I have no expertise in environmental science, and have never made an intensive study. I realise that what I write here is so simple as to be taught to a six year old. But there is a reason I write it.
I am however trained as a historian. That mankind has changed the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is indubitable from a moment’s consideration of the evidence.
Early man lived in an earth covered by vast forest. Cultivation brought a cutting down of forest for clearings. Industrial development brought a cutting down of forests for fuel and raw material. We know this for certain because the process continued into historic times, and has never stopped but simply spread into lesser developed parts of the world, and because of the unlimited numbers of tree throws discovered by archaeologists in areas of prehistoric settlement.
The burning of the trees released carbon dioxide, but this process was greatly accelerated by the industrial revolution, where the start of intensive use of fossil fuels released the stored carbon dioxide of millennia. At the same time, of course, the destruction of the forests reduced the capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and replenish oxygen.
The Earth is big, but not that big. I’ve been round it a few times. The incredible scale is of human activity. It is impossible for an honest rational man to believe that the destruction of the forests and burning of fossile fuels on an ever accelerating scale has not had an effect on the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is of course not the only pollutant involved.
Now I do not claim to understand the complex science of the interaction between man made atmospheric change and the natural processes of climate change. But plainly, as we change the atmosphere it is going to have some effect on the movement of gases and vapours within the atmosphere, which we call weather, and might perfectly well affect the extent to which the atmosphere absorbs or reflects energy from the sun.
I doubt that the processes are fully understood. But the argument seems to me unanswerable that mankind should seek to minimise its effect on the environment that bred us, for obvious reasons of self preservation.
We should also seek to reduce the astonishing rate at which we squander non-renewable resources. I view most of the opposition to the Copenhagen process as missing the point entirely – be it from the ultra-rich fossil fuels lobbies, scientific dissidents [I don’t despise them; all accepted science was once dissidence, including global warming], those who think anything agreed by governments must be a plot against us, or those who just want to keep on personally enjoying the fruits of untramelled consumption. The point they miss entirely is that we should stop polluting anyway.
I can’t say I fully support the Copenhagen process because it is too timid, the “cuts” offered by the US are derisory, and the oil producers should also be paying much more to the developing world. Carbon trading and its derivatives show we have still, despite the banking collapse. not learnt that inventive greed is not the best motivator.
But thirty years ago I never thought we would have this much agreement by governments to an environmental agenda. The broad direction is better, and Copenhagen must succeed to keep the dynamic going.
Craig. Is this a topic which you would ever change your mind on?
I would change my mind on anything given physical evidence I was wrong. But the physical evidence of man’s historic interrelation with forests and fossil fuels appears irrefutable. So any argument we should just keep on polluting is not going to wash with me.
Craig, it is nice to see a sensible post on this topic.
There is surely a need to separate the ‘man made’ argument (which may well be deeply flawed) from the fact that we don’t actually want to live in a dustbin of our own making.
Regardless of the science, should we not aspire to hand a better planet to our children?
If the sceptics are right then we should guard against this being just another excuse to find new and exciting ways to part us from our money while they expand airports and suggest a 60% increase in air travel is just fine.
The messages are mixed and confused but even if they were not then we are surely reaping what we sow. Trust in government has been eroded to an awful extent by illegal wars (and associated lies), the demand that we “trust the scientists” when that only applies when the scientist says what the minister wants… (Prof Nutt, anyone?), the manipulation of statistics accross the board, the banking crisis after a declaration of an end to boom and bust.
The situation is desperate simply because of the lies of politicians over the course of at least 30 years.
If Mr Brown told me the sun would rise tomorrow then I would feel compelled to check – and until that is not the case then, quite frankly, they are pissing in the wind expecting to take the public with them on the Global Warming argument.
And that is a tragedy as our children deserve better regardless.
of course we should try and stop polluting. It might also be a good idea to reduce co2 output, but how much effort we put in to that goal is where the argument lies.
If MMGW is an insignificant portion of a naturally occurring warming trend, then spending trillions of dollars on reducing co2 output at the cost of lower living standards and lower food production would be a very stupid thing to do.
How can we judge? By open scientific debate, not doctoring data and perverting the usual course of scientific discourse.
I am slightly suspicious of anything that is strongly backed by powerful lobbies(especially when one of those lobbyists is a Tory non-dom billionaire’s son).
