Someone using the web moniker of “Manhattan Contrarian” has written a series of over 20 blog posts purporting to expose global warming and its associated climate changes as the “Greatest Scientific Fraud of All Time.” Such grandiose claims immediately invite skepticism, of course, but let’s look closely at this person’s claims, blog post by blog post, starting with the first, which was published in July 2013.

The main claim in his first post is that the global temperature data has been fraudulently adjusted by U. S. government agencies in order to exaggerate the rate of global warming. Of course, common sense would tell you that his claim is far-fetched. The fraudulent behavior he is accusing scientists of would have to be a coordinated effort not just of US scientists, but of scientists from countries all over the world. It would have to involve thousands of individuals who certainly are not in close communication with each other. It would have to continue over years as personnel changed at the various government agencies. It would have to have been done so cleverly that even when someone stole a bunch of emails, there would be no smoking guns revealed.

The blogger relies on two “authorities,” Joe D’Aleo and Steven Goddard. He could not have picked weaker ones. Goddard is so bad he doesn’t even get to post anymore at the climate denier site, Watt’s Up With That. D’Aleo is a meteorologist, but not too good at climate science. Goddard supposedly has found dozens of cases where temperatures were adjusted downwards for earlier years supposedly “to make the present appear warmer by comparison.” D’Aleo did a comparison of the US temperatures anomalies in the twentieth century as they were calculated in 1999 and then in 2011. He notes that 1934’s temperature was adjusted downward yet 1998 was adjusted upwards, thus making 1998 the warmest year at that point.

The problems with these two sources is that they are not giving us the full picture, nor are they considering the possibility that there are legitimate reasons to adjust temperatures. Though Goddard did find “dozens” of examples of downward adjustments for earlier years, did he even look for upward adjustments in those years? Did he consider why they were adjusted? Similarly, with D’Aleo, we can note that even though 1934 was adjusted downward in the charts he shows, other earlier years show little change. Also, the years since 1998 have been significantly warmer, thus showing that the trend is clearly upward.

There are good reasons for adjustments. See for example this article, where the writer takes on some people making similar claims as D’Aleo and Goddard: https://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/02/paul-homewood-and-christopher-booker.html. Sometimes there are changes in the time of day the temperatures were taken at a given station, sometimes the station was moved, sometimes conditions changed near a given station, and sometimes the station provides temperatures significantly out of keeping with the temperatures at nearby stations. All of these mean that the raw data are not as accurate as they could be, and so adjustments are in order.

But just in case you think we should just go with the raw data anyway, consider that scientists have tried that approach as well. When then compare the trends using raw data and using adjusted data, the results are only slightly different. Just look at the results of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. If thousands of scientists were going to engage in a vast, sophisticated conspiracy to publish fraudulent data, they would want to make far greater adjustments. Instead, they want to be as accurate, as close to the real temperature as they can get, and so they make adjustments.

The Manhattan Contrarian pretends that if “there were a reasonable explanation [for the adjustments], the government should have come out with it a long time ago.” But government and non-government scientists have provided reasons. The Manhattan Contrarian is too lazy to look them up or too biased to understand them. And thus it is easy for him to blithely conclude that “the case for fraud has been proved.” In reality, the only thing he has proved is his own gullibility.

Marc Sheppard, a “software engineer and data analyst” and thus no more a scientist than I am, was recently given the privilege to spew his nonsense at the American Thinker web site (American Thinker). He compiles an impressive number of falsehoods and deceptive claims. Let’s take on a few of them so that, on the off chance someone stumbles upon this blog, there will be some record of his stupidity.

First, he bemoans the fact that it’s roughly 10 years since the so-called Climategate affair and yet people still haven’t given up on the ideas of climate change and anthropogenic global warming. His tactic here is partly the old one of repeating a lie in order to foster its acceptance, and thus he refers to “evidence of lying, cheating, and exaggeration.” Sheppard obviously ignores the conclusions of several investigations that cleared the people he is accusing of scientific deception. He just plunges on, trying to give the impression that his view—though it is in fact the false, deceptive one—was proven 10 years ago. To see how wrong he is, just look up those investigations or, better yet, read through the stolen emails yourself. You will find no sign of any conspiracy to lie about climate science.

