Climate Change and Well-Informed Denial

Tue, 2011-05-03 08:52Chris Mooney
Chris Mooney's picture

Climate Change and Well-Informed Denial



Across all these regions, he consistently found the following phenomenon: Democrats and Republicans who claimed to know less about the climate issue were more like one another in terms of whether they accepted the science. Democrats and Republicans who claimed to know a lot about the issue, by contrast, were vastly polarized—with knowledgeable Democrats overwhelmingly accepting the science, and knowledgeable Republicans overwhelmingly denying it.

Political polarization is greatest among the Republicans and Democrats who are most confident that they understand this issue,” writes Hamilton. “Republicans and Democrats less sure about their understanding also tend to be less far apart in their beliefs.”



Thus it really makes a lot of sense that those who are paying less attention to the climate issue, whether nominally Democrat or Republican, are less polarized and less sure of themselves. They’re not working nearly as hard at reaffirming their convictions, and refuting the convictions of the other side. (Hamilton’s study implies, though, that that they may have a different problem—they know so little that they may be more likely to be buffeted by the weather in terms of how they think about climate. If it’s hot out, maybe they’ll worry. If it’s cold, they’ll scoff.)

Overall, the big picture is that our society is not making up its mind in anything like a rational or scientific manner about climate change. That’s unfortunate–but it would be a form of denial itself at this point to reject the finding. 


Previous Comments

Well goody goody they understand the physics of climate - NOT. Its not that simple the only reason they cling to the CO2 teat is it’s something that can be taxed.

CO2 is a TRACE gas and by Occam’s Razor does not drive climate variability in the absence of compelling and provable evidence to the contrary.

Occams razor points to the simple non-taxable drivers of climate variability. Solar irradiance, cosmic irradiance, orbital mechanics, water vapor, clouds, etc. CO2 is nothing, too small to be of any significance to the physics of climate.

These scientismists are running a con game for libtards


Again, just because YOU are venal and small minded doesn’t mean that everyone else is. Even though this means you’re not the fine upstanding fellow you see yourself as. Live with it.

CO2 is a TRACE gas”

So? As far as IR goes, it’s NOT a trace gas. But you don’t understand anything when your comfort depends on disbelief in it.

“in the absence of compelling and provable evidence to the contrary.”

It’s there. Go read

“Occams razor points to the simple non-taxable drivers of climate variability.”

This should be good.

And it is:

“Solar irradiance”

Sun is less active, temperatures are rising. So it’s not the sun.

“cosmic irradiance”

There’s very little energy imparted to the earth by cosmic rays. so it’s not cosmic irradiance.

“orbital mechanics”

We’re heading away from the Sun, so it’s not orbital mechanics.

“water vapor”

Falls out as rain, so can’t drive the climate, but it CAN be a feedback. Plus H20 is a trace gas.

Nitrogen (N2) 780,840 ppmv (78.084%)
Oxygen (O2) 209,460 ppmv (20.946%)
Carbon dioxide (CO2) 390 ppmv (0.039%)


Nope, clouds require more relative humidity. And water falls out of the sky. So it’s not clouds.


So you believe. Yet all your other effects are nothing. Too small to be of any significance. Yet we’ve increased CO2 and 78% of the global temperature trend can be explained by the log of CO2 concentrations.

We have causation: IR absorption

We have correlation: 78% of the temperature trend correlates

You just don’t want to believe that the capitalist system ever fails in anything.

A proper member of the Church of Ayn Rand.

RE: “it’s there. Go read”

Untrustworthy: Its a UN political propaganda site run my the worlds despots, the same ones who want the US to transfer more cash to these self-same despots. The UN ignores genocide in Rwanda, did secret oil deals with Iraq’s tyrant Saddam, condones rape by its soldiers. And most importantly twists all legitimate science for its benefit in order to promote its political aims. The UN is a despicable organization unworthy of anyone’s trust.

RE: “Sun is less active, temperatures are rising. So it’s not the sun.”

Proved to me that you or anyone else can track the composite thermal energy of all of the earth’s fluid molecules. The atmospheric measurements are of an infinitesimal unevenly distributed ethereal wisp of the earths fluid molecules. Oceans are the largest portion of the earths fluid molecules and hold 780 time the thermal energy of the atmosphere per unit volume. Its impossible and anyone who says he can do it is no more reliable than someone who reads the future in tea leaves or chicken entrails. I have no faith in their gibberish.

RE: So? “As far as IR goes, it’s NOT a trace gas.”

Prove it! not in a glass jar, but in the context of the entire atmosphere which is endlessly complex.

RE: “There’s very little energy imparted to the earth by cosmic rays. so it’s not cosmic irradiance.”

Wrong, cosmic rays play a large role in atmospheric physics, particularly in cloud formation with alters the earth’s albedo. You of course have to dismiss this because you can’t tax cosmic rays.

RE: “Falls out as rain, so can’t drive the climate, but it CAN be a feedback. Plus H20 is a trace gas”

1) yes it can be a regulating feedback; more water vapor->more clouds->greater albedo->lower temperatures->less water vapor. You need to dismiss this regulation because you cant tax water vapor.

2) CO2 “falls out” as plant food->more plants->more albedo->lower temperature. Cant tax trees and phytoplankton so you need to dismiss this.

I could go on, our faiths are different your religion is the cult of scientism as practiced by scientismists, mine is in liberty and real predictive science.

“Untrustworthy: Its a UN political propaganda site”

False. It merely collates the science papers. You insist it is political since you know no science.

And isn’t your scare story alarmism? If not, what makes alarmism?



Temperatures are rising. You use a thermometer for this, not a molecular trap.

