A Few Things Ill Considered: How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic

Sunday, February 19, 2006

How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic

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I have spent about 18 months now rather obsessed with the controversy over Global Warming. Firstly, as a matter of disclosure, IANACS (I Am Not A Climate Scientist) but rather an intelligent layman who is concerned about an issue with ramifications for all of us. That said, I have read and discussed and enquired about a great deal of the scientific material that is out there and quite easily accessible. The scientific case is actually not that difficult to follow even if you lack the specific and highly technical knowledge required to create it.

One thing I have noticed over these months is that there are a very limited number of objections or attacks on what is really very sound and well resolved science but they come up over and over again on sci.environment, alt.global-warming and the blogs I visit either regularily or occasionally. I think this is an important debate and I want to help fight the good fight.

Now there are already a few very good FAQ's out there about the science, so I don't feel the need to create yet another. Rather what I would like to do is provide a layman's guide to defending against the assorted specious attacks that are out there, both by pointing out the basic logical fallacies they are based on and providing some appropriate reference material to avoid the typical "is too, is not" exchanges these things frequently devolve into. Nothing like a nice link to an authoritative resource to refute the factually incorrect pontifications. Nothing like a calmly presented and solidly logical rebuttal to put the scaliwags in their place!

I invite suggestions for other Guide topics and any and all scientific corrections or clarifications. Any advice I do take up, I reserve the right to delete from the comments just to keep a coherent page.

So without further ado here are links to the best responses I can think of for the following climate sceptic arguments, please feel free to refer to, paraphrase or quote as desired:

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There is no real evidence of warming, just model predictions.

Global Warming is nothing but an environmentalist hoax.

One warmest year on record is not global warming.

The surface temperature record is so full of assumptions and corrections that it only says what the scientists want.

In the 1970's they said a new ice age was coming.

Global temperatures over just one hundred years doesn't mean anything.

Glaciers have always grown and receded. A few glaciers receeding today is not proof of Global Warming.

Climate scientist are trying to hide the dominant role of water vapor in Global Warming.

H2O is the only significant greenhouse gas.

There is no proof that CO2 is what is causing the temperature to go up.

The current warming is just a part of natural variations, humans have nothing to do with it.

It was even warmer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum

The Medieval Warm Period was just as warm as it is today.

All in all, a warmer climate sounds like a good thing.

Reducing fossil fuel usage is mass suicide.

Even if we fully implemented the Kyoto protocol it would have virtually no effect on the temperature even by mid 21st century.

Why do India and China get a free pass? That's not fair, no wonder the US did not join.

But there is Global Warming on Mars, without any SUV's or human influence at all.

It was very cold in Wagga Wagga today, this proves there is no Global Warming.

The ice core records show clearly that CO2 rising is an effect of rising temperatures, not a cause.
There is no consensus yet on the cause or even the reality of Global Warming.

Ice sheets in the Antarctic are growing which proves Global Warming isn't real.

Volcanoes emit way more CO2 than people, so emissions controls would be useless.

Global Warming is an illusion caused by the Urban Heat Island Effect.

We can't even predict the weather next week, forget about 100 years from now!

Greenland used to be nice and warm and the vikings lived there happily until the Little Ice Age.

Climate is a chaotic system and just like the stock market, forget about predicting where it will go.

The models are unproven and therefore unreliable.

Satellites are more reliable and they show cooling.

But the temperature dropped all through the 40's and 50's while CO2 rose, there must be something else going on.

The Null Hypotheis says the warming is natural.

Geological history is full of periods where CO2 was high and temperatures were low and vice versa.

The climate is always changing, no reason to think it is our fault.

Natural emissions of carbon are 30 times bigger than human emissions, so any reductions are useless.

CO2 is measured on Mauna Loa, which is an active volcano. That is why the levels are so high

Global Warming began about 20,000 years ago, humans have nothing to do with it.

Even if the ice caps melt, the water will go into the ground underneath.

CO2 has risen on its own before, no reason to assume it is our fault.

The Hockey Stick is broken, global warming theory falls apart.

No one knows how confident the models really are.

There is no historical precedent for CO2 causing warming, it is the opposite.

James Hansen is being an alarmist, just like before.

Position statements hide legitimate scientific debate.

Climate Models don't even take cloud effects into consideration.

Global Warming stopped eight years ago!

Global warming is caused by the sun, of course.

The United States actually absorbs more CO2 than it emits.

Most of the glaciers are growing, just a few are shrinking.

If we don't understand the past, how can we understand the present?

Global Dimming is stronger in the north, so how come it is not warming more in the south?

"Probaby", "likely", "evidence suggests". Even the scientist aren't sure AGW is real!

Sea ice in the Antarctic is growing.

This alledged consensus is just because scientists are afraid to speak out.

Some locations are actually cooling, which shouldn't happen if there is global warming.

The small observed warming shows that the climate models are overestimating CO2's importance.

Sea level measurments in the Arctic Ocean show that it is falling, not rising!

Today's warming is just a natural rebound from the Little Ice Age.

AGW theory is not even scientific because you can not do experiments and make predictions.

(more to come!)

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Labels: Sceptic Guide

226 Comments:

At February 23, 2006 8:37 PM, coby said…

Thanks Steve. Have added a couple more, MWP there now (I'm only getting started! ;)

The hockey stick will come too, but I actually punt on that one as the arguments are very technical. Hopefully you will like my approach.
At March 14, 2006 2:05 PM, Anonymous said…

In this debate we need to stand back a little. Think about the "wise" words of republican pundit Frank Luntz in his famous memo to the Republicans on how to deal with global warming.

I quote him:

"The scientific debate remains open. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.”

http://www.luntzspeak.com/memo4.html

Don't get me wrong. This guy is scary. But he has a point. By buying in to a debate at all, we are continuing to keep that window open and to have the public think there IS a debate, and therefore not push for action.

So what should our response be? Check out http://www.exxonsecrets.com and find out just how many of the climate sceptics are either funded by the oil industry or have very strong links.

Would you believe a scientist funded by or strongly associated with the tobacco industry who says that smoking doesn't cause cancer? The same should be said for the sceptics.

Scientists tend to enter into this debate about the veracity of global warming.

The problem, though, is that it's an essentially political debate, not a scientific one. It's the politics of the fossil fuel industry refusing to admit that its core business is causing climate change.

And so far, the fossil fuel industry is winning. Kyoto is pathetically small compared with the size of the problem.

Scientists tend not to want to get into politics, and stick to the science. So they continue debating, thus continuing to contribute to confusion.

Michael Mann's getting dragged through the US senate hearings is a perfect case in point. All the sceptics contributing to Inhofe and others' arguments were those connected with the oil industry.

It's not rocket science. It's politics.

My plea is to the "AGW" scientists is to take a leap and talk of politics and funding and oil money, not of hockey sticks. Of tainted money and tainted science.

Otherwise, your debate is simply stoking the coffers of the groups who make their money from the oil industry.
At March 14, 2006 2:18 PM, coby said…

Hi Cindy, thanks for the comment.

I think you raise some good points, only I see downsides with your approach as well. I think scientists are stuck and have to answer the attacks on science whatever the motives for them are. Your advice at the end is where journalism is failing, they are the ones who should be taking note of the funding and motivation of the obfuscators. Sites like exxonsecrets and sourcewatch are important.
At March 15, 2006 11:28 AM, Anonymous said…

Comment to Cindy B.:

First off, it is www.exxonsecrets.org, not .com. Secondly, corporate donations listed in public tax filings are not "secrets".

Secondly, let's take a look at one donation Exxon made that environmentalists like to say shows Exxon's influence. The Cato Institute is often mentioned, but in total, Exxon donated a grand total of $90,000 to this organization. $90,000!!! That's it?

And Cindy, you fail to address why scientists funded by government to prove global warming should be trusted. There is a serious bias in government funding simply towards proving AGW instead of funding good science only. This inherent political bias in the awarding of grants is a serious unaddressed issue.

You are wrong in blaming the fossil fuel industry. Blame the people. It is we who want two or three cars in our garage and who want to take twice yearly vactaions in Mexico. Somehow I doubt you are really that much different. But you neatly avoid any personal responsibility by deflecting all blame to oil companies.

And Michael Mann was hardly "dragged" through the Senate hearings in the US, he was thoroughly questioned on the subject as the Americans do to any person appearing before one of those committees.

It is not the oil companies that are "winning", it is we, the public, who are not seriously committed to Kyoto. The only impediment to the implementation of Kyoto in Canada is Canadians general apathy to the accord; our public voicing of support for it notwithstanding.

=Paul=
At March 15, 2006 12:46 PM, coby said…

Hi Paul,

You said "you fail to address why scientists funded by government to prove global warming should be trusted. There is a serious bias in government funding simply towards proving AGW instead of funding good science only. This inherent political bias in the awarding of grants is a serious unaddressed issue." I would sure like to see some substantiation for this. I find it very hard to believe that the Bush administration, or any US federal gov't body, *wants* GW to be true. And they are the largest funders of climate research. This accusation is common, but seems self-serving, and as I said, I would love to see some evidence.

Re Michael Mann and the senate, sure everyone called has to answer questions, you need to wonder why this particular scientist was called and why this particular panel is pretending to investigate one 8 year old study in paleoclimatology.
At March 15, 2006 1:46 PM, Anonymous said…

Coby, my main point is that oil companies do not fund climate research. And a piddly $90,000 grant to the Cato Institute does not have the power to change the public's views on this issue.

Oil companies are a convenient scapegoat for individuals to avoid personal repsonsiblity for their own consumptive lifestyle.

I should not say there is a bias in the government research; I am guilty of overreach there, instead that there is heavy, serious, much needed and ongoing effort in this area. It is ongoing because there is still so much to learn.

Senate hearings are often tough on the participants in the US. Since advocates of AGW propose the most draconian measures imaginable to address this issue, they are naturally going to be grilled very thoroughly. Science that advocates massive upheaval in people's lives deserves heightened scutiny.

Adherence to the Kyoto Accord has much less to do with oil companies and much more to do with you and I as individual consumers. And my personal observations are that most Canadians support Kyoto in an abstract manner but continue with their current lifestyle unabated.
Cindy's musings on AGW illustrate this basic refusal of individuals to own up to their own environmental responsibility.

=Paul
At March 16, 2006 4:44 PM, Anonymous said…

One talking point you need to address:

"In the 1970s scientists were telling us we were all going to be crushed by glaciers in a new ice age! Whey should we believe them now?"

Now, I'm old enough to remember the "new ice age" talk. They were pretty speculative, based on the observation that, historically speaking, we were overdue for one. It wasn't a warning based on direct observation. Nothing, in other words, like the concern over global warming.

My perception is that this rather tepid speculation is being exaggerated into a dire threat by denialists for use as a talking point.

Keep up the good work,

Stefan
At March 16, 2006 5:04 PM, Anonymous said…

Paul, the F.U.D. campaign is designed to enable people to continue to be irresponsible.

It's a lot like the tobacco industry's abominable campaign to muddy the health problems associated with smoking.

Yes, absolutely, the decision to smoke and keep smoking is a personal decision . . . but how can you make an informed decision when you're being fed bullshit?

Particularly when that bullshit is the kind that is emotionally sympatico?

That is, when the F.U.D. lets you off the hook . . . when it lets you defer making a difficult decision or painful lifestyle change?

When it tells you there's nothing wrong with that filthy, expensive habit.

When it tells you there's nothing wrong with commuting alone in a giant gas guzzler.

The wonderful part of this for the industries who run F.U.D. campaigns is that it gives them a legal "out:"

When the lawsuits start, they can point out that scientists had been warning people for decades about (tobacco, global warming). So if people are unhappy about their lung cancer or drowned coastal cities, well, don't go trying to sue us, s'okay? It was your responsibility to read scientific papers and keep informed about this, wasn't it?

I hope someone, somewhere, is keeping careful records of every loaded editorial, every argument advanced by bought-off pundits, every paid-for position paper. It'll come in handy when we have truth and reconciliation hearings.
At March 16, 2006 8:48 PM, coby said…

Thanks, Stephan.

Here's the Global Cooling argument, it was definitely on the short list!
At March 17, 2006 10:52 AM, Anonymous said…

Stefan, I fully believe individuals are able to act on this issue, and it is not oil companies that are stopping people from doing it. As with smoking, the transference of individual responsibility onto others is a convenient way for us to avoid our own culpability.

We have signed Kyoto; it carries full legal force, and yet we refuse to comply. I believe the responsibility for this failure rests upon us. Having failed to comply, a scapegoat is needed and you've already chosen yours.

If individuals continue to behave in an irresponsible manner Stefan, blame Canadians, not some mythical bogeyman you have invented to take the fall for your beliefs.

=Paul=
At March 21, 2006 3:38 AM, Anonymous said…

Cindy et al,
It's not www.exxonsecrets.com, but www.Exxonsecrets.org
At March 23, 2006 3:38 PM, Anonymous said…

Hi Coby,
I am a climate scientist, and I cannot tell you how good it makes me feel to see "laypeople" like yourself getting the message. Massive congratulations to you. It is so important that the message gets out from the tiny climate community, to touch the widest possible audience. It is best done by people avoiding technical language, like you.

I think the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is as hard as any other accepted physical theory. No one doubts that gravity is what made the apple fall on the head of Isaac Newton... So why would they refute innumerable lines of evidence for the anthropogenic cause of global warming ?

Because some of them have already made up their mind about a *political* issue, and they will do whatever it takes to refute the facts and theories that contradicts their belief - even if it takes using faulty logic or disingenuous rhetorics.
This is connected to many other issues that bring together religion, conservative politics and science on the public place.
Unlike other political and religious debates, this is where Reason should triumph over Passion - and hasn't, unfortunately.

I am so glad that your blog provides keys for rational people to fight this nearly-religious obscurantism. It is one of the few ways truth can triumph.

Keep up the good work ! We will win. Only with patience, honesty and compassion, but we *have* to win this one. There is just too much at stake for our planet and mankind as a whole.
At March 23, 2006 3:57 PM, coby said…

Thanks for the encouraging words, El Nino! Don't forget to keep me honest if I make any scientific slips. Yes, we will win the public debate, but will we beat the clock? I remain hopeful...
At March 27, 2006 4:12 PM, Anonymous said…

To start from nearer the 'top' the real issue with the 'hockey stick study' is its poor methodology. As such little that is discussed from inference OF the 'graph' is infact based on a VALID study.

Within the study, 'outrider points' where discarded, this has not been disputed; infact that practice was being defended regularly as 'valid statistical process'. Within the 'climate science' fraternity it is seemingly however not realised the import of such an action in the particular case of the mentioned 'study''.

In a study looking for anomalies (as 'climate alteration' is), the 'outrider' points are infact the OBJECT of study, not those 'nice points' that give a 'nice graph'. By 'dropping' those outrider points the study infact removed the 'source objects' of it's 'research' and in reality only produced a 'nice graph', NOT valid results.

The continuance of discussion of the 'graph' immediately lost validity in SCIENCE, as do inferences made from such a 'graph' or other 'uncorrelated' methodologies.

Your's, Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
At March 27, 2006 6:51 PM, coby said…

Hi Peter,

You say that "outrider" points are the purpose of the study. On the contrary, what is being look for are anamolous trends, not anamolous points. Discarding aberations is correct procedure.

BTW, this comment is better. It is focused on one issue and makes a clear point (though still unsupported, oh well)
At March 27, 2006 10:16 PM, Anonymous said…

Hello all.

You cannot discard points whilst developing 'trends' for irregularly periodic processes.

Infact, the procedure of determining the behavior of such processes, a Statistical analytic process titled a "Time series" uses all data points that are collected within the method determined by the pre-procedure of 'Experimental Design', made to facilitate the analysis in a manner of known (and best) correlation.

This method is used to define, as example, complex manufacturing procedures to minimise and predict 'run errors' and so enable better 'fault trapping' with directed sampling of 'real items' in a 'process time line'. Taking items from 'production systems' has 'real' costs, best to take them when the process is thought to be at its 'worst'.

The problem exposed by the 'Hockey Stick' is the overly simplistic methodology used to produce 'nice graphs' and the over emphasis of inference within the poor correlations produced by the methodologies.

So it is not valid, in the context of the situation being researched, to remove those points Cody. The ANALYSIS needs to notice what the reality being studied 'is', NOT try to fit 'the reality' to a 'convenient study method'.

Not 'unsupported', just perhaps the best i can do to describe complex mathematical processes that have developed correlations to 'Reality' and the contained systems.

As such there is little inference that can be made from the 'stick graph' that has a value correlated to the reality being 'attached' by opinion, predominately.

Your's,
Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
At March 28, 2006 11:08 AM, coby said…

The various criticisms of the Hockey Stick have been dealt with add infinitum on Real Climate, check the side bar, highlights section. Of particular importance is the posting what if the hockey stick were wrong?.

In short, there are dozens of other studies that have arrived at the same conclusions and the past is the past, what is happening now is better understood than any past climates.
At March 28, 2006 5:29 PM, coby said…

Peter, you are welcome to comment here if you can do so in a focused and coherent way, one point at a time. I am not interested in the kind of info-pollution your unsubstantiated 1000 word pontifications contribute to the site.

If anyone is interested in Peter's theories of climate science, he has offered the following links:
http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/312
http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/348
and...no just those two, over and over.
At March 30, 2006 2:00 AM, Anonymous said…

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
At April 05, 2006 11:03 AM, Anonymous said…

Hello Coby,

Taking advantage of your skills talking to sceptics like me, I’d like to see if you can clarify a couple of issues that I don’t see have been directly addressed in your blog yet.

1) According to climate scientists as diverse as Lindzen or Annan, a theoretical doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere would only cause per se a minor temperature increase of about 1C:
http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/Testimony/Senate2001.pdf
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/07/overview-of-probabilistic-climate.html

The rest of the IPCC-estimated increase in temperature up to the famous range of 1.5C-4.5C would depend on the feedback effects of this CO2 doubling, and most notably that of dominant greenhouse gas H2O, whose feedback mechanisms the IPCC considers uncertain but likely positive.

With all this being the case and considering that the increase in CO2 has been taking place for a long time now, has the associated increase in atmospheric H2O been already OBSERVED? Since basically all catastrophic forecasts depend on water vapour acting to amplify the effect of CO2 it strikes me that knowing what is happening with this gas now, a thrid of the way to a CO2 doubling, would be key to finally validating those predictions.

2) My second concern has to do with the hockey stick graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
The one thing that has always caught my attention in that graph is not the warming of the last decades, that we already know so much about, but the warming, comparable in size and speed, that took place between approx 1910 and 1945. In the context of the past millennium (according to that graph) that warming seems as unusual as the one we’re now under and it took place at a time when the increase of atmospheric CO2 was still small. If you add to that the forcing-warming lag of 20-30 years, it definitely looks like CO2 was not what caused that considerable warming. Indeed, the IPCC only speaks of the last 50 years when making likely anthropogenic attributions. What do you then AGW-adherents propose as a cause for the warming of those years? And, of course, whatever was that caused it, don’t you think that it may still be playing a major role in the current warming trend?

Many thanks,

Mikel
At April 05, 2006 12:40 PM, coby said…

Hi Mikel,

Could you please be rude and illogical next time, it makes it easier for me to keep sceptics in a box! ;) But seriously...

