Carbon Taxes Will Help Fund World Government: Emission-cut Pledges to Cost $1 Trillion a Year

"Carbon taxes can raise substantial amounts of government revenue, are a highly practical extension of existing administration for fuel taxes, and can be in countries’ own national interests due to domestic health and other co-benefits. Emissions prices can be aligned with mitigation pledges. Cap-and-trade systems are another option, but generally they should be designed to look like taxes through revenue-raising and price stability provisions." - International Monetary Fund

CO2 is a normal part of the carbon cycle and is essential to all life on earth.

It's not global warning, it's climate change stupid! The fact DC has more snow than last year is proof of climate change! I bet next year will be less snow and there you have it -- climate change again.  Climate change is real, and it's time to turn over our economy and our freedom to elites and "authorities" to manage our lives from birth to death. Once we accept this we can all hold hands and sing "we are the world". On a serious note, climate change is perfect for the ruling class. Unlike global warming or cooling, it is a hypothesis that can never be rejected and, as such, is a tautology that can always be used to support the collective over the individual.

They want to condemn the poor of the world (and the middle class) to government controlled subsistence living, and their attack on fossil fuels is the means. 

All evidence points to climate change, a fact of life, as being a political exercise with little to nothing to do with science. We might as well accept that the subject is just the handiest one available for elitists/statists to push their agenda that leads to worldwide equality––a dystopia for everyone and a return to the Stone Age. It is long past time to put away all pretenses of what the debate is really about. At its core, it is about statism against humanity.

The people who believe in AGW will not be swayed by data, and for them the debate is over. For those of us willing to look at data, we know that science is never settled and every hypothesis must be supported by observation and the data. After all is said and done, AGW is only a theory supported by computer algorithms but not by data. The current warming trend is modest, has plateaued since 1998, and is most consistent with historical patterns in climate changes predating industrial CO2 production. AGW appears to be a religion more than a science, and though I don't wish to disparage another person's religion, I don't wish to put my money into the collection basket.

The Paris climate talks consisted of a bunch of bureaucrats and NGOs figuring out how keep to themselves in the ruling class.  You're either at the table or on the menu, as they say.  We've been had (but whether it is for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, we don't yet know!).

How does a carbon tax impact other businesses and individuals? Companies and individuals pay higher prices for GHG-intensive energy (and other goods and services) as the costs of a carbon tax are passed down to consumers. The extent to which these higher energy prices impact the overall income of companies and individuals depends on how the tax revenues are used. The overall impact on a company also depends on how much fossil fuel-based energy it uses, how higher energy prices affect their business, and a company’s ability to either minimize or avoid increasing costs (e.g., by using fuel more efficiently or using cleaner fuels) and/or pass along costs to its customers. For example, a carbon tax policy might lessen overall economic impacts on consumers by including provisions to make the carbon tax “revenue neutral.” This involves returning the carbon tax revenues to businesses and individuals through rebates or changes in the tax code (e.g., reducing corporate or capital gains taxes). A carbon tax policy might also direct revenues to fund programs that provide longer-term benefits to consumers and businesses, such as research and development programs or transportation infrastructure.

What is debatable, and always should be, is what accounts for the fluctuations in climate that have existed for millions of year.  One year it may be shifts in solar output, another changes in the earth's orbit, another volcanic activity, another earthquakes and shifts in the earth's crust and yet another year it may be several of these together. Everything that is happening now has happened before and with equal suddenness.  Our planet is effected by many forces that have nothing to do with humans.  Climate change ideology or "warmism" has taken on many of the characteristics of an apocalyptic doomsday cult. It's similar to a primitive tribe imagining that an eclipse is a sign from the gods to obey their witch doctors, or that sacrificing virgins will make the local volcano stop erupting. We could regiment our lifestyle, surrender to the climate ideological elite, and begin executing skeptics and "denialists," as other totalitarian cults have done -- and climate will still change.

There probably isn't a serious climate scientist in the world who thinks that climate is well understood and that the science is settled in any final sense. The term "settled", enormously abused by politicians and the media, refers to the fact that virtually no real scientist believes that human CO2 emissions have no effect on climate. It is "settled" science to acknowledge humans influence climate, the degree to which we have an impact is hotly debated within the field. Another poster herein has said it better than I will, but it is time for the right wing to acknowledge that AGW is real--to some degree--so they can have a seat at the table to discuss policy.

Here is my issue with climate change alarmists:  Look, I get it that we need to protect the earth, its resources and the environment. I breath the same air and drink the same water as you guys do. I REALLY like going out to the wilderness and seeing wild animals frolic and clear streams flowing. But when I hear that some theory is SETTLED and that debate is no longer considered politically correct, and that "deniers" should be prosecuted as Bernie Sanders wants to happen... then suddenly I get the whiff tyranny in the air. I get the same feeling that book reading intellectuals got when the Red Brigades went around in Communist China making sure that an dissent was snuffed out and people were "re-educated". You KNOW you guys are doing that don't you?  You are stifling dissent on a subject that is FAR from settled.  Your militant authoritarianism isn't reassuring at all.  It makes me want to oppose you, even if your ideas may have merit.  You guys really need to look again at your methods. We really need to protect the Earth....and make sure those that told us we need to protect the Earth get RICH for doing so! I can show you the news reports of a lawyer hired by Green groups to do NOTHING but make editorial changes to Wiki articles on warming.  In the Summer before he got caught, he made 150,000 changes to wiki articles, all geared towards deleting anything that refuted warming fears. Wikipedia is good on settled FACTS!  Things that are still up for debate -- it is a terrible source!


While further discussions could result from the attached link regarding the Vostok ice-core samples that are a basis for climate change concerns, I offer them as a reference that shows a repeatable trend the planet has taken over roughly the last 420,000 years. It shows that at approximately 100,000 year cycles, the planet has warmed and is currently in that phase of the cycle. Perhaps man has accelerated the process or may lengthen it, but my guess is that the planet will continue its usual cycle and start cooling as was predicted in the seventies, or may actually be cooling now. Seeing that previously relied on data may have been disregard, because it no longer fit the narrative, in favor of another source that better supports a previously determined conclusion, the trend may in fact be downward today.
https://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/cryosphere/data2.html

If you set aside all the false predictions and the rampant dishonesty of the 'scientists', the whole climate change religion seems almost believable.

Science by it's very definition is ever evolving, and results in the destructive capital of disproving an old thesis with new information.  The beliefs of the Christian faith have varied very little since the times of Martin Luther.  Think about all the scientific proofs and corrections that have taken place during the same period of time.  Stephen Hawking saw his life's work dismantled before the end of his lifetime. The main difference between the two is that Christians say, "Hey we have something over here you might be interested in, but no pressure if you're not."  Whereas the Climate Change Alarmists say, "Hey we know that each year our assumptions are continually proven to be less and less likely, but we want every man, woman and child to change what you're doing because there's a minuscule chance we might be right." I for one am not willing to paralyze economic growth for the next generation based on some preponderance of the evidence.

GW is a green religion precisely because it believes in something without submitting itself to scientific scrutiny. Dogma is religion not science.

You are requiring that the world change its ways and turn away from fossil fuels based on a belief or faith that all these global warming assumptions are correct.  And all this despite the fact that the scientific community has been forced to step back from those assumptions time and time again, to the point where a recent meeting of scientists had to acknowledge that global warming is not happening.

While it is true that the claims of Christianity cannot be proven scientifically, neither can they be refuted by science. However, some of the claims of AGW, or ACC, as it now seems to be characterized, can be checked against data. And that's where the "religious" aspect of ACC true believers founders. As the article points out, and as every data set that juxtaposes actual with predicted temperatures shows, the predictions have been uniformly wrong. And they've never underestimated the temperature rise. Even the lowest estimates are substantially, and significantly, higher than the observed temperatures. The true believers' response, as the article points out, is to change the data to try to make them agree with the hypothesis. That's not good science. That's skullduggery. At least the claims of Christianity aren't adjusted periodically to try to explain away inconvenient observations that challenge their beliefs, as happens in the ACC crowd when their predictions fail.

This is from a 2012 list from American Thinker article on the similarities between Climate Alarmism and religion:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/the_religion_of_global_warming.html#ixzz3yHefF2vn

Original sin: Mankind is responsible for the prophesied disasters, especially those of us who live in suburbs and drive our SUVs to strip malls and chain restaurants. The need for atonement and repentance: We must impose a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, which will raise the cost of everything and stunt economic growth. Rituals: We must observe Earth Day, and we must recycle. Indulgences: Private jet-fliers like Al Gore and sitcom heiress Laurie David can buy carbon offsets to compensate for their carbon-emitting sins.
Prophecy and faith in things unseen: Advocates say we must act now before it is too late. You can add to this list houses of worship: hugely expensive wind farms and solar electrical plants.

Gina McCarthy of the EPA says 99% of scientists agree that climate change is happening.  Few. if anyone, will dispute that.  Except unlike Mrs. McCarthy's interpretation, the change contemplated is actually the typical weather and climate fluctuations of the earth, as Mr. Michaels has explained so well.  But as long as we have Mrs. McCarthy, Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Gore, et al., making their comments in a vacuum, people will continue to swallow the AGW bait without a second thought.  Hey, I STILL remember the "second Ice Age" the left was trying to pawn off on us in the mid-1970s. The 99% reference was from Gina McCarthy only, and it was a vacuous reference.  I was using it to show the desperate lengths liberals will go to avoid actual debate.

Meanwhile green trough and global warming feeders have received over $1 trillion dollars to date. That is a vested interest and why they are so intent on keeping their green paychecks flowing; from our taxes to their pockets!

If we reduced our population to the level it was in 1800 and reverted to the technology of that era we would be doing about all we can to combat climate change. Would we see any measurable results? Probably not. Likewise with lesser measures. How would you like to be in an industry that can demand unlimited money and sacrifice from just about everyone but not have to deliver any measurable benefit? You see, that's the beauty of it.

Judith Curry, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech University, is ready, willing and able to debate climate change cultists at any time or place, but look at what happened when she testified before a Senate committee last month: Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey must have been a little shocked when climatologist Judith Curry demanded to be able to respond to his testimony trying to discredit her views on climate science. “I did not ask you a question,” Markey, a Democrat, retorted when Curry asked if she could respond to his testimony during a Senate hearing Tuesday on the science behind global warming.
Markey sought to discredit Curry in his testimony by framing her as ignoring the evidence humans are putting the planet at risk.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/09/climate-scientist-turns-the-tables-on-dem-senator-trying-to-discredit-her-video/

I would think the more important focus during the interim are the essential inputs to life – non-toxic air and water and adapting to the next ice age - higher priorities than trying to “rearrange the chairs on the Titanic.” Could we all agree we want air and water clean enough to sustain life, temperature aside?
 
