Freaking Amazing

If one wonders why the climate alarmist movement is suffering from a credibility problem, one only needs to read this:

Climate change is already having “pervasive, wide-ranging” effects on “nearly every aspect of our society,” a task force representing more than 20 federal agencies reported Tuesday.

“These impacts will influence how and where we live and work as well as our cultures, health and environment,” the report states. “It is therefore imperative to take action now to adapt to a changing climate.”

Indeed, climate change has begun to affect the ability of government agencies to fulfill their missions, reports the White House Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force.

The group is led by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It is made up of representatives from more than 20 federal agencies, departments and offices, including the Department of Commerce, the National Intelligence Council, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Pentagon. That’s diverse – and it’s definitive.

Seriously?  I love how the author says “it’s definitive.”  If the Bush White House had gotten all the same groups together 8 years ago to say that Islamic terrorism was the greatest threat ever faced by every Federal Agency, would that have been “definitive” too? (In fact, exactly this happened, as every department made a pitch for why they needed new security funds).

LOL, let’s see, I will go to a Federal Agency, and tell them that their funding is flat but that they can get more funding, potentially, if any of their problems are caused by climate change.  I wonder how many will then blame all their problems on climate change?  Anyone who has studied the government for 12 seconds will know that government departments are more than happy to pitch all their efforts in the context of the boogeyman de jour, whether it be terrorism or climate change, if doing so will get them some extra bucks in the appropriations process.  If the guy handing out goodies says “I really, really care about X,” then do you really think the Department of Whatever is going to say that X is irrelevant to them?

Here are some of the devastating non-trends in US Climate:

36 thoughts on “Freaking Amazing”

  1. This will be seen as the last stand of the AGW social movement.
    There is only so many times one can hold up a piece of oddly shaped bread and claim that it is, in fact, the Blessed Virgin Mary and actually get people to believe it.
    AGW promoters have held up this piece of bread until it is moldy and falling apart, yet still cliam it is somehow divine.

  2. An overt attempt by a Progressive administration to exert Cap and Tax via administrative fiat in an end run of the legislative process given that Cap and Trade is virtually dead in the Senate… Where are the Constitutional scholars when you need them?

  3. AGW belief has been tied to religion, here’s another relationship: Christians have been preaching that war and killing is evil for close to 2000 years, and as far as I can tell, Christianity has made no impact on the number of war casualties.

    Likewise, preaching AGW will have NO effect on reducing emissions. We all want to be able to keep our food from spoiling by refrigeration, we all want to be able to get to work and back home withouth spending many hours walking to and from work, we all want to keep our jobs, keep warm in winter, etc. AGWers don’t seem to realize that the worst conceivalbe AGW scenario is much less scary than the result ot a conscientious effort to FIGHT global warming.

  4. Interesting that this task force uses this phrase: “It is therefore imperative to take action now to adapt to a changing climate.” Well now, isn’t this what many skeptics have been saying all along; that adaptation is what humans do and have done best for centuries? In fact, in a recent correspondence I had with a University of West England Professor regarding a conference they put on to discuss the psychology of climate denial, I brought this very issue up. Rather than spending staggering amounts of money on something that “might” happen based on the precautionary principal, that we address climate change as it happens, responding to it on a local basis, as required, as humans always have. This could well be the next tactic of an AGW community now scrambling to find its footing. If cap and trade is dead, if a carbon tax is dead, if shutting down oil and coal fails, then perhaps they can convince us that we need to expend massive amounts on some kind of ‘aggressive and localized adaptation.’ After all, this agency’s name is the ‘White House Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force.’ The facade is crumbling, but where politicians and taxpayer money is involved, they’ll do whatever is necessary to reinforce the structure in order to continue siphoning money out of any pocket they can.

  5. While many AGW advocate’s primary agenda is centralized government control of the economy, advocacy of such in pursuit of adaptation would seem an incredibly weak reed. Any kind of ‘command economy’ has been very convincingly demonstrated entirely inimical to effective adaptation of any kind, political, social or economic. The most telling point at this juncture is obviously the absence of any of the predicted catastrophic impacts of AGW. Unless this changes soon, it’ll likely become a case that ‘there’s nothing to “adapt” to’ more than anything else!

  6. Tamino might just make you the highlight of one of his posts, as there is a trend from 1975 in the first chart.

  7. I find it amazing that people are claiming that AGW is a religion. Clearly, the religion here is the absolute denial that Humanity cannot change the climate.

    While the alarmist visions put forth by Al Gore are also sprinkled with lies, I find that some skeptics of AGW will go through some of the most ridiculous interpretations to support their claims.

    The truth is that many skeptics are simply ill-equipped to make any statements on climatic data. Many lack the knowledge in atmospheric science and will pick and choose what data the see as ‘proof’. They also hold a few scientists that speak contrary to the peer-reviewed scientific data in high esteem…. Even though there are also professors and ‘scientists’ that support ridiculous beliefs in Roswell Aliens, and The Apollo Landings Hoax. A person attaining a Phd doesn’t suddenly mean they are the bearer of truth. Einstein, one of the most brilliant scientists in the last century was wrong on many of his beliefs. That doesn’t belittle his genius.

    Global Warming is a very complex subject. Tornadoes and Hurricanes are not good measurements, nor are point-by-point analysis on continental land masses. One must look at an overall global average, especially anomalies near polar latitudes. The manifestation GW should also show an upward trend of mean sea temperatures – All have shown considerable data with anomalies not explained by solar activity or axial offset.

    Do I support a Carbon Tax? No.

    Do I think governments and companies will take advantage of CO2 tax? Yes.

    Do I think we should spread misinformation and claim that CO2 is not a ‘greenhouse gas’? An affirmative NO!

    It’s good to be skeptical… But also be skeptical of data that supports your views. You’d be surprised how much we are willing to deny to avoid being wrong.

  8. From the blog above…

    Climate change is already having “pervasive, wide-ranging” effects on “nearly every aspect of our society,” a task force representing more than 20 federal agencies reported Tuesday.

    “These impacts will influence how and where we live and work as well as our cultures, health and environment,” the report states. “It is therefore imperative to take action now to adapt to a changing climate.”

    End Quote

    Well technically they are correct. The driver for change is not the climate, it is the people that think we need to change, and their policies.

    – Nearly every aspect (carbon tax would apply)
    – Culture (An Inconvenient Truth would qualify here)
    – Health (money wasted on this could have been spent on health)
    – Environment (money wasted on this could have been spent on the environment

    The quote is accurate, but the causality is not climate change it is people slapping policies on the taxpayers that is causing it.

    (Ok, that was sarcasm…I confess)

  9. Warren: Do you have links to the data used in the graphs? You’ve stated that there are no trends but the majority of the graphs you’ve shown do not have linear trend lines on them and the one with a trend line is significantly positive.

    Trends are not something one can eyeball in many cases.

  10. Bob,

    Although it’s not extensively referenced, at least every data source is cited within the body of the presentation, or in the graph itself in some cases. See http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2010/01/catastrophe-denied-the-science-of-the-skeptics-position.html for Warren’s sources for these.

    Interestingly, I think the one above with a trend line the least useful of the group, since it’s presented to demonstrate a link between the 1980s warming trend and increasing corn production. While it does demonstrate that warming trend certainly did NOT result in any negative impacts appearing in this element of agricultural productivity (contradicting AGW alarmist predictions of such impacts), any casuality between increasing temperature and corn yield is entirely speculative, as there are many other factors involved. The correlation is clear, anything more yet to be demonstrated, on the face of the graphic provided.

  11. Crabber makes the same error common to many commentators here in response to Warren’s contentions. Meyer doesn’t make any contentions with respect to the “greenhouse gas” role of CO2 except to agree it exists and is reasonably well settled (as opposed to entirely settled, btw) science. What he argues is that the agreed impact from the ‘greenhouse gas’ role of CO2 is completely insufficient to support the magnitude of change predicted by AGW. These depend entirely on large positive feedback mechanism. If the feedback contentions aren’t valid, then ‘greenhouse gas’ effects from CO2 demonstrate AGW invalid and its predictions grossly exaggerated.

