Thursday, November 26, 2009
More Monbiot: Still shaken but not stirred
Monbiot has made his mark by shrieking louder than most about climate change so he can't back down now but he is smart enough to see that the hacked CRU materials cannot be ignored -- which is what most Warmists are trying to do
I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can't possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.
The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people's denial. Pretending that this isn't a real crisis isn't going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We'll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.
It is true that much of what has been revealed could be explained as the usual cut and thrust of the peer review process, exacerbated by the extraordinary pressure the scientists were facing from a denial industry determined to crush them. One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research turned out to be so badly flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief. Jones knew that any incorrect papers by sceptical scientists would be picked up and amplified by climate change deniers funded by the fossil fuel industry, who often – as I documented in my book Heat – use all sorts of dirty tricks to advance their cause.
Even so, his message looks awful. It gives the impression of confirming a potent meme circulated by those who campaign against taking action on climate change: that the IPCC process is biased. However good the detailed explanations may be, most people aren't going to follow or understand them. Jones's statement, on the other hand, is stark and easy to grasp.
In this case you could argue that technically he has done nothing wrong. But a fat lot of good that will do. Think of the MPs' expenses scandal: complaints about stolen data, denials and huffy responses achieved nothing at all. Most of the MPs could demonstrate that technically they were innocent: their expenses had been approved by the Commons office. It didn't change public perceptions one jot. The only responses that have helped to restore public trust in Parliament are humility, openness and promises of reform.
When it comes to his handling of Freedom of Information requests, Professor Jones might struggle even to use a technical defence. If you take the wording literally, in one case he appears to be suggesting that emails subject to a request be deleted, which means that he seems to be advocating potentially criminal activity. Even if no other message had been hacked, this would be sufficient to ensure his resignation as head of the unit.
I feel desperately sorry for him: he must be walking through hell. But there is no helping it; he has to go, and the longer he leaves it, the worse it will get. He has a few days left in which to make an honourable exit. Otherwise, like the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, he will linger on until his remaining credibility vanishes, inflicting continuing damage to climate science.
Some people say that I am romanticising science, that it is never as open and honest as the Popperian ideal. Perhaps. But I know that opaqueness and secrecy are the enemies of science. There is a word for the apparent repeated attempts to prevent disclosure revealed in these emails: unscientific.
The crisis has been exacerbated by the university's handling of it, which has been a total trainwreck: a textbook example of how not to respond. RealClimate reports that "We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day." In other words, the university knew what was coming three days before the story broke. As far as I can tell, it sat like a rabbit in the headlights, waiting for disaster to strike.
When the emails hit the news on Friday morning, the university appeared completely unprepared. There was no statement, no position, no one to interview. Reporters kept being fobbed off while CRU's opponents landed blow upon blow on it. When a journalist I know finally managed to track down Phil Jones, he snapped "no comment" and put down the phone. This response is generally taken by the media to mean "guilty as charged". When I got hold of him on Saturday, his answer was to send me a pdf called "WMO statement on the status of the global climate in 1999". Had I a couple of hours to spare I might have been able to work out what the heck this had to do with the current crisis, but he offered no explanation.
By then he should have been touring the TV studios for the past 36 hours, confronting his critics, making his case and apologising for his mistakes. Instead, he had disappeared off the face of the Earth. Now, far too late, he has given an interview to the Press Association, which has done nothing to change the story.
The handling of this crisis suggests that nothing has been learnt by climate scientists in this country from 20 years of assaults on their discipline. They appear to have no idea what they're up against or how to confront it. Their opponents might be scumbags, but their media strategy is exemplary.
The greatest tragedy here is that despite many years of outright fabrication, fraud and deceit on the part of the climate change denial industry, documented in James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore's brilliant new book Climate Cover-up, it is now the climate scientists who look bad. By comparison to his opponents, Phil Jones is pure as the driven snow. Hoggan and Littlemore have shown how fossil fuel industries have employed "experts" to lie, cheat and manipulate on their behalf. The revelations in their book (as well as in Heat and in Ross Gelbspan's book The Heat Is On) are 100 times graver than anything contained in these emails.
But the deniers' campaign of lies, grotesque as it is, does not justify secrecy and suppression on the part of climate scientists. Far from it: it means that they must distinguish themselves from their opponents in every way. No one has been as badly let down by the revelations in these emails as those of us who have championed the science. We should be the first to demand that it is unimpeachable, not the last.
SOURCE
Tom Yulsman of CE Journal is shaken, not stirred too
He still has not lost the faith but calls for an enquiry
George Monbiot’s post at the Guardian today is a must-read for anyone who covers climate change as a journalist — and for anyone who is concerned about our future in a warming world. “I have seldom felt so alone,” Monbiot writes. “Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial.”
Denial of the impact of the hacked emails, and particularly this statement from Phil Jones, director of the U.K.’s Climatic Research Unit: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” ....
As someone who has written about the science for decades — and trusted the peer-review process to guide me toward trustworthy information — I’m standing with George Monbiot on this. I believe the CRU should agree to an independent examination of what happened. Not a trial. Not an adversarial process. But one that is unbiased and focused on restoring public faith in the science that institution produces.
In the meantime, I’m certainly curious to know who leaked the emails. But answering that question is a sideshow compared to the main event. Journalists should do what they can to take a closer look both at the peer review process and what specifically went on in this case. We must be careful not to jump to conclusions. One instance of a possible problem with peer review does not indict the entire enterprise. But here is where the journalistic watchdog role can actually do a service by helping to preserve the overall integrity of the process — and prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again.
More HERE
Shock -- Et Tu, DeSmogBlog? Climate Alarmists at DeSmogBlog Call for Phil Jones to Offer his Resignation!
Comment from Richard Littlemore, who "has been trained by Al Gore as part of The Climate Project, an initiative designed to educate the public about climate change".
Monbiot turns the pointy end of his pen toward CRU Director Phil Jones, calling (for a second time) for his resignation and - well - tut-tutting at the whole inadequate reaction to the current tempest. As Monbiot says, when you have been caught making a mistake, there are two reactions: you can wear out your voice - and your credibility - arguing over the details and severity of the actual offense; or you can say you're sorry and show why we should believe that you won't do it again.
Currently, Jones and company have been leaning toward the former, and they're drawing out a tedious conversation in the process.
It's hard to watch this - galling to see the deniers having such fun in this manufactured debacle. It's worse having to listen to sage advice that goes against people whom we have come to respect enormously. I don't personally know that Jones has to be sacked, but I have to admit that it would be savvy for him to at least offer to step aside before someone in authority makes a move to give him a push.
