Published by Paul MacRae on 03 Jun 2008 at 08:50 am
About me
Welcome
My name is Paul MacRae. I’m an ex-journalist who has worked as an editor, editorial writer and columnist for several newspapers over the past 40 years, including The Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Bangkok Post, and Victoria Times Colonist. In 2002 I switched to academia and now teach English and professional writing at the University of Victoria and University Canada West, a new private university in Victoria, BC.
On this site you will find excerpts from and notes for a book on climate change that I’ve been researching for the past year entitled False Alarm: Why Almost Everything We’ve Been Told About Global Warming is Misleading, Exaggerated, or Plain Wrong* (* Including the Claim that the Planet is Warming). You can read more about the book and why I decided to take on this topic on the About My Book page on this site. In addition, I’ve put in links to other sites that deal intelligently with the question of climate change from a skeptical perspective.
I can’t claim to be an expert on climate science. But, as a former journalist, I do claim an ability to know when the public is being told partial truths or falsehoods. Everything I have read since I began my research in 2007 convinces me more and more that, as my book title argues, most of what we, the public, have been told about global warming is misleading, exaggerated, or plain wrong, including the claim that the planet is warming (it hasn’t since at least 1997).
This site also includes articles I’ve written on climate change and other topics, and columns I wrote for the Times Colonist during my eight years there and afterward.
I hope you’ll enjoy the information on this site and I look forward to your comments. You can also get in touch with me at prmacraeATgmail.com (replace the ‘AT’ with ‘@’).
Nick Bretagna on 17 Jun 2008 at 4:28 am #
> How can many, many respected, competitive, independent science folks be so wrong about this (if your premise is correct)?
LOL. Tell your friend to look up two topics: Phlogiston Chemistry and Ether Physics.
In both cases, someone had to produce one experiment each to blow apart a whole body of widely accepted principles:
Phlogiston’s Demise
Ether Toast
Science isn’t guaranteed to be correct, it’s just more likely to be correct than any other technique that might be used is.
As a whole, science is a slow, steady traversal of ideas to produce a clear concept of “how the universe works” — but there are times when a false branch of ideas fits the bill, and gets followed until some single idea is shown to be true but impossible if the branch were correct, which immediately prunes that entire branch of “knowledge” and for a brief time turns science on its head.
Phlogiston and Ether Physics are two excellent examples of such. The collapse of Ether Physics led directly, within 10 years, to Einstein’s first formulations.
Science is a technique for arriving at highly reliable notions of what is true. It does not *guarantee* absolute truth.
Darrin Fiddler on 02 Jul 2008 at 5:15 pm #
Regardless if we’re causing global warming, we’re still polluting the planet and feeding an onslaught of diseases. Cutting our emissions down will help dig us out and away from the looming pandemics. We still need to move towards sustainable energy for the well-being of us and our following generations.
By denying global warming, people will continue to be stupid and we’re only going to get more sick and disease-ridden. We just need to view this topic from a different perspective.
DLR Fiddler
Kelowna, BC
Bill on 15 Jul 2008 at 7:27 am #
“Cutting our emissions down will help dig us out and away from the looming pandemics.”
Really?!
“By denying global warming, people will continue to be stupid and we’re only going to get more sick and disease-ridden.”
Umm.. So by accepting a theory we know to be false we become smarter?? And healthier??
–Bill
Lucy Skywalker on 19 Jul 2008 at 4:54 am #
Trying to post here again, first time seemed to fail:
Great to see about your book. The sooner the better cos’ IMHO we’re building up to tipping-time. I hope it will include ideas about clean “open source” standards for science, so that the fascist control we’ve had has less chance of happening again. I hope it will start to separate out genuine environmental concerns, and encourage better environmental science standards, so that they don’t all need to get tarred with the AGW brush.
Have you seen this History of AGW: http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm -? I think that this nugget of info is important.
Tedd L. Kemper on 09 Aug 2008 at 7:14 pm #
An Old SciFi Story about Global Environmentalists
AlGore and his alarmists remind me of a science fiction story I ead a few decades ago. The premise of the story was that the Environmentalists had gotten total control. They decided that people were responsible for the demise of millions of microorganisms by just being alive and declared that on a specific day, everyone would commit suicide.
