Politics And AGW/GW

[noggin]

Japan believes GW is natural, caused by coming out of LIA, solar cycles, that sort of thing.

Yes, I know it's a news report, but I am posting it for now, whilst I try to dig out the report itself. :o

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/japan_w.../25/185606.html

[Thundery wintry showers]

Among the points made in the report:

# CO2 emissions began to increase significantly after 1946 and are still rising. Therefore, according to the IPCC, global atmospheric temperatures should continue to increase. However, temperatures stopped increasing in 2001.

# The global temperature increase up to today is primarily a recovery from the “Little Ice Age” that earth experienced from 1400 to 1800. This rise peaked in 2000.

# Global warming and the “halting of the temperature rise are related to solar activity.”

The first and second points have been seen many times before, and no matter how many times they're spouted, it doesn't make them any more convincing. There is a thing called "natural variability" that will generate brief periods of temperature stabilisation or even slight cooling even if AGW is as significant as the scientific consensus suggests. Hence we cannot read too much into the temperature stabilisation since 2001 (or 1998 to be precise)

The AGW argument also argues that human forcing is adding to any "recovery since the Little Ice Age" warming.

The third point is open to debate though.

It has more credibility than many of the other sceptic reports I see in here, but the lines of reasoning are still suspect.

[osmposm]

Japan believes GW is natural, caused by coming out of LIA, solar cycles, that sort of thing.

Yes, I know it's a news report, but I am posting it for now, whilst I try to dig out the report itself.

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/japan_w.../25/185606.html

Well, if you call reports in Newsmax news...reminds me of that old Russian joke about the two newspapers allowed under the Soviet regime, Pravda (='Truth') and Izevstia (='News'): "There's no Izvestia in Pravda, and no Pravda in Izvestia."

But I will be very interested to read details of the Japanese position from a...um...slightly more objective source (and ideally one with a page not quite so populated by ads & sponsor links!). I look forward to it - thanks, Noggin.

Edited February 26, 2009 by osmposm

[noggin]

"

But I will be very interested to read details of the Japanese position from a...um...slightly more objective source (and ideally one with a page not quite so populated by ads & sponsor links!). I look forward to it - thanks, Noggin.

Oh, dear....no can do, really, Ossie. I have hunted for a translated report, but if you read this...... ( sorry, this doesn't work....see very bottom link below!) you will see that there has been no publication yet, in the West! What a shame that is.

.....but this is who they are....

http://www.jser.gr.jp/society/society_e_01.html

Sorry, link didn't work (my fault!)try this

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/js...rt_translation/

Edited February 26, 2009 by noggin

[Chris Knight]

Last Autumn, BBC aired their "Climate Wars" series, in which it was apparent there was a lot of input from Science historian, Naomi Oreskes.

There has been a fair bit of controversy in the blogosphere about the origins of the Climate pessimists versus the optimists in the early days of the 1980s following a 2008 paper by Professor Oreskes, which in particular criticised the politics and intentions of the late Professor William Nierenberg, labelling him as a " social deconstructionist", upsetting his son Nicholas, and daughter Victoria.

This is one of Nierenberg's statements that firmly put him on the side of the optimists:

"Starting from the beginning of the recent acceleration in interest in the global warming question, dating back twenty years or so, initial predictions of a twenty-five foot rise in sea level in forty years have steadily decreased to the current estimate of a one-foot rise in 150 years. Despite this dramatic change in forecast the expressed concern among the worriers remained constant. . . . No matter how small the effect becomes, their concern remains at the same level of intensity.”

-- William A. Nierenberg, From “The League of Constant Concern” GCMI Newsletter, Winter 2000

Here are some links:

Sunday Times 7/9/2008

Rebuttal by Nicholas Nierenberg

Charney Report 1983

Executive summary of Nierenberg's Changing Climate report

Chicken Little to Doctor Pangloss

Critique of Oreskes 2008

W A Nierenberg biography - Kennel Lindzen & Munk

Loads of bedtime reading there on climate and politics, with little or no mention of fraud or big oil on either side.

Edited February 26, 2009 by Chris Knight

[Gray-Wolf]

Had he lived longer I'm sure his concerns on Sea Level Rise would have regained their intensity to match those (of concern) around him.

[Gray-Wolf]

Had he lived longer I'm sure his concerns on Sea Level Rise would have regained their intensity to match those (of concern) around him.

and ,as if by majik;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environme...r-ice-melt.html

I get 'given' the above......

[Solar Cycles]

The first and second points have been seen many times before, and no matter how many times they're spouted, it doesn't make them any more convincing. There is a thing called "natural variability" that will generate brief periods of temperature stabilisation or even slight cooling even if AGW is as significant as the scientific consensus suggests. Hence we cannot read too much into the temperature stabilisation since 2001 (or 1998 to be precise)

The AGW argument also argues that human forcing is adding to any "recovery since the Little Ice Age" warming.

The third point is open to debate though.

It has more credibility than many of the other sceptic reports I see in here, but the lines of reasoning are still suspect.

