An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore

[Albert Tatlock]

British tree huggers killing us all!

[Lost Login]

I was going to post this much earlier but I had a problem accessing the Manx Forum Website.

 

I must give creit to Albert to finding and posting a link to Wikepedia. Is thia similar to the theory that an infinite number of monkeys would eventually type the complete word of Shakespear. And be fair if you click on the "list of scientists opposing global warming it takes you straight to the link.

 

However Alber appears to have forgotten to paste the start of the link which says "This page lists scientists, not necessarily involved in climate research". Funny that he overlooked to post that the list included scientists not included in climate research however I am sure it was an oversight and not an attempt to mislead.

 

Alber also seems to have missed that the start of the page states that "The consensus has been summarized by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as follows:

 

The global average surface temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2°C since the late 19th century, and 0.17°C per decade in the last 30 years. [1]

"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities", in particular emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane. [2]

If greenhouse gas emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate, with temperatures increasing by 1.4°C to 5.8°C between 1990 and 2100, causing sea level rise and increasing extreme weather events like hurricanes. On balance, the impacts of global warming will be significantly negative. [3]

These main points are held by the majority of climate scientists and those doing research in closely related fields".

 

Albert note that that this says "These main points are held by the majority of climate scientists and those doing research in closely related fields" This does seem to be slightly contradictory to your posts.

 

Now I would not normally rely and post what can be found in Wikepedia but I am sure that that Albert would not wish to mislead and that the whole link should be posted rather than selective parts. Not.

 

Albert I have no problem with you not believing in global warming or even potential causes of it and I have every respect for your right to disagree, but do not insult posters intelligence, by cutting and posting so amateurishly.

 

 

 

 

 

That's an excellent list of scientists.

 

Twelve! There are obviously less climatologists than I thought if they make up the bulk of that body of people, especially since only six of those twelve are environmental scientists (also, each of those scientists are primarily skeptical about whether the earth is heating up, and the accuracy of our predictive tools regarding the environment. Not, it must be said, about CO2 emissions or wider effects on the environment of humanity's activity).

[Albert Tatlock]

Sorry, I don 't have time at the moment to type chinanormous posts of vinniesk proportions on this subject - mainly because it's year end with lots of work on at the moment.

 

I would, however, rather people concentrated on showing me why they think all this is b*llocks - rather than concentrating on the 'fact' that there 'seem' to be a minority of scientists that disagree. This reminds me of the establishment against Galileo, Einstein etc. except of course that in this day and age we are talking of course about the new religeon of hype, lobby and media.

 

It is easy for lobby groups to scare the crap out of a few ex-chimney sweeps and shopkeepers if they force them to watch a film that professes to be the truth, when in reality it is full of inconsistencies and pseudo science. There is another argument that is being completely missed here: that man may be contributing to global climate change but we are overestimating the actual impact of this, and using our resources inefficiently to deal with a fractional proportion of the cause, when such resources could be used to research and deal with the true major impacts.

 

Science is nothing to do with public consensus.

[nipper]

Well done Albert for holding the fort for the global warming detractors. Without you this thread would have slivered off the page.

 

I sometimes have a naturally cynical and truculent side to my nature and love a good sneer at Greenies and suchlike. However, I saw the film and it did make me think and wonder about all this global warning thing . I think you would enjoy the film and I hope you see it sometime.

[Albert Tatlock]

Well done Albert for holding the fort for the global warming detractors. Without you this thread would have slivered off the page.

 

I sometimes have a naturally cynical and truculent side to my nature and love a good sneer at Greenies and suchlike. However, I saw the film and it did make me think and wonder about all this global warning thing . I think you would enjoy the film and I hope you see it sometime.

I have watched it.

 

An inconvenient truth

[Steve Gribbon]

Fair enough Albert. I take it you have watched the full 100 minutes rather than a trailer or a 10 minute clip.

 

Now I'm no tub thumper for the Global Warming lobby, but after watching the whole film I now feel I have a better understanding of matters. The other side of the sceptics argument perhaps.

