At Wikipedia, one man engineers the debate on global warming, and shapes it to his views:
Next to Al Gore, William Connolley may be the world’s most influential person in the global warming debate. He has a PhD in mathematics and worked as a climate modeller, but those accomplishments don’t explain his influence — PhDs are not uncommon and, in any case, he comes from the mid-level ranks in the British Antarctic Survey, the agency for which he worked until recently.
He was the Parish Councillor for the village of Coton in the U.K., his Web site tells us, and a school governor there, too, but neither of those accomplishments are a claim to fame in the wider world. Neither are his five failed attempts to attain public office as a local candidate for South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council as a representative for the Green Party…
Read more here: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=490337
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The Opinionator, At Wikipedia, one man engineers the debate on global warming, and shapes it to his views.
by Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, Published: Saturday, May 03, 2008
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
What a pathetic article – he’s much better than Al Gore.
The Peiser and Singer stuff were good a laugh too. Do people really believe this stuff?
“he’s much better than Al Gore”
Big deal. Almost anyone falls into that category.
Isn’t it interesting that we now have, due to the Internet and satellite driven global communication systems, more access to information than ever before, but the noise to signal ratio and propaganda to rational thought signal have both gone through the roof?
In the field of climatology it is most difficult to obtain information that isn’t some form of lie by omission or worse. Is it little wonder that many citizens are more in fear of AGW, which may well be only a phantom of our collective conscious than, say, being maimed or killed in an automobile accident or dying in an underfunded hospital afterwards. Both increasingly real risks.
Thus, because we are a democracy, our pols will propose to spend billions fighting a phantom menace while letting our nation’s infrastructure rot.
Wikipedia is just more noise.
Probably explains why Wikipedia is so popular if it’s that bad.
So why is it that you drive anywhere without being stuck in roadworks or subject to building of new cross city tunnels.
Climate mustn’t be important – that’s why we’re spending zillions on the Murray-Darling, urban water infrastructure and ongoing drought aid. All maladaption to changing climate circumstances.
http://www.mdbc.gov.au/__data/page/29/SEACImedia-release-May08.pdf
Ah, yes. Climate change, the favorite tautology of Alarmist Creeps across the globe. Climate by definition is always changing, so why say it twice. As James Lovelock noted over 30 years ago a climate at equilibrium isn’t a climate at all, merely a stone dead planet with a gaseous atmosphere.
Yet most Alarmist Creeps are deniers. They deny that climate should change at all.
Like Creationists they believe that the world should exist in an utopian steady-state, of course without the diety, instead they would have the UN IPCC mandate the weather a bit like Xerxes having the Hellespont flogged into submission .
At the top right of this webpage is a Greenpeace ad that manages the remarkable feat of joining of a tautology with an oxymoron. “Stop Climate Change.”
Beyond the fact that it would be less than optimum to live on a stone dead planet surround by a gaseous atmosphere in equilibrium, thus not changing, human institutions are no more able to rationally control the trajectory of the Earth’s climate than are ants.
One might well inquiry of the Alarmist Trolls on this site, just who are the real deniers in this “most important debate of our age.”
Tips on how to use Wikipedia…. Do not read any articles as they may be reinterpretations and as such biased. Instead scroll to the bottom and click on the source link for any info you are looking for…. This is the only thing in which Wiki is commendable… They have a bunch of relevant links in one spot to click on…
I rarely waste my time actually reading wikirubbishia
Wes George – “Like Creationists they believe that the world should exist in an utopian steady-state, of course without the diety, instead they would have the UN IPCC mandate the weather a bit like Xerxes having the Hellespont flogged into submission .”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman_fallacy
Yes Ender, but what do YOU think about it?
Should climate stay static, should it cool, warm or what?
And if so, by how much?
Looks like an other ranter to join the denialist scum. You’ve gotta be afraid that they’re out there – very afraid. A veritable conga line.
Ruddiman reckons we’ve been doing it for quite a while. Just don’t want to overdo it. Nice and toasty – just not very well done.
REVIEWS OF GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 45, RG4001, doi:10.1029/2006RG000207, 2007
The early anthropogenic hypothesis: Challenges and responses
William F. Ruddiman
Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Abstract
Ruddiman (2003) proposed that late Holocene anthropogenic intervention caused CH4 and CO2 increases that kept climate from cooling and that preindustrial pandemics caused CO2 decreases and a small cooling. Every aspect of this early anthropogenic hypothesis has been challenged: the timescale, the issue of stage 11 as a better analog, the ability of human activities to account for the gas anomalies, and the impact of the pandemics. This review finds that the late Holocene gas trends are anomalous in all ice timescales; greenhouse gases decreased during the closest stage 11 insolation analog; disproportionate biomass burning and rice irrigation can explain the methane anomaly; and pandemics explain half of the CO2 decrease since 1000 years ago. Only ∼25% of the CO2 anomaly can, however, be explained by carbon from early deforestation. The remainder must have come from climate system feedbacks, including a Holocene ocean that remained anomalously warm because of anthropogenic intervention.
Ender – they’re right – Wiki needs an update. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ruddiman
It’s William’s fault. He’s spending too much Wiki admin time defending against shills and goons.
Jonathan – “Yes Ender, but what do YOU think about it?
Should climate stay static, should it cool, warm or what?
And if so, by how much?”
The current wisdom is that if we can keep this warming event of our own making under 2 deg then we should be able to minimise the resulting climate change.
No-one expects the climate to be static however our civilisation has blossomed in a time of relatively static warm climate of this interglacial. At present we would find it quite difficult to feed the 8 billion on the planet if the climate started to diverge a lot from this. For my immediate needs and that of my family I would like to preserve the fairly benign climate of the interglacial at least until it is due to end in a thousand years or so.
Quite apart from the challenges ahead of a rapidly changing climate we also have the problem of the fossil fuel energy resources that enables our technological society not being able to supply our growing needs.
Deny them if you like however they are both out there and if you refuse to deal with them then one or both will bite in the end.
If a scientist doesn’t know more than Al Gore, who is not a scientist, about climate change, then he’s not much of a scientist.
Fair enough Ender, you should know by now, that I am neither a denier nor a believer, but simply a realist.
I still maintain that we should concentrate on adapting instead of controlling.
The question is, which way is it going?
Wiki is useful for non-controversial stuff, but when it comes to biographical stuff, or climate science, it clearly isn’t objective and represents the political opinion of WC.
Interesting site Wikipedia – search for well known climate alarmists like Tim Lambert or Michael Mann and zilch. Type in Piers Corbyn or Fred Singer and heaps of material.
Biassed?
Wiki “Biased?” No Louis.
As a frequent user I find their climate stuff the same as other areas of interest. Given the magnitude of current climate research work I find the wiki links very useful at first glance and in traveling through it all. Blogs on the other hand are highly misleading for developing a general approach to relevant science.
Johnathan asks “which way is it going?
My own judgment from direct observations; nothing global is going down, not CO2, temperature nor sea level.
Correction; the exception is our ancient ice. That’s wasting away decade by decade.
Local climate change can be seen in most parts of our enhanced food bowl, the MDB
So Ender, just how have I used the strawman fallacy? By using Greenpeace’s own slogan borrowed from the top of this webpage?
Humankind has hardly blossomed at a time of relatively static climate, although interglacial in the latter parts. The climate variation of the last 50,000 year shows dozens of periods of more rapid change than today. In fact, the challenge of “climate change” is likely to have made us who we are today. But I suppose the alarmist creeps would deny this too. Stasis is the great cause of fundamentalist true believers whatever their cause.
Ah, yes, Creationism again. Ender and the Creeps must attend the same church.
Evolution, climate or otherwise, is so, so gradual, so much so that, well, perhaps it is time for government to manage the steady state of the largest and most complex nonlinear system on the planet. After all they have done so well with health care and as the Creep points out, watershed management, why not mandate the Earth’s climate of 2075 as well? However, that might well be a shift from one strange attractor to another. A trillion butterflies in Canberra flapping furiously at tax payer expense.
There are many good reasons, as Ender notes, to ender our reliance on fossil fuels, however the tautology of “climate change” is among the weakest, if most fashionable sophism in the contemporary polite society. Moreover, to ender our reliance in a hasty panic might well result in the holocaust that Ender and his creepy mates would surely deny.
Again, I wonder just who are the deniers here?
Well Wes on what basis of risk management or engineering would you like policy makers and investors to plan allocation and infrastructure in the Murray Darling Basin – should they consider the last 100 years or so of records to be representative of the next 100 years? Would you suggest investment, innovation or retreat. More infrastructure or allocate. Support or laissez faire. On what climate basis might you make these decisions as best you can? Are you part of the solution or part of the problem?
Welcome, Gavin. How’s the kool-aid?
Good to meet an honest denier who believes that climate by definition must be in a state of nonequilibrium! Stay away from the Creationist Church of the Latter Day Creeps!
And how clever are you? You’re so right that in a late interglacial temperature is a rising in a punctuated fashion. Hmm. I wonder if interglacial warming accounts for some of the “wasting away decade by decade” of “ancient ice.”
Of course, CO2 concentrations are soaring, however the sensitivity of climate to CO2 is still awaiting the definitive research on the topic. Someone needs to get busy!
Gavin, did you know that some greenhouse tomato growers like to keep CO2 at something like 2000ppm? Tomatoes don’t flower well at temperatures above 26c, I don’t know how they keep those greenhouse from overheating.
I wonder if you have any opinions on climate sensitivity to CO2 based on your “judgement from direct observation”?
I’m going for your direct observation, because your reading and abstract analytical skills seem to be a bit substandard if you can’t see the bias at Wikipedia. Poor little tacker back to first year logic and reasoning for you!
Oh, and your rising sea level theory is a bit of a worry too. I can’t imagine how CO2 drives plate tectonics. Perhaps you have a computer model….
As for the creep who wishes to introduce the strawman of Murray-Darling catchment mismanagement as a proxy for AGW. Give it up, creep. Your way out of your league, the MDC scandal is a perfect example of why we might want to think twice before to deciding to let human institutions attempt to mandate the state of the Earth’s most complex nonlinear system.
Some people watch ABC Landline too
“Rice shortage critical”
“Arguably no single group feels more threatened by the water reform process than the Australian rice growers. The collapse of their industry this season coincides with a critical global shortage and skyrocketing prices for this food staple”.
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s2234794.htm
Video –
Ah when asked to be practical Wes lays smoke and runs his own straw man argument. Typical denialist. All concern. But really no ideas. And no responsibility. Just shrug and walk away hey Wes – thought as much.
Another great piece by Rex Murphy giving it to the alarmists and their so called solutions!
That’s right, creepy, I don’t have a list of global solutions for the chimera of climate change in my top pocket. You saw right through that smoke, didn’t you? Although, I think it was from something you was smokin’. That’s not good for your carbon footprint.
But I am sure you have, ahem, ideas! A clever creep like you already has memorized all the fashionable dogma by rote. Perhaps tomorrow you will be so kind as to recite your gospel to us? And we can examine it point by point.
Wonder if we will find any cognitive dissonances in your faith?
Oh, and Gavin, mate.
I think maybe you watch too much TV? I mean Landline?? That’s a pretty desperate addiction, mate.
Too much ABC might account for your intellectual nearsightedness which prevents you from perceiving any bias at Wikipedia. You really ought to get some special Ed for that problem if you ever expect to break your dependence upon the dole. Literacy is important, mate, and asking for help is nothing to be ashamed of.
Well, you blokes are a guffaw a minute, I haven’t laughed so hard since I watched An Inconvenient Truth. But I got to hit the sack now. Big day tomorrow draining some endangered wet lands to irrigate my rice paddocks. Later, dudes.
William Connolley? I’d heard he’d left his wiki proconsulship.
What I wonder is how that came to pass (I’m nosey and love intrigues, especially ending badly).
Connolley can always make the switch back to “global cooling alarmist.” It just involves a simple reversal of signs in the models, not much in the way of belief change. Doom is doom, after all. Steven Schneider switched from doomer-coolist to doomer-warmist. Even Al Gore should be able to make the transition, with nary a stumble toward his billion dollar goal.
Keep laying smoke Wes – will cover your retreat after being asked for ideas with a practical climate problem. Wes’s contribution – rhetoric.
Al Fresco – you’re talking through your bum like most denialists – you have totally misrepresented William Connolley who has actually been anti-alarmist on Stoat if anything. More frothing denialist rants. Get a rabies shot guys.
“Typical denialist. All concern. But really no ideas. ”
Typical alarmist response. Do something, anything, even if it is wrong and even if it causes more harm than good. The important thing for the alarmists is to pump up their egos with the pretense of doing something valuable. If that is really the case or not is of no importance. If their fix, for that which is not broken, causes more harm than good, that is also of no importance. The only thing of real importance is to shower their own egos with the feeling of moral superiority.
I remember reading Connolley’s explanation of the sattelite temperature record. Hardly a sentence went by without his repeating that UAH once had an error. The entire trajectory of the article was to discredit the satellite records. But if you look at the articles on the surface temp records, their errors are never dwelled on. And if anything, they are more numerous than those of the satellites. An exposition of the number of surface stations that fail to realize the standards that are set by the collecting organizations is simply not mentioned.
Before this article I knew that Connolly was an honorary hockey team member and contributor to RealClimate. But I didn’t know that he had run for office as a Green. It all makes sense however.
Tilo – that’s just more of the same. What’s your advice – any or just abuse? MDB already has problems – so doing nothing is simply a vote for more of the same. Presumably your answer then is more of the same. Thanks for playing – now go and sit somewhere safe and away from sharp objects. Must be sooooo “nice” being able to relocate to somewhere “nice” and leave all those problems behind eh?
Well it did have errors and still does !
When Wes ploughed in with,” Isn’t it interesting that we now have, due to the Internet and satellite driven global communication systems, more access to information than ever before, but the noise to signal ratio and propaganda to rational thought signal have both gone through the roof?” etc. somebody should have noted a few wild guesses like “satellite driven global communication systems”. AUSAT downunder is truly history now and btw its signal to noise ratio not “the noise to signal ratio”.
Wes mate you’re trying to upset someone who’s actually worked with the blunt end of the whip.
“Well it did have errors and still does !”
So did the surface records and they still do. Watts has documented bunches of them. How do you know that the satellites still have errors?
In any case, it’s not about errors. So your response is simply an attempt to bury your head in the sand and ignore the bias at wiki. It’s about how errors are reported and repeated that is at issue on there. That is clear in my post. So why do you bring back such a lame response.
“so doing nothing is simply a vote for more of the same. ”
You mean more prosperity and more longevity? Yes, I will vote for more of that kind of “same”.
By the way, are you impressed with this statement?
“During the 20th century, changes in the intensity of the subtropical ridge have largely
corresponded with changes in global temperature. This correspondence means that
there is a high likelihood that the current rainfall deficit is linked to current global
warming, through the intensification of the subtropical ridge.”
It can be applied to just about anything. Phenomena XYZ has been observed in the 20th century and therefore corresponds with current global warming. This, to the truely moronic, serves as irrefutable evidence that it is caused by .8C of temperature difference. Droughts have always happened at one place or another. On the one hand we are told by the AGW nuts that the mechanism for CO2 forcing feedback is more moisture in the air. On the other they are claiming more drought. May I have that cake and eat it as well please?
“Wes mate you’re trying to upset someone who’s actually worked with the blunt end of the whip.”
Did you do an S&M show in Sidney, Gavin?
Like sitting on the wrong satellite trend for years and attempt no calibration rectification – yea sure.
Isn’t it strange that if you overlay all the surface time series they basically tell the same trend story. So how has Watts ranting changed our overall interpretation?
Of course there is bias at Wiki – there is everywhere. What do you suggest we do – outlaw human nature.
Tilo likewise knows nothing about communications
“How do you know that the satellites still have errors?”
How do you know that they don’t?
suckers hey
Gavin,
No, no, I meant noise to signal ratios. I had your utterly insightful and truly helpful contributions to this website in mind. Pure gold rolled you are.
And as I post this comment from a rather remote off grid location it is through a satellite communication system that it reaches the WWW. So while AUSAT may be history, satellite-based communication is the only way my mates and me ever connect to anything.
Just what do you do with the blunt end of your whip, again?
May I make a suggestion?
Sorry I asked.
“How do you know that they don’t?”
Dumb response. I didn’t say they did or didn’t. I questioned the source of Alarmists assertion: “Well it did have errors and still does !”
Very good article! Thank you, master!