The BBC Presents: Sex and Global Warming Propaganda
Burn Up recycles alarmist misconceptions and conspiracy theories.
Not so long ago you couldn’t open a newspaper or turn on the TV news without seeing pictures of “stranded” polar bears (who weren’t stranded), “collapsing” ice sheets (ice sheets have collapsed for as long as there have been ice sheets), or Manhattan under water to illustrate some new claim about how runaway global warming was going to lead to imminent catastrophe.
Alongside the propaganda masquerading as news, Hollywood and TV companies have been churning out fictional disinformation in the shape of films such as The Day After Tomorrow and Happy Feet (any self-respecting propaganda machine knows the importance of catching ‘em young), and various small-screen dramas and “drama-documentaries.”
But with no significant increase in global temperatures for the past ten years or so, and atmospheric monitoring failing to find any evidence of the much-vaunted “greenhouse signature,” what used to be a steady stream of apocalyptic stories emanating from the newsrooms has all but dried up, and the job of trying to persuade us that the threat from global warming is real is increasingly being left to the entertainment divisions of the mass media. The BBC has long been one of the worst offenders in terms of biased reporting on the issue, and now the Beeb has stepped up to the plate to address the propaganda deficit with its two-part drama Burn Up.
[Note: Burn Up is a joint BBC-Canadian production, which just aired in Great Britain. It will also air in Canada, and it'll likely find its way on to US television at some point. There are no outright spoilers in what follows, but a couple of minor ones.]
The plot of Burn Up revolves around the newly appointed boss of Arrow Oil, Tom McConnell, who’s drawn into all manner of intrigue surrounding attempts to get the United States to sign a “Kyoto 2″ treaty at a climate change summit in Canada. Tom begins to question his company’s commitment to fossil fuels when he falls under the spell of Holly (Neve Campbell), Arrow’s hot new appointee to the supposedly token position of head of renewables.
Battling Holly for Tom’s soul is oil lobbyist Mack, played by The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford. Mack is essentially JR Ewing without the good points, and in case the viewer should be in any doubt as to the extent of his moral bankruptcy, in one of Burn Up’s many gratuitously America-bashing scenes Mack is shown watching a faith healer at work on cable TV, and exclaiming, with tears in his eyes, “Praise the Lord!” It’s not bad enough that he’s a shill for the oil industry — he’s a Bible-bashing shill for the oil industry.
Tom’s conversion from oilman to eco-warrior is helped along by an encounter with another pretty woman, an Inuit scientist and environmental campaigner called Mika. Mika serves Tom with a writ alleging that Arrow’s activities are destroying her people’s habitat, then immolates herself outside the ensuing court hearing (a feat which, ironically, she wouldn’t have been able to achieve without the help of a large can of gasoline — try committing ritual suicide with a solar panel and see how far you get).
Before going up in flames Mika hands Tom a DVD, which turns out to be her martyrdom video. (The parallel between the behaviour of environmental extremists and Islamic extremists is no doubt unintentional, but it’s food for thought.) Having watched the video, Tom vows that Mika will not have fried in vain.
Tom and Holly travel to Canada for Mika’s funeral (irony alert number two: they have to bury her under a pile of rocks because the ground is frozen). Having paid their respects, Holly and Tom promptly shack up together (literally — they do it in a shack).
Note to lefty environmentalists everywhere: it’s okay to cheat on your wife and destroy your family, just so long as you care sufficiently about the planet.
And so to Calgary, where the bullying, insensitive American delegation is riding roughshod over global opinion and doing everything it can to sabotage Kyoto 2, with Mack and his sinister cabal of businessmen pulling the strings. It’s no exaggeration to say that the fate of the world depends on Tom and Holly. Can they succeed?
You don’t want to know. Burn Up is lousy drama. Every character is a stereotype, particularly the Americans: Mack and his cronies wear stetsons in the bar while celebrating the anticipated demise of Kyoto 2. The plot is simplistic and far-fetched, while the dialogue sounds like something cooked up at a drama workshop for teenagers: I know this because my partner, who teaches drama workshops for teenagers, overheard a snippet (”You could help start a third energy age — the one that’ll save us. The solar one, the wind one, the one that won’t kill us.”) and remarked “it sounds like one of my kids’ plays.”
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52 Comments
1. Boris:“But with no significant increase in global temperatures for the past ten years or so, and atmospheric monitoring failing to find any evidence of the much-vaunted ‘greenhouse signature,’ ”
The greenhouse signature is a cooling stratosphere, which has been observed.
Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to get a fact in there with all the discussion of how poor fiction disproves science. Carry on.
Jul 28, 2008 - 5:25 am 2. TomJW:If “The greenhouse signature is a cooling stratosphere…”, then why did the average earth temperature rise by0.7 degree Centigrade during the 20th century. This is part of the UN report.
If you want to report something as a fact, please support it in conjunction with other’facts’ of global warming.
Jul 28, 2008 - 5:52 am 3. Xanthippe:The earth is either warming or cooling, so it has been and so it shall be.
The earth was also much warmer when the Vikings colonized Greenland and North America ~1000AD.
