What about the equally ominous predictions of global cooling, less than 40 years ago? Read the April 25, 1975 Newsweek article entitled The Cooling World and tell me that scientific consensus itself isn't a gigantic crap shoot.
When dealing with science, there are two cardinal rules: 1) Proof is based on evidence, not consensus. Consensus changes, sometimes dramatically; and 2) Science is very good at describing our universe, but not so good at predicting.
My already high admiration for Texas has just beenincreased! It will be of no interest to the closed minds who usually inhabit this space but my Texan friend above might be amused by these two questions raised in our House of Lords in Westminster:
Lord Donoughue to ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Verma on 2 July (WA 202–3), whether the Met Office has yet set a date by which, in the event of no further increase in global temperatures, it would conclude that the global warming predicted via its general circulation models has been disproved.[HL1792]
Baroness Verma: My understanding is that no such date has been formally set by the Met Office. .......................................................
Lord Donoughue to ask Her Majesty’s Government if they still accept the opinion of their Government Chief Scientific Adviser, given in 2004, that by the end of this century the most habitable place on Earth will be the Antarctic, and if not what were the grounds for the change. .......................................................
Your Texan friend is indeed amused, not only by the irony, but also by the rather formal manner in which questions are raised in your Parliament ("Lord Donoughue to ask Her Majesty's Government..."). Terribly British, that.
I hope my British friend might be amused by something I wrote on another blog toward the end of 2010 on the same topic:
On March 20, 2000, an article appeared in the UK Independent entitled "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past" (here’s a link to the article). The author, Charles Onians, quotes Dr. David Viner, a research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (Note: CRU was later to be the source of the "Climategate" emails). Dr. Viner predicted that "within a few years, winter snowfall will become 'a very rare and exciting event.’"
“‘Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,’ he said.”
In searching for articles about the recent snows in Great Britain, I discovered something very interesting. Parts of the UK enjoyed a White Christmas in 2009 as well, and on January 7, 2010, NASA reported that “[s]now blanketed Great Britain.” Here’s a link to NASA’s satellite imagery of the event, which “shows snow cover over the entire island of Great Britain.”
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Just like that loner Einstein and his ridiculous ideas on Brownian motion and energy/mass. What a gambler!
ReplyDeleteWhat about the equally ominous predictions of global cooling, less than 40 years ago? Read the April 25, 1975 Newsweek article entitled The Cooling World and tell me that scientific consensus itself isn't a gigantic crap shoot.
ReplyDeleteAnd now there's talk that there's been a "standstill" in global warming since 1998. Read this BBC article entitled Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming 'not as likely'.
Why is that? Some scientists attribute this to a decrease in solar activity. Read Will Inactive Sun Cause Global Cooling?.
When dealing with science, there are two cardinal rules: 1) Proof is based on evidence, not consensus. Consensus changes, sometimes dramatically; and 2) Science is very good at describing our universe, but not so good at predicting.
My already high admiration for Texas has just beenincreased! It will be of no interest to the closed minds who usually inhabit this space but my Texan friend above might be amused by these two questions raised in our House of Lords in Westminster:
ReplyDeleteLord Donoughue to ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Verma on 2 July (WA 202–3), whether the Met Office has yet set a date by which, in the event of no further increase in global temperatures, it would conclude that the global warming predicted via its general circulation models has been disproved.[HL1792]
Baroness Verma: My understanding is that no such date has been formally set by the Met Office.
.......................................................
Lord Donoughue to ask Her Majesty’s Government if they still accept the opinion of their Government Chief Scientific Adviser, given in 2004, that by the end of this century the most habitable place on Earth will be the Antarctic, and if not what were the grounds for the change.
.......................................................
Your Texan friend is indeed amused, not only by the irony, but also by the rather formal manner in which questions are raised in your Parliament ("Lord Donoughue to ask Her Majesty's Government..."). Terribly British, that.
DeleteI hope my British friend might be amused by something I wrote on another blog toward the end of 2010 on the same topic:
On March 20, 2000, an article appeared in the UK Independent entitled "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past" (here’s a link to the article). The author, Charles Onians, quotes Dr. David Viner, a research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (Note: CRU was later to be the source of the "Climategate" emails). Dr. Viner predicted that "within a few years, winter snowfall will become 'a very rare and exciting event.’"
“‘Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,’ he said.”
In searching for articles about the recent snows in Great Britain, I discovered something very interesting. Parts of the UK enjoyed a White Christmas in 2009 as well, and on January 7, 2010, NASA reported that “[s]now blanketed Great Britain.” Here’s a link to NASA’s satellite imagery of the event, which “shows snow cover over the entire island of Great Britain.”
A “very rare and exciting event”? I think not.