Having said that,I agree with your article.But I totally disagree with any carbon tax the government may wish to slap on us,given that they are spending 25 billion on Trident,which goes totally against the environment and which nobody wants,anyway.
Copenhagen is not about “pollution”, everyone can agree on that point.
Copenhagen is about using the arrogant assumption that we can alter the planets climate as a cover for a global government body with tax raising powers that can force countries to do their bidding on any subject with a tenuous environmental link (pretty much everything). This language is in the draft treaty, read it.
PS. Name one peer reviewed scientific paper with empirical evidence that co2 causes major warming in the atmosphere. Good luck with that.
Paul
I have no idea if it causes warming in the atmosphere. But it plainly does something in the atmosphere, we have destroyed a vast percentage of the organisms that recycle it, and it seems to me prudent to keep that amosphere as close as possible to the one that caused us to evolve.
Paul, are you prepared to explain your children that your lack of support was due to non existent peer reviews of scientific facts that stare us in the face?
Even the most uneducated plod trodder who has no understanding of science, but worked all his life in the fields has felt the changes that were caused by our irresponsible and vast polluting.
people who have children will feel different to those who do not, their responsibilities make for a more urgent concern than those who want to carry on having their cake.
I have given up flying and haven’t owned a car since 1989, a good year fro giving up smoking ,walls and driving cars in a chaotic system that is full of ‘individuals’ all wanting to aspire to their motoring dreams.
We have had the chance and knowledge to reduce our impact for many decades, but shunned it, called the proponents all sorts of names under the sun, now its dawning on us all that something is array, now, that we are forced to change, we don’t like it up us, regardless of the islands disappearing under the sea, regardless of Bangladesh’s millions soon to be made homeless in need for a country to take them in.
I welcome the end of using bricks and mortar, high energy processes must be revaluated and change adopted, fast. Sea defences will need precautionary investment and coupled with green energy schemes, but it is a permissive duty only, no Government has ever had any ‘duty’ to undertake sea defences and look after our homes, well not until this year when the Government in a fit of pre election fever, gave a few millions to those who are to loose their homes, but nothing to alleviate the rising tides.
What would it mean to take the emphasis out of fighting each other and concentrating on helping each other for a change. I know that its going to be pants for the arms dealers and likes of BAE, they can start building sea current generators or build dykes for all I care, the best thing they’d ever did.
Copenhagen should have happened onlin, not as a jolly, some 35 accredited BBC journo’s attend to. They should have talked this over long before it came to the final decision, why this fuelling about when we have the technology to do different? Thing is its never been done on that scale and not everyone has the terchnical knowhow to press a button when its their turn. Further, there would be less excuse for dangerous liasions away from home, eh, eh.
best project to start this year is desertec, have a google its fantastic and I cannot understand why we are obliging criminal oligarchs for their oil and gas, schmooze the french to build us ten nuclear power stations, when alternative energies are staring us in the face, all around our coastline, the largest capacity for alternative energies in Europe.
How could this Government not be part of desertec? a question that ought to be asked continuously.
“But the physical evidence of man’s historic interrelation with forests and fossil fuels appears irrefutable.”
What, you mean like clearing jungle to grow palm oil plantations and other bio-fuel crops so that the oil companies can meet their ‘green’ quotas? All for no reason as these quotas are based on bogus science and are simply cynical greenwashing.
CO2 is not a pollutant, at its present and foreseeable levels – its well below the level for optimal plant growth. The amount of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere is tiny. CO2 levels have been rising slowly and steadily but not correlated with rapid industrialisation. There are plenty of real pollutants out there on which to wage war.
Climategate clearly shows that this man-made global warming scare has been an exercise in ‘Post-Normal Science’ and that is no science at all.
Its not about climate or pollution its about duping a large part of the democratic world into giving up freedoms and taxes in order to create another step towards a world government.
The “I don’t trust the government – they are only trying to con us into paying more taxes” line is absurd on its face, given that governments have been reluctantly dragged into accepting climate change exists, and would far prefer token measures than anything that might make voters unhappy (increasing taxes, fuel costs, and most of all, slowing the economy).
It is not a coincidence that the loudest of these “sceptics” just happen to be funded by multinationals with huge interests in keeping fuel consumption up, public transport down, and basically getting us to live in a highly expensive and inefficient way. As the old saying goes, you’re not going to get a man to see a point when his pay-cheque depends on _not_ seeing that point.