 

Please tell me your views are based on having watched the whole film.

 

Oh and please change your avatar back again, I think I used to know more or less where you stood in the world, but jokey cartoon thingies really don't become you.

 

[Albert Tatlock]

I knocked this solution up in the shed last night. Sorted!

 

[Albert Tatlock]

Fair enough Albert. I take it you have watched the full 100 minutes rather than a trailer or a 10 minute clip.

 

Now I'm no tub thumper for the Global Warming lobby, but after watching the whole film I now feel I have a better understanding of matters. The other side of the sceptics argument perhaps.

 

Please tell me your views are based on having watched the whole film.

 

Oh and please change your avatar back again, I think I used to know more or less where you stood in the world, but jokey cartoon thingies really don't become you.

 

Yes I did watch it all...and am still of the same views. You will only have a better understanding if you read both sides of the debate.

 

I am not arguing that there isn't climate change going on - there always has been and there always will be - that's why billions of species are not living on the planet anymore. I am arguing that many others think that our part in it is not as much as people and the hype says (there are also much more powerful forces at work). The failure to tackle the problem properly e.g. paying billions to lower our own relatively fractional emissions, at the expense of people dying by not building adequate flood defences etc. and other factors that will minimise the inevitable impacts of change will leave many politicians looking like idiots in about 30 years time. This spending should also include the development of far more powerful climatic models and much more research, as well as the development of other solutions - some which may sound futuristic - like even controlling the weather. You might think my previous 'baco-foil' post was a joke, but one day I suspect it will actually be possible to do this as part of 'weather control'.

 

There is too much pseudo science going on at the moment. It's a bit like the early days of the animal testing debate, where the fanatics have all of the say, and the commonsense people have little or are too frightended to speak up. The same old references come up time and time again, with people using them to justify their 'unscientific' opinions each time. Pseudo science leads to dumbocracy. It also leads to higher unnecessary and mis-spent taxes. This country has never had fewer scientists or engineers, yet has never had so much scientific opinion, most of which is based on releases from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which is a political not a scientific body, or the report by Stern who is an economist. Anyone can pick a bit of a 5 billion year long graph and present the worst or best case for anything. As an engineer/scientist I abhor that.

 

P.S. Just for you Steve I have changed back to my original avatar, though this does not look anything like me really either. Nothing is ever what it seems.

[VinnieK]

This reminds me of the establishment against Galileo, Einstein etc. except of course that in this day and age we are talking of course about the new religeon of hype, lobby and media.

 

This is, as I've said elsewhere, a nonsense argument, based on a flawed knowledge of the contemporary debate surrounding those scientists' work. Furthermore, it's not the 17th century, and there is a vast difference between both the establishment and scientific consensus.

 

Both Galileo and Einstein were not crusading mavericks who turned the scientific world on its head with their discoveries. Ideas about heliocentricity and relativity had already appeared and gained general acceptance amongst scientists before Galileo and Einstein. Indeed, Galileo was punished by the church not for his own science, but teaching the science of an earlier scientist called Copernicus, whilst a considerable portion of Einstein's Special Relativity incorporated a susbstantial body of work pioneered by earlier and contemporary scientists such as Lorentz.

 

In Einstein's case, critisism of his ideas regarding relativity focused on a lack of evidence (somewhat ironically, given how you've used his name, the same argument employed by those who oppose the theory of mankind's role in global warming and its dangers), not a contradiction of established doctrine. Even so, it hardly took very long for his ideas to receive widespread acceptance in the scientific community, his theory appearing and being cited in subsequent papers by other scientists.

 

In short, both scientists worked using a previous body of work that was at least accepted within the scientific and academic community to be made available to them to continue, and, whilst criticism of their ideas existed within the scientific establishment, these criticisms centred around methodology and evidence rather than doctrine and dogma. In both cases their work was adopted fairly quickly, accumulating corroborating evidence along the way.

