
      “AGW” means anthropogenic global warming and the best climate scientists – e.g. my personal hero, Richard Lindzen – agree that man’s emissions of greenhouse gases probably contributed to the small and unthreatening temperature increase seen in recent years. In their view therefore AGW is no “hoax”. What they (and Anthony Watts etc.) rightly question are the hypotheses (a) that mankind is the main cause of such warming and (b) that further such emissions will lead to catastrophic climate change – your links provide excellent examples of that questioning. For another recent paper, see my link below**.
      
      But I’m making a practical and, I believe, vital point. We in the UK are seriously threatened by the Climate Change Act. In my view, it’s essential that it be repealed or at least fundamentally amended. So far, most of the efforts to achieve that have focused on the inadequacies of the science. And they’ve got absolutely nowhere and show no sign of ever doing so. Our “leaders”, supported by academia, the media etc., have constructed and hide behind well established defences – appeals to authority, false claims of consensus ***, “anti-science” accusations, etc.
      
      But this is a priority and giving up is not an option. So we need a fresh approach that circumvents those defences. And I believe that approach should centre on the policy and demonstrate the obvious truth that not only is the Act absurdly expensive and potentially very damaging but is, in any case (for the reasons I stated in my first post above) completely pointless. These things are true and they’re true irrespective of the validity or otherwise of the science.
      
      Attacking the science – and especially, for example, asserting that AGW is a hoax – plays straight into their hands. They won’t listen. That’s why I say it’s unhelpful.
      
      ** http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/08/the-fundamental-uncertainties-of-climate-change/#more-14305
      
      *** http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/4191
    - Katie08
      
      Would like to make a point about your hero, Garth Paltridge. Whilst I have absolutely no doubt that he is a reputable scientist of international repute, Mr Paltridge also worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. In addition, he was also seconded as Director of the Environmental Executive of the Institute of Petroleum. Therefore, I am afraid he has an agenda. His close associations with oil and mining companies most certainly have a negative impact on his credibility and, indeed, such employment by mining corporations would seriously impact on his ability to report climate change with any degree of impartiality.
    - jb
      
      solyndra. close associations. theft of taxpayer money
    - Guenier
      
      As you acknowledge that Paltridge is “a reputable scientist of international repute” perhaps you should deal with what he has to say rather than lazily (and boringly) deploying the standard global warm-mongers’ ad hominem attack.
    - Katie08
      
      Just because someone has a good reputation in their field does not mean that they are beyond corruption. The fact that his pay check and livelihood depend on his ongoing association with mining and petroleum corporations will certainly ensure that it is in his financial interest to express views that will appease his employers. Why is this not obvious to you? It would not be the first time that the opinions of influential people can be purchased to the highest bidder – Tony Abbott is a case in point: Abbott has deteriorated from being a conspiratorial accomplice to Rupert Murdoch’s unbridled biased lies to becoming a grovelling whore to Clive Palmer and allowing him to go ahead and indiscriminately drill the Great Barrier Reef. Of course, Abbott’s astounding poor judgement, shocking lack of vision and total disregard for our environment may not concern any of you because it is obvious that such issues are very low on your list of priorities. 🙁
    - Guenier
      
      A gentle suggestion for you Katie. Read Paltrige’s paper (carefully please) and tell us what you consider is wrong with it. Then perhaps we could discuss what you consider to be his failings.
    - stephencarter
      
      Katie08, your apparent close associations with climate cultists most certainly has a negative impact on your credibility and, indeed, said affiliations with such AGW fanatics seriously impacts your ability to think rationally and take a position without consulting your climate ouija board. Pontificating in pretentious academese doesn’t make your dogmatism any more credible or palatable.
    - RecklessProcess
      
      And for the same reason every so called scientist receiving government grants must also be discounted as their very livelihood depends on them ‘proving’ that the end of the world is near and is coming because of mankind’s sins
    - nickshaw
      
      You refer to him as “reputable”, expressing no doubt that he is, then question his conclusions based on his positions in mining and petroleum?
      It should hold then that anyone supporting the warmista position should be viewed with skepticism if they are supported by governments or NGOs which have expressly stated their positions on Gorebull warming, no?
      Frankly, I have not heard of the “fossil fuel industry” expressing the opinion that humanity is not the main driver of warming or climate change.
      In fact, it’s well known they invest money in research trying to prove that it may be!
      Not to mention billions invested in alternative forms of energy.
      Can you name me a government program that tries to disprove man’s involvement? The skeptic view?
      I’ll wait.
    - large
      
      Here we go . . Kevin Bacon . . .
    - Leslie Graham
      
      Judith Currry claims the Antarctic sea ice is expanding due to Global Warming causing more rain and snow down there.
      She also claims that the Antarctic land ice is melting at the rate of 100 GT per year and that the rate of melt is accelerating.
    - jaffa99
      
      So what? There has been warming in the past and will probably be warming in the future (though not much for the last 20 years). It’s invalid to point at any warming and claim it’s man-made, the majority is likely to be part of a natural cycle & nothing to do with CO2 concentration. So our massive outlay to cut CO2 may reduce a tiny fraction of our tiny contribution by a small amount. It doesn’t sound like good value for money.
    - RecklessProcess
      
      Then she is an idiot because satellites show there is more ice today at the south pole then ever measured.
    - nickshaw
      
      I’d like to see your link to such diametrically opposed theories from the same source.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      “Judith Currry claims…”
      
      No she doesn’t.
      
      She quotes – for the purposes of debate – from a paper that makes such claims.
      
      That is not the same thing at all, as you know very well.
      
      Why is it that you Warmies are so dishonest? Could it be because you know you’ve lost?
    - RecklessProcess
      
      You discount the fact that alarmists says the CO2 will cause runaway temperatures that will kill off the planet. And that is absurd as we have had as much as 5000 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere in the past and the ‘runaway warming’ did not occur then and will not occur now. AGW, the theory of runaway warming, is a foolish hoax and it isn’t true.
    - Guenier
      
      My sole aim is to persuade our “leaders” that the UK’s climate policies are a threat to our economy and society; and, in any case, are completely pointless. It’s surely obvious by now that arguing about the science cannot conceivably achieve that.
    - Doug
      
      Well said.
      
      It is undisputed by serious scientists that CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas. Doubling its percentage in the atmosphere would, by itself, have a small but measurable effect on climate. The entire debate is about whether the increase in CO2 will lead to a dramatic increase in H2O, which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas, and whether there are other mechanisms (such as cloud formation) that might have counter-balancing cooling effects. I think it’s fair to say that scientists do not yet have the answer to these questions, although there are a lot of hypotheses floating around.
    - Guenier
      
      I agree – thanks.
    - steamboat
      
      MIT’s professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen disputes the accuracy of the computer models that
      climate scientists rely on to project future temperatures. He contends that they oversimplify the vast complexity of the Earth’s climate and, moreover, that it’s impossible to untangle man’s effect on the climate from natural variability. The models also rely on what Lindzen calls “fudge factors.” Take aerosols. These are tiny specks of matter, both liquid and solid (think dust), that are present throughout the atmosphere. Their effect on the climate—even
      whether they have an overall cooling or warming effect—is still a matter of debate. Lindzen charges that when actual temperatures fail to conform to the models’ predictions, climate scientists purposely overstate the cooling effect
      of aerosols to give the models the appearance of having been accurate. But no amount of fudging can obscure the most glaring failure of the models: their inability to predict the 15-year-long (and counting) pause in warming—a pause
      that would seem to place the burden of proof squarely on the defenders of the
      models.
      
      Lindzen also
      questions the “alarmist” line on water vapor. Water vapor (and its close
      cousin, clouds) is one of the most prevalent greenhouse gases in the
      atmosphere. According to most climate scientists, the hotter the planet gets,
      the more water vapor there will be, magnifying the effects of other greenhouse
      gases, like CO2, in a sort of hellish positive feedback loop. Lindzen disputes
      this, contending that water vapor could very well end up having a cooling
      effect on the planet. As the science writer Justin Gillis explained in a 2012 New York Times piece,
      Lindzen “says the earth is not especially sensitive to greenhouse gases because
      clouds will react to counter them, and he believes he has identified a specific
      mechanism. On a warming planet, he says, less coverage by high clouds in the
      tropics will allow more heat to escape to space, countering the temperature
      increase.”
      
      If Lindzen is right
      about this and global warming is nothing to worry about, why do so many climate
      scientists, many with résumés just as impressive as his, preach imminent doom?
      He says it mostly comes down to the money—to the incentive structure of
      academic research funded by government grants. Almost all funding for climate
      research comes from the government, which, he says, makes scientists
      essentially vassals of the state. And generating fear, Lindzen contends, is now
      the best way to ensure that policymakers keep the spigot open.
    - Guenier
      
      And the point you’re trying to make is what, steamboat?
    - Katie08
      
      http://www.acfonline.org.au/be-informed/climate-change/impacts-threats?gclid=CO3dxdWh8rsCFcEnpQodNUIArQ
      
      http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence
      
      http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=more-proof-of-global-warm
      
      http://epa.gov/climatechange/basics/facts.html
      
      http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/maurice-newmans-flatearth-thinking-ignores-climate-change-facts-20140101-305h6.html
    - OHIO GAL
      
      Stunning: NASA GISS Admits No Evidence of AGW In The US, Won’t Be For
      Decades:
      
      The corrected data released by NASA shows that
      the 4 warmest years ever recorded occurred in the 1930’s, with the warmest year
      on record being 1934 (not 1998).
      1: 1934
      2: 1998
      3: 1921
      4:
      2006
      5: 1931
      6: 1999
      7: 1953
      8: 1990
      9: 1938
      10:
      1939
      UNDISPUTED FACTS THAT NASA CORRECTED THEMSELVES.
      http://tinyurl.com/yeflek9
      http://tinyurl.com/yjz8e5o
    - Katie08
      
      The only thing you have proven above is that you can count from 1 to 10 and insert a random array of years .. this does not prove anything. Outlined below is documentation that NASA confirms the existence of climate change. You need to back up your statements with facts not hysterics: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence
    - Tim Buck
      
      Thank you, Katie08, for speaking facts and for maintaining equanimity amid arrogant snarling of the word “morons.”
    - OHIO GAL
      
      Like this:
      
      In 2008, Al Gore restated in Germany that “the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.”
    - OHIO GAL
      
      I posted facts Katie, you clearly didn’t know that NASA fudged their data. That’s okay, no apology necessary.
    - OHIO GAL
      
      CRICKETS
    - Leslie Graham
      
      I love the way you cite a UK right-wing gutter press rag, a notorius denierblog that’s funded in part by the Heartland institute, another far-right on-line rag and the joke right-wing faux news as your sources.
      LOL.
      Just for your information the TSI from the sun has been flat or falling for 60 years while Global temperatures have risen faster than at any time in the last 4 million years.
      If we know anything for certain we know it’s not the sun.
      This has long been known and even within the lasst year there have been several major studies that confirm it.
    - Jeannie Vargo Veegh
      
      Baloney. Despite the questionable measuring of TSI, it isn’t an adequate measure of solar forcing. Provides no information on solar amplification effects or the changes in solar spectrum, especially solar UV.
    - Richard Löwe
      
      Leslie, are you serious? The sun is not affecting temperatures on earth? That is almost cute.
    - jaffa99
      
      Wow, that first paragraph is hilarious, did you copy that straight from ‘global warming for dummies’. And your claim that “Global temperatures have risen faster than at any time in the last 4 million years” is a joke, based on what? Proxies? To what resolution and what degree of accuracy? If you honestly believe that then you’re just a fool.
    - OHIO GAL
      
      Scroll down Potsie
    - RecklessProcess
      
      “Global temperatures have risen faster than at any time in the last 4 million years” is a flat out lie that is based on nothing and no records ever. The medieval warming period came on very quickly and it was much warmer than today.
    - nickshaw
      
      Watts is funded by Heartland?
      I’m guessing he’ll be delirious with joy when that cheque finally arrives!
      And any publication that disagrees with your world view is a “rag” or a “joke”?
      (Though I have yet to hear Fox actually stake out a position either way but, that’s what you’ve been told, I guess)
      It is people like you, who have no interest in actually questioning anything, that make good little “progressive” useful idiots.
      The sad thing is, you’re happy with your position.
    - THX1138_on_Disqus
      
      And who has been keeping track of temperatures for the last 4 million years?
      
      You morons need to study the geological climate record.
      
      Which arbitrary year do you want to set as the perfect global “mean” temperature, and how do you plan to keep it there forever?
      
      Control yourself, stop spewing unprovable BS on discussion boards….that would be a good start
    - AgeUke
      
      ha ha ha ha ha ha ‘but I’ll stick with science. ACTUAL science, not the junk spawned by UN bureaucrats at IPCC’ goes on to link to Daily Mail and Fox news the twin bastions of fair minded journalism …..
    - nickshaw
      
      What does the Mail or Fox have to gain for questioning the idea that man is the main driver of climate change?
      What does the IPCC gain by saying that man is?
      You have heard of that old saying, “follow the money”, right?
    - AgeUke
      
      To sell newspapers/ airtime to advertisers? Neither can boast convincing credentials in anything but nonsense. This is all the more laughable given that Guest stated ‘ACTUAL science, not’ …’ junk’ and then went on to link to two very dubious publications.
    - nickshaw
      
      Airing opinion contrary to the “consensus” pushed by the majority of the media seems like a good sales strategy to you?
      Would that not dissuade advertisers?
      And these outlets are simply airing opinion of scientists contrary to those of scientists expressing their opinions on other (the majority!) media outlets.
      So, by the same token, you automatically discount any stances taken by the WaPo or NYT, right?
    - AgeUke
      
      I cannot speak for their reasons. What I do know is that both publications are not worthy of referencing in a bid to reinforce an argument you wish others to take seriously.
    - jb
      
      AGW==AlGore Warming.
    - Prodicus
      
      Typo.
      AlGore Warning.
      Or at least that’s how I read AGW, before hitting Next Page.
    - Brian H
      
      Making money by knowingly promoting and enforcing policies that enrich you and harm and kill others is not perpetrating a hoax? What circumlocution or equivocation would you prefer, recommend, and mandate?
    - Guenier
      
      The concept that, by emitting so-called greenhouse gas, mankind has probably contributed something to the recent (modest) global warming (i.e. AGW) is accepted by most sceptical scientists. Therefore it’s not a hoax.
      
      It’s unhelpful to assert that it is because, if you are trying to change someone’s mind, insulting them is unlikely to succeed – indeed you simply play into their hands. Katie08 provides a good example from the opposite extreme.
    - jaffa99
      
      You’ll NEVER change their mind, they are 100% committed, this is religion. When they talk about ‘deniers’ being ‘well funded by big oil’ they really & truly believe it. Most cAGW proponents are, like cult members, unable to objectively and rationally consider the evidence in front of them, while the cult leaders profit. No one will go quietly. Unfortunately they have their hands in our pockets at the moment but I hope to see some of them in prison one day. Until then I’ll let nature continue to prove them wrong while I point and laugh.
    - Guenier
      
      Sadly I think you’re right – like you, I don’t think the cAGWers will ever change their minds.
      
      And that’s precisely why I think it’s been and will continue to be a waste of time arguing about the science. So – I suggest – the best tactic is to ignore what you regard as their religion and attack them on the policy. Show that our (the UK’s) current and planned climate related policies are hugely expensive and likely to be extremely damaging (to e.g. the economy, to jobs and to the most vulnerable people). But above all show that, for the reasons I’ve stated above, they’re completely pointless.
      
      Although I accept that this approach may not work either, I’m sure it has a much better chance of doing so. Surely it’s worth a try? Personally I’m not prepared to sit back, do nothing and watch our country being dragged down by these absurd policies.
      
      And of course nothing I’m suggesting prevents you from pointing and laughing if nature proves them wrong.
    - jaffa99
      
      I think it’s important to keep reminding people that there is no actual ‘science’ supporting cAGW. Virtually everything in the field is based on computer models & tortured statistics (hence my original comment), then the output from one model is cited and used in another paper and as input to other models. And when the models don’t match reality they throw another curve ball of nonsense into the mix and model it (the heat is in the deep ocean).
      
      There is no sanction too severe for the eco-terrorists who push this garbage at enormous cost.
    - Guenier
      
      Remind them by all means – but, as you’ve correctly said, they’re never going to change their minds about what they view is the science.
      
      For my part, I’d rather be doing something that has at least a chance of preventing our country from being dragged down by their absurd polices.
    - nickshaw
      
      Seems to be working in Australia! 😉
    - Guenier
      
      Well said. And I suspect it was the practicalities of the policy rather than the inadequacies of the science that prompted the change. But there was one massive difference: Australia had a major political party with a real chance of power that was ready to listen. In the UK it will be a tougher challenge. But still worth it.
    - Craig King
      
      If you read this article. Particularly taking note of the reduction in America’s CO2 generation it is obvious that all of the windmills and solar panels ( zephyrs and sunbeams ) make absolutely no impact compared to simply using gas to generate electricity.
      
      http://www.energypost.eu/five-global-implications-shale-revolution/#comment-30860
    - Guenier
      
      Probably true. Here’s what James Hansen (the father of cAGW) said about renewables:
      
      “The tragedy is that many environmentalists line up on the side of the fossil fuel industry, advocating renewables as if they, plus energy efficiency, would solve the global climate change matter.
      
      “Can renewable energies provide all of society’s energy needs in the foreseeable future? It is  conceivable in a few places, such as New Zealand and Norway. But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”
      
      http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110729_BabyLauren.pdf
    - Guest
      
      Do you even know HOW the greenhouse gas CO2 forces warming? You should take the trouble to find out.
      
      I have been informed that the first 20 ppm of CO2 has a greater warming effect than the next 300 ppm. The effect reduces exponentially. We have about 385 ppm now. The effect of doubling the CO2 level to 770 ppm would hardly be noticed, apart from a significant increase in the growth of plants. Now I might have been misinformed so check it out for yourself.
    - Guenier
      
      You may be right. Your point?
    - friardo
      
      Do you even know HOW the greenhouse gas CO2 forces warming? You should take the trouble to find out.
      
      I have been informed that the first 20 ppm of CO2 has a greater warming effect than the next 300 ppm. The effect reduces logarithmically. We have about 385 ppm now. The effect of doubling the CO2 level to 770 ppm would hardly be noticed, apart from a significant increase in the growth of plants. Now I might have been misinformed so check it out for yourself.
    - RecklessProcess
      
      AGW is both a hoax and inaccurate and unhelpful
    - Guenier
      
      Read my initial post and my reply to you above – carefully please. Then let me know how you think your assertion (“AGW is both a hoax and inaccurate and unhelpful”) might help to persuade the UK’s politicians to repeal the Climate Change Act 2008. Thanks.
    - Timbones
      
      Yes, its best to call it what it is: A huge pyramid scheme and attempt to shift the wealth of developed countries into the pockets of despots in the third world based on a bunch or either manufactured or falsified data or bogus computer models being foisted on the public by quacks, charlatans or hucksters and of course, corrupt politicians. Hope that doesn’t leave any doubt about what AGW is all about. .
    - Guenier
      
      So you think that saying all this will somehow persuade our “leaders” to change their policy? How exactly?
    - Timbones
      
      No, what I think is we need to call a spade a spade and vote out anyone who supports unproven nonsense. AGW is like a vampire, it keeps coming back regardless of how many times it’s debunked.
    - Guenier
      
      In this context voting out is a meaningless concept. The three main parties are all committed to “tackling climate change”, so vote one out and you’ll get another one – probably worse – in. It’ll solve nothing.
      
      But you’re dead right about cAGW coming back no matter how many times it’s debunked. And that, Timbones, is precisely why there’s no purpose in trying to debunk it yet again. We need a new approach – forget the science and focus on the policy. For example (one of very many), remind them that Germany – once the “green” leader of Europe – is scheduled to open ten new hard coal power stations in the next two years.** Why cannot the UK do this?
      
      ** http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-15/steag-starts-germany-s-first-coal-fired-power-plant-in-8-years.html
    - Baron
      
      Guenier, you are obviously not on speaking terms with common sense. It’s both accurate and helpful to refer to AGW at least as a hoax, at worst it’s criminal for they fudged results, hid what didn’t fit, begged for funds that are scarce, could have been deployed to do real good both here, in Africa, elsewhere.
    - Guenier
      
      Perhaps you’re right. I’m no scientist: maybe you should communicate with Richard Lindzen about it.
      
      But you are utterly missing my point. Go back and read my initial post here.
    - DiogenesDespairs
      
      Guenier: “I believe that referring to AGW as a hoax is inaccurate and unhelpful.”
      
      Belief is one thing, facts another. Here are some essential, established, verifiable (citations are included) facts you need to know about Anthropogenic Global Warming:
      
      The fact is, there has been global warming, but the contribution of human-generated carbon dioxide is necessarily so minuscule as to be nearly undetectable. Here’s why:
      
      Carbon dioxide, considered the main vector for human-caused global warming, is some 0.038% of the atmosphere[1]- a trace gas. Water vapor varies from 0% to 4%[2], and should easily average 1% or more[3] near the Earth’s surface, where the greenhouse effect would be most important, and is about three times more effective[4] a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So water vapor is at least 25 times more prevalent and three times more effective; that makes it at least 75 times more important to the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide[5]. The TOTAL contribution of carbon dioxide to the greenhouse effect is therefore 0.013 or less. The total human contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide since the start of the industrial revolution has been estimated at about 25%[6]. So humans’ carbon dioxide greenhouse effect is a quarter of 0.013, works out to about 0.00325. Total warming of the Earth by the greenhouse effect is widely accepted as about 33 degrees Centigrade or 59 degrees Fahrenheit. So the contribution of anthropogenic carbon dioxide is less than 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit, or under 0.1 degree Centigrade. Global warming over the last century is thought by many to be about 0.6 degrees Centigrade.
      
      But that’s only the beginning. We’ve had global warming for more than 10,000 years, since the end of the last Ice Age[7]. Whatever caused that, it was not human activity. It was not all those power plants and factories and SUVs being operated by Stone Age cavemen while chipping arrowheads out of bits of flint. Whatever the cause was, it melted the glaciers that in North America once extended south to Long Island and parts of New York City[8] into virtually complete disappearance (except for a few mountain remnants). That’s one big greenhouse effect! If we are still having global warming – and I suppose we should presume we are, given a 10,000 year trend – it seems highly likely that it is still the overwhelmingly primary cause of continued warming, rather than our piddling 0.00325 contribution to the greenhouse effect.
      
      Yet even that trend-continuation needs to be proved. Evidence is that the Medieval Warm Period centered on the 1200s was somewhat warmer than we are now[9], and the climate was clearly colder in the Little Ice Age in the 1600s than it is now[10]. So we are within the range of normal up-and-down fluctuations without human greenhouse contributions that could be significant, or even measurable.
      
      The principal scientists arguing for human-caused global warming have been demonstrably disingenuous[11], and now you can see why. They have proved they should not be trusted.
      
      The idea that we should be spending hundreds of billions of dollars and hamstringing the economy of the entire world to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is beyond ludicrous in light of the facts above; it is insane. Furthermore, it sucks attention and resources from seeking the other sources of warming and from coping with climate change and its effects in realistic ways. The true motivation underlying the global warming movement is almost certainly ideological and political in nature, and I predict that Anthropomorphic Global Warming, as currently presented, will go down as the greatest fraud of all time. It makes Ponzi and Madoff look like pikers by comparison.
      
      [1] Fundamentals of Physical Geography, 2nd Edition
      
      by Michael Pidwirny Concentration varies slightly with the growing season in the northern hemisphere. HYPERLINK “http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7a.html” http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7a.html
      
      [2] ibid.
      
      [3] HALOE v2.0 Upper Tropospheric Water Vapor Climatology Claudette Ojo, Hampton University; et al.. HYPERLINK “http://vsgc.odu.edu/src/Conf09/UnderGrad%20Papers/Ojo%20-%20Paper.pdf” http://vsgc.odu.edu/src/Conf09/UnderGrad%20Papers/Ojo%20-%20Paper.pdf. See p. 4.The 0 – 4% range is widely accepted among most sources. This source is listed for its good discussion of the phenomena determining that range. An examination of a globe will show that tropical oceans (near high end of range) are far more extensive than the sum of the earth’s arctic and antarctic regions and tropical-zone deserts (all near the low end). Temperate zone oceans are far more extensive than temperate-zone desert. This author’s guess of an average of 2% or more seems plausible. I have used “1% or more” in an effort to err on the side of understatement.
      
      [4 NIST Chemistry Webbook, Please compare the IR absorption spectra of water and carbon dioxide. ] HYPERLINK “http://webbook.nist.gov/” http://webbook.nist.gov/
      
      [5] Three quarters of the atmosphere and virtually all water vapor are in the troposphere. Including all the atmosphere would change the ratios to about 20 times more prevalent and 60 times more effective. However, the greenhouse effect of high-altitude carbon dioxide on lower-altitude weather and the earth’s surface seems likely to be small if not nil.
      
      [6] National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. HYPERLINK “http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html” http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html. The estimated 90ppm increase in carbon dioxide, 30% above the base of 280 ppm, to a recent reading of 370 ppm, equates to just under 25% of present concentration, the relevant factor in estimating present contribution to the greenhouse effect.
      
      [7] Oak Ridge National Laboratory http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc130k.html
      
      [8] New York Nature – The nature and natural history of the New York City region. Betsy McCully http://www.newyorknature.net/IceAge.html
      
      [9] Global Warming: A Geological Perspective John P. Bluemle HYPERLINK “https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/Newsletter/NL99W/PDF/globlwrmw99.pdf” https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/Newsletter/NL99W/PDF/globlwrmw99.pdf This article, published by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency, is drawn from a paper by the author in Environmental Geosciences, 1999, Volume 6, Number 2, pp. 63-75. Note particularly the chart on p.4.
      
      [10] Ibid.
      
      [11] Wikileaks: Climatic Research Unit emails, data, models, 1996-2009 HYPERLINK “http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_emails,_data,_models,_1996-2009” http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_emails,_data,_models,_1996-2009.
      
      See also HYPERLINK “http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246661/New-scandal-Climate-Gate-scientists-accused-hiding-data-global-warming-sceptics.html” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246661/New-scandal-Climate-Gate-scientists-accused-hiding-data-global-warming-sceptics.html and
      
      HYPERLINK “http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704075604575356611173414140.html” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704075604575356611173414140.html and, more diplomatically: HYPERLINK “http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01tier.html” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01tier.html. Et al.
      
      ADDENDUM
      
      What initially troubled me was the aberrant behavior of the climate research unit at East Anglia University, which has been the main data source for AGW arguments. They initially refused (!) to reveal their algorithms and data on the grounds that they were proprietary(!!). They responded to critics with ad hominem attacks and efforts to block their publication in scientific journals. Now, as I am sure you know, this is not how one does honest science, in which you PUBLISH your data and methodology and invite critical comment to ferret out error or oversights. It took the now-famous Wikileaks “Climategate” to pry loose the data and expose their machinations. Yet despite the devastating blow these revelations should have to their credibility, the AGW “cause” has taken on a life of its own.
      
      Fundamentally, the argument seems to rest on a logical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc – after this, therefore because of this. We see a rise in temperature and a rise in (principally) carbon dioxide, and therefore conclude one must have caused the other. It does not necessarily follow at all. There can be other causes entirely behind both phenomena, and as you see above, almost certainly there are. Beyond that, I have encountered numerous assertions of fact that cannot add up given the physical properties of water vapor and carbon dioxide that go unchallenged. One-sided arguments proliferate and people arguing the other side are frequently denounced as being employed by business interests rather than rebutted on the merits.
      
      In sum, I have not come lightly to the conclusion that the AGW argument as it applies to carbon dioxide is largely untrue and certainly does not account for more than a very small, nearly negligible part of the phenomena we are seeing. The implications of widespread assertions of and belief in such an untruth are staggering, and potentially enormously destructive. It is unwise indeed to let oneself be stampeded in this matter, and stampede is clearly what many have been and are trying to induce.
      
      I can understand politicians behaving this way; a carbon tax or carbon trading regime would allow enormous revenues to fall into their hands. I can understand “Progressive” ideologues; it logically leads to enormous expansion of government power over industry, the economy, and the daily life of individuals, which they regard as a good thing. I understand the environmentalists; they want to shrink the size and impact on the environment of modern civilization. But responsible citizens need to put aside such considerations.
    - Guenier
      
      Well, DD, you’ve done a lot of work on this and I’m grateful to you for that. It’s most interesting and, although I’m no scientist, I’m pretty sure your analysis may well be accurate. But there’s a problem: you’re not addressing my point.
      
      I urge you therefore to go back and read my initial comment – the reply to jaffa99 that started this thread. Then please go down about seven posts and read my exchange with Baron, starting where he accuses me of lacking common sense onto my comment about the relationship between tree rings and weather. But, in particular, read the post where I suggested he “consider for a moment the challenge we face in the UK”.
      
      As I say there, if we are to have any hope of overturning the UK’s absurd climate policies, I believe we need a fresh approach – one that prioritises the policy and sidelines discussion of the science.
    - DiogenesDespairs
      
      Please excuse my belated response. I have no problem with your arguments, nor do I wish to argue with you. I merely saw that you were in danger of accepting the AGW deception and wanted to clear up that point with you. If anything, doing so makes even ore clear the importance of rendering rational climate policy in the UK and, for that matter, everywhere else.
      
      Carry on, sir. : )
    - Guenier
      
      Thanks – appreciated.
    - KatherineBranwen
      
      You’re right. It should be referred to as a scam. The biggest scam ever perpetrated in the history of the world…
      Years ago, the so-called ‘polar vortex’ was “a clear sign of global cooling”……and now it’s “a clear sign of global warming”…..
      Matter of fact, according to the warm-mongers, ‘everything’ is a sign of global warming…..which is why they changed the name to Climate Change, so that it would cover every scenario…..
      This is duplicity, pure and simple, not science…..
    - Guenier
      
      Well Katherine consider this.
      
      The UK is saddled with a piece of legislation, the Climate Change Act, that is not only incredibly expensive and potentially disastrous but is, in any case, pointless. Suppose that you believe, as I do, that it’s vital to reverse it. So what’s your best course? To go to your MP (or, if you can, the Secretary of State) and tell him that AGW is a hoax and a scam … “duplicity, pure and simple, not science”? Or put the science to one side, and show him how people are suffering now as a result of his policies and are likely – particularly the most vulnerable – to suffer considerably more in the future … and then to add that, in any case and even if his view of the science is accurate, it’s pointless because countries responsible for 70% of emissions (compared to our 1.3%) have made it clear they’re not interested in reduction?
      
      Which has at least a chance of making him think – even rethink? I suggest that the answer’s obvious. That’s why I say that describing AGW as a “hoax” (or, as you prefer it, a “scam”) is unhelpful.
    - large
      
      Believe whatever you choose. Just don’t go running around telling everyone falsehoods and rumors . . Because neither AGW or the Weather in general is hard Science . .
      
      We know that “Weather” happens, and when it happens in a certain locale, it’s called “Climate”, and because weather changes there, well . . I guess that’s “Climate Change” . .
      
      It’s been going on, in one form or another, for about 3.2 Billion years, give or take a month or two . .
      
      And based on all that, yeah, AGW is probably a Hoax . . . Because we can’t prove that it isn’t . .
    - Guenier
      
      A suggestion: go back and read my initial comment – the reply to jaffa99 that started this thread. Then go down about seven posts and read my exchange with Baron, starting where he accuses me of lacking common sense onto my comment about the relationship between tree rings and weather. But, in particular, read the post where I asked him to “consider for a moment the challenge we face in the UK”.
      
      As I say there, if we are to have any hope of overturning the UK’s absurd climate policies, I believe we need a fresh approach – one that prioritises the policy and sidelines discussion of the science.
      
      When you’ve done that, show me where I’m supposed to be “running around telling everyone falsehoods and rumors”. Thanks.
    - large
      
      The thread is a soup sandwich, however, I do understand your concern about the cost of all this . .
      
      My point is/was, Believe what you choose to, but come with fact not muddy water . .
      
      Grow a thicker skin and have a nice day . .
    - mikekelley10
      
      Me too. I prefer the word “scam”.
    - silqworm
      
      AGW is a hoax. It was cooked up by Sven Aarhenius, president of the Swedish Eugenics society, in 1896, who predicted 4 C warming if CO2 were not controlled. Moynihan and Panetta convinced Nixon to set up the EPA in 1970 to prevent the very same big scary number, 4 C. Now after billions wasted on this fraud, the so-called scientists still claim the canonical 4 C. This invariate 4 C is prima facie evidence of fraud.
    - Guenier
      
      Maybe – but saying so is not going to cause UK politicians to reconsider their absurd policies. That’s my sole aim.
    - qdalgado
      
      I believe you are wrong, and worse than unhelpful – your insistence that AGW is a problem serves only to undermine reality.
    - Guenier
      
      Er … my “insistence that AGW is a problem”. What?
    - nonsequiturcouk
      
      “believe” is the problem, not just with AGW, but with socialism and religion too.
      
      Believe is a euphemism for “See no data, hear no data, data, smater, meh”.
    - Guenier
      
      OK – I’ll drop “believe”. My comment now reads: “referring to AGW as a hoax is inaccurate and unhelpful”. Happy now?
      
      To understand my position on this, read my initial comment – the reply to jaffa99 that started this thread. Then go down about seven posts and read my exchange with Baron, starting where he accuses me of lacking common sense onto our discussion about the relationship between tree rings and weather. But, in particular, read the post where I asked him to “consider for a moment the challenge we face in the UK”.
      
      As I say there, if we are to have any hope of overturning the UK’s absurd climate policies, I believe we need a fresh approach – one that prioritises the policy and sidelines discussion of the science. And one that avoids unhelpful invective.
    - nonsequiturcouk
      
      Yes, I’d agree, From my perspective the science of CC/AGW or whatever term they’re using now is not the problem. It’s the fraudulent, unsustainable, anti-social and anti-people way that it’s being implemented that I have a problem with.
    - Guenier
      
      I’d omit the “fraudulent”: see my comment about “unhelpful invective”. Accusing people of fraud is not a good way of persuading them to change their minds.
    - RobertC
      
      Yes, it is a deceit – the action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth.
    - Guenier
      
      As I say above, my sole objective is to persuade UK politicians to reconsider their absurd policy. Accusing them of deceit is hardly likely to achieve that.
    - Michael Kosak
      
      You ‘believe’ that, do you? I believe falsifying data SHOULD be accurately called a hoax, and the billions of dollars spent on ‘global warming’ (oops- I guess they are calling it ‘climate change’ now) because of it should lead to criminal porosecution and loss of your position as scientist at NASA.
    - Guenier
      
      Referring to AGW as a hoax is inaccurate and unhelpful.
      
