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Iamwhomiam wrote:Honestly, Ben, how is it possible at all for you to understand the content of the entire conversation Jones was engaged in by pulling one word out of many messages, especially without your ever having read any of the others?
Could it be at all possible that the model he had been working with would be proved inaccurate and he was hoping that that was not the case?
Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995
By JONATHAN PETRE
The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.
Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.
Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.
The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.
Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.
Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.
The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
Following the leak of the emails, Professor Jones has been accused of ‘scientific fraud’ for allegedly deliberately suppressing information and refusing to share vital data with critics.
-snip
He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998, but said these could be explained by natural phenomena whereas more recent warming could not.
He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming, although he argued this was a blip rather than the long-term trend.
And he said that the debate over whether the world could have been even warmer than now during the medieval period, when there is evidence of high temperatures in northern countries, was far from settled.
Sceptics believe there is strong evidence that the world was warmer between about 800 and 1300 AD than now because of evidence of high temperatures in northern countries. But climate change advocates have dismissed this as false or only applying to the northern part of the world.
Professor Jones departed from this consensus when he said: ‘There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia.
‘For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions. ‘Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today, then obviously the late 20th Century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm than today, then the current warmth would be unprecedented.
Sceptics said this was the first time a senior scientist working with the IPCC had admitted to the possibility that the Medieval Warming Period could have been global, and therefore the world could have been hotter then than now.
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Dr Benny Pieser, director of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, said Professor Jones’s ‘excuses’ for his failure to share data were hollow as he had shared it with colleagues and ‘mates’. He said that until all the data was released, sceptics could not test it to see if it supported the conclusions claimed by climate change advocates.
He added that the professor’s concessions over medieval warming were ‘significant’ because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled.
nordic wrote:
Well the jury is indeed NOT out as to whether global warming is happening -- the data proves that it is -- the only thing you can argue about is whether or not its being caused by man, or whether its part of a naturally occurring cycle.
I've seen data that suggests its part of a naturally occurring cycle, at the same time its difficult to believe that 300 years of burning everything we could get our hands on would not have an affect.
You do realize that burning a couple pounds of gasoline produced something like 20 pounds of CO2? Just dwell on that for a while.
nordic wrote:
Justy because the PTB want to profit from every event on earth doesn't mean that they are creating every event, whether they literally create it or create the fiction that it exists. IOW I doubt climate scientists dreamed up the idea of a carbon tax. That's not exactly their area of expertise.
nordic wrote:
My take on the hysteria we see on thgis issue is that if, say, the Pentagon's globval warming scenario turns out to be what's really gonna happen, we are so incredibly fucked that there is literally nowhere you can go, and nothing you can do, to escape it. That freaks people out to the point where a hysterical level of denial kicks in. Thus we have people who are complete dilletants presuming to draw conclusions based on what thety want to see.
nordic wrote:
Really the only thing to do is to zen out and see what happens. We're all utterly powerless to change anything -- just try changing one person, then wonder why tyou can't change society or culture. We're all along for the ride here, and only history will know.
I mean, it shouldn't be glossed over that the "solution" is anything less than global governance, or massive steps in that direction.
Freitag wrote:It's odd to me that the massive uncertainty over the existence, cause, and future severity of global warming appears less preferable to some folks than the absolute certainty of catastrophic consequences of a global bureaucracy to deal with the "problem". When did government become so capable and trustworthy? I must have missed that part.
I mean, it shouldn't be glossed over that the "solution" is anything less than global governance, or massive steps in that direction. Do people really think the result is more likely to be a Utopia than a Dystopia? Based on what, the fact that human nature has fundamentally changed, and nobody is trying to take over the world anymore? Not likely.
Once this thing is in place, there's no going back, it's permanent. Do you really think the people whose livelihoods are related to perpetuating the myth are going to take a fresh look at the data one day, and say "You know what folks? we were wrong. It looks like the sun causes climate cycles. Here's all your tax money back, and we'll dismantle the system immediately."
But they won't have to, because it's unfalsifiable, it's the ultimate open-ended problem like the War on Terror. The supposed effects of any changes would lag by so many years, there would never be any accountability. "Climate not getting any warmer? Well let's carry on taxing and regulating for a few more decades, these things take time."
I think it taps into a psychological narrative some people have, of humanity as a cancer upon the earth. I just don't understand how, with all the immediate, concrete problems humanity has, how such a horrific, globalist solution can be proposed for so something so remote and uncertain. Hell, I hope global warming is true, maybe we can avoid the next ice age.
Freitag wrote:Once this thing is in place, there's no going back, it's permanent. Do you really think the people whose livelihoods are related to perpetuating the myth are going to take a fresh look at the data one day, and say "You know what folks? we were wrong. It looks like the sun causes climate cycles. Here's all your tax money back, and we'll dismantle the system immediately.
Once this thing is in place, there's no going back, it's permanent. Do you really think the people whose livelihoods are related to perpetuating the myth are going to take a fresh look at the data one day, and say "You know what folks? we were wrong. It looks like industrial society has caused climate change. Here's your ecosystem back, and we'll dismantle the system immediately.
Saurian Tail wrote:Freitag wrote:Once this thing is in place, there's no going back, it's permanent. Do you really think the people whose livelihoods are related to perpetuating the myth are going to take a fresh look at the data one day, and say "You know what folks? we were wrong. It looks like the sun causes climate cycles. Here's all your tax money back, and we'll dismantle the system immediately.
And then there is this:Once this thing is in place, there's no going back, it's permanent. Do you really think the people whose livelihoods are related to perpetuating the myth are going to take a fresh look at the data one day, and say "You know what folks? we were wrong. It looks like industrial society has caused climate change. Here's your ecosystem back, and we'll dismantle the system immediately.
Rory wrote:The baddies here, the AGW crowd
Freitag wrote:It's odd to me that the massive uncertainty over the existence, cause, and future severity of global warming appears less preferable to some folks than the absolute certainty of catastrophic consequences of a global bureaucracy to deal with the "problem". When did government become so capable and trustworthy? I must have missed that part.
slimmouse wrote:Rory wrote:The baddies here, the AGW crowd
When you begin to understand that there are actually no more baddies than goodies on either side of this contrived debate, then I suspect we might start to get somewhere.
In the meantime, give it your best shot. Save the planet for us. But dont forget to pay that extra AGW premium.
Rory wrote:Is it just fucking money for you?
slimmouse wrote:Rory wrote:Is it just fucking money for you?
No, it just money for them as usual. My argument is that this is a contrived debate. Like most other arguments of any real importance to the masses.
Simulist wrote:Rory, I like everything you say — but "Ike pickled muppets" is, hands down, the best phrase I've read all week.
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