He tries the same trick when he says that it’s false to claim there is a scientific consensus. He offers no evidence to support his view. He just says that those who have been paying attention “know” that there’s no consensus. And then he quotes Roy Spencer, one of the few people (and there are only a few) in the climate science world who consistently sides with the skeptics or deniers (what Sheppard likes to call “realists”). Unfortunately, Spencer’s statement is filled with nonsense. It deserves some detailed destruction. First, here’s the quote:

The belief in human-caused warming exceeding a level that what would be relatively benign, and maybe even beneficial, is just that – a belief.  It is not based upon known, established, and quantified scientific principles.  It is based upon the assumption that natural climate change does not exist.

Spencer makes two false claims here, both of them directly targeting the thousands of hard-working, serious climate scientists. First, he says the “belief” that human-caused warming might be harmful is only a belief, not something based on “known, established, and quantified scientific principles.” Should we actually believe that the work of thousands of scientists over the last few decades in climate-related research has not involved known, established and quantified scientific principles? How preposterous. But Spencer goes further and claims that these scientists also assume “natural climate change does not exist.” This again is a preposterous and false claim. Scientists have studied evidence of past climate and have clearly demonstrated it changes. Also, one main strand of climate studies is the attempt to determine to what extent “natural” (that is, non-human) factors are currently affecting climate and to what extent human factors, such as added CO2, are affecting the climate. One of the clear results of such studies is that the changes observed in the last 50 years cannot be accounted for by “natural” causes alone, but can be understood in the context of human activity.

Spencer exhibits the common denier argument that we can blame the current warming on natural factors. Yet what you never get from these deniers or skeptics is a clear, detailed explanation based on “known, established and quantified scientific principles” showing what specific factors or forces are changing the climate. They just wave their magic wand of “natural change” and think they are done.

Sheppard also tries to attack the notion of climate change as “settled science.” He relies on the essentially meaningless platitude that science is never settled. This is meaningless because it is a true statement that provides no value. While it is true that there is always the possibility of new discoveries and theories that will change our current understanding, it is also true that there are vast tracts of the scientific realm that are considered “settled science” with good reason. We don’t repeatedly experiment to see if an apple will fall to the ground due to gravity. There is no point. That part of the science of gravity is settled. That doesn’t mean we don’t try to understand gravity—there is much to learn there—but some basics of it are absolutely settled.

Sheppard shows his muddled thinking by using a false analogy to attempt to make his point about science never being settled. He claims that if we had considered computer science settled many decades ago we would still be trying to use vacuum tubes in computers. Here he is confusing technology with science, or the ability to craft or fabricate with the knowledge or theory behind computers. In the case of climate science, there is a consensus on key ideas, the science is in fact settled on how CO2 works in the atmosphere, on how much CO2 humans have added, on how much the global temperature has increased since the time of the Industrial Revolution, and on an on. Yes, there is more to learn about what is a highly complex system, but we’re simply not going to learn that increased CO2 doesn’t cause warming, and that that warming will have other effects, some of them negative, on human civilization.

His attack on the idea of a scientific consensus on climate change is equally clueless. He cites the infamous Global Warming Petition Project or “Oregon petition”, a list of about 32000 signatories who deny the idea of anthropogenic climate change or that it would have bad effects. The signatories include very few climate scientists and the number is, in comparison to the total number of scientists in the United States, a small number. He’s trying to argue for his own “minority report” consensus based on numbers, but wants to deny the overwhelmingly larger numbers of scientists who support the current climate change science. (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/the-30000-global-warming_b_243092.html)

Sheppard’s last major argument against AGW is his claim that the temperature fluctuations of at least the last 150 years can be attributed to the PDO or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. However, while it is true that the peaks and valleys of the temperatures show an oscillation that matches that of the PDO, there is an overall trend in the temperatures that Sheppard ignores. Each peak in the temperature graph is higher than the previous one. And, no, there has been no cooling recently. Temperatures continue to be at or near records. Just because we don’t have a new record every year does not mean that global warming has paused. As explained at Skeptical Science, “Natural oscillations like PDO simply move heat around from oceans to air and vice-versa. They don’t have the ability to either create or retain heat, therefore they’re not capable of causing a long-term warming trend, just short-term temperature variations.  Basically they’re an example of internal variability, not an external radiative forcing.” And also: “One way to test this skeptic theory is to plot the Global Temperature Anomaly alongside the PDO Index ….  What we find is that although the PDO index appears to influence short-term temperature changes, global temperatures have a distinct upward trend, while the PDO Index does not. “

Sheppard succeeds in hitting many of the typical nutjob denier memes. When you encounter other deniers of climate science, see how many of these approaches are present.

