you do realize that there is no doubt in any credible scientists mind that co2 does drive temperature the only question is how much and how much its either amplified or reduced by other effects eg take that very good finnish documentary that was posted earlier none of the scientists from the other side of the fence ever tried to prove that co2 isnt linked to temperature

A good review of the right-wing media's coverage of "Climategate". Doesn't hold all the answers, but it does introduce some perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg

I've put myself down for 'reasonably suspicious'. It was a toss up between moderately suspicious and reasonable, although I'm very suspicious of certain elements of AGW as well. I probably chose reasonable because I think it is reasonable to hold a sceptical position (I liked the word better I guess). One thing I really dislike about climate politics as that all sceptics, even reasonable ones, tend to get lumped in with the Glenn Becks and such, labled flat earthers etc.. just because they're curious or brave enough to ask specific questions which may be unsettling to the more confident and passionate proponents of AGW. I started off as an AGW believer and became more sceptical as I went along. One thing which should be noted is that there are different degrees of thinking on AGW, from relatively harmless effects (mostly local influences, not all due to increased CO2) all the way up to CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming).

Climatology is a multi-disciplined science. As a non-scientist, I do struggle with the physics side. I accept (@ shot above) that CO2 has a warming effect (@ about 2 degrees F per doubling). I understand that this is non-controversial. By itself though the effect of CO2 is not enough to warrant real concern in regards to warming, you need strong positive feedbacks as well to invoke the kinds of futures Al Gore and others are warning about. Here I am more open minded but I'm tending towards a neutral or a slight negative feedback in the real atmosphere, referring to Richard Lindzen's work on this (I am very suspicious of current computer modeling of climate- it's hubris as far as I'm concerned). I am confident that we will learn more in time.

Paleoclimatology, atleast as practiced by the Briffa's and the Mann's, I'm very suspicious of, or basically a denier. (booooo!) Without the hockeysticks, it's pretty difficult to say that there has been an unprecedented warming in the 20th C due to CO2.

For me, the two things which really need to be focused on to bring renewed confidence in the science of global warming are the main historical temperature records (also moderate to very suspicious) and the issue of general transparency in climate science. The next few years will be very interesting and I think that the sceptics will ultimately be able to prove that a certain amount of fudging of data has been going on to enhance late 20th C warming in the temp records. The climategate prompted calls for more transparency and greater inclusiveness are very positive steps and should hopefully help to break down the barriers between the 'scientists' and the 'deniers' as Nature so eloquently put it. Maybe GW/AGW will become less politicised as people learn to stop calling each other names and instead learn to focus on the science instead. This sounds reasonable but people are people, so who knows.

edit: I've added a list of claims and responses about sceptics by Roy Spencer which I happen to agree with.

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1. Skeptics deny global warming. No, we deny that warming has been mostly human-caused.

2. Skeptics are paid by big oil. The vast majority of skeptics have never been paid anything by Big Oil (me included).

3. Skeptics don’t publish in the peer reviewed literature. Wrong…but it is true we do not have nearly as many publications as the other side does. But it only takes one scientific study to destroy a scientific hypothesis, which is what anthropogenic global warming theory is.

4. Skeptics are not unified with an alternative explanation for global warming. Well, that’s the way science works in a field as immature as climate change science. The biggest problem is that we really don’t understand what causes natural climate variability. Kevin Trenberth has now famously admitted as much in one of the Climategate emails, where said it’s a “travesty” that we don’t know why warming has stopped in the last 7 to 10 years. For century-time-scale changes, some believe it is cloud cover being modulated by cosmic ray activity, which is in turn affected by sunspot activity. A few others think it is changes in the total energy output of the sun (possible, but I personally doubt it). In my opinion, it is internal, chaotic variability in the ocean and atmosphere circulation causing small changes in cloud cover. Since clouds are a natural sunshade, changing their coverage of the Earth will cause warming or cooling. The IPCC simply assumes this does not happen. If they did, they would have to admit that natural climate change happens, which means they would have to address the possibility that most of the warming in the last 50 has been largely natural in origin.

5. But the glaciers are melting! Many glaciers which have been monitored around the world for a long time have been retreating since the 1800’s, before humans could have been responsible. A few retreating glaciers are even revealing old tree stumps…how did those get there? Planted by skeptics?

6. But the sea ice is melting! Well, the same thing happened back in the 1920’s and 1930’s, with the Northwest Passage opening up in 1940. It was just as warm, or nearly as warm, in the Arctic in the 1930’s. Again, this is before humans could be blamed. There were very low water levels in the Great Lakes in the 1920’s too, just as has happened recently. We have accurate measurements of sea ice cover from satellites only since 1979, so there is no way to really know whether sea ice cover is less than it was before.

7. But we just had the warmest decade in recorded history! Well, if thermometer measurements had started in, say 200, AD (rather than in the 1800’s), and it was now 850 AD, the same thing might well have been said back then. The climate system is always warming or cooling, and the Industrial Revolution (and thus our carbon dioxide emissions) just happened to occur while we were still emerging from the Little Ice Age…a warming period.

8. But the Antarctic ice shelves are collapsing! Well, sea ice around Antarctica has been expanding since we started monitoring by satellite in 1979….so which do we use as evidence? There is no convincing evidence of warming in Antarctica, except in the relatively small Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out into the ocean. Just as glaciers naturally flow to the sea, ice shelves must eventually break off. It is very uncertain how often this happens through the centuries, and what has been observed in recent years might be entirely normal. Similarly, it was warmer in Greenland in the 1930’s than it has been more recently.

9. But the sea levels are rising! Yes, and from what we can tell, they have been rising since the end of the last Ice Age. Again, the more recent rise might be just a consequence of our emergence from the Little Ice Age, which bottomed out in the 1600’s.

10. But we keep emitting carbon dioxide, which we know is a greenhouse gas! Yes, I agree. But the direct warming effect of moré CO2 is agreed by all to be small…and I predict that when we better understand how clouds change in response to that small warming influence, the net warming in response to more CO2 will be smaller still. This is the “feedback” issue, which determines “climate sensitivity”, the area of research I spend most of my time on. I and a minority of other scientists believe the net feedbacks in the climate system are negative, probably driven by negative cloud feedback. In contrast, all twenty-something IPCC climate models now exhibit positive cloud feedback.

11. But we can’t keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere forever! No, and we won’t. Assuming fossil fuels will be increasingly difficult to find and access in the coming decades, the continuing demand for energy ensures that new energy technologies will be developed. It’s what humans do…adapt.

12. But we shouldn’t be interfering with nature! Actually, it would be impossible to NOT interfere with nature. Chaos theory tells us that everything that happens, naturally or anthropogenically, forever alters the future state of the climate system. I predict that science will eventually understand that more CO2 is good for life on Earth. This doesn’t mean it will be good for every single species…but when Mother Nature changes the climate system, there are always winners and losers anyway. In the end, this is a religious issue, not a scientific one. Interestingly I have found that the vast majority of scientists also have the religious belief that we should not be impacting nature. I believe this has negatively affected their scientific objectivity.

Quote from SamH :

A good review of the right-wing media's coverage of "Climategate". Doesn't hold all the answers, but it does introduce some perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg

"its a hoax and i know it because liberals are behind it" great journalism right there and im sure the drop in iq scores in the american south is one we can fully account for thanks to fox

as for the rest of the video im sure some of you will finally see that what ive been saying about blowing this whole thing way out of proportion was right on the money


btw something interesting to get a broader perspective on the whole greenhouse issue is to read into the faint young sun paradox

Quote from Shotglass :

"its a hoax and i know it because liberals are behind it" great journalism right there and im sure the drop in iq scores in the american south is one we can fully account for thanks to fox

as for the rest of the video im sure some of you will finally see that what ive been saying about blowing this whole thing way out of proportion was right on the money

By mainly focusing on what the hard right has been saying on climategate the video hardly leaves any room for any kind of real or meaningful analysis of the subject. It's a good 'trick' if you want to make any opposing side look stupid and uninformed, just stick a microphone in front of the bloviating extremist. The video failed to come to any kind of understanding about the 'hide the decline' email. I've already posted a good link which covers this in depth. You can learn even more by visiting Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit website and researching the relevent topics there.

Of course those right wing gasbaggers blow everything out of proportion. But the video has chosen to focus on two out of 1000 emails and other data to infer a similar conclusion. There is lots of room between 'blown all out of proportion' and 'liberals are behind the conspiracy of the millenium' or however you would like to simplify things. I thought we were learning something here...

Sam I watched that video it was indeed a fresh perspective but I think the narrator doesn't really understand the importance of the more damning aspects of the emails, even if they are innocent as he claims. Obviously one could go around and read all the scientific journals that he cites and come to the conclusion that AGW skeptics (scientist types who actually do research) have come to and that is CO2 is not linked to warming and therefore not man-made. I for one believe this. The problem is science is extremely boring. Trying to win an argument against AGW alarmists using science that disproves the hockey stick graph is impossible, so we need this "conspiracy" to reveal to the impressionable public that the touted armageddon-style global warming is a lie designed to persuade countries to throw trillions of dollars at. And obviously someone is going to get all that money.

Actually with this carbon credit thing its pretty obvious that copenhagen is designed to take money away from the developed world and give it to developing countries (which is very strange seeing as if they became fully developed they would increase their CO2 output, thereby contributing to the very warming AGW alarmists are trying to prevent) Then again it never really was about the environment now was it.

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im sure the drop in iq scores in the american south is one we can fully account for thanks to fox

That's extremely offensive. I live in the American south. All Germans are Nazis who kill Jews, btw.

People who call Americans dumb clearly have never been to America!

Quote from Electrik Kar :

The video failed to come to any kind of understanding about the 'hide the decline' email. I've already posted a good link which covers this in depth. You can learn even more by visiting Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit website and researching the relevent topics there.

the video made it entirely clear that the whole hide the decline thing was about the proxy data which by design is rather flawed anyway
as for that link of yours there its extremely badly written to the point that i gave up half way through (that its worded in a way that makes it abundantly clear he has completely made uo his mind didnt help either) but more importantly its clearly been written by someone whos never had any education in statistics and plotting

lets look at this example which basically disproves the vast majority of his claims
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/images/fig2-21.gif
first of all the whole hiding the medieval warming and little ice age thing
if you actually look at the gray area of the graph which by the looks of it must be the standard deviation of the poxy data you can see that its much much larger than any warming or iceage as seen in this graph http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/images/l1_mobergnh2.gif
(hint: the plot not showing the standard deviation for data as non definitive as proxy data is a pretty clear indication of a rubbish graph that says almost nothing)
so again looking at the gray area you can see that you could pretty much draw any curve into that area (including the supposedly correct one on the co2science site) and theyd all be correct given the data

secondly theres the supposed sharp decline in the proxy data that isnt mirrored by the actual temperature measurments yet if you actually look at it it all agrees rather well within the gray area

Quote from flymike91 :

That's extremely offensive. I live in the American south.

what makes you think i care about offending someone whos proven my point entirely by doubting that co2 is a greenhouse gas (science that any elementary school kid understands and noone with any bit of credibility doubts) and that science is "extremely boring"

Quote from flymike91 :

That's extremely offensive. I live in the American south. All Germans are Nazis who kill Jews, btw.

Pffffffft, Florida doesn't count as the South. Everyone knows it's a suburb of NYC.

(I lived in the West Palm area for 24 years.)

Anyway, didn't you live in Cali last year?

Quote :

so again looking at the gray area you can see that you could pretty much draw any curve into that area (including the supposedly correct one on the co2science site) and theyd all be correct given the data

Which means we're basically looking at a rorschach test. Given the weighting that the IPCC has given these paleo reconstructions (front cover, etc) I would be concerned at the other evidence on offer. I give no value of authenticity to the co2science graph, but it does in fact show a period during the MWP where temps were higher than today. The first graph you posted, doesn't show this even within the rather large range of uncertainty (the year 2000 is still higher than any point on the graph). So I don't agree with your statement that

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the looks of it must be the standard deviation of the poxy data you can see that its much much larger than any warming or iceage as seen in this graph

But anyway, this doesn't have anything to do with 'Mikes Nature Trick'. Since you won't read the article I posted, and yes it was written by a journalist and not a scientist (again, please see McIntyre), I've posted the relevent section below. This is the only journalistic attempt I've seen to date which has actually carried out a proper investigation on this. Everybody else has brushed the comment off by parroting a variation of Gavin Shmidt's initial response that 'trick' should simply be understood as 'a good way to to deal with a problem'. There's more to it than that.

