James Delingpole , on his Telegraph blog, coined the term “Climategate” to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. Despite all the coverage, the relevant points about these thousands of documents have largely been missed.
The importance of the researchers that were outed is the small group of scientists who had for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Professor Philip Jones, the CRU’s director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC’s key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.
Dr. Jones is also a key part of the group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history.
Given star billing by the IPCC, not least for the way it appeared to eliminate the long-accepted Mediaeval Warm Period when temperatures were higher they are today, the graph became the central icon of the entire man-made global warming movement.
Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the “hockey stick” were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre , an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann’s supporters, calling themselves “the Hockey Team”, and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.
The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a cast list of the IPCC’s scientific elite, including not just the “Hockey Team”, such as Dr Mann himself, Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa, but Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC’s 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who similarly controversially pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Al Gore’s ally Dr James Hansen, whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the CRU itself.
There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents. The series of emails show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.
They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.
This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones’s refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated in his claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got “lost”. Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.
But the question which inevitably arises from the refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide? The second revelation of the leaked documents shows the scientists trying to manipulate data through their t computer programs, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to “adjust” recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up often in the emails. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature records (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record).
It has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.
The emails showed that the CRU scientists were way off in the weeds with the complex computer programs they were using to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results.
Also, these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics’ work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.
Back in 2006, when the eminent US statistician Professor Edward Wegman produced an expert report for the US Congress vindicating Steve McIntyre’s demolition of the “hockey stick”, he excoriated the way in which this same “tightly knit group” of academics seemed only too keen to collaborate with each other and to “peer review” each other’s papers in order to dominate the findings of those IPCC reports on which much of the future of the US and world economy may hang. The worry is that it seems that these men have been failing to uphold those principles which lie at the heart of genuine scientific inquiry and debate. Already one respected US climate scientist, Dr Eduardo Zorita, has called for Dr Mann and Dr Jones to be barred from any further participation in the IPCC. George Monbiot, horrified at finding how he has been betrayed by the supposed experts he has been revering and citing for so long, has called for Dr Jones to step down as head of the CRU.
The compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific hoax of our age.
Dave says
Oh my God, the sky is falling! Chicken Little and the Climate Hoaxsters have a real reason to push the Climate agenda. These scientists get their funding based on their position on climate. No Climate Change no funding! If Climate change were so critical would Al Gore be owning 5 massive houses, gas guzzling SUVs, traveling on private jets all over the world? But then he would not get all the Climate Crazies to donate money to his foundation. In 67 years I have not seen much change in the climate just the seasons.
Paul Plante says
This whole IPCC thing has descended into and become nothing more than a big, steaming heap of political horse****, plain and simple.
Supposedly, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations, dedicated to providing the world with an objective, scientific view of climate change, its natural, political and economic impacts and risks, and possible response options.
But that is bull****, because the IPCC is not objective, period.
It is political.
According to the propaganda, the IPCC produces reports that contribute to the work of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the main international treaty on climate change, and the alleged objective of the UNFCCC is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system.”
And there is the rub which has led to this Climate-gate kerfuffle and from there down to the hysteria of our times today, where we have scared children running around thinking the world is now going to end before they have a chance to grow up, which is hysteria-mongering for political purposes, not “science,” as if that word had any rational meaning, any more, because all the scientists in the world have no means of “stabilizing” the concentrations of any gases in the atmosphere, as if, like the Wizard of Oz, the most powerful wizard in all the land, they could literally make time stand still and have the earth’s climate obey them as if a spaniel that comes to heel on command.
One major flaw in the system, which is intentional, or by design, given the political nature of the lash-up, is that the IPCC does not carry out original research, nor does it monitor climate or related phenomena itself, but rather, it assesses published literature including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed sources.
So, the IPCC fishes, which is not scientific research.
With respect to the political nature of the IPCC, its reports contain a “Summary for Policymakers”, which is subject to line-by-line approval by delegates from all participating governments, which typically involves the governments of more than 120 countries.
So, science as lawyers say science should be, which is crap science, or horse**** science, or bizarre science, not real science by any stretch of the imagination.
With regard to how the IPCC came into being, the political United States Environmental Protection Agency and even more political U.S. State Department wanted an international convention to agree restrictions on greenhouse gases, and the conservative Reagan Administration was concerned about unrestrained influence from independent scientists or from United Nations bodies including UNEP and the WMO.
Thus, the U.S. government was the main force in forming the IPCC as an autonomous intergovernmental body in which scientists took part both as experts on the science and as official representatives of their governments, to produce reports which had the firm backing of all the leading scientists worldwide researching the topic, and which then had to gain consensus agreement from every one of the participating governments.
In this way, it was formed as a hybrid between a scientific body and an intergovernmental political organization, which means it is neither fish nor fowl, and it is designed such that politics controls what the outcome of science is going to be, which is known as the “Dame Snow Jeopardy,” where the conclusion to be supported politically is determined beforehand, and then data that doesn’t support the preferred conclusion is rejected out of hand.
And yes, people, that is very common where politics and “science” meet, because the whip hand and the purse are held by the political side of that equation – if you are a scientist who knows better, i.e. is compliant, then when told to keep your ******* mouth shut about something, you do so, and by way of reward, you get to not only keep your job and paycheck, as opposed to getting fired, having your career and life destroyed, and maybe having your teeth kicked down your throat, to boot.
So, yes, climate-gate.
And really, who is surprised?
Paul Plante says
This whole “climate-gate” story is so bizarre that it is hard to believe that it could have even happened in a world that alleges to be sane and rational, given who or what the CRU started out to be, and who its founder was.
According to its own published history, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was established in the School of Environmental Sciences (ENV) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich in 1972.
The contribution of the Founding Director, Professor Hubert H. Lamb, cannot be overstated.
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There is what makes this “climate-gate” so bizarre, because Hubert H. Lamb is the author of the authoritative tome on climate entitled “CLIMATE, HISTORY AND THE MODERN WORLD,” Second Edition, which has as its introduction as follows:
We live in a world that is increasingly vulnerable to climatic shocks— affecting agriculture and industry, government and international trade, not to mention human health and happiness.
Serious anxieties have been aroused by respected scientists warning of dire perils that could result from upsets of the climatic regime.
In this internationally acclaimed book, Hubert Lamb explores what we know about climate, how the past record of climate can be reconstructed, the causes of climatic variation, and its impact on human affairs now and in the historical and prehistoric past.
This second edition incorporates important new material on: recent advances in weather forecasting, global warming, the ozone layer, pollution, and population growth.
Providing a valuable introduction to the problems and results of the most recent research activity, this book extends our understanding of the interactions between climate and history, and discusses implications for future climatic fluctuations and forecasting.
H.H.Lamb is Emeritus Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences and was the Founder and first Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
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In the Preface to the Second Edition, written by the author in December of 1994, he states thusly:
Since this book was published in 1982 its subject has been continually in the limelight and research has been active.
Also, as is by no means unusual, further noteworthy weather events have been in the news.
Some additional reports, remarks and comments have therefore become desirable, yet the main body of past historical work is still not well known.
It has therefore been decided to issue this revised text which incorporates notices of much new, important, material, thus making our knowledge of the past — particularly the interactions between climate and history — more accessible and providing a handy introduction to some of the problems and results of ongoing research.
Some of the climatic problems affecting humanity arise perhaps more fundamentally from the pressures of the burgeoning human population of the world than from climate.
Anxieties about the possibility of drastic warming of world climates resulting from the continual build-up of carbon dioxide (and other intrusions) in the atmosphere due to human activities have been forced upon the notice of politicians and industrial managements.
In these years there has also been a succession of very great volcanic eruptions that have loaded the atmosphere with debris and, perhaps more importantly, with gases and vapours that veil the sun’s radiation and may be interrupting or even reversing the tendencies towards warming of world climates.
There have been very notable advances in these years in weather forecasting by mathematical models, enormously improving the forecasting for up to five to seven days ahead.
But much of the gain is jeopardized by modern tendencies to use sloppy and inappropriate language in forecasts.
Thus, it is now fashionable to speak of ‘best temperatures’ in forecasts rather than ‘highest’ or ‘lowest’ whichever may really be best for the activities in prospect.
And forecasters in southern England seem to like to assume that summer temperatures in England are much the same as in the Mediterranean, or if they are not, they should be and it is a bad year.
The idea of climatic change has at last taken on with the public, after generations which assumed that climate could be taken as constant.
But it is easy to notice the common assumption that Man’s science and modern industry and technology are now so powerful that any change of climate or the environment must be due to us.
It is good for us to be more alert and responsible in our treatment of the environment, but not to have a distorted view of our own importance.
Above all, we need more knowledge, education and understanding in these matters.
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And instead, what we have gotten from his successors at the CRU, and the media, which constantly demonstrates its own willful ignorance of that which it reports on, especially this “carbon pollution” and the “climate crisis,” which is not a crisis, at all, is a steaming heap of pig **** for political, not scientific reasons.
Getting back to the CRU published history:
Hubert Lamb’s determination and vision can only be appreciated in the context of the view, generally prevailing within the scientific establishment in the 1960s, that the climate for all practical purposes could be treated as constant on timescales that are of relevance to humanity and its social and economic systems.
The weather changed from day-to-day, from week-to-week, and season-to-season.
There was interannual variability, but over years to centuries (the perceived argument went) a constancy was reliably evident.
It is now recognised that the climate is not constant, but changes on all timescales – years to millennia, as well as the climatic changes on longer (e.g. ice age) timescales that had become accepted in the late 19th century.
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And there is where the fistfight begins that led to the “climate-gate” kerfuffle, because the present-day argument requires that the climate be unchanging, unless changed by humans, which is bunkum and twaddle, but necessary, as we see from the following from that same history:
Hubert Lamb retired as Director in 1978.
He was succeeded by Tom Wigley (to 1993), Trevor Davies (1993-1998), Jean Palutikof and Phil Jones (jointly from 1998 to 2004) and Phil Jones (to the present).
Each has brought their own specialities to bear in guiding CRU through what have mostly been good times as far as successful research is concerned, but occasionally through periods of fallow funding, and sometimes very difficult periods.
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Scroll back to “fallow funding,” and there is the key to the present day disputes about CO2, as again we see from the CRU History, to wit:
Since its inception in 1972 until 1994, the only scientist who had a guaranteed salary was the Director.
Every other research scientist relied on ‘soft money’ – grants and contracts – to continue his or her work.
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Which means scientists have to pander for money, people.
Getting back to that history, which is quite relevant to this CO2 discussion today, we have:
The early priority of CRU was set against the backdrop of there having been little investigation before the 1960s of past climatic changes and variability, except by geologists and botanists, although there was an excess of theories.
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Yes, people, an excess of theories, which translates as a lot of competition for that pool of “soft money,” which means scientists have to find out who has the most money to give out to support whatever their pet theory is, which takes us back to pandering.