• Rely on some of the very few people with a climate science background who take “lukewarmist” or even denial perspectives. There aren’t many that fall in this category so you will repeatedly see names such as Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, Willie Soon, John Christy, Roger Pielke Jr., and Sallie Baliunas.
• Try to counter the overwhelming evidence of a scientific consensus by referring to the laughably inept “Oregon” petition or cite the meaningless idea that “science is never settled.” Actually, with many scientific ideas, there comes a time when further proof simply is not needed and is a waste of resources. It is to that point with the idea that human activity is changing the climate. Now we need to move on past that general idea to more research on how that change occurs, how it can be reduced, and how we can more accurately predict future changes.
• Refer to the ClimateGate affair as something that actually proved malfeasance on the part of scientists though several investigations showed that nothing of the sort occurred. In other words, show no skepticism whatever toward ideas you like.
• Whine about the climate scientists demonizing the deniers as “deniers” and at the same time call the climate scientists frauds, liars, cheaters, and alarmists.
• Misunderstand climate science, and thus erroneously blame the PDO for warmer temperatures. Note how often so-called skeptics will come up with various notions of what is really causing global warming, but none of their ideas ever pan out. And it’s not that their ideas receive no attention from scientists. Rather, if you examine the research, you will find careful, thorough explanations of why the PDO, or cosmic rays, or solar cycles are not the correction explanation.

Sheppard apparently would rather be called a “skeptic” or even a “realist” but there is a huge impediment to using those terms for such as he: he is not skeptical of his own explanations and he does not understand the reality of climate science.

On a regular basis, the Investor’s Business Daily publishes editorials and articles denying global warming. For an outfit purporting to help people invest their money, it is strange that they provide false, misleading, poorly sourced information. If you are stupid enough to make any investment decisions based on the false idea that global warming is a hoax, you will get burned.

A couple of months ago, they claimed that the temperature record in its raw form—that is, before any adjustments are made to the raw data, shows no warming in over 100 years (see IBD article). This claim is based on the idea that the adjustments to the raw temperature data that the NOAA makes are all part of an extensive, long-term effort to create the myth of a rise in temperature. The adjustments supposedly always lower older temperatures and raise more recent temperatures to create an illusion of an increase over time.

There is no merit to these claims.

Just a few years ago, a group led by Richard Muller, a scientist who was skeptical of the reported upward trend, undertook a careful study of the temperature data. Known as the Berkeley Earth study, it showed that the upward trend was real. They looked at the raw data and at the adjusted data. The trend was clear and undeniable in both cases. From factcheck.org: “Berkeley Earth, a climate science nonprofit founded in early 2010 by scientists expressing skepticism at the time about global warming, has also found no undue manipulation of temperature data in its own analyses.”

Are the adjustments that NOAA makes to the raw data always downward for old dates and upward for recent dates? Of course not. See for example the chart at Fact Check charts. It shows the kinds of adjustments made for a period in the mid-twentieth century. Some adjustments were up and some were down. NOAA states the reasoning on their web site. The reasoning is sound since it involves taking into account changes to how the temperatures were taken in a given locale. Temperature stations have had their hardware changed, their siting changed, the timing of the temperature readings changed, the environment around them has changed, and so on. It simply makes sense to take these changes into account and try to adjust for them.

The IBD editorial cites three people in its attempt to bolster their claims. Every one of these are climate science deniers who have been roundly and rightly criticized for their illogical and easily debunked views. They are Paul Homewood, James Delingpole, and Tony Heller (also known by his web moniker of Steven Goddard).

The IBD calls Paul Homewood a “climate analyst”. He is in fact a retired accountant (according to Washington Post) whose evidence-free claims have been picked up by climate science deniers elsewhere. Homewood’s approach is to find a few temperature stations where the adjustments made a large difference. He clearly does not look at the whole set of stations. To do so would clearly not show pattern he is claiming exists.

James Delingpole is a British journalist with a long history of climate science denial. The IBD cites his claim that the NOAA has never convincingly explained why they adjust the raw temperatures and how the adjustments create a more accurate record. No evidence in favor of Delingpole’s claim is provided by the IBD editorial—it’s a mere assertion. As mentioned above, it is not hard at all to find reasonable, sensible explanations for the adjustments that are made and the NOAA makes these known. To give one example from the NOAA’s web site, “The most important bias in the U.S. temperature record occurred with the systematic change in observing times from the afternoon, when it is warm, to morning, when it is cooler. This shift has resulted in a well-documented increasing cool bias over the last several decades and is addressed by applying a correction to the data.”

Tony Heller (aka Steven Goddard) is pretty much a laughingstock in the world of climate science. His claims about sea ice extent and temperature trends have been repeatedly debunked. For several examples, see Expose of Goddard Lies. It’s clear from these examples that Heller is either incompetent or willfully deceptive when trying to understand or present climate data.

These three are the best that IBD can offer to counter the thousands of highly educated scientists who have carefully researched the temperature trends and the reasons for the upward swing. Since I don’t see how giving false information will help their readers make sound business decisions, I can only speculate on what IBD is trying to accomplish. One clear possibility is that they have no real interest in helping their readers invest, but rather want to protect the fossil fuel industry and those who have major holdings there. Yet the fossil fuel industry is a dying industry. It’s death will be a lingering one, though it would be healthier for the planet if it were quicker. We would be better served by accelerating the development of less harmful energy sources. That’s where the growth already is and will continue to be.

Julie Kelly, a freelance writer for various conservative sites, has written another in what is a long line of attempts by conservative hacks to pretend global warming is not occurring (Link to Kelly’s article). Like other climate denialists who have written in this vein, she plays fast and loose with the facts, and shows an abysmally low understanding of the science.

The only correct point she makes is that climate scientists and environmentalists were upset by the election of Trump and by the anti-science policies he has begun to implement. Other than that, her idea that 2017 was a disastrous year for those who believe in anthropogenic global warming falls flat on its face.

She starts by hyping the recent unusual cold snap in much of the country, as if a short-term event in one relatively small part of the world might indicate that global warming is a hoax. She ignores the fact that the overall global temperature during this cold snap in the US is still above average, and she ignores the fact that even parts of the US, such as much of the West and Alaska, are basking in relative warmth. She claims that a map posted by the Weather Channel does not clearly indicate the overall global warmth the Weather Channel said it did. Unfortunately, her article links, not to the map she is referring to, but to a map of the world’s countries at geology.com, a map with no information on climate or weather. Maps of the global temperature anomaly that I could find do show a clear warming overall. Also, the numbers behind the map show overall warming. That is why it is generally a bad and potentially deceptive practice to “eyeball” a map or other kind of visual representation of data and claim it proves one thing or the other, but that is just what Kelly did.

She then mocks the idea that global warming might have something to do with the cold air plunging unusually far south. Some scientists have pointed out that the global temperature changes could alter the jet streams, thus allowing Arctic air to more easily and powerfully escape toward the south. She offers no refutation of this idea, just presents the exaggeration that “climate experts [blamed] every destructive weather event this year…on anthropogenic global warming” and call the “most brutal cold snap in decades as nothing more than a normal appearance by Old Man Winter.”

Of course, climate scientists did not blame every extreme weather event on global warming. What they have done is show how global warming contributes to the intensity of weather events. There is a big difference between cause and contribute. It’s certainly not surprising that if you have an ocean with more heat and an atmosphere with more heat and more moisture, you are going to increase the chances of more powerful storms. It’s certainly reasonable also that the changes that are occurring in the earth’s land surface, ocean areas, and atmosphere can include alterations to the way the earth’s systems function, such as changes in ocean currents, precipitation patterns, and the jet streams.

Ms. Kelly ends her essay with the most laughable idea yet, the idea that some scientists think that global cooling is upon us. For proof, she links to a short piece by Marc Morano, an infamous climate change denier. He in turn briefly refers to a veritable who’s who of climate denying pseudo-scientific “experts”. Here are some of these experts:

• Don Easterbrook, an “eminent geologist” who has been forecasting global cooling for years, but it has never happened. Easterbrook is a professor emeritus of geology from Western Washington University, but his views have been unanimously rejected by the current geology faculty.
• Henrik Svensmark, who theorizes that the sun’s activity, through the changes in its magnetic field and subsequent changes in shielding the earth from galactic cosmic rays, affects cloud cover and thus the temperature of the earth. Unfortunately for Svensmark, there is no correlation between historical trends in sun activity and the global temperature.
• Habibullo Abdussamatov, a Russian solar physicist, who has predicted for years that the next Little Ice Age is upon us. Similar to Svensmark, he bases his claims on the sun’s activity, but the actual data keep proving him wrong.
• Joe Bastardi, a former meteorologist, who believes CO2 plays no significant role in global warming. He claimed at least as early as 2009 that the global temperature would drop by at least a degree in the next 20 to 30 years.

These people are making predictions about global cooling and getting proved wrong again and again.  Global temperatures hit records in 2014, then 2015, and then again in 2016, with 2017 guaranteed to be close to those three record years (and it looks like it will be a record high year for years that are not influenced by an El Nino). We don’t need to wait 20 or 30 years to see if global cooling will occur. We know it won’t and, besides, we can’t afford to wait.

Unfortunately, if you monitor the rightwing media, you will see articles at least once a week trying to pretend that global warming is not happening, that it is a hoax somehow perpetrated by an amazingly sophisticated conspiracy of thousands of scientists all over the world. Writers like Julie Kelly lie and deceive, and thus do our country, our environment, and our children great harm.

Back in September 2014, a climate skeptic named Bob Tisdale posted a criticism of a scientific study by Kuffner and others that compared the recent temperatures at some Florida coral reefs with temperatures from over 100 years ago. The blogger at the HotWhopper web site, who goes by the pseudonym of Sou, responded to Tisdale’s blog post with one of her own. She pointed out many errors and misunderstandings. Tisdale in return posted an “open letter” to Miriam, which is Sou’s real name. His open letter addressed mostly Sou’s criticism of some earlier Tisdale blog posts, but he mentioned the coral reef temperature argument also.

So here we have both sides of an argument on climate change. Let’s take a look at what the different parties say and see who has valid points.

Tisdale has two main criticisms. One, he pointedly complains about Kuffner’s choice of focusing on two separate periods, one from around the turn of the twentieth century and one from around the turn of the twenty-first century. Tisdale asks “What happened to the sea surface temperatures in that region between the turns of the 20th and 21st Centuries?” and “Could they simply have cherry-picked two time periods—per lighthouse—so they could make alarmist claims about coral reefs?”

In response, Sou points out that there were clear reasons for Kuffner’s analysis of data from two separate periods. There were in fact no in situ temperature readings for the years between the two periods, and Kuffner was interested in examining the actual temperatures at the coral reef sites. Sou summarizes by saying, “it seems to me that direct measurements taken right on the reefs, and below the surface, would be much more relevant to this particular research.”

When we look at the actual paper by Kuffner et al., we see that Sou is in the right here. The paper spends almost a third of its length discussing the data. Kuffner also points out the known weaknesses of SST data, especially in a case where in situ data is available and relevant for an understanding of the increasing incidence of coral bleaching in the Florida Keys.

Tisdale’s failure to even mention the stated reasons for using the in situ data shows that Tisdale has no interest in having an honest discussion. If he had, he would have mentioned Kuffner’s reasons and then tried to point out problems with them if he could. Instead, he jumped directly to insinuations of cherry-picking.

Tisdale also claims that when one looks at the change in temperature from HADISST data set for the roughly 110-square-kilometer area around the Florida coral reefs, there is little or no warming trend since 1930. Also, earlier periods had times when the sea surface temperatures reached stressful levels. Because Kuffner said that
“Results indicate that the warming observed in the records between 1878 and 2012 can be fully accounted for by the warming observed in recent decades…. [and t]he magnitude of warming revealed here is similar to that found in other SST datasets from the region and to that observed in global mean surface temperature.

Tisdale complains that “somehow, we’re supposed to believe manmade greenhouse gases are causing harm to the coral in recent years.”

Sou’s response is to point out that looking at the gridded HADISST data set is simply not appropriate when the goal is to look at specific sites where actual thermometer readings are available. She also wonders why Tisdale is so eager to look at the HADISST data set when usually those of his point of view are very critical of data sets that involve averaging, interpolating, and adjusting of the various data sources in order to come up with the final results.

Tisdale clearly wanted Kuffner et al. to more closely consider the HADISST data as well as the in situ data that they had. However, if they had I don’t think the result would have been any different. They would have noted that the coral reefs probably had temperatures aligned with those given for the much larger area around them from HADISST, but we simply don’t know if the actual coral reef temperatures were slightly higher, the same as, or slightly lower than the HADISST temperatures. In addition, simply eyeballing the graphs provided by Tisdale, there is a greater frequency of stressful temperatures in decates. This greater frequency would still be a significant point in favor of saying that global warming in recent decades is contributing to the bleaching of the coral reefs.

