Our Scotland - www.our-scotland.org

Neil

Czech President Vaclav Klaus
Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?•

A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.• This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.•

Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions...•

A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.

• Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?•

A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite.• Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change.• Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.•

Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view the global warming as a done deal?•

A: It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it's obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.•

Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right ...•

A: ...I am right...•

Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?•

A: It's such a nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.•

Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?•

A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you represent the economic media so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It's clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.• It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.• That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers, am I not? It is more likely that you actually believe what you say.

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm
Not reported by the MSM

_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Scott2006 · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 7:01 pm Post subject:

Um...interesting.

I still think on balance that a degree of global warming is going on - more than 200 years of increased carbon and pollution emissions have to result in some environmental impact. Maybe not the extreme positions stated by some pro-environmental pressure groups but certainly not none at all... you'd have to question his sanity not Al Gore's.
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Scotland deserves a First rate Parliament for a First rate People
The Scottish Parliamentarians who voted for Treaty of Union in 1706 and signed away Independence had been voted for by less than 2% of the Scottish population

Neil · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 7:07 pm Post subject:

I don't think he is expressing doubt as to whether we might be having a 0.1 degree chnage but whether rhe 15 inch sea level rise predicted by the IPCC let alone the 20 feet by Al Gore are something other than hobgoblins.
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Scott2006 · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 12:26 pm Post subject:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change
by Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged
When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.

Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.

Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.

What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on long before human industry was a possible factor? Less than nothing. The 2007 Summary for Policymakers boasts of cutting in half a very small contribution by the sun to climate change conceded in a 2001 report.

Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.

He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.

The only trouble with Svensmark’s idea — apart from its being politically incorrect — was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.

In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.

Thanks to having written The Manic Sun, a book about Svensmark’s initial discovery published in 1997, I have been privileged to be on the inside track for reporting his struggles and successes since then. The outcome is a second book, The Chilling Stars, co-authored by the two of us and published next week by Icon books. We are not exaggerating, we believe, when we subtitle it “A new theory of climate change”.

Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.

The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark’s scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.
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Does this article disprove most of what the global scientific community believe to be facts?

What about the evidence from the Arctic ice-cores that have recorded temperatues for tens of thousands of years? They suggest more CO2 is in the atmosphere now than as far back as they can go.

I'm surprised that big business in some form of grant didn't find it convenient to back Svensmark's work.
_________________
Scotland deserves a First rate Parliament for a First rate People
The Scottish Parliamentarians who voted for Treaty of Union in 1706 and signed away Independence had been voted for by less than 2% of the Scottish population

Neil · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:38 pm Post subject:

It doesn't disprove it - it casts doubt on it Which is what real science does.

It does prove that those who say there is a "scientific consensus" (there isn't but there is a political one) & that the "debate is over" are not only wrong but aren't scientific.

Exxon recently agreed to drop funding for a couple of groups expressing scepticism for warming because of some browbeating by US senators & (most shamefully) the Royal Society. Big businesses are not the big bullies they are often portrayed as - any COE who harms his brand's image by getting shouted at in public has a short shelf life thus they will do or say almost anything to be allowed to make money rather than waves. Ask Gerald Ratner who owned the company & still got kicked out for telling the truth in private.
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

azzuri · 'Our Scotland' Fossil Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 3792

My personal view is that the global climate is always changing and there is nothing we can do to prevent that, but whether we are accelerating the process or not is questionable. You'll actually find more scientists who disagree with the 'global warming' theory - the reason we hear about it so much is because of the 'panic the masses' attitude that the media seem to love so much. First it was mad cow disease, then foot and mouth, thousands of terrorists wanting to blow us all up, then bird flu and of course global warming, which predicts we'll all be living up in the hills as the water levels rise, sipping pina coladas with our sun cream on in 100 degrees heat in 50 years.

I believe that it's more a global strategy of trying to scare people into becoming more 'green', not because of climate change but because we need to lessen our reliance on fossil fuels as we reach 'peak oil' (see wikipedia) and prices of a barrel of crude from Iran and gas from Russia shoot up. It's not a bad strategy actually, panic being the opium of the masses and all. Wink

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Neil · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 11:12 am Post subject:

I will certainly agree that the powers that be actively try to keep as scared (see my tagline) but I disagree about it being a useful antidote to peak oil. If the Israelis can produce oil from shale at $17 a barrel, as they say, then our resources, already not nearly as low as forecast have tripled. Beyond that we know there are enough radioactives on Earth to keep going for billions of year.

If it were necessary beyond that we have the potential of solar power satellites & fusion - there are no limits on what we can achieve if we try, which is why the Luddite agenda is so dehumanising of the human spirit.
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

SLG · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 1:50 pm Post subject:

Not my area, but have a look at the following... Appologies for the table.

Descirption

This figure, based on Meehl et al. (2004), shows the ability with which a global climate model (the DOE PCM [1]) is able to reconstruct the historical temperature record and the degree to which the associated temperature changes can be decomposed into various forcing factors. The top part of the figure compares a five year average of global temperature measurements (Jones and Moberg 2001) to the Meehl et al. results incorporating the effects of five predetermined forcing factors: greenhouse gases, man-made sulfate emissions, solar variability, ozone changes (both stratospheric and tropospheric), and volcanic emissions (including natural sulfates). The time history and radiative forcing effectiveness for each of these factors was specified in advance and was not adjusted to specifically match the temperature record.

Also shown are grey bands indicating the 68% and 95% range for natural variability in the five year average of temperature as determined from multiple simulations with different initial conditions. In other words, the bands indicate the estimated size of fluctuations that are expected to result from changes in weather rather than changes in climate. Ideally the model should be able to reconstruct temperature variations to within about the tolerance specified by these bands. Though the model captures the gross features of twentieth century climate change, it remains likely that some of the differences between model and observation reflect the limitations of the model and/or our understanding of the histories of the observed forcing factors.

In the lower portion of the figure are the results of additional simulations in which the model was operated with only one forcing factor at a time. A key conclusion of the Meehl et al. (2004) work is that the model response to all factors combined is approximately equal to the sum of the responses to each of the factors taken individually. They conclude therefore that it is reasonable to discuss how the evolving man-made and natural influences individually impact climate. Meehl et al. attribute most of the 0.52 °C global warming between 1900 and 1994 to a 0.69 °C temperature forcing from greenhouse gases partially offset by a 0.27 °C cooling due to man-made sulfate emissions and with other factors contributing the balance. This contrasts with the warming from 1900 to 1940 for which the model only attributes a net increases of 0.06 °C to the combined effects of greenhouse gases and sulfate emissions. The zeros on both plots are set equal to 1900 temperatures.

Note that "Net" reflects the model runs with all factors included and is not identical to simply summing the individual factors.

Temperature change relative to 1900
_________________1940 1970 1994
Greenhouse gases __0.10 0.38 0.69
Sulfate emissions___-0.04 -0.19 -0.27
Solar forcing_______0.18 0.10 0.21
Volcanic forcing_____0.11 -0.04 -0.14
Ozone ___________-0.06 0.05 0.08
Net_______________0.19 0.17 0.53
Observed__________0.26 0.21 0.52

References
Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, C.A. Ammann, J.M. Arblaster, T.M.L. Wigleym and C. Tebaldi (2004). "Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate". Journal of Climate 17: 3721-3727.
Jones, P.D. and Moberg, A. (2003). "Hemispheric and large-scale surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2001". Journal of Climate 16: 206-223.

SLG · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:00 pm Post subject:

This might also be of interest. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/resea...ntre/models/temperature_anim.html

SLG · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:03 pm Post subject:

I also presume that Lloyd's don't have an agenda and are only interested predicting risk.

http://www.lloyds.com/News_Centre...;gclid=CIGD3PLHtYoCFSYSQgodpyxzCw

Neil · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:25 pm Post subject:

Nobody denies that over the last century temperatures have gone up something like 0.6C & nobody but the Hockeystick proponents that this is less than the changes in many previous centuries. What is in dispute is that we are suddenly heading for the catastrophic warming claimed by the IPCC & other Hockeystick proponents.

If you look at the graph you will see a drop from the late 1940s to the early 60s while the CO2 increase is starting its take off which suggests the link is not close (indeed it corellates much better with the sunspot cycle). While the modelled growth correlates well with the actuality it should be noted that this modelling clearly happened after the reality. Prediction is so much easier when it is of the past. If we project this beyond the RH side of the page the Hockeystick would show this upward trend continuing at about 0.2C a decade (which is why the graph is said to look like a hockey stick).

In fact since 1998 there has been a very slight decrease.

Even the IPCC have dropped their projected sea level rise to 15 inches which makes Al Gore's 20 feet look insane & is only double the not particularly "catastrophic" increase in the last century & most centuries since the last ice age.
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Screegor · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:05 pm Post subject:

Screegor · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:19 pm Post subject:

Neil · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:21 pm Post subject:

The fact is the previous IPCC report said up to 88cm (35 inches) & so they have halved their prediction. They are definitely not predicting the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, at least not this millenium, & neither is anybody both honest & sane. The idea that "over 40%" of the world's population live within 11 inches of sea level merely has to be made to be shown as ridiculous (even if you include the population of Holland predicted to be flooded out in 2007 but actually quite safe).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4651876.stm
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Neil · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:27 pm Post subject:

Nope
2005 was the warmest year since 1999 but still marginally cooler according to the satelites. All the other years were cooler than that.
Predictions based on sunspots actually say we are heading for cooling. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/20060825-091321-7556r/
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Screegor · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:48 pm Post subject:

Screegor · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 4:04 pm Post subject:

Neil · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:24 pm Post subject:

Well I'm afraid I can't accept your 11 inch sea level rise as a significant threat to 40% ofthe world.

At worst, for infinitely less than the cost of Kyoto we can add 11 inches to the Thames barrier, Dutch dykes etc.

I note that on the link you gave it indeed showed 2005 as the warmest since 1999 but still cooler. It is, of course, possible to draw the line connecting the dots in many ways & extend it in many more, but the raw data do not show a catastrophic or even historicaly unknown warming.
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Screegor · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 8:42 pm Post subject:

Neil · Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 12:41 pm Post subject:

Ok I'll grant