This is not the only weakness in the AGW science, the idea that any trace gas can influence the temperature gradient in the atmosphere is equally absurd. Agreed CO2 and H2O vapour absorb radiation but they also emit it, the small amount they absorb is quite insufficient to upset the dominant modes of heat transfer in the atmosphere which are water evaporation and convection.

CO2 and H2O vapour emit vastly more heat than they absorb because they are somewhere between +30C and -55C, depending on the height, and deep space is about -270C, as always the heat flows from hot to cold, the bigger the temperature gradient the greater the heat flow.

For me the value of your article is its clear focus on the political aspects of the matter. I intend soon to publish a detailed thermodynamic analysis of planetary heating by a star but the matter is so fraught with controversy that the focussing of my presentation is a major task, it is not easy to convince the believer who is already signed up for what is actually “perpetual motion” science.

Determining what the ‘environmentalist’ is busy trying to save the world from – what perceived obstacle prevents him from doing whatever it is he would otherwise be doing – may provide him with a more usable set of ideas about the value of his project.

But, as we can see, the question could equally apply to a person who is ‘sceptical’ about the claims made for AGW. He is equally busy trying to save the world – from ideas he perceives to be a danger to it.

The excess of effort required by the person who holds environmental beliefs is dependent upon the strength of the scepticism those beliefs are met with. If such beliefs are all about ‘endings’ (and environmentalism, if about nothing else, is all about something ‘ending’), then it may be scepticism itself that the environmentalist is trying to save the world from.

If the environmental belief is for the urgent need of a ‘conclusion’ (an end to curiosity), then scepticism – if a sceptic could be described as someone who likes to keep his options open – becomes the eternal saboteur of that belief. And what the ‘environmentalist’ is busy trying to save himself from is a need to keep his options open. The world (his current environment and the people in it), as a model, keeps reminding him of that need.

As this article hints, it may be that the ‘environmentalist’ has no coherent answer to the question of what he will do with the world once he has ‘saved’ it (or what he might be doing with the world if he wasn’t busy saving it), because there isn’t one he can give without sabotaging his own project. The value of the belief (and why it must be clung to) is that it is a deferral of a need – into a future – in an effort to get rid of it. And (curiously enough) the future the belief fantasises is one where all need (and needing) is abolished.

The ‘environment’ is made the scapegoat (or the cover-story) for the believer’s refusal to live in it. The ‘sceptic’ becomes the environmentalist’s terrorist… forever threatening him with the self-knowledge of his own appetite and free will – and the space in which it can be explored and met.

The HS was enormously influential in making people believe. I did over 50 Gore-like presentations (mainly in-company) using a) the CO2 1,000 year hockey stick from UN and then b) a temperature one to ‘prove’ global warming. I think it had a massive impact as it effectively removed the Lamb figure from the table i.e. the MWP and the LIA which were always awkward. (it was usually followed by the low res Vostok one).

1,000 years was also enough to mask the 100 year profile with recent variations.

I therefore think it creates ‘cod’ scientific certainty which is necessary to ‘get’ the religion.

The fact is that the HS didn’t do much for environmentalism anyway – environmental politics remained the sport of the establishment, because it failed to find popular support; and scientific certainty was not needed for the creation of political institutions prior to the HS.

“Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.”

This is the “trick” and “hide” section.
Six days later the answer contains

“; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid
; the decline”

In full here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/#more-13065

The Briffa hockey stick is made of very selected and very few trees, with almost no real significance.
Tree rings from other trees at almost the same geological position show exactly the opposite.
I really can’t understand why people take such a cherrypicked piece of faulty data like Briffa HS as serious.

The HS is still powerful whatever Finnish TV says. That’s why people still use it. (not necessarily scientists but well-meaning warmers)

Quote from 942777075.txt
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

Your “hockey stick” is dismantled… ultimately.
See the latest update some days ago from finnish scientists.

“Climate catastrophe cancelled”
http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/finnische-tv-doku-deckt-fehler-in-der-klimawissenschaft-auf/001004/

Finnish TV debunks errors in climate science.

And further, your state of knowledge about CRU needs some actual update.
This “trick” is debunked, and the “hide to decline” pops up at another passage in the files as “how to avoid the decline” with a clear meaning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Jones_(climatologist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy