U.N. About Climate Change: World Must Take 'Unprecedented' Steps To Avert Worst Effects

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

On 10/8/2018 at 3:58 PM, CMOP said:

Call me pessimist. But I don't see this turning around any time soon. 
1. Big Business and Government really don't care. 

2. People don't care. - You can do all the facebook videos and posts - people have a memory of a goldfish nowadays. 

It's unfortunate. 

Vote with your money, then big business will care.

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

On 10/8/2018 at 9:21 PM, Epic said:

As evidence, I give you this:

https://www.270towin.com/2016-election-forecast-predictions/

Every single poll said Clinton would be the clear and unquestionable winner, with the poll that had the most 'certainty' giving Clinton a 323 to 197 victory.  

 

Clinton got 48% trump got 46%. Clinton  clearly and unquestionably won the popular vote.

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

On 10/11/2018 at 9:39 AM, Texas Energy Trader said:

The Oil & Gas Industry averted a planet wide ELE, Extinction Level Event, by reversing the trend towards the

death of the planet at 150 PPM!!!

We are NOW in a #ClimateChangeCoolDown event!!

We have a NEW Hockey Stick........revealed by a whooping 40% Increase in the Greenland Ice Mass Balance last year.

Sirs, Global Warming Died in 2012, or 2016, depending on which graph you use.

Thank you, #NatGas to the rescue!!!

Dallas

People just aren't going to believe your lies anymore.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

So I assume that you admit the world is warming but don't want to admit that it is our own fault, specifically the fault of those that lied and stopped climate action from occurring 30 years ago. 

No, that is not what I said or meant.  

Please note my general position:

In a nutshell, I tend to think that the global climate is changing, as it regularly does over the years / millenia.

However, I have little confidence that the current changes are directly caused by humans.

 

1 hour ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

Ya but we are making sure that people stop listening to liars.

Calling me a liar doesn't exactly bolster your case.  You made me laugh, though : )

 

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

Yet you don't even try to refute my arguments so you are either just causing trouble for fun or are in it for financial gain. Either way you are deceiving people and reinforcing those who are harming the public for profit. So, I say again your "skeptical" comments are lies that you cannot believe. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

13 minutes ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

Yet you don't even try to refute my arguments so you are either just causing trouble for fun or are in it for financial gain. Either way you are deceiving people and reinforcing those who are harming the public for profit. So, I say again your "skeptical" comments are lies that you cannot believe. 

Nope, wrong on all counts.

Just a reminder, slander is generally a poor tactic.

I have a long history as a Freedom of Speech activist, and have gotten into quite a bit of trouble over the years for refusing to agree to ideas which I do not agree with.

Clearly, you are passionate about the issue of climate change.

Go ahead, knock yourself out, by all means go for it and try to convince others of your views.

Please don't tell me what to think or how to think.

So far, all you have accomplished in your multiple comments above is to get me to laugh at your intolerance of differing viewpoints.

I remain skeptical.

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

1 hour ago, Tom Kirkman said:

No, that is not what I said or meant.  

Please note my general position:

In a nutshell, I tend to think that the global climate is changing, as it regularly does over the years / millenia.

However, I have little confidence that the current changes are directly caused by humans.

 

Calling me a liar doesn't exactly bolster your case.  You made me laugh, though : )

 

 

1 hour ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Nope, wrong on all counts.

Just a reminder, slander is generally a poor tactic.

I have a long history as a Freedom of Speech activist, and have gotten into quite a bit of trouble over the years for refusing to agree to ideas which I do not agree with.

Clearly, you are passionate about the issue of climate change.

Go ahead, knock yourself out, by all means go for it and try to convince others of your views.

Please don't tell me what to think or how to think.

So far, all you have accomplished in your multiple comments above is to get me to laugh at your intolerance of differing viewpoints.

I remain skeptical.

Wrong, it is not "viewpoints" I argue but facts. You have not even acknowledged my actual arguments. So either debate my points or I will keep calling you out as  liar.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

23 minutes ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

Wrong, it is not "viewpoints" I argue but facts.

You have not even acknowledged my actual arguments.

So either debate my points or I will keep calling you out as  liar.

1) What facts have you presented so far?

