Small crowd warms to Evans on climate

JULIA Gillard’s decision to deceive voters over the imposition of a carbon dioxide gas tax is overshadowed by an ever-graver deception she’s perpetrating to justify her impost upon Australians.

And that’s the claim that her demonising of CO2 – universally acknowledged as the essential plant-life nutrient – is somehow scientifically well founded.

Because only 200 or so people heard world-leading expert, Western Australian David Evans, dissecting the United Nations-promoted anti-CO2 scare campaign, State Scene represents the address he delivered on the steps of State Parliament on ‘No-CO2 Tax Rally Day’.

Dr Evans holds six degrees, including a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

He was full-time consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office (now Department of Climate Change) from 1999-2005, and part-time 2008-2010.

One of his areas of expertise is how the climatic system’s feedbacks operate.

“The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions,” Dr Evans told protesters.

“It is full of lies and misunderstandings.

“I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but I’m now a sceptic.

“Watching this unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools and liars out of our politicians.”

He said while working for the Greenhouse Office he noted the contention that CO2 was the main cause of global warming reversed itself between 1995 and 2006, which led him to stop backing the catastrophic ‘warmist’ crusade and instead become a sceptic.

“The idea that CO2 is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s,” Dr Evans said.

“But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome.

“So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now cheat and lie outrageously to maintain the fiction that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant.”

Dr Evans stressed that, although CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that’s not the full story.

The issue wasn’t whether CO2 warmed the planet “but by how much” and if other factors were at play that ameliorated this.

“All scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in atmospheric CO2 raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra CO2 is considered,” he said.

“These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.

“The disagreement comes about what happens next.”

At this point, the 200 people listening to Dr Evans’ enlightening address fell absolutely silent, as if instinctively knowing they were about to hear something crucially important.

The earth’s response to extra CO2 ‘changes everything’, Dr Evans added.

Some researchers contend the extra warmth means more oceanic water evaporated, and that additional water lingered and increased the height of moist air in the atmosphere.

Others contended it meant greater cloud formation plus rain.

Who’s correct?

“Back in 1980, when the CO2 theory started, no-one knew,” Dr Evans said.

“The alarmists guessed it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moisture is also a greenhouse gas.

“This is the core idea of every official climate model: for each bit of warming due to CO2, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air.

“The climate models amplify the CO2 warming by a factor of three – so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air, only one-third is due to extra CO2.”

Hardly anyone knew this “core of the issue”, from which stems “all the disagreements, lies, and misunderstanding.”

“The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism,” Dr Evans continued.

“Which is why the alarmists keep so quiet about it and why you’ve never heard of it before.

“Official climate science, which is funded and directed entirely by government, promotes a theory that’s based on a guess about moist air that is now a known falsehood.”

Weather balloons had been measuring atmospheric temperatures since the 1960s but have not found “a hotspot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10km up”.

“The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hotspot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10km up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above,” Dr Evans said.

“During the warming of the late 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, the weather balloons found no hotspot. None at all. Not even a small one.

“This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to CO2.”

And, of course, it’s here that his cognisance of feedbacks was crucial and also because, as he stressed, “in science empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory”.

Understandably, the biggest cheers came when he elaborated on this crucial point.

“But official climate science ignored this crucial evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory – that just happens to provide them with well-paying jobs and lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters,” Dr Evans said.

He added that even more evidence had emerged since the 1990s confirming earth responds to the warming impact of CO2 “by dampening that warming.”

“But the alarmists say the exact opposite, that the climate system amplifies any warming due to CO2, and is potentially unstable,” he said.

“Surprise surprise, their predictions of planetary temperature made in 1988 to the US Congress, and again in 1990, 1995, and 2001, have all proved much higher than reality.

“They keep lowering the temperature increases they expect, from 0.3C per decade in 1990, to 0.2C per decade in 2001, and now 0.15C per decade – yet they have the gall to tell us “it’s worse than expected”.

“These people aren’t scientists. They over-estimate the temperature increases due to CO2, despite the evidence, and now they cheat and lie to conceal the truth.”

Dr Evans was vigorously cheered when highlighting that official thermometers were often located near warm exhausts of air-conditioning outlets, over hot airport tarmacs and where jet engine blasts prevail.

“In the US, nearly 90 per cent of official thermometers surveyed by volunteers violate official siting requirements that they not be too close to an artificial heating source,” he said.

“They place their thermometers in warming locations, and call the results ‘global’ warming.

“Anyone can understand that this is cheating.

“They say that 2010 was the warmest recent year, but it was only the warmest year at various airports, selected air-conditioners, and in certain car parks.

“Finally, to those of you who still believe the planet is in danger from our CO2 emissions: sorry, but you’ve been had.

“Yes, CO2 is a cause of global warming, but it’s so minor it’s not worth doing much about.”

Visit http://sciencespeak.com/rally.pdf.