Only from the weight of evidence provided by comparative study of many information sources, can one hope to reach a convincing conclusion.
Born of the Bank of Ideas and the Occupy movement, Critical Thinking is a collaborative research project to understand contemporary affairs in the context of financial markets, commerce, media, government and public institutions. It is a process by which we are continuously learning and refining our world view in the light of new information – learning never ceases. The narrative is never settled.
The work of Outersite.org continues at http://freecriticalthinking.org
January 26th, 2014 -
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Edward Bernays sold America’s entry into WW1 on a message of spreading freedom and democracy (a practice followed by US administrations ever since). He persuaded women that cigarettes were a penile symbol of power and aligned smoking with the suffragette movement.
The same techniques are used today to sell wars, economic repression and the theory of man-made global warming which survives in the face of historical experience and contemporary observation.
Our world view has been choreographed through concentrated media (particularly the BBC). Anyone who missed The Century of the Self (which is, ironically a BBC production), would be well advised to watch it. It explains how our decisions are no longer based on rational thought but appeals to emotion and base instincts.
Bernays’ uncle Siegmund Freud was concerned with the study of individuals. Bernays was focused and grew rich on manipulating the masses.
May 30th, 2013 -
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In Critical Thinking we’ve been developing ideas for a new economy and communicating these ideas to other groups to expand the debate on how we may escape the rolling economic crises. This video (53 minutes) is of a presentation to the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI) in London.
The accompanying slides contain links to the information sources on which the presentation draws
Economics to Save our Civilisation (video presentation)
“Somewhere in our history we took a wrong turn and today we are reaping the consequences. If we don’t step back to evaluate the root causes of the rolling economic crises, our civilisation is in danger of collapse.”
May 5th, 2013 -
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The SOUTHAMPTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE – REPORT OF THE Economic Crisis Committee 1933 accurately identified the fundamental flaws in our banking and monetary system but like all other threats to the monopoly of banking interests, was buried. It is not widely available on the internet (although it should be) and it has been reproduced on the Critical Thinking website. The problems described are eerily familiar to those are living through the current financial crises.
July 20th, 2012 -
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This article appeared on Information Clearing House on 21st March 2012 – it is posted here in full just in case it gets removed which would be a tragedy. Arundhati Roy writes incisively and in beautiful prose. It is long but it is well worth persevering to the end:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30877.htm
Rockefeller to Mandela, Vedanta to Anna Hazare…. How long can the cardinals of corporate gospel buy up our protests?
By Arundhati Roy
March 21, 2012 “Outlook India” – – Is it a house or a home? A temple to the new India, or a warehouse for its ghosts? Ever since Antilla arrived on Altamont Road in Mumbai, exuding mystery and quiet menace, things have not been the same. “Here we are,” the friend who took me there said, “Pay your respects to our new Ruler.”
Antilla belongs to India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. I had read about this most expensive dwelling ever built, the twenty-seven floors, three helipads, nine lifts, hanging gardens, ballrooms, weather rooms, gymnasiums, six floors of parking, and the six hundred servants. Nothing had prepared me for the vertical lawn—a soaring, 27-storey-high wall of grass attached to a vast metal grid. The grass was dry in patches; bits had fallen off in neat rectangles. Clearly, Trickledown hadn’t worked.
But Gush-Up certainly has. That’s why in a nation of 1.2 billion, India’s 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of the GDP.
The word on the street (and in the New York Times) is, or at least was, that after all that effort and gardening, the Ambanis don’t live in Antilla. No one knows for sure. People still whisper about ghosts and bad luck, Vaastu and Feng Shui. Maybe it’s all Karl Marx’s fault. (All that cussing.) Capitalism, he said, “has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, that it is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells”.
In India, the 300 million of us who belong to the new, post-IMF “reforms” middle class—the market—live side by side with spirits of the nether world, the poltergeists of dead rivers, dry wells, bald mountains and denuded forests; the ghosts of 250,000 debt-ridden farmers who have killed themselves, and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us. And who survive on less than twenty rupees a day.
Mukesh Ambani is personally worth $20 billion. He holds a majority controlling share in Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a company with a market capitalisation of $47 billion and global business interests that include petrochemicals, oil, natural gas, polyester fibre, Special Economic Zones, fresh food retail, high schools, life sciences research and stem cell storage services. RIL recently bought 95 per cent shares in Infotel, a TV consortium that controls 27 TV news and entertainment channels, including CNN-IBN, IBN Live, CNBC, IBN Lokmat, and ETV in almost every regional language. Infotel owns the only nationwide licence for 4G Broadband, a high-speed “information pipeline” which, if the technology works, could be the future of information exchange. Mr Ambani also owns a cricket team. Read the rest of this entry »
March 22nd, 2012 -
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We stand at an inflection point in history and western civilisation faces a critical choice: Revolution or Evolution.
Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” analyses factors which caused civilisations to collapse in the past. The factors are relatively few (environmental challenges, external threats or loss of a supporting neighbour, internal disintegration etc.) but what distinguished civilisations which collapsed from those which survived, was the reaction to these threats. Universally, those that collapsed were led by an elite which became increasingly remote from the majority and instituted selfish, short term policies to protect themselves from the perceived threats. Meanwhile the populace suffered hardship, famine, and increased suppression. Sound familiar? Recent, less acute examples, are the French, Russian Revolutions and the rise of China’s communist party (Stalin’s headcount of victims was some 30 million and Mao Tse Tung’s 35 million).
This is what we’re heading for and whether or not you are a short term beneficiary of the current economic system, it would be wise to understand the fundamental root cause of economic turmoil and other global problems. Read the rest of this entry »
November 19th, 2011 -
7 Comments
Margrit Kennedy: Interest and Inflation Free Money
(Published by Seva International; ISBN 0-9643025-0-0;
Copyright 1995 by Margrit Kennedy)
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/kennedy/english/
The following extracts are useful in providing quantitative context for why a new interest free money system is needed and the existing monetary paradigm is unsustainable. The full paper proposes an alternative interest free monetary system. It describes what a new money system could look like and the benefits.
The numbers relate to Germany prior to 1995 when the paper was written. The inequality of wealth distribution and the interest burden/benefit is even greater today and particularly acute in the privatised Anglo Saxon economies.
First Misconception :
THERE IS ONLY ONE TYPE OF GROWTH
Curve A represents an idealized form of the normal physical growth pattern in nature which our bodies follow, as well as those of plants and animals
Even at 1% compound interest, we have an exponential growth curve, with a doubling time of 72 years.
Figure 2 shows the time periods needed for our money to double at compound interest rates:
at 3%, 24 years;
at 6%, 12 years;
at 12%, 6 years.
Story: Persian emperor who was so enchanted with a new chess game that he wanted to fulfill any wish the inventor of the game had. This clever mathematician decided to ask for one seed of grain on the first square of the chess board doubling the amounts on each of the following squares. The emperor, at first happy about such modesty, was soon to discover that the total yield of his entire empire would not be sufficient to fulfill the “modest” wish. The amount needed on the 64th square of the chess board equals 440 times the yield of grain of the entire planet.
That is exponential growth!
The solution to the problems caused by present exponential growth is to create a money system which follows the natural growth curve. That requires the replacement of interest by another mechanism to keep money in circulation. Read the rest of this entry »
October 29th, 2011 -
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The Federal Reserve Banks (which make up the Federal Reserve Board) are privately owned but the Federal Reserve Board website gives the misleading impression that it is owned and controlled by the US government.
Ownership is stipulated in the Federal Reserve Act and the capital of the Federal Reserve Banks is subscribed by member banks. The member banks receive a 6% dividend annually. The Act also provides for money to be paid over to the government but this in no way means that the Federal Reserve isn’t under the bank member/owners’ control. Read the rest of this entry »
October 29th, 2011 -
1 Comment
Fractional reserve banking is legalised fraud. The issuing of money, by central banks, is theft from the 99%, aided and abetted by leveraged bank lending.
Money as Debt, a 45 minute video, is an introduction to banking from its origins and describes the process by which the 99% are enslaved in debt and the 1% end up with all the power and wealth.
Circulate it to everyone you know. When the 99% understand how they are being robbed, the pressure for change will be irresistible.
