Below is a transcript of Joseph Bast’s opening speech at the New York 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, March 2 – 4, 2008.
2008 International Conference on Climate Change
Opening Remarks by Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute
Good evening, and welcome to the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. I am Joseph Bast, the president of The Heartland Institute, and along with James Taylor, I will be your co-host tonight and for the next two days.
This dinner kicks off a truly historic event, the first international conference devoted to answering questions overlooked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We’re asking questions such as:
* how reliable are the data used to document the recent warming trend?
* how much of the modern warming is natural, and how much is likely the result of human activities?
* how reliable are the computer models used to forecast future climate conditions? And
* is reducing emissions the best or only response to possible climate change?
Obviously, these are important questions. Yet the IPCC pays little attention to them or hides the large amount of doubt and uncertainty surrounding them.
Are the scientists and economists who ask these questions just a fringe group, outside the scientific mainstream? Not at all. A 2003 survey of 530 climate scientists in 27 countries, conducted by Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch at the GKSS Institute of Coastal Research in Germany, found
* 82 percent said global warming is happening, but only
* 56% said it’s mostly the result of human causes, and only
* 35% said models can accurately predict future climate conditions.
Only 27% believed “the current state of scientific knowledge is able to provide reasonable predictions of climate variability on time scales of 100 years.”
That’s a long ways from “consensus.”
It’s actually pretty close to what the American public told pollsters for the Pew Trust in 2006:
* 70% thought global warming is happening,
* only 41% thought it was due to human causes,
* and only 19% thought it was a high-priority issue.
The alarmists think it’s a “paradox” that the more people learn about climate change, the less likely they are to consider it a serious problem. But as John Tierney with the New York Times points out in a blog posted just a day ago, maybe, just maybe, it’s because people are smart rather than stupid.
And incidentally, 70% of the public oppose raising gasoline prices by $1 to fight global warming, and 80% oppose a $2/gallon tax increase, according to a 2007 poll by the New York Times and CBS News.
I’ve got news for them: reducing emissions by 60 to 80 percent, which is what the alarmists claim is necessary to “stop global warming,” would cost a lot more than $1 a gallon.
Al Gore, the United Nations, environmental groups, and too often the reporters who cover the climate change debate are the ones who are out of step with the real “consensus.” They claim to be certain that global warming is occurring, convinced that it is due to human causes, and 100% confident that we can predict future climates.
Who’s on the fringe of scientific consensus? The alarmists, or the skeptics?
These questions go to the heart of the issue: Is global warming a crisis, as we are so often told by media, politicians, and environmental activists? Or is it moderate, mostly natural, and unstoppable, as we are told by many distinguished scientists?
Former Vice President Al Gore has said repeatedly that there is a “consensus” in favor of his alarmist views on global warming. And of course, he’s not alone.
Two weeks ago, Jim Martin, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, when told of our conference, said “You could have a convention of all the scientists who dispute climate change in a relatively small phone booth.” (Denver Post, February 12, 2008).
RealClimate.org predicted that no real scientists would show up at this conference.
Well …
With we have us, tonight and tomorrow, more than 200 scientists and other experts on climate change, from Australia, Canada, England, France, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Sweden and of course the United States.
They come from the University of Alabama, Arizona State, Carleton, Central Queensland, Delaware, Durham, and Florida State University.
From George Mason, Harvard, The Institute Pasteur in Paris, James Cook, John Moores, Johns Hopkins, and the London School of Economics.
From The University of Mississippi, Monash, Nottingham, Ohio State, Oregon State, Oslo, Ottawa, Rochester, Rockefeller, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
And from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Suffolk University, the University of Virginia, Westminster School of Business (in London), and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
And I apologize if I left anyone out.
These scientists and economists have been published thousands of times in the world’s leading scientific journals and have written hundreds of books. If you call this the fringe, where’s the center?
Hey Jim Martin, does this look like a phone booth to you?
Hey RealClimate, can you hear us now?
These scientists and economists deserve to be heard. They have stood up to political correctness and defended the scientific method at a time when doing so threatens their research grants, tenure, and ability to get published. Some of them have even faced death threats for daring to speak out against what can only be called the mass delusion of our time.
And they must be heard, because the stakes are enormous.
