Climate Change: NZ as a leader? No and Yes!

Politics, posted: 8-AUG-2009 13:29

In the 1980's NZ led the world away from the brink regarding nuclear weapons and atmospheric nuclear testing, against the tide of the "big countries". We can do that again.

"Global warming" is not proven. There are tens of thousands of scientists who disagree with the IPCC and UN. Journalists are too lazy to read anything contrary to the official line. (Start with Air Con, if you want a layman's introduction.) As the global temperature continues to decline since 1998, eventually governments will realise that "global warming" is a myth, IPCC computer models are untrustworthy, and ETS is merely an opportunity for large-scale fraud.

With the Czechs, we can lead the world away from the brink of economic ruin caused by greenies.

Suggestion to journalists: find out what specific changes NZ would have to make to reach the Greenpeace target of 40% reduction from 1990. Then ask the public if they're willing to make those changes.

Other related posts:
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"If we lose freedom in America, we lose freedom everywhere"
Hitler did not invade Austria

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Comment by Dratsab, on 8-AUG-2009 14:44

Climate change has been occurring since the planet was formed. From memory, there's been four ice ages thus far. When the pendulum swings the other way we get "warm" ages. Think of it like a sine wave.

Nature has adapted to change in the past and will continue to adapt to change in the future, that's what nature is all about. Species die off along the way - bad for them. Others adapt and new life forms emerge - good for them.

Fortunately for now, the ETS (definitely fraud!) has been headed off, but corporate greed will win out in the long run and it'll arrive.

I laugh when I see corporates saying they're "carbon zero" - BS. You still emit as much carbon as you ever did, and paying someone to grow trees isn't ever going to change that fact. Will you get a refund when those trees are logged and the stored carbon is released?

Comment by Scott A. Mandia, on 9-AUG-2009 00:34

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/global_dimming.html

It is very well established that climate has NOT been warming since 1998. My Website discusses this issue and many others regrading climate change.

Author's note by dmw, on 9-AUG-2009 09:40

It is very well established that climate has NOT been warming since 1998.

I'm glad you agree.

Show me the graphs of the IPCC predictions for global temperature produced pre-1998, together with the actual measurements since 1998. Where is the significant tropospheric temperature rise that the IPCC computer simulations were predicting?

Why should governments around the world be asked to implement economically harmful policies on the basis of flawed models, imperfect science and blatant hyperbole?

My Website discusses this issue and many others regrading [sic] climate change.

Well, Professor, it is easy to see from your website which Team's songsheet you're singing from... The one containing Gore and Mann, who tried to regrade away the Medieval Warm Period out of existence. Is that what you call science? How can we believe people who do that? How can we accept conclusions from supposedly "peer-reviewed" papers written by researchers who refuse to reveal their data or data analysis algorithms?

That is the real damage being done.

Comment by Scott A. Mandia, on 9-AUG-2009 12:53

Wow, did I write not been WARMING? Of course I meant the climate has not been COOLING. I also had a type in regarding. I guess I lose all credibility now. LOL. I should have my cup of coffee before I post on these blogs.

My page at:

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/global_dimming.html

shows that the climate has NOT BEEN COOLING since 1998. 1998 had an El Nino (ENSO) event that was more than two standard deviations above the mean so it was pretty rare. That caused a huge spike in global temps. Then, 1998 had a La Nina and also a low sunspot (none, I believe) count which combined to give a low temperature for 2008. If one wishes to cherry-pick these two years as end points, it gives the APPEARANCE of global cooling while in fact, the general global warming trend continues.

According to Schmidt and Wolfe (2009), 19 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past 25 years. The warmest years globally have been 1998 and 2005 with the years 2002, 2007, and 2003 close behind. The warmest decade has been the last ten years and the warming has been widespread globally. Further signs of this warming trend can be seen in the Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at:

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.png

As the graph in the hyperlink shows, sea ice extent has been dramatically reduced since 1979.

Take a look at my page at:

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/modern_day_climate_change.html

You will see further evidence that the climate is warming at a rate that cannot be explained by natural causes. Take a careful look at ocean heat content analysis. Also note that the sea level rise projected from the 1990 IPCC was too conservative.

Models are not perfect but they are very good at predicting many aspects of climate. Models are constantly tweaked as scientists gain new knowledge so they continue to get better.

I do not use Gore as a source and I never voted for him. I have no political agenda other than making sure that the general public and policy makers understand the current science.