To be sure their edict was carried out, anyone protesting would be imprisoned and executed the day before the mass suicide.
Naturally, there were a lot of protesters. But, instead of speaking out in public, most of those who objected went underground—Literally—The subways and such had been abandoned long ago.
One young man knew that the underground existed, and managed to find a connection. Once he had been carefully questioned, he was taken to an elderly gentleman—who had obviously lived well beyond his allotted years.
As they talked, the young man said, “But we have to stop the.”
“No,” the gentlemen replied, “we don’t want to stop them. We want to survive them, then go on to rebuild the world as it should be.
Our problem today is, that Algore and his thugs won’t commit suicide for us.
Meme on 02 Oct 2008 at 12:01 pm #
If only we could get Elizabeth May, Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and all Canadian greenhouse gas Henny Pennies to read what you write!
Today the Financial Post reviewed a book titled An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming by Lord Nigel Lawson. According to the article, Lawson had “immense trouble finding a publisher” because he contests the ‘greenies’. I do hope you (Paul MacRae) have an easier time of it.
I haven’t had success today in finding the FP article online. Nor have I been able to find online a June 26 squib from the National Post headlined, Natural Chemicals Contributing to Ozone Deterioration, Study Finds. I clipped the paragraph in June. The report does not contest global warming itself, but does suggest that “the mathematical model for calculating the sources of global warming could be flawed”. The study was led by John Plane at the University of Leeds. The conclusion is based on a finding that bromine and iodine oxide, natural chemicals produced by sea spray and emissions from microscopic sea organisms, destroyed ozone in the atmosphere west of equatorial Africa - destroyed 50% more ozone than than expected.
I don’t know who it is who first had such an expectation but it’s encouraging that some scientists, at least, are giving credit to nature for any depletion of the ozone layer. Still, we’d best be careful about alerting the UN Climate Panel about this finding else they’ll be wagging fingers at us for polluting the atmosphere by sprinkling iodized salt on our veggies.
RIDDEN on 01 Mar 2009 at 8:50 pm #
The thesis that the planet is NOT warming up is a damaging approach to a very real problem.
If this gentleman has written a book trying to convince people that warming is not happening,
then all we can do is to pray that he writes no more.
It is tempting for a layman to write about a technical or scientific subject since a journalist is
very able to collect and collate facts. Regurgitating the literature is not sufficient to enable the
lay person to produce a worthwhile piece of work.
Work such as the gentleman has written here is damaging to young and old minds…for reasons
which are clearly obvious.
The writer’s logic is totally faulty. Even if Global Warming did not exist, there is plenty of evidence
that, pollution in general, is damaging to our three Great Kingdoms…animal, vegetable, mineral.
The evidence for the above is overwhelming, and something that Mr. MacRae needs to think deeply
about. The sulphur gases have, over the years, turned many waterways acidic, resulting in severe
damage to animal and plant life. Sulphur gases have turned evergreen plants near my garden
a yellowish color…damage, Mr.MacRae!…..the damage to species and whole families is
clear.
In a writing such as Mr. MacRae’s the author must work hard to generate something new, something
innovative. It is not sufficient to produce a glossy cover book, full of muddled thinking and plagerism.
Perhaps Mr. MacRae would like to demonstrate his knowledge of polluting gases by writing down the
chemical formulae for the following, without ‘looking up’ the material.
1. The two common inorganic carbon containing gases.
2. The two oxides of sulphur, and state which is most responsible for acid rain.
3. The three most common oxides of nitrogen.
4. A common oxide of hydrogen.
In addition, MacRae must write down the solubility of each gas in potable (frresh) water and sea-water.
Try this approach, sir, then go on to something worthwhile…JR.
JQ_Public on 11 Mar 2009 at 9:22 am #
It amazes me to think that someone can even write that publishing something possibly 100% correct and contradictory to the “common knowledge” is damaging and should be stopped.
Maybe someone should “damn” Al Gore and co. on his protrayal of the falsities of global warming. Am I not correct to know that he is no scientist himself? Was he not just regurgitating others findings?
