On June 23, 1988, James Hansen testified in front of congress on the matter of global warming. He presented the following graph. 
The graph shows three different scenarios, differing in the amount of carbon dioxide projected to be emitted, something Hansen could not have known in advance.
The top line is the most extreme projection, if civilizations’ carbon use intensity went up significantly. The bottom line is what would happen if carbon intensity dropped significantly starting in the year 2000. The middle line is what would happen with business as usual.
The solid line represents the actual ongoing instrumental temperature record up to 1988.
Ten years after James Hansen’s testimony to congress, climate change denier extraordinaire Patrick Michaels appeared before it. He challenged James Hansen’s projections made in the above graphs.
This is what actually happened, Michaels claimed, and this is what Hansen said would happen. Then Michaels presented the following graph to congress, claiming it represented what Hansen said in 1988. See, said Michaels triumphantly, Hansen’s projections were way out of line.
Except that the graph that Michaels used represented Hansen’s projections only if carbon use increased significantly in the interim. It didn’t. In fact, carbon use in 1998 paralleled what Hansen had projected in the other two scenarios. If he wanted to be intellectually honest, those two were the projections that Michaels should have presented to congress.
The fact that he didn’t present them at all, in fact erased them, demonstrates Michaels to be far from intellectually honest.
So how good were Hansen’s projections in the other two scenarios? As you can see by the graph below, which is the same graph from 1988 updated with instrumental data to 1998, that Hansen’s projections, far from being wrong, were dead-on accurate.
Michaels deliberately misled, that is, lied to congress about Hansen’s work. His nose is so long, it enters a room two minutes before he does.
For your interest, here is Hansen’s diagram updated to 2005, still bulls-eyeing his original predictions.
If Patrick Michaels is the best the climate change deniers can muster to defend their cause, then their cause is intellectually bankrupt.
But we all knew that anyway, didn’t we?
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See http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptics/patMichaels.html
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/09/well-lookee-that.html
Father Theo's Blog 
Baa Humbug
February 2, 2012
This post is dated July 2011. So why is that last graph updated to 2005 only?
2005 was also an El Nino year.
Shame on you. You are supposed to be a man of God. A man of truth and honesty, yet you accuse others of dishonesty.
If you are interested in the truth, up to date graph is at the link.
If you are interested in protecting the environment, you shouldn’t be supporting a United Nations grab for power scam which diverts resources from real environmental problems.
And how does it sit with you that this scam will keep millions of poor in Africa from accessing cheap power which you and I are doing right now?
p.s. Climate change deniers?? Who denies that climate changes? And the insinuation that AGW sceptics are akin to holocoust deniers is despicable especially coming from a man of the cloth. Shame on you father. I hope you will reflect at your next prayer.
Baa Humbug
February 2, 2012
I just noticed your blogroll. All links to proponents of AGW and none to alternate views.
So you don’t want your followers to hear alternate views and make up their own minds? Do you think you’re the only intelligent one who can discern good information from bad? Do you believe your flock is that stupid. that incapable?
I’m done, but you need to take a good hard look at yourself.
fathertheo
February 2, 2012
There are no legitimate “alternate views” of science. Science is science, and the science of climate change is merely physics.
You and I don’t have the background to set ourselves up to contradict scientists. Climate scientists and those producing or analyzing the primary data are the only relevant voices in this discussion, and the referees are in the peer-review process of the professional journals where the scientists present their work. That process, a public process, has produced the consensus view which has been carefully examined and brought together in the IPCC reports.
Nobody is conspiring, Mr. Humbug, except maybe the oil and petrochemical industry–and they are conspiring to delude you into precisely the views you have stated here. The money trail is well-documented.
Oh, and congratulations for being their pawn.
fathertheo
February 2, 2012
I went to your graph. Bully for you. You have your own graph.
This story is about a deliberate misrepresentation of another person’s data. It is not about the evidence for climate change, which you can find by following the link over to the side to the IPCC site.
Go argue with the 97% of climate scientists who adhere to the same views as James Hansen. Or maybe contact Patrick Michaels and try influencing him not to lie and deliberately misrepresent the science.
I will continue to follow up the science of climate change and the humbug of climate change denial. That’s how I keep a clear conscience. That’s how I look my children in the eye about the planet I am leaving them.
I am, by the way, not a “man of the cloth,” nor do I pretend to be.