Posted on 07/02/2006 8:35:11 AM PDT by maine-iac7
Editor's note: Global warming is unlikely to be a dangerous future problem, with or without the implementation of such programs as the Kyoto Protocol, according to Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...alarmist media claims to the contrary are fueled more by politics than by science...
The global mean temperature is never constant, and it has no choice but to increase or decrease--both of which it does on all known time scales. That this quantity has increased about 0.6ºC (or about 1ºF) over the past century is likely. A relevant question is whether this is anything to be concerned about....
It doesn't even matter whether recent global mean temperatures are "record breakers" or even whether current temperatures are "unprecedented." All that matters is that the change over the past century has been small....
Kyoto, itself, will have no discernable impact on global warming regardless of what one believes about climate change...
The scientific community is committed to the maintenance of the notion that alarm may be warranted. Alarm is felt to be essential to the maintenance of funding. The argument is no longer over whether the models are correct (they are not), but rather whether their results are at all possible. One can rarely prove something to be impossible...
The main victims of any proactive policies are likely to be consumers, and they have little concentrated influence. As usual, they have long been co-opted by organizations like Consumers Union that now actively support Kyoto.
(Excerpt) Read more at heartland.org ...
On the contrary they've been of great concern to many, many people over long periods of time. Your attempt to deny the obvious is more proof of your instability.
LOL, jsut like Global Warming causing both warming and cooling.
Any non-falsifiable assertion will do. Your fallacies in reason continue.
Yes, isn't it. When was this period of rational constitutional discourse that we are going to restore? Was it before or after the flood?
Another telling liberal jibe. -- No larry, our 'constitutional period' happened before liberal socialists took over national political control. It's been downhill ever since.
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You support Gores beliefs about stopping "garbage" co2, but not on controlling it. -- Sure..
Why is that so difficult to understand? I can agree with a doctor that my friend has cancer but disagree as to the efficacy of a proposed cure.
Paraphrased: --- I can agree with Gore that our world has a 'co2 cancer' that must be stopped but disagree as to the efficacy of a proposed cure, -- as long as it is stopped in some way...
It's even worse than that. It's going to be stopped in some way - either by human design or by natural processes (the four horsemen). That's assuming I'm right. I'm only human and could easily be wrong.
That's one of the main points here; -- you and Gore could quite easily be wrong, yet you insist that "garbage" co2 be "stopped".
But the same applies to all of us, doesn't it?
You got it kid... Time to realize that you and the Gores of this world do not have the power to dictate co2 levels for "all of us".
There's no longer a conservative party either. The Republican Party has turned into the Democrat Party of the 60s. Republicans are now the populist party which is why they are in control of the House, Senate, and Presidency. It's a law of organizational mechanics that institutions move to the left over time until they go bankrupt. This happens in the business world as well, though because the turnover of leadership is slower the shift to the left is as well. The Ford Motor Company is an example of a business institution approaching bankruptcy. A redeeming quality of the Supreme Court is the leadership change over is slow.
I think many of us here at Free Republic are the voters of a new conservative party that will eventually appear on the right, starting the process over again.
Don't have the POWER. Right! That's what separates me from him. How many times do I have to say it before you get it?
Why beat a dead-horse?
It's obvious to everyone that global warming is entirely a fabrication of third world socialists and tin-horns who desire to take the world from its rightful owners (us), steal our wealth, pollute our women, etc.
Therefore people like Mann, cogitator, and me are useful idiots at best, but more likely traitors. What else can we be?
So why should I want to talk about it when you describe the situation so eloquently, so rationally, so carefully, so completely?
I would much prefer to discuss the mental condition which led you to such a place.
Why beat a dead-horse?
Indeed why do you?
It's obvious to everyone that global warming is entirely a fabrication of third world socialists and tin-horns who desire to take the world from its rightful owners (us), steal our wealth, pollute our women, etc.
Interesting how you expand on each statement creating strawman arguements to shoot down isn't it.
