47 comments to The Lies about Green Jobs

• Chasm

  January 12th, 2010 at 2:26 pm

  "Show me one other industry that requests and receives a nearly 30 percent taxpayer subsidy," says Thomas J. Pyle, president of the market-based Institute for Energy Research.

  Besides the Defense Industry, which receives a 100% taxpayer subsidy? Oh, how about the Coal industry which gets just over 8 billion a year in subsidies on sales of around 22 billion – which is just a bit over 30%. You'd think Mr. Pyle would know that, since the coal industry signs his paycheck.

  And this:"Following recent Climategate revelations, it is abundantly clear that so-called greenhouse gas emissions do not cause a non-existent "global warming" which was and is a massive science-based fraud."

  You are such a loser.

• Alan Caruba

  January 12th, 2010 at 3:09 pm

  Comparing defense to energy is purely apples and oranges. A non sequiter. As for energy industries, both coal and oil have received tax breaks in the past because they offset the enormous risks and costs involved of exploration and extraction. Like defense, energy is vital to the success and growth of the nation. Windmills and solar farms are not.

  Finally, it's time to crawl out from under that rock you call home because EVERYONE ELSE knows about the Climategate revelations concerning the way the IPCC used computer models whose data had been altered. GET A LIFE!

• Mountain Man

  January 12th, 2010 at 3:29 pm

  "You are such a loser." More intellectual discourse from chasm.

• Chasm

  January 12th, 2010 at 3:55 pm

  It doesn't matter if it's apples and airplanes… the guy asked for an industry that demands and gets a 30%+ subsidy from the government. I named two, and one of them pays the guy.

  "Like defense, energy is vital to the success and growth of the nation. Windmills and solar farms are not."

  Silly me. I thought windmills and solar farms WERE sources of energy. Oh, right, they are.

  "EVERYONE ELSE knows about the Climategate revelations concerning the way the IPCC used computer models whose data had been altered."

  No. Only deniers "know" this. Actual climate scientists know that pumping millions of tons of heat-trapping gasses in a closed system traps more heat. This causes temperatures to rise. There really is no way around this chemical fact… certainly not by misinterpreting stolen, outdated, personal emails that aren't per reviewed.

• Chasm

  January 12th, 2010 at 4:23 pm

  Raymond Ingles in another thread linked to this:

  http://enviroknow.com/2009/11/25/climategate-the-swifthack-scandal-what-you-need-to-know/#context

  A few quotes:

  "A few e-mails of out thousands sent by a few scientists out of thousands taken out of context by global warming deniers does not come within a light year of collapsing all of the scientific research, data, and current events that point to a warming planet caused by greenhouse gas emissions. It’s why record highs of outnumbered record lows by an ever increasing ratio, which reached 2:1 in the last decade. It’s why NASA recently reported the hottest June to October on record. It’s why every each decade is considerably hotter than the last, and why ocean surface temperatures are the warmest on record. It’s why declassified US spy satellites show the impact of warming on our ice caps, and East Antarctica is losing ice mass. Increased wildfires and pine bark beetles moving North. Australia being pushed to the breaking point by drought. That’s all happening now." –Matt Dernoga

  "No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens."

  So, you see, you are wrong. EVERYONE ELSE clearly does not include anyone who actually knows anything about climate science.

• Alan Caruba

  January 12th, 2010 at 4:24 pm

  "No. Only deniers "know" this. Actual climate scientists know that pumping millions of tons of heat-trapping gasses in a closed system traps more heat. This causes temperatures to rise. There really is no way around this chemical fact… certainly not by misinterpreting stolen, outdated, personal emails that aren't per reviewed."

  Oh? Temperatures have risen? Tell that to the British who are experiencing the worst winter in decades or anywhere else around the world where declining temperatures are breaking records at peak speed…or the fact that even IPCC scientists now admit we're in a new cooling cycle.

  Chasm? That must apply to the vast empty space of pathetically repeated facts you bring to the discussion. This form is for "intellectuals", i.e. people who actually USE their brain for something else than a hatrack.

• Chasm

  January 12th, 2010 at 4:54 pm

  Are you really such a hack that you think that because it's cold during winter it means AGW is a hoax? C'mon, show more intelligence than FOX News.

  Here's a link to hundreds of graphs of global temperatures:

  http://images.google.com/images?q=global+temperature+graph&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=7AZNS6_VEofOsQOJwJWLAQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CB4QsAQwAw

  Show me one (that's from a legitimate source) that shows temperatures going down.

  I'm afraid you're going to have to cite the IPCC report that says we are in a 'cooling cycle." It says no such thing on their website, although I found this from their Fourth Assessment Report:

  "Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates will cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century. "

  http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-es.html

  And since you seem to credit the IPCC with some credibility, here is their statement about the illegally hacked emails:

  "The key finding of IPCC AR4, "The warming in the climate system is unequivocal [...] ", is based on measurements made by many independent institutions worldwide that demonstrate significant changes on land, in the atmosphere, the ocean and in the ice-covered areas of the Earth. Through
  further, independent scientific work involving statistical methods and a range of different climate models, these changes have been detected as significant deviations from natural climate variability and have been attributed to the increase of greenhouse gases.

  The body of evidence is the result of the careful and painstaking work of hundreds of scientists worldwide. The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these email exchanges, many of whom have dedicated their time and effort to develop these findings in teams of Lead Authors within the production of the series of IPCC Assessment Reports during the past 20 years."

  http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/WGIstatement04122009.pdf (PDF)

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 12th, 2010 at 5:03 pm

  >EVERYONE ELSE clearly does not include anyone who actually knows anything about climate science.

  Actually, Raymond is not a climatologist. But Paul Bovis is a weather forecaster for the Canadian Government. Here is his take on the issue from http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/12/07/the-man-made-global-warming-hoax-phase-4/

  Like I have said before, I believe that GW is occurring, but I dispute man's role in this process. Like others have said before, consensus science is a disgrace to my beloved profession. Shouting down the non-believers is not science, it is an autocracy. Science will only progress with an open mind. Without it we would all still be in the dark ages.

  As I have said in previous articles, anthropogenic pollutants released into the atmosphere can have drastic effects in the short term. Ozone, which is formed at the surface primarily as the result of a series of reactions involving nitrous oxides and volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight, has been know to have acute respiratory affects in humans. Acid rain (sulfuric acid in aqueous solution) changes the pH of water bodies and kills fish as well as vegetation. Contaminated ground water as a result of poorly or under regulated industry can have any number of health effects in humans, animals and plant life. These processes are well understood and not nearly as controversial. These are the issues that need to be addressed. If we deal with these issues, we will notice the results in our lifetimes. As you can see, I have my own agendas, but I feel these are much more reasonable and somewhat less politicized than GW.

  … Ozone depletion by CFCs (which, by the way, is a far more serious greenhouse gas than CO2) could only be anthropogenic in nature because CFCs do not occur naturally. If there are few/no changes in ocean currents, dwindling fish stocks, particularly in coastal areas really can only be the result of overfishing. The problem with CO2 emissions is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to separate the anthropogenic sources/emissions/amounts from the background/natural sources/emissions/amounts. Just so you know, I am not a Palin-loving conservative. I am a liberal in most senses of the word, but that doesn't mean I unquestionably ingest every liberal idea that is (force)fed to me.

  And then there are always these scientists who oppose the mainstream assessment of global warming, to which I would add a friend of mine, Apollo 7 scientist-astronaut Walt Cunningham, who has also written extensively on this subject.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

  Global warming is not occurring or has ceased

  • Timothy F. Ball, former Professor of Geography, University of Winnipeg: "[The world's climate] warmed from 1680 up to 1940, but since 1940 it's been cooling down. The evidence for warming is because of distorted records. The satellite data, for example, shows cooling." (November 2004)[4] "There's been warming, no question. I've never debated that; never disputed that. The dispute is, what is the cause. And of course the argument that human CO2 being added to the atmosphere is the cause just simply doesn't hold up…" (May 18, 2006; at 15:30 into recording of interview)[5] "The temperature hasn't gone up. … But the mood of the world has changed: It has heated up to this belief in global warming." (August 2006)[6] "Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. … By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling." (Feb. 5, 2007)[7]
  • Robert M. Carter, geologist, researcher at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia: "the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998 … there is every doubt whether any global warming at all is occurring at the moment, let alone human-caused warming."[8]
  • Vincent R. Gray, coal chemist, founder of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition: "The two main 'scientific' claims of the IPCC are the claim that 'the globe is warming' and 'Increases in carbon dioxide emissions are responsible'. Evidence for both of these claims is fatally flawed."[9]
  Accuracy of IPCC climate projections is questionable
  Individuals in this section conclude that it is not possible to project global climate accurately enough to justify the ranges projected for temperature and sea-level rise over the next century. They do not conclude specifically that the current IPCC projections are either too high or too low, but that the projections are likely to be inaccurate due to inadequacies of current global climate modeling.
  • Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences: "We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 °C higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds). But – and I cannot stress this enough – we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO2 or to forecast what the climate will be in the future."[10] "[T]here has been no question whatsoever that CO2 is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas – albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in CO2 should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed."[11][12]
  • Garth Paltridge, Visiting Fellow ANU and retired Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research and retired Director of the Institute of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre."There are good and straightforward scientific reasons to believe that the burning of fossil fuel and consequent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to an increase in the average temperature of the world above that which would otherwise be the case. Whether the increase will be large enough to be noticeable is still an unanswered question."[13]
  • Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute: "The blind adherence to the harebrained idea that climate models can generate 'realistic' simulations of climate is the principal reason why I remain a climate skeptic. From my background in turbulence I look forward with grim anticipation to the day that climate models will run with a horizontal resolution of less than a kilometer. The horrible predictability problems of turbulent flows then will descend on climate science with a vengeance."[14]
  • Antonino Zichichi, emeritus professor of nuclear physics at the University of Bologna and president of the World Federation of Scientists : "models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are incoherent and invalid from a scientific point of view".[15] He has also said, "It is not possible to exclude that the observed phenomena may have natural causes. It may be that man has little or nothing to do with it"[16]
  Global warming is primarily caused by natural processes
  Individuals in this section conclude that the observed warming is more likely attributable to natural causes than to human activities.
  • Khabibullo Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences: "Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy – almost throughout the last century – growth in its intensity…Ascribing 'greenhouse' effect properties to the Earth's atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated…Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away."[17][18][19]
  • Sallie Baliunas, astronomer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "[T]he recent warming trend in the surface temperature record cannot be caused by the increase of human-made greenhouse gases in the air."[20]
  • George V. Chilingar, Professor of Civil and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California: "The authors identify and describe the following global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate: (1) solar radiation …, (2) outgassing as a major supplier of gases to the World Ocean and the atmosphere, and, possibly, (3) microbial activities … . The writers provide quantitative estimates of the scope and extent of their corresponding effects on the Earth’s climate [and] show that the human-induced climatic changes are negligible."[21]
  • Ian Clark, hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: "That portion of the scientific community that attributes climate warming to CO2 relies on the hypothesis that increasing CO2, which is in fact a minor greenhouse gas, triggers a much larger water vapour response to warm the atmosphere. This mechanism has never been tested scientifically beyond the mathematical models that predict extensive warming, and are confounded by the complexity of cloud formation – which has a cooling effect. … We know that [the sun] was responsible for climate change in the past, and so is clearly going to play the lead role in present and future climate change. And interestingly… solar activity has recently begun a downward cycle."[22]
  • David Douglass, solid-state physicist, professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester: "The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming."[23]
  • Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology, Western Washington University: "global warming since 1900 could well have happened without any effect of CO2. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon and global temperatures should cool slightly until about 2035"[24]
  • William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus and head of The Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University: "This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet little understood. Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential."[25] "I am of the opinion that [global warming] is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people."[26] "So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing—all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more."[27]
  • William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology: "There has been a real climate change over the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries that can be attributed to natural phenomena. Natural variability of the climate system has been underestimated by IPCC and has, to now, dominated human influences."[28]
  • George Kukla, retired Professor of Climatology at Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in an interview: "What I think is this: Man is responsible for a PART of global warming. MOST of it is still natural."[29]
  • David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware: "About half of the warming during the 20th century occurred prior to the 1940s, and natural variability accounts for all or nearly all of the warming."[30]
  • William Happer, physicist Princeton University: "all the evidence I see is that the current warming of the climate is just like past warmings. In fact, it's not as much as past warmings yet, and it probably has little to do with carbon dioxide, just like past warmings had little to do with carbon dioxide"[31]
  • Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: global warming "is the biggest scientific hoax being perpetrated on humanity. There is no global warming due to human anthropogenic activities. The atmosphere hasn’t changed much in 280 million years, and there have always been cycles of warming and cooling. The Cretaceous period was the warmest on earth. You could have grown tomatoes at the North Pole"[32]
  • Tim Patterson[33], paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada: "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"[34][35]
  • Ian Plimer, Professor emeritus of Mining Geology, The University of Adelaide: "We only have to have one volcano burping and we have changed the whole planetary climate… It looks as if carbon dioxide actually follows climate change rather than drives it".[36]
  • Tom Segalstad, head of the Geology Museum at the University of Oslo: "The IPCC's temperature curve (the so-called 'hockey stick' curve) must be in error…human influence on the 'Greenhouse Effect' is minimal (maximum 4%). Anthropogenic CO2 amounts to 4% of the ~2% of the "Greenhouse Effect", hence an influence of less than 1 permil of the Earth's total natural 'Greenhouse Effect' (some 0.03°C of the total ~33°C)."[37]
  • Nir Shaviv, astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: "[T]he truth is probably somewhere in between [the common view and that of skeptics], with natural causes probably being more important over the past century, whereas anthropogenic causes will probably be more dominant over the next century. … [A]bout 2/3's (give or take a third or so) of the warming [over the past century] should be attributed to increased solar activity and the remaining to anthropogenic causes." His opinion is based on some proxies of solar activity over the past few centuries.[38]
  • Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia: "The greenhouse effect is real. However, the effect is minute, insignificant, and very difficult to detect."[39][40] “It’s not automatically true that warming is bad, I happen to believe that warming is good, and so do many economists.”[41]
  • Willie Soon, astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "[T]here's increasingly strong evidence that previous research conclusions, including those of the United Nations and the United States government concerning 20th century warming, may have been biased by underestimation of natural climate variations. The bottom line is that if these variations are indeed proven true, then, yes, natural climate fluctuations could be a dominant factor in the recent warming. In other words, natural factors could be more important than previously assumed."[42]
  • Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville: "I predict that in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind’s role is relatively minor".[43]
  • Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the University of London: "…the myth is starting to implode. … Serious new research at The Max Planck Society has indicated that the sun is a far more significant factor…"[44]
  • Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center: "Our team … has discovered that the relatively few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth’s surface temperature. During the 20th Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed the world to warm up. … most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud cover."[45]
  • Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa: "At this stage, two scenarios of potential human impact on climate appear feasible: (1) the standard IPCC model …, and (2) the alternative model that argues for celestial phenomena as the principal climate driver. … Models and empirical observations are both indispensable tools of science, yet when discrepancies arise, observations should carry greater weight than theory. If so, the multitude of empirical observations favours celestial phenomena as the most important driver of terrestrial climate on most time scales, but time will be the final judge."[46]
  Cause of global warming is unknown
  Scientists in this section conclude it is too early to ascribe any principal cause to the observed rising temperatures, man-made or natural.
  • Syun-Ichi Akasofu, retired professor of geophysics and Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks: "[T]he method of study adopted by the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is fundamentally flawed, resulting in a baseless conclusion: Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Contrary to this statement …, there is so far no definitive evidence that 'most' of the present warming is due to the greenhouse effect. … [The IPCC] should have recognized that the range of observed natural changes should not be ignored, and thus their conclusion should be very tentative. The term 'most' in their conclusion is baseless."[47]
  • Claude Allègre, geochemist, Institute of Geophysics (Paris): "The increase in the CO2 content of the atmosphere is an observed fact and mankind is most certainly responsible. In the long term, this increase will without doubt become harmful, but its exact role in the climate is less clear. Various parameters appear more important than CO2. Consider the water cycle and formation of various types of clouds, and the complex effects of industrial or agricultural dust. Or fluctuations of the intensity of the solar radiation on annual and century scale, which seem better correlated with heating effects than the variations of CO2 content."[48]
  • Robert C. Balling, Jr., a professor of geography at Arizona State University: "[I]t is very likely that the recent upward trend [in global surface temperature] is very real and that the upward signal is greater than any noise introduced from uncertainties in the record. However, the general error is most likely to be in the warming direction, with a maximum possible (though unlikely) value of 0.3 °C. … At this moment in time we know only that: (1) Global surface temperatures have risen in recent decades. (2) Mid-tropospheric temperatures have warmed little over the same period. (3) This difference is not consistent with predictions from numerical climate models."[49]
  • John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, contributor to several IPCC reports: "I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time."[50]
  • Petr Chylek, Space and Remote Sensing Sciences researcher, Los Alamos National Laboratory: "carbon dioxide should not be considered as a dominant force behind the current warming…how much of the [temperature] increase can be ascribed to CO2, to changes in solar activity, or to the natural variability of climate is uncertain"[51]
  • William R. Cotton, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University said in a presentation, "It is an open question if human produced changes in climate are large enough to be detected from the noise of the natural variability of the climate system."[52]
  • David Deming, geology professor at the University of Oklahoma: "The amount of climatic warming that has taken place in the past 150 years is poorly constrained, and its cause – human or natural – is unknown. There is no sound scientific basis for predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty. If the climate does warm, it is likely to be beneficial to humanity rather than harmful. In my opinion, it would be foolish to establish national energy policy on the basis of misinformation and irrational hysteria."[53]
  • Chris de Freitas, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland: "There is evidence of global warming. … But warming does not confirm that carbon dioxide is causing it. Climate is always warming or cooling. There are natural variability theories of warming. To support the argument that carbon dioxide is causing it, the evidence would have to distinguish between human-caused and natural warming. This has not been done."[54]
  • Ross McKitrick, Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph, Ontario. His research found a strong correlation between surface temperature data and a nation's gross domestic product. A regression analysis revealed that a state's GDP explained about half of the warming over the observed period.[55] Mckitrick has remarked, "I have been probing the arguments for global warming for well over a decade. In collaboration with a lot of excellent coauthors I have consistently found that when the layers get peeled back, what lies at the core is either flawed, misleading or simply non-existent. … I get exasperated with fellow academics, and others who ought to know better, who pile on to the supposed global warming consensus without bothering to investigate any of the glaring scientific discrepancies and procedural flaws."[56]
  Global warming will not be significantly negative
  Scientists in this section conclude that projected rising temperatures will be of little impact or a net positive for human society and/or the Earth's environment.
  • Craig D. Idso, faculty researcher, Office of Climatology, Arizona State University and founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: "the rising CO2 content of the air should boost global plant productivity dramatically, enabling humanity to increase food, fiber and timber production and thereby continue to feed, clothe, and provide shelter for their still-increasing numbers … this atmospheric CO2-derived blessing is as sure as death and taxes."[57]
  • Sherwood Idso, former research physicist, USDA Water Conservation Laboratory, and adjunct professor, Arizona State University: "[W]arming has been shown to positively impact human health, while atmospheric CO2 enrichment has been shown to enhance the health-promoting properties of the food we eat, as well as stimulate the production of more of it. … [W]e have nothing to fear from increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and global warming."[58]
  • Patrick Michaels, retired research professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute: "scientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (Celsius), plus or minus a mere quarter-degree … a modest warming is a likely benefit… human warming will be strongest and most obvious in very cold and dry air, such as in Siberia and northwestern North America in the dead of winter."[59]

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 12th, 2010 at 5:05 pm

  This was Paul's direct quote. My italics didn't turn on:

  Like I have said before, I believe that GW is occurring, but I dispute man's role in this process. Like others have said before, consensus science is a disgrace to my beloved profession. Shouting down the non-believers is not science, it is an autocracy. Science will only progress with an open mind. Without it we would all still be in the dark ages.

  As I have said in previous articles, anthropogenic pollutants released into the atmosphere can have drastic effects in the short term. Ozone, which is formed at the surface primarily as the result of a series of reactions involving nitrous oxides and volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight, has been know to have acute respiratory affects in humans. Acid rain (sulfuric acid in aqueous solution) changes the pH of water bodies and kills fish as well as vegetation. Contaminated ground water as a result of poorly or under regulated industry can have any number of health effects in humans, animals and plant life. These processes are well understood and not nearly as controversial. These are the issues that need to be addressed. If we deal with these issues, we will notice the results in our lifetimes. As you can see, I have my own agendas, but I feel these are much more reasonable and somewhat less politicized than GW.

  … Ozone depletion by CFCs (which, by the way, is a far more serious greenhouse gas than CO2) could only be anthropogenic in nature because CFCs do not occur naturally. If there are few/no changes in ocean currents, dwindling fish stocks, particularly in coastal areas really can only be the result of overfishing. The problem with CO2 emissions is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to separate the anthropogenic sources/emissions/amounts from the background/natural sources/emissions/amounts. Just so you know, I am not a Palin-loving conservative. I am a liberal in most senses of the word, but that doesn't mean I unquestionably ingest every liberal idea that is (force)fed to me.

• Alan Caruba

  January 12th, 2010 at 6:27 pm

  Chasm, you pathetically cling to a failed fraud called "global warming", now called "climate change." The data in the IPCC reports was massaged by a small group of "scientists" who grew increasingly desperate as the Earth, since 1998, became cooler with each passing year. Their own data was deliberately squewed to support the GW hoax. Apparently you are one of the few true believers left who won't accept the obvious. There was no concensus and the thousands of East Anglia RCU emails reveal a pattern of deception.