George Will, in an October Newsweek column commenting on Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, wrote that if nations impose the reductions in energy use that Al Gore and the folks at RealClimate call for, they will cause “more preventable death and suffering than was caused in the last century by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot combined.”
It takes more than four Norwegian socialists to win a Pulitzer Prize, so I’ll put George Will’s Pulitzer Prize and his recent Bradley Prize up against Gore’s Nobel any day.
You’ve probably read some of the attacks that have appeared in the blogosphere and in print directed against this conference, and against The Heartland Institute. Let me repeat for the record here tonight what appears prominently on our Web site:
* No corporate dollars were used to help finance this conference.
* The Heartland Institute has 2,700 donors, and gets about 16% of its income from corporations.
* Heartland gets less than 5% of its income from all energy producing companies combined. We are 95% carbon free.
And let me further add to the record:
* the honoraria paid to all of the speakers appearing at this conference add up to less than the honorarium Al Gore gets paid for making a single speech, and less than what his company makes selling fake carbon “off-sets” in a week.
* it is no crime for a think tank or advocacy group to accept corporate funding. In fact, corporations that fail to step forward and assure that sensible voices are heard in this debate are doing their shareholders, and their countries, a grave disservice.
We’re not doing this for the money, obviously. The Heartland Institute is in the “skeptics” camp because we know alarmism is a tool that has been used by opponents of individual freedom and free enterprise since as early as 1798, when Thomas Malthus predicted that food supply would fail to keep up with population growth.
We opposed global warming alarmism before we received any contributions from energy corporations and we’ll continue to address it after many of them have found ways to make a fast buck off the public hysteria.
We know which organizations are raking in millions of dollars a year in government and foundation grants to spread fear and false information about climate change. It’s not The Heartland Institute, and it’s not any of the 50 cosponsoring organizations that helped make this conference possible.
The alarmists in the global warming debate have had their say – over and over again, in every newspaper in the country practically every day and in countless news reports and documentary films. They have dominated the media’s coverage of this issue. They have swayed the views of many people. Some of them have even grown very rich in the process, and others still hope to.
But they have lost the debate.
Winners don’t exaggerate. Winners don’t lie. Winners don’t appeal to fear or resort to ad hominem attacks.
As George Will also wrote, “people only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues.”
We invited Al Gore to speak to us tonight, and even agreed to pay his $200,000 honoraria. He refused. We invited some of the well-known scientists associated with the alarmist camp, and they refused.
All we got are a few professional hecklers registered from Lyndon LaRouche, DeSmogBlog, and some other left wing conspiracy groups. If you run into them in the course of the next two days, please be kind to them … and call security if they aren’t kind to you.
Skeptics are the winners of EVERY scientific debate, always, everywhere. Because skepticism, as T.H. Huxley said, is the highest calling of a true scientist.
No scientific theory is true because a majority of scientists say it to be true. Scientific theories are only provisionally true until they are falsified by data that can be better explained by a different theory. And it is by falsifying current theories that scientific knowledge advances, not by consensus.
The claim that global warming is a “crisis” is itself a theory. It can be falsified by scientific fact, just as the claim that there is a “consensus” that global warming is man-made and will be a catastrophe has been dis-proven by the fact that this conference is taking place.
Which reminds me … the true believers at RealClimate are now praising an article posted on salon.com by Joseph Romm – a guy who sells solar panels for a living, by the way – saying “‘consensus’? We never claimed there was a ‘consensus’!”
And notorious alarmist John Holdren a couple weeks ago said “‘global warming’? We never meant ‘global warming.’ We meant “‘global climate disruption’!”
I’d say this was a sign of victory, but that would suggest their words and opinions matter. It’s too late to move the goal posts, guys. You’ve already lost.
It is my hope, and the reason The Heartland Institute organized this conference, that public policies that impose enormous costs on millions of people, in the U.S. and also around the world, will not be passed into law before the fake “consensus” on global warming collapses.
Once passed, taxes and regulations are often hard to repeal. Once lost, freedoms are often very difficult to retrieve.
ENDS
See also Jen’s previous post ‘The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change: I’m off to New York’
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Tobacco man hey
Another hired gun Paul
I don’t see any connection between tobacco, climate observations, the various climate drivers and the sensitivity of climate to CO2.
