The Biggest Lie
The cornerstone of propaganda is the "big lie". (A number of sources, including Wikipedia, attribute this technique to Adolph Hitler. Which is odd, because it was actually in use well before Hitler. The Soviet Union used it repeatedly. Maybe Hitler was the first one to give it that particular name.) Well, a Danish scientist has just gone on the record exposing "global warming" as a complete myth. If he's correct, global warming may be the single biggest lie in the history of the big lie.
It is generally assumed the Earth's atmosphere and oceans have grown warmer during the recent 50 years because of an upward trend in the so-called global temperature, which is the result of complex calculations and averaging of air temperature measurements taken around the world.
"It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth," said Andresen, an expert on thermodynamics. "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate".
And this should give you cause to really think about this. "…Temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system." Moving on to a related item posted by Melanie Phillips, one of the biggest proponents of global warming, Mike Hulme, has made a stunning admission. Global warming cannot be proven by science at all. Only by applying ideologically driven "post-normal" pseudoscience (that would be the big lie, again) can the subject be addressed.
Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking, although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognises the socially contingent dimensions of a post-normal science. But to proffer such insights, scientists - and politicians - must trade (normal) truth for influence. If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognise the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity.
What an admission! Let’s read that one again. Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking. Of course not. The facts don’t support it. It’s not true. So, says Hulme, let’s abolish the need to establish the facts and the truth and impose the theory on the basis of — what’s that again — ‘values and beliefs’. In other words, climate change science has got to be anti-science. It’s got to be anti-truth. It’s got to be nothing more than an ideology.
Take these two items and think about them. I imagine the screeching will become very, very loud indeed from the true believers in the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming®.
Uncategorized | Gaius Friday, 16 March , 2007
By Former Republican, Friday, 16 March , 2007 @ 5:13 pm
This is an ridiculous misreading of Hulme’s column, a classic case of selective quotation, to make Hulme seem to say something he is not. Don’t take my word for it. Go read http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032821,00.html And Gaius, thank you for drawing my attention to Hulme’s column. What he (actually) has to say is pretty interesting.
So temperature can only be defined for a homogenous system? That’s not just wrong, it should be obvious that it’s wrong. People talk about the temperature of nonhomogeneous systems all the time. When ski resorts talk about a warm winter, they’re not talking nonsense. You may have to define temperature differently than you do in thermodynamics, but so what? The Danish scientist is probably saying something serious that didn’t translate well to a news article, something that might be worth understanding. But you will probably have to get technical to understand it.
By Gaius, Friday, 16 March , 2007 @ 5:31 pm
Actually, he’s exactly correct. I had not thought about that until he wrote it. Temperature/heat/thermodynamics are not things that can be redefined. They are fundamental. There is a reason they are called “laws”. Yet the “global temperature” depends on how the data is collected and compiled, not on direct measurement.
If you do not see that there is a real problem with that, it’s time for you to go and send in your replacement. I am extremely sick and am running a rather high temperature at the moment. It would be extremely unwise to push me at this point. My patience is somewhat lacking at the moment.
By Former Republican, Saturday, 17 March , 2007 @ 8:18 am
I’m sorry you’re ill. I can’t resist pointing out, though, that you are not a homogeneous thermodynamic system. Is it meaningless to say you are running a high temperature?
Gaius, you are not going to refute global warming, or the anthropogenic source of part of it, by some “gotcha” point, especially one that isn’t sound. Why on earth (sic) shouldn’t a climate scientist define temperature as an average based on collecting temperatures at various locations and times? Science chooses definitions based on usefulness. If it’s useful to broaden a definition, scientists do so, and will cheerfully use different definitions for different purposes. For example, “space” has a quite different definition in Einsteinian physics than it does in Newtonian physics. Yet we still use both types of phsics.
And by the way, if you think that “direct measurement” doesn’t depend on “how the data is collected and compiled” I suggest you read up on philosophy of science. You set up a false dichotomy.