A CLOSER LOOK AT CLIMATE CHANGE (PART 13)

The issue of human-induced climate change is a contentious one.
There are a lot of reasonable scientists and informed lay people who cannot completely rule the human factor out. But neither can they rule it in. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is an hypothesis. Period. It is not a proven fact, nor, in the true sense of the word, is it even a theory. It is an hypothesis that is currently being tested by thousands of scientists of different stripes throughout the world - from the South Pole to the North Pole, on the seven continents and the seven seas. The results gleaned from the testing of the AGW hypothesis are all over the map. Models disagree with one another - eminent scientists disagree with one another. The biggest problem pertaining to the credibility of the AGW proponents is that they are trying to prove their hypothesis rather than objectively testing it. That's bad science. There is a lot of cherry-picking of data by many scientists who are desperately trying to prove that AGW is a reality. Their reputations as scientists are on the line, so it's a reasonable assumption that there will never be even a wisp of an acknowledgement by AGW proponents that maybe humans aren't entirely to blame after all.
This also holds true for the other side. AGW "deniers" have been accused of cherry-picking data as well. There is a spectrum of thought ranging from the overzealous true believers of the James E. Hansen mold to the far right-wing deniers and global-warming-is-a-hoax crowd. That AGW is a hoax is just as unproven as those who argue the AGW science is settled. The fact of the matter is that we just don't know yet. You see, the climate is a chaotic system, or series of systems, and even supercomputers have trouble with computing chaotic systems. Then, when one considers the quality of the code being used for predictive models, and the point of view of the programmers, further complications are introduced.
Then there are the cyclic systems in the world's oceans - the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and the AMDO (Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation). And the El Niño and La Niña phenomena, which are not necessarily cyclic. The extreme drought conditions in the US Southwestern states, the extreme heat over much of North America, and the unusually severe tornadic out brakes earlier this year are attributable to an unusually strong La Niña, one of the two or three strongest La Niñas in the last 100 years. One can argue that climate change is the cause of the current extreme La Niña, and unless somebody proves this not to be true, it deserves consideration.

I am a skeptic. I was formerly agnostic on the issue, but after reading various articles and blogs, and seeing interviews with scientists on both sides, I am convinced that the so-called skeptic camp is standing on firmer ground. Another thing that influenced my thinking was the childish way some of the AGW researchers behaved. There was a lot of naked vitriol directed at climatologists who questioned the veracity of the AGW research as it was being conducted, who didn't necessarily agree with their conclusions, and who didn't sign on to their political agenda. I am very, very suspicious when I see that kind of hysteria being displayed. It tells me their position might not be credible, that they're trying to run cover for a flimsy case. That is my opinion, anyway, for whatever it's worth.
One thing that really sticks in my mind is the statements by Professor David Deming concerning Dr. Jonathan Overpeck's appeal to re-write historical climate records to "get rid of the Medieval Warm Period". Moreover, Dr. Deming cited an article in Discover Magazine in 1989 where a prominent climate researcher discusses the need to amplify the evidence for and ignore the evidence against AGW. (CLCC 5 - Quack Science). While I believe Dr. Deming's categorizing AGW as a "hoax" is too strong (we don't know yet that it is a hoax) his revelations do raise legitimate questions.
We hear from the mass media, over and over, that human-caused climate change is already settled. We hear there is "overwhelming scientific evidence", there is overwhelming scientific consensus among geoscientists of every stripe. Actually, there are roughly 2500 scientists who hold that humans are at least partly responsible for climate change, and a significant sub-group of scientists who hold that humans are entirely responsible for the warming climate. Conversely, there are roughly 900 scientists who signed a petition disputing the role of humans in the changing climate. Again, there is a distribution curve, with some opinions being that humans may play a minor role, while others hold that none of the climate change is due to humans. 
Most of the clamor by geoscientists of the climate change phenomenon focuses on carbon emissions without regard to the destruction of carbon sinks such as tropical rainforests.


One of the foundations of scientific research is to probe and poke around in someone else's previously accepted theory, to seek out and find areas of weakness, and either disprove the theory or improve on it. People like Galileo Galilei, Nicholas Copernicus, and Albert Einstein fought the conventional dogma of their respective times and prevailed.

Today's conventional wisdom, as it's being communicated to us by an eager media, is this: The earth is getting warmer because of human activity, and that's THAT! It's settled. End of story.
I believe that the story is still unfolding. Only time will tell - probably a lot of time.

Following is a list of links to the articles, videos, web pages and other reference material which I've availed myself to while writing these blog articles over the past 17 days or so. If you wish to dig deeper into the AGW question, these references would be helpful and informative. I would encourage you to do so. And you can be assured - these references barely scratch the surface of the AGW debate.



CHARTS


Charts of logarithmic CO2 effect
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide/

Charts I wanted to upload upload for CLCC - 8 but was blocked from doing so
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/heating_effect_vs_measured_co2.png

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/natural-vs-agw_warming.png

More very illuminative charts
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/co2_modtrans_img2.png

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/co2_modtrans_img1.png

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/heating_effect_of_co2.png

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/perth_temp_annual.png


Side by side comparison of the 1990 IPCC First Assessment millennial temperature record and the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment featuring the hockey stick graph
Note that these radically different charts ostensibly describing the exact same thing were published by the same organization just eleven years apart
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Comparison-charts.jpg

James E. Hansen's data
GISS temperature charts
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A3.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.B.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.C.lrg.gif


Global greenhouse gas pie charts
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/globalghg.html


Link to sunspot charts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Activity_Proxies.png


Excel charts of CO2 emissions 1980 - 2006 - Itemized
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/carbondioxide.html

  YouTube video of interviews with climate experts



Interview with Lord Monckton of the UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKrw6ih8Gto&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Alex Jones discusses Climategate - a must-see video
(Jones is a little over the top but he does make a few good points)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2153PnMzSw&NR=1

Dr. Tim Ball on Climategate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydo2Mwnwpac

Pro-AGW journalists confront a non-AGW journalist & shut off his microphone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbj78civS-4&NR=1

A reporter confronted by armed guards after asking a UN scientist about Climategate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUtzMBfDrpI&feature=related

