I am not an expert on what I put forward but the question is very important and you can read the following.

The scientific evidence underlying the reality and human cause of contemporary global warming and resultant climate change is overwhelming.

It includes the following and much more:

-direct observations of the enhanced greenhouse effect occurring in the CO2 and CH4 bands by spectrometry

-changes in the onset of seasons and the geographic ranges of soil, plants, and animals

-changes in the global mass balance of ice

-surface temperature observations from weather stations, buoys, and ships

-the spatial pattern of instrumentally observed warming across the planet

-chemical and isotopic “fingerprinting” of the air, along with the “bookkeeping” of measurements of emissions from natural and human sources as well as sinks of GHGs

-longterm climate data found in proxy archives

-basic chemistry and physics.

I could never hope to discuss every piece of evidence here, instead I suggest science historian and Earth scientist Spencer Weart’s “Discovery of Global Warming” and companion website hosted by the American Institute of Physics:

The Discovery of Global Warming

Weart’s book and the companion website follow the salient scientific studies and development of the evidence behind human caused climate change from the 1700’s to present. With a full bibliography, the original sources are easily identified and can be found at a local library or online.

My question has now been more elegantly framed by the distinguished science writer Matt Ridley in The Times (London) 2, Jan 19 2015 p 4-5.

"I am especially unimpressed by the claim that a prediction of rapid and dangerous warming is "settled science", as firm as evolution or gravity. How could it be? It is a prediction!  No prediction, let alone in a multi-causal, chaotic and poorly understood system like the global climate, should ever be treated as gospel.  With the exception of eclipses, there is virtually nothing scientists can say with certainty about the future. It is absurd to argue that one cannot disagree with a forecast.  Is the Bank of England's inflation forecast infallible?"

I am especially unimpressed that no one in the last 4 days has bothered to respond to my RG question so relevant to the future of the world, although one person has downvoted this question without bothering to explain why (unless it is simply to supress debate).  However, I am not inviting the responses MR has had:

"Then a funny thing happened a few years ago.  Those who disagreed with me stopped pointing out politely where or why they disagreed and started calling me names.  One by one, many of the most prominent people in the climate debate began to throw vitriolic playground abuse at me.  I was.. paranoid..lying..irrational..idiot.."  

***********************************************************************

More from MR's article:

"To begin with, after I came out as a lukewarmer, I would get genuine critiques from scientists who disagreed with me and wanted to exchange views. I had long and time-consuming email exchanges or conversations with several such scientists.  Yet I grew steadily more sceptical as, one by one, they failed to answer my doubts. They often resorted to meta-arguments, especially the argument from authority: if the Royal Society says it is alarmed, then you should be alarmed. If I want argument from authority, I replied, I will join the Catholic Church. “These are just standard denialist talking points” scoffed another prominent scientist, unpersuasively, when I raised objections — as if that answered them."

The mantle of infallibility has evidently now shifted from the Vatican to the Royal Society of Arts and to the Royal Society (of Science), though the Vatican is a recent convert to Global Warming orthodoxy.

***********************************************************************************

From MR's website and Times article Dec 9, 2014:

"The Royal Society’s decision to cherry-pick its way past such data would be less worrying if its president, Sir Paul Nurse, had not gone on the record as highly partisan on the subject of climate science. He called for those who disagree with him to be“crushed and buried”, hardly the language of Galileo. Three months ago Sir Paul said: “We need to be aware of those who mix up science, based on evidence and rationality, with politics and ideology, where opinion, rhetoric and tradition hold more sway. We need to be aware of political or ideological lobbyists who do not respect science, cherry-picking data or argument, to support their predetermined positions.”

I put up my question as I thought the RSA did not respect science or indeed understand it, but it now seems the Royal Society is complicit in this.

From a webite of an organisation that I will not identify:

"In the comments thread to a particularly sick Guardian post, which was adorned with a photo of a severed head, and which I will not therefore dignify with a link, comes this from commenter Bluecloud: Should that not be [Matt] Ridley's severed head in the photo?... Why are you deniers so touchy? Mere calls for a beheading evolve such a strong response in you people. Ask yourself a simple question: Would the world be a better place without Matt Ridley? Need I answer that question? The Guardian and Greenpeace: sick, sick people..."

In the not impossible situation that I may find myself being publicly beheaded, I would like in my final moments to comfort myself that I had at least tried to stand up for scientific method. No backing so far, so I think it is only fair that reputable scientists point out my errors so that I can speedily recant. 

There seems to be a competition at the moment between the Vatican and the Royal Society as to which can make the most infallible statement about Global Warming, which the RS is winning.   From the RS website:

"1. Is the climate warming?    Yes. Earth’s average surface air temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C since 1900, with much of this increase taking place since the mid-1970s. A wide range of other observations such as sea-level rise, reduced Arctic sea ice extent and increased ocean heat content provide incontrovertible evidence of a warming Earth."

What is indisputable is that the climate has warmed since 1900, but his tells us nothing about whether it is warming or that it will still warm.  Aside from this abuse of language and logic, in actual fact climate warming has recently stalled in contradiction to the climate models, maximal temperatures having occurred in 1998.  It is indeed likely that temperatures will increase, but this should not be stated as a religious dogma.

"The seven dimensions of climate change project seeks to turn a scientific fact into a social fact"

For the benefit of those distinguished Societies that regard climate change as a fact, here is the definition of the word from The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology:

Something that has occurred, what has happened; from L.factum, past participle of facere, to do.  In other words, it clearly refers to the past, and has no implication for the future.