Regarding Mann and the hockey stick graph: whether or not the MWP was warmer than today is not as critical as you suggest. The more important point is that the RATE of increase in global temperatures is unprecedented and there are no known natural causes for this drastic increase. Worse, the oceans lag a few decades behind the atmosphere so the worst is yet to come as this heat and CO2 is released from the ocean to the atmosphere.

Author's note by dmw, on 9-AUG-2009 14:47

Scott,

I agree that the climate is changing (always has, and always will). I just don't agree that humans are to blame. There are far too many other factors (as examplified by the discrepancies between climate models and real data).

While temperatures over the last few years have showed a small decline -- certainly not an increase -- I am not surprised that the trend since 1850 has been upwards, since we are just coming out of the Little Ice Age.

The Medieval Warm Period cannot be dismissed. The temperatures were far higher than we are experiencing today (and were highly BENEFICIAL to human existence, particularly in terms of growing food), yet there were no fossil fuel powered vehicles or power stations. The correlation between global temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels cannot be proven from historical records.

In terms of US temperature records, 1998 is officially no longer the hottest on record, according to the corrected NASA data.

If you are serious about conveying the current science to the general public and policy makers, then I strongly urge you to read Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science, by Ian Plimer. It is currently #1 on Amazon.com in each of the 3 categories of Environment Science, Climate Change and Geology. This is the best evidence-based writing on the subject.

Comment by Rob, on 10-AUG-2009 10:03

Investigate Magazine = FAIL!

You really couldn't find anyone better than Ian Wishart to back up your story?

This is the same guy who thinks Helen Clark's Husband is homosexual and that Helen is a lesbian and part of a covert organisation that was trying to further the "gay agenda" on an unsuspecting New Zealand.

You do realise that ALL the oxygen in the earth's atmosphere was produced by simple organisms in the early days of Earth, right?

If a bunch of slime can so drastically alter the planet's atmospheric makeup, it is ridiculous to think that human-kind's smoke-stacks and exhaust pipes have no effect on the climate.

I eagerly await your next post where you declare the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around it.

Comment by jason brown, on 10-AUG-2009 10:15

Comment by Graham Carter, on 10-AUG-2009 10:29

. . .

Tens of thousands of scientists, ay?

As an evidence based denier, you must have links to sites where these scientists list their names, qualifications and organisations ?

. . .

Author's note by dmw, on 10-AUG-2009 12:28

Have a look at this site and read some of the hundreds of links. http://tinyurl.com/7c3qze If you still think climate change has anything significant to do with human activity, then you have been brainwashed. This is perhaps the worst case ever of world histeria and the first time the whole world has been caught up in doing something stupid. Al Gore has perhaps personally been responsible for this stupidity.

Author's note by dmw, on 10-AUG-2009 12:37

Rob,

#1 Nowhere have I mentioned Investigate Magazine in this blog post, until you brought it up. But I challenge you to find a better investigative journalist in the country. Rather than attacking the author, find an error in his book and attack that. I have also recommended Heaven and Earth by Ian Plimer (above), but that is more technical (I loved it). Thus Air Con is better suited to a layman audience.

#2 Cyanobacteria are not the only potential prehistoric source of O2. Another (unconfirmed) source is the weathering of igneous rocks containing peroxy links to produce hydrogen peroxide.

#3 You casually dismiss cyanobacteria as "a bunch of slime" that can be easily out-performed by humankinds exhaust pipes. To make such a line of argument work you need to quantify how much is in each camp, and prove that one will swamp the other. I contend that CO2 is not a pollutant -- it is a fertilizer, providing not only all the photosynthesizing bacteria, but all the land and water plants too, with raw materials. Plants grow far better in elevated concentrations of CO2.

Try again, Rob, but with facts and logic, and avoiding the ad hominem arguments and red herrings.

Comment by Lidra, on 10-AUG-2009 13:57

Jason,

See for yourself: A petition that has been signed by over 31,000 American scientists, including over 9000 PhDs.

Comment by Sam Vilain, on 10-AUG-2009 17:13

I love this discussions where the only subject is how warm or cold the temperature around the world has grown or not. But we fail to see all the pollution around us. Somehow it is ok to cut 70% to 80% of the trees world wide. Somehow it is ok that there is no accountability for any of the businesses that do pollution world wide. Somehow the economy is more important than the life and future of our kids. And again it seems to be more than ok to kill animals left and right.

