I find ‘global warming’ a fascinating subject, terribly complex but so interesting and so potentially important. It is the big issue of our day and more than any other issue it has the potential to impact on how we live.
By “how we live” I don’t mean that there are necessarily going to be more hurricanes or droughts, though there may, or that planet earth will become too hot for habitation, though James Lovelock suggests this will be the case. What I do mean is that it is going to impact on energy policy and this will impact on our quality of life.
The obvious solution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the cause of ‘global warming’, is the phasing out of fossil fuels, particularly coal and oil. There are already alternatives, hybrid cars and nuclear power stations. But how much are we prepared to pay for our electricity and our cars? Some argue governments should force us to pay more, or take away our cars and coal fired power stations altogether.
If we banned cars and coal fired power stations right across the globe, we would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and stop ‘global warming’ – in so much as global warming is defined as an increase in temperature as a result of an increase in greenhouse gases from anthropogenic (human) sources. As scientists from the Max Planck Institute in Germany recently explained, methane emissions from plants are natural and could thus not contribute to ‘global warming’.
This approach is consistent with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (IPCC)(UNFCCC) which defines ‘climate change’ as that which is attributable directly or indirectly to human activity, click here.
So, ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ have been defined exclusively in terms of human impact.
I am a biologist with a double major in entomology and botany. I also dabbled in some evolutionary biology particularly as a post graduate. It is generally accepted that evolution has been driven by natural selection and that this has occurred against a backdrop of continual climate change.
But, as a biologist, how do I reconcile the idea that there has been natural climate change with the IPCC UNFCCC definition of climate change?*
I used to laugh at the notion that a group of scientists could come together under something called the IPCC UNFCCC and redefine climate change. Make it such a political phenomenon with man at the centre of it all!
I am not a climate scientist, but I reckon the official definition of ‘climate change’ used by a consensus of climate scientists is baloney.
It does mean that people like Ian Lowe, an emeritus professor at several universities and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, can write a book pondering that “it is now indisputable that the global climate is changing”.
Natural climate change is not something I have ever much heard disputed. But with the new definition of ‘climate change’ well, it is very unclear how much last year’s temperature rise was due to greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels versus natural processes.
Some biologists, and many geologists, tend to focus on natural processes and may, as a consequence appear to trivialize the relatively recent human influence on climate from carbon emissions. Perhaps as a consequence some of us are labeled climate skeptics. It doesn’t mean we are wrong or that we don’t care, as John Quiggin suggested at his blog this morning. It might just mean we see things differently.
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Post script
Just yesterday I received an email with information about a new book titled, Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming consisting of ten essays on global warming by Sallie L. Baliunas, Robert C. Balling Jr., Randall S. Cerveny, John Christy, Robert E. Davis, Oliver W.
Frauenfeld, Ross McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels, Eric S. Posmentier and Willie Soon.
And a note from David Douglass Professor of Physics, University of Rochester, commenting: “The beauty of science is that truth is determined by observation and not by consensus. The seemly endless press releases, commentary and resolutions claiming a consensus for the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis is scientifically meaningless. The consensus claims, however, must be answered.”
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UPDATE: 9am, 25th January 2006
* The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports to the UNFCCC.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer you’re attempting to set up a strawman when you conclude “‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ have been defined exclusively in terms of human impact”. You have not explained why you “reckon the official definition of ‘climate change’ .. is baloney”.
The researchers from Max Planck are not denying that plant methane contributes to natural warming.
The IPCC glossary defines “Climate change” as “a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer). Climate change may be due to **natural** internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.” (emphasis mine)
The definition you’re grasping at is that of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): Article 1 defines “climate change” as “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods”. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between “climate change” attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and “climate variability” attributable to natural causes.
“Climate variability refers to variations in the mean state and other statistics (such as standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes, etc.) of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales beyond that of individual weather events. Variability may be due to natural internal processes within the climate system (internal variability), or to variations in natural or anthropogenic external forcing (external variability).” [end extract]
The working definition of the UNFCCC needs to be precise, hence it delineates anthropogenic forces. It does not ignore natural climate processes. You haven’t declared this outright, but you’re trying to create the impression of a serious oversight. Your argument rests on skewed semantics, not on substance.
Jennifer – “I am not a climate scientist, but I reckon the official definition of ‘climate change’ used by a consensus of climate scientists is baloney.”
What about the consensus of the Germ Theory of Disease or Quantum Theory or the Big Bang Theory or any other accepted ideas in science – are they baloney as well? Here consensus means that most scientists have accepted that this scientific idea best explains the available data. Consensus does not mean truth as only, as David Douglass says, observation can determine truth however it is a measure of the acceptance of a theory by the workers in the field.
