Not Just One Rotten Climate Apple

Riddle Me This
12/07/09 - Chicago Boyz by James R. Rummel

ClimateGate is about the emails and practices of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of East Anglia Univeristy, Britain. It is a large and previously prestigious institution.

Logicians now say that this scandal does not necessarily invalidate the work of the other climate centers. I suppose that this is the difference between fine academic logic and a more realistic view of human bias, politics, and politicized Big Science.

The climate scientists will have to prove their work, as they should have from the beginning. They must reveal their data, theories, methods, and computer codes. There must be no more splicing of different data series to get a graph showing what is politically correct.

[edited] Most climate scientists speaking on news programs or writing op-eds offer a general defense. This scandal might cast doubt on more than 10 years of work at CRU, but they say it does not invalidate research by other scientists supporting catastrophic global warming caused by humans.

This is why it invalidates the work of other scientists:

• The Hadley CRU boasted the largest and most comprehensive collection of climate data in the entire world.
• This massive collection of data inspired, if not directly influenced, just about every other climate scientist’s work.
• The people who wrote the emails are the most prestigious and influential climate scientists in the world. The emails show their dirty tricks, data manipulation, and collusion to hide problems with their research.

Why should anyone take any climate scientist’s word for his own integrity and the soundness of his work? Isn’t the onus on him/her to prove that he isn't a crook and liar, like the big guys are?

A comment by Shannon Love [edited]:

The revelations invalidate the work of other scientists:

1. They all claimed to have reviewed and reproduced the CRU’s work, and
2. They defended that work against scrutiny.

(1) causes doubt about their competence, and (2) causes doubt about their integrity.

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Fast Facts About Climategate
12/06/09 - Pajamas Media by Charlie Martin
A convenient overview of the emails and issues of ClimateGate.

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Government Funds Distort Climate Science
07/22/09 - Science and Technology News

Quip: We don't fund studies critical of our policies.

The Science and Public Policy Institute:

[edited] The US Government has spent $79 billion since 1989 on research and support for climate change studies. Yet, scientific review and criticism is left to unpaid volunteers, who have repeatedly exposed major errors.

Dedicated, uncoordinated scientists around the globe test the integrity of global warming theory. They compete with Government, a lavishly funded, highly organized, centralized purchaser of climate research.

The government pours money into a single, scientifically baseless agenda. It has created a self-fulfilling prophecy, not an unbiased investigation. Sound science cannot easily survive this grip of politics and finance.

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Jo Nova Finds the Medieval Warm Period
12/07/09 - What's Up With That by Jo Nova (Via Don Surber)

The sharp upward swing in temperature was due to a single tree in Yamal, Russia.

In 2009, McIntyre analyzed Briffa’s Hockey Stick graph of sudden warming. He waited three years for the data he asked for. It took just three days to expose it too as baseless.

Briffa had concealed for nine years that he only had 12 trees in the sample from 1990 onwards, and that one freakish tree transformed the graph. When McIntyre graphed another 34 trees from the same region of Russia, there was no sudden warming.

Craig Loehle used 18 other proxies. (Proxies are measurements of physical processes that should have been sensitive to temperature. -ag) Temperatures were higher 1000 years ago and cooler 300 years ago. We started warming long before cars and powerstations were invented. There is little correlation with CO2 levels.

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Hockey stick observed in NOAA ice core data
09/12/09 - WattsUpWithThat by Anthony Watts

J. Storrs Hall is at the Foresight Institute. He made some interesting graphs from NOAA ice core data:

[edited] Let's look at the temperature record as read from this central Greenland ice core. It gives us about as close as we can come to a direct, experimental measurement of temperature at that one spot for the past 50,000 years. As far as I know, the data are not adjusted according to any fancy computer climate model or anything else like that.

Watts comments on graphs of the temperature record from this single ice core, going back 500 1,200 4,000 10,000 12,000 and 40,000 years. Other data shows temperature for the past 400,000 years.

The 500 year record shows a wiggling, slow decline in temperature, then rising steadily by .7 degrees F in the 80 years from 1840-1920. That +.7 F is the total increase, not yearly. Watts says with humor: "a hockey stick".

True understanding comes from looking at temperature over longer time scales going into the distant and geologically distant past. On that scale, our current temperature fluctuations are nothing special. The Earth has been much colder for most of the last 400,000 years, and somewhat warmer for part of that time.

We don't need CO2 by humans to explain changing global temperature. The Earth has had large fluctuations all by itself. We should be glad it is warm for us now.

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Galilean Peer Review
12/06/09 - Throckmorton's Other Signs

A doctor teaches his residents how to read published, peer-reviewed papers in medical journals.

[edited] In our journal club, we all take recent papers in our field and present them to the group. This is a great exercise for the residents. First, you look at what question the research is hoping to answer. You then see how they are getting the data and if analysis of the data will lead to an answer. You then check the statistics on the data. Only then can you say if the research is of merit.

I stress that the comments and discussion are just that, or better expressed as an editorial. It is amazing how many of the papers don't support the conclusions.

I can't help but feel this way about Climategate. This seems to be a classic example of researchers having an opinion and then trying to backtrack to make the research support that opinion.

Peer Review is Not What You Think

Scientific Peer-Review is a Lightweight Process
11/30/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Shannon Love

[edited] "Peer Review" says nothing about conclusions. It is the fate of most scientific papers to be proven completely wrong.

Peer review protects a journal’s reputation. The journal hires experts to check for basic errors in math or methodology, along with grammar and spelling. It offloads responsibility for publishing bad papers onto anonymous scientists. It is a form of blame-passing that everyone would like to use. It does not confirm or refute experimental or theoretical conclusions.

The anonymous and secret peer review process is not part of actual science. Science demands that that all observers of a phenomenon can agree they see the same thing. Ruthless transparency is critical. Secrecy hinders the functioning of science, and peer review is a secret process. Science is not settled by the secret complaints of the anonymous.

