‘Climategate’ Won’t Sink Copenhagen…This Will
In the week leading up to the Copenhagen climate change conference, skeptics and political opponents are seizing on the emails leaked from the Climate Research Unit in an attempt to short circuit global action on carbon emission reductions. Given that COP-15 is a conference that brings together lead CLIMATE NEGOTIATORS from around the world, it is unlikely that all this noise on the “climate change racket” will have a discernable impact on what kind of agreement emerges.
Alas, Copenhagen is destined for a spot near the top of the ever-lengthening 2009 squandered opportunities list, but it will not because of efforts by climate change deniers who have nary a seat at the negotiating table. Sure, opponents may be able to queer domestic adoption of any deal that comes out of Copenhagen, but that fact was never in doubt — even before Climategate.
So, why will a compromise deal inevitably emerge before the need to compromise is present? Why is it that even with the world’s most passionate climate change honks all together in one room, the world still will not agree on collective action that takes us much beyond Kyoto?
Answers are found in these three persistent, irresolvable conflicts among those parties that are at the table:
Green In-Fighting - Is clean coal legitimate or a lark? Should we subsidize solar? If we do, can Chinese-fabricated PV claim the cash? Questions like these continue to dog greens in US legislation.
When the House passes a climate bill that is opposed by Greenpeace, that is all the evidence one needs to illustrate the fissures that have deepened in the clean energy and conservation communities. With no consensus, the US never got the comprehensive climate change bill that everyone insisted was a necessary prerequisite to Copenhagen - IF President Obama wanted to claim a credible mantle of leadership.
Those divisions only broaden on the global scale. There remains very public disagreement on the growth and sharing of civil nuclear technology. Other differences informed by national interest will mark the discussions and hamstring any chance of adopting hard targets that are actually backed by unified global strategies on renewable generation.
Developed versus Developing - China and India have mouths to feed - more every day. And, increasingly, those traditionally agrarian, subsistence economies are not only becoming energy-intensive manufacturing and service economies, but their citizens are expecting a higher quality of life. To deny these growing economies the chance to blossom is both hypocritical of the West and unrealistic, since reducing emissions in Asia would stagnate Western economies that rely on consumption of goods produced there.
China, India and others also argue that the West owes a “debt of pollution” that should be paid not only by reducing their own emissions, but also by directing resources to fund developing world emission reduction efforts. Proposals call for aid to come in the form of cash and transfer of emergent technologies. An extension of either is really politically palatable on a large scale for the US.
At What Cost? - One of the more compelling storiesthat will inevitably emerge in the mainstream media from the Copenhagen conference is that of Maldives. The tiny nation - an archipelago barely above sea level - not only faces cataclysmic consequences if global warming persists, it faces the possibility of total annihalation in the next century. While nations have been conquered and carved up throughout history, changing names and changing shapes frequently even in the years since World War II, humankind has never had a sovereign nation wiped off of the map. For Maldives, the question of Copenhagen is: “at what cost do we delay bold action on climate change?”
Maldives may have a compelling story, but it will not have much influence in Copenhagen. Ultimately, whatever agreement emerges will be the work of large countries that are only beginning to feel the hurt of climate change. Rich Western nations, emerging industrial countries in the former Eastern Bloc and Africa, and booming economies throughout Asia. If one of these countries were looking at climate change impacts manifest so vividly, there might be movement; but, for now, they are left to ponder ”at what cost to growth and consumer prices can we justify bold action on climate change?”
Not Enough ‘Energy’ in the ‘Environment’
“Climategate” will fade from the front pages — the emails won’t mean much once COP-15 gets underway. And, knowing that they are going home to face certain opposition from some factions anyway, you might think that delegates would show up in Copenhagen prepared to do something splashy. Especially given that much of the action needed will be undertaken at the national level, the more progressive states should be pushing for an agreement that will give them good aspirational benchmarking for domestic legislation, even if they know it cannot get ratified back home by some other attendees.
But, neither Western European noblesse oblige nor US self-interest (take your pick: green jobs, national security, environment) will be enough to overcome the competing interests that will confound consensus even among the climate change evangelists assembled in Copenhagen. And, from uncertainty follows inertia. It is not a hopeful holiday sentiment, but it is a realistic one. And, without some action soon, Christmas may not come to Maldives at all.
It is understandable that many people have latched on to the emails, but in their defense the people at CRU indicate that the emails are ‘without context’ or somehow ‘normal banter’ in a scientific institution.
The program code however is different.
It is the actual program code, the modeling code that contains the most damaging evidence. I am not talking about the ‘comments’ in the code but rather the actual computer program source code itself.
Unlike comments and emails the computer code can only be interpreted in one way. Unlike the comments and the emails the computer code is whole unto it self and requires no external context.
So now everyone has the code.
However now CRU have somehow ‘lost’ the world’s raw climate data that they used in their modeling.
It may have been necessary for them to have lost the raw temperature data. If the raw temperature data was available then they might be asked to reproduce Exactly The Same Results, in front of skeptical witnesses, as they had used in their peer-reviewed publications that were distributed to the world. This might have been impossible without using some infected modeling code, which an investigating scientist might discover.
If the results can not be reproduced the paper that used the results should be withdrawn. Then every paper that cited that paper, and so on until the whole web of pseudo-science that can be traced back to the original fabrication has been purged from the libraries
It is not scientific unless an independent body can reproduce the results.
For information on the possible code infection see:
Anthropogenic Global Warming Virus Alert.
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i64103
“In the IPCC scenarios, the Maldives were condemned
to disappear in the sea in the near future (e.g. Hoffman et al., 1983; IPCC, 2001). Our documentation of actual field evidence contradicts this hypothesis.”
“In the region of the Maldives, a general fall of sea
level occurred some 30 years ago. The origin of this
sea level fall is likely to be an increased evaporation over the central Indian Ocean linked to an intensification of the NE-monsoon.”
N.-A. Morner et al. “New perspectives for the future of the Maldives” Global and Planetary Change 40 (2004) 177–182
Furthermore, there seems no longer to be any reasons to condemn the Maldives to become flooded in the near future.
Besides, at about 1000–800 BP, the people of the Maldives survived a higher sea level by about
50–60 cm.”
I’ll say this, some of you who have bought into AGW have done a very good job of minimizing the biggest swindle in recent history. It’s a big deal that the data you guys use to justify your entire belief in AGW is flawed and yet you persist in the belief. This is every bit as bad as the religious zealotry that your ilk tends to look down your noses at. Enjoy your hypocrisy and failure to divine truth.
I previously posted this comment but hit “submit” before I was finished. Would you be so kind as to post this comment instead? Many thanks.
I don’t know whether Copenhagen will sink for any of the reasons you cite or not.
But even if it does sink, the evidence shows that the Maldives will not sink with it:
N.-A. Morner et al. “New perspectives for the future of the Maldives” Global and Planetary Change 40 (2004) 177–182
“In the IPCC scenarios, the Maldives were condemned to disappear in the sea in the near future (e.g. Hoffman et al., 1983; IPCC, 2001). Our documentation of actual field evidence contradicts this hypothesis.”
“In the region of the Maldives, a general fall of sea level occurred some 30 years ago. The origin of this sea level fall is likely to be an increased evaporation over the central Indian Ocean linked to an intensification of the NE-monsoon.”
Furthermore, there seems no longer to be any reasons to condemn the Maldives to become flooded in the near future.
Besides, at about 1000–800 BP, the people of the Maldives survived a higher sea level by about 50–60 cm.”
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/MornerEtAl2004.pdf
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The falsification of data and the conspiracy to commit same etc, constitutes serious criminal activity. Further, the granting of public funds for research warrants a federal investigation. I’m hoping the perpetrators, including possibly Professor Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Centre and a regular contributor to the popular climate science blog Real Climate, and their facilitators will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows. — Michael Santomauro
Mr Walsh, my guess is you haven’t thought critically about anything in decades. You thump your chest in defense of the poor Maldives and then ignore the freedoms of your own nation.
By the way, PROVE TO ME the Maldives are in danger. Oh that’s right, it can’t be proven. The original data has been destroyed and the conclusions are suspect. So, I guess it’s trust us…
I, however, would prefer some repeatable scientific evidence prior to enacting measures with potentially massive economic and political ramifications.
No matter how the warmers spin this there will be hell to pay for the falsifiers of data. They will see the inside of a court room and a jail before this is over. We are angry and we want justice!
Origin of the term Climategate:
See post from Bulldust (15:52:36) :
Hmmm how long before this is dubbed ClimateGate?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/#comment-227351
CLIMATEGATE will not go away
Without credible proxy data indicating historic warming during solar activity was not more than post industrial warming, there is no tie at all between CO and warming. Warming may or may not occur (it hasn’t the last ten years while the sun has been quieter) however, the ‘debt’ disappears entirely.
Climategate will not fade and any legitimate scientist will want to get to the bottom of how much of the circular case for man made global warming has been undermined by the lack of credibility exposed by Climategate.