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Assessment of Penny Wong’s Response to My 3 Questions on Climate Change

Posted by Senator Steve Fielding on June 24 2009  |  242 Comments

The Rudd Government is yet to prove that man made carbon dioxide emissions are the main driver behind climate change.

In their response to my three questions they shifted the goal posts and rephrased my questions to suit their agenda.

They were unable to debunk a graph used by the IPCC which shows average global temperatures remaining steady over the last 15 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased.

I have no doubt that we must wait until Copenhagen.

Any move by Australia to act before the big polluters and economies would be committing economic suicide.

Thousand of Australian jobs could be lost, electricity prices could sky rocket. All for nothing if the big economies do nothing.

For a full run down and assessment on Climate Change Minister Penny Wong’s answer to my questions click here.

The questions I put to Minister Wong were as follows:

Question 1:

Is it the case that CO2 increased by 5% since 1998 whilst global temperature cooled over the same period (see Fig. 1)?

If so, why did the temperature not increase; and how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?

Question 2:

Is it the case that the rate and magnitude of warming between 1979 and 1998 (the late 20th century phase of global warming) was not unusual in either rate or magnitude as compared with warmings that have occurred earlier in the Earth’s history (Fig. 2a, 2b)?

If the warming was not unusual, why is it perceived to have been caused by human CO2 emissions; and, in any event, why is warming a problem if the Earth has experienced similar warmings in the past?

Question 3:

Is it the case that all GCM computer models projected a steady increase in temperature for the period 1990-2008, whereas in fact there were only 8 years of warming were followed by 10 years of stasis and cooling. (Fig. 3)?

If so, why is it assumed that long-term climate projections by the same models are suitable as a basis for public policy making?

Comments

• Phil (Stormboy),

  Quick responses to your points than for me that part of the debate is over.

  A & E) If that’s what you choose to believe then so be it.
  B) That could have been a link to any one of numerous sites making the same report, including CERN.
  C) I am involved in debate on Senator Fielding’s Have Your say “Climate Change” thread (Note 1) during which I came across information on the CERN CLOUD program to which I have not linked here. Included was a useful slide presentation (Note 2) and a supporting video presentation (Note 2), both of which I understand to include information from the CLOUD –06 experiments.

  NOTES:
  1) see http://www.stevefielding.com.au/forums/viewthread/125/P2250/#6818
  2) see http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=slides&confId=52576 and http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/

  
  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global Climate Change Agnostic.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 14 September 2009 at 04:07:53 AM

• Pete,

  A) Your claim that the CERN experiment supported your findings was not tongue in cheek; it was the backbone of your argument. My son used to say he was only joking when he was held accountable for saying the wrong thing.
  B) “I have no idea where “National Post” is involved. You were the first to mention “National Post” following my link to Dr. Kirby’s gaff in 1998 (Note 3).” Look at where your Note 3 comes from - maybe you just honestly missed it. National Post is the tabloid I mentioned.
  C) You should understand that comments are not evidence. To take someone at their word that they were right and everyone else was wrong without studying the facts is biased. You say that you have studied the results of the CERN experiment, please provide a link. I am not lazy to ask you to support your argument; I work from dawn till 11pm most days so I don’t want to chase after your evidence for you.
  D) I’ve spent some time searching through the link to your explanation as to why writings that haven’t been fact-checked are more reliable than those that have been, but I couldn’t find it. As with point C, I really don’t have the time so could you please just post your answer here where I can see it?
  E) I would like nothing more than to have a friendly debate, but as you have repeatedly used information about me in personal attacks rather than answer questions I believe you have shown yourself to be insincere. Genuine debate includes honest, straight answers and you don’t give them; it is not petty to keep bringing you back to the subject. Your latest post demonstrates that yet again, so I’m going to get back to more productive ways of using my time.

  Comment by Stormboy on 13 September 2009 at 10:50:57 PM

• Phil (Stormboy), you accuse me of just trying to muddy the waters but that’s precisely what you are doing. You really are clutching at straws now, aren’t you. Let me have a go at a few of your points without wasting too much time on them, since others will find it boring.

  A) “We don’t have the results from the experiment, but when we do they will back my opinion; therefore you’re wrong”. My friend, don’t you have any sense of humour? That was my tongue in cheek closing remark stemming from my developing opinion, after 72 years experience of regional climate change and 2 years researching the science, that The (human-made global climate change) Hypothesis is wrong.

  B) “contrary to what you’ve been told, the article in the National Post is not a press release from CERN”. I realy do not understand where you are coming from on that one! Only one of my last 10 links is to “National Post”. I have mentioned “press release” only twice in those two posts, the first time to (Note 1). I know that I also implied “press release” when saying “Another release says QUOTE: The initial stage of the .. UNQUOTE ” before saying “.. that press release did come from CERN!”. If your complaint had been that I hadn’t provided a link to that last quotation (Note 2) then I would simply have said “don’t be so lazy”. Instead you imply that I have tried to mislead when you say QUOTE: You will also notice that, contrary to what you’ve been told, the article in the National Post is not a press release from CERN; the author is identified as “National Post”. UNQUOTE. I have no idea where “National Post” is involved. You were the first to mention “National Post” following my link to Dr. Kirby’s gaff in 1998 (Note 3).

  C) “Explain how you can use results from CERN that aren’t there yet to show how you’re right”. Surely all that I have done is use the comments from Dr. Kirkby (lead researcher for the CERN CLOUD program) as reported widely in the 19989 media (including that “tabloid” the IOP’s Physics World – Note 3) along with the results from his CERN CLOUD –06 experiments to support my opinion that The Hypothesis is wrong.

  D) “Explain why it takes more faith to use evidence that has been carefully fact-checked by experts and (albeit imperfectly) gone through the best form of quality control we have than it does to blindly accept anything you read on the net or the tabloids”. I take it that you are again referring to peer review so I refer you to my brief comments on that topic (Note 5) and to the links therein.

  E) “Let’s get everyone to focus on the fact that Phil didn’t answer a question on his personal life, then they may not notice the fact that you carefully avoided the points that were actually relevant to the debate”. My original enquiry about your PhD was out of genuine interest and an attempt to restore our debate to a reasonable exchange of ideas instead of petty insults. My follow-up resulted from my irritation at you persistently suggesting that I am only trying to mislead people. We should stop this pettiness from now! We make assumptions about each other that are probably totally wrong simply because we do not know each other. Face to face debate is easier because we have body language and the opportunity to talk “off the record”. If you can get my E-mail address via your blog and wish to contact me I’d welcome the opportunity to get to know you better. I look forward to hearing from you.

  NOTES:
  1) see http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2006/PR14.06E.html
  2) see http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Research/CLOUD-en.html
  3) see http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/archives/story.html?id=975f250d-ca5d-4f40-b687-a1672ed1f684 
  4) see http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/3124
  5) see http://www.stevefielding.com.au/forums/viewthread/125/P2250/

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global Climate Change Agnostic.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 13 September 2009 at 09:08:00 PM

• There’s a great open mind at work. “We don’t have the results from the experiment, but when we do they will back my opinion; therefore you’re wrong.” You will also notice that, contrary to what you’ve been told, the article in the National Post is not a press release from CERN; the author is identified as “National Post”.

  I liked your earlier quote better Pete: BTW why have you “carefully avoided “ my question “Have you completed your PhD and how did it go?”. You’ve got me there, I’m obviously covering something up. Let’s get everyone to focus on the fact that Phil didn’t answer a question on his personal life, then they may not notice the fact that you carefully avoided the points that were actually relevant to the debate. But to satisfy your curiosity, I’m in my final year; the exact time it gets submitted will depend a lot on how bad this fire season gets.

  Now, back to the subject. You have a few points you have avoided; lets hear some answers:

  1) In regard to my 1st post - “try to find some bias or some way that I have led you to accept Anthropogenic Global Warming against the evidence. I haven’t; Pete Ridley is trying to muddy the waters.
  - See if you can find anywhere that I need to be a scientist to say what I said. I don’t; Peter Ridley is trying to confuse you.
  - Think where scientists need media or political support to investigate something like the question “is the sun getting warmer?” ” Don’t bother with tabloid articles or things you heard at the pub, this is science. Show me a consistent trend backed by verifiable evidence and a transparent, repeatable method of analysis. You want to argue with scientists then you had better get your act together on what constitutes evidence.

  2) Explain how my Christian faith makes me “prepared to accept what to many people are rather unconvincing faith-based ideas.” And,  “I see that it has a bearing on your application of logic and reasoning” but you don’t also use this easy dismissal for Steve Fielding and Dr Roy Spencer who are also both Christians?

  3) Explain how your answer of Hansen’s paper on feedbacks by others on the question of whether CO2 leads or lags temperature historically was not a bit of dishonest sleight of hand.

  4) Explain why such an alarmist and obviously biased person as Hansen was able to publish that paper against all of those big mean scientists out to suppress the truth.

  5) Explain how you can use results from CERN that aren’t there yet to show how you’re right.

  6) Explain why it takes more faith to use evidence that has been carefully fact-checked by experts and (albeit imperfectly) gone through the best form of quality control we have than it does to blindly accept anything you read on the net or the tabloids.

  The reason I stopped posting before was because you refused to give straight answers, I suspect I’ll be doing the same again soon.

  Comment by Stormboy on 13 September 2009 at 09:02:15 AM

• Phil (Stormboy), so what does your “An experiment that hasn’t started yet” reveal about your knowledge, understanding and degree of open-mindedness about climate science? A 2006 press release on the status of the CERN CLOUD experiment “that hasn’t started yet” (Note 1) said QUOTE: The first results from the CLOUD prototype are expected by the summer of 2007. The full CLOUD experiment includes an advanced cloud chamber and reactor chamber equipped with a wide range of external instrumentation to monitor and analyse their contents. The temperature and pressure conditions anywhere in the atmosphere can be re-created within the chambers, and all experimental conditions can be controlled and measured - including the “cosmic ray” intensity and the contents of the chambers. The first beam data with the full CLOUD experiment is expected in 2010. UNQUOTE. Another release says QUOTE: The initial stage of the experiment uses a prototype detector, but the full CLOUD experiment will include an advanced cloud chamber and a reactor chamber UNQUOTE. Now I know we shouldn’t place too much credence in the media, but that press release did come from CERN! 

  How did this forecast about this two-stage experiment “that hasn’t started yet” compare with reality? The progress report for 2008, which reports (Note 2) on the prototype experiments (known as CLOUD–06) says QUOTE: During 2008 the CLOUD activities have mainly involved completion of the analysis of the data from the 2006 beam run with the pre-CLOUD experiment UNQUOTE.

  I was under the impression that this is a relatively recent area of scientific interest and found this surprising (Note 3) QUOTE: That there is a causal connection between the observed variations in the forces of the Sun, the terrestrial magnetic field, and the meteorological elements has been the conclusion of every research into this subject for the past 50 years. The elucidation of exactly what the connection is and the scientific proof of it is to be classed among the most difficult problems presented in terrestrial physics. The evidence adduced in favor of this conclusion is on the whole of a cumulative kind, since the direct sequence of cause and effect is so far masked in the complex interaction of the many delicate forces in operation as to render its immediate measurement quite impossible in the present state of science. F.H. Bigelow, US Dept. Agriculture Weather Bureau, Bulletin No.21, 1898 UNQUOTYE.

  Perhaps you haven’t noticed but all of the links provided in this post are to articles from CERN sources, not “National Post” or other “tabloids”. Phil might not be happy to take them on “face value” but I’m prepared to accept that they are saying that the CLOUD experiment has in fact been running for several years now and may only have another one to go before we start getting those results and conclusions. They’ll have to be properly checked by qualified scientists through that “infallible” verification process known as peer review, of course. Then CERN can “inform the rest of the scientific community” that The Hypothesis is proven to be seriously flawed. Well, I have to have faith in something, don’t I?

  BTW I’m preparing a more detailed comment on the obstacles raised in order to delay the CLOUD program following Dr.

  I can’t leave without throwing in a couple of those articles that appear on the Internet without being through the peer review infallible process. I make some comments on the deficiencies in this process (Note 4). Finally (Note 5) a “Message in the CLOUD for Warmists: The end is near?”.

  NOTES:
  1) see http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2006/PR14.06E.html
  2) see http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1172365/files/SPSC-SR-046.pdf
  3) see http://cloud.web.cern.ch/cloud/documents_cloud/kirkby_iaci.pdf
  4) see http://www.stevefielding.com.au/forums/viewthread/125/P2250/
  5) see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/01/message-in-the-cloud-for-warmists-the-end-is-near/

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global Climate Change Agnostic.

  PS: Phil, how did you do on your PhD?

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 13 September 2009 at 02:31:22 AM

• Once again, no evidence. An experiment that hasn’t started yet and an article from the “National Post”. I’m looking forward to hearing how it takes so much more faith to focus on evidence from articles that have been thoroughly fact checked by qualified scientists than it does to believe tabloids at face value. I’ll inform the rest of the scientific community.

  Comment by Stormboy on 12 September 2009 at 10:10:03 PM

• PART 1

  Phil (Stormboy), I’m not deliberately caricaturing your particular interpretation of the Christian faith any more than I would any other version or any other faith. I’m simply drawing the attention of others to the fact that you are prepared to accept what to many people are rather unconvincing faith-based ideas. I see that it has a bearing on your application of logic and reasoning. I am agnostic about religion because I am not prepared to accept any of the faith-based arguments such as “God said” which many followers of religion use. I am agnostic about The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis because I am not prepared to accept any of the faith-based arguments such as “peer review said”. Let’s not dwell on this because I do intend to get back to your blog but consider present climate change hysteria to be more important.
  BTW why have you “carefully avoided “ my question “Have you completed your PhD and how did it go?”

  Glen, I’m pleased that Phil did at least make reference to “uncertainty” in his latest post, even though it was only a single reference. That is possibly (not my uncertainty) the most significant word in the climate science dictionary. I leave you to make up your own mind about the tactics that I use in order to get my message across. I thought (not again my uncertainty) that my message for you in my earlier posts was clear enough. It is for you not to accept on faith the propaganda that is being thrown out in relation to The Hypothesis (by both sides of the debate) but to do your own careful digging behind what is fed to you in the media.

  The reason this debate rages is because there are so many uncertainties about climate processes and drivers, acknowledged even by leading scientists. This point is summarised quite well in an attempt that I made to debate on the web-site of the Australian government’s chief climate science advisor Professor Barry Brook (Ref. 1).

  Let me (“a con man at work” who “diverted your attention”) add to my previous post another example in “areas of uncertainty (negative feedbacks and solar activity). One example of the current state of uncertainty surrounding climate processes and drivers is the CLOUD research program underway at CERN into the effect of cosmic radiation on the formation of clouds and the impact upon climate (Note 2). It is worthwhile quoting from Dr. Jasper Kirkby, initiator and spokesperson for the CLOUD experiment QUOTE: “I think the evidence for a link between reconstructions of past climate change and solar activity is too strong to ignore . There are a lot of observations showing that variations of the sun seem to be affecting the climate, but we don’t yet know what the mechanism for this is. The aim of CLOUD is to understand whether or not cosmic rays can affect clouds and climate, by studying the microphysical interactions of cosmic rays with aerosols, cloud droplets and ice particles.” This is one of the possible mechanisms for solar-climate variability since the solar wind – the stream of charged particles ejected from the sun – varies over time and affects the intensity of the cosmic rays that reach the Earth.
  The whole process is well understood except for whether or not cosmic rays do indeed affect clouds. If that process can be established then I think solar-climate variability will very rapidly change from being a controversial subject to one with a lot of respectability. If, on the other hand, we rule out the process then this will allow us to focus on other mechanisms that might be causing the link. UNQUOTE. This experiment is just now at the stage of carrying out experiments in order to produce data for analysis and I’m hoping to get news soon about its progress.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 12 September 2009 at 06:30:43 PM

• PART 2

  Dr. Kirby’s experience in setting up this experiment exemplifies the problems that sceptical scientists expose themselves to when challenging the climate science “consensus” of support for The Hypothesis. It is reported (Note 3) that QUOTE: made the mistake of stating that the sun and cosmic rays “will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century.” Global warming, he theorized, may be part of a natural cycle in the Earth’s temperature.
  Dr. Kirkby was immediately condemned by climate scientists for minimizing the role of human beings in global warming. Stories in the media disparaged Dr. Kirkby by citing scientists who feared oil-industry lobbyists would use his statements to discredit the greenhouse effect. And the funding approval for Dr. Kirkby’s path-breaking experiment—seemingly a sure thing when he first announced his proposal—was put on ice.
  Dr. Kirkby was stunned, and not just because the experiment he was about to run had support within his scientific institute, and was widely expected to have profound significance. Dr. Kirkby was also stunned because his institute is CERN, and science performed at CERN had never before seemed so vulnerable to whims of government funders. UNQUOTE.

  For anyone who is interested there are comments on the experiment at wattsupwiththat (Note 4) and a Power Point presentation available (Note 5). I have asked one of the researchers at CERN if he can pass on the latest information and will pass it on if possible.

  NOTES:
  1) see http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth  especially 8 June 2009 at 1.24, 12 June 2009 at 20.42, 21 June 2009 at 0.09, 23 June 2009 at 5.02, 24 June 2009 at 6.12
  2) see http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1180849
  3) see http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/archives/story.html?id=975f250d-ca5d-4f40-b687-a1672ed1f684
  4) see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/01/message-in-the-cloud-for-warmists-the-end-is-near/
  5) see http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=slides&confId=52576

  As Phil says, “Don’t take this man on faith when he says the evidence is just speculation, that there’s too much uncertainty, that it’s all just scare tactics and politics, check it out for yourself – read the raw science and do it with an open mind”. Reject faith and use an open mind, taking into consideration the merits of the argument, not the numbers who support one side or the other.

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global Climate Change Agnostic.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 12 September 2009 at 06:30:28 PM

• Here are a few things for readers to take note of from Pete Ridley’s comments.

