Even if the “hockey stick” is wrong, it doesn’t mean climate is not changing. Having paid attention to climate and weather for 60 years, there definitely seem to be clear changes causing serious problems in some areas.
The climate is always changing.
The arguments of the global-warming cargo cult revolve around the idea that human activity is what's causing the climate to change. Specifically, highly-scaled human economic activity. Otherwise known as "capitalism."
climate by definition changes... our big blue marble has many differing regions, deftly affected by many variables... the least of which is man made.
1. THE SUN
2. WATER VAPOR in the atmosphere ... clouds,precipitation... see number one for effect on water vaporization
3. OCEAN TEMPS ... see number one for effect on 3
4. VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS ... spewing of matter and gases ... minimal effect of 1 on 4
5. WIND ... see number one for more affect on wind currents
6. POLAR ICE CAPS ... accumulation and dissipation of glacial areas affecting patters of number 5 with a nod to number 1
7. OCEAN CURRENTS mixing and moderating temperatures see numbers 65and3 as relating to number 1
8. MAN ... little or no effect on anything glogal... not even taking up too much space.
So, based on your 60 years of observation, you are noting that climate is changing.
SO WHAT?
Can you point to any 60 year period in earth’s history when the climate was NOT changing?
Did the Vikings drive SUVs to cause the medieval warming period?
What caused the ice ages, before man was around?
Maybe, JUST MAYBE, fluctuations in solar output have SOMETHING to do with it????
Man has about as much ability to control “climate change” as he does the location of magnetic north, which is also changing and will someday flip completely.
Seriously.
The hockey stick diagram did not purport to show that climate changes.
Nobody I am aware of has ever even asserted that climate has remained stagnant for any length of time.
The hockey stick diagram purported to demonstrate that increases in human created carbon dioxide emissions (as opposed to natural emmissions from things like forrest fires or volcanic erruptions) correlate to upward movement in average temperature. The notion that human burning of fossil fuels and wood, or great herds of ruminating livestock exert a causal force on weather trends.
Nothing less.
Now that you have been properly corrected in your understanding of what the hockey stick was presented as, do you still wish to insist that it was not a bunch of hokey horse hockey?
“Climate change” is a convenient fall-back position for global warming alarmists, because the concept is totally elastic.
As many have noted here, global climate changes continuously, over both short term (decades) and long term (eons) time scales.
Nobody espouses “climate stasis” as a description of either reality or an ideal state of affairs climate-wise, but those former warmists who’ve been frustrated by a decade-and-a-half of no discernible global warming can use any dramatic natural phenomenon as an example of “climate change”, and then employ it as a rhetorical stick to beat anyone who doesn’t blame human activity for destroying the natural course of events.
“... definitely seem to be ...”
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Pretty sure, then, are you?
Global warming is a hoax.
Its like the difference between qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.
For Steyn though, it seems to be about calling Mann names.
It makes no difference whether Steyn calls him Warman or Sandusky, calling someone names means you are losing the argument.
Having paid attention to climate and weather for 60 years, there definitely seem to be clear changes causing serious problems in some areas.Those must be the areas with the most SUVs, incandescent light bulbs and cow farts.