This is an old Zoltar Speaks! blog post.
I am a Conservative that is all for cleaning up our environment particularly cleaning up the air we breathe. I’ve consciously been reducing my carbon footprint on the planet since the early 80’s and I’ve estimated that I’ve been reasonably effective at a roughly 40%-50% reduction from my previous imprint and I don’t plan to stop my efforts.
I was a climate change true believer; however, there were some red flags that came up that made me and a very intelligent friend look at each other across the table one morning in a coffee shop and literally say “What The Fuck”? After that, we did what all intelligent people should do, dive in and do your own climate change research. :) We read research papers, climate change papers (paper after paper after paper), looked at hundreds of historical graphs, obtained spreadsheets of tabulated data, read more papers, spent a bunch of time looking into the geological aspects of determining historical temperature trends, we intentionally took opposing positions pro and con and argued the points, read more papers studies thesis’s, and we argued some more – this went on for months. What we found based on the data we studied is that the arguments that the climate change alarmists are presenting is most likely agenda driven (a clean environment is a good cause) and in our opinion they are intentionally misleading the public in that there are lies by intentional omission. If you like you can call me a proud science denier; however, I’m one of those deplorable science deniers that actually use science and knowledge to determine that they are not telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I refuse to use my environmental consciousness as justification to blindly present bad science as propaganda to manipulate the population. I’m all for cleaning up the air we breathe but they need to stop using lies as their major tactic to accomplishing it.
Now we’re off to the climate change races…
There are three things that are at the core of the climate change settled science alarmists arguments;
1. The climate is warming.
2. Human activity IS the cause of the warming.
3. The climate apocalypse is right around the corner.
#1 is not debatable, it is reasonable fact! The average temperature has been slowly increasing for roughly the last 100 years, I consider this part to be real settled science – it’s verifiable fact. What differs from opinion to opinion is the amount of the average increase which seems to be based on the data you choose to use to represent your argument. It is reasonably clear that there is a general trend showing a slow increase in average global temperature. This increase shows somewhere between 1.5°F – 2.3°F increase over roughly the last 100 years, that averages out to be between 0.015°F – 0.023°F per year. Using those rates of change per 100 years, it will take somewhere between 43 and 67 years for the temperature to increase another 1°F and that is only if the rate of increase remains relatively consistent. Yes, there will be some lows or the appearance of comparatively no relative change between some cherry picked years and people will use those to argue that it contradicts the overall argument that the Earth is warming, but in reality the larger picture shows the trend regardless of a few anomalies here and there. Accept that the Earth is warming very slowly, this part as reasonable fact.
[UPDATE January 6, 2020]
Here is a graph to show how the average temperatures have risen since the 1880’s. Notice the average warm temperatures during the summer months have risen roughly 1.25°C which is about 2.25°F, and the cold temperatures in the winter months have risen roughly 2°C which is about 3.6°F. Yes there is factual evidence that proves that global warming has happened over the last 140 years.
Graph Source: Graph is titled – GISTEMP Seasonal Cycle since 1880
[END UPDATE]
#2 is definitely NOT settled science, not by any stretch of the imagination, and this is the part where the climate alarmists arguments are blinded by their tunnel visioned science and it makes their arguments vulnerable. They are presenting the information about CO2 concentrations and temperature change as if it is a direct correlation equals causation argument when they actually cannot definitively prove, using science, that CO2 is the root cause of the temperature increase as opposed to increasing levels of CO2 being the byproduct result of the temperature increase. They simply cannot prove their theory, they can only imply that they are correct, and attack anyone that argues against their so-called settled science! They are trying desperately to explain, not prove, that an observed correlation that happens in nature a correlation that may or may not be a direct cause and effect relationship is in fact a fact; there is a big difference between explaining something and proving it using science. The science, as presented, is somewhere between really unclear at its best and intentionally misrepresented (a lie) at its worst. The point is, do not accept this presented settled science as reasonable fact, it is not. Could their theories be true, sure, but scientist don’t present theories as fact; well at least reputable scientists that are not driven by an agenda.
#3 is the climate alarmists are routinely predicting a future climate catastrophe or apocalypse (whatever you want to call it) that always seems to be right around the corner. They have made some pretty absurd predictions. What’s so absurd about these future climate apocalypse predictions is that they are based on tunnel visioned, unsettled, and questionable correlation equals causation science that’s narrowly focused on CO2 concentration levels in the atmosphere and then they’re extrapolating their correlation equals causation temperatures to the theoretical absurd. This part is not even science, it’s closer to predictions made with a Magic 8 Ball, and puts the entire scientific community in a vulnerable position of being attacked and ridiculed for the continued nonsense predictions and eventually the public will just tune out scientists and ignore them; this is very bad! Even if they were predicting this as being just around the corner in a geological sense of time, you know a thousand years or so, even then there is historical cyclical evidence that contradicts their predictions. By now everyone knows that even in the early days of the 21st century prominent climate change activists were standing up in front of large crowds and predicting that coastal lands of the United States would be under 5-7 meters of water, that’s 16-22 feet of water! Wait a minute folks, where’s all this water you all predicted based on settled science?! How’s that foot in your mouth taste? There were people that called these flooding coastline predictions absurd back then and the settled science alarmists crowd started their smear campaigns of calling opposition to their science, science deniers and they still use that phrase today even though the skeptics were proven correct. The fact is that the predictions of the so-called settled science alarmists were flat wrong, and now these same climate change alarmists are saying the equivalent to “it’s just around the corner” or some just won’t talk about their failed predictions at all, they ignore it and keep on down their path of predicting a climate apocalypse. Their prediction track record about temperature and sea levels gets a great big fat zero. Be very, Very, VERY wary when scientists are making apocalyptic style predictions about the future based on what they are calling settled science.
When you combine #1-Fact, #2-Bad Science, and #3-Absurd Predictions, and present it to the public as everything is fact and settled science, the result is that it looks like an intentional hoax to anyone that is paying close attention. What’s more likely is it’s just pushing bad science for good intentions. Why? Because the sciences in general, and very specifically in regard to climate change, have literally been dumbed-down and there has been a shift to rewarding the agenda driven versions of science especially where it relates to climate change.
Now why would I say all those terrible things?
Let’s start with this little known factoid that’s being suppressed; here’s what the global warming alarmist won’t openly discuss and it appears that they really don’t want the public to know: global warming would be taking place right now regardless of human existence on the planet. The rise in temperature and the rise in CO2 concentrations would be happening even if man did not exist on the planet, it’s been happening for hundreds of thousands of years! Let that FACT really sink in! That is an actual fact based on hundreds of thousands of years of historical data that clearly shows a naturally occurring cyclical warming and cooling trend. Anytime this is mentioned it is quickly put down with direct attacks on the person presenting the argument and it’s explained away using rationalizations. Sure they use lots of technical jargon that’ll roll your eyes back in your head, but in the end their arguments are nothing but deflection fluff because it simply doesn’t explain away the proven cyclical nature of climate change.
The fact is that the planet goes through these naturally occurring warming and cooling cycles and those cycles are “reasonably predictable” based on short-term and long-term historical data. We are currently in a naturally occurring global warming cycle. When the warming trend turns around no one can accurately say because there are short-term and long-term cyclical changes. We appear to be on the higher phases of what I would call a spike in a temperature increase period which is then followed by a much slower decline, when no one knows; the graphs below show these spikes and slow declines nicely. Remember we are only talking about a few degrees, we are not talking about major earth climate changing catastrophes. These cycles have been happening since the the dawn of time and global warming alarmist are using tunnel vision to focus on roughly the last 150 years and ignoring verifiable historical facts related to this cyclical trend and portraying their tunnel visioned view of climate change as being completely caused by human activity and leveling dire predictions which are truly only based on extrapolating data from the last roughly 150 years. If you don’t really understand what extrapolate means, look it up and learn, it’s an important tool but you must understand why it’s likely an unreliable concept to use in something like climate change with limited detailed knowledge. There is literally hundreds of thousands of years of reasonably historically accurate geological data and they are literally IGNORING it! Once in a while you’ll run into an argument that the temperature is rising faster than it has ever risen in the past; well genius, when you cherry pick natural occurring temperature increases that jive with your argument and completely ignore the thousands and thousands more that completely disprove your theory, you’re presenting bad science!
What the Global warming alarmist want the public to do is to throw out thousands and thousands of years of historical climate change facts about warming and cooling periods and believe this narrative of theirs that the main reason that the earth is warming is due to human activity that’s increasing CO2 concentrations and the weather apocalypse is right around the corner. Scaring the public shitless is their tool to control public activity. Think about it, there’s literally a bunch of modern day scientists that have presented their extremely narrowed view of weather trends and are predicting a weather apocalypse future based on human activity that they cannot prove is causing a warming environment in an effort to control your activity and make the environment better. This is BAD SCIENCE propaganda being used for a good cause, thus demeaning the value of the cause with intentional lies of omission. What we have seen over the last nearly 20 years of pounding this so-called settled science into the minds of the public is that they really are no longer talking much about the science, they are talking about the people arguing against the flawed science, so the dominating narrative now is that anyone that disagrees with the climate change settled science alarmist is some kind of science denier. This really is bad science and it’s intentionally trying to gin up the fear in the public and literally scare them shitless! The goal of cleaning up the environment is a great goal, but this nonsense of ginning up fear with bad science must stop.
Let’s move on to some historical information.
Let me start with the graph on the website that Chrissy-Boy so arrogantly linked to in a conversation over at Ethics Alarms.
I’m not going to go into the scientific problems with using the words “Temperature Anomaly” to describe the graph, except to say that an anomaly is something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected and a temperature anomaly can never EVER be defined as a zero point on a graph that is an unchanging flat line, temperature is always changing. What you must think about is to ignore the values as an accurate representation of an anomaly and just pay attention to the differences in the values, a baseline of zero can be placed anywhere on the scale as long as you’re focused on the differences in change.
To confirm my argument about anomaly, here is a similar graph to the one above, notice the shift in the zero flat line using the same basic data, the temperature differences are the same.
I chose to use the graph from the link provided by Chrissy-Boy because it represents exactly how narrow visioned the climate change alarmists arguments are focusing; this is the period of time that they base their tunnel visioned arguments on thus ignoring the bigger picture. Notice that the years covered in the graph are between 1880 and 2020; that is not by accident. There is a point in time where they began actually recording temperatures with accurate thermometers, that represents the left side of the graph at around 1880’s; temperature measurements for time periods prior to that are derived using other types of thermometers and other methods; those other methods have proven over time to be accurate at showing temperature trends even though the exact temperatures are not exactly known.
Now I’m going to start shifting to graphs that expand the years depicted in the graphs to start showing the trends of climate change over a broader time frame. Here is a great source for lots of related graphs.
Now let’s start pulling away the tunnel vision filter.
Source of Graphs: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
So, in the graph immediately above, now we have shifted from 150 years to 2000 years. As you pull back that tunnel vision filter you can start to see that there are small climate change trends within larger climate change trends. This trend is shown in virtually all graphs depicting this time period.
Now just for reference, lets shift out to a graph of around 150,000 years…
Below are some more graphs depicting CO2 concentration trends and temperature trends. Notice the correlation between the two graphs but you must remember that this correlation does not imply direct causation in that one is causing the other. (careful these are inverted left to right, look at the bottom year scale for your reference to years.) What you should pay attention to is that this is over a 400,000 years and the pattern of major cyclical climate change every 100,000 years or so is very obvious, what’s also noticeable is that there are smaller climate shifts between the larger climate changes the pattern is actually quite obvious!
Graph Source: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html
Now lets look at more graphs in the 400,000 year range for comparison. So your perspective doesn’t get screwed up, remember these are now flipped back left-to-right.
Look at the bottom year scale for your reference as to which way the graph is pointing left-to-right, toward the future or towards the past.
Graph Source: http://www.johnenglander.net/chart-of-420000-year-history-temperature-co2-sea-level/
Now compare those previous narrower viewed graphs to this one showing 800,000 years. Are you beginning to comprehend the cyclical nature of climate change throughout history.
LINK
Now here is a graph for the last 800,000 years of Antarctica history that shows the relative correlations between CO2 and temperature…
LINK
Now here is a really interesting graph for the last 300,000 years of Antarctica history that shows the relative correlations between CO2 and temperature (notice that the temperature on the left are negative values – Antarctica is freaking COLD!
LINK
Notice the unmistakable major natural temperature warming and cooling cycles and how relatively similar they are, also notice the smaller climate change trends within the larger trends, these same trends can be found all over the globe. Now really look at the CO2 part of the graph above, the CO2 concentration (blue line) spiked in 2007 to 383 ppm (it’s gone up to over 400 since then) and there has NOT been a corresponding temperature spike, instead the average temperatures have remained relatively stable which is a clear indication that CO2 is NOT the major driving factor of climate change as it is being portrayed in the scientific propaganda. The correlation equals causation arguments that are being presented by the climate alarmists are false and demonstratively so.
If you want more graphs that show the same kinds of climate changing trends over many years or narrow the graph focus, there are literally hundreds of them. Here is a link to a google search of climate change graphs.
The point in showing all these graphs; there is a common trend in all the graphs that current day climate alarmists are leaving out of their propaganda arguments, mother nature’s natural temperature warming and cooling cycles and we are in a natural warming cycle. When you start pulling back the tunnel vision blinders that the alarmist are looking through (primarily at the last 100-150 years) there is a clear undeniable pattern of cyclical warming and cooling trends that emerge. Now re-look at the graphs above and answer this question; why would reputable scientists essentially never talk about this obvious trend and focus only on the last 150 years when the natural climate change trends show the terrible flaws in their arguments. The answer is agenda driven science. Scientists have learned well from politicians, they are lying by omission and it’s definitely intentional!
Climate alarmists call their arguments settled science and some that disagree call their arguments a hoax, I call it bad science, however using the word hoax is not so unreasonable based on all the science they are presenting and the definition of the word hoax: “to trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous”. The only thing that is generally settled science is that in general the earth is slowly warming, the actual amount of warming and the the cause of that warming is nowhere near settled science nor what could reasonably be called a scientific consensus, that is if you want to use real scientific principles that don’t ignore that which proves your arguments false. The fact that these settled science people continuously leave out the facts surrounding the verifiable evidence of a cyclical trend that is 100% natural and the fact that whether human activity might be accelerating that warming is actually unknown and to claim otherwise is BAD SCIENCE, and then to top it off, to imply that those that disagree are some kind of heretic or science deniers is unethical and morally bankrupt.
There is an agenda driving the climate change alarmists and that agenda is to clean up the environment, which happens to be a really good cause, but lying about the reasons why we need to do it to hype up hysteria in the public is morally bankrupt and just bull shit. If you want to clean up air pollution then dammit, do it, it will be good for everyone, but don’t spew bad science to try and convince the masses, it makes the whole science argument in favor of cleaning up the environment look like a complete sham.
Now my friends don’t let this stop you from using Progressive Magical Thinking and providing more opinions that might “seem” to contradict my opinion; in fact I actually encourage every one of you to really dive into this with an open mind like I did. Stop being duped by the climate change alarmists.
Hopefully after another 400,000 years of collecting extremely detailed climate change data we can make better and more accurate predictions, but it’s certainly not going to happen for many generations to come, it’s all wild theoretical guesses for a long while.
That’s my opinion on the climate change settled science alarmist’s arguments. I fully expect to be attacked for this opinion, the race is still on, so let’er rip.
Zoltar Speaks has “Spoken”!
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Society's Building Blocks 
Well documented and rationally thought through. Good job.
You are far too kind as to the motivations of the bad science propagandists. Money is behind this: money through grants (that pay the scientist’s salary;) money through legislation, picking winners and losers in the free market with malice aforethought; and money by starting hoax businesses to grant dispensation (check out Al Gore’s fortune selling carbon credits, and see how HE lives) or to bilk the public with government contracts, like Solyndra.
The other motive is power. The elite need to control the masses, and climate change is a method to limit freedom. Free people are likely to make decisions for themselves, and that just cannot be allowed.
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Not just money but also things sometimes more important than money: prestige and authority. A geology major friend educated me on the issue decades ago when this train was just leaving the station. The one thing that wrecked that train for me was that the dinosaur era had climate much warmer than today and clearly the world got warmer and cooler in cycles. I find the ice age and how the sheets and their melt affected what became the Great Lakes fascinating. And I saw articles about how Krakatoa alone made a bump in the larger warming trend.
It’s all snake oil. Very nice graphs and collection of issues.
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Speaking of carbon tax…
Should Congress enact, and the President sign, a carbon tax?
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