Currently the idea that the globe is warming due to mainly anthropogenic causes is accepted by the majority of climate scientists. Further most of these scientists also accept the idea that this warming will result in some climate change. This idea took many years from as early as the 1950s to take hold against a skeptical scientific community however the hard evidence that the scientists provided convinced the scientific community that this was an accurate representation of the facts and it was accepted more widely.
I am sure I have posted this link before however it is a facsinating look at how the AGW case was accepted. It is worth a read.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
Thinksy
We do not know how to define climate, hence measure itand from that obtain statistics from it to understand what it is doing.
Climate is weather of 30 years. We have about 150 years of weather data. This means we have 4 data points measuring climate. You cannot derive statistics from this set of climate data.
Add proxy data from the past? They are not measured data but interpretations using incomplete theories of non climate data.
As Jen swrote above, consensus of climate scientists?
THERE IS NO CONSENSUS IN SCIENCE – PERIOD.
Equally there are no scientific theories – only those which have been refuted with the rest being engineering problems.
What you are confusing here is eco-religion with physical science.
Ender
The Big Bang theory is not science, it is religion.
Climate changes!
Yes we all agree.
This is a consensus.
So what?
Louis you’ve written a steaming pile of unsubstantiated denials and contradictions, so I’ll accord them the weight they deserve. eg ‘we can’t define climate’ is followed (contradicted) with your own definition. You liken climate change to a religion. A religion worships a divine supernatural power who has control of human destiny. Anyone who believed that would join the fundamentalist christian rallies rather than push for efforts to address climate disruption. I encourage you to read Ender’s last paragraph and link with an open mind. (Surely you can manage that given your own personal faith that stars give birth and galaxies play happy families?)
Louis – “THERE IS NO CONSENSUS IN SCIENCE – PERIOD.”
simple question – do you believe that atoms form the basis of all matter?
“The Big Bang theory is not science”
So you don’t think the scientists are correct here either – how about the germ theory of disease – is that all right?
I can see that the imprecise definition of ‘climate change’ has seriously skewed the debate on ‘climate change’.
Ender,
I have no idea what forms the basis of matter.
Why?
Do you ?
“Natural climate change is not something I have ever much heard disputed.”
Why not ? lots of tricky scientific methods – hard to understand for the layman, inconclusive patchy results, differing results in different hemispheres .. … .. but it’s all over red rover. Can’t do anything about it. Perhaps not that important to the world tomorrow and we all like to picture ourselves on ancient Earths being Indiana Jones or something. It’s all good coffee table fodder for Ian having his pan-fried pademelon on the Byron Bay plantation with some fine wines from Rog.
“But with the new definition of ‘climate change’ well, it is very unclear how much last year’s temperature rise was due to greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels versus natural processes. ”
Definition, sheminition – who cares – let’s call it Garrawumpyana instead.
And the future might be a bit important to us all. Some of us even have property, investments, superannuation and worry about the kids etc. A few weirdos even worry “THE environment” and whales etc.
And very clever in limiting the rhetorical question to “last year’s warming”. I almost missed it. How about the last 30 years instead?
Anyway my question to Jen is if it is not increases in greenhouse gases driving the change what might it be (naturally speaking). What’s your mechanism/hypothesis.
Or is it all “so unclear”.
There was a theory that stomach ulcers were caused by “stress”. Most gastroenterologists held it to be true. Iconoclasts from western Australia came up with the bacterial “Helicobacter” hypothesis as a cause-bacteria cause ulcers. The establishment rejected it for a long time. Eventually the “consensus” disintegrated. That’s science-challenging the consensus. Barry Marshall could still be wrong though, but patients are getting better from antibiotic treatment of ulcers so even if he’s wrong he’s done good.
Yep – but it was based on good science, evidence and a reasonable mechanism.
“Jennifer you’re attempting to set up a straw man…
You haven’t declared this outright, but you’re trying to create the impression of a serious oversight”
Thinksy- here you have implied that Jenifer is being devious, attempting to set up, trying to create an impression.
Are you aware that this is alleging fraudulent or devious behaviour?
If you are aware of this, what evidence do you have that she is doing that?
If you have no evidence, why are you saying this?
and Will you withdraw the implication?
But thanks for the information that the UNFCCC uses the words climate change when they should be clearer and say anthropogenic climate change. Confusingly “climate variability” though includes anthropogenic forcings. So it seems, all along, most of us have been talking about climate variability.
The whole point of this discussion, as I see it, is that use of the term “climate Change” to mean human induced change is ambiguous and confusing. Why would UNFCCC want to do that? Do you think it is to do with making people “in the street” think that climate variability is all caused by human intervention? that is, PR SPIN?
detribe there’s nothing “ambiguous” or “confusing” about the UNFCCC’s definitions (reread them in my post above). Quite clearly they seek to identify anthropogenic from natural effects. “Why would UNFCCC want to do that?” you ask. To identify the pressures that human activities are putting on climate processes. They need to identify and assess the magnitude of anthropogenic impacts in order to address them.
You want to know why did they use the precise term ‘climate change’. Multiple choice:
a) Because ‘climate change’ is the most commonly used and recognised term, it’s easier to say than anthropogenically forced climate change and it’s less meaningless than yet another TLA
b) Because the decision was pressured by corporate sponsored lobby groups whose surveys identified ‘climate change’ to be the least threatening phrase
c) Because Phil wasn’t there to suggest ‘Garrawumpyana’
In climate modelling terms I think we’re bogusing – we’re dipping our finger in the rhetorical water to see if we can spin-up a storm in our tea-cup.
detribe i should emphasise that this was a direct quote: “The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between “climate change” attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and “climate variability” attributable to natural causes.”
ie, even though the definition of climate variability includes anthropogenic forcings, they distinguish between anthropogenically forced “climate change” and “climate variability” attributable to natural causes
On the topic of ‘consensus’ now being a dirty word: Jennifer said “I am a biologist .. It is **generally accepted** that evolution has been driven by natural selection and that this has occurred against a backdrop of continual climate change.” So, that’s consensus then?
Define : random walk.
Ender I propose a new consensus test for Louis.
Louis do you believe in gravity? If not, will you jump off a cliff or a tall building (sans parachute or bungee) to prove it?
Louis do you believe in gravity?
Haven’t you heard? The -theory- of gravity has been replaced in the Kansas schools with a more reasonable proposal called Intelligent Falling. It seems that there is a higher power pushing down on all things to keep them from flying off and crashing into the Celestial Sphere.
Is ‘climate change’ only a theory? – I thought it was a known fact, like gravity and electricity. But then nobody can properly define electricity, only define some of its characteristics.
The IPCC/UNFCCC ambiguity demonstrates a political definition of a concept.
“Thinksy” has a point.
Which is that the UNFCCC defines climate change as meaning human climate change, whereas IPCC, which reports to FCCC, defines it (correctly) as meaning either human or natural climate change.
Which simply reinforces Jennifer’s original point that the public, not understanding the niceties of these definitions, is utterly confused on the issue. That said, the great majority of the usage of “climate change” in public discussion has now come to mean “human-caused climate change”, i.e. FCCC has “won”.
One is reminded of the Lewis Carroll imaginary world where “When I use a word, said Dumpty Dumpty scornfully, it means exactly what I mean it to say, neither more nor less” (or words to that effect).
That such stupendously confusing and inconsistent definitions should come from the very bodies that the UN has set up to advise governments on climate change is – to say the least – reason to ponder the value of the rest of their advice.
Cathy
The differing definitions of “climate change” of the FCCC and the IPCC, and the consequences thereof, are the subject of the paper “Misdefining ‘climate change’: consequences for science and action” by Roger Pielke Jr., of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, which has just been published in “Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 8: 548-61. The abstract of the paper is as follows:
“The restricted definition of ‘climate change’ used by the … FCCC has profoundly affected the science, politics and policy processes associated with the international response to the climate issue. Specifically, the FCCC definition has contributed to the gridlock and ineffectiveness of the global response to the challenge of climate change. This paper argues that the consequences of misdefining ‘climate change’ create a bias against adaptation policies and set the stage for the politicization of climate science. The paper discusses options for bringing science, policy and politics in line with a more appropriate definition of climate change such as the more comprehensive perspective used by the IPCC.”
Thinksy, in continuing to dance around my questions with a semantic detour, you omitted to address my direct questions to you. Am I to then assume that you have conceded that you have no evidence to support the original implication that Jenifer is deliberately spinning this issue, and are merely throwing in your own spin? If so, why not stop accusing Jenifer of spin, it just detracts from youre own credibility.
Re your multiple choices: As far as I can see, your multiple choice doesn’t include all the possibilities, include the more obvious direct term – carbon emissions, which at least is something measurable, clear, honest and accountable, unlike “climate change” which has no numerically definable value and still hasn’t got an “operationally” defined definition.
By “Operationally defined” I mean the well establish rule in physics of striving to work with measurable parameters that everyone can in principle at least, go about determining by defined non-recursive procedures of measurement what the values are NOW. Since we don’t know YET what the “natural” climate variability component is, “climate change” is still operationally undefined, which is the main reason for these concerns – which your responses are not addressing. This lack of an operationally defined measurement procedure for “climate change” is rather like writing out blank cheques.
