It is excellent.
Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 06/24/2009 8:25:11 AM PDT by Maelstorm
Every so often, a book is published which, it is instantly clear, is the definitive last word on the subject. Such a book has just appeared on the global lunacy of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). In his devastating study Heaven and Earth. Global Warming: The Missing Science (Quartet) Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide and previously Professor of Earth Sciences at the Universities of Melbourne and Newcastle systematically shreds the theory and the hallucinatory propaganda industry it has spawned. There is simply nothing left of it when he has finished – and he does so from the perspective of real science which the theory has so shockingly betrayed.
Having painstakingly out the actual scientific facts and evidence involved in the study of climate, he concludes his book with a sustained peroration of fury and contempt at the way such scientific evidence has been dismissed in a breathtaking campaign of ‘cognitive dissonance’. As he says, there is not one shred of actual scientific evidence to sustain the claim of AGW, which rests in its entirety upon charlatanry, fraud, ignorance and ideology. Here are some tasters of this invaluable book.
‘The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology’
he writes. The world has been warming, slightly and intermittently, and also cooling, since the Little Ice Age. Nothing new there. Sea level, ice sheets and life on earth have also changed slightly. Nothing new there. The claims that the seas are rising and the ice retreating in any extraordinary fashion are all demonstrably false. The theory rests on the categorical assertion that rising carbon dioxide levels result in a warming of the atmosphere. Yet although carbon dioxide levels have been increasing, there has been no significant warming since 1995 and none at all since 1998.
That is because the claimed cause and effect between carbon dioxide and global warming is simply false. History shows us that there is no relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature. Proponents of the theory, he writes, have to explain why the Minoan Warming, Roman Warming and Medieval Warming all produced warmer temperatures than now. Why the temperature rose from 1860 to 1875, decreased from 1875 to 1890, rose until 1903, fell until 1918 and then rose dramatically until 1941. Why the rate and amount of warming at the beginning of the 20th century was greater than now despite lower carbon dioxide emissions. Why the world cooled from 1941-1976, the year of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Why the temperature rose from 1976 to 1998, then cooled. And so on.
As he says, the whole theory was created not by the scientific methods of observation and gathering actual evidence but by dubious computer modelling. These models suggested constant warming until the end of time but predicted neither post 1998 cooling nor El Nino events.
‘This alone shows that the computer models are only sophisticated computer games with input based on the programmer’s predilections. The significant manipulation of the source data and the lack of use of many known variables exacerbate uncertainties and can produce the predestined outcome before the model can be run. This is a common flaw of mathematical modelling. Models with simulations, projections and predilections prove nothing. All a model shows is something about the model itself, normally its limitations. Data collection in science is derived from observation, measurement and experimentation, not from modelling...If computer models torture the date enough, the data will confess to anything.
... ‘How do you explain that global temperatures according to the IPCC have not increased since 1998 and that there has been no significant warming since 1995? Are you aware that even the IPCC does not consider climate models to be “predictions” or “forecasts” but merely “emission scenarios”? Are you aware of the numerous studies from science and history that show that in the Medieval Warming it was warmer than today and that this was a time with no cars or industrialisation? How do you explain that CO2 levels have been much higher in the earth’s history and have not coincided with extinctions and warm periods? Why has Greenland cooled since the 1940s? Why was the Arctic warmer than now in the 1920s and 1930s? What has Antarctic sea ice expanded to record levels in recent years? Why has Arctic sea ice expanded since 2008?’
The evidence is all around us that the theory is sheer bunkum from start to finish. But, writes Plimer – and this is the real cause of his burning anger -- scientific facts no longer seem to be necessary. They are simply dismissed, to create a belief system purporting to be ‘science’ but which is more akin to a religion sustained through the imposition of authority and intimidation – and anti-scientific claims of a settled ‘consensus’. Such a ‘consensus’ is itself bogus. It is claimed, for example, that the IPCC reports have been written by 2500 scientists. In fact, says Plimer, they are the product of a tiny number of people .
‘If governments had read the fine print of the crucial chapter 5 of IPCC AR4 (Humans Responsible for Climate Change) they would have realised that it is based on the opinions of just five independent scientists...whose computer models have not been able to accurately predict the cooling that has occurred since 1998.... What is not stated is that the predictions of climate scientists about a human-induced climate catastrophe are somewhat tainted by their own patronage arrangements with politicians, governments, NGOs and research organisations that have invested heavily in a global warming catastrophe'.
He concludes:
‘When science was born, the consensus at that time was driven by religion, politics, prejudice, mysticism and self-interested power. From Galileo to Newton and through the centuries, science debunked the consensus by experiment, calculation, observation, measurement, repeated validation, falsification and reason... Scientific fact now no longer seems to be necessary. Human-induced global warming is one such example, where one camp attempts to demolish the basic principles of science and install a new order based on political and sociological collectivism...There has been an uncritical, unthinking acceptance by the community of the media barrage about catastrophic climate change. For many, critical thinking is an anathema’.
Politicians -- not least the ludicrously styled ‘Ministers for Climate Change’-- along with the government’s Chief Scientist, the President of the Royal Society and the rest of the credulous intelligentsia should pack this book in their suitcases for their summer holiday reading. That is, of course, if they still have any capacity to think.
We have seen this on so many fronts. The rise of Homosexuality is not and has never been supported by science but instead like Global Warming through politics , outright lies, and hysteria. We also see this with abortion. We see this with socialist ideas on how to manage the economy. Down the line we find not science but political agendas most of them bent on changing our society radically. When the left found they could hijack science they found the club they needed to beat us into submission. At least on this issue there is real hope of winning definitively though we can be assured of one thing and that the left will move on to something else. It used to be the acid rain, the ozone hole, now it is global warming/climate change, and it will be something else in the future. We are at the front lines of civilization and the barbarians and hedonists must be turned back.
Political Correctness is a reversion to superstition.
It is excellent.
It’s being released (paperback) in the U.S. on July 1st.
Good post and good comments.
Bacon’s admonitions regarding science, when they haven’t been twisted, have been utterly ignored. But knowledge is power, and scientific knowledge no less than any other. We need to realize this and broadcast it to counter the insidious propaganda of “the innate benevolence of science.”
Bookmark for further study.
Complete with its own deity, saints, sins, indulgences and penance.
That is why there is such a fear concerning open debate and presenting of not just evidence of confirmation but more importantly the evidence that is non supporting. It only takes one incorrect calculation to make a formula’s result incorrect. The devil is most certainly in the details and science today especially concerning issues that have political overtones has grown deeply dogmatic. The techniques being attempted to silence opposition and stack the data are no different than those employed by Salin scientists such as his director of Soviet biology T.D. Lysenko. The only tool they lack is the gulag in suppressing the debate in their favor but give them time.
Calling people who disagree bigots and equating the with holocaust deniers is the first step towards imprisoning them for their research and beliefs. I thought the secularists didn’t like that kind of thing but when everything is a tool to a political end nothing can be trusted.
Well said!
It’s a tragedy when the noble search for knowledge and discovery is perverted into a weapon to be wielded by the power-hungry. But as you remind us, it’s nothing new.
The limits of climate models are that they don't model weather at a fine enough detail (or accurately in general) to make predictions. The critical predictions are the amount and distribution of water vapor. Water vapor distribution is a function of weather. One simple example is that the upper troposphere is drier than what most models predict (or what some models simply assume). That is one of the biggest reasons we aren't seeing any warming.
Once the leftist stragegy of change has been effected then they freeze the issue with PC.
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