Global warming debate all but over

Ottawa Citizen ^ | Saturday, February 03, 2007 | Andrew Thomson

[A. Pole]

OTTAWA -- For the majority of scientists, the debate about climate change -- if it ever really existed -- has long been over.

Friday's release of the much anticipated political summary by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's paramount scientific authority on global warming, appeared to bring further closure. The group is now more than 90 per cent certain that fossil fuels are contributing heavily to global warming. This figure goes beyond the last IPCC report, published in 2001, which referred to "new and stronger evidence" of human liability.

"There's been a cautious weighing of the evidence going back 20 years now," said Richard Peltier, a University of Toronto physicist and lead author of a chapter on paleoclimate trends.

Some skeptics in politics and the media - many of whom continue to place figurative quotation marks around the term global warming - poured cold water on the latest summary even before its release. They criticized the 12-page summary as a political document written by governments, not scientists.

It's all white noise to nearly all experts who specialize in climate change. They consider the debate finished. The overwhelming evidence points to rising temperatures, they say, and the major role of human activities such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation.

Peltier believes proof of human-induced climate change is now "indisputable," with agreement among 90 to 95 per cent of scientists working in the field.

"There's a small number who are still agnostic on the issue," he said. "The media has done an enormous disservice by presenting the evidence (on both sides of the climate-change debate) as equal."

A Fraser Institute report being released Monday is expected to argue that the IPCC summary is a political document that fails to reflect debates among scientists.

"There is no compelling evidence that dangerous or unprecedented changed (in climate) are underway ... the available data allow the hypothesis to be credibly disputed," said a January draft assessment from the Vancouver think tank, leaked on Wednesday to a Canadian climate change website.

IPCC contributors have lauded the full report - to be released this spring - as one of the largest pieces of peer-reviewed scientific research in history. Peltier said several rounds of review took place, involving thousands of scholars worldwide. The data gathered by the group's 140 lead authors was doggedly scrutinized, with every argument levelled by skeptical reviewers catalogued and archived for the public record.

"The whole process attempts to deal head-on with criticisms," Peltier said. "There's no attempt to sideline them."

Some skeptics seem to have softened their stance in light of the IPCC release. A congressional committee heard this week from several American scientists accusing the Bush administration of political interference and censorship in climate change research.

But President George W. Bush called global warming a "serious challenge" during his recent state of the union speech. And Friday, after the release of the climate change report, his energy secretary called the debate over climate change finished, given the evidence supporting humankind's role in warming the planet.

In Ottawa, the revelation of a 2002 letter by then-opposition leader Stephen Harper to Canadian Alliance members questioning the science behind global warming drew fire from opposition parties this week. Harper has promised more vigilant government action in recent days, dispatching Environment Minister John Baird to meet scientists in Paris.

Andrew Weaver, an IPCC report author, and professor at the University of Victoria's School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, argues there was never any debate among major researchers.

"The community has been saying the same thing all along," he said. "The so-called denialist crowd - I'm not going to call them skeptics, because all scientists are skeptics - they would say things like: Oh, the satellite measurements show there's actual cooling."

As recently as 15 years ago, however, a large portion of mainstream science organizations wasn't convinced. The U.S.-based National Academy of Sciences claimed in 1991 that "there was no evidence yet" that climate change was a pressing danger. Surveys of climatologists that same year showed lukewarm support for the concept.

Remaining doubts among most skeptics waned during the 1990s. The same academy told the Bush administration in June 2001 that the IPCC accurately reflected the scientific consensus on greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures. In 2005, the heads of 11 national science academies, including the Royal Society of Canada, signed a joint statement affirming human responsibility for global climate change. Ninety Canadian climate experts signed an open letter to now Prime Minister Harper in April 2006, pleading for a national climate change strategy. One month later, the American government's main climate change science program reported "clear evidence of human influences" on greenhouse gas levels, compared to natural causes.

[mowowie]

It's settled then, Time to oil the chain on my bike and buy a crap load of blankets.

[i362000]

Wow, -14 right now, wind chills in the -20s and -30s, and -2 for a high tomorrow. Yep. That proves global warming right there.

[lepton]

The group is now more than 90 per cent certain that fossil fuels are contributing heavily to global warming.

That's plenty big enough uncertainty to claim that the AGW cloud is overstating their case of it being concluded or inarguable science.

[ShawTaylor]

"Global warming debate all but over"

Utter rubbish!
Suckers that wrote this piece of ;loony left propaganda should read this from the Investors Business Daily:

"Hot And Bothered

But the 21-page report released in Paris on Friday portrays man as a plague on the planet that has produced everything from rising seas that will flood coastal areas to monster storms that will flatten everything in their path. Katrina, in the experts' view, was just an appetizer before the apocalypse.

Problem is, they ignore the planet's own history. About 20,000 years ago — long before the first SUV — global sea levels were 400 feet lower than they are now. Sea levels were rising long before the Industrial Revolution and will likely continue to rise, just not at the cataclysmic rates predicted by computer models.

Last year was supposed to be the year hurricanes would start arriving with greater frequency and strength. But nature didn't get the memo. There were only nine named storms during the Atlantic season, with just five becoming hurricanes.