Thanks Ian, and thanks Cathy.
Ian’s last point appeared while I was typing. Cathy’s reference to Alice in Wonderland occurred earlier to me also. Lewis Carrol of course is loved by physicists because of the importance of the underlying logical rigour of his whimsical parables, and their relevant to promoting clarity of thought about the real world, which we are trying to bring about on this issue.
I cannot believe this discussion – what a totally stupid and useless waste of time – if you don’t know the difference between background climate variability, geological climate change and the controversial and modern 20th – 21st century anthropogenic climate change – commonly called “climate change”, “greenhouse”, “global warming” – WELL GIVE UP NOW. What have you all been talking about then ?
If you think the term has been hijacked – write a strong letter to the IPCC.
Anyway full marks to Jen for bogusing in some spin on absolutely nothing.
Let discuss GM naming – should it really be called GM – perhaps inter-order and inter-genera gene movement because normal plant breeding is really genetic manipulation, actually I think there is a right wing plot by the biomolecular scientists to grab the term GM and stop normal plant breeders using it – WOW !!
Maybe we should change whaling to harpooning? Or Ian might call it whale herd management or cetacean husbandry or CH. “Greenpeace disrupts Southern Ocean CH operations”.
But is Southern Ocean really Hemispherist imperialism by the Europeans – let’s rename it the Austral Ocean and swap the poles. Ah ha – a northern hemisphere plot to overthrow the south. Trust noone.
No point writing to the United Nations – as they’re not United – perhaps “Bunch-o-nations” But some don’t recognise the others assumed territory – OK – claimed territory then. So we’ll write a strong letetr to the “Bunch o claimed territories.”
So Greepeace – but maybe that’s colourist – OK Purple- but is it peace – maybe it’s really not that peaceful – perhaps it’s environmental intervention.
OK
” Purple-EI activists disrupt Nipponese CH operations in the Austral Ocean” “Byron Bay CH expert, Ian Mott, says – can you believe these Purple-EI people – they are actually saying that ‘Garrawumpyana’ has something to do with this issue – how utterly stupid is that”.
“A cetacean expert was not available for comment as they were in a meeting changing the name of whale to porpoise and porpoise to whale”
You know that this is all a dream don’t you. You’ll wake up soon – and think “Jeez – I was in this dream where for days on end we argued about the words climate change”
Phil,
I write to understand so I write as clearly and unambiguously as I can – because unambiguous language helps me clarify my thoughts and get to ‘the truth’. In contrast, ambiguous language can be propaganda.
Its these sloppy and lazy definitions that allow apples to be oranges, freehold to become the State and I’ll just pop an extra 15% on the bill, you wont mind will you?
I think I know what climate change is ie it is the change in climate where climate is an average of weather over quite some time….
####Warning Phil: I am not trying to change the thread, merely share an insight that I believe is relevant.
Re definitions of terms, and why this disagreement is not merely semantics.
A similar, seemingly semantical problem, occurs in policy disagreements about “genetically modified crops”, and they are misdirecting efforts in parallel ways.
The two confusing categories in that case are (a) modern direct manipulation of genes by deliberate biochemical methods for rearrangement (=GM), and (b) natural genetic change (natural biodiversity).
(cf human induced change, natural climate variability). Perhaps it also has echoes in nurture versus nature conflicts.
The erroneous concept that certain types of genetic change don’t occur in nature has led to all sorts of unproductive and arbitrary policies which actually harm the environment and human welfare, the opposite of what they intend. They illustrate good intentions are not enough.
One relevant point to this thread is that some of the same stakeholders are involved in both debates, and lack of logical clarity, ad hominem abuse of others to achieve Utopian goals, lack of transparency and accountability, and heavy use of propaganda based on fear are their trademarks.
In the GM debate, in some 15 years, the major anti-GM stakeholders have never openly and accurately addressed the fact that human and natural genetic events share a common risk profile. My conclusion is from studying the field these 15 years is that risk of adverse biology related outcomes is not the actual driver of action, but pelical persuasion is. This is why I want to see and hear the Full Monty on Climate change. Don’t blame me for this- blame 15 years of lack of transparency, accountability, due process and clarity on other issues by the stake holders I’m mentioning.
These comparisons could also be made to yet a third (somewhat dormant) third debate area – pesticide and cancer, and all I can say on that, knowing it thoroughly , is Google Bruce Ames and the environmental cancer distraction, and realise cheap vegetable and fruit prevent cancer. Here human = synthetic, natural= supposed safety. (No, Phil, I am not in fact, GM obsessed, but misuse I science does get my interest levels up, and you can’t take on all the nonsense at one time.)
So that if Thinsky wants to know why there are problems with credibility of proponents of Kyoto-like measures, then perhaps Thinsky should consider why (a) these same stakeholders are so careless about what they say in public (incompetent?, uninformed?), or (b)alternatively, so consistently and cleverly spinning fear to manipulate public opinion (unethical?).
(I don’t know which of these two multiple choices is true, because reasons for this behaviour are not open and transparent, and certainly not clear to me, despite years of effort to find out.)
If these bad habits were eliminated,and open acknowledgement of caveats and errors were commonplace we could all move faster and more economically to better environmental stewardship. But that’s not what you get in politics, unfortunately. We have to make do with robust debate and freedom of expression.
There needs to be a clear distinction between anthropogenic global warming and climate change.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is the theory that human produced greenhouse gases, not accounted for in the natural carbon cycle, are causing extra warming of the Earth’s atmosphere. Evidence for this includes the measured sea surface temperature rise, the land surface temperature rise, the measured rise amounts of CO2, CH4, NO2 and the known physical properties of these gases. It is the opinion of most of the world’s climate scientists that these changes are not fully accounted for by natural processes alone and this opinion was summerised in a report by the IPCC.
Climate Change is an entirely seperate and speculative theory that holds that changes in the Earths temperture can lead to sometimes rapid and dramatic changes in the Earths climate. Causes of this include anthropogenic global warming, solar insolation changes from orbital variations or natural events like volcanoes and methane ‘belches’. No scientist, however qualified, can say with any certainty what the extent, if any, climate change will be. The current state of knowledge was also summerised in the IPCC report however the best that could be done was to give possible scenerios which may be totally false or completely accurate – nobody really knows.
AGW is firmly based in physics and chemistry and supported by clear observations. Most AGW skeptics have abandoned attacks on AGW. They concentrate instead on the speculative climate change scenerios which have far more doubt about them.
Phil, Let me give you some free advice. If you actually believe all your own rhetoric, we’ll have to start discounting what you say, because there are actually some people who disagree with you who are not trying to spin things. And if you believe that your own ludicrous conspiracy analogies will win arguments, you’re deluding yourself.
Try for a start to understand that not everyone shares your rich confidence in the ethics and practicality global warming politics and what large organisations do with huge gobs of other peoples money. There are many others, who from past experience have seen good people taken for a ride by nutters. Sorting this messy world out takes patience, and willingness to keep on explaining, again and again with clarity, to the rest of us who don’t know it all, and trusting most people to respond in good faith. Some of us have witnessed several repeats of history not as comedy, but as grim farces.
Thanks all Ender, Detribe & Rog –
Jen – I suggest we simply wish to know – is the climate change that we appear to be having, related to in the vast majority, to the anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4 and NOx) primarily from power generation and transport. And is this likely to be an increasing and dominant issue for the future.
Of course besides variability (El Nino, PDO, AO, etc) we have “trends” like SW WA and the eastern Australian drying trend.
A problem in the short term might be how to dis-aggregate some of this decadal variability from global warming.
Or are these trends really as result of AGW itself.
And we have global dimming (aerosol pollution) and reserves of biospheric carbon (peat bigs, tundra, permafrost, forests) – but these unknowns will make things worse if anything.
I believe we have discounted solar as a driver AT THE PRESENT TIME in the earth’s history.
If the science of AGW is flawed/wrong/false or natural forcings are to blame then we are wasting our time worrying about anthropogenic CO2.
So my question to you then is – do you have an alternative explanation(s) of what we are seeing?
Detribe – I’m sorry that we have to agree to disagree. I cannot see this thread topic as anything other than spin. And my analogies are ludircous as that’s what I think the topic is !
My problem:
I need to find three hundred zillion dollars to protect the climate, but there is a fair chance that the money will have no effect in protecting the climate, and will not be needed anyway. The bank from whom I borrow the money says there are other borrowers that can invest it better. The bank has 6 billion shareholders.
Why should I waste time trying to meet the bank’s demands for a well argued, documented, unambiguous loan contract? Do the other borrowers really matter?
Shall I tell them I hav’nt got the time? That we havn’t got the time? They say the’ve heard that story for the last 30 years?
What variation do indigenous peoples make to global climate? Are these natural or anthropogenic changes? Is the broader human population not also a part of the natural balance? Granted there is an underlying issue of over-population, but like any malignancy running its course, there will be a natural consequence.
What frustrates me mostly about this debate is that it was already formally agreed at a Heads of Government Conference – The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also called the “Earth Summit” – in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, what actions nations, communities and international organisations would need to take to contribute to the goal of global sustainability in the twenty-first century.
Here we are fourteen years on arguing about the climate consequences of disregarding Agenda 21.
What can Australia do today, to contribute to global sustainability? It could stop lying, for starters, about its achievements in respect to Kyoto through restricted logging, when there is merely a transferal of extraction to other countries. It could relieve itself of bureaucratic inefficiencies … imagine public servants having to drive their own vehicles and pay for their own fuel. It could dust off Agenda 21 and comply with its undertaking as a signatory state, dismissing any individual of the executive government that functions inconsistently.
Detribe – the case has been made. The detailed prospectus is in the IPCC volumes.
Another prospectus will be available in the assessment report.
Tell me what possible explanations we have for the current warming.
Neil – it really doesn’t matter what indigenous people do or how we count it – essentially we know from the isotope signatures of the atmospheric CO2 that it’s unambiguously from humanity burning stacks of coal and oil in the last 100 years. That’s the BIG number.
sorry
Another prospectus will be available in the next assessment report.
Think has repeatedly made statements that could amount to defamatory material and has continued to withhold his name. One could conclude that this withholding of name is for the very purpose of avoiding prosecution for a crime. There may be other explanations but on the evidence we have, evidence that has been restricted by think himself, that is the only conclusion one could draw. Jennifer would have every right, indeed, a public duty, to exclude contributions from people who would use this site to commit a crime.
Back to warming, the most offensive aspect of this distinction between anthropogenic warming and ‘natural’ warming is the underlying conceit that human activity is not natural, or that modern emissions are worse than past emissions.
For this means that for a ‘consensus’ to develop on global warming there must be an implied agreement that actions by mankind are intrinsically bad.
Yet, we know that firestick farming has taken place for 50 millenia. And we know that this is more than long enough for species to adapt to the conditions created by that activity. And clearly, given the density of vegetation now present, the emissions from firestick farming that were needed to maintain the pre-settlement landscape in Australia, Nth America and Africa, had to be much higher than they are today.
This means that a very significant portion of anthropogenic emissions must be reclassified as the so called ‘natural footprint’ of humans. It would also follow that all those species that have benefited by co-operation with man also have a right to a ‘natural footprint’ of emissions. For example, what proportion of bovine methane would have been burped by the natural stocking rate of grazing animals in the past.
And logically, if a mature forest is considered to naturally emit as much Co2 as it absorbs then a forest that has been re-established on cleared land should inherit the right to emit the same volume, as harvested timber, as it has absorbed during its growth phase, without regard for whether it is a pre or post 1990 planting or regeneration, and without regard for whether the forest is native or exotic.
This may upset a few; to what extent has the ‘climate change’ issue been a failure of the IPCC to be effective?
From Dr Rajendra K Pachauri who runs the IPCC
Q: In fact, finance minister P Chidambaram was telling me the other day that he was suggesting to you to go public, even as a non-profit company—you would be India’s first environmental company to go public. Why should I hear that frustration in your voice?
A: Well, I suppose I need a safety valve somewhere. When I write, it gives me an opportunity to express my anger. It is frustrating—I’ll just give you one example. In the early 80s, I was a member of the advisory board on energy under KC Pant. We came up with a roadmap on things that need to be done. More than 20 years have gone by and we’re still talking about the same things today.
Q: On the other hand, all modern energy-saving techniques are built around subsidies, which is such a disaster. It breeds corruption ….
A: I think that we have to get out of this subsidy-oriented approach. There has to be a market-oriented solution.
http://www.financialexpress.com/print.php?content_id=114770
Ian – the argument is a bit boutique from the main game – it’s about coal or oil emissions.
In fact much of the international debate wanted to exclude all the biological stuff – fire, belching ruminants, forests – all too hard and definitional – but the Australia clause is largely for Australia’s request. So after all this hoo-ha Australia doesn’t even sign. Well sabotaged.
I guess at some point you have to decide what gets counted and what doesn’t. What’s in and what’s out. There was a huge amount of work that went into the Kyoto Land Use and Forestry definitions.
Simplify it and leave ALL the bio stuff out – but then if someone invents an effective rumen methane inhibitor the beef industry will want to claim the reduction (and why shouldn’t they).
Rog – in terms of the IPCC being effective – their job is to report on the state of the knowledge on climate science and undertake appropriate scenario forecasts. If we raggers rip all that down, disparage them, ignore them or want to fight them – well that’s democracy for you. It’s not their job to implement any policy – just write the report.
Ian “Back to warming, the most offensive aspect of this distinction between anthropogenic warming and ‘natural’ warming is the underlying conceit that human activity is not natural, or that modern emissions are worse than past emissions.”
