Sorry for so few new posts here since October.
I was working on my November-December 2016 economics newsletter, and my 2016 election blog at www.ElectionCircus.Blogspot.com
My primary interest is economics and finance.
My interest in global warming started when I worked in product development at an auto manufacturer, and feared the demonization of fossil fuels.
I started using the internet in 1996, and found the www.SEPP.org website in 1997 -- I used their "The Week That Was" column, and still do, to identify climate articles and papers to read.
And I've read something of interest every week since then.
My initial opinion was that no one could predict the future climate.
I still believe that today.
But there was enough warming in the 1990s to be concerned.
I wrote my first feature article about global warming in my economics newsletter in 2007 -- it was a seven-page newsletter, versus my usual four-pages.
By 2007 it had become obvious to me that the claim of a coming climate catastrophe was nothing more than a unproven belief, not real science.
I may have published a few brief global warming updates in the next seven years.
I wrote another global warming feature article in late 2014, and started this blog for updates to that article, only for subscribers to my economics newsletter.
I later made this URL available to readers of comments I'd made at Anthony Watt's excellent climate website -- best in the world for open minds.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/
I've been asked what climate reading made the most impact on me.
The answer is simple: The ClimateGate hacked emails.
Those hacked emails clearly showed group-think of climate modelers on government payrolls.
They had a public position on global warming, and a private position.
And the climate modelers grossly exaggerate what they know about climate change, and especially their predictions about the future climate.
They hide their uncertainties, and internal debates, in an effort to present great certainty to the general public!
Remembering ClimateGate
ClimateGate I in November 2009 (about 1,000 hacked emails)
ClimateGate II in 2011 (about 5,300 hacked emails):
(1)
Climate science not "settled" among scientists in private,
(2)
No consensus on the cause(s) and extent of global warming,
(3)
No consensus on the now discredited Mann "hockey stick" chart,
(4)
Public statements grossly overstated the "consensus",
(5)
Dissenting articles were blocked from publication and IPCC review,
(6)
Requests to share raw data were refused,
(7)
Freedom of Information Act requests were stonewalled,
(8)
National science panels were stacked with "believers",
(9)
Climate models were "tuned" to emphasize carbon dioxide, and ignore most other possible causes of climate change -- internal debates on the effects of the sun were never revealed to the public, and
(10)
The UN's IPCC placed a premium on gatekeepers and arbiters who tightly control:
-- Who can contribute to IPCC,
-- What information can get into IPCC, and
-- What information can't get into IPCC, (IPCC = IPCC Summary Report)
Best quotes from hacked emails:
(A)
From scientist Peter Thorne of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wrote scientist Phil "hide the decline" Jones, in a 2005 email:
"I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run."
(B)
From Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University to many IPCC scientists, in a 2008 email:
"It is inconceivable that policymakers will be willing to make billion- and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the projected regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and simulate the processes that are building blocks of climate variability."
(C)
From Stanford scientist Stephen Schneider, written in 1989:
"... we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination.
That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.
... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."