Attention Richard Black? Something else to blame on CO2?

Discovery News, the Discovery Channel's news website, has an article that begins thus:

'Could Air Pollution Be Making Us Fat?

A hypothesis proposes that rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere may be contributing to obesity.

Steadily rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be affecting brain chemistry, increasing appetite and contributing to the obesity epidemic, according to a new hypothesis, which still awaits rigorous testing and inevitable debate.

The idea proposes that breathing in extra CO2 makes blood more acidic, which in turn causes neurons that regulate appetite, sleep and metabolism to fire more frequently. As a result, we might be eating more, sleeping less and gaining more weight, partly as a result of the air we breathe.

Major studies are in the works to test the hypothesis, which is still very much in the what-if stage. But if the link pans out, the research would offer yet another reason to reduce the CO2 we produce, while also potentially inspiring new obesity treatments.'

I think the key words in that report are 'could' and 'may' but I am sure some scaremongering is well in order. However I doubt that Richard Black would be approving of the line that reads:

'a new hypothesis, which still awaits rigorous testing and inevitable debate.'

Ridiculous, where would be if CO2 scares were subjected to rigorous testing?

The only constant are that we should be afraid, do as we are told and pay more taxes

Yesterday the BBC informed us that:

'The progressive shrinking of Arctic sea ice is bringing colder, snowier winters to the UK and other areas of Europe, North America and China, a study shows.As global temperatures have risen, the area of Arctic Ocean covered by ice in summer and autumn has been falling. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a US/China-based team show this affects the jet stream and brings cold, snowy weather.'

The BBC's warmist evangelist Richard Black is happy to spread the fear.

As I wrote just three weeks ago, in 2000 The Independent newspaper was reporting as fact that:

'Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.

Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.

The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and December brought only moderate snowfall in the South-east. It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years: in the south of England, for instance, from 1970 to 1995 snow and sleet fell for an average of 3.7 days, while from 1988 to 1995 the average was 0.7 days. London's last substantial snowfall was in February 1991.

...

However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,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.

...

David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes - or eventually "feel" virtual cold.'

The same certainty on display there as the climate 'experts' tell us what they know will happen, except they were wrong. Britain and elsewhere have had three snowy winters on the trot. Have we had an apology from Dr David Viner or David Parker? Somehow I doubt it.

Why should we believe experts in 2012 who tell us one thing when we were told almost the opposite with just as much certainty in 2000. The only constants are that we should be afraid, do as the 'experts' tell us and above all pay more taxes.

Now why might that be?

The BBC's environment correspondent reports under the headline 'Nuclear power support in UK falls over Japan fears'. Interestingly the first line of the actual report reveals that 'More Britons support the building of new nuclear power stations than oppose it, despite the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant, an opinion poll says.'

Richard Black's report continues 'But almost a half say they are worried about the safety of nuclear plants.'

After the BBC's scaremongering coverage of the Fukushima plant's problems I am surprised that more people are not worried about nuclear safety. The BBC line has been to ramp up the fears and exaggerate the radiation risks. This has worked, wherever I go I speak with people who think that the Fukushima plant is leaking huge amounts of lethal radiation and that large parts of north east Japan are all but death zones. This is of course mostly rubbish but scary rubbish is good television.

The opinion poll quoted was carried out by Friends of the Earth so I would like to know what the questions were and in what order they were asked. For instance was there a question along the lines of 'How worried are you by the recent leak of radiation at the Fukushima nuclear plant?' asked before the 'How worried are you by UK nuclear safety?' It is very easy to slant opinion poll questions to get the answers that you want. I am not saying that this is what Friends of the Earth have done but I would be very interested to know for sure.

Once you get past the headline and first few paragraphs, and we know that that is as far as many people get, Richard Black does admit that 'The Fukushima crisis has come with disturbing imagery - but the statistics suggest little impact' and 'Although the incident has put the issue of nuclear risk high up the news agenda, proponents can point to the fact that so far there has not been any impact on human health other than a few events involving workers at the power station.'

It is my opinion that the BBC have used the Fukushima incident as a way of pushing nuclear safety up the agenda as a way of helping the wind power industry out. The fact that reliance on wind power for 20% or more of power generation would have left the UK short of power on many days this winter is not something that the BBC and its 'expert' correspondents acknowledge, they have an agenda and they will continue to promote that agenda.

'2010 hits global temperature high' sayeth BBC's Richard Black

The BBC's Richard Black reports the news that:

'2010 was the warmest year since global temperature records began in 1850 - although margins of uncertainty make it a statistical tie with 1998 and 2005.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) concludes 2010 was 0.53C warmer than the average for the period 1961-90 - a period commonly used as a baseline.

The 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1998, it notes.'

Interesting... but hidden away in Richard Black's report is this piece of information:

'The possibility that 2010 would emerge as the warmest year on record was raised by scientists after the year began with a period of El Nino conditions - unusually warm waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which transfer heat from the ocean to the atmosphere.

