As the frenzied activity of what has recently been described as the ‘New Supersition’ reaches unprecedented paroxysms of hysteria, the image recurs of a dismal figure, back somewhat bent, walking in the dreary rain near nameless, brick railway arches and wearing a billboard sandwich; on the back, scrawled in white chalk: ‘The End is nigh’. Perhaps one of the good things that might arise from Copenhagen is an increasing awareness that all is not quite ’settled’ and that the ridiculous oxymoron of ‘consensus science’ will be shown up for what it is: a politicization of science. And as others have also said, fear ‘injures civilized society’. Indeed it does. It stops people thinking properly.

‘Climate change’ – an absurd axiomatic statement of the obvious and one that has replaced ‘global warming’ because the latter stopped in the last 11 years. It is a no-brainer that arguing for policy on the basis of a phenomena that fails to live up to its name is politically inept. ‘Climate change’ on the other hand, is an undisputed truism that has given us ice ages and interglacial warm periods, and which has sculptured the landscape and the species that inhabit the planet for billions of years. The tricky bit here is to determine to what extent, if any, does the signature of mans activity, in particular the generation of carbon dioxide influence the recent warming Holocene period since 1750. Man made or anthropogenic carbon dioxide amounts to 4% of the total atmospheric carbon dioxide – a minute figure of 4% of 0.04% of the total atmosphere. It is truly minute. Some scientists doubt we may actually be able to detect such a ’signature’.

The United Nations, International Governmental  Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) bases its atmospheric science view predominantly on mathematical models. These endeavour to predict climate and importantly the effect of greenhouse gases on climate. They have not predicted the recent cooling period which has occurred against a background of increasing carbon dioxide levels. Articles in scientific peer reviewed literature demonstrate the substantial weakness of the various mathematical models used, highlighting their inability to predict a non-linear and chaotic climate system. That 90% of greenhouse gas composition is water vapour is worth remembering as well. Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency in the USA wanted to list water vapour as an atmospheric pollutant. Fortunately, their political masters erred on the side of caution (and political survival) and stepped in, in time. However, they have managed to list carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant, but appear to have overlooked the obvious fact that it is inextricably linked with plant and animal life on Earth. Plants flourish as they photosynthesize, taking up carbon dioxide. The biomass increases and flourishes with increasing carbon dioxide levels. This is good for animals and plants……food!

The IPCC models suggest that as temperatures increase (which it has not done for the last decade – something not predicted by the models) the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere increases. The effect of this is to increase the heat entrapment and lead to further warming, further greenhouse gases and more heat trapping. This is the nightmare scenario of runaway positive feedback which the media portrays would ultimately be like living on Venus. A recent paper published by Lindzen and Choi (GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L16705, doi:10.1029/2009GL039628, 2009) analyzes real  data and shows that in spite of atmospheric temperature increase, radiative planetary cooling has increased and there is a natural negative feedback taking place. This means that observed reality is exactly the reverse of IPCC model predictions, that climate is not sensitive and that it undergoes negative feedback. Furthermore, the increase of water vapour in the atmosphere means that there are more clouds. More clouds leads to a higher level of planetary albedo or reflectance, which reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, which reduces the heating effect due to solar radiation. Suggestions that diminishing polar caps will lead to a significant decline in planetary albedo, thereby allowing more solar radiation to reach and heat us is very questionable and most unlikely. In the first instance, the Antarctic ice cap coverage is at a 28 year maximum, and the Arctic ice coverage fluctuates naturally, mainly due to winds and currents from the Tropics. The Arctic sea ice has retreated a number of times previously, in the very early twentieth century, and allowed the passage of shipping. The first evidence of polar caps on Earth suggests that until about 25 million years ago, they were absent. Since then Earth has passed through several ice ages of 100,000 years, as well as warm periods and Antarctica was covered by trees 12,000 years ago.

A recent article published in Pravda highlights the preoccupation of the IPCC with very short time spans. Russian scientists and paleoclimatologists, take a much longer view and believe that we are approaching an ice age. The terrestrial climate has beat with a 100,000 year ice age, followed by a 10,000 year warm interregnum very reliably for the last 400,000 years. That carbon dioxide levels lag substantially behind warming trends by 800 years means that we might well not be looking in the right direction as we slide into another ice age. Furthermore, studying and basing policy on climate over a 1000 year period and climate modelling is as meaningful as looking at daily weather. IPCC atmospheric scientists are always at pains to point out that ‘climate’ and ‘weather’ are quite different entities but at the same time appear to overlook their own myopia. However, Russian paleoclimatologists, who recognise the insignificance of a 1000 year view and maintain that it is too short to make any reliable and major assumptions about climate. Does the science look settled to you?

Given that most of the recent post glacial warm period (Holocene) has been warmer than today, that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been substantially higher (2000 parts per million -  they are around 360 parts per million presently)  than at present (without humans around), that the ice caps have waxed and waned in and out of existence ever before humans were about, that solar activity is at a steady low, and that orbital Milankovitch cycles have a periodicity which synchronise with glacial periods, are observations relevant to climate that ought to stimulate open and continued scientific debate and investigation. They do not. Instead, they are persistently drowned out in favour of the politicized view that has settled on one infinitesimal variable – the amount of man made (anthropogenic) carbon dioxide.

A graph recently published by the New Zealand, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (a Crown enterprise) shows temperatures in NZ since around 1850. The temperature data has been adjusted to show a slight rise. This adjustment is not stated. The original data however, demonstrates no change in temperature. NIWA do not explain what ‘fudge factors’ were used and more importantly, why. That such methodology is transparent and defensible goes to the heart of scientific integrity, no better highlighted by the debacle that has developed around the release of the University of East Anglia emails. I have written, as indeed have many others,  to the Minister of Climate, Dr Nick Smith and expressed my concern and be assured of a response…..in the new year.

Happy new year to you all. May it dawn free of servitude, impoverishment and global taxation without purpose. Most importantly, may it be free of fear. For this, it needs to be free from the mantra of fanatical belief, whatever noxious form such beliefs may take. May we also be free from those that endeavour to predict chaotic systems, whether with mathematical models or crystal balls.