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**Rajiv** · November 18, 2007, 08:51 AM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

There is definitely a Panglossian element here at Itulip when it comes to discussing "Limitations to Growth"

Though one could argue that EJ and others have embraced Hudson and his ilk - who seem to imply that the root cause of the current problem is in fact "growth" and the "need for growth" brought about by the very existence of "interest" as the method of payment for the use of money. See also "Reinventing Money"

<< Global Cooling: The Coming Ice Age (LOL!) >> [ Sapiens ]

also, I think Sapiens was laughing at the Ice Age comment

**metalman** · November 18, 2007, 09:22 AM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Originally posted by Rajiv View Post

There is definitely a Panglossian element here at Itulip when it comes to discussing "Limitations to Growth"

Though one could argue that EJ and others have embraced Hudson and his ilk - who seem to imply that the root cause of the current problem is in fact "growth" and the "need for growth" brought about by the very existence of "interest" as the method of payment for the use of money. See also "Reinventing Money"

also, I think Sapiens was laughing at the Ice Age comment

hudson says the credit system eventually runs out of steam 'cause there's not enough income to pay all the interest and it collapses. that's what socialists have been saying forever, capitalism collapses in on itself and blah, blah, blah. i don't know that i've seen ej agree with that. there's another piece here The End of Money that says the money supply is growing exponentially and that can't go on forever. there's a discussion between ej and the author at the end. i checked his bio. "Dr. Chris Martenson has an MBA from Cornell and PhD from Duke, worked in corporate finance for a fortune 50 company".

**Rajiv** · November 18, 2007, 09:36 AM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Originally posted by metalman View Post

hudson says the credit system eventually runs out of steam 'cause there's not enough income to pay all the interest and it collapses. that's what socialists have been saying forever, capitalism collapses in on itself and blah, blah, blah.

It all depends upon what your definition of "forever" is! I believe that socialism is relatively new to this planet!

Can I now categorize you as a "Frank Zappa-ist" and "futurist" showing "Neoliberal Econo-manic Tendencies" with a belief in the "Pure Cornucopian Features" of Capitalism?

**metalman** · November 18, 2007, 09:58 AM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Originally posted by Rajiv View Post

It all depends upon what your definition of "forever" is! I believe that socialism is relatively new to this planet!

Can I now categorize you as a "Frank Zappa-ist" and "futurist" showing "Neoliberal Econo-manic Tendencies" with a belief in the "Pure Cornucopian Features" of Capitalism?

alls i know is that 30 years ago the marxists were saying capitalism was screwed and the soviets were gonna win and look who's screwed now?

the worst, most repressive governments EVER have been communist. on the other hand, capitalism that concentrates wealth develops political problems. what's ej's take? i'd like to hear. i bet he doesn't like your socialist idea of giving away itulip's subscription service! ha ha!

**raja** · November 18, 2007, 10:47 AM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

I read this critique of Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" by Mario Lewis www.cei.org/pdf/5539.pdf

I found that it was a very convincing argument against human causation of global warming. But I have no experience in climatology, so I checked out a few of the references in the piece, and they seemed accurately represented.

I also passed it on to some of my intelligent and knowledgeable friends whom I knew were fans of Al Gore's position. They criticized the piece for political reasons, saying it was not credible because of the source. But they also had no comment on the scientific points. I wrote back saying, "But what about the science?", and in their reply they still did not address this. Some said, "But the worldwide scientific consensus is . . . .", but no specific rebuttals.

So, I got on the web and tried to find valid scientific criticisms of Lewis's work. Couldn't find anything.

As a result, I believe that global warming is probably not of human origin, and that the efforts to cut greenhouse emissions are based on a fallacy (although greenhouse emissions may have a contributory effect, so cutting could still be a good idea).

This situation feels similar to the economy situation. While I believe that the financial sky could come falling down, all my friends and relatives are proceeding with business as usual . . . despite any warnings I provide.

**Rajiv** · November 18, 2007, 11:17 AM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

I didn't see any science in Mario Lewis' article. There were no citations, no references, no sources -- only allegations.

Therefore I consider the piece to be entirely political in nature

**Guest** · November 18, 2007, 04:17 PM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Interesting reference from Metalman, to the ( very interesting ) iTulip interview with Dr. Martenson "The End of Money".