  1. Pete Ridley was writing in response to my previous comment, yet carefully avoided any of the points I made aside from my being a scientist. Rather, he took another opportunity to caricature my Christian faith. 

  2. He said: “You might ask “Who was the lead author of that paper”? It was none other than that staunch supporter of The Hypothesis, James E. Hansen of National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York “. Pete Ridley rightly points out that 11 years ago, Hansen clearly expressed his opinion that the uncertainties were too great in the debate, the point that Pete has been trying to make himself all this time. So how does that fit with Pete Ridley’s frequent assertion that the whole debate has been so biased because the “alarmists” won’t admit to the uncertainties and can only get their grant money if they make AGW sound more scary? It doesn’t, it’s another of Pete Ridley’s arguments that you shouldn’t just take on faith.

  3. Note that Hansen’s paper was written in 1998, that he specifically points out that the role of greenhouse gases is well understood, and that the uncertainties he is referring to are the potential negative forcings and the role of solar radiation. This was the state of affairs 11 years ago, for it to be relevant now we need to see what developments there have been in climate science since then.

  4. Pete Ridley pretends to do just that. But look again - his next references are not about the areas of uncertainty (negative feedbacks and solar activity). Instead, he’s diverted your attention to some papers that are relevant to the question “did CO2 cause warming thousands of years ago”. While that is an interesting study, it has no relevance to the Hansen paper at all, as it does not address any negative feedbacks or the role of solar activity. It does not even throw uncertainty onto the role of CO2 today because we know very well that there are other reasons the earth’s climate changes and no one is claiming that CO2 has caused every warming event in the earth’s history.

  So there you have a con man at work. He sounds smooth and intelligent and he is. Quite intelligent enough to know that he has avoided the subject yet again and quite purposefully misled you into thinking that the climate scientists agree the uncertainties are too great to make any decisions. Don’t take this man on faith when he says the evidence is just speculation, that there’s too much uncertainty, that it’s all just scare tactics and politics, check it out for yourself – read the raw science and do it with an open mind.

  Is there anything I’ve said there that I am asking you to take on faith?

  Comment by Stormboy on 12 September 2009 at 10:03:38 AM

• PART 1

  Glen, I’ve just used that objectionable “option” that Phil advised you of (and in no way did he “try to influence you” did he?) which was to “take the easy route; give up on the evidence and follow Pete’s link to a lot of unsupported opinions“. Guess what I found– would you believe it - another link (Note 6) to what appears to be one of those peer reviewed papers that supporters of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis like Phil are so keen that you read. The abstract says (Note 1) QUOTE: ABSTRACT The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change. Anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs), which are well measured, cause a strong positive (warming) forcing. But other, poorly measured, anthropogenic forcings, especially changes of atmospheric aerosols, clouds, and land-use patterns, cause a negative forcing that tends to offset greenhouse warming. One consequence of this partial balance is that the natural forcing due to solar irradiance changes may play a larger role in long-termclimate change than inferred from comparison with GHGs alone. Current trends in GHG climate forcings are smaller than in popular ‘‘business as usual’’ or 1% per year CO2 growth scenarios. The summary implication is a paradigm change for long-term climate projections: uncertainties in climate forcings have supplanted global climate sensitivity as the predominant issue. UNQUOTE (I’ve given the entire abstract so that I can’t be accused by anyone of distorting what was said).

  The same lead author more recently (2007) said QUOTE: The temperature–GHG lag is imprecise .. Despite multiple careful studies, uncertainties in the ice–gas age differences for the Vostok ice core remain of the order of 1 kyr .. Therefore, we can only say with certainty that the temperature and gas changes are nearly synchronous. Data from a different .. ice core .. support temperature leading GHGs by ca 600–800 years. In addition, carbon cycle models yield increases of GHGs in response to warming oceans and receding ice sheets. UNQUOTE.

  It is worthwhile looking at the other uncertainties referred to in that latter paper and considering the impact of those on the interpretations made. Another couple of papers (Note 3 and 4) about uncertainties that I found from this one are worth reading

  It is also worthwhile looking at the uncertainties recorded in another peer-reviewed paper identified by searching for the latest ice core information from Maud Land (EPICA) which the above paper suggests “ .. should establish leads and lags accurately .. ”. It says that (Note 7) QUOTE: The uncertainty of .. estimates in Antarctica is critical .. At the onset of the last deglaciation .. Monnin et al. .. found a lag of 800±600 yr of CO2 ... Ahn et al. .. inferred a smaller lag of 210 to 330 yr. .. Neftel et al. also inferred a lag of 700±500 yr. Fischer et al. suggested an average lag of CO2 .. of 600±400 yr .. with a value of 800±200 yr (Caillon et al…). Better estimates of the 1age are clearly required to ascertain these estimated lags.. UNQUOTE. After 14 pages this Peer-reviewed paper very inconclusively concludes that QUOTE: Although the exact causes of the 1arge overestimate remain unknown, our work implies that the suggested age of CO2 on Antarctic temperature at the start of the last deglaciation has probably been overestimated. UNQUOTE

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 11 September 2009 at 10:07:32 PM

• PART 2

  So, it seems to me (rejector of The Hypothesis that I am) that those uncertainties talked about in that 1998 paper still exist today, therefore the 1998 opinion that “uncertainties in climate forcings have supplanted global climate sensitivity as the predominant issue.” is still valid, but, of course, I could be mistaken (or am I just trying to deceive you?).

  You might ask “Who was the lead author of that paper”? It was none other than that staunch supporter of The Hypothesis, James E. Hansen of National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York (Note 5).

  I have extracted only parts of what was said in the papers I have provided links to and Phil would say that what I’ve done is deliberately confuse and mislead. You have two options, and I won’t try to influence you. You can take the difficult option of making up your own mind about that by going to those peer-reviewed papers and reading them for yourself or you can take the easy option and accept what I say on faith. Have a guess what I recommend that you do.

  Phil, isn’t it marvellous what informative papers even those deceitful rejectors of The Hypothesis like myself can inadvertently guide people to. Come on Phil, I’m sure you can find some other papers that destroy the message that I’m trying to get across here, but that’s par for the course in climate science (and religion), isn’t it – all because of those damned uncertainties! Why can’t people just accept on faith what the experts (like yourself?) tell them! (No, I’m not referring to your expertise in climate science)

  BTW it’s lovely having you back in the debate. Have you completed your PhD and how did it go?

  NOTES:
  1) see http://www.pnas.org/content/95/22/12753.full.pdf+html
  2) see http://www.planetwork.net/climate/Hansen2007.pdf
  3) see http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118621729/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0#ss9
  4) see http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/3/4/044002/erl8_4_044002.html#erl282725s3 particularly Section 3. The carbon cycle, feedbacks and scientific uncertainty
  5) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen
  6) see http://www.stevefielding.com.au/forums/viewthread/339/P120/
  7) see http://www.clim-past.net/3/527/2007/cp-3-527-2007.pdf

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global Climate Change Agnostic.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 11 September 2009 at 10:07:14 PM

• Glen, I’ve just re-read Phil (Stormboy)’s last submission and would like to pick up on a couple of points Phil made. NB: Just in case Phil accuses me of distorting what he said by only quoting parts of it, please take into consideration the full context of his comments.

  1) QUOTE: Where you go from here is up to you .. either go to the actual evidence which will be hard work .. or take the easy route; give up on the evidence and follow Pete’s link to a lot of unsupported opinions. UNQUOTE.
  As Phil said, look for the evidence, but what he omitted to say is that much of the “evidence” in support of The Hypothesis is really just speculation. Yes you’ll find it hard work, but don’t be put off by that. The numerous scientists undertaking research into the many different disciplines involved in those highly complex, almost chaotic, climate processes and drivers find it equally difficult to understand what is going on. That is why there is still so much research work being funded. So yes, look for the “evidence” but also look for the “speculation” that is claimed to be evidence, whether you find these via links that Phil, I or anyone else have provided or that you have found by yourself. But don’t overlook the fact that there is misunderstanding, misinterpretation and deliberate misrepresentation of the available evidence shaping the opinions on both sides of the debate.

  2) QUOTE: Peter Ridley .. has tried to deceive you there as well..don’t let con-men like this prey on you. UNQUOTE. Phil has accused me before of trying to mislead, e.g. on Senator Fielding’s “Fight in the Senate” blog 20th August at 10:53 AM, but he is wrong. I do not TRY to mislead anyone, only help them to understand that (and why) there is a large body of scientists who reject The Hypothesis. Supporters of The Hypothesis such as the UN, politicians, environmentalists and others looking to use The Hypothesis to further their own interests, use the media extremely effectively to put across their propaganda. The techniques used have been developed almost to perfection over the millennia. As a prime example, religious leaders are expert at using a blend of fact, fiction and scare tactics in order to control people by trying to convince them that there is a benevolent super-power. Anyone who does not abide by the rules laid down by that particular religion will be punished, if not when alive then surely after death (forever). Politicians use similar tactics in order to exert control over people. Hitler and his team were expert at this.
  Those who reject it are not nearly so well organised or expert in this, but are improving how they get their message across.

  With our present understanding of climate processes and drivers it is impossible for us to forecast what is going to happen to global climates. We can’t even forecast the weather in a few months time and it is the weather conditions experienced in a particular region over several decades that determines what category that region’s climate falls into.

  Enjoy the journey, it’s great fun and you’ll meet some lovely people on the way.

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global Climate Change Agnostic.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 11 September 2009 at 07:02:58 PM

• Phil (Stormboy) I acknowledge that I overlooked the fact that (as I understand it) you are a fire management researcher involved in modelling fire development and should have more correctly said “not a scientist researching on of the many disciplines involved in climate science apart from fire development and control” rather than just “not a scientist”. It was not a deliberate attempt to mislead anyone.

  Glen, you will find the links that I gave very helpful in understanding not just the opinions of supporters of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis but also those who reject it.

  Keep learning (both sides of the debate) and enjoy.

  Best regards to you both, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change (and religious) Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 11 September 2009 at 05:12:22 PM

• Glen,

  there’s a perfect example of what I was talking about. Read back over my last comment and

  - try to find some bias or some way that I have led you to accept Anthropogenic Global Warming against the evidence. I haven’t; Pete Ridley is trying to muddy the waters.
  - See if you can find anywhere that I need to be a scientist to say what I said. I don’t; Peter Ridley is trying to confuse you.
  - Think where scientists need media or political support to investigate something like the question “is the sun getting warmer?” They don’t. Even if the media is completely unaware of the situation, their findings are published in a scientific Journal. Checking those is the only good way to be free of media bias and the Dunning-Kruger effect - where “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”. Pete Ridley has suggested that rather than look at the actual evidence, you instead go to another part of a politician’s blog where people that sound more knowledgeable than they are can tell you what they like and you will never know whether it’s true or not.

  Where you go from here is up to you and I won’t try to influence you. You have 2 options - either go to the actual evidence which will be hard work and a steep learning curve, or take the easy route; give up on the evidence and follow Pete’s link to a lot of unsupported opinions.

  Just for the record, Peter Ridley knows very well that I am a reseach scientist even though my field is bushfire behaviour rather than climate. He (a retired engineer from the oil and telecommunications industries) has tried to deceive you there as well. But whether someone is a scientist or not doesn’t mean you should accept what they say. Go to the evidence, accept only peer-reviewed material and don’t let con-men like this prey on you.

  All the best.

  Comment by Stormboy on 11 September 2009 at 07:32:15 AM

• PPS: Another link to “the truth” for you http://bloodwoodtree.org/war/

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 10 September 2009 at 03:47:50 PM

• PS: Sorry, I forgot the link

  2) see http://www.stevefielding.com.au/forums/viewthread/125/P2205/

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 10 September 2009 at 03:42:33 PM

• Glen Edward Olsen, yes, there are organisations representing the sceptical side of the debate, some of which are listed below (Note 1). Phil (Stormboy) and I have engaged in debate over several months on Senator Firlding’s “Fight in the Senate” blog but a more useful debate is ongoing at his Have Your Say “Climate Change” thread. I’ve supplied a link (Note 2) for a starter (see may comment of 09 September 2009 04:59 AM) but there are 149 pages if you fancy reading them all. Try Googling, but don’t restrict yourself to Phil (Stormboy)’s suggestions. He’s highly biased in support of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis but, like myself, he is NOT a scientist. There are thousands of sceptical scientists, they are organised, but do not have the media or political support available to the propagandists pushing the claim that The hypothesis is proven. Fortunately, more and more scientists are providing the evidence that refutes The Hypothesis.

  NOTES:
  1) see http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/ http://icecap.us/index.php/go/about-us  http://www.scientific-alliance.org/

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 10 September 2009 at 03:40:48 PM

• Glen,
  science is organised without an organisation. People raise a subject such as “has the sun been getting steadily warmer” and they research it, then they submit the article to a journal recognised by other scientists who may well disagree with them. They have to show all of their evidence and how they used it to form their conclusions so that anyone else can repeat the process and get the same results. Other scientists who don’t know who they are keep their paper for months before it is published so that they can pull it apart and check if the science really says what they are saying it does. This is called peer-review.

  Peer-review is a product of the Rennaisance. In Galileo’s day the truth was what the authorities told you. You didn’t need evidence, you just somehow knew that it was true because a very powerful machine had taught you it was. Peer-review now gives us a way of using the world’s best minds to check whether something is true or not. It’s not fool proof at all, but it’s a big step forward.

  If you’re genuinely interested in truth, I encourage you to check what you believe on this. You’ve said that there is no evidence that CO2 is warming the planet and that all the evidence says it’s due to the sun. There’s 2 possibilities -

  1) You’re right, there is a great mass of peer-reviewed literature out there saying what you’re saying and only a handful saying differently. It’s all been a con, or

  2) You’re wrong. There is a great mass of peer-reviewed literature out there saying that CO2 is behind it, and only a small handful saying differently. You’ve been conned.

  Check it out honestly. Keep in mind that books, websites and politician’s blogs are not peer-reviewed, the writers can say what they like. Try Google Scholar or drop into a University library and look through the scientific journals. You’ll know when you’re being conned when one of the sides gives you an excuse for not publishing in peer-reviewed journals. You’ll also find a tendency to disregard the evidence that disagrees with your view - that’s your own human nature conning you. Be brave and push through.

  Comment by Stormboy on 08 September 2009 at 08:06:25 AM

• What can we do… WE need an organization ... a platform to present the facts ..... The people that are on the other side of reality are organised…..most if not all the other people in Australia only can form their opinions for TV media ... when things are blackest light a candle .... only together can we have any input into this debate ......is there out any organization to oppose the myth of man global warming ...if some one starts one or there is one already I’m ready to join ......can any one help me???

  Comment by Glen Edward Olsen on 07 September 2009 at 03:27:32 PM

• 477 years ago Galileo Galilei was called a heretic (a denier ) by the then world religon headed up by the then Pope Urban V III.. Galileo had said that the Sun was the centre of things and the earth went around the sun and the earth was NOTflat.. Like the pope Al Gore and his fellow worshipers are telling ......lies CO2 is not heating up the earth! It’s just another TAX !! It’s a scam!!
  The science ( by observation) that would substantiate the claims of the new world religion (worship the planet) DOES NOT EXIST. There is however science that (by observation not prediction) that shows, that the predictions made some years ago ARE NOT TRUE.
  It’s the scientists that are saying the Sun is what changes climate not CO2. They are todays Galileo’s
  “That what has been done before, that is what will be done again”
  There has NOTbeen a scientific debate on CO2 driving climate change, So how can we MOVE ON to a debate about what to do to stop the problem that we don’t have “man made global warming”

  Comment by Glen Edward Olsen on 07 September 2009 at 03:03:33 PM

• The accurate value for climate sensitivity is 0.277 K/(W/m^2), which is 3 times smaller than the generally accepted value of 0.8 K/(W/m^2).  Thus the climate change on doubling CO2 from 300 ppm to 600 ppm will be 1.0 degree, not 3 degrees.  Because the IPCC data show that doubling CO2 will not double absorption of infrared radiation, the Beer-Lambert law (doubling the concentration doubles the absorption) is not being followed, because of diminishing returns after more-than-50% absorption.  Thus further doublings of CO2 to the point of suffocating levels can only result in a fraction of a degree increase.  Therefore global warming by CO2 increases has been wildly overestimated.  The same IPCC data show that water vapour is 1.5 times as important as CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and it still seems to follow the Beer-Lambert law.  Thus climate changes are more sensitive to changes in water vapour than to CO2.  Since water vapour is released on combustion of alcohols (including methanol and ethanol) and alkanes (including methane, propane, gasoline and diesel fuels), but not coal, and by transpiration in plants in forests and crops, efforts to mitigate climate change by reducing human-produced water vapour would run in exactly the opposite direction to efforts to reduce climate change by controlling CO2 alone.

  A complete explanation with calculations may be found at http://mistakesinipcccalculations.blogspot.com/

  This is not just an academic exercise, because jobs and the fates of families depend on government policies, especially bad if based on bad science.  The material in the link ought to be reviewed by a competent professor of spectroscopy or theoretical physics, in addition to the best climatologists.

  Comment by Roger Taguchi on 04 September 2009 at 02:02:03 AM

• “Climate Sense?”
  Firstly I am not a “denier” due to the fact, from the dawn of time the climate has changed and will forever change, that is for sure whether we like it or not. Natural disasters will happen, don’t know if I could stop a volcano erupting or prevent the tectonic plates from moving about causing earthquakes and tsunami’s or clouds banging together forming massive storms, so I don’t think reducing the (unconfirmed theory) CO2 causing emissions will prevent such things either.

  Declaring CO2 as a pollutant is like declaring photosynthesis illegal.

  To be labeled a “skeptic” these days, is that supposed be a bad thing? I believe that all scientists are supposed to be skeptical, is it not their job to question a theory, after all a theory is an educated guess, right? It does not take much of a web search to find out that there is indeed a significant alternative view.

  The IPCC estimate that Australia’s share of greenhouse gases is 1.5%. Now the percentage of all the CO2 in the atmosphere is roughly 0.038%. Out of this 0.038% let us generously assume that 5% of that is caused by humans, which is 0.0019%. So if the numbers are right, Australia’s share comes to the alarming figure of 0.0000285%, or alternatively an eye drop of water into a Olympic pool, once a year, immeasurable. 

