Latest stupid claim:China is saving us from 'climate change' with pollution (?)

Just about the most predictable event of the week was the tempest of opinion created by the analysis of global temperature changes published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on Monday.

As we (and a number of other mainstream news outlets) reported, Robert Kaufmann and colleagues analysed the impact of growing coal use, particularly in China, and the cooling effect of the sulphate aerosol particles emitted into the atmosphere.

They concluded that with a bit of help from changes in solar output and natural climatic cycles such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the growth in the volume of aerosols being pumped up power station chimneys was probably enough to block the warming effect of rising greenhouse gas emissions over the period 1998-2008.

But wait, for those who need to suppress the call of ‘we’re all gonna die’ every day …

On the other side of the opinionosphere, Climate Progress’s chosen headline was “Study: Hottest Decade on Record Would Have Been Even Hotter But for Chinese Coal Plant Sulfur Pollution”… which is consistent with what Kaufmann and his colleagues are saying, although they said it in more restrained tones.

According to some e-mails I’ve had, the same point is being raised between climate scientists.

Although it doesn’t slam the study, in fact calling it “clever”, Climate Progress also asks whether doing the research was wise: “What’s not clever about this study is that it repeats the myth that there was a ‘hiatus’ [in global warming] in the first place”

Whether the conclusions of the study are right or wrong, the argument goes, you’re stepping into factually shaky ground - and the belief-systems of your “opponents” - if you start from the argument that temperatures haven’t risen since 1998, the strongest El Nino year on record.

If I compared those events above (from realclearscience.com’s list of published articles, the BBC, no less…not exactly a tower of skepticism to the progressive ideal) to some characters and what they do and said in fiction, PUBLICLY, why, I would be RIDICULED.

So let me get this straight, because this is too down the line Dr. Floyd Ferris, Robert Stadler, anti Patrick Henry University to be swallowed.

If we suspect the facts we can measure, contravene a publicly (scientifictiously) accepted belief, which has grown to a belief system, it is now UNWISE, and therefore INADVISABLE to research anything which might undermine that (fictitious) belief system?

And the so called scientists, whose life’s work is to uncover the real world of fact and explain it, ARE ALSO SAYING THIS?

I think I should be combing the rockies for a diner.