http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past
By Charles Onians
Monday, 20 March 2000
Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.
Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.
Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.
The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and December brought only moderate snowfall in the South-east. It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years: in the south of England, for instance, from 1970 to 1995 snow and sleet fell for an average of 3.7 days, while from 1988 to 1995 the average was 0.7 days. London's last substantial snowfall was in February 1991...
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
More Evidence CO2 Not Culprit
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
More evidence CO2 not culprit
By Michael Asten From: The Australian
THE Copenhagen climate change summit closed two weeks ago in confusion, disagreement and, for some, disillusionment. When the political process shows such a lack of unanimity, it is pertinent to ask whether the science behind the politics is as settled as some participants maintain.
Earlier this month (The Australian, December 9) I commented on recently published results showing huge swings in atmospheric carbon dioxide, both up and down, at a time of global cooling 33.6 million years ago.
Paul Pearson and co-authors in a letter (The Weekend Australian, December 11) took exception to my use of their data and claimed I misrepresented their research, a claim I reject since I quoted their data (the veracity of which they do not contest) but offered an alternative hypothesis, namely that the present global warming theory (which was not the subject of their study) is inconsistent with the CO2-temperature variations of a past age.
Some senior scientists, who are adherents of orthodox global warming theory, do not like authors publishing data that can be used to argue against orthodoxy, a point made by unrelated authors with startling clarity in the Climategate leaked emails from the University of East Anglia.
In the scientific method, however, re-examination of data and formulation of alternative hypotheses is the essence of scientific debate. In any case, the debate on the link between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature will continue since it is not dependent on a single result.
Another example is a study by Richard Zeebe and colleagues, published in Nature Geoscience, of a release of CO2 and an increase in temperature 55 million years ago. At this time there was an increase in global temperature of between 5C and 9C, from a temperature regime slightly warmer than today’s (that I will call moderate Earth) to greenhouse temperatures. It can be argued this example may have a message for humanity because the rate of release of CO2 into the atmosphere at the time of this warming was of a similar order to the rate of anthropogenic release today. However, the analogy turns out to be incomplete when the data is compared with present estimates of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2, and Zeebe and his colleagues conclude that the large temperature increase cannot be explained by our existing understanding of CO2 temperature linkage. Indeed, they write, “our results imply a fundamental gap in our understanding of the amplitude of global warming associated with large and abrupt climate perturbations. This gap needs to be filled to confidently predict future climate change."...
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
More evidence CO2 not culprit
By Michael Asten From: The Australian
THE Copenhagen climate change summit closed two weeks ago in confusion, disagreement and, for some, disillusionment. When the political process shows such a lack of unanimity, it is pertinent to ask whether the science behind the politics is as settled as some participants maintain.
Earlier this month (The Australian, December 9) I commented on recently published results showing huge swings in atmospheric carbon dioxide, both up and down, at a time of global cooling 33.6 million years ago.
Paul Pearson and co-authors in a letter (The Weekend Australian, December 11) took exception to my use of their data and claimed I misrepresented their research, a claim I reject since I quoted their data (the veracity of which they do not contest) but offered an alternative hypothesis, namely that the present global warming theory (which was not the subject of their study) is inconsistent with the CO2-temperature variations of a past age.
Some senior scientists, who are adherents of orthodox global warming theory, do not like authors publishing data that can be used to argue against orthodoxy, a point made by unrelated authors with startling clarity in the Climategate leaked emails from the University of East Anglia.
In the scientific method, however, re-examination of data and formulation of alternative hypotheses is the essence of scientific debate. In any case, the debate on the link between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature will continue since it is not dependent on a single result.
Another example is a study by Richard Zeebe and colleagues, published in Nature Geoscience, of a release of CO2 and an increase in temperature 55 million years ago. At this time there was an increase in global temperature of between 5C and 9C, from a temperature regime slightly warmer than today’s (that I will call moderate Earth) to greenhouse temperatures. It can be argued this example may have a message for humanity because the rate of release of CO2 into the atmosphere at the time of this warming was of a similar order to the rate of anthropogenic release today. However, the analogy turns out to be incomplete when the data is compared with present estimates of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2, and Zeebe and his colleagues conclude that the large temperature increase cannot be explained by our existing understanding of CO2 temperature linkage. Indeed, they write, “our results imply a fundamental gap in our understanding of the amplitude of global warming associated with large and abrupt climate perturbations. This gap needs to be filled to confidently predict future climate change."...
Monday, December 28, 2009
Climate Crusaders Conned in Copenhagen
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/conned-in-copenhagen.pdf
Climate Crusaders Conned in Copenhagen.”
Media Release
28th December 2009
A Statement by Mr Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, Australia.
The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the Australian Parliament to repudiate the
Copenhagen giveaways promised by PM Rudd to the failed states of Africa and the welfare
beggars of the islands.
The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that the three Climate Crusaders,
Obama, Brown and Rudd, had been comprehensively conned in Copenhagen by African
mendicants and fakers from the islands.
“They have agreed to hand over mega-bucks of our money (anywhere from $5 billion to
$100 billion) as compensation for alleged damage caused by our production of carbon
dioxide – the Africans citing climate damage and the islanders claiming rising sea levels.
“Even a cursory examination of the facts would prove that both of these claims are
fraudulent.
“There is no evidence that carbon dioxide has caused global warming, or causes damage to
any aspect of life on earth. The vast majority of earth’s warming originates from the sun, and
fluctuations there are the major cause of climate changes.
“In addition, careful recent surveys show no unusual rising of sea levels.
“Moreover, all plant and animal life on earth benefit from industry’s production of carbon
dioxide. Crops, grasses, forests and fruit trees are growing more profusely, the planet is
becoming greener, and the oceans can produce more algae, more plankton and more life -
all because of this free bounty of aerial plant food released whenever carbon fuels are burnt...
Climate Crusaders Conned in Copenhagen.”
Media Release
28th December 2009
A Statement by Mr Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, Australia.
The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the Australian Parliament to repudiate the
Copenhagen giveaways promised by PM Rudd to the failed states of Africa and the welfare
beggars of the islands.
The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that the three Climate Crusaders,
Obama, Brown and Rudd, had been comprehensively conned in Copenhagen by African
mendicants and fakers from the islands.
“They have agreed to hand over mega-bucks of our money (anywhere from $5 billion to
$100 billion) as compensation for alleged damage caused by our production of carbon
dioxide – the Africans citing climate damage and the islanders claiming rising sea levels.
“Even a cursory examination of the facts would prove that both of these claims are
fraudulent.
“There is no evidence that carbon dioxide has caused global warming, or causes damage to
any aspect of life on earth. The vast majority of earth’s warming originates from the sun, and
fluctuations there are the major cause of climate changes.
“In addition, careful recent surveys show no unusual rising of sea levels.
“Moreover, all plant and animal life on earth benefit from industry’s production of carbon
dioxide. Crops, grasses, forests and fruit trees are growing more profusely, the planet is
becoming greener, and the oceans can produce more algae, more plankton and more life -
all because of this free bounty of aerial plant food released whenever carbon fuels are burnt...
Scientific American’s Climate Lies
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate
Dec 28, 2009
Scientific American’s Climate Lies
By Lord Christopher Monckton
In December 2009, Scientific American, once a respected popular-science journal and now a pulp science-fiction picture comic, viciously attacked US Senator James Inhofe because he had proclaimed 2009 to be the Year of the Skeptic. By skepticism, he meant “standing up and exposing the science, the costs and the hysteria behind global warming alarmism”.
Venomously, Science Fiction American’s editorial comment continued: “Within the community of scientists and others concerned about anthropogenic climate change, those whom Inhofe calls skeptics are more commonly termed contrarians, naysayers and denialists.” Yah-Boo! This name-calling marks the depth of unscientific desperation to which the proponents of the “global warming” nonsense have now sunk.
Unscientific American pompously continued: “Not everyone who questions climate change science fits that description, of course - some people are genuinely unaware of the facts or honestly disagree about their interpretation. What distinguishes the true naysayers is an unwavering dedication to denying the need for action on the problem, often with weak and long-disproved arguments about supposed weaknesses in the science behind global warming.”
Politicized American, following a host of similarly left-leaning bodies such as the Royal Society and the unspeakable BBC, proceeded to parody and then condemn the now-overwhelming scientific case against the notion that CO2 is the principal driver of the past half-century’s “global warming” by setting up and then knocking down seven feeble straw men - childish, dishonest simulacra of the true scientific arguments against “global warming” hysteria. It described its straw men as “only a partial list of the contrarians’ bad arguments”. Yah-Boo!
In this introduction, we have made some rude remarks about Scientific American. Did those remarks grate as you read them? If so, you will know what it feels like when, day after day, those scientists whose diligent research has shown the “global warming” scare to be nonsense have to put up with invective and vilification of the sort that Scientific American doles out in its poisonous article.
From here on, therefore, we shall confine ourselves solely to scientific argument, with no name-calling. Scientific American would do well to learn from this approach...
Dec 28, 2009
Scientific American’s Climate Lies
By Lord Christopher Monckton
In December 2009, Scientific American, once a respected popular-science journal and now a pulp science-fiction picture comic, viciously attacked US Senator James Inhofe because he had proclaimed 2009 to be the Year of the Skeptic. By skepticism, he meant “standing up and exposing the science, the costs and the hysteria behind global warming alarmism”.
Venomously, Science Fiction American’s editorial comment continued: “Within the community of scientists and others concerned about anthropogenic climate change, those whom Inhofe calls skeptics are more commonly termed contrarians, naysayers and denialists.” Yah-Boo! This name-calling marks the depth of unscientific desperation to which the proponents of the “global warming” nonsense have now sunk.
Unscientific American pompously continued: “Not everyone who questions climate change science fits that description, of course - some people are genuinely unaware of the facts or honestly disagree about their interpretation. What distinguishes the true naysayers is an unwavering dedication to denying the need for action on the problem, often with weak and long-disproved arguments about supposed weaknesses in the science behind global warming.”
Politicized American, following a host of similarly left-leaning bodies such as the Royal Society and the unspeakable BBC, proceeded to parody and then condemn the now-overwhelming scientific case against the notion that CO2 is the principal driver of the past half-century’s “global warming” by setting up and then knocking down seven feeble straw men - childish, dishonest simulacra of the true scientific arguments against “global warming” hysteria. It described its straw men as “only a partial list of the contrarians’ bad arguments”. Yah-Boo!
In this introduction, we have made some rude remarks about Scientific American. Did those remarks grate as you read them? If so, you will know what it feels like when, day after day, those scientists whose diligent research has shown the “global warming” scare to be nonsense have to put up with invective and vilification of the sort that Scientific American doles out in its poisonous article.
From here on, therefore, we shall confine ourselves solely to scientific argument, with no name-calling. Scientific American would do well to learn from this approach...
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Sky is Falling the Sky is Falling!
Pump the kids full of propaganda and they will follow you anywhere.
http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/22/build-a-climate-scare-why-you-should-boycott-build-a-bear/
http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/22/build-a-climate-scare-why-you-should-boycott-build-a-bear/
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Major questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog
By Christopher Booker and Richard North, UK Telegraph
No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007.
Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the worlds top climate scientist"), as a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics he has no qualifications in climate science at all.
What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.
These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainable technologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year...
By Christopher Booker and Richard North, UK Telegraph
No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007.
Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the worlds top climate scientist"), as a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics he has no qualifications in climate science at all.
What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.
These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainable technologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year...
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
"Inconvenient Questions”
http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/11/un-security-stops-journalists-questions-about-climategate/#more-44722
A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him “inconvenient questions” during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.
Professor Stephen Schneider’s assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.
McAleer, a veteran journalist and film maker, has recently made a documentary “Not Evil Just Wrong’ which takes a sceptical look at the science and politics behind Global Warming concerns.
He asked Professor Schneider about his opinions on Climategate – where leaked emails have revealed that a senior British professor deleted data and encouraged colleagues to do likewise if it contradicted their belief in Global Warming.
Professor Phil Jones, the head of Britain’s Climate Research Unit, has temporarily stood down pending an investigation into the scandal.
Professor Schneider, who is a senior member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said he would not comment on emails that may have been incomplete or edited.
During some testy exchanges with McAleer, UN officials and Professor Schneider’s assistants twice tried to cut short McAleer’s question.
However as the press conference drew to a close Professor Schneider’s assistant called armed UN security guards to the room. They held McAleer and aggressively ordered cameraman Ian Foster to stop filming. The guard threatened to take away the camera and expel the film crew from the conference if they did not obey his instructions to stop filming Professor Schneider.
The guard demanded to look at the film crews press credentials and refused to allow them to film until Professor Schneider left the room.
McAleer said he was disappointed by Professor Schneider’s behaviour.
“It was a press conference. Climategate is a major story – it goes to the heart of the Global Warming debate by calling into question the scientific data and the integrity of many scientists involved.”
“These questions should be answered. The attempts by UN officials and Professor Schneider’s assistant to remove my microphone were hamfisted but events took a more sinister turn when they called an armed UN security officer to silence a journalist.”
Two officers corralled the film crew and one officer can be seen on tape threatening the cameraman. The Guard can also be heard warning that if the crew did not stop filming their would seize the equipment and the journalists expelled from the conference.
McAleer says he has made an official complaint tabout the incident.
