'The global-warmers were bound to attack, but why are they so feeble?'

The Daily Telegraph UK ^ | 17 march 2007 | Martin Durkin

[plenipotentiary]

'The global-warmers were bound to attack, but why are they so feeble?' Last Updated: 11:20pm GMT 17/03/2007

'The Great Global Warming Swindle', broadcast by Channel 4, put the case for scepticism about man-made climate change. The programme sparked a heated debate and charges of scientific inaccuracy. Here, its director, Martin Durkin, responds to the critics.

On March 8, Channel 4 broadcast my programme. Since then, supporters of the theory of man-made global warming have published frothing criticism. I am attacked for using an "old" graph depicting temperature over the past 1,000 years. They say I should have used a "new" graph - one used by Al Gore, known as the "hockey stick", because it looks like one.

But the hockey stick has been utterly discredited. The computer programme used to generate it was found to produce hockey-stick shapes even when fed random data (I refer readers to the work of McIntyre & McKitrick and to the Wegman Report, all available on the internet). Other than the discredited hockey stick, the graph used by us (and published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is the standard, accepted record of temperature in this period.

A critic claims that one of the graphs cited by us, illustrating the extraordinarily close correlation between solar variation and temperature change, has since been "corrected". It most certainly has not. The graph was produced by Prof Eigil Friis-Christensen, the head of the Danish National Space Centre, who says it still stands. But if the global-warmers don't like that graph, there are plenty of others that say the same thing.

No one any longer seriously disputes the link between solar activity and temperature in earth's climate history. I urge readers to look up on the net: Veizer, Geoscience Canada, 2005; and Soon, Geophysical Research Letters, 2005.

In the film, we used three graphs depicting temperature change in the 20th century. On one there was an error in the dates on the bottom. This was corrected for the second transmission of the programme, on More4, last Monday. It made no difference. Global-warmers can pick whichever graph they like. The problem for them remains the same. The temperature rise at the beginning of the century (prior to 1940, when human emissions of CO2 were relatively insignificant) was as great, most graphs show greater, than the temperature rise at the end of the century.

So what else do they hit me with? Prof Carl Wunsch, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who appeared in the film, later claimed he was duped into taking part. He was not.

The remarkable thing is not that I was attacked. But that the attacks have been so feeble. The ice-core data was the jewel in the global-warming crown, cited again and again as evidence that carbon dioxide 'drives' the earth's climate. In fact, as its advocates have been forced to admit, the ice-core data says the opposite. Temperature change always precedes changes in CO2 by several hundred years. Temperature drives CO2, not the other way round. The global-warmers do not deny this. They cannot.

During the post-war economic boom, while industrial emissions of CO2 went up, the temperature went down (hence the great global-cooling scare in the 1970s). Why? They say maybe the cooling was caused by SO2 (sulphur dioxide) produced by industry. But they say it mumbling under their breath, because they know it makes no sense. Thanks to China and the rest, SO2 levels are far, far higher now than they were back then. Why isn't it perishing cold?

Too many journalists and scientists have built their careers on the global-warming alarm. Certain newspapers have staked their reputation on it. The death of this theory will be painful and ugly. But it will die. Because it is wrong, wrong, wrong.

[dennisw]

btttttt

[Dallas59]

Clearly, if random searches give hockey sticks, the infamous "hockey stick graph" must also be random and cannot possibly show past temperatures. Furthermore, try saying "hockey stick" twenty or thirty times. Hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick hockey stick. Notice how it starts to seem meaningless? That's exactly what it is.

So what then, is the true shape of the graph? Well, it's the "big dipper graph" shown below. Notice the mathematical simplicity of the shape, without any of those silly wiggles that the graph above has. And it's supported by numerous studies, too numerous for me to need to name any of them. We know that the big dipper graph is mathematical and logical. Finally, notice that unlike the hockey stick graph, a random search does not produce the big dipper graph. QED.

[Caipirabob]

Per the graph, might he be the new spokesperson for the fascist Global Warming cult?

[The Duke]

"The programme sparked a heated debate ..."

Well, that explains it all right there, doesn't it?

Case closed.

[BlessedBeGod]

Global Warming Ping!

[Thickman]

Re: Your very excellent graph synopsis.

Are you privy to graphs that show how CO2 levels tend to follow temperature increases? I have been archiving graphs (including yours) but can't seem to find those charts which I have seen before. Much thanks in advance for your kind response.

[olezip]

Temperature change always precedes changes in CO2 by several hundred years. Temperature drives CO2, not the other way round. The global-warmers do not deny this. They cannot.

Good article and rationale response to the critics. The CO2 relationship to warming charts and data must be publicized to start the collapse of the global warming wall. It would be nice to get back to intelligent and even handed discourse rather than the shrill, half cooked cries of the global warming pagans.

[Erik Latranyi]

It would be nice to get back to intelligent and even handed discourse rather than the shrill, half cooked cries of the global warming pagans.

Killing the Global-Warming God will not be easy. While more and more evidence piles up against manmade warming, the supporters will just move their agenda to a new wagon.

[Lokibob]

Here is a link to the program he is talking about. It is 75 mins long:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttV2C6B8pU

[Molly Pitcher]

The famous hockey stick graph...

[Zon]

Killing the Global-Warming God will not be easy. While more and more evidence piles up against manmade warming, the supporters will just move their agenda to a new wagon.

I don't know about it being so hard. They stacked the deck against themselves. The fools they are. And all the media stooges that vacillated them.

"The coming ice age -- we're DOOMED! of the mid 1970's and the global warming were DOOMED! of the early 2000's were wrong. Now your new wagon is not necessarily wrong, but rather, you have no credibility. You're all the boy who cried wolf.

"Of course there's the population bomb that never happened and the mass starvation that never happened.

"But there is the fact that the totally unwarranted/unnecessary banning of DDT killed ten-of-millions of people. So not only have you lost credibility, you're a huge net destroyer of civilization and humanity."

--

Anybody know how much money has been spent on AGW?

[plenipotentiary]

Link


Link

[R.W.Ratikal]

Global warmer fans, people who have too much time on their hands, find the warming "crisis" fashionable this year. A few years ago it was "Nuclear Winter" and the comming of the "Little Ice Age" they were all worked up about.

Let them go, it keeps them off the streets.

[roaddog727]

Bump.

Pound another spike into the heart of the Global Warming kooks.

ROTFLMAO.

Science (Real Science) prevails.

[Tai_Chung]

It reminds me of the "world is flat" debate from centuries ago.

[sobieski]

The world has been warming, ever since Pennsylvania was covered by a 20 foot glacier.

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off

Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown

Ping me if you find one I've missed.

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[JennysCool]

Better ping the troops to this!

[bcsco]

Bump for later read.