Science fictions

4 September 2010

What is it about international organisations that makes them so impervious to criticism? If the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were a British ministry or quango, it is inconceivable that its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, would still be in his post.

Why have our politicians, normally so keen to argue and debate with each other, been so reluctant to question the IPCC’s findings? Their attitude can be summed up by the words of David Miliband, who as environment secretary in 2006 declared that ‘the scientific debate on climate change is now closed’. It was rather like a 15th-century pope attempting to close down the scientific debate on the movement of planetary bodies. It has been obvious for many years that there is widespread disagreement among scientists on the scale of climate change and the extent of mankind’s contribution towards it, and that much of their output strays well beyond what the science can withstand — it is openly political.

Government ministers, lamentably few of whom have a scientific training, seem unable to see this. Many have fallen for the conceit that scientists are above vanity, greed and the power struggles which afflict every other area of human activity and are engaged purely in a search for eternal truth. This is, of course, a nonsense. The leaked emails from the University of East Anglia portray a body of individuals who are continually seeking to build their own empires and undermine each other’s work — suppressing dissent in the process.

On top of all this it has to be recognised that oil companies are not the only vested interests entering the debate over climate science. Many contributors to the IPCC’s reports did not originally work in the field of climate science — Dr Pachauri himself is a railway engineer — but have been attracted into aspects of it because huge sums of public money have been made available for research linked to potential negative effects of climate change.

The growing alarm over the work of the IPCC will hopefully inspire greater critical analysis of climate science on the part of government in future. There is nothing shameful about being a climate change sceptic. On the contrary, scepticism is a quality which we should value in our leaders.

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Ian Moir

September 8th, 2010 8:57pm Report this comment

Perhaps now a ray of light is shining in the dark exclusive cave of the IPCC and revealing the foul contorted stinking sudo-scientific mess that is called anthropomorphic climate change.
Will anything change because of this? Only when it hurts the pocket, money and prestige drove the bandwagon, so loss of money or status will be the only means of putting the brake on! How can you bring commonsense and reason to this madnes when thousands of entrepreneurs are making millions by trading in fresh air!!! (CARBON TRADING)Buying and selling NOTHING!!!
I think it is going to be a long haul before things are anywhere back to normal.

Ed

September 9th, 2010 6:35am Report this comment

The FUTILITY of Mankind trying to Control Climate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy0_SNSM8kg

On average world temperature is +15 deg C. This is sustained by the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect 33 deg C. Without the Greenhouse Effect the planet would be un-inhabitable at -18 deg C. The Biosphere and Mankind need the Greenhouse Effect.

Just running the numbers by translating the agents causing the Greenhouse Effect into degrees centigrade:
• Greenhouse Effect = 33.00 deg C
• Water Vapour accounts for about 95% of the Greenhouse Effect = + 31.35 deg C
• Other Greenhouse Gases GHGs account for 5% = ~1.65 deg C
• CO2 is 75% of the effect of all accounting fort the enhanced effects of Methane and Nitrous Oxide GHGs = ~1.24 deg C
• Most CO2 in the atmosphere is natural, more than 93%
• Man-made CO2 is less than 7% of total atmospheric CO2 = 0.087 deg C
• the UK contribution to CO2 is 2% equals = 1740 millionths deg C
As closing carbon economies of the Whole World could only ever achieve a virtually undetectable less than 0.01deg C. How can the Green movement and their supporting politicians think that their remedial actions can limit warming to only + 2.00 deg C?

So the probability is that any current global warming is not man-made and in any case such warming could be not be influenced by any remedial action taken by mankind however drastic.

As this is so, the prospect should be greeted with Unmitigated Joy:
• concern over CO2 as a man-made pollutant can be discounted.
• it is not necessary to damage the world’s economy to no purpose.
• if warming were happening, it would lead to a more benign and healthy climate for all mankind.
• any extra CO2 is already increasing the fertility and reducing water needs of all plant life and thus enhancing world food production.
• a warmer climate, within natural variation, would provide a future of greater opportunity and prosperity for human development. This has been well proven in the past and would now especially benefit the third world.

Nonetheless, this is not to say that the world should not be seeking more efficient ways of generating its energy, conserving its energy use and stopping damaging its environments. And there is a real need to wean the world off the continued use of fossil fuels simply on the grounds of:
• security of supply
• increasing scarcity
• rising costs
• their use as the feedstock for industry rather than simply burning them.

The French long-term energy strategy with its massive commitment to nuclear power is impressive, (85% of electricity generation). Even if one is concerned about CO2, Nuclear Energy pays off, French CO2 emissions / head are the lowest in the developed world.

However in the light of the state of the current solar cycle, it seems that there is a real prospect of damaging cooling occurring in the near future for several decades. And as UK power stations face closure the lights may well go out in the UK in the winter 2016.

All because CO2 based Man-made Global Warming has become a state sponsored religion.

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