O ye ratbags of little faith...

...the left wing Huffington Post (motto "I'll blow your house up, and down" founder the late Hubert H. Huffington left) is sounding the huffing alarm over growing public scepticism about global warming. An analysis of opinion polls and Google searches indicate that the debate is annoyingly alive and public opinion is moving away from huffing green dogma...indeed, (excuse me while I slip into bold alarmist mode) going on these trends, by 2012, hardly anyone will believe in AGW at all, see graph here... The main reasons for public scepticism and cynicism are the cooling trend of the last decade together with the growing lack of interest and trust in main stream news sources. People are turning to the internet/blogosphere in ever increasing numbers.

Cometh the hour cometh the technology...although according to the huffing Laughington Post...

...Outside of a small band of ideologically motivated outlets, the majority of the mainstream media is unwilling to cover the nonsensical junk science of the right-wing think tanks and their cadre of scientists for hire. With this the case, the Internet is exploding with such information. And at the same time that we're seeing significantly more of this misinformation being spread about global warming online, we're also seeing more people than ever using the Internet as their main source of news and information...

...Opinion polls conducted in the United States over the last year confirm the upward trend in people who believe that global warming is not caused by human activity. One series of polls conducted by Rasmussen Reports found that between April and December, 2008 the number of respondents who attributed global warming to "long term planetary trends" and not human activity increased from 34 percent to 43 percent...see A Troubling Trend in Global Warming Denial on the Internet...here...

H/T to Independent Womens Forum...

The IPPC case for doomsday continues to unravel...

...here's comment from American Physical Society member Roger Cohen...

I retired four years ago, and at the time of my retirement I was well convinced, as were most technically trained people, that the IPCC’s case for Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is very tight. However, upon taking the time to get into the details of the science, I was appalled at how flimsy the case really is. I was also appalled at the behavior of many of those who helped produce the IPCC reports and by many of those who promote it. In particular I am referring to the arrogance; the activities aimed at shutting down debate; the outright fabrications; the mindless defense of bogus science, and the politicization of the IPCC process and the science process itself.

At this point there is little doubt that the IPCC position is seriously flawed in its central position that humanity is responsible for most of the observed warming of the last third of the 20th century, and in its projections for effects in the 21st century. Here are five key reasons for this:

1. The recorded temperature rise is neither exceptional nor persistent. For example, the earth has not warmed since around 1997 and may in fact be in a cooling trend. Also, in particular, the Arctic and contiguous 48 states are at about the same temperature as they were in the 1930s. Also in particular the rate of global warming in the early 20th century was as great as the last third of the century, and no one seriously ascribes the early century increase to greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Predictions of climate models are demonstrably too high, indicating a significant overestimate of the climate sensitivity (the response of the earth to increases in the incident radiation caused by atmospheric greenhouse gases). This is because the models, upon which the IPCC relies for their future projections, err in their calculations of key feedback and driving forces in the climate system.

3. Natural effects have been and continue to be important contributors to variations in the earth’s climate, especially solar variability and decadal and multidecadal ocean cycles.

4. The recorded land-based temperature increase data are significantly exaggerated due to widespread errors in data gathering and inadequately corrected contamination by human activity.

5. The multitude of environmental and ecological effects blamed on climate change to date is either exaggerated or nonexistent. Examples are claims of more frequent and ferocious storms, accelerated melting of terrestrial icecaps, Mount Kilimanjaro’s glacier, polar bear populations, and expansive mosquito-borne diseases. All of these and many others have been claimed and ascribed to global warming and by extension to human activity, and all are bogus or highly exaggerated.


I would be pleased to provide details on any of these five key reasons. Many others can do so as well.