Getting back to the history:
The objective of CRU, therefore, was “to establish the past record of climate over as much of the world as possible, as far back in time as was feasible, and in enough detail to recognise and establish the basic processes, interactions, and evolutions in the Earth’s fluid envelopes and those involving the Earth’s crust and its vegetation cover”.
The early efforts towards this objective were the interpretation of documentary historical records.
This was painstaking and challenging work and progressed through the 1970s.
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And what we do not find as a result of that painstaking and challenging work is any definitive evidence that carbon dioxide is doing what the “CARBON CULT” true-believer scientists say carbon dioxide is doing.
To believe the “CARBON CULT” dudes today from this CRU, it becomes necessary to take not only Lamb’s book, but all the books that an engineer uses to learn “science,” and toss them in the **** can, because the CO2 theory cannot stand otherwise, as it is a negation of science.
Paul Plante says
After re-reading the original post, which is full of essential details pertaining to this so-called “scandal,” which is only a “scandal” because it got exposed, when it really is bidness as usual in the Church of Science, where it is much more the search for the next gold dollar than it is any kind of search for the “truth,” which is deemed the business of theologians and philosophers, not scientists, especially those in it for the money, I wanted to highlight the final sentences of the original post where we were told that back in 2006, eminent US statistician Professor Edward Wegman produced an expert report for the US Congress vindicating Steve McIntyre’s demolition of the “hockey stick”, wherein he excoriated the way in which this same “tightly knit group” of academics seemed only too keen to collaborate with each other and to “peer review” each other’s papers in order to dominate the findings of those IPCC reports on which much of the future of the US and world economy may hang.
One, in my experience of talking about this subject, it has been my experience that it is a non-subject – people think it is all just political bull****, which it has become, where nothing is believable anymore, and so they completely miss the point that while it all is now bull****, where any kernels of wheat that might be there are so buried in chaff it is almost impossible to find them, nonetheless, much of the future of the US and world economy do in fact hang on these IPCC reports, which are anything but science, given how they are created and then vetted.
So all of that part of the equation is sliding right under the radar, because people are sick of hearing about climate change, when they do not perceive any change, especially now that winter is approaching in the northern hemisphere where it is getting colder, not warmer, regardless of what the climate crisis cult crowd might say about it.
By way of some more essential background to this very important subject which too many people in America are unaware of, given the time that has gone by, along with the very esoteric nature of the “scandal,” no sex or drugs being overtly involved, anyway, which renders it mundane, in March 2010, at the invitation of the United Nations secretary-general and the chair of the IPCC, the Inter Academy Council (IAC) was asked to review the IPCC’s processes for developing its reports.
That IAC panel, chaired by Harold Tafler Shapiro, convened on 14 May 2010 and released its report on 1 September 2010. with the following formal recommendation for improving the IPCC’s assessment process, to wit: “Quantitative probabilities (as in the likelihood scale) should be used to describe the probability of well-defined outcomes only when there is sufficient evidence.”
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In other words, stop the ******* hype and fear-mongering.
The panel also advised that the IPCC avoid appearing to advocate specific policies in response to its scientific conclusions.
Of importance to this article, commenting on the IAC report, Nature News noted that “The proposals were met with a largely favourable response from climate researchers who are eager to move on after the media scandals and credibility challenges that have rocked the United Nations body during the past nine months”.
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Ah, yes, media scandals and credibility challenges, and those credibility challenges have not only continued to this day, but in my estimation, they have gotten worse, to the point that all scientists are now looked on by the common person as fools.
And that takes us back to the infamous Soon and Baliunas controversy, which underlies the “Climate-gate scandal.”
As Wikipedia tells us, and it never was any kind of secret, the infamous Soon and Baliunas controversy involved the publication in 2003 of a review study written by aerospace engineer Willie Soon and astronomer Sallie Baliunas in the journal Climate Research, which was quickly taken up by the G.W. Bush administration as a basis for amending the first Environmental Protection Agency Report on the Environment.
The Soon and Baliunas paper was strongly criticized by numerous scientists for its methodology and for its misuse of data from previously published studies, prompting concerns about the peer review process of the paper, and the controversy resulted in the resignation of half of the editors of the journal and in the admission by its publisher Otto Kinne that the paper should not have been published as it was.
Going back further in time, because the roots of this controversy are really back in the early-1900s, if not earlier, with respect to the IPCC and the scandals associated with it, by the late 1980s scientific findings indicated that greenhouse gases including CO2 emissions were leading to global warming.
However, and this is with respect to the statement in the original post that “(T)he worry is that it seems that these men have been failing to uphold those principles which lie at the heart of genuine scientific inquiry and debate,” which I do not deny, the original “science” at issue here is found in “Worlds in the Making – The Evolution of the Universe” by Svante Arrhenius, Director of the Physico-Chemical Nobel Institute, Stockholm, copyright, 1908, where we have as follows with respect to the carbon dioxide theories we are being confronted with today, as we hear the doom-and-gloom prediction that the world is about to end, to wit:
The earth is able to serve as the abode of living Beings because its outer portions are cooled to a suitable temperature (below 55) by radiation, and because the cooling does not proceed so far that the open sea would continually be frozen over, and that the temperature on the Continent would always remain below freezing-point.
We owe this favorable intermediate stage to the fact that the radiation from the sun balances the loss of heat by radiation into space, and that it is capable of maintaining the greater portion of the surface of the earth at a temperature above the freezing-point of water.
The temperature conditioning life on a planet is therefore maintained only because, on the one side, light and heat are received by radiation from the sun in sufficient quantities, while on the other side an equivalent radiation of heat takes place into space.
If the heat gain and the heat loss were not to balance each other, the term of suitable conditions would not last long.
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There is the “original science” that leads us up to Climate-gate, and beyond, to this thread and the debate that is going on right now concerning the “climate crisis,” as the fear-mongering Democrats in this country keep calling it, along with the mindless, thumb-sucking irresponsible mainstream media, and it is that last sentence about if the heat gain and the heat loss were not to balance each other, the term of suitable conditions would not last long that has led to this discussion today, on all the various levels it has been presented in the Cape Charles Mirror.
And that in turn takes us back to Hubert H. Lamb, founder of the CRU, and author of the authoritative tome on climate entitled “CLIMATE, HISTORY AND THE MODERN WORLD,” Second Edition, where we have as follows:
In any case, many people now know that there have been significant shifts of climate during the twentieth century: at first, a more or less global warming to about 1950, then some cooling.
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Now, keep in mind that those words were written in December of 1994, and there is where the basis of the infamous Soon and Baliunas controversy derives from, because boiled down to its essence, to believe the “Hockey Stick” model, that cooling after 1950 that many people knew about in 1994 has to be made to go away, which is to say the real science that led to the creation of the CRU in the first place has to be discredited and rejected, which is fairly incredible.
The “new” science of the IPCC replaces all science that came before it to support a single conclusion that is at odds with the science the new science is replacing.
And that brings us back to Lamb in 1994, as follows:
The former assumption of constancy of climate is thus widely felt to be unsatisfactory today.
And, after many decades in which there was little or no inquiry about climatic development and change, the leading institutes of meteorology and climatology are now pressed for advice on future climate.
The position is doubly unfortunate in that the forecast opinions ventured by the ‘experts’ have often increased the confusion, the views of the theoreticians sometimes contradicting those whose study has been concentrated on reconstructing the actual past behaviour of the (natural) climate.
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And there for the moment I will rest, because right there in that last sentence, Dr. Lamb has provided us with the genesis of Climate-gate, and we all owe the Cape Charles Mirror a debt of gratitude as concerned citizens for hosting this discussion on this subject of vital importance to each and every one of us in America today, which takes us to the last sentence of the original post above, to wit:
The compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific hoax of our age.
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Stay tuned, for more is yet to come!
Paul Plante says
So, in the eternal search for truth, which we will never find in Washington, D.C., back and forth through history we end up going, at least with respect to carbon dioxide and the issue of earth’s ever-changing climate, which takes us back to 1994 and Hubert H. Lamb, founder of the CRU, and author of the authoritative tome on climate entitled “CLIMATE, HISTORY AND THE MODERN WORLD,” Second Edition, where we have as follows:
It was known that ice ages had occurred in the distant, ‘geological’ past; but the climate in Roman times seemed to be not too much different from now, and it was assumed that this must be true of all the centuries in between.
As we shall see in later chapters, those centuries in fact brought a succession of changes in Europe and elsewhere which included a long period of evidently genial warmth in the high Middle Ages followed by the development world-wide of a colder climate, especially in and around the seventeenth century, with probably the greatest spread of ice since the last major ice age.
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And that takes us to 2003 and the infamous Soon and Baliunas controversy which involved the publication in 2003 of a review study written by aerospace engineer Willie Soon and astronomer Sallie Baliunas in the journal Climate Research, and from there to 2006, when eminent US statistician Professor Edward Wegman produced an expert report for the US Congress vindicating Steve McIntyre’s demolition of the carbon dioxide “hockey stick”, wherein he excoriated the way in which a “tightly knit group” of academics seemed only too keen to collaborate with each other and to “peer review” each other’s papers in order to dominate the findings of those IPCC reports on which much of the future of the US and world economy may hang, where we have as follows from the IPCC history, to wit:
The IPCC First Assessment Report included a “schematic diagram” of global temperature variations over the last thousand years which has been traced to a graph based loosely on Hubert Lamb’s 1965 paper.
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Lamb’s 1965 paper, which has essentially been buried in the scientific garbage can of history by his “hockey stick team” of successors at the CRU, was entitled “The early medieval warm epoch and its sequel’ and it provided as follows, to wit:
Evidence has been accumulating in many fields of investigation pointing to a notably warm climate in many parts of the world, that lasted a few centuries around A.D. 1000–1200, and was followed by a decline of temperature levels till between 1500 and 1700 the coldest phase since the last ice age occurred.
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That is what needs to be refuted for the “hockey stick” model to stand, and it can’t be refuted, because it is based on actual, not imaginary history, so throw it in the trash can instead, because nobody will know, nor will they care, especially if they can be made scared enough by the thought of the world coming to and end in the next so many years due to “carbon pollution” in the air, as the fear-mongering Democrats in the United States like to call it.
Getting back to the abstract of Lamb’s 1965 paper, we have:
The main stages of post-glacial climatic history in Europe, the warmest epoch generally known as the “Climatic Optimum” (e.g., GODWIN, 1956) from about 5000 or 6000 to 3000 B.C. (comprising the latter part of the “Boreal” and the whole of the “Atlantic” climatic periods of the older nomenclature), and the decline that introduced a cooler, stormier regime (the so-called “Sub-Atlantic”) around 500 B.C., are well-known; though they still await thorough meteorological treatment.
Till recently, it was widely held that the European climate had undergone no significant variations since that for the last 2,500 years or so the climate had been effectively constant or stable.
