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Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US
Standing Bear writes "NPR reports that 140 years after the creation of the National Weather Service, the US government is proposing the creation of a similar service that will provide long-term projections of how climate will change. 'We are actually getting millions of requests a year already about: How should coastal cities plan for sea-level rise? How should various other agencies in the federal government or in state governments make plans for everything from roads to managing water supplies?' says NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco. 'And a lot of that is going to be changing as the climate changes.' Under the plan, the new NOAA Climate Service would incorporate some of the agency's existing laboratories and research programs, including the National Climatic Data Center, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and the National Weather Service's Historical Climate Network. Meanwhile, as plans for the new climate service shape up, NOAA launched a new Web site, climate.gov, designed to provide access to a wide range of climate information."
so, let's see the predictions from the national climate service.
(in a democratic administration)
Plan for warmer temperatures. higher sea levels, some deserts getting a lot of rain, some areas getting a lot less rain.
and we can change the climate to make things better
(in a republican adminstartion)
climate will be about the same, it will be hot during the summer, cold during the winter, floods will occur, droughts will occur.
and no-one can do much about it.
Do you know where you're going?
No.
Well go faster.
So the hunt for manbearpig continues?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It's all about cap-and-trade. First alarmists were preaching global cooling, then global warming, and now that global warming is proving to be a farce and the numbers are skewed, it's "global climate change." Last time I checked, global climate has been changing since before hominids walked upright.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Whoa, you think that climate science is like astrology? That's nothing but fucked-up denialism. Luckily, climate scientists disagree with you and (unlike astrologers) actually want to put their predictions on record because they have confidence in them. I say we let them.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences disagrees with you. The American Association for the Advancement of Science disagrees with you. The American Geophysical Union disagrees with you. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disagrees with you. There are many more, but the point is that the scientists actually studying it are generally convinced. Do you have any scientific organizations that agree with you that the greenhouse gas aspect of it is still up in the air?
At this point, I think that climate deniers are very close to creationists. In both cases, there are people and organizations that disagree with the science. They can talk a good talk, but fail in the actual doing of the science. They can ask more questions than can be answered currently, can take quotes (and emails) out of context, they can use the human failures of people involved in the science against them, and any screw ups (and they certainly exist in both cases) are taken as evidence that the entire science is incorrect. But, they are ignoring the basic science as a whole, discarding what we do understand, and blowing the uncertainties way out of proportion, in order to promote an unscientific point of view.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
The source code for quite a few models is publicly available. Here are three: one, two, three. The last one even does development in a public repository (click "browse source" in the menu bar) and features quite detailed documentation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Typical liberal scum. You think your out-of-touch ivory tower "experts" can beat the common sense my mother and Glenn Beck taught me? You're just scary numbers, charts, and other things Real Americans like me don't understand to trick us. What you really want is to the destroy the America that our founding fathers knew and loved. Benjamin Franklin wouldn't have believed this climate change nonsense. He would have said it's our God-given right to release as much dioxin and carbon dioxide as we want. We've been doing it for 100 years and the world is the same as when our Lord created it.
Anyone who wants to destroy jobs by moving to new technology is a sinner and a tyrant, and wants to turn this great God-loving country of ours into a socialist fascist slavery hell. Thank God for Fox News to tell me the truth.
climate scientists disagree with you and (unlike astrologers) actually want to put their predictions on record because they have confidence in them. I say we let them.
I take it you haven't read the emails from East Anglia? Obfuscation, "hide the decline," discussion of how to destroy the careers of those who disagree with them, and subvert legal FOIA requests. Hardly the behavior of people who want to go on public record.
When scientific research is used as the basis of public policy decisions, that research should automatically be made available for public scrutiny, along with any associated monetary interests of the researchers. Then taxpayers can find out how badly they got screwed.
I'd say it's all about creating another bureaucracy for democratic party patronage and to act as a mouthpiece for liberal/democrat ideas about climate change. Think of it as kind of like giving Al Gore his own personal branch of government so he can spew his nonsense on the taxpayer's dime.
Good point. Say, where has Al Gore been hiding lately, anyway? He's been mighty quiet since Climategate broke. If you have any free money laying around, you might want to buy stock in tar and feathers. Something tells me those are two commodities that are going to be in big demand real soon now.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
Citation: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/
It wasn't an isolated incident. The Russians are now complaining that their data was misused as well.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
So the lab facilities, and possibly the employees, would be competed for by two separate bureaucracies? I can't see how that would work smoothly.
Why can't they just throw some more money at the NOAA or NWS, telling them they need to take on some additional responsibilities?
If I predict the saints will win the superbowl but I also predict the colts will win the superbowl, where's the confidence? Last year the climatologists were touting their predictions that washington DC would never see snow again. This year they dug up their predictions that winters will be more severe.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Dear Dr. Jane,
Would you please produce a record of the millions of requests you have gotten. As you may know, there is a LOT OF INFLATED CLAIMS in this area and I would like to independently verify your statements without having to hack your servers.
Thank you for your prompt reply,
The Public Taxpayers
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything. He is the author of numerous fantastically entertaining books including Welcome To Obamaland: I've Seen Your Future And It Doesn't Work, How To Be Right, and the Coward series of WWII adventure novels. His website is www.jamesdelingpole.com.
meep
"You're also pretty damn arrogant - and ignorant - if you think your Prius - or my Suburban - makes a whit of difference to this "climate." "
If we are talking of only 1 car vs 1 car in the context of a planet. Yep your right.
However we are talking billions of people. With a good portion of those driving cars now. Most of which are P.O.S. spewing god knows what. So Mr. I'm not arrogant or ignorant the facts are you as an individual are a piece of the puzzle. It's only the truly selfish that refuse contribute to others. You however have decided Take from others. Hybrids are in the millions of sales now and climbing fast. The save huge amounts of petrol. The two together account for a noticeable change in the emissions.
Lets take you feeble brain back a few decades. To the days before emission standards. I suspect you are fresh out of diapers so you might not remember this. Do you recall standing anywhere in a big city. Choking on the fumes from the cars. Do you remember the soot that was over everything. Do you remember that god awful haze over the city 24/7. Well for the most part cities are escaping this. Why emission standards forcing cars to clean up. Guess what the job still isn't done. We managed to attack the stuff we can see. Now we have to go after rest of the crap coming out of cars.
So yes it does make a "whit" of difference if you drive one vehicle over another.
And now to cut off a line of retort
This style of argument that people so often use these days of well "why should I they don't." Is how kids in school argue. It's not how mature people argue. Ones that can understand the full consequences of their actions.
Okay, then how about complaints from the folks up in Canada? http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skeptics/2468634/story.html
This is not an isolated incident, Climategate just opened the door and started the revelations.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Not to mention that so much of the climate studies are based off each other. Climategate wasn't just one unique thing, it's 'data' was nested and twisted in with so much of the other studies that it makes a house of cards look sturdy.
You're right that no major scientific organization is openly skeptical of climate change now. But the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, American Association of State Climatologists, American Geological Institute, American Institute of Professional Geologists, and Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences have all issued statements that are non-committal. If they're still uncertain, why is is it so irrational for anyone else to be?
I'm not saying that climate change isn't real, isn't caused by us, or isn't a net bad thing for humanity. I don't know those things. But I do have experience dealing with academics. And when they fudge data, distort peer review to suppress dissent, and don't release the code they use in their all-important computer models, it's hardly unreasonable for someone to conclude that they're less than perfectly confident.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Gosh I really can't imagine why Petroleum Geologists might feel reluctant to accept that CO2 emissions are the cause of dangerous climate change.
Is it so rational to ignore the views of the vast majority of climatologists on climate change?
How exactly will moving to renewable energy, building homes/businesses that are more energy efficient and better insulated, reducing the carbon output of of major industries and moving toward more sustainable resource use "ruin" the civilisation?
