OK, I’ve Reached a Conclusion

I was aware the recently deceased author Michael Crichton had investigated the available data in the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming controversy, and had concluded that it was a farce – so much so that he changed the subject of his 2004 book State of Fear from being an eco-disaster novel to being an eco-terrorism novel. It’s the first novel I’ve ever read that had footnotes and a bibliography.

Here he is discussing the topic with Charlie Rose (about 9 minutes):

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJJsDtSHjdE?rel=0]
And he gave a lecture at CalTech in 2003, entitled Aliens Cause Global Warming that is also worth your time.

As a result of his anti-CAGW activism, he was, of course, labeled a “denier,” and vilified.

In addition to Mr. Crichton’s opinion, I’d read a lot but still I hadn’t reached a definitive conclusion on the question of whether the burning of fossil fuels was having a measurable, detrimental effect on global climate. Is the world getting warmer? Quite possibly. Is it due, in whole or in part, on increased CO2 due to human consumption of fossil fuels? I didn’t know. Is a warmer Earth a bad thing? I didn’t know. I suspected that it wasn’t, and I was very skeptical of the positive-feedback argument the doomsayers were predicting.

Day before yesterday I was made aware of another skeptic – Burt Rutan. Burt is the designer of Voyager, the first airplane to circumnavigate the globe without refueling, and of SpaceShipOne, winner of the Ansari X Prize. Burt Rutan’s argument is that, as an aeronautical engineer, he has analyzed test flight data for decades. All of the climate data had been analyzed by scientists. What would an engineer make of it?

The result was a 98-page PowerPoint presentation (also available as a PDF) that covers five specific issues propounded by Climate Scientists:

  1. Recent burning of fossil fuels suddenly and dangerously increased CO2 beyond previous levels.
  2. Human CO2 emissions causes greenhouse warming.
  3. Dangerous, sudden global warming occurred the last 50 years.
  4. The current temperature is too hot, and further warming is BAD.
  5. It is more difficult to adapt to climate changes than to attempt to control them.

He tackles each issue in turn, in detail, and using the data the Climate Scientists use.

He made a presentation of his conclusions at the 2009 Oshkosh fly-in, entitled Non-Aerospace Research Quests of a Designer/Flight Test Engineer, stating:

I put myself in the (Those who fear expansion of Government control) group, and do not hide the fact that I have a clear bias on [ Anthropogenic global warming (AGW)]. My bias is based on fear of Government expansion and the observation of AGW data presentation fraud – not based on financial or any other personal benefit. I merely have found that the closer you look at the data and alarmists’ presentations, the more fraud you find and the less you think there is an AGW problem… For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion – “if someone is aggressively selling a technical product whose merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying”. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.

I’m convinced. CAGW is complete bullshit.

Climate is What You Expect Model

Weather is what you get.

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it

The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures

This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

And here’s that graph:


Of course, this won’t change anything because there are people out there emotionally and financially dependent on the meme that global warming causes everything.

Quote of the Day – Fractal Leftists Edition

From commenter Windy Wilson to Out of Airspeed, Out of Altitude, and Damned Near Out of Ideas:

   (T)he philosophy of leftists since the Cretaceous or Permian or Mississippian (to reference Kipling): The experts know better how I should run my business, hire, direct and fire my employeees, what sort of refrigerator, stove, Air conditioner, electric light I should buy, what my clothes should be made of, how much and what foods I should eat, what sort of fuel I should put in my car, how big the car should be, ad infinitum. Like some sort of fractal, the same pattern is both writ large and small, and reveals itself in the collapse of the European Union and in the design of the Airbus.

I’m Giving Them $125

Bumped. Time is running out to donate.

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf

More information here: FrackNation

You can contribute there.

I was made aware of Kickstarter as a fundraising platform when cartoonist Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary fame used it to finance his upcoming board game project.

OK, we’re tired of leftist propaganda, time to put our money where our mouths are. It worked with the Starbucks Buycott, Bill Whittle thinks it will work with Declaration Entertainment, I think it’ll work here. We need fracking. I’m getting my wallet out.

Quote of the Day – Don’t Confuse ‘Em With Facts Edition

So let me get this right. The Canadian Oil is supposedly worse for the environment, so stopping this pipeline will help the planet.

So instead of moving the oil in a safe way and be processed in US refineries operating under EPA regulations, the oil will now be transported across the Canadian Rockies where it will be loaded onto giant tankers and shipped across the Pacific where it will be refined in Chinese operations that have far fewer, if any, regulations in place.

Please let me know how the Chinese alternative is better for the Earth. Because no matter what, this Canadian oil is going to be sold.

Paul Strasser

Global Cooling Warming Climate Change

So, Instapundit links to a study that says, contrary to the received wisdom of the Warmists, the more people know about science the (slightly) less likely they are to buy into the idea of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

I wonder why?