Humans are not necessarily the cause of every change on earth.
Jul 28, 2008 - 6:13 am 4. Dylan Bruns:Oh look, another crappy movie. Even if everything they said was true, they will not stop it.
Fact: India and China don’t care, they still want to have the standard of living we do, and they have enough nukes that we’ll leave them alone.
Jul 28, 2008 - 6:19 am 5. Mike:Follow that first link Boris and read the article - though I can understand that if the alarmists can’t find the greenhouse signature they’d probably just change the definition to match something they could find.
Then provide one link of your own - just one - which offers even an iota of evidence to support claims that:
(a)The warming observed in the last century is outside the range of natural variation in the Earth’s temperature.
(b)Any of said warming is man-made.
(c)The disadvantages of a slight warming in line with that observed would outweigh the advantages.
(d)The costs of trying vainly to prevent any actual warming would be less than simply adapting to that warming using the wealth and technology generated by our beautiful, oil-fired Western economies.
I’m not talking about a couple of lines on charts which appear to coincide for a few years, because that’s what’s known as ‘coincidence’. I’m not talking about 50-year predictions based on discredited computer models. And I’m not talking about movie clips of polar bears.
One iota. One scrap. One shred.
People are waiting…
And make sure you buy Burn Up on DVD - you can pretend it’s a documentary.
Jul 28, 2008 - 6:43 am 6. rvastar:Hey, what do you know…Boris is back! Must be a Global Warming thread!
Tell us, Boris…does that RSS feed set off alarms in your office at Greenpeace? You know, the spinning red siren and all?
Jul 28, 2008 - 6:56 am 7. Blatant Reality » Blog Archive » Coming soon to a TV near you!:[...] the UK and Canada but if it is a success I’m sure it will be making its way here to the US. Mike McNally at Pajamas Media has a review about the show that you should read. Bookmark and Share: sociallist_2c2bc3ab_url = [...]
Jul 28, 2008 - 7:18 am 8. tanstaafl:The dimension of the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) argument that most troubles is the messianic fervor of its promoters.
And some of those (well paid) promoters aren’t just film makers but claim the mantle of “scientists”.
Even Greenpeace’s founder has said today’s AGW evangelists are off the charts in near religious zeal.
True, false or indifferent, how is one to assess all the arguments in light of all the propaganda ?
Here is a recent interesting article. At least it makes some original points amidst all the political (UN’s IPCC ?) and religious hyperactivity.
No smoking hot spot
Jul 28, 2008 - 8:16 am 9. Navytech:10 years ago, I believed in GW because it seemed reasonable. But as additional information continued to come in it seemed less and less likely. Today, it really looks like changes in the sun are the cause of changes in temperature on earth!
Although 10 years ago it certainly seemed like 20th century warming might be due to increasing atmospheric CO2, today it is safe to say that the two are unrelated. Which is really bad news, because we have as much control over the sun as someone who lives on the slope of a volcano of the volcano.
Jul 28, 2008 - 8:28 am 10. HardHeadedWoman:I’ve noticed that more and more movies, television programs and books coming out of UK are in hyperventilation mode about the terror of Global Warming. Not the terror of terrorists, mind you, but they’re working overtime to scare anyone they can to death about something that is non-existent. And the US is always the baddie. It’s hard to get interested in something when the suspense build-up is directed toward smog and polar bears. The Cold War was and terrorism would be far more topical, truthful and interesting.
Jul 28, 2008 - 8:33 am 11. Navytech:Sea ice ALWAYS breaks up in the spring and summer. And errant polar bears who happen to be on the ice that breaks away and drifts south will meet with an untimely end. In ain’t Disney, but it’s real. And it happens EVERY year.
Back in the 1950’s, when nuclear submarines first visited the North Pole on a regular basis, they could ALWAYS (in the summer) find areas of open water called a lead or polyana. And back in the early 1800’s, a fellow named Beaufort, in a wooden sailing vessel, explored and named the open water NORTH of Alaska (The Beaufort Sea)!
Jul 28, 2008 - 9:10 am 12. RedneckJD:Accompanying this article was an ad for Algore, and he has issued a challege to America. I have a challenge to Mr. Algore. Will you debate Sen. Imhofe, anytime, any place, any time. No? Oh that’s right…Senator Imhofe is a paid shill for the oil industry. Well, did you know that the green movement and AGW movement, conservatively, generates about $50,000,000 a year. Hum, wonder how much goes into Algore’s pocket? That big house, SUVS, boats, private jets do cost a lot. Algore–the American fat psychotic who is not Michael Moore.
Jul 28, 2008 - 9:11 am 13. RedneckJD:Correction-that should read $50,000,000 a year. And did I mispell the Honorable Senator from Oklahoms, name wrong? Sorry, it’s early on the Left coast, and I’m listening to Dennis Prager.
Jul 28, 2008 - 9:13 am 14. RedneckJD:OK–one more time $50,000,000,000 (that’s Billion, not million).
Jul 28, 2008 - 9:15 am 15. Mike:tanstaafl: I linked the same article in my piece!