“The atmospheric measurements are of an infinitesimal unevenly distributed ”

Assertion. Proof needed.

“of the earths fluid molecules.”

False. The atmosphere is a gas, not a fluid.

“Its impossible”

To you. But statisticians have been solving the problems of sample statistics for centuries. You’re about 280 years behind.


Prove it!”

I did. N2 and O2 are not IR active. They make up 99% of the atmosphere. Therefore CO2 is 1/10th the atmosphere as far as IR radiation is concerned. And the absorption cross-section of CO2 is larger than that of H2O.

It’s been measured.

CO2 is not a trace gas in the IR.

“Wrong, cosmic rays play a large role in atmospheric physics”

It plays a role, but the role is tiny. The sun’s effect is much much larger. This should give you a start.

“particularly in cloud formation with alters the earth’s albedo.”

And therefore would cool. If CCN are caused by GCRs then we’d be seeing more clouds (where are they?) and cooling temperatures.

You seem to be arguing against your own case: Cosmic Rays would cool the planet.


Which means less cloud and warmer temperatures. Therefore it needs a force other than the water vapour to start the change in temperature, water vapour just amplifies the change.

CO2 doubles gives 1.2C change in global average temperatures. Water vapour inflates that to more than 3C per doubling.

“You need to dismiss this regulation”

Regulation is why water vapour cannot be a forcing.

You need to make up problems to avoid clear thinking that would ruin your case.

“2) CO2 “falls out” as plant food”

CO2 doesn’t fall out. And plants don’t eat CO2. They use Carbon to create sugars that they can use to generate energy when the sun is no longer available.

And if “more plant food” was true, why is the level of CO2 not increasing?

Maybe the plants are “full” and can’t “eat” any more CO2.

But you have to ignore this fact in order to maintain your faith in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Plus additionally, plants aren’t solid carbon. Where are all the other bits going to come from if all we do is increase CO2?

It didn’t seem to do that during ice ages. We know CO2 wasn’t sufficiently effective at stopping an oncoming ice age once. It’s also clear that the level of CO2 in earlier times has almost identical variations that temperature had some 800 or more years BEFORE the CO2 dance.

Finally, CO2 level has been advancing steadily for at least a couple of hundred years. It was 280ppmv at the start. Meanwhile there were a few cooling durations (mentioned earlier). Again, no apparent correlation between CO2 increases and temperature.

There are also a few scholars out there who have come up with other models that explain most or all of our recent warming; that is, apart from other already well identified periodical cycles.

Badger, do some reading of the references you so generously point out to me, and explain skepticalscience position on this.


Source: “CO2 lags temperature - what does it mean?” Intermediate version by John Cook, Skeptical Science, June 26, 2010

Badger: I don’t think that’s relevant. (But, what I should have added is that level of CO2 during those 3 ice ages mentioned was many times higher than now, my point being that CO2 doesn’t appear to have much influence on temperature. (It was also many times higher going into one ice age.

As explained below, changes in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere both preceded and followed high temperatures during the last eight glacial cycles. Reputable climate scientists understand and readily acknowledge this fact.

“Over eight glacial cycles in 650,000 years, global temperature and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere have gone hand in hand. When temperatures are high, so are CO2 amounts and vice versa. This obvious connection is part of a coupled system in which changes in climate affect CO2 levels, and CO2 levels also change climate. The pacing of these cycles is set by variations in the Earth’s orbit, but their magnitude is strongly affected by greenhouse gas changes and the waxing and waning of the ice sheets.

“Despite these large natural CO2 variations, atmospheric CO2 variations remained relatively stable over the 12,000 years from the end of the last ice age to the dawn of the industrial era, varying between 260 and 280 ppm. Methane, too, was stable during this period varying from 0.6 to 0.7 ppm. These trace-gas concentrations are well known from analyzing air bubbles trapped in ancient snowfall. This relative stability came to an abrupt end with the onset of the industrial era. At that point, we started transferring to the atmosphere carbon that had been stored in underground reservoirs for millions of years. These modern increases have occurred in a geologic blink of the eye, dwarfing the rate of increase coming out of the last ice age. Plotted on the same graph as the ice age change, the industrial era increases look like vertical lines.”

Source: “Climate Change: Picturing the Science”, Gavin Schmidt and Joshua Wolfe, W.W. Norton Company Ltd, 2009.

Over hundreds of thousands of years the correlation between CO2 and temperature is astounding. But the original samples of the two were not sufficiently refined to notice which came first. Later sampling, some of which picked up both data from both CO2 and temperature from the same sample showed a time series correlation. There’s no doubt about that relationship. Temperature variations were mimicked later almost exactly by the same in terms of atmospheric level of CO2.

Temperature variations were first. The same variations in the time series show up 800 to 2500 years later (depending on what p[eriod of time you investigate.

Oceans are a big participant in the carbon cycle. Oceans are much slower at warming or cooling than the atmosphere. (Water is much denser, and the oceans are deep. When the oceans have cooled, the outgas (give up some CO2 among other things. When the oceans are warm, the absorb CO2 among other gases. (Right now the oceans appear to be cooling somewhat.

I don’t think even the CRU folks would deny those facts. (They may not like to talk about it tho’)


So is your thesis that temperature causes CO2?

Please, let us know your causation.

Where is the temperature spike 800 years ago from your graph. Note this CO2 concentration graph:

Please also check out:

And note also that we are pumping out CO2, so is our fossil fuel burning only enabled by temperatures increasing 800 years ago?

You’re flailing to try to hold on to your cherished beliefs.


Source: FAQs, Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), Global Monitoring Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

1) Carbon 13 is a stable isotope of carbon it does not decay or suffer depletion with age.

