The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria

What have many of us been saying all along?

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel

 

Great post.

When I was in high school, the teaching was the coming ice age. The cooling of the earth was on the cover of National Geographic. Then 20 years later, oops we were wrong, the climate is heating and we are all going to die. Another 20 years later, oops wrong again and sorry about the scare.

 

Lovelock was never "GW godfather", he is famously a maverick ecologist. He made some overly pessimistic claims, and is now rowing back from that, accepting that HE was alarmist. One man's opinion, however misrepresented, doesn't overcome the considered position of every scientific body on the planet, which is still warming.
There's a definite air of deja moo about this thread, didn't we do all this three months back when his interview was first published?

 

Yeah, I don't know about this godfather bit. As far as I know Lovelock is no expert in climate science. He goes off half cocked with a theory that almost everyone will be dead by the end of the century and then assumes that most climate scientists were along for the ride. In fact a lot of the IPCC past predictions have low balled the actual progression of climate change. The summer melt off of the arctic ocean ice was moved way up from earlier projections as was the loss of ice on Greenland and Antarctica. Anyway not hitting the mark on a particular prediction is a pretty weak basis for skepticism. If that were the case Malthus would have been discarded and evolution would have never seen the light of day.

Freeman Dyson is another scientific genius(but not in climate science) who is an AGW skeptic. Their reasoning keeps the pot boiling which is always fun and encourages folks to question.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=all

 

most of us attended high school a coming ice age was never taught as fact...cover of national geographic? you'll have to post that for us, a NatGeo cover and article should be a snap to source...

 

What you mean is that as more evidence comes to light, all those scientists that went off half cocked have had to scale back their doom and gloom rhetoric.

 

the considered position of every scientific body on the planet You are implying that every scientific body on the planet disagrees with this man and thereby supports man caused global warming and impending doom. Otherwise (as I note below) you are disputing a point that has NOT been made in the opening of this thread.

For the record on MAN caused GW

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/50-NASA-Scientists-Against-Global-Warming

http://www.petitionproject.org/

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2008/12/more-than-650-scientists-oppose-man-made-global-warming-claims/

http://globalwarmingscare.wordpress.com/category/scientist-who-oppose-global-warming-theories/


I could go on but the point is made.....

Next we will hear how these are not the "right" kind of scientists.

The point made by the subject of this thread is simple and overwhelming: when you are paid by the gov't, and the gov't is telling you what to "find", you are not free yto dissent.....

 

And as usual, you attempt to change the topic of the thread to claim you have disputed it. This scientists has only said that he now acknowledges man caused GW is not as severe as he thought....he has NOT said the planet is not warming and he has NOT said that man is not contributing to it. Try and stick with the point......

And of course the planet is warming.....it is called an INTERGLACIAL, we have been in it for many thousands of years (look it up). When the planet stops warming and reveres is when you and yours in Europe have a REAL worry......3 miles of ice on the way......

 

To dispute this would be to believe in "runaway" warming, which no one can really prove. I always ask what will happen when this mild interglacial ends. The ice age is actually about 2.5 million years old interspersed with these short milder interglacials.

 

The true believers cannot or will not make the distinction between the argument that the climate is changing and the argument that MAN is causing it and MAN can and SHOULD stop it.

Only a fool would dispute the first, the second, as you point out, is a completely different matter. True Believers actually seem to think that accepting the first means you accept the second automatically.

 

Only true believers now deny that human-created CO2 is driving the climate change. Doing so is like denying smoking causes cancer. I bring that up because exactly the same men who were paid to declare smoking is safe and that CFCs don't destroy ozone are now being paid to declare humans aren't causing warming. And the same rubes who fell for all of their previous scams are falling for this one.

We measure the heat balance. We see that comesin > goesout. We measure the outgoing IR radiation flux. We see it shrinking in the CO2 absorption band. Those are smoking guns. There is no explanation for those effects, other than human-created CO2.

Let's think about this rationally. We have a handful of conservative cranks in the countries dominated by a nutty conservative-owned english speaking media, and they can't put together any argument besides idiot conspiracy theories about some mystical socialist plot. And in contrast, we have the rest of the planet, of all different political persuasions, people who aren't crazy, all relying on solid science which anyone can look at. Golly, who to trust.

And hoosier, your question about the interglacial is nonsensical. The interglacial ends in 50,000 years or so. Your question is like asking "Why do you want to run the air conditioner now? Winter arrives in 6 months, and it will be cold, so you should be running the furnace now!". It's just a stupid line of reasoning. It's warming badly NOW. What happens in 50,000 years, we can worry about in 49,900 years. Given our current trend, there won't even be another glacial period at the scheduled time -- the greenhouse gases will overpower the orbital effects.

 

The best estimate is 10 to 20K years not 50. After that the glacial periods last from 50 to 100K years. The real question is will this million plus year ice age end? Measuring the last 100 years to make a prediction for 10 to 20K years is just absurd.

 

Here you go - November 1976 National Geographic. http://catosdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/National-Geographic-November-1976-Climate.pdf


While finding the link, I found numerous other items about the "coming ice age" scientists predicted in the 1970's. These contain a number of references from mainstream media (Time, Newsweek, National Goegraphic, Fortune, Readers Digest, etc):
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Remember+global+cooling?-a0119114026

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JZS/is_5_23/ai_n25002469/ rehashed the doom and gloom of the global cooling.

Also the March 1977 Readers Digest, "What’s Happening To Our Climate" by Samuel W. Matthews.

You can find the articles on your own.

Its interesting that scientists in the 1970's thought the cause of the global cooling was mankinds pollution. From Reid Bryson, then (1970's) director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin:

Bryson argued that an increasing density of small dust particles (also known as aerosols) in the atmosphere was adding to the Earth's albedo. That is, it was causing a larger percentage of the sun's light to be reflected back into space. He also believed that the cooling effect of the increasingly dense dust covering had become so great that it started overpowering the warming effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide, ending a warming trend that lasted until about 1940 and ushering in global cooling.​

 

As to your quote:
“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”-John Stuart Mills

Its John Stuart Mill, not "Mills".

Your phrase sounds good to lefties but it shows ignorance.

The "quote" is not a quote but a paraphrase, taken from a statement Mill made to clarify his original statement:

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. ​

Mill was refering to the Conservative Party in England, a party which advocated for a constutional monarchy, Mill (if you care to read his work) despised the idea that birth should solely determine a persons station in life (such as a monarchy).

The statement has absolutely nothing to do with the modern philosophy of conservatism.

 

You wish - truth is that instead of the evidence getting weaker it is getting stronger

 

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

Oh! My! Word!

You have actually reference the "Petition project"!!!!

You DO realise that is an infamous fraud don't you????

And your list of marginalised internet blogs and frauds stands up against groups such as the Royal Academy of Science how?

List of scientific organisations who have issued statements on climate change concurring with the IPCC reports

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

read it and weep

 

Don't confuse bad journalism with good science

 

Is that a dodge to avoid the inconvenient truth? So I should ignore the pre-eminent climate scientists of the 1960's and 1970's that are quoted and interviewd in all those articles? I should ignore magazines like Science and National Geographic?

Obviously you didn't read the links.

 

Find the original research of these "pre-eminent" scientists and I might listen but at present you have hyped up sensationalism from the media eg from your link

This bit IS true and is still true today - if we pour enough particulate matter into the atmosphere we will cool the earth - mind you we will also see a return of acid rain, choking smog, increase in respiratory diseases.....................your choice - Co2 or increased asthma

Hmmm "Fortune" - is that not a magazine? NOT a science journal? I guess then it would not have a research article but more likely an opinion piece by a journalist - note too that the quote says nothing about an ice age

Hmmmm "Time" magazine - usually the journalism here is a little better than average but it is NOT and never has been a science magazine - it is not even a "popular science" magazine - so again we are faced with the spectre not of global cooling but of journalists wanting to increase the sales of the magazine

"Newsweek" - not a science journal

Not a science journal

National Geographic is more science based than the previous media molls that you offered but it is still NOT a science journal and is still subject to the same editorial pressure of "make it sensational so we can sell copy" I also note too the word MAY as a rather distinct qualifier. I could easily say that the moon MAY spiral inwards to hit the Earth and I would be right because it is only a mooted possibility

And they are right - we are probably due for another ice age - sometime. But then the Sun is due to start expanding into a Nova too - just don't ask WHEN.

Hmmmmm - would actually like to read the REST of this article instead of one cherry picked quote but I am betting it is yet another denialist diatribe - and despite claims to the contrary denialism does feature in the media. What I do NOT see in this quote is a reference to SCIENTISTS making this claim - just a journalist mouthing off..................

Oh! and BTW - find a new argument - this one has been debunked before - actually it gave me a sense of "deja through" - been through this before, LOTS of times!



But the argument itself is silly - it denies the fact that science can and does advance and learns more.

 

Bowerbird, the NatGeo article was actually describing how uncertain future climate was in 1976. The anti-AGW spinmasters only quote the cooling predictions and leave out the warming predictions; same old tactics.


source

In case the page is difficult to read:
"It may seem that there are as many theories on climate as there are climatologists, but experts agree on one point: They cannot yet predict climatic change with any assurance. Nevertheless, the three lower graphs on these two pages illustrate two important points. First,climatic change moves in irregular cycles. Second, we are living in one of the warmest periods of the past million years."
Of course, scientists have come a long way since 1976 in understanding and modeling future climate.

So much for the NatGeo "cooling" article!

 

Wrong again. The arguement shows definitively that science does advance. Scientists make mistakes and make decisions based on faulty or inadequate knowledge. Forty years ago global cooling was a real possibility (according to the scientists), then it was global warming, what will it be next year?

The climate is complicated and not well understood. This is obvious if you read the true scientific literature, not the populist pap.

When climatologists can predict how many hurricanes there will be this year, or can reliably even predict where an existing hurricane will go, then I'll give them more credibility in predicting the global climate over the next 100 years.

 

Interesting. If you were to refer to a scientific study that disputed global warming (and the human link) which would you go for? I'll find your choice amusing

 

I don't know about Gator, but I know the complexity of climate is orders of magnitude beyond our capability of modeling it accurately. Therefore, scientific studies that support or dispells, are equally useless.

 

I'm interested in his views. I already know your support for blind faith and anti-intellectualism

 

Thanks for cherry-picking my rebuttal she says dryly and not a bit disgusted as well

Just ignore the point I made that it was journalists not scientist who were reporting the "global cooling" and go back to your (invalid) assertion that it was scientists

Yes, the climate is complicated - very complicated in fact but we are closer to understanding it today than we were in the 1970's - which is why your argument of "they were wrong once" is so silly on so many fronts

You know I keep looking at replies like "reliably even predict where an existing hurricane will go" and I have to wonder what sort of crap weather service you have in America because it appears to be far far less capable than ours is.