This is must reading that will take you five minutes and alter your entire view of the warming issue.
I read the article he links to and it really is an eye opener. It explains how graphs showing movements in temperature can be terribly misleading. If we take only a recent slice of history then it does appear as if there has been significant warming. But the further back in time you go, the less significant the recent rise appears.
Read the linked article and you'll understand (the graphs in the article aren't ideal as they don't carry as far forward as they should and miss recent rises, but even with the half a degree change left out the basic point stands).
The author of the article is not anti-environmentalist. He would still prefer to develop cleaner sources of energy through the development of new technologies:
Does this mean that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas? No. Does it mean that it isn’t warming? No. Does it mean that we shouldn’t develop clean, efficient technology that gets its energy elsewhere than burning fossil fuels? Of course not. We should do all those things for many reasons — but there’s plenty of time to do them the right way, by developing nanotech.
We are not living out the last days of planet earth. The recent rises in temperature are small and well within normal, modest patterns of climate change.
So there is no reason for us to be railroaded into a massive transfer of funds to a new layer of global bureaucrats and placeholders. Once we commit to sources of funding for another layer of officialdom, we're likely to be stuck with the financial drain and the political interference in the long term.
Well after global warming itself has long been discredited and forgotten about.
1. Its not global warming its climate change. That means every bit of "climate", wind, rain or snow, proves the thesis.
ReplyDelete2. The sun has increased its temp by 0.3% over recent years. However, that has nothing to do with us so its passed over. Is that enough to cause increases in temp? Someone can work it out.
3. We are on the verge of catastrophe, armageddon. However, the most obvious solution, nuclear power, is not considered. Suddenly things don't look that bad when nuclear power is on the table. What we hear is that "nuclear power can be considered as part of a range of solutions" and then its not considered.
4. Recycling, less water use, turning off lights etc continue to be pushed as the main way to combat it. These are useless and hair shirt solutions.
5. We're on the verge of catastrophe etc, however, that should not limit the right of developing nations to pump out CO2. If it means curtailing other countries suddenly climate change doesn't look to bad. Historically we developed first so blah blah blah.
6. The article said we should look to nanotech. We could look to nuclear fusion. Scientific solutions are not pushed. What is pushed is science that harnesses the power of "nature". Sun, wind etc.
7. The continual theme is that, industrial rapacity, greed (western greed) is to blame for this. Where have we heard this before in the last century?
This is one of the biggest piles of bullshit in history.
Thank you Mark. A great article.
ReplyDeleteAlways be sceptical when your government tells you something. Just because they say they are working for your best interests does not mean they are.
And all the "Believer" scientists are funded by government money, 100 billion of it since 1990.
Climate gate is simply a means to establish carbon credits as a reserve for a new global currency.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 5:29PM - can you explain how that would work for us economically unsophisticated?
ReplyDeleteMy thought was it was a brilliant way of redistributing wealth. People in wealthy nations wouldn't be able to SPEND their money without buying credits from 3rd world countries. In other words, rather than transferring money directly, which would stir up lots of opposition, the same thing would be accomplished in a more sneaky way.
"In other words, rather than transferring money directly, which would stir up lots of opposition, the same thing would be accomplished in a more sneaky way."
ReplyDeleteGood old fashion welfare policy writ large.
Whether you call it Global Warming or Climate Change, it's a "belief system" that has become the dominant secular religion of our time. Anyone presenting objective evidence that counters the so-called "scientific consensus" gets disparaged as a "denier". There's no arguing with zealots.
ReplyDeleteThere's lots of incentives for politicians to railroad us on this issue: they have found a perfect excuse to raise taxes while flaunting their high moral principles.
The Australian Government admitted yesterday that Australia would have to pay $150 billion over the next 10 years to achieve a small decrease of 15% in carbon emissions. That's $15 billion a year.
ReplyDeleteThe Opposition thinks the figure is closer to $400 billion.