Another example of how it is not possible to have a scientific discussion about Global Warming  (The Times Oct 12 2015 p2):

"Professor Myles Allen  .. said there would be some benefits in some regions in the early stages of global warming. "But I worry about the Stalinist overtones of adding up the losses and benefits and deciding humanity as a whole will benefit from global warming", he told The Sunday Times."

So, it seems not only can we not query if global warming is certain to occur, we cannot use the obvious method for deciding if on balance it will be a good or bad thing.

It seems the Government is now joining the Royal Society in a confusing or even obfuscating usage of the word fact.   On the BBC R4 Today earlier this week the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, continually used the word fact to characterise assertions in the new official economic paper on the advantages of remaining in the EU.   Ironically, his interviewer, Nick Robinson, had stated on the Today programme last week that the correct currency for predicting the future is views and opinions, not facts.   If I remember my Latin correctly, doesn't fact come from L. factum (past tense)?  

As we approach the UK EU referendum re Brexit, there is a deafening clamour from the populace for "More Facts".  Apart from the misuse of fact to refer to the future, this fails to understand that answering the referendum question depends on balancing competing risks, as there are very few predictable future events.  Since everyone in the population should currently be giving their full attention to this complex decision, this should be a golden opportunity for the Royal Society to give a lead into the basics of risk theory and probabilistic reasoning.  However, given that the RS is even more confused than the general public as to what is or isn't a fact, judging by its pronouncements on Global Warming, it is probably just as well it has not entered the Brexit debate.

More information on how the word "fact" poisons any rational debate on important political issues (Alex Garrrick-Wright  Shetland Times Online June 16th):

“Give us the facts” on Europe we wail. Then we can decide. This refrain is both futile and infantile. We cannot enter numbers into a neat calculation to determine how to vote. There are forecasts and opinions galore. Forecasts which may be based on false assumptions to support pre-determined positions; and opinions based largely on personal and political biases.

They are churned out by the Eurotruck-load and promptly massaged by campaigners on both sides to suit their arguments. Massaging is putting it politely – cherry picking and distortion have destroyed public confidence in even the most meticulous research...

“Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true!” says Homer Simpson. So are there any “facts” we can agree are even “remotely true”? One is that the issues are complex, intertwined and often contradictory. It is impossible, unless you are solely concerned with single issues – the state of the fishing industry perhaps – to balance all the various factors. Dawkins can’t and I bet Einstein couldn’t. We can do no more than take a view and rely on gut instinct. This is not a cause for despair; it is just the way it is.

The solution is to learn what we can about the issues and rename gut reaction “intuitive judgement” to make us feel a tad more rational.

A second “fact” the ancients among us might accept is that “Europe” has changed beyond all recognition from the “common market” we were voting for – or against – in the last, distant, plebiscite. This “fact” younger folk can happily ignore but it reminds us that there is an infinitesimal chance that a remain vote will secure the status quo.

As Mervyn King puts it, we live in a world of “radical uncertainty”. Perhaps this is a third “fact”. There are risks in leaving the European Union but that does not mean that staying in is risk-free. Far from it. If that is where your intuitive judgement takes you, go for it."

Dear Dr. Gordon,

I would like to try to expand on Kenneth's answer to your question. T

As Ken points out there are two aspects to the current climate imbroglio: (1) long-term secular natural climate variation and (2) superimposed human-induced climate change. They cannot readily be separated but in the current state of affairs they combine into a single manifestation that we have labeled "global warming". It is not a "fact" and is far removed from any such designation. "Facts" are well-established statements based on impecable credentials. "Global warming" is an observed trend of global temperatures that is interpreted by one school of thought as signifying the coming of major future consequences for ill for the planet and another school of thought that "pooh-poohs" the whole issue.

"Global warming" and its ill-effects is at best an as yet untested, unproven hypothesis although Nature as we speak is performing with passing time the experiment that will confirm or disprove the hypothesis. The alarm arises because, or so some state, if we wait for  confirmation of the hypothesis, it will be too late to do anything about the bad consequences. This is not acting on the basis of "fact" but on the basis of "conjecture." 

I must make a confession. I didn't read all that you and Kenneth had written before I plunged into composing my hasty and clumsy response to your question "How can Global Warming be considered a scientific fact?" I was astounded that there was a movement afoot to elevate what is merely a hypothesis (the evidence for which is circumstantial) to the realm of "scientific fact", which it is not. After reading your accompanying elaborations of the issue, I sense that we are pretty much in agreement. I am dismayed by the twists and turns the debate has taken with vitriol from all quarters, the seemingly designation of being either "black" or "white" without regard to "scientific method" and now casting it as "fact", which totally obscures the inherent complexity of the issue aka the earth's climate system with its many inputs, forcing functions and possible consequences. The sky may be changing, Chicken Little, but it isn't "falling"! At least not yet.

This illustrates the syntactical quagmire that even distinguished authors can get into when discussing climate change:

"The climate is changing, the sea levels are rising, the weather is getting stormier.  These are facts, not speculation."  

Simon Barnes, Sunday Times Magazine Apr 30th 2017.

Comment

               What is true is that the climate was warming during the last century.  It is meaningless to talk in the present tense about one moment in time, since we will only know the current situation when we compare in retrospect the past with what is now future.  The past is facts, the present unknowable, the future speculation.  Unless the complex mathematical models of future climate are substantially better than the similar economic models, the future climate is just guesswork, certainly not a fact.   Facts surely only apply to past events.  In practice, the climate models have not predicted the climate so far during this century. 

Anthony,

"I have no expertise in this area and have not researched it, but my default position is that climate models are likely to be as accurate as economic models were before the recent recession".

The climate is far more complex and unpredictable than the global economic system... But, are climate models more complex and more robust than economic models? I do not know; All I know is that we need more than our current climatic modeling capabilities to understand climate, and lots of critical thinking, which in my opinion, some times over-rides results of scientific tests (which could be flawed in so many ways).

That said, I state my thoughts as follows:

Climatic change is a scientific fact; global warming on the other-hand should be a scientific fact if and only if perceived as a subset of climate change, and not in isolation. Therefore, global warming shouldn't be 'the climate change', but 'a change in the climate'.

'The climate change' is eternal but 'a change in the climate' is time and space-dependent. This begs for the question: What if the entire climate spectrum is actually a sine wave that goes as far back as the beginning of the Earth?

These opinions of mine are not carved in stone and I am not making any claims to the truth; Instead, I am all for scientific accuracy and will be willing to accept any  evidence that jives with my critical mind..

Thanks for the question Anthony. I hope it serves to advance critical reasoning on a very important and polarizing subject without recourse to emotional outbursts, as is often the case..

Cheers

"Climatic change is a scientific fact"

If you are saying that we have had, for example, ice ages, then I agree.  But climate change is usually taken to mean that global temperatures will rise indefinitely, which in my opinion is just a load of hot air. 

 Science. 2017 Apr 21;356(6335):260-264. doi: 10.1126/science.aal2011.

The interaction of human population, food production, and biodiversity protection.

Crist E1, Mora C2, Engelman R...

Worldwatch Institute, Washington, DC 20036, USA.

Abstract

Research suggests that the scale of human population and the current pace of its growth contribute substantially to the loss of biological diversity. Although technological change and unequal consumption inextricably mingle with demographic impacts on the environment, the needs of all human beings-especially for food-imply that projected population growth will undermine protection of the natural world. Numerous solutions have been proposed to boost food production while protecting biodiversity, but alone these proposals are unlikely to staunch biodiversity loss. An important approach to sustaining biodiversity and human well-being is through actions that can slow and eventually reverse population growth: investing in universal access to reproductive health services and contraceptive technologies, advancing women's education, and achieving gender equality.

On the day it is announced that the Duke of Edinburgh is retiring from public life, I would like to pay tribute to his life of public service.  When he gave up the Presidency of the RSA (after 50 years?) he arranged a meeting with his pal D Attenborough on Population control, no doubt feeling that as he was going he could now say what he had felt constrained from saying before.  I agree that a small group of eminent people have been banging on about population, but to little effect, and NGOs, governments and the media are frightened to run with it.  It is the Elephant in the Room (possibly just as well since there won't be elephants in the wild much longer at the rate we are going!).

I really don't buy the population agenda..

Its rather amazing how a discussion on global warming easily morphs into population control (and maybe eugenics, deadly viruses, bioweapons etc).

I guess we haven't really learnt anything from the failed predictions of Thomas Malthus and Paul Erlich..

The World is suffering more from an 'Epidemic of Greed, Hate and Group think' rather than of population growth..

Fewer people own far more wealth and consume far more resources than the great majority of the World's population... Worst, a smaller fraction of these, extremely rich people think the rest of the poorer masses are making their living space less desirable and should be curtailed (or eliminated) to make space for nature and wildlife (Agenda 21).

Nature is a better judge than we are...Stop the wars, stop the hate, stop the greed and create a conduicive environment for better distribution of populations in space... with little foreign intervention. This may probably be too idealistic in this highly motetized and commercialized world in which there is a price-tag on everything and everyone...

What I am simply saying is: maybe it is not the population that is to blame; it could be the global political and economic system in place, coupled with individuals motivated by material wealth accumulation but suffering from rapid spiritual decline and greater disconnection from fellow humans and nature as a whole. The result: environmental degradation, violence, poverty, widening inequality  and artificial scarcity and shortages in a bountiful and naturally prosperous Earth.

Cheers

There are pages of complimentary material about the Duke of Edinburgh in current newspapers, but I could find no mention of his views on population.   However, page 5 of today's Metro is filled with a list of his "gaffes", including

"They must be out of their minds" (in the Solomon Islands when he was told that the annual population growth was five per cent). 

"Its rather amazing how a discussion on global warming easily morphs into population control"

     Not surprising at all, since if we had managed to control our population, we would not now be bothered by global warming.

"The problem is not simply population control because growth is an economic requirement"

  Are you sure economists are right about this?  They have been wrong about everything else.

i totally agree with Kenneth

 Here is a novel perspective on climate change from the academic peer reviewed journal Cogent Social Sciences (see Skeptic.com):

"Consider some examples. Here’s a paragraph from the conclusion, which was held in high regard by both reviewers:

We conclude that penises are not best understood as the male sexual organ, or as a male reproductive organ, but instead as an enacted social construct that is both damaging and problematic for society and future generations. The conceptual penis presents significant problems for gender identity and reproductive identity within social and family dynamics, is exclusionary to disenfranchised communities based upon gender or reproductive identity, is an enduring source of abuse for women and other gender-marginalized groups and individuals, is the universal performative source of rape, and is the conceptual driver behind much of climate change.

