Global Warming? You’ll wish…

I’ve been saying all along that the global warming scare is just that: an attempt to divert massive amounts of money and power into the hands of a bunch of fearmongers who prey on the gullibility of people who don’t want to learn science.

Here’s the latest.

Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about

Note that the article, while pointing to no increase in temperature since 1998, also notes that the folks who brought out the data say that even though temperatures are dropping, they think “man-made carbon dioxide” will be sufficient to keep everyone warm.

If that’s true, China will have the best temperatures around: it has much of the world’s heavy industry and air you can cut with a knife. The US, with relatively clean air, won’t have that spiffy man-made carbon to keep it warm.

Note also, however, that there’s debate over the release from the Met office—that scientists aren’t all falling in line with the thought police’s “carbon is more important than the sun” mantra.

Here’s the thing. The sun has regulated temperature on this planet since there was a sun. And a planet. Temperature increases in the late last century fit with the planet’s relationship to the sun. And those increases were nowhere near as great as pre-industrial increases.

The planet’s temperature cycles. It does this without out us. It did before there were humans, with much more variable swings than we’ve experienced in the last 200,000 years. It will continue to cycle without us, and not just in the next ten years or hundred years. We’re not experiencing carbon warming. Or carbon cooling. Or whatever the power-hungry decide to claim as the next great crisis.

We’re experiencing weather. Weather changes. Invest in coats and greenhouses.

(Thanks to Jim Woosley for the link.)

And for the much, much more I’ve written about this over the years, use the search button on the right side of the navigation bar, and just type in “global warming.”

Ignore Google’s ads at the top. You’ll fine a long list of my stuff.

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23 responses to “Global Warming? You’ll wish…”

  1. Diane Avatar
    Diane

    Hi Holly,
    I actually enjoyed your “rant”! I hope 1,000 years from now people will have become intelligent — but I’m not holding my breath. Some people need to walk in another’s shoes sometimes.
    🙂

  2. Holly Avatar
    Holly

    An excellent article by physicist Dr. Robert Brown on how to figure out which scientific theories have some validity versus scientific theories that don’t.

    How, in other words, to improve your personal signal-to-noise ratio. Well worth the few minutes it takes to read if you’re wondering why the Global Climate Change theory is NOT settled science, or if you’re wondering why global warmists have consistently failed to predict weather changes based on their theory.

    Tip O’ the Hat to Jim Woosley, for the link.

    1. R.C. Mann Avatar
      R.C. Mann

      The problem is that, even if the True Believers were willing to read that article (which I doubt) they are so scientifically illiterate that it would be incomprehensible to them. But it is at least a worthy attempt.

  3. R.C. Mann Avatar
    R.C. Mann

    *sigh*

    Forgive me. Please?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13414459
    Climate panel signs off reforms – but how ambitious?
    “…Revised procedures for dealing with errors… The need…was starkly flagged up by…allegations of an error over the likely melting date for Himalayan glaciers – allegations that turned out to be true, despite the early strenuous denials of IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri…”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/08/glaciers-mountains
    The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years, study shows
    “…The discovery has stunned scientists…The study is the first to survey all the world’s icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data…”

    As someone trained in science and engineering, I say that anyone who was “stunned” to find that speculation based on guesswork was inaccurate has no right to call themselves a scientist.

    http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/09/himalayan-glaciers-have-lost-no-ice-in-past-10-years-new-study-reveals/
    Himalayan glaciers have lost no ice in the last 10 years, new study reveals
    “The U.N. got it wrong on Himalayan glaciers–and the proof is finally here…”

    Yes, Fox News is gloating. Can you blame them?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9071908/Melting-glaciers-on-the-Himalayas-not-contributing-to-sea-level-rise.html
    Melting glaciers on the Himalayas not contributing to sea level rise
    “The Himalayas has lost no significant ice over the past decade, according to a new study, that found melting ice from glaciers is having a much smaller effect on sea levels than previously thought.”

    Even MSNBC, who are as dedicated to toeing the party line as anyone in the world, have been forced to report it. Although they spin it as gracefully as possible:
    http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10365382-himalayan-ice-melt-estimates-get-a-major-downsizing
    Himalayan ice melt estimates get a major downsizing
    “Are global warming skeptics being armed with a new weapon? Estimates from satellite monitoring suggest the melt rate from the Himalayas and other high-altitude Asian mountains in recent years was much less than what scientists on the ground had estimated, but those monitoring the satellite data warn not to jump to the skeptical conclusion”

    I ask forgiveness again for taking up so much space. But I get so TIRED of hearing that the sky is falling, and the only way to save us all is to give Alfox amd the government jackals every dime in my pocket so they can lead us into the cave for safety.