Redneck: Do you have a source for that 50 billion figure? I’m not disagreeing - I like to collect links to info like that.
And anyone seen Boris? He seems to have vanished.
Jul 28, 2008 - 10:14 am 16. jerry:Global Warming is a new age religion and like conventional religion its practitioners are impervious to empirical evidence.
There is one major difference between normal religion and its new age and political substitutes. Conventional religion deals with the eternal and infinite and by its nature is a matter of faith since proof or disproof of the existence of God is beyond our ability. However the Churches of Global Warming or Socialism has empirical tests to measure their validity. By any measure the Church of Socialism has proven to be based on false reason. The Church of Global Warming is coming under increasing stress as the evidence comes it to falsify many of its claims to truth. The response of these two religions to the inconvenient truths is the same. The Believers stops up their ears and shouts loudly in an attempt to drown out the truth.
Jul 28, 2008 - 11:07 am 17. Roy M:Tanstaafl, I read the article and followed where it led. It was an interesting hour. Thanks.
The central point that David Evans claims is that the 10km hotspot in climate change models is diagnostic of warming that is driven by carbon and if the hotspot isn’t there then something else must be driving it (such as solar activity like Navytech says). As far as I can tell, the main problem with this is that it isn’t true,.
The cause the ‘hotspot’ is water vapour. Warm humid tropical air rises into the atmosphere cooling as it goes until it reaches a point where the conditions are right for the water vapour to condense. As it condenses it dumps its latent heat to cause an increase in temperature over a narrow range of altitudes.
The thing is, this 10km hotspot is a feature of all models of warming whatever the source. So not seeing it points to either a problem with the models and/or a problem with measuring atmospheric temperatures over this transition. One thing it is not good evidence for is ‘warming caused by something other than carbon’.
David claims that it is statistically impossible for it to be a problem with the measurement. Well, these temperature readings can be calibrated to within 0.2 C, which should be good enough to see the hotspot IF EVERYTHING ELSE STAYS CONSTANT. But there are problems: there is a time lag in response of these instruments and they are skewed by changes in humidity. There are things you can do about this (measure humidity and correct for it, but there is a different time lag with that!), but the hotspot, if it exists, has to be where the rate of change in humidity is high: on a boundary between atmospheric phases. If the correction for humidity is messed up then this could cause systematic problems with temperature measurement. And systematic problems don’t get fixed by statistics even if you do hundreds of measurements. So a problem with direct measurement isn’t a crazy idea, but I’d need to look at that more.
There is a ‘greenhouse signature’ which is cooling upper atmosphere, for obvious reasons and warming arctic, for reasons that aren’t obvious to me. Those are in the carbon-driven model and not in the solar model and they have been observed.
There are other problems with what David Evans wrote but these are the most important.
Mike here is evidence for (a), maybe. Let me know what you think.
Augustin L, Barbante C, et al. 2004, Eight glacial cycles from an Antarctic ice core, Nature, 429, 623-628.
Jul 28, 2008 - 2:22 pm 18. Roderick Reilly:A couple fo Canadian truckers who drive rigs over ice roads in Northwestern Canada were on the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno. Leno asked them their opinion about global warming. They shrugged it off, remarking that a couple years back they had the “warmest” (a VERY relative term above the Arctic Circle) winters in their memory, but that the last two winters were the coldest they could remember. More to the point, at no time did their ice roads melt.
These truckers are not climatologists, so their observations are only anecdotal. The point to them — and to many of us who have a problem with climate change alarmism — was that 1) you take things in stride, and 2) whether there is a warming trend or not, it sure aas hell isn’t cataclysmic.
Jul 28, 2008 - 3:46 pm 19. Navytech:“…the carbon-driven model and not in the solar model…”
Except you know, solar activity has been decreasing as has earth’s temperature even as CO2 increases. One correlates, the other doesn’t.
Solar wins, but that’s just looking at the data.
Jul 28, 2008 - 5:21 pm 20. mishu:A cooling stratosphere may not mean green house warming. It may be due to ozone depletion. Since you need sunlight and oxygen to make ozone and the sun is producing less light, you get a depleted ozone layer.
Jul 28, 2008 - 7:14 pm 21. Ryan:Note to Mike:
Don’t include sources that can’t be counterargued soundly by people who actually research it for a living.
Jul 28, 2008 - 8:00 pm 22. Roy M:Navytech,
Well solar activity used to be correlated well with temperature, but not since 1985. Something has happened to decouple temperature from solar activity it seems.
Lockwood M, Frolich C, 2007, Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 463, 2447-2460
Jul 28, 2008 - 11:21 pm 23. Roy M:Its available online:
http://publishing.royalsociety.org/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf
Jul 28, 2008 - 11:25 pm 24. Mike:Ryan: Huh?
Jul 29, 2008 - 1:42 am 25. tanstaafl:I think one little bugaboo, fly in the ointment, in the whole AGW debate is that no computer model has ever (or could ever) completely model nature. That would be Mommy Nature, the ever complex and surprising.
Either way, once the hyperactive religionists uses the terms (A) “anthropogenic global warming” and (B) “climate change” interchangeably, they lose me. They’re really quite separate topics, and even if (A) is a fact, (B) doesn’t necessarily follow.
When they use the terms as equals, I can tell they’re about hysteria (or a “hinge” issue for self- aggrandizement, see esp. Al Gore) and not about information. This is why I equate it to the (scare tactics) often used in religious pronouncements.
(BTW, Al Gore’s energy bill for the Tenn. mansion alone is something like $16,000/month ! That’s just one dimension of his elaborate personal carbon footprint.)
When I was more “up” on this topic than I am now (about 2 years ago) the thesis of a quiescent sun/low sunspot activity and “warming” seemed very valid.
Jul 29, 2008 - 7:37 am 26. Mike:Roy: Do you have a link to your earlier reference, Augustin/Barbante? I will try and chase it down anyway.
Could I just add that I’m not saying AGM isn’t happening. I’m saying the alarmists haven’t proved it’s happening, never mind proving that it’s a sufficiently dire threat to merit imposing crippling restrictions on the economies of the developing world.
My beef here is with the massive media bias in favour of the alarmist claims. My other beef is that very few of the main drivers of alarmism appear to be in it for altruistic reasons. It’s not the tree-huggers who bother me. The real forces behind this stand to gain financially, or in terms of political power.
Tanstaafl rightly mentions Gore, although these days he’s probably the alarmists’ own worst enemy. He’s an elitist blowhard and a hypocrite. More worrying are people like Soros and Maurice Strong, who’s made no secret of his desire to basically end free-market capitalism as we know it.
Google him, read this 2002 profile by Ezra Levant, and be very afraid:
http://www.taxtyranny.ca/images/HTML/Maurice-Strong/article1.html
It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes to work for Scorpio and the Globex Corporation.
Jul 29, 2008 - 10:38 am 27. Roy M:Mike,
Ryan means that the sources you link to are not too disprovable enough to clarify the facts.
Clear now?
Jul 29, 2008 - 10:46 am 28. Bernard Chapin:Excellent piece, Mike. Man made global warming is the biggest hoax ever. One thing’s for sure I won’t be watching that flick, lol.
Jul 29, 2008 - 11:41 am 29. tanstaafl:…pressing for a world where UN resolutions would be enforced as law all over the Earth.
I am (more or less) convinced that the global warming brouhaha is used, in some quarters, as the replacement vehicle for the agenda of a global order, or, dare I say even more extremely, a replacement for imposition of a version of order that “Communism” would have imposed on the world.
There is way too much of power and money… Soros money, Strong money, money, money, money… pushing the GW debate.
Power, control, the Goldfinger phenomenon, all hiding under the umbrella of “saving the planet” as opposed to “workers of the world, unite”.
Same song, different lyrics.
But this is Strong feigning modesty, and not very convincingly.
Indeed.
Jul 29, 2008 - 11:46 am 30. Roy M:I don’t have a link. A trip to a local university library is needed. I might get you something via your blog….
My review of your review would is that you might be right about the quality of the show (were they shooting for Edge of Darkness?). You might be right about it being polemical. But your assertions about the science of global warming are, well, how to put it politely, a crock.
This is an interesting phrase:
“Scientists have yet to provide one shred of evidence to support the theory that the small amount of warming seen in the last century is outside the range of natural variation in the Earth’s temperature….”
Scientists haven’t provided a shred of evidence for that because it isn’t part of the theory. The thing about the the temperature change isn’t that that it is large compared to variation in the long term, the thing about it is that it shouldn’t be happening NOW.
You can get all philosophical and God’s-eyeview about it if you like (hey this is within the natural range of earths climate over the last 500 000 years) but I’d like us to have the millenia to prepare and adapt to global temperature change that we can have if we don’t burn too much carbon rather than one or two generations.
And what is this?
” or that *any* of the warming has been caused by human activity.”
When did you write that? 1995? Did you really mean the ‘any’ to be there?
The scientific concensus (you know this) is this:
Recent global warming is largely anthropogenic and caued by greenhouse gasses. If emmission of greenhouse gasses is not reduced then the consequential likely climate change might have serious consequences.
Now don’t blame me for that, it is the scientific consensus, and don’t blame the BBC for it either. It is their job when reporting science to give more weight to the consensus then the fringe.
It is their job to be biased towards science.
My problem is how often the media fail to do this. Their idea of balance is to put one person who represents the scientific consensus up against a crackpot and let them argue for a few minutes. On vaccines, safety of pesticides, GM crops and food, and climate change; they love a bit of controversy to make good tv and radio.
Jul 29, 2008 - 2:10 pm 31. Roy M:Bernard, The biggest hoax ever?
Scientists are perpetrating a hoax on the people of the world. Scientists are telling lies about global warming on a daily basis because they want to….want to….errrrm. Bernard why is it the scientists are commiting the hoax?
I just noticed a post above…I cant’t see all of it just the bottom half as I write this. It says “Power, control, the Goldfinger phenomenon….”.
Well there’s the answer then. The hoax is perpetrated by EVIL scientists from their secret base under the AAAS for reasons of world domination. Maybe scientists will stop the hoax if they are offered ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
Jul 29, 2008 - 2:18 pm 32. Roy M:Now I’ve got that Goldfinger song on my brain.
I can only hope that the same thing happens to tanstaafl, if he should read this.
GoooldFINGER….wah waahh wah
Jul 29, 2008 - 2:43 pm 33. Kelly:Roy M: Actually, more and more scientists are coming out saying that man made global warming is completely unsupported by factual evidence. Ever heard of the Oregon Petition? About 17,000 prominent scientists have rejected the propoganda pushed onto us by the environmentalist-funded, politically influenced scientists who are making the apocalyptic predictions.
Jul 29, 2008 - 3:54 pm 34. Roy M:Scientific consensus does not mean scientific fact. For over a thousand years, the scientific consensus was that the earth was flat and that it was the center of the universe. Guess what? They were wrong. Guess what? The alarmists today are wrong. End of story.
Yes Kelly I am. It is over 30,000 signatures now.
Scientific consensus precisely does mean scientific fact. It is just that scientific facts change. Like tanstaafl said: no model has ever or can ever fully describe nature. There never is a last word.
But the thing is, it is this very feature of science, that its practioners recognise their falibility, that it changes in resposen to new evidence and new ideas, that make it the best approximation of reality that we have.
I’m not sure that science as we understand it today had reallly got going in the ‘flat-earth in the center of the unverse days’ but if scientists were wrong about the earth being flat they were right about the theory of relativity and how to stop polio and how to get power from atoms (to take the first three examples that came into my head) so I’ll throw in my lot with science.
Jul 29, 2008 - 4:32 pm 35. Roy M:About the Oregonpetition, It is open to anyone who has an acedemic degree not just ‘prominent scientists’. In fact I am qualified to sign it an I’m not a prominent anything.
The Scientific American did a small survey and estimated that about 200 of the signatories were active in climate research.
Jul 29, 2008 - 4:56 pm 36. tanstaafl:Well, Roy M, I casually mention the “saving the planet” canard employed by our cadre of sub rosa socialists, and voilà, this very day, Nancy Pelosi (aka the Obstructionist Housekeeper) says that she, personally, is saving the planet.
Timing is everything.
Jul 29, 2008 - 5:03 pm 37. Patrick:This is unbelievable - global warming is an established fact. The figures(for anyone who really wishes to find them) are incontrovertible. But here we have a whole blogfull of flatearthers rabidly unwilling to accept this. I genuinely feel sorry for you all. With such entrenched worldviews you are very unlikely to have much of a life. I would advise you all to please stop whatever it is you are doing, go somewhere really remote (preferably without any your you beloved TV’s, SUV’s and the rest of yr junk) and just sit and think.
Jul 29, 2008 - 11:11 pm 38. Michaelyi:Roy M at 4:32 pm wondered if “science as we understand it today had really got going in the ‘flat-earth in the center of the universe days’…” Oh, when exactly were those days? Evidence, please.
Roy M goes on to cherry-pick among the claims made by “scientists” over the last century. Although scientists “were right about the theory of relativity” that only came after a long succession of theories about the nature of space, time, and the behavior of moving objects. And since Einstein, there’s been controversies among scientists about “the theory of relativity” — ever hear talk about the gravitational constant, to mention one example? As for “how to stop polio”, I’ll point out that there’s still no cure for that disease. The “how to get power from atoms” example is similarly flawed, there were many, many worng* theories about the nature of the atom going back to the ancient Greeks to the modern era. It’s just too easy to demonstrate that scientists are wrong far, far more often than they’re correct; I suggest that Roy M’s confidence that some scientists on the global warming/climate change bandwagon have finally ‘got it right’ is hugely misplaced.
* a reference to a famous remark attributed to scientist Wolfgang Pauli; also Not Even Wrong is the title of a book discussing the failure of string theory physics.
Jul 30, 2008 - 3:29 am 39. Mike:Patrick - if the facts are established and the figures incontrovertible, then you should have no problem providing the necessary links. Maybe you’ll have more luck than Boris, who seems to have done a runner.
Roy - ‘library’? you mean I have to let go of my computer and leave my house?
Seriously though: you say my assertions about AGM are a ‘crock’. My assertions here take the form of a link to a piece by a reputed scientist. Did you even read the Evans piece? Go and check his credentials.
I’m trying not to get dragged into the whole science debate again here. We did that to death on my last piece (if you didn’t see it http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/global-warming-mostly-hot-air/). I was trying to focus on the propaganda battle, and the massive advantage the AGM lobby has in this respect. Do you remember when the BBC changed a news report after threats from an eco-extremist?
You write: ‘The thing about the the temperature change isn’t that that it is large compared to variation in the long term, the thing about it is that it shouldn’t be happening NOW.’
Once again, it’s not happening now, and it hasn’t happened for the best part of ten years.