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That of course, is an essential requirement for the “hockey stick” model; that until the industrial age and the emissions of CO2 by humans, the earth’s climate had come to a sort of rest, which is bull****, because as history clearly shows, it never was at rest, just slowly changing, which takes us back to Lamb, as follows:
And multifarious evidence of a meteorological nature from historical records, as well as archaeological, botanical and glaciological evidence in various parts of the world from the Arctic to New Zealand (e.g., KOCH, 1945; RAESIDE, 1948; MILLER, 1953; HOLLOWAY, 1954) has been found to suggest a warmer epoch lasting several centuries between about A.D. 900 or 1000 and about 1200 or 1300.
Nothing suggests that the warmth of the early medieval period attained that of the climatic optimum; though the cold period after A.D. 1550 probably did produce the lowest temperatures and the greatest extensions of ice on land and sea since the last ice age.
It has often been called the “Little Ice Age” in consequence.
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As to science, this is what Lamb provides us with, to wit::
Palaeoclimatology is likely to be advanced by investigating first specific periods for which evidence that is sufficiently abundant and reliably dated indicates some well defined climatic character.
It was for this reason that the “ad hoe Committee on Palaeoclimatology”, formed in 1961 by the United States National Research Council, decided as its first act to hold a conference on the climates of the 11th and 16th centuries A.D., to be attended by active research workers in all relevant disciplines (ASPEN CONFERENCE, 1962).
Both the “Little Optimum” in the early Middle Ages and the cold epoch, now known to have reached its culminating stages between 1550 and 1700, can today be substantiated by enough data to repay meteorological investigation (see, for example, the preliminary treatment of both, given by LAMB, 1963).
The historical evidence is, of course, thinner for the earlier of these two epochs; nevertheless, it has been chosen for treatment here because the investigation is an interesting example of the pooling and interpretation of data from archaeology, botany, glaciology, human history, meteorology and oceanography.
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Now, in contrast to the highly-political IPCC, which is closed to the public for all practical purposes, by design, what Lamb is describing there is what I call the “old” science which needs to be replaced with “new” science indicting carbon dioxide, because for the IPCC crowd pushing the theory of carbon dioxide as pretty much the cause for everything wrong in the world today, that is where the funding is coming from, and since as we can see from the excerpt above, Lamb’s findings of temperature variations defy the “carbon dioxide as the cause of global warming” model, so somehow, Lamb had to be gotten rid of by his successors at the CRU in England so they could get their hands on some of that funding, as well as gaining considerable political power through control of the findings of the IPCC (and yes, people, scientists are as political as all get-out where it concerns money coming into their pocket) and that is where the hockey stick is going to come in, to wit:
The IPCC Second Assessment Report (SAR) of 1996 featured a graph of an early northern hemisphere reconstruction by Raymond S. Bradley and Phil Jones, and noted the 1994 reconstruction by Hughes and Henry F. Diaz questioning how widespread the Medieval Warm Period had been at any one time.
In 1998, Mann, Bradley and Hughes published a multiproxy study (MBH98) which used a new statistical approach to find patterns of climate change in both time and global distribution, over the past six centuries.
In 1999 they extended their approach to 1,000 years in a study (MBH99) summarised in a graph which showed relatively little change until a sharp rise in the 20th century, earning it the nickname of the hockey stick graph.
In 2001 the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) included a version of this graph which was frequently featured in literature publicising the findings of the IPCC report that the 1990s were likely to have been the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, of the past millennium in the Northern Hemisphere.
After the publicity the MBH99 study had been given by the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), the hockey stick controversy developed in which the graph was targeted by those opposing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, including Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas.
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And there for the moment, I will let this saga rest.
Paul Plante says
And here we need to bring Hans von Storch, born 13 August 1949, into the narrative.
von Storch is a German climate scientist who is a Professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, and since 2001, the Director of the Institute for Coastal Research at the Helmholtz Research Centre, previously GKSS Research Center, in Geesthacht, Germany who is a member of the advisory boards of the journals Journal of Climate and Annals of Geophysics.
With respect to this discussion, von Storch is known for an article in Der Spiegel he co-wrote with Nico Stehr, which states thusly and quite correctly as follows:
“Scientific research faces a crisis because its public figures are overselling the issues to gain attention in a hotly contested market for newsworthy information.”
end quotes
And my goodness, people, how very true that is, as we can see from the hyperbolic reactions of the main stream media to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) which document was approved at the IPCC’s 51st Session (IPCC-51) in September 2019 in Monaco, and after that, was placed in the hands of the 16-year old Greta Thunberg so she could sail across the Atlantic Ocean with it in a hi-tech carbon-fiber racing sailboat while making a movie of herself before appearing before our Congress to present them with the report and demand they take immediate action on it, as if our Congress takes its marching orders from a 16-year old girl from Sweden who wants us all to panic so we can experience the fear of God-alone-knows-what she feels ever day as an emotionally-disturbed teenager.
According to Wikipedia, those media reactions were as follows:
The New York Times headlined their September 25 article with ‘We’re All in Big Trouble’.
According to the Times, “Sea levels are rising at an ever-faster rate as ice and snow shrink, and oceans are getting more acidic and losing oxygen.”
The article cited Princeton University’s Michael Oppenheimer, who was one of the report’s lead authors who said that, “The oceans and the icy parts of the world are in big trouble, and that means we’re all in big trouble, too.”
“The changes are accelerating.”
A second lead author, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, was quoted as saying in Monaco, that “Climate change is already irreversible.”
“Due to the heat uptake in the ocean, we can’t go back.”
The BBC headline referred to a red alert on the Blue Planet.
The Economist said that the “world’s oceans are getting warmer, stormier and more acidic.”
“They are becoming less productive as the ecosystems within them collapse.”
“Melting glaciers and ice sheets are causing sea levels to rise, increasing the risk of inundation and devastation to hundreds of millions of people living in coastal areas.”
PBS News Hour cited National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Ko Barrett, who is also a vice chair of IPCC, saying, “Taken together, these changes show that the world’s ocean and cryosphere have been taking the heat for climate change for decades.”
“The consequences for nature are sweeping and severe.”
The Atlantic called it a blockbuster report.
National Geographic said that according to the report, “These challenges are only going to get worse unless countries make lightning-fast moves to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions…”
“But strong, decisive action could still forestall or evade some of the worst impacts.”
end quotes
Which takes us back to Hans von Storch, as follows:
“The alarmists think that climate change is something extremely dangerous, extremely bad and that overselling a little bit, if it serves a good purpose, is not that bad.”
In December 2009, he expressed concern about the credibility of science and criticized some publicly visible scientists for simplifying and dramatizing their communications.
An observer wrote in 2004: “The damage for the scientists is enormous.”
“Nobody believes them any longer.”
In January 2011, Storch was counted among the 100 most influential Germans by the Focus magazine for being a “climate realist”.
On 20 June 2013 Storch stated “So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break.”
“We’re facing a puzzle.”
“Recent CO2 emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared.”
“As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years.”
“That hasn’t happened.”
“In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) — a value very close to zero.”
“This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year.”
As to Climate-gate, von Storch, said that the University of East Anglia (UEA) had “violated a fundamental principle of science” by refusing to share data with other researchers.
“They play science as a power game,” he said.
And boy, is it ever, people – BEWARE, don’t feed the scientists – they bite.
Paul Plante says
So, cutting to the chase here, as that old saying goes, what really is the “science” here?
Is there any basis in reality for any of this “science” we are having thrown in our faces today by the media, which is telling us that we had better repent because the world is about to come to an end?
And that answer, which also serves to demonstrate how ignorant the media is, is found in “Worlds in the Making – The Evolution of the Universe” by Svante Arrhenius, Director of the Physico-Chemical Nobel Institute, Stockholm, published in 1908.
With respect to Arrhenius and how he fits into this equation we in our times are confronted with, this so-called “climate crisis” the Democrats are flogging us with as we head into the 2020 presidential elections the Democrats hope to sweep, I received this following on 23 September 2019 from a top NOAA climate scientist, to wit:
The carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere today are ones that likely haven’t been reached in 3 million years, and frankly the linkage between carbon dioxide and rising temperatures has been realized by scientists dating back to 1856 (see https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/happy-200th-birthday-eunice-foote-hidden-climate-science-pioneer), with a major paper describing this that actually dates back to the Swedish scientist 1896 Arrhenius [see https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/arrhenius_2.php%5D; his estimates of the actual temperature rise with rises in CO2 may have been a bit over-estimated, but he got the basic science right.
end quotes
Now, while I am a graduate level engineer who is well aware of all of that, the fact of the matter is that Arrhenius is high school level “science,” which is to say, you do not need a college degree to understand it; and everything we are being told today about CO2 by this IPCC crowd, who seem to me to be “cherry-picking” science to cover over certain points, while emphasizing others, comes to us through Arrhenius.
So that for the DOOM-AND-GLOOM “findings” of the IPCC crowd to be believable, there would have to be some way to derive them from the “basic science” that Arrhenius “got right,” according to the NOAA scientist, who also is one of those who does the alleged “peer-review” for the IPCC, because “advanced” science must have its basis in “basic” science if it is to stand!
And since we have the word of a top scientist who does peer-review for the IPCC that Arrhenius got the basic science right back in 1896, long before there was an IPCC, we are faced with the essential existential question of do the modern findings of the IPCC agree with the basic science that Arrhenius got right back in 1896?
And if they don’t, given that the top scientist says Arrhenius got the “basic science” right, then what does that say about the findings of the IPCC if they disagree with the “basic science” of Arrhenius?
Ponder that thought, people, because our collective future as a nation and as a “free” people depends very much on how that question is to be answered in our times today.
Paul Plante says
So, people, what is the “basic science” that Arrhenius got right over a hundred years ago now?
Instead of musing about it, let us go right to the source, which is “Worlds in the Making – The Evolution of the Universe” by Svante Arrhenius, Director of the Physico-Chemical Nobel Institute, Stockholm, published in 1908, where we have the beginnings of the “greenhouse gas” theory as follows:
That the atmospheric envelopes limit the heat losses from the planets had been suggested about 1800 by the great French physicist Fourier.
His ideas were further developed afterwards by Pouillet and Tyndall.
Their theory has been styled the hot-house theory, because they thought that the atmosphere acted after the manner of the glass panes of hot-houses.
Glass possesses the property of being transparent to heat rays of small wave lengths belonging to the visible spectrum; but it is not transparent to dark heat rays, such, for instance, as are sent out by a heated furnace or by a hot lump of earth.
The heat rays of the sun now are to a large extent of the visible, bright kind.
They penetrate through the glass of the hot-house and heat the earth under the glass.
The radiation from the earth, on the other hand, is dark and cannot pass back through the glass, which thus stops any losses of heat, just as an overcoat protects the body against too strong a loss of heat by radiation.
Fourier and Pouillet now thought that the atmosphere of our earth should be endowed with properties resembling those of glass, as regards permeability of heat.
Tyndall later proved this assumption to be correct.
end quotes
So, the “greenhouse gas” theory stated in simple terms over two hundred (200) years ago, something that anyone claiming to be a “climate scientist” would know, so why all the hub-bub about it today, as if something new has just been discovered?
And here is where the BIG DISAGREEMENT between the “old” science of Arrhenius, versus the “new” science of the IPCC crowd, which blames everything on carbon dioxide, to wit:
The chief invisible constitutents of the air which participate in this effect are water vapor, which is always found in a certain quantity in the air, and carbonic acid, also ozone and hydrocarbons.
These latter occur in such small quantities that no allowance has been made for them so far in the calculations.
end quotes
So, people – water vapor is a greenhouse gas and it is more powerful as a greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide
Getting back to the “basic science” Arrhenius got right, we have:
Of late, however, we have been supplied with very careful observations on the permeability to heat of carbonic acid and of water vapor.
With the help of these data I have calculated that if the atmosphere were deprived of all its carbonic acid of which it contains only 0.03 per cent, by volume the temperature of the earth’s surface would fall by about 21 C.
This lowering of the temperature would diminish the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, and would cause a further almost equally strong fall of temperature.
end quotes
So what are we common people seeing there besides the fact that carbon dioxide is a natural component of the earth’s atmosphere and is necessary in the atmosphere to sustain human life here on earth?
Getting back to Arrhenius and the “basic science: he got right, we have:
If the quantity of carbonic acid in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, (296 ppm) the temperature would fall by about 4 C; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8 C.
end quotes
Now, make note of the fact that in 1908, the level of carbon dioxide in the air was 296 ppm, which takes us back to Arrhenius, as follows:
On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth’s surface by 4 C; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8 C.
end quotes
Arrhenius is talking about a doubling of the carbon dioxide in the air at his time, 296 ppm, causing that temperature rise, which rise in CO2 would be a bit less than 600 ppm, or 200 ppm more than where we are right now.
So, back to the existential question of “do we really have a “climate crisis” as the Democrats are telling us, or is that hyperbole?
Stay tuned, for more is yet to come.
Paul Plante says
So, having established the fact that for each and every one of us, whether just a common person, or the highest-up scientist there ever was, the BASIC SCIENCE is that were it not for the fact of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere as a vital component, whether through intelligent design, or otherwise, life as we humans know it would not be possible, right across the board.
So, WHY are we being asked or told to be hysterical about the fact that our atmosphere has 400 ppm of carbon dioxide in it today when carbon dioxide in our earth’s atmosphere is essential to life as we know it, and here I am talking about such basics as food production, as we can clearly see from the BASIC SCIENCE that Arrhenius “got right” which in “Worlds in the Making – The Evolution of the Universe,” published in 1908, where we have as follows:
Another process which withdraws carbonic acid from the air is the assimilation of plants.
Plants absorb carbonic acid under secretion of carbon compounds and under exhalation of oxygen.
Like the weathering, the assimilation increases with the percentage of carbonic acid.
end quotes
With respect to food production, people, give that last sentence above some thought as we go back to Arrhenius, as follows:
The Polish botanist E. Godlewski showed as early as 1872 that various plants (he studied Typha latifolia and Glyceria spectabilis with particular care) absorb from the air an amount of carbonic acid which increases proportionally with the percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere up to 1 per cent., and that the assimilation then attains, in the former plant, a maximum at 6 per cent., and in the latter plant at 9 per cent.
The assimilation afterwards diminishes if the carbonic acid percentage is further augmented.
If, therefore, the percentage of carbon dioxide be doubled, the absorption by the plants would also be doubled.
If, at the same time, the temperature rises by 4, the vitality will increase in the ratio of 1 : 1.5, so that the doubling of the carbon dioxide percentage will lead to an increase in the absorption of carbonic acid by the plant approximately in the ratio of 1 : 3.
An increase of the carbon dioxide percentage to double its amount may hence be able to raise the intensity of vegetable life and the intensity of the inorganic chemical reactions threefold.
end quotes
Note again that when Arrhenius is writing those words, he is talking about a period when atmospheric CO2 levels were roughly 290 ppm, so a doubling would take that number to 580 ppm, far above the present level of 400 ppm.
So, for poor people like myself who grow our own food, or we starve, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is actually better in terms of plant vitality and growth, which is something these “climate scientists” perched high in their ivory towers never think about.
So, again, WHY are we being asked or told to be hysterical about the fact that our atmosphere has 400 ppm of carbon dioxide in it today when carbon dioxide in our earth’s atmosphere is essential to life as we know it?
That is the essential question being raised and never answered, just avoided, in all the threads on the subject of either global warming or climate change that the Mirror has been running as a sort of on-going series to cover various aspects of what I am calling the “climate crisis scam,” which has brought us to this discussion in here, which itself is occurring on many levels as it must to be fully understood.
And it is a “climate crisis scam” because there is no evidence that the changing of the earth’s ever-changing climate is a crisis, as can be seen in this exchange between myself and the high-ranking NOAA scientist, as follows:
Q: Does the science in the opinion of the consensus, to your knowledge, support the conclusion that there is going to be a cataclysmic break-down in the environment by 2030 if we don’t stop using fossil fuels right now?
On Monday, September 23, 2019, 7:10:37 PM EDT, Howard Diamond wrote: Frankly, I do not know.
end quotes
Nor do any of these so-called experts who would have us believing they can control nature and the earth and its climate as if it were a trained seal playing the Star-Spangled Banner on a tuned set of bicycle horns.
With respect to how much carbon dioxide should actually be in the earth’s atmosphere, we have widely varying opinions which triggered this exchange between myself as an engineer and that top NOAA climate scientist, as follows:
On 9/23/2019 3:25 PM, Paul Plante wrote:
Another point is that when an engineer doing HVAC design looks in standard references for NORMAL background air, the figure given ranges from 250 – 350 ppm, with no whiff of hysteria, whatsoever, that the world is going to come to a cataclysmic end in 10 or 12 years, as we are being told today, and in answer to the question “What is the safe top limit of the amount of co2 for Earth?”, it is in short that no one knows the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 while the generally accepted maximum safe figure is 350 PPM.
Does that agree with your science?
On Monday, September 23, 2019, 3:47:23 PM EDT, Howard Diamond wrote:
As for what a generally maximum number, yes, the generally accepted maximum safe figure has been pegged to 350 ppm.
That level was chosen for practicality as well as the fact that that level is generally pegged to result in about a 1°C increase which was considered much better than projections right now that take us well above that limit.
Yes, we are only at 0.8°C at this point, but again, from my previous information, the oceans have not quite kicked in yet.
So, is 350 ppm the best safe top limit?
Well, it’s probably as close as is practical short of going back to the pre-industrial average of 280 ppm.
end quotes
So, is there a “climate crisis,” people?
Or is it hysteria-mongering?
Consider the NBC NEWS article “Climate change is causing ‘eco-anxiety’ ― here’s what we can do” by Kim Fitzsimons on 30 October 2019, to wit:
As the reality of climate change becomes clearer than ever, some experts believe that as bad as the wildfires, droughts or record-breaking storms are, it’ll be the anxiety over climate change that will affect Americans even more.
Piles of reports document the gravity of this, and of what we potentially face.
Climate activists, like 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who recently addressed the U.N.’s Climate Action Summit in New York, further emphasize the message.
“The world is waking up,” she said.
“And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”
As a result, according to a recent survey by Yale and George Mason universities, we’re more anxious than ever when it comes to climate, with a record number of Americans now convinced that human-caused global warming is occurring.
end quotes
“Human-caused” global warming is occurring?
Do tell.
So, if there were no humans on earth, would the earth’s climate then be unchanging?
Something to think about, anyway.
As to the supposed CO2 levels in the air, and whether or not CO2 is uniformly distributed as a gas all over the earth equally, which it is not, I posed this question on BASIC SCIENCE to the NOAA scientist, to wit:
On 9/23/19 6:03 PM, Paul Plante wrote:
It has been observed that CO2 levels wax and wane over the northern hemisphere as a function of season, with levels decreasing during the growing season, and yet, this does not seem to be considered in the “consensus” theory.
Why would that be?
end quotes
That is a question that never got answered.
And please, don’t change your dial, because this “Climate-Gate Saga” still has legs and room to run.
Paul Plante says
So, getting back to “Climategate” for a moment, exactly what was that controversy actually about?
Does anyone really have a clue?
More to the point, is there anyone who even cares?
Afterall, we had Jon Krosnick, professor of communication, political science and psychology at Stanford University telling us, quite accurately in my estimation, that, “We don’t see a lot of evidence that the general public in the United States is picking up on the (University of East Anglia) emails, it’s too inside baseball.”
But then, on the other hand, and there always is one, isn’t there, we had a much more somber A. A. Leiserowitz, Director of the Yale University Project on Climate Change, and colleagues in 2010 telling us this, instead:
Climategate had a significant effect on public beliefs in global warming and trust in scientists.
The loss of trust in scientists, however, was primarily among individuals with a strongly individualistic worldview or politically conservative ideology.
Nonetheless, Americans overall continue to trust scientists more than other sources of information about global warming.
end quotes
Now, that is hyperbolic horse**** for several reasons, starting with the fact that the majority of people in America weren’t even aware of Climate-gate as it was happening, and people do not trust “scientists” for the reason that scientists have proven themselves not worthy of trust, and here I cite as just one example an article in the Albany, New York Times Union entitled “Work raises questions on canal, lawsuit – Fourth season of cleanup begins as dispute between GE, National Grid flares” by Brian Nearing on April 30, 2013, as follows:
Fort Edward – Dredging of PCBs from the Hudson River resumed for the season Monday with two large unanswered questions: Will General Electric Co., which has spent about $1 billion so far on the cleanup, convince a judge that a utility company ought to help pay for the work?
And will PCBs ever be dredged from the river’s tainted Champlain Canal channel?
GE wants National Grid to cover some of the bill because a predecessor company, Niagara Mohawk, unleashed a torrent of PCBs downriver after removing a dam in Fort Edward, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court Friday by GE.
On Monday, GE spokesman Mark Behan said GE believes National Grid bears responsibility for a 1973 decision by Niagara Mohawk to tear down an aging, 1880s-era dam downstream of GE plants in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward.
That dam was holding back PCBs that had been released into the river over the years by the plants.
Tons of tainted mud and sediments were swept downstream.
end quotes
Now, as it so happens, I was employed by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation at that time, this being 1975, and it was given to me to go down through all of the documents related to the removal of that dam, as the DEC was at that same time trying to hold GE to account in a hearing that I was collecting evidence for.