    Show me the numbers. If someone claims to be talking science, then they will have NUMBERS. If you are a scientist, or an engineer, either one, then you live and die by the numbers. You don’t care about opinion, feelings are irrelevant, realpolitik is anathema. The numbers, the whole numbers, and nothing but the numbers, so help you numbers. Those are what you live and die by. If someone cannot, or will not, show you the numbers… ALL OF THE NUMBERS… inclusing the raw field data and every single calculation at every step of the way, and every result of every test of every data point… then they are lying in their teeth or they are incompetent. There is no kinder way of saying it, and there is no merciful way of padding it. If you can
    t produce the numbers, then you are a fool, or you are running a scam.

    The “sky is falling, save us before we all drown!” scam is ludicrous. It only survives this long because of the dismally poor job that we have done in training our young people in critical thinking and scientific method.

    1. Holly Avatar
      Holly

      No forgiveness necessary. Thanks for the links. I, too, am tired of the constant “the sky is falling” screams. Since I was a small child, I’ve been hearing that the end of the world will be upon us in ten years. Fifty-one years later…

      Here’s some additional material, (link via Jim Woosley) A seminar presented before the House of Commons, London, February 22, 2012 by Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT. This is in downloadable PDF format, and looks like a PowerPoint slide presentation.

      1. R.C. Mann Avatar
        R.C. Mann

        Thanks. We are of the same generation. Remember the civil defense drills in the sixties? When they had us as kids learning to duck and cover because the Commies were coming? They never came, turned out they were too busy starving. But that didn’t stop TPTB from demanding all our money so they could save us. Then there was “The ice age is coming!” and someone seriously suggested spreading charcoal all over the northern polar cap in order to warm up the earth to save us. I am not lying. Then we’re all gonna drown from a three inch rise in ocean level, which I am still puzzled about how they think they can measure a difference so scant on a chaotic, constantly fluctuating surface. And of course, Packs of insane lunatics go around murdering people at random, therefore we need to dig deep so that our government can have the resources it needs to strip search infants and crippled grandmothers at airports – while allowing guns and explosives to pass under their noses more than once.

        Am I cynical? Nah.

  4. Sophie Avatar
    Sophie

    In general I am not inclined to believe the daily mail. But I have read the article, taken it seriously and assumed that it was not slanting the truth / lying about anything.

    So all that seemed to be in dispute was the Met’s models? Okay, but the people claiming that the models were wrong were all people I’d never heard of, and it’s not news to me that in the scientific world that climate change is disputed. Almost all new thoeries in the scientific world is disputed and not universally agreed upon, because that’s how science should be. If they’re right that the climate has been plateauing or even decreasing then there is something seriously wrong but, I’m more inclined to believe the met office than institutes that I’ve never heard off.

    If they provide some real evidence, the results of their experiments, explaining how they came to those conclusions and so on. Then I will think about it more, I will have to re-evaluate my stance on climate change but at present I don’t feel that I have been presented with any substantial evidence to prove that CO2 is not the main factor for the current climate change.

    P.S The graphs… where did they come from? I can’t see any sources for them, which is just suspicious, I could have missed them so if I have could you please tell me where the sources are.

    1. Holly Avatar
      Holly

      Hi, Sophie,

      And following my Blog Rules, I should have simply deleted your post for this line: “at present I don’t feel that I have been presented with any substantial evidence to prove that CO2 is not the main factor for the current climate change.” I didn’t this time, because you’re new, and I’ll give you a chance to come back with a better reply.

      To save BOTH of us some time answering your question, however, please look back through my linked previous posts on global warming/ climate crises.

  5. eltonBruce Avatar
    eltonBruce

    the connection that disputed global warming will be reversed or held by paying a tax is beyond rational thought – it not only beggars belief, it buggers it!

    Cui Bono, cui bono, cui bono – who benefits, who benefits, who benefits?

    Thank you for your timely comments Holly….

  6. G D Townshende Avatar
    G D Townshende

    I did research on this myself several years ago, to decide for myself what I would believe rather than buy into the mental virus that was being passed around. I watched Gore’s movie. I watched a documentary (I forget the name) that argued contrary to Gore’s movie. What convinced me that the whole “global warming” thing was a scam was when I learned that there are natural processes (the breathing oceans of the world, the annual shedding of leaves by deciduous trees all over the world) whose combined *annual* carbon dioxide emissions make man-made carbon dioxide emissions look absolutely minuscule!

    In turn, that caused me to think that any warming trend was probably part of a larger (or as yet undiscovered) cycle of temperature swings.

    Another thing that contributed to my conclusion is my memory of what was promulgated about 30 years ago in a fashion similar to this “global warming” nonsense, when people were going on and on about the coming ice age. It’s amazing how short people’s memories can be.

    And, finally, regardless one’s position, I think both sides would conclude that to think that humankind — who is so small a part of the bigger picture — could, in so short a span of time, sabotage long established evolutionary processes or sabotage God’s creation, is arrogant nonsense.

    And that leaves me to wonder: Who stands to profit from this propaganda?

  7. Esther Avatar
    Esther

    I was wondering whether Greenland would come up! Like a lot of others, I was always told that Greenland was named thus to trick people into coming. Then they discovered that Greenland actually was green back then until severe cooling drove the Scandinavians back south. That, combined with what Mr. Mann wrote about Canada & England, must have been pretty horrible.
    Yes, the media can get you all freaked out about a few centimeters of rising ocean — until you think about it. The other ridiculous argument was the comparison to the human body, i.e. “Just like a change in a degree or two in the body is very serious, a change in the global temperature is very serious.” Except that there is no “global” temperature. And there isn’t a 100 degree difference between one part of my body and another. And so on.

  8. Roger Lawrence Avatar

    We had mini ice ages in the 17th 14th and 11th centuries, both followed, or succeeded by global warming phases. I don’t believe there were many gas guzzling 4*4’s or Jumbo jets around then. The whole global warming thing is just a way of taxing us for an extra pound. We are clearly trashing the planet with pollution and waste but at least that’s verifiable.

  9. Harald Avatar
    Harald

    I’m not trying to come down on either side of the argument here, but the dailymail article you link to isn’t exactly a reputable source – the UK Met office has already posted a note about it:

    http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/met-office-in-the-media-29-january-2012/

    1. R.C. Mann Avatar
      R.C. Mann

      Not being British, I can’t speak to how reputable the Daily Mail might be. But the rebuttal that the Met posted leaves a few points unanswered IMO.

      For one thing, they don’t dispute any of the data that is presented in the Daily Mail story. They merely complain about being misquoted. Neither the temperature graph, nor the sunspot graph, is disputed.

      In other words, the Met is not denying that the period from early to mid 19th century was a period of low solar activity, followed by a period of gradually increasing intensity that peaked out just before the turn of this century. All the Met said was that the Mail didn’t include their full quote. Ok, so they posted their full quote. They are still maintaining that my wife’s minivan, and my lawnmower, and the assembly plant down the road, are producing more effect on the planetary climate than the sun is. I struggle to take that assertion seriously.

      Nor did the Mail deny that the temperatures over the last few years have been hot. It merely says that they have stopped increasing. Looking at the graph in the Mail story (not disputed by the Met) it seems that temperatures have bounced up and down within a fairly narrow range.

      Or am I misunderstanding something? Maybe I missed a crucial point or three.

      One thing more. The Met’s arguments are based on data from approximately 1850 forward. My grandfather was born in 1886. Human civilization is 5,000+ years old. The human race is 1,000,000 +/- years old. The planet is 4,000,000,000 + years old.

      It is only in the last few decades that we have been able to measure ocean temperatures in an accurate and widespread manner, not to mention places like the Amazon rainforest. Somehow I cannot force myself to believe that a variation of approximately 0.8 degrees centigrade over the course of 150 years, in an area limited to, basically, western Europe and southern North America, is enough to make any apocalyptic proclamations over.

      1. Holly Avatar
        Holly

        Thank you. That’s beautifully reasoned.

    2. R.C. Mann Avatar
      R.C. Mann

      Here’s something else I found interesting. According to this article:

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/13/the-standstill-not-the-increase-is-now-this-warm-periods-defining-characteristic/

      A former BBC science editor has just won a bet. He bet somebody a hundred pounds four years ago that no new record temp would be set by 2011. He won. Much to the chagrin of the warmists.