The media is chiefly to blame – we accept scientific consensus on all important areas of life (how to keep planes in the air, how to stop reactors from melting down etc.), yet the science of climate change apparently all comes down to “opinion”. The media insists that as there are two points of view, the truth has to be between those points somewhere.
So you have evidence based science, peer reviewed conclusions and a massive consensus that climate change is real, and must be urgently addressed on one hand. On the other, there are “sceptics” who – naturally – have no time at all for the precautionary principle. So as long as this “debate” keeps going, it’s Business As Usual.
James G Watt, Reagan’s interior minister, utterly rejected any concern for the environment on the grounds that the Baby Jesus would return at any moment and make all things new again, so what was the point? And of course, those who think the world is 4000 years old, that astronomy is a hoax, that Jesus rode around on dinosaurs and they might be raptured up to heaven at any moment have an equally valid view, which can sit besides that of thousands of peer reviewed climatologists in this exciting “debate”.
What do these “sceptics” say? That there is no climate change. And even if there is, it’s nothing to do with us. And if it is to do with us, we can’t do anything about it. And even if we could, maybe global warming is no bad thing. Just keep talking, misinforming and “debating” while nothing at all is done, except carry of Business As Usual. We are doomed.
As i see it what these politicians will be driving for is for a certain subset of the population to suffer cutbacks and restrictions in fossil fuel use while privileged others can continue as before. i.e. China and other ‘developing’ nations and the establishment and their ilk; did you know the dignitaries arrived at the summit in hundreds of limos and multiple private planes?
What global warming? For the past few years mean global temperatures have been steadily falling. There is clearly something deeply flawed in the hypothesis of the “greenhouse effect”. No wonder those scientists at the UEA had to falsify the data to keep their grants.
The sceptics do not deny climate change, but they believe it is mostly due to natural cycles in solar activity. Historical evidence of climate change found in tree rings and polar ice seem to confirm this.
Global cooling is a far greater threat to mankind than warming because crop yields fall dramatically. Back in the eighteenth century the astronomer Herschel first noted the relationship between sunspot activity and the price of bread.
Maybe it’s to do with CO2. The “icebox effect” perhaps.
The elephant in the room is population. It’s impossible to listen to politicians and civil servants arguing the increasingly elaborate issues of global warming dogma, without realising how many of those issues would go away if we had a reasonable human population.
With a moderate population level, most of the problems disappear – or at the very least become fairly easily manageable. With uncontrolled population growth – which we have at present (and have always had) it doesn’t matter how much we deny ourselves – it will just make room for the next few billion people to be crowbarred in.
Of course someone will pipe up to say, “That’s not constructive! We already have the given population, and we have to start from where we are today!” That’s true, but it’s also true that ignoring the nature of the problem for political reasons is not the best approach to solving it.
Regrettably, it doesn’t seem at all likely that most of today’s governments will be able to influence their national population levels at all. The Chinese have done so with outstanding success, and all they have got for it has been wall-to-wall abuse and chatter about human rights. I very much doubt if even our pseudo-democratic regimes would be able to stand a fraction of the hatred that they would incur by asking people to control their desires for large families.
Nevertheless, in today’s situation two children should be the maximum for every family. (And no cheating – such as starting a new family and having yet more children).
Good article. There are already many economics essays on how to accurately cost externalities and develop a realistic pricing structure for such goods. This cap and trade thing though is contemptable, mendacious, illiterate bollox.
The excellent EU blogger details how the Corus closure is utter shite
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/12/money-for-old-carbon.html
And all because Lord Mandleson has a photo of Gordon Brown in a nappy – unbelievable and yet so tragically mundane.
Readers might like to check out http://www.realclimate.org/ for views from some actual climate scientists, and some debunking of the regular distortions that prevent meaningful discussion on this issue.
I’m puzzled that MJ thinks that global temperatures are falling. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8400905.stm “This decade warmest on record” according to the UK Met Office and the World Meteorological Organization.
Do yourself a favour and read http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/ and then ponder on how much you trust the people in Copenhagen to do right by you.
A separate point on the conspiracy theory that scientists are all in it together to keep their research grants:
1) Getting scientists to agree on anything is like herding cats; it’s an astonishingly implausible scenario in the first place.
2) You can apply this argument to any and all research, i.e. you are essentially claiming that anyone who is a specialist in any topic cannot be trusted
3) Any scientist who managed to disprove man-made global warming would almost certainly win a Nobel prize. The pressure to conform is not the only pressure.
