What really turned the worm for me came in at least four separate parts, and it did so because if you have to resort to alarmism, falsifying data, and misrepresenting reality, that is a pretty good indicator you aren't dealing with the facts, and that is the modus operandi of the Left with respect to nearly every single issue of substance, but in this case, climate change. These were the points that made me realize that man-caused global warming is a religion, not science:
1.). The falsifying of data to produce the Mann "Hockey Stick" graph. Here are the emails from that hack back in 2009. (I cannot find the climate modeling computer code they stole from East Anglia University that had comments in the code describing what they were doing and why...they had to find a way to get rid of what is called the "Medieval Warming" to. make their hysterical claims stick):
This is the raw data before they began their "tricks" as described in the email below to flatten it out and get rid of it. They had to do that, otherwise, normal thinking people might look at the data and say "Hey, this looks like a natural cyclical process, not something caused by humans!" So here is what the data looked like before and after all on the same graph:
And then, to read these emails and see the code comments:
- From: Phil Jones. To: Many. Nov 16, 1999
"I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." - From Phil Jones To: Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University). July 8, 2004
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" - From: Kevin Trenberth (US National Center for Atmospheric Research). To: Michael Mann. Oct 12, 2009
"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't... Our observing system is inadequate" - From: Phil Jones. To: Many. March 11, 2003
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.” - From Phil Jones. To: Michael Mann. Date: May 29, 2008
"Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise." - From: Michael Mann. To: Phil Jones and Gabi Hegerl (University of Edinburgh). Date: Aug 10, 2004
"Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future."2.). The deliberate misrepresenting of data at the highest levels from a statistical perspective to buttress the argument for man-caused (anthropogenic) global warming.. In the 2007 IPCC Statement on Global Warming, they included the graph below three times to demonstrate that the rate of warming was accelerating. Remember, this is the IPCC, the highest level official organization in the world dedicated to climate change.
I have worked with data, and even I can see the issue with this IPCC official graph that they buttress their argument (as did Obama's EPA) with: when calculating the rate of change in a trend line as they have done here with the red, blue, and orange lines, is that you can make that graph say anything...ANYTHING you want it to just by changing your starting and ending points. You could even make the temperature change decline if you wished. This fraud was not unintentional. It was fully intentional. I believe it was pulled and discredited after the criticism.
Furthermore, this one is interesting, because it highlights the dynamic that has completely and absolutely taken over the scientific community. You cannot deviate from the religion. Lord Christopher Monckton (mentioned below) called the head of the Statistics Department at Cambridge University to ask him to opine on this graph. The Department Chair looked at the data, and said something like "I know what you are going to ask me to answer about this data, and knowing you, I know what this data is, so I cannot go on the record. I have a job to consider."
That is telling. It was a simple statistical question that even someone like me who doesn't have the breadth of the educational underpinnings on this could answer, but he could not get this person to comment publicly on it because it would endanger his livelihood. That's Science? Really? That people are afraid to SPEAK THE SIMPLE TRUTH ON ANY ASPECT OF IT? Dissent from the religion is a third rail for the scientific community. Look at what happened to Dr. Willie Soon, who came out with a peer reviewed paper and was attacked on it because it didn't support the global warming narrative. Not only was his paper attacked, he was personally attacked because he publicly deviated from the narrative, and was labeled a tool of the fossil fuel industry because he accepted grants from them for research. We all know peer review is an utter joke now anyway, but...if someone gets money from groups to buttress global warming, are they similarly labeled as shills of that industry? Of course not. Any thinking person can see that double standard.
3.). The recognition that some of the same people who scream the loudest about global warming are the same people who were warning us back in the Seventies that we were entering another ice age and that the projections from decades ago show a complete lack of man-caused climate change. (Paul Ehrlich in particular. If you are interested, this is an interesting article about that arrogant loser, and how wrong he has been on everything: What Paul Ehrlich's “Eco-Catastrophe!” Tells Us about Climate Change Alarmism. It puts him and the alarmism in proper context). See the graph below:
This is what Christopher Monckton showed to Congress, and his suggestion was, instead of spending tens of trillions of dollars to combat "global warming"...do nothing.
4.). This part, I admit, came after I was already long opposed to man-caused global warming but it cemented it for me. As an American, you want to get Damned Hopping Mad about treatment of a foreigner Lord Christopher Monckton from the UK) who was invited to appear in front of a special Congressional hearing regarding man-caused climate change:
Boy, did this ever piss me off watching this. I was ashamed as an American. All the Leftist Democrats on this committee simply insulted him, attacked him personally, attacked his credentials, shouted him down, filibustered him, and so on. I give him a huge amount of credit for not losing his cool, because I sure did.
As I said, this last one cemented it for me. Because this is what Leftists, and nearly everyone who is a rabid adherent of man-caused global warming does. They resort to ad hominem attack, because that is all they have. And to see it from our elected officials was disturbing and disgusting. If you can't pound the facts, pound the podium.