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Has global warming really stopped?

Published 14 January 2008

Mark Lynas responds to a controversial article on newstatesman.com which argued global warming has stopped

On 19 December the New Statesman website published an article which, judging by the 633 comments (and counting) received so far, must go down in history as possibly the most controversial ever. Not surprising really – it covered one of the most talked-about issues of our time: climate change. Penned by science writer David Whitehouse, it was guaranteed to get a big response: the article claimed that global warming has ‘stopped’.

As the New Statesman’s environmental correspondent, I have since been deluged with queries asking if this represents a change of heart by the magazine, which has to date published many editorials steadfastly supporting urgent action to reduce carbon emissions. Why bother doing that if global warming has ‘stopped’, and therefore might have little or nothing to do with greenhouse gas emissions, which are clearly rising?

I’ll deal with this editorial question later. First let’s ask whether Whitehouse is wholly or partially correct in his analysis. To quote:

"The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly."

I’ll be blunt. Whitehouse got it wrong – completely wrong. The article is based on a very elementary error: a confusion between year-on-year variability and the long-term average. Although CO2 levels in the atmosphere are increasing each year, no-one ever argued that temperatures would do likewise. Why? Because the planet’s atmosphere is a chaotic system, which expresses a great deal of interannual variability due to the interplay of many complex and interconnected variables. Some years are warmer and cooler than others. 1998, for example, was a very warm year because an El Nino event in the Pacific released a lot of heat from the ocean. 2001, by contrast, was somewhat cooler, though still a long way above the long-term average. 1992 was particularly cool, because of the eruption of a large volcano in the Philippines called Mount Pinatubo.

‘Climate’ is defined by averaging out all this variability over a longer term period. So you won’t, by definition, see climate change from one year to the next - or even necessarily from one decade to the next. But look at the change in the average over the long term, and the trend is undeniable: the planet is getting hotter.

Look at the graph below, showing global temperatures over the last 25 years. These are NASA figures, using a global-mean temperature dataset known as GISSTEMP. (Other datasets are available, for example from the UK Met Office. These fluctuate slightly due to varying assumptions and methodology, but show nearly identical trends.) Now imagine you were setting out to write Whitehouse’s article at some point in the past. You could plausibly have written that global warming had ‘stopped’ between 1983 and 1985, between 1990 and 1995, and, if you take the anomalously warm 1998 as the base year, between 1998 and 2004. Note, however, the general direction of the red line over this quarter-century period. Average it out and the trend is clear: up.

Note also the blue lines, scattered like matchsticks across the graph. These, helpfully added by the scientists at RealClimate.org (from where this graph is copied), partly in response to the Whitehouse article, show 8-year trend lines – what the temperature trend is for every 8-year period covered in the graph.

You’ll notice that some of the lines, particularly in the earlier part of the period, point downwards. These are the periods when global warming ‘stopped’ for a whole 8 years (on average), in the flawed Whitehouse definition – although, as astute readers will have quickly spotted, the crucial thing is what year you start with. Start with a relatively warm year, and the average of the succeeding eight might trend downwards. In scientific parlance, this is called ‘cherry picking’, and explains how Whitehouse can assert that "since [1998] the global temperature has been flat" – although he is even wrong on this point of fact, because as the graph above shows, 2005 was warmer.

Note also how none of the 8-year trend lines point downwards in the last decade or so. This illustrates clearly how, far from having ‘stopped’, global warming has actually accelerated in more recent times. Hence the announcement by the World Meteorological Organisation on 13 December, as the Bali climate change meeting was underway, that the decade of 1998-2007 was the “warmest on record”. Whitehouse, and his fellow contrarians, are going to have to do a lot better than this if they want to disprove (or even dispute) the accepted theory of greenhouse warming.

The New Statesman’s position on climate change

Every qualified scientific body in the world, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science to the Royal Society, agrees unequivocally that global warming is both a reality, and caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. But this doesn’t make them right, of course. Science, in the best Popperian definition, is only tentatively correct, until someone comes along who can disprove the prevailing theory. This leads to a frequent source of confusion, one which is repeated in the Whitehouse article – that because we don’t know everything, therefore we know nothing, and therefore we should do nothing. Using that logic we would close down every hospital in the land. Yes, every scientific fact is falsifiable – but that doesn’t make it wrong. On the contrary, the fact that it can be challenged (and hasn’t been successfully) is what makes it right.

Bearing all this in mind, what should a magazine like the New Statesman do in its coverage of the climate change issue? Newspapers and magazines have a difficult job of trying, often with limited time and information, to sort out truth from fiction on a daily basis, and communicating this to the public – quite an awesome responsibility when you think about it. Sometimes even a viewpoint which is highly likely to be wrong gets published anyway, because it sparks a lively debate and is therefore interesting. A publication that kept to a monotonous party line on all of the day’s most controversial issues would be very boring indeed.

However, readers of my column will know that I give contrarians, or sceptics, or deniers (call them what you will) short shrift, and as a close follower of the scientific debate on this subject I can state without doubt that there is no dispute whatsoever within the expert community as to the reality or causes of manmade global warming. But even then, just because all the experts agree doesn’t make them right – it just makes them extremely unlikely to be wrong. That in turn means that if someone begs to disagree, they need to have some very strong grounds for doing so – not misreading a basic graph or advancing silly conspiracy theories about IPCC scientists receiving paycheques from the New World Order, as some of Whitehouse’s respondents do.

So, a mistaken article reached a flawed conclusion. Intentionally or not, readers were misled, and the good name of the New Statesman has been used all over the internet by climate contrarians seeking to support their entrenched positions. This is regrettable. Good journalism should never exclude legitimate voices from a debate of public interest, but it also needs to distinguish between carefully-checked fact and distorted misrepresentations in complex and divisive areas like this. The magazine’s editorial policy is unchanged: we want to see aggressive action to reduce carbon emissions, and support global calls for planetary temperatures to be stabilised at under two degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Yes, scientific uncertainties remain in every area of the debate. But consider how high the stakes are here. If the 99% of experts who support the mainstream position are right, then we have to take urgent action to reduce emissions or face some pretty catastrophic consequences. If the 99% are wrong, and the 1% right, we will be making some unnecessary efforts to shift away from fossil fuels, which in any case have lots of other drawbacks and will soon run out. I’d hate to offend anyone here, but that’s what I’d call a no-brainer.

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1717 comments from readers

bdhoward
14 January 2008 at 19:41

This shows a key problem with journalists -- they can easily fall prey to junk science mongers who have an axe to grind (usually funded by corporations or political parties). POGO says "if all else fails analyze the data."

