Poneke on Climategate
January 18th, 2010 at 11:34 am by David FarrarPoneke has done something very few people have done. He has read every single of the 1,000+ Climategate e-mails. He has a lengthy 4,500 word blog post on his findings. Poneke introduces it by saying:
This is the longest and most important article I’ve yet written for this blog and I make no apology for its 4600 words — more also than in any newspaper article. As a journalist, I believe the Climategate emails have exposed one of the most significant news stories of the decade. As the mainstream news media has so far barely gone beyond giving those who wrote them and their supporters time and space to deny their undeniable contents, I present here an extensive journalistic account of what they actually say in the context of the dates and events in which they were written, with full links to all the emails.
Now, for those who don’t know who Poneke is, or his background – he is not just a “blogger”. He has spent at least a couple of decades in journalism, and I think it is fair to say that he was regarded by many as one of the finest investigative journalists we have had. His work on the Peter Ellis case especially was peerless.
Poneke’s conclusions:
Having now read all the Climategate emails, I can conclusively say they demonstrate a level of scientific chicanery of the most appalling kind that deserves the widest possible public exposure.
The emails reveal that the entire global warming debate and the IPCC process is controlled by a small cabal of climate specialists in England and North America. This cabal, who call themselves “the Team,” bully and smear any critics. They control the “peer review” process for research in the field and use their power to prevent contrary research being published.
The Team’s members are the heart of the IPCC process, many of them the lead authors of its reports.
They falsely claim there is a scientific “consensus” that the “science is settled,” by getting lists of scientists to sign petitions claiming there is such a consensus. They have fought for years to conceal the actual shonky data they have used to wrongly claim there has been unprecedented global warming this past 50 years. Their emailed discussions among each other show they have concocted their data by matching analyses of tree rings from around 1000 AD to 1960, then actual temperatures from 1960 to make it look temperatures have shot up alarmingly since then, after the tree rings from 1960 on inconveniently failed to match observed temperatures.
The emails show that some of them at least concede in private that the world was warmer 1000 years ago (in the Medieval Warm Period) than it is today, but the emails also show they had to get rid of the MWP from the records to claim today’s temperatures are unprecedented.
They show Team members becoming alarmed and despondent at global temperatures peaking in 1998, then slowly falling to the present, while publicly trying to hide the fact that there was a peak and now a decline.
Revealingly, they show them even smugly nominating each other for prestigious awards, using factually wrong details in the information sent in nominating letters in support of the awards.
He looks at the peer review process:
AGWarmers parrot the mantra that their view is supported by learned articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and that peer-reviewed contrary views cannot be found. The Climategate emails conclusively show that the Team control the peer-reviewed literature, to the extent they “peer review” each other’s reports, and veto publication of research they do not support, bullying the editors and owners of scientific journals.
Worse, though, is the emails’ revelation that even material they put into the hallowed reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was not peer reviewed, and knowingly shabby.
And the “hide the decline” trick:
What this is saying – and no amount of obfuscation can alter the fact – is that a 1000-year “global temperature” chart was created – fabricated – by using tree-ring proxy data from 1000 to 1960, then using actual temperatures from 1961 on, to “hide” the fact that the tree ring proxies showed a “decline” from 1960 onwards. There can not be a more blatant example of using apples and oranges to “prove” a point than this, and they would have got away with it if not for the Climategate whistleblower.
Poneke’s full post is a must read. It is also the sort of journalism that should be in the mainstream media. Has any daily newspaper assigned a reporter to read all 1,000 e-mails?
Related posts:
- Institute of Physics on Climategate
- Climategate Inquiry
- AP on Climategate e-mails
- The effect of Climategate
January 18th, 2010 at 11:43 am
The reaction to Poneke’s post was impressive. The warmist advocates are trying to close down debate and draw a curtain over the shabby activities of IPCC central.
Vote:I don’t think that Poneke will stand for that sort of tosh.
January 18th, 2010 at 11:51 am
I see according to the NZ Herald that half of Kiwis think Global warming is not real
(And that’s not just the people currently living in Wellington)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10620795
It’s great to see people as a result of the thorough and detailed work of people like Poneke and others in the blogosphere that people are beginning to make up their own minds between the rhetoric and the reality.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 11:51 am
What this is saying – and no amount of obfuscation can alter the fact – is that a 1000-year “global temperature” chart was created – fabricated – by using tree-ring proxy data from 1000 to 1960, then using actual temperatures from 1961 on, to “hide” the fact that the tree ring proxies showed a “decline” from 1960 onwards. There can not be a more blatant example of using apples and oranges to “prove” a point than this, and they would have got away with it if not for the Climategate whistleblower.
That they were using this “trick” as you put it was well known and published. It was not hidden anywhere. I am not sure how you can blow a whistle on something that had been published.
The facts are that real temperature readings from 1960 onwards do show a warming trend. Proxy readings like tree rings don’t. What do you trust then more, actual readings or proxies? There could be a number of reasons why this is happening.
Sure there was some shonky business going on here and there.
But nothing(!) in the emails invalidates that huge amount of research been done on climate change.
Bottom line is that the so called Climategate is nothing but hot air (pardon the pun). Those who were sceptic before will just read into it what they want.
No amount of logical arguments will help that. Poneke was a sceptic before and will continue to be. So will a number of people on this site.
At the end of the day we probably will see who is right or wrong if we live long enough. By that time it will be futile and too late to say “I told you so”, one way or the other.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Well David I hope you will modify your views accordingly.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 11:52 am
If this story interests you then you will find a treasure trove of interesting information here –
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/jamesdelingpole/
and here,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Ezett,
“The facts are that real temperature readings from 1960 onwards do show a warming trend. Proxy readings like tree rings don’t. What do you trust then more, actual readings or proxies? There could be a number of reasons why this is happening.”
Yep, no-one is denying that. The problem then is if you can’t trust the proxies from ’60 onwards, how can you trust them before that?
Oh and don’t forget that the ‘real’ data isn’t the raw data, it’s actually the edited data with various modifications that they’ve done to it. Oh, and they won’t tell us what the modifications are, and they deliberately destroyed the raw data so that no-one can check for themselves.
And yeah, David, I hope you will modify your views accordingly too!
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 11:59 am
It’s not David’s viesw that need modifying. It’s Nick Smith’s and John Key’s.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
@DPF
“It is also the sort of journalism that should be in the mainstream media. ”
You mean with only one primary source and no direct quotes from anyone?
It is a well written essay, but sure as hell ain’t ‘journalism’.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Welcome David
Vote:Would you class yourself a climate sceptic yet?
January 18th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
“Has any daily newspaper assigned a reporter to read all 1,000 e-mails?”
AP did, but then their reporter was directly involved with “The Team” and its emails and consequently published a “Move along. Nothing to see here.” Climategate whitewash.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
I read this quickly the other day. I thought then, and still do now, that it’s a pity ‘Poneke’ is still not working in mainstream journalism, and that there seems to be no outlet any more for report of this type.
I heard Larry Williams say one day before Christmas that the mainstream media have been missing in action over climategate. They have been peddling the old lies. Now, that might be because journalists don’t do science, and because newsrooms have been run down and fewer people are having to do more. (And what about those ‘science’ journalists who do ‘do’ science, and who bought into the global warming crock — would you want them to be writing your science column now?)
The opposition to the climate change lie and the Copenhagen crock came from in the blog world. That’s where the real discussion and the real questioning has been.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
“You mean with only one primary source and no direct quotes from anyone?”
You refer to 1000 emails from a wide range of participants?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
peteremcc:
It all comes down to what sources you trust.
You can read all the blogs and sites of climate change sceptics and deniers and dismiss everything is said on the sites of the warmers
Or v.v.
Since humans tend to look for data that supports their views rather than contradicts them, most people will stick to one side and look for information that supports their view.
I try to look at both sides whenever possible, but I have to say that personally the weight of evidence comes down on the warmers side.
Personally I’d rather trust the New Scientists than Poneke.
I find their arguments more compelling, but then again everyone has to decided that themselves.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed.html
Climate science is a complex matter and not easy to follow, nor is quantum physics or gravitational theory.
None of us can really prove that the moon is held in orbit by earth’s gravity, but we choose to trust a general agreement amongst scientists.
A recent poll found that 97.4% of active climatologists agree that human activity is warming the planet.( http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11654-climate-myths-many-leading-scientists-question-climate-change.html)
But again, I am sure there will be numerous links claiming the contrary.
So it all boils down to which source you choose to trust.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
@Alan Wilkinson
“You refer to 1000 emails from a wide range of participants”
Its a massive corpus to draw from. And It isn’t an insult to say Poneke’s efforts is not journalism.
But he could have called at least one of those participants on the telephone to get a supporting statement.
As I said, he has interpreted a massive amount of data into a fascinating essay.
But without generating any context or new material through his own sources, calling it ‘journalism’ is debatable.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
SO the shrinking glaciers are like all photo shopped?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
eszett, other polls have found most meteorologists are sceptics.
I look for sites that operate an open debate. Almost all the AGW sites suppress or censor dissenters, in the case of some, like Real Climate and Tamino, outrageously so as to generate the impression that the dissenting argument has been totally refuted.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
“But he could have called at least one of those participants on the telephone to get a supporting statement.”
What on earth would that have added to a report of ten years of history? Do you think he should have called every participant? If not why not?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
It is also the sort of journalism that should be in the mainstream media. Has any daily newspaper assigned a reporter to read all 1,000 e-mails?
The Associated Press has: A wholesale climate fraud? Not here.
[DPF: I know about the AP story as I blogged it several weeks ago. There is a danger in having all the world's print media rely on one journalist for one news agency do their homework for them. I would expect the environmental or science reporters on most newspapers to do their own take]
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
“I try to look at both sides whenever possible, but I have to say that personally the weight of evidence comes down on the warmers side.”
I agree that the weight of evidence supports warming.
But you’re still missing the point – the problem is that the evidence has been falsified, embellished or at the very least ‘tweaked’ to ensure that that IS the case.
@Gooner, The National MPs will never wake up while half their membership still goes along with it.
[DPF: Like Peter, I think the weight of evidence is that human activity is causing some warming. In fact there is no dispute over the direct correlation between greenhouse gases and temperature. Where there is dispute over the flow-on or indirect effects, and that has a great impact on whether or not the warming is planet threatening or not.]
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Deborah AP is up to their eyeballs in the whole scam!
Vote:Their Chief climate reporter was totally compromised by his cosy relationship with the “Team” which was exposed by the climategate emails
January 18th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
@Alan Wilkinson
He isn’t supposed to add anything to the report.
Just corroborate his findings.
You speak as though I have cast a pox on his house by declaring it unjournalistic. Some things just are while other things aren’t.
I enjoyed reading the post, for what it is worth.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
This is human nature at work, and scientists are not immune. There is only a small % who want to drive the “cause” because they have the inclination. Most scientists want to perform the science and let the policymakers deal with political and economic implications, hence the easiest way to review the IPCC is to read the “Summary for Policymakers”, but even the content of those has become contentious, as people summarised inconvenient data out.
The reason for action is because we don’t know the consequences of continuing to waste resources, and we can make a lot of changes without causing major economic harm. How many people buy food and then throw 80% of it away every week?. That’s what we do with fuels – surely we can, and should, do much better. Emission trading schemes are misguided – at best
Given natural diversity, it’s always easy to find counter examples, but it we focussed on reducing wastes and improving agriculture, we would greatly reduce emissions. That’s what we should spend time on, not conspiracy theories – justified or not.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
@Reg – sure. But Poneke is not the only person who has read and attempted to analyse all the e-mails.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
As always the climate hoax deniers will address anything other than the issue of falsified data and bad methodology.
We’ve add it stuck to us and too many people have hitched their wagons to this self inflected disaster. Credulous buffoons.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
But Murray, the smart ones are starting to jump ship!!!
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
It doesn’t matter how you spin it, as Poneke has discovered, there is ample cause to suggest that this cabal have not followed the science, but used the science to reinforce their beliefs. They have not trusted in the truth, and now all their work is called into dispute.
What is also being called into dispute is the solutions offered to “fix” the problem. A new level of taxation with no real representation on how it is spent combined with a share trading scheme. Seems a bit dodgy to me.
Here’s another major “Climate Gate” scandal that didn’t make much headway in the press: Wiki Gate
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
But, but, surely the science is settled?
Why would real scientists falsify data, collude to oppose anyone who disagreed, organise awards for each other, infiltrate and doctor key information sources (like wikipedia) and create propaganda mills, if the science is so settled?
Perhaps the science is as settled as the peer reviewed science that “proved” the himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035?
oops.
and of course the Northern Hemisphere winter and our summer are just weather, nothing to see here, move along.
Bwuhahaha.
Normally I would settle in with the beer and popcorn as the squirming is going to be fun. But in this case I suspect that tar and feathers would be more appropriate given that these clowns are using the “settled science” to advocate for the biggest wealth redistribution in human history – but its for the good of the planet, so how dare anyone complain!
Time to clean out NIWA, MFE and MoRST and the rest of the bureacratic parasites on this gravy train at MAF and everywhere else they’ve managed to weasel into. Time for the funding to the Royal Society to get a good going over too. They can be propagandists on their own tick, not mine.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
So much for the ‘authoritative’ IPCC report:
Vote:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/united-nations-blunder-on-glaciers-exposed/story-e6frg6n6-1225820614171
January 18th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Why would real scientists falsify data, collude to oppose anyone who disagreed, organise awards for each other, infiltrate and doctor key information sources (like wikipedia) and create propaganda mills, if the science is so settled?
I’m guessing you haven’t met a lot of scientists?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Because the science didn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Eszett, well, after the revelations about the “Himalayan glaciers gone by 2035″ in New Scientist and the IPCC, frankly I wouldn’t trust anything on climate change by NS as far as I could throw a glacier.
I think Poneke has given a good and relatively measured take on the whole matter. Isn’t it time for a proper, in depth and impartial review of the critical data involved in what is an undoubtedly important issue ? I don’t believe we can simply trust the data we now have, the field of climatology has ceased to be a science and has become one for advocates only. Let’s be serious about the issue and approach it properly.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Lance 12:22
What gives you the idea that the glaciers are shrinking?
Rufus
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I’m pleasantly surprised by Poneke’s excellent work.
Way past expecting such good stuff from the hopelessly compromised mainstream media. (the treacherous Herald especially).
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
was that an attempt at satire there Danyl? Or maybe it was irony – so difficult to spot these days.
So faking data is standard scientific method? and scientists really are nasty mean spirited egomaniacs? Oh well, thats all right then.
You still working at NIWA by the way? must be pretty embarassing at the moment having to pretend that you work for the IRD at barbeques so that people will talk to you.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
The weather in Wellington at the weekend was hardly suggestive of Global Warming!
But a big ups to Poneke for his post here, and for giving the MSM a serve for not doing its job.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Toad, Greenfly, Frog……..where are you???
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
There has been no meaningful correlation between CO2 concentration increase and lower troposphere temperature increase over the last 30 years. According to the NASA satellite-derived data (both UAH and RSS), lower troposphere temperature has gone both up and down over this period, while CO2 concentration has gone relentlessly up. The dangerous AGW hypothesis is thereby falsified. Other more important forces are affecting the climate and it is clear that CO2 is, at best, a bit player. That is why “The Team” has had to falsify their results. It (The Team) has total control over their manipulated surface temperature “data”, but they do not control the satellite data, which they consistently try to ignore or discredit. Climategate will not go away – it will eventually turn out be the biggest science scandal of the century.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
DPF: Has any daily newspaper assigned a reporter to read all 1,000 e-mails?
Do dailies still have reporters? The NZ Herald has been given its marching orders by its owner, ultraleft UK newspaper The Independent, so there won’t be a peep. And most journos have committed themselves knee deep to this scam.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Am I correct in reading that one of these statements is completely at odds with the other?
Which one is wrong I wonder?
[DPF: Like Peter, I think the weight of evidence is that human activity is causing some warming. In fact there is no dispute over the direct correlation between greenhouse gases and temperature. Where there is dispute over the flow-on or indirect effects, and that has a great impact on whether or not the warming is planet threatening or not.
There has been no meaningful correlation between CO2 concentration increase and lower troposphere temperature increase over the last 30 years. According to the NASA satellite-derived data (both UAH and RSS), lower troposphere temperature has gone both up and down over this period, while CO2 concentration has gone relentlessly up. The dangerous AGW hypothesis is thereby falsified. Other more important forces are affecting the climate and it is clear that CO2 is, at best, a bit player. That is why “The Team” has had to falsify their results. It (The Team) has total control over their manipulated surface temperature “data”, but they do not control the satellite data, which they consistently try to ignore or discredit.
[DPF: Greenhouse gases are not the only factor affecting global temperature. The other factors may well be more powerful than the influence of greenhouse gases. But few people dispute that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has a warming effect. What is disputed is the extent of it]
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
The NS site actually has quite a lively debate on each article. I am not aware that they censor anyone, at least judging by the comments
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Why would real scientists falsify data, collude to oppose anyone who disagreed, organise awards for each other, infiltrate and doctor key information sources (like wikipedia) and create propaganda mills, if the science is so settled?
The explanation is along the lines of “there is no science, there are only scientists”.
Like Christianity, it doesn’t matter how pure or noble or reasoned the underlying idea might be, once you add people to the mix, anything can happen. Scientists are paid on the open market of ideas. Their currency is their reputations, and publishing first. So again, anything can happen.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I am not sure what article you are talking about. Can you quote a link?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
try the link by trout at 1:09pm
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
for eszett
Vote:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/united-nations-blunder-on-glaciers-exposed/story-e6frg6n6-1225820614171
January 18th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
@Zen Tiger 1:56pm
“Their currency is their reputations, and publishing first. So again, anything can happen.”
