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« Paterson urges pause for thought | Main | Climate models and rainfall »
Saturday
Oct112014

The Pause changes everything - Josh 296

One of the phrases alarmists like to use is to "just look out of the window" to see Global Warming aka 'Climate Change' happening right now. Presumably when they have looked out of the window these past 18 years they have seen the pause in temperatures - which should 'change everything' but I am guessing this might just be a pipe dream. Oh well, here's hoping.

Cartoons by Josh

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Reader Comments (54)

When people attribute events to climate change, I look at them and enquire, "What climate change is that?"

I then explain that even though the climate is always changing, the last couple of decades have been very stable with no significant changes taking place. The alarmists have used relentless propaganda to brainwash the public into thinking that global warming is out of control with extreme weather threatening our future survival. It comes as a surprise when they stop and think about the lack of evidence for that.

Oct 11, 2014 at 3:54 PM | Unregistered CommenterSchrodinger's Cat

The French have it:
'Plus sa change, plus c'est le meme chose...'

(Oh, come on - 'O' Level French: 'The more it changes, the more it is the same thing..')

Oct 11, 2014 at 3:55 PM | Unregistered Commentersherlock1

The typical warmist Green believer knows little about Climate Change Theory. They do not know that contrary to Climate Change Theory Global Temperature have been flat for 18+ years despite the rise in CO2. They know nothing about the Medieval Warming Period that was warmer than today or the fact wind/solar power are not green or carbon free and depends on Fossil Fuel Power from cradle to grave. Despite their ignorance of Climate Change Theory and so called green energy they present themselves as perfect know-it-alls calling people "Deniers" who dare point out reality:

--- Severe Weather Has No Link To Alarmist Climate Change Scare Mongering Per NASA http://onforb.es/1CXPvjn

--- Despite Rise in Global Temperatures Have Not Risen which is the opposite of what the Climate Models Predicted http://on.wsj.com/1vWSZQQ

--- Dooming Poor To ☠ By Fuel Poverty http://tinyurl.com/lktcpn8 To Stop Make-Believe Warming http://wp.me/pPrQ9-uwk Is Evil

Oct 11, 2014 at 4:15 PM | Unregistered Commentercjorach

Someone somewhere once pointed out that there was good evidence that the fall of great civilisations through history could be tied in to climate change...BUT...climate changes where temperatures got colder.

Additionally, it is possible that the flourishing of all the great civilisations through history coincided with increases of temperatures where those periods in time were marked by the stability of the climate.

Take that for what it's worth but it seemed pretty accurate to me

Mailman

Oct 11, 2014 at 4:24 PM | Unregistered Commentermailman

It's her meno - pause she can see.

Oct 11, 2014 at 4:25 PM | Unregistered CommenterStephen Richards

Recent comments I have gotten from people when I try to show them the evidence:

'I live in tornado country, I *know* things are getting worse!'

'Have you seen all the hurricanes lately?'

'The Earth's average temperature has gone up 2C since 2000!'

'Winds blowing from the Himalaya Mountains caused the Sahara Desert!.

We are SO screwed.

Oct 11, 2014 at 4:28 PM | Unregistered CommenterOtter (ClimateOtter on Twitter)

So "looking out the window" means "look at cartoon map" now. ;)

Andrew

Oct 11, 2014 at 4:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterBad Andrew

"A pipe dream"? But, Josh .... smoking is an evil, polluting habit. Surely you don't?

Oct 11, 2014 at 4:39 PM | Registered CommenterRobin Guenier

As ,"The Pause" has come of age, surely we should give it an adult name. "Cessation", sounds about right.

Oct 11, 2014 at 4:46 PM | Unregistered CommenterKevin Lohse

Get your stinking pause off me!

Briggsy had a word to say about those pawsthat pause/hiatus.

Anybody who says “hiatus” or “pause” non-ironically or non-derisively is reifying theory, promoting it above reality. This is nuts, scientifically speaking.

Oct 11, 2014 at 5:22 PM | Unregistered CommenterBernd Felsche

Ever since she graduated from university, I have never been able to figure out why Naomi Klein has been able to garner so much attention. It's not like she is knowledgeable, clever or correct in her prognostications.

Oct 11, 2014 at 5:42 PM | Unregistered CommenterJeff Norman

Jeff Norman:

The answer IMO is that she is attractive, articulate, witty, writes and debates well and holds the right bien pensent opinions. Geoff Chambers (LINK - see the last comment) describes her current problem well:

Ms Klein is hampered by her past success, fighting real battles against real corporations with powerful political friends and big PR budgets, and is ill-prepared for the climate debate, where she faces a disparate group of well-informed people who understand the science, have read the UNCCC and IPCC reports, and know that there is nothing in the science that suggests imminent catastrophe, nothing in the engineering which will make wind and solar power economic, and nothing in the politics which will stop us from using every ounce of fossil fuel we can lay our hands on.

