Philip,
You wrote:
<<About a year ago, our National Post published a synopsis of the original
paper published by McKittrick and his colleague (can't remember his name),
wherein the "hockey stick" was examined and found badly lacking from many
standpoints, but in particular the statistical standpoint. This synopsis
was also published by McKittrick et al.
The tone of the paper was purely scientific, by which I mean that the
argument was mainly mathematical; emotions were strongly absent, as they
should be in a proper science paper. The argument they used was highly
convincing, again not relying on anything but logic/mathematics. Difficult
to find fault with that approach, no matter the credentials of those who
argue against it using everything including ad hominem attacks.>>
Beware of media reporting. Unfortunately, in pursuit of "balance," they
often present both sides of the argument as if they have equal weight -
which is definitely not the case.
Look at this list of the scientific "consensus"
http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensus.htm which shows the
overwhelming nature of the pro-AGW argument which is now accepted by every
major scientific organisation in the world. The denialist blogosphere makes
a helluva lot of noise but are mostly mavericks who seem to deliberately use
outdated and often long refuted arguments to sucker more people in.
Firstly it needs to be realised that the MANY hockey stick reconstructions
that have been done are only a small part of the supporting evidence that
mankind has already warmed the climate by their activities. Since the advent
of satellite measurement, the recent temperature rises have been measured
directly. Even if there were no hockeystick reconstructions of the past
temperature record, this would not change the AGW position which is based on
basic laws of physics and climate science which have been refined since the
1800's (Arrhenius and Joseph Fourier). The denialists constantly put forward
the original 1998 hockey stick as some sort of straw-man argument. They
basically say "look at this graph - it had statistical problems with the
analysis - therefore the reconstructed temperatures are not valid -
therefore global warming is a mistake". It's very dumb. It's rather like
seeing a pimple on the face of a supermodel and shouting out to anyone who
wants to believe saying LOOK LOOK LOOK the model isn't beautiful after all -
she's totally ugly. Other more recent versions of the hockeystick
reconstructions without the original statistical problems (which were pretty
arcane, never damning and are still disputed by the authors) still show much
the same thing and also show that the mediaeval warm period (another poster
child darling of the deceptive denialosphere in straw-man mode) was almost
certainly not warmer than today either - even if it was, that would not be
an argument against what we are currently doing to the climate anyway....
Mckittrick and McIntyre (who run climateaudit.org that I mentioned) are "one
trick ponies". Their whole modus operandi is to criticise the original 1998
"hockey stick" paper by MBH (Mann et al). The National Research Council
investigated the controversy and said:
"The panel published its report in 2006.[28] The report agreed that there
were statistical shortcomings in the MBH analysis, but concluded that they
were small in effect. The report summarizes its main findings as
follows:[29]" See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy for
the full tedious story. The précis version is that the hockey stick
reconstructions were not debunked as the denialosphere represented it and
are now stronger than ever.
Roger Pielke is regarded as a global warming sceptic but he even he said
this (about the report):
"Similarly, according to Roger A. Pielke, Jr., the National Research Council
publication constituted a "near-complete vindication for the work of Mann et
al.";[31] Nature (journal) reported it as "Academy affirms hockey-stick
graph."[32]"
You also wrote:
"Nature is utterly relentless, and for we puny humans to believe that we are
either going to (a) save or (b) destroy the planet's lifeforms, is a
testament only to our own vanity. We are only a blip on the face of the
earth, and a relatively meaningless blip at that."
These may be your thoughts but this "mankind is so small and the Earth is so
big, therefore how can we possibly affect it?" argument is another classic
from the denialosphere. Do the math. Divide the land surface of Earth by the
current population. It works out that the "share" of Earth's surface each
human has is a square of land 150 metres (165 yards) on a side. Within this
patch we have to cast our personal environmental shadow, using energy,
manufacturing goods, disposing of our personal waste, farming our share of
animals, growing our own food crops, extracting minerals for our purchases,
catching fish and dissipating our personal waste, pollution and cumulative
pesticides etc not to mention room for the multitude of wildlife and plants
that generate our oxygen etc and form the ecological web of life without
which we could not survive. Each person's environmental "spaceship" can also
be seen as a globe about 1km in diameter within which we have a patch of
"Earth" about 270 meters square, 70% of which is ocean, leaving the
aforementioned patch of land 150 metres square to live on. I think that
shows that Earth is pretty cramped and it is beyond rational belief that our
activities are not affecting things.
Nick Palmer
On the side of the Planet - and the people - because they're worth it
