Two forces are at work that have, as judging from my email, left my readers confused. The first is the pace of news around climate has accelerated by a factor of at least 10 since the CRU email release. I must admit I really underestimated the impact that release would have — not in how much we would learn, but the impact it had on the media. Suddenly, the media had a narrative they understood (coverup and malfeasance) that somehow allowed them to question catastrophic global warming theory when they were unwilling to do so on the basis of flaws in the science. S0, for example, while the media was unwilling to question the obvious absurdity of the Himalayan glacier forecast in a straight up science discussion, they were able to run with it as a story about organizational failure at the IPCC. Whatever.
At the same time, I have had less time to dedicate to this blog (for those who have not seen it, my appearance on Glenn Beck may explain why).
I will continue to do science-based stories on this site as I have done in the past, but cannot possibly keep up with the evolving political stories surrounding climate change.
There has always been two intertwined threads in the AGW phenomenon:
The AGW science and the AGW social.
The AGW theory- that CO2 will cause a climate catastrophe, and indeed has already started a climate catastrophe- depends on a vast social infrastructure to keep such a preposterous idea alive.
I think that historians will focus more on how that infrastructure built up by inflaming the imaginations of so many otherwise smart people. The science will be seen as just another theory that turned out to just not be so. But the social side has a life of its own, immune to fact, criticism, and reason, and not held to normal ethical or scientific practices.
That process is far more interesting.
Good luck trying to untangle it.
Warren, you might be interested in this paper by Edward Long (via Motl), which indicates reasonably convincingly that the NASA folks adjusted for the UHI effect by increasing the temperatures observed at the rural stations!
An interesting article commenting on some of the ways our youth are being indoctrinated. This from our friends at NASA;
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html
Hunter,
I think you’re correct. I am amazed that a less than one degree change in global mean temperature (assuming it even is true) has lead to the kind of irrational lemming-like behavior that is the modern AGW movement.
That a group of people have exploited this patently ridiculous idea into a world-wide political ideology is incredible.
That it is mostly educated people of upper-middle class or higher status that have embraced this quasi-religion is even more absurd.
However I’m afraid your prediction that historians will reveal the reasons for the hysteria is unlikely since they are among the class of elites that embraces this nonsense most endearingly.
I suspect it will fizzle out slowly, probably replaced with some other politically expedient hyperbole, since those that have been duped will not be eager to reveal their incredulity and those that have been willfully complicit in the grand illusion, for less than noble reasons, will be anxious to bury any evidence of their furtive actions.
I actually emailed Warren to see if the Warren Meyer I saw on Beck was the same Warren Meyer who hosts one of my favorite climate blogs. Yup. It’s him. I am incredibly proud of this gentleman. I have no idea where he finds the time and energy to devote to so many endeavors. Mr. Meyer is truly an incredible human being.
We’re all busy. Hell, I’m busy! But I know few individuals who successfully juggle as many balls as Warren. He’s incredibly gracious about responding to email (this impressed me right from the start), he’s an engineer, he maintains at least two blog sites (that I know of) and now I discover he’s keeping Arizona State Parks open.
If only we could get a “climate scientist” or a politician to be so engaged…
Mr. Meyer, again…my hat’s off to you, Sir.
Lance,
You may well be correct in the final outcome, but I am an optimist.
Yes, Mr Meyer has made astute observation about the media paying some attention when the subject is cover-up and malfeasance.
I am not aware of anything in the CRU e-mails that we did not already know – from available evidence, much less if the media had done any assertive questioning.
We knew that IPCC was hiding the divergence problem, that Phil Jones was not releasing code or original data, that the Hadley Center was conniving to not comply with FOIA, that they were subverting the peer review process, that they apparently were destroying data / innovation contrary to IPCC protocol. (Upon second thought – one thing we did not know was they were coordinating much of this despicable behavior via e-mails.) In my view of an integrity-filled reporter, the media should have been all over these issues earlier.
Meanwhile, the UK’s Institute of Physics has released a remarkable statement — remarkable not because of the content but rather because it seems significant segments of the scientific community are now standing up against the tendency to white wash the malfeasance activities in the climate industry. See
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm