This report out of Copenhagen is the most important climate update statement since the IPCC report process that is now undergoing revision. The tone is alarming though I remain very confused by this because I’m more familiar than ever with the metrics and remain convinced there are no catastrophes looming.
I’ll try to read through all of this report in the hopes of figuring out why it seems to me we now have a spectacular divergence of scientific data (which does not suggest to me we should be alarmed) with scientific opinion (which seems to suggest all hell can be expected to break loose pretty soon unless we act in dramatic yet unclear ways to stem the tide of Greenhouse gas emissions).
This report is NOT to be confused with the Copenhagen Consensus, a group founded by Bjorn Lomborg and others to suggest more rational approaches to management of planetary concerns.
Update from Climate Audit, which demolishes the silly Electrical Grid Alarmism graph in this report which reflects (according to the guy who made the graph) better reporting and not more incidents. It is incomprehensible to me that respectable scientists don’t immediately disavow this kind of graphic nonsense but they will not do that anymore than disavow the nonsense of the film “An Inconvenient Truth” which largely claimed among other absurd things that Katrina was primarily a Global Warming event (it was not this according to any responsible Hurricane researcher you can possible choose), that Lake Chad was mostly a global warming event (not supportable) and that sea level rise of 20 feet was not alarmist nonsense (it is). Yes RealClimate guys, that means you! Advocacy blogs like RealClimate and Climate Progress generally moderate valid critical points while leaving in attack dog nonsense from supporters). It is sad to see advocacy muscle in on science as a respectable passion for climatologists. This is not the 12th century and it is unacceptable if you want reason to prevail in the complex challenges we face on planet earth.
Joe Duck 
Joe the entire AGW scam is about controlling people. We definitely need to be more concerned about asteroids and other natural disasters that WE KNOW are going to occur.
The best approach is for us to develop adaptation technologies that allow us to survive regardless of climate.
Recently the US Government has now classified the reporting inbound objects like comets, etc…gee why would they do that?
Can you believe that? Now they will not report to the public objects that are entering our atmosphere, etc…it is classified…
So much for transparency…
Oh my lord, relax.
Haven’t you noticed that the media and public have ignored these kinds of scare reports over the last 6 months or so? It’s because no one believes these scare studies anymore, they are so last year. And who are the authors? Almost all of them are heads of Environmental businesses or institutes or university departments. LOL! – No one believes that this report won’t be biased. Most of my Green friends feel that reports like this do more damage to their cause than good. So relax, this report will be quickly forgotten.
(2) Yeah but Ken…the White House just released a report with similar findings. So how do you expect people to relax when we have someone as our President continue to prop up the largest scam in the history of our planet…
Your rights are being trampled daily by these clowns and they want to enslave you into a process that guarantees them power and oppresses the rest of the population.
Look at health care…another outrageous scam. Once the government plan is in place what businessman is going to continue to pay for health insurance for their people…why would they? It is just another vehicle to enslave people to our government.
Now is not the time for relaxation…now is the time to stand up and be heard!!!
Again, though I am reluctant the bless the libertarians-in- tin-foil-hats, I agree the AGW hype appears to be spiraling out of control–especially since it’s mostly regional (like, Copenhagen harbor, Seattle, etc). The IPCC itself has to prove man-made C02 is the sole culprit (and even Doc Hansen suggested warming might be due to methane and other GHGs, with C02 mostly negligible). The temp data is not that reliable either. AGW has become another sort of eco-crat business, really.
(That said, I think the thread should stick to the AGW-hype issue, Glennster, and not every Democrat policy you happen to disagree with).
(4) Horatiox…if I posted on every policy I disagree with regardless of policy…it would be a full-time job!
The point however is the common theme among the policies including global warming, health care, financial regulation, cap & trade, etc…etc… the common theme is massive government control over your private life. To disregard the connection is exactly what those in government want you to do. Once you realize that every single thing the government is trying to do now is all about the biggest expansion of government control over your lives it becomes easier to just reject ALL of it.
That is exactly what needs to happen. We need to reject these plans and demand our elected officials actually create fiscally responsible solutions to the problems and not some program that increases their control and/or pays off their cronies.
No, I don’t think we can lump them all together as symptomatic of liberalism or something. The AGW claims involve verification issues, data, testing, lab reports (and as of yet no hard evidence of man-made CO2 leading to substantial warming).
We might support some Demo health care plans (Hillary’s actually superior to BO’s), even some regulations on finance/speculation, and yet take issue with the AGW hype. Grand generalizations are generally wrong–the Ad Limbaughius.
(6) Horatiox you absolutely raise a valid point about the merits of individual plans, etc.