DrColes
14 January 2008 at 20:23

YES!!!!

Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007.

http://tinyurl.com/2dv6nz

disgusted
14 January 2008 at 21:43

holy cow what an arrogant approach. you have convinced me to make sure I never let a dime of my money end up in your hands. I wouldn't take out a subscription to this magazine now if my life depended on it.

johnsnow
14 January 2008 at 21:55

no mr lynas you are wrong - the FACT is that the world has not warmed for the past ten years and the previous twenty it did - Whitehouse is correct.

Are you really saying that 20 years is a long term climatic effect and ten years is a short term weather effect, as the real climate website is saying.

The ONLY criticism that can be made of Whitehouse's position is that it will take a few more years to see if the OBSERVED standstil lasts or is followed by a rise or a fall - as Whitehouse says in the article.

d.beck
14 January 2008 at 23:54

Good ole Dr. Coles is still spewing his lies.

That list of scientists feel that "it is not economically worth while" to try to stop the heating of the earth through carbon emission reductions", Doc.

That's quite a different thing.

Not all of them dispute AGW. Stop confusing people with your lies and spin you piece of &%^$

grantnw
15 January 2008 at 00:13

let me get this right ... Whitehouse is 'science writer' for the new statesman, and figured global warming had stopped because of an 8 year trend? that reflects poorly on your magazine.

Mr Fnortner
15 January 2008 at 01:25

The New Statesman is running pretty scared, as can be seen by this shrill, thin, whining defense of shoddy science. Sorry Mark Lynas, it doesn't wash. Readers, look here: http://www.newstatesman.com/200712190004. There is more truth available here than you can distill from the tripe above.

docjohn
15 January 2008 at 01:27

What a load of rubbish Mr Lynas - you set up so many aunt sally's and are so logically inconsistent as to be laughable.

Whitehouse's excellent article isn't controversial at all - he was merely stating accepted scientific data a published by the Uk govt and that shows with no doubt that the measured temp of the world has been flat for 7 years. he has committed no 'elementary error' at all.

Given that the recent global warming period is 1980 - present having the past decade showing no temp rise is significant. And who Mr Lynas said that temp should not rise with CO2 increase!!! That's the whole point of the greenhouse effect!!!! You seem to be ditching it in the face of inconvienient data.

Why do you single out the ten years of no warming as an example of 'year on year variability' and being unimportant and regard the 20 years of warming as climate. You are being inconsistent and are yourself cherry picking.

You admit we can't tell climate change from one decade to the next - so with two decades of warming and one of a standstill - how can we tell? By your own admission 2 decades of warming is barely enough to tell long term climate trends - so what is the fuss all about?

The BIG POINT is that the period 2001-2007 is FLAT not chaotic and is too long a period and too consistent to be 'chaotic year on year variability' as you put it AND there has been no big volcanic explosion to cool the planet down in this period.

There are so many holes, glossed over points, deliberate misreading of data, and logical inconsistencies in your article Mr Lynas that I am incredulous that you regard yourself as an informed writer. Seems to me you are biased and blinkered. You have not demolished any of Whitehouse's reasonable points he made in what I think was a moderate essay - and praise to the New Statesman for publishing it as an antidote to your lack of undestanding of scientific methodology, data and your spin.

Dr Wardlee
15 January 2008 at 01:35

That graph you show is biased - if you smooth the data with an 8 year period then of course you will dimminish a 7 year flat period at the end of a time series. Also where are the errors on the graph, are they big or small with respect to the rise. I believe they are big therefore diluting your conclusions.

I liked the Dr Whitehouse article. It was questioning, humble and honest. But yours is arrogant and dogmatic.

BillBroad
15 January 2008 at 01:40

I'm not convinced by Mr Lynas - I think the Whitehouse article takes it. Someone called the authr 'Dr Lynas' - as far as I can see he has no doctorate - or indeed any academic qualifications beyond a history and politics degree. No wonder he shows he does not understand the methodology of science.

Lawrence Wade
15 January 2008 at 02:08

Mark Lynas wrote:

"just because all the experts agree doesn’t make them right – it just makes them extremely unlikely to be wrong."

What!! What kind of nonsense statement is that?

Is Mr Lynas really saying that Dr Whitehouse with his pedigree is intentionally misleading people.

ali
15 January 2008 at 02:51

Here's another nonsense statement from the above article:

"...because we don’t know everything, therefore we know nothing, and therefore we should do nothing."

How does that follow? This is nonsense.

Green watcher
15 January 2008 at 02:58

There is a flaw in your argument Mr lynas.

the shallowing of the gradient of the trend lines in that graph are due to the cooling effect of the effects of El Chicon and Pinatubo volcanic eruptions- as is clear on the graph.

According to the IPCC there has been no similar effect seen since then, So what hw have then is an interupted rise and what we have now is a standstill.

You are comparing apples to oranges Mr Lynas - you are finding what you want to find.

LauraMc
15 January 2008 at 03:08

Mark Lynas says this statement by David Whitehouse is wrong:

Mark Lynas is wrong - he hasn't shown that that staement is wrong in any way. In fact the facts in that statemt are 100% correct.

Please Mr Lynas, do you homework, give us reason and not inaccuracy.

Brute
15 January 2008 at 03:41

Mr Lynas,

Who are you?

hughfalk
15 January 2008 at 07:57

I think Mr Lynas's article was written in haste. But having read it and Whitehouse's I found much new in Whitehouse's that made me think.

Is Lynas's defence of what he sees as the issues the best defence that anyone could put up. Are those the best arguments we have - they are obviously dodgy.

stargazer
15 January 2008 at 08:54

You put an electric heater in a cold (say zero deg.C) room. (forget about any 'nuances'... just lets say the room starts to warm evenly)... you take the temp. of the room a (by remote sensor) every 15 mins.

After several hours the heater stops working... and a short while later the sensor is switched off (so no more readings are possible)...

The first scientist looks at the data and says to the other "look the room has warmed".

The second scientist says "yes but it has cooled down from the highest temp".

The first scientist looks at the second and says "are you nuts, the room is much warmer than zero where it aught to be".

The second scientist says "I see what you say, but IN ADDITION to what you said, the room has cooled"

"No I dont see that at all" says the first scientist. "we need to prove the room has warmed and we have. I'll draw a graph".

So he does, and it shows the temp. increasing over time, and the last few points on the graph falling.

"Look" says the second scientist. "I told you the temp went up and then went down a bit"...