2) Carbon 14 populations are created by cosmic radiation and therefore dating by carbon 14 depletion (about 6000 year half life) assumes a constant level of cosmic radiation which we know is not constant. If you don’t know how much is created you can tell how much of it has been depleted.

3) All of your factoids assume that the trace gas carbon dioxide is a significant driver of climate variability physics. This is an absurd assumption. The earth is not a greenhouse; there is no glass partition in the atmosphere.

4) CO2 is the source food of all plant life on earth which in turn feeds animal life Carbon dioxide makes our planet a planet of life. More CO2 = more life until a new equilibrium is established in the sea and in the atmosphere.

5) The whole point of calling CO2 variability a danger is to grow government at the expense of liberty. Anyone paid by the government loves big government and will pounce on any object they can use to grow it, Therefore all government study grants are biased towards anything that enlarges government. There is zero demand for private “climatologists” Only government can feed this snake; ie the re-incarnation of the theocratic state.

– Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia 1781

That’s why you keep posting the same tripe over and over again, applesauce.

As does poptart with “These papers show skepticism of AGW alarmism”. Except there is no “AGW alarmism”. But poptart keeps repeating it. If there were AGW alarmism, there’d be no need to repeat the unsupported statement. Just as you repeat your unsupported statements.

PS why is it you insist it’s only governments that lie?

Is that because you’re a libertard?

I don’t believe any credible skeptic argues that CO2 hasn’t increased. And it seems fairly certain that increase began about the time of the industrial revolution. Part of it may be land use, but most seems to be due to fossil fuel useage. But there is no evidence of a link between that and the temperature. As stated earlier the increase is very small, in recent years about 2ppmv per year. (that’s 2 parts per million by volume).

The problem is that the accrued increase should (theoretically) be having more and more impact on the temperature. But that’s not what we’re seeing. (It was steadily increasing thru the entire period form 1940 to 1975 - a cooling period. One can argue that some of the other periodic influences on climate may have offset that. Certainly possible. Temperature has been flat again from about 1998 to now. Those arguments about which year has been the hottest for the planet are bogus. (Even Hansen of NASA admits it.)The differences are a small fraction of one degree and it is just not clear that we can obtain a single meaningful temperature for the planet to such accuracy.

The problem is how to figure out the interacting feedback mechanisms, and there doesn’t seem to be an answer to that. (In an earlier feedback I provided a recent document by Denis Rancourt, a physicist who rules out the possibility of CO2 having a significant impact (at least at anything near it’s current or end of century projections.

There are other scientists who clame that the current CO2 levels were almost at “starvation” levels (from a plant’s perspective).

There is no evidence that CO2, even at twice its current level, which will take quite a long time to attain, is no problem for humans and great for plants.

In short, there is no evidence CO2 is having any impact on the planet’s temperature. If it is, we should be able to determine how much, and we have more than a little time to do that. No reason for politicians to take drastic action at this point, which may well be worse than the problem.

“But there is no evidence of a link between that and the temperature.”

There is:

It’s just you don’t like it.


The problem for you is that there is.

Without the effect of CO2, the temperature drop 1940-1970 would have been higher.

“Temperature has been flat again from about 1998 to now.”


1) You cannot determine a climate trend over such a short time
2) There is a positive trend:

Taking a 30 year time series:

Cherry picking is the way you deny the truth you hate to hear.

“In short, there is no evidence CO2 is having any impact on the planet’s temperature.”

In short you deny any evidence of CO2 having an effect. This is why you’re called a denier.

We’re still at square one.

The AGW proponents BELIEVE that CO2 has caused our current warming.

The skeptics ask for evidence, and show that, in any event, there is still plenty of time to collect data and figure out what’s going on. And clearly it doesn’t hurt in the meantime to do what we can to cut back on fossil fuels where possible. But right now it looks like nuclear power took another hit. Lots of natural gas (also a fossil fuel) in the U.S. but the techniques necessary to get to a lot of it may threaten wells and acquifiers, so more investigation needed. Windmills are not likely to ever provide much energy. In addition,in most locations an entire fossil fuel infrastructure would have to be in place as backup. Solar also has problems, but there’s some chance of scientific breakthroughs there. Numerous very small nuclear power plants may turn out to be plausible.

There is a large part of civilization is in poverty because they don’t have a fossil fuel infrastructure. To deny them the advantages of that would relegate them to poverty and sickness forever.

China is growing by leaps and bounds (india probably next), and neither shows any interest in limiting their growth. The western societies could go back to the caves and it would hardly make a difference in the CO2 growth. There’s no chance that this is going to happen. Even in the face of very firm evidence, we probably couldn’t impose sufficient rstrictions, so it’s pretty much a moot point.

Goodnight, and …. good luck !

“The AGW proponents BELIEVE that CO2 has caused our current warming.”

Nope, the science shows that CO2 has caused the majority of the current warming.

Denialists believe anything other than mankind is responsible and therefore project a belief like theirs on the supporters of science.

“There is a large part of civilization is in poverty because they don’t have a fossil fuel infrastructure.”

They are in poverty because they don’t have any resources, not because they don’t have any fossil fuel infrastructure. They don’t have any fossil fuels either, so unless we’re going to gift them with it, they’re stuffed even if your strawman was correct.

They’re starving because the weather is too hot to grow food and AGW will make it worse, while you in your comfort are innured from it.

“The skeptics ask for evidence”

Then when given it, they accept the evidence. This is why YOU are a DENIER.

“and show that, in any event, there is still plenty of time to collect data”

Nope, deniers do that to delay any change in their lifestyle because they are self-centered.