So their reputations should be in tatters and they should be filing for reputational bankruptcy to go along with their intellectual bankruptcy
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Please see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8387737.stm . It indicates that
one error comes from transcribing the correct year “2350″ as “2035″.
And The full article from today’s Australian (with a couple of SNIPS:
United Nations’ blunder on glaciers exposed Chris Hastings and Jonathan Leake
From: The Australian
January 18, 2010 12:00AM
THE peak UN body on climate change has been dealt another humiliating blow to its credibility after it was revealed a central claim of one of its benchmark reports – that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 because of global warming – was based on a “speculative” claim by an obscure Indian scientist.
The 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which claimed to incorporate the latest and
most detailed research into the impact of global warming, appears to have simply adopted the untested opinions of
the Indian glaciologist from a magazine article published in 1999.
The IPCC report claimed that the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish inside 30 years.
But the scientists behind the warning have now admitted it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s report.
It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a
little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.Mr Hasnain, who was then the chairman of the International Commission on Snow and Ice’s working group on Himalayan glaciology, has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research.
The revelation represents another embarrassing blow to the credibility of the IPCC, less than two months after the
emergence of leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, which raised questions about the legitimacy of data published by the IPCC about global warming.
SNIP
Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on Himalayan glaciers in the 2007 IPCC report, said on the weekend he was considering recommending that the claim about glaciers be dropped.
“If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, then I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments,” Professor Lal said.
The IPCC’s reliance on Mr Hasnain’s 1999 interview has been highlighted by Fred Pearce, the journalist who carried out the original interview for New Scientist. Pearce said he rang Mr Hasnain in India in 1999 after spotting his claims in an Indian magazine. “Hasnain told me then that he was bringing a report containing those numbers to Britain,” Pearce said. “The report
had not been peer reviewed or formally published in a scientific journal and it had no formal status so I reported his work on that basis.
“Since then I have obtained a copy and it does not say what Hasnain said. In other words, it does not mention 2035 as a date by which any Himalayan glaciers will melt.
Vote:“However, he did make clear that his comments related only to part of the Himalayan glaciers, not the whole massif.”
SNIP
When published, the IPCC report gave its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the melting of the
glaciers was “very likely”. The IPCC defines “very likely” as having a probability of greater than 90 per cent.
Glaciologists find such figures inherently ludicrous, pointing out that most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of metres thick and could not melt fast enough to vanish by 2035 unless there was a huge global temperature rise.
Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, said: “A small glacier such as the Dokriani glacier is up to 120m thick. A big one would be several
hundred metres thick and tens of kilometres long. The average is 300m thick so to melt one at 5m a year would take 60 years.”
Some scientists have questioned how the IPCC could have allowed such a mistake into print. Professor Lal admits he knows little about glaciers.
The Sunday Times. Additional reporting: James Madden
January 18th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Eszett, see Trout’s post just above mine. Very briefly, a NS “reporter” spoke to an Indian scientist in about 1999 or so, and in an apparently off the cuff remark that scientist is supposed to have said that the Himalayan Glaciers would all be gone by 2035 because of AGW. That figure was uncritically published in NS, taken up widely by the MSM, and then taken and used (featured with some prominence) by the IPCC in (I think) the TAR. NS has just recently acknowledged that the statement is unsupported by credible evidence, so just how it became to be featured by the IPCC is an excellent example of the confirmation bias so obvious in climatology as a whole..
I also note your repetition of the party line over the “hide the decline” quote out of the emails, and the business of the use of dendro proxies overall. Could I suggest you read Steve McKintyre’s analysis of this issue, he has an excellent presentation of what appear to be the relevant facts, all of them. That phrase has been widely misrepresented on all sides, and rather than try to explain, visit his Climate Audit blog and read through his take.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
DPF, I beg to differ on the ‘direct correlation between greenhouse gases and temperature’ theory.
Check out this graph (yes, I know, another graph).
The Central England Temperature dataset is the oldest in the world – with 351 years of temperature records drawn from “multiple weather stations located both in urban and rural areas of England, which is considered a decent proxy for Northern Hemisphere temperatures – not perfect, but decent.”
You can plainly see the temperature keeping along at an even keel while the CO2 soars up.
Also check out thisarticle.
Vote:This Hungarian scientist has tried to be silenced, but he reckons he has come up with a formula that shows a ‘constant’ with regard to global warming, which proves that when you reach a certain point, it doesn’t matter how much more CO2 you add, it will never go above a certain level.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
@David, 2:15pm : Yes, unfortunately so.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Not unfortunately, it is fortunate for Science that this clean-out has occurred.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
With regard to claims that “The Team” desperately act to conceal evidence counter to the GHG effects, and particularly with regard to the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, this recent NASA article may provide some balance.
I would add that when it comes down who’s analysis to trust, Poneke or James Hansen, it’s just no contest. I suggest you all read Hansen’s book, “Storms of my Grandchildren.”
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Rufus..
I have personally seen 3 recently.. and WTF.. they have shrunk!
Many others have quite comprehensive photographic history showing dramatic shrinkage. Or this all part of the conspiracy as well?
This is bordering on 911/ moon landing conspiracy.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Fletch, what is the source of your graph?
And why does this graph (yes, another graph), which I found in the Library of the House of Commons, on page 23 of the report, tell a different story?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Luc Hansen posted:
But I thought soot and SO2 had already been used to explain the global cooling from 1940-1980? You’ve got to choose one position Luc, does soot and SO2 cause cooling or warming?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Eszett: “But nothing(!) in the emails invalidates that huge amount of research been done on climate change.”
The shonky science invalidates itself and any “decent” science is tarred by the same brush…Meteorologist Joe D’Aleo’s expose shows how NOAA created a warming result by reducing the number of temperature recording stations down from 6000 to 1500 cherry picking those closer to the ocean and down from the mountains.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I LOLed at his footnote:
“While the website appears to be a conspiracy theorist’s picnic of the kind that would delight Ian Wishart…”
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
3 shrinking glaciers!
You realise there are 100,000 glaciars in the world Lance. And the majority of them have been shrinking for tens of thousands of years since the last ice age.
Signs of warming are not evidence of AGW, they are expected observations of natural cyclic shifts between ice-ages and interglacials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Sonny, read the Nasa article!
This is a specific localised effect of soot in such concentration that any cooling effect of lower concentration levels is overwhelmed by the heat absorption – what is termed the “elevated heat pump” effect. And it’s easy to find evidence of the fact that the glaciers are melting – look at Lance’s post.
As the full effects of positive feedbacks are not yet fully understood, 2035 may be just as valid a guess as the 2050 projection in the article.
Furthermore, the aerosols as a cooling effect from 1940 to about 1970 is only a guess, albeit an educated guess. This was addressed by Hansen on Letterman, of all places, where he said there is not enough science to confirm this (yet).
And Sonny, it’s not shrinking per se, it’s the RATE of shrinkage.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Luc Hansen: “I would add that when it comes down who’s analysis to trust, Poneke or James Hansen, it’s just no contest. I suggest you all read Hansen’s book, ‘Storms of my Grandchildren.’”
That would be the same James Hansen whose boss didn’t think too much of him:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/27/james-hansens-former-nasa-supervisor-declares-himself-a-skeptic-says-hansen-embarrassed-nasa-was-never-muzzled/
… and who predicted New York would be under water by now:
Vote:http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/
January 18th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
So, its the guesses that are settled rather than the science?
So do you apply this to the temperature recorda also? As the significance of the stable temperatures this century are that the rate of change observed between 1980 to 1995 is alot less when you consider the temperature over a more significant period of time (say 30 years such as the IPCC arbitrarily made up)
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Luc “when it comes down who’s analysis to trust, Poneke or James Hansen, it’s just no contest.”
Have a look at Roger Pielke response to “Honest” James assertion that NASA has not been involved in any manipulation of climate data
FYI: Roger A. Pielke, Sr. is a meteorologist with interests in climate variability and climate change, environmental vulnerability, numerical modeling, atmospheric dynamics, land/ocean – atmosphere interactions, and large eddy/turbulent boundary layer modeling. He particularly focuses on mesoscale weather and climate processes but also investigates on the global, regional, and microscale. Pielke is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher
Pielke says “The GISS news release is symptomatic of the continued attempt to ignore science issues in their data analysis which conflict with their statement in the press release. This is not how the scientific process should be conducted”
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
First they called it Global Warming but when the facts refuted that label they changed it to Climate Change.
Thats when I started to get sceptical.
Of course the bloody climate changes. All the time Has done since year dot. So why the attempt to link it to humans.
Ahh As my late Dad said Always follow the money trail .
So I did and it did. All the suspects have a financial stake in convincing the citizens that they the citizens are responsible.
All have a money motivator.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Could someone tell John & Nick about this
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Before we spend $45 trillion bankrupting the planet, we should be sure there’s a problem that can be solved.
The only way to be sure is to stage a trial presided over by a panel of the most honest and competent judges in the world (whoever they may be – agreed on by both sides).
Then anyone found to have corrupted the science must be put in prison and not allowed to hold any official role ever again.
As things stand, the science is far from being settled, and until a trial can settle it no government should do anything.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
John, a judge has already looked at Al Gore’s movie. The findings were not pretty.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
It’s all over bar the cooling.
And Pachauri will soon announce that he could not possibly have a conflict of interest because everything he did was in his interest.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Danyl is right, this IS what scientists do.
This is what they did back when evolution was being debated within academia and what they do now on a number of other topics besides global warming. In part it is done as a response to the fact that the other side was supported by influential lobby groups like the church (i nthe case of the evolution debate) who presumably are busy writing similar things to these emails to eachother.
Of course the fact that they do this doesn’t mean that there is no global warming any more than it means that there is no evolution. Of course those who were nieve enough to have seen academia as immune to this sort of thing can reasonably rachet back their expectations a little – but that is still quite far from saying that global warming is a complete fraud.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
The ice is NOT melting away; it is always changing.
Go here –
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
It allows you to make comparisons of the ice for different years.
Vote:A poster, John O’Sullivan, on another blog, Climategate, explains –
January 18th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Good to see Poneke leading where David will eventually embarassingly follow.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
“there is a strict energetic limit”
I believe it has been demonstrated that that limit occurs at 467 degrees celcius.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
This article shows how the data was ‘tricked’ and how the inconveniant medieval warm period was removed.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article16126.html
Using the full set of 252 records shows temperature cooling!
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
And now for the backlash against environmentalism.
The sad thing about this whole sorry mess is that warming or not, human behaviour does need to change, we are in fact stuffing the planet we are living on.
I think it was stupid of environmentalists to put all the eggs in the global warming basket, they just made genuine acceptance of the issues we are facing all the more harder.
Living within our means makes sense financially and the same needs to be understood about energy use and the wider environment.
The resource party is over, careful management of resources and a better understanding of how we affect the environment we live in is essential for the long term sustainability of our society regardless of the dishonesty of the more political (dual agenda?) environmentalists.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
# Lance (255) Says:
January 18th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
SO the shrinking glaciers are like all photo shopped?
……………..
ANd which glacier was that?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
David, I never thought I would see you say something so sublimely foolish:-
“[DPF: Like Peter, I think the weight of evidence is that human activity is causing some warming. In fact there is no dispute over the direct correlation between greenhouse gases and temperature………”
Especially in a thread for a post which so thoroughly has shown ALL the data used to produce your mythical ‘weight of evidence’ has been manipulated and is flawed.
There is more reliable evidence to show that America’s president was born in Kenya than there is to show that Man’s activity is causing the planet to heat up.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Eszett: “But nothing(!) in the emails invalidates that huge amount of research been done on climate change.”
They are LIARS.
