Jim’s Blog

This is the running twelve month average world temperature, as measured by satellites, as reported by The National Space Science and Technology Center.

World temperature change in centigrade degrees.

It goes up, it goes down. If there is any trend, the trend is less than the decade to decade fluctuations, and is not at all apocalyptic. This differs from other graphs you may have seen because it starts at the start of the satellite data and ends at the present, instead of starting in with a reconstruction of what might have been a cool year if we had accurate global data way back then, which we don’t, and ending in 2005, the most recent warm year.

Similarly for the amount of ocean ice

Again, it goes up, it goes down. If there is any trend, the trend is less than the decade to decade fluctuations, and is not at all apocalyptic. Again this differs from similar graphs you may have seen, which usually start in 1988 (a year with exceptionally large ice area) and end in 2007 (a year with exceptionally small ice area), and show only the Northern Hemisphere, where we recently had some exceptionally warm years, leaving out the Southern Hemisphere, where we recently had some exceptionally cold years.

As you can see, nothing much is happening - looks like the world is warming, but not enough to be noticeable - nor enough to be sure that it actually is warming.

Thus irrespective of the validity of anthropogenic global warming, the belief that apocalypse is upon us, that something urgent must be done, is religious, based on the feeling that we have sinned against Gaea and her wrath will come upon us, not based on any scientific evidence.

Bishop Hill explains the Hockey Stick Graph. It is an exceedingly long and complicated story, even in his simplified version, but the short of it is:  The global warmerists lied.

The second national climate assessment predicts that the United States will “very likely” experience rising sea levels and increasing droughts, heat waves, intense storms and resulting illness and premature death over the next century as climate change intensifies.

But, as is the usual practice with climate “science” , the report fails to make available the evidence that supposedly leads to this conclusion, a gross and flagrant violation of normal and proper scientific practice.

And so, the US Chamber of Commerce, not academia, not any scientific body, has demanded that normal scientific standards be upheld.

Science is based on experiment and evidence.  The motto of the royal society was “Nullius in verba”, which means “Take no one’s word for it”.  This motto was reinterpreted to accommodate the “evidence” for global warming. Most science journals have condition of publication that authors must comply with any reasonable request by other researchers for materials, methods, or data necessary to verify the conclusion of the article, which condition has not yet been enforced against the global warmers.

Recently the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization) dressed itself in the robes of high holy science, and portentously announced that the wrath of Gaea was upon us. Other scientists asked for the details of the evidence, but alas, the highly scientific scientists of the CSIRO found themselves sadly unable to provide the evidence.

Or if not Cthulhu, Obama.

When I started writing this, McCain had the the most violently anticapitalist program of any presidential candidate, his cap and trade policy. (more…)

The warmists, confidently believing their own hype, have organized a bunch of tour ships to sail the northwest passage.  Sadly, Watts Up With that reports the Northwest Passage is totally impassable.  Last year a warmist tour to see the supposedly ice free lands of Antarctica got crushed between two icebergs.  (They were all rescued, but the ship sunk)

In 1988 the warmists issued their first prophecy of doom. Repent of your sins against Gaia, abandon the industrial civilization that allows us to feed far too many people, or the wrath of Gaia will manifest in massive global warming, with the wrath setting in around the year 2000. (more…)

The energy crisis happened because of optimistic projections – that gas to liquid and coal to liquid would not be needed until the technology had been improved and the cost brought down, that the dramatic growth in China and India could be accommodated by rapidly expanding conventional oil production. (more…)

It seems that Arnold Kling has been in Afghan cave during the past six months. He does not seem to think that there has been any bad news on oil supply over the last six months.

The recent run-up in oil prices represents a similar puzzle. I think that it’s difficult to tell a story for the rise in crude prices for the last six months that is based on the rational digestion of news. Either six months ago folks were overly optimistic about long-term supply and demand conditions or now they are overly pessimistic about those conditions. I don’t think that what changed in the last six months was the news about supply and demand.

I have been watching the news, and over the past few months it has been quite horrifying, particular with the Democrats and both major party presidential candidates shooting down Shell’s plan to develop shale oil, which pretty much guarantees extraordinarily high oil prices for at least the next two decades. Indeed, the political majority in most of the developed world seem to intend to block all carbon extraction.