More HERE
The collapse of the global warming myth
By Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., a nuclear scientist who has also taught chemistry and energy at the University level
If this scandal of November 20, 2009 continues in the horrendous path it’s taken, it should be the end of the man-made CO2 global warming hypothesis. Beyond the warmers inability to prove their simple hypothesis after more than 20 years and $80 billion dollars, has been their collective bullying behavior patterns. This bullying has been so outrageous and out of character of honest scientists, that it is as offensive as it is noticeable. This behavior suggested to me that this group of people were being less than honorable in their conduct of their work.
In a speech last Spring in New York by John Sununu I was reminded that the climate warming leaders were high paid bullies who determined who got funded (the recipients of those $89 Billion), and who didn't, who got published and who didn't, and who got the acclaim, and who didn't. Much of this is now confirmed in the released emails from Hadley/CRU.
The release of 62 Mbytes of the climate research data from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in computer files has been momentous, almost unique in human history (http://tinyurl.com/yha4lxn). During the 24 hours following the release of these 62 Mbytes of documents, emails, letters, and reports, all became public knowledge around the world and thousands are pouring over the contents.
While still in the beginning stages of analyses, gleaned information has been showing horrendous levels of corruption, suborning subterfuge and deceptions, and controlling the science journals in limiting publications of research which do not support the AGW hypothesis. I have never ever seen anything like this, so high level, so unethical, and so evil.
I say evil since the unproven AGW hypothesis promoted by these insiders, is the basis for the trillion dollar Cap and Trade legislation and the redistribution of trillions from the US to the rest of the world. It is the basis for the Copenhagen meeting coming up in December which is designed how best to cripple the economics of the west through increased energy costs and energy rationing. It is the basis for the EU and the UN asking the US to pay trillions in reparations to all of those 3rd world nations which have been "damaged" by global warming.
These nation members walk the halls of the UN promoting "justifications” for reparations for their "damages" and their need for our wealth. It is the basis for demanding green energy sources to be installed with trillions of our dollars all over the 3rd world. Green energy sources already installed in the 3rd world, are not working well either. This debate has profound global implications and I find it contemptible that adults, Ph.D.s or not, would works so fanatically to achieve these destructive goals.
I also point out the thousands of media, academics, environmentalists, legislators, and movie elites who have taken strong and powerful positions in this debate, as if the AGW hypothesis has been validated. It hasn't. All of them have failed to ask the simple question "Show us the evidence that man-made CO2 causes global warming." That such people, presumed to be Americans, could promote and defend such a dangerous policy for our nation, is stunning.
Many of the global warming supporters seem to think that a photo of a polar bear on an ice floe is evidence that man-made CO2 is the cause!! The implied message is that this has never happened before, that man is causing it, that it is dangerous, which is all nonsense. They also seem to think that a photo-shopped video of a tidal wave roaring through downtown Manhattan is evidence of sea level rise, or that an iceberg calving from a glacier is evidence. We might also add that consensus is not evidence either, nor are appeals from high authority, nor are computer model predictions. If it weren’t for faulty computer models there would be no controversy at all, since real world measured evidence is still unreported.
Too few seem to have the wits to ask for a thermometer or ask for real Temp data, or sea level data, or hurricane data, or polar ice data. Also missing from the discussions is the large program needed to achieve high quality of all of the data, and how that is sustained. I have never seen a word of a Quality Assessment/Quality Control programs being used within the climate science realm. Then there is the entire issue of pathetically poor quality of the climate computer modeling programs. Anthony Watts at www.whatsupwiththat.com has undertaken to examine the low quality of the temperature stations and the low grade erratic temperature data they produce. His findings also show low grade station and data management as practiced by our climate agencies.
The British seem now to have realized the damage to all of science which has been done by the AGW crowd at the Climate Research Unit (CRU). In response to recent revelations contained in leaked e-mails originating from the CRU at the University of East Anglia, Lord Lawson, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), has called for a rigorous and independent inquiry into the matter. While reserving judgment on the contents of the e-mails, Lord Lawson said these are very serious issues and allegations that reach to the heart of scientific integrity and credibility:
"Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals."
"There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay."
People in the media, academics, legislators, movie elites, and environmentalist group have been quite sympathetic to the AGW promoters, and with apologies to Sherlock Holmes they have been the “The Dogs Which Didn't Bark”. They knew or should have known that these climate crimes were being committed and they knew or should have known who was committing them. They not only did nothing to stop them, they attacked, insulted, and dismissed those who objected. These are actions of dangerous people, too, and are unforgivable.
SOURCE
Disagreeable truth about the coming Copenhagen charade
We are about to see an advanced case of "agreementism" between world leaders at the Copenhagen climate change meeting. It is a painful and embarrassing disorder with familiar results. Every case begins the same way. Leaders gather in summits. They confer. They reach earnest consensus that they need to solve a common problem. They commission studies and agree to meet again. Next time, they tell reporters, they will make real decisions.
This looks terrifically statesmanlike and carries lots of photo opportunities. But then they realise it will be unpopular and difficult to implement necessary reforms. Troubled, the weaker among the leaders gaze into their quivering souls and choose self-preservation over problem-solving. At this instant, the fire of activism departs.
But their huffing and puffing self-promotion has built a peak of expectation. They can't just walk away and admit failure. The conditions are now ripe - the next time the leaders gather, agreementism sets in. In a mild case, leaders simply draw up high-sounding communiques. In numbered paragraphs, they give a strong impression of firm agreement and resolute action, but without actually binding themselves to any. But in an advanced case, leaders know that this simple ruse is unconvincing. The problem is too big, and the leaders have talked too much, to hope that they can get away this easily. They need more than a mere communique. In this stage of the disease, the symptoms deteriorate markedly. Leaders display a disturbing symptom known as "concerted unilateralism".
This is a sophisticated way of saying that countries can do whatever the hell they like, but they will write something pompous about it first. And they will all do it together. This is precisely the symptom that world leaders are now displaying ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit - the so-called COP15 - in two weeks.
This was supposed to be the meeting that sealed a legally binding treaty on all 191 nations of the world. Successor to the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, it would be the pact to save the planet from the devastating effects of global warming. But you could pick the acute onset of advanced agreementism the moment the meeting's chairman, Lars Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, uttered the following words at a breakfast meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in Singapore on November 15: "The Copenhagen Agreement should be global, comprehensive and substantial, yet flexible enough to accommodate countries with very different national circumstances."
Allow me to interpret: "To frightened leaders everywhere, do not panic! Each of you will write down on a piece of paper what you want to do about global warming. There is nothing compulsory. Make it sound impressive. We are supposed to be saving the entire planet, remember? Whatever. "Next, we will collect your papers. We will staple them together. We will call it the Copenhagen Agreement. We will declare victory. We will all have our pictures taken. And we will tell reporters that, next time, we will make real decisions. You know the drill."
