I’m happy to be known as a “denier” because the label of “denier” says nothing about me, but everything about the person making the charge. Scientific theories are never denied or believed, they are only corroborated or falsified.

A scientific theory cannot be “denied.” Only a belief can be denied. The person who uses the word “denier” thus reveals that they hold global warming as a belief, not a scientific theory. Beliefs are the basis of revealed religion. Revelations cannot be corroborated or studied in the laboratory, so religions are based on dogmatic beliefs conservatively held. Religions tend to be closed systems of belief that reject criticism. But the sciences are open systems of knowledge that welcome criticism. I’m a scientist, and therefore I must happily confess to being a denier.

“

Have you ever considered how difficult it is to take the temperature of the planet Earth? What temperature will you measure? The air? The surface of the Earth absorbs more than twice as much incident heat from the Sun than the air. But if you measure the temperature of the surface, what surface are you going to measure? The solid Earth or the oceans? There is twice as much water as land on Earth. If you decide to measure water temperature, at what depth will you take the measurements? How will the time scale on which the deep ocean mixes with the shallow affect your measurements? And how, pray tell, will you determine what the average water temperature was for the South Pacific Ocean a hundred years ago? How will you combine air, land, and sea temperature measurements? Even if you use only meteorological measurements of air temperature, how will you compensate for changes in latitude, elevation, and land use?

Determining a mean planetary temperature is not straightforward, but an extremely complicated problem. Even the best data are suspect.”

Read his whole statement.

http://lewrockwell.com/orig9/deming6.1.1.html

David Deming [send him mail] is a geophysicist, associate professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma, and author of the books Science and Technology in World History, Vols. 1 & 2.

Harald

by William Happer (from First Things)
William Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University.

The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes,” wrote Charles Mackay in the preface to the first edition of hisExtraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I want to discuss a contemporary moral epidemic: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the planet. The “climate crusade” is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types—even children’s crusades—all based on contested science and dubious claims.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-gases

I am a strong supporter of a clean environment. We need to be vigilant to keep our land, air, and waters free of real pollution, particulates, heavy metals, and pathogens, but carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is not one of these pollutants. Carbon is the stuff of life. Our bodies are made of carbon. A normal human exhales around 1 kg of CO2 (the simplest chemically stable molecule of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere) per day. Before the industrial period, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 270 ppm. At the present time, the concentration is about 390 ppm, 0.039 percent of all atmospheric molecules and less than 1 percent of that in our breath. About fifty million years ago, a brief moment in the long history of life on earth, geological evidence indicates, CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.

Information supporting the manmade global warming theory is largely based upon a short term historical correlation between CO2 and temperature, and computer models.  These computer models have a poor record in forecasting (or even hindcasting) climate events.  Empirical evidence – not failed computer models – supports a climate that is driven by natural processes, e.g., solar cycles, ocean currents, orbital dynamics, and longer term, continental positioning from geological plate tectonics.  It has been so for hundreds of millions of years and continues today.

Source:  SPPI

by Robert P. Smith, Ph.D., P.E.

The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity. Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism…….

Read his whole thought here:

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/3/17/mckitrick-on-earth-hour.html

Bruce McQuain provides an excellent analysis:

Richard Lindzen: AGW movement driven by money, power and dubious science

That’s the conclusion I gathered from a devastating essay Richard Lindzen published this past Saturday. Here are the lead 2 paragraphs:

The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations. Such hysteria simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth, and the exploitation of these weaknesses by politicians, environmental promoters, and, after 20 years of media drum beating, many others as well. Climate is always changing. We have had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a hundred thousand year cycle for the last 700 thousand years, and there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present despite CO2 levels being lower than they are now. More recently, we have had the medieval warm period and the little ice age. During the latter, alpine glaciers advanced to the chagrin of overrun villages. Since the beginning of the 19th Century these glaciers have been retreating. Frankly, we don’t fully understand either the advance or the retreat.

For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work (Tsonis et al, 2007), suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century.

One of the reasons I constantly ask those who believe in AGW what the “perfect temperature” for the world is and how we can achieve it is I understand that the only constant in the earth’s climate is change.   The world’s climate has always been changing in various cycles since its formation.  History shows us that we’ve had periods of more CO2 than now, warmer periods than now and neither of the events can be explained away by blaming man.

My favorite paragraph though, is Lindzen’s parting shot , er, conclusion:

With all this at stake, one can readily suspect that there might be a sense of urgency provoked by the possibility that warming may have ceased and that the case for such warming as was seen being due in significant measure to man, disintegrating. For those committed to the more venal agendas, the need to act soon, before the public appreciates the situation, is real indeed. However, for more serious leaders, the need to courageously resist hysteria is clear. Wasting resources on symbolically fighting ever present climate change is no substitute for prudence. Nor is the assumption that the earth’s climate reached a point of perfection in the middle of the twentieth century a sign of intelligence.

I’m still laughing over the last sentence.   Given any intelligence and a smattering of curiosity about climate history, even a cursory examination of that history makes one immediately suspicious of the claims by the AGW crowd and very skeptical of the science.