      All “AGW” means is that the world has warmed and man has contributed to that warming. Professor Richard Lindzen’s position** is good enough for me:
      
      ““We all agree that temperature has increased since 1800 … [by] a very small amount. We’re talking about tenths of a degree [Celsius]. We all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. All other things kept equal, [there has been] some warming. As a result, there’s hardly anyone serious who says that man has no role. And in many ways, those have never been the questions. The questions have always been, as they ought to be in science, how much?”
      
      Lindzen says not much at all—and he contends that the “alarmists” vastly overstate the Earth’s climate sensitivity.
      
      Therefore, AGW in itself is not a hoax. However, claims that it will lead to catastrophe are another matter. That’s why asserting that it is a hoax is unhelpful when (as I am – read my posts above) trying to persuade our political leaders to change their absurd, damaging and pointless policies.
      
      ** http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/what-catastrophe_773268.html?page=1#
    - Michael Kosak
      
      It’s alarming that you say Lindzens’s position is “good enough” for you because of its profound idiocy. We do not “all agree” that warming has occuured (even “a tenth of a degree”)
      
      And saying “hardly anyone serious” disagrees is just plain wrong- many serious scientists have questioned the scientific statements of people like Lindzen, and the ‘hockey stick’ proponents who have been caught FALSIFYING DATA~! (the single biggest crime against science possible)
      
      Lindzen is trying to justify promoting this HOAX (and that is exactly what it is) further.
      
      Shorthand for Lindzen :”hey it COULD be happening, so lets speind $trillions of dollars on it and use the issue to take away more freedoms”
      
      That is the point I think you are missing completely- this is a HOAX and is being used as a vehicle to promote a different agenda- more government control.
      Nothing they are proposing has anything to do with saving the planet and has everythign to do with new world order.
    - Guenier
      
      For some reason, you seem to be determined to miss my point – set out in detail above. So here it is again – essentially my reply to Baron:
      
      You may be right about the science.
      
      But now consider for a moment the challenge we face in the UK. In 2008, our politicians almost unanimously imposed on us a piece of legislation that threatens our economy and our society. No other country in the world has burdened itself with anything like it – indeed, as I note below, countries responsible for over 70% of CO2 emissions have made it clear they have no serious intention of making cuts. So, even if there were a problem, a reduction in our tiny 1.3% share wouldn’t make any difference.
      
      So how can we put a stop to this insanity? In a rational world we’d do so by attacking the validity of the science at the heart of the policy. Pointing out, as you might, the dishonesty of the the ‘hockey stick’ proponents would be an example. But we don’t it seems live in a rational world: people, many with eloquence and careful argument, have been trying that approach for years. And it’s achieved nothing whatever – nothing. Our opponents just trot out the usual defences: the “overwhelming” 97% consensus, the “unimpeachable” authority of the Royal Society, the “peer-reviewed” science … etc. plus of course, the “denier”, “anti-science” etc. accusations. You know what I mean. And that’s how they treat a seriously argued criticism of their science. But claim, for example, that AGW is a “hoax” and you’ll be treated with contempt. You’ll simply play into their hands. It may make you personally feel good – but it won’t do any good for the millions of poor and vulnerable people who are put at risk by this scare.
      
      A fresh approach is essential – one that has some chance of having an impact on politicians who have no scientific training – i.e. almost all of them. We need an approach that is within their understanding and outside that of their scientific advisers and the “authorities” they love to cite.
      
      So my proposal is this: move the main focus from the inadequacies of the science to the consequences of the policy. An example (one of very many) might be that it’s the poorest and most vulnerable people (the sick, the elderly, the disabled) in our society who are suffering the most from increasing fuel costs and who would be devastated by power outages.
      
      But I go further: as noted above, reducing Britain’s tiny 1.3% share of global emissions cannot possibly make any difference. Countries responsible for over 70% of emissions have said they’re not interested in reduction: China especially (alone responsible for 27% of emissions), having humiliatingly defeated the West at the “make or break” climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, made it clear, together with the so-called “developing” economies, at the UN’s Warsaw conference a few weeks ago that it had no intention of reducing its CO2 emissions in the foreseeable future. Moreover, Canada, Japan, Russia and Australia are rapidly backing away from any commitment to CO2 reduction.
      
      So, not only is our policy absurdly expensive and potentially damaging, it’s completely pointless.
      
      It’s a long shot. It may not work. But it’s a lot more likely to work than moaning about the nonsense of the alleged science – even if the moan were 100% valid. And far more likely to work than shouting “HOAX”.
  - Chris Cloutier
    
    Like anybody has any kind of clue as to what global temperature is. It’s absurd. We don’t even have the means to measure such a thing with any degree of accuracy. We can’t predict the weather for 5 days accurately but I’m supposed to believe that puny man is the cause, and that orb out there 93 million miles has nothing to do with it? It’s mans fault? What arrogance! God must surely be laughing.
    - 455olds
      
      Excuse me while I sidle up to the pump with my 400 hp Escalade, size 14. HeHeHe
    - markybel
      
      Escalade? So you drive Government Motors. Besides, there’s nothing tackier than a “luxury” SUV. A Sports Utility Vehicle is supposed to be rugged and practical, not pretentious, with a silly Cadillac crest.
    - 455olds
      
      Yeah, but it has heated and cooled cup holders LOL
    - crackers2010
      
      Really? COOLING cup holders? I want one.
  - KatherineBranwen
    
    “government looters know how to loot”
    Bingo! It’s all about the money going from your pocket to the government….. More regulations, more taxes, more control…
  - disqus_mfERPWUv3H
    
    Brilliant!
  - Cornelius Bonkers
    
    “restore”? When was this then?
- Katie08
  
  So what are you saying, Guenier … because China, India et al refuse to address the issue of man made climate change, that we do NOTHING? Mmmm, that’s helpful. Actually, China IS addressing climate change insofar as initiating a carbon tax which is certainly a step in the right direction and better than the unbelievable regressive Tony Abbott (the current Neanderthalic PM of Australia). Abbott has actually recently withdrawn any moves for a carbon tax which would, at least, have made some move towards the national acceptance of addressing this issue. Open your eyes, look around you and ask yourself what type of world you want to leave for your grandchildren. If you are happy to follow the gormless majority of seriously misinformed and manipulated people who believe all the lies and distortions published in biased newspapers, then go ahead … you can also share the responsibility when things continue down a worsening path of climatic deterioration. Mother Earth can only take so much – REALLY! It’s common sense! The fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists who specialise in the intensive research and study of man made climate change (and its long-term negative implications on the future of mankind) are concerned by this issue – then wtf are people listening to short-sighted politicians, uneducated sceptics and corporations with self-seeking agendas? If you are content to live in a mediocre world of delusion in your own little myopic bubble where the same-old-same-old policies of saying nothing and doing nothing is near enough and good enough, then you are, most assuredly, part of the problem and not part of the solution.
  - Guenier
    
    If, as you obviously believe, man made climate change is, if unchecked, likely to lead to “negative implications on the future of mankind, you’d better hope that you’re wrong and the sceptics are right. I say that because it’s completely obvious after the debacle of Copenhagen – confirmed by all subsequent UN climate conferences ** – that the developing economies, led by China *** and India, have no serious intention of limiting their economic growth and thus their CO2 emissions. And it’s those countries, not the West, that are driving the ever upward trend ****.
    
    I’d be interested to know what evidence you have to support your claim about the “overwhelming majority of scientists” think. I researched this issue carefully before I submitted evidence to the House of Commons select committee inquiry.***** Perhaps you’d tell me where I got it wrong. Thanks.
    
    ** http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/warsaw-delivers-agreement-on-climate-change-talks/article1-1155099.aspx
    
    *** http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/07/china-coal-idUSL3N0K90H720140107
    
    **** http://www.rtcc.org/2013/12/31/carbon-dioxide-levels-now-61-higher-than-1990/
    
    ***** http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/4191
  - barney rubble
    
    Kattie so most climate scientists say we are going to fry ourselves ?
    
    These are the facts
    
    Every climate model (73 in total are WRONG )
    
    Man only contributes 3% to 4% of all CO2 ! the rest is natural.
    
    Not one climate scientist can tell you what the climate will be in 20 to 30 years from now.
    
    Also there has been no warming for 17 years given a big increase in emissions .
    The jury is still out !! and the warmists are losing credibility every day.You want a carbon tax that has no guarantee of doing anything ?
    Tony Abbott said the tax would go at the last election.and we voted it out.
    - Katie08
      
      Correction please: There are many, many Australians (myself included) who have NEVER been silly and short sighted enough to vote for Tony Abbott and never will. What I am saying is that we cannot afford to sit on our hands and do nothing. The jury is not still out because there is scientific proof that climate change is upon us. Irrespective of what the percentages are (be it man made or natural), if such climate changes are not addressed, the fact that people have their head in the sand will not make it go away. The deforestation of our planet is doing us no favours and also destroys the habitat and aids the ongoing extinction of so much animal life. These things are preventable. Huge mining companies that pollute our environment and leave the earth eroded, cause toxic waste and chemicals to flow into our rivers and streams and destroy the habitat of indigenous peoples (throughout South America and Africa) need to be made accountable through exorbitant fines to rectify their often catastrophic actions. . Mining, I agree, is important as we all need the products manufactured by mining – however, there are unscrupulous companies that don’t care about the chaos they cause and they are the ones that need to face the consequences. I am more in favour of FINING errant polluters than a carbon tax but we need to do SOMETHING. Ignoring problems and evading issues does not mean that these problems and issues do not exist.
    - jb
      
      “The deforestation of our planet is doing us no favours”
      
      Here in the USA we have more forest than in the 1700s.
      
      Talk to Brazil and get them to stop their deforestation.
    - Katie08
      
      So blaming Brazil and pointing fingers will just make it all go away, eh? This is the point .. we have got to STOP the blame game, work together on solutions and not put our head in the sand and pretend climate change does not exist. It’s craziness! If we all work together, we could make significant changes … but, alas, the ultra conservatives among us detest change and loathe making initiatives; this complacency will, eventually, be to our detriment.
    - Mike Anderson
      
      It’s dirty money, big polluters and corporatism against fluffy animals and rainbows…
    - sam williamson
      
      You are correct – just look what they did to the poor unicorn “Youuuu Bastards!”
    - Katie08
      
      So? Which side are you on, Mike? Put me on the side of fluffy animals and rainbows anytime! You are right .. dirty money, big polluters and corporatism are a hurdle but when ordinary people LEAD, leaders follow.
    - nickshaw
      
      Pollution and AGW are two different subjects.
      One should be addressed and the other need not be because man’s contribution to it is negligible.
    - Craig King
      
      Katie, what exactly has changed in our climate that is causing you such anxiety? All of the weather we are seeing is not supernatural and has happened before.
      
      Pointing at a squirrel ( mining activities ) isn’t helpful in this debate about man made CO2. If you are concerned about environmental devastation then you should be in favour of cheap, ubiquitous, reliable energy so that people don’t have to burn their surroundings for cooking and heat.
      
      To restate my point, nothing about our weather is unnatural, it has all happened before. Destruction of the environment is worse the poorer people are in terms of energy. If you want to save the planet contribute to charities that want to get every home, every village and hamlet onto the electrical grid and then pay for their electricity. That is the way to save the world, not by forcing them to stay poor through wind and solar.
    - Katie08
      
      http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence
    - barney rubble
      
      Yes Katie there are many Australians like you who are ignorant to the fact the models are wrong .Climate Scientists who follow these models are lying !!
      
      Australia absorbs much more CO2 than we admit .Hence more greening isn’t a bad thing . Please note that CO2 isn’t a pollutant ,and the ones who say it is are lying..
      
      No one is going to disagree we need to fine companies who do the wrong thing ,and our Government needs to come hard down on the ones that do.
      
      All the BS that is presented on our ABC is a joke and it’s about time they are held responsible for their junk reporting. Heads need to be rolled !!!! We pay these nutters wages.
      They’re a national disgrace .
    - Katie08
      
      Barney Rubble, your “ideas” are as primitive and as out-of-date as your stone aged alias. Just because you don’t agree with the large majority of scientists and unbiased reporting on the ABC, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Like most LNP voters and right-wing fascists, you only want to believe the crap that fills the Murdoch rags. Try to be more discerning and impartial and think about what we can all DO instead of what we need to dismantle and NOT do! That type of negative complacency is rife with LNP voters and, sadly, that is why the Great Barrier Reef WILL be drilled and destroyed under Abbott’s misguided rule. By the way, did you know that Abbott actually admitted that climate change was upon us! He did a recent turn-about to curry favour with the huge mining companies. I think we will need to agree to disagree on this issue as you are determined that your view is right and I believe that my view is right.
    - barney rubble
      
      Unlike you Katie I sit in the middle of politics , I have voted Labor and Liberal .
      
      Your ignorance to the fact the models are wrong only shows how open minded you are.
      
      The increase in the concentration of water vapor by an increase in the concentration of CO2 is contradicted by the measurements taken by radiosondes of temperature changes in the atmosphere, !!!!!!! they show that an increase in the concentration of water vapor causes the temperature of the surface to fall rather than rise.
      
      Your spin about Tony Abbott saying this and saying that doesn’t mean ANYTHING as our politicians have been told the BS aswell.
      
      As I pointed out to you any scientist who believes in the 73 models is a liar. and anyone who believes them is ignorant .
    - Andrew Ryan
      
      “Man only contributes 3% to 4% of all CO2 ! the rest is natural.”
      
      Non sequitur. The relevant percentage is how much we contribute to the excess – ie the difference between how much is contributed once we subtract the amount absorbed. A lake can have 100,000 litres of water added to it by rain and 100,000 litres of water removed by evaporation. It’s irrelevant to say that a man adding 5,000 litres of water is only contributing 5%. The important part is how he’s upsetting the equilibrium.
    - Mike Anderson
      
      Its only a non-sequiter if you believe that there is this creature called equilibrium that seems to have a mood swing if man is trying simply trying to exist on planet earth.
      It makes me wonder what they did with Le Chatelier. Perhaps there is talk of burning his effigy and then all his published works, but may I humbly suggest before we do that we relook at his idea that “Any change in status quo prompts an opposing reaction in the responding system.” (Yes, wiki quote. Get over it.)
    - Andrew Ryan
      
      One doesn’t have to anthropomorphisize equilibrium. Carbon is released into the atmosphere, carbon is absorbed. If one is calculating man’s contribution to climate change, the relevant figure is what proportion of the discrepancy we’re causing.
    - Mike Anderson
      
      No, you’re quite right, we don’t need to anthropomorphise the concept of equilibrium. My point is that equilibrium does not get ‘upset’ as you put it, but rather changes to suit the input/output parameters of that system.
      It is a given that man is changing the equilibrium state of the system, but it’s also beside the point. What does matter, and I think you’ll agree, is whether the dynamic response is dangerous, and whether the equilibrium that will follow is dangerous.
      As to your lake analogy, if a man adds 5,000L of water the rate of evaporation will change to accommodate this added volume by increasing because the increased volume will result in an increase in the lake’s surface area. That’s Le Chatelier’s idea.
      Barney rubble’s thought is still valid, because he is suggesting that man’s influence of the equilibrium position is negligible as it only constitutes a change that is small in proportion to the absolute size of the system, and so we would expect that the dynamic response of the system and resulting change in equilibrium to be correspondingly small. I don’t know if the statement is true or not, but it is a valid argument prima facie.
    - Andrew Ryan
      
      …Or the lake overflows, flooding the surrounding area, as is currently happening all over the West Country like Dorset and Somerset. My point about the relevant percentage stands.
    - Mike Anderson
      
      5kL will cause flooding in a bathtub, but it won’t in Dorset. And your claim of a non-sequitur is invalid because you don’t identify his conclusion.
    - Jethro Asquith
      
      Actually all is Natural – you may not have noticed Man is a natural animal
    - Katie08
      
      Tony Abbott only won the last election because of preferences, my dear. It is very difficult to find anyone brave enough to admit that they voted for this disgusting, misogynistic, homophobic moron. If you care anything about the environment, how could you be so short-sighted as to believe in the environmental VANDAL, Tony Abbott. He is a whore to billionaire miners and along with Campbell Newman has given the nod to Clive Palmer to go ahead and drill up vast areas of the Great Barrier Reef at Abbot Point (what an ironic name, eh?). Pending a HUGE protest, if this horrific action in the name of short-term profit goes ahead, Abbott’s name (already receiving worldwide notoriety) will be forever associated with the destruction of a rare Dugong feeding ground. In addition, Abbott is working hard (behind the scenes in his usual secretive manner) to de-list huge areas of protected forested wilderness areas in Tasmania – his goal is to get these areas removed from their world heritage listing status.
    - guest
      
      Tony Abbott only won the last election because of preferences, my dear.
      
      He need not have won.
      
      Truth is, provided the greens had given their preferences to labor, Abbott could not have become pm.
      
      What happened to those green preferences?
      
      Who did they give them to instead?
  - FuriousYT
    
    I’d say in his decision PM Abbott was precisely avoiding being one of the “gormless majority of seriously misinformed and manipulated people who believe all the lies and distortions published in biased” media, since the biased media is strongly in support of AGW theories. It’s clear YOU could never be influenced by these distortions since you are much too smart to be living in “your own little myopic bubble”, influenced only by solid scientific facts (e.g., “Mother Earth can only take so much…it’s common sense!”).
    Seriously Katie, you are a histrionic self-righteous tool, projecting your own mental limitations onto others. Sadly, you are in league with millions…
    - Katie08
      
      Well, well – now it becomes clear what side of the fence YOU are on, FuriousYT! It would be nice to debate with you but I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed person!
  - Chris
    
    Katie08 you are so on the money! Open your eyes, look around you and ask yourself what type of world you want to leave for your grandchildren. If you are happy to follow the gormless majority of seriously misinformed and manipulated people who believe all the lies and distortions published in biased newspapers, then go ahead … you can also share the responsibility when things continue down a worsening path………….. You are so on the money!!
  - hellhathnofury
    
    “Open your eyes, look around you and ask yourself what type of world you want to leave for your grandchildren.” OK. I’d like to leave my children in a world where freedom and liberty are expanding, not one in which we are constrained by evil and corrupt bureaucrats enforcing laws – for our own good, of course – that restrict our mobility. I’d like to leave them a world where we keep our the fruits of our labor rather than surrendering it to those same politicians who will give it to their corrupt counterparts in other parts of the world as reparations for a non-existent crisis foisted on the gullible.
    Suppose I yelled, “Katie, the sky is falling!!” You’d refuse to believe it, because you are a sensible person.
    However, somewhere along the way someone shouted at you, “Katie, you are causing the earth to warm!! Get out of that SUV!! Give me your money to study it and help people in Africa adapt to its effects!!” And for some reason, you choose to believe it, and with no more credible evidence. Do some basic reading on Climategate, or check out the lies told in the Solyndra scandal, or Al (I invented the Internet) Gore’s long list of lies which actually predate “Inconvenient Truth.”
  - Jethro Asquith
    
    Actually Mother Earth doesn’t give a damn about Global Warming or Climate Change – or are you suggesting the planet will explode or something if we don’t do something about it.
  - itdoesntaddup
    
    Actually, China is busy investing in more coal mining and closing down much of its renewables industry
    
    http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/12/09/why-chinas-renewables-industry-is-headed-for-collapse/
  - nickshaw
    
    So? China realized they could make a buck from CO2 taxes.
    While building more coal fired generating plants than any other country.
    Cute trick.
    You do realize that “churning” “green credits” is big business in China and India, right?
- Brian H
  
  Setting an example may not mean what the greenies think. The UK is providing a fine demonstration of what happens when governments take the bit between their teeth and mandate greenness. And the size of the pit, with an all-consuming black-hole singularity at the bottom, into which whole economies can be pushed.
  - Guenier
    
    Agreed.
- Colin
  
  Are you the bloke involved in the Y2K Bug scare?
  - Guenier
    
    Yes – well spotted. But, unlike cAGW, it wasn’t a scare:
    
    http://fm2x.com/The_Century_Date_Change_Problem.pdf
- strongmind
  
  Guenier — I do not know who you are and until this time, do not remember reading any of your posts. I went onto your home page and copied every single one of your posts. Why? Because they are probably the best examples of presenting an argument or point of view that I have ever seen — doesn’t matter if it is “climate change” or some other issue. Your analysis and writing are excellent without any of the condescension seen in so many other posts. I only wish I were younger to benefit from your skill.
  - Guenier
    
    I’m flattered. Thanks.
Whatmenaresayingaboutwomen

We won’t have to worry about aliens ! Single mothers are breeding them now at an elevated level to ensure the jails are filled and there will be plenty of thugs and jailbirds in the future. There will be no room for aliens.
- Katie08
  
  You are an uneducated moron and imprisoned within the very limited confines of your ignorance! To presume that single mothers are to blame for thugs and jailbirds is absolutely inane … where are the fathers of all these children? It takes two to procreate so why blame the mothers who have been left or abandoned with the responsibility of raising these children? You really do sound like the typical Liberal-voting bogan who blames everyone and everything for the problems of the world. The LNP are full of nasty, vile, small minded little people who have no vision and no heart! Abbott and his horrible collection of bible bashing hypocrites rule by xenophobic hatred, division and mind numbing stupidity. Your statement says so much about YOU and the cruel, soulless LNP who completely lack transparency and have zero moral compass!
  - Zog
    
    Wow!
    Take a valium Katie before you hurt somebody.
  - sam williamson
    
    Easy Katie. “Uneducated moron” is a little over the top, and cruel, soulless, is more suited for a Dickens novel. Don’t rise to the bait and let some anonymous poster get under your skin.
    
    The problem of global warming will not be solved in newspaper headlines or in its comments area, no matter how the posters rachet up the retoric. More likely that some scientist, toiling away in the bowels of an underfunded university will accidentally find an easy way to store excess CO2, and then we can conduct a grand experiment to see what effects CO2 has on our little blue marble.
    
    The solution won’t come from government of any stripe. That’s for sure. That lot hasn’t the sense to crack a window when the room is warming with methane.
    
    The world isn’t warming overnight – it’s not like a tsunami heading towards your village. Guenier is quite correct to point out that China and the USA are contributing the majority of CO2 to the atmosphere. China is not stopping – you can hardly see to the end of your street over there. They want what we already have, and you can’t blame them. The USA is equally predictable. Nothing worse than than a large man in a SUV telling you to cut back a bit.
    
    I have an ancient unscientific solution for many of us. Until something better than crippling our lifestyle presents itself, if your are truly super concerned about your children and grandchildren in a warming world with rising oceans, buy them a piece of land in a cooler, higher location. New Zealand comes to mind, but don’t rule out Canada, Alaska Scotland, and Scandinavia – Russia if you are desperate.
    - Guenier
      
      I agree with much of this. And it isn’t just China that’s not stopping. Neither are India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, South Korea, Russia and a host of so-called “developing” economies**. I cannot see Iran, Iraq, Syria (!), Egypt … and Venezuela being very interested, And recently Canada, Japan and Australia have made it plain they’re not planning to sign up to a Kyoto extension. The USA never was. Doesn’t leave much more than the EU (a mere 10% of emissions) – and even there Germany is building new coal-fired power stations (and thus increasing its emissions) and Poland is understandably pushing on with its coal driven economy. So – for good or ill – the world will continue to increase its dependence on fossil fuels. And for many that’s good: China and India alone have lifted about 600 million people out of poverty in the last 30 years, almost entirely by giving them access to inexpensive coal generated electricity. Perhaps Katie is unhappy about that?
      
      Then there’s the current ineffectiveness of renewables – see my comment (re James Hansen) to Craig King above. Perhaps one day we’ll solve that – I certainly hope so. For example a commercially viable large-scale method of storing electricity would be a huge step forward. It’s in areas such as that (maybe your CO2 storage also) that the world should be putting its investment, not into inefficient windmills etc.
      
      But, as I said to Katie, her best bet is to hope the sceptics are right.
      
      ** http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-bryce/another-climate-change-meeting-looms_b_893750.html
    - sam williamson
      
      True. We might like to think that coal has gone away, but…
      Perhaps some of the millions coming out of poverty will invent some better way not to polute, until someone finds a better way to harness and store energy.
      I think Katie is upset with Big Oil, raping miners, and a lot of other concepts because that is what she has been taught.
      I know that humour won’t solve the problem either; but I am painfully aware that only 1% of humanity actually contributes anything useful to mankind. The rest of us tend to the machinery, bring home the food, and then go down to the pub at the end of the work week, to discuss the important issues in sports.
      It’s not worth getting too riled up over. (Are you listening, Katie?)
  - WMASAW
    
    I would suggest that you educate yourself instead of making abusive remarks and unsubstantiated claims.
    
    Here are some of the facts that you obviously refuse to belief seeing as you are obviously one as well.
    
    Drinking problems. Teenagers living in single-parent
    households are more likely to abuse alcohol and at an earlier age
    compared to children reared in two-parent
    households
    Source: Terry E. Duncan, Susan C. Duncan
    and Hyman Hops, “The Effects of Family Cohesiveness and Peer
    Encouragement on the Development of Adolescent Alcohol Use: A
    Cohort-Sequential Approach to the Analysis of Longitudinal
    Data,” Journal of Studies on Alcohol 55
    (1994).
    
    Drug Use: “…the absence of the father in the home
    affects significantly the behavior of adolescents and results in the
    greater use of alcohol and marijuana.”
    Source: Deane
    Scott Berman, “Risk Factors Leading to Adolescent Substance Abuse,”
    Adolescence 30 (1995)
    
    Sexual abuse. A study of 156 victims of child sexual
    abuse found that the majority of the children came from disrupted or
    single-parent homes; only 31 percent of the children lived with both
    biological parents. Although stepfamilies make up only about 10 percent
    of all families, 27 percent of the abused children lived with either a
    stepfather or the mother’s boyfriend.
    Source:
    Beverly Gomes-Schwartz, Jonathan Horowitz, and Albert P. Cardarelli,
    “Child Sexual Abuse Victims and Their Treatment,” U.S. Department of
    Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
    
    Child Abuse. Researchers in Michigan determined that
    “49 percent of all child abuse cases are committed by single
    mothers.”
    Source: Joan Ditson and Sharon Shay, “A
    Study of Child Abuse in Lansing, Michigan,” Child Abuse and
    Neglect, 8 (1984).
    
    Deadly predictions. A family structure index — a
    composite index based on the annual rate of children involved in divorce
    and the percentage of families with children present that are
    female-headed — is a strong predictor of suicide among young adult and
    adolescent white males.
    Source: Patricia L. McCall
    and Kenneth C. Land, “Trends in White Male Adolescent, Young-Adult and
    Elderly Suicide: Are There Common Underlying Structural Factors?”
    Social Science Research 23, 1994.
    
    High risk. Fatherless children are at dramatically
    greater risk of suicide.
    Source: U.S. Department of
    Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics,
    Survey on Child Health, Washington, DC,
    1993.
    
    Suicidal Tendencies. In a study of 146 adolescent
    friends of 26 adolescent suicide victims, teens living in single-parent
    families are not only more likely to commit suicide but also more likely
    to suffer from psychological disorders, when compared to teens living in
    intact families.
    Source: David A. Brent, et al.
    “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Peers of Adolescent Suicide Victims:
    Predisposing Factors and Phenomenology.” Journal of the American
    Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 34, 1995.
    
    Confused identities. Boys who grow up in
    father-absent homes are more likely that those in father-present homes
    to have trouble establishing appropriate sex roles and gender
    identity.
    Source: P.L. Adams, J.R. Milner, and N.A.
    Schrepf, Fatherless Children, New York, Wiley Press, 1984.
    
    Psychiatric Problems. In 1988, a study of preschool
    children admitted to New Orleans hospitals as psychiatric patients over
    a 34-month period found that nearly 80 percent came from fatherless
    homes.
    Source: Jack Block, et al. “Parental
    Functioning and the Home Environment in Families of Divorce,”
    Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent
    Psychiatry, 27 (1988)
    
    Emotional distress. Children living with a
    never-married mother are more likely to have been treated for emotional
    problems.
    Source: L. Remez, “Children Who Don’t Live
    with Both Parents Face Behavioral Problems,” Family Planning
    Perspectives (January/February 1992).
    - Guest
      
      You ought to get your facts straight – first of all I am married with three successful adult children; secondly who gives a rat’s arse what these so-called nobodies have to say! I give scant attention to psychiatrists as most of them a two sandwiches short of a picnic anyway – I feel quite confident in saying that as I also have a degree is psychology! Who are they to make outlandish judgements about single parents. There are many parents out there who are widowed or who are raising children on their own because they have their partners on long-service duty overseas in the armed forces. What gives YOU and others the right to stand there like the sanctimonious, self righteous, pious hypocrites that you are! Stop your disgusting preaching and try injecting some empathy into your black soul!
    - WMASAW
      
      Yes ofcourse you are. So says SHE. Firstly, women are compulsive liars and that is a known fact. Where is the proof of all these miraculous claims you make. I believe none of it. Just because you make a claim does not mean they are true – see previous comment about compulsive female behaviour. Secondly, and this may be trying, but you can use ” G O O G L E” which is a S E A R C H engine that will give you a response to any inquiry. The first question you should ask is “How single mothers effect the lives of children by denying access by their Father”. There you go, now how hard was that, self-acclaimed psychologist. That is how facts are obtained.
    - Katie08
      
      You ought to get your facts straight – first of all I am married with three successful adult children; secondly who gives a rat’s arse what these so-called nobodies have to say! I give scant attention to psychiatrists as most of them are two sandwiches short of a picnic anyway. I feel quite confident in saying that as I also have a degree is psychology! Who are they to make outlandish judgements about single parents. There are many parents out there who are widowed or who are raising children on their own because they have their partners absent undertaking long service duties overseas in the armed forces. Are these people to be also cruelly judged by pontificating cowards like yourself? What gives YOU and others the right to stand there like the sanctimonious, self righteous, pious hypocrites that you are and make outlandish, unproven statements about children from single parent families? Instead of making cruel, uneducated generalisations about single parents and I notice that people like you always attack single MOTHERS because they are an easy target .. don’t you know that there are also many single fathers out there raising children? Why don’t you get off your high horse and inject a bit of empathy into your black heart, eh?
    - Katie08
      
      You ought to get your facts straight – first of all I am married with three successful adult children; secondly who gives a rat’s arse what these so-called nobodies have to say! I give scant attention to psychiatrists as most of them are two sandwiches short of a picnic anyway. Did you even have the intelligence to know that psychiatry is, in fact, recognised by the overwhelming majority of the medical profession as a Junk Science strongly backed by ruthless pharmaceutical companies? Do you realise that Psychiatry more often than not leaves patients more damaged in its wake? Psychiatry is open to misinterpretation and the whims of ever-changing fads, eg the once popular views of Sigmund Frued are now frowned upon! You really should be more discriminate in what you read and here’s a new concept – how about using your own common sense? I have a degree in psychology but I would not dare make judgements and generalisations about people unless I have walked in their shoes. Who are these crackpot psychiatrists to make outlandish judgements about single parents – they are just out to sell a book to those vacuous enough to be manipulated. Stupid is as stupid does, I guess! There are many parents out there who are widowed or who are raising children on their own because they have their partners absent undertaking long service duties overseas in the armed forces. Are these people to be also cruelly judged by pontificating cowards like yourself? What gives YOU and others the right to stand there like the sanctimonious, self righteous, pious hypocrites that you are and make outlandish, unproven statements about children from single parent families? Instead of making cruel, uneducated generalisations about single parents and I notice that people like you always attack single MOTHERS because they are an easy target .. don’t you know that there are also many single fathers out there raising children? Why don’t you get off your high horse and inject a bit of empathy into your black heart, eh?
stephencarter

It’s like Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the madness of (epocalyptic) crowds. This is the best revenge, laughing at the climate dogmatists. GWB was right, on this as on so much else. LOL
c w

I for one welcome our new alien overlords!
TennesseeRedDog

I met a guy touring Ducati at a cafe in the N. Georgia mountains 2 years ago. A naked Cote de Pablo could not have made me ogle more. It looked like it was built by NASA. The materials, workmanship…. wow. He bought it used for $30K? Can that be right?
- jaffa99
  
  That could be right depending on the model.
Timbones

Where do I contribute? Or will they tax me?
bungopony

Brilliant!!
Alejandro

My computer model is even scarier. The world’s temp will rise by 132 degrees Farenheit by 2100. Everyone will die a slow horrible death!

Of course, if I get my grant of $50 million for the first month’s work and direct deposits on a monthly basis of $50 million after that I’ll put my crack team to work and solve the problem by 2099.

I have a couple of more demands before you throw the money at me.

1. I want to be named head of the IPCC.

2. I want Al Gore’s Gulf Stream and he has to pay for the fuel…forever.

3. I need a security detail comprised of former professional girl beach volley ball players and they have to be in their bikinis at all times!
David

No, it is true! And the only way to stop it is to tax people – including the poor. And if you say it isn’t true, you’re a denier. And luckily our politicians (of all parties) have policies to save the world. They’re using taxpayer’s money to build an invisible shield that we can’t see, but that the aliens can. And that will protect us in future, even if there are no actual aliens coming now (and haven’t for the past 17 years). But if anyone dare question the efficacy of the magic shield, or suggest that the aliens won’t come or that there aren’t any, or think that there are other ways of defending ourselves, then you’re a disgrace to the human race and deserve to be… taxed even more. Luckily we have supra-national bodies like the EU to police this, and deal with deniers, because we British are obviously too weak or stupid to do it ourselves!
saintlaw

The ‘likes’ appended to the lol-free post above will tell any sane person all they need to know about the crapfest which follows.

True fact: 97% of internet trolls believe man-made global warming is a myth.
nvrbl

Apparantly you think all science is invalid because you don’t understand it.
- jaffa99
  
  Hmm, I don’t remember commenting on ‘all science’, that’s your own pathetic little straw-man. Now if you ask me whether I think computer models that don’t match observed reality are invalid then yes, of course they are, only a fool or a liar would say otherwise.
  - nvrbl
    
    It is interesting that you think that you are more qualified than 97% of the world’s climate scientists.
    - jaffa99
      
      Oh, another straw-man.
      
      You mean the 97% that agreed that CO2 was a greenhouse gas (physics) and that there has been some warming (the temperature record). I think you’ll find 97% of skeptics would also agree with that.
      
      Of course climate fools (like you) pretend the 97% agreed that the warming was man-made and requires urgent intervention (models) – but that’s not true.
      
      Like 100% of warmists you fit into the foolish or dishonest group who’s opinions I do not value.
    - nvrbl
      
      You are either misinformed or thoroughly dishonest. Climate scientists absolutely are saying that climate change is caused in large part by man. There are thousands of pages of reports on this. Do you really want to deny it?
    - jaffa99
      
      blah blah blah, arm-waving, blah blah blah blah, yawn.
    - jaffa99
      
      I have no interest in anything you say.

Baron

Fraser, a word into your ear. You’ve forgotten to remove Mark Steyn’s piece from the ‘Most Popular’ column where it still ranks as top in ‘read, shared’, and ‘commented’, but if one clicks on it it ain’t available. Arghhh

Baron

And this:

Good hit, but what else from the top observer of life on earth, and WELCOME BACK, Mark, and may you stay for ever, and longer if needed.