There’s an interesting view on global warning: that, just as the body heats up to better defend itself against a viral attack, so, as an organism, might the planet be heating to defend itself against us, as we behave like pathogens toward our host.
“As humans become an increasing menace, can the Earth try to defend itself? Absolutely, and in several ways. Number one is climate change, also known as global warming. When a disease organism infects a human being, for example, one of the defense mechanisms our body deploys is the elevation of its own temperature. This rise in temperature not only inhibits the growth of the infecting pathogen, but also greatly enhances the disease fighting capability within the body. Global warming may be the Earth’s way of inducing a fever – as a reaction to human pollution of the atmosphere and human over-consumption of fossil fuels.”
http://weblife.org/humanure/chapter1.html
David: the clue is in the convenient use of “decade” as the reference period. Global temperatures peaked in 1998-2002, since when there has been mild year-on-year cooling. Because the earlier peak was quite high, it still enables a statistician to proclaim it the warmest decade, while obscuring the trend of the latter half of that decade.
A useful and balanced article that also goes into the thorny issue of how temperatures are measured can be found here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14504
I was a tree hugger when it wasn’t fashionable, but recently I’ve found myself placed in the sceptic camp for very unscientific reasons. One being the degree of abuse dished out from such as the Guardian website. There is a sad predictability to any discussion on the issue, it is impossible to raise doubts, concerns, or differences of opinion without being subject to abuse, to the point where some people begin to engage in violent fantasies.
The environmental camp disturbs me, self righteous, intolerant, and blind to anything that runs counter to their world view, proclaiming ever more dramatic scenarios, blithely forgetting past predictions that proved false. Convinced they are right about everything, yet in my experience often reluctant to make any inconvenient changes themselves. A simple, if trite example, I live in Tokyo, we do not have air conditioning at home by choice, I have yet to hear of another foreigner here who makes that sacrifice, yet I hear many preach global warming at great length.
Craig. Now that we’ve established your mind is open to change on evidence then a debate may be fruitful.
I’m an anthropogenic global warming (AGW) sceptic – so you know where I’m coming from.
First off you are confusing CO2 with pollution. CO2 isn’t a pollutant. If you believe it is, then please provide toxicity data. You won’t find any. You might find a risk factor of burning yourself on or being squashed by a big block of cardice, but you won’t find any meaningful toxicity data, and CO2 isn’t a pollutant because liar Obama pushes for legislation to label it so.
I’m certainly not going to say we should keep on polluting. I abhor pollution. Sadly pro-AGW’s rarely talk about pollution, allowing CO2 to take the limelight. I’m certainly not going to say we shouldn’t preserve our forests, neither am I going to say we shouldn’t be a lot more wise in our use of finite fossil fuels.
So please, don’t be like so many pro-AGW’ers and erecting straw men and/or putting words into the mouth of sceptics.
A rational debate is needed.
The earth shows many signs of working in a dynamic equilibrium, and that equilibrium, exhibits in many cases, the property of a buffer system. That is, additions or subtractions can be made which perturb the equilibrium. After the equilibrium shifts to restore the equilibrium – the effect is the change applied to the system has little or no effect. Think: shock absorber.
The buffering effect of the vast oceans and plant life seems as valid a focal point – if not a better one than the simple model you described. These two elements provide the mechanism by which the buffer operates (and the equilibrium adjusts). You also neglected the most powerful physical body within about 4 light years i.e. the sun from your model.
Re: buffer: If there is more CO2 in the atmosphere (as there probably is – something like 330 parts per million these days +/-) then the increased CO2 can be taken up by plant growth at a greater rate than if air concentration was low. The same goes for the oceans. Le Chatelier’s principle describes that phenomenon. In physics electromagnet coils show a similar effect.
Yes, I do believe we have cut down HUGE numbers of trees – especially in the tropic regions, but the boreal forests (also huge yet nearly always ignored ?” not as trendy as virgin tropical forest) plus other plant life lumped in with the oceans could well provide a substantial buffering effect.
Remember also CO2 levels were apparently much higher in the past than they were today. The Medieval warm period and the Holocene maximum. Those elevated levels of CO2 reduced over time. The CO2 was neither made by man nor was it cut by cap and trade. The Polar bears seemed to have survived those two events.
Re: Cap and trade. does anyone seriously think this (or ANY) such system won’t be at the mercy of the already rich and powerful nations to maintain that relative status.
As for data. Although the subject is very ‘dry’, I really advise you to read the excellent wattsupwiththat website. at http://wattsupwiththat.com/ They and others suggest the temperature has declined over the last 9 years. It is said the statistically adjusted data producing the now infamous ‘hockey stick’ graph was manipulated. It is said you can run the simulation yourself and feed random data into it and low and behold… it’s hockey time!
I don’t have any data and I wouldn’t have the time to assess it myself even if I did. I am dealing with second hand stuff here – as you are too. But it seems to me that the pro-AGW is not just so unproven that at the moment, but that it doesn’t hold water.
And the worst of all outcomes is if the baseless CO2 scare causes a shift to Nuclear energy. That is what must be avoided at all costs.
I very much believe (even though past failures riddled with corruption have made the idea untrendy) that we should be using hydrocarbons to help manufacture sustainable energy generation projects for societies use, not necessarily commercial industry. I quite like some ideas mentioned in the venus project http://www.thevenusproject.com/
If the reality is that AGW is wrong and it benefits of the oil companies then I really regret that, but I’m not going to fool my own intuition here just so that it will be bad against the oil companies.
I’m of the opinion any AGW is swamped and undetectable by the sun, ocean and remaining plant life.
cheers.
There’s a good examination of the content and significance of the material hacked from Hadley at tinyurl.com/yzzxvyt
Some detailed analysis of some of the code is here http://www.jgc.org/blog/ concluding:
“The ‘very artificial correction’ flap looks like much ado about nothing to me ” and “this looks OK to me and not like a conspiracy.”
This confirms my own impression on a quick read through, however there remains a strong impression that the code and the databases are, or at one time were, a dog’s breakfast. Pity, but then I never believed that the climate scientists could win this argument anyway. How do you build an ark for a doomed planet?
@ ingo.
Didn’t Bangladesh flood before industrialisation? There simply isn’t unambiguous data to show CO2 causes global warming. In fact if you look aback at the history of the earth whenever a time line shows a peak of maximum CO2 something caused that peak to end and consume CO2. And it must be said again lets worry about the REAL pollutants. Nuclear waste, sewage, pharmaceuticals, chemical waste, oil spillage, CO2 is the least of our worries.
@ glenn
“governments have been reluctantly dragged into accepting climate change exists” – so it’s not because we haven’t been tenderised into accepting them?
2) they haven’t fully worked out
When your living in mud huts, 3 guesses what the elite
a) in a mud hut also
b) ploughing the fields with oxen
c) 35,000ft up at Mach 2 sipping champagne celebrating the fact that the easily exploited oil reserves have somehow been preserved for their exclusive use.
Don’t get me wrong. I really sincerely applaud every change/struggle anyone have made in the cause of environmentalism, but lets just this once have the elite setting the example for the rest of us to follow.
The inaccuracies of the common tales about “climate change” are deliberate and yet another source of bamboozling obfuscation of the facts that affects everyone.
1- considering that “fossil fuel” is a misnomer and a redundant term that is allowed to persists, further adding to the current confusion. This notion of “rock oil” (petroleum), explained away as the result of “fossils turning to oil, which are then used as fuel”, clearly pointing to the abundance of life and a very busy planet sustaining a massive population of all manner of animals living and thriving, and their subsequent deaths, that eventually has produced so much oil, that is used in the manner that it has been for the last century, and by the looks of it for the foreseeable future, as the only serious alternative for energy needs of human societies.
2- The forwarded point in “one”; fly in the face of the Malthusian misfits whose fear of a healthy competition drives these to issue a culling order among the population of the competitors, so that these weakling misfit Malthusian operators, can have an easier ride with the left over scant population and or find the need for the intensity of the competition is abated.
3- So far in human history we find that humanity has been postulating; “earth is flat”, and; “earth is the centre of the universe”, as well as the countless other assertions and assumptions, born out of the valour of ignorance, which yields a particularly weird and boundless strain of arrogance, which is then tapped into by the usual brigades of snake oil salesmen.
To believe that “climate change” is caused by humanity is an absurd and somewhat arrogant notion that is promoted and established as a “known fact” (alongside the rest of the known facts) which is in aid of introduction of a new layer of taxation, evidently the more precious the resources and expensive commodities will result in the lesser use of the resource and commodities, which in turn will ensure the abundant availability of the resources, and or commodities for those whom can afford these, whilst discouraging others whom cannot afford these by doing without the concerned resources and commodities.
