Climate Teachers – how do you deal with the fact that there is no evidence that dangerous global warming is occurring?

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'...our analysis finds no evidence that dangerous global warming is occurring; nor that human carbon dioxide emissions will cause such warming in future; nor that recent Australian climate-related events lay outside normal climate variability; nor that reducing carbon dioxide emissions will have any discernible impact on future climate.'

That statement above seems clear and explicit enough to be contradicted very easily if the science of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is truly settled.  But it won't be contradicted because it can't be: there are no observations of temperatures, of storms, of ice, or sea level, etc etc that show cause for alarm over anything extraordinary happening.  [The quote comes from a recently published report,  linked to below, from climate experts in Australia (hat-tip Greenie Watch).]

Given that observations are not there to show dangerous global warming is occurring, what is causing all the fuss?

All we have are computer models programmed to give each additional bit of CO2 a warming contribution at the surface of the Earth, and theory which says that that by itself should produce effects that we would have the greatest difficulty in discerning against the many other sources of variation in the climate system.  

For example, a doubling of CO2 levels might produce no more than 1C increase in the computed global mean temperature, and quite plausibly 0.5C or less.  No cause for alarm there.  In fact, such a modest warming would be overwhelmingly beneficial given what we know of relatively warm spells in the past such as the Medieval Warm Period and the Roman Climate Optimum. 

Now such good news, funnily enough, does not bring with it a need for increased state power, nor more power for the UN, nor more funds for what used to be primarily wildlife conservation or humanitarian organisations, nor more clients for crisis consultancies, nor more platforms for political extremists bent on destruction.

Imagine that!  No starvation caused by using farmland to make fuel  for vehicles instead of food for people, no scary pictures of flooded cities to scare us, no children being told that polar bears will die unless they make their parents turn down the heating, no crippling of industrial development by discouraging conventional power stations around the world, no energy cost increases due to subsidies for renewables and no damaging of the environment to make way for them, make them, and live with them.  And no more jobsworths and consultants going on and on about that bizarre notion, the carbon footprint..

So, given that the actual weather, ice, and sea-level records show nothing extraordinary about the last 50 years or so, and given that the basic theory is for a modest increase in temperatures due to more CO2, where is the problem?

It lies inside those computer models.  They display a positive feedback which amplifies the effect of the CO2 to produce far larger temperature increases.  Far larger than have been observed so far - not least since we have seen no overall increase at all over the last 10 to 15 years, let alone any rising trend in line with model projections.

These models have some practical value in extrapolating from and interpolating amongst observations of existing weather systems over a few days, not least because they can be frequently re-adjusted as new observations come in.  That is weather.  On climate, they have had no practical value whatsoever, and may be so misleading that we'd actually be better off without them.

Even their owners and operators admit they are not fit for predictive purposes, and can only be used to provide illustrations of what might possibly happen under various assumptions.  Illustrations which have failed to reproduce important features of past climates when used retrospectively.  They perform poorly on temperatures, and worse on everything else such as precipitation.  You would not want to bet your shirt button on them, let alone your entire way of life.

But let us go back to Australia, and this recent report (pdf) by Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks & William Kininmonth published by Quadrant Online.  It is entitled

What's wrong with the science?

They wrote it in respose to some recent reports by government agencies, apparently engaging in a PR campaign to try to increase public alarm over climate.  They write:

Is there any substantive new science in the science agency reports? No.

Is there any merit in the arguments for dangerous warming that are advanced in the reports? No.

Did any mainstream media organisation question the recommendations in the reports in their mainline news reporting? No.

Was there any need for, or purpose served, by the reports? Yes, but only the political one of attempting to give credence to the impending collection of carbon dioxide tax.

They have a government down there whose lies over a carbon tax have been widely exposed, and whose decisions linked to alarmist projections about droughts and rising sea levels have been widely resented for the diversion of resources to build desalination plants and otherwise mismanage water resources.  They have also had green-inspired fiascos over home insulation, and bushfires, both of which also led to tragedies.  A recent election in Queensland saw votes for the party in power plummet very dramatically indeed, and since they seem suicidally committed to the green dogma over climate, they would surely grasp at any PR straws that were presented to them.  