Tim Ball Interview W/ Red Ice. Parts 1 through 7 of 7 part series.  Just click on the top line and it will take you into YouTube from where you can simply navigate to each successive part within the YouTube site.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qj5jf_7eMM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxShcstKrY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3LqJnomvls&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Tl3gLRbWQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcuBKe5DFjA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXehhlyNUes&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKD1ZniB5Dc&feature=related



John Coleman interview with Glenn Beck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft8LfE7AI2w&feature=related

IPCC 's Jonathan Overpeck giving us his pro-AGW viewpoint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCVfQ-_MQXc

Jonathan Overpeck video
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/dgesl/


ARTICLES AND REPORTS

Article explaining how the quantum mechanical structure of
CO2 yields a saturation effect - also explained by Lindzen & Choi
in their paper LC2009
 http://brneurosci.org/co2.html

Discussion of how degrees of freedom for the vibration of linear molecules such as CO2 are calculated
http://www.analyticalspectroscopy.net/ap3-4.htm

This page demonstrates the three ways an excited CO2 can
vibrate. These three modes happen when CO2 absorbs longwave radiation
http://science.widener.edu/svb/ftir/ir_co2.html

Article by David Deming - the climatologist who received the
email from Jonathan Overpeck proposing the necessity of
getting rid of the Mediaval Warm Period
http://lewrockwell.com/orig9/deming3.html

Ineractive exercise where the three absorption bands of CO2
reach a saturation point at around 804 ppmv and reach a point of
inconsequencial effect under 100 ppmv
http://chemlinks.beloit.edu/warming/pdf/IRConc.pdf



Science & Public Policy –
Very Good Expose
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/markey_barton_letter.html

Theory that Tunguska Event contributed to a layer of
microscopic dust particles that contribute to surface warming
http://www.physorg.com/news11710.html

35 inconvenient truths – debunks Al Gore's movie
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

Letter about Al Gore
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/markey_barton_letter.html

IPCC Summary for Policy Makers
http://www.gcrio.org/OnLnDoc/pdf/wg1spm.pdf

IPCC - A library of assessment reports and other material
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm#1

IPCC First assessment http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/IPCC_1990_and_1992_Assessments/English/ipcc-90-92-assessments-overview.pdf

IPCC – Third assessment
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/221.htm

UNFCCC
 http://unfccc.int/methods_and_science/other_methodological_issues/items/1077.php

UNFCCC – UN plan to finance climate change policy
http://unfccc.int/files/press/backgrounders/application/pdf/fact_sheet_financing_climate_change.pdf

1934 hottest year on record
http://www.skepticalscience.com/1934-hottest-year-on-record.htm

Dr. Robert Balling article in GCMPOI
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/170.pdf

Pittsburgh Times-Review article on Dr. Tim Ball
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_492572.html

Article on funding for research of climate change
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=289


Funding of AGW reseaerch
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/289.pdf

Note that anti-AGW funding comes from special interests as well, such as petroleum and coal lobbies

Article about the discredited hockey stick graph
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hockey-stick

Hockey Stick article
http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/mann's-hockey-stick-climate-graph.htm

About hockey stick graph being debunked
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/13830/

About Wegman’s investigation of hockey stick chart
http://www.desmogblog.com/wegmans-report-highly-politicized-and-fatally-flawed

Critical of exoneration of Mann
http://greenhellblog.com/2010/07/14/penn-states-integrity-crisis/

The Civil Heretic - Article in NYT Magazine with Freeman Dyson
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html

Transcript of Bob Garfield interview with Joe Romm
and Romm's acerbic response to the Dyson piece
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/04/10/03

An MIT article about lambda, the climate sensitivity factor
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/explained-climate-sensitivity.html

Article on climate sensitivity
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity

Satellite re: climate science climate sensitivity from space
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lindzen-Choi-2009-low-climate-sensitivity.htm

Satellite re: climate science climate sensitivity from space
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lindzen-Choi-2009-low-climate-sensitivity.htm

Web site re: solar involvement in global warming
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

Radiative forcing
http://www.springerlink.com/content/np556415834h8862

Vertical eddies
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4440726140826j5

Heliogenic climate change
http://www.heliogenic.net/2010/05/03/lindzen-and-chois-new-paper-out-confirms-negative-feedback-unlike-agw-climate-models/

Solar dynamo – sunspot activity
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1801/2741.full.pdf

Sunspots and climate change
http://www.suite101.com/content/sunspots-and-climate-change-a133866

Greenhouse warming reduced
http://www.john-daly.com/bull-121.htm

Temperature records provide clue why Americans are skeptical (Page 1)http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2691449/temperature_records_provide_clue_why.html?cat=37


Page 2
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2691449/temperature_records_provide_clue_why_pg2.html?cat=37

Dire global warming messages backfire
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/News-dire-global-warming-messages-backfire-112210.aspx?xmlmenuid=51 01


Scripps Institute of Oceanography   -  http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mauna_loa_record.html

Climate Audit – Steve McIntyre
http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/18/curry-reviews-lindzen-and-choi/

Dr. Roy Spencer
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-background-articles

Anthony Watts PhD
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Article describing CO2 levels following temperature changes
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/CO2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/


Reasoned critique of Lindzen and Choi paper by Dr. Roy Spencer
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/03/spencer-on-lindzen-and-choi-climate-feedback-paper/

Article offering a rebuttal of the claim that temperature
changes predate CO2 changes - discussion both pro and con
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm

Examples of pro-AGW people railing against skeptics
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-hide-the-decline.html

Reasoned pro AGW
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/contributors/

Lindzen & Choi;  A rebuttal article
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/

Joe Romm's pro-AGW blog
http://climateprogress.org/

Skeptic article
http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/

Skeptic article
http://fgservices1947.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/co2-is-a-greenhouse-gas-%e2%80%93-note-from-norm-kalmanovitch-via-ccnet/

Technical Info site
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=172161

Earth blackbody
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Earth/earthtemp.html

Spörer paper
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1895ApJ.....2..239V

Excel chart misrepresents CO2 – temp relationship
http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/excel-chart-misrepresents-co2-temperature-relationship/


AGW critical of Lindzen - Choi
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2009/08/quick-comment-on-lindzen-and-choi.html

Joe Romm expressing himself on his blog http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/04/joseph-romm-on-nicholas-dawidoff.html

Subj. Lindzen - Choi
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/ipcc-types-read-lindzen-choi-2009.html


