Pope Silent on Climate Change, Global Warming
Global Warming on Free Republic
Posted on 07/21/2008 9:54:26 AM PDT by BufordP
Bureaucrats at the American Physical Society (APS) have issued a curious warning to their members about an article in one of their own publications. Don't read this, they say - we don't agree with it. But what is it about the piece that is so terrible, that like Medusa, it could make men go blind? It's an article that examines the calculation central to climate models. As the editor of the APS's newsletter American Physics Jeffrey Marque explains, the global warming debate must be re-opened. "There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion," he wrote (http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm).
American Physics invited both believers and sceptics to submit articles, and has published a submission by Viscount Monckton questioning (http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm) the core calculation of the greenhouse gas theory: climate sensitivity. The believers are represented (http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/hafemeister.cfm) by two physicists from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, who state that:
"Basic atmospheric models clearly predict that additional greenhouse gasses will raise the temperature of Earth. To argue otherwise, one must prove a physical mechanism that gives a reasonable alternative cause of warming. This has not been done. Sunspot and temperature correlations do not prove causality."
But within a few days, Monckton's piece carried a health warning: in bright red ink.
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions.
Not so much Medusa, then, as Nanny telling the children what not to think.
"The first sentence is nothing more or less than a deliberate lie," writes (http://numberwatch.co.uk/2008%20July.htm) Professor John Brignell on his Numberwatch blog. "The second is, to say the least, contentious; while the third is an outrageous example of ultra vires interference by a committee in the proper conduct of scientific debate."
Monckton has asked for an apology. In a letter to the APS President Arthur Bienenstock, he writes:
"If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the "overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community"; and, tertio, that "The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions"? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?"
Believers and sceptics have spent the past few days examining the value of "peer review", and the weight of validity that should be placed on "publication". Monckton is a classics scholar and former journalist, which believers maintain is enough to disqualify him from holding an opinion.
(Whether it's science is not in question - whether it's "good science" or "bad science" is the question. An earlier presentation by Monckton examining questioning climate sensitivity received was examined (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/cuckoo-science/) by NASA's Gavin Schmidt on the believers' blog, RealClimate.org.)
But for anyone without a dog in this race, and perhaps not familiar with the "state of the science" there may be a couple of surprises in Monckton's paper.
One is how small the field of "experts" really is. The UN's IPCC is tasked with producing a summary of the "scientific consensus" and claims to process the contributions of some 2,500 scientists. But as Monckton writes:
"It is of no little significance that the IPCC’s value for the coefficient in the CO2 forcing equation depends on only one paper in the literature; that its values for the feedbacks that it believes account for two-thirds of humankind’s effect on global temperatures are likewise taken from only one paper; and that its implicit value of the crucial parameter κ depends upon only two papers, one of which had been written by a lead author of the chapter in question, and neither of which provides any theoretical or empirical justification for a value as high as that which the IPCC adopted." [our emphasis]
Another eye-opener is his explanation of how the believers' climate models are verified:
"Since we cannot measure any individual forcing directly in the atmosphere, the models draw upon results of laboratory experiments in passing sunlight through chambers in which atmospheric constituents are artificially varied," writes Monckton. "Such experiments are, however, of limited value when translated into the real atmosphere, where radiative transfers and non-radiative transports (convection and evaporation up, advection along, subsidence and precipitation down), as well as altitudinal and latitudinal asymmetries, greatly complicate the picture."
In other words, an unproven hypothesis is fed into a computer (so far so good), but it can only be verified against experiments that have no resemblance to the chaotic system of the Earth's climate. It is not hard to see how the scientists could produce an immaculate "model" that's theoretically perfect in every respect (all the equations balance, and it may even be programmed to offer perfect "hind-casting"), but which has no practical predictive value at all. It's safe from the rude intrusion of empirical evidence drawn from atmospheric observation.
The great British-born physicist Freeman Dyson offered an impertinent dose of reality which illustrates the dangers of relying on theory for both your hypothesis and the evidence you need to support it. Since 8 per cent of atmospheric CO2 is absorbed by the planet's biomass every year, notes Dyson (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494), the average lifespan of a carbon molecule in the atmosphere is about 12 years. His observation leaves the "climate scientists" models as immaculate as they were before, but suggests a very different course of policy action. It suggests our stewardship of land should be at the forefront of CO2 mitigation strategies. That's not something we hear from politicians, pressure groups and, yes ... climate scientists. |
We will just have to take physics underground, and be heretics!
Whatever it takes! I’m with you. Michael Crighton had their number a LOOOONNNGGG time ago. bttt
Results 1 - 10 of about 401,000 for michael crichton speeches
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Michael Crichton Speeches
“Fear, Complexity, Environmental Management in the 21st Century”
Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy, Washington, D.C.