Show there’s plenty of time. Go ahead. Show evidence. “we can’t be sure” is evidence that we DON’T have enough time.


Indeed, China is the primary producer of renewable resource exploitation and accelerating ahead.

Yet you want the west to continue with 18th or 20th century technology whilst China works with 21st Century tech with a future.

Why are you sabotaging the west’s capabilities?


The above are the first two sentences of a letter sent to each member of the US Senate on Oct 21, 2009 by the heads of 18 prestigious national scientific associations in the United States:

American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Chemical Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Meteorological Society
American Society of Agronomy
American Society of Plant Biologists
American Statistical Association
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
Botanical Society of America
Crop Science Society of America
Ecological Society of America
Natural Science Collections Alliance
Organization of Biological Field Stations
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

To access this letter in its entirety, go to:

The opening statement above is meaningless. Climate change is ongoing, and further, always has been. “Climate change” and “climate disruption” are much to general to be applied to the only aspect of climate in question at the moment — namely “anthropogenic global warming”.

Since there’s been no global warming for more than the past decade one can hardly talk about AGW (one warmist paper declares no warming from 1980 until 2008 - how’s that grab you?)

Those societies are known as the “culture of power”. A small group of administrators, running each are making the claim. In cases where the membership of the group has any interest, it turns out that large numbers object to what the association has claimed. Once again it’s just more arguments by authority and not facts. Please understand that some of these associations (being nonprofit) are enjoying government grant. Grants to these types of organizations buy their cooperation.

Your cut and paste jobs are not providing any useful information.

You cannot assert a trend over one or two decades of global temperatures. Therefore your statement that there has no warming over the past decade is false because it’s unproven.

And from 1980 to 2008:

A positive trend.

You lie and lie because the truth refutes your faith.

“Once again it’s just more arguments by authority and not facts.”

Arguments by authority are not the facts being denied by you. Another strawman to allow you to ignore and deny any evidence.

Oddly enough, you rely on authority to tell you what to say.

Real science never refers to authority simply because all science is simply a provisional predictive model of natural behavior. All current science must assumed to be wrong even if somewhat useful.

Science that describes an unreconstructed past is simply myth in the same way history and religions are myth.

We agree that myths can be important for social cohesion but lets not be so arrogant to assume we really understand the events that precede our own observations.

Why the reference to Gallileo?

You’re making stuff up to hide your deceptions.

“Science that describes an unreconstructed past is simply myth”

You mean like “The glaciers are retreating from when they covered North America”?

Seems like your skepticism needs recalibrating…

Will a few degrees warming have a significant impact on our climate?

“The world has warmed 0.7°C in the past century. Scientists are confident that the world will get warmer in the 21st century due to further increases in greenhouse gas concentrations, with globally averaged surface temperatures likely to increase by 1.1-6.4 °C from 1990 to 2100. Warming of a few degrees may seem minor compared with day-to-day or seasonal variations in temperature. However, in global climate terms it is much larger than any of the climatic changes experienced during the past 10,000 years.”

“During the last ice age, which was at its maximum about 70,000 years ago, surface temperatures were on average about 5°C lower than today, and much colder in the polar regions. Sheets of ice covered almost one-third of the world’s land. The global warming projected in the 21st century would occur at a time that is already one of the warmest for hundreds of thousands of years, with current levels of carbon dioxide not exceeded for the past 650,000 years, and not likely exceeded during the past 20 million years.”

“A few degrees of global warming will lead to more heat waves and fewer frosts. In Australia, the projected average warming of 0.4 to 2.0°C by the year 2030 would lead to a 10-50 per cent increase in days over 35°C at many places, and a 10-80 per cent decrease in frosts.

Source: Science-Fact and Fiction, Australian Government, Dept. of Climate Change

A general comment about “scientists” about what will happen in the future is not worthy of discussion. In particlar, in climate science many claims are immediately negated by another bunch of scientists who have, from any unbiased spectator’s position, as much credibility as the first group. That’s the entire problem. Falling back to general claims without a lot of backup detail (including evidence) is worthless.

The half degree increase over the past century may be accurate, or at least there is some agreement on it, but …. so what?

We’re still within the bounds of natural variation (and temps could continue to increase yet more. (I haven’t heard that Greenland’s coast is anywhere near ice free yet.)

“another bunch of scientists who have, from any unbiased spectator’s position, as much credibility”

Is not fact.

if you count these other fringe scientists equally, then AGW is still more credible than non-anthropogenic GW.

It’s only among the biased, like yourself, where you inflate the value of 1% a hundred fold or more to create “it’s not proven” for your own beliefs to be assuaged.

“We’re still within the bounds of natural variation”

Nope, natural variation would have a trend of zero over 30 years.

proves we’re outside the bounds of natural variation.

I guess you don’t play craps, do you.

If you roll snake-eyes 1000 times in a row, losing your shirt, the fact that you are still rolling between 2 and 12 which is the variation in the total of two six-sided dice is, to your limited intelligence, no proof you’re being scammed.

Your credulity and gullibility does, however, show why you and your ilk are always afraid of the scam: you’re so much of a sucker for them.

You will have to explain in your own words what your “woodfortrees” website is claiming. I’m not interested in chasing around web references.

To repeat, it’s pretty tough to over-rule 963 peer-reviewed studies on the MWP. The MWP had to be natural variation. No industrial activity back then. Followed by a 500 year little ice age. Warmists must on the one hand reject all of these scientists work, and accept instead accept a much smaller group where which has a couple of obvious agendas. One player at the UN admits that climate change is all about moving wealth from the industrialized nations to the poor countries. Many others are known for being firm believers in the “one-world” concept. (You can’t get there unless there’s some “crisis” which requires that the world be put under one organization, presumably the UN.) The IPCC has a vested interest in remaining viable. If man is not impacting the planet’s warming, they’re out of business.

