Jabberwocky, Jabberwocky, Jabberwocky.
a) the data you chose is HADCRUT3 variance adjusted, not the UAH which Bob Carter used in his chart.
b) you need to learn something about cherry-picking start dates (you stumbled on a great choice with 2001).
c) you need to learn something about putting different datasets in context
If you are going to play with the big boys, you need to know roughly what you're doing, because if you posted that up on a science blog with real scientists watching, then alleged it proved the planet isn't warming, you'd be torn a new one.
I'm tiring of the claptrap on this thread. Here is some food for thought taken from an excellent issue of New Scientist about 18 months ago, titled "The Age of Denialism". For a few on this thread, this will indeed provoke thought. For others here, it will simply go straight over their heads.
Dr Michael Shermer, founding publisher of "Skeptic" magazine, Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, contributor to Scientific American, the world's most respected sceptic and a regular speaker at sceptic conventions everywhere:
"Living in Denial - When a Sceptic isn't a Sceptic
What is the difference between a sceptic and a denier? When I call myself a sceptic, I mean that I take a scientific approach to the evaluation of claims. A climate sceptic, for example, examines specific claims one by one, carefully considers the evidence for each, and is willing to follow the facts wherever they lead.
A climate denier has a position staked out in advance, and sorts through the data employing "confirmation bias" - the tendency to look for and find confirmatory evidence for pre-existing beliefs and ignore or dismiss the rest.
Denial is different. It is the automatic gainsaying of a claim regardless of the evidence for it - sometimes even in the teeth of evidence.......Denial is today most often associated with climate science, but it is also encountered elsewhere.
Though the distinction between scepticism and denial is clear enough in principle, keeping them apart in the real world can be tricky. It has, for example, become fashionable in some circles for anyone who dares to challenge the climate science "consensus" to be tarred as a denier and heaved into a vat of feathers. Do you believe in global warming? Answer with anything but an unequivocal yes and you risk being written off as a climate denier, in the same bag as Holocaust and evolution naysayers.
Yet casting questions like these as a matter of belief is nonsensical. Either the Earth is getting warmer or it is not, regardless of how many believe it is or is not. When I say "I believe in evolution" or "I believe in the big bang", this is something different from when I say, "I believe in a flat tax" or "I believe in liberal democracy".
One practical way to distinguish between a sceptic and a denier is the extent to which they are willing to update their positions in response to new information. Sceptics change their minds. Deniers just keep on denying."
Shermer goes on to rate Climate Denial as the single most influential form of denial today, followed in order by: Evolution denial, Vaccine denial, AIDS denial, Tobacco Denial, and 9/11 denial.
There follows an excellent article titled
"Living in denial - Why Sensible People Reject the Truth" which explores the psychology behind denialism of all forms (including climate denial, but especially things like vaccine and smoking denial). This is the introduction:
Heard the latest? The swine flu pandemic was a hoax: scientists, governments and the World Health Organization cooked it up in a vast conspiracy so that vaccine companies could make money.
Never mind that the flu fulfilled every scientific condition for a pandemic, that thousands died, or that declaring a pandemic didn't provide huge scope for profiteering. A group of obscure European politicians concocted this conspiracy theory, and it is now doing the rounds even in educated circles.
This depressing tale is the latest incarnation of denialism, the systematic rejection of a body of science in favour of make-believe. There's a lot of it about, attacking evolution, global warming, tobacco research, HIV, vaccines - and now, it seems, flu. But why does it happen? What motivates people to retreat from the real world into denial?
Whatever they are denying, denial movements have much in common with one another, not least the use of similar tactics (see "How to be a denialist"). All set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people. This conspiracy is usually claimed to be promoting a sinister agenda: the nanny state, takeover of the world economy, government power over individuals, financial gain, atheism.
This common ground tells us a great deal about the underlying causes of denialism. The first thing to note is that denial finds its most fertile ground in areas where the science must be taken on trust. There is no denial of antibiotics, which visibly work. But there is denial of vaccines, which we are merely told will prevent diseases - diseases, moreover, which most of us have never seen, ironically because the vaccines work.
Similarly, global warming, evolution and the link between tobacco and cancer must be taken on trust, usually on the word of scientists, doctors and other technical experts who many non-scientists see as arrogant and alien.
Many people see this as a threat to important aspects of their lives. In Texas last year, a member of a state committee who was trying to get creationism added to school science standards almost said as much when he proclaimed "somebody's got to stand up to experts".
Anyway, on it goes into a rather depressing analysis of the denialism sweeping some sections of the community in recent years.
I see many similarities between what was written in the article and what I read on this thread from particular contributors. The sifting of facts, the stripping of context, the "climate science is all a crock" followed immediately by the usual political diatribe against Gore, or the UN, or the IPCC, or <insert the government organisation or politician you love to hate here>. The fact that most of these posters cannot separate themselves from their political views when arguing that climate science is all a crock (ie, just stick to the scientific facts only) is a dead giveaway as to what is
really driving their opinions. And it sure ain't an interest in science!
I don't think there's any point in going any further in the discussion. As Shermer states: "Deniers just keep on denying". As much as you try to insert context into their "evidence", they simply move on to the next argument and pretend it didn't happen.
More food for thought: the world's foremost sceptics (eg Shermer, Randi and so on) and sceptical societies
do not deny the reality of climate change, the human influence, the potential ramifications, and the need to address it. The fake-sceptics here on Pprune live in their own bubble, comforted by the "sceptical wisdom" of various non-scientific and politically motivated websites like Wattsupwiththat. In fact, they're so enamoured with such websites that they don't even realise when those websites kick an own goal.
Also the greatest scientific minds this planet has ever offered in the modern day, from the late famous and enormously respected astronomer Dr Carl Sagan right through to the likes of the brilliant physicist Professor Stephen Hawking
do not deny the reality of climate change and the human influence or need to address it. These are people who
know scientific evidence when they see it.
