Those arguing for action against the perceived threat they call variously Catastrophic Anthropgenic Global Warming, Climate Change, Climate Disruption or whatever new name they can come up with to try to keep it alive have long relied on the argument that there is overwhelming scientific consensus about it and the “the science is settled”.

In another blog I have argued that consensus has no bearing on scientific accuracy, and that no science is ever settled.  AGW believers say that is nonsense.

Well, it now seems there is scientific consensus that AGW is incorrect, unscientific, fraudulent, and on the data available so far, most probably plain wrong:

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/9035/SPECIAL-REPORT-More-Than-1000-International-Scientists-Dissent-Over-ManMade-Global-Warming-Claims–Challenge-UN-IPCC–Gore (Hat tip to Joe Bastardi through one of his tweets).

In the face of this, look out for AGW supporters declaiming that consensus has no bearing on accuracy…

My word, there are so many reports of “errors” and “omissions” in calculation of global temperature data, or in official reports of the supposedly catastrophic consequences of global warming (sorry, climate change).   Naturally every public announcement by the IPCC reiterates that their science is sound, and that “this isolated incident”  in no way invalidates their main message that we must all take urgent action (and pay big money) to avert Armageddon.  The same line is taken by the politicians who are counting on our meek acceptance of our collective guilt (and the taxes they shall levy as penance).

But worse than that, almost all of the supposedly impartial mainstream media follow the same route.  Their reports usually end with prominent attention to a disclaimer.  Methinks they protest too much.

Here’s but one example, from “The Guardian”.  Reading this, one can almost hear old Bing Crosby accentuating the positive:

“This dramatic revision of the estimated impact of urbanization on temperatures in China does not change the global picture of temperature trends.” (Source: Fred Pearce, published on guardian.co.uk at 21.00 GMT on Monday 1 February 2010.

Oh, good grief!  Of course an analysis revealing a cover-up in one area of a report does not invalidate other areas of the report.  Not scientifically at any rate.  But it is yet another instance of incorrect official information from the climate change experts.  Phil Jones, with assistance from a Chinese colleague, had asserted that the Urban Heat Island effect on reported temperature rise in China is “an order of magnitude” less than other factors.  And that was a key finding of the IPCC 2007 report.  That’s right – information published by the IPCC and used to influence leaders.  And which Jones himself changed as quietly as possible in 2008, hoping nobody would notice.  Changed, that is, from “an order of magnitude less” to “at least 40%”!

Here are some other instances:

• Himalayan glaciers to disappear by 2035 – a key finding in the IPCC 2007 report, since vigorously defended by the head of the IPCC and then retracted with an assurance that it is “an isolated failure”.
• Distortions of records and concealment of sources by Mann, Hansen, Briffa, NASA, GISS and the IPCC
• email-documented collusion between the major players to continue their concealment of their sources
• Continuous attacks on the motives of sceptics (funny, real science thrives on scepticism).  Climate change scientists cast sceptics as the enemy and hence attempt to justify keeping them in the dark.

Now, can you still hear Bing Crosby?  I can’t.  I hear Monty Python’s “Bright Side”, with Penn & Teller in the chorus.

In isolation, each instance is bad.  Put them together and they demonstrate that we should view all communications from these parties with suspicion.  They have relinquished any authority in this field.  Their calls for urgent action are beginning to sound very hollow.

So here’s a Grumpy Old Man’s call for action.  I call for assessment and formal review of the men and the institutions they serve, their research and conclusions, and all the reports they have produced.  By scientific enquiry, as soon as possible.  The terms of reference must be defined by scientific institutions, and the panel that defines them must exclude all politicians, all academic or other bodies connected with the the IPCC, NASA, NOAA or any affiliated group, and in particular, all organisations whose charters involve climate change.  The enquirers themselves would have to be similarly uncontaminated.

I do not need to call for prosecutions.  Given the likely outcome of a scientific enquiry as defined above, they would follow.

Man is responsible for carbon dioxide emissions of around 26 gigatonnes per year. The oceans have a total mass of 1.3 billion gigatonnes.  Even if all man-made carbon dioxide emissions were absorbed in the oceans (they’re not), there would be a rise in the ratio of oceanic CO2 by one part carbon dioxide to 50 million parts ocean per year, or one part per million per half century.  That is a very insignificant proportion – almost undetectable, certainly undetectable by marine life.  Even after fifty years, human emissions of CO2 would make no appreciable difference to the acidity of the oceans.  And yet, we are subjected to nonsensical “scientific” reports with emotive alarmist conclusions.  Like these two:

First, the report from the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity  Incredibly, it claims that “Ocean acidity will increase by 150 percent by 2050, a rate of acidification 100 times greater than anything that has occurred in the last 20 million years. This will leave little chance for adaptation by marine organisms and cause the widespread dying off of the world’s corals. In addition, shelled organisms will not be able to survive the increased acidity, which will likely lead to a wide scale collapse of the marine food chain.  Ocean acidification is irreversible on timescales of at least tens of thousands of years, and substantial damage to ocean ecosystems can only be avoided by urgent and rapid reductions in global emissions of CO2.”

Second, a report published by the European Project on Ocean Acidification.  It states that the survival of a number of marine species is affected or threatened.  The study predicts that levels of aragonite will fall by 60% to 80% by 2095 across the northern hemisphere.  Aragonite is essential for marine organisms to make their skeletons and shells.  Dr John Baxter, a senior scientist with Scottish Natural Heritage, and the report’s co-author, says “The bottom line is the only way to slow this down or reverse it is aggressive and immediate cuts in CO2.  This is a very dangerous global experiment we’re undertaking here.”

What?  We guilty humans are about to kill off marine life?  A rise in the oceanic proportion of CO2 by one part per million per half-century would not go within a bull’s roar of  doing the kind of damage these people are talking about.  It’s bloody insignificant!  So why have they published the reports?

Here’s a clue…

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is an international legally binding treaty that was adopted in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.  The Secretariat is institutionally linked to the United Nations Environment Programme, its host institution, and is located in Montreal, Canada.

The European Project on Ocean Acidification report was commissioned and funded by the European Union for the Copenhagen Climate Fest in December 2009, and presented there.

There’s your answer, in the names of the sponsors.  The United Nations and the European Union.  The reports were commissioned by the two bodies with the greatest interest in and the most to gain from causing public alarm and guilt over CO2 emissions.  They were commissioned with that specific aim.  And their conclusions are baloney.

P.S.  The reports are even sillier when you consider that not all the carbon dioxide emissions caused by man are absorbed by the oceans.  According to Skeptical Science (yep, the website that supports global warming), the oceans absorb only 6 gigatonnes net per year.  Humph!

P.P.S.  Sea water pH is somewhere between 7.5 and 8.4, depending on location and depth.  It is alkaline.  The addition of one part per million of CO2 in fifty years will make no appreciable difference to that.

References:

Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity Report:

http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/acid-oceans-global-warming%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98evil-twin%E2%80%99/

European Project Report, quoted in the “Guardian” article “Ocean Acidification Rates pose Disaster”, reporting on the Copenhagen Summit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/10/ocean-acidification-epoca

Skeptical Science on Human CO2 Emissions and the Carbon Cycle

http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm

The UN, its environmental propaganda unit (the IPCC) and the organisers want us to believe that man-made CO2 and methane emissions are the cause of global warming.  They and their supporters refer to anyone who is skeptical of that claim by the derogatory term “Denier”.  They wish us to feel guilty about the perfectly natural twentieth century warming, and blame ourselves for it.

This is organised religion at work – massive manipulation on a scale not seen since the Dark Ages.  Its purpose is the increase and entrench the power and wealth of the UN.  If it is not constrained it will impoverish us all – while the developing nations continue to develop, financed by our CO2 carbon-credit taxes.  Think about this:

From the time of Constantine until after the Renaissance, the dominant organised religion of the Western world set up the most enduring bureaucracy of all time to build and maintain its power.  It had it all – Fear of mortality, original sin, guilt about sexuality, the seven deadly sins, blessings, indulgences, tithing, the inquisition, the priesthood, cathedrals, the Swiss Guard and more.

