The other day I read a Salon article with a video purporting to be a “brilliant takedown” by TV commentators of climate skeptics. The TV expert claimed that debating Global Warming was like debating whether 2+2=4:
On his new show, “Last Week Tonight” John Oliver took a much needed jab at the ridiculous and terrible way climate change is reported on by media. Last week the White House released the third National Climate Assessment, which found: “Global climate is changing and this is apparent across the United States in a wide range of observations. The global warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels.”
“But incredibly,” Oliver points out, “this latest damning scientific report may still face an uphill climb with some of us.”
He was referring to a recent Gallup report, which found that one in four American’s is skeptical of climate change.
“Who gives a shit?” Oliver counters. “You don’t need people’s opinion on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking: ‘Which number is bigger, 15 or 5?’ or ‘Do owls exist?’ or ‘Are there hats?’”
“The debate on climate change ought not to be whether or not it exists. It is what we should do about it,” Oliver exclaimed. “There is a mountain of research on this topic.”
That there is a mountain of research is true. You want funding, though, your “research” better reflect the dominant paradigm.
I don’t know who this TV asshole is, but the issues involved are quite unlike simple math.
How well do claims and assertions in the just-released 800+-page report by the National Climate Assessment (NCA) stack up against unequivocal, real-time data? Let’s apply the scientific method, as outlined by Feynman, to the NCA report. We’ll first state each assertion made in the NCA report, then test it against real-time observation and data. The report begins with dire predictions based on computer models, so let’s start with that. Here is their assertion, based on the graph below.
[…]
7. NCA assertion: “2012 was the hottest year on record in the continental United States.”
Fact: The 2012 temperatures were essentially the same as 1921, 1931, and 1934 (Fig. 11), using original data not altered by USCHN. The NCA claim is based on tampering of the original data (see data at http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/tracking-us-temperature-fraud/). The authors of the NCA report don’t seem to know the difference between weather and climate. Ini any event, this is weather and tells us nothing about climate–warmer and cooler years can happen anytime in the record, regardless of climate.
That’s just one example among many. The idea that this is like simple math insults the intelligence of everyone involved.
Except maybe those who want it to be that simple.
MORE: I am seeing more hostility to Global Warming skeptics that to evolution theory skeptics. Far more. Which is interesting if we consider that despite its gaps, the idea that evolution occurred is a lot more settled (and a lot more reasonable) than the much newer idea that the planet is warming and that man caused it, and that therefore most human activities must be subject to government restrictions imposed in the name of science.
Comments
6 responses to ““There is a mountain of research on this topic.””
I’m curious as to what gaps you feel exist in evolutionary theory.
As for climate “science”, check out how often the “researchers” acknowledge deep time in their estimates. Most often they look at the past few hundred years. If you’re lucky, you’ll see a few thousand. What you will NOT see is that the past few million years has been one long ice age, with a number of interglacials; our current climate is abnormally cold compared to the typical temperatures for Earth. Check out Zachos et al., 2001 (https://pangea.stanford.edu/research/Oceans/GES206/readings/Zachos2001.pdf) to see the proof of that statement. Oh, and if you REALLY want to have fun, look into Oxygen Isotope Stage 11 (an interglacial–glacials are even numbers, interglaciasl are odds).
“I am seeing more hostility to Global Warming skeptics than to evolution theory skeptics. Far more.”
The warmists are putting up a last offensive; like Hitler’s Battle of the Bulge. The numbers haven’t been going as they predicted for years plus they’re looking at a major shift in the political climate in the US and EU. Their hostility is a result of desperation. They’re in the middle of the second stage of grief: denial/anger/bargaining/depression/acceptance
Next step: bargaining. I’m guessing that Bjørn Lomborg will figure prominently in that process.
I don’t doubt that there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than in centuries past. There are mountains of evidence that this is the case.
What isn’t certain is whether or not these higher levels of CO2 will actually produce the higher temperatures that can then affect the overall climate. The climate models claim that this is the case, yet actual temperature results have yet to bear this out. Are there other factors that will allow for this increase and keep temperatures at their current levels? Perhaps there are but we don’t yet understand the mechanisms involved.
And this is the real crux of the matter, does the data really mean what the proponents of climate change claim for it? Larger and more complex systems can contain mountains of data, but truly understanding what the data really means is not always clear. And given all the complex and myriad factors that determine weather patterns and local climates, I think skepticism is warranted regarding the interpretation of the data, the climate models themselves, and the doomsday predictions spawned by the data and the models.
Compounding the need for skepticism is the fact that rent-seekers have latched onto climate change. There’s money to be made in fear-mongering.
Piers Corbyn thinks we are headed for a little ice age:
http://classicalvalues.com/2014/05/follow-the-evidence/
Won’t the warmists be surprised if that comes to pass?
Simon,
Haven’t you heard? It’s not Anthropogenic Global Warming, it’s Anthropogenic Climate Chaos.
I suppose that’s a step in the right direction, at least they’ve admitted that the mathematics are chaotic.
Everyone has always acknowledged that the mathematics are chaotic–weather is one of the places where chaos theory originated. The issue is whether or not one can see long-term trends in chaotic mathematical models, and whether those models correspond to the real world. The former is likely; the later is the real question. That’s why I mentioned OIS-11.