Are you telling me none of these many prestigious organisations thought to check out the science for themselves?
# 1 Statements by concurring organizations
* 1.1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007
* 1.2 InterAcademy Council
* 1.3 Joint science academies’ statement 2008
* 1.4 Joint science academies’ statement 2007
* 1.5 Joint science academies’ statement 2005
* 1.6 Joint science academies’ statement 2001
* 1.7 International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
* 1.8 European Academy of Sciences and Arts
* 1.9 Network of African Science Academies
* 1.10 National Research Council (US)
* 1.11 European Science Foundation
* 1.12 American Association for the Advancement of Science
* 1.13 Federation of American Scientists
* 1.14 World Meteorological Organization
* 1.15 American Meteorological Society
* 1.16 Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
* 1.17 Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
* 1.18 Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
* 1.19 Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
* 1.20 International Union for Quaternary Research
* 1.21 American Quaternary Association
* 1.22 Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London
* 1.23 International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
* 1.24 International Union of Geological Sciences
* 1.25 European Geosciences Union
* 1.26 Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences
* 1.27 Geological Society of America
* 1.28 American Geophysical Union
* 1.29 American Astronomical Society
* 1.30 American Institute of Physics
* 1.31 American Physical Society
* 1.32 American Chemical Society
* 1.33 American Society for Microbiology
* 1.34 American College of Preventive Medicine
* 1.35 American Public Health Association
* 1.36 American Medical Association
* 1.37 American Statistical Association
* 1.38 Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia)
* 1.39 Federal Climate Change Science Program (US)
# 2 Noncommittal statements
* 2.1 American Association of State Climatologists
* 2.2 American Association of Petroleum Geologists
# 3 Statements by dissenting organizations
With the July 2007 release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.[53]
My main point is that the IPCC is dragging the chain on climate and that the climate dialogue has moved on. If the IPCC are too slow to publish the real state and claims of climate science, who on earth are all these other organisations that are investigating these matters outside of your “CC” — Conspiratorial Cabal?
Some critics have contended that the IPCC reports tend to underestimate dangers, understate risks, and report only the “lowest common denominator” findings.[54]
On February 1, 2007, the eve of the publication of IPCC’s major report on climate, a study was published suggesting that temperatures and sea levels have been rising at or above the maximum rates proposed during the last IPCC report in 2001.[55] The study compared IPCC 2001 projections on temperature and sea level change with observations. Over the six years studied, the actual temperature rise was near the top end of the range given by IPCC’s 2001 projection and the actual rise was above the top of the range of the IPCC projection.
An example of scientific research which has indicated that previous estimates by the IPCC, far from overstating dangers and risks, has actually understated them (this may be due, in part, to the expanding human understanding of climate, as well as to the conservative bias, noted above, which is built into the IPCC system,) is a study on projected rises in sea levels. When the researchers’ analysis was “applied to the possible scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the researchers found that in 2100 sea levels would be 0.5–1.4 m above 1990 levels. These values are much greater than the 9–88 cm as projected by the IPCC itself in its Third Assessment Report, published in 2001.[56][57]
In reporting criticism by some scientists that IPCC’s then-impending January 2007 report understates certain risks, particularly sea level rises, an AP story quoted Stefan Ramstorf, professor of physics and oceanography at Potsdam University as saying:
In a way, it is one of the strengths of the IPCC to be very conservative and cautious and not overstate any climate change risk
– Stefan Rahmstorf[58]
In his December 2006 book, Hell and High Water: Global Warming, and in an interview on Fox News on January 31, 2007, energy expert Joseph Romm noted that the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report is already out of date and omits recent observations and factors contributing to global warming, such as the release of greenhouse gases from thawing tundra.[59]
Political influence on the IPCC has been documented by the release of a memo by ExxonMobil to the Bush administration, and its effects on the IPCC’s leadership. The memo led to strong Bush administration lobbying, evidently at the behest of ExxonMobil, to oust Robert Watson, a climate scientist, from the IPCC chairmanship, and to have him replaced by Pachauri, who was seen at the time as more mild-mannered and industry-friendly.[60][61]
PS: I’m feeling reluctant to go chasing this ocean study of yours until we sort out where climate science actually comes from. In other words, can we deal with one issue at a time David P?
I already told you back last week, concurrence is just what my mate Arthur was on about,
“There is no opinion so absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted”
“Concurrence” is just a euphemism for bandwagon, before long they will all be sloping off, hitching on to the next fad. I’ve seen it all in the past, different context, same thing.
However, for the time being I intend demonstrating forbearance until the Hadley Centre put up their graph with the 2008 result and I have done my next paper on the subject.
In the meantime I’m fully devoted to the Freedom of Religion and Belief in the 21st Century project and anyone interested in my preliminary thoughts can check them out in the Dec edition of Australian Presbyterian.
I hope you read the edited version above and not the earlier version which the Bulletin Board would have emailed to you earlier. (My writing was once again a little “strong” — D’oh!)
I understand you’re busy, and I’m currently in the middle of learning a whole bunch of software for the first time as well. However, 2 comments.
1. “Concurrence” is not how science works. Science is inherently sceptical and new theories are posited all the time, constantly checking out the dogmas of the previous generation. This is not like an example of “group think” taking over in the cockpit of one aircraft, leading to a poor decision under stress. This is the best conclusion of rational, cold, calculating scientists operating for dozens of institutions across the globe, all of them studying data for themselves, all of them hoping to make a name for themselves and publish THE paper of the decade or century. And what are many of them starting to find?
Groups like the “Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory” and the “National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)” are all having a go at the IPCC for being behind the times. Far from leading a bad case of “group think”, they are following.
… found that satellite and other observations show the Arctic ice cover is retreating more rapidly than estimated by any of the eighteen computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in preparing its 2007 assessments.”
2. We’ve discussed 2008 many times before. From what I can tell the real climate scientists are saying is that Co2 does not short circuit other normal powerful forcings in climate like the El Nino / La Nina cycle. If 2008 is down, it’s because of La Nina. Anyone asserting otherwise would need a strong paper to explain why it wasn’t just La Nina, which they have documented for decades.
The confused argument hinges on one data set - the HadCRUT 3V - which is only one of several estimates, and it is the global temperature record that exhibits the least change over the last decade. Other temperature analyses suggest greater change (warming). Thus, one could argue that the HadCRUT 3V represents the lower estimate, if a warming could be defined for such a short interval.
Nevertheless, information from independent data suggest an increase in global mean temperatures even over the last decade.
Again, sorry about my part in escalating agro on the list. There has been a lot of stress lately (business and family matters), too many commitments (weddings away etc), and too little sleep. Time for a beer!
Ooo urgh...count me out of that Dave! I was going to ask if the current low oil prices were part of the La Nina effect. After all, who can deny the science? ;-)
In “Compass: Apocalypse Now” thread I explain I now try follow in steps of Grand-Master Gordon in Zen University of “embrace uncertainty”. Past threads of too much certainty most definitely recalcitrant action taken upon.
(OK, I’m terrible at accents and don’t even know if accents come across online. I was trying to play on the whole Zen University thing Andrew Denton is always talking about.)
In a soon-to-be released edition of CASE magazine, Dr John Wyatt discusses “Bioethics and the future”. It’s a much broader article than merely discussing medical trends, and covers trends in “secular eschatology” and the techno-utopian “geek rapture” that many non-Christians hope for. However, an interesting sideline in the article is the contrast between the non-Christian slavery to their ethics of future consequences. That kind of consequential ethic makes human beings responsible to guess all the consequences of all their actions all the time, a terrible burden. In other words, Wyatt appears to be saying that when our ethics come from a strictly consequentialist regime, we are slaves to the future. Christians are freed from that particular kind of moral slavery because we know God is in the future, controlling it — it’s in God’s hands. He writes (page 7),
“Our action may well have profound consequences downstream, but those consequences are not ours to control. We are called to act wisely, responsibly, within the limitations both of our knowledge and of our created humanity. And we are held accountable for our actions as responsible moral agents.”
(out soon!)
In relationship to peak oil, global warming, eco-cide, peak everything, toxic build up, overpopulation — indeed, the whole kebang, let me just say this: I don’t have to know the future or control the future to make choices now. Indeed, I agree with you Gordon that I cannot know the future.
I take your point that a year ago I would probably have said the price of oil would have been $170 by now. Other things were most definitely on my radar, but I let others more qualified in those areas write about them. EG: The possibility of a financial collapse seemed likely (as my mate Neil predicted in 2005) but neither of us said exactly when these things would happen, or which would arrive first.
So the banking collapse has dropped the price of oil. Does it undermine the whole concern? Nup. Has the geology changed? Nup. Has the demand really changed? Nup — we still use 85 mbd and going up. Only the perception of demand has changed, and this has dropped the price so low that it’s catastrophic for many of the alternative energy start-ups. The market is kind of freaky that way… not really connected to the reality that this black goo we call “light, sweet crude” is fast running out, the age of sweet oil is turning sour, and that according to the best information I have today we are still going to have fuel shortages within the next 5 to 10 years.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope algae and hydrogen and trains, trams, and trolley buses all come to the rescue just in the nick of time. I hope in 10 years you’ll agree with me when I say, “Boy, how wrong my concerns were! Waaaay wrong, at least 100% wrong! Maybe 125% wrong!” Yep, that would be a very good day. But it does not undermine my rationale for having those concerns now based on the information I have today.
So really the question becomes one of how Christians approach risk mitigation?
Dave, you’ve mentioned over population. What do you think about this, eg where a country demands a one-child policy? I always think this is a very hard issue...especially where a child is lost, or a daughter is born in India and the parents were desparate for a son etc…
It’s easy for us wealthy westerners to advocate something, but what do we expect from the other parts of the world?
It’s a vigourous debate, and sometimes frustration may leak out. I’m hoping that if Dave P and I ever met up we’d by each other a beer ......
This is really bad news Dave :
Climate change serious - beer affected
by staff writers NEWS.com.au
April 08, 2008
BEER will be in short supply, more expensive and may taste different as climate change affects barley production, a scientist says.
Drought conditions in parts of Australia where malting barley was grown was likely to get worse, according to Jim Salinger of New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.
Barley production in the main growing region of Canterbury in New Zealand - where brewing giant Lion Nathan gets about 70 per cent of its malted barley - would also be affected, the New Zealand Press Association said.
“It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up,” he said.
Malting barley production in Australia was likely to be hit hard in parts of Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and NSW.
The dry areas of Australia would become drier and water shortages would get worse.
“It will provide a lot of challenges for the brewing industry,” Dr Salinger said.
He said breweries could be forced to look at new varieties of malt.
Dr Salinger told the Institute of Brewing and Distilling convention in Auckland today that by 2100, the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases - measured in equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide - would be double, and possibly four times pre-industrial levels, leading to further climate warming.
“Most areas in Australia where malting barley is cropped are likely to experience producing declines,” he said.
Having a stable population is primarily a humanitarian concern. The factors that lower population growth are good things to campaign for in and of themselves.
Rock stars like Bono campaign for improvement of 3rd world conditions, funding for AIDS, debt relief, education and equal rights for women, clean water and basic infrastructure for all, and basic financial security for the world’s poor and elderly. Indeed, all the various campaigns that try to protect human dignity and basic economic opportunity for developing countries help the larger population cause. These are all ingredients that lead to the mysterious “Demographic transition” that we are after, and each is worth campaigning for in their own right. Indeed, one Gristmill author who takes overpopulation very seriously says:
It’s obviously relevant to the ecological health of the planet that there are so many human beings on it. In the long-term, we human beings need to vastly reduce both our per-capita and our aggregate environmental footprint. That almost certainly means scaling human population back from the 9 billion or so it’s expected to hit later this century—how far back is up for debate, but probably a lot. So why not talk about that more?
However, I’m still keen to hear a response from Gordon on how we are to ever make decisions if we’re required to know the future before we do so.
Thanks for those links, Dave. I note your differing view with Heinberg who argues for a population of 2 billion...and another author arguing for 500 million! Wow...both very low numbers.
I guess the concern I have is that we potentially use the very problematic issue of population control as a means to curb environmental issues....when you correctly acknowledge that changes to industry, cities, fules etc is the proper way to go.
Therefore - do these authors have a credibility problem?
Also - is there a biblical issue here? God says to be fruitful and multiply. Would you say that this verse ceases to apply now that we’ve ‘multiplied’? What if it is intended to mean, ‘multiply to 20 billion people....building sustainable measures as you go...’?
(Note - no arguing tone here....just trying to work through this large disconnect.....
However, I’m still keen to hear a response from Gordon on how we are to ever make decisions if we’re required to know the future before we do so.
Same answer as from back in 2005, Dave. Read your Bible. Pray. Trust God. Decide. The future is God’s, and that’s as much as we need to know.
Hi Gordon,
Just to be clear then, are you retracting the position that there are theological limitations on our wisdom that prevent us even caring about global warming in the first place, let alone making decisions about it? This is a different question to whether or not you personally are convinced by the evidence — I’m not asking about that right now (although you know I’m here if you need me. ;-)
Hi Andrew,
Hi Andrew,
I’ve met Heinberg and helped set up a support team for his 2006 tour of Australia. We had over 700 people in St Stephen’s church hall across from NSW Parliament House hear him (and David Holmgren) speak on these issues. He seems genuine or “sincere” in his concerns, but I think some of his methodology is a little on the pessimistic side of what can be achieved with various sustainable energy and farming technologies. There’s an exciting newish industrial design movement called “Cradle to Cradle” which could drastically improve our chances, there are trendy new city plans which use less resources, and many other “Technologies” (the “T” in I=PAT) are slowly progressing.
My problem is that we often ignore the “P” question, as if it’s some dirty little secret that somehow “Technology” can and will always bypass the fact that we live on a finite planet.
(Incidentally, watch Foreign Correspondent tonight on Ethiopia if you want a glimpse of what happens when “T” can’t quite catch “P” fast enough.)
So, from a theological perspective I guess I haven’t seen a paper which adequately addresses the “P” question.
Gordon, Enkers and I had a long chat about population a few years ago, and one interesting thing Martin Shields (Enkers) brought up was that there may be evidence in Genesis that the “land” was already “full”.
Also, living this side of the cross may change our focus from “breeding big” to have a “great nation” in fulfilment of promises to Abraham, but instead are free to seek singleness to focus on the Lord’s work if we have the self control to do that.
However, I’m hopeful that by merely guaranteeing the basics of life through other social movements, such as freshwater aid, security, shelter, employment etc, that the marketplace might encourage a worldwide “demographic transition” that will help “P” stabilise. And if not, we only have ourselves to blame for ignoring the blatantly obvious. Growth in a finite system like planet earth cannot continue forever. Remember, 1% population growth over one lifetime of 70 years = 2 Sydney’s, 2% = 4 Sydney’s, 3% growth for one lifetime = 8 Sydney’s, etc.
Some Christian groups are starting to draw up some exploratory “first thoughts” on addressing the population question from a biblical point of view, but I’m hoping it remains a secondary issue to feeding and clothing and sheltering everyone.
One hopeful statistic I heard Professor Ian Lowe explain was that just 5% of the world’s military spending would give everyone on planet earth “adequate”:-
* fresh water
* nutrition
* shelter
* education
* medical
* family planning
That would theoretically bring on a demographic transition.
Just to be clear then, are you retracting the position that there are theological limitations on our wisdom that prevent us even caring about global warming in the first place, let alone making decisions about it?
Uh-oh, we’re approaching a vortex.
If you can find where I put such a view, I’ll be happy to offer a comment. Alternatively, if you can’t, I put it to you that you don’t actually know what my view is.
