The deceit behind global warming

By Christopher Booker and Richard North
04/11/2007

One of the greatest problems Gore and his allies faced at this time was the mass of evidence showing that in the past, global temperatures had been higher than in the late 20th century. In 1998 came the answer they were looking for: a new temperature chart, devised by a young American physicist, Michael Mann. This became known as the "hockey stick" because it showed historic temperatures running in an almost flat line over the past 1,000 years, then suddenly flicking up at the end to record levels.

Mann's hockey stick was just what the IPCC wanted. When its 2001 report came out it was given pride of place at the top of page 1. The Mediaeval Warming, the Little Ice Age, the 20th century Little Cooling, when CO2 had already been rising, all had been wiped away.

But then a growing number of academics began to raise doubts about Mann and his graph. This culminated in 2003 with a devastating study by two Canadians showing how Mann had not only ignored most of the evidence before him but had used an algorithm that would produce a hockey stick graph whatever evidence was fed into the computer. When this was removed, the graph re-emerged just as it had looked before, showing the Middle Ages as hotter than today.

It is hard to recall any scientific thesis ever being so comprehensively discredited as the "hockey stick". Yet the global warming juggernaut rolled on regardless, now led by the European Union.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ma...xml=/earth/2007/11/04/eaclimate104.xml&page=1

change the bleedin' record

bigfish said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ma...xml=/earth/2007/11/04/eaclimate104.xml&page=1

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"Discuss" or piss off. Bare links and quotes aren't welcome.

Well I sure think that is interesting, I knew the hockeystick had been controversial but it is an interesting thing to see an article about it.

I glanced at something yesterday which said the stable states of the planet are "greenhouse" or "iceage" and that humans tend to thrive in the period in between which is what we have now. Climate change seems to be pushing us towards a greenhouse state and all that entails.

Dear Fridge

The reason I posted the article as a thread in S&E is because it repeats in one place a number of facts I've posted on in the past refuting claims by certain posters here that global warming is "manmade". Principally, in connection with a recent discussion, it repeats the fact that Mann's algorithm produces hockey stick shapes out of randomly generated trendless data. This is important to note because mathematics is a formal science which argues by compulsion. Because of this, the only conclusion anyone can reasonably draw is that Mann's statistical model is unfit for purpose and no reliance can thus be placed in its output, as its output -no matter what its input -will always be a hockey stick. And yet some here continue to defend this pseudoscientific rubbish as if their very livelihoods depend on it.

Meanwhile, the fashionable-madness continues over at the Guardian.

Boo! Climate wars threaten billions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/04/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange

If global warming is real...why havent 56mph speed limits been introduced?

rover07 said:

If global warming is real...why havent 56mph speed limits been introduced?

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Indeed. And furthermore, if manmade global warming is real, then why did the globe stop warming in 1998 while human emissions have continued rising since then?

rover07 said:

If global warming is real...why havent 56mph speed limits been introduced?

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Have a think. I'm sure that if you try hard enough, the answer will occur to you eventually.

bigfish said:

Dear Fridge

The reason I posted the article as a thread in S&E is because it repeats in one place a number of facts I've posted on in the past refuting claims by certain posters here that global warming is "manmade". Principally, in connection with a recent discussion, it repeats the fact that Mann's algorithm produces hockey stick shapes out of randomly generated trendless data. This is important to note because mathematics is a formal science which argues by compulsion. Because of this, the only conclusion anyone can reasonably draw is that Mann's statistical model is unfit for purpose and no reliance can thus be placed in its output, as its output -no matter what its input -will always be a hockey stick. And yet some here continue to defend this pseudoscientific rubbish as if their very livelihoods depend on it.

Meanwhile, the fashionable-madness continues over at the Guardian.

Boo! Climate wars threaten billions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/04/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange

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Very good. Now try posting an intellectual response...

To bigfish? You haven't been round that long have you? bigfish thinks the sun is made of iron or some such nonsense. He/she is a nutcase and only deserves ridicule.

ViolentPanda said:

Have a think. I'm sure that if you try hard enough, the answer will occur to you eventually.

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56mph speed limit for 7.5 tonne and above comes in 1st Jan 2008. It wouldn't be popular for vans/cars though ...but why is it never mentioned?

Blagsta said:

To bigfish? You haven't been round that long have you? bigfish thinks the sun is made of iron or some such nonsense.

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Ferrite. The actual sun doesn't co-operate in her/his attempts to deny human-caused climate change, so s/he decided to invent a new one

Blagsta said:

He/she is a nutcase and only deserves ridicule.

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And we only get the tail end of the loonspuddery - bigfish posts here lag two to four hours behind spam scattered elsewhere apparently by the same person, who appears to have a lot of time on their hands to C&P themselves into our little knitting circle.

Say hello to Cape Verde, everyone.

Im not convinced about man-made Global Warming... i think its something politicians have latched onto to make their jobs easier...laws and tax rises can be introduced more easily and companies can screw more profits out of people.

Come back when you've read all of www.realclimate.org and www.newscientist.com/climatemyths

rover07 said:

... i think its something politicians have latched onto to make their jobs easier...laws and tax rises can be introduced more easily and companies can screw more profits out of people.

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I agree with this part, although I think the fact of global warming is beyond dispute.

It does seem our "political masters" are pushing it as a consumer issue. But wasteful production methods (artificial stimulation of demand by adverts; the production of useless goods or shoddy goods; stuff supplied with no spare parts etc) cause huge amounts of waste. Yet I seem to hear of measures and lectures directed only at the consumer; I don't hear of many initiatives against the wasteful production side of the picture

Bigfish is American, isn't he?

