It has now become clear that the global temperature stopped rising 12 to 15 years ago after a 20-year period of increasing temperature. This is despite the fact that CO2 emissions have continued to rise at an increasing rate. No scientist professes to know why global warming has stopped, but many continue to believe humans are driving a “climate catastrophe.” Experts and opinion leaders who have publicly bought into the climate crisis hypothesis are obviously reluctant to change their views. They can’t do so without losing face, having invested their reputations in such a high-profile issue. There is a sense that the true believers have become the real deniers.[124]
Considering that the increase in temperature has stopped for the time being, and noting the three issues of the “Climategate” scandal, the collapse of the Copenhagen conference, and the errors in the 2007 IPCC report, it seems clear that the foundation of climate change alarmism has been shaken. Many top scientists have made public statements to distance themselves from the supposed prevailing view.[125] [126] [127] One of the most influential skeptical voices is that of physicist Freeman Dyson, considered one the world’s most brilliant thinkers by many of his peers.[128] A feature article that made his views on climate clear appeared in the New York Times Magazine in March 2009 and turned a lot of heads.[129] He said, “The climate-studies people who work with models always tend to overestimate their models,” and “They come to believe models are real and forget they are only models.” He explained, “Most of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is now, and substantially richer in carbon dioxide.” Dyson referred to Al Gore as climate change’s “chief propagandist,” and as someone who preaches “lousy science, distracting public attention from more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet.”
While the author of this article politely derided Dyson’s point of view, there was no doubt about where one of the great thinkers of our time stands on the subject. I think one Freeman Dyson is worth 10,000 true believers who mimic one another, falsely claiming that there is an “overwhelming consensus” and extolling, “the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions” without providing any details of the “vast body of evidence.”
In recent months a number of mainstream media outlets, including many British and American newspapers, have abandoned their strong biases and are now publishing articles that are balanced and even skeptical of human-caused warming. The collapse of the “overwhelming consensus” is good news for everyone who believes this topic should be discussed openly and objectively. There is a breath of fresh air in the climate change debate.
There is much work to do in trying to validate or reject the assertions of the major players in climate science. They include the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Goddard Institute of Space Science of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. All these top agencies are implicated in the “Climategate” scandal and are being investigated by various authorities. The U.K. Institute of Physics’ submission to the Parliamentary Committee investigating the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit made these observations:[130]
The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.
The CRU e-mails as published on the Internet provide prima facie [at first sight] evidence of determined and coordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself – most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change.
It is important to recognize that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges:
those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and
historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of ‘proxies’, for example, tree-rings.
The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the [rejected] requests for further information.
The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.
The Institute of Physics has no reason to exaggerate or to hold any bias. The Institute makes it clear that the information provided by the Climatic Research Unit may not be credible or trustworthy. Clearly it will be some time before the “science is settled.”
On May 29, 2010, Britain’s top science body, the Royal Society, announced it would review its literature on climate change in order to reflect the skeptical view. The Royal Society stated, “Any public perception that science is somehow fully settled is wholly incorrect—there is always room for new observations, theories, measurements.” Along with the change of tone by the London Science Museum this marks a sharp turning point, from certainty and “overwhelming consensus,” to a balanced dialogue on the subject. One can only hope that other major science bodies will adopt the same policy.
At this writing the developments in the climate change debate are changing faster than the climate itself. The public is becoming more skeptical by the day, while the believers work doubly hard to shore up their position, assuring us warming will eventually return in earnest. This may be, but it is not happening now, and even if warming does recur in future it won’t prove that we are the main cause. I remain open to new information and continue to follow the discussion on a daily basis.
Some readers will argue that I have only presented the skeptical side of the debate. This is only because the historical evidence, what has actually occurred, does not support the idea that we are the primary cause of global warming, never mind that its impacts will be “catastrophic.” All the predictions based on computer models in this world can’t change history or manufacture the future. For that we must patiently wait. Meanwhile we should embark on the path toward a future that focuses on sustainable energy as outlined in Chapter 15. We must gradually reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and replace them with clean, sustainable energy sources. This will satisfy many agendas, including the agenda of the believers in human-caused climate change.
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