This week, the G8 leaders are expected to talk about climate change, or should I say preach that the end of the word is coming.
G8 Location in Italy
Well, is it? There are two separate climate issues – the extent of global warming and the role that humanity plays in it. Ten years ago the IPCC predicted serious global warming and blamed mankind. But, since then, the world has (happily for us) not followed their prediction. In fact, two years of global cooling has erased nearly 30 years of recorded temperature rises.
But, alarmists jumped on the bandwagon – some of whom had previously flourished warnings about global cooling. Looks like they did not read Heaven And Earth by Ian Plimer, Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Melbourne and Professor of Mining Geology at The University of Adelaide. Piece by piece, he takes apart the work of the fanatics. Far from denying global warming, he stresses its regularity and occasional abruptness and how humans have had to adapt.
A millennium ago, Greenland was warm, with a rich agriculture – not much man-made carbon gas then. Over half of the past six million years, the climate was warmer than it is now.
He explains that the supposed consensus view of the IPCC is nonsense. The much-touted 2,500 scientists supposed to have backed its conclusion included many non-scientists or were even the same contributors counted twice.
The finding that human activity influenced global climate involved the deletion of an original passage saying they had no evidence that greenhouse gases played a role and that the best answer was ‘we do not know’.
There is always a temptation to assume that anyone labelled a scientist thinks scientifically. Learned philosophers have discussed how experiments are regularly conducted to prove a desired conclusion rather than to ascertain truth.
Prof Plimer provides the sharp-end view of this. The use of computer models excites his particular disdain.
Ian Plimer - Australian Scientist and author
We have to adapt: In his new book, Ian Plimer (left) stresses regularity and occasional abruptness of global warming
He cites 17 areas of science, ranging from tectonics to meteorology, which need to be utilised in analysing climate change. Computers have a hard time doing this accurately.
In every area, conclusions, such as they are, are subject to wide margins of error (and often fierce debate).
Yet all this leaves a big problem. If the data is really so inconclusive, not to say contradictory, why is the fanatics’ message so successful?
This is a profoundly important phenomenon requiring the study of social, political, historical and even religious trends. Alarmists have, of course, always been with us. There is something in humanity’s (and the media’s) psyche which delights in impending disaster.
Politicians are attracted because the cause must involve a great increase in the power of government.
The supposed danger has also provided fuel for those who are determined, come what may, to demonstrate that capitalism and industrialisation are the roots of our woe.
The religious instinct is satisfied by the opportunity for pious preaching and noisy protest. Yet the cause is so flawed.
We are, of course, too enlightened now to be in danger of being carried away by superstition or hysteria – so we say.
At the end of the conference, the G8 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, U.K., U.S.) agreed to reduce emissions with the big “achievement” of agreeing to limit the temperature rise to no more than 2degC. Since global warming cannot respond to their actions because 1. the G8 are only a small part of the total and 2. most warming is caused by natural cycles, their actions mean nothing scientifically although are important politically. The G5 (China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico) made no such commitment yet they have greater total emissions.
Looks like the G8 are not listening to recent data but are still living in the past.
For more on this, see this article in the San Fransisco Chronicle. Great article and Debra Saunders is scathing in her criticism of the G-8 and their plan to limit the temperature rise, “And for their next act, the G-8 will part the Red Sea”!