I don't think you are quite correct in claiming any uncertainty about water vapor feedback being positive or negative. In its role as a GHG, as you correctly state the dominant one, its effect is clearly positive and the most significant amplifier of CO2 warming. You may be thinking of clouds, but we need to seperate this kind of water from the well-mixed gaseous form. It is true that clouds are a big uncertainty and have both positive and negative effects, the net of which the IPCC considers uncertain but likely positive.

James Annan et al. recently published a paper that has pegged the climate sensitivity to 2x CO2 at 1.7-4.9oC with a most likely value of 2.9oC (please see this article for a quote and references). Please note this sensitivity includes H2O vapor feedbacks and sea ice albedo feedbacks. Lindzen's 1oC prediction for doubling and general beliefs that CO2 effects will be negligible, (which he refuses to make any personal committment to, BTW) are based on his "Iris hypothesis." It is over a decade old and lacks any evidence.

I think some work has been done trying to measure the expected increase in atmospheric water content but it is apparently not simple. Alot of the confirmation of expectations comes from model simulations (sorry) of real events, such as Pinatubo. The observed temerature response depends on the drop in humidity that the cooling should have caused. Please see the last two paragraphs in this Real Climate article.

Re: early 20th century warming, have look at this nice graph. Early 20th century warming was primarily about 50-50 solar influences and CO2 forcing. I understand what you mean about the lag, but I'm not sure this means no response for a couple of decades rather than a couple of decades to finish responding. Solar variations are pretty closely monitored since the last few decades and there is no trend observed. Try Max Plank institute for a 20th century reconstruction and for satellite measurements since 1978.

There has been other solar work very recently that ascribed 10-30% of the recent (post 1980) warming to solar influences, though I don't think it is yet widely accepted. Regardless, I don't think anyone claims that CO2 is the only factor. Real Climate talks about solar forcing here.

Thanks for the comment!
At April 07, 2006 11:41 AM, Anonymous said…

Hi Coby,

Thanks a lot for your very fast reply. You sure have a good arsenal of links ready for any GW issue we throw at you.

I guess we sceptics come in many flavours. Maybe you haven’t had much luck with the ones you’ve met. What I can’t understand is how anyone, whatever they decide to believe, cannot be genuinely interested in knowing what’s happening with our planet and whether the dire predictions we constantly hear are true or not. In that sense, more than a sceptic I am someone trying to understand things and still not very convinced about the scientific process that has given rise to all this (sometimes hysterical) propaganda.

Reviewing the IPCC papers, I see that you are right about the feedback uncertainty being more related to clouds rather than water vapour, although they also state that the precise mechanisms of water vapour feedbacks are quite complex and the form its spacial distribution would take is still not well understood.

In any case, I have been studying the links you provided and I’m not convinced about your explanation for the 2 issues I brought up.

1) Atmospheric water vapour increase due to GW: I can imagine that it must be somehow difficult to measure this effect, otherwise we would have one of the best possible validation tools for the future GW predictions, wouldn’t we? But I’m missing a clear explanation of why this is so. In fact one of the best links on this topic I have found is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BAMS_climate_assess_boulder_water_vapor_2002.gif As it happens, they are measuring water vapour increases at different heights in the atmosphere but failing to find any significant trend, especially in the troposphere, where it would count the most as regards the GW feedback. Failing any further explanation, I would dare to interpret this as the predicted water vapour feedback not taking place or not having been observed on a global scale yet. Where does this leave the projected temperature increases?

2) GW in the 1910-1945 period: I find this statement of yours: Early 20th century warming was primarily about 50-50 solar influences and CO2 forcing a bit too audacious. You’re definitely going beyond the IPCC consensus there. Do you consider this to be reasonably proven? Just take a look at the 2 graphs in your links (Wiki and Max Plank). Don’t you see a big difference between both trends? Where in the Max Plank graph do you see the trough around the 30s visible on the Wiki one? As the RC article you mention and your last paragraph suggest, anything solar is pretty much uncertain (which, as a sceptic, I have no problems at all agreeing with).

Besides, the 50% CO2 attribution for the GW of this period is quite difficult to believe. Starting with your very Wiki link, note the significant difference (almost 40%) for the modelled-observed warming in the period 1900-1940. But if you go to another Wiki link more directly related to GHG emissions for that period: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type.png the said attribution looks even more unlikely. Especially if you add to that the thermal inertia of the oceans (however it works exactly, I’m also not sure about that) and the natural carbon sinks. BTW, these two effects are amply used to explain why the current GW is not yet as large as it will be in the future. How come they didn’t prevent a GW in that 35-year period comparable in size and speed to the one we’re experiencing now?

So again, we are left with a seemingly unprecedented warming the causes of which are at least very uncertain (if not basically unknown). As long as we are unable to give a sound explanation to this recent GW episode, predictions for the future based on computer models (incredibly intelligent though these may be) will sound rather unreliable to me.

Best regards,

Mikel
At April 08, 2006 3:47 PM, coby said…

To Mikel:

I know that models are not a very satisfying thing to point to for confirmed predictions, but sometimes until observations are available, this is the best we can do. With that in mind, the models can very successfully hindcast the 20th century and events like the eruption of Mt Pinatubo. In doing this, they incorporate the large effects of H2O feedbacks that the theories predict. Now, if definitive measurements across the globe become available and they show no increase, that will obviously have to be dealt with. Until then 1: the rather straightforward physics that predicts H2O increases and 2: no known mechanism that might replace the positive effect that is now attributed to H2O (and is required to explain observed warming) together are a very strong reason to believe that the effect is actually there.

New evidence to the contrary is always possible. I am not familiar with the Colorado study you cited, either its direct meaning o any implications. At the risk of being too cocky, let's take this moment to recall the ultimate victor in the MSU readings vs modeled tropospheric temperature debates! : )

Re early 20th century, I tried to say too much in too few words. I meant solar and CO2 seem to have been equal and that together they were the primary cause of warming. Comparing the wiki solar forcing line and the Plank Institute's reconstruction we should note the later appears more smoothed. But I agree there do seem to be some differences, though nothing that strikes me as too significant. There is also this data from GISS that is similar but seems different yet again even subtracting out the 11 year cycle. The truth is out there somewhere!

With respect to confidence in the future based on hindcasts of the past, I would only say that even with The Perfect Model(tm) the hindcasts can only be as good as the data they are given. Perhaps, maybe even probably, if solar reconstructions of the 20th century become much better understood then the discrepancies that we can see between observation and model over this period will go away.
At April 09, 2006 5:18 PM, Anonymous said…

Hi Coby,

In fact, the IPCC-TAR has 2 pages dedicated to atmospheric water vapour measurements. The results are, as usual, far from conclusive:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/079.htm
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/080.htm

I think that you are a bit too enthusiastic when nominating “victors” and “losers” in the MSU data correction conundrum. Still MSU data show smaller warming in the troposphere than on the surface and you need to resort to an “overlapping” of a completely disparate range of model results with the available satellite-radiosonde observations in order to make both “non-inconsistent”.

In any case, there’s no denying that you have gathered a very comprehensive collection of explanations, generally backed by pertinent links, for most arguments AGW-sceptics may come up with. If the idea is to defend what currently appears to be the position of most (but not all) experts and relevant scientific institutions against ignorant criticism, I don’t have anything against it. That’s what I would do myself in most any scientific debate.

However, when I’m asked to BELIEVE that the world is headed to a catastrophic warming due to the wrong-doings of us industrialized societies and that we need to do something now to stop the disasters, I’m faced with several problems:

- More often than not, when I’ve tried to analyse the concrete evidence to support such claims I have found logical inconsistencies or severe uncertainties that you don’t need to be an expert to perceive. We have discussed a couple of them.

- As an economist, I’m all too familiar with seemingly well-founded predictions that eventually never materialize. I think that this is a feature common to sciences where chaotic, difficult to model variables (in our case nothing less than human behaviour) play a leading role.

- As an economist again, I do not buy the idea of scientific efforts conducted independently of politics and ideology. This global warming scare we’re now under comes in a row with many other disaster predictions promoted since the 60s-70s by environmentalists and certain political groups. I cannot forget the gloomy scenarios painted by the Rome Club, the Zero-Growth advocates or the very global-cooling scare of the 70s (have you actually read in-depth Connolley’s work on the subject? I find it ironic that this article is often cited to refute sceptic criticism, it actually illustrates very well how deep-rooted that scare got to be at the time). Speaking of which, my attempt to participate in the RC forum with critical opinions has done nothing but reinforce my suspicion of leading climate scientists being ideologically biased. I encountered gratuitous hostility and got my posts censored or truncated while those of certain ideological tint were given free pass even though they violated most posting guidelines.

Keep up the good work but be open-minded. Scepticism is in general a sound attitude in science and one I find very lacking here in Europe as regards any politically correct agenda.

Thanks for letting me express my ideas.
At April 10, 2006 7:48 AM, coby said…

You have correctly identified my purpose, Mikel. I don't deny there are legitimate uncertainties and controversial aspects in this debate, and I do purposely target the "low hanging fruit" so to speak. You are welcome to bring up those things that you think I might be sweeping under the rug and help keep me honest! I might not always satisfy your concerns, but I will surely try to either concede the point or provide an argument.

I'm sorry to hear you feel censored at RC and hope you will continue to raise any concerns you have, I think they are evolving as traffic increases. So far I have ony deleted comments from one particular poster simply because they are excessively long, off topic and repetitive of his other comments and don't really feel the need to moderate at all besides that so far. But this is a luxury of not having as much traffic as RC.

I have an article on cooling predictions in the 70's if you want to raise some points there, I'm curious because I do think of that one as pretty conclusively refuted.

Thanks for the comments.
At April 11, 2006 8:20 AM, Anonymous said…

The ENTIRE production of 'greenhouse support' is based in supposition and inference with regard to the 'measure of temperature' and 'CO2 quantity', not in any manner is noticed the actual PROPERTIES of CO2 as they are now known.

There is also the msot obvious censorship of discussion, often justified within labels of actions by 'moderators'.

Perhaps if there was discussion of, and not deletion of, posts there would not be need to repeat these postings.

See:-
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/113579/index.php#comments
-:for further comments.

Your's, Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
At April 11, 2006 3:11 PM, coby said…

Hi Peter,

It is clearly untrue that AGW is based on measures of temperature and CO2, ie correlation only. I think a clear and irrefutable proof of this is the fact that the first scientific paper to discuss this issue was written in 1896, long before any global temperature analysis, certainly before warming, and long before any globla CO2 monitoring. Please see this paper by climate pioneer Arrhenius

I am happy for your new style of short and to the point comments, thanks.

BTW, it looks to me like your graphs of radiation absorbtion by species of gas are correct, and it confirms tha observation that the atmosphere is transparent to visible light, which is where the bulk of solar radiation is.
At April 13, 2006 2:01 AM, Anonymous said…

It is the 'greenhouse theory' that was failed, NOT that there was a dispute that there was 'warming evident'.

It is that the 'greenhouse theory' cannot validly explain the observed warming that is the basis of the problems, not that there is 'skeptics trying to ignore' the observations.

It is that inferences dealing with the observations in terms of 'greenhouse' concepts are invalid in the applications of SCIENCE made within such inferences.

Valid theory does still need to be applied within its valid limits, this situation is often NOT observed in applications of 'greenhouse science' where too often the 'fine print detail' is directly 'overlooked', or explained over with use of (gu)es(s)timates.

Your's
Peter K Anderson aka Hartlod(tm)
At April 13, 2006 10:26 AM, coby said…

"where you will see the great failure of the 'greenhouse theory' in NOT noting the KNOWN remittance behaviors of these material. Absorbance is only HALF the situation."

Okay, I think I may see the source of your confusion about GH theory. You are correct that absorbtion is ony half the story, but you are completely wrong that reemittance is not noted or otherwise overlooked. GHE does *not* warm the atmosphere via GHG absorbtion of infrared radiation as its primary mechanism. You are correct that the majority of this absorbed energy is almost immediately reemitted. But what happens is that in the randomness of the direction of reemittance, half of the energy is radiated *back* to the surface of the earth. This further warms the surface, and the atmosphere is warmed further primarily via conduction and convection. This is well understood and it is the basic physics that is represented in the models. And BTW, re-emittance occurs at the same wavelength spectrums as absorbtion.

That is a misconception I have come across before. Do you know where you read it by any chance?

To review the process please see here and note the in picture caption "Some of the infra-red radiation is absorbed and re-emitted by the greenhouse gas molecules".

For further reading see Chapter 1 of the IPCC, and in particular section 1.2
At May 22, 2006 9:05 AM, coby said…

Seems posts keep disappearing when answers cannot be found

Peter, firstly, my name is Coby not Cody. I have deleted your comments for the same reasons I have repeated to you probably a dozen times. They are excessively long, not focused or on topic, and completely repetitive of material you have already presented. I will quote and respond to a bit, and perhaps you can try actually responding instead of lecturing.

however as has been already noted Cody, the assertion that 'half' of the 'radiation' is directed to the surface is also false, and I have given this situation treatment already. Also, remittance is NOT of Photons with the same overall properties as the 'original' incident Photon.

I have already corrected you on this point. The GHE does not work primarily through the direct heating of the atmosphere via IR absorbtion. Yes, some energy is absorbed and transfered into kinetic energy of surrounding air molecules via conduction but the maority is in fact reemitted as radiation in the same bandwidths that the absorbtion occurs. You have correctly noted that reemittance can be in any direction in 3d space, but this can be divided into two equal parts by the horizontal plane, up and down. The higher you go, the smaller is the proportion of the "down" direction that the earth fills, but this is a small adustment, half is a decent aproxiamation for a discussion such as goes on here.

H2O however has a poor remittance rate, H2O itself is becoming heated and so producing directly a 'hotter' atmosphere. H2O's distribution IS governed however by its freezing and condensation point altitudes to the 'lower' atmosphere. The lower atmosphere gets 'heated' and turbulence redistributes that kinetic energy.

This is just wrong, sorry. The mass of H2O in the atmosphere is just a few percent. That small amount of matter being warmed does not have a very large effect on the atmosphere as a whole. The warming primarily occurs by conduction from the earth's surface directly to the atmosphere. The GHE results in more radiation warming the earth's surface.

I recommend the wikipedia articles for understanding the basics of this topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect and links therein.
At May 23, 2006 1:05 PM, Anonymous said…

Here's one http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/index.html

Listed 1st on that page. A speech by Mr. crichton.

It's Titled
"Fear, Complexity, Environmental Management in the 21st Century"

Very interesting.
Thanks
Matt
At May 25, 2006 1:28 PM, Anonymous said…

great job on the global warming issue. particularly the list of excellent links.

handling of global warming by bush administration is consisten with an overall environmenatl policy that the many links therein show is generally considered to be the worst of any administratio in history.
At May 27, 2006 3:07 PM, Anonymous said…

Do you think so 'press the news'? Generally, the many are seeing the unsupportable claims there in made within the 'links' so repetitively produced as only attempting to contrive an unnatural effect from NATURAL climate change.

This 'greenhouse syndrome' is being produced and perpetuated by disaffected individuals and lobbies of minority value and little knowledge. The generally developing attitude to these disaffect 'global warmists' is that they are trying to produce Natural effects as somehow 'Human produced', attempting to contrive a platform involving CO2, but with no regard to the actual abilities of CO2 and SCIENCE.

The sooner these individuals (and lobby sets of) find less interest directed to them, the sooner we can all get back to practical AND realistic remediations of REAL and existent problems. If such IS the desired conversation, then there is no need for more 'groups', it can be discussed 'here'.

Which probably brings us all to a mention of another area of my interests, to wit:-

=====================================
'Individual Psychological Development'
-a Population based study of the 'greenhouse syndrome'.
=====================================

A warmer or colder climate is neither unnatural nor threatening; it is simply that a few would seem to have a need to fulfill, and to find problems to platform seems to fulfill a psychological need within them.

Some link this to the alienation of the individual in the technological 'society' that is growing. The need to feed the 'id' is become the management of 'issue identification', even when the problem is not actual.

Such is the generator of the 'greenhouse clamor'. Even when the 'opinion' flies in the face of all reason and SCIENCE, the 'few' that see themselves as 'needed organisers' just demand that 'we' all realise the 'importance' of their 'problem issue'.

This individual psychological development in modern society is also seen within overly litigious attitude, where the need to BLAME is become over developed so as to assuage feelings of personal fault or under performance.

The need to be better constantly is driven into children too often in modern society, and such is how adult manifestation of these developed physiologies is behaviorally expressed.
========

It is simple; there is not a real need to believe that there is any unnatural alteration to natural Climate Processes. Such natural processes are constantly and persistently producing an altering climate. That there is NOW some alterations are simply that NOW is when they are occurring, nothing else can be otherwise validly shown.

That Humanity is rematerialing vast amounts of surface and altering kinetic energy induction IS however observable and this IS leading to alterations in regional weather patterning and behavior. This can be remediated by alterations to HOW Humanity builds, with what MATERIALS Humanity builds and WHERE Humanity builds.
See linked article with slides at:-
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/113579/index.php#comments (*)

=====================================
It seems that for some REALITY is simply not sufficient a problem already however, and all these few produce is a shortening 'yellow brick road' leading to wide spread use of Uranium...
=====================================

Replicating an outcome, using the same flawed belief system (that the 'greenhouse platform' attempts to label 'models') by use of the same 'data' (of equally questionable validity) is not in SCIENCE a 'valuable ability'.

If the IPCC was closed tomorrow, it would not be missed....

Your's,
Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
At May 30, 2006 10:52 PM, Anonymous said…

Hi Coby. Many thanks for doing the spadework on this; you're doing an important thing. Keep up the good work.

I can't help thinking, though, that for a lot of global warming deniers, it's not about looking at the science objectively, it's about an emotional *need* not to believe in global warming, and I hope you don't harbor any illusions about that. The Republicans in charge (in the U.S.) have proven over and over they'll lie, cheat, and steal without conscience--Peter's claim "piddly $90,000 grant to the Cato Institute does not have the power to change the public's views on this issue" is evidence of that.

Hey, Peter, is that the *only* money Exxon's donated? No? You wanna come back with a figure as to how much Exxon and the other oil companies have *really* spent muddying the waters on gloabl warming? Didn't think so. Troll.

Jesus, Peter, Exxon's a *business.* It knows what it's doing. If it didn't have a pretty good idea it was going to get a return for its investment, it WOULDN'T SPEND THE MONEY! To pretend otherwise is dishonest.

Those bad, bad environmentalist liberals are promoting global warming--so they must be wrong! Look--Democrats & Al Gore say global warming is occuring! They must be wrong!

I just tend to tune these people out. While I respect you for engaging Peter, I think he's more troll than not; neither he nor Cheney or Bush is likely to accept reality any time soon. You have far more patience than I do.
At May 31, 2006 7:44 AM, coby said…

Thanks. I tried to engage Peter long ago but don't bother anymore, there is no point and I don't think his arguments are likely to confuse anyone.
At June 01, 2006 1:44 AM, Peter K. Anderson said…

The 'game' has never been tween 'oil and 'environment'; it has ALWAYS been tween 'Oil' and Uranium. It is very real, all the material outlined in relation to WHAT the ‘Kyoto Signatories’ are doing all again in public reporting within newspapers. It is very easy to see where the major ‘Kyoto Signatories’ are taking the “Kyoto Treaty" within the politicking attached.

The major signatories to Kyoto are all lining up to form a Uranium fuel production and supply cartel. There are already relatively cheap and rapidly deployable Uranium fuelled Utility designs available, 200 Mw for $300 Million most likely with maintenance and refueling contracts for 'unit lifetime' as part of the deals.

Then there is the Uranium issue in the USA, quietly behind the 'greenhouse platform' for years (as I have been warning of) with now all sides of American politics looking for lobby monies in a more obvious manner.

Then there is the sudden involvement of the World Bank. Realise that most of Eastern Europe still has aging, if not decrepit, brown coal based infrastructure. It is not only about 'developing Asia' that is the target for renewal of utilities.

As to 'global greenhouse warming effects', there is SCIENCE that needs your consideration 'anonymous'. This SCIENCE begins with noticing that it is kinetic energy (KE) that is not involved directly within the processes of Turbulence that can be measured as a Temperature of the mass being affected by turbulence, be it within the Ocean and/or the Atmosphere. The Land surface median rise in temperature is only that residual, retained within the surface after the processes of Conduction and Convection have transported that induced KE away from that surface. It is that the actual real rise in inducted Land surface KE, as is the total KE 'systemic additions' actually made over the past 400 years, are much higher than is noted by simple measure of temperature (in the cumulative manner these additions are really produced).

To consider the claims of 'greenhouse warming' from one arena of SCIENCE then, if you also look at the atmospheric absorbance of energy (see link below), you will see how relevant the behavior of atmospheric water actually is in shaping the scavenging of IrR (especially Microwave Spectrum) energy BEFORE surface incidence is achieved. Realise that H2O has a very low remittance behavior, retaining absorbed energy as a gain in intrinsic KE manifested as increase in kinetic velocity of the molecular unit.

The very existence of Humanity in its current bio-form indicates that 'Infrared energy' has NOT been surface incident with any great intensity, and for at least 5 Million years (to allow for 'Human progenitor species'). Realise that most surface life is made of over 90% saline WATER. The (microwave) energy within the Infrared Region (IrR) will not produce 'sun burn' (a mild radiation burn from UV-A and UV-B) but would induct too much intrinsic KE (measured as temperature) in outer cellular structures, stopping internal cellular processes, killing those cells, and preventing even the formation of 'life' not only 'as we know it', but as 'we are'. The remainder of 'life' indicates that due to evidenced bio-forms there could not have been any intensity within supposed 'greenhouse radiation' that could have produced an induction of KE within the surface to produce the needed temperature, and still allowed for the production of 'life' as 'we are' and 'as we know it'.

The issue is NOT about 'monies' anonymous, but ENERGY. There is NOT possible a situation where the TOTAL KE inductance needed to produce not only the base temperature but any MODULATION of measured temperature could ever be produced by a 'greenhouse effect'. The RADIATION would never have permitted life as 'we are' and 'as it is known' to have evolved with the bio-form it presents with NOW.

So the surface is simply becoming hotter as the surface materials are altered by Humanity, these new materials producing the rising median surface temperature whilst more KE is available to processes of Turbulence and with the 15 year lag seen there is a muted but similar trend in Ocean median surface temperatures in a near match for the original Land surface rise. All whilst there is no sign of any possible 'greenhouse effect' in any real manner for the entire time that present life was bio-forming.

Perhaps it is your political viewpoint that is the problem 'anonymous', there is only SCIENCE to consider, and SCIENCE shows very clearly there is NO 'greenhouse warming effect' or then any attached 'climate alteration' present.

I have placed outlines with slides at http://hartlod.blogspot.com/ ...(*)
But it is only a new project so there are only two outlines there at present.

PS: It is observed that all these attempts at vilification are instead of any engaging discussions. Coby, you have never attempted to 'engage me' in discussion at any time.

Your's
Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
At June 16, 2006 11:12 AM, Aaron Dietz said…

Thanks. This is absolutely awesome.
At June 16, 2006 11:59 AM, coby said…

Thanks Aaron! If you have any suggestions for making it more useful please let me know!
At June 20, 2006 12:16 PM, Anonymous said…

Very, VERY, VERY interesting...

I'm more than a layperson, I'm a dispassionate, tired (read lazy) American. I rarely read/research the issues and end up not knowing what I am voting on or have a worthwhile opinion when debates actually do find me in their presence.

What I depend on, then, are the people around me who have taken it upon themselves to forage on in the pursuit of knowledge.

In case you haven't seen it, please visit Mighty Rex's blog on this topic. (Thank god I'm friends with him, otherwise, I'd just continue my blissfully ignorant existence as an American).

Global Warming Pt. 1
Global Warming Pt. 2

Thanks!
Janelle M. Lannan
At June 21, 2006 11:49 PM, Anonymous said…

Coby!

Did you respond to that Matt guy who posted the link to Michael Chriton's speach?

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/index.html

(top one)

Read it and get back to me on your thoughts.

Thanks,
Joel
At June 22, 2006 10:57 AM, coby said…

Hi Joel,

Yea, I've seen that stuff before. Upcoming developments here will attempt to provide a one-stop debunking of that kind of stuff, but not for a month or so.

Real Climate has done a few posts on his misconceptions, such as this one about one of those speeches.
At June 23, 2006 5:53 PM, Anonymous said…

Here an argument I have always wanted to make and I would like to see if there is anything wrong with it.

Fact: The amount of carbon dioxide released by natural sources is far greater than that released by humans

Fact: The carbon dioxide released by naturals sources is almost exactly matched by carbon dioxide released by natural sinks

Fact: For the most part the sinks and sources are not directly "linked"

Therefore there must be negative feedback on carbon dioxide in order for sinks and sources to be matched. Otherwise what accounts for the precise matching. How does nature exactly synchronize emission and absorbtion of CO2 such that there is almost no excess?

Therefore can't we just rely on the negative feedback to save us which I have basically proved must exist.

BTW - what is the feedback? Oceans or plants or some mix of both. I think plants since we had a lot more carbon in the atmosphere before there was life.
At June 23, 2006 6:29 PM, Anonymous said…

I would like to gain a better understanding of water vapour and positive feedback.

Suppose there is a positive feedback between water vapour and temperature increases. Then isn't there a possibility that the climate is fundamentally unstable. For instance if a 1 degree increase in T leads to lets say a further 3 degree increase through positive feedback with water vapour then shouldn't this 3 degree increase lead to a further 9 degree increase and then a 27 degree increase etc. I am assuming of course that positive feedback is linear and leads to a larger increase in temperature then the original forcing.

Now the argument against this is the effects of water are temporary because water vapour is quickly absorbed but carbon dioxide isn't. I don't really understand this argument so let me try to turn it into something I do understand and maybe somebody can tell me if I am right.

Basically forcings take a long time to effect temp. So increase in water vapour will cause an increase in temp but 20 years later. This is because of thermal lag due to the ocean's acting as a storage device for energy. However water vapour's residence time in the atmosphere is only about a week (wikipedia) so temporary increases in water vapour tend to equilibriate before they can increase temperature and cause a further increase in water vapour. I understand this argument.

However if there was and increase in temp and this increase lasted a while - lets say 20 years. Then this would lead to an increase in water vapour. This vapour wouldn't reequilibriate back to the old level because the temp remains at the higher level due to some forcing (e.g. CO2). Eventually this water vapour will cause temp to increase. This temp increase will eventually cause more water vapour to be released and so you have a runaway effect (assuming of course that the water vapour can cause a larger increase in temp then the original forcing). So you have a runaway system. All you need if for the temp increase to last for enough time for the water vapour to have time to effect the climate. Then you will have a positive feedback. This seems to indicate that climate system is unstable.
At June 23, 2006 7:56 PM, C W Magee said…

1. Your search doesn't work effectively.

2. Can you make it easier to find the critiques and refutations of the calculations thrown up by people such as junkscience.com?
At June 23, 2006 8:09 PM, C W Magee said…

3. If http://www.exxonsecrets.org/ is serious about getting their message out, maybe they should consider not requiring flash for their site.
At June 23, 2006 8:24 PM, coby said…

I agree flash heavy sites are a bit of a pain. BUT they do offer an html only link right on that front page.
At June 23, 2006 8:30 PM, coby said…

1. Your search doesn't work effectively.

That search box in the side bar kind of stowed away with the Technorati stuff, I will see if I can remove that. Did you try the Blogger search box at the top of the page?

2. Can you make it easier to find the critiques and refutations of the calculations thrown up by people such as junkscience.com?

I am planning a cross referencing facility, proposed
here, do you think this would help you? If not please make a few suggestions, this is a priority task and I want to do it well.
At June 23, 2006 9:59 PM, coby said…

I would like to gain a better understanding of water vapour and positive feedback.

I think you have it basically right, but at the beginning of your post you came up with and discarded the reason it is not a runaway effect:

I am assuming of course that positive feedback is linear

Wrong assumption! The effect of a unit of water vapor is logarithmic and diminishes as total concentration increases. This is due to saturation of absorbtion bands, eventually all IR is being absorbed (in the frequency bands where H2O is radiatively active) so it doesn't matter how much more is put into the system. This is the same with CO2, the first 280ppm added by us are a doubling, the second 280 ppm will have a bit more than half again the same forcing.

There is a further limiting factor in the case of H2O and that is cloud formation. Eventually a thick enough layer of cloud would build up and increase the earth's albedo leading to a cessation of warming and perhaps a reversal to cooling again.
At June 23, 2006 10:08 PM, coby said…

Therefore there must be negative feedback on carbon dioxide in order for sinks and sources to be matched.

I think to a point and on some timescales there is. More CO2 in the air means more CO2 going into the oceans for example. We are seeing alot of this already as only about half of the CO2 we are emitting is showing up in the rising atmospheric concentration. Most of the rest is showing up in the oceans but IIRC there is actually a missing sink, somewhere we don't know about that is sequestering some of this etra carbon.

However, once temperature starts rising, there are other positive feedback effects. This was clearly seen in the glacial cycles. It remains a bit speculative just what they are, but there are a number of plausible mechanisms: outgassing from warming ocean waters, carbon released from warming soils, methane from thawing permafrost, methane from clathrates in ocean sediment.
At July 02, 2006 1:04 AM, Anonymous said…

Sorry to rain on the parade of your little end-of-the-world religious cult, but: Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe. Perhaps you can join in with the creation "scientists" for a giant pity party.
At July 02, 2006 8:22 AM, coby said…

Kind of ironic for you to mention creationist scientists, because that is actually where you are apparently casting your lot. Roy Spencer, Fred Singer, the Idso's...there are many creationists among the denialist crowd. On the other hand, you can see a list of the "cultists" here.

That article you mention is a load of crap, which you would know if you had any critical thinking capabilities. This might help you.
At July 12, 2006 6:46 AM, Anonymous said…

Many sceptics point to the temperature increases and subsequent decreases from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Is it merely a coincidence that those temperature changes happened to coincide with the begins of using CFCs (chloroflourocarbines), the eventual concerns over things like ozone, and the gradual switch to alternatives for CFCs?
At July 13, 2006 11:15 PM, coby said…

What temperature drop from the 1920's to the 1970's?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.B_lrg.gif

I see a drop from 1945 to 1970 in the northern hemisphere only. It was enough to dominate the global trend, but did not start in 1920.
At July 14, 2006 1:22 AM, Peter K. Anderson said…

Still the over play of rhetoric overlooks that the initiator of any measure of increase is the Land Surface, and this is still seen in plots of Surface Temperature. There is no lead of the Ocean surface as it is NOT being warmed by a 'greenhouse effect' as such is NOT evident. There is not even evident any sufficient alteration in 'greenhouse radiation' to power a supposed 'greenhouse effect'.
There is NOT a 'logarithmic input of effect' by 'water' as the energy inputted to Kinetic Induction is also powering Turbulence, such energy NOT being measurable as 'temperature' of the mass being 'moved' and this is in precedence to any measure of 'temperature' especially in a Gas, but also in a liquid. The lead of an observed 'temperature' trend into the Ocean is around 15 years, and the muting of that trend is due to the effect of production of Turbulence in interaction to those Kinetic Inputs.

Alterations to Turbulence will produce variation in residual kinetic energy, which is measured as a 'temperature', of the materials involved within 'the system'. Variation in precipitation in both volume and location can result in Glacial expansion. Sufficient glacial expansion will reduce lower atmospheric humidity, reduce kinetic induction within the lower atmosphere and hence increase the 'thermal gap' tween lower atmosphere and Surface. Conduction to 'bridge' that 'gap' followed by convection within the Atmosphere as reaction to those kinetic inputs will mean that the surface will become cooler whilst the Atmosphere need NOT display any increase in measured 'temperature'.

So 'Turbulence Cooling' can display in a Humanistic time frame (several decades perhaps running possibly into a 'few' Centuries) cooling as is mentioned as well as, in reversion, a 'warming period'. This 'oscillation' is irregularly produced as the 'initiators' of any 'significant' variation are NOT 'Energy related' directly (persistent snow fall alterations at a Glacial Head as one example).

One problem for the 'production' of so much of 'climate science' is in the attempt to make such 'variations' as being 'climate change', and it is NOT at all such. These variations can see glacial advance even in a far "warmer climate' that is seen NOW, such as that within the ~200 Million years prior to the 'present period' of recurring Glaciations, ~200 Million years where in the 'end pairing' of the overall Climate Oscillation was seen in (larger) Sea Level Alterations with most of that time seeing a relative Sea Level higher than NOW at both the 'high' and the 'low' oscillation point.

The attempt to involve 'fluorocarbons' and other superfluous 'concepts' is based still in the misinterpretations of Energy prevalent within 'greenhouse science' as still the Energy incident to the surface, persistently within the Visible and Lower UV spectrum, has NOT been observed to alter in any manner sufficiently significant to cause either 'warming' or 'cooling' in interaction with the materials actually present both within the atmosphere, or on the planetary surface.

The 'unnatural' warming so far seen is however trended strongly to the alterations to the planetary surface by Humanity over the past 400 years and the rebalance towards greater kinetic induction (in its cumulative effect) is now producing observable alterations not only to the Land Surface median Temperature, but to the Ocean (vie conduction/convection) and a still unconfirmed claim of a small overall rise in Median Atmospheric Temperature, which if 'true' would place the Planetary Biosphere on the "Human Population Plot" with regard to 'warming'.

It is the Land Surface that is altering, NOT 'incident energy', see http://hartlod.blogspot.com/ for slides.

Your's, Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
At August 27, 2006 5:18 PM, Peter K. Anderson said…

There is still attempts to produce obvious 'opinion' (with attachment to 'political sides'), of some supposed 'level of' UNNATURAL global warming. The effort to make TEMPERATURE (and plots of) somehow relevant to Climate Alteration is complete NON SCIENCE, and this is highlighted in the attempts to persist in protecting and 'talking up; the 'hockey stick' experiment with the 'concepts' being the 'picket fence' for the 'greenhouse platform'. It is that the "Katrina" event that is in kind what Humanity NEEDS to live with as the Human Population spreads further across the surface. So, to fit the 'environmental situation' into the '4wd' example:-

["...often people cite the increasing danger of collision with "4wd's", but that is only as there are increasing numbers of "4wd's" present NOW on the roads than previously and is NOT presenting that collisions with "4wd's" are inherently more dangerous NOW than previously..."]

:- we would read:-

[" ...there are more people 'on the planetary surface' and so there will be more 'accidental Human involvement' with NATURAL events. This does NOT make those NATURAL events inherently or overtly MORE dangerous than previously."]

It is NOT that the spread of Humanity makes it necessary to involve Humanity in a supposed 'unnatural effect', linked to an invalidly produced 'greenhouse theory' either, to 'explain' the increased 'humanistic notice' of these NATURE/Human interactions. The reality that NATURE is presenting is that as relative sea levels WILL rise further as the Secondary Trough reaches a PEAK (with the overall Climate Oscillation still being within a 'Primary Trough').

The 'limitary' (imposing limits of some kind) process of this 'Climate response' is the ability of the overall Climate Oscillation to transition from the "Primary Trough' into a 'Primary Crest' behavior. This situation is generally regulated by TURBULENCE, which is WHAT Humanity is slowly altering by its produced alteration of the Planetary Land Surface. The production of Human Habitat is NOT producing a 'concrete Jungle' but a 'concrete desert' and eventually a more 'homogenous materialing' will limit potential differentiation of Temperature & Pressure and so Kinetic Induction will begin to 'add' Kinetic Energy to measure of Temperature to produce a more uniform (not related to that standardised Statistical Distribution BTW) increase in median Temperature over an increasing region OF the planetary surface. SO LESS turbulence increases TEMPERATURE and so Humanity CAN build itself into a PRIMARY CREST after a period of 'sudden rise then slow 'fall' in levels of overall Turbulence' within which there will be noticed 'walking' of WEATHER PATTERNING'.

At 'Present' is observed the onset of WEATHER PATTERNING alterations due to ALTERATIONS to overall Turbulence levels. That so far is ALL that is being observed. This is NOT due to any supposed 'greenhouse effect' as such an effect cannot be produced VALIDLY with notice to the presented materials REAL properties and CANNOT be produce by OPINION & rhetoric otherwise. That the overall Climate Oscillations are so far NOT showing the rapid transition to SEA LEVEL 'markers' is also NOTICED, but that is ONLY 'so far', is NOT in itself DANGEROUS being only part of the Natural progressions just perhaps made in an 'UNNATURAL time point' (perhaps' by Humanities surface constructions.

Humanity needs to LIVE with these changes of NATURE, recognise the SIGNIFICANCE of Natural persistence of CHANGE and CEASE attempting puerile political play of a 'blame game'...or drown under the NATURAL deluge (which will eventually arrive ANYWAY) whilst still chanting the 'greenhouse mantra'... This 'Present' is but one of many tween the ~60 glaciations of the past 3 Million years (so far) Primary Trough, the descent INTO this 'Primary Trough' was reasonable RAPID and so it could be that it will ALSO be 'short'. The slide above (in the outline 'glaciers reborn') shows the Primary Troughs by the position of the 'green blocks', representing Periods of recurring glaciations involving significant regions of the Planetary surface. Notice that the periodicity of the overall Climate Oscillation is showing a shortening 'wavelength' by noting the SPACING of the 'green blocks' and that the AMPLITUDE is of greatest relevance to fix the RATE of alteration, even if the 'crest and dip' are 'flattening' (perceived as a square waveform with 'ramp' similar to the 'timing chart' seen within computational hardware design'.

There is no validity in the 'hockey stick' plot, 'talking up' such predeterministic 'experiments' is NOT an action of SCIENCE, but of Politics and I again point to the persistent attempts to cite 'attitude' towards the 'greenhouse platform' in terms of a 'Political Siding', again to escape notice of the LACK of SCIENCE within the 'greenhouse platform'...

Your's,
Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
http://hartlod.blogspot.com/
At September 13, 2006 1:31 AM, Anonymous said…

I can’t take it any more.

Dear Peter: If I were a sceptic (which I was some time ago, actually, until my efforts to help advance the sceptical viewpoint - by becoming better-informed - led to a conversion instead, which only properly kicked in about two years ago when I ran out of excuses for flogging that undead denialist donkey. I feel much better now.) you certainly would have singlehandedly snapped me out of it. Only the certifiably insane could follow your posts.

Coby, you are nothing short of a saint, to put up with this poephol*

I know that responsible adults ought not to be using respectable platforms such as this one to fling insults around but in Peter’s case I’m afraid I just can’t help it. I tried to understand him but I’m just an ordinary medium-intelligent person so I couldn’t. Then I tried to ignore him but I failed there too (Three pages of inflammatory rhetoric and a fatwa deleted). Sorry.

*poephol – colloquial South African insult which can’t really be translated. Literally, it means anus but spoken in a certain tone of voice by a native of Benoni it means something much more colourful.

Audrey
IANACS
At September 13, 2006 10:21 AM, coby said…

Hi Audrey,

I sympathize with your comment, but will probably delete it, along with this (just to avoid provoking anything further!). I find the only effective way to deal with the problem you are discussing is to ignore it. It hasn't gone away, but it reduces it.

Anyway, I have had to turn on comment moderation soley for the above reason and still get several a day.

Thanks for the lesson in colloquial South African! ;)
At September 27, 2006 12:41 PM, Anonymous said…

>> I find it very hard to believe that the Bush administration, or any US federal gov't body, *wants* GW to be true

This is very illogical. It is congress who allocates and determines spending. GWB doesn't have the power you ascribe to him, ie, that of a dictator. And certainly, anything that expands the power of government is definitely in the interest of government. It's amazing that whatever the alleged problem, the solution of the environmental wackos is: suspend freedom, institute socialism.

The real inconvenient truth is:

a) the fundamental premise of all greenhouse theories is really not established: that the CO2 levels were significantly lower before. http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm

b) Many people talk about global warming, but not greenhouse theory. If the cause is greenhouse, then night time temperatures would show it: http://www.john-daly.com/barker/index.htm

c) CO2 is a very minor GHG. Water Vapor to C02 ratio is 100 to 1.

d) Anyone who thinks just a little bit will wonder why they don't make greenhouses with glass that's 1 foot thick. Gosh, why not 10 feet thick? That would really warm up the plants, right? Well, NO! The green house effect reaches a saturation point, beyond which more glass doesn't help. The same is true of the earth. The reality is that we're at the saturation point. Even if we could control the CO2 levels, it won't increase the greenhouse effect.
At September 27, 2006 7:58 PM, coby said…

-- I find it very hard to believe that the Bush administration,
-- or any US federal gov't body, *wants* GW to be true

This is very illogical. It is congress who allocates and determines spending. GWB doesn't have the power you ascribe to him, ie, that of a dictator. And certainly, anything that expands the power of government is definitely in the interest of government. It's amazing that whatever the alleged problem, the solution of the environmental wackos is: suspend freedom, institute socialism.

Yes, carbon credit trading and caps on CO2 emissions is pretty much the definition of tyranny. Oh, you forgot the part about Kofi Annan being dictator of the world.

a) the fundamental premise of all greenhouse theories is really not established: that the CO2 levels were significantly lower before. http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm

Only kooks dispute that CO2 concentrations are rising. Yes, I think Jaworoski is a kook. The 1800's is when science was just developing tools to measure CO2. The fact that measurements recorded by all these different new methods ranged from 500ppm to 100ppm means that they were all wrong. Taking the arithmetic mean of a bunch of wrong measurements (which is precisely what Jaworoski did) does not give you the right answer.

b) Many people talk about global warming, but not greenhouse theory. If the cause is greenhouse, then night time temperatures would show it: http://www.john-daly.com/barker/index.htm

Night time temperatures are rising more than daytime. John Daly is another poor source of science. It is pretty unsupportable to draw global conclusions from measurements from a single place, in this case New Mexico.

c) CO2 is a very minor GHG. Water Vapor to C02 ratio is 100 to 1.

Sorry, wrong again. Please see http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/01/water-vapor-is-almost-all-of.html

d) Anyone who thinks just a little bit will wonder why they don't make greenhouses with glass that's 1 foot thick. Gosh, why not 10 feet thick? That would really warm up the plants, right? Well, NO! The green house effect reaches a saturation point, beyond which more glass doesn't help. The same is true of the earth. The reality is that we're at the saturation point. Even if we could control the CO2 levels, it won't increase the greenhouse effect.

The GHE and actual greenhouse operate on very different principals, it is a bad metaphor, but has long ago stuck. Greenhouses work by inhibiting convection, ie trapping air inside, not by blocking infrared from leaving. Yes, CO2 can accumulate to a saturation point WRT surface temperatures. Have a look at the situation on Venus for an example. We are far from saturation here on Earth.

Thanks for commenting, but you would do well to look through the guide entries here before doing so again.
At September 29, 2006 1:44 PM, Anonymous said…

>> Yes, carbon credit trading and caps on CO2 emissions is pretty much the definition of tyranny.

Actually, it would certainly be a huge violation of liberty and property rights. No one has the right to declare that what a person exhales is poison, and control his use of energy.

Me: a) the fundamental premise of all greenhouse theories is really not established: that the CO2 levels were significantly lower before. http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm

You: >> Only kooks dispute that CO2 concentrations are rising.

Actually, that's not what I said. I said that the pre-industrial C02 levels are not established to be 280. I challenge everyone to look at the graph in Jaworowski's paper. You will see that there was "improper manipulation of data, and arbitrary rejection of readings" that didn't fit a pre-determined idea. That's fancy talk for lying. There can be no more sure way that something is NOT scientific, than if the people pushing it resort to lying.

And the fact that you call a very respected scientist a kook, just because his research doesn't support your pet theory shows that you are not very scientific. You can't deal with his science, so you resort to ad-hominem. That's a classic case of "argument by persona", which is a logic fallacy.

And the C02 readings in the paper (550) are very reasonable. The any-excuse-for-socialism types think that C02 levals are exactly a certain value. However, they vary greatly from place to place. Just about everything is either a C02 source or sink. It's an extremely complicated problem to try to figure out the current global average C02 level. And it's very questionable to compare surface readings to the top of a volcano on Hawaii.

And the idea that higher C02 levels are catastrophic is debunked here:

http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2006/09/are-co2-levels-at-historical-highs.html

And finally, back to your straw man, yes, C02 levels are rising, but they normally do go up and down. However, it's the result of temperature rise, not the cause of it. Any knowledge of the carbonic cycle would tell you that man is a very small part of the budget. It's such bad science not to eliminate other more simpler explanations before drawing conclusions.

>>It is pretty unsupportable to draw global conclusions from measurements from a single place, in this case New Mexico.

Good point, in fact, it's also pretty unsupportable to draw conclusions from heat islands, which is what the any-excuse-for-socialism types have done. The greenhouse theory calls for the poles to warm first. I keep checking, and I'm not seeing any warming trend. And gosh, as for antartic ice sheet, let me explain how a glacier works. It's a river of ice. And sometimes, they retain structural integrity and flow out into the water. Some can call it an "ice sheet" and pretend that it's always been there, but it's a river! It keeps pushing out to sea. It can't help but break up eventually.

Me: c) CO2 is a very minor GHG. Water Vapor to C02 ratio is 100 to 1.

You: >>Sorry, wrong again. Please see http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/01/water-vapor-is-almost-all-of.html

Actually, you're in a state of reality denial, if you dispute the fact that water vapor is THE major GHG.

>> The GHE and actual greenhouse operate on very different principals, it is a bad metaphor, but has long ago stuck.

Greenhouses work by inhibiting convection, ie trapping air inside, not by blocking infrared from leaving.

Wow, you're amazingly wrong on this one. Greenhouses work by blocking infrared.

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/102spring2002_Web_projects/C.Levit/web%20page.html

>> Yes, CO2 can accumulate to a saturation point WRT surface temperatures. Have a look at the situation on Venus for an example. We are far from saturation here on Earth.

This is so totally misleading. The greenhouse gasses (of which C02 is only a MINOR part) have a saturation point, with respect to the greenhouse EFFECT. The evidence that we are ALREADY at this saturation point is that C02 levels have changed, but the temperature does not correlate. From 1905 to 1940, a rise of about 0.5°C was measured, while CO2 was almost constant.

From 1940 to 1975, the temperature decreased about 0.2°C, while CO2 levels started to increase more rapidly. For a good analysis of the saturation point, check out this professor at harvard:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/climate-sensitivity-and-editorial.html

>> Thanks for commenting, but you would do well to look through the guide entries here before doing so again.

Thank you for commenting as well. However, you would do really well to do some more research. Specifically, read the paper by an expert, Dr Vezier of the University of Ottawa. (http://www.friendsofscience.org/documents/veizer2.pdf). Now, read the whole paper, don't just google what your any-excuse-for-socialism types say about his theory.
At October 02, 2006 8:17 PM, coby said…

No one has the right to declare that what a person exhales is poison, and control his use of energy.

This is a childish red herring. Exhaled CO2 is no net contribution as it has ultimately come out of the air to begin with (on any reasonalbe timeframe). As for rights, it is clearly the case that in our society one's rights to common resources are limited by one's responsibilities to do no harm to others. It is by no means a simple balance to achieve, but spare me the foot stomping cries of "you can't make me!!"

And the fact that you call a very respected scientist a kook, just because his research doesn't support your pet theory shows that you are not very scientific. You can't deal with his science, so you resort to ad-hominem. That's a classic case of "argument by persona", which is a logic fallacy.

--ahem-- Now that you are finished attacking me personally, where is you answer to my logical objection to his science? i.e. averaging a whole bunch of inaccurate measurements taken with widely varying methods does not give you an accurate measurement.

And the C02 readings in the paper (550) are very reasonable. The any-excuse-for-socialism types think that C02 levals are exactly a certain value. However, they vary greatly from place to place. Just about everything is either a C02 source or sink. It's an extremely complicated problem to try to figure out the current global average C02 level. And it's very questionable to compare surface readings to the top of a volcano on Hawaii.

Indeed. Which is why Jawarowski is not very clever to compare surface level readings from 150 years ago to mountain top readings today. As for CO2 varying, it is a simple matter to remoe yourself to a place that is not a significant source or sink of CO2, and the fact of the matter is that CO2 is a well mixed gas in the atmosphere and does not vary spacially in any significant degree. You may as well try to argue that the moon is made of green cheese, or the earth is flat.

And the idea that higher C02 levels are catastrophic is debunked here:

http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2006/09/are-co2-levels-at-historical-highs.html

And finally, back to your straw man, yes, C02 levels are rising,

Ah. You're just trying to make alot of noise then. Standard fare for denialists.

but they normally do go up and down. However, it's the result of temperature rise, not the cause of it. Any knowledge of the carbonic cycle would tell you that man is a very small part of the budget. It's such bad science not to eliminate other more simpler explanations before drawing conclusions.

Please refer to this article:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/co2-lags-not-leads.html

It seems to me that the simplest argument is that all that CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere has resulted in more CO2 in the atmosphere. But you seem to prefer that the earth is just coincidentally warming now, the CO2 rise is natural and anthropogenic CO2 is magically absent from the equation.

There are plenty of other lines of evidence besides simply noting the trend:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/03/co2-rise-is-natural.html

>>It is pretty unsupportable to draw global conclusions from measurements from a single place, in this case New Mexico.

Good point, in fact, it's also pretty unsupportable to draw conclusions from heat islands, which is what the any-excuse-for-socialism types have done.

http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/warming-due-to-urban-heat-island.html
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/temperature-record-reliability-attack.html

The greenhouse theory calls for the poles to warm first. I keep checking, and I'm not seeing any warming trend.

Try looking at the pretty pictures here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

Me: c) CO2 is a very minor GHG. Water Vapor to C02 ratio is 100 to 1.

You: >>Sorry, wrong again. Please see http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/01/water-vapor-is-almost-all-of.html

Actually, you're in a state of reality denial, if you dispute the fact that water vapor is THE major GHG.

Please quote me denying water vapour is the strongest GHG. And failing that, please provide a scintific reference to support your erroneous statement that H2O is 100x more potent than CO2.

Wow, you're amazingly wrong on this one. Greenhouses work by blocking infrared.

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/102spring2002_Web_projects/C.Levit/web%20page.html

This is just some first year university students course project. He's wrong. I could tell you that the earth is hollow and provide several web pages to back me up. Would you believe me? Wiki has an excellent article on the Greenhouse effect and this section is apropos to the current discussion.

From 1940 to 1975, the temperature decreased about 0.2°C, while CO2 levels started to increase more rapidly. For a good analysis of the saturation point, check out this professor at harvard:

http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/03/what-about-mid-century-cooling.html
At October 04, 2006 4:11 AM, Anonymous said…

Two weeks ago a group of leading european "tree rings" specialists from different european countries commented to YLE (Finish Broadcasting Radio) that current warm period has not been yet as warm as Medieval Warm Period or Roman Warm Period.

Jan Esper (from Switzerland) and Mauri Timonen (from Finland) said that current warming is most just normal climate change. Esper said that it was only Europe where MWP was warmer also e.g in Himalaya. Tree line was 200 higher in Alps in MWP and RWP that todayl Timonen said that during MWP and RWP trees were growing 80 km further north and 200 upper than today.

And it's well documented that oakbelt was almost 150 km northern than today in Finland. It tells that MWP was about 1 degree C warmer than even current peak.

There are proxies and studies showint that S.Africa was im MWP not just warmer than current, actually it was "hotter". Peak was 3 degrees C hotter than current peak.
At October 07, 2006 6:36 PM, coby said…

Please see this article:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/medieval-warm-period-was-just-as-warm.html

And by the way, just what does "normal climate change" mean? Something must be causing it.
At October 07, 2006 7:37 PM, Anonymous said…

Hi Coby,

I'm halfway through a foot-high stack of books on GW science, and I'm seriously considering joining Al Gore's set of slide-show crusaders. Tell me honestly: do you think it's worthwhile?

Your blog is great! Haven't had a chance to read all your 'talking points', but so far I'm impressed with your clear, simple explanations. I appreciate your excellent grammar and spelling, and your patience with the two sceptics who seem to have taken personal aim at you. Good luck, and stay with it.
At October 07, 2006 8:19 PM, coby said…

Hi Raven,

Thanks very much for the positive feedback!

Personally, I do think the Gore slide show crusade is worth it. The tide is turning but the arguments are not over yet and we need to make as much progress as possible. The more credibility the denialists lose, the better. Once all the FUD is out the window, we can have serious and rational discussions about just what to do about climate change.
At November 01, 2006 11:40 PM, Anonymous said…

Hi, you have a fantastic resource but unfortunately you are missing a counter for the argument expressed in the New Zealand Herald today by Garth George, an prominent redneck conservative commentator in this country, that global warming is codswallop because the bible says so.

He writes that AGW is a ...

==quote==
rort being perpetrated on mankind by the well-funded boffins who tell us that all the ice is going to melt and flood the world.

I know that's codswallop and every time I see a rainbow I have it confirmed for me. It tells me that God is keeping the promise he made to Noah after the world-drowning flood thousands of years ago recorded in Genesis.

"I establish my covenant with you," God told Noah. "Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the Earth ... I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and all living creatures of every kind on Earth."

So I'll keep on pumping gas into my four-litre Ford, the home fires will keep on burning, newspapers, magazines and books will remain my reading of choice .. and the doom merchants can prognosticate until the cows stop farting while I laugh in their faces.
==end quote==

Honestly I'm speechless. What can you say to something like that?

Stuart Young, Aotearoa NZ
At November 02, 2006 12:36 PM, coby said…

What indeed. I think arguments like that speak for themselves, there is nothing to add.

It is interesting to note however that there are in fact a lot of religious groups, even evangelicals, that do believe that we should fight global warming. This guy is not one of those...
At November 07, 2006 6:49 AM, David said…

I have used your standard answers to pin down the points made by Peter Hitchens a columnist for UK's The Mail on Sunday in the 5th Nov edition (page31)and identified at least 21 unsubstantiated and unscientific statements designed to promote the "GW concept is nonsense" view! This is I guess a jounalistic response to the Stern Report just published and thought off as a way to please his readers. The article is a classic and I notice largely repeats what the paper published in 2004 in another article by another jounalist, Melanie Phillips, but still on their web site.
Here is the web ref: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/
pages/live/articles/columnists/
columnists.html?in_article_id=229940
&in_page_id=1772
&in_author_id=256
The current article starts: "The Green Thought Police will be after me for daring to say this, but nobody actually knows if global warming is caused by human activity"
If you wish to see the rest let me know, it gets more bizarre as it goes on, and I'll type it up for you.
Regards,
David
At November 07, 2006 1:26 PM, coby said…

If you wish to see the rest let me know, it gets more bizarre as it goes on, and I'll type it up for you.

Ugh! Don't do that for me, that's alot of work just to get a headache! But if you want to do that and show all the standard bogus arguments it uses that might be interesting, I could guest post it here for you.
At November 13, 2006 11:45 AM, Anonymous said…

HI.

The information in this site is excellent.

I sit near a skeptic at work and would love to be able to simply send him URLs to the various pages on this site. Would you consider reorganizing the site so that the pages to which I would refer him might be just the parts that a skeptic would not be insulted by?

The preambles on many of the pages imply that either any skeptic has a low level of intelligence or is an uninformed person.

This may not be the case. The media has confused the issue so badly by virtue of always wanting to present both sides of any issue, even when there is no other side, that some people just really can't tell the difference. Further, it is not always obvious which sources come from scientific peer reviewed articles and which come from Exxon/Mobil funding.

In short, I would greatly appreciate if the actual answers were on a separate page from the preamble.

Thanks for your consideration,
Scott
At November 13, 2006 12:56 PM, coby said…

Hi Scott,

I understand what you are saying and do regret some of the more snarky preambles I have written. FWIW, as I am reproducing this series on gristmill.grist.org I am revisiting each one and among other rewriting I am eliminating the snark. I'm only about 15 into the 60 or so, but you might find the versions linked to from here better for your colleague.

Thanks for the feedback.
At November 21, 2006 1:57 PM, Anonymous said…

Thanks Coby. I think this really will help with my long term debate at work.
At December 04, 2006 4:39 AM, Anonymous said…

Any chance of a post or a suitable link re absorbtion bands to deal with posts like:

http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?p=53642#53642

Quote:

"How do you explain this scientific analysis, conluding that any heat in the CO2 absorbtion bands are absorbed to extinction within ~10m of atmospheric air passage. Meaning twice the CO2 concentration could only absorb ~100% of the energy in 5m instead of 10m, no more or less heat is preserved in the atmosphere, depending on CO2. In other words:

CO2 can not have anything to do with global warming.

http://uploader.wuerzburg.de/mm-physik/klima/artefact.htm "

crandles
At December 07, 2006 4:20 PM, coby said…

that is on the todo list for sure...
At December 11, 2006 8:22 AM, Anonymous said…

Great list... i recently had a couple of (professional?) skeptics drop some comments on my blog. One thing I think you ought to add to your list is the famous Oregon Petition ...19,000 "scientists" rejecting Climate Change.

But great work.
At December 16, 2006 3:37 PM, Steve said…

Coby, I echo those who call you a saint. Even if GW turned out to be overblown, just the effort to try to cut through all the arguments in an issue this complex is an enormous task and it appears you've been valiantly keeping this site current and responding to all. It's the kind of site we should promote and I'm going to put up a link to it.

I want to expand on the comments of Anonymous on May 30 who suggested you also look at the emotional reasons people deny Global Warming. Often, when people can't agree on something,
especially something so well documented as this, it is useful to step back and ask, "Why is this issue so important to you?" Everyone has narratives or stories about how the world works, about what is good, etc. They may or may not be able to articulate these stories. When we run into something that runs contrary to our basic stories - whether we understand this or not - we don't want to believe the new story. We look for all the possible flaws in the story so we can preserve our basic stories. Some examples:

In the early 70's, despite growing evidence, Americans did not want to believe that their president - Richard Nixon - was a crook. They wanted to believe that the US President was an honorable man and all the good things we learned about the US in school Slowly the evidence piled up, but even then, I suspect many still would have resisted if it weren't for the taped conversations that were revealed, and they could hear Nixon and his cronies talking about Watergate.

