Climate Change is a Religion, not Science

A while ago i already mentioned that the president of the libertarian Mises Youth org, young Vincent de Roeck considers climate change to be nothing but a hoax.

Under the provocative title 'climate change is a religion, not science' De Roeck draws attention to his latest article on the subject. As he's inspired by libertarism, his conclusion is pretty predictable : it's nothing but a worldwide complot.

His piece got quite some attention as it's been published on four libertarian blogs simultaneously. Therefore i suppose it might be useful to have a closer look at what he writes and see if this time he does get any further than just a renewed belief in a conspiracy.
(As usual, my translation)

Climate change is a religion, not science

Last week the British conservative thinkthank "The Bruges Group" published the paper "Cool Thinking On Climate Change". In some 60 pages the author, the British member of the European Parliament Roger Helmer is trying to convince his readers that the alarmism around global warming is based on lies and dishonesty and that the actions proposed are dangerous and counter-productive.

Helmer starts his paper with a prelude titled "The EU: Fully paid-up Climate Alarmists" (imho a rather amusing title given the fact he's a MEP receiving a very nice salary from this very same EU) in which the key-quote probably is :

Global Warming? The EU needs more control over energy policy, over tax, over emissions, over industry, over everything.

Of course those words immediately point towards the real reason for Helmers skepticism : it's not based on scientific doubts, but it's an expression of a vision rather common in libertarian surroundings by claiming science is part of a complot set up by the government

Yes Helmer may be a politician and not a scientist, and he freely admits this, his findings nevertheless are most valuable. Helmer doesn't bring new arguments into the debate but summarizes the most important climate skeptical arguments and theories in an easy to read paper.

When having a closer look at the arguments used, indeed there's nothing new in what he's saying. He starts with a three page long attack calling "the Warmists" all sorts of names, mostly in the religious spheres.

His attack on "climate science" is nothing more than a copy of some of the same old skeptical arguments again. Arguments which have been debunked a zillion times before. Honestly, it is getting rather boring and i'm not gonna look at them in detail.

Coby Beck has a nice overview of some frequent heared "skeptical arguments" in his How to talk to a climate skeptic guide and i'm pretty sure Coby Beck's list handles almost everything Helmer says. The only thing Helmers proves is that, indeed, he is not a scientist.

More interesting than the rather silly attempt to discredit science is what De Roeck wrote above (Yes Helmer may be a politician and not a scientist, and he freely admits this, his findings nevertheless are most valuable). I don't understand how one can think the opinion of a total layman can be valuable in a scientific debate and find it remarkable that De Roeck doesn't seem to notice this point. I don't know about you people, but i like my house built by an architect who knows how to make sure it doesn't fall down. My medical problems i prefer to be looked onto by a doctor, etc..

The strong anti-governmental discourse which can be found in Helmers's work closely relates to other libertarian or conservative critics. Like p.ex. the op-ed "The Climate Debate: When Science Serves The State" by professor Joseph Potts for the "Ludwig von Mises Institute" in Alabama or the essay "Global Warming Revisited" by professor Michael Heberling for the "Mackinac Center for Public Policy Research" in Michigan.

The Potts op-ed doesn't get much further than nagging "it's a conspiracy" & the second one does copy some of the usual fallacies, both pieces imho aren't much more than an expression of a paranoid vision to the real world.


These authors rightfully point out, contrary to mistaken neo-Keynesians like a Joseph Stiglitz that the governement, just like privacte actors, doesn't have acces to the "perfect information" and that only the market can handle inherent imperfect information. Something which is fully applicable to the enormous role of the government in dealing with the supposed climate change.

As a result of his skepticism De Roeck obviously overstates uncertainties making him miss the point that the information avalaible is srong enough and clearly states humankind is contributing to present day climate change. It's no longer a question of "uncertainties". The remaining question nowadays is whether "to act or not" and in the second case to which extent to act.

Nowhere in his text De Roeck provides a beginning of an answer how "only a free market" can respond to this situation. Which is no surprise, as we've come to the core dogma, and dogma's need no proof.


