For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero)....There Is a Problem With Global Warming...it stoppped in 1998, Bob Carter, opinion.telegraph
This is a little like finding out that your cheerleaders go to the school that you're playing, not your own. Don't expect to hear much about this. It's news but it doesn't fit the political paradigm.
Luther
8 comments:
I guess you guys will believe anyone who supports your point-of-view. Here is the actual graph from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ (which was the reference cited in the editorial piece that you quoted from).
Does that look to you like a drop in temperature has been occurring? Sure, according to their data, 1998 was still the warmest year...But, it was an anomaly ("the El Nino of the century", almost 0.2 deg C warmer than any previous year) and the amazing thing is that while 1998 was the warmest year, the last 4 years have all been warmer than any other year (in the instrumental record) except 1998. Actually, there is some small differences amongst those who compile global temperature records and the folks at NASA actually have 2005 as a tiny bit warmer than 1998: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2_lrg.gif . But, regardless of whether 2005 beat out 1998 or not, the clear trend in the data is still upward over the past decade.
Thought you were abandoning a hopeless cause. See the post above this one, re: the Canadian government's withdrawal from Kyoto, although you probably chose to ignore it. You're slowly losing the troops. Sorry about that.
As we already explained to the audience earlier by tracing your primarily leftist sources, (something you conveniently fail to address in your continuing pose as an objective observer), you're the guy who only collects info that supports your point of view. In this case, you do so by arbitrarily declaring 1998 an "anomaly." Say, we have to admit, that's actually a pretty nifty way to "prove" your case by dismissing a data strand that doesn't track with your pre-conceived conclusion.
Having performed this little parlor trick, you then reveal startling data from NASA that helpfully doesn't track this "anomaly," thus giving you the picture you want to believe. Unfortunately, NASA's blatant politicization of climate data over many years is well-known, and thus, this data is lacking in credibility. Guess this little tactic hearkens back to the old adage, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."
Once again, climate change, up or down, simply cannot be validly determined over 10 year timeslices, which, of course, you know. But scientific proof is not your point. Scoring political points is. But you can't score any here.
Oh, so now NASA is a leftist source. Once you declare anything you don't like a "leftist source", you conveniently only have right-wing sources left. I might make the claim that they are in the pocket of fossil fuel companies but since some of the biggest ones, like BP and Shell (as well as some of the electric companies in the U.S.) are now on board with accepting the science of climate change and the need to cut back emissions, these right-wing sources are really lagging behind much of the fossil fuel industry.
At any rate, all people have to do is look at the graph from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit and they will see that what bullshit this claim that the temperature has been dropping recently is. As I said, it is irrelevant whether 1998 was or was not the warmest year. [Just as the fact that it was colder last Saturday here in Rochester than it was many days in January (probably even than the average for all of January) does negate the fact that the general trend has been toward warmer temperatures with the arrival of spring.] The clear trend in the data continues up as the running average on that plot makes clear.
You site does little to disabuse me of the notion that the right wing in this country has strayed so far from the "reality-based community" that you are now living in your own little make-believe world. It is kind of pathetic.
Just to add to the list of "leftist" sources, here are links to BP, Shell's, and Ford's pages on climate change:
http://www.bp.com/subsection.do?categoryId=9007561&contentId=7014605
www.shell.com/climate/
http://www.ford.com/en/company/about/sustainability/default.htm
Sorry, Joel, you're still not addressing the issue of your own advocacy politics. You can cite away, but you'll never cite anything that doesn't buttress your--extremely weak--side of the argument. So in the end, your bogus sourcing doesn't matter. It has no balance. It's a nice trick, too, as it allows you to use left-wing, right-wing, and industry citations to prove your "objectivity." Except that the only sources you choose are ones that agree with your position. And, again, your declaration of 1998 as an "anomaly" still doesn't make it so. Trumpeting points of view works in the MSM but not here.
You also don't read very well. Where in my response did I declare NASA a "leftist source?" The fellow at NASA (don't have his name right here) who's been promoting the "global warming" panic for many years is well known as an extremist advocate of this position. He may or may not be a card-carrying leftie, and it doesn't really matter, re: the above. But he does give aid and comfort to "global warming" ideologues such as yourself. He does not represent the entirety of NASA.
Additionally, it doesn't matter to us what you think of folks on the right side of the aisle. Because nothing whatsoever can dissuade ideologues such as yourself from a world-view that is tantamount to a religion. Which is kind of pathetic.
Well, yes, I guess you have me there Wonker. I only cite sources that agree with my opinion like the National Academies of Sciences of 11 major countries including the U.S, NASA, the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia, two of the biggest oil companies on the planet, and one of the biggest automakers.
You, on the other hand, only cite unimpeachably reliable sources such as George Will and Bob Carter and Richard Lindzen (the latter two being well-known climate change deniers in the scientific community whose arguments have been resoundingly rejected in the peer-reviewed scientific community but who continue to peddle their garbage to the less informed public).
Your irony is lost on me. My cited journalistic sources refer to other sources. Direct or indirect citations, it scarcely matters if the original sources are credible, which Will's are with regard to proving his point about the fleeting shelf life of scare journalism and scare science that selectively deploy scientific research citations to "prove" a point that may not be provable.
You're creating a false dichotomy with regard to sourcing that doesn't exist, and it doesn't work. And you fail consistently to address the whole point of these posts, which are intended to counter the routine, selective use and deployment of scientific observations to prove a case that is not demonstrably provable, like yours. It just doesn't work. It's just a game and we don't play it here. But you do.
Today you conclude by dismissing, out of hand, individuals who disagree with your theory. As I explained to you, I know all about the use and abuse of "peer review." You may recall the Aussies who correctly identified helicobacter pylori as the cause of stomach ulcers were also initially "resoundingly rejected by the peer-reviewed scientific community." Which is, no doubt, why the accepted cure for ulcers today is treatment with antibiotics. Please.
--W
Wonker: Yes, the original sources (e.g., the Science paper that Will referred to and the data that Carter referred to) were credible. The problem is that Will and Carter simply lied about what they said. When one goes back to the original sources, one finds that they bear little resemblance to Will or Carter's characterization of them. Why you continue to defend such people who lie and deceive is beyond me.
One thing that we agree on is that global warming is not "provable". No scientific theory is provable since science is inductive. In math, you can prove things rigorously. In science, you have to rely on the accumulation of the evidence and the lack of any alternative theories that can explain the data. But all scientific knowledge is technically tentative.
As for peer review, I agree that the process is not perfect. But, I don't exactly know what a credible alternative is. In the absence of accepting the opinion of the scientific community as expressed through their peer-reviewed work, how exactly is one to judge where the science in a field is? In practice, the alternative that people like you seem to adopt is accepting the scientific view on a subject if it agrees with your biases and rejecting it...or demanding ever higher burdens of proof...if it disagrees. This is a recipe for chaos whether practiced by the Right of the Left. I must admit that some on the Left seemed to start some of this, e.g., with post-modernism. However, their attempt to deny science never seemed to be nearly as successful as it has become in right-wing circles.
[And, by the way, do you know of any good history of the whole stomach ulcers thing and how the scientists who proposed it were initially treated by the scientific community? You are not the first one to cite this example but I have never actually been able to find a discussion of this. I am willing to believe that it took them a while to prevail...but I have never been able to find any details on that.
It is worth noting that notion of CO2 buildup in the atmosphere causing global warming is an example of a theory that took a while to take hold in the scientific community. The idea goes back more than 100 years to Arrhenius but it took quite a while for it to gain general acceptance in the scientific community. (And, it wasn't even until the 1950s that accurate measurements could be made showing CO2 levels were in fact increasing.) There is a good history here: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ ]
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