Science and climate sceptics should come clean

Mark Carney and Barack Obama are both experts in climate change.
It seems to me nobody really knows which way the climate will change and we’ll only know for sure when it happens. I think future generations
will look back and laugh at our windmills.

Matt Ridley declares his interest every time he writes on the subject. It is no secret>

And the reason we don’t have the money for investment is quite simply that the country is broke and can’t afford it. Spending 8 billion a year on useless windmills doesn’t help.

So, finally the convincing argument NOT to spend £50,000,000,000 on HS2 and £100,000,000,000 on another fleet of missile launching subs. I know, have enough seats on trains and subs to put all those who vote for this farce in such: so that they can move quickly to cloud-cuckoo land. Mike B

Editor,

By all means reference scientific studies into global warming. However, to refer to ‘everyone from Mark Carney and Barack Obama’ is a bit like saying you heard it on Eastenders, or read it in the Daily Mail.

Coal is dead and no Viscount can revive it:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-06/why-you-should-short-coal

Poor Viscount, he is so concerned about widows and orphans and world hunger, this is why he pushes the “benefits” of global warming! Not to try and sell his coal.

Well, if we have to take the advice of somebody with a title (although Viscount in the XXIst century sounds as contemporary as coal), then here is a much better source:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/27/prince-charles-warns-financial-sector-charities-fossil-fuel-risk?CMP=share_btn_gp

For global warming to occur we need a mechanism and feedback.

I’ve read two separate articles by different researchers demonstrating the heating effect of CO2 to be significantly less than previously anticipated and I haven’t actually seen any evidence for the feedback loop, beyond conjecture based on models.

To my eye, it appears that climate researchers simply assume these based not on proven evidence but accepted wisdom.

I suppose for me, the fact that we, in our geological history have had periods of higher CO2 and lower temperatures and conversely higher temperatures and lower CO2 concentrations undermines the theory of AGW driven climate change. Then when I read the research I noted above my suspicions are strengthened.

That’s not to say I don’t agree with pursuing a more sustainable technological future, this just seems sensible.

What I dislike is green dogmatism based not on provable hypotheses but ‘scientific opinion’ and consensus.

The catholic church is often condemned by secular commentators for its treatment of Galileo by dogmatising one scientific opinion over another only for them to be proved wrong. The green debate seems to have taken on a similar religious quality as those who are ‘convinced’ gradually marginalse and label dissenters, even proposing the criminalisation of the voicing of their opinions.

This doesn’t feel like open, rational enquiry but religious dogmatism from centuries past.

” Governments need to lead the way…”
Regular readers may recall my somewhat tenuous link to Nevil Shute Norway [A Town like Alice, On the Beach, No Highway..and a succession of other very popular books and films in the 40s and 50s with the theme of Engineering and ordinary persons doing extra-ordinary things.] My father worked, until his death in 1943 as a colleague of Shute, and, so my mother advised, he did come to our home one evening and ‘bless’ me!I was six months old.

Shute’s auto-biography (It’s called Slide Rule) describes the competition ‘organised’ in the late 20s/30s by HMG between the State owned-airship company (based in Cardington, Beds) and Vickers (based in Howden, Yorks) to build two air-ships R100 and R101-to demonstrate which method of management of complex projects and situations was the best. Public or privately funded. The R100 (whose chief designer was Barnes Wallis, Shute then was chief mathematician) was absolutely successful fulfilling all its design and acceptance parameters: the R101 crashed on its maiden flight, killing many of its design team, the Minister for Air etc. UK based Airship potential, to all intents and purposes, ceased! Shute opines that in his later work attached to the Royal Navy, only senior technical staff with a private income (ie unafraid of the consequences of any decision that might be influenced by/conflict with those of their seniors) could be relied upon to give totally impartial decisions. Has anything changed?

That there is a “Scientific consensus” about the “proven science” is well proven, consensus is exactly that it is not fact.

The Engineer is almost alone in even allowing those of us who fine the “proven science” to be very unproven and broken, so please keep this up.

The article is one of the most one-sided that I have seen in these pages: hope that COP 21 is not being enforced by the Ministry of Truth!

It is sad to see someone choose to “shoot the messenger” and mount a personal attack on Ridley. That is not the way science – or engineering – is done.

All that matters is the evidence. And the evidence is, beyond doubt, (climate4you.com) that all five of the leading temperature records (and the IPCC ” [SPM, page 3, section B.1, bullet point 3, ) agree that the world has not warmed as the computer models predicted it would over the last 18 years or so. This proves that the computer models are worthless and should not be used for temperature prediction.

Consensus belongs to the world of politics, evidence belongs to the world of science and engineering. As Einstein pointed out, “one single fact can prove me wrong”. The consensus was against Galileo, continental drift, and the real reason for stomach ulcers. It was wrong every time.

The editor of an engineering Journal should be able to tell the difference between consensus and evidence. As my father used to say to me “believe nothing of what you hear and half what you see”. The simple fact is that the world has not warmed as predicted by the climate models.

Also the scientific consensus has not been proved beyond doubt. Since 1998, more than 31,000 American scientists from diverse climate-related disciplines, including more than 9,000 with Ph.D.s, have signed a public petition announcing their belief that “…there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” Included are atmospheric physicists, botanists, geologists, oceanographers, and meteorologists. (Forbes.)

I am reminded  of this quote by Galileo: “In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”  

What we need is open debate and objective examination of all the evidence.

Editor
Consider this line: “What he denies, however, is the catastrophic long-term effects that the vast majority of scientists agree will result from the Earth warming above two degrees.”
The link is to Christine Figueres, a diplomat not a scientist. Now read where the 2 degree limit came from here by the person who invented it and said it was 100% political and designed purely to force German policy.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-hans-von-storch-on-problems-with-climate-change-models-a-906721.html

In fact there is no consensus on 2 degrees being other than beneficial; and certainly not in the IPCC reports. So Ridley cannot deny anything that is not true. Above 3 degrees, the IPCC only says that it might be bad. The distinction is important because estimated climate sensitivities in the literature have been continuously falling to lower than 2 degrees, never mind 3.

And the biggest single issue in climate science is why the models missed the ‘hiatus’ that cannot occur if manmade CO2 truly dominates the climate. Almost all climate science is focused now on this conundrum.

As for ‘has been proved beyond doubt’. Read what von Storch said in the link above:
“A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario….There are two conceivable explanations — The first..is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn’t mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed. The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes.

Hence the skeptics have every right to be skeptical… whether they produce coal currently vital to our energy supply or not! Ridley btw is actually a recent convert to skepticism….because he keeps up to date with the actual science – not the slogans. You guys could try doing the same!

And as a nuclear engineer I declare not one whit of interest in fossil fuels except that I’ve gotten used to heat and power being there when I need it. And yes I’d agree with the above sentiments that nuclear power needs public investment in the UK…not so much in the USA, which seems to be the model that Ridley is touting.

Alternative energies should stand or fall on their own merits – not on a manufactured climate hysteria about to pop in Paris. Meantime we’ll only have gas power left in the UK by 2023 and blackouts could start this winter.

There is much concern over global warming yet we appear to still be led by sheep.
Consider the tale proposed by the author of ISBN-10: 1444779672 and set it against
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/41/16016.full especially in the light of the recent Chelyabinsk event.

Andrew,

“Editor’s comments | 30 Oct 2015 5:08 pm

The scientific consensus has been proved beyond doubt.”

What has been proven beyond doubt? Please can you enlighten us (and the IPCC).

There are various probabilities that man’s actions are having some effect on the climate. There are various models that predict various possibilities for future temperature increases (most of which are currently deviating from reality). None of this is beyond doubt in a scientific or legal way.

Please can you justify or remove this statement.

Best regards

Roger

Andrew,

When the Cook et al study was posted on the Skeptical Science website it was headlined with “12 000 papers relating to climate changer were studied and there was a 97% consensus that man’s actions were responsible for global warming.

They also showed the actual data broken down into categories as follows:

1. 65 explicit endorse, >50% warming caused by man

2. 934 explicit endorse

3. 2933 implicit endorse

4. 8261 no position

5. 53 implicit reject

6. 15 explicit reject

7. 10 explicit reject, <50% warming caused by man

So:

Out of 12271 papers 999 or 8% explicitly endorse warming caused by man.

Out of 12271 papers 3923 or 32% apparently endorse warming caused by man.

Not quite 97%!

As I said, please justify your statement.

Best regards

Roger

“The journalist’s qualifications are irrelevant. He is not claiming to be a scientific expert on the subject of climate change, but is rather highlighting the opinions of those that are.”
I’m sorry, that’s nonsense. If you report a story in a magazine or on radio or TV, you should have sufficient scientific basic knowledge to make a judgement or, if you do not have the knowledge, be prepared to dig for it.
Too much reporting today in the media simply takes the easy way out and parrots the sensationalist output of pressure groups, charities and other NGOs.
What are your qualifications Andrew?

Andrew,

65 explicit endorse, >50% warming caused by man

10 explicit reject, <50% warming caused by man

87% taking 75 papers out of 12271.

For less than 50% warming caused by man we should, as I have said many times before, be looking at mitigation and adaptation as well as a general reduction in our consumption of resources and generation of pollution.

The ridiculous focus on CO2 does not help. Just look at diesel cars and the installation of solar PV in northern latitudes.

Best regards

Roger

“Are you trying to say that every time there is consensus, that consensus is wrong? The examples you cite from history have no bearing on the overwhelming scientific consensus that exists today on climate change. ”

No. What I’m saying is that consensus has no part in science. It belongs to the world of politics. Whether it is right or wrong is irrelevant. In science all that matters is the evidence.

The evidence says the world had not warmed for the last 18 years in spite of a steady increase in carbon dioxide levels. This proves – and I use the word carefully – that man-made carbon dioxide does not cause dangerous global warming. (It probably causes some, but not enough to be measured beyond dispute.

Anyway, the 97% figure you quote is nonsense. The people concerned – less than 200 I believe – agreed that mankind effects the climate. I would agree with that.

http://richardtol.blogspot.nl/2015/03/now-almost-two-years-old-john-cooks-97.html “In their paper, Cook and colleagues argue that 97% of the relevant academic literature endorses that humans have contributed to observed climate change.”

Would the commenter using the nom-de-plume ‘John K’ please refrain as it may confuse some readers with myself. The comment above was not mine!
Ed. Do you have some filter to prevent such identity theft.

As for the subject matter of the article, I believe the facts and theories surrounding ‘Global Warming’ have become so intertwined and muddled that to extract pure fact from what is merely conjecture is now impossible. It has thus become an ideological rather than a scientific argument.

This very diverse discussion touches at a number of points in the one, Big Picture.

1. It may be “an ideological rather than a scientific argument” but I contend it would be better to heed the warnings about CC and avoid the possibility of 70% of the world’s population being displaced by rising sea levels. Losing cities like London would be wounding, and the Maldives a catastrophe for its tiny population, but reduction of whole landmasses like Bangladesh to a tow path would be make the 2015 refugee crisis look like a works outing.
2. We are all agreed about the need for R&D but we have got to stop faffing about and get on with the “D” in particular. Constructing HS2,3 and the rest will put mass transport on the grid, literally. Completing the right projects will obviate the need for short haul air travel and thereby release slots in existing airport capacity for long haul traffic, saving the need for construction of additional runways, and even whole airports.
3. Powering the grid with nuclear stations (and shouldn’t these be Thorium until we have fusion?) will preserve concentrated fossil carbon deposits (not “fuel”) for non-energy applications over the coming thousands of years, rather than blowing it all away up a chimney over a few decades or, at best, another century or two.
4. A substantially nuclear driven grid will always need quickly deployed boost for peak periods, and coal is not ideal for that, though perhaps better than nothing. Certainly windmill generation is not a solution but I disagree with the earlier comment that future generations (if there are any) will laugh at the concept. They will be too angry about the waste of vital resources to have anything left for hilarity. No, they will ask why we didn’t research and develop storage systems so that benign nuclear will meet all needs without recourse to these absurd windmills, though storage will help even that fiasco.
5. We are in transition and, as the Ed pointed out, that does include some coal. But not for long (Sunday Times, Business Focus 25.10.2015: “Power Failure”).

Forget Ridley. Go to http://www.co2science.org for the hundreds of studies on how increased CO2 levels increase plant growth and health.

A little geohistory. Up until the industrial revolution our biosphere had lost 96% of its atmospheric CO2 since animals first roamed land. At a straight line projection, in another 10-20 million years the CO2 levels would have dropped below the levels plants need to survive. Burning fossil fuels actually recycled the sequestered carbon so that plants could benefit.

“Then, having made a bad decision (being taken in by a plausible but fallacious argument.) with System 1, people don’t like admitting they got it wrong.”

Especially when large international bodies and governments have been taken in by this fallacious argument.
It will be hard for the IPCC and most western Governments to admit they have grossly overstated the problem and spent trillions on the wrong solutions.

“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

Or in the case of NASA massaging the numbers to match the argument.

Best regards

Roger

This winter could see blackouts thanks to the overhyped demonization of fossil fuels by earth scientists with a track record of failure predicting food shortages from overpopulation in the 60s, a new ice age from fossil fuels in the 70’s, Euro deforestation from acid rain from coal in the 80s, worldwide deforestation in the 90’s (the planet has been greening for 40 years according to the MODIS satellite), a mythical gulf stream shift in 2000s that can only happen if the world stops spinning and many more… Funnily enough these were consensus positions too.

Now if they had been able to predict the current hiatus in temperature or that Antarctica would cool and grow in extent, or that stratospheric warming would cease in 1995 all of which run contrary to the hypothesis that mankind now dominates the climate then the current pessimistic consensus might have meant something. Alas it just continues an inglorious tradition of earth scientists unique expertise in being wrong all the time.

Some of us are actually big fans of alternative energy research but only a fool would try to replace reliable, cheap energy with expensive unreliable energy. We through the baby out with the bathwater and all to reduce CO2 by the miniscule amount that the UK produces. If we removes all our CO2 by ending industry, riding horses to work and using peat fires again then the worlds CO2 output drops by 2%

Well the power shortages predicted by sceptics are now here. Let’s see how much everyone enjoys this new age of carbon freedom.

Does that ‘come clean’ enough for you? This is not the first time where scientific common sense has lost out to a fashionable paradigm and it won’t be the last. But the lumpen public always suffer when it happens.

Bill, we often hear the 97% figure used by the scientists when they describe the consensus surrounding climate science. I am not an expert on the subject, however as a Civil Engineer working in the water industry it does have a direct impact on my day to day work. As someone who has been studying climate for many years and is confident that the science isn’t agreed, I am interested to hear your best guess at an alternative consensus figure.

Bill,

Blimey, I thought that the environmental monitoring behind the science was all leading to similar conclusions. That we might be altering the climate of the planet by increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

And far from this being a one off, these changes were being witnessed in a wide variety of different disciplines, more erratic weather patterns, retreating glaciers, sea level rise, ocean acidification etc..

And that the conclusions of these numerous studies had then been peer reviewed by the numerous relevant learned institutions, such as NASA, IPCC, The Royal Society, Universities, Meteorological offices etc.

And that their conclusion was a broad but common message that climate change was a serious threat, that we need to act with some urgency and that there is a risk we could have missed our chance.

And then we see other bellwethers, commercial institutions limiting their risks / exposure, from insurance companies not covering flood / storm risks, utilities hardening their assets and investment companies dis investing in fossil fuels.

But I now realise having read yours and some of the other posts here, that I have been a fool and that climate change simply isn’t a problem worth worrying about. In fact, it seems that it is just an attempt to advance the careers of the key scientists involved and to make loads of money.

That is a turn up for the books, I always thought that the money was on the side of the fossil fuels, I used to watch Dallas and aren’t the Koch brothers worth a few bob.

I must get out their and spread the message that this is a big conspiracy, better still where can I get a piece of the action, there must be loads of money supporting all the people and institutions involved.

Wait till the wife hears about this.

For sure David Brook, when the science does not suppot your position undermine the other’s.
If you are making the claim that man drives the climate it falls to you to prove the case.

The worlds ‘green cllimate econnomy’ has just been valued at $1.5 T (not that far behind the UK), so lets not pretend that only one side is monied, especially as subsidees make up a lot of the other.

Having read through a tranche of opinions either based on fact or supposition, suddenly a massive figure $1.5 T appears on the scene. What is this – a “green climate economy” just been valued at – valued by whom, based on what? Isn’t this just another statistic which helps no one?

I am not sure I am undermining anyone’s position. I have be won over by the well reasoned arguments presented here and elsewhere.

Even the suggestion that human activity could alter the climate is tantamount to madness.

Then to embark on a drive to improve our society’s sustainability based on such flimsy evidence, further compounds this lunacy.

No, I am with you, Bill and the others here. We need get out there and spread the news that we have been taken in by the wicked scientists and politicians. Even the Pope is in on it.

More good news from the climate change solutions camp (the only one that matters) as more junk oil (bitumen) left in the ground:

https://nextgenclimate.org/reject/?utm_source=textlink2&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Keystone-Rejection-Email&utm_campaign=Keystone-XL

@ Roger B

I got as far as the first paragraph of the Preface to the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate report you highlighted.

It brilliantly predicts Judith Curry’s proposition on the whole concept of climate change policy. Well, by my judgement.

“There is a broad class of problems that have no solution in the sense of an agreed course of action that would be expected to make the problem go away. These problems can also be so important that they should not be avoided or ignored until the fog lifts. We simply must learn to deal more effectively with their twists and turns as they unfold. We require sensible regular progress to anticipate what these developments might be with a balanced diversity of approaches. The payoff is that we will have had the chance to consider alternative courses of action with some degree of calm before we may be forced to choose among them in urgency or have them forced on us when other–perhaps better–options have been lost. Increasing atmospheric C02 and its climatic consequences constitute such a problem.”

Your very young reporter needs to get out a bit. No rise in temps for 17 years; dodgy, self-written software by low-grade academics; NOAA/UEA offering third-grade outputs;

Ridley’s assets have nothing to do with his global warming doubts – any more than left-wing darling George Monbiot’s large rental income denies him an opinion on the property capitalism and rent profiteering.

Weather history disproves global warming. Your very young reporter won’t remember the winters of 1940, 1941, 1961, 1962. Is this the ‘pre-human influence’, pre-warming weather he thinks is the ‘norm’??

Editor (Andrew?)

“Firstly, sea ice over both polar regions is not increasing. Arctic sea ice extent for October 2015 averaged 7.72 million square km (2.98 million square miles), the sixth lowest October in the satellite record. This is 1.19 million square km (460,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average extent. “

The current low point for Arctic sea ice was 2012. Since then the area has been increasing and is back within the 1981 to 2010 range.

https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

“The picture is less clear in Antarctica, where warming does not appear to be happening anywhere near as fast. Sea ice there is more difficult to measure due to being covered by much larger volumes of snow, and there is not the same clarity regarding its volume. Some studies say it is increasing, while others dispute this. Where there is general consensus is that the Antarctic ice sheet is diminishing. “

NASA says that the Antarctic ice cover is increasing and according to Silvia we have to believe NASA.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

“The 2 degree threshold is based on global average mean temperature. Of course the poles will be colder than the tropics. What matters is the average temperature across the planet. 2 degrees is based roughly on limits scientists believe the planet has experienced in the past, and which we can predict behaviour for with some degree of accuracy. Beyond 2 degrees, current modelling becomes less accurate, but we know that the effects will not progress linearly. A 4 degree increase will not be twice as bad as 2 degrees, it will be orders of magnitude worse. 2 degrees is also believed to be achievable – a target that we can realistically attain if we take appropriate action in time.”

Some very sweeping statements. Why is 2°C global temperature increase bad? 1°C in the medieval warm period was not a problem, 2°C in biblical times was not a problem (according to ice core measurements). Why will 4°C be orders of magnitude worse? Do you understand what orders of magnitude means?

Please drop the propaganda and stick to engineering matters.

Best regards

Roger

At Dave Smart,

I quite agree. I simply don’t believe that CO2 emissions are driving climate change, my hunch is in yearsvyo come we will recognise it as a function of Earths declining magnetic field, which also started its precipitous drop during the industrial revolution.

But as you put it: oil is frankly too important a resource to burn, particulates from coal quite literally kill hundreds of thousands and gas, although significantly better, tends to be owned by people we should not be dependent on.

We need nuclear, passive solar, some off shore wind, gas, biomass and clean coal. I’d like to see tidal and wave make a big contribution also.

More importantly I’d like to see government funding for renewal of the housing stock and a step change in insulation. Presently subsidies benefit the wealthy and foreign business but these would immediately benefit the average Brit and the poor in particular who are most likely to live in old, breezy and expensive housing.

I think the argument should be moved away from climate change to energy security, sustainability, quality of life and poverty alleviation. We can all agree on these, moreover domestic construction and engineering can benefit from it, rather than Euro wind turbine manufacturers.

David,

I agree totally with your last point: “oil is a precious resource, too precious to burn”

Your first points, however are very dubious:

“The effects of the rise in CO2 to date are a matter of proven record.” What does the proven record say? What is the proven ECS? Where is the proof? Are we back to the Hockey Stick?

“We know that if we add even more, at the current rate, 2°C warming is inevitable” How do we know? There are some models which don’t match reality which might suggest this. 2°C warming, and more, is inevitable based on the information from historical proxy measurements.

Is this due to man’s emissions of CO2, probably not. Can we change anything by spending Trillions, probably not. Should we try to reduce our consumption of finite resources, yes. Should we try to reduce our footprint/impact on the planet, yes.

Please note that installing solar PV in northern latitudes increases our consumption of resources and pollution of the planet. The push for diesel engines to reduce CO2 at the expense of everything else has increased our pollution of the planet. It’s time for some joined up thinking.

Moving the pollution to China from the West and then complaining about the pollution in China is not joined up thinking.

Best regards

Roger

“Is this due to man’s CO2, probably not. Can we change anything by spending Trillions, probably not.”

Roger, you exaggerate the uncertainties and fall into circular reasoning.

Is this due to man’s emissions of CO2? Almost certainly, yes – proven.

Can we change anything by spending billions? Yes, of course we can. It’s only the losers who tell you we’ll be eating into their profits and wasting their money, (and the taxpayers’ money they consider to be theirs!). You’ve fallen, hook, line and sinker for propaganda – end of story.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum of government (to fulfil the elite’s dreams of staying in charge). See my post on the Innovate 2015 article. . . .

There is no debate about anthropogenic climate change, no matter how long, how many caps are included or how personal (the most pathetic) some of the comments are. The science is settled by real scientists, an absolute majority of them, doing real science, in other words if they had any hunches they took the time and effort to prove them right or wrong.

Even Ben & Jerry understand climate science and they are not engineers or technical people, as one would assume the readers of The Engineer are. So have fun, take action and do something positive to stop human-induced global warming:

http://www.benjerry.com/values/issues-we-care-about/climate-justice/twenty-four-reality

As the Paris COP 21 is getting close, the number of totally dishonest claims about climate change in the press is increasing exponentially: extreme weather claims, sea level and polar bears wiped out have all been regurgitated by the Ministry of Truth.

