“This is a vital policy issue since the strategy of this government and the previous Labour government to decarbonise the economy involves multi-billion pound spending decisions paid for by consumers and taxpayers, which might not have been taken (at least to the same degree or with the same haste) if global warming was not quite the imminent threat it has been depicted.”
7/22/2013, “Andrew Neil on Ed Davey climate change interview critics,“ BBC, Andrew Neil [Ed Davey was then UK “Energy and Climate Change Sec.”]
“The main purpose of the interview as to establish if the government thought the recent and continuing pause in global temperatures meant it should re-think its policies in response to global warming….
This is a vital policy issue since the strategy of this government and the previous Labour government to decarbonise the economy involves multi-billion pound spending decisions paid for by consumers and taxpayers, which might not have been taken (at least to the same degree or with the same haste) if global warming was not quite the imminent threat it has been depicted.
It might also be argued that challenging interviews on matters in which there is an overwhelming consensus in Westminster [and Washington, DC] – but not necessarily among voters who pay for both the licence fee and the government’s energy policies – is a particularly legitimate purpose of public-service broadcasting.
No consensus
The recent standstill in global temperatures is a puzzle. Experts do not know why it is occurring or how long it will last. Climate scientists have proffered a variety of possible explanations. But there is no consensus.
Extensive peer-reviewed literature regards it as established yet unexplained. It is widely accepted that the main climate models which inform government policy did not predict it (which raises interesting issues of the models’ predictions about the future course of temperatures).
For many climate scientists the plateau – which may or may not have long-term significance – has come as something of a surprise. Recently Nature, which has published extensively on global warming, called it one of climate science’s greatest mysteries.
[July 10, 2013, “Climate change: The forecast for 2018 is cloudy with record heat,” Nature.com. “Lost heat: why has the warming slowed?” Jeff Tollefson “It is one of the biggest mysteries in climate science: humans are pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere today than ever before, yet global temperatures have not risen much in more than a decade.“]
(continuing): “So it is legitimate to ask if the government takes the pause seriously and if it has any implications for policy, ie, if there is a pause in warming, is there a case for the government to pause or slowdown its expensive efforts to decarbonise the economy until the picture becomes clearer?…
Some have detected a slight decline in temperatures since circa 2004 but we did not dwell on that since it is statistically insignificant….
The plateau has made some climate scientists wonder about the efficacy of the IPCC central forecast, which has been seminal in informing official policy, and some are re-considering the IPCC’s measurement of climate sensitivity i.e. the extent to which temperatures rise in response to any given amount of C02 emissions….
At the Sunday Politics we are also used to public figures who try to change the metric when the one they’ve put their faith in does not behave as expected. We try not to let that happen.
Moreover, the purpose of the interview was not to question all aspects of climate science, just the one metric that has commanded most attention. Other possible indicators of climate change – ice melt, ocean temperatures and extreme weather events – are a matter of widespread debate in which the science most certainly is not “settled.”…
At no stage in the interview was it ever claimed that global warming is not real or that it is not man-made. It is not for the Sunday Politics to take such positions.
Our focus was on a global temperature plateau which could be a challenge to the forecasts of climate models which have determined government policy. The plateau could continue for the foreseeable future or melt away as temperatures resume their upward trajectory.
The Sunday Politics has no views on such matters. We have put the existence of this plateau into the broader public domain. It is for others to determine its significance.”
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Added: Wouldn’t $10 million US taxpayer dollars per day be more than enough for the climate industry? Why does the US political class insist on $115.6 million a day, 365 days a year?
Dozens if not all US federal agencies engaged in climate spending in 2016. From just 8 agencies in 2016, $115,616,438 million US taxpayer dollars daily went out the door to the weather and climate industry, $42.2 billion for the year, per aaas.org:
“Weather and Climate in the FY 2016 Budget,“ aaas.org (Am. Assn. for Advancement of Science), Paul A.T. Higgins, Shalini Mohleji, American Meteorological Society
“2016 climate and weather budget”:
subhead: “PROGRAMS, DEPARTMENTS, AND AGENCIES”
From “Table 1: Weather and climate-related R and D in the Federal Budget"
NOAA $5.9 billion
NASA $18.5 billion
NSF $1.3 billion
Dept. of Energy $5.3 billion
Dept. of Interior, USGS $1.2 billion
USDA (Agric. Research Service) $1.4 billion
EPA $8.6 billion”
(Comment: During Obama’s 8 years, regular annual budgets weren’t used. “Requested” monies were allocated in other ways, and everyone was fine with it. In 2012, for example, no one had a problem giving $6 billion US taxpayer dollars for ‘clean energy’ to the Sultan of Brunei who owns 5000+ cars. The $6 billion would be shared with Pres. of Indonesia for “renewables and cleaner energy.” The Sultan of Brunei of course carries out Islamic punishments of limb dismemberment and stoning to death. As to Indonesia, it’s so corrupt even the World Bank says crime adds 20% to costs.)
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Added: “Funding appears to be driving the science rather than the other way around….[32]” (item #11):
2015 paper: The explosion of global climate science spending was traced to the United States Executive branch in 1990 and Bush #1’s USGCRP mandate. The continuing decades-long “boom” in global climate science spending was merely theft of US taxpayer dollars by the US political class:
Fall 2015, “Causes and Consequences of the Climate Science Boom,” independent.org, Butos and McQuade
“2. By any standards, what we have documented here is a massive funding drive, highlighting the patterns of climate science Rand D as funded and directed only by the Executive Branch.”…1. The Government’s Role in Climate Science Funding…took a critical step with passage of the Global Change Research Act of 1990.
The Act established institutional structures operating out of the White House.”...
Chart below, page 4, pdf, is an underestimate, doesn’t include congressional appropriations:
“Note and Sources: The data shown here are funding disbursements by the White House U.S. Global Change Research Program and its predecessor, the National Climate Program, available at NCP 1988, 43; Climate Science Watch 2007; and Leggett, Lattanzio, and Bruner 2013. These data, however, do not represent congressional climate science funding appropriations to other government agencies. As we show later in a more detailed assessment of U.S. government climate science funding, the numbers here, especially those for more recent years, greatly underestimate the actual level of funding.” pdf p. 4
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Added:
“99.9 percent of climate science is funded by the government.”
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Added: UN IPCC: US temperatures cooled from 1950-2011:
2012 UN IPCC report, “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation,“ Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (582 pages):
UN IPCC states “central North America” temperatures cooled between 1950 and 2011. Citations on pages 121, 134, and 135 reference “central North America” cooling. (Scientific American says UN IPCC is “the world’s premier scientific body on the climate.“)
UN IPCC: US temperatures cooled from 1950-2011:
2012 UN IPCC report, “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation,“ Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (582 pages):
UN IPCC states “central North America” temperatures cooled between 1950 and 2011. Citations on pages 121, 134, and 135 reference “central North America” cooling. (Scientific American says UN IPCC is “the world’s premier scientific body on the climate.")
3 citations for “central North America” cooling temperatures from 1950-2011,” per 2012 UN IPCC report, Chapter 3, “Changes in Climate Extremes and their Impacts on the Natural Physical Environment,” begins p. 109:
First citation, p. 121:
p. 121, Subhead 3.1.6: “Changes in Extremes and Their Relationship to Changes in Regional and Global Mean Climate:”
(Right column, near end of page): “Parts of central North America [otherwise known as the US] and the eastern United States present cooling trends in mean temperature and some temperature extremes in the spring to summer season in recent decades (Section 3.3.1).”…
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srex/SREX_Full_Report.pdf
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Comment: Tax dollars that otherwise could’ve gone to the poor and needy, education, or infrastructure, have instead for decades been funneled to climate fat cats.
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