I fail to see how reducing pollution and looking for ways of achieve things better and without killing the whole planet in the process.

I fail to see how it is ok for a plastic bag to be used for 5 to 10 minutes (shop to car, car to house then garbage) and to be degraded in 20,000 years in the field. I fail to see how it is ok for dippers used this days to degrade in 70 to 90 days.....and there are so many examples.

We have a chance to change the future of human kind ...maybe the last. And all the press and people like this are doing with this articles is to make people believe that all is just a lie and that economic ruin will be caused by greenies.

I hope you can leave with yourself, the judgement day is coming.

Author's note by dmw, on 10-AUG-2009 20:55

Wow, what a little ghetto of denialists we have here.

To the main author, Ian Wishart's _Air Con_ is just as worthless as his pro-Creationist works. It can be found dismantled and rightfully ridiculed for its contained insanity on Hot Topic.

To the reader with time on their hands, play Skeptical Science bingo! It's really easy - just go through each of the so-called "arguments" against Climate Change on this post, then check to see if they're in the top 50 crank arguments. How many can you find?

Author's note by dmw, on 10-AUG-2009 21:12

The issue, Lidra, is not the temperature, per se.

The issue is the government unilaterally deciding to spend my money (and your money) fixing a problem that does not exist (except in the minds of brainwashed Greenpeace supporters, and greedy ex-vice Presidents).

Earth has been much hotter and much cooler than it is now. CO2 levels have been 20 times higher than current levels, but not much lower (otherwise, plants would die and we would die). Despite these variations, the polar bears, the kittens, and the humans have not died out. The sky has not fallen.

In your idealism, you fail to realise that the economy IS important. It pays for your health, your education, your computer and electricity. In fact, it is the poorer countries that pollute the most (compare eastern Europe under communism with western Europe), and as GDP increases there is greater value placed on clean skies and clean water (eg Beijing).

Which countries are producing the most so-called "greenhouse gases"?

(Pollution is a separate issue. While I agree with your general abhorrence, it is not the subject of this blog post. Please keep on-topic.)

Author's note by dmw, on 13-AUG-2009 14:07

Sam, I enjoy and see value in debate.

I see no merit in those who fly in, defecate with attacks on people rather than the ideas, and fly off again, having displayed to all and sundry a complete absence of reason.

Have you actually read Air Con, first hand, Sam? When you have done so, then you may raise objections based on the words in it.

Interestingly, sufficient NZers felt Air Con was worth paying their own money for that it became another #1 best seller.

Comment by Sam Vilain, on 13-AUG-2009 15:32

Sam, unless you're prepared to defend yourself against a defamation suit, I'd suggest you delete your comment or post a retraction comment smartly.

Comment by Bob, on 15-AUG-2009 15:19

You know, it's not defamation when it's true. This will be a laugh.

Author's note by dmw, on 16-AUG-2009 17:26

The trouble with Global Warming as Political ammunition is that it is as yet only a theory, and that it only has long term consequences that could possibly be fatal to some humans. Climate Change though is a different subject, we are obviously changing the Climate of our immediate surroungings on a daily basis in our choice of farming methods and cities. How much we have changed New Zealand is obvious when one looks at top soil, river pollution, forest area, bird population or water tables most of which can have a negative impact on the local climate. These are things that concern the Greenies like me and are usually also being fought over by people who think that doing something to change our destuctive ways will have negative economic consquences. While we are busy recommending books; "DIRT" by David Montgomery, is what you should read to help you stop worring about Global Warming and put you into immediate panic about where the World Polulation including New Zealand is going to get its food in the near future.

Comment by Sam Vilain, on 18-AUG-2009 10:01

Bob, I'm pleased that you also regard Global Warming as only a theory. (Though, it's my view that extreme cooling is far more likely to result in people dying than extreme heat.)

Climate is not a "daily basis" thing. That's weather.

I agree with the value of looking after resources. But the biggest danger to food supply to the world are those who raise unsubstantiated arguments such as "food miles" when they really mean "trade protection". No, I'm wrong -- the bigger impediment is US and European politicians who impose food import tarrifs that prevent the developing countries from exporting to those markets.

"Panic" is merely a political ploy to get citizens to look to politicians to lead. Hence all the "sky is falling" stories to try to get us to agree to paying thousands in extra taxes, to "save the planet". It doesn't need saving. We are NOT controlling or perturbing the climate -- it varies by itself. And does not reach tipping points (another panic phrase).