Oct 11, 2014 at 6:13 PM | Registered CommenterRobin Guenier

I prefer to think that we have passed "peak warming".

Oct 11, 2014 at 6:13 PM | Unregistered Commenterauralay

From an era before the manufacturers teamed up with WWF to warn against Arctic melting, a timely message for Naomi and overheated warmists everywhere...

"The drink everybody knows... so cool... so cooling... wherever you are."

Oct 11, 2014 at 6:25 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlex Cull

Climate change's greatest achievement - the pause!

Oct 11, 2014 at 6:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterH2O: the miracle molecule

Environmental organisations are exposed for their reliance on fossil fuel funding and Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have their fossil fuel investments brought out into the cold light of day. The hijacking of the environmental agenda by big business is vividly exposed along with the wishful thinking that climate change can be addressed without significant rearrangement of the terms of engagement of oil companies, and airlines

Geoff Chambers


Understanding global warming without mentioning carbon trading is like describing the English Premier League but forgetting to mention SKY

http://www.scrapthetrade.com/intro

Oct 11, 2014 at 7:15 PM | Unregistered Commenteresmiff

On Monday, activists staged a protest against the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), during their Annual General Meeting in the Copenhagen city center. For its massive and climate-unfriendly lobbying, IETA has been nominated for the ‘Angry Mermaid Award’. The winner of the award will be revealed today by Naomi Klein at the Bella Center, where the negotiations take place.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/12/15/18632658.php

Oct 11, 2014 at 7:22 PM | Unregistered Commenteresmiff

Robin @ 6.13pm. As Geoff points out (as does Smiffy @ 7.15), the CAGW narrative is driven by precisely by the very corporations that are Naomi's prime targets. Geoff also perceives that the "left" are beginning to perceive that the major environmental organisations (Greenpiss, WWF, FOTE) are morally, intellectually and behaviourally no different from Shell, Goldman Sachs, Munich Re or, for that matter, the collectivist elites of China, Russia and the EU. To support the "climate cause" means aligning to their agenda. One could almost pity them except that the should have known.

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man and from man to pig but already it was impossible to say which was which".

Oct 11, 2014 at 8:30 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenese2

If I may, I sent the followng email letter to the Daily Telegraph - though not published to-date):

Sir,

In regard to Climate Change, the ‘pause’, ‘peak’, ‘hiatus’ has come of age.
It is now old enough to vote! And if it could it would vote for warmth over
cold any day of the week.

Unfortunately, even as the dreaded CO2 – that is supposed to be the cause of
global Warming – has climbed and climbed, the temperature has refused to
budge in sympathy with it. We are now in danger of sleep-walking into a
period of life-changing (and death-causing) cold weather/climate, along with
power cuts and compromised food supply lines (think bio-fuel crops), all
because we are being led by the likes of Ed Davey. He thinks coal is a
climate-killer (R4’s Today program 7/10/14) and that wind-turbines and PV
arrays are far better for our developed economy than reliable coal and
nuclear power generation. He looks forward to the closure of all coal-fired
power stations within ten years!

Davey thinks that building a power station that can sequester CO2 (CCS) - by
fracking(!!) oil wells with excess CO2 - at the cost of over 30% of its
efficiency to power generation and two-thirds of its capital cost is the way
forward; and that building huge numbers of wind-turbines that run at less
than 30% efficiency is value for (my) money, not to mention the mere 11%
efficiency of solar farms! He even thinks that carbon-free aircraft are on
our horizon!

We need far better leadership than this; we deserve it – no less because of
the trials and tribulations that people like Davey and his chums on the HoC
CCC are prepared to put us through. In the meantime, the governments of
India and China continue to thumb their noses at our pathetic attempts at
the pointless exercise of Climate Change remediation. They are embracing
coal. They are literally empowering their industries: Our loss.

Kind regards,

Oct 11, 2014 at 8:45 PM | Registered CommenterHarry Passfield

diogenese2

Very well put.

To take the Orwell reference further What this supposed great intellectual is doing is DOUBLETHINK. She accepts that the greens are funded by the fossil fuel industry but can't bring herself to say they are on the same side. Two contradictory beliefs in the same head.

Oct 11, 2014 at 8:52 PM | Unregistered Commenteresmiff

To be fair to Naomi Klein, I think she has been quite critical of Big Green and has made similar comments to that seen here.