  For the fact that everything and anything has an impact on climate such as, oceans, seas,  volcanoes, flora, fauna, land fill, clearing, planting, waste, gassy animals, man’s breath, radiation, reflection, absorption, solar, evaporation, conduction, humidity, earth’s rotation, sun, moon, stars, tectonic plates, tsunami’s, earthquakes, air movement, ice, snow, rainfall, water vapor, droughts, clouds, cars, trains, jets, boats, construction, agriculture, and on it goes. To think we (man) have all the answers, know how everything works, let alone be able to control it like a thermostat, very misguided or just plain arrogant.

  An ETS will reduce CO2 to a $ paper value (a commodity) to be traded on the world and national markets, controlled by a select few, paid for by us, sounds like a good scheme to me, if I am the one selling the permits. (A pay to pollute system) I would prefer monies directly targeting pollution reduction of all types and a better use of resources because that’s the healthy thing to do, be smarter in the use of what we have and look after it better, we are only care takers of this world after all.

  The amount of money, spent so far, could have eradicated, not mitigated, but eradicated starvation in a number of countries by now surely, where are the priorities?

  A manmade theory, based on manmade models, on manmade assumptions, creating a manmade solution, flawed written all over it !

  regards Craig

  Comment by CR on 12 August 2009 at 09:34:43 AM

• Weather control is another area to consider when evaluating global warming.  It is mentioned in government papers and policy.  It can be referenced in patents.  It can be seen as chemtrails in the sky.  It is controlled at H.A.A.R.P. in alaska and other locations.  It was designed as a military weapon to use the WEATHER FOR WARFARE.  Not enough rain causes drought, crop and food losses, destroys the economy.  Too much rain destroys food, causes infrastructure damage, ruins the economy.  Global warming or WEATHER CONTROL.

  Comment by Red Star on 20 July 2009 at 09:40:44 PM

• Chugg, thanks for the useful links – good stuff there.

  theodore (curly) on 15th July @ 02:41:44 I made reference to Dr. Jeffrey Glassman (another scientist who rejects the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis) but posted my promised submission onto Senator Fielding’s “ .. Fight in the Senate .. “ blog (Note 1) instead of here. Dr. Glassman exposes the serious inadequacies of the models upon which the IPCC depends for its crystal-ball gazing climate forecasts. Another article (Note 2) “There Is No Evidence” (revised only one week ago) by Dr David Evans of Sciencespeak (Note 3) also debates these model deficiencies (Dr. Evans once supported the hypothesis but now rejects it). As the “computer-literate” correctly say “garbage in - garbage out” but many supporters of the hypothesis seem incapable of recognising what even the IPCC had to admit in its latest assessment report (AR4), that climate models “.. continue to have significant limitations”( Note 4)  and “The possibility of developing model capability measures … has yet to be established” (Note 5). None of the climate models used by the IPCC has ever been subjected to independent, professional Verification, Validation and Test (VV&T) procedures (Note 8). I cover these points in my paper “Politicization of Climate Change & CO2” (Note 6).

  Dr, Evans spent six years from 1999 doing carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. During that time “the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects. The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet. But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming” (Note 7).

  I suggest that many of the lay supporters of the hypothesis should do some serious research into the arguments of the many scientists who reject the hypothesis, then rejoin the debate with a more open mind. Unless they are able to produce sound, up-to-date, scientifically based counter-arguments they are wasting their time (and ours) commenting. They should ask themselves why it is that virtually none of the scientists who reject the hypothesis derive any income from climate science research (or spin-off activities such as Al Gore’s Climate Change legal advice service and Carbon Trading companies). They should also ask why virtually all scientists who support the hypothesis have careers and status which depend upon a strong climate research industry.

  NOTES:
  1) see my comments http://www.stevefielding.com.au/blog/comments/the_real_reason_ill_fight_in_the_senate_on_climate_change
  2) see http://sciencespeak.com/NoEvidence.pdf
  3) see http://sciencespeak.com/
  4) http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12>http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12
  4) see IPCC AR4 “Climate Models and Their Evaluation”.
  5) see AR4 WG1 Technical Summary, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  6) see http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=374&Itemid=1
  7) see http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html
  8) see my comment of 14 July @ 12:51:29 AM on
  http://www.stevefielding.com.au/blog/comments/assessment_of_penny_wongs_response_to_my_3_questions_on_climate_change/#comments

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 20 July 2009 at 03:56:20 AM

• Pete Ridley

  Thanks for your link to the Rocket Scientists Journal website. It is interesting and different and will take a while to digest.

  Comment by theodore curly on 18 July 2009 at 06:05:28 PM

• Bosco, are you associated with (or may even be Fr. Joe of) the Bosco Volunteer Action (BOVA), the overseas volunteering organisation of the Salesians of the Catholic Religious order Don Bosco in the UK”?

  I think some readers may be puzzled by your quotation from the paper “‘Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong’” by Professor Dickens, et. al. when your comment seems to be suggesting that it was the high levels of carbon dioxide thought to exist in the PETM that CAUSED about a 13 degree mean global temperature rise. Your statement that “This makes the PETM one of the best ancient climate analogues for present-day Earth” could be seen as contradicting what those scientists state in their paper.

  To clearly align with what Professor Dickens et. al. say about being wrong to have guessed that carbon dioxide is a driver of global climates, perhaps you should have reversed the order of presentation of carbon dioxide (not carbon) and temperature. It has been clear for a long time that increasing ocean temperatures CAUSES significant increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, therefore your final sentence should have said “As the global surface temperatures increased, consequently levels of carbon dioxide rose dramatically during the PETM”.

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 18 July 2009 at 06:43:56 AM

• This is a related comment that I posted to Jonathan Porritt’s blog (Note 7) today.

  There’s a reassuring message about the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis in the article “UN Models on Global Warming Fundamentally Wrong” (Note 1). Perfectly valid scientific arguments, as you’d expect from scientists like Dr. Tsonis (I quoted from his excellent paper Note 2 - of 2007 in my paper “politicization of Climate Change & CO2” Note 3) and Dr Gray who reject the hypothesis. Even supporters of the hypothesis such as Dr. Trenberth and Dr. Renwick are admitting the deficiencies in the hypothesis and hence in the models upon which the IPCC depends for its climate forecasts (crystal-ball fortune telling).

  The article references a recent paper “Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong - Unknown processes account for much of warming in ancient hot spell” (Note 4) relating to climate feedback inadequacies in the IPCC models. This is authored by Dr. Gerald Dickens, Professor of Earth Science at Rice University, Dr. Richard E. Zeebe, Associate Professor Department of Oceanography, University of Hawaii at Manoa and Dr. James Zachos, Professor of Earth and Planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz. Dr. Dickens has concluded that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of the heating during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). He said “Some feedback loop or other processes that aren’t accounted for in these models—the same ones used by the IPCC for current best estimates of 21st Century warming—caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM”. This is a significant shift in opinion by co-author Zachos, who in 2005 was suggesting “A Continental Scenario for the PETM: Peat/Coal … Trigger” (Note 5) as distinct from a Methane Clathrate trigger. Now it was due to some unknown process or feedback.

  Professor Dickens comment aligns with that of Professor Barry Brook of Adelaide University in his blog (Note 6) in which he said “There are a lot of uncertainties in science .. ” then continued about our poor understanding of climate processes and drivers.

  As I said in my 15th July comment on Jonathan’s blog “Sandbrook Lecture”, Global Governance (a.k.a. Global Dominance) is a much more frightening prospect than anything the IPCC models can foretell and is much more likely.

  NOTES:
  1) see http://www.rightsidenews.com/200907155494/energy-and-environment/un-models-on-global-warming-fundamentally-wrong.html
  2) see “A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts” by Dr. Anastasios A. Tsonis et al. in Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 34, L13705).
  3) see http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=374&Itemid=1
  4) see http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/ru-gwo071409.php
  5) see http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_94450.htm
  6) see http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/ especially the lead item paragraph starting “There are a lot of uncertainties in science” and comments on 8 June 2009 at 1.24, 12 June 2009 at 20.42, 21 June 2009 at 0.09, 23 June 2009 at 5.02, 24 June 2009 at 6.12
  7) see http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/06/ashden_awards_1.html

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 17 July 2009 at 05:55:41 AM

• In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record,” says oceanographer Gerald Dickens, study co-author and professor of Earth Science at Rice University in Houston. “There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models.”

  During the warming period, known as the “Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum” (PETM), for unknown reasons, the amount of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere rose rapidly. This makes the PETM one of the best ancient climate analogues for present-day Earth.

  As the levels of carbon increased, global surface temperatures also rose dramatically during the PETM. Average temperatures worldwide rose by around 13 degrees in the relatively short geological span of about 10,000 years.

  http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2009/07/could-we-be-wrong-about-global-warming.html

  Comment by Bosco on 16 July 2009 at 11:09:24 PM

• (QUOTE)Comment by Paul_M on 06 July 2009 at 03:47:54 PM

  I’m disappointed Mr Fielding. What IPCC graph shows no warming in the past 15 years on a global scale? Those in the Policymakers report and the Technical report certainly show a continuing warming trend. And where is the data that says temperatures have fallen?(END QUOTE)

  Why would/should anyone believe a corrupt organisation or act on it’s politisized and errornus conclusions?

  The IPCC is fundamentally corrupt

  Dr. Gray’s alarm at the conduct of the IPCC. An effort by academics is now underway to reform this UN organization, and have it follow established scientific norms. Dr. Gray was asked to endorse this reform effort, but he refused, saying: “The IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only ‘reform’ I could envisage would be its abolition.”

  ““Dr. Gray is one of the 2,000 to 2,500 top scientists from around the world whom the IPCC often cites as forming the basis of its findings. No one has been a more faithful reviewer than Dr. Gray over the years—he has been an IPCC expert almost from the start, and perhaps its most prolific contributor, logging almost 1,900 comments on the IPCC’s final draft of its most recent report alone.

  But Dr. Gray, who knows as much about the IPCC’s review processes as anyone, has been troubled by what he sees as an appalling absence of scientific rigour in the IPCC’s review process.”“
  ———————
  IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

  Call it propaganda, not science

  The IPCC is controlled by political hacks who override the scientists with a predetermined agenda. Calling it science is a fraud upon the public
  http://nov55.com/ipcc.html
  Illusions of Climate Science
  http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2008/10/illusions-of-climate-science
  ————————-
  “the result showed 90 per cent of the participants do not believe the IPCC report”. Japanese scientists cool on theories
  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25182520-2703,00.html
  ———————-
  IPCC: The Only Game in Town? (PDF)
  “In this special issue of E&E, a number of authors have raised some of the pertinent problems of the IPCC and its political culture. They range from the conflict of interest notable among IPCC editors who are charged with assessing their own research, to the political selection of IPCC officials and administrators.”  (Benny Peiser, editorial for Energy & Environment)
  ——————
  The 2007 IPCC Assessment Process - Its Obvious Conflict of Interest
  “The same individuals who are doing primary research in the role of humans on the climate system are then permitted to lead the assessment! There should be an outcry on this obvious conflict of interest, but to date either few recognize this conflict, or see that since the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda, they chose to ignore this conflict. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow.”  (Roger Pielke Sr)
  ——————
  “How many   MIT and IPCC lies does it take before you see the sham?

  >>>The MIT modellers violated 49 principles of forecasting<<<
  By Kesten C. Green and J. Scott Armstrong

  http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/06/16/junk-science-week-mit-s-unscientific-catastrophic-climate-forecast.aspx

  “The MIT approach to forecasting is in substance the same as the approach adopted by the IPCC. Our forecasting audit of the IPCC approach and its conclusion therefore applies as well to the MIT forecasting effort: The forecasting procedures were not valid and there is no reason for policymakers to take their forecasts seriously. It also leads to the conclusion that the MIT forecast errors will be much larger even than the IPCC’s forecast errors.”
  ————-
  >>>IPCC clearly violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting<<<

  We conducted an audit of the procedures described in the IPCC report and found that they clearly violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting

  No Scientific Forecasts to Support Global Warming
  YESTERDAY, a former chief at NASA, Dr John S. Theon, slammed the computer models used to determine future climate claiming they are not scientific in part because the modellers have “resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists”.

  Real science always defeats political science in the end.

  Comment by Chugg on 16 July 2009 at 09:24:04 PM

• These 2 graphs say it all,“A picture is worth a thousand words”

  Warm_periods of Past 5000 years Temperatures
  http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/Main/Warm_periods.jpg

  
  Temperatures fall outside ENTRIRE RANGE of IPCC 2001 predictions

  http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=26384#Post26384

  Comment by Chugg on 16 July 2009 at 08:14:50 PM

• PART 1

  Earlier today I talked about of some of those pseudo-environmentalist politicians and their involvement with the Global Governance movement. This movement is driven by the UN, just as it is driving the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis.  I’ve looked further into the background and current activities (they’re still pushing it along Note 4) of our friends Gore, Strong, Mueller and associates like Timothy Wirth, Richard Benedick, George Soros and it’s frightening.

  In 2007 Zbigniew Jaworowski said (Note 1) QUOTE: The concern at the top about “climate change” is not genuine and there are hidden motives behind the global warming hysteria. ..

  Maurice Strong, who dropped out of school at age 14, established an esoteric global headquarters for
  the New Age movement in San Luis Valley, Colorado, and helped produce the 1987 Brundtland Report, which ignited today’s Green movement. He later become senior advisor to Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, and chaired the gigantic (40,000 participants) “UN Conference on Environment and Development” in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Strong, who was responsible for putting together then Kyoto Protocol with thousands of bureaucrats, diplomats, and politicians, stated: “We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.” Strong elaborated on the idea of sustainable development, which, he said, can be implemented by deliberate “quest of poverty . . . reduced resource consumption. . . and set levels of mortality control”.

  Timothy Wirth, U.S. Undersecretary of State Global Issues, seconded Strong’s statement: “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy”

  Richard Benedick, a deputy assistant secretary of state who headed policy divisions of the U.S. State Department, stated: “A global warming treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect.” UNQUOTE

  As expected, Jaworowski was ridiculed by the supporters of the hypothesis, accused of being just another “conspiracy theorist”.

  (Note 2) QUOTE: In 1991, Strong wrote the introduction to a book published by the Trilateral Commission, called Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World’s Economy and the Earth’s Ecology, by Jim MacNeil. (David Rockefeller wrote the foreword).  Strong said this:

  “This interlocking…is the new reality of the century, with profound implications for the shape of our institutions of governance, national and international.  By the year 2012, these changes must be fully integrated into our economic and political life.”

  These chilling words are in line with ones he used for the opening session of the Rio Conference (Earth Summit II) in 1992, that industrialized countries have:

  “Developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma.  It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class—involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing—are not sustainable.  A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns.”

  The only change that has happened since 1992 is that Strong and Soros now have their Agent of Change coming to the White House. UNQUOTE

  I could go on and on and on, but it’s too frightening for the gullible. Global Governance (actually Global Dominance) is far far more dangerous and frightening than anything the scare-mongers tell us about climate change and much more likely to happen.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 15 July 2009 at 08:04:59 PM

• PART 2

  Supporters of the hypothesis defend their position with anything they can turn to, including insults and vilification, but, as A Schopenhauer (1788-1860) said “Truth will first be ridiculed, then violently opposed, and finally accepted as self-evident”. The truth about the hypothesis is that it is reaching the stage where it is becoming more and more self-evident.

  Returning to the “Significant Human-made Global Climate Change” hypothesis, Timothy Wirth is reported (Note 3) to have commented recently about the US “cap-and-trade” climate change bill which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on June 26. QUOTE: And there’s nothing in the bill promoting the use of natural gas, which should be in a good position to cut the nation’s CO2 emissions, Wirth said “Natural gas is a domestic fuel, that can support the grid and provide electricity in when renewable sources such as the wind or the sun don’t operate, and which emits less CO2 than coal or oil when burned, he said. UNQUOTE
  From my high-school chemistry I understand that domestic natural gas is virtually methane (CH4), ignoring the impurities coal is carbon (C) and burning means combining with oxygen (O). CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O and C + O2 = CO2. In simple terms this tells me that burning coal produces less greenhouse gas (CO2) than burning methane (CO2 + 2H2O). I’m obviously missing something very fundamental here so would someone kindly explain for me.

  
  Notes:
  1) see http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf
  2) see http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6485
  3) see http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/07/06/daily55.html?ana=from_rss
  4) see http://windfarms.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/al-gore-global-governance-london-july-7-2009/ and particularly
  http://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/gore-on-global-governance-what-the-climate-change-scam-is-really-about/

  Regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 15 July 2009 at 08:04:35 PM

• Rosco, whilst I totally agree with your sentiment, I would probably not agree with the reasoning behind it in respect to research - its more complex than the sun - and really the only questions is, is man’s Co2 responsible? if so wheres the evidence. the Globe warming or collling does not prove cause. Its only the effect of a cause that we as yet dont understand.

  I Cannot agree with you more about the ETS, it will never go. It is all about the interewsts of a certain few.. nothing to dop with science or the environment.. Greenies are very weak minded.

  their leaders however are very…  very smart.

  Comment by hewisond on 15 July 2009 at 04:09:45 PM

• Hi Steve Fielding,

  I’m so glad there is one pollatition that has a brain, but to stand up to these monkeys who keep telling us we need to bring in new taxes to off load climate change. What climate change. The worlds temp. always goes up and down, thats the way it is. The world is experiancing their coldest winters at the moment for 15years and yet Kevin Rodd & the others say it’s getting hotter makes no sence to me.

  How about the SUN! THe sun hasn’t been making any sun spots lately and if this continues climate will decrease and we’ll see colder winters.

  If people would only open their eyes and do their own research instead of listening to what the media and the pollies want them to see ten maybe they too will come to same conclusion that Global Warming or Cooling has nothing to do with us! It has cooled and heated since the world began nothing we can do about that except adapt.