Katabasis

Why was the original version of this removed? (Along with the 398 comments)?

Pip

Probably because the Establishment didn’t like so many negative comments against the AGW Eco Fascist Conspiracy. The more the people wake up and protest. the more they will lie, spin, and if that doesnt work, censor, that’s what Lefties and Liberals do when you don’t agree with their slanted view of reality, because they know they cant win an honest debate so all they can do is be dishonest or attempt to silence dissent through censorship or propaganda.
itdoesntaddup

I guess the software collapsed at 400 comments.

Or it exploded at the comments made by Rob Honeycutt (who seems to work for Skeptical Science website that promotes the CAGW agenda).

FrankieThompson

Have we reached “Climate Collapse” without having stopped at “Climate Chaos” ?

ldenton

The promoters of the Titanic also thought they had the world of science figured out. That’s why they let fly with the idea that their ship was unsinkable. Didn’t work out for them, either.

James Hickling

Great to see Mark writing here again.

James Hickling

But what happened to the version with 300+ comments?!

robert franklin stroud

No one wants to admit to their friends and family that they were stupid or a sucker.

I expect even more hysterical predictions of doom from the Global Warminmongers in the months ahead. When you realize that their definition of success is complete control of your life (and not something measurable since a volcano erupting for a day can release more CO2 than all the cars in the world running for a year) you know how dangerous their enviro-religion is to your freedom and well-being.

Pip

Eco fascists, the new Communism. At some point in the future we will need to build new prisons to house them all in.
- politicstick
  
  Well, we better hurry, because they are already building the FEMA camps to house us in…….
- Caroline Cotton
  
  The Eco Fascists are already calling for censorship of those who
  
  disagee with their opinions.
  
  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2013/oct/16/climate-change-letters-editor-newspapers-denial-sceptics
politicstick

The naming of winter storms simply proves your point. And, the POLAR VOTEX….ooooohhhh HOW SCARY!!!!
- hmastercylinder
  
  Thar’s GOLD in them thar scary names!
  And THAT is what it’s all about, my friend.
  Jetting around the world on someone else’s dime while being worshiped as a sage by all your sycophants is way better than sitting in some rundown University, looking at charts and graphs and stupid students all day.
- sam williamson
  
  Polar Vortex. Isn’t that just angry bears charging eco-tourists somewhere in northern Canada.
Icarus62

You are of course incorrect about volcanoes.
- politicstick
  
  Well, what are the latest volcano numbers?
  Let’s start with Co2, then sulfur dioxide, then maybe particulates…..
  We’ll wait.
  - Icarus62
    
    http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php
    
    “Do the Earth’s volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities? Research findings indicate that the answer to this frequently asked question is a clear and unequivocal, “No.” Human activities, responsible for a projected 35 billion metric tons (gigatons) of CO2 emissions in 2010 (Friedlingstein et al., 2010), release an amount of CO2 that dwarfs the annual CO2 emissions of all the world’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes (Gerlach, 2011).
    
    The published estimates of the global CO2 emission rate for all degassing subaerial (on land) and submarine volcanoes lie in a range from 0.13 gigaton to 0.44 gigaton per year (Gerlach, 1991; Varekamp et al., 1992; Allard, 1992; Sano and Williams, 1996; Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998). The preferred global estimates of the authors of these studies range from about 0.15 to 0.26 gigaton per year. The 35-gigaton projected anthropogenic CO2 emission for 2010 is about 80 to 270 times larger than the respective maximum and minimum annual global volcanic CO2 emission estimates. It is 135 times larger than the highest preferred global volcanic CO2 estimate of 0.26 gigaton per year (Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998).”
    - politicstick
      
      Good work, Well I know I am doing my part to “feed the trees”………
      
      Sulfur dioxide is next……
      
      I hope you know I am doing this with a polite smile on my face……pay no attention to the avitar behind the curtain….LOL
Craig King

Indeed, it is much easier to fool someone than it is to convince them they have been fooled.

brock2118

Mark you have irreversibly offended the Climate Gods. Hope there is no collateral damage.

mememine

Ya funny how libs trash bible thumpers but libs can’t be libs unless they have their very own god to worship; a politician promising to make the weather nicer.

Vox_Clams

It is a little chilly and rainy this morning. I blame the Republicans.

mememine

Ask any climate blame believer why they “believe” in climate change and science only believes in nothing beyond; “could be” a crisis? They are so eager to believe in climate change that they don’t even know or care what science thinks as long as they can scare the kids and make it look like they are “concerned” for the planet. This is love for the planet? Its more like hate for humanity for who condemns their own children at the grunt of a 31 year old consensus headline and not even knowing what the consensus was; a meaningless consensus of “maybe”.

Boxhawk

Climate change is the perfect vehicle for Liberals. It doesn’t take any personal sacrifice on your part. Simply being terribly concerned absolves you of responsibility for the problem. Finally, you don’t have to worry about having to personally do something because the problem is so huge that only government can fix it.

Pip

Plus if you or your family happen to own land you can earn a kings ransom by letting your land to Wind Turbines.
mndasher

And because governments only tool is to impose taxes, more taxes would be forth coming. But alas they are taxing the wrong things. They must tax the Sun for all the climate change and damage it has done to our poor little planet over the past billion years or so. They might as well tax it for causing skin cancer too.
politicstick

Yes, and they go to meeting and stuff………..and drive home in an old oil burning Volvo…….or a Prius, you know the one with that huge (STRIP MINED) lithium battery.
- Cugger
  
  Then turn on the electric lights and TV in their houses, power courtesy of coal. And eat bagels the next morning made from wheat that was planted, fertilized, and harvested using diesel tractors. And cream cheesed made from milk that was transported to the nearest “organic” store by a diesel powered semi. It goes on and on.
  - politicstick
    
    ….and all of those thing brought to you by corporations…..don’t forget to buy your cars from your local car manufacturer. LOL
John H. Shuba

The real agenda behind climate change (or “global warming” or whatever) is not concern for the planet but concern for power. the claims of the eco-facists provide the perfect rationale for “progressive” politicians to move in and control EVERYTHING in society. How can it be otherwise? If everything that human beings do “damages the ecosystem” then it stands to reason that everything must be regulated and controlled by government officials. The threat of eco-doom is a far more persuasive (for the Left anyway) political argument for total state control than anything that Marx or Lenin could ever have dreamed up. The eco-freaks don’t like humanity and absolutely hate personal freedom.

peter hobday

This fun-making will not put off the scientists, nor their current top theory about ‘global climate change’. Until another scientist comes up with a more popular peer reviewed theory, this one will rule. That is how science works, folks, and no amount of laughter can alter it. Great article – only the Brits can do that total irony thing.

FrankS2

Only the Brits? I think Mark Steyn has quite a good stab at it!
- peter hobday
  
  Isn’t Canada still British? I get a bit behind sometimes, must confess. Sorry.
  - sam williamson
    
    Canada still speaks British, and we are loyal to HRM through our GG, and to William (Kate), and George, and,… if we have to, Charles.
    
    Mark’s a Canuck, educated in England, driven out of his native land by the thought police (who sought to ban him from his chosen career).
    
    He currently makes a living from the USA. The motto of his state is, “Live Free or Die”.
    - peter hobday
      
      Thanks Sam. That is a load of my mind! I thought I detected a British sense of humour.
- Sue Sims
  
  Mark Steyn is indeed Canadian, but his education was in England (at King Edward’s School, Birmingham), and his combination of Canadian, English and US styles of humour is unique, as well as irrestistible.*
  
  *Well, as long as you’re not the target of his satire.
George Walden

Popularity… ??? “That is how science works” these days? Let’s take a vote about M Theory!
- peter hobday
  
  That’ll be ‘peer popularity’ George.
- Wareagle82
  
  popularity and consensus. Don’t forget the consensus.
- peter hobday
  
  Peer popularity. We don’t count.

jfreed27

The media delight following the “ship in the ice” tells you everything you need to know about denial. Literally dozens of sites are dancing for joy. The Koch roaches are delirious.

This is a juicy cherry to be picked, of course. Who would have expected otherwise?

Look at the NASA temperature anomaly map. It records global temperatures.

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a004000/a004030/

If you look carefully at this world map you can find a “colder” region (in blue). It’s a tiny little portion amongst the “hotter”red regions. Someone found one of the very rare blue areas (Antarctica) and the Priests of Drivel are howling their victory.

Did anyone mention that Australia had the hottest year on record? Pretty extreme, as predicted.

Denial kills. The Koch Bros. and Friends who have pumped hundreds of million into anti-science distraction/delay has conservatives tied up into knots.

Example: a typical page from the anti-science denier playbook goes like this, given the following hypothetical.

Let’s say scientists predict that 100 year floods will occur five times more often, every 20 years. So, for 19 “normal” years (on average) deniers would crow and hoot, “so where’s your climate change?’ Then on the 20th year (on average), after a massive record breaking flood, their standard meme will be “one cannot say with certainty that THIS flood was the result of climate change; we had a big flood in ____, too”

Can’t lose, right? If climate had actually changed as above, deniers would simply ignore the fact that the odds (and the frequency and the cost to life and property) of destructive floods have increased fivefold.

H0w do they sleep at night? Seriously.

name

Yes, yes.. we are all going to die, swept out to ever growing oceans that will inundate the world.

I was promised coastal inundation. I bought inland property that is supposed to be beachfront now!
nickshaw

Now that’s funny!
Skeptics “dance for joy” because a bunch of idiots get stuck in the ice while on a trip to see the palm trees now growing where Douglas Mawson landed! All snug in their boat, never in any danger.
Meanwhile, warmistas can barely suppress the urge to dance a jig when the “storm of the century” (which always turns out to be not quite the storm of the century and, in fact, is usually bested by a storm eight years ago or so) leaves hundreds dead and thousands without shelter.
Why is that?
As far as cherry picking goes, why not? There are so many to be had!
How about the boobs who tried to row to the North Pole (again, during the summer) a few months ago and had to turn back because of the …wait for it….ice!
Or the huge iceberg that’s been floating around in the arctic for 5 years, traveling thousands of miles, having so many polar bears on it or in the ocean around it, that an expedition to explore it had to post armed guards whenever researchers left the ship!
It’s not like the warmistas don’t do the very same thing (with even less evidence that it’s really a cherry!) Take “Hurricane” Sandy, for instance.
And the “Eeevilll Koch” tirade is always delicious!
The guys who make wire connectors and toilet paper are so gosh darn powerful they bring the government / NGO juggernaut of Gorebull warming propaganda to it’s knees?
You can’t be serious!
Ah, but, I know you are!
And that’s why you are, in fact, dangerous.
John H. Shuba

What IS it with you guys and the Koch Brothers? I thought that their activities were merely confined to subverting U.S. elections and using the Tea Party as a nascent SA to control the streets as a prelude for the coming Kulturekampf. Now they want to destroy the Earth as well like some some cartoon villains from “Captain Planet.” (Cue maniacal laughter.) Is there nothing beyond their reach? Is there no evil that they cannot perform? Well as I said for the las five years, if the Koch Brothers did not exist it would be necessary for the Left to invent them. Besides, at least they took Halliburton off the hook.
jb

Damn those meddling Koch brothers. Couldn’t Obama just have paid them offwith the Solyndra money?
- Gnubbles
  
  Koch Bros are just the new Goldstein. Most on the left don’t know crap about about them but mindless views need mindless hate.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4zYlOU7Fpk
Craig King

Except they aren’t happening any more frequently by any measures anywhere.

What is wrong with you with your little word games and the fact that weather events have happened in the past surely shows that nothing supernatural is going on. By the way do you have a definition for “extreme weather events”? I only ask because nobody seems to have one which makes counting them difficult, thanks.

bobby poon

Two un-revocable tenets of the scientific method and the foundation of science are the results must be observable and repeatable. When the “climate” doesn’t perform like a
trained seal in accordance with the “global warming” models the jerked kneed
reaction by those whose livelihoods depend on a steady stream of taxpayer teat
money is to invent new theories they can’t prove that says the warming they
know has to be there is hiding somewhere…

Outside of academia and the protected golden calves of forever government funding when your theory doesn’t pan out you either find a sense of humility or face fraud charges.

Long before anyone circumvented the globe and lived to tell about it the Earth had been proven to be round not flat using the two above mentioned tenets of science. The Flat Earthers that live in the Global Warming movement just know they are right but can’t seem to find the proof despite more and more evidence every year staring them in the face that says they are wrong about what man’s contribution to climate is. The known temperature variations in both directions that there is solid evidence for that took place well before the industrial revolution when the population of the earth was less than 1/5th of what it is today are significantly beyond anything measured in the last 150
years yet the Global Warming models only produce one result that our trained
seal doesn’t seem to want to play along with. Honorable people can disagree on many things but if the glove doesn’t fit…

The bulk of historical GW data is the result of extrapolation and filling in missing data with curve fitting algorithms based on other theories and assumptions. The only incorruptible accurate data measurements we have is form satellites covering what should be a masterpiece of global temperature rises you don’t have to exaggerate the Y axis to see. The satellite data doesn’t perform like a pet seal either.

The last known E.L.E. has CO2 levels (the theory) of around 8000 PPM. Over the last 150 years of industrialization the CO2 PPM has risen what 100 PPM (estimated not measured) from 300 PPM to 400 PPM with nearly six times the population. What is the natural annual output of the extra 5.8 billion human beings regarding CO2 and other greenhouse gases? What gas was rising to dangerous levels on Apollo 13 when the scrubber filter failed? Based on the projected temperature rise the GW models, that keep getting being adjusted downward, how hot would the planet have had to be when the CO2 levels were 8000 PPM? Off the chart would be a safe answer if GW projections were worth the paper they are written on. Where did all that CO2 and heat go? The deep oceans? Under a rock? If you really want to see GW heads explode ask them what caused the last major ICE AGE and what started it to end 20,000 years ago. Be prepared to see a herd of deer looking back. The CO2 levels were what during the last ICE AGE?

Over billions of years the Earth has only had ice at the poles for 20% of that time (projected) and the output of our Sun before it grows into a Red Giant and consumes both Mercury and Venus and scorches this planet into a cinder will increase 10% every billion years over the next 4 maybe 5 billion years. Its radiant heat is felt to the end of our solar system and a tiny increase or decrease in output can have a large impact here 93,000,000 miles away. A single CME of the right magnitude and impact could send this planet back into the Stone age overnight and people who actually study the Sun have consistently said the Solar cycles has the largest measurable impact on our climate and global temperatures. Ask a GW worshiper what percentage of the
planets warmth comes from earth bound sources and the Sun. The magnitude difference will put our tiny contribution into its proper prospective if you can get an honest answer to that. GW is the cause of every disaster now because
it has to be to keep the pigs well fed.

Sharc 65

tl;dr. Otherwise, no concerns.
Sparta of Phoenix AZ

Indeed! That is the ideology of the left…They always answer their failed theories with more theory (which are never proven or take years and one more try before you can pass judgement); never held accountable for the results.
Chris

bobby poon go to jail. Straight to jail and do not pass Go! Common sense views about the facts have been outlawed and to jail you go. I don’t care if you didn’t know common sense has been outlawed, ignorance is no excuse.

Mary Gerdt

My Edwardsville, Illinois high school science teacher said, in 1974 ish that if you predict the weather, best accuracy is say tomorrow will be like today.#crapshootweatherpredictions.#coldirony

Michelle Houghtaling

Actually, this years disaster movie will be the brave and PROGRESSIVE crew of the ship, locked in dramatic struggle with the newest excuse for global warming’s stubborn lack of development: THE POLAR VORTEX!! Only the progressively progressive group think processes thought by our heroic crew are up to the challenge of THE POLAR VORTEX and get the progressive heroes safely home.

nickshaw

I saw that movie about the polar vortex.
It was called “The Day After Tomorrow”, or something.
Yeah, I don’t think it turned out too good.
All the Americans moved to Mexico because of the Gorebull warming, as I recall.

JimRed

By the way, it is SUMMER in the Antarctic!

sam williamson

Yeah, the eco-tourist trade drops off a tad in the winter, once the beaches are closed.

name

Thank you, Mark.

Hysterical.

John H. Shuba

“Polar Vortex” would make a great name for a metal band or maybe a Marvel super-villain. At any rate it has quickly become the most tiresome quasi-scientific catch-phrase since “carbon footprint.” This must truly be a great time to be alive if a whole shipload of wealthy eco-wankers have the disposable income to take an Antarctic pleasure cruise to check on the condition of the ice sheet. (Just fine Thank You!) Ironically this little venture takes place nearly an even 100 years since Sir Ernest Shackleton and party set sail in the ill-fated “Endurance.” You have to wonder what hard guys like Shackleton, Mawson and Amundsen would make of all this.

Icarus62

“You have to wonder what hard guys like Shackleton, Mawson and Amundsen would make of all this.”

I expect they would be disgusted by the anti-scientific attitudes typified by this article.
- Swanky
  
  Science has no opinion on what is right action.
  You are unscientific in suggesting or believing that science can have a moral position. Only humans can have a moral position or decide what the best course of action is.
  A medical diagnosis of a scrape on my arm does not tell me a) that I ought to treat the scrape, or b) *how* I should treat the scrape.
  
  This is fundamental to the argument. There is no moral imperative to attempt to interfere with the natural world. Your claim that there is one is irrational.
  - Icarus62
    
    The article is anti-scientific because it says things like this:
    
    “Big Climate is slowly being crushed by a hard, icy reality: if you’re heading off to university this year, there has been no global warming since before you were in kindergarten. That’s to say, the story of the early 21st century is that the climate declined to follow the climate ‘models’.”
    
    Both these claims are provably false, and well known to be. There’s certainly no excuse for a journalist to be unaware of this fact.
    - NevadaSteve
      
      You use that word (unscientific) but I don’t think you know what it means. Epic fail. Warmists have been caught fudging numbers and ignoring evidence that urbanization has impinged on weather stations causing the results to be inaccurate. But continue to beat a dead horse, at least you aren’t abusing a live one.
    - Icarus62
      
      Obvious nonsense, since the satellite series (including the UAH series produced by noted climate ‘skeptics’ Spencer and Christy) show the same rate of global warming as the terrestrial series.
      
      http://woodfortrees.org/graph/gistemp/last:360/mean:12/plot/uah/last:360/mean:12/offset:0.4/plot/gistemp/last:360/trend/plot/uah/last:360/trend/offset:0.4
      
      If you’re going to debate climate science, you should at least be aware of the facts.
    - NevadaSteve
      
      You should follow your own advice: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/06/the-original-temperatures-project/#more-100605
      
      No dataset that originates with a warmist is accurate, they always fudge the numbers. Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure and warmists are liars. Period, end of sentence.
    - Icarus62
      
      So the point about the UAH satellite series being produced by so-called ‘skeptics’ went right over your head, yes?
    - NevadaSteve
      
      No, the point that warmists are liars went right over yours. The Cimategate email revelations and the fraudulent hockey stick graph provide sufficient evidence of the widespread use of faked numbers to ignore anything warmists say. Your whole group has failed to allay the concerns that people who live or die from government grants will say or do anything to keep the gravy train running. Until you confess to what is already known there is no way anyone who isn’t part of the con will believe you. No one will bother to look at anything you provide, so it doesn’t matter what you say; it will be taken as a lie because your side has done it so often and consistently.
    - Swanky
      
      Well said, NS.
    - Icarus62
      
      Repeating the myths and lies of the global warming denial scam does you no credit.
    - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
      
      Warmist Hansen’s data has diverged 0.6C from warmist Carl Mears satellite data since 1998.
      
      http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/gistemp/from:1998
      
      Von Storch and Zorita confirm that GISS is warming at a rate double that of HADCRUT since 1998.
      
      http://www.academia.edu/4210419/Can_climate_models_explain_the_recent_stagnation_in_global_warming
    - Icarus62
      
      Deceitful nonsense.
      
      RSS is biased very slightly low in recent years, but in reality there’s very little difference between any of the series –
      
      http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/last:360/mean:12/offset:0.3/plot/gistemp/last:360/mean:12/plot/uah/last:360/mean:12/offset:0.4/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:360/mean:12/offset:0.1/plot/rss/last:360/offset:0.3/trend/plot/gistemp/last:360/trend/plot/uah/last:360/offset:0.4/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:360/offset:0.1/trend
      
      GISTEMP: 0.17°C per decade
      HADCRUT4: 0.17°C per decade
      UAH: 0.17°C per decade
      RSS: 0.15°C per decade
    - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
      
      Congratulations. You’ve highlighted your deceitful fraud for everyone to see with your variable “offsets” configured into the graph for everyone to see. Looks like a page right out of Hansen himself.
      
      Btw,
      
      1) Better contact Mears right away and let him know his satellite data is biased because you have a graph.
      
      2) Contact Von Storch and all their peer reviewers and let them know their trends are wrong because you have a graph.
      
      3) Contact Fyfe and Zwiers and all their peer reviewers and let them know their data is wrong because you have a graph.
      
      http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Climate%20change/Climate%20model%20results/over%20estimate.pdf
    - jb
      
      Don’t forget Marcott and the ever changing thesis and journal paper.
    - Icarus62
      
      So to add to your inadequacies, you don’t even understand baselines. Why are you attempting to discuss climate science if you don’t even understand the most basic stuff?
    - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
      
      A trend is a trend is a trend regardless of baselines. The fact that you apply variable offsets tells a story. Better contact Von Storch and tell him he’s wrong. Hey, I thought you guys were all about peer review?
      
      http://www.academia.edu/4210419/Can_climate_models_explain_the_recent_stagnation_in_global_warming
    - Swanky
      
      Again, bollocks. You know as well as I do that there have been temperature rises according to any number of measurements and institutions set up so to measure. GISS, for one example.
    - Icarus62
      
      Did you omit a word here? Your comment makes no sense. Anyway, global warming continues unabated –
      
      http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png
      
      … and at the rate projected by the IPCC –
      
      http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/0/7/6/2/8/5/gissar4-129282987548.png
      
      Any journalist worth his salt would know this.
    - Swanky
      
      Of course it makes sense. There is general agreement that temperatures have leveled off for at least the past 17 years, or a good deal longer, depending on whose readings/conclusions we’re looking at.
      
      On supposed ‘global warming’ (names are short forms for institutions/universities, and monitoring methods):
      
      For RSS the warming is NOT significant for 23 years.
      For RSS: +0.130 +/-0.136 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1990
      
      For UAH, the warming is NOT significant for 19 years.
      For UAH: 0.143 +/- 0.173 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
      
      For Hacrut3, the warming is NOT significant for 19 years.
      For Hadcrut3: 0.098 +/- 0.113 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
      
      For Hacrut4, the warming is NOT significant for 18 years.
      For Hadcrut4: 0.098 +/- 0.111 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
      
      For GISS, the warming is NOT significant for 17 years.
      For GISS: 0.113 +/- 0.122 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1996
      
      Global warming is a political, scientific and financial scam.
    - Icarus62
      
      Why are you posting this when I’ve already proven you wrong? Seems a strange and rather pointless tactic. Global warming continues unabated, with over 90% of the accumulating heat going into the oceans. In fact, over the last decade the oceans were gaining heat at 20 times the rate of global human energy consumption – twice the rate of the previous two decades. That means global warming is accelerating, not slowing down.
    - Swanky
      
      I could come up with 20 x the rate of hot chocolates served in restaurants nationwide: so what? There is no crisis, life on Earth prefers things warmer, the past several years have had demonstrably and notably colder winters, climate change is a normal phenomenon, and humans have no obligation to do anything about climate.
    - Exton
      
      HAHAHAHAHA. What a LIE. You must be a paid propagandist or a useful idiot. Both Satellite and the ARGO water monitoring devices show NO SIGNIFICANT changes.
      
      Before you come back with the lies from the IPCC and NOAA about ARGO – Even the IPCC acknowledges how poorly the ocean temperatures were sampled at depth before ARGO.
      So you have to ONLY look at temperatures that ARGO have given since its inception. Note also that the unadjusted ocean heat content during the ARGO era was
      inconveniently flat and that it too has been adjusted to show warming.
    - Icarus62
      
      Global warming continues unabated according to the Argo-only data.
    - sam williamson
      
      Come on Icky, you can admit that the hockey stick shtick has gone a tad droopy lately. The global warming god will not strike you dead with a bolt of naturally incurring lightning,
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Argo data is inadequate to prove anything about global climate trends. ARGO themselves say so.
      
      http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Uses_of_Argo_data.html
    - Baron
      
      When is the 90% of the warming going to reach the Antarctic sea then? Perhaps the ecochondriacs on the Russian vessel should have stayed few days more.
    - Icarus62
      
      It already is –
      
      http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/0/7/6/2/8/5/highlat-126252367515.jpeg
    - sam williamson
      
      This the common-sense, guy-in-the-street argument that the “scientists” have a hard time with. The world is their test tube, and damn it, it’s going to work according to theory no matter what. “I’m going to boil water at 99 degrees, no matter how much pressure I have to remove!” Hello! Many of us are just fine with 100 degrees.
      I’m quite content, as are many in the northern hemisphere, with a little warming. We’ll take tourists from the south, who want to get away from it all, in the summer.
      Better than me giving up the car, the central heating, and the supermarket, for the log farm, waterwheel, candles, sheep and a chicken coop in the back yard.
      If you’re hell bent on not warming by CO2, I’m all in favour of the true believers giving it up, and sending scrolls in bottles to China, to petition them to give it up as well.
    - Baron
      
      Quite, sam, you’ve got it in one. Stick with it, you’ll be in the winning team when it blows over.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      “I’ve already proven you wrong?”
      
      No, you have never proven anyone wrong in your life, silly little rodent.
      
      All you have proven is that you are a paranoid, credulous, highly institutionalised nitwit who makes stuff up and is entirely scientifically illiterate.
    - Baron
      
      Swanky, you’re amazing, Baron’s mightily impressed.
    - Swanky
      
      :^*
    - Swanky
      
      My reply was disappeared, apparently.
      
      Anyway, this was it… :^*
    - Baron
      
      You see, Swanky, you’ve been warned, behave or they will disappear you again.
    - Swanky
      
      Ha ha ha! :^*
    - Icarus62
      
      No matter how many times you choose to ignore it, the evidence still shows that Global warming continues unabated and in accordance with IPCC climate model projections.
    - Swanky
      
      Was this the same IPCC that got its dates ludicrously wrong on some dire event it foretold? A bunch of Lefty clowns with too much power, clubbing together a la Agenda 21, to tell the world how to live.
    - Icarus62
      
      Evasion noted.
    - Swanky
      
      I never evade, even if I don’t give you the reply you were looking for. But as we are opposed on this, I don’t see how I ever could.
    - Exton
      
      Sorry your chart is worthless, it is in Joules (10 to the 22) not temperature. And in reality not even enough Joules to raise the total volume of Earths water volume by 1degee. Small changes ARE exaggerated. So it is not proof of anything but manipulation. If anything the chart show how miniscule man kinds contribution are.
      
      The terajoule (TJ) is equal to one trillion (10 to the 12) joules. About 63 terajoules were released by the atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima
      
      The petajoule (PJ) is equal to one quadrillion (10 to the 15) joules. PJ is equivalent to about 50 megatons of TNT. This is the amount of energy released by the Tsar Bomba, the largest man-made nuclear explosion ever.
      
      The yottajoule (YJ) is equal to one septillion (10 to the 24) joules. This is approximately the amount of energy required to heat the entire volume of water on Earth by 1 °Celsius.
    - Baron
      
      Exton, you are a star, what a hit, that should silence the deluded one.
    - Swanky
      
      It won’t. He’s not only deluded, but apparently he was promised a place in heaven if he stuck to the delusion.
    - sam williamson
      
      Not to be crude, but how many virgins do you have to be promised, to get on board that windmill-powered train.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      “that should silence the deluded one.”
      
      Not a snowball’s chance in Hades.
      
      This one isn’t just deluded, it’s as mad as a box of frogs.
    - sam williamson
      
      Wait a minite. Isn’t Hades the result of end-game global warming, caused by the non-believers. Oil, sulpher, industrialists with pitch-forks – yeah, it’s all coming into focus now.
    - Icarus62
      
      The chart shows that global warming continues unabated – i.e. it verifies the predicted planetary energy imbalance caused primarily by our 42% increase in atmospheric CO2.
      
      You should be aware that the global climate is absorbing 300TW more energy than it is radiating away to space, and that it’s precisely because of the large heat capacity of the oceans that we are currently being protected from the much larger surface and lower troposphere warming that this energy imbalance would otherwise be causing.
    - Exton
      
      Lie, lie, liar. There is no 42% increase in CO2 caused by mankind. Any increase in CO2 is ALL natural. Science has shown that CO2 in the atmosphere is about 800 years, BEHIND a temperature increase. This is the time it takes heat to move between the top and bottom of the oceans. Al Gore’s flimflam film had it backward. The reason is that CO2 is released from water by heat. Why do you think that CO2 goes down in the winter? if mankind was responsible then why does CO2 in the atmosphere go down in the winter when we produce the MOST CO2?
      
      In fact the last few years have shown that as CO2 goes up, there is NO corresponding increase in temperatures.
      
      The mistake you are making is that you assume that increasing CO2 has a corresponding increase in heat reflection. It has a saturation point, much like pouring 10 gal of water into a 5 gal container, It can only do so much.
      
      Also to point our the absurdity of your comment. If you represent the Atmospheric Gases by a column 1 mile high, man kinds contribution is 3/8 of and inch. INSIGNIFICANT. or represent the Gases on a football field. CO2 in the atmosphere would be about the width of a white line. Man kinds contribution of CO2 would be equal to the width of a pencil line
    - Icarus62
      
      “There is no 42% increase in CO2 caused by mankind”
      
      Now you’re just being completely ridiculous. What do you think comes out of vehicle exhaust pipes and power station chimneys?
    - Exton
      
      You did not read my whole post. Your comment shows that you are a brain washed Atheist that thinks man kind is more powerful than God or Nature. I explain my comments, you just dribble some Marxist nonsense. Nothing you have said is logical or explains anything.
      You should have taken a science class instead of basket weaving.
    - Icarus62
      
      Evasion noted.
    - sam williamson
      
      If you believe it is carbon dioxide, can you prove it by inhaling that harmless gas for 10 minutes?
      
      No wait a minute, I don’t really want that. Besides, I see now that you’ve already conducted the 5 minute version of that experiment to my satisfaction.
    - Exton
      
      Icarus62 your comment shows that you DID not read my whole post, and are just an Atheist dribbling out Marxist propaganda. You assume that because there is no God, man kind is all powerful and even more powerful than God or nature. The differences between my posts and yours is that I give Facts and explanations. You just give fake or misleading facts and cannot explain anything.
    - sam williamson
      
      Any chance you can be the male lead in Gravity II, and help with radiating useless heat into space.
    - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
      
      Your OHC chart is just made up data. What did AR5 say about OHC?
    - Baron
      
      Why didn’t you tell the tossers stranded on the Russian ship that global warming continues unabated? They may have stayed, did abit of sunbathing.
    - sam williamson
      
      The Al Gores on the ship found the truth a bit inconvenient to deal with, and skipped the return trip in favour of the additional helicopter fuel option.
      
      Gore himself (as Mark point out), just missed a sound mocking, opting for the diesel fuel escape.
      
      That’s one thing about the wealthier folks in the warming crowd I have to admire. They stick to their beliefs that you should cut back on emissions and pay-up so they can solve the problem.
    - Baron
      
      sam, that’s what’s so tragic on the AGW imbecility, it’s people like you and Baron, the great unwashed who suffer, those with the money can buy an escape. But worry not, they’ll come a cropper one day that will shock them.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Is sodahead (to which you link repeatedly) the new cokehead?
- Exton
  
  HAHAHAHAHAHA. talk about the pot calling the kettle black. The Scientific deniers are those pushing the Marxist theory of man made climate anything.
- John H. Shuba
  
  Pardon me for saying this but those like you who push the “enviromental agenda” don’t have anyone writing with the wit, good nature and grace of Mark Steyn. You are all so plonkingly wooden and ill-tempered, so obsessed with charts and diagrams (which I doubt you understand) and so lacking in humor that you make Cotten Mather look like Bob Hope. I believe that most politicians who have latched onto “global warming” have done so for no other reason but to grasp at political power. After all, if AGW global-warming exists it will require a vast expansion of government into all aspects of commercial, public and private life to “control.” For “progressive” control-freak liberals this is an argument to good to pass up. In your case however I believe you are just luxuriating in the pleasure of being a scold. You are one of the new Puritans obsessively tracking down environmental sin. Like all Puritans you are ripe subjects for satire.
  - sam williamson
    
    I’ve noticed over the years that the progressive left liberals, whatever one wishes to call that mindset, has no sense of humour at all. Say something like, “Bushitler is an asskole” they will all roar with something akin to laughter, and continue in the same vein with even funnier stuff.
    But, faced with the (you can’t write this stuff) global warming expedition ship getting stuck in the ice story, nothing. Just a vacant dead sort of stare, much like Dr. Adams, after one too many rides on the neural neutralizer.
    I believe it actually a form of mental illness

Icarus62

The hard, icy reality is that global warming continues unabated, and at the rate predicted by climate models. It has been this way ever since the 1980s – climate scientists have been correctly predicting the course of global warming for over 3 decades now. The fact that we haven’t yet taken any serious action to combat it might be due in part to the global warming denial scam funded by Big Oil and their cronies, but is probably more to do with simple human short-sightedness. We’re just not very good at reacting to the long-term threat from the climate crisis.

Swanky

1. There’s no crisis.
2. There’s no crisis.
3. See you in 25 years when there’s still no crisis. With my advice for the world, we shall still have power sources with minimal pollution and high living standards. With your Chicken-Little mentality, we would have inefficient self-polluting high-tax ‘solutions’ that would not provide for our energy needs, would hurt economies the world over, and do nothing to benefit life on Earth one way or the other.
- Icarus62
  
  There is a crisis, because modern human civilisation only knows how to exist in a Holocene climate, which we’re rapidly leaving behind now. Undoubtedly we will adapt to some extent, but it will be very costly.
  - Swanky
    
    What a lot of bollocks! Of course we’re not leaving the Holocene! To the extent that anything changes, it will be because the next Ice Age cometh. Over which we have NO control.
    - Icarus62
      
      Incorrect. The world is warming rapidly as a result of our greenhouse gas emissions and has already returned to, and probably exceeded, the maximum temperature of the Holocene. There will be no ice age on any time scale we are likely to care about.
  - Exton
    
    So what is the so called average temperature of the wold suppose to be? When have we ever had it? What ended the last Ice Age, when man kind did not have cars? And how do you explain similar trends in temperature showing up on Mars?
sam williamson

The hard, icy reality that climate alarmists might want to ponder, is that 99% of humanity doesn’t give a rat’s behind if the world warms. The next generations will simply move north or to higher ground. Mankind is simply not going to give up its 20th century lifestyle because a bunch of “scientists” say the planet is warming and God forbid, the ice is melting. Not any more than hundreds of millions of people are going to give up drinking, just because it has been scientifically proven to causes suffering and harm to the point of death.

