Svensmark’s theory links global climate change to the production of cosmic rays during cyclic galactic activity, thus explaining occurrences overlooked by the IPCC, such as why Mars, Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune’s largest moon are also warming. Unlike the discredited IPCC hockey stick model, it accommodates Medieval Warming, the ensuing Little Ice Age and the current cooling of Antarctic regions. Perhaps the loudest supporter of Svensmark’s theory to date is Al Gore. His Inconvenient Truth production is conveniently silent on it.
While it is a homerun for science, the CERN CLOUD experiment comes too late to be the first major mugging of anthropogenic global warming. The dismantling of Gore’s expensive altar to man-as-larger-than-nature is already under way, spurred by the sorry state of the economy. Last week’s sure-thing proposal to cut ethanol funding is just the latest hit to the climate change movement and a small one at that.
A much bigger bang is based on the fear of man-made global joblessness from the high cost of renewable energy regulations, supports and taxes. Among those singing the green blues are the British, the Australians, the Mexicans, the Americans, the Spaniards and others. And then there’s China, the globe’s biggest polluter, a country going happily into that fossil fuel burning night.
What does it all mean? We are facing real issues of pollution and the lack of practical renewable energy technology. But, at the end of the day, those dangers are ours, not the planet’s. It will do just fine without us.
See you in the mirror.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - totaliberal
Very interesting remark about the CERN experiments. I remember reading somewhere, some time ago that NASA said changes in sun radiation levels had the most influence on climate changes, not us humans. More about the subject here Solar Variation (Wikipedia)
For me the development of renewable energies is key because of the ever increasing price (and scarcity) of fossil fuels, but not because we need to reduce CO2 emissions. CO2 reductions campaigns are pure marketing and branding issues
2 - David K
Interesting, you actually block comments demonstrating the misrepresentations of your article.
3 - Baronius
David, this site doesn't do that, but sometimes its filters read things as spam. It only takes a little rephrasing to get around them. Just don't embed too many links or mention name brands of pharmaceuticals, and you should be able to comment freely.
4 - Dr Dreadful
I see. The planet will do just fine without us, so that gives us a green light to carry on with our strenuous efforts to make the place uninhabitable, and fuck the grandchildren. Classy.
CERN CLOUD is just the latest candidate for that elusive brick which, if removed, is supposed to bring the whole AGW edifice crashing down. A typical denier tactic.
While CLOUD may well demonstrate a relationship between cosmic rays and cloud formation - and it wouldn't surprise me if it did - it won't disprove AGW. The reason for this is very simple: the observed data show no correlation in recent decades between cosmic ray activity and global temperatures.
Next!
5 - Clavos
Somebody should tell CERN that they won't accomplish anything with their experiment, so they can shut down and quite wasting money, time and resources.
6 - zingzing
save money! remain stupid.
7 - john
as always the echo chamber repeats long debunked notions even if (and this is a stretch) CERN upholds GCR it will make no difference because the observed warming is greatest closest to the Earth and least at the outer reaches of the atmosphere so its the sun, its global cosmic rays or its Aliens on the dark side of the moon with a heat ray all fail the simplest of tests.
P.S. Iris effect? debunked long ago.
so sad so may fine minds will laydown and spew nonsense for money and so many others will take the easy out and do no scientific research for themselves. Grow up and take responsibility an Adult pays to clean up his mess.
J2
8 - handyguy
The penultimate paragraph is the most telling part of this article:
You all but admit we should be doing more to prevent pollution.
Most of the same changes just happen to be what GW believers advocate.
Using political distaste as a reason to keep making the world more toxic is self destructive and makes no sense at all.
9 - Dr Dreadful
Clav,
I take it you were being sarcastic.
Nevertheless, the experiment is worth doing, principally so that one of the major claims of the AGW doubting crowd can be tested.
There promises to be the added side benefit of enjoying the spectacle of the Sidneys and Rileys of this world switch, without blinking, to a different claim when the research results don't show what they say they will.
10 - El Bicho
I'd be satisfied if they switched to a better graphic programs. The letters in this latest are quite a mess
11 - Cannonshop
#9 what if the results don't match your hypothesis, Doc? are you going to go the same route they used when predicted oceanic warming didn't happen-and the probes they dropped to monitor said warming confirmed it NOT happening? (for those who joined this late: the reaction among the CAGW crowd was to dun the Experiment their own scientists designed to support their predictions...when it failed to confirm those predictions.)
#8 Isn't limiting Pollution goal enough, cause enough, motivation enough? why do you need a synthetic apocalypse?
12 - Cannonshop
Lemme expand for a moment on my response to comment #8:
I can think of MANY reasons that have nothing to do with the hypothetical apocalypse of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) to pursue cleaner technologies, and renewable, independent energy sources.
I could even do it from OPPOSING viewpoints, if you like-everything from traditional-conservative, to extremist Liberal reasons, or from Isolationist to Internationalist reasons.