  It would be arigant and our ignarance to science if we thought we can change the climate.

  Thank you Mr Fielding for standing up to our best interests. Unfortunatly you will never get the answer to your 3 questions be cause it conflicts their intersts.

  For those of you who don’t belive me do your own research, start with Ian Plimers book “Heaven+Earth” Global Warming: The Missing Science.

  PS. If they bring in the tax scheeme and you find out later they are full of shit IT WILL BE TOO LATE.
  They will never take it back.

  Comment by Rosco on 15 July 2009 at 03:29:46 PM

• An article of interest.. more worrying again..

  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25783305-7583,00.html

  further evidence this is not about science. its about personal interest on a large scale.

  Comment by hewisond on 15 July 2009 at 12:23:42 PM

• Stormboy, I havnt had time to read the whole article, but i have read some, and very very interesting.  I would love to have a converstaion with you about it and really undertstand this issue.. theres many opinions out there, but they are mostly based on guesses, judgements, hearsay and emotion. some educated informatino abotu this topic would be good. Ill be in touch soon.

  Comment by hewisond on 15 July 2009 at 11:57:37 AM

• G’day Theodore,

  Let me apologizes too, I was really making a similar point to Pete. However sometimes its hard to be able to convey any emotion through text, which can lead to easy misunderstandings.

  In regards to whether anyone here has read the responses, other than those mentioned. It’s probably true most haven’t, on both sides. Which is why we have such a big problem. The masses will believe what they are told by the media. If the message is sold well enough, it becomes part of the physic. Green politics has become chic. Trendy. But taking action is something very different.. (See:  http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25777671-5000117,00.html )
  I think if more people on both sides of the debate educated themselves, we would have a better chance at making change – whatever that change may be.

  We’ll have to agree to disagree about the implication of various parts of the Wong response. I don’t agree, but I certainly can see why you’re saying that.

  Now, the complex one.. Jesus! This is why I read research from scientists – so I don’t have to make such calculations.. perhaps we can arrange for the author of the paper to explain his findings? Steve Fielding? Joanne Nova? Can that be done – will they read this?  If they are wrong on that point – then fair enough.

  QUOTE (I have only just calculated this tonight in response to your question and its even scarier than I imagined) UNQUOTE

  Erm – scary? I took one look at it and in a blink decided.. No - too hard!

  As I have said in earlier posts, I am more interested in finding the answer and less interested in what the actual answer is.  I’m very against an ETS though.  One day we will get closer to an answer, the ETS will slow that process – well I think it will stop it. Once they get legislation through globally, the new thin air market is born, and mission complete.

  I will become a believer again if there is evidence. Until then I still cant see it… Again, lets agree to disagree 

  Take care,
  Dave.

  Comment by hewisond on 15 July 2009 at 11:54:17 AM

• I said on 14th July @ 04:49 pm tha t I would check up on the UN and its attitude towards global governance. Oh dear, global “big btother” is closer than I thought. I had no idea that there was a Commission on Global Governance, but it reported in 1995 (Note 1) QUOTE: The Commission on Global Governance has released its recommendations in preparation for a World Conference on Global Governance, scheduled for 1998, at which official world governance treaties are expected to be adopted for implementation by the year 2000. Among those recommendations are specific proposals to expand the authority of the United Nations to provide:
   Global taxation;
   A standing UN army;
   An Economic Security Council;
   UN authority over the global commons;
   An end to the veto power of permanent members of the Security Council;
   A new parliamentary body of “civil society” representatives (NGOs);
   A new “Petitions Council”;
   A new Court of Criminal Justice; (Accomplished in July, 1998 in Rome)
   Binding verdicts of the International Court of Justice;
   Expanded authority for the Secretary General.

  Interesting comments appear in “Global Governance: Why? How? When?”  (Note 2) in which the names of many supporters of the “Significant Human-made Global Climate Change” hypothesis keep cropping up, including Al Gore, Maurice Strong, James Lovelock, Robert Mueller (Note 6).

  It is interesting that despite the claims of the environmentalists, the UN organisations directly involved in the global food crisis appear not to consider that climate change is the problem. Rather, it appears to be due to agricultural mismanagement (Note 3)

  No doubt the global economic crisis has put things on hold for a while, but watch out. If you want something to really panic about, forget the “significant human-made global climate change” propaganda and look at the plans for Global Governance (and the individuals who are involved).

  NOTES:
  1) see http://sovereignty.net/p/gov/gganalysis.htm
  2) see http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Global_Governance_1.htm
  3) see http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31318&Cr=food+crisis&Cr1;=
  4) see http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31328&Cr=food+crisis&Cr1;=
  5) see http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31051&Cr=hung&Cr1=agriculture
  6) see http://www.scribd.com/doc/3448720/Robert-Mueller-the-UN-and-the-Gaia-Worshippers
  

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global climate change agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 15 July 2009 at 07:47:01 AM

• Phil (Stormboy), I found the comments at your link very interesting but the one I consider most relevant to the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis was: “or are there ways that we can learn from our mistakes and start to accept the nature of the country we live in?”, but not only the country, but also the world.

  theodore (curly), on your first and second points, I’m not aware of any such etiquette, but just didn’t see that your submission had added nothing further to the debate. Sorry if you were upset.

  On your third point, it’s funny how people see identical things differently. I can see no argument in Senator Fielding’s question, only perfectly reasonable and fundamental questions, as emphasised by the assessors of Wong’s response.

  On your fourth point, I am preparing a submission that is based upon a response to questions and comments that I put to physicist Dr. Jeffrey Glassman (Note 1) which you may like to review ahead of my submission.

  On your final point, it is no surprise that there are plausible alternative scientific analyses that claim to substantiate the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis. This is because climate science is so poorly understood that that there are many different hypothesis that purport to explain how nature does what it does. For example there are the “iris” hypothesis (Linzen & Spencer), the geomagnetic hypothesis (Knudsen), the cosmic radiation hypothesis (Svensmark and Wendler), even the electric universe hypothesis may have been invoked to explain climate change.

  Notes:
  1) see http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2009/03/_internal_modeling_mistakes_by.html#comments

  
  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global climate change agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 15 July 2009 at 02:41:44 AM

• Hewisond, and Pete Ridley I am happy to respond to your questions.

  First, yes I did repeat part of my earlier post on 9 July. If I have broken some sort of blog etiquette I am sorry.

  I was, and still am, interested in how many contributors have actually read the Wong answers. So far I can only confirm Hewisond, Pete Ridley and Stormboy. I repeated the rest of my post in order to provide my context, as I find that it easy to lose the context when you are in a long thread like this one .

  Second, in response to your comment QUOTE Most contributors here have tried to justify their positions and perhaps you should try to do the sameUNQUOTE I thought I had considered my own position carefully and had articulated it through various contributions starting on 07 July 2009 at 10:40:02 PM . Should I repeat them?

  Third, an expansion on my point QUOTE Section 5.2 was cheap and point scoring. UNQUOTE. The reason I said this was that I felt that it was reasonable that the Fielding question was implying an “argument” and that it was unnessary (cheap point scoring) for the “advisors” to take the trouble to make such a point.

  Fourth , an expansion on my point QUOTE Section 2.4 is misleading or plain wrong END QUOTE. This is where the Fielding advisors lost all credibility in my mind. Anyone with a reasonable knowledge of high school science could see that this was a misleading statement. It does not appropriately take into account the relative specific heats and weights of the air in the atmosphere and water in the top 700m of the oceans. To illustrate this let me recast what the Fielding advisors have said in another way. “Had the 15x1022 J of additional heat that the upper 700 m of ocean has absorbed since 1960 been absorbed by the atmosphere instead , we find that this corresponds to an increase in the atmospheric temperature of 30oC (yes , thirty)”. By implying that the air tempearture rise was 3 times the temperature rise of the oceans (and hence somehow not as significant) was, in my view, an attempt to downplay the significance of the increased heat content absorbed by the oceans (the alternative view is that they just dont understand basic science). Viewed in the way I have recast it illustrates how significant the increase in ocean heat content actually is. (I have only just calculated this tonight in response to your question and its even scarier than I imagined)

  Finally, I did study the Wong answers and the “advisors” critique before reaching my conclusion. My 2 examples above were ones that were most obvious to me in my own personal assessment of the critique. I researched many of the other “advisor” points(which I could not personally assess) and found credible explanations countering the advisors points.

  In summary (as I stated on previous occasions) I found that the evidence (including in Fieldings own questions briefing) demonstrated a continuing warming trend over many decades, as does Ocean Heat Content.  These trends are consistent, in my view, with the on-going accumulation of atmospheric CO2 contributed by man. Thats the conclusion I reached from studying the information inspired by this blog so I am satisfied that sufficient evidence exists to support the AGW hypothesis.

  Comment by theodore curly on 14 July 2009 at 11:34:50 PM

• Dave,

  I haven’t looked at Andrew Bolt’s comments on the Victorian fires, but here’s a post I wrote at the time which might be relevant: http://bloodwoodtree.org/2009/02/14/laying-blame-for-the-victorian-bushfires/.

  Talk to you soon.

  Comment by Stormboy on 14 July 2009 at 09:08:01 PM

• If all human-induced ‘green house’ gases were eliminated in every geographic area of this planet tomorrow, or in whatever time scale the faith requires, so that the human contribution to ‘pollution’ of the atmosphere had a reading of zero, or whatever is the lowest level the faith requires, the planet would still continue to experience devastating floods, territorial erosion, earthquakes, tsunamis, land mass sinking, land mass rising, volcanic eruptions, bushfires, tornados, cyclones, ice ages and global warming, just as it has throughout the millennia of global history long before the 19th century industrial revolution was a carbon-speck on the horizon.

  The standard answer from those who hold the faith is that we can change the time scale and severity in which such events occur (based on what appear to be subjective models), ignoring the long history of such events being at random intervals and varying severity. The faith seems to hold that we humans can change the the course of nature.

  An alternative response is based on the precautionary principle: that we should reduce our green-house gases ‘just in case’  the doom-sayers are correct;  there are many activities in life in which death or injury is caused; rational humans take a rational view and proceed accordingly. There is no evidence (apart from the questionable modelling) that reducing our ‘carbon footprint’ to zero will affect the series of natural events described above. 

  It is unfortunate, in retrospect, that Socialism was publicly discredited in practice, since its philosophy provided a useful theoretical vehicle for those at the time who were inclined by thought and action to save the world; now we have the same population of later generations disturbing the peace with a new faith.

  It is difficult to comprehend what benefit would be gained for humanity by the effective elimination of economic activity as a result of the elimination or substantial reduction of human induced carbon outputs.

  Comment by PeterA on 14 July 2009 at 08:17:16 PM

• I think we may as well bang our heads against a wall. Some people are so easily convinced by Alarmism,and spin that no amount of real facts and evidence will sway them.

  It doesnt really matter whether we are causing this warming or not… to them, its not about the cause, its about the payment in pain by humanity.. like stoning women for showing their faces in some middle eastern coutries… sadist attitudes.

  Comment by hewisond on 14 July 2009 at 07:06:09 PM

• PART 1

  Study, you really have swallowed all of the “significant human-made Global Climate Change“ hypothesis propaganda hook, line and sinker.

  I’ll be getting back to you with some more sceptical arguments soon, meanwhile its worthwhile repeating a comment that I posted yesterday to Jonathan Porritt’s blog “SandBrook Lecture”, which makes reference to the impact of the claimed global climate change issue. Like you, it implies that our use of fossil fuels is causing much of the suffering endured by the underprivileged, the hungry, the dying millions world-wide. As is to be expected from dedicated environmentalists like Jonathan, there has to be a link with the hypothesis and mentions the Global Humanitarian Forum report “The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis” (Note 3).

  The cover of the report has a picture of “Elderly woman looking after her cow on top of a large dyke.’ Sea-level rise and changing monsoon patterns have changed the landscape where she grew up. District of Satkhira, ‘Bangladesh: ”. This is the usual ploy when startingoff a propaganda bulletin. Slap a picture of something frightening up front, like the Thames flooding to a level that submerges the Houses of Parliament, or the centre of New Orleans under water. That gets people worried immediately.

  The report starts with an introduction by past General Secretary of the UN and now Global Humanitarian Forum President Kofi Annan saying “This report tries to document the impact of climate change on human life globally. Science is only beginning to address the human impact of climate change. However, dozens of research organizations and experts contributing to this report can agree on the widespread damage it causes. We feel it is the most plausible account of the current impact of climate change today”. No argument with that.

  Annan goes on to say “Polls already show that people worldwide are concerned about climate change. Communities on the climate frontlines already see and feel the change. .. Australia is witnessing a full decade of drought. Large tracts of the United States are exposed to stronger storms and severe water shortages — leading to crop loss, job loss, fires, and death”. No agreement here, because, as the supporters of the hypothesis insist on reminding us, climate has to be assessed over decades, not a few years, to determine climate trends. The problems experienced in Australia and the US are as a result of weather events, not climate change.

  He goes on to point out how the world’s poorest are hit worst by the ravages of climate change and the world’s wealthy are not doing enough to help . All highly plausible and unjust, but unfortunately he spoils his message by throwing in “The effects of pollution driven by economic growth in some parts of the world are now driving millions of people into poverty elsewhere”, the implication being that climate change is caused by the world’s wealthy nations. There is no worthwhile evidence to support such a suggestion.

  Annan then gets around to what he’s really promoting, Copenhagen 2009 and international climate agreements to control global warming through reducing our CO2 emissions by reducing our of fossil fuels. “If we do not reverse current trends by close to 2020, however, we may have failed. Global warming will pass the widely acknowledged danger level of two degrees, since there is an approximately 20 year delay between emission reductions and the halting of their warming effect.
  This report clearly demonstrates that climate change is already highly dangerous at well below one degree of warming. Two degrees would be catastrophic.”

  Kofi Annan has no significant qualifications in physical sciences, having trained as an economist then worked for the UN for most of his carrer. For him, climate science is all settled. There is no argument, all of those climate science IFs, MIGHTs, MAYBEs and COULDs have gone. There is no more scientific uncertainty:
  - our use of fossil fuels IS causing significant global warming,
  - warming WILL pass 2 degrees (centigrade?),
  - we are all doomed unless we decimate our use of fossil fuels.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 14 July 2009 at 04:49:52 PM

• PART 2

  I have news for Mr Annan. Even the climate scientist who support the hypothesis acknowledge that there are still many uncertainties in climate science and climate processes and driver are very poorly understood. That is why billions are still being spent on climate science research. There is no justification whatsoever for curtailing our clean use of fossil fuels, restricting the growth of global economies and subjecting deprived people in underdeveloped nations around the world to further deprivation. Any climate changes that are occurring are almost certainly natural and what we have to do is adapt, as humans always have done. There is no point in wasting valuable resources in trying to control global climates. We cannot control nature. Use those resources to mitigate against what nature intends to throw at us.
  Places like Satkhira have always been vulnerable to flooding. Satkhira is near the Mouth of the Ganges, where ground level is close to sea level, it very flat and every year during the monsoons rainwater pours along the 2500km length of the Ganges on its way to the sea, hence the dykes. All that can be done for places like Satkhira is to improve defences against flooding. The developed world has vast experience of this, The Netherlands being a prime example (60% is below mean sea level). Food shortages in Africa mainly arise from inadequate irrigation and unsustainable farming methods. As was said at the G8 in Italy, Africa has enough arable land to feed its entire population, if only politicians (including Africa’s own) had the motivation to make it happen. Crops go to waste in the field because there is inadequate infrastructure for proper distribution. But politicians have one driving interest, self interest.

  Anyone wishing to better understand the arguments of sceptical scientists should take a look at The Great Global Warming Swindle (Note 1) which helps to balance the debate. Another article worth reading is “Gore: U.S. Climate Bill Will Help Bring About ‘Global Governance’” (Note 2). It’s the “global governance” bit that I find most frightening – far more than any imagined threat forecast by those un-validated computer models derived from the flawed “human-made global climate change change” hypothesis.

  Notes:
  1) see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMA6sszChwQ
  2) see http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1893/Gore-US-Climate-Bill-Will-Help-Bring-About-Global-Governance
  3) see http://www.ghfgeneva.org/OurWork/RaisingAwareness/HumanImpactReport/tabid/180/Default.aspx

  
  Jpatrickp, I hope that Steve Fielding listens to the scientists of both sides of the debate then comes to his own considered opinions, which is what we should all be doing, instead of doing what many do and simply being carried away by the scare-mongering propaganda that political bodies like the IPCC keep pouring out. Don’t forget that the IPCC is a UN body and there is no more political body than that (I must check to see if its terms of reference include mention of Global Governance).

  
  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global climate change agnostic

  PS: I hope no-one thinks that I’m unsympathetic towards any human anywhere on this globe who is affected in any way by serious deprivation that is not self-imposed. My entire argument really is about rejecting the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis and putting all of those valuable resources that are being wasted in the name of the hypothesis into doing what is really needed. That is to remove as much as possible of such deprivation by helping those affected to help themselves towards a better way of life through sustainable adaptation. That includes them using whatever non-polluting fuels (fossil or otherwise) that they can afford in order to develop their economies and improve their existence.

  Happy studying and best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 14 July 2009 at 04:49:36 PM

• Study,

  You say: “What science has revealed in the past few years is that the safe level of carbon dioxide in the long run is no more than 350 ppm. The optimum CO2 level to support civilization may be less than 350 ppm.” 

  You are being very selective.  Science also shows that:

  1.  CO2 levels are near the lowest they have ever been in the planets 4.5 billion year life of the planet

  2.  CO2 levels have been far higher in the past than they are now

  3.  Life thrives when the planet is warmer, struggles when it is colder

  4.  There is more carbon tied up in the biosphere when the planet is warmer

  5.  For most of the planet’s history there has been no ice at the poles

  6.  Forests extend to the poles when warmer

  7.  The area of deserts shrinks when warmer

  8.  There is less wind when warmer (less dust in ice cores, sand dunes are much more expansive when colder than when warmer)

  9.  Coral reefs expand when warmer

  The statement “The optimum CO2 level to support civilization may be less than 350 ppm.” is simply alarmism.