For those who Lindzen describes as

“well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue”,

he’s saying it is neither intelligent or virtuous.

All I can say is, “agreed”.

~McQ

Ditto

~Harald

Pointman:

Why Climategate was not a computer hack.

In the year since the Climategate material became public, I’ve read many articles on the effect the publication has had on the AGW debate. When it is referred to as a hack in them, I usually don’t bother reading any further. If the writer of the article is gullible enough to accept the silly proposition that it was a hack, then it won’t contain anything much in the way of insight; just the usual alarmist party line. If the writer does know better, then the article is disingenuous and the writer is being fundamentally dishonest.

http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/why-climategate-was-not-a-computer-hack/

Also interesting by Pointman

PROFILE OF THE CLIMATEGATE WHISTLEBLOWER

http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/profile-of-the-climategate-whistleblower/

Thanks to Joanne Nova for linking to Pointman’s site.

Science minded individual:  That’s scary, what do you mean?

Climate Science™:  The globe is warming from CO2 emissions, glaciers will melt, storms will strengthen, droughts will become commonplace, plantlife will die, the oceans will rise, the polar ice will melt, oceans will acidify, we must act now!

Science minded individual: Wow, CO2 causes all that?  How do you know?

Climate Science™: We have dozens of lines of evidence, Models, measurements, paleoclimate data, environmental data, it’s all in agreement.  We must act now.

Science minded individual: Let’s see, I’ll start with the paleo reconstructions. Hmm, it seems that the unprecedentedness is due to your mathematical techniques and special proxies. Why is it that we can remove some key data series and the whole thing loses the unprecedented shape?

Climate Science™:  There is uncertainty in science, engineers and physicists have trouble understanding.  These reconstructions don’t matter anyway, there are dozens of other branches and they are all in agreement.  We must act before it’s too late!

Science minded individual: But you agree the paleo reconstructions are in error?

Climate Science™:  They are unimportant, when you combine the whole of climatology the answer is clear.  We must act to save mankind now!!

Science minded individual:  Then why have them?

Climate Science™:  Models project 4 C of warming by the end of the century, they agree with paleo reconstructions.   Warming on this scale  will bring destruction across the globe.

Science minded individual: Ok, moving on, I see that models all seem to assume a positive feedback to a small temeprature rise.

Climate Science™:  It’s caused by water vapor in the atmosphere. The water vapor increases the global warming effect, crops will die, fish will shrink, people will starve if we don’t act.

Science minded individual: I see also that there is quite a bit of uncertainty in the amount of feedback.

Climate Science™:  There is uncertainty in all science, perhaps you don’t understand that concept.  We know it’s bettween 2 and 6 C of warming in the next century alone.

Science minded individual: Wow, that’s a lot of uncertainty.  Why aren’t the measurements which show a negative feedback being used?

Climate Science™:  Consensus says that a positive feedback is correct we must act now.

Science minded individual: But some believe the feedback is negative and what about the recent proofs on the internet and in publication that models have overshot measured data by 2 to 4 times?

Climate Science™: The IPCC represents the whole of climate science, the bulk of the evidence is in favor of 2 to 4C of warming.  The sea ice and ice caps will melt, the ocean is rising, low lying land will flood, storms will grow stronger.

Science minded individual: Hurricanes haven’t grown stronger, they’ve weakened.

Climate Science™:  You don’t understand the difference between weather and climate.

Science minded individual: But you said they will strengthen just 10 years ago, they didn’t.

Climate Science™:  In time they will strengthen,  especially if we don’t act, remember Katrina.

Science minded individual: Each year for say 10 years you’ve predicted stronger storms and each year you’ve been wrong, what’s happening?

Climate Science™: You have to look at 30 year trends, and other lines of evidence, the sea ice is melting, antarctic is loosing mass, the ocean is acidifying, we must decarbonize the economy.

Science minded individual: I notice that globally the total sea ice isn’t melting, yet all we read about is the Arctic.

Climate Science™: Models show clearly that the Arctic is more sensitive than the Antarctic to global warming.

Science minded individual: But you are missing my point, you predicted a decline in sea ice in the Antarctic as well, yet we have an increase?  Globally, sea ice is basically at the 30 year average.

Climate Science™: You have been confused by denialist talking points, the Arctic is critical, not the Antarctic.If we don’t act soon the ice caps will melt and the ocean will rise 5 meters.

Science minded individual: Wow, 5 meters.  How is that possible when the Antarctic averages 30 degrees below zero across its entire landmass.

Climate Science™: It will take time, there is uncertainty, I grow weary of your misinformation.

Science minded individual:  About that temperature data, it seems that there is substantial warming by UHI at several instrument locations, perhaps even most.

Climate Science™: Many papers have demonstrated UHI is a minor effect at best.

Science minded individual: I can’t find any of decent quality.  Can you show me one which did a proper analysis of the station data for trend.

Climate Science™: Such studies are boring, who would fund them?  We scientists like to do cutting edge stuff, not boring quality control.

Science minded individual: So no quality control is being done?  Aren’t you concerned that you may have bad information in your calculations?