However, a switch to the opposing La Nina conditions halfway through the year cast doubt on whether the record would be broken.'

Hold on is it man made global warming that is responsible for 2010 being so warm or El Nino? As I understand the recent world temperature record, since 1998 we’ve had three warm years – 1998, 2005 and 2010 – and each of those years is associated with an El Nino event which causes or is related to the warming.

Richard Black finishes his article with a clear explanation of the facts as he sees them:

'Agencies including the UK Met Office suggest 2011 is likely to be cooler on average than 2010, as La Nina conditions dominate.

The variation between El Nino and La Nina can alter the global temperature by half a degree or so.

But the variations it produces sit on top of a slow, steady warming trend dating back half a century, ascribed to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from industry, agriculture, deforestation and other human activities.'

Ascribed indeed, but proved?

Of course all of the statements on global warming have to be taken with a very large pinch of salt bearing in mind the following:
1. Willis Eschenbach's recent letter in which he points out that the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary For Policymakers (2007) says nothing about humans being the cause of global warming

2. Jo Nova explains that 'the world has been warming for 300 years, long before the industrial revolution. The trend hasn’t changed as our emissions rose. No one knows exactly why it started rising back then, but it wasn’t CO2'

3. Jo Nova explains that 'It was warmer 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago, 5000 years ago and 130,000 years ago. In fact its been warmer for most of the last 10,000 years than it is today, and it’s been warmer for most of the last 500 million years. Only people who think CO2 matters keep repeating that it’s warmed from 1850 to now without pointing out the bigger perspective'

4. Jo Nova explains that 'Sure, and the records have been set with thermometers... next to concrete and exhaust vents... There probably weren’t too many car parks or air conditioners in 1880 either. Not to mention the non-random adjustments, and that mystery about how 75% of thermometers are ignored.'

5. Here's the rough pattern of global temperature changes:
1882 – 1910 Cooling
1910 – 1944 Warming
1944 – 1975 Cooling
1975 – 2001 Warming
I wonder what might be next?

6. Watts Up With That explains that regarding warmest years 'So where do the 1934/1998/2010 warm years rank in the long-term list of warm years? Of the past 10,500 years, 9,100 were warmer than 1934/1998/2010. Thus, regardless of which year (1934, 1998, or 2010) turns out to be the warmest of the past century, that year will rank number 9,099 in the long-term list'

7. The ascribing of man as to blame for global warming is not the consensus, take a read of this recent piece of mine that explains why the oft-quoted 97% figure is not what it appears to be

8. The rise in world temperature seems to have happened in line with the fall in the number of temperature measuring stations, here's a helpful graph...

So The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) conclusions that 2010 was 0.53C warmer than the average for the period 1961-90 need qualifying but that seems to be something that Richard Black is unwilling to do.

The Maldives are sinking, or are they?

The BBC's Richard Black is at it again:

'President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the Maldives told me that he and the Alliance of Small Island States was exploring the possibility of suing high-emitting governments if and when their countries disappeared under the waves.'

Oh no the Maldives are sinking, it's all the fault of global warming and we are to blame...

The only slight problem is this, as I blogged last year:

'Nils-Axel Mörner is a former lead reviewer for the IPCC and was head of Geodynamics at Stockholm University until his retirement in 2005. Oddly he has written three times previously to the Maldives government and not received a reply hence this open letter. Here's a few extracts:

"The people of the Maldives had no problems surviving the 17th century, which was 50cm higher than now. Nor the last century, where it rose by 20cm. This bodes well for their prospects of surviving the next change.

...

Neither of those levels would pose any real problem — simply a return to the situation in the 17th and the 19th to early 20th centuries, respectively.

So why the scare-mongering? Could it be because there is money involved? If you inhabit a tiny island and can convince the world that its very existence is under threat because of the polluting policies of the West, the industrialised nations will certainly respond. The money is likely to flow in more quickly than the ocean will rise."'

I have posted a piece similar to this on Richard Black's blog, comment 180, let's see if it gets through moderation...

The BBC in full anti-men mode

The BBC's propensity to blame most of the world's troubles on men, especially white middle class men, has been commented on before but even I was amazed to read this piece by Richard Black. He asks (my emphasis): "Why are virtually all climate "sceptics" men?" and comments:

"So what's going on? Why is this issue such a gender-divider?

You might think it's a trite question; but I would argue it's not, for the following reason.

There are two distinct views of why climate scepticism exists in the way it does today.

One - promulgated by many sceptics themselves - speaks to a rigorous, analytical deconstruction of a deeply-flawed scientific edifice that is maintained by a self-interested cabal of tax-hungry politicians and careerist scientists.

The other is that climate scepticism has psychological roots; that it stems from a deep-seated inability or unwillingness to accept the overwhelming evidence that humanity has built with coal and lubricated with oil its own handcart whose destination board reads "climate hell".

As one ex-scientist and now climate action advocate put it to me rather caustically a while back: "I've been debating the science with them for years, but recently I realised we shouldn't be talking about the science but about something unpleasant that happened in their childhood".

