Wednesday, June 25, 2008

That “settled science” issue won’t go away

One of the worst aspects of the Man Made Climate Change warriors is there continual smug claim that the science is settled and that anyone who challenges it is a heretic and deserves the treatment handed out to heretics in the past. So it was with some pleasure that I read this article in Greenie Watch:

The "National Resources Defense Council", a Greenie organization, has challenged skeptical scientists to 'let NRDC's real climate experts take them on'. Below is a response to the challenge from Richard Courtney, DipPhil, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant. The response was posted on the NRDC blog

Don't you just love that self righteous name? They are the only people who are interested in resources and have appointed themselves the guardians. Anyway, that's not the point.

It was with great pleasure that I read the response to their challenge, printed in full in link:

You say: "And perhaps some scientists are coming out against the idea that humankind has warmed the planet and continues to spew increasing pollutants into our atmosphere. If so, they are awful quiet about their challenge. Perhaps they should post their arguments here and let NRDC's real climate experts take them on."

Good, someone is taking them on, so who is this heretic who dares risk life, limb and reputation?

Well, I am an Expert Peer Reviewer for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); i.e. I am one of the often touted "thousands of UN Climate Scientists". I and thousands of others speak, publish and sign petitions in attempt to get the media to tell the truth of man made global climate change. And in response to your invitation I post that truth below.

Wow, this guy must know his stuff, especially as he's been on the IPCC, so what does he have to say?

The AGW-hypothesis asserts that increased greenhouse gases (GHGs) - notably carbon dioxide - in the atmosphere will cause the globe to warm (global warming: GW), and that anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide are increasing the carbon dioxide in the air with resulting anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW). I think a clear distinction needs to be made between

(a) the science of AGW, and

(b) the perception of AGW - and the use of AGW - by non-scientists.

The science

The present empirical evidence strongly indicates that the AGW-hypothesis is wrong; i.e.

1. There is no correlation between the anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and global temperature.

2. Change to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is observed to follow change to global temperature at all time scales.

There's a lot more, but you get the feling that he has some valid points. The best bit is his wrap up:

The above list provides a complete refutation of the AGW-hypothesis according to the normal rules of science.: i.e. Nothing the hypothesis predicts is observed in the empirical data, and the opposite of the hypothesis' predictions is observed in the empirical data.

So that's the settled science dealt with quite nicely (as it happens I do accept that increases in CO2 cause some warming). So what of the rest of the climate change industry:

But politicians and advocates adhere to the hypothesis. They have a variety of motives (i.e. personal financial gain, protection of their career histories and futures, political opportunism, etc..). But support of science cannot be one such motive because science denies the hypothesis.

Hence, additional scientific information cannot displace the AGW-hypothesis and cannot silence its advocates (e.g. Hansen). And those advocates are not scientists despite some of them claiming that they are.

Ouch. Wouldn't you just loved to be a fly on the wall when they received that letter? On reflection they probably ignore it as the ramblings of a deranged heretic or the worst kind, an apostate.

I didn't miss much out so it's worth the few minutes to read the rest of his arguments.

2 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Slagging off the MMGW'ers is sooo 2007! Having won the argument on the evidence against the MMGW'ers and the 'House-prices-can-only-go-uppers', I shall now sit back and quietly watch the EUmpire unravel.

Simon Fawthrop said...

This is like one of those fairground games where you have to keep splatting the gofer.

The head of Siemens UK was on radio 4 yesterday morning and made a staement along the lines that everyone accepts MMGW and wasn't challenged.