"The Courage to do Nothing"

this is a post in its entirety from today's daily newsletter from the Americans for Limited Government website GetLiberty.org . google them if you want the link, because right now things are down for remodeling over there.

so this is about global warming, and if you have read my blog long enough, you know that i think the hysteria over global warming is without scientific merit, based on an extensive and avid check of the actual science behind the computer models and rhetoric. the fact that algore has been lionized simply shows emotions play far better at getting attention than rigorous and ethical analysis. why is the global warming issue such a hot button for the "progressives"? one theory proposed by Jonah Goldberg in Liberal Fascism is that to "energize and mobilize" the citizenry to accept Big Government edicts and controls, one needs a moral equivalent to war. my take on most of the blather regarding global warming is just that. to independently and "pedantically" assess the information and draw your own conclusion seems to be way beyond the attention span or skill set of the majority of folks. they would rather get fed sound bites and USAToday simple piecharts for their info, because if someone of stature says it's true, it's true.
regardless of the expense that realigning the world's energy consumption, the fact that people are now dieing around the world because of our shortsighted drive to find "alternative fuels" must make some inroads into the Green movement's collective mind. probably not.

anyway, enough of my soapbox. here's AGL's soapbox. enjoy.

The Courage to Do Nothing

“[W]e must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no ‘climate crisis’ at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”—Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, Physics & Society, July 2008.

There is no “climate crisis.” So says a recent study published in Physics & Society this month, a devastating blow into the all-important computer models utilized by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the very models that today are used by demagogic politicians to justify radically reducing, restricting, and taxing the use of fossil fuels.


Christopher Monckton’s conclusion and advice to politicians: Do nothing. The science of global warming is wrong, and has been wrong. And the policies necessary to radically reduce carbon emissions will be devastating to a world heavily dependent upon industry to maintain the largest population explosion in human history.


Dr. Monckton has provided a valuable service to policy makers, but mostly, to the general public who would suffer under the alarmist rule of the Greens. His contribution is a critical warning to all who value civilization.


According to the study, “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions probably caused more than half of the ‘global warming’ of the past 50 years and would cause further rapid warming. However, global mean surface temperature has not risen since 1998 and may have fallen since late 2001.”


In other words, the computer models that have projected excessive global warming are wrong—drastically, horribly wrong—because they predicted uninterrupted warming of the earth leading to a catastrophe on the order of the Apocalypse. And it did not happen. So the study observes:

“[N]o great reliance can be placed upon the IPCC’s central estimates of climate sensitivity, still less on its high-end estimates. The IPCC’s assessments, in their current state, cannot be said to be ‘policy-relevant’. They provide no justification for taking the very costly and drastic actions advocated in some circles to mitigate ‘global warming’, which Eqn. (30) suggests will be small (<1 °C at CO2 doubling), harmless, and beneficial.”

In short, the IPCC’s models are unreliable, they have grossly exaggerated the impact of increased carbon emissions on the climate, and according to the study, whatever impact the emissions have will actually be beneficial.


Therefore, the continued use of the IPCC’s models to inform public policy will only produce dire consequences. To keep the world of 6.6 billion people fed, a considerable amount of energy is required. And to actively seek to drastically reduce the use of the sources of energy that the world depends upon every day can only result in drastic reductions of the world’s population.


In other words, if politicians continue to listen to the Greens, people will die. Because they will starve.


And one can only wonder, based upon the religious zeal of the Greens, if that’s not what they actually have in mind. Theirs is a religion that views practically all human activity as “unnatural”—even evil—that must be countered by the “all-wise”, “all-knowing” rulers of Big Government. And in so restricting human activity, theirs is a cause that is completely repugnant to the philosophy of individual liberty.


And to the advancement of civilization as we know it. Theirs is a totalitarianism more insidious than its predecessors. Theirs is a “utopia” that seeks to undo the industrial and technological progress of thousands of years of human history in less than a century. Theirs is an ideology that will control every aspect of human existence. And it can only result in the enslavement of billions to poverty, economic depression, and ultimately, starvation.


Instead, as Dr. Monckton implores, leaders need to have the courage to do nothing about the climate crisis, because there is no climate crisis.


ALG Perspective: Now that the Cult of Global Warming’s oracle—computer-generated climate change models—have been debunked, it will be interesting to see how the Greens react. Ultimately, it will reveal that they really have no interest at all in science, or preventing climate change. They will in all likelihood deny the findings presented by Dr. Monckton without any scientific refutation or critical analysis whatsoever. And that is because their goals are ultimately political and economic in nature: 1) destroy the U.S. economy; 2) restrict individual liberty; and 3) expand governmental control over all human activity.



the link didn't copy, so here's a link to the Monckton paper at American Physical Society's site. Physics and Society: Monkton