Saturday 3 March 2012

Dr. Richard Lindzen at the House of Commons

His simple eloquence encapsulates much of my own thinking, so instead of struggling to write my own summary of the thin and one-sided so-called arguments of the "team" and their fawning supporters, I've chosen to quote from his presentation to a public meeting at the House of Commons on 22nd. February. A pdf of his slides is available on Watts Up With That. Here's his well-crafted introduction to his talk.
I wish to thank the Campaign to Repeal the Climate Change Act for the opportunity to present my views on the issue of climate change – or as it was once referred to: global warming. Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about.
It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is.
It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is.
It is not about whether the increase in CO2 , by itself, will lead to some warming: it should.
The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.
Then he presents with devastating lucidity, point by point, the "warmist" case, and his rebuttal of those points, details some of the background science and finishes with
Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.
In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age. 
A two-part video of his presentation is available on Climate Realists - well worth taking the time to see the whole thing.

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