The big one, of course, is the principle of "You don't shit where you eat." We live on this planet, barring some major technological and economic change, we're pretty much stuck here, as are our progeny on down the line-generally speaking, a toxic place to live ain't good for you.
From the Strategic angle, I can give four current examples just off the top of my head: Iraq. Syria. Libya. Yemen. (or a fifth: without us, Al Quaeda would go broke, importing oil and paying the people who're financing the people that want to end our civilization is in no way strategically smart. Alternatives to doing this strike me as a good idea...)
Economically: Control your supply chain or you will be screwed. Example in the present: Boeing's 787 programme, the company outsourced its entire supply chain, this caused the programme to fall behind by (at current count) about 3 years.
Energy is a critical supply item for any economy-the more expensive your energy is, the worse your economy is going to be-letting some Cartel decide how much you pay for it (esp. one stocked by the folks that want you surrendered or dead) is an act of idiocy.
We have boardrooms FILLED with idiots, including Congress.
Survival: even if you don't believe in Peak Oil, the few times oil patches have 'regenerated' from non-productive to productive again, required long periods of time, and the production is marginal at best in those cases where the claim has been made that it 'came back'. The phrase is called "FInite Resource", an alternative is required, if you want to KEEP a civilization with the relative comfort and security we currently enjoy.
Technological Development Argument: There are only so many ways to build an internal combustion engine, most of them have already been invented, refined, produced, and many of them are fundamentally obselete. It's the flat curve of development and a dead-end if you ever hope to get off this rock before the next Chixiclub or Tunguska-or before, say, Yellowstone goes off again-one volcanic event and humanity as you know it is done-the price of living on a single rock (eggs in one basket only. a gas engine won't run on the moon, kids.)
Hydraulic Empire: whoever controls the fuel/energy controls the civilization. It might be a good idea NOT to be the people down-stream of an Hydraulic Empire. One way to avoid that, is to become independent of imported or external sources.
13 - Arch Conservative
Gee this is about as entertaining and interesting at this point in time as the article entitled "genderless: equality or nuetrality."
File them both under who gives a f---.
14 - Dr Dreadful
what if the results don't match your hypothesis, Doc?
It's not my hypothesis, Cannon, it's Svensmark's. As I said, there may well be a connection between cosmic rays and cloud formation. What the data don't show, though, is a correlation between solar activity and recent warming, which makes Svensmark's ideas moot.
As a matter of interest, his theory had already been (involuntarily, and admittedly not under controlled conditions) tested long before CERN got in on the act. Back in the mid 1980s, a nuclear reactor in a little Ukrainian town went kerblooey and started spewing out quite respectable quantities of cosmic rays into the atmosphere. If Svensmark is onto something, then one ought to have seen greater than usual cloud cover over that area of eastern Europe. However, the meteorological records for that period show no such thing.
So by Sidney and Riley's own argument, should Svensmark drop his theory?
are you going to go the same route they used when predicted oceanic warming didn't happen-and the probes they dropped to monitor said warming confirmed it NOT happening?
For goodness' sake, Cannon, quit caricaturing science. Abandoning an entire theory is not what scientists do when a predicted effect doesn't manifest. Figuring out why they didn't see what they expected to see is what they do.
They noted that in spite of the data showing ocean cooling, global sea level was continuing to rise. Since liquid water, like almost everything else, expands when heated and contracts when cooled, that was a red flag right there.
Far from "dunning" the data (whatever that means), the collection methods were examined and it was found that the measuring buoys themselves were calibrated in such a way as to introduce a cooling bias.
Secondly, natural ocean cycles such as El Niño and La Niña themselves provide a cooling effect. Focusing only on six years of data showing cooling while ignoring the overall 40-year warming trend is cherry-picking, another favourite denier tactic.
It'd be like me saying that because we had 100-plus temperatures here in central California last week and it's only in the high 80s this week, that means summer's over.
Isn't limiting Pollution goal enough, cause enough, motivation enough?
Apparently not.
why do you need a synthetic apocalypse?
Synthetic it ain't, very probably. And for the same reason safe driving campaigns often feature the bloody aftermath of crashes. Simply telling people to drive defensively isn't going to persuade most of them. You need to show Consequences.
15 - Dr Dreadful
@ #13: Forgot to grab your coffee this morning, Arch?
16 - Dr Dreadful
And Cannon: I've got no argument with most of your #12.
17 - Dan
"What the data don't show, though, is a correlation between solar activity and recent warming..."---Dr. Dreadful
That's not what the link you provided in comment #4 seems to be saying. In fact it says somewhere between less than 30% to 50% of "the dramatic temperature rise since 1970 can be attributed to the sun". Further the "cosmic ray flux" although less correlated, can still be responsible for "less than 15%" of the temperature increase between 1970 and 1985.
It's all very speculative (your counter citation), and no one from the CERN Cloud experiment is ruling out a anthropological contribution.
Dismissing out of hand any success that the experiment may yield to support the thesis, while claiming validation for AGW if it fails betrays a scientific bigotry that is largely responsible for the declining influence and waning credibility of the AGW community.
18 - zingzing
"the declining influence and waning credibility of the AGW community."
do you have the data to support that, or is it just wishful thinking?
19 - Clavos
zing, didn't you read about their last couple of world meetings? Or the de-emphasis of green legislation in america?
20 - Cannonshop
Funny enough, doc, temps here in W. Washington are in the low average for this period of the season-and have been so all year, in spite of the spike in CO2 output, and California's notoriously warm, transplants from the Granola State tend to have some difficulties driving up here when the weather gets normal for this state...'cause it ain't hot and dry like they're used to.
Say, do you live in that smog-bowl around L.A.? (Stupid place to put a city, really-no water, and it had smog before the Spanish got to this continent...)
21 - zingzing
clavos: "zing, didn't you read about their last couple of world meetings? Or the de-emphasis of green legislation in america?"
wha? politics has entered into the science? oh, surprise. i'd be just as surprised if oil and coal were funding denier scientists! (what are your feelings on that? i haven't forgotten. while i'm on it, i still want cannonshop to explain how the right wing fought against the democratic demands for passage of the patriot act in 2002. but, you know, whatever.)
the right wing political movement to convince its followers that they have nothing to worry about and business is business and money is money and you don't have to worry about frying your grandchildren because the national debt will do that first isn't surprising.
the scientific community still hasn't changed its mind. those who would turn it into a political agenda have been fairly successful in doing so. that the scientists may have lost a bit of steam hitting their head against the brick wall of ignorance the right wants to erect isn't that surprising. i'd get tired as well.
it's not your funeral, i guess. fuck it.
22 - zingzing
cannonshop: "Funny enough, doc, temps here in W. Washington are in the low average for this period of the season-and have been so all year..."
shocker! agw says you should be roasting! why are you not roasting?! roast! agw demands that temperatures rise by 20 degrees every year! no absolutely normal dips in temperature will be allowed! next time you're hot, you'd better goddamn believe it'll never end, as that's where your logic leads.
23 - Dr Dreadful
Say, do you live in that smog-bowl around L.A.? (Stupid place to put a city, really-no water, and it had smog before the Spanish got to this continent...)
No, I'm further north, in the San Joaquin Valley (although I'm in the process of moving to the balmier climes of San Diego), which gets far warmer than LA. Summer temperatures above 100 are commonplace: the thermometer in my car read 111 when I left work the other day, and I believe the all-time record is somewhere in the vicinity of 115.
You're right about the Los Angeles basin being a natural smog magnet. Story goes that the pre-contact local Indians abandoned the place after the accumulated pollution from their campfires made life intolerable - and there were only about 50,000 of them. Had they but known...
The San Joaquin is actually even smoggier. We're in between the Sierra Nevada mountains to the east and the coast ranges to the west, whence come the prevailing winds. There are only a few high mountain passes through which air flows into and out of the valley, and once in, it, along with whatever particulates get mixed with it, tends to get stuck.
For a multitude of reasons, I loathe LA and will go to great lengths to avoid it. I'll fly to San Diego if feasible, and I have a driving route that bypasses the worst of it and only takes about 20 minutes longer.
24 - Dr Dreadful
Dan,
That's not what the link you provided in comment #4 seems to be saying.
Look at figures 6 and 7, which show a close relationship between solar activity and temperatures up to 1970, and a strong divergence after that.
Nobody's arguing that the sun doesn't warm the planet, but it can't account for the sudden recent warming. The sun hasn't got hotter or more active since 1970: quite the opposite, in fact.
no one from the CERN Cloud experiment is ruling out a anthropological contribution.
Irrelevant, since that isn't what they're studying. They're testing a hypothesis that warming is due to cosmic rays.
Dismissing out of hand any success that the experiment may yield to support the thesis
I did no such thing. Read my #4 again.
while claiming validation for AGW if it fails
Again, I didn't do that, and you're another one trying to portray the whole of AGW theory as hinging on the results of this one experiment - the single brick fallacy again.
25 - Cannonshop
#24 While the article's authors (and a bunch of other people) are looking at the CERN experiment in terms of AGW, I'm thinking the Scientists aren't-they're likely looking at the experiment in terms of...
...the Experiment and the Hypothesis, not some over-broad pre-conceived conclusion designed to appeal to scientifically ignorant politicians seeking some scientific-sounding justification for either a power-grab or to provide cover for their campaign donors.
If nothing else, the CERN experiment, if it fails to disprove the hypothesis it is testing, the data can certainly be used to construct less inaccurate models of the mechanism of Climate change.
Maybe even models not based on cooked books and faith.