  If you want the truth–and you do not–visit http://www.climatedepot.come and spend some time among its vast archive of articles.

• Chasm

  January 12th, 2010 at 6:29 pm

  How cool that someone collected all those nice quotes onto Wikipedia (even if most aren't climatologists) for you. I'm tempted to just cutnpaste the entire list of published opinions from around the world (also from Wiki), but I won't.

  Dr. Jackson, I didn't claim that Raymond was a climate scientist (or even a weatherman!), I just copied a link that had quotes from scientists debunking the email controversy.

  The interesting thing about your list of quotes is that I don't think Mr. Caruba would agree with it. His contention, in the article, is that "so-called greenhouse gas emissions do not cause a non-existent "global warming" which was and is a massive science-based fraud."

  On your list of quotes, only the first three (a geologist, a geography professor, and a coal chemist – not exactly a panel of experts) contend that there is no climate change. All the rest admit that observed climate has gotten warmer this past century (some even lead with this admission) but doubt either the accuracy of the prognostications, the extent to which CO2 plays a role, the extent to which man is causing the changes, or say that warming will not be as huge a problem as is claimed.

  It really does nothing for your argument when you cite 41 people, 38 of whom disagree with what you saying.

  Oh, minor point: The UCLA paper that blamed some of FDR's policies (anti-trust exemptions in return for organized workers) on extending the Depression put that extension at seven years, not ten.

  http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx

• Chasm

  January 12th, 2010 at 6:48 pm

  Yea, so I perused your link at "ClimateDepot," and what I found was not any science based articles, but just a bunch of stories about the weather. The only link that looked promising, "'Arctic summer sea ice increased by 409,000 square miles or 26% since 2007'" of course turned out to be the totally debunked David Rose piece for the Daily Mail, where he never actually talked to anyone from the US Nat Snow and Ice Data Center, made up the numbers and misinterpreted a climate scientists research by 180 degrees.

  Here's the Mail piece:
  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html

  Here's the debunking, complete with actual quotes from Dr. Latif:
  http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/11/foxnews-wattsupwiththat-climatedepot-daily-mail-article-on-global-cooling-mojib-latif/

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 12th, 2010 at 7:36 pm

  Okay, we’ll do this slowly.

  You exact charge was “EVERYONE ELSE clearly does not include anyone who actually knows anything about climate science”, for which you invoked Raymond’s name and the website of a kid in his 20s (Matt Dernoga) who is a Junior at the University of Maryland College Park. [Follow the link back to his own website http://madrad2002.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/an-intro-few-to-no-one-will-see/ You literally quote a college kid as an example of someone who can speak with authority about climate science. How stupid is this?

  You also invoke the name of Phil Jones to support your claim. Phil Jones is the guy at the heart of the scandal. It’s like asking Al Capone to verify the fact that he’s not a thief.

  Not only is Raymond not a climatologist, the people he cited in his link (like Phil Jones and Dernoga) are either involved in the scandal, tied to broad based Left Wing activism whose supporters depends on AGW for funding, or are key players in the scandal itself.

  I cited people who have actually studied the issue — and do not depend on a preconceived judgment that AGW is real to sustain their funding — who talk about things like “The evidence for warming is because of distorted records;” “there is every doubt whether any global warming at all is occurring at the moment, let alone human-caused warming,” and other similar things.

  Some believe that the earth may possibly be warming, but attribute it to nature. Others just focus on the fact that the data is deliberately flawed or sloppily collected to reach a preconceived point of view. In all cases it speaks to the heart of Alan’s essay, that phony science and flawed conclusions are driving social policy.

  My focus is, as it has always been, on the agenda driven fraud behind AGW. I’ve always claimed it’s foolish to extrapolate a “trend” (as is it’s getting warmer or cooler) from a limited number of years (and even 150 years is a limited timeframe) with incomplete and relatively unsophisticated measuring tools that rely on “artificial corrections” to produce their results.

  The people I cited don’t disagree with this. Like me, they distance themselves from the kool-aid drinkers who think that AGW cannot be debated because it is “settled, consensus science”, when in fact it is neither settled, nor a genuine consensus (since opposing positions are arbitrarily excluded), and because of this hardly real “science”.

  And yet, based on this assumption that your exhaled breath is a planet killing pollutant, they want to undertake a massive social spending and social engineering project that is really nothing more than a rapidly dissolving front for pursuing a hidden agenda that if honestly presented, the people would never support.

  Again, I lay it out quite plainly here, http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/12/07/the-man-made-global-warming-hoax-phase-4/

• Chasm

  January 12th, 2010 at 8:41 pm

  Of course I cited a post featuring the Jones email, that's what the recent "controversy" has been about. It comes from RealClimate and is a reasonable explanation for people with no knowledge about the issues – people like you, me and Mountain Man.

  And the thing is, you and Caruba are making entirely different arguments. As I noted, all but 3 of your citations agree that the climate is changing, a fact which reveals that your interest in this is more political than scientific since you can't even commit to one version of denial. Caruba is comfortable saying that not only isn't the climate changing but that man couldn't change it even if we wanted to.

  Look, I think the climate is a terrifyingly complex thing, and no, we can't yet be sure of our projections. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2, and it looks like a major problem we're going to have is that there's a butt-tonne of methane trapped in all that polar ice that's melting. If that methane turns out to be a greater accelerator of change than CO2, than those scientists who said man-made CO2 isn't the greatest threat are technically correct – unless/until it's proven that CO2 caused the ice to melt in the first place. There's feedback loops withing feedback loops.

  Other things can change too: it's certainly possible that in the midst of all this, China and India's increase in putting sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere will COOL the planet for awhile. There's also the law of untended consequences: we don't know if the solutions we have in mind will backfire, like whether pollution from battery production will eventually be worse than CO2 emissions.

  So while it's plausible to argue that we don't know enough about the consequences of GW, or even that our solutions won't help – it's NOT plausible to argue that mankind had NO role in change, or that the climate isn't changing.

  I know that conservatives won't admit to GW because they think their taxes will go up. They probably will. But at least argue that, instead of inventing sideshows.

• Paul_Bovis

  January 12th, 2010 at 9:39 pm

  Hello All
  Since I have been quoted on here by Phil, I guess I will put in my brief two cents, once again. Phil's quote from one of my recent comments on here pretty much outlines my opinion on AGW. Phil and Alan, just one thing to be careful of. Both of you have given record low temperatures in certain parts of the world as evidence that AGW is bunk. It's not individual years that matter, it's the long term average/trend that matters. The accuracy of this 150 year trend (or whatever time frame) is the question.
  During some of my slow night shifts on the forecast desk, I read through some of the IPCC report. In places they are actually quite frank about the accuracy of the 150 year trend siting the patchy data especially in the early part of the period. It's really only been in the last few decades, with the advent of satellite measurements of surface temperature (also with its set of errors), that a truly global coverage has been possible and the IPCC (at least in the sections that I read) admitted this.
  Chasm, I think you underestimate just how hard it is to separate the man-made contribution to AGW (if any). Many millions of Euros have been spent trying to separate the man-made contribution to the global tropospheric ozone budget over the past decade. Only partially satisfactory answers have been delivered. CO2 is much more tricky because of the far more numerous sources, sinks and feedback loops.

  Regards,

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 13th, 2010 at 7:46 am

  >Of course I cited a post featuring the Jones email, that's what the recent "controversy" has been about. It comes from RealClimate and is a reasonable explanation for people with no knowledge about the issues – people like you, me and Mountain Man.

  *** You also directly cited the opinion of a junior in college as an example of someone who can speak with authority about climate science. But you avoided commenting on this fact in your response above. Your reference to Dernoga was either stupid, or dishonest. Which was it?

  Furthermore, citing left wing political activist websites as sources of “knowledge” about the AGW scandal is completely bogus. Citing the Phil Jones “trick” is exactly what I said it was.

  You accuse us of arguing our points without “knowledge”. You’ve done worse — you’ve relied entirely on the words of biased, agenda-driven apologists and co-conspirators in the scandal. And you’ve substituted your own pre-conceived notions about the subject for any objective look at the truth, insisting that we accept them or be tagged as “losers”. You’re the one who comes to this debate with silly, inane positions. And to illustrate my charge, I don’t have to do anything other than point to sources you actually cite, and words you actually use.

  >And the thing is, you and Caruba are making entirely different arguments.

  *** My comments were about your phony outrage that “EVERYONE ELSE clearly does not include anyone who actually knows anything about climate science”; which was a direct response to the issue “about the Climategate revelations concerning the way the IPCC used computer models whose data had been altered."

  >As I noted, all but 3 of your citations agree that the climate is changing, a fact which reveals that your interest in this is more political than scientific since you can't even commit to one version of denial.

  *** OF COURSE IT IS CHANGING! How moronic is it to think the climate remains the same from year to year, day to day, hour to hour! Change is what has defined the world long before man inhabited it. The question on the table is whether MAN is causing change.

  Pointing out that fraudulent science cannot prove “global warming” is not the same thing as saying the climate in 2010 is the same climate as 1910. It may be colder, hotter, wetter, dryer. It may be a short term trend, or a long term trend. Using fraudulent methods to prove that man, and man alone, is the primary culprit for change deserves to be highlighted. Only a kool-aid drinker would start with the assumption that man must be responsible for the climate — whatever it is — and then work backward from there to prove it with “artificial corrections” and “tricks”.

  By the way, Chasm, is it global cooling (the 1970-80s), global warming (the 90’s), or the all inclusive “climate change” we need to worry about now? Every time the fraudulently-based science is exposed for what it is (which is to say, the hysteria of rising seas, rising or falling temperatures, etc. don’t pan out), your side just changes the definition of the problem until today, any change in climate is man-made. This is about as fundamentally stupid a position to support as imaginable. The only reason for doing so, as I and Alan illustrate, is to pursue a hidden agenda — namely government funding and social engineering.

  >Caruba is comfortable saying that not only isn't the climate changing but that man couldn't change it even if we wanted to.

  *** This is the problem with a dishonest debating partner. Chasm’s reference to Caruba is Chasm’s own paraphrase, not a direct quote. Here’s what Alan actually said: “Following recent Climategate revelations, it is abundantly clear that so-called greenhouse gas emissions do not cause a non-existent ‘global warming’ which was and is a massive science-based fraud.”

  Alan spoke to a specific issue with specific language. Chasm’s attempt to turn this into Alan supposedly saying that the climate never changes is dishonest. Moreover, suggesting that man couldn’t impact (“change”) the climate “even if he wanted to” is another silly-ass distortion. Short term change vs. long term change? Change of .00001 degrees vs 9 degrees? Taking 1000 years to make a change or 10 years?