You read that right. We argued that climate change is “conceptually” caused by penises. How do we defend that assertion? Like this:

Destructive, unsustainable hegemonically male approaches to pressing environmental policy and action are the predictable results of a raping of nature by a male-dominated mindset. This mindset is best captured by recognizing the role of [sic] the conceptual penis holds over masculine psychology. When it is applied to our natural environment, especially virgin environments that can be cheaply despoiled for their material resources and left dilapidated and diminished when our patriarchal approaches to economic gain have stolen their inherent worth, the extrapolation of the rape culture inherent in the conceptual penis becomes clear...

Toxic hypermasculinity derives its significance directly from the conceptual penis and applies itself to supporting neocapitalist materialism, which is a fundamental driver of climate change, especially in the rampant use of carbon-emitting fossil fuel technologies and careless domination of virgin natural environments. We need not delve deeply into criticisms of dialectic objectivism, or their relationships with masculine tropes like the conceptual penis to make effective criticism of (exclusionary) dialectic objectivism. All perspectives matter."

Re: "Global Warming" morphed into population control because it is the sum total of all of our activities that has given us the best standard of living ever and has increased the level of CO2. If population continues many other problems will accompany this growth..." 

The population crisis is not a scientific topic; it is an ideology...modelled after Darwin's Ideals... This, and AGW are two sides of the same coin...

Global warming however is real.. the Earth has been warming significantly since the 1970s, although the amount and cause of the warming is still being debated.. This makes it a legitimate scientific question...

The population crisis on the otherhand is not a scientific question...It is a game played by the rich and powerful to subdue the poor and weak....

One Proof: China, the World's most populous nation is not over-populated; Moreover, the country is currently moving away from its "one-child policy..."

Unfortunately for those pushing the depopulation ideal and their willing or unwilling disciples, there is documentation out there to prove my point... one of such is the National Security Study Memorandum

NSSM 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (THE KISSINGER REPORT) December 10, 1974

See an excerpt from a summary by Joseph Brewda below:

" On Dec. 10, 1974, the U.S. National Security Council under Henry Kissinger completed a classified 200-page study, "National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests." The study falsely claimed that population growth in the so-called Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) was a grave threat to U.S. national security. Adopted as official policy in November 1975 by President Gerald Ford, NSSM 200 outlined a covert plan to reduce population growth in those countries through birth control, and also, implicitly, war and famine. Brent Scowcroft, who had by then replaced Kissinger as national security adviser (the same post Scowcroft was to hold in the Bush administration), was put in charge of implementing the plan. CIA Director George Bush was ordered to assist Scowcroft, as were the secretaries of state, treasury, defense, and agriculture.

The bogus arguments that Kissinger advanced were not original. One of his major sources was the Royal Commission on Population, which King George VI had created in 1944 "to consider what measures should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend of population." The commission found that Britain was gravely threatened by population growth in its colonies, since "a populous country has decided advantages over a sparsely-populated one for industrial production." The combined effects of increasing population and industrialization in its colonies, it warned, "might be decisive in its effects on the prestige and influence of the West," especially effecting "military strength and security."

NSSM 200 similarly concluded that the United States was threatened by population growth in the former colonial sector. It paid special attention to 13 "key countries" in which the United States had a "special political and strategic interest": India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. It claimed that population growth in those states was especially worrisome, since it would quickly increase their relative political, economic, and military strength.

For example, Nigeria: "Already the most populous country on the continent, with an estimated 55 million people in 1970, Nigeria's population by the end of this century is projected to number 135 million. This suggests a growing political and strategic role for Nigeria, at least in Africa." Or Brazil: "Brazil clearly dominated the continent demographically." The study warned of a "growing power status for Brazil in Latin America and on the world scene over the next 25 years."

Food as a weapon

There were several measures that Kissinger advocated to deal with this alleged threat, most prominently, birth control and related population-reduction programs. He also warned that "population growth rates are likely to increase appreciably before they begin to decline," even if such measures were adopted.

A second measure was curtailing food supplies to targetted states, in part to force compliance with birth control policies: "There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion."

"Mandatory programs may be needed and we should be considering these possibilities now," the document continued, adding, "Would food be considered an instrument of national power? ... Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can't/won't control their population growth?"

Kissinger also predicted a return of famines that could make exclusive reliance on birth control programs unnecessary. "Rapid population growth and lagging food production in developing countries, together with the sharp deterioration in the global food situation in 1972 and 1973, have raised serious concerns about the ability of the world to feed itself adequately over the next quarter of century and beyond," he reported.

The cause of that coming food deficit was not natural, however, but was a result of western financial policy: "Capital investments for irrigation and infrastucture and the organization requirements for continuous improvements in agricultural yields may be beyond the financial and administrative capacity of many LDCs. For some of the areas under heaviest population pressure, there is little or no prospect for foreign exchange earnings to cover constantly increasingly imports of food."

"It is questionable," Kissinger gloated, "whether aid donor countries will be prepared to provide the sort of massive food aid called for by the import projections on a long-term continuing basis." Consequently, "large-scale famine of a kind not experienced for several decades—a kind the world thought had been permanently banished," was foreseeable—famine, which has indeed come to pass".

This article appeared as part of a feature in the December 8, 1995 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. (http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_kissinger_food.html ).

Also see: The Kissinger Report: The Depopulation Agenda of America’s Elite 1974 to 1993 (http://www.cfnews.org/page88/files/2f4dd180b11d5f2be92d37dcb96a446b-638.html ) 

This is a classic case of 'problem-reaction-solution', one of the oldest games in elite circles..

Manufacture the problem by scaring people about a particular event via social engineering (e.g constantly bombarding the airwaves with terms such as population crisis, population bomb, ecological disaster, the end of the world, etc); once sufficient hysteria has been aroused, the social engineers step in with ready-made solutions for population control (which will ultimately  include  eugenics, biological warfare using deadly viruses, sterilization,  largescale blood shed through proxy wars). Thus NSSM 200...

PLEASE READ THE CITED DOCUMENTS AND MANY OTHERS BEFORE GIVING LESSONS ON POPULATION CONTROL....AND/OR JUMPING ON THE BAND-WAGON

CHEERS

http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pcaab500.pdf

Dr. Kenneth,

If your claim is that CO2 does not cause warming, why bother about the increase in population causing an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration? of the CO2 added into the atmosphere since the begining of the industrial revolution, how much is naturally emitted from the ocean and how much is human?

"'How can it be a real concern when we don't know the amount?"

I am not claiming to have an answer to that question but my initial statement was that it is a real scientific question..

In contrast, there is more wealth in the World today than at any other time in recorded history; there is also more food in the world today than at any other time in recorded history; there is greater technological advancement in the world today than at any other time in recorded history; enough to feed, cloth, medicate, educate and give every living being on the planet a decent living condition for generations to come....

But, this wealth is concentrated in the hands of very few (STOLLEN FROM THE ENTIRE WORLD IN THE FORM OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND HUMAN SLAVERY), who now dictate how the World ought to be run, and who should die or live....

And these elitist group of technocrats have decided polpulation is a crisis because growing population constitutes a threat to their wealth and power....

THAT IS NOT SCIENCE... TAKE SOME TIME TO READ NSSM 200, WHICH FORMS THE BASIS OF U.S POLICY AND THAT OF OTHER NEOCOLONIALIST POWERS and their corporate ESTABLISHMENT..

To add a few more points: Iraq and Lybia were prosperous nations until taken down on false pretext; Syria is on the way; vacuums are created in which terrorism grows like wildfire; weapons are sold to warlords in africa in exchange for natural resources, to distabilize otherwise prosperous nations and bring about the 'much desired' population control....ETC ... ETC.....

YET, amidst the glaring reality, some prefer to focus their myopic attention on the consequences of evil policies (suffering, hatred, famine, bloodshed, etc), and blame the poor suffering populations of the World, rather than confront the evil itself...

The population is the victim not the vilain...

www.lifeissues.net/writers/clo/Kissinger_Report_2004.pdf

http://www.nuremberg-tribunal.org/nssm200/

http://nssm200.com/

Kenneth:

"It appears to be a "scientific fact" that the British believe the world is headed for "catastrophe"....unless?

WHAT THE BRITISH BELIEVE IS DOGMA NOT 'SCIENTIFIC FACT'

Anthony G Gordon:

" They must be out of their minds" (in the Solomon Islands when he was told that the annual population growth was five per cent)"

And who made the Duke of Edinburg god almighty? maybe he should start by stabilizing his own family by instituting a no child policy for a century....But that doesn't seem to be the case.. while his heir is having babies, others have no right to...

And we are suposed to look up to him as a moral authority, or a scientist who knows how the World works?

".......the Royal Commission on Population, which King George VI had created in 1944 "to consider what measures should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend of population" (Joseph Brewd, December 8, 1995 issue of Executive Intelligence Review).

It is a game they've been at for a long long time....

Some will be fooled by such propaganda but fortunately, others are well read, and blessed with strong critical minds to distinguish fact from propaganda... truth from false-hood and religious beliefs from science...

https://www.scribd.com/document/24988640/Kissinger-Report-2004

http://nssm200.com/

Yes, global warming is a scientic fact because its change is associated with the principals of science.

"And we are suposed to look up to him as a moral authority, or a scientist who knows how the World works?"

The D of E is an intelligent man, extremely well-traveled and with vast experience of life, including a childhood where he had no fixed abode, no surname and was very lucky that neither of his parents was executed.  But most of all, he does not have to be elected so can say the things that need to be said but that politicians or scientists cannot say.   He also keeps up-to-date with population matters.

"Global warming however is real.. the Earth has been warming significantly since the 1970s,"

Note yet again the elision of tenses.  It should have read:

The earth has warmed significantly since the 1970s, but we are not sure if right this minute it is still warming.  As to the crucial question, the future, this is pure speculation.

" The D of E is an intelligent man, extremely well-traveled and with vast experience of life......"    I get It.. I don't question his competencies since I don't know the man. 

But this to me is a question of faith in an all-knowing individual, and his ideals...

I thought this was about science... Sorry about the misunderstanding.... I shouldn't speak in scientific terms of another's religion and of its prophet ...

Best Regards

Dr. Kenneth,

"Do you think that none of all that you criticize heavily would have happened had humans not "discovered" that burning carbon made life more comfortable and vastly increased everyone's standard of living?"

I hope you know that the great majority of the people in this world, those whom the population engineers intend to eliminate, do not enjoy the high standards of living you refer to... Most do not cars to drive around in nor have electricity to light their homes...

Since the increase in wealth and prosperity are the underlying problem, maybe the wealthy nations like yours should set an example by giving up their wealth and previliedges, and start living like the billions of poor people around the World whose energy consumption and carbon production/emission  is negligible...

I do not therefore endorse the population control ideology or the impoverishment of people... I am all for scientific integrity and proper stewardship of the Earth and resouces for the benefit of all, not a few...

Cheers

I recently made a new round of matching clutters that may by any means be populated by humans for my country, which is in Europe, using CORINE data. The result is just about 3% of territory, and clutters include even those odd ones like mineral extraction quarries. Up to 15% of territory is listed in Cadastre, and even there you'll find lots of woods and such.

My point - saying Earth is overpopulated means 2 things:

There is no such thing as overpopulation and saying better life will result in overpopulation is a Malthusian myth. Such myths are constantly and properly debunked by The Gapminders: https://www.gapminder.org/

NOx and particle pollution may be a problem in a very concentric London, but not so much in most other cities. Looking around from the London Eye gives you a very distorted world-view.

BTW, more people showed in the overcrowded cities leaves much more nature undisturbed.

Aleš,

I understand your point, but as I said earlier, the Cadastre encompasses only about 15% of total territory, and only some portion of it is actually being used for human sustenance. And the best part - it is not growing. There were some ideas in that direction only during the bio-diesel frenzy, but that was supposed to be good for the environment. (Not.)

Fish are increasingly farmed rather than caught wild. Fishing regulation is increasingly strict, so even there the situation is improving. Just ask the fishers how is their life.

I'm also in energy consumption forecasting. Energy per consumer is also decreasing at rates far exceeding the wildest global warming dreams. For some distributors alarmingly so. The signal from warming gradient is there, but is rather small. Actually negligibly small.

Coal consumption for household heating has virtually vanished. With coal the vast majority of particulate pollution has gone as well. I've read a thesis that established a link between reduced fog in the city of Zagreb and gas grid development.

It makes no sense whining about deteriorating environment because the very opposite is true. We are leaving this place in a better condition to our children. And there are fewer children than us per generation. Things are good and getting better.

Kenneth,

I have immense respect for what you do, and you know it, but I believe your stance on overpopulation is exaggerated. Peoples that are well off tend to grow smaller, not larger. And also with the growing wealth they tend to take more care about their environment than the financially constrained ones. That's the fact easily checked with the gapminders data, and I urge you to try them.

Regarding protected National Forests, those make some 13% of US territory, but only a small portion of those are available for people to roam about. In a prolonged dry period, yeah, some of it must have been due to holidaymakers.

Davor Virkes,

Thank you for you highly scientific and informative contributions to this thread...

I was almost getting fed-up with personal opinions about a 'population crisis' and population control espoused by those who still hold strongly to the ideals of Malthus and Erlich, masquerading as science, despite having been proven to be on the wrong side of History...

Simple fact: the most populous nation in the World today tends out to be the most prosperous (in socio-economic terms) while the least populous island states tend out to be not very proposperous!

The reason can be summed-up in a s Simple Equation: Large Population + Inovation = competitive advantage.

Xinjiang Province (China) is a large, sparsely populated area, spanning over 1.6 million km2 (comparable in size to Iran), and could easily hold the entire population of china.... Where is the over-population?

Cheers

I can't accept the overpopulation idea based on mere observation of available data. There are vast areas left out, never to be populated. We are not some kind of noble mold spreading all about chese, seeking every inch of the surface to infest. It just does not happen. Even in a densely populated Bangladesh there are over 400 tigers, and if the overpopulation idea was a truly working principle - those people would have eaten them by now. Those cats need lots of space.

From various correlations found in gapminder data, I can conclude that the only way of stimulating birth rates to Malthusian kind of development would be stripping humanity of all medical advancement, and introducing all sorts of hardship and slavery. That should work. /sarc

Of course there are local reasons and extremes. My point was that in the situation closest to overpopulation, there are still patches of wilderness, and in that part I don't think I missed any points.

"Even in a densely populated Bangladesh there are over 400 tigers,"

And how many were there 50 years ago?

"in the situation closest to overpopulation, there are still patches of wilderness"

If you jump off a cliff, you will be fine for the first few seconds.

So... which one is it? More people should be worse for the tigers.

Same goes for polar bears, their numbers are recovering after hunting ban. In both cases my point is proven: we are leaving this place in a better condition than our parents left it to us. In Malthusian logic - it makes no sense.

Precisely to the point. It is about time to stop propagating myths and sense of urgency. And to expect directly related evidence for every calling on urgency. Only crooks thrive in urgency.

Perhaps the proper term for abusing our sense of decency by the global warming alarm is gaslighting. The very intention of gaslighting is to confuse otherwise sane people into believing something is wrong with them.

   So now we have it, climate change is an infallible dogma, it cannot even be questioned!  What happens if the prediction (1981) of a new Ice Age by Sir Fred Hoyle FRS occurs?  Do we still have to respect his authority?

"Physicist and BBC presenter Professor Brian Cox was among those who responded angrily to the interview on Twitter, saying it was “irresponsible and highly misleading to give the impression that there is a meaningful debate about the science”.

Fellow physicist and broadcaster Jim al-Khalili tweeted: “For @BBCr4today to bring on Lord Lawson ‘in the name of balance’ on climate change is both ignorant and irresponsible. Shame on you.”

He added: “There should be NO debate any more about climate change. We (the world minus Trump/Lawson et al) have moved on.”"

thegwpf.com Aug 11 2017

Recommended dear Dr. Anthony G Gordon , I totally agree with you. Very impressive and important topic.

Regards, Emad

Unfortunately situation in  climate related sciences is not different than so called 'hard sciences' like Physics.

There seems to have been established a whole new philosophy for baptizing what we want as scientific truth.

Just two examples:

• CERN had spent approximately 13 +1/4 billion dollars til 2012 to 'find' Higgs boson. However they have not found mini 'black holes' and that has disproven relativity theories, their basic foundation. Nobody talks about these annoying fact (except my friend Otto Rossler maybe) and money continues to flow...
• LIGO after 10 years of null results and just before the end of the scheduled financial program, suddenly declared to all of us that it 'detected' the so called 'gravitational waves'. After a strong mass media typhoon the 'detection' was cemented by an article of 1000+ co-authors: Big is Truth!

Same holds for climate issue:

• Ex vice president Al Gore produced a terrifying video and all started to happen after then
• All studies are based on at least low quality data, see my publication
• Even econometric manipulations have been published after leaked mails

Meanwhile:

• New taxes have inserted for a mean household (we pay in Greece the special tax for 'emission of aerial pollution')

And the money flows on...

Article Extraction of the global absolute temperature for Northern H...

Population growth is a non-issue in case of worldwide prosperity, which is strongly linked with reduction of family size, and consequently with population decrease. Imposing opposite of prosperity, e.g. impoverishing the bottom-of-pyramid population by energy starvation, which is a direct consequence of all climate zealotry, will produce further increase of population, and more "carbon feet".

Why is it a case that the climate wrongthink is working simultaneously in favour of the masses' prosperity AND resource economy is seen as bad, and simultaneously the outright crime against humanity and planet is glorified and erroneously seen as scientific is beyond me.

mr Gordon

You call yourself ignorant in this matter and you prove it with every new entry of yours

RE: Anthony G Gordon 

   So now we have it, climate change is an infallible dogma, it cannot even be questioned!  .........."Physicist and BBC presenter Professor Brian Cox was among ..................

From this thread as well as a few others, I have come to one conclusion: that the ability of most to discern or distinguish fact from opinion is a major challenge. Opinions are used to challenge opinions on major scientific questions. How should I comprehend the fact that a faction of the participants on here criticize the dangerous global warming theory but at the same time push the over-population agenda? How don't they understand that both are the two sides of the same technocratic elitist coin? classic case of divide and conquer, hegelian dialectic, the best tool in the hands of the global unelected royalty that believes it has the right to micro-manage every aspect of individual lives.

Please, so called scholars and scientists, stop raising fear and apathy in the World with manufactured and lame cliches as catastrophic global warming, population bomb, terrorism, war on (of) terror etc? All are tools of population control aimed at making the World's population easily manageable, both mentally and numerically. 

Bottom-line: the same individuals at the top of the financial, economic and political  food chain who purport to provide solutions are also at the origin of the issues the World is now grappling with, as well as pick the terminogies which become mainstream vocab over-night. In this regard, people like Malthus, Erlich, Karl Marx, Al Gore and a whole bunch of others as well as the whole of the main stream media, are merely 'pawns' tasked with the manufacture of teminology for the purpose of social engineering....

Do not take my word for it... there are lots of books out there for anyone who would care to look beyond and out of their academic boxes.. Lets start educating ourselves and stop pushing agendas which we know nothing about...

'There are not global problems; there are just individuals' problems manufactured and projected globally' (says me)

(see for example 'pawns in the game' (1958) by William Guy Carr,  'Tragedy and Hope' (1966) by Carrol Quigley etc), both which are fictionalized in Orwell's '1984'), 'From Timbuktu to Babylon' by RR. Windsor, PNAC (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2008/1/27/444438/-); ZBIGNIEW. BRZEZINSKI's 'THE GRAND. CHESSBOARD' ; Patrick Wood's 'Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation' (2014)

https://ia800306.us.archive.org/21/items/PawnsInTheGame/Carr.-.Pawns.in.the.Game.international.conspiracy.exposed.1958.pdf

http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf

http://www.takeoverworld.info/Grand_Chessboard.pdf

http://www.lojsociety.org/aymero_pdf/from_babylon_to_timbuktu_by_rudolph_r_windsor.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxSTmcwP4QI

"You call yourself ignorant in this matter and you prove it with every new entry of yours"

Please specify exactly where I have made errors of fact, evidence or interpretation.

"YES, the climate will change. That is an undisputed fact."

   Since the past is the best guide to the future, I agree that it is extremely likely that there will be important changes in climate in the future.  But this is not a fact.  It hasn't happened yet.   See Concise OED 2011:

fact n.  a thing that is indisputably the case    [emphasis added]. 

mr Gordon

Start reading the scientific of Climate Change report before you write your own nonsense

To quote you: "

I have no expertise in this area and have not researched it, but my default position is that climate models are likely to be as accurate as economic models were before the recent recession."

What does this have to do with Climate Records? Explain

Dr. Kenneth M Towe

Re: .. ... Your solution to all this is what???

I think people should stop trying to fix the World; stop trying to fix the global population; stop trying to fix the global environment; stop trying to fix the climate, and stop trying to educate or civilize or democratize the global population etc. Instead people should focus their resources and energies on improving their own territorial spaces; not engaging in activities that will injure their natural and living environments, climates etc. AND if it is their national policy to sterilize all their citizens and/or abort all unborn babies, good for them.. but do not project it to the entire World. This more than anything is what the world needs... There are tribes in the Amazon and elsewhere around the World which have never seen electricity, or an automobile  or even a bicycle; never been to a hospital or school, but they don't go around screaming

'DANGER, DANGER, the World is coming to catastrophic end... the population bomb is about to go off.., Earth is going to roast..... .'

Why? the reason is simple! they are not flooded with toxic propaganda messages from an agenda-pregnant media; they haven't been visited yet by 'highly civilized  people' who very much would want to teach them ABCs, so that after a few decades of classroom indoctrination, they will have to get more degrees and certificates learning how to survive, take care of, and adapt in the same environment which they had been so closely connected to for centuries. At this point,  the 'civilized world' will tap them on the back, give them more titles, and call them 'the elite'. Another reason why such communities still exist is because their resources: oil, uranium, gold, diamond etc have probably not been discovered yet.

As you can see, these are my opinions, but they are very plausible and practical ones albeit highly unrealistic ones  in a world where the interest of the powerful dwells in  grabbing from the weak, and keeping them subjugated either physically, psychologically or mentally through wars and propaganda. These are are themselves based on pretexts  of, if not manufactured common global enemies: terrorism, catastrophic global warming, population bomb, epidemics/biowarfare, you name them.... These are all meant to keep EMPIRE running... not new tactics though...

Cheers

"Anthony Gordon... The climate has never stood still. Is that a fact?"

  Yes, pretty much so, according to the dictionaries I have consulted.  This opinion is based on things that have occurred, not on things that will occur.

"Start reading the scientific of Climate Change report before you write your own nonsense"

  I am quite willing to entertain the idea that some of what I write is nonsense, but until it is pointed out exactly which is the relevant erroneous assertion, I cannot check or rectify it. 

"climate models are likely to be as accurate as economic models were before the recent recession"

    See Taleb's Black Swan for the inherent problems with the complex mathematical models for economics.   These have been unreliable (worse than useless?).

    Which climate change model, if any, predicted (ie, in advance) the global temperature change over the last 20 years?   Have the climate records and the climate models been in sync during this century?

mr Gordon

You are utterly mistaken. Climate Change is not a model exercise

Where do you have this wrong idea from?

When you were not so stubborn I would advice you to start to read science, here:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_TS_FINAL.pdf

"Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis"

Ken

I was just commenting to the questioner

His question literally reads

"How can Global Warming be considered a scientific fact?"

1. This has nothing to do with models

2. The questioner states: " I have no expertise in this area and have not researched it"

but still starts with a series of blatantly wrong assumptions

"His question literally reads

"How can Global Warming be considered a scientific fact?""

   It is difficult to pitch a question to be both simple and unambiguous.  I agree that it is well-established that there was a rise in global temperatures during the last century.  Much of this may have been anthropogenic, but there are also poorly understood very long-term variations and trends in natural processes.  I have no idea if temperatures will continue to rise, but then neither has anyone else either.

   However, Global Warming has taken on a life of its own, and is generally understood to apply to the future as well as the past.

"but still starts with a series of blatantly wrong assumptions"

  One thing I will continue to be stubborn about is trying to find out which are these wrong assumptions.

Then start by studying the literature first: or do you think all climatologists are dumb?

Recommended dear Dr.Kenneth M Towe 

Regards, Emad

Well.. as far as I know we are fish living in an enclosed glass bowl.. With the rate of global population increase as it is now, soon we might reach the carrying capacity of 12 billion. Assuming by that time most developing countries are still in the industrious sector, then CO2 would pretty much pollutes the air everywhere. Rate of CO2 absorption by natural means by that time would also be unreliable and will not be fast enough, whatnot with the reduced physical space and green that we currently have. Even the fate of Amazon would be dim just by looking at it now. Add that to uncertainties such as volcanoes erupting here and there in the future, the whole living species are at potential risk stepping into mass extinction if we do not acknowledge that the consequences itself are at least real despite the ongoing debate of whether climate change is real or not, by the time we act then, it will be too late.

This is however purely theoretical and might not be considered as scientific fact, my opinion is purely just to be on the safe side.

A late answer:

IPCC

the start is the technical summary of IPCC report AR5  WG1 "Climate Change the scientific basis"

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_TS_FINAL.pdf

start for instance at page 37

"my opinion is purely just to be on the safe side."

  Nigel Lawson knows far more about economics than most, and his point is that precautionary just-in-case solutions are not neutral, but very expensive.

Ken:

I ask you again: You define what THE global average temperature is in your OPINION.

Ken

What is the DEFINITION of the average GLOBAL temperature?

or else what is YOUR definition

"The world has warmed more slowly than had been forecast by computer models, which were 'on the hot side' and overstated the impact of emissions, a new study has found...

[Grubb] told The Times yesterday:  'When the facts change, I change my mind...'

The Times Sep 19 2017 p 1

*************************************************

   So, climate models rely on alternate facts.

... also known as fact-free :lol:

Are we seeing a start of a snowball collapse of an era? If so, good. Finally some serious science will be done, and some real solutions will have a chance. It was about time.

Ken

What is the message with respect to CLIMATE change? and where is the figure from

Keep it scientific give references