One of the good things about "doing something about climate change" is that even if we turn out to be wrong (and it doesn't look like we are, but just for the sake of argument) then all of those things haven;t done any harm whatsoever, unless you count breaking the grip of the fossil fuel industry and energy companies who are relying on super cheap coal. Their profits will likely go down, but there's nothing to stop them investing in new tech - do you have any idea just how much money is spent on oil field exploration every year? It totally dwarfs the money spent on green power research.
Hell, if we swapped out every single coal plant for a nuclear one right now we would cut the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere by a gigantic amount, and the amount of CO2. Two birds with one stone.
You can ask for a second opinion, and you are right to. I think you'll find the vast, vast, vast majority of scientists who have been studying the climate for the past 50 years or more will be happy to tell you all about it.
Troll? Ok, parent is wrong about denialists inventing the term "climate change", but is mostly right on. I'm really surprised that in a site full of supposedly technically savvy people that there are so many here who haven't really looked at the evidence, or looked at it and somehow came to the bizarre conclusion that there's nothing to worry about. I've read about 6 books on climate change in the past few months, both by deniers and by warmists, and spend a lot of time reading blogs like realclimate and climateaudit, and if there's anything that's clear it's that anyone who claims to have all the answers is full of crap. Claiming that the science indicating global warming could be a problem is all fabricated nonsense is really right up there with claiming the moon landings never happened. Yes there is uncertainty in the data we have, but that cuts both ways. There's at least as much uncertainty in the claims made by deniers as warmists. So to latch onto denier arguments and say "see! it's all a hoax!" is just ridiculous. Seriously, you people need to read Hanson's Storms of My Grandchildren. Then Schneiders Science as a Contact Sport. Also read Michael's "Climate of Extremes". Even he (a "denier") says right near the beginning "Global warming is happening. Get over it." His is the only denier book I've read that isn't full of obviously incorrect hooey, so I recommend it. (His position is that it's happening, but we can't do anything about it, and we didn't cause it, and it may even be beneficial). But seriously people. Educate yourselves a little bit before you go spouting off moronic statements like kimvette above. Watching Fox news and reading conservative blogs does not count as educating yourself!
Gosh I really can't imagine why Petroleum Geologists might feel reluctant to accept that CO2 emissions are the cause of dangerous climate change.
Fair enough, and it's probably no coincidence that they were the last ones to switch from a position of skepticism to one of uncertainty. But that explanation doesn't apply to the other groups. Besides, if the implication is that their source of funding makes them unreliable, doesn't that mean that similar analysis of the funding for climatologists on the other side of the issue is also fair?
Either way, I didn't say it makes sense to ignore the majority of climatologists who express concern. It doesn't. But it does make sense to ask critical questions about the methods they're using to make such dramatic predictions, especially when those predictions have policy consequences that extend far outside their own field.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
How exactly will moving to renewable energy, building homes/businesses that are more energy efficient and better insulated, reducing the carbon output of of major industries and moving toward more sustainable resource use "ruin" the civilisation?
The civilization is already living on a narrow margin. Most of the people on the planet are poor; some are very poor (like in most of Africa.) Imagine that they will be forbidden to burn wood, and instead need to install solar heaters - that would kill whole countries (where they need heating or cooling.) In developed world higher taxes on businesses will result in fewer businesses still operating, rampant unemployment, crime and proliferation of ghettos. Also many of modern "green" initiatives are poorly thought of, and are inefficient (like biofuels.)
Their profits will likely go down, but there's nothing to stop them investing in new tech
You say it as if those companies are just lazy to invent "new tech." Fact is, we aren't aware of better energy source than oil. Fusion is, of course, much better - but the technology is not self-sustaining yet, not from lack of trying. Solar panels are also pretty much limited by our technology and knowledge; they also require some rare earth metals to manufacture, and the production releases plenty of poisonous waste. So what other "tech" is out there to invest into?
Hell, if we swapped out every single coal plant for a nuclear one right now we would cut the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere by a gigantic amount, and the amount of CO2. Two birds with one stone.
I'm all for it. What I'm against is panic decisions made under pressure from alarmist groups. Those rarely work well.
If you read the article, you'd see that the writer is quoting a Russian press release (pdf). If you speak Russian, you can translate it (or try an online translation). Don't disregard the message because you don't like the messenger.