It’s not about science. People are quite happy with their heated houses and automobiles and won’t modify their behaviour out of that comfort zone. Sure, they may buy different light bulbs, and your neighbour may puff out his chest a bit as he parks his bumper-sticker covered hybrid automobile, but that’s it.

Surely the most committed group of people in the world today is the global warming crowd. And they won’t give up the Antarctic cruises, helicopter rescues, airplane rides , et al. Take a stroll through your neighbourhood and calculate how many of your neighbours have given up all forms of transportation (other than feet), home heating and cooling, and consumption of products brought to them via greenhouse gas transportation. If the Global Warming crowd won’t vigourously embrace the wooden canvass sailing ships, their own two feet, knitting clothes from Dolly, and dwellings kept warm with only sun and body heat, why would it be expected the doubters would?

Scotland, Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Scandinavia, may all become very attractive in the centuries ahead. Better to adapt than to try to engineer human behaviour. You may think you are saving the planet for your kids, but they are just going to say, “Dad we’re moving to Scotland – it’s really nice up there.”
- Icarus62
  
  “People are quite happy with their heated houses and automobiles and won’t modify their behaviour out of that comfort zone.”
  
  I completely agree. That’s one reason why I’m not at all optimistic that we’re going to solve the climate crisis.
  - sam williamson
    
    You can’t solve climate. You live with it. If all the animals on the planet are passing gas, and causing global warming, you don’t kill them all, tax them or change their diet.
    
    Sam Kinison summed it up rather brutally last century about concerns over people starving in the African deserts.
    
    “Get out of the desert!”
    - Icarus62
      
      Well, we’ve caused the climate crisis and we could in theory solve it by sequestering hundreds of billions of tons of CO₂ from the free atmosphere in order to restore the planetary energy balance… but I agree that we will most likely have to live with it, for social and technological reasons. I’d love to be proven wrong.
    - Exton
      
      WE cannot do squat to the Climate. Nature is about 1000 time larger and more influential on the Climate as we are. Your views are that of a Atheist that thinks man kind can equal God.
    - Icarus62
      
      You are incorrect.
    - sam williamson
      
      Man discovered fire a long time ago (according to Hollywood), and they are not going to give it up, whether by burning wood, peat, coal, oil (any of its byproducts) gas,or rocket fuel.
      
      I would love to see man harness the ocean tides for unlimited energy or develop nice safe cold fusion, but it won’t happen in this climate. Better to buy your children and grandchildren a good piece of land in Scotland.
      
      If, in theory we could change it all back to 1800 style CO2 levels, we still woudn’t. Nobody is giving up their comforts to do it. It’s not the science – it’s the mankind, who will agree, with overwhelming 100% consent that the other fellow should give up his/her CO2 producing ways.
    - Foxdogs
      
      People in countries that have the modern conveniences are not going to give them up and people in countries that do not have them are going to acquire them. So unless the AGW folks are ready to start shooting, and I suspect that many are, they need to change their focus toward accommodating climate change rather than preventing it.
    - squareWave
      
      Even if your AGW predictions were true, people are not going quietly into the regimented, authoritarian tyranny that it would take to implement your imagined solutions. Why don’t Green cultists just admit that mass genocide is what they have in mind? Some of the more honest (if not tone deaf) among you have pretty much done so.
    - Icarus62
      
      The solutions proposed are not always tyranny. James Hansen’s preferred strategy is to promote free market solutions by a ‘tax and dividend’ scheme.
jukin

You are not very well informed. The IPCC predicted temperatures are not just wildly off but inverse of actual temperatures. Other than that those computer models are spot on.

Ladies and gentlemen we have a TRUE believer in Icarus62! All faith in absence of any proof it has faith.
- Icarus62
  
  Actually the IPCC projections have been spot on –
  
  http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/RFC12_Fig1.jpg
  - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
    
    Why do you just keep repeating the same lie? I already showed you what AR5 already admitted.
    
    “For the period 1998–2012, 111 of the 114 climate-model simulations show a surface-warming trend larger than the observations . There is medium confidence that this difference between models and observations is to a substantial degree caused by unpredictable internal climate variability. Variability sometimes enhances and sometimes counteracts the long-term externally forced warming trend. Internal variability thus diminishes the relevance of short trends for long-term climate change. There are also possible contributions from inadequacies in the solar, volcanic, and aerosol forcings used by the models and, in some models, from too strong a response to increasing greenhouse gases and other anthropogenic factors.
    
    In summary, the observed recent surface-warming hiatus is attributable in roughly equal measure to a cooling contribution from internal variability and a reduced trend in external forcing (expert judgment, medium confidence).”
    
    Why do you believe John Kook at Nazi Science?
    
    http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/debunk/skepticalscience/1_herrcook-sml.gif
    - Arius1071
      
      Icarus62 is a religious fanatic. Facts don’t matter to him, only what he believes.
    - Icarus62
      
      “Internal variability thus diminishes the relevance of short trends for long-term climate change.”
      
      Precisely.
    - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
      
      ROTFLMFAO! Apparently you have trouble with simple reading comprehension. You said
      
      “Actually the IPCC projections have been spot on”
      
      The IPCC clearly state that 114 out of 17 model runs (97.4%) are outside of observations. The fact that “Internal variability thus diminishes the relevance of short trends for long-term climate change” may or may not be true but irrelevant. This just confirms the point that the models are outside observations for the last 15 years. Thus your comment
      
      “Actually the IPCC projections have been spot on” is patently false. Thanks for making my point. Btw, did you notice the IPCC didn’t say anything about that bogus OHC graph you’ve been peddling.
    - Icarus62
      
      It’s invalid to base arguments about global warming on non-robust short-term trends in a climate metric which represents only 3% of the total heat content of the climate system. Can you see why?
    - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
      
      Fyfe et al 2013 covers a 20 year period from 1993. There have been 4 IPCC assessment reports since 1993. 97.4% of the model have failed. I asked you 3 times what AR5 said about your bogus OHC data with it’s made up data and you never answer. You just keep digging. You’re only fooling 1 person around here.
      
      “Actually the IPCC projections have been spot on”
      -Icarus62
      
      http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Climate%20change/Climate%20model%20results/over%20estimate.pdf
  - Craig King
    
    Yet the IPCC in AR5 have downgraded the reliability of all the GCM ( models ) to the point of having no faith in their ability to predict future temperatures. They did this because they all not only disagree with each other but also with measured reality.
    
    The models embody all that is known about climate science ® which leads one to the inevitable conclusion that the science is at best incomplete and more likely simply wrong.
Abu Nudnik

We have always been at war with Oceana.
Exton

Ahh the comments of a typical Marxist propagandist. Blame Big Oil, how much do they spend fighting this Lie? About $200 Million of their OWN money? The US Government spent over $5 Billion (our tax dollars) pushing this crap in other countries. obama lost $500 Million to Solyndra, $22 Billion this year a lone, and we only spend $12 Billion on Border control.

The money we wasted in renewable energy, energy efficiency and
adaptation to climate change totaled $359 billion, $5 billion less than in 2011, as an economic slowdown hit state and private-sector budgets.

This is money that could Pay for the unemployment, schools, and creating jobs in the Private sector. WAKE UP FOOL, They are killing us economically on a FRAUD. And you attack the Oil Companies?
GrimJack

Even though I respect (not really) your religious convictions, you must be in a remote parish because your church (the CRU, your Vatican) has conceded
there has been no warming in well over a decade. In fact, there has been quiet discussion among your religious leaders that we might actually be entering a cooling phase, hence talking about Climate Change and how everything points to Climate Change so they can continue to get paid.
Big Oil funds AGW/Climate Change believers. They are hoping to get in on the ground floor of the Carbon Credit Scam (AGW/Climate Change version of Indulgences) where they can make billions of dollars for very little effort from rubes like you. If you actually follow the money, the vast majority actually comes from governments funding the AGW/Climate Change religion. If there is no crisis, there is no money coming in, hence AGW/Climate Changes simple human short-sightedness damaging real science.
- Icarus62
  
  Global warming continues unabated and in accordance with IPCC climate model projections.
  - r murphy
    
    You should go back to SKS and preach to the choir, seems your religion isn’t welcome here.
itdoesntaddup

Does Big Oil fund China?

You’re a 9/11 truther on the side, aren’t you?

FrankieThompson

Heat. Global warming.
Melting ice in summer. Global warming
Ice in winter. Climate Change
Storms. Climate Chaos
Floods. Climate Chaos
Earthquakes. Climate Collapse
Volcanic eruptions. Climate collapse
Drought. – Global Warming.
Nice day. Global warming.
Rainy day. Climate change.
Chilly day. Climate change
Bit Nippy. Climate Denial.
No snow on slopes. Global warming
Snow on slopes. Climate Change
Coastal Erosion. Global warming.
Ice Age. Eh?
Interglacial? What?
Not quite sure how it’s going to turn out. Climate chaos and/or Denial.
Take a brolly. Climate change.

EdwardT

You forgot their latest aberration: “Climate Justice”.
- Lexonaut
  
  I thought you were joking but I looked up the term anyway only to discover that you were serious.
  
  It’s over, folks. It really is.
- icwydt
  
  Oh great, just when I thought is was safe to go out for a while.

Alan Horner

“Is that an ice core in your pocket or are you just glad to see me”? ROFLMAO!!!
Mark Steyn, you are the man.

effinayright

“Is that an ice core in your pocket…?”

Pure Steyn gold!!!

Carlos Ranger

“….a climate activist travels the world bedding big-breasted women who are amazed by his sustainable growth.”

I spewed coffee all over my monitor when read that line. Steyn, you owe me!

bhutanbeau

Welcome back Mark Steyn…! You have been sorely missed..:)

J.J.

hahahaha….. this guy is great.

jukin

The more their beliefs and lies get proven wrong by reality, the greater the hysteria from the cultists of AlGore will become.

Icarus62

The climate scientists have consistently been proven correct by reality. They predicted the world would warm rapidly in response to anthropogenic greenhouse gases, and it has. The warming is at the rate predicted on the basis of the known laws of physics.

So-called ‘skeptics’, on the other hand, have been proven spectacularly wrong – Lindzen underestimating global warming by about a factor of 3, for example.
- Rob
  
  What are you talking about? Temperatures have been *declining* for the past decade and a half, and your delusional, bare assertion cannot change that.
  
  As for “the laws of physics”, the Earth is a big, complex system, and your remark is as ignorant as saying that “the laws of biology” would prove that exercising will cause you to overheat. But just as the body contains homeostatic mechanisms (such as perspiration), the Earth has them as well, and climatologist con men such as Michael Mann are either too ignorant or corrupt to admit that their predictions were dead wrong, never mind overconfident. Aren’t the polar icecaps supposed to be melted by now, instead of having *increased* by about 60%? What would it take to break through your delusion and get you to admit that Warmists have not taken everything into account and screwed up badly?
  - Icarus62
    
    You should be aware that global warming continues unabated and that Arctic sea ice is in accelerating decline.
    
    As NASA says:
    
    “The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century. Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. Increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.”
    
    There’s no mystery about it. We’ve substantially increased the infrared opacity of the atmosphere, so the global climate is gaining more heat from the sun than it can radiate away to space, and hence is heating up. Basic, undeniable physics.
    - Exton
      
      In a recently revised and re-published paper, Dr Gerlich debunks AGW and shows that the IPCC “consensus” atmospheric physics model tying CO2 to global warming is not only unverifiable, but actually violates basic laws of physics, i.e. the First and Second Law of Thermodynamics. The latest version of this momentous scientific paper appears in the March 2009 edition of the International Journal of Modern Physics.
      
      The central claims of Dr. Gerlich and his colleague, Dr. Ralf Tscheuschner, include, but are not limited to:
      1) The mechanism of warming in an actual greenhouse is different than the mechanism of warming in the atmosphere, therefore it is not a “greenhouse” effect and should be called something else.
      
      2) The climate models that predict catastrophic global warming also result in a net heat flow from atmospheric greenhouse gasses to the warmer ground, which is in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
      
      Essentially, any machine which transfers heat from a low temperature reservoir to a high temperature reservoir
      without external work applied cannot exist. If it did it would be a “perpetual motion machine” – the realm of pure sci-fi.
      
      Gerlich’s and Tscheuschner’s independent theoretical study is detailed in a lengthy (115 pages), mathematically complex (144 equations, 13 data tables, and 32 figures or graphs), and well-sourced (205 references) paper. The German physicists prove that even if CO2 concentrations double (a prospect even global warming advocates admit is
      decades away), the thermal conductivity of air would not change more than 0.03%. They show that the classic concept of the glass greenhouse wholly fails to replicate the physics of Earth’s climate. They also prove that a greenhouse operates as a “closed” system while the planet
      works as an “open” system and the term “atmospheric greenhouse effect” does not occur in any fundamental work involving thermodynamics, physical kinetics, or radiation theory. All through their paper the German scientists show how the greenhouse gas theory relies on guesstimates about the scientific properties involved to “calculate” the
      chaotic interplay of such a myriad and unquantifiable array of factors that is beyond even the abilities of the most powerful of modern supercomputers.
      
      The paper’s introduction states it neatly:
      
      (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33
      degrees Celsius is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
      
      This thorough debunking of the theory of man made warming disproves that there exists a mechanism whereby carbon dioxide in the cooler upper atmosphere exerts any thermal “forcing” effect on the warmer surface below. To do so would violate both the First and Second Laws of
      Thermodynamics. As there is no glass roof on the earth to trap the excess heat, it escapes upward into space.Thus we may conclude that the common sense axioms are preserved so that the deeper the ocean, the
      colder the water and heat rises, it does not fall. QED.
      
      http://www.climategate.com/german-physicists-trash-global-warming-theory
    - Icarus62
      
      Readily debunked by the fact that upwelling infrared radiation from the surface is 155W/m² greater than the 240W/m² coming into the atmosphere from solar irradiance and going out of the top of the atmosphere in the form of infrared radiation to space. The difference is, by definition, the greenhouse effect. Thus the Gerlich and Tscheuschner is arrant nonsense – pure pseudoscience.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      I’ve news for you. At the mean earth orbital distance, solar radiation is about 1370W/m2.
      
      I think you should take the new course being offered at Exeter University, which promises to explain why the “Greenhouse effect” is bad physics.
    - Icarus62
      
      What is insolation averaged over the surface of the planet and taking albedo into account?
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      What’s average radiation from the earth taking average emissivity into account?
      
      Part of the problem is we don’t have accurate enough data on either score to be sure of the energy balance to the degree that climate scientists like to pretend.
    - Icarus62
      
      You’re missing the point – we have the warming oceans, warming troposphere, warming surface, melting ice, rising sea level etc. to make us sure of the existence of said energy imbalance.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      You’re missing the point. We’re now ASSUMING that the oceans have been warming in order to to be consistent with an ASSUMED energy imbalance while accounting for the lack of warming in HADCRUT et al data. Moreover, global polar ice cover is currently well above the average for the time of yea, and the anomaly has been increasing. We lack the data to be sure about it, which is why so many
      
      different hypotheses are now emerging.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      The Earth’s albedo has been changing:
      
      http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2004ScienceMeeting/SORCE%20WORKSHOP%202004/SESSION_4/4_12_Palle.pdf
      
      It changes constantly – diurnally, seasonally, and annually. The effects over a couple of decades show a range of 6W/m2 in effective surface irradiation in the visible and near IR.
    - Icarus62
      
      More evasion. It actually gives you the answer in the web page you linked to. Slide number 4.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      More evasion Slide 5 is titled:
      
      The earth’s albedo is highly
      variable
    - Doug
      
      Son, denial is no way to get ahead in this world. As they say, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts. The facts are that there has been no global warming for the past 16 or so years and this flat-line in global temperatures was not predicted by any of the “climate change” computer models. Does this mean that the models are useless? No. It just means that they aren’t working and must either be fixed or tossed.
    - Arius1071
      
      I spent my career in IT and when I first heard of computer models on CO2 predicting higher temperatures I knew it was junk science. Later, with data from satellites and the cloud research at CERN the correlation of CO2 to temperature has been overthrown. The religious fanaticism of AGW proponents will ignore science when it doesn’t fit the ideological alter they worship at.
    - sam williamson
      
      Careful. You don’t want to be burned at a CO2 emitting stake.
    - Icarus62
      
      Your premise is incorrect.
    - r murphy
      
      Your ideology is incorrect. You are promoting religion wrapped up in faux science.
    - Icarus62
      
      You find the facts to be inconvenient.
      Not my problem.
    - r murphy
      
      Actually I find that real world observations are very convenient, if I were a professional alarmist as yourself they would be very inconvenient.
    - Icarus62
      
      So you are comfortable with the fact that global warming continues unabated and in accordance with IPCC climate model projections?
    - Swanky
      
      So we’re supposed to be impressed by a UN group of tyrants, dictators, and Lefty know-nothings using models that can’t even ‘predict’ the past? Give me a break!
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      sodahead, or is that cokehead. that well known global authority on climate?
    - sam williamson
      
      Could you ease up on the red ink. I’m still in counseling from the grade school days. In these forums, CAPS and red ink tends to get one categorized as tinfoil hat fashionista.
    - Icarus62
      
      The red ink is not my choice. It’s just how the page formats URLs.
    - sam williamson
      
      Curious how no one else suffers from that affliction. Thank you for the reply, by the way.
    - Swanky
      
      Or, depending on the institution measuring, it’s anywhere from 17 to 24 years now….
    - Icarus62
      
      Just to be clear: Global warming continues unabated and in accordance with IPCC climate model projections.
    - r murphy
      
      Do you get paid by the lie, by the comment, or just by the time you hang around?
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      sodahead, that well known global authority on climate?
- Exton
  
  Do you get paid to post this propaganda? Richard Siegmund Lindzen is an American atmospheric physicist and
  Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute
  of Technology. What are your qualifications? And what article can you point to that states he underestimated GW by factor of 3? First he says it does not exist, so why would be make any predictions?
  
  http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/LIND0710.html
  
  The Global warming nuts have been constantly proven to be not only wrong, but liars. If AGW causes both so called extremes in both heat and cold, of good times and bad time,if it causes everything, it causes nothing.
  So are you telling me that if you increase the average temperature in Antarctica from -60F to -40F that the ice will melt? Are you aware that it only takes a 1% change in water vapor to either double or negate any warming by CO2?
  - Icarus62
    
    Lindzen says:
    
    “A doubling of CO2 should lead (if the major greenhouse substances, water vapour and clouds remain fixed), on the basis of straightforward physics, to a globally averaged warming of about 1°C.”
    
    http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/5012506.htm
    
    So you’re wrong on that point.
    
    Lindzen published a study in which he states:
    
    “We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zero feedback response thus implying negative feedback.”
    
    Negative feedback means that the warming from a doubling of CO2 is less than the 1°C no-feedback warming. To be as generous to Lindzen as we can be, let’s assume 1°C per doubling, i.e. 1/3.7 = 0.27°C/W/m². This means we would have seen around 0.27*0.6*1.7=0.27°C of global warming over the last 100 years or so, instead of the 0.8°C we’ve actually seen – hence Lindzen underestimates global warming by a factor of 3.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Lindzen is perfectly correct. You appear instead to be claiming that CO2 has 3 times the measured effect and that climate models have no reliance on an assumed feedback to water vapour increases, which is of course precisely what they rely on. The physics and chemistry of this assumption is quite unproven, and real experiments such as those at CLOUD undermine the modelling assumptions, while also showing that we have a long way to go to understand fully the interplay in the atmosphere between various effects.
    - Icarus62
      
      Climate sensitivity is mainly derived from palaeoclimate data and modern studies of the transient climate response, both of which converge around 0.75°C/W/m². Lindzen’s claim is completely inconsistent with both these lines of evidence.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      So it has no foundation in basic chemistry and physics? Then it’s likely to be wrong, as that is mere curve fitting.
- r murphy
  
  Icarus asks us not to believe our lying eyes
- Baron
  
  Between roughly the Norman invasion and today the two variables of temperature and the CO2 levels have correlated only 20% of that time span. One doesn’t have to be a scientist to figure that mechanism(s) other than humans doing things must be primarily responsible for the variations in climate.
  - Icarus62
    
    Human activity has only become the dominant influence on global climate within the last 100 years.
    - Swanky
      
      We don’t buy it. THE dominant influence? More than the oceans, the solar system, the flora and fauna combined?
      
      By the way, Iccy, if you want to do some good for the planet, why don’t you tell the Chinese not to pollute so much?
    - Icarus62
      
      Nevertheless, that’s what the evidence shows.
    - Swanky
      
      You say so. You could say the evidence shows that clouds are God’s night storage heaters and the stars are God’s daisy chains… but what you (and/or the ‘evidence’) can’t show is why anyone should give a damn.
    - Icarus62
      
      Here’s why someone might give a damn:
      
      http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn16729/dn16729-1_1162.jpg
      
      Increasingly negative (i.e. costly and harmful) consequences with increasing global temperature.
    - Swanky
      
      I see a lot of red columns. What do they mean?
      
      The fact is that most life likes things slightly warmer. My dad’s report from Toronto, this evening:
      
      It feels so much nicer today (18F, minus 8C) compared to what we have had the past few weeks. It will be warmer still on Saturday, well above freezing. One still needs to be properly dressed but at least there is no longer the icy blast in the face (the ski tube is an absolutely essential item of clothing under such conditions).
    - Icarus62
      
      Some warming will benefit some parts of the world, certainly. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere though, if you happen to live somewhere like Pakistan and already have to try to survive heatwaves of 53C, another degree of warming is not going to be welcome. The more warming we see, the more negative the consequences will be… and there is no physical reason to expect global warming to slow down any time soon.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Global average does not equal local climate. There is no reason to assume that it will become hotter in Pakistan ex ante even if the global average is warmer.
    - Icarus62
      
      Fair point – it would be invalid to just assume… but I seem to remember noticing that the only part of the planet which hasn’t experienced global warming is a small area in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. Expecting hot areas not to become hotter is probably a bit optimistic.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      You are making assumptions about local climate nevertheless. As parts of the planet green, (near) desert temperature extremes are replaced by a higher average temperature with less variance. Extreme hot temperatures are associated with deserts. So you are assuming Pakistan would become more of a desert.
    - Swanky
      
      How do you know that such hot places would have ‘another degree of warming’? Meaning: how can you possibly know how any temperature changes will be distributed? Anyway, it’s swings and roundabouts, surely. Hot places will become slightly more uncomfortable on certain days, while cold places will be slightly more bearable. I’ve lived for many years in hot climates — where the temp can go over 100F — and I can tell you that no disaster will befall the world because of one or even three degrees either way.
      
      In any case, humans are not going back to the Stone Age and, unless you want to tell the Chinese to clean up their act, there’s nothing the industrialized world can do about it.
    - Icarus62
      
      “In any case, humans are not going back to the Stone Age and, unless you want to tell the Chinese to clean up their act, there’s nothing the industrialized world can do about it.”
      
      I’m inclined to agree.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      So, a slow boat to China for you, to give you time to learn Mandarin. I’m sure you’ll convince them.
    - Swanky
      
      At least we agree on something!
    - Icarus62
      
      Indeed 🙂
    - sam williamson
      
      Any chance we can get you to move to Pakistan and help those poor bastards? I believe many are now acquiring air conditioning?
    - sam williamson
      
      It means Icky’s favourite colour is red, and confirms my suspicion that he is just an old school marm, dressed in scientific clothing.
    - Swanky
      
      I supposed it’s better than being an old geezer scientist dressed as a school marm!
    - Baron
      
      So what pushed temperatures up during the medieval waring, then down in the mini ice age? You have the answer?
    - Icarus62
      
      Volcanic activity.
    - Baron
      
      What? Vulcanic activity? Arghhh
    - sam williamson
      
      You are trying to pound a railway spike in, with a watermelon.
      
      Icky is committed to the greenhouse god and doesn’t want any false volcano, sun spot, or other plausible explanation, interrupting the daily prayer.

Kennybhoy

Wot happened to “Mark Steyn: Eco-warriors stranded in the Antarctic! It’s too good to be true” and it’s comments? 🙁

Abu Nudnik

I could take a rest from climate change myself and the heaving bosoms of Rajendra Pachauri sound like an ideal oasis.

jazz606

Mark, nice to see you back.

Kennybhoy

Welcome home Maister Steyn. What a great start to 2014!

Oh and Maister Nelson NB the “Most popular” table on the right !

Exton

The issue of global warming is one of the more contentious issues in
science today. Superficially, it is frequently portrayed as a `simple’ issue.
Gases which absorb infrared radiation (known as greenhouse gases) inhibit
radiative cooling of the earths surface and hence increasing greenhouse
gases must lead to warming. The issue is rendered more complex by the fact
that the surface of the earth does not cool primarily by means of radiation,
but rather cools by evaporation and convection. Moreover, the main greenhouse
gas is water vapor which is both natural in origin and highly variable in
its distribution. In the absence of good records of water vapor we aren’t
even in a position to say how much total greenhouse gases have increased.

– Richard Lindzen http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/LIND0710.html

Icarus62

The Earth only cools by radiation, since there is no medium in space to allow convection or conduction. The main greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere is CO2, providing 80% of the forcing which sustains the greenhouse effect. Since CO2 is four times more effective as a greenhouse gas than water vapour, and water vapour is only a feedback rather than a forcing, it’s hardly surprising that our 42% increase in atmospheric CO2 is having such a large and rapid warming impact on the climate.
- JBluen
  
  What do you mean “is happening?” It isn’t, and hasn’t been for over a decade.
  - Icarus62
    
    Incorrect.
- dodgy
  
  …The Earth only cools by radiation, since there is no medium in space to allow convection or conduction…
  
  Er… I think that what Prof. Lindzen (who is a professor of meteorology) was saying here is that the Earth’s Surface cools by evaporation and convection. Which is perfectly true, because that happens in the atmosphere. You don not seem to have read the item with sufficient attention.
  
  The net result of this is more cloud. Which is what has been happening. Google the CERES data. You will find that there has been increased reflectivity of solar radiation over the last 10 years.
  
  If you’re interested, that’s where the missing heat has gone. It has bounced off extra clouds. Which is why nothing has been heating up for the past decade…
  - Icarus62
    
    I’m well aware of what Lindzen was saying, but he was being misleading. The decrease in infrared radiation flux, which causes global warming, occurs at the top of the atmosphere – not at the surface. Therefore the fact that the Earth can only lose heat by radiation, and not conduction or convection, is critical to any discussion about global warming. It’s a straightforward fact, which Lindzen himself concedes, that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is a climate forcing of 3.7W/m². That means the Earth will absorb 1.8 petawatts more heat than it is losing to space, and that’s why it heats up. The OHC data (as well as sea level rise, ice melt, terrestrial and satellite temperature series etc.) verifies that the expected planetary energy imbalance caused by our greenhouse gases does exist, and is not being offset by clouds.
    - Tom Yoke
      
      Dodgy was perfectly clear, yet you talked right past his point.
      
      If incoming solar radiation simply bounces off the planet because of increased cloud cover, then the net energy balance can be neutral or even negative DESPITE the decrease in outgoing infrared radiation due to CO2 greenhouse effects. This is the point Lindzen and Dodgy were making. The actual radiation balance is EXTREMELY complex. The science is not settled. The theory is very complicated and there is no way to run anything like a controlled experiment.
    - Icarus62
      
      “This is the point Lindzen and Dodgy were making.”
      
      And they’ve been proven wrong.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      No, they have not.
    - Icarus62
      
      What is your basis for arguing that Argo data is ‘inadequate’?
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      The coverage of the data is inadequate in time and space to draw any conclusions.
    - Icarus62
      
      According to which published study or studies? The error bars contradict you –
      
      http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000mwerr.png
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Argo deployments began in 2000 and by November 2007 the array is 100% complete.
      
      So we have 6 years of proper data at best.
      
      http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/
    - Icarus62
      
      Good argument, but Levitus 2012 says:
      
      “We provide updated estimates of the change of heat content and the thermosteric component of sea level change of the 0-700 and 0-2000 m layers of the world ocean for 1955-2010. Our estimates are based on historical data not previously available, additional modern data, correcting for instrumental biases of bathythermograph data, and correcting or excluding some Argo float data.”
      
      So it appears that they have dealt with the problems your quote highlights.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      More invented data?
      
      Zero credibility.
    - Icarus62
      
      No, there was nothing about ‘invented data’ in that study.
      
      Albedo change is one of the main positive feedbacks to AGW.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Except it has been negative in recent years.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Analyses of decadal changes presently focus on comparison of Argo to sparse and sometimes inaccurate historical data.
    - Icarus62
      
      … which is presumably why studies have to be careful about the validity of the data they use.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      No, it’s why studies have to be very careful about the claims they make.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      If incoming radiation at wavelengths shorter than 4 microns is simply being reflected in larger amounts at the top of the atmosphere then there will be less outgoing radiation at 10-25 microns in the long IR needed to achieve an energy balance. Perhaps you don’t understand the basic energy balance equations.
    - dodgy
      
      …That means the Earth will absorb 1.8 petawatts more heat than it is losing to space, and that’s why it heats up. The OHC data (as well as sea level rise, ice melt, terrestrial and satellite temperature series etc.) verifies that the expected planetary energy imbalance caused by our greenhouse gases does exist,
      
      1 – it’s not heating up. The temperature figures confirm this.
      
      2 – it’s not out of balance. The latest CERES figures confirm this. I note you have ignored them. Go read them.
    - Icarus62
      
      The Argo data shows that global warming continues unabated. There is currently a planetary energy imbalance of around 0.6W/m², which is what you’d expect based on the fact that around 60% of the warming from the net climate forcing since the pre-industrial of 1.6W/m² has already been realised. Restoration of the planetary energy imbalance (as it is now) could be achieved by reducing atmospheric CO2 from its current 400ppm to 345ppm. That’s about 350 billion tons of CO2 which we need to sequester from the free atmosphere, plus the 30 billion tons or so that we produce every year, plus another few tens of billions of tons if we want to try to return to the kind of 20th Century climate to which humanity is best adapted.
    - dodgy
      
      Argo data is inadequate for this hypothesis – the coverage is FAR too low and the accuracy is inadequate.
      
      CERES data shows there IS NO imbalance – extra clouds are reflecting more high-frequency solar radiation away, so there IS no extra heat to find a hiding place for.
      
      Your call…
    - swemson
      
      Icky, Icky, Icky…. I see you’re still spreading the same old tired lies about our climate…
      
      I think I finally discovered where you learned to lie so well… Your tale tales remind me of the salesman behind the counter in the following classic video:
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
      
      Keep up the good work… Freezing people the world over all anxiously await the warmth emanating from the steaming pile of bull$hit that you put out day after day after day…
      
      Cheers!
      
      fs
    - Icarus62
      
      This light-hearted comment is a welcome change from your usual hysterical denial of reality, swemson – well done! 🙂 Things are looking up. Maybe one day you might even try to discuss some actual science.

ArchiePonsonby

Who said that God doesn’t have a sense of humour?

Gimphole

It’s Global Warming! lol pic.twitter.com/6pIUPdyQs0

Sammy

A averaged two guffaws per paragraph. Thanks, Mr. Stein. Great piece.

ozonator

Deniers spend more time shutting down the government and collecting EssoKochs’ money than they do even spelling “science”. Because Hollywood is more important to deniers than Americans, “James Cameron decides to scare people about climate at Halloween … Posted on October 31, 2013 by Anthony Watts … From the Department of amalgamated dumbasses who own mansions, comes this trailer via Newsbuster’s Noel Sheppard” (Tony ‘who lacked a mothers’ love because she preferred trying to suckle a pack of relatively less-lethal menthol cancer sticks or feed lice’ Watts; whistlesuckers perfuming the stink at wattsupwiththat.com). Failing to note any of their AGW deaths and destruction, “The UK Saint Jude’s Day Storm – just another fall storm in a long line of many … Posted on October 28, 2013 by Paul Homewood … By Paul Homewood … It has been variously described as “The Storm of the Century”, “Unprecedented”, “Superstorm” and “A repeat of 1987”. I refer, of course, to the St. Jude storm that passed through early this morning and is now headed off into the North Sea. … The Telegraph report that the highest windspeed recorded on the mainland was 82mph at Langdon Bay in Kent. The next highest, 79mph, was in Essex. Winds of this speed are not unusual in the UK” (Tony ‘who lacked a mothers’ love because she preferred trying to suckle a pack of relatively less-lethal menthol cancer sticks or feed a tick’ Watts; whistlesuckers perfuming the stink at wattsupwiththat.com). Two weeks after the fires started, “Sat imagery of Bushfires in New South Wales, Australia … Posted on October 29, 2013 by Anthony Watts” (Tony ‘who lacked a mothers’ love because she preferred trying to suckle a pack of relatively less-lethal menthol cancer sticks or feed a tick’ Watts; whistlesuckers perfuming the stink at wattsupwiththat.com). Ignoring the last 2 months in 2013, “New Study: ’2013 ranks as one of the least extreme U.S. weather years ever’– Many bad weather events at ‘historically low levels’” (extreme EssoKoch pimping/racketeering found on 11/1/13) (Marc ‘Mengele’ Morano, whistle-sucker performing/perfuming the stink at climatedepot.com and will be treated as an AGW enemy combatant by some future country).

Cmate

Brevity is the soul of ….. Oh, never-mind…

Brahms Lullaby

Ah, the dialectic in action. The zealots are refuted far more effectively by their own internal contradictions than by any argument their opponents could offer.

jaffa99

.
- Brahms Lullaby
  
  Ice argues more effectively than Viscount Monckton, and ice is what the zealots have driven themselves into while in pursuit or celebration of their thesis.
  - Icarus62
    
    http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/0/7/6/2/8/5/arcticminvol2013-118646038103.jpeg
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Kinnard_2011_sea_ice_med.jpg
    
    The Arctic is now warming at 1C every 20 years – three times faster than the global mean.
    
    http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/0/7/6/2/8/5/Arctic-vs-global-temperature-101284630153.jpeg
    http://www2.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/news/2009/Fig.final_11_crop.jpg
    
    Hardly surprising that the change from slow natural cooling to rapid anthropogenic warming is causing the dramatic and accelerating decline of Arctic sea ice.
    - r murphy
      
      Icarus just a hint, any informed person wont trust anything you say when you post links to skepticalscience, just so you know. But hey you must love Lewandowski’s work, right?
    - Icarus62
      
      It’s just data. Look at the citation.
    - r murphy
      
      Any comments on Lew’s data?
    - sam williamson
      
      Icarus doesn’t respond. He regurgitates. And no matter how foul it tastes, he just swallows it again.
      I suspect during his autopsy (it’s not a threat Icky) that they will find a little ring attached to a sting in his back. When pulled, his arms will still move up and down, and the poor medical doctor will be subject to one of several pre-pregrammed outputs.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Still making stuff up, little rodent?
      