Some people will say that a scientific result is true because it appears in a peer reviewed journal. That is the weakest defense possible. It means only that some editor and his reviewers found it to meet their minimum quality standards for publishing. It meets no standards if the editors and peer reviewers are corrupt.

When people see "peer review", they usually think of "scientific review", which is the detailed investigation of data and the replication of results by independent scientists. Scientific review gives some confidence that the claimed results are correct. Even then, conclusions about what the results "mean" can be wrong.

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ClimateGate: The Fix is In
11/24/09 - Real Clear Politics By Robert Tracinski
Via SmallDeadAnimals

[edited] Global warming "skeptics" had unearthed evidence that scientists at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at Britain's University of East Anglia had cherry-picked data to manufacture a "hockey stick" graph. This graph showed a dramatic, but illusory, runaway warming trend in the late 20th century.

Much broader evidence has emerged that will break that scandal wide open. Pundits have named it "Climategate." Thousands of e-mails and data from the CRU are now available on the Web.

The following stood out for me. There is extensive evidence of the hijacking of the "peer review" process to enforce global warming dogma. Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink.

Peer review has been corrupted, becoming a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing.

The noted climate researcher Michael Mann emailed about pressuring the journal Climate Research, which published a paper critical of global warming.

I think we have to stop considering "Climate Research" as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.

This is the scandal of the century. It needs to be thoroughly investigated, and the culprits need to be brought to justice.

Read more at the link:

• The emails involve numerous leading British and American climate scientists outside of the CRU.
• Private admissions of doubt or scientific weakness in the global warming theory.
• A prominent global warming alarmist admits to using a statistical "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures.
• Cherry-picked data
• Evasion of legal requests for data, under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a project of the United Nations. Its reports are taken as gospel by governments and scientists pushing for global control of industry, to avoid catastrophic global warming.

Many of the scientists contributing to the IPCC, especially at the Hadley CRU, were committed to avoiding scientific review. Despicably, they used their powers of peer review to exclude criticism of their papers, and they refused to release underlying data to any independent scientific review. Fortunately, a few scientific bloggers were able to make many of the faults public.

Amazingly, the IPCC didn't even restrict itself to peer reviewed results. The IPCC is a political institution, not a scientific one. Being half a scientist is like being half a truth.

1/3rd of IPCC claims were not peer-reviewed
04/20/10 - by Don Surber

Citizens Audit of the UN's Climate Report
04/07/10 - by Noconsensus.Org

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The IPCC is Political, Not Scientific
04/20/10 - PrisonPlanet by economist Richard Tol

Working Groups 2 and 3 of the AR4 (Assessment Report 4) violated all IPCC procedures. The conclusions are scientifically unfounded in part, and some are even copied from the environmental movement. Valid comments were ignored. AR4 contains crude errors as a result, only some known publicly.

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Galilean Peer Review
12/06/09 - Throckmorton's Other Signs

A doctor teaches his residents how to read published, peer-reviewed papers in medical journals. They must carefully examine the evidence and methodology. Most of the papers are not convincing after a hard look.

Think about that, the next time a newspaper breathlessly reports a finding in a newly published scientific paper.

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An array of errors
09/10/11 - The Economist

Summary:  Researchers Anil Potti and Joseph Nevins at Duke University published that they could predict the course of lung cancer using expression arrays, colorful activity patterns of thousands of genes in a tissue sample. The research was sloppy and wrong, despite initial peer review and repeated publication in respected medical journals. Those journals refused most critical comment.

AMG:  This is similar to the controversy surrounding the data, statistics, and computer code used to construct climate models. Prominent climate scientists have refused to release this supporting information for independent confirmation. The climate journals seem to be a much tighter and more defensive group than the medical journals.

When researchers refuse to supply their source data and methods, they are not scientists. A researcher earns our trust through open disclosure. He does not deserve any trust from calling himself a scientist or from working for a prestigious institution.

[edited]:  Investigations into alleged scientific misconduct have revealed numerous holes in the oversight of science and scientific publishing.

Bio-statisticians Keith Baggerly and Kevin Coombes work at the MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston. They found serious flaws in the work at Duke.

Dr. Baggerly noted that he did not have full access to the computer code and consistent raw data on which the work was based.

Journals that had readily published Dr. Potti’s papers were reluctant to publish Dr. Baggerly's criticism of Potti's work. Nature Medicine published one critical letter, and a rebuttal from the team at Duke, but rejected further comments as more problems arose. Other journals behaved similarly.

Eventually, Baggerly and Coombes resorted to publishing their criticisms in a statistical journal, unlikely to reach the same audience as a medical journal.

Dr. Califf is vice-chancellor in charge of clinical research at Duke University. He and other senior administrators acknowledged they gave too much weight to Dr. Nevins's judgment. That led them to withhold Dr. Baggerly’s criticisms from the external-review committee in 2009. The internal committees responsible for overseeing clinical trials lacked the expertise to review the complex statistical methods used in experiments on gene expression.

The process of peer review relies (as it always has) on the goodwill of workers in the field, who have jobs of their own and frequently cannot spend the time needed to check other people’s papers in a thorough manner. (amg: Despite the fact that they have agreed to peer review those papers.)

Dr. McShane estimates she spent about 350 hours reviewing the Duke work. Drs. Baggerly and Coombes estimate they spent nearly 2,000 hours. The methods sections of papers are supposed to provide enough information for others to replicate the work, but often do not.

Dodgy work will be revealed eventually, as it is found not to fit in with other, more reliable discoveries. But that all takes time and money.