  Comment by Havequestions on 14 July 2009 at 01:57:04 PM

• Our global climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear, and there is a potential for rapid changes with effects that would be irreversible – if we do not promptly slow fossil fuel emissions during the next few decades.
  Tipping points are fed by amplifying feedbacks. As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight and speeds melting. As tundra melts, methane a strong greenhouse gas, is released, causing more warming. As species are pressured and exterminated by shifting climate zones, ecosystems can collapse, destroying more species.
  We already have caused atmospheric carbon dioxide to increase from 280 to 387 ppm (parts per million). What science has revealed in the past few years is that the safe level of carbon dioxide in the long run is no more than 350 ppm. The optimum CO2 level to support
  civilization may be less than 350 ppm, but more precise knowledge is not needed immediately
  for the purpose of establishing present policies.
  The conclusion that CO2 must be reduced to a level <350 ppm was startling at first, but obvious in retrospect. Earth’s history shows that an atmospheric CO2 amount of say 450 ppm eventually would yield dramatic changes, including sea level tens of meters higher than today.
  For reference, 450 ppm yields global warming about 2°C (3.6°F) above the preindustrial level.
  Such a level of atmospheric CO2 and global warming imply that we would hand our children and
  grandchildren a condition that would run out of their control, a situation that should be unacceptable to humanity. Read more at:
  http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20090713_Strategies.pdf

  Comment by Study on 14 July 2009 at 01:29:48 PM

• The most difficult aspect of debating climate change science is understanding that single atmospheric measurements will never by themselves interpret change (and rate of change) in complex ecological systems. Global temeperatures (avergared) may not have chnaged over 15 years but regional paterrns of temperature, rainfall and pressure (>storms) have. The impacts of change are evident even if we can’t isolate the cause. Steve make sure you keepin talking to scientists who understand the detail - the Ministers response to your questions will be modified and political. Have a great day

  Comment by jpatrickp on 14 July 2009 at 11:12:55 AM

• PART 1

  theodore (curly), you said just the same on 09 July 2009 at 11:59 yet have never given any substantial challenge to what Senator Fielding’s “advisors” stated. Most contributors here have tried to justify their positions and perhaps you should try to do the same. That way you will have to consider your own position carefully, rather than simply accepting what supporters of the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis tell you.

  RobertM, thanks for that link to “U-tube” which I propose to send to all of the people in my E-mail address book with the recommendation that they look at the video carefully and critically, let their children see it and pass it on to friends and family. It should counter the propaganda being promoted by the likes of Gore, the UN, world governments and the rabble-rousing environmentalists like Plain Stupid, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, etc.

  Hewisond, thanks also for your link to “climatedepot” which makes me realise that there may be much more to this political propaganda than simply attracting environmentalist votes and raising taxes to restore those damaged treasury coffers. This puts a whole new angle on the scare-mongering. Our politicians have learnt an awful lot from Hitler. His scapegoat was the Jews. Global politicians are using climate change, a more subtle but just as effective approach to world domination.

  
  On 20th June I E-mailed Ed Miliband MP Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Defra) on The “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis. The response today was, as expected, pure propaganda justifying political dependence upon those computerised climate models. I think it worthwhile copying their response here (Note 2), since it is in line with penny Wong’s response to Senator Fielding’s questions.

  Defra incorrectly implies that computer models make valid forecasts of global climates, whereas in fact no models have ever been subjected to the normal independent Verification, Validation and Test (VV&T) procedures that are essential before bringing any major computer system into operation. No major company would consider depending for its future upon forecasts from any such un-proven system. Defra fails to mention that the only way that these models can provide results that match known climate conditions is by adjusting numerous parameters on a trial and error basis. This is not acceptable as a means of validating a computer system’s peformance.

  Defra also incorrectly implies that the models properly represent the effects of the aquasphere and atmosphere. The models cannot do this simply because the complex processes anmd drivers of global climates is inadequately understood (hence the continuing research being undertaken at enormous cost). The models ignore the dynamic flow of both input and fed-back energy through the components that make up the climate system and simply address radiated energy under several presumed equilibrium conditions (Note 1).

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 14 July 2009 at 12:51:29 AM

• PART 2

  NOTES:
  1) http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2009/03/_internal_modeling_mistakes_by.html#comments

  2) QUOTE: The only way to predict changes to the climate over long timescales is to use computer models. These models solve complex mathematical equations that are based on well established physical laws that define the behaviour of the weather and climate. However, it is not possible to represent all the detail in the real world in a computer model, so approximations have to be made. The models are tried and tested in a number of ways; for example, they can reproduce the climate of the recent past, both in terms of the average and variations in space and time and they can reproduce the main features of what we know about ancient climates (which are more limited). Scientists are therefore confident in the credibility of the future climate projections made by these models.
  The climate system is indeed highly complex, with many potential interactions and feedback systems. Over the years, more of this complexity has been included in models. Although much has still to be understood, scientists have learned enough about the climate processes and drivers to enable them to make credible assessments of the state of the climate. Therefore I would not agree with the view of Professor Brook as quoted in your e-mail.

  Current state-of-the-art climate models now include fully interactive representations of clouds, oceans, land surfaces and aerosols. Some models are also starting to include detailed chemistry and the processes driving the carbon cycle.
  Climate and weather are really very different things and the level of predictability is comparably different. Climate is defined as weather averaged over a period of time, generally around 30 years. This averaging over time removes the random and unpredictable behaviour of the weather.

  Regarding the comments you attribute to Professor Ramanathan I would suggest you have misinterpreted what he actually meant. He was discussing the rate of global warming and was emphasising the fact that the full extent of warming due to past emissions has not yet been completely realised because of masking by atmospheric aerosols and, in particular, the thermal inertia of the oceans. Putting more greenhouse gases into the air slows down the rate at which the Earth loses heat to space, so the Earth is effectively taking in more energy from the sun than it is emitting as long wave energy out to space. Most of this excess energy ends up in the ocean (some of it has gone into melting glaciers and warming the surface and atmosphere), where it will eventually be released into the climate system to further warm the planet. The “poor understanding” of ocean thermal inertia refers to the scientific uncertainty over how long it will actually take before this heat is released. Professor Ramanathan certainly does not say that CO2‚‚ is not a significant climate driver. For his view on anthropogenic global warming I suggest you read the article on his website at: http://www.amacad.org/publications/bulletin/spring2006/12globalwarming.pdf

  Finally, Dr Michael Ashley is quite correct to say that CO2‚‚ is the one variable changing rapidly. However, basic physics indicates that this should also lead to global warming through an enhancement of the greenhouse effect and that alternative explanations lack a plausible mechanism to explain the warming that has been observed over the past hundred years.

  With the G8 member states, along with the vast majority of UN countries agreeing on the weight of climate change science evidence, the debate on its validity is more or less closed. The challenge now is how to successfully mitigate against the worst of dangerous climate change. The UK remains committed to agreeing a comprehensive, global and long-term framework for addressing climate change. This must put us on the right pathway for stabilising emissions in the atmosphere at a level that avoids unsustainable change, yet ensures economic security. UNQUOTE

  Happy reading and best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 14 July 2009 at 12:51:04 AM

• Page 1 of 3

  Theordore,

  I notice you seem to repeating the same post again… why would you do that?

  In reference to your latest comment, you made two statements. the first being:

  Section 5.2 in the preliminary response to Wongs answers - 

  “No argument is presented in Question 1. Rather a simple question and its supplementary are
  asked.” was cheap and point scoring.

  Can you explain why you say that?  As I read it, the question, is in fact a statement written in question. But I can see that would be subjective.

  Given you have chosen to highlight what you think is cheap and pointscoring, may I ask what your thoughts are in regards to how the media, politicians and believers refer to skeptics?

  The second being:

  QUOTE Section 2.4 is misleading or plain wrong END QUOTE: -

  “2.4. Using the Hadley CRU temperature record, the rise in air temperature since 1960 has been about 0.5oC. Translating the 15x1022 J of additional heat in the upper 700 m of ocean since 1960 into a temperature rise, we find that this corresponds to an increase in upper ocean temperature of only 0.15oC. Thus, using these metrics, air temperature increase since 1960 has been more than three times greater than ocean temperature increase.”

  Again, would you please provide an explanation as to why this statement is plain wrong.

  Also, out of interest – Where in Wongs response, or in any offering, does she show a direct falsifiable link, which can be supported by empirical evidence that the Climate is changing due to Man Made Co2? 

  Is it not too much to ask for?  Surely, if say, I was the Government, and I decided to triple the land tax which reduced its current net value by 35%, and I justified my action to charge you that because you happen to have a 3 bedroom house, and research tells us that 3 bedroom houses are a danger to large families. Basically if we continue to build such houses the family unit would break down and the tipping point is only a few yearws away unless we act now!. And this sort of thing, if left unabated will lead to mental illness, disease in children and in the long term rupture our gene pool and kill humanity.

  Given the personal impact on your life, would you not want to see the evidence? Would theory be enough? Would a politicians word be enough for you?

  Comment by hewisond on 13 July 2009 at 11:57:06 PM

• Page 2 of 3

  
  What if, an ex politician whos decided to set up a a bedroom credit company comes along and says, hey listen guys, the world will end if we let these houses with 3 bedrooms go on as they are, but its all good, you can by room credits from those that have smaller houses. That will make yup for it. That same man is seen on the news (using the Victorian fires to sell his snake oils – which made me sick today.) lobbying government to ensure these regulations go through… the same ones that will make your house 35% more expensive to sell, the same ones that will force you to by credits from smaller house owners,  through a credit dealer, who just happens to be the ex politician you saw last night on the news.

  What then, would you blindly let me charge you all that money? Or would you expect me to explain why and show you some evidence to justify my actions?

  Theordore, I respect your views, I don’t respect that you seem to have cherry picked (in your words) 3 points in the prelim response, the very 3 points that are of least importance. One was a subjective remark about a subjective remark. The second was about a calculation, which you may or may not be able to back up, and the third was that the report cherry picked.. where?  If you mean they picked certain points made by Wong, then yes, but how else do you debate a topic in our current form of language, as far as I know, we can only speak one word at a time. So maybe you could clarify that too..

  Remember, the only thing that counts here is whether man is responsible for climate change. In 20 yeas of research, and billions of dollars that could have gone to Africa, or Sth America, or dealing with the huge social problems in the USA, medical research – no actual real evidence has yet been found showing that our Co2 is responsible.

  Some things should destroy theory.. such as a persons theory that their cat is going to give berth to a ginger kitten because the father was Ginger. Well, when the kittens born and its black, that destroys a theory..  In the same way, if the IPCC and others say that Co2 is the main force that drives temeratures UP, then the last 15 years tells that something ELSE is pushing them down. The conclusion being, something else is more important. Do ya think we’ve spent a single second working that one out?  No. the evidence right there, blows AGW out of the water.  So did the causation debate, which IS settled now on both sides.. Temperature DRIVES Co2…another one destroyed.. and there’s so much more.. every week, every theory the IPCC has, the skeptics come up with tangible evidence debunking it.

  Have you actually read what certain individuals are set to make from this? Certain people that are lobbying government for this?  I’ll help – read this link…

  http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/07/cost-of-global-warming-greed.html

  The writer is a little full on, but every point he makes can be verified through independent sources, I checked. Information like this is everywhere.

  Comment by hewisond on 13 July 2009 at 11:56:44 PM

• Page 3 of 3

  Perhaps socialism is becoming more acceptable to some, it is not to me, and I will fight to the death to stop it coming.

  Cheers,
  Dave

  Comment by hewisond on 13 July 2009 at 11:56:22 PM

• Senator Fielding, if you do manage to get to talk to Al Gore perhaps you could ask him if he’s got his home power bill down yet.

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2153179/Al-Gores-electricity-bill-goes-through-the-insulated-roof.html

  No doubt he’d say he’s offsetting his huge home power use by buying carbon offsets from his own carbon offset company. Shame he didn’t turn his power off for earth hour either.

  Keep up the good work.

  Comment by Nick on 13 July 2009 at 10:43:06 PM

• Theodore Curly, if you are interested in long term trends then how about millions of years?

  http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

  “To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today—4400 ppm.”

  Comment by Nick on 13 July 2009 at 10:33:35 PM

• Red Star and RobertM, did you read Wong’s answers to Fieldings questions?

  I found the answers (at this link http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/wong/2009/tr20090624c.html) to be convincing.

  I found the critique of the answers by Fielding’s advisors to be at times cheap point scoring (eg Item 5.2) and at others just misleading or plain wrong science (eg Item 2.4). There was a lot of focus on cherry picking short term data results without looking at overall trends. They do themselves and their credibility a disservice.

  My conclusion is that Fielding did not go into the meeting with Wong with an “open mind” as he claims.

  I am disappointed with Fielding’s approach to this very important issue.

  Comment by theodore curly on 13 July 2009 at 10:04:15 PM

• Wow the debate about global warming is really hotting up.  But the temperatures are really cooling down.  A few years ago the arctic ice had shrunk by 30% and could clearly be seen in satellite photos.  However in current photos the arctic ice has increased by 30%.  The ice has regrown.  Temperatures must have got colder for ice to grow back.  If hotter temperatures melted the ice in the first place, then it cannot be still getting hotter now.  The facts do not support global warming.  Changes in the climate are being caused by the sun.

  Comment by Red Star on 13 July 2009 at 05:02:02 PM

• Steven
  I have just listened to a podcast of the “Encounter” program that was aired on the ABC yesterday. It will be available as a transcript soon. They spoke to 2 modern theologians talking about integrating religious beliefs with scientific understanding and the theological and ethical implications of climate change. Michael Northcott,  (?sp) an Anglican Theologian and Professor of Ethics at Edinburgh Uni talks about the ethics of global warming and Dr John Pokinhorn (sp) who has written a book called “Theology and the Context of Science” Michael Northcott does not agree with carbon trading and maintains that it is not working. but advocates other measures to reduce CO2 emissions. He says that we have to embrace CO2 emissions targets.

  Comment by tommo87 on 13 July 2009 at 02:17:52 PM

• Still doing a great job Senator, But I hope you also ask them to consider the fact that to date, after $50b has been spend over 20 years, no one has been able to find any evidence to connect Mans component of co2 to climate change.  personally, I would have thought thats a biggy when it comes to making policy to combat climate change. If we are not responsible for it, why are we compbating it and why arent we using those funds to directly help people in need or to adapt to the enevatable increase, or decrease in temperatures?

  Comment by hewisond on 13 July 2009 at 12:08:38 PM

• Well done Senator, think these politicians need to actually throw out their “Inconvenient Truth” documentaries and do some reading.  If they can’t manage to do that they can do something easier like watching a video with the whole story…

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMA6sszChwQ

  Comment by RobertM on 13 July 2009 at 02:10:49 AM

• I think I may move to New Zealand. Very dusturbing article…

  http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1893/Gore-US-Climate-Bill-Will-Help-Bring-About-Global-Governance

  Comment by hewisond on 13 July 2009 at 12:21:29 AM

• Stormboy, When you get some time I’d love to hear your thoughts on the victorian fires..  Dou you by any chance comment on Andrew Bolt’s blog from time to time? 

  Ive been away for the weekend, so during the next couple of days I will catch up on this one, untill then, Pete, Stormboy, take care,

  Dave.

  PS, Stormboy I will definately drop in on your web site.

  Comment by hewisond on 13 July 2009 at 12:01:53 AM

• PS: For anyone not familiar with the lead picture of the article in my link, it’s the one always used by supporters of the global climate change scare-mongers (like the BBC) because it shows plenty of those horrible poluting carbon emissions pouring from those horrible towers. What they always fail to mention is that what is seen belching from those towers is nothing but that life-supporting substance H2O.

  It really is time for us, the voters, to put a stop to this nonsense.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 11 July 2009 at 07:16:11 PM

• Hi Nick, nice link, but did you also look at the one next to it? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6196286.ece

  This scam sure is keeping lot and lots of scientists, jounalists, science fiction authors and politicians in work.

  Keep up the good work Senator Fielding and try to dend the message to those idiots leading us over here in the UK.

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climayte Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 11 July 2009 at 07:09:56 PM

• I just wanted o say thank you Senator Fielding for taking the time to understand the climate change issue and standing up to the foolishness of the Governments ETS scheme. The damage that will be done to Australian jobs and familes, all for a non issue, if it goes ahead is unforgivable. A good example is this article in the UK Times showing that 1.7 million households in the UK are likely to be driven into energy poverty by the ‘green’ policies of the UK Labour government.

  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6684912.ece
   
  Don’t let it happen here.

  Comment by Nick on 11 July 2009 at 02:18:06 PM

• Pete, I’ve got to agree; I’ve enjoyed this debate. It’s been great to talk to people like yourselves that are happy to discuss issues without automatically assuming anyone that disagrees with them is a bad person. Theodore Curly, I haven’t commented on anything you’ve said so far, but I agree; I think Penny Wong’s answers were good and I’ve appreciated having someone else here to share some of the heat.

  I regret that I don’t have the time to get into the many issues that get raised with every new post, both Pete & Dave have raised a lot of things I’d like to get into but it’s not going to be possible. I should say though Pete, you’re right, if Dr Spencer is just reproducing a graph then he’s not as sneaky as I thought. I think the graph is still sneaky for the reasons I said, but I take your point.

  Dave, yes I am an Aussie, hence the Stormboy name (I also enjoy a good thunderstorm or bit of wild weather). I’m an environmental scientist specialising in fire behaviour and management. You might call me left wing in some of my views whereas others would call me right wing. I don’t think I’m either - I know what I believe and I look for policies that I think will work. A lot of my thinking comes from what I understand to be Biblical priorities, eg the Bible gives the economy a lower priority than care for the environment, refugees or the poor. I don’t find many people that like that position so I spend a lot of time debating

  If I can get the time, I’ll have a go at some of the other issues we’ve discussed, but I have a pretty full life so I’m trying to back off a bit. Please don’t think I’m avoiding them as I have enjoyed this discussion immensely. If you don’t hear from me for a while, feel free to drop me a note at http://www.bloodwoodtree.org and stay on my back if necessary.

  All the best!

  Comment by Stormboy on 10 July 2009 at 08:09:53 PM

• theodore (curly), thanks for reminding me to heed my own advice, but don’t worry, I’m always wary of anyone who is trying to sell me something or take my money in some other way. I have been around long enough to recognise con-merchants (especially the political type) on most occasions. Talking about the IPCC (a politically driven organisation within the UN), I made reference to its honesty in my comment earlier today regarding historic atmospheric CO2 concentration record deduced from ice-cores. You may like the paper “A Simple Method to Correct Carbon Dioxide Concentrations in Ice Core Data … ” by J J Drake 17th May 2008 (Note 1), particularly Figs 4, 5 and 7 (and that lovely dose of correlation values, but beware, its statistics and we know what Disraeli and Lincoln said about those). It has been suggested that it completely destroys the IPCC argument about low levels of atmospheric CO2 before the industrial revolution. As Peter Ravenscroft said “If he is right, we have to see this lad gets a Nobel Prize. He just sank AGW”. Then again, he may, like so many before him, have become tangled up with his statistical manipulations, just like Peter (but he is prepared to acknowledge his mistakes - Note 3).

  There’s also lots of good stuff on CO2 concentrations at the Biocurs siter (Note 2)

  Dave (hewisond), I agree that when considering changes in global climates a 30-year period is more appropriate than 10 but I don’t think even 30 years is enough. As far as temperature changes are concerned, like any other trend it really does depend upon what you’re trying to achieve when using the trend. Being in the finance industry I’m sure you’re very aware of this. If all you wish to do is highlight how temperature has changed over the last 10 years, then you use the period of the last 10 years, etc, etc. Those of us who are sceptical of the hypothesis that our use of fossil fuels is causing increasing temperatures quite reasonably use the last 10 years as evidence that, despite increasing global fossil fuel use over that period (and the claimed consequent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration) there has been no (cor)related increase in global temperature. Contrary to what others may believe, I see no dishonesty or trickery in that.

  Hi, stormboy, don’t you come from Brisbane and make a living from selling surfing holidays?

  NOTES:
  1) see http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jdrake/Questioning_Climate/userfiles/Ice-core_corrections_report_1.pdf
  2) see http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm
  3) see http://www.freewebs.com/psravenscroft

  Happy reading and best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 10 July 2009 at 07:54:16 PM

• Stormboy, YOu dont need to aplogise, isnt it just part of the blogy debate?

  No offence taken and no applogy necessary!

  I’m no scientist and there is one hell of a lot of this that goes over my head.

  Comment by hewisond on 10 July 2009 at 04:50:24 PM

• Page 2 of 2

  meddling, its taking an opposite view and not meddling, but not making things worse. For that we need money and thriving economies, low unemployment etc.

  Governments only have one source of income. Tax. Tax from its people, and tax from its corporate. If you weaken the corporate you will weaken the people, which ends up in less tax. You’d shrinking the very thing that can save the planet. Money and the will to do it.  Money comes from Government and corporations..

  The will comes from votes and sentiment.

  So there you go.

  Anyway, I don’t know if we have a problem as described by the IPCC. We do have a climate fluctuation. But whether there’s anything we can do about it, I don’t know. I don’t think we ever will because we aren’t looking at other options. So in a way I hope we do have this particular issue, as we’re in much more trouble if it turns out to be something else. It would be like being treated for a heart condition, only to find out its cancer. Bugger. It would have been wise to look at other options. If I hadn’t have chosen a doctor that profits from heart research I guess it would have been different. By fault then. You will always find your desired problem if you look heard enough.

  I do know that the so called solution is lunacy.

  Cheers,
  Dave.

  PS by the way are you a fellow Aussie? If not where are you from?——hang on.. “Stormboy” ok I think I answered my own question. Classic film.. gee I haven’t seen it for many many years.

  Comment by hewisond on 10 July 2009 at 04:48:27 PM

• Page 1 of 2

  Hi Stormboy,

  I have a headache. And worse there is no Nurofen at hand.

  Ok, I still think we actually agree on the trend argument. I remember David Evens saying somewhere that you really need a minimum of 30 years to conclude an up or down trend. 10 years is not enough as far as my non scientific mind goes.

  But to respond to your summary:

  1.  Using exactly the same argument, the Co2 warming hypothesis cannot be counted as proof for AGW. In fact your argument only confirms our skepticism.
  2.  I agree.

  Your right that we have no trend basis. Except recent data – that, as you say isn’t a trend. I can’t argue with that. Mind you, you can get up trends and down trends just by choosing the right time frame. The current flat period might be a trend top? Who knows. It might mean nothing at all. We don’t know.

  I would also like to acknowledge that you made the distinction between climate and temperature as many do not make that. We do tend to generalize in our comments which leads to further inaccuracies. And given we are simply interested (emotively so) rather than scientists that only makes the situation worse.

  I respect your opinion and agree with some of it. Remember, I am a skeptic which means only that I want to question. I am not a non believer, I have not totally made my mind up – you could cal me (I hate this word) a denier if that were true.  I used to be a believer, until I read mounting evidence that supported the idea that Co2 was not to blame. I will again be a believer if that evidence is debunked.

  What I can absolutely guarantee though is that I am totally against the Environmental movement that use this subject to leverage their agenda. I love the planet as I am sure we all do. I also understand you have to find a mix of industry and of respect for earth to be able to sustain the global population. These things are real and I doubt we are about to poison half of them to safe the planet – although I’m sure some greens would approve of that.

  We have a growing population, we have to house them, feed them, water then, educate them, free enterprise them so they can self sustain and grow and have the understanding, money and knowledge to be able to manage themselves. This is the only way to approach the massive problems we have on earth not to spoon feed people, not to keep them repressed in the name of CC so that I can keep driving my Alfa to work.

  To keep this planet beautiful, 1) we need to stop meddling in it. 2) educate the masses (Including 3rd world). 3 strengthen our ability to adapt and create ways to prosper without doing harm to the environment.. that means not taking a politically left approach and

  Comment by hewisond on 10 July 2009 at 04:47:18 PM

• Pete Ridley, i note your comment on temperature record reconstruction QUOTE My only comment is – beware reconstructions which mingle data from different sources UNQUOTE. The graph you directed us to on Singer’s website is apparently the average of 18 different data sources, none of which are tree rings, and are stitched together in some way. So beware!

  Comment by theodore curly on 10 July 2009 at 01:37:35 PM

• PART 1

  Dave (hewisond), if you’re referring to my comment about losing your computer then I made a comment about such threat to me by my wife and grandson. I have found your comments very constructive and informative (and on occasions amusing) and not just because you have similar views to mine. I find the sae with the contributions of others who have opposing opinions.

  Dear other readers (and Dave), I hope that you feel as I do that the debate here is worthwhile and thought provoking. None of us appears to have changed our fundamental position on the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis but I think that our understanding of the opposite opinion is better from the debate. I also think that there are many areas of agreement over the issue of wasting resources (of any sort) and the plight of the underprivileged.

  I think we are all to be commended for our efforts so far in researching and presenting our arguments, as well as for the respect we have shown each other on most occasions. I would be very disappointed if the debate were now to dry up. Perhaps Steve Fielding could find the time to respond to some of the concerns expressed about his position and the questions he raised with Penny Wong.. I shall certainly persevere with comments here and elsewhere.

  You may be interested in looking at the UK Daily Mail’s 8th July article “Hysteria is the real threat, not global warming” by Andrew Alexander (Note 1). Being sceptical of the hypothesis I consider it to be an excellent article but others may see flaws in it. I’m particularly pleased to see that of the 23 comments from readers so far 21 support Alexander’s opinion. That’s very encouraging. If that is a true reflection of UK opinion, over 90% of the population reject the opinion of those who support the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis while less than 10% support it. Wonderful – perhaps people aren’t as gullible as some might believe.

  Phil (Stormboy) on 09th July @ 08:17 you said “I will point out that Dr Spencer has been a bit tricky with his graph, cutting off the bold line around 1960 and cutting off the x axis entirely at 2000 so that it appears our current temperatures are below the Medieval Warm Period when they’re already 0.2 degrees warmer. Are you sure that you are stating facts here? As I see it, Dr. Spencer simply copies, without any modification, a graph produced by Loehle and McCulluch (Note 2) then adds a dotted line which extends the graph to 2000 with a curve that appears to have used the same data as the IPCC in its graph. Dr, Spencer provides a direct link to his source graph then does no more than use the graph to claim quite reasonably that “It clearly shows that natural climate variability happens, and these proxies coincide with known events in human history” (Note 3). I see nothing to justify claiming that “Dr Spencer has been a bit tricky with his graph”. Unless I’m missing the obvious I think you owe it to Dr. Spencer to substantiate your claim.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 10 July 2009 at 08:25:56 AM

• PART 1a

  Also, please would you clarify your claim that “.. the IPCC models temperatures based on natural forcing alone compared to natural plus anthropogenic forcing”. Having reviewed the IPPC AR4 WG1 scientific report I understand that the IPCC forecasts of future global temperatures are based upon the yet to be validated hypothesis that our use of fossil fuels causes human-made forcing via increase atmospheric CO2 concentration levels derived from yet to be validated hypothetical scenarios.  You say that “Dr Spencer and others make the point that there may be some natural feedback that overwhelms the anthropogenic trend. They then say that these natural forces have been deliberately omitted by the IPCC, at the same time admitting that as yet they are unproven hypotheses”. I have no problem with that, since we know so little about global climate processes and drivers.  On the other hand it appears to me to be highly illogical for you to say on the one hand you “..  agree with not using unproven hypotheses .. ” then on the other say “we need to take action on what we have and not cry foul because someone else doesn’t want to use our unsupported theory”. I read this as you expecting sceptics to agree to take potentially damaging action against an unvalidated hypothesis that you support but reject an unvalidated hypothesis that they prefer.
  I don’t agree that “A graph is not just the data, it’s also the story it tells about the data”. The graphs that we are debating are a pictorial representation of source measurement data which has been subjected to numerous statistical manipulations. The story that is told from those graphs is highly dependent upon the form that manipulation takes. The IPCC graph tells a very different story” from that told by the graph of Loele and McCulloch for the simple reason that the source data have been manipulated in a manner that supports the story that each storey-teller wishes to tell. That’s one of the beauties of statistical analysis. As has been said before ““There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” (Note 4).

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 10 July 2009 at 08:25:37 AM

• PART 2

  This leads us nicely into the matter of honesty and politicians and political organisations (like the IPCC). “Putting a little line over the last few years suggests that this is a valid analysis of the statistics when it isn’t and the IPCC have the honesty not to do it”. Perhaps you are a little too trusting of the IPCC. Try comparing the SPMs with the scientific reports then get back to me (and don’t forget the “Hockey stick curve”.

  
  theodore (curly), on 09 July @ 11:35 you directed us to a useful Wiki graph presenting “Reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the last 1,000 years according to various older articles (bluish lines), newer articles (reddish lines), and instrumental record (black line)”. My only comment is – beware reconstructions which mingle data from different sources, especially when the IPCC is involved. The IPCC also does this for the claimed historical atmospheric CO2 record, mixing data from ice cores with data from the top of an active volcano alongside other active volcanoes. In order to “align” the two sources of data an arbitrary 83-year “adjustment” of time lines was found to be necessary. Another example of IPCC honesty, no doubt. Reminds me of our ex-Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair who claiomed that he was an “honest kind of guy” then told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ready to launch within a few minutes. (he converted to Roman Catholicism and is now angling to become the first President of the European Union, bless him).

  It’s also worth reading the text on “Quantitative methods using proxy data” alongside the second graph on that site (which presents the statistically manipulated data from the “Instrumental Temperature record of the last 150 years” – but read it carefully.

  NOTES:
  1) see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1198188/Hysteria-real-threat-global-warming.html?ITO=1490
  2) see http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/AGW/Loehle/SupplementaryInfo.pdf
  3) see http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-background-articles/2000-years-of-global-temperatures/
  4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

  
  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 10 July 2009 at 08:24:30 AM

• Dave, my apologies for jumping to a conclusion about you avoiding my point, perhaps we’re just speaking different languages and I feel that my point is more clear than it really is. I’ll try to rephrase it and use your quote to work from.

  You said: “First, one of the foundations of AGW is that the more gas we pump into the sky the warmer we get – it’s linier (which it’s not). So why are we cooling? That raises a question as to what is cooling us, its not a trend question. As the IPCC and the Government have said from the very beginning, Co2 is the main driver of our warming climate. So if it’s been cooling, something else must be the main driver.”

  Firstly, the claim is that CO2 and other greenhouse gases (2 notable examples that the IPCC have been examining the whole time are methane and water vapour) drive the warming climate. The fundamental word here is climate. To examine the climate means that we have to examine trends that cover significantly longer periods than the cycles or the natural variability that compose them. In short, that means that we cannot say “the climate is cooling” unless the average annual temperature is still falling at around 2022 after we’ve had a couple of natural cycles. If there is a decadal cycle, then that means 20 years is more like 2 points on the graph than 20.

  The other issue is the idea of starting at 1998 or 2002. It’s not statistically valid to start at a date that does not represent a relevant event. We can start counting 30 years ago for instance because that was when we had both surface and tropospheric readings. We can start at the end of the 19th century because people back then like Arvid Gustav Hogbom (no, I didn’t make that up) and others looked at the amount of CO2 being released through industrialisation and based on lab studies that proved CO2 to be a greenhouse gas made the risky prediction that it was going to cause massive warming. Arvid and his mates had a clear causative factor to use. Just on that, we need to be clear that there is no debate on whether CO2 can cause greenhouse warming; David Evans wrote in Fieldings supporting document (http://sciencespeak.com/NoEvidence.pdf) “Yes, CO2 was proven to be a greenhouse gas in laboratories over a century ago” (p3), and after showing the exact amount of warming that it could produce without any other GHG or feedback said “These calculations are validated by laboratory experiments, and are not in dispute.” The debate is not about CO2, it’s about the feedbacks that may theoretically overwhelm it.

  If we want to measure from 1998 or 2002, we need to have some other equally verifiable cause. If we’re saying that it’s a long-term solar cycle, we need to have evidence that something changed at that time. To my knowledge, we don’t have that, there is no proven mechanism to account for a cooling climate (cooling weather yes, cooling climate no). Now it’s perfectly valid for someone to say “there are indications that solar activity… or preliminary data suggests that increased cloud cover as a result of greater evaporation may…” That’s perfectly fine, but the point is that they cannot make a definite statement such as “global warming cannot continue because…” unless they have a proven mechanism that can overwhelm the others that we do know.

  So to try and summarise:

  1) to find a valid starting point in 1998 or 2002, we have to have a proven cause for cooling. If we have a possible cause that is not yet proven, we can investigate it as a hypothesis but we can’t yet use it to argue with because it’s a hypothesis, not evidence. There is no other valid reason for choosing 1998 or 2002 to measure from; doing so is statistical fraud.

  2) If we do find a valid cause then we can measure from those years, but we will not have a trend until we have passed at the very least 2 wavelengths of every weather cycle that we are aware of to effectively give us 2 dots on the graph.

  What this means is that we have no basis whatsoever to say that the climate is cooling, even if all temperature datasets said that there has been a consistent trend since 1998, which they don’t. Does this make more sense?

  Thanks, mate, have a good day.

  Comment by Stormboy on 10 July 2009 at 08:23:38 AM

• Oh Stormboy, I think I finished my comment kinda.. mid comment.. I Was in a hurry ...

  At the end of yoru post you talk abotu acting preemptively, which is a sensible option if you know what your acting pre-emptivly for.

  We dont knwo whther we are cooling, or warming, some scientist (AGW believing ones) say that the current warming will only last another 10 years then go to cooling..

  
  For a precautionalry principle to work, we need to know what it is we are trying to fend off.

  The Skeptic view is that its better to know the varioables, which we already do, its better to know that temperature will go up and down, and know how to adapt as this is infromation we know now.

  So yeah, that pretty much rounds of my stance on things!

  Comment by hewisond on 09 July 2009 at 01:35:16 PM

• Theordore, Whatever view you have formed, I wish there were more like you willling to find out what information there is rather than just act like a sheep.

  I have to say im getting to a similar stage as you, its beginning to get too advanced for me to make a judgement past what ive already made.. im not a scientist!... very complex stuff, but so far, from what ive read and understand, I am still a skeptic, I have much more of a problem with the solution though..

  Anyway, take care,
  Dave.

  Comment by hewisond on 09 July 2009 at 12:45:27 PM

• Page 1 of 4

  Phew.. Stormboy, It’s nice to be challenged!  Also thank you for the compliment by the way I appreciate it – albeit misguided!!   The Australian Article though I didn’t find very interesting…

  Now to try to tackle some of the points you’ve made. Ill keep this one as short as I can, partly because I have a meeting to get to and I have this nasty habit of going off in tangents and never returning..

  OK, I think you’ve made a very good point in your second paragraph, where you comment that if you campaign to get better rail, cars etcetera, whilst you don’t follow through on the point, I assume you meant that if you decided to buy shares in these businesses, your following free market capitalism. True. There is a big difference however. Having better rail systems, more economical cars have measureable positive effects on society that are in-arguable.  We are running out of oil, one could argue that there is a whole heap more that we haven’t found yet,  but it is a resource that will run out one day.. It’s common sense to lobby for alternatives and smart business to invest in the technological solutions. I believe this is a very different argument though.

  You are not lobbying to regulate or create surcharges/taxes on our primary source of energy, which in effect will cost everyone, regardless of whether they believe in the reasoning or not. Your investing in a product, that you feel will have a market because either consumers decide by their own free will to buy in, or oil runs out so they have buy in. In the latter case, we aren’t talking an ideology, or a faith or a belief, we are talking about a resource that no longer exists and so they HAVE to buy this product if they wish to have transport.