“I have met Mr Christopher Ankerson the UN’s head of security for the conference and he has confirmed it was Professor Schneider’s staff who asked the security guards to come corral us at the press conference. Mr Ankerson could not say what grounds the security guard had for ordering us to stop filming.”
“This is a blatant attempt to stop journalists doing journalism and asking hard questions. It is not the job of armed UN security officers to stop legitimate journalists asking legitimate questions of senior members of the UN’s IPCC.”
Professor Schneider was interviewed for McAleer’s “Not Evil Just Wrong” documentary but lawyers later wrote to McAleer saying he was withdrawing permission for the interview to be used.
McAleer, who is from Ireland, has gained quite a reputation for asking difficult questions of those who have been promoting the idea of man-made Global Warming.
His microphone was cut off after he asked former vice-president Al Gore about the British court case which found that An Inconvenient Truth had a nine significant errors and exaggerations. Almost 500,000 people have watched the incident on youtube.
A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him “inconvenient questions” during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.
Professor Stephen Schneider’s assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.
McAleer, a veteran journalist and film maker, has recently made a documentary “Not Evil Just Wrong’ which takes a sceptical look at the science and politics behind Global Warming concerns.
He asked Professor Schneider about his opinions on Climategate – where leaked emails have revealed that a senior British professor deleted data and encouraged colleagues to do likewise if it contradicted their belief in Global Warming.
Professor Phil Jones, the head of Britain’s Climate Research Unit, has temporarily stood down pending an investigation into the scandal.
Professor Schneider, who is a senior member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said he would not comment on emails that may have been incomplete or edited.
During some testy exchanges with McAleer, UN officials and Professor Schneider’s assistants twice tried to cut short McAleer’s question.
However as the press conference drew to a close Professor Schneider’s assistant called armed UN security guards to the room. They held McAleer and aggressively ordered cameraman Ian Foster to stop filming. The guard threatened to take away the camera and expel the film crew from the conference if they did not obey his instructions to stop filming Professor Schneider.
The guard demanded to look at the film crews press credentials and refused to allow them to film until Professor Schneider left the room.
McAleer said he was disappointed by Professor Schneider’s behaviour.
“It was a press conference. Climategate is a major story – it goes to the heart of the Global Warming debate by calling into question the scientific data and the integrity of many scientists involved.”
“These questions should be answered. The attempts by UN officials and Professor Schneider’s assistant to remove my microphone were hamfisted but events took a more sinister turn when they called an armed UN security officer to silence a journalist.”
Two officers corralled the film crew and one officer can be seen on tape threatening the cameraman. The Guard can also be heard warning that if the crew did not stop filming their would seize the equipment and the journalists expelled from the conference.
McAleer says he has made an official complaint tabout the incident.
“I have met Mr Christopher Ankerson the UN’s head of security for the conference and he has confirmed it was Professor Schneider’s staff who asked the security guards to come corral us at the press conference. Mr Ankerson could not say what grounds the security guard had for ordering us to stop filming.”
“This is a blatant attempt to stop journalists doing journalism and asking hard questions. It is not the job of armed UN security officers to stop legitimate journalists asking legitimate questions of senior members of the UN’s IPCC.”
Professor Schneider was interviewed for McAleer’s “Not Evil Just Wrong” documentary but lawyers later wrote to McAleer saying he was withdrawing permission for the interview to be used.
McAleer, who is from Ireland, has gained quite a reputation for asking difficult questions of those who have been promoting the idea of man-made Global Warming.
His microphone was cut off after he asked former vice-president Al Gore about the British court case which found that An Inconvenient Truth had a nine significant errors and exaggerations. Almost 500,000 people have watched the incident on youtube.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Copenhagen Hypocrites
http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/12/10/copenhagen-hypocrites/
December 10, 2009 11:04 AM EST by John Stossel
At the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, world leaders -- and some celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio -- are talking about how to force everyone to cut back their carbon emissions. It's to save the world, says the repulsively alarmist opening video of the conference.
Of course, while the bureaucrats and celebs talk about how everyone must sacrifice, they live the not-so-"carbon neutral" high life:
... [T]he total number of limos in Copenhagen [this] week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone …ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfill the demand…We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."
All those limousines require lots of fossil fuels.
The conference attendees also use a lot of evil jet fuel:
The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.
Private jet travel and gas-guzzling limousines are vilified by the high priests of the Global Warming Church, yet they gladly travel that way.
According to the organizers, the eleven-day conference, including the participants' travel, will create a total of 41,000 tonnes of "carbon dioxide equivalent", equal to the amount produced over the same period by a city the size of [British city] Middlesbrough.... [T]he politicians will bandy around grandiose targets of 80-per-cent-plus [carbon cuts] by 2050, by which time few of the leaders at Copenhagen will even be alive, let alone still in office.
They want to restructure civilization without paying the price for it.
December 10, 2009 11:04 AM EST by John Stossel
At the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, world leaders -- and some celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio -- are talking about how to force everyone to cut back their carbon emissions. It's to save the world, says the repulsively alarmist opening video of the conference.
Of course, while the bureaucrats and celebs talk about how everyone must sacrifice, they live the not-so-"carbon neutral" high life:
... [T]he total number of limos in Copenhagen [this] week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone …ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfill the demand…We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."
All those limousines require lots of fossil fuels.
The conference attendees also use a lot of evil jet fuel:
The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.
Private jet travel and gas-guzzling limousines are vilified by the high priests of the Global Warming Church, yet they gladly travel that way.
According to the organizers, the eleven-day conference, including the participants' travel, will create a total of 41,000 tonnes of "carbon dioxide equivalent", equal to the amount produced over the same period by a city the size of [British city] Middlesbrough.... [T]he politicians will bandy around grandiose targets of 80-per-cent-plus [carbon cuts] by 2050, by which time few of the leaders at Copenhagen will even be alive, let alone still in office.
They want to restructure civilization without paying the price for it.
Forget Carbon, Copehagen Scientists Find New Target to Spend Our Money on - Nitrogen!
Looks like this is the way the WarmMongers are going to leave the so called Anthropomorfic Warming and sidestep to the next "Big Crisis".
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Forget Carbon, Copehagen Scientists Find New Target to Spend Our Money on - Nitrogen!
An international group of scientists say there is an immediate need for a global assessment of the nitrogen cycle and its impact on climate.
On a planetary scale, human activities, especially fertiliser application, have more than doubled the amount of reactive nitrogen in circulation on land. This massive alteration of the nitrogen cycle affects climate, food security, energy security, human health and ecosystem health. The long-term consequences of these changes are yet to be fully realised, but the human impact on the nitrogen cycle has so far been largely missed in international environmental assessments.
Nitrogen’s role in climate change will be highlighted at an event on 7 December at the COP-15 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Event organisers will be calling for a new assessment of nitrogen and climate, which will identify innovative nitrogen management strategies for global climate change mitigation and associated co-benefits to society.
Dr Cheryl Palm, the chair of the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI), which is organising the event, said “Nitrogen and climate interactions are not yet adequately included in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment process. There is an urgent need to assess the possibilities of nitrogen management for climate abatement and at the same time increase food security, while minimising environmental and human health impacts.”
Dr Palm added, “We believe that in tackling nitrogen new opportunities for climate abatement will be created.”
Professor Jan Willem Erisman from the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, who will speak at the event said: “An internationally-coordinated global nitrogen assessment is urgently required. A special report on nitrogen and climate is the natural first step.”
Kilaparti Ramakrishna, Senior Advisor on Environmental Law and Conventions at UNEP who will give the opening address at the side event said, “The nitrogen cycle is changing faster than that of any other element. In addition, the effects of reactive nitrogen are not limited to a single medium. A single molecule of reactive nitrogen may transition through many forms—ammonia, nitrogen oxide, nitric acid, nitrate and organic nitrogen—and may successively lead to a number of environmental, health and social impacts, including contributing to higher levels of ozone in the lower atmosphere. Over the last decade a number of global, regional and national initiatives have identified and addressed the issue of nutrient enrichment to the coastal zone. However, programmes are dispersed and fragmented and there is no single place to go for an overview of available information tools and mechanisms.”
Professor Sybil Seitzinger, Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme said, “We have changed the complexity of the nitrogen cycle profoundly and are unaware of all the implications. In the meantime, policies that affect the nitrogen cycle are often made in isolation of the range of their impacts. This is in part because policies are made in departments/ministries with responsibility for only certain sectors (e.g., air, agriculture, etc.). Furthermore, the scientific community does not yet have an integrated understanding of the multiple impacts and feedbacks of changes in the nitorgen cycle, or the interconnections with other cycles, like carbon. An integrated global nitrogen assessment is needed as soon as possible. This will support the development of tools for policy makers to understand the multiple implications of their decision.”
The INI team believes that it is essential to untangle the complexity of the nitrogen and carbon cycle, identify the advantages of nitrogen management for climate abatement and investigates the costs and barriers to be overcome. Such an assessment needs to distinguish between developed areas where there is already an excess of nitrogen and the developing parts of the world where nitrogen management can help increase food security. Improved Nitrogen management will help limit fertilizer use, increase its efficiency and increase carbon sequestration in soils, decrease N2O emissions, while limiting other environmental and human health impacts.
The side event “Options for Including Nitrogen Management in Climate Policy Development” will be held in the US centre (Hall C5) from 6pm local time. The event will be followed by a networking reception supported by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), United Kingdom The organisers of the side event are the INI, CEH, the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning and Environment (VROM) of The Netherlands, the United Nations Environment Programme—Global Partnership on Nutrient Management (UNEP/GPNM), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, SCOPE, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, COST and the European Science Foundation Nitrogen in Europe Research Networking Programme (NinE-ESF).
Having been forced into some recognition of the fact that CO2 is not the demon as originally proposed, the social set have now found a second drum to beat so that as the demonization of CO2 fades, there will still be a “Problem” to solve! And considering it comprises 78% of our atmosphere versus just 0.038% for CO2, they have a bigger target. However man’s percentage impact is even smaller than with CO2. H/t JN
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Forget Carbon, Copehagen Scientists Find New Target to Spend Our Money on - Nitrogen!
An international group of scientists say there is an immediate need for a global assessment of the nitrogen cycle and its impact on climate.
On a planetary scale, human activities, especially fertiliser application, have more than doubled the amount of reactive nitrogen in circulation on land. This massive alteration of the nitrogen cycle affects climate, food security, energy security, human health and ecosystem health. The long-term consequences of these changes are yet to be fully realised, but the human impact on the nitrogen cycle has so far been largely missed in international environmental assessments.
Nitrogen’s role in climate change will be highlighted at an event on 7 December at the COP-15 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Event organisers will be calling for a new assessment of nitrogen and climate, which will identify innovative nitrogen management strategies for global climate change mitigation and associated co-benefits to society.
Dr Cheryl Palm, the chair of the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI), which is organising the event, said “Nitrogen and climate interactions are not yet adequately included in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment process. There is an urgent need to assess the possibilities of nitrogen management for climate abatement and at the same time increase food security, while minimising environmental and human health impacts.”
Dr Palm added, “We believe that in tackling nitrogen new opportunities for climate abatement will be created.”
Professor Jan Willem Erisman from the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, who will speak at the event said: “An internationally-coordinated global nitrogen assessment is urgently required. A special report on nitrogen and climate is the natural first step.”
Kilaparti Ramakrishna, Senior Advisor on Environmental Law and Conventions at UNEP who will give the opening address at the side event said, “The nitrogen cycle is changing faster than that of any other element. In addition, the effects of reactive nitrogen are not limited to a single medium. A single molecule of reactive nitrogen may transition through many forms—ammonia, nitrogen oxide, nitric acid, nitrate and organic nitrogen—and may successively lead to a number of environmental, health and social impacts, including contributing to higher levels of ozone in the lower atmosphere. Over the last decade a number of global, regional and national initiatives have identified and addressed the issue of nutrient enrichment to the coastal zone. However, programmes are dispersed and fragmented and there is no single place to go for an overview of available information tools and mechanisms.”
Professor Sybil Seitzinger, Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme said, “We have changed the complexity of the nitrogen cycle profoundly and are unaware of all the implications. In the meantime, policies that affect the nitrogen cycle are often made in isolation of the range of their impacts. This is in part because policies are made in departments/ministries with responsibility for only certain sectors (e.g., air, agriculture, etc.). Furthermore, the scientific community does not yet have an integrated understanding of the multiple impacts and feedbacks of changes in the nitorgen cycle, or the interconnections with other cycles, like carbon. An integrated global nitrogen assessment is needed as soon as possible. This will support the development of tools for policy makers to understand the multiple implications of their decision.”
The INI team believes that it is essential to untangle the complexity of the nitrogen and carbon cycle, identify the advantages of nitrogen management for climate abatement and investigates the costs and barriers to be overcome. Such an assessment needs to distinguish between developed areas where there is already an excess of nitrogen and the developing parts of the world where nitrogen management can help increase food security. Improved Nitrogen management will help limit fertilizer use, increase its efficiency and increase carbon sequestration in soils, decrease N2O emissions, while limiting other environmental and human health impacts.
The side event “Options for Including Nitrogen Management in Climate Policy Development” will be held in the US centre (Hall C5) from 6pm local time. The event will be followed by a networking reception supported by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), United Kingdom The organisers of the side event are the INI, CEH, the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning and Environment (VROM) of The Netherlands, the United Nations Environment Programme—Global Partnership on Nutrient Management (UNEP/GPNM), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, SCOPE, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, COST and the European Science Foundation Nitrogen in Europe Research Networking Programme (NinE-ESF).
