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Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:46 pm
by acrobat74
Lol is that what you have to contribute to the debate in terms of evidence?

Links that link to other links that end up with the same allegations? :D
Lindzen, for his part, charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled "Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus," was underwritten by OPEC.
Still no sign of you (1) addressing the essence of his claims or (2) providing evidence to support your allegations.

You must be confusing debate & evidence with character assassination.

This is ludicrous propaganda, and you know it. Don't wonder if you don't convince people.


Oh, and by the way here's a few more dissenters. I guess all these folks are also on hand-outs.

Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled “The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth.” “Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ double man would not perceive the temperature impact,” Sorochtin wrote. (Note: Name also sometimes translated to spell Sorokhtin)



Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. “There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried,” Uriate wrote.



Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes, “I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting – a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number – entirely without merit,” Tennekes wrote. “I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."



Brazil: Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo – Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil declared himself a skeptic. “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming,” Hackbart wrote on May 30, 2007.



Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!”



France: Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon, is a climate skeptic. Leroux wrote a 2005 book titled Global Warming – Myth or Reality? - The Erring Ways of Climatology. “Day after day, the same mantra - that ‘the Earth is warming up’ - is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless ac­ceptance. ... Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God ... fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!”



Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the UN IPCC: “It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.”



Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki, criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases."



Germany: Paleoclimate expert Augusto Mangini of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, criticized the UN IPCC summary. “I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong,” Mangini noted in an April 5, 2007 article. He added: “The earth will not die.”



Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: “To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.”



Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid,” Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.



India: One of India's leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles.”



USA: Climatologist Robert Durrenberger, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and one of the climatologists who gathered at Woods Hole to review the National Climate Program Plan in July, 1979: “Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ‘real’ climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem.”



Italy: Internationally renowned scientist Dr. Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists and a retired Professor of Advanced Physics at the University of Bologna in Italy, who has published over 800 scientific papers: “Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."



New Zealand: IPCC reviewer and climate researcher and scientist Dr. Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001: “The [IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers’ might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain't so.”



South Africa: Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa’s Atomic Energy Corporation who holds degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics: “The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming.”



Poland: Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw: “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels.”



Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: "There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation.”



Britain: Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant: “To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions.”



China: Chinese Scientists Say C02 Impact on Warming May Be ‘Excessively Exaggerated’ – Scientists Lin Zhen-Shan’s and Sun Xian’s 2007 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics: "Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated." Their study asserted that "it is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change.”



Denmark: Space physicist Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen is the director of the Danish National Space Centre, a member of the space research advisory committee of the Swedish National Space Board, a member of a NASA working group, and a member of the European Space Agency who has authored or co-authored around 100 peer-reviewed papers and chairs the Institute of Space Physics: “The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth’s surface will therefore affect climate.”



Belgium: Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute’s Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming: "CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.”



Sweden: Geologist Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, professor emeritus of the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, critiqued the Associated Press for hyping promoting climate fears in 2007. “Another of these hysterical views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate.”



USA: Dr. David Wojick is a UN IPCC expert reviewer, who earned his PhD in Philosophy of Science and co-founded the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University: “In point of fact, the hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The GHG (greenhouse gas) hypothesis does not do this.” Wojick added: “The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates.”

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:57 pm
by James C
Did you not bother to read the articles in the links I gave or are you just going to guffaw and walk away as if you are somehow superior to the evidence? Grow up!

And I could list the names of millions of people who believe the official story of 9/11 but what does that prove?

Next time you post a link on this forum to back up some claim I'll ignore it, since this is exactly what you are doing here.

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:27 pm
by acrobat74
Like I said...
You must be confusing debate & evidence with character assassination.
Must be fun and cosy in the 'ExxonSecrets' world :D

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:31 pm
by James C
acrobat74 wrote:Like I said...
You must be confusing debate & evidence with character assassination.
Must be fun and cosy in the 'ExxonSecrets' world :D
And you are clearly confused about the evidence against Lindzen.

As I said;
I wonder how many times you have made assertions about Cheney and Bush based upon their associations?
The same holds true here so please don't pretend that this issue conforms to different rules which would be very convenient for you if you are.

Do you have absolute proof that Lindzen has not received funding by Exxon, Philip Morris and Western Fuels?

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:47 pm
by blackcat
Do you have absolute proof that Lindzen has not received funding by Exxon, Philip Morris and Western Fuels?
How could anyone "prove" a negative? Invoices showing zero dollars received for services rendered? Absence of evidence proving evidence of innocence? What a stupid question!

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:26 pm
by James C
blackcat wrote:
Do you have absolute proof that Lindzen has not received funding by Exxon, Philip Morris and Western Fuels?
How could anyone "prove" a negative? Invoices showing zero dollars received for services rendered? Absence of evidence proving evidence of innocence? What a stupid question!
I'm not asking anyone to prove a negative - why do you twist my words as if I need ask?

I am asking whether acrobat74 can prove that the claims against him are false. Lindzen himself hasn't made any case for libel against those who accuse him of receiving funding therefore one can assume the claims are very possibly true.

Are you just nitpicking or do you have something valid to contribute to this debate?

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 12:57 am
by acrobat74
James C wrote:Oooh, touchy!
James C wrote:You're not Professor Lindzen are you?
James C wrote:Go check this out for yourself instead of moaning like a child.
James C wrote:Grow up!
See a pattern there? ;-)
The operative word in a debate must be 'this/it' (the position, the argument, the hypothesis), rather than 'you'.
James C wrote:Professor Lindzen is paid a few thousand dollars a day to say whatever the oil companies (particularly Exxon) want him to say.
Of course he is. After all you've provided a looping array of links to prove it.

And to top it off, you've claimed that if one doesn't prove that the opposite of your assertion is true, then your assertion is true.

Damn, this 'ExxonSecrets' site must contain a hidden treasure of logical reasoning somewhere. :D

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:45 am
by Dr Hemp
"Every generation of political leaders is confronted by a major and often different challenge.

"Climate change is a bit of a different type of challenge but a challenge I believe is the biggest long-term threat facing our world."

- Tony BLiar

Need I say more?

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 7:44 am
by James C
acrobat74 wrote:
James C wrote:Oooh, touchy!
James C wrote:You're not Professor Lindzen are you?
James C wrote:Go check this out for yourself instead of moaning like a child.
James C wrote:Grow up!
See a pattern there? ;-)
The operative word in a debate must be 'this/it' (the position, the argument, the hypothesis), rather than 'you'.
James C wrote:Professor Lindzen is paid a few thousand dollars a day to say whatever the oil companies (particularly Exxon) want him to say.
Of course he is. After all you've provided a looping array of links to prove it.

And to top it off, you've claimed that if one doesn't prove that the opposite of your assertion is true, then your assertion is true.

Damn, this 'ExxonSecrets' site must contain a hidden treasure of logical reasoning somewhere. :D
Stop waffling and get on with proving Lindzen's innocence if this issue is so close to your heart.

I get the impression that you were completely unaware of Lindzen's past history and ties with big oil, energy and tobacco and are desperately trying to defend your position. Why bother if Lindzen is guilty? Why not spend some productive time trying to prove for yourself whether he is or isn't?

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 7:52 am
by blackcat
get on with proving Lindzen's innocence
That is ridiculous!!! Innocence is assumed and it is guilt which needs to be proven. YOU prove your assertion that Lindzen is corrupt. You are the one making the accusation.

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:38 am
by James C
blackcat wrote:
get on with proving Lindzen's innocence
That is ridiculous!!! Innocence is assumed and it is guilt which needs to be proven. YOU prove your assertion that Lindzen is corrupt. You are the one making the accusation.
I have offered proof by providing those links. What more can I do - become a private investigator and search Lindzen out personally? Mmmmm, have you attempted to do the same with regards to 9/11 blackcat? Or, like everyone else on this forum, have you formed your opinion based upon things you have read? I don't suppose you have interviewed Cheney personally have you?

acrobat74 talks about me using a loop type argument to create a case against Lindzen. A fair enough criticism yet it is the same loop that the climate change and peak oil critics use to conjure up their concepts. The critics adopt the attitude that these subjects are a lie. They have no real proof for this other than it is their belief and therefore cite a few speculative blogs as absolute evidence to back up their case. Do they research these topics at grass roots level? No. Do they ignore the ties levied against the experts they use (such as Lindzen) about their association with big business? Yes. Do they ignore the ties levied against the experts who support climate change and peak oil about their association with big business? Absolutely not - in fact it is always the crux of their argument even though they have no proof other than what has been discussed on the internet. The loop goes on......!

So let's stop this nonsense talk shall we? Besides, again, you are twisting my words. I haven't said that Lindzen is corrupt - he may actually believe what he says. But the fact is, there is a charge against him that he is being paid by the very people who have a vested interest in promulgating the message he is capable of promoting. This means he may not be telling the facts quite as straight as they really are.

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 7:44 pm
by acrobat74
1. Presumption of innocence: the burden of proof is on the prosecution. Imagine a world where (distinguished) people are branded lackeys based on 10 links on the internet.

2. Evidence is what would stand up in a court of law: documents, expert testimony, scientific analyses and the like.
Yes, internet hearsay chatter is not evidence.
9/11, which interestingly you brought up in comparison, involved, among several other anomalies, real physical phenomena that adhere to physical laws; we know that the official account is impossible.

3. Laughable police-academy macho-isms don't help with persuasion.

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 9:14 pm
by blackcat
James c wrote:Mmmmm, have you attempted to do the same with regards to 9/11 blackcat? Or, like everyone else on this forum, have you formed your opinion based upon things you have read? I don't suppose you have interviewed Cheney personally have you?
You are getting more ridiculous with every post you make. I do not suggest that Cheney or anyone else prove their innocence. I contend that there is a mountain of evidence that implies their guilt and that that guilt could/would be proven with a proper inquiry. I want them to face an enquiry that, I contend, would prove their guilt!!! I could list that evidence but I would presumably be preaching to the converted so I will refrain. In the meantime could you please provide your evidence of the GUILT of Lindzen? I know of none and your links do not persuade. Please educate me.

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:41 pm
by James C
blackcat wrote:
James c wrote:Mmmmm, have you attempted to do the same with regards to 9/11 blackcat? Or, like everyone else on this forum, have you formed your opinion based upon things you have read? I don't suppose you have interviewed Cheney personally have you?
You are getting more ridiculous with every post you make. I do not suggest that Cheney or anyone else prove their innocence. I contend that there is a mountain of evidence that implies their guilt and that that guilt could/would be proven with a proper inquiry. I want them to face an enquiry that, I contend, would prove their guilt!!! I could list that evidence but I would presumably be preaching to the converted so I will refrain. In the meantime could you please provide your evidence of the GUILT of Lindzen? I know of none and your links do not persuade. Please educate me.
You sound just like a 9/11 critic - 'your evidence does not persuade therefore you are wrong'!!

Listen to yourself blackcat, it sounds terrible.

I couldn't give a toss whether you believe the links or not, the fact remains the accusations exist and I'm sure the evidence would be fully revealed during the course of a proper enquiry. Now does that sound familiar?

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:34 pm
by Mr-Bridger
I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train
by David Evans


I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened that case. I am now skeptical.

In the late 1990s, this was the evidence suggesting that carbon emissions caused global warming:

1.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, proved in a laboratory a century ago.
2.

Global warming has been occurring for a century and concentrations of atmospheric carbon have been rising for a century. Correlation is not causation, but in a rough sense it looked like a fit.
3.

Ice core data, starting with the first cores from Vostok in 1985, allowed us to measure temperature and atmospheric carbon going back hundreds of thousands of years, through several dramatic global warming and cooling events. To the temporal resolution then available (data points more than a thousand years apart), atmospheric carbon and temperature moved in lockstep: they rose and fell together. Talk about a smoking gun!
4.

There were no other credible causes of global warming.

This evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we are absolutely certain when we apparently need to act now? So the idea that carbon emissions were causing global warming passed from the scientific community into the political realm. Research increased, bureaucracies were formed, international committees met, and eventually the Kyoto protocol was signed in 1997 to curb carbon emissions.

The political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too.

I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; there were international conferences full of such people. We had political support, the ear of government, big budgets. We felt fairly important and useful (I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet!

ut starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence above fell away. Using the same point numbers as above:

2. Better data shows that from 1940 to 1975 the earth cooled while atmospheric carbon increased. That 35 year non-correlation might eventually be explained by global dimming, only discovered in about 2003.
3.

The temporal resolution of the ice core data improved. By 2004 we knew that in past warming events, the temperature increases generally started about 800 years before the rises in atmospheric carbon. Causality does not run in the direction I had assumed in 1999 — it runs the opposite way!

It took several hundred years of warming for the oceans to give off more of their carbon. This proves that there is a cause of global warming other than atmospheric carbon. And while it is possible that rising atmospheric carbon in these past warmings then went on to cause more warming ("amplification" of the initial warming), the ice core data neither proves nor disproves this hypothesis.

4. There is now a credible alternative suspect. In October 2006 Henrik Svensmark showed experimentally that cosmic rays cause cloud formation. Clouds have a net cooling effect, but for the last three decades there have been fewer clouds than normal because the sun's magnetic field, which shields us from cosmic rays, has been stronger than usual. So the earth heated up. It's too early to judge what fraction of global warming is caused by cosmic rays.

There is now no observational evidence that global warming is caused by carbon emissions. You would think that in over 20 years of intense investigation we would have found something. For example, greenhouse warming due to carbon emissions should warm the upper atmosphere faster than the lower atmosphere — but until 2006 the data showed the opposite, and thus that the greenhouse effect was not occurring! In 2006 better data allowed that the effect might be occurring, except in the tropics.

The only current "evidence" for blaming carbon emissions are scientific models (and the fact that there are few contradictory observations). Historically, science has not progressed by calculations and models, but by repeatable observations. Some theories held by science authorities have turned out to be spectacularly wrong: heavier-than-air flight is impossible, the sun orbits the earth, etc. For excellent reasons, we have much more confidence in observations by several independent parties than in models produced by a small set of related parties!

Let's return to the interaction between science and politics. By 2000 the political system had responded to the strong scientific case that carbon emissions caused global warming by creating thousands of bureaucratic and science jobs aimed at more research and at curbing carbon emissions.

But after 2000 the case against carbon emissions gradually got weaker. Future evidence might strengthen or further weaken it. At what stage of the weakening should the science community alert the political system that carbon emissions might not be the main cause of global warming?

None of the new evidence actually says that carbon emissions are definitely not the cause of global warming, there are lots of good science jobs potentially at stake, and if the scientific message wavers then it might be difficult to later recapture the attention of the political system. What has happened is that most research efforts since 1990 have assumed that carbon emissions were the cause, and the alternatives get much less research or political attention.

Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. Climate change has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly blames carbon emissions, to the point of silencing critics.

The integrity of the scientific community will win out in the end, following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the meantime, the effect of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidence that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming.

I recently bet $6,000 that the rate of global warming would slow in the next two decades. Carbon emissions might be the dominant cause of global warming, but I reckon that probability to be 20% rather than the 90% the IPCC estimates.

I worry that politics could seriously distort the science. Suppose that carbon taxes are widely enacted, but that the rate of global warming increase starts to decline by 2015. The political system might pressure scientists to provide justifications for the taxes.

Imagine the following scenario. Carbon emissions cause some warming, maybe 0.05C/decade. But the current warming rate of 0.20C/decade is mainly due to some natural cause, which in 15 years has run its course and reverses. So by 2025 global temperatures start dropping. In the meantime, on the basis of models from a small group of climate scientists but with no observational evidence (because the small warming due to carbon emissions is masked by the larger natural warming), the world has dutifully paid an enormous cost to curb carbon emissions.

Politicians, expressing the anger and apparent futility of all the unnecessary poverty and effort, lead the lynching of the high priests with their opaque models. Ironically, because carbon emissions are raising the temperature baseline around which natural variability occurs, carbon emissions might need curbing after all. Maybe. The current situation is characterized by a lack of observational evidence, so no one knows yet.

Some people take strong rhetorical positions on global warming. But the cause of global warming is not just another political issue, subject to endless debate and distortions. The cause of global warming is an issue that falls into the realm of science, because it is falsifiable. No amount of human posturing will affect what the cause is. It just physically is there, and after sufficient research and time we will know what it is.

http://mises.org/story/2571

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:06 pm
by blackcat
James C wrote:You sound just like a 9/11 critic - 'your evidence does not persuade therefore you are wrong'!!

Listen to yourself blackcat, it sounds terrible.

I couldn't give a toss whether you believe the links or not, the fact remains the accusations exist and I'm sure the evidence would be fully revealed during the course of a proper enquiry. Now does that sound familiar?
You are the one sounding like a 9/11 critic. Just like they have an explanation of 9/11 you have an "explanation" for Lindzen's behaviour and just like them you offer ad hominem attacks and spurious accusations. Just like 9/11 critics who have all the answers such as it was 19 Arabs wot dun it because "they hate our freedoms", you have your explanation about why Lindzen must be wrong or bribed to say what he says. Just like anyone who points out the absurdity of the official version of 9/11 is doing it for ulterior motives rather than because it stinks, you attack people like Lindzen because he points out the absurdity behind many claims about the Global Warming Industry. Listen to yourself James C - you sound EXACTLY like a 9/11 Critic, desperately defending the indefensible and attacking people who actually choose to question the official theory. Unlike the official version of 9/11 which I know with absolute certainty is a pack of lies I am unsure of the truth about global warming/climate change but I am prepared to accept any challenge of officialdom without needing to attack people who DO raise questions. Your conclusion that I believe 'your evidence does not persuade therefore you are wrong'!! is as silly a statement as any that could be made in Critic's Corner and that is saying something. I am allowed to read the links and reach my own conclusions and have my own doubts. As I said, I am not persuaded and it is YOU who are trying to persuade by offering them as backup to your attack on Lindzen. You obviously DO "give a toss" or you would not be posting the links for people to read.

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:39 pm
by James C
blackcat wrote:
James C wrote:You sound just like a 9/11 critic - 'your evidence does not persuade therefore you are wrong'!!

Listen to yourself blackcat, it sounds terrible.

I couldn't give a toss whether you believe the links or not, the fact remains the accusations exist and I'm sure the evidence would be fully revealed during the course of a proper enquiry. Now does that sound familiar?
You are the one sounding like a 9/11 critic. Just like they have an explanation of 9/11 you have an "explanation" for Lindzen's behaviour and just like them you offer ad hominem attacks and spurious accusations. Just like 9/11 critics who have all the answers such as it was 19 Arabs wot dun it because "they hate our freedoms", you have your explanation about why Lindzen must be wrong or bribed to say what he says. Just like anyone who points out the absurdity of the official version of 9/11 is doing it for ulterior motives rather than because it stinks, you attack people like Lindzen because he points out the absurdity behind many claims about the Global Warming Industry. Listen to yourself James C - you sound EXACTLY like a 9/11 Critic, desperately defending the indefensible and attacking people who actually choose to question the official theory. Unlike the official version of 9/11 which I know with absolute certainty is a pack of lies I am unsure of the truth about global warming/climate change but I am prepared to accept any challenge of officialdom without needing to attack people who DO raise questions. Your conclusion that I believe 'your evidence does not persuade therefore you are wrong'!! is as silly a statement as any that could be made in Critic's Corner and that is saying something. I am allowed to read the links and reach my own conclusions and have my own doubts. As I said, I am not persuaded and it is YOU who are trying to persuade by offering them as backup to your attack on Lindzen. You obviously DO "give a toss" or you would not be posting the links for people to read.
Yawn.

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:52 pm
by blackcat
James C wrote:Yawn.
I accept your cryptic admission that you are completely wrong about this.

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:01 pm
by karlos
Global Warming?
There was four inches of snow in my garden this morning.

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:56 pm
by blackcat
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/ap ... caught.htm
BBC Caught Editing Story To Appease Global Warming Lobbyist
Scandal: Rhetorical e mail from activist forced writer to change headline, text of article, delete admission of no global warming since 1998

Paul Joseph Watson, , Prison Planet, Monday, April 7, 2008
|
The BBC has sensationally been caught red-handed editing a news story about global warming in order to appease a rhetorical e mail sent by an environmental activist, while it has also emerged that BBC writers are aware of the growing suspicions about apparent attempts to censor skeptics of man-made global warming.

A report concerning the fact that global warming stopped in 1998 by the BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin was altered to omit the fact that such evidence is cited by skeptics as a reason to doubt the link between Co2 emissions and temperature increase, and the headline was also changed.

The activist who e mailed Harrabin, Jo Abbess, also urged the BBC to censor skeptics of man-made global warming and not make reference to them, an order that was followed despite Harrabin revealing that BBC newsroom writers were aware that sidelining the skeptical side of the debate was making people suspicious.

Read the full e mail exchange HERE

Harrabin initially dismisses the demand to change the article, stating, "No correction is needed. If the secy-gen of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will decrease, that's what we will report."

After being threatened with a wider propaganda offensive on behalf of other environmental activists, Harrabin still refuses to budge, and responds to Abbess' outright lie that, "Nobody is seriously refuting that increasing Greenhouse Gases cause increased global temperatures," by stating, "We can't ignore the fact that sceptics have jumped on the lack of increase since 1998. It is appearing regularly now in general media."

As we have tirelessly documented - a growing body of scientists and other experts are questioning the global warming orthodoxy.

Tellingly, Harrabin concludes his second e mail with "People feel like debate is being censored which makes them v suspicious," underscoring the media's awareness of the fact that the climate change cult's insistence that "the debate is over" is only causing more people to question man-made global warming.

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Down the memory hole - the BBC changes an entire article at the behest of an environmental lobbyist. Notice the last updated time on both articles is 1:42.

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Abbess then orders the writer outright to censor global warming skeptics.

"It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics," she writes, "Their voice is heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing the emergence of the truth."

Abbess threatens the writer again that he will be the target of a campaign on behalf of the environmentalists, stating, "You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics."

Harrabin responds, "Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more."

Is it the BBC's remit, as a so-called independent and neutral news organization, to amend entire articles and headlines in order to make environmental lobbyists "happier"?

Abbess' e mails contain no source references or hyperlinks to document her claims, yet they were subsequently followed to a tee as the BBC changed the article to reflect her wishes, and the sentence, "This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory," was completely scrubbed.

Despite the changes, the time that the story was last updated - 01:42AM - remained the same.

According to blogger Paul Biggs, the BBC headline has actually been changed three times and at one stage was: Global warming 'dips this year'.

Considering the fact that British citizens are taxed on a regular basis in order to own a TV license and therefore directly fund the existence of the BBC, the notion that the BBC would acquiesce to the polemic whim of a bias environmental activist and significantly amend a report that was initially based on raw data from the World Meteorological Organization is an absolute outrage.

We are encouraging people to contact the BBC via this link and demand an explanation as to why the BBC's science writers can be swayed to tailor an apparently neutral article so it appeases the demands of a highly politicized environmental lobbyist, while brazenly agreeing to censor any opposing viewpoint.

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:06 pm
by zennon
I thought the official global-warming-denier line was that the earth is warming, but it's natural, not man-made?

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:26 pm
by James C
The environmentalists can be a weird bunch but the broad message of this exchange between Harrabin and Abbess concerns the headline and not the science. Abbess obviously didn't like the way the article infers to global warming being in decline when in fact Harrabin was merely making the point that temperatures haven't increased significantly in the last decade and 2008 might be a cooler year due to La Nina. He does go on to say that people mustn't be fooled by the short term picture and that the overall trend is one of rising temperatures.

For proof of those rising temperatures, here's some data from NASA.

If you look carefully then you'll see that the mean has remained the same for the past decade (since 1998 although 2007 was the hottest on record overall) and the trend is up rather than down.

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:38 am
by blackcat
James C wrote:broad message of this exchange between Harrabin and Abbess concerns the headline and not the science
Really!!! That is what you deduce from reading the above post? My mind is getting more and more made up that Global Warming is a scam with every word you write. Here are some extracts from the post. Its about censorship and distortion NOT headlines.
A report .....by Roger Harrabin was altered,..... and the headline was also changed.
Jo Abbess also urged the BBC to censor skeptics of man-made global warming and not make reference to them, an order that was followed
Harrabin initially dismisses the demand to change the article, stating, "No correction is needed.
After being threatened with a wider propaganda offensive, Harrabin still refuses to budge, and responds to Abbess' outright lie that, "Nobody is seriously refuting that increasing Greenhouse Gases cause increased global temperatures," by stating, "We can't ignore the fact that sceptics have jumped on the lack of increase since 1998. It is appearing regularly now in general media."
Harrabin concludes his second e mail with "People feel like debate is being censore
Abbess then orders the writer outright to censor global warming skeptics.

"It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics," she writes
Abbess threatens the writer again that he will be the target of a campaign on behalf of the environmentalists,
Abbess' e mails contain no source references or hyperlinks to document her claims, yet they were subsequently followed to a tee as the BBC changed the article to reflect her wishes

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 3:33 pm
by James C
Blackcat,

Forget what the BBC says, what do you make of the NASA evidence or is this a scam as well? It clearly shows a warming trend regardless of whether this is man made or not?

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:31 pm
by blackcat
The Romans grew grapes in Yorkshire. The Victorians used to ice skate on the Thames the ice was so thick. Climate change is nothing new and it is not just extremes over thousands of years like ice ages but variations over centuries and even decades, sometimes heating and sometimes cooling. If the Earth is getting warmer it matters greatly what causes it. If it is part of a natural cycle then the "Global Warming" industry is a scam and if our emissions are having a negligible effect then all the scare mongering and threat of taxation (we ALREADY pay through the nose for petrol on the basis that it is too polluting even though it has no effect on reducing traffic!!!) is based on a lie. There is even doubt that the planet is heating up never mind what causes it. After 9/11 and 7/7 I do not believe a *****ing word I am told anymore.

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:09 pm
by karlos
Nigel Lawson was on SKY news today saying that Global Warming was the new religion. The former Chancellor is a very high ranking person to have come out against this green taxation frenzy.

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:17 pm
by James C
blackcat wrote:The Romans grew grapes in Yorkshire. The Victorians used to ice skate on the Thames the ice was so thick. Climate change is nothing new and it is not just extremes over thousands of years like ice ages but variations over centuries and even decades, sometimes heating and sometimes cooling. If the Earth is getting warmer it matters greatly what causes it. If it is part of a natural cycle then the "Global Warming" industry is a scam and if our emissions are having a negligible effect then all the scare mongering and threat of taxation (we ALREADY pay through the nose for petrol on the basis that it is too polluting even though it has no effect on reducing traffic!!!) is based on a lie. There is even doubt that the planet is heating up never mind what causes it. After 9/11 and 7/7 I do not believe a *****ing word I am told anymore.
Of course there are natural warming and cooling cycles, no climatologist would disagree with you, but CO2 and warming have always been linked even if most critics get it wrong about the lead lag issue. And if for the first time in history we are raising the CO2 level artificially, then there is every reason to be concerned.

Not everything is a conspiracy although I happen to believe that climate change is being used to cover up a looming energy crisis and therefore all is not as it seems.

Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 1:42 am
by wepmob2000
James C wrote: Not everything is a conspiracy although I happen to believe that climate change is being used to cover up a looming energy crisis and therefore all is not as it seems.
An excellent point, and exactly my take on the whole 'Peak Oil versus Climate Change' debate. The logic of this argument is so achingly obvious that its amazing more people on here can't see it.

I'm baffled as to how some people regard Peak Oil as being 'pushed' and at the top of the agenda? In truth you have to look for info on the subject, very little is published in the papers or on the TV (admittedly I watch very little TV, but have yet to see anything on this subject on TV). This is quite the opposite to Global Warming, which its very difficult to escape from.

Its ironic that while Peak Oil is proven to be happening (North Sea Oil, Texas Oil fields, etc) very little is said about it. On the other hand there is apparently still no empirical evidence for Anthropogenic Global Warming, and no empirical evidence as to whether increased CO2 is a cause or symptom of Climate Change.

My personal belief is that the Government is pushing AGW for the simple reason that its a much easier sell (for them), whilst putting in place much the same policies as needed to deal with Peak Oil. Admitting to Peak Oil would be tantamount to an admission of complete governmental failure, saying that our leaders knew about this disaster 40 years ago, yet ignored it in the pursuit of short term profits. This knowledge, along with the apocalyptic scenario that Peak Oil presents might seriously be enough to cause anarchy.

On the other hand AGW is our fault, we're too greedy, we've caused this and now we have to pay. Drivel like the crusade on plastic bags gets everyone involved and on the Governments side, in much the same way as 'Saucepans for Spitfires' did in WWII. Its all absolute rubbish, but it makes people feel involved in this massive 'struggle'..... We're not being told theres a ticking timebomb like with Peak Oil, but if the people don't mend their ways disaster is sure to strike.

Various factions support this scam for various reasons, the Government can extort extra money for our own good (of course all Green Taxes directly fund green projects). The environmentalists are a stage closer to their nirvana of a pre-industrial society for everyone bar themselves who should always somehow be immune, and companies can charge extra for the same garbage that now has 'green' stickers on it....

The blindingly obvious cause of most of the conflict in the world today is a rush for resources, in the Middle East the USA and Europe are challenging China for Oil. Why would this be so if future supplies were guaranteed and plentiful? Oil companys greed is an oft cited answer, but this answer is nonsensical, if the companies could, they would increase production, and still charge the same rates. OPEC is a cartel and demand for oil is virtually price inelastic, so why not charge more and sell more? Why would an oil company push Peak Oil, as the likely result would be a huge fall in oil company values, due to a loss in confidence, could that be why this is kept pretty much under wraps?

Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:32 am
by blackcat
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3d19321e-043a ... ck_check=1
Stop this foolish overreaction to climate change
By Nigel Lawson

Published: April 7 2008 03:00 | Last updated: April 7 2008 03:00

Over the past five years I have become increasingly concerned at the scaremongering of the climate alarmists, which has led the governments of Europe to commit themselves to a drastic reduction in carbon emissions, regardless of the economic cost of doing so. The subject is such a complex one, involving science, economics and politics in almost equal measure, that to do it justice I have written a book, albeit a short one, thoroughly referenced and sourced. But the bare bones are clear.

First, given the so-called greenhouse effect, the marked and largely man-made increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in the earth's atmosphere has no doubt contributed to the modest 20th century warming of the planet. But what remains a matter of unresolved dispute among climate scientists is how great a contribution it has made, compared with the natural factors affecting the earth's climate.

The majority view among climate scientists, as set out in the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is that "most" of the slight (0.5°C) warming in the last quarter of the 20th century was "very likely" caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions. On that basis, and relying on computer models, its "best guess" of the likely rise in mean global temperature over the next 100 years is between 1.8°C and 4°C.

These projections were made, incidentally, before the recent acknow-ledgement that so far this century there has been no further global warming at all - in spite of a continuing rapid rise in carbon emissions.

Be that as it may, the IPCC goes on to estimate what the impact of the projected warming would be. It does so on the explicit basis of two assumptions. The first is that, while the developed world can adapt to warming, the developing world lacks the capacity to do so. The second is that, even in the developed world, adaptive capacity is constrained by the limits of existing technology - that is to say, there will be no further technological development over the next 100 years.

The first, distinctly patronising, assumption is almost certainly false. But even it were true it would mean only that, should the need arise, overseas aid programmes would be tailored to ensure that the developing world did acquire the necessary adaptive capacity. The second is self-evidently absurd, not least in the case of food production, given the ongoing developments in bio-engineering and genetic modification.

It is, however, on this flawed basis that the IPCC reckons that, if the rise in global temperature over the next 100 years is as much as 4°C, it would be likely to cost anything between 1 per cent and 5 per cent of global gross domestic product, albeit much more than this in the developing world and less in the developed world.

Even if that were so, what would it mean? Suppose the loss to the developing world were as much as 10 per cent of GDP, then - given the IPCC's economic growth assumptions, on which its emissions assumptions, and hence its warming assumptions, are based- it would imply that, by 2100 or thereabouts, people in the developing world, instead of being some 9.5 times as well off as they are today, would be "only" some 8.5 times as well off - which would still leave them better off than people in the developed world today. This, then, is the scale of the alleged threat to the planet - based, to repeat, on the IPCC's grossly inflated estimate of the likely damage from further warming, arising from its absurdly gloomy view of mankind's ability to adapt.

Indeed, given that warming produces benefits as well as costs, it is far from clear that for the people of the world as a whole, the currently projected warming, even if it occurs, would cause any net harm at all. By contrast, slowing down world economic growth, by shifting to much more expensive noncarbon sources of energy, would be massively costly, as Dieter Helm, Britain's foremost energy economist, has recently spelt out.

That is one good reason why the sought-after global agreement to cut back drastically on carbon dioxide emissions, embracing China, India and the other major developing countries, is not going to happen. But two very real dangers remain.

The first is that the European Union, which already has the bit between its teeth on this issue, will severely damage its own economy by deciding to set an example to the world. And the second is that it will seek to limit that damage, as President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and others are already urging, by imposing trade barriers against those countries that are not prepared to accept mandatory cuts in their emissions.

A lurch into protectionism, and the rolling back of globalisation, would do far more damage to the world economy in general and to the developing countries in particular than could conceivably result from the projected resumption of global warming.

It is high time this folly ended.

Lord Lawson waschancellor of the exchequer, 1983-89. His book, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming, will be published by George Duckworth on Thursday
Well if Nigel Lawson says so!!............. ffs I don't know what to believe. If the Global Warming industry is bad for globalisation I am all for it even if it is a lie.

Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:46 am
by blackcat
http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_articl ... BR+Comment
Climate change confirmed but global warming is cancelled
Owen McShane

Unlike so many of the hapless victims on TVOne's daily Crimewatch (also known as One Network News) I have recently been lucky enough to be in two right places at the right time.

In December last year, at the UN conference in Bali, I heard Viscount Monckton present a paper prepared by himself, the Australian Dr David Evans and our own Dr Vincent Gray (who were at Bali, too) that showed while the IPCC models predict that greenhouse gases would produce an extensive "hot spot" in the upper troposphere over the tropics, the satellite measurements show no such hotspots have appeared.

Monckton and Evans found a large part of this discrepancy is the result of some basic errors in the IPCC's assessment of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. When they applied their revised factor to the effect of greenhouse gases, the temperature rise was about a third of that predicted by the IPCC.

So by late last year we not only knew IPCC forecasts of atmospheric global warming were wrong; we were beginning to understand why they are wrong.

The key issue in this debate is whether anthropogenic greenhouse gases or natural solar activities are the prime drivers of climate change. A closely related argument is whether the climate is highly sensitive to carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.

Doubtful predictions

Put together, these uncertainties raise doubts as to whether the IPCC models can accurately forecast the climate over the long term. If they cannot, then we have to wonder how much damage we should risk doing to the world's economies in attempts to manage the possibly adverse effects of these "predictions."

The findings that the predicted "tropical hot spots" do not exist are important because the IPCC models assume these hot spots will be formed by increased evaporation from warmer oceans leading to the accumulations of higher concentrations of water vapour in the upper atmosphere, and thereby generating a positive feedback reinforcing the small amount of warming that can be caused by CO2 alone.

Atmospheric scientists generally agree that as carbon dioxide levels increase there is a law of "diminishing returns" - or more properly "diminishing effects" - and that ongoing increases in CO2 concentration do not generate proportional increases in temperature. The common analogy is painting over window glass. The first layers of paint cut out lots of light but subsequent layers have diminishing impact.

So, you might be asking, why the panic? Why does Al Gore talk about temperatures spiraling out of control, causing mass extinctions and catastrophic rises in sea-level, and all his other disastrous outcomes when there is no evidence to support it?

The alarmists argue that increased CO2 leads to more water vapour - the main greenhouse gas - and this provides positive feedback and hence makes the overall climate highly sensitive to small increases in the concentration of CO2.

Consequently, the IPCC argues that while carbon dioxide may well "run out of puff" the consequent evaporation of water vapour provides the positive feedback loop that will make anthropogenic global warming reach dangerous levels.

This assumption that water vapour provides positive feedback lies behind the famous "tipping point," which nourishes Al Gore's dreams of destruction, and indeed all those calls for action now - "before it is too late!" But no climate models predict such a tipping point.

However, while the absence of hot spots has refuted one important aspect of the IPCC models we lack a mechanism that fully explains these supposed outcomes. Hence the IPCC, and its supporters, have been able to ignore this "refutation."

So by the end of last year, we were in a similar situation to the 19th century astronomers, who had figured out that the sun could not be "burning" its fuel - or it would have turned to ashes long ago - but could not explain where the energy was coming from. Then along came Einstein and E=mc2.

Hard to explain

Similarly, the climate sceptics have had to explain why the hotspots are not where they should be - not just challenge the theory with their observations.

This is why I felt so lucky to be in the right place at the right time when I heard Roy Spencer speak at the New York conference on climate change in March. At first I thought this was just another paper setting out observations against the forecasts, further confirming Evans' earlier work.

But as the argument unfolded I realised Spencer was drawing on observations and measurements from the new Aqua satellites to explain the mechanism behind this anomaly between model forecasts and observation. You may have heard that the IPCC models cannot predict clouds and rain with any accuracy. Their models assume water vapour goes up to the troposphere and hangs around to cook us all in a greenhouse future.

However, there is a mechanism at work that "washes out" the water vapour and returns it to the oceans along with the extra CO2 and thus turns the added water vapour into a NEGATIVE feedback mechanism.

The newly discovered mechanism is a combination of clouds and rain (Spencer's mechanism adds to the mechanism earlier identified by Professor Richard Lindzen called the Iris effect).

The IPCC models assumed water vapour formed clouds at high altitudes that lead to further warming. The Aqua satellite observations and Spencer's analysis show water vapour actually forms clouds at low altitudes that lead to cooling.

Furthermore, Spencer shows the extra rain that falls from these clouds cools the underlying oceans, providing a second negative feedback to negate the CO2 warming.

Alarmists' quandary

This has struck the alarmists like a thunderbolt, especially as the lead author of the IPCC chapter on feedback has written to Spencer agreeing that he is right!

There goes the alarmist neighbourhood!

The climate is not highly sensitive to CO2 warming because water vapour is a damper against the warming effect of CO2.

That is why history is full of Ice Ages - where other effects, such as increased reflection from the ice cover, do provide positive feedback - while we do not hear about Heat Ages. The Medieval Warm Period, for example, is known for being benignly warm - not dangerously hot.

We live on a benign planet - except when it occasionally gets damned cold.

While I have done my best to simplify these developments they remain highly technical and many people distrust their own ability to assess competing scientific claims. However, in this case the tipping point theories are based on models that do not include the effects of rain and clouds.

The new Nasa Aqua satellite is the first to measure the effects of clouds and rainfall. Spencer's interpretation of the new data means all previous models and forecasts are obsolete. Would anyone trust long-term forecasts of farm production that were hopeless at forecasting rainfall?

The implications of these breakthroughs in measurement and understanding are dramatic to say the least. The responses will be fun to watch.

Alarmists, 'experts' face a new inconvenient truth

Christopher Pearson, of The Australian newspaper (March 22), has written up a remarkable ABC television interview with Dr Jennifer Marohasy, a senior fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Melbourne-based think tank.

Dr Marohasy says the impact of the Aqua satellite and Spencer's interpretation of the data and prompts the reporter to conclude with some pungent observations of his own:

"If Marohasy is anywhere near right about the impending collapse of the global warming paradigm, life will suddenly become a whole lot more interesting.

"A great many founts of authority, from the Royal Society to the UN, most heads of government along with countless captains of industry, learned professors, commentators and journalists will be profoundly embarrassed. Let us hope it is a prolonged and chastening experience.

"With catastrophe off the agenda, for most people the fog of millennial gloom will lift, at least until attention turns to the prospect of the next ice age. Among the better educated, the sceptical cast of mind that is the basis of empiricism will once again be back in fashion. The delusion that by recycling and catching public transport we can help save the planet will quickly come to be seen for the childish nonsense it was all along.

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RAIN CHECK: Spencer's analyses based on new satellite data pour cold rain on warming theory

"The poorest Indians and Chinese will be left in peace to work their way toward prosperity, without being badgered about the size of their carbon-footprint, a concept that for most of us will soon be one with Nineveh and Tyre, clean forgotten in six months.

"The scores of town planners in Australia building empires out of regulating what can and can't be built on low-lying shorelines will have to come to terms with the fact inundation no longer impends and find something more plausible to do. The same is true of the bureaucrats planning to accommodate 'climate refugees."