Are you seriously asking what the incentives are for "scientists" to clamber into the Church of Climate Change? Really? Few "scientists" can survive in our liberal universities without worshipping at the alter. And no grant money will be awarded to those who are heretics. The data collection and tampering scandals have already proven that the Church is not interested in scientific inquiry, only in ensuring that its view remains unchallenged. Money is at the root of this, as in most things.

It's not so much a conspiracy as group think. I was in grad school at Cornell back in the late 1980s and grad students there could agree or disagree on things that were professional details, but if one were to bring up politics, it was about 99% agreement and as far left as possible outside the Chinese Cultural Revolution. And this was in Physics, not usually the hotbed of leftist thought. Most scientists and engineers are not involved in climate science, yet as so many like to point out they all "believe" in AGW, or whatever the latest name is. How is that? Why are people so likely to believe in a hypothesis that is based entirely on, inevitably, simplified computer models of one of the most complicated phenomena encountered by humans, our planet's climate?

The issue is that climate science is too close to policy makers in comparison to the other physical sciences.  When I was in school bureaucrats had "solved" the ozone hole crisis, but the solution was trivial.  Change out the coolants in refrigerators and the nebulizing agents in aerosols. No biggie.  Then they tied to tackle global warming, fresh off their success with the ozone hole and attribute it to CO2.  They've tried to do a series of knock-out experiments to show that it can only be CO2, but there is no smoking gun.  Their doomsday models are terrible and have to be "fudged' constantly to be accurate.  The problem is that the policy makers are running with the data and making decisions with huge economic repercussions.  Overhauling the electric system to a more costly inefficient system, changing the automotive industry, hell... even telling us what food to eat.  People are skeptical and they have good right to be.

I'm not a climate denier. I'm a denier of honest climate scientists. Because they don't exist.

Climate change alarmists call the people who actually want a vigorous debate "deniers" and won't even talk to them, just call them names. How do you propose to get the old debate started when the climate change alarmists refuse to have one?

Do you even know that the only scientific consensus, here, is that man could possibly be a contributor to climate changes?  Beyond that, there is no consensus.  The Far Left has taken that "could possibly be a contributor" and have morphed it into a lie that there is a consensus that man "causes" climate changes.  How does one have a reasonable debate when the Left invents facts of fantasies to empower the take-over of the economy and your life?   And, you are okay with that?  Seriously?

All that has been presented from your side are assertions and falsified historical data.  As yet, no one has been able to convincingly separate out any potential human components affecting climate from the range of natural variation.  Any human components that "might" be there get lost as noise.  Since climate has several natural cycles, some relatively short, some hundreds of thousands (millions?) of years duration, the problem is probably intractable to any degree of accuracy.  Short duration cycles modulate long duration cycles somewhat randomly.

Of course the scientific "findings" support global warming. Would they get more funding if they didn't? Science has been badly corrupted by government grant funding for specific outcomes. When vigorous debate is silenced by climate dogmatists, we know something is wrong. Science progresses by multiple lines of inquiry, not what is mandated by a grant funding bureaucrat.

Only the climate alarmists get government funding. That means all universities in the country are being funded by the government to produce alarmist data. There nothing hidden about this agenda and it works extremely well . Private funding for climate research is minuscule.

What is the chief Global Warming Gas? It's Hydrogen gas! Yep, fuels Fusion, Thermonuclear explosions 24X7 on the Sun; The sun warms Earth. No hydrogen gas; Earth would be frozen waste land like Pluto...

You have faith in the scientists that are getting grants from the federal government to prove there is man made warming over  those that receive there funding from private industry, some that say there is man made warming vs, those that say it is natural.  stop the grants and see how many epiphanies there are.  Accepted: the earth is ALWAYS either warming or cooling in far longer cycles than the grants will last.
"One can understand those conservatives who are in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry"

Or, one can understand those Liberals in the pocket of Gov't mandarins trying to gain more power from the citizenry?  Apparently, you guys take, for a fact, their invention that man causes Climate Change and must, therefore, be submissive to the Gov't takeover of the economies or the world will end?  Wow!  That "pocket" must be deep and dark, huh?  Good grief!

To suggest that humanity's very existence is predicated on accepting wholesale change to our productive way of life is ridiculous.  Even more ridiculous is telling younger generations in China and India 'sorry, we invented the combustible engine, a prime driver of upward social mobility, but like the heathens we are, we exploited it, so you can't have it.  Trust us.  We know what's best for you.  You know, add a small photo voltaic cell to that rickshaw and you could be cruising in style, buddy."

The economic stakes are rather large. The leftists demand that wealth redistribution must happen and they will use any means necessary to achieve their demands. This isn't the first time that political orthodoxy has called for the silencing of critics. Just as Stalin and Mao.

$100 billion a year in bribes to poor country dictators that they can use to build a new wing on their palace or kill their opponents seems like a mighty good way to solve climate change. Anything else lib/prog idiots?

One would think that after listening to the Left trying to exaggerate the truth for political gain.  The Far Left interprets a scientific consensus that man may be a contributor to global warming into man causes global warming?  And, if it continues, life will end on earth?  And, they call such fantasy, "science"??  Oh, my!

"Climate science will undermine the value of Exxon's fossil fuel reserves.   The downgrading of those assets will materially hurt their shareholders.   By hiding what they know they have committed securities fraud."
You are completely ignorant of securities law. False climate science, which is what you are truly referring to, does not have any honest replacements for fossil fuels. Nuclear, that is a valid replacement for fossil fuel energy, was developed before false climate science. Even now, most of the CAGW supporters decry and protest nuclear. Neither solar or wind power are capable of the sustained consistent energy that industry requires for mining, smelting, refining, forging and building civilization enhancing equipment. The value of Exxon's reserves are not in any danger from false climate science, ever.

The general population is scientifically illiterate and is being indoctrinated from first grade. If you look at any school textbook, any science show on television regardless of topic, one way or another "Climate Change" or "Global Warming" makes its way in there. The propaganda is coming at us from everywhere, with the Great Scientist in Chief, who has barely a high school science education admonishing us from his bully pulpit that "deniers" (borrowed from "Holocaust  deniers" to make it extra nasty sounding) are just plain evil. Now Bernie, the Stalinist from Capitol Hill, is calling for criminalizing the very possibility of doubting that this propaganda is founded on a false premise. It has really gotten out of hand, but is eerily familiar for those of us with experience with totalitarian regimes.

The question is not whether or not there is AGW. The answer is of course it is at least 0.000001 C warmer than it otherwise would be if not for manmade GHG emissions. I believe the proposed solutions to limit it to 1.5 or 2 C will completely fail. I believe any solutions that would actually do that will be far more destructive than the warming that is prevented. You can believe in AGW and think the cure is far worse than AGW. After all, what is the optimum temperature? Is AGC good for the world? If cooling is destructive and warming is destructive, wow are we luck to be sitting right on the optimum precipice where AGW or AGC would lead to disaster. Free societies not controlled by a bunch of bureaucrats or dictators are quite adaptable. Those that are are unstable.

We are the subject of a gigantic swindle perpetrated by politicians who believe the allegation that CO2 has a significant effect on global warming and that we can deal with it by adopting zero carbon policies. First, there is no credible evidence to support this view and substantial evidence to the contrary. Numerous models have failed to even replicate past temperature changes. The modelers should have listened to Yogi Berra who observed “Predictions are very difficult – particularly about the future.” Second, anthropomorphic CO2 emissions constitute on the order of 5% of total CO2 emissions from the earth. Oceanic emissions are 55%, human and animal respirations 40%, and the remaining 5% from cars, trucks, planes, railroads, ships, power plants, steel mills, cement plants and the rest of the industrial revolution. We simply do not control enough of the emissions to make a difference. But we are spending vast sums subsidizing so called clean energy such as wind and solar power (they aren’t), uneconomic projects such as Solyndra and overreaching agencies such as the EPA, FERC and CARB.  How can we stop this insanity?

The simple fact is, climatologists cannot predict future climate because they do not have a robust understanding of climate and climate change science. What NASA has done is ASSUME a theory about CO2 as a CAUSE of climate change, when, in fact, the great preponderance of evidence indicates changes in CO2 are an EFFECT of climate change (i.e., temperature changes first, causing more CO2 to be released, or more CO2 to be absorbed by oceans which cover 70% of Earth's surface). Even greenhouses do not warm by glass panes "trapping IR".  Neither does the atmosphere. Science tells us that and even those who promote the man-made climate change mythology admit it is the consequent increase in atmospheric H2O that will cause temperatures to rise significantly.  But the latest research suggests that is also incorrect.

NASA and NOAA have spent over twenty years pretending their models almost work and that they're 'fixing' them. They adjusted buoy temperature readings up to match vessel intake temps, and, voila, everything went up. Well, yeah since everything was adjusted, you know...up.

My favorite comment by a climatologist was "the climate is always changing, and always will".  As long as scientists receive government funding which creates a conflict of interest (toe the party line, perhaps get more money; don't toe the party line, risk a funding cut), reasonable people will find a way to disagree with their findings.

May I comment as one who believes that God created the world and everything in it? He has decreed in His Word that as long as time continues there will be spring, summer, fall and winter.  Will not the One who created man, who He calls the crown of His creation provide an environment suitable for life? I believe he will, at least until He calls the world into Judgement.

But since we have rejected God, there is no right or wrong. Man knows all, sees all and is the pinnacle of evolution. Original Sin is alive and thriving.

And let's not forget the broader Climate Change Evangelical community's mission.

They've packaged together a discordant stew of purposeful activism:  "climate change as earth justice,"  "climate change as indigenous justice,"...

AND get this one:  "climate change as EARTH GENOCIDE" !  In other words, they see human impact on earth as morally equivalent to genocide of human beings, mass rape and torture...

This is where these people are philosophically!  They are fundamentally anti-human life for the sake of "The Earth".

