General.
This issue, debate, whatever we may call it, is heavily influenced by motivations.
The obvious one is money, this can easily be extended to include power.
It might be simply to do one’s job successfully, sort of professional achievement.
Then, it might be to retain the employment, to satisfy the employer, even if it means doing something not to your liking.
There is the personal motivation to achieve something worthwhile, as it is for me, basically personal satisfaction, but greater if some greater good results.
There is the added one of maintaining one’s pride and reputation in upholding a known stand, even perhaps when doubts have crept in.
You might ask “why do I say is (influenced by motivations)” when it might be just ‘doing one’s job’? My answer is “because there is serious disagreement about the “science”, therefore the disparity of assessments is possibly due to personal bias through motivation. If not, the disparities may be due to incompetence, ignorance or perhaps lack of access to the correct information. Possibly, but not so likely.
Firstly, lets discuss motivations for being passionate about AGW.
There has long been the monitoring of land surface temperatures because of the direct effect on the general population. Historical records, current values and, important to many, forecasting weather is basic to our everyday needs. Forecasting relies heavily on historical records, so much has been done, including measuring and recording sea surface and atmospheric temperatures. Technical details of measuring and processing, including the proxies enabling assessments other than direct temperature measurement, will follow later.
Forecasting applied to tomorrow or a few days was useful to most people in our normal day to day lives, but longer term forecasting has become more and more important to people involved in agriculture and perhaps other interests. The need to look into the more distant future is a little less obvious but we may come up with some sound reason, other than the usual scientific desire to extend our knowledge. The usual, ‘because it’s there’ probably suffices for most people.
Nevertheless, how did it come about that this future temperature trend suddenly jumped into the limelight? Global temperatures have varied over a fairly wide range even just considering the period of human existence. Yet someone decided to generate predictions into the future and at the same time, attach a cause for the “observed” then-current increase to some element of human pollution. This theme will be discussed in detail later.
Of course, those who believe that the planet IS warming AND THAT this is a result of man-made pollution AND that carbon controls WILL reduce/limit the warming rate, are obviously passionate about the state of our environment and the well-being of our people and future generations. This is only fair, reasonable and admirable. They believe this because they are told by a group of scientists that that is what is happening.
Those who are professionally involved in the processes of proving the existence of warming and consequent harm to the planet are motivated either by their belief in the science, the warming, the potential of harm to the planet, and/or their security and reputations.
But they all are also passionate about rebutting the arguments put forward by the “anti-AGW” believers, yet their ideals are currently being put into effect by the authorities who are proceeding with gay abandon to introduce their taxes, caps, trading schemes etc.
There is no way the AGW opposition will succeed in preventing or reversing these actions UNLESS the TRUTH is ESTABLISHED that these actions are not justified. So the believer’s motivation includes the desire to not be proved wrong.
Secondly, the passion for “denying” the “evidence” of AGW.
Persons or organizations on this side of the fence are either those whose professional or financial interests are liable to be negatively affected and therefore have an axe to grind, so to speak, OR, those, like me, who have a passion for truth and justice, and see signs of this lacking in the push for expensive pollution controls. They probably would not be concerned about proposed “controls” or modifications to lifestyles if such proposals were in moderation and costs minimal.
The passionate rebuttal exists because it is the belief of the “anti-AGW”, or more correctly “anti-Carbon Control” proponents that the “AGW science” is being driven by politics and money, and that the proposed controls are, at best, money making and controlling, at worst, a means to achieve world domination and/or even depopulation.
It is somewhat ironic that the AGW supporters are convinced that the “anti-AGW” supporters are also motivated by money and vested interests. This claim potentially applies to organizations that produce pollution or whose industry is threatened by controls or costs, but also to those have set themselves up specifically to promote opposition to AGW, to some individuals who are making money from seminars etc. and a few journalists who get paid whilst pushing the anti-AGW barrow.
But this sort of motivation does not apply to the thousands of individuals who are blogging the internet without any personal gain whatsoever. Their passion exists because there is a sound belief that the public is being taken for a ride and that huge economic turmoil will unjustly result. And, of course, they too do not wish to be proved wrong. But that’s all, absolutely no material gains. They also push their barrows with the knowledge that , if they are wrong, they may be supporting an inaction that will cause grief to their children and subsequent off-spring.