Having been forced into some recognition of the fact that CO2 is not the demon as originally proposed, the social set have now found a second drum to beat so that as the demonization of CO2 fades, there will still be a “Problem” to solve! And considering it comprises 78% of our atmosphere versus just 0.038% for CO2, they have a bigger target. However man’s percentage impact is even smaller than with CO2. H/t JN
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Climategate: Gore falsifies the record
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/climategate_gore_falsifies_the_record
Andrew Bolt
Wednesday, December 09, 2009 at 12:02am
Al Gore has studied the Climategate emails with his typically rigorous eye and dismissed them as mere piffle:
Q: How damaging to your argument was the disclosure of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University?
A: To paraphrase Shakespeare, it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus.
And in case you think that was a mere slip of the tongue:
Q: There is a sense in these e-mails, though, that data was hidden and hoarded, which is the opposite of the case you make [in your book] about having an open and fair debate.
A: I think it’s been taken wildly out of context. The discussion you’re referring to was about two papers that two of these scientists felt shouldn’t be accepted as part of the IPCC report. Both of them, in fact, were included, referenced, and discussed. So an e-mail exchange more than 10 years ago including somebody’s opinion that a particular study isn’t any good is one thing, but the fact that the study ended up being included and discussed anyway is a more powerful comment on what the result of the scientific process really is.
In fact, thrice denied:
These people are examining what they can or should do to deal with the P.R. dimensions of this, but where the scientific consensus is concerned, it’s completely unchanged. What we’re seeing is a set of changes worldwide that just make this discussion over 10-year-old e-mails kind of silly.
In fact, as Watts Up With That shows, one Climategate email was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on November 12 - just a month ago. The emails which have Tom Wigley seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year. Phil Jones’ infamous email urging other Climategate scientists to delete emails is from last year.
How closely did Gore read these emails? Did he actually read any at all? Was he lying or just terribly mistaken? What else has he got wrong?...
Andrew Bolt
Wednesday, December 09, 2009 at 12:02am
Al Gore has studied the Climategate emails with his typically rigorous eye and dismissed them as mere piffle:
Q: How damaging to your argument was the disclosure of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University?
A: To paraphrase Shakespeare, it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus.
And in case you think that was a mere slip of the tongue:
Q: There is a sense in these e-mails, though, that data was hidden and hoarded, which is the opposite of the case you make [in your book] about having an open and fair debate.
A: I think it’s been taken wildly out of context. The discussion you’re referring to was about two papers that two of these scientists felt shouldn’t be accepted as part of the IPCC report. Both of them, in fact, were included, referenced, and discussed. So an e-mail exchange more than 10 years ago including somebody’s opinion that a particular study isn’t any good is one thing, but the fact that the study ended up being included and discussed anyway is a more powerful comment on what the result of the scientific process really is.
In fact, thrice denied:
These people are examining what they can or should do to deal with the P.R. dimensions of this, but where the scientific consensus is concerned, it’s completely unchanged. What we’re seeing is a set of changes worldwide that just make this discussion over 10-year-old e-mails kind of silly.
In fact, as Watts Up With That shows, one Climategate email was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on November 12 - just a month ago. The emails which have Tom Wigley seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year. Phil Jones’ infamous email urging other Climategate scientists to delete emails is from last year.
How closely did Gore read these emails? Did he actually read any at all? Was he lying or just terribly mistaken? What else has he got wrong?...
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Oppenheimer, LOL!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/mcintyre-on-cnn/
Oppenheimer also doesn't tell you that scientists use other scientists data (with their permission). So bad data from one institution can cause many "bad reports".
Oppenheimer also doesn't tell you that scientists use other scientists data (with their permission). So bad data from one institution can cause many "bad reports".
The Fiction Of Climate Science
http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/climate-science-gore-intelligent-technology-sutton.html
Gary Sutton, 12.04.09, 10:00 AM EST
Why the climatologists get it wrong.
Many of you are too young to remember, but in 1975 our government pushed "the coming ice age."
Random House dutifully printed "THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY … coming of the New Ice Age." This may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."
OK, you say, that's media. But what did our rational scientists say?
In 1974, the National Science Board announced: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age."
You can't blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed's mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today's scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.
In 2002 I stood in a room of the Smithsonian. One entire wall charted the cooling of our globe over the last 60 million years. This was no straight line. The curve had two steep dips followed by leveling. There were no significant warming periods. Smithsonian scientists inscribed it across some 20 feet of plaster, with timelines.
Last year, I went back. That fresco is painted over. The same curve hides behind smoked glass, shrunk to three feet but showing the same cooling trend. Hey, why should the Smithsonian put its tax-free status at risk? If the politicians decide to whip up public fear in a different direction, get with it, oh ye subsidized servants. Downplay that embarrassing old chart and maybe nobody will notice.
Sorry, I noticed.
It's the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line.
Al Gore thought he might ride his global warming crusade back toward the White House. If you saw his movie, which opened showing cattle on his farm, you start to understand how shallow this is. The United Nations says that cattle, farting and belching methane, create more global warming than all the SUVs in the world. Even more laughably, Al and his camera crew flew first class for that film, consuming 50% more jet fuel per seat-mile than coach fliers, while his Tennessee mansion sucks as much carbon as 20 average homes.
His PR folks say he's "carbon neutral" due to some trades. I'm unsure of how that works, but, maybe there's a tribe in the Sudan that cannot have a campfire for the next hundred years to cover Al's energy gluttony. I'm just not sophisticated enough to know how that stuff works. But I do understand he flies a private jet when the camera crew is gone.
The fall of Saigon in the '70s may have distracted the shrill pronouncements about the imminent ice age. Science's prediction of "A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age," came from its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the "global cooling" in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.
That armadillo caveat seems reminiscent of today's tales of polar bears drowning due to glaciers disappearing.
While scientists march to the drumbeat of grant money, at least trees don't lie. Their growth rings show what's happened no matter which philosophy is in power. Tree rings show a mini ice age in Europe about the time Stradivarius crafted his violins. Chilled Alpine Spruce gave him tighter wood so the instruments sang with a new purity. But England had to give up the wines that the Romans cultivated while our globe cooled, switching from grapes to colder weather grains and learning to take comfort with beer, whisky and ales.
Yet many centuries earlier, during a global warming, Greenland was green. And so it stayed and was settled by Vikings for generations until global cooling came along. Leif Ericsson even made it to Newfoundland. His shallow draft boats, perfect for sailing and rowing up rivers to conquer villages, wouldn't have stood a chance against a baby iceberg.
Those sustained temperature swings, all before the evil economic benefits of oil consumption, suggest there are factors at work besides humans.
Today, as I peck out these words, the weather channel is broadcasting views of a freakish and early snow falling on Dallas. The Iowa state extension service reports that the record corn crop expected this year will have unusually large kernels, thanks to "relatively cool August and September temperatures." And on Jan. 16, 2007, NPR went politically incorrect, briefly, by reporting that "An unusually harsh winter frost, the worst in 20 years, killed much of the California citrus, avocados and flower crops."
To be fair, those reports are short-term swings. But the longer term changes are no more compelling, unless you include the ice ages, and then, perhaps, the panic attempts of the 1970s were right. Is it possible that if we put more CO2 in the air, we'd forestall the next ice age?
I can ask "outrageous" questions like that because I'm not dependent upon government money for my livelihood. From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.
Sadly, the public just learned that our scientific community hid data and censored critics. Maybe the feds should drop this crusade and focus on our health care crisis. They should, of course, ignore the life insurance statistics that show every class of American and both genders are living longer than ever. That's another inconvenient fact.
Gary Sutton is co-founder of Teledesic and has been CEO of several other companies, including Knight Protective Industries and @Backup.
Gary Sutton, 12.04.09, 10:00 AM EST
Why the climatologists get it wrong.
Many of you are too young to remember, but in 1975 our government pushed "the coming ice age."
Random House dutifully printed "THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY … coming of the New Ice Age." This may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."
OK, you say, that's media. But what did our rational scientists say?
In 1974, the National Science Board announced: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age."
You can't blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed's mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today's scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.
In 2002 I stood in a room of the Smithsonian. One entire wall charted the cooling of our globe over the last 60 million years. This was no straight line. The curve had two steep dips followed by leveling. There were no significant warming periods. Smithsonian scientists inscribed it across some 20 feet of plaster, with timelines.
Last year, I went back. That fresco is painted over. The same curve hides behind smoked glass, shrunk to three feet but showing the same cooling trend. Hey, why should the Smithsonian put its tax-free status at risk? If the politicians decide to whip up public fear in a different direction, get with it, oh ye subsidized servants. Downplay that embarrassing old chart and maybe nobody will notice.
Sorry, I noticed.
It's the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line.
Al Gore thought he might ride his global warming crusade back toward the White House. If you saw his movie, which opened showing cattle on his farm, you start to understand how shallow this is. The United Nations says that cattle, farting and belching methane, create more global warming than all the SUVs in the world. Even more laughably, Al and his camera crew flew first class for that film, consuming 50% more jet fuel per seat-mile than coach fliers, while his Tennessee mansion sucks as much carbon as 20 average homes.
His PR folks say he's "carbon neutral" due to some trades. I'm unsure of how that works, but, maybe there's a tribe in the Sudan that cannot have a campfire for the next hundred years to cover Al's energy gluttony. I'm just not sophisticated enough to know how that stuff works. But I do understand he flies a private jet when the camera crew is gone.
The fall of Saigon in the '70s may have distracted the shrill pronouncements about the imminent ice age. Science's prediction of "A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age," came from its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the "global cooling" in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.
That armadillo caveat seems reminiscent of today's tales of polar bears drowning due to glaciers disappearing.
While scientists march to the drumbeat of grant money, at least trees don't lie. Their growth rings show what's happened no matter which philosophy is in power. Tree rings show a mini ice age in Europe about the time Stradivarius crafted his violins. Chilled Alpine Spruce gave him tighter wood so the instruments sang with a new purity. But England had to give up the wines that the Romans cultivated while our globe cooled, switching from grapes to colder weather grains and learning to take comfort with beer, whisky and ales.
Yet many centuries earlier, during a global warming, Greenland was green. And so it stayed and was settled by Vikings for generations until global cooling came along. Leif Ericsson even made it to Newfoundland. His shallow draft boats, perfect for sailing and rowing up rivers to conquer villages, wouldn't have stood a chance against a baby iceberg.
Those sustained temperature swings, all before the evil economic benefits of oil consumption, suggest there are factors at work besides humans.
Today, as I peck out these words, the weather channel is broadcasting views of a freakish and early snow falling on Dallas. The Iowa state extension service reports that the record corn crop expected this year will have unusually large kernels, thanks to "relatively cool August and September temperatures." And on Jan. 16, 2007, NPR went politically incorrect, briefly, by reporting that "An unusually harsh winter frost, the worst in 20 years, killed much of the California citrus, avocados and flower crops."
To be fair, those reports are short-term swings. But the longer term changes are no more compelling, unless you include the ice ages, and then, perhaps, the panic attempts of the 1970s were right. Is it possible that if we put more CO2 in the air, we'd forestall the next ice age?
I can ask "outrageous" questions like that because I'm not dependent upon government money for my livelihood. From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.
Sadly, the public just learned that our scientific community hid data and censored critics. Maybe the feds should drop this crusade and focus on our health care crisis. They should, of course, ignore the life insurance statistics that show every class of American and both genders are living longer than ever. That's another inconvenient fact.
Gary Sutton is co-founder of Teledesic and has been CEO of several other companies, including Knight Protective Industries and @Backup.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Lord Monckton’s summary of Climategate and its issues
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/01/lord-moncktons-summary-of-climategate-and-its-issues/#more-13529
Both Steve McIntyre and I are mentioned in this comprehensive summary. I’ve posted some excerpts below, with a link to the full report in PDF form. It is well worth a read. – Anthony
Cold facts about the hot topic of global temperature change after the Climategate scandal
by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley | November 30, 2009
THE WHISTLE BLOWS FOR TRUTH
The whistleblower deep in the basement of one of the ugly, modern tower-blocks of the dismal, windswept University of East Anglia could scarcely have timed it better.
In less than three weeks, the world’s governing class – its classe politique – would meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, to discuss a treaty to inflict an unelected and tyrannical global government on us, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all once-free world markets and to tax and regulate the world’s wealthier nations for its own enrichment: in short, to bring freedom, democracy, and prosperity to an instant end worldwide, at the stroke of a pen, on the pretext of addressing what is now known to be the non-problem of manmade “global warming”.
The unnamed hero of ‘Climategate’, after months of work gathering emails, computer code, and data, quietly sent a 61-megabyte compressed file from one of the university’s servers to an obscure public message-board on the internet, with a short covering note to the effect that the climate was too important to keep the material secret, and that the data from the University would be available for a short time only.
He had caught the world’s politico-scientific establishment green-handed. Yet his first attempts to reveal the highly-profitable fraud and systematic corruption at the very heart of the UN’s climate panel and among the scientists most prominent in influencing it’s prejudiced and absurdly doom-laden reports had failed. He had made the mistake of sending the data-file to the mainstream news media, which had also profited for decades by fostering the “global warming” scare, and by generally denying anyone who disagreed with the official viewpoint any platform.