If pollution is a problem, and I sincerely think that it is to some, maybe a good extent, then fight pollution with anti-pollution legislation - not with global warming legislation and political agenda.
Global Warming and Pollution - they are two very different arguments. I’m not a scientist or chemist, but I don’t need to be able to diagram chemical properties to be able to see the difference.
Maybe layman should shut up and let the scientists and engineers figure everything out. Yes, they don’t ever work to prove their theories, only the truth.
Kelly Beninga on 18 Apr 2009 at 11:10 pm #
Why is anyone listening to an English major? See what qualified climate scientists have to say. 97% of them agree man-made climate change is real.
Paul MacRae on 19 Apr 2009 at 10:44 am #
Kelly,
In this book, I’m writing not as an “English major” but as an investigative journalist with more than 30 years experience at several newspapers, including The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, the Bangkok Post, and the Victoria Times Colonist.
And, are you suggesting that journalists who aren’t climate scientists shouldn’t be allowed to write about climate? That would eliminate Mark Lynas, George Monbiot, Eugene Linden, Thomas Friedman, and Ross Gelbspan, to name a few on the warmist side. Or would you bar all non-climate scientists, period? That would eliminate Al Gore, which might actually be a blessing.
Or do you only want to ban non-climate-scientist writers who don’t agree with you?
Just curious.
As for your figure of 97% agreement that man-made climate change is real: I, too, think man-made climate change is “real.” How can we not be affecting the planet with six billion people? The question, for me, is how important human activity is in the larger scheme of climate change (not that important, in my view) and whether other factors than carbon dioxide emissions also play an anthropogenic role.
If we’re primarily warming the planet through, say, agriculture, as William F. Ruddiman believes, or the urban heat effect, as Roger Pielke, Sr., believes, then cutting carbon emissions isn’t going to do much to stop warming.
Finally, at the moment, the planet isn’t warming, so it’s difficult to believe that our human activities are as important as the (you say) 97 per cent believe. (I wonder what happens to the grant money of those who say they don’t believe).
Chicken Little on 11 Oct 2009 at 6:57 pm #
While in graduate school, I studied under a professor that was internationally recognized in his field. Of all the thoughts he presented me, I have found the following quote to be the most profound.
“When the theory and the facts don’t agree, go with the facts.”
The fact is that the earth’s climate has been changing throughout the entire history of the planet as the result of a complex interaction between many variables. Humans, being late-comers to the scene, obviously had no impact on ancient historical fluctuations, which data shows to be as extreme or more extreme than any change in recent history. While humans without doubt impact our environment, why would we now suddenly assume that our contribution is the dominant factor, when current changes are clearly within the range of historical changes where we could have had no impact.
The belief system referred to as Man-made Global Warming is a dangerous combination of human hubris and a desire to use fear to control the populace.
Welcome to the MARTIX.
Grrr on 21 Nov 2009 at 5:34 pm #
Pleased to find another who is willing and able to apply some logic to the climate, almost said debate, science political agenda.
Pollution is a problem while there are living life forms on this planet. Get used to it but minimise the damage.
The politics of AGW is what disturbs me the most. Al Gore, Flannary, Rudd, Brown, Obama, and others have misrepresented the role of CO2.
If innocently and with a willingness to allow debate that would not be bad. Sometimes correcting a wrong introduces a new view on matters.
Here, however, there is political agenda. First confuse the people, then panic them, then land them with a Treaty and an ETS that they would normally protest.
The film ‘Not evil, just lies’ understates the enormity of this political move to disenfranchise the west.
It is evil; millions will die and our children will bear a burden both in tax take and in accepting the climate criminal mark.
Thank you for your carefully reasoned critique. It is a sign of our times that the main stream press is unwilling to be honest and choses to be politically correct.
JMW on 11 Dec 2009 at 8:44 am #
After reading many commentary articles on global warming, I have come to the conclusion that money drives many men and women to concede to desparate ideals. You are either motivated in part by money or selfless inspiration. As well, I believe that most people overlook the truth that scientific strudy must be broken down into two categories: Theory and Fact. We also have to understand that many Theories have been spoken so often as Fact that the general public (like lambs to the slaughter) have swallowed Theory for Fact.
Consider Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution”. As I understand it today, it is still a Theory. Only a Theory. One possibility. Global warming is a consensus of a Theory. “Henny Penny, the sky is falling. The sky is falling!” People are generally lazy and don’t take time to find the truth for themselves. They will believe whole heartedly the popular ideals of the few, rather than use their grey cells to discern facts or theory for what they are.
Scientists and doctors are not gods or even demi-gods for all their knowledge. We all have the capacity to think critically and come to conclusions that are not motivated by greed. Maybe we should start thinking for ourselves and work out those little grey cells for all they’re worth.
BTH on 16 Dec 2009 at 2:30 pm #
I agree that the scientific consensus can be wrong (as many people have pointed out). However, I hesitate to trust an ex-journalist who is now a professor of English when it comes to climate science. Certainly we can all think for ourselves and interpret data using logical principles but we must be careful about drawing conclusions based on partial evidence (such as the world temperature plot Mr. MacRae uses in his article “Glimmer of hope for consensus climate honesty is short-lived” which only includes 10 years of readings). My point here is not to debate the issue itself since I am not an expert on climate science. Rather, I take issue with Mr. MacRae’s approach to scientific debate.
Anyone who disagrees with the current scientific consensus on climate change should do what any other dissenting scientist would do: publish in a scientific journal–not write a book for the popular press! One may try to argue that the entire scientific community is biased and that no journal would ever accept a dissenting viewpoint. That simply is not true–dissenting views are published all the time. Only three criteria must be fulfilled: the evidence must be 1) clear 2) convincing and 3) novel. I challenge all who bad-mouth climate scientists to publish dissenting journal articles. If the evidence against climate change is so “obvious” and “logical,” this exercise should be exceedingly simple.
Paul MacRae on 16 Dec 2009 at 3:25 pm #
BTH,
You make good points. In general, I find it puzzling that I can’t find any empirical evidence in support of consensus climate science claims. I’ve been trying for more than two years and can report that, outside of the models, there isn’t a scrap of evidence supporting the idea that humans are the primary source of global warming. (Note that nobody is accusing humans of global cooling, so I’m also puzzled as to why the term “climate change” has come into use; why not just call it “warming”? Oh, yes, because the planet isn’t warming.)
However, given that I’m not a scientist (but, then, neither is Al Gore) and have been a journalist, it seems to be me legitimate to use my journalistic and academic skills to do what good journalists do are supposed to do: investigate official claims to see if they are valid. That’s what journalists like Jeffrey Simpson are doing, and they’re not publishing in scientific journals.
Here’s what I found when I did some due diligence: The consensus climate science claims are based on computer models. Those models use formulas for the amount of warming produced by increments of CO2. As far as I can tell from the actual climate facts–no warming for a decade–those formulas are wrong. That is, they predict more warming than actually occurs.
This isn’t surprising since CO2 and temperature are related logarithmically. That is, X amount of CO2 produces Y amount of warming. If you double X, however, you only get half the warming. If you double X again, you get only half the warming of the previous Y. After three or four doublings of X, the temperature increase becomes, effectively, zero. There is a lot of evidence, such as the fact that the planet isn’t currently warming, to indicate that we’ve reached that point, and probably did so at about 200 ppm. Extra amounts of CO2 will, therefore, produce very little warming. I could be wrong, but that’s where the physics of CO2 points, and that’s what the empirical evidence points to at the moment (no warming for a decade while CO2 continues to increase). Which do you want to go with, the facts or the theory?
Why does consensus climate science continue to push human-caused warming as the main driver of climate in the face of the evidence? My best guess is politics and environmentalist ideology. As the CRU affair shows, top climate scientists are simply ignoring or, worse, trying to bury evidence that contradicts the AGW hypothesis because they believe they are saving the planet. This is a very dangerous position for a scientist to take because it substitutes values for facts. In other words, much of climate science has become more religion than science. Also, the AGW hypothesis is a scientific paradigm that’s become politically charged. To admit it’s wrong means a loss of face that a scientist might be willing to accept but that a politician (and many climate scientists are, now, in effect, politicians) cannot.
Of course, I could be wrong, but I felt it my duty to point out, as much as I can while wearing my journalist hat, but with academic rigor (the facts in my book are carefully cited so readers can check them), that there is more than one side to climate science. After that, the public–the people who will be paying the huge climate bills that the scientists would like us to pay–can make an informed opinion based on a range of facts, not just those that the human-caused warming believers wish us to know.
By the way, I appreciate you taking the time to write.
Robin Edwards on 12 Mar 2010 at 7:43 am #
Just discovered your site, Paul, and am enjoying reading it. I used to be a scientist (industrial) and learned the hard way that in the real world it is essential to pay full regard to facts. Not doing so generates enormous problems, and is currently seen to be doing so as we all get dragged into funding gigantic schemes that are based on theories that have never been verified. Since “discovering” climate, about 16 years ago I have long known that it is unwise (to say the least) to believe what one reads, sees or hears in this field unless the numerical “FACTS” are freely available and published. We now also know that some “facts” as released by some scientists are not necessarily reliable. Some may have been invented, others chosen selectively to support a cherished idea, others misquoted or in error for typographical reasons. However, I recommend that anyone commenting on climate affairs be prepared to access the original data (so far as is possible now that significant portions have been discarded or lost) and to draw their own conclusions. Do not believe the smoothed curves or bar plots that politicians (and journalists?) find so attractive. The real world is not like that. Attempted simplification can and does produce profound errors. Always be alert and prepared to be sceptical. Unfortunately I am too old to expect to be able to see the total demise of the AGW theories. My guess is that it will take another 15 years before almost all politicians and most “scientists” will be forced to admit to being part of the greatest scam yet perpetrated by humankind.
Robin
Scott on 29 Apr 2010 at 4:41 pm #
You are doing some amazing work here Paul, don’t let the Kool aid drinkers get you down.
Regarding those that are saying “Oh, we are polluting the earth anyways, so whether or not global warming is happening, doesn’t matter” couldn’t be more wrong. Would you have heart surgery for brain cancer? Better yet, would you pay a million dollars to have heart surgery for your brain cancer?
The point is that those that insist MMGW is happening refuse to debate or look at evidence to the contrary. Why not?
DMX on 29 May 2010 at 7:47 pm #
“Consider Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution”. As I understand it today, it is still a Theory. Only a Theory. ”
No, at least that much has been conclusively proven. A theory becomes a fact when it can be demonstrated conclusively. We can do that with evolution (You can actually watch it in action with cell cultures) , so we know its very real despite the bizare and angry protestations of the evangelical right.
J Mailhiot on 18 Jul 2010 at 6:21 pm #
English professors have no basis to speak about climate change, much less talk on television about it. Listen to the climatologists, not this guy.
Paul MacRae on 19 Jul 2010 at 11:29 am #
J. Mailhiot:
How far are you willing to extend this? I’m also an ex-journalist–should journalists also not be allowed to write about climate change because they aren’t climatologists? In other words, the only people who can write about climatology are climatologists?
Just curious….
Michael Snow on 22 Jul 2010 at 7:29 am #
Yes, “listen to the climatologists” like IPCC lead author John Christy and Richard Lindzen of MIT. And allow investigative reporters to report what they find.
Dr. Richard Lindzen, served on IPCC: “”One of the things the scientific community is pretty agreed on is those things [carbon caps] will have virtually no impact on climate no matter what the models say. So the question is do you spend trillions of dollars to have no impact? And that seems like a no brainer.”
Dr. John R. Christy, Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama–Huntsville: [comments from debate on 11 Feb., 2009]: –Our ignorance about the climate system is enormous, and policy makers need to know that. This is an extremely complex system, and thinking we can control it is hubris. [THIS is the most important fact of the whole issue.]
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/lindzen_heartland_2010.pdf
The ignorance displayed in some comments here is astounding. CO2 is ‘pollution”? REAL pollution is ignored while Al Gore and his Goldman Sachs partner seek to become the world’s first carbon billionaires.