Obama's Green Jobs Snake Oil

Obama's Green Snake Oil
Obama ignores the cost of his global warming plan.
01/28/09 - Reason Online by Jacob Sullum

[edited]  Obama says that his plan to reduce global warming is actually a way of stimulating the economy. The plan immediately spends for weatherizing buildings, alternative energy production, and more power transmission. He ignores the enormous cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. He falsely portrays this economic burden as a boon.

Consider this to see the fallacy: If Obama could snap his fingers and make global warming disappear, should he do it? By his logic, no, because then we'd lose all those wonderful green jobs that will help pull us out of the recession.

Obama: "Climate change could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines, and irreversible catastrophe." Does Obama's cap-and-trade proposal make sense? We need to know how likely are those outcomes, how costly they would be, and whether his plan would prevent them.

Critic Bjorn Lomborg wrote "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming." He argues that adapting to climate change is much less costly than trying to prevent it. Prevention is unlikely to have any measurable impact. I'd like to hear why Obama thinks this criticism is wrong.

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Dispelling the Global Warming Myth

There is a close correlation between global temperature and solar output. See the graph.

Overselling Science

Overselling Science
07/10/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Shannon Love

Why polls of scientists don't mean much, even if they are real scientists making their living from research. Read it all.

[edited] The problem with polling “scientists” is that there is a wide range in the predictive power of the studies that we lump together as “science”.

Physics has tremendous predictive power, but sociology has almost none. Worse, scientists in highly predictive fields tend to have too much trust in less predictive fields, and scientists in low- or non-predictive fields try to gain public trust by referring to the success of highly predictive fields.

Non-predictive sciences invite social and political fads. There was wide agreement a hundred years ago on the validity of eugenics, Improving a human population by discouraging people with undesirable traits from having children, or of mating people who have desireable traits. more agreement than we have today on global warming. Darwin strongly opposed implementing eugenics, but nevertheless believed in its validity.

Likewise, most scientists of that era thought it was obvious that races differed in behavior because they had different biology. Much bad policy, even in politically liberal countries, was based on this flawed and oversold “scientific” idea.

The theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) has the same social and political dynamics as did eugenics. Climatology has not predicted climate either in the short or long term. The computer models [and their predictions for tens or hundreds of years into the future] cannot be tested by any observation in the here and now. Yet, the public gives climatology the same respect as meteorology, physics, and chemistry.

To global warming, we could add each past “scientific” consensus on the population bomb, resource depletion, energy crisis, and inevitable nuclear war. In all of these cases, scientists and the public thought untested models with no predictive power were similar to the highly predictive models [of the experimental, physical sciences].

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Global warming caused by humans is a scam
The proponents of Global Warming don't mind lying for the good of us all. Saving the world justifies much cutting of corners.

Be Skeptical About Scientists and Polls

Scientists Versus The Great Unwashed
07/10/09 - Just One Minute by Tom Maguire

Survey Shows Gap Between Scientists and the Public
07/09/09 - New York Times by Cornelia Dean

Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public and Media
07/09/09 - Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

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I don't trust Pew research polls, after seeing this poll and information about it. I am skeptical of all polls, and the word "scientist".

Mr. Maguire reviews an article in the NY Times which reports a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, working with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Opinions differed between scientists and the general public.

Pew said "scientists". I credit Ms. Dean for the following, which is not emphasized in the Pew report:

NYT Ms. Dean: [edited] The survey involved about 2,000 of the public and 2,500 scientists drawn from the rolls of the AAAS, which includes teachers, administrators and others involved in science, as well as researchers.

The Pew report section About the survey is at the end of the report, the last segment of 10, and says:

Pew Report [edited] Results for the scientist survey are based on 2,533 online interviews. A sample of 9,998 members was drawn from the AAAS membership list excluding those who were not based in the United States or whose membership type identified them as primary or secondary-level educators.

The term "scientist" is used everywhere, but the survey contacted the AAAS membership, which includes people with a career related to science, and can include anyone. The survey excluded grade-school and high-school teachers, but included administrators. It seems that this classification is whatever each member listed when joining.

Rhetoric and Bias

It bothers me that Ms. Dean reports on a survey and inserts her own beliefs. For evolution and global warming, the supposed scientists agree with her, and the public is dumb. For nuclear power, she does not report on the supposed scientists who come to a conclusion different from liberal opinion.

This is a common misuse of surveys and group opinions. We often hear that we should believe something because "almost all scientists agree".

• How can we know that thay all agree?
• What does "all" mean?
• Who are the "scientists"?
• If "scientists" are all trustworthy, how can they disagree? If they are not all trustworthy, why are we polling them?
• Who employs them and how will they benefit from acceptance of their results?
• What are their areas of expertise?
• Have they opened their research, data, methods, and computer models to public examination?
• Has their research survived critical attention? Did they respond to criticism with thoughtful detail, or dismiss their critics as evil idiots?

Macguire selected these parts of the NY Times article.

[edited] There is a large gap between the views of scientists and ordinary Americans about climate change, evolution, and the state of the nation’s research enterprise.

Almost all of the scientists accept that human beings evolved by natural processes and that human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming. The general public is far less sure.

Almost a third of ordinary Americans say human beings have always existed in their current form. Only 2% of the scientists agree. Only half of the public agrees that people cause climate change, and 11% does not believe there is any warming at all.

About a third of Americans think there is lively scientific debate on both topics. In fact, there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution and there is little doubt that humans are altering the atmosphere in ways that threaten global climate.

Dean associates evolution and global warming as two settled theories. Evolution has been studied for 150 years with confirmation from many directions and sources that has survived public evaluation and criticism. Global Warming investigations are recent, biased by government support and political pressure, and results are unsettled and exaggerated The proponents of Global Warming don't mind lying for the good of us all.

Dean says "almost all of the scientists accept", implying that the issue is settled, except for the dumb public that has not yet accepted the uncomfortable implications.

Macguire points out something Dean does not report. The supposed scientists want more power plants, an action that is not supported by liberals.

