Now if only it were true, eh? Kindly watch this 8-minute video before making any further false declarations: <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5IdFVTTq8hc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5IdFVTTq8hc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
An 8 minute video on Youtube, is what we need. That clears everything up. The real question is, if these global warming alarmists are so worried about the release of CO2, why are they online( an action that releases greenhouse gases)?
Let me start by saying the video assumes everyone is a far right wing nut job, and we are "global warming denialists" and are part of the "climate denier media machine" if we think several scientists in the global warming camp have abandoned a profession for a cause. I wonder if the video's creators think everyone who disagrees with president Obama is a racist. Further, the video assumes anyone not buying the message believes the climate is not changing. This is completely false. Most of us believe the climate is changing, but we also believe it always has changed and it always will change, as we believe the impact of co2 on the environment has been overstated. That's not to say co2 has had zero impact. "We can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and its a travesty we can't." I think that statement stands on its own. What do you think? The video insists "as usual, there's less here than meets the eye." Apparently it's a "cherry picked sentence that climate denialists want desperately to mean what it doesn't." What??? How does anyone misinterpret that sentence? The video goes on to explain Dr. Kevin Trenberth really does believe in global warming (no shit?) and what he "really meant" was something different than what he said. Okay. Now we're starting to sound a little like a certain conservative news station.
"I just completed Mike's trick..." As usual Beck and Hannity got it wrong when they attacked this statement, but who the hell are they to they average person who is either a little left or a little right of center, people like me? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what hiding the data means. Apparently, the scientists have used tree rings for years when no instrumental temperature observations are available and for current years (1880 and up with readings from thermometers). For some unknown reason, the tree rings for the last 50 years do not accurately represent the recorded temperature. Naturally, people are going to assume if the rings were not accurate for the last 50, maybe there were more inaccuracies in centuries prior. Instead of throwing out that data and clearly stating why he did so, Dr. Mann simply ignored the past 50 years when he constructed his hockey stick graph. How is this not a problem? I understand Beck's and Hannity's reaction to the statement was as inaccurate as usual. But what do you expect?
"When somebody says there's no such thing as warming, I squirm, yes, it's hard to look at all those records and entertain that." "How do you argue with thermometers? I don't argue with thermometers." I'm sure the video took these statements out of context, but if they did not, these people refuse to hear their critics or just have their heads buried too far up each others butts to hear anything at all. Here is a sample of a piece written by Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson. After reading some of the CRU emails, I really can't say it any better than he did. Besides, I'm getting a little tired of writing. But the hacked e-mails are not irrelevant. They reveal another sort of warming -- an overheated academic world in which hard science melts into politics. Some prominent climate scientists involved in these e-mail exchanges have clearly abandoned a profession for a cause. They appear to exaggerate their public certainty on disputed issues, shade the presentation of information for political effect, tamper with the peer-review process, resist reasonable requests for supporting data and urge the destruction of e-mails to avoid embarrassment. Other scientists in these e-mail chains resist these abuses. But the dominant voices are ideological. The attitude seems to be: Insiders can question, if they don't go too far. Outsiders who threaten the movement are "idiots." This attitude is demonstrated not only by private e-mails but also by the public reaction of prominent scientists to those e-mails. They show "scientists at work." They are "pretty innocuous." They are "understandable and mostly excusable." "We are all humans; and humans come with dogma as standard equipment." This "kind of language and kidding goes on verbally all the time." Criticism is based merely on "ignorance" and critics have "more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger." It is the scientific equivalent of discounting Watergate as a "second-rate burglary." Climate scientists are clearly accustomed to deference. Theirs is a community coddled by global elites, extensively funded by governments, celebrated by Hollywood and honored with international prizes. But outside the Copenhagen bubble, the field of climate science is deep in a crisis of professional credibility, which many scientists seem too insular to recognize. Fifty-nine percent of Americans now believe it is at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research to prop up claims about global warming. If the practices at East Anglia are dismissed as "scientists at work," skepticism will rise as surely as temperatures. It often goes unnoticed how much we rely on the self-enforced standards of professions -- journalists who bury their biases to report the news, judges who suspend their personal views to enforce the law. If we view these professionals as politically motivated, we no longer trust the information or judgments they provide. This professional objectivity is precisely what the hacked e-mails call into question. Some of these scientists are merely activists, deeply invested in a predetermined outcome. They assume that political change is the goal; the scientific enterprise is the means -- like a political ad or a campaign speech. But without trust in disinterested, scientific judgments on climate, most non-scientists will resist costly, speculative, legislative actions. When the experts become advocates, no one believes the experts or listens to the advocates. It is an irony of the first order. Having accused others of a "war on science," it is climate scientists who are assaulting the authority of science more effectively than anyone else. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121003159.html
Well, you seem to have done a pretty good job of cherry picking and telling the world what Trenberth meant. Why don't you read his paper which you can find here and see what Trenberth is talking about in his own words: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf The title of the paper is "An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's global energy". Trenberth's remark refers to short term trends in climate, not to longer term global warming. He correctly observes that more detailed observation and study is required to more fully understand these and do better accounting of the earth's energy budget. He says that it is travesty that there is not more observational work being done in this area to better plan for climate change. Read the sentence and notice the word account. He is referring to accounting of the earth's energy budget. In short he is calling for more research to better plan for the consequences of global warming. In no way does his paper dispute global warming due to human activity. In fact he very strongly asserts AGW. How anybody with one iota of honestly thinks that this paper can possibly provide any fuel for denialist nonsense beggars belief.
Google is wonderful thing. With a very little effort you can find out that paleoclimate temperature reconstruction has been done using several proxies other than tree rings. For example: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hockey-stick-without-tree-rings.html But as usual the denialist trick is to narrowly focus on one little detail searching for a conspiracy, and ignore the overwhelming weight of evidence. Doubt and confusion, as usual is the objective not any desire to find the truth. In any case, what is so terrible about preferring direct instrumental measurement over proxy data. It may come as a shock, but there are these things called thermometers these days and they do tend to preferred over tree rings in telling how hot it is. There is plenty of work been done on the issue of the modern tree ring proxy record and issues of it's reliability. Google is a wonderful thing.
Allow me to paraphrase what he said. "We don't know. We do not know. I repeat, WE DON'T KNOW why the earth hasn't burst into a ball of flames like we all predicted. Hell, it actually got colder this decade. You know what? It's complete BS we don't know. Out of all the money and man-hours dumped into this venture, we still haven't collected the necessary data (wink, wink) to explain why I'm freezing my butt off this winter. So get out there and prove what we already KNOW but haven't been able to accurately explain. Seriously. Get out there. These denialists and committed crusaders against science and obstructionist politicians are really beginning to chap my ***"
No they are wrong because they do poor science. That's why the majority don't agree with them. There's this little thing known as Occam' Razor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor That is when they get around to do any science at all. Most of the nonsense coming from the likes of Plimer has nothing at all to do with scientific research.