Paul
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute#Tobacco_Ties
http://www.desmogblog.com/can-wiki-scanner-help-the-desmogosphere
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
Gavin,
Is there any sound reason a sane person would give the authors of those sites the time of day?
Gavin – none of that answers my question, plus I’ve seen ‘Wiki-wars’ ‘before where opposing groups make alterations to suit their own perspectives.
It’s odd that the same concern isn’t shown for government funding of the IPCC perspective for the purposes of new taxes and restrictions.
Like I said, none of this alters climate sensitivity to CO2.
Jan: For me it was pure entertainment because I spend more than a little time searching for the rhetoric that continually rebounds in blogs like this.
Seriously; this latest theme is all about sales pitch, book selling, pyramid structures in political lobbies and so on. It’s certainly not about ongoing climate science or open education.
I feel very free and a little superior after glancing through the wiki page on liberalism.
Note; I also enjoy deprogramming.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1317570/posts
Gavin,
“For me it was pure entertainment”
Phew! That’s a relief! 😉
Paul: “I said, none of this alters climate sensitivity to CO2”
Well, neither does it advance us on the pathway hey
We are very different in digging for clues. While you are probably seeking details of evidence for this way or that, I seeking commitment from the researchers and their followers in various themes and I expect a bit of risk taking in any good work.
Illusions and absolutes go hand in hand. All isms are built on a platform of narrow rhetoric. Truth is only what you make it.
Rising fear of a “one world government” is a bit old hat these days but guess what I’m not referring to the IPCC. Our League of Rights started about the middle of the last century
gavin, that’s brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?
All this global warming is caused by the CO2 in/from tobacco smoke.
Problem solved. Shoot the smokers, & we’ll all be saved.
Gavin – the clues are all in the same place – climate journals. I dig for the ones that support my perspective because my perspective is not sufficiently represented in the media or government. A record low for Arctic sea ice is big news, if Antarctic sea ice reaches a record high – it isn’t news at all. I seek a proper balance of the evidence which isn’t forthcoming from the media or government.
Any suggestions as to who should fund the promotion of an alternative perspective would be welcome, as little or no funding will be forthcoming from government sources.
oooo – didn’t like that even though truthful.
And that’s the BIG problem with both “sides” – lack of a balanced viewpoint. Do we hear “well here’s the pros and cons”. Here’s the argument but here’s why it does not stack up. Nuh !
A balanced viewpoint doesn’t include indulging arrant nonsense either.
So are we going to fund any old idea? Just to create the artificial ambience of a “balanced” perspective.
And a lot of problems with the way governments perceive the sceptics too … as many sound like aaggressive ranters.
“RealClimate.org predicted that no real scientists would show up at this conference.”
“You could have a convention of all the scientists who dispute climate change in a relatively small phone booth.” – director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Whould either of those statements qualify as arrogant nonsense? They are both definitely due to taxpayer indulgence.
“Well, neither does it advance us on the pathway hey”
Of course it does. The pathway laid out by the alarmist is a political one. It is a pathway to socialism, increased taxation, decreased wealth, decreased freedom, and increased power for the socialists. Such a pathway must be fought in both the scientific and political arena. But tell me Gavin, do you talk about not advancing the pathway when Algore makes his blustery speeches. Or is it only advancing the pathway when it meets your agenda, regardless of content. And why bother us with links to Wiki when we all know that the AGW editor is a member of the fraudulent hockey team.
From Gavin’s link.
“No edits to climate change, global warming or any related Wikipedia entry has been touched by ExxonMobil though.”
But frankly, I wouldn’t care if it was the devil that was making the changes. As far as I’m concerned anyone is entitled to correct the disinformation campaign that is being propogated by the alarmists for their own vile ends.
“So are we going to fund any old idea? Just to create the artificial ambience of a “balanced” perspective.”
I didn’t know that the truth of an idea was related to how recently it was contrived.
“And a lot of problems with the way governments perceive the sceptics too … as many sound like aaggressive ranters.”
Do you ever look in the mirror, Luke?
I wonder if there will be video or audio tapes made for distribution on the web?
Why is that government giving billions to fund research in the hoax is not a conflict of interest? who gets the taxes?
Lotta whistlin’ past the graveyard ’round these parts. Another 12 mo. of La Nina and the pitchforks will be raised and the torches lit. Modeler’s will have to hope all the meathooks will be occupied by eco-friendly politicians.