Our debt based money system:
finances the military industry complex which depends on perpetual war for its development;
corrupts politics, media and our public institutions, leading the 99% into slavery with their lies;
underpins an economic system which is raping the planet of its resources at an exponential rate and relies on us consuming stuff we don’t need. Read the rest of this entry »
October 23rd, 2011 -
3 Comments
The challenge for the various Occupy movements is how to create a coherent message. Clearly the movement is born out of frustration and anger but different people have different priorities. In addition, the media and others want to know the purpose of the occupations and their objectives.
If one accepts the root cause of the ills in the world today is the monetary system which enslaves the 99% in debt while banks continue to accrue yet more wealth and power, an alternative system needs to be developed. Fractional reserve banking has evolved over centuries and the financial system has become infinitely more complex over the last thirty years. Coming up with a new system is not going to happen overnight; it will take time and much discussion across a broad range of people with different interests. And so we need a process or framework to ensure the movement doesn’t become distracted or diverted into subsidiary issues which would weaken it. Read the rest of this entry »
October 18th, 2011 -
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The mainstream media is beginning to wake up to the global, grass roots uprising coalescing around the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS). Inspired by the youth demonstrations which began in Spain in May this year and the various uprisings (Egypt, Tunisia, Greece etc.), disparate groups came together on Wall Street on 17th September 2011 to protest against the financial system which no longer works for 99% of the people. In spite of being ignored, dismissed or ridiculed by the mainstream media the occupation of the renamed Liberty Square in New York persisted. Repressive police tactics against the peaceful protesters only swelled their numbers and four weeks later the movement has spread across the globe with over 1000 demonstrations taking place on 15th October.
In London yesterday, the occupation of St Paul’s Churchyard, next to Paternoster Square began, coinciding with the global demonstrations. The initial objective was to occupy Paternoster Square itself but heavily manned police barricades denied the protesters access. At midnight on the first day of the occupation there remained between 300-500 protesters and a heavy police presence (circa 600 officers). During the day the police attempted to kettle and intimidate the protesters using riot gear clad officers and police dogs. A line of some 40 officers with riot gear to hand were posted along the top of the steps to St Paul’s, where they remained throughout the night. The following day, Reverend Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s, said he was happy for people to “exercise their right to protest peacefully” outside the cathedral and asked the officers “guarding” the entrance to the Cathedral to go as he felt the Cathedral was not under any threat. The first victory is won. Read the rest of this entry »
October 16th, 2011 -
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The rationale for this second round of quantitative is similar to the justification for the first round undertaken in 2009. According to the Bank’s leaflet, Quantitative Easing Explained, by buying government and corporate debt (currently held by banks) it will inject £75bn into the financial (banking) system which will foster economic activity.
The £200bn of quantitative easing in 2009 had little effect on the real economy but was certainly beneficial for banks, helping to repair their balance sheets and make profits. It created an illusion of recovery as stock markets steamed away driven by the liquidity provided by the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve Board. But in the real economy people continued to suffer falling living standards and bleaker employment prospects. The leaflet explains that banks will use this capital injection to increase lending to businesses but, since 2009, the banks have fallen woefully short of expectations in this regard. Why should QE2 be any different? Meanwhile the debt/leverage bubble continues to grow and this £75billion merely adds fuel to it. Read the rest of this entry »
October 6th, 2011 -
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Examine the growth of debt and leverage in the global economy and it is difficult to conclude that the route to salvation is additional stimulus from governments, taking on yet more debt to accelerate growth. Public sector deficits and consumer indebtedness weigh heavily upon economic activity and more debt will add fuel to a potential meltdown. But how did the world arrive at this parlous state? The responsibility rests not with individuals, politicians or otherwise. It is the result of a system with skewed incentives exemplified by the banks’ profiting from ever expanding debt. Banks wield such power that governments’ policies inevitably pander to their interests. If one doubts this statement, one only needs to look at the sub-prime mortgage crisis which was created by perverse structural incentives to obscure the truth. The major culprits were the banks which issued and traded mortgage backed securities and derivatives. But others were by no means blameless. Read the rest of this entry »
October 4th, 2011 -
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In the run up to Al Gore’s televised 24 hour climate alarmism extravaganza, he penned an article for Rolling Stone in which he sought to discredit those scientists who dissent from the claimed “consensus” on climate change. This is a rebuttal of those claims which Rolling Stone will not publish:
Al Gore sounds desperate (Climate of Denial – Rolling Stone June 22, 2011). According to NASA’s satellite data, sea levels show a 6mm decline in 2010 and AMSR-E Global Sea Surface Temperature Variations indicate that oceans are cooling. Studies, by three separate teams from the National Solar Observatory and the Air Force Research Laboratory, are suggesting the next solar cycle (25) will be similar to the Dalton or Maunder Minima. These minima occurred during the Little Ice Age which saw temperatures plunge after the relatively high temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period. Scientists studying oceans demonstrate that the recent warming, to the end of the last century, is part of the natural cycle of oceanic oscillations and predict a thirty year cooling phase. The CLOUD experiment at CERN suggests that all the warming of the late twentieth century could be accounted for by a small percentage reduction of reflective cloud cover (albedo) – more of the sun’s rays reached the earth, warming the planet. Indications are that albedo is growing once more. Clearly, the computer climate models on which climate alarmism is based are flawed because they fail to model these natural processes correctly.
What’s a Nobel Prize winner, trying to save the world, to do? Read the rest of this entry »
October 4th, 2011 -
2 Comments
The fundamental flaw in the anthropogenic global warming theory is the missing hotspot in the troposphere over the tropics, see David Evans’: http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf
As Albert Einstein said: “No amount of experimentation can prove me right, one experiment can prove me wrong.”
The IPCC has never claimed to have found the hotspot but characterised contradictory satellite and radiosonde (weather balloon) data as “unreliable”. They’d rather we believe the climate models which predict a hotspot over the equator than the real life data which show it doesn’t exist. Yet another attempt to gloss over this fundamental weakness in the man-made global warming theory is made in a recent paper by Peter W. Thorne, John R. Lanzante, Thomas C. Peterson, Dian J. Seidel and Keith P. Shine: Tropospheric temperature trends: history of an ongoing controversy. In the Abstract it concluded that there is no reasonable evidence of a fundamental disagreement between tropospheric temperature trends from models and observations when uncertainties in both are treated comprehensively. Read the rest of this entry »
November 19th, 2010 -
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In the run up to Copenhagen, a selection of documents, files and emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were leaked onto the internet. When what came to be known as Climategate could no longer be ignored, the man-made global warming supporters swung into action. Numerous “talking heads” were trotted out to confirm that nothing in the emails invalidated the science underpinning the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW) and it mustn’t delay progress at Copenhagen. Fortunately, for most of us, it did derail Copenhagen but in an increasingly febrile atmosphere the epithet “denier” was hurled at anyone suggesting that something is rotten in the state of climate science.
The various inquiries into Climategate studiously failed to expose the extent to which the IPCC process had been hijacked by a coterie of climate scientists and their supporters. The man-made global warming narrative remained intact in the media in spite of various IPCC’s alarmist claims being proven as false.
However, little by little the “climate change” edifice is crumbling, aided and abetted by a particularly savage winter across the Northern Hemisphere in spite of the Met Office’s confident prediction to the contrary. Read the rest of this entry »
November 16th, 2010 -
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A recent Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment presentation “Is Carbon Trading and Investment the next Sub-Prime Crisis?” prompted the audience to revisit (and some to recant) their belief in man-made global warming and draw parallels with the sub-prime crisis. Click here for the podcast (sound and slides) of the presentation: ClimatePresentation_to_CISI_23Sep2010
Note: The podcast starts half way through the introduction by Michael Mainelli, Chairman of ZYen. In the question and answer session, there is reference to an additional three billion tons of wheat per annum for bio-fuel power stations, the correct figure is three million tons.
The slides used in the 23rd September 2010 presentation to the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment are available here: CarbonTradingCrisis.v.1.7 Read the rest of this entry »
September 30th, 2010 -
4 Comments
Below is correspondence with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in response to a letter to the new Science Minister, David Willetts, calling for a thorough, independent, public inquiry into the science behind the claims of impending climate catastrophe. Although the letter to David Willetts was written following the general election, the DECC’s response only arrived shortly after publication of the Muir Russell Report, the third report into the leaked documents and emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU):
15/07/10 10:23
From: ccu.correspondence@defra.gsi.gov.uk
Subject: Response to your Query : – Ref:DWOE000187405 – Climate science and scientific integrity
Dear Mr Menzies
Thank you for your email dated 4 June to the Science Minister David Willetts. As your enquiry is about climate change it has been passed to the Department of Energy and Climate Change for a reply. I apologise for the delay.
