“Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.”
“Consensus: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?”
Before getting into details, some very basic questions on the topic answered briefly:
1- Who are the chief actors?
- Pro AGW actors will herein be known as ‘alarmists.’
- Con AGW actors will herein be known as ‘doubters.’ ‘Deniers’ is seen as derogatory and has been replaced in the mainstream media (MSM.) Skeptics is still prefered by some.
2- Is the global climate changing?
Yes. It always has and it will continue to do so. This is why there have been ice ages.
3- Is this change due to human activity?
No. (see question 4, below) The sun is the primary determinant of climate as this is where the planet gets almost all its energy.
4- Does human activity contribute to warming or cooling trends?
Otherwise stated, is anthropogenic global warming or anthropogenic climate change (AGW or AGCC) a legitimate concept? On the face of it, probably not, but if it is, the effect is truly minimal. The rub here is whether or not we consider geo-engineering (besides a slight mention, geo-engineering is not a substantial part of this article) as part of this equation? If so, the effect would be to increase the amount of influence man has on his environment, although very slightly. In which direction, though, is still not known.
5- Is CO2 pollution or plant food?
CO2 is most definitely not pollution by any definition of the word. Conflation between carbon monoxide (CO – which is pollution) and carbon dioxide (CO2 – which is plant food) and basic scientific ignorance seem to be at fault here. See this article for disambiguation.
6- Does the economy have an effect on the science?
Just as with politics, when money is introduced into a problem, it tends to aggravate the situation by bringing up new problems. The economy affects everything. Governments need revenue to fund research and address issues. Corporations need investors in order to continue doing business. Universities and think-tanks need government (and private) money to continue their research. Magazines, journals, and publishing houses need advertising revenue to continue to publish. Scientists need money to support their families. There are many points along this chain in which to introduce money as a corruptive factor. Money can indeed influence science, and has.
7- Does politics control policy, or do the facts?
It would seem that there is an agenda at work behind the question. The IPCC (the UN’s main deliberative body on climate change) was, at its inception, created with a mandate. The IPCC is a political body and not a scientific one and was created with specific goals and objectives to attain. Their own literature attests to this fact. Scientists who participate with the IPCC do so as consultants and advisors only. Motions put forth by the UN are written by lawyers, bureaucrats, translators, and policy-makers, not scientists.
8- Is there bias in the debate?
Both sides of this question are subject to biases (scroll down to the comments section where professor Brown references these biases) when reporting on the data. Everybody who works in this field has a horse in the race, so to speak, and everybody wants their horse to come out ahead. However, there are several documented instances of outright fraud concerning manipulated data which all seem to come from one side of the table in particular – the alarmist side. (More on this later) And yes, many people on the internet lie or are mis-informed, on both sides.
9- How much carbon dioxide is there in our atmosphere?
400 ppm = 0.04% That is to say that four one-hundredths of one percent of our atmosphere is composed of carbon dioxide.
Some basic facts about CO2 concentrations:
- 70,000-100,000 ppm (unconsciousness within an hour)
- 7000-8000 ppm (earth’s historic high)
- 5000 ppm (US Occupational CO2 exposure limits – 8 hrs.)
- 3000-4000 ppm (poorly ventilated indoor spaces)
- 2000-2500 ppm (well ventilated indoor spaces)
- 2000-2500 ppm (Jurassic era levels)
- 800-4000 ppm (optimal greenhouse targets)
- 360 – 410 ppm (earth’s atmosphere today)
- 250 ppm (earth’s historic low)
- 200 ppm (IPCC target level)
- 150 ppm (level under which plants start to die)
- 0 ppm (where Bill Gates wants it)
If you only click one link in this entire article, make it the following:
Start at the 20:00 mark if you don’t have much time. In this video, Lord Christopher Monckton lays bare the language of the agreements reached at several climate summits demonstrating the true intent behind these schemes. He then goes on to suggest some very positive actions which we all can take in order to guarantee legitimacy and transparency in these international tribunals governed by non-elected bodies accountable only to their own interests. With the COP-21 United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris quickly upon us (November 30 to December 11, 2015) there is precious little time to act.
Let’s put an end to global war
Continue reading “Climate Change – Conservancy Or Governance?”