A Question To Ask Every Global Warming Proponent

We are at a critical point in the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) war on prosperity. The EPA is about to engage in economy busting regulation of CO2 on the theory that it is a pollutant. And on that basis, Obama is destroying our energy infrastructure with his war on coal, which accounts for 50% of our nation's electricity generation, and oil, which, with declining domestic productions, now accounts for over half of our trade deficit. This has us on a road to pay disastrous prices for energy in the future, with all that means for our economy and jobs. If our nation is to return to prosperity, we must change the paradigm of the AGW debate.

For the last two decades, the meme of the warmies, repeated ad infinitum, has been that climate science is proven by peer reviewed literature and that the consensus is that the science is beyond dispute. Today, there is a mountain of evidence showing that the meme is a canard. It is time to change the terms of the debate on this issue. It is time to demand, unequivocally, that the warmies tell us exactly what would falsify the theory of AGW. And it is time to demand that the EPA Administrator answer that question under oath before Congress.

We have had fifteen years of stable or slightly falling temperatures (notwithstanding the inane babbling of uber-warmie Jim Hansen and his manipulation of NASA data - including the "raw data"). Much of the world has just experienced one of the most horrendously cold Decembers on record. This comes on the heels of warmies telling us for years (Hansen, the MET, and virtually all other warmies included) that global warming would mean temperatures rising co-extensively with humans pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, causing untold calamities and much milder winters.

Instead, the climate models used by the warmies have catastrophically failed over the past 15 years and we are experiencing record-setting bitter winters. Shamelessly, warmies now tell us that AGW is the cause of this cold weather. AGW is, they alledge, melting sea ice, thus leading to changing weather patterns and increased humidity that is the cause.

It is notable that NASA told us, in 1999, that AGW was causing changing weather patterns over the Arctic, but that the result thereof would be ever milder winters. Regardless, and more importantly, do see Roger Pielke, Sr's specific criticism of this new theory. Pielke, an IPCC scientist, critically notes that the proposed narrative suffers from significant factual errors and actually raises "substantive issues with the robustness and accuracy" of the 2007 IPCC report.

Thus do we need to be forcing the warmies to answer, at every turn, the simple question, what evidence would be necessary to falsify the theory of global warming? What are the "facts" that they identify as forming the crucial underpinnings that AGW? With that answer in hand, then the meme of AGW will cease to be mindless dogma. It will become actual science that cannot withstand scrutiny.

The evidence against AGW is mountainous. The rise in temperatures in the last century are not in any way extreme compared to what we see throughout geologic history. World temperatures are nowhere near a historic high. For but one example, Nature magazine, a pro-AGW publication, is today discussing the study of ice cores showing that temperatures 130,000 years ago were a whopping 9 degrees F. warmer than today.

Geologic history shows no correlation between CO2 and climate. To the contrary, evidence shows CO2 levels lagging temperature spikes by centuries. A very recent study looking at this issue over the past several decades found a direct correlation between humidity and temperature, but no significant correlation between CO2 and temperature.

Our geologic history has shown numerous temperature spikes at least equal to, and in most cases exceeding, the current warming that has been occurring since the end of the Little Ice Age. Just within the past 2,000 years, evidence shows the Roman Warming and the Medieval Warming periods likely exceeded temperatures occurring today (notwithstanding the infamous hockey stick). So how can the warmies possibly show that the modern warming trend is anomalous?

What about ice? The warmies would have us believe that the ice caps are melting and that it is only a matter of time until Manhattanites are taking gondalas to work. Yet on the aggregate, we are losing little if any ice cover, and there is nothing anomalous about the local ice cover that we are losing. The vast majority of the world's ice is in Antarctica - approximately 90%. And the ice there is growing, hitting record highs in 2010. The Arctic has lost ice, but this is not an inexplicable anomaly. Moreover, interestingly, we recently learned that the area of thick ice in the Arctic has actually doubled since 2008. Regardless, there have been numerous periods in recorded history where Arctic sea ice has tended low. So how do the warmies distinguish our modern situation from history?

And when the warmies claim that their work is peer reviewed, understand that the term is meaningless as a measure of reliability (that according to one of the fathers of the modern peer review process). That is all the moreso in the context of climate science, where the entire scientific process has been bastardized - AGW proponents have substituted "peer review" as ipso facto proof of reliability in place of reproducibility of their results. Indeed, an important aspect to changing the paradigm on AGW is to ask whether each and every study and data set relied on by the AGW crowd include all the raw data, meta data, methodology and computational formulas such as would allow the work to be independently verified. Anything not meeting this criteria - and it is a very large chunk of the studies upon which the canard of AGW is built, including the temperature data sets of NASA and others - is worthless as proof of AGW. Indeed, we should be demanding that our government pass legislation holding that anyone operating pursuant to publicly funded grants and who publishes studies in respect thereof without information that would allow for independent verification be thereafter banned from recieving any future public grants. I can assure you that would shake the AGW promoting academia to their core. Certainly we should demand that the EPA not place any reliance on unreproducable studies when making regulatory decisions.