The libertarian conservative Roger Helmer in his paper also looks back on his long carreer within the climate skeptical movement and gives some ankedotes about his life. December last year, he represented the climate-skeptical movement as an observer at the UN climate conference in Poznan and in March he was a guest-speaker at the big climate conference of the American Heartland Institute in New York.
The notorious right-wing thinkthank Heartland has been known to give tribune to anyone who wants to say climate change isn't happening. Whether what the person says actually makes sense from the science point of view is less important.


Furthermore, he demolishes the IPCC and proposes alternative theories like the NIPCC by professor S. Fred Singer (where the 'N' stands for non-governmental. The movie "An Inconvenient Truth" of course gets crushed, while all criticism on the movie "The Great Global Warming Swindle" skillfully is rebutted

Fred Singer is known as one of those people who not only deny almost every possible environmental issue, but who built their career on being a denier. Bart Verheggen has a closer look on his deeply flawed NIPCC report

Some of the most obvious problems with the Great Global Warming swindle have been adressed before on this blog. De Roeck proves to not have the background to detect deliberate flawed lobbywork from actual science.

Roger Helmer's ideas the last couple of weeks get support of quality newspapers liek "The Daily Telegraph" and the "Wall Street Journal". In the first one Christopher Booker calles the idea of "Global warming" and the melting icesheets "the biggest lie ever". In the second one Björn Lomborg could freely present his theory of the climate-industrial complex and the close connection between "big business" and "big government", unhindered by scientific truth.

Booker is one of those people that are so wrong it's painful to watch. Deltoid had it's fun having a closer look at some of the most evident problems in his work. George Mobiot wrote How to disprove Booker in 26 seconds, which shows where much skepticism already fails : checking your own arguments. One of the first things a scientist learns is to be critical towards your own statements and towards your sources.
Lomborgs story would be more interesting if it weren't so deeply flawed as demonstrated on the website Lomborg errors. A shorter look on some of the most obvious problems with Lomborg's work can be found on The Way Things Break.


Libertarians like myself hold their breath seeing the govenrment tendency to spend money in "green" technologies, because probably the American investment-guru Eric Janszen is more than right when he said in "Harper's magazine" that the "green" sector would be the next bubble to burst

I stick to the conclusion i made in my previous post on De Roeck : Young Vincent *really* will need to learn that a right wing think thank is not the place to get your scientific information. May i feel so free to suggest magazines like Nature, Science of GRL instead ?

Young Vincent did nothing more than demonstrating that for a certain type of libertarians, science looses the battle from their free-market fundamentalism.

Derk-Jan Eppink & the Green-Right

Derk-Jan Eppink

In spring, Dutch ex-journalist Derk-Jan Eppink joined the Belgian party Lijst DeDecker (LDD) to become a leading candidate on the party's list for the upcoming elections for the European parliament of next week.
(yes, apparantly it's possible a Dutch citizen candidates in Belgium)

As, if the polls are right, Eppink next week probably is going to be elected into the European parliament, it might be interesting to have a closer look at his views.

I've posted before on this blog that his party LDD is circling around climate skepticism, and Derk Jan Eppink is no exception to this rule.

There's a good post in Dutch already adressing some of the things he said.

In February, Eppink wrote an opinion piece (in Dutch) for the newspaper De Standaard, which clearly is showing what can be expected from the man. Some snippets (my translation)

The green-right thinks positively about the environment

Ecology is a religion without God in which politicians get dragged into a climate of fear. (...) That is why a party like LDD chooses for green-right. In contrary to the others, like the Open VLD [the other Flemish liberal party] which started moving to the left for the envoironmental topics until they became ideological neighbours of Groen! [Flemish green party]
Therefore it's not strange this weekend Open VLD is having a congress on climate change. It may sound like a discovery, but climate has been changing ever since earth exists. Greenland is called Greenland because in the past the country was green.
The central question in the debate is : does climate change because of man or not ? That question hasn't been settled : some scientists say it does, other say it doesn't. Some scientists say the heating [sic] of the earth is caused by solar activity, not man. In conclusion : we don't know.
A good environmental policy is hindered by a theological debate on climate change ruled by ecological fundamentalism. Who doesn't support the thesis that climate change isn't real, is depicted as a heathen, a non-believer or a denialist. The discussion isn't about a good policy, but 'good or evil'