The whistleblower’s data file revealed, for the first time, the innermost workings of the tiny international clique of climate scientists, centered on the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia, that has been the prime mover in telling the world that it is warming at an unprecedented rate, and that humankind is responsible.
REVEALED: THE ABJECT CORRUPTION OF CLIMATE SCIENCE
The gallant whistleblower now faces a police investigation at the instigation of the University authorities desperate to look after their own and to divert allegations of criminality elsewhere. His crime? He had revealed what many had long suspected:
- A tiny clique of politicized scientists, paid by unscientific politicians with whom they were financially and politically linked, were responsible for gathering and reporting data on temperatures from the palaeoclimate to today’s climate. The “Team”, as they called themselves, were bending and distorting scientific data to fit a nakedly political story-line profitable to themselves and congenial to the governments that, these days, pay the bills for 99% of all scientific research...
Both Steve McIntyre and I are mentioned in this comprehensive summary. I’ve posted some excerpts below, with a link to the full report in PDF form. It is well worth a read. – Anthony
Cold facts about the hot topic of global temperature change after the Climategate scandal
by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley | November 30, 2009
THE WHISTLE BLOWS FOR TRUTH
The whistleblower deep in the basement of one of the ugly, modern tower-blocks of the dismal, windswept University of East Anglia could scarcely have timed it better.
In less than three weeks, the world’s governing class – its classe politique – would meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, to discuss a treaty to inflict an unelected and tyrannical global government on us, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all once-free world markets and to tax and regulate the world’s wealthier nations for its own enrichment: in short, to bring freedom, democracy, and prosperity to an instant end worldwide, at the stroke of a pen, on the pretext of addressing what is now known to be the non-problem of manmade “global warming”.
The unnamed hero of ‘Climategate’, after months of work gathering emails, computer code, and data, quietly sent a 61-megabyte compressed file from one of the university’s servers to an obscure public message-board on the internet, with a short covering note to the effect that the climate was too important to keep the material secret, and that the data from the University would be available for a short time only.
He had caught the world’s politico-scientific establishment green-handed. Yet his first attempts to reveal the highly-profitable fraud and systematic corruption at the very heart of the UN’s climate panel and among the scientists most prominent in influencing it’s prejudiced and absurdly doom-laden reports had failed. He had made the mistake of sending the data-file to the mainstream news media, which had also profited for decades by fostering the “global warming” scare, and by generally denying anyone who disagreed with the official viewpoint any platform.
The whistleblower’s data file revealed, for the first time, the innermost workings of the tiny international clique of climate scientists, centered on the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia, that has been the prime mover in telling the world that it is warming at an unprecedented rate, and that humankind is responsible.
REVEALED: THE ABJECT CORRUPTION OF CLIMATE SCIENCE
The gallant whistleblower now faces a police investigation at the instigation of the University authorities desperate to look after their own and to divert allegations of criminality elsewhere. His crime? He had revealed what many had long suspected:
- A tiny clique of politicized scientists, paid by unscientific politicians with whom they were financially and politically linked, were responsible for gathering and reporting data on temperatures from the palaeoclimate to today’s climate. The “Team”, as they called themselves, were bending and distorting scientific data to fit a nakedly political story-line profitable to themselves and congenial to the governments that, these days, pay the bills for 99% of all scientific research...
Gore cancels on Copenhagen lecture – leaves ticketholders in a lurch
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/03/gore-cancels-on-copenhagen-lecture-leaves-ticketholders-in-a-lurch/#more-13657
It seems the uncertainty about Copenhagen is growing. When Al baby pulls the plug, you know it’s hosed.
From Berlingske: Al Gore cancels lecture during COP15
Former U.S. vice president has canceled his event, more than 3,000 Danes have purchased a ticket. Photo: JOSE MENDEZ
Looks like they will get a refund though. Might be worth more as a collectors item in ten years though.
I wonder how many people have shelled out $1200 to shake Al’s hand? Maybe not enough and he couldn’t cover the expenses for his private jet?
From the Washington Post:
“Have you ever shaken hands with an American vice president? If not, now is your chance. Meet Al Gore in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference,” notes the Danish tourism commission, which is helping Mr. Gore promote “Our Choice,” his newest book about global warming in all its alarming modalities.
“Tickets are available in different price ranges for the event. If you want it all, you can purchase a VIP ticket, where you get a chance to shake hands with Al Gore, get a copy of Our Choice and have your picture taken with him. The VIP event costs DKK 5,999 and includes drinks and a light snack.”
Wait, what? How much is that in American dollars? The currency conversion says it all, too: 5,999 Danish kroners is equivalent to $1,209.
“If you do not want to spend that much money, but still want to hear Al Gore speak about his latest book about climate challenges, you can purchase general tickets, ranging in price from DKK 199-1,499 depending on where in the room you want to sit,” the practical Danes advise. “There will be large screens, so that everyone will get a good view.”
Yah, such a deal.
It seems the uncertainty about Copenhagen is growing. When Al baby pulls the plug, you know it’s hosed.
From Berlingske: Al Gore cancels lecture during COP15
Former U.S. vice president has canceled his event, more than 3,000 Danes have purchased a ticket. Photo: JOSE MENDEZ
Looks like they will get a refund though. Might be worth more as a collectors item in ten years though.
I wonder how many people have shelled out $1200 to shake Al’s hand? Maybe not enough and he couldn’t cover the expenses for his private jet?
From the Washington Post:
“Have you ever shaken hands with an American vice president? If not, now is your chance. Meet Al Gore in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference,” notes the Danish tourism commission, which is helping Mr. Gore promote “Our Choice,” his newest book about global warming in all its alarming modalities.
“Tickets are available in different price ranges for the event. If you want it all, you can purchase a VIP ticket, where you get a chance to shake hands with Al Gore, get a copy of Our Choice and have your picture taken with him. The VIP event costs DKK 5,999 and includes drinks and a light snack.”
Wait, what? How much is that in American dollars? The currency conversion says it all, too: 5,999 Danish kroners is equivalent to $1,209.
“If you do not want to spend that much money, but still want to hear Al Gore speak about his latest book about climate challenges, you can purchase general tickets, ranging in price from DKK 199-1,499 depending on where in the room you want to sit,” the practical Danes advise. “There will be large screens, so that everyone will get a good view.”
Yah, such a deal.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Viscount Monckton on Climategate: ‘They Are Criminals’ (PJM Exclusive)
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/viscount-monckton-on-global-warminggate-they-are-criminals-pjm-exclusive/2/
The man who challenged Al Gore to a debate is furious about the content of the leaked CRU emails — and says why you should be, too.
November 23, 2009 - by Christopher Monckton
Page 1 of 2 Next ->This is what they did — these climate “scientists” on whose unsupported word the world’s classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights.
The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud — for fraud is what we now know it to be — tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years — and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.
Worse, these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset — the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.
Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and “global warming” profiteers — for that is what they are — have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists — they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.
I am angry, and so should you be.
What have the mainstream news media said about the Climategate affair? Remarkably little. The few who have brought themselves to comment, through gritted teeth, have said that all of this is a storm in a teacup, and that their friends in the University of East Anglia and elsewhere in the climatological community are good people, really.
No, they’re not. They’re criminals. With Professor Fred Singer, who founded the U.S. Satellite Weather Service, I have reported them to the UK’s Information Commissioner, with a request that he investigate their offenses and, if thought fit, prosecute. But I won’t be holding my breath: In the police state that Britain has now sadly become, with supine news media largely owned and controlled by the government, the establishment tends to look after its own.
At our expense, and at the expense of the truth.
The man who challenged Al Gore to a debate is furious about the content of the leaked CRU emails — and says why you should be, too.
November 23, 2009 - by Christopher Monckton
Page 1 of 2 Next ->This is what they did — these climate “scientists” on whose unsupported word the world’s classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights.
The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud — for fraud is what we now know it to be — tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years — and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.
Worse, these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset — the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.
Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and “global warming” profiteers — for that is what they are — have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists — they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.
I am angry, and so should you be.
What have the mainstream news media said about the Climategate affair? Remarkably little. The few who have brought themselves to comment, through gritted teeth, have said that all of this is a storm in a teacup, and that their friends in the University of East Anglia and elsewhere in the climatological community are good people, really.
No, they’re not. They’re criminals. With Professor Fred Singer, who founded the U.S. Satellite Weather Service, I have reported them to the UK’s Information Commissioner, with a request that he investigate their offenses and, if thought fit, prosecute. But I won’t be holding my breath: In the police state that Britain has now sadly become, with supine news media largely owned and controlled by the government, the establishment tends to look after its own.
At our expense, and at the expense of the truth.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Death Blow to Climate Science
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog
By Tim Ball, Canada Free Press
Global Warming is often called a hoax. I disagree because a hoax has a humorous intent to puncture pomposity. In science, such as with the Piltdown Man hoax, it was done to expose those with fervent but blind belief. The argument that global warming is due to humans, known as the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW) is a deliberate fraud. I can now make that statement without fear of contradiction because of a remarkable hacking of files that provided not just a smoking gun, but an entire battery of machine guns.
Someone hacked in to the files of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) based at the University of East Anglia. A very large file (61 mb) was downloaded and posted to the web. Phil Jones Director of the CRU has acknowledged the files are theirs. They contain papers, documents letters and emails. The latter are the most damaging and contain blunt information about the degree of manipulation of climate science in general and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in particular.
Climate science hijacked and corrupted by this small group of scientists
Dominant names involved are ones I have followed throughout my career including, Phil Jones, Benjamin Santer, Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth, Jonathan Overpeck, Ken Briffa and Tom Wigley. I have watched climate science hijacked and corrupted by this small group of scientists. This small, elite, community was named by Professor Wegman in his report to the National Academy of Science (NAS).
I had the pleasure of meeting the founder of CRU Professor Hubert Lamb, considered the Father of Modern Climatology, on a couple of occasions. He also peer reviewed one of my early publications. I know he would be mortified with what was disclosed in the last couple of days.
Jones claims the files were obtained illegally as if that absolves the content. It doesn’t and it is enough to destroy all their careers. Jones gave a foretaste of his behavior in 2005. Warwick Hughes asked for the data and method he used for his claim of a 0.6C temperature rise since the end of the nineteenth century. Jones responded, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” He has stonewalled ever since. The main reason was because it was used as a key argument in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports to convince the world humans caused rapid warming in the 20th century. The emails obtained are a frightening record of arrogance, and deception far beyond his 2005 effort.
Another glimpse into what the files and emails reveal was the report by Professor Deming. He wrote, “With publication of an article in Science (in 1995) I gained sufficient credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said. “We must get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.” The person in question was Jonathan Overpeck and his even more revealing emails are part of those exposed by the hacker. It is now very clear that Deming’s charge was precise. They have perverted science in the service of social and political causes.
Professor Wegman showed how this “community of scientists” published together and peer reviewed each other’s work. I was always suspicious about why peer review was such a big deal. Now all my suspicions are confirmed. The emails reveal how they controlled the process, including manipulating some of the major journals like Science and Nature. We know the editor of the Journal of Climate, Andrew Weaver, was one of the “community”. They organized lists of reviewers when required making sure they gave the editor only favorable names. They threatened to isolate and marginalize one editor who they believed was recalcitrant.
Total Control
These people controlled the global weather data used by the IPCC through the joint Hadley and CRU and produced the HadCRUT data. They controlled the IPCC, especially crucial chapters and especially preparation of the Summary for PolicyMakers (SPM). Stephen Schneider was a prime mover there from the earliest reports to the most influential in 2001. They also had a left wing conduit to the New York Times. The emails between Andy Revkin and the community are very revealing and must place his journalistic integrity in serious jeopardy. Of course the IPCC Reports and especially the SPM Reports are the basis for Kyoto and the Copenhagen Accord, but now we know they are based on completely falsified and manipulated data and science. It is no longer a suspicion. Surely this is the death knell for the CRU, the IPCC, Kyoto and Copenhagen and the Carbon Credits shell game.
CO2 never was a problem and all the machinations and deceptions exposed by these files prove that it was the greatest deception in history, but nobody is laughing. It is a very sad day for science and especially my chosen area of climate science. As I expected now it is all exposed I find there is no pleasure in “I told you so.”...
By Tim Ball, Canada Free Press
Global Warming is often called a hoax. I disagree because a hoax has a humorous intent to puncture pomposity. In science, such as with the Piltdown Man hoax, it was done to expose those with fervent but blind belief. The argument that global warming is due to humans, known as the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW) is a deliberate fraud. I can now make that statement without fear of contradiction because of a remarkable hacking of files that provided not just a smoking gun, but an entire battery of machine guns.
Someone hacked in to the files of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) based at the University of East Anglia. A very large file (61 mb) was downloaded and posted to the web. Phil Jones Director of the CRU has acknowledged the files are theirs. They contain papers, documents letters and emails. The latter are the most damaging and contain blunt information about the degree of manipulation of climate science in general and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in particular.
Climate science hijacked and corrupted by this small group of scientists
Dominant names involved are ones I have followed throughout my career including, Phil Jones, Benjamin Santer, Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth, Jonathan Overpeck, Ken Briffa and Tom Wigley. I have watched climate science hijacked and corrupted by this small group of scientists. This small, elite, community was named by Professor Wegman in his report to the National Academy of Science (NAS).
I had the pleasure of meeting the founder of CRU Professor Hubert Lamb, considered the Father of Modern Climatology, on a couple of occasions. He also peer reviewed one of my early publications. I know he would be mortified with what was disclosed in the last couple of days.
Jones claims the files were obtained illegally as if that absolves the content. It doesn’t and it is enough to destroy all their careers. Jones gave a foretaste of his behavior in 2005. Warwick Hughes asked for the data and method he used for his claim of a 0.6C temperature rise since the end of the nineteenth century. Jones responded, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” He has stonewalled ever since. The main reason was because it was used as a key argument in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports to convince the world humans caused rapid warming in the 20th century. The emails obtained are a frightening record of arrogance, and deception far beyond his 2005 effort.
Another glimpse into what the files and emails reveal was the report by Professor Deming. He wrote, “With publication of an article in Science (in 1995) I gained sufficient credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said. “We must get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.” The person in question was Jonathan Overpeck and his even more revealing emails are part of those exposed by the hacker. It is now very clear that Deming’s charge was precise. They have perverted science in the service of social and political causes.
Professor Wegman showed how this “community of scientists” published together and peer reviewed each other’s work. I was always suspicious about why peer review was such a big deal. Now all my suspicions are confirmed. The emails reveal how they controlled the process, including manipulating some of the major journals like Science and Nature. We know the editor of the Journal of Climate, Andrew Weaver, was one of the “community”. They organized lists of reviewers when required making sure they gave the editor only favorable names. They threatened to isolate and marginalize one editor who they believed was recalcitrant.
Total Control
These people controlled the global weather data used by the IPCC through the joint Hadley and CRU and produced the HadCRUT data. They controlled the IPCC, especially crucial chapters and especially preparation of the Summary for PolicyMakers (SPM). Stephen Schneider was a prime mover there from the earliest reports to the most influential in 2001. They also had a left wing conduit to the New York Times. The emails between Andy Revkin and the community are very revealing and must place his journalistic integrity in serious jeopardy. Of course the IPCC Reports and especially the SPM Reports are the basis for Kyoto and the Copenhagen Accord, but now we know they are based on completely falsified and manipulated data and science. It is no longer a suspicion. Surely this is the death knell for the CRU, the IPCC, Kyoto and Copenhagen and the Carbon Credits shell game.
CO2 never was a problem and all the machinations and deceptions exposed by these files prove that it was the greatest deception in history, but nobody is laughing. It is a very sad day for science and especially my chosen area of climate science. As I expected now it is all exposed I find there is no pleasure in “I told you so.”...
The Day Global Warming Stood Still
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog
Investors Business Daily Editorial
Climate Change: As scientists confirm the earth has not warmed at all in the past decade, others wonder how this could be and what it means for Copenhagen. Maybe Al Gore can Photoshop something before December.
It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers. The climate show-and-tell in Copenhagen next month will be nothing more than a meaningless carbon-emitting jaunt, unable to decide just whom to blame or how to divvy up the profitable spoils of climate change hysteria.
The collapse of the talks coupled with the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to put off the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill, the Senate’s version of Waxman-Markey, until the spring thaw has led Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, the leading Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, to declare victory over Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and the triumph of observable fact over junk science.
“I proudly declare 2009 as the ‘Year of the Skeptic,’ the year in which scientists who question the so-called global warming consensus are being heard,” Inhofe said to Boxer in a Senate speech. “Until this year, any scientist, reporter or politician who dared raise even the slightest suspicion about the science behind global warming was dismissed and repeatedly mocked.”
Inhofe added: “Today I have been vindicated.”
The Ada (Oklahoma) Evening News quotes Inhofe: “So when Barbara Boxer, John Kerry and all the left get up there and say, ‘Yes. We’re going to pass a global warming bill,’ I will be able to stand up and say, ‘No, it’s over. Get a life. You lost. I won,’” Inhofe said.
Now we have the German publication Der Spiegel, which is rapidly becoming the house organ for climate hysteria, weighing in again with the sad news that the earth does not have a fever so we really don’t have to throw out the baby with the rising bath water.
In an article titled, “Climatologists Baffled By Global Warming Time-Out,” author Gerald Traufetter leads off with the observation: “Climatologists are baffled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years.” They better figure it out, Der Spiegel warns, because “billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations.”
We are told in sad tones that “not much is happening with global warming at the moment” and that “it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.” But how can it be that the earth isn’t following all those computer models? Is the earth goddess Gaia herself a climate change “denier”?
The article gloomily notes that a few weeks ago Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research pointed out that the earth had in fact only warmed 0.07 degree Celsius from 1999 to 2008 and not by the 0.2 degree Celsius predicted by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
An even more inconvenient truth, according to the British experts, is that when their figures are adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Nino and La Nina, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degree Celsius. No, that’s not a typo.
As if that weren’t enough, it seems hackers broke into the computer network run by the Hadley Climate Research Unit, removing 61 megabytes of e-mails and data.
While we don’t condone theft, the hacked data and e-mails have spilled onto the Web and reveal something startling: The scientists at Hadley, one of the world’s leading climate change study centers, aren’t scientifically objective at all.
Indeed, in e-mails, they boast of twisting scientific data to suit their views and to “hide” the truth. At one point, a scientist actually gloats over the death of global warming skeptic John L. Daly, saying, “In an odd way, this is cheering news.”
If true, this is massive scientific fraud.
To add to the warm-mongers’ woes, patron saint Al Gore, the man who claimed to have invented the Internet, might also have claimed the discovery of Photoshop. Dr. Roy Spencer, of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, formerly with NASA, has taken a look at the pictures used to illustrate Gore’s new book, “Our Choice: A Plan To Solve the Climate Crisis.”
Gore Photoshopped NASA imagery of the earth for the fold-out cover photo, adding four hurricanes at once, including one spinning in the wrong direction next to Florida and, in a physical impossibility, one on the equator next to Peru. Somewhere in the process, the island of Cuba was deleted.
It is the warm-mongers who are spinning in the wrong direction. We win. You lose. Get a life. See editorial here.
Investors Business Daily Editorial
Climate Change: As scientists confirm the earth has not warmed at all in the past decade, others wonder how this could be and what it means for Copenhagen. Maybe Al Gore can Photoshop something before December.
It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers. The climate show-and-tell in Copenhagen next month will be nothing more than a meaningless carbon-emitting jaunt, unable to decide just whom to blame or how to divvy up the profitable spoils of climate change hysteria.
The collapse of the talks coupled with the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to put off the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill, the Senate’s version of Waxman-Markey, until the spring thaw has led Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, the leading Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, to declare victory over Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and the triumph of observable fact over junk science.
“I proudly declare 2009 as the ‘Year of the Skeptic,’ the year in which scientists who question the so-called global warming consensus are being heard,” Inhofe said to Boxer in a Senate speech. “Until this year, any scientist, reporter or politician who dared raise even the slightest suspicion about the science behind global warming was dismissed and repeatedly mocked.”
Inhofe added: “Today I have been vindicated.”
The Ada (Oklahoma) Evening News quotes Inhofe: “So when Barbara Boxer, John Kerry and all the left get up there and say, ‘Yes. We’re going to pass a global warming bill,’ I will be able to stand up and say, ‘No, it’s over. Get a life. You lost. I won,’” Inhofe said.
Now we have the German publication Der Spiegel, which is rapidly becoming the house organ for climate hysteria, weighing in again with the sad news that the earth does not have a fever so we really don’t have to throw out the baby with the rising bath water.
In an article titled, “Climatologists Baffled By Global Warming Time-Out,” author Gerald Traufetter leads off with the observation: “Climatologists are baffled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years.” They better figure it out, Der Spiegel warns, because “billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations.”
We are told in sad tones that “not much is happening with global warming at the moment” and that “it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.” But how can it be that the earth isn’t following all those computer models? Is the earth goddess Gaia herself a climate change “denier”?
The article gloomily notes that a few weeks ago Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research pointed out that the earth had in fact only warmed 0.07 degree Celsius from 1999 to 2008 and not by the 0.2 degree Celsius predicted by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
An even more inconvenient truth, according to the British experts, is that when their figures are adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Nino and La Nina, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degree Celsius. No, that’s not a typo.
As if that weren’t enough, it seems hackers broke into the computer network run by the Hadley Climate Research Unit, removing 61 megabytes of e-mails and data.
While we don’t condone theft, the hacked data and e-mails have spilled onto the Web and reveal something startling: The scientists at Hadley, one of the world’s leading climate change study centers, aren’t scientifically objective at all.
Indeed, in e-mails, they boast of twisting scientific data to suit their views and to “hide” the truth. At one point, a scientist actually gloats over the death of global warming skeptic John L. Daly, saying, “In an odd way, this is cheering news.”
If true, this is massive scientific fraud.
To add to the warm-mongers’ woes, patron saint Al Gore, the man who claimed to have invented the Internet, might also have claimed the discovery of Photoshop. Dr. Roy Spencer, of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, formerly with NASA, has taken a look at the pictures used to illustrate Gore’s new book, “Our Choice: A Plan To Solve the Climate Crisis.”
Gore Photoshopped NASA imagery of the earth for the fold-out cover photo, adding four hurricanes at once, including one spinning in the wrong direction next to Florida and, in a physical impossibility, one on the equator next to Peru. Somewhere in the process, the island of Cuba was deleted.
It is the warm-mongers who are spinning in the wrong direction. We win. You lose. Get a life. See editorial here.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Skeptics Handbook II! Global Bullies Want Your Money
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/skeptics-handbook-ii-global-bullies-want-your-money/
Finally, Part II in the Skeptics Handbook series – the bluster and bluff, the deceit, and the money. Enjoy & Share.
pdf version of The Skeptics Handbook II.
It’s unthinkable. Big Government has spent $79 billion on the climate industry, 3000 times more than Big Oil. Leading climate scientists won’t debate in public and won’t provide their data. What do they hide? When faced with freedom-of-information requests they say they’ve “lost” the original global temperature records. Thousands of scientists are rising in protest against the scare campaign. Meanwhile $126 billion turned over in carbon markets in 2008 and bankers get set to make billions.
Twenty pages of concise commentary and cartoons:
The short synopsis of how we paid to find a crisis.
The one flaw that wipes out the catastrophe. (They can be right about carbon but wrong about water… and that eliminates two-thirds of their predicted warming.)
Nine behaviours of the real deniers — there are lots of ways to deny the evidence.
How carbon dioxide greens the world, why clouds dominate the climate, and if carbon didn’t cause the recent warming, what else might have?
The short summary of the baseless hockey stick graph, with a devastating map of the vast array of peer reviewed information that demonstrates just how brazen the Hockey Stick “re-interpretation” of history was.
How you can create a compelling crisis in a graph in six simple steps.
The Checklist: How do you tell a scientist from a non-scientist? (A Skeptic from an Unskeptic?)
“Bullying is their root strength. Take it away from them and they will crumble.”...
Finally, Part II in the Skeptics Handbook series – the bluster and bluff, the deceit, and the money. Enjoy & Share.
pdf version of The Skeptics Handbook II.It’s unthinkable. Big Government has spent $79 billion on the climate industry, 3000 times more than Big Oil. Leading climate scientists won’t debate in public and won’t provide their data. What do they hide? When faced with freedom-of-information requests they say they’ve “lost” the original global temperature records. Thousands of scientists are rising in protest against the scare campaign. Meanwhile $126 billion turned over in carbon markets in 2008 and bankers get set to make billions.
Twenty pages of concise commentary and cartoons:
The short synopsis of how we paid to find a crisis.
The one flaw that wipes out the catastrophe. (They can be right about carbon but wrong about water… and that eliminates two-thirds of their predicted warming.)
Nine behaviours of the real deniers — there are lots of ways to deny the evidence.
How carbon dioxide greens the world, why clouds dominate the climate, and if carbon didn’t cause the recent warming, what else might have?
The short summary of the baseless hockey stick graph, with a devastating map of the vast array of peer reviewed information that demonstrates just how brazen the Hockey Stick “re-interpretation” of history was.
How you can create a compelling crisis in a graph in six simple steps.
The Checklist: How do you tell a scientist from a non-scientist? (A Skeptic from an Unskeptic?)
“Bullying is their root strength. Take it away from them and they will crumble.”...
Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
By James Delingpole Last updated: November 20th, 2009
If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)
When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:
Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.
One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:
“In an odd way this is cheering news.”
But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.
Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:
Manipulation of evidence:
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.
Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
Suppression of evidence:
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:
Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.
Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):
……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….
And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.
“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”
Hadley CRU has form in this regard. In September – I wrote the story up here as “How the global warming industry is based on a massive lie” – Hadley CRU’s researchers were exposed as having “cherry-picked” data in order to support their untrue claim that global temperatures had risen higher at the end of the 20th century than at any time in the last millenium. Hadley CRU was also the organisation which – in contravention of all acceptable behaviour in the international scientific community – spent years withholding data from researchers it deemed unhelpful to its cause. This matters because Hadley CRU, established in 1990 by the Met Office, is a government-funded body which is supposed to be a model of rectitude. Its HadCrut record is one of the four official sources of global temperature data used by the IPCC...
By James Delingpole Last updated: November 20th, 2009
If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)
When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:
Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.
One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:
“In an odd way this is cheering news.”
But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.
Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:
Manipulation of evidence:
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.
Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
Suppression of evidence:
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:
Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.
Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):
……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….
And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.
“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”
Hadley CRU has form in this regard. In September – I wrote the story up here as “How the global warming industry is based on a massive lie” – Hadley CRU’s researchers were exposed as having “cherry-picked” data in order to support their untrue claim that global temperatures had risen higher at the end of the 20th century than at any time in the last millenium. Hadley CRU was also the organisation which – in contravention of all acceptable behaviour in the international scientific community – spent years withholding data from researchers it deemed unhelpful to its cause. This matters because Hadley CRU, established in 1990 by the Met Office, is a government-funded body which is supposed to be a model of rectitude. Its HadCrut record is one of the four official sources of global temperature data used by the IPCC...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Researcher speaks up on pressure to conform
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate
Nov 18, 2009
By Carl Wieland
According to Thomas Bouchard, a US psychologist famous for his research on twins raised apart, even scientists with good reason to believe that the majority are wrong can be silenced. The reason is the huge pressure to conform, the “powerful human urge to belong inside the group, to think like the majority and to win the group’s approval by trashing dissenters.”
Bouchard, being interviewed in the journal Science on his retirement, cited the example of Larry Summers who resigned as president of Harvard University after an outcry over his saying that discrimination alone doesn’t account for women’s lower representation in math-based disciplines.
“Nowadays, I’m sure there are people who are not publishing stuff on sex differences,” Bouchard says, adding that he sees self-censorship as a “great danger”, where data is not published because it does not fit the prevailing belief system. “I talk about those things in my class all the time - that males and females have different interests; in a sense, females have a broader and richer view of life. There are a lot of people who simply won’t talk about those things. Academics, like teenagers, sometimes don’t have any sense regarding the degree to which they are conformists.” (Emphasis added.)
A New York Times article about Bouchard’s views cited the case of economist Robert Shiller, an expert on house prices. While an advisor to the US Federal Reserve, he became deeply concerned about the bubbles developing in the US housing and stock markets. But rather than shout from the rooftops in warning the Fed, he expressed his views “very gently”. He said he “felt vulnerable”, because deviating too far from consensus “leaves one feeling potentially ostracized from the group, with the risk that one may be terminated.”
The New York Times article goes on to say that “conformity and group-think are attitudes of particular danger in science because progress often depends on overturning established wisdom”. Bouchard was not suggesting that forming a consensus view was wrong, but the problem lay in the peer-pressure silencing of critics, saying that his field has “whole domains we can’t talk about”. The NY Times article says that if “the brightest minds on Wall Street got suckered by group-think into believing house prices would never fall”, who knows about such bandwagons as global warming, saying sarcastically, “You mean it might be harder to model climate change 20 years ahead than house prices 5 years ahead? Surely not - how could so many climatologists be wrong?”
Science journal editor admits: Peer review censors against-the-trend papers
The editor of Science journal, Bruce Alberts, was recently interviewed on Australia’s ABC Radio National The Science Show by presenter Robyn Williams:
Robyn Williams: Of course you’ve got a tremendous overview of the published papers, not only in your own journal but in other journals. Out of 1,000 papers on climate change, how many can you remember that go against the trend? Any?
Bruce Alberts: Well, I get lots of complaints from people who want to publish papers saying climate change doesn’t exist, but they have a hard time getting their papers published because they don’t pass peer review. So there are actually very few papers that get published in the peer review literature that seriously challenge in any way the basic hypothesis. As in evolution, there are always things you don’t understand, and the creationists use those things you don’t understand, the ‘missing links’, to challenge the whole idea of evolution. In the same way some people use the few things we don’t understand (we never understand everything) to challenge the whole idea of climate change. It’s not a valid way of talking about science.
Interesting that against-the-trend papers on anthropogenic global warming are treated with the same disdain as papers critical of evolution. And note that Bruce Alberts’ final sentence above attempts to define against-the trend papers as “unscientific”, thus with one fell swoop removing them from scientific discourse.
See here why this resistance or inertia brought on by peere presssure makes it hard to bring sanity back to science here and expanded on here.
Nov 18, 2009
By Carl Wieland
According to Thomas Bouchard, a US psychologist famous for his research on twins raised apart, even scientists with good reason to believe that the majority are wrong can be silenced. The reason is the huge pressure to conform, the “powerful human urge to belong inside the group, to think like the majority and to win the group’s approval by trashing dissenters.”
Bouchard, being interviewed in the journal Science on his retirement, cited the example of Larry Summers who resigned as president of Harvard University after an outcry over his saying that discrimination alone doesn’t account for women’s lower representation in math-based disciplines.
“Nowadays, I’m sure there are people who are not publishing stuff on sex differences,” Bouchard says, adding that he sees self-censorship as a “great danger”, where data is not published because it does not fit the prevailing belief system. “I talk about those things in my class all the time - that males and females have different interests; in a sense, females have a broader and richer view of life. There are a lot of people who simply won’t talk about those things. Academics, like teenagers, sometimes don’t have any sense regarding the degree to which they are conformists.” (Emphasis added.)
A New York Times article about Bouchard’s views cited the case of economist Robert Shiller, an expert on house prices. While an advisor to the US Federal Reserve, he became deeply concerned about the bubbles developing in the US housing and stock markets. But rather than shout from the rooftops in warning the Fed, he expressed his views “very gently”. He said he “felt vulnerable”, because deviating too far from consensus “leaves one feeling potentially ostracized from the group, with the risk that one may be terminated.”
The New York Times article goes on to say that “conformity and group-think are attitudes of particular danger in science because progress often depends on overturning established wisdom”. Bouchard was not suggesting that forming a consensus view was wrong, but the problem lay in the peer-pressure silencing of critics, saying that his field has “whole domains we can’t talk about”. The NY Times article says that if “the brightest minds on Wall Street got suckered by group-think into believing house prices would never fall”, who knows about such bandwagons as global warming, saying sarcastically, “You mean it might be harder to model climate change 20 years ahead than house prices 5 years ahead? Surely not - how could so many climatologists be wrong?”
Science journal editor admits: Peer review censors against-the-trend papers
The editor of Science journal, Bruce Alberts, was recently interviewed on Australia’s ABC Radio National The Science Show by presenter Robyn Williams:
Robyn Williams: Of course you’ve got a tremendous overview of the published papers, not only in your own journal but in other journals. Out of 1,000 papers on climate change, how many can you remember that go against the trend? Any?
Bruce Alberts: Well, I get lots of complaints from people who want to publish papers saying climate change doesn’t exist, but they have a hard time getting their papers published because they don’t pass peer review. So there are actually very few papers that get published in the peer review literature that seriously challenge in any way the basic hypothesis. As in evolution, there are always things you don’t understand, and the creationists use those things you don’t understand, the ‘missing links’, to challenge the whole idea of evolution. In the same way some people use the few things we don’t understand (we never understand everything) to challenge the whole idea of climate change. It’s not a valid way of talking about science.
Interesting that against-the-trend papers on anthropogenic global warming are treated with the same disdain as papers critical of evolution. And note that Bruce Alberts’ final sentence above attempts to define against-the trend papers as “unscientific”, thus with one fell swoop removing them from scientific discourse.
See here why this resistance or inertia brought on by peere presssure makes it hard to bring sanity back to science here and expanded on here.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Global Warming: Natural or Manmade?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/
“Global warming” refers to the global-average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more. But to many politicians and the public, the term carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. This website describes evidence from my group’s government-funded research that suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.
Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming…it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. This assumption is rather easy for scientists since we do not have enough accurate global data for a long enough period of time to see whether there are natural warming mechanisms at work.
The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that the only way they can get their computerized climate models to produce the observed warming is with anthropogenic (human-caused) pollution. But they’re not going to find something if they don’t search for it. More than one scientist has asked me, “What else COULD it be?” Well, the answer to that takes a little digging… and as I show, one doesn’t have to dig very far.
But first let’s examine the basics of why so many scientists think global warming is manmade. Earth’s atmosphere contains natural greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane) which act to keep the lower layers of the atmosphere warmer than they otherwise would be without those gases. Greenhouse gases trap infrared radiation — the radiant heat energy that the Earth naturally emits to outer space in response to solar heating. Mankind’s burning of fossil fuels (mostly coal, petroleum, and natural gas) releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and this is believed to be enhancing the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect. As of 2008, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 40% to 45% higher than it was before the start of the industrial revolution in the 1800’s.
It is interesting to note that, even though carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth to exist, there is precious little of it in Earth’s atmosphere. As of 2008, only 39 out of every 100,000 molecules of air were CO2, and it will take mankind’s CO2 emissions 5 more years to increase that number by 1, to 40.
The “Holy Grail”: Climate Sensitivity Figuring out how much past warming is due to mankind, and how much more we can expect in the future, depends upon something called “climate sensitivity”. This is the temperature response of the Earth to a given amount of ‘radiative forcing’, of which there are two kinds: a change in either the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth, or in the infrared energy the Earth emits to outer space.
The ‘consensus’ of opinion is that the Earth’s climate sensitivity is quite high, and so warming of about 0.25 deg. C to 0.5 deg. C (about 0.5 deg. F to 0.9 deg. F) every 10 years can be expected for as long as mankind continues to use fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. NASA’s James Hansen claims that climate sensitivity is very high, and that we have already put too much extra CO2 in the atmosphere. Presumably this is why he and Al Gore are campaigning for a moratorium on the construction of any more coal-fired power plants in the U.S.
You would think that we’d know the Earth’s ‘climate sensitivity’ by now, but it has been surprisingly difficult to determine. How atmospheric processes like clouds and precipitation systems respond to warming is critical, as they are either amplifying the warming, or reducing it. This website currently concentrates on the response of clouds to warming, an issue which I am now convinced the scientific community has totally misinterpreted when they have measured natural, year-to-year fluctuations in the climate system. As a result of that confusion, they have the mistaken belief that climate sensitivity is high, when in fact the satellite evidence suggests climate sensitivity is low.
The case for natural climate change I also present an analysis of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which shows that most climate change might well be the result of….the climate system itself! Because small, chaotic fluctuations in atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems can cause small changes in global average cloudiness, this is all that is necessary to cause climate change. You don’t need the sun, or any other ‘external’ influence (although these are also possible…but for now I’ll let others work on that). It is simply what the climate system does. This is actually quite easy for meteorologists to believe, since we understand how complex weather processes are. Your local TV meteorologist is probably a closet ’skeptic’ regarding mankind’s influence on climate.
Climate change — it happens, with or without our help.
“Global warming” refers to the global-average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more. But to many politicians and the public, the term carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. This website describes evidence from my group’s government-funded research that suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.
Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming…it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. This assumption is rather easy for scientists since we do not have enough accurate global data for a long enough period of time to see whether there are natural warming mechanisms at work.
The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that the only way they can get their computerized climate models to produce the observed warming is with anthropogenic (human-caused) pollution. But they’re not going to find something if they don’t search for it. More than one scientist has asked me, “What else COULD it be?” Well, the answer to that takes a little digging… and as I show, one doesn’t have to dig very far.
But first let’s examine the basics of why so many scientists think global warming is manmade. Earth’s atmosphere contains natural greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane) which act to keep the lower layers of the atmosphere warmer than they otherwise would be without those gases. Greenhouse gases trap infrared radiation — the radiant heat energy that the Earth naturally emits to outer space in response to solar heating. Mankind’s burning of fossil fuels (mostly coal, petroleum, and natural gas) releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and this is believed to be enhancing the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect. As of 2008, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 40% to 45% higher than it was before the start of the industrial revolution in the 1800’s.
It is interesting to note that, even though carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth to exist, there is precious little of it in Earth’s atmosphere. As of 2008, only 39 out of every 100,000 molecules of air were CO2, and it will take mankind’s CO2 emissions 5 more years to increase that number by 1, to 40.
The “Holy Grail”: Climate Sensitivity Figuring out how much past warming is due to mankind, and how much more we can expect in the future, depends upon something called “climate sensitivity”. This is the temperature response of the Earth to a given amount of ‘radiative forcing’, of which there are two kinds: a change in either the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth, or in the infrared energy the Earth emits to outer space.
The ‘consensus’ of opinion is that the Earth’s climate sensitivity is quite high, and so warming of about 0.25 deg. C to 0.5 deg. C (about 0.5 deg. F to 0.9 deg. F) every 10 years can be expected for as long as mankind continues to use fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. NASA’s James Hansen claims that climate sensitivity is very high, and that we have already put too much extra CO2 in the atmosphere. Presumably this is why he and Al Gore are campaigning for a moratorium on the construction of any more coal-fired power plants in the U.S.
You would think that we’d know the Earth’s ‘climate sensitivity’ by now, but it has been surprisingly difficult to determine. How atmospheric processes like clouds and precipitation systems respond to warming is critical, as they are either amplifying the warming, or reducing it. This website currently concentrates on the response of clouds to warming, an issue which I am now convinced the scientific community has totally misinterpreted when they have measured natural, year-to-year fluctuations in the climate system. As a result of that confusion, they have the mistaken belief that climate sensitivity is high, when in fact the satellite evidence suggests climate sensitivity is low.
The case for natural climate change I also present an analysis of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which shows that most climate change might well be the result of….the climate system itself! Because small, chaotic fluctuations in atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems can cause small changes in global average cloudiness, this is all that is necessary to cause climate change. You don’t need the sun, or any other ‘external’ influence (although these are also possible…but for now I’ll let others work on that). It is simply what the climate system does. This is actually quite easy for meteorologists to believe, since we understand how complex weather processes are. Your local TV meteorologist is probably a closet ’skeptic’ regarding mankind’s influence on climate.
Climate change — it happens, with or without our help.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Climate Change: Who Are The Deniers Now?
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate
Nov 16, 2009
By Dr. Tim Ball, Canada Free Press, November 16, 2009
“When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.” Anonymous
Finger pointing rarely includes facts, especially in the climate debate. The first finger said we were global warming skeptics, but was turned back when it was explained all scientists are skeptics.
The second finger claimed we were climate change deniers. It was turned back because the opposite is true; we’re telling the public about the extent and speed of natural climate change. As Copenhagen nears, it’s evident no agreement is possible so rhetoric, and alarmism abound. Finger pointing has a new form, being a denier is now a disease. They never consider the failure is due to facts proving the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis wrong. With the left it is always someone else’s fault.
Just the Facts
Extreme left journalist George Monbiot ignored all the facts I provided when he was pointing a finger at me. He’s ignoring them again, which forces him to assume the deniers are at fault. He wrote, “There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.”
The sphere is expanding for several reasons.
- All evidence rejects the hypothesis that human CO2 is causing warming or climate change.
- Facts are gradually getting to the public despite obstructionism by journalists like Monbiot.
- Temperature projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are consistently wrong.
- Record cold temperatures are occurring everywhere.
- Motives of those pushing the need for reduction in CO2 are being exposed.
- Economic costs of a completely unnecessary action are emerging.
- If you shoot the messenger it changes the question to, “Who is the denier now?”
Denialism is defined as “the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.” It’s a variation on “the science is settled” theme, but personalized to say you deny the facts that prove it’s settled. I experienced it this week and learned there’s no rational response. A person presented herself as a journalist writing an article on climate change. I don’t refuse interviews and assume the person is seeking balance. The article was about “denialism”, which the journalist claimed was a serious threat and I was a prime example. It evolved there was no balance, the journalist believed the science is settled and I was refusing to concede.
I explained how I am the antithesis of a denier. I explained how the scientific method was thwarted and the AGW hypothesis became fact before the research began. I was told this was clear evidence of my denial. As the chosen representative of denialism I wanted the facts and science I was supposedly denying. I asked what percentage CO2 was of greenhouse gases. The answer; “I ask the questions.” I ended the interview, an action that will probably appear as clear evidence of denial.
Leftist politicians are pointing the same fingers. Australian Prime Minister Rudd said in a recent speech, “climate-change skeptics, the climate-change deniers, the opponents of climate-change action are active in every country.”
He wrapped the charges in the standard environmentalist argument of the precautionary principle. Of the Australian opposition he said, “You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition on a gut feeling; on a political prejudice you have about science.”
It is the finger of guilt. What he denies is those impacts will occur if you implement his proposed climate-change action.
But who has the political prejudice?
Logic says it’s those who want to stifle debate, to silence individuals and groups. All I’ve ever sought is a full and open debate. It was what 59 fellow skeptics and I sought in a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister.
A new book with another twist accuses those trying to uncover the facts of a cover-up. I hesitate to give the book attention but as an example of the illogic, lies and nastiness in the climate change debate it must be exposed. James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore’s form of the denialism charge is in their book titled, “Climate Cover-Up” subtitled, “The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.” They’ve likely achieved a new low with two major errors in the title. Nobody denies warming; the issue is the cause. The word “crusade” implies a religious quest, but the real crusade is to force acceptance of the hypothesis by personal attacks. Scientists as skeptics were subjected to an inquisition as befalls non-believers.
Disclosure; I’m a victim of their attacks and accusations. The false information about me leaves little doubt the rest is equally questionable. I was a threat from the beginning because I identified the hoax early in a peer-reviewed article, “An Iconoclast’s View of Climatic Change” in the 1992 Canadian Water Resources Journal. The editor published but with the bizarre condition he provide the title. When I saw his choice I agreed because, unknown to him I already realized I was challenging a religion. Hoggan and Littlemore falsely linked me to the oil and energy industry. They said my failure to follow through on a lawsuit to stop their false information was proof of guilt. Truth is I could not afford to continue the action. Besides, Hoggan was supporting the person who made the false accusations. The book smears by suggestion, implies guilt by association, and uses various forms of ad hominem attacks. They don’t discuss the scientific facts.
Hoggan and Littlemore are major players in the attacks and real cover-up. It is their expertise. Hoggan is a master of spin who owns a large Public Relations company. Littlemore is a political journalist. Hoggan set up a web page called Desmogblog and hired Littlemore and Kevin Grandia, to produce material replete with personal attacks, while ignoring the science.
Hoggan is Chair of the Board of the David Suzuki Foundation, a political environmental group that receives funding from oil and energy companies. With the twisted logic of true believers somehow this is not tainting and neither is money from government or any other agency. Hoggan’s clients include alternative energy companies, like Ballard Engineering, who benefit from showing CO2 is causing global warming or climate change, but somehow that is not a conflict. But none of that is important; the issue is the science and the facts, which they consistently ignore.
Knocked Out by the Facts
The final finger of denialism pointed so directly by Monbiot is, ironically, an eloquent description of his own position. The reason he writes, “There is no point in denying it: we’re losing” is because the fingers have curled into a fist and it is aimed right back at him and the other real deniers. As James Howell (1594 - 1666) said, “Burn not thy fingers to snuff another man’s candle.” See post here.
Nov 16, 2009
By Dr. Tim Ball, Canada Free Press, November 16, 2009
“When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.” Anonymous
Finger pointing rarely includes facts, especially in the climate debate. The first finger said we were global warming skeptics, but was turned back when it was explained all scientists are skeptics.
The second finger claimed we were climate change deniers. It was turned back because the opposite is true; we’re telling the public about the extent and speed of natural climate change. As Copenhagen nears, it’s evident no agreement is possible so rhetoric, and alarmism abound. Finger pointing has a new form, being a denier is now a disease. They never consider the failure is due to facts proving the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis wrong. With the left it is always someone else’s fault.
Just the Facts
Extreme left journalist George Monbiot ignored all the facts I provided when he was pointing a finger at me. He’s ignoring them again, which forces him to assume the deniers are at fault. He wrote, “There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.”
The sphere is expanding for several reasons.
- All evidence rejects the hypothesis that human CO2 is causing warming or climate change.
- Facts are gradually getting to the public despite obstructionism by journalists like Monbiot.
- Temperature projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are consistently wrong.
- Record cold temperatures are occurring everywhere.
- Motives of those pushing the need for reduction in CO2 are being exposed.
- Economic costs of a completely unnecessary action are emerging.
- If you shoot the messenger it changes the question to, “Who is the denier now?”
Denialism is defined as “the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.” It’s a variation on “the science is settled” theme, but personalized to say you deny the facts that prove it’s settled. I experienced it this week and learned there’s no rational response. A person presented herself as a journalist writing an article on climate change. I don’t refuse interviews and assume the person is seeking balance. The article was about “denialism”, which the journalist claimed was a serious threat and I was a prime example. It evolved there was no balance, the journalist believed the science is settled and I was refusing to concede.
I explained how I am the antithesis of a denier. I explained how the scientific method was thwarted and the AGW hypothesis became fact before the research began. I was told this was clear evidence of my denial. As the chosen representative of denialism I wanted the facts and science I was supposedly denying. I asked what percentage CO2 was of greenhouse gases. The answer; “I ask the questions.” I ended the interview, an action that will probably appear as clear evidence of denial.
Leftist politicians are pointing the same fingers. Australian Prime Minister Rudd said in a recent speech, “climate-change skeptics, the climate-change deniers, the opponents of climate-change action are active in every country.”
He wrapped the charges in the standard environmentalist argument of the precautionary principle. Of the Australian opposition he said, “You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition on a gut feeling; on a political prejudice you have about science.”
It is the finger of guilt. What he denies is those impacts will occur if you implement his proposed climate-change action.
But who has the political prejudice?
Logic says it’s those who want to stifle debate, to silence individuals and groups. All I’ve ever sought is a full and open debate. It was what 59 fellow skeptics and I sought in a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister.
A new book with another twist accuses those trying to uncover the facts of a cover-up. I hesitate to give the book attention but as an example of the illogic, lies and nastiness in the climate change debate it must be exposed. James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore’s form of the denialism charge is in their book titled, “Climate Cover-Up” subtitled, “The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.” They’ve likely achieved a new low with two major errors in the title. Nobody denies warming; the issue is the cause. The word “crusade” implies a religious quest, but the real crusade is to force acceptance of the hypothesis by personal attacks. Scientists as skeptics were subjected to an inquisition as befalls non-believers.
Disclosure; I’m a victim of their attacks and accusations. The false information about me leaves little doubt the rest is equally questionable. I was a threat from the beginning because I identified the hoax early in a peer-reviewed article, “An Iconoclast’s View of Climatic Change” in the 1992 Canadian Water Resources Journal. The editor published but with the bizarre condition he provide the title. When I saw his choice I agreed because, unknown to him I already realized I was challenging a religion. Hoggan and Littlemore falsely linked me to the oil and energy industry. They said my failure to follow through on a lawsuit to stop their false information was proof of guilt. Truth is I could not afford to continue the action. Besides, Hoggan was supporting the person who made the false accusations. The book smears by suggestion, implies guilt by association, and uses various forms of ad hominem attacks. They don’t discuss the scientific facts.
Hoggan and Littlemore are major players in the attacks and real cover-up. It is their expertise. Hoggan is a master of spin who owns a large Public Relations company. Littlemore is a political journalist. Hoggan set up a web page called Desmogblog and hired Littlemore and Kevin Grandia, to produce material replete with personal attacks, while ignoring the science.
Hoggan is Chair of the Board of the David Suzuki Foundation, a political environmental group that receives funding from oil and energy companies. With the twisted logic of true believers somehow this is not tainting and neither is money from government or any other agency. Hoggan’s clients include alternative energy companies, like Ballard Engineering, who benefit from showing CO2 is causing global warming or climate change, but somehow that is not a conflict. But none of that is important; the issue is the science and the facts, which they consistently ignore.
Knocked Out by the Facts
The final finger of denialism pointed so directly by Monbiot is, ironically, an eloquent description of his own position. The reason he writes, “There is no point in denying it: we’re losing” is because the fingers have curled into a fist and it is aimed right back at him and the other real deniers. As James Howell (1594 - 1666) said, “Burn not thy fingers to snuff another man’s candle.” See post here.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Gore's presentation on climate change draws 800 as 200 protestors gather outside
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/gore-s-presentation-on-climate-change-draws-800-59205.html
By George Bennett Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 9:27 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009
BOCA RATON — Confused Palm Beach County voters helped thwart Al Gore's 2000 bid to become president of the United States, but he was introduced as "president of the planet" when he returned here Saturday night to deliver an environmental lecture.
The former vice president spoke on climate change at the Mizner Park Amphitheater to a crowd of about 800. More than 200 protesters gathered across the street from the event, and their boos and chants could be heard inside the amphitheater as Gore began his presentation.
Gore lost Florida, and the White House, by 537 votes to George W. Bush in a 2000 as many Palm Beach County Democrats said they mistakenly voted for conservative Pat Buchanan because they were confused by the county's "butterfly ballot" design.
After losing the presidential race, Gore became arguably the world's most famous advocate for curbing carbon emissions, gaining eco-celebrity status with the film An Inconvenient Truth and winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
"It's an interesting twist of fate here in our own backyard that former Vice President Al Gore has taken on a new platform and is now a catalyst for world change," said Marci Zaroff, an "eco-entrepeneur" who introduced Gore.
"So, in essence, he's president of the people. He's president of the planet. And the work that he's doing is more important than any other work that could possibly be done."
Tickets for the event sold for $44 to $339, with proceeds going to the nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection that Gore chairs.
Gore began his remarks by calling climate change "the most dangerous problem we've ever faced. But it is also a tremendous opportunity for us to solve problems that have been neglected for a long time."
Organizers allowed the media to cover only the first few minutes of Gore's presentation.
In addition to his nonprofit advocacy, Gore is a partner in a venture capital firm that finances "sustainable" and alternative energy businesses, prompting some critics to accuse Gore of promoting environmental policies that will fatten his bank account.
"Cap & Tax — Don't Be Fooled: Al Gore Will Make billions," read a sign carried by Alan Tudor, who drove from Tampa to attend Saturday's protest.
"Gore's Favorite Green Product? Your money in his pocket," said another sign.
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said Gore's investments are consistent with positions he has held for decades.
"Former Vice President Gore has made long-term investments in 'sustainable' companies, the vast majority of which are not directly involved with efforts to solve the climate crisis. He has also invested in some companies that have attempted and will continue to help solve the climate crisis. These are a reflection of his values," Kreider said in an e-mail.
"If he did not invest in technologies that he supported, these very same people would accuse him of being a hypocrite," Kreider said.
george_bennett@pbpost.com
By George Bennett Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 9:27 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009
BOCA RATON — Confused Palm Beach County voters helped thwart Al Gore's 2000 bid to become president of the United States, but he was introduced as "president of the planet" when he returned here Saturday night to deliver an environmental lecture.