Since submitting your enquiry to Mr Willetts, you have probably become aware of the conclusions of a third investigation into the CRU leaked documents. Like the other two reviews mentioned in your e-mail, the investigation chaired by Sir Muir Russell found no evidence of scientific malpractice by CRU scientists.
The alleged absence of pronounced warming in the tropical mid-troposphere is claimed by some as evidence of flawed climate models and that greenhouse gases cannot be the main cause of observed surface warming. In reality there is no strong evidence for a systematic inconsistency between observed and modelled temperatures for the tropical troposphere, mainly because there is too much uncertainty in the observational measurements.
Considered in isolation, pronounced warming in the tropical mid-troposphere is a theoretical expectation resulting from water vapour feedback and should occur regardless of the agent that is causing global warming. As is made clear by the IPCC (Chapter 9 of the Working Group 1 Report, www.ipcc.ch), the unique signature of warming due to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations is warming of the surface and troposphere, combined with simultaneous cooling of the stratosphere. The latter effect is being observed from satellite measurements.
Your email also suggests that the temperature trends from 1940 to 1979 and from 1998 to the present are a further reason to question the reliability of climate models. Contrary to what Peter Taylor says in his book, it is well known that sulphate aerosols created in the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion were a major influence on the small cooling trend from 1940, although uncertainties remain over the scale of the effect. Even so, when all possible factors are taken into account, models can quite accurately reproduce the 1940 to 1979 trend as shown in Chapter 9 of the above mentioned IPCC report.
The temperature trend since 1998 is understood to result from natural climate variability, combined with reduced solar irradiance during the downward part of the solar cycle after its 2001 maximum. Also, of course, the period since 1998 is too short an interval on which to draw conclusions about long term trends or on the reliability of climate models.
In summary, the evidence for human caused warming stems from long understood basic physics and from the recently observed warming pattern, which cannot be explained by natural factors alone; the ‘hockey stick’ graph is largely irrelevant in this respect and certainly irrelevant to future climate change. Furthermore, the consistency of the conclusions reached by the three separate CRU investigations is clear evidence of the integrity of the science produced by that institution.
Finally, you quite rightly indicated in your email that climate science is a complex and challenging issue, which needs continued research. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is funding a programme of climate science and related research to inform Government policy on mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.
I hope you find this helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Anna Forberg
DECC Correspondence Unit
16/07/10 00:10
Dear Ms Forberg
Thank you for your response.
The various investigations, to which you refer, were superficial and lacked independence and transparency. The Commons Select Committee Inquiry failed to probe the email leaks fully, left investigation of the science to the Oxburgh review, and relied on the Muir Russell panel to investigate possible wrongdoing at CRU.
The Commons Committee’s findings are difficult to reconcile with the written evidence it received. Its findings were carried by three votes to one on all the issues of substance, the dissenter being the only committee member with science qualifications, Graham Stringer MP. Following the Muir Russell report, Stringer claims parliament was misled on several counts and says Russell’s review was inadequate and, contrary to the Committee’s request, wasn’t independent. Read the rest of this entry »
July 17th, 2010 -
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No sooner had one expressed doubts about the prospects of a thorough review of the science supporting the man-made global warming hypothesis, than another report is announced. The Oxburgh panel has been investigating the work of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Contrast, if you will, the conclusions reached by the Wegman Committee in respect of the MBH98 paper produced by Dr Michael Mann and colleagues, with the conclusions reached by Lord Oxburgh and his panel.
The Wegman Report, produced in 2006, concluded: “It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimatic community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicised that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall our committee believes that Dr Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium, cannot be supported by his analysis.” The body of the report refers to basic errors in the use of statistical methods and highlights subversion of the peer review process: “at least 43 authors have direct connections to Dr Mann by virtue of coauthoring papers with him”
Whereas Lord Oxburgh’s panel states: “Although inappropriate statistical tools with the potential for producing misleading results have been used by some other groups, presumably by accident rather than design, in the CRU papers that we examined we did not come across any inappropriate usage although the methods they used may not
have been the best for the purpose. It is not clear, however, that better methods would have produced significantly different results.” Read the rest of this entry »
April 15th, 2010 -
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The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published its report into “The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia” on 31st March 2010.
It is difficult to reconcile the conclusions of the Inquiry with the evidence presented to it. Clearly the Inquiry was conducted with undue haste in order to publish its findings before the election was announced and parliament suspended. It could be further argued that contentious findings would have had the potential to disrupt the election.
The oral sessions were woefully inadequate and failed to probe witnesses on the substance of the written submissions. The balance of the oral sessions was heavily weighted in favour of the man-made global warming lobby and had no representation from those who’ve studied the science of climate change in depth across the many scientific disciplines, such as Peter Taylor who made a comprehensive written submission.
Climate change science has played a major role in formulating public policy with many ramifications: economic, social and political. The Inquiry, as constituted, could never have hoped to achieve what is required, a full independent assessment, of the current state of climate science, independent of the IPCC. The scope of the Inquiry was drawn sufficiently narrowly so as to avoid many important issues and the Committee seemed to accept the notion that the “science is settled” without probing inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence. Read the rest of this entry »
April 13th, 2010 -
1 Comment
Does Climate Change Mean the World is Cooling, and If So What Should We Do About It?
Peter Taylor gave a talk at the Energy Institute in London on 16th February 2010.: “Peter Taylor is an ecologist with a long history of environmental activism and science policy analysis at all levels of government, the EU and the UN. During the 1980s he was a leading advocate for Greenpeace on issues of marine pollution. In recent years he has sat on the UK National Advisory Group for Community Renewable Energy Initiatives and his communications consultancy Ethos pioneered landscape visualisation techniques for integrating renewable energy projects with other elements of sustainability. During his work on renewable energy strategies, Peter became concerned with the impact of the rush into renewable power supplies on community and biodiversity, and decided to review the science base for ‘global warming’. Read the rest of this entry »
March 27th, 2010 -
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John Christy and Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville have produced credible temperature data from satellite measurements since 1979 which are used for the World Climate Widget available from Anthony Watts’ www.wattsupwiththat.com.
Roy Spencer maintains a useful, latest global temperature change page on his website. On 16th March he posted an interesting analysis of the Urban Heat Island effect. Both pages are well worth a visit.
and here are global sea surface temperatures (x10) plotted against the Nino3.4 region average from the tropical E. Pacific which suggests a relationship between SSTs and global temperatures which lag the former.
Read the rest of this entry »
March 26th, 2010 -
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No evidence of hot-spots in the troposphere:
The UK Met Office describes the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis as follows: “It is now clear that man-made greenhouse gases are causing climate change. The rate of change began as significant, has becoming alarming and is simply unsustainable in the long term” and the greenhouse effect is depicted on their website thus:
Solar rays hit the earth and heat up the surface (as shown on the left). The earth’s surface emits infrared radiation back in to space thereby cooling the planet (depicted by two of the red arrows in the right hand picture). Greenhouse gases in the troposphere trap some of the infrared rays reflecting heat back down to the surface. The AGW theory suggests that increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, caused by humans, is raising global temperatures.
For the theory to hold true, the observable rate of temperature increase would be higher in the troposphere than at the earth’s surface. The rate of temperature increase would be most noticeable in the tropics because that is where the surface would be radiating the most heat.
Yet the observations, from radiosonde (weather balloons) have consistently shown that not to be the case:
The left hand picture is the climate model prediction of warming in the mid troposphere due to greenhouse gases from 1958 to 1999. The computer models predict most warming occurs at the mid troposphere at the Equator. The right hand picture shows actual temperatures measured over the same period by radiosonde (weather balloon). Actual balloon measurements show no increase in the rate of warming in the mid troposphere at the Equator, ie. no evidence of hot-spots in the troposphere and what is more none of the scientific papers supporting the AGW theory have claimed to have found such evidence.
In short the AGW theory is not borne out by the evidence. Had the AGW hypothesis been subject to the proper scientific method, the failure to substantiate this fundamental premise (of increased warming in the troposphere over the Equator) would have rendered the man-made global warming theory invalid. Read the rest of this entry »
February 3rd, 2010 -
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