Science Has Spoken On MMGW, And It Says To Hide The Data

[Beel]

Thank you coach.  You put it better than I did.  It's mildly depressing to me that enough people spend their time denying global warming to probably stalemate any efforts to make headway against it.  Beyond that, we're all just watching the parade on this.  Maybe I'll wave a little Union Jack when I see the BP commercial that mentions alternative fuels. 

[Silk_Hope]

http://www.abd.org.uk/green_myths.htm

Green Myths On Global Warming — Debunked

1    MYTH     Planet earth is currently undergoing global warming
 FACT     Accurate and representative temperature measurements from satellites and balloons show that the planet has cooled significantly in the last two or three years, losing in only 18 months 15% of the claimed warming which took over 100 years to appear — that warming was only one degree fahrenheit (half of one degree Celsius) anyway, and part of this is a systematic error from groundstation readings which are inflated due to the 'urban heat island effect' i.e. local heat retention due to urban sprawl, not global warming...and it is these, 'false high' ground readings which are then programmed into the disreputable climate models, which live up to the GIGO acronym — garbage in, garbage out.
 
2    MYTH     Even slight temperature rises are disastrous, ice caps will melt, people will die
 FACT     In the UK, every mild winter saves 20,000 cold-related deaths, and scaled up over northern Europe mild winters save hundreds of thousands of lives each year, also parts of ice caps are melting yet other parts are thickening but this isn't reported as much (home experiment: put some water in a jug or bowl, add a layer of ice cubes and mark the level — wait until the ice has melted and look again, the level will have fallen). Data from ice core samples shows that in the past, temperatures have risen by ten times the current rise, and fallen again, in the space of a human lifetime.
 
3    MYTH     Carbon Dioxide levels in our atmosphere at the moment are unprecedented (high).
 FACT     Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, currently only 350 parts per million have been over 18 times higher in the past at a time when cars, factories and power stations did not exist — levels rise and fall without mankind's help.
 
4    MYTH     Mankind is pumping out carbon dioxide at a prodigious rate.
 FACT     96.5% of all carbon dioxide emissions are from natural sources, mankind is responsible for only 3.5%, with 0.6% coming from fuel to move vehicles, and about 1% from fuel to heat buildings. Yet vehicle fuel (petrol) is taxed at 300% while fuel to heat buildings is taxed at 5% even though buildings emit nearly twice as much carbon dioxide!
 
5    MYTH     Carbon dioxide changes in the atmosphere cause temperature changes on the earth.
 FACT     A report in the journal 'Science' in January of this year showed using information from ice cores with high time resolution that since the last ice age, every time when the temperature and carbon dioxide levels have shifted, the carbon dioxide change happened AFTER the temperature change, so that man-made global warming theory has put effect before cause — this shows that reducing carbon dioxide emissions is a futile King Canute exercise! What's more, both water vapour and methane are far more powerful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide but they are ignored.
 
6    MYTH     Reducing car use will cut carbon dioxide levels and save the planet
 FACT     The planet does not need saving, but taking this on anyway, removing every car from every road in every country overnight would NOT produce any change in the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere, as can be seen using the numbers from Fact 4, and in any case it is pointless trying to alter climate by changing carbon dioxide levels as the cause and effect is the other way round — it is changes in the activity of the Sun that cause temperature changes on earth, with any temperature rise causing carbon dioxide to de-gas from the oceans.
 
7    MYTH     The recent wet weather and flooding was caused by mankind through 'global warming'
 FACT     Extreme weather correlates with the cycle of solar activity, not carbon dioxide emissions or political elections, the recent heavy rainfall in winter and spring is a perfect example of this — it occurred at solar maximum at a time when solar maxima are very intense — this pattern may well repeat every 11 years until about 2045.
 
8    MYTH     The climate change levy, petrol duty, CO2 car tax and workplace parking charges are justifiable environmental taxes.
 FACT     As carbon dioxide emissions from cars and factories does not have any measurable impact on climate, these taxes are 'just another tax' on enterprise and mobility, and have no real green credentials.
 
9    MYTH     Scientists on the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issue reports that say 'global warming' is real and that we must do something now.
 FACT     Scientists draft reports for the IPCC, but the IPCC are bureaucrats appointed by governments, in fact many scientists who contribute to the reports disagree with the 'spin' that the IPCC and media put on their findings.
The latest report suggests that the next 100 years might see a temperature change of 6 Celsius yet a Lead Author for the IPCC (Dr John Christy UAH/NASA) has pointed out that the scenarios with the fastest warming rates were added to the report at a late stage, at the request of a few governments — in other words the scientists were told what to do by politicians.
 
10    MYTH     There are only a tiny handful of maverick scientists who dispute that man-made global warming theory is true.
 FACT     There are nearly 18,000 signatures from scientists worldwide on a petition called The Oregon Petition which says that there is no evidence for man-made global warming theory nor for any impact from mankind's activities on climate.
Many scientists believe that the Kyoto agreement is a total waste of time and one of the biggest political scams ever perpetrated on the public ... as H L Mencken said "the fundamental aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" ... the desire to save the world usually fronts a desire to rule it.
 

[Beel]

The website cited by Silk Hope is the "Association of British Drivers" website, by the way.  That's some kicka** data there, Mr. Hope.  You related to Bob?

[chrstnhsbndfthr]

The error in your thinking Ccoach, is that science is not subject to a vote. It is PROVABLE, by definition.  What you can produce through scientific methods and actual study is fact. What is the opinion of 97 scientists worth in the face of a single scientific fact? Absolutely nothing. 

When data must be manipulated to get the desired outcome it is not a fact. When date must be ignored to get he desired outcome, it is not a fact. When data must be manufactured to get the desired outcome it is not a fact.  When it is provable through measurable and repeatable data, then it can be regarded as fact. That is why MMGW is not a fact, regardless of how many people profit from perpetuating the theory.

[Beel]

So you're going with the 3% re that suspicious swelling, eh CHF?  Good luck to you, Sir, and may the Force be with you. 

[Silk_Hope]

More interesting reading for you Beel.

http://climateresearchnews.com/

[cccoach]

The error in your thinking Ccoach, is that science is not subject to a vote. It is PROVABLE, by definition.  What you can produce through scientific methods and actual study is fact. What is the opinion of 97 scientists worth in the face of a single scientific fact? Absolutely nothing.

You have a sad understanding of science and provability. Nothing is ever "provable" gravity is not provable, evolution is not provable, physics are not "provable". There is not a scientist in the world that can "prove" anything. Science is based on evidence and evidence does not "prove" it shows. As a person of faith this should be one of your most base understandings. If 97% of people actually saw God would you argue that there was no God because the other 3% saw nothing. I will also make the point that I'm not arguing that climate change is good or bad. I'm merely arguing that arguing that it doesn't happen is the ostrich with his head in the sand.

[chrstnhsbndfthr]

That was, for you anyway, quite a brilliant attempt at deception.

I did not say what you imply that I said.  It was an artful deception though.  The fact is what I am saying is that the vote is irrelevant. It is the fact and the science that is relevant. You can carefully construct a poll or build a jury to get the outcome you desire. But it cannot change the facts.  It is the facts that are important. The errect of gravity can be demonstrated and I believe even a public school teacher knows that. If you could find 97 people to argue against the evidence it would not change the evidence. Even if only three people acknowledged it.  The vote is irrelevant, but the facts matter. I suggest you and the ostrich need to pull you head out and examine the facts and stop thinking in terms of some poll and think in terms of where the facts lead you.

The error in your thinking Ccoach, is that science is not subject to a vote. It is PROVABLE, by definition.  What you can produce through scientific methods and actual study is fact. What is the opinion of 97 scientists worth in the face of a single scientific fact? Absolutely nothing.

You have a sad understanding of science and provability. Nothing is ever "provable" gravity is not provable, evolution is not provable, physics are not "provable". There is not a scientist in the world that can "prove" anything. Science is based on evidence and evidence does not "prove" it shows. As a person of faith this should be one of your most base understandings. If 97% of people actually saw God would you argue that there was no God because the other 3% saw nothing. I will also make the point that I'm not arguing that climate change is good or bad. I'm merely arguing that arguing that it doesn't happen is the ostrich with his head in the sand.

[cccoach]

If you would read the STUDY (not poll -  profound difference) by the University of Illinois you would see that study analyzed only the opinions of scientists directly involved in the study of atmospheric change and is a comprehensive STUDY. I agree polls can be deceptive. Studies on the other hand are much more difficult (not impossible) to manipulate and are subject to peer review.

The error in your thinking Ccoach, is that science is not subject to a vote. It is PROVABLE, by definition.  What you can produce through scientific methods and actual study is fact. What is the opinion of 97 scientists worth in the face of a single scientific fact? Absolutely nothing.

It is not my intention to be deceptive but is a direct reaction to your above statement. Science is NOT provable which is precisely why a study never states, "the evidence proves" but always state "the evidence suggests" or some variation. I agree that a vote is irrelevant but the simply fact is that the 97% of climatologists agree that climate change is real and is directly related to human action is overwhelming. I suppose we can argue that when only one climatologist still doesn't believe that climate change exists we should establish our public policy on that one dissenting voice?

