Thursday, March 09, 2017
Reporting the Opposite of the Truth
Besides being pretty stupid in general, this piece from Nat Geo tries to get you to believe that warming temperature will cause plagues and famines, etc. when every single historical episode it uses to support that statement was when temperatures got colder.
Every. Single. One.
First, let's start with the Newspeak "climate change." When the Warmie True Believers use that term, they mean catastrophic man-made global warming. So that's what they should say. The climate can change in a myriad ways; and the word 'change' next to 'climate' clearly entails both getting warmer and getting colder. No rational person denies that the climate changes. It gets warmer; it gets colder. It gets wetter; it gets drier. The True Believer propaganda lives in the imprecise and offensive name calling 'climate change deniers'. No one denies the climate can change, so what are we skeptics actually denying about the alleged catastrophic man-made global warming to come? There are very few who deny it's slightly warmer than 150 years ago (when the Little Ice Age was ending). There are a few more who deny that humans have anything to do with the warming, that is, some think that the warming is entirely natural. But the overwhelming number of those of us whom the Warmies call climate change deniers only deny that the additional warming caused by additional CO2 will be catastrophic. To believe that it will be catastrophic, you have to believe the scientists in 2017 know exactly what the weather will be like in 2099. They don't know this at all. Computer models can't supply accurate forecasts at all. Human meteorologists struggle to get an accurate forecasts about next week. But back to the article.
The interviewee talks about what I just discussed above then says: "the evidence is overwhelming that, by and large, it’s human activity that has caused the recent changes in the world’s climate." That's false. Humans have contributed to the change. Natural changes in climate have not stopped. The quoted statement is a first step in the overwhelming falsity of the interview.
Let me step in and say that we can recognize in the ice core records historical periods of warming as well as historical periods of cooling. We talk about the Medieval Warm Period (which actually did exist despite Professor Mann's fraudulent hockey stick graph) and the Roman Warm Period and the Minoan Warm Period (and even the Holocene Optimum), and there is ample historical evidence to support that indeed it was nicer and warmer during those named periods. But we also have names for the recent cooling periods. We call them the Little Ice Age and the Dark Ages. Neither were good times for humans on the planet and, I'm shocked, shocked to see that the evidence the interviewee uses here to support the idea of catastrophic man-made global warming is only from those last two periods. It's not a lot of support to the catastrophic man-made global warming hysteria to talk only about the bad things that global cooling caused, is it?
The first example is to talk about the wholly natural global cooling caused by the eruption of Mt. Tambora in 1815. Yes, indeed, climate change that is cooling can indeed cause famine and other catastrophes. Next!
The interviewee says: "Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas that causes global warming." That's not true, water vapor does most of the warming and CO2 is largely a bit player that was never, ever the thermostat for the planet. Since there are only tiny amounts of man-made water vapor in our atmosphere, noting that water vapor does most of the warming doesn't support the theory, so they continually lie about the role CO2 plays in warming the planet. Just like this guy did.
Then he says: "Today, we are talking about a possible increase of 4-6 degree over the next 100 years." Well, you may be talking about it, but no rational person who knows the science, which I believe should include this guy, actually believes that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere from the baseline 280 ppmv would cause much over a degree C of warming. The graph below is pretty much the consensus on doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.
It is the opposite of run-away warming--it's asymptotic rather than a graph of exponential growth. To get to anything over 2 degrees C change, you have to believe in an amplifying effect outside the gas itself. And there the Warmie True Believers are on very shaky ground indeed. Back to the examples of plague and famine.
The interviewee then talks about the mother of all plagues, the black death, bubonic and pneumomic plagues, in the mid 14th C. But the climate change during that period was to cold not warm. The Little Ice Age was happening then, not any global warming at all.
Another example: "There was one catastrophe after another, but what probably started the ball rolling was the Great Famine between 1315 and 1322..." Little Ice Age. Cooling.
Except for the Motzart nonsense, also during the Little Ice Age, there are no other examples from history in the article.
I believe it would indeed be catastrophic for there to be a long cooling period leading into the next Ice Age (number 25 over the past several million years). But that's not what the Warmie True Believers are peddling with their propaganda. Is it?
I'm gravitating more and more to calling the whole catastrophic man-made global warming theory a complete scam, and dishonest articles like this are not pushing me towards charitably calling the True Believers merely mistaken.
Every. Single. One.
First, let's start with the Newspeak "climate change." When the Warmie True Believers use that term, they mean catastrophic man-made global warming. So that's what they should say. The climate can change in a myriad ways; and the word 'change' next to 'climate' clearly entails both getting warmer and getting colder. No rational person denies that the climate changes. It gets warmer; it gets colder. It gets wetter; it gets drier. The True Believer propaganda lives in the imprecise and offensive name calling 'climate change deniers'. No one denies the climate can change, so what are we skeptics actually denying about the alleged catastrophic man-made global warming to come? There are very few who deny it's slightly warmer than 150 years ago (when the Little Ice Age was ending). There are a few more who deny that humans have anything to do with the warming, that is, some think that the warming is entirely natural. But the overwhelming number of those of us whom the Warmies call climate change deniers only deny that the additional warming caused by additional CO2 will be catastrophic. To believe that it will be catastrophic, you have to believe the scientists in 2017 know exactly what the weather will be like in 2099. They don't know this at all. Computer models can't supply accurate forecasts at all. Human meteorologists struggle to get an accurate forecasts about next week. But back to the article.
The interviewee talks about what I just discussed above then says: "the evidence is overwhelming that, by and large, it’s human activity that has caused the recent changes in the world’s climate." That's false. Humans have contributed to the change. Natural changes in climate have not stopped. The quoted statement is a first step in the overwhelming falsity of the interview.
Let me step in and say that we can recognize in the ice core records historical periods of warming as well as historical periods of cooling. We talk about the Medieval Warm Period (which actually did exist despite Professor Mann's fraudulent hockey stick graph) and the Roman Warm Period and the Minoan Warm Period (and even the Holocene Optimum), and there is ample historical evidence to support that indeed it was nicer and warmer during those named periods. But we also have names for the recent cooling periods. We call them the Little Ice Age and the Dark Ages. Neither were good times for humans on the planet and, I'm shocked, shocked to see that the evidence the interviewee uses here to support the idea of catastrophic man-made global warming is only from those last two periods. It's not a lot of support to the catastrophic man-made global warming hysteria to talk only about the bad things that global cooling caused, is it?
The first example is to talk about the wholly natural global cooling caused by the eruption of Mt. Tambora in 1815. Yes, indeed, climate change that is cooling can indeed cause famine and other catastrophes. Next!
The interviewee says: "Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas that causes global warming." That's not true, water vapor does most of the warming and CO2 is largely a bit player that was never, ever the thermostat for the planet. Since there are only tiny amounts of man-made water vapor in our atmosphere, noting that water vapor does most of the warming doesn't support the theory, so they continually lie about the role CO2 plays in warming the planet. Just like this guy did.
Then he says: "Today, we are talking about a possible increase of 4-6 degree over the next 100 years." Well, you may be talking about it, but no rational person who knows the science, which I believe should include this guy, actually believes that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere from the baseline 280 ppmv would cause much over a degree C of warming. The graph below is pretty much the consensus on doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.
It is the opposite of run-away warming--it's asymptotic rather than a graph of exponential growth. To get to anything over 2 degrees C change, you have to believe in an amplifying effect outside the gas itself. And there the Warmie True Believers are on very shaky ground indeed. Back to the examples of plague and famine.
The interviewee then talks about the mother of all plagues, the black death, bubonic and pneumomic plagues, in the mid 14th C. But the climate change during that period was to cold not warm. The Little Ice Age was happening then, not any global warming at all.
Another example: "There was one catastrophe after another, but what probably started the ball rolling was the Great Famine between 1315 and 1322..." Little Ice Age. Cooling.
Except for the Motzart nonsense, also during the Little Ice Age, there are no other examples from history in the article.
I believe it would indeed be catastrophic for there to be a long cooling period leading into the next Ice Age (number 25 over the past several million years). But that's not what the Warmie True Believers are peddling with their propaganda. Is it?
I'm gravitating more and more to calling the whole catastrophic man-made global warming theory a complete scam, and dishonest articles like this are not pushing me towards charitably calling the True Believers merely mistaken.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 10:38 AM 