Paleoclimate http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/climate_models/index.html

Paleoclimate of recent past
http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/paleoclimate.html

Paleoclimate article                                              http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/climatechange/visualizations/paleoclimate.html

Paleoclimate
http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=11333682

Paleotemperature
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/8615/allpaleotemp.png

Paleo CO2
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/755/paleoco2all.png3

Bio of Heidi Cullen
http://www.zimbio.com/Heidi+Cullen

About Heidi Cullen and her view that skeptics should be decertified
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming011807.htm

Greenhouse gas
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html

Article on CO2
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Carbon_dioxide

Rebuttal to idea that human greenhouse gas is miniscule
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm

How much is anthropogenic
http://www.strom.clemson.edu/becker/prtm320/commons/carbon3.html

Note from Craig James re: Hansen, RealClimate,
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/politica-lclimate/hansens_ideology_makes_him_no_longer_qualified_to_be_the_keeper_of_the_glob/

Capital Climate: Interesting tidbit about Hansen’s award by AMS from contrarian perspective
http://capitalclimate.blogspot.com/2009_01_25_archive.html

Rebuttal to Craig James speech on climate skepticism – Ed Cutlip
http://www.mediamouse.org/news/2008/04/craig-james-lec.php

Critical assessment of Bill Steffen by Ed Cutlip
http://www.mediamouse.org/news/2009/04/bill-steffen-global-warming-wood-tv-8.php

Litany of skeptical commentary by credentialed scientists
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=672bfd77-802a-23ad-4264-12316616363c

Pravda article skeptical of CC Gregory F. Fegel
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/11-01-2009/106922-earth_ice_age-1/

Pravda article skeptical about AGW – Gregory F. Fegel
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/11-01-2009/106922-earth_ice_age-2/

Article about coming ice age - Pravda
http://www.iceagenow.com/Pravda-Earth_on_the_Brink_of_an_Ice_Age.htm

Article about Pravda article
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/12/pravda-the-coming-ice-age/

Article about Pravda article
http://scaredmonkeys.com/2009/01/12/hey-al-gore-what-about-global-warming-pravda-says-earth-on-the-brink-of-an-ice-age/

Excellent article re: Pravda article
http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/2578


Articles on Venus - Universe Today
http://www.universetoday.com/14140/history-of-planet-venus/
http://www.universetoday.com/23651/venus-possibly-had-continents-oceans/

Venus info
http://www.solstation.com/stars/venus.htm

How Venus lost its oceans
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/venus_oceans_020516.html


About rain forests
http://www.hipark.austinisd.org/projects/fourth/rainforests/environment.html

About Indonesia rain forest destruction
http://www.indonesiamatters.com/1252/rainforest-deforestation/

Rain forest destruction
http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Environmental_Problems/rain_forest_destruction.htmlhttp://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Environmental_Problems/rain_forest_destruction.html

Goodbye to West Africa’s rain forests
http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0122-forests.html

Christian Science Monitor article about how recession caused emissions to decline
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/1122/Global-warming-carbon-dioxide-emissions-worldwide-fell-in-2009


HARD COVER REFERENCES

Black Holes & Time Warps
Kip S. Thorne
1994
ISBN: 0-393-31276-3

The Whole Shebang
Timothy Ferris
1998
ISBN: 0-684-81020-4TF

Physical Chemistry - A Molecular Approach
Donald A. McQuarrie & John D. Simon
1997
ISBN: 0-9357032-99-7

ERRATA:

1. In CLCC-10
I cited the figure $70 billion the U.S. government had awarded pro AGW scientists in grant money. I've been unable to verify that figure. I've replaced that figure with $3 billion which is verifiable.

2. In CLCC - 5 
I identified Dr. Phil Jones as being a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Dr. Jones is the Director of Research at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK. I cannot verify he actually sits on the panel.  Dr. Jones, however, has been and continues to be closely associated with that body.

3. In CLCC - 9 I referenced China's population as outnumbering that of the U.S. by 10 to 1. With a population of 1.3 billion (not 3 billion), China's population exceeds that of the U.S. by 4.33 to 1.

A CLOSER LOOK AT CLIMATE CHANGE (PART 12)

COAL - THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS

There are two types of fossil fuels in use today that sustain societies the world over: petroleum and coal. At the present time these sources of energy are indispensable - without them societies around the world would collapse. We would find ourselves back in the 17th century. It would not be fun, yet there are those who are proposing exactly that. They want to phase out fossil fuels and replace our energy needs with so-called green energy.
To do so is a noble goal - for three reasons. 1.)  to slow the accumulation of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 2.) to gain independence from fossil fuels before we run out of them, and 3.) to get our energy needs out of the grips of the commodity traders who are in a position to manipulate the prices of these commodities for their own financial gain and at everyone else's expense. These commodity traders have a sordid history of market speculation leading to the creation of bubbles. This problem is especially true regarding petroleum, as we saw in the great oil price run-up of 2008 which was a factor in the economic crash of 2008 - 2009. For that reason alone coal-generated energy is far more preferable than petroleum. There's enough coal to last over a hundred years just in North America, whereas nobody knows exactly how much oil is still in the ground.

From a purely environmental standpoint, coal produces slightly more CO2 than petroleum derivitives used for transportation - an estimated 15 billion metric tons a year and 12 billion metric tons respectively. Natural gas (methane) used for heating and electricity generation adds another 6 billion metric tons per annum, while natural gas burned off at wellheads and refineries contributes another 6 billion metric tons of CO2. The flaring of natural gas is necessary because it's more than 20 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. Thus, burning off natural gas represents the lesser of two evils.

Curiously, the people squawking about man-made global warming seem to have a singular focus on coal as being the Great Evil. For reasons that escape me, these people don't seem as concerned about the fact that two thirds of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions world-wide come from the petroleum side of the ledger. Maybe coal is the most convenient target. There are huge political and business interests that would like to see coal-generated electricity become prohibitively expensive so that people would be forced to buy their energy-efficient products and/or alternative energy technology such as wind turbines and solar panels and parabolic collectors. 

The phasing out of coal-sourced energy and replacing it with renewable energy is a wonderful idea, but it promises to be impractical in many areas. Solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric are available only where there is ample sunshine, hot spots (such as Iceland and the Yellowstone region), and rivers (in canyons) that can be dammed, respectively. The wind blows just about everywhere, but nobody wants a forest of wind turbines in their back yard making loud wooshing noises, so the available real estate for wind-sourced energy is limited. All in all, renewable energy will not make much of a dent in global energy requirements. That leaves coal as the predominant source of electricity world wide.

There is currently a movement to build more nuclear power- generation facilities, but any such facilities will take ten years to build. Then there's the resistance of environmentalists who like to point towards Chernobyl and Three Mile Island as good reasons not to build any more.

There has been talk about generating electricity with natural gas, but there is a risk of supply and demand principles driving up the price of natural gas that is otherwise used in heating homes. Moreover, natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and as a petroleum byproduct it is subject to speculative bubbles. The upshot is, coal is the most reliable and cheapest energy source for generating electricity. That's just the way it is.

Where, then, does petroleum factor into fossil fuel equation?

Petroleum is by far the most common source of energy used for transportation. Gasoline powers our automobiles, while diesel fuel powers many cars, most trucks, construction equipment, locomotives, and ships. Kerosene powers commercial aircraft, while propane and fuel oil are used to heat homes. Is there a practical alternative to replacing these fuels with an alternative or renewable source of energy? Well, not really. At least, not in the short run. The development of fully electric vehicles and hybrids does offer a viable alternative to gasoline powered vehicles, but there are some issues with these kinds of vehicles, for example, they have a far higher purchase price than traditional vehicles, and are therefore available to a limited demographic. Another, larger issue is that these vehicles will increase demand for electricity from off the grid. And that electricity will largely come from burning coal.

Given a choice between energy dependence on oil from overseas or secure coal from right here at home, it's a no-brainer. It's both a national security issue and an economic issue. No one country will be able to bring this country to its knees by turning off the oil spigot. Moreover, the cost of coal isn't as easily manipulated as petroleum on the open market, so the risk of speculative bubbles is much lower. In a nutshell, more coal and less petroleum is the better option.

But there will be vehement disagreement with the coal-is-a-better-option stance by the global warming fanatics, and probably by some not-so-fanatical types as well. Most everyone agrees that fossil fuels, whether it's coal or petroleum, need to be phased out. The question is this: How can this be done without policy mandates that promise to create a lot of hardship. Well, there are ways. There is industry-financed research and development directed at fuel efficiency for cars and trucks, and green products for the home and business.  Private entities such as foundations and trust funds have been and will continue to be funding research,  and of course there is ongoing green energy research financed by governments around the world. An example of industrial commitment is the lithium-ion battery being developed in-house by Ford Motor Co. Ford will recoup their development expenses from their customers when they sell cars. Ongoing research at universities will eventually lead to newer technologies. This is all well and good. Unfortunately, scientists practicing quackery on their own behalf and on behalf of their allies in the policy arena wish to finance their research, not privately, but with punitive fees on coal-burning power generating facilities and steep taxes on consumers. Their approach is to exact many pounds of flesh from ordinary citizens so they can line their own pockets and grease the wheels of their cronies in the business world who stand to make enormous profits.
We are told that we must make "sacrifices" to save the planet, which is fine, except that these "sacrifices" will almost certainly be disproportionately borne by those in the lower half of the income spectrum. And that is where we should draw the line. In-house industrial research on energy-efficient products is fine. Research at academic institutions funded by government grants is fine, too, as long as it's legitimate research. What is not fine is when scientists apply their research to proving their hypotheses about climate change rather than testing it with objective scientific experimentation. I don't want to pay for some politically motivated scientists to use quackery and trumped up data so they can collaborate with the policy makers so they, in turn, can engineer policies that will drain money out of the pockets of the people going forward. I don't want to see these people getting rich at my expense. I, personally, want their hands out of my pockets!

I am well aware that my stance on coal's preference to petroleum and petroleum derivatives constitutes utter heresy in the minds of a majority of people worldwide, and that's OK. I think it's important to realize that anthropogenic global warming is not a settled matter, although we are being told by many scientists that it is definitely a settled matter. This much we know.
We know the earth has been getting warmer over the course of the last hundred years or so, at least at the surface.
We know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and that there is more of it than there used to be. The hypothesis, which is in the form of a question, is this: Is there a cause and effect relationship between higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and a concurrent warming of Planet Earth? The answer to that question is not available at this time. It will take another decade or two, or three, before we can even begin to get a handle on what is causing the warming. The answers will come trickling in over time. There are remaining questions about the plethora of models that are giving dire predictions for the future of the planet. For instance, climate modeling allegedly doesn't encompass variables such as El Niños and La Niñas, which come and go on their own schedule. Further, climate models allegedly don't factor in such factors as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). Some scientists believe that most climate models are predicated upon surface temperatures on land and in the surface layers of the earth's oceans, and that PDOs and AMOs and similar oscillations cause the models to give spurious scenarios. In the final analysis, anthropogenic global warming is not an established truth at this time, regardless of what the so-called "leading scientists" and "climate experts" and their media shills say. There are hundreds of climatologists around the world who are trying to say - at their own peril - Wait a minute! Not so fast! So, until more is known, the best course to follow, in my view, is to conserve as much as possible without undue hardship, that is, to not be wasteful, to be good stewards of the environment, to conduct objective research with an eye towards finding a better way to sustain our respective societies, but to do so without political entities imposing drastic or punitive measures against anyone - any private person, any business, or any country, or any society or culture.

This concludes my series on climate change. My final post, which will be coming in the next couple of days, will more or less be a bibliography of source material I've consulted for this in-depth look at this controversial topic. Feel free to follow links to web pages of scientists, climatologists, meteorologists, and others on both sides of the issue. I'm sure it will be informative but probably won't change any minds.

A CLOSER LOOK AT CLIMATE CHANGE (PART 11)

MORE QUESTIONS

Revised 8/6/2011

According to Dr. Robert Balling, Director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University, there is a confounding mishmash of data being used by climate scientists across the spectrum to argue for or against the following:

1. How much has the earth really warmed since the end of The Little Ice Age?

2. How reliable are the temperatures in the historical record going back into the 19th Century?

3. Does the placement of thermistors since the 1970s play a role in the temperature record as compared to the temperature records obtained from earlier in the 20th Century?

4. How does the surface temperature readings jive with the atmospheric temperature soundings taken by satellites?

Dr. Balling delved into these questions and more in an article appearing in the September 2003 issue of the George C. Marshall Policy Outlook Institute (GCMPOI) where he appears to take a reasoned approach to the issue. This article is a rather refreshing departure from the often acrimonious debate between the so-called climate apocalyptics and climate skeptics.
Using temperature data compiled by Dr. Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK, Dr. Balling constructed a chart that shows two warming spurts - one from the mid 1910s to about 1945, and another one from about 1970 to 2000. Between 1945 and 1970 there was a level stretch where temperatures didn't appear to increase at all, and since 2000 the global temperatures seem to have stabilized as well. Revision: the 2000-2010 decade has turned out to be above average.
The rate of temperature rise between 1915 and 1945 worked out to 0.16° C per decade, for a total temperature increase of about 0.48° C . The rate of increase from 1980 to 2010 was about 0.17° C per decade, for a total of 0.51° C. In other words, the rate of temperature increase in the first half of the 20th Century was essentially the same as the rate of temperature increase since 1980, but the global temperature spurt during the first half of the 20th Century cannot be blamed on greenhouse forcing due to human activities.
According to the data compiled by Jones, the global temperature has increased by about 1° C since 1900.

But, according to Dr. Balling, climate change is not a settled science by any means. Balling surmises that the temperature record is incomplete since only about 30% of the earth's surface was monitored at various times throughout the latter part of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. It's only been since about 1970 that the current coverage of about 80% has been established.
However, there are built-in biases to the modern day temperature record that need to be taken into consideration. For example, traditional mercury-in-glass thermometers have been largely replaced by electronic thermistors that record continuously and accurately. These instruments detect and record heat-carrying eddies that traditional thermometers fail to register. When recorded temperatures made by these instruments are compared to traditional temperature readings done by mercury thermometers, a bias toward warmer temperatures is introduced. Further biases are introduced by the nature of  the shelters housing  these instruments, which can trap heat, whereas mercury thermometers could tolerate being more in the open. Cooling biases in the temperature record are removed by the continuous recording of temperature by thermistors because thermometer readings were formerly taken at discreet times in the early morning, analogous to a snapshot (as opposed to a motion picture provided by a thermistor). Nowadays, these formerly discreet temperature readings are swallowed up in the continuous record. All taken together, these factors may lead to a warming bias of at least 0.05° C.
A very strong bias can be introduced by the "urban heat island effect", where solar heat  is retained by asphalt and concrete along with anthropogenic heat generated by heated buildings. Further localized urban heating can sometimes be attributed to higher CO2 levels in the air because of the breathing of a million people (more or less) coupled with the general absence or scarcity of trees that take up CO2. This isn't usually a factor with adequate mixing, but during temperature inversions a virtual lid is placed over a city for days, trapping CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) to produce a measurable anomaly.

These factors taken together can introduce a warming bias of an additional 0.1 - 0.15° C. And finally, during the last few decades many weather stations have been moved from cooler river valleys to airports usually located at higher (and thus warmer) elevations. All these biases taken together can add as much as 0.2 - 0.3° C to the observed temperature record covering the last several decades.

To be sure, many (though certainly not all) climate models contain algorithms that are designed to normalize out these biases. Those that take these biases into account tend to be more conservative.

Overall, Dr. Balling concedes that there has been an undeniable increase in global surface temperatures since about 1970 that cannot be wholly explained by increased solar activity or a temperature rebound from the Little Ice Age, which was probably a factor in the heating spurt prior to 1945. Many models appear to jive with the observed data when surface temperatures are plugged into them. But temperatures aloft should also be increasing, according to most climate models. They're not. Many models predict even more warming in the lower troposphere than at the surface, but that is not the case. And that's problematic. The National Research Council’s 2000 report acknowledged that “if global warming is caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it should be evident not only at the earth’s surface, but also in the lower to mid-troposphere.” Writes Dr. Balling: "Warming near the surface with little to no warming in the lower to mid-troposphere is not a clear greenhouse signal!"

These observations of the surface and tropospheric discrepancies begs the question of whether the climate models are engineered to function solely on surface temperatures and giving mid and lower troposphere thermodynamics a lesser weighting per the models' algorithms.

Additional factors may be involved in the observed heating of the planet. Rain forest destruction in Brazil, rapid growth of population centers in India and China - it's a lot more complicated than just burning coal (and petroleum products) and noting the increase in greenhouse emisions. In Brazil, deforestation has depleted the original Amazon rain forest by nearly 18% - by nearly three quarters of a million square kilometers. This has not just removed a substantial carbon dioxide sink. The enormous amounts of carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere from the burning of the clear-cut forestation has added to the CO2 being emitted by industrial and power-generating facilities by as much as 25%. The elimination of a carbon sink coupled with the hyperproduction of carbon from burning the killed vegetation presents a huge double whammy!
Brazil has slowed down its removal of rain forest in recent years, and has now been surpassed by Indonesia as the world's number one destroyer of rain forest canopy percentage wise, but remains the world's number one deforestation culprit overall in terms of land area cleared.
In West Africa, the rain forest is now over 90% gone, which further endangers, and may eventually drive to extinction the mountain gorillas that once thrived there. Likewise, thousands of species are disappearing every year because of the problem. Deforestation programs (tree pogroms?) are occurring in other parts of the tropical and subtropical regions of the world with ongoing decimation of biodiversity. Thousands of species a year - gone forever!

To be sure, the depletion of carbon sinks by deforestation and subsequent burning of the killed vegetation has to fit in with the anthropogenic contribution of the greenhouse gas component of the atmosphere, one would think. But we don't hear as much about that as we hear about COAL, and COAL - generated electrical power. People like James E. Hansen, Joe Romm, and other like-minded apocalyptics are pretty quiet on the deforestation issue. They don't even say much about the greenhouse emissions from the burning of petroleum products for transportation purposes. To them, COAL is the greatest enemy mankind has ever faced in the history of mankind.
I just don't get it.

There are other factors involved in the anthropogenic contribution as well. Examples:

The rapid growth of urban centers in China over the last few decades has not only encroached on forestation and green areas, but is contributing a substantial heat island effect. At last count China has 44 cities with populations of over one million - many of them resembling Manhattan in skyline grandeur (at last count, as of August 2011 the count of 1,000,000 plus cities is more than 100.). Some 43% of Chinese live in an urban environment. Worldwide, nearly 50% of the world's 6.7 billion people live in an urban environment. And as is well known, urban landscapes act as heat traps.

The human population explosion has more than doubled the world's population over the past 50 years, from 3.1 billion to 6.7 billion. There are 1.4 to 1.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 emitted by exhaling humans alone, but that amount is dwarfed by the 207 billion metric tonnes emitted by the earth's biomass every year. The anthropogenic contribution to the annual CO2 discharge into the atmosphere?  29.2 billion metric tonnes, or about 14.1%. 
To be sure, autotrophs take a lot of that back up when they perform photosynthesis, so if we can neglect the autotrophs and consider just the heterotrophs (organisms that eat other organisms), well, they still contribute 89 billion metric tonnes - three times as much as is produced by human activity alone.

How all this stuff balances out is still often not factored into the BIG PICTURE. Some serious climate researchers most likely do have all of these non-anthropogenic sources of CO2 factored into their models, but many don't. There are a vast plethora of climate models written by programmers who have varying degrees of motivation to get the models to say what they want them to say. Unfortunately, it's usually the models that predict global mayhem that get the press coverage - after all, those are the predictions that make the best copy and get the most attention. The mass media is instrumental in pushing apocalyptic scenarios - a case in point is the 2004 movie Day After Tomorrow, a feature length film that depicts an instantaneous ice age caused by man-made global warming. Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth is another example of environmentalist overkill that tends to defeat its intended purpose by being too far-fetched. The decidedly non-scientific Hollywood culture is overly prone to participate in the climate hysteria - it's good for the box office.
There have been some studies, in fact, that seem to suggest that the more drastic the drumbeat of climatic upheaval, the more people tune the whole thing out.

All in all, climate is a fascinating and complex dynamic system that is confounding to even the best climate scientists. There are so many variables and feedbacks, both positive and negative, to consider when contemplating ramifications of our contemporary culture's effect, whether small or large, on the immense and complicated machine that is Mother Earth.

A CLOSER LOOK AT CLIMATE CHANGE (PART 10)

FOLLOW THE MONEY

One week ago, on 11/14/2010, I posted some examples of financial incentives certain groups may have in corrupting the science of climate change in a manner that would encourage results desirable to the financiers and thus keep the cash cow of AGW financing alive and well (CLCC - 5). I want to explore that angle in a little more detail with this post (CLCC - 10).

I cited data from a watchdog group, the George C. Marshall Policy Outlook Institute  (GCMPOI), where facts and figures regarding who is funding climate research, which, in turn tells us why, and further tells us what the funding bodies expect to gain from the research. I also cited data from a couple of other sources that I've had to revise, as there is disagreement between the GCMPOI data and the data from other sources. In this instance I consider the GCMPOI data more reliable. Here are some excerpts from their report: The study of climate change science and the policy ramifications of climate change is a multi-billion enterprise in the United States.



The report went on to say: A cursory glimpse of the list of recipients of those private funds reveals that the vast majority are spent by groups favoring restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions and believe that climate change requires dramatic government action.

These findings appear to validate The Weather Chanel co-founder John Coleman's opinion (CLCC - 3)

"What bothered me was, the other scientists had accepted it, and why did they possibly do that? And I think the real answer to that question is, they all have an agenda, an environmental and political agenda that said “let’s pile on here, we’re all gonna make a lot of money, we’re gonna get research grants, we’re gonna get awards, we’re all gonna become famous, and I guess that’s what happened”.


This report also validates James Spann, TV meteorologist at an ABC affiliate in Alabama (CLCC - 8), says: *Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story. Even the lady at The Weather Channel probably gets paid good money for a prime time show on climate change. No man-made global warming, no show, and no salary. Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab".

It's evident that pro-AGW research is well funded by private groups and the U.S. government so a favorable business and political climate can be pursued. But that just barely scratches the surface. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) issued a report in 2007 that projected per annum expenditures for mitigation alone would be $200-210 billion. They estimate more than $432 billion should be spent annually on energy research with $148 billion dedicated to renewable energy sources. Now, in a sense, this may not seem all bad - in fact, it would seem there is a very positive aspect to this kind of investment money being directed at weening off from fossil fuels, but the question begs itself - where is this investment money going to come from? Taxes? Is investment in these technologies going to get paid for on the backs of working people when it's doubtful that all this will have any meaningful effect on global temperatures? We are currently in the grip of a ten year cooling trend - not warming trend. This cooling trend beginning around the year 2000 coincides nicely with a dearth of sunspot activity over the same period (CLCC - 6), so if policy makers decide to levy steep carbon taxes on the people so they can funnel money to investors so they in turn can invest on saving the planet just in time for colder global temperatures to arrive for the next 20-35 years before resuming their on-again-off-again climb for the next 400 years, well, that wouldn't be good for anybody but the investors who are now getting rich on climate change, and it would likewise be a good thing for the AGW scientists whom the investors are putting to work making their investments pay off.

Looking at the BIG PICTURE, there is a lot more money in studying climate change as an urgent man-made problem than there is in studying it in a dispassionate manner. To be sure, some private foundations funded by big money interests such as ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Massey Energy provide funding for sympathetic researchers, which taints these researchers every bit as much as those receiving money from foundations and other entities who stand to gain from the hysteria. The money from pro-AGW interests dwarfs the money coming in to fund research aimed at discrediting the AGW scenario. This is as good an explanation as I can think of to explain the curious fact that 95% of the noise we hear is coming from the AGW ideologues while only about 5% is coming from the other direction. Not a good balance, if you were to ask my humble opinion.

A CLOSER LOOK AT CLIMATE CHANGE (PART 9)

CLIMATE CHANGE JIHAD

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth”



Albert Einstein – 1900


Albert Einstein was an iconoclast. So is Freeman Dyson, the brilliant physicist and mathematician who unified quantum theory and electrodynamics into the discipline of quantum electrodynamics in 1949. 
Dyson has been at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at Princeton NJ, since 1953, where he shared time and space with Einstein for two years until Einstein's death in 1955. IAS, established in 1930, is a sort of elite scientific think tank staffed at different times by some of the most brilliant scientists of the modern era. Dyson is "infinitely smart", according to Bill Press, former Deputy Director at Los Alamos National Laboratory (birthplace of the atomic and hydrogen bombs). Few people who know or worked with Dyson would disagree - but there are some who don't know a lot about him who think of him as a know-nothing. They are some of the global warming radicals who push Anthropogenic Climate Change (AGW) as a holy war to be waged with every nanogram of their beings, and they don't like Dyson because he thinks the climate change issue has been blown way up out of proportion. He agrees that it's getting warmer, and that carbon dioxide may even have something to do with it, but he doesn't see it as a crisis. To the AGW people, that's heresy, and it makes Freeman Dyson a heretic.  
 
Dyson was interviewed by Nicholas Dawidoff in early 2009 for an article that ran in New York Times Magazine on March 28, 2009, where he had the temerity to voice his opinion on the AGW issue - and likewise, Dawidoff had the temerity run Dyson's opinion in his piece. 
Both took a lot of heat from the climate radicals because of this piece. Here's Dr. Joe Romm, physicist and climate blogger, attacking Dawidoff  to Bob Garfield of On The Media with a blistering fusillade for "misleading the public". "The public is not scientifically expert, and the public’s ability to distinguish science and pseudoscience, which sound pretty much the same, is very small. So it is up to the filters, the media, to use its own judgment based on talking to many different sources and itself weighing the credibility of sources".
There you have it right from an apocalyptic's mouth. We, the public, are stupid (and easy targets for being duped by their propaganda in the media). Only pro-AGW scientists, in their view, have the inside track on the scientific nuances of climate change - other scientists, no matter how accomplished in their field, need not utter a peep. It's the media's job, according to Romm, to be the AGW's mouthpiece, to selectively filter out anything that calls AGW research into even a hint of a question. They are doing an admirable job of doing just that.

Even if a scientist is a practicing climatologist and knows of what he or she speaks, he or she has to know they'll get blackballed by the "mainstream" scientific community if they don't mind their Ps and Qs. These scientists and technocrats can and do arrange for funding to be pulled from apostate scientists who do not agree or agree strongly enough with the AGW dogma. Moreover, the AGW people can and have arranged for the ousting of non-compliant journal editors who have had the bad sense to allow the publishing of papers on climate that aren't sufficiently zealous enough to satisfy them.

Famed AGW apocalyptic Dr. James E. Hansen responded to the New York Times Magazine's piece with this comment: There are bigger fish to fry than Freeman Dyson, who doesn’t know what he’s talking about (Huh?). If he is going to wander into something with major consequences for humanity and other life on the planet, then he should first do his homework — which he obviously has not done on global warming.” Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Hansen needs to do his homework. Dyson worked with Alvin Weinberg at the Institute of Energy Analysis (a subdivision of the Department of Energy (DOE) in the late 1970s studying carbon dioxide's relationship with global climate, and has been pondering the issue for years. Hansen believes himself to be one of the, if not the, foremost expert on climate change in the world, that he drives the car, and everybody else please get in the back seat. But Hansen doesn't give Dyson any credit - just like Einstein's Professors at the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (ETH) in Zürich didn't give him any credit for his contrarian thinking a hundred and ten years ago that ultimately led to Relatively superceding the previously unshakable Newtonian concepts of Absolute Space and Absolute Time. 
Dyson is someone who can roll with the punches the AGW people throw at him. With his customary air of humility, Dyson says: " [m]y objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have". 

Dave Roberts of Grist Magazine has this suggestion: Put AGW "deniers" on trial à la Nuremberg. Roberts equates the AGW "crisis" as being equivalent to the Holocaust, and he equates "deniers" (whom he doesn't distinguish from "doubters" or "skeptics") equivalent to Nazi war criminals. And who is responsible for the "Holocaust" we're experiencing? We humans, of course. This is pretty radical stuff!

Meet Dr. Heidi Cullen, formerly of The Weather Channel, now the interim CEO of Climate Central, who believes meteorologists or other weather professionals should be decertified if they don't toe the line. Here's what she wrote: "If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS (American Meteorological Society) shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns."

Wait a minute! I didn't know that AGW was an established scientific fact. I thought it was a hypothesis that is being tested, and, since by definition, climate is defined as the aggregate weather over the course of decades, centuries, and millennia, then at best, the jury's still out on whether man-made climate change is established as a "fundamental" truth. The testing of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, begun in earnest only a couple of decades ago, has in fact barely begun. On the matter of AMS's members agreeing with Cullen's statement about the AMS being on board, well, not so fast!

Here's what TV meteorologist James Spann, a meteorologist at an ABC affiliate in Alabama, had to say about it: "I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can't find them".

Bill Steffen, a meteorologist at the NBC affiliate in Grand Rapids, Michigan, concurs. In an email Steffen said most meteorologists accept that the earth has been warming over the last hundred years, but do not believe the warming is anthropogenic. Those that do believe in AGW do so because they're mandated to do so as per their job description. They're afraid they'll lose it if they stray from the fold. Another example of the financial interests involved in the AGW movement. 



Climate science - a legitimate and highly complex discipline in the physical sciences, has been hijacked by financial, political and ideological interests, which means that the science, as practiced by the ideologues, has lost its claim to objectivity. It has become, in my words, a scientific jihad. Climate science has been hijacked in the same manner as Islam has been hijacked by the terrorist jihadis. It's been bastardized by a fringe element who have been portrayed as mainstream by the mainstream media and sympathetic politicians and, most of all, by themselves.