  What the Left does is take these general statements that really mean nothing at all, and hope you won’t actually think about what they say. If you deny that AGW exists, you must deny that man can have ANY impact on the planet whatsoever! If you deny AGW exists, you must believe that the climate NEVER CHANGES!

  It’s either a stupid, or dishonest way to frame the debate.

  >Look, I think the climate is a terrifyingly complex thing, and no, we can't yet be sure of our projections.

  *** Which, of course, is why you replied to Alan’s statement :"Following recent Climategate revelations, it is abundantly clear that so-called greenhouse gas emissions do not cause a non-existent "global warming" which was and is a massive science-based fraud" with YOUR comment “You are such a loser.”

  That was it — the sum and substance of your reply. Like other true believers who devote their efforts to pursuing an agenda instead of pursuing the actual truth of a matter, Chasm’s first reaction to anyone who dares to disagree with what he believes is to slander them. [I have no problem calling an idiot an idiot --- but that is a designation that must be earned, not arbitrarily assigned].

  Only now, when you’ve been bitch-slapped for your gross stupidity, do you want to enter into a supposedly rational debate where perhaps your side may not have a completely firm lock on the issue, but we should just be quiet anyway and accept the settled, consensus science behind AGW.

  You chose to enter this debate as a fool making foolish statements. If you want to actually have a civil debate on the issue, apologize for your boorish behavior, and attempt to discuss this belatedly recognized (on your part) “complex thing” with more than a bunch of left wing website references and silly-ass distortions of what someone actually said.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 13th, 2010 at 7:48 am

  >Phil and Alan, just one thing to be careful of. Both of you have given record low temperatures in certain parts of the world as evidence that AGW is bunk. It's not individual years that matter, it's the long term average/trend that matters.

  *** Paul, whenever I do this, I’m just tweaking the AGW fanatics who keep talking about global warming in the middle of July, as if it’s a revelation that it’s actually hot. Live by the anecdote, die by the anecdote.

  As I referenced above in comment 13, my focus is, as it has always been, on the agenda driven fraud behind AGW. I’ve always claimed it’s foolish to extrapolate a “trend” (as is it’s getting warmer or cooler) from a limited number of years (and even 150 years is a limited timeframe) with incomplete and relatively unsophisticated measuring tools that rely on “artificial corrections” to produce their results.

  Again, it's always good to hear from someone who both has knowledge about this subject, and can actually think.

  Take care, Phil

• Mickey G

  January 13th, 2010 at 1:16 pm

  Curious and curiouser this thread gets. I have had an alternate energy business, on the side among other ventures in my llc group, for over 40 years, in fact my oldest children called me "the energy miser" when they were small. Alternate energy is a good thing but not the great saviour of humanity that the foaming mouthed fringe believe in. Well planned use of technology and knowledge can reduce our need for fossil fules but not yet eliminate them. For example we have sold several hundred solar hot water preheater units which even during a cold winter will reduce the cost of hot water when the sun is shining or the holding tank retains any heat.

  But, enough of a digression, and on to global warming. When I worked as a utility executive we tracked past history of temperatures, sun spots, and solar activity as a part of the way of estimating the normal usage portion of future electric demand and set budgets up for our budgeted customers based on this data. What does this suggest, hmmm the sun plays a large part of determining demand in a summer peaking electric utility. So I ask why is solar activity denied by the global warming disciples? Oh, I forgot anything that is not man made could not possibly affect the global climate. Maybe even volcano eruptions can't affect warming or cooling…oh wait they do but then they affect the numbers adversely toward other causes of climate change. Shame on folks that understand these relationships they have failed the religion of global climate change and should be declared apostate just as a certain president is an apostate muslim.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 13th, 2010 at 1:39 pm

  > So I ask why is solar activity denied by the global warming disciples?

  Mickey — this is the very question I posed in 2006 http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/07/31/an-even-more-inconvenient-truth-the-myth-of-man-made-global-warming/, which was my very first encounter with Chasm FYI:

  "In other words, if there’s a big ball of vibrating, pulsating, fiery gas up in the sky that routinely heats the Earth, shouldn’t we eliminate it first as the cause of this warming before making me trade in my Escalade for a Mini-Cooper?"

• Chasm

  January 16th, 2010 at 2:18 pm

  Marc Morano runs ClimateDepot, which is paid for by Richard Scaife, an oil heir:

  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/6http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/6

  Morano is a denier scum of the highest order.

  Other tidbits in the Rolling Stone:

  "In the late 1990s, the institute (API) conspired with Exxon and a cadre of right-wing think tanks to create the "Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan" — an $8 million effort to fund climate research that hypes the "weaknesses in scientific understanding" of global warming. "Victory will be achieved," the plan explained, when "those promoting the Kyoto treaty on the basis of extant science appear to be out of touch with reality.""

  "Exxon spent $29 million on lobbying in 2008 — second only to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And despite vowing to stop its funding of climate denial, it continues to foot the bill for bogus research by right-wing outfits like the Heritage Foundation, which asserts that "growing scientific evidence casts doubt on whether global warming constitutes such a threat.""

  "In 2007, spending $100 million on ads, Exxon boasted about its investments in renewable energy — even though such deals totaled only $10 million that year."

  "In 2008, after providing the pivotal vote to preserve $12 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil, she (Sen. Mary Landrieu) received $272,000 from oil and gas interests — third among Democrats."

  "In July, Gephardt was the keynote speaker at the Clean Coal Technology Conference, an honor bestowed after he helped win $1 billion in stimulus funding for FutureGen, a "clean coal" boondoggle promoted by Peabody. That's a significant return on the $1.7 million that Peabody and the FutureGen Industrial Alliance have invested in Gephardt Group's services since 2007."

  "In the first nine months of last year, the Chamber spent $65 million — three times more than ExxonMobil — mounting a campaign to block Congress from placing limits on carbon pollution. "

  "For his part, Donohue is proudly ignorant of the risks that a changing climate poses to the business community: "Is the science right? Is science not right? I don't know.""

  "Last year, Singer served as a lead author of "Climate Change Reconsidered" — an 880-page report by the right-wing Heartland Institute that was laughably presented as a counterweight to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's scientific authority on global warming. Singer concludes that the unchecked growth of climate-cooking pollution is "unequivocally good news." Why? Because "rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests." Small wonder that Heartland's climate work has long been funded by the likes of Exxon and reactionary energy barons like Charles Koch and Richard Mellon Scaife."

  "(Barton himself has received $1.4 million from oil and gas donors, plus $1.3 million from electric utilities.)"

  We've seen Exxon and the Chamber and the coal companies fund crap science, outright denial PR campaigns and supplicant politicians for 30+ years, yet the only "hoax" and "conspiracy" that either one of you ever talk about is one supposedly run by some poor climate researchers. This is especially lame coming from Dr Jackson, since he repeatedly pastes his "my focus is, as it has always been, on the agenda driven fraud behind AGW" quote every chance he gets. What about the clear agenda driven fraud behind denial? It's not like you have to go digging through some old, obscure, technically driven personal emails to divine some vast conspiracy… it's all right out in the open. Oil Companies spending piles of cash (tax subsidized cash!) on obfuscation, misinformation, double-talk and denial. The Chamber of commerce dumping tons of money into pocket pols. It's all right there, and has been for a long time. Why, Phil, is your "focus" not where the real money is?

  Crickets.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 3:25 pm

  >Why, Phil, is your "focus" not where the real money is?

  We’ve been through this before. I wrote the following in 2006:

  http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/07/31/an-even-more-inconvenient-truth-the-myth-of-man-made-global-warming/: You’ll find the footnotes related to each statistic I cite below in this article. I quote climate scientists and official reports, not the “Rolling Stone”, which gives you an idea of Chasm’s intellectual depth on this subject..

  Though I’ve touched here and there on the duplicity of environmental activists as they promote their theory about global warming, this matter bears further exploration because it provides the missing piece of the puzzle to understand why opinion leaders on the Left act the way they do; denying the obvious and/or ignoring contradictory evidence to promote the fiction that man, and man alone, is primarily responsible for global warming.

  Three interrelated reasons explain why they do this: power, prestige, and money.

  Power: As Defenders of the Environment, these individuals occupy a unique position of power and importance. Their words shape the public debate, and through that debate they try to influence public policy. The more their policies are put into practice, the more power they garner. They don’t need to be an elected official, because if they are successful, elected officials will look to them for their policy direction.

  But the quest for power doesn’t automatically mean that an individual must lie (or to be more generous, refuse to put forward a completely honest view) in order to occupy this position of influence. I will argue, however, that the unique nature of the global warming debate requires them to promote a singular world view regardless of the evidence to support it, and in spite of the growing evidence against it. The decision tree looks something like this:

  If global warming is only a theoretical concern, and not a concrete, existing problem, then there is no reason to make new policy and/or divert current resources to this crisis. Thus, it must be an existing problem that is significant, and growing, or other competing problems will take center stage.

  Moreover, the solution to this existing, significant, and growing problem must involve a restructuring or redirection of society’s resources. If existing policies, processes and/or institutions can take care of the problem, there is no need for an outside entity to lead the effort or participate in any meaningful way. Thus, the solution must, by definition, demand a “new way” of doing business, led by individuals who are closely attuned to the unique new dynamics surrounding that issue. In short, their view must be that the very nature of the problem, as well as the unique features of its solution, requires individuals like them to play strong central roles.

  If the facts at hand don’t conform to this scenario, then they must be massaged, distorted, or disregarded all together in order to preserve, protect, or expand their power.

  Prestige: Closely related to the quest for power is the importance of prestige. It is certainly possible to define a problem and/or manufacture a solution that is entirely within the political mainstream. Rather than supplant existing processes and institutions, a group or individual could seek to “reinvent” them in a more efficient form. The goals and objectives might remain the same, but the manner in which they are pursued would be altered. Or, the process and/or institution could remain unchanged, but the goals could be tweaked so that resources are divided differently among its constituent parts. In either case the effort is designed to strengthen the existing system, not replace it.

  For radical environmentalists, however, such an option would never be seriously considered. In addition to seeking power, they are also part of a social fabric that views itself as separate and distinct from the individuals managing current institutions and processes. Gaining the respect, approval, or admiration of these current leaders would alienate them from their peers and call their own motives into question. If Big Oil, supported by mainstream Republicans and other ROWG’s (rich old white guys) embrace their ideas, then there is either something intrinsically wrong with their proposals — or worse, their peers will conclude that they’ve compromised their principles and joined the enemy. Big Oil, Republicans, and ROWG are the problem. Bringing them down as they save the environment will not only enhance these activists’ power, it will elevate their personal prestige within the only group that matters; their fellow Left-wing radicals, and the Hollywood groupies who hang on their every word.

  Money: Last, but certainly not least, is the issue of money. Those without power don’t get the funding. That is the ultimate, self-reinforcing goal.