You would have been accurate and sufficietn to state:
It's obvious that "global warming" is a fabrication of socialists.
Noting the U.N. political definition of "Climate Change" to be:
"Climate change" means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.
( http://unfccc.int/index.html )
Therefore people like Mann, cogitator, and me are useful idiots at best, but more likely traitors. What else can we be?
Additional hyperbole merely to set your initial strawman, tsk tsk.
So why should I want to talk about it when you describe the situation so eloquently, so rationally, so carefully, so completely?
And of course the inevitable skate the bottomline issue.
I would much prefer to discuss the mental condition which led you to such a place.
Followed by more marginalization and making the messenger the issue rather than the institution about which the real issue of political control exists.
Indeed you are a poor master of logic and reason, though I note you do try for the title of liberal demagogue with some fervor.
Mann and many others are serious scientists pursuing truth. Our system is far from perfect and can be subjected to legitimate criticism. Whether or not socialists have something better to offer is an entirely different matter.
I haven't attempted logic or reason since you told me who you were.
Hate to say it, but you haven't attempted logic or reason from the beginning of this thread.
As far as telling you who I am? You presume a lot, and assert ridiculous stereotypes even more in place of any reason or logic, a common failing that I have observed in much of liberal commentary.
Mann and many others are serious scientists pursuing truth.
Perhaps, or just as likely where U.N. and environmental issues are concerned truth tends to take a back seat to considered pursuit of the truth.
"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." (Steven Schneider, Quoted in Discover, pp. 45-48, Oct. 1989; see also (Dixy Lee Ray in 'Trashing the Planet', 1990) and (American Physical Society, APS News August/September 1996).
"Scientists who want to attract attention to themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to (find a) way to scare the public . . . and this you can achieve only by making things bigger and more dangerous than they really are." (Petr Chylek, Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, commenting on reports that Greenland's glaciers are melting. Halifax Chronicle-Herald, August 22, 2001)
Our system is far from perfect and can be subjected to legitimate criticism. Whether or not socialists have something better to offer is an entirely different matter.
When the goals of socialism are concerned the means tend to justify their ends. That is one of the basic problems with the socialist and their humanist conditional ethics in regards the science they espouse as well as many other endevours which may be used to press a political agenda.
"A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect"
(Richard Benedict, US Conservation Foundation)
Any old assertion will due, just cover it in the trappings of pseudo science.
"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."
-- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)
Serious yes, and scientific to an extent. But not pursuing the truth, but rather an agenda. The hockey stick is a perfect example of the agenda at work. There is no hockey stick in nature, just variability. There's tons of data here: ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/contributions_by_author/ such as this one: ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/contributions_by_author/briffa1998/nhemtemp_data.txt showing temperature over the northern hemisphere as estimated by annual size of tree rings. What is neat about this type of data is it can be compared to today's proxy data, trees still make rings every year. You can honestly compare the 1630's which were warm to the 1930's which were warm. Recent years (the data stops in 1994) show no particular warming. There is no hockey stick.
There's no scientific basis for appending the thermometer measurements onto the end of such measurements. What that does is compare apples and oranges. The proxy data contain various biases (such as moisture) and are averaged over the growing season. The thermometers measure temperature exactly. They are two completely different ways of measuring temperature and can't be compared, and certainly not appended in an attempt to fool the public.
In post #98 I linked to the refutation of your claim found on RealClimate.com. As I said later I don't have the background or the contacts to evaluate the conflicting assessments. Pursue it with them if you are so inclined.
Palmer, you're not going to like what I'm about to say...and it could easily be wrong because it's just a hunch...but I think it's worth saying.
The behavior you describe is something I expect in political chat rooms where orthodoxy is the rule and banishment the punishment for heresy.
But I know science. The rules there are different... Banishment is used to bar the ignorant, the uncomprehending, the stupid. Lindzen claims that is no longer the case - that politics and money have intruded and imposed their own rules. I don't believe him but, as an outsider, it's difficult to form an opinion. Scientists are also human beings, with human weaknesses.
