The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding one's self in the ranks of the insane.

A quote by Marcus Aurelius (AD 121 - AD 180)


This first graph looks bad, doesn't it -- steeper upward temperature trend. Horizontal red line is temperature at 1950.

Figure 1-1 Global warming

The second graph shows today's temperature isn't out of the norm. Horizontal blue line is temperature at 1950.

Figure 1-2 Climate of the last 2400 years

The next graph shows a downtrend in temperatures from 8,000 years ago to today. The down trend is steeper in the recent 2,000 years. From left to right the upper spikes have lower highs while the lower spikes have lower lows. (The same effect can be seen in Figure 1-2, above.) 

Figure 1-3 Climate of the last 12,000 years

This graph shows that agriculture and  stationary societies emerged 8,000 years ago during a time frame when global temperature was much higher than normal, or average.

Figure 1-4 Climate of the last 100,000 years

The next graph shows that the recent 8,000 years was one of five brief hot spikes when glaciers were at minimums. With much longer troughs when glacials (ice ages) were the norm most of the time.

Figure 1-5 Climate for the last 420 kyr, from Vostok ice

The graph below is reversed. That is, the left side is present day and the right side is 3 million years ago. It shows a 3 million year down trend toward widening extremes in the temperature cycle.

Figure 1-6 Climate for the last 3 million years

The final graph shows CO2 lagging temperature change -- not leading it.

Figure 1-7 CO2 and temperature for the last 450 kyr

Figures 1-1 through 1-6 from Brief Introduction to the History of Climate

Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle

Brief Introduction to the History of Climate
by Richard A. Muller

Ice Ages And Astronomical Causes


What a Politican Says

Former Colorado Senator and Deputy Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth, who presently heads Ted Turners billion dollar fund to reduce world population:

"What we've got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue," said Sen. Timothy E. Wirth, D-Colo., the Energy and Natural Resources Committee's point man on that issue and chairman of the Alliance to Save Energy. "Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

As reported in REPORTS - Less Burning, No Tears

By ROCHELLE L. STANFIELD, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Saturday, Aug. 13, 1988

What a Scientist Says

Climatologist Dr. Steven Schneider is a professor at Stanford University and a member of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He has recently criticized Danish Statistician Dr. Bjorn Lomborg for scientific dishonesty in Lomborg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist".

But Schneider is hardly a paragon of scientific integrity. In a now famous interview in the October 1989 issue of Discover magazine, Schneider stated:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts.

On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people, we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change.

To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

In the News

Ocean Currents May Cause Cooling Over Next Decade

Read detailed source report from the May 1, 2008 issue of Nature

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Absence of clouds caused prehuman supergreenhouse periods

"Our motivation was the inability of climate models to reproduce the climate of the supergreenhouse episodes of the Cetaceous and Eocene adequately," said Lee R. Kump, [Penn State] professor of geosciences. "People have tried increasing carbon dioxide in the models to explain the warming, but there are limits to the amounts that can be added because the existing proxies for carbon dioxide do not show such large amounts."


Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming


NOAA: Coolest Winter Since 2001 for U.S., Globe

Record Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in January accompanied the 54th coolest winter since national records began in 1895.


Scientists read Antarctic mud for climate change insight

"We saw something like 50 cycles [in a few million years] of the Ross Ice Shelf disappearing and coming back," says Fabio Florindo, a soft-spoken geologist from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome.


A Case Against Climate Alarmism

"Such hysteria simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the Goebbelian substitution of repetition for truth, and the exploitation of these weaknesses by politicians, environmental promoters, and, after 20 years of media drum beating, many others as well."
Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT


The Sun Also Sets - Investor Business Daily editorial

Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical "consensus." Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV -- the sun.


Gore Dodges Repeated Calls to Debate Global Warming

Freedom, Not Climate is at Risk


Cooking Up Global Warming

A very embarrassing chapter in the history of our nation's scientific establishment has been unfolding thanks to a creative new website www.SurfaceStations.org set up and run by  Anthony Watts.

The First Exposé of International Surface Temperature Recording Stations, by John Daly


Forecasts by scientists vs. Scientific Forecasts

Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder


Fire and Ice

Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years, but can’t decide weather we face an ice age or warming


Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions

A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.


Does CO2 really drive global warming?

Summary version

Detail version

The central point is that the major absorbing gas in the atmosphere is water, not CO2, and although CO2 is the only other significant atmospheric absorbing gas, it is still only a minor contributor because of its relatively low concentration.


Warming Climate Can Support Glacial Ice: It Did In Much Warmer Times

91 million years ago during the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum tropical ocean temperatures rose to 35-37°C (95-98.6°F), about 10°C (18°F) warmer than today, thus creating an intense greenhouse climate.


Researchers Question Validity Of A 'Global Temperature'

"It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth", Bjarne Andresen says, an an expert of thermodynamics.


Read the Sunspots

The mud at the bottom of British Columbia fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling


Look to Mars for the truth on global warming

Global warming extends to Mars, where the polar ice cap is shrinking, where deep gullies in the landscape are now laid bare, and where the climate is the warmest it has been in decades or centuries.


Dissecting the Hockey Stick

They did it for the cause. It's a noble cause. And even though the data don't actually say what they wanted them to say -- in fact, they say the opposite -- they are untroubled by that. Because the government actions that are being taken are the Right Thing.


Ice Ages Blamed on Tilted Earth - Milankovich

In the past million years, the Earth experienced a major ice age about every 100,000 years. Scientists have several theories to explain this glacial cycle, but new research suggests the primary driving force is all in how the planet leans.


Climate Change is Nothing New

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who lived from 427 BC to 347 BC, wrote about major climate changes that were known in his day. (Scroll down nearly 1/2 way past the clutter)


Ban the Bulb?

Should the government phase out incandescent light bulbs?


Another Ice Age? - Lest We Forget

As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval.


Skeptical Scientists Urge World To ‘Have the Courage to Do Nothing' At UN Conference

Scientists presenting conflicting evidence about human influence on Earth's climate not welcome at Bali conference