But I don’t think we have that going on here. I agree Hillary’s idea was much better than the current one…but that is the point – why is the current plan so bad? why is cap & trade so bad? why has the White house published a climate change report with so many glaring errors?
They are ALL connected in this case and it is unfortunate that there isn’t any intellectual honesty or serious rational debate going on with these topics.
The lack of transparency between Demopublicans and republocrat politicians may be a common factor (one might say the same about nazis and stalinists). The democrats, however, seem slightly more guilty, or at least hypocritical in that regard, given their pleas for justice, Due Process, civil rights, etc..
The good ol boy GOPers may be corrupt pedazos de mierda, but they admit it (sometimes): we like torture! Demo. politicians rant and rave about torture, until someone checks their voting record and finds out they supported the same bills the hicks did (and then they lie about it).
Obama’s blocking access to the white house guest list fairly typical Demo hypocrisy. He campaigned on transparency, values, justice, and then when taking control reverts to the same ol’ same ol’.
(8) Don’t forget Bush is the one that instituted that policy of blocking the list of visitors.
Neither party really represents America anymore. They are all bought and paid for by special interests and they hide behind things like executive privilege, etc…
We need to stop voting them in office.
The Patriot Act, etc…Ben Franklin warned us all about it…
“Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin
Glenn I don’t agree at all that this is a scam and Asteroids are hardly a more relevant concern – do the math!
Yet Anthropogenic Global Warming claims have become increasingly alarmist even as the data supporting Human caused GW shows 1) we have much less to worry about from AGW compared to other concerns like nuclear proliferation, major terror acts, health risks, human poverty, militarization of the globe, water issues, trade disparities, etc 2) There’s not much to do about AGW even if it’s as bad as advertised by alarmists. The damage is now “baked into the system” so I’m not clear how even large scale reducing of emmissions will do more than delay the inevitable by – literally – a few months or years at best.
If one chooses to believe the alarmists and thinks catastrophic change predicted by “An Inconvenient Truth” and Jim Hansen is coming soon I think the best course is to take a stress pill and begin work on engineering solutions rather than fretting over past emissions and the Quixotic tasks of curtailing CO2 in China (now the global leader in GHCs) and other countries, let alone our own.
OK Glenn, here are your best odds: 1 in 909,000 for an Extinction Level Event Asteriod impact. I have to admit that’s not quite as low as I’d have thought, but “one in a million” means I’ll sleep OK knowing about this. Also, you have to admit it would be a pretty cool way to go, and all our concerns over so many things would be gone in a flash….
BOOOOOOOOM!
http://space.about.com/cs/asteroids/a/2003qq47impacta.htm
(10) Joe…you are looking at this like it is an odds game.
Here are the facts…
1) Asteroids have, are and will continue to hit our planet – it is scientific fact
2) Climate change, has, is and will happen to our planet – this is also scientific fact
The point is this…no matter what we do to prevent asteroid collisions with our planet will most likely increase our chances of survival and it won’t have any impact on our lives in the process.
However if we get the climate change formulas wrong and we institute these insane plans and get it wrong we literally could wipe out the entire planet from a rapid shift where we have no time to respond.
The solution to climate change is continued study and a strong investment into technologies that will allow us to adapt. For example the same technology we would develop to live on Mars would be a perfect example of something we should be seriously developing here.
But there is a problem with the solutions that actually make sense – there is NO WAY to use it to control people…lol.
No one doubts that if we get the climate change policies wrong it will make our situation worse. So why in the world would anyone with half a brain actually support this?
One one hand you have a government sponsored organization headed by an economist (IPCC) telling us the world is going to end and then on the hand you have an organization of over 34,000 scientists led by two very distinguished climatologists telling us that the IPCC is bunk, the White House is bunk…
Yet with even that people still decide to believe a politically motivated organization or science. That is why the AGW efforts of the IPCC and the White House amount to nothing more than a scam.
(11) The asteroid example was to prove the point that we know it is going to happen 100% certain and yet we won’t spend any money on that including an extinction event and yet we have guesswork regarding climate change we are willing to radically give up our freedoms and hard-earned money for what? Something that we are not certain about?…do that math Joe…If you were going to invest into something…wouldn’t you rather invest in something that was 100%.
(10) Also Joe you know it is a scam for one fact…
China is being exempted from all the cap & trade, etc we are talking about…if this situation were so dire and China is the #1 cause…don’t you think we should be able to convince the world to force China to change?
BTW…I agree on the nuclear proliferation, poverty, etc…however it isn’t our job to make sure the entire world has a roof over their heads – OMG – I can see it now…CRA International!!!!