Author's note by dmw, on 18-AUG-2009 12:33

David there is one thing I'd like to clarify and I feel I owe you an apology over. I realised that I considered pro-Creationist works worthless, but not because of any reason other than I don't consider it a very worthwhile question to be asking. ie, for very different reasons to _Air Con_. By mentioning it I was attempting to use a contentious topic to cast your post in a bad light by association. I am sincerely sorry for that, and if Ian is reading, I'm also sorry for writing that Ian - I won't drag that unrelated topic in again.

Comment by Sam Vilain, on 18-AUG-2009 18:24

Apology accepted (at least from me), Sam.

I presume this means that you still stand by your statement regarding "Air Con": It can be found dismantled and rightfully ridiculed for its contained insanity on Hot Topic?

Have you actually read "Air Con"?

Author's note by dmw, on 18-AUG-2009 23:49

Hi David, thanks for that.

While I have not read a physical copy of Air Con, I have seen excerpts - and those excerpts are pretty damning. As I pointed out to Ian, once multiple major flaws are uncovered in a work it really does call the whole work into question. No amount of persuasive prose can save the incorrect facts from being wrong if they are wrong.

However if you really have an open and inquiring mind, I am more than happy to participate in an open debate; but it must be tit for tat; it's not fair if you just get to say "only reading the entire book will make you understand".

The way I suggest we do it is this: you specify a chapter from Air Con (privately), and I'll read that chapter and specify a relevant essay from The Discovery of Global Warming, or a well-known authoritative source such as the IPCC AR4. Then, we both read both chapters, and then make a single post on each of our blogs with our own findings on the matters of fact contained in the chapter, check and summarise selected references, etc - and link to each other's postings. Rather than being an adversarial style of debate, we can simply write about the conclusions that we came to on the chapter and why.

One thing that I'll have to insist on though is completely avoiding matters relating to global consipiracies, socialist agendas and anti-Green hate speech; let's stick to the science.

How does that sound?

Comment by Sam Vilain, on 19-AUG-2009 14:41

Hi Sam,

This is the most sensible suggestion that I've heard from anyone. And I'm willing to do it. (The hardest part will be to keep to the spirit of the exercise, but I agree with the intent.)

If by "adversarial debate" you mean the mud-slinging and ad hominem attacks, the red herrings and intransigence on points that one cannot rationally defend, then "yes", let's leave that behind. But I am keen to engage/challenge/defend some issues on the facts. No need for emotive language. Perhaps I'm too optimistic, but I think that we should be able to reach conclusions -- a set of facts that we agree on.

This could take a while (as I also have a life!), but could be a very interesting exercise.

The first practical problem is that I don't actually own a copy of "Air Con" (I only have a borrowed one). But I'm prepared to buy one for this exercise. I take it the references you nominated are online?

Rather than studying a chapter or essay, I'd rather just take turns asking a factual question, and then trying to reach a consensus on the answer. Some questions are IMHO too big or hard to tackle immediately (eg is global warming caused by humans?). I suggest we start with baby steps. Eg Does Earth's climate change?

I'm happy to link to your blog. To keep everything together, why not put all the discussion about each question on the blog of the person who asks the question? Each question can be a separate blog entry, perhaps with a common subtitle, to indicate they are part of a series, and not one of our usual opinionated postings. Of course we will undoubtably get others commenting too. Might have to gently "educate" them as to the style of the blog entries. (BTW, while my comments are moderated, that is generally to avoid spam.)

What do you think, Sam? Would you like to begin?

Author's note by dmw, on 19-AUG-2009 20:18

Hmm. The danger of this style of questioning is that it is a common tactic used to frame an argument towards an pre-determined conclusion.

Take the question you start with; Does Earth's climate change? Well, clearly the answer is yes; but the clear implication is that this past variability implies that it might not change in a predictable manner today. The driving influences to Earth's modern climate are all very well known; in the Holocene, Milankovitch cycles / orbital variations and CO₂ levels are dominant influences, affect and reinforce each other's action to cause the cycle we know as the Ice Ages. This is confirmed in great detail - ie, every wiggle of the graph that Astronomy tells us the orbit should have passed through in the last 3 million years - by detailed geological records - especially the 5-million year record from the Wanganui basin, and proxies such as the ice core records. Go back further, and you start looking at a very different planet, with one global ocean and the ice caps over the south pole would periodically melt. At times there were no ice caps at all. Go back 55 million years, and something must have been obviously different because we saw a doubling of CO₂ levels but something like 7°C higher temperatures.

