Climate Justice Clips: Archbishop Rowan Williams on 'Fashioning a Christian Response' to the Climate Crisis

Shouldn't a Christian response involve requiring both sides to tell the truth? We haven't gotten that from the CO2phobes, as evidenced by the CRU emails.

PS, a story on the Bloomberg web site says the Copenhagen conference is failing fast.

"The moon is made of green cheese. Scientific measurements have now confirmed that a level of fermentation detected at the moon's surface is consistent with that of a cheese culture acting on raw milk. Furthermore, spectroscopic analysis of the light reflected from the surface of the moon now shows conclusively that the wavelength measurements are consistent with the "green" portion of the spectrum band, even though previous observation had suggested something closer to gray. Clearly, those who still maintain that the moon is made of gray rock (and, of all things, they're now claiming, ice!!) will have to throw in the towel and admit their error."

Do you wonder if you can believe all this? Check the footnotes. What? There aren't any? Oh well, everyone knows those scientists pushing the "moon as gray rock" theory were only in it for the money. Weren't they?

The above roughly encapsulates my reaction to the Spectator article cited by fundamentalist. Given the repeated demands of climate skeptics for facts and data, it seems like it would have been a good idea for the author to have provided at least some kind of support for the assertions he makes.

Otherwise, one might be inclined to think that some of those assertions were less than well informed. For example:

"

"What's your point? That civilization couldn't exist in warmer temps."

That's not what I said. It didn't *arise* in warmer temps, and there's no guarantee it can survive in them either.

"We're doing it now!"

See above.

"Besides, you're referring to recorded history, not human civilization."

They're roughly the same thing. Once civilization arose, people started recording history.

How about some data to support the extraordinary claim that the 1930s were hotter than the 1990s? Show me where the data are.

Remember, I *want* to be convinced. I don't want to believe in global warming. Nothing you've said so far has helped, and your referring to me as a "carbon-phobe" is offensive. That's not the way to get people to agree with you.

"There is no indication that CO2 is harmful to life. In fact, it causes plants to flourish because it is a fertilizer. Anyway, the author's point was that CO2 has fluctuated wildly without human activity."

True, C02 causes plant life to flourish. However, too much C02 is harmful to all life. Because we've dug up all this carbon over the last 250 years and pumped it into this atmosphere, the plant life and oceans, which absorb C02 from the atmosphere, have reached the limits of the amount they can absorb. This problem is compounded by the fact that we're deforesting many parts of the world, especially the rain forests, which used to be really good at carbon sequestering. The result is that we're overwhelming the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, giving it no place to go. So it stays in the atmosphere and accumulates.

Don't forget that all of this carbon from fossil fuels had been buried and was out of circulation for a very, very long time. That's why we call them fossil fuels, after all. We're putting all this carbon back into the earth's carbon cycle that hasn't been there for a very long time. Once again, that means we're overwhelming the earth's capacity to absorb it.

During most of human history before the Industrial Revolution began in the early 1700s, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had not fluctuated all that much. Estimates are that we've poured half a trillion tons into the atmosphere over the years of the Industrial Age, much of that in the last 40 years. Think about that. Half a trillion tons. You and I can't even begin imagining how much that is.

Anothernonymous,

So, you want citations supporting a warmer MWP? I'm glad to oblige. First of all, you can play around a bit with the interactive map here which shows the results of about 40 peer-reviewed proxy studies from around the world:

http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalW...

You can then see many of the references here:

http://www.science-skeptical.de/skeptische-lite...

In fact, Craig Idso has compiled a list of peer-reviewed paleoclimatic proxy studies which quantitatively compare the differences in temperature between the Current Warm Period (CWP) and the MWP. He has plotted the results here:

http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/quantitative...

If you add all the columns, you will find that of the 58 studies cited, 51 show MWP temperatures as warm or warmer than the CWP. There are only 7 studies that suggest that the MWP was cooler than present. It is also especially noteworthy that all of these studies have been published since MBH 98 (the original hockey stick study), which means that these scientists are sticking their necks out, going against the "consensus" view that the MWP was cooler, or localized to the North Atlantic regions. These studies incontrovertibly demonstrate that the MWP was indeed global in extent.

Now, what is the significance of a warmer MWP? It is not that humans can survive quite happily in warmer temperatures (though we know that, historically, civilization flourished during the WMP compared to the previous cooler era, e.g. the Dark Ages). Rather, the critical point is that the MWP had to have completely natural causes. There were no SUV's or coal-burning plants at that time. There were natural factors at work which the modern "scientific consensus" on AGW cannot explain.

I am not going to repeat all that I wrote on Countdown to Copenhagen - Day 6, which you can view here:

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/12/02/climate-justice...