It bears repeating that carbon dioxide is a trace gas, forming only 0.03% of the earth's atmosphere. It is not even the most significant of the green house gases; water vapor is. The vast majority of the 0.03% of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is produced naturally. Indeed, all of the human burning of fossil fuels only contributes 0.0042% to the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. And that is what is supposed to be driving our climate? Pay no attention to that little glowing ball in the sky.

The few true believers are nuts. The rest who are pushing this are pursuing either money, dictatorial power over our lives, or the destruction of America - or some combination of all three. Our prosperity depends on winning the argument about AGW in the public square, and that with virtually all of the mainstream media arrayed in favor of AGW. Regardless, the argument can and must be won. Step one is to change the paradigm of the argument.

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Climategate Update 10: Climategate Reverberates from The UK To Down Under

Accross the pond, the Daily Express has become the first national newspaper to give front page billing to Climategate. On the flip side of the coin, the BBC is furiously fighting a rear guard action to minimize fall-out from Climategate.

Down under, Australian PM Kevin Rudd, who has made cap and trade legislation to "combat global warming" the centerpiece of his agenda and who, but a week ago, seemed destined to see it pass the legislature, watched as the measure went down in flames today. The Times of London has the story.

James Delingpole rounds up the evidence that Climategate is starting to unravel the AGW world. Writing at UK's Telegraph. Delingpole brings up plans by some scientists to bring criminal fraud charges against the CRU. Equally of interest, he tells of a challenge to the Tory Party's David Cameron over Cameron's own mindless embrace of the green madness. This from Mr. Delingpole:

Watch out Green Dave! The Independent reports on the growing backlash within the party to Cameron’s libtard-wooing greenery. Turning to the Independent for a balanced report on environmental matters is a bit like consulting Der Sturmer for a sensible, insightful view on the Jewish question. Still, for once, the house journal of eco-loonery seems to have got it right and the point made by Tory backbencher David Davis is well made:

“The ferocious determination to impose hair-shirt policies on the public – taxes on holiday flights, or covering our beautiful countryside with wind turbines that look like props from War of the Worlds – is bound to cause a reaction in any democratic country.”

At PJM, Ed Driscoll has a great roundup of climate scares then and now. The sky is falling, the sky is falling indeed.

Also at PJM, Christopher Horner picks up an interesting disconnect regarding Michael Mann and "Mike's trick" to hide the decline.

And also at PJM, an interview with distinguished scientist Roger Pielke, Sr., who discusses how climate science has been corrupted by the IPCC and how contrary voices have been ignored. Among his specific charges, Pielke states that the surface temperature data being relied upon has significant problems of reliability. While Pielke does not question some level of AGW, he believes the IPCC conclusions have been proven untenable.

Updates: This from PJM on what is likely to be the most important aspect of the fallout from Climategate - the application reconsideration of carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the EPA's regulatory authority:

In light of the Climategate fraud scandal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on Wednesday filed a petition asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act, pending a thorough investigation of and public comment on the newly released information. . . .

Reason Mag has a very good article on the damage Climategate has done to the field of climate science and what that field needs to do to recover some sembelance of credibility. Someone needs to tell Barbara Boxer that it involves a bit more than simply prosecuting the individual or individuals who leaked the CRU e-mails. She is in complete denial.

As is the Huffington Post which, according to Newsbusters, is in the midst of a fully blown Climategate panic attack.

And Jon Stewart has a lot of fun with Climategate, though he has to add an evil Republican in for balance apparently:



Prior Posts:

Climategate and Surrealism
More Climategate Fallout
Climategate Update 3
Climategate Update 4: CRU Records Worthless
Climategate Update 5: IPCC's Chairman Mao
Climategate Update 6: Climategate In Video
UNEP, Green Religion & Global Governance
Climate Update 7: IPCC's Chairman Mao Plays The Obama Card, Peer Review Analyzed, Scientific Method Explained For Paul Krugman
Climategate Update 8: The NYT Reports
Climategate Update 9: CRU Head Phil Jones Steps Down During Investigation, An MIT Prof Explains The Holes In AGW Theory, And Climate Fraud Is Everywhere

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