I worked on a project about 25 years ago regarding CFC's and ozone depletion. We could model ozone breakdown by CFC catalysis in the laboratory but we also could model ozone creation and destruction by ultraviolet radiation and charged particles both of which come from the sun. the former was emphasized by the politicians while the latter was carefully ignored because it did not fit the political narrative.

It is axiomatic that professional politicians are unscrupulous power hungry elitists that seek power by any means available. This applies across the political spectrum and exceptions are rare indeed. It is my conviction that any politician that remains in office for more than two terms has become so corrupt that they can no longer be trusted to manage the fate of the citizenry. I know of no exceptions to this rule.

People tend to distrust science unless the scientist predicts something bad. Then, for some reason, their words are accepted as gospel. Such is the case for global warming, cooling, change, etc. While they are scoundrels politicians are not fools and they clearly see an opportunity when one presents its self. Anthropogenic Global Climate Change presents just such a juicy opportunity. The latest villain is carbon dioxide. It is true that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and as the relative molecular abundance of this gas increases in our atmosphere the black body equilibrium temperature of the Earth increases along with it. From this line of reasoning it follows that left unchallenged CO2 would eventually dominate the atmosphere and the Earth would become a boiling cauldron much like Venus where life would be impossible. This is the ultimate prediction of most of the climate change models currently in vogue. Clearly, this is an eventuality that should be avoided at all costs.

The part that the politicians and enviro-zealots avoid is that the biosphere doesn't work that way. The most aggressively opportunistic life form on the planet is vegetation. And vegetation responds with considerable enthusiasm to increases in its most important component, carbon. Even slight increases in carbon content in the atmosphere are met with dramatic and corresponding increases in vegetation growth. This process poses strict limits to CO2 increase in the atmosphere. This is left out of most of the AGW models for two reasons; it doesn't fit the political narrative and dynamic modeling on this scale is very difficult to do. And nobody believes good news from scientists anyway.

None of this is lost on those that seek arguments for increased government control over the populace. The point is that the cleanest countries on Earth are those with the greatest liberty and best technology and this presents an uncomfortable truth that the "progressives" chose to ignore. The worst polluters on the planet are those that are ruled by the very kind of governments that the AGW alarmists seek to impose everywhere. Unfortunately, that linkage is far to complex for most people to fathom so it is ignored.

I have had this AGW garbage cross my console ever since I made public this e-mail by Phil Jones, Director, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, UK:

"I've just completed [Michael Mann]'s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to the data series for the last twenty years, i.e., from 1981 onwards, and to the 1961 series for Keith[ Briffa]'s to hide the decline."

Michael Mann was then at the University of Virginia. Keith Briffa was at the time Phil Jones' assistant director.

"The journal Astronomy and Astrophysics replied that Soon’s funding is irrelevant to his scientific demonstration." Someone is still able to speak honestly!

Arguing against a scientific paper by talking abut who funded it is avoiding the content of the paper. It's a classic fallacy of "poisoning the well". It doesn't matter who funded someone if the research is accurate. It is a game of "follow the money, ignore the science".

Bravo WDonway,
Excellent article. Follow the money! It is the same old meme of the ludittes and the malthusians... Technology, people, civilization that has allowed more people to live and thrive on earth are actually destroying us all... The fact that past predictions and models have proven wrong is not to be observed.
Regards,
O.A.

"“interim under-secretary for science,” interviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education, made a rambling response but managed to get in that Dr. Soon’s research “is not the highest quality.” It was a strange pronouncement by a Smithsonian science director about one of its scientists given Dr. Soon’s 25-year association with the Smithsonian."

Welcome to the SSI, Dr Soon. You should have a chat with Dr Stadler as soon as possible if you want continued funding.

"But the Smithsonian has a problem. "
What's a little hypocrisy and fraud among colleagues?

Is Rearden Metal good?
Yes.

(Good article, WD. Thanks!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEBeF_Rz...

Readers may recall a thorough examination of the history of English wine here a few months ago – chiefly because the subject tends to come up as a contrarian climate talking point every now and again. The bottom line from that post was that the English wine industry is currently thriving and has a geographical extent and quality levels that are unprecedented in recorded history. So whether vineyards are a good proxy for climate or not, you certainly can’t use the supposed lack of present day English vineyards in any serious discussion about climate….
So along comes this quote today (promoting Fred Singer’s latest turnaround) (my emphasis):
“The Romans wrote about growing wine grapes in Britain in the first century,” says Avery, “and then it got too cold during the Dark Ages. Ancient tax records show the Britons grew their own wine grapes in the 11th century, during the Medieval Warming, and then it got too cold during the Little Ice Age. It isn’t yet warm enough for wine grapes in today’s Britain. Wine grapes are among the most accurate and sensitive indicators of temperature and they are telling us about a cycle. They also indicate that today’s warming is not unprecedented.”
- See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...

On Thursday, two groups with essentially identical psycho-epistemologies and metaphysical views of man will come together in support of acting immediately and drastically on the Climate Catastrophe idea. Joining Greenpeace and other greens will be Pope Francis with a 191-page encyclical on the environment, which urges on some billion Catholics worldwide the moral imperative of drastic action to begin shutting down the entire fossil fuel energy system. The Pope told reporters that man's technology and economic growth "slaps nature in the face."

Get ready for a huge roll-out of this encyclical, though that has been blunted by the leaking of a draft to an Italian newspaper. The encyclical directly supports drastic action at the summit in Paris at the end of this year, which will try to plan for reducing global carbon emissions. The Pope says emphatically that no half-way measures should be tolerated...