In 2005 there were 27 named storms, 15 of them hurricanes, an exceptional year. The average is 15 named storms and 8.5 hurricanes. Last year was the first since 1997 in which the Gulf of Mexico had only one named storm and the first since 1997 when there were no Category 4 or Category 5 Atlantic storms. Apocalypse not?

All these prophecies of doom are based on computer models that are based on agreed-upon assumptions and fed a relatively small portion of the immense number of variables that affect weather or climate. Not all these variables are known or fully understood, which helps explain why these models can't even predict the past.

When the Clinton administration, which never submitted Kyoto to the Senate for ratification, produced a voluminous climate report, it selected two climate models.

One, from the Canadian Climate Center, forecast dramatic temperature increases. The other, a British model, predicted dramatic increases in precipitation.

Climatologist Patrick Michaels examined these two models and discovered they could not reproduce recorded temperature trends regardless of the period selected. The Canadian model overestimated actual U.S. warming in the 20th century by 300%.

When you can't grasp the past, how can you predict the future?

Even the man credited for starting the warming hype, NASA scientist James Hansen, has been spectacularly wrong in his own predictions. As author Michael Crichton has noted, Hansen's prediction in 1988 of a 0.35-degree Celsius rise in temperatures over the next decade overshot the actual rise — 0.11 degrees — by 219%."


http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=255313039030810

"Global warming" is voodoo science being propagated by the enviro-wackos, and deranged individuals like Algore.
It should be rejected out of hand by America.

[I see my hands]

This sort of garbage, wide spread poverty without opportunity, and massive terror attacks are all the left has to offer.

[DB]

It wasn't that long ago that the majority of scientist thought the sun revolved around the earth...

Global warming isn't the primary debate.

The cause is.

[SIDENET]

GLOBAL WARMING CAUSED BIRD FLU!!!

When are all of you silly people going to learn?!!

;-)

[blondee123]

-5 here in Illinois & -30 with wind chills! Maybe they should investigate Global Freezing!

[CedarDave]

There is some really good information out there on FR threads debunking GW, or at least giving an alternative explanation (keyword GlobalWarming).

The MSM and the politicos won't listen, but it isn't as nailed down as they like to think. They released the non-scientific summary yesterday, but the technical data backing it up won't be released until late spring. Speculation is that the technical data will lead to differing interpretations and they want the conclusions firmly in the public's mind before letting any skeptical scientists from examining the data and putting forth differing conclusions.

[Rastus]

That's when I lost all respect for Roger Ailes, when he aired a global warming fearmonger piece on Fox News and refused to let anyone present evidence to the contrary. "It's too important an issue to air an opposing viewpoint."

[TexasTransplant]

Yep Global Warming

I would bet a Pizza and a Pitcher of beer that we could spend our entire GNP on nothing but producing CO2 for the next 10 years and it wouldn't change world climate at all.

All plants are basically CO2 sponges, the Oceans are CO2 sponges.

What we can't do is change the output of the Sun, I say lets start working out a crop rotation schedule for Antarctica.

TT

[Mojave]

I guess we can now add 100 year weather forecasts to the list of things mankind has perfected.

Excellent observation.

[MATSEVAH]

Nobody can stop global Warming It's a part of the Lord's set time.When the Lord is ready The lord will create a new Earth and a new Heaven no one Person or organization can do that.No one can stop wars or disasters just name it Because the lord said these thing would happen And you can't change that. because it's a time which the Lord has picked.

[Brizick]

60 miles north of Chicago and I'm freezing my a** off. I said to my 82 year old mother (usually votes demonrat, except for Bush) that it must be global warming. She comes back with: "O.K. Al"

I almost lost it. Way to go Mom!

[neverhillorat]

Some guy on the radio keeps saying, FOLLOW THE MONEY!
Wonder if Chicken Little really knew how much money there was to be made if he just could have pursued 80% of the chickens that the sky was falling!

[aruanan]

Global warming debate all but over

There was never a debate. There were the proponents who utterly refused to listen to criticism. They dismissed them as "unscientific", the product of "industry hacks", and other ad hominem attacks. They did anything and everything but engage in a scientific debate. They have now proceeded to stick the fingers in the ears and intone "NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH" to drown out what they don't want to hear.

[Names Ash Housewares]

People who gaze into crystal balls always see terrible fates unless a sacrifice is made. Usually money. Always benefitting the cyrstal ball gazer.

[rightwingcrazy]

Lysenkoism on steroids.

[goldstategop]

As Rush said yesterday, "global warming" isn't really about science. Its agenda-driven by the folks who favor big government, income redistribution, dismantling our advanced technological civilization and running our lives for our own good. Its what faith is to religion, the cult of Gaia is to liberalism. Summarily stated, the belief is Man is a blight on the earth. Its a scary world view and these people are not really guided by reason. When they say the debate's over, you're looking at the Left's Society Of True Believers, folks.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[rock58seg]

I don't doubt that Global warming climate change exists. To do so would deny history. I do however doubt "MAN MADE Globaloney Warming." Gore "The Inconvenient Idiot" can take his Social Science Major Climate Experts and lie all the way to the Grant Bamk. Still won't make it so.

You can tell how bogus an idea is by how much pressure there is to stifle debate.