To be fair I believe that the language of climate change is misleading. Human beings are notorious for localizing their references. When we see two cold winters we complain that "how can this be global warming?" When we move past localization it becomes almost impossible to deny that the Earth is warming. I won't be so naive as to deny that this hasn't happened in the past. It has, the profound difference is that it is happening at an accelerated pace and nearly all of the evidence supports this (supports, not proves). Next, what proves that this is man made?  Nothing, proves it but once again 97% of the people who study climate change for their profession agree that it is accelerated by humanity. In regards to demonstrating, I can tell you what card you pulled from a deck of cards, demonstration is not proof. As stated early, I'm not even a fatalist about climate change. I think humans adapt and I believe that as a society we need to decide what our priorities are, if we decided that we can cope with the consequences of climate change then so be it. I do believe that carbon reduction has some added benefits. Carbon reduction generally means reduced dependence on fossil fuels and less consumption of energy in general. We can argue whether we have reached peak oil or not but the simple fact is that fossil fuels are limited and as a society we will eventually run out. I believe that reducing carbon emissions is good energy policy as well as good foreign policy. A self reliant nation is a strong nation and before you ask... yes I support nuclear power.

[chrstnhsbndfthr]

And yet there is significant evidence that these things ARE being manipulated. Dropping facts out to create graphs that prove the point you want to prove is not science, is it?  One does not start at a conclusion and eliminate all facts that disagree with that conclusion, in real science anyway.  One takes all the facts and draws conclusions based on them, even if they did not fit the original hypothesis. 

We KNOW now, that they have done exactly that, in order to deceive people into believing their theory. Once you have proven that the hypothesis is based on false information, what more do you need?  We have significant historical evidence, archeological evidence, geological evidence, etc. that shows that we have had cycles throughout history.

Back to the point at about the number of people who buy the study, hook, line, and sinker, it is still irrelevant.  This may seem a small point to you, but it is an important one.  The facts are what matters, not how many people are on one side of an argument or the other.  The facts show what they show. Appeal to them, if they are on your side. (If they are not, then perhaps you should change your mind.) But, the go with the crowd argument carries no water with thinking people.  There are things that have been proven by the minority again and again through history.  Often, an important revelation comes from one person, or small team, who studies and shows the facts to be different from majority thought. Eventually their opinion does become the majority, usually, but again, the numbers are not what is important. It is the facts, the evidence, the demonstrable, repeatable experiments, that show the reality to be substantially different from what a dominant group once thought.

In other words, show me something to be true, and even if you and I are the only people to acknowledge it, and all the world oppose it, it will still be truth.

[bobsyouruncle]

Everything Camper has said is real science.  It seems like you're the denier, truth be told.

I too have faith in the scientific community, but that faith is tempered by two immutable truths:

1. Science doesn't always get it right. 

Neither does snowcamper.

[bobsyouruncle]

2. The scientific community runs on funding.  That funding either comes from private industry of government.  Only a fool would believe that scientists don't know where their bread is buttered, so to speak.   Thus, there is a political component to this that is undeniable.

A number of scientists have had their bread buttered by energy companies such as ExxonMobil.  And for the past eight years we had an administration that let energies companies set the national policy on climate change--and  one of the things the Bush administration did was edit out references to man-made global warming from EPA scientific research.

I don't see any reason for your belief that the overwhelming number of scientists who are concerned about mmgw are all just in it for the money, while on the other hand, the scientists who write otherwise (and have the energy giants in their corner) would never be swayed by funding sources.

From Rolling Stone:

The Secret Campaign of President Bush's Administration To Deny Global Warming

TIM DICKINSON      Posted Jun 28, 2007
...The most egregious example of cooked intelligence was a study underwritten in part by the API, Cooney's former employer. The study, which purported to show that the twentieth century was not unusually warm, was authored by two astrophysicists, both of whom were on the payroll of the George C. Marshall Institute, a climate-denial group funded by ExxonMobil and now headed by Bill O'Keefe, Cooney's former boss. The paper's publication in a minor German journal in January 2003 quickly created a scandal, with the editor in chief and three other editors resigning in shame after acknowledging that the paper was fundamentally flawed and should never have been published.

"It was sham science," says McCarthy, the Harvard scientist. "It's almost laughable, except that this study was held up by the administration as a definitive refutation of the temperature record."

But even as the paper was being discredited, it was causing great excitement in the White House. When Kathie Olsen of the Office of Science and Technology Policy forwarded the study to Cooney, he responded with an enthusiastic, "Thanks, Kathie!" Six minutes later, according to internal e-mails, the study was in the hands of Kevin O'Donovan, who served as Cheney's point man on climate. The study also grabbed President Bush's attention, as revealed in an e-mail sent two days later to a high-ranking White House official: "Bob - if you din't [sic] already have, this is the study the President was talking about."

The study gave Cheney's office the quasi-plausible refutation of climate science it was waiting for. According to a memo reviewed by congressional investigators, but which the CEQ refused to make public, Cooney was eager to promote the sham science. The study, he e-mailed O'Donovan, "represents an opening to potentially reinvigorate debate on the actual climate history of the past 1,000 years." The paper, he added, "contradicts the dogmatic view held by many in the climate science community that the past century was the warmest in the past millennium. . . . We plan to begin to refer to this study in administration communications on the science of global climate change..."


