Should 'Climate Deniers' be charged with RICO violations? lol

LTC Stephen F. Exactly and the Pro-crowd cannot distinguish between the Forcing which is happening and the Feedback that qualifies their claims about CO2. It is dogma and doctrinaire and not science at all and just plain silly.

Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball

Release of early data from NASA’s OCO2 satellite triggered the typical nonsense. The usual people talked about the modern equivalent of how many angels on the head of a pin, when they haven’t even established the existence of angels. The initial OCO2 data appears to show most estimates and assumptions were wrong. This might explain NASA’s hesitancy to release all the information, especially with regard to sources and sinks. If nothing else, the maps show the CO2 is not well mixed. The wider truth is that every piece of data in the climate debate is a very crude estimate created for a political or scientific agenda, including those used by many skeptics.

Kip Hansen’s essay “Are we Chasing Imaginary Numbers?” speaks to an important point about approximations. It reminded me about learning navigation and taking what was called “a three star fix”. The result almost always was a triangulation and all you knew was you were somewhere in the triangle. To narrow it down, but still not be precise, you dropped perpendicular lines from the centre of each side of the triangle to create what Hansen would recognize as the data point, we called it a Most Probable Position (MPP). Hansen’s discussion is very valuable, but in climate science the problem begins long before the point of determining accuracy.

All measurement records are inadequate for any legitimate analysis, lacking length, breadth, or depth. For example, Spectrum Analysis is used to determine climate cycles, but requires long records which are rarely available. The overall records are inadequate as the basis for modeling or even input to formulae; they definitely should not underpin any policy.

In typical IPCC fashion they acknowledge most of the problems in Box 2.1 Uncertainty in Observational Records. It appears in the Physical Science Basis Report where they know it won’t be read, It should be the first page of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM), but don’t hold your CO2 laden breath. Despite these inadequacies, unnecessary policies and attacks on entire segments of society occurred. Usually this occurs insidiously and without wider knowledge, primarily because of the abject failure of the mainstream media.

I have given evidence about climate and environment at trials and served on dozens of commissions of inquiry. In every case the primary finding was the same; data was inadequate to draw any conclusion. The problem is exacerbated because authorities limit and control what data is made available. Unfortunately, while this would stop pure scientific research, it doesn’t hinder political scientific research. The data problem in climate research has not improved in the 43 years since Hubert Lamb set up the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in 1972. He explained the challenge in his autobiography.

“…it was clear that the first and greatest need was to establish the facts of the past record of the natural climate in times before any side effects of human activities could well be important.”

Lamb’s central interest was in reconstructing climate records, but his concern about inadequacies applies to all related data. He also commented on what would happen when all the efforts went to speculation without adequate data.

A precarious and threatening situation has developed for climatology: a tremendous effort was made to land research funds in all countries, mostly the USA, on the basis of frightening people about the possible drastic affects of Man’s activities, and so much has been said about climate warming there will be an awkward situation if the warming doesn’t happen or not to the extent predicted.

The IPCC successfully directed most attention, including that of most skeptics, to temperature and CO2. They were wrong on both these variables, but were equally wrong on most others. One error was their data and predictions about methane (CH4). Misuse of methane data began even before the IPCC hit full stride with attacks on the agriculture sector and cause serious and totally unnecessary economic and social damage (Figure 1).

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Figure 1

Failed IPCC predictions like these are obvious and not surprising. More intriguing is the increase in observed methane levels after 2004, but more of that later.

On The Front Line

After 40 years working with farmers and landowners I know they are more aware and environmentally conscious than anyone else in society. They and their families live on and make their living from the land; it is an investment and a legacy. Farmers were attacked in the 1970s and 80s with claims their cattle produced methane (CH4) that caused global warming. It was incorrect scientifically and ignored facts that provided a different picture. It combined with attacks on their entire operation by animal rights groups that were aggravated by the severe drought across western North America in the late 1980s. Waterfowl numbers declined and farmers were blamed because they cleared the woodlands, drained the wetlands, and using chemicals. I spoke to a farm conference in Yorkton Saskatchewan during that period. A farmer spoke to me in the parking lot after. He said they no longer had family suppers because of dissent and hostility as his children, indoctrinated by a misinformed social studies teacher with a political agenda, attacked him and farming. The numbers of waterfowl recovered in the early 1990s when rains returned, but there were no apologies.

When the methane issue appeared I was serving as a technical advisor for the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA). I urged them to ignore the issue because scientific evidence didn’t justify the claims but that didn’t matter; the eco-bullying was effective. Some governments, like New Zealand, actually planned taxes on animal emissions of methane. The government eventually withdrew the tax after farmers protested loudly about the damage to the economy. In Canada the government offered sizable sums of money to farmers who adopted their methane reduction programs. I learned, while speaking to the Canadian Forage Crop producers a few years ago, that many signed on. They quickly found how disastrous it was because bureaucrats dictated their farm management, including inappropriately changing their crop rotation.

What happened to the methane issue? How was a very important part of society threatened and made to feel guilty for what humans and animals have done for millions of years, produce methane? The answer is special interest environmental groups used inadequate data and scientific knowledge to create a false narrative. The mainstream media amplified the threats in their furtherance of sensationalism. The worst part was most scientists remained silent. There was another scientist on the CCA panel with me who urged action. It later emerged that he was receiving research funds to produce methods of reducing methane from animals.

North American cattlemen went from the personification of freedom and healthy lifestyle represented by the Marlboro Man, to the actor who played the Marlboro Man sadly dying of cancer and the great outdoors polluted by the cattle in his herd.

T.H. Huxley said, “The great tragedy of Science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” It certainly applies to the hypothesis that human activities are causing increases in greenhouse gases, such as CH4, that are destroying the planet. The trouble was atmospheric methane volumes leveled and declined at the same time as the charges were made. The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report shows the trend (Figure 2).

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Figure 2: Plot of methane levels from 1985 to 2006.

The IPCC (Table 1) showed that atmospheric methane (CH4) levels did not change as a forcing factor between 1998 and 2005.

Concentrations and their changes
Radiative Forcing