To many people looking from outside, the Israeli-Palestinian battles seem ridiculous. The continuing violence seems pointless. But obviously, Israelis aren't ready to move out to accommodate the Palestinian desires to eradicate Israel, and the Palestinian stories of honor and history require many of them to continue fighting for everything.

Of course, people whose way of life is dependent on believing something, will gather up all the possible slips of evidence to deny something like global warming if it threatens their status quo. So those people working for oil companies can work hard to maintain their myths, especially when the 'truth' requires a lot of work to understand, and 'authoritative sources' keep giving them fodder.

And, there are those with no conscience at all who will do whatever they are paid to do or say. Or maybe they aren't paid, they just enjoy being contrary.

So in a public policy debate like this, we have various strategies for debate, depending on whom we are debating:

1. For reasonable, rational people with minimal vested interests in the topic - presenting the arguments and the facts as you do on this site is a good strategy.

2. For people whose personal stories prevent them from accepting the 'truth,' the best course I see is to help them identify those underlying stories. They may or may not be able to let them go, but at least becoming conscious of them and alternatives to them, may start the process of revising those stories

3. For people who knowingly lie and manipulate, there are probably several possibilities here, none of them very appealing
a. outing their conflicts of interest and generally discrediting them as reliable spokespersons
b. coopting them - find out who's paying them and make a better offer
c. voodoo?

Anyway, thanks for the great work here. For the vast majority of people who aren't going to get into all the details of the science, it seems to me a key argument is this: If GW isn't caused by humans, or is over rated, and we do things like cut emissions and find alternative energy sources - what have we lost? We can make adjustments to our lifestyles that won't radically hurt us, and we may even find the changes offer benefits we never anticipated. But if it is true and we don't change, the harm is overwhelming. It's like not driving on a bridge that people are saying is about to collapse. Yeah, maybe I could get across, but I think I'll find something to do on this side of the bridge for a while.
At January 04, 2007 7:08 AM, Anonymous said…

I want to thank you for all the wonderful work you’ve done here.
It’s been a great help for me when dealing with so-called Global Warming Skeptics …
But I found it really doesn’t matter how many proofs you show these people, nothing ever changes.
Some realize they made a fool out of themselves by taking a stance easily proven wrong …so they crawl back in their holes to hide for awhile.
Someone else pops up to carry on their ignorant games …and you use Facts again to shut them up for awhile.
Eventually the lowest form of Skeptic shows up and tells you since you use statistics and facts from someone else this means you’re just a Parrot.
So I walk away from these people with the realization that’s its impossible to discuss anything with a group of people who are not just ignorant , they’re Rabid Anti- intellectualists.

I think the Oil Company’s, conservative think tanks and all the other people in the disinformation business are fully aware of their target audiences’ propensity for all things Anti-intellectual and tell them what they want to hear.
What these people want validated is their idea that Scientists & Science are suspect.
This truly has nothing to do with Global Warming/Climate Change.
This is really about the hatred and fear all ignorant people have for people who are smarter than they are.

They want and demand new technologies, advancements in medicine and the like. And will even come out say these scientists are wonderful.
But if Science tells them something they don’t want to hear , they cease being the wonderful well-educated person that contributed a new piece of technology and become an ‘Egghead’ who doesn’t really know what they’re talking about.

I think this is what we’re really fighting here.
I have to admit its feels good to use facts and statistics to defeat a skeptic, but I don’t think we actually do anything other than shut them up for awhile. They’ll just wait for a safe place to discuss their viewpoints with fellow believers and then go out and find some one to vote for that believes what they do.
At January 04, 2007 9:00 AM, coby said…

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the comment and I'm glad to hear you've used the material so well. I can't really disagree with anything you have said, I understand well how the job is endless and seems futile.

BUT

You have to remember that when you engage with these people in online forums the arguments are just as important for the lurkers. These people who watch but don't speak up are the real target audience, and they will be swayed, they can see who is being reasonable and rational and who is just sputing anti-intellectual crap.

So don't despair if the sceptic you are apanking is immune to logic and reality, it is not wasted effort!
At January 04, 2007 11:06 AM, Anonymous said…

Even though I do feel arguing points of logic with the Ignorant is a futile exercise…
I so loathe the idea that these people think they have a right to their opinion in the first place…. Even if no one was in the wings watching, I still get in there and give these people the thrashing they rightly deserve.

Here’s what the Geologist Steven Dutch has to say about people like these …..

“ Unless you have real evidence to back up your opinions, they don't count.”

”If you hear something that conflicts with what you think you know, and you don't bother to check it out, you shouldn't feel stupid. You are stupid.”

“If you want to take on the experts but won't spend the time, effort and money to become an expert yourself, you're not just stupid. You're lazy, too.”

What a Wordsmith .... :)
Thanks again…for all your effort.
At January 05, 2007 3:51 AM, Sethuram's infosolserv said…

WARNING!!!!!!
MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD

GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE
R-educe the pollution
E-nergy conservation
S-ave water
C-lean Factories
U-se recycled product
E-njoy the life

LETS RESCUE THE WORLD AND MAKE IT GREENER AND SAFER

BY
Presanna
presannas@yahoo.co.uk
At January 05, 2007 9:34 PM, Prof. Helen said…

I read through your blog with interest. I am a environmental health scientist and am used to debates over the credibility of scientific findings. I agree that arguments against pollution controls often hinge on the scientific uncertainties, of which there are always many, instead of the body of evidence and the price of doing nothing.

I am trying to empower people to improve their own personal environments and health by providing better and practical information about environmental health issues. I have just started a blog to do so (http://ecohelper.blogspot.com). Eventually, I hope to expand it to cover global issues as well.
At January 06, 2007 7:19 AM, Anonymous said…

What I’m very concerned about is ,I think we’ll get to a point very soon …when we’ll see few detractors use these old Science arguments anymore.
They’re going to stop this silly attack on the validity of Science & Scientists and take a new stance that’s going to be very hard to defeat.

I think were seeing this new methodology in the Adaptation versus Prevention argument.
The devious people who understand the psychology behind a putting a Spin on something, realized we’ve reached a point where we can show and document that 99.9% of the so-called Scientists that they love to trot out as proof, are funded by companies who have a vested interest in this issue.

Because we can prove the very questionable aspects of their so-called called scientists and the people who believe those scientists to be correct…The Spin Doctors had to come up with a new way to handle this.

Now were hearing lots of ..’Yes Global Warming is real, yes it does seem that mankind has something to do with …so let’s stop fighting about and try to come up with solutions.”
This new stance/spin is just a Non-Denial Denial.

Non-Denial Denials are always very hard to defeat.
So the Good old days of being able to prove our points using Science and Facts are coming to an end.
We’re going to have to come up with new ways to handle this.

What we’ll see very soon, is rather then have separate camps on this, just about everyone will agree this is happening.
Rush will get on the radio and tell his followers, were still correct in our opinions on tree-huggers but Science is whole different story.
More and more Republicans will come out and say that this real, lets do something about this.
I bet…Even Inhofe will change his tune on this.

But rather than come up with solutions to this issue/problem, they’ll use this Non-Denial Denial to create an endless series of unanswerable questions.
Were going to see/hear a multitude of statements saying…We agree completely something needs to be done here, but how can we fix this without hurting the little guy.

We’ll tell them it’s always more expensive to deal with a problem after the fact …
They’ll tell us were absolutely right , New Orleans proved that …but in this particular case/fix your solution isn’t taking into account how those people working in that factory or living on that farm will get hurt by this fix.
So what we need to do here is first figure out how we’ll protect those good hard working Americans, and then we’ll think about fixing the problem.

We’ll answer them the way we always do and tell them here’s how you protect that factory worker or farmer while making this ‘fix’…
They tell us were right, but were not factoring in all the details here…

The end product of these unanswerable questions is our Country will get to a point where’s it’s so bogged down with questions on what should we do …we’ll become inactive.
Total cross the board Inactivity is the point of this Spin.
This is not the same type of Inactivity Spin we’ve seen before, where they carefully manipulated the issue to create two sides, each fighting against each other.
This is totally different.

They understand that if you get everyone to agree on this … the majority of Americans will feel were finally acting like Adults here.
These devious people will carefully build on that feeling were acting like adults.
We’ll see many politicians sit down with average Americans and ask them what they think we should do….and all sorts of other situations carefully designed to not just make Americans feel they’re part of the process, but to drill into those people the concept that true adults look at all the details before making a decision

This is a very devious and smart in a nasty sort of way, thing they’re doing here.
They understand if you keep validating the idea that you people are the smart ones who don’t just look at the Science of this ,you also look at how any fix will affect others …they set up a situation where anyone who appears to deviate from that can be called a non-adult.

This is a very effective method they’re come up with.
I’m not sure how we’ll fight this one
At January 06, 2007 8:37 AM, coby said…

Prof Helen, thanks for the comment and good luck with your blogging!
At January 06, 2007 8:38 AM, coby said…

Michael, I agree that the next phase will be harder and after that we will have to deal with, "well, gee, it's too late now, we had better get ready to adapt"
At January 06, 2007 9:16 AM, Anonymous said…

This next phase is truly different.

This particular spin is designed to agree with us , they’ll be very careful to never say were wrong.
It’s a setup designed to Trap us.
They know they put us in a situation where by agreeing with us ..if we don’t agree with them and their points …it makes us look like a bunch of uncaring wretches.
At January 06, 2007 4:05 PM, Anonymous said…

Thanks for this great resource. I'm planning on sharing a link to your article through my newsletter that's focused on helping people do something about global warming.

Nathan Brown
Learn how to prevent global warming before it is too late.
At January 06, 2007 4:26 PM, coby said…

Thanks Nathan. How many subscribers do you have, how long have you been doing that?
At January 06, 2007 9:03 PM, GMB said…

This summary of the glib comebacks offered at leftist cult-science-fraudster sites is notable for one main thing.

The explanatons never or seldom overmatch the original objection.

Its fucking amazing. You have an objection. There is an alleged explanation for it. But the objection remains totally unscathed.

But this summary is worthwhile for this reason:

The objections, taken together, are a devastating critique on a movement that has no justification for its existence and no evidence for its primary reason to be.

This is a devastating attack on alarmism. With a mountain of powerful objections against the alarmists and only very weak excuses, presumably cribbed by those bullshit-artists at realclimate, to match them.

Folks just have to learn to read Conby's work the right way.
At January 07, 2007 1:16 AM, Captain USpace said…

..
Fabulous post, tons of information, a real gem for the archives.

absurd thought -
God of the Universe loves
global warming...
..
At January 07, 2007 3:51 AM, Anonymous said…

We ‘overmatch ‘your so-called original objection constantly.
We can do this because we unquestionably know your ‘original objections ‘ have nothing whatsoever to do with Science.
The simple fact we can show and prove that the gross majority of people and Scientists, who tell us they’re just talking about Science…always use easily attacked sources & data proves this is true.

And this also proves that anyone that would base their opinion on such an important subject on information and data that’s false …..are the true Alarmists here.
At January 07, 2007 7:06 AM, Anonymous said…

The other side never seems to understand they’re just making a fool out of themselves, by using logical fallacies, Ad Hominems and Absolutist statements to try to prove their points. .

I run into this constantly in my Chat room, forum battles with these people.
It’s very Bizarre that these people seem to think they’re scoring intellectual points ….
By telling us….
Since we think all environmentalists are a bunch of Alarmist losers this absolutely proves any science that backs up their beliefs must be wrong.

You try to tell these great intellectuals this concept of theirs is just a logical fallacy…
You tell them this is a logical fallacy called an Ad Hominem.
Their answer is always, No it isn’t it’s the Truth ….you’re just another liberal tree-hugger who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

These people are simply Crazy ,
Even though I know we have no choice here and we must battle these people, I still feel that I demean myself by discussing anything with people who are this ignorant.
I just got through a long battle with these people, which made me hate them even more.
All of us see this Climate Change issue differently.
Some focus on the Administration and their lies, others focus on the oil, chemical companies and place the blame on them for lying to us constantly.
I take a different tack and place the entire blame for this squarely at the feet of these ignorant and average people , who inhabit the chat rooms , take Rush Limbaugh’s trashy doctrine as the truth and then go out there and vote.

Even though I don’t like the devious Spin doctors, Rush & Bush ,Oil Company shills and all the other people who try to turn this issue into something it isn’t….
I feel they’re just opportunists, who found a group of incredibly ignorant people that they could use to run interference for them.
So we really can’t blame these people for recognizing the stupidity of these losers and using them as a tool to further advance their political and monetary agendas …
But we sure as hell can blame the people who are so ignorant and hateful that they don’t even know their being led .

Please forgive me for venting here…
This is the first time I’ve ever posted on a blog or forum where others actually believed some of the things I do..
I always look for the most rabid anti-science Blog or forum, populated by the most Rabid Conservatives I can find to do my battles.
I like showing them they can’t hide …and I really enjoy showing them that were not at all afraid to be the only one there taking a different stance on this.

But , I’m getting older… I just came out of one of the usual knock-down drag-outs that I love to get into with these people …and realized it be kind of nice to post something in a place where everyone wasn’t going to pounce on you.
Thanks… :)
At January 08, 2007 4:56 PM, GMB said…

No Michael Shaw you are talking Shiite.

But I suspect you might want me to put in something more specific to show that Coby doesn't have anything covered.

So here goes:

Gristmill Bubbleworld: Coby Beck / Pure Speculation As Evidence

Here’s Beck pretending he’s laying out evidence. He’s got a mindless thing going for Peer-Review. Here is what he says. Now note: He and his stupid coterie on the Gristmill Bubbleworld count this as evidence:

“another standard

GMB,

Peer reviewed research (you are free to not care about the quality of your information, but you made a claim about this) says that climate sensitiity to 2x CO2 is 2.9+/-1oC.

This does not include feedbacks from melting ice caps or carbon cycle feedbacks adding to anthropogenic emissions.

Your claim that the observed warming shows there is not much sensitivity to CO2 is covered here:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/9/223615/983…”

Its pretty easy to see that there is no evidence here. And believe me. When you click the link there is no evidence there either.

“Another standard” says Coby. And what he means is this compiling of the lamest excuses imageineable for the total lack of evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming.

Realclimate has these sorts of moronic excuses. And they call them “Highlights”

I'm not kidding. They call these lame excuses HIGHLIGHTS.

Here’s what you get when you track down that link.

Quite a few things he is saying resembles a twisted version of many of the speculations I’ve made on my own blog. The difference being that he equates his speculations with certain knowledge and evidence.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/9/223615/983

Here it is and you will notice that this is a shitrain of unreason, patched up by a single sound speculation that is unfortunately just speculation. Reasonable speculation but speculation nonetheless.

But first the shitrain of unreason..

“Objection: Taking into account the logarithmic effect of CO2 on temperature, the 35 percent increase we have already seen in CO2 concentrations represents about three-quarters of the total forcing to be expected from a CO2 doubling.

Since we have warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius so far, we should only expect about 0.3 degrees more for a doubling from pre-industrial levels, so about 1 degree total, not 3 degrees as the scientists predict. Clearly the climate model sensitivity to CO2 is much too high.”

This objection is not only valid. It understates the case. Since most of that increase in temperature is accounted for by the fact that the sun picked up in its activity of its average solar cycles.

So not only is a doubling of CO2 (in the time periods we are talking about) not likely to produce 3 degrees all-other-things-being-equal-warming

….. The data tells us instead that we have to consider the sensitivity to be FAR LESS THEN 1 DEGREES CELSIUS FOR A DOUBLING.

Now that was the valid and perfectly reasoned objection that nonetheless vastly understates the situation.

Here comes yet another excuse from Coby. Another in a long line of excuses from Coby he has mistaken for evidence:

“Answer: Even without addressing the numbers in this argument, there is a fundamental flaw in its reasoning.

We don’t yet know exactly how much the climate will warm from the CO2 already in the air.

There is a delay of several decades between forcing and final response. Until an equilibrium temperature is reached, present day observations will not tell us the exact value of the climate’s sensitivity to CO2….”

But Coby you dope. The data that the 1 degrees assumption for a doubling comes from information going back to the beginning of the industrial revolution. You don’t have the evidence champ”

“….The reason for this is primarily the large heat capacity of the oceans. The enhanced greenhouse effect from higher CO2 levels is indeed trapping energy in the climate system according to expectations, but the enormous quantity of water on earth is absorbing most of the resulting heat.

Due to water’s high heat capacity, this absorbed energy shows up as only a modest ocean warming, which in turn dampens the temperature change on land and lowers the global average trend.

This is commonly referred to as the climate system’s thermal inertia. According to model experiments and consistent with data from past climate changes, this inertia results in a lag of several decades between the imposition of a radiative forcing and a final equilibrium temperature.”

Fine. But its only speculation. We still don’t know how it will pan out over many thousands of years.

In that case a doubling might well lead to a 3 degrees increase or even a 6 degrees increase.

But this is speculation on my part and on yours. You don’t have the data. Speculation is not evidence. Such a warming in any case would not be catastrophic.

It would be greatly beneficial because it would stave off a glaciation.

Its only if it happened over a decade or two that it would give us trouble.

You don’t have the data bud. So you have no evidence. So we have to make the assumption that doubling CO2 warms things next to nothing over a period of (lets say) a century.

He then goes onto make another couple of plausible speculative excuses. But they are ONLY excuses because he doesn’t have the positive evidence.

Nowhere is there positive evidence. So we have to go with what we’ve got.

And what we’ve got so far is that a doubling of CO2 results in an all-things-being-equal temperature increase of way less then 1 degrees Celsius if the time period is decades or only 1 or 2 centuries.

You will not find evidence to the contrary in any of these peer-(whoop-dee-do)reviewed studies.

I kid you not.
At January 10, 2007 8:18 AM, Anonymous said…

I try to explain to all Global Warming detractors of your ilk …that it’s fine to argue over scientific points and ask questions about the validity of Climate Models… …
But the second you start chucking out comments like yours….

” No Michael Shaw you are talking Shiite”

Proves absolutely, you’re not discussing Science.

Since you started your post off by telling me I’m just taking some Muslim anti-American stance …this proves everything you have to say after making that statement concerning scientific points is invalid.
Why don’t you people ever realize you shoot yourselves down when you say these things….
At January 10, 2007 11:30 AM, Anonymous said…

I just re-read you post and see you most likely meant to use the word”Shit-ite” instead of Shiite
Even if it was just a misspelling on your part is doesn’t change the facts of what I said.

”Shit-ite” obviously is meant to describe a person who blindly takes whatever Bull someone’s tells them as fact.

I heard this one just as many times as I’ve called anti-American in my battles with you people.
Since you don’t know how much I know about this subject or the reasons I would even be interested in this.
Once again…You invalidated yourself by making that statement ….
At January 10, 2007 3:00 PM, GMB said…

" No Michael Shaw you are talking Shiite”

Proves absolutely, you’re not discussing Science."

It proves no such thing you moron.

YOU were being an idiot. And I picked you up on it.

This movement is a fraud.

