Tuesday, 19 August 2008

Cognitive Dissonance

“Un experto de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México pronosticó que en alrededor de diez años la Tierra entrará a una ‘pequeña era de hielo’ que durará de 60 a 80 años y será causada por la disminución de la actividad solar.” [Milenio, August 16]

EXCERPT:

I must ask a very serious and urgent question of our media. Why do you continue to talk glibly about current climate ‘warming’ when it is now widely acknowledged that there has been no ‘global warming’ for the last ten years, a cooling trend that many think may continue for at least another ten years? How can you talk of the climate ‘warming’ when, on the key measures, it isn’t? And now a leading Mexican scientist is even predicting that we may enter another ‘Little Ice Age’ - a ‘pequeña era de hielo’.

Such media behaviour exhibits a classic condition known as ‘cognitive dissonance’. This is experienced when belief in a grand narrative persists blindly even when the facts in the real world begin to contradict what the narrative is saying. Sadly, our media have come to have a vested interest in ‘global warming’, as have so many politicians and activists. They are terrified that the public may begin to question everything if climate is acknowledged, on air and in the press, not to be playing ball with their pet trope.

Cooling Period

But that is precisely what is happening. Since 1998, according to all the main world temperature records, including the UK Met Office’s ‘HadCRUT3’ data set [a globally-gridded product of near-surface temperatures consisting of annual differences from 1961-90 normals], the world average surface temperature has exhibited no warming whatsoever.

MORE HERE

HEARTLAND INSTITUTE

Lord Monckton Thrashes DeSmog Blog Editor in High-Profile Global Warming Debate DeSmog Blog editor Richard Littlemore concedes defeat Written By: transcription and analysis by James M. Taylor Published In: News Releases Publication Date: August 18, 2008 Publisher: The Heartland Institute

EXCERPT:

Lord Christopher Monckton, a global warming expert and former senior policy advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has challenged Al Gore, and other ardent proponents of the theory that humans are causing a global warming crisis, to publicly debate the issue.

While Gore and most other prominent proponents of alarmist global warming theory refuse to publicly debate or defend their claims, Richard Littlemore, editor of the DeSmog Blog Web site, agreed to debate Lord Monckton on Sunday, August 17, on Canada’s Corus radio network. Corus host Roy Green moderated the debate.

A transcript of all pertinent parts of the debate appears below, followed by some post-debate analysis by James M. Taylor, senior fellow for The Heartland Institute. Audio of the Monckton-Littlemore debate can be found at http://libertynewscentral.blogspot.com/2008/08/monckton-vs-littlemore-debate-audio.html.

The Debate

Green

Richard, in layman’s terminology, make the case for the IPCC human-induced climate change position.

Littlemore

I’ll give you the brief spiel. After a long peace and period of climate stability, the Earth’s climate has started to change, and change quickly. In an effort to answer why, the Earth’s great scientists have gathered all the best research in a report by the IPCC -- the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC’s last report says that there is a 90-plus percent certainty that humans are causing the problem, mostly by burning fossil fuels.

The governments of Stephen Harper in Canada, George Bush in the United States, the governments of Britain, France, Germany, China, India, and 137 other countries all signed off on that report. It’s not some like weird socialist thing. Everybody signed it.

Are there still scientific uncertainties? You bet. Real scientists are arguing all the time in labs and in peer-reviewed scientific journals, not in newsletters. Are we going to argue serious science today in 22 minutes in a debate between two guys, neither of whom has a degree in any scientific field or is doing any scientific research? I don’t think so.

The public debate about climate change is not about science, it’s about public relations. That’s what we do at DeSmog Blog, which is a climate change Web site. We do research on the credentials and the funding of people who argue that climate change isn’t happening, that it doesn’t matter, or that it can’t be stopped. Then we publish the results, and I can tell you it’s all about public relations.

Green

Let me have Lord Christopher respond to that.

Monckton

MORE HERE

Advancing Hysteria by Editing Skeptical Views of Global Warming

By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
August 18, 2008 - 12:32 ET

EXCERPT:

Remember back in November when Nobel Laureate Al Gore actually told NBC's Meredith Vieira that trying to cover global warming from a fair and balanced perspective was wrong, and only climate alarmists should be given any attention in pieces concerning this controversial subject?

Well, a Stanford social psychologist has recently done a study of how people's opinions about global warming change if skeptical views are edited out of news stories, and the results, though not surprising, should scare the heck out of free thinkers around the country.

As reported by USA Today on August 13 (h/t NBer nofate, emphasis added):

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12 Facts about Global Climate Change That You Won’t Read in the Popular Press

Posted on Aug. 18, 2008

By Joseph D’Aleo

EXCERPT:

 1 Temperatures have been cooling since 2002, even as carbon dioxide has continued to rise.

2 Carbon dioxide is a trace gas and by itself will produce little warming. Also, as CO2 increases, the incremental warming is less, as the effect is logarithmic so the more CO2, the less warming it produces.

3 CO2 has been totally uncorrelated with temperature over the last decade, and significantly negative since 2002.

4 CO2 is not a pollutant, but a naturally occurring gas. Together with chlorophyll and sunlight, it is an essential ingredient in photosynthesis and is, accordingly, plant food.

MORE HERE

8-17-2008

Monckton vs. Littlemore Debate audio

EXCERPT:

The much anticipated radio debate between Christopher Walter(the Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley), a global warming skeptic and Richard Littlemore, a global warming alarmist took place just a while ago on the Roy Green show on the Corus Network.

Despite the 24X7 saturation coverage of this issue by the media, mostly in scary, apocalyptic terms, there actually has been very little of a face to face debate between those who fervently believe in man-made climate change and those who are skeptical of it in one way or another.
Here is the debate in four parts(note-the fourth part is listener's phone-in's)

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Warming warnings get overheated

Alarmist predictions of climate change like Oliver Tickell's are not just bad science – they stop us thinking rationally about solutions

• 
  • Björn Lomborg
  • guardian.co.uk,
  • Friday August 15 2008 11:00 BST

EXCERPT:

Much of the global warming debate is perhaps best described as a constant outbidding by frantic campaigners, producing a barrage of ever-more scary scenarios in an attempt to get the public to accept their civilisation-changing proposals. Unfortunately, the general public – while concerned about the environment – is distinctly unwilling to support questionable solutions with costs running into tens of trillions of pounds. Predictably, this makes the campaigners reach for even more outlandish scares.

These alarmist predictions are becoming quite bizarre, and could be dismissed as sociological oddities, if it weren't for the fact that they get such big play in the media. Oliver Tickell, for instance, writes that a global warming causing a 4C temperature increase by the end of the century would be a "catastrophe" and the beginning of the "extinction" of the human race. This is simply silly.

His evidence?

MORE HERE

Nutty story of the day #5, One more thing to worry about: The Oxygen Crisis!

16 08 2008

EXCERPT:

Dearth Of Sunspot Activity To Herald New Ice Age?

Observatory predicts two degree drop in temperatures over next two decades as solar activity dwindles

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, August 14, 2008

EXCERPT:

A top observatory that has been measuring sun cycles for over 200 years predicts that global temperatures will drop by two degrees over the next two decades as solar activity grinds to a halt and the planet drastically cools down, potentially heralding the onset of a new ice age.

While the mass media, Al Gore and politicized bodies like the IPCC scaremonger about the perils of global warming and demand the poor and middle class pay CO2 taxes, both hard scientific data and circumstantial evidence points to a clear cooling trend.

Following the end of the Sun’s most active period in over 11,000 years, the last 10 years have displayed a clear cooling trend as temperatures post-1998 leveled out and are now plummeting.

MORE HERE

The 15 Micron CO2 Band Is Almost Saturated.

Saturday 16 August, 2008 - 09:28 by Grant in Default

EXCERPT:

Some more basic physics for you.
 

This graph

( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png/595px-Atmospheric_Transmission.png ) shows how solar energy comes down as visible light and is re-radiated back to space as infrared heat.

Carbon dioxide only absorbs the infrared radiation in a very narrow band, around the 15 microns wavelength, and as a tiny trace gas (380ppm vs 10,000ppm for water vapour) it has only a purely theoretical GHG effect.

MORE HERE

8-16-2008

Anecdotal cold weather news from around the world

EXCERPT:

There continues to be a number of reports of colder than normal weather and seasons from around the globe. Here are a few.

Loveland Pass Colorado, today

Australia:

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/cold-weather-here-to-stay/9718

Cold weather here to stay

Tom Saunders, Saturday August 16, 2008 - 20:23 EST

August 2008 continues to be one of the coldest on record for most of Australia with temperatures averaging as much as six degrees below normal.

The cold weather has even spread to northern Queensland with Burketown dropping to five degrees on Saturday morning for the first time in 24 years. On the Queensland coast Coolangatta has now dropped to five or less on 10 consecutive mornings, easily beating the old record of six.

Daytime has brought little relief with Orange shivering through 10 consecutive days below eight degrees for the first time in 17 years.

MORE HERE