You can’t believe ANY of their research now.
They should be in jail.
And …. Luc would have to be an absoulte fuckwit to believe anything Hansen has to say.
Vote:Hansen should be the first one to go to jail.
January 18th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Shunda barunda
GW was nothing about environmentalism, it was all about transferring billions of $ from the 1st world to the 3rd world and cripple the capitalist countries in the process. (the hidden socialist agenda)
If it was about enviromentalism, the coal power stations in China wouldn’t be excluded, on the basis that only the 1st world economies have to pay for GW.
To find the real reason, follow the money.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
BTW …. David’s total lack of interest in the greatest fraud known to mankind has put me right off KiwiBlog. It’s gone from my number one blog to merely ‘passing interest’.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 8:21 pm
Yep – agree WebWrat.
Along with most MSM, great sites like BoingBoing, Reddit and Goodshit are just a passing look these days. There are a lot of people out there that feel the same. Everything changed on 17th Nov 2009, lots of people and businesses ( and Govt ) haven’t realised how much yet.
Lance – A question – Were glaciers static prior to the industrial revolution?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Well, it’s been two months since the release of the CRU emails – plenty of time for everybody to decide which side of the fence to be on. I think I’ll make a list of the people and organisations who continue to promote warmist propaganda, from now on. I promise to embarrass them when the time is right.
DPF, it’s time you got off the fence. You need to convince Nick Smith and John Key to get rid of their Emissions Trading Scheme. Labour and the Greens are hopelessly on the wrong side of the fence.
Redbaiter, do I take it that you agree with Poneke?
Penn State’s report on Mann is due at the end of this month. Expect big news whatever Penn State’s decision.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Better than Ian Wishart
?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Oddly enough I think we need to be careful. I’m what could be broadly described as a “lukewarmer”, that is excess CO2 in the atmosphere can and does cause warming, just not of the scale and nature of the alarmist fictions. The real problem that I see is that science has been completely submerged by advocacy to the point where much of the “knowledge” that is claimed we have has been replaced with what are effectively religious assertions. What “Climategate” gives us is the opportunity, if we are wise, to go through and establish what we really do know (and what we don’t and perhaps can’t) with more balance.
There are certain figures claimed as leaders in the field of paleoclimatology however who stand as major roadblocks in this. Some of them are misguided, but some are downright deceitful and fraudulent. As long as they remain as gatekeepers and arbiters of what can be known and published, we’ll be stuck with the mess we have now. I would like to see an impartial analysis of the instrumental temperature record, it seems far too likely that it suffers badly from confirmation bias and from perhaps unwitting (and perhaps not) selection of results that give the result that some people decided were desirable. The Urban Heat island affect has been, IMHO, compensated for; we know that a static UHI impact can be many degrees, and that research strongly suggests that it is correlated with the log of population and extends to quite small sizes, down to, for example, 2,000. And the “research” that the current crew relied upon to largely dismiss UHI is based on what is at best very badly flawed and more likely fraudulent research. So what is the real current temperature anomaly ? Work through the raw data, apply appropriate corrections for Time Of Observation (TOB), instrument and location changes, plus any UHI and other effects, in an open manner, no hiding data and code.
then, what about historical temperatures. here is a real mares nest. the “iconic” Mann Bradley and Hughes papers are scientifically fraudulent, that is even more exposed via the released emails, Mann admits he knows the residuals from his curves are “red” or highly correlated, which invalidates his statistical measure of RE, and makes the R2 figures he calculated but omitted (and confirmed in Wahl & Amman 2007) that showed the early results had no significance, fraudulent to omit. So what is the historical record really like, some including Steve McIntyre suspect that with the data we have that any reconstruction will have such wide uncertainty bars that they are all but worthless. But maybe we can get some (uncertain it is true) worthwhile information, acknowledge the uncertainties, and look to what we can learn. Certainly climate has been more variable than the IPCC wants us to believe, but what does that mean.
And finally the models, so far I believe that the models are “good efforts”, but not sufficiently useful to be used for predictions beyond extremely broad generalizations. They are unphysical in some areas that limits their ability, for example they posit that the atmospheric viscosity is far too high because otherwise the models become incomputable (to perhaps simplify the matter somewhat), and despite the claims various parameters are used to “hand-tune” models to fit past climate. The Aerosol question is entirely unresolved yet is blithely assumed by modellers to account for the dip in temperatures in the 50′s and 60′s.
So there is much to do to provide any firm basis for action. In the interim I don’t believe that precipitate action is wise. There are certain things we can usefully do, research into “cleaner” energy sources, establish a safe standard fission reaction that could be widely used to generate base load electricity (Thorium cycle anyone ?). But all we have seen to date has been the posturing of poseurs who have unwittingly been carrying out the desires of two parasite classes, those who would profit enormously from various forms of carbon restrictions and trading, and those who would gain unbridled power to rule the lives of others under the guise of saving us from ourselves.
Isn’t it time we took this seriously, eschewed hysteria and ecological fascism, and worked on sensible broad based potential options based on real information ?
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Good call Ed. The whole situation looks a mess right now but that’s not a good reason to just ignore everything as invalid.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
The science may not be completely invalid but the politics and the $$$ is.
What would you deem as appropriate consequences for Bernie Madoff or Enron execs to be caught red handed dodging FOI requests and destroying records?
The science may continue but some of the people in the emails should get some jail time considering the possible consequences of their dishonesty (ie many more $ at stake than the Bernie Madoff case).
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Depends on the degree of doing things wrongly.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
There are a couple of things to remember as the whole “evidence” for AGW unravels.
1. Many will say “well, OK, but we still gotta do something. Think of the children”
2. Many will say “I’m still with Al Gore when he says the deniers are ignoring reality – we have continue regardless”
I absolutely think it’s common sense we behave in a sustainable manner, but I absolutely reject point 1. That buys into the idea that we, as a society are doing nothing, or are only doing something “because of the warmists”. I disagree, I think society has been steadily improving in resource management, sustainability and pollution control and it wasn’t because of the warmists – it’s because as countries become more affluent, they turn to problems we all instinctively want to solve. We don’t want the planet turned into a wasteland, and we don’t want to exterminate every species of animal.