You got that yet champ?

Coby has an encyclopaedia of glib excuses for the lack of evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic global warming.

These excuses are like a shit-rain of comebacks as the first line of defense to reality. Because if you break through that level of nonsense then you can be branded as a troll so the bubble-world of unreality is maintained.

The excuses do not overide the objections. But worst of all WORST OF ALL! Coby has no POSITIVE EVIDENCE.

And neither does anybody else. And there is a very good reason for this. THE EVIDENCE ISN'T THERE!!!!!

Yet there is just mountains of evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic COOLING.

So all you hysterical toothless medieval yokels are running the wrong way.

You have reversed PRUDENCE in this matter as the path of prudence lies with the melting off of as much ice as we can possibly melt.

Now this should be obvious. So what is wrong with you guys?

AND WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO COME UP WITH NEXT?

I mean how do you top this level of stupidity? Getting everyone worried about warming on a planet hard-wired for catastrophic cooling in the middle of a fucking ice age?

What next you dopes, what next?
At January 10, 2007 3:59 PM, coby said…

GMB, though I like to leave your comments for what they say about you, please stop the insults and clean up the language or be deleted.
At January 10, 2007 6:43 PM, GMB said…

Coby.

You won't get me stopping the insults until you stop being an idiot.

Now have you gotten the moxie together yet to actually come up with some evidence for catastrophic warming?

Do the honest thing and admit that you don't have any.

You're leading people astray with your handbook of condensced distractions.

You know I'm no Nostradamus.

But I'll betcha you won't come up with anything at all.

Ask me how I know that.
At January 11, 2007 7:12 AM, Annie Jia said…

This is not in response to your post, but I was wondering, if I link to your post from my blog, how can I get it displayed in the lists under "Links to this post" or "Blogs that link here"? Thank you.
At January 11, 2007 8:36 AM, coby said…

Hi A Jia,

As far as I can tell it is automatic. Some of those links are other articles of mine (even though I would rather they didn't appear and have deleted many) and I did nothing to make it happen. I think Blogger just notices after a bit and makes the link.

Thanks for dropping by!
At January 12, 2007 11:48 AM, Anonymous said…

Must say that is an impressive post which deals with pretty much every issue I could possible think of regarding climate change!

http://ecocritic.blogspot.com/
At January 19, 2007 10:46 AM, Anonymous said…

Hi Coby,

You may already be aware of this, but I saw this success story, if you will, and thought you might like to know:

http://the-envirolution.blogspot.com/
2007/01/so-yesterday-i-was-walking-
down-street.html

(sorry; don't know how to paste that all without breaking the link up)

Keep up the excellent work!

Holly
At January 19, 2007 2:35 PM, coby said…

Hi Holly,

Thanks for the feedback! I could not get your link to open though. Just copy-paste, con't worry about breaking it up. But this link did not seem to work.
At January 21, 2007 12:54 PM, coby said…

Hi Dave,

I am not quite sure what you mean, but you can usually find the actual data by clicking around the scientific websites that present temperature analyses.

Try these two places:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
At January 21, 2007 5:34 PM, coby said…

Hi David,

Forgive my skepticism (;) but you are fitting a very common pattern here: new person comes in with interest in finding info about topic x. Topic x should have some quality y and they innocently want to confirm this. Topic x is in fact very easily googled. I respond with the links. New person comes back complaining that topic x doesn't have quality y and they clearly knew this from the beginning. Debate ensues with all the angles already planned out by new person. Much time wasted running in circles.

Now, I can have no way of knowing if this is what is going on, I am unfamiliar with the meaning of "heating degree days" and have only just made it to the "easily googled" stage. This would seem to be exactly what you are looking for. I present it because I do not like to assume the worst of people I do not know.

Let's see how this progresses.
At January 28, 2007 12:41 PM, Unknown said…

There are some videos that clearly highlight the positions of skeptics. I can't believe that the junk science has gotten so much traction. Here are the links:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4685639012310643460

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2240538883519091176

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5836249066522996918

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6031514559084805348
At February 01, 2007 2:37 PM, Anonymous said…

......And after all of this jabbering, yammering, lip flapping and typing, not a single bit of raw data is produced up front for all to see.

Only pretty little hockey-stick graphs, and those pretty maps of the globe where red=bad and blue=good.

We have seen those pretty little hockey-stick graphs, and those pretty maps where red=bad and blue=good for decades now. And not a single one of them prophecies has turned true, the hockey stick is moved one year foward every year, and the pretty map where red=bad and blue=good has the same general hue as it did a year before.

Where is the raw data? Release the raw data! And don't forget, if you lie, a Senate hearing on perjury is just a phone call away.
At February 01, 2007 2:58 PM, coby said…

Here are some links to "raw data", have fun and be sure to let us all know the results of your analyses.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/data.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_data.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/law/law_data.html
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/maunaloa.co2
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh%2Bsh/annual_s21
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh%2Bsh/annual
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh%2Bsh/monthly
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Daily/HadCET_act.txt
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow

You are undoubtedly confused by the myths about hidden data for the Hockey stick. In this PDF file you can find links to all computer code and proxy data thhat Mann Bradely and Hughes used in that infamous study.

HTH.
At February 02, 2007 8:52 AM, Anonymous said…

That is not raw data, just more graphs in scientese-Beaurocratese lingo.

This is an example of Raw Data:

Chicago temperature readings at weather station, "__________" located at _____Road and ______Road. The thermometer is located 10 meters below the control tower's metal overhang.

1-31-07

1 AM 10.3 degrees celcius
2 AM 9.9 degrees celcius
3 AM 9.4 degrees celcius
4 AM 10.0 degrees celcius
.
.
.
At February 02, 2007 6:20 PM, Anonymous said…

Coby Beck, are you even educated in any science?

I spent 3 years in college studying just physics and math, does this make me an expert? Can I "peer review" myself because I have such an elitist attitude?
At February 02, 2007 6:29 PM, coby said…

Yes, no, no.

Anonymouse, can you please either comment less or make a bit more effort at something substantive?

This is not such complicated stuff you know. If you want it from the source go to the "Cimate Change: the Scientific Basis" link in the side bar. If you want technical disscusion go to RealClimate. this is just an effort to silence the more ridiculous crud out there. FWIW, the climate scientists at Real Climate have reviewed my material and endorsed it.

There really is nothing complicated or controversial here, you should open your mind.
At February 03, 2007 1:28 AM, Anonymous said…

Got that evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming yet Coby?

Still waiting fella.

This is clearly the most embarrassing example of mass-idiocy ever to come out of the world of science.

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/continental-layout-and-ice-ages/

GMB
At February 03, 2007 9:54 AM, Anonymous said…

"This is not such complicated stuff you know. " says Coby

Actualy this is extremely complicated stuff, even for the "real scientists." This is why super-computers are needed to replace the great human brain capabilities in predicting outcomes based on earlier experiences.

You have counter arguements to Global Warming that I have never even heard before, or even considered. Like the Medieval Warm Period. You are actually accomplishing the opposite of what you set out to do, because real scientists (like me) get off on counter-arguements and devil's advocate arguements. You provide the devil's advocate arguement then all you do is say, "NYA NYA It NOT TRUE!" right after a well thought out devil advocate arguement, and im like, "HAHAHHA" this guy, "HAHAHAHA" what a hillarious guy. And your like, "Shut up maaaaaan." And im like, "NO wAY DUDUE! HAHAHA."
At February 03, 2007 10:49 AM, coby said…

...and yur, like, "I'm a scientist", and I'm like, "no way dude!" and yur like, "am too"...

At least you're starting to be a bit funny again.
At February 04, 2007 12:41 AM, Anonymous said…

Got that evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming yet Coby?

Still waiting fella.

This is clearly the most embarrassing example of mass-idiocy ever to come out of the world of science.

It aint complicated. What you are supposed to do is come up with ACTUAL EVIDENCE.

As opposed to a collection of white-washes, smokescreens and lame fob-offs.

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/continental-layout-and-ice-ages/

GMB
At February 04, 2007 4:52 AM, Anonymous said…

So GMB are you saying nothing is happening with the Climate or do you think this is just another periodic Warming/Cooling trend?
And if you do think this is just another ‘normal’ Climate change….
Perhaps you can tell us what effects we can expect from this ‘normal climate change’.

“Qualified ‘people like you would obviously know that during the warming trends and the little ice age (LIA) mankind was seriously affected by these things….
So I’d like to hear you tell us how we’ll deal with crop failure ,disease ,famine and all the other nasty things we get to see happen whenever these Climate changing events happen.

Surely you’re not one of those people that just likes to tell us were absurd for believing this stuff, and leaves it at that…being a qualified scientist like you are , I’d like to hear the details and plan you have for ensuring our Crops and country will go through this normal Climate Change safely.
At February 06, 2007 5:41 AM, Anonymous said…

My perception is that this rather tepid speculation is being exaggerated into a dire threat by denialists for use as a talking point.
At February 08, 2007 11:11 AM, Anonymous said…

I've got a new criticism you don't have yet.

I have been looking at the Vostok Ice Core data.

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/vostok/jouz_tem.htm

Supposedly Raw Data:

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/temp/vostok/vostok.1999.temp.dat

Mind you, I don't believe in any of their conclusions:

http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~lkbonney/IMAGES/Presentations/AAAS%20Feb%2001/Lake%20Vostok%20Schematic.JPG

The Vostok Ice Core data is about to hit rock bottom soon, at 3,600 meters deep. They got 3,310 meters of Ice Core so far. So they are short about 300 feet I guess.

Heres a compiled temperature graph:

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/vostok/graphics/tempplot5.gif

Based on the Vostok Ice Core.

Sometime around half a million years ago it began to snow in the Antartic, and the snow compressed into ice. BEFORE half a million years ago, no snow accumulated, because as you can see, the Vostok Station is going to hit rock bottom.

Where is the evidence that the earth was VASTLY warmer half a million years ago, that ice never accumulated in Antartica? Hmm?

Why is it that ICE only started sticking to the ground (and never melted) half a million years ago. So the Russians at Vostok Station could begin to take readings? HAHA YOU GUYS ARE AS BAD AS CREATIONISTS! THE EARTH BEGAN HALF A MILLION YEARS AGO! HAHAHA! No no, the earth isn't 6,000 years old when Adam and Eve were created. No, the Earth is half a million years old. HAHAhA.
At February 08, 2007 3:43 PM, coby said…

Anonymous: more thinking less laughing please. You are assuming, wrongly, that the ice simply builds up from the bottom and nothing goes on down there. The fact is the ice sheet itself is 10's of millions of years old (the earth much older - 4.5 billion) but it melts from the bottom so the oldest ice is under 1 million years old. Interestingly enough, there is even a very extensive system of lakes and rivers buried beneath all that ice, though obviously most of the ice is grounded.
At February 08, 2007 8:20 PM, Anonymous said…

""Anonymous: more thinking less laughing please. You are assuming, wrongly, that the ice simply builds up from the bottom and nothing goes on down there. The fact is the ice sheet itself is 10's of millions of years old (the earth much older - 4.5 billion) but it melts from the bottom so the oldest ice is under 1 million years old. Interestingly enough, there is even a very extensive system of lakes and rivers buried beneath all that ice, though obviously most of the ice is grounded.""

Oh I see. Even there is no proof that all the snow on the bottom melts away, and escapes through the groundwater. You have as much faith as a Creationist. Are you going to start casting out demons now?
At February 11, 2007 2:44 AM, Anonymous said…

Coby,

The central problem with government mandates vs private enterprise is that the person making the “investment” does not have to pay the price of bad data or false beliefs like a free enterprise person does.

You seem to be totally convinced about the GW theory, which I am just as equally convinced that we need to double the co2 concentrations if it were possible.

Direct and serious question: Would you be willing to pay for all the costs of the taxes imposed by government, or the costs incurred, and do it by a binding contract that would leave you in complete poverty for the rest of your life if you are wrong? Such a contract would place the risk, which is central to the contention, on you, the promoter of the concept/idea.

I believe people like Mann and Gore can makes such alarmist claims because they don’t suffer from the real cost (now running hundreds of billion for Kyoto) of their beliefs if they are wrong about their imposed mandate. Lowell Ponte did not suffer from his “cooling” con game and misunderstandings of climate and neither have all the false “prophets” of doom and gloom. I believe a class action lawsuit is in order and they should be held for fraud, plus prison time.

The central issue to socialism’s fault and ironically the GW theory is feedback, and therein is the risk. This question is all about risk because the science is not able to answer the question clearly at this time to a level needed, just like nearly every business investment.

When a Senator votes to tax to pay for some pet project or belief system (GW, or National Health…), he should also have all of his estate (read Kennedy and Kerry) at risk for his choice, just like an independent investor would. This is why a government that governs least is best. No “investment” can be made correctly without this feedback and government peoples are the wrong type of people (risk adverse) to be making such decisions. Branson, for one, puts his own money where his mouth is, which is good. Are you willing to do the same? Would you risk $10 million on it?

I am not stopping you from inventing something to “save the world.” I personally am putting all of my estate into an invention that could greatly increase fuel economy, but I do not force you to invest in my 100-mpg concept car, and I especially don’t force you with a gun to your head to pay for my pet project that may or may not work.

I believe you position would constitute an actual 3rd degree felony assault on me should it be mandated. You do not have the right to force me to your belief, any more that an inventor of a new engine has the right to get money from DARPA because “we’re friends” (John Olver D-MA).

I find it funny how passionate GW types are with other people’s money. I also find it completely disrespectful, and criminal to say the least. Funny, if I am successful, 70%++ of the fuel would not be needed, achieving more than the best dreams of Kyoto. If I can do it, a smarty pants like you could. Suggestion: Get off your backside, turn the blog off, stop promoting, and use your brain to meet your beliefs. Just says… You might just get rich saving the world…
At February 12, 2007 10:42 AM, Anonymous said…

Does anybody know (or care) how much World War One and World War Two contributed to Climate Change when Europe burned? Or maybe even when Kuwait's oil fields were set alight?
At February 14, 2007 9:13 AM, Steve__M said…

When recently challenged, I couldn't find an answer on your very useful page to:

"Problem solved. It's nothing to do with CO2. It was cosmic rays and solar variability"

Eventually found one here. Don't know whether you want to add this to your list.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/taking-cosmic-rays-for-a-spin/
At February 14, 2007 10:16 AM, Steve__M said…

Anonymous said "I believe a class action lawsuit is in order and they should be held for fraud, plus prison time."

Sorry to butt in here. But how can you advocate a class action lawsuit when you advocate the government doing nothing? Didn't the government make the laws you're hoping to enforce in your lawsuit?

You should move to Somalia. They haven't had a government there for decades.
At February 14, 2007 12:34 PM, coby said…

Hi Steve__M,

You're right, there is no cosmic ray article and there really should be. I hope to get it in here soon, this is becoming more and more common to hear.

Thanks for the comment(s)!
At February 14, 2007 3:07 PM, Anonymous said…

Steve,

If you yell “fire” in a crowded theater, which is what the GW alarmists are doing, you better be right or you are liable for all the damage and deaths caused. (Are you willing to take that liability by binding contract and pay all the taxes and damage should you be wrong about CO2 GW theory?) You can be put in prison for yelling “fire” and would owe all theater goers tickets to the next show, plus damages for lost time and such (trauma, and emotional damage worth a lot with today’s spin), not to mention that people could die giving you murder charges (read, poor Africans dead because they cannot get energy at a low cost). If a fireman yelled “fire” and there was none, it is even worse. NO responsible fireman would ever work in any fire department if they yelled fire when there was none, the UN excepted.

There is NO fire. I heard just yesterday on C-Span that in the senate debate that they admit that methane from cows causes MORE Global warming than all the cars, and coal power plants. I about choked with laughter of the insanity of the total lack of understanding of earth systems.

As I see it, there are only positive effects from co2 emissions for the next 100-200 years. Clean combustion is a massive positive. There are NO negatives below 2-5k ppm. Why do I “know” this? Because the planet responds to higher temperatures by INCREASING co2 concentrations in the air. This increase helps plants grow and makes them more draught resistant. If you notice that the historic low co2 is around 180 ppm, you will also know that the effect ALWAYS stays in logarithmic saturation where large changes in concentration can occur with nearly NO effect, giving positive and negative correlations to temperature. CO2 has nearly NO effect compared to water and methane. Lets just kill all the animals world wide if methane is such a nasty thing! The blatant vegetarian anti meat “rank” of the methane spin is very clear.

Fact is CO2 is NOT a pollutant! It is not toxic waste dumped into a river. Plants breath OUT (and much more in) more than 100 times what we emit. It is central to all life on earth and the more we have the better we can “throttle” life on earth, if such were possible (not even remotely possible). EVERY animal and species will BENEFIT from more CO2. Plant response indicates they are evolutionarily (if you believe that theory) tuned to 1200 ppm, not 380 ppm.

Ironically, the GW alarmists are like Moslems who are willing to kill to get Sharia law because they believe the “theory” of Allah promoted by a prophet. Any connection between religion and force is illegal and the very structure of Islam is illegal to USA constitutional law, and so is socialism and the use of force without accountability and liability feedback and freedom.

What is being done here by analogy is to force by taxes and regulations the application of the theory of evolutions. There is “consensus” about the Evolution theory and therefore we must force all religions out and allow only evolutionary theory.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS: when you advocate government force, you step into another area of liability, where “life, liberty, and sacred honor” come into play. What needs to happen is that all people need to sign a “declaration of co2 independence” to document who believes and promotes GW theory AND THE USE OF GOVERNMENT FORCE, like Coby, and to have them suffer the consequences if they are wrong, just like John Hancock and Washington did with their signature. Grown men do that. Weak-minded con men who really don’t know what they are talking about, do not. Put your mouth, money, liberty (prison term), and reputation (honor) on the line, otherwise DO NOT ADVOCATE THE USE OF FORCE!

If you sign a contract pro or con, and we do nothing, then those who do not want it then become liable for damages from co2 emissions. If the water level increases over historic rates, then they pay for relocation cost of pro GW people and those not pro, do not get paid and suffer the consequences. If nothing happens in ten years then, the pro GW people PAY the non believers ALL the ADVOCATED taxes and DAMAGES.

But what is going on here is classic government lack of accountability for the costs of their force. This is why government that governs least is best, because they cannot cash the checks they write. Stalin and Hitler could not cash the checks for the cost of their “theory” of government, and neither can Senator Boxer and Al Gore. When Al Gore, Boxer, and Coby, are willing to put all they have on the line in a binding contract, then I will listen. Before you do that, Coby, you do NOT have the right to advocate force. Period. You can talk all you want about fires in theaters, but when you yell “fire” you must be able to pay and HAVE THE ABILITY to pay, just like you cannot drive a car without insurance should you drive “wrong.” This is where the contention comes from. The GW alarmists are like outlaw drunk drivers without insurance.
At February 14, 2007 4:01 PM, Anonymous said…

The Democrats will pay, with political power (the only thing they really value).
At February 18, 2007 6:20 AM, Anonymous said…

For weeks I’ve been having an argument on a forum with this guy who keeps telling me that since Carbon is the building block of all life it cant be bad in any sense for our planet.
What’s up with these people who don’t get simple Science facts like too much of anything isn’t a good thing….
At February 18, 2007 3:42 PM, coby said…

yeah, some people are beyond help. Even drinking too much water can kill you.
At February 18, 2007 9:18 PM, Anonymous said…

Yup, you Neo-Communists are beyond help. A war and lots of deaths between the real Americans and the traitors is the only solution.
At February 21, 2007 8:54 AM, Anonymous said…

The IPCC refuses to turn over their raw data and computer algorithms used to make their pretty little graphs, and maps where red=bad and blue=good.

The IPCC is an agency of the United Nations, a well known International Socialist organization. Neo-communists.
At February 22, 2007 6:40 AM, Anonymous said…

Admit it, you all believe in man-caused global warming as a faith, not based on reason or evidence (which you very selectively choose, ignoring all the evidence that climate is not controlled or affected in any significant way by Man!).

The climate of the earth has always been changing and it is the height of arrogance - and the goal of socialism - to believe that Man causes it, and thus Man can correct it - somewhat akin to the idea of the perfect Soviet Man.

You all have forsaken any belief in God, instead you believe that Man is God, or Nature is God, anything at all but believe in the Creator. Your faith in global warming and in socialism is just as strong as any fundamentalist's - the difference being that your faith is unfounded!
At February 22, 2007 6:41 AM, Anonymous said…

As Dr. Malcolm Ross says, "Freeze or fry, the problem is always industrial capitalism, and the solution is always international socialism."
At February 22, 2007 7:47 AM, Anonymous said…

Global Warming Turkish Site Küresel Isınma please visit my site
At February 25, 2007 2:23 PM, Anonymous said…

This whole site has "I believe in anthropogenic global warming" all over it, which anyone is entitled to believe in. What continues to be lacking is a linear scientific methodological demonstration that there's a solid basis for that belief and the alarums that accompany it. Any recent consensus of scientists is different from past consensi in that it doesn't have the backing of the Pope (although recent reports indicate even the old boy himself is coming around). Note that any ONE person with reproducible scientific methodology to support his/her hypothesis is sufficient; no consensus is necessary or even desirable. You only need one person. Methinks the global warming alarmist doth protest too much.
At February 25, 2007 2:47 PM, coby said…

Anonymouse,

You mad that exact same comment elsewhere! Here is the answer I already gave:

I think you would be well served to look up the word "consensus", it does not mean the same thing as unanimous. Even the "earth is round" theory is not unanimous. And what, pray tell, do you mean by "a linear scientific methodological demonstration"? AGW theory is quite straightforward and very well supported scientifically: CO2 is a radiatively active gas (this is known for well over a century), CO2 is rising (this is irrefutable and known for five decades, predicted over a century ago), the rise is from fossil fuel burning (common sense aside, this is beyond doubt through isotope analysis of atmospheric CO2), all other factors being equal such a rise causes warming (very solid, confirmed by present day observations, past reconstructions, basic physics and both simple and sophisticated models). How much warming is caused by a what amount of CO2 is more complicated but again there is a substantial and strong body of work supporting the IPCC conclusions.
At March 01, 2007 9:26 AM, Anonymous said…

Actually I started to look at the subject. There are much talking but how many of you actually look at the data of competing theories. I got so upset I launched a new website http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/
At March 05, 2007 7:16 PM, Project OuterHeavens said…

Hi Coby,

"You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result." - Mahatma Gandhi

Good Day,

Australia has recently responded in raising the awareness of in the importance of tackling climate change through the program "CoolAid" which has also been featured on TV. Climate change is recognised as one the greatest threat the planet faces. Yet despite this, carbon dioxide emissions have risen recently.

My name is Eric, author and founder of the six year project 'OuterHeavens' (www.outerheavens.blogspot.com). This project will experiment with the Secret we know that will attract the people who can and want to be part of the event. We believe If you commit yourself to a deep and meaningful goal, when you make the commitment, the world will change. What will people do if we knew what we were capable of? There are people who can, and will make a difference.

The mission of OuterHeavens is to attract like minded people who are ready to use the power of the Secret to change their lives for the better and to achieve the two project goals which are build Universities Specializing in Renewable Energy and Schools Specializing in Accelerated knowledge Transfer.

We would like to share this secret with you in this small ebook, a book of possibilities which you can respond to by contributing your ideas, thoughts, critics, comments and action. The website link can be found here at the following URLs to download the ebook.

Cut and paste to download the ebook:
http://files.filefront.com/OuterHeavens_Ver2pdf/;6868456;;/fileinfo.html or
http://www.outerheavens.blogspot.com

If you would like to receive the ebook by email, please either reply to this message or email to outerheavens@gmail.com

Please also share this book with people who are interested in helping stop climate change.
Anything you do, even a reply of support will make a big difference.

For a Better Greener World,
Eric CYS
Author and Founder of Project OuterHeavens
Brisbane, Australia
ebook can be downloaded at:
http://www.outerheavens.blogspot.com
At March 07, 2007 5:26 PM, Anonymous said…

On this one website there are 56 arguements against Global Warming, and all 56 arguements have either no or a very weak rebuttal.

56:1 I win, you Socialists lose, go back to Russia.
At March 10, 2007 9:58 AM, Anonymous said…

If AGW is real, it's proponents have done a great disservice to mankind by linking the theory so inextricably with socialist policy. By doing so, they have created justifiable skepticism that may ultimately prevent corrective measures from being taken.
At March 10, 2007 10:41 AM, coby said…

Hi Jeff,

It is the opponents to AGW theory who try to make it a political issue. And BTW, carbon taxes, cap and trade and international agreements are not socialist policies.
At March 11, 2007 7:27 AM, Anonymous said…

Excellent post -- I'm letting all my friends know they should consult this before any over-heated eco-debate.
At March 12, 2007 8:08 AM, Anonymous said…

Hi Coby,
Thanks for initiating this site-very informative/authoritative and well articulated..essential in this issue where rhetoric seems to be the tool of choice for many skeptics.
Your answers to the claims on natural co2 emissions were particularly useful as it allowed me to effectively bury an idiotic argument I had to contend with when a writing a feature recently.
Kind regards,
Jon student from SW England
At March 12, 2007 1:07 PM, Anonymous said…

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=global+warming+swindle&search=Search

The Great Global Warming Swindle. Heres a youtube movie, in 8 parts, for the scientifically deficient folks out there.

I am dissapointed they never touched on the Urban Heat Island Effect. I still stand by my assumptions.
At March 12, 2007 2:48 PM, coby said…

Thanks for the comment Jon, I'm glad the site was useful for you!
At March 16, 2007 3:30 AM, Anonymous said…

Hi, Coby

Just found this valuable site - I'll be referring to it often.

I'm glad you're not buying into Cindy B's advice to stop discussing the science and to get into nonstop denunciation of the evil of the dissenters. Let's keep reason alive.

Now - do you think you'll ever get round to creating a site on how to avoid irrationality and alarmism in the "pro-warming" camp? Don't you think that's part of "fighting the good fight"? Do you seriously think the unreason is all one way?

Best,

Chris Cooper
At March 18, 2007 5:01 PM, Smithy said…

What amazes me is how the masses have accepted the GW theory without question. They choose to believe the Scientific High Priests in a religious fervor as though the human race stands condemned by the Great Environment God.

They seem to think that we will be on this planet forever and deny the fact that Mother Nature will sweep us away into extintion, just as She has done to all other species before us. They are intent on making endless Sacrifices of trillions of dollars to purge their Souls, and naively think that they can buy some extra time from Mother Nature.

The "believers" of GW are in denial themselves, of our fragile existence and eventual anhilation by the forces of the Universe. And so on you go in your religious behaviors, damning others because they do not believe in your Environmental God nor the teachings of your Scientific High Priests and because they dare to choose a different point of views.

You are pathetic, not because of your beliefs (you are entitled to your point of view), but because of your single minded determination to force your views on others and expect everone to pay for your self inflicted guilt.

And all to no avail.
At March 23, 2007 11:32 AM, Anonymous said…

One argument in the GW debate/fracas/riot/religous war that you don't seem to address directly is whether GW is really bad for the human race. Alarmists talk about "destruction" and "disaster" occuring but the wild-eyed warnings like in "The Day After Tomorrow" are almost uniformly derided by climatologists. Rather the argument is, "Well, over the next 10/20/50/100 years will cause Bad Things (tm) to happen!"

The problem with this kind of alarmist tactic is that everyone knows the people making these claims demand action (ie., money) TODAY but probably won't be around LATER to take the blame if they're wrong. Even if they are the money will already be spent and there's no getting it back.

(More cynically, even if we "do nothing" about the crisis de jour and nothing happens said alarmists may have the gall to claim that by "raising awareness of the problem" they still somehow managed to avert it - "and you can make the check out to...")

Even worse, alarmists project out that terrible things will happen if we don't take IMMEDIATE (and highly expensive) action to avert the crisis by assuming the worst-case scenario. If I tried to drive straight from LA to NYC there's a 100% chance that something bad will happen to me: either I'll hit a tree or drive off a cliff. Alarmists insist that unless I take DRASTIC and IMMEDIATE action to avert this crisis then said Bad Things (tm) will happen. (Their solution always seems to involve hiring them to drive the car, but that's another issue). Of course, if I simply buy a map and follow the road, taking reasonable precautions (gas, tire pressure, not falling asleep at the wheel, etc.) I should make it just fine.

In the case of GW'ing this involves things like developing drought-resistant crops, digging irrigation canals in regions likely to suffer from water shortages, gradually switching from fossil fuels (which are getting more expensive anyway) to solar and nuclear power. One of the most serious charges the IPCC makes in regards to Global Warming is that over the next 100 years the oceans will rise between 25 and 32 inches. If the human race can't outrun a "flood" of 0.3 inches *per year* perhaps it's time to chuck it in and see if the cockroaches can do better.
At March 28, 2007 12:55 PM, Anonymous said…

Notice how those who believe in this global warming stuff, when confronted with logical FACT which disproves their purely speculative and fear-based perception of warming, will attack personally? Evidence? http://www.discussglobalwarming.com/blog
At April 08, 2007 5:26 AM, Anonymous said…

Anonymous , if you want to talk Logic …lets go.

Does the person who says thousands of scientists have something completely wrong make a good argument?

Or does the person who says it’s statistically impossible for thousands of highly trained modern scientists, using the same time honored and proven forms that all other scientists do to get anything 100% wrong….present a better argument.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Does the person who says that these Scientists, may be highly trained, but they got suckered into an environmentalist Hoax and just don’t know it, make a good argument.

Or does the person who says it’s statistically impossible for thousands of highly trained scientists to throw out all of their hard earned education and understanding and replace that with a bunch of unfounded garbage just because a bunch of Fear mongering tree-huggers told them to do this….present a better argument.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
Does the person who says Science often gets many things wrong and uses past events to prove this concept ….. Make a good argument?

Or does the person who says there is a huge difference in the state and quality of Science nowadays compared to 100 or even 50 years ago …and will want to see modern and applicable proof showing present instances where the majority of scientists in any field got something completely wrong ….present a better argument.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
Does the person who says were just seeing a natural trend here similar to past ice ages and warming trends ….. Make a good argument?

Or does the person who says, we might find that point of yours valid if you brought up what we can expect to happen in the sense of how those natural trends will affect us.
But since you never tell us about the impact from these natural trends (droughts, starvation, disease, war etc.) and just seem to think you can chuck out absolutist comments about this ,we know you’re full of it….….present a better argument.
At April 19, 2007 11:06 PM, Anonymous said…

Hi my friends,

I don't have a definite opinion about Global Warming. This comment is about "skeptics"

I've debated with skeptics for years, and there is evidence that they aren't open mind critical thinkers and honest truth seekers. So, I recommend you be very careful of the so-called "skeptic". I will give some links where you study in depth the arguments, rhetorical tactics and bad intentions of the so-called "skeptics". You'll learn to spot them and overcome their tactics.

Please, take the time to study this material.

Take a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism

How to debunk skeptical arguments:
http://www.geocities.com/wwu777us/Debunking_Skeptical_Arguments.htm

Skeptic's tricks to win arguments:
http://www.discord.org/~lippard/stupid-skeptic-tricks.txt

Corporate skepticism:
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/objectivity/Dace_corporate.htm

Another one:
http://www.rense.com/general51/embr.htm

GW may be true or not. I don't know. But what I know for sure is that skeptics don't have the objetivity to show us the truth.

Best Regards
At April 21, 2007 12:17 AM, Anonymous said…

Al Gore wants to be right, and he wants to be President too...

absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
spread hysteria

wildly exaggerate
scare little kids not ready
.
At April 22, 2007 12:46 PM, Anonymous said…

Hello,
Just to give someone a different view on Global Warming and some others something to lauph at. I'm not saying the world isnt warming it is and maybe if left alone the world would end that way. BUT im a man of faith and the bible has the end of the world written in Revalation and it surely doesn't end, because of C02 gasses it ends the way he said it would through prophets 2 to 4000 years ago. Also, I know we should be good stewards of the resources God has given us---even with the animals---this goes for money and everything on the planet. Just know no matter whether you believe in global warming or not God is in control he won't wipe us out that way, but he does destroy the earth by fire in the very end. That is why Christians don't even listen to the theory about global warming, because we know it doesn't end that way. Read revalations and study the prophets remember the bible always interprets itself just study the bible no other books is needed.
I learned in a college english course you should have a well rounded argument read the bible understand the prophets and why people don't listen to you cause it all boils down to the christian teachings for 2000 years.
At April 23, 2007 6:01 AM, Anonymous said…

Rational Thinker Thanks for those links …
I think most thinking people understand the so-called debate on the validly of Global Warming has nothing to do with a wish to find out the truth of the situation..
This is pure and simple a situation where some devious people are counting on the deeply rooted hatred many people have for others who don’t think like they do.
If we take the Politicians, Oil, Coal & Chemical companies out of the picture for a moment and just look at the people that they designed their Skeptical Anti-man induced Global Warming spins for…you clearly see a huge group of hateful and stupid people who don’t care what the issue is about, as long as it deviates from what they consider a Liberal view …they’re happy.
We shouldn’t forget ,these “Skeptics “ are the exact same creatures who support whatever our President does, love to tell women they’re not intelligent enough to know what’s right for them …quibble over sick little details ,like does cigarette smoke really harm infants and all the other “moral “ things these great REAL Americans stand for.

Anonymous you prove you don’t know what you’re talking about and are politically motivated …..When you try to imply you know the whole Global Warming thing is off…because the Bible tells you Global Warming won’t cause the end the world… something else will facilitate that.
Why are you wrong and just showing us your Political leanings?

Simply because there are NO scientists telling anyone that they believe Global Warming will cause the end of the world.
At April 30, 2007 10:27 PM, Anonymous said…

This is a truly funny site!

Non-scientist Coby claims he has the answers for us heretics. Yet many of his "answers" to blog responses are not answers at all but dismissals of evidence he can't deal with. He shouldn't feel too bad. The Man Did It (MDI) crowd can't answer many of them even in the IPCC.

Some of his answers are wrong. The CO2/temperature relationship is bas ackwards to what it needs to be if MDI CO2 is the cause of warming. CO2 rises [i][follow[/i] temperature rises by hundreds of years.

He probably believes there is a consensus among all scientists about MDI too. Guess that means the Russian and Israeli scientists who say the cause is solar (http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/NationalPost.htm ) are in the pay of big oil. Maybe Mars is too. Either that or farts from those thoat herds the Cydonians keep are warming Mars.

Coby, how are you going to answer the real scientists who show MDI is garbage? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2332531355859226455&q=Great+Global+Warming+Swindle&hl=en

Arius the Heretic
At May 06, 2007 10:20 AM, Trifler said…

Cheers Coby, Wonderful site. I have used your information in many arguments with people who have been confused by the misinformation industry.

Could you do an entry on Cosmic Rays? This is the one that is being put about the most in the UK at the moment (I don't know where you are, I'm assuming US). I'm finding it hard to understand all the stuff on it being a non-scientist.
At May 07, 2007 12:49 PM, Anonymous said…

Since your original post almost a year ago, several climatologist have been speaking about the impact of man on climate - in most cases pissing off the greens. Many of these climatologist hold emeritus status and are not in the pockets of either side of the issue. Recently, and potentially most notably, Emeritus Professor Reid Bryson, credited by many (if not all) to be the first to sound the alarm on man's impact on climate has a few things to say...
http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html
At May 07, 2007 1:57 PM, Anonymous said…

GREAT BOOK: 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming' may lean one direction, but it calls in to question much of the 'science' and methodology used to promote the idea that 'WE' are responsible for the climate change which seems to be the only real constant. It's difficult to find unbiased information on either side, but I do ask that those promoting the idea that we are significantly responsible for climate change read this, and then look at the information presented as fact. I'll agree that some of it is questionable, but it points out some very questionable science and methods on the side of those trying to shut down industry as well.
At May 08, 2007 7:18 AM, Trifler said…

Oh I see someone has already asked for Cosmic Rays...

Another request is to answer the claim that there is no evidence that CO2 is causing the current warming, in other words a sum up of what I believe is called the "attribution problem". Or is this summed up well elsewhere, or on here and I have missed it? I couldn't find anything on RealClimate, that I could understand anyway. I am under the impression that there is evidence in the form of the infra red leaving the earth falling in the CO2 bands? As well as the signature of the rates of warming of different parts of the atmosphere? Any chance of a sum up of all this stuff?
Thanks lots Coby
At May 08, 2007 9:25 AM, coby said…

Hi Josie,

Yes, cosmic rays are on my todo list, hopefully it will get done Real Soon Now.

There is an article entitled There is no proof CO2 is causing the warming, but that may not be quite what you are after, it is more a logical argument about proof.

Try having a look at The Models are unproven, that has references for a couple of the things you mentioned.
At May 09, 2007 3:14 AM, Anonymous said…

Hi Coby,
I'm sorry to see people posting under anynonomous names with very very little substance in their arguments.
Please don't let this distract you from your good work!
I recently read a letter in the opinion page of a newspaper i have worked for and was troubled by the flakyness of their argument.
The thrust of it was as follows:
"The trouble with all the assumptions made by the global warming lobby is that it can't be proved; it is only assumptions and we will never know, whatever we do or don't do, whether they are correct. The only safe science is to look at waht has happened in the past, not what what may be happening now."
Apart from this he uses the common angles such as the majority of evidence to support climate change is 'nonsense.'This is an extremely frustrating argument and i wandered how you would respond to it?
Kind regards,
Jon Tamlyn, England
At May 09, 2007 12:11 PM, coby said…

Hi Jon,

Don't worry about the anonymouse chatterings getting to me, I cut my teeth on this issue in usenet's sci.environment so have seen it all before!

I guess I would suggest two articles for this letter to the editor, "There is no proof" and "No past, no present"

Peopel who flat out deny there is any evidence won`t be convinced but they should be pointed to the IPCC report, the most extensively reviewed scientific document in history, endorsed by just about every major relevant scientific body and major governmental science academy, including the US. See this list.

Thanks for the comment and positive feedback!
At May 11, 2007 2:33 PM, Anonymous said…

Thanks for the great site coby and the tons of reading/searching you have had to do to get to this point.

I don't know if this is out of your scope or not, but I figured I would bring it up. For me I am not concerned if C02 is causing global warming or not. C02 is toxic and its emmisions should be reduced.

From all the science I believe that the earth is warming. One of the things that greatly concerns me about this is the effects that could easilly build up and get out of control, such as desalination of the oceans and this effect on oceanic currents.

