Tuesday, November 22, 2011

A Reminder about Climategate


This article is a reminder of the lengths that some may go to to impose their vision.  They may be scientists and their intentions may be pure as the driven snow but they are still fallible humans.

Three Things You Absolutely Must Know About Climategate

Some excerpts from the article at pjmedia.com:
"...the science involved is being used to justify the diversion of literally trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out fossil fuels. The CRU is the Pentagon of global warming science, and these documents are its Pentagon Papers."
"So what does this all mean? It does not mean that there is no warming trend or that mankind has not been responsible for at least some of the warming. To claim that as result of these documents is clearly a step too far. However, it is clear that at least one branch of climate science — paleoclimatology — has become hopelessly politicized to the point of engaging in unethical and possibly illegal behavior."



Constitutional Process, Impatient Technocrats and Climate Change

As a member of the public being constantly lobbied by the IPCC and our own native technocrats to "do something", and knowing that the "something" would have to be very big, trillions big, without historical equivalent big, it serves us to be skeptical and not to forget Climategate.

The technocrats among us are inclined to scoff and express frustration at the mere mention of Climategate while they claim that the science is proven, the scientific community is of one voice and any dissension qualifies one as a "denier" on the same level as those who deny the historical reality of the Holocaust.

Those among us that review current evidence, pro and con, regarding "Climate Change" and conclude that the debate is still on, see ourselves as exercising reasonable prudence given the eons long history of human fallibility.

The Technocrats demand that we "know nothings" bend immediately to the will of the technologically informed.  Scientists that disagree with the Climate Change promoters are dismissed as "Christians", quacks, and non-scientists in spite of previous achievements.

The ideas that the technocrats see as nothing but obstructionist include:
  • the planet may not be warming (BEST is evaluating data toward this determination);
  • warming may not be anthropogenic; 
  • the planet may be warming as part of a relatively short term trend within a long term cooling trend (see previous post);
  • the world might be warming but that may not be catastrophic to humans, or; 
  • the results of previous warming studies are unclear or untrustworthy because of data manipulation;
  • some portion of the data must be reassessed since those with whom it was entrusted proved dishonest and unreliable, or; 
  • the demanded societal changes may extract too high a price and result in destruction of our economy, or worse, destruction of a rather successful way of life.
These seem valid concerns to me.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

There are other models of Climate Change

This is interesting. A four thousand year, peer reviewed, climate model of Greenland surface temperatures which forecasts a long term cooling trend while validating the shorter term one thousand year warming trend within the model.

www.nipccreport.org
Humlum et al.'s work is full of details and discussion on how the authors have constructed their analytical models of temperature variations, fully accounting for the large signals from millennial, multicentennial and multidecadal scales of temperature changes covering the late Holocene period.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Does Mohammed Al Baradei belong in prison?

An article in Haaretz claims that Iran is on the brink of becoming a nuclear power.  They will owe a lot to the protection afforded them by Mohammed Al Baradei the Egyptian who formerly headed the IAEA.

 UN nuclear watchdog to release report on activities this week; Iran has carried out experiments in the final stage for developing nuclear weapons including explosions and computer simulations of explosions.

Read the entire article:

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/an-inside-look-at-the-base-where-iran-is-developing-nuclear-weapons-1.393920

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Global Warming: Don't Cry Havoc and Loose the Politicians Yet!

A Resistor acknowledges the possibility or even the probability or even the actual existence of short term (200-1000 years) of warming but resists being stampeded into what could be a cure that is more destructive than the problem.”  Chuck Worrel, comment to his own thread, Nov 2011.

I invented the term Resistor because I am not so worried about whether the science does or does not ultimately indicate the existence of Global Warming as I am the effects of any proposed cure on my beloved USA and Western Civilization.

I hear a lot about the problem of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) but I hear precious little about the proposed solutions and the bureaucracy that would be required to implement any AGW remediation plan.  The fight seems to concentrate on whether or not there is or is not global warming.  The argument generally ignores the fact that implementing the solution, if there is AGW, is likely to be more complex and potentially catastrophic than the AGW problem itself.

It is clear that having a single country, even if it is the USA, pursue solutions unilaterally would be ineffective since the problem, as postulated, is global.  This fact creates a raft of issues regarding control, process and authority across national and international borders.

Therefore, if AGW becomes proven, I want to know what the effects of AGW are really likely to be before I make a decision regarding whether or not it is worthwhile to pursue a cure.  I want factual information to lead me.  To this end I have postulated in various places throughout this post, these questions.

Another issue that I want to see considered is; what and for whom are we planning to pursue a cure?  Many of the AGW people are the same ones who have argued for population control because of global overcrowding.  Actual demographic trends aside, AGW seems to be Gaia's answer to the overpopulation problem.  The Planet plans to rid  itself of some lice (humans).  Why aren't these proponents of population control celebrating and opposing any plan to cure the problem?

Remember, the planet Earth doesn't care about the last 1000 years of climate.  Earth does not operate on a human time line.  The Earth is 4.5 billion years old and has seen much worse.  The Earth does not care about humans any more than it cared about dinosaurs.  Human history is a blip in the timeline of Earth, hardly noticeable.  The Earth is not in trouble.  Warmists and Alarmists believe that humans are in trouble and their idea is that to save humans we must cool the Earth.  It remains to be seen whether this idea represents arrogance or stupidity or prescient self interest.

As discussed below, this problem is too perfect and the likely "solution" is too grand by orders of magnitude.