[edited] Interesting, the Times forgot to report this factoid from a Pew chart. 70% of scientists (but only 51% of the public) favor "building more nuclear power plants". On global warming, 49% of the public and 84% of scientists believe that "the earth is getting warmer because of human activity".

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Global warming caused by humans is a scam
The proponents of Global Warming don't mind lying for the good of us all. Saving the world justifies much cutting of corners.

Predicting No Climate Change

MIT's unscientific, catastrophic climate forecast
06/17/09 - Financial Post by Kesten C. Green and J. Scott Armstrong   (via John Stossel)

Forcasting is the heart of science. It is easy to convince yourself that you understand something until you must predict what will happen. It is hard to predict things even when you can repeat the experiment. You must be very careful when you are predicting events that cannot be repeated.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sponsors a Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. It released a report last month: "Probabilistic Forecast for 21st Century Climate based on uncertainties in emissions (without policy) and climate parameters."

Green and Armstrong examined this report. They found serious problems in trusting the MIT results, related to proper forcasting methods and skepticism. A forcast of "climate change" may seem to fit the data, until you find out that "no change" fits the data better.

[edited] The MIT authors predicted that global warming could be twice as severe as previously forecast, and more severe than the official projections of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Their prediction is based in part on 400 runs of a computer model of climate and economic activity. So, they recommend massive government action.

The MIT group espouses lofty objectives based on "independent policy analysis and public education in global environmental change". But, we found they violated 49 important forcasting principles. For such an important problem, they should not have violated even one.

So what's really wrong with their report? Their phrase "global environmental change" provides a clue. The group implicitly rejects the possibility of no or unimportant change, or the possibility of unpredictable change.

A forecast of "no-change" can be hard to beat in many circumstances. No-change can be appropriate even when a great deal of change is possible, but the direction, extent, or duration is uncertain.

Earth's temperature has gone up and down irregularly over periods from one year to thousands of years. Moreover, science has not been able to tell us why. There is much uncertainty about past climate changes and about the strength and even direction of causal relationships.

Do warming temperatures result in more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, or is it the other way around, or a bit of both? Does warming of the atmosphere result in negative or positive feedback from clouds? There are many more such questions without answers. All this strongly suggests that a no-change forecast is the appropriate long-term forecast.

We compared the IPCC projection of 0.03 C temperature increase per year with what actually happened from 1850 to 2007. The errors from the IPCC prediction were 12 times larger than the errors of the no-change prediction.

The forecasts from the MIT modellers and from the IPCC are merely the opinions of some scientists and computer modellers. These are not truly scientific forecasts.

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Dr. Kesten C. Green is a senior research fellow of the Business and Economic Forecasting Unit at Monash University, Australia.

Dr. J. Scott Armstrong is Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

They are co-directors of the public service Web site Forecasting Principles sponsored by the International Institute of Forecasters.

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Dispelling the Global Warming Myth
There is a very close match between global temperature and solar output. See the graph. That even seems reasonable in its own way. (smile)

AGW Scientists Can't Predict
Academic degrees mean nothing if you can't say what is going to happen. Watch out for global warming scientists who can't predict the details. And watch out for "economists" who fiddle some equation as a reason to take your money to improve your life.

Better Bank Robbery

Future News:

An upsurge in bank robberies and muggings is sweeping the nation. The government is calling this phenomenon "Suggested Resource Reallocation".

There is an eerily consistent pattern. The robber approaches the bank or victim and says "Please give me your money. It is for the environment and Global Warming". People then hand over their money without protest, and actually report a warm and happy feeling. No robber has yet been caught. In some cases, people refuse to identify the person who robbed them, or have destroyed surveillance tapes.

One victim reported: "It was for the environment. How could I refuse?"

Psychologists blame a pervasave desire to "be good", rooted in early pre-school instruction. Even when informed of the scam, many respond that "the poor robber probably needed the money".

Police departments are at a loss for what message will protect the public. A government spokesman presented the dilemma. "Of course we want them to give their money for the environment, but it should be to the right people."

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Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam
The famous Hockey Stick graph showing global warming is based on bad data, political motivation, and an overt attempt to exclude a detailed review and alternate explanations.

EPA Supresses Climate Study

Obama's EPA Quashes Climate Change Science
06/28/09 - Powerline Blog by John Hinderaker

Science is about open debate and analysis of published data. A scientist wants his results to stand as a guide to future generations, as a truth on which to build. Emotionally, he may not enjoy criticism, but no one can devote energy and insight into criticising his own work. So, real science welcomes review and criticism. It is an ethical standard.

A politician wants his program to be approved along with lots of pretty money. The truth is secondary to getting the bill passed.

It seems that the EPA made a political mistake. It hired real scientists to evaluate the data, and they wouldn't suppress the results.

When tobacco companies hid the results of their own studies, they were tagged as monsters. How dare they suppress the best data about smoking? How dare the EPA suppress the best data about the environment, when the lives and prosperity of hundreds of millions of people are at stake?

[edited] The EPA (US Environmental Protecion Agency) has suppressed its own study which concludes that carbon dioxide is not a significant cause of climate change.

The report by Carlin and Davidson reveals that the EPA has not done its own evaluation of global warming. Rather, it has relied on analyses by others, mostly the U.N.'s IPCC report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

The IPCC report was a political, not a scientific document. The U.N. ordered that no recent research be considered, knowing that recent research disproves the anthropogenic (man-made) global warming theory, This is a scandal. As science, the U.N. report is a bad joke.

Carlin and Davidson recite and summarize the scientific work that shows rather clearly that human activity is at most a minor factor in climate change.

EPA Emails obtained by CEI are revealing. Carlin's and Davidson's superior declines to make their report public because "the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment". A second email orders them not to communicate to the public their conclusion that the global warming theory is bunk. (See the emails at Powerline)

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Dispelling the Global Warming Myth
There is a very close correlation between global temperature and solar output. See the graph. That even seems reasonable in its own way. (smile)

The Climate Change That Isn't

Climate Change Reconsidered
06/05/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

The 880 page book Climate Change Reconsidered has been published by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). At the highest level, these are the conclusions:

[edited] This is an authoritative and detailed rebuttal of the findings of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress are relying on bad conclusions from the IPCC.

The scholarship in this book demonstrates overwhelming scientific evidence that

• The warming of the twentieth century was moderate and not unprecedented.
• Its impact on human health and wildlife was positive.
• Carbon dioxide probably is not the driving factor behind climate change.

The authors cite thousands of peer-reviewed research papers and books that were ignored by the IPCC, plus additional scientific research that became available after the IPCC's self-imposed deadline of May 2006.

* The IPCC uses warming data from surface recording stations, yielding a 1905-2005 temperature increase of 0.74° C. But, this temperature record is not corrected for the urban heat island (UHI) effect. [UHI is warming from streets, buildings, and roofs which are the sites for the temperature stations.] The UHI of even small towns dwarfs any greenhouse effect that might be present [making that data useless].

* Highly accurate satellite data, adjusted for orbit drift and other factors, show a much more modest warming trend in 1980-2000 and a dramatic decline in the warming trend in 2000-2009.

* The observed pattern of warming differs from the pattern predicted by global climate models based on CO2 greenhouse effects.

Data from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) is unequivocal. All greenhouse models show an increasing warming trend with altitude in the tropics, peaking around 10 km at roughly twice the surface value. But, the actual temperature data from balloons give the opposite result: no increasing warming, but rather a slight cooling with altitude.

* Temperature records in Greenland and other Arctic areas reveal that temperatures reached a maximum around 1930 and have decreased in recent decades. Longer-term studies show oscillatory cooling since the Climatic Optimum of the mid-Holocene (~9000-5000 years ago), when it was perhaps 2.5° C warmer than it is now.

* The average temperature history of Antarctica provides no evidence of twentieth century warming. The Antarctic peninsula shows recent warming, but several research teams have documented a cooling trend for the interior of the continent since the 1970s.

We Can't Stop Carbon Emissions

From Peter Huber's book Bound to Burn
04/21/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Jonathan

[edited] We rich people can't make a lasting dent in emissions. We don't control the global supply of carbon.

We can't stop 5 billion poor people from burning the couple of trillion tons of cheap carbon that they have within easy reach. The 80% of humanity in the developing world desperately need cheap energy, and that will drive global carbon emissions. If we are foolish enough, we can impose carbon controls on ourselves that will send jobs and industries to their shores, making them grow even faster, and their carbon emissions faster still.

Ten countries ruled by nasty people control 80% of the planet's oil reserves, about 1 trillion barrels worth about $40 trillion. They can lift most of their oil for a cost under $10 a barrel. They will drill, pump, and find buyers. Oil is all they have.

The bad news is that we will have to adapt, if human production of CO₂ is a problem. We won't be able to stop it. The good news is that CO₂ is not a problem in the first place.

Dispelling the Global Warming Myth
The atmosphere warms and cools because of solar output, not carbon dioxide.

The Global Warming Hockey Stick Hoax
The data and computer models in support of global warming are poorly constructed and don't predict anything.

Dispelling the Global Warming Myth

The Dog Ate My Global Warming Data
09/23/09 - National Review by Patrick J. Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute.

[edited] The data needed to verify forecasts of global warming have disappeared. Maybe they were lost or deleted from some discarded computer. A few people know what happened, they aren’t talking much, and what they say makes no sense.

Phil Jones and Tom Wigley authored the first comprehensive history of surface temperature, in the early 1980's. They worked at the United Kingdom’s University of East Anglia, Climate Research Unit. Their paper served as the primary reference for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) until 2007. It supported the IPCC claim of a “discernible human influence on global climate", a warming of 0.6° ± 0.2°C in the 20th century.

Jones and Wigley used data from ground weather stations not designed to monitor long term trends. Many stations were placed near trees, in parking lots, and near heat vents. Changing urban settings surely biased readings. They modified the temperature data before using it in climate models. But, Jones and Wigley did not report their original data or how thay had modified it.

The Australian scientist Warwick Hughes wondered where the error estimate of “± 0.2°” came from. He wrote Phil Jones in early 2005, politely asking for the original data.

Jones responded “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

That response discredits Jones. The entire purpose of looking at scientific results is to discover any errors.

Jones has given out some data, refused other requests, claimed he was restricted by confidentiality agreements, refused to release data to "non academics", and finally claimed not to have the original data because he lacked space to store it.

The story of climate change is based on this data. The history of science has many examples of fraud where data was conveniently lost or was later found to be altered in ways that were mistaken or biased.

A scientist without data is as persuasive as a cab driver. He has an opinion, but no facts to back it up. He is asking for trust. Trust is not a scientific principle of research or discovery.

- -
Heartland Institute 2009 Conference on Climate Change
03/10/09 - Heartland.org

[edited] Global Warming is not and never was a crisis. More than 75 papers and keynote addresses were presented by some of the world's leading climatologists, economists, policy makers, and opinion leaders. You can see videos and Power Point slides for many of the presentations.

- -
The Science Debate About Climate Change is Not Over
08/05/09 - OpenMarket by Marlo Lewis

There are three basic issues in the climate change debate: How much has the world warmed? How much from greenhouse gases? What will more greenhouse gases do? These issues are not settled, not even close, and here is why.

One of many points. The U.S. surface temperature record is supposed to be the best in the world. But, it is riddled with false warming biases. "We found stations located next to exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near structures that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations at wastewater plants, where waste digestion raises the air temperature."

There are nice graphs with medium scientific detail. It is quite readable, or watch the video.