"NO" says the first scientist "the overall trend is UP what are you a denier"

PS.I was of a mind to subsribe to this mag. but no more!!!!

dobermanmacleod
15 January 2008 at 09:15

It is too bad that you underestimate the rate of climate change, thinking it is linear, instead of exponential.

The ocean soaks up over 90% of the heat from global warming. Under those oceans is about 10,000 billion tons of methane hydrate, with more carbon than all the oil, coal, and natural gas.

That methane trapped inside ice called hydrate is 23 times more powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2-a sudden release of less than 30 billion tons would be like doubling the CO2 level in the air.

As the cryosphere (the frozen part of the planet) starts to melt, vast amounts of greenhouse gas will be released, overwhelming any cuts we make.

Yeah, global warming has stopped-how naive. Read my blog at www.myspace.com/dobermanmacleod for information on removing the CO2 from the air using the low cost method of biosequestration.

schiff
15 January 2008 at 11:05

Am I mistaken - did he actually say that no one said that the earth's temperature will go up as carbon dioxide levels increase! Talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Did Mr Lynas actually read Dr Whitehouse's article?

I also see that he plays a dirty trick by ALMOST implying that Dr Whitehouse has intetionaly misled the public. Mr Lynas also tries to associate him with those who commented on his article who must be paid up denialists. Shame on you Mr Lynas.

Carl Jones
15 January 2008 at 11:14

So far Mr Lynas you`ve not received a positive comment.

link

Hit the link on the page above.

dobermanmacleod; the Earth has been much warmer than it is today, do you have any historical evidence that methane hydrate has been released at your postulated scale before?

BenArdley
15 January 2008 at 11:14

Readers misled - good name of the new Statesman used all over the internet by deniers.

What a pompous, arogant twerp you are.

The Whitehouse article uncovered something that should be widely known and you haven't shown that it isn't true. I'm afraid that it is you Mr Lynas that is harming the reputation of the New Statesman which was for a brief period enhanced.

You pontificate about carefully checked fact and distorted misrepresentation when this is exactly what your article is. Seems to me you are long on personal comment and short on confirmed fact yourself.

Nelson
15 January 2008 at 11:15

Many people fall into the trap of claiming that 'global warming has stopped' without any consideration or understanding of the temperature data and the statistics required to analyse them.

Small signal, large noise. Two simple facts that guarantee periods of temperature stasis or cooling. Global warming is there, but it's obscured by noise. You can prove this quite easily:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/wiggles/

It's entertaining to read commentators objecting to Lynas' article. But he's expounding the maths properly, something that Whitehouse failed to do.

And that makes this article refreshing and humbling. Thank you Marc Lynas and the New Statesman.

Nelson
15 January 2008 at 11:19

BenArdley, Whitehouse's article was based on amateurish statistical butchery. In one word, it was wrong.

Shouldn't a retraction have been published?

stargazer
15 January 2008 at 11:20

New Statesman says " 1998, for example, was a very warm year because an El Nino event in the Pacific released a lot of heat from the ocean."

And dobermanmacleod says "The ocean soaks up over 90% of the heat from global warming"

Ah So you are talking about a redistribution of heat then, and so 1998 is not therefore the AGW beloved Hottest year due to warming by Co2 in the atmosphere trapping the heat (as in greenhouse.) yea right

See this do the math http://www.junkscience.com/challenge.htm

AlKing
15 January 2008 at 11:20

I have to agree that Mr Lynas doesn't make his case very well. It is interesting to see that Mr Whitehouse sticks to observed data. because of this I will paraphase galileo in my reply to Mr Lynas and Nelson

but it is still flat.

Tgallagher
15 January 2008 at 11:25

For me the bottom line is the observations and we must trust the UK Met Office. If they say that the last 7 years are statistically no different from each other then until the world starts to do something else the world has stopped warming. To me that's a no brainer. It doesn't matter what stastical interpretation or analysis you use - the observations show that there has been no change for the past 7 years. end of argument.

cwood
15 January 2008 at 11:33

Nelso said that it was amateurish stastical butchery - rubbish.

It is a public service to point out what the Met office said about the global temperatures staying the same for the past seven years. You may not like it. You may want to wish this inconvienient data way with statistics but seem to be thay are a fact that Nelson or Mr Lynas could not honestly deny.

For a moment there was a breath of logic and intellectual honesty in the global warming debate with a trained scientist talking about DATA and not rhetoric. But now it seems we are back to the bias and misrepresentation of Mr Lynas who obviously has a vested interest in global warming so I say to him in the absence of a convincing argument that he has failed to make...you would say that wouln't you.

Gareth Evans
15 January 2008 at 12:05

Mark is exactly right, there are always shorter-term fluctuations in temperature (and weather - as we know all too well in the UK). The argument Whitehouse makes, one that is often made by others, is a nonsense and demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the difference between weather and climate. As Mark says, climate is the average of weather (and temperature). No one who wants to be taken seriously on this issue can argue, on the basis of the globally accepted graph of MEASURED DATA above that the world is not warming. The effects of warming are witness to this AVERAGR TREND (Arctic and Antarctic ice melt etc). Those who do not (do not want to) believe that the melt is occurring (even more rapidly than expected) should read the literature - new reports on Arctic and Antarctic ice melt have been published recently.

Gareth Evans

Robin Guenier
15 January 2008 at 12:07

I became involved with the thread following Dr Whitehouse’s article for reasons unconnected with climate change. I am neither a denier nor a believer – in fact, I knew no more about the subject than might be expected of a reasonably well-informed person. So I was willing to learn. And I did. One surprise was that, whereas I had expected the intemperate views to be expressed by the deniers or sceptics (“it’s all a hoax”, “a tax raising scam”, etc.), if anything the opposite was the case. That pattern is followed in these two articles: David Whitehouse is quiet and reasoned and Mark Lynas assertive and rather shrill.

I urge anyone who has not read Dr Whitehouse’s article to do so and to judge for themselves: http://www.newstatesman.com/200712190004.

I’m still neither a denier nor a believer but, if I am to be persuaded that unless mankind takes urgent action we face catastrophic consequences, I suggest that the believers deal with the arguments of the sceptics with rather more respect. Otherwise, only those who are already believers will listen and little will get done.