The bottom line is that the “scientist,” a college professor somewhere with a Ph.D. acting as a “rented pencil” with a scientific opinion on something available to those who could afford to buy it (science is a bidness, afterall) applied the wrong theory, using “classic impoundment theory” in a situation where the theory clearly was the wrong one to use, which a smart high school student would have determined if he or she had actually first visited the site, which the “scientist” never did, and then studied the history of the Hudson River, which the “scientist” never did, and then looke3d at the theory itself and what conditions in reality were required for that theory to be applicable.
Then, in the hearing, GE hired another “scientist,” again a professor somewhere with a Ph.D. so he of course was “Dr. Such-and-Such,” which is what makes them so important, and my job was to sit and listen as he was cross-examined by a DEC lawyer, and when he spouted bull****, which is what I as an engineer trust them to do, I would write out a note to the lawyer who would then adjust his questioning.
In this case, the “scientist” visited the site by being flown over it in a small plane.
During his testimony, which was intended to cover the proceedings with smoke in a vain attempt to absolve GE, the dude during cross-examination began giving a cock-a-mamie answer which required a certain fish to be present in the upper Hudson River to prove that the river was actually healthy.
Except that fish had never lived in the upper Hudson River, and was not a fish you would find in that type of environment.
So there, in just that one instance, were 2 “scientists” caught out peddling pure bull****, because people, that is where the money is.
Fast forward from there to April 5, 1995, Issues Ruling, April 5, 1995, STATE OF NEW YORK: DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION – In the Matter of the Application of WILLIAM E. DAILEY, INC. for a Mined Land Reclamation Permit, a Permit to Construct an Air Contamination Source; and a State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit, pursuant to Environmental Conservation Law (ECL) Articles 23, 19 and 17; and Title 6 of the Official Compilation of Codes Rules and Regulations of the State of New York (6 NYCRR), where I was both a witness for and representative of one of the parties to be affected by the operation, which meant that I got to cross-examine the Ph.D. “scientist” who was the expert witness for the applicant on groundwater hydrology.
Based in part on that cross-examination, which again determined that the “scientist” was spewing bull****, the applicant ended the hearing voluntarily and came to a settlement with the community members that actually provided them with real protection.
And from there we go to June 26, 1998, and “In the Matter – of – the Application of LANE CONSTRUCTION COMPANY for a Mined Land Use Permit, and other required permits for operation of a Hard Rock Mine in the Town of Nassau, Rensselaer County, New York,” DEC Project No. 4-3830-00046/00001-0, where again I was both an expert witness on behalf of town residents and a representative as well, which again meant that I got to cross-examine the applicant’s “experts,” in this case a PH.D. who was a department chairman at a l9ocal university, his surly, smart-mouthed engineer assistant, and 2 hydrogeologists.
Despite the efforts of the applicant’s lawyer to end my cross-examination, I kept it up for days on end, using read-backs from the transcript to show how an answer this day from one member of the panel was at odds with a previous answer on another day, and that went on and on and on until finally, the PH.D. was forced to admit, on the record in front of a crowd of people that he did inadequate science because he didn’t get paid enough to do it right and there was no more money forthcoming.
So, tell me, people. is it somehow “unfair” to consider that scientists may in fact be liars?
Or is it an act of self-preservation to consider them as such, when they have earned the label?
Chas Cornweller says
What we need is for our politicians and the people in power to start listening to the current, best available science. Greta Thunberg
Publius Americanus says
If this were sarcasm, it would be pure hilarity.
That you mean it is freaking scary.
Paul Plante says
Yes, Chas, the little rich girl from Sweden with the massive CO2 cloud following her around on her peregrination says that same mantra over and over, and each time she says it, dear friend Chas , it sounds just as ridiculous as it did the time before.
What is the current, best available “science,” dear friend Chas?
In fact, what is “science,” besides a word that has become empty and devoid of rational meaning, in large part thanks to Greta, and the main-stream media who are hysteria-mongering for profit, while exploiting the ignorance of children like little Greta, to do so.
Science, my dear friend Chas, is defined as the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment, and the aim of science is to build true and accurate knowledge about how the world works.
So, given that, the best climate science available today would have to be “CLIMATE, HISTORY AND THE MODERN WORLD,” Second Edition by Hubert H. Lamb, founder of the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia College in England, where we have as follows:
The ending of the ice age brought great changes in the landscape, not just the melting of the mountains of ice and the gradual disappearance of many lakes but the rise of sea level as the melt water returned to the oceans, and the beginning of the prolonged rise, or rebound, of those land areas that had been weighed down by the masses of ice.
The land around the northernmost end of the Baltic, the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, where the former north European ice-sheet was centred, is still rising about one metre per hundred years.
The total rise of this part of Scandinavia since the ice disappeared is estimated to have been 270–300 m.
And besides all this, there came the advance of the forest over vast tracts that had been tundra or grassy plains.
These were drastic changes for the people and animals then living, whose way of life was adjusted to the ice age world.
end quotes
And dear friend Chas, this is all high school level stuff here which has been known for in some cases over a hundred years, so why is poor Greta running around like a lost child in the woods crying over and over, “what we need is for our politicians and the people in power to start listening to the current, best available science?”
Getting back to “the best science,” dear friend Chas, it continues as follows:
In various regions — around the Mediterranean, about the North Sea, and the Great Australian Bight, to name but a few — and perhaps in most parts of the world, the early populations seem to have lived near the sea, probably because of the opportunities of catching fish in the estuaries and evaporating sea water to get salt to preserve the food they caught on land and in the water.
It seems likely therefore that the centres of gravity of the ice age populations were often in areas now submerged by the sea.
end quotes
SHRIEK, SHRIEK, you know what I am saying, dear friend Chas – the earth is a sometimes violent place with a mind of its own that really does not give a damn about whether humans sink or swim, regardless of how humans like poor little scared girl Greta might feel about it.
The earth giveth and the earth taketh away, and if little Greta don’t like that, or can’t handle it emotionally, that is just too damn bad.
Getting back to the “real-deal” science here, Chas, we have:
It has been suggested that the end of the ice age, and the continued rise of sea level that followed, may have greatly reduced the total numbers of mankind — an event rare in history — and may have given rise to many of the legends of a great flood in ancient times.
end quotes
The earth eats people, Chas – that is a part of its violent nature, and that is something I knew when I was five years old, if not earlier.
And here, dear friend Chas, is where the real science gets interesting and controversial, to wit:
The most distinctive feature of early post-glacial times was, of course, the globally increasing warmth.
In most parts of the world the climate between 5000 BC or earlier and 3000 BC seems to have been generally warmer by 1–3°C than it is today.
end quotes
And yet, dear friend Chas, the CO2 was lower.
So how do the modern “climate scientists” that little Greta is carrying water for deal with that?
They cough in their hand and try like hell to make that go away is what they do, which is why people do not trust scientists, nor should they blindly, Chas, at least here in the United States of America, where we do not take direction from scientists, regardless of how eminent they might think themselves in the CHURCH OF SCIENCE.
Getting back to the real deal science, Chas:
In the northernmost parts of North America, where remnants of the former ice-sheet lingered longest, and also in Greenland, the warmest time was not reached until nearly 2000 BC.
And, of course, it was the melting of the land-based ice-sheets which caused the level of the seas to rise.
The rise began before 15,000 BC, as soon as the ice-sheets began to recede.
Of course, the details are less certain than the overall trend, but there is considerable agreement that the most rapid phases were between about 8000 and 5000 BC, also that the rise of general water level was effectively over by about 2000 BC, when it may have stood a metre or two higher than today.
There were one or two drastic stages, as with the rapid melting of the Scandinavian ice-sheet after about 8200 BC, until there were only small remnants not much greater than today’s ice-caps in Norway by 6000 BC, and the entry of the sea into Hudson Bay around 6000 BC followed by quick reduction of the great North American ice-sheet: by about 3000 BC the last remnants of the latter had gone, apart from the ice still present on Baffin Island and the Canadian Arctic islands.
At times the rate of rise of the ocean was even overtaking the land rise in the Baltic region and in places like Scotland and Hudson Bay, where the former weight of ice had been centred.
But in those regions the emergence of more land from the water has dominated in the last five thousand years.
During the same millennia the geography of the Baltic and the course of its outlets changed several times, and low-lying coasts in other parts of the world far from the former ice-sheets must also have receded fast before the advancing tide.
It may be imagined that even the most rapid post-glacial rise of mean sea level, averaging between one and five metres per century, would have drowned nobody.
But this is a misunderstanding.
The history of disasters near the low-lying coasts of the North Sea in the last thousand years teaches that recession of the coasts does not take place as a gradual process but in sudden advances of the sea at times of great storms which coincide with an exceptional tide heightened by the storm surge.
end quotes
So what is any different today, dear friend Chas?
People like little Greta want the earth to behave like a trained seal playing the Star-Spangled Banner on a tuned set of French taxi horns, and when it does, they freak out and throw tantrums and demand that each of us panic so we can know what it is like for her to feel fear, and I’m not playing that silly child’s game for her, which takes us back to the science, as follows:
Most generations of mankind in most parts of the world have regarded climate as an unreliable, shifting, fluctuating thing, sometimes offering briefly unforeseen opportunities but at other times bringing disaster by famine, flood, drought or disease — not to mention frost, snow and icy winds.
There was no mistaking this when the glaciers in the Alps, in Iceland and in Norway, during the seventeenth century and thereabouts, were advancing over farms and farmland.
Doubtless, the nomadic peoples of the past or present in every continent have been aware of such changes at times when their pastures were drying up.
It must have been equally clear, at least to some, when in various countries in the late Middle Ages traditional crops and croplands had to be given up and taxes ‘permanently’ reduced.
When, on the other hand, the climate becomes warmer or more convenient for human activities, it tends to be taken for granted and the change may for a long time pass unnoticed.
end quotes
And there, my friend Chas, is where little Greta is – the poor little girl was somehow tricked or hoodwinked or misled into believing that since she was special, the earth would be for her whatever she wanted it to be.
Should we as rational adults cheer that, do you think?
Paul Plante says
But what we truly do need as a nation and as a people is for our politicians and the people in power to start listening to the current, best available science, and that has to include Greta Thunberg, who was quoted as saying, “I want people to unite behind the science…”
“And that is what we have to realize, that that is what we have to do right now..”
“I’m not the one who’s saying these things.”
“I’m not the one who we should be listening to.”
“And I say that all the time.”
“I say we need to listen to the scientists.”
end quotes
And how right little Greta is when she says, “I’m not the one who we should be listening to.”
In fact, little Greta is one of the very last people we should be listening to, because by her own admission, she is unable to think rationally due to being in constant fear which has her hysterical and iorrational.
Who we all should be listening to, and here I must wonder what is up with our so-called “education” system in this country that people today are so very ignorant of these things, is H.H. Lamb, the acknowledged expert in the field who provides us with the following high school science that every American over the age of 16 should know, to wit:
Discussion of the general question of the impact of climate in leading to cultural changes in human history, or in its most extreme form climatic determinism, has been carried an interesting stage further in recent years by a few authors, notably Wendland and Bryson writing in the journal Quaternary Research in 1974.
end quotes
Now, that serves to demonstrate just how long these climate studies have been going on, long before this IPCC crowd with their “hodge-podge” science which seems a crazy quilt put together for political purposes when you look at it, even cursorily, came on the scene.
And that question of the impact of climate in leading to cultural changes in human history brings us back to 23 September 2019, where we have little Greta screeching thusly, to wit:
People are dying.
Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
We are in the beginning of a mass extinction.
And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth.
How dare you!
If world leaders choose to fail us, my generation will never forgive them.
end quotes
I personally am curious as to how many speech writers her millionaire movie producer father Svante Thunberg, who is also little Greta’s press agent, has writing those lines for little Greta to utter on command, especially the one about “people are dying,” as if that were in fact some kind of revelation from this little oracle, when in fact, the newspaper obituaries on a daily basis are full of the names of people who have died, and people have been dying for millennia, so why do we need little Greta to remind us of something we have known about all our lives?
And anyway, that is all nothing more than hysterical horse**** on the one hand, and on the other, whether little Greta likes it or not, that happens to be the way the earth acts when it wants to act, and there is absolutely nothing humans can do at this point to reverse whatever trajectory the earth’s climate is now on, as we can see by returning to Lamb’s science, as follows:
Since the climatic record presents an appearance of a series of more or less stable regimes separated by quite rapid transitions, radiocarbon dating tests have commonly been applied to obtaining the dates of related decisive changes observed in the environment (changes in the make-up of pollen assemblages, corresponding to changes in the composition of the vegetation; transgressions of the sea; maxima of glacier advances, etc.).
end quotes
Yes, people, the earth’s climate is not a “constant,” and when it decides to change, it changes quite rapidly, as we see by going back to the “science,” as follows:
These researchers therefore statistically examined the time distribution of the whole catalogue of radiocarbon dates of sharp environmental changes during post-glacial times, published in the journal Radiocarbon (which is the official organ for such reports).
Over eight hundred such dating tests, performed on organic material from anywhere in the world, were examined.
Their time distribution was then compared with the results of about 3700 radiocarbon dating tests used to identify times of cultural changes in all parts of the world.
The analysis revealed five major post-glacial epochs of environmental change and five major epochs of cultural change: the dates of cultural change were in each case close to the dates of environmental change, following the environmental change in each case by apparent lags of the order of fifty to a hundred years.
(It is necessary to say ‘apparent lags’ because of the margins of error of the dating tests, though these are reduced by taking averages of a large number of datings.)
Geyh and Jäkel in Germany have performed a similar analysis concentrated on the present Sahara desert region, and Karlstrom and others have found from tree ring dating that the long history of cultural and population changes among the American Indians on the plateaux in Colorado during the last 2500 years seems repeatedly to have been triggered by the stresses of changes in the environment.
end quotes
Notice no mention of global carbon dioxide in there.
Getting back to the science:
Of course, it was not only in the Zagros Mountains and the Mesopotamian plain that the vegetation zones were on the move from eleven thousand years ago onwards.
In Europe the plains where bison and other animals had wandered were being gradually invaded, and then taken over, first by birch thickets, later by extensive birch and pine forests; later still hazel infiltrated, then oak, elm and lime took over the landscape, with alder in the wetter places.
These woodland types were accompanied by the insect life and the birds and animals that thrive in each respective habitat.
And, little by little, the birds and bigger animals were extending their ranges — as were the fish in the ocean — and establishing their seasonal migration routes, some of which must have had different starting points as well as different destinations from those that are so well established today.
Men and animals had to adapt to a changing world.
end quotes
Men and animals had to adapt to a changing world?
What’s up with that?
The world shouldn’t be changing, it should stay the same because little Greta Thunberg wants it to be that way!
As to the extinctions little Greta is so troubled about, this is what the science has to tell us about our violent earth’s past practices in that regard:
And it seems likely that many extinctions took place — for example, the horse and mammoth in North America and, perhaps, the mammoth in Eurasia too — because of man’s greater skills and ability to cope with an unfamiliar world.
It seems to the writer that the likeliest explanation of the sudden death of those mammoths that have been found well preserved in permanently frozen ground to modern times is that they were among the last survivors of their species, which strayed or fled from human hunters into swampy, near-frozen wastes in the tundra in some of the last of the warmest summers of post-glacial times four or five thousand years ago.
Since then the permafrost, or permanently frozen subsoil, has advanced again and the animals have been preserved, though some have been released from time to time and have gone floating down the River Lena and other rivers in northeast Siberia in occasional exceptionally warm summers.
One such case was vividly described by the captain of a vessel operating up the Lena in 1846, and in the last years of the previous century another mammoth was found rotting on the shore of the Arctic Ocean near the river mouth.
end quotes
And again, we notice the climate changing and causing extinctions with no mention being made of carbon dioxide as the cause.
And in fact, as we can clearly see from out own earth’s history which has been available to us long before this IPCC crowd came along with their “hodge-podge” science that is pasted together like a collage, the earth has gotten colder since the glaciers retreated, which is why there was permafrost to preserve those extinct animals.
So why are we being told by little Greta to panic so we can feel the irrational fear of God-alone-knows-what that emotionally disturbed little girl feels?
What sense is there for all of us adults to be running around like chickens with our heads cut off because a 16-year old girl is afraid of her shadow?
Chas Cornweller says
You know something Paul? With enough words you can just about disavow anything. With a long enough speech, you can wear people down to where they will believe just about anything. We all know the Earth is a violent place. We all know the Earth has been warming for the past ten thousand years. But events are accelerating. Facts are facts. The West Coast is burning. The East Coast is sinking and flooding. The Texas and Louisiana crescent are flooding. Entire regions of the Middle East cannot support its populace and therefore immigration is on the rise. Entire ecosystems are dying (Great Barrier Reef for example) and the stability of regions is no longer reliant on stable weather patterns. (the permafrost melting across Siberia and Northern Canada – the growing intensity of Hurricanes, Tornados, drought/fire events) So, what part of the “Science” of Climatic Change is foreign to you? Does it really make a damned difference, at this stage, whether or not “man” or the Earth is to blame? Seriously? So, you put the onus on one little girl? So brave, so truly heroic.
Sir, have you no decency left? To coin a phrase and paraphrase it…”Let us not assassinate this (young lady) further. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” (as taken, in part, from the trial of 1954 and Joseph Welch’s response to Joe McCarthy’s accusation of one of the Welch’s lawyers as a Communist)
No! The time has come to face these changes (which are real and costly) and take a good hard look at the implications. It is time to implement science and engineering in combating and diminishing the causes and effects of this damage. We are in the midst of drastic and unfortunately, irreversible weather pattern changes. What is needed is less talk and more definitive actions, such as seawall planning for the world’s major cities, crop rotations and farming practices conducive to drought and or flooding conditions. Wholesale and safe migrations of peoples from drought-stricken areas. Reduction in war capacities (intentions) and more civil aid (translate: a safer sharing and equitable distribution of the world’s resources, which ironically are depleting as the world climate changes). Lastly, the world community should recognize that this is a non-profit situation for everyone involved, therefore enabling those whose nations suffer poverty to participate as easily as the four or five richest nations in the world. Science dictates that humanity, within the environment in which it thrives, is at a crossroads. Whether you or anyone else wants to believe that or even gives a rat’s ass. It is a fact. And as long as for-profit entities are in charge and spin the message, the world will burn and drown. Humanity in the long run, will suffer. You and I Paul, will not live to see to the degree that this will occur. But, our children will. And definitely my grandchildren will. Greta will also, and this she knows all too well. Hence, her sixteen-year-old clarion call. We all should listen.
Paul Plante says
Sooooo, people, let’s continue to listen to the science here, as follows:
PREMISE NUMBER ONE: THE WEST COAST IS BURNING!
RESPONSE: First of all, it is hyperbolic and ignorant to say that the West Coast is burning because California alone on the West Coast in areal extent covers 163,696 mi², and most of that is not burning.
Secondly, and of equal or greater importance to the discussion to deal with that obvious HYSTERIA-MONGERING, the science concerning wildfires in California is extensive because there have been wildfires in California ever since I was born, and in fact I believe the redwoods need fire to propagate, and here is what the science of California Wildfires has to say about them:
The California State University
The CSU System/News/Understanding Wildfire in California: What the CSU is Learning
Is California on fire?
We already know that wildfires in the West are worsening every year.
They are bigger, hotter and more deadly and destructive.
Fires now start sooner and last well beyond the traditional “season,” which once ran from June to October.
An extended, if not a year-round, fire season is now the new normal.
end quotes
So, okay, people, is this somehow due to “climate change” caused by carbon pollution as we enter an entirely new phase of planetary history called by the scientists who seek to control our lives and destinies and futures by the catchy, contrived name of the “Anthropocene Epoch,” in which epoch these scientists argue human beings have become the driving force of climate beyond all other planetary forces on earth in the past have operated to change the earth’s climate from cold to hot and back again many times?
Let’s ask the scientists at the California State University to see what they have to say as follows:
In this first article in a new series on California’s wildfires, we ask CSU faculty experts and researchers to explain how fires are different now; what we’re learning about fire behavior; and better ways California can manage fires in the future.
why are CALIFORNIA FIRES SO EXTREME?
* FOREST “FUEL LOADS” ARE HIGH.
The forest floor grows dense with flammable dead branches and brush when it’s not cleared out, either manually or when burned.
In many parts of California’s wildlands, these forest “fuels” have not burned or been cleared for decades, due in part to fire suppression policies by state and federal agencies.
“One of the reasons we’re observing more fires is because of 100 years of poor Forest Service policy where we didn’t allow prescribed fire or wildfires to burn,” says Craig Clements, Ph.D., director of the San José State University’s Fire Weather Research Laboratory and associate professor of meteorology and climate science.
end quotes
So, 100 years of poor Forest Service policy is what the science has to say here which of course freaks out the “CARBON POLLUTION CLIMATE CRISIS IS COMING” crowd because they want it to be all about carbon dioxide, instead of bad policy and negligence by human beings.
Getting back to the science, then:
To understand the history and context of wildfire suppression in the U.S., you have to go back to the Great Fires of 1910.
After these enormous wildfires ravaged three million acres across Idaho, Montana and Washington, the then-young U.S. Forest Service made it their singular policy to stop fires whenever possible.
end quotes
The GREAT FIRES of 1910.
Hmmmmm, but I thought this was something new that just started to happen because of carbon pollution.
Getting back to the science:
It wasn’t until the 1970s that policy shifted from fire control to fire management, with the recognition that some fire — including prescribed burns—is a necessary part of the wildland ecosystem.
