Friday, November 14, 2008

The nature of discourse ...

... and The Futile Quest for Climate Control.

This is a long and detailed piece. It deserves to be read in full before being commented upon. (Actually, no piece should ever be criticized if it has not been carefully read,)

The basic flaw that was incorporated into IPCC methodology from the beginning was the assumption that matters of science can be decided on authority or consensus; in fact, and as Galileo early showed, science as a method of investigating the world is the very antithesis of authority. A scientific truth is so not because the IPCC or an Academy of Science blesses it, or because most people believe it, but because it is formulated as a rigorous hypothesis that has survived testing by many different scientists.

... most people termed climate “sceptics” are in fact climate “agnostics”, and have no particular axe to grind regarding human influence on climate ... all good scientists are sceptics: that is their professional job. Not to be a sceptic of the hypothesis that you are testing is the rudest of scientific errors, for it means that you are committed to a particular outcome: that’s faith, not science.

Despite the failure of the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming from carbon dioxide emissions, everything that we know from the study of ancient climate indicates that a genuine climate problem does nonetheless exist. It is the risk of natural climate change, both warmings and the much more dangerous coolings.

1 comment:

  1. Here's the Weather Channel founder John Coleman saying it a year ago: YouTube: Can't stand the heat.

    You've probably read it before, maybe even linked to it before, but here is the Coleman article, making very similar points to the Robert M. Carter one you link to:

    It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming... it is a SCAM.

    Some misguided scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long-term scientific data back in the late 1990's to create an illusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmentalextremism type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

    Environmental extremist, notable politicians among them then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda.

    Now their ridiculously manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, schoolteachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.

    I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party.

    However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you "believe in." It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming are a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won't believe me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.

    I suspect you might like to say to me, "John, look the research that supports the case for global warming was done by research scientists; people with PhD’s in Meteorology. They are employed by major universities and important research institutions. Their work has been reviewed by other scientists with PhD’s. They have to know a lot more about it than you do. Come on, John, get with it. The experts say our pollution has created an strong and increasing greenhouse effect and a rapid, out of control global warming is underway that will sky rocket temperatures, destroy agriculture, melt the ice caps, flood the coastlines and end life as we know it. How can you dissent from this crisis? You must be a bit nutty.

    Allow me, please, to explain how I think this all came about. Our universities have become somewhat isolated from the rest of us. There is a culture and attitudes and values and pressures on campus that are very different. I know this group well. My father was a PhD-University type. I was raised in the university culture. Any person who spends a decade at a university obtaining a PhD in Meteorology and become a research scientist, more likely than not, becomes a part of that single minded culture. They all look askance at the rest of us, certain of their superiority. They respect government and disrespect business, particularly big business. They are environmentalists above all else.

    And, there is something else. These scientists know that if they do research and the results are in no way alarming, their research will gather dust on the shelf and their research careers will languish. But if they do research that sounds alarms, they will become well known and respected and receive scholarly awards and, very importantly, more research dollars will come flooding their way.

    Remember the United Nations had formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the late 1980's with the mission of accessing and countering manmade climate change. The UN had established this global bureaucracy on climate change. It had become the "world series" or "Olympics" for Climatologists and Meteorologists and scientists in related fields. You had to strive to be accepted, invited to present and review papers and travel to international meetings of the committee. Otherwise you were a nobody in your field.

    So when these researchers did climate change studies in the late 90's they were eager to produce findings that would be important and be widely noticed and trigger more research funding. It was easy for them to manipulate the data to come up with the results they wanted to make headlines and at the same time drive their environmental agendas. Then their like-minded PhD colleagues reviewed their work and hastened to endorse it without question.

    There were a few who didn't fit the mold. They did ask questions and raised objections. They did research with contradictory results. The environmental elitists berated them and brushed their studies aside.

    I have learned since the Ice Age is coming scare in the 1970's to always be a skeptic about research. In the case of global warming, I didn't accept media accounts. Instead I read dozens of the scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct when I assure you there is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. It is all a scam, the result of bad science.

    I am not alone in this assessment. There are hundreds of other meteorologists, many of them PhD’s, who are as certain as I am that this global warming frenzy is based on bad science and is not valid.

    I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

    In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped.

    The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway.

    I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.

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