Heaven and Earth is an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence. Read more here.
Reader Interactions
Comments
SJTsays
“”To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable – human-induced CO2 – is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science.””
Plimer has completely misunderstood and misrepresented the case for AGW.
Ron Pikesays
SJT,
Unless you can support your claim: “Pilmer has completely misunderstood and misrepresented the case forAGW,” you lack any credibility.
I doubt you have read the book.
Have you?
It is time to open your mind to differing opinions based on facts and time to drop the unsubstantiated, sweeping statements.
Pikey.
SJTsays
”To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable – human-induced CO2 – is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science.”
Climate change has not been reduced to one variable, CO2. That is either sheer ignorance, or a lie. The IPCC documents clearly list the forcings they consider. The other forcings are not as active at present as CO2 is.
They do not ‘predict the future’ on just one variable. Once again, sheer ignorance, or a lie.
Solar activities are considered as a driver of climate change. Ignorance, or a lie.
SJTsays
I wonder about people like Kininmonth and Plimer. They know how science works, far better than I do. Yet they avoid the scientific process and go straight for the popular approach, publishing books and articles in the press. If they have something to say, on such an important scientific topic as this, let them publish it in a serious scientific journal. They also make claims which are patently wrong. Anyone can read the IPCC reports and see that the claims made in this topic are dead wrong.
James Mayeausays
Numerous rigorous scientists have joined Plimer in dissenting from the prevailing orthodoxy.
Including the original scientist, whom the IPCC derived their othodoxy from.
By 1904, Arrhenius became concerned with rapid increases in anthropogenic carbon emissions and recognized that “the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may, by the advances of industry, be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries.” He eventually made the suggestion that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to the burning of fossil fuels could be beneficial, making the Earth’s climates “more equable,” stimulating plant growth, and providing more food for a larger population. This view differs radically from current concerns over the harmful effects of a global warming caused by industrial emissions and deforestation.
Even Svante Arrhenius pegged the IPCC as full of it, and he did it a hundred years ahead of us.
James Mayeausays
Interesting highlights from Arrhenius’ page, he attributed 21 degrees Celsius of global warming to the 280 ppm and 10 degrees C to water vapor.
Now we have another 100 ppm which might or might not have raised the temp a wholloping 0.5 C (depending on natural variability and the vagueness of measurements).
Gives a numerically quantified indication of the duplicity of AGW advocating IPCC, and like minded folk.
SJTsays
“Including the original scientist, whom the IPCC derived their othodoxy from. ”
You have no idea, do you? Arrhenius was the orthodoxy until the US research into infra red radiation in the ’60s raised some interesting questions. The IPCC stance was the radical break from the orthodoxy. Much of the ‘skepticism’ these days is the last remnants of scientists clinging to that old orthodoxy.
Read Weart’s history of CO2, and get your facts right.
James Mayeausays
Arrhenius is still the orthodoxy, only now he’s freshly tossed under the bus.
Lets have an article on Revelle next.
spangled drongosays
“Much of the ’skepticism’ these days is the last remnants of scientists clinging to that old orthodoxy.”
SJT,
“Natural systems are far more complex than computer models.”
Do you think that this could influence where most scepticism comes from?
Slightly more aware people not being up themselves to the point where they don’t know what they don’t know?
SJTsays
First of all, before we start moving goal posts, you accept my point? Plimer and the rest are merely stuck on the old orthodoxy.
Louis Hissinksays
SJT,
You will study this extract from Nature magazine and get it into your patently thick skull that peer review is a seriously flawed system – Sir John Maddox also said that he never sent Fred Hoyle’s papers to Nature for peer review because they would not get published. Also note the DNA reference below.
Peer review is the means by which the current orthodoxy is maintained.
In Memoriam – Sir John Maddox
In memory of a transformative editor of Nature.
Philip Campbell
It was with great sadness that I and my colleagues at Nature learned of the death on Sunday of Sir John Maddox — or ‘JM’, as his colleagues always referred to him.
There was puzzlement, too. Yes, John had been looking frail recently, but, well, this was JM — the perpetually restless, irresistible, unstoppable force. The editor who conducted some gatherings with ‘shock and awe’ as some recall. The ‘man with a whim of iron’ as others used to call him. And the man who survived countless cigarettes and glasses of red wine, many consumed late into the night as he wrote the week’s Editorials at the last possible moment.
Full tributes to him will appear in next week’s issue (see http://www.nature.com/jm), but it is appropriate promptly to recall (JM never split an infinitive) some of the highlights of his time at Nature. He first took the reins as the editor of Nature in 1966. He was the fourth editor — the journal was founded in 1869, and his predecessors had lengthy stints, the first, Norman Lockyer, being in charge for 50 years. John served until 1973, when he was succeeded by David Davies. He then returned in 1980, and I succeeded him in December 1995.
It was during his first stint that he laid the foundations for Nature as it is today. Importantly (JM liked to start sentences with adverbs), he threw aside the highly informal and somewhat crony-based system for selecting papers and established a system of peer review. A characteristically readable account of this can be found in his valedictory Essay in his last issue (see Nature 378, 521–523; 1995).
This move was not without his own reservations — he liked to say that the 1953 paper on the structure of DNA would never have passed peer review. He never lost his distrust of such refereeing as an obstacle to the truly original, and occasionally dispensed with it altogether during his first stint as editor.
RJTsays
If you have not already done so then read Paul Shean’s article on page 11 of today’s (11/04/08) SMH. Thank god someone is talking sense and showing more scientific know how more than the Bullshit we are being fed. All we need to do now is to get someone to listen.
I’m off to buy the book.
MAGBsays
I’m half-way through the book and now conclude that anyone who continues to support the IPCC position is making a political statement. Plimer’s book is an intellectual tour de force and compulsory reading for anyone interested in the subject.
Nuke A. Whalesays
Who can somebody criticized Plimer’s work and in the same post uphold Weart’s books on CO2 as scientific? Do you also think “Jurrasic Park” is a documentary?
Science is a funny thing. It only takes one fact to overturn a theory. There are many facts which contradict the IPCC, but that doesn’t stop its dubious conclusions from being accepted by the gullible and illiterate.
Stephen Thomassays
Is this the right room for an argument?
OH, I’m sorry, but this is abuse. You want room 12A, just along the corridor.
SJT says
“”To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable – human-induced CO2 – is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science.””
Plimer has completely misunderstood and misrepresented the case for AGW.
Ron Pike says
SJT,
Unless you can support your claim: “Pilmer has completely misunderstood and misrepresented the case forAGW,” you lack any credibility.
I doubt you have read the book.
Have you?
It is time to open your mind to differing opinions based on facts and time to drop the unsubstantiated, sweeping statements.
Pikey.
SJT says
”To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable – human-induced CO2 – is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science.”
Climate change has not been reduced to one variable, CO2. That is either sheer ignorance, or a lie. The IPCC documents clearly list the forcings they consider. The other forcings are not as active at present as CO2 is.
They do not ‘predict the future’ on just one variable. Once again, sheer ignorance, or a lie.
Solar activities are considered as a driver of climate change. Ignorance, or a lie.
SJT says
I wonder about people like Kininmonth and Plimer. They know how science works, far better than I do. Yet they avoid the scientific process and go straight for the popular approach, publishing books and articles in the press. If they have something to say, on such an important scientific topic as this, let them publish it in a serious scientific journal. They also make claims which are patently wrong. Anyone can read the IPCC reports and see that the claims made in this topic are dead wrong.
James Mayeau says
Numerous rigorous scientists have joined Plimer in dissenting from the prevailing orthodoxy.
Including the original scientist, whom the IPCC derived their othodoxy from.
Link from earthobservatory’s Arrhenius tribute page” via Watts Up With That.
Even Svante Arrhenius pegged the IPCC as full of it, and he did it a hundred years ahead of us.
James Mayeau says
Interesting highlights from Arrhenius’ page, he attributed 21 degrees Celsius of global warming to the 280 ppm and 10 degrees C to water vapor.
Now we have another 100 ppm which might or might not have raised the temp a wholloping 0.5 C (depending on natural variability and the vagueness of measurements).