    3. Holly Avatar
      Holly

      At this point, I don’t think the UK Met qualifies as a reliable source. 😀

  10. Julia Avatar

    Thank you, Holly- I couldn’t agree more! Whenever I voice my anti-hype opinion in a crowd full of warming-believers, it’s quickly followed by gasps and blank stares shouting, “How dare you question our beloved Al Gore. After all, he did invent the internet!” I love the book by John Stossel, Myths, Lies, & Downright Stupidity. He breaks down the warming trends of our planet since records were kept into a basic chart that any 2nd grader can understand. http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Lies-Downright-Stupidity-Everything/dp/0786893931/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327946871&sr=8-1

  11. R.C. Mann Avatar
    R.C. Mann

    I can’t stand it. You have hit a pet peeve of mine. I used to do land surveying. One of my many jobs. Part of the claims of the global warmists include the dire prediction of massive flooding along coastal areas due to….wait for it… a rise in sea level of several centimeters.

    First, as someone who has in fact used laser survey equipment in a professional capacity, as well as GPS positioning equipment, I sincerely doubt that it is physically possible to nail down a change in sea level so minute with any accuracy.

    Second, even if the sea ice did melt, the water level would not rise. Try melting the ice in a glass of ice tea, and measure the fluid level. It won’t change.

    Third, even if land ice melting did, to my utter astonishment, cause the sea to rise several centimeters… so what? I doubt that it will happen or that we will notice it if it does. But if so, why would anyone care? Cripes, lay a row of bricks along the shore for a floodwall and be happy.

    And until Greenland is totally green again, and grapes are growing in both middle England as well as southeastern Canada (As Viking sagas report) I refuse to get my shorts in a twist.

    1. Holly Avatar
      Holly

      Exactly.

    2. Generalist Avatar
      Generalist

      Your ‘ice in glass’ example has some flaws. It only applies to those parts of the Greenland ice sheet that are currently supported by water. It definitely does NOT apply to the parts of the Greenland ice sheet that are supported by bedrock that is above sea level, which is a substantial part of it if you look at the bedrock elevation maps.

      The proper example would be to have some ice in a glass and a larger amount on a plate. If the glass is already full, the melting ice in the glass won’t cause it to overflow. But if you dump a large chunk of the ice from the plate into the glass, you get flooding.

      To ball park the amount of flooding the could happen if the full ice sheet melted, you’ll need the total area of the ice sheet, the total area of the oceans and the average thickness of the ice sheet.

      Ice sheet area: 1,710,000 square kilometers

      Ocean area: 360,000,000 square kilometers

      Average ice thickness : 2 kilometers (I’m using the mean altitude of the ice here for convenience sake.)

      Ocean area / Ice sheet area = 360,000,000 / 1,710,000 = 210.5

      (i.e. the total ocean area is two hundred and ten times the total area of the ice sheet.)

      Now, assume that you are slicing up the two kilometer thick ice sheet and covering the rest of the ocean with the chunks. You get the following results:

      2 kilometer average = 2,000 meter average

      2,000 meters / 210 = 9.52 meters or roughly 31 feet.

      For a ball park number it is pretty accurate. “Official” estimates say that the seas would rise 7.2 meters, or about 23 feet, if the Greenland ice sheet melted all the way.

      That would take a lot of bricks to hold back the ocean.

      1. Generalist Avatar
        Generalist

        P.S. I suspect that the ‘official’ estimates use a lot more complex mathematics and materials science to come up with their number. When you’re dealing with irregular areas, uneven surfaces, and differing densities, things get complicated.

        At the same time, when a ball park calculation is less than an order of magnitude off from the ‘official’ estimates, I’d consider the ‘official’ estimate to be reasonable.

        (Even it it were an order of magnitude high, 2.3 feet of sea level increase is not something that a few bricks could remedy.)

        1. Generalist Avatar
          Generalist

          P.P.S. Oops, reread the ‘ice in a glass’ post and saw the difference between sea ice and land ice. You did consider the difference between the two.

          At the same time, I’ll stand by the volumetric calculations of what would happen if the Greenland ice sheets melted. They would cause a lot more than a few centimeters of flooding. And that ignores what would happen if the ice cap at the south pole melted.

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