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India Ditches UN Climate Change Group
Several readers have told us that the Indian Government is moving to establish its own group to address the science of climate change since it "cannot rely" on the official United Nations panel. "The move is a severe blow to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) following the revelation parts of its 3000 page 2007 report on climate science was not subjected to peer review. A primary claim of the report was the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035, but the claim was not repeated in any peer-reviewed studies and rebuffed by scientists. India's environment minister Jairam Ramesh announced that the Indian government will established a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor climate change in the region. 'There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism,' Ramesh said. 'I am for climate science.'"
I wish we had more people like that in government in the US.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
... written by hundreds of individuals = "climate evangelism". Apparently.
I'll BUILD someone to replace you. Some kind of gamma-powered monster, with a heart as black as coal!
Sounds like India intends to continue to use coal fired power plants and will not recognize studies that put coal plants in a bad light.
Where have I heard that before?
Wherever You Go, There You Are
This is good news. I hope more countries follow their approach.
In general, the UN is nothing but a scam. It has no accountability, and due to how it panders to politicians and their whims, it should have absolutely no involvement in science.
Frankly, people are fed up with these supranational organizations that do nothing but cause problems. In this case, you have the UN hyping what is perhaps the biggest scientific fraud of all time. Then you have other organizations, like the WHO, hyping false "pandemics" again and again. Then there are all the copyright and IP shenanigans with the WTO. Plus the crap the IMF and World Bank pull.
To hell with those organizations.
'There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism,' Ramesh said. 'I am for climate science.'
That was nicely worded. The line is not very fine in many cases, however. The biggest difference between a climate evangelist (read: Al Gore) and a scientist is the presence of uncertainty in reporting the state of the climate. It is hard to be preachy when data remains inconclusive.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
I'm sure that most countries, at least most relatively developed ones (and I consider India as such), already have their own group investigating climate change. Besides, I don't see any mention from the article that India is actually "ditching" the UN group. It's just establishing its own group, rather than relying 100% on the UN group to base their national policies and laws upon.
Sounds like India intends to continue to use coal fired power plants and will not recognize studies that put coal plants in a bad light.
Where have I heard that before?
Sounds like you'd rather have someone waving their arms around chanting some mystical mumbo-jumbo than someone that understands the value and merits of the scientific method.
Because that's exactly what the CRU data is: mystical mumbo-jumbo. That entire set should have been tossed after Berkley discovered that they placed the majority of their instrumentation in areas outside of specification.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
First of all, there were more than just "a couple" of errors. That report is full of just plain shitty science. It's the sort of stuff that no self-respecting scientist would ever want to be associated with, in the slightest way.
It doesn't matter what percentage of scientists "believe" a certain idea. Science isn't built upon "belief". Religion is.
Finally, don't mistake holding scientists to a high standard with ignoring their findings. Nobody is saying that climate change isn't happening. There is just a lot of doubt about whether it is caused by humans, or caused by some other factor (the sun, for instance). We just don't want shitty, politicized "science" being treated as anything more than the crap that it is.
Let's try to get this one out of the way early: Weather is not climate.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Because that's exactly what the CRU data is: mystical mumbo-jumbo.
Just because you're too stupid to read how the data is processed or compare it to what naive processing would yield... oh who the f*** am I kidding? Yes, it's mystical mumbo-jumbo. They're just trying to make the lightning-power that walks through wires into your house and runs your picture box and your clickety email machine cost more. CARBON GOOD!
I'll BUILD someone to replace you. Some kind of gamma-powered monster, with a heart as black as coal!
The reason is that we NEED others to check the work. Look, I have little doubt that this is occurring. BUT, this really needs to be checked.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah, that's called argumentum ad hominem. Fine, India has a ton of issues - water, poverty etc. Firstly, India is very heterogenous, far more than most Europeans and Americans can fathom. There is a large educated middle class that actually does care about the environment, and by the way does enjoy clean drinking water. Does it follow that because a substantial fraction of the country has to deal with issues the Western countries have solved, that Indians must be bound to accept the conclusions of a UN body ? Does it make them automatically incompetent to derive their own conclusions ?
It is irrelevant. If they want an independent assessment, its a good thing. After the CO2 emissions/Kyoto fiasco, Indians are wary of Western environmental policies. Most Indians see any limitation on their CO2 emissions as retarding their development due to a problem that is created largely by the now-developed nations, in the last century.
In any case, in science, as many independent investigations there are , the better the confidence in the findings. And trust me, the Indians know the entire Ganges plain is fed by Himalayan glaciers. They have a very large stake here.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
"Global warming" is not the problem. "Climate change" or whatever they're calling it this week is not the problem. Deglaciation is not the problem.
The problem is the billions of tons of ancient fossil carbon we're removing from the ground and adding to the atmosphere. All the climate / ocean / ecology effects are symptoms of that problem. That problem doesn't need "more study" or evangelism or scientific consensus, it's a simple obvious fact that anybody with high school education (even a politician or a capitalist) can understand. It's been obvious for decades, since long before "global warming" started getting any traction in public discourse.
The possible effects of the problem range from trivial and insignificant, to serious hardships of various sorts (well publicized by Gore et al), to utter catastrophe. The chances of serious hardship are high enough that we can't afford to dick around with study after study after study of complex chaotic systems trying build a model that can predict exactly, precisely, what is absolutely guaranteed to happen over the next 100 years. The chances of utter catastrophe, while still really unknown and probably very small, are still enough that we should ask ourselves why the fuck we're playing russian roulette with the whole world, when all we have to do is Stop. Putting. So. Much. Carbon. Into. The. Atmosphere.
I guess this attitude makes me an "evangelist" since I'm not advocating that we go full bore status quo until we're absolutely, positively, 100% certain with no doubt whatsoever what precise effects all this new CO2 will have in the long term. The problem is simple, the solution is obvious, the consequences are uncertain but why fuck around when the stakes are so high? How exactly are we benefiting by continuing to burn more and more and more petroleum and coal every year, mindlessly jerking around the delicately balanced ecosystem that keeps us alive?
LOL it was on BBC TV that the "expert that the IPCC got the "data" from was a geography students Dissertation
it was also splattered all over the Telegraph LINK HERE
the IPCC is so full of it that they have to use info from a student , which is not peer reviewed and is just an opinion of a pup in the greater scheme of things.
i think i'll take the word of the Indians and take my hat off to them for taking a stand against the UTTER SHITE that that IPCC spews! just goes to show the sheer desperation of them to use such flimsy nonsense especially after all the leeks showing the gaming of the numbers and the selective use of the Data
Come on people -- when you think of clean water, clean air, and sustainable living, doesn't your mind immediately jump to India?
Nope. When I think of India I think of hundreds of millions of people finally making the climb out of poverty to a decent standard of living. Granted, that standard of living won't let the average Indian squander nearly as many resources as the average environmentally aware American, but it's still a huge accomplishment that deserves applause and support. I'm glad to see the Indian government is not prepared to slow down or stop that economic progress to please some self-appointed guardians of the earth in the US and Europe armed with questionable data and questionable science.
Perhaps their new research group could use this as a slogan: "India: #1 In Environmental Stewardship Since The Bhopal Disaster".
Very cheap shot. The Bhopal Disaster was a disaster caused by Union Carbide, an American company.
US acquires Canada, lets Mexico manage the 'former' US states of the southwest
Wherever You Go, There You Are
They used two different measuring systems, and diddled the numbers until the graphs overlapped. They used data from measuring stations that were not properly shielded from mundane human activity (I think one was actually near a pub, in Australia?) and whose data could not be normalized using nearby measuring stations. They declined to use proper measuring stations that showed a decline in temperature. And they actively, and conciously, LIED about this.
Carbon good, carbon bad, we don't know. Possibly it's not good, probably we should limit our output of it (can't hurt to be neutral), but to suppose we should spend billions of dollars on fixing a potential non-problem, trusting in what we know to be bad science, that's just fucking bullshit.
The correct spelling is "trillions", not "billions".
Yes, finding several major errors makes the entire document suspect. Especially given the amount of time and money that went into it. The errors that have been found are inexcusable.
That's not correct at all. If the BBC said that, then they are wrong.
The information came from an Indian scientist, reported be New Scientist. No it should not be use as an example of the effects of Global Warming, but it in no way invalidates the science. By the way the people claiming this isn't true are also basing that on a non peer reviewed paper.
See, it's a tad more complex then a simpleton like you can conceive, so you have broken it down to a boolean thinking.
SO tell me, after you read the IPCC which, specifically, part of the science is 'SHITE"? You have read it, right? No? STFU
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The scientific consensus amounts to this: (1) climate is changing (2) human activities contribute to it, (3) nobody can say for sure what fraction of (1) is accounted for by (2), or how much impact we can have by altering human activities.
Are some of the reports and studies contributing to this consensus faulty. Yep. That's always the case.
What we are having though is a political debate disguised as a scientific one. The biggest determinant of position taken outside the scientific community is determined by the following factors;
A. How much you believe climate change will affect you (negative mostly or if you are Russian perhaps positive).
B. How much you believe measures to curb human contributions to climate change will help you or hurt you.
Once you've done the hedonic calculus for this, you either accept the scientific consensus and exaggerate it, or you go shopping for dissidents in the scientific community.
Personally, I suspect that even if we are the lion's share of the cause of climate change we'll never, ever manage to do anything constructive about that until we've run out of fossil fuels, because this is how people with a dog in the fight think.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Unexciting but useful commentary on the CRU data.
Annual Revenues
Oil industry (Exxon,Shell,BP,Chevron,...) $2,000,000,000,000
Fossil-Fuel-based Major Retail (Wal-Mart,Carrefour,...) $1,000,000,000,000
Automotive Industry (Toyota,Ford,Volkswagen,GM,Daimler,...) $2,000,000,000,000
Yes folks, that's 5 trillion (= 5,000 billion) dollars per year revenue, for industries
directly dependent on continuation of our massive fossil fuel burn.
---
IPCC-related scientists
Assume 4,000 scientists.
Assume average one gets $1,000,000 grant money per year. (Overestimate).
That's $4,000,000,000 at stake, (assuming, falsely, that the money is all or
mostly dependent on their finding that human GHG emissions cause global
warming.)
So let's see.
-Scientists have 4 billion dollars at stake. (Not really at stake,
but we'll imagine it was)
-Directly dependent industries have 5,000 billion dollars at stake.
That's a factor of over a 1000x more money at stake for those whose agenda
is to promote the status quo and to discredit the science.
Just putting things in perspective. Which side do YOU think is going to
have the massive public relations campaign, and massive release
of spun dis-information going on? Hmmmmm.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
No. Water vapor is the largest greenhouse gas factor by a large margin. It completely swamps any possible CO2 contribution because, unlike CO2, which remains generally stable regardless of atmospheric temperature change (that's most of the basis for the claim that CO2 will incur warming, in fact), the evaporative cooling process accelerates enormously when the atmosphere warms. Warm water goes up, radiates at least half its heat spaceward in energy ranges that CO2 is largely transparent to, and then comes down (much) cooler. This cycle serves as a self-regulating heat pump from surface to space. Heat radiated in this manner is gone forever.
The real question here, especially after the scandals of the tweaked data, the lockout of contrary input, the use of glacial statistics that were entirely false, the unforgivable falsification of the "hockey stick"... the real question is: Can we call AGW good, established science?
To answer that question, one asks: Does the the global warming hypothesis give rise to models with testable predictions? Yes. There have been numerous models.
So, critically, are the results of the models compatible with the predictions made? If so, we have a theory.
But the answer to that is a resounding no. We have this stall in temperature rise; we have the failure of all the models to predict results across all latitudes at once; we have sea level changes that don't match the predicted results; we have wildly varying predictions from different models indicating fundamental disagreement among the AGW hypothesis proponents. In many cases, the models results are not in yet (predictions are for the future, and the future, to be blunt, is not here yet) and so we literally have no results at all -- merely speculation based upon models that have demonstrated themselves to be flawed over and over again. So it tuns out that we have no more than an unsubstantiated idea, a hypothesis with holes in it.
Given this situation, we reasonably can, and we should, ask the proponents of the AGW hypothesis and the resulting models to go back to their workbenches and refine those models until the predictions work out to within a reasonable margin of error. When they get it right (and they may yet do so), that is the time to get behind policy decisions that use the science -- because when the predictions work, then it is science, in the sense that now, finally, one has a theory.
Right now, AGW is a hypothesis, no more, and an entirely unsupported one at that. We don't actually know what our contributions to warming or cooling are, consequently deciding to spend huge amounts of money and effort to further muddy the waters is foolish in the extreme.
Let's put the science back in science fiction.
Sure, the scientists who are busy researching the matter, as opposed to creating phony "doubter" websites, use only those faulty stations that said doubters managed to find and photograph, and never cross-check these data with other sources.
The front page of surfacestations.org has a funny image: a location photo made in 2000s with a parking lot, a cell tower and its AC exhaust ducts near where the temperature sensor is supposedly hosted, superimposed with the graph from the same sensor that shows a steady rising trend since about 1950s. So all those asphalt coatings over the years, the cell tower installation and so on all conspired to create a neat smooth trend that keeps rising. The asphalt must have been aging without renewal, cars radiate ever more heat, and the ACs are dutifully cranked up a notch every few years. Finally, some solid debunking of climate change.
And I wrote the above even before I did a two-minute Google search that gave me more than enough information as to why surfacestations.org is full of shit.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
By definition, every scientific debate is a political one as well.
That you define "scientific debate" as "political debate" probably explains why you can't take part in a "scientific debate" as defined by others (notably scientists).
When you say "deal with it" you mean that anybody who wants to have a scientific debate has to do it on your terms. I have no idea where you got that notion.
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