Amateur deniers that is.

I often reference back to the old days…before Mr. Gore’s Nobel and the collapse of the hoax he served…when, what seemed like nearly every weekend, a Red State diary or two would delve into the issue among a few resident supporters, the hard core deniers, and (many times) several compromising / tepid deniers.

Once again, I just couldn’t resist the search through my electronic memory for a comparison after I read the following on Powerline this morning [emphasis added]:

Have you ever wondered, when you see an assertion along the lines of “The Earth has warmed by 1.62 degrees over the last 100 years,” how anyone could know that? The literature of global warming alarmism is littered with faux precision; the truth, as you might imagine, is that it is very difficult to get reliable data for the whole Earth over a period of decades if not centuries.

Climate realists are generally willing to assume, for the sake of argument, that the Earth has warmed somewhat in recent decades. In fact, though, it is not obvious that even this modest claim is true. Satellite data show no net warming for as long as such data have been collected, i.e., back to 1979. Ocean measurements show no net warming over that period, either; the evidence for warming is based on land measurements. But the accuracy of land measurements depends on proper siting and maintenance of weather stations. (1)

That sent me to the archives for a specific Ntrepid reference…but first, the quote that may have pushed me further into the debate than I intended and really shows the arrogance of the alarmists at the time:

This is where I find myself as I reread Jason Lee Steorts recent NRO article (Link) and this passage keeps jumping out at me:

“…that ‘global average temperature has risen by about 1 degree Celsius or less since the late 1800s.’ No serious person on either side of the global-warming debate questions this.”

More precisely, it’s the words “global average temperature”.  They just float on by as the universally accepted standard of measure for assessing overall “global climate” health and everyone is off debating their favorite pet angle, topic, or related statistic.  Sure, this may all make for livelier (and by now mostly rehashed) discussions but maybe it’s worth the time to step back and be more skeptical about some of this stuff.  Take back some ground if you will. (2)

“No serious person”…really?

Ok, what I was really looking for came up twice about six months later:

Unfortunately, it’s the behavior of those who generally fall on my side of this debate that causes me to chime in so late to this discussion. The nearly universal reflex to concede something along the lines of “we all agree that there has been some warming…blah, blah, blah” based on no real scientific data is really starting to irritate me. Your “memory” of colder winters and milder summers wherever you happened to be at the time is not science and certainly not a measure of “Global Climate”. (3)

…and…

My current issue is with the all-to-common urge by even honest and reasonable people to make statements like this:

“I am willing to concede the earth has warmed 1 degree over the past 100 years…”

Ultimately that may be true but it is far from established fact so why concede anything at all? The available data doesn’t support anything near that much of an increase (if any at all). I also believe the “consensus” among the general public that things “just seem” warmer now is flat out wrong or that any increase is so negligible that no one could honestly detect a trend over their lifetime. (4)

As with so many other issues, it’s nice to have been on the right side of history…and science.

[If you are bored enough this weekend to actually peruse these archived links, there is some interesting commentary by smarter people at this final reference.  Note also the early attempts to examine real data by this amateur blogger/denier with no online plotting skills. (By the way, I still don’t have that know-how.)]

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/08/how-bad-data-contribute-to-global-warming-hysteria.php

(2) http://archive.redstate.com/story/2006/6/2/214910/1057

(3) http://archive.redstate.com/blogs/ntrepid/2007/jan/20/silly_climate_change_hyperbole_vs_the_data

(4) http://archive.redstate.com/blogs/ntrepid/2007/jan/26/my_struggle_part_1/