  Lets face it, Bakelite used to be the bees knees. These days I cant buy it, even if I wanted to. (It’s the predecessor to plastic).

  I have to say that whilst I am a skeptic it is obvious to me there are business opportunities to be seized and I personally have no problem with that, as I said, that’s smart business and one of the great things about our society is we are free to make our own choices – good or bad.

  Al Gore, and I use him as he a stark example, is doing something very different. He has created an empire centered around the Environment and Co2 reduction and it can be argued that he has fabricated evidence and fictionalized science to help sell his point. He’s established a Carbon Credit Company and he is a man of extreme influence in government.

  He was responsible for the establishment of the original concept that has become what we call today – cap and trade and he was one of the main players in the creation of the concept of Carbon Credits.  He was also mainly responsible for making this issue mainstream through his documentary.

  Comment by hewisond on 09 July 2009 at 12:40:35 PM

• Page 2 of 4

  Finally, he’s the chairman of a legal firm that will be given the task of writing the legislation and so on..  now there’s much more than that, but this will do.

  His movie which made the subject popular has been proven to be a fiction by a court of the UK. Also, none of his predictions are happening and his historical accounts in his film are out of context and totally inaccurate. But it spoke volumes to the masses.

  He is lobbying the government as we speak to push through the cap and trade.  A system that will personally make him millions. A system that will not only force everyone, not consumers that choose to, but everyone have to pay considerably more just to live eat and well.. exist. A system that will inevitably shrink the market, reduce supply and demand, reduce consumption on .. everything which in turn increases unemployment, which will increase interest rates, lead to inflation which will start that same cycle off again.. spiral down and crash and burn. The poor are always the ones that bear the brunt of this. They do not have the resources to adapt. In thriving economies, the poor make the wealthy in 3rd world nations look middle class. Everyone benefits from a strong economy – except those that choose TV over work, but even they benefit through welfare (That was a sweeping comment I know)

  Every step along the way, he makes millions if not billions. He is pushing to make it law, that you will have to pay for Co2, which he directly benefits from. You have to remember, he is the man driving this. We, the masses, the taxpayer, whatever you want to call us will have no choice in the matter. And when we ask for some justification, there is non except we are told the science is settled, the debate is over. In other words – do as we say. Utopian society. By its very nature, a utopian society cannot exist for it relies on man being perfect – which he’s not. Hence the fall of socialism. It is about what she should be, not what we are.

  There are many examples of individuals that are the same as Gore.  However, the new industries that have been born from this, I agree with you, they are playing the game you play as a capitalist, they’d be silly not to.. they’re being smart business people and I hold nothing against them.

  In this country (Australia), if an individual connected to Government, tried to influence government for personal profit, can you imagine what would happen? They’d be hung out to dry. But, if you wrap it up properly, in this case in green coloured paper, maybe you’d get away with it? I don’t know.

  I haven’t mentioned the most important point yet. If we ran out of oil, then we would be forced through fact (running out of oil) and necessity(we need transport) to buy the alternative – even if it is more expensive.

  But in this case, a group of people (Self interested ones– they have a vested interest in government moving forward on this ), including Gore, who are influencing Government to change laws, that will force us to pay extra for energy, using fear & guilt as the vehicle – not fact, on the basis that if we don’t we will have a climate apocalypse never seen and

  Comment by hewisond on 09 July 2009 at 12:40:10 PM

• Page 3 of 4

  we will never recover from it. They are threatening that if do nothing, cities will be underwater. Disease will wipe us out, droughts will take over, and cyclones will destroy us and {insert catastrophe here}.  The same people tell us the science is settled. And that the debate is over. So, they are stopping debate, blocking open discussion and alternatives. Instead of looking for any other likely causes of Climate Change they are in effect forcing us to only consider one possible cause. That in it’s self is a crime against the planet. For, if there is something else which we are not addressing thanks to the AGW hysteria, and we only find out when its too late, then what sort of precautionary principle is that?

  Worse still, or possibly just as bad, they are influencing Government not on fact or evidence but on faith. Climate Science is still unknown, we maybe know 5%. So they want to you pay them all this money on the foundation of a science that is yet to be proven and as time goes on, more evidence is piling up suggesting in fact its is plain wrong.

  That is not capitalism. That’s socialism.

  You touched on the last 10 years or so of cooling and its apparent meaning. Well, as you know its too shorter time frame in my mind. I apologise if you think we are avoiding the issue.. I didn’t think I was, so here goes again.

  First, one of the foundations of AGW is that the more gas we pump into the sky the warmer we get – it’s linier (which it’s not). So why are we cooling? That raises a question as to what is cooling us, its not a trend question. As the IPCC and the Government have said from the very beginning, Co2 is the main driver of our warming climate. So if it’s been cooling, something else must be the main driver. Until recently they even denied the existence of climate variability which they now cite as part of the evidence that proves them right about co2, which again, contradicts arguments prior, but supports the cooling they didn’t expect in the last 10 years. Changing the story to suit an outcome is not good science or business.. it’s bullshit land.

  So I guess the point is, that if you say that you have a square box hidden somewhere, but your holding a round lid, you cant reasonable say that the lid is proof that you actually have the box. For 2 reasons, 1, having a lid to a box doesn’t prove you have a box – assumed correlation but trivial. And 2, a round lid does not fit a square box.

  That’s really the argument at the moment.. but I’m no scientist – read the latest due diligence from the meeting with Wong, it was only released very recently.. I warn you though, its 50 pages.

  http://www.stevefielding.com.au/images/uploads/7._Carter-Evans-Franks-Kininmonth_Due_Diligence_on_Wong-Z__.pdf

  I’ll let the experts explain 

  Comment by hewisond on 09 July 2009 at 12:39:39 PM

• Page 4 of 4

  And finally, you are right, letting the markets decide can be harsh on the poor – every system has its good and bad. You cant have one without the other. And yes, over time it does equal out as markets, like living things, are alive and find balance. Products will get cheaper as demand rises and trickles to the poorer sectors. But Governments are much worse when they start getting involved in the markets.. they may make it more accessible to the poor, but the on costs of the waste, inefficiencies , slowed growth, slowed technological advancements cost everyone more. Which in the end will cost the poor too. So either way they lose. Really, it comes back to one thing. We’ve talked about it before.  We need to take responsibility for ourselves. In this country that is all but a memory.

  Anyway, I respect we differ in opinion, and as you might be bowing out I want to take this opportunity to thank you for some extremely enjoyable blogging. As with Pete_Ridley, it was refreshing discussing the issues without the name calling. Who ever is right, it’s the debate and the dialogue that counts – at least then whatever the outcomes turn out to be, they are solidly based.

  Pete – I don’t remember making that comment? Are you sure it was me?  If it wasn’t me, I’ll make sure I come up with something equally as good though! 

  There you go, see.. .4 pages again.

  Take care,

  Dave.

  Comment by hewisond on 09 July 2009 at 12:39:16 PM

• I came to this blog to better understand how Fielding came to his decision. This is what I found.

  I found the Wong answers (which Fielding did not provide a link to) to be convincing.

  I found the critique of the answers by Fielding’s advisors to be at times cheap point scoring (eg Item 5.2) and at others just misleading or plain wrong science (eg Item 2.4). There was a lot of focus on cherry picking short term data results without looking at overall trends. They do themselves and their credibility a disservice.

  My conclusion is that Fielding did not go into the meeting with Wong with an “open mind” as he claims.

  I am disappointed with Fielding’s approach to this very important issue.

  I take some comfort in that I live in Victoria and will be voting at the next Senate election.

  
  (PS On the positive side I have learnt a lot about the “skeptics” point of view and will certainly be watching the latest developments and data. I really hope the skeptics are right, but my conclusion is that we have sufficient evidence and knowledge of consequences and that we have to act now)

  Comment by theodore curly on 09 July 2009 at 11:59:40 AM

• Pete Ridley, your comment is fair enough.  It shows what happens with loose language. My point was that from my personal perspective in trying to understand Fieldings decision, I am not that concerned about the historic debate on atmospheric temperatures if ocean heat content is the more appropriate measure. Having said that I believe that Fig 1(atmospheric temperature) in Fielding’s Q1 still shows a global warming trend continuing with the current flattening out consistent with previous gyrations in the trend. Similarly the oceanic heat content trend.

  In respect to the link, I was trying to point you to Reference 11 in the wikipedia article that you have identified. I thought the abstract was clear.

  In respect to the 2000 year graph, I can see the point. In trying to understand this I found alternative graphs which go to 2004 such as this
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record_of_the_past_1000_years.

  If the last 70 years from the above link is added to the Singer chart then it gives a different impression? However I recognise that I am going beyond my ability to judge.

  Comment by theodore curly on 09 July 2009 at 11:35:12 AM

• Dave, I think your article was quite as good as the one from The Australian, thanks for putting the time in. I agree that some individuals are probably making a fortune out of it, but isn’t that the point of free markets? Don’t get me wrong, I feel the same way you do about profiting from disaster, but isn’t this is all part of market economics?

  To use an outside but related example - I campaign a bit to get better rail systems, more economical cars, alternative energy sources, localised food production etc because the data says that world oil supply has probably peaked last year. This means that oil prices will fluctuate wildly for a little while as markets adjust, then they will go into an irreversable climb as demand consistently outstrips supply. Now if I was a share-buying kind of bloke and was convinced that this was the case, wouldn’t it be smart to invest in an industry that I thought was going to take off as a result (eg compressed air car or something)? If I do so, will that automatically mean that anything I now say about peak oil is invalid? I agree that it allows for vested interests, I don’t agree that we no longer need to look at the science.

  This is probably where I’ll start to withdraw a bit from this debate (we may save your computer yet Pete), I think that I’ve made my point on Mr Fielding’s use of statistics and with respect, I think it’s been avoided. I’m told that the data says the climate is cooling, when all of our datasets show us 100 years of warming with 7 little blips along the way (1 big one in the middle from the aerosol thing). I’m then told that 100 years isn’t enough data to establish a trend, but 10 years is, even though we have a Decadal Cycle as well as other less regular ones in that time frame. I’m not sure how to debate that, I don’t think it’s a logical argument. 

  Pete, I have looked at your 2000 year graph and I understand your point. It’s not a new one, it has been considered by many climate scientists and forms a big part of the IPCC analysis. I will point out that Dr Spencer has been a bit tricky with his graph, cutting off the bold line around 1960 and cutting off the x axis entirely at 2000 so that it appears our current temperatures are below the Medieval Warm Period when they’re already 0.2 degrees warmer. But yes, there are natural climate cycles which is why the IPCC models temperatures based on natural forcing alone compared to natural plus anthropogenic forcing. Dr Spencer and others make the point that there may be some natural feedback that overwhelms the anthropogenic trend. They then say that these natural forces have been deliberately omitted by the IPCC, at the same time admitting that as yet they are unproven hypotheses. Sorry, but I agree with not using unproven hypotheses. Like the solar cycle idea they may disprove the whole hypothesis in time, but they may like many other ideas also turn out quite differently when the data does come in. Until it does, we need to take action on what we have and not cry foul because someone else doesn’t want to use our unsupported theory.

  On Mr Fielding’s claim about using the IPCC graph, thanks for your explanation Pete and I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt too, but it’s not quite as simple as you say. A graph is not just the data, it’s also the story it tells about the data. Putting a little line over the last few years suggests that this is a valid analysis of the statistics when it isn’t and the IPCC have the honesty not to do it. The IPCC graph tells a very different story.

  One word on markets again; letting the markets decide is much more harsh on the poor. If I could use the oil example again, we could do nothing and let the market decide for us. This would mean that fuel prices would go through the roof, forcing the manufacture of new super-economical cars. It would also mean that lower income people couldn’t afford the petrol just as they can’t afford the Prius, so they go without while the priveleged ones go ahead. Some car companies go out of business as a result, but yes, in time it will settle into some new equilibrium. But the new equilibrium will have been an event of natural selection - the strong have survived, the weak have gone. Acting pre-emptively allows us to at least soften that blow.

  Comment by Stormboy on 09 July 2009 at 08:17:41 AM

• I’d just like to let you all know that tonight I hit a milestone in life. I outdid myself actually…

  I made the best Red Chicken Curry I have every made, i think i may even go as far as say it was.. perfect!

  I ate too much though, i have a stomach ache :(

  But where to from here?

  If anyone wants the recipe, feel free to ask!

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 09:33:56 PM

• I have to say i’m a little bit freaked out by this, as a friend of mine sent me this link a secon ago, which perfectly communicates the piont i was making before - that Green is not about the science, in fact, you dont even neeed to look at the science to know that global warming is a tool, not a fact… the Australian article is a great example of the money being made, but check this one out..

  this is twice today this has happened now - *looking over my shoulder.*

  http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/07/cost-of-global-warming-greed.html

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 08:57:29 PM

• Dave (hewisond), I loved your comment (you’ll be getting your computer hidden as well if your not careful). Bjorn Lomborg would be proud of you.

  theodore (curly), your comment about whether or not global warming is continuing (and I have no argument with the conclusion that multiple statistical manipulations of suspect raw measurement data suggests this) is interesting.  “If .. it is agreed (including by Fielding’s advisors) that the best measure of this is Ocean Heat Content (as it accounts for 85% of the increased warming vs 5% in the atmosphere) then why are we getting hung up on previous statements about atmosphere? The ocean evidence shows that global warming is continuing” then you seem to be suggesting that any previous debate over the claimed global surface warming is now irrelevant and we should start all over again, concentrating on ocean temperatures.

  If that’s what you mean, then perhaps all plans for changing global energy sources and economies derived so far about human-made global warming science, including IPCC reports, be put on the back burner until the climate processes and drivers involving the aquasphere are understood to a useful degree. I’m obviously misunderstanding what you’re saying here. Please would you clarify for me.

  I tried your link but it didn’t work for me. Any ideas? I did a search and only found two references, Wikipedia (Note 1) and an invitation from sciencedirect to buy a paper (which I never do. I’m always suspicious of anything to do with the financial vested interest).  Also, I’m surprised you had no comment to make on the 2000 year graph I linked to. As I implied in my comment, “I agree with you that there seems to be a lot of selective “cherry picking” going on” on both sides of the debate.

  Phil (Stormboy), as with theodore, I’m surprised you had no comment to make on the 2000 year graph I linked to.

  Notes:
  1) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils-Axel_Mörner

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 08 July 2009 at 06:37:52 PM

• Stormboy, I just came accross the following article in todays Australian.

  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25724257-7583,00.html

  It explains perfectly what I was trying to in my last (long) post. It helps to be a journo!

  QUOTE - THE word environmentalist usually conjures images of down-at-heel campaigners in tie-dyed T-shirts who eat only organic muesli. In truth, going green has become big business. We are witnessing the emergence of a green-industrial complex, an alliance between national governments, corporations and powerful individuals that is using the politics of fear to transform the economic and political worlds. END QUOTE

  It also answers perfecty why I do NOT support any of the anti carbon measures in place.

  And it highlights why, so many are so eager to preach..

  “the debate is over…”
  “the science is settled”
  “The time is now!”
  “Act now before its too late!”
  Aaaaa MEN! Alleluluah! seriously… I do often think that this really is a religion - if it werent for the MASSIVE profits involved.. although, if we hear about them applying for tax exemptions. wellllllllll… hehehehe.

  If i had never read any of the science.. If I had never even known there were skeptics..  After reading this, I wouldnt even need the science to know we are being taken for a ride.

  Read and and come to your own conclusions, I’d be very interested to hear your views.

  Take care,

  Dave.

  PS Pete, I recomend reading that article, nothing in there is new, but its well presented and written.. very interesting.

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 12:54:02 PM

• Stormboy, another clarification, its hard writing all these blogs when im tryingt o get work done, so i miss things.

  The argument that Co2 and Temperature are closely connected is bing used everywhere, they say its linier.

  The fact that in the last 10 years the earth has cooled, but co2 riosen, says the correlation is not there, aned it snot linier. Its not the be in and end all, but its another nail.. if you know what i mean.

  I also want to comment that I agree with yo uthat we must take personal responsibilty for out waiste, in fact everything we dop. The planet is still precious.. Im just arguing that Co2 is harmless.  Pete_Ridley says it better than I QUOTE “If it all turns out in a while that it was just a solar cycle and we’re heading for cooler times .. “ then we will have caused serious damage to already damaged global economies and unnecessary suffering for many deprived people around the globe. Also, I note your frequent use of the word “if”. That’s the main problem with climate science today, there are too many “ifs”, “buts” and “maybes’. UNQUOTE

  I want the best for the planet - this… is not the best.

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 11:58:40 AM

• Pete_Ridley - I hear you!

  Excellent comment by the way.

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 11:52:53 AM

• Well, I guess you’ll understand when ocean temps do not reflect what you want them to, and then move to somehting else that does reflect whatever your leaning is.

  If you dont get it, I cant do much about that.

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 11:42:29 AM

• Page 1 of 4

  Stormboy,

  If we are able to prove scientifically that we are to blame, and Co2 is the gas causing it, then of course we should be responsible and do something about it. I have no argument with that.

  Given that we are ‘doing something about it’ now, the only solution model I can comment on is the one we have, which is ETS and cap and trade. Both systems are very flawed and in fact have been proven to be totally ineffective. Refer to Europe’s experience, both in its lack of ability to do what it’s designed for, that is reduce gasses and the job losses and economic (Not GFC related) slowdown its caused over the years. It’s causing real people to suffer, something you will empathize with as a Christian. There’s also the people that are in abject poverty that are being left behind, so it’s a double edged sword to me.

  If we are to blame, Australia accounts for less than 1.5% of the global total of man made co2 output. It would certainly send a message to other countries if we switch on our ETS now, that’s for sure, but we seem to forget that other countries are only interested in themselves, as we are. In effect, we will alter our economy in respect to, being uncompetitive which means our export market will dive, the value of our currency will suffer (I trade the Foreign Exchange Market, this is a subject I am very familiar with), locally our prices will skyrocket, the poor and middle class will suffer the most. Given our economy is consumer based, which means the engine of our local economy is the poor (consumables) and middle class (services, consumables, luxury, property) will slow down, driving unemployment even deeper. I don’t want to make this an economic lesson, but, like the climate the economy is a system. Whilst the ETS will costs jobs directly in some industries, the overall effect on the economy will be immensely damaging. Indirectly it will be a disaster.

