The Sunday Boston Globe had an article that was apologetic for equitable reporting of the global warming issue. The very thought that the Globe might stray from the Al Gore theology on the environment! Too bad they couldn’t wait a day for today’s article in the Telegraph: “There IS a problem with global warming…it stopped in 1998.”
For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).Whoops. It’s those inconvenient events like the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period or even the melting ice caps on Mars that leave so much doubt in predicting climate change. Yet the environmentalists are so positive that something must be done right now – just like the last time we were on the brink of environmental calamity.
Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Extra - The Ex-Donkey has more on the religion of radical environmentalism. Being green means never having to say you're sorry, or wrong.
3 comments:
Check out a critique of this article, if you are interested.
1998??? Curious choice of year... This is classic Tufte cherry picking of the range in which to select for the statistics, it is much like choosing the year at which the stock is the lowest to make compounded growth look larger.
The best measurement of global temperature are the 30-odd years of satellite surface and water temperature data we have in addition to measured terresterial data spanning a century more or less. These data virtually unequivocally illustrate that it is
a.) Getting warmer
b.) This is probably going to be bad
As for the contribution that is anthropogenic, is certainly debatable, but it IS getting warmer on the Earth and the collection of greenhouse gasses is the scientifically most probably explanation. As Occam would say, is it possible it is due to Aliens tinkering with the Sun and a lot of volcanoes, sure... is it likely NO!
The biggest problem with the global warming debate is that both sides interject the dicsussion with extremely low probability events, instead of discussing the probable and certain impacts.
Ugh!
Anon & anon,
Don't you see a little bit a parallel between today's hype and the fire/ice last time?
One of the good guys in "State of Fear" cites Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which least is known." Which is why 30 years ago the fashionable panic was about global cooling. The New York Times (Aug. 14, 1975) reported "many signs" that "Earth may be heading for another ice age." Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned about "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation." "Continued rapid cooling of the Earth" (Global Ecology, 1971) could herald "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age" (Science, March 1, 1975). The Christian Science Monitor reported (Aug. 27, 1974) that Nebraska's armadillos were retreating south from the cooling.
But let's assume all these dire scenarios are fast approaching. What's the solution? Certainly not Kyoto which was unanimously rejected by the Senate. Even if implemented, it's completely useless without India & China which comprise half the world's population. Bjorn Lomberg found that even if Kyoto had been put into effect, the difference in TRILLIONS of dollars of economic impact would be a delay of 2 degrees over 100 years.
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