  It takes money to run a think tank, operate a website, travel around the country or pay one’s own personal bills. Those with power can persuade (read: extort) elected officials to help subsidize their activities with federal funds, either in an attempt to buy off more aggressive opposition that could threaten these officials’ own power base, or as a way of stoking the flames if the party in power is sympathetic to their cause and wants to create political mischief for their opponents.

  Also, the more perceived power and prestige an organization has, the more likely it is to attract private donations from like-minded individuals or sympathetic foundations. Either way, money is the fuel that keeps things going, and raising more money is always a primary concern of every social activist on either side of the political spectrum.

  For those who seek power and prestige but have not yet attained it, money becomes the driving force in shaping their message. To illustrate this point by borrowing from the political arena, if a group arises in opposition to the policies of President Bush, it will not serve its own best interests by conceding major points in that debate even if the evidence is overwhelming. The Bush tax cut policy has swelled the public coffers beyond even the most optimistic projections, just as the Administration said it would. Organizations formed in opposition to Bush cannot concede this point, or they will alienate the red meat radicals who viscerally hate the president and will tolerate no praise for him whatsoever. Their funds will then go to another competing group that remains true to the message that everything Bush does is corrupt, incompetent, or stupid, and they’ll be left panhandling for dollars to pay the light bill.

  Which brings us back to the issue of global warming. To illustrate my point about the inherent dishonesty of the Left-wing activists who address this subject, I have to look no further than a document from the Natural Resources Defense Council that was last revised on January 9, 2006.22 As Defenders of the Environment, they had access to the same NASA, U.S. government, and other material I previously cited — and more. The information they convey on their website is, in their opinion, the most accurate and balanced view of the global warming issue presently available.

  Below is a sample of their work in the form of questions and answers they posed, accompanied by my observations. The questions and answers are direct quotes from the NRDC; the observations and occasional “translations” are entirely mine.

  Q: What causes global warming?

  A: Carbon dioxide and other air pollution that is collecting in the atmosphere like a thickening blanket, trapping the sun's heat and causing the planet to warm up. Coal-burning power plants are the largest U.S. source of carbon dioxide pollution — they produce 2.5 billion tons every year. Automobiles, the second largest source, create nearly 1.5 billion tons of CO2 annually.

  Here's the good news: technologies exist today to make cars that run cleaner and burn less gas, modernize power plants and generate electricity from nonpolluting sources, and cut our electricity use through energy efficiency. The challenge is to be sure these solutions are put to use.

  Observation: What causes global warming, according to the NRDC? Not the sun. Not the Earth as it moves through its natural cycles. The only factor worth mentioning is coal burning power plants and cars. But not just any power plants or cars — only those operated in the good old U.S. of A. China, India, Western Europe, Latin America, Russia and the remainder of the world don’t rate a mention. One can only conclude that their power plants and cars must be cleaner and more efficient than the smokestack belching, gas guzzling monsters blighting our country, making them the model technology the NDRC challenges us to adopt.

  Q: Is the earth really getting hotter?

  A: Yes. Although local temperatures fluctuate naturally, over the past 50 years the average global temperature has increased at the fastest rate in recorded history. And experts think the trend is accelerating: the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990. Scientists say that unless we curb global warming emissions, average U.S. temperatures could be 3 to 9 degrees higher by the end of the century.

  Observation: Not only is the data ignored showing that average temperatures have actually stabilized over the past few decades rather than increased, we are now threatened with the possibility of a 3 to 9 degree temperature increase by 2100 [See Footnote 14]. If a one degree increase doesn’t get the public’s attention, make it 3-4 degrees.23 If 3-4 degrees isn’t scary enough to foster the desired policy changes to curb global warming, suggest that 6.5 degrees is a real possibility.24 If a 6.5 degree temperature increase doesn’t do the job, toss out 9 degrees to get your point across.

  And, when you make this claim, don’t tell anybody where you got that number. You’re the Natural Resources Defense Council. If you say it’s 9 degrees, then I’m sure you must have a real good reason for making that statement. Otherwise, you’d just be pulling a number out of the air.

  This might be a good point to resurrect a July 18, 2004 article from Telegraph.co.uk25 that points out a tiny little fact that somehow has continued to elude the NDRC in the months and years that followed. According to the article, “Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.” The article continues by making note of the following:

  A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes. Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures. The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently – in the last 100 to 150 years.". . .

  The team studied sunspot data going back several hundred years. They found that a dearth of sun-spots signalled a cold period – which could last up to 50 years – but that over the past century their numbers had increased as the Earth's climate grew steadily warmer . . . The research adds weight to the views of David Bellamy, the conservationist. "Global warming – at least the modern nightmare version – is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's politicians and policymakers are not. "Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide – the principal so-called greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock."

  Continuing with the Q&A from the Natural Resources Defense Council, another question is asked and answered.

  Q. Are warmer temperatures causing bad things to happen?

  A: Global warming is already causing damage in many parts of the United States. In 2002, Colorado, Arizona and Oregon endured their worst wildfire seasons ever. The same year, drought created severe dust storms in Montana, Colorado and Kansas, and floods caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in Texas, Montana and North Dakota. Since the early 1950s, snow accumulation has declined 60 percent and winter seasons have shortened in some areas of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington.

  Of course, the impacts of global warming are not limited to the United States. In 2003, extreme heat waves caused more than 20,000 deaths in Europe and more than 1,500 deaths in India. And in what scientists regard as an alarming sign of events to come, the area of the Arctic's perennial polar ice cap is declining at the rate of 9 percent per decade.

  Observation: It might come as a bit of a shock to the “Dust Bowl” survivors of the 1930s that droughts are a unique phenomenon associated with early 21st century global warming. Traveling a little farther back in time, there are a number of Central and South American civilizations that completely collapsed in the face of prolonged, severe drought. I guess the Mayans brought it on themselves by building all those coal-burning factories to help build the SUVs they drove that put so much CO2 into the atmosphere it killed all the rainforests.

  As for the non-melting melting ice caps, I’m reminded of Ted Danson’s predictions in the mid-1980s that the oceans would die within 10 years if we didn’t do something drastic — and do it now — to clean them up. Well, we didn’t undertake a deep-water Manhattan Project, and 10 years later the ocean was still alive. Just as it is today.

  So what do you do, as a good liberal environmentalist concerned about man’s incessant ravaging of the planet when your ludicrous prediction is exposed for the fraud it really is? Reevaluate your data? (No. Who needs data when you speak from the heart?) Rethink your position? (What’s to re-think? It’s how I feel, who I am, and I need to be true to myself.) No, you simply make another one that’s virtually identical to the first, but just leave off the date-certain for the apocalyptic event so your enemies can’t pin you down.

  Q: Is global warming making hurricanes worse?

  A: Global warming doesn't create hurricanes, but it does make them stronger and more dangerous. Because the ocean is getting warmer, tropical storms can pick up more energy and become more powerful. So global warming could turn, say, a category 3 storm into a much more dangerous category 4 storm. In fact, scientists have found that the destructive potential of hurricanes has greatly increased along with ocean temperature over the past 35 years.

  Observation: What scientists have also found is that a lot more people live along the coasts in 2006 than they did in 1971. So when a hurricane struck the Gulf coast in 1971, there were fewer people and less property to kill or destroy. ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN aren’t in the habit of sending reporters to a deserted beach to lament the toppling of a half-dozen trees, unless George Bush personally cut them down to make way for another Wal-Mart. But put 20,000 people there 35 years later, and someone is likely to get killed, just as a lot of buildings will lose their roofs. Ergo, the storms of 2006 are “more destructive.”

  Furthermore, the claim that the ocean is getting warmer (an affirmative statement) is based on the assumption that we have a thorough, multi-decade database upon which to make this comparison. There is no such database detailed, accurate, and comprehensive enough to make this claim. Nevertheless, having stated emphatically that the ocean is “getting warmer,” the NRDC dutifully lists the possibilities that maybe, might, and could perhaps happen because of this rock solid foundation upon which they base their judgment — all of which are dire and extreme.

  There’s never been a hurricane as destructive as Katrina in 2006, except for the one that wiped out Galveston Texas in 1900, killing 6000 people, and a few dozen others here and there over the past several centuries. These freakish, abnormally powerful storms couldn’t be part of the natural cycle of sunspot and wind current activity. No, that wouldn’t make any sense. Global warming is responsible for it all, even the ones that happened before the Industrial Revolution.

  2010 note — just where are the increasing number of hurricanes in this global warming world over the past 5 years?

  Q: What country is the largest source of global warming pollution?

  A: The United States. Though Americans make up just 4 percent of the world's population, we produce 25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution from fossil-fuel burning — by far the largest share of any country. In fact, the United States emits more carbon dioxide than China, India and Japan, combined. Clearly America ought to take a leadership role in solving the problem. And as the world's top developer of new technologies, we are well positioned to do so — we already have the know-how.

  Translation: In case you missed the point in our opening question, the U.S. is to blame for all the bad things that are maybe going to possibly happen. We could solve the problem tomorrow if we wanted to, but Dick Cheney and his oil buddies don’t want you to drive cleaner cars. And, as far as our assertion that “the United States emits more carbon dioxide than China, India and Japan, combined,” please don’t look too closely at our methodology in making this statement. China has been a backwards, largely agrarian society for the past 60 years. A few years ago it began to undertake a massive industrialization effort that has already driven up the worldwide price of oil to feed its voracious energy appetite, and this trend is going to continue — and accelerate — in the decades to come. They aren’t building state-of-the-art, emission-reducing factories, so their growth will be accompanied by significant increases in the same nasty pollution that U.S. factories routinely clean through sophisticated scrubber technology.

  Since China’s industrialization will add significantly to worldwide, global-warming pollution, let’s force the U.S. to cut back on their use of these same natural resources, since our 25% gluttony is only benefiting 4% of the world’s population. (We’ll conveniently ignore the fact that not everything produced in the U.S. stays in the U.S., and is in fact sent as aid or trade to the rest of the world). Besides, it isn’t fair for the U.S. and the greedy capitalists who run it to be so powerful.

  Even though Marxism has failed every time it’s been tried, China deserves a chance to make its Marxist government work. And it would work just fine if the U.S. didn’t hog all the world’s resources. (Again, we’ll ignore the other possible explanation that its inherently-repressive, socialist centralized government stifles their ability to compete with the American capitalist system). So, in keeping with the spirit of the Kyoto Treaty that exempts China and other third world countries from the same restrictions it seeks to impose on the U.S., we’ll reinforce, once again, the belief that the U.S. is to blame for global warming, so the draconian prescriptions we offer to solve the “problem” will seem reasonable and fair.