  All that for no net effect on the environment. I know that the message we send is good, feeling good is not smart in this case. Feeling good is not justification to hurt people, cause them to lose their houses, raise unemployment, interest rates, inflation… I’d like to know – who will feel good in the end? Well I do know, but its not the ones that most people think.

  On the other hand, again, if the science proves we are the ones causing the warming, and we wait for the rest of the world, or at least the major polluters to act, then we are playing on a level playing field and we will not be as disadvantaged as we would be if went at it on our own.

  You have to keep a grip on common sense and remember that we have built a society, driven by economic forces that no one person has control over. Mass psychology runs free market economies. The market will give the consumer what they want. Period. Why? ‘cos there’s money in it. Everything this ETS is marketed to do, the free market will do better, faster and more efficiently.

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 11:40:22 AM

• Page 2 of 4

  Now, the problem with the ETS is that it’s an ill-considered piece of legislation that solves nothing, but costs enormously. It forces a whole new socio-economic group into welfare, it subsidizes the biggest polluters.. it pays for the poor, so now we have a system where in fact it’s the middle class that will be hurt.. like never before. We’re all trying to makes ends meet, we are struggling to keep our jobs so that we can feed our kids, have a roof over our head.. Make no mistake… if it goes through, you’d better be comfortable with a change in lifestyle, and I mean a complete change.. given 90% of people cannot deal with change well, as a Christian – how do you think that will effect us as a community?  Our Government is now telling us that climate change will be responsible for a mass increase in mental illness. Yes, but their forgetting something.. it’s Mental illness onset caused by the ETS, which was brought on by Climate Change! Ironic.

  Here’s the ugly part, as if that’s not ugly enough, the people behind this drive of human induced climate alarmism are getting rich of their message. I have no problem with people making their fortunes, I love hearing about it, it inspires me to get to the top of my game. However, I do not like it when it’s at the direct expense of people that can not fend for themselves.

  Al Gore Lobbies the US Government, owns business that directly benefit from the decisions the US Government make as a result of his lobbying. Not just his Carbon Credit company, but his law firm, his speaking engagements.. many more too. Are you aware of the numbers we’re talking about?

  Politicians are making money out of this, there are industries popping up rolling the money in, as long as the climate scare continues. Companies get government assistance if their developing technology that will tackle climate change.. you know it doesn’t matter what it is they develop.. it might be a piece of wood carved into a butterfly, they still get the money. People are taking advantage of this everywhere!. Oil companies know what the public sentiment is, so they’re on it too, looking good, fighting the devil, looking for better ways to produce oil! Haha, oil is, I’m afraid, oil.

  Green groups are raking it in too, doing as much damage to the coal power industry as they can, yet they block nuclear, the cleanest safest energy source there is.

  Media profit from it, they use the power station picture to make their point to sell papers, to shock people! All that – STEAM – pouring out those stakes. Disgusting. People don’t know that the white smoke is in fact steam, water vapour.. totally harmless, they think its Co2 spewing into the sky, in fact, nowhere do you read that the emissions from coal powers stations are negligible these days. A cow’s fart is worse.

  Then you have scientists. There’s an idiot scientist that writes on this site sometimes, I cant think of his name.. he runs a web site, devoted to AGW. His day job at the Adelaide University is to study the adverse effects of man on climate..  he certainly wont be acknowledging any opposing views.. he’d then have to close his department down if he did! Then the scientist that rely on grants to demonstrate a connection to AGW or you miss out. The comments you see around making those claims, they are true.

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 11:40:02 AM

• Page 3 of 4

  demonstrate a connection to AGW or you miss out. The comments you see around making those claims, they are true.

  So, the industry monster, which includes scientists, lobby groups, commercial industry, government, individuals and media have just too much to lose. The skeptics have nothing to lose, show me a skeptic that profits from this. And if you can, that’s great, the balance is well and truly on the side of the believer though.

  The argument that the ETS and Green industry will stimulate the economy has about as much credit as me saying that snorting drugs on Sundays makes me a better father.  That is what we call a totally unjustified statement with no logic whatsoever. Its also called cherry picking. Sure, a green car will employ say 200 people. Yay! The media don’t say that 800 had to lose their job across the road for it. The job losses associated to this will be huge; the job growth associate will be tiny. We need to move to a cleaner more technical society, but transitionally, as the market wants it.. Natural balances are critical in markets.

  With all these interest groups, most likely the majority of which have climate furthest from their minds, Money, votes, power, staying employed are the things that drives them (no different to any one of us), not climate. It’s not suprising its such a global issue with very powerful forces driving it.  Do I support the solution as it stands? No.

  Do you think the ETS is the answer? And if yes, do you think it has been properly considered? 

  Does it achieve the following:

  a) A real reduction in Co2 outputs globally
  b) A reduction whilst minimizing economic damage
  c) Have all possible consequences and contingencies considered. We don’t want to make the solution worse than the problem.

  These things need analysis to really understand what ramifications are behind them. Most people believe the science is settle because that’s what their told. They are also told that the ETS is the problem and we must ACT now before its too late! For acting now and curbing Co2 outputs, will be cheaper than adapting.

  Who said this? Not a scientist, an economist with a track record of mediocrity, using data from treasury that so far has turned out to be unreliable and using scientific data from a political organization with only one agenda.. the IPCC. The very fact that the IPCC concept of Co2 was born from Mann’s hockey stick now discredited such that even the IPCC themselves do not publish it, should say something. It was the central part of their argument. Mr Gaurnet’s White paper was an economic brief, based on erroneous scientific data and economic assumption based on hunches based on bad scientific data and so on.

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 11:39:30 AM

• Page 4 of 4

  Would I as a pilot, take emergency advice from an unqualified passenger if my plane was out of control? No. Then why do we as a country buy the Gaurnet report?  He knows nothing of the climate. I also notice that on some talk back shows, and on Q and A on the ABC, people now refer to him as a scientist. Truth, facts are irrelevant these days. They’re almost an irritation to some.

  To add more colour and to make it more interesting. The climate debate was warming up when Rudd came into the scene. He used it as a mandate and got voted in to Government mostly for it.

  Rudd then takes the IPCC summary, one which we now know was full of errors. Gives it to Garnout and tells him to write a white paper..Tell us what should we do, we need advice to move forward regarding climate! The People Demand it!!

  Do you honestly think, that a man paid by government to write such a high profile paper would have said anything but what he did say?? Of course not. He’s even admitted since then he thinks its all a farce himself.

  So as you can see, I think there’s work to be done on the solution. A lot of work.

  But first, lets sort the science out.

  Cheers,

  Dave.

  Comment by hewisond on 08 July 2009 at 11:39:09 AM

• Hewisond , I cannot understand your argument. If we are truly trying to answer the question as to whether global warming is continuing, and it is agreed (including by Fielding’s advisors) that the best measure of this is Ocean Heat Content (as it accounts for 85% of the increased warming vs 5% in the atmosphere) then why are we getting hung up on previous statements about atmosphere? The ocean evidence shows that global warming is continuing.

  Pete Ridley, I looked up your reference which was in your Note 9. In it you referred to work by Nils-Axel Mörner which concluded there was no sea level rise in the Maldives. I looked further into it and discovered the following subsequent published study which finds that there is no evidence for Morner’s assertion. -  you can find this subsequent study at this link. doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2005.04.001

  Stormboy. I agree with you. When I look at Figure 1 of Fielding’s Question 1, I see an ongoing long term trend of temperature rise. Sure, there is a recent short-term flattening, but it is consistent with other cycles within the overall trend. I agree with you that there seems to be a lot of selective “cherry picking” going on.

  Comment by theodore curly on 08 July 2009 at 11:24:22 AM

• Dave (Hewisond), I’m glad we’re understanding each other a bit better. I agree completely that we need to take responsibility for ourselves and while this certainly includes adaptation, if the science says that we’re causing the warming, wouldn’t personal responsibility then mean stopping whatever we’re doing that causes it? I understand that we disagree as to what the science does say, but do you agree that for those who believe our actions are causing the warming, changing those actions is a responsibility?

  I’m a bit confused about one thing that you said though - “Sleptics say, and rightly so, that our co2 output is increasing expodentially,  but the world is cooling..

  It gets right to the foundation argument. more co2, more heat.

  Theyve been saying for years, the models say it.. the alarmists say it through their alamist warnings of the second coming.. yet it hasnt happened.”

  If we refer back to Mr Fielding’s figure 1 main graph on http://sciencespeak.com/FieldingQuestions.pdf I assume you’re talking about the small downward hook showing for the past few years. This is kind of the point I was trying to make with my last post - that little bit at the end is the 7th little downward blip on the graph since around 1900 because it relates to smaller cycles like the Decadal cycle and the Southern Oscillation. I’m sure you would agree though that the main trend is that the temperature is going up isn’t it? So unless we pick a very short time period like 10 years which we’ve agreed is twisting the stats, I don’t understand why you’re saying that the climate is cooling. As far as I can see, no matter what data you look at, the trend outside of those small blips is a warming one. Isn’t it?

  Comment by Stormboy on 08 July 2009 at 07:47:38 AM

• FIRST PART

  Hi folks, may I just say that the debate on this site is the best one I’ve been involved in since October last year when I started commenting on numerous blogs. One of the things that most disgusted me on other blogs was the manner in which protagonists insulted and abused each other, showing no respect whatsoever for the opinions of others. The first response to my first submission ended “Utter tosh your post I am afriad”. At the end of my long responded I said “Challenge it by all means, but please resist the temptation to simply ridicule”. Unfortunately, this request was ignored by that particular individual and by several other debaters. I’m pleased to see that in the main on this blog people are prepared to debate logically and respectfully. If I’ve slipped in the occasional bit of sarcasm then I sincerely apologise and will try very hard not to repeat it here. If I do, please draw it to my attention.

  There have been a lot of very worthwhile comments made over the last couple of days and I’ll throw in my two bits worth.

  Stormboy, you said on 07 July 2009 at 08:46 QUOTE: Pete .. I admire the fact that you can find the time! My family would not be happy with me UNQUOTE. You touched an open wound there. My wife and grandson have threatened to hide my computer (and I’ve responded by threatening to hide their television and books).

  On your point about the IPCC and “does the graph Fielding refers to exist or not?” and your comment on 7th July @ 10:34 PM QUOTE: When we’re on the down side of the wave you get people who either don’t understand this or are being deliberately tricky saying things like “For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?” (http://www.climatesceptics.com.au/climate-change.html). It would be just as deceptive if someone on the uphill side said “temperatures are actually warming much faster than we thought!” based on the trend of the last few years. This is my issue with Steve Fielding’s stance. He hasn’t raised any of the issues other skeptics have here, he’s just used the stats deceptively. It’s even worse unfortunately, he opens by saying the IPCC graph supports his stance when it clearly doesn’t. .. It really does look like a direct lie. UNQUOTE. I think at one time and another supporters and sceptics of the hypothesis alike could all fairly be accused of saying things that look like a direct lie if viewed with a suspicious eye. Many of us are particularly suspicious of politicians, certainly in the UK at the present time (think expenses scandal). It’s human to want to win an argument (particularly where opinion dominates), present arguments that support our own opinions and overlook those that support the alternative. I regret that I’m just as guilty at times, but I do try hard to be open-minded. Most of the arguments over the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis are based upon opinion, not fact, because of our poor understanding of the processes and drivers of global climates. Because I support Steve Fielding’s opinions I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that what he claimed was not a lie but was not clearly understood.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 08 July 2009 at 07:32:10 AM

• MIDDLE PART

  What I believe he intended to say was that the graph used in his submission to Penny Wong was “They were unable to debunk a graph BASED UPON THE SAME DATA AS used by the IPCC which shows average global temperatures remaining steady over the last 15 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased”. Only Steve can confirm or deny this, so please Steve, was this your intention or not and if not, where in the IPCC AR4 WG! Scientific report or SPM does this graph appear? If you compare the temperature change graph in the “Main Graph” of Fig. 1 of Question 1 to Penny Wong with the IPC AR4 WG1 Chapter 3 Fig. 3.1 (Note 6) you’ll recognise that they are using data from the same source, i.e. the Hadley Centre’s “HadCRUT3 and CRUTEM3 datasets” (referenced as CRUTEM3 by IPCC and HadCRUT3 by Fielding).  I prefer the graph and data used by Fielding because it clearly shows the monthly variations but for some reason the Hadley Centre has removed the graphs from its site (Note 2). As I said previously (Note 7a) “The Hadley Centre must not have liked the story they were telling but luckily I kept a copy”. It is identical to the one used by Fielding. If you concentrate on the data for the period 1995 – 2008 you end up with the red-lined temperature curve in the “Inset Graph”. Simply “eyeballing” graph shows that over the period 1995 – 2008 the temperature appears to have changed hardly at all (Note 7b), while CO2 has continued to rise steadily. So, what did Fielding say? QUOTE: They were unable to debunk a graph used by the IPCC which shows average global temperatures remaining steady over the last 15 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased.
  UNQUOTE. From this perspective, where is the lie?

  
  You asked QUOTE: “Am I correct then that since you think 30 years is too short a time period then you agree with my statement that 10 years is also too short? If so, it seems that we are in agreement that Fielding’s question 1 and question 3 are not legitimate questions because they rely on making decisions based on overly brief time periods. UNQUOTE. You are not correct. What you overlook is that I was talking about global climate change, not about global temperature change. Temperature is not the same as climate. Yes, I know that temperature affects climate but they are still not the same thing. Fielding’s questions are about global temperatures, not global climates.

  You say QUOTE: I do think that a responsible approach involves going with the weight of evidence and if then we need to take an adaptive approach…”. If you are implying that there is a “weight of evidence” in favour of the hypothesis or that “we do know more positive feedbacks than negative” then sceptics reject that claim on the basis that we do not understand anything much useful about climate processes and drivers. An adaptive approach is correct, but this does not require any reduction in our use of fossil fuel. “If it all turns out in a while that it was just a solar cycle and we’re heading for cooler times .. “ then we will have caused serious damage to already damaged global economies and unnecessary suffering for many deprived people around the globe. Also, I note your frequent use of the word “if”. That’s the main problem with climate science today, there are too many “ifs”, “buts” and “maybes’.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 08 July 2009 at 07:31:37 AM

• Last Part

  Paul (Sassafras) on 7th July @ 06:24 PM you said QUOTE: Here’s the data in a chart, from the source, http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ Have a read of the info below it, it’s easy reading. Now, you can go back to 1998 or you can go back further, it’s seems clear that picking 1998 as the year everything started to get better is bit too premature. UNQUOTE. Dave (hewison) has already given you guidance on this one (Note 1 - “it’s easy reading”). Look at Fig. 3. It uses the same data that you refer to but adds projections based upon past events (empirical evidence some might say) and compares these with suspect computer model projections (Note 2) based upon unsound climate science and implausible IPCC scenarios of the future (Note 3). I prefer evidence from history (although there are never guaranties about what nature has up her sleeve). While you’re at it, take a look at the scientific reaction to Penny Wong’s response that Steve Fielding referenced in his leader (Note 4).
  I agree with you, let’s go back further, I point you again to the graph on Roy Spencer’s site (Note 8). That goes back 2000 years, far enough methinks. That graph suggests that over centuries the temperature goes up, then down, then up, then down, then up, then down, etc. etc. etc. If history repeats itself, that’s what will continue to happen for the next 2000 years (and the next and the next, etc.) so why the panic?

  theodore curly, on 7th July @ 10:40 PM yoou commented QUOTE: For example, looking at question 1, my interpretation of the answer was that the best measure of global warming is Ocean Heat Content which, according to the answer, accounted for about 85% of warming, the remainder being taken up by the atmosphere, land and ice. So , one could infer from this that Fielding has asked the wrong question, rather than the goal posts being shifted or questions rephrased. The Government’s answer included data showing ocean heat content trending upward beyond 1998 and therefore that warming is indeed continuing. I thought this was a convincing answer to Fielding’s question. UNQOTE. I refer you to a similar comment that I made about hypothesis supporters moving the goal posts towards the oceans now that they see that the claimed surface temperature is not following the claimed CO2 increase (Note 9). I also comment on the claims regarding rising sea levels drowning those volcanic/coral pacific islands within the “ring of fire”.

  Dave (hewisond), on 7th @ 11:07 PM you said QUOTE: shes being shifty UNQUOTE. In the UK that’s what we expect of politicians.

  Notes:
  1) see http://sciencespeak.com/FieldingQuestions.pdf
  2) see http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/hadcrut3.html
  http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=374&Itemid=1
  3) see my comment of 30th Nov. 2008 @ 19.05 on http://www.marklynas.org/2008/11/21/world-saved-planet-doomed
  4) see http://www.stevefielding.com.au/images/uploads/2009-6-24-1.pdf.
  5) see http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
  6) You’ll find a similat graph in the AR4 WG1 SPM at Fig. SPM3 but as I’ve repeatedly said before, the SPMs are political interpretations of the scientific reports and should not be relied upon as presenting an accurate picture of what the scientists (wished to) say in their scientific reports. It is even reported that the AR4 SPM was issued months before the scientists had completed their report, which then had to be brought intop line with the SPM. Now if that’s the case then that is deceitful!
  7) see my comment response to theodore (curley) on 6th July regarding Fielding’s Question 1: a) @ 12:39 AM and b) @ 12:40:00 AM.
  8) see http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/06/epa-endangerment-finding-my-submitted-comments/ Fig 4
  9) see http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/02/green_new_deals.html March 23, 2009 8:17 PM on 23rd March @ 20.17

  Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

  PS: Pheeeewwww, I’m off to bed. If you don’t here from me again they really have hidden my computer.

  Comment by Pete Ridley on 08 July 2009 at 07:28:37 AM