    Here are a couple of very brief quotes from Warren to try to illustrate this point.

    “[D]espite good evidence that global temperatures are rising and that CO2 can act as a greenhouse gas and help to warm the Earth, we are a long way from attributing all or much of current warming to man-made CO2.”

    “The key is in “feedbacks” or secondary effects that accelerate or slow warming. We will discuss these in more depth later, but typically AGW supporters believe these will triple the sensitivity numbers, so a non-feedback sensitivity of one degree would be tripled to three degrees. Remember, though, these three points:

    “Warming from CO2 is a diminishing return, such that future CO2 increases has less effect than past CO2 increases[.] In the absence of feedback, a doubling of CO2 might increase temperatures one degree C[.] In the absence of feedback, the total temperature increase from future CO2 increases is capped, maybe as low as 1-1.5 degrees C.”

    Certainly there are some skeptics who challenge greenhouse gas theory. But these are really a very small minority of opinion among skeptics of AGW. The vast majority of skeptics don’t question CO2’s greenhouse gas role. But CO2 greenhouse theory alone cannot support AGW contentions. So, at least in general, AGW skepticism doesn’t have anything to do with greenhouse gas theory, but with feedback.

    This is a very important distinction, and one some proponents of AGW try to obscure, as to the extent they can confuse the status of their theories with classical greenhouse gas theory, they can divert attention away from the really critical questions about feedback, upon which AGW is based.

  12. I might add that if Meyer directly disputed classical CO2 ‘greenhouse’ theory, although I’d still pay attention it would seriously call his credibility into doubt (without some really impressive and very solid evidence to back such up!). But Meyer’s criticisms of AGW don’t involve ‘greenhouse gas’ theory at all and are perfectly happy with CO2’s role as a ‘greenhouse gas’. (I use parentheticals around ‘greenhouse’ because the term isn’t really an accurate analogy to the way the temperature effects of CO2, and other such gases, works…not to suggest it isn’t generally accepted or anything like that.)

    To the extent AGW advocates attempt to mis-characterize the arguments of Meyer, and other such skeptics, as being directed at classical CO2 theory (when it is clearly not), I’m afraid that very much does call their own credibility into question, however!

  13. WTF, Crabber believes that telling lies and institution of tax gathering based on these lies is somehow noble and good, goes to show the thought patterns of his type, totally corrupt and without value regardless of any conspiracy theory.

  14. Now let’s not get too hasty…. We’ve certainly seen posters whose positions were fleeces hiding ideological agendas, but there’s no reason to jump to the conclusion that Crabber is anything but a bit uninformed. One of the main efforts of the AGW advocacy community (as distinct from any individual at random within that group) has been to confuse feedback issues with gas theory issues, to prevent discussion of any challenges to their views by blocking publication, and to demonize and marginalize anyone questioning their data or disagreeing with their interpretations.

    Let’s not pre-judge anyone prior to their having a chance to hear different sides of the discussion, but give speakers the benefit of the doubt for having honest conviction and opinion and remaining open minded enough to consider argument on its merits. Just because we haven’t heard the case made convincingly yet doesn’t mean it can’t be made and that it shouldn’t be heard. Advocates such as Mann and Jones, who’s veracity has been impugned by their actions might be viewed with greater skepticism than otherwise, but it doesn’t mean they should be ignored either.

    We need to be careful to argue the case, not rule things in or out simply out of hand.

  15. How things are called often helps shape the debate.

    Those who don’t agree with AGW are called climate skeptics, deniers, even climate criminals.

    Just think how diabolical the term “green jobs” is. It is a struggle to show how someone doesnt believe in something that is both environmentally friendly and a job creator.

    We do not have a single label for those who believe in AGW.

    So let us use the term “warmers”.

    The label “warmer” takes away their climate change hedge. It makes them look silly when in fact temperatures are getting colder around the globe and with more snow. It also undermines their efforts.

    So start using the word “warmer”, when referring to the AGW crowd. This will help our efforts immensely.

    Besides, it is who they are. This could catch on quickly if everyone who reads this starts using the term.
    GP

  16. Bob Tisdale, you wrote, “You’ve stated that there are no trends but the majority of the graphs you’ve shown do not have linear trend lines on them and the one with a trend line is significantly positive.”

    I’m pretty sure that Warren was simply making the point that the “catastrophic” signal is not showing up in any of the data that he presented. I don’t need a trend line to see that. Trend lines will always be subject to the debate of start and end points and significance. Look at the graphs and let common sense set you free.

  17. Freaking Amazing: more conjecture by the blog-author and simple credulous belief by the tribe. And at some point someone here is going to call anyone who is not convinced by this uncited, in-expert commentary (anyone, in other words, who accepts the mere possibility that the billions of humans on the planet and their massive technocracy might, just might have an effect on the environment) as a “true-believer.” Ironic? Hmmmm…. And where did Mr. Meyer get the graphics?

  18. A little advertisement for yourself there Richard? Your site was inaccurate for today, by the way. Yesterday, possibly, but not today. Just what this CS needs…

  19. HarryDinPT: You replied, “Look at the graphs and let common sense set you free.”

    Common sense has nothing to do with it. Warren claims in the heading of the first graph, “No Upward Trend In Droughts…” but there is no trend line. All it takes is a couple of clicks on a few drop down menus to plot the trend on the graph. I’ve plotted the data with the linear trend…
    http://i42.tinypic.com/2dqskf4.png
    …and he’s correct, there is no trend, it’s basically flat, but he doesn’t show it. Without the trend line, the claim made in heading is undocumented and the post is incomplete.

  20. You need a better graph for food that regional US corn yeilds to show that corn production has an increasing trend due to warming. (Or at least chane the label). Corn in the US particularly benefits from all sort of modern innovations (GM, crop rotation, fertalizer improvements, land use).

    Yes A food in A region has increased. I don’t know how much that region has increased.

    Therefore, showing increase in corn yeilds under that title (indicating you know the increase is because of temperature is a correlation causation mistake.

    And an obvious one at that.

  21. Waldo,
    Could you pretty please show where our host is saying billions of humans have no effect on the environment?
    Or any readers (excepting you in making strawman arguments, of course) for that matter.

  22. #
    Waldo:

    A little advertisement for yourself there Richard? Your site was inaccurate for today, by the way. Yesterday, possibly, but not today. Just what this CS needs…
    March 20, 2010, 10:11 pm

    These maps are not a forecast? They are the maps generated two years ago from the last 3 repeats in the cyclic patterns, talked about in the text sections. That they have any similarity to today’s weather, just shows that the repeating patterns are really there. If you read the whole site text you will see I am not selling anything, (no commercial content)just elaborating on how this repeating pattern could/should be incorporated into how “They” forecast the weather so that “they” can make it work right. I am just suggesting how to fix the current problem, so what remains will be the CO2 component, in the context of how important it really is in the whole scheme of weather and by extension climate.

    If I give a way to solve for all of the main variables, then the formula for the CO2 problem becomes that much clearer. I thought that was what we all wanted to know? The knowledge of the workings of the resultant interconnectedness of the whole set of variables, was what I was interested in. Should it not be the goals or aims of Climate Scientists, if they are really thinking scientifically?

  23. #
    Tristan:

    You need a better graph for food that regional US corn yeilds to show that corn production has an increasing trend due to warming. (Or at least chane the label). Corn in the US particularly benefits from all sort of modern innovations (GM, crop rotation, fertalizer improvements, land use).

    Yes A food in A region has increased. I don’t know how much that region has increased.

    Therefore, showing increase in corn yeilds under that title (indicating you know the increase is because of temperature is a correlation causation mistake.

    And an obvious one at that.
    March 21, 2010, 7:19 pm

    http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Crops_County/cr-yi.asp

    Looks like the usual range of growth, other years by comparison could be found on this same USDA site, if you would be interested in showing an animated set of maps, showing changes in harvested amounts and areas of interest. Any and all crops of significance seem to be available here
    http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Crops_County/index.asp
    How much more data do you need to look at with a graphing or movie animation software application?

  24. Sorry Richard, I guess I was thrown by the “Search for Local Weather” and “Forecast Date: 3/**/2010” which has a field for zip codes in it. Also the “We provide national and local long range weather forecasts free to the public. As our project develops we will be providing up to 10 years in advance for long term daily weather maps” threw me – I thought your site did forecasting from that.

    I didn’t see anything about your training or credentials in your “About Us” section, Richard – where did you do your research? I did find this on MySpace: “I have been spending time working on my hobbies, and figuring out how the weather really works, much to the chagrin of the camp of modeling based forecasters.”

    Sounds Freaking Amazing.

  25. Didn’t anyoner read the caption on the graph regarding corn productiton?

    The verbiage contradicts itself. The headlines say that historical famines are associated with cold weather. The small print says that hotter fields mean lower yields for corn. The graph seems to say that it doesn’t matter either way. Whatever is happening with the weather, we should remember that we are motivating farmers to produce more corn, so they can make ethanol to put in our auto fuel. Since land is finite, the farmers will push hard to get more bushels per acre. Talk to the farmer who recently put a gps based system on his tractor, with sophisticated mapping systems that will enable him to put just the right amount of fertilizer and water on each small portion of his land. Innovations like that have had an influence on the yield per acre.

  26. “Corn likes it cool, but…”

    Stupid. All this means is that the planting band for the various crops moves north or south. While it might matter if the band for something moved down into Mexico somewhat (“Cooling”), it certainly doesn’t matter if it moves up into Canada (“Warming”), for cryin’ out loud.

    Suggestion — look into the 130+ year history of the “citrus line”, the line north of which one does not grow citrus due to the chance of a hard freeze (during the 20 year productive lifecycle of a citrus tree) killing the citrus tree.

    Hint: In the 1880s, on the east coast, it was in Georgia. During the supposedly warming 80s it moved south of Orlando, and has never moved back north of it.

    You want a long-term measure of climate, that sort of thing is one of the most obvious.

  27. To Crabber:

    The skeptics I know of are not cherry-picking. In fact, they have been pleading and begging for data sets denied them by organizations that flagrantly defied FOIA laws and requests. Meanwhile, as evidenced in the climategate emails, as well as public statements from russian data collection groups, it is the proponents of CAGW that were cherry-picking. I agree with you that credentials don’t make one’s statements true. For example, I think Einstein was wrong (a whole other thread and topic.) By the way, his degree from Princeton was honorary, not awarded through academic achievement. In fact, he failed out of Polytechnical Institute in Germany. He didn’t have much use for doing homework or even attending classes, preferring to sit around and concoct his “thought experiments.”

    You say that the process of Global Warming is complex. And it may very well be complex. If it is so, then how can we give any credence to the theory that human CO2 output, alone, is responsible for current warming? You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Especially as the supporters of CAGW have yet to explain how they expect CO2 to drive positive feedbacks into water vapor and how they can ignore that water vapor is a negative feedback system. The supporting scientists in the IPCC report themselves admit to not knowing enough about the water vapor signature.

    Are there some skeptics that might a bit unhinged? Probably so. That does not, however, invalidate the questions raised by skeptics. To do so is polemic, not scientific.

    To the corn debate. I live in north Texas and I am literally surrounded by farms that raise corn, milo, and animal feed grain (short cycle, prone to at least two harvests per year.) Corn needs some water, usually rain or irrigation. But it also needs heat with unmitigated exposure to the sun. That is, you have to clear the trees off the land to get enough bare acreage to grow corn. Any hayseed farmer can tell you that. Of course, he got is corn education from working the land for decades instead of reading political tracts and garbage from people that never spent one day turning soil for the next crop. But hey, that’s just reality, as opposed to the unicorns of socialism.

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