[in the rest of the article, Eppink pleads for the use of Nuclear energy, and an optimistic belief in Technical Development (with a mention of Lomborg) and some fulminating against emission-trading]

Personally, I think Eppink misses the point in the final part i translated. It's not a question of 'good' versus 'evil', but about 'reality' versus 'self-delusion' : science does not get attacked on the grounds that the result is unwanted.
Some creationists created an alternative universum with their own education, their own universities, their own filtered version of wikipedia with comforting lies (conservapedia) and their own creationist museum.

I have the feeling that, in a smaller extent, something similar is being done by free-market fundamentalists. That's not the world i choose for.

Bart & Bart
A couple of days after Eppink's piece published, a reply was written by Bart Martens (member of the Flemish parliament for the social-democratic party SP.a) & Bart Staes (member of the European Parliament for the ecological party Groen!).

In their reply , the two Barts also focus on some more things said by party leader JMDD, who clearly has denied scientific findings on more subjects (second-hand smoking, particulate matter, ...)

As a scientist, i can only hope in future the young party LDD still is, will grow into a more mature view on scientific reality.

The column of Tom Nagels
Eppink's article, encouraged Belgian author and columnist Tom Naegels to write a text (in Dutch) called A viking with a diploma

Naegels isn't adressing climate science but using the thought of Green-Greenland to play and take a trip through fantasy.

Yet in his text he does insert this fragment :

Nowhere [in literature] one can read that, at any given moment in time, Greenland really was Green. Or wait, actually you can read this, on obscure blogs sometimes people will make such claims.
But a respectable man like Eppink, having been a journalist, propagated by his party as being an 'intellectual' - a man who wants to become a member of the European Parliament, such a man wouldn't dare to use such sources, would he ? Not on a subject as important as climate change ?
That would equal a situation where the foreign-matters department of the De Standaard [newspaper] would get her analysis of the humanitarian tragedy in Eastern-Congo based on what's written on the blog of Getikt Rikske, 't Zat Flikske ("Crazy Ricky, the Drunk Cop", of course Naegels is just looking for the rhyme)

Without even writing anything about the subject of climate change Naegels managed to detect the point where most climate skepticism already awfully goes wrong : verifying if what you read is correct and if you are not just blindly repeating without verifying if what you read actually is right or not.

Arthur Rörsch's bizarre way of conducting science

Arthur Rörsch

Follow up to the previous blogpost which was dealing with a Labohm/Rörsch text published on three Dutch denier websites simultaniously

A Dutch blog called Sargasso also noticed the clear cherry-picking and demonstrates what happens if you prolongue the graph Labohm/Rörsch (L&R) use : blogger Steeph went to the NASA-GISS data set and instead of using L&R's ten year timespan he randomly added some extra data: 1,5 year at the beginning, one month extra at the end.

The result can be seen in this graph. Suddenly the temperature decline changed into an increase, and a fast one. Steeph correctly concludes that the chosen timespan by L&R strongly influences the result and that the authors carefully selected the data to get a drecreasing trend. Clearly the definition of a cherry-pick.

Steephs criticism resulted in this comment by Rörsch (my translation)

I think Sargasso presents statistical bullshit. Why, i will explain in future publications

I'm anxious to see what his explanation will be, but he already gives a clou in the comments section of his Klimatosoof article :

in my previous comment i already mentioned what i consider to be sherry pikking [presumably this is humor. J] : It's solemly considering a linear trend without considering other [sinusoïdal] curves.