Tisdale does little to respond to Sou’s criticism, only referring to her blog post as “mistake-filled” but not pointing out any mistakes. He also criticizes her for treating a commenter rudely who offered corrections. Unfortunately for Tisdale’s side of things, the commenter was not so much offering corrections as being obtuse. The argument is basically over the nature of the HADISST data set. Sou and other commenters point out that the HADISST data set is irrelevant when you have in situ temperature data that you can use and when, as in Kuffner’s case, you want to look at what is happening specifically at the sites where the temperatures were taken. The commenter on Tisdale’s side keeps asking why Tisdale’s data is wrong, and then goes on to argue about what sea-surface temperature means. The commenter claims that because the HADISST data is based not just on satellite data of the thin skin of the sea, but also uses temperature data from ships, buoys, and so on, that data set not really just of the thin skin of the sea as opposed to temperatures at the depth of the coral reefs. This argument is a red herring. It doesn’t matter if the HADISST is meant to measure the temperatures at the depth of the coral reefs or at the very surface of the sea. If you have in situ data and you are examining what is happening at specific sites, then the in situ data is superior. The HADISST, because it is averaged and adjusted from many types of data and across a large area, will be inferior.

The commenter also sides with Tisdale in the matter of what accounts for the rise in temperatures between Kuffner’s two data sets. Tisdale believes Kuffner cannot attribute the rise in temperature in the coral reefs from the turn of the 20th century to the turn of the 21st century to global warming (or, as Tisdale phrases it, “manmade greenhouse gases”) because HADISST data shows no warming the 30’s. Yet one can easily quibble with Tisdale in several ways. First, as a couple of commenters on the HotWhopper site pointed out, by using other data sets, one can see an upward trend since the 30’s. Second, it’s not true that there was no warming since the 30’s. It’s not the case that temperatures reached a high point then and stayed there until the present. Rather, there was a cooling period and then a more rapid increase. Third, there is an increase in the frequency of stressful temperatures in the recent period. Tisdale conveniently does not notice this. Finally, when Tisdale speaks of the warming occurring in the first half of the 20th century and reaching a peak in the 30’s or early 40’s, it’s quite clear that he assumes global warming is not involved, yet it is quite reasonable to assume that the increased CO2 already present then was having some effect.

Tisdale comes across as someone who puts all his energy into finding evidence that seems to support the view he already has. If he had been interested in contributing to the scientific understanding of the recent increase in coral bleaching in the Florida Keys, he would have taken a very different approach. He would have had to argue much more carefully how using HADISST data would have helped. However, his interest was clearly in attacking a view he disliked. He did not want to take the extra effort to consider the strengths AND the weaknesses of the HADISST data.

References:
Kuffner et al.:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12237-014-9875-5/fulltext.html
Tisdale (archived)
https://archive.today/z5Rng#selection-831.2-831.271
HotWhopper
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/09/perennially-puzzled-bob-tisdale-surfs.html
Comment thread at HotWhopper:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/09/perennially-puzzled-bob-tisdale-surfs.html?showComment=1410536036510#c1825756406718567549

Paul Driessen in a recent article he had at Townhall.com on September 21, 2014 tries to argue that the extraction of oil and natural gas via fracking is an incredibly worthwhile and safe activity. There are numerous flaws in his argument, but the biggest one is that he denies that carbon dioxide emissions are warming the earth and that they will lead to dangerous problems.

He dismisses catastrophic climate change as a “phony crisis.” Unfortunately, he could not be more wrong. The earth is still heating up, even when compared to the hot year of 1998, which is the cherry-picked year deniers like to start from to make their claim that there has been a pause in warming. Yet there are clear signs of heating in the oceans, which means there is more heat available for the long term. There is also the problem of continuing emission of CO2 that keep raising the concentration of that gas in the air. And as reported by the NOAA reported on October 21, 2014, the previous 12 months were the hottest twelve-month period since records began being kept in 1880 (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/21/3581943/hottest-12-months-on-record).

Just to be absolutely clear, with the obvious continuation in global warming, there is no excuse to promote fossil fuels, no matter how much money can be made from them. The consequences are dire for our children and grandchildren.