The CRUs numerous egregious actions are sufficient to reject out of hand anything they have done.

But, the game goes on. Now some of our government agencies are cooperating on a new venture to change the definition of sea level.

Anybody using a website with a name like “WoodForTrees” and not recognizing what position such a group is likely to have is, to put it politely, naive ! adios

The data is the HadCRUT dataset and it plots that data for you. That graph shows that the trend is not zero and is , in fact, significantly above it. Therefore your assertion that we’re within natural variability is proven false.

With facts.

“The CRUs numerous egregious actions”

Only exist in the fevered imaginations of conspiracy nuts or denialists like yourself.

You can, however, change the dataset.

The trend is still positive and disproves your statement.

With facts.

Ocean sea level is not temperature, by the way.

James M. Taylor is managing editor of Environment & Climate News, a national monthly publication produced by the Heartland Institute think tank, and devoted to “sound science and free-market environmentalism,”

So he’s a free market fundamentalist paid by a fossil fuel funded lobbying group.

He’s been paid to say what you want to believe is true.

“The MWP had to be natural variation.”

Indeed. And forest fires happened before mankind existed. Therefore arson doesn’t exist?

You have no qualms about lying and making any story up as long as your randian belief system remains inviolate.


Ah, so who is this one player? And why do you believe them but not any of the others.

Your 953 papers are wrong, outdated and misrepresented by yourself to present a result you want to make heard. Just like your “one warmist paper” that has been shown false here today.


Ah! ‘Warmists’ eh! Explains the lines you take, more rhetorical drivel from the ideologically blimkered.

Try this:

Medieval project gone wrong


Posted on 30 April 2011 by Hoskibui

With regularity, you might hear skeptics mentioning a website called CO2 Science and its Medieval Project. It is a front for a research center called Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change and their goal is to distribute:


The website is run by the Idso family (Craig, Sherwood, Keith and Julene).
Medieval Project

One of the Idsos’ main projects collects temperature reconstructions of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) that claim to show local warming and then posts them on their website with the Idsos’ interpretation. They conclude that current warming is not unprecedented since there were warm periods in the past in various geographic locations around the globe.

The site is flooded with lots of references, but do the references say the same thing as the Idsos? CO2 Science has a powerful interactive map and by clicking on the dots on the map you get to a page where a summary of that study is displayed - or rather the CO2 Science interpretation of the study.



CO2 Science has also been a useful resource for other skeptics, see for example the Science Skeptical Blog * which has also available an i​​nteractive map (pictured below):



Interaction for healthy skeptics?

For people with healthy skepticism these interactive maps are quite good. It is crucial that those maps are viewed with a critical mind. On Skeptical Science (as opposed to Science Skeptical Blog) we have looked before at common graphical tricks used to exaggerate the Medieval Warm Period, which include the following:

Hide the temperature scale and/or the temperature values
Pick one area or location of the world
Cut out or ignore recent warming

The total effect of those maps is what is most effective for the casual reader. All of the selected articles on the map show at some point a period that can be interpreted as “Medieval Warming”. The quotation mark is because in some cases the research is only about the period itself - but not the temperature. For example we can find graphs showing changes in precipitation, like, Zhang et al 2003 - astudy from Tibet, which states in its abstract (emphasis mine):

… We find that the annual growth rings mainly reflect variations in regional spring precipitation. The greatest change in spring precipitation during the last two millennia seems to occur in the second half of the 4th century. The North Atlantic MWP was accompanied by notable wet springs in the study region during AD 929–1031, with the peak occurring around AD 974. …

Few of the graphs in Figure 2 contain temperature data past the mid-20th Century, and thus do not reflect current temperatures; in addition the MWP is rather ill-defined. Usually the MWP is the period between 950-1250, but when you look at the graphs you see some inconsistency. In it you see a warm period during 800 AD, 1100 AD or even 1400 AD; that warming is - by their opinion - indication of a global warming during the MWP. For example if you take graphs from two separate locations you can see some difference. Here we have one graph with a proxy for temperature in Greenland (Johnsen et al 2001) and the other one for New Zealand (Wilson et al 1979):


I’ll leave the remainder for you to discover by paying a visit at the link at the start of these quotes else you may miss important ideas.

‘The CRUs numerous egregious actions are sufficient to reject out of hand anything they have done.’


And those errors would be?

Name them and describe how they are errors.

Hint: I have provided some hints in posts further up.

Wake up anymouse!

‘But, the game goes on.’

So it would appear but the only ones playing a game are you tedious twerps!

National Academy calls on nation to “substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions” starting ASAP

Final report warns, “Waiting for unacceptable impacts to occur before taking action is imprudent because … many of these changes will persist for hundreds or even thousands of years.”


Record Heat in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma; Earliest 100° at Wichita
Update: Century-Old Records Also Broken By Wide Margin in Nebraska, Iowa

and more

and from


‘Where Have All the Seasons Gone?’

Delhi Platform, along with the Gujarat Agricultural Labour Union
published a 48-page report ‘Where Have All the Seasons Gone? Current
Impacts of Climate Change in Gujarat’. It focuses in particular on the
impacts of climate change on small and marginal farmers, and on
agricultural workers in parts of Gujarat.

A summary of the report is pasted below.

Anyone interested in the full printed copy, please contact us at
[email protected] Those in Delhi are welcome to come to our
up a copy.

