Three ways to get at the young about 'climate change'

The determination by some to turn children into true believers in the Faith of Alarm over Climate and Much Else Besides is revealed in many ways.  Here are three: get the catechisms into school curricula, design school buildings and grounds to show how serious it is, and have museum exhibits which do much the same.

Each has been illustrated by recent blogposts.  I managed to get comments published on two of them..  The first is in response to an article which notes with some enthusiasm an initiative to promote climate alarm in the curricula of American schools.  The second is in response to a rather wide-eyed article in the New York Times about ‘eco-buildings’ used for schools, a prescription which can mean they become both more expensive and less useable, but then a little suffering on the part of the pupils can be informative, as one headmaster believed according to one of the examples in my comment.  I add the third example from an article in which the author is bemused by school pupils at his museum reporting that they’d had quite enough ‘climate change' in their education, thank you.  My comment, polite as it was, was not posted.  But  other critical ones were, and I show extracts from one by ‘TinyCO2’ and one by Barry Woods.

(1) Climate Change Science Poised to Enter Nation's Classrooms

(title of an article by Katherine Bagley, InsideClimate News, Mar 4, 2013)

My comment

‘Given that the so-called major factor of human-linked CO2 emissions has continued to grow while global mean temperature has flatlined for some 16 years, why would any State rush to adopt a curriculum that seems to tell them the two are strongly linked?  Children now at school have not known 'global warming' in their lifetime.  Some will have teachers telling them snow is a thing of the past one year and yet the next few years see that snow appearing all around them.  Others will have been warned about hurricanes becoming fiercer and/or more frequent, and will be bemused when they study data showing otherwise.  Others still will wonder about the polar bears doing relatively well, and the sea level rises refusing to accelerate, or the Arctic sea ice extent being so variable that observers thought it might disappear in the 1920s.  The reality is that CO2 has not demonstrated any confirmed weather effects in recent decades, and those who tried to give it a grand role which it has never displayed in the past are struggling to save face.  Pushing their dogmas on to children is neither a moral nor a responsible way to do it.  Let the children learn that climate changes - always has and always will - and that we have been impressive at getting better at coping with the inevitable variations.  Let the children learn that human activity interacts with the climate system and has clear local effects on climate, and will surely influence global climate.  But teach them that it is a tough problem to ascertain those global effects because they are so small compared to those due to other sources of variation.  Let us not frighten children because some want to raise generations of 'little political activists' driven by fear and a lack of confidence in humanity.’

Note added 5/4/19:  On larger timescales, 'no causal link for CO2 during deglaciation':
https://notrickszone.com/2019/04/04/scientists-find-no-causal-link-between-co2-and-nh-warming-during-last-deglaciation/

(2) Schools, and Syllabuses, Designed With the Environment in Mind 

(title of an article by Andrew C Revkin of the New York Times, Mar 6, 2013)

My comment

‘Here are three not-so-happy instances of teachers using school buildings and grounds to make their eco-points:

(1) Happy Head, Chilly Children, Troubled Teachers, Perplexed Parents, Riled Readers - an example of authoritarian eco-arrogance at work using a school’s central heating to make mysterious points: http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/happy-head-chilled-children...
(2) Learning by Metaphor: foolish building, foolish technology, foolish teacher, foolish 'science' – in which an eco-classroom is too unpleasant to be useable: http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/learning-by-metaphor-foolis...
(3) Climate Change Scaremongering threatens the physical as well as the mental wellbeing of children: wind turbines in school grounds now complement the scare stories in school rooms : http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/climate-change-scaremongeri... ‘

(3)  Rolling your eyes at climate change education

(title of an article by Adam Blankenbicker, Sci-Ed blog, Mar 4, 2013)

My comment consisted mainly of suggestions for a not-at-all-alarming exhibit on climate at his museum.  It was not published.  A couple of gently critical comments by TinyCo2 and by Barry Woods were however.