( http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...=6000#post6000 )

Dr. Martenson's quote (bold italic) below can be read as a clear endorsement of the common-sense principle "look for the most obvious indication from the data first, before reaching for less obvious hypotheses".

He writes:

<< If it looks like, smells like, and quacks like an exponential function... we may need to consider it one. >>

Applying this eminently sensible idea to the following very long term (half million year) chart, our first rational stop is to immediately conclude the evidence is overwhelming that CO2 and global mean temperatures are in near perfect correlation, no?

Notice on the chart below, how the CO2 level always LAGS the temperature level on the spikes? That ratio seems inverted at the present, implying "temperature" still has a lot of catching up to do?

At least that much of the conundrum should therefore provisionally be considered "resolved" and placed into position to assist clarifying the overall conclusion as to principal components of global warming. Seems a rational, sound methodology so far.

iTulip's article "The End of Money" provides yet further clues on the dynamics of compounding events in the physical and biological worlds, as Dr. Martenson quotes Dr. Albert Bartlett :

Bacteria grow by doubling. One bacterium divides to become two, the two divide to become 4, become 8, 16 and so on. Suppose we had bacteria that doubled in number this way every minute. ... I want to ask you two questions.

Number one; at which time was the bottle half full? Well, would you believe 11:59, one minute before 12, because they double in number every minute?

Second Question; ... Let me ask you, at 5 minutes before 12 when the bottle is only 3% full and is 97% open space just yearning for development, how many of you would realize there's a problem?

Can we also assume that the longer the time frame of a data set, or the larger the set of data-points, the more definitive the trend changes that data describes? Look at the CO2 levels described in the above chart. These are relative to data points stretching back a half a million years. We might say this correlation of CO2 to temperature is "definitive enough for broad assumptions"?

Match this long term data to present data - we've just confirmed CO2 levels are at an all time half million year high. The one standard deviation spike in that chart (we can assume) occurs very roughly within the last two centuries of time, with a sharp acceleration of trend - i.e. 19th through to 21st Centuries.

This CO2 spike seems roughly one standard deviation out of the half million year range. So what data have we assembled for rational conclusions not encumbered by bias either pro or contra global warming?

It seems highly plausible that:

> CO2 is very highly correlated to climate change (seems confirmed from the above very long data sample chart).

> Industrial age is coincident to ramping up CO2 production to levels higher than in 400,000 years (+ 1 Stand. Dev.)

> We've just received a UN report by the world's best available 2500 climatologists re-affirming CO2 levels are higher than at any prior time retrievable data sets, (chart above readily confirms it) and that same report insists these CO2 levels are produced by industry.

Employing Dr. Martenson's sound methodology recommendation to "pick the obvious interpretation first", and Dr. Bartlett's insight on runaway dynamics in the equilibrium of systems, we know

> It is good methodology to follow the obvious implication before following the less obvious implications (Martenson)

> A system in equilibrium subject to compounding effects may tip very suddenly into disequilibrium - with a sudden speed which refutes what we presume to be "logical" rates of progression.

Conclusion #1: The above data was confirmed by 2500 climatologists mere weeks ago. They go further, suggesting the term "dire situation" is an appropriate term for describing the above chart's current global accumulating CO2 levels - those here who experience strong reluctance to arrive at the most obvious conclusions about what the above data represents, are therefore employing the less rational view of the available data, as they do not accept the most obvious implication at face value, but wish to search for secondary implications instead.

Conclusion #2: Employing an irrational view of the data above suggests that the cause of that irrational response is "ideological baggage", otherwise described as "a distaste or repugnance to be associated with other groups who espouse multiple viewpoints along with their global warming convictions, which one find's politically or ideologically unattractive, uninformed, or to be otherwise false"

Conclusion #3: Disavowing empirical data on a matter which can potentially affect one's future, that of one's children, and that of future generations, in the face of scientists growing insistence that the matter is "urgent", and disavowing these warnings due entirely to distaste for becoming associated with groups one finds politically or ideologically repugnant -such reactions imply one is captive of social strictures, rather than freely inquiring, and one is not willing or comfortable if necessary, to "hold one's nose" and cross all ideological boundaries in search of true risk, with a sincere commitment to the prospering of our species and to bequeathing a habitable world to our grandchildren.

