Climate science, political hay for the asses in DC

3 years ago, I had some things to say about politicians lying to me for their own gain. I hindsight, I missed my opportunity to point out the fact that, when Obama's party finally agreed to increase domestic drilling for oil, their hand-picked company (BP, who subcontracted to Transocean) to perform drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was the one with more regulatory violations than all of its major competitors combined. Cynic that I am, I say that the selection was made specifically because it was felt that Transocean would cause a problem that would allow factions in the government to cite a reason for banning domestic drilling.

2 years ago, I weighed in on the subjects of climate change and the global warming movement, specifically stating that the science didn't support the conclusions being drawn and that, in my opinion, the motivations were purely financial in nature. In short, it was about the green, just not the green you think...

Well, now the second round of "Climategate" emails are coming out and we're seeing more and more evidence that the pro-catastrophic climate change movement was merely about getting governments around the world to fund projects designed to "stem the tide of global warming". If you're looking for a good article to read about this, here's a place to start: Jim Lacey's Scientists Behaving Badly.

One thing that I'm very curious to see is what happens to Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Mann as a result of the latest round of emails being released. Mann, if you remember, was the subject of multiple conduct investigations as a result of the first release of emails. While Mann was initially cleared of any wrongdoing, these new emails will undoubtedly trigger a subsequent investigation and I have a feeling that PennState, already reeling from the controversy surrounding the football program, might not be as forgiving as they were 18 months ago.

Some background on my position on climate change

Now that the Climategate (I hate that term) scandal has broken, the Copenhagen cabal has wrapped up, and the hubbub is over, I wanted to explain to those of you where I'm coming from on this issue.

I was still in college when the first stories of "global warming" started coming out. Being a Geography major, the stories caught my attention because it essentially dealt with my field of study. However, the more and more I read about it, the more skeptical I became; not only did I question the science that its proponents were basing their findings on, the data that they claimed supported their findings was thoroughly suspect.

My questions of the science began with the fact that the Earth's climate has always been in flux and continued through claims that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are causing the earth's temperature to rise. While I won't argue with the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels can have an impact on the climate, the assertions coming from global warming’s proponents would have you believe that this is the primary driver. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The fact is that there are not only a multitude of factors which impact the climate, but the primary driver of the temperature on this planet is the amount of energy the planet receives from the sun. Unfortunately, everything that I’ve read about climate change, the assumption is that the amount of energy the Earth receives from the sun is constant, which is flawed. The amount of energy the sun emits fluctuates over time. Furthermore, the percentage of the sun’s energy that the Earth receives also fluctuates over time. Interstellar interference (inner planets, comets, asteroids, or dust) has an impact. Another factor is the Earth’s own magnetic field which protects the planet from much of the energy the sun emits.

Now, something that is not very well known is this: the Earth is in the stages of a geomagnetic reversal. In short, the planet’s polarity is going to change which will cause compasses to point south, rather than north. One of the features of a geomagnetic reversal is that the magnetic field around the planet declines before it outright disappears. Geophysicists estimate that the planet’s magnetic field is about a third as strong as it is during its “peak” and that it has declined between 10% to 15% over the last 150 years. Obviously, a weaker magnetic field means that the Earth is receiving more energy from the sun and would therefore increase the temperatures on the planet.

And that’s just where I have questions about the science. The validity of the data being used in these models is questionable at best. Let's begin with the now infamous "hockey stick" graph. For those who are not intimately familiar with the graph, it depicts the temperature variances in the Northern Hemisphere from the 1961-1990 30-year average. The graph's data begins in the year 1000 AD and runs to 1999. For the majority of the graph, the line trends downward at a gentle slope. Then, in approximately 1910, it starts a very conspicuous increase.

Here's the problem. The mercury thermometer was not invented until 1714. Furthermore, thermometers were considered highly scientific instrumentation and use of them would not become widespread throughout Western society until the middle of the 1800’s. Their use in Africa, South America, Australia, and a majority of Asia did not come about until much later. The bottom line here is that we cannot have more than 300 years worth of temperature records and the reality is that we actually have much less.