His claims of the safety of fracking are also bogus. He conveniently fails to mention the earthquakes being caused by fracking. He tries to downplay the dangers of fracking by claiming that with proper enforcement of the safest procedures there would be few problems. Unfortunately, American industry has a sordid history of cutting corners to increase their profits. Just look at the disaster caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Though Driessen claims that using proper procedures to build and install the wells for the fracking can make it safe, in fact inevitably there will be deterioration of these and the result will be the poisoning of our water supply. As reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/15/drinking-water-contaminated-by-shale-gas-boom-in-texas-and-pennslyvania-study), such poisoning has already happened in Texas and Pennsylvania. There are also the dangers from the fracking water itself, which is often not disposed of properly. As reported at, The California State Water Resources Board has confirmed to the EPA that at least nine fracking sites were dumping their waste water into aquifers, polluting them with the fracking chemicals and other pollutants. (http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/10/07/central-california-aquifers-contaminated-billions-gallons-fracking-wastewater)

Driessen also tries to claim that people fight fracking out of money. He cites the 13.4 billion dollars that supposedly goes to environmental activism each year. Of course, when you spread that money among all the different environmental causes, it’s only a drop in the bucket. He also makes a series of mostly laughable claims about environmentalists’ motives: that they want to “eliminate fossil fuels, gain ever greater control over our lives, reduce our living standards, and end free-enterprise capitalism.” Environmentalists do want to reduce or eliminate fossil fuels, but for the good reason that the continued emission of CO2 will be harmful. The idea that environmentalists want “ever greater control” is especially inane—as if environmentalists have much control currently. Environmentalists want reasonable regulations so humans don’t poison the earth. If business and government worked together for the health of the planet, there would in fact be no reason for lower living standards. Environmental regulations are hardly the cause of low living standards around the world. That can be blamed on overpopulation and overuse of local resources, not to mention a lot of military violence, government corruption, and corporate greed.

In sum, Driessen tries to pull the wool over his readers’ eyes by ignoring the real problems in the world and painting a falsely rosy picture of the future. Unfortunately, many readers are all too gullible. They want to believe that the future will be safe and prosperous. Yet such a belief guarantees it won’t happen.

This is first of what I hope to be many posts on the science of anthropogenic global warming. This first post will simply be a summary of the basic science with no attempts to prove any points exhaustively or to cite detailed studies. From this initial summary, I then plan to branch off into smaller topics, and from each of those to branch off into even smaller topics, and so on. As I create the smaller topics, links to them will magically appear in this post.

One of my goals in describing this science is to clarify it for myself. The skeptics and outright denialists, as poor as their arguments and their attempts at science are, still make me want to know for sure which side to believe in. It’s not acceptable for me to blindly follow the majority of scientists. Instead, I want to develop my own understanding so I can judge whether the scientists are trustworthy. Nobody has the time to learn and understand in depth all of the disciplines involved in climate science, such as physics, astronomy, statistics, oceanography, atmospheric science, biology, and chemistry. What every person must do is learn enough to separate the frauds from the real scientists.

So here’s the quick summary:

Our planet’s surface temperatures are within a viable range for humans and and millions of other species, but the climate is also subject to various forces that cause regular fluctuations in the temperature. The basic livable temperatures are thanks to the makeup and depth of our atmosphere, and thanks to not being too far or too near the sun. Due to slight changes in the earth’s orbit and the earth’s tilt, for at least the last 2.5 million years the earth has experienced significant but remarkably regular temperature fluctuations, going back and forth between ice ages and interglacial periods.

Into this scenario, humans have contributed additional CO2 to the atmosphere, especially starting in the nineteenth century with the Industrial Revolution. This has resulted in an increase in the CO2 concentration in the last 150 years from about 280 ppm to about 390 ppm. In those same 150 years, the average global temperature has shown an overall upward trend. Because of the known properties of CO2 as a greenhouse gas, one has strong reason to be suspicious that the CO2 increase is driving the observed warming.

But the situation is more complicated and also more alarming. Because the warming has resulted in a reduction in ice in the Artic, the albedo effect of snow and ice has been reduced, thus allowing more warmth to be absorbed at the surface. There is then the strong possibility that temperatures will increase by more than what one would calculate if only considering an increase in CO2. There are other feedback effects to consider as well (that is, events caused by the warming that in turn may lead to either less or more warming), such as methane released by melting of permafrost. Unfortunately for those who would prefer a more stable climate, the feedbacks point more often toward even higher temperatures and a host of serious problems for humans and the other inhabitants of this planet.