I am sorry if I missed any information you had on this, but do you have a list of the effects that global warming could cause? I personally like to call it global climate change and try and focus on what we can do to maintain a liveable planet.

Thanks again for the site!
~shawn
At May 13, 2007 11:32 AM, coby said…

Hi Shawn,

Thanks for the feedback, sorry for the slow response!

I don't have a nice concise listing of possible effects but would recommend checking WorldChanging and Grist Magazine, that seems like something either of those sites would have. Of course you can not do better than to go to the IPCC reports. The latest SPM has a passage of this, though from a purely climatic perspective and the WG2 report is all about this. I don't know where the new one is, but you can't really go wrong browsing the online version of the TAR, here:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/
At May 13, 2007 12:21 PM, Anonymous said…

That will keep me busy for a while. Thank you for devoting so much of your time to information gathering, it's a thankless and overwhelming task most of the time.
At May 13, 2007 2:17 PM, Co2emissions said…

Hi Coby

It occurred to me that it's about time this resource was made available in an old-fashioned format. Have you considered (Ill or otherwise) or been approached about publishing this in book form?

I'd be happy to help if you want to do something like this. It might be easier to get a UK publisher in the first instance and I know a few people in the business.
At May 14, 2007 3:21 AM, Unknown said…

Thanks for these excellent collection of arguments. I've encountered them, but I have not yet dug up all evidence needed to refute them.

Also, it's nice that you kept a large number of Peter's posts. He is clearly one of these people who've failed to understand physics and instead made up his own system that makes sense to him. Too bad it doesn't for anyone else.
At May 16, 2007 8:21 PM, James M. Jensen II said…

The New Scientist just put out a similar myth-debunking article: Climate change: A guide for the perplexed
At May 17, 2007 12:36 AM, dazed&confused said…

This comment has been removed by the author.
At May 17, 2007 2:49 AM, dazed&confused said…

Hi Coby, I like your rough guide to giving the AGW crowd the good bashing they well deserve.

I did a quick look and couldn't find anything about Neptune. I came across the correlation between increased brightness of Neptune, rising earth temperatures and solar output being used as a typical sceptic / contrarian argument to argue against the true cause of GW, and therefore we can all carry-on polluting, because it's all the sun's fault. I soon discovered the following links that you may find interesting. They use a curious model for Total Solar Irradiance [TSI] which shows an increasing solar output that does not match current measurements.

The paper that started this is:
Suggestive correlations between the brightness of Neptune, solar variability, and Earth’s temperature (Hammel and Lockwood, 2007)
But see:
http://atmoz.org/blog/2007/05/08/a-correlation-between-neptune-brightness-earth-temperature-and-total-solar-irradiance/
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006Icar..180..442L
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/05/12/poseidons-folly/

Essentially, it seems that the model used for TSI was a faulty one, was based upon a reconstruction of Foukal (2002) and is certainly wrong, but the reconstruction of Lean might actually be right, it is apparently confirmed by satellite measurements.

Lockwood et al. 2006 http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006Icar..180..442L states: The apparent relationship between Neptune's brightness variation and the 11-year solar cycle seen in cycles 21 22 (1972 1996) has apparently now faded away.

Hammel and Lockwood, 2007 admit that “Unfortunately, none of these correlations is statistically significant.”

It's a mystery why Hammel and Lockwood chose to use the out of date Foukal data when they could have used the superior and up-to-date Lean dataset, which is available online. There are some uncharitable suggestions about motives and competence. Personally, I bet it's a screw-up largely because Lockwood co-authored a paper that discounted any potential relationship.

Just in-case I got anything wrong, [I did this in a rush]. Please refer to the sources.
At May 19, 2007 6:57 AM, jhgeorge said…

From
http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/global_warming.html
they have a test
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html
that supports the wingnut dogma
Who are these guys?
At June 10, 2007 2:00 AM, Ryan W. said…

According to books like "Our Earth, Ourselves" even the less severe models predicted something like a 10 inch rise in sea level by now. We should trust models when they are able to actually, well, predict things that we don't know yet.
At June 10, 2007 10:50 AM, coby said…

Hi Ryan,

You may want to recheck your source, I am not aware of any modern GCM, say any of those used in any of the three IPCC reports to date, that says we should have already had 10" of sea level rise. If your source does say this then it perhaps you can let me know what its sources are (ie the model and study that produced this finding).

BTW, we have already seen around 15cm (5") of sea level rise over the last century.

AFAICT, models are in general underpredicting sea level and ice sheet response to the already observed warming.

Thanks for the commnt.
At June 15, 2007 5:43 PM, AlexC said…

Hi.. firstly well done on such a thorough article.

I will say now that despite all your links, i am still struggling to accept the doom prophecies.

Do you have anything to dismiss a link between the shift and weakening of the earth's magnetic field and the climate change?

my other usual comment is that while some scientists are clearly funded by large oil companies to deny links.. the huge number of climate 'scientists' who do believe are infact equally bound to find more global warming, or their funding will dry up equally quickly.

In response to the sun's not playing a major role.. suppose the solar output is constant (within limits), what if the earths proximity has decreased?

Appriciate any response you may have.. not trying to troll, i have a scientific background (physics) and am keen to get non-hearsay responses to my questions.
At June 18, 2007 12:23 PM, coby said…

Hi Alex, thanks for the comment.

WRT a funding/gw connection it is interesting to note that NOAA is cutting back on their global climate monitoring infrastructure and NASA's earth sciences budget has been severely gutted. Seems that the pressure works the other way, which frankly makes more sense given the hostility of the political powers who provide most of the funding to any threat against the oil industry. NASA has even removed "understand and protect the home planet" from its mission statement.

Are you thinking of the cosmic ray hypthoesis when you ask about magnetic field influence? If so, you might want to check RealClimate's articles on that: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/taking-cosmic-rays-for-a-spin/.

The earth is not getting closer to the sun. Don't forget that any change caused by alterations of the earth's orbit or even plate tectonics happens on very slow timescales, we need a cause that operates over decades, not millenia and million year periods.

If you want non-hearsay evidence you will never do better than the IPCC report (see "The Scientific Basis" link in the sidebar)
At June 22, 2007 7:58 AM, Anonymous said…

I've got another one for you to add..."animal flatulence" is the source of 1/3 of our global warming emissions. I actually watched a state legislator get up on the floor recently and argue against a global warming bill for that reason.
At June 25, 2007 12:28 AM, Lao Tzu said…

I request rebuttals to the following arguments against global warming:

(1) Man is an ant in the scheme of things and can no wise change Nature. To say otherwise is merely egotistical.

(2) The IPCC are biased or apparatchiks.

(3) Changes in sunspot activity bring about the danger of global cooling:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4

(4) Al Gore is evil.

(5) People have been saying the world is going to hell for millennia and we've been fine.

(6) On the policy side: we don't know enough, so we shouldn't spend any money. (Addendum: government is wasteful and inefficient and generally bad.)
At July 01, 2007 1:36 PM, AlexC said…

Hi Coby (sorry for the delay)

interesting points-thanks for your time.

I dont think you've actually answered the question regarding bias in funding.
if body a supports a scientist, they can be expected to have some bias toward body a (and its aims and goals) whether body a is the IPCC or george bush.

Thanks for the link, it does seem to focus on what happens to energy once it enters the atmosphere. I wondered if the drop in magnetic field strength would increase the amount of stuff which gets into our atmosphere?-still havent found concrete research either way on this

i would respectfully decline your invitation to view the ipcc's docs, citing the following quote:
“Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen”
-im sure you can attribute that appropriately :)- there are plenty of soundbytes around this, and i dont really want to start a pissing contest, but i firmly believe that CC gets press only if its hyped up

Also... have you measured the earth-sun distance recently?

Alex
At July 02, 2007 9:09 PM, coby said…

Hi Alex,

About funding, I'm not sure what you are trying to demonstrate. GW Bush supports NASA earth sciences and they are having their budget slashed. This would seem to be in clear contradiction to the theory that climate scientists are financially rewarded for climate change alarmism. The IPCC does not support any scientists. They do not sponsor any research and the scientitist contributors are mostly working on a volunteer basis. This weakens any argument about financial motives behind the science used by the IPCC.

Thanks for the Houghton quote. I wonder what the context of that remark was, I can't find it online. Is he bemoaning an irresposible mainstream media, revealing the secret motives of the UN, scolding an apathetic public or something else? When I see very small quotes, cropped identically, splattered all over the internet, I really need the context to accept amy implications about its author.

I have not measured the earth-sun distance. Do you think it is changing in an other than annual cycle on a timescale humans can measure?
At July 10, 2007 9:46 AM, Anonymous said…

Hello Coby,

Until about 8 months or so I was vaguely aware of global warming as everyone is and was making minor vague efforts in terms of recycling and energy reduction. Then 8 months ago I decided to read up a lot more on the subject and get to grips with the science of global warming. Having read probably several hundred articles now I find the evidence for man caused global warming so conclusive that I am completely baffled (and scared) that governments have not declared a state of emergency to deal with the situation.
As for the skeptics, I think they should be renamed ostriches. My husband is a physicist, a researcher in magnetism and I know from 20 years experience that for a researcher exaggeration is lying unlike for politicans and business-people for whom exaggeration is not only accepted but expected. This is not the case for researchers. If a reputable researcher (never mind 2500 researchers who comprise the IPCC) states something you do not have to divide by 10 to get the truth. The IPCC is saying that we have 8-10 years to react and that means reducing by 80% our energy consumption in the developed countries in order to keep global warming below a 2 degree increase which will still have significant negative impact on our world.

Over the past few months we have decided to spend all our savings on energy reduction. We are installing a solar water-heating panels, a rainwater harvesting system and we are seeking to buy an electic car - not easy to find! (we live in France where electricity is mostly nuclear) but it still feels like so little.

I am also organising a public meeting in our village on the 5th October on this subject as I am amazed at the lack of involvement by people. Why is there so little reaction to this huge crisis? Why are we arguing with fools when we should be acting?

Thank you for this blog. It is a great source of information and seems totally in line with the more detailed scientific articles I have read.

Mary
At July 15, 2007 4:36 AM, THROBGOBLINS INTERNATIONAL. said…

Hi. A noble effort, sir.
It seems to me that the main "reason" that people disbelieve the evidence is that they choose to. It looks like bog-standard cognitive dissonance reduction to me. The culture demands damaging behaviour, and we duly oblige.
More cartoons on the subject at

www.climate-chaos.blogspot.com

Be of good cheer
MarcR
At July 16, 2007 8:12 PM, Anonymous said…

Hi Coby,

Your website is great!

One suggestion and one question:

Suggestion:
This newly minted piece of research from Proceedings of the Royal Society debunks the modern solar-global-warming argument; I think it would help greatly toward your cause if you add a link to this paper.
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/h844264320314105/
"There are many interesting palaeoclimate studies that suggest that solar variability had an influence on pre-industrial climate. There are also some detection–attribution studies using global climate models that suggest there was a detectable influence of solar variability in the first half of the twentieth century
and that the solar radiative forcing variations were amplified by some mechanism that is, as yet, unknown. However, these findings are not relevant to any debates about modern climate change. Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified."

Question:
I am yet to find a satisfactory resolution on the argument that goes something along the lines of "the poles are not warming more than the tropics even though 'the greenhouse-gas theory' predicts so, and thus 'greenhouse effect' cannot account for the currently observed warming." The GISS surface temperature analysis you cite in one of your comments does not show pole temperatures. Do you know anywhere else I can find some conclusive resolution to this line of inquiry?
(I'll go search on my own as well...)

Thanks again, and I'm sure you know that you are being helpful to so many people so I don't have to drill it in. :D

H.K
At July 17, 2007 12:48 PM, coby said…

Hi H.K.,

Thanks for the feedback!

Re: suggestion, yes it is a good peice of evidence, I will be sure to use it soon. Although it is not really new, just kind of one last nail in the solar coffin.

Re: question, check the GISS temperature site for the anomaly maps and you will see that the arctic is in fact warming much more than the global average, as predicted. As for the Antarctice, it si not warming very much yet because of the much greater proportion of ocean vs land in the southern hemisphere and the insulating effect of the soutern ocean`s circumpolarcurrent. This is also consistent with model predictions. There is a bit about that here on this site

HTH!
At July 18, 2007 3:36 PM, AlexC said…

Hi Coby,

Thanks again for the swift and respectful reply.

Fair point about the quote, its a cheap shot really but us non-believers have to cling on to some hopes that its all a practical joke!

The earth sun distance is something we can have very little certainty of in real terms because of the huge number of very hard to measure things which influence it. (like all the gravity in the universe). But we could argue all day about the extent of its effect.

Anyway, thanks for your time and response. Good luck with the site and with your side of the fight.

Kind regards
Alex
At July 22, 2007 3:39 AM, Anonymous said…

Hey Coby,

I noticed you have Roger Pielke Jr's site linked, but not his father's, who is a real climate scientist. Pielke Jr is a political scientist.

Here's RP Sr's blogsite.

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/

He's a respected voice who acknowledges that humans are changing the climate, but he is skeptical of the IPCC and sticks to the science to make his various cases. May I recommend you include it in the toplist of blog sites? If Pielke Jnr makes the cut, his father certainly should.
At July 22, 2007 3:41 AM, Anonymous said…

Oh, and best regards from downunda, mate.

Barry.
At September 06, 2007 5:23 PM, Anonymous said…

The SEO Expert post before mine is blogspam, I think.

Coby, one suggestion -- rephrase the main points. I'm always jolted by seeing a page listing all the false statements without qualification (same error Newsweek made recently on their cover).

There's good science now showing it's not helpful:

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/09/deck_is_stacked_against_mythbu.php

'Obviously, this has implications for correcting these myths. The article suggests that, rather than repeat them (as the CDC "true and false" pamphlet does, for example), one should just rephrase the statement, eliminating the false portion altogether so as to not reinforce it further (since repetition, even to debunk it, reaffirms the false statement). Ignoring it also makes things worse, as the story noted that other research "...found that when accusations or assertions are met with silence, they are more likely to feel true."'
At September 06, 2007 5:43 PM, coby said…

Hi Hank,

Thanks for the link, I will have a better look at it later, I have skimmed over some of the discussion of this issue. One thing I like about the way each myth is stated with a straight face on each article is that it seems to be an excellent google attractor. That is I suspect I get a lot of people coming here who are really just searching for confirmation of their preformed opinions, perhaps some are swayed...?

The majority of my hits come from google searches and most of those are things like "global warming is a myth" "volcanos emit more CO2" etc. Maybe my pages would not rank as high if I did not first repeat the falsehood? Just another concern..

Thanks for stopping by, my blog will be moving very soon, don't miss the coming announcement and updated link info!

Cheers.
At September 07, 2007 9:06 AM, Anonymous said…

> maybe my page would not rank as high ...

Good question. And it's an ethical question for Google that I'm sure they did not consider since this research is rather new.

It'll be an interesting unintended consequence if, as this suggests, Google actually reinforces people's belief in bogus explanations and myths by helping people repeat them and search for them, eh?

I wonder if you could test it by leaving the old page in place but inserting the word "not" in the main headings. Unless people are quoting their search strings (unlikely for unsophisticated searchers) I'd guess Google would continue to refer people to the page at the same rate. But I don't know their algorithm, just guessing.
At September 07, 2007 10:02 AM, Anonymous said…

Here's where I found that:

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-propaganda-works-and-how-it-fails.html
At September 11, 2007 8:36 AM, Blackpool Hotels said…

Wow Love The Blog Comment from: Blackpool Hotels I must say I like how you have summerised the arguments. was warmer than today so therefore present warming cannot human caused and as grapes grew in Greenland during the MWP then warming is good. My rebuff to this is that ALL studies show that the MWP was not warmer than today - links to wikipedia summary or the real climate dummies guide
At October 01, 2007 2:32 AM, Lucy Skywalker said…

Hi Coby
Your How to Talk to a GW sceptic is really good, important and it seems pretty unique. Can you recast it into a more easily accessible website and get it picked up by Wikipedia so that people can easily find where to go to look for "snappy facts" info?
At October 07, 2007 1:35 PM, Lucy Skywalker said…

oops great thanks, I see you have already moved "How to Talk" to here: http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
At October 08, 2007 10:02 PM, Anonymous said…

ECOPAYDAY - Global Warming Impact Day 1. Some say the full brunt of the global warming storm will hit on the day we least expect it!

ECOPAYDAY.COM
At October 14, 2007 5:49 PM, Anonymous said…

After taking a week to thoroughly examine every point made on this blog (I know I probably missed a few) and every argument/counter-argument, I have actually found that most of the graphs and sites pointing out 'substantial evidence' have been completely utterly inconclusive, and have left me more skeptical than I was before. In any case, going to keep an open mind...
At December 05, 2007 10:19 PM, Anonymous said…

Hey.. good site here. I been dealing with skeptics all around. I have been trying to find numbers as to the amount of human produced CO2 .. compared to natural made CO2.. but cant seem to get those numbers anywhere.. anyone care to help?
At December 15, 2007 4:17 AM, Philip Machanick said…

Oscar, Wikipedia has some good data on CO_2 in the atmosphere and where it came from. As with all Wikipedia articles, follow up the references ...
At December 21, 2007 5:16 AM, Paul Dennis said…

OK, I've read much of your blog.

Not only am I unconvinced by your arguments, I am now even more skeptical in my belief that global warming is only minimally swayed by human intervention.

Please, if you would, address the POLITICAL and FINANCIAL motivations of those fervent souls obsessed with convincing the unwashed public that temperature change starts with extracting cash from their wallet!

Also, please note that your solid wall of consensus is crumbling:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport

Some people are actually beginning to realize just how stupid they will look when the temperature pendulum swings back the other way.

Oh, by the way....

Here's one more question for your blog: "What is the Earth's normal temperature, and how is it determined?" Answer: "There isn't one, as temperature stasis would be an abnormal condition on any planetary body under dynamic temperature influances."

Geeze, you politically motivated AWG bloggers are SO unable to look at the reality of the situation!
At December 21, 2007 11:32 PM, Anand said…

Thanks for the site. Just wanted to mention that there is one point which you may not have covered (perhaps you rightly considered it too ridiculous)?

Humans breate CO2! Lots! So do other animals!

Not to say this is a serious argument (since all the CO2 ultimately comes from plants), but I've seen this on a few "deniers" sites, so maybe should have a reply.

Good work. Keep it up!
At December 31, 2007 5:32 PM, Philip Machanick said…

Anand: exhaling CO_2 is a non-issue because it comes ultimately from food the person or animal has eaten, which tracks back to plants, so there is a closed loop.

Paul F: why do you think the IPCC side of the debate has to be politically motivated and the other side not? For the Green movement to have hijacked a major area of science is a bizarre conspiracy theory that requires you neither understand science nor the Green movement. On the other hand, it is eminently plausible that fossil fuel interests would be acting to undermine any consensus that threatens their commercial interests (they have the means and the motive). They are even using some of the same consultants and shills as the tobacco industry.

Read the article pointed to above, then go back to the various petitions, "junk science" web sites and letters that presumably have impressed you so much, and read them with a more critical eye.
At January 04, 2008 5:14 PM, Anonymous said…

Have you tried posting your Global Warming rants at http://www.sosickofyou.com ? It is a great place to get it off your chest and have millions of people read it. Personally I love checking out what others have to say there.

A Few Things Ill Considered

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How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic

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How to Talk to a Sceptic

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