This has ineviitably resulted in less posting, increased ratio of Arby sauce in my body, and a strip of unmowed grass on the side of my lawn. So ya, life is busy right now.

But I right this to you, my loyal readership of some 11-12 people, that I will actually post some stuff in the upcoming days.

Don’t get me wrong, those guys are a lot smarter than I am. They also know about a kajillion times more about the climate system than me. So why am I attempting to ‘debunk’ something that they say? Because, my friends, I am something of a Maverick. The original, one could say. I travel on the less beaten path, hoping to forge my own grand way through this melting world.

My main gripe here today is their post entitled “Convenient Untruths.” It’s quite an old post, and it attempts to defend the science in Al Gore’s super terrific movie. As in any case where the ‘science’ in this ‘movie’ is backed up by climate scientists, the results are easily debunked.

So here we go, debunking the debunked. Let’s just hope my debunkment is debunkier than the original debunk.

Gore correctly asserted that melting of Greenland or the West Antarctic ice sheet would raise sea levels 20ft (6 meters).

Correct, sir. But what’s important is…

In the movie, no timescale for that was specified,

Ahh. Ok. I see. There was no timescale specified, but the obvious implication was that unless we do something about global warming, this 20 foot sea level rise will happen. That’s why he showed those animations of Florida and such being drowned in water.

The rate at which this is likely to happen is however highly uncertain as we have discussed previously.

So, what’s it called when something is highly dramatized, presented as fact, and important information is excluded? Propaganda and alarmism.

Up next: sea level.

Much of Tuvalu is only a few feet above sea level, and any sea level rise is going to impact them strongly.

True. But what about the IPCC’s best estimate being 1 foot of sea level rise this century?

The government of Tuvalu has asked New Zealand to be ready to evacuate islanders if needed, and while currently only 75 people per year can potentially be resettled, this could change if the situation worsened.

Ok, so is the situation worsening?

Bwuhh? It’s actually going down. So it’s not worsening. And what about that whole IPCC 1 foot of sea level rise thing?

In the movie there is only one line that referred to this: “That’s why the citizens of these pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand”, which is out of context in the passage it’s in, but could be said to only be a little ahead of it’s time.

So……the movie lied. That’s what it’s called when someone says something that’s not true. But that’s cool, becuase according to them, it will happen, which of course makes it alright to lie.. And what about 1 foot of sea level rise this century predicted by the IPCC?

No? Realclimate? Have anything to say about that?

Ah, I should of known. That would kinda sorta invalidate your entire point, and reveal it as bologna. Now, we have some polar bear nonsense.

As we presaged in August, summer Arctic sea ice shattered all records this year for the minimum extent.

And this year it’s up 9%. Still low, but I wouldn’t poop my pants over it.

Polar bears do indeed depend on the sea ice to hunt for seals in the spring and summer, and so a disappearance of this ice is likely to impact them severely.

So has it been effecting them? Well, in the 1970′s, there were around 5,000 polar bears. Today, there are around 25,000. This is because hunting poses the largest threat to the bears, and it has been regulated more.

The specific anecdote referred to in the movie came from observations of anomalous drownings of bears in 2004 and so was accurate

The study mentioned the drowning of only 4 bears that had died during a large storm in the Beaufort Sea, which has gained ice in the past 30 years. Al Gore somehow forgot to mention this.

However, studying the regional populations of polar bears is not easy and assessing their prospects is tough

Allow me to translate this.

However, studying the regional populations of polar bears has shown that the species numbers have increased dramtically in the past 30 years. In Canada, 11 of 13 sub-populations of polar bears are steady or increasing. Saying this would undermine my point, so I’ll ignore it. 

Whoo. I’m pooped. That’s all I have the energy for right now, but they’ll most likely be more in the future.

An important question to ask is the most obvious one. Why is a site that, in case you didn’t know, has ‘climate science from climate scientists,’ go along with this stuff? Why do they feel the need to turn a blind eye to lies and propaganda? If a random shmuck like me on the internet can easily go through this and show it’s wrong, something is seriously messed up.

Here they are, in their full and wonderful entirety.

-World’s leading climate scientist to appear as a witness at the Kingsnorth trial
-Just a quick blog to break the news: the world’s leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen…
- … four of the expert witnesses (Professor Jim Hansen – Al Gore’s science adviser and the world’s leading climate scientist…
-Kingsnorth trial day three: world’s leading climate scientist gives evidence
-Today, at the Kingsnorth trial, the world’s leading climate scientist told the court…
-First, a quick announcement: following Jim Hansen (the world’s leading climate scientist) yesterday…
-During the trial, the world’s leading climate scientist came to court

I don’t know about you, but I’m just getting this …… feeling that Greenpeace thinks Jim Hansen is the world’s leading climate scientist.

How do you get to be the so called “world’s leading climate scientist?” Is it by lying about the temperature data that you control? If so, he’s got that covered.

Maybe it’s by absolutely ignoring and breaking the Hatch Act. Cause he loves making political suggestions to people.

Or maybe to be the world’s leading climate scientist you have to recieve grant money from political groups and then claim to be silenced by the Bush administration, when in reality he gave “over 1,400 interviews in recent years, including 15 the very month he made the claim.” Check off those two. Jim Hansen link

If not those, it’s gotta be calling for oil executives to be put on trial for spreading misinformation about global warming, all while the Earth was actually colder than it was 20 years ago when he told the Senate the sky was falling.

Ahhh, I see now. He has successfully completed all of those, which makes him the World’s Greatest Climate Scientist.

Holding this esteemed position, he is above all scrutiny and criticism, becuase he is the best. The WGCN has no time for “debate” or “skepticism.” Those are not important, says he.

Instead, the WGCN says more meaningful stuff, like “a recipe for global disaster” and “there’s just barely still time.” You know, really level headed and non alarmist kinda stuff. That is some real good science, but hey, did you expect anything less? It’s the World’s Greatest Climate Scientist.

Edit: if you’re looking for some more jim hansen reading, click here.

These include “taxing individuals for each pound of trash they produce; imposing higher automotive registration and insurance rates on individuals who drive more; increasing gasoline taxes; reducing the availability of parking; and establishing ‘Residential Behavior Change Programs’ that would employ community networks to intimidate individuals into ‘making sustained, socially beneficial changes at the household level.’”

Ok, so I’m assuming that this disturbing intrusion into American lives has a cause that justifies the actions. Let’s break this down.

The US, in 2004 was responsible for 22.2% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. China has passed us since then, meaning our percentage has gone down some, so I’ll estimate the number at 20% right now.

In 2005, the New Hampshire produced 21.21 Million Metric Tons of CO2. The entire US made 6,049,235 Thousand Metric Tons of CO2 in 2004. This is where it got tough, but I beared down and put my thinking cap on to figure it out. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that 21.21 Million Metric Tons is 21,210 Thousand Metric Tons.

That would make the percentage of carbon dioxide in the US that New Hampshire creates is a measly .35% of the total amount we produce. But wait, there’s more!

The US makes only 20% of the worlds CO2. So .35% multiplied by 20% equals……. only .07% of the worlds carbon dioxide production. That’s all New Hampshire makes.

We also know that the if every country accepted the Kyoto Protocol, the worlds temperature would be reduced by only .06 degrees Celcius. The reductions Kyoto calls for are 5% below 1990 levels.

The worlds carbon emissions are expected to be 28,563 million metric tons in 2012. In 1990 it was 21,563, and 5% below that is 20,485 MMT. So essentially, getting rid of 8,078 MMT (per year) of CO2 will reduce global warming by .06 degrees.

What does that mean for New Hampshire? It means that if the state stoped producing carbon dioxide indefinitely, it would reduce global temperatures by approximately .00016 degrees Celcius by 2050.

Of course, completely halting production of CO2 won’t happen. Let’s say they reduce emission by 60% throught these policy changes, something which almost surely won’t happen, (unless nuclear was used) the temperature reductions would be .00009 degrees Celcius.

So that’s the dilemma. Reduce our emissions, resulting in a lower quality of life and government intrusion and regulation like none seen before in the US, and the result is a temperature reduction that is almost incomprehensibly small.

.00009 degrees Celcius. Human rights and living standards. Which one is more important? That’s up to you to figure out.

The data I used for this post is from these 3 sources:
World Energy Consumption and Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 1990–2025
List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions
Energy CO2 Emissions by State

In case you haven’t heard, 6 members of Greenpeace did 30,000 pounds of damage to a new coal power plant last October in Kingsnorth, UK. They were just cleared of all charges. You can see the ecstatic reaction of Greenpeace here.

I know that I’m not the only one who’s intital reaction was, “WTF?”

Come on. What has this boiling Earth come to? We’re excusing criminals who’ve done extensive damage to a power plant, becuase “they were acting to protect property around the world ‘in immediate need of protection’ from the impacts of climate change, caused in part by burning coal.”

That’s ridiculous. And you don’t have to be a genius to realize that. My great Aunt Margy who’s 97, bedridden for 26 years, and illiterate called me yesterday just to say “This is ridiculous!” and we haven’t talked since she divorced my great Uncle Murray in ’94.

So this has me wondering about other crimes. Can I vandalize the office of the WNBA, justifying my act by saying they continue to produce boring basketball games that threatens to dangerously impact the climate of sports? Is trashing the Disney Channel offices A-Ok, because doing so may help the fight against unbelievably terrible TV shows that the youth of our nation is constantly exposed too? Where does the madness stop?

Of course, the comments section of that Greenpeace article has very positive reviews.

“Great stuff :) Really heartening decision!”
“what brilliant news, well done to all those involved”
“What fantastic, historic news. Well done the six, the legal team and Greenpeace.”

One guy was talking some sense, though.

“So, does this give me the right to grafitti all over the Greenpeace ship which also adds “climate damaging” gases to the atmosphere? Protest, campaign, but don’t cause criminal damage.”

The fine commenter “nozza” posted the above response. Common sense check well done. We could all take a second to learn from nozza.

Unfortunately though, the reality of the court’s decision is something to worry about. We have a legal office accepting criminality becuase they were “doing it for Mother Earth.” This could very well lead to future defacements of coal plants, becuase what’s stopping them? There buddies just got away from it with no consequences.

Some of you may know of a website called Gristmill (or Grist). It’s labeled with the caption “Environmental News & Commentary.” Sounds pretty awesome, eh?

They have a series there entitled “How To Talk to a Climate Skeptic,” with replies to common arguements used by those such as muah, most with slanted and/or distorted statements of the  actual skeptical position. I checked it out today and was treated to a new article ‘debunking’ the cooling of the past year.

Here’s his version of the skeptical view:

Objection: Temperatures plummeted over the last year (2007-2008). If you look at this data from the Met Office Hadley Centre you can clearly see that in one year alone global temperatures dropped .6°C, an amount equal to the entire warming over the 20th century claimed by the IPCC.

All very true. But I don’t think any of us thought that this collossal cooling would actually stay that  way. That seems to be what he’s implying. What is important is that we’ve heated maybe .2 degrees Celcius since then, and August remained steady, meaning we’re still significantly cooler than just a year ago.

This argument represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between weather and climate. Climate is generally defined as the weather conditions averaged over a long period, usually around 30 years.

Sounds reasonable. So, let’s make sense of this. CO2 started increasing greatly around 1940. Temperature’s fell for about 30-35 years during this increase. Then temperature rose for around 20-25 years, right in line with CO2, from the late 70′s to the year 2002. (excluding the outlier of the 98 EL Nino) Since then, for almost 7 years, temperatures have been falling.

Wow. Now that’s some really solid evidence of CO2 being super duperty important. 40 years of cooling, 25 years of warming. Talking about aerosols is for a different time. But those are the facts. And these people actually ridicule us for not declaring an imminent climate catastrophe?

There’s more in the article that could be commented on, but one thing needs attention.

And before you let anyone argue that the uncertainty about today I just described just means we need to wait 10 more years, please recall that we have done that and more already.

Well, my friend, during this ten years the Earth has cooled. But no, you’re right, we should ignore that, but focus on 20 years of correlation. Let’s also ignore that the correlated warming was no where near a catastrophic level.

Twenty years ago James Hansen was telling the U.S. senate that warming was real, significant, and anthropogenic (human caused) and the projections he provided have been largely borne out by what has been observed.

Ah, defending James Hansen’s prediction of 20 years ago. So easy to refute, you wonder why they still do it.

The yellow line is if CO2 was held constant, which it hasn’t. The orange line is closest to our actual emmissions scenario, and it’s way off from actual temperatures (bottom red line). The Earth heated for only 10 years following his testimony, and it’s been falling since for 10 years. Dope predictions, dude.

The skeptics have already made us wait,

While we’ve been in cooling trend.

and the three IPCC assessments that came out in the meantime have been more and more emphatic in their conclusions.

And each time they look more wrong in their forecast for a climate crisis.

The wait is over, the trend is clear and the cause is well understood.

On the contrare, the wait is not over, the trend is not clear, and the cause is partially, not completely, understood. All three points are, and have, been demonstrably proven.

But have you ever paused to question whether these people really want the planet to stop heating up?

Before you answer mull this over. The planet has stopped warming. We’ve been in a distinct cooling trend since 2002, despite ever rising CO2 levels. This does not mean that the Earth still won’t warm due to the accumulation of this greenhouse gas in the future (it has in the past, albeit modestly), but currently, for almost 7 years, it is not. This is a widely known fact. So the real question is this: why the hell aren’t those who predict doomsday rejoicing?

Should they not be ecstatic and overjoyed that the planet isn’t heating up? After all, they are the people that believe that all hell will break loose if the planet warms. So here the planet isn’t warming, and we haven’t even had to endure economic hardship! A double win, right? Unfortunately, no.

The obvious argument one could make is that this cooling is temporary, and by not acting now, we’re jeopardizing our future. This point does hold a bit of merit, but not much. There is no evidence of catastrophic climate change, and the last 7 years dampers those fears even more. However, the very least that should be expected is a consideration of this important cooling, and we have seen nothing of the sort.

That is becuase what the alarmists really want to do is change our way of life and gain political power. I am by no means the first to say this; hundreds have realized it before. With no climate crisis they have no means of getting their power and money. With no climate crisis, there is no avenue to critisize the American (read: prosperous) way of life. Nevermind that the same people who demonize our country for its wastefulness and overconsumption don’t dare give up the benefits they get everyday from fossil fuels.

In any other issue, if a problem was being averted with no action taken, ecspecially if that action had some very negative consequences, it would be reason for celebration. Only political issues react otherwise, becuase there is an agenda to push.

If you asked an alarmist the question, “If you could stop the Earth from warming and avoid taking the proposed policy changes, would you do it?” My geuss is that most would say, “Of course I would.” (there are some who openly admit there distaste for Western lifestyle) However, the question posited above is occuring right now, and I have yet to see one alarmist or environmental group consider or even acknowledge it. Instead, they choose ignorance.

These alarmists and radical environmentalists would prefer that there be a problem, because then they can fulfill their goal to help pull you out of it. In other words, they are willing to sacrifice the welfare of some 6 billion people, because doing so benefits them and supports their worldview.

That is the most troubling thing of all.

Well, if you took the time to actually read it, which I didn’t actually expect, you’d come across some typical unscientific nonsense. It’s one of those deals where a fact is staring the author right in the face and instead of respecting this aforementioned fact his reply is probably something like this. “Screw these ‘facts’, it doesn’t fit the basis of my article. And you out there, on your blog, are an ugly person and you smell like poop.”

Besides this flagrant use of an ad hominem attack, (he would most definitely use precisely those words if I questioned him on this, I’m sure of it) it’s ridiculous how much nonsense can get through in the mainstream media.

The first paragraph of that article reads:

“The wieght and consumption habits of the overweight and obese are worsening the pace of global warming, said two researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in a letter to the Medical Journal Lancet.”

Now, the author would like us to believe that these fatties are quickening global warming. There’s a problem with that arguement however. The globe isn’t warming, it’s cooling. The understanding of this results in serious consequences and may challenge everything you ever thought to be true.

Let’s look at the facts.

1. The Earth is cooling.
2. Fat people warm the Earth.
3. Becuase of that, we’ve only cooled a little.
4. Without the increasing weight of the human race, we’d ineveitably be in an ice age, and the existence of mankind would be severely threatened.

No longer should you scoff at the guy who orders 6 Big Macs, 2 large fry’s, 20 McNuggets, and a 32 ounce Mountain Dew that gets refilled 3 times. Instead, go up to this man, shake his hand, and say, “Thank you, good sir, for doing your part to save the Earth. We could use more people like you in this world.” Then offer to take him over to KFC and treat him to a bucket of Homestyle Chicken, and don’t take no for an answer.

Courtesy of Watts Up With That, RSS has their numbers out.

Click here for bigger pic

“The August 2008 number is  0.221°C lower than in August of 2007 which was  0.367°C”
 - Watts Up With That

So we’re still in a non-warming trend. Have been for almost 7 years. Cool, eh? (pun entirely intended)

It’s true. Fat people cause global warming.

So, to all the people out there like this guy. I kindly ask, nay, the fever stricken Earth kindly asks that you stop being fat. It is a matter of urgent importance.

Hat tip: Watts Up With That. I even used the same picture, but it was just too perfect to pass up.