James Garvey
15 January 2008 at 12:24

It's difficult to judge Dr. Whitehouse's article without a peek at the references. We have, anyway, always had a division of epistemic labour. Laypeople like us can do little better than listen to the experts unless we've got reason to roll up our sleeves and find out for ourselves. Right now, the experts are calling the evidence for anthropogenic climate change unequivocal. If you want to roll up your sleeves, read the IPCC's stuff for yourself. Click on the Summary for Policy Makers here and make up your own mind:

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm

BritishAirman
15 January 2008 at 12:35

Please see my briefing today pertaining to 'Deforestation' on MarKat (Scotland).

http://markatscotland.blogspot.com

Nelson
15 January 2008 at 13:34

cwood, it seems you still don't understand the point Marc Lynas is making.

Global temperature data are a noisy scatter superimposed on a small signal. This low signal to noise ratio means you are guaranteed to have periods of cooling or temperature stasis, even though the underlying warming signal is still there.

It's a fundamental property of the data that you can prove to yourself in about 30 seconds with Excel:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/wiggles/

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/dead-heat/

Take the time to read these posts. They helped me learn a little more statistics, too.

stargazer
15 January 2008 at 14:17

Gareth Evans.... is wrong.... the antarctic Ice mass is at an all at time high . The world Ice cover 'overall' is also high

The so call 'acrtic melt' according to some scientists is more than likley to have been due to winds and currents moving the ice to lower latitudes.

see here for current world ice mass

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

stargazer
15 January 2008 at 14:43

and more

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/latest_antarctic_sea...

ferdWell
15 January 2008 at 14:57

I don't follow Nelson. Seems that 20 years of rising temperature is significant but ten years of a standstil is 'just what you would expect if the temp was still rising!' that's a very biase way of looking at it and seeing what you want to see. Isn't there the possibility that the data is saying exactly what it is showing us? Seems that obvious though hasn't occured to those who don't want to see the standstil.

The fundamental point as far as I can see, is that the data would look just the same if the worlds temperature was at a standstill. you can't just dismiss it and say that you would expect a standstill so golbal warming continues. You have no statistical or logical justification for looking at that particu;ar piece of the data and saying you don't like it and it doesn't mean what it says.

As for references to Whitehouse's article it doesn't take much searching to find these:

Met Office press release

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr200...

It says “2008 is set to be cooler globally than recent years say Met Office and University of East Anglia climate scientists, but is still forecast to be one of the top-ten warmest years.”

Note bullet point 3;

The forecast value for 2008 mean temperature is considered indistinguishable from any of the years 2001-7, given the uncertainties in the data.

In that press release a professor - in exactly the same way as Mark Lynas - deliberately misses the point by saying don't worry global warming hasn't gone away because theis current decade is warmer than pervious ones - ignoring the fact that the data shows it hasn't warmed for 7 years.

the Us National Climatic Data Centre says the same;

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/monitoring.html

As a scientist i am dismayed by the lack of scientific rigour being displayed here, especially in the singling out of acceptable and non-acceptable data according to the prejudices oof the selector.

I have seen such people called - in the perjorative terminology of the debate that Mark Lynas seems to like - data deniers. the data is right in front of them but they don't want to see it.

Some people, some on this list and Mark Lynas will not recognise that there is anyway to disprove the Co2 - temperature linkage - they say that no matter what the temperature does its still evidence of global warming! That's not science and you can't argue with that.

Seven flat years is a statistical blip - that's a remote possibility but it's much more likely to be exactly what it implies. If it goes on for another few years that argument will go away.

Brute
15 January 2008 at 15:43

Stargazer,

After viewing the ice mass satellite images, I’m completely convinced.

What is going on here? Why is the media blatantly publishing this one sided argument forecasting the imminent demise of the planet if we don’t adhere to their “sacrifices”? Everything that they’ve published is untrue. Polar bears are not dying, ice caps are not melting, hurricane activity has not increased and sea levels are not rising.

gnuneo
15 January 2008 at 15:45

ignoring both articles (a brave position), here are the simple facts:

pollution from carbon fuels is destroying our environment, and is also running out rapidly, as the excellent documentary "end of suburbia" argues quite succinctly (by both a senior member of the 'energy taskforce' set up by cheney, and also the Iranian minister for energy in the documentary).

we therefore, if we are indeed a rational species, should already be looking to shift to sustainable energy sources.

and also to try to ensure our children have a decent environment.

it is also a fact, that being wrong on AGW will simply mean we have converted earlier than 'necessary', yet being right will prevent catastrophic effects, some of which will go through anyway, but we will be able to cut back on later ones.

it is also a fact that GAIA is an extraordinarily complex system that we are only just beginning to understand through chaos modelling, and will undoubtedly have some surprises - both pleasant and otherwise - as our environment continues to adapt to the ***undeniable*** chemical changes we are creating.

whilst much AGWists are definitely to be categorised as 'Malthusian', most of the sceptics can also be called 'pig-headed deniers' if you will accept my apologies for the term (and i am guessing most of you won't).

and one reason for the 'shrillness' of this article is that for decades there has been a solid body of environmentalist scientists who have been warning of AGW, and being derided by many scientists who have their bills paid for by the oil-lobby - who were entirely uninterested in the actual studies, and more with their pension plans - scientists as individuals are no better than the 'average guy' in this respect.

fortunately or unfortunately?

nonetheless, the fact remains that the measures that are being demanded by the environmentalists will be required anyway, and if they had been taken seriously earlier we would not now be facing an enormous global building program for nukes - with all the horrors that will bring, in myriads of ways.

whether or not AGW is serious (any chemist who claims there is no effect from a chemical output into our environment is someone who needs to go back to nursery school, and use their diploma as a crayon scrap-book), the measures have to be implemented anyway, so this entire argument is really moot - and one finds oneself wondering why the issue raises such - almost religious - fervour, especially from the conspiracists, who appear to have decided that it is all a corporate scam, every single bit of evidence regarding corporate behaviour to the contrary!

btw, just to illustrate the 'scam fallacy', if i am holding your daughter hostage, and demand $500,000 for her continued existence, and a corrupt police negotiator ups that to $1,000,000 to rake of the rest himself, does that mean that your daughters life is not in real peril?

being scammed or not, the fact is that our climate IS warming up *dramatically* (faster than any period we have discovered in the geological record), as measured over a scale of centuries or millennia, and it would require an ostrich to ignore the evidence of retreating mountain glaciers, and what this means for much of mankind - and whether it is a mere synchronicity that such warming is coincidental with our pumping out certain chemicals that clearly have exactly this effect (of capturing heat, just like raised CO2 levels in greenhouses etc), we do still need to act upon the effects this has - as a (disgustingly rare) honest poster pointed out, those scientists who left the IPCC group to become sceptics are actually arguing that we cannot change the effects already in the works - however we *can* regard the switch to sustainable energy as necessary anyway (and local based energy production will be far more efficient and stable, and far less open to large scale disasters such as hurricanes knocking out centralised production/distribution), and we will also have to work to mitigate the worst effects that climate change will have - whether or not it is man-made.

so from whence comes all this bile?

what the sceptics should be doing, is following the various projects (such as carbon annulling forests), and ensuring they are NOT run as scams but as serious environmental projects - they should be overseeing and keeping accountable those govt/supra-govt bodies/corporations they are so (rightly) sceptical of, and recognise that the Petroleum Age is coming to an end.

it is, simply, Time for a Change.

Brute
15 January 2008 at 15:50

gnuneo,

So, are you admitting that there is no evidence that the planet is "doomed" because of Global Warming and that this was all a carefuly planned ruse to have everyone conserve and seek out alternate fuel sources? It simply "time for a change" and you and a handful of others have decided that for me?

Gareth Evans
15 January 2008 at 15:57

Stargazer, below are the FACTS on Antarctic ice melt.

Gareth Evans

Loss of Antarctic ice has soared by 75 per cent in just 10 years

Parts of the ice sheets covering Antarctica are melting faster than predicted, with the net loss of ice probably accelerating in recent years because of global warming. A satellite survey between 1996 and 2006 found that the net loss of ice from Antarctica rose by about 75 per cent as the movement of glaciers towards the sea speeded up. Scientists estimate that that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet lost about 132 billion tons of ice in 2006, compared with a loss of 83 billion tons in 1996. In addition, the Antarctic peninsula lost about 60 billion tons of ice in 2006.

"To put these figures into perspective, 4 billion tons of ice is enough to provide drinking water for the whole UK population for one year," said Professor Jonathan Bamber, of the University of Bristol. "We think the glaciers of the Antarctic are moving faster to the sea. The computer models of future sea-level rise have not really taken this into account."

Sea levels are estimated to have risen by 1.8mm a year on average during the 20th century, but data from the past decade or so suggest that the average rise is now about 3.4 mm per year.

Computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which predict that sea levels will rise by no more than about 50cm by 2100, are based largely on the stability of the Antarctic ice sheets. But many scientists now believe this forecast is too restrained. "I agree with a number of scientists who feel the IPCC is likely to have underestimated the upper bound of predicted sea-level rise by the end of the century – 50 cm is probably too conservative," Professor Bamber added.

There are two key factors in estimating the net loss of Antarctic ice. The first is the flow of glaciers towards the sea; the second is the build-up of snow over the vast landmass of the frozen continent. The IPCC models imply that global warming will increase the moisture content of the atmosphere and so may actually increase snowfall over Antarctica, much of which is too cold to be affected by rising global temperatures. This would suggest a net build-up of ice. However, Professor Bamber believes the IPCC's models have not taken into account the complex, dynamic interaction between the ocean and the ice shelves of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, which are warmer than East Antarctica.

Eric Rignot, who led the latest study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, said the findings indicated a rapid loss of ice to the sea rather than a net gain. "We have determined that the loss is increasing with time, quite rapidly at 75 per cent in ten years," Dr Rignot said. "We have also established that most of this loss, if not its entirety, is caused by glacier acceleration. The IPCC focussed on the surface mass balance component. We find this component is not indicative of the true mass balance."

The acceleration in ice loss over the past 10 years could increase in coming decades, he added. "As some of these glaciers reach deeper beds, their speeds could double or triple, in which case the contribution to sea-level rise from Antarctica could increase quite significantly beyond what it is now. Many people suspect Antarctic ice to be immune from changes. We are finding this is not the case.

"The future is the big question. The potential exists for ice speed to increase two or three times, which will result in a doubling of the mass deficit from Antarctica."

Gareth Evans
15 January 2008 at 16:09

And Stargazer - see the link below for info on UNPRECEDENTED Arctic Ice melt and read about glacier melt in China. Now explain to this audience why this ice melt is occurring around the world (if it is not because of global warming).

Gareth Evans

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003400/a003464/index.h...

Global warming causing China's glaciers to melt quickly

BEIJING (AFP) — Global warming has caused some of China's glaciers -- a source for many of Asia's greatest rivers -- to have melted by more than 18 percent over the past five years, state media reported Friday.

A survey of nearly 20,000 square kilometres (8,000 square miles) of China's glaciers showed they were on average 7.4 percent smaller than five years ago a government-funded survey reports.

A glacier along the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River on the Tibetan plateau had shrunk by more than 18 percent, the survey found.

Two other glacial areas in China's far northwest Xinjiang region had also melted by more than 18 percent.

"Global warming is causing grave loss to glaciers and it has become a burning need to monitor changes of glacial reserves," the researchers from the China Academy of Sciences said as they released their findings.

The survey, covering roughly one third of China's glaciers, was conducted to trace the impacts of global warming.

China's glaciers, in the west of the country, feed many of Asia's greatest rivers, including the Yangtze, Mekong, Yellow and Ganges, as well as the Brahmaputra.

In the past four decades, China's glaciers shrank by 3,248 square kilometres, or 5.5 percent since the 1960s, according to previous studies published in the state-run press.

One of China's top glaciologists, Yao Tangdong, warned last year of an "ecological catastrophe" in Tibet because of global warming.

He said most glaciers in the region could melt away by 2100.

Mr Fnortner
15 January 2008 at 16:22

My dear gnuneo, most everything that happens on this earth is, or involves, a chemical reaction of one sort or another. While most of us would probably not actually use our chemistry diplomas as coloring books (though some should probably line their canary cages for all the good they seem to be doing), not all chemical reaction yields are polluting.

As far as the kidnapped daughter scenario, there is something to be said for extracting one's loved one at almost any cost. Do read O'Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief" for another way of looking at the topic, though: http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/o_henry/3/

Regarding the preponderance of eminent authority that the global warming scientists continually bring to bear on this matter in an attempt to crush the skeptics, I might remind them that one among you sneered at the prospect of hope in the Deity (see http://www.newstatesman.com/200712190004, Peter Martin, 12 January 2008). Now, with millions of eminent theologians, learned doctors and scholars of every stripe and faith among them; and billions of believers who can testify to the salutary blessings and life changes wrought by the Creator over the centuries, how is it possible that any scientist would dare face the authority of such a contingent and enormity of a tsunami of evidence and say, "I don't believe"?