But the fact of the matter is that the empirical evidence for CO2-derived atmospheric warming is extremely scant. And thus there is no basis for confidence that the CWP can be attributed to human-sourced CO2. This is what the published, peer-reviewed science is telling us.

The thing is, just because the climate was warmer earlier in Earth history for reasons unrelated to human activity, it does not in any way prove that the current warming is not related to human activity. There are many, many reasons climate has changed throughout Earth history, and several of those changes happened for different reasons, including the arrangement of continental plates, increased volcanic and plate tectonic activity, and meteorite impact.

This may not be a good analogy, but it's late, and it's all I can come up with. Say you were late for work two months ago because your alarm clock didn't go off. Then you were late last week because of traffic. Yesterday you were late because your kid was sick and you had to stay with her until the babysitter arrived. It wouldn't be very logical for your boss to say "I don't believe that your kid was sick, because last time you were late it was because you were caught in traffic." There can be many reasons you are late for work, but none of those excludes any future reason for being late.

Does climate change naturally? Absolutely. Does that mean this current change isn't due to human interactions? Not at all.

"So, you want citations supporting a warmer MWP?"

That's not what I said. You misread my question. I asked for citations showing that the 1930s were warmer than the 1990s. As for the MWP, I'll second everything Squeaky said.

Yes, you are absolutely correct that you cannot conclude that since the earth warmed naturally in the past that you can't claim that the current warming isn't caused by human activity. But by the same token, you can't claim that it is.

You see, the so-called "consensus" scientists are only able to make their case for future catastrophic warming based upon the assumption that the current warming is unprecedented. That's why the hockey stick was so important, and that's why they still try to maintain that the MWP was only moderately warm and localized to the North Atlantic regions only in spite of the peer-reviewed evidence.

As I show in Day 6, there is no empirical evidence to support high atmospheric sensitivity to CO2. Rather, the paleoclimatic record shows that global temperature is quite insensitive to CO2 concentrations, quite the opposite of what the GCM's programmed by the "experts" are telling us. Where is the proof that current warming is due to CO2? You can ask 1000 climatologists for the answer, and none of them will be able to provide it for you.

The 1930s were the hottest decade on record in the USA, though not the world, as admitted by NASA GISS:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen...

However, this acknowledgment only came after Steve McIntyre of climateaudit.org found a flaw in NASA's temperature adjustment algorithm. This finding also showed that:

OK, I took the time to follow the links at http://www.science-skeptical.de/skeptische-lite..., which lead to abstracts and/or full texts of the articles cited. Here is a sample of what I found. Each quote below summarizes a large section of one of the articles, and in several cases represents its main conclusion.

"The 1930s were the hottest decade on record in the USA, though not the world, as admitted by NASA GISS:"

In Hansen's own words, in fact (from the link RobTam provided):

"How can the absence of clear climate change in the United States be reconciled with continued reports of record global temperature? Part of the "answer" is that U.S. climate has been following a different course than global climate, at least so far. Figure 1 compares the temperature history in the U.S. and the world for the past 120 years. The U.S. has warmed during the past century, but the warming hardly exceeds year-to-year variability. Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934. Global temperature, in contrast, had passed 1930s values by 1980 and the world has warmed at a remarkable rate over the last 25 years."

To which I will add that the famous "dust bowl" of the 1930s was not due primarily to high temperatures but to the complete destruction of native prairie grasses that for centuries had kept the plains from eroding.

When I have time I will spend take a closer look at the climate audit site. My first impression, though, is that it was created by an individual with a significant axe to grind, and that one doesn't need a sophisticated understanding of statistics and mathematics to see that this is the case.

The articles are as much of an exhaustive list of paleoclimate proxy studies as the compilers are able to prepare. Yes, there are perhaps thousands of papers on the topic of "climate change," but the list of paleoclimate papers is much more limited.

There are a number of very high profile reconstructions though, that show CWP warmer than MWP. However, the authors of these papers are largely the ones caught up the in Climategate scandals, in which their "tricks" are now being exposed.

Have you asked 1000 climatologists? Or even just one?

I don't think it is so much that it is unprecedented in scope as it is unprecedented in what is interpreted as the cause--massive input of CO2 that was locked away for millions of years while simultaneously removing massive tracts of C sinks (aka rainforests). I'd be interested in evidence that supports the hypothesis that this imbalance in the C cycle could not possibly have serious repercussions.

What do you mean no empirical evidence? Are you saying CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas?

By the way, I gave you a point, not because I agree with you, but because I would like to commend you for the respectful tone of your posts. I haven't read everything you have written on this site, but what I have read is in stark contrast to others here who call into question the findings of climate science. From you, I haven't seen the name-calling, disrespectful scoffing that characterizes so many. Thank you for keeping it respectful and intelligent.

Steve McIntyre definitely has a significant axe to grind. But it is not a political ax. In fact, he studiously and steadfastly prohibits any discussion of politics or policy on his blog. If you so much as hint at an issue of policy, you are snipped so fast that your nose will bleed. Right now, the word 'Copenhagen' is effectively banned.

Steve's ax is about the transparency and the integrity of the scientific process that currently underlies the body of climate change understanding. He has been pressing for years for full disclosure of data and methods to allow independent third party verification of the conclusions of climate science that are promulgated by the IPCC and their advocates. For years he has repeatedly been refused access to so much of the data that forms the current "consensus". Only once you realize the efforts that he has put in, do you begin to understand the significance of the Climategate letters.

Most of the recent posts are pretty non-technical, since much discussion has been about Climategate issues. However, if you browse through the archives a bit, you'll understand what I mean by sophisticated mathematics and statistics.

And for what it's worth, Steve has let down his political guard on a few occasions. Though Canadian, he describes himself as a Bill Clinton Democrat. And on the day after Obama was elected, he suspended normal blog policy and wrote an entry suggesting that this was a good thing for the US and the world. Granted, most of his readers didn't quite see it the same way.

squeaky,

Thanks for the point. I offer one to you in response for promoting a genuine discussion.

For what it's worth, I abhor the way that what should be legitimate scientific debate is too often marred by political rhetoric and personal attack. I follow SOJO because I support Jim's efforts to seek justice for the poor and disenfranchised in the world, and to seek peace in keeping with the teachings of the Prince of Peace. But I happen to disagree on the significance of AGW, and the policy prescriptions that are currently being debated in Copenhagen. I believe that they will ultimately do more harm than good.

As for your comments, I raise the issue of 1000 climatologists because there is no one who can provide "proof" that the current warming is primarily due to CO2. This is a function of the scientific process, because to actually prove it, you would need to create a functionally equivalent physical model of the earth and conduct an experiment on it by a controlled increase in CO2. Computer models can never substitute for a physical model, and the results of the modeling cannot be used to "prove" anything. At best, computer model results are just more data that need to be verified by the scientific method.

When I talk about empirical evidence, I mean actual measured results that show that in a complex, coupled, non-linear system like the earth's atmosphere, that when you add a greenhouse gas such as CO2, the radiative forcing increases significantly accordingly, which eventually, left unchecked, results in runaway global warming. The closest that we have to such evidence is the Vostok ice cores that Al Gore made famous in AIT. I won't repeat in detail what I already described in Day 6, but what that ice core record shows is that CO2 follows temperature (contrary to what Mr. Gore implies), and that this demonstrates that CO2 forcing is quite weak (see Day 6 for my detailed explanation).

So, I don't deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. But what I am saying is that the available evidence suggests that it is a weak climate forcing whose strength is apparently strongly attenuated by negative rather than positive climatic feedbacks.

Intersting post! Thanks! Of course you know that because these guys are not in the "consensus" they will be dismissed by the carbon-phobes as cranks in the pay of oil companies. Somehow scientists such as these you cite are not considered climate scientists by the "consensus." If you disagree with the "consensus" you're not a scientist. You might want to check out this summary of the evidence from non-consensus scientists, too: http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/16/the-gr...

Check out the article in Wikipedia called the Carbon Cycle. The chart is from NASA. Compare the human contributions to atmospheric carbon to the contributions by nature. Humans contribute 2.6%.

Then McIntyre is to be commended. If I read you correctly, RobTam, you are still undecided on this issue, and that is commendable as well.

What bothers me about the so-called debate on global warming is that it appears to be almost entirely political. Those who claim to be "skeptics" are almost without exception free-market economists, who clearly don't like the very idea of man-made global warming, and are willing to grasp at any straw to call it into question. I don't doubt that there is a reflexive instinct among liberals to fight back in kind, although I still believe those who claim that AGW exists and is a serious threat have the weight of the evidence on their side.

What I wish the "skeptics" would realize is that they aren't convincing anybody with their stridency and name-calling. What they are doing is making their opponents angry, determined, and far less likely to listen to rational arguments, should such be advanced.

I will second Squeaky's vote of thanks to you for taking a less militant, more rational tone.

Really? All you have for evidence is a Wiki article and an article from a heavily biased source?

It doesn't take a very large percentage to overwhelm a system that would be in balance without the strain of additional inputs that it cannot absorb.

I couldn't agree with you more. It is the politicized nature of this debate that is most discouraging to me. I cringe when I read the anti-liberal comments that regularly appear on skeptical blogs. And I cringe when I hear the accusation that hard-working, honest scientists are shills for the oil and coal industry. Let's get beyond the name-calling on both sides, ignore the Sarah Palin's and Al Gore's of this world, and allow a legitimate and transparent scientific process establish what is really happening in our atmosphere.