Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard
So, how does this "hoax" work? I'm curious, please explain. When and who cooked it up? What are their motivations? How does it explain the data?
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For the history of AGW I turn to AG Montford's excellent The Hockey Stick Illusion - recommended reading for both sides as it concentrates on the science and not the movement although Montford is from the skeptical side.
Personally I don't believe there was a conspiracy to create this scare, but there has been an attempt by as many as possible to climb aboard the gravy train.
Timescale -
First half of 19th century sees the gradual ending of the Little Ice Age.
1824 - Theory of gases first warming the atmosphere first put forward by Joseph Fourier.
1850s - John Tyndall builds on the theory and carries out some experiments to prove the effect.
End of the 19th century Svente Arrhenius quantifies the effect and first puts forward the theory that man's emissions may cause an effect. He suggests the effects would be
beneficial to avoid future ice ages. He also linked CO2 to this effect.
He got a nobel prize, just like Gore - except his was for hard work and being clever, however this stuff is mainly ignored for a period of about 50 years.
1950 - 1970s Mauna Loa measurements of CO2 in Hawaii show an upward trend. Scientists get out the old theories for another go.
1977 WMO formed, holds a conference on climate where these theories are discussed.
If you want to have a start to a conspiracy then it begins here I suppose.
1979 James Hansen publishes a scary paper predicting all sorts of nasties caused by global warming by the 1990s, most of which we are still waiting for.
1988 Hansen presents to the US Congress - its a very warm day and he talks about heating it up further.
Governments are scared enough to set up the IPCC - which is a joint organisation of the WMO and UN, well known democratic organisations free of any corruption or manipulation.
1990 - 2007 The IPCC Assessment reports describe more and more scary effects of AGW.
1998 - Hockey stick paper is published in 1998 which 'reconstructs' temperature back to 1200. It is followed by another one which goes the last 200 years to 1000. It shows no warming until 20th century and then sudden warming - no MWP, or LIA. It is used as the logo for the Third IPCC report, reproduced 13 times.
1998 - 2010 The start of the 'suppression' of disagreeing views (as described in the climategate emails) begins - peer reviews of unfriendly papers being overly critical, friendly pat on the back peer reviews of supporting papers.
Lots of other papers are published on the topic - funding follows AGW so anyone wanting funding for their research links it to AGW to secure it.
2006 - The Stern Report follows this up with a big, scary list of economic problems that are going to hit us if the AGW theory is proved correct.
2006 - An Inconvenient Truth - a film with 12 scientific errors which have to be pointed out if the film is shown in UK schools.
2007 - The Great Global Warming Swindle - a film in response to AIT starts to question whether the IPCC is independent or any of its conclusions are based on science and fact.
2004-07 - Reconstruction of the Hockey Stick paper is attempted. It is hampered by the lack of original data or a description of the original methods. When it is finally recreated it turns out that the model can be fed with random numbers and it will still produce a hockey stick. Behind the scenes the scientists are working to block any questioning of the 'settled science'.
2009 - Leak (or hack depending on your point of view) of thousands of emails from UEA / CRU. The leaks show scientists colluding to suppress desenting views, avoiding FOI requests (illegally as it turns out), and giving their own papers a friendly peer review.
2010 - Three enquiries, none of whom bother to talk to the subjects of these emails or the people who put forward the FOI requests, conclude the scientists are innocent. In the meantime the ICO concludes that they are not but they cannot be prosecuted because of the timescales.
1998-2010 - the Earth decides not to cooperate and warming stops. Maybe its funding request was rejected.