In solidarity,

Nagraj Adve, and others,
Delhi Platform


understand better how people across gender, caste and class divides in
different regions and ecosystems are being impacted by climate change;
direction, because to address the issues meaningfully, participatory

This report reveals the already considerable impacts of global warming
on small and marginal farmers, and on agricultural labour in northern
and eastern Gujarat. A joint team comprising activists of Delhi
the Gujarat Agricultural Labour Union (GALU), Bandhkaam Mazdoor
Sanghatan and Disha, visited villages in Banaskantha and Sabarkantha
districts in northern Gujarat and the predominantly adivasi Dahod and
Panchmahal districts in eastern Gujarat in late-November, early
December 2010. This report is based on our conversations with
residents in villages there; discussions with activists; interactions
with those knowledgeable about Gujarat’s social structure, agriculture
and water systems; and on relevant primary data and secondary

Residents in villages told us about a range of climate change effects
winter temperature and a consequent loss of dew (atmospheric moisture)
southwest monsoon and a decline in rains in June; more intense
these reported changes are in keeping with changes elsewhere in India;
Secondly, whereas people in villages had expectedly a clear idea of
changes in rainfall and other climatic patterns, there was very little
awareness about why it was happening or that anthropocentric global
warming was to blame.
The impacts of climate change on small and marginal farmers (chapter
3) have been varied:

sharply reduced yields or farmers even having to leave their lands
fallow. Those without access to well water in eastern Gujarat are
poorest households.

b. Warmer winters are also resulting in the increased incidence of
pest attacks in both regions. Consequently, farmers are being forced
to incur a further burden of higher input/pesticide costs.

c. Irregular rainfall events are harming agriculture in different
groundnut and potato was devastated in 2010-2011 due to excessively
and unprecedented rains until late November. These extensive rains,
very likely caused by climate change, extended for hundreds of
kilometres beyond Gujarat, to southern Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Rajasthan, etc.

d. The extraction of groundwater by farmers has accentuated greatly
with the increasing cultivation of market-driven cash and
this intensifies, it has serious implications for the farm economy
generally, in particular for poorer farmers directly and landless
labour indirectly through the reduced demand for labour.

e. Milk production – which is central to household economies,
particularly among poor households, both in eastern Gujarat but
particularly in Banaskantha and Sabarkantha – is getting hit due to
thermal heat stress faced by local and hybrid cow breeds. The
availability of fodder, free or at least inexpensively, has
diminished, putting more pressure on households least able to cope
reducing the price at which milk can be sold.

suffer, wiping out possible short-term gains from Green Revolution

migration to factories or construction work in western and south
Gujarat. For sharecroppers (bataidars) and agricultural workers in
engages in agricultural labour. It meant migration, but thousands of
the first time that impacts of climate change on agricultural workers
in India are being presented in a published report.

Climate change cannot be viewed in isolation from social processes.
The capacity to absorb the impacts of climate change is crucially
dependent on two factors in any agrarian setting: land ownership and
husbandry, given its centrality for household economies. The social
structure and land ownership, the extensive tapping of groundwater in
northern Gujarat and its relative absence in adivasi areas of eastern
Gujarat; the development of milk cooperatives and the interconnections
between these three elements of the agrarian economy are discussed in
groundwater, policy variations in electrical supply over the last 20
years, the development of contract farming more recently, and how
north and eastern Gujarat differ in many of these.
farmers for loss in crop yields, and possible sources for such
compensatory payments. Regarding cushioning the impacts of, and
the better distribution of water and electricity, in developing and
maintaining ponds; check dams; development of grasslands, revival of
forests, water harvesting, etc.

The chapter also discusses crucial wider questions that the issue of
global warming revives, without which no meaningful long term solution
groundwater? It would include snapping the link between access to
arrangements in place at the community level that ensure that even the
these and related questions, we briefly discuss some earlier struggles
in Maharashtra and elsewhere around equitable distribution of water.

Climate change is only one among a range of ecological crises that
humanity has created and needs to tackle with urgency. Global warming
relations within human society. It forces us to rethink our entire
development trajectory itself. The need to tackle global warming hence
we hope, play a small part.

Same coming to, or already arrived at, farms near you in the US.

Stop playing silly mind games GF!

… as the glaciers advance once again, but in unison, I have no doubt that the warmist/alarmists will be calling it climate disruption and blaming the oncoming ice age on man.

If there’s no room for you in the power structure, invent a religion, the Church of AGW, and become one of its witch doctors.

you have a brick in your hand?


Please name all glaciers that are advancing in unison against a background number for the total of glacier numbers and how many of those are retreating.

There you go again on about Church of AGW etc., What a frigging boor you are!

Uh, what glaciers? Given your history of making stuff up, how are we supposed to know what you’ve said is even microscopically true?

Glaciers are retreating. Unless you are hunting around looking for one that is increasing and skipping all the rest (which would be falsification of data), and changing which glacier you consider at any given time. And that would be fraud.

The only religion is the faith-based one that, no matter what it may be, global warming is NOT anthropogenic.

NOTE: despite trying to claim “skepticism”, the proponents of one of the several score reasons for warming never take to task any of the others, as long as they too agree with the central tenant of their faith: it isn’t me, guv.

RE: “Glaciers are retreating.”

They have been for ten thousand years when Ice over a mile deep covered the greater majority of the North American Continent. All of this when humans lived at their margins.

When should have we rung the alarm bell, when they were only half a mile deep?

Note: the end of the last glacial period was 8-10,000 years ago. It’s retreating now far faster than ever before.

Plus also, for the education of those actually open to ideas, note how that before it was “the Glaciers are growing”.

Now, note, it’s all “yes, they’re retreating from the last ice age!”