November 6, 2005
“Testimony of Michael Crichton before the United States Senate”
Committee on Environment and Public Works, Washington, D.C.
September 28, 2005
“The Impossibility of Prediction”
National Press Club, Washington, D.C.
Janaury 25, 2005
“Science Policy in the 21st Century”
Joint Session AEI-Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
January 25, 2005
“Environmentalism as Religion”
Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, CA
September 15, 2003
“Aliens Cause Global Warming”
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
January 17, 2003
“Why Speculate?”
International Leadership Forum, La Jolla, CA
April 26, 2002
“Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities: Science Views Media”
American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Anaheim, CA
January 25, 1999
“Mediasaurus: The Decline of Conventional Media”
National Press Club, Washington D.C.
April 7, 1993
That is a slick way of preventing people from attacking their analysis and instead requiring them to prove something else which can then easily be attacked because it would be hard to prove.
It is actually absurd and illogical. If this is the logic of science, no wonder they produce mainly junk science. If the reason for global warming is wrong (C02), then one should be able to prove that it is wrong—not have to prove something else is causing it.
“When the global warming hoax is finally exposed...”
Problem is that it may never be exposed. They will just keep punting it further down the road (the warming will happen in 50 years, etc.).
Every “civilian” proponent and opponent of the man-made theories of “global warming” needs to read the book “Longitude” (”The True Story of the Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time”) by Dava Sobel.
It tells the heart wrenching, scientific and historical tale of a true scientist toiling heroically against, and being defeated by, a scientific orthodoxy of his day - the British Royal Society together with its influential patrons in British Royalty and the British Parliament (collectively, in today’s terms, the IPPC and its patrons and contributors of that era).
When one realizes it is often the powerful forces of scientific orthodoxy when pressed to the extreme of censorship and expulsion from their ranks that it is precisely then that they are most likely to be proven wrong, then one must be concerned about the current “global warming” debate, because, although the hero in “Longitude” did eventually succeed against the forces that tried to silence him, that success was not able to be admitted and put to use until after his death.
If that becomes the course civilization meets over the “gobal warming” debate, the error of following the current orthodoxy to its full ends will be supremely, hugely more disastrous to humanity than was the delay in proving correct the hero of “Longitude”.
The Dims are always hypocritically correct - there is politicization of science going on - and as usual, and in the sense of “global warming”, just as in “stem cell research”, they are the purveyors of that politicization.
Pope Silent on Climate Change, Global Warming
Global Warming on Free Republic
Isn’t it demanding that a negative be proved? It is a sophistic argument that one might expect from a lawyer in a courtroom intended to influence thinking through distraction not build a logical case. Real science doesn’t work that way or we’d still be debating flat earth vs round earth.
But, but, scientists are pure as the driven snow. They are never biased, and never political. They never show hostility to opposing views or reject other ideas out of hand.
Scientists can be very ‘priestly’ when it comes to preserving doctrine against the facts.
This poor devil was almost refused a degree for his radical thinking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
Of course, he later received the Nobel Prize for the very topic of his refused thesis.
Not good, AFAIC. It might give the wingnuts reason to claim partial victory with their “programs” (AKA: Montreal Protocol, Title V, etc.)
Science knows no record of a time when there was NO hole over the Antarctic.
As a non-scientist, I want to know what it is going to take for physicists and other scientists to resign en masse from these organizations that are obviously stifiling thought.
I am pretty savvy about the left, but it has taken me until now to understand the constant drumbeat for “more government support” of science. DUH. More government support=more government control.
So what are we, the lay public, supposed to do, now? We cannot accept media reports as factual; we cannot accept scientific reports as factual; leaders who disagree with the media and their appointed darling are rejected and constrained from publishing their POV; our children are constrained from creative activity, independent thought and non-conformist action within the schools and universities and thoughtful, public disagreement with orthodoxy can put jobs at risk.
The left in all venues can say, do, promote whatever nonsense they please, while we are supposed to quietly accept whatever they say, do, promlugate or mandate, on pain of economic, social, civil or legal sanction.
Thank Evo's for transforming free thinking instutions of scientific higher learning into the dogmatic political-religious organizations of today that call themselves "scientific".
ROFLOL!
Let’s face it, if the majority opinion was shifted to conclude that the excess CO2 was blocking the sun and causing cooling the call to tax carbon would be equally shrill.
More proof that the GW alarmists are wrong.
Who does APS think they are....the government?
BS.
In case you hadn't noticed, physicists pay little attention to biologists, paleontologists, anthropologists and the like.
Or are you using the typical creationist definition of "Evolutionist" to mean any scientist who creationists disagree with?
Ben Stein made a great movie (”Expelled”) on the whole theme of enforced orthodoxy in science - touching mostly on stem cells, global warming and evolution. The issue is rampant and pervasive in all U.S. science circles. The movie was great but had only limited release.
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