Climate Change

With the recent UK Met office predictions of Barbeque summers and mild winters that don’t materialise, the subject of ‘Global Warming’ never seems far from mind these days.

Belief in the theory influences may public decisions and where much public money is expended.

Possibly even Met office predictions, confounded by cool damp summers and frozen snowy winters. Predictions, it has been suggested, that are influenced by an evangelical conviction in Anthropocentric Global Warming of the Met offices boss and his hiring policy.

Lots of shorthand terms are bandied about. “Global warming”, “Climate change”, etc.

So lets examine the facts. Climate Change is an incontrovertible fact. There is overwhelming evidence accrued over years and over recorded history to back it up.

At various times the earth has lazed under balmy tropical temperatures over much of it’s surface, at others ice has covered vastly more of it’s surface than it does today. There is evidence that the climate has swung from warm to cold and back again countless times.

It did so before mankind existed and could not possibly have influenced it. It has continued to do so since he walked the earth, again before mankind could conceivably had any impact on it.

So then, climate change incontrovertibly exists - and would still exist if mankind had never existed, it will continue if we were to cease to exist.

What causes it? Well probably a complicated mix of many things. How far the earth is from the sun, cloud cover, the arrangements of the continents, sunspot activity, volcanic activity, how much dust and particulate matter is in the atmosphere to list a few.

Even Mars apparently undergoes variations, these must surely be entirely natural. It is difficult to imagine one or two solar powered rovers having much impact on climate.

It is questionable that we and so-called climate scientists have the definitive answer to all the causes of climate change and how they interact. To be honest I suspect if they are honest they are still trying to work it out.

Now currently all the evidence suggests we are in the middle of a series of coolings and warmings that fluctuate over millennia, with smaller fluctuations, or beats within the larger ones.

Most of recorded history happens to have taken place within a period of warming where the ice sheets retreated and vast amounts water, locked up in ice sheets on the land melted and the sea levels varied as water was added to them and some parts of the earth that had been squashed down under the weight of miles of ice rebounded and rose and surrounding areas that had been pushed up correspondingly sank.

One suspects we have been able to advance and support increasing numbers at least partly because warming of the climate has helped us survive and prosper.

So global warming? Yes that too must exist along with global cooling and the current warming has been going on since before the start of recorded history.

35,000 years ago, not so long in the grand scheme of things, There was ice sheet just north of where London is now. To the south tundra with caribou. There was no north sea or channel.

The ice began to melt, things began to get warmer. If that hadn’t happened then right now, where I am just now you could probably see a wall of ice.

This was not influenced by Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal four wheeled drive vehicles, or by the methane emitted by cows that went into their burger chains. Maybe planes full of teeming bison, caribou, wooly rhinoceros and mammoths are just as windy…

The logic is inescapable global warming can and does happen absolutely independent of the influence of mankind.

Left to it’s own devices it is overwhelmingly likely that some time in the next few thousand years things would have all changed round and started to get colder again.

The earth has seen much colder climate than it is now, but it has also seen much warmer, even in recorded history.

There have been little fluctuations over the last few thousand years that made things more or less comfortable for humans.

Most recently there was what is known as “The little ice age” a cooler period where the river Thames in London froze regularly enough for there to be annual ice fares held on it. When we regularly had snow.

Before that, around 1,000 years ago, there was what is known as “the little climatic optimum”, when the climate in Greenland was relatively balmy and vineyards did well in England.

So the real question is have our actions had any effect on top of all that? Over and above the large natural fluctuations that are incontrovertibly continuously taking place even now.

Can we really definitively spot anything we may have done to influence the climate amongst the complicated backdrop of what we know must be naturally varying the climate? Do we really know enough to be able to?

It seems we can’t really fully understand the natural mechanisms yet so we are left trying to spot trends in statistics and trying to work out if they correlate in any way and if any do is it direct or indirect. One suspects there is a lot of interpretation involved.

It is interesting to note even the UK’s Met Office, prominent proponents of the theory of manmade global warming doesn’t seem to be bale to get it right, having apparently got their long range forecasts wrong for the past decade by it seems inflating expected temperatures in line with theory and being consistently disappointed.

One thing that concerns me, as (I like to think) a reasonably educated and informed and logical layman are the instances of mistakes, exaggerations and possibly outright fraud in the so-called science of man made global warming. From sea level ‘adjustments’, to models that produce a hockey stick, no matter what data is input, to the scandal of the recently leaked emails.

