My mission
Posted Dec22-09 at 01:47 PM by Andre
Some time ago I received a pm of somebody, who wondered why I was so passionately opposing global warming. As I seemed not to be a bad guy, why couldn’t I just be happy with all the good side effects that fighting global warming would bring.
I answered in my usual way, which is that accurate decisions about the best possible policies could only be made if it was based on sound neutral emotionless science and AGW doesn’t exactly appear to be emotionless nor neutral.
But there is more of course, for instance the flabbergasting fuss about it all. So like others, it’s maybe an idea to open up completely and express my concerns here.
It started all at the end of my flying career, around 1999. Incidently, professional flying requires a thorough knowledge of meteorology and that interested me, so I spend many more hours to satisfy my curiosity about it. Anyway around that time 1999, we saw the raising of the Mammoth. The Jarkov Mammoth in Northernmost Siberia and the Discovery documentary explaining that the animal had lived there about 20,350 years ago and maybe had drowned, considering the water plants in its surroundings.
20,350 years ago? During the Last Glacial Maximum when the world was supposed to be 10-15 degrees C colder than today, in a place where water plants existed? Where there is only a barren arctic tundra right now. No water plants; In short, it would have had to be some dozen degrees warmer than today. It looked a bit impossible to me.
My second concern was then why nobody seemed to be seeing that this should be a huge problem for paleo-climatological reconstructions. However, it was almost completely ignored. I decided –needing a new challenge after flying- to get to the bottom of this and started to read and read; everything I could lay my hands on about the last glacial period and the Holocene, starting with the popular trivia bu soon converting to peer reviewed studies, while trying to get the overall picture to see if it made sense. Conclusion at this moment: It still doesn’t.
But the concern really started with the publication of the Hockey stick in the summary of policy makers f the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. It was over obvious to me that this was utterly and completely wrong, given the plethora of information I just was reading aout paleo climate. Moreover, if we could not give the mammoths a place in a world, many degrees warmer than today, where it should have been many degrees colder, how could we project climate from paleo-climate in the first place? Nevertheless everybody was all very confident, this was the cold ice age and that was the warm interglacial, all caused by CO2, etc. Debate over.
Well, okay, one can argue about these things but then an astonishing thing happened. Many of the people with whom I had corresponded about the paleo-climate issues, suddenly turned out to be greedy crooks, bribed by the oil companies. I could not discern how they had changed so suddenly from upright fair scientists into the worst enemies of the Earth, but that’s what everybody seemed to be thinking all of a sudden and worse, I seemed to be one of those enemies too.
Anyway, with growing age I discovered the phenomenon ‘groupthink’ and I understood that that explained the enemy image about my friends and me. I also realized that I have been a victim of groupthink myself in many ways throughout my career, the cold war groupthink, the former Yugoslavia groupthink, Y2K groupthink, Iraq WMD groupthink. But fortunately not for me, climate groupthink; perhaps because I have no vested interest, just curiosity to what happened to the mammoth and why climate then was so completely different as advertised. But observing it from the outside, global warming groupthink, it is stunning how many similarities can be discerned with the other forms of groupthink I was part of myself.
So why am I so passionately opposing global warming? Not only because the science still makes no sense whatsoever, especially when paleo-climate is interpreted, but it is also because something has to be rectified. There is still that little warrior in me that demands justice to be done for the current witch hunt on climate skeptics and I try to show that in matters of scaremongering, like climate, that we, ourselves, are our worst enemies and its mechanism is named groupthink.
I answered in my usual way, which is that accurate decisions about the best possible policies could only be made if it was based on sound neutral emotionless science and AGW doesn’t exactly appear to be emotionless nor neutral.
But there is more of course, for instance the flabbergasting fuss about it all. So like others, it’s maybe an idea to open up completely and express my concerns here.
It started all at the end of my flying career, around 1999. Incidently, professional flying requires a thorough knowledge of meteorology and that interested me, so I spend many more hours to satisfy my curiosity about it. Anyway around that time 1999, we saw the raising of the Mammoth. The Jarkov Mammoth in Northernmost Siberia and the Discovery documentary explaining that the animal had lived there about 20,350 years ago and maybe had drowned, considering the water plants in its surroundings.
20,350 years ago? During the Last Glacial Maximum when the world was supposed to be 10-15 degrees C colder than today, in a place where water plants existed? Where there is only a barren arctic tundra right now. No water plants; In short, it would have had to be some dozen degrees warmer than today. It looked a bit impossible to me.
My second concern was then why nobody seemed to be seeing that this should be a huge problem for paleo-climatological reconstructions. However, it was almost completely ignored. I decided –needing a new challenge after flying- to get to the bottom of this and started to read and read; everything I could lay my hands on about the last glacial period and the Holocene, starting with the popular trivia bu soon converting to peer reviewed studies, while trying to get the overall picture to see if it made sense. Conclusion at this moment: It still doesn’t.
But the concern really started with the publication of the Hockey stick in the summary of policy makers f the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. It was over obvious to me that this was utterly and completely wrong, given the plethora of information I just was reading aout paleo climate. Moreover, if we could not give the mammoths a place in a world, many degrees warmer than today, where it should have been many degrees colder, how could we project climate from paleo-climate in the first place? Nevertheless everybody was all very confident, this was the cold ice age and that was the warm interglacial, all caused by CO2, etc. Debate over.
Well, okay, one can argue about these things but then an astonishing thing happened. Many of the people with whom I had corresponded about the paleo-climate issues, suddenly turned out to be greedy crooks, bribed by the oil companies. I could not discern how they had changed so suddenly from upright fair scientists into the worst enemies of the Earth, but that’s what everybody seemed to be thinking all of a sudden and worse, I seemed to be one of those enemies too.
Anyway, with growing age I discovered the phenomenon ‘groupthink’ and I understood that that explained the enemy image about my friends and me. I also realized that I have been a victim of groupthink myself in many ways throughout my career, the cold war groupthink, the former Yugoslavia groupthink, Y2K groupthink, Iraq WMD groupthink. But fortunately not for me, climate groupthink; perhaps because I have no vested interest, just curiosity to what happened to the mammoth and why climate then was so completely different as advertised. But observing it from the outside, global warming groupthink, it is stunning how many similarities can be discerned with the other forms of groupthink I was part of myself.
So why am I so passionately opposing global warming? Not only because the science still makes no sense whatsoever, especially when paleo-climate is interpreted, but it is also because something has to be rectified. There is still that little warrior in me that demands justice to be done for the current witch hunt on climate skeptics and I try to show that in matters of scaremongering, like climate, that we, ourselves, are our worst enemies and its mechanism is named groupthink.
Total Comments 13
Comments
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Thanks for this Andre, and well said. I may disagree on approach sometimes, but not on substance.
mheslepPosted Dec23-09 at 10:41 AM by mheslep 
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So your mission is based on your belief that there was no glacial maximum 20,000 years ago?
Posted Dec23-09 at 03:24 PM by billiards
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@mheslep, thanks and if I knew what the correct approach was, I'd certainly would follow that
@billiards, No, on the plethora of evidence that the actual temperature variation during the Pleistocene was nowhere near the interpretation of the temperatures interpreted from the isotope records. But that discussion should go in a thread, actually there are dozens of threads about that.Posted Dec24-09 at 01:42 AM by Andre
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I had a similar self-taught introduction to paleo-climatology and the nagging feeling of something not being quite right. Incidentally, I could have sworn that I heard on the 'One Show BBC1' a few weeks ago that the ice age was globally only 5 degrees colder than today. That would make more sense wouldn't it?
