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In case you missed it:
the central estimate for the rate of warming during thefirst 15 years
of the 21st century is at least as great as the last halfof the 20th
century. These results do not support the notion of a "slowdown" in
the increase of global surface temperature.
Thomas R. Karl et al. (mostly NOAA guys)
"Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global
surface warming hiatus"
Science (June 4 2015)
==========================
Pedagogical remarks:
It is better to light a candle than to curse the damn darkness.
http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/transcripts/082_tran.html
I have been asked on various occasions (including socially,
not just professionally) how I would teach people about
climate change. I do *not* recommend attacking the issue head-on.
Instead I suggest starting with tack-tossing
https://www.av8n.com/physics/tack-tossing.htm
or some similar ultra-simple probability exercise. The point
is, people need to have some clue what real data is
/supposed/ to look like. The tack data is noisy; it takes a
looong time for the running average to settle down to any
kind of asymptote.
If people toss the tacks with their own hands and plot the
data with their own hands, there is "some" chance they will
believe it.
Then -- maybe -- they can look at the climate data and
understand that it's noisy. It's OK that it's noisy. It's
supposed to be noisy. One slightly-weird point in 1998 is
NOT a problem. I've been saying for more than 10 years,
loudly and publicly, that it is not a problem and has never
been a problem. There are always going to be slightly-weird
points here and there. Forsooth, if you saw a bunch of data
that never had any outliers, you would know it was fake.
The program to lie about the dangers of climate change is
using the same techniques -- and in some cases even the same
institutions and the very same liars -- as were used for
lying about the dangers of cigarettes and the dangers of lead
in the environment. These liars are very good at what they do.
In the real world, people make decisions all the time based
on imperfect data. If you want a pair of slippers, you don't
shop around until you find some that fit your feet /exactly/;
instead you find some that fit well enough.
People are really good at coming up for so-called "reasons"
for doing whatever selfish evil thing they feel like doing.
It has always been so. Cain had a "reason" when he slew Abel.
But enough is enough. Those who have selfish evil reasons
for spewing CO2 into the environment will always find
"reasons" why that's OK ... but let's stop pretending that
imperfect data is one of the reasons. It's not. It wasn't a
reason a year ago, or ten years ago ... and it's certainly
not a reason now.
The IMF reckons that direct and indirect subsidies to the
carbon-emitting energy industries are on the order of 5.3
trillion dollars per year.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/18/imf-energy-idUSL1N0Y
61S220150518
That seems like an ultra-conservative low-ball figure to me,
but let's not worry about that right now. Accepting it at
face value means that any attempt to recapture that money
from the industry would immediately make fossil carbon fuels
uncompetitive against renewable energy, across a wide (but
not unlimited) range of applications. We could start by
leveling the playing field and letting good ole' invisible
hand do its job.
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