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"Ugly Facts"
Ringing down the curtain
on the great climate panic
Donald A. Neill
This
paper highlights a number of “ugly facts” that tend to falsify the
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) thesis.
This falsification suggests that projections of catastrophic climate
change are unjustified, and that, accordingly, many if not all of the regulatory,
economic or financial measures being contemplated by governments are in fact unnecessary. The first four chapters examine the chief
flaws in the AGW thesis, showing that recent warming is in no way unusual; that
average global temperatures, contrary to the projections of all climate models,
have been falling for at least seven years; that there is no significant causal
correlation, over any time period, between carbon dioxide concentrations or
world fuel consumption, and global temperatures; and that there is, by contrast,
a significant correlation, strongly suggestive of a causal relationship,
between solar activity and global temperatures.
The last four chapters discuss the susceptibility of panics to
exploitation for pecuniary or political gain; the logical fallacies inherent in
labelling ‘climate change’ a ‘threat’; the extent to which the climate panic
and its perpetrators have undermined science and reason; and the potential
economic and societal costs of attempts to “combat” climate change. This paper concludes that attempts by
governments to solve something that does not appear to be a problem are
unnecessary, and are likely to be deeply damaging to the states whose economic
activity serves as the foundation of the global economy.
Introduction: Much of the Western world is at present galvanized by
worry about the menace of an impending climatic catastrophe. The source of this worry is “global warming”,
now euphemized by the more generic (and meaningless[1]) catch-all term, “climate change”. Concerns about “global warming” are grounded
in the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) thesis, which argues that
human-produced greenhouse gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, are the principal driver
of global temperatures; and that continuing human industrial activity will lead
to significant increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, which will in turn drive “dangerous” increases in average global
temperatures. Higher temperatures, it is
predicted, will in turn lead to all manner of ecological and environmental
disasters.
The
problem is that there is no empirical evidence to support either the central
tenets of the AGW thesis, or the prognostications of the UN Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concerning possible future climate states. The great climate panic is predicated solely
on the projections of computer models of climate that have never been validated
for forecasting purposes; that cannot accurately model past climate states; and
that have proven incapable of providing accurate projections even of current,
near-term temperature trends. All of the
IPCCs projections predict that temperatures will increase in lockstep with
atmospheric CO2 concentrations; but, over the past decade, CO2
concentrations have continued to rise, while temperatures have fallen. Even IPCC scientists are beginning to
acknowledge that the climate models have failed.
T.H.
Huxley once remarked that the great tragedy of science was “the slaying of a
beautiful theory by an ugly fact.” This
paper examines the great climate panic from the perspective of a number of
“ugly facts” which, taken together, tend to falsify the AGW thesis,
demonstrating that the panic – and any regulatory, economic or other measures
contemplated in response to it – is, and are, entirely unjustified. The first four chapters examine the chief
flaws in the AGW thesis, showing that recent warming is in no way unusual, falling
well within the parameters of natural warming, and that the Earth has been
considerably warmer in the past, before the emergence of humans; that, rather
than warming, the Earth has been getting colder for the past seven years,
contrary to the predictions of all climate models; that there is no significant
correlation, over any time scale, between either carbon dioxide concentrations
or world fuel consumption, and global temperatures; and that there is, by
contrast, a significant correlation, strongly suggestive of a causal
relationship, between solar activity and global temperatures. The last four chapters discuss the
susceptibility of panics to exploitation by the unscrupulous; the logical
fallacies inherent in labelling a natural phenomenon like ‘climate change’ a
‘threat’; the extent to which the climate panic and its perpetrators have
undermined science and reason; and the potential economic and societal costs of
attempts to “combat” climate change. This
paper concludes that attempts by governments to solve something that does not
appear to be a problem are unnecessary, and are likely to be deeply damaging to
the states whose economic activity serves as the foundation of the global
economy.
Results: The paper argues, first, that the AGW thesis is falsified by its
failure to explain observed data, e.g., the fact that temperatures have
proceeded in the direction opposite to its key predictions; second, that there
is far more convincing evidence that the Sun is probably the key driver of
terrestrial climate; third, that the great climate panic (like similar panics
in the past) is susceptible to exploitation for pecuniary and political gain;
fourth, that it is patently illogical to deem climate change a ‘threat,’
because climate, being cyclical, always changes, inter alia, because ‘threat’ implies
deliberate intent to inflict harm; that the reason the proponents of the AGW thesis
have been able to perpetrate the great climate panic, and to sustain it for so
long, is because they have not been held to rigorous standards of empirical
science; and finally, that any attempt
by governments to fix – whether through regulation, taxation or other methods –
something that is not broken, is likely to cause immense damage to the
economies of the advanced industrialized nations, which depend upon ready
access to energy to generate the economic success upon which the whole world
depends.
Significance: On the basis of the AGW thesis, governments worldwide are contemplating
regulatory and tax schemes that could impose drastic and crippling costs especially
on Western economies, with significant implications for the rest of the world,
in particular the developing nations. Given
the present state of the global economy, there is no scientific issue of
greater international, political, social or strategic relevance on the
horizon. The cost to nations of implementing
bad policy based on a falsified theory could be enormous.
Considerations
for implementation: Impending
national and international measures to “combat climate change” are predicated
solely on the predictive validity of the AGW thesis. They are therefore not grounded in sound empirical
science and should be revisited. There
is an urgent need for a comprehensive reassessment of the causes of climate
change from a perspective of rational risk analysis based on objective,
transparent, peer-reviewed empirical science.
Any such reassessment should (a) acknowledge both the weakness of
predictive methodologies in the face of complex, interdependent non-linear
systems like climate, and the patent inadequacy of linear trend projection as a
means of predicting mankind’s technological future; (b) note mankind’s
vanishingly small contribution to the terrestrial energy flux, and work upwards
from there to attempt to determine whether human activities have a measurable and
significant impact on climate; (c) recognize the historical susceptibility of
moral panics and economic bubbles to manipulation by opportunists for pecuniary
or political ends; and (d) avoid the alarmism, misrepresentation of science,
and demagoguery that have thus far been the principal tools of those who, for
the past two decades, have been force-feeding the AGW thesis to Western
publics.
Governments should reflect carefully before
taking costly and irrevocable action in an attempt to influence a global
phenomenon that according to all available evidence is largely if not
exclusively natural, and that does not in any case appear to be significantly
susceptible to alteration by human activity.
It would be inadvisable to attempt to identify, let alone implement,
policy options designed to influence climate before a thorough, and thoroughly
scientific, understanding of the sources, mechanisms and consequences of
climate change has been reached.
This study originated in a project aimed at
developing a strategic framework to guide the XXX and the XXX in investigating alternative
energy technologies. One aspect of that
project involved examining means of reducing XXX’s production of greenhouse
gases, specifically carbon dioxide. In
the course of researching this question, I reviewed the arguments advanced in support
of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) thesis. I also reviewed contrary theses, and the
observed data cited in support thereof.
I came to the conclusion that, in addition to
being unsupported by empirical data, the AGW thesis is incapable of explaining
observed climate trends. On further
investigation, it became clear that the Sun, rather than carbon dioxide, is
almost certainly the key driver of global climate; and that, therefore, efforts
by Western nations to cut carbon emissions (inter
alia, through treaties, regulation, taxation and “emissions trading”) were
– for a variety of historical, sociological and economic reasons – not only unnecessary,
but potentially economically disastrous.
Moreover, it seemed likely that, rather than continuing to warm, the
Earth was about to enter a cooling phase – and therefore that all of the
policies envisioned by the Western governments to respond to “climate change” are,
in fact, aimed in the direction precisely opposite to the problem.
One of the individuals who peer-reviewed that
paper objected to these conclusions, arguing (in depressingly familiar terms)
that “the science was settled”, and that the “scientific consensus” supported
the AGW thesis. These were, and are, patently
unscientific assertions. Consensus is
irrelevant to scientific inquiry; and any scientific theory, even if
well-corroborated by observed data, is “settled” only so long as no new observed
data comes along to “unsettle” it.
This paper constitutes my response to these
tired and manifestly unscientific chestnuts.
It has three purposes. The first is
to present the empirical evidence that, by any objective scientific standard,
falsifies the central tenets of the AGW thesis, and points instead to the Sun
as the principal driver of terrestrial climate.
The second is to take a broader look at how and why societies fall prey
to moral panics and economic bubbles, to discuss the present climate panic in
the context of historical, economic, societal and strategic factors, and to
look at some of the potential consequences that are likely to ensue if
governments continue to enact environmental policies that are based on unsound
science. My third purpose is simple: to plead
for a return to rigorous scientific inquiry, most especially the principle that
any theory that fails to explain observed data is by definition falsified, and
must be either changed or discarded.
I have not presented the scientific arguments
for the AGW thesis, as these have already been laid out in exquisite detail over
the past two decades (and repeated every five years by the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
Nor have I attempted to assess separately the quality of the science
contained in the peer-reviewed, published works that I have cited. My purpose is not to opine on the validity of
published papers, but merely to note their findings, and in doing so, to
emphasize three points: first, that the case for the Sun as the principal
driver of climate is much more strongly grounded in empirical science than the
case for carbon dioxide (much less human-produced carbon dioxide); second, that
the claim that the AGW thesis represents a “consensus” among scientists is both
irrelevant and demonstrably false; and third, that the debate over the causes
and likely consequences of “climate change” is by no means over.
The fact that I am not myself a climate
scientist should not be cause for concern.
The vast majority of those involved in the IPCC process – and, indeed,
most of those responsible for promulgating and exacerbating the climate panic –
are not climate scientists either.
Two of the scientists who reviewed earlier
drafts of this paper recommended that I incorporate a section addressing
implications for the Department of XXX. I had considered this, but had decided not to
do so – not because there are no implications for XXX (far from it!), but
rather because the implications of the failure of the AGW thesis are national,
and indeed international, in scope.
Western governments are flirting with carbon taxes and carbon trading,
and are planning to meet in Copenhagen later this year to attempt to create an
international regime to control carbon emissions. The Obama Administration is entertaining an
EPA finding that carbon dioxide is a “dangerous pollutant”; and at time of
writing, Congressional Democrats were considering a 600+ page “climate bill”
which, among many other dubious things, would enshrine the failed AGW thesis as
the law of the land. But if that thesis has
been falsified – and it has – then
all of these measures are nothing more than a costly, disruptive and
scientifically unsupportable exercise in ideology. The potential implications of the outcome of
the “climate debate,” therefore, go far beyond the mandate or interests of a
single Department. The entire world
stands to lose: both the industrialized part that consumes most of the energy, and
in doing so, generates virtually all of the wealth of the planet; and the
non-industrialized part that hopes one day to do the same, but that, for the
nonce, lives or dies upon the largesse generated by the wealthier nations. If the developed world deliberately hobbles
itself, then the excess capacity upon which the developing world subsists will
vanish, with grimly predictable consequences.
Instead of addressing XXX implications,
therefore, I have included a section that examines how energy, wealth, and
economic crises are intimately interlinked.
This section demonstrates, inter
alia, that in an industrialized society, the demand for more, and ever more
highly-ordered, power, always increases; that efficiencies incorporated through
technological innovation tend to increase aggregate energy consumption, rather
than decrease it; that, despite thirty years of subsidies and unprecedented
political pressure, “green power” has made virtually no progress in the US,
while the use of nuclear power and fossil fuels has increased significantly; and
that, for the past sixty years, the only time US energy consumption has ever actually
decreased has been as the direct result of terribly disruptive
politico-economic events. If the arrow
of causality between economic performance and energy consumption is
bi-directional – and there is every reason to suppose that it is – then an
international attempt to reduce energy consumption could, if successful, trigger
a worldwide economic catastrophe (on top, of course, of the one that is already
well under way). The implications are,
in fact, global.
Some of the language in this paper is
blunt. This is deliberate. I hope to encourage readers to re-examine
what they think they know about a
scientific question that has become so clouded by politics and ideology as to
have entirely departed the realm of empirical science. The climate debate must be brought back into
that realm, and subjected to rigorous, unswerving scientific scrutiny. I expect that my observations, my questions,
and my tone will be unwelcome to many, and may elicit a harsh response. So be it.
Angry replies to legitimate scrutiny and scientific criticism have
regrettably become the hallmark of the climate debate, as they inevitably do in
any area of endeavour where ideas are subsumed by ideology, and emotion is
permitted – even encouraged – to displace reason. Perhaps, by providing a long-overdue look at
the other side of the argument, we can begin to purge the ideology and emotion from
the equation, and put objectivity, science and reason back in the driver’s seat,
where they belong.
- D.A. Neill, March
2009
Since the masses of the people are
inconstant, full of unruly desires, passionate, and reckless of consequences,
they must be filled with fears to keep them in order.
- Polybius, Histories
Science never pursues the illusory aim of
making its answers final, or even probable.
Its advance is, rather, towards an infinite yet attainable aim: that of
ever discovering new, deeper, and more general problems, and of subjecting our
ever tentative answers to ever renewed and ever more rigorous tests.
- Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
A prince…must always seek advice…he should be
a constant questioner, and he must listen patiently to the truth regarding what
he has inquired about. Moreover, if he
finds that anyone for some reason holds the truth back he must show his wrath.
- Niccoló Machiavelli, The Prince
Sit down before fact as a little child, be
prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly to wherever and
whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
- Thomas Huxley, Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science
- Christopher Monckton, Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered
The most costly of all follies is to believe
passionately in the palpably not true.
-
H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy
[1]
There is no semantic value in characterizing as unusual, let alone hazardous,
the mutability of a system that has always been mutable – although clearly
there is immense political value in doing so.