For example, we’re told – on the one hand – that the last decade is “undoubtedly the warmest 10-year period since the beginning of weather records in 1850.” Then we’re told – with equal sincerity – that every year since 1998 has been cooler than that “peak” year.

So, which is it?

The promoters of AGW say “both!” The earth hasn’t heated up since 1998, despite massive CO2 emissions? Well, there’s (always) a simple explanation! Asian pollution!

A new study demonstrates why global surface temperatures defied a decades-long trend and didn’t continue to rise between 1998 and 2008: Pollution-spewing, coal-burning power plants in Asia, while emitting warming greenhouse gases, simultaneously sent cooling sulfur particles into the atmosphere.

During that decade — sometimes cited as evidence to deny global warming — these Asian emissions mostly balanced one another and dampened the effects of natural cooling cycles associated with the sun and ocean temperatures.

But never fear, the thermostat’s ready to be cranked up again!

I recommend you spend nine minutes and watch this:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvObfrs3qoE?rel=0]

It’s worth your time.

UPDATE: From Watts Up With That comes the Quote of the Week from Minister of Parliament Graham Stringer from the investigation into ClimateGate:

“When I asked Oxburgh if [Keith] Briffa [CRU academic] could reproduce his own results, he said in lots of cases he couldn’t,” Stringer told us. “That just isn’t science. It’s literature. If somebody can’t reproduce their own results, and nobody else can, then what is that work doing in the scientific journals?”

It’s getting more funding and ginning up enthusiasm for more government power.

Quote of the Day – “Grand Theft NATO” Edition

From a comment to yesterday’s Victor Davis Hanson piece from which I took the QotD:

(W)elcome to “free market communism”.

This is “redistribution through gaming the system”. Flashing through all Western civilization, in every European, Canadian, Australian, and US marketplace. If it had a video version it would be called “Grand Theft NATO”.
50% of the people play by the “old” rules. They pay taxes, pay their mortgages, pay their own food bills, enter the country legally, and basically support the “other half”.
The “other half”…play the “victim” of the paying “majority”…and try to guilt them into paying for MORE stuff….while amassing goods and services at the discount window of the “government”, which slanders the paying majority as “greedy”. (and any other slander that imposes immediate guilt and shame…pick a weapon as you walk through the terrain…racism, sexism, homophobia, jingoism, etc)
In Grand Theft NATO, the “have nots”…are GIVEN more and more and more. They are “protected” by their benefactors…but, in order to recharge their “batteries” to press on…they MUST vote when they see their “energy” being depleted. Vote for a leftist…get more “energy”, be given more stuff…and more powerful “weapons”.
As you reach higher and more sophisticated levels…you get assistance in weapons of mass deception. Global warming is used as a hoax weapon to “redistribute” money, power, influence…from the “haves” who are ripped off on a worldwide basis…to the “have nots” in leftist enclaves.
You also get “mass media” protections…a force field shield that covers you for every misdeed, puts out false information and distortions for your benefit.
Grand Theft NATO is available everywhere you can find leftists in power. Thanks for playing…now hand over some more of OUR money…you have made enough already.

cfbleachers

Yup, that’s pretty much it in a nutshell.  Thanks to The Silicon Graybeard for the pointer.

Quote of the Day – Nihilism Edition

While we take the electric light for granted– to be able to read and write after dark by a clear light is a technological achievement that has transformed our civilization. Animals are governed by day and night cycles. Artificial light made it possible for us to work independently of the day and night cycle. There is no way to measure the increase in knowledge gained. And there is no better measure of the unthinking contempt of the environmentalist movement for that achievement than a call to turn off the lights and sit in the dark

That is the dark side of environmentalism, an ugly violent side that emerges easily. The most active non-Muslim domestic terrorist group is environmental. The undercurrent of violence finds easy purchase in environmentalism’s creed that the only real problem with the world is the people. No amount of turning off the lights is enough. Eventually you come around to having to turn off the people.

Sultan Knish, Sitting in the Dark

RTWT. Godwin’s Law warning, though.

I Wish I’d Written That

Via Improved Clinch, please take a few minutes and read Moral Communism at Counting Cats in Zanzibar.  Excerpt:

If they try to communise the economy directly, there is an enormous body of “right wing” economic theory that can knock down their plans. So instead, they go for a two stage process. First of all, they persuade people that some Damned Thing is immoral. Then they show that the free market allows or encourages that immoral thing. Then they can say, “well, we wish we didn’t have to do this, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to intervene in that part of the economy, to stop the Damned Thing, sorry”. This leaves the free marketeer floundering around having to try to justify the continuance of the Damned Thing in the name of some nebulous “liberty”. And then they say, “so your selfish desire for “liberty” means this Damned Thing must go on?” and you lose the argument in public, because most of the audience have been persuaded that there is a moral crisis that must be addressed, and you are a heartless asshole who just doesn’t care.

RTWT.  Seriously.