 

The idea of both Einstein and Galileo as revolutionaries/martyrs to the truth who came out of nowhere and took on the scientific establishment and won, and whose acceptance only came when the evidence was eventually too strong to resist is not only just plain wrong but potentially dangerous as it allows aspiring doctrinaires to choose whatever opinion they find agreeable and argue that it is correct, ignoring or dismissing contradictory evidence, on the basis that Galileo and Einstein were just the same. They weren't, and any debate with potentially worldwide consequences deserves a discussion based on reason, not a battle of fixed ideas motivated by a near adolescent hostility to the so-called establishment.

 

This country has never had fewer scientists or engineers, yet has never had so much scientific opinion

 

So the country has less scientists today, with over a hundred universities and their associated science departments, than it had a hundred years ago, when it had around twenty?

 

Also, it must be said that implicitely labelling all contrary opinions and approaches as pseudo-science is a somewhat cheap tactic for a self-proclaimed scientist to employ.

[Chinahand]

More psuedo-science and conjecture -2006 was Earth's sixth warmest year on record- its very difficult to get thousands of scientists all over the world to go out and accurately measure the temperature, it takes lots of conjecture, modelling and pseudo science -NOT.

 

We've got records in the UK going back to 1659 - 2006 was the warmest ever.

 

World wide records go back to 1861 - 2006 was 6th warmest globally recorded. The top 5 are all in the last decade.

[Albert Tatlock]

More psuedo-science and conjecture -2006 was Earth's sixth warmest year on record- its very difficult to get thousands of scientists all over the world to go out and accurately measure the temperature, it takes lots of conjecture, modelling and pseudo science -NOT.

 

We've got records in the UK going back to 1659 - 2006 was the warmest ever.

 

World wide records go back to 1861 - 2006 was 6th warmest globally recorded. The top 5 are all in the last decade.

I disagree (by which I mean - I think you cannot be certain of that - particularly with regard to them being 'high' in respect to temperatures over the past 1000 years).

 

I look forward to joining in this debate 'more fully' during/after the holidays.

 

 

 

_

[Steve Gribbon]

P.S. Just for you Steve I have changed back to my original avatar, though this does not look anything like me really either. Nothing is ever what it seems.

 

Thank you. It' sjust that I feel rather more comfortable with your original (and best) avatar.

 

I don't like change. Thanks for playing the game.

[Flash]

So let me get this right - despite the evidence of rapidly melting glaciers/ice sheets around the world; warmest months/years ever recorded and more CO2 in the atmosphere now than for how many 1000's of yrs?...........Our fossil fuel powered energy stations, 1,000's of planes criss-crossing the planet and millions upon millions of vehicles, haven't got anything to do with that increase in carbon dioxide?

 

Yep sounds like a 'cyclical' thing to me! :-(

[Chinahand]

More psuedo-science and conjecture -2006 was Earth's sixth warmest year on record- its very difficult to get thousands of scientists all over the world to go out and accurately measure the temperature, it takes lots of conjecture, modelling and pseudo science -NOT.

 

We've got records in the UK going back to 1659 - 2006 was the warmest ever.

 

World wide records go back to 1861 - 2006 was 6th warmest globally recorded. The top 5 are all in the last decade.

I disagree (by which I mean - I think you cannot be certain of that - particularly with regard to them being 'high' in respect to temperatures over the past 1000 years).

 

I look forward to joining in this debate 'more fully' during/after the holidays.

 

 

There is no doubt 2006 was the hottest year in the UK since 1659: continuous records exist since this time: no modeling or proxies are necesary.

 

Earlier than that yes proxies are needed and there are valid scientific arguments surrounding that ... but the main stream scientific consensus is very much in agreement: the second half of the 20th century has seen a temperature increase that cannot be explained via natural cycles and is unprecedented on a timescale of centuries and millenia.