- -
Global Warming Science is Not Settled
08/31/09 - ABC News by John Stossel

Stossel suggests that government is a poor choice for organizing effective research on Global Warming. His 8 minute video segment on global warming is easy to watch.

Consider that true science welcomes criticism and meets questions with detailed explanations. The claim that "the debate is over" is a mark of arbitrary authority, not the scientific method.

In history, Galileo offered explanation and observation of a solar system centered on the Sun. His government and Church oppressors placed him under house arrest and claimed that the debate was over.

- -
Dispelling the Global Warming Myth
03/22/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

[edited] The Heartland Institute sponsored the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York. The Conference differed from most such events in that it was devoted to science, not politics or propaganda.

See the charts displayed at PowerLineBlog.

• Climate swings of the last 12,000 years. Our current temperature changes have been repeated far into the past.
• Temperature trends. The governmnet run IPCC predicts runaway temperature increases, but where is the trend from the actual data?
• If anything, the climate is cooling. Note that atmospheric temperature bounces around like a playful cat.
• Plot of atmospheric CO2 and atmospheric temperature. There is no correlation, see for yourself.
• Plots of solar radiation and CO2 versus atmospheric temperature. The Sun is doing it, and CO2 doesn't matter.

The most interesting one to me is that last graph of global temperature compared to variations in sunlight and carbon dioxide. Changes in solar radiation are driving temperature change, not carbon dioxide. Who would have thought that was possible (smile)?

Read more to see the graph ...

Click to view at full size.

- -
The Cause Of Global Warming
11/04/2000 - Lecture to the Wellington Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand by Vincent Gray, Climate Consultant

Atmospheric temperature must be the standard for determining Global Warming, because ground measurements are dependent on changing local environment.

Roads, urbanization, and even weathering paint in ground stations creates changing measurements that are not consistent with gradually changing environmental temperature.

Gray examines many sources of data to come to his conclusions. Note that this was in 2000! Where is the detailed refutation by the Global Warming proponents?

[edited] Three methods of measuring global temperature show no signs of global warming, but a fourth method does:

• No - Tree rings, sediments and other proxys, for the past 1000 years.
• No - Weather balloons for the past 44 years.
• No - Satellites for the past 21 years.
• Yes - Surface measurements at weather stations.

Surface measurements give an intermittent and irregular average global increase of a mere 0.6°C (1.1°F) over 140 years. Individual records are highly variable and regional. In remote areas they sometimes show no change or even a decrease in temperature.

Temperature measurements carried out away from human influence show no evidence of global warming.

The small and irregular rise shown by many surface stations must be caused by changes in their thermal environment over long periods of time, such as better heating, larger buildings, darkening of surfaces, sealing of roads, increases in vehicles and aircraft, increased shielding from the atmosphere, and deterioration of painted surfaces.

- -
Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam
The famous Hockey Stick graph showing global warming is based on bad data and a political motivation.

- -
Carbon Dioxide Does Not Drive Climate
01/04/09 - WSJ.com Notable and Quotable
TalkingAboutTheWeather.com by Harold Ambler, via HuffingtonPost

[edited] The theory that carbon dioxide "drives" climate in any meaningful way is simply wrong. Carbon dioxide cannot absorb an unlimited amount of infrared radiation. Why not? Because it only absorbs heat along limited bandwidths, and is already absorbing just about everything it can. (read more)

- -
Global Warming in 1000 Years
Susan Solomon is a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and lead author of an analysis published Monday.

[edited] Absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans acts to cool the Earth. Release of heat from the oceans warms the Earth. These processes will work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than 1,000 years.

After that, watch out!

- -
Global Warming: Best Predictions May Be Wrong
07/15/09 - Ace of Spades HQ   (Via Riehl World View)

Gerald Dickens is Professor of Earth science at Rice University.

[edited] There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way climate models link temperature and carbon. They do not explain what appears in the geological record.

Climate models explain only half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming 55 million years ago, the period known as the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM. The amount of carbon in Earth's atmosphere rose rapidly during the PETM for unknown reasons.

Something other than carbon dioxide caused much of the heating during the PETM. Some processes not accounted for in current climate models caused a substantial portion of the warming. These same climate models are used by the IPCC for the current best estimates of 21st Century warming.

- -
A Troubling Review of the IPCC
04/20/10 - Economist Richard Tol   (Via Don Surber)

[edited]   The IPCC has changed from a scientific institution that tries to be policy relevant into a political institution that pretends to be scientific.

There are more than enough climate activists, while there are too few solid and neutral bodies that make well-founded statements about climate change and climate policy.

The IPCC selects authors and bureau members by political belief, not on academic quality. The member countries are represented by their environment departments, instead of their research departments and academies.

Working Groups 2 and 3 of the AR4 (Assessment Report 4) violated all IPCC procedures. The conclusions are scientifically unfounded in part, and some are even copied from the environmental movement. The AR4 was substantially changed after the final review, even in parts that had already been accepted by the referees. Valid comments were ignored.

AR4 contains crude errors as a result, only some known publicly. These errors are in the chapters, the technical summaries, the summaries for policy makers, and the synthesis report. The errors are not random. Working Group 2 systematically portrays climate change as a bigger problem than is scientifically acceptable. Working Group 3 systematically portrays climate policy as easier and cheaper than can be responsibly concluded from the academic research.

The selection process for AR5 should be suspended until transparency is guaranteed and additional nominations are considered.

Publicly Challenge Politicians

Congressman McClintock Urges Opposition to Climate Change Legislation
03/09/09 - Business & Media Institute by Jeff Poor

[edited] Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) advised how to fight the good fight against Draconian climate change legislation.

Don’t write officials a letter. Write that same letter to the local newspaper, or put it on a blog. Mention them by name and ask how they’re voting, and other inconvenient questions.