At this point, a reasonable person would more than likely ask "Where did 700 years' (or more) worth of temperature data come from?" Well, the answer is that they made it up. The fact is that Mann has been quite open about using extrapolated historical temperature data developed by the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that draws on various sources including tree rings, coral, ice cores and "historical sources".

Now, I have yet to read a definite work on how tree rings data directly correlate to air temperature -- I would stipulate that they correlate to sunlight and precipitation data much better than temperature. As for ice cores, there are far too many assumptions that need to be made (the accuracy of radiocarbon dating, the variances in precipitation data, the erosion factor, and location of the sample points) in order for those to render valid temperature data. I won't even begin to get what may or may not constitute "historical sources". Regardless, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which advises the UN and other governmental bodies on climate issues, used the results of Mann's work as the basis for their policy guidance documentation.

Unfortunately, using extrapolated data that could be inherently flawed might be the least of the problems here. The CRU's data set also made use of "adjusted" temperature data that interpolated data points in areas with "insufficient" coverage. This would not be so serious of an issue were it not for the fact that the CRU has been extremely reluctant towards making their data sets available for public review. Therefore, when independent researchers have attempted to duplicate the results of Mann's work, they have had to use nothing but published raw data. Not surprisingly, these have not returned the same results. In fact, their results showed that any temperature increases were slight, at most, and no where near the catastrophic levels predicted.

However, what really sets my sensabilities on edge is that any results which counter the claims made in Mann's work have been met with harsh criticism by Phil Jones (director of the CRU at the University of East Anglia), Gavin Schmidt (a researcher at NASA), and others connected to them. From what I gather, it seems that the only way in which you can generate the results that Mann predicted is to use the CRU's data set which they will not share.

Everything changed when a 62 MB archive file containing a collection of emails and data sets from the CRU was posted to the Internet.

The first thing that the files did was expose the CRU's data set to its first mass public review. The differences between the CRU's adjusted data and the raw data from which it was drawn were startling. The CRU clearly "cherry-picked" data points that it felt supported its argument while omitting blocks of data were incongruent its claims by classifying them as "outliers".

But the truly damning content was found in the body of the email messages. Not only did they reveal that the adjusted data had been manipulated in order to eliminate discordant data, but they disclosed a centralized and concerted effort led by Jones and Schmidt on behalf of the climate alarmists (the term de jour for those trumpeting the "global warming" message) to control the tenor and content of all discussion regarding climate change. Scientific journals, conferences, and even the mass media were all targeted to make sure that only the pro-alarmist message was broadcast.

Going back to our reasonable person, the question then becomes "Why would scientists, people who, ostensibly, claim to be in search of the truth, do such things?" Unfortunately, the best answer I can give you is money.

Back in the day, I used to spend an inordinate amount of time drinking at a brew pub a couple of blocks away from MIT. About 8 years ago, a guy came in and I struck up a conversation with him. The subject of climate change came up and he mentioned he had done some research into climate change and that his results showed basically that the alarmists were the ones producing most of the hot air, not human activity. However, there was one problem. No "credible scientific journal" wanted to publish his work. Furthermore, he couldn’t get additional funding to continue his work, partly because he couldn’t get published, but partly because he was espousing something that ran contrary to the dominant paradigm. His cynical take on it was that there was too much money being invested in "global warming" and that anyone who rocked the boat would disrupt that flow. Back then I was naïve enough to think things like that didn’t happen in science. Today, I don’t doubt for a minute that they do.

Now, I'm sure that what I'm about to say will probably make me sound like an utter cynic (at best) or a total conspiracy theorist nut (at worst), but think about it this way: imagine if a cure for cancer were discovered next month. What would happen to all of the thousands of people in just the United States whose careers are focused on cancer research? For the most part, these are all well-educated people who earn above the median household income. Most of them would be out of work. Sad as it is to say, the cancer research industry has more of a vested interest in not curing cancer than it does in curing cancer.

Economists, part of the problem

I'm going to interrupt my rant on climate change to tell a great joke I heard years ago.

After shipwreck, three world-renowned academics find themselves marooned on an island with a case of canned food. As they start to get hungry, they brainstorm on problem of opening the cans.

The first academic, a chemist, says, "If we leave a can in the sun, Boyle's Law tells me that the contents will increase in pressure and the can will burst."

The second, a mathematician, says, "We'll need to know about the how the can is made so that we can determine how best to locate it so that it will burst in the shortest period of time while spilling the least amount of contents."

The third, an economist, says "Let's just assume that we have a can opener..."

The point here is to illustrate that economists, especially academic ones, make a lot of horribly flawed assumptions about the state of things, specifically considering variables as constants for the purposes of evaluation.

Now, consider the impact that economists have on government.

It is about the green, just not the green you think

About a year ago, I created a monster. I introduced my son to YouTube.

Now, unlike his dad, he does not care to search for nostalgic content that allows him to relive his youth, nor is he looking for the latest political satire, he's a 5-year old on a mission: He wants nature programming, damnit!

I can tell you that, since we started roaming through YouTube, I have watched quite a bit about whales (most notably blue whales and sperm whales), squid (mostly the giant variety), and, recently, dinosaurs. Now, I learned a lot about whales and dinosaurs when I was a kid. Not being allowed to watch a lot of TV, I spent a lot of afternoons as a kid reading every sort of educational book I could get my hands on. However, there was always one thing that always struck me as kinda strange, in everything I read about dinosaurs (and all of the other large reptilian life) and the era in which they lived, it always referred to them living in jungles and swamps. There was never any talk about dinosaurs living in deserts or even temperate climates -- the only habitats that are ever mentioned are tropical and sub-tropical ones. Why is that?

The answer is that, 65 million years ago, the Earth's climate was much warmer. In fact, the average temperature on the planet was 4° C (7.2° F) warmer than modern temperatures. This, in turn, raised the humidity levels on the planet as well.

Now, a funny thing happened between now and then. In fact, it's happened several times: the Earth's temperature dropped, drastically, causing periods of extended glaciation over areas beyond the polar circles. We call these periods "Ice Ages", the last of which ended roughly 10,000 years ago. This leads to two simple questions.

The first is obvious, "Why did the ice age end?" The answer being that it ended because the Earth's temperature rose significantly, thereby causing the ice sheets which were covering large amounts of the northern hemisphere to melt.

The second question should then be the obvious, "What caused the Earth's temperature to rise?" The answer being that we really don't know what caused it. However, we certainly know that we can rule out human activity -- 10,000 years ago, humans had wood-fueled fire for energy, they did not have petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines or coal-fired power plants.

So, where am I going with this? I am trying to prove something that you don't hear very often, if at all, from the "global warming" movement and that is this: the Earth's climate has been changing since the planet was formed and that it will continue to change in the future, with or without the impact of humans. This runs directly counter to the rhetoric of the "global warming" movement which would have you believe that human activity is the dominant operant in climate change and that humans are currently on a path which will irreparably destroy the planet's ecosystem, thereby making life on Earth improbable at best.

Why I'm skeptical of this is simple, I just don't believe the message I'm being given because A) I don't trust the science that I'm being told justifies it, and B) it's too alarmist. To me, when you synthesize the message down to its basic point, it doesn't seem very different from "Repent, the end is near", something you hear from a lot religious movements, especially those which spread disinformation in order to not only sell their ideas but to speed up their adoption. Maybe that's why Michael Crichton wrote about the Cult of Global Warming. As such, I really feel a need to question the motivations behind the movement.

As I wrote last year, altruistic movements like saving the planet do not gain traction without there being a chance for someone to make a significant financial gain. Well, last month, the BBC (of all sources) gave me the answer I was looking for: Al Gore is a partner in a venture capital firm which invests heavily in alternative energy companies. Regardless of how Gore wants to defend his actions, the fact is that the man is lobbying governments around the world to change their energy policies and he's seeking to profit from these changes. That makes him a lobbyist. Nothing more.

So, as I said, it is about the green, just not the green they want you to think of...

Don't insult my intelligence

At some point in my life, I'm going to make the effort to walk up to a politician running for federal office and ask them to their face if they think I'm an idiot. When they they say "No" (because there's no way in hell that they'd tell a potential voter "yes, I assume all of you are mindless sheep"), I'm going to ask them why they insist on insulting my intelligence.

My point of issue today is an item of campaign literature I received from the Obama campaign. In short, it informed me that Mr. Obama has an energy plan which will help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It also informed me that the plan advocated by Mr. McCain is just out to help "big oil".

Clearly, the point of this little bit of propaganda is to link McCain to the oil industry which we're supposed to assume is evil and out to cause us (and our bank accounts) harm. What Obama and his cronies aren't telling you is where all that oil that gets imported goes. They want you to assume that all of it, every last drop, goes into energy products, be it gasoline, home heating oil, or something else. However, the truth is that it isn't the case. The proof exists in one little word.

Plastic.

Plastics are an integral part of American life. Your computer is made with plastics, so are your TV, your car, your microwave, your shoes, your coat, and your bed. Have you purchased a soft drink recently? Chances are it was sold in a plastic container. Bought a candy bar? Packaged in plastic. So are CDs and DVDs, which are, oddly enough, also made out of plastic. Your iPod is made with plastic as well as your cell phone and your digital camera. In fact, plastic is so ubiquitous that you would have to go significantly out of your way NOT to purchase things which make use of it in some way, shape, or form.

However, what too many people seem blissfully ignorant of is that the companies that make those products don't just harvest the fruits of the PVC tree or raise herds of polypropylenes, plastics are a petroleum product and you make them with oil. And the reason we make all these things out of plastic is simple: it costs less to manufacture things with plastic than metal, wood, or glass and those things last longer. Damn, there's that whole free-market economy getting in the way again.

Getting back to our villan, "big oil", the truth is that the oil industry has been pushing for ways to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil for years and that Obama's party has lead the effort to block attempts at opening potential new sources for various political reasons.

Look, I'm all for exploring our options in terms of non-fossil fuel-based energy sources. I'm waiting for the day when Home Depot and Lowes start selling photovoltaic cells that you can mount on your roof. However, I steadfastly refuse to blindly advocate this "Green Everything" agenda because it has distinct limitations. For starters, it seeks to have everything be powered by electricity. I'm sorry, but internal combustion engines just do somethings better than electric motors, such as work without wires. Not to mention that I like to cook over flame, not electrical coils.

Of course, since this is politics, I'm also curious to know who stands to benefit from Obama's energy policy?. For those who do not know, I don't buy this "global warming" crap for a minute. (More on that in another blog entry.) So, when I hear all of the comments about needing to adopt a more environmentally friendly energy approach, it really makes me want to ask "who's going to gain from all this?". The knee-jerk reaction is that it will help save the planet. Sorry, but in America, altruistic movements (like saving the planet) do not gain this much traction without there being a chance for financial gain somewhere.

The sad fact is that, if you do the research into a lot of alternative energies, you see that most of the technologies being proposed are being developed by large companies that are not part of the oil industry. Translation: big companies are still going to benefit from this governmental policy, just not the ones who have been benefiting from previous governmental policies. And I'm sure if you followed the money, you could trace those companies to the candidates espousing a green agenda. They're out for green alright, just the old-fashioned kind, not the new kind.

On the whole, I think I'd have a lot more respect for Obama's campaign had they merely sent me a little card that reads "shut up and believe everything we say, you mindless sheep". At least I'd know where I stood.

Bahhh!