Jerry Kraus yahoo.com> writes:

That's certainly my opinion. It's pretty easy to demolish the
tree-ring reconstructions based on simple statistical tests; the
soi-disant hockey-stick has been shown to be the result of
cherry-picked highly massaged data and can be reproduced with
statistical red-noise [McIntyre & McKitrick]. It has no 'skill'.

The surface temperature record is equally suspect. The GISS
record is highly adjusted (urbanization adjustments, time of observation
bias) data based on data of intermediate quality (up to 100 years
of hand-written observations on several different types of thermometers by
mostly volunteers). Not to mention microsite bias (e.g. addition of
large thermal masses (e.g. asphalt parking lots, AC compressors) in the latter portion
of the measurement period).

Only recently would GISS even release the raw data and algorithms used
to "massage" the data they use to show historical temperatures to
a precision of a tenth of a degree.

The dendropaleo types extract a 'temperature signal' from a precipitation
proxy (tree-ring widths) with no physical theory for how a tree ring
represents temperature and tell us within a tenth of a degree C the
temperature 1000 years ago. Of course, the data they use for this is
considered by many of the scientists as "propietary" data and thus they
don't provide to researchers wishing to independently prove (or disprove)
the results fo their analysis.

For every paper describing the demise of coral reefs, one can find one
showing other coral reefs becoming healthier and larger.

Glaciers have been retreating since the last glacial. Sometimes they melt
faster(MWP), sometimes they get larger (Little Ice Age), but we are in an
interglacial period where the glaciers are expected to retreat.

The 15 or so GCM (Global Circulation Models) all give different results,
and most of them don't match the actual historical data, yet the IPCC
believe that as an 'ensamble', the models do represent reality (i.e. all
the individual errors cancel out).

So, pardon me if I believe that there is little evidence that:
1) Anthropogenic CO2 emissions have affected our climate
2) The current era is any warmer than periods in the past
such as the MWP.

Consequently, while I'm completely in favor of eliminating the
use of petroleum in favor of solar, wind and nuclear; I don't
see any reason do to this other than economic and standard
environmental (i.e. eliminate NO/SO2 air pollution from burning
coal, oil and gas) reasons.

Climate is not a static system and anyone who thinks the current
moment in our current interglacial is the 'ideal' or 'steady-state'
climate is dreaming.

And James Hansen is certifiable. There is no justification for
advocating prison for those who simply disagree with you, no matter
who they work for.

The IPCC seems to be not so much a scientific organization (there
were only a handful of editors responsible for the actual content
of the AR4 report, and negative critism and published peer-reviewed
articles were often rejected on the whim of the editor) as a
political organization.

scott