      That’s naughty, your mummy will be cross.
    - Icarus62
      
      Still playing that broken record eh?
    - sam williamson
      
      Easy, rodent is a bit harsh. And little rodent is at the bottom of their society?
      Is a lemming a rodent? Wait, I take it back.
    - Brahms Lullaby
      
      Ah well, all the crew need do is to charter another ship in twenty years and next time head north instead of south. Just think of all the trillions in sovereign debt they can drumb up in the mean time, creating a real crisis in the near future while preaching anxiety about the far. They had better hire a rescue ship too, however, just in case.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      sodahead, that well known global authority on climate?
  - sam williamson
    
    Not sure how smart it is, but it gave Mark’s readers a good chuckle.
    
    Imagine if Christians, led by some former vice-president has set out to find Noah’s arc only to be wrecked on Gilligan’s Island. The media would be in contortion’s sending our special editions for months.

General_Patten

This issue has finally split down Right/Left political lines. The Left have finally found religion. Its called Green. The Left as always are 100% wrong.(*NB* Cameron is the soggy wet Social Democrat Left)

Gordon Fraser

Amazon has reported that Mein Kampf is having a resurgence. I think the Greens are searching for a rebuttal to the fact that the world hasn’t warmed in over 17 years. Watch out!

Katie08

I have never read such a load of rubbish in my life! With due respect, Mr Steyne is NOT a climate specialist; he is NOT even a scientist – he is merely yet another dime-a-dozen opinionated newspaper reporter pushing his own self-seeking agenda. Do you REALLY think Mr Steyne knows more than the overwhelming majority of scientists who specialise in climate change research and who have studied the impacts of such man-made climate change over decades? Do you REALLY believe that the very real concerns shared by these climate specialists about the onset of this environmental catastrophe are to be ignored because of the say-so of a minority of anti-climate change fringe dwellers who, like ostriches with their heads stuck firmly in the ground, REFUSE to see what is all around them? Those people narrow-minded enough to keep claiming that man-made climate change is ALL about global warming are astoundingly ignorant of the fact that man-made climate change is all about the growing EXTREMES of temperatures causing record breaking cold winters (as is now experienced in Canada, Europe and America), longer and harsher droughts (as currently experienced in the continents of Africa and Australia), more severe hurricanes/tornadoes, floods and fires … no-one can deny that this is NOT happening right now. Can anyone give Steyne credence over educated scientists who have documented proof that man-made climate change is now upon us? This issue needs to be addressed NOW in order to halt its progress! The negative, backward approach by the thoroughly moronic current PM of Australia (Phony Tony Abbott) and other regressive politicians as well as hysterical baseless reports like this one (by Steyne) are doing great harm. Climate sceptics are often motivated by unstoppable avarice and self interest, eg billionaire mining conglomerates who believe that climate change legislation will impact on their mining and thus reduce their profits. A perfect example of this is right here in Australia where you have Tony Abbott giving the notorious mining billionaire, Clive Palmer, the nod to go ahead and indiscriminately drill the World Heritage listed, GREAT BARRIER REEF! Despite the Greens, Crikey and other environmentally conscious groups protesting, Palmer and Abbott believe they have the God-given right to permanently destroy vast tracks of the Great Barrier Reef (in an area which also happens to be the feeding ground of rare Dugongs). Abbott is doing everything in his power to muzzle scientific reporting on man-made climate change – he has even made massive cuts in governmental funding to the world reknowned scientific research department of the CSIRO! Abbott is working overtime to undermine and discredit respected scientists who dispute and complain about Abbott’s stance against man-made climate change. Abbott, Palmer, the Rupert Murdoch rags, multinational mining and oil corporations (whose sole motives are driven by greed and power) don’t want you to know the truth because measures to combat climate change will certainly impact on their ability to make more and more profits at our expense.

Cmate

“Do you REALLY think Mr Steyne knows more than the overwhelming majority of scientists…”

History is filled with instances of the overwhelming majority of “scientists” advocating positions that were not true in order to curry favor with their political masters.

(*cough* federal grants *cough*)
- jimini9
  
  Do any of you clods know how to spell Steyn?
  - Cmate
    
    Indeed I do. I did however, forget to indicate the misspelling when I quoted the author.
r murphy

Katie it is hysterical comments like yours that are winning the war for the skeptics, sensible people look beyond all your hand waving and search out the facts. The facts are that the CO2 alarmism stands on very flimsy footing.
- Katie08
  
  I completely disagree with your slanted view of the facts, murphy. What is the latest scientific editorial you have read, eh? No doubt you are clawing your way through The Daily Telegraph as we speak and accepting verbatim reports. Says a lot about your complete lack of understanding on the issue. People of your calibre always accuse those of us that care about our environment as hysterical. It is an easy way for you and those like you to discredit the facts. At least view a copy of David Attenborough’s “The Truth About Climate Change” … that is if you have time to get your head out of the Sports Page, eh?
  - r murphy
    
    Katie you have a right to your green religion but keep it to yourself.
  - Frank Ch. Eigler
    
    It does no good for you to accuse others of hysteria, then you go insulting them with sports pages and whatever.
JimTreacher

What an enjoyable temper tantrum.
- Katie08
  
  Well, JimTreacher is that throw-away juvenile comment your idea of sensible debate? Mmmmm.
  - JimTreacher
    
    I was hoping you would continue to seethe. Please go ahead.
Angus_MacLellan

Pedantic point, his name is Steyn.
- Katie08
  
  I added an “e” for environment. Nice touch, eh?
BlueScreenOfDeath

“Do you REALLY think Mr Steyne knows more than the overwhelming majority of scientists who specialise in climate change research and who have studied the impacts of such man-made climate change over decades?”

Yup, sure do.

As does the most esteemed James Delingpole, of course.

AGW = It’s All Gone Wrong!
Sight2behold

And I hear the sun is hot!

science |ˈsīəns|nounthe intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment:

Nothing here says – proven fact, science is nothing but consensus, any 5th knows that. As many can have a different “consensus” and be as “scientific” at the the next!

consensus |kənˈsensəs|noun [ usu. in sing. ]general agreement: a consensus of opinion among judges | [ asmodifier ] : a consensus view.
realheadline

He knows enough to realize when a flimsy hypothesis doesn’t match reality i.e., empirical evidence. No matter, the unfalsifiable theory will live on, defended by the faithful, no matter what the observable evidence.
squareWave

Do you have a subscription to the Journal of Modern Phrenology by chance?

Because consensus, etc.
ebola131

I’ve asked this of the “Warmists” many times, but get no answer.
What is the average temperature of the planet supposed to be?
Until you can answer that question and explain the “Little Ice Age” and the susequent warming, you’re blowing smoke in my face and repeating the mantra of the corporatists who are skimming billions from the working class people of this planet.
Horatio Bunce

The insane warmists hysterically insist that we may only consider the words of their clergy. We are not permitted to use our own brains, or to take seriously any other learned persons.

Those with the most to gain from the scam are obviously the only possible authority, to the lunatic warmist.
- Icarus62
  
  Actually the climate realists wish that you would use your own brain, and stop being taken in by the obvious deceptions of the global warming denial scam. All it takes is a bit of hard work and intellectual integrity, instead of just parroting what denialist blogs tell you.
- Memphis Viking
  
  Global warming ‘scientists’ act almost EXACTLY like evolution ‘scientists’, especially when you question them.
antimarx

Hey, hysterical barbie, read and learn:

Google and read: “freeman dyson climate”
Google and read: “wall street journal 16 climate”
Google and read: “nasa 49 climate”
Google and read: “financial post 125 climate”
Google and read: “german 60 climate”
Google and read: “us senate minority report 1000 climate”
Google and read: “the manhattan declaration 1100 climate”
Google and read: “oregon 31,000 climate”

We skeptics are in very good, educated and ethical company — unlike the warmist cult.

Angus_MacLellan

That’ll be the new global cooling phenomenon.

Frozen

I’ve got the solar panels and the prius and believe in a carbon tax. But this is still magnificent writing and bloody funny.

Those so entrenched in views seem to be merely adding to the warming with their rage. It is possible to disagree but still have a laugh.

Swanky

Thirty pounds of rare earth metals in a Prius. Did they tell you that when you bought it?
- Attila
  
  How about the Mercury in Fluorescent Light Bulbs that get them classified as Toxic Waste?
r murphy

Frozen if you feel under taxed just pay more and the money you have been relieved of will reduce your ability to buy carbon, just leave the rest of us out of it.
RJ Wagner

All energy is useful in their proper roles. Solar is unreliable and low-output (it’d take a solar farm the size of AZ to light NYC) but better than nothing in a pinch. My wife drives a hybrid, but if they made a car that “pollutes” more but gets better mileage, she’d be driving that. Better yet would be plentiful, cheap gasoline for everyone, so that she saves even more and poor people, who can only afford old jalopies, might not be so poor.

A carbon tax is utter insanity. At that point, we might as well just bomb ourselves back into the stone age. We’ve got an administration just making up numbers and arbitrary rules for empirical, measurable data like healthcare costs and enrollees. Can you imagine trying to hold them accountable for taxing and regulating AIR?

Funny how growing up my father always joked about how one day they’d figure out how to tax air – he just wasn’t sure how they’d do it. Wonder no more, my friends.
ebola131

Disagreement is one thing…..picking my pocket quite another.
drrn

But I am sure you went after the tax credit for buying your solar panels that will be useless by the time it finally pays for itself. Taxes for thee, not for me.

Rotem

As you indicated early in your piece, Mark, some Warmists claim that the cold snaps in America and the large ice extents of Antarctica are actually a result of Global Warming.
Why don’t the Warmists make it easier for themselves: simply declare “Global warming skepticism” as yet another unfortunate side-effect of Global Warming and… end of story.

Attila

AGW Luddites and Leftist Numb-Nuts trapped on a ship at sea.
Is there a reality show or sit-com idea there?

realheadline

After all the money these green thieves have stolen from our treasury, I was rather hoping they would go down with the ship. Unfortunately, they would be martyred by the liberal press and canonized by global warming faithful. Ah, anyway, dare to dream.

Paul Armstong

follow the money , AGW is cash grab just like fairness. PC politics, etc.

corday_d_armont

Donn’t you just love Mark Steyn!

corday_d_armont

This pitiful bunch makes me mindful of the children’s crusade. When the “pure of heart” children of Europe marched en”mass”e (pun intended) right into Muslim slave pens.

The story of the pied piper was invented out of that debacle. Will this trip will be remembered in some future Al-Gore-ical tale?

dave72

Michael “Piltdown” Mann’s hockey stick – the biggest scientific hoax since Piltdown Man.

Icarus62

Except that it’s been repeatedly validated by many subsequent independent studies.
- itdoesntaddup
  
  Were the studies really independent of the manipulated data? I think not.
  - A_Stone
    
    So it’s all a big conspiracy? Is that what you think?
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      How do you explain Climategate? I’d like to see a proper legal investigation of the truth behind it, except it appears that much evidence has been destroyed already.
    - Icarus62
      
      The worst thing revealed by ‘Climategate’ is that scientists are sometimes rude about each others’ work in private emails.
      
      BFD.
    - drrn
      
      They wanted to figure out how to make data (tree rings) that did not fit their prior work go away didn’t they? Since I am in the medical field, I wouldn’t stand for medical researchers trying to figure out how to hide data showing that a popular drug might cause cancer.
      
      So two questions: Why are you defending it and why were climate scientists being so secretive and vindictive?
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Their treemometer data unfortunately showed a severe downtick during modern times, so they disingenuously – and without explanation – grafted a section of heavily adjusted modern model data onto the end to produce their “Hockey Stick”. That it the technique referred to by Phil Jones as “Mann’s Nature Trick”, and the term “Hide the Decline”.
      
      The paper is now totally discredited, and only quoted by the sort of Warmist trolls that post highly misleading excerpts from scientific papers.
      
      Here’s some more “Hide the Decline”, this time a code snippet from HARRY_READ_ME.TXT, the UEA CRU programmer’s notes:
      
      FOIAdocumentsosborn-tree6briffa_sep98_d.pro
      
      ;mknormal,yyy,timey,refperiod=[1881,1940]
      ;
      ; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
      ;
      yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
      valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
      2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
      (…)
      ;
      ; APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION
      ;
      
      You can’t get more definitive than that.
      yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
      densall=densall+yearlyadj
    - A_Stone
      
      Climategate. Some stuff about tree rings not matching and some casual remarks taken out of context? A non-event. Try reading some of the vast amount of papers of evidenced science instead.
  - Icarus62
    
    Independent teams using independent data, yes.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      How many truly independent sets of data are there, especially for the pre-satellite era?
    - Frank Ch. Eigler
      
      Right, the MWP didn’t exist, etc. etc. The 1930s were only mildly warm. Funny stuff, ha ha hah a.
    - Icarus62
      
      MBH98 didn’t even cover the MWP, so what are you talking about?
- antimarx
  
  False. The only ‘validation’ of the hockey-stick propaganda has been from fellow warmist cult profiteers…covering their collective a**es and trying to salvage the scam for continued power and profit.

dave72

The AGW hysterics will never quit as long as their government grants keep flowing.

A_Stone

I think you’ll find there’s more money in shilling for Big Oil etc.
- antimarx
  
  I think you’ll find you are wrong if you take the time to do a little bit of research.
  - A_Stone
    
    I’ve done my research. The vast mjority of scientists working in the field of climatology agree with me. The contrarianism seems to be mostly on comments boards/denialist sites citing no scientific papers as far as I can make out.
- itdoesntaddup
  
  As a Green? Probably.
  - A_Stone
    
    No everybody flying the green flag is a saint, and I’m not even sure I would call myself green. My point is that vested interests are spreading misinformation about global warming.
- drrn
  
  Sorry, just about every airport I go through, there is always a picture of a sad polar bear, on a huge expensive wall to wall add paid for by groups like “welovetheearth” or some other very, obscure explanation of who in the world has the money to pay for an add like that. Combine that with the fact that our kids are graduating high school believing that we have the ability to power their xboxes, flat screens, computers and iphones with solar and wind. We just need to “invest” in it more. Where are they hearing this? The money spent on convincing people that wind and solar will be our savior pales in comparison to the money Big Oil spends to educate people about their product that they all use.
  - A_Stone
    
    But isn’t it odd that, given the overhelming consensus among climate scientists, that such overwhelming scepticism exists on comments site such as this? No other scientific theory attracts more unqualified contrarianism, apart from evolution perhaps, and we all know that creationists are fruitcakes. It’s highly suspect.
    - drrn
      
      Our skepticism is driven by 1. The models these climate scientists have been using to base their research on .have been wrong 2. Those of us that accept our planet may be warming slightly due to our use of fossil fuels are appalled at the absolutely stupid solutions that are put out there. Giving 100’s of billions of dollars to dictators to “deal with climate change” and to make the reliable, efficient, energy we all use to cool and heat our homes MORE expensive. Hurting the poor and middle class while enriching big, political donors. And guess what? NONE of it is predicted to do much if anything.
    - A_Stone
      
      I say burn every ounce of fossil fuels in the ground, I rarely couldn’t care less. I just don’t deny the science. Civilisations and species come and go.
    - drrn
      
      This is “science.” And if you doubt that something of an undefined nature might possibly occur at some unknown point in the future and maybe have unexplained negative effects, you reject “science” in all its forms. You also probably believe in God and are definitely racist.
    - A_Stone
      
      Now you are just being silly.

TallDave

These two links are really all anyone who can think needs to understand that the models have already been falsified and government employees have been fudging the numbers to increase their budgets and justify policy.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-fail-73-climate-models-vs-measurements-running-5-year-means/

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/thirteen-years-of-nasa-data-tampering-in-six-seconds/

Icarus62

Citing Roy Spencer and Steven Goddard just shows that you have no valid argument.
- itdoesntaddup
  
  Anyone citing Icarus62 has no valid argument.
  
  There, disprove that.
  - Icarus62
    
    No-one cites Icarus62.
- antimarx
  
  Anybody who has an interest in discovering just how delusional Icarus62 is (actually I suspect he is a paid propagandist for the warmist cult, but that’s just speculation), try the following exercise:
  
  Google and read: “freeman dyson climate”
  Google and read: “wall street journal 16 climate”
  Google and read: “nasa 49 climate”
  Google and read: “financial post 125 climate”
  Google and read: “german 60 climate”
  Google and read: “us senate minority report 1000 climate”
  Google and read: “the manhattan declaration 1100 climate”
  Google and read: “oregon 31,000 climate”
  
  We skeptics are in very good, educated and ethical company — unlike the warmist cult.
  - Icarus62
    
    Personally I prefer actual science, based on valid data, but if you want to rely on fact-free anti-science rhetoric then that’s your choice.
    - antimarx
      
      Notice how the warmist trash refuses to address the massive list of published, educated and ethical scientists who have collectively debunked the climate change scam. You are a troll Icarus62…nothing more.
    - Icarus62
      
      Do you really think that citing a few quacks and deniers-for-hire and people with zero expertise in climate science is helping your argument?
    - antimarx
      
      That would be over 33,000, but then again we’re used to you lying about everything. Freeman Dyson is a quack…tell us more warmist trash…
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Do you think your admitted lack of expertise is enhancing your arguments? As you said yourself, no-one cites you.
  - AlecM
    
    I think he may be UCS.
- TallDave
  
  I’ll take Ad Hominem Fallacy for 1000, Alex.

Jack Johnson

how does a Australian who has never been to this site before reach my limit ?? besides being a scam ?

James Allen

Brilliant as ever, thanks Mark.

Prodicus

Welcome back, maestro. Where the wossname have you been?

A_Stone

Excitable, sarcastic rhetoric, some misinformation about sea ice, some rent-a-quotes from Gore but no real science cited or peer-reviewed papers referenced… This article plays something of an empty hand. Is this called ‘doing a Dellingpole’?

Icarus62

“Is this called ‘doing a Delingpole’?”

Fits the bill rather well, yes 🙂

Raibeart MacIlleathain

Professing themselves (Econazis) to be wise, they become fools for whom up is down and in is out and Left is right….. Yawn. I’m so gored.

SupplyGuy

If these people live to be 100, they will die firmly believing this AGW/CC nonsense even as none of their dire predictions come true and the human race continues on it’s merry way.
They remind me of the end of times religious nut jobs from the 19th century whose beliefs are still around and finding new disciples every year.
Too stupid to advance, but just smart enough to stick around and make other people’s lives miserable.

Icarus62

Climate scientists’ predictions have been coming true for over 100 years now, qualitatively and quantitatively. Do you have any reason to believe that this is going to change any time soon?
- itdoesntaddup
  
  What happened to those 1970s predictions of an imminent new ice age?
  - Icarus62
    
    Here’s one of the papers you may be referring to:
    
    “Effects on the global temperature of large increases in carbon dioxide and aerosol densities in the atmosphere of Earth have been computed. It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth. Because of the exponential dependence of the backscattering, the rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 ° K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”
    
    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/173/3992/138.abstract
    
    What happened was that the warming effect of carbon dioxide had been underestimated, clean air legislation reduced our output of aerosols, and our output of carbon dioxide (and other GHGs) rose rapidly, with the result that our greenhouse warming effect exceeded our aerosol cooling effect.
    - drrn
      
      So the clean air legislation is to blame for global warming?
    - Icarus62
      
      It probably contributed, yes. There is no dispute about the fact that atmospheric aerosols have a reflective cooling effect. If the legislation resulted in a lower atmospheric aerosol concentration then it would have reduced our cooling impact on the climate. Agreed?
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      So it’s a good thing that China burns all that coal?
    - Icarus62
      
      Not really, no.
    - drrn
      
      There are scientists that believe in Global Warming, but have documented that it will have a more positive effect then negative. Longer growing seasons ect. Fact is no one really knows do they? We do know that there are more deaths due to cold than heat, and taxing humans source of heating and cooling makes it more expensive for the poor and middle class. Global warming scientists cannot deny the economic science. Their studies are being used by politicians as an excuse to tax and spend.
    - Icarus62
      
      The best assessments are that there will be some benefits from modest warming, in some parts of the world, but that the consequences will become increasingly negative as global warming continues –
      
      http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn16729/dn16729-1_1162.jpg
    - drrn
      
      “Best assessments” Well then, can’t argue with that logic. Fact is due to fossil fuels my family would be either freezing to death or we would be chopping down trees and burning them. We are demonizing the very source of energy that has saved millions of lives and pretending that solar and wind is a viable source of energy that tax payers should be on the hook for to keep supporting even though it is unreliable and expensive.
    - Icarus62
      
      I agree. Fossil fuels have been a boon to modern civilisation, and there is nothing that can replace them. That is our predicament.
    - drrn
      
      I agree.
    - sam williamson
      
      Right on the first part. Dead wrong on the second.
      
      Science, and real scientists, are always getting new information for the benefit of mankind. The replacement to oil, may be one tiny space exploration away.
      
      You gotta dream a bit Bud.
    - sam williamson
      
      Icky, if you are looking for agreement you are on the wrong story. Don’t go to a Mark Steyn story.
      
      I suspect you enjoy it, being the well-papered expert, trying to educate those ignorant rubes and fools of the world. Why don’t you just go back to the empty halls of your real world.
      
      Or at least for the love of God quit, when you find yourself shaking and shouting, “Those fools!. They wouldn’t believe me. But I’ll show them. I’ll show them all.”
      
      Cause whatever that leads to, like after you stomp out of the room leaving someone dead, it’s not going to end well.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      What happened was that the models proved to be wrong. The same thing is happening now, which is why they are being updated with “new” factors, and being re-run with re-adjusted back history data to try to fit recent observations that are harder to justify adjusting, but which are outside the boundaries of the previous predictions. All this demonstrates is that the science is still far from settled.
    - Icarus62
      
      Remember that this was over 40 years ago, so yes they got some things wrong, but that’s hardly surprising. Science progresses, which is why we now have such quantitatively accurate projections of global warming.
    - drrn
      
      Just 6 years ago the IPCC report predicted warmer winters and decreasing ice in both poles.
    - Icarus62
      
      Cite?
    - drrn
      
      ? The 2007 report itself: • Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all model simulations. Some projections show that by the latter part of the century, late-summer Arctic sea ice will disappear almost entirely.
    - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
      
      He doesn’t read IPCC. He reads “sodahead”.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      That’s just the point: the models are NOT quantitatively accurate. Reality has fallen out of the bottom of the range of prediction.
    - sam williamson
      
      No point in arguing – Icky has his papers and they are the only papers.
      
      Any attempt to add new pages to his bible is met with “A reading according to the Prophet ________ .”
      
      You have to shut up and listen or be burned as a heretic.
      
      (At least he’s toned down the red ink, which seems to be a sort of omometer as to when he’s thinking blasphemous thoughts.)
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      sodahead, that well known global authority on climate?
    - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
      
      I thought you guys were all about peer review? Why do you use your “sodahead” image and not Fyfe et al 2013 like IPCC AR5 cited? Did the IPCC cite your “sodahead” image? Do you honestly think you’re fooling anyone other than yourself?
      
      http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Climate%20change/Climate%20model%20results/over%20estimate.pdf
      
      To paraphrase Pielke Jr ” If Icarus62 did not exist, the skeptics would have to invent him. There is no better advertisement for skepticism than Icarus62.
      
      “Actually the IPCC projections have been spot on”
      -Icarus62
    - Icarus62
      
      IPCC projections are just that – projections. They are not predictions. Anti-science people always choose the most extreme forcing scenarios to compare to global temperature, but of course those scenarios are not what actually happened, so the comparison is dishonest and invalid. See the nonsense from Roy Spencer, for example. When you consider the projections which are based on forcing scenarios closest to what has actually happened in the real world, they are spot on.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Throwing the IPCC under the bus now, are you?
      
      Rubbish.
      
      Stop making stuff up.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      When I watch 2001 in the cinema it is a projection. It isn’t reality.
    - sam williamson
      
      Icky’s only peer is the one he does over the half glasses and the accompanying aloof gaze of, “How dare you post on my website, and sispute settled science.”
      The great Icky has spoken. Sorry the great Icky62 has spoken, the previous 61 flights to enlighten us poor uneducated peasants having resulted in some singeing.
    - AlecM
      
      1.13 Santers** so far with no lower atmosphere warming…..:o)
      
      **1 Santer = 15 years, the period of no warming according to the said Santer as that needed to disprove the IPCC models.
    - Icarus62
      
      Incorrect – there has been warming – but as you’re aware, short term trends are not robust.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Why do you deny the truth about this?
    - Icarus62
      
      I don’t deny the fact that Argo data shows global warming continuing unabated.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      But it doesn’t, and further, it is universally acknowledged that lack of coverage due to the the number of Argo buoys currently in service, the short length of time they have been in service and ongoing controversy about the calibration of the buoys – claims have been made that they are accurate to 0.001 of a deg K for example, currently rules out their use for serious predictive purposes.
      
      You really need to start acquiring your information from reliable sources, instead from crackpot alarmist blogs such as SS.
    - Icarus62
      
      Given the choice between a respected scientific organisation such as NOAA, and utterly dishonest denialist blogs like WUWT, I prefer to get my information from the former. Perhaps you should do the same.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Titter!
      
      Give it up, Icky.
      
      You’re doing “The Cause” no service whatsoever with your clearly mendacious posts.
    - sam williamson
      
      Dude, you would get your information from a vending machine, if you had the upper body strength to shake it.
      Really a mouse as your icon. And a white one, you racist!
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      Have you checked what ARGO themselves say?
      
      http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Uses_of_Argo_data.html
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Oooh you lying little tinker!
      
      You really can’t help yourself, can you? Talk about “Noble Cause Corruption”, you demonstrate it in spades.
      
      You’ve missed out this bit:
      
      We report here on the first results of a calculation in which separate estimates were made of the effects on global temperature of large increases in the amount of CO2 and dust in the atmosphere. It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.
      
      See that Icky?
      
      The bit that says “It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K?
      
      Why didn’t you post that bit too?
      
      And then you have the gall to insult sceptics. What a thoroughly unpleasant, dishonest little troll you are!
    - Icarus62
      
      “Remember that this was over 40 years ago, so yes they got some things wrong, but that’s hardly surprising.”
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      But Icky, I can recall many occasions when you have asserted that the science of warming due to Greenhouse Gases has been solid for over 100 years, right back to Arrhenius, in fact, and so there was no doubt whatsoever.
      
      Are you now denying either that the science has not been settled over that period?
      
      I’ll give you a hint: If you’re going to lie, get your story straight and stick to it.
    - Icarus62
      
      You’re mistaken – I’ve always said that the science was qualitatively correct as far back as the 19th Century, but have never claimed it was quantitatively correct that far back. The understanding of the CO2 climate forcing has improved since 1971.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Stop wriggling Icky.
      
      You’re already a laughing stock.
      
      Don’t make it worse.
    - sam williamson
      
      I think he enjoys taking on the martyr role for this cause. Fanatical always enjoys the fact that one in a million “nut cases” who turns out to be correct, was persecuted as being, well, a nut. It’s only the fulfilling of the prophecy that counts.
  - sam williamson
    
    Moved to the back burner on the tailgate, under the Global Warming, oops, now it’s Climate Change, global travelling carnival snake oil salesman’s wagon.
    
    Or, perhaps it went the way of acid rain, etch a sketch (circle little R), overpopulation, hippies, the ozone layer, complete oil depletion, food shortages, disco, zebra mussels, the Sham-Wow guy (again 0 r), Mad Max, and other sundry and assorted imminent threats.
    
    Same people, new bandwagons requiring lots of funding.
- antimarx
  
  The Church Of Climate Scientology: How Climate Science Became A Religion
  
  http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2013/11/07/the-church-of-climate-scientology-rationalizes-some-of-the-worst-policies-in-our-history/
- SupplyGuy
  
  Go away. No point in talking to a fanatic. Let me know when they start farming in Greenland again like they did in the 10th century warming cycle.
  - Icarus62
    
    Evasion noted.
    - Dustoff
      
      Evasion noted.
      ****************
      Like the lack of truth.
  - sam williamson
    
    Hey, there was never farming in Greenland – don’t try to trick me, DENIER!!!!!!! DOUBLE DOG DENIER!!!!!!!
    
    It’s called Greenland cause, the indigeonous people knew, far before stupid explorers came along that CO2 was the bane of all humanity.
    
    There were no vines in Vinland for that matter. The natural state of the world is half-frozen the way the great gods intended it.
    
    I really have to sign off, this is getting too silly, even for me.
- BlueScreenOfDeath
  
  “Climate scientists’ predictions have been coming true for over 100 years now, qualitatively and quantitatively.”
  
  Oh no they haven’t.
  
  Stop making stuff up.
- Dustoff
  
  Really………………… LOL
antimarx

They are this generations Hiroo Onoda. They will never admit they were wrong because it would mean no more grant money, the end of whatever is left of their dubious reputations/careers and finally giving up on the fantasy that they are heroes trying to “save the planet” from evil people. Look up “superiority complex”, “superman complex”, “megalomania”, “narcissism” and “fanatic”…it will help you in understanding the issues that drive the warmist mentality.

Johnny J

Some 200 years from now, scientists will look at this period in time and laugh at the hysterical mental retards who thought they had any kind of effect on planetary climate or weather by selling carbon credits or arguing useless points about a made-up “science”…lol

antimarx

That’s only if we skeptics win this war against the warmist cult, and the war is far from over. With this much money and power at stake they will not give up without a vicious fight (just look at any climate change comment section). Remember estimates are that “Big Green” is now receiving over a BILLION DOLLARS a day in funding for perpetuating this horrific scam. If the warmist cult succeeds and transfers global energy control to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats at the UN and allows Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and other corporate criminals to create the largest commodity market in world history for CO2…billions of people will suffer and die in the next 200 years and this planet will be a very miserable place.
- Icarus62
  
  Please don’t refer to yourselves as ‘skeptics’. That’s an insult to genuine skeptics. You are propagandists who are paid to deceive the public, and the useful idiots who repeat the deceptions for free, either because you’re gullible enough to believe them or for some other, presumably ideological reason.
  - antimarx
    
    Oh look, here’s our resident warmist trash now. As I have proven with my other posts, we skeptics are in very good, ethical company and you warmists have nothing but fellow liars, thieves and ignorant environmentalists remaining in your cult.
  - drrn
    
    I know, we think raising the cost of energy that hurts the poor and middle class for really no lasting effect on the global temperature is a bad thing. How greedy of us.
  - BlueScreenOfDeath
    
    Heh, silly little reality denier Icky the rodent is throwing its toys out of its pram.
    
    You keep wibbling about the IPCC, apparently entirely denying that it has issued a revision to AR5 and effectively chucked its “ensemble” of Xbox games climate models under a bus, and despite all your frantic denial of the “pause”, not only confirmed its existence but also drastically revised down its estimates of warming over the next few years.
    
    So keep your frantic insults to yourself, you uninformed, scientifically illiterate little troll, and concentrate on stuffing your pouches with peanuts, that’s about your level.
    
    SHOO!
    - sam williamson
      
      Oh, I like that “reality denier”. There’s a good arrow to put in one’s quiver.
  - Dustoff
    
    You are propagandists who are paid to deceive the public,
    
    *******************************
    
    Yet yours don’t? Stay away from “mirrors”
  - sam williamson
    
    Damn. All my checks must be stuck in the mail.
    Probably just on a boat, piloted by a captain, using bad weather reports for the Northwest Passage again.

Peps at PoliticalPaige.net

Thank you, thank you, thank you Mark Steyn.
That truly made my cloudy, cold, 65 degree south Florida day.

Gl Remote

I can see a new TV series about how the Climatologist see the Human race as the enemy of the planet and go on cruses to prove their hypothesis. “The Loath Boat”.

BenDoubleCrossed

POLITICS BEHIND CAP & TRADE

THE RICH WILL GET RICHER

Cap & Trade is being imposed on the world because it creates a multi-trillion dollar commodity market for hot air. The beneficiaries are the rich special interest who will get wealthier setting up and trading the new commodities market. But citizens will pay more taxes to operate new regulatory bureaucracies and more for goods as business passes the cost along.

TROUBLING IMPLEMENTATION QUESTIONS

How many CO2 credits will be distributed worldwide, $13 – 15 trillion? How will the process be audited to prevent outright fraud?

Who gets to decide how many CO2 credits each business or person should receive?
Should sovereign nations or the UN tax this new one world currency?

If a business in California closes and sells CO2 credits to a company in England, will a new California company be required to purchase credits before opening?

Will multi-national companies export new construction and jobs to 3rd world non-subscribing countries? Or will people of the Amazon miss out on new opportunities because an American company bought thousands of acres to be left unexploited to acquire carbon sequestration credits.

Does a growing population mean a lower standard of living and reduced CO2 allotments for each new person or business?

Should children be allowed to inherit their parents CO2 permits? Should couples be limited to two children?

Countries like China that do not agree to regulation or countries that under regulate will have a real advantage in the market place.

WHAT ENTITY SHOULD DETERMINE EARTH’S CO2 CARRYING CAPACITY

I prefer the God of my Fathers decide rather than scientists seeking government grant money.

Genesis 9:7 As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.

Job 38:4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding,

Job 15:7 Were you the first man to be born, Or were you brought forth before the hills?

Psalm 104:5 He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it will not totter forever and ever.

Proverbs 8:29 When He set for the sea its boundary So that the water would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth;

Proverbs 30:4 Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His son’s name? Surely you know!

IS MAN CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING

If so how do you explain the age of dinosaurs? Fred Flintstone must have had one hell of a fleet of Hummers!

But according to science, Earth has had multiple tropical and glacial ages. So historically isn’t global warming a cyclical event more affected by sun spot cycles?

And NASA says oceans are cooling since 2003.

Furthermore, the most prevalent hot house gas is water vapor. Should citizens of earth try to stop the rain cycle?

COMMON SENSE

I am against Cap and Trade in the best of times but it is national suicide to implement this costly new program when America’s economy is teetering on the brink! The only sustainable Cap and Trade is handing their Caps to politicians who vote yes on the issue and trading them for new representatives!

Poverty is the worst form of pollution. Otherwise, why are the undeveloped nations in Copenhagen demanding redistribution of wealth from the developed nations? And who will these nations turn to when America is destroyed?

Politics and not science will determine the outcome of this debate!

Stick

Ahh, the Church of Environtology gets stuck in a summer ice field unexpectedly. Clearly they are wanting worshippers. Gaea is an unforgiving God. They should have screened the crew and especially the scientists by handling snakes and speaking in tongues to insure the purity of their quest. Silly Scientists.

BlueScreenOfDeath

I see our paid disruption troll – not content with insulting AGW sceptics – has now posted an egregious piece of disingenuity – mendacity itself.

Posting a quote from

Schneider S. & Rasool S., “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols – Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate”, Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141

Attempting to falsely assert that the paper disproved claims of scientific claims in the 1970s postulating that there was danger of Global cooling, it posted only the section referring to aerosol cooling – which of course is irrelevant to the current debate. What it did NOT however, was the section related to atmospheric CO2 increase:

We report here on the first results of a calculation in which separate estimates were made of the effects on global temperature of large increases in the amount of CO2 and dust in the atmosphere. It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.