Well,well,well,
Gavin you had an opportunity to attend the conference.YOU were invited!
The perfect opportunity to show up the skeptical attendees with dazzling evidence to support your AGW hypothesis.The opportunity to promote your AGW beliefs to those who maybe are “on the fence” considering the issue of global warming.
Since you are having enough time to post here and in other places.Why not travel the dozen miles to the conference for a couple hours? Maybe you can still get up on the stage and provide some remarks.
Since you and a few other well known AGW believers declined the invitations.It is plain you people do not have the fortitude to go through with your convictions.
Meaning that I can once again use this evidence that prominent AGW believers are in it for the money and fame.NOT the truth.
LOL
“I wonder if there will be video or audio tapes made for distribution on the web?
Why is that government giving billions to fund research in the hoax is not a conflict of interest? who gets the taxes?”
Personal vidoes of the event has been banned for obvious reasons.
I know because a member of my forum is attending the conference and he told me of the restrictions.
“Lotta whistlin’ past the graveyard ’round these parts. Another 12 mo. of La Nina and the pitchforks will be raised and the torches lit. Modeler’s will have to hope all the meathooks will be occupied by eco-friendly politicians.”
It is possible that this cooling trend is 100% caused by the current La-Ninya episode.
Keep that possibility in mind.
Somebody give this momytestnus an elbow hey. Tell him he’s barking up the wrong tree here. “Gavin you had an opportunity to attend the conference.YOU were invited”
For the umpteenth time; wake up!
Indeed, AGW enlightenment does not start or end in the USA
Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!
I am amused at your feeble reply.
Gavin the well educated scientists could not provide a decent reply.So he writes like the irrational man he is.Since when is location of an important science conference important?
You also failed to take note that an INTERNATIONAL representation is present at the conference.From many nations people come to spend a few days in the Big Apple.
Does that mean that both Bali and Kyoto locations provided enlightenment?
Feeble indeed…..
Tilo – “Of course it does. The pathway laid out by the alarmist is a political one. It is a pathway to socialism, increased taxation, decreased wealth, decreased freedom, and increased power for the socialists. Such a pathway must be fought in both the scientific and political arena.”
Actually I don’t think that climate has got anything to do with it and this is the thing that has. The Laissez-faire capitalists versus the ‘socialists’ is what it is about. How dare those evil commies place limits on freedom and democracy and the right of capitalism to rape the planet with no restrictions.
Extremeists like yourself are right up there with Richard Pearl and Islamic extremists who are really just two sides of the same coin.
Me I am firmly in the centre. We have a good balance of socialism in Australia despite the rodents 10 years of trying to dismantle it. We have enough social welfare so that a lot of people do not fall through the cracks but not enough to be stifling like some of the Scandinavian countries.
The problem is that what should be a scientific issue has become political and an extremist like Tilo can equate the scientific issue of global warming with an imagined and imaginary conflict between ideologies.
How the corporations must be laughing. For a few dollars seed money they now have all these people at a conference fighting for their profit margins. Not a bad investment.
Reads like a load of strawmen…
“This dinner kicks off a truly historic event, the first international conference devoted to answering questions overlooked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We’re asking questions such as:
* how reliable are the data used to document the recent warming trend?
* how much of the modern warming is natural, and how much is likely the result of human activities?
* how reliable are the computer models used to forecast future climate conditions? And
* is reducing emissions the best or only response to possible climate change?
Obviously, these are important questions. Yet the IPCC pays little attention to them or hides the large amount of doubt and uncertainty surrounding them. ”
Of course! No one ever thought of asking these VERY SIMPLE questions… Jeepers
“* the honoraria paid to all of the speakers appearing at this conference add up to less than the honorarium Al Gore gets paid for making a single speech, and less than what his company makes selling fake carbon “off-sets” in a week.”
I love this bit. Scientists generally get nothing for attending conferences, but this is ok, as Al Gore gets more…
“Winners don’t exaggerate. Winners don’t lie. Winners don’t appeal to fear or resort to ad hominem attacks. ” What? This is just rhetoric. Winners often do all these things, doesn’t stop them winning.
“Scientific theories are only provisionally true until they are falsified by data that can be better explained by a different theory. And it is by falsifying current theories that scientific knowledge advances, not by consensus.”
I eagerly await the falsification. Or the ‘better’ theory.
Mr T – it’s up to the greenhouse industry to prove the CO2 driven climate catastrophe hypothesis – not the other way round. Your chance Mr T to tell us what observations would falsify climate computer models????
‘Big Oil’ – SHELL – sponsors the Guardian’s International Climate Conference – I guess anything presented at such a conference is a lie because of the sponsor:
http://risingtide.org.uk/pipermail/rt-news/2007/000022.html
(15)SHELL TO SPONSOR THE GUARDIAN’S CLIMATE CONFERENCE, LONDON, 11.6.06
…However, we have recently learned that Shell is to be the major sponsor for The Guardian’s Climate Conference, this summer. This is just the
latest attempt to greenwash the public into forgetting that Shell continues to destroy habitats and livelihoods across the globe. On the one hand the company appears concerned about climate change, while with the other it continues to follow an aggressive policy of increasing its oil extraction. Rising Tide UK is planning appropriate action, possibly involving the ‘Shell’s Wild Lie’ exhibition. You can contact The Guardian to let them know how you feel about this.
Just can’t please the red-greens.
Stupid Ender still believes in socialism..disabuse him Luke.
Luke says there is a “lack of a balanced viewpoint,” he being the epitome of balance.
Now what proof do have that Shell is anything but a great corporate citizen like Exxon Mobil.
We had a recent referendum on the right Rog – wrack orf or we’ll nationalise ya. You’re our bitch now.
Paul, models can’t prove anything. All they can do (as with ALL modelling) is give us an idea of what could happen. Decisions are based on models all time, every time you make a choice you are using a model in your head.
I don’t know what observations could falsify models.
The problem is that the CO2 driven climate catastrophe hypothesis isn’t solely derived from models. Paleoclimatology has plenty of evidence of just that (The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maxima for example)
By the way, what is this “greenhouse industry”?
Mr T what ‘could happen’ on the basis of flawed or incomplete assumptions isn’t good enough.
The greenhouse industry cosnsists of all those who are benefiting professionally, politically or financially, or all 3, by promoting an unverifiable future global warming catastrophe and the ‘solutions’ for avoiding the ‘catastrophe.’
Dear Jan, “Truth is only what you make it.”
For those of us not lost in the post-modern-vapor, a plane flies or it doesn’t. You can thank the scientific process when it does. Figuring out the flawed motivations of researchers is a deep well to nothingness. Ultimately, you can never KNOW what someone’s motivations are. But you can measure the temperature. And it isn’t rising.
Sorry Jan, That would be, Dear Gavin, “truth-is-what-you-make-it”…
Joanne: The above throwaway line comes after ‘You can be what you want to be’.
I came to that conclusion after regularly watching a lady grow baby neurone webs in a Petri dish at our local uni.
Climate change isn’t only about temperature rise. We live in one of the most drought affected regions in the country (see latest BoM rainfall anomaly map). Every day I watch something in the garden die after giving up sprinkling several years ago. Being a practical observer I did that so I’ll know what survives as we go further down the track. I also use a couple of thermometers often enough to know BoM temp records for our location don’t tell the whole story.
The practice of building independent references is something I learned a long time ago in industry, research, politics, thinking…
On the question of motivation there has been a discussion on ABC local radio today about who best represents the “working class” in the USA in the lead up to party nominations i.e. Ohio etc. IMO the concept of class in a modern society is particularly bothering.
Something I’ve been meaning to ask Tilo and others who see fit to hijack the debate into the depths of green left politics v the world at large, are we missing a class struggle back home in the US?
Tilo: Who do you represent hey?
“Every day I watch something in the garden die after giving up sprinkling several years ago.”
Shocking! I’m sure that such things never happened before man set his filthy feet on the earth.
The biomass of the earth is increasing Gavin – thanks to the extra CO2 and a very small amount of extra warmth.
And remember the supposed feedback factor from CO2 forcing. That is suppose to come from more moisture in the atmosphere. And that is also good for plants.
Droughts have been regional events forever. I’m really not interested in listening to people cry about it. If you want absolute control of the climate of your garden, put a greenhouse around it.
“I’m really not interested in listening to people cry about it” says it all
“I’m really not interested in listening to people cry about it” says it all
It does indeed. Crying never helps the situation, it does not advance the science, it does not cure the problem, building a glass house might.
