I'm trying to figure out a way to answer this satisfactorily and still be concise. When the idea first came out from under a rock it didn't seem all that far fetched that human production of various pollutants couldn't have some impact. Remember, things weren't so...strident back then. Later, I ran across much more alarming statements, we're talking doomsday stuff here, and started hearing things along the lines of "the science is settled". It was at this point I became suspicious. I just could not reconcile what was being claimed with this supposed carte blanche acceptance. Didn't "smell" right. At the end of the 90's came the infamous Michael Mann "hockey stick" graph. This graph basically said that temps hadn't been where they are in a melinnium. It also seemed to ignore the otherwise ubiquitous Little Ice Age and, more importantly, the Medieval Warm Period. Somehow, in spite of this, Mann's work found itself at the center of the '01 Third Assessment Report. As I understand it (drum roll please) Mann was in charge of the portion of the report that included his hockey stick. Then in '03 a guy named McIntyre came along and simply fragged the stick so bad it's simply vanished. No fanfare mind you. So quietly there are some who think it's still part of the IPCC data. (Not) That smell was now a stench. I began to genuinely suspect science was being slutted out for agenda. Then I started actually looking into the IPCC. Simply stated, these people are absolutely buried in computer modeling. I kept this quote that was pulled directly from the 3rd Assessment:
"In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system's future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions."
Now tell me, does the above statement issued by the gurus of of AGW resemble what Gore et.al are selling? I didn't think so either. Lately there's been things like the GISS (and it's wildly AGW friendly James Hansen) having to revise downward a lot of it's temperature data so that now 6 of the top 10 hottest years are from earlier then 1953 and 5 are pre-1940. Doesn't jibe well unless you want to argue CO2 just took a break for a few decades. Very recently it's come to light from the Argo buoy system that over the last 4-5 years the oceans have been slightly...wait for it...cooling. Not exactly a revelation storming through the major media outlets. Why not?
I could go on and on but I've wasted enough board space already. Basically, the burden of proof seems extraordinarily light for a group of people that are burning up huge amounts of tax dollars and insisting we MUST take action on their say so. Couple that with repeated crimes of exaggeration or omission where convenient and I find myself closer and closer to simply agreeing with John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, who recently had this no-nonsense statement about AGW.
"It is the greatest scam in history."