As such he may not be aware that The Daily Telegraph is only read by old people, and as such is very skeptical of most developments in the world since 1970 or so, including that new-fangled 'global warmening' business.

I've seen a lot of its coverage on it before - largely because my elderly uncle likes to cut those stories out of it to show to people. It's writers on the subject usually have little or no scientific background so I don't really place too much value on their opinions on the subject. The two writers of the piece in question are better known for their conservative, Euro-sceptic views, which make themselves clear in the second page of the article:

In the past three years, we have seen the EU announcing every kind of measure geared to fighting climate change, from building ever more highly-subsidised wind turbines, to a commitment that by 2050 it will have reduced carbon emissions by 60 per cent. This is a pledge that could only be met by such a massive reduction in living standards that it is impossible to see the peoples of Europe accepting it.

Also, maybe it got called something different over there, but in the UK 'Bigfish' was a film about some old geezer who told so many fantastical tall tales that you couldn't tell if he was ever telling the truth or not - apt choice of username?

bigfish said:

Indeed. And furthermore, if manmade global warming is real, then why did the globe stop warming in 1998 while human emissions have continued rising since then?

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I'm glad to see you're into recycling, but please try to progress from repeating lies onto things like putting bottles and cans in the green bin.



Have a look at the little red global temperature bars to the left of the tall spike in 1998, and then look at the ones to the right. Which are taller, the ones before 1998 or the ones after?

What's really funny is that 1998 example is exactly the same one David Bellamy used in his recent spittle-flecked rant about AGW in...The Daily Telegraph. Worth pointing out that Booker & North have re-written this article about a dozen times for the Telegraph - literally saying the same thing in a different order...

They should have read the NS: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11646

I like Bigfish - he makes me larf.

rover07 said:

56mph speed limit for 7.5 tonne and above comes in 1st Jan 2008. It wouldn't be popular for vans/cars though ...but why is it never mentioned?

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You've answered your own question.

laptop said:

Come back when you've read all of www.realclimate.org

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Yes, that's a good place to start - an alarmist-activist site masquerading as a scientific site fronted by two of the authors of the discredited hockey stick and one of Jim Hansen's GISS assistants.

Realclimate is registered to Environmental Media Services, a front group for PR firm Fenton Communications. It's clients include International ANSWER and MoveOn, the latter funded by George Soros with ties to the Democrats.

Yes, all people with a vested interest in ensuring that Big Oil is prevented from dong something, and that there will be an eco-fascist world government...

I for one welcome our new eco-overlords. They could hardly be worse than the current shower.

When are they going to 'recycle' Bigfish?

I wonder how Christopher Booker gets on with Francis Wheen?

Dubya or Monbiot? Hmm, tricky.

FFS, talk about rehashing the same old discredited bullshit time and time again.

he (Gore) claimed that by the end of this century world sea levels will have risen by 20 ft when even the IPCC in its latest report, only predicts a rise of between four and 17 inches.

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erm no - The IPCC figure specifically excludes the impact of any melting from Greenland and Antarctica, whereas Al Gore's was stating the predicted sea level rise in the event of a rapid melt of the greenland ice sheet.

The IPPC excluded the melting of the greenland ice sheet from it's figures because there was too much uncertainty about the likely rate of melt due to new research questioning old assumptions that the melt would be a gradual one, and showing that a rapid melt was a real possibility. Gore was stating what would happen in the event that the rapid melt theory was proved to be correct, which is a very real possibility.

More serious, however, has been all the evidence accumulating to show that, despite the continuing rise in CO2 levels, global temperatures in the years since 1998 have no longer been rising and may soon even be falling.

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more bullshit, 1998 was an anomaly caused largely by the extreme el nino of 1997-98, the underlying trend has continued to be upward as is clearly shown in the graph posted by dash_two.

Furthermore, scientists and academics have recently been queuing up to point out that fluctuations in global temperatures correlate more consistently with patterns of radiation from the sun than with any rise in CO2 levels, and that after a century of high solar activity, the sun's effect is now weakening, presaging a likely drop in temperatures.

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fluctuations caused by factors other than greenhouse gas concentrations are widely accepted and in no way conflict with man made climate change theory. The fact is though that none of these other factors account for the global rise in temperatures over the last century without the inclusion of the impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emmissions. In fact the above statement even demonstrates this where it states that the 'sun's effect is now weakening', yet there has been a continued increase in the underlying global temperature trend. Had it been solar activity alone that had been causing the rise in temperatures there should logically have been a corresponding decrease in temperatures in recent years as the solar activity decreased. This blatently has not been the case, therefore their own arguement actually supports the manmade global warming hypothesis.

It was a telling moment when, in August, Gore's closest scientific ally, James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was forced to revise his influential record of US surface temperatures showing that the past decade has seen the hottest years on record. His graph now concedes that the hottest year of the 20th century was not 1998 but 1934, and that four of the 10 warmest years in the past 100 were in the 1930s.

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These being figures for the US only, they prove nothing when talking about global average temperatures. Essentially it's more chaffe thrown out by the deniars to confuse people, when the graph of average global temperatures clearly shows that this is not repeated on a global level.

You won't get bigfish into an kind of meaningful debate, he's to busy posting the same tired old bullshit on other message boards.

How many other sites do you c&p this crap on bigfish?

Oh, and posting articles from the Daily Telegraph....for shame.

Hmmmm, I see the resident cabal of ad hom hurling, disinfo peddling, discussion killers is almost up to full strength. I guess the authors of the article must be onto something the greenshirts want to suppress.

spacemonkey said:

You won't get bigfish into an kind of meaningful debate, he's to busy posting the same tired old bullshit on other message boards.

How many other sites do you c&p this crap on bigfish?

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I see you take your cues from dear old laptop - is he your line manager?