Humans are a ‘natural’ part of the world however does that extend to humans technology – is that natural? Left to natural processes the hydrocarbons would have stayed safely sequestered and the CO2 never have been emitted except for some natural process such as a meteorite strike etc.
I do not think human oil and coal powered technology is natural in any sense of the word. We can have technology without the emissions if we really wanted to.
To Anwser PHIL,
I know from the geological record that solar radiance is correlated with maybe 30 percent of past climate variability, and that mechanisms of observed correlations are not well established. Also hypotheses of how the sun can be a driver by various different mechanisms other than the most direct one also exist (won’t boor you with details, sunspot, magnetic flux, albedo changes, other wierd stuff I dont fully understand, possibly loony).
The question I want answered well is how much percent of current change and prospective change will be caused by these mechansisms, as yet not well understood – reliable percentages, exact tragectories too, please.
The reason for this is that we could end up doing more harm by attemts the revere this , in that the costs of mitgation of CO2 emission could do great economic harm AND successfully control CO2 but still the temperatute goes up, or worse, natural causes bring on an ice age and we add to the cooling speed. I want to know all the downside risks of the mitigation proposals.
I know these scenarios may only be ? 50% likely, but we are betting trillions of dollars on the decision so its worthy of the effort.
PS The Track record of scares is bad:
Y2K
Global Famines re Paul Erhlich
Cancer from Pesticides
GM foods
Mobile phones
but AGW is a doozy
PS. I am not an anti GW zealot. I think observed climate warming is a reality but I’m skeptical that it’s well understood, especially with quantative accuracy. Also I acknowledge that the risks of doing nothing are large, but the risks of Kyoto are even worse.
Detribe – on ice age first – chase down ( Hollan 2000, Berger 2002) references in http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
The gist of this is no ice age soon. The notion that we have inter-glacials of 10,000 years is based on a few recent examples. If you go through the orbital positions it is unlikely that we’re anywhere near an ice age. 50,000 to 620,000 years away probably – nothing near enough to be of concern.
Tell me if you cannot get the Science ref and I will email.
If you could put any of your theories into practice Ender you could make a fortune – it’s just a simple matter of joining the dots together.
If you want something empirical – try some meassurments of the greenhouse flux and assocaited effects measured with pyranometers.
Philipona papers.
Towards the bottom of http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=26
It’s also well worth while revisiting argumenst about proportioning of the effect.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=220
On solar …
Firstly beware – finding cycles has been found to be statistically dangerous due to existing quasi-periodic behaviour in the climate system already – El Nino etc. You might think you have something but the realtionship alas doens’t hold up.
Firstly read
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=180#more-180
and
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=171
and
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=153
My take is that solar forcing is important to climate – sure – but doesn’t explain what we’ve seen in recent decades. Greenhouse gas increases is the best explanation by far. The above post even gives empirical measurment.
So what is very disappointing to the contrarian case is the lack of a significant alternative hypothesis. So as a free kick – I would have looked at some long scale ocean mechanism. Haven’t seen an argument though.
So if you were an apple-cart overturner and temple curtain ripper – you’d at least be chasing a decent mechanism that explains things.
Your serve !
rog – “If you could put any of your theories into practice Ender you could make a fortune – it’s just a simple matter of joining the dots together.”
No it is more a case of the saying “If war was fought with sunbeams we would have cheap and practical solar power now”
Phil, Ender is employing same over at John Qiggins ie if you dont have an alternative hypothesis to mine then you have lost the argument.
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/01/24/yet-more-nonsense-on-global-warming/#comment-42092
I believe that it is a fallacious argument, of the burden of proof variety .
Back to the ironing.
rog – No actually I am not. I am asking if you have a Plan B if AGW proponents turn out to be correct. I am not saying that AGW skeptics are wrong about climate change I just want them to take some reponsibility for harm to the Earth from preventing timely action on AGW.
I want you to acknowledge the consequences of your actions.
You are not saying that they are wrong but you are saying they are responsible for being wrong if they are wrong – and if you are wrong what is your plan? (I am not saying that you are wrong just that you should be responsible for being wrong should you be not right)
The following comment was received from Ian Castle who has been blocked from posting for some reason by my system:
Ian wrote:
“I urge Phil Done to spend less time studying the realclimate website and read some peer-reviewed literature instead. He could start with the John Zillman paper for ASSA, and also the contributions of economist Warwick McKibbin and political scientist Aynsley Kellow which are published in the same Policy Paper. It is available on the ASSA website at http://www.assa.edu.au/publications/op.asp
http://www.assa.edu.au/publications/op.asp .
Then he could move on to the paper by Roger Pielke Jr. that I cited in my earlier posting, which can be found at
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-479-2004.10.pdf“>http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-479-2004.10.pdf”>http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-479-2004.10.pdf .