The bedwetters are getting desperate.

dbo’s gh-gh-ghost

In addition, in the 1975 NAS report on climate they distinctly say on page 44

“If both the C02 and particulate inputs to the atmosphere grow at equal rates in the future, the widely differing atmospheric residence times of the two pollutants means that the particulate effect will grow in importance relative to that of C02 .”

so yes, the NAS panel were clearly issuing a warning about global cooling.

snoocks2

Fantastic! Enjoyed every word. Write on…

AlecM

There can be no significant CO2-AGW because of two inconvenient truths.

The first is that the atmosphere self-control’s using CO2 as the working fluid of the heat engine.

The second is that there are 13 mistakes, 3 of them elementary, in the physics of the IPCC ‘consensus’. The worst is the failure to understand the difference between a Radiation Field and the net radiative flux between two emitters, which for the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface is the difference of RFs.

The net result is that the surface IR absorption in the atmosphere has been exaggerated 6.85x. This, the tripling of the real GHE and the ludicrous misinterpretation of Tyndall’s Experiment, means the ‘positive feedback’ is fake and the fake temperature increase is so large they have to cheat in the hind casting by using exaggerated low level cloud albedo.

Oh, we should also add the wholesale falsification by GISS and NOAA, aided and abetted by CRU and the BOM. also a rogue Marxist New Zealander given a job at the WMO to get him out of trouble, along with CRU’s Viner of no-snow fame.

These scum, who set out to destroy the Enlightenment by parasitising science, deserve no quarter.

Icarus62

Pure pseudoscience.

We have the empirical data showing decreased infrared radiation to space at wavelengths absorbed by CO2 and other GHGs, and corresponding increase in downward longwave radiation warming the surface. This combined with the ‘fingerprint’ of cooling stratosphere and warming troposphere tells us that the enhanced greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic GHGs has already been empirically observed.

In any case, palaeoclimate data confirms that the theoretical response to elevated CO2 is what actually happens in the real world. For example, 10C of cooling over the last 50 million years associated with declining atmospheric CO2, despite the sun increasing its output over the same period.
- AlecM
  
  I do not disagree with the experimental facts. However, yet again I have to correct you on the science.
  
  The ‘Forcing’ argument is unscientific because it is based on an incorrect view of radiation physics. The net monochromatic surface radiative flux is the vector sum of the monochromatic radiation fields, not their arithmetic sum.
  
  So, although you see greater ‘Forcing’ as pGHG increases, this reduces net surface flux. In the absence of any other factor, the surface would heat to transfer more heat transfer to convection and evapo-transpiration making the sum of IR plus convection constant. Do the beach windbreak experiment to prove it to yourself.
  
  This standard physics of coupled radiation and convection has been used by us engineers for a Century to design and build real machines and process plant. The Meteorologists made the mistake of assuming ‘back radiation’ about 70 years ago. They were wrong then and are wrong now. In the atmospheric sciences we had Sagan then Houghton copying them, but it’s still wrong.
  
  The new science is atmospheric processes which bypass the IR block to Space at near constant surface temperature. It torpedoes you and your failed scientific ilk out of the water, Get used to it; you’ve lost to superior intellect.
  
  As for overall geological cooling, that has been through reduced atmospheric mass leading to lower lapse rate heating of the surface.
- Dustoff
  
  Naaaaa, game is up. If you fools can’t find the heat on land, you say satellites, when that doesn’t work out, you claim it’s deep in the sea.
  
  My-my so much spin.

rastech

What’s really deranged about these warmist fascists, is you’d think they would be really keen about cheap, affordable solutions (to even their wildest fantasy problems), and be moving heaven and earth to get them adopted, but oh no, all they can do is obstruct them or at best ignore them

Solutions such as the Westinghouse Plasma Gasification Plants ($30 million per plant, and each can handle 1,000 tons a day of feedstock):

http://energy.cleartheair.org.hk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Brian-Thompson-WESTINGHOUSE-PLASMA-A.pdf

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

and really cheap desalinated water that’s going to be hugely cheaper with the new Lockheed Martin membrane (which means cheap drip agriculture for the Third World along with cheap clean drinking water for them).

The truth is these hateful people are anti-human, and DO NOT want to see people other than themselves living comfortable lives.

BlueScreenOfDeath

For the benefit of the lying Warmist troll, who seems to have suddenly discovered a liking for peer published scientific papers (even if he cherry-picks the bits that fit his agenda and misses out the ones that don’t), and also denies that there has been a “pause” in warming this century, here’s a nice paper from “Nature”:

Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling

Despite the continued increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations,
the annual-mean global temperature has not risen in the twenty-first century,
challenging the prevailing view that anthropogenic forcing causes climate warming. Various mechanisms have been proposed for this hiatus in global warming, but their relative importance has not been quantified, hampering observational estimates of climate sensitivity.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v501/n7467/full/nature12534.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20130919

See the bit that says the annual-mean global temperature has not risen in the twenty-first century, Icky rodent?

Are you going to insult Yu Kosaka & Shang-Ping Xie, the authors of the paper – and the scientists who peer reviewed it for “Nature”, by asserting that they are evil climate change denialists too?

Icarus62

Thanks for confirming my point that global warming continues unabated, which is the main conclusion of the paper you cited.
- BlueScreenOfDeath
  
  Oh dear, you really can’t help yourself, can you?
  
  See the bit that says the annual-mean global temperature has not risen in the twenty-first century, Icky rodent?
  
  Do you really believe that means the same thing as “global warming continues unabated”, silly hamster?
  
  Or, more to the point, do you believe your frantic paw-waving, squeaking and insults to the intelligence of AGW sceptics will convince them that the two statements have the same meaning? Because if you do, I seriously suggest you seek professional assistance at the first available opportunity.
  
  The main conclusion of the paper is in fact that events in the Pacific ocean have been responsible for a “hiatus” AKA “pause”in warming this century, one of a considerable number of attempts by the likes of Trenberth and Cowtan & Way to gloss over the ‘Inconvenient Truth’ that the Earth stopped warming over a decade ago.
  
  But keep up the good work, Icky. The more lies you lot post, the more discredited your hoax becomes.
  
  AGW = It’s All Gone Wrong!
  - itdoesntaddup
    
    Indeed, it’s just another curve fitting exercise.
    - Dustoff
      
      You said it. If the numbers don’t work, change them to something else. Remember it’s all the (Theory)
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      When I was training to be an engineer, we called it “Finagle’s Constant” which is defined as the answer you want divided by the answer you got.
      
      Very useful it was, too!
    - Dustoff
      
      So you don’t do unemployment numbers for the gov do ya. (-:
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Yes, politicians and their ilk love Finagle’s Constant. Where would they be without it?
  - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
    
    Hey, he’s got a “sodahead” image.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      I think that’s what it sniffs up its little nostrils that has eaten through and rotted its brain.
    - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
      
      I take it you realize he’s part of Nazi Sciences tag team “Crusher Crew”.
      
      http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/09/skeptical-science-drown-them-out.html
  - Icarus62
    
    The climate is doing exactly what we expect it to be doing in response to known forcings and unforced natural variability. As Kosaka and Xie showed, the recent slowdown in surface and lower troposphere warming is explained by natural variability in the Pacific Ocean. The underlying forced warming trend of just under 0.2C per decade is unchanged, as the OHC data provided by the Argo network clearly demonstrates.
    - Dustoff
      
      Bull…
      
      You’ve lied about the numbers, when can’t prove it. You change the theory.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Still making stuff up, Icky?
      
      The climate is very much not doing what the McScientists expected it to be doing, anything but, in fact.
      
      Also, as there are currently a number of attempts to explain this away, can you explain why you keep cherry-picking which one you support at this precise moment?
      
      What, in your considered and informed opinion makes Kosaka and Xie more credible than Kevin “Travesty” Trenberth, or Cowtan and Way (at least one of which is a member of the Cook-Lewandowski SS stable, incidentally), for example?
      
      Plus, it’s highly noiceable you are trying to shift the goalposts from “the Earth is Warming” to “the heat is hiding somewhere where we can’t actually measure it, but you have to believe us, we’re second car salesmen climate scientists.
      
      Can you explain how, after some decades of claimed surface warming, that warming suddenly decided it no longer fancied warming the surface, and started warming somewhere where we couldn’t find it? Especially when, during the whole period that this has taken place, the sea surface temperature has been declining?
      
      AGW = It’s All Gone Wrong!
    - Icarus62
      
      Argo data shows that global warming is continuing unabated – i.e. there is still a substantial planetary energy imbalance of ~0.6W/m² caused primarily by anthropogenic GHGs.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Rubbish.
      
      Stop making stuff up.
    - itdoesntaddup
      
      The Argo data show naught: they have inadequate coverage in space and time to do so.
    - Memphis Viking
      
      The warming obviously went into hiding when it figured out we were on to it. It’s probably in Brazil.
  - Dustoff
    
    You can’t help AGW loons. They need the Gov cash to stay off unemployment. (-:
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      I think this one is on unemployment.
      
      I wonder if the Benefits Office know he’s augmenting his income by posting arrant nonsense on sceptic blogs on behalf of SkS’s Crusher Crew at $3.50 a pop?
    - Dustoff
      
      I think this one is on unemployment.
      ***********************
      LOL,,, by all the stuff I’ve read about gov workers and p0rn while they are working, are you sure.
- Dustoff
  
  LOL, yeah let us know, when it finally starts warming.
- HKopp
  
  It takes a bit of arrogance to claim that humans are powerful enough to change the very climate. Consider, please, that the earth’s climate has gone through changes since the planet was formed. Long, long before humans – and power-hungry progressives – inhabited this place.
  - Icarus62
    
    It’s not arrogance, it’s science. During the 20th Century, human activity went from a very minor influence on global climate to being the dominant influence, primarily as a result of our large and rapid emissions of greenhouse gases.
    - BlueScreenOfDeath
      
      Icky, you wouldn’t recognise science if it bit you on the snout.
      
      Stop making stuff up.
      
      AGW = It’s All Gone Wrong!
- BK Martin
  
  There he goes flying to close to the sun again…
Craig King

Read this article and I am sure you will agree with me that America’s shift to natural gas resulting in a massive reduction in CO2 output makes a nonsense out of curly light bulbs, smart meters and the like. It’s like we are all furiously and painfully shoveling sand while a huge front end loader shows up and does all our work in minutes.

http://www.energypost.eu/five-global-implications-shale-revolution/#comment-30860
- BlueScreenOfDeath
  
  Quite so.
  
  But the US CO2 reduction is matched or exceeded by the export to China and – interestingly, Germany – of the coal that was not used in the power stations.
  
  Partially as a result of the reduction in the global price of coal resulting from this, there are now ~1,200 new coal fired stations either planned or under construction.
  
  More than 1,000 new coal plants planned worldwide, figures show
  
  World Resources Institute identifies 1,200 coal plants in planning across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India
  
  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/nov/20/coal-plants-world-resources-institute
sam williamson

Obviously Big Oil had bought off Nature. That publication is filled with deniers.

itdoesntaddup

Will the thread blow up at 400 comments again?

Icarus62

Apparently not.
- BlueScreenOfDeath
  
  Unlike your little head, then.
- antimarx
  
  Hey warmist trash, do you work for one of the warmist sites, live off taxpayer grant money, or are you just visiting here from the Huffington Post?

Rob

Dr. Judith Curry demonstrates here that the data in the IPCC’s own most recent assessment report weakens the case for AGW.

But their summary, of course, expresses absolute confidence in AGW. Funny, that. I guess one good thing about the hockey stick is that at least they’re no longer trying to falisfy the data. Just the summary blurb that the politicians and media will use.

So it seems that scientists employed by governments are just as prone to the same temptations as scientists hired by private corporations to prove that cigarettes, trans fats and high fructose corn syrup are really healthy.

weejonnie

Even the National Snow and Ice data Centre couldn’t resist.

“Daily sea ice growth rates were variable during December. By the end of
the month, ice extent remained below average in most of the far north.
In Antarctica, ice extent remained above average and access to the
continent by ship has been more difficult than normal.”

TennesseeRedDog

Steyn is a freaking genius.

Strife

Liberalism IS a religion. And AGW is merely another of their doctrines of “faith”.
Like abortion.

“There are two kinds of people in the world, the conscious dogmatists and the unconscious dogmatists. I have always found myself that the unconscious dogmatists were by far the most dogmatic.” – G.K.Chesterton

MisterEd13

Actually there are three types; ones who know, ones who don’t know, and the ones who don’t care to know, AKA the sheeple.

disputin

I’m not really sold on AGW, but as I understand it, the theory predicts that higher summertime temps in the Antarctic will cause more ice to shelve off the glaciers and drop into the ocean. Thus there will be more free-floating ice, which is what trapped the research vessel.

AlecM

Very different to reality.

What happened was that the ship entered Commonwealth Bay and the passengers delayed their departure after a warning by the Captain that the wind was about to change.

The wind did change and blew the sea ice into the bay. Basically Turney fouled up by disregarding orders. This was nothing to do with warming of Antarctica which currently has 15% more sea ice than normal in a very cold summer.

What’s more, the ice caps are larger than normal, a sign of global cooling!
- PierrePinkFlamingo
  
  Thank you for that bit of rational thought.
- disputin
  
  I may be wrong, but as I understand it, the increase in sea ice is attributable to chunks of ice sliding off the glaciers into the sea, a phenomenon that results from higher summertime temps. Also, in my understanding, the ice cap at the North Pole has grown, but the ice cap at the South Pole has shrunk.
  - BlueScreenOfDeath
    
    “Also, in my understanding, the ice cap at the North Pole has grown, but the ice cap at the South Pole has shrunk.”
    
    Wrong again.
    
    Here is a NASA report on the land ice published Jul 14 2013:
    
    During 2003 to 2008, the mass gain of the Antarctic ice sheet from snow accumulation exceeded the mass loss from ice discharge by 49 Gt/yr (2.5% of input), as derived from ICESat laser measurements of elevation change. The net gain (86 Gt/yr) over the West Antarctic (WA) and East
    Antarctic ice sheets (WA and EA) is essentially unchanged from revised results for 1992 to 2001 from ERS radar altimetry.
    
    http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20120013495
    
    Here is a graph of Antarctic sea ice courtesy of the NSIDS:
    
    http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot.png
    
    And here a graph of Arctic sea ice from the same source:
    
    http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot.png
  - dbo’s gh-gh-ghost
    
    Disputin,
    
    You always have to be careful with the warmers when they move the goalposts, reframe the argument and offer post-hoc rationalizations of model failures. There have been a lot “reasons” given lately on why the Antarctic is gaining sea ice which my be or may not be true. But the fact is that the CMIP3/5 model ensembles have always projected declining sea ice. This is stated in the recently released IPCC AR5 SPM.
    
    ” Most models simulate a small downward trend in Antarctic sea ice extent, albeit with large inter-model spread, in contrast to the small upward trend in observations. {9.4}”
    
    Also recognized in the peer review literature.
    
    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00068.1
    
    “This paper examines the annual cycle and trends in Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) for 18 models used in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) that were run with historical forcing for the 1850s to 2005. Many of the models have an annual SIE cycle that differs markedly from that observed over the last 30 years. The majority of models have too small of an SIE at the minimum in February, while several of the models have less than two-thirds of the observed SIE at the September maximum. In contrast to the satellite data, which exhibit a slight increase in SIE, the mean SIE of the models over 1979–2005 shows a decrease in each month, with the greatest multimodel mean percentage monthly decline of 13.6% decade−1 in February and the greatest absolute loss of ice of −0.40 × 106 km2 decade−1 in September. The models have very large differences in SIE over 1860–2005. Most of the control runs have statistically significant trends in SIE over their full time span, and all of the models have a negative trend in SIE since the mid-nineteenth century. The negative SIE trends in most of the model runs over 1979–2005 are a continuation of an earlier decline, suggesting that the processes responsible for the observed increase over the last 30 years are not being simulated correctly.”
    
    The Antarctic sea ice gain has been consistent over the entire 35 year period of satellite data.
    
    http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
    
    Epic model fail. Beware of the reframers, it’s a sign of dishonesty.
Exton

That is called “calving” and is a sign of Growing ice, not shrinking ice. When glaciers melt, they fall back. What is NEVER pointed out is that the Antarctic eastern ice sheet is the biggest in the world. It is a bit bigger than the USA and over two miles thick. Now remember that the average temperature of the Antarctic is about -40F and can get down to over -130F in the winter (dry ice is maintained at -100F). It has been covered in ice for about 15 million years. The calculations are that IF you could maintain a temperature of 68F it would take about 20,000 years to melt that ice.
That fact alone destroys any AGW myth.
BlueScreenOfDeath

“as I understand it, the theory predicts that higher summertime temps in
the Antarctic will cause more ice to shelve off the glaciers and drop
into the ocean.”

You understand wrong.

The opposite is the case.

BK Martin

I have a computer model that allows me to build a city, then let Godzilla stomp it down. Maybe it’s time to give Michael Mann and his ilk something similar to work with, we could call the new model SimClimate…

Rich

My computer model requires millions in government funding to work correctly.
Quiet Desperation

So… Godzilla caused climate change?

OKFalls1

Mark, lets you and I go down to the GW Combat Central Bunker at U. Vic and blow the doors off…

MisterEd13

I don’t think Guardian reporters would very tasty. he he.

fuchsia1

Were climate to not be changing… at all… then that would be most unusual. Paleontology offers the best perspective… which is not possible in a contemporaneous frame of reference.

Yaaaaaah

Hi, Mark. I see being sued has filled you full of glee and testosterone. Too bad glee and testosterone do not win arguments, and will avail you nothing.

The “no global warming since before you were in kindergarten” nonsense you just wrote can be debunked at a glance. 1998 is, indeed, the hottest year on record so far–but hat is because it was a particularly prominent spike. The very plot that spike comes from, that people like you cite, shows the overall warming trend perfectly clearly:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth_temp_prt.htm

I know you’ve been told this repeatedly, by thousands of people, since the 1990’s. But it bears repeating: Learn some basic mathematics. Then you wouldn’t come off as such a willful ignoramus, as you did here for the latest time of countless hundreds.

Rich

Tell Al Gore.
Quiet Desperation

And this is why our side keeps losing. Just argue the facts. Keep the attitude and insulting nonsense to yourself. You don’t win hearts and minds by attacking people. Apply some science to your own behavior. Light, not heat.
- Rich
  
  And no more hypocrisy.
BlueScreenOfDeath

“The “no global warming since before you were in kindergarten” nonsense you just wrote can be debunked at a glance.”

Oh look, another “pause” denier.

Funny how the IPCC – along with pretty much the rest of the “scientific establishment” disagree with you, and there are a whole panoply of McScientists such as “Travesty” Trenberth desperately trying to explain why there has been no warming for at least a decade and a half and counting – and are starting to suspect that it may even have started cooling, isn’t it?

It’s you that produces the kindergarten nonsense.

AGW = It’s All Gone Wrong!
- Rich
  
  The head of the IPCC is involved in a rather interesting business enterprise. Guess who he is associated with regarding that business…
- Icarus62
  
  Why are you desperately trying to deny the OHC data that proves you wrong?
  - Rich
    
    Why are you such a sucker who enriches Al Gore?
  - BlueScreenOfDeath
    
    Silly reality denying rodent.
    
    Go fill your pouches with peanuts.
    
    AGW = It’s All Gone Wrong!
  - Socalsurfer
    
    Icarus…Can you tell me what temperature the earth is supposed to be?

bagehot99

If they haven’t moved on to the next doom-laden policy emergency, when the cooling starts, there will be some red faces in the warmist crowd.

But they’ll have moved on, and the journoadvocates will do likewise.

enasharples

Global warming was the wet dream for the wealth grabbers…an enemy that exists on a blank canvas…perfect. Sounds like a great idea to run a blank canvas candidate…oh, wait!

Socalsurfer

Can anyone tell me what the temperature of the planet is supposed to be?

Icarus62

What do you want it to be? We’re probably best adapted to the global temperature of the latter half of the 20th Century, which we’re now rapidly leaving behind.
- drrn
  
  Then how many times in the earth’s history did it experience global temperatures similar to the ones in the latter half of the 20th Century? And for how long each time?

J S

Buffoons,charlatans, fellow travellers, dupes, dopes, snake oil executives.salesmen/consultants. The CAGW saga features them all. As does the Ship of Fools. Great to have the penetrating prose of Mark Steyn highlighting some of this Antarctic caper.

Jonathan May

Mark Steyn, this is beautifully written! You have a new fan!

Joel C.

And, to top it off, it’s SUMMER in Antarctica! It’s only gonna get worse down there.

enasharples

“Like James Cameron’s Titanic toffs, the warm-mongers stampeded for the first fossil-fuelled choppers off the ice, while the Russian crew were left to go down with the ship, or at any rate sit around playing cards in the hold for another month or two.”
Hollywood’s definition of rat’s leaving the sinking ship versus reality( the drama was proberbly unbearable). I’d really like to hear from those Russians how it all went down, not a Hollwood style version. I smell a pay off.

kuhnkat

It IS still ongoing. The Aurora Australis, with Glacial partiers rescued and onboard, is stuck in a holding pattern off the coast of the Antarctic waiting for the weather to calm down enough to finish their resupply of the station they were doing before the rescue interruption. The USCG Polar Star should be arriving in the area of the Chinese and Russian ships to see if it can chip them out of the ice!!!

Yes, the glorious comedy is still happening!!!

http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=2627

kuruus

I notice you haven’t posted at national review in quite a while Mark, did the fire you for standing up to your pajama boy editor?

blindboy

Michael Mann has my best wishes. Mark Steyne? By name as by nature. Now which is more likely a huge global conspiracy of virtually all climate scientists OR a well funded campaign by vested interests to protect their investments in big carbon? Same strategy as big tobacco. Shallow self interested fwits muddying the waters for personal gain. Believe what you like. Reality bites.

socraticsilliness

That’s been settled with the e-mails from CRU and Prof Jones and Michael Mann. It’s all a scam. Steyn doesn’t have to write punch lines, global warmists write them for him….
- blindboy
  
  Aaa ah “global warmists!” Hiding under the bed are we? And it’s all about a punch line? If you are wrong and that vast collection of scientists who have been collecting and analysing the data for decades happen to be right you and your smug ignorant self interested parasite mates are condemning humanity to millennia of mayhem. But what’s that compared to a good punch line or the chance to keep the snout in the trough?
  - realheadline
    
    Please seek psychiatric counseling for your irrational fears. They’ve had great success deprogramming cult members. Best of luck, remember, the scientific method is your friend.
    - blindboy
      
      Irrational fears? Scientific method? Where did you get the Soma? So the vast majority of climate scientists know nothing of the scientific method? Only realheadline grasps it’s true intricacies. Then consider that many of them could triple their income tomorrow by going to work for some front for big carbon but no, they have their conspiracy and they are going to stick to it. Keep on thinking in headlines, it saves so much energy.
    - realheadline
      
      There is no need to “grasp the intricacies” of the scientific method. If you’re confused please go ask an adult or watch the Feynman lecture below.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw
      No one is claiming that climate “scientists” don’t know the scientific method, we’re simply stating that the profits of doom, claiming certainty were none exist, are full of shiit.
      Did you mean to write the following:
      “…by going to work for some front for big carbon but no, they have their conspiracy and they are going to stick to it.”
      The duplicitous nature and paranoia of that statement is mind-blowing. Seek help.
    - blindboy
      
      Irony headline, irony. You may have heard of it. It has been much discussed amongst the pseudo-intelligentsia in recent years. Are you dyslexic? If not you should try and get a firmer grasp on homonyms.
      Objecting to certainty is all very well but as psmith remarked you should take care not to confuse the unusual with the impossible.
    - realheadline
      
      Irony, like a prat climate “scientist” getting trapped in arctic ice by his own stupidity and arrogance? That kind of irony?
      No one is confusing the unusual with the impossible, given the context of our exchange, it doesn’t even make sense. If you don’t understand what a homonym is, I suggest you look it up, or state it’s relevance to my post.
    - blindboy
      
      By “profits ” I assume you meant “prophets”. ” were none exist” should clearly be “where none exists”. As careless with your writing as with your logic! If you admit the possibility of climate change then why perversely deny the conclusions of those members of our society uniquely qualified to make them and instead listen to half-witted amateurs and professional cynics in the employ of the vested interests.
    - realheadline
      
      You assume wrong. More clever than careless. The term climate change is a simple truism, developed by sophists to manipulate the ignorant and the uninformed. I see it’s working like a champ.
itdoesntaddup

The vested interests being protected are green ones. That is for example enshrined in UK law under the 2010 Energy Act. It is their uneconomic provision of energy that has to be protected by subsidy, and as that Act requires, by hiding the facts from the public.

Yep, you’re blind to reality.
julianusrex

Indeed, you are blind.
nogard1951

Idiot! Making FALSE claims that all climate scientists support AGW erodes your argument! It doesn’t enhance it! Some of the most respected scientists say it is absolute BUNK!
- blindboy
  
  “Virtually all” is not the same as “all”. Poor work nogard. It’s the kind of sloppy thinking that leads to bad judgements. Virtually all car journeys end safely….whoops where did that semi-trailer come from? Wikipedia actually have a list of scientists who oppose AGW it is fairly short and notable for how few actually have qualifications in relevant fields. So yah sucks boo, IDIOT, FALSE and BUNK back at you!
  - nogard1951
    
    For those not familiar with the tactics of the left, you are engaging in what is known as “The Big Lie”. Tell an big outrageous lie loud and often enough and the stupid will believe you. Try reading the following article. The consensus among scientists now is that it is NATURAL causes that affect the weather. Not human activity. Sorry, you lose BIG TIME!
    
    http://oss.sagepub.com/content/33/11/1477.full
    - blindboy
      
      If you are not clear about the difference between climate and weather nogard you really are not qualified to debate the issue. However, the article you quote appears to be a survey of the views engineers and geoscientists…..not climate scientists. Given that a significant percentage of the members of the professions surveyed are either directly employed by the fossil fuel industry or work in associated areas, their opinions are a subject of interest only to social scientists and have no scientific weight at all.
      The big lie? Back to grand conspiracy theories are we? As I said before nogard. Beware of reality, it has a nasty bite!
    - Fred Doe
      
      vir·tu·al·ly
      adverb ˈvər-chə-wə-lē, -chə-lē;ˈvərch-wə-lē
      : very nearly : almost entirely
      
      How reliable can your opinions be, when you don’t even know the definitions of the words you use? You have been either extremely inaccurate, misinformed or intentionally deceitful from the start of these postings. I have given concrete examples of it, yet you will not halt your attempt at trying to appear knowledgeable and reasonable when you are not. The fact is that most of the “scientists” that profess AGW to be true are not connected with meteorology at all. It’s not a conspiracy theory that I presented so much as the simple fact that those pushing AGW are undeniably making LOTS of money doing so! Ask AL Gore!
    - blindboy
      
      Set theory Fred. The set of all scientists who accept the over-whelming evidence for AGW contains a majority who do not specialise in climate. So your statement is actually true, grossly misleading and a perfect example of the sly and underhand tactics of the denialists, but true.
      That set however contains a subset of climate specialists which is also a subset of all climate specialists. The subset of climate specialists who accept AGW is a very large percentage, one might even fairly say “virtually all”, of the set of climate specialists. Try to make some kind of valid point if you want to continue.
realheadline

The flimsy CAGW hypothesis has failed experiment, what part of ‘failed’ do you not understand? Paranoid much?

blindboy

Of course, censorship! How stupid if me not to have joined the other idiots in the echo chamber ha ha ha

Katie08

After reading the inane and unproven dogma of the anti-climate change disciples and their refusal to even consider the possibility that they may be wrong in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to prove otherwise, it is clearly pointless to attempt any type of reasonable, logical debate. Sadly, one cannot enlighten those who refuse to be enlightened nor can one legislate against ignorance and stupidity because you cannot force people to see what they REFUSE to see. Having read some of the hysterical responses on this site, one cannot help but feel sorry for them and, quite frankly, experience a little twinge of panic when we realise that the future of this planet and our species may be in the hands of such people who take this false ideology into the seats of government (as corrupt politicians), into schools (as misinformed teachers) and into homes (as misguided parents). I’ll leave you with your childish name calling and twisted statistics – one can NEVER argue with morons, they only drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience in mediocrity!

Icarus62

Sad but true, Katie.
- nogard1951
  
  OH NO! Another one!
- realheadline
  
  A couple of lonely trolls still trying to peddle their hysterics. Sad but true. Keep preaching the warming gospel, we’ll keep laughing at you. You and your friend have lost every scientifically relevant debate that you’ve entered on this thread? Don’t you believe in science, or is the cult programming just to strong?
NotYouNotSure

This hysterical rant hardly makes for a convincing argument and does not help your cause.
I have had this hypothetical question for a while now, but so far global warmists seem to evade it, so I will see if you will answer it. If hypothetically scientists have gotten the climate science as predictive as the science of knowing how long it takes for an object to fall on the ground from a certain height, and it comes up with one of the following conclusions:
To stop global warming the population of the world can be no more than 100 million people
To stop global warming the wealth of developing country citizens must drop by 90%
To stop global warming, everyone must become a vegan and drastic electricity quotas will have to be enforced.

I am guessing you would not support any of these measures even is the science claimed this with 100% certainty. It is very difficult to predict the future and you cannot deny that within your camp there are different factions that do not agree on how global warming there will be and what exactly the consequences for the earth will be either. So I am going to go with the prediction that mankind will continue improving technologically, where this “issue” will be as valid as when some people in the past were warning about the fact that the London streets would in the future be overwhelmed by horse manure.
kitman3

You sound like the cult of priests from the Spanish Inquisition – who is the close minded here?
It’s about power and control – wealth redistribution not the weather.
As a self-professed enlightened one you are arrogant to believe man is the cause when the planet has survived for billions of years.
Where is the “overwhelming scientific evidence”?
As to increased carbon you should be happy the earth is getting greener plants love CO2 the forests are greener, the rain forests are benefitting it is a positive effect.
Progressives statists are the loons not the unwashed masses.
Nick Colombo

Global warming debunked: NASA report verifies carbon dioxide actually cools atmosphere Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/040448_solar_radiation_global_warming_debunked.html##ixzz2q6DVYS00
- Katie08
  
  I think I have already stated (on many occasions) that I am an exponent of climate change (not specifically global warming). Climate change is causing extremes in temperature … this is currently impacting us with hotter drier summers, longer droughts, record cold winters, more severe hurricanes, worsening floods. Scientists agree that recent extreme climatic conditions shows that we are moving towards irreversible climate change and it is this issue that needs to be addressed.
nogard1951

I challenge you to vow that you will commit Hara Kiri when AGW is proven to be the absolute hoax that it is. After all, anyone claiming such absolute superiority as you do should do it without anyone having to suggest it after they are humiliated as badly as you are going to be.
drrn

“I’ll leave you with your twisted statistics” Otherwords, you just know that that global warming exists, but can’t understand any of the science for or against it to debate it. Fact: My family would be freezing to death but for the evil fossil fuels or we would be chopping down trees and burning them.

But my high schoolers are being taught in school that wind and solar can power their xboxes, computers, iphones, and flat screen TV’s if we would only invest in them more. That is the corruption that is going on, politicians and their donors are making money hand over fist to give us expensive and ineffiecient energy and you are the moron that gets warm fuzzy, happy feelings believing that pouring money into the pockets of these people will save the earth.
Walther11

Katie08 “After reading the inane and unproven dogma of the anti-climate change disciples and their refusal to even consider the possibility that they may be wrong in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to prove otherwise, it is clearly pointless to attempt any type of reasonable, logical debate.”

It is your lot that refuses to consider that they may be wrong. You have 17 years where global warming has essentially stalled. Five more years of this and every one of your vaunted climate models will be proven false. It is the AGW crowd that has been running away from debate because for them “the science is settled.”

Katie08 “Sadly, one cannot enlighten those who refuse to be enlightened nor can one legislate against ignorance and stupidity because you cannot force people to see what they REFUSE to see.”

Save your false pity Katie. We are not refusing to be enlightened. We are refusing to buy a pig in a poke. Unfortunately, for your lot some of us know when we are being taken for a ride.

Katie08 “Having read some of the hysterical responses on this site, one cannot help but feel sorry for them and, quite frankly, experience a little twinge of panic when we realise that the future of this planet and our species may be in the hands of such people who take this false ideology into the seats of government (as corrupt politicians), into schools (as misinformed teachers) and into homes (as misguided parents).”

Again save the pity for someone who needs it. We have experienced our own “twinge of panic” as the AGW crowd tries to impose their wealth distribution schemes on the world while twisting science into something that more closely resembles natives throwing a virgin into an active volcano.

Katie08 “I’ll leave you with your childish name calling and twisted statistics – one can NEVER argue with morons, they only drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience in mediocrity!”

This is rich Katie. You castigate those that name call and then in the same sentence engage in exactly that same practice. Grow up!

mikewaller

What a load of childish nonsense this article was; even worse, a brief scan of the comments made reveals that there are plenty more infants in the same playground.

Historybuff

Ahhh… the fresh scent of typical liberal arrogance… narcissism… and ignorant ideology.

A closed mind is a wonderful thing to ignore.
HB
- TheResistance
  
  Well put, but One quibble is that in their case it’s theology more so than ideology, given the evidence.
julianusrex

No subscriber to the “Religion of Global Warming” will ever become confused by facts.
- mikewaller
  
  I woke up in Michigan on 22 December to find my son’s and his neighbours’ houses surrounded by fallen tree branches brought down by an ice-storm that subsequently got far worse. I caught a flight out of Detroit Airport and had my journey shortened by about an 80 minutes thanks to a 300 mph jet stream. I landed at Heathrow in a 65 mph cross wind that made the landing very “interesting”. Thereafter it has seemingly been incessant rain and flooding. Many of these events have been described as beyond previous experience. It may amaze you, but the thought that keeps running through my head is: “Christ: what are those denier bozos on?”
  - drrn
    
    Ice storms, rain and flooding are something our ancestors didn’t experience? When I was little and reading the Little House on the Prairie books about their bitter cold, winters, droughts, locusts, and tornadoes, I remember thinking ” I am so glad our weather isn’t as crazy as it was back then”
    - mikewaller
      
      So that’s were you get your key climatic insights from: adventure books for children. Explains a lot. I place rather more reliance on statistics and what local’s with a lot of experience have to say; but each to his own.
    - drrn
      
      You get yours from an ice storm, because that never happens in the winter in the mid west.
    - mikewaller
      
      No, it is the sheer intensity and extent across so many states that shocked local people. Of course, none of that counts for much when compared with a semi-fictional account of what happened in Dakota 150 years ago. Similarly I suppose that assertions round here from life-long farmers that flood levels reached in 2007 were unprecedented have to be discounted because of the biblical story about the great flood.
    - drrn
      
      Were all those local people alive when this happened:
      
      The Hurricane of 1900 made landfall on September 8, 1900, in the city of Galveston, Texas, in the United States.[1] It had estimated winds of 145 miles per hour (233 km/h) at landfall, making it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale.[2] It was the deadliest hurricane in US history, and the second costliest hurricane in U.S. history based on the dollar’s 2005 value (to compare costs with those of Hurricane Katrina and others).
      The hurricane caused great loss of life with the estimated death toll between 6,000 and 12,000 individuals;[3] the number most cited in official reports is 8,000, giving the storm the third-highest number of deaths or injuries of any Atlantic hurricane, after the Great Hurricane of 1780 and 1998’s Hurricane Mitch. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States. By contrast, the second-deadliest storm to strike the United States, the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, caused more than 2,500 deaths, and the deadliest storm of recent times, Hurricane Katrina, claimed the lives of approximately 1,800 people.
      