TinyCO2 says quite a few things, not all of which I would go along with.  Here are some with which I would:

‘Climate change is conveyed to the public in such a simplified form that it is little more than advertising. Catchy phrases, cartoons, celebrities, exaggerated facts, half truths, these are the ways that governments and media try to sell AGW to the public. The aim is not to explain climate science, it is to get a mandate to force people to cut CO2. There is no debate. You don’t get to use your knowledge of climate to have an opinion. More detailed knowledge doesn’t make the picture clearer, just the opposite. The more you know, the more questions arise. So the science never gets beyond the simple caricature but it appears everywhere. News stories, kids TV, films, interviews, comedy, you name it climate change creeps into the fabric of communication. Each message says CO2 bad, the World will end unless the bad men stop polluting.’

Barry Woods quotes from a psychotherapist, Ro Randall (extract):

‘Should we be working with children about climate change?Climate change community groups often want to work with children. ‘We must get into the schools,’ says someone and there is a nod of agreement. It’s worth thinking about the psychology behind this. Why is this idea so appealing? And why is it so damaging?’

[More can be found about the Ro Randall piece here: http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/not-just-another-brick-in-wall-hey.html ]

A Case Study of Climate Corruption: tracking the trash to source

Here is a compact case study of how junk information on climate is produced by a vested interest to suit its own ends and taken up by others for theirs.  How easy would it be for this to get into a school textbook?  Is it just a matter of time?

Willis Eschenbach spotted this claim in a book review in the South China Post:

“Guzman ... cites an estimate that the annual global death toll already sparked by climate change is 300,000.”

 Note the alarmism in the book’s cover.  A sure sign of trash to come when the book is about climate.

The reviewer is not totally bowled over, managing this in an otherwise gushing review:

“One possible peeve is that he lashes climate deniers for lacking expertise when he himself is a Berkeley, California, legal scholar. An unkind critic might say that is rich, even hypocritical.”

 Eschenbach describes how he decided to try to track down the source of this claim of 300,000 deaths each year due to ‘climate change’.    

He finds that Guzman refers the claim to Kofi Annan, and follows that through to find that Annan has his own foundation in place, a foundation that produced a report in which the statistic was used:

“Finally, on page 9, we find the following explanation of where they get the three hundred thousand deaths number:

'This estimate is derived by attributing a 40 percent proportion of the increase in the number of weather-related disasters from 1980 to current to climate change.'

Now wait just one cotton-pickin’ minute right there. They are saying that the three hundred thousand is only forty percent of the increase in people killed annually by the weather since 1980?”

As Eschenbach immediately notes, “That’s hogwash”, and he goes on to explain why.

Further into the report, he discovers an organisation notorious for climate alarmism, Munich Re:

“So just what is Kofi Annan’s pet foundation using as their authority for the 40% claim and the other numbers? Further reading brings us to this one (emphasis mine):

'The 40 percent proportion is based on an analysis of data provided by Munich Re on the past trend of weather-related disasters, as compared to geophysical (i.e. non climate change related) disasters over time.⁵ It compares well to a 2009 scientific estimate of the attribution of climate change to droughts.¹¹ It is assumed that the 40 percent increase due to climate change based on frequency of disasters can be applied as an approximation for the number of people seriously affected and deaths.'

Munich Re??? They got their numbers from Munich Re? They’re trusting a dang insurance company? That’s what we find way down at the bottom of the edifice of bogus claims? An insurance company that makes more money if people are very, very afraid.”

Eschenbach is rightly shocked.  He goes on to summarise:

"• Munich Re pulled some hugely improbable climate death numbers out of their corporate fundamental orifice, numbers that are clearly designed to help them sell insurance. They have no relationship to reality.

• These bogus numbers were then swallowed hook, line and sinker, and regurgitated in a report issued by Kofi Annan’s pet foundation.

• The report was then quoted by Kofi Annan.

• Kofi Annan was then quoted by Guzman

• Guzman was then quoted by the South China Morning Post.

And there we have the impeccable pedigree and provenance of the claim of 300,000 dead from climate change every year … garbage top to bottom.”

Well done Willis Eschenbach.  He has exposed a piece of irresponsible nonsense that may yet appear in school textbooks in years to come.  Teachers may like to emulate Eschenbach by tracking back from the most scary claims about climate in their current textbooks.  Or give these as project tasks to their more able pupils.  They might learn something about climate corruption that could help protect them from further propaganda.

Meantime, we can all be on the look-out for that 300k surfacing again.

Note added 5 March 2013.  Ben Pile was on to this sort of nonsense, and how pernicious it can be, way back in 2009:  http://www.climate-resistance.org/2009/06/the-age-of-the-age-of-stupid.html

Correcting the Climate Curriculum for Schools: accentuate the positive on CO2

The facile labelling of rising CO2 levels as an imminent threat to our wellbeing is the basis of a great deal of scaremongering, including in materials aimed at children.  The swing to alarmism has been dramatic and will be corrected in due course as the climate system continues to behave as if the rising CO2 does not matter very much.  Just as you might expect for a trace gas which is a minor contributor to the atmospheric heat engine as it occupies itself with transferring heat to the poles each day.

Here is a new campaign which does indeed look on the bright side as far as CO2 is concerned - the Carbon Positive Campaign (hat-tip Greenie Watch).

I must say this appeals to me as a powerful counter to the relentless alarmism that has contaminated our mass media, our political affairs, and indeed educational materials and events for children. 

The campaign comes from here: http://climateofsophistry.com/2013/02/12/carbon-positive-campaign/, and I will reproduce that post below.  As and when an outstanding curriculum on climate for schools is constructed, it will in my view include elements of this.

The Carbon Positive Campaign

Please join the fun, exciting, life-affirming, environment benefiting, life-creating campaign for carbon dioxide!

The Carbon Positive Campaign!

Within 50 years, in the time of our children and grand-children, we will have improved the environment and created a lush, green, productive, life-filled planet Earth with all of the beneficial green plant food carbon dioxide we are re-adding and giving back to the environment.

The carbon that is currently trapped in hydrocarbon fuels used to be life!  It used to be carbon circulating in the global biospheric process of life, and sustained a lush, green planet, that could support huge creatures like dinosaurs in the past.  Today, that carbon-based life has been trapped underground and has formed hydrocarbon fuels that humans can access.  Humans get to use that old carbon, which has turned into hydrocarbon fuel, for benefiting our standard of life and relieving poverty on a global scale, and enriching human livelihood in general with the energy it provides.  That hydrocarbon fuel has supported a tremendous and enriching transformation and development of human society in the last hundred years.

For the last few millions years, the carbon dioxide concentration in the air was getting so low that plant life was almost ready to stop being able to perform photosynthesis!  This would have spelled the extinction of almost all life on the planet, and this extinction would have been global and possibly permanent!  It was a very close call.  Luckily, by the grace of God, evolution, Gaia, or whatever you would like to believe – even convenient and lucky happenstance – humans came along at just the right geological time-period to return that trapped life, carbon, back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide where it can then turn back into plants and sustain new and more life.  Isn’t it amazing?

It is the most wonderful win-win situation that nature could have provided for us.  We get cheap, beneficial, life-enriching energy, and the environment gets back its own source of fuel.  It is exactly like how animals and humans breathe out carbon dioxide, and then plants turn around and breathe it in as food, and then produce oxygen for us to breath again.  The circle of life.  Except now, we’ve industrialized that process and are returning much more food back to the environment where it is supposed to be, and where it can do some good in creating new life.  We’re giving back the breathe of life by using hydrocarbons and giving carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere, and this new carbon dioxide can now go back into real, living life, in the present and future.

We can use this wealth supplied by hydrocarbons and the time it gives us to develop new, future-oriented sources of power such as advanced nuclear, fusion, and whatever power generation technology science might invent, because eventually hydrocarbon fuels may become too limited to provide the energy requirements we desire.  And when we get to that point, we will be able to always look back and think of all the good that we did for the environment by reinvigorating it with its own carbon dioxide – carbon that had been trapped away from its use in creating and being life.

Please help spread the word of this fantastic news and fantastic science!

The author of this is Joseph Postma, and he provides some background on his thinking in the About section of his blog.  Here is an extract:

 'I got interested in the climate science debate because I used to believe in anthropogenic global warming and climate change.  I naturally enjoy debate and independent learning and so I wanted to understand the science of global warming, so that I could communicate and debate against “deniers” more knowledgeably.  However, I experienced one of the greatest shocks and re-evaluations of my world-view when I discovered that the science which underlies global warming and anthropogenic climate change isn’t good science at all, but it is better described merely as the appearance of doing science.  Ultimately, I have scientifically concluded that global warming is an invented scheme for political control via manufactured politics using manufactured science, blaming everything on carbon dioxide which is actually the greenest and most environmentally-friendly gas there is.  My research on climate (pseudo) science has actually uncovered a very humorous irony: the true “deniers” and “flat earthers” in the climate change debate are the people who believe in the greenhouse effect!  They’re the people who deny that the climate changes naturally without humans, and that it changes at rates and magnitudes far greater than we are experiencing in modern times!  This has all been proven scientifically and all of the science actually proves that modern changes are rather benign and unimportant, but the alarmist and greenie ideologues continue to deny the science, and they have billions of dollars of charity money from oil companies and environmental organizations to continue to publicize their political reinterpretation (i.e. invention) of the actual scientific results.'

Climate Scaremongering: teach your children to ‘look and laugh at a’that’, with Robbie Burns

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-photo.html

'Ye see yon birkie, ca'd Al Gore, Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' thoosands worship at his lore,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,
His Nobel Prize, an' a' that:
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.'

With apologies to R. Burns (http://www.robertburns.org/works/496.shtml)

Dramatic tales of doom are sure-fired ways of getting attention.  Until people see through them.  We have the perspective gained from many elapsed years since these resource-focused alarms were raised (compiled by David B Mustard) :

In 1865, Stanley Jevons (one of the most recognized 19th century economists) predicted that England would run out of coal by 1900, and that England’s factories would grind to a standstill.

In 1885, the US Geological Survey announced that there was “little or no chance” of oil being discovered in California.

In 1891, it said the same thing about Kansas and Texas. ..

In 1939 the US Department of the Interior said that American oil supplies would last only another 13 years.

[In] 1944 [a] federal government review predicted that by now the US would have exhausted its reserves of 21 of 41 commodities it examined. Among them were tin, nickel, zinc, lead and manganese.

In 1949 the Secretary of the Interior announced that the end of US oil was in sight.

Source: http://www.terry.uga.edu/~mustard/courses/e2200/pop.htm

(Hat-tip: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/19/great-moments-in-failed-predictions/)

We have some on climate from the early 1970s to chuckle at:

Claim Jan. 1970: "By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half." Life Magazine, January 1970. Life Magazine also noted that some people disagree, "but scientists have solid experimental and historical evidence to support each of the predictions."
Data: Air quality has actually improved since 1970. Studies find that sunlight reaching the Earth fell by somewhere between 3 and 5 percent over the period in question.

 

Claim April 1970: "If present trends continue, the world will be ... eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age." Kenneth E.F. Watt, in Earth Day, 1970.
 Data: According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1970.

 Claim 1970: "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." Paul Ehrlich, speech during Earth Day, 1970.
[Data: gone fishin']

Claim 1972: "Arctic specialist Bernt Balchen says a general warming trend over the North Pole is melting the polar ice cap and may produce an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the year 2000." Christian Science Monitor, June 8, 1972.
 Data: Ice coverage has fallen, though as of last month, the Arctic Ocean had 3.82 million square miles of ice cover -- an area larger than the continental United States -- according to The National Snow and Ice Data Center.
 

Claims 1974: "... when metereologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age. Telltale signs are everywhere--from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice int eh waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data fro the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadia Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round."
    Later in the article, "Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years."
    Source: "Another Ice Age," Time Magazine, June 24, 1974. 

And here are some more recent ones:
Claim 1989: "Using computer models, researchers concluded that global warming would raise average annual temperatures nationwide two degrees by 2010." Associated Press, May 15, 1989.

Data: According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1989. And U.S. temperature has increased even less over the same period.

 Claim: [1990] "[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots ... [By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers." Michel Oppenheimer and Robert H. Boyle, Dead Heat, St. Martin's Press, 1990. Oppenheimer is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. He is the Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy at the Wilson School. He was formerly a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, the largest non-governmental organization in the U.S. that examines problems and solutions to greenhouse gases.

Claims: [2000]"Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives."
    "Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and ... are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters--which scientists are attributing to global climate change--produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries."
    "London's last substantial snowfall was in February 1991." "Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community."
    According to Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years "children just aren't going to know what snow is" and winter snowfall will be "a very rare and exciting event." Interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.
    "David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow."
    See "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past." The Independent. March 20, 2000.
Data: "Coldest December Since records began as temperatures plummet to minus 10 C bringing travel chaos across Britain." Mailonline. Dec. 18, 2010.

Source: http://www.terry.uga.edu/~mustard/courses/e2200/pop.htm

(Hat-tip: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/19/great-moments-in-failed-predictions/)

But what of our times?  We have an embarassment of riches when it comes to illustrating the arrogant and dangerous follies of modern alarmists.  The C3 website has been gathering links, very often to peer reviewed-literature, refuting or otherwise showing the incompetence of climate models and sundry claims designed to alarm us.  I have pulled out a couple of hundred topics from the list there.  The alarmists and their models have been shown to be wrong in their predictions for each of them.  Often several times over.

Abrupt Climate Changes, Aerosols, African Eco-Climate, African River Flows, Africa's Daily High Temps, Africa's Lake Victoria Basin's Climate, Africa's Mosquito Population, Alps Plant Species, Amazon and Higher CO2 Levels, Amazon Droughts/Floods, Amazon For The Last 7 Decades, Amazon Threats, Antarctic Ice, Antarctic Ice Melt, Antarctic Ozone Hole, Antarctic species and Ocean Acidification, Antarctic Warming, Arctic Climate, Arctic Ice, Arctic Melt Season Length, Arctic Species, Asian Precipitation, Asia's Rivers, Atlantic Ocean Circulation Slowdown, Atlantic Ocean Current and Greenland Ice, Atmosphere Temperatures, Atmospheric Methane, Atmospheric Water Vapour, Australia Great Barrier Reef, Australia Great Barrier Reef's Health, Australia Sea Level Increases, Australia Severe Cyclones, Australia Severe Weather, Australian Drought, Avalanches, Bangladesh Losing Land, Bering Sea Warming, Biodiversity and Warming, Bird Extinctions, Boiling Oceans, Canada Forest Fires In Ontario, Central Europe Temperatures, Central Siberian Forest Fires, China Extreme Rain Events, China Hail Storm Frequency, China Snow, Vegetation & Deserts, China Tropical Cyclones, China's Medieval Warming Period, Chinese Precipitation Variations, Climate Refugees, Cloud Coverage, Cloud Impact On Temperatures, Coastal Species and Warming, Coastal Swamping, Cooling of Major Ocean Areas, Cooling Since 1995, Coral Reefs and CO2,Coral Reefs and Warming, Crop Failure & Starvation, Crop Health, Current Climate Observations, Cyclone Activity, Death Rates and Warming, Desert Areas Expansion, Disaster Losses, Diurnal Trends, Droughts, El Niño/La Niña Phases, Europe Southern Rainfall Variability, European severe weather, European Snowfall, Extreme Climate Events Since 1970, Extreme Precipitation Events, Finland Floods and Droughts, Fish and Ocean Acidification, Flood frequencies, Flood Predictions, Florida Reefs Warming, Food Crop Prospects, Forest Fire Incidents, Frogs and Warming, German Flooding, Global Ocean Warming, Global Precipitation, Global Sea Level Rise, Global Snowpack Levels, Global Temperatures, Greenland and AMO Variability, Greenland Ice Sheet Stability, Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass, Greenland Modern Ice Loss, Greenland's Glaciers, Hay Fever & Asthma, Heavy Precipitation Events, High Wind Storms, Himalaya Severe Rainfall, Himalayan Glaciers, Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Landfall, Hurricane or Cyclone frequency, Hurricanes, Ice Sheets Collapse, Illnesses, Increased Mudslides, India past 135 Years of Rainfall, Indian Ocean levels, Indian Rainfall, Infectious Diseases, Infrared Radiation, Intensity of Hailstorms, Japan Precipitation, Malaria Incidence, Malaria Regions, Maldives & Other Reef Islands, Maldives Sea Levels, Marine Life & Diversity,Marine Life and Warming, Max/Min Daily Temperatures, Methane Gas "Tipping Point", Methane Levels, Minimum Temperatures, Mountain Rabbits, Mud & Debris Slides, Namib Desert Greatest Floods, New Zealand Cooling, Northern Hemisphere Snow, Northern Hemisphere's Wind Reduction, Ocean Acidification, Ocean Acidification & Marine Life, Ocean Conveyor Belt, Ocean Cooling, Ocean Heat Content, Ocean Temperatures, Ocean Warming, Ozone, Ozone In Wealthy Countries, Pacific Islands Disappearing , Pacific Ocean Variability, Peat Bogs, Permafrost Behaviour, Positive Feedback, Precipitation Trends, Rainfall, River Discharge Volumes, Sea 'Dead Zone’,Sea Ice Growth Over Decades, Sea Level Increase Rate, Sea Level Over Last Decade,Severe Droughts Over Last 40 years, Severe Floods, Severe Hurricane Incidents, Severe Storms, Severe Tropical Cyclones, Severe Weather, Severe Windstorms, Shellfish and CO2, Siberian High Climatic Condition, Siberian-Arctic Tundra, Snowfall and Warming,Southern Africa Rainfall, Southern Hemisphere Cyclones, Species Extinctions, Spread of Malaria, Tasmanian Ocean Reefs, Tornados, Tree Lines, Tropical Cyclones and Warming, Tropical Fish and Warming, Tropical Hotspot, Tundra, Tundra Greenhouse Gas, UK Thames River Barrier, USA  Cooling, USA California Mountain Snowfall, USA Canada Great Lakes' Water Levels, USA Canada Rocky Mountains Over Last 50+ Years, USA Cascade Mtns. Snowpack, USA Cooling, USA Droughts For Southwest, USA Droughts In Utah, USA Eastern Severe Winter Storms, USA Flooding, USA Eastern Flooding, USA Hawaii's Extreme Weather Events, USA Maple Syrup Industry, USA Mississippi River Floods, USA Temperatures Since 1900, USA Temps In 2008, USA Winter, Vegetation Growth, Water Vapour Feedback, Wildfires, Winter Precipitation, World's Plant Life

For more information, search here: http://www.c3headlines.com/bad-predictions-failed.html

May the Right Climate Stuff Team Drive the Wrong Climate Stuff from our Schools

The Right Climate Stuff (TRCS) research team is a volunteer group of more than 20 scientists and engineers who are primarily retired veterans of NASA's manned space programme.  Here is an interim report from their ongoing study into climate:.

1. The science that predicts the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming is not settled science.

 2. There is no convincing physical evidence of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Most of the alarm regarding AGW results from output of unvalidated computer models. We understand scientific arguments regarding how doubling CO2 in the atmosphere over a hundred years or more (if possible) can have a small direct warming effect, but we question the accuracy of feedback simulations in current models computing climate system responses that amplify CO2 effects. Efforts to estimate climate sensitivity to CO2 based solely on physical data have large uncertainties because many factors affect global temperatures, and CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere after the earth warms due to other factors. While paleoclimate data clearly show CO2 levels rise and fall in the atmosphere hundreds of years after temperature rises and falls due to other causes, the evidence is very weak to support claims of a catastrophic rise in global temperatures caused by CO2 emissions related to human activity.

 3. Computer models need to be validated before being used in critical decision-making.

Our manned aerospace backgrounds in dealing with models of complex phenomena have convinced us that this rule must be followed to avoid decisions with serious unintended consequences.

 4. Because there is no immediate threat of global warming requiring swift corrective action, we have time to study global climate changes and improve our prediction accuracy.

While there are many benefits due to some global warming, the major threats appear to be associated with a net loss of Greenland and Antarctica ice sheet mass that would contribute to a gradual sea-level rise. The history, current trends, and specific causes of ice sheet melting and ice accumulation by precipitation must be better understood before determining how best to respond to threats of accelerated sea-level rise.

 5. Our US government is over-reacting to concerns about Anthropogenic Global Warming.

More CO2 in the atmosphere would be beneficial for forest and crop growth to support the earth's growing population, so control of CO2 emissions is not an obvious best solution to hyped-up concerns regarding AGW. Eventually the earth will run out of fossil fuels and alternative energy sources will be required. Market forces will (and should) play a big role in this transition to alternative energy sources. Government funding of promising research and development objectives for alternative fuels appears to be a better option at this time than expenditures of enormous resources to limit CO2 emissions.

 6. A wider range of solution options should be studied for global warming or cooling threats from any credible cause.

CO2 effectiveness in controlling global average temperatures or sea levels has not been established. More reliable and greater control authority may be available from engineering solutions that would accommodate the beneficial aspects of more CO2 in the atmosphere.

Source:  http://www.therightclimatestuff.com/SummaryPrelimReport.html

Hat-tip: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/23/team-of-ex-nasa-scientists-concludes-no-imminent-threat-from-man-made-co2/ 

 

These are the words of level-headed adults working with no ulterior motives to critically review the shoddy structures and ill-founded strictures of CO2 alarmism.  That same alarmism promoted for decades by a mix of decidedly un-level-headed adults and also sundry schemers with ulterior motives.  They have also promoted it to children, often with the use of scare-stories.  It will take a while to clear up the worst of that mess, but these ex-NASA folks are doing their bit to help.  Well done them!

 

Background: The Right Climate Stuff (TRCS) research team is a volunteer group of more than 20 scientists and engineers who are primarily retired veterans of our manned space program. We began our investigation into the controversial issue of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) in February 2012. We have reviewed, studied and debated available data and scientific reports regarding many factors that affect temperature variations of the earth's surface and atmosphere. We have also studied the well-documented beneficial, as well as potentially detrimental effects, of more CO2 in our atmosphere. This report provides a summary of findings that we have reached at this point into our investigation.

Note added 5 February 2013. An anonymous commenter (oh the irony) below has pointed out that most of the people involved in the Right Climate Stuff venture have not been named.  I can find only three names: Jim Peacock (Webmaster, NASA retired aerospace engineer),James Visentine (NASA Alumni League, Curator and Webmaster, TRCD Database), and Thomas Wysmuller (Meteorologist, former NASA employee).  It still looks plausibly genuine, especially given those three people were signatories of the open letters about climate by 49/50 ex NASA people last year, but readers may want to be careful about taking Right Climate Stuff too seriously until more becomes known about them.

Note added 12 March 2012.  More background on the Right Climate Stuff group here:  http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2013/03/12/retired-nasa-scientists-enter-climate-change-fray/

More of this please: helping children escape from climate scaremongering

Seen in a post by Ian Johnson at Climate Change Dispatch .

More Blunt cartoons linked to climate here: http://bluntbyknutz.wordpress.com/blunt-weather/

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers!

I have not been able to keep up a regular flow of posts here, and I want to apologise for that to any regular readers.  But I hope that the links I provide to more active, and more important, sites (on the right hand side of this screen) will be convenient.  I also hope that some of the posts already made will still be of value for a bit longer, and that also the reference 'pages' I provide will prove helpful from time to time.

I have been building up notes for a series of posts I plan to make next month on the ongoing targeting of children to create activists driven by climate alarm, or to get to their parents to help sustain that alarm.  While the scientific case for such alarm continues to be exposed more widely as being a weak one, and while more politicians seem to making tentative first steps away from domination by environmentalism, there is in the background so to speak, a relentless pushing of alarm or some version of responsibility for doing something about it on to school children.  I suppose that will take decades to reverse and to repair some of the harm caused, and so a delayed posting on a very minor blog will not make a noticeable difference to that.

I am signing off now for Christmas.  I do not have any religious faith, but I do admire the Christian religion for its high ideals, and its open compassion and generosity to all.  I am quite content that they have taken over the pagan festival of this time of year - their music, their sentiments, their actions all enhance it as far as I have found.  Merry Christmas!

Next post some time early in January.  A good deal of progress was made in 2012 on pushing against the promotion of belief in CAGW.  That alarmism is still the 'establishment' view, but surely there are signs that this particular 'tide in the affairs of man' is on the turn.  The 'catastrophism' at least may be being tempered.  Let us hope so.  Happy New Year!
  
Note added 26 December 2012.  Here is a timely illustration of Christian compassion applied to all those who have harmed the world for decades past and no doubt decades to come with their irresponsible and sometimes ugly scaremongering over carbon dioxide:
'However vicious and cruel the true-believers in the global-warming fantasy have been to those few of us who have dared publicly to question their credo that has now been so thoroughly discredited by events, we should make sure that the rat-hole we dig for their escape from their lavish folly is as commodious as possible.'  Christopher Monckton

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/25/bethlehem-and-the-rat-hole-problem/