To John Les, MLA, Victoria.
Dear John:
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my column about outlooks for 2013, where I said that “the biggest change that’s coming at us in 2013 [is] catastrophic climate change ...”, prompting you to say that I’m “way off the mark.”
You then say, “It is time the world starts paying attention to the science and halts the lemming-like behaviour that characterizes so much of the discussion and practice in this area. Plainly said: the climate is changing; it always has, and it always will. Climate change is natural, as is proven by historical research. 800 years ago there were dairy farms in Greenland and vineyards in England. They disappeared because the climate got COLDER. There is no evidence that there was a commensurate reduction of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere at that time that might have caused the cooling! From the late ’70s to the late ’90s there was a slight warming of the global climate, which has since plateaued. The ‘global warming community’ is bewildered as to why there has been no warming for the last 16 years, even as CO2 concentrations have increased. The British Meteorological Office has recently revised downward the global temperature projections for the next decade, and I predict they will be revising them downward further in the years ahead. Clearly the so-called ‘climate models’ are not working. They are about as accurate as Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph, which has been consigned to the rubbish-heap of climate research. Clearly the 4-parts-per-10,000 of CO2 in the atmosphere have not had the advertised effect on climate as touted by [Al] Gore et al.
“Climate change has become akin to a pessimistic, anti-human ideology with more than passing similarity to the Malthusian left. And, as is too often the case with ideology, facts and science matter less; one is rather encouraged to have faith and simply believe. Put me down as one who remains skeptical, anticipating the day when the current angst about climate change will be recognized for the foolish fad it was.”
Anti-human! Ouch!
In keeping with your assertion that “as is too often the case with ideology, facts and science matter less; one is rather encouraged to have faith and simply believe,” I went off in search of facts and science.
I started with a call to Richard Littlemore, co-author of the award-winning book Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, and a long-time editor of DeSmogBlog.com.
I don’t know your data sources, John (is author Steve Goreham a scientist?) but Richard recommended checking the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, which reports that 2012 was the warmest year on record in the U.S., with an average temperature 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit above normal and a full degree higher than the previous warmest year recorded (1998). Where are you getting your data? Then I came across a post on desmogblog.com: Why Climate Deniers Have No Scientific Credibility – In One Pie Chart. It’s by James Lawrence Powell, executive director of the (U.S.) National Physical Science Consortium. He served on the U.S. National Science Board under presidents [Ronald] Reagan and H.W. Bush. He has an asteroid named after him. He wears cowboy hats. He searched the web for peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1991 to 2012 that include the phrases “global warming” or “global climate change.” He found 13,950 articles. Of those, 24 rejected human-caused global warming.
That’s it: one in 581. If 580 scientists told you an airplane was unsafe, but one said to ignore them, would you really get on that plane? Littlemore says he is amazed that a man of your intelligence can put so much effort into deluding himself.
By the way, call me anti- human, but I’m also pessimistic about the tooth fairy. •
