THE COLLAPSE OF CLIMATE 'CONSENSUS'

From Canada's "The Globe and Mail" of 16 August 2005. Story by Margaret Wente

One stiflingly hot day last week, I chatted on the phone with veteran weather scientist Madhav Khandekar. I wanted to know if we should be blaming global warming for the heat. (As it happened, he was vacationing in Calgary, where it's been unseasonably cold.) He laughed, and reminded me that, this time last year, Ontarians were griping about the cold. There was even snow in Winnipeg. Environment Canada, which had been predicting a hot summer, blew it so badly that climatologist David Phillips (a big global-warming guy) was moved to apologize. "We've never been so wrong, for so long, for so much of the country."

Dr. Khandekar has spent his whole life in meteorology, including extended stints with the United Nations and Environment Canada. He is not part of the "scientific consensus" on global warming, the one that's alleged to be so overwhelming that people who question it might as well belong to the Flat Earth Society.

The consensus is a myth. Hundreds of scientists around the world think the jury is still out on many fundamental issues relating to climate change. Hundreds of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals have questioned the link between human activity and global warming. But, because the authors don't offer up scare stories about melting ice caps and disappearing species, they don't make headlines. "I'm not saying I'm right and they're wrong," says Dr. Khandekar. "I only say there are uncertainties."

He'd like the Canadian Meteorological Society to hold an open debate, with top scientists from both sides. So far, no dice. Dr. Khandekar thinks the science of global warming is much more complicated than it's made out to be. He suspects greenhouse gases may play only a bit part. Solar variability may be far more important. And the biggest influence of human activity on the climate may well be urbanization and land-use change (which raises local surface temperatures).

As for the link between global warming and extreme weather, he argues it's unproven. (His new paper, The Global Warming Debate, written with two others, appears in this month's issue of Pure and Applied Geophysics.)

But wait. Wasn't there a piece by two scientists on this very page last week arguing that the heat in Toronto, the floods in Manitoba, the thunderstorms in Nunavut and the pine beetles in B.C. are all an indication of "things to come because of global warming"?

"A couple of years ago, some scientists blamed the drought in Alberta on global warming," says Dr. Khandekar. "This year, the weather in Alberta was monsoon-like." What he thinks we need is more research on short-range seasonal forecasting. "Prairie farmers would like to know in March what the weather is going to be. They don't worry too much about whether it's going to be warm or cold in 2015."

But, these days, the research money flows to people who believe that global warming is a major threat to humankind. Most Canadians seem to agree. According to a recent poll, 56 per cent of us think global warming explains this year's summer heat. Seventy-seven per cent think we're already suffering the impact of manmade climate change, and 86 per cent support Kyoto - even though there is zero chance that the Kyoto treaty will be implemented or that Canada can make a difference.

"The U.S., China and India have signed their own pact," Dr. Khandekar points out. "These three countries produce about 45 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Canada produces about 2.5 per cent. How can removing a few tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere change the global climate?"

I'm not surprised that so many support Kyoto. It's a way of saying we care about the environment. Besides, it hasn't cost us any pain - yet. For the government, Kyoto is a big political winner.

And for many climatologists, well, this summer's heat is a big relief. "In many ways, it is a preview, a dress rehearsal, of what we may see more often," said Environment Canada's David Phillips, who seems decidedly relieved that things have heated up again.

In fact, it was hotter than this in 1955. But nobody will get a research grant for saying that.





Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world

Russian pair challenge UK expert over global warming

Two climate change sceptics, who believe the dangers of global warming are overstated, have put their money where their mouth is and bet $10,000 that the planet will cool over the next decade. The Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev have agreed the wager with a British climate expert, James Annan. The pair, based in Irkutsk, at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, believe that global temperatures are driven more by changes in the sun's activity than by the emission of greenhouse gases. They say the Earth warms and cools in response to changes in the number and size of sunspots. Most mainstream scientists dismiss the idea, but as the sun is expected to enter a less active phase over the next few decades the Russian duo are confident they will see a drop in global temperatures.

Dr Annan, who works on the Japanese Earth Simulator supercomputer, in Yokohama, said: "There isn't much money in climate science and I'm still looking for that gold watch at retirement. A pay-off would be a nice top-up to my pension."

To decide who wins the bet, the scientists have agreed to compare the average global surface temperature recorded by a US climate centre between 1998 and 2003, with temperatures they will record between 2012 and 2017. If the temperature drops Dr Annan will stump up the $10,000 (now equivalent to about œ5,800) in 2018. If the Earth continues to warm, the money will go the other way. The bet is the latest in an increasingly popular field of scientific wagers, and comes after a string of climate change sceptics have refused challenges to back their controversial ideas with cash. Dr Annan first challenged Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is dubious about the extent of human activity influencing the climate. Professor Lindzen had been willing to bet that global temperatures would drop over the next 20 years. No bet was agreed on that; Dr Annan said Prof Lindzen wanted odds of 50-1 against falling temperatures, so would win $10,000 if the Earth cooled but pay out only œ200 if it warmed. Seven other prominent climate change sceptics also failed to agree betting terms.

In May, during BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the environmental activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot challenged Myron Ebell, a climate sceptic at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in Washington DC, to a œ5,000 bet. Mr Ebell declined, saying he had four children to put through university and did not want to take risks.

Most climate change sceptics dispute the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which suggest that human activity will drive global temperatures up by between 1.4C and 5.8C by the end of the century. Others, such as the Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg, argue that, although global warming is real, there is little we can do to prevent it and that we would be better off trying to adapt to living in an altered climate.

Dr Annan said bets like the one he made with the Russian sceptics are one way to confront the ideas. He also suggests setting up a financial-style futures market to allow those with critical stakes in the outcome of climate change to gamble on predictions and hedge against future risk. "Betting on sea level rise would have a very real relevance to Pacific islanders," he said. "By betting on rapid sea-level rise, they would either be able to stay in their homes at the cost of losing the bet if sea level rise was slow, or would win the bet and have money to pay for sea defences or relocation if sea level rise was rapid." Similar agricultural commodity markets already allow farmers to hedge against bad weather that ruins harvests.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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