Global Warming & The Madness of Crowds
One of the most interesting books I ever read was Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, written in 1841, and still in print because its message is timeless. Delusions documents a number of investment schemes that blew up, leaving thousands of investors penniless, and explores the dark side of centuries of witch-hunts. The world changes, but the ability of humans to be exploited does not.
It was Delusions that came to mind when I recently read Taken by Storm, the troubled science, policy and politics of global warming", by two Ontario university professors, Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick. Anybody who reads this book will be sickened by the enormity of the international con game brought on by greenies and vote-seeking politicians that led to the Kyoto Treaty. Everybody who claims to have an interest in environmental politics should read this book.
Here are some things it says that will rock you if you have bought into the whole Kyoto business.
There is no such thing as a global temperature. Anyway, temperature is not the most important factor in considering atmospheric influences. There are several temperatures: the one at the surface of land; the one at the surface of oceans; the one in the troposphere; and the one at the highest levels of the atmosphere. Measurements over time of those temperatures give very different and irreconcilable results. Temperatures that are used in computer climate models are surface averages, calculated in only one manner (there are several ways of averaging which will produce different results). They are not actual measurements; they are just statistical manipulations.
Is the globe actually warming up? In some places it appears warmer and in others it is colder. In some places sea levels appear to be higher, but in others they are falling. Some glacial fields in the Northern Hemisphere are retreating at a fast rate. Antarctica is getting colder. Even if you accepted that over the next century that Antarctica would be 5 degrees warmer, you would be talking about a continent that went from -30 degrees to -25 degrees.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a necessary component for plant growth. Plants produce oxygen.
There is no such thing as a "greenhouse effect" in the atmosphere.
Even if the globe were warming up that is not necessarily a bad thing.
There is no scientific theory of global climate. This is important because the way science works is that a theory is postulated and then experiments are carried out to test the validity of the theory. You cannot carry out experiments on the atmosphere.
So how did the Chicken Littles come up with this whole global warming stuff anyway? They used computer models applying statistical averages--not hard scientific information. The climate computer models did not factor in water vapour, carbon absorption by oceans and forests, and aerosols. There is a good reason for this--science does not yet understand how such things work and does not have good data on it. However, those factors each can account for significant warming or cooling effects in the atmosphere.
The lack of understanding about carbon absorption by forests is of more than passing interest. It is one of the bases on which nations will calculate their emissions credits under the Kyoto plan. Imagine agreeing to a contract in which you don't even know how to count the costs and value the assets that are the subject matter of the contract.
Our Environment Minister, David Anderson, in justifying Kyoto, likes to say that the majority of scientists support the global warming theory. That is not true. Even the scientists who wrote the initial paper on which the whole Kyoto foundation rests said that they were not sure about global warming. Subsequently, activist bureaucrats rewrote it to provide the certainty that scientists lacked. There are tens of thousands of scientists around the world who are appalled at what has happened with Kyoto and who have registered their dissents. There is a web site with an on-line petition by 19,000 U.S. scientists alone.
There is much, much more in Taken by Storm. Do yourself a big favour. Get the book and read it cover to cover.
It was Delusions that came to mind when I recently read Taken by Storm, the troubled science, policy and politics of global warming", by two Ontario university professors, Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick. Anybody who reads this book will be sickened by the enormity of the international con game brought on by greenies and vote-seeking politicians that led to the Kyoto Treaty. Everybody who claims to have an interest in environmental politics should read this book.
Here are some things it says that will rock you if you have bought into the whole Kyoto business.
There is no such thing as a global temperature. Anyway, temperature is not the most important factor in considering atmospheric influences. There are several temperatures: the one at the surface of land; the one at the surface of oceans; the one in the troposphere; and the one at the highest levels of the atmosphere. Measurements over time of those temperatures give very different and irreconcilable results. Temperatures that are used in computer climate models are surface averages, calculated in only one manner (there are several ways of averaging which will produce different results). They are not actual measurements; they are just statistical manipulations.
Is the globe actually warming up? In some places it appears warmer and in others it is colder. In some places sea levels appear to be higher, but in others they are falling. Some glacial fields in the Northern Hemisphere are retreating at a fast rate. Antarctica is getting colder. Even if you accepted that over the next century that Antarctica would be 5 degrees warmer, you would be talking about a continent that went from -30 degrees to -25 degrees.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a necessary component for plant growth. Plants produce oxygen.
There is no such thing as a "greenhouse effect" in the atmosphere.
Even if the globe were warming up that is not necessarily a bad thing.
There is no scientific theory of global climate. This is important because the way science works is that a theory is postulated and then experiments are carried out to test the validity of the theory. You cannot carry out experiments on the atmosphere.
So how did the Chicken Littles come up with this whole global warming stuff anyway? They used computer models applying statistical averages--not hard scientific information. The climate computer models did not factor in water vapour, carbon absorption by oceans and forests, and aerosols. There is a good reason for this--science does not yet understand how such things work and does not have good data on it. However, those factors each can account for significant warming or cooling effects in the atmosphere.
The lack of understanding about carbon absorption by forests is of more than passing interest. It is one of the bases on which nations will calculate their emissions credits under the Kyoto plan. Imagine agreeing to a contract in which you don't even know how to count the costs and value the assets that are the subject matter of the contract.
Our Environment Minister, David Anderson, in justifying Kyoto, likes to say that the majority of scientists support the global warming theory. That is not true. Even the scientists who wrote the initial paper on which the whole Kyoto foundation rests said that they were not sure about global warming. Subsequently, activist bureaucrats rewrote it to provide the certainty that scientists lacked. There are tens of thousands of scientists around the world who are appalled at what has happened with Kyoto and who have registered their dissents. There is a web site with an on-line petition by 19,000 U.S. scientists alone.
There is much, much more in Taken by Storm. Do yourself a big favour. Get the book and read it cover to cover.
posted by bohemiantroubadour at 7:56 PM
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