The most significant part of the Motivation discussion:
Reference a paper by Marjorie Mazel Hecht, titled
“Where the Global Warming Hoax Was Born”
published in the ‘21st CENTURY Science & Technology‘ Fall Issue 1975.
Before the ‘warmists ‘ say “Who”, lets discuss the ‘shoot the messenger’ aspect with which this debate tends to be riddled. Why is it not possible to consider statements, evidence, statistics, even beliefs and opinions independently from their source or author?
[I am an Electronics Engineer, learned a lot about electronics, how to learn about stuff by myself, to think clearly and to understand technical levels of what is going on around us. Not being perfect, the degree to which I comprehend, understand and am able to express myself will not always be all that I hope. Nevertheless, what I write needs to to be assessed for its accuracy on its own merit. It is not a valid argument to say “Ken is not a climate scientist, therefore some or all of what he says about the climate debate can be ignored”. If I quote or use another’s information it is because I believe the information to be true, not because I believe that the author has to be right because I respect him/her. If I form and express an opinion of my own, I believe the opinion to be true, not just that I am right. (Please don’t confuse me with the likes of politicians who believe (or expect us to believe) that what they say is right because they are saying it.) If anything I publish here is factually incorrect, I am sure some kind reader will point it out, but please don’t say I do not know what I am talking about, say that what I have said is incorrect – because….)].
This disregard for the likely truth of a statement based on its author’s credentials, even if known to be agenda driven, is bad logic. Each statement needs to be assessed ON ITS MERITS!
Getting back on theme: The article (pdf file) is linked here. My comments and some extracts highlight the main issues.
The article starts off:
“Global Warming” is, and always was, a policy for genocidal reduction of the world’s population. The preposterous claim that human-produced carbon dioxide will broil the Earth, melt the ice caps, and destroy human life, came out of a 1975 conference in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, organized by the influential anthropologist Margaret Mead, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in 1974.
Mead—whose 1928 book on the sex life of South Pacific Islanders was later found to be a fraud—recruited like-minded anti-population hoaxsters to the cause: Sow enough fear of man-caused climate change to force global cutbacks in industrial activity and halt Third World development. Mead’s leading recruits at the 1975 conference were climate scare artist Stephen Schneider, population-freak biologist George Woodwell, and the current AAAS president John Holdren—all three of them disciples of Malthusian fanatic Paulhrlich, author of The Population Bomb.
Guided by luminaries like these, conference discussion focussed on the absurd choice of either feeding people or “saving the environment.” Mead began organizing for her conference, “The Atmosphere: Endangered and Endangering,” shortly after she had attended the United Nations Population Conference in Bucharest, Romania, in August 1974. She had already bullied American scientists with her Malthusian view that people were imperiling the environment. She wrote in a 1974 Science magazine editorial that the Population Conference had settled this question: ‘At Bucharest it was affirmed that continuing, unrestricted worldwide population growth can negate any socioeconomic gains and fatally imperil the environment…. The earlier extreme views that social and economic justice alone can somehow offset population increase and that the mere provision of contraception can sufficiently reduce population—were defeated.’
So here we have a clearcut starting point -“Sow enough fear of man-caused climate change to force global cutbacks” – to connect an agenda driven plan to “United Nations Population Conference” THIS CANNOT BE SHRUGGED OFF!
As Julian Huxley, the vice president of Britain’s Eugenics Society (1937-1944), had announced in 1946, “even though it is quite true that radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.” Huxley was then director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
By the 1970s, the paradigm shift that obliterated the optimistic development policies of Franklin Roosevelt and of Dwight Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program, was in full swing. The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth, which removed the role of scientific advances, was drummed into the public consciousness.
Here we have ” the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.”, “(UNESCO)”, “Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth” all associated with the “man-caused climate change”. Interesting, to say the least.
At this conference we are proposing that, before there is a corresponding attempt to develop a “law of the air,” the scientific community advise the United Nations (and individual, powerful nation states or aggregations of weaker states) and attempt to arrive at some overview of what is presently known about hazards to the atmosphere from manmade interventions, and how scientific knowledge coupled with intelligent social action can protect the peoples of the world from dangerous and preventable interference with the atmosphere upon which all life depends….
What we need from scientists are estimates, presented with sufficient conservatism and plausibility but at he same time as free as possible from internal disagreements that can be exploited by political interests, that will allow us to start building a system of artificial but effective warnings, warnings which will parallel the instincts of animals who flee before the hurricane, pile up a larger store of nuts before a severe winter, or of caterpillars who respond to impending climatic changes by growing thicker coats [sic].
What we need to invent—as responsible scientists—are ways in which farsightedness can become a habit of the citizenry of the diverse peoples of this planet. This, of course, poses a let of technical problems for social scientists, ut they are helpless without a highly articulate and responsible expression of position on the part of natural scientists. Only if natural scientists can develop ways of making their statements on the present state of danger credible to each other can we hope to make them credible (and understandable) to social scientists, politicians, and the citizenry.
…I have asked a group of atmospheric specialists to meet here to consider how the very real threats to humankind and life on this planet can be stated with crediblity and persuasiveness before the present society of nations begins to enact laws of the air, or plan for “international environmental impact statements.”
Throughout her presentation, Mead stressed the need for consensus, an end-product free from any troubling “internal scientific controversies” that might “blur the need for action.”
Surely there is enough extracted content to either convince the reader of the true agenda of the global warming movement, or to entice the reading of the full article.
If anyone says, just because the AGW scheme was planned, that doesn’t mean that the planet isn’t really in danger from warming, this is just the start!
This post will be followed by convincing evidence that:
a) the IPCC was in fact agenda driven and has not presented valid scientific evidence or scientifically supported projections or recommendations.
b) their published ‘global temperature’ trends are not valid.
c) whatever temperature trends that exist are only slightly influenced by CO2 levels.
d) the proposed actions to control pollution are worthless if CO2 emissions are the measure of pollution.
e) carbon controls already in effect and being pressed on the whole world are, as obvious from the ‘motivation’ section above, financially and control driven.
Further evidence supporting agenda driven motivation: (Added 31st May 2011).
Blatant revelation of intended world transformation by the German Greens is shown in their document:
“World in Transition – A Social Contract for Sustainability”,
saying, among lots of other interesting ideas, {emphasis mine}
“The WBGU views this worldwide remodelling of economy and society towards sustainability as a ‘Great Transformation’. Production, consumption patterns and lifestyles in all of the three key transformation fields must be changed in such a way that global greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to an absolute minimum over the coming decades, and low-carbon societies can develop. The extent of the transformation ahead of us can barely be overestimated.” Ref: http://www.wbgu.de/fileadmin/templates/dateien/veroeffentlichungen/hauptgutachten/jg2011/wbgu_jg2011_kurz_en.pdf
[Note! This link downloads a 32 page pdf document, takes a while.]
Just copying these links here (1 April2013) until I have time to check if something additional is to be found. When I reread this page of mine I cannot believe that the evidence provided isn’t adequate to blow the whole CAGW ship out of the water, yet it hasn’t. Will consider a new post re presenting this evidence. (Courtesy ‘DirkH’ a reader commenting on WUWT here.
CO2AGW definitely yes, in Stanford, 1975.
1975 `Endangered Atmosphere’ Conference: Where the Global Warming Hoax Was Born
Mead, Schneider, Holdren and Lovelock
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/highlights/Fall_2007.html
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/GWHoaxBorn.pdf
The GOLDEN RULE 
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Of course it’s pilosbse to be an environmentalist and believe that global warming is a natural cycle.However, I don’t think it is pilosbse to be an environmentalist and argue that we should continue to focus on expanding our fossil fuel energy sources and consumption, because even if you don’t believe they contribute to global warming, they do contribute indubitably to numerous other environmental problems, from air pollution and acid rain to the devastation caused by coal mining and oil spills.Likewise with other aspects of the AGW debate. Deforestation and conventional livestock raising (i.e. CAFOs and factory farms) are two of the other primary suspects in AGW, but both cause numerous other environmental problems such as loss of biodiversity, desertification, erosion, and groundwater pollution as well.So in practice, if you’re a genuine environmentalist, you should be working for some of the same goals (i.e. Reduce Reuse Recycle) as proponents of AGW, just for different reasons. Was this answer helpful?
I agree that to expand fossil fuel usage, particularly when it is environmentally hazardous (eg., deep sea wells) is unnecessary. Continued use of existing, or replacement as the source diminishes, is just not necessarily as bad as the ardent conservationists claim. ‘Global Warming’ is a very debatable reason for decreasing fossil fuel burning, but general pollution problems are real.