Oct 11, 2014 at 8:59 PM | Unregistered CommenterAndy Scrase

esmiff (Oct 11, 2014 at 7:15 PM)
diogenese2 (Oct 11, 2014 at 8:30 PM)
Robin Guenier was quoting a comment I made to the article. The bit esmiff quotes is from the article itself, and nothing to do with me.
The article Robin links to is in the Conversation, and has had a surprisingly feeble response, as has a webchat with Klein organised by the Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2014/oct/07/naomi-klein-webchat-this-changes-everything

Oct 11, 2014 at 9:49 PM | Registered Commentergeoffchambers

Andy Scrase @ 8.59; From Berners-Lees's review; "In fact she is unapologetic that what sparked her interest in climate change was the focus it brought to capitalism's shortcomings". In other word - the climate catastrophe is just another means to an end and is in itself subordinate to her idealism. The social and economic consequences of both the catastrophe or its mitigation are of no matter as long as her "number one enemy" is destroyed.
Am I being fair?

Oct 11, 2014 at 10:08 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenese2

Geoff @ 9.49: "feeble response" - I noticed that too - 12 respondents in 12 days - you and Robin carried 50% of the load. Time to wind up the thread .
"tomorrow to fresh woods and postures new" (almost) Milton

Oct 11, 2014 at 10:18 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenese2

Still fooling yourselves that there is a pause and that it means anything for the long term trend?

The triumph of denier belief over evidence.

Oct 11, 2014 at 10:37 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

Entropic, are you having a bet both ways?
Are you saying it doesn't exist (we are fooling ourselves), or that it doesn't mean anything (assuming it exists) ?

Oct 12, 2014 at 12:16 AM | Unregistered CommenterGreg Cavanagh

It's quite good, Josh. Thanks.

Oct 12, 2014 at 2:07 AM | Unregistered CommenterBrute

I read Shock Doctrine which was actually very good. However she majorly pulls her punches on the Democrats. She is not an anti capitalist, she is a half hearted capitalist.

Oct 12, 2014 at 5:53 AM | Unregistered Commenteresmiff

which should 'change everything' but I am guessing this might just be a pipe dream

Must have been a crack-pipe dream!

Oct 12, 2014 at 5:57 AM | Unregistered CommenterStreetcred

no doubt Naomi is a personable, charming and amusing in a social context - not having read her output I can only judge from the portayal proffered by her chums and acolytes at GMG... who I must assume seek to paint the lady in a favorable light.

What I see is actually not that good - a shrill ignorant harridan projecting her personal problems and spouting half baked ideological tinpot demagoguery. Best ignored - but bonkers has its own dynamics - as the Guardian repeatedly demonstrates.

IIRC the Guardian seemed to suggest that Ms Klein's recent distressing ectopic pregnancy was a consequence of climate change - and an allusion to Naomi's possible martyr status in my view.

Oct 12, 2014 at 6:59 AM | Registered Commentertomo

Greg Cavanagh

As a short term fluctuation in rate an argument can be made for the existence of the current pauae.nIn the long term I see no reason why it should have any more effect on the long term trend than any other short term fluctuation. The longest in the continuous globa record lasted from 1940 to 1970, was statistically significant, and yet produced no long term effect. This one has not even drifted outside the confidence limits for the post-1970 trend.

Anyone saying that the current period is evidence that long term warming has ended is fooling themselves if they believe it, and fooling the public if they do not.

Oct 12, 2014 at 8:48 AM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

One of the delightful things about being retired is no longer having to be polite to people such as EM during morning tea or at lunch in the staff common room.

Oct 12, 2014 at 9:31 AM | Unregistered CommenterAlexander K

Does Naomi Klein really have only three fingers per hand? How does she get to count past eight?

Oct 12, 2014 at 9:31 AM | Registered CommenterHector Pascal

She's never needed to.

Oct 12, 2014 at 11:13 AM | Unregistered CommenterTerry Cain

Anyone saying that the current period is evidence that long term warming has ended is fooling themselves if they believe it, and fooling the public if they do not.

Oct 12, 2014 at 8:48 AM | Entropic man

An utterly meaningless statement. If you take the 19th century trough as your starting point, the 'long term trend' will remain positive until temperatures fall to those levels again.

The temperatue plateau of the last 18 years is a fact in itself. But of itself the only thing it proves is that anyone who claims certainty as to what temperatures will be 2, 3, 4 or more decades time is fooling himself.

Oct 12, 2014 at 12:01 PM | Unregistered CommenterDaveS

what is this cartoon referring to ?
links go to Barbara Boxter, or a webchat in the Guardian or something else ..

Has Naomi said something about the Pause(= the maxing out of global temperatures, the Plateau-ing) ??

Oct 12, 2014 at 5:02 PM | Unregistered Commenterptw

anyone who claims certainty as to what temperatures will be 2, 3, 4 or more decades time is fooling himself.

Oct 12, 2014 at 12:01 PM | Unregistered CommenterDaveS

Exactly. Why are you all so sure that the warming trend has stopped?

Oct 12, 2014 at 8:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

EM

why are you so sure it ever started to warm?

It might have been some recovered heat coming out, from the oceans..

Oct 12, 2014 at 9:49 PM | Unregistered Commenterptw

I find it difficult to accept a pause when all the main global datasets show warming trends since 1996, eighteen years ago.

Oct 12, 2014 at 11:31 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

Don't let these charlatans distract you, make them prove climate change is man made rather than arguing about the weather.

The 'pause' is as irrelevant as the warming that preceded it - if it's natural.

Oct 13, 2014 at 12:59 AM | Unregistered Commenterjaffa

Referring to it as "the pause" is allowing the warmists to frame the debate.

Pause means a temporary stop. It carries with it the assumption that whatever has paused is normally in motion and that its motion will, sooner or later, resume.

Let's find some other word or phrase to describe this phenomenon, please, that doesn't allow them to dictate the terms of the argument.

Oct 13, 2014 at 8:11 AM | Unregistered CommenterAndrew Duffin

EM, even if you are completely correct, do you not accept that for the rate of warming to reach the scary levels predicted 10 to 20 years ago, then over the next 20 years the rate has to greatly exceed the rate seen in the 80's and 90's when the scary levels were predicted?

Or do you accept that if the rate of warming from the 80's and 90's was to recommence in the next few years, then the long-term rate can only be at most about 50% of the scary rate predicted by Hanson and others?

Do you not accept that the approx. level temps for 17 years necessarily means that the previous projections up to 2050 and 2100 are logically way too pessimistic?

Oct 13, 2014 at 10:41 AM | Unregistered Commentersteveta_uk

Steveta.UK

Yes

No

No

Oct 13, 2014 at 5:20 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

Jaffa

As you should know, science does not do proof.

Oct 13, 2014 at 5:33 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

EM,
The only denial taking place on this thread is your denial that there is a pause and that 18 years of pause is not significant.
Your denial of this demonstrates an innumeracy that should be worrisome if you were to be at a level of responsibility that involves balancing a checkbook register.
Do you deny that the Arctic failed to melt as predicted?
do you also deny that Antarctic ice is up, not as predicted?
How strange to see a post from some self-declared enlightned one like yourself showing up at a discussion of ideas without any.

Oct 13, 2014 at 9:05 PM | Unregistered Commenterhunter

To be fair to Naomi Klein, I think she has been quite critical of Big Green and has made similar comments to that seen here.

Oct 11, 2014 at 8:59 PM | Unregistered CommenterAndy Scrase

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, come on! Along with the other two Naomi's (Wolfe and Oreskes) Klein could easily play a role in the Three Stooges - or Macbeth.

(In fact, Josh doesn't really capture that bien pensant cum ditz quality that Klein exudes. The picture makes her look much too reasonable.)

Oct 13, 2014 at 9:13 PM | Unregistered Commenterrw

I don't buy into Ms Klein's brand of hippy communism, and her use of climate change alarmism to further her political agenda is pretty transparent

For example, this quote was taken from a Joe Romm interview


“Klein: “Well, I think there is a very deep denialism in the environmental movement among the Big Green groups. And to be very honest with you, I think it’s been more damaging than the right-wing denialism in terms of how much ground we’ve lost. Because it has steered us in directions that have yielded very poor results….”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/12/2611281/naomi-klein-capitalism-climate/

Oct 13, 2014 at 9:19 PM | Unregistered CommenterAndy Scrase

Andy Scrase


Naomi is exactly right, it's a great big banking / fossil fuel scam.

Oct 13, 2014 at 10:23 PM | Unregistered Commenteresmiff

Hunter

I brought this graph to the discussion, courtesy of Wood for trees. It shows trend lines for the main datasets for the last eighteen years. All show warming trends.

You describe me as innumerate despite presenting clear data. As a person who insists on an 18 year pause in the face of clear evidence for warming I can only call you a denier. denier.

Oct 13, 2014 at 11:35 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

EM

why are you so sure it ever started to warm?

It might have been some recovered heat coming out, from the oceans..

Oct 12, 2014 at 9:49 PM | Unregistered Commenterptw

Probably not. If the long term warming tend were driven by heat from the ocean ,as you and Bob Tisdale suggest, the ocean heat content would be decreasing. This would show as a reduction in subsurface temperatures and reducing sea levels.

Observations show increasing subsurface temperature down to 2000M and rising sea level!a, indicators of energy uptake by the oceans.

Oct 13, 2014 at 11:43 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

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