It is essential that the balance is restored despite the author’s apparent view that it is climate skeptics who are wrong. The cost to UK plc of the COP agreements could be a true disaster.

At least let the facts be debated openly.

Only a fool would deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Only a fool would state that they know what the climate sensitivity is (the temperature rise as the result of a doubling of CO2) unless, of course, they are on the grant gravy train.
The science is not settled. Shame that a magazine like The Engineer should seem so keen to embrace orthodoxy.

@ Roger B:

You are acting in exactly the manner described in my 4 Nov. 9:59 am post. In Galbraith’s words – “almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

You cherry pick any points that suggest there may be greater uncertainty in the evidence for the ‘consensus view’ than is in fact the case and you dismiss the mass of evidence supporting it. Then you insult thousands of capable people, whose integrity cannot be doubted, by saying they must be guilty of ‘groupthink’, because they disagree with your partial analysis.

Change your mind; It’s the only logical way out of the hole you’ve dug yourself into. Your alternative reality makes no sense whatever.

thinkers on their mountains of evidence are mistaken on the true correlation and cause, and even if we back off there still could be a warming.

The big question is whether governments would go to war against countries who decide to stay with carbon fuels without sacrificing their economies.

The Earth was once flat and it was only heretics that dared contradict that theory.

Whilst ‘Climate Change’ is undoubtedly happening (it seems governments and the IPCC have moved on from GW and AGW) Scientists and engineers are not Precognotist’s (did I just make that up?) and can’t foretell the future; which is possibly where the incredulity of people like me, with no scientific background springs from.

The ‘acceptors’ (I don’t appreciate being scornfully branded a ‘denier’ by scientific journalists who should know better) lurch from one extreme disaster prediction to another so it’s entirely unsurprising there are heretics and deniers. If the acceptors could stick to the science instead of predicting the future, there may be a lot less confusion around the whole subject.

My belief in science in general is that, whilst participants necessarily explore the boundaries of credibility, they have a duty to explain their theories and findings to us dumb schmuck’s who invariably pay the bills. Unfortunately, that has to be delivered in a digestible form or it is invariably dismissed.

And whilst science is frequently the predictor of the future, we understand so little of our earth’s climate system that the Met. Office has abandoned publishing long range weather forecasts. And whilst I perfectly understand those are short term anticipations of weather as opposed to climate trends, how about extrapolating their predictions and margins of error, and then examining what margins of error are built into each and every climate prediction? All fed into the laptop of an IPCC office junior for publication of this week’s prophecy of doom. And whilst the accusation of money grubbing can be levelled at oil companies, the IPCC have no less interest in securing a lucrative revenue stream for as long as they can. Not to mention those grubbing for clean energy grants.

If from nothing more than a business perspective, were someone to approach me with the proposition that the earth was facing climate catastrophe and they asked me to back them with a modest amount of money I would turn them down flat. Not because they don’t know what they were talking about but because there are far too many unknowns, solar activity, magnetic fields, aerosol effects, not to mention (again) the wide ranging paleo scientific data we are basing enormous assumptions on. As a business model it seriously sucks, other than averaged intermittent fossil, geological and tree ring data we have no experience of what’s going on here. That alone is enough to put me off as nothing on God’s earth conforms to an average, certainly not the future.

Perhaps it’s hopeless hope, perhaps it’s intuition, but I’m inclined to come down on the side of the deniers for no other reason than determined scientific predictions are invariably wrong in my experience. Scientific endeavour is littered with more failure than successes, so what makes climate prediction so different from any other scientific prediction?

@Bill Church

I had a wander round the remss site you refer to and found this statement:

“But….

The troposphere has not warmed as fast as almost all climate models predict.” (http://www.remss.com/research/climate)

Followed by three graphs showing global, tropics and north polar temperature changes 1979 – 2008.

CC supporters have explained away the 15 year ‘pause’ with recent, after the fact, research, and dismissed it as insignificant stating 30 years as the minimum measurement period. Yet there is accurate data here that seems to be mashed up with other less reliable data.

It also occurs to me that whilst unpredictable weather patterns are attributed to CC, why then is the climate as predictable as they maintain?

Furthermore, my understanding is, the hockey stick graph the worlds destiny is predicated on measures climate change in the Northern Hemisphere, completely ignoring anything south of the equator where it seems CC is not the problem it is at the top of the world (I am, however, happy to be corrected on that.)

Indeed, there is a statement in the link which discusses the lack of data in the south pacific and refers to the unreliability of balloon harvested data, amongst other unreliable data sources.

Again, I’m not a scientist but there seems so many variables and margins for error across a range of single point measurement tools like buoys, ships and land based sites, which all make allowances for geographical locations and local conditions. They in turn must be aligned to present the data in a common format, which I suspect itself is more black art than science, before the climate model is produced.

Add to that data garnered from fossilised remains that, even with carbon dating, must have variables of at best decades, most of which are incredibly localised.

I’m not sceptical of climate change, I’m sceptical of the shaman’s rattling bones and stones predicting Armageddon based on voodoo science.

The comments here, from those who doubt the science, simply construct any argument to support their ‘denial’ – for that is what it is. True sceptics would doubt the false memes that they repeat over and over (such as “no further warming”). They ask for ‘evidence’ that the scientific consensus is correct, when the evidence is staring them in the face, but they choose to dismiss it.

There is very little room for doubt, that this represents the reality:-

http://www.ted.com/talks/alice_bows_larkin_we_re_too_late_to_prevent_climate_change_here_s_how_we_adapt

If anybody doubts it, THEY are the ones who must take responsibility to provide real evidence to refute the case. Every person and every country will have to get off this addiction to fossil fuels at some point in the future, so anyone with half a brain says “let’s do it now”.

@ David Redfern

The doubters are the ones who get their conjecture wrong, because they pick up on any errors they think they can see in the ‘consensus’ and extrapolate that if scientists have got a few things wrong, their whole case must be suspect!!! Nonsense – that’s a non sequitur.