  I think that about sums it up, except to reiterate that George Bush wants you all to die, and you would too if it wasn’t for Bill Clinton and the NRDC. While noting that the Bush Administration has supported some environmental initiatives, in the eyes of the NRDC they continue to fall short in a number of key areas. As one illustration, the NRDC says that, “Stricter efficiency requirements for electric appliances will also help reduce pollution. One example is the 30 percent tighter standard now in place for home central air conditioners and heat pumps, a Clinton-era achievement that will prevent the emission of 51 million metric tons of carbon — the equivalent of taking 34 million cars off the road for one year. The new rule survived a Bush administration effort to weaken it when, in January 2004, a federal court sided with an NRDC-led coalition and reversed the administration's rollback.”

  Which brings the NRDC to the main thrust of its public education efforts. Having established that man is the principal agent of global warming, and that the U.S. in particular is the principal culprit, and that the Bush Administration and Big Business are the chief obstacles to sensible environmental policy, the NRDC tackles the ultimate question:

  Q: What can I do to help fight global warming?

  A: There are many simple steps you can take right now to cut global warming pollution. Make conserving energy a part of your daily routine. Each time you choose a compact fluorescent light bulb over an incandescent bulb, for example, you'll lower your energy bill and keep nearly 700 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the air over the bulb's lifetime. By opting for a refrigerator with the Energy Star label — indicating it uses at least 15 percent less energy than the federal requirement — over a less energy-efficient model, you can reduce carbon dioxide pollution by nearly a ton in total.

  But most of all, the Natural Resources Defense Council pointed out that you can “join NRDC in our campaign against global warming.”

  Translation: give us money, and add to our numbers to enhance our power, and we’ll keep fighting the fight for responsible environmental policy that ignores a solid, scientific basis for believing that anything other than U.S. citizens are chiefly to blame for warming the planet anywhere from 1 to 9 degrees.

  It’s easy to conclude that the only reason the NRDC — and other equally myopic self-proclaimed environmentalist groups — hold tight to their apocalyptic vision that global warming essentially arises from coal burning factories and automobile emissions, is that without these scares, they’d have to leave their think tank and go find a real job.

  After all, who’s going to give them money to fight a problem that may not exist, and if it does, is the result of natural processes beyond our control?

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 4:14 pm

  When Chasm's says "is not" to my post above (the sum and substance of his intellectual reply), I will try to find some source equivalent to his (The Rolling Stone), so I can be more persuasive than actually citing government reports, climate scientists, and applying an actual analysis to the subject.

  My only dilemma is whether I go to Mad Magazine, or the National Lampoon, to achieve parity with his scholarship. Of course, Chasm can always bypass the Rolling Stone and go directly to an authoritative, objective source like The Daily Kos or Huffington Post, if some college senior on another agenda-driven website isn’t available to him to cite as a ‘knowledgeable source’ about climate science. I could then counter with my nephew, who is in the third grade, and has enough common sense to know it’s supposed to be hot in July and not think that this is a sign of the coming apocalypse).

  AGW hysterics like Chasm rely on their emotions and an insane grasp on contemporary politics and social issues to guide their understanding of complex issues. If you want some real fun, read the comment section to the article I wrote in 2006, particularly Chasm’s alter eco “Bill Provost”, who starts out his complete initial analysis of my 60,000 word essay with a slur. [Again, I have no problem in calling an idiot an idiot, but that is a designation that must be earned, not gratuitously assigned].

  You’ll then see the typical line of arguments that links global warming with pollution. [If you oppose clean air, you must be an AGW denier].

  You’ll then see a defense of AGW because all the issues about inadequate or incomplete data upon which to base a claim that the earth is warming by X degrees “have been hashed out in the literature,” so the figures are 100% accurate. [This was stated authoritatively in the pre-“artificial adjustments” and “tricks” era].

  You’ll also see that the critics of my article speak exclusively in terms of man-made global warming. There was simply no doubt that the ice caps were melting, the seas dramatically rising, the winters getting warmer, the summers desert-like hot, the weather pattern shifting to more and stronger hurricanes, etc. This was all based on completely objective, unbiased, non-agenda-driven science.

  Shortly after this exchange the term “climate change” came into vogue because, well, the ice caps weren’t melting (they were in fact thickening), the seas weren’t actually rising, the winters were getting colder, and while July and August were still pretty hot, we had a lot of nice weather too throughout the planet.

  My central points, which neither Chasm nor the Rolling Stone have actually addressed or refuted, center around three main objections to the AGW histrionics:

  (1) Data on global warming prior to the space age consisted of incomplete worldwide information that had to be massaged and extrapolated to produce estimates of varying degrees of accuracy, as compared to the relatively precise measurements we have gotten after the 1960s. There is no 100+ year objective, definable trend.
  (2) Moreover, even 100 years of highly accurate information is not enough time to precisely gauge climate trends on Earth, and use this data to build highly reliable computer models to predict global average temperatures in the 21st century and beyond. 100, 200, even 300 years is nothing in the geological time of a planet that is billions of years old. And

  (3) Global Warning advocates like the National Resource Defense Counsel used agenda-driven arguments to distort what accurate information we have to address the hypothesis of man-made Global Warming, and cannot show how man’s influence can be separated out from all naturally occurring climate change factors to account for any accurately measured temperature increases.

  Other than that, there’s absolutely no doubt the Earth has a “fever”, and man — and man alone — is responsible for it.

• Chasm

  January 16th, 2010 at 5:37 pm

  >I quote climate scientists and official reports

  No, you quote paid industry hacks, and misrepresent what the scientists do say, as we shall see in a moment.

  >Power: As Defenders of the Environment, these individuals occupy a unique position of power and importance.

  'Cause everyone knows that environmentalism is where the big bucks are. Not like ‘oil company executive’ or ‘industry lobbyist.’ Phil, what ‘unique position of power’ are you talking about?

  >If the facts at hand don’t conform to this scenario, then they must be massaged, distorted, or disregarded all together in order to preserve, protect, or expand their power.

  That’s exactly how I would characterize the behavior of oil and energy companies over the last 30 years. The quotes in my last post are indicative of that (hey, at least Rolling Stone does real journalism. I wouldn’t be disparaging my sources if I ran an outfit like “Intellectual Conservative”). As I said in that post, the energy companies and their paid minions have been doing exactly what you say in plain sight… and THEY actually DO have “unique positions of power and importance.”

  >If Big Oil, supported by mainstream Republicans and other ROWG’s (rich old white guys) embrace their ideas, then there is either something intrinsically wrong with their proposals

  But this never happens. What’s good for EXXON’s bottom line is EXXON's bottom line.

  >It takes money to run a think tank, operate a website, travel around the country or pay one’s own personal bills

  Yes, which is why Marc Morano has to go to billionaire Richard Scaife to fund his bogus denial website. And why Scaife kicks up the bucks.

  >The Bush tax cut policy has swelled the public coffers beyond even the most optimistic projections, just as the Administration said it would.

  Hardly. Tax revenues dived wildly after his cuts went into effect and only rebounded during the last few because of the housing/bank bubble. Total tax revenues went up about 24% from 2001 to 2008 – about 3 1/2 % per year – not even enough to keep up with inflation.

  http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=206488,00.html

  >Observation: What causes global warming, according to the NRDC? Not the sun. Not the Earth as it moves through its natural cycles. The only factor worth mentioning is coal burning power plants and cars. But not just any power plants or cars — only those operated in the good old U.S. of A. China, India, Western Europe, Latin America, Russia and the remainder of the world don’t rate a mention. One can only conclude that their power plants and cars must be cleaner and more efficient than the smokestack belching, gas guzzling monsters blighting our country, making them the model technology the NDRC challenges us to adopt.

  Clearly your logic and common sense skills need some sharpening. The sun’s solar cycles are well known to all climate scientists, and research takes into account these variations. The business about “only” US cars and emissions counting is a pathetic attempt at politicizing, as a) we have no ability to legislate in other countries, b) we emit by far more carbon per person than just about anyone on the planet and c) it’s an interview for US audiences

  >If a one degree increase doesn’t get the public’s attention, make it 3-4 degrees

  You’re going to have to show your work on the ‘stabilization’ you mentioned, and then you’re going to have to explain how a ‘hoax’ can stabilize itself. And, yes, the ten hottest years on record occurred during the last 20 years – and one of them was 2009, which was the fifth hottest ever recorded. Where’s your rebuttal?

  As for the non-melting melting ice caps

  I know you’ve already seen pictures, and it’s a very real possibility that the arctic shipping lanes will be ice free year-round within 20 years. I live in a city that is dependent on snow packs for water, and the prospects of increases droughts are a real danger. Will Durant said that ‘civilization exists at the whim of geography,’ and he’s certainly right. We will pay our bill now, or we may very well be relocating cities in the future.

  >There is no such database detailed, accurate, and comprehensive enough to make this claim.

  How do you know that?

  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/06/the-global-warming-hypothesis-and-ocean-heat/

  This article seems to say that surface temp has been the traditional metric, probably for stupid bureaucratic reasons, but there a quite a few scientists working on the problem. Do you have a specific aversion to science? Is all science corrupt, in your eyes?

  >They aren’t building state-of-the-art, emission-reducing factories, so their growth will be accompanied by significant increases in the same nasty pollution that U.S. factories routinely clean through sophisticated scrubber technology.

  This is true, and very scary. And why I hold out little hope that we will ever make a dent in global emissions output. And another truth is, if China decided to go green, they’d kick our ass.

  >After all, who’s going to give them money to fight a problem that may not exist, and if it does, is the result of natural processes beyond our control?

  Certainly not the Oil companies, coal companies or the Chamber of Commerce. They have to spend all their extra cash buying politicians, hack scientists and lobbyists in their decade long drive to deny science. $$$$$$$$ Follow the $$$$$$$$$.

• Chasm

  January 16th, 2010 at 5:44 pm

  For some reason this part got deleted as I pasted in my last post:

  <This might be a good point to resurrect a July 18, 2004 article from Telegraph.co.uk25 that points out a tiny little fact that somehow has continued to elude the NDRC in the months and years that followed.

  This might be a good point for you to go and actually READ Dr. Sami Solanki’s paper instead or regurgitating what other deniers have flagged for you. I’m going to cite Dr. Solanki’s very own words, not the “Telegraph,” which gives you an idea of Phillip Jackson’s intellectual depth on this subject:

  “We have shown that even in the extreme case that solar variability caused all the global climate change prior to 1970, it cannot have been responsible for more than 50% of the strong global temperature rise since 1970 through any of the channels considered here. We believe that even this fraction is too high. Solar total irradiance variations could be responsible for up to 50% of the temperature increase since 1970 only if the intercalibration between different instruments carried out by Willson [1997] is correct. The fact that the irradiance reconstruction of Fligge et al. [1998] [cf. Fligge and Solanki, 2000] agrees far better with the composite of Fro¨hlich and Lean [1998a] than with Willson [1997], although the reconstruction was made quite independently of the secular trend in these data, supports the former composite. Note, however, that the Fligge et al. reconstruction is based on combining proxies of facular brightening with different weights. A different choice of weights may well give somewhat different results. The far better agreement of the Fro¨hlich and Lean composite with the Mg II core-to-wing ratio, the standard proxy of UV irradiance (which also agrees well with the UV-irradiance reconstruction of Fligge and Solanki [2000]), also provides strong support for this composite. In view of this and the arguments presented by Fro¨hlich and Lean [1998b] we conclude that the Sun has contributed less than 30% of the global warming since 1970 (unless it is through a channel not considered here).

  http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/natalie/PAPERS/warming.pdf

  So the scientist you hold up as the last word on your “global warming by-the-sun” hypothesis says that at the very MOST, the sun could be responsible for 30% of global temperature rises, which leaves a whopping 70% plus on the table for mankind to pick up. That’s a hell of a lot more than the ‘none’ you seem to have convinced yourself of.