Don’t visit them in their office. Visit them at a public meeting where you can hold them accountable in front of their constituents. Call them on a local talk show, not at their office.

AGW Scientists Can't Predict

The Caine Mutiny Teaches Us about Global Warming Scientists
02/17/09 - PajamasMedia by Frank J. Tipler

Academic degrees mean nothing if you can't say what is going to happen. Watch out for global warming scientists who can't predict the details. And watch out for "economists" who fiddle some equation as a reason to take your money to improve your life.

[edited] Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is justified via argument from authority: a consensus of "experts" holds that humans are responsible for the increase in the Earth's average temperature.

I was once a leader in forming a scientific consensus based on expert opinion. In the late 1970s, most cosmologists believed the universe could not accelerate, based on very weak experimental evidence. In the late 1990's, we discovered that dark energy is accelerating the universe. I now regard "scientific consensus" as a synonym for "wrong."

I am struck by the lack of accomplishments by the leaders of the AGW consensus. In fact, it is the leading opponents of AGW who have genuine scientific achievements in climatology. Reid Bryson was the "father of climatology," a leading AGW skeptic, and had the achievements of a genuine scientist.

A true scientist demonstrates his knowledge by making predictions which can be confirmed or refuted. What counter-intuitive predictions have the Global Warmers ever made? I invite you to look.

I could not find a single counter-intuitive prediction made by any major Global Warmer. But, I have found cases of them trying to cover up failed predictions.

Hansen's Claims About Global Warming Embarrassed NASA

Hansen Embarrassed NASA
02/01/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

James Hansen of NASA is a leader in espousing the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). He has public credibility because of his NASA affiliation. His boss at NASA was John Theon, who has recently retired, and has announced his view that AGW is not supported by evidence.

Theon writes:

[edited] As Chief of several NASA Hq. Programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research.

James Hansen was never muzzled, even though he violated NASA's official position, that NASA did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it. He embarrassed NASA by his claims of global warming in his 1988 testimony before Congress.

I believe that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system, because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit.

Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. They don't explain what they have modified in the observations or how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done.

Thus, there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.

++++++++
Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam

The Fraud of Anthropogenic Global Warming

The Greatest Fraud in History?
01/30/09 - PajamasMedia by James Lewis

[edited] The credibility of science may never recover from the Global Warming scare. Credibility has to be earned, and once it’s squandered may never be recovered. Far too many scientists have knowingly colluded in an historic fraud, one that would put Bernie Madoff to shame. We are seeing political larceny here on a planetary scale. Why should scientists who have gambled their own reputations on this fakery ever be trusted again?

I’m not a climatologist. Like most scientists I rarely judge what others do in their fields. And yet it’s been flamingly obvious for years now, that the hypothesis of human-caused global warming violates all the basic rules and safeguards that protect the integrity of normal, healthy science. That’s why AGW (anthropogenic global warming) looks like a massive fraud, the biggest fraud ever in the history of science.

Mr. Lewis discusses a number of things that real scientists NEVER do. These are all things that promotors of global warming are doing loudly and repeatedly. It is politics or religion, but not science. Here is one point (it is worth reading the rest):

Bad data has been very widespread in global warming theories. Judging by past performance, it may still be endemic. Thermometers are placed in hot areas in the cities, and the data is shamelessly generalized to the whole world. The infamous “hockey stick” temperature diagram has been exposed. James Hansen has brought NASA to its lowest point ever by repeatedly endorsing false data.

In any healthy field of science, that disastrous empirical record would have discredited the hypothesis. But while the data seems to crash periodically, the models don’t change in their catastrophism.

+++++++++++++
Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam

Global Warming in 1000 Years

Global Warming in 1000 Years
01/28/09 - WSJ Best of the Web by James Taranto
From The Los Angeles Times:

[edited] Susan Solomon is a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and lead author of an analysis published Monday.

Even if, by some miracle, carbon dioxide dropped to pre-industrial levels, it would take more than 1,000 years to reverse the climate changes already triggered. The gas already emitted and the heat absorbed by the ocean will show effects for centuries.

Long term, the warming will melt the polar ice caps more than previously estimated, raising ocean levels substantially. Changes in rainfall patterns will bring droughts similar to the 1930s Dust Bowl, to the American Southwest, southern Europe, northern Africa, and western Australia.

People thought that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the climate would go back to normal in 100 - 200 years, but that is not true. Absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans acts to cool the Earth. Release of heat from the oceans warms the Earth. These processes will work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than 1,000 years.

Taranto asks:

So, is it crucial that we lower greenhouse gases this instant, or would it not make any difference? If no difference, what sense does it make to be alarmed? That last statement by Solomon is a head-scratcher. Are we supposed to worry that temperatures will be "almost constant for more than 1,000 years"? Is that what they mean by global warming?

I am reminded of a joke.

A scientist was talking about the evolution of stars and the universe. He presented that the Sun would burn its nuclear fuel and explode as a nova in about 5 billion years. A student in the back began urgently waving his hand to ask a question.
"Professor, did you say 5 million years?"
"No, I said 5 billion," replied the professor."
"I'm so relieved."

Global Warming Caused by Humans is a Scam

The Global Warming Hockey Stick Hoax
01/24/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

Predictions of global warming from human activity are based on bad science, filled-in data, and convenient results that fit the cause of limiting human activity, just because we are bad.

Hinderaker gives a summary (and there is more):

[edited] The key evidence relied on by Al Gore, the United Nations, and global warming alarmists is the "hockey stick" graph developed by Mann, Bradley and Hughes. It purports to show that 20th-century warming is unprecedented and that the 20th century was the warmest ever.

More recent scientific work has thoroughly debunked the "hockey stick" analysis. It rests on "collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations, incorrect mathematics, and other serious defects."

There are indications that some of the errors were deliberate, a corruption of science by politics and perverse financial incentives that underlies the entire global warming movement.