Bows-Larkin’s presentation on the graphs to the present day are factual, not conjecture, and the correlation between the rise in GHG and rising global temperature is proven, beyond any doubt. The point is that accumulated emissions won’t diminish, we’re stuck with them and adding even more, which in turn will be around for a long time. “There’s no time like the present, to act.”

“. . which suggests there is something fundamentally wrong with the recognised science employed to anticipate future temperatures.” No, it doesn’t. Atmospheric temperatures are the most variable, short and long term. The oceans are a huge heat-sink and it takes an enormous amount of energy to melt a massive quantity of ice. The latter is the canary in the coal mine. It’s obviously getting sick, but you prefer to wait until it’s dead, so an autopsy can prove what it died from!!!

Open your eyes – open your mind – anyone can see “what’s going on”.

Together with decarbonising electricity and electrifying transport, we need to get off our addiction to bad diet. Feeding good food to animals to make a different food, that wealthy people prefer to eat in excess, makes no sense whatsoever. Do you know what the GHG emissions are from that process? Check it out.

@Dave Smart

So if there are errors in the conventional science graphs it’s OK to extrapolate them, but it’s not OK to extrapolate factual recording of satellite data?

Nor did I “pick up on any errors they think they can see”. REMSS clearly states:

“The troposphere has not warmed as fast as almost all climate models predict.” (http://www.remss.com/research/climate). But of course mention that and its “Atmospheric temperatures are the most variable, short and long term.”. Make up your mind, had I mentioned the oceans you would have countered it with something else.

When a respected organisation, whose data the IPCC uses (I believe) makes a clear statement like that, it’s pretty unambiguous. Or do we ignore it because it doesn’t correlate with tree rings, ice cores, corals, ocean and lake sediment data which are indicators, they can’t pin anything down to less than decades, if not centuries and certainly not to within a few degrees C. We are comparing actual measurements with guesstimates. “there are very few weather balloons launched in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean, even though this region is where the changes in Sea Surface Temperature due to the El Nino – Southern Oscillation cycle are largest.” (see previous link). There’s one massive hole in conventional data collection.

And why, if mistakes are made in underlying calculations predicting future temperatures, are they “non sequitur”. If I believe 1+1 = 3 and continue for the rest of my life on that basis whilst everything else is unerringly accurate, I’m still going to be wildly out in my expectations when I’m buried.

What is it about believers? You insist you can’t possibly be wrong in anything? It’s fanaticism, all science should be questioned, constantly, surely.

Nor did I question the data Bows-Larkin presented, my objection is the predictions she extrapolates from them. She, nor you, nor I, nor anyone else alive to my knowledge, can determine with any certainty what’s going to happen tomorrow never mind in 50 years’ time. She’s just scaring the children.

Using “The oceans are a huge heat-sink” as a weapon of mass persuasion is simplistic and manipulative. There are billions of acres of deep sea floor we know nothing about. Believers have an awfully high opinion of themselves if they maintain they know nearly enough about our planet to second guess what it’s going to do.

“Open your eyes – open your mind – anyone can see “what’s going on”.”

Either an extraordinarily arrogant, or extraordinarily silly statement. My eyes are open which is precisely why I’m asking questions about the subject. However, my mind is closing, in the face of a barrage from fatalists refusing to concede there could possibly be alternative theories. I find the ‘deniers’ entirely more accepting of possibilities, whilst most disagree with certain climate change contentions, they rarely maintain they are 100% correct, indeed most are humble enough to concede that we simply don’t know enough to make the biblical predictions wholly accepted by believers.

It’s akin to the unwavering belief in deity’s, based on contradictory ancient beliefs, collectively supporting the certainty of an afterlife.

This has been a first class debate about the most important issue that we have. If climate change were as predicted, we would have cause for concern and taking action. The problem is that a hypothetical model of the climate that can never be validated or even questioned now dominates the topic. The NOAA data behind the claimed actual rise of temperature have been fully discredited- even NOAA refuse to explain their fiddles to Congress.

This is not science but religion, and much of the debate reflects that rather than factual proof.

Half a century ago climate science was still concerned that we were about to enter the next ice age. It’s funny how the consensus changes. The science is still as uncertain.

Best regards

Roger

There you go again Roger – condemning a whole branch of science by cherry-picking the mistakes of SOME ‘scientists’. The consensus view has developed and been confirmed during the past half century precisely because science learns from the errors of the few. The consensus hasn’t changed. The science is certain. You can deny it till you’re blue in the face, but you can’t rewrite history, or change scientific facts – it’s time you changed your mind. What do you find so appealing in the lies, disinformation and empty assertions you keep repeating?

Myth No. 11
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

@ RogerB: There’s no doubt about who’s departed from reality.

“Half a century ago climate science was still concerned that we were about to enter the next ice age.” That’s a lie, and you know it’s a lie, but you still repeat it. Why?

Either admit that you are mistaken, or provide a rebuttal to the historical evidence that 62% of climate scientists predicted global warming in the 70s and 10% said it may cool:-
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm

Skeptical Science shows that your myths don’t stand up to scrutiny, so you have to resort to talking nonsense – “the last bastion of the deniers of reality” YOUR certainty “only exists as part of a belief system” which seems to have its roots in ‘cognitive dissonance’. It takes some mighty hubris, to set yourself up as judge and jury over the science. As for your next false conjecture:-
http://www.skepticalscience.com/study-drives-sixth-nail-into-pause-myth.html

I’ve looked at the WMO information that Silvia cited. It is based on the totally discredited NOAA humangenised temperatures and ignores the satellite values that are much more consistent.

It is a publicity document for the meja hype related to COP 21: but even as that it fails. The graph of world temperature anomaly since 1860 shows a rise of about 0.5 deg K between 1910 and 1940 and the same rise between 1960 and 2000: where was the increasing CO2 in the earlier period???

A rise of 1 degK from the cold period in the mid 19th Century is something to be glad about not a cause for alarm, unless you are an “anthropogenic doom-believer”.