I have the feeling Rörsch is so obsessed with sinusoïdal curves he fails to understand what the cherry-picking citicism he receives actually is about, which makes him both ignore the criticism and makes him adressing a strawman's argument instead. In the comments section of the Klimatosoof i copied Steeph's graph with the extended time span and the effect on the trend.

Rörsch's commented :

The graph presented by Jules clearly shows a linear trend (on the X-axis the years are missing, but we can understand which period is depicted).

What Rörsch said is painfully incorrect : in my comment i clearly mentioned the graph prolongued Labohm's famous graph a little bit. Rörsch must have missed that sentence. Above that I also clearly put a link to the original Sargasso-piece. Rörsch must have missed that link.

The result is Rörsch actually is confronted with a graph of which he doesn't know what timespan it is dealing with.

Which strangely enough doesn't stop him from commenting on it anyway :

I think no-one will deny this linear trend. It is a result of the recovery of the last ice-age, on which was superposed the one of the Little Ice Age in our Golden Age [in Dutch, the sentence is just as weird, i'm translating it as it is. The Dutch Golden Age roughly spans 17th century]

As said, the Sargasso-graph deals with the last 11 years. Rörsch's comment is adressing a totally different period and is ridiculously wrong.


Resumed, this is what you need to do to repeat what Rörsch has done :

1. see something [in casu : a graph] you don't know
2. do not read the explanation given to it
3. Don't let the fact you don't have a clou what the graph is about stop you from fabricating your own theory on it.
4. do not check whether that theory actually is correct [it isn't, we are not just into a recovery of the last ice-age]
5. do not check whether that theory actually adresses the topic in the first place...

Inadvertently, Rörsch has given a brilliant insight in the way he conducts science ...

Arthur Rörsch's bizarre ideas on cherry-picking

I know i've been absent from blogging for a while but my job, involving real science, still has priority.

Yet simply have to mention this post by Hans Labohm published on Theo Richels website Klimatosoof which presents a paper written by Prof. dr. ir. Arthur Rörsch (a 75 year old emeritus in biochemistry actually, but that's qualifications enough to be a prominent climate skeptic nowadays) in which he summarizes some of his objections towards climate science (my translation, my emphasis) :

Arthur Rörsch

Observations show that CO2-concentrations since the beginning of the century has risen some 5,5% while there was no worldwide temperature rise. There are even some indications since 2006 temperatures have been decreasing, and this trend will continue in the next decade.

The article on the Klimatosoof was written in responce to the Dutch PCCC-report.

PCCC stands for Platform, Communication on Climate Change and is a collaboration of several Dutch scientific research centres. Recently PCCC presented the brochure 'de staat van het klimaatonderzoek 2008' (Dutch only, the title means 'climate research roundup 2008')

Amusingly, given the quote above using a three year temperature trend, Rörsch (or Labohm ?) accuses PCCC of cherry-picking : he complains "PCCC presents a misleading graph" for the time period 1900-2008 which could make the people think earth has been warming as "it gives an impression of a continuous rise".

So, if i may believe the Klimatosoof article presenting the entire available data set that is available (1900-2008) is called "cherry-picking", while isolating 3 single years out of that very same dataset is called "science".

The PCCC-graph which gets attacked looks similar like this one from NASA:

Rörsch/Labohm, instead of using all those data in the graph ditch all data that doesn't fit their predesigned conclusion. Instead of using this 100 years-timescale they present a graph which looks amazingly familiar as it's Labohm's well known misleading graph of the past decade:

A. Rörsch has bewildering ideas on science.
Hans Labohm remains a fraud.


Actually Rörsch presents the graph in a context that CO2-levels in the atmosphere don't correlate all that much with temperature. I believe i linked to it before, but this post on More grumbine Science is a must read on the correlation between the two.

UPDATE : Do also read Rörsch' mind numbing post in the comments section of the article

Labohm. Again. Sigh.

Hans Labohm(start here) is fond of repeating the same meme over and over again. Long after it has been disproven. And long after there has been demonstrated that he knows and understands what he says is misleading.

August 23, 2008, on the libertarian website Vrijspreker, Labohm presented a graph showing "for the past decades, there's no correlation between CO2 and temperature"

As he got the remark he cherry-picked his data, Labohm wrote a follow-up article in which he still uses a graph with a misleading timescale (as earth litterally was a diifferent planet in a time there were no trees yet)


But finally he also presents this graph which is the one we need :



This image leaves no doubt that indeed there is a correlation between CO2 and temperature. And that because of its short time interval, the first graph Hans Labohm presented was misleading. Which of course could be undeliberately and by no means is a proof of dishonesty.


Yet, in the third edition of Jason Magazine (jg 33), Hans Labohm presents this graph

he 'explains' :there's no a single correlation between temperature & CO2 (...) there's not a single timescale showing a correlation between CO2-concentrations in the atmosphere and temperature.

Of course, as the third graph above (a graph he himself posted) already showed, there absolutely is a correlation.

In the next edition of the magazine, Dutch student Desi Van de Laar wrote a rebuttal to Hans' text. In which she posts a graph showing the correlation.

The graph looks a bit like this one :

Clearly, this is the second time Labohm has been shown his statement is false.


Hans wrote a rebuttal (jan 6, 2009) adressing Van de Laars rebuttal. A text he concludes with :

the last decade earth has been cooling, despite a CO2 rise. This presumably leads to the conclusion that CO2 isn't such an important factor in determing earth's temperature.

He present a graph to depict his words :

This is the second time he ignores the proof presented to him that his statement is false.

Back then, i did blog about it (posts he read), which means he's seen the evidence he's wrong no less than three times.


February 13, 2009 : Labohm writes a post on De Dagelijkse Standaard in which he writes :

The main thing is that since ten years earth has stopped warming while CO2-levels kept rising. This suggests there's not any causuality between CO2 and global warming (which isn't there any more anyway). Better than a thousand words, this graph shows what it's all about.

The graph hidden under the hyperlink is this one :



In the comments section, someone complains the time interval Labohm presents is way too short to be meaningful.

The same day Hans Labohm wrote this follow up post to adress this comment in which he answers :

Good point ! But no time scale will ever show a correlation between CO2 and Temperature. QED. P.ex. Look here

Of course, Hans' statement is wrong. And he knows very well that it is.


March 4, 2009 :Labohm publishes a post on De Dagelijkse Standaard which begins with :

(...) the temperature trend (which - i'll repeat it once more - shows no correlation with the level of atmospheric CO2) (...)

Once again Labohm is critisized by the readers of the site for his graph the commenters call 'misleading'. Hans replies by giving a link to this graph :

and this graph

So once again, Labohm HIMSELF presents the graph which clearly shows the correlation.

Interestingly, in this post he admits a ten year period is too short to support his claim that earth stopped warming a decade ago.


March 12, 2009 : Hans mailes around an article of his - published in the March-edition of the magazine Research Review.

Hans writes (remember, on DDS he admitted that a ten year temperature trend is meaningless) :

The illustrated graph shows declines in temperatures measured by surface and satellite thermometers over the last 10 years, while the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere still rises. It indicates that over this period there has been no warming, but cooling. It also shows that CO2 is not correlated with temperatures, which suggests that it has only little impact, if at all. The graph, which is based on the measurements of the official scientific institutions, is the best-kept secret of the ‘warmoholics’.

of course there's a graph (coming from the known unreliable source icecap from Joe d'aleo) to picturise Hans' words



i'm wondering which graph will accompany my next post on Hans Labohm...

UPDATE 1: March 13, 2009, in the comments section of De Dagelijkse Standaard, Labohm writes :

Not one timescale -millions of years, thousands, hundreds or tenths of years- shows a correlation between CO2 and temperatures.

UPDATE 2: March 17,2009 , Hans did it again in his post on De Dagelijkse Standaard :

Not one timescale -millions of years, thousands, hundreds or tenths of years- shows a correlation between CO2 and temperatures.