The climate zealots are perfectly happy to sacrifice third world peoples on the alter of Mother Earth.  Reliable energy from cheap and plentiful fossil fuels like coal would be the greatest boon to longevity these populations have ever seen.

Imagine the quality of life we enjoy.  Picture Africa:  they lack refrigeration to maintain cold chain for vaccines; the lights aren't on long enough for surgery;  they can't sterilize surgical instruments properly;  water cannot be purified; people live in bug-infested shacks, breathing in toxic dung-fire fumes.......Yet....the Climate Change Evangelicals want "justice" for earth.

Of course, we as humans must protect our environment-----but for OUR sake! Not for some intrinsic sake. The standard should be what's good for thriving human life. Here is the other side of the argument COMPLETELY IGNORED by Climate Change Evangelicals: That the earth's environment is vastly cleaner for human beings as a RESULT of fossil fuel energy. I've traveled to many countries in the third world, where energy is scarce. It is FILTHY.  Humans are energy-dependent, and the fact that some brilliant minds have harnessed energy from solid rock is nothing short of miraculous (in the non-religious sense). Here is a must-read book if you care about this issue: "The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels," by Alex Epstein.  

I understand environmentalism and consider myself an environmentalist.  We have but one planet earth and should collectively strive to be good stewards.  Collectively being the operative term, w/o liberals ramping up a hyper-regulatory state at ramming speed in the name of nothing more than their superior values and professed higher IQ.

The best guarantee of a clean and healthy environment, which is necessary for human thriving:  FREE MARKET CAPITALISM!  There is no better incentive for efficient and clean energy than the profit motive...  And it has been proven, time and again: the freer the country, the cleaner the environment.

"What happens when humans continue to pump millions of tons of carbon dioxide...?"

Well, if it followed the last 50 years we'd see a change in atmospheric CO2 concentration of about 80 parts per million resulting in it now being 0.04% of the gases.  To which I say, "So what?".  There are 999,600 other parts per million of atmosphere that likely have more to do with the weather next week.  In reality we have no idea what, if any effect we have on the climate. Considering the inaccuracy of the models, it is a likely that CO2 concentrations are stabilizing the climate as it is that they are causing a problem.  There is no justification for enforcing rules that harm society based on your religion.

I think most of our energy tax dollars go to the federal and state governments. I think the oil companies make a 10% profit.  Seems reasonable to me.  The government takes no risk, invests no money, and rakes in the money.  Pretty good deal for the government. Of course they're supposed to use those dollars for transportation infrastructure and if they do only that with the money then good for them.  By the way this country couldn't function without fossil fuels.

So oil, gas and coal companies are rolling in profits? More like being buried in losses. It takes over 77/barrel for US oil companies to make money. What is it now? 30?

Just try and locate any checks or funds directly transferred to any oil company. However there are billions of dollars given directly to many solar and wind energy companies. Most of that is directly from citizen taxes both on fuels and income. Our money subsidizes and supports intermittent unreliable energy sold for exorbitant prices.

The  Climate Change Evangelical community violates the proper scientific method and commits fallacies that would earn an F in a first semester statistics course. As Stephen Hawking says about the cardinal principle of the scientific method in his book, "A Briefer History of Time":  if a theory does not hold up to what's observed in reality, then the theory is wrong. Statistically, you cannot cherry pick data. You cannot alter the measuring of data without introducing bias. You cannot correlate events occurring together in time and claim cause and effect---this is ecologic correlation bias.  You cannot input fluffy data of your choosing and claim its valid. Climate Change is a non-theistic apocalyptic religion. It has all the hallmarks of a religion:gurus, faith, earth as deity. The fact that the US, especially under Obama, sponsors this new world religion with billions of dollars is a flagrantly unconstitutional violation of separation of church and state.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Left had to latch on to something other than the dream of a Workers' Paradise since that just went up in smoke. So they invented Global Warming to their Socialist Big Government movement to coalesce around. And you can understand the appeal:  there's a BAD GUY (Fossil Fuels); there's "EVIL" (profit motive;, there's a sprinkling of science (computer models); there's apocalyptic urgency and therefore "meaning"; there's a community (world wide, thanks to the FOSSIL-FUEL-dependent Internet!); there's a Mission to save the earth!

BUT, once it's revealed about the serious and widespread flaws in the methods, outright lies and attempts to cover up (all revealed in Climategate emails), and once other scientists have invalidated the theories, then one must use their own judgement and reject false theories.  Just because Al Gore and IPCC summary reports say so, doesn't mean they're right.

No one is "anti" climate change. That it changes is NOT in question. How much man, CO2, the sun, cycles, El Nino and other factors, affect the change and whether the ideas put forth by the left, will have a meaningful effect, if we are causing the increase, are the unanswered questions.

The Cato Institute is a much more credible source on climate science than are for example the NOAA and the IPCC, two government organizations.  The NOAA's recent "adjustment" of empirical temperature data in an attempt to save the CO2 theory of global warming is a perfect example.  The NOAA's data and methodology were only made public after a freedom of information lawsuit forced them to do so.  That's not science, that's advocacy.  And of course so much has been written and documented about the IPCC's fraudulent data and missed predictions, that they IPCC is now clearly understood to be a political advocacy group, not a collection of real climate scientists.

Zealots doing what they always do: get on and call us names for not believing in their new-found religion of Global Climate Change Caused by Man.

Global warming isn't a notion or a testable hypothesis. It's Marxist religion for the third world crowd and the self-loathing westerners who wish to destroy free-market capitalism. If you explode the global warming myth, then the warmanos will have nothing to believe in.  Its like telling a Muslim Allah doesn't exist.  The only difference I the Muslims want to chop your head off for this blasphemy while the warmanos just want to put you in jail.  Same belief system, just differing degrees of punishment.

Just remember, there were 33,000 scientists who signed a letter about the Assessment Report that went to the president.  There are only around 17,000 scientists in the Union of Concerned Scientists and not every one of them is convinced that man is responsible for any climate issues (other than doctoring data). So, please, stop with the generalizations.  There are journals that do report objectively and do debate the accuracy and objectivity of a computer generated climate model that has not been correct since inception.

It is reasonable to believe industrialization can impact climate. It is a deception to claim warming a consensus threat. Warming is beneficial to the biosphere and therefore humanity.

Clean water and air is NOT Global Climate change it is just common sense.

Why is it so difficult for you to examine historic climate change to better understand that current climate is only typical for the waning years of an interglaical of an ice age cycle within in ice epoch of an ice era?  Earth's typical climate if vastly warmer than anything humans have experienced (average surface temp of 74 degrees, rather than the current 59 degrees) and that climate is typical for 90% of Earth's climate history.  Earth's typical climate has been interrupted by only seven ice eras representing about 10% of climate history and spanning an average of 50 million years.  Earth is currently in an ice era that started 60-65 million years ago. Think about that and try to put climate into perspective.  And bear in mind that most plant life evolved with vastly higher atmospheric CO2.

Were it not for tampering with data at NASA GISS, NOAA, UK CRU and Australian BOM, the very inconvenient hiatus (which is real in the untampered data) could not be "explained" away as not existing.  Through systematic raising of recent temperature data and lowering historic data, the climate records have been tampered to make it appear that recent warming is substantial and unprecedented.  Those in the 1930s would be surprised to learn that it was much cooler than what they experienced, according to recent data tampering.  All to make the inconvenient and unexplainable hiatus disappear.  Today's "science" is becoming "science fiction".  Conformity with dogma is far more important than accuracy and reality. US Taxpayers fund $1.8 billion in annual grants and the EPA imposes 10's of billion of dollars each year of new regulation on the US economy. Long before we know whether all these shenanigans have any affect on the planet, our children will be paying 50%? 60%? in taxes to pay for all this unsubstantiated drivel. They say they are saving the planet for our children but don't realize that they are spending their futures away!
Keeping 80% of the world in perpetual darkness and poverty because using fossil fuels is evil.

Stop stealing money from tax payers for variable. therefore inefficient, wind mills and solar panels. Our natural gas is in surfeit. Large basins in the lower 48 can be profitably developed for less than $3 mcf. Cleaner and cheaper than the alternative energy corruption.

Global warming and cooling are events of nature that have recurred many, many times over the 4.54 billion year life of this planet.  They are not caused by the hand of man.  Global warming and cooling are primarily caused by (1) the influence of subtle perturbations occurring every 10 – 20,000 years in solar irradiance activity – changes in our sun’s plasma eruptions and flaring - on the earth's atmosphere and (2) the reversal of the earth's magnetic core (which affects the spin of the earth) every 800,000 years or so.  There is a great deal of scientific literature in the geophysics and earth science community to support these two elements as the prime causes of global temperature cycling.  The effect of manmade influences that can affect climate change is but a piffle (less than 1%) next to the huge contributions of solar irradiation and earth core reversal.  The screams of “human” causes of global warming are made by people who seek economic gain by fooling the uneducated.

What is a climatologist? And what are this man's more specific scientific credentials? What scientific studies has he done that have been published and peer-reviewed, and that are relevant to planetary temperature change?

Manipulating "facts" is what this article is about. The manipulation of data by the Church of Climate Change is well known. The Church's models have utterly failed, so now the data must be jiggered to fit the hypothesis. Wait...isn't that backwards? Not for the Church, it's not.

And when you know....deep down.....that what you passionately believe in is false.   That creates anger, depression, grief, and a desire to attack.... 

What is the optimum global temperature? Does anyone seriously think it is whatever arbitrary number that was chosen? If you are from Chicagoland, warmer is better, a lot better. If you are a poor person living on a small tropical island, sure any change is scary given how little capacity you have to adapt.

Of course, the rest of the universe believes in GW! If it is going to cause them to collect money from the US as they develop their economies, without any changes in their country's pollution rate, why not profess belief? 

The left is worried accurate temperature readings will further damage their credibility about AGW.  They are desperate to cook-in as many freedom-limiting and economic controlling regulations as possible before the whole charade blows up in their faces.  The correlation between atmospheric balloon and satellite temperatures is powerful evidence that is devastating to the warmists predictions and data manipulations. 

Global warming funded by governments that want carbon taxes?  Green groups that want to sell you expensive Green energy alternatives?

The funding most of the global warming crowd gets is tainted money from government!  Government that WANTS warming to be true so they can get taxes from it! The Green groups are ALL about the money.  Including the scientist!