...Indeed, the campaign to sow doubts about climate change has grown more aggressive in recent years. No longer is the administration simply censoring scientific reports - it has moved to silence the scientists themselves. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the administration refused to allow a top federal scientist whose research links increased hurricane intensity to global warming to speak to the press. It sent out a gag order to top government polar scientists, demanding that anyone attending international scientific conventions agree not to speak to reporters about "climate change, polar bears and sea ice." And it ordered a former intern from the Bush-Cheney campaign in the NASA press office to prevent Dr. James Hansen, the godfather of global-warming science, from talking to the media.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15148655/the_secret_campaign_of_president_bushs_administration_to_deny_global_warming/7

[snowcamper]

A University of Illinois direct scientific survey showed the following. 97% of scientists involved in studying the atmosphere believe that global temperature change is occurring and is largely man-made. 90% of scientists believe that global temperature change is occurring and 82% of those scientists believe that global temperature is accelerated or caused by man. Now if 97 out of 100 doctors I went to told me that I have a serious illness I believe that I would listen and I do not believe that makes us sheeple?

100% of Snowcampers believe that global temperature change is occurring!  You've just been fooled by a biased survey, which should have been incredibly easy to spot.

10,000 years ago, a vast portion of the Northern Hemisphere was covered by glaciers, in some spots more than a mile thick.
Those glaciers are gone... thus leading me to the "unproven theory" that the average "climate" or "long term weather" must have gotten a little bit warmer.

I doubt that SUV's or Coal fired power plants or farting cows had anything to do with that, but I could be wrong.  Mother GIA could have been warming up in fear that we were coming and going to eat too much Hamburger and drive large cars.

And you've also been fooled by not following the money!  When the people who depend on the theory being true (those "climate scientists"... and only those "climate scientists who were surveyed") all agree, I spot a glaring contradiction.

When other "scientists", who understand the chemistry, physics, weather (see weather channel founder), geography, hydrography, etc. mostly disagree... and they don't rely on the theory being true for funding... I spot a glaring problem.

To say that only a "climate scientist", whatever that is, can make a reasoned argument about the climate is ludicrous... and you're falling for the "appeal to authority" again and again and again.  Foolishly so.

I should go back and get a second PhD... but instead of one in the "hard sciences"... I should get one that relies on "computer models that can't replicate the past or present, let alone the future".  One that would allow me to go wander around the arctic during the summer and look for melting ice...  and call that evidence.  One that would allow me to go to fancy conferences in Copenhagen, Kyoto, Bali ... etc., instead of Indianapolis, RTP, Houston, New Jersey....


And if being a climatologist is so important... then why are the major spokesmen for the MMGW theory not climatologists?
James Hansen?  AlGORE?  Leonardo DiCaprio?  Any reporter you can name?  Obama?

[wolfpat]

Those pointing to research funded by Exxon/Mobil are failing to understand the nature of the energy business.

Exxon/Mobil will make money whether the environment is warming or not. They just need accurate information to tell them what is true so they can plan their business.

However, those who are supporting MMGW depend on a crisis to get continued funding. Whose pockets are deeper: Exxon or the U.S. Government?

[Beel]

Responding only to wolfpat's comment--are you seriously suggesting that funding is driving a whole scientific discipline--rather than a search for information and understanding?  All these grad students out there taking measurements and core samples and what all are just shaping the data to continue funding?  I'd think most university climatology departments are funded in a general way--that is, their funding is not tied to results in the way you imply.  From my knowledge of scientists, I'd also assert that most of them would not participate in an on-going fraud. 

Were the many hundreds of scientists who proved in a variety of ways that tobacco was indeed a very harmful product actually just scamming their data for funds to generate further phony studies?  Were the "scientists" who argued in behalf of the tobacco companies just working to give those tobacco companies an accurate picture of reality so that they could produce a better product for the consumers? 

The energy companies need information and thus science in order to find energy resources more effectively.  They don't need a bunch of scientists saying that the particular kind of energy resource they happen to market is actually causing harm to all of the planet, or to the way of life of the people who consume it.  That sort of talk damages their market.  A way to counter it is to find some guys in white coats who take the other side--thus leaving law makers and the general public a a loss to decide who's right.  That's using science, or seeming science, in the service of advertising. 

And, everyone who objects to this "it's a hoax" theme also agrees that "proof" in science is not the same as "proof" in geometry or mathematics, and that there are certainly some sincere doubters amongst the many voices in the general din of conversation. 

Check out the great link site Climate Debate Daily if you want to get an idea for what this general conversation is about. 

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