Paul, the future is unpredictable, we have moved past Newton. You cannot demand from climate modelling what you know you can’t get.
It seems to me that your obsession with this apparent ‘profiteering’ is what is distracting you. You don’t seem to mind when people use models and ‘profiteer’ when it comes to studies into, say, paramagnetism do you? You argument isn’t based on science, it’s political. This Blog should just be a political blog.
You don’t dispute the paleoclimate examples of ‘climate catastrophe’ then? All you dispute are models of the future? I would say that nothing will ever convince you.
“It is possible that this cooling trend is 100% caused by the current La-Ninya episode.”
The La Nina is a big contributor, but it wouldn’t do the trick by itself if we were not already close to flat. Also remember that the 07 down trend started well before the La Nina. Although I agree that it was La Nina that made it so dramatic in the end. Looks like the La Nina is breaking up now. It will be interesting to see what the magnitude of the rebound is.
“Tilo: Who do you represent hey?”
I represent me. I suppose that claiming to represent everyone, or “the working class” is another way of grabing power. By the way, who is “the working class”. Everyone that I know works. I don’t see any parties representing people who work as opposed to some other party representing people who don’t work. It’s really just a political fiction.
A beautiful, inspiring, hard-headed, well-documented and thoroughly rewarding speech by Joseph Bast!
I am also encouraged by comments here assailing him. None of those comments are credible, or meaningful. They’re not even arguments, just ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ In short, fools strutting and fretting upon the stage.
Kudos to The Heartland Institute for this excellent convention.
Ender
“Actually I don’t think that climate has got anything to do with it and this is the thing that has.”
You are right. The climate has nothing to do with anything political. But the left has found it a very convinient lever to use in the quest for more control, more money, more power.
“The Laissez-faire capitalists versus the ‘socialists’ is what it is about.”
Yes, your hatred of capitalism places you in very refined company. Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Moussolini, Fidel Castro, and Mao Tse-Tung all hated capitalism intensly.
“How dare those evil commies place limits on freedom and democracy and the right of capitalism to rape the planet with no restrictions.”
Isn’t it interesting that after the Soviet Union fell they left behind an ecological disaster in Eastern Europe. Once socialists gain absolute power they no longer need to pretend to care about the environment.
“Extremeists like yourself are right up there with Richard Pearl and Islamic extremists who are really just two sides of the same coin.”
Well, you’ve got me Ender. A statement so incoherent that it leaves me speechless.
“We have a good balance of socialism in Australia despite the rodents 10 years of trying to dismantle it.”
Apparently you don’t understand that there is no such place as too far to the left for any leftist. It’s an endless process of convincing people that they need to have the government do more things for them and that they need to be in power to do those things. With each new thing that the governmet provides, another new thing must be brought along. Election depends on the promise of more and more freebies. The left cannot stop the process, because it is all that ever get’s them elected.
“The problem is that what should be a scientific issue has become political and an extremist like Tilo can equate the scientific issue of global warming with an imagined and imaginary conflict between ideologies.”
I would have been only to happy to have politics be out of the climate issue. But it is the left that put politics squarely into the issue. You have to be blind not to understand that they see it as a unique opportunity to increase their power. The whole chain is so glaringly obvious. A. The sky is falling, the sky is falling. B. You are responsible for the sky falling. C. If you give me your money and if you obey me I will allow you to live in my sky shelter + I will alleviate all of your horrible guilt.
“How the corporations must be laughing.”
I’m sure that Algore’s carbon trading company is in stitches all of the time.
Tilo, you seem to be suffering from what is commonly know as paranoia.
“But the left has found it a very convinient lever to use in the quest for more control, more money, more power.”
This is the funniest thing I have read today. Very funny paranoid ravings! Where’s your evidence?
What control? What money? What power?
And who is “the left”?
Who are these shady people trying to control the world?
Oh heavens… You should be a script writer.
Mr T: We have a brats inc “saving” the heartland
And thank goodness for them ‘saving’ it!
Mr T – don’t you love the sheer nuttiness of our American friends here (aka sepos) – they’re right into all the commie conspiracy stuff in a big way – they’re so depressed that the cold war is over that they need another cause to rail on about. Shooting up the Middle East gives them some solace. And good banjo teachers are getting harder to find too.