Dispassionate scientific inquiry is the foundation of scientific research, and likewise, journalism is supposed to be the dispassionate, objective pursuit of the truth. Yet the mainstream media, with the New York Times and the Washington Post leading the charge, is acting as a mouthpiece for only one side of the story. Dozens of columnists and op-ed writers like Tom Friedman and Andrew Revkin of the New York Times, Michael Mandelbaum and Bryan Walsh, of Time Magazine, just to name a small handful off the top of my head, tout AGW as established fact. A case in point - when Climategate happened, the media smoothed over the incriminating stuff. Specifics were mentioned very little by most media outlets. The story ran along the lines of " ..... It was just a bump in the road - It was just glitch, no harm done - It didn't change anything - It didn't alter the fact that the overwhelming evidence for man-made climate change is clear - The deniers are making a tempest in a teapot out of this - It was all taken out of context - It was deliberately misconstrued by the enemies of "real" climate science" etc. etc. Andrew Revkin of the NYT, called by some an "alarmist reporter" and a shill for the AGW jihad, was one of the most ambitious reporters running interference on behalf of the East Anglia jihadis. But Revkin was butchered by radical ClimateProgress blogger Joe Romm (remember him from earlier in this post?) in his blog for (responsibly) questioning the validity of a slide in one of Al Gore's lectures that asserted there had been "unprecedented" occurrences of wildfires, hurricanes, and other natural disasters - all due to global warming. Even the IPCC had to admit that even they didn't know enough to say for sure that all these disasters were caused by AGW (though curiously, they didn't explicitly deny it).
According to The Gospel According to Joe, any media that doesn't carry the Word with sufficient zeal must be censured or labeled with some epithet. Romm, as difficult as it is to believe, is probably even more radical than Hansen. He uses his blog to mount attacks on "enemies" of the AGW jihad, and even sometimes wages war against journalists and scientists whom he considers insufficiently passionate AGW jihadis - such as Revkin. Romm has even said Hansen, of all people, is understating the climate crisis in which we are perishing.

As revealed by the Climategate emails from East Anglia and radical bloggers like Romm, along with interviews by AGW scientists given with sympathetic reporters, op-ed columnists for radical "green" publications, Dave Roberts of Grist, and others, there is a significant degree of hatred, rancor, and derision directed at scientists and politicians who have an opposing view. AGW radicals at East Anglia, including notorious schemers Phil Jones and Tom Wigley, collaborated to get Review Editor James Saiers removed from his position at the Geophysical Review Letters because he allowed a "sceptic" (sic) paper (by climate scientist Steve McIntyre) to get published in that journal. They also lobbied for the removal of Hans Von Storch from his position as Editor in Chief at the the journal Climate Research because he allowed a "sceptic" (sic) paper (dubbed "crap science" by Wigley) to be published in his journal.

Climate jihadis who push for punitive measures against those who disagree with their viewpoint aren't limited to just the media and scientific community - here's a real doozy of a fanatic - Lord Nicholas Stern of Brentford, UK. who's hell-bent on waging economic warfare on the United States for having too big of a carbon footprint.  He is the UK's leading "climate economist".
Lord Stern is threatening economic jihad on the U.S. in the event we don't cut our carbon dioxide emissions by 17% within the next ten years. And if we don't (which we won't - because we can't), he's going to get a bunch of other countries, which presumably includes the U.K., to boycott all products made here in the US. Stern is claiming that "if nothing is done", the global temperature will rise as much as 7° C by the year 2100. 

What?!
This guy doesn't know science from shinola. Apparently his cronies over in nearby East Anglia are feeding him this stuff and he must think it tastes good. He thinks the AGW science is settled, which it's not. But it doesn't matter to him, because he's on the war path and his mind is made up.
The illuminating thing about Lord Stern is that he is an economist, and as such he knows for certain that the United States would cease to be a viable society if such drastic measures to cut CO2 emissions were enacted and enforced. But that would be alright with him. He apparently wants to see the U.S brought to it's knees, one way or another.  This is a classic, lose-lose scenario that would have implications for not just the U.S., but globally. Maybe Stern figures China would step in and become the world's primary economic engine (they're already well along in that direction as of now). 
Curiously, Stern wants to let China off the hook, even though China emits more CO2 than the United States. Stern used the "per capita" gambit to excuse China's carbon footprint. China's population  outnumbers that of the United States more than 4 to 1, which would render any per capita comparison between the two countries utterly meaningless. These are just a few of the schemings and machinations Wigley, Jones, and others have orchestrated or tried to orchestrate. The emails and other spoken and printed material from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia are filled with ad hominum attacks on scientists outside their circle (and thus, outside their control) who carry out climate research the AGW jihadis consider heretical or not sufficiently supportive of their agenda. 

The nature of science is often adversarial - that's its nature. Subjects of scientific study are often rife with mind boggling complexity - almost never is there any one right answer, and usually there are many, many "somewhat right" answers that are unequivocally right to true believers. Sometimes even competent scientists get it wrong, and when an honorable scientist gets it wrong they accept  the correction graciously, publish an erratum, and move on. One of young Einstein's Professors at the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (ETH) who was critical of him  was his mathematics instructor, Professor Hermann Minkowski (who refered to Einstein as "a lazy dog").
Einstein was vindicated when, in 1908, Professor Minkowski united the three spacial dimensions with the dimension of time into a unified four dimensional "spacetime" using Einstein's Invariance Theory (better known as the Special Theory of Relativity) as its foundation.

Scientists who disagree should, but often do not, respect the differing scientific opinions of other scientists. In researching this serial story of climate change - I have seen many interviews and read many articles. I have discussed (via email) many aspects of both sides. What I've come to understand is simply this: AGW jihadis display a singularly rigid and unnatural animosity towards those credentialed scientists (and journalists) holding opposing scientific views, while opposing scientists are less rancorous on a personal level but dismiss the AGW jihadis as practitioners of quack science who are driven by greed, by the quest for fame, money, and hero status. As for the AGW jihadis, their jobs and prestige depends on their being right. It's the politicization of science for personal and political gain that has turned off many scientists. Many climate scientists respond to their critics by questioning their integrity rather than responding with reasoned arguments backed up by solid data. IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri trashes research not done by AGW jihadis as "voodoo science" even after it has been shown that some of IPCC's most quoted data came right out of unvetted activist brochures, reports from corporations with a vested interest in the AGW jihad, and newspaper articles by activist AGW journalists. UN Environment chief Achem Steiner suggests anyone who questions questionable claims and data produced by AGW jihadi scientists are guilty of conducting "witch hunts". AGW jihadis flail wildly at those who have legitimate disagreements with their conclusions, and along with their media shills, they release chaff and run interference to cover up legitimate questions on whether or not they are practicing quack science to maintain their position in the driver's seat where they can continiue to ride the gravy train only as long as they fight with all the abandon they can muster.

With AGW, we are told by the media that the "overwhelming majority" of "climate experts" and "leading scientists" support man-made global warming and believe it is a crisis of epic proportions. These are "the authorities" that Einstein would consider them to be today if he were here. If he were here, you can almost bet money he would say: "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of Truth".