Probably I am not the only one who has been wondering about the apparent contradictions that arise from the various climate positions. Meteorologists claim that global warming has made a slow-down and describe the current epoch as cooler. Hence, temperatures do not seem to be in line with the predictions of the greenhouse theory. At the same time, others, like the World Bank in its November report, stress that the situation is worse than ever: emissions have increased and a temperature rise of four degrees is predicted for this century.
How should we interpret these contradictions? Measured temperatures have been commonly understood as hard facts in the past. The fact that temperatures have not significantly increased during the first decade of this century can easily be checked by anyone. The conclusions that we should draw from this are a mystery, however. Changes in global temperatures could also be considered features of natural climate variability. The climate has always been changing at regular intervals.
Therefore, when one implies that the situation is worse than ever, one does not refer to empirically observed temperatures, but to the greenhouse theory. As a matter of fact, one interprets under the premises of the theory. Because the theory assumes that CO2 emissions cause a rise in temperatures, and as CO2 emissions have increased exponentially and much more rapidly than what was initially assumed, the conclusion is that temperatures will indeed rise. Even if they won’t now, some day they will for sure. The situation is bad, or at least it will become bad.
Is it bad? I do not know, but as a politician I am forced to consider all possibilities. I am obliged to draft policy that we are least likely to regret in the future. Whatever the conclusions of science eventually are, policies had better be as sensible as possible.
Three years ago both scientific circles and the rest of us were flabbergasted by the so-called Climategate scandal. The personal e-mail messages of some Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) researchers were leaked to the public. Some of the correspondence was from the time when the 2001 IPCC report was being finalised. The messages revealed that the researchers were wondering how the ‘problematic’ Medieval Warm Period could be concealed. In later messages the scientists contemplated, why temperatures did not go up during the first decade of the millennium, and what they could possibly do about this issue.
In other words, climate researchers had difficulties producing the figures they desired, that is, figures that would give politicians the aspired signal. The Medieval Warm Period was in this regard the biggest problem, as it was conclusively warmer then than it is now. Secondly, based on the tone of the correspondence, the research group seemed frustrated: in recent times, temperatures had not gone up as predicted.
The truth is that they still haven’t. During this millennium the global average temperature has been rather stubborn and not in line with predictions. Even if emissions have increased radically, a correlation with rising temperatures just cannot be traced. This issue also features in the upcoming, leaked, IPCC report. Even though public statements attempted to mask the damage done by the leak, everyone has been able to draw their own conclusions based on a graph in the report: temperatures stagnate even though the predictions point upwards. The temperatures simply do not obey.
Unless we make them obey. A University of Oslo professor, Ole Humlum, recently remarked an odd phenomenon and revealed the newest climate scandal. Apparently, since 2008 some research institutions have been retrospectively correcting their global temperature graphs. Usually, this would not be strange at all, as scientific information tends to be built up piece-by-piece and may have to be rectified at a later stage. It is, however, extremely strange that data from 1915 has also been touched-up. Temperature data from the beginning of the 20th century has been systematically rounded down, while later data has been rounded up respectively. Data seems to have been forced to obey the greenhouse theory, and suddenly it seems like the graphs confirm the desired hypotheses.
As I am a free thinker with no taboos, I want to express this out loud. The world should be portrayed the way it is, and a politician should also welcome crude facts. We should not force data or fit circles into squares – this mentality belongs to another world and another political ideology.
But do we make sensible policies?
Let’s assume that the AGW-greenhouse theory, as it stands now, is not correct, and warming and cooling both fit under natural variability and the fact is that the climate has always changed in one direction or another. In this scenario we are not making good policy, as staring at CO2 only has taken attention away from other severe problems. In the name of the fight against climate change both the quality of air and the problem of pollution have worsened. In other words, the climate problem has cannibalised other environmental problems.
Let’s then further assume that the correlation theory of increased atmospheric CO2 and global warming is true, and that the situation is worse than ever. Even in this case we are not making sensible policy, as the policy has not alleviated the problem it was supposed to. Not in the least bit.
European climate policy has a massive price tag attached to it. It has even been catastrophic from an environmental point of view. For years I have spoken out about the fact that we should be more careful in investing our resources. We should not allow absurdities in the name of the greenhouse theory. At present, we have the most expensive, one-sided climate policy in the world, which reduces jobs in the EU and also penalises the world’s cleanest production operations. As a matter of fact, the newest research shows that the present policy does not even reduce emissions. If we take into account consumption, too, the EU’s total emissions have actually gone up. While production-based emissions have indeed gone down appropriately, strikingly, consumption-based emissions have dramatically increased. This development speaks a language of failure: because of our climate policy, production has been relocated to other parts of the world with less clean production – and unemployment in the EU has gone up.
My proposal is that we start making policy that we do not have to regret later, irrespective of the outcomes of scientific research. Such policy would include energy saving, the development of clean technology, sustainable forestation, the prevention of air pollution, as well as the fight against poverty and erosion in developing countries. We should also guarantee clean production and jobs in Europe. We ought to take all these actions even if we had no information whatsoever about climate change. And if we did have the information, these would be the best recipes to tackle the problem.