So I urge you to run a self-test. The RealClimate page I referred you to is a refutation of MM's claim that the methodology and mathematics supporting the hockey stick are wrong. Do you really understand it? Can you really follow the mathematical arguments? If so, can you identify flaws in the arguments on their own terms - meaning flaws in the mathematics or in the data streams? Can you do this without bringing in claims of hidden political agendas, reference to data streams found on debunkers' sites, quotes from political figures? If the answers are yes then you're probably ok. If no - and this I think will be the case - then you must find the courage to reassess you basic philosophies and politics.
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/landsea.htmlAn Open Letter to the Community from
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I think you've discovered something that will convince the libs to keep Guantanamo Bay open - they will send a heretic like this climatologist to the 'hole' and throw away the key.
Of course not. Why would they be? They're human beings with human interests and their science has very strong implications for human society.
The question is not whether they're "above" politics but whether they can separate their scientific work from their poltics. When you say "scientists" instead of scientists you reveal the defects in your mentality, you reveal that you think they can't, prima facie. Why? Because you never use the quotation marks when dealing with scientists who agree with you politically. Lindzen and Baliunas are scientists. Mann is a "scientist".
That's nuts.
The question is not whether they're "above" politics but whether they can separate their scientific work from their poltics.
Indeed, however separating scientific work from politics is not particularly encouraged within the hierarchy of the UN/IPCC. Organizational pressure and undermining the independant work of member scientists is pretty much the rule rather than the exception of the "global climate change" community. Dissenting opinion from the central line is not encouraged, quite the opposite.
IPCC is a political organization from its very inception, designed to create a "scientific" overlay to the UN's underlying goals.
An example of IPCC methods can be found in Dr. Lindzen's testimony before the Senate's Commerce Committee (1 May 2001) concerning IPCC's interference in generating the Third Assessment Report and Policymakers Summary documents for 2001
"The preparation of the report, itself, was subject to pressure. There were usually several people working on every few pages. Naturally there were disagreements, but these were usually hammered out in a civilized manner. However, throughout the drafting sessions, IPCC ‘coordinators’ would go around insisting that criticism of models be toned down, and that ‘motherhood’ statements be inserted to the effect that models might still be correct despite the cited faults. Refusals were occasionally met with ad hominem attacks. I personally witnessed coauthors forced to assert their ‘green’ credentials in defense of their statements.
None of the above should be surprising. The IPCC was created to support the negotiations
concerning CO2 emission reductions. Although the press frequently refers to the hundreds and even thousands of participants as the world’s leading climate scientists, such a claim is misleading on several grounds. First, climate science, itself, has traditionally been a scientific backwater. There is little question that the best science students traditionally went into physics, math and, more recently, computer science. Thus, speaking of ‘thousands’ of the world’s leading climate scientists is not especially meaningful. Even within climate science, most of the top researchers (at least in the US) avoid the IPCC because it is extremely time consuming and non-productive. Somewhat ashamedly I must admit to being the only active participant in my department. None of this matters a great deal to the IPCC. As a UN activity, it is far more important to have participants from a hundred countries – many of which have almost no active efforts in climate research. For most of these participants, involvement with the IPCC gains them prestige beyond what would normally be available, and these, not surprisingly, are likely to be particularly supportive of the IPCC. Finally, judging from the Citation Index, the leaders of the IPCC process like Sir John Houghton, Dr. Robert Watson, and Prof. Bert Bolin have never been major contributors to basic climate research. They are, however, enthusiasts for the negotiating process without which there would be no IPCC, which is to say that the IPCC represents an interest in its own right. Of course, this hardly distinguishes the IPCC from other organizations."
the realclimate paper i linked is a scientic paper. it has nothing to do with the politics of the ipcc. it stands or falls on its scientific and mathematical merits.
i addressed a post to palmer on this issue because i think he's receptive and quite capable of stepping back and asking himself honestly whether he's addressing that paper from a scientific of political point of view.
i didn't make that approach to you because i didn't think it worthwhile. you're terminal.
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=1069
Politics, not science, drives the United Nations' work on climate change, warns Dr. Richard Lindzen, one of the world's leading atmospheric physicists
Written By: Paul Georgia
Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: June 1, 2001
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
The Third Assessment Report (TAR) of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), expected to be released sometime in 2001, is already coming under heavy criticism from various directions. But none has been more devastating than the one delivered on March 1 by one of the report's lead authors.
Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the world's leading atmospheric scientists, told a standing-room only audience at a briefing sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition in the U.S. Senate Environment Committee Room, that the IPCC process is driven by politics rather than science.
What are some of the problems with the IPCC process, according to Lindzen? It uses summaries to misrepresent what scientists say. It uses language that means different things to scientists and laymen. It exploits public ignorance over quantitative matters. It exploits what scientists can agree on, while ignoring disagreements, to support the global warming agenda. And it exaggerates scientific accuracy and certainty and the authority of undistinguished scientists.
No consensus hereThe "most egregious" problem with the IPCC's forthcoming report, said Lindzen, "is that it is presented as a consensus that involves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientists . . . and none of them was asked if they agreed with anything in the report except for the one or two pages they worked on."
Indeed, most press accounts covering the January release of the TAR's "Summary for Policymakers" characterized the report as the work of 2,000 (3,000 in some instances) of the world's leading climate scientists. IPCC's emphasis, however, isn't on getting qualified scientists, but on getting representatives from over 100 countries, said Lindzen. The truth is only a handful of countries do quality climate research. Most of the so-called experts served merely to pad the numbers.
"It is no small matter," said Lindzen, "that routine weather service functionaries from New Zealand to Tanzania are referred to as 'the world's leading climate scientists.' It should come as no surprise that they will be determinedly supportive of the process."
The IPCC clearly uses the Summary for Policymakers to misrepresent what is in the report, said Lindzen. He gave an example from the chapter he worked on, chapter 7, addressing physical processes.
The 35-page chapter, said Lindzen, pointed out many problems with the way climate computer models treat specific physical processes, such as water vapor, clouds, ocean currents, and so on. Clouds and water vapor in clouds, for example, are badly misrepresented in the models. The physics are all wrong, he said. Those things the models do well are irrelevant to the all-important feedback effects.
"The treatment of water vapor in clouds is crucial to models producing a lot of warming," explained Lindzen. "Without them [positive feedbacks], no model would produce much warming."
The IPCC summarizes the 35-page chapter in one sentence: "Understanding of climate processes and their incorporation in climate models have improved, including water vapor, sea dynamics and ocean heat transport."
That, said Lindzen, does not summarize the chapter at all. "That is why a lot of us have said that the document itself is informative; the summary is not."
Lindzen briefly discussed a paper he published in the March 2001 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, clarifying the water vapor feedback issue. Using detailed daily measurements, Lindzen and his coauthors from NASA showed that cloud cover in the tropics diminishes as temperatures rise, cooling the planet by allowing more heat to escape.
"The effect observed," said Lindzen, "is sufficient such that if current models are absolutely correct, except for missing this, models that predict between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees warming go down to about .4 to 1.2 degrees warming."
Not the way science is doneThe IPCC claims its report is peer-reviewed, which simply isn't true, Lindzen said. Under true peer-review, he explained, a panel of reviewers must accept a study before it can be published in a scientific journal. If the reviewers have objections, the author must answer them or change the article to take reviewers' objections into account.
Under the IPCC review process, by contrast, the authors are at liberty to ignore criticisms. After having his review comments ignored by the IPCC in 1990 and 1995, Lindzen asked to have his name removed from the list of reviewers. The group refused.
The IPCC has resorted to using scenario-building in its policymakers' summary to paint a frightening picture not supported by the science, Lindzen charged. Ignoring the science allows the IPCC to build a scenario, for example, that assumes man will burn 300 years' worth of coal in 100 years. They plug that into the most sensitive climate model available and arrive at a truly frightening global warming scenario.
"People wouldn't normally take that very seriously," said Lindzen, "but I think the IPCC understands the media will report the top number. I don't think, any longer, that this is unintentional."
The IPCC also exploits what scientists do agree on to support its agenda, according to Lindzen. For example, Lindzen said, scientists can more-or-less live with the idea conveyed in the IPCC report that everything is connected to everything else, and everything is uncertain.
Lindzen himself doesn't think these ideas are particularly reasonable. But politicians and environmentalists take this minimal area of agreement, and then claim that anything can cause anything and we must act to stop it.
Scientists agree, for example, that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased over the last 100 years. They also generally agree the climate has warmed slightly. Uncertainties remain, however, regarding even those basic propositions. Contrary to the impression given by the IPCC, there is no widespread agreement on what these two "facts" mean for mankind. Yet they are deemed by the IPCC sufficient to justify precipitous action.
Fun with numbersPerhaps Lindzen's most devastating critique is aimed at the IPCC's use of statistics.
The IPCC's infamous hockey stick graph, for example, shows global temperatures have been stable or falling over the last 1,000 years, and that only in the industrial age has there been an unnatural warming of the planet. But if you look at the margin of error in that graph, "You can no longer maintain that statement," said Lindzen.
Lindzen also noted the margin of error used in the IPCC report is much smaller, a 60 percent confidence level, than traditionally used by scientists, who generally report results at the 95 or even 99 percent confidence level. The IPCC is thus publicizing results much less likely to be correct than scientific research is generally expected to be.
To illustrate his point, Lindzen showed estimates of some of the most precise numbers in physics with their error bars. He showed different measurements of the speed of light, for instance, from 1929 to the 1980s. The error bars for the estimated speed of light in 1932 and 1940 do not even include the value we think is the correct speed of light today. "Error bars should not be taken lightly," warned Lindzen. "There is genuine uncertainty in them."
Incentives matter"Scientists are human beings," Lindzen concluded, "subject to normal instincts and weaknesses." They respond to incentives just like everyone else. "Current government funding creates incentives to behave poorly by maintaining the relevance of the subject," he said, noting that on some issues financial support for science depends on "alarming the world."
Indeed, Lindzen noted, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland were awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work on ozone depletion--not for alerting the world, but for "alarming" it. "You don't want scientists to get hooked on this as the key to fame and glory," he warned.
There's little doubt, Lindzen said, that the IPCC process has become politicized to the point of uselessness. He advised U.S. policymakers simply to ignore it.
the realclimate paper i linked is a scientic paper. it has nothing to do with the politics of the ipcc. it stands or falls on its scientific and mathematical merits.
ROTFLMA(_|_)O
The realclimate paper is Mann's e.t. al. (read IPCC) trying to recover from misrepresentations of data.
Mann's hockey stick was an introduction after the fact, and contridicts substantial prior work through the use of very questionable data as well as improper use of statistical technique.
The Hockey stick was the result of a direct effort to buttress the IPPC's modelling efforts against criticism that their models could not reproduce the geophysical record as known to that time.
The Mann proceedures used to generate the hockey stick have been shown to produce the same results among highly divergent input simualation data. The output is ordained to support the IPCC models, not provide clarification of the issue.
It's even worse than that. It's going to be stopped in some way - either by human design or by natural processes (the four horsemen). That's assuming I'm right. I'm only human and could easily be wrong.
That's one of the main points here; -- you and Gore could quite easily be wrong, yet you insist that "garbage" co2 be "stopped".
But the same applies to all of us, doesn't it?
You got it kid... Time to realize that you and the Gores of this world do not have the power to dictate co2 levels for "all of us".
Don't have the POWER. Right! That's what separates me from him. How many times do I have to say it before you get it?
Weird comment, as apparently you think that advocating the "stopping of garbage co2" is not empowering creeps like Gore, who need your support to dictate their political 'solutions'.
In effect, you are an 'enabler'. Admit it.
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