Debate not over, somehow

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Last updated on August 8th, 2017 at 04:56 pm

Academics George Chilingar and Leonid F. Khilyuk examine global warming:

The two researchers from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles (USA) conclude that “the theory of currently observed global atmospheric warming as a result of increasing anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission is a myth,” and that it has “proved to be an enduring one.”

All of this is apparently peer-reviewed, as Andrew Bolt notes. Continuing:

The take-home message of Khilyuk and Chilingar’s analysis, as they describe it, is that “any attempts to mitigate undesirable climatic changes using restrictive regulations are condemned to failure, because the global natural forces are at least 4-5 orders of magnitude greater than available human controls.”

What is more, they indicate that “application of these controls will lead to catastrophic economic consequences,” noting that “since its inception in February 2005, the Kyoto Protocol has cost about $50 billion supposedly averting about 0.0005°C of warming by the year 2050,” and that “the Kyoto Protocol is a good example of how to achieve the minimum results with the maximum efforts (and sacrifices).”

This being the case, they conclude that “attempts to alter the occurring global climatic changes have to be abandoned as meaningless and harmful,” and that in their place the “moral and professional obligation of all responsible scientists and politicians is to minimize potential human misery resulting from oncoming global climatic change,” hopefully by more immediate, rational and cost-effective means.

Reviewing Chilingar and Khilyuk’s work, World Climate Report writes:

The debate on climate change is never boring, the debate is full of surprises, and anyone claiming the debate is over is simply dismissing a significant number of papers that appear regularly in the major journals.

(Via Petrarchan Motif and J.F. Beck)

Posted by Tim B. on 12/04/2006 at 10:54 AM
    1. Oh oh! Let me be the first to quash the debate.

      They’re in the pockets of Big Carbon!

      Posted by CrankyNeocon on 2006 12 04 at 11:06 AM • permalink

 

    1. “the Kyoto Protocol is a good example of how to achieve the minimum results with the maximum efforts (and sacrifices).”

      Sounds like a very typical big government feel-good program: expending mind-bogglingly huge sums of money on ephemera to no appreciable effect.

      Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 12 04 at 11:19 AM • permalink

 

    1. This being the case, they conclude that “attempts to alter the occurring global climatic changes have to be abandoned as meaningless and harmful,”

      What, and give up all that grant money?

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 12 04 at 11:40 AM • permalink

 

    1. More heretics!  Burn the lot of ‘em.  Er, in an ecologically friendly way, of course.

      Posted by rbj1 on 2006 12 04 at 12:06 PM • permalink

 

    1. The debate about the debate being over is not over.

      Posted by Brian O’Connell on 2006 12 04 at 12:25 PM • permalink

 

    1. Thanks for the Hat Tip, Tim!  I was wondering who was perusing my site all the way from Australia.

      Posted by Petrarchan Motif on 2006 12 04 at 01:46 PM • permalink

 

    1. Lalalalalala, can’t heeeeaaaar you!!!

      /warm-monger

      Posted by PW on 2006 12 04 at 02:50 PM • permalink

 

    1. But, didn’t Quiggin say The Debate Is Over?

      Didn’t these guys get the memo?

      Posted by Sigivald on 2006 12 04 at 03:00 PM • permalink

 

    1. I’m sure Tim Lambert will figure out a way of smearing these heretics.

      Posted by niobium2000 on 2006 12 04 at 04:01 PM • permalink

 

    1. #8 Sigivald: He may have said that, but when broadcast through all that facial hair the words were muffled and it came out sounding like “Time to bake the plover”.

      Posted by paco on 2006 12 04 at 04:45 PM • permalink

 

    1. I say we persecute prosecute these climate-change deniers!  They are more dangerous to the carbon credit scam all of mankind than any so-called terrorist.

      ‘Sides, AlGore might have to come up with an actual job if we allow this kind of thing to go on.

      Posted by saltydog on 2006 12 04 at 05:24 PM • permalink

 

    1. John Quiggin’s argument – along with commenters Janice and (I can barely type this one) rinardman, going by a recent thread – is that they are not climatologists and therefore not qualified. (Rinardman – my belated reply to your point that these other scientists aren’t working from their own data is simply not correct in many cases).

      The good professor e-mailed me – politely – after that thread. I had referred to the Oregon Petition, which is anti-warming. Apparently there are only 200 climatologists signed on to it. This is an extrapolated figure cited in Wikipedia, but since I can’t find out the exact breakdown of professions amongst those signatures, I’ll accept it for now. 200 still isn’t a bad number, and there are many more in related fields – meteorology, geology, physics for instance. Certainly enough to stomp on this ridiculous “consensus” nonsense.

      I’d like to find out a few more details about that petition myself. This is too important a topic for warm-mongers to get out of simply by citing lack of transparency. I will not subscribe blindly to the Word as handed down by the “majority” of experts when there are so many other equally intelligent scientists proclaiming (if a little more quietly) the opposite, and I have enough education to at least look at each side of the argument.

      Am I 100% convinced there is no anthropogenic warming? Hell no – at least 0.3 degrees Celsius is probably us! As for the rest of it – speculation (most of it highly tenuous or outright improbable) blown out of proportion by those with vested interests or those so ideologically warped they just hate industry on pinciple.

      If I have to respond to any criticisms this time, it’ll be later today. Gotta go to work.

      Posted by Dminor on 2006 12 04 at 05:36 PM • permalink

 

    1. 11. ‘Sides, AlGore might have to come up with an actual job if we allow this kind of thing to go on.

      Now, there’s something interesting to speculate on. What kind of job could Al Gore do if he actually had to work in the private sector? The real private sector, not that commercial DMZ where government and private business overlap and money is used to mulch stupid ideas that could never exist in the wild?

      Posted by paco on 2006 12 04 at 05:38 PM • permalink

 

    1. But he thinks that “that commercial DMZ where government and private business overlap and money is used to mulch stupid ideas” IS a real job!

      Posted by Firehand on 2006 12 04 at 06:03 PM • permalink

 

    1. Sure could have used some of that warmening here in Seattle last week.  That’s the problem with warmening/coldening: you never get the side of it you really want.

      Posted by Director on 2006 12 04 at 06:50 PM • permalink

 

    1. Obviously part of the Big Oil funded Creationist conspiracy.

      Posted by JubJub on 2006 12 04 at 07:08 PM • permalink

 

    1. #12 …along with commenters Janice and (I can barely type this one) rinardman…

      What’s the matter Dminor, don’t like to match wits with the resident retard?

      Of course, referring to me, not Janice.

      Posted by rinardman on 2006 12 04 at 07:31 PM • permalink

 

    1. For the benefit of those who are not scientifically or mathematically inclined, “4-5 orders of magnitude” translates to 10000-100000 times the impact of human activity. We are lost in the noise.

      Posted by JSchuler on 2006 12 04 at 07:44 PM • permalink

 

    1. From the article:

      The current global warming is most likely a combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible for less than 0.01°C (of approximately 0.56°C (1°F) total average atmospheric heating during the last century) (Khilyuk and Chilingar 2003, 2004).”

      Posted by Mystery Meat on 2006 12 04 at 08:50 PM • permalink

 

    1. But that’s the 0.01 degree C that’s drowning the polar bears, dammit!  It’s gotta be!  It’s just gotta!

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 12 04 at 09:27 PM • permalink

 

    1. One hundredth of one degree. At last I understand the immeasurable harm being done by us carbon burners.

      Posted by Skeeter on 2006 12 04 at 09:59 PM • permalink

 

    1. Al Gore should read this link to a peer reviewed paper.

      Airplane contrails, the condensation trails formed in the wake of high-altitude jets, may be responsible for all warming observed in the United States during the past 25 years, a new study suggests.

      World Climate Report

      Incidentally, the paper was printed in the American Meteorological Society Journal of Climate

      But I guess they are weathermen, not climatologists.

      Posted by moptop on 2006 12 04 at 10:08 PM • permalink

 

    1. My goodness, more questioning of the IPCC by, well they must be hacks in the pay of big carbon, the folks at American Scientist magazine.

      The concentrations of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have both risen dramatically since the start of the industrial revolution, but unlike its more familiar greenhouse-gas cousin, atmospheric methane has recently stopped increasing in abundance.

      This happy development wasn’t entirely unanticipated, given that the rate of increase has been slowing for at least a quarter-century. Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicated many of its conclusions on scenarios in which methane concentrations would continue growing for decades to come. Thus the recent stabilization of methane levels is something that some scientists are trying very hard to explain.

      American Scientist Online

      There is also in this article a reference to a paper in Geophysical Research Letters which indicates that the effect of rising temperatures may limit the amount of methane in the atmosphere, providing negative feedback. You read about this in all the papers right?

      Posted by moptop on 2006 12 04 at 10:38 PM • permalink

 

    1. For another view on weather/climate variability, see Bah, Humbug!, and the listed articles and references.

      Posted by rml on 2006 12 05 at 01:33 AM • permalink

 

    1. Rhinardman, I think you’re the funniest commenter on this blog, and there’s some stiff competition there!

      Yes, I dread matching wits with you. Pity Miranda Divide doesn’t have any wit to match; I’d argue with her all day.

      Posted by Dminor on 2006 12 05 at 06:10 AM • permalink

 

    1. You read about this in all the papers right?
      Oh, yeah! Just after I read this.

      Convincingly and without resorting to partisan politics, Kuypers strongly illustrates in eight chapters “how the press failed America in its coverage on the War on Terror.” In each comparison, Kuypers “detected massive bias on the part of the press.” In fact, Kuypers calls the mainstream news media an “anti-democratic institution” in the conclusion.

      Posted by blogstrop on 2006 12 05 at 06:44 AM • permalink

 

    1. I just can’t wait till Chilingar’s and Khilyuk’s work gets a mention on ABC/SBS news.

      Posted by Paulm on 2006 12 06 at 07:03 AM • permalink

 

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