Posted Dec31-09 at 04:10 AM by aspergers@40
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Have you seen this site about papers on the ice age Arctic refugia? [url=http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/dont-panic-the-arctic-has-survived-warmer-temperatures-in-the-past/]Don’t Panic – The Arctic has survived warmer temperatures in the past[/url]
Posted Dec31-09 at 04:16 AM by aspergers@40
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The discovery of twice-size tree-top monkey skeletons in South Americas longest cave system has convinced me that the sun was more active and therefore stronger during the glacial cycle. A paradox? Not if you consider an increase in tidal mixing as well. The ocean bottoms would become warmer and so release CO2 incidentally. Global precipitation higher and windier, mean summer temps higher, ocean currents stronger but much cooler. QED The ice age promotes nature and biodiversity! Rainforests twice normal size? Wow.
Posted Jan2-10 at 04:01 AM by aspergers@40
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There's evidence that forests extended uninterrupted from North America to Mexico during the ice age. [url=http://www.flyingsquirrels.com/origins.html]Northern and Southern Flying Squirrels[/url]. I propose that the flying squirrel poulation got separated by deglaciation, i.e. lack of precipitation and sunshine. How else could a sub-species have been stranded in the heights of Mexico and Central America?
Posted Jan2-10 at 04:16 AM by aspergers@40
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Here's a dialogue I'm having on the same theme [url=http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=2450378#post2450378]What Was The Jet Stream Like During The Ice Age?[/url]. Notice the laughable attempts to explain the paleo finds..
Posted Jan2-10 at 08:44 AM by aspergers@40
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Here's a paper which states that remarkably, the Amazonian rainforest DIDN'T turn to savannah or appear to suffer from drought at all: [url=http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/31/4/291]Constancy in the vegetation of the Amazon Basin during the late Pleistocene[/url]
"Specifically, we found no evidence for the development of large savannas that had been previously postulated as indicators of increased glacial aridity in Amazonia. Climate models need to be modified to account for the uninterrupted input of moisture to the tropical Amazon region over the late Pleistocene–Holocene period."Posted Jan6-10 at 07:14 AM by aspergers@40
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The Congo fan sediments tell the same story! Check this article out which claims that aridity promoted the growth of the rainforest [url=http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=32348]Microfossils Unravel Climate History of Tropical Africa[/url]
Posted Jan11-10 at 08:20 AM by aspergers@40
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I just wanted to say, glad to see someone else who is not constrained by 'groupthink' great name I assume you didn't coin it. anyway I agree. myself I have always called it "29 out of 30 people are sheep" for personal reasons. I am sure you are heartened to discover the hockey stick is in fact an artificial construction as has been revealed by the leak of emails from University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, it is now obvious that the figures have been massaged to make it look worse than it really is. CC
Posted Mar5-10 at 07:19 PM by curiouschris
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While reading this I got excited about what adoucette (Arthur) would have to say on the subject, (he's a wiz) ;}over in Physorg.com forum. Not sure why but since I have no knowledge on the topic to add, I thought I'd add that you may enjoy his thoughts on the matter. I personally believe that he is very learned on such topics. For all I know you may be arch enemies, considering that site...
;~})Posted Jun2-10 at 12:59 AM by tikay
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Hi Andre
Re. Cobgo and Siberia being warmer, you have to take the polar-cirkulation into account. The north pole which is currently in Canada i believe wanders around and changes climates locally.
Bur regarding Global Waming:
There is NO doubt that CO2 emissions create increased cloud cover and contributes to a green house effect.
This is a solid fact, you will find it hard to argue against
If the current global temperatutre increase is CAUSED by CO2 is another matter.
Mayby our CO2 emissions are 80% of the reason or only 20% can be discussed. But it temperature increases in the given situation makes things worse and cause casualties, AND we will run out of oil in 20-40years.
This is why finding alternatives to oil is important for the long term survival of our technical civilisation.
I can understand your opposing political correctness , but the greenhouse effect is more than just a well established theory. (It is also a basis for taxation, which makes it in-discusable :O)
/HenrikPosted Sep16-10 at 07:40 AM by Kometkaj