And straw is all they got.  See the report for more details of this, but also for a useful overview of the case against alarm over airborne CO2 as the authors shred, point by point, the shoddy claims being pushed by their government's agencies.  They deal with temperatures, precipitation, sea levels, greenhouse gases, and ocean heat content.  For example, on the last topic, they show this plot:

Note the divergence between models and reality -  a very common leitmotif in climate alarmism.

How do teachers cope with this divergence?  What do you say about the scare stories in the textbooks and websites targeting children about climate change, while news comes in of polar bears and penguins doing very well, of glaciers not disappearing on request, of snows also failing to be a thing of the past, of hurricanes not becoming more frequent or intense, of sea level rises not accelerating, and of the great iceaps and sea ice doing nothing untoward, and of course, of temperatures behaving just exactly as if the additional CO2 of the past 15 years has had no discernible effect on them?

Note added 2nd May 2012: Josh (http://cartoonsbyjosh.com) captures it:

 For some background, see: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/5/2/cartoon-the-cartoon-josh-164.html

A Child’s Epiphany About Eco-Mania

I wanted to be an eco-nut, just like some of my peers

But everything they told me

Fell down around my ears

They said the world is warming, and that is somehow bad

But when I see what cooling does

More heat would make me glad

They said our fuel is critically low, as you must realise

But all that is clearly based

On many layers of lies

They said more CO2 means more Y, where Y is something scary

Then Mother Nature ups and acts

In ways that are contrary

I used to fret on polar bears, on penguins, and on pack-ice

But now I see how they all thrive

As if my fears were groundless

It’s fracking this and fracking that, will frack us up forever

Our taps will ignite, ground tremors give fright

But reality might differ

My radical chums said religion is wrong, a terrible miasma

But their high priests from computer suites come

And preach their stuff as dogma

Beware the warmth, beware the fire, beware the fuel of fossils

Look at this chart, look at this plot

And tremble ye poor mortals

But I don’t like to shiver, from fear or freezing snow

And as for turning eco-nut

I’ll tell them where to go.

I’ll tell them where to put it, their doom-besotted drivel

I happen to think we humans

Are actually quite special

We deal with things, we find new ways, we add to our great progress

We thrive when challenged but get annoyed

When fed that eco-nonsense

Climate Authorities: they don't need evidence - the debate is over, the science is settled, you must not question them, you are not worthy.

CartoonsByJosh.com

 As showing now on Bishop Hill and on WUWT.

 Greenie Watch compiler J J Ray with a relevant example:

'Warmists normally defend their beliefs by saying "The experts tell us" and speak of "The science" but never mention any actual scientific facts. But surely "The experts" themselves have some facts to put forward? Nope. I reproduce below the full screed put out by none other than "hockeystick" Mann in defense of his position. It too is full of accusations and complaints but references not one scientific fact. He claims that the globe is warming etc. but gives no evidence for that assertion. He can't, of course -- because it isn't. So it's no surprise that he doesn't even give a link to any report that would support his assertions.': http://e360.yale.edu/feature/climate_scientist_michael_mann_fights_back_against_skeptics/2516/

Some alarmist apologists have even argued that the 49 ex-NASA scientists, astronauts, and adminstrators were not qualified to speak out, as they did in their recent letter, about the work of climate alarmists still employed by NASA.  Here is an example in response to a comment on a blogpost: 

'With all due respect, the signers of the letter are not intellectually qualified to critique the work of James Hansen and his colleagues at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and the rest of the leading climate scientists.'

  

Of course, if you believe  'the debate is over' and 'the science is settled', then 'you must not question them' is not a big stretch in either moral or intellectual terms.

Three cheers for Josh!  He has their number and no mistake.

Climate Education: why are they lying to our children and terrorising them?

 Herbert London's book 'Why Are They Lying to Our Children' is one I have wanted to post about for a while.  I just came across this article from the Australian site News Weekly of July 2011, and I reproduce an extract from it below.  It gives London's book a prominent mention, and some quotes from it.

The book was published in 1984 (of all years!, Orwell would be horrified at how his book has been used by some alarmists as a manual rather than as a warning).

The Australian writer below observes that 'things have only got worse in terms of Green alarmism' since then.

Extract

EDUCATION: Greens terrorising our children

by Bill Muehlenberg

News Weekly, July 23, 2011

The Greens thrive on alarmist scenarios, hoping to terrorise people — even children — into giving up basic freedoms in the interests of supposedly saving planet earth. They have been doing this for decades now. Indeed, these Chicken Little activists have perfected the art of fear-mongering.

Today it is hyped-up alarmism over global warming. How quickly we forget, however, that a major campaign to convince us that global cooling was underway took place just a few short decades ago. Then there were nuclear winter panic campaigns, world starvation scenarios, and so on.

There are always scary gloom-and-doom scenarios being played out by Green activists who want to terrorise us into their agenda — an agenda which is usually about global governance (as Australian Greens leader Bob Brown reminded us again recently) and the diminution of human freedoms, if not of humans themselves.

I have written before about how many of these radical Green leaders want to cull humans, radically shut down economic growth and turn the West into a stone-age civilisation. Others have documented such social engineering gloom-and-doomism.

In 1984, Herbert London wrote a book entitled, Why Are They Lying To Our Children? In it he looked at how the classroom has become a battleground, as our children are being intimidated and threatened with a lot of Green agitprop.

He began his book in this way: “War, famine, environmental disasters, material shortages, and a declining quality of life — that’s what school children are being taught to expect in their futures. What these grim and mostly inaccurate forecasts are doing to their lives I don’t know for sure. But I do know this: Our children are absorbing excessively negative misinformation.”

It is not just all the gloom and doom that is harming our children. It is what they are not being told which is also so worrying.

London lists important facts left out of the school curriculum, “for example, that the wealthy nations play a constructive role in furthering world economics; that rapid economic growth has changed many non-Western nations from poor to middle-income status; that most resources are more accessible and less costly today than ever before; and that new forms of energy have been created. All these forms of progress are likely to proceed even more effectively in the future.”

In the more than 25 years since London penned those words, things have only got worse in terms of Green alarmism. They are just as anti-free market, anti-growth, anti-business and anti-freedom as ever, and they will latch onto any new scare-mongering pretext to push their agendas.

They really are anti-growth Luddites who want to take us back to a standard of living from which most of us have long ago gratefully escaped. And the developing nations, who want to catch up to the prosperous and free West, are also going to suffer from the Green panic-merchants.

But it is our children I especially fear for. Just as London reported on how our youngsters were being deliberately targeted back in the 1980s, it is the same today, if not worse. Consider a recent headline from a Sydney newspaper: “Australian kids are living in climate of fear”.

The article goes on to say: “Primary school children are being terrified by lessons claiming climate change will bring ‘death, injury and destruction’ to the world unless they take action.'

Emboldening of last sentence by me.  See the original (linked to in title above) for the rest of the article, and for more references.

Note added 16 Novermber 2012
Just seen this blog post from Samizdate which was in response to the above post and which contains some useful observations as well as some comments from others:  http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2012/04/environmentalis_1.html

Another 'Climate Authority' with a badly blotted copybook: Nature magazine caught campaigning again

How many teachers teach what they teach on climate because their bosses tell them to stick to the curricula?  How many climate curricula creators create what they create because government tells them to?  How many governments insist on what they insist upon on climate because their trusted authorities tell them to?  Authorities such as Nature magazine.

A distinguished climatologist, Dr Pat Michaels, has just published this on WUWT (I added the emboldening at the end):

'This paper marks, in my opinion, the death of credibility for Nature on global warming. The first symptoms showed up in 1996 when they published a paper by Ben Santer and 13 coauthors that was so obviously cherry-picked that it took me and my colleagues about three hours to completely destroy it. Things have gone steadily downhill, from a crazy screamer by Jonathan Patz on mortality from warming that didn’t even bother to examine whether fossil fuels were associated with extended lifespan (they are), to the recent Shakun debacle. But the latest whopper, by Ben Booth and his colleagues at the UK Met Office indeed signals the death of Nature in this field.'

Poor teachers. You are at the delivery end of the chain of intellectual corruption, or at best intellectual incompetence in which publications like Nature play their part.  But let us reserve our greatest pity and compassion for your pupils.

Nature is notorious in enlightened circles for publishing the hockey-stick contrivance by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes in 1998, and a follow-up by Mann in 1999, without following their requirement that authors should make data available on request.  (Further double-dealing by Nature in this area is described in Chapter 5 of Montford's The Hockey Stick Illusion).  The hockey-stick was a contrivance exploited to the full by the IPCC in AR3 a couple of years later.  Now we are a year or two away from AR5, and already authors have been rushing into print with candidate contrivances for similar treatment by the IPCC machine.  The latest is a peculiar (apparently one of the 'our computer says' kind) paper by UK Met Office researchers declaring that an Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (MDO) whose cycles and surges have been recorded for over 4,000 years in ice-cores, is due to 'dirty pollution and volcanoes' - that word 'dirty' being there presumably to distinguish it from the 'non-dirty' pollution, as the IPCC would see it, of CO2!  Now volcanoes by themselves would not be of any use to the IPCC, but 'dirty pollution'!  What a gift for the PR guys and gals.  No wonder the Met Office issued a press release about it.  No wonder Nature did an editorial around it.  And no wonder that calmer, more independent scientists are looking at it askance.  Another extract from the post by Michaels (emboldening mine):

For instance, Judith Curry had this to say at her blog, “Climate Etc.,”

Color me unconvinced by this paper. I suspect that if this paper had been submitted to J. Geophysical Research or J. Climate, it would have been rejected. In any event, a much more lengthy manuscript would have been submitted with more details, allowing people to more critically assess this. By publishing this, Nature seems to be looking for headlines, rather than promoting good science.

Sic transit another 'authority'!  Or, given the harm that climate alarm campaigners are doing to the world, should I say 'sick'?

Note added 16 April 2012.  A German meteorologist has just expressed his contempt for Nature magazine.  For example 'With climate models one can bring about the end of the world, and at the same time provide a little fun in an otherwise staid science scene. You can get your kicks out of it, generate lots of research funding, and keep the world in suspense through the media. This is what two science teams in the USA have done, and have published their fun-and-games in ‘Nature’, a publication that has long since stopped being a scientific journal and has become a comic book for climate junkies' 
More here: http://notrickszone.com/2012/04/16/veteran-german-meteorologist-nature-journal-a-comic-book-climate-modeling-a-playground/

Note added 18 April 2012.  The investigative journalist Christopher Booker looks with dismay at the collaboration of Nature in climate alarmism over the years: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/9204223/In-the-eyes-of-Nature-warming-cant-be-natural.html.  (hat-tip: Climate Science)

Note added 04 May 2012.   The oceanographer Carl Wunsch at Oxford is reported on Bishop Hill as saying 'He seemed faintly disgusted by the lengths to which some climate scientists will go to get published in Nature or Science with the attendant publicity, media appearances and so on.  He sometimes found it difficult to tell which of the Daily Mail and Nature was the peer-reviewed journal and which the tabloid.  Nonetheless, he said, his colleagues  reassure him that just because something appears in Nature doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.'

Note added 18 June 2012.   More evidence of the moral and intellectual degradation of Nature:
 'Here is an extraordinary example of the depths to which academic journals are willing to go in support of the great green cause.
Count how many times Bain et al use the "d-word" in their paper on attitudes towards AGW - it certainly looks as if the authors intended to generate offence and controversy rather than truth and light. Hilariously, the authors are writing about how to convert people to the green cause!
I think it's pretty interesting that the editors have decided to give their backing to this kind of thing. One almost wonders if they are struggling for readers and need to try to get some attention. Of course it has long been clear that Nature has been so corrupted by greenery as to put a question mark over all of its output. This latest paper is just confirmation of what we already knew.'
 http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/18/potty-mouthed-nature.html