2) Actually I have acknowledged your comments, albeit in an indirect way.  I keep giving you rope and you keep taking it.

Since you are the one positing that climate change is directly caused by humans, the onus is on you to prove your case.

Kindly take note that I cannot prove a negative.  The ball remains in your court to prove a positive.

Also kindly note that skepticism is not the same as denial.

I had endless discussions on this topic several years ago on the now defunct Oilpro forum.  And I remain skeptical till today.

3) Time for me to pull out the handy dandy reminder in my Oil Price profile, which I conveniently wrote as a generic, general purpose piece of advice back when this forum only had a few hundred members:

=========================

*** Important !   I do *not* expect others to agree with my opinions.  I tend to have rather unusual opinions about international Oil & Gas.  I *do* hope that readers will fearlessly voice their own views about international oil & gas.

As a former moderator on the Oilpro forum, (and now a moderator here on the Oil Price Community forum) I *encourage* dissent, and *encourage* Freedom of Speech, and *encourage* others to freely voice their views and convictions about oil & gas. 

A diversity of global views is what makes the world a special place.  Conformity is just a slow, painful death of not speaking your mind.  So SPEAK UP.  Please don't be a jerk about about it, though.  If you want others to consider your views, please be willing to consider the views of others.

 

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

Since you are intent on ignoring my initial response to your challenge I will repost:

OK I'll take you up on this. I let you wear me down with your unsupported nonsense before but this is important enough to dispute on record because I have children that have to live in this world after me. Your false beliefs are a threat can no longer be tolerated.

To begin with the 97% is accurate when ACTUAL CLIMATE SCIENTISTS are polled as has been done multiple times. The 31000 ( the number keeps mysteriously changing) from the petition include less than 1% climate scientists and are mostly made up of people with little or no research background theonly requirement being a Bachelor. This is verifiable by looking up the names on the petition. Many articles exist of the results of doing so.

So I assume that you admit the world is warming but don't want to admit that it is our own fault, specifically the fault of those that lied and stopped climate action from occurring 30 years ago.

The biggest single piece of evidence is the question: Where is the energy coming from if not the insulating properties of CO2 we have added to the atmosphere?

Roughly 1.2 x 10^22 joules are added to the oceans every year.

The Earth is not heating from the inside. That would be reflected in ground temperature data and it is not.

The Earth is not being heated from the outside. Total solar irradiance is down about 0.1% due to low solar activity.

That leaves something happening in the atmosphere or on the surface.

Some examples:

1 Megaton nuclear weapon - 4.8x10^15 joules I think we would notice a few thousand of these going off every year.

2004 Indonesia Earthquake - 1.1x10^17 joules, funny, I don't remember many of these.

Tambora 1815 Volcano Eruption - 1.4x10^20 joules, getting closer but again I think we would notice a hundred of these

The kind of natural causes that could add 1.2x10^22 joules of heat PER YEAR would have to be larger than the largest natural catastrophic events we have witnessed. Unless you have an alternative explanation of where this much energy is coming from besides extra insulation from CO2 we have added. IT IS DEFINITIVELY US.

 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

You have simply copy & pasted one of your earlier comments.

Meantime, here is something for you to consider:

"One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy.  Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world's wealth."

- Ottmar Edenhofer, IPCC  (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

As I stated I would and you still have not addressed the points for. So before you try to change the subject again, do you have a response or are you a bought and paid for liar.

[DanilKa + 443]

love free stuff! Couldn't have enough of it growing up in Soviet Union. So that you have to take a number and spent hours queuing for anything:)

love these examples of magical thinking, @Tom Kirkman

Wondering what would happen to cost of copper and all other goodies used to make free solar. Or how much backup load would be required in an unlikely event sun will ever go down

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

As I stated I would and you still have not addressed the points for. So before you try to change the subject again, do you have a response or are you a bought and paid for liar.

Accusing me of being a "bought and paid for liar."   Really?  You are not helping yourself here.

Here is a response to your so-called "fact" about the 97% of scientists agree hohum.  From Forbes, which is Mainstream Media, so you as an apparent True Believer in MSM will be hard pressed to dispute this.