The point being TWS, natural variability is a double sided coin, were the cause of warming is, yes you guessed it natural variability. This for me is the main flaw in AGW science, when it's cold it's natural, but when it's warm it's not. It doesn't sound very convincing to the layman out there, and that is after all, the very people who need to be convinced!

and ,as if by majik;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environme...r-ice-melt.html

I get 'given' the above...... :lol:

Trouble is it's all well documented, the melt going on around the fringes of Antarctica. Pity the media don't report what goes on in the interior, then again we know why!

[laserguy]

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/stimulating-s...global-warming/

[Thundery wintry showers]

There is a logical explanation for the "when it's warm it's us, but when it's cold it's natural" phenomenon- which is wide of the mark anyway as it happens. If we are warming the climate, we would expect an underlying warming trend on top of any natural variability. Thus, the argument is that the general warming trend is us, while any short-term coolings are natural.

However, it's not that clear cut as few would blame the exceptional global warmth of 1998 on human activity. It is probable that up to half of the positive anomaly for that year's global temperature was caused by the strong El Nino, i.e. it was warm, and much of it was natural.

Now onto Laserguy's link (you know, the more links of this kind you post, the more it undermines the credibility of your assertions and position...)

In actual fact, satellite observations show that the Earth is now cooling, and has been cooling for about 10 years.

No they do not. They show a stagnation of global temperatures- that isn't the same thing as a cooling.

This confirms the anti-establishment theory that the Earth warmed prior to the late 1990s due to the then-increasing number of sunspots, and is now cooling due to the now decreasing number of sunspots.

It doesn't even come close to "confirming" anything of the sort, I'm afraid.

The second page outlines a lot of failings of universities. Regardless of whether it's accurate or not, how does it have anything whatsoever to do with AGW?

Edited February 28, 2009 by Thundery wintry showers

[Solar Cycles]

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/stimulating-s...global-warming/

Unfortunately climate science as been found guilty of fudging data in the past, Mann's hockey stick being one of these. There are no doubt many in this field who are genuine, and searching for the truth. Let's hope the charlatans are shown the door!

[laserguy]

Let's hope the charlatans are shown the door!

Ha! There'd be hardly anyone left! Those 'genuine' ones put me in mind of someone in a doomed relationship but continue to 'work at it',knowing in their heart of hearts that it's pointless. TWS,I imagine you laid awake in the still of the night watching the shadows flicker on the ceiling and have the same deep thoughts. Politics - if you're clinging onto the string of an ascending balloon,at what point do you let go - if ever? There is no such phenomenon of human-induced global climate change - however hard some folk wish for that to be true. Now I know you are far from being an alarmist but I can guarantee that the world is full of them just praying for some cataclysm to come along which will 'prove' their daft theories - this from the same mob who are out to 'save the planet'. Sigh.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I think it's the other way around. LG, your argument is "there is no such phenomenon of human-induced global climate change", but I have seen you offer precious little evidence for that position, other than "because there is no such phenomenon of human-induced global climate change". Of course the people who believe in the possibility must be wrong, because if they weren't, it wouldn't be false, and since it is, it is, and therefore they must either be alarmists or trying to maintain a doomed relationship!

Nay, I do not have the same thoughts at all. I see something quite open-ended and prone to considerable uncertainty- but put it this way, there is still a lot more scientific evidence against the assertion "AGW definitely doesn't exist" as there is against the assertion "AGW definitely exists". I also see a lot of illogical and/or circular reasoning coming from certain quarters of the "sceptic" camp, and no matter how often they are trotted out, they will fail to convince me.

Similar problems also stem from certain quarters of the "pro-AGW" camp as well- indeed both sides, on the whole, are probably as bad as each other in this respect.

[noggin]

But I will be very interested to read details of the Japanese position from a...um...slightly more objective source

Still from The Register, but much more of the reasoning behind the findings has been posted in the general climate thread, so as to not get this politics thread clogged up with boring old science!

[osmposm]

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/stimulating-s...global-warming/

Yes, TWS, not a very impressive link. On page two it comes up with this bit of scurrilous half-truth:

"Nationalization of medical research has slowed the advance of medicine. The U.S. cancer death rate is actually higher today than it was decades ago, before Nixon launched his War on Cancer. NIH cancer researchers are given grants to make progress toward curing cancer,” not curing cancer. If someone found a cure for cancer, there would be no more grants for making progress toward a cure for cancer."

(1) While it is true that US Cancer mortality rates climbed in the 20 years following Nixon's initiative, they in fact peaked in 1990-1991, and have been dropping consistently ever since. How long would one expect a complex research programme such as that to bear fruit? Twenty years seems unsurprising.

(2) A great deal, at least, of the increase can in any case be accounted for by the increase in life expectancy over the same period. Cancer is mainly (and statistically) a disease of older people (76% of UK deaths are in the over-65s). If more people survive to old age, more people will get cancer: you have to die of something eventually! What the website fails to mention is that five and ten-year survival rates for those diagnosed with the disease have improved throughout - for some forms quite dramatically - as a direct result of better and earlier diagnosis, and improved treatments.

