Global Warming Nonsense
With a degree in Geophysics this writer has found the story about man-caused
global warming fascinating. Fascinating in its blatant abuse of the discipline
and skepticism that has driven the advance of science for thousands of years.
Even more fascinating is that since catastrophic warming displaced global cooling
concerns of the 1970s it has become another great experiment in authoritarian
science.
The last such example involved a bitter struggle between the establishment
and the giants in science Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. The establishment
spent considerable effort to incorporate growing astronomical evidence into
their Earth-centric model. They imagined crystal spheres within spheres with
absolutely impossible planetary motions. Officialdom promoted absurdity. Research
contrary to authoritarian dogma was not permitted.
A prosperous middle class devoured books and pamphlets that criticized the
establishment's dogma.
Something similar prevails today and today's "deniers" should be relieved
that the full censure of the movement does not include the threat of capital
punishment. In which case, the continued assembly of climate data with reason
and logic independent of state propaganda will win the argument.
Can the issues be described as state propaganda?
The remedy for every intense concern about global warming and climate change
is an increase in taxation and regulation. By the state, of the state and for
the state.
In January 2008 this writer published "Intellectual Hysteria" which reviewed
the promoted 'political science' as well as actual science. The main points
were that the CAGW movement promoted that only man-generated CO2 was the cause
of global warming. It was not the first time that mankind was deemed evil.
Likely it won't be the last.
The science part was a review of climate changes based upon orbital mechanics
of the solar system. Earth scientists not on the government band wagon appreciate
how climate history really works.
The title "Intellectual Hysteria" was based upon the long history of charismatic
intellectuals discovering a personal revelation and promoting it. Usually part
of the personal concern included that there were too many people on the planet.
In the politically turbulent 1860s, Stanley Jevons calculated that the supplies
of coal would soon be exhausted. His book was called The Coal Question. In
the politically turbulent 1790s, Thomas Malthus promoted his personal anxieties
under the rubric later described as
"Malthusian Catastrophe".
In the long history of personally anxious intellectuals the one with the most
profound effect has been Al Gore. He stood on the precarious shoulders of Rachel
Carson, Paul Ehrlich and Barry Commoner.
"Intellectual Hysteria" concluded that, and although huge, the movement about
global warming was yet another socio-political phenomenon fronted by charismatic
but reckless leadership.
The following sets of quotations and charts continues independent perspective.
A study about why some people seem compelled to ease their own anxieties by
intruding upon everyone else's life will await another date.
"Chicago Braces For Record Low Cold"
- CBS Chicago, July 10, 2014
"Brisbane Hits Coldest Temperature In 105 Years"
- The Australian, July 12, 2014
The Chicago story is part of most of the US setting an unusually cool summer,
which is part of a much cooler Arctic. As measured to August 24th, the summer
ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7 million square kilometres more than to this
date two years ago. A 46% increase.
Brisbane is a tropical city and the story is about the Antarctic setting unusually
low temps for their winter season.
Back in 2008 the CAGW promotion was in full song, and with only limited circulation
of dispassionate climate research, it was daunting to write about "Intellectual
Hysteria".
Since then, circulation of independent research has expanded hugely while
the hysteria has continued.
In August Neil de Grasse Tyson stated "Earth will survive this...Earth will
be here long after we render ourselves extinct."
This reminds of "Millerism" which started with William Miller's vision that
the world would end catastrophically on various specific dates in 1843 and
extending into 1844. It became a national movement and Miller was in it for
fame as well as money. He sold
"Ascension Gowns" to the believers.
When the ultimate day for end for the Earth came and went, it became known
as the
"Great Disappointment".
In August a warmist blogger, Greg Blanchette, tweeted:
"I kind of hope N. America gets its ass kicked this hurricane season.
It would motivate us on climate change."
This is an update on Phil Jones who has been the head fund raiser at CRU:
"If anything, I would like to see climate change happen, so the science
could be proved right, regardless of the consequences."
In a May 7, 2009 post he noted the duration of a flat trend would be worrisome:
"Bottom line: The 'no upward trend' has to continue for a total of
15 years before we get worried."
Meanwhile, some promoters have no doubts at all. In September 2013 Climate
Progress summed up the then released stuff from IPCC:
"Alarming IPCC Prognosis: 9 F Warming for U.S., Faster Sea Rise, More
Extreme Weather, Permafrost Collapse...."
In April of this year Climate Change Dispatch advised:
"The game changer is [that] the extreme weather events related to
climate are now 100 times more common than they were just 30 years ago."
The long-term trend of the frequency of severe tornadoes has been down. The
number for 2013 was low and so far 2014 has been below average. Seasonally,
some 74% of tornadoes occur in the March to July period.
On September 1st, Tulsa World reported:
"Fewest Twisters Since 1988"
The explanation had to do with the cooler winter, spring and summer.
The time since that last major hurricane to hit the East Coast is now at a
record.
On September 6th, Huffington Post quoted Hillary Clinton:
"Ice caps are melting. Storms, droughts and wildfires are wreaking
havoc."
A study on severe flooding in England was published in "Hydrological Processes" in
March of this year.
"The period 1820 to mid-1940s was characterized by widespread flooding
with particularly large and frequent ones in the mid-to-late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Since, there has been a general decline that was
particularly marked after the 1930s/mid-1940s."
Extreme Rain Events: USA
The August 26th edition of Vogue included a glowing article on activist Naomi
Klein who stated:
"I have seen the future and it looks like New Orleans after Hurricane
Katrina."
She also admonished:
"We need to demand an era of shared sacrifice."
This is about as hysterical as it gets and it is appropriate to review some
more charts.
This one shows that while the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to
rise, temperatures have not. It is worth noting that the flat-lining of temperature
was predictable by solar physicists. It has been a surprise to global warmers.
Note that temps have flat-lined for more than 17 years.
That climate "models" did not anticipate the change is due to the new cliché about
computers: "warming in-equals-warming out". What was thought to be a forecast
of temperature has actually been a forecast of CO2.
H.H. Lamb was the meteorologist who set up the Climate Research Unit (CRU)
at the University of East Anglia. His climate history was widely accepted and
even used by the IPCC in its early reports. This included that the 25-year
span centred on the 1930s was the warmest such period in a thousand years.
Then there was the question about the Middle Ages being warmer than the 1930s
and the establishment had to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period.
CAGW theories based solely upon industrial CO2 could not explain that warming.
Michael Mann's job was to eliminate this embarrassment and his "hockey stick" graph
did that and also eliminated the Little Ice Age. It has been said even putting
baseball scores into Mann's computer model would generate a hockey stick. This
marks the corruption of the CRU after Lamb's watch.
CAGW theories did not anticipate "flat-lining" and has had difficulties in
explaining it.
The number of explanations, belatedly offered, is over 50 and none of them
question that CO2 is still the main driver of change.
This chart has additional interest in confirming that the 1930s was an unusually
warm period.
Two of the most outstanding proponents of imagined catastrophe were academics.
Thomas Malthus had a personal vision that society would suffer a massive collapse
due to the inability to expand food production. Stanley Jevons had personal
concerns that the civilized world would soon run out of coal and would suffer
a collapse back to
"subsistence" levels. Both were highly-regarded and widely-published scholars
in political-economy. Both were charismatic figures and their ascendancy was
during periods of political turmoil.
Malthus published his main book Principle of Population six times between
1798 and 1826, when Europe suffered the outrages of the French and Napoleonic
Revolutions.
Jevons published his The Coal Question in 1865, which was during the next
outbreak of rampant price inflation and political disorder.
The next such outbreak had the Russian Revolution that began in 1917 as the
focal point of visionary academics around the world.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is yet another regrettable example
of anxious and undisciplined academics forcing their personal visions upon
the rest of society. It is part of another outbreak of chronic inflation and
political disorder.
One of the characteristics is the special instruction and in some cases presented
with flattery.
In 1865 Jevons noted that you had to be special to fully understand a world
bereft of its main supply of energy.
"This is a question of almost religious importance which needs the
separate study and determination of every intelligent person."
In August the billionaire backer of global warming theories, Tom Steyer, observed:
"I think if you go around to most of the - what I would think of as
the supersophisticated people who think about politics and policy more
than five minutes a month - we are doing really well."
Merchants in London who were struggling with an out of control government
in the early 1600s called it "Tyrannical Duncery".
On the corruption of science, Goethe wryly observed:
"Most men only care for science so far as they get a living by it,
but they will worship error when it affords them a subsistence."
Upton Sinclair's comment in the early 1900s is also instructive:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
depends on his not understanding it."
The 2008 paper on "Intellectual Hysteria" prompted the cartoon that "The Karma
of Geophysics is beginning to overwhelm the dogma of global warming religions".
It follows.