      I guess all those people in 1900 driving SUV’s are to blame,
    - mikewaller
      
      Pull the other one. You must know that the number of deaths and degree of destruction is a wholly invalid measure when talking about the US.. We still get far bigger figures in Asia, but now much smaller ones in the US. Why the latter? Because the most powerful country on Earth, having once or twice been bitten, now puts in place the technological, constructional and organistional factors essential to keeping the numbers down. The Katrina figures were so high simply because the US failed against its own standards in respect of all three factors.
    - drrn
      
      How about this account of “extreme weather”:
      
      The Year Without a Summer (also known as the Poverty Year, The Summer that Never Was, Year There Was No Summer, and Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death[1]) was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1.3 °F),[2] resulting in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.[3][4] Evidence suggests that the anomaly was caused by a combination of a historic low in solar activity with a volcanic winter event, the latter caused by a succession of major volcanic eruptions capped by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), the largest known eruption in over 1,300 years. The Little Ice Age, then in its concluding decades, may also have been a factor.[attribution needed]
    - mikewaller
      
      “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report (TAR) of 2001 describes areas affected by the LIA:
      
      Evidence from mountain glaciers does suggest increased glaciation in a number of widely spread regions outside Europe prior to the twentieth century, includingAlaska, New Zealand and Patagonia. However, the timing of maximum glacial advances in these regions differs considerably, suggesting that they may represent largely independent regional climate changes, not a globally-synchronous increased glaciation. Thus current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of “Little Ice Age” and “Medieval Warm Period” appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries… [Viewed] hemispherically, the “Little Ice Age” can only be considered as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C relative to late twentieth century levels.[8]”
      
      But, of course, this is all part of the grand conspiracy!
      
      The IP
    - julianusrex
      
      Let me guess, Mike. You derive income from the govt. so you toe their line for the redistribution of wealth.
    - mikewaller
      
      Absolute crap. I am a near 70 year old pensioner who simply tells the truth as he sees it. And, BTW, none of my family work in the government’s service or anything like it.
  - julianusrex
    
    Mike, no one denies that the climate changes. What is at issue is whether or not it is mankind that causes change. Too many “scientists” have lied and toe a party line as that enables the govt. money to flow. It is the Sun that causes climate change, not us.
    - mikewaller
      
      Explain this: those self-same all-powerful scientists have been saying for years that wanton misuse of antibiotics is going to destroy their effectiveness and cause a health catastrophe. They have largely been ignored and we are now right on the edge of that catastrophe.
      
      Yet in respect of global warming you expect me to believe that the reverse has applied. In fact, we know what big business,governments and most people really wanted, the same as big tobacco and big food and drink. The scientists to shut up and let business carry on as usual. That this hasn’t happened – and the big companies poured tens of millions into buying scientists to sing another song – is ever so slightly suggestive to me that there may actually be something in it.
    - BenGladden
      
      Predicting climate change is a lot more complicated and difficult (and more political) than predicting the effects of overuse of antibiotics or tobacco. Just ask such esteemed scientists as Dr. Richard Lindzen, Dr. Judith Curry and Dr. Roy Spencer.
    - mikewaller
      
      You make my point for me. Even with a bomb-proof case relating to a crisis that will effect every human being on the planet, micro-biologists cannot get the politicians to pay attention. So how come the climate scientists are so clever?
    - BenGladden
      
      The politicians have taken over the lead in climate change hysteria. It is all about politics — anti-capitalist politics. The socialist have co-opted the climate change issue for their own ends. Get in touch with reality.
    - mikewaller
      
      Rubbish! Even the ordinary guy in the street has at last got it into his head that we either export or die. There are no votes in needlessly impeding Western companies. Insofar as the rate of warming has not so far met the worst case scenarios (but try telling Australians that) my guess is that so much filth is being pumped up into the skies in Asian – a lot of it to provide us with the cheap consumer goods we so crave – that the ability of the sun’s rays to get through to Earth is being significantly impeded. Nor is this just idle speculation. Years ago there was an Horizon programme devoted to just this issue with – I think – an Israeli scientist having developed ways of making cross-decade comparisons regarding the quality and intensity of light reaching Earth. More recently, pictures of widespread smog in China and else were in Asia, suggest he was not barking up the wrong tree, and that way lies nuclear winter.
      
      Getting the Asians to do anything about it is hardly likely to be helped by the West abandoning all emission controls in order to a erode the commercial edge that Asia currently enjoys. Far better to stick with our approach and give the Asians advance warning that tariffs will be applied to all imported products shown by satellite imagery to come from highly polluted regions.
      
      One other thing, what the recent events have revealed yet again in both Europe and North America is just how ludicrously depended on centrally generated electricity (and transported-in fuels) we have allowed ourselves to become. It would be crazy to suggest that renewable home generation could supplant national power grids, but in a real, prolonged crisis having the minimal capacity to recharge batteries and run just a single small light bulb would make a very big difference. This should be brought about as a crucial factor in national security.
    - drrn
      
      Explain this, since I am in the medical field, if medical researchers had been found to be hiding evidence of a popular drug causing cancer they would have been excoriated. But when climate scientists were proven to have been trying to hide evidence of facts that did not fit with their “proof” that temps are warming more rapidly then ever, they not only tried to hide it, they were found to be vindictive against the scientists trying to publish their results. This was just explained away as “well scientists are like that sometimes” ???
    - mikewaller
      
      In fact, plenty of scientists carrying out research for major drug companies do go along with suppressing information detrimental to new drugs. They do so for precisely the reason of which weather scientists are being accused: no more research funds. However, with global warming, all the big money was on the other side and, just like the tobacco companies before them, many of the big energy companies spent years and millions trying to rubbish the whole idea.
      
      Yet in spite of the widespread perception that Western governments are in the pocket of big business, even the politicians have now accepted that GW poses a real threat. As for scientists being like that sometimes, so they are in every discipline, yours included as I have indicated. So just come up with the killer facts that really torpedo the whole idea – remember there has just been an unprecedented run of high temperatures in Australia – and publish your book by public subscription to avoid the – to you – corrupt peer review process.
    - drrn
      
      Our government spent 7 billion for global warming in different countries. What did the biggest three big oil companies pay 250 billion dollars on? Taxes to the government. Kids are graduating high school thinking that their iphones, ipads, xboxes and flat screens can be powered by solar and wind, if only we just invest more money. Who is telling them this? The same politicians and business owners that are making money hand over fist in solar and wind with tax payer money. They ASK for tax money, (or they go out of business because their product can’t compete since it is expensive and inefficient) and Big Oil PAYS taxes, but our kids are being told the Big Oil companies are the greedy ones because they make a product everyone uses. Unbelievable.
    - julianusrex
      
      Different group of scientists. The anthro g.w. crowd are total frauds.
    - mikewaller
      
      How very convenient. The micro-biologists who are undoubtedly correct, are powerless whareas those scientists who make claims you don’t agree with are Machiavellian geniuses. I think it is called being asymmetrically orientated to the truth.
    - julianusrex
      
      Hockey Stick = Total Fraud
      
      Climate change is constant and caused by the Sun.
  - BlueScreenOfDeath
    
    Oh dear, another frothing dimwit that doesn’t know the difference between weather and climate…
  - Walther11
    
    In Chicago in the 80s, I have seen -25 and -27 and winters with 94 inches of snow fall. Explain to me why I should be alarmed at -15 degrees.
CosmotKat

Thanks for sharing such erudite thoughts. /sarc

WhatMightBe

Since 1998, more than
31,000 American scientists from diverse climate-related disciplines,
including more than 9,000 with Ph.D.s,
have signed a public petition announcing their belief that

“…there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” Included are atmospheric physicists, botanists, geologists, oceanographers, and meteorologists.”

Man-made global warming is like Obamacare
D.O.A………….

Nick Colombo

http://healthwyze.org/index.php/component/content/article/249-al-gore-sued-by-30000-scientists-for-global-warming-fraud.html
- WhatMightBe
  
  So 30,000 scientists are suing AlGore for Global Warming Fraud!
  
  things will be getting even hotter for the Grand Daddy of all Warmers.
  
  this should be fun……………

oldtoady

The whole AGW is not about 10ths or millionths part of CO2 in the air. Its about control. Most of these “scientist” that sign on for this scam are malthusians. they would like nothing more than to see the human race mostly gone and themselves in charge at the top of the heap so they can create their little socialist utopia. They will lie, cheat and steal to achieve these ends. They are tired of waiting decades and are pushing out the fabian socialist(because they advocate change too slowly). They want their utopia and they want it now.

obadiah_edomite

I don’t need to put oil in my car. It still runs great. rush denounces the “oil change hoax” and the dittohead chorus cheers for the iceberg.

WhatMightBe

I sure hope you don’t drive
you make no sense at oil………….
- obadiah_edomite
  
  any physical system will break down if abused hard enough long enough…steyn, limbaugh and dittoheads neglect this fact.
  - WhatMightBe
    
    you still don’t make any sense.
    
    Seek help…………….
  - BenGladden
    
    The earth’s atmosphere is much much larger and complex than a combustible engine. But don’t take Steyn or Limbaugh or my word for it. Ask such esteemed scientists as Dr. Richard Lindzen, Dr. Judith Curry and Dr. Roy Spencer.
    - obadiah_edomite
      
      according to these esteemed scientists, what are the exact limits of pollution that are safe? and how do these limits of safety compare to projected levels?
    - BenGladden
      
      You tell me. After all, it is you who is saying that those exact limits have been surpassed.
    - obadiah_edomite
      
      I never said any such thing. I think so-called experts and esteemed scientists, on all sides, are mostly self-deluded and/or profiteers. I predict without any scientific credentials that if we keep dumping **** in the oceans and the air, without caring and without limit, there is a point where death ensues.
    - CosmotKat
      
      Thanks you for sharing your inner most thoughts and fears. Go back to your closet and do whatever it is you do there in private.
    - drrn
      
      According to you, how safe would it be for everyone in the upper mid west to quit using fossil fuels to heat their homes right now?
    - Walther11
      
      CO2 is not a pollutant.
    - Dan Kimble
      
      Shouldn’t you be speaking to the president of China?
    - CosmotKat
      
      in another thousand years perhaps there will be just enough collected information to speculate for another thousand if leftist don’t kill us all first.
    - CrazyHungarian
      
      What the heck does pollution have to do with this subject?
  - Dan Kimble
    
    Fool.
    
    People who like Rush or Mark Stein already had their views BEFORE they listened to Rush or Stein. Rush and Stein are artists, so to speak, who have made their careers articulating the viewpoints that most Americans have held for generation after generation.
    
    Actually, the real “dittoheads” are leftists like you. Your viewpoints have been spoon fed to you your whole life. You just don’t understand how well you have been programed. Neither does a robot.
    - obadiah_edomite
      
      must have been programmed as a satanic marxist pedophile terrorist. or is it satanic nahzi pedophile terrorist? please clarify from your superior position.
BenGladden

If subtle lies didn’t work in helping you left wingnuts in ginning up hysteria about global warming, blatant lies surely won’t.

WhatMightBe

17 years
3 months
10 days
7 hours
58 minutes
32 seconds
since the last reported man-made global warming.

come out – come out – wherever your are……………….

hmrhonda

But if it were balmy, it would be evidence of “climate change” and “global warming”. “The opposite does not disprove it.” For true (irrational) believers (for it is a mental illness or religion) global warming exists no matter what. Because, all those “haves” have cars and use oil. OMG!!!

WhatMightBe

It was -9F in St Louis on Monday.

I cried out for help
to all Warmers
to start their cars and run them 24/7
to heat up St. Louis

Sure enough it’s 37F this morning in St. Louis.

Thanks Warmers………….

ZombieKiller

For most of us, who we are is defined by what we do. The job of a LeftyLoon is to push The Narrative. Period. One’s occupation only serves to define the means by which one accomplishes it. If you are a scientist, you use science to push the agenda. Teachers, film makers, journalists, and politicians all use propaganda to spread The Narrative. Bureaucrats uses laws. Global warming was always a hoax, but once it became an official part of The Narrative, it had to be sold as The Truth. Even if it wasn’t.

Fred Burr

I suspect that using computers to predict global climate trends is about as efficacious as the efforts of indigenous people praying to the sky gods for rain.

nogard1951

Correct! Garbage in, garbage out!

TheResistance

Mr Steyn, yet another of your many underappreciated talents is investigative journalism!

I knew that Rajendra guy looked familiar. He’s really the Bhagwhan Shree Rajneesh, and has assumed a new identity.

hanekhw

Just a couple of weeks ago browsing through my science journals I came across a paper stating unequivocally that the sun has no impact whatsoever on our weather.

‘Science’ like that heralds the entry of a new dark age for mankind where magic and folk lore are used to describe our universe.

steffanjohn

Provide link to the paper, or I’m calling bullshit on this one.

Republiker1

The left wingnuts are still trying to push their desperate agenda upon the rest of us.

nogard1951

Since the earth has been cycling through extremes of temperature since it’s formation, just what makes these AGW worshipers think that they CAN or even SHOULD try to maintain the Earth at the same temperature that it just happen to be at, during the brief period of their existence? Isn’t that egotistically going against natural cycles and nature itself?

WhatMightBe

To Liberals this is all about
power
control
taxing
modifying American behavior to become good little Marxists

science means nothing to them
science is hard…………

nogard1951

After the evidence mounts to the point that even the AGW nuts have to
concede that they “might” be wrong about AGW, they will then want to
“compromise” on AGW policies, “just in case” it is real.
Beware the left “compromising” on ANYTHING! For the left, to “compromise” is simply to insist that one or more of their desired ends be achieved, no matter
how small, until their opposition has capitulated completely.

info solituderetreats

Predictions would be more accurate if scientist were able to actually measure or predict when, where or how much energy the sun will be sending in our direction. Tiny changes in the Amount of energy received by the Sun dwarf any man made attempts to warm or cool the earth.
Assuming energy releases from the sun to be a constant makes climate prediction a guessing game.

deadmanvoting

There you go again……making sense…..

neilwilson

I will bet $1,000 to anyone about Global Warming.
I win when the average temperature for the year is the hottest in the last 100 years.
You win when the average temperature for the year is one of the 10 coldest years in the last 100 years.
If is the functional equivalent of 10 to 1 odds.
Come on! put your money where your mouth is.
Mark Steyn is smart enough not to take the bet.

WhatMightBe

Wait a minute
Warmers claim that Weather is NOT Climate
unless it’s hot today…………..
- deadmanvoting
  
  or record cold….
realheadline

It’s been slowly and naturally warming for the last 300 years genius. You’ve fallen for sophistry. The only one disputing that it’s warming, is the the little green straw man running around in your head.
BenGladden

Having reached a temperature peak in RECORDED history over the last several years, If the trend is reversing, naturally, it would be several years before the average temperature for a year becomes one of the 10 coldest in recorded history, naturally. It wouldn’t suddenly plummet. Don’t you understand science?
itdoesntaddup

More bad maths. Consider if temperature were modelled by Acos(O*(t-2005))+B+C*N(0,1), where B is a long term average, N(0,1) is a standard normal distribution and C a constant of proportionality, A is the half-amplitude of an underlying oscillation, and O gives its period – and calculate the odds more properly.
- Maniccheapskate
  
  Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
neilwilson

All of you commentators are so wonderful.

On the one hand, you grasp at straws that cold weather in the winter time proves that Global Warming is not real. On the other hand, you say that the earth is warming so my 10-1 odds are not fair.

I don’t really care which argument you make. I just care that you are being inconsistent.

If the world is warming, which y’all seem to agree that it is, then the debate should be about what is causing the warming. Maybe it isn’t CO2 but something is causing the warming. However, the top picture and the headline of this article are about a specific anecdote about a ship getting caught in the ice near Antarctica. Sure, it is kind of funny that the ship got caught in the ice. The article doesn’t try to come up with any reason for why the planet is getting warmer.

So please be logical. Is the earth warming? If yes, then Mark Steyn’s article is stupid and wrong. Is the earth not warming? Then my bet is a suckers bet and you can get an easy $1,000 in a few years.

At best, all you are left with is showing your ignorance that it gets cold in the winter time and that disproves the earth is getting warmer.
- realheadline
  
  nielwilson says:
  “On the one hand, you grasp at straws that cold weather in the winter time proves that Global Warming is not real.”
  Realheadline says:
  Talk about grasping at straws. Is that little green straw-man burrowing into your head causing brain damage? See my post below. LOL
- CosmotKat
  
  Challenges or bets on an anonymous comment board is the last resort of the ignorant.
- obijohn
  
  It’s interesting to note that Mars is on a similar warming trend, at least as far as NASA can determine. I don’t think its because of all of the SUVs running around. Hmmm… what is the constant factor shared by Earth and Mars? Could it be variations in solar output causing this warming, just as this has caused Ice Ages and warming trends for time immemorial?
  
  BTW, that we haven’t had warming for the past 15 years pretty much destroys the AGW theory… if warming is happening then human activity isn’t a significant cause. Real scientists would acknowledge that when a theory is disproven, denial is irrational and consensus be damned. After all, wasn’t there universal scientific consensus that the Earth was flat?
realheadline

Please, don’t ‘reply’ to your own posts. The simple name-calling and lack of critical reasoning skills that you display, only have entertainment value if the responses are posted directly below, for context.
- neilwilson
  
  Whatever.
  You are avoiding my question.
  Is the world warming? Yes or No
  If Yes, then this article is a joke and serves no purpose
  If No then why don’t you take me up on my bet?
  - realheadline
    
    Once again genius, see my ORIGINAL reply to your post.
    “..The only one disputing it’s warming, is the the little green straw man running around in your head.”

WhatMightBe

Mark Steyn is my favorite Rush guest host.
I laugh myself silly with his weird humor.

except for Curling
it’s a Canadian problem trying to invade America……

MDaveno1

Am all-in for illegal immigrant guest hosts, too!

notyrant

Science has been hijacked by ecodruids who are as crazy and fanatical as Sturmabteilung. Pretty soon, the scientic community will have no cred left.

Lamb Chop

Overheard at a swank Manhattan restaurant:

”All that build-up of ice in the Antarctic was caused by a combination of global warming, global cooling, global change, global radiation, global magnetism, and global gerrymandering.

Walther11

He forgot global rotation.
- MDaveno1
  
  And global bridge congestion

Ber

What happened to standard pic of the forlorn looking, transsexual, multi cultural, diversity seeking Polar bear floating on a tiny piece of ice that has broken away from the main ice pack because someone flushed his toilet twice one afternoon in west Cork?
Think of the polar bear you heartless, right wing Zionists!

MDaveno1

Is there ice in Zion? [sarc]

DougS

It’s a well known fact that everything bad that happens is as a result of AGW – and everything nice (or neutral) is caused by natural variation.

97% of Climastrologers say so, so it must be true!

Anyone who disagrees is a retarded, big-oil-funded denier and should be sentenced to death in the Court of Mother Earth.

Alternatively you could just vote UKIP and get your life back!

Dougal

I like Mark’s parenthetic reference to the Michael Mann case, which is about what it will be accorded in history when the story of the AGW hoax is recorded in hindsight. I encourage everyone, however, to go to National Review and contribute to the defense fund. Mann apparently has unlimited funding to drag this out as long as the courts tolerate assaults on freedom of expression.

Asmund Hairy-Arse

Dictionaries should show the “hockey stick” graph under the definition of hoax, along with a picture of Michael “Piltdown” Mann.

Rogervzv

Hilarious. In the history of the world, except for Communists and Democrats, there has never been liars like the “Global Warming-Climate Change” bunch. I understand that notwithstanding the cold temperatures, 2013 was the hottest year on record. Or something like that.

Dorothy Myers

Very entertaining. I always enjoy your commentaries, Mark.

Maniccheapskate

Michael Crichton’s prescient book, “A State of Fear”, written as fiction, someday to be moved to the non-fiction section, like “Atlas Shrugged”, has a premise that all the global warming/wacko environmentalist/peta organizations have such massive fixed overhead of salaries and perks; that FEAR is necessary to keep the gravy cooking. Rational, logical, moral, ethical, truthful people recognize the scams the looters are running yet haven’t yet been able to overcome the revulsion that there is only one solution to the problem.
Steyn is my favoritest philosopher and one hell of a man/patriot.

raycotennis

Mark iced it again

CosmotKat

Brilliant commentary from one of my favorites. Thanks Mark for being you and when do you return to NRO?

owenmagoo

During the recent cold snap, they were freaking out…
Suddenly after using, tornados, hurricanes, and drought as clarion examples, they turn around and offer that an incident of global cooling is not a fair metric.

Chris Hayes freaking out over being hoisted on his own petard was priceless. I even caught a political cartoonist ridiculing ‘deniers’ with a graph of ‘global warming trends’. At least he was smart enough to know that if he put a graph of actually global temperature, he would have exposed how weak his argument is.

Rich irony that global warming alarmist dismiss god, but push their own. Clearly there is a reason why ‘thou shalt have no other god before me’ comes first in the commandments. Maybe they need to learn the one about using their god’s name in vain.

MrPancks

Lyrics from the upcoming Docudrama by Lowell George, and performed by Little Feat:
Cold, cold, cold
Cold, cold, cold
Freezing, it was freezing in that hotel
I had no money, my special friend was gone
The TV set was busted so she went along
I called room, room service,
I’m down here on my knees
A peach or a pear, or a coconut please,
But they was cold
Well it’s been a month since I seen my girl
Or a dime to make the call
‘Cause it passed me up, or it passed me by,
Or I couldn’t decide at all
And I’m mixed up, I’m so mixed up
Don’t you know I’m lonely
And I wish the world would get off of my case
And get on one of its own
Cold, cold, cold
Cold, cold, cold
– See more at: http://www.littlefeat.net/index.php?page=lyrics&dc_id=1155#sthash.P2FE5nP3.dpuf

neilwilson

So, everyone who has picked on my comments appears to agree the earth is getting warmer. It is so nice to have agreement.

I guess that is everyone by Mark Steyn who wrote in his last paragraph “Big Climate is slowly being crushed by a hard, icy reality: if you’re
heading off to university this year, there has been no global warming
since before you were in kindergarten.”

I know what he said is true but cherry-picking 1998 as your starting point and ignoring hundreds of years of history is ignoring facts.

It seems to me that if you don’t believe in AGW then you should at least admit the world has been getting warmer. I am glad the people who have responded to me admit the world is getting warmer. When with Mr. Steyn?

dbo’s gh-gh-ghost

If the IPCC can isolate or “cherry pick” 1998 why can’t the skeptics?
- CrazyHungarian
  
  Because using temps since 1998 would make the alarmists look silly.
HAL 9000

Over geologic time the earth has been getting warmer, since the Ice Ages to be specific – that is not hundreds but thousands of years. People have undoubtedly been the cause of CO2 to reach 400PPM in the past two centuries or so, but the warming predicted by the computer-model oracles has not followed in kind, indeed shows a bias in their collective error assuming CO2 affects heat trapping more than it actually does in reality.

In other words, the fundamental theory of CO2 being the arbiter of global temperatures needs to be re-visited, at least from a CO2-sensitivity perspective. I’m sure we can both agree on that as well.
- Walther11
  
  “I’m sure we can both agree on that as well.”
  
  My money is on neil not agreeing.
wolverineconservative

Before there were humans the earth experienced periods of warming and cooling. Extreme warming and extreme cooling. So, how much of what we are or are not experiencing in the past XX number of years is due to natural variations and how much is due to human carbon footprint ?
realheadline

Your obtuse misunderstanding of Steyn’s statement, and the succinct replies you have received to your earlier query, demonstrates you are either a propagandist or an idiot. There has been NO statistically significant warming for the last 13 to 18 years, depending on the data set used. Now go peddle your religion somewhere else.
Walther11

Sorry neil 1998 is not cherry picking. That is when your models kept going up while the real world leveled off. Please don’t accuse us of ignoring history when it is your lot that erased the medieval warming period out of history. Find us the paper that proves that water vapor provides a two or three-fold amplification of CO2 green house effect. Because that is the point of contention, not whether the planet has warmed or not. Without the positive feedback, which is unproven, you don’t have a theory. You have a fairytale.

HAL 9000

I’m amazed Steyn wrote this whole piece about the Church of Carbontology without making a metaphorical connection to Scientology’s SeaOrg. Such a simile is begging for treatment from a satirist of Steyn’s talent.

Dan Pangburn

I wonder if any
of these people that were trapped in the ice will begin to realize that they
have been egregiously misled.

The primary
driver of average global temperature has been hiding in plain sight.

Equation that
calculates credible average global temperatures since 1610 and, when combined
with the net of ocean oscillations, calculates average global temperatures
since before 1900 with R2 > 0.9 is at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com/

distantfires

Here we love Mark’s articles, every single one, but this one is his most bizarre. Call me obtuse, like ice.

peterstaats

Regarding the ability to actually measure global temperatures:

Several years ago when I first became interested in global warming I made an earnest effort to trace the trend of temperatures in my locality (Cincinnati Ohio, USA). I believed that I should be able to get records of actual measured temperature for most of the 20th century. There were records available for several measurement stations over that period, but they proved to be useless. None of the measurement sites stayed in existence for more than a few decades. Even if the individual measurements had been precisely accurate the measurement were not comparable over time. I was not interested in pursuing the slippery slope of adding theoretical “adjustments” to account for relocations of measurement stations. It was then that I, as an engineer, realized the futility of the climatologists efforts to measure global temperatures within a degree.

WhatMightBe

Think that’s something,

Global Warming Nut Michael Mann, just subtracted 1.7F
from the first mercury thermometer readings of 150 years ago
so they would “align” with old-growth tree rings and ice core samples,
both of which are wild ass guesses as to temperatures.

Then, without notice, Earth warmed up 1.7F in the past 150 years
that was the birth of man-made global warming – a fudge factor, a lie.
The infamous “Hockey Stick Temperature Graph”.

NASA and NOAA still use that Mann tainted data to support man-made global warming today…..
- Walther11
  
  You have to ask yourself if tree-ring data is such a good proxy indicator for temperature in the distant past, why it inadequate for modern-day temperatures? The answer I am afraid is that the graph would not be a hockey stick.
Walther11

This has been one of my major complaints for some time. The idea that one can take temperature of an atmosphere AS BIG AS A PLANET and many kilometers thick with any degree of accuracy is ludicrous. Now they are trying to tell us that they can see a 0.1 pH unit decline in the ocean pH. These people are certifiably nuts. Statistics can do a lot to fill in gaps, but I think they have gone far beyond what statistical methods were designed to accomplish.
- CrazyHungarian
  
  I laugh at the claim that sea levels are rising by fractions of centimeters. Those that make that claim are unaware that we still don’t have an accurate algorithm that details sea levels across the whole globe, at least to within centimeters completely around any longitude. Confusing the definition of exact sea levels is that the globe is not round, that are there weird bulges and ripples, and worse yet, the ocean model is not even static. In other words, it is difficult, if not impossible to define an average sea level. Similarly, it is just as difficult if not impossible to define the average global Ph or temperature. There are just too many variables, and a picture to the accuracy level that is claimed has too many guesses and compromises and measurement systems are just too unstable to provide a long term accurate picture.
  - Walther11
    
    It does work to their favor among the public, most of whom have never spent 10 minutes in a lab nor have any acquaintance with instrumentation, confidence levels, or error intervals. Statistics can be used to illuminate the truth or sell a lie.
    - CrazyHungarian
      
      Or signal to noise ratios or error budgets, especially when the error envelope is significantly larger than the claimed signal. To you unscientific ones out there that is like claiming to hear a conversation across the field at the Superbowl after a touchdown.
  - OWilson
    
    In a general way sea level has been rising over the last few thousand years since the last ice age retreated from its maximum.
    The IPCC put a lot of faith into historic “tidal gauges”, but with the elevating and sinking of the land masses, (the continents are floating) they are the most unreliable of benchmarks and easily cherry picked for supporting data.

Oak Ridge Curmudgeon

My region’s arctic blast has passed, temps now above 35F. The wet puddle on my patio represents unambiguous evidence of snowball warming (melting, actually).

Southernationalist

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

WhatMightBe

No, it’s Falling Skies and I love that TV show………..

The Truth

You have to follow the money. During the first 5 years of the Obama administration USG spent more then $70Billion promoting global warming.

If you’re an academic and you want funding its pretty clear what side you have to be on.

jschmidt2

We can send nearly 7billion overseas to help less developed countres deal with global warming, but we can’t expend the unemployment benefits which cost the same amount. Our priorities are out of whack and all Obama wants to do is damage the economy to prevent climate change when the public hasn’t even been convinced.

Skep41

This political religion of Progressivism extends now into every aspect of life, from the weather to our diets to the culture. Unlike Christianity, which wrapped basic moral truths in a coating of symbolism and mythology, some of which has lost it’s resonance in modern times but which has retained its verity at its core; the Progressive religion’s core is a morally rotten, illogical Marxism which depends on endless repetition, repression, mass delusion and vicious intolerance. This comical demonstration of the fanatical inability of these ‘scientists’ to even question their nonsensical hypotheses in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary, and the almost total lack of reporting on the nature of their mission in the Official Media, might cause a giggle in the hands of a deft critic like Steyn but there is no cause for mirth in this lie. We will be meeting Steyn in the next cell at the re-education camp after the Progressives ruin the economy and install a dictatorship in the smoking (carbon-producing) ruins.

madhatter

All these articles are the same-written by nonscientists,conflating temperatures with climate and not reading any of the articles about climate change because they describe extreme weather which is what we see summer and now winter. The average global temps are rising and sea temp rising that is why the oceans are higher(please look it up) and all the mountain ice and the polar ice is decreasing. You can look at the satellite photos through the years. There is recovery this year of the disasterous melting of antarctic ice this year but the trend is melting of the ice.

jschmidt2

average temp on surface hasn’t risen in 12 years. “Scientists” have ostracized people who disagree, fudged data, and conspired to support their pre-conceived theories. Until neutral scientists can review the data and re-present the data as accurate, the public will not buyin.
rule0flaw

Get back in your paddock, sheepie.
itdoesntaddup

Trend in Antarctic sea ice is firmly upward over several years, and well above the levels of the 30 year average from 1979 to 2008:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png

Infovoyeur

I don’t know why conservatives reject the CEC (current, expert, consensus) of 97% of specialist scientists about global warming. I thought only perhaps (1) economic: want to keep on exploiting the environment for their profit, and relatedly (2) political: don’t want Big Government imposing carbon-tax whatevers on their profits and “freedom.” The question is always: “who’s the Puppetmaster making a person dance?”

drrn

Sure, pointing out that making energy more expensive, making it harder the poor and middle class to heat and cool their homes is greedy.
CrazyHungarian

Maybe because the 97% has been a long disproved lie. Start your conversation with a lie leaves you with zero credibility.
HAL 9000

I don’t know why conservatives reject the CEC (current, expert, consensus) of 97% of specialist scientists about global warming.

Conservatives? Its lefties that cling to the climate of 1850 as somehow ideal. That’s conservative!

And while your ‘experts’ have been crooning about carbon taxes and windmills past twenty-odd years, the USA’s carbon footprint is the only developed country that actually has beat Kyoto targets (signed but never ratified by the USA) almost all via fracked CH4 displacing coal. Meanwhile, solar pioneer Germany is throwing up ten new lignite power-plants over the next eighteen months.

Over past decade-and-a-half the entire world of energy has literally changed, and the earth’s temperature hasn’t, and the Church of Carbontology still clings to it’s dogma.

Conservatives indeed!
- itdoesntaddup
  
  Not quite true about Kyoto targets. Several countries including the UK and much of Eastern Europe have met them. Overall they were a failure in reducing global CO2 emissions, as industry relocated to places like China with higher emissions for the output, also increasing international transport emissions to get goods to consumers, and as China grew of itself.
jschmidt2

THe Dems are ready to jump in to prevent climate change, damage the economy with economic sanctions on fossil fuel industries, all while the big polluters of CHina and India will not stop polluting. Makes no sense for us to kill our own economy when the end result will not be achieved.
Oddstar7

While I agree with the four other replies your comment has received, I would add one more point: Because we are not sheep. When a bunch of self-proclaimed experts tell us something, we ask to see the evidence, and review that evidence for ourselves. We do not merely accept it because it is “peer-reviewed.” What a joke is peer-review: your theories have been “reviewed” by people who share your assumptions, biases, and professional interests. And when the predictions of these so-called experts repeatedly fail to come to pass, we reject their theories.
rule0flaw

There is no consensus of 97% of specialist scientists — there is only evidence that the models are WRONG.
tailhook

Because Real Science is never, *ever* done by consensus. You might have a consensous that say a collider needs to be built, or a telescope needs to be launched, but that’s simply expending their toolset so they can make better observations, it isn’t the Science itself. The entire point of SCIENCE is that you don’t have to take their word for it. You should be able to take their hypothesis in combination with their raw data and methodology, and use that to arrive at the same results and theory. If you can’t, Science has not been performed.

Not this Faith-Based Garbage where we have to kneel down, listen to whatever sales pitch they have going on this year for how the planet is being destroyed and how only they can fix it, and then fill the plates with cash.

colony14author

Frankly, I suspect the sun has more of an impact on climate than my SUV, but I’m not a scientist. I’m merely a non-leftist with two eyes and a functioning brain…

colony14author

It’s only been about 250 years since we’ve had reasonably accurate and consistent thermometers, so any temperature “records” before that are simply estimates based on things like tree rings and ice cores. And in the last 100 years or so, “official” recording stations have moved around and been influenced by many things, such as additional concrete runways at airport recording stations. No one can even know the current “average” temperature of the globe, let alone know what it was in 1650. The theories are just that: theories. They may be right and they may be wrong and they may be partially correct. But they certainly don’t justify spending trillions of dollars and reducing our standard of living just to try to lower the average temperature by a portion of a degree – especially when one volcanic eruption can spew more crap into the atmosphere than 20 years of SUVs.

CrazyHungarian

Its been about 250 years that we have had thermometers of any accuracy, but actual temperature standards did not happen until mid 19th century, so measurements taken before that should be considered as in possible error of fractions of degrees if not whole degrees, which when discussing temperature changes of fractional degrees over a century, you are talking of an error possibly an order of magnitude greater than the amount of change being discussed.

