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“John Stone, vice-chair of one of the three IPCC
groups, [said] "The science is getting stronger
and stronger and stronger, that the imperative for governments
to act is getting stronger and stronger and stronger."”
By Dr. Courtney:
My following comments explain that it is untrue to assert
"The science is getting stronger and stronger and
stronger", and it is nonsense to assert that "that
the imperative for governments to act is getting stronger
and stronger and stronger".
Is the science getting stronger?
The science of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is
getting weaker, not stronger.
To date, no evidence for AGW has been discovered. And
recent global climate behaviour is not consistent with
AGW. Mean global temperature has not again reached the
high it did in 1998 (an El Nino year) and it has been
stable for the last 6 years despite atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentration having increased by 4% since 1998.
The global temperature has not increased since 1998 because
while the northern hemisphere has warmed the southern
hemisphere has cooled. Global warming is supposed to be
global, not hemispheric.
Nobody knows why the global temperature has stabilised
recently nor if and when this stabilisation will cease,
but the stabilisation does not support assertions that
the science of AGW is getting stronger.
There are facts that are consistent with AGW; e.g. warming
of the globe over the last century, and recent Arctic
warming. And other facts that are not consistent with
AGW; e.g. lack of warming of the globe since 1998, and
recent Antarctic cooling. But there is no evidence that
AGW is or is not happening.
A claim that man-made global warming exists is merely
an assertion: it is not evidence and it is not fact. And
the assertion does not become evidence or fact by being
voiced, written in words, or written in computer code.
The existence of global warming (GW) is not evidence
of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) because warming
of the Earth does not prove that human activity warmed
it. At issue is whether human activity is or is not affecting
the changes to the Earth’s temperature that have always
happened naturally.
Nothing is constant in nature: everything changes all
the time. And the Earth must have warmed or cooled over
the past 100 years if its temperature were not constant
over the past 100 years. The fact is that any warming
that may have happened during the last 100 years is within
natural climate variability that has occurred previously.
Recent warming could be a completely natural recovery
from the Little Ice Age that is similar to the recovery
from the Dark Age cool period to the Medieval Warm Period.
Indeed, all observed recent global climate changes are
within the range of natural climate variations that are
known to have happened in recent millennia. In science,
an hypothesis that something has changed is merely a speculation
unless evidence for the change exists. The fact that global
climate shows no unprecedented changes recently means
that there is no evidence of any kind that anthropogenic
activity has had or is having a detectable effect on natural
changes to global climate. Hence, assertion of AGW is
mere speculation.
However, many explanations for varying climate are known
and proven realities (e.g. ENSO, PDO, etc.) although no
complete explanation for natural climate variability is
known to science. The absence of such a complete explanation
affords the possibility of the speculation of AGW but
it is not evidence that AGW exists. This is because an
inability to fully explain one observed thing is not evidence
for the existence of some other not-observed thing. (e.g.
lack of a full explanation for why some people feel a
cold shiver in certain old buildings is not evidence for
the existence of ghosts).
In these circumstances, the only valid scientific conclusion
concerning AGW is:
there is no reason to suppose that the causes
of global climate changes have altered within recent centuries,
and there is no evidence to support the speculation that
AGW may have altered them, however the speculation of
AGW cannot be refuted.
I do not think a more clear conclusion than this is
ever reached in science. This conclusion is the only valid
scientific conclusion from the available data concerning
global climate, and it contradicts an assertion that "The
science [pertaining to AGW] is getting stronger and stronger
and stronger".
Is there an imperative for governments to act?
The fact that there is no evidence for AGW is not evidence
that AGW is not happening. Simply, there is no evidence
that AGW is happening, and there
is no evidence that AGW is not
happening, either.
The important fact is that climate varies. It always
has and it always will. Governments need to prepare for
possible climate changes whether those changes have an
anthropogenic or a natural cause. Simply, the cause of
the changes has little implication for appropriate policies
needed to cope with the climate changes that can be anticipated.
And the climate changes that can be anticipated include
all the changes that have occurred in the past, not only
the changes predicted by promoters of AGW.
Also, there are no known long term climate effects that
require changes to government policies that could not
be dealt with by adjustment as costs are observed to change.
This is true whether or not projections of AGW are correct.
Scares of hypothetical “tipping points” are simply that;
i.e. unjustified and unjustifiable scares.
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