Any government group especially those in Europe and China are government groups who are seeking taxation and wealth redistribution to the politically connected with a vested interest in the outcome.

the billions bestowed upon climatologists who toe the GW line is irrelevant?  As Richard Lindzen has pointed out, try getting tenure now at our ultra liberal college's if you question GW.  Physical laws of science such as the boiling temperature of water are settled.  To say predictions, models or theories represents settled science is truly to be anti-science.

Meanwhile, the raw data says...
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/products/stnplots/3/30886086000.gif
Funny how a 65 yr cooling trend turns into a warming trend once the raw data is fed into a climate model. It's like magic! Yes, a lot of organizations promote the Global Warming line because they get their funding from the government. Lots of governments around the world promote Global Warming because they stand to gain billions of dollars from the G20. The Paris Agreement is creating a $100 bil annual transfer from developed countries to every other country on the planet, the vast majority of which is supposed to come from the US. Of course, they will all fall in line, so they can get their free money.

What? haven't you listened to the Inventor of the Internet? Global warming is settled science. Any evidence to the contrary is a Republican conspiracy. Sunspots? That's like reading the Farmers' Almanac. We have spent trillions of dollars chasing an answer in search of a question. After all of 160 years of "reliable records" compared to millions of years of weather on this planet, it is the height of self-delusion that scientists today can speak with certainty of anything other than the sun will rise tomorrow morning. 

Government programs that fund almost 100% of the research into climate change cannot be viewed as unbiased. Agencies can only maintain (or, preferable, grow) their budgets if the problem they want to study persists. Since at least the 1980s, an institutional bias exists which has encouraged the climate research community to view virtually all climate change as human-caused. There indeed is a climate change problem to study…but I don’t think we know with any certainty how much is natural versus manmade. There is no way to know, because there is (contrary to the IPCC’s claims) no fingerprint of human versus natural warming. Even natural warming originating over the ocean will cause faster warming over land than over ocean, just as we already observe. But since the government has framed virtually all of the research programs in terms of human-caused climate change, that’s what the funded scientists will dutifully report it to be, in terms of supposed causation. Scientists, I have learned, will tend to find whatever they are paid to find in terms of causation…which is sometimes very difficult to pin down in science.

who are you going to believe, Gov't mandarins that profit by taking money and power away from you?  Or, private citizens that profit by your freedom of choice and good will? Yes, even under Bush, they got Gov't funding.  Although, under Bush, they didn't have a mandate from the President to prove the need for Gov't intervention. T hey withhold funds and ostracize anyone that is not willing to support that man causes Climate Change.

Global warming is the religion of the Left. Is it historically true, what I read in a ancient geography text book of my great grandmother's, that two Vikings, Leif Erikson and his father Erik the Red had settlements of cattle ranches started about a thousand ago on Greenland.  Evidently, that place was globally warm enough to grow lots of grass at that time.  Hence the name GREENland.  Looking at pictures around Cape Farvel today, it still looks barren and frozen.  The world sure has a ways to warm up before beef and dairy are exports from there again.

“Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.” Note that the term used is "very likely caused by", not "caused by".  Plus, note that no consensus says that we can do anything about it.  Nor, does it say the "risks" are bad.  It is very telling that the Far Left ignores the facts and goes straight to "the sky is falling" and we must take over economies and human behavior to save the planet.  Good grief!
 
I was once a global warming disciple as you, but the more i have read the more skeptical i have become. Have you read about the global cooling that took place from about 1300 to about 1800? Crop failures, glaciers advancing , starvation etc all on a massive global scale. Why do you think the current climate change is any different? This is not new, in fact climate change is the norm. But seriuosly go look at the little ice age and ask yourself how the current chage is any different?

You can look at temperatures by decade, take your pick of which one, and always see outliers, extremes and mild years.  Weather is weather and we have little to no evidence that it is changing any more now than it has in past mini climate eras. If you care to take a look at the Earth's overall climate changes you will find heavy extremes of warmth and cooling, the likes we've never experienced.  And these are years when man simply had no chance of influence (though our influence now is very questionable). None of these models take into account a move in magnetic north, changing shape of our earth, changes in inner magna, changes in Sun activity.  The very things that actually do have influence on our weather and temperatures. We are an arrogant and self important species, thinking everything revolves around us.  But changing data to try to make others believe we do have all this influence is, well, just plain manipulative.

How about if some of the predictions that are made 20 or 30 years into the future turn out to be accurate, on a consistent basis, without having to go back and change to data to make the theory work. That would be the experimental verification part of the scientific method. Also, how about if other ideas were allowed to stand on their merit, instead of attempting to stifle all dissent. Some left wing nuts, including in the US Senate, want to throw people in jail for disagreeing, or should I say the gulag.

If they could use their models to accurately predict the last ten years of "Climate Change" and release all inputs and outputs as well as the code to the public domain for proving, then I could get behind the THEORY.  As it stands, they cannot and the WILL NOT release anything, willingly, that could show them to be the charlatans that they are. Every prediction that scare-monger Algore made with his Inconvenient Truth is wrong.

I feel sorry for people who cannot conceive of how insignificant mankind is to the universe.  We have 160 years of reasonably reliable weather information, although we can't seem to agree on an infallible method to collect the ocean's temperatures.  The Earth is a relatively young 4.5 billion years old.  We have petrified forests under hundreds of feet of ice in Antarctica.  The low country on the east coast of America was once hundreds of feet under water. I'm certain that area will again be under water.  I grew up in a part of the country that was covered by glaciers 15,000 years ago.

The prospect of people not having the benefits of modern life - often powered by fossil fuels - which dramatically increase survival odds.

Change in magnetic north, change in the shape of the Earth, varied effects of the Sun.

There is much evidence to support that our change in climate is natural, as all change in climate is.  There are ups and downs every few years, with decades marking distinct characteristics of warming and cooling, though mild compared to the overall history of Earth's climate.

You don't need to be trained in climatology to have a valid opinion of the conduct of the science involved.  Phraseology like "settled science" is anathema to the very spirit of scientific inquiry.  Skepticism is what tests and ultimately validates scientific theory. That applies to any field of scientific endeavor. If a Ph.D in Climatology were a prerequisite to participate in the debate, intellectual honesty would compel you to blast the vast majority of people who do pronounce on the subject, from dilettantes like Al Gore to any of a number of people on this discussion board. Unfortunately, science is employed to political ends, whether it be Big Tobacco or Big Warming.  And scientists go where the funding is.  Who has deeper pockets, Exxon or the U.S. government? There are plenty of reasons to doubt people who wont engage in discussion, but instead lash out at their critics or conspire to mislead the public in what they think is private email.

What is the leading theory on why the last ice age ended?  What were the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in earlier epochs?  If the planet's climate goes through such drastic climatological cycles on its own, what reason is there to believe we 1) are contributing significantly to the problem or 2) can do anything about it?  These are valid reasons to be skeptical of "the science."Here's a better one.  Why would it be in the interest of anyone to work to disprove something that they know is true if it results in the end of the world?Cui Bono?  There are plenty of incentives for people who are set to profit from things like cap and trade and green hedge funds (to wit: the very prosperous Mr. Gore) to keep banging the drum.  It is not anti-science to be skeptical of people who insult you when you disagree with them.  It is sensible.
Carbon cycle: Ecology. The circulation of carbon atoms in the biosphere as a result of photosynthetis conversion of carbon dioxide into complex organic compounds by plants, which are consumed by other organisms: the carbon returns to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide as a result of respiration, decay by fungi, bacteria, etc., and combustion of fossil fuels. The carbon cycle and hence CO2 is a normal and essential part of the biosphere and is essential to sustain life here on earth. CO2 levels have been far higher in the past than they are right now, well before this industrial era. Life goes on.

It's a shame that this topic is politicized and dominated by extremists.  At one extreme are those who deny that climate change even exists, while at the other extreme are those screaming that the science is settled and even want to go so far as to prosecute anyone who disagrees. I view debate as a continuum between these two extremes with the truth somewhere in the middle. The earth has been in one of many warming cycles before mankind began burning fossil fuels, so there is room for debate as to the impact of mankind's activities. To say that the science is settled is untrue. If all of the science were settled, science would have constructed models that are truly predictive of the climate we actually experience.

The problem with all this chatter about climate change is more that it is mostly distracting. People on the knee-jerk left just assume scientists and their methodologies are not flawed, and not run by big government interests. People on the knee-jerk right all-too-often are unable to even engage in dialogue. And still, through all this obfuscation, no one suggests a creative solution.

“Whereas the reports of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warn of a dangerous human effect on climate, NIPCC concludes the human effect is likely to be small relative to natural variability, and whatever small warming is likely to occur will produce benefits as well as costs,” the Heartland Institute wrote in a statement about its new report. Heartland President Joseph Bast calls climate change a “social movement” where those who believe that capitalism hurts poor people and the planet are more likely to believe in climate change. NIPCC is sponsored by three nonprofit organizations: the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), and The Heartland Institute.

Having read more than a few articles about AGW and climate change. My personal opinion is that it's a big complex system that neither the IPCC or anyone else claiming to be expert really understands fully. If they did, then their theories would produce predictable results which they clearly do not. The IPCC MAY be correct about some of the theories but they do not understand the system well enough to provide accurate predictions. Look at how they mess with the numbers and the data sources to fit the data to what they theorize. That may be science (in the sense that there are always errors and flailing about in real science) but to call it settled is fatuous.

Like that time in the IPCC 2007 report when they claimed the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035 all based on a single passing comment from a researcher in an interview via email. No peer review, no data, no research, just speculation that matched the narrative. Or the doubling of sea level rise for the preceeding 20 years, or the falsehoods of African crop yields, and on, and on, and on... Not to mention the climate models are still all wrong and can't explain why temperatures today are roughly the same as they were in 1997. Man's understanding of climate, indeed.

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/products/stnplots/3/30886086000.gif
You can see, straight from the horse's mouth. Raw data up top shows 65 year cooling trend, adjusted data below shows warming trend. It doesn't even matter what the raw data says, they will report warming. This happens at all ground stations. Raw data fed into computer model, adjusted data reported. Then as I previously mentioned, every new version of the model cools the past and warms the present a little more.

Then there's those pesky satellite's
http://www.remss.com/research/climate#Atmospheric-Temperature

Hilarious that RSS is run by a bunch of climate alarmists, but their data never cooperates.
The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136

You mean the 76 out of 3146 scientists who wrote papers with a pro AGW spin? That 97%? Funny when you don't exclude 98% of the papers first, your consensus falls to less than 2%.
1) Yes carbon traps heat- in a closed lab setting. The global climate is a dynamic system with many moving parts that are not fully understood.
2) Carbon does not stay in the atmosphere. Perhaps you skipped the carbon cycle in 3rd grade science. You see, there are these things called plants that metabolize carbon dioxide and turn it into sugars which are then converted into other organic material let alone other sequestering processes.
3) However much carbon human's release, a volcano can release in a single eruption. Yes, we are releasing SO MUCH carbon into the atmosphere, yet the predicted water vapor feedback loop death spiral has still not occurred. Strange
Same raw data, same time frame, 3 versions of the same model, 200% increase to warming over 100 year period from 1880-1980. Funny how each version of the model produces a cooler past and warmer present, huh?
https://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/giss-1981-2002-2014-global.gif

The models have become the evidence of proof that AGW is occurring, and as you show, the models can be tweaked to backup their claims.
I can across this article -
http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-fool-themselves-and-how-they-can-stop-7.30232?article=1.18517
that shows a common problem with scientists, especially when you consider the effects of Group Think and of course, the money.

As long as the causes of the many climate changes throughout the Earth's history are not well understood, one cannot unequivocally separate natural causes from possibly manmade ones. The so-called scientific consensus discourages healthy debate between believers in global warming and skeptics. There has never been a UN-organized conference on climate change where skeptics were invited for the sake of balance to present their case.  Ever wonder why?  I don't your views cannot tolerate dissenting views because the efficacy of your data is beyond suspect, it's manipulated.

You don't need a great deal of "standing" to understand that when you have to change the input to the model to get the desired results as opposed to changing the model of the processes you are trying to understand you are not involved in science, you're involved in marketing.

All honest scientists would not manipulate the data such as has been done by "scientists" most associated with climate change and the lead manipulator of data, the IPCC.  I think they call that intellectual dishonesty and lack of scientific integrity.

There has not been a single debate on climate change!
None.
Nada.
Nichts.
Nuthin'.
Not one debate, no where, at no time.
Not one.

Climate cultists claim a 99% consensus of scientists believe in AGW,  and yet not one debate with scientists whose research disagrees with their conclusions.
The climate cultists HAVE NOT and WILL NEVER debate because they know they cannot win on the science.

There has never been a UN-organized conference on climate change where skeptics were invited for the sake of balance to present their case.
A UN IPCC conference is a carefully orchestrated clown show.
It has more to do with Stalinist show trials than true science.
The outcome is pre-ordained.

IPCC conferences are about which opposing scientist need to be removed from the report. Then they spending 90% of their time arguing how the billion promised each country to "agree" that global warming is happening is not enough money!  Each country wants more than the other country! The Western governments are PAYING other countries to agree with them- so our governments can collect more taxes!  Its an investments in more taxes! It is ALL about the money for the Greens!

That's because the "climate change" debate has nothing to do with science.

Instead it's about:

1) Crony capitalists seeking to make fortunes setting up exchanges to trade carbon credits.
2) Wealth redistribution from the industrial to the undeveloped countries.

That is why most "climate change" arguments involve all the science you can fit on a bumper sticker.

An honest debate is the last thing any of these people want.

Deforestation is another myth. New growth is more dynamic and sequesters more CO2 than old growth.

The consistent overstatement of global warming, in measurement, analysis and results may be best explained by a Marxist analysis. The haute bourgeoisie, composed of the political, media, and academic elite desires to have total control over persons.  This state regime and supporting elites require pretense to retain power by limiting growth, energy production, travel and the financial means for the growth of intermediate intuitions and families. The "new normal" reduces new wealth and promotes dependency, which transfers power to regime.

There are those that have an agenda, and that is to have access to and secure funding for any and all alternative based methods of energy sources. It is more taxpayer/government “free” subsidy money, which even if they fail and go bankrupt, they needn’t repay the lost money of the “loan”. Therefore further deficits are created onto the backs of the bamboozled taxpayers.

From the IPCC 5th Assessment, Working group 1, Summary for Policy makers, para D3: "It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century."   'Extremely likely' is defined in the report as 95%+ probability.

The IPCC is not a scientific body.  Rather, it is a committee of bureaucrats who far outnumber the actual scientists in the organization. IPCC is a European government committee originally chartered by the UN and administered by 10 to 12 bureaucrats  They are not a peer review resource.  They do receive a number of opinions from scientists but going back from their beginning of their charter, they are shown to heavily edit the scientific input to suit their ends. Their most infamous bad report was the 2001 "hockey stick" predictions of planetary doom. They had to recant because of the bad science.. The most recent report asserting the 95% confidence level was edited into the scientific report by the administrators disregarding the scientific input which was far more uncertain.

Here is a link  to peer reviewed science.
ww.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

IPCC does not do research nor do they author peer reviewed articles. Their headquarters is in Geneva(in Europe) and they were chartered by the UN to study climate change. The hockey stick example generated by Dr Mann and published by the IPCC in 2001 has been removed from later reports due to its questionable data and predictions. I do not consider IPCC a peer reviewed source of information.

Sure the planet has been warming gradually for past 100 years but the natural history of the earth shows that this has been happening for centuries with and without the influence of humans.

It is amazing that the apostles of AGW cannot accept those who are skeptical of their beliefs. Why is it so important to them that they convert the "infidels" who do not believe in their system? In any case, they have skeptics more than ever that AGW is a religion with faux scientific underpinnings. IPCC is a political organization with an agenda.  The climate alarmist/zealout's basic method of argument is ad hominen attacks full of bluster and denial of inconvenient data.

It is anything but a reasoned cost-risk-benefit program. All evaluations of the costs, usually measured in higher energy costs and foregone global GDP reveal there is no payback. None. A very large negative NPV.
It is because the hysterical predictions are so far off and the compounded opportunity costs so high that climate alarmists retreat- every time- to even more drastic predictions and emotional red herrings. There is no analysis that suggests "combating climate change" produces higher growth. The answer: focus on prosperity and wealth building and we are better equipped for whatever the future might bring.

Inefficient, non scalable "green tech". Wind and solar are not cost competitive alternatives for natural gas or coal. Fukishima proved one thing: politicians are lemmings and will abandon a beneficial advancement like nuclear power at any provocation. Wind and solar require reserve spinning capacity- read:fossil fuel power- to back them up, an absurdity given the cost advantages of using fossil fuels. The abundance of natural gas alone, along with its superior storage and energy characteristics, renders wind and solar fringe energy sources at best.

Einstein's theories of Relativity both general and special, mass-energy equivalence, curvature of space/time, light speed as absolute speed limit have all been confirmed by measurement, experimentation and data. This gives credibility to his theories. He himself admitted, for example, that if the measurement of starlight bending in the gravitational field of the sun did not agree with his calculations his gravitational theory would have been thrown out.  This is true for all science. The theory of anthropogenic global warming simply fails on the basis that the data do not support the theory. I think they should keep working on the model and maybe they'll refine it enough so that someday it may be useful. BTW, I agree that we should all be stewards of the earth and environment. I see no need to believe in AGW as a condition for doing that.

For the AGW proponents who insist that "Climate Change" is the source of much evil (including ISIS), please read this. Then tell me -- who is practicing science, and who is practicing religion? http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/if-you-doubt-climate-change-this-presidential-candidate-will-prosecute-you/ Galileo is rolling in his grave. Science isn't political dogma; it is a process by which we seek truth. Debate and disagreement are part of that process, and only Truth wins. So keep your religion, your liberalism, and your lawyers out of my lab. Do the science or step aside.

You may call me a denier but much of my skepticism is based on some of my own research and my ability to think for myself and evaluate the data before me. That, and the following directly from the IPCC.
The following is from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Program on Climate Change) publication "Climate Models and Their Evaluations, page 600. The computer models they use are the bible used to substantiate claims that humans are the primary cause of global climate warming. You can find it on the Internet, as I did.
"Nevertheless, models still show significant errors. Although these are generally greater at smaller scales, important largescale problems also remain. For example, deficiencies remain in the simulation of tropical precipitation, the El NiñoSouthern Oscillation and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (an observed variation in tropical winds and rainfall with a time scale of 30 to 90 days). The ultimate source of most such errors is that many important small-scale processes cannot be represented explicitly in models, and so must be included in APPROXIMATE FORM as they interact with larger-scale features. This is partly due to limitations in computing power, but also results from limitations in scientific understanding or in the availability of detailed observations of some physical processes. Significant uncertainties, in particular, are associated with the representation of clouds, and in the resulting cloud responses to climate change. Consequently, models continue to display a substantial range of global temperature change in response to specified greenhouse gas forcing (see Chapter 10). Despite such uncertainties, however, models are unanimous in their prediction of substantial climate warming under greenhouse gas increases, and this warming is of a magnitude consistent with independent estimates derived from other sources, such as from observed climate changes and past climate reconstructions." What this means is that when actual data is not available for some element that can impact the result of the numerous formulae used in the model, they either guess or plug in data that supports the conclusion they wish to arrive at. Anyone who has used Excel for producing statistics should understand how easily a result can differ by selecting a single cell incorrectly. Some might call that an "Inconvienient Truth",

Regardless of the causes of climate change, and climate does and will change no matter what humans do, because it has done so for billions of years, it is exactly what you describe that is needed: better risk management, better more resilient supply chains, more investment in getting along with climate change rather than assuaging a political movement based on a poorly understood mechanism for a particular theory of how humans can affect the planet. By paying the tithe of AGW so that more centralized planning can be applied will reduce our ability to handle any actual changes in climate by doing what central planning does best: mismanage allocation of resources.

Gee I wonder if this op-ed writer is getting paid big bucks under the table by "Big Oil" and "Big Coal" to write this.

"Exxon’s Global Warming Projections Were Nearly Spot On"
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/25/global-warming-what-did-we-know-and-when-did-we-know-it/

"Michael Mann: Exxon Doubled Down on Climate Denial and Deceit"
https://ecowatch.com/2015/09/21/exxon-climate-denial/

"Exxon's Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels' Role in Global Warming Decades Ago:  Top executives were warned of possible catastrophe from greenhouse effect, then led efforts to block solutions"
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming

we are all certain that none of the Organizations you refer to would play with data the same way that the IPCC did.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html
Many people, after spending good money on an education, after being titled and associating with others of like claims, can become a little too full of themselves, too sure that since they have been properly trained, they know what is right. Probably most irksome is the continuous rejection of opposition simply because I don't have the right title or attended the right school, as if knowledge and comprehension is only found in a specific group. Elsewhere others have noted that the smartest people are those who continually question themselves and do not reject contrary information simply because the presenter doesn't have the proper credentials or subscribe to the consensus.

'government' science has been proven intellectually corrupt, around the world. From the insulting hockey stick scandal forward. The absurdities are legion, including nonsense from hobby magazines in 'authoritative' UN science papers as 'proof' of glacial melt. Any objective person would admit the insulting level of sophistical jabberwocky in Global Warming religion, is cause for rational distrust. Moral hazard is the human condition. Cleary the screams of hottest year, with no possible statistical certainty, is proof of corruption. It reflects an honest admission of the uncertainties you are whining about.  A scientist not including the uncertainty or level of confidence. is not following the method or attending ethics of science, into Scientism.
"we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite" Ike. Your dogma seeks to suppress all skepticism. Scientism.

A frequent criticism made by pro AGW individuals is that skeptics are uninformed about science and that the science is settled. So give it up! Where are your peer reviewed articles to back up your skepticism? Yes there are many more articles that subscribe to AGW but that is understandable in that research into non anthropogenic causes is not much funded. In any case, here is a reference to peer reviewed articles that are in the skeptic camp:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjtg72O3MjKAhVKzGMKHf8OCIMQFggcMAA&url=http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html&usg=AFQjCNFw4ro6sxnCrqKzW7MEx_JyoCEF4Q&sig2=DSlBeGMfRRGZN10mXQSLgg

Assuming the obvious, that global warming will cause direct melting of polar ice caps, let's look at the RATE of sea level increase since the mid-1800s. Google this search: Battery NOAA Sea Level. The NOAA chart will show a strict linear trend of sea level increase, quite obviously not the least bit influenced by the world population increase from 1 billion to 7 billion since the beginning of that data measurement. (This is likely to be a continuation of the trend that began with the last melting of continental glaciers over 12,000 years ago.)
Given that burning of hydrocarbons MUST have increased by orders of magnitude in that time, the data completely mitigate against any conclusion that there has been influence of man on sea level rise and thus global warming.

Long after we have all passed and the next Ice Age hits all this GW BS will be swept away by the glacial moraine  . Unfortunately Barack will not be around to realize the error of his ways . That is unless he truly is the messiah he believes he is.

Here is a article (not peer reviewed either) from NASA Astronauts who dispute the opinion of their own organization:  http://www.populartechnology.net/2010/09/prominent-climatologists-skeptical-of.html.

The claim that 97% of scientists agree that AGW is real has been thoroughly discredited. 

Science demands examination of data and refining and adjusting theories to explain the data.  Some proponents of AGW appear to be extremely defensive and hostile towards the skeptics. To wit: using terms like deniers, right wingers, uneducated, ill informed, big oil stooges, and other name calling is quite unproductive. Arguments over science should be focused on results of studies and not on personal attacks.  Leave the latter to politics which falls under the umbrella of political science.

What if the so called "solutions" to reducing the non existent threat of C02 actually make things much worse for people by way lower standards of living and higher unemployment for the poor?

Wind now competes with fossil fuels. Solar almost does. What if there are solutions that raise standards of living and increase employment.  Number of job postings for the alternative energy industry are impressive. Wind is on the way to becoming cheaper than fossil and solar is coming in close. As the recent storm in the NE illustrated, investments in resilient infrastructure saved money and lives. In our economy solutions tend to build wealth, save lives and increase quality life.

So if wind is going to be cheaper, can we finally end all subsidies. Your argument about the job postings is silly. It's like the government doubling in size and saying look at all the job postings for government jobs, it must be good for the entire economy. Massive subsidies for sand sculptures would lead to a hiring boom in the sand sculpture industry. From your link "As more countries and states enact market systems that put a price on carbon emissions, clean energy technologies will actually become cheaper than fossil fuel technologies." BTW, it is not true. Wind and solar are niche applications and will remains so. Attached is a study that I was involved in. http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/egc/2015/
The claim that solar and wind are cost competitive is an exaggeration at best because, for every single watt generated by wind or solar, an equal watt generating capability must still exist in the form of a reliable source-fossil fuel, nuke, or hydro.

Why do we hesitate and even question "professional, career environmentalists"?  They are ALWAYS wrong.

http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/02/the-1970s-global-cooling-alarmism.html

So, what to realistically believe?
1)The little physics and chemistry that I know indicates to me that the geophysics that determine the future climate of the earth is extremely complicated.  And we have enough information, clever insights and computing power to discover intriguing hints about what might happen, but also enough to convince ourselves of pre-determined outcomes.
2) The earth will do what it will do, regardless of the truth of one ideology or another.  There is enough information to suggest a possible global temperature increase caused by man's CO2 contribution, of various rates.
3)As the practical question is what to do about this, the economic cost to lower temperature x degrees must be determined.  I have not seen any reliable data on this.
4) It is not outrageous that "the authorities" cannot offer us answers for all possible future problems.  Dealing with consequences of our decisions as they come does not make us fools, only human.

Why does the global warming crowd care anymore? Al Gore has already said it is too late to save the planet!  Gore speaks for the 97%, right?

"On January 26, 2006, former Vice President, current climate alarmist and centimillionaire Al Gore told the Associated Press's David Germain that "unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return."
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tom-blumer/2016/01/23/ibd-calls-out-al-gore-his-10-year-planetary-emergency-deadline-looms

And politicians and corporations have been ignoring the issue for decades, to the point that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return, Gore said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/2006-al-gore-does-sundance/

One of the most prolific global warming scam artists is none other than Jagadish Shukla, the leader of the #RICO20, together with his wife, had received a further $500,000 more in 2014 alone from federal climate grants funnelled through a Shukla-controlled “non-profit” (Institute for Global Environment and Security, Inc.), yielding total income in 2014 of approximately $750,000. http://climateaudit.org/2015/09/28/shuklas-gold/

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisi

It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

February 13, 2013

James Taylor, Forbes.com - Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the “Comply with Kyoto” model. The scientists in this group “express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.”

The authors of the survey report, however, note that the overwhelming majority of scientists fall within four other models, each of which is skeptical of alarmist global warming claims.

The survey finds that 24 percent of the scientist respondents fit the “Nature Is Overwhelming” model. “In their diagnostic framing, they believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the Earth.” Moreover, “they strongly disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal lives.”

Another group of scientists fit the “Fatalists” model. These scientists, comprising 17 percent of the respondents, “diagnose climate change as both human- and naturally caused. ‘Fatalists’ consider climate change to be a smaller public risk with little impact on their personal life. They are skeptical that the scientific debate is settled regarding the IPCC modeling.” These scientists are likely to ask, “How can anyone take action if research is biased?”

The next largest group of scientists, comprising 10 percent of respondents, fit the “Economic Responsibility” model. These scientists “diagnose climate change as being natural or human caused. More than any other group, they underscore that the ‘real’ cause of climate change is unknown as nature is forever changing and uncontrollable. Similar to the ‘nature is overwhelming’ adherents, they disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal life. They are also less likely to believe that the scientific debate is settled and that the IPCC modeling is accurate. In their prognostic framing, they point to the harm the Kyoto Protocol and all regulation will do to the economy.”

The final group of scientists, comprising 5 percent of the respondents, fit the “Regulation Activists” model. These scientists “diagnose climate change as being both human- and naturally caused, posing a moderate public risk, with only slight impact on their personal life.” Moreover, “They are also skeptical with regard to the scientific debate being settled and are the most indecisive whether IPCC modeling is accurate.”

Taken together, these four skeptical groups numerically blow away the 36 percent of scientists who believe global warming is human caused and a serious concern.

One interesting aspect of this new survey is the unmistakably alarmist bent of the survey takers. They frequently use terms such as “denier” to describe scientists who are skeptical of an asserted global warming crisis, and they refer to skeptical scientists as “speaking against climate science” rather than “speaking against asserted climate projections.” Accordingly, alarmists will have a hard time arguing the survey is biased or somehow connected to the ‘vast right-wing climate denial machine.’

Another interesting aspect of this new survey is that it reports on the beliefs of scientists themselves rather than bureaucrats who often publish alarmist statements without polling their member scientists. We now have meteorologists, geoscientists and engineers all reporting that they are skeptics of an asserted global warming crisis, yet the bureaucrats of these organizations frequently suck up to the media and suck up to government grant providers by trying to tell us the opposite of what their scientist members actually believe.

People who look behind the self-serving statements by global warming alarmists about an alleged “consensus” have always known that no such alarmist consensus exists among scientists. Now that we have access to hard surveys of scientists themselves, it is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

The Climate Snow Job

A blizzard! The hottest year ever! More signs that global warming and its extreme effects are beyond debate, right? Not even close.

Patrick J. Michaels

Jan. 24, 2016 2:45 p.m. ET

2386 COMMENTS

An East Coast blizzard howling, global temperatures peaking, the desert Southwest flooding, drought-stricken California drying up—surely there’s a common thread tying together this “extreme” weather. There is. But it has little to do with what recent headlines have been saying about the hottest year ever. It is called business as usual.

Surface temperatures are indeed increasing slightly: They’ve been going up, in fits and starts, for more than 150 years, or since a miserably cold and pestilential period known as the Little Ice Age. Before carbon dioxide from economic activity could have warmed us up, temperatures rose three-quarters of a degree Fahrenheit between 1910 and World War II. They then cooled down a bit, only to warm again from the mid-1970s to the late ’90s, about the same amount as earlier in the century.

Whether temperatures have warmed much since then depends on what you look at. Until last June, most scientists acknowledged that warming reached a peak in the late 1990s, and since then had plateaued in a “hiatus.” There are about 60 different explanations for this in the refereed literature.

That changed last summer, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) decided to overhaul its data, throwing out satellite-sensed sea-surface temperatures since the late 1970s and instead relying on, among other sources, readings taken from the cooling-water-intake tubes of oceangoing vessels. The scientific literature is replete with articles about the large measurement errors that accrue in this data owing to the fact that a ship’s infrastructure conducts heat, absorbs a tremendous amount of the sun’s energy, and vessels’ intake tubes are at different ocean depths. See, for instance, John J. Kennedy’s “A review of uncertainty in in situ measurements and data sets of sea surface temperature,” published Jan. 24, 2014, by the journal Reviews of Geophysics.

NOAA’s alteration of its measurement standard and other changes produced a result that could have been predicted: a marginally significant warming trend in the data over the past several years, erasing the temperature plateau that vexed climate alarmists have found difficult to explain. Yet the increase remains far below what had been expected.

It is nonetheless true that 2015 shows the highest average surface temperature in the 160-year global history since reliable records started being available, with or without the “hiatus.” But that is also not very surprising. Early in 2015, a massive El Niño broke out. These quasiperiodic reversals of Pacific trade winds and deep-ocean currents are well-documented but poorly understood. They suppress the normally massive upwelling of cold water off South America that spreads across the ocean (and is the reason that Lima may be the most pleasant equatorial city on the planet). The Pacific reversal releases massive amounts of heat, and therefore surface temperature spikes. El Niño years in a warm plateau usually set a global-temperature record. What happened this year also happened with the last big one, in 1998.

Global average surface temperature in 2015 popped up by a bit more than a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit compared with the previous year. In 1998 the temperature rose by slightly less than a quarter-degree from 1997.

When the Pacific circulation returns to its more customary mode, all that suppressed cold water will surge to the surface with a vengeance, and global temperatures will drop. Temperatures in 1999 were nearly three-tenths of a degree lower than in 1998, and a similar change should occur this time around, though it might not fit so neatly into a calendar year. Often the compensatory cooling, known as La Niña, is larger than the El Niño warming.

There are two real concerns about warming, neither of which has anything to do with the El Niño-enhanced recent peak. How much more is the world likely to warm as civilization continues to exhale carbon dioxide, and does warming make the weather more “extreme,” which means more costly?

Instead of relying on debatable surface-temperature information, consider instead readings in the free atmosphere (technically, the lower troposphere) taken by two independent sensors: satellite sounders and weather balloons. As has been shown repeatedly by University of Alabama climate scientist John Christy, since late 1978 (when the satellite record begins), the rate of warming in the satellite-sensed data is barely a third of what it was supposed to have been, according to the large family of global climate models now in existence. Balloon data, averaged over the four extant data sets, shows the same.

It is therefore probably prudent to cut by 50% the modeled temperature forecasts for the rest of this century. Doing so would mean that the world—without any political effort at all—won’t warm by the dreaded 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 that the United Nations regards as the climate apocalypse.

The notion that world-wide weather is becoming more extreme is just that: a notion, or a testable hypothesis. As data from the world’s biggest reinsurer, Munich Re, and University of Colorado environmental-studies professor Roger Pielke Jr. have shown, weather-related losses haven’t increased at all over the past quarter-century. In fact, the trend, while not statistically significant, is downward. Last year showed the second-smallest weather-related loss of Global World Productivity, or GWP, in the entire record.

Without El Niño, temperatures in 2015 would have been typical of the post-1998 regime. And, even with El Niño, the effect those temperatures had on the global economy was de minimis.

Mr. Michaels, a climatologist, is the director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute.

Gambling the World Economy on Climate (Excerpt)

The emission-cut pledges will cost $1 trillion a year and avert warming of less than one degree by 2100.

November 16, 2015

Wall Street Journal - The United Nations climate conference in Paris starting Nov. 30 will get under way when most minds in the French capital will still understandably be on the recent terror attacks. But for many of the 40,000 attendees, the goal is to ensure that climate change stays on the global economic agenda for the next 15 years.

The Paris conference is the culmination of many such gatherings and is expected to produce agreements on combating climate change. President Obama and the dozens of other world leaders planning to be in Paris should think carefully about the economic impact—in particular the staggering costs—of the measures they are contemplating.

The U.N.’s climate chief, Christiana Figueres, says openly that the aim of the talks is “to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.” That outlook will be welcome among attendees like the delegation from Bolivia. That country’s official material submitted for the talks proposes a “lasting solution” for climate change: “We must destroy capitalism.”

There is no official cost estimate for Mr. Obama’s promise to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 26%-28% below 2005 levels by 2025. However, the peer-reviewed Stanford Energy Modeling Forum has run more than a hundred scenarios for greenhouse-gas reductions and the costs to gross domestic product. Taking this data and performing a regression analysis across the reductions shows that hitting the 26%-28% target would reduce GDP between $154 billion and $172 billion annually.

The EU says it will cut emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. Again, there is no official estimate of the cost given, which is extraordinary. The data from the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum suggests hitting that target would reduce the EU’s GDP by 1.6% in 2030, or €287 billion in 2010 money.

Mexico has put into place the strongest climate legislation of any developing country, conditionally promising to cut greenhouse-gas and black-carbon emissions by 40% below the current trend line by 2030. The Mexican government estimates that cutting emissions in half by 2050 will cost between $6 billion and $33 billion in 2005 money, but that is many times too low. Peer-reviewed literature, supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the EU, suggests that by 2030 the cost would already reach 4.5% of GDP, or $80 billion in 2005 money.

China has promised by 2030 to reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions, per unit of GDP, to at least 60% below 2005. Using the data from the Asia Modeling Exercise we find that hitting this target will cost at least $200 billion a year.

So in total, the Paris promises of the EU, Mexico, U.S. and China will diminish the economy at least $730 billion a year by 2030—and that is in an ideal world, where politicians consistently reduce emissions in the most effective ways.

Experience tells us that won’t happen. For instance, policy makers could have chipped away at emissions efficiently with modest taxes on carbon, or by switching electrical generation to natural gas. Instead many countries, including the U.S. and those in the EU, have poured money into phenomenally inefficient subsidies for solar and biofuels, which politicians go for like catnip. The EU’s 20/20 climate policy—the goal, embarked upon in 2010, to cut emissions 20% from 1990 levels by 2020—is the clearest example of such gross inefficiency.

A 2009 study of the targets, published in Energy Economics, estimated that “inefficiencies in policy lead to a cost that is 100-125% too high.” It’s likely that in the future even more money will be wasted propping up green energy that is both unaffordable and inefficient.

Another 127 nations have made promises for Paris that increase the total emissions cuts by one-fourth. The cuts on the table in Paris, then, will leave the global economy, in rough terms, $1 trillion short every year for the rest of the century—and that’s if the politicians do everything right. If not, the real cost could double.

'Climate Snow Job'? Scientists Respond to Attack on Evidence (Op-Ed)

Emmanuel Vincent holds a Ph.D. in climate science and is the founder of Climate Feedback (@ClimateFdbk), a global network of scientists who provide readers, authors and editors with feedback about the accuracy of climate change media articles. Daniel Nethery is editor of Climate Feedback. He holds a Master of Science in oceanography and is a Ph.D. candidate at the Crawford School of Public Policy in Australia. He is a contributor to Inside Story, The Canberra Times, Age, and The Conversation. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

February 2, 2016
Live Science - An opinion piece published Jan. 24 in The Wall Street Journal presented false and misleading statements as if they were fact. In the op-ed, entitled "The Climate Snow Job," author Patrick Michaels suggests that scientists manipulate data to create the illusion that our planet is warming faster than it is, and downplays the magnitude of the consequences climate change has on economic losses. The essay ignores the preponderance of evidence that now leads businesses, economists, and even the recent World Economic Forum to recognize climate change as one of the top sources of financial risk.

There is no "snow job" in the climate data, according to an evaluation of the Michaels op-ed by 10 scientists, all experts in the field.

Reality trumps opinion

Even though Michaels has published peer-reviewed articles about climate science (most from one to two decades ago), the views he expresses in his op-ed are at odds with the current state of science and evidence emerging from the past two decades of research.

The false or misleading statements range from how global temperatures are measured to the effect of El Niño on global temperature, to the economic impact of climate change. Michaels claims, for instance, that "between 1910 and World War II, temperatures rose three-quarters of a degree Fahrenheit while carbon dioxide from economic activity could not have warmed us up."

This is inaccurate, as explained by Shaun Lovejoy, professor in Nonlinear Physics at McGill University, who showed that "by 1944 there was already about 0.3 Celsius (0.5 Fahrenheit) of anthropogenic [human-caused] warming" in results he published in 2014 in Geophysical Research Letters and as seen on the figure below (adapted from the publication's Fig. 1a).

 

A graph of global temperature as a function of the CO2 forcing (a surrogate for all human effects).

Beyond the claims

By mentioning so many distinct aspects of climate science, Michaels intends to pass himself off as an authority on climate science while presenting readers with three unsupported, misleading claims.

Claim 1: Michaels claims that the warming predicted by climate models is too high: "It is therefore probably prudent to cut by 50 percent the modeled temperature forecasts for the rest of this century."

This is the opinion of the author — yes it is an op-ed, but there is no solid basis in science for such a claim. Climate models have successfully projected changes in climate observed in recent years, as shown by Kevin Cowtan, staff scientist at the University of York, and his colleagues in 2015 in Geophysical Research Letters, as well as by Jochem Marotzke, research director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and Piers Forster, professor of physical climate change at the University of Leeds, in 2015 in Nature.

The figure below also illustrates this nicely: The global temperature in 2015 as forecasted in 2000 lies precisely where the models indicated it would.

Claim 2: Michaels claims, "The notion that worldwide weather is becoming more extreme is just that: a notion, or a testable hypothesis."

This graph depicts temperatures forecasted by climate models in the year 2000

Some extreme weather events — such as heat waves and heavy downpours — are becoming more severe and are occurring with greater frequency. The consensus among scientists is that those changes relate to climate change, and more importantly, evidence suggests such severe events will increasingly affect societies in the future. This became clear with the publication of the SREX report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2012.

Michaels also attempts to cast doubt on the science by claiming that the economic cost of extreme weather has remained stable over the past quarter century. The author misleads the reader into concluding that because the economic cost of extreme weather has not increased, extreme weather cannot have increased. But this reasoning presents only the tip of the economic iceberg.

Laurens Bouwer, a senior risk analysis adviser at Deltares, an independent institute for research in the Netherlands, told Climate Feedback that the claim that losses caused by severe weather have remained stable over the past 25 years is "not accurate." "There is an upward trend in losses, only after correction for population growth and wealth increase, this trend disappears … So Patrick Michaels is misusing scientific information and consensus," Bouwer said.

The Michaels essay also belies the extent to which insurance agencies recognize the risks that climate change poses. In his article, Michaels cites data from Munich Re, one of the largest reinsurance companies in the world, to support his case that climate change does not present major economic risks. By contrast, the head of Geo Risks Research and Munich Re's Corporate Climate Centre, Peter Höppe, has publicly stated that "climate change is one of the greatest risks facing humankind this century. Through a part of its core business, the insurance industry is directly affected and therefore assumes a leading role in devising solutions for climate protection and adaptation to the inevitable changes."

Claim 3: Michaels claims, "Without El Niño, temperatures in 2015 would have been typical of the post-1998 regime."

This is false. The current El Niño event contributed only a few tenths of a degree to the record global temperature observed in 2015, according to a study by scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). [What's Cookin'? Earth, Basically. But It's Not El Niño's Fault]

The year would have gone down as the hottest on record even without the El Niño event, as explained in this article by The Carbon Brief.

The idea is that an El Niño event usually has a greater effect on atmospheric temperatures the year following the event. For instance, the El Niño event of 1997 caused the global temperature to spike in 1998; this is why scientists anticipate that 2016 could be even hotter than 2015.

Michaels would have his readers believe that the observed increase in global temperature, underlined by the news of the hottest year on record, is "business as usual." And yet, by a wide range of measures, the reality is far from usual. Readers should draw the conclusion that no matter how conclusive the evidence, climate contrarians intend to go about their "business as usual," casting doubt on carefully gathered, deeply investigated science.

For more claims made by Michaels that have been debunked by scientists and current data, read this detailed analysis on Climatefeedback.org. Climate Feedback is a global network of scientists who collaborate to assess the credibility of major sources of climate change media coverage using cutting edge technology of Web annotations developed by Hypothes.is.

The following scientists analyzed the Michaels op-ed: Rasmus Benestad, Norwegian Meteorological Institute; Laurens Bouwer, senior adviser, risk analysis, Deltares; Peter de Menocal, director, Center for Climate and Life, Columbia University; Jennifer Francis, professor at Rutgers University; Shaun Lovejoy, professor at McGill University; Ken Mankoff, Pennsylvania State University; James Renwick, professor at Victoria University of Wellington; Victor Venema, University of Bonn; Emmanuel Vincent, University of California, Merced; Britta Voss, U.S. Geological Survey

* * * * * * *

Since 1543, when Copernicus discovered the giant fountain of energy at the gravitational center of the solar system, the most powerful religious and political leaders have tried to hide from the public the fact that they are powerless over the FORCE of creation, preservation and destruction of all atoms, lives and planets in the solar system:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/The_FORCE_of_Creation_Preservation_and_Destruction.pdf

Figure 1 shows information recorded in exact rest masses of the ~3,000 types of atoms that compromise all matter in the solar system.

Global warming 'hiatus' puts climate change scientists on the spot

Theories as to why Earth's average surface temperature hasn't risen in recent years include an idea that the Pacific Ocean goes through decades-long cycles of absorbing heat.

September 22, 2013

Los Angeles Times - It's a climate puzzle that has vexed scientists for more than a decade and added fuel to the arguments of those who insist man-made global warming is a myth.

Since just before the start of the 21st century, the Earth's average global surface temperature has failed to rise despite soaring levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and years of dire warnings from environmental advocates.

Now, as scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gather in Sweden this week to approve portions of the IPCC's fifth assessment report, they are finding themselves pressured to explain this glaring discrepancy.

The panel, a United Nations creation that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, hopes to brief world leaders on the current state of climate science in a clear, unified voice. However, experts inside and outside the process say members probably will engage in heated debate over the causes and significance of the so-called global warming hiatus.

"It's contentious," said IPCC panelist Shang-Ping Xie, a professor of climate science at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. "The stakes have been raised by various people, especially the skeptics."

Though scientists don't have any firm answers, they do have multiple theories. Xie has argued that the hiatus is the result of heat absorption by the Pacific Ocean — a little-understood, naturally occurring process that repeats itself every few decades. Xie and his colleagues presented the idea in a study published last month in the prestigious journal Nature.

The theory, which is gaining adherents, remains unproved by actual observation. Surface temperature records date to the late 1800s, but measurements of deep water temperature began only in the 1960s, so there just isn't enough data to chart the long-term patterns, Xie said.

Scientists have also offered other explanations for the hiatus: lack of sunspot activity, low concentrations of atmospheric water vapor and other marine-related effects. These too remain theories.

For the general public, the existence of the hiatus has been difficult to reconcile with reports of record-breaking summer heat and precedent-setting Arctic ice melts.

At the same time, those who deny the tenets of climate change science — that the burning of fossil fuels adds carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and warms it — have seized on the hiatus, calling it proof that global warming isn't real.

Climate scientists, meanwhile, have had a different response. Although most view the pause as a temporary interruption in a long-term warming trend, some disagree and say it has revealed serious flaws in the deliberative processes of the IPCC.

One of the most prominent of these critics is Judith Curry, a climatologist who heads the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She was involved in the third IPCC assessment, which was published in 2001. But now she accuses the organization of intellectual arrogance and bias.

"All other things being equal, adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will have a warming effect on the planet," Curry said. "However, all things are never equal, and what we are seeing is natural climate variability dominating over human impact."

Curry isn't the only one to suggest flaws in established climate models. IPCC vice chair Francis Zwiers, director of the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium at the University of Victoria in Canada, co-wrote a paper published in this month's Nature Climate Change that said climate models had "significantly" overestimated global warming over the last 20 years — and especially for the last 15 years, which coincides with the onset of the hiatus.

The models had predicted that the average global surface temperature would increase by 0.21 of a degree Celsius over this period, but they turned out to be off by a factor of four, Zwiers and his colleagues wrote. In reality, the average temperature has edged up only 0.05 of a degree Celsius over that time — which in a statistical sense is not significantly different from zero.

Of course, people don't actually spend their entire lives subjected to the global average temperature, which is currently about 15 degrees Celsius, or 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Those who fixate on that single measurement lose sight of significant regional trends, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, climate scientists say.

Xie and Yu Kosaka, an assistant project scientist at Scripps, used computer models to simulate the Pacific decadal oscillation, a phenomenon related to the El Niño and La Niña ocean temperature cycles that lasts for 20 to 30 years. The model suggested that the northern mid-latitudes — an area that includes the United States and most of Europe and China — were "insulated" from the oscillation's cooling effect during the summer months, as was the Arctic region.

"In the summer you've basically removed the Pacific cooling, so we're still baked by greenhouse gases," Xie said.

As a consequence, 2012 marked two climate milestones, he said. The U.S. experienced its hottest year on record, while ice cover in the North Pole shrank to the lowest level ever observed by satellite.

Other climatologists, such as Bill Patzert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, say sea level rise is "unequivocal proof" that greenhouse gases are continuing to heat the planet, and that much of this added heat is being absorbed by the oceans.

As ocean water warms, it expands and drives sea levels higher, Patzert said. Currently, oceans are rising at an average of more than 3 millimeters, or 0.12 of an inch, per year. This pace is significantly faster than the average rate over the last several thousand years, scientists say.

"There's no doubt that in terms of global temperatures we've hit a little flat spot in the road here," Patzert said. "But there's been no slowdown whatsoever in sea level rise, so global warming is alive and well."

Whether that message is communicated successfully by the IPCC this week remains to be seen. In the days leading up to the meeting, the organization has found itself on the defensive.

A draft summary that was leaked to the media reported that scientists were "95% confident" that human activity was responsible for more than half of the increase in average global surface temperature between 1951 and 2010. But critics openly scoff, considering the IPCC's poor record for predicting short-term temperature increases.

"This unpredicted hiatus just reflects the fact that we don't understand things as well as we thought," said Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder and vocal critic of the climate change establishment. "Now the IPCC finds itself in a position that a science group never wants to be in. It's in spin management mode."

Related:

• Scientific Critique of IPCC’s 2013 'Summary for Policymakers'
• Why Scientists Disagree about Global Warming
• Heartland Institute Celebrates Earth Day with Release of New Book 
• The Impact of Popular Technology.net
• Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science

About NIPCC and Its Previous Reports The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, or NIPCC, as its name suggests, is an international panel of scientists and scholars who came together to understand the causes and consequences of climate change. NIPCC has no formal attachment to or sponsorship from any government or governmental agency. It is wholly independent of political pressures and influences and therefore is not predisposed to produce politically motivated conclusions or policy recommendations.

NIPCC seeks to objectively analyze and interpret data and facts without conforming to any specific agenda. This organizational structure and purpose stand in contrast to those of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is government-sponsored, politically motivated, a nd predisposed to believing that climate change is a problem in need of a U.N. solution.

NIPCC traces its beginnings to an informal meeting held in Milan, Italy in 2003 organized by Dr. S. Fred Singer and the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). The purpose was to produce an independent evaluation of the available scientific evidence on the subject of carbon dioxide-induced global warming in anticipation of the release of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). NIPCC scientists concluded the IPCC was biased with respect to making future projections of climate change, discerning a significant human-induced influence on current and past climatic trends, and evaluating the impacts of potential carbon dioxide-induced environmental changes on Earth’s biosphere.

To highlight such deficiencies in the IPCC’s AR4, in 2008 SEPP partnered with The Heartland Institute to produce Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate, a summary of research for policymakers that has been widely distributed and translated into six languages. In 2009, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change joined the original two sponsors to help produce Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), the first comprehensive alternative to the alarmist reports of the IPCC.

In 2010, a Web site (www.nipccreport.org) was created to highlight scientific studies NIPCC scientists believed would likely be downplayed or ignored by the IPCC during preparation of its next assessment report.

In 2011, the three sponsoring organizations produced Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2011 Interim Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) , a review and analysis of new research released since the 2009 report or overlooked by the authors of that report.

In 2013, the Information Center for Global Change Studies, a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, translated and published an abridged edition of the 2009 and 2011 NIPCC reports in a single volume. On June 15, the Chinese Academy of Sciences organized a NIPCC Workshop in Beijing to allow the NIPCC principal authors to present summaries of their conclusions.

In September 2013, NIPCC released Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, the first of two volumes bringing the original 2009 report up-to-date with research from the 2011 Interim Report plus research as current as the third quarter of 2013. A new Web site was created (www.ClimateChangeReconsidered.org) to feature the new report and news about its release. A second volume, Climate Change Reconsidered II : Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, is planned for release in 2014.