It's all well and good to have such discourse - but there are history books which go through this. Spencer Weart's _Discovery of Global Warming_, http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ (link above didn't seem to make it through) provides an accessible coverage of most of these questions. Scientists have already asked them, and most of the major challenges to the theory were covered by the 1970's. As a skeptic, reading the essay "The Modern Temperature Trend" from that book, I found myself confronted with many of the talking points I had read on sites like the CSC, WUWT, etc. I checked many of the references. It takes a while, but eventually you realise that these sites have been feeding you one side of the story ... sometimes challenges were refuted almost a century ago and they are still repeating them.

So yeah, look I'm happy to negotiate how we do it and I also have a life ;-) but if we can cover the points specifically raised in _Air Con_, then it should be accessible discourse not only to yourself but to others who are reading the material in that book. And also, the advantage to the style of debate that I mention is that it would encourage people to read the source material first. And we avoid argument by not answering each other's points - just sticking to stating our current understanding of the topic of the chapter.

Comment by David Hay, on 24-AUG-2009 22:11

Sam, I'm am getting a better understanding of what you're after.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you seem to be suggesting is that we simultaneously read a chapter in "Air Con", and a chapter or essay that you nominate. Then we each write a blog posting about our conclusion from reading that material, and link to each other's blog. But no discussion.

I was with you up to the final sentence. Your words were: not answering each other's points. That seems pointless to me. For example, I could make up the wildest claims (which I wouldn't -- that's not my style), and you'd have no opportunity to point out my inaccuracies. That's not I understood your earlier line: I am more than happy to participate in an open debate.

Science is built on hypotheses, measurements, theories and vigorous debates about the validity of competing theories. Such debates have, do and will often continue for years. And this is proper and desirable. The debate should be rational and polite, focussing (as you rightly point out) only on the science (ie the facts, but that includes such aspects as measurement, accuracy, data integrity, analysis, conclusions).

Are you still interested?

Author's note by dmw, on 24-AUG-2009 23:03

"Let's stick to the science" Please do, that would be refreshing.

I invite you to download the climate change model from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA here: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools

Please, run a few simulations, using the freely available software and then tell me what's wrong with them. Also feel free to reference the hundreds of scientific articles going back to 1961 here: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov

Or you might want to have a look at the New Scientist magazine's "Guide for the Perplexed", here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed.html

BTW: "Air Con" is not science, and Ian Wishart is not a scientist. So spare yourself the trouble.

Author's note by dmw, on 24-AUG-2009 23:09

David writes: Ian Wishart is not a scientist

But Keisha Castle-Hughes has a greater right to be heard? Spare me.

The world needs more journalists who are prepared to dig into the press releases -- especially the ones that are trying to frighten the world into a particular course of action.

Tell me which of the IPCC simulations is doing a good job of predicting the global temperature.

You seemed to have swallowed the Hansen line that CO2 levels of 350ppm is the upper limit. Don't you know that CO2 levels have been as high as 7000ppm, and the earth did not self-combust? Nor did all the plants and animals die. Of course not -- the plants grow better in higher CO2.

Earth currently has an atmospheric CO2 deficiency.

(I wonder what the next apocalyptic prediction will be when "global warming" goes the same way as Y2K, H1N1, Ice Age, Nuclear weapons...?)

Comment by Sam Vilain, on 25-AUG-2009 14:44

DMW are you interested in the debating ?

btw your graph shows a very short period of data; claiming that the IPCC warming predictions are valid on that scale is misleading.

Author's note by dmw, on 25-AUG-2009 15:20

Sure, Sam. Only problem is that I don't have my own copy of the Air Con book, yet.

As for your complaint about the graph, science -- both measurements and modelling -- involves "uncertainty ranges". These are important.

While you could criticise the graph for lacking error bars on the measured temperatures, it does not change the fundamental and obvious fact that the IPCC models are incapable of predicting future global temperature, within the bounds that they have published for themselves!

Admit it... the actual temperatures are trending in the opposite direction to what the UN and all those on Team Gore are predicting.

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David White
Auckland
New Zealand

JasJar owner, Goon fan, .NET developer.