Climate Science™: You are annoying us. There is uncertainty in everything, what we do know from all the lines of evidence is that we must act now to prevent certain disaster.

Science minded individual: But models show that satellite LT warming should be higher than ground measurements, doesn’t it concern you that these measurements are not just in disagreement but on opposite sides of what models predict.

Climate Science™:   They are statistically indistinguishable.

Science minded individual: But they are on opposite sides of the trend line, one or the other, both or the models must be in error.  And some would say they are statistically separable.

Climate Science™:  Oh, come on.  You have to understand, we’re working from a large body of evidence which taken as a whole, means that global warming is real, it is dangerous, and if we don’t act now it will be disasterous for humanity.

Science minded individual:  Ok, so if you’re right, what is it we need to do.

Climate Science™:  We must act globally to stop burning fossil fuels, stop cutting trees and adopt renewable energy.

Science minded individual: What is renewable energy?

Climate Science™: Energy which can be created from things like biofuels, wind, solar, geothermal.

Science minded individual: Won’t it be bad for humanity if we don’t produce enough electricity, or it comes at too high a cost?

Climate Science™: Industry is destroying the planet, we must act now.  We’ve calculated that the damage from global warming is much more serious than a tax on energy.

Science minded individual: So you want to tax energy?

Climate Science™: We need to limit and eventually stop fossil fuel usage before it’s too late.

Science minded individual: Why biofuels? Chlorophyl can’t come close to catching enough energy to power even our cars.

Climate Science™: We must explore all avenues to achieve our goals.

Science minded individual:  But biofuel doesn’t and can’t work, and a first year engineering student can calculate it?  Also, solar power is several times higher cost than any other methods and we can’t store it for use at night.  It will be horribly damaging to industry if we have electricity that’s several times higher in cost.

Climate Science™: We must explore all avenues, we’re trying to save the world, if higher cost energy has a negative effect on industry it will be far better than what will happen if we don’t act now.

Science minded individual:  I notice that wind has similar problems and requires fast acting powerplants to offset when they aren’t turning.  None of these solutions seems to work for our problem, what about nuclear.

Climate Science™: Nuclear is part of the answer.

Science minded individual: Nuclear seems to be the only working answer, and it doesn’t work for cars because we have no good batteries.  I notice you didn’t mention nuclear above.

Climate Science™:  Everyone will have to make sacrifice for the good of the planet.  Nuclear has problems with waste and safety so new technologies must be developed.

Science minded individual: But it can prevent the disaster right, and we don’t have the technology to change to a different source.  If we limit production the cost of everything will rise and people will starve?

Climate Science™: We all must make sacrifices because not changing to renewable energy is far more dangerous than the damage to industry.  We must form a global coalition to fight CO2 emission today, we don’t have time to wait.

Science minded individual: With all the predictions and uncertainty, how are you so sure that something as severe as shutting down industry is the right idea?  I mean, you recommend a global coalition to tax successful countries and send the money to unsuccessful ‘developing’ countries for the purpose of balancing economies, yet that seems to have nothing to do with solving global warming.?

Climate Science™: Developing countries will be the worst polluters in the future, wealthy nations are known to be cleaner, so we must transfer the technology and ability to produce clean energy to developing nations.

Science minded individual: But wait a minute, don’t modern and properly managed nations need to work to stop emitting, aren’t these the countries which are creating the problem?  Why would modern society spend today’s resources on the repressed governments and the medieval cultures in developing nations which repress their people, technology and buisness instead of investing in ourselves and our emissions?  Shouldn’t we attack the source of the problem first?

Climate Science™: Developing nations are underprivileged and deserve equality.  They are suffering the damage from our excess.  They will suffer more than developed countries, so we must act now to help them make the transition to green technologies.

Science minded individual:  But we haven’t seen any damage yet, and you still want to send them our money.

Climate Science™:  The damage is everywhere, thousands of papers have reported it.  We must act now, on  a global scale to prevent doom.

Science minded individual:  You mean the damage from shrinking sheep, fish, birds and plants, all of which makes no sense and still the paleo, sea ice, storms, temperatures, and models ALL have demonstrated very serious disagreements with reality. How can you be so sure you know the future that you can voluntarily repress industry?

Climate Science™:  I’m tired of this denialist conversation.  Thousands of scientists concur, we have a consensus,  we must act now.

Science minded individual:  Sorry sir, to waste your time.

Lifted in its entirety from Jeff Ids blog

See William M Briggs blog for a review

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/snr-estimates-of-temperature-proxy-data/

That says it all.

In a post at his Chiefio site, E.M.Smith talks about the mathematics of Climate Change

http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/derivative-of-integral-chaos-is-agw/

Average Global Temperature, no matter how derived, is a meaningless term for global climate

Dr. Pielke, Sr. has posted a challenge to “The University of Oregon Climate Leadership Initiative” published in 2009.

I wonder if those warmists, sucking on the CAGW scare induced funding teat, will respond

or continue to hide behind the IPCC “peer reviewed facts”.

Here is the link to his challenge