posted July 24, 2009

NASA climate scientist James Hansen in 1988 issued three well known predictions of world temperature. “Hansen A” is temperature based on unbridled increase of greenhouse emissions, whereas “Hansen C” is temperature with a drastic cutback in emissions ("Hansen B" represents an intermediate scenario). These graphs compare Hansen’s 1988 predictions with actual temperature data since then. The left-hand figure compares NASA's GISS global data (as compiled by Hansen), while the right-hand figure compares the satellite-based temperature data as processed by RSS. In both cases, the actual temperature measurements correspond most closely with the Hansen C prediction, despite the fact that actual atmospheric CO2 levels have increased since 1988. This implies a problem with the models. Figures are from Steve McIntyre www.climateaudit.org/?p=3354.

These graphs show the greenhouse gas emissions predictions used by Hansen (the first three boxes: Hansen A, Hansen B, and Hansen C) as well the observed emissions in the fourth box (which contains 1988 – 2008 actual data, plus projection based on scenario B). The already observed CO2 emissions are closest to the Hansen B prediction despite the fact that observed temperatures are closer to scenario C output. This indicates another problem with the models.  Figures are from Steve McIntyre www.climateaudit.org/?p=3354.

Cashing In On Earth’s Cycles

Part 3 (conclusion) — The Future: Recurrent Cycles

By Alan Cheetham & Richard Kirby  

While I don’t share the authors’ skepticism on the environmental movement itself, there is a strong resonance to their view that there is an authoritarian element in the climate change movement. Wars occur when there is a convergence of idealistic concern, economic interest, and a pro-war manipulation of news. A similar convergence seems to be jelling for a “war” regarding climate change. As an environmental idealist myself, I’m concerned about getting dragged into a battle that professes to be green, but turns out to be destructive hucksterism.

The below article was originally published in the newsletter of Mensa of Western Washington. The previous two parts are readable at wafreepress.org/96/issue96.pdf and wafreepress.org/article/20090301climate.shtml (also wafreepress.org/97/issue97.pdf). —Ed. 

Numbered references appear at the end of the article.

The Enlightenment and scientific revolution in the 17th and 18th centuries were based on empirical and sensory verification of phenomena and resulted in a freeing of ideas from the shackles of religion. That period was also the end of the little ice age—most of the world’s glaciers have been receding ever since.

Now a new religion is rising and creating a bondage of science to what is deemed the acceptable discourse. The President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, recently said:  

I know that its propagandists have been using all possible obstructions to avoid exposure to rational arguments and I know that the substance of their arguments is not science. It represents, on the contrary, an abuse of science by a non-liberal, extremely authoritarian, freedom and prosperity endangering ideology of environmentalism.... The new ambitions look more noble, more attractive and more appealing. They are also very shrewdly shifted towards the future and thus practically “immunized” from reality, from existing evidence, from available observations, and from standard testing of scientific hypotheses.... I consider environmentalism to be the most effective and, therefore, the most dangerous vehicle for advocating large scale government intervention and unprecedented suppression of human freedom at this very moment. [1] 

One of the tenets of a scientific hypothesis is that it must be testable. Unfortunately, the proponents of the anthropogenic (human-induced) global warming theory (AGW) blame everything on it—even cooling. The only way of testing the hypothesis is to see what the future brings.

In 1988 NASA’s James Hansen (an avid AGW doomsday promoter) published model predictions of future temperatures under three CO2 scenarios. Comparing measured temperatures over the last 20 years to his predictions show that the warming has been less than the modeled scenario of “drastically reduced gases between 1990 and 2000” [2]

Of course models are periodically revised to reflect new knowledge, but the dire doomsday scenario is never called off—just postponed slightly. The IPCC models are misrepresented in the media—the extreme models are generally portrayed as likely. Western Washington University geologist Don Easterbrook has made a much more realistic projection of future temperatures based on oceanic cycles—but without a doomsday. Easterbrook postulates that there are alternating warming and cooling cycles that last 25 to 35 years, and that we’ve recently entered a cooling cycle.[3]

(Easterbrook’s website contains fascinating analysis regarding the possibility that we could in fact be headed for a very cold cycle. See <www.ac.wwu.edu/~dbunny/research/global/index.htm>.)

The dire consequences promoted by the media are contained in statements with the word “may”. For example, although their numbers have greatly increased over the last couple of decades and their populations recently appear to be stable [4], the polar bears “may” become threatened. None of these scare stories are supported by empirical evidence.

There has been no warming now for the last decade—but it hasn’t slowed the rhetoric—some AGW promoters are getting more desperate and are promoting the feeling of western guilt.

At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change event in Bali (December 2007), NGOs were open about their missions. According to the Climate Action Network web site: “A common theme was that the ‘solutions’ to climate change that are being posed by many governments, such as nuclear power, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and biofuels are false and are not rooted in justice.... a climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources” [5].

That ethos may have prompted Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to refer to the Kyoto accord as “essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.” [6]