How can we be so certain of this outcome? We have two ways to be sure. First, Rasmussen went on to spell it out in unmistakeable terms. "Will it be binding? Yes, it will be binding. Even if we may not hammer out the last dots of a legally binding instrument, I do believe a political binding agreement with specific commitment to mitigation and finance provides a strong basis for immediate action in the years to come."
Take special note of the all-important distinction between a "legally binding instrument" and a "political binding agreement". A politician's binding agreement? That's in the same category as a campaign promise. And celebrate the wonderful non-sequitur of "immediate action in the years to come".
In a masterstroke, Rasmussen called the format "one agreement - two purposes". The first purpose, he says, is to state political intent, and the second is to keep talking about a legal treaty for later. The media shorthand for this has become a "two-step" agreement.
Second, we know how this will end because we've seen it twice before in recent history. We've seen precisely the same format of "concerted unilateralism" on different continents and in different fields, and each time with the same result.
One was the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum's "Bogor Declaration" of 1994. In that much-ballyhooed agreement, the APEC leaders at their summit in Indonesia said "we announce our commitment to complete the achievement of our goal of free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific". For developed countries this would be "no later than the year 2010 and developing economies no later than the year 2020". But there was no binding agreement. It was a political deal which allowed each country to do what it pleased. What happened?' "The Bogor commitments have been all but ignored," summarised the Lowy Institute's Allan Gyngell and Malcolm Cook in a 2005 paper. Some APEC leaders still fantasise about a free-trade zone.
The other was the European Union's "Lisbon Strategy" of 2000. This was supposed to make Europe the world's most dynamic economy by 2010. But individual governments ignored the deal and continued to pander to unions and bureaucracies. The director of the International Centre for Money and Banking Studies in Geneva, Charles Wyplosz, wrote: "The strategy rests on peer pressure - the naming and shaming of governments that fail to make progress. In practice, however, peer pressure has become peer collusion." The result, in the words of the director of the European Policy Centre, Antonio Missiroli, was "shameful". The European economy remains sclerotic.
Bogor and Lisbon are clear precedents for Copenhagen's "concerted unilateralism". Nothing in any such agreement carries any real force. Only the countries that already wanted to act will act, and the rest will just sit around and watch. But there will certainly be agreement.
SOURCE
Token ETS the best idea for Australia
By Greg Sheridan
THE battle of expectations over the Copenhagen climate change conference next month has been fascinating to watch. At first, everything had to be done by Copenhagen, which would produce a binding agreement: targets, offsets, compensation for low-income countries and all the rest. Now everyone knows that nothing real will be achieved at Copenhagen. Of course, whatever happens there will be hailed as a great success. But nothing much will happen.
Watching the debate, I am afraid I have become a climate change agnostic. I am not a denier, nor really a sceptic. I am agnostic. I do not know whether the science that says we're all doomed if we don't de-carbonise the economy is true. Neither does anyone else.
But I am more than half convinced by the argument that we should give the planet the benefit of the doubt. It would be good if we polluted less. I'd like to end the dependence of Western societies on Middle Eastern oil. And one day, even if climate change is not a killer, the world will run out of fossil fuel. So by all means let's diversify our energy sources and clean up our environments. But I don't want us to go broke in the process.
And given that what we physically do in Australia will have almost no effect on the global climate, whatever the scientific faith you choose to believe in, we would be much better off facing the future, whatever it is, as a rich nation rather than a poor one.
In trying to evaluate this issue I have tried to gauge the seriousness of the key players. I'm not convinced that anybody in power anywhere really thinks this is an end-of-the-world issue. Certainly no one is behaving as if it is.
Kevin Rudd said this week that climate change is an "existential, fundamental" issue, then came up with an emissions trading scheme package so recondite and larded with giveaways that it seems unlikely to have any great effect on greenhouse gas emissions. I don't want to misrepresent our beloved PM, but this is really Rudd adopting the agnostic attitude, with his usual rhetoric of moral grandeur attached: sensibly do as little as necessary and see what comes up.
It would be folly for Australia to get out in front. In the end I suspect we'll do more or less whatever the Americans do, plus or minus half a per cent. Copenhagen will not produce anything like the binding deal originally envisaged, but will produce some movement to lower carbon emissions. Australia needs to shelter in the mainstream of developed but resource-rich countries (which really means the US), doing our bit but not overdoing it.
Washington under Barack Obama certainly doesn't appear to regard climate change as an existential question. Obama has clearly given health care a higher priority. He may well announce some sort of target before the Copenhagen meeting but no real economic action will be taken before next year and my guess is the economic action ultimately will be pretty equivocal.
The Europeans look, at times, as though they believe their own rhetoric. But most of their ostensible greenhouse reductions come from switching from coal to gas, decommissioning East German industry, exporting factory jobs to China and creative accounting.
As for China and the other developing nations, there is not the slightest chance they will sign up to any binding targets. To get them on board at Copenhagen, the world has to accept the most spectacularly rubbery figures. China, and all the countries I love such as India and Indonesia, will commit to actions only on the basis of what the boffins call counterfactuals: facts that don't exist.
A couple of years ago Indonesia's environment minister told me his country would cut emissions by 19 per cent. This sounded impressive until I realised he meant 19 per cent of what would have happened had there been no change. That kind of calculation is infinitely malleable.
A couple of weeks ago in New Delhi, India's Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor told me India had 17.5 per cent of the world's population but produced only 4 per cent of emissions. He said: "Per capita we are about 120th in the world. We're not part of the cause of the problem, but we do see the moral need to be part of the solution." He said quite a lot of nice things about the environment, but concluded: "We are still a country that cannot take 24 hours of electricity for granted. Six hundred million Indians are still not connected to electricity. If we approach development as consciously green minded, can we get help for the technology that works? (We also) have a duty to our people's development."
Two things strike me about Tharoor's elegant words. First, where is the technology that works, at anything like a reasonable price, in generating electricity without greenhouse gas emissions? Second, no Indian politician is going to tell 600 million fellow Indians they can't have electricity, but everyone in the West can. I describe this not to condemn it or to praise it but simply to register it as reality. The vast majority of new electricity generation in India, as in China and most of the developing world, comes from coal-fired power stations, and still there is no clean coal technology that works.
You cannot give electricity to 600 million people in India, and similar numbers in China, without massively increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The only technology that could possibly generate electricity on a big scale other than coal is nuclear. The Rudd government shows all its fine words on climate change are not to be taken too seriously by refusing to export uranium to India. No one in the world really takes this issue as seriously as they pretend to. Neither should we.