I’m well aware of the ’scientific consensus’, and I’m also aware that what passes for the consensus isn’t determined by a free vote of all the world’s leading scientists, but is decided by the politicians and bureaucrats who run the IPCC, and we’ll just have to disagree on how much credence we give their pronouncements - see my earlier comment on power politics and vested interests.
And if you want to play the ‘who’s signed what’ game, several prominent scientists have asked to have their names removed from IPCC reports, claiming their contributions were either misrepresented or ignored.
Did you read my piece on biofuels and Afghanistan? (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/afghanistan-should-grow-fuel-not-drugs/). Nothing would make me happier than if the developed world got rich growing fuel crops that ended our dependence on oil tomorrow. But that’s not going to happen for a long time, and I don’t think the West should hobble its economy in the meantime. Wind and solar have been around a long time now and have failed to make inroads. And why are the greenies against nuclear? Because of some vague connotations of bombs and ‘evil’?
Jul 30, 2008 - 5:12 am 40. rvastar:This is unbelievable - global warming is an established fact.
That’s precisely the problem, Patrick…the default position of the man-made global warming crowd has always been that “global warming is an established fact” and that “the debate is over”…when no debate has ever taken place! Or did I just somehow miss all of those instances when MMGW proponents were willing to stand in front of the public to defend their ideas against the scrutiny of those who don’t agree? And by public, I mean the BILLIONS of people who are going to have their lives significantly altered by adopting the MMGW crowds “recommendations” and “mitigating actions”.
I certainly don’t remember it. And you know why I don’t remember it? Because it never happened! They love to “debate” the issue in closed-door sessions of this UN committee or that one…but they repeatedly and steadfastly REFUSE to do so in the public sphere. Basically, what we’re being told is “We’re your betters and we know what we’re talking about. We don’t have to answer questions from you…we don’t have to defend our findings and proposals from skeptics or scrutiny. So just shut up and do what you’re told.”
Hmm, now let’s see…what would be two of the biggest results of adopting all of these GW proposals? 1) It would represent the largest confiscation and redistribution of wealth IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, and 2) it would result in the severe weakening and erosion of Western economies and lifestyles.
Now, politically speaking, which end of the political spectrum favors wealth redistribution? Why, the Left! And who would love to see Western economies severly curtailed by adopting these proposals? Any number of governments comprised of despots and totalitarians - who, by the way, won’t do so much as put out a cigarette in their own sh!thole countries to “combat global warming”.
And now the grande finale. When you take a look at who comprises the majority of UN membership and staff, what do you find? Surprise, surprise…it’s Leftists and despots!
Yeah, right! Sorry, but considering the bang-up job the UN does at absolutely nothing, I’m going to need just a little more than blind faith in their “conclusions” and “certainty”!
As I asked in the thread that Mike links to above:
And it’s funny…not one of the MMGW proponents in that thread had a response to that simple question. NOT ONE. Why? Because there’s no possible excuse that they can provide as to why the MMGW proponents completely refuse to defend their claims publicly.
And when you realize that there’s no excuse, the question you have to ask yourself is “If there’s no logical reason for refusing to defend the position publicly and against scrutiny, then why are they so afraid to do so when they claim that the evidence is “irrefutable?”
There are only two logical possibilities: 1) they are exaggerating their claims of the evidence being “irrefutable” and they don’t want to be put in a position where they can’t simply ignore or shout down those who have conflicting evidence and theories, or 2) they’re flat out lying and don’t want to be exposed.
So for all you MMGW proponents, a suggestion: why don’t you stop wasting your time telling us skeptics that we’re “ignorant truthers” and instead, start pressuring the Goracle and others to have the guts to defend their claims against those who disagree in front of a camera, where they can’t run away or simply dismiss the other person.
You get them to do that, and I’ll guarantee you that every skeptic - EVERYWHERE - will be listening with bells on.
Jul 30, 2008 - 8:27 am 41. Navytech:As a practical matter, the GW crowd has lost. Europe is building coal plants, and as a direct result of high fuel prices, everybody (but America) is drilling for oil and bulldozing rain forest (what’s a poor country to do?).
National research bodies like NASA and CERN are now looking at solar interactions with earth’s climate as the direct cause of recent changes.
As the earth cools over the next few decades expect the old guard GW’s (every reactionary moment has them) to become ever more bitter.
Jul 30, 2008 - 12:26 pm 42. Roy M:Mike, It’s OK you won’t have to leave the house! I’ll post a disposable email address on your blog. Write to it and I’ll send you a pdf.
I will write replies to Michaelyi, Rvstar and Mike soon.
Jul 30, 2008 - 1:09 pm 43. rvastar:Pure, unadulterated genius!
Jul 30, 2008 - 1:42 pm 44. Roy M:Mike,
Not just any scientist a Rocket Scientist. It says so on his CV (www.sciencespeak.com/DavidEvans.doc). He has published too. Twice!
D.M.W. Evans An Improved Digit-Reversal Permutation Algorithm for the Fast Fourier and Hartley Transforms, IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, pp. 1120–25, Aug. 1987.
D.M.W. Evans A Second Improved Digit-Reversal Permutation Algorithm for Fast Transforms, IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, pp. 1288–91, Aug. 1989.