But decades of still-unburned forest means today’s wildlands are dense with vegetation that’s ready to spark.
Drought conditions have only intensified the impending threat in many parts of the state.
In a 2009 report, Chris Dicus, Ph.D., professor of wildland fire and fuels management at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, wrote that before the Gold Rush, there were approximately 50 to 70 trees per acre in California’s forestlands.
Today, there are more than 400 trees per acre.
Another contributing factor to the growing forest fuel load is the increasing number of dead or dying trees caused by bark beetle infestations.
These insects, along with the drought, are responsible for killing 129 million trees across California since 2010, quite literally adding fuel to the fire.
* MORE PEOPLE ARE LIVING IN FIRE-PRONE WILDLAND.
Where there are people, there is fire.
Ninety-five percent of wildfires in California are caused by humans, whether by accident or deliberately.
What makes matters perhaps worse in California than many other Western states is the ever-growing number of people and homes encroaching on the wildland-urban interface (WUI), a technical name for the transition between wildlands and established municipal areas.
Homes in these fire-prone areas are more vulnerable to fire, and fire agencies have to spend more to protect them.
Between 1990 and 2000, 60 percent of all new housing units built in the U.S. were located in the WUI, with major development along the West Coast.
Jacquelyn Chase, Ph.D., a professor in geography and planning at California State University, Chico and a Butte County planning commissioner, believes we shouldn’t build new homes in these areas.
“It seems like we’re really out-of-step with what we know about the risk of fire now compared to flooding, for example,” Dr. Chase says.
“Some people are saying we should just treat fire like we treat floods.”
“You wouldn’t build on a floodplain.”
“But people build all the time in high-risk [fire] areas.”
She points to several subdivision communities in California’s WUI that were destroyed by wildfires in the last decade: Keswick Estates (Redding), The Trails (San Diego County) and Coffey Park (Santa Rosa).
Fires likely spread to these communities through burning embers carried by the wind — a phenomenon known as spotting.
Santa Rosa residents affected by the Tubbs Fire, which destroyed 5,000 homes, “were deep inside a suburb, but they were burned by embers coming from the hills not too far away,”
Chase explains, adding that she hopes future city planners and developers will stop building in the WUI.
Homes situated in or near wildlands are at greater risk for burning.
While fire-safe landscaping and removing brush helps, it may not be enough to protect houses from fires spread by embers.
Wade Martin, Ph.D., professor of economics at California State University, Long Beach and co-author of the book, “Wildfire Risk: Human Perceptions and Natural Implications,” asks, “When people are moving into these areas, do they have information on the risk they’re buying into?”
“Generally, we find that people [overestimate] being in nature as a positive and undervalue the risk from wildfire.”
“The risk of having your home destroyed is really pretty small, but it is catastrophic when it happens,” says Dr. Martin, who is currently conducting research in Australia on homes in at-risk fire areas to better understand how homeowners weigh the benefits and risks of living close to nature.
Homeowners who already reside in the WUI should do everything they can to make their home more resilient to the threat of wildfire, Chase says.
One of the most important steps is to remove all the vegetation or dried fuels at least 30 feet around the house — what’s called creating a defensible space.
But Chase cautions that sometimes even “firewise” landscaping like this isn’t enough, as shown by the destruction of buildings in Santa Rosa and Redding.
end quotes
So, human stupidity and ignorance?
That is what the science seems to say, anyway.
So that is the West Coast is Burning.
Next up, the East Coast is sinking and flooding.
Paul Plante says
PREMISE: Lastly, the world community should recognize that this is a non-profit situation for everyone involved, therefore enabling those whose nations suffer poverty to participate as easily as the four or five richest nations in the world.
REALITY: In 1974, if one would but look at basic American history, which seems to overtax the minds of so many people in this country today, the Democrats who are making all this noise today about the HAVES versus the HAVE-NOTS were in power in goth the United States House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, so they have no excuse 45 years later today to say that they were ignorant of any of this, even though they are grossly ignorant, not having memories more than the length of a TWEET long, if even that, and what I am talking about is United States Secretary of State Hank Kissinger giving an address entitled “The Challenge of Interdependence” to the Sixth Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, after the Algerian Representative to the United Nations, Abdellatif Rahal, proposed the session, held April 9–May 2, in the interest of furthering discussion and action on the same development and raw materials issues that are still at issue 45 years later, today.
At that time, the General Assembly approved two resolutions at the session: U.N. Resolution 3201 (S–VI), Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order and U.N. Resolution 3202 (S–VI), Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order. (Yearbook of the United Nations, 1974, pp.324–332)
Dr. Kissinger started that speech thusly:
We are gathered here in a continuing venture to realize mankind’s hopes for a more prosperous, humane, just, and cooperative world.
As members of this organization, we are pledged not only to free the world from the scourge of war but to free mankind from the fear of hunger, poverty, and disease.
The quest for justice and dignity — which finds expression in the economic and social articles of the United Nations Charter — has global meaning in an age of instantaneous communication.
Improving the quality of human life has become a universal political demand, a technical possibility, and a moral imperative.
end quotes
Our dear friend Chas of course is ignorant of all of that because back then, he was a young, carefree child, but I was an adult, so I heard what was being said and remembered it.
Dr. Kissinger then continued on as follows:
Whatever our ideological belief or social structure, we are part of a single international economic system on which all of our national economic objectives depend.
No nation or bloc of nations can unilaterally determine the shape of the future.
If the strong attempt to impose their views, they will do so at the cost of justice and thus provoke upheaval.
If the weak resort to pressure, they will do so at the risk of world prosperity and thus provoke despair.
The organization of one group of countries as a bloc will, sooner or later, produce the organization of potential victims into a counterbloc.
end quotes
Now, consider the implications of that statement back in 1974 with where we are today.
If that policy had actually worked, there would be no “victims” today, and the Democrats thus would have no “HAVE-NOTS” to be the champion of, which takes us back to 1974, as follows:
The fundamental challenge before this session is to translate the acknowledgment of our common destiny into a commitment to common action, to inspire developed and developing nations alike to perceive and pursue their national interest by contributing to the global interest.
The developing nations can meet the aspirations of their peoples only in an open, expanding world economy where they can expect to find larger markets, capital resources, and support for official assistance.
The developed nations can convince their people to contribute to that goal only in an environment of political cooperation.
On behalf of President Nixon, I pledge the United States to a major effort in support of development.
My country dedicates itself to this enterprise because our children — yours and ours — must not live in a world of brutal inequality, because peace cannot be maintained unless all share in its benefits, and because America has never believed that the values of justice, well-being, and human dignity could be realized by one nation alone.
end quotes
Now, whatever happened to all of that talk about “our children must not live in a world of brutal inequality, because peace cannot be maintained unless all share in its benefits, and because America has never believed that the values of justice, well-being, and human dignity could be realized by one nation alone?”
It went in the trashcan is what happened when the Democrats impeached Nixon, which takes us back to that 1974 speech as follows:
All too often, international gatherings end with speeches filed away and with resolutions passed and forgotten.
We must not let this happen to the problem of development.
The complex and urgent issues at hand will not yield to rhetorical flourishes.
Their resolution requires a sustained and determined pursuit in the great family of United Nations and other international organizations that have the broad competence to deal with them.
As President Nixon stated to this Assembly in 1969:
Surely if one lesson above all rings resoundingly among the many shattered hopes in this world, it is that good words are not a substitute for hard deeds and noble rhetoric is no guarantee of noble results.
This Assembly should strengthen our commitment to find cooperative solutions within the appropriate forums such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the GATT, and the World Food and Population Conferences.
The United States commits itself to a wide-ranging multilateral effort.
end quotes
So, Chas, thank you for affording me the opportunity to come in here to cure not only your ignorance, which is the result of a damn poor education system in this nation that does not educate children, but instead gives them **** for brains to make them tractable, but that of the Congressional Democrats, as well, who are peddling pure bull**** to confuse us and divide us and make us all their witless political tools.
It is appreciated.
Paul Plante says
PREMISE NUMBER FOUR: ENTIRE REGIONS OF THE MIDDLE EAST CANNOT SUPPORT ITS POPULACE AND THEREFORE IMMIGRATION IS ON THE RISE!
RESPONSE: This is one of those premises that makes one roll one’s eyes, because if one were to cursorily scan the Christian Bible, one would find as follows:
A famine is an extreme shortage of food, and a drought is an excessive dryness of land.
The Bible reports or predicts the occurrence of several famines and droughts.
Drought was the most common cause of famines mentioned in the Bible.
Drought caused famines in the time of Abraham (Genesis 12:10), Isaac (Genesis 26:1), Joseph (Genesis 41:27), and the judges (Ruth 1:1).
Drought and famine also plagued the Israelites in the days of David (2 Samuel 21:1), Elijah (1 Kings 18:2), Elisha (2 Kings 4:38), Haggai (Haggai 1:11), and Nehemiah (Nehemiah 5:3).
Other natural forces also caused famines: locusts, wind, hail, and mildew (Joel 1:4; Amos 4:9; Haggai 2:17).
The Israelites also experienced famines caused by enemies.
Occasionally oppressors destroyed or confiscated food (Deuteronomy 28:33, Deuteronomy 28:33, 28:51; Isaiah 1:7).
The siege of cities also resulted in famine, such as the siege of Samaria by Ben-hadad (2 Kings 6:24-25) and the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:2-3).
The famines which Israel experienced were often severe, some lasting for years (Genesis 12:10; Genesis 41:27; Jeremiah 14:1-6).
end quotes
And no mention whatsoever of carbon pollution as a cause of all of that suffering!
Go figure.
But that is the Bible; what about the science?
For that, let us go back to the authority on the subject which is “CLIMATE, HISTORY AND THE MODERN WORLD,” Second Edition, by Hubert H. Lamb, founder of the CRU, where we have as follows:
Discussion of the general question of the impact of climate in leading to cultural changes in human history, or in its most extreme form climatic determinism, has been carried an interesting stage further in recent years by a few authors, notably Wendland and Bryson writing in the journal Quaternary Research in 1974.
Since the climatic record presents an appearance of a series of more or less stable regimes separated by quite rapid transitions, radiocarbon dating tests have commonly been applied to obtaining the dates of related decisive changes observed in the environment (changes in the make-up of pollen assemblages, corresponding to changes in the composition of the vegetation; transgressions of the sea; maxima of glacier advances, etc.).
end quotes
Now, make note of that phrase “the climatic record presents an appearance of a series of more or less stable regimes separated by quite rapid transitions,” because that is a key phrase in understanding this whole climate thing – the earth’s climate is not stable, people, and when it changes, it does so rapidly, with little or no warning to people on earth, who often end up dying in droves and multitudes when it happens, and after all these years, people, there are still people here on earth.
Getting back to the science:
These researchers therefore statistically examined the time distribution of the whole catalogue of radiocarbon dates of sharp environmental changes during post-glacial times, published in the journal Radiocarbon (which is the official organ for such reports).
