[ExI] [wta-talk] Richard Lindzen on climate hysteria

[Alfio Puglisi]

On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Mirco Romanato<painlord2k at libero.it> wrote:

> During the Roman times, in England people could grow grapes for wine.
> Now, I think it is impossible because it is too cold.

Where do you get this idea? There's plenty of vineyards in England:

http://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-england


> Do you know that people, in the '70s were scared by global chilling?
> They talked so much about "the incoming ice age".

Popular opinion and scientific opinion often differ. Climate
scientists in the '70s where nailing down the effect of co2 and
starting to predict warming. A good summary of the discovery process
can be found here:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

(that's a chapter of Spencer Weart's excellent "the discovery of
global warming" book).


> Now, 30 years are a very short time frame to be able to foretell the
> climate in the next 50.

It would be too short if you where just fitting a line to a series of
point. But climate models rely on physics.


> So, it is too cold or too hot in England, today?
>
> And, before telling there is a heating, please, could tell us what is
> the right temperature for any and all places on Earth?
>
> Is it the temperature of today? the temperature of 30 years ago?
> The temperature of 2 hundreds years (during the Little Ice Age)?

Your questions miss the point. The problem is not the "right" or
"wrong" temperature, nor a "change". The problem is when the rate of
change outstrips the ability of the ecosystem to adapt. Similar
considerations can be made about the rate of sea level rise with
respect to human infrastructure.


Alfio