Conclusion #4: Mankind has most often been a prisoner of it's own conceits, and we may "discover our sincerity of purpose a bit too late to avert some massive damage to the only world (quite small world) we've got. Therefore a completely politically agnostic sincerity, in the face of ideological preferences can be a very valuable tool - it even might be termed a "survival characteristic".

**Guest** · November 19, 2007, 02:59 AM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Originally posted by GRG55 View Post

Well, if the Gospel according to Gore is to be believed the whole planet will look like this very soon. Coming on the heels of Peak Oil, maybe time to swap the truck for a camel?

GRG55 -

"St. Gore" may indeed be a bore, but when you start reading a bit of the "chapter and verse" in that gospel, what strikes you is the speed at which it is already occurring.

For those who are even just a shade concerned about not being vilified by our great grandchildren for having left them a thoroughly trashed world where half the species are extinct, some concern about our current stewardship of the planet would certainly appear warranted by the harsh news listed below - breaking news - in 2007.

POLAR MELT - MAP 2007.jpg

__________

BBC � Friday, 21 September 2007

Ice withdrawal 'shatters record'

Arctic sea ice shrank to the smallest area on record this year, US scientists have confirmed. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said the minimum extent of 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles) was reached on 16 September.

The figure shatters all previous satellite surveys, including the previous record low of 5.32 million sq km measured in 2005.
Earlier this month, it was reported that the Northwest Passage was open.

The fabled Arctic shipping route from the Atlantic to the Pacific is normally ice-bound at some location throughout the year; but this year, ships have been able to complete an unimpeded navigation.

The researchers at NSIDC judge the ice extent on a five-day mean. The minimum for 2007 falls below the minimum set on 20-21 September 2005 by an area roughly the size of Texas and California combined, or nearly five UKs.

Speaking to BBC News on Monday this week, Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at the NSIDC, said: "2005 was the previous record and what happened then had really astounded us; we had never seen anything like that, having so little sea ice at the end of summer.

Then along comes 2007 and it has completely shattered that old record."

He added: "We're on strong spiral of decline; some would say a death spiral.

I wouldn't go that far but we're certainly on a fast track.

We know there is natural variability but the magnitude of change is too great to be caused by natural variability alone."
The team will now follow the progress of recovery over the winter months.

In December 2006, a study by US researchers forecast that the Arctic could be ice-free in summers by 2040. A team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the University of Washington, and McGill University, found that "positive feedbacks" were likely to accelerate the decline of the region's ice system.

Sea ice has a bright surface which reflects 80% of the sunlight that strikes it back into space. However, as the ice melts during the summer, more of the dark ocean surface becomes exposed. Rather than reflecting sunlight, the ocean absorbs 90% of it, causing the waters to warm and increase the rate of melting. Scientists fear that this feedback mechanism will have major consequences for wildlife in the region, not least polar bears, which traverse ice floes in search of food.

On a global scale, the Earth would lose a major reflective surface and so absorb more solar energy, potentially accelerating climatic change across the world.

________________

Published on Friday, October 5, 2007 by Inter Press Service
Climate Change and Entire Landscapes on the Move

The hot breath of global warming has now touched some of the coldest northern regions of world, turning the frozen landscape into mush as temperatures soar 15 degrees C. above normal.

by Stephen Leahy

Entire hillsides, sometimes more than a kilometre long, simply let go and slid like a vast green carpet into valleys and rivers on Melville Island in Canada�s northwest Arctic region of Nunavut this summer, says Scott Lamoureux of Queens University in Canada and leader of one the of International Polar Year projects.

�The entire landscape is on the move, it was very difficult to find any slopes that were unaltered,� said Lamoureux, who led a scientific expedition to the remote and uninhabited island.

The topography and ecology of Melville Island is rapidly being rearranged by climate change. �Every day it looked different,� he told IPS. �This is a permanent change.�

Normally Melville Island�s 42,500 sq kms are locked in sea ice all year round, as it is part of the high region that has been relatively unaffected by the dramatic declines in Arctic sea ice over the past decade. Until this year, that is.

This summer, southern parts of the island were free of sea ice, Lamoureux told IPS. He has led expeditions to the island every year since 2003. On land at Mould Bay on the island�s northwest side, his research team measured record-shattering temperatures of between 15 to 22 degrees C in July. Until then, the normal July average temperature had been between 4 and 5 degrees C.

The extraordinary heat thawed the tundra permafrost � permanently frozen ground � to depths of more than a metre, he said. At that depth, there is mostly ice and when it melts, it destabilises the thin, top layer of plants and soil that has patiently built up over thousands of years. Enormous amounts of water and sediments are being discharged into rivers, lakes and oceans.

Studies are underway to determine the impact on birds, fish, musk oxen and other creatures that live there in the summer.
Given the extent of the changes, there is little doubt there will be significant ecological impacts, he said.

The record low level of sea ice in the entire Arctic Ocean will also change regional and even global weather patterns.

Much more snow will fall in the Arctic due to the increased moisture from the increased amounts of open water. All that water is also dark and heat-absorbing instead of sunlight-reflecting ice, so the region gets warmer, melting more ice in what is a strong positive feedback loop.

Other parts of the Arctic region have already changed dramatically in the past 50 years. �There are trees and lawns in Nome (Alaska) now,� said Patricia Cochran, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. �I never thought I�d see trees growing on the tundra,� Cochran said about her hometown, which lies on the Bering Sea and was once too cold for trees to grow.

�Beavers are overrunning the area now that there is food for them. They are even in Barrow, north of the Arctic Circle,� she told IPS from her office in Anchorage.

The tundra is also melting, resulting in coffins disturbingly popping out of the ground in graveyards, roads crumbling and giant sink holes opening up everywhere, including in some towns, she said. Every summer brings plants, animals, birds and insects that no one has seen before. Dragonflies and turtles now roam the lands that had been too icy for tens of thousands of years.

�Everyone living here has seen the changes,� Cochran said. And there are more changes to come even if politicians and corporate CEOs stop pretending to act and actually curb emissions of greenhouse gases. �The Arctic Ocean will be ice free in the summer, it�s just a matter of how soon,� said Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences in the University of Victoria, Canada.

A new study led by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration this week revealed that the Arctic�s thick, year-round sea ice cover declined 2.6 million square kilometres beyond the summer average minimum since satellites started measurements in 1979. That�s about the size of the province of Ontario.

�That decline is nothing short of stunning,� Weaver told IPS. It�s also a permanent decline because while the ice will re-form over the six-month-long winter when there is no sunlight, it will be much thinner and likely to melt quickly next summer, he said. Because Arctic sea ice is floating, the melting will not affect sea levels but it will �wreak absolute havoc on Arctic ecosystems�.

The rapid meltdown is pushing the upper end of the climate experts� projections, he said, noting that new research shows that change in the Arctic could happen abruptly.

� 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service

________________

**Guest** · November 19, 2007, 01:21 PM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

While iTulip skeptics dither and yawn as to whether the "thesis" of climate change has any basis, here's what is going on elsewhere:

EXTRACT:

"And the new science is saying: 'You thought it was bad? No it's worse.' "
The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, an engineer and economist from India, acknowledged the new trajectory. "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," Pachauri said. "What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

__________

Alarming UN report on climate change too rosy, many say

By Elisabeth Rosenthal and James Kanter

Published: November 18, 2007

VALENCIA, Spain: The blunt and alarming final report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released here by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, may well underplay the problem of climate change, many experts and even the report's authors admit.

The report describes the evidence for human-induced climate change as "unequivocal." The rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere thus far will result in an average rise in sea levels of up to 4.6 feet, or 1.4 meters, it concluded.

"Slowing - and reversing - these threats is the defining challenge of our age," Ban said upon the report's release Saturday.

Ban said he had just completed a whirlwind tour of some climate change hot spots, which he called as "frightening as a science-fiction movie."

He described ice sheets breaking up in Antarctica, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, and children in Chile having to wear protective clothing because an ozone hole was letting in so much ultraviolet radiation.

Today in Europe

The panel's fourth and final report summarized and integrated the most significant findings of three sections of the panel's exhaustive climate-science review that were released from January through April, to create an official "pocket guide" to climate change for policy makers who must now decide how the world will respond.

The first covered climate trends; the second, the world's ability to adapt to a warming planet; the third, strategies for reducing carbon emissions. With their mission now concluded, the hundreds of IPCC scientists spoke more freely than they had previously.

"The sense of urgency when you put these pieces together is new and striking," said Martin Parry, a British climate expert who was co-chairman of the delegation that wrote the second report.

This report's summary was the first to acknowledge that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet could result in a substantive sea level rise over centuries rather than millennia.

"Many of my colleagues would consider that kind of melt a catastrophe" so rapid that mankind would not be able to adapt, said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University who contributed to the IPCC.

Delegations from hundreds of nations will be meeting in Bali, Indonesia in two weeks to start hammering out a global climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the current climate change treaty. The first phase of the Kyoto Treaty expires in 2012.

"It's extremely clear and is very explicit that the cost of inaction will be huge compared to the cost of action," said Jeffrey Sachs, head of Columbia University's Earth Institute. "We can't afford to wait for some perfect accord to replace Kyoto, for some grand agreement. We can't afford to spend years bickering about it. We need to start acting now."

He said that delegates in Bali should take action immediately where they do agree, for example, by public financing for demonstration projects on new technologies like "carbon capture," a "promising but not proved" system that pumps emissions underground instead of releasing them into the sky. He said the energy ministers should start a global fund to help poor countries avoid deforestation, which causes emissions to increase because growing plants absorb carbon in the atmosphere.

Although the scientific data is not new, this was the first time it had been looked at together in its entirety, leading the scientists to new emphasis and more sweeping conclusions.

But even as the IPCC was working toward its conclusions over the past several years, a steady stream of even more alarming data has come in.
"The IPCC is a five-year process and the IPCC is struggling to keep up with the data - we are all being inundated with new evidence and new science," said Hans Verolme, director of the Global Climate Change Program at the conservation organization WWF.

"And the new science is saying: 'You thought it was bad? No it's worse.' "

The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, an engineer and economist from India, acknowledged the new trajectory. "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," Pachauri said.

"What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

He said that since the IPCC began work on its current report five years ago, scientists have recorded "much stronger trends in climate change," like a recent melting of polar ice that had not been predicted. "That means you better start with intervention much earlier."

"If you look at the scientific knowledge things do seem to be getting progressively worse," Pachauri said later in an interview. "So you'd better start with the interventions even earlier. Now."

The effects will be greatest in the developing world. Even without the more alarming data, the report says inaction could leave island states submerged, African crop yields down by 50 percent, and cause a 5 percent decrease in global gross domestic product.

Developments that affect the IPCC predictions and have made such scenarios even more likely, scientists said, include faster than expected industrial development in China and India. Economic growth has a huge effect because these countries' industries are largely powered by electricity from burning coal, a cheap but highly polluting source of energy.

"The IPCC report never imagined the world would move back to a coal- based energy economy - and that's essentially what we've done," said Gernot Klepper an economist who studies climate change at the Kiel Institute in Germany.

"If you extrapolate from that we're running into a disaster."

Part of the reason the scientists inserted their alarming statements about polar ice melts in the synthesis report is because "recent observations" were not "fully included in ice sheet models" used by IPCC, the report said.
Some in the scientific community have gone so far as to question the effectiveness of the IPCC as the world's early warning system on climate change.

"Sadly, even the most pessimistic of the climate prophets of the IPCC panel do not appear to have noticed how rapidly the climate is changing," said James Lovelock, a British scientist, "Scientists have let this potentially disastrous future steal up on us unaware."

But most scientists have been awed by the IPCC's deliberate work, for which it was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize this year.

Pachauri said that even if reality was worse than the final IPCC report suggested, that only made it more urgent to act quickly and forcefully.
"What we brought out is that if you delay action or don't do enough the impact is quite devastating. This only strengthens that message."

James Kanter reported from Paris. Andrew C. Revkin contributed reporting from New York.

**bill** · November 19, 2007, 09:28 PM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Originally posted by Lukester View Post

While iTulip skeptics dither and yawn as to whether the "thesis" of climate change has any basis

**Guest** · November 19, 2007, 10:03 PM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Bill -

Please "fix yer post". For I canna see what the image is! Although I'm guessing, it may be another one of your trenchant cartoons? (bloomers, probably ... )

**Starving Steve** · November 21, 2007, 04:56 PM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

So long as there is a buck in scaring the public, there will be no shortage of junk science about global warming.

During the Ice Age, global temperatures were approximately 8F or 9F below present levels. At that time, sea levels were about 300 feet lower. So, something like a 30 or 35 foot rise in sea level has occurred with each degree of global warming that has occurred since the Ice Age.

So, if the Earth has really warmed 2 degrees F in recent years ( since 1900 ), then why wouldn't mean sea level be up by about 60 or 70 feet?

When we actually do the measurement, sea level is up by about 7 or 8 inches, at most, and even these measurements may OVER-ESTIMATE the rise in sea level because of the local effects of glacial rebound in the land due to the release of weight of ice on it from the Ice Age.

The mean sea level at Sitka, Alaska has actually FALLEN since records have been kept due to land rebound. If we were to take sea level measurements at other locations, say along Hudson Bay or the shores of the Arctic Ocean, the same negative rise in sea level would be observed.

Not to rain on the parade of the eco-nuts in Greenpeace or the Sierra Club, nor to rain on the parade of the UN climate forecasters, but why isn't Florida under 50 or 60 feet of sea water now?

Why isn't downtown SF under 60 feet of sea water?

Why is French Frigate Shoals or Midway Island still above sea level because, after all, their elevation above sea level was 3 feet or less during WWII? And these atolls are still about 3 feet above sea level, even to-day.

But don't confuse the issue of global warming with any hard science or critical thinking. There is just too much grant money at stake for any hard science and pains-taking observation to be done on the subject of global warming.

Starving Steve, Watsonville, California

**raja** · November 21, 2007, 08:15 PM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Originally posted by Rajiv View Post

I didn't see any science in Mario Lewis' article. There were no citations, no references, no sources -- only allegations.
Therefore I consider the piece to be entirely political in nature

Rajiv,

That was a summary of the main points in his book, which did not contain footnotes or references.

His full book is published online. Go here for a plethora of references: http://www.cei.org/pages/ait_response-book.cfm#CHAPTERS

Just pick any chapter and skim it to see the scientific nature of his analysis.

I was particularly impressed by the data showing historical global temperature rise PRECEDING a rise in CO2 rates.

Rajiv, from reading your posts I respect you as a careful thinker who is very concerned about getting the facts, so I look forward to your opinion of Lewis' work. Regards the global warming issue, Lewis' material is the equivalent in importance for me as iTulip is on financial matters . . . .

**Guest** · November 21, 2007, 09:58 PM

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Raja -

Here is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, has said (this is a commissioned panel of climatologists worldwide - NOTE: if we consider them unfit to provide a scientifically objective assessment, then we must fall back on non-climatologists, for an alternate interpretation, as these climatologists represent the most qualified specialists each participant country could contribute). Here is the chronology of their published findings :

>> In 1990, in its first report, the panel found evidence of global warming but said its cause could be natural as easily as human.

>> In a landmark 1995 report, the panel altered its judgment, saying that ‘the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.’

>> In 2001, it placed the probability that human activity caused most of the warming of the previous half century at 66 percent to 90 percent — a ‘likely’ rating.

>> By 2007, the IPCC was saying that “the likelihood was 90 percent to 99 percent that emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, spewed from tailpipes and smokestacks, were the dominant cause of the observed warming of the last 50 years.”

MY COMMENT: Every subsequent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has raised the level of certainty that global warming was primarily a man-made phenomenon. Every report; such that now, we are talking over 90% certainty.

MY QUESTION, are you examining the immediate hypothesis borne by the data below, or are you searching for secondary hypotheses here? If searching for a secondary hypothesis - do you regard seeking out a secondary hypothesis before disproving the primary hypothesis that jumps out from the data, to be a good methodology?

Here's what I found meantime, in a very cursory search of your reference material: From Marlo Lewis' treatise

Under SUMMARY OF DISTORTIONS on page ONE, he writes -

<< Presents a graph tracking CO2 levels and global temperatures during the past 650,000 years ... global temperatures were warmer than the present during each of the past four interglacial periods, even though CO2 levels were lower. >>

That's apparently his only definitive point on the half million year data.

According to the charts I'm looking at, he's making an observation which contains a glaring error of logical inference relative to it's attempted topic of discovery, as follows:

Yes indeed, the CO2 levels were lower (in fact, a LOT lower) in the previous interglacial periods, and yes indeed the temperatures were (slightly) higher than our present temperature. But he's missing the significant point - the half million year chart shows tight, invariable correlation between CO2 and temperature, and our present CO2 levels are one full standard deviation ABOVE half million year long prior CO2 levels at prior interglacial warm peaks.

If half a million years of data proves incontrovertibly that CO2 levels and temperature are tightly correlated, Mr. Lewis is completely silent on the fact that we have statistically an extremely high probability that temperatures must rise from here to meet and exceed the CO2 peak showing in this chart if they are to obey the strict CO2 / TEMP correlation observed over the previous 400,000 years !

How can he propose a sound critique of global warming, if he does not mention this and evidence where he believes the fallacy must lie, within that chart's implication?

All his other observations in the list on page one, are micro-observations regarding the present, or stretching back one century at most. - London ground level this, Polar fluctuation that, etc. in the present tense. The real story, the incontrovertible data, is in the half-million year charts. That's where the most unequivocal issues are displayed, like exactly what does a "one standard deviation on half a million years chart in present day CO2 readings" really imply for temperature going forward?.

The issue Mr. Lewis glosses, to my mind with considerable disingenuousness, is that there is quite clearly an 'very strong' correlation of CO2 to Temp because it's derived from a truly massive set of data points. With CO2 current level towering over previous interglacials today, his remark suggesting that current temperature is "lower than during previous interglacials" and pulling an inference out of the hat that this must demonstrate the fallacy of current warming, is a specious inference in terms of any logic that I can percieve. The present temperature is close to half million year peaks, and is compelled by the above correlation to catch up to the CO2 reading, which is much higher yet. But Mr. Lewis does not make any slightest mention of that logical probability.

Are you with me on what he's missing here? It's what you might call, the 'entire issue in question'. How does Mr. Lewis propose to hold my critical attention by turning this simple statistical inference upside down right on the first page of his treatise?

These two charts below from an alternate source reiterate the previous 400K years recurring ice ages, but these charts omit the fine data concentrated in the past one or two hundred years which shows the CO2 spike moving well out of the median range. I believe the current CO2 readings are around 370 parts per million? These are not showing in the two charts below. Imagine them penciled in there, and you'll note the very large anomaly going back 400K years. That anomaly is the present!

This chart below focuses in sharply on the TEMPERATURE change occurring in the past 2000 years, so if you will mentally compress this chart's timeline and overlay it for detail onto the very end of the chart immediately above, you'll see verbatim what TEMPERATURE is doing. From the topmost chart, we see CO2 is far out ahead of TEMPERATURE. So overlaying that most recent (100-200 years) data onto this broadened middle chart gives you an idea of how strikingly steep the correction must be on the middle charts, for both CO2 and Temperature to bring them current to the present 100 years.

Why does Mr. Lewis not include such secular charts and make any inferences in his treatise, on the tight 400,000 year correlation between CO2 and temperature, and what these above charts then imply?.

I am positive Raja, that you are every bit, if not more qualified than I to dig up a dozen half million year charts mapping CO2 correlation to temperature, and then mapping how starkly far out ahead of temperature current CO2 levels are.

In my opinion, Mr. Lewis' complex caveats about "London ground level sinking", and "cyclical variations in polar temperature" as being significant factors is just a lot of hot air when juxtaposed to these simple half million year charts. One full standard deviation in CO2 levels across 400 thousand years? That's the only data we need to nail to the floor.

I thought you were supposed to be the "nail it to the floor guy"? What is it in the above data that's not clear to you?

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Raja - I found yet another "glaringly anomaly" in the above referenced treatise by Mr. Lewis.

Mr. Lewis writes:

<< Implies that, throughout the past 650,000 years, changes in CO2 levels preceded and largely caused changes in global temperature, whereas the causality mostly runs the other way, with CO2 changes trailing global temperature changes by hundreds to thousands of years. >>

Visually, there is no consistently significant lag or gap discernible at all between CO2 and Temp across the full duration of this chart - if anything they seem very tightly bound on average. More to the point yet, the chart shows the largest gap in 400,000 years, between CO2, and Temp exists right at the present time, and the CO2 is leading by a massive margin.

This author is claiming that 'causality mostly runs the other way, with CO2 always trailing temperature". Where is this guy coming up with these assertions from?

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Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

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