Over eight hundred such dating tests, performed on organic material from anywhere in the world, were examined.
Their time distribution was then compared with the results of about 3700 radiocarbon dating tests used to identify times of cultural changes in all parts of the world.
The analysis revealed five major post-glacial epochs of environmental change and five major epochs of cultural change: the dates of cultural change were in each case close to the dates of environmental change, following the environmental change in each case by apparent lags of the order of fifty to a hundred years.
end quotes
Interestingly, that is what the kerfuffle labeled as “Climate-Gate” was all about -tree rings.
The IPCC crowd, which is pushing carbon pollution as the cause of everything wrong on earth, as well as this ridiculous “Anthropocene Epoch” crap, which requires us to toss those scientific finding in the crapper, and instead, pretend that but for man, the earth’s climate would be stable, even though we know it is not stable, which is just how ridiculous this all has become, has a problem because of that science as it cuts the legs out from under their arguments, and that is what led to “Climate-Gate,” and the “Soon and Baliunas controversy” – an attempt to make science that disagrees with their “carbon pollution” theory as the cause of the earth’s changing climate, go away.
And with these following words from the science, here I will pause for the moment:
We also know from ancient Egyptian records inscribed on stone tablets, or ‘steles’, that there were great famines around 2180–2130 BC and again between about 2000 and 1950 BC and yet again some two hundred years after that: and it is made clear that these were associated with an abnormal prevalence of southerly winds from the desert and low level of the River Nile — i.e. failures of the yearly flood.
The periods concerned, in the twenty-second and eighteenth centuries BC, were, moreover, times when Egypt was invaded by peoples coming from the east, bringing the Old and Middle Kingdoms to an end.
It is legitimate to wonder whether the invaders themselves had been unsettled at those times by droughts in their former homelands.
Paul Plante says
Dear friend Chas, before I respond further, let me say that in my opinion, this is one of the most important issues facing us today as a people and as a nation, and accordingly, as a citizen, as a parent, as a grandparent, I am glad to see you getting off the sidelines to express your thoughts and opinions in here, no matter how far off base they might be, and I am grateful as well that the Cape Charles Mirror has both the patience and public spirit to continue to host this vital subject of extreme importance to each of us as American citizens.
With that said, dear friend Chas, would be please be more specific as to what it is you think has been “disavowed” in here, where I have the word “disavow” meaning “to deny responsibility for,” i,e., repudiate; or “to refuse to acknowledge or accept.” as in disclaim.
Going back over everything I have said, on the one hand, I see nothing that has been “disavowed,” and on the other, I would say that I have been quite forthcoming as to the real “science” of climate change, if there even is such a concept, so in answer to your question, “So, what part of the ‘Science’ of Climatic Change is foreign to you,” I would have to say none of it, dear friend Chas – to the contrary, to me, as an engineer who has been involved in this field since the 1960s, it is all quite clear, and I have been doing my level best above here to share that knowledge with the rest of the Mirror’s readers.
With that out of the way, dear friend Chas, would you take a stab at making sense out of the statement “I want people to unite behind the science.”
What meaning should we all take from that, dear friend Chas, seeing as how I have given you the science I am uniting behind, which you are rejecting?
And Chas, tell us, what is with the smirk on the face of little rich girl Greta Thunberg in this picture:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg#/media/File:Greta_Thunberg,_2018_(cropped).jpg
And while you have said much more that needs to be addressed, Chas, I’m going to pause here so that these points don’t get lost in a long post.
And again, Chas, thank you for stepping up to the plate to keep this vital conversation going.
Paul Plante says
PREMISE NUMBER TWO: THE EAST COAST IS SINKING AND FLOODING!
RESPONSE: Of course the East Coast is sinking, and flooding as a result, which again is high school science that does not require anything more than basic knowledge of how the earth functions to understand.
Why shouldn’t the East Coast be sinking?
Because it is unfair to Greta Thunberg and her friends?
Get over it, Greta, because the earth doesn’t give a damn whether you and your friends sink or swim!
Getting back to the science here, according to an article in Scientific American entitled “Sea Level Could Rise 5 Feet in New York City by 2100” by Mark Fischetti six years ago on June 1, 2013, we have as follows, to wit:
By 2100 devastating flooding of the sort that Superstorm Sandy unleashed on New York City could happen every two years all along the valuable and densely populated U.S. east coast—anywhere from Boston to Miami.
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Wow, sounds pretty terrifying, does it not?
SCREECH, SCREECH, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, THE WORLD IS ENDING!
So, how come?
If the world is going to end, shouldn’t we at least know why?
So what does the science say here?
Is New York City sinking because of carbon pollution which is making the air above New York City heavier, so New York City is getting pushed underwater as a result, as the “CLIMATE CRISIS CROWD” would have us believe?
Or is it really something else?
Let’s go back to the science and see:
Since North American glaciers began retreating 20,000 years ago, the crust from New York City to North Carolina has been sinking, as the larger continent continues to adjust to the unloading.
The land will continue to subside by one to 1.5 millimeters (0.04 to 0.06 inch) a year, according to S. Jeffress Williams, a coastal marine geologist with the USGS and the University of Hawaii at Mnoa.
The boundary zone where rising crust to the north changes to falling crust to the south runs roughly west to east from central New York State through Massachusetts.
Certain municipalities such as Atlantic City, N.J., are sinking even faster because they are rapidly extracting groundwater.
Cities around Chesapeake Bay, such as Norfolk, Va., and Virginia Beach, are subsiding faster still because sediment underneath them continues to slump into the impact crater that formed the bay 35 million years ago.
When all these factors are taken into account, experts say, sea level rise of five feet (1.5 meters) by 2100 is reasonable along the entire east coast.
That’s not really a surprise: the ocean was 20 to 26 feet (six to eight meters) higher during the most recent interglacial period.
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So, people, there is what the science says.
So should we all panic?
Is that ever the solution to anything?
And what happened to all that sea water that was 20 to 26 feet (six to eight meters) higher during the most recent interglacial period, when it was much warmer than it is today?
Why did sea levels go back down after all the glaciers had melted?
Why did it colder after it got warmer to turn that sea water back into ice?
What’s up with that?
Next up, what does the science have to say about the Texas and Louisiana crescent are flooding.
And now we pause for a station break and these words from our sponsors, but don’t go away because “ASK DR. SCIENCE” will be right back after this pause for station identification.
Paul Plante says
PREMISE NUMBER THREE: THE TEXAS AND LOUISIANA CRESCENT ARE FLOODING!
RESPONSE: My goodness, people, of course they are!
And why on earth wouldn’t they be?
Because people like Greta Thunberg don’t like it, or it makes them scared?
So, why is the Texas and Louisiana Crescent sinking?
Is it again because of a tremendous amount of carbon pollution in the air that is so heavy it is pushing them down underwater?
Or is it really something else?
What does the science say?
Well, let’s go to the Houston Chronicle article “For years, the Houston area has been losing ground” by John D. Harden on May 31, 2016, where we were informed about the science, as follows:
Houston is sinking – and has been for decades.
As torrential rains have pounded the city in consecutive years, leading to repeated, heavy and deadly flooding, this inconvenient fact contributes to the region’s misery.
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Yes, people, Houston, Texas, a part of the Texas and Louisiana Crescent is sinking, and this so-called carbon pollution the Democrats are trying to scare us with isn’t what is pushing Houston down, but let’s not take my word for it, I’m just an engineer, afterall, so back to the Chronicle we go:
Parts of Harris County have dropped between 10 and 12 feet since the 1920s, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
State and local officials have made various efforts over the past 40 years to stabilize the ground, but some areas continue to sink – by as much as 2 inches per year.
Spring Branch, where Interstate 10 and Beltway 8 meet, has dropped 4 feet since 1975. Jersey Village, along Route 290 and to the west of Beltway 8, is almost 2 feet lower than it was in 1996.
And Greater Greenspoint, where Interstate 45 intersects with Beltway 8, has given up about 2 feet in the last decade alone, according to USGS data.
“When you lose that much, it makes an area prone to floods when they weren’t historically,” said Mark Kasmarek, a hydrogeologist for more than 30 years with the USGS.
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WHOA, editor, get that last sentence the hell out of there – it ruins the narrative!
It has to be carbon pollution causing that to happen!
If people think it is because the land is really sinking, instead, we lose the hysteria factor that the world is going to end in 2030 and that shoots the political platform of the Democrats all to hell, just before an up-coming presidential election, and my goodness, in a democracy, we can’t have that, can we?
Getting back to the Chronicle:
There is little mystery to why this is happening: The developing region draws an excessive amount of groundwater to keep itself quenched.
Over the last century, aquifers here have lost between 300 and 400 feet, leaving the land to collapse.
The science behind this phenomenon is called subsidence.
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Yes, people – THE SCIENCE!
Except it is a science that greedy, hack politicians and equally greedy land developers don’t want to hear, so it got ****-canned many, many years ago, along with engineers like myself who keep bringing these INCONVENIENT SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS back to the surface.
And now, as they always do, the chickens are coming back to roost, and it has ****-all to do with carbon pollution no matter how hard and loud the “CARBON POLLUTION CAUSES CLIMATE CRIS IS CROWD” might scream about it being otherwise, which takes us back to the Houston Chronicle, as follows:
Houston sits in one of the nation’s largest subsidence bowls, so-called because of the crater effect that happens when the ground caves.
A USGS map of Harris County shows the city’s bowl containing many smaller bowls, some with 8- to 9-foot drops in elevation.
Many of these areas are in places known to flood, like the Heights, Montrose, downtown and near the East End.
Rainfall collects and pools in the bowls, instead of seeping through the land, Kasmarek said.
Residents have seen it up close in Meyerland, a 6,000-acre neighborhood in southwest Houston that lost about a foot and a half over a 13-year period in the 1980s and early 1990.
Cracked foundations, uneven sidewalks and shifted floorboards are often telltale signs of subsidence, residents said.
Shifts in elevation do more than alter topography, said John Blount, a Harris County engineer.
They also ruin the efficiency of a city’s drainage system.
Blount saw a recent example of this when he and a crew were repairing a section of Kirby Drive.
“We noticed that drainage lines weren’t at the grade they should’ve been, and they weren’t allowing water to drain as quickly as they should,” he said.
“It’s because the ground wasn’t at the same level anymore.”
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And there, people, is what the real-deal science has to say about that, and if the carbon pollution crowd doesn’t like it, **** them.
Personally, as an engineer, which is someone who actually uses science as a tool to understand the earth and how it functions in order to keep serious problems like Houston sinking in the first place, which would mean not building subdivisions in real stupid places, from happening, I am damn sick and tired of seeing this carbon pollution crowd PERVERTING science to scare people with for partisan political purposes.
Next up, entire regions of the Middle East cannot support its populace and therefore immigration is on the rise.