It still exists, but its power is but a shadow of what it was in the Dark Ages.  Sadly, nature abhors a vacuum, even a power vacuum.  So, now we have the UN.  It already has many of the infrastructure elements of the old church.  But it has lacked the driving religion that is needed for really comprehensive power.

Until now.  Now, it has Anthropogenic Global Warming.  I have seen the priesthood (the IPCC) and that’s bad enough.  I am not keen to see what the UN will do for an inquisition.

The Key Components of Organised Religion:

Organised religion purports to bring us enlightenment, universal truth, knowledge of God and salvation.  It does nothing of the sort – it’s about control, wealth and power.  It achieves this by feeding us baloney, fostering fear and guilt, positioning itself as the sole path for forgiveness of our sins,  and charging us for that “service”.

It also builds infrastructure to support its aims.  The organisational infrastructure includes bureaucracies to maintain our fear and guilt, punish us when we don’t comply with their rules, collect our payments and recruit us as disciples to promote and enforce their views.  It also always includes a priesthood whose duties include propaganda to promote the baloney that is central to its control.  Some organised religions even maintain military and security organisations.  The physical infrastructure includes imposing cathedrals, churches and temples to which we are required to come for our regular indoctrination sessions and express our gratitude.

A key element of most organised religions is fostering of hatred for non-believers and dissenters.  Those who do not believe are branded as heathens.  Any expression of dissent or disagreement from believers is branded as heresy or blasphemy, and severely punished.

Why do people who want us to believe that we cause global warming and can avert the end of the world only by drastically cutting CO2 emissions insist on appealing to Carl Sagan and to “scientific consensus” as supporting evidence for their beliefs?  Why the hell don’t they read Sagan’s Baloney Detection kit before talking about his theories?

The astrophysicist Carl Sagan was also a prominent scientific educator, whose TV series and books informed us not only about the cosmos but about the nature of science itself – how it works and why it is so effective.  He was a strong and consistent advocate of scientific skepticism, and an opponent of pseudo-science.  His book “The Demon-Haunted World” is but one example of his determination to promote scientific reasoning over superstition and credulity.  The book provides a “Baloney Detection Kit” to be used when assessing arguments.  You can read it here.

Carl Sagan is also widely credited as one of the originators of the theory that man causes global warming by CO2 emissions.  His authority is used as evidence supporting that theory, and those who are skeptical about it are cast as opposing Carl Sagan.  Oh come on – he would be appalled by that reasoning!  “Appealing to Authority” is the number two fallacy on Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit list.  (The number one fallacy in that list is ad hominem.)

Understandably we are in awe of Carl Sagan.  Men of his intellect, eloquence and commitment to the truth are rare.  Yet in his own writings, he warns us against awe-inspired credulity.  He clearly demonstrates that all theories and postulates, including his own, should be viewed with scientific skepticism.

This is what he said in his book “The Demon-haunted World”:

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion….  Superstition and pseudoscience keep getting in the way, providing easy answers, dodging skeptical scrutiny, casually pressing our awe buttons and cheapening the experience, making us routine and comfortable practitioners as well as victims of credulity. The tenants of skepticism do not require an advanced degree to master, as most successful used car buyers demonstrate.

For crying out loud, Chicken-Licken was no scientist.  But some scientists have become Chicken-Lickens.  They seem to have forgotten the fundamentals of science.  More and more of them use the “We must act now before it’s too late” line.  You know – the time for skepticism has passed.  Don’t oppose us, else we delay and fail to prevent catastrophe!  That is not only alarmist, it is also a logical fallacy.  Sagan calls it “Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an “unfavourable” decision)”.  It is listed as number three fallacy in his Baloney Detection Kit.