Read more ...

----------
Hansen Embarrassed NASA
02/01/09 - PowerLineBlog by John Hinderaker

James Hansen of NASA is a leader in espousing the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). He has public credibility because of his NASA affiliation. His boss at NASA was John Theon, who has recently retired, and has announced his view that AGW is not supported by evidence.

Theon writes:

[edited] As Chief of several NASA Hq. Programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research.

James Hansen was never muzzled, even though he violated NASA's official position, that NASA did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it. He embarrassed NASA by his claims of global warming in his 1988 testimony before Congress.

I believe that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system, because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit.

Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. They don't explain what they have modified in the observations or how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done.

Thus, there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.

----------
The Greatest Fraud in History?
01/30/09 - PajamasMedia by James Lewis

[edited] The credibility of science may never recover from the Global Warming scare. Credibility has to be earned, and once it’s squandered may never be recovered. Far too many scientists have knowingly colluded in an historic fraud, one that would put Bernie Madoff to shame. We are seeing political larceny here on a planetary scale. Why should scientists who have gambled their own reputations on this fakery ever be trusted again?

I’m not a climatologist. Like most scientists I rarely judge what others do in their fields. And yet it’s been flamingly obvious for years now, that the hypothesis of human-caused global warming violates all the basic rules and safeguards that protect the integrity of normal, healthy science. That’s why AGW (anthropogenic global warming) looks like a massive fraud, the biggest fraud ever in the history of science.

Mr. Lewis discusses a number of things that real scientists NEVER do. These are all things that promotors of global warming are doing loudly and repeatedly. It is politics or religion, but not science. Here is one point (it is worth reading the rest):

Bad data has been very widespread in global warming theories. Judging by past performance, it may still be endemic. Thermometers are placed in hot areas in the cities, and the data is shamelessly generalized to the whole world. The infamous “hockey stick” temperature diagram has been exposed. James Hansen has brought NASA to its lowest point ever by repeatedly endorsing false data.

In any healthy field of science, that disastrous empirical record would have discredited the hypothesis. But while the data seems to crash periodically, the models don’t change in their catastrophism.

----------
Climate Scientology: Getting rid of the Medieval Warming Period
12/25/08 - AndrewBostom.org by Andrew Bostom

Andrew Bostom cites much detail. It is a meaty article, and worth the reading. The government is going to demand your money and resources to bury carbon, at great expense. You should know that they are politically motivated (wanting your money) rather than altruistic (saving your great, great grandchildren). Maybe you would rather see a movie, eat steak, or buy a better TV.

[edited] Professor Ross McKitrick:
The late 20th century appears to be nothing special compared to the The Medieval Warm Period. The historic temperature graph was a problem for those pushing the global warming alarm.

If the world could warm so much, on such a short time scale, as a result of natural causes, surely the 20th century climate change could simply be a natural effect as well. The present climate change could hardly be unusually hazardous if even larger climate changes happened in the recent past, and we are now fluctuating in the middle of what nature regularly dishes out.

----------
A Scam, With No Basis In Science
12/28/08 - John Hinderaker at PowerLineBlog
Distorted, politicized, and failed "science" supports Anthropogenic Global Warming (warming caused by human actions).

Read the whole thing there, or go to the original letter by mathematical physicist Frank Tipler Warming or Hot Air?

[edited] Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a scam, with no basis in science. A scientific theory makes predictions which are then compared with future observations.

AGW predicted steadily increasing global temperatures, now refuted by experience [and data]. AGW theorists now "predict" cooling, after the fact. A perfect example of a pseudo-science like astrology.

Bjorn Lomborg wrote a book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" critical of the "consensus" view on AGW and other environmental questions. He was charged and convicted (later reversed) of scientific fraud [by his Danish university?] for being critical of that consensus. He would have been fired if the conviction had held. This is very similar to what happened to Galileo during the Inquisition.

John Holdren is Obama's new science advisor. It is disturbing that Holdren wrote part of the Danish case against Lomborg. Holdren thinks skeptics like Lomborg are dangerous. Really, it is Holdren who is dangerous, because he is willing to use state power to silence his critics. [And, don't forget Al Gore saying that the debate is over.]

The AGW nonsense is generated by government funding of science. If a guy agrees with AGW, then he can get a government contract. If he is a skeptic, then no contract. I am astounded that people advocate increased government funding for scientific research. We had better science and a more rapid advance of science in the early part of the 20th century when there was no centralized government funding.

Frank Tipler cites a bit of fascinating history about Galileo at the above link Warming or Hot Air?.

[edited] Aristotle's theory was the consensus view. The "out-of-the-mainsteam" Galileo had the gall to prove it wrong by devising simple experiments that anyone could do. Galileo's fellow "scientists" first failed to refute him by argument from authority. Then they tried calling Galileo names, but this made no impression on the average person, who could see with his own eyes that Galileo was right. Finally, they manipulated the Inquisition into trying and convicting him.

----------
Global Warming in 1000 Years
A warning from a scientist who believes in global warming. Don't think that we can quickly undo the current damage from high CO2 levels. Climate will be this bad, almost constant, for 1000 years.

[edited] People thought that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the climate would go back to normal in 100 - 200 years, but that is not true. Absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans acts to cool the Earth. Release of heat from the oceans warms the Earth. These processes will work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant (at current levels) for more than 1,000 years.

Carbon Dioxide Does Not Drive Climate

Carbon Dioxide Does Not Drive Climate
01/04/09 - WSJ.com Notable and Quotable
TalkingAboutTheWeather.com by Harold Ambler, via HuffingtonPost

[edited] The theory that carbon dioxide "drives" climate in any meaningful way is simply wrong. Carbon dioxide cannot absorb an unlimited amount of infrared radiation. Why not? Because it only absorbs heat along limited bandwidths, and is already absorbing just about everything it can. (read more)