Yep read’em long ago – just policy stuff. We’re talking science here Ian. Nothing new.
Nice try to divert to policy which is the net intention of this thread.
I have provided 4 refs that were not RC. in any case the RC posts are well referenced – and you tell me where the arguments don’t line up.
Good to see that Jennifer has now edited the original post in response to my points, removed the word exclusively etc. Jennifer and supporters perhaps you can answer Phil’s repeated question above: how do you explain the past 30 years of warming? (???????????)
Jennifer can you kindly clarify exactly why “the official definition of ‘climate change’ used by a consensus of climate scientists is baloney”? Nor the IPCC or the UNFCCC overlook or dismiss natural forces. They focus on human-induced effects because these are the concern. The concern. The issue. The issue we need to address.
Is it a conspiracy or baloney that a body that was created to address anthropogenically forced climate change would adopt a working definition that is consistent with its purpose? Hardly.
Thanks Phil. The title of John Zillman’s paper is “Uncertainty in the Science of Climate Change”, so I was under the impression that it was about the science of climate change. When you read it long ago (how long ago? It’s was only published last February) you would have noticed that John concluded that “we do not yet understand the natural variability of climate well enough to predict the natural component of change.” I also thought that challenges to produce Plan B meant that at least that part of the discussion was about policy, but you seem to be saying that discussing policy is not the intention of this thread?
I have just deleted 4 comments at this thread as they questioned motivations and were an attack on character. Can we please stick to the issue.
I am still at a loss as to why Thinksy&Co think that the issue that needs to be addressed needs to be clarified particularly when Thinksy&Co are happy with the definition of the issue.
This constant need for re affirmation is something that I am not comfortable with.
Time to go down to the pub.
Because Jennifer claims the official definition of climate change is baloney, but doesn’t explain why. The official IPCC defn includes natural & anthropogenic forces. The working defn of the UNFCCC addresses anthropogenic forces as per its workign mission. Why does Jennifer believe this is baloney? What is the “new definition of ‘climate change’ ” that Jennifer refers to?
Jennifer says “it is very unclear how much last year’s temperature rise was due to greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels versus natural processes”. What is Jennifer’s explanation for warming over recent decades? By not justifying her conclusions, Jennifer appears to be spinning new clothes for the Emporer. The absolute finest of gossamer threads!
Thinksy,
The entire post was written with your two questions in mind. I thought both questions were posed, and then answered in the post.
I don’t feel a need to elaborate.
Jennifer to what do you attribute the last 30 years of warming? (You know that you haven’t answered this question despite it being asked multiple times even before I started asking it).
“I believe that it is a fallacious argument, of the burden of proof variety .”
NASA has indicated that there has been a 0.8C temp increase over the last 30 years. ‘Elevated’ Co2 levels are likely to have contributed to this.
PS I thought my position on temperature increase and contributing factors had been previously explained at this blog. Thinksy I suggest you check the ‘climate change’ thread.
I’ve read it. Your entry above is starting to make more sense now that you’ve cleaned it up and now you’re aware of the difference between the IPCC and the UNFCCC. But you forgot to edit this sentence: “I reckon the official definition of ‘climate change’ used by a consensus of climate scientists is baloney.”
The official definition of “Climate change” after all, is “a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer). Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.” = baloney?
The UNFCCC definition is, in my opinion, baloney. I accept and respect that you disagree with me. I don’t need to know exactly why. The world is full of people with different opinions – some of which happen to be wrong.
No doubt excluding those confident opinions of self-admitted non-climate scientists who declare the consensus of a group of climate scientists to be baloney.
I’m glad that at least I was able to help you to finetune your article.
Well Hypotheses are actually around , eg
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR A NONLINEAR EFFECT OF GALACTIC COSMIC RAYS ON CLOUDS
BY R. GILES HARRISON* AND DAVID B. STEPHENSON
Department of Meteorology, The University of Reading,
In summary, our data analysis confirms the existence of a small, yet statistically robust, cosmic ray effect on clouds, that will emerge on long time scales with less variability than the considerable variability of daily cloudiness.
Thinksy
Climate is a serious geological issue.
NASA has indicated that there has been a 0.8C temp increase over the last 30 years. ‘Elevated’ Co2 levels are likely to have contributed to this.
According to our present understanding of climate.
Anyone here capable of discerning a temperature change of 0.8C ?
NASA puts the global mean temperature increase over the past 30 years at 0.6C, not 0.8C.
Oh that is even worse! Why am I so insensitive to a temperature change of 0.6C
Oh woe Oh me, I am so insensitive !