Not a climate scientist then.
Strangely his CV mentions his work for the Australian Greenhouse Office, but not his more recent work for the Lavoisier Group: http://www.lavoisier.com.au/
This is a group with the avowed aim of exploring climate science that was set up by an Australian coal mining executive (Ray Evans). Though why Ray did this when he should be busy maximising the value of Western Mining Corporation shares is not recorded.
I wrote about David Evans ‘no smoking hotspot’ yesterday. On re-reading it I think I was too kind to him.
Jul 30, 2008 - 3:35 pm 45. Roy M:Mike,
“Global warming stopped in 1998.” is something I have heard quite often recently. This would be, to understate, a good thing if true so I decided to check. I downloaded NASAs global land-ocean temperature data-set.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
It gives global mean tempertaures with the mean 0f 1951-1980 as zero in 1/100 C units.
I plotted three-year annual meansfrom 1980 to 2007 (mean of 1980-82, mean of 1983-85 etc). Here are the recent years:
1985 9
1988 26
1991 28
1994 25
1997 42
2000 38
2003 53
2006 57
Still going up by these measures. This is a shame. 1998 was a vey hot year though. There has only been one year hotter since 1998 (2005), maybe this is the source of the claim. But there have been fewer cool years and this has kept three-yearly averages on an upward trend
David Evans says you can’t trust these numbers because of the urban heat island effect. Multiple peer reveiwed scientific papers say that there is no significant effect from urban heat islands on global temperature trend estimates. David Evans simply claims the opposite without refference to any evidence.
Jul 30, 2008 - 4:22 pm 46. Hang Right Politics » A survey of notable quotables::[...] ~Burn Up This isn’t a flip-flop. It’s a sex-change operation. [...]
Jul 31, 2008 - 7:06 am 47. rvastar:I will write replies to Michaelyi, Rvstar and Mike soon.
Still waiting for you to explain why - with “irrefutable” evidence on their side - MMGW proponents absolutely refuse to publicly defend their views against skeptics with similar educations and backgrounds.
Jul 31, 2008 - 1:50 pm 48. Roy M:Rvstar,
Sorry for the delay…
The very short version is that that kind of set-up isn’t the way science gets done.
The place for the scientific debate is among scientists in the peer reviewed literature.
The public and political debate is and should be ‘What should we DO, if anything, about the scientific consensus, as expressed in the peer-reviewed literature, on global warming?’
Setting up a ‘scientific’ debate that ignores the consensus, by starting out with the idea that in order to have proper balance we need to give both the consensus and the fringe equal weight would be misleading to the non-scientists trying to make sense of it. Usually this is precisely what the media does about scientific issues related to health and public welfare. It doesn’t seem to be doing it so much recently about global warming.
Why is this? A plot? The Glodfingers of the AAAS pulling the strings?
No. Usually the fringe is telling a more dramatic story than the consensus, and this gets it airtime even when the science is terrible. In this case the consensus has the weight of ’scientific authority’ (I have problems with that phrase) AND it is the party telling the more dramatic story.
However, I have very conservative views on the relation between science and the public debate. There are other views on this.
Jul 31, 2008 - 3:41 pm 49. Mike:I think something has been missed in all of this back and forth of global warming: THIS MOVIE IS HORRENDOUS. Forget the science for just a second. Tune in for 15 minutes, any 15 minutes of this movie. I guaruntee you it will be the worst 15 minutes of audio/visual input you will experience this week. Honestly, if your going to make propaganda (and I don’t care if its chicken little or flat earth propaganda) at least make it watchable. I’ve seen Dateline specials that were more dramatic. Hell, I’ve seen “When Animals Attack” episodes that are more captivating. Does anyone at the BBC still know how to write? Or do they just have some script version of a mad-lib where the fill out the sensational threat, insert the sexy yet conflicted protagonist, insert the sexy yet dedicated love interest who can not be married to the protag but CAN have had a previous relationship (double points if one of the relationships is something edgy like same sex or interracial because you know that is totally shocking in 2008), add a 1-dimensional villian, and either a traitor close to the protag, or a vast conspiracy turning one of the protag’s friends against him, mix in some pointless sex and some “shocking” violence, plus eggs and milk, heat for 30 minutes and voila: Drek! Come on, I don’t care if I like the politics, at least make the show watchable.
Jul 31, 2008 - 5:21 pm 50. rvastar:That’s all very diplomatic; however, it doesn’t pass the smell test.
So-called “man-made global warming” - or the more recently adopted “climate change” (Leftist Tactic 213: “If you can’t convince’em the first time around, just change the wording!”) - is every bit as much a political issue as it is a scientific issue.
Now, pick any political topic you want, and do a simple search for “debate”: you’ll find endless examples. Yet, try the same with MMGW…crickets.
Now, why would that be? Probably because they’re afraid of results like this.
But in the meantime…
“Ignore the man behind the curtain!”
Eh?