Note that no self-styled “skeptic” or “doubting thomas” has noted this change of tack.

This is how you can spot denial: everything is accepted as long as it says “AGW is not happening”.

As long as the mode is “cut & paste” rather than intelligent discussion, here’s one for you:

The Global Warming Doctrine is Not a Science: Notes for Cambridge

English Pages, 10. 5. 2011



I have expressed my views about this issue in a number of speeches and articles presented or published in the last couple of years all over the world. My book “Blue Planet in Green Shackles”[1] has been translated into 17 languages. I spoke about it several times also here in Great Britain, in Chatham House four years ago[2], and most recently in the Global Warming Policy Foundation[3]. Some relevance had my speech at the UN Climate Change Conference in New York in September 2007.[4]










































Or do you have nothing to say that isn’t given to you by your manager?

“The Global Warming Doctrine is Not a Science: Notes for Cambridge”

Yup, a propaganda piece you’ve cut and pasted. I bet you don’t even know anything about it other than what you were passed by your pals.


So what would he know about science?

“What follows is my attempt to summarize my reading of this doctrine:”

Which is then followed by a doctrinaire declaration of his feelings. Not facts.

Remember: economists didn’t know that the economic crash would happen. Shows how well they understand predictions, doesn’t it.

You haven’t managed to say what glacier has retreated, nor whether this is a trend or an instantaneous reading nor whether it still holds true.

Heck, you haven’t even shown that it exists.

Instead you come out with a huge long gish gallop of something COMPLETELY UNRELATED to glaciers.

That you haven’t managed to substantiate your claims shows that your claim is false and you know it.

This is known as lying.

But your fellow denialists will forgive you, as long as you ensure that you don’t tell them they’re wrong.


Note that I am actually posting material that is germane to the discussion of climate change. Then you respond with a rhetoric laden rant from an ideologue and one who quotes Plimer. Well he torpedoes himself by even citing Plimer who has been exposed as a fraud:


Plimer exposed as a fraud

Category: Plimer
Posted on: December 15, 2009 12:18 PM, by Tim Lambert

Ian Plimer’s performance in his debate with Monbiot has to be seen to be believed. Rather than admit to making any error at all, Plimer ducks, weaves, obfuscates, recites his favourite catch phrase, tries to change the subject and fabricates some more. When confronted with the fact that the USGS says (backed with scientific papers) that human activities emit 130 times as much CO2 as volcanoes, Plimer claims that the USGS doesn’t count underwater volcanoes. When told that the USGS specifically said that they do count undersea volcanoes, Plimer invented a story about how the nature of the rocks under the ocean proves that there must be unobserved emissions. Needless to say, this is not acceptable conduct for a scientist.

The University of Adelaide’s code of practice on research misconduct states:

Misrepresentation : A researcher or reviewer shall not with intent to deceive, or in reckless disregard for the truth:

(a) state or present a material or significant falsehood; (b) omit a fact so that what is stated or presented as a whole states or presents a material or significant falsehood.

Elsewhere, James Randerson interviewed Plimer and


Randerson has an another example of Plimer refusing to admit to even the most blatant error:

Elsewhere in the book, Plimer appears to have conflated a US temperature record and the global average temperature. On page 99 he writes “Nasa now states that […] the warmest year was 1934.” The Nasa dataset he is referring to covers the US only but he seems to be referring to the world average.

Again, Plimer does not appear to accept that the world is warming. But in fact, the hottest year on record is 1998 and eight of the 10 hottest years ever recorded have occurred this century.

When I put the mistake to him he responded: “The 1930s in North America and probably the rest of the world were a hot period of time.” But what about increased global average temperature since then? “That has been disputed by many of my colleagues who I have a great regard for because they’ve been the people involved in putting measurements together … I do dispute that as do many other people who are far more qualified in atmospheric sciences than I.”

Bob Burton tracks down the story of how the AAP reported Plimer’s speech before it happened. As you might have guessed, the journalist did a cut and paste from a press release put out by a PR firm.

On Saturday the Sydney Morning Herald printed a report from Copenhagen by Ian Plimer on a news page. My letter to them:

Please cancel my subscription to the SMH.

The SMH simply does not care about the accuracy of what it publishes. You obviously did not bother to check whether there was any basis to Ian Plimer’s dishonest smears of climate scientist, allowing him to falsely accuse them of fraud and “mafia-type thuggery”.

I don’t know why you think your business model should involve deceiving your readers, but I’m not buying it or your paper any more.


The effects around the world being of the utmost importance for those who, like you, seem to have your head up the bum and cannot discern the obvious. The obvious as as I have repeatedly demonstrated. Did you bother reading any of it?

You moan about be sending you all over the internet, well you started that modus with your GOOGLEDOCCROC..

The problem is you see that this is a topic that involves complex science and mathematics in many disciplines and thus cannot easily be explained by posting other than the bare essentials in a blogg such as this.

But of course you realise that and take advantage. It matters not how we present the information you still sneer. That tells me that you are not the least interested in the truth and are therefore either too stupid, perhaps suffering from cognitive dissonance, to understand the bigger picture or are so ideologically driven and ethically suspect that you are lying and know it. Thus you are nothing but a troll.

OTOH Maybe you are a honey pot hoping that one of us will write something that your heroes can pick up on to sue.

PS. And the US once had as president a George W Bush—look how that turned out—the worst US president in living memory and that is saying something given the legacy of Richard Nixon and Ronald Raygun.

Hey, GoFigure:

I wasn’t aware of this address by Vaclav Klaus. Thanks for the information. Klaus (among others) is a powerful voice of reason in the AGW issue. Because AGW is being used to fuel political objectives, politicians care not whether AGW causes harmful climate effects. In my estimation, unless some scientist makes a game-changing CO2 discovery, it would be more appropriate for skeptics to denounce AGW from a political viewpoint. Why? The deck is stacked in favor of AGW supporters for many reasons, all of them political, such as:

1. Government throws billions at AGW research and nothing at natural causes.
2. Funding for research on natural causes of warming is miniscule and universally proclaimed by Warmers to be “dirty” money.
3. The vast majority of scientists working in the field of climate change receives and depends on government AGW grants for their livelihood.
4. Key AGW scientists have conspired to “doctor” AGW science and suppress publication of contradictory research.
5. Skeptical scientists have been vilified, sacked, libeled and slandered by AGW supporters.
6. Climate models MUST assume that clouds amplify the effect of pure (benign) CO2 warming in order to show harm to the environment. Assumption is necessary because scientists cannot agree on what effect clouds actually have on CO2 warming. If this assumption isn’t made, the models do not predict any measureable manmade warming.
7. A sympathetic mainstream media feeds alarming AGW pronouncements to an audience interested only in bad news.
8. Politicians who lead us from calamity tend to get reelected.

You quoted Klaus as saying: “If someone wants to reduce CO2 emissions, he must either expect a revolution in economic efficiency (which determines emissions intensity) or must start organizing a world-wide economic decline.”

Klaus is essentially correct, except that government is doing both.

Government refuses to fund the R&D to find a 24/7 replacement for carbon fuels. They essentially fund production of windmills, solar cells, and Ethanol… which cannot replace carbon fuels (this is a great subject to discuss separately). After saying that carbon fuels are a threat to humanity, I would expect government to make a concerted effort to find a new energy source to replace carbon fuels. Why isn’t this happening?

Government is intent on taxing carbon, as “Cap and Trade” or by any other name. The idea is to force energy users to switch to a carbon free energy source that government refuses to provide. This makes no sense to me. As government would strangle our economic output with added costs of carbon credits, we would see our GNP decline, see manufacturing go overseas, and see job losses. Perhaps this is part of a master plan. The industrialized countries would lose manufacturing and jobs, and developing countries would gain them. This is likely a part of the Global Warming Doctrine (GWD) referred to by Klaus.

As I see it, government is using the AGW lie to scare us into accepting its proscription for radically altering our way of life. But because government won’t try and find a replacement energy source for carbon fuels, the lie is revealed. Government is doing nothing that can save use from any threats of manmade CO2. How can CO2 actually be harmful? Why would government lie to us?

Sound reasoning

“anonymous. +0; Fri, 2011-05-13 12:11; Good Information ”

That is one of the most extreme reds under yer beds unfounded pieces of crap I have ever read.

“But because government won’t try and find a replacement energy source for carbon fuels, the lie is revealed.”

What a sec. So the reds under yer beds right wing nutters like yourself & Gareth are saying this & “sound reasoning” & AGW is “socialism”, yet you guys want government to find a replacement energy source & not the free market provide it to us? Sounds like socialism to me.

It’s a bit hard when you have right wing nutters like Gareth screaming down with big government at every election & whingeing that the government is too much a part of our lives. Yet now you whinge that the government hasn’t found an energy replacement source for carbon fuels, the lie is revealed?

And Gareth like a typical unthinking drone says “sound reasoning”.


1) No, that is your paranoia. All scientific research is conducted in an unbiased objective manner. If something is natural, they say it’s natural, if man has something to do with it, they say so. It’s obvious you believe the results are more harmful to your ideology than the planet you live on.
2) Then why have faith in the poptech list of 900 papers? Either they exist or they don’t exist. The dirty money is in reference to the tiny amount of media circuit scientists with ties to the fossil fuel or mining industry that speak at fossil fuel or right wing conferences to spin propaganda & falsehoods.
3)Just like most scientists in most fields of science for the past few hundred years…amazing discovery! Do you expect us to not learn about our own planet? I bet you never doubted them until the companies that fund your political party said they would be affected. Say about 7-10 years ago?
4)No, what it showed was that deniers had little clue about what they were talking about & took everything out of context. The documents were freely available to anyone, but McIntyre chose to use FOI to delay or tie up Jones research. Straight out of the corporation playbook where they used to subpoena people constantly to shut them down. FOI is the newest weapon. McIntyre, Eschenbach, Watts & CA was exposed for what they are. Amateurs & delayers. Jones was vindicated.
5) They give as much as they get. Provide examples.
6)The effect of clouds has long been understood, catch up.
7) What?..Are you saying they shouldn’t be allowed to report a flood, cyclone/hurricane, tornado, drought,snow event?
8) Like in Canada? Like the U.K? Like New Zealand? Like France?

and for the shoring up of the randian faith system that enables greed as a good attribute.

He’s bought and paid for by secretive commercial interests.

AGW is a solid theory that has stood the test of GENUINE skeptics. It is accurate in its predictions and sufficient in its explanatory power to describe the current and past climate.

Burbling on about light and “it’s a word we give something” which even he has decided was too crazy to continue with has only managed to show his internal confusion.

And the explanation of the climate that fits the evidence, withstanding many and varied attempts to test or refute the explanation means that we must take steps to avoid making the climate change disastrously for our civilisation.

However, Titas believes that the world is His plaything and that he has a mandate from God to stuff it up.

And to protect his comforting lies, he is going very publicly insane.

Google “Ptolemy theory” sometimes know as Almagest. Around 150AD.

We have climate change. If you think CO2 isn’t a cause, how do you think you get weather?

Pure nuttiness