But when the critic says, what's with this global warming thing coming off track? the scientist says, we are knowledgeable and many, and you are not, so believe us, it's still on track. (Would you buy a used car from these people?)

stargazer
15 January 2008 at 17:13

Gareth Evans said

"Loss of Antarctic ice has soared by 75 per cent in just 10 years "

How... how... has it melted, the temp Never gets much above minus 35C

Nelson
15 January 2008 at 17:20

'Never gets much above minus 35C' Over the entire antarctic...?

Nelson
15 January 2008 at 17:24

ferdWell,

'Isn't there the possibility that the data is saying exactly what it is showing us?'

Yes there is. It's also possible that the underlying warming trend could have doubled since 2000 - but the New Statesman shouldn't publish an article claiming so, just as it shouldn't have published Whitehouse's.

Brute
15 January 2008 at 17:41

Mr Fnortner,

The Wheels are falling off of the Global Warming used car and not a moment too soon

Mr. Evans,

Glaciers are growing as well as melting. That’s what glaciers do. You are being duped, hoodwinked, lied to.

Mont Blanc Glaciers Refuse to Shrink?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says in their recent 2007 Summary for Policymakers “Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in both hemispheres. Widespread decreases in glaciers and ice caps have contributed to sea level rise.” Someone in Europe missed the memo on this subject as a recent article has appeared in the Journal of Geophysical Research entitled “Very high-elevation Mont Blanc glaciated areas not affected by the 20th century climate change.” To say the least, we at World Climate Report were interested in what the authors had to say.

The research was conducted by six scientists from leading agencies and departments in France and Switzerland that deal with hydrology and glaciology. Before you see the title of the article and immediately suspect some conspiracy funded by European coal companies, be aware that the research was funded by Observatoire des Sciences de l’Univers de Grenoble (OSUG), the European Programs ALPCLIM and CARBOSOL, and by the city of Chamonix Mont-Blanc. Given the title of the article, we wonder if the six scientists will ever be funded again by any European agencies.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/06/26/mont-...

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/968

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

http://www.climateaudit.org/

gnuneo
15 January 2008 at 21:09

"gnuneo,

brute: i can tell you are entirely uninterested in finding a balanced and nuanced agreement to this, your entire attitude reeks of someone as fundamentalist as any Grand Inquisitor.

please open your mind to the possibility that both extremes of the debate are somewhat wrong, and reread my post.

i clearly "admit" nothing, i am merely attempting to find a common ground - your position is that *only* your position is correct, and that we should steam on regardless, as though there is not a wider debate about pollution, sustainability, and non-limitless carbon based resources.

you then use 'science' in order to shore up your already decided mind, a tactic quite clear as you entirely discount the possibility that the 90%+ of the rest of the scientific community may actually have a point - instead you (like every good fundamentalist, as aldous huxley argues well in his 'eyeless in gaza') then attempt to paint all those who disagree with you as either fools, fanatics or corrupt.

fanaticism always gives itself away, because it rejects all positions short of its own, and attempts to paint everything into black/white, the mark of a damaged or diseased mind.

what i was *actually* saying, was that it really doesn't matter - the entire energy basis for our societies is naturally running out, and we need to shift over to sustainables anyway - unless you can think of a process where we can create millions of barrels of oil, using less energy than we put in.

no?

thought not.

so why the religious conviction that no change is necessary? You are exactly the kind of person who would still be huddled in trees, attempting to organise the tribe against the new ideas of using fire to cook food.

mr fortner: your link to the NS article unfortunately fails, and even a search of "peter martin" does not turn anything up, can you clarify?

and i am aware that not ALL human activities can be considered 'pollution', nor indeed that the effects of even pollution are to be negative upon human activities.

indeed, were we to be starting a colony upon Mars, as Kim Stanley Robinson points out in his fantastic Mars trilogy:

link.

then we would regard CO2 and other GW gasses as a godsend.

however - we live on Earth, and here upon our green and blue pleasant globe, more heating will inevitably produce more blue and less green - not a pretty picture whilst we are also facing desertification from the so-called Green Revolutions draining of the continental water tables.

environmentalists have been warning us for well over half a century about the continuation of certain policies, and some of them are now in the apparent 'sceptic camp' - but they are warning more about corrupt programs, and corrupt govts, and whether it is still possible to be thinking (and saying) we can still turn back AGW, when it is clear to them (they perceive) that matters are now too far, and such messages are ignoring the very real dangers we face - inevitably - and arguing about using low-energy bulbs is simply not going to cut it. They are both right - and wrong.

we are still going to keep going, and it is just straight common sense to cut down our energy use as much as possible - it is information exchange that determines a societies evolution, not the amount of energy used and consumed, and everything we can do to evolve our economies to be more efficient is following nature in its own evolutionary patterns.

perhaps AGW is indeed a *complete* scam (which is unbelievably unlikely, when you consider it rationally, and follow the arguments that lead back to well before the 50s), but even so, if changing just our light bulbs would remove the need for say just one more nuclear plant - then is that not a worthwhile change?

look at the fanatics (like brute) on the sceptic side, as well as the Malthusians on the AGW side - can you really beleive that such a widespread consensus across virtually every physical science field is possible to have been manufactured? Have you considered the scale of that proposal?

it would be simply staggering, this is not a case of the US/UK govt deliberately lying about 'yellow cake' and informing us we are not worthy to see the actual data but we have to trust them anyway, this is an overwhelming avalanche of data and analysis that has slowly overturned the *really* corrupt corporations and govts message that "All Is Well, Remain Asleep, Purchase, Do Not Question".

even now, we can see the corporations *using* the evidence to push their own agendas, such as the UK govts forcing through of Nuclear without even investing the amount spent on just 'consultancy' about the proposed nuclear power upon actual building sustainables!

the US govt has been burying its warnings from its own environmental scientists for *decades* - and especially under Bush - scientists many of whom lost their positions and grants because they wouldn't shut-up about what they saw happening.

all this is forgotten in the sudden rush of 'conspiracy-sceptics', that literal generations of honest, frantically worried scientists who lost everything due to their trying to warn the general public and Govts, these were not people basking in some fictional multi-billion dollar research cushy existence.

i... words fail. I personally have nothing to gain whatsoever from my support for the environmentalist movement, except a belief that i should try to leave a better world for my children and grandchildren, and unlike so many, i have been tentatively following the environmentalist struggles since the 80s, when through Sci-Fi i learned that these debates were going on, i have not come to the debate through the conspiracy web-sites and programs, who only look back just a couple of years, and imagine that al gore is somehow a 'grand-daddy' of the environmentalists, when actually he is just the upstart great-grand-child, managing to make money off the same message that so many hundreds of dedicated environmentalists have lost their livelihoods, careers, reputations and even sometimes lives to bring to a wider audience.

i have no respect for idiots like bruce, who have no knowledge of the history of the struggle, and beleive it is all cooked up in the last few years to scam money and freedoms from the tax-payer and citizenry.

we have tended to agree on other issues, i hope my words can at least make you pause and consider.

Remember that i am NOT saying that govts/corps are not scamming scamming us - i am saying however that this argument goes back far further than some cooked up plot on conspiracy sites, as some of the fanatics are trying to claim.

i will now read your linked story.

if you have read all this, thank you.

bobclive
15 January 2008 at 21:11

From The Times

January 14, 2008

Antarctic is losing ice ‘nearly twice as fast as TEN years ago, yet only 5 months earlier Saturday, August 4, 2007 Antarctic ice grows to record levels since 1979, it appears the new study is again CHERRY PICKING.

link 1

ITN attempts to link man-made CO2 emissions with the claim that the Antarctic's ice is 'disappearing' news at ten.

link 2

(USHCN) station from 1930-2005

Hot Springs' mean annual temperature has cooled by 1.26 degrees.

link 3

Carbon emisions don`t cause global warming.

link 4

Climate Change Science a full explanation of the true facts with links.

link 5

willpeter
15 January 2008 at 21:34

Mark Lynas,

You are not telling us the truth. On this website you say you were 'deluged' with emails about the Dr Whitehouse article.

On your (not working) website marklynas.org you say you had several.

That's about as reliable and accurate as the other things you have to say.

pianoguy
15 January 2008 at 21:34

Mountain Pine Beetles unaware that global warming has ceased:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jan/15/beetle-inf...

Obviously they need to keep on top of the latest publications.

Mr Fnortner
15 January 2008 at 22:31

gnuneo and others, sorry about the wild goose chase. It looks like a comma got included in the link http://www.newstatesman.com/200712190004 to my point about religionists en masse. You know us Luddites. We're all thumbs when it comes to things modern, like these bloody letters atop springy sticks you folks write with nowadays.

gnuneo
15 January 2008 at 23:08

Mr Fortner: after a little searching, i now understand your point.

i do however have a reply, i don't know if it will 'satisfy' you, but i can but try.

physical scientists measure physical processes, and in this field i would *tend* to rely upon them, especially if there is overwhelming consensus upon such a physical, and physically measured process.

however, on a matter of values, or in the example you used spiritual process, then i would be far more sceptical of their claims - if it cannot be physically measured, then their claims on the matter are as valid as any other layperson.

is this not common sense? An overwhelming majority of psychotherapists could be convinced that the Earth is flat, but as this is not their field i would be sceptical. Social scientists may have overwhelming evidence that human actions are at least in part caused by human values - this is their field, and i would tend to respect that - if however they argued that water boiled at 50oC, then i will be more sceptical, as their training and 'expertise' does not lie in that direction.

would this answer your point? (Which btw is a very valid one, as far too often these physical scientists regard themselves as mini-Gods, followers of the Pope Popper who is Infallible and Universal.)

but... on the physical side of science - you can see where i'm going, right? ;)

gnuneo
15 January 2008 at 23:17

btw, that story is excellent, many thanks!

Nelson
15 January 2008 at 23:46

Brute, perhaps you might respond on this thread. The paper you link to about glaciers: do you think there's a reason they included the clear qualifier 'very high-elevation' in the title?

Because if you read the abstract, you find the following sentence: 'Surface ablation is negligible for these high-elevation areas'. It's so cold at these altitudes that melting and evaporation don't determine mass balance, snow accumulation does. You don't expect them to shrink in a warming world (yet).

You should be careful when someone cites a paper. Sometimes it doesn't support their argument.

Nelson
15 January 2008 at 23:52

The paper itself goes into more detail:

'The sensitivity of glacier mass balances to climate change is widely recognised'

'studies show that glaciated areas below 3000 m a.s.l. have been strongly affected, especially

over the last two decades'

bjk
16 January 2008 at 00:07

I think a few words about Mr Lynas are in order given his uninformed and personal attack on Dr Whitehouse's integrity.

Mr lynas of course was the idiot who thrust a pie in the face of Bjorn Lomborg at a bookshop in Oxford because he didn't like what Lomborg had to say about global warming. Given his writings for the New Statesman that must surely mark the high water mark of his contributions to the environmental movement.

So will we now expect that he will bung a cuatard pie in the face of Dr Whitehouse?

the mans an idiot and it does not reflect well on the New Statesman that he is their environmental 'correspondent.'

PennyWr
16 January 2008 at 00:18

Isn't Mark Lynas one of those that believes (contrary to any real evidence) that we are on the verge of a runnaway greenhouse effect that will engulf us all. If so then he has changed his tune in the above article and no wonder he doesn't like the fact that the world has not warmed in 7 years - he has a vested interest in carastrophism and is obviously an extremist.

Should we take his comments seriously?

Mr Fnortner
16 January 2008 at 00:51

This has been a far more jolly thread than the one following Dr. Whitehouse's article. Perhaps we are all tired. Or maybe Mr. Lynas's absurdity is just so blasted hard to follow with anything resembling decorum.

gnuneo, I am pleased you found Red Chief fun. As an engineer, practiced at being disciplined with observations, analysis, computations, projections, conclusions, and the like, I would much rather have my scientists and engineers boring and stuffy and their science dead-on accurate, than to have them colorful and their science wobbly.

Throughout this global warming debate (?) over the past several years I have seen primarily grandstanding and politics and little in the way of sincere, humble research. Al Gore, who hasn't done an honest day's work in his life, cobbled together a pastiche of smokestacks, polar bears, and ice bergs and grabbed a Nobel Peace Prize. We know he's no scientist, but the risk is that his fraud will taint the perceptions of honest work of others. Linus Pauling (for example) must be rolling over in his grave.

My reference to religion versus science was to point out the parallels between the efforts to use a count of the number of authorities as a basis for credibility. Yes, pure science deals in physical rather than metaphysical phenomena. However, until mechanisms are clearly and unambiguously understood in either realm, they are indistinguishable from magic (thanks to A. C. Clarke for the turn of phrase).

More later.

Brute
16 January 2008 at 01:29

Miss. Gnuneo,

Such emotion and I’m the fanatic? Yellow cake Uranium conspiracy? Maybe you should review your post (and ingest a Seconal/ Quinalbarbitone). So fragile…..Get a hold of yourself; put on your big girl panties. What you fail to realize is that Environmentalism is your “religion” complete with doomsday scenarios (global warming), sinful behavior (failing to recycle), the one true God (Mother Earth), evil satanic figures (me and other skeptics), a Messiah (Al Gore), and various other Prophets, Saints and Martyrs. Think about that.

History of struggle? What the hell are you talking about, African Slavery? Anti-Semitism? Feminism? The right to vote? We’re discussing the Global Warming theory!

Society has advocated many “alternate” forms of energy all denounced by the Environmental Lobby. What is it that you want?

Nuclear: Radiation

Solar: Too expensive, Too “Unatural”

Clean Coal: Too Dirty

Oil: Too Dirty

Hydroelectric: Disrupts Fish Spawning

Off Shore Wind Farms: Ted Kennedy can see it from his beachfront mansion/kills birds.

You are incorrect about inexpensive available oil. There is plenty of oil in Alaska and offshore but the Environmental Lobby opposes utilizing it.

You are correct, scientists have been warning us for years; however, it has been over one-hundred fifty years. I suppose the “scientists” are correct this time. I’m sorry, but this time the burden of proof is on the accuser and it will have to be proven beyond any doubt.

Headlines:

Here is a quote from Newsweek magazine:

“There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth.”

A headline in the New York Times reads: “Climate Changes Endanger World’s Food Output.” Here is a quote from Time Magazine:

“As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval.”

All of this sounds very ominous. That is, until you realize that the three quotes I just read were from articles in 1975 editions of Newsweek Magazine and The New York Times, and Time Magazine in 1974.

link

They weren’t referring to global warming; they were warning of a coming ice age.

Let me repeat, all three of those quotes were published in the 1970’s and warned of a coming ice age.

In addition to global cooling fears, Time Magazine has also reported on global warming. Here is an example:

“[Those] who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right… weathermen have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer.”

Before you think that this is just another example of the media promoting Vice President Gore’s movie, you need to know that the quote I just read you from Time Magazine was not a recent quote; it was from January 2, 1939.

Time Magazine in 1951 pointed to receding permafrost in Russia as proof that the planet was warming.

In 1952, the New York Times noted that the “trump card” of global warming “has been the melting glaciers.”

Here is a quote from the New York Times reporting on fears of an approaching ice age.

“Geologists Think the World May be Frozen Up Again.”

That sentence appeared over 100 years ago in the February 24, 1895 edition of the New York Times.

Let me repeat. 1895, not 1995.

The very same day in 1912, the Los Angeles Times ran an article warning that the “Human race will have to fight for its existence against cold.” An August 10, 1923 Washington Post article declared: “Ice Age Coming Here.”

By the 1930’s, the media took a break from reporting on the coming ice age and instead switched gears to promoting global warming:

“America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-year Rise” stated an article in the New York Times on March 27, 1933. The media of yesteryear was also not above injecting large amounts of fear and alarmism into their climate articles.

An August 9, 1923 front page article in the Chicago Tribune declared:

“Scientist Says Arctic Ice Will Wipe Out Canada.” The article quoted a Yale University professor who predicted that large parts of Europe and Asia would be “wiped out” and Switzerland would be “entirely obliterated.”

A December 29, 1974 New York Times article on global cooling reported that climatologists believed “the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure in a decade.”

The article also warned that unless government officials reacted to the coming catastrophe, “mass deaths by starvation and probably in anarchy and violence” would result. In 1975, the New York Times reported that “A major cooling [was] widely considered to be inevitable.” These past predictions of doom have a familiar ring, don’t they? They sound strikingly similar to our modern media promotion of former Vice president’s brand of climate alarmism.

After more than a century of alternating between global cooling and warming, one would think that this media history would serve a cautionary tale for today’s voices in the media and scientific community who are promoting yet another round of eco-doom.

Much of the 100-year media history on climate change that I have documented here today can be found in a publication titled “Fire and Ice” from the Business and Media Institute.

link 2

Brute
16 January 2008 at 01:48

Come on Nelson.....now we are distinguishing between high altitude and low altitude glaciers. The man said all of the glaciers are melting. I've provided examples of areas where glaciers are growing. Is this one of your "nuances"? Now we have caveats because field evidence doesn't support your notion?

By the way, when were these glaciers formed? Was it during the last ice age? 10,000 years ago? Do you expect that the temperature of the earth may have fluctuated in the last 10,000 years once or twice?

How many glaciers has Al Gore checked; what percentage? The man said that Greenland ice is melting; Stargazer or Mr. Clive provided evidence that it's thickening. Antarctica is getting colder and accumulating mass. The polar bears are fine....The beach houses are fine....come on.

Have you seriously given any thought that your theory could be wrong? That the Earth's temperature may be more profoundly effected/affected by the ENORMOUS NUCLEAR FURNACE AT THE MIDDLE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM? I know, I wrote that last thread; I'm tired.

Here’s a glacier in Chile that’s growing because it’s “getting warmer”………….Please…….

link

Sven
16 January 2008 at 07:03

I think this article is really revealing. An activist (as his own introduction tells us) environment editor who got his day of fame by thowing a pie into Lomborg's face has to rush in, appologise on behalf of the magazine and state clearly the official stance of the magazine on this scientific issue. What other fields of science does The New Statesman have official views on? What is the magazine's official standpoint on Newton, quantum physics or false memory?! We've come to the point where everybody is running scared and must swear they are on the "right side" or risk being cursed and demonised. I can only imagine what kind of threats The New Statesman received because of it's courage. But don't worry, the ranks are in order again... And the only thing that is supposed to be proving the activist's point is that his fellow activists from realclimate have come up, in a panicky rush, with an alternative graph to Met Office's?! Shame on you! And shame on The New Statesman for having a religious and extremist activist as their environment editor.

KeithBond
16 January 2008 at 07:53

Well said Sven.

What started out as enlightening with Dr Whitehouse's excellent questioning article has now become a dogmatic, intolerant rant from an 'activist' whose claim to fame is custard pie throwing instead of debate.

This does not reflect well on the New Statesman.

nerne
16 January 2008 at 08:18

Go back to the graph, sceptics. Point out where it is wrong or providing a false picture.,because that upward trend looks pretty convincing to me, Back up your criticism with links to real scientific data showing global warming has stopped and you might start getting somewhere.

stargazer
16 January 2008 at 08:53

Nerne ... YOU are missing the point. I am re posting this just for you because it illustrates what Dr Whitehouse is saying and what us some of us also get. realclimate's graph showing little stick like trend lines is a smoke screen.... The worlds temp has over several years come down...And NO one can say for shure what it will do next, the BEST anyone can offer is that it MIGHT go up again.