I'm going to quote a large chunk of the Forbes article, for lurkers who are too lazy to click on the link (the link has some explanatory graphics).  Please pay attention to the end section:

'97% Of Climate Scientists Agree' Is 100% Wrong

If you’ve ever expressed the least bit of skepticism about environmentalist calls for making the vast majority of fossil fuel use illegal, you’ve probably heard the smug response: “97% of climate scientists agree with climate change” — which always carries the implication: Who are you to challenge them?

The answer is: you are a thinking, independent individual–and you don’t go by polls, let alone second-hand accounts of polls; you go by facts, logic and explanation.

Here are two questions to ask anyone who pulls the 97% trick.

1. What exactly do the climate scientists agree on?

Usually, the person will have a very vague answer like “climate change is real.”

Which raises the question: What is that supposed to mean? That climate changes? That we have some impact? That we have a large impact? That we have a catastrophically large impact? That we have such a catastrophic impact that we shouldn’t use fossil fuels?

What you’ll find is that people don’t want to define what 97% agree on–because there is nothing remotely in the literature saying 97% agree we should ban most fossil fuel use.

It’s likely that 97% of people making the 97% claim have absolutely no idea where that number comes from.

If you look at the literature, the specific meaning of the 97% claim is: 97 percent of climate scientists agree that there is a global warming trend and that human beings are the main cause–that is, that we are over 50% responsible. The warming is a whopping 0.8 degrees over the past 150 years, a warming that has tapered off to essentially nothing in the last decade and a half.

Even if 97% of climate scientists agreed with this, and even if they were right, it in no way, shape, or form would imply that we should restrict fossil fuels–which are crucial to the livelihood of billions.

Because the actual 97% claim doesn’t even remotely justify their policies, catastrophists like President Obama and John Kerry take what we could generously call creative liberties in repeating this claim.

On his Twitter account, President Obama tweets: “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.” Not only does Obama sloppily equate “scientists” with “climate scientists,” but more importantly he added “dangerous” to the 97% claim, which is not there in the literature.

This is called the fallacy of equivocation: using the same term (“97 percent”) in two different ways to manipulate people.

John Kerry pulled the same stunt when trying to tell the underdeveloped world that it should use fewer fossil fuels:

And let there be no doubt in anybody’s mind that the science is absolutely certain. . . 97 percent of climate scientists have confirmed that climate change is happening and that human activity is responsible. . . . . they agree that, if we continue to go down the same path that we are going down today, the world as we know it will change—and it will change dramatically for the worse.

In Kerry’s mind, 97% of climate scientists said whatever Kerry wants them to have said.

Bottom line: What the 97% of climate scientists allegedly agree on is very mild and in no way justifies restricting the energy that billions need.

But it gets even worse. Because it turns out that 97% didn’t even say that.

Which brings us to the next question:

2. How do we know the 97% agree?

To elaborate, how was that proven?

Almost no one who refers to the 97% has any idea, but the basic way it works is that a researcher reviews a lot of scholarly papers and classifies them by how many agree with a certain position.

Unfortunately, in the case of 97% of climate scientists agreeing that human beings are the main cause of warming, the researchers have engaged in egregious misconduct.

One of the main papers behind the 97 percent claim is authored by John Cook, who runs the popular website SkepticalScience.com, a virtual encyclopedia of arguments trying to defend predictions of catastrophic climate change from all challenges.

Here is Cook’s summary of his paper: “Cook et al. (2013) found that over 97 percent [of papers he surveyed] endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.”

This is a fairly clear statement—97 percent of the papers surveyed endorsed the view that man-made greenhouse gases were the main cause—main in common usage meaning more than 50 percent.

But even a quick scan of the paper reveals that this is not the case. Cook is able to demonstrate only that a relative handful endorse “the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.” Cook calls this “explicit endorsement with quantification” (quantification meaning 50 percent or more). The problem is, only a small percentage of the papers fall into this category; Cook does not say what percentage, but when the study was publicly challenged by economist David Friedman, one observer calculated that only 1.6 percent explicitly stated that man-made greenhouse gases caused at least 50 percent of global warming.

Where did most of the 97 percent come from, then? Cook had created a category called “explicit endorsement without quantification”—that is, papers in which the author, by Cook’s admission, did not say whether 1 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent of the warming was caused by man. He had also created a category called “implicit endorsement,” for papers that imply (but don’t say) that there is some man-made global warming and don’t quantify it. In other words, he created two categories that he labeled as endorsing a view that they most certainly didn’t.

The 97 percent claim is a deliberate misrepresentation designed to intimidate the public—and numerous scientists whose papers were classified by Cook protested:

“Cook survey included 10 of my 122 eligible papers. 5/10 were rated incorrectly. 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral.”

—Dr. Richard Tol

“That is not an accurate representation of my paper . . .”

—Dr. Craig Idso

“Nope . . . it is not an accurate representation.”

—Dr. Nir Shaviv

“Cook et al. (2013) is based on a strawman argument . . .”

—Dr. Nicola Scafetta

Think about how many times you hear that 97 percent or some similar figure thrown around. It’s based on crude manipulation propagated by people whose ideological agenda it serves. It is a license to intimidate.

It’s time to revoke that license.

[Simon Welch + 1]

So despite measurable proof that the North Pole has shifted hundreds of miles the drivel continues. Some Florida airports have renamed runways ... earth is an oblate spheroid so its' worse as you get to the equator. Despite this, a liberal Welshman with zero common sense has his usual trash published and I would expect Oiprice to know better. Agenda 21 is alive and thriving. Like the democrats in CA, it really is possible to have it all and screw it all up. What is wrong with you people? When are we going to stop funding the UN? That is long overdue.

[Epic + 390]

11 hours ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

Clinton got 48% trump got 46%. Clinton  clearly and unquestionably won the popular vote.

First, I think you have failed to realize that the United States of America is not a democracy...it is a Republic.  My advice to you in this area would be to spend a bit more time on history.  Start with the Pledge of Allegiance.  The first line should be clear enough.

Second, in the 48%, you are including all of the votes cast by illegal immigrants and dead people.  Use logic: why do they ID someone who buys cough syrup but not when that person votes?  

 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

7 minutes ago, Epic said:

First, I think you have failed to realize that the United States of America is not a democracy...it is a Republic.  My advice to you in this area would be to spend a bit more time on history.  Start with the Pledge of Allegiance.  The first line should be clear enough.

Second, in the 48%, you are including all of the votes cast by illegal immigrants and dead people.  Use logic: why do they ID someone who buys cough syrup but not when that person votes?  

 

Do we really need to re-hash how the Electoral College process keeps at least most of the crazies out of contention?  I hope not.  Until then, we can discuss why the popular vote might not always be a good idea.

Kim Jong Un wins 100% of popular vote

Posted on 10 March 2014

 

Puts other democratically elected leaders in Asia to shame

North Korea’s supremely overweight leader was re-elected to the supreme people’s assembly without a single dissenting vote in his district this week. Voters had two options on their ballot – to say Yes, or No – to another five years of rule by the kingdom’s most eligible bachelor. Despite there being no other candidate on the roster, voter turnout was at a 100%.

“North Korea has become an unprecedented example of how Asian democracy works,” said self-styled political pundit Eric de Yaya.

“There was no vote buying used, nor was there massive American-style wastage of time and resources during the campaign period. People voted for continued stability and the status quo – Kim Jong Il single handedly prevented a hurricane from destroying the country. No one else has such a proven track record.”

The victory of the young Kim Jong Un has put many of Asia’s leaders to shame. No other leader has won by a landslide 100% before and election watchers in Malaysia and Indonesia frequently report cases of vote buying in rural villages.

“Singapore should learn from North Korea. Why waste money on election sweeteners when you can intimidate your voters into acquiescence. If economic growth and stability is the end game for Asian democracies, trying to convince voters to take their bitter medicine – that is western style freedoms are only detrimental to the country’s overall standard of living – is futile.”

[Epic + 390]

1 hour ago, Simon Welch said:

When are we going to stop funding the UN?

We will stop funding the UN when our politicians stop taking bribes for supporting the UN.  

In other words: never.  If the UN is dissolved, something else will arise to take its place, and the funding will go there.  It is the nature of a politician to be corrupt.  The only way to counter such a nature is through an education system that raises its people to promote selfless sacrifice for the good of one's nation.  In the past, this was called patriotism.  However, the American educational system has become corrupted, and so patriotism is now banned in America. 

It was not always this way.  There was once a time when Americans would rather die than allow their Colors to touch the ground.  Now, it has somehow become acceptable for Americans to kneel during the national anthem and for the flag to be desecrated on American soil without consequence.  

How far we have fallen...

[Robert Ziegler + 121]

On 10/8/2018 at 7:43 AM, jpZelabal said:

I feel so sorry for all the children who will inherit our damaged planet. Human greed and willful ignorance.

If you want to feel sorry, feel sorry for all the debt that the hysterical-hedonistic babyboomers offload on the next, abortion-culled and drug-weakened, often fatherless generation, while enjoying completely undeserved, debt-financed "pensions". If anything, this the-sky-is-falling climate craze has made real environmental protection impossible to even discuss, and also dramatically reduced or eliminated prior funding for real environmental protection measures, like forrest conservation (nowadays, they even get burned as "renewables" in former coal plants in the UK), sewage treatment, clean drinking water systems and correct waste avoidance, collection and treatment, things that previously  were seen as core of  "civilization". 

And a little over 100 years ago, very wise geophysicists have stated that only the rapid oxidization to CO2 of all the world's preserved organic matter from better times in the earth's history, where there was an abundance of plant and animal life - what is commonly called "fossil fuels" today - could delay, or maybe even avert, the overdue onset of the next ice age, the recurring scourge of our cold and barren Quaternary period. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

7 hours ago, Simon Welch said:

What is wrong with you people?

Hmmmm, perhaps it's just too much uncritical belief in "scientific" authorities?  Or believing everything one reads?

 

[Dennis Coyne + 82]

On ‎10‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 7:38 PM, Cowpoke said:

Holes in them there data sets:

BOMBSHELL: audit of global warming data finds it riddled with errors

Main points:

• The Hadley data is one of the most cited, most important databases for climate modeling, and thus for policies involving billions of dollars.
• McLean found freakishly improbable data, and systematic adjustment errors , large gaps where there is no data, location errors, Fahrenheit temperatures reported as Celsius, and spelling errors.
• Almost no quality control checks have been done: outliers that are obvious mistakes have not been corrected – one town in Columbia spent three months in 1978 at an average daily temperature of over 80 degrees C.  One town in Romania stepped out from summer in 1953 straight into a month of Spring at minus 46°C. These are supposedly “average” temperatures for a full month at a time. St Kitts, a Caribbean island, was recorded at 0°C for a whole month, and twice!
• Temperatures for the entire Southern Hemisphere in 1850 and for the next three years are calculated from just one site in Indonesia and some random ships.
• Sea surface temperatures represent 70% of the Earth’s surface, but some measurements come from ships which are logged at locations 100km inland. Others are in harbors which are hardly representative of the open ocean.
• When a thermometer is relocated to a new site, the adjustment assumes that the old site was always built up and “heated” by concrete and buildings. In reality, the artificial warming probably crept in slowly. By correcting for buildings that likely didn’t exist in 1880, old records are artificially cooled. Adjustments for a few site changes can create a whole century of artificial warming trends.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/11/bombshell-audit-of-global-warming-data-finds-it-riddled-with-errors/

There are several data sets, the one you mention, Berkeley Earth, GISS, NOAA, they all give very similar overall average temperature.

Also note that many Climate Skeptics go on and on about how <I>models</I> cannot be trusted.  The data set they prefer (based on satellite data) relies extensively on models to construct temperature readings from satellite data, maybe models can only be trusted if you like the result.

The peer reviewed literature has several different data sets for Global temperature with very similar results.  Below I compare Berkeley Earth Data with RSS Satellite data.

http://berkeleyearth.org/land-and-ocean-data/

http://www.remss.com/research/climate/

The trend is the same from 1979 to 2017, the two data sets use different baselines for zero temperature anomaly (1951-1980 for Berkeley and 1979 to 1999 for RSS) which leads to a 0.26 C difference in the average temperature over the 1979 to 2017 period (0.006 C vs 0.266 C average Temperature for the two data sets from Jan 1979 to August 2017.

[Dennis Coyne + 82]

1 hour ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Hmmmm, perhaps it's just too much uncritical belief in "scientific" authorities?  Or believing everything one reads?

 

Looks like peer reviewed science to me. /sarc off

[Dennis Coyne + 82]

4 hours ago, Robert Ziegler said:

If you want to feel sorry, feel sorry for all the debt that the hysterical-hedonistic babyboomers offload on the next, abortion-culled and drug-weakened, often fatherless generation, while enjoying completely undeserved, debt-financed "pensions". If anything, this the-sky-is-falling climate craze has made real environmental protection impossible to even discuss, and also dramatically reduced or eliminated prior funding for real environmental protection measures, like forrest conservation (nowadays, they even get burned as "renewables" in former coal plants in the UK), sewage treatment, clean drinking water systems and correct waste avoidance, collection and treatment, things that previously  were seen as core of  "civilization". 

And a little over 100 years ago, very wise geophysicists have stated that only the rapid oxidization to CO2 of all the world's preserved organic matter from better times in the earth's history, where there was an abundance of plant and animal life - what is commonly called "fossil fuels" today - could delay, or maybe even avert, the overdue onset of the next ice age, the recurring scourge of our cold and barren Quaternary period. 

Robert,

We have learned a little since 100 years ago.  Current science expects the next ice age in 100,000 years (possibly longer as net carbon is removed quite slowly from the atmosphere), note that the formation of fossil fuel takes millions of years, so perhaps we should save some for the next ice age in 100,000 to 200,000 years.  Just look at ice core data to see how long it took for atmospheric CO2 to fall from 280 to 180 ppm (typically about 70,000 years during the glacial interglacials of the last 800,000 years), so assume we stop at 450 ppm, if we get the 6.5% rate of decline every 10,000 years that was seen during the interglacial to glacial transition, we would need 140,000 years for atmospheric CO2 to fall to 175 ppm where we might be at risk of a major glaciation.  This is not a near term problem.

[Dennis Coyne + 82]

16 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Accusing me of being a "bought and paid for liar."   Really?  You are not helping yourself here.

Here is a response to your so-called "fact" about the 97% of scientists agree hohum.  From Forbes, which is Mainstream Media, so you as an apparent True Believer in MSM will be hard pressed to dispute this.

I'm going to quote a large chunk of the Forbes article, for lurkers who are too lazy to click on the link (the link has some explanatory graphics).  Please pay attention to the end section:

'97% Of Climate Scientists Agree' Is 100% Wrong

If you’ve ever expressed the least bit of skepticism about environmentalist calls for making the vast majority of fossil fuel use illegal, you’ve probably heard the smug response: “97% of climate scientists agree with climate change” — which always carries the implication: Who are you to challenge them?

The answer is: you are a thinking, independent individual–and you don’t go by polls, let alone second-hand accounts of polls; you go by facts, logic and explanation.

Here are two questions to ask anyone who pulls the 97% trick.

1. What exactly do the climate scientists agree on?

Usually, the person will have a very vague answer like “climate change is real.”

Which raises the question: What is that supposed to mean? That climate changes? That we have some impact? That we have a large impact? That we have a catastrophically large impact? That we have such a catastrophic impact that we shouldn’t use fossil fuels?

What you’ll find is that people don’t want to define what 97% agree on–because there is nothing remotely in the literature saying 97% agree we should ban most fossil fuel use.

It’s likely that 97% of people making the 97% claim have absolutely no idea where that number comes from.

If you look at the literature, the specific meaning of the 97% claim is: 97 percent of climate scientists agree that there is a global warming trend and that human beings are the main cause–that is, that we are over 50% responsible. The warming is a whopping 0.8 degrees over the past 150 years, a warming that has tapered off to essentially nothing in the last decade and a half.

Even if 97% of climate scientists agreed with this, and even if they were right, it in no way, shape, or form would imply that we should restrict fossil fuels–which are crucial to the livelihood of billions.

Because the actual 97% claim doesn’t even remotely justify their policies, catastrophists like President Obama and John Kerry take what we could generously call creative liberties in repeating this claim.

On his Twitter account, President Obama tweets: “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.” Not only does Obama sloppily equate “scientists” with “climate scientists,” but more importantly he added “dangerous” to the 97% claim, which is not there in the literature.

This is called the fallacy of equivocation: using the same term (“97 percent”) in two different ways to manipulate people.

John Kerry pulled the same stunt when trying to tell the underdeveloped world that it should use fewer fossil fuels:

And let there be no doubt in anybody’s mind that the science is absolutely certain. . . 97 percent of climate scientists have confirmed that climate change is happening and that human activity is responsible. . . . . they agree that, if we continue to go down the same path that we are going down today, the world as we know it will change—and it will change dramatically for the worse.

In Kerry’s mind, 97% of climate scientists said whatever Kerry wants them to have said.

Bottom line: What the 97% of climate scientists allegedly agree on is very mild and in no way justifies restricting the energy that billions need.

But it gets even worse. Because it turns out that 97% didn’t even say that.

Which brings us to the next question:

2. How do we know the 97% agree?

To elaborate, how was that proven?

Almost no one who refers to the 97% has any idea, but the basic way it works is that a researcher reviews a lot of scholarly papers and classifies them by how many agree with a certain position.

Unfortunately, in the case of 97% of climate scientists agreeing that human beings are the main cause of warming, the researchers have engaged in egregious misconduct.

One of the main papers behind the 97 percent claim is authored by John Cook, who runs the popular website SkepticalScience.com, a virtual encyclopedia of arguments trying to defend predictions of catastrophic climate change from all challenges.

Here is Cook’s summary of his paper: “Cook et al. (2013) found that over 97 percent [of papers he surveyed] endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.”

This is a fairly clear statement—97 percent of the papers surveyed endorsed the view that man-made greenhouse gases were the main cause—main in common usage meaning more than 50 percent.

But even a quick scan of the paper reveals that this is not the case. Cook is able to demonstrate only that a relative handful endorse “the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.” Cook calls this “explicit endorsement with quantification” (quantification meaning 50 percent or more). The problem is, only a small percentage of the papers fall into this category; Cook does not say what percentage, but when the study was publicly challenged by economist David Friedman, one observer calculated that only 1.6 percent explicitly stated that man-made greenhouse gases caused at least 50 percent of global warming.

Where did most of the 97 percent come from, then? Cook had created a category called “explicit endorsement without quantification”—that is, papers in which the author, by Cook’s admission, did not say whether 1 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent of the warming was caused by man. He had also created a category called “implicit endorsement,” for papers that imply (but don’t say) that there is some man-made global warming and don’t quantify it. In other words, he created two categories that he labeled as endorsing a view that they most certainly didn’t.

The 97 percent claim is a deliberate misrepresentation designed to intimidate the public—and numerous scientists whose papers were classified by Cook protested:

“Cook survey included 10 of my 122 eligible papers. 5/10 were rated incorrectly. 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral.”

—Dr. Richard Tol

“That is not an accurate representation of my paper . . .”

—Dr. Craig Idso

“Nope . . . it is not an accurate representation.”

—Dr. Nir Shaviv

“Cook et al. (2013) is based on a strawman argument . . .”

—Dr. Nicola Scafetta

Think about how many times you hear that 97 percent or some similar figure thrown around. It’s based on crude manipulation propagated by people whose ideological agenda it serves. It is a license to intimidate.

It’s time to revoke that license.

Tom,

Try reading some peer reviewed science, such as

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

Note that many in the mainstream media interpret the report incorrectly, read it yourself, start with FAQ or summary for policy makers, if you don't agree, go to the chapter cited for more detail or the extensive bibliography for the original peer reviewed papers.

Also note that what is written at Wattsup or Climate etc is not peer reviewed, just a blog like this where anything can be posted.  The piece you cite is an opinion piece by the author of the Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.  

Yes fossil fuels have coincided with an increase in prosperity, they are likely to peak, so we might as well work on alternatives.  Most climate scientists agree that carbon emissions and the natural feedbacks lead to increased warming of the atmosphere, roughly 3 C per doubling of atmospheric CO2 (560 ppm) and about 70,000 years for that level to fall back to 280 ppm (where it has been for about 5000 years through 1800 CE).  That is the science, though there is a great deal of uncertainty about the exact level of warming it might be 2 C a or it might be 4 C, the uncertainty is reason to be cautious.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Dennis Coyne

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

6 minutes ago, Dennis Coyne said:

Tom,

Try reading some peer reviewed science, such as

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

Note that many in the mainstream media interpret the report incorrectly, read it yourself, start with FAQ or summary for policy makers, if you don't agree, go to the chapter cited for more detail or the extensive bibliography for the original peer reviewed papers.

Also note that what is written at Wattsup or Climate etc is not peer reviewed, just a blog like this where anything can be posted.

Thanks for the link, Dennis.

I tend to push back sometimes when I see information misinterpreted.  For example, here's my longwinded 5 comment rant thread on LinkedIn this morning, calling out what I see as logical fallacies in news media reporting on Malaysia's oil & LNG exports:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6457740970917265408

 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Warning! Civilization at Risk, Crisis by 2040 (And Other Nonsensical Climate BS)

The amount of climate scaremongering in the past few weeks is stunning. And it's all pure bullshit.

Check out these headlines.

Wall Street Journal: U.N. Panel Warns Drastic Action Needed to Stave Off Climate Change

New York Times: Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040

 

The Intercept: FOSSIL FUELS ARE A THREAT TO CIVILIZATION, NEW U.N. REPORT CONCLUDES

Earther: We Have a Decade to Prevent a Total Climate Disaster

MarketWatch: Drastic action needed to prevent climate catastrophe, U.N. panel warns

Daily Caller: AL GORE: ‘WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME’ ON GLOBAL WARMING

Q&A

Q.What do all of those headline have in common?

A. They are all based on the same study. The study is riddled with huge numbers of blatant errors making the study for lack of better words, pure bullshit.

Riddled With Errors

Watts Up With That reports BOMBSHELL: audit of global warming data finds it riddled with errors

 

• Almost no quality control checks have been done: outliers that are obvious mistakes have not been corrected – one town in Columbia spent three months in 1978 at an average daily temperature of over 80 degrees C. One town in Romania stepped out from summer in 1953 straight into a month of Spring at minus 46°C. These are supposedly “average” temperatures for a full month at a time. St Kitts, a Caribbean island, was recorded at 0°C for a whole month, and twice!
• Sea surface temperatures represent 70% of the Earth’s surface, but some measurements come from ships which are logged at locations 100km inland. Others are in harbors which are hardly representative of the open ocean.
• The dataset starts in 1850 but for just over two years at the start of the record the only land-based data for the entire Southern Hemisphere came from a single observation station in Indonesia. At the end of five years just three stations reported data in that hemisphere. Global averages are calculated from the averages for each of the two hemispheres, so these few stations have a large influence on what’s supposedly “global”.
• According to the method of calculating coverage for the dataset, 50% global coverage wasn’t reached until 1906 and 50% of the Southern Hemisphere wasn’t reached until about 1950.
• In May 1861 global coverage was a mere 12% – that’s less than one-eighth. In much of the 1860s and 1870s most of the supposedly global coverage was from Europe and its trade sea routes and ports, covering only about 13% of the Earth’s surface. To calculate averages from this data and refer to them as “global averages” is stretching credulity.
• When a thermometer is relocated to a new site, the adjustment assumes that the old site was always built up and “heated” by concrete and buildings. In reality, the artificial warming probably crept in slowly. By correcting for buildings that likely didn’t exist in 1880, old records are artificially cooled. Adjustments for a few site changes can create a whole century of artificial warming trends.
• Data prior to 1950 suffers from poor coverage and very likely multiple incorrect adjustments of station data. Data since that year has better coverage but still has the problem of data adjustments and a host of other issues mentioned in the audit.
• Another implication is that the proposal that the Paris Climate Agreement adopt 1850-1899 averages as “indicative” of pre-industrial temperatures is fatally flawed. During that period global coverage is low – it averages 30% across that time – and many land-based temperatures are very likely to be excessively adjusted and therefore incorrect.

Complex Systems Reduced to Single Variable

...

• Cherry picking is always an issue. Thus, there has been a recent claim that Greenland ice discharge has increased, and that warming will make it worse. Omitted from the report is the finding by both NOAA and the Danish Meteorological Institute that the ice mass of Greenland has actually been increasing. In fact both these observations can be true, and, indeed, ice build-up pushes peripheral ice into the sea.
• Misrepresentation, exaggeration, cherry picking, or outright lying pretty much covers all the so-called evidence.

Lindzen's entire speech is much needed and worth reading. Simply because the IPCC names its process as science, does not make it science.