Sydney Morning Herald columnist Richard Glover suggested in his most recent column that “Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.”
Sydney Morning Herald columnist Richard Glover suggested in his most recent column that “Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.”
Subject: The ice age cometh
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/14/all-three-of-these-lines-of-research-to-point-to-the-familiar-sunspot-cycle-shutting-down-for-a-while/
“All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.”
Some genuine scientists have always said that the time has come when the whole warmist agenda will be smashed and made futile. This is the beginning of their contention that rather than warming, the planet was due for a cooling down, even to the point of entrance to a new mini ice age. The establishment laughed at us. Now there is **official** support for the contention that a solar minimum will bring about the cooling effects that will stop the global warning agenda dead in its tracks. As a certain fictional character once said: “The truth is out there”. This really is the beginning of the end!
—
A missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles say that our Sun is heading for a rest period even as it is acting up for the first time in years, according to scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, independent studies of the solar interior, visible surface, and the corona indicate that the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all.
The results were announced at the annual meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces:
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/SPD2011/
“This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network, said of the results. “But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”
Quote>>
All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.
“If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to ***Earth’s climate***.”
@ Parorchestia – Well done and well said! ~:)
Richard, you are a drongo! No scientist I know denies that climate changes. We do argue about the influence a minor constituent of the atmosphere, CO2 has. And you write this polemic just when evidence is accumulating that it is the sun that is the primary influence on climate after all. This was the accepted explanation since Halley’s correlated sun activity with corn yields. The climate varies due to wobbles in the earth’s orbit and variations in the sun’s output, particularly of cosmic rays.
Where do I queue up to get my ” AGW Skeptic” tattoo, which I shall wear with pride?
David you are probably correct but given the current cold snap down here it might even be appreciated.. for the moment anyway.
@ Barry – might cause more warming if the melt down effects the atmosphere?
Wow, that secular Aussie sense of humour sure attracts some reactions from the self righteous and the deluded. No more, Richard, please! You might cause a complete melt down…
Al is being sued for divorce by Tipper because he showed it to a masseuse in Portland Oregon a few years ago. He’ll soon need a job.
Forcibly tattooing violates rights. Richard Glover should get a warning that, if he goes one step further, he will be prosecuted. And then his cv will declare him a criminal. This will be something he will have to explain to his grand-children.
“Too large to hide”? No, just more people are waking up to them now. They have always been there for everyone to see, it is just most people want to see the good in all people – even those that have none.
Lets talk about his tattoo
in the 70s he would have gotten his “ice age” tattoo for his forehead
in the 90s he would have to cross that one out and write “global warming”
now, that too would be crossed out and it would say “climate change”
Well DUAH, the climate is changing? OMG SEND FUNDING NOW!
I am much more afraid of GLOBAL ILLUMINATION CHANGE — its coming and it effects ALL OF US.. and its COMING within the next 12 hours! (and it will come again!) — send FUNDING quick…
Not even “daylights savings time” will stop it!
They are LAUGHABLE but for the fact my money will still be sent to them.
And here’s hoping we stay ‘green’ for another year or four…
I agree, Mr. Glover. I think the left forearm would be a fine place for such a tattoo. Also, some sort of an identification mark should be placed on the clothes – The Star of David has already been used, so perhaps an earth symbol of some sort. The deniers should also be sent to work camps, or maybe call them “reeducation centers.” They could be accessed by rail with cattle cars full of denies being brought directly into the camps, immediately followed by a “shower.” Perhaps their gold teeth, jewelry, silverware, businesses, homes, and all other possessions should be confiscated on their demise to buy “carbon credits” and pay to counter the CO2 their burning bodies would create, right Carlos? The fascist tendencies of the far left are becoming too large to hide.
Ah – the Voice of Reason (or Mischief, perhaps) !
But what of the Super-Rich (or soon-to-be Super-Rich) Climate Change Alarmists, such as Big Al and that lovely (Sir) Maurice Strong, and all the rest of that Gang: String-Pullers and Puppets alike ?
In any case, burning humans is simply not on: the carbon footprint from their carbonated corpses would be intolerable to Cate blanchett, Barbra Streissand, Leonardo Di Caprio – and all the other Great Scientific Minds of our age.
There MUST be another way……………………..
In a largely rather pointless (and wholly Scientific Fact-free) article, Mr Glover DID make one very valid point (one assumes his Irony-Detection sensor was malfunctioning):
“Facts that don’t fit one’s world view can be difficult to see. ”
Got it in one, Mate !
In response to Jack’s request for the source for information regarding changing sea levels, I suggest a basic course in physical geology, or reference to a textbook on the subject.
Or visit the Randell Research Station on Pine Island, near Ft. Myers, Florida. There you can stand on a fossil shoreline dune, and look at the Gulf of Mexico in the far distance, about 1.5 to 2 meters below the level of the dune. The archeologists on the site will be happy to date that dune for you – to the end of the Roman Empire, about 550 AD. Just yesterday, as far as the Earth is concerned.
I might add that the Florida Platform is quite stable, and free of any degree of mountain building over the past 120 million years or so. Any change in shoreline is due to the rise and fall of sea level.
My brief response to Mr. Glover-
Mr. Glover,
Just in case you’d be interested in what over than 31,000 “secular” American scientists think about the perils of man made climate change please see what they have actually signed.
http://www.petitionproject.org/
Yet to be tatooed,
Michael in USA
Richard Glover calls all that have a skeptical opinion on climate change “boneheads.” I think he needs to look in a mirror when making such a statement.
Al Gore
Same goes for you, Carlos!
Violence, my friend? Always the answer when somebody comes up with an alternative idea, a bit like Mr. Galileo who was “vapourised” because he dared to suggest that the earth orbited around the sun and not vice versa!
By the way the earth has not warmed since 1998. Even NASA agrees with that one! It’s sometimes necessary to check your facts firat.
May I respectfully suggest that you get a life, Mr. Glover.
Most sincerely,
etc…
Global Warming by
Dr. Roy Spencer
[Roy W. Spencer received his Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Before becoming a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001, he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has provided congressional testimony several times on the subject of global warming.
Dr. Spencer’s research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. Not even Exxon-Mobil.]
“Global warming” refers to the global-average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more. But to many politicians and the public, the term carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. This website describes evidence from my group’s government-funded research that suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.
Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming…it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. This assumption is rather easy for scientists since we do not have enough accurate global data for a long enough period of time to see whether there are natural warming mechanisms at work.
The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that the only way they can get their computerized climate models to produce the observed warming is with anthropogenic (human-caused) pollution. But they’re not going to find something if they don’t search for it. More than one scientist has asked me, “What else COULD it be?” Well, the answer to that takes a little digging… and as I show, one doesn’t have to dig very far.
But first let’s examine the basics of why so many scientists think global warming is manmade. Earth’s atmosphere contains natural greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane) which act to keep the lower layers of the atmosphere warmer than they otherwise would be without those gases. Greenhouse gases trap infrared radiation — the radiant heat energy that the Earth naturally emits to outer space in response to solar heating. Mankind’s burning of fossil fuels (mostly coal, petroleum, and natural gas) releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and this is believed to be enhancing the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect. As of 2008, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 40% to 45% higher than it was before the start of the industrial revolution in the 1800’s.
It is interesting to note that, even though carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth to exist, there is precious little of it in Earth’s atmosphere. As of 2008, only 39 out of every 100,000 molecules of air were CO2, and it will take mankind’s CO2 emissions 5 more years to increase that number by 1, to 40.
The “Holy Grail”: Climate Sensitivity Figuring out how much past warming is due to mankind, and how much more we can expect in the future, depends upon something called “climate sensitivity”. This is the temperature response of the Earth to a given amount of ‘radiative forcing’, of which there are two kinds: a change in either the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth, or in the infrared energy the Earth emits to outer space.
The ‘consensus’ of opinion is that the Earth’s climate sensitivity is quite high, and so warming of about 0.25 deg. C to 0.5 deg. C (about 0.5 deg. F to 0.9 deg. F) every 10 years can be expected for as long as mankind continues to use fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. NASA’s James Hansen claims that climate sensitivity is very high, and that we have already put too much extra CO2 in the atmosphere. Presumably this is why he and Al Gore are campaigning for a moratorium on the construction of any more coal-fired power plants in the U.S.
You would think that we’d know the Earth’s ‘climate sensitivity’ by now, but it has been surprisingly difficult to determine. How atmospheric processes like clouds and precipitation systems respond to warming is critical, as they are either amplifying the warming, or reducing it. This website currently concentrates on the response of clouds to warming, an issue which I am now convinced the scientific community has totally misinterpreted when they have measured natural, year-to-year fluctuations in the climate system. As a result of that confusion, they have the mistaken belief that climate sensitivity is high, when in fact the satellite evidence suggests climate sensitivity is low.
The case for natural climate change I also present an analysis of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which shows that most climate change might well be the result of….the climate system itself! Because small, chaotic fluctuations in atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems can cause small changes in global average cloudiness, this is all that is necessary to cause climate change. You don’t need the sun, or any other ‘external’ influence (although these are also possible…but for now I’ll let others work on that). It is simply what the climate system does. This is actually quite easy for meteorologists to believe, since we understand how complex weather processes are. Your local TV meteorologist is probably a closet ’skeptic’ regarding mankind’s influence on climate.
Climate change — it happens, with or without our help.
Please send me the resource where you got this information. I want to share it with those who are now telling me the sea is rising so it must be global warming.
In hope global warming is real, too. I live on top of a hill. When you lowlanders are inundated by sea water, my land will be worth trillions. I’ll be richer than Al Gore.
Tattoo? Deniers should be burnt. Especially the rich ones.
Tomas de Torquemada
Manipulating “average” global temperature is easy. It all depends on where you put the thermometers. Put a temperature sensor at the outside vent of a commercial laundry in Barrow, Alaska, and a sidewalk steam grate in New York City in January, and the world will appear to be burning up.
It’s time, we put global warming alarmists behind bars. Not in the US where free speech is absolute, but in Germany where ‘Volksverhetzung’ – incitement, demagoguery that leads to a destructive mob – is forbidden with several years imprisonment. I shall try to get a process started to get Al Gore and his ilk into the same status like Michael A Hoffman II (he would be arrested the day he enters Germany).
Global warming alarmism causes the people to clamor their fellow human beings being taken away oil-based technology, thus being financially damaged and taken back near stone age -> hugh damage, being forced to use less energy. Thus it is forbidden by law in Germany.
Who is ready to help me launch a lawsuit. It was a new-years-resolution of 2010/11.
I hope that climate change is real. I’ll own oceanfront property in no time and be rid of the ferocious VT winters. I just have a hard time with the science behind it. To Larry’s point, what is a proper method for finding a reliable date set to even measure average global temperature? We could divide the world into 1000 equal areas and choose coordinates from a random number generator, then set up analog equipment to continually monitor each location, but this in’t done, nor is easy to find just how it is being done. The data sets are hidden and anyone who asks is scoffed at. There is no real debate and anyone who wants to gets shouted down. The lawyers have a great saying. If you have the facts, pound the facts, if you have the law, pound the law, if you have neither, pound the table. All I hear is the sound of tables being banged on.
Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the religion of the urban aethists.
That is to say, Environmentalism has several basic characteristics which are definitive of a fundamentalist religion: 1) Belief in a core orthodoxy containing a set of de fide principles which may not be question and are not subject to change; 2) Belief in a pre-existing Eden-like state of the Earth, a status quo ante when things were simply better, 3) A “fall from grace” involving the loss of this Eden, and 4) The arrival of a messiah-figure who seeks to save the World through some action.
The core orthodoxy itself is clear enough, and includes the belief that global warming is due only to anthropogenic forcing, a concept which cannot withstand even a brief scrutiny of the geologic evidence, and a related unquestioning belief that global warming will inevitably result in the destruction of life (ignoring the fossil record of floral and faunal abundance and diversity during periods when the average global temperature was many degrees warmer than at present).
Related convictions include the belief that the lot of people in developing nations has declined over the past several decades because of environmental deterioration (despite a vast amount of data to the contrary available from the UN), and a deep-seated conviction that population growth is exploding (in contradiction to population growth data available also from the UN),. There is also a willingness to spend, unthinkingly, vast sums of public (and private) money on inadequately understood environmental problems which later turn out to be chimera (Times Beach, MO, lead paint, radon, etc.).
If you question this core orthodoxy you do so at your peril. If we were dealing with a scientific field such questioning would generate a debate, a challenge to your assertions, with the challengers offering more data and alternate hypotheses which can be tested, and a re-examination of principles.
As we have pointed out, this will not happen: You will not stimulate an honest discussion of the situation based on the merits of the data. Instead you will be the receiver of scorn, sarcasm, ridicule, and a reiteration of the core orthodoxy as fundamental fact. Rather like a scientist trying to discuss evolution at a Baptist picnic.
And who is the Savior figure?
Envirolemmings, take note:
America officially went “green” on February 6, 2011!
Pittsburgh Steelers 25
GREEN Bay Packers 31
I emailed this response to Mr. Glover:
Dear Sir:
I have no illusions that an email from a reader will garner more than a glance before it is deleted. However, I am motivated to write anyway.
I am a climate skeptic. I do not doubt that the Earth’s climate has gone through many changes over the past 4.6 billion years; in fact, that is one of the reasons I doubt that any changes occurring now are man-made.
What troubles me — and, I am sure, many other climate skeptics — is not the topic itself, but the near-hysteria on the part of the “believers” that the scientific debate is over and that only drastic (and expensive) changes in the Western lifestyle will save the planet.
Climate and weather science is extremely complex — as is the Earth’s climate and weather — and there is rarely a direct cause-and-effect relationship between any two events. Take, as one example, the question of what the Earth’s “average” temperature is. There are so many different ways to take this planet’s temperature that there is no general agreement on what that average is.
Singling out “carbon dioxide” as the single factor in determining planetary temperature is simply bad science. Radiant atmospheric heat comes from the Sun, and solar radiation varies. Cloud formations, volcanic eruptions, large forest fires, eruptions of methane from the ocean floor — these and many other factors influence climate, temperature and weather.
The anthropogenic global warming enthusiasts, however, place all the blame — conveniently — on human activity. Convenient for them, because that is the argument that supports their promotion of laws and policies which, among other things, seek to transfer large amounts of wealth from industrialized nations to “poor” nations. How that transfer of wealth will ameliorate climate change is a question which does not get addressed.
If some of the climate skeptics seem a bit overzealous, it is probably a form of “pushback” to the overzealousness of the climate change supporters, who, with religious zeal, want to change the way we do everything.
Over the long run, a healthy skepticism helps people avoid making hasty, foolish decisions. If sea levels really are rising, we would do well to keep in mind that sea levels used to be much higher: the Florida Keys, for example, only appeared 5,000 years ago when sea levels dropped precipitously. On the other hand, sea levels have been much lower; 12,000 years ago, humans walked across the Bering Straits from Russia to Alaska.
And when sea levels change, they do so gradually. People on the coasts have plenty of time to pack up and move.
So if you want to tattoo the climate skeptics, I don’t mind as long as you tattoo the climate believers as well. Then in 20 years we’ll see which group goes for laser tattoo removal.
Hey Doc – it isn’t the truth the progressives are looking for. Its your money and mine they are looking to loot and they’ll get it if they get their way and if not with this scheme then it’ll be some other trumped up scheme.
I was guessing stony silence at first but you can’t shut a progressive up – not for long anyway.
I just love the way he weaved the Nazis in there as a comparison to the ‘deniers’? Always gotta get that in there somewhere don’t you lefty?
Personally I like the idea of the tattoo – it’ll make me look downright smart in 20-30 years in comparison to the background prattling.
He also admits it is unresolved but we must do it anyway!
From this “columnist’s” [a.k.a. Propagandist] comments about what he’d do to “AGWDs”, such as me, it’s clear that he and fellow “AGW Believers” are truly Fascists with a BIG “F”! What might Richard and his fellow Fascists demand be done to billions of people like us who don’t subscribe to their cult of Global Warming? Would he demand things be done like:
Publicly posting our personal info (e.g. names, address, pictures of themselves/kids, phone #s….) on the Internet, Post Offices…
Forcing us to live in “AGWD” ghettos/camps…. You know, just to keep close tabs of people with such “dangerous views”…
Restrict our opportunities into post-secondary schools, jobs, etc.
Richard, the world has seen and opposed Fascists like you before. And like their ideologies, you’re ideas, not built on truth, will end up on the trash heap of history.
Interesting how he uses the example of communism. C0nservatives on the right didn’t need 20 + years to understand the stupidity of that form of government. Now, the leftists fall for another global hoax, and we have to wait for them to realize they’ve been duped again!
It is a marketing campaign now. They have lost the scientific debate, so they have to dehumanize the opposition and belittle them.
The author had it partially right. The left will buy into anything that requires global action to control everyone. But, he attempt to lump conservatives in the same way, just at the opposite end is highly offensive. I, and a lot of people I know, don’t reject the global warming stuff because we are against global, communal action. We don’t buy it because it hasn’t been proven yet. We have a tendency to require science to be scientific. Of course, it was easy to be skeptical because the major forces behind the scam were liberal politicians. If that doesn’t make one skeptical, nothing will and I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
This guy gives us 20 years. I guess that’s long enough for us to forget about his ridiculous predictions. We’ve been having dire predictions since the 1960s. Back then it was global cooling. I suppose I might begin to take notice of this garbage if just once they got it right. Also, notice how it’s always a call for everyone else to change their habits, but not themselves. Al Gore spews more carbons into the air in a month than most of us do in a lifetime. Why would I believe him?
Indeed, a Revival! But it does not provide for a forced conversion to the faith. Perhaps a badge to be worn on the clothing? A bright red polar bear would do.
Well, when I drink a beer it does get tied up, but only for a few minutes, not 1450 years. After all, I don’t drink beer, I just rent it for a while.
When can we get rid of this misplaced climate change denier tag! Having been involved in this are from research over 30 years ago I have never “denied” climate change just the cause!! The climate has always changed! The carbon tax scam will change nothing just be a burden on us all! Whilst being a bonanza for shysters! Why has the the global temperature not increased since 1998 and yet CO2 has gone up 5% . Sadly humans are arrogant enough to think we can change these things either through CO2 emissions or their control-sadly we did not and cannot. I’ll be delighted to recount this fairytale nonsense to my great grandchildren!
Great idea, then when all the predictions they’ve made don’t come to fruition, we’ll know who to laugh at!
George, the sea water evaporated, came down as rain, collected in lakes and reservoirs, and man has poured it on the soil and used it for drinking and making beer, so at present that missing water is tied up. Oh, and the ocean is saltier because of that. Oh, and the higher concentration of salt water is killing sea creatures and might be a cause of cancer.
Is any body surprised at this idiot, it was after all a Penal, or is it penile Colony.
Maybe we should demand they get a tattoo across their fore heads so we know who the crooks and thieves are . Also the ones who are taken in by the scam. maybe a tattoo of a polar bear eating a liberal .
I have asked Mr. Glover how he, as an expert in global climate change, explains present sea level being 1.5 to 2 meters lower than it was at the end of the Roman Empire.
Anybody want to guess at his answer?
George
Seig Heil! Ja, Sicherlich! Hilter is alive and well – and living down under. The reason he was never caught was because everyone thought he ran off to South America! Right Hemisphere, wrong continent!
Sweet! Where do I go to get mine done – I’m assuming a new gov.’t bureacracy will be created to oversee this?
I love arguing with climate morons, and this will help facilitate that process for me…