The graph behind the hyperlink is ...


Do notice he does NOT provide links for the other timescales.
Which is no surprise, as he has demonstrated himself that such graphs actually would disprove his statement.


UPDATE 3 : March 24, 2009, Hans Labohm did it again :

no timescale shows a correlation between CO2 ans temperature. The last ten years earth has been cooling while cO2-levels kept rising.

The illustration behind the hyperlink is this one :

UPDATE 4 : April 21, 2009, Hans Labohm presents a familiar graph :



UPDATE 5 :
i've stopped updating this post for half a year because i got bored, but allover this period Labohm has been using the very same "argument" over and over again.
Latest attempt to fool the audience : today, November 9, 2009, in this post on De Dagelijkse Standaard, accompanied by a graph we all know by now .
Labohm writes :

This graph illustrates (...) there's no correlation between CO2 & temperature, implying one can assumle there's no causality either.

UPDATE 6 :
November 16, 2009 In a guestlog on the Dutch NOS site, Hans Labohm writes :

The average temperature has been decreasing the past ten years, while CO2-levels int he atmosphere is still rising

This words are illustrated with this graph :



UPDATE 7 :
Last weekend, Labohm publised an article in the Dutch newspaper "Trouw". A prominent place in the article went to this graph :



UPDATE 8 :
December 14 2009
This page, by far, is the most visited one on my blog and as a result more and more people start asking Labohm why he keeps on using that misleading graph again and again.

Of course Hans never answers that question. But as he did get so much opposition on the NOS-weblog, he started trying other graphs that are equally misleading.

Labohm's posts belong to a series of a debate between him and real scientists. Bart Sprengers used the opportunity to write a post asking Labohm about his use of misleading graphs.

Here's what Labohm answered :

Bart asks : why did you show a graph showing temperatures in US, while the text was suggesting it would be about global temperatures ?Answer : it was graph that was easily available on the internet. But now i found another graph, showing a different picture. No correlation between cO2 and temperature !

I have a feeling this is not the last time seeing this new graph...

UPDATE 9 :

june 6, 2010

Once again i haven't been following Labohm but i just stumpled upon his presentation at the fourth international climate conference organised by the heavily Exxon-funded Heartland Institute. In his presentation, Labohm is showing the following graph to 'proof' there's no correlation between CO2 and temperature :

Conclusion
In his posts, Hans Labohm is presenting misleading facts, and given the chronology mentioned above, there's not doubt at all he isn't fully aware of the misleading nature of the facts he presents.

Hans Labohm is not wrong, Hans Labohm is a fraud.

Hans Labohm in De dagelijkse standaard.

In Holland a new website called De Dagelijkse Standaard was found to give a tribune to a couple of conservative writers to spread their worldview.

Of the contributors, best known in Belgium is Dutch columnist Derk Jan Eppink who recently announced to candidate for Lijst De Decker in the next European elections.

Another sounding name is Hans Labohm for whom the site has become his personal playground, with a daily post of his visions on climate science. I never took the trouble to comment on what Labohm wrote over there because it's simply too much too debunk and he's simply repeating the same things over and over again.

I couldn't resist though to give a few comments on the website (i know, i know, don't mock me) and once again stumbled onto something i couldn't believe.

Labohm made a post in which he's not saying much more than that S. Fred Singer wrote this text.

I replied (amongst other things) that S. Fred Singer received fundings from the industry.
Labohm tries to deny Singer received money saying:

Unproven. Made up. Slander.

The strange thing on this statement is that 3 monts earlier, on December 30, 2008 i received an email from Hans in which he admits Singer received money from Exxon.

Instead of denying Singer received fundings, in the mail he sent me Hans Labohm is drawing the card Singer didn't receive all that much money... So Labohm is perfectly aware Singer received fundings from the industry.

Could it be someone is making statements on DDS he knows to be untrue ?