Either way we are committing enormous sums of money on what seems to be a false pretext. It is a large-scale transfer of wealth prettied up, as Alex put it, with high moral principles.
Charles Krauthammer has a good quote on all this:
ReplyDelete"Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet."
"This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet."
ReplyDeleteNot to mention saving those oceanic micro states where only a 2 metre rise in see level would see them disappear. Did you see the Bolivian indigenous delegation at Copenhagen? They did a save the planet ceremony and demanded a new type of capitalism. The old type led us to this.
The acid test of the sincerity of climate change activists: do they publicly demand a moratorium on further immigration to prevent Australia's greenhouse gas emissions from increasing?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, as Peter Ridd points out, "if you believe that C02 causes climate change, Australia’s population growth will make it almost impossible to achieve meaningful emission reductions. We have to reduce per-capita emissions by 50 per cent every 40 years just to keep our total emission at present levels."
Despite all its rhetoric about the need to take action on climate change, the Rudd Government certainly seems to rank ongoing immigration-driven population growth as a higher priority than meaningful national emission reductions.
Anonymous, excellent point.
ReplyDeleteIf Rudd sincerely believed that emissions were such a threat that they had to be drastically cut, would he really be such a big immigration man, since this necessarily means that emissions will continue to rise?
Love the Krauthammer link Mark. I think that article of his really hits the nail on the head.
ReplyDeletePersonally it really bugs me that global warming/climate change is such a political matter, like if your a democrat your supposed to believe in global warming.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Nuclear power is not renewable? Ultimately a turn to Nuclear power would result in the same conclusion our dependence on gas is.
That Solar Power and wind power are also only really viable to a few parts of the country, and geo thermal energy (how George Bush fuels his home in Crawford) only works for parts of the country at certain elevations?
How about this one, the U.S is in fact not the biggest environmental offender, not even close compared to India and China.
I don't really know where I am going with this, but I think if Global warming is a problem it is a symptom of a larger problem, like the energy crisis, economic crisis, pollution and overpopulation. We need to take care of these things anyway so is it possible that its not just the science people are against but the implications of what taking care of global warming would be?
I am not saying I believe in global warming, I am just saying that debating its existence is kind of inconsequential, because we need to take care of things that are accused of causing it anyway.
Cassandra,
ReplyDeleteI agree in part with your point. We do need to develop cleaner sources of renewable energy, regardless of the existence of global warming.
But the debate about climate change does matter. The advocates of warming are claiming that we have to act right now in a dramatic way or there will be cataclismic results.
They are using this argument to justify a transfer of control over Western economies to global agencies, with the aim being not only to fund another layer of global functionaries, and to enrich a layer of commerical speculators, but to transfer wealth from Western populations to non-Western ones.
The process is already starting. On SBS news last night they had a report on Australian speculators who are buying up carbon rights from Papua New Guinean forest dwellers. The speculators will then sell these rights to companies for a profit. The companies will pass on these costs to Western consumers.
The Papua New Guineans, in the meantime, are being paid to do absolutely nothing. They are confused by what is happening, being unable to grasp what they are actually trading for the money they're being given. They have started to call it "sky money".
"Did you know that Nuclear power is not renewable? Ultimately a turn to Nuclear power would result in the same conclusion our dependence on gas is."
ReplyDeleteSo what we use it till we develop something else. Human history is not static, unlike bureaucracies.
"I think if Global warming is a problem it is a symptom of a larger problem, like the energy crisis, economic crisis, pollution and overpopulation. We need to take care of these things anyway"
Energy crisis, develop alternative fuels. Economic crisis? What's that again? Pollution and overpopulation. Our cities used to be smoggy they're not anymore (or far less so). Overpopulation, large populations aren't necessarily a concern unless you dump everyone together into huge megacities. We could be developing colonies on other planets we could be doing lots of things.
Go hug a tree and turn yourself into a native and leave humanity for the rest of us.
Iowa Hawk also has an excellent article
ReplyDeletehttp://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/12/fables-of-the-reconstruction.html#more