Bravo! Please convince your colleagues asap!
Anne
Dear Ms. Korhola,
I was deeply moved by your blog entry from January 15th about your doubts about the rationale behind the ”Antropomorphic global warming” and the policies drawn by the EU as a result.
As a scientist interested by the issue since about 10 years, I came to the same conclusions described in your blog.
I was even more disapointed to see that the ”global warming” issue is not anymore a scientific discussion, but has become some kind of ”beacon of truth”, will some of the caracteristic of a cataclysmic kult.
If you raise the slightest doubt about the principles (and there are many reasons to do so, both in the ”warming” claims, and in the reasons and models used to build the case) you are considered a ”sceptic” or worst a ”denier”.
And, as you are mentionning, there is large evidence of dishonesty, or fraud, from the most proponent promoters of the ”antropomorphic global warming”.
There is an urgent need of coming back to a rational discussion about the issue, because, like you, I think that most of the decisions taken to ”fight global warming” are inefficient, and very ofter counter-productive. A simple example could be the switch is some countries toward promoting diesel fuel (much more polluting) than petrol for running cars. Or investing massive amount in solar- or wind-power which has not decreased the dependance on fossil fuel, and has massively increased the cost of energy.
As you are remarking, this is costing jobs, and is a large burden for Europe, which is basically the last territory on the planet (with Australia) to have strong policies compliant with the Kyoto Protocol.
I am very happy to see that more and more European MPs are aware of this, and I cannot thank you enough to have the courage to mention your opinion openly.
Your Sincerely,
Dr Benjamin DAMIEN
University of Liège (Belgium)
Thank you very much for your comment. I am surprised how much feedback I receive from scientist, and their message is exactly the same than yours. I really appreciate your intellectual honesty to take the stand for the objectivity and independence of science. This is how I see it.
Very glad to see a European politician capable of independent thought and investigation, and doing her homework. There is still some hope.
Thanks.
Dear Mrs Kohola,
I used to be a European civil servant working in the field of the safety of nuclear reactors.
I am retired since a long time.
In my free time I have been looking into the possibility whether a trace gas like CO2 can have that influence as is claimed by IPCC.
My answer is no, it is not possible.
I wrote a paper on it, indeed a bit mathematical, but the conclusions are in plain English.
http://www.tech-know-group.com/papers/IR-absorption_updated.pdf
Jef Reynen
The best source for real information on the AGW theory and its exploitation is WattsUpWithThat. I’m sure that Anthony Watts and his many, many readers would be delighted to supply you with all the facts and citations that you need to combat the massive financial proposed to ’deal with’ what is almost certainly an imaginary problem.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Dear Ms Korhola,
Our group of earth science professionals, engineers and others has been fighting this battle in Canada for over ten years now. While our Federal and Provincial Governments are both of a ”conservative” persuasion and contain many who are sympathetic to our and your cause, neither Mr Harper, not Ms Redford allow science to trump policy. Policy – in turn – is decided by short term local political interests, imagined lack of public support, commercial pressures from beneficiaries of carbon taxes or trading, the politics of our elephant neighbour and the next election.
We are cheering you on and may include your web-article in a forthcomiing approach to our above named Prime Minister and Provincial Premier.
Shout it from the towerd of Europe and good luck!
Dear Ms Korhola,
You seem willing to question what you hear and understand things for yourself. These are qualities we need in our MEPs!
Climate change is certainly a controversial topic these days. It is very hard to separate truth from propaganda. But I strongly hope you will not confuse comments in blogs and the media with the considered evidence from the scientific community. You can find this from the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society and other such groups.
I am a professional atmospheric physicist – I have spent time trying to understand the evidence for greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, and I have met & worked with many other scientists in the field.
I find plenty of evidence, from many different sources, that stacks up to show we have a problem. And nearly every scientist I have met who works on this evidence is intelligent, honest and free-thinking. Some people say there is a conspiracy, but I assure you that would be pretty hard to organise!
On the specific issue of (no) warming since 2000, scientists always use a period of at least 30 years to determine a climate trend. Anything less is just too short and noisy. This has been standard World Meteorological Guidance since the 1950s, I think. If you look at the trend since 1980, we are clearly still getting warmer.
What do we do about it? Well, that’s the bit I don’t think scientists are responsible for. Everyone in society deserves to have a voice in that debate. Policy experts like you are especially important. Perhaps you have spoken to some atmospheric scientists in your country to find out how they work and ask them your questions?
But please let us not ignore their opinion, just because some of the implications may be uncomfortable.
All the best
What a refreshingly sensible article for a politician.
(Apologies for the implied insult.
I have also only just found out that your colleague Roger Helmer is also my MEP for the English East Midlands. So that makes two of you.)
Thanks for this great post.
It’s good to see that there are still people out there that are interested in real debate and considering facts. That’s exactly what has been missing in the last years.
If only we had more politicians like you!