Jul 31, 2008 - 5:42 pm 51. ellipsis:The Oregon Petition and its frequent citation by sceptics concern me, as the text displayed to scientists was rather different from what its proponents would prefer the uninitiated reader to believe
I quote:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
* “no convincing”
* “greenhouse gases”
* “catastrophic”
This is different from what sceptics, probably including the author, like to portray the petition as proving: that 30000+ ’scientists’ have outright rejected the proposition of global warming and/or the greenhouse effect. Neither does it deny AGW or the possibility of some degree of warming (albeit not “catastrophic”).
And then we have:
“Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
Well, if we’re going to get down to high-school geography and biology, so be it.
CO2 is great. Without it, plants couldn’t photosynthesise and produce the oxygen that we all need. So a certain level of CO2 is great. In fact, I’m very glad of its existence, overall. Some sceptics seem to think that proponents of the global warming theory (I said “theory”) recoil in horror at the very though of CO2, much as others seem to visualise them as tree-hugging hippies who go around keying cars and want everyone to return to hunter-gathering and living in mud huts. There: I saved you the bother of saying it.
(Technically, the petition could be comparing areas possessing no CO2, which of course cannot sustain any plant and consequently animal life, against ordinary areas which do possess it.)
Similarly, the greenhouse effect, is great within normal parameters; it ensures that the planet is not 30+ degrees colder and that we have heat at all. Of course, this heat-retaining ability can go the other way.
If there’s a conclusion to be drawn from this, it is that the Oregon Petition seems, whether deliberately or not, misleading in its wording and assertions, and that I grow weary of its citation.
Aug 1, 2008 - 12:05 pm 52. Jonathan:If you would like a whole bunch of links, please feel free to contact me and I can provide plenty fo evidence, stratified across different source bases, both contemporary and historical, that anthropogenic climate change is real.
I am a physicist currently studying the climate and its relationship to social change and globalisation. I hope this in some ways qualifies my thoughts on the subject, i.e. I have actually bothered to study it unlike many commentators.
I still find it unbelievable that people deny the greenhouse effect sometimes (i think they confuse this with global warming). the problem is education.
Of course the Earth’s climate has changed, and certain parameters (temp, GHG ppmbv concentrations) have been seen before. It is all about context. Considering the current sunspot cycles, volcanic activity and Milankovitch parameters, we should not be seeing this temperature and GHG rise. It is the speed at which this is happening, during such a period, that makes it without analogue. Temp and CO2 are of course coupled, and that is why sometimes we can see one leading the other. IF you raise the temp, positive feebacks kick in from carbon sinks, releasing further CO2 in to the air, or CH4 from tundra and hydrates etc. Equally, you can prove simply with chesmitry and physics, the impact of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. and that if you increase its concentration you increase the greenhouse effect and re emit more infra red back to earth. this increases temp, which releases more CO2 after a point, and that is the point we don’t want to reach. the runway feedback point. OF course the earth will survive, but maybe not human folly.
as for the name climate change, that came from the skeptics. global anthropogenic warming is the correct title. climate does, has done and will do change. We are of course part of this system, but in our current state, we have become a forcing factor.
i laugh at this leftist conspiracy. what has it to do with the left? are communist and socialist countries known for their environmental records? hmmm not really.
or maybe it is a liberal agenda? who cares
the way i see it, by conserving our resources, reducing waste, reducing demand, and inequality of living standards , the world can only gain.
“rvastar:
I will write replies to Michaelyi, Rvstar and Mike soon.
Still waiting for you to explain why - with “irrefutable” evidence on their side - MMGW proponents absolutely refuse to publicly defend their views against skeptics with similar educations and backgrounds.”
i don’t know who you are talking about, and which people are said to have the same backgrounds? i hope it is not one of those big oil front scientists who as a PhD in something irrelevant to climate science and wishes a debate with someone who has better things to do than talk with someone paid by proagandists of the worst kind?
What evidence do the skeptics have? of course there are faults in the science, but if you read the IPC or any decent science publication, the results are calculated in terms of certainty and error. it is the skeptics ands media and some environmentalists who star chucking about ‘facts’ as absolute truths. We are supposed to work evidentially, and the burden of evidence is on anthropogenic global warming being the only explanation for the warming in the last 60 years, despite exhaustive modelling with natural factors only.
“National research bodies like NASA and CERN are now looking at solar interactions with earth’s climate as the direct cause of recent changes.” are they? since when, could you send me the links please? my current knowledge of CERN’s focus is the new collider coming online, hoping to prove the existence of higgs boson etc
i think people should remember how science works. theories, hypotheses, testing, discussion, revision, testing, advancement. It is up to you to believe whether things are ‘true’ or ‘fact’ or to think that on the basis of peer review and my own interpretation
X is likely to be a good explanation.
“Hmm, now let’s see…what would be two of the biggest results of adopting all of these GW proposals? 1) It would represent the largest confiscation and redistribution of wealth IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, and 2) it would result in the severe weakening and erosion of Western economies and lifestyles.”
oh no. imagine if we reduced inequality in our own and other countries….what is so good about our lifestyles and so divine that we have the right to pursue at the economic, social and environmental cost of others?
Aug 4, 2008 - 5:23 am