The former vice president spoke on climate change at the Mizner Park Amphitheater to a crowd of about 800. More than 200 protesters gathered across the street from the event, and their boos and chants could be heard inside the amphitheater as Gore began his presentation.
Gore lost Florida, and the White House, by 537 votes to George W. Bush in a 2000 as many Palm Beach County Democrats said they mistakenly voted for conservative Pat Buchanan because they were confused by the county's "butterfly ballot" design.
After losing the presidential race, Gore became arguably the world's most famous advocate for curbing carbon emissions, gaining eco-celebrity status with the film An Inconvenient Truth and winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
"It's an interesting twist of fate here in our own backyard that former Vice President Al Gore has taken on a new platform and is now a catalyst for world change," said Marci Zaroff, an "eco-entrepeneur" who introduced Gore.
"So, in essence, he's president of the people. He's president of the planet. And the work that he's doing is more important than any other work that could possibly be done."
Tickets for the event sold for $44 to $339, with proceeds going to the nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection that Gore chairs.
Gore began his remarks by calling climate change "the most dangerous problem we've ever faced. But it is also a tremendous opportunity for us to solve problems that have been neglected for a long time."
Organizers allowed the media to cover only the first few minutes of Gore's presentation.
In addition to his nonprofit advocacy, Gore is a partner in a venture capital firm that finances "sustainable" and alternative energy businesses, prompting some critics to accuse Gore of promoting environmental policies that will fatten his bank account.
"Cap & Tax — Don't Be Fooled: Al Gore Will Make billions," read a sign carried by Alan Tudor, who drove from Tampa to attend Saturday's protest.
"Gore's Favorite Green Product? Your money in his pocket," said another sign.
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said Gore's investments are consistent with positions he has held for decades.
"Former Vice President Gore has made long-term investments in 'sustainable' companies, the vast majority of which are not directly involved with efforts to solve the climate crisis. He has also invested in some companies that have attempted and will continue to help solve the climate crisis. These are a reflection of his values," Kreider said in an e-mail.
"If he did not invest in technologies that he supported, these very same people would accuse him of being a hypocrite," Kreider said.
george_bennett@pbpost.com
Thursday, November 12, 2009
NCAR: Number of record highs beat record lows – if you believe the quality of data from the weather stations
http://wattsupwiththat.com/category/weather_stations/
I’ll have a lot more on this study later, but for now just a short rebuttal.
I believe this study is hopelessly flawed due to the fact that the authors take the data from the weather stations at face value without considering bias due to measurement error or siting error, both of which are rampant in the US surface station network.
Read the report.
While not all situations with poorly sited weather stations affect trends, a weather station like this one at the University of Arizona’s parking lot in front of the atmospheric science department is represenative of the kinds of problems that would lead to an increased number of new high temperature records set
Above: official USHCN weather station, in the parking lot, Atmospheric Science Dept. University of Arizona, Tucson. Photo: Warren Meyer
Plus then there’s the error problem. For example we saw this summer that Honolulu set new record highs, but they turned out to be in error. The kicker is that NOAA let the records stand anyway! The problem is that a number of climate stations are at airports. Watch this NWS employee say on record that these airport weather stations are “placed for aviation purposes…not necessarily for climate purposes.”
So take this NCAR study with a grain of salt, since the authors did not address any of these issues.
From NCAR: Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across U.S.
BOULDER—Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.
“Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States,” says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting.”...
I’ll have a lot more on this study later, but for now just a short rebuttal.
I believe this study is hopelessly flawed due to the fact that the authors take the data from the weather stations at face value without considering bias due to measurement error or siting error, both of which are rampant in the US surface station network.
Read the report.
While not all situations with poorly sited weather stations affect trends, a weather station like this one at the University of Arizona’s parking lot in front of the atmospheric science department is represenative of the kinds of problems that would lead to an increased number of new high temperature records set
Above: official USHCN weather station, in the parking lot, Atmospheric Science Dept. University of Arizona, Tucson. Photo: Warren Meyer
Plus then there’s the error problem. For example we saw this summer that Honolulu set new record highs, but they turned out to be in error. The kicker is that NOAA let the records stand anyway! The problem is that a number of climate stations are at airports. Watch this NWS employee say on record that these airport weather stations are “placed for aviation purposes…not necessarily for climate purposes.”
So take this NCAR study with a grain of salt, since the authors did not address any of these issues.
From NCAR: Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across U.S.
BOULDER—Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.
“Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States,” says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting.”...
Climate change 'sceptic' Ian Plimer argues CO2 is not causing global warming
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6553592/Climate-change-sceptic-Ian-Plimer-argues-CO2-is-not-causing-global-warming.html
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a natural phenomenon caused by volcanoes and is not responsible for climate change, a scientist has claimed.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 2:54PM GMT 12 Nov 2009
Photo: PA Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist from Adelaide University, argues that a recent rise in temperature around the world is caused by solar cycles and other "extra terrestrial" forces.
He said carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, widely blamed for global warming, is a natural phenomenon caused by volcanoes erupting.
"We cannot stop carbon emissions because most of them come from volcanoes," he said. "It is a normal element cycled around in the earth and my science, which is looking back in time, is saying we have had a planet that has been a green, warm wet planet 80 per cent of the time. We have had huge climate change in the past and to think the very slight variations we measure today are the result of our life - we really have to put ice blocks in our drinks."
Most mainstream scientists agree that the recent warming period was caused by an increase in carbon dioxide since the industrial revolution.
However Prof Plimer said the world has experienced three periods of cooling since 1850 and furthermore carbon dioxide was increasing during many of those cooler periods.
"If we had only had warming, then there would be a connect between co2 and temperature, there is not," he added.
Prof Plimer has come under attack as a "denialist poster boy" whose theories are in danger of stopping the world from tackling the grave dangers of climate change.
But he said the scientists "frightening people witless by following the party line" are motivated by politics and research funding.
"They are taking advantage of the current situation. That is understandable. In previous times people got wonderful research grants in a war against cancer and they achieved a lot of money for that. Now we have a war on climate change and we have a huge number of people out there who have their career staked on it and are beneficiaries of this process."
Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice at the Met Office, said it is widely accepted that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has doubled in the last 200 years and as a result the globe is warming.
She said there are "natural variations" in temperature caused by the weather as well as natural phenomenon like El Nino and human effects like pollution, but overall the climate has been getting hotter and has reached its warmest period in recent years.
"The basic physics is that if carbon dioxide increases then the temperature goes up," she said.
A number of "climate change sceptics" will be giving talks in the run up to a key UN Summit in Copenhagen in December when the world is expected to agree an international deal to stop global warming.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a natural phenomenon caused by volcanoes and is not responsible for climate change, a scientist has claimed.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 2:54PM GMT 12 Nov 2009
Photo: PA Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist from Adelaide University, argues that a recent rise in temperature around the world is caused by solar cycles and other "extra terrestrial" forces.
He said carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, widely blamed for global warming, is a natural phenomenon caused by volcanoes erupting.
"We cannot stop carbon emissions because most of them come from volcanoes," he said. "It is a normal element cycled around in the earth and my science, which is looking back in time, is saying we have had a planet that has been a green, warm wet planet 80 per cent of the time. We have had huge climate change in the past and to think the very slight variations we measure today are the result of our life - we really have to put ice blocks in our drinks."
Most mainstream scientists agree that the recent warming period was caused by an increase in carbon dioxide since the industrial revolution.
However Prof Plimer said the world has experienced three periods of cooling since 1850 and furthermore carbon dioxide was increasing during many of those cooler periods.
"If we had only had warming, then there would be a connect between co2 and temperature, there is not," he added.
Prof Plimer has come under attack as a "denialist poster boy" whose theories are in danger of stopping the world from tackling the grave dangers of climate change.
But he said the scientists "frightening people witless by following the party line" are motivated by politics and research funding.
"They are taking advantage of the current situation. That is understandable. In previous times people got wonderful research grants in a war against cancer and they achieved a lot of money for that. Now we have a war on climate change and we have a huge number of people out there who have their career staked on it and are beneficiaries of this process."
Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice at the Met Office, said it is widely accepted that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has doubled in the last 200 years and as a result the globe is warming.
She said there are "natural variations" in temperature caused by the weather as well as natural phenomenon like El Nino and human effects like pollution, but overall the climate has been getting hotter and has reached its warmest period in recent years.
"The basic physics is that if carbon dioxide increases then the temperature goes up," she said.
A number of "climate change sceptics" will be giving talks in the run up to a key UN Summit in Copenhagen in December when the world is expected to agree an international deal to stop global warming.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Don’t buy those carbon credits just yet
http://www.icecap.us/
Nov 10, 2009
By David Freddoso, Washington Examiner
Democrats’ cap-and-trade climate change bill contains a provision that could suddenly render useless the carbon credits it creates, says Sen. David Vitter, R-La. Vitter will speak at a press conference later today on how the bill establishes emergency conditions requiring the president to step in and use all of his authority over relevant agencies to stop global warming. According to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which performs climate modeling analyses for the Department of Energy, the emergency conditions laid out in the bill would be triggered within months of its enactment.
The cap-and-trade bill—both the Senate version that passed the Environment and Public Works committee and the version that already passed the House—effectively declares a climate emergency if world greenhouse gas levels climb above 450 parts per million. (The number appears to have been chosen arbitrarily.) According to the Pacific Northwest National lab, which wrote in response to Vitter’s inquiries, the world’s air will hit that level of greenhouse gases next year, in 2010, if undeveloped nations do not accept carbon limits.
The result is a a scenario in which the law not only permits but in fact requires the president to �direct all Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions...to address shortfalls” in emissions cutbacks.
The bill’s language places an unusually broad mandate upon the president to act in the event of this “emergency” situation.” In a letter to Vitter, EPA administration Lisa Jackson wrote that she does not know what her agency would do. �It is premature to describe exactly what additional actions EPA may take until such an analysis is conducted,” she wrote.
But declaration of this “climate emergency” could result in federal agencies denying all discretionary permits for carbon-emitting industries, and EPA itself could impose non-attainment status upon the entire United States. “In that context, the carbon credits won’t matter,” Vitter told me yesterday.
If a future president tries to go easy on industry, environmental groups are sure to litigate based on the clear language in the law, forcing his hand.
“This provision was not focused on to any significant extent during the House debate,” said Vitter. The climate change bill passed the House this summer, hours after hundreds of pages of amendments were added to it. Vitter said he plans to write industry leaders who are supporting the climate bill to ask whether they understand what the bill’s language would do.
Nov 10, 2009
By David Freddoso, Washington Examiner
Democrats’ cap-and-trade climate change bill contains a provision that could suddenly render useless the carbon credits it creates, says Sen. David Vitter, R-La. Vitter will speak at a press conference later today on how the bill establishes emergency conditions requiring the president to step in and use all of his authority over relevant agencies to stop global warming. According to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which performs climate modeling analyses for the Department of Energy, the emergency conditions laid out in the bill would be triggered within months of its enactment.
The cap-and-trade bill—both the Senate version that passed the Environment and Public Works committee and the version that already passed the House—effectively declares a climate emergency if world greenhouse gas levels climb above 450 parts per million. (The number appears to have been chosen arbitrarily.) According to the Pacific Northwest National lab, which wrote in response to Vitter’s inquiries, the world’s air will hit that level of greenhouse gases next year, in 2010, if undeveloped nations do not accept carbon limits.
The result is a a scenario in which the law not only permits but in fact requires the president to �direct all Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions...to address shortfalls” in emissions cutbacks.
The bill’s language places an unusually broad mandate upon the president to act in the event of this “emergency” situation.” In a letter to Vitter, EPA administration Lisa Jackson wrote that she does not know what her agency would do. �It is premature to describe exactly what additional actions EPA may take until such an analysis is conducted,” she wrote.
But declaration of this “climate emergency” could result in federal agencies denying all discretionary permits for carbon-emitting industries, and EPA itself could impose non-attainment status upon the entire United States. “In that context, the carbon credits won’t matter,” Vitter told me yesterday.
If a future president tries to go easy on industry, environmental groups are sure to litigate based on the clear language in the law, forcing his hand.
“This provision was not focused on to any significant extent during the House debate,” said Vitter. The climate change bill passed the House this summer, hours after hundreds of pages of amendments were added to it. Vitter said he plans to write industry leaders who are supporting the climate bill to ask whether they understand what the bill’s language would do.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Al Gore Encourages Civil Disobedience
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate
By Oliver Burkeman, UK Guardian
Excerpts:
Gore’s new book, Our Choice: A Plan To Solve The Climate Crisis, gives global warming deniers short shrift, and shows little concern for displays of political bipartisanship: he likens the doubters to the “birthers” intent on proving that Obama is a Kenyan - not just mavericks, but fantasists who inhabit a different version of reality.
“It’s important to change lightbulbs,” he says, in a well-burnished soundbite, “but more important to change policies and laws.” Or perhaps to break laws instead: peaceful occupations of the kind witnessed recently in the UK, he predicts, are only going to become more widespread. “Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play. And I expect that it will increase, no question about it.” People sometimes express incredulity that Gore, who was groomed for the presidency almost since birth, seems so resolved that he’ll never return to electoral politics. But here’s a vivid example of the benefits of life on the outside: how many serving politicians would feel able to come so close to urging people to commit trespass?
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