Look at the changes taking place over the past 100 years – note the move to take the lead out of petrol, to ban CFCs, to reduce packing, to recycle goods, to improve batteries, to reduce pesticide run-off, to manage over-fishing, we are investigating and improving solar energy, wind power, tidal power and even nuclear energy is vastly safer and cleaner than years ago.
We were doing this stuff anyway. Don’t let the debate be framed to suggest we never were!!
The only issue the Greens and others can make a stand on is that the rate of change in these areas is too slow, and that we need to adapt to sustainable practices faster. Fair comment, and good to have a lobby group keeping us on our toes. But don’t let them argue that ETS and Carbon tax is necessary for our survival, or that we must pretend to believe in AGW vor nothing will be done. If anything, the government trying to tax us as a “solution” is the biggest reason industry is slow to deliver a solution. The Government’s manipulation of money in the crudest sense (because Government intervention into the economy is always this clumsy) is only holding us back. The market is certainly responding to their signals though – they’ve seen a much easier way to make money, by riding on the gravy chain – a huge distraction. John Key and the UNIPCC and the entire Copenhagen crows should piss off out of the way so that we can focus on solving real problems, because if they set the system up where trading carbon makes more money than actually delivering solutions, we are all stuffed.
/rant
/karma
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
The whole kit n kaboodle topic of Climate Change makes me fully question humans / mankind, it seriously does, cant explain it any other way, it is digusting….
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
“Penn State’s report on Mann is due at the end of this month. Expect big news whatever Penn State’s decision.”
Let’s hope he goes to the State Pen.
Vote:January 18th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Regretably for the global moral panic, the ever-popular doomsday cultists and the red greens, the science, economics, accounting and politics of global warming are all fundamentally fraudulent and will inevitably be exposed as such.
The temperature record is woefully inadequate in both length and precision to validate the models, and the natural variation is far too great to correlate adequately with greenhouse gas emissions in any attempts to assign cause.
Moreover as Roy Spencer has recently noted, the IPCC assumption that there are no unknown climate “forcings” is essential to generate scary temperature rise forecasts. The existence of any unmodelled forcings negate the sensitivity necessary for those forecasts. The huge unexplained natural variations are strong evidence such unmodelled forcings do indeed exist and are significantly bigger than any conceivable variation in greenhouse gases.
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 2:07 am
eszett (73) Says:
January 18th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
peteremcc:
It all comes down to what sources you trust.
You can read all the blogs and sites of climate change sceptics and deniers and dismiss everything is said on the sites of the warmers
Or v.v.
Since humans tend to look for data that supports their views rather than contradicts them, most people will stick to one side and look for information that supports their view.
I try to look at both sides whenever possible, but I have to say that personally the weight of evidence comes down on the warmers side.
Personally I’d rather trust the New Scientists than Poneke.
I find their arguments more compelling, but then again everyone has to decided that themselves.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed.html
Climate science is a complex matter and not easy to follow, nor is quantum physics or gravitational theory.
None of us can really prove that the moon is held in orbit by earth’s gravity, but we choose to trust a general agreement amongst scientists.
Dude…if you had read the emails you would change your tune about New Scientist!
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 6:19 am
ZenTiger, aren’t you rose tinting your views on how well we are dealing with our mess? Some environmental practices have changed for the better for sure. But we still belch and spew a hell of a lot of crap, we overconsume and we keep depleting resources. Caring for our planet is mostly not the driving force, it is the money mindset, an obsession with growth.
NZ is nowhere near as clean or green as we try to make out, and we are small fry compared to the industrial monsters. Maybe you have statistics to back up your claim that things are “steadily improving”? I’m dubious.
Carbon tax/ETS was seen as a money “solution” to a money driven problem. It may not be the best of ideas but at least it has shaken people and industries up so that the focus has shifted a bit. But I think we have a long way to go yet to get a sustainable mindset. What was one of the major reactions to the financial crisis (brought about due to overspending)? Stimulate the economy, get people to spend more on crap they don’t need. The financial world is addicted to growth. That can never be sustainable.
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 8:12 am
You’ve been watching a little too much Hollywood I think Pete.
In the real world, civilization, technology, capitalism, and people are awesome.
I don’t think the demise of climate change hysteria is a turning point. The same way of thinking will surface again, and we will have to rely on rationality to call them out before too much damage is done. We must be vigilant for the next DDT, population bomb, ice age etc.
Here is a good link about a few these issues:
http://www.crichton-official.com/video-speeches-smithsonian.html
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 8:44 am
“Well David I hope you will modify your views accordingly.”
Pigs will fly first.
On second thought, wait, it could happen if the National Party changes its stance and tell its activists to spread the word.
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 8:56 am
I’ll have a decent read of that tonight Sonny. But generally I agree, it is “normal” for politicians and the media to blow things out of proportion to reality, and with big issues that feeds on itself and can easily snowball. Year 2000 is a good example where there were legitimate concerns and real problems, but it grew into an overblown scare. Iraq was another example, there were legitimate concerns about Saddam Hussein but far more was made of it to publicly try and justify an invasion.
But sometime, sometimes, we will be caught out. Swine flu was overblown (or did that prevent it becoming a major problem?) – but it is almost certain that some time we will get hit badly. Like the Spanish flu perhaps. Or Aids.
Climate and pollution tipping points are less likely than predicted (it’s not uncommon for a scientific possibility to become a major MSM scare), but there is a chance that one will catch us out. Once we find it it may be too late, or it may not make any difference.
We live in the information age – it is far easier to communicate than it ever has been – but the quality probably hasn’t improved, far more voice, far more bullshit.
People are not all awesome, there are many slefish opportunists. Neither is capitalism always awesome. One reason I’m not as bothered as some by ETS is that it is just another means of sloshing unproductive money around, there will be winners (some big ones) and losers but we will carry on spending too much on stuff we don’t need anyway. Recently the fire nearly went out so they just stoked it with some more accelerant.
