A couple of surprising things to end the year on

Two things to end the year on--a climate update and a new poll. Both are instructive and, for some, surprising.

First, a climate update. Flash . . . it's cold outside. Why is this a hot item (pardon the pun)? Well, as we have been told endlessly by the global warming "experts," we are heading toward a catastrophe of our own doing, where we expire in heat death. But wait, whether in Los Angeles or London, recent predictions have gone crazily awry. Global warming? Seems more like a new Ice Age. Get the parkas out.
Those stranded travelers stuck in airports across Europe because of an arctic freeze are a bit confused as well as angry. Sadly, they've been told for more than a decade now that such a thing was an impossibility — that global warming was inevitable, and couldn't be reversed.

This is a big problem for those who see human-caused global warming as an irreversible result of the Industrial Revolution's reliance on carbon-based fuels. Based on global warming theory — and according to official weather forecasts made earlier in the year — this winter should be warm and dry. It's anything but. Ice and snow cover vast parts of both Europe and North America, in one of the coldest Decembers in history.

But what have we been hearing from the experts? Those who wrote the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, global warming report in 2007 predicted an inevitable, century-long rise in global temperatures of two degrees or more. Only higher temperatures were foreseen. Moderate or even lower temperatures, as we're experiencing now, weren't even listed as a possibility. I saw an article from a British newspaper a few years ago that said snow would soon become a distant memory for those in England.

Here's the ugly truth for the global warming crowd. Since at least 1998 no significant warming trend has been noticeable. Unfortunately, none of the 24 models used by the IPCC views that as possible. They are at odds with reality.

Will this moderate their views? Will they admit it's extremely difficult to predict global weather? I doubt it. Not even the extraordinarily frigid weather now creating havoc across most of the Northern Hemisphere bothers them. Don't wait for any forthcoming admissions from this set. They want to bring down the Western world's economic base, and this is one way to do it.

And the other item has to do with the findings of a new poll. Muslims have gradually lessened their support for radical Islam over the past several years. Guess when the support lessened the most? During the years Bush was in office. But I thought Obama was reaching out to the Muslims, soothing them and offering praise for all their accomplishments (and other fairy tales). Looks like people respond better to strength than to pablum and weakness. Who's surprised by this? Only lefties who think we just need to sit down and make nice with our enemies to disarm them. Yeah, that worked for Hitler, didn't it?

More examples of climate confusion

In the last blog I mentioned several examples of the problems global warming alarmists now have to deal with. Let’s continue with more from the BBC’s interview with Phil Jones, the now-notorious director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the central Climategate figure.

He was asked a key question about the debate over climate change: “When scientists say the debate on climate change is over, what exactly do they mean--and what don't they mean?"

Here’s his reply: “It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don't believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.”

So Jones says "the vast majority of climate scientists" don't think the debate is over? But I thought the United Nations, Al Gore, the Nobel Prize committee, and all mass-media outlets have insisted the issue has been decided.

Take a look at a recent Washington Post piece, which tries to have it both ways: “With its 2007 report declaring that the 'warming of the climate system is unequivocal,' the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel Prize--and a new degree of public trust in the controversial science of global warming. But recent revelations about flaws in that seminal report, ranging from typos in key dates to sloppy sourcing, are undermining confidence not only in the panel's work but also in projections about climate change. Scientists who have pointed out problems in the report say the panel's methods and mistakes--including admitting Saturday that it had overstated how much of the Netherlands was below sea level--give doubters an opening. It wasn't the first one. There is still a scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. But . . .”

What’s the overall point of the article? It first says the consensus on global warming has dissipated. But look at the last full sentence—there really is global warming?? So, the newspaper says the issue is now in doubt except it’s still settled. Hmm . . .

The true believers have a hard time confronting the problems with their position. They have embraced global warming as a political and quasireligious doctrine based, they have been led to believe, on the authority of science.

But as the above examples illustrate, climate science is rife with uncertainty. Yet it’s these hard-core adherents who refuse to listen to any doubters or acknowledge that the "consensus" they have touted is a sham. Aren’t they the ones who accused the skeptics of being narrow-minded? Ironic, isn’t it?

Global warming comes unglued

What a difference a few months have made in the global warming debate. I have long been skeptical of the hysterical, Al-Gore supporting, anti-growth, anti-western, anti-capitalist individuals who back global warming. Over the past few months, large holes have appeared in their arguments. It’s becoming apparent that current supporters--dogmatic, doctrinaire and scornful of skepticism—don’t reflect true science. However things have changed. It’s not just the supporters but the scientists themselves who are looking hysterical and biased beyond belief.


Want some proof? Here’s one example. London's Sunday Times reports that scientists are "casting doubt" on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's "claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution," a claim the IPCC describes as "unequivocal":

"The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change," said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC. The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years. These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanization, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site. Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and Alabama. "The story is the same for each one," he said. "The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development."


How about another example? Sure. The BBC has an extraordinary interview with Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the central Climategate figure. In the interview, Jones admits that the periods 1860-80 and 1910-40 saw global warming on a similar scale to the 1975-98 period, that there has been no significant warming since 1995, and that the so-called Medieval Warm Period calls into question whether the currently observed warming is unprecedented.

There’s plenty more in this interview, but I’ll save it for my next blog. Meanwhile, have a healthy dose of skepticism when the lab-coats tell us where the truth lies.