• Chasm

  January 16th, 2010 at 5:59 pm

  >the ice caps weren’t melting (they were in fact thickening)

  False, and I showed you why back in comment #12. Data shows it, and the NSIDC recently reiterated this publicly in response to the controversy. Stop repeating lies.

  >(1) Data on global warming prior to the space age consisted of incomplete worldwide information that had to be massaged and extrapolated to produce estimates of varying degrees of accuracy, as compared to the relatively precise measurements we have gotten after the 1960s. There is no 100+ year objective, definable trend.

  Yes there is, and we do too. They're called trees, and the size of the rings correlate with temperature trends. You may have heard of the whole "climategate" email thingy – they was about matching tree data with measured temperature data. It's not as precise, but the aggregate data sure can tell scientist allot about past climate.

  >(2) Moreover, even 100 years of highly accurate information is not enough time to precisely gauge climate trends on Earth, and use this data to build highly reliable computer models to predict global average temperatures in the 21st century and beyond. 100, 200, even 300 years is nothing in the geological time of a planet that is billions of years old.

  That't not even a reason, but a restatement of #1. Tree rings and ice cores apply.

  >(3) Global Warning advocates like the National Resource Defense Counsel used agenda-driven arguments to distort what accurate information we have to address the hypothesis of man-made Global Warming, and cannot show how man’s influence can be separated out from all naturally occurring climate change factors to account for any accurately measured temperature increases.

  Why the focus on NRDC? What about NASA, the Pentagon, the IPCC, the NISDC and on and on…? And the fact is.. they are definitely trying to do this. I even quoted your favorite scientist in my last post to show that the sun isn't responsible for more than 30% of warming. Scientists would like to know the answer. But even if they did have it, you wouldn't listen and you'd figure out another reason they could be wrong. Just like the anti-science creationists.

• Views on the News - 1/16/2010 - Asking the questions… Demanding the answers… - The Voice

  January 16th, 2010 at 6:09 pm

  [...] Lies about Green Jobs” by Alan Caruba dated January 12, 2010 published by Intellectual Conservative Obama Must Know His Spending Yields Bankruptcy, Not Growth” by David Limbaugh dated January 12, [...]

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 7:01 pm

  Jeeze, what a complete idiot (a designation that must be earned).

  (1)

  Journal of Glaciology, July 2008: “Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada, has been losing mass since at least 1960. Laser-altimetry surveys, however, suggest that the high-elevation region (>1200 m) of the ice cap thickened between 1995 and 2000”

  International Arctic Research Center (IARC/JAXA): “During October and November 2008 the extent of Arctic ice was 28.7 percent greater than during the same period in 2007.”

  “Science” 2005: “Oslo – Greenland's ice-cap has thickened slightly in recent years despite wide predictions of a thaw triggered by global warming”

  “Nature” May 2005: “Increased snowfall over a large area of Antarctica is thickening the ice sheet and slowing the rise in sea level caused by melting ice”

  Associated Press 2002: “New measurements show the ice in West Antarctica is thickening, reversing some earlier estimates that the sheet was melting.”

  And on, and on.

  (2)

  Tree rings and ice cores don’t give you an exact temperature against which to measure an exact change in temperature of 1 degree over the last 100 years — and then state that the Earth is getting hotter (a “trend”).

  (3)

  Chasm: “Phil, is your "focus" not where the real money is?”

  Phil: documents the money trail using the NRDS to illustrate.

  Chasm: Oh yeah, forget about my challenge to follow the money, what about NASA?

  Phil: “James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, whose records were also cited as evidence, second only to the CRU data, of incontrovertible man-made global warming. McIntyre also caught Hansen engaging in the same sort of statistical manipulation in which past temperatures were lowered and recent ones ‘adjusted’ to convey the false impression that the nonexistent warming trend was accelerating. After trying to block McIntyre’s IP address, NASA was forced to back down from its claim that 1998 was the hottest year in U.S. history.” http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Who_s-who-on-climate-frad-8625428-78462462.html

  Chasm: Oh yeah, what about the IPCC!

  Phil: “IPCC Researchers Admit Global Warming Fraud. Among the IPCC elite embarrassingly, if not criminally, compromised is Phillip D. Jones …” http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/2377-ipcc-researchers-admit-global-warming-fraud

  Chasm: Oh yeah! What about the NSIDC!!!

  Phil: In 2007, Mark Serreze, of the NSIDC said North Pole ice could be gone in the summer of 2008.” http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=4728737&page=1

  Er. It’s still there. And getting thicker.

  And doncha know, I’m a “creationist” for raising these issues, along a bunch of scientists who still have some professional integrity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment .

  This is why no one takes the AGW hysterics seriously, particularly when Chasm, the Rolling Stone, and some ‘knowledgeable source’ (who’s actually a 19 year old college junior) raises them.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 7:38 pm

  (1)

  Journal of Glaciology, July 2008: “Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada, has been losing mass since at least 1960. Laser-altimetry surveys, however, suggest that the high-elevation region (>1200 m) of the ice cap thickened between 1995 and 2000”

  International Arctic Research Center (IARC/JAXA): “During October and November 2008 the extent of Arctic ice was 28.7 percent greater than during the same period in 2007.”

  “Science” 2005: “Oslo – Greenland's ice-cap has thickened slightly in recent years despite wide predictions of a thaw triggered by global warming”

  “Nature” May 2005: “Increased snowfall over a large area of Antarctica is thickening the ice sheet and slowing the rise in sea level caused by melting ice”

  Associated Press 2002: “New measurements show the ice in West Antarctica is thickening, reversing some earlier estimates that the sheet was melting.”

  And on, and on.

  (2)

  Tree rings and ice cores don’t give you an exact temperature against which to measure an exact change in temperature of 1 degree over the last 100 years — and then state that the Earth is getting hotter (a “trend”).

  (3)

  Chasm: “Phil, is your "focus" not where the real money is?”

  Phil: documents the money trail using the NRDS to illustrate.

  Chasm: Oh yeah, forget about my challenge to follow the money, what about NASA?

  Phil: “James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, whose records were also cited as evidence, second only to the CRU data, of incontrovertible man-made global warming. McIntyre also caught Hansen engaging in the same sort of statistical manipulation in which past temperatures were lowered and recent ones ‘adjusted’ to convey the false impression that the nonexistent warming trend was accelerating. After trying to block McIntyre’s IP address, NASA was forced to back down from its claim that 1998 was the hottest year in U.S. history.” http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Who_s-who-on-climate-frad-8625428-78462462.html

  Chasm: Oh yeah, what about the IPCC!

  Phil: “IPCC Researchers Admit Global Warming Fraud. Among the IPCC elite embarrassingly, if not criminally, compromised is Phillip D. Jones …” http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/2377-ipcc-researchers-admit-global-warming-fraud

  Chasm: Oh yeah! What about the NSIDC!!!

  Phil: In 2007, Mark Serreze, of the NSIDC said North Pole ice could be gone in the summer of 2008.” http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=4728737&page=1

  Er. It’s still there. And getting thicker.

  And doncha know, I’m a “creationist” for raising these issues, along a bunch of scientists who still have some professional integrity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment .

  This is why no one takes the AGW hysterics seriously, particularly when Chasm, the Rolling Stone, and some ‘knowledgeable source’ (who’s actually a 19 year old college junior) raises them.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 7:41 pm

  Hey, my comment is getting hung up in the filter. Maybe I'm being deliberately blocked!!! (Sound familiar?)

  By the way, if you want to follow the money on AGW, strat with the carbon credit scam. Who benifits from this — people like Al Gore, who coincidentally started the whole false hysteria.

• Alan Caruba

  January 16th, 2010 at 7:57 pm

  Some advice for Philip:

  "Never argue with an idiot; they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." ~ anonymous

• Chasm

  January 16th, 2010 at 8:10 pm

  That's it? That's your response to Exxon, BP, Scaife, Buffett, Gerard, Landrieu, Morano, the US Chamber of Commerce, etc, etc… "people like Al Gore?"

  You mean liberals? Gimmie a break. So it is all political for you, and not based on any kind of science or thought about what living in a closed eco-system may mean.

  I hope at least you are some sort of oil millionaire. At least then your ignorance would make sense.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 8:15 pm

  >the sun could be responsible for 30% of global temperature rises, which leaves a whopping 70% plus on the table for mankind to pick up.

  This is why you can’t argue with an idiot.

  Chasm: Sun 30%; Man 70%

  Reality: Causes of global climate change — the sun; volcanoes; CO2 emissions from sea life, trees, animals, etc.; winds driving ocean currents, changes in the earth's tilt, methane from animals, bacteria, and decomposing material; and man — though to what degree we cannot state with any real precision, as I’ve repeatedly pointed out.

  Chasm sees the world through an ideology. If his pre-determined answer that man is 70% responsible for all global warming, then only the sun and man are responsible for global warming.

  Note to Chasm: It’s actually “climate change” now, not global warming. Since the GW bubble burst a few years ago, only the fanatics cling to this notion. Your contemporaries have adapted and moved on from claiming that the earth is cooling, I mean warming, to just plain changing — all due to man.

  Who knew the same thing that man did from 1900-1970 to cool the planet would actually warm it from the 70’s until the mid-2000s, at which point they simply “changed” it.

  And creationists are supposed to be the ones acting purely on a faith based fantasy?

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 8:18 pm

  >That's it? That's your response to Exxon, BP, Scaife, Buffett, Gerard, Landrieu, Morano, the US Chamber of Commerce, etc, etc… "people like Al Gore?"

  No Chaz, as I said the response is hung up in the filter (too many links showing the utter vacuity of your comments). I've asked the IC editors to free it up so it can post. Just wait for it.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 8:21 pm

  >"Never argue with an idiot; they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." ~ anonymous

  Alan. Yeah, I know. But it's just so much fun when the guy is a complete idiot. It gets him to keep on posting, destroying any support at all for his position.

  It's just a guilty pleasure of mine.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 8:25 pm

  >you quote paid industry hacks, and misrepresent what the scientists do say

  People can actually go to my original article and see my sources. Granted, they aren’t the Rolling Stone or some college kid in Maryland, but then again, I’m not up to Chasm’s level of scholarship. Thank God.

