David Evans, greenhouse sceptic debates his views on Troppo

Science demands evidence. Evidence trumps theory, no matter what the political authority of those promoting the theory, even if they dress up in lab coats and have job titles that say “scientist”. The hotspot is missing and there is no evidence for AGW. The alarmists cannot ignore this and continue to play political games forever. They are entitled to argue the case for AGW, but they should also acknowledge the evidence and inform the political class that AGW appears to be wrong - even if it means risking their status and their jobs (and yes, we scientists are also people who have kids and mortgages).

There are two central lies in the political promotion of AGW.

The first appears in Gore’s movie. He gave the old ice core data as the sole reason for believing AGW (the rest of the movie presents evidence that global warming occurred, a separate issue). He said that increases in carbon caused increases in temperature in the past warming events. But Gore made his movie in 2005, two years after the new ice core data had established the opposite! Gore’s weasel words when he introduced that segment show he knew what he was about to say was false. Who would have believed his pitch if he added “and each temperature rise occurred 800 years before the corresponding rise in carbon that caused it”? [8]

The second lie is the hockey stick graph, which presented the last thousand years of global temperature as the flat handle of a hockey stick and the next hundred as the sharply rising blade [9]. The hockey stick graph was heavily promoted by the IPCC in 2001, and the IPCC even adopted it as its logo before it got discredited. It is significant because most non-scientist AGW supporters seem to believe some version of the hockey stick. When the IPCC “scientists” who produced the graph were asked to show their data for past temperatures, they refused (true scientists share data). But one of those scientists was a British academic and subject to the British Freedom of Information Act, and after two years of stonewalling all was revealed. It showed they had grossly skewed the data (even omitting inconvenient data to a folder labeled “Censored”), and that the computer program used to process the data had the hockey stick shape built into it - you could feed it stock market data instead of tree ring data and you would still get a hockey stick! In reality it was warmer in the Middle Ages than today, and there was a mini ice age around 1700 from which we have since been warming ever since. [10] Finally, the sharply rising blade of the hockey stick is contradicted so far by actual temperatures, which from 2001 to 2008 have been flat - something all of the climate models got wrong.

Among non-scientists, AGW appeals strongly to two groups. Those who support big government love the idea of carbon regulations - if you control carbon emissions then you control most human activity. And those who like to feel morally superior to the bulk of their fellow citizens by virtue of a belief (the “warm inner glow” and moral vanity of the politically correct) are firmly attached to AGW. These groups are politically adept, are planning to spend your money and tell you how to eat, travel and how to live, and they are strenuously avoiding the evidence.

The media has avoided presenting information that undermines AGW, until recently. Instead they promoted alarmism, and discredited sceptics as being in the pay of big oil - while giving a free pass to Gore, who made a movie based on an obvious lie then made millions selling carbon offsets. The media is very keen to present evidence that global warming is occurring, but have you noticed how quiet it is on evidence that carbon emissions caused it?

In 2007 almost no one in the west knew that the hotspot was missing, that there was no evidence for AGW, that temperatures had been flat for six years, that the hockey stick was a fraud, or that Al Gore lied when he gave the old ice core data as a reason for blaming carbon. But due to the Internet the public is gradually finding out anyway, which risks further discrediting many media outlets. Why buy a newspaper if it’s not going to tell you the actual news?

And as the public become generally aware, what politician is going to risk being so ideologically stupid as to unnecessarily wreck the economy by slashing carbon emissions? Hmmm, Kevin Rudd?

Editor's note: To read the rest of the debate and comments go to the original article at Club Troppo. Please note that this post was selected for the Best Blogs 2008 feature because of the discussion it generated, which the judges considered an interesting showcase of the blog form.

Endnotes

[1] The IPCC published several signatures in IPCC Assessment Report 4, 2007, Chapter 9, Figure 9.1, page 675: http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch09.pdf
[2] The US CCSP published the observed changes in atmospheric temperatures for 1979  1999 in part E of Figure 5.7 on page 116 in 2006: http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-chap5.pdf
[3] See http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf for links to debates, further commentary, and arguments from alarmist scientists.
[4] Callion’s 2003 paper is at http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf, and a colourful but informative and link-filled presentation is at http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/07/carbon-dioxide-and-temperatures-ice.html.
[5] The US has spent about $30b (http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/file-uploads/USGCRP-CCSP_Budget_History_Table_2.pdf) and other western countries combined have presumably spent about as much again. The UK will not release its sending figures. See also http://joannenova.com.au/2008/12/02/big-government-outspends-big-oil-1000-to-1.
[6] Look at the data from the four bodies that produce global temperature records. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but only goes back to 1979; satellites operate 24/7, measuring everywhere except the poles. Land based thermometer readings are corrupted by the urban heat island effect-and they show temperatures rising faster in areas with higher populations (see http://www.surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm and http://wattsupwiththat.com/test/).
1. Remote Sensing Systems in California. Uses only satellite data: www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe.html.
2. University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Uses only satellite data: www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/UAHMSUglobe.html.
3. The Hadley Centre in the UK uses a mix of satellite data and land-based thermometers: www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/HadCRUG.html.
4. The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at NASA uses land-based thermometers (plus a few ocean thermometers), but no satellite data: www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/GISSglobal.html.
[7] For many examples from an impeccable scientist in the trenches, see http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.3762.pdf.
[8] A British judge ruled that when Gore presented the ice core graphs of temperature and carbon in his movie, “the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts”. The nine errors found by the judge in Gore’s movie are summarized in the graphic at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23416151-details/Judge+attacks+nine+errors+in+Al+Gore%27s+%27alarmist%27+climate+change+film/article.do.
[9] The Australian Department of Climate Change still sports the hockey stick on its website in 2008: http://www.climatechange.gov.au/science/faq/question2.html. Hear from the scientist who uncovered the fraud: http://www.climatechangeissues.com/files/PDF/conf05mckitrick.pdf.
[10] What the combined mass of independent researchers say about the historical past in 2007 is in Figure 3 at http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm (the last blue downtick seems to be due to using 30 year averages with the last period ending in about 1975, the end of the last cooling).