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Trick or Cheat Now we’ll take a closer look at exactly what Jones meant when he wrote that he had “just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
Why did Jones refer to the ruse as“Mike’s Nature Trick?”
As die-hard Hockey Team opponents and fans alike already know – the original 600-year version of the now infamous “Hockey-Stick” graph was dubbed MBH98 because it first appeared in the Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes paper Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing Over the Past Six Centuries [PDF], originally published in the science journal Nature in 1998. And “Mike’s Nature Trick” received its dubious designation among CRU insiders for the very same reason.
As to the rest of the sentence — It seems Jones was working on a cover chart for a forthcoming World Meteorological Organization report [PDF], WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999, when he wrote the email. As the graph would incorporate one reconstruction of his own plus one each from Michael Mann and Keith Briffa, he was informing them that he had used the trick on Mann’s series at the same 1980 cutoff as MBH98, but found it necessary to use 1960 as the cutoff on the Briffa series.
And what I uncovered in the source code told the tale why. While Mann used multiple proxy sources, Briffa’s reconstructions were based solely on a property of annual tree ring growth known as maximum latewood density (MXD). And the MXD-only-driven plots began to diverge from actual temperatures as early as 1960. In fact, while many of CRU’s programs are designed to exclude all data after 1960 for later manual splicing with instrumental data, others employ “fudge factors” to force the generated plot to more closely adhere to measured temperatures as far back as 1930.
And as you’ll soon see, Jones’s admitted use of MNT took it to an entirely new level of fraud.
Here’s the original reconstruction, with the three proxy and measured temperature (black) series intact:

Notice how Briffa’s series (green) begins to trend sharply downward around the mid-20th Century. Jones’s series (red) soon follows but less sharply and then begins to trend higher. Mann’s (blue) appears to flatten out around the same year that Jones’s begins to fall. Meanwhile, all three have broken with the measured rising temperatures of the late 20th Century.
Now take a look at the chart actually published by the WMO, with all three proxy series having been surreptitiously subjected to MNT:

Since the release of CRU’s FOI2009, alarmists have continued their claim that there’s nothing deceptive about the “trick” and that it has been openly discussed in scientific journals like Nature since 1998.
But I defy anyone to compare the above chart – the one Jones wrote he had applied MNT to – to the unadulterated version above it, and tell me there’s been no deception committed. At least with MBH98, a sharp eye might recognize the ruse. Here — there is no indication given whatsoever that the graph represents an amalgam of proxy and measured temperatures. This, my friends, is fraud.

Quote :

the video made it entirely clear that the whole hide the decline thing was about the proxy data which by design is rather flawed anyway

But is it clear to policy makers? Especially since, going by that chart they will have no idea where the proxy data ends and the real temps begin?

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Which means we're basically looking at a rorschach test.

no were just looking at data reconstructed from proxies which comes with a natural uncertainty
basically what youre saying is any science that bases itself on fossile records is hokus pokus

Quote :

I give no value of authenticity to the co2science graph, but it does in fact show a period during the MWP where temps were higher than today. The first graph you posted, doesn't show this even within the rather large range of uncertainty (the year 2000 is still higher than any point on the graph). So I don't agree with your statement that

look at the graphs again
the first one has a confidence interval of roughly 1-1.2 °C while the second one has an overall span of about 0.8-0.9 °C which lies well within the confidence interval of the first

given the graphs and their apparent honesty about how much or little they actually know about the data presented im inclined to assume that the first one (which on some of the data does show the same trend as the second one) is the result of a broader averaging resulting in a better guess for global mean temperature (this view is supported by the full hemisphere reconstruction being a lot flatter presumably thanks to being less influenced by local climate than the other proxy series in the graph)

Quote :

again, please see McIntyre

i might if youd actually post a relevant link

Quote :

I've posted the relevent section below. This is the only journalistic attempt I've seen to date which has actually carried out a proper investigation on this.

so basically all he says is there has been some fudging of data
great like we didnt know this from the beginning

Quote :

But is it clear to policy makers? Especially since, going by that chart they will have no idea where the proxy data ends and the real temps begin?

as ive said countless times before... does it make any difference? do they even understand what proxy data is? and how it differs from measured data?

just for the sake of argument one way to look at it is theyve dumbed it down for the great unwashed
case in point obama studied political science and law gordon brown has a master of arts and sarkozy did political science (according to wiki anyway)
basically the only poltician qualified to understand the graphs that i can think of is merkel who has a degree in physics

so you are for or against massive federal spending to decrease CO2 emissions? We can argue the graphs all day since they're next to impossible to decipher and according to the emails are fudged and smoothed in so many ways I see them as basically useless for predicting future temperatures or understanding the effects of CO2 on the climate.

Do you think giving money to third world countries as carbon credit will save the environment?

Quote from Shotglass :

no were just looking at data reconstructed from proxies which comes with a natural uncertainty
basically what youre saying is any science that bases itself on fossile records is hokus pokus

No I didn't say that. I was just making a frustrated observation. It's impossible at this stage to seperate out all the various influences of temperature, precipitation, soil quality, bears crapping under trees, limited sampling etc to get a sound idea of temps in the past by looking at tree rings (paleoclimatology). That doesn't mean the whole fossile record is useless.

Quote :

look at the graphs again
the first one has a confidence interval of roughly 1-1.2 °C while the second one has an overall span of about 0.8-0.9 °C which lies well within the confidence interval of the first

It's impossible to compare graphs to make your point as no confidence interval is provided for the second graph, only the smoothed average is shown.

Quote :

i might if youd actually post a relevant link

There is so much history and detail here that I'm not sure where to start. My advice would be to head over to climate audit and start reading.

A few short posts on hiding declines are here, here, and here.

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so basically all he says is there has been some fudging of data
great like we didnt know this from the beginning

I'm glad you're ok with it. But these guys have been lying about this for ages.

Michael Mann has said-

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No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum [realclimate].

That's two lies in two sentences. Nice going.

Quote :

as ive said countless times before... does it make any difference? do they even understand what proxy data is? and how it differs from measured data?

just for the sake of argument one way to look at it is theyve dumbed it down for the great unwashed
case in point obama studied political science and law gordon brown has a master of arts and sarkozy did political science (according to wiki anyway)
basically the only poltician qualified to understand the graphs that i can think of is merkel who has a degree in physics

It's up to you whether it makes a difference or not.

Can anyone clarify the tree ring issue? I know that since the (60s?) there's been a divergence of thermometer readings and tree rings as proxies.

Since the divergence is evident, surely that then invalidates historical tree rings as a proxy for historical temperatures with integrity? But unless I'm mistaken, the climatologists are ADMITTING that they're still plotting tree ring measurements as authoritative, pre-1961, AND (on the same plotted line) replacing tree ring data with real temperature readings post-1961.

I must surely be missing something because, even though I'm a layman in climatology terms, even I can't equate this practice with normal practices of scientific method.

[edit] Oh yeah, and if we can't use tree ring data, which proxies are we using to identify the MWP? Do we have a dependable proxy for ~C1000?

Quote from flymike91 :

Do you think giving money to third world countries as carbon credit will save the environment?

regardless of climate and environment i think its a good idea to pay money to countries we ****ed over and still do **** over

Quote from Electrik Kar :

No I didn't say that. I was just making a frustrated observation. It's impossible at this stage to seperate out all the various influences of temperature, precipitation, soil quality, bears crapping under trees, limited sampling etc to get a sound idea of temps in the past by looking at tree rings (paleoclimatology). That doesn't mean the whole fossile record is useless.

but that comes with any paleo science
fist and foremost the important thing is to look for data that is honest about its inaccuracy particular if you arent experienced in the field and thus dont know the accepted uncertainty that comes with any data (ie someone who works in climatology probably knows that any proxy data has a confidence interval of roughly +-0.5°C (numbers taken from the graphs that do show the interval))

Quote :

It's impossible to compare graphs to make your point as no confidence interval is provided for the second graph, only the smoothed average is shown.

which along with forgetting to mention where the data is from on the second one should tell you rather a lot about its quality
also regardless of the missing interval on the second graph you can still tell that you could easily fit the second one into the confidence interval of the first one

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I'm glad you're ok with it. But these guys have been lying about this for ages.

