July 17, 2008

Even If: "The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing."

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"Even if temperature had risen above natural variability, the recent solar Grand Maximum may have been chiefly responsible. Even if the sun were not chiefly to blame for the past half-century's warming, the IPCC has not demonstrated that, since CO2 occupies only one-ten-thousandth part more of the atmosphere that it did in 1750, it has contributed more than a small fraction of the warming. Even if carbon dioxide were chiefly responsible for the warming that ceased in 1998 and may not resume until 2015, the distinctive, projected fingerprint of anthropogenic "greenhouse-gas" warming is entirely absent from the observed record. Even if the fingerprint were present, computer models are long proven to be inherently incapable of providing projections of the future state of the climate that are sound enough for policymaking. Even if per impossibile the models could ever become reliable, the present paper demonstrates that it is not at all likely that the world will warm as much as the IPCC imagines. Even if the world were to warm that much, the overwhelming majority of the scientific, peer-reviewed literature does not predict that catastrophe would ensue. Even if catastrophe might ensue, even the most drastic proposals to mitigate future climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would make very little difference to the climate. Even if mitigation were likely to be effective, it would do more harm than good: already millions face starvation as the dash for biofuels takes agricultural land out of essential food production: a warning that taking precautions, "just in case", can do untold harm unless there is a sound, scientific basis for them. Finally, even if mitigation might do more good than harm, adaptation as (and if) necessary would be far more cost-effective and less likely to be harmful." -APS Physics | FPS | Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered [Emphasis Added]

What was wrong with the IPCC report and models?

The models heavily relied upon by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had not projected this multidecadal stasis in “global warming”; nor (until trained ex post facto) the fall in TS from 1940-1975; nor 50 years’ cooling in Antarctica (Doran et al., 2002) and the Arctic (Soon, 2005); nor the absence of ocean warming since 2003 (Lyman et al., 2006; Gouretski&Koltermann, 2007); nor the onset, duration, or intensity of the Madden-Julian intraseasonal oscillation, the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation in the tropical stratosphere, El Nino/La Nina oscillations, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation that has recently transited from its warming to its cooling phase (oceanic oscillations which, on their own, may account for all of the observed warmings and coolings over the past half-century: Tsoniset al., 2007); nor the magnitude nor duration of multi-century events such as the Mediaeval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age; nor the cessation since 2000 of the previously-observed growth in atmospheric methane concentration (IPCC, 2007); nor the active 2004 hurricane season; nor the inactive subsequent seasons; nor the UK flooding of 2007 (the Met Office had forecast a summer of prolonged droughts only six weeks previously); nor the solar Grand Maximum of the past 70 years, during which the Sun was more active, for longer, than at almost any similar period in the past 11,400 years (Hathaway, 2004; Solankiet al., 2005); nor the consequent surface “global warming” on Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and even distant Pluto; nor the eerily- continuing 2006 solar minimum; nor the consequent, precipitate decline of ~0.8 °C in TS from January 2007 to May 2008 that has canceled out almost all of the observed warming of the 20th century.
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Posted by Vanderleun at July 17, 2008 11:11 AM | TrackBack
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AMERICAN DIGEST HOME
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

When will these people finally STFU, like they did after the acid rain, hole in the ozone, new ice age crises?


Please watch below for a real activist's story.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVw1PANUcdg

Posted by: Milwaukee Mike at July 17, 2008 3:06 PM

May I make a stab at translating the sense and substance of the OP?

Something like "I won't stop using double my fair share of the Earth's irreplaceable resources, and I won't stop guzzling oil like an alcoholic in a distillery, and you can't make me! I won't, I won't, I won't!!!" (Zoom out to reveal typical American having a screaming, lying-down-on-floor-and-kicking-legs tantrum like a two-year-old on a bad day.)

America; a bad-tempered spoiled child with a loaded gun.

Posted by: Fletcher Christian at July 18, 2008 10:55 AM

I see Fletcher Christian is still projecting his own inability to accept facts and deal with complexity onto the rest of us. Fletcher, get off the floor, stop whining, and realize that "global whatever" is never going to give you the excuse you want to force drastic life changes on the rest of us.

Every resource we are using is replaceable with something else, when the time and price are right. Mankind's standard of living has increased constantly for thousands of years - through many changes of resource use - and there is NO serious evidence that this will change anytime soon.

You may now return to giving Al Gore blowjobs.

Posted by: askmom at July 18, 2008 12:44 PM

I see Fletcher Christian is still projecting his own inability to accept facts and deal with complexity onto the rest of us. Fletcher, get off the floor, stop whining, and realize that "global whatever" is never going to give you the excuse you want to force drastic life changes on the rest of us.

Every resource we are using is replaceable with something else, when the time and price are right. Mankind's standard of living has increased constantly for thousands of years - through many changes of resource use - and there is NO serious evidence that this will change anytime soon.

You may now return to giving Al Gore blowjobs.

Posted by: askmom at July 18, 2008 12:44 PM

OK, sure. But other than that? Solid as a rock.

Posted by: Jeff Brokaw at July 19, 2008 1:54 PM

I can deal with complexity rather well, thank you very much. But in fact the situation is not very complex at all. There is some chance (I think quite high, some people think rather less) that increasing atmospheric CO2 is a poor idea. It is absolutely undeniable that most of Earth's stock of fossil fuels that yield CO2 when burned is in places where the civilised parts of the global society would rather not have them.

It is also undeniable that, even when compared in terms of CO2 emission per unit GDP (which is the measure most favourable to the USA) the USA comes out very poorly indeed in comparison with societies of comparable technological sophistication. In other words, the USA burns more fossil fuel than its share, even when measured in the way most favourable to the USA.

It is also obvious, just by looking, that there are ways that this situation can be changed. You just plain don't want to use them. You would rather cause massive instability in the rest of the world, compensated partially by enormous military spending (in terms of cash and of course in terms of other things) to allow yourselves to carry on with the waste.

Some of the rest of us have a few objections to that.

Posted by: Fletcher Christian at July 19, 2008 6:03 PM

Fletcher,
Other than "US bad", why exactly do you feel that increased atmospheric CO2 is a poor idea? Do you have a scientific reason?

Posted by: at July 20, 2008 6:43 PM
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