SOURCE
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Monbiot has made his mark by shrieking louder than most about climate change so he can't back down now but he is smart enough to see that the hacked CRU materials cannot be ignored -- which is what most Warmists are trying to do
I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can't possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.
The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people's denial. Pretending that this isn't a real crisis isn't going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We'll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.
It is true that much of what has been revealed could be explained as the usual cut and thrust of the peer review process, exacerbated by the extraordinary pressure the scientists were facing from a denial industry determined to crush them. One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research turned out to be so badly flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief. Jones knew that any incorrect papers by sceptical scientists would be picked up and amplified by climate change deniers funded by the fossil fuel industry, who often – as I documented in my book Heat – use all sorts of dirty tricks to advance their cause.
Even so, his message looks awful. It gives the impression of confirming a potent meme circulated by those who campaign against taking action on climate change: that the IPCC process is biased. However good the detailed explanations may be, most people aren't going to follow or understand them. Jones's statement, on the other hand, is stark and easy to grasp.
In this case you could argue that technically he has done nothing wrong. But a fat lot of good that will do. Think of the MPs' expenses scandal: complaints about stolen data, denials and huffy responses achieved nothing at all. Most of the MPs could demonstrate that technically they were innocent: their expenses had been approved by the Commons office. It didn't change public perceptions one jot. The only responses that have helped to restore public trust in Parliament are humility, openness and promises of reform.
When it comes to his handling of Freedom of Information requests, Professor Jones might struggle even to use a technical defence. If you take the wording literally, in one case he appears to be suggesting that emails subject to a request be deleted, which means that he seems to be advocating potentially criminal activity. Even if no other message had been hacked, this would be sufficient to ensure his resignation as head of the unit.
I feel desperately sorry for him: he must be walking through hell. But there is no helping it; he has to go, and the longer he leaves it, the worse it will get. He has a few days left in which to make an honourable exit. Otherwise, like the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, he will linger on until his remaining credibility vanishes, inflicting continuing damage to climate science.
Some people say that I am romanticising science, that it is never as open and honest as the Popperian ideal. Perhaps. But I know that opaqueness and secrecy are the enemies of science. There is a word for the apparent repeated attempts to prevent disclosure revealed in these emails: unscientific.
The crisis has been exacerbated by the university's handling of it, which has been a total trainwreck: a textbook example of how not to respond. RealClimate reports that "We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day." In other words, the university knew what was coming three days before the story broke. As far as I can tell, it sat like a rabbit in the headlights, waiting for disaster to strike.
When the emails hit the news on Friday morning, the university appeared completely unprepared. There was no statement, no position, no one to interview. Reporters kept being fobbed off while CRU's opponents landed blow upon blow on it. When a journalist I know finally managed to track down Phil Jones, he snapped "no comment" and put down the phone. This response is generally taken by the media to mean "guilty as charged". When I got hold of him on Saturday, his answer was to send me a pdf called "WMO statement on the status of the global climate in 1999". Had I a couple of hours to spare I might have been able to work out what the heck this had to do with the current crisis, but he offered no explanation.
By then he should have been touring the TV studios for the past 36 hours, confronting his critics, making his case and apologising for his mistakes. Instead, he had disappeared off the face of the Earth. Now, far too late, he has given an interview to the Press Association, which has done nothing to change the story.
The handling of this crisis suggests that nothing has been learnt by climate scientists in this country from 20 years of assaults on their discipline. They appear to have no idea what they're up against or how to confront it. Their opponents might be scumbags, but their media strategy is exemplary.
The greatest tragedy here is that despite many years of outright fabrication, fraud and deceit on the part of the climate change denial industry, documented in James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore's brilliant new book Climate Cover-up, it is now the climate scientists who look bad. By comparison to his opponents, Phil Jones is pure as the driven snow. Hoggan and Littlemore have shown how fossil fuel industries have employed "experts" to lie, cheat and manipulate on their behalf. The revelations in their book (as well as in Heat and in Ross Gelbspan's book The Heat Is On) are 100 times graver than anything contained in these emails.
But the deniers' campaign of lies, grotesque as it is, does not justify secrecy and suppression on the part of climate scientists. Far from it: it means that they must distinguish themselves from their opponents in every way. No one has been as badly let down by the revelations in these emails as those of us who have championed the science. We should be the first to demand that it is unimpeachable, not the last.
SOURCE
Tom Yulsman of CE Journal is shaken, not stirred too
He still has not lost the faith but calls for an enquiry
George Monbiot’s post at the Guardian today is a must-read for anyone who covers climate change as a journalist — and for anyone who is concerned about our future in a warming world. “I have seldom felt so alone,” Monbiot writes. “Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial.”
Denial of the impact of the hacked emails, and particularly this statement from Phil Jones, director of the U.K.’s Climatic Research Unit: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” ....
As someone who has written about the science for decades — and trusted the peer-review process to guide me toward trustworthy information — I’m standing with George Monbiot on this. I believe the CRU should agree to an independent examination of what happened. Not a trial. Not an adversarial process. But one that is unbiased and focused on restoring public faith in the science that institution produces.
In the meantime, I’m certainly curious to know who leaked the emails. But answering that question is a sideshow compared to the main event. Journalists should do what they can to take a closer look both at the peer review process and what specifically went on in this case. We must be careful not to jump to conclusions. One instance of a possible problem with peer review does not indict the entire enterprise. But here is where the journalistic watchdog role can actually do a service by helping to preserve the overall integrity of the process — and prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again.
More HERE
Shock -- Et Tu, DeSmogBlog? Climate Alarmists at DeSmogBlog Call for Phil Jones to Offer his Resignation!
Comment from Richard Littlemore, who "has been trained by Al Gore as part of The Climate Project, an initiative designed to educate the public about climate change".
Monbiot turns the pointy end of his pen toward CRU Director Phil Jones, calling (for a second time) for his resignation and - well - tut-tutting at the whole inadequate reaction to the current tempest. As Monbiot says, when you have been caught making a mistake, there are two reactions: you can wear out your voice - and your credibility - arguing over the details and severity of the actual offense; or you can say you're sorry and show why we should believe that you won't do it again.
Currently, Jones and company have been leaning toward the former, and they're drawing out a tedious conversation in the process.
It's hard to watch this - galling to see the deniers having such fun in this manufactured debacle. It's worse having to listen to sage advice that goes against people whom we have come to respect enormously. I don't personally know that Jones has to be sacked, but I have to admit that it would be savvy for him to at least offer to step aside before someone in authority makes a move to give him a push.
More HERE
The collapse of the global warming myth
By Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., a nuclear scientist who has also taught chemistry and energy at the University level
If this scandal of November 20, 2009 continues in the horrendous path it’s taken, it should be the end of the man-made CO2 global warming hypothesis. Beyond the warmers inability to prove their simple hypothesis after more than 20 years and $80 billion dollars, has been their collective bullying behavior patterns. This bullying has been so outrageous and out of character of honest scientists, that it is as offensive as it is noticeable. This behavior suggested to me that this group of people were being less than honorable in their conduct of their work.
In a speech last Spring in New York by John Sununu I was reminded that the climate warming leaders were high paid bullies who determined who got funded (the recipients of those $89 Billion), and who didn't, who got published and who didn't, and who got the acclaim, and who didn't. Much of this is now confirmed in the released emails from Hadley/CRU.
The release of 62 Mbytes of the climate research data from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in computer files has been momentous, almost unique in human history (http://tinyurl.com/yha4lxn). During the 24 hours following the release of these 62 Mbytes of documents, emails, letters, and reports, all became public knowledge around the world and thousands are pouring over the contents.
While still in the beginning stages of analyses, gleaned information has been showing horrendous levels of corruption, suborning subterfuge and deceptions, and controlling the science journals in limiting publications of research which do not support the AGW hypothesis. I have never ever seen anything like this, so high level, so unethical, and so evil.
I say evil since the unproven AGW hypothesis promoted by these insiders, is the basis for the trillion dollar Cap and Trade legislation and the redistribution of trillions from the US to the rest of the world. It is the basis for the Copenhagen meeting coming up in December which is designed how best to cripple the economics of the west through increased energy costs and energy rationing. It is the basis for the EU and the UN asking the US to pay trillions in reparations to all of those 3rd world nations which have been "damaged" by global warming.
These nation members walk the halls of the UN promoting "justifications” for reparations for their "damages" and their need for our wealth. It is the basis for demanding green energy sources to be installed with trillions of our dollars all over the 3rd world. Green energy sources already installed in the 3rd world, are not working well either. This debate has profound global implications and I find it contemptible that adults, Ph.D.s or not, would works so fanatically to achieve these destructive goals.
I also point out the thousands of media, academics, environmentalists, legislators, and movie elites who have taken strong and powerful positions in this debate, as if the AGW hypothesis has been validated. It hasn't. All of them have failed to ask the simple question "Show us the evidence that man-made CO2 causes global warming." That such people, presumed to be Americans, could promote and defend such a dangerous policy for our nation, is stunning.
Many of the global warming supporters seem to think that a photo of a polar bear on an ice floe is evidence that man-made CO2 is the cause!! The implied message is that this has never happened before, that man is causing it, that it is dangerous, which is all nonsense. They also seem to think that a photo-shopped video of a tidal wave roaring through downtown Manhattan is evidence of sea level rise, or that an iceberg calving from a glacier is evidence. We might also add that consensus is not evidence either, nor are appeals from high authority, nor are computer model predictions. If it weren’t for faulty computer models there would be no controversy at all, since real world measured evidence is still unreported.
Too few seem to have the wits to ask for a thermometer or ask for real Temp data, or sea level data, or hurricane data, or polar ice data. Also missing from the discussions is the large program needed to achieve high quality of all of the data, and how that is sustained. I have never seen a word of a Quality Assessment/Quality Control programs being used within the climate science realm. Then there is the entire issue of pathetically poor quality of the climate computer modeling programs. Anthony Watts at www.whatsupwiththat.com has undertaken to examine the low quality of the temperature stations and the low grade erratic temperature data they produce. His findings also show low grade station and data management as practiced by our climate agencies.
The British seem now to have realized the damage to all of science which has been done by the AGW crowd at the Climate Research Unit (CRU). In response to recent revelations contained in leaked e-mails originating from the CRU at the University of East Anglia, Lord Lawson, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), has called for a rigorous and independent inquiry into the matter. While reserving judgment on the contents of the e-mails, Lord Lawson said these are very serious issues and allegations that reach to the heart of scientific integrity and credibility:
"Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals."
"There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay."
People in the media, academics, legislators, movie elites, and environmentalist group have been quite sympathetic to the AGW promoters, and with apologies to Sherlock Holmes they have been the “The Dogs Which Didn't Bark”. They knew or should have known that these climate crimes were being committed and they knew or should have known who was committing them. They not only did nothing to stop them, they attacked, insulted, and dismissed those who objected. These are actions of dangerous people, too, and are unforgivable.
SOURCE
Disagreeable truth about the coming Copenhagen charade
We are about to see an advanced case of "agreementism" between world leaders at the Copenhagen climate change meeting. It is a painful and embarrassing disorder with familiar results. Every case begins the same way. Leaders gather in summits. They confer. They reach earnest consensus that they need to solve a common problem. They commission studies and agree to meet again. Next time, they tell reporters, they will make real decisions.
This looks terrifically statesmanlike and carries lots of photo opportunities. But then they realise it will be unpopular and difficult to implement necessary reforms. Troubled, the weaker among the leaders gaze into their quivering souls and choose self-preservation over problem-solving. At this instant, the fire of activism departs.
But their huffing and puffing self-promotion has built a peak of expectation. They can't just walk away and admit failure. The conditions are now ripe - the next time the leaders gather, agreementism sets in. In a mild case, leaders simply draw up high-sounding communiques. In numbered paragraphs, they give a strong impression of firm agreement and resolute action, but without actually binding themselves to any. But in an advanced case, leaders know that this simple ruse is unconvincing. The problem is too big, and the leaders have talked too much, to hope that they can get away this easily. They need more than a mere communique. In this stage of the disease, the symptoms deteriorate markedly. Leaders display a disturbing symptom known as "concerted unilateralism".
This is a sophisticated way of saying that countries can do whatever the hell they like, but they will write something pompous about it first. And they will all do it together. This is precisely the symptom that world leaders are now displaying ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit - the so-called COP15 - in two weeks.
This was supposed to be the meeting that sealed a legally binding treaty on all 191 nations of the world. Successor to the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, it would be the pact to save the planet from the devastating effects of global warming. But you could pick the acute onset of advanced agreementism the moment the meeting's chairman, Lars Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, uttered the following words at a breakfast meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in Singapore on November 15: "The Copenhagen Agreement should be global, comprehensive and substantial, yet flexible enough to accommodate countries with very different national circumstances."
Allow me to interpret: "To frightened leaders everywhere, do not panic! Each of you will write down on a piece of paper what you want to do about global warming. There is nothing compulsory. Make it sound impressive. We are supposed to be saving the entire planet, remember? Whatever. "Next, we will collect your papers. We will staple them together. We will call it the Copenhagen Agreement. We will declare victory. We will all have our pictures taken. And we will tell reporters that, next time, we will make real decisions. You know the drill."
How can we be so certain of this outcome? We have two ways to be sure. First, Rasmussen went on to spell it out in unmistakeable terms. "Will it be binding? Yes, it will be binding. Even if we may not hammer out the last dots of a legally binding instrument, I do believe a political binding agreement with specific commitment to mitigation and finance provides a strong basis for immediate action in the years to come."
Take special note of the all-important distinction between a "legally binding instrument" and a "political binding agreement". A politician's binding agreement? That's in the same category as a campaign promise. And celebrate the wonderful non-sequitur of "immediate action in the years to come".
In a masterstroke, Rasmussen called the format "one agreement - two purposes". The first purpose, he says, is to state political intent, and the second is to keep talking about a legal treaty for later. The media shorthand for this has become a "two-step" agreement.
Second, we know how this will end because we've seen it twice before in recent history. We've seen precisely the same format of "concerted unilateralism" on different continents and in different fields, and each time with the same result.
One was the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum's "Bogor Declaration" of 1994. In that much-ballyhooed agreement, the APEC leaders at their summit in Indonesia said "we announce our commitment to complete the achievement of our goal of free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific". For developed countries this would be "no later than the year 2010 and developing economies no later than the year 2020". But there was no binding agreement. It was a political deal which allowed each country to do what it pleased. What happened?' "The Bogor commitments have been all but ignored," summarised the Lowy Institute's Allan Gyngell and Malcolm Cook in a 2005 paper. Some APEC leaders still fantasise about a free-trade zone.
The other was the European Union's "Lisbon Strategy" of 2000. This was supposed to make Europe the world's most dynamic economy by 2010. But individual governments ignored the deal and continued to pander to unions and bureaucracies. The director of the International Centre for Money and Banking Studies in Geneva, Charles Wyplosz, wrote: "The strategy rests on peer pressure - the naming and shaming of governments that fail to make progress. In practice, however, peer pressure has become peer collusion." The result, in the words of the director of the European Policy Centre, Antonio Missiroli, was "shameful". The European economy remains sclerotic.
Bogor and Lisbon are clear precedents for Copenhagen's "concerted unilateralism". Nothing in any such agreement carries any real force. Only the countries that already wanted to act will act, and the rest will just sit around and watch. But there will certainly be agreement.
SOURCE
Token ETS the best idea for Australia
By Greg Sheridan
THE battle of expectations over the Copenhagen climate change conference next month has been fascinating to watch. At first, everything had to be done by Copenhagen, which would produce a binding agreement: targets, offsets, compensation for low-income countries and all the rest. Now everyone knows that nothing real will be achieved at Copenhagen. Of course, whatever happens there will be hailed as a great success. But nothing much will happen.
Watching the debate, I am afraid I have become a climate change agnostic. I am not a denier, nor really a sceptic. I am agnostic. I do not know whether the science that says we're all doomed if we don't de-carbonise the economy is true. Neither does anyone else.
But I am more than half convinced by the argument that we should give the planet the benefit of the doubt. It would be good if we polluted less. I'd like to end the dependence of Western societies on Middle Eastern oil. And one day, even if climate change is not a killer, the world will run out of fossil fuel. So by all means let's diversify our energy sources and clean up our environments. But I don't want us to go broke in the process.
And given that what we physically do in Australia will have almost no effect on the global climate, whatever the scientific faith you choose to believe in, we would be much better off facing the future, whatever it is, as a rich nation rather than a poor one.
In trying to evaluate this issue I have tried to gauge the seriousness of the key players. I'm not convinced that anybody in power anywhere really thinks this is an end-of-the-world issue. Certainly no one is behaving as if it is.
Kevin Rudd said this week that climate change is an "existential, fundamental" issue, then came up with an emissions trading scheme package so recondite and larded with giveaways that it seems unlikely to have any great effect on greenhouse gas emissions. I don't want to misrepresent our beloved PM, but this is really Rudd adopting the agnostic attitude, with his usual rhetoric of moral grandeur attached: sensibly do as little as necessary and see what comes up.
It would be folly for Australia to get out in front. In the end I suspect we'll do more or less whatever the Americans do, plus or minus half a per cent. Copenhagen will not produce anything like the binding deal originally envisaged, but will produce some movement to lower carbon emissions. Australia needs to shelter in the mainstream of developed but resource-rich countries (which really means the US), doing our bit but not overdoing it.
Washington under Barack Obama certainly doesn't appear to regard climate change as an existential question. Obama has clearly given health care a higher priority. He may well announce some sort of target before the Copenhagen meeting but no real economic action will be taken before next year and my guess is the economic action ultimately will be pretty equivocal.
The Europeans look, at times, as though they believe their own rhetoric. But most of their ostensible greenhouse reductions come from switching from coal to gas, decommissioning East German industry, exporting factory jobs to China and creative accounting.
As for China and the other developing nations, there is not the slightest chance they will sign up to any binding targets. To get them on board at Copenhagen, the world has to accept the most spectacularly rubbery figures. China, and all the countries I love such as India and Indonesia, will commit to actions only on the basis of what the boffins call counterfactuals: facts that don't exist.
A couple of years ago Indonesia's environment minister told me his country would cut emissions by 19 per cent. This sounded impressive until I realised he meant 19 per cent of what would have happened had there been no change. That kind of calculation is infinitely malleable.
A couple of weeks ago in New Delhi, India's Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor told me India had 17.5 per cent of the world's population but produced only 4 per cent of emissions. He said: "Per capita we are about 120th in the world. We're not part of the cause of the problem, but we do see the moral need to be part of the solution." He said quite a lot of nice things about the environment, but concluded: "We are still a country that cannot take 24 hours of electricity for granted. Six hundred million Indians are still not connected to electricity. If we approach development as consciously green minded, can we get help for the technology that works? (We also) have a duty to our people's development."
Two things strike me about Tharoor's elegant words. First, where is the technology that works, at anything like a reasonable price, in generating electricity without greenhouse gas emissions? Second, no Indian politician is going to tell 600 million fellow Indians they can't have electricity, but everyone in the West can. I describe this not to condemn it or to praise it but simply to register it as reality. The vast majority of new electricity generation in India, as in China and most of the developing world, comes from coal-fired power stations, and still there is no clean coal technology that works.
You cannot give electricity to 600 million people in India, and similar numbers in China, without massively increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The only technology that could possibly generate electricity on a big scale other than coal is nuclear. The Rudd government shows all its fine words on climate change are not to be taken too seriously by refusing to export uranium to India. No one in the world really takes this issue as seriously as they pretend to. Neither should we.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
George Monbiot (the original moonbat) is shaken, not stirred:
It's no use pretending this isn't a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them.
Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence of attempts to prevent scientific data from being made public.
Worse, some suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by sceptics, or to keep it out of a Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The head of the unit, Phil Jones, should resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.
But do these revelations justify the sceptics' claims that this is "the final nail in the coffin" of global warming theory? Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence. To bury man-made climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed.
More HERE (Sarcasm follows the excerpt above. Is that the best he can do? No alternative evidence offered for his beliefs??)
A victim of the CRU climate conspirators comments
From Hans von Storch -- Director of Institute for Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht and Professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, Germany
A hacker has stolen many e-mails (and other files) from the server at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the United Kingdom. For an account refer to New York Times or to Roger Pielke jr.'s weblog. The hacked mails have been published at several sites, and I got through a journalist a full copy. As far as I myself can judge, and according to responses by others, the files are authentic, but not complete.
Going through the files, which due to the sheer size I can do only in a sampling mode, the mails begin in the late 1990s and extend to about today. They are all mails to/from Phil Jones. There are a number of problematic statements, which will be discussed in the media and the blogosphere. I found the style of communication revealing, speaking about other people and their ideas, joining forces to "kill" papers, exchanges of "improving" presentations without explaining.
Also mails from/to Eduardo Zorita and myself are included; also we have been subject of frequent mentioning, usually not in a flattering manner.
Interesting exchanges, and evidences, are contained about efforts to destroy "Climate Research"; that we in the heydays of the hockeystick debate shared our ECHO-G data with our adversaries; and that Mike Mann was successful to exclude me from a review-type meeting on historical reconstructions in Wengen (demonstrating again his problematic but powerful role of acting as a gatekeeper.)
I would assume that more interesting issues will be found in the files, and that a useful debate about the degree of politicization of climate science will emerge. A conclusion could be that the principle, according to which data must be made public, so that also adversaries may check the analysis, must be really enforced. Another conclusion could be that scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process or in assessment activities like IPCC.
SOURCE
Is East Antarctica Melting?
By Dr. David Whitehouse
The East Antarctic ice sheet is the largest mass of ice on our planet and so its stability and potential contribution to global sea level change is of great interest. It was thought to be relatively stable but new research suggests it may have begun to loose mass, although the true significance of the change is unclear.
Measuring the Antarctic ice sheets is difficult. Over the years estimates of its mass balance has swung between positive and negative values. Radar altimetry observations covering the entire continent between 1992 - 2003 suggested that the ice mass balance was between -5 and + 85 GT/yr, although as usual with ice such estimates have large errors. Another satellite-borne technique, Synthetic Aperture Radar, using observations taken over the past decade, suggested that ice loss exceeded model predictions of snow accumulation. The data also indicated a recent increase in mass loss with 196 +/- 92 GT in 2006.
The latest data uses observations taken monthly between 2002 and 2009 from a pair of satellites flying in formation measuring gravity perturbations. Analysing data from the GRACE satellites is tricky and relating them to ice sheet mass estimates involves several steps and assumptions. The new study - published in Nature Geoscience by J Chen and researchers at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas - say the mass loss for the entire continent is - 190 +/- 77 GT/yr averaged over 2002 - 2009. This is much larger than previous estimates (although consistent with the most recent Synthetic Aperture Radar estimates of 196 +/- 92 GT/yr.)
Loss from the West Antarctic ice sheet is 132 +/- 26 GT/yr. East Antarctica, the researchers say, is losing mass at about 57 +/- 52 GT/yr (note large uncertainty - it could be consistent with zero ice loss). Most of the loss appears to be from coastal regions and to stem from increased ice loss after 2006. The finding is significant because the east of the continent has been regarded as the more stable half. It should be stressed however that although these seem large quantities of ice they are tiny in terms of their significance for global sea level changes.
The importance of this research is that it highlights the close scrutiny needed of the region, especially for the East Antarctic ice cap, to see if its rate of loss increases. At present it is not known if the loss is due to climate change or if such losses are in any way exceptional or cyclical. If the changes persist, and accelerate, then, "Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea-level rise", the researchers write.
Others have expressed surprise at the results. A study in 2005 suggested that the East Antarctic ice sheet was actually gaining mass. What this latest work indicates is the need for more observations, an appreciation of the large uncertainties in individual measurements and the problem of relating them to each other. Overall it would be unwise to draw strong conclusions from this research.
SOURCE
Lawmakers Probe Climate Emails
Congressional Republicans have started investigating climate scientists whose hacked emails suggest they tried to squelch dissenting views about global warming. An aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said investigators are studying the documents, which unknown hackers stole last week from the computer of a prominent British climate-research center.
Investigators are focusing on the correspondence of White House Science Adviser John Holdren, he said. Dr. Holdren, a point man for the Obama administration on climate change, sent one of the hacked emails. In the 2003 email, Dr. Holdren, then at the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole, Mass., defended research by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, a scientist who believes global warming is man-made and who also sent some of the hacked emails.
On Monday, Dr. Holden said: "I'm happy to stand by my contribution to this exchange. I think anybody who reads what I wrote in its entirety will find it a serious and balanced treatment of the question of 'burden of proof' in situations where science germane to public policy is in dispute."
The aide said investigators are also probing the contributions of dozens of climate scientists to reports published by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Environmental Protection Agency, in its recent move to boost regulation of greenhouse gases, based its conclusions on IPCC reports. The IPCC has said the climate is heating up and humans are almost certainly to blame. Those who disagree that the globe is warming, or on the cause or extent of any warming, complain that their views have been excluded.
The documents, hacked from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University in the U.K., show that some climate researchers declined to share their data with fellow scientists, and sought to keep researchers with dissenting views from publishing in leading scientific journals.
Separately, Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), an outspoken critic of the view that humans are causing global warming, said that in light of the emails, he will call for an investigation into the state of climate science if the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works doesn't act soon.
Amid the furor over the released documents, more than two dozen climate scientists will release a report Tuesday arguing that the effects of man-made global warming have intensified in recent years. One of them is Dr. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State. In a 2003 response to an email complaining about a paper in the journal "Climate Research" which questioned assertions that the 20th century was abnormally warm, Dr. Mann wrote, "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." Dr. Mann said Monday that he didn't think there was anything wrong in telling his colleagues that "we shouldn't be publishing in a journal that's activist."
Police in the U.K. are continuing to investigate the attack, and the university there said Monday that it is conducting its own review.
