Earlier this month we posted a feature article entitled “35 Inconvenient Truths” by Christopher Monckton. The story attracted a number of emails, but none that actually challenged the content. The reason we continue to post this side of the debate is because in our research, talking with climate scientists and doing our own fact checking, we find the skeptics are making valid points.
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| Whether or not someone is a AGW alarmist should have no bearing on the strength or purity of their environmentalist convictions. |
The idea that there is a “denial industry” doesn’t hold up to logic. Here’s how policies that adhere to conventional theories about global warming benefit most vested interests:
- Insurance companies get to charge higher premiums
- Fossil fuel companies get to keep prices (and profits) high
- Politicians get to enact new taxes
- Public sector entities get new taxes to fund their pensions
- Environmental organizations get more funds
- Left wing activists get a new basis to attack private ownership
- More public sector funded jobs are created
- Lawyers get a new basis to file lawsuits
- CPA firms begin to audit carbon accounting
- Wall street gets to trade emissions credits
- Climate researchers get more grant requests funded
- United Nations bureaucrats get a guaranteed revenue stream
Not included on this list of winners are the billions of ordinary consumers who will pay more for basic needs, millions of small businesses who will go under, and the economic aspirations of emerging nations that will be thwarted - so where is the denial industry? With virtually all powerful vested interests winning under the alarm scenario - it’s no wonder we aren’t seeing meaningful debate on this topic.
Here then are Christopher Monckton’s inconvenient questions - he claims each of the following 35 points made in the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” are false. You can read his explanations by clicking to the original feature. And the discussion would be furthered if rational rebuttal were offered to Monckton’s discussion of any of these points. The truth should not be afraid of debate:
#1 - Sea Level Rising Six Meters
#2 - Pacific islands “drowning”
#3 - Thermohaline circulation “stopping”
#4 - CO2 “driving temperature”
#5 - Snows of Kilimanjaro “melting”
#6 - Lake Chad “drying up”
#7 - Hurricane Katrina “man made”
#8 - Polar bear “dying”
#9 - Coral reefs “bleaching”
#10 - 100 ppmv of CO2 “melting mile-thick ice”
#11 - Hurricane Caterina “manmade”
#12 - Japanese typhoons “a new record”
#13 - Hurricanes “getting stronger”
#14 - Big storm insurances losses “increasing”
#15 - Mumbai “flooding”
#16 - Severe tornadoes “more frequent”
#17 - The sun “heats the Arctic ocean”
#18 - Arctic “warming fastest”
#19 - Greenland ice sheet “unstable”
#20 - Himalayan glacial melt waters “failing”
#21 - Peruvian glaciers “disappearing”
#22 - Mountain glaciers worldwide “disappearing”
#23 - Sahara desert “drying”
#24 - West Antarctic ice sheet “unstable”
#25 - Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves “breaking up”
#26 - Larsen B Ice Shelf “broke up because of ‘global warming’”
#27 - Mosquitoes “climbing to higher altitudes”
#28 - Many tropical diseases “spread through ‘global warming’”
#29 - West Nile virus in the US “spread through ‘global warming’”
#30 - Carbon dioxide is “pollution”
#31 - The European heat wave of 2003 “killed 35,000″
#32 - Pied flycatchers “cannot feed their young”
#33 - Gore’s bogus pictures and film footage
#34 - The Thames Barrier “closing more frequently
#35 - “No fact…in dispute by anybody.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
He is absolutely spot on.
There is no such thing as “mainstream scientific consensus”.
The last time we had it the consensus was that the earth was the center of the universe and the earth was flat. What changed that view was scientific proof. And that is how science works. To say that the “debate is over” is just plain sillyness. There should be more robust debate and we need to also realize that our planet has gone through several climate changes before man set foot on the planet.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
There doesn’t seem to be a great rush to rebut Monkton’s claims - probably because they are so valid.
As for Gore. Would you buy a used car from him? As Lincoln famously said “you can fool etc etc “.
January 19th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I saw your article “35 Inconvenient Truths”. I’m not familiar with your organisation, but you appear to be on the “green” side of the spectrum, in which case you showed integrity and courage in publishing that article. Unfortunately, things get worse.
As you said, the truth still matters.
I have been reading all available information, and talking to people, to try to work out in my own mind where the truth lies.
I come into contact with a number of scientists, and I find it very striking that every single one of them believes that Al Gore and the IPCC have got it wrong. The most common opinion is that global warming is part of a natural cycle, and even though CO2 levels may have an impact, they are not the main driver. The implication is that we would be better advised to work how best to deal with climate change, than to waste vast resources addressing an unimportant part of the problem. [I use "climate change" deliberately, instead of "Global Warming", as another implication is that we can't be sure the temperature will continue to increase.]
Al Gore’s film was clearly a piece of scaremongering, as the “35 Inconvenient Truths” has highlighted.
But if the truth is that global warming is simply part of a natural cycle, and if CO2 levels are not the most important factor, then there must be a fundamental error in the IPCC report. Not a little error, like a hockey-stick graph being wrong, but something really fundamental.
And there is one. The IPCC itself identifies it in the latest report (AR4). The last subsection of the Technical Summary says, in full:
“Key Uncertainties:
Large uncertainties remain about how clouds might respond to global climate change. {8.6}”
The IPCC couldn’t model how clouds respond to climate change, because they don’t. The truth is that climate changes in response to clouds. The IPCC had it the wrong way round.
The IPCC study is basically a modelling exercise. There is a lot of genuine research reported - no argument with that - but the main thrust of the study was to come up with a computer model of the climate that could be used for making predictions. They cover most things with a degree of confidence, but after all these years they still can’t work out how clouds work. It’s the one remaining major uncertainty. The uncertainty from clouds pervades the whole document. To give you an idea of just how important this is, and how it affects nearly everything in the IPCC report, here’s what they say in Chapter 1 Historical Overview of Climate Change paragraph 1.5.2:
“At the time of the TAR [the previous report] clouds remained a major source of uncertainty in the simulation of climate changes (as they still are at present: e.g., Sections 2.4, 2.6, 3.4.3, 7.5, 8.2, 8.4.11, 8.6.2.2, 8.6.3.2, 9.2.1.2, 9.4.1.8, 10.2.1.2, 10.3.2.2, 10.5.4.3, 11.8.1.3, 11.8.2.2).”
I said “The truth is that climate changes in response to clouds”, but it is as yet only a theory. The theory is all laid out in Henrik Svensmark’s book The Chilling Stars. Henrik Svensmark is director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research, at the Danish Space Research Institute (DSRI), a part of the Danish National Space Centre. Part of the theory is:-
High levels of certain kinds of cosmic rays cause clouds to form.
Clouds reflect sunlight, hence cool the planet (they have a warming effect at night, but the cooling effect by day is greater). High solar activity has the effect of shielding the Earth from those cosmic rays.
Hence high solar activity = less cosmic rays = less cloud = higher temperatures, and low solar activity = more cosmic rays = more cloud = lower temperatures (there are other factors).
Svensmark’s got a lot of supporting evidence, and the correlation between climate and cosmic rays over time has been quite remarkable. Far more convincing than the IPCC’s efforts to map climate to CO2 levels. But, because we are talking proper science here, the scientists are looking for proof beyond just a nice correlation. An experiment is being conducted at the CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) particle accelerator under the French-Swiss border, which will test the hypothesis that cosmic rays cause the formation of clouds. Unfortunately there won’t be results for a couple of years. Svensmark has already run a successful laboratory test, but the CERN test is a much more thorough one.
If Henrik Svensmark is correct, and I believe that the weight of evidence already indicates that he is, then that will largely demolish the IPCC findings and ‘Summary for Policymakers’. Instead of putting massive resources into reducing emissions of CO2, the world will need to concentrate on being able to deal with whatever climate change the natural forces deliver to us.
On that basis, I would strongly recommend anyone to read the book “Cool It” by Bjorn Lomborg.
I wish your organisation well. A lot of what you are doing is well worth doing in its own right, regardless of the drivers of climate change.
Yours,
MJ
[I am a retired computer analyst/programmer, and have no axe to grind, other than wanting the science to be properly aired.]
February 7th, 2008 at 4:13 am
we are trying to keep the debate alive in a sane and rational forum (no insults is a rule). The debate is NOT over:
http://www.creditablecarbon.com/forum
February 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
[...] Whether or not someone is a climate alarmistﾠshould have no bearing on the strength or purity of their environmentalist convictions. (Read “Global Warming Questions“) [...]
April 17th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I was easily able to not only “challenge” one of Monckton’s recent essays, but also show how he deliberately distorted available climate data to suit his own political agenda:
http://jhubert.livejournal.com/181274.html
Therefore, I wouldn’t take anything he says too seriously.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Jurgen: Monckton, like all of us, is not beyond criticism, nor, more to the point, are his arguments. We don’t publish his work because he is always right, we publish it because he is right some of the time. Nonetheless, to the extent anyone’s argument delves into disrespect or an emphasis on motives, it takes attention away from the relevant and ultimately revealing questions and evidence. Should we debate global warming? Until there are billions and billions of acres of new forest, I think we should.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
[...] have no bearing on the strength or purity of their environmentalist convictions. (Read “Global Warming Questions“) [...]