Michael Mann has said-

That's two lies in two sentences. Nice going.

and they are already starting to step down
big deal they messed up their academic careers got caught and are losing their jobs
what more is there to say or to it?

also as for the great investigative journalism in that one piece im wondering if its that glaringly obvious why have people only figured it out now?

[QUOTE=SamH;1327079]Can anyone clarify the tree ring issue? I know that since the (60s?) there's been a divergence of thermometer readings and tree rings as proxies.

probably not since im no expert on the matter

[QUOTE]Since the divergence is evident, surely that then invalidates historical tree rings as a proxy for historical temperatures with integrity?[/QUOTE]

no it just means that you have to be aware of the inaccuracies involved
also all of the tree ring data shown is shown as a 50 year average depending on which kind of sliding window they use the averaging will get progressively worse as you approach the ends of the data collection interval

[QUOTE]But unless I'm mistaken, the climatologists are ADMITTING that they're still plotting tree ring measurements as authoritative, pre-1961[/QUOTE]

youre making it sound like theyre confessing to a crime when its simply one of the best if fundamentally inaccurate and merely correlated not dependant dataset there is

[QUOTE]I must surely be missing something because, even though I'm a layman in climatology terms, even I can't equate this practice with normal practices of scientific method.[/QUOTE]

its simple really
plot the best data you have even if its fundamentally flawed
to go with the hockey stick metaphore yes youre just waving a stick in the general direction of paleoclimate but just because the confidence interval is as wide as the whole graph doesnt entirely invalidate the data

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Shotglass
simply one of the best if fundamentally inaccurate and merely correlated not dependant dataset there is

just because the confidence interval is as wide as the whole graph doesnt entirely invalidate the data

When you can feed in random data and still get a hockey stick shape 90% of the time then something is wrong with your methods. That's what happened with the Mann stick, Briffa and the others have tried other things over years to get the desired shape. You have to understand that this is a hockey Team, not disinterested researchers simply looking to understand past climates. Maybe tree rings are useful for helping to understand past temps (given their uncertainties) but certainly not in the way these guys have been using them. They need that hockeystick shape, I think the more you can read up on this (again I suggest climate audit, which goes into these things in extreme technical detail, you can use the search bar to help find what you're looking for) the better you will understand the lengths they've been going to to create these graphs. It's not science, and it's definitely not 'one of the best' attempts to shed light on past climates. It's quite amusing that you'd say that.

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foremost the important thing is to look for data that is honest about its inaccuracy

Stitching real temps onto proxy data isn't exactly being honest about inaccuracy. Lieing about not doing so isn't exactly being honest.

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also as for the great investigative journalism in that one piece im wondering if its that glaringly obvious why have people only figured it out now?

No-one has seemed bothered about this apart from those curious, sceptical or knowledgeble enough. You yourself were happy to simply ignore or excuse the whole thing, so maybe you've answered your own question. This issue has been known about for a while but the climategate emails did help to shed new light and confirm many prior suspicions.

Quote :

Sam
Oh yeah, and if we can't use tree ring data, which proxies are we using to identify the MWP? Do we have a dependable proxy for ~C1000?

The peer reviewed literature is full of them, many done before the time when the study of past temperatures became politicised. Before Michael Mann and the Hockey Team it was accepted in science that it was warmer and colder in earlier periods (MWP and LIA) than than it is today.

http://joannenova.com.au/2009/ ... y-sticks-and-hidden-data/

Quote :

These use ice cores, stalagmites, sediments, and isotopes. They agree with 6,144 boreholes around the world which found that temperatures were about 0.5°C warmer world wide.

Of course, an interesting thought is that perhaps many of these scientists were themselves influenced by various biases and pressures which reflected the accepted state of knowledge of the day. Here's a quote from C.S. Lewis which I plucked from the comments section in the link...

Quote :

“No model is a catalogue of ultimate realities, and none is a mere fantasy.
Each is a serious attempt to get in all the phenomena known in a given period,
and each succeeds in getting in a great many. But also, no less surely, each
reflects the prevalent psychology of its age almost as much as it reflects the
state of that age’s [scientific] knowledge.”
C.S. Lewis

There's an interactive graph showing the WMP as a global phenomenon using different studies, over here. A related WUWT post is here.

Maybe Shotglass would like to read the original article in German, here.


All things being equal, the weight of evidence is very much stacked against the Team on this...

Quote from Shotglass :

regardless of climate and environment i think its a good idea to pay money to countries we ****ed over and still do **** over

They happen to be less fortunate than us but instead of jabbering on about how we screwed them over in the dim and distant past we now have to look to the mostly tyrannical, at the very least selfish leaders of countries in question (African countries for example). Any money we give them will have to be carefully monitored to ensure it doesn't end up procuring a large amount of arms or just shoring up a tinpot dictatorship for a few more years, with the added bonuses of a brand new fleet of shiny Mercedes for the dictator and his associates to ride around in.

Lots of smaller countries are jumping on the bandwagon trying to show how they will either all drown or starve or freeze or be left out or forgotten if the climate changes drastically, but it has been proven that, for instance, the Maldives are not ever going to be totally underwater, at least not in the conceivable future by using any predictions which are watertight (excuse the pun).

A pro-AGW democrat said something interesting the other day. That was on CNN

He was saying they HAD to act to get the "green jobs" in America. If they don't, China will get them he says.

Is it possible that this isn't about "saving" the planet anymore? That they don't even care about the science being right or not ?

He made it sound like this is just an opportunity to position themselves in the upcoming "green" world economy they predict will prevail quite soon no matter what the truth is about AGW.

Quote from PhilS13 :

A pro-AGW democrat said something interesting the other day. That was on CNN

He was saying they HAD to act to get the "green jobs" in America. If they don't, China will get them he says.

Is it possible that this isn't about "saving" the planet anymore? That they don't even care about the science being right or not ?

He made it sound like this is just an opportunity to position themselves in the upcoming "green" world economy they predict will prevail quite soon no matter what the truth is about AGW.

I see the politics and the science feeding into each other in an unhealthy way. Ultimately the politics doesn't need the science (especially if it's saying something contrary to aims) and science cannot work properly with political interference.

Personally, I'd be very happy to see capitalism go green. We need better products and systems with better recyclability, better efficiency, less toxins, less strain on resources, etc. That doesn't have to have anything to do with global warming but it does have to do with responsible stewardship of the planet and perhaps even human survival. Capitalism needs to go green.

well if you believe Fox, this copenhagen treaty is step one of a new global world government where rich countries like the US and UK spread all their wealth with developing countries to create some equalized (socialist) system disguised as carbon credit. I think thats what they're trying to do but it will never work so I'm not particularly worried about that aspect of all this. I'm more worried about the effects on the economy when we borrow another trillion dollars from china to fund thus bullshit.

You guys are all arguing the science when in fact this whole thing is 100% political.

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regardless of climate and environment i think its a good idea to pay money to countries we ****ed over and still do **** over

We don't owe other countries anything. If Africa wants to get out of the third world they should start creating exportable products, stop killing each other, stop spreading AIDS, and replace warlords with democracies. Other countries have improved their standard of living all by themselves. I read an article about africans murdering and harvesting the body parts of albinos for their magical properties WTF.

Quote from flymike91 :

well if you believe Fox

Let's just stop right there.

whatever, dude I guess they didn't win any points in your book for reporting climategate when no one else would. How was MSNBC's coverage? I didn't catch it.

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I'm more worried about the effects on the economy when we borrow another trillion dollars from china to fund thus bullshit.

If their predicitions show that investing a trillion today will bring home multiple trillions in green jobs in a not so far future we can hardly blame them for pushing this way.

The fact that they may have used dodgy/manipulated science to convince people about why it's good to do so is still VERY wrong. I'd prefer they would have concentrated efforts on waste management & drinkable water issues. You don't need tree rings to confirm those.

Yeah those would be great things for individual nations to focus their efforts on. We don't need binding global contracts like carbon credits that I challenge anyone here to justify.

Also imo 'green jobs' is a buzz word. It doesn't actually mean anything. I can't think of an example of a green job that is not in the energy sector that could possibly give us a return on a trillion dollar investment.

Quote from flymike91 :

Yeah those would be great things for individual nations to focus their efforts on. We don't need binding global contracts like carbon credits that I challenge anyone here to justify.

The justification is not making our planet an uninhabitable wasteland.