• Chasm

  January 16th, 2010 at 8:53 pm

  I did say 70%, I meant "up to," something I didn't catch until I read it though after posting. Obviously I know there are many factors that go into climate change. But the fact is, even your favorite scientist couldn't quantify it exactly – the sun could be responsible form much less than 30% too. It could be a 30-60-10 Sun/man/other for all you or I know. I'm sure there are some people who know better than we.

  And you're trying to muddy the debate with semantics. It's called "climate change" even though the surface temperature is rising because people like you couldn't get it through their thick skulls that "climate warming" doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be sunny outside. The fact that FOX News still leads with "It's cold outside. Does that mean global warming is a hoax," is proof enough that the framing was off on that one.

  And the fact is, something we DID do between 1900 and 1970 DID cool the atmosphere temporarily: we burned a hell of a lot of sulfur laden coal, which remained as aerosol particulates and which did cool the earth.

  There are a lot of variables, and I trust science to keep at it. Not everything can be known, but for that which can, the only way to acquire knowledge is through rigorous science. Will some be wrong? Sure, but it gets thrown out eventually.

  The problem for you, Phil, is that you are too politicized to even trust science and what it can tell us. You don't look into the claims of science, you parrot the claims of whoever will tell you that liberals are wrong. Your whole theory of sun-spots is all over the internet… but even the scientists who work on it say that their data and ideas are being twisted by the very people you cite.

  Here's a link to a lowly blogger who has done far more work to debunk the 'solar cycle' BS than you ever put into finding its veracity:

  http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/04/22/swindlers-list/

  And here's a debunking of the 'mistaken global cooling' stuff:

  http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/

  Which I quote:

  "The state of the science at the time (say, the mid 1970’s), based on reading the papers is, in summary: “…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…” (which is taken directly from NAS, 1975). In a bit more detail, people were aware of various forcing mechanisms – the ice age cycle; CO2 warming; aerosol cooling – but didn’t know which would be dominant in the near future. By the end of the 1970’s, though, it had become clear that CO2 warming would probably be dominant; that conclusion has subsequently strengthened."

  The scientists think of this stuff too, and comparing what we know now with what we knew 40 years ago is pretty silly, even for you, no?

• Chasm

  January 16th, 2010 at 9:01 pm

  >>you quote paid industry hacks, and misrepresent what the scientists do say

  >People can actually go to my original article and see my sources. Granted, they aren’t the Rolling Stone or some college kid in Maryland, but then again, I’m not up to Chasm’s level of scholarship. Thank God.

  No, you quoted a discredited article in the Telegraph to say that "global warming had been explained" by the fact that the sun was burning brighter than ever, and I quoted the actual scientist to prove that his research had not, in fact, explained global warming.

• Chasm

  January 16th, 2010 at 9:16 pm

  Going back to your 2006 post, it suddenly strikes me as ironic that you open with the story of an ice age 16,000 years ago and that one of your peeves is that we supposedly don't have reliable data on local climates going more than 100 years back. How do we even know there was an ice age then? The answer to both questions is of course: tree ring data – something you never ever mention because it would undermine your thesis.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 9:35 pm

  >you're trying to muddy the debate with semantics.

  Only an idiot, when caught with his own words, would then claim that he’s misquoted — and then blame the other guy for not debating honestly.

  It’s the same kind of stupidity one sees when talking about the existence of an ice age, and measuring the temperature of the earth precisely enough to know that it has “warmed” .6 degrees. Tree rings can tell you about an ice age, but they can’t give you the temperature.

  Why is this even an issue?

  Alan, you are indeed correct. There’s nothing more to be gained from Chasm. It’s not even funny anymore. It’s just sad.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 16th, 2010 at 11:11 pm

  If anyone wants to continue this discussion with Chasm, go for it.

  For me, it’s impossible to have a debate now. I can almost overlook citing college kids as a source authority on climate issues, or quoting the Rolling Stone as another fountain of knowledge — all when not saying that everyone who disagrees with him is a “creationist”. But now the bar has been lowered to a new level. Once I point out how wrong Chasm is, he just says he never really meant to say what he said.

  The problem is, his substitute language is equally inane. His revised thesis: “the sun could be responsible for 30% of global temperature rises, which leaves a whopping up to 70% plus on the table for mankind to pick up.

  Okay, in Chasm-land, man could be responsible for 69%, 68%, 67% 66% … all the way down to, I guess, 1%, with nature picking up the remaining slack.

  After observing that the mixture could be 30-60-10 Sun/man/other (a number pulled out of the thin air), Chasm concedes this is just a guess “for all you or I know”. He’s “sure there are some people who know better than we,” but damn if he can find one.

  The question what do we really know? is at the heart of my skepticism about the whole man-made global warming claim. You’d think that anyone with common sense would realize that Chasm just validated my thesis. We don’t know with enough precision the temperature of, not to mention the temperature change of, the earth to make the claim that unnatural global warming exists, and man is primarily responsible for it.

  But having just admitted this, Chasm will now say that’s not what he really said, or meant to say, or wanted to say, or knew what he was saying, or whatever it is he’ll say next.

  I’m the guy who is “too politicized to even trust science and what it can tell us,” when Chasm just said it can’t really tell us anything exact … which is what I’ve been saying all along.

  Irony is lost on the ironic.

  Have a go at this, anyone else, if you want to run around in circles. Or just ask the next college kid you see to provide an expert judgment, or as a fall back, pick up the next issue of The Rolling Stone.

  You literally cannot make this kind of stuff up.

• Chasm

  January 17th, 2010 at 4:46 pm

  Dude, but your sources suck worse than mine! That "New American" article is the most biased pos I've ever read. Barbara Hollingsworth, are you kidding me? And as for your repeated assertions that the arctic is is "getting thicker," here is the chart:

  http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091005_Figure3.png

  from this article

  http://nsidc.org/news/press/20091005_minimumpr.html

  From the NSIDC. So, yea it's "getting thicker" after the disastrous plummet of 2006. Aren't you the one moaning about data? Well, two years of rise hardly discount the pattern of the last 40 years.

  If this were a stock, would you buy or short? I'll take the short side for $100 on a 10-year contract. Any takers?

• Chasm

  January 17th, 2010 at 5:21 pm

  In fact, that's a great idea. Phillip, I'm making a formal challenge, since this seems to be a metric you admire. $100 a year for the next five years, to be donated to the charity of winners choice and in their name, on the direction of the National Snow and Ice Data Centers' September Average Monthly Arctic Sea Extant. We don't even have to base it on points overall, just whether the little red dot in that chart goes up or down in the report over each of the next five years.

  Each October, to great fanfare, the winner can announce which ultra-lefty enviro-nazi charity you'll be making a check out to.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 17th, 2010 at 7:32 pm

  Dude: Your challenge is as worthless as the statements you make, which when shown to be idiotic, you simply say you really meant to say something else. Here’s another example:

  Phil: the ice caps weren’t melting (they were in fact thickening)

  Chasm Comment 25: “False, and I showed you why …”

  Phil: Here are several sources that confirm what I said.

  Chasm: Comment 41: Well, um, er, “so, yea it is ‘getting thicker’", but I’ve got another excuse to explain this inconvenient fact away.

  I show you recent history, which you now want to forget about — quoting from the same NSIDC said that North Pole ice could be gone in the summer of 2008 — and say we should now believe that their data is accurate, unbiased and objective. Remember all, this coming from Chasm who thinks tree rings tell temperatures (Hey Joe, does that ring shows it was 86.2 degrees in 1372, or 91.6 degrees?), and who pulls ratios of Sun/man/nature’s contributions out of thin air because, well, ya know, they could be accurate.

  NOW you want to discuss the length of time to establish a “trend”, and suggest that all we need is 40 years in a several billion year old planet to establish a geological or climactic “trend”. This 40 years is important to you because the last 10 years don’t substantiate your pre-conceived notions that the earth is getting warmer (and in so doing melting the glaciers), and that man is responsible.

  Once again, only a fool would suggest that 10 years, 40 years, even 140 years is a climactic “trend” — assuming we actually had accurate data about it in the first place.

  To disprove your idiotic claim that the ice caps are melting, I showed you data that said it was not. I’ve made no claim that the ice caps thickening is a “trend”. I’ve simply used the actual data to show that your statements are not correct. Since the ice caps-are-melting is a component part of your, um, analysis, this means your analysis is flawed.

  All of which returns us again to my central proposition: The question what do we really know? is at the heart of my skepticism about the whole man-made global warming claim. We don’t know with enough precision the temperature of, not to mention the temperature change of, the earth to make the claim that unnatural global warming exists, and man is primarily responsible for it.

  All your hyperventilating and pesudointellectual dodges are meaningless, as is the integrity of anything you say, because when presented with contradictory evidence you either want to re-write your words, or say “yeah, but” after first saying “no, never”.

  Since your original claim was that the polar ice has “never” thickened, you’ve already lost the bet. You can send your money to http://www.junkscience.com/

• Chasm

  January 18th, 2010 at 11:25 am

  First off, I didn't make an original claim – you did. Both in your earlier article, and here in comments (#21) you claimed that "we were in a cooling cycle" and that "the ice caps are not melting (they're thickening!)." Second, I didn't say "never," I provided you with a chart which goes up and down, but which is clearly trending down.

  You didn't cite studies, you cited articles and yearly reports noting that in 2007 and 2008 there was more ice than in 2006 – and one guy who was wrong in his prediction (it happens). But 2006 was the lowest level of ice on record, and the gains don't even bring the ice back to pre-2006 levels. It takes a hypocrite of the highest order to claim that we need hundreds of years of perfectly calibrated data to determine whether the climate is even changing, but 2 years of ice gains after the biggest drop in history is proof that "the ice caps aren't melting, they're getting thicker!" Well, two can play that game – I'll just come back in July and since it's summer, the ice will be melting and you'll be wrong. So there.

  I'm actually surprised you wouldn't take the bet. If you actually checked out that chart, you'd realize that statistically it's an even wager – over the 30 years on the chart, 15 years the stats went up, and 15 years the stats went down… it's just that the jumps down are bigger so the trend is definitely downwards. I'm pretty sure we'd both end up winning and losing a few years, but at the end of that time the dot would be way below where it is now and there'd be no way you could honestly tell me that the arctic ice is "getting thicker."

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 18th, 2010 at 11:31 am

  Irony is lost on Chasm.

• Alan Caruba

  January 18th, 2010 at 11:46 am

  Little Chasm has to have the last word. This is typical of children. So, before he wets his pants one more time trying to revise what he has revised a dozen times, I suggest we just ignore him.

• Phillip Ellis Jackson

  January 18th, 2010 at 4:39 pm

  Alan —

  I couldn't resist one last item from the news today

  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece

  A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

  Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

  In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

  It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

  Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.

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