Speaking of which it has now come out that Professor Phil Jones’ Climatic Research Unit according to the Deputy Information Commissioner Graham Smith committed offences from 2007 to 2008 under section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act in that they intentionally prevented the disclosure of requested information.

They have apparently only avoided prosecution because of the way the statute of limitations on the offences are being generously interpreted.

There is also now an independent review chaired by Sir Muir Russell attempting to establish if there is evidence that data was manipulated or suppressed in a way which was "at odds with acceptable scientific practice".

These are cutting edge so-called climate scientists of world renown who have committed offences by concealing or destroying data that they feel might me ‘misleading’ and who are apparently essentially suspected by the authorities of fiddling their results.
These same results are certainly still being used to bolster warmist claims/predictions.

Then there is the sheer vitriol, name calling and reflexive denigration heaped by all ‘believers’ (including the PM recently) on anyone who remotely seems to question the warmist agenda or theory. I don’t trust it.

That to me reeks of the rage and offence taken by a true believer when their deeply held religious or political beliefs are challenged.

It is my experience that the word of such people is not particularly reliable. There is a danger that their deeply held beliefs may make it seem ok to basically lie to bolster their case, especially if they are convinced they are right anyway.

The data in the IPCC reports is now revealed to be of extremely dubious merit, especially concerning dodgy claims of the rate of deglaciation. So dubious that scientists are daring to complain about a lack of proper peer review.

If these claims and it seems others as well are not to be trusted then just how much else that comes out of the IPCC can be?

So for myself I find myself in the position of being unable to trust the so-called data, those ‘climate scientists’ who earn a good living out of the theory and the politicians who find it such a good excuse to raise taxes and enact progressively draconian laws. I am also equally unsure of the motives of many deniers. I am left in a position of not knowing what to believe either way on the anthropocentric theory.

These are many of the same politicians who brought us WMD and the 45 minute deployment claim. It could be those claims were over egged too.

Of course the argument will probably be settled in 25 years time. Either the warmist predictions will have come to pass or not. If they are still arguing by then with nothing definitive to show then the theory is probably wrong in some way. I still wonder exactly what is responsible for the cycle of ice ages.

So meanwhile what to do?

Well it seems to me that we do need energy self sufficiency and it is desirable to avoid air pollution. We don’t want to be breathing smog, chemicals, particulate matter. It might also be good to avoid deforestation and the loss of species and complex habitat involved.

So in some respect it would seem to be desirable to proceed with developing green power generation and energy self sufficiency regardless of the accuracy of the theory of manmade global warming or not. I do feel strongly it would be very desirable to avoid crippling our economies with prohibitive taxes and red tape while doing it , especially after the recession has focussed our minds.

Maybe better if done with logic and honesty, without the largely unnecessary argument and without the quasi-religious zeal and vitriol. Done efficiently and cheaply. There could be manufacturing and employment benefits too.

Clearly the existing wind technology is not nearly as effective as is generally advertised by the warmist camp as it can only harvest energy when the wind actually blows and then only in proportion to how much it blows. It occurs to me that if it was used to pump water up a column or compress air it could at least be used to store energy from a windy day until it was needed.

Tidal energy is ever present unfailing and surrounds us. It would seem a far more reliable bet Unfortunately the energy harvesting technology seems much less developed and effective.

Finally there is the nuclear option. Personally I believe this can fill the looming energy gap, exacerbated by green Luddite resistance to the construction of new power stations, particularly nuclear. More effectively and efficiently and much sooner than anything else.

Currently the entire volume of high level nuclear waste from the entire life time energy use of a single individual takes up a lump of matter about the size of a household roll of duct tape.

The merits, benefits and dis-benefits of nuclear energy are material for another entire post.

I told you so

I don't generally crow about "I'told you sos", but it seems the UK has just had the coldest December in 30 years. Now it is January and the Met Office are now predicting yet more snow and sub-zero temperatures. More Severe Weather warnings have been issued.

This is a world away from from the mild winter predicted earlier.

One suspects the sharp contrast between the long term forecasts and the actual weather we get may be driven by more a tendancy to slant long term forecasts towards the warmest possible outcome, based on a conviction of the reality of global warming and maybe a problem with connecting possible climate change with actual climate.

Alarmist predictions of 5 foot rise in sea level

According to a report from a UK/Finnish group sea levels could rise by up to almost 5 ft (4 ft 11 ½ inches) by the end of the century.

But ‘up to’ clearly includes any figure below that, including no discernable difference at all.

Apparently the team has built a computer model that can reflect the relationship between temperatures and sea level over the past 2000 years.

For the model’s predictions outside normal parameters to work it has to be accurate outside the parameters. It is simply not possible to test it against reality without data and many a model that accurately reflects relatively chaotic behaviour within certain bounds fails singularly when taken outside them.

It is an fact that global temperatures were significantly higher than current levels, between the 9th and 14th centuries. A period of some 500 years when temperatures were warmer than those today, what does the model say about sea level and ice cover during that period?

There is also the fact that the data on temperature predictions fed into such a model has to be accurate for it to be accurate. GIGO as they say.

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 was statistically the same as 2006 and 2005 and every year since 2001. Unless the IPCC does a Robert Mugabe on the figures ‘global warming’ appears to have, for the moment at least, halted .

What happens next is anybody's guess - and that’s really what it is, a guess.

It could warm up to something more like it was back in the middle ages, it could remain stable, conceivably it could drop. Whatever happens it will sooner or later change, one way or the other.

That’s what climate does - and has done since long before humans learned to harness fire.

Maybe politicians on the AGW bandwagon should think twice about bio fuels and punitive taxes before they cause a crisis of their own, a food crisis.

Mind that’s no reason not to cut pollution, or build nuclear power stations, or develop compressed air or hydrogen powered transport. That makes sense anyway.

Global warming could produce sudden climate shifts later, rather than gradual evidence sooner

It seems that ‘climate scientists’ are now suggesting that ‘global warming’ may result in sudden climate shifts later in the century, rather than in a gradual process.

This would account for any problems in actually detecting, or measuring, a clear, real, obvious, linear change in climatic conditions and puts off the prospect of having to accept that their absence may put the theory into question - until long after the current passengers on the climatic gravy train have well and truly left the platform..

What will happen if the mothership never turns up? Right or wrong, it all has a worrying hint of a millennial religious belief.

New Labour's Benn Barking up wrong tree

Nu-Lab’s Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, son of Anthony starey eyed Wedgewood Benn is planning to put forward what he describes as a ‘tougher, more effective and more transparent bill to help tackle climate change’.

There is much talk of various environ-mentalist measures that will probably do the economy no good and will probably involve stealth taxes.

Yet again Nu-Lab unerringly gallop off in the direction of controls, regulation, social engineering and punitive taxation.

Assuming that climate change is in fact down to Manmade CO2 rather than say variation in solar output. If the Governemnet are really serious about reducing CO2 emissions then they should be encouraging the building of new generation nuclear power plants. It is estimated that, in total in 2003, the UK produced 786 million tonnes of carbon emissions.

If all of the UK’s power needs were taken care of by nuclear, wind, tide, etc. then this could be reduced to close to nothing

In the future we should be looking to encourage the development of technologies that can power cars and air travel with hydrogen.

But touching on the subject of things nuclear – Remember the threat of the nuclear winter? Or the depression of global temperatures, as a result of major volcanic events?

Just a thought, but if climate change is indeed a threat, down to CO2 or not, maybe someone should be looking into the possibility of duplicating the effect of a nuclear winter on a non toxic controllable scale?

BBC pulls plug on ‘Planet Relief’ climate change TV special

The BBC have thankfully decided to abandon plans for a ‘Planet Relief’ climate change TV special. It was supposed to be an environmental equivalent to Live8.

The most likely reason it has been pulled is that viewers, both in the UK and abroad, seem to be taking a sharp dislike being lectured to and preached at by holier than though TV personalities. That is now thought to be the primary reason that July's Live Earth concert ratings ‘bombed’.

Climate activists such as Mark Lynas predictably attacked the decision. He said, "This decision shows a real poverty of understanding among senior BBC executives about the gravity of the situation we face,", thus demonstrating a certain puritanical poverty of understanding on his own part about viewing figures.

Audiences are not keen on being preached at by ‘believers’. They apparently prefer a documentary format, that at least pays lip service to the idea of scientific accuracy and objectivity.

One of the gimmicks the Planet Relief promoters were planning was to try to organise viewers to take part in a short mass ‘switch-off’ of electrical equipment, so they could say how much carbon had been saved.

It seems, if they had, then the item of electrical equipment most likely to have been switched off would have been the TV…

BBC Pushes Anthropocentric Global Warming Theory

The self admittedly politically biased BBC is pushing the anthropocentric global warming theory again, with the built in assumption that it is a done deal. Even cold weather in the summer seems to be “evidence”.

Louise Batchelor of BBC Scotland said:

“only a handful of scientists now doubt that we're seeing a long-term trend and that humans are responsible for Earth's increased atmospheric temperatures.”

It is questionable if a string of cold years could shake the faith of this new religion's adherents now.