Hence as ever the scam artists setting up the rules and regulations to favour these, whilst depriving the rest of the herd (masses) from using such precious resources and commodities. Furthermore, the atonement for the sins of humanity, leaves the charlatans and expense scroungers, holding onto their retainers from the scam artists whom funded the rise of these to their positions of the aldermen, and law givers.
Hence, fact that the extortionate prices charged for energy, for heating and lighting, and the inordinate costs of these basic necessities are then overshadowed by the guilt of “climate change”, hence the ever richer energy companies, and ever more cold and miserable herd (masses).
Thinking about the “climate change”, other than the wind mill technology (very visible, very expensive and very useless), what else has been forwarded as the alternative other than yea olde abstinence? Therefore whilst the herd are to abstain from using energy, the brigade of the snake oil salesmen and their sponsors jet around the globe to meet, and greet and come up with new methods of depriving the herd from the fruits of their labour, through trumped up and hitherto unknown taxes. The opening pitch of a “five percent tax” has already been floated, however as yet there remains the application of this tax that is as yet undisclosed.
The above position, shall be the accepted wisdom in ten years hence, however up until then, the taxes are collected, and the developing world is held back, and the oil spigots are manned by the imperialists, whose sole preoccupation of trying to stay ahead of the pack of the great unwashed compels these Malthusian operatives to resort to evermore evil methods and path of greater destruction.
MJ: “the clue is in the convenient use of “decade” as the reference period. Global temperatures peaked in 1998-2002, since when there has been mild year-on-year cooling.”
If you’d read the linked article you’d know 2009 was the fifth warmest year since records began 160 years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8400905.stm
As global temperatures will always vary over the short term (El Nino, La Nina, varying Earth-Sun distances) looking at multi-year averages is the only way to discern long term changes. The Met Office’s graph is pretty clear.
@ amk
what data is the BBC using amk ???
amk: that article appears to be part of the rearguard firefighting offensive to take the heat off the CRU revelations. It draws on newly-released data from the CRU (sure I’ve heard of them someplace) the Met Office (Prop: the MOD) and NASA (Never A Straight Answer).
One of the most interesting things about the article I linked to by Dr. David Evans is that he shows how changes in the methods of collecting data over the past few years have resulted in changes in findings, which can then be cherry-picked.
It’s not partisan, he doesn’t take sides, but he does provide some useful background info to help the layman negotiate the statistical minefield. Highly recommended. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14504
lwtc247, its not the rising CO2 lecvels I am worried about but the vast amounts of methane hydrates and land locked methane that is/and will continue to escape, lifetime of methane in the athmosphere, middle and upper layers due to its weight, is 7 years.
methane is the much greater greenhouse gas, some 30 times greater than CO2.
These changes according to the british Antarctic survey are proof enough of our impact and a rise to 2deg. above that before the industrial age will be an indicator of our impact.
Another indicator are the southern thermohaline conveyor belt that shifts tand exchanges cold and warmer waters around the Antarctic. At depth of a 1000 feet it has slowed down considerably, pointing to an intervall change or a failure of the system, meaning that the upper watrer layers must slowly increase in temperature, they do.
Then there is our own Gulf stream, it as well has slowed down indicating the vast amounts of non saline glacial meltwaters that have added to the volume of water in the North Atlantic, the warmer water do not sink anymore as it is the salinity that makes them sink, again an interuption in the system due to increase temperatures.
Should you not like the data set of the CRU or the met office, which has one of the most accurate temperature records available, there are other sets of data who have arrived at the same point, ignorance of the problem at this vital point in time, even if precaution is something that abhors people, cannot be afforded, hence the shrill noises from the green perspectives.
I also find the Guardian rott, its good for a fart or two and be off.
NWO paranoid fantasies are silly. Politicians do not voluntarily give up their own power to a higher body, in secret or otherwise. They are particularly silly when applied to NASA, whose scientists (e.g. Hansen) were strongly disagreeing with the denialist oil men Bushies.
The CRU emails do not provide evidence that the CRU falsified data.
I have a post stuck in moderation: all the world’s most prestigious scientific bodies endorse AGW theory. To accuse them of all being part of a conspiracy is utterly insane.
“What global warming? For the past few years mean global temperatures have been steadily falling.”
What’s your source for this? Are you relying on sources you are also disparaging?