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January 17, 2007

Global Warming Heretics


Robert M. Carter, et al write,


peer review is both too inbred and insufficiently thorough to serve any audit purpose, which we believe is now essential for science studies that are to be used to drive trillion-dollar policies.

The authors (dismissed as "the usual suspects" by global warming believers) make a case that climate models are not mature. Concerning the Stern report, the authors write,

The Review assumes, against all empirical evidence and physical reasoning, that future increments of CO2 will have substantially greater effects than those in the past.

Ian Byatt, et al (same link, further down) question the economic cost estimates of Global Warming in the Stern report.

The Review then positions itself as an outlier by...dramatically ramping up estimates of damages due to extreme weather, ‘social and political instability’, and ‘knock-on effects’...The latter two...are grouped into ‘nonmarket impact’ and ‘risk of catastrophe’ effects, though with little further definition provided. According to the Review, they account for some 80–90 per cent of the projected damages due to global warming, and yet everybody else seems to have missed them.

I pass this along with a caveat emptor label. The reader who sent me the link pointed out that Robert Skidelsky, author of the superb biography of Keynes, is a co-author in the economics section. Other than that, I cannot vouch for the reputations of any of the authors, nor do I have expertise on the content. As you know, I am skeptical about climate models.


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CATEGORIES: Energy, Environment, Resources (217)


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COMMENTS (7 to date)

flix writes:

You are right to talk about heresy, climate change proponents often behave like believers, rahter than scientists. They remind me very much of the Ptolomeic vs. Copernican astronomy debate.

I don't know who's right, but I do know that the establishment is behaving like it's a matter of faith.

Posted January 18, 2007 10:35 AM

Lord writes:

I think you have the title wrong. It should be Orthodoxy, at least here in the US.

Posted January 18, 2007 12:22 PM

ivan writes:

"climate change proponents often behave like believers, rahter than scientists"

Well, it's a scientific established fact that climate change is the rule. Climate change proponents in fact think that global warming caused by humans is the exception and nothing to be scared about because it happens naturally anyway.

It are the "global warming caused by humans" proponents who behave like believers more than scientists.

Posted January 19, 2007 04:10 AM

Dezakin writes:

It would be helpful to illustrate that we can reduce emissions for free, weather or not we need to. The entire ordeal is influenced by the coal lobby on one side and anti-nuclear forces on the other... but simply streamlining nuclear licensing while prohibiting coal for municipal power will cost nothing and reduce emissions with none of this emissions trading beurocracy that seems to be more and more popular.

Posted January 19, 2007 08:26 PM

aaron writes:

"weather," that's punny!

Posted January 20, 2007 11:01 AM

Snark writes:
"weather," that's punny!

No pun intended, unless "beurocracy" is, in some way, a double entendre.

I'm surprised that the severe winter conditions we're experiencing haven't reinvigorated fears of global cooling. This, coupled with the threat of global warming, is certain to leave us in a fog, is it not?

Posted January 20, 2007 05:10 PM

rocky writes:

i think that the co2 levels in the next several years will start to decrease because the demand for petrolum will decrease when other options are avaliable in motor vehicles. When more hybrid cars are purchased the co2 will decrease and also other options will be available; so even more co2 will not be created.

Posted January 22, 2007 08:33 PM

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