And also they love to lecture us on democracy when most of them don’t vote and the guy with the least votes wins the Presidency. And you can buy your way into office if you’re well heeled and connected enough. Incredible. Bloody sepos.
Luke, you mean, like, Hillary?
“What control?”
Control of what you drive, and how much you drive. Control of what kind of house you live in. For example, the government of California is proposing that all new houses be built with thermostats that they can remotely control, and that cannot be disabled by the owner of the home. You can be sure that is only the beginning.
“What money?”
Are you living in a cave? Google “global warming tax” and “carbon credits”
“What power?”
“Elect me and I will save you from global warming.” Any time you can ride on the back of a cause you can use it to gain power – regardless of the illigitinacy of the cause.
Frankly, I don’t believe that you don’t already know all of this T. You are obviously just playing sophist games. No doubt because you want a socialist government and because you also see AGW as a path to that end. I don’t believe for one second that you actually lie awake at night worrying about global climate catastrophies.
ooooo – socialism —- ooooo
I guess in the US you can buy your democracy if you have the “cash”.
If you do lie awake it’s probably worrying about the next bout of reckless military adventurism the US will lead us into cheered on by yahoos like the Grim Reber.
Schiller, did you read Michaels speech?
http://www.reason.com/news/show/125281.html
“Michaels pointed out that the surface records show average global temperatures increasing at a steady rate of +0.17 degrees centigrade per decade since 1977. He also hastened to put the kibosh on recent assertions that “global warming stopped in 1998.” While global average temperatures have been essentially flat since 1998, Michaels argued that natural variations in the climate mask any increases due to greenhouse gases. In particular, cooler waters in the Pacific (“La Nina”) and lower solar activity have conspired to drop average global temperatures. When these trends reverse, average global temperatures will rapidly rise to reveal the established long term man-made warming trend of +0.17 degrees centigrade per decade. Michaels warned against succumbing to the temptation to cite current flattened global temperatures as evidence against man-made global warming.”
” Michaels warned against succumbing to the temptation to cite current flattened global temperatures as evidence against man-made global warming.”
I don’t think I’d be citing it as proof of man-made global warming either.
Jan
“Michaels pointed out that the surface records show average global temperatures increasing at a steady rate of +0.17 degrees centigrade per decade since 1977. He also hastened to put the kibosh on recent assertions that “global warming stopped in 1998…..Michaels argued that natural variations in the climate mask any increases due to greenhouse gases. ”
To be accurate, 1998 remains the year of the highest instrumentally measured global average temperature.
Michaels was referring to the long term trend, not cherry picking individual years.
Michaels argued that natural variations in the climate mask any increases due to greenhouse gases. ”
But I note he failed to show it. Going on the short recent history
the 06/07 El Nino did not show the recovery he expects following this La Nina which is turning out to be significantly cooler than the one that followed the 97/78 El Nino. It certainly does not suggest a continuing upward trend.
Michaels pointed out that the surface records show average global temperatures increasing at a steady rate of +0.17 degrees centigrade per decade since 1977
Too short, cherry picking, now the long term secular trend since the Holocence optimum is?
Jan the long term trend was downward. We have a short up stroke now.
Mr T:the long term trend was downward. We have a short up stroke now.
there have been lots of upstrokes during that long term downward trend what makes you think this one id different. It’s is not much larger if at all that the medieval warm period it is certainly not as high as the Roman warm period. Currently we can’t even be sure it will be sustained it certainly hasn’t been for the past decade.
Hi Jan, still no sunspots, I wonder how much influence that has on the ENSO? La Ninas around the current depth appear to have lasted at least 18 months, I expect this one will last thru 2008 but then I’m no expert.
Hi Gavin, have you done a critique of McClenney’s piece? If u ain’t seen it yet it is linked from Icecap;
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/the_sky_is_falling_or_revising_the_nine_times_rule
“CO2 is predicted to double in concentration from about 0.04% to 0.08% in the next 300 years.
Should we be worried? Taking all concentration and thermal conductivity data and doing the math, if we take and double something (CO2) at a trace concentration which has two thirds the thermal conductance that the vast majority of the atmosphere has, this will increase the total atmospheric thermal conductivity by about 0.03%.”
How about Miskolczi’s, “runaway warming is impossible”?
If you’ve attended to them already, links would be appreciated.