If the defenders of the Industrial Revolution had a Paul Revere, he would be riding hard, now, to arouse them to arms.

The lack of reason on climate change boggles the mind! No one among the global warming believes ever questions Al Gore's self interest and millions he makes on it. Yet, the quibble about funding for one scientist's study. Why does anyone care what GreeenPeace thinks anymore, we know they are self serving handmaidens of the UN, promoting Agenda 21, just like so many other environmental groups. None fo these leaders can allow the eco train to stop, they all stand to make too much in money and power if it continues. As to the grassroots level, did you ever hear any original thought from them, just more talking points they have learned to recite. They don't care where the temperature sensors were placed to reach the heating results, so what if a jet engine blew into it, they never question anything. They are qhat the one worlders want us all to be, blind followers.

Nice comments by all and a good read. I noticed "Scientific American" is listed in the article as one that echoed the Greenpeace stomping of Willie Soon. I used to be an avid reader and subscriber to "Scientific American", but either the late eighties or early nineties I noticed the publication taking a left political turn and it became less "scientific" and more of a leftist political shill with a "scientific" facade. That is, even within some presumably excellent scientific articles they couldn't help pushing the political agenda. I felt somewhat betrayed as a long time reader/subscriber and could no longer trust what they published as being real science. I have picked it up on the magazine rack from time to time and notice it is a skinny little rag compared to what it used to be, but the political op-ed crap is still taking ink space where real science reporting should be. Has anyone besides me noticed this? Am I somehow wrong in my assessment?

Global warming believers are the true deniers. They deny that the world’s temperatures have never changed. They deny that there have been Ice Ages. They deny that there have been inter glacial warm periods when crocodiles, elephants and lions roamed in Europe. There is plenty of evidence that Neanderthal men lived among hippopotamus, African elephant, spotted hyena, lion leopard, etc. during inter-glacial warm periods. Paleolithic plant studies have shown that global warm periods produce more rainfall and lush vegetation. The opposite is of course true of ice ages. In other words, warmer leads to more food and colder leads to less food. Do the climate change controllers think that they can keep global temperatures from changing forever? During recorded history, there have been many warm and cold periods. Vikings colonized Greenland during a warm period and had to leave 100 years later because of cold. There was a mini-ice-age during the nineteenth century. Plants rely on CO2 for growth and convert it into O2 and H2O. The climate change worriers are using several logical fallacies in their arguments. The fallacy of distraction from ignorance. Reducing CO2 emissions is not known to reduce global temperatures so it must be true. The slippery slope of increasingly unacceptable consequence is drawn, most of which are figments of someone’s imagination. The proposition is argued to be true because it is widely held to be true. The person’s character is attacked in the false dilemma that skeptics believe in a flat earth.

So 'climate deniers" are financed by industrialists
whose "vested interest" is in not being wiped out
by government? --And are not "global warming" pro
moters being financed by a power-lusting govern-
ment run by power-lusters dedicated to the des-
trucion of industry?--So which research is"taint-
ed"?--I have also read that in the days of Pas-
teur there was a "scientific consensus" against
his theory, which would have prevented the
pasteurization of milk.

But on June 13th the NY Times also published another article - an editorial supported a new view of Environmentalism: http://rationaloptimist.com/blog/eco-mod...

It used to be that Climate Skeptics could not get published at all. Now, people (and even politicians - gasp!) are beginning to turn around.

Jan

It's all model manipulation by the Greenies!

It is of no consequence that the winter weather is getting a little bit longer each year and during the height of winter a little bit colder, those in the political world will conveniently ignore it and claim it is caused by global warming anyway. There is no convincing them that they are wrong. So when there is limited summer and limited growing season and limited food supply maybe they might reconsider their position. Not a chance.

How true, as I write of the progressive's 'Forward' as moving forward to the past. It certainly is anti-progress, anti-technology and anti-science at least where the empowerment and the natural evolution of conscious human life is concerned.

Wow! Loved the article. Thanks, WDonway. Easy to understand for us unscientific types and great ammo for "discussions" with the lefties in our midst.

Please beware the temptation of buying into arguments which follow the line of "IF hypothesis A is true, THEN corporate profits will decrease in the short to medium term, THEREFORE Hypothesis A is incorrect, and the product of a left-wing conspiracy."

From an objective scientific viewpoint, we presently don't have absolute conclusive evidence to support or deny human contribution to climate change. The evidence we have at the moment is highly suggestive, but comparable to evidence of tobacco's link to cancer as it was in the 1950s - suggestive but not conclusively causal.

I just hope that by the time the evidence firms up to the satisfaction of the nay-sayers, that it isn't too late to recover some of the natural environmental beauty we once enjoyed and are at risk of losing rapidly.

I'm sure Ayn Rand would have given up smoking much earlier, and avoided her lethal lung cancer, if there had been much earlier proof of tobacco's link to cancer. She made a decision to take a personal risk with her own body, a risk which didn't pay off. She had the right to take that risk, since it only affected her own health, and her body was her property to do with as she pleased.

But when you have a global network of corporations wanting to take a similar risk with the planet, what they're affecting is far more than their own property. They're encroaching on the property rights of the global human population. No matter how far we go as indivualists/objectivists, there will still be some property in common.

Meanwhile, the green community includes some extremely pro-industry people, wanting to start a new industrial revolution based on renewable, sustainable resources. Some of today's most die-hard greenies could turn out to be the sustainability technology Hank Reardens of the future.