Gives a numerically quantified indication of the duplicity of AGW advocating IPCC, and like minded folk.
SJT says
“Including the original scientist, whom the IPCC derived their othodoxy from. ”
You have no idea, do you? Arrhenius was the orthodoxy until the US research into infra red radiation in the ’60s raised some interesting questions. The IPCC stance was the radical break from the orthodoxy. Much of the ‘skepticism’ these days is the last remnants of scientists clinging to that old orthodoxy.
Read Weart’s history of CO2, and get your facts right.
James Mayeau says
Arrhenius is still the orthodoxy, only now he’s freshly tossed under the bus.
Lets have an article on Revelle next.
spangled drongo says
“Much of the ’skepticism’ these days is the last remnants of scientists clinging to that old orthodoxy.”
SJT,
“Natural systems are far more complex than computer models.”
Do you think that this could influence where most scepticism comes from?
Slightly more aware people not being up themselves to the point where they don’t know what they don’t know?
SJT says
First of all, before we start moving goal posts, you accept my point? Plimer and the rest are merely stuck on the old orthodoxy.
Louis Hissink says
SJT,
You will study this extract from Nature magazine and get it into your patently thick skull that peer review is a seriously flawed system – Sir John Maddox also said that he never sent Fred Hoyle’s papers to Nature for peer review because they would not get published. Also note the DNA reference below.
Peer review is the means by which the current orthodoxy is maintained.
In Memoriam – Sir John Maddox
In memory of a transformative editor of Nature.
Philip Campbell
It was with great sadness that I and my colleagues at Nature learned of the death on Sunday of Sir John Maddox — or ‘JM’, as his colleagues always referred to him.
There was puzzlement, too. Yes, John had been looking frail recently, but, well, this was JM — the perpetually restless, irresistible, unstoppable force. The editor who conducted some gatherings with ‘shock and awe’ as some recall. The ‘man with a whim of iron’ as others used to call him. And the man who survived countless cigarettes and glasses of red wine, many consumed late into the night as he wrote the week’s Editorials at the last possible moment.
Full tributes to him will appear in next week’s issue (see http://www.nature.com/jm), but it is appropriate promptly to recall (JM never split an infinitive) some of the highlights of his time at Nature. He first took the reins as the editor of Nature in 1966. He was the fourth editor — the journal was founded in 1869, and his predecessors had lengthy stints, the first, Norman Lockyer, being in charge for 50 years. John served until 1973, when he was succeeded by David Davies. He then returned in 1980, and I succeeded him in December 1995.
It was during his first stint that he laid the foundations for Nature as it is today. Importantly (JM liked to start sentences with adverbs), he threw aside the highly informal and somewhat crony-based system for selecting papers and established a system of peer review. A characteristically readable account of this can be found in his valedictory Essay in his last issue (see Nature 378, 521–523; 1995).
This move was not without his own reservations — he liked to say that the 1953 paper on the structure of DNA would never have passed peer review. He never lost his distrust of such refereeing as an obstacle to the truly original, and occasionally dispensed with it altogether during his first stint as editor.
RJT says
If you have not already done so then read Paul Shean’s article on page 11 of today’s (11/04/08) SMH. Thank god someone is talking sense and showing more scientific know how more than the Bullshit we are being fed. All we need to do now is to get someone to listen.
I’m off to buy the book.
MAGB says
I’m half-way through the book and now conclude that anyone who continues to support the IPCC position is making a political statement. Plimer’s book is an intellectual tour de force and compulsory reading for anyone interested in the subject.
Nuke A. Whale says
Who can somebody criticized Plimer’s work and in the same post uphold Weart’s books on CO2 as scientific? Do you also think “Jurrasic Park” is a documentary?
Science is a funny thing. It only takes one fact to overturn a theory. There are many facts which contradict the IPCC, but that doesn’t stop its dubious conclusions from being accepted by the gullible and illiterate.
Stephen Thomas says
Is this the right room for an argument?
OH, I’m sorry, but this is abuse. You want room 12A, just along the corridor.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/