The Canutists are worried

One of the (many) Canutists on The Guardian's books, David Adam, has weighed in with his take on Christopher Monckton's two part expose of the Environazis in The Telegraph. Chief Canutist, George Monbiot has already had his say - probably written weeks in advance (he's a very busy man, flying all over the world to champion the Canutist cause) - Monbiot's argument was along the lines of "look at me, I'm a scientist, you're not". I won't link to Monbiot's piece as I consider him to be a raving loon, but if you're interested at reading his ramblings feel free to check out The Grauniad's website.

Adam begins his piece with a screaming headline "Global warming is a fact".

Well, yes it is a fact and has been for many hundreds of thousands of years David. The fact that the current phase of warming appears to have stopped and that global temperature has actually cooled slightly since 1998 seems to have passed him by. C'est la vie. After all, Mr Adam is a journalist and his job relies on him getting read by his audience - and at The Guardian, that means falling into line with the liberal left consensus.

Anyway, the body (maybe that should be corpse) of Adam's article leads off with a brilliant piece of disingenuity.

The sceptics are right, there is no scientific consensus on climate change. There are disagreements and disputes, arguments and denials, squabbles and name-calling even. There is also, as George Bush is keen to point out, uncertainty. Bags of it. (Note to the denial lobby and loopy bloggers - end your digital cutting and pasting at this point).

I'm not sure if I fall into "denial lobby" or "loopy blogger" category - or maybe even both, but unfortunately for Mr Adam, I have no intention of ending my cutting and pasting yet. Not when there is so much fun to be had!

However, Mr Adams opening gambit is supposed to make us think he's on our side - but he's wrong. There is scientific "consensus" on climate change - even from me. It's real, it happens and it is proven. What is not proven, and where there is no scientific consensus - not in the least - is whether climate change is anthropogenic (caused by man). Given that climate change has taken place for millions of years and that man has been around for the merest fleeting moment of that time, it is, at best, unlikely. Adam continues .....

Now here's the punchline: the lack of scientific agreement is over whether the effects of climate change will be very bad or just plain bad.

Or maybe even good? What Adam refers to as "scientific consensus" here are the prediction of computer models which suggest it will be bad, very bad or catastrophic. Given that the output of computer models is dependent on the data fed into it and that we barely know a thing about climate, it's unlikely that these will be accurate. What we do know, is what we can find out from the past.

We know there was a "little ice age" which lasted for some time and ended, in earthly terms, quite recently. Eventually, the earth warmed up. Shock, horror! Hold the front page! Night follows day! We also know, from historical evidence and increasing amounts of historical data, that there was a period roughly a thousand years ago when the earth was at least as warm - and probably warmer - than it is today. This was known as "the Medieval Warm Period or, as Canutists call it "The Bloody Inconvenient Period".

"The Bloody Inconvenient Period" is so called because it's bloody inconvenient for Canutists to think that the earth - and Europe in particular - wasn't suffering catastrophic weather with prolonged droughts followed by massive flooding. It's bloody inconvenient for Canutists that Britain wasn't submerged beneath several feet of sea and it's bloody inconvenient that it coincided with a period of relative progress and prosperity.

Moving on, Adam gets to the rub of his piece - Monckton.

As Christopher Monckton writes, there are indeed questions about climate change which need answers. Just not the questions he is determined to ask.

He follows that up with a ramble about the IPCC and "scientists" and blah blah blah. Read it if you want, it's just the usual Canutist guesswork dressed up as science and labelled "fact".

Monckton's conclusion is that the threat of climate change is being exaggerated for political reasons by unnamed persons who wish to establish a "world government". His evidence? His own take on some complicated physics equations with which he attempts to show the UN scientists have fiddled their numbers.

This is Adam attempting to pooh-pooh (or should that be poo-poo?) Monckton's opinion that the consensus is not scientific, but political. Adam's way of squashing this ugly rumour is to suggest it is "unnamed persons" trying to establish a "world government". Actually, from what I read in the Monckton article he names names quite specifically. The UN.

There is no doubt that the UN believes itself to be the "world government" and that it's "international law" is supreme. There is no doubt that internationalists see it that way too and place unquestioned faith in the concept of "international law". The fact that the UN is undemocratic and deeply corrupt doesn't seem to bother internationalists - but they're not bothered by the lack of democracy or level of corruption that exists in other international organisations either - like the EU or the various NGO's who dress their political ambition in a cloak of environmentalism. They also seem oblivious that the liberal dictatorship of the UN is as ineffective as other liberal governments at imposing law and order. They are very good at keeping good citizens in line, but are completely unable to control bad citizens.

Personally, I'd add a few more to the UN - such as Greenpeace, Friends Of The Earth, George Monbiot and all the other "internationalist" NGO's, journalists, politicians and individuals.

His calculations, published in the Sunday Telegraph, have been widely discussed, but scientists are hardly rushing to congratulate him on an astounding piece of work, which means either that they are all fully-paid up members of Monckton's global conspiracy, or he's mistaken.

Ah, the old "global conspiracy" line. You see, it's not the Canutists and Environazis who are dreaming up a global conspiracy, but those of us who want to see real hard proof that climate change is caused by man's activities. We had a similar "global conspiracy" several centuries ago. Back then, the "scientific consensus" was that the sun revolved around the earth. But a few "loopy bloggers" and "denial lobbyists" weren't convinced by this and tried to actually find out the truth. They said, "we have evidence that suggests the earth revolves around the sun. We think you should consider this."

Back then, just like today, they were told to shut up and submit to the "consensus". In the modern context, Adam puts it thus.

To the Telegraph, and the rag-tag band of climate sceptics that lurk in the on-line shadows away from the lights of scientific scrutiny, the truth is less important than the "controversy" generated.

You could equally apply that to Galileo. "To Galileo, and the rag-tag band of geocentric sceptics that lurk in the shadows away from the lights of scientific scrutiny, the truth is less important than the "controversy" generated." The purpose of this is to make us shut up. Sorry, Adam, we won't. In this day and age you can't burn us at the stake (yet) and the Internet allows us to say what we want (for now). You keep talking your nonsense and we'll keep exposing your fantasy.

Adam concludes his piece with some more dubious "facts".

But the facts of global warming are just that, facts. The scientific consensus on the conclusion that only man-made emissions of greenhouse gases can explain the way our planet is warming is rock solid.

In real science - as opposed to the philosophising that Adam, Monbiot and the other AGW advocates indulge in there are only two states - proven and unproven. Anthropogenic climate change remains very much in the "unproven" state. What is worse for Adam and his buddies, it is also increasingly being seen as unlikely by an increasing number of people.