UPDATE : Meanwhile on DDS, Hans Labohm replied to what i said. His two main points are :

• this has nothing to do with climate science. Even if it would be true -which is unknown to me (remember that not only he sent me a mail in which he admits to be aware Singer received money, but on DDS i reminded him of the existance of this mail - J) it is not relevant.
• "jules should not be allowed to post on De Dagelijkse Standaard any more"

The NIPCC rapport Labohm often cites was well funded: S. Fred Singer declared it was worth143.000 US $.

Hans Erren vs the people of Shishmaref

In his blog on the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant called klimaathype (i suppose this needs no translation), skeptic Hans Erren presents his views on Global Warming.

Erren's latest post is comparing the Dutch Wadden Sea island Vlieland with the Alaskan island Sarichef where the Inuït Village Shishmaref is located. The island received some attention in Holland because of the movie The Last Days of Shishmaref by director Jan Louter, which tells the story of the islanders who fear they'll have to move to the mainland as their island slowly gets swallowed by the sea.

The Wadden Islands (or Frisian Islands) including Vlieland, are a chain of islands in the North of Holland and continuïng in Germany until the border with Denmark.

Basically the islands are sandplates sticking out above sea level, and therefore the tide has great influence on their shorelines. Mankind has done efforts to decrease erosion in order to slow down natural processes, but of course the process itself cannot be fully halted.

At the erosion side, the islands shrink while at the other side progradation makes them grow. As a result the shorelines are ever moving and in Dutch we say the islands are "walking". Because of erosion, in 1736 on Vlieland an entire village (Westeynde) was swallowed by the sea.

Erren compares the present events at Sarichef, a small (7 km long) sandy island in Alaska, to what has happened to Vlieland in the past.

Sarichef island also knows a lot of erosion, to such an extent the islanders are worried their entire village might disappear in the nearby future as erosion is taking away a couple of metres of land every year.

There are several different natural causes for this erosion, yet some effects can be linked to global warming. The arctic area in recent times has known a fast increase in temperatures, causing the permafrost to melt, making the soil more vulnerable for erosion. Above that, increased temperatures result in less sea-ice, ice which serves as a natural storm surge.

The AAAS-website has a longer article on the subject : In Arctic Alaska, the Warming Climate Threatens an Ancient Culture


On the Volkskrantblog, Hans Erren writes (my translation) :

Hans Erren

Sarichef is a Wadden Island in Alaska, comparable to Vlieland. For the inhabitants from the village Shismaref the same fate is waiting as the inhabitants of Westeynde. They only just started living there and aren't used to walking islands, therefore they blame climate change.

That's why they don't want that the island to 'disappear in the sea". Is the Island disappearing ? Well, no. It's just moving a little bit. At the South-West side, there's a strong growth, just like on Vlieland.

Of course, even without AGW there'd be erosion on Sarichef, that much is true. But as mentioned above, global warming probably increases erosion. Yet even if AGW is a hoax, there are two very clear problems with Erren's words. Erren writes :

• They only just started living there and aren't used to walking islands

It's clear Erren wants to make his readers think the islanders simply aren't aware of natural processes on such islands. What he doesn't mention is the area has been inhabited for hundreds of years already. All that time, the 'walking-island-effect' has occured, and the inhabitants know the phenomena.

• Is the island disappearing ? Well, no, it's just moving a little bit. At the South West Side, there's a strong land-growth, just like on Vlieland.

in the comments section, Erren is asked for some more information and a source for his claim. His answer is nothing but an attempt to distract attention from the question :

All i can do is point out the similarity in geometry between Vlieland and Sarichef. For the Wadden Islands there's this map by Gerbrand Gaaff (...) Progradation at the South, Erosion at the North Side.

Clearly, he doesn't even get close to answering.

I spent an hour to find a source which supports Erren's statement but all i could find was info (p.ex. in Living with the coast of Alaska by Mason et al.) which says the island doesn't grow on the South-East as Erren states, but actually is lenghtening to the North-East

Meanwhile on the volkskrantblog, Erren again is asked for sources. Given the red herring in his first reply, I'm rather curious now what he's going to say.