My company home page
and the snow piled up so high in Washington D.C. that
Interesting point. But... should we take the snow in D.C. as an indication that climate change is bunk? Or should we take the desperate lack of snow in Vancouver as an indication that climate change is happening? Or should we just agree that the weather in one particular location has nothing to do with global climate change?
I'm sorry, but anybody who thinks the current amount of snow in DC disproves global warming has absolutely nothing useful to add to the discussion. At this point it's not even worth explaining why. Some people just believe whatever they want to believe.
So then your sources are a Russian think tank (who, by the way, tried to publish papers on their claims, but failed to pass peer-review on them), and now a meteorologist (*very* different from a climatologist) and a computer programmer? Really?
Here's why the idiots who push these "omitting stations" claims can't pass peer-review on them: they're *supposed* to omit stations. It's not done manually; it's done algorithmically. The primary reason for this is yet another thing that the deniers fault them for, without realizing that their two attacks are in direct contradiciton with one another: that a lot of the stations are bad. So what they do is first look for regional trends. A heat wave hitting NYC will also tend to hit Philadelphia, but not Los Angeles. So you find the correlation in temperature anomalies between stations. You then have it look for individual stations that buck the trend. You also have it look for individual stations that suddenly experience a persistent discontinuity. Stations with problems are automatically either corrected for or eliminated, so long as each region that shows consistent correlated temperatures has representative stations. The results of this are then validated by a number of subsequent papers. For example, urban heat island effect elimination is demonstrated by comparing trends on windy days with those on calm days (heat island effect is diminished on windy days).
Additionally, there are a few "inconvenient" facts for the people who push these arguments. One, the same trends show up when you just dumb-average all stations, or just rural stations, or just urban stations. Even more inconvenient is that the stations that Watts' team of deniers flags as "bad" show *more* warming than those that he flags as "good". Why? Because the "bad" stations tend to be located near human settlement, and are generally a cheaper type of sensor than the fully-standalone ones that tend to be in "good" locations. The cheaper sensors have a small tendency to report cooler temperatures than the better, standalone ones.
Kneel Before Christ!
I'm really surprised that in a site full of supposedly technically savvy people that there are so many here who haven't really looked at the evidence,
It's not really surprising. Slashdot is full of people who think that knowing how to use a computer makes them humanity's elite. For several years now, slashdot has been overrun by arrogant assholes whose only education outside of computing is reading Ayn Rand.
... and then they built the supercollider.
How exactly will moving to renewable energy, building homes/businesses that are more energy efficient and better insulated, reducing the carbon output of of major industries and moving toward more sustainable resource use "ruin" the civilisation? One of the good things about "doing something about climate change" is that even if we turn out to be wrong (and it doesn't look like we are, but just for the sake of argument) then all of those things haven;t done any harm whatsoever, unless you count breaking the grip of the fossil fuel industry and energy companies who are relying on super cheap coal.
Broken window fallacy. If AGW is not correct but we focus on "green tech" then we will have spent society's resources inefficiently. We will have build carbon-capture facilities that are entirely useless. We will have researched efficiency technologies of less utility than we thought. We will have built homes/businesses/cars that are more expensive than they needed to be because we improperly calculated the cost of future energy input. We will have made our major industries less competitive by pointlessly reducing their carbon output.
These technologies that don't come for free -- any effort expended in making something less carbon-intensive necessarily either raises the price (thus denying us the money to spend elsewhere) or reduces some other desirable trait (houses with less open space, cars with less HP). To the extent that efficiency is favorable, there's no reason that consumers wouldn't already go for it (indeed, with rising energy prices that problem has solved itself to a large extent).
Secondly, it's not "energy companies" that rely on super cheap coal but rather it's the consumers that do. Energy companies are only an intermediary who respond to market pressure to provide what the consumer demands. I happen to be quite grateful for the fossil fuel industry -- they have made possible the largest increase in human utility in the history of mankind. Each washer/dryer, for instance, saves thousands of man-hours of effort per year -- allowing us to spend more time on other things. I was talking to my mother the other day (yeah yeah, stupid anecdote follows) and she was remembering how her mother used to sew together torn socks when she was a child (1940s). Think about that for a second -- our time is so much more valuable now that we wouldn't dream of repairing a sock. It's a testament to how much "wealthier", in relative terms, we've become that repairing socks is now beneath us -- made possible of course by the use of a fossil-fuel powered economy.
Finally, looking practically at the experience in Spain gives me shudders. They lost 2 manufacturing jobs for every green job they created and they artificially priced electrical power way over market price which drove business elsewhere. http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf [PDF WARNING]
Hell, if we swapped out every single coal plant for a nuclear one right now we would cut the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere by a gigantic amount, and the amount of CO2. Two birds with one stone.
On that, I can agree with you, but for geopolitical, not environmental reasons. That said, no reason not to form a coalition, eh?
We are more than aware of new technologies that can assist us in our move to greener living - some are less useful than others, and some are dead ends (you mention biofuels - I agree; these are a dead end).
You jump right into talking about banning people in Africa from burning wood. No one is suggesting that at the moment (at least, not seriously). The developed nations of the world are *vastly* the dominant polluters and energy consumers, so these are the houses that need to be put in order before we start looking at the contribution of wood burning in the third world.
There are a lot of scare stories, and a lot of naysayers, but a great deal of the green tech is just common sense - energy efficient homes and vehicles. If Ford took the cars they sell in Europe right now and put them on US lots (DoT crash tests and certification aside, which they would pass easily) then the MPG would shoot up across the board. It's only the ingrained culture of the US that demands a 3 litre V6 strapped to a lazy slushmatic gearbox in a family car when you can get equal power with considerably better fuel economy from a better-designed 4 cylinder, or even a (shock horror) diesel. That's without even moving away from oil.
Nuclear plants need to be built by the hundred. It's an extremely mature, well understood, green technology that is hobbled by an undeserved public image and crippling legislative issues and regulations. If we can produce a large proportion of our electricity from nuclear and other green sources we take out a major chunk of pollution.
Things like solar hot water (not PV-based) in new homes (in the developed world) would cut energy consumption drastically. Even in the UK, where our climate isn't exactly known for its blazing heat and sunshine, solar hot water systems have proven to be extremely effective. They are expensive to install, but as part of a new build they are a no-brainer. They should be mandated by law to be installed in every new house that is constructed.
A lot of large companies are lazy. BP spends a gigantic amount of money on its cash cow: oil. It spends a truly absurd amount of money annually seeking out new oil sites, while its spending on greener projects is much less. It is spending something, as are companies like Exxon/Shell etc but they could really do more if they wanted to, but there is an emphasis on shareholders and quarterly results. The oil giants made record profits, despite the global recession. They control vast amounts of wealth and are likely the key to our future energy crisis (the cause and the solution) when they choose to put their minds to it.
There's no real need for higher taxes on small businesses - they are generally just scare stories used to make people fear change. We are going to face a huge blow to everyone, including businesses when the cost of oil starts to be truly felt when it becomes scarce. It really is used for almost everything in the modern world that we consume.
Oh, yes, they were. You probably weren't even alive back in the 70s, but I was and I remember it very well. I was in college working on degrees in biology and chemistry.
Most scientists didn't take part in the madness back then the way they're doing this time, but some did. The key word used back then was "imminent". Bah! The public never knew who to believe anyway, just like now. Junk science then; junk science now. Not much real science going on in the climate business.
Yes, I remember those climatologists -- if I remember right, they were Patrick McDoesntexist and Jonathan Strawman.
Actually, it was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who isn't a climatologist, but is an "environmental lawyer" (and thus one would have hoped he'd fact-check before publishing...)
Modding "-1, Troll" is not a proper response if you disagree with me. Try reason.
Professor Richard Alley recently gave a presentation called "The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s Climate History," in which he makes the case that climate models simply don't work right unless you incorporate CO2.
The key point he makes is that there is a record dating back over 400 million years that provides proof that climate is sensitive to CO2. Doubling CO2 adds 3 degrees C to global temperature.
There are multiple lines of evidence to support climate sensitivity, and additional research is filling in what gaps might have been missing, and further strengthening the argument.
"For every right, an equal responsibility..."
I swear, I'll never understand your obsession with Gore. It's the views of ~97% of climate scientists that we care about. Gore's opinions have no more bearing on the science than Christopher Monckton's or Michael Crichton's do.
It is hard to say that his views do not have bearing when he won the Nobel prize for that sham of a movie he made.
1) How did the IPCC come into this? We were discussing how the different peer-reviewed temperature datasets are built up. Oh, that's right, you wanted to change the subject to whatever talking points you had handy.
2) "wasn't even derived from a single fact" -- Yes, it was. The New Scientist got the digits reversed. It was a typo that got spread. Saying that it "wasn't even derived from a single fact" is false; it was derived from the date of 2350.
3) It wasn't an "off-the-cuff number". It was a number from an upcoming paper.
4) "IPCC trusts WWF" -- first off, the IPCC explicitly *is* allowed to use industry, NGO, and governmental sources, not just peer-reviewed sources. This is typically only done in WG2 and WG3, which, contrary to how this is being played, are *not* about the science of global warming. WG1 is about the science of global warming, and is much more heavily reviewed. WG2 is basically a news report, and WG3 is how to avert AGW. Over, even in WG2 and WG3, the overwhelming percent of cites are peer-reviewed papers. If you want to attack the science of AGW, you need to attack WG1. And furthermore...
5) the complaints are about a handful of places in a *three thousand page report*. And we're not talking about a handful of *pages* in a 3,000 page report; just a handful of *claims* (there are generally a couple dozen claims per page). So, it's your turn: write a 3,000 page report with dozens of claims per page without a single error, *then* complain to me about a lack of perfection. If you want to show that the IPCC report (let alone WG1, if you want to attack the science rather than the news) is unreliable, you're going to need a *much* greater error rate than ~0.003%.
Kneel Before Christ!
I believe the climate is changing, as it always has and thank goodness we're on the upstroke of an interglacial age - the crop growing region is moving toward the arable land, which is good for feeding our teeming billions. Another 5C and most of Russia and Canada become farmland instead of permafrost. I would say that this would make much of southern California uninhabitable, but that would be redundant. The first three settlements there were never heard from again - it's a desert made habitable with water resources that are desertifying millions of square miles of external lands.
On whether humans are impacting this process I might admit that we have had some barely measureable impact, though I wouldn't claim to know it for sure. Most especially I would not claim that were a bad thing
But on whether anything ill will come of that, I have much doubt. Most especially whether the ill will outweigh the good is a serious question. Whether we need to do anything about seas that rise mere millimeters a year I would seriously debate. We have much more important issues to discuss from colonization of Mars and the Asteroid belt, beginning the work on interstellar travel, to observing and preparing to defend against the inevitable world-crushing asteroid - to preserve Man against real known threats. To worry about how much it will cost the remote descendants of some residents of the Phillipines to move their huts further from an encroaching sea is absurd. If they don't want to get wet they should move inland at a stately 4 meters per year and they will without intervention as the water comes up. To crush the world economy on the speculation that Global Climate Change might escape to infinity based on the available evidence? That's madness.
And about the "Science" of "Scientists" who won't show their work, I have outright disbelief. We might as well subscribe to the opinions of Kevin Trudeau. What have they got that he hasn't got, and more importantly, what do they not want you to know?
But call me a denier if you want. Labelling and ad-hominem seems to be the message of your political party.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I think he's trying to claim that they don't rely on first principles, which is complete nonsense. Actually, what's most notable about the models is how *few* parameters there are. Very little is dealt with statistically -- primarily cloud formation, as we still don't have a good handle on it. Cloud formation easily has the biggest error bars of all feedbacks -- although even the 95th percentile case is still well under the GHG forcing levels.
Kneel Before Christ!
I think it will be important in 5 years to say: We've got a climate model that's made correct predictions for the last five years, so you should trust that model as a good guide to the future.
They've made plenty of predictions. They're just always wrong. The IPCC was established in 1989 and published its first assessment report in 1990. In that report, they predicted an increase of 1.3 to 2.3 degrees C. That didn't materialize and in 1997, the IPCC had their asses handed to them in front of congress:
So, the IPCC went back to the drawing board and returned with Mann's infamous Hockey stick graph. They declared DOOM. End of the world. Humanity was fucked. They extrapolated from 1998 temperatures (an unusually hot year) that climate change was 'for real' this time and was about to run out of control. When the skeptics got their hands on his computer model, they found that entering random data produced hockey stick graphs too. Oops.
So, uh, yeah, they've got egg on their face with that one. Nevermind that their prediction was wrong, again. Temperatures peaked in 1998 and haven't been that high since. In fact, it doesn't take a lot of searching to find examples of where their model predictions do not match reality.
In spite of all this, there are still people out there who believe in the IPCC. They cannot explain how this planet managed to have an ice age with atmospheric CO2 levels around 4200ppm during the Carboniferous period. They cannot account for three gigatons of CO2 that simply vanishes right out from under their noses each year. But hey, there's a consensus. The IPCC says so. So "the debate is over."
Nevermind Hansen's faked data. Nevermind the
I am noticing in many of the posts here a distinct lack of intellectual rigour. A friend of mine is an engineering professor, and he notices this amongst his students too. Specifically, many of his students have an attitude where they feel they can question any scientific theory. Fine you might say. After all, isn't it good to be skeptical? Well yes, perhaps. But when he asks these students specifically why they doubt a particular theory, they can't make a logical argument to support their position. They just say it doesn't intuitively seem right. It is almost as if they don't really comprehend the reasons for their opinions. And this is amongst elite engineering students.
If I could venture my own opinion on this, I think that relativistic values (and I don't mean Einstein) have seeped into much of our educational system, and by extension to society at large. This relativistic world is a place where there is no real truth, where all opinions are relative to the self and are essentially given equal value. In such a world, taken to its extreme, there are no facts, only opinions. Everything is relative.
On the left, we see university professors pontificating from institutions founded on Greek principles of Truth and Freedom of Inquiry that these Greek principles are merely just another cultural view in their relativistic universe. And from the right, we see religious leaders cavalierly rejecting the search for Truth through rational inquiry and observation, preferring to create their own "Truth" as revealed in the bible. What both of these extremes are forgetting is that this country was founded on Greek principles of Truth and Freedom of Inquiry, that in the founders' minds, the Greeks were a primary inspiration. Separation of Church and State; Science; Universities where Truth is the primary virtue; the ideals of Justice; a three class society, in which the Middle Class (the Polis) forms the backbone of society; Democracy. These were ALL Greek values and ideals. And has been these Greek ideals that have made our country great.
If you don't believe this, I suggest you read some Greek literature. Plato. Aristotle. Aristophanes. Sophocles. In Greek literature you will find commentary on many of the most important issues our society faces. The Greeks even wrote about cultural relativism. I believe we are sorely in need of a rediscovery of Greek wisdom.
And here is my main point. I believe that many in our society are abandoning the Greek values that have made our civilization great. Values such as searching for Truth for Truth's sake through rational inquiry and logic. Skills such as rigorous logic applied in rational debate. In our modern technological society it often seems that Truth should only be pursued for material gain, for profit and not simply because it is noble to pursue the truth. Thus it is easy for business executives to ignore inconvenient facts if those facts might interfere with profit margins. And it is easy for religious followers to adopt truths that make them feel more comfortable with their chosen worldview. After all, if all Truth is relative, then why not pick an easy and comfortable Truth.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
You're complaining about 'spin' while linking to the Daily Mail? Really? How about you get it from the original source, then you might have some idea of what he actually said.
Daily Fail says:
BBC says:
Daily Fail says:
Phil Jones says:
And also (text in bold here and further on is the questions by the BBC):
Daily Fail says:
Phil Jones says:
Daily Fail says:
Phil Jones says: