Consensus? What consensus?

[Mayhim]

The Myth of Manmade Global Warming Consensus Explodes






Viscount Monckton gives a presentation during the 2007 Conference on Climate Change

"Considerable presence" of skeptics


The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."


The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"

In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, "I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC's 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central 'climate sensitivity' question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method."

According to Monckton, there is substantial support for his results, "in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low."

Monckton, who was the science advisor to Britain's Thatcher administration, says natural variability is the cause of most of the Earth's recent warming. "In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years ... Mars, Jupiter, Neptune?s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth."

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Yup, I've always found the manmade global warming science a bit shaky. Forget who said it but there's a quote that goes something like "The good news is we don't seem to be causing global warming. The bad news is that we don't seem to be causing global warming" meaning of course that if we pulled out all the stops and went 100% carbon neutral, it would do nothing to arrest a natural process. It's possible that we've actually held it up, through control of forest fires and draining of swamplands, preventing massive CO2 and methane releases. There's convincing arguments that solar output is solely responsible and may shortly reverse the process by declining and giving us a mini ice-age.

However, since much of the prevention effort also conserves resources and reduces other forms of pollution, I think that it has been a positive "scare" overall and something we should continue to strive for into the future.

[GasSavers_BIBI]

Even if we burn all the oil on this earth in the next 50 years, we probably wont make a difference on global warming. You can always told yourself that, but still, the point is much more that we wont have oil anymore, and oil kind of build our modern industrial world.

[Lug_Nut]

I find it troubling that the same processes that raise the temperature in small scale controlled environment experiments by increasing CO2 levels by the same amount as the increase since the industrial revolution are dismissed as not being valid on a large scale.

I find it troubling that ice core samples going back 70,000 years show a direct (but delayed by between 100 to 200 season) correlation between variation in atmospheric CO2 and the temperature. Natural increases in CO2 (to a high of about 270 ppm) resulted in a global temperature increase about 150 seasons later. Decreases in CO2 (low of about 190 ppm) resulted in decreases in global temperatures starting about 150 seasons following the decline.

I find it troubling that the present CO2 level (now about 360 ppm and rising) is an additional 1/3 higher than it had been during the highest levels of the prior 70,000 years, and almost all that increase has been from what might have been a natural high point of about 250 ppm of 150 years ago.

I am not able to wish away that concern, even if others can.

[OokiiMamoru]

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/pr...te_crisis.html

Proved: There is no climate crisis

Here is some more fuel to the co2 producing fire.

OM

[Mayhim]

LugNut, I understand your concern.

But my concern lies with spending trillions of dollars and slamming the brakes on multiple world economies for science that is disputable (and not the-world-is-too-flat kind of disputable).

And, I don't classify that as wishing away a concern, but rather seeing things realistically and not emotionally. Not that I'm saying you are guilty of that, it's just that it seems to be the main argument for that course action.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

IMO it's a bit like the millennium bug/y2k problem*, the only reason it wasn't a big problem is that people got scared enough to take precautions, so in retrospect, the lack of calamity and chaos seems to suggest that the risks were overblown. However, if no-one had taken it seriously, then what might have happened?

In other words, although personally I don't see it as a big a problem as it's made out to be, it could be if not taken seriously and sensible measures are not taken. Sensible IMO means doing those things that make socio-economic sense, not killing off half the third world by starvation to use an energy source that doesn't appear to be all that more carbon friendly than fossil fuels. That is sort of the equivalent to as if we turned all the computers off in 1999 and transcribed everything to paper and manual filing systems, we'd still be waiting for the government committee on certified software and hardware design to report back so we could start using computers again.

(* I got interested in that back in '97 btw, and went through about 30 computers before I found an ancient 286 that had the worst form of the bug, then made a patch that took all of about 10 lines of q-basic.... it was so trivial, and in so limited a number of systems I was somewhat stunned about all the brouhaha.)

[bowtieguy]

Originally Posted by OokiiMamoru

There is no climate crisis

at times, the moon cannot keep the earth from wobbling on its axis. during those times, cataclismic changes in climates can occur.

i wonder if this happened today if the enviro nuts and political left would blame GW and say "We told you so!"

[Rayme]

It's funny that alot of people think we can't possibly change the climate just a little bit..but we made a damn good job at ****ing up our ozone layer..or is that natural too?

As humans that has been on the earth for thousands of years it makes no sense to have to cover up with solar screen when we go out for more than 15 minutes at risk of very severe sunburns.

[Lug_Nut]

I see the underlying issue is that other nations desiring to emulate our standard of living are going to need "our" share of other nation's resources.
We in the US apparently see no need to conserve or reduce emissions, despite being the most wasteful and most polluting society on this planet, because it is apparently our intent to prevent other nations from industrializing to the scale that we have. The US's problem is being spun from one of our own excessive consumption, to one of competition for those resources we consume at such a prodigious rate.
"China's taking our oil!" No, China is using the best of western free market models to pay higher, (or in Sudan, moralize less), for the assets we used to take for granted or take for a few AWAC aircraft. If we could only keep China, India, and other 'second world' economies from growing and equaling the US and western Europe in standard of living and the accompanying emissions and waste, then there is just that more for us (or US) to continue to squander and dump. Not so? We b1tch about the use of fossil fuels they use, and at the same time b1tch about the loss of farm land when they instead build clean energy hydroelectric power plants.
I believe our national attitude is quickly becoming one of "They need to be happy with their rickshaws so we can keep our Denials."
Ooopps, Dr. Freud, did I write that? That should have been Denalis.