This is, I know, nothing to do with Climate Change. But it is part of the same article, and shows (to my mind) the bias and unreliability of the writer.

Edited February 28, 2009 by osmposm

[laserguy]

I think it's the other way around. LG, your argument is "there is no such phenomenon of human-induced global climate change", but I have seen you offer precious little evidence for that position.....

I've seen zero evidence for AGW,let alone a little. Globowarmthinkers,you're all mad .

Anyways,more politics. This would be worth looking forward to -

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/28/john...ival/#more-5893

[Thundery wintry showers]

Zero evidence for AGW- is this based on the argument, "AGW is a myth, therefore any evidence for it is wrong and should be ignored, because if it wasn't wrong, AGW wouldn't be a myth, and since it is, it is" or something along those lines? I rather suspect it is. While it's perfectly possible to dispute and debate the validity of any evidence for AGW, to insist that there isn't any implies a closed mind stuck behind a wall of circular and/or non-existent reasoning.

With regards that link, actually it is well worth debating both issues- whether or not AGW is a big issue, and also what to do about our non-sustainable consumption of resources (which is non-sustainable even if AGW doesn't exist).

[noggin]

http://www.dailymail.com/Opinion/DonSurber/200902250614

Bit of a thing here re Al Gore and Roger Pielke. Roger Pielke calling for Al Gore to tone things down a bit (which he did).

Good, good.

[noggin]

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...74-31f5ae8e8a42

This is really, really interesting. Prof. William Happer (Professor of Physics at Princeton University) addressing the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on 5th February this year.

He makes an excellent case that Co2 is not bad for us and that to try and curb it will do more harm than good. He likens the demands to curb it to:

1) the prohibition era in America

2) to the hellfire and damnation threats of earlier times

3) to medical treatments which, at the time, were thought to be efficacious ( love that word!)

4) and many other very interesting things!

Well worth a read.

[HighPressure]

HThere is no such phenomenon of human-induced global climate change [/b

Even as a skeptic on AGW I am not sure that is true, the cooling of the early 20th century appears to tally well with human sulphur emissions of the time with industrial areas of the planet seemingly being the worst hit?

[laserguy]

Even as a skeptic on AGW I am not sure that is true, the cooling of the early 20th century appears to tally well with human sulphur emissions of the time with industrial areas of the planet seemingly being the worst hit?

Yes sorry HP,you are right to mention that - whether there was a link or not is another matter. I must try to be clearer as what I was referring to specifically,ie the situation we're in today . The smiley's for me btw,not you!

[Methuselah]

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...74-31f5ae8e8a42

This is really, really interesting. Prof. William Happer (Professor of Physics at Princeton University) addressing the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on 5th February this year.

He makes an excellent case that Co2 is not bad for us and that to try and curb it will do more harm than good. He likens the demands to curb it to:

1) the prohibition era in America

2) to the hellfire and damnation threats of earlier times

3) to medical treatments which, at the time, were thought to be efficacious ( love that word!)

4) and many other very interesting things! :lol:

Well worth a read.

And, who's accusing 'warmists' of scaremongering? A whole can of red herrings. methinks!

Unfortunately climate science as been found guilty of fudging data in the past, Mann's hockey stick being one of these. There are no doubt many in this field who are genuine, and searching for the truth. Let's hope the charlatans are shown the door!

I quite agree, SC. But, isn't the reverse hockey-stick manoevre used by some to 'demonstrate' global cooling just as bad?

[Iceberg]

Well I've taken the time to read it, apart from the fact that talks about being being for a 2002 Senate Energy presentation, it's a work of pure drivel.

I have no doubt that the Scientist in question knows his chosen area of study. But it full of so much straw man, ad hom material as to be worthless in any debate.

Take as a prime example

"The existence of climate variability in the past has long been an embarrassement to those who claim that all climate change is due to man and that man can control it".

Who on earth has ever said anything like this ?.!

Or another piece of drivel.

" Research papers with scientific finding contrary to the dogma of climate calamity are rejected by reviewers, many of whom fear that their research fuding will be cut if any doubt is cast on the coming climate catastrophe."

It's full of it.

[noggin]

Well I've taken the time to read it, apart from the fact that talks about being being for a 2002 Senate Energy presentation, it's a work of pure drivel.

I must say that the date is, ummmmm, confusing. Was the presentation made in 2002 or 2009?

Apart from that, it's a work of pure common sense, in whichever of those years it was presented.

[noggin]

http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/

Dr (just for you, Dev :winky: ) James Hansen calls for mass civil disobedience. :o :o :o

It'll be interesting to see how many people take part and how it will be reported in the media.

It's this thing today. I wonder how much media coverage it will get. Could well be good for diversionary tactics so that the world's shattered economy gets pushed aside.

I'd put a small wager that the Brown Broadcasting Corporation gives it airtime over the economy. That would be a BOGOF.......cover the environmental activists and deflect attention from the economy at the same time!

(As long as the event doesn't get postponed due to the blizzards which have been forecast, that is.... )