Why do I post what I do?
I am concerned that the current religious fixation on CO2 is not addressing the real problems, in fact it is not addressing any problems but creating them.

I believe that fossil fuels are a valuable raw material and should not just be burnt for energy. We should also be preserving the Earth’s finite resources and reducing our pollution and impact. If we focused on real pollutants, NOx, SOx, PM10, etc. the consumption of the resources that emit these would also be reduced.

The CO2 focus fails completely. Let’s look at some recent examples:

– Increased harmful pollution, NOx, due to the push for Diesel cars in a misguided attempt to reduce CO2 emissions.

– Subsidised installation of solar PV on roofs in northern latitudes which are unlikely to return the energy used in their manufacture and installation and will certainly not compensate for the pollution generated by their manufacture (but the pollution is in China so the western Greens can feel smug).

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth

– Bringing biomass from America to the UK to fuel our power stations without considering the rest of the environmental impact, just CO2.

– CCS. This requires around 40% of the generated/used energy to store the removed carbon. Simply a waste of resources.

I also consider attempting to recover oil from tar sands where half the oil is used to provide energy for the process to be a complete waste.

So what do I consider good/sensible:

Solar appears to work reasonably in southern latitudes. PV may not be the best, but thermal with some form of storage is probably the way to go. I am surprised not to have seen any mention of this plant in Morocco in ‘The Engineer’ (or have I missed it 🙁 )

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34883224

Tidal/wave is interesting, but is limited in application to locations with a long coastline in proportion to its area. It would not be of benefit in Switzerland. The combination of tidal with storage lagoons to supply dispatchable electricity will work but I am not sure on the actual return on resources used. This is a general problem of the intermittent supplies including wind. Everything has to be sized for the maximum output but delivers less than a third of this which is not a good use of raw materials.

Hydro/pumped storage is generally good but is again geographically limited. It will work in Switzerland, but the opportunities in the Netherlands are limited.

New generation nuclear also looks good. This needs some materials development as well as alternative fuel cycles for Pu and Th as well as breeding up the non fissile U and Th isotopes. As nuclear power is concentrated it is also much better at utilising resources. Significantly less construction materials are required for 1GWe of nuclear than for 1GWe of wind. The operational life of a nuclear plant is also longer, 60 instead of 20 years.
I certainly accept that there are significant hazards and risks with nuclear power but so are there with burning fossil fuels. The risks of nuclear are certainly overstated by the green lobby and the media and I challenge these views as well when I come across them.

Best regards

Roger

@Dave Smart

First let me say that I am not a denier, nor barely a sceptic until I looked at the evidence for and against GW. As a layman, I object to the dogmatic conviction that GW, AGW or CC science is settled. Even I know that science is never settled and unless one turns up on my doorstep and can prove he’s God, I will never believe any scientist predicting a certain future. Indeed, I have heard utterly convincing arguments from Jehovah’s witnesses that sound more credible than the arguments for the future dictated by man’s feeble efforts to influence mother nature.

Again, even as a layman, I know the climate has changed over millions of years, and will continue into the distant future (thankfully). Furthermore, paleoclimatology has demonstrated that CO2 levels have often been extremely low during the hottest periods which strongly suggests there is no relationship between CO2 and temperature.

I also understand the most prevalent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapour at 97%. Of the remaining 3% of mixed gasses, man’s contribution is around 3% of CO2, so as a simplistic calculation we are not contributing huge amounts. But we continue to blame CO2 for climate change before we even understand what water vapour does.

I also understand that CERN have discovered that cloud-forming aerosols, mankind recognised as a widely held scientific certainty, are now in considerable doubt. The science of feedback itself is barely understood but if CERN do dispel conventional aerosol ‘certainties’ then, frankly, it’s back to the drawing board for every climatologist, for or against.

In terms of credibility, I know that the Michael Mann has been roundly condemned for omitting data in his Hockey stick graph to the extent that the IPCC has removed it from their website. I also understand a retired German professor has discovered the GISS temperature datasets have been altered as far back (I believe) as the 60’s. Even I know that’s very naughty. Assuming that data has been used in IPCC predictions then no wonder the climate isn’t responding as they expect it. Regardless of the ‘cherry picking’ so often quoted by believers, if this is true, it’s a fundamental change in the assessment of CC, nor might it support the deniers, it might demonstrate CC as worse than anyone expected, I am happy to accept either outcome.

I also know from RSS satellite data (I believe that’s about as accurate and consistent as we have) that there has been considerably less global warming than predicted over the last 15 years or so, indeed if it continues as it is, in a few short years it will drop completely outwith the 95% standard error (I think I quoted that correctly) margin. If that doesn’t convince someone their rune stones are wrong, I really don’t know what will. As it is the IPCC have said they don’t know why it’s happening. Therefore, to present this ‘slowdown’ or ‘pause’ in global warming as “2015 will likely be the warmest on record and the last 5 years have been the warmest on record.” without qualification that it’s below the predictions is manipulative, unprofessional and alarmist. You guys are supposed to be informing we uneducated muppets as to the science of the situation, not controlling it to present your personal beliefs.

I think we are also aware that far from being bad for the planet, increased CO2 is extremely good even if it was responsible for climate change, not that I believe a gas as rare as CO2 (see my third paragraph) could be responsible for it in the first place. Plants thrive on increased CO2, they grow better, are more disease resistant, require less water and smother weeds which don’t respond as well to CO2. Why is there no debate over water vapour, I mean it forms 97% of all GHG’s, global warming is far more likely to be caused by that than manmade CO2 which forms 0.09(?) of all GHG’s.

Nor can I be convinced the paleo science I mentioned earlier is accurate enough to demonstrate whether there have been as sharp rises in global temperatures as our current one, it could have happened thousands of times, we just can’t tell. I also understand that Carbon dating is notoriously unreliable with only 40% of specimens judged as suitable for consideration as evidence. But it seems that even the seemingly most reliable specimens can still be millions of years awry. So scientists roll up millions of years of climate change from what? A million tree ring specimens? 2 million, 100 million? Demonstrating even 1 million years with 100 million specimens represents barely a pin prick on the earth’s surface, always assuming 40% of them aren’t discarded. Please tell me we have more than 100 samples of paleo evidence for each of the last million years.

But, and I’ll refer back to my first paragraph, what I find really unconvincing is the slanderous nature of the believers who routinely call into question the professional qualifications, personal integrity, reputations and earnings sources of any scientist who dares contradict them. The sneering and personal insults are quite extraordinary and desperately unprofessional. It doesn’t matter if a climatologist is employed by Exxon or any other oil, gas, or coal company, everyone has to make a living and it’s their professional future that’s at stake so the vast majority are not going to simply make the science up regardless of who asks. On the other hand, if the GISS data is found to have been adjusted the implications are huge. But I’ll also say the same of critics of the IPCC, if it turns out their research was false then at some time in the future they’ll be driving busses. So how about both sides back down from sneering at one another’s scientist’s, web sites, blogs and publications, it serves no purpose.

What I do find truly astonishing is the representation made to Obama to criminalise ‘deniers’. I sincerely hope this is just a daft rumour, if not, I would, as I hope any scientist would, condemn anyone involved and hand them the keys to a bus. Science exists to be questioned, indeed its future relies on it, without open inquisition it descends into religious dogma.

I wasn’t particularly sceptical of climate change and mans impact on it until I started looking into it recently. What I have observed is little to do with the science of the subject, it’s the politics that matter and the income that can be derived from the estimated $1.5T business that has mushroomed almost overnight. I also see an unbelievably aggressive group of people who countenance no criticism, scientific or otherwise, who routinely brandish a 95% consensus when it is patently untrue, but, on that basis, demands everyone falls into line. It’s the very reason to rebel.

And whilst I’m routinely told that we can’t rely on weather events to determine climate change as it’s long-term trends that matter, on the eve of the Paris conference there has been a determined PR campaign to highlight 2015 as the hottest year since records began. Elevating a single year, in the minds of the public, to a significant global indicator utterly ignoring the fact that the earth has been considerably warmer in the past.

As a layman I have read everything I can on climate change, ranging from Climatology to quantum mechanics, anti-gravitational theory to the case for the existence of God. As far as I can see, the IPCC are a fledgling political entity, recruiting scientists, politicians and evangelists, predicated on tenuous scientific history, to surf the barely understood, hugely profitable wave of Climatology. Hitherto scientific caution is manipulated into documented media fact, historical uncertainty perverted to future certainty. We have yet to see the flying car, moon communities or routine space travel, but they were all confidently predicted for the 21st Century, as recently as the 20th Century, by the media, at least. Thankfully, most scientific predictions are wrong, every scientist knows there are more failed experiments than successful ones, so why promote the absolute belief that humankind has a roadmap to the future based on scientific certainty, there is no such thing. The concept is deluded, if not, criminally irresponsible.

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” – Leo Tolstoy.

I note the ‘debate’ has gone exactly as every other similar climate debate does.

There are those who are strongly in favour of the existance of climate change and even to the point of evangelical like devotion.

There are the ‘athiests’ who believe the exact opposite and just as deeply. Some explain implausible non-C02 related reasons explaining climate change.

The rest of us are agnostics and I believe they are the silent majority. Many keep their heads down so that they do not get shot in the crossfire as the debate tend to descend into ever more personal attacks. I know few (if any) professional engineers who actually believe in the doomsday predictions.

Agnostics believe in nothing until proved despite being told over and over.

The evidence is packaged and re-packaged until it is presented to show fact. A TED talk does not constitute evidence and neither do the models.

Climate change has been far less than expected and this is a fact. Hastly concocted theories to explain this are not fact either.

There are those on both side of the argument whose professional reputations and livelihoods depend on either the status quo or a transition away from fossil fuels. To this end I would trust a spokeperson from the renewables lobby as much as I would one that from an oil company.

I have done research on temperature increases using actual data from hundreds of monitoring station. The annual increases were at the very lowest of the IPCC predictions. However the data sets from monitoring stations that are available to scientists are incomplete and satellite derived measurements prone to error. Also the effects of climate change vary drastically depending whether you are in the upper northern or southern hemispheres or near the equator.

Those on both end of the spectrum of the argument need to concede there is a possibility that they are wrong.

I’ll defer to someone with a hell of a lot more intelligence and insight than anyone I have ever discussed climate change with.

“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong” – Albert Einstein

“why promote the absolute belief that humankind has a roadmap to the future based on scientific certainty, there is no such thing? The concept is deluded” Are you certain about that, David?

That’ll be Voodoo science then, Dave.

“I’m a guy doing his best to understand what the science tells us.” You must try harder David, and ignore the propaganda. I’m an uneducated layman, but I can read and understand the science, with a little help from better educated (MA Theoretical Physics) and more intelligent friends.

“Are we to believe that imaginative tinkering with CO2, or any other gas for that matter, will level out climate change altogether?” Er . . YES! Because it’s not preposterous, it’s true:-

http://www.fossilmall.com/Science/About_Stromatolite.htm

Stromatolites: “the predominant form of life on early earth for more than 2 Billion years, and were likely responsible for the creation of earth’s atmospheric oxygen, consuming CO2 and releasing O2 through their photosynthetic metabolism. Creation of the modern atmosphere is perhaps the most critical event in geological history, that powered the Cambrian explosion and subsequent evolution of the aerobic forms of life, including all animals.”

Just because someone benefits financially from a position, their argument isn’t necessarily invalidated. I have 114 acres of timber on Washington’s western coast. My trees benefit significantly from increased CO2. What fails is the government mandated biofuel ethanol in the fuel supply that is corrosive, destroys fuel systems of open-cycle engines, and burns hotter thus increases the RPM of chainsaw governors and causing clutch engagement during idling.