 

And there is another problem Albert ... you keep posting critiques from the usual suspects. You'll describe them as radical free thinkers who are taking on the main stream. The only trouble is Mr Ross McKitrick is an economist not a climatologist. The paper you post is a political rehash for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group of McKitrick’s papers which were published in Energy and Environment (2003 and 2005) and in Geophysical Research Letters (2005).

 

These papers have been shown to be comprehensively inaccurate in their criticisms of the hockey stick.

 

Check out: The Hockey Stick Controversy: New Analysis Reproduces Graph of Late 20th Century Temperature Rise from the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

 

Ammann and Eugene Wahl of Alfred University have analyzed the Mann-Bradley-Hughes (MBH) climate field reconstruction and reproduced the MBH results using their own computer code. They found the MBH method is robust even when numerous modifications are employed. Their results appear in two new research papers submitted for review to the journals Geophysical Research Letters and Climatic Change.

 

Ammann and Wahl’s findings contradict an assertion by McIntyre and McKitrick that 15th century global temperatures rival those of the late 20th century and therefore make the hockey stick-shaped graph inaccurate. They also dispute McIntyre and McKitrick’s alleged identification of a fundamental flaw that would significantly bias the MBH climate reconstruction toward a hockey stick shape. Ammann and Wahl conclude that the highly publicized criticisms of the MBH graph are unfounded. They first presented their detailed analyses at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco last December and at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in Denver this year.

 

And check out Myth vs. Fact Regarding the "Hockey Stick"

 

This really is a very comprehensive refutation of McKitrick's claims, and show that the hockey stick is very much the accepted scientific viewpoint and McKitrick's counter arguement is seriously flawed:

 

Nearly a dozen model-based and proxy-based reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature by different groups all suggest that late 20th century warmth is anomalous in a long-term (multi-century to millennial) context

 

False claims of the existence of errors in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction can also be traced to spurious allegations made by two individuals, McIntyre and McKitrick (McIntyre works in the mining industry, while McKitrick is an economist). The false claims were first made in an article (McIntyre and McKitrick, 2003) published in a non-scientific (social science) journal "Energy and Environment" and later, in a separate "Communications Arising" comment that was rejected by Nature based on negative appraisals by reviewers and editor.

 

The claims of McIntyre and McKitrick, which hold that the "Hockey-Stick" shape of the MBH98 reconstruction is an artifact of the use of series with infilled data and the convention by which certain networks of proxy data were represented in a Principal Components Analysis ("PCA"), are readily seen to be false , as detailed in a response by Mann and colleagues to their [McIntyre and McKitrick's] rejected Nature criticism.

 

The claims of McIntyre and McKitrick have now been further discredited in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, in a paper to appear in the American Meteorological Society journal, "Journal of Climate" by Rutherford and colleagues (2004). Rutherford et al (2004) demonstrate nearly identical results to those of MBH98, using the same proxy dataset as Mann et al (1998) but addressing the issues of infilled/missing data raised by Mcintyre and McKitrick, and using an alternative climate field reconstruction (CFR) methodology that does not represent any proxy data networks by PCA at all.

 

The data, the results show that McKitrick is wrong: that's how science works. People publish papers and people criticize them. The hockey stick was crticized, and shown to be robust with follow up studies supporting it. McKitrick was criticized and shown to be inaccurate with follow up studies refuting his work.

 

This most definitely is NOT Galileo against the Church. If you want to ascribe these roles in the modern context the Church is best represented by Energy lobbiests (including McKitrick) and pro oil-polititians, while Galileo is mainstream climatology.

[Albert Tatlock]

So let me get this right - despite the evidence of rapidly melting glaciers/ice sheets around the world; warmest months/years ever recorded and more CO2 in the atmosphere now than for how many 1000's of yrs?...........Our fossil fuel powered energy stations, 1,000's of planes criss-crossing the planet and millions upon millions of vehicles, haven't got anything to do with that increase in carbon dioxide?

 

Yep sounds like a 'cyclical' thing to me! :-(

 

You shot yourself in the foot there chuck.