Greenpeace Founder: Why I am a Climate Change Skeptic!

[jackovesk]

Patrick Moore
Dr. Patrick Moore is the co-founder, chair, and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies, a... (read full bio)

March 20, 2015

[Editor’s Note: Patrick Moore, Ph.D., has been a leader in international environmentalism for more than 40 years. He cofounded Greenpeace and currently serves as chair of Allow Golden Rice. Moore received the 2014 Speaks Truth to Power Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, July 8, in Las Vegas. Watch his presentation about this piece at the video player to the left.]

I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of this hypothesis, yet we are told “the debate is over” and “the science is settled.”

My skepticism begins with the believers’ certainty they can predict the global climate with a computer model. The entire basis for the doomsday climate change scenario is the hypothesis increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to unlivable temperatures.

In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.

The idea it would be catastrophic if carbon dioxide were to increase and average global temperature were to rise a few degrees is preposterous.

Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced for the umpteenth time we are doomed unless we reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to zero. Effectively this means either reducing the population to zero, or going back 10,000 years before humans began clearing forests for agriculture. This proposed cure is far worse than adapting to a warmer world, if it actually comes about.

IPCC Conflict of Interest

By its constitution, the IPCC has a hopeless conflict of interest. Its mandate is to consider only the human causes of global warming, not the many natural causes changing the climate for billions of years. We don’t understand the natural causes of climate change any more than we know if humans are part of the cause at present. If the IPCC did not find humans were the cause of warming, or if it found warming would be more positive than negative, there would be no need for the IPCC under its present mandate. To survive, it must find on the side of the apocalypse.

The IPCC should either have its mandate expanded to include all causes of climate change, or it should be dismantled.

Political Powerhouse

Climate change has become a powerful political force for many reasons. First, it is universal; we are told everything on Earth is threatened. Second, it invokes the two most powerful human motivators: fear and guilt. We fear driving our car will kill our grandchildren, and we feel guilty for doing it.

Third, there is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites that support the climate “narrative.” Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; science institutions raise billions in grants, create whole new departments, and stoke a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; business wants to look green, and get huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as wind farms and solar arrays. Fourth, the Left sees climate change as a perfect means to redistribute wealth from industrial countries to the developing world and the UN bureaucracy.

So we are told carbon dioxide is a “toxic” “pollutant” that must be curtailed, when in fact it is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, gas and the most important food for life on earth. Without carbon dioxide above 150 parts per million, all plants would die.

Human Emissions Saved Planet

Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

We have no proof increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the earth’s slight warming over the past 300 years. There has been no significant warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted. Carbon dioxide is vital for life on Earth and plants would like more of it. Which should we emphasize to our children?

Celebrate Carbon Dioxide

The IPCC’s followers have given us a vision of a world dying because of carbon-dioxide emissions. I say the Earth would be a lot deader with no carbon dioxide, and more of it will be a very positive factor in feeding the world. Let’s celebrate carbon dioxide.

Patrick Moore (pmoore@allowgoldenricenow.org) was a cofounder and leader of Greenpeace for 15 years. He is now chair and spokesman for Allow Golden Rice.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=NtcNjoDe5Pg

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-...change-skeptic

[jackovesk]

and this...

Why my own Royal Society is wrong on climate change: A devastating critique of world's leading scientific organisation by one of its Fellows

• The Royal Society's motto is 'Nullius in verba' or don't take another's word
• It is the world's first scientific organisation in the world
• Prof Michael Kelly fears that on climate change, it is ignoring the science
• He accuses the organisation of becoming dogmatic about climate change

By Professor Michael Kelly For The Mail On Sunday

Published: 10:37 EST, 15 March 2015 | Updated: 11:14 EST, 15 March 2015

Professor Michael Kelly, pictured, was one of 43 Fellows of the Royal Society who wrote to the president to warn that it was in danger of violating its founding principle...

Five years ago, I was one of 43 Fellows of the Royal Society – the first and arguably still the most prestigious scientific organisation in the world – who wrote to our then-president about its approach to climate change. We warned that the Society was in danger of violating its founding principle, summed up in its famous motto ‘Nullius in verba’ – or ‘Don’t take another’s word for it; check it out for yourself’.

The reason for our warning was a Society document which stated breezily: ‘If you don’t believe in climate change you are using one of the following [eight] misleading arguments.’

The implication was clear: the Society seemed to be saying there was no longer room for meaningful debate about the claim that the world is warming dangerously because of human activity, because the science behind this was ‘settled’.