Glenn I just think Asteroid ELE prevention is not a good counter to the alarmism of AGW – it’s the same type of reasoning that suggests we should worry and spend on *highly unlikely* catastrophic events even as we are threatened with dozens of real catastrophes in health, poverty, terrorism, economy every single day. If your car engine is on fire it’s best to put off changing the oil.
Interesting – I did not realize the current ear is considered by many to be a mass extinction era. I’ve heard concerns about the role of global warming in this – need to study more:
WikiPedia:
# Holocene extinction event – nearly 70% of biologists view the present era as part of a mass extinction event, possibly one of the fastest ever, according to a 1998 survey by the American Museum of Natural History.,[4] Some, such as E. O. Wilson of Harvard University, predict that humanity’s destruction of the biosphere could cause the extinction of half of all species in the next 100 years. Research and conservation efforts, such as the IUCN’s annual “Red List” of threatened species, all point to an ongoing period of enhanced extinction, though some offer much lower rates and hence longer time scales before the onset of catastrophic damage. The extinction of many megafauna near the end of the most recent ice age is also sometimes considered part of the Holocene extinction event.[5] Some paleontologists, however, question whether the available data support a comparison with mass extinctions in the past.[6]
These people are out of control…just out of control.
http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/conor_clarke/2009/06/how_progressive_is_cap_and_trade.php
How is this change working out for ya?
Did you know that 85% of the tax revenue collected from cap & trade is going right back to out to special interest groups?
This is the largest tax increase in the history of this country and it is also the most inefficient tax ever devised.
AND NO MEDIA OUTLET IS EXPOSING THIS!!!
This stuff is what is going to lead us to civil war, etc…people like Waxman should be investigated…additionally Gore is fully lined up to start yet another derivatives market off these carbon credits…it is a complete and total scam.
UNBELIEVABLE…
Gee shocker…the world is finally waking up to the Al Gore Global Scam to make him the first green billionaire. He is as bad as Maddoff.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html
Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.
If you haven’t heard of this politician, it’s because he’s a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country’s carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
The tyranny grows…on the eve of the Waxman criminal climate bill…the EPA suppresses a damning report that contradicts the endangerment position. Gee shocker – but what can you expect from a bunch of dishonest people ruining our country.
REPRESENTATIVE JOE BARTON (R-TEX.): Well, good afternoon. I’m Congressman Joe Barton the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and we’re here today on a very serious matter.
We have the Obama administration, which was put into office on the pledge and the promise of openness and transparency and full disclosure and a new change in government. And one of their biggest issues is the issue of climate change and whether we should move a massive reorganization of our entire economy because of CO2 emissions.
In order to move forward, the EPA administrator had to find an endangerment finding, which is a legal term meaning the EPA administrator had to declare that there was an endangerment to human health, and, therefore, we needed to regulate this substance — in this case, CO2.
There is a group within the EPA that’s tasked with doing some of the economic and environmental analysis. And a career scientist in that group prepared an extensive report, close to 100 pages in length, in which he found that there were very serious concerns about going forward with the finding of endangerment. And that’s the substance of this press conference, is how that report was suppressed, censored, prevented from going through the review process.
More proof we are letting insane people make decisions that screw the rest of us…
THE green movement’s greatest triumph – the abolition of ozone-destroying CFC gases in the 1980s – may become its biggest embarrassment because of research showing that their replacements are sharply accelerating global warming.
CFC, or chlorofluorocarbon, gases were widely deployed in air-conditioning and refrigeration units before they were found to destroy the ozone layer and banned under the 1987 Montreal protocol.
They were replaced by HFCs – hydrofluorocarbons – gases that have far less effect on ozone but have since been revealed as extremely powerful greenhouse gases.
A ton of HFC23 used in refrigeration has the same global warming potential as 14,800 . tons of CO2 A ton of HFC-134a, widely used in vehicle air-conditioning units, is equivalent to 1,430 tons of CO2. The problem has been increased by the rising demand for refrigeration and air-conditioning because of economic expansion and population growth in Asia.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6544745.ece
The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin’s report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.
“He came out with the truth. They don’t want the truth at the EPA,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, a global warming skeptic, told FOX News, saying he’s ordered an investigation. “We’re going to expose it.”
The controversy comes after the House of Representatives passed a landmark bill to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, one that Inhofe said will be “dead on arrival” in the Senate despite President Obama’s energy adviser voicing confidence in the measure.
According to internal e-mails that have been made public by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Carlin’s boss told him in March that his material would not be incorporated into a broader EPA finding and ordered Carlin to stop working on the climate change issue. The draft EPA finding released in April lists six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, that the EPA says threaten public health and welfare.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/29/gop-senator-calls-inquiry-supressed-climate-change-report/