Most of us keep finding ways to survive better than our ancestors. Until we can’t. That is inevitable eventually. If nothing else gets us we may eat ourselves to death – that is already starting to happen on an increasing scale.
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 9:39 am
“In the real world, civilization, technology, capitalism, and people are awesome.”
Heh, I am sure some Roman said the same thing!
Vote:Reality will bite hard over the next 20 years, the Western empire has reached its peak, wealth health and prosperity has only served to make us extremely shallow and self centred.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:45 am
And that is why I am cautious regarding environmental scares and anti-capitalism. Self-loathing is the neurosis of a successful culture that could cause our downfall.
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Reality will bite hard over the next 20 years, the Western empire has reached its peak,
I think I read that back in 1970.
If we are peaking, it’s because of a general moral decline generated by restraining human endeavour and government growing to think they are the only solution.
The solution governments came up with was “a money solution”, something they know little about, unless it concerns tax (take) and spend (waste). Which is exactly why that particular solution will make things worse not better. It arranges affairs of business (which is unthinking) to chase a profit that has no return other than profit.
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Pete
I’m not as pessimistic as you. Mankind has shown enormous resilience. 200 years ago, if you didn’t work you died. Life for most was pretty much a subsistence affair. The resources we could see consisted largely of coal and land, and we were running out of both.
Move on a hundred years, we had new resources – oil, gas etc. Those resources, plus technology, greatly increased the amount of food that could be grown from the land, and the mass migration to the cities started. Earlier, most people lived on a farm, during the 20th century most people moved to cities. The productivity of farmland increased enormously, driven entirely by resources and technology that effectively didn’t exist 100 years earlier.
Move on towards now, and look at our new resources. Nuclear fuels (including some that still aren’t really counted as resources – like thorium), look at our unit production per energy input. Look at the solar potential in the equatorial deserts. Food production continues to increase per unit land, and our rivers and air are far less polluted (in the developed world) than 100 years ago. By some measures half or more of the food produced is wasted, so there is still a lot of room to increase without running out of land. Our population is peaking in the developed world, and all indications are that as soon as the developing world reaches the same point that their population will peak as well. Once all the world populations peak, and even start to decline, then we should start seeing a drop in land usage – or we’ll start seeing more “land expensive” food produced.
Also remember that a lot of agricultural land is used for things other than food – particularly the really inefficient biofuels industry. Once we go nuclear or solar, that will stop (if the govt ever stops subsidising it).
In short, I’m not as pessimistic as you.
Shunda Barunda:
Don’t agree with this either. People are doing what they want to do. If what they want to do is things that you find shallow and self centred – so what? Focus on yourself, and go forth and do good deeds. As for peak – not convinced at all. Health is definitely still increasing, as is self actualisation.
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 11:59 am
We are very lucky to live in this time and place for sure (although a lot of people in the world are nowhere near as lucky). This may make us complacent. Most kiwis have never had to consider whether to go to war or not.
I’m not really pessimistic – but I know that things can periodically turn to shit, anywhere. Nature’s way, the way of the world, the way of the universe. The more the population rises, the bigger the potential fall. I back my survival skills, but more and more people can’t even cook for themselves let alone find/produce their own food.
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Pete, if things crashed enough that we all had to grow/find/produce our own food, we’re screwed. It can’t be done, we rely on economies of scale.
The reality is that the only resource that constrains us today is energy. With enough energy, we can create water, we can remove pollution, we can make currently uneconomic land (deserts) fertile.
Our current energy comes mostly from high carbon fuels (although we’ve been steadily de-carbonising – gas has less carbon than oil, which has less carbon than coal, which has less carbon than peat or wood). Nuclear and solar, however, offer vastly greater energy potential, with close to zero carbon emission. Imagine massive solar arrays in the desert (land currently not used for anything), and that those solar arrays are both providing energy, and also desalinating water. Imagine we sell that energy, and that we use the water to make the surrounding desert productive. Imagine what that does for countries whose only real current asset is sand – which you’ll agree isn’t a commodity in short supply.
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
“And that is why I am cautious regarding environmental scares and anti-capitalism. Self-loathing is the neurosis of a successful culture that could cause our downfall.”
Then we will be sailing on uncharted waters, history teaches a very different lesson. So what exactly do we have over every other failed society? what is it that will stop the western world from following every other society in history? We already have the required arrogance.
“Don’t agree with this either. People are doing what they want to do. If what they want to do is things that you find shallow and self centred – so what?”
No, the behaviour is in fact shallow, there is nothing relative about it!
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
One of the big things that we have over every failed society is that we aren’t a failed society – yet. There is no reason to believe that all societies must fail. Of course, if you do believe that, then it becomes a little irrelevant what we do, as no amount of information will convince you otherwise. On the upside, even if you believe that history must be our future, most of those failed societies lasted way longer than we have so far, so presumably we have quite a bit longer to run?
Vote:January 19th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
No.
Vote:Shortest empire in history.
January 19th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Right, so history tells us it must end badly, but history doesn’t tell us we have a long time to run. That is consistent how?
Vote:January 21st, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Just got around to checking out Alan Wilkinson’s wattsup links – the usual ad hominen’s from the denialists, but with a kick in the tail, this time.
The first link I didn’t bother with because Hansen faced down his managers at NASA (he talked on Letterman of being subordinated to a 24 yo manage) and he is still there, so who won?
The second was great because the comments led to this link, a graphic illustration of the retreat of glaciers using time lapse photography. The denialists may even ignore debate about the causes and just enjoy the awesome photography. More links are provided to those interested.
So Alan, many thanks and keep those links coming!
And such a shame Phillip Duncan allows you to promote your junk in the Herald. But the Herald is definitely swinging onto that bandwagon because, as Wishart has learned, there is money to be had in the denialist industry!
Vote:January 21st, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Hey Luc
What about all those Israeli doctors helping out in Haiti?
Vote: