Lies to idiots and the collapse of Science
It is a hard and thankless task addressing the never-ending stream of climate panic-mongers, but someone has to do it!
Ryan Nix is quite right to say that what should have been scientific enquiry has now become a religion. 'Consensus' is a good example of a religious term which must have no place in the search for scientific truth.
He is also right to require people to look at the real data. If the alarmists did, they would be considerably more alarmed, because what we are watching now is the wholesale sacrifice of scientific integrity on the altar of politically-obtained grants. Real data is now becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. The 'Hockey Stick' controversy (Mann/McIntyre et al) is instructive here.
Mr Russell, for example, is a very curious scientist indeed, because his explanation of why an average shift of 0.6C might be 'meaningless' is 'because it's less than 1'. I hope that Mr Nix will explain the concept of Error Bars to him, and point out that when dealing with averages, a signal whose magnitude is within the error bar (as 0.6C is), is pretty likely to be meaningless for that reason. He also suggests that complaining about 'consensus science' is not an argument - true, but no one has suggested ignoring a carefully prepared paper because it represents the consensus view. The panic-mongers have frequently barred from publication very good research indeed because it is funded by a group they dislike. Shades of Brent Spar?
Tony is correct to point out that only the 'Political Summary' of the IPCC report has been released. What he did not point out, and what is much worse, is that the IPCC have announced that this is so that the scientific chapters 'can be edited to conform to the political summary'. This is an outrageous abuse of everything that science once stood for.
Mr Butterworth notes that ' there has been a 3 degree rise in some areas of the US in the last 100 years.' May I invite him to look at the current scandal involving the USHCN? US mean temperatures over the last century actually rose to a high point in 1931, and then declined to our current value, about 1C colder than that point. In 2007, this data was modified by the CRU (see Brohan et al 2006) to remove the 1931 high point. When scientists asked why, they were told that it was due to unspecified 'adjustments'. When they asked for the original raw data to examine for themselves, they were told it was no longer available. If this is what Mr Butterworth bases his trend on, he is living a lie. He also seems to think that we could save people faster by trying to reverse warming trends than by revising the ban on DDT (another example of hysteria overcoming science and killing people). Even he must see the idiocy of this position? Though perhaps not, as he also appears to think that ' It is impossible for a single scientist to conclusively prove .... any scientific hypothesis'. What planet is he living on?
In parting, Jasmine Strong might like to know that the concept of a 'tipping point' has been invented by the politicians and model fanatics as part of their justification for the Brave New World of carbon taxes. As far as we know, it has no basis in reality, though it does make for good cinema.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