Chief Wack-A-Troll

nice to see all the idiots gathered in one place.

Baron

And you’ve joined the idiots voluntarily, did you?
- Chief Wack-A-Troll
  
  surveying the brain dead lying (all senses) on the battlefield, bubba.
  - A_Stone
    
    Crack open a Pabst, have a lobotomy, and you’ll fit right in. We ain’t evolved from no stinkin’ monkeys either…
A_Stone

Sweatpants-wearing denier flash mob, Wack.

Loki Lover

The skeptics have not arrive at the notion that the result of global warming would be that the earth will only become hotter without justification. In the 1990’s scientists of the movement warned of massive droughts, a melting Arctic that would raise sea-levels, flooding coastal cities, as well as predicting the death of thousands of species of animals that can only survive in cooler climates. It was only when the calculations of these same scientists (and one obnoxious former Vice President) started to fail under scrutiny that they not only changed the goal post, but moved to another playing field altogether and came up with “climate change.” It is completely understandable that there are people around the world who doubt that global warming exists.

noway123456789

I’ve heard this so many times before, it’s almost laughable. They did not come up with ‘climate change’ because ‘global warming’ didn’t sell. Do you realize what the ‘CC’ in ‘IPCC’ stands for? And has for over 25 years now? Do you?

That’s what I thought. Now, how does that fit into your conspiracy theory again? That ‘climate change’ is a recently coined phrase to move the goalposts of global warming?

The truth, of course, is that the two terms cover different but overlapping grounds, and are actually both still occurring, and both linguistically and scientifically, there’s no reason why one would exclude the other.
- VitaminP
  
  The International Political Comedians’ Conference
  - A_Stone
    
    So you deny the CC in IPCC has stood for ‘climate change’ since 1988? The only comedy on show here is the deniers…

noway123456789

It’s unfortunate that when people like Mark Steyn will be long gone and
safe and sound in heaven or in hell (wherever it is they will go), it
will be our children’s children who will be left to pick up the pieces
because the above-mentioned were too self-centered to actually give a damn about the
planet, and too egotistical to heed, you know, actual science.

Although,
for comedic purposes, I do like the way he starts the article off with
his list of obligatories. “Of course this column can be discredited by looking at the actual facts,
but I’m going full-speed ahead anyway. There’s ice in Antarctica! AGW is
a hoax!”

Nobody

As hoaxed as a private jet, Al.
- noway123456789
  
  Actually, Al Gore just made a movie. I realize that when discussing the science from a sceptic’s point of view, it is easier to just deflect and criticize Al Gore and all the other media hypers, but the science we’re debating never actually came from them. It came from the scientists. It doesn’t make much sense to try and refute the science by simply refuting the hype and quietly ignoring the science.
  - VitaminP
    
    Ah, but it does make sense because people vote about climate change and whether it’s important. Or they do if their governments let them.
    - Baron
      
      One wouldn’t bet on it, VitaminP, it massively overestimates the politicians’ intelligence.
  - OWilson
    
    Al Gore is periphal to the debate.
    
    What is important is the empirical observed data that shows the global ice cover above the average since satellite observations began.
    
    Oh, and the 1990 IPCC Report (“the most peer reviewed scientific document in history”) got it woefully wrong these 25 years later.
    
    How could “97% of the world’s scientists” be so wrong?
  - Baron
    
    Ever wondered why his name rhymes with bore? That should have been a hint. And we have another enthusiastic supporter of the AGW imbecility whose name rhymes with idiot. Arghhh
  - A_Stone
    
    Al Gore is an easy target. The denialists have an empty hand when dealing with the actual science, so they have to distract and confuse instead.
    
    Plus I think this article appears to have attracted some of the sweat-pants flash mob that occasionally target Disqus. I would have thought that the average Spectator reader is a little brighter than the ‘AGW is a hoax’ brigade.
Rod8

Wonder why some don’t care about the massive national debt we will pass off to our children and grandchildren.

MisterH

No wonder Steyn calls himself “the Happy Warrior.” There is not one other writer today who can so beautifully lampoon people like the very risible climate catastrophe boors he skewered in this piece. Talk about “afflicting the comfortable,” he nailed it precisely.

That said, I DO believe in climate change. It changes constantly; over thousands of years and there’s nothing we can do about it.

LiberatedJim

Priceless. Steyn, you’re a frickin genius.

JewishOdysseus

Obama’s Science Advisor Holdren just commented that he prefers to say “global climate DISRUPTION,” not “change.” So I guess his boss’s campaign slogan more honestly shd have been:”Hope & DISRUPTION.” Sounds about right.

Dana King

LOL, well done, mate!

VitaminP

If AGW believers don’t like dissent, there’s a way they can silence their opponents by next week. They merely have to give up their futile dreams of overhauling civilization.

Toffer99

In over 2,200 peer-reviewed articles about climate change by over
9,000 authors, published between November 2012 and December 2013, just
one author and paper rejected human actions as the cause.

http://bit.ly/19kFQsl

Sinequanun

What an industry – were there really 2200 new things to say in 2013 about climate change? I guess at least it kept 9000 authors from having to apply for extended unemployment benefits.
itdoesntaddup

Here’s one of those papers:

“X-ray emission from high-redshift miniquasars: self-regulating the population of massive black holes through global warming”

Come back ET, all is forgiven.
Baron

Before 1989, over a million papers, articles, books, computer models, and what you have, both in the Soviet Empire and in the West, backed the notion that communism is the future of mankind.

You know what happened to the countries that worshiped this theory, do you?
VitaminP

Over one million warmist commenters are constantly peer-reviewing their thinking to make sure it agrees with AGW dogma.
VitaminP

That says as much about peer reviewing as it does about global warming.
- itdoesntaddup
  
  Actually it says more about the nature of propaganda. The list of papers mostly contains papers that have nothing to do with estimating climate or its causes at all – such as the one I highlight below. Check out the list for yourself here:
  
  http://www.jamespowell.org/resources/Nov2012thruDec2013.xlsx
  
  It’s more fake data that they hope you won’t check out.

Adrian_O

[antarctic zen]

noisy humans leave theories stranded in eternal ice

[climate goose]

Chris Turney went up on a fence
To show humans’ climatic offense
But a giant ice wall
Made his theories fall
And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Cannot put Turney’s science together again
Threescore men and threescore more
Cannot make things back as they were before

[climerick]

A climate professor named Turney
Went on a melting finding journey
His companions were whiny
And his science was tiny
So now Turney’s journey put climate on a gurney

[climate goose]

Ring-a ring o’roses,
Global warming pauses,
Ice up! Ice up!
It all falls down.

Rod8

Nobody has ever been able to answer this question: 380 million years ago when plants covered the earth CO2 was 20 percent of the atmosphere (today it is 0.039 percent). Yet the temperature was about the same as it is today. How is this explained if CO2 increases global temperature?

GaelanClark

Gal Bore, the leader of the liberal ostrapolithicene cromagnathols, was instrumental in curbing global output of co2 down by the nearly 20% reduction in global co2 thereby starting am ice age which killed everyone.
Baron

Rod8, superb point, The transient correlation between temperature and CO2 level is as spurious as what that between the cases in dysentery in Scotland and UK inflation rate around the 60s last century.

At some point in the future, we are going to learn that the two variables have absolutely nothing in common. Other mechanism are at play, and we know FA about them.
- itdoesntaddup
  
  It was swine vesicular disease, not dysentery. I remember Wynne Godley’s letter to The Times on the subject – an excellent example of the message that correlation is not causation.
  - Baron
    
    Thank you, thank you, and again thank you, itdoesntaddup.
    
    You’re absolutely right, the barbarian’s brain forgot what the disease was, though it may have been dysentery, (only God knows why), but you brought his memory back.

OWilson

Just another “fools errand” akin to the search by true believers for Atlantis, Sasquach, alien crop circles, Bermuda triangle, Noah’s Ark, and the exact date of Doomsday.
The outcome is always laughably predictable, but in this case a whole political class has taken up the mantle, and that is what makes it serious for the rest of us.

rhcrest

LOL! This was a riot!

Thomas Davis

Well, I don’t want my children growing up in a world devoid of trees, fresh air, clean water and animals, because of a bunch of narrow minded, politically biased politicians, pundits and fossils who can’t see the forest through the trees. Actually, these types of weather patterns have been predicted for decades. Extreme weather will become more common as temperatures rise around the globe. Summers are changing around the world. Places that have hot summers are recording higher temperatures, dryer conditions or more humid. Europe right now is having the warmest winter in decades. Is this occuring all of the time? No, but on average, it is increasing. Tornadoes have increased in the US. Alaska is warm and it is snowing in Saigon, Vietnam?!!!

pedestrianblogger

Wow! What a mug!
Charles

I hope your earpiece breaks so you can’t re-mouth every word being fed to you by algore.

Contact George and Seinfeld. They may pay you for this comedy.
owenmagoo

When has weather not been extreme? When hasn’t the climate changed….see Greenland, hanging gardens of Babylon, Mesopotamia…

The fact remains that co2 emissions are higher than ever, and the planet hasn’t warmed in the past 15 years. That you still see cause and effect is tragic.
Baron

You aware why the snow covered Greenland of today is called Greenland?

dlei

Stupidity has a death grip on America and the world.

The biggest question is not whether we will survive the pure unmitigated hoax that is global warming – the bigger question is whether we will survive the rapidly devolving intelligence and common sense of Liberals and Progressives who believe they control, can control, or should control, the world and humanity.

A_Stone

That’s some hoax. A conspiracy that makes the alleged Moon Landing
hoax look positively Mickey Mouse, and HAARP weather control and contrails obviously ongoing programmes. Every world government, pretty much, and every credible scientifc institute on the planet earth are involved. Some hoax indeed.

OWilson

Today, thanks to the fossil fueled Industrial Revolution, the world has cleaner air, cleaner water, more agricultural production, less poverty and starvation, better health, greater longevity, and it goes on.

Folks like you either fear the future, or have a Marxist political agenda, either way, your fear and statist political goals are not shared by the majority,

Mankind has successfully inhabited all climates in every part of the planet, and will continue to adapt and flourish as it has been doing for the last 300,000 years or so.
As someone said, “We have nothing to fear bur fear itself”!

Go sell your doomsday scenarios to the low info sheep, before they wise up.

VitaminP

Fossil fuels save lives.

ndale27

Ah, Mark: always standing ready to rally the anti-scientific troops whenever the opportunity arises to confound transitory weather with climate notwithstanding, indeed, abetted by the disingenuous claim to the contrary you open with. My caution to readers of this cleverly written hokum is: read the author’s biography, not missing his steady denial of his good buddy Conrad Black’s guilt in massive fraud. That will be enough.

John Misselbrook

Thanks for the warning. I far prefer ad hominem fallacies to global warming fallacies.
Puss-in-sandals

Conrad Black should not have gone to prison and it’s a stain on the justice of the United States that we sent him there. Don’t blame capitalism for your ills; socialism would oppress you much worse, and with a vengeance — as the 20th century should have made (depressingly) obvious!
drrn

This is “science.” And if you doubt that something of an undefined nature might possibly occur at some unknown point in the future and maybe have unexplained negative effects, you reject “science” in all its forms. You also probably believe in God and are definitely racist.

WalterSEllis

It has long struck me as odd that the Left believes in climate change as an article of faith and the Right – again as a point of dogma – refuses to accept what it prefers to call global warming. I am not even close to being an expert on the subject. To be an expert on anything requires the appropriate education and experience. It does seem to me, however, that things are happening on the climate front that cannot be dismissed as liberal drivel. The Right doesn’t want to believe this because that would mean we should step back from our overwhelming reliance on oil and, in particular, from fracking, leading to a short-term decline in our manufacturing capacity (though also to the more rapid development of alternative energy). This is what the billionaire capitalist Al Gore meant by an inconvenient truth. The Left won’t accept that Big Oil cannot simply be wished away because the idea of another 50 or so years of untramelled capitalism is its worst nightmare. But, to me, it’s not a Left-Right issue. No sensible ideology can look ahead with equanimity to the rape of the world’s resources. No one, surely, wants to see the Earth turned into a depleted mine or a dry well. We need to conserve what we’ve got, use it as responsibly as possible and, in the meantime, devote more time and resources to developing the alternative sources that will benefit not us, but our children and grandchildren. Can we at least agree on that?

OWilson

“Raping the world’s resources”?

It is indeed a Left/Right debate, even if you can’t see it.

The very thought that we should give billions to the U.N. to distribute as it sees fit, could make only a devout socialist happy.

They have failed miserably at their main purpose, namely prevention of war, government corruption and Nuclear Proliferation, and funding them to meddle with the climate, is the height of stupidity.

Those billions are passed along to our children as unsustainable debt.

Can we at least agree on that?
- WalterSEllis
  
  A snide response, OW. One reference to the IPCC and you’re off. Now it’s all about the “Socialist” UN. You make my point for me. Next you’ll be saying that the climate change debate is a put-up job by immigrants.
  - OWilson
    
    Redistribution of Wealth as a political policy IS socialist, and worse.
    As for your prediction of what I will say next, you can put it up there with the rest of the flawed predictions made by your side. 🙂
owenmagoo

Money is a resource. Is taxation ‘rape’?
- WalterSEllis
  
  No. Tax doesn’t come into this. The rape to which I referred was of the Earth. Fracking across England would be a form of rape. I don’t dispute that oil and gas will continue to be central to our energy supply for the next 25-30 years. But we need to be careful how we proceed. One thing is certain: the oil and gas WILL run out eventually – and not just in the UK. We need to eke it out sensibly while preparing for a future without it.
  - owenmagoo
    
    In America, 50% of oil company profits will be collected as tax. Tobacco. Alcohol. Good fuel economy? Because of the threat of lost revenues, we are starting to tax that.
    
    Leaders lead. But our ruling class can’t. In demanding more, they call the tune for everyone else to follow. Hoping that a govt which can’t manage its own money will be able to manage the resources of our planet is a fool’s errand.
    
    Live your life and adapt. That is all our fate.
  - drrn
    
    Then I recommend England keep investing in wind, that seems to be turning out well for you doesn’t it? Much higher energy costs, hurting the poor and middle class, driving out companies. I think those of us that want a strong economy that drives innovation and provides good jobs in America should say to all of our competitors: keep up the good work and stop fracking in the UK. Leave it to us.
owenmagoo

Alternate resources…
The path always leads to weaponization. On the day that oil is no longer used, hell opens its gates wide in the Middle East.
Puss-in-sandals

Mr Ellis: You have a responsible and measured point of view. But I’d like to remind you that the Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones. Likewise, the Iron Age had no shortage of iron. The era of steam engines did not falter catastrophically because steam petered out… I presume you get the point.

Charles

If the global warmers don’t soon shut up we will all freeze to death. Show ’em who’s in charge, God.

Granite Sentry

This is hilarious, except that the climate-change idiots and their toadies in the press just aren’t funny.

RapidEddie

Very good Mark. Apart from the fact that climatologists refer to ‘climate change’ rather than ‘global warming’ – and your entire article is predicated on the notion of warming – everything is just terribly splendid.

An actual scientist might point out to you that climate change can just as easily be seen in more storms, more floods and more ice. A bit like, let’s say hypothetically, large swathes of Surrey and Kent being under flood water. Ludicrous, but you see my point.

But like I say Mark, I’m being picky. Apart from misrepresenting millions of pages of research and hundreds of thousands of pages of scientists’ conclusions, you’re bang on with your scoffing and snipe. Well done, you.

pedestrianblogger

What next? Large swathes of Doggerland under flood water? Gosh, these deniers, eh?
Swanky

It’s only ‘climate change’ because ‘global warming’ got to be so darned inconvenient and… embarrassing. I wonder why…?
- A_Stone
  
  The IPCC have been called the IPCC since 1988. The CC bit stands for ‘climate change’. And at any rate, the long term trend of the last century or so shows global warming, whereas you have to pick and choose relatively short periods to show cooling or stasis.
  - pedestrianblogger
    
    “The last century or so” is itself a relatively short period. Here’s a longer one:
    
    http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
    - A_Stone
      
      I don’t click on links, as invariably I am led to some denier website.
      
      17 years of land surface temperatures is long enough though?
    - pedestrianblogger
      
      Oh dear. What is a “denier”?
    - A_Stone
      
      Psychologically, one who denies reality because it is unbearable to them. A better word for you lot is misinformationist. Or shill.
    - pedestrianblogger
      
      Oh, the irony!
    - A_Stone
      
      Oh, the rhetoric! Oh, the complete lack of science on the deniers’ side!
    - Baron
      
      Listen, young sir, the engine of post-war prosperity in the West worked on two cylinders. that of credit creation, and that of cheap energy. We overdid the former recently, are happily kicking banking as evil, your lot’s fanatical obsession with climate change has made energy expensive.
      
      We will not see the same rate of growth as we did in the past unless we MOT both cylinders. The countries that want to catch up with us, those in Africa in particular, could look forward to more starvation in the decades ahead, too. Trust Baron on this, he knows, he’s looked it up.
    - A_Stone
      
      The human race’s days are numbered, and there isn’t a lot ‘my lot’ can do about it.
    - xmarkwe
      
      Good point.
      
      And I have got a feeling it will all break down a lot quicker with a dearth of cheap energy and a bigger rich/poor divide.
      
      Is your philosophy simply one of getting it over quickly?
    - Baron
      
      But before the year 1800 (and since roughly the Norman invasion), A Stone, there was no correlation between temperature and the CO2 levels whatever. Whilst temperature shot up during the mediaeval warming then sunk low during the mini ice age the CO2 levels in the atmosphere barely moved from 0.015% to 0.018%.
      
      You aware of it, or just playing ignorant of this significant fact?
    - A_Stone
      
      CO2 is not the only determinant of global temperatures. We are dealing with recent history, with global instrumental records. I do not deny that there was a warm period in mediaeval times – in parts of the northern hemisphere, at least. This doesn’t change the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse fact today.
    - Baron
      
      So what that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so is methane and vapour, the latter by far more prevalent in the atmosphere. What if the culprit is water? What do we do then? Start freezing it?
    - A_Stone
      
      Yes, but CO2 is increasing. I suggest reading up on the science. I’m not here to provide you with an education.
    - drrn
      
      So you deny there is evidence against the religion that you subscribe to?
    - A_Stone
      
      All evidence is welcome, and I go with the evidence, not rhetoric.
  - drrn
    
    IPCC was formed to find climate change and justify their existence and for America to give them a ton of money. So guess what, even with all their original models wrong in predicting the increase in temperatures, they are still 95 percent convinced that the planet is warming and we need to give them more money. Wow. Who would have predicted that outcome?
    - A_Stone
      
      You can see that the planet is warming by looking at past data. You don’t need computer models or crystal balls for that.
    - drrn
      
      Even though the “consensus” described in the IPCC report says it won’t. Gee, who to believe – the IPCC who has been badly off the mark since it began reporting or other scientists who actually research the climate, like Prof. Judith Curry from Georgia Tech?
      
      The 17-year pause in global warming is likely to last into the 2030s and the Arctic sea ice has already started to recover, according to new research.
      
      A paper in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Dynamics – by Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr Marcia Wyatt – amounts to a stunning challenge to climate science orthodoxy.
      
      Not only does it explain the unexpected pause, it suggests that the scientific majority – whose views are represented by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – have underestimated the role of natural cycles and exaggerated that of greenhouse gases.
      Yeah, I’ll go with Prof. Curry if you don’t mind.
      
      My favorite line from the article is one of vast understatement:
      
      The research comes amid mounting evidence that the computer models on which the IPCC based the gloomy forecasts of a rapidly warming planet in its latest report, published in September, are diverging widely from reality.
    - A_Stone
      
      I see, so choose one paper you like, and ignore the thousands that say you are wrong. We’ll both be dead, no doubt, before it really hits the fan. Lucky us, hey?
    - drrn
      
      How many of those thousands of papers came to the conculsion that the planet was warming based on models that have found to be WRONG?
Baron

RappidEddie, every single species that has survived since it first appeared on earth survived because it adapted to the changes in the environment. That’s the name of the game. That’s the lesson Darwin taught. We may think we know it all, in truth we know less than FA.
xmarkwe

Hi Eddie..

Re “more storms, more floods..”? Any evidence regarding the “more” bit?

Or, are they simply storms and floods?

Swanky

I had a very illuminating exchange with one Rob Honeycutt on this page, but unfortunately someone decided to delete all the comments and start again. That’s a shame. His evasions and non-answers would have been instructive for those that have not seen Warmists on the back foot before.

Referring again to that evening, here is my last post before leaving the field (and then, later, being deleted). If you’re short on time, skip to paragraph 3 where I forget about Rob and address the alarmist claim more generally:
—-

I’ve just come back to have a look. Ah, no surprises here.

Rob H. speaks of ‘right wing’. Well, he can’t be speaking of anyone I know: we’re all classical liberals and conservatives conserving the radical liberal project of democracy (self-rule is certainly a radical idea in human history). I reject ‘right wing’, just as I reject the ‘chemtrails’ smear he tried to throw at me. Typical tactic of the Left: they don’t have arguments, so they try to associate you with views you don’t hold. The most likely believers in ‘chemtrails’ are hippies and astrology believers, in my limited experience of the topic.

Next. Rob thinks that anyone that might be open to the ‘RINO’ (Republican In Name Only) charge is someone standing against ‘extremists’. I’m a Republican and I’m here to tell you that there is nothing extreme about Republicanism (see classical liberal, above). To the contrary, it is often the so-called progressives, aka in America the Democrats that are extreme, wanting an overthrow of our freedoms and our democratic system (ironic, given the party name, but there you are).

I think it’s extreme to demand that people compromise their wellbeing — their ability to heat their homes, feed themselves, read in the dark, power their appliances, and travel from A to B, just for starters — for the sake of a temperature change which may or may not be part of the usual vagaries of climate, and about which we can and should do nothing. But as I have said, we must understand that the ‘alarmists’ (whether genuinely alarmed or not) are not arguing from a belief in danger. They are arguing from a belief in Leftism. The whole AGW/climate change fraud and boondoggle proceeds from a belief that the West should be Left. And any old climate story will do. If you’ll remember, in the early 70s it was a scare about the coming new ‘Ice Age’.

It’s not about climate, folks. It’s not about science. Science has nothing to do with it. Science has no moral position — nor can it. That’s not what science is or does. This is all about Leftists trying to advance their Leftist agenda.

In supposedly ‘loving’ the planet, the Leftist climate fanatics show how much they despise the real concerns of humanity. For the sake of a perfection we can never have — cost-free power, cost-free food, cost-free quality of life — they are willing to undermine it all. The moral high ground is not with them; quite the reverse.

For the last time: climate is healthy, and careless: it is not ailing, it doesn’t need help, and we would be fools to hurt ourselves any further in its name.

Swanky

I’d also like to point out that the one question I kept asking Honeycutt was the one question he could not and would not answer. And that is: Why should humans fight a warmer climate?* Where does the moral imperative come from? Another way of putting this: what is wrong with a warmer climate? He said that we were ‘rocketing’ out of the Holocene range — embarrassing nonsense (don’t you also just love that highly scientific word, ‘rocketing’?). We are talking here about fractional temperatures, and the Holocene range is very wide indeed. Yet this guy claimed we were entering some other geologic age. How gullible do they think we are?

He also gave me nothing but waffle in response to my claim that climate alarmism is radical socialism disguised as environmentalism. Think of a watermelon. It’s green on the outside, but red on the inside. And climate panic, which was an agenda in search of every possible manufactured justification, is a Trojan horse for Leftism in Western societies that would otherwise reject it as unrealistic and undesirable.

*My question leaves aside the further question of whether we as humans even have the power to affect climate — more than the oceans, the atmosphere, the flora and fauna of the planet, and the solar system itself. I think humans are grand but I know we ain’t masters of the universe!

OWilson

The fallacy of socialism is that everything can be controlled and planned. Economies, human nature, even the earth’s climate.
Baron

Swanky, your other question wraps it all up nicely. We don’t have the power to stop nature when it decides to move. Our peeing into the ocean against a forthcoming tsunami would be more successful stopping it than our switching bulbs, driving slower and stuff like that have on climate. It’s sheer lunacy.

“Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad”. Could anything be madder than the AGW creed?

Jeffersonian527

Gotta love mother nature, She’s letting these folks in on how insignificant they really are to her.

Marcus

WELCOME BACK MARK!!!
Please please please come back.
Really great to see you writing for the Spectator again.

A_Stone

There’s a lot of talk of Left and Right on here. But the truth is there is the science – which supports AGW – and the denial of that science (for which there is next to no peer-reviewed science), and this objective fact transcends politics.

OWilson

Flash!
That was the prevailing theory back in the 90’s.
Science, and the empirical observed data has moved on. It will take some time before the true believers will let it go, though.
- A_Stone
  
  You mean when the scientists catch up with you?
  
  I think I will stick with the evidenced science, thank you.
  - OWilson
    
    Sticking to the evidenced science is a good thing.
    Sticking to disproved models is something else entirely.
    - A_Stone
      
      Always with the models…
    - OWilson
      
      Even the theory of gravity would fail if you jumped off a roof and were observed floating up, instead of down.
      By the way it’s YOUR “models” that predict AGW.
    - A_Stone
      
      It is observation of temperature records that show the planet is warming. No models needed there. I am willing to go along with the theory of gravity: please feel free to prove it wrong is you are so inclined, however.
    - OWilson
      
      Of course the planet is warming. We are between interglacial epochs.
      The questions:
      If the human race is more responsible for this warming than natural forces.
      If this warming will spike up to levels that are “catastrophic” to the human race?
      If the U.N. can somehow, through massive transfers of wealth, stop this trend.
      The answer to this simple logical equation that postulates three “ifs”, is statistically insignificant using Bayesian logic.
      What say you?
  - Baron
    
    A Stone, one of our predecessors, Sir Thomas Huxley, who did science when Darwin was around, furnished a definition of science that has yet to be bettered. ‘Science’, said the great man, ‘is common sense at its best. Rigid accuracy in observance, and merciless to fallacy in logic’.
    
    There ain’t any rigidity in observance in what you’re backing, the starting assumption for the AGW theory is badly flawed. The proxy substituting tree rings’ width for temperature ignores precipitation, the variable is missing, but rainfall is as important as temperature (if not more) for the growth of trees. Ask yourself: when do trees grow faster when it’s warm and wet, or when the weather is hot and dry?
    - A_Stone
      
      Why do you lot always misappropriate the quotes of dead scientific greats? Is it because you can be sure that their views on AGW can never be know. Richard Feynman is another favourite. Try to find a living scientist to back your claims. Oh dear, slight problem there, isn’t there?
    - pedestrianblogger
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
Chris Behme

Spoken like a true scientific illiterate.
I’m betting you’re a double Obama voter too.
- A_Stone
  
  Difficult to vote for Obama, since I am British. I also know a fair amount about science. You have the childish rhetoric: do you have anything else?
  - Chris Behme
    
    I have a Ph.D. In chemistry.
    Real scientists don’t believe this nonsense.
    You don’t know what you don’t know.
    - Bruce Stern
      
      So why not continue with an actual point?
    - Libslayer
      
      I’ve made my point.
      It’s lost on you apparently.
Rob

You mean the science that has been recording a decrease in temperatures for the past decade and a half, and an increase in the polar ice caps?

I hope it’s able to transcend Al Gore’s politics.

Just making idiotic assertions and typing “Science!” proves nothing when the science is against you:

http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-ar5-weakens-the-case-for-agw/
- A_Stone
  
  No, each decade has been warmer than the last. Deniers always start from 1998 or 2005 and end on a cooler year. Then when shown the longer term they say, well, 150 years is short term too (although they are perfectly happy that their far shorter term proves them right).
  
  I realise you aren’t here to persuade the scientifically literate, however. Your job is to confuse Joe Average.
mohdanga

Yup, all sorts of objecdtive peer reviewed science….
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/10/21/book-excerpt-conspiracy-of-silence/

Joyful LaRue

Did the Chi-Com ice-breaker ship ever get freed? Last I heard the U.S. Coast Guard went to the rescue . . . of course, don’t we always. Our fine military men & women risking their lives as the lefties sit on the fat-arses insisting GLOBAL WARMING is the greatest threat to mankind.

Guess what you fools, LIBS are the greatest threat to mankind.

itdoesntaddup

Yes, it freed itself when the winds changed (as did the Akademik Shokalskiy), in a brief window in the weather on 7th/8th January.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1400997/icebreaker-xue-longs-rescue-mission-highlights-chinas-polar-ambitions

The Akademik Shokalskiy has made it back to Invercargill:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:168.3123/centery:-46.88068/zoom:8/oldmmsi:273458210/olddate:lastknown

MrDDavies

People say that weather is not climate, but climate is just average weather.

RMIROD

Tell me what the weather will be like in San Francisco on January 1, 2099 temp, dew point, humidity, air elasticity, etc If you can’t how do you equate warming with your lack of measuring instrumentation going back to the last 1,000 years. You can’t. It’s all GIGO simulations using estimated projections using imaging software on CRAY COMPUTERS to produce a political agenda.

Rob

GIGO sums up the problem perfectly. What really annoys me is the lack of humility. Couldn’t they bring themselves to say, “err… yes, we did think the polar ice caps would be gone by now… I guess there was something or other we forgot (or are ignorant of) that didn’t get put into the model”.
Geoffrey Walker

Even easier, use these computer models that can account for thousands of variables to predict who will win the Super Bowl with over 90% certainty, and let me know. I’m going to Vegas!

Jakareh

I am angry at the injustice of warmists being rescued thanks to the massive use of fossil fuels rather than being left to their fate on the Antarctic sea ice.

Kennybhoy

958 comments not counting the several hundered on the missing earlier incarnation. Speccie High Heid Yins please note!

Swanky

The missing ‘earlier incarnation’ was the best bit. Perhaps that’s why it’s missing….
Baron

Quite, Kennybhoy, but will they listen?

The circulation of the printed media keeps sinking, and the tossers in charge let people like Steyn, Melanie, the good doctor go. They must be mad.

No Good Boyo

” If Voyage of the Gored had been a conventional disaster movie like The Poseidon Adventure, the Bangladeshi guy would have been the first to drown,”

Yes, but he’d have done it nobly — “Save yourselves!”

“leaving only the Nobel-winning climatologist (Miley Cyrus)”

Only if she was blonde with big tits. Miraculously, the blonde hair would still be perfectly coiffed. The tits would still be intact too.

“and the maverick tree-ring researcher (Ben Affleck)” Wrong. He’d die too, but heroically, and, being white, not until after he’d shagged the aforementioned blonde with big tits.

Everybody else would die, in this order: the ethnic minority (only one of them), the cute elderly couple (loyal to the bitter end), the divorcing couple (after they’d reconciled), the snarling villain (having been foiled in his effort to ensure the demise of the blonde with big tits).

OWilson

What about the blonde’s father, the Professor, who predicted it all, but nobody would listen?

Oinia

AGW acolyte: ‘We are genuine scientists. Our scientific method for fighting AGW is heaping ad hominem attacks on whomever dissents from our socio-economic policy prescription. Our scientists have concluded a dogmatic orthodoxy, hence we reject any incongruent positions, data, or evidence.’

‘This is consistent with our reliance on observable scientific fact rather than emotional manipulation – because we say so. Our ability to say so with authority proves we’re right.’

Ross Templar

The global climate is so sensitive to change, that when the global warming tour ship became stuck in the thick ice at the south pole it displaced just enough ice to cause the polar vortex at the north pole. :’)

Baron

Spot on.

You should send this to the IPCC, Ross, it sounds as good as the AGW theory, they cannot but embrace it.

One Thirsty Bear

The more centralized control, the more the forces of liberty that enable prosperity are extinguished and the more the forces of freedom that shaped the very minds attempting to centrally direct it, are destroyed.

abe-froman

Thank you Mark for the laugh fest ….I would suggest that we rename the “Dunce” Cap to the “Turney” cap to define an idiot …surely Mr. Dunce (whomever he was or if he existed) has passed on that torch to the more deserving Mr. Turney

ML NJ

Massive Antarctic ice is caused by global warming and unemployment compensation boosts our economy. What’s next?!

Roederer

excellent article.

Here’s a diary excerpt from the leader of the AAE….

http://spluttterings.blogspot.ca/2014/01/another-doomed-antarctic-expedition-or.html

RJ Chesnut Jr.

I will once again re-post on Facebook, the comic Irony is priceless.

Organix

A society of merit is a society of chores performed rather than success achieved; a society subject to the whims of those who judge merit.

Ronanfitz

So sad, to see such a useless journalist become even worse

Bill McCall

Did anyone see Prof Turney on Australian TV assuring the watching hordes that the ice he was trapped in wasn’t really ice at all, it should have been somewhere else at the time, wouldn’t have been as thick or as extensive if it had been somewhere else, because all the global warming that hasn’t been happening has been happening after all but in the really deep ocean somewhere which is why the ice he wasn’t trapped in didn’t really exist because it had been melted somewhere else by all that heat that had been captured in the really deep ocean, so deep we didn’t know it was there because he had just thought of it .

Pathetic performance ; these egg-heads are so caught up in their mumbo-jumbo they expect as to fall for every ramble they want to disguise in indistinguishable science speak and we must not jest because this is REALLY serious stuff and we are all going to die. Oh come off it Chris, we none of us in the real world were born yesterday even if you were

danah sparkle

Is there a reason you’ve suddenly decided to follow me on Disqus?

I ask because you haven’t participated in any Disqus discussions, at the Spectator or anywhere else, save this lone comment of yours, and also because I am the only person you’re following, and I never even commented on this article.

That just strikes me as odd.

skylane partners

“It is easier to fool people then it is to convince them they have been
fooled”

Mark Twain

Terry Field

The comments below are indicative of the cod-science, anti-intellect, bar-room level rubbish that characterises the so-called ‘skeptical’ AGW brigade. What utter crap; stupid, half-arguments, disconnected ideas, pathetic people.

Johnny Alpha

The comment above is indicative of the cod-science, anti-intellect, bar-room level rubbish that characterises the so-called AGW brigade. What utter crap; stupid, half-arguments, disconnected ideas, pathetic people.
- Terry Field
  
  Ah, you are a photocopier! Hello machine, how is life for a brainless functionary?

JBGIV

“”Without these efforts, we would not be in a position to tell people with confidence how Earth’s ice sheets have changed, and to end the uncertainty that has existed for many years,” Shepherd said.
The study found variations in the pace of ice sheet change in Antarctica and Greenland.
“Both ice sheets appear to be losing more ice now than 20 years ago, but the pace of ice loss from Greenland is extraordinary, with nearly a five-fold increase since the mid-1990s,” Ivins said. “In contrast, the overall loss of ice in Antarctica has remained fairly constant, with the data suggesting a 50-percent increase in Antarctic ice loss during the last decade.”
http://www.nasa.gov/mission…/Grace/news/grace20121129.html

Eric scott

nice read
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