Where do they keep finding these people with PhD’s? Global warming is not our fault … it’s nature By Jenny Haworth
DR JIM Buckee says he feels like a heretic, persecuted for his views and treated like an outcast. His crime? Being a climate change sceptic.
Next week the former chief executive of the oil and gas firm Talisman, who has a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Oxford, will try to convince others that climate change has nothing to do with human activity.
During a lecture at the University of Aberdeen he will argue that, far from warming, the Earth is set to enter a 20-year cooling period. (click photo for full size)
What I would like to know, when I read about a coming cooling period, are we talking about times like the 70’s, when all the media was worried about a coming ice age, or, like during the Little Ice Age?
Dr Buckee believes human behaviour has no effect on the climate and the vast sums spent by governments trying to promote renewable energy to cut greenhouse gas emissions are being wasted.
I’ve written before that I believe Man has some small effect, particularly from agriculture and landfills, not to mention changes in the micro-climate, such as the Urban Island Affect and the clearcutting around Mt. Kilamanjaro. And, to repeat a constant refrain, if the people who believe Man is primarily or solely responsible actually believed that, they would change their own behavior.
Instead of human activities being responsible for the warming climate over the past 100 years, Dr Buckee insists there is a natural explanation, based on the activity of the Sun.
Solar activity can affect the cosmic rays that reach the Earth’s atmosphere, and this in turn affects the climate, he says.
There is probably a bit more then just the Sun, but, it is the primary force for climate. Then you add things like gravity, the moon, volcano’s, and living things.
But, then we get such scaremongering reports such as
- “Birds seem to be heading farther north because of climate change“
- Climate change suspected in loss of salamanders
- Audubon study ties bird migration shift to climate change
- Birds move north; global warming cited
And what they all mean is AGW, not the primarily natural global warming, with the lower case g and w.
60 F here in New York today which is a bit warm for February, don’t you think Teach ? Seeing people out in Tee shirts in February WTF ? Teach didn’t you say that global cooling was going to start LAST year ?
Retired oil executive with no degrees in climatology claims that global cooling is about to start. This is the best you can come up with Teach ??
More confusion…
Teach, what exactly does this man’s Ph.D. do to make his opinion any more qualified than anyone else’s? He is not a CLIMATE scientist. That’s a very important distinction. This is sort of like saying that I’m an engineer, so I should be able to design a car engine. Well, no, I’m a civil engineer, so I can’t do that. It matters greatly not only what the Ph.D. is in, but also what the person has done, specifically, over their career. This man was an oil executive, not a climate researcher.
Now, there are two additional important points:
1. I’m not discrediting his opinion simply because he’s not a climate scientist. I will get into the validity of his claims in a minute. You presented his opinion has fact, based on the fact that he is a Ph.D., so I’m only demonstrating that this argument is invalid. His Ph.D. does not make his opinion on global warming valid, any more than my civil engineering experience makes my opinion on electrical circuits valid.
2. It doesn’t matter what any person “thinks” or “says”. You continue to give examples of some random guy that disagrees with AGW, without the slightest clue that this doesn’t disprove anything. What matters is the scientific research that has been done, and this research points to human activity as the primary cause of global warming.
Correction: “All the media” were not concerned about an ice age. There were a few news reports and maybe a book or two. That was it. This idea flowed from the same logic your using, that some scientist’s opinion matters. There were maybe a couple of scientists who made these claims, but there wasn’t any research to back it up.
Could you expand on how you think man has had an effect from “agriculture and landfills”? Just curious.
I’ve given you a list of what my family and I do. What is it that you would have us do that we currently do not, and please explain for me how that would make the climate research that has been done to date any more convincing?
I guess this is sort of like a scientific response. Could you please explain in further detail how the Sun is the primary driver of climate? I am also interested in hearing your explanations for how gravity, the moon, volcanos and living things have more of an effect on our climate than we do.