We hoped we would persuade the Society to rethink this position. That document was revised so that the uncertainty involved in trying to model the climate was admitted. But since then the Society has become more, not less dogmatic – despite the fact that since we sent that letter, it has become evident that there is even more uncertainty than previously thought. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have continued to rise, but since 1998 there has been no statistically significant rise in global temperatures at all.

This flies in the face of the confident predictions made by nearly all the climate computer models that the temperature would continue to rise as it did from 1975 to 1998. More than 60 different explanations have been proposed to explain why this ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ has happened, and their sheer number is the clearest evidence that the system that climate scientists are seeking to model is irreducibly complex. Human-sourced carbon dioxide is at best one of many factors in causing climate change, and humility in front of this complexity is the appropriate stance.

Yet the Society continues to produce a stream of reports which reveal little sign of this. The latest example is the pre-Christmas booklet A Short Guide To Climate Science. Last year also saw the joint publication with the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of Climate Change: Evidence And Causes, and a report called Resilience. Through these documents, the Society has lent its name to claims – such as trends towards increasing extreme weather and climate casualties – that simply do not match real-world facts.

Both the joint report with the NAS and the Short Guide answer 20 questions on temperatures, sea-level rises and ocean acidification. But a report today by the academic council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which includes several Society Fellows and other eminent scientists, states the Society has ‘left out’ parts of the science, so the answers to many of the questions ought to be different.

I have personal experience of this selectivity. Last year, at the request of the president, I produced a paper that urged the Society’s council to distance itself from the levels of certainty being expressed about future warming.

I said it ought at least to have a ‘plan B’ if the pause should last much longer, so calling the models into still more serious question. I got a polite brush-off.


Prof Kelly said the Royal Society, pictured, was founded on the principle ‘Nullius in verba’ – or ‘Don’t take another’s word for it; check it out for yourself'



Professor Kelly fears the Royal Society has become more dogmatic when considering climate change

The great 20th Century physicist, Richard Feynman, wrote in his autobiography: ‘Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can – if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong – to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it.’ This the Royal Society has failed to do.

The reason for this lack of nuance seems to be that policymakers say they want ‘scientific certainty’. As an engineer, I find that amazing: we remain legally liable for what we say professionally, so will always qualify our statements. But the misleading lack of qualification in the statements made by the Royal Society and others is creating policy nonsense.

The Climate Change Act requires the UK to cut its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050 – at mind-boggling cost. Generating electricity from windmills has contributed to electricity prices increasing by twice the level of inflation over the last decade, with further huge rises to fund renewable energy to come. Aluminium production is highly sensitive to energy prices, and most of the UK smelters have closed down – helping us reduce UK emissions, but also exporting jobs.



He claimed the commitment to slash CO2 levels by 80 percent from their 1990 levels by 2050 is mind-boggling

No one describes the consequence: we now import that aluminium from China, leading to CO2 emissions from shipping it here. Worse, most electricity in China is produced by coal, not gas, as in the UK. We are exacerbating the original global problem of global CO2 emissions, yet also pointing fingers at the Chinese. We really are leading the world in climate change hypocrisy.

The project to ‘solve the climate change problem’ is a modern version of the biblical Tower of Babel. We do not know how much the project will cost, when it will have been completed, nor what success will look like.

During my time as a government departmental Chief Scientific Adviser, I was always aware that politicians made the final decision on any issue on the balance of all the evidence. For this reason, civil servants are trained to draw their attention to all the upsides and downsides of taking a particular course of action.

Those who fail to provide balance are not giving advice, but lobbying. It is with the deepest regret that I must now state that this is the role which has been adopted by the Royal Society. And when scientists abandon neutral inquiry for lobbying, they jeopardise their purpose and integrity.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL KELLY IS THE PRINCE PHILIP PROFESSOR OF TECHNOLOGY AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY AND FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-Fellows.html

[rgray222]

Those who fail to provide balance are not giving advice, but lobbying. It is with the deepest regret that I must now state that this is the role which has been adopted by the Royal Society. And when scientists abandon neutral inquiry for lobbying, they jeopardise their purpose and integrity.

Politicians have intentionally made the issue of global warming/climate change very confusing. They are forcing people to choose sides...............when you see type of behavior by politicians and supported by the mainstream media it is a very clear indication that there is a great deal of deception going on.

[yelik]

All Royal societies are controlled by the illuminati / Reptilian Queen

[Snoweagle]

Posted by rgray222 (here)

Those who fail to provide balance are not giving advice, but lobbying. It is with the deepest regret that I must now state that this is the role which has been adopted by the Royal Society. And when scientists abandon neutral inquiry for lobbying, they jeopardise their purpose and integrity.

Politicians have intentionally made the issue of global warming/climate change very confusing. They are forcing people to choose sides...............when you see type of behavior by politicians and supported by the mainstream media it is a very clear indication that there is a great deal of deception going on.

Absolutely. They are using paid shills to promote their case but they will not engage in any sort of public debate. In fact, you the reader, see if you are able to find any debate between the promoters and the dissenters of climate change.

Here's an example, where Professor Roy Spencer is invited to the studio to debate climate change and the TV channel was unable to find any promoter willing to discuss in debate with him, as the promoters argued, and you have heard this before, they do want to give any credibility to the dissenters in such joinder.
In fact, they did have a promoter agree to be televised in the studio, only if Roy Spencer, was not on camera at the same time as the promoter. Now this is where it really becomes interesting, the promoter was a scum bag scientist Gavin Schmidt from NASA, it's well worth hearing his drivel and diatribe on climate change and the need for debate, do enjoy.
It's not just the politicians that are telling lies. NASA scumbags IMO.
NASA scientist scared to debate climate change with a real scientist

[Snoweagle]

Posted by yelik (here)
All Royal societies are controlled by the illuminati / Reptilian Queen

Absolutely. They are controlled out of Switzerland by an elite group who steer world politics from behind financial structures as Davos and the plethora of others. World wide Royalty all answer to this same group. The purpose of Royalty is to be figure heads of the financial scam, with the Royal courtiers being religions, corporations and governments all controlled by this group of illuminated ones.

In light hearted mood, Lord Christopher Monkton at IPCCC9, making fun of the climate change debate with serious and veiled warnings of those that seek to control the lives of the population of the planet with dire consequences should scam be endorsed, which thankfully is not currently likely. The next official meet of the UNs IPCC Conference will be held in Paris in 2015.

Anyways, an enjoyable presentation by Lord Christopher Monkton, enjoy:
Lord Christopher Monkton, 3rd Viscount of Brenchley discusses the climate change scam in Las Vegas 2014

[Earthlink]

You know, someone who I don't think knows very much in the first place told me once that anthropomorphic global warming was not a good topic to discuss here in this forum.

Guess not.

I'm glad, actually, that you mentioned this, for, every assertion, especially false ones, deserve a rebuttal.

Or not.

Maybe I just need practice lining up pictures and words, so that I can better myself at making posts here.

Either way, here goes:

If I was in control of ... Exxon Mobil, or any other such "use once and discard to the atmosphere" natural resource extraction and sales company such as this, I could easily get anyone to say whatever I wanted them to, but that will never mean that what they say is correct or accurate.

They are making and have made quite a mess here, and truly do have much to cover up, especially what they have done to the sky.

And if you're an astute one, why?!?! would you take anyone else's word on something such as this, especially when it is so easy to just confirm or deny it yourself?

The second picture below here is one ton of CO2. 27 feet by 27 feet by 27 feet. It may be easier to convert all the numbers to metric before doing any calculations yourself, and even those conversions are not but a click away with todays technology, so, there really should be nothing preventing one from doing this them self.

All you need as your primary base number to work with, is how much sky is there? Well, just figure out the area of the circle that is our planet, and then do another calculation of another circle that has a diameter 20 km longer, and then just subtract the area of the planet from the larger area, and the remainder is just the sky.

Inside this sky, there are hot gasses being released, by the consumption of fossil fuels, mostly oil, and this should be the brunt of your research: what is the effect of these hot gasses, if any? How much of these hot gasses are there being released, and, should you be concerned?

I'm not going to do this math for anyone ever again, and I've already done it for myself, so, that is why you may assume that I speak with confidence on this and that I am not confused on this issue, so, for this reason I believe you shouldn't take any one else's word, and simply verify or deny this on your own.

I will tell you some of my conclusions though, and then if you come up with different findings by doing calculations yourself, well, we'd have a topic for discussion then, wouldn't we?

So: that cube shown in the pic? Yeah, one ton, and when I calculated, in CFM which is still a common measurement for air flow, and means cubic feet per minute, that cube of "exhaust fumes" if you were to stack them in a straight line, like a centipede, would snake all the way around the entire planet, at the equator, 1200 times ... are you ready for this? 1200 times PER HOUR today, when all the CFM's of all of the internal combustion engines used daily are tallied up.

You should also try to do some basic calculations of the total heat released through this as well, since, it is relevant to this discussion. Again, not difficult to discern yourself, with a few basic calculations, and the accepted figure for this today is the equivalent to 4 or 5 hundred Hiroshima sized nuclear blasts per day. That is how much heat is released in this process of taking over 100 million barrels of oil and converting it to extremely hot gasses and releasing them into the sky every day.

And here are some tertiary questions you will be able to answer yourself from doing some of these basic calculations:

How many times has 100% of the air in the sky already passed through an internal combustion engine?

What has been the actual increase in temperature of this air in that process?

[panopticon]

Patrick Moore is a PR man for massive corporations making money through deforestry .

He says what others want him to so he makes a living.

See Monbiot 2010 (here: The Great Ventriloquist) for some background on him.

Professor Michael Kelly is an electrical engineer specialising in Solid State Electronics and Nanoscale Science.

He also was on the investigative panel into the so-called "climate-gate" email correspondence that found:

We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it.
Davies et. al 2010. Report of the International Panel set up by the University of East Anglia to examine the research of the Climatic Research Unit. 'Conclusion', pg 5

Kelly is an expert in his field and is more than capable to speak, write, pontificate about that area and related fields (for example I would include the scientific method in that along with appropriate research practices). However, I am more than a bit skeptical that he has read the latest data and is up on the latest information in relation to trends in the Arctic indicating a self reinforcing loop that appears to be reducing sea ice (in particular older sea ice <8yrs) while increasing weather variability possibly due in part to variation in the jet stream caused by increased Arctic ocean/atmosphere temperatures (eg here). Also I doubt he is up to date on the latest research from Greenbaum et al on the Eastern Antarctica Totten Glacier and the indications of increased melt due to warmer sea water accessing the underside of the Glacier via "seafloor gateways" (eg here). Nor am I confident that he has read the excellent work by Paul Spence et al into 'Rapid subsurface warming and circulation changes of Antarctic coastal waters by poleward shifting winds'. Then there's the Steinman et al paper from a few weeks ago on the natural variability inherent in the Earths climate system (try here for a pdf copy) and effect that these variations (multidecadal oscillations) have had:

Our findings have strong implications for the attribution of recent climate changes. We find that internal multidecadal variability in Northern Hemisphere temperatures (the NMO), rather than having contributed to recent warming, likely offset anthropogenic warming over the past decade. This natural cooling trend appears to reflect a combination of a relatively flat, modestly positive AMO and a sharply negative-trending PMO. Given the pattern of past historical variation, this trend will likely reverse with internal variability instead, adding to anthropogenic warming in the coming decades. (pg 990)
Source: Steinman et al 2015. 'Atlantic and Pacific Multidecadal Oscillations and Northern Hemisphere Temperatures'. Science, 347 (6225): 988-991

I'm not saying that Kelly couldn't understand these papers, or their ramifications, if he understands the basics of climate science. Rather I'm saying he may not be following the data sets as closely as those deeply interested and/or working in the field.

So, while Kelly is an expert in his field and related areas I don't value his opinion as highly as those who have worked regularly in the field taking measurements and gathering data for decades.

-- Pan

PS Patrick Moore's "Speak Truth To Power" award was from the International Conference on Climate Change. The International Conference on Climate Change is a conference organised by the US conservative think tank The Heartland Institute (they are pro-tobacco lobbyists and support Fracking). As they opposed the science of climate change, Moore getting their award means very little other than he's doing a good job for them. He is a PR spin merchant after all.

[Mike Gorman]

Have you ever considered the sum total effect of all the volcanoes on this planet, their output of CO2, H2S04, Hydrogen Sulphide, Ash & a million other variations - and how they have impacted on the climate...
Have you ever considered that the global climate is not pre-designed for human life, or any life for that matter, that it changes through different cycles - the Maunder Minimum mentioned, and the Renaissance warm period that preceded it are examples of how the sun drives our climate - there are just so many aspects to climate that are not being discussed, just this anti-human agenda, this huge cloak of assumed 'science' that if challenged makes you almost a lynching victim, an hysterical mob of glazed eyed believers attack you - how can you refute the absolute position of the united nations, Al Gore et al? I don't like this climate science, or the so-called 'debate' around it - there is something rotten in Denmark about it all. The "Suspicious Observers" channel on YouTube is about the sanest place I have encountered that presents this stuff.

[panopticon]

Posted by GalaxyHorse (here)
Have you ever considered the sum total effect of all the volcanoes on this planet, their output of CO2, H2S04, Hydrogen Sulphide, Ash & a million other variations - and how they have impacted on the climate...
Have you ever considered that the global climate is not pre-designed for human life, or any life for that matter, that it changes through different cycles - the Maunder Minimum mentioned, and the Renaissance warm period that preceded it are examples of how the sun drives our climate - there are just so many aspects to climate that are not being discussed, just this anti-human agenda, this huge cloak of assumed 'science' that if challenged makes you almost a lynching victim, an hysterical mob of glazed eyed believers attack you - how can you refute the absolute position of the united nations, Al Gore et al? I don't like this climate science, or the so-called 'debate' around it - there is something rotten in Denmark about it all. The "Suspicious Observers" channel on YouTube is about the sanest place I have encountered that presents this stuff.

Hey Bloke,

Sorry for the short reply. It's 2 am and I'm a tad busy during the day at the moment with wood cutting and clearing for Winter.

I don't view the Earth is "pre-designed for human life, or any life for that matter" so I can't respond to you there

Yes, I understand about the Maunder Min & Med warming.

Little Ice Age: Not just sun related changes though did contribute. Possibly feedback loop from volcanic eruption causing increased ice coverage reflecting already low level solar radiation leading to further cooling and increased rain fall in lower regions (see Miller et al 2012 for examples).

Yes, I've looked at the effect of volcanism in the past.

Figures vary in relation to CO2 emissions from volcanoes (& other related sources) so I'll quote the highest realistic figure I came across when I was looking at it.

First off just from volcanoes the figures would be from Burton et al. 2013 with a total estimate of 600 Mt CO2 per annum (averaged of course though said to be reasonable as number of explosive eruptions etc is fairly consistent across years/decades).

... global emission of CO2 from Earth degassing was ~600 million tonnes of CO2 per year (Mt/yr, 1 Mt = 1012 g), with ~300 Mt/yr produced from subaerial volcanism, and another 300 Mt/yr produced from non-volcanic inorganic degassing, mostly from tectonically active areas.
...
Summing the extrapolated passive plume, diffuse degassing, lake degassing global estimates and emissions from inactive, hydrothermal and tectonic structures produces a total subaerial volcanic flux of 540 Mt/yr, and a global emission (including MOR emissions) of 637 Mt/yr (Table 6). Thus global volcanic CO2 fluxes are only ~1.8% of the anthropogenic CO2 emission of 35,000 Mt per year.
...
However, inclusion of 300 Mt/yr CO2 released by metamorphism...
...
In order to maintain steady-state quantities of CO2 in the exosphere this consumption should be balanced by the total emission from MORs, subaerial degassing and metamorphism (calculated here to be 937 Mt/yr).
Source

Now compare that to anthropogenic sources which are conservatively estimated for 2014 at 40 Gt per annum (40,000 Mt CO2 per annum)

So when we look at the geological contribution in comparison to human we get 937 Mt CO2 per annum to 40,000 Mt CO2 per annum.

In other words geological sources are only around 2.3% of human related sources.

If there are different figures from studies others have read then I'm happy to look at them but the ones I've given are not contentious (though from memory Burton et al's figures on geological emissions are thought to be a bit on the high side).

I'm happy to chat about any of this though I don't have a large amount of time. While some past discussion I've had about this at Avalon have been fruitful and interesting, other have resulted in a dogmatic response based on little evidence and long quotes from other places that are often barely relevant and sometimes almost incomprehensible. That's why I don't tend to get into discussions about it at Avalon.

-- Pan

Clarification:
The above figures I presented for 2014 are slightly out.

The 40,000 Mt figure is for total estimated CO2 emissions in 2014.
The 937 Mt figure is a high end estimate for CO2 emissions from geological sources (including volcanoes of course).
The figure for estimated 2014 anthropogenic CO2 emissions is 36,000 Mt.

So, geological CO2 emissions are 2.3% of total emissions.
Human emissions are 90% of total CO2 emissions (cement manufacture, electricity production, ICE, land clearing/deforestation etc).

For a more detailed break down of CO2 sources try the report: Global Carbon Budget 2014.

I hope that makes things a tad clearer and in future I'll try to resist the impulse to quote papers and do calculations at 2am.

[bluestflame]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SbjItdIUDMo

there's a problem with the formula used to calculate climate change ?