...

But a report from the US think-tank American Progress probed a little deeper and came up with a more nuanced view.

It split citizens into six categories depending on how they felt about man-made climate change, from "alarmed" through to "dismissive".

The genders were roughly equally represented in the middle groupings, but at the margins the divide was absolutely stark: "Almost two-thirds of the Dismissive are men (63%), the largest gender split among the six segments," the report concluded.

What else did the survey reveal about the "dismissive" group?

"More likely than average to be high income, well-educated, white men... much more likely to be very conservative Republicans... strongly endorse individualistic values, opposing any form of government intervention, anti-egalitarian, and almost universally prefer economic growth over environmental protection... have a specialized media diet, with a higher than average preference for media sources that reflect their own political point of view."

That paints a picture of the "dismissive" - and dominantly male - psychology, without however going to the roots of why men and women diverge so much on their tendency to be "dismissive".

...

If a rigorous deconstruction of flawed and politically-motivated science is at the bottom of climate scepticism, why aren't women getting it?

I'm out of ideas. What do you think it all means?"

I think I'll turn the floor over to two commenters on Richard Black's blog:

"7. At 2:53pm on 15 Dec 2009, ImranCan2 wrote:

Richard - Are you serious ? Jeez man .... this is completely desperate ! I have read some of the recent enviro-nutter blogs at the Guardian (Ben Goldacre) trying to explain away the fact that no one takes the AGW story seriously anymore. Any excuse under the sun ... except the obvious one. But this article takes the complete biscuit ! Trying to aportion scepticism to some ethnic/sexist/ageist/educational bracket.

How about "those that have actually thought about this ?"

There is only one reason there are sceptics in this world and that is because you have singularly failed to make any convincing case on virtually any aspect of the AGW theory.

You can't explain why it hasn't warmed for 10 years.

You can't explain why the current global temperatures are under the entire envelope of predictions for the IPCC TAR.

You can't explain why the Antarctic sea ice is growing - or for that matter why the summer minimum in the Arctic has grown 10% year on year since 2007.

You can't explain why there are less hurricanes now than in the 40's and 50's.

You can't explain why the Metoffice can get their seasonal predictions wrong 6 times in a row. Even a 4 year old has a 50/50 !

You can't explain why sea level rise has all but stopped even though you keep wailing about it accelerating.

You can't explain why the Maldives is supposedly going to drown when it clearly survived 130m sea level rise since the last ice age.

You can't explain why CO2 drives climate when it clearly follows temperature by ~800years when looking at ice core data over the past million years.

You can't explain why CO2 which is a trace gas supposedly has bigger impact than the sun (which if you stand in it for 10 minutes will burn you).

Yo be honest, I don't think I have ever heard a clear explanation about ANY question I have ever asked.

And so finally, at the very death of the AGW movement, you resort to the nonsense you have written above. Get with it man or you will be out of work in very short order - no one is going to want to employ a flatearther !"

"20. At 3:17pm on 15 Dec 2009, KZwert wrote:

Speaking as a scientist and as someone who knows that global warming is a fact, I find your 'question' deeply disturbing.
Do you have statistically valid evidence showing that there is a statistically significant basis for saying that more men are climate sceptics than women, or are you like most people speaking from personal (that is to say anecdotal) experience?
Secondly, if you have carried out survey research with a number of compartmentalised conditions and found statistically significant evidence to show that men are more sceptical than women, have you researched what is it about politicians, particularly male politicians, that makes them so sceptical when compared with women?
What form of selection process and therefore sample bias occurs in the political process and do you think it might affect the result? What form of sample bias is there in your personal experience?
What is it about (for example) BBC magazine writers that leads them to draw hasty conclusions in the absence of statistical data? Could it be that they are not scientists?
Most interestingly of all, what evidence can you adduce to show that people's views on climate change/global warming are shaped by childhood experiences? Would this be an unscientific Freudian view, or something more substantial that fits the current Darwinian paradigm?
This uncritical, new wave, yap-yap, men are more dangerous than women is very dangerous, ill thought out and lacking scientific data/reasoning. Your remarks leave me feeling deeply uncomfortable, not least because of their ad hominem nature, which does not predispose your targets to respond in any other way than in kind and, if you are to get this discussion off the tracks of personal comments, and on to the tracks of discussing the data, you had better drop the ad hominem sword.
You are doing nothing to help matters. It is childish, inane and counter productive.
Oh, and yes, there are serious problems with our climate, they were seeded about 11,000 ago when people started chopping down forests, the UK is over populated probably by more than 20 million people, economies under the current energy regime can only grow if we over populate the world, and both Cameron and Brown are fools for offering tax breaks to an uncritical electorate if they have children, but I nowhere see *you* dealing with these issues and, yes, I am hopping mad. This wasn't even a conversation piece, it was IMNSVHO silly and childish, containing far less science than I have put in my off the top of my head reply.
HTH."

Richard Black, another BBC journalist whose name goes into my little black book of BBC idiots.