Hans von Storch, editor at the time of "Climate Research," had his own objections to the paper mentioned by Dr. Mann, and resigned shortly after it was published, citing a breakdown in the peer-review process. But Dr. von Storch, now at the University of Hamburg's Meteorological Institute, said Monday that the behavior outlined in the hacked emails went too far.
East Anglia researchers "violated a fundamental principle of science," he said, by refusing to share data with other researchers. "They built a group to do gatekeeping, which is also totally unacceptable," he added. "They play science as a power game."
SOURCE
LA Times Changes Its Mind: Science Doesn't Matter On Climate Bill
That thumping sound you hear is the Los Angeles Times moving the goal posts in the global warming debate. On November 22, while responding to the growing scandal about alleged proof that global warming is a hoax, the Times brushed it off with a puzzling claim that science should have no bearing on climate legislation.
What a difference a few leaked e-mail messages could make: just over a month ago, the exact same paper had insisted science was behind the push for regulation. Now with the validity of that science in doubt, the Times was quick to find a different angle. In an article titled "A Climate Change Dust-up," writers Jim Tankersley and Henry Chu began with reassurance that the scandal was nothing to fear because the hacked e-mail messages would not make a difference either way:
The whole point of the meeting in Copenhagen has been to limit pollution that supposedly destroys the planet based on evidence gathered and purported by researchers specifically involved in the email scandal. If the very premise of global warming has possibly been exposed as a fraud, why would that not be of interest to those who want to legislate global warming?
Because, according to the Times, the fight to stop possibly nonexistent global warming would be about saving the economy:
So the Times believed in doing something about emissions whether or not we knew that they were harmful. It was suddenly okay for the science to remain unsettled, and in fact, the Senate was encouraged to limit greenhouse gases even if science was unable to prove a connection between carbon dioxide emissions and temperature.
But if the entire logic of this effort to save the economy was based on the hope that green jobs would put Americans to work, someone should have told the Times that President Obama has already been funding green jobs without a climate bill.
Equally preposterous, nowhere did the article explain exactly how limiting a company's carbon dioxide output would cause it to expand payrolls. Not to worry, for according to global warming activists it would all work with or without the data to back it up.
Most amazingly of all, though, was an explanation about the data offered by Phil Jones, one of the scientists involved in the email scandal. When asked about his use of the word "trick" when presenting data, Jones told the Times it was just clever wording:
The hard-hitting journalism force at the Times failed to ask how a trick was taken to mean anything other than a trick. What possible "colloquial" use of the word could have implied a trick that was not really a trick? Thanks to the Times, Jones got away without having to expound.
This whole notion of scientific tricks being irrelevant to a major debate about international climate legislation represented a major change in thinking at the Times. It was just six weeks ago the paper criticized Bush for hiding scientific data that could be used to sway the debate over legislation. Back then, science had everything to do with it:
When scientific findings were there to warn that global warming would kill the planet, the Times was quick to support it; when science was later found to be riddled with tricks that tainted its credibility, climate legislation was suddenly all about fixing the economy.
This is one more example in the long list of ways the liberal media has played fast and loose with the global warming agenda. Even when faced with plausible evidence the whole thing might be a fraud, global warming believers simply found a way to assert that evidence was not necessary.
SOURCE
THE AUSTRALIAN SCENE
Two current articles below
Emissions Trading Scheme will cost Australian families $1100 a year
KEVIN Rudd's Emissions Trading Scheme will increase the average family's bills by about $1100 a year. Based on the Federal Government's own modelling, by 2012 the ETS will add more than 20 per cent to electricity tariffs - a surge of nearly $300 for typical households already reeling in New South Wales from a similar blow from the state pricing tribunal in July. And industry forecasts predict grocery prices could surge 5 per cent once the estimated price of carbon is imposed, making stocking a home larder $520 more expensive, The Daily Telegraph reports.
For those on lower incomes, overall costs are tipped to rise $630. While lower in dollar terms this represents a bigger slice of their outgoings. They will be compensated by taxpayers - the Government yesterday vowed nine in 10 poorer households would receive more than what the ETS added to their bills but middle-income families won't get the same deal.
The Government's latest changes to the proposed ETS actually reduce consumer compensation by $5.8 billion over the next decade. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the high Australian dollar meant the carbon price would be lower, so less compensation was required.
Experts said that higher-earning households looking to limit the financial impact of the scheme would either need to spend up on going green or cut back on power use.
National Institute of Economic and Industry Research head Dr Peter Brain, author of the most commonly cited study into the cost of the ETS for households, said: "It's carrot and stick. It has to be. Otherwise emissions won't decline by anything like the rate required."
Mr Rudd said the latest version of the ETS would ensure that Australia could "achieve its ambitious unconditional target" of a 5 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 when compared with 2000 levels and its conditional target of 15-25 per cent.
Energy price comparison service GoSwitch CEO Ben Freund said: "What the Government wants people to do is shift from cheaper sources of power to more expensive sources like wind and solar. "How do you make people do that? By making the expensive sources of energy more compelling. And you do that by making the cheaper sources of energy more expensive."
Professor Joshua Gans from the Melbourne Business School said the other way middle - and higher - income families could limit the impact was to cut power usage. "The idea of the CPRS is not to cause people to spend more on electricity. It is to change their behaviour so they don't spend more on electricity," Professor Gans said.
Small business owners James and Kylie White, of Botany, said they were worried about how much the ETS was going to cost them. "It's obviously a concern, coupled with the interest rates heading back up," Mr White, 34, said. "Over the last 12 months we have been seeing less and less income and the bills increasing. This is going to make it a little bit tougher."
SOURCE
Infamy, insanity, inanity in Australia's proposed climate laws
We had a prime minister who declared economic war on his own country. And an opposition leader who spent the rest of the day trying desperately to make it unanimous. Finally, succeeding. Or, perhaps not.
As I wrote yesterday this is one case where the devil is not in the detail. So making the detail of the Emissions Trading Scheme seemingly 'better' is without the slightest merit. And indeed is worse even in its own distorted terms. The ETS remains a direct, if slightly diverted attack against our national interest, against the very foundation not just of our economy but of our society. And it is completely incompatible with the government's population growth 'policy,' for want of a better word.
Yes, the extra 'assistance' to the power industry would probably help - literally - to keep the lights on in the short term. But only in the short term, and only if the debts of Victoria's power stations are guaranteed by the federal government, whether directly or indirectly.
There still wouldn't be another coal-fired power station built anywhere in Australia while this insanity prevails - while dozens are built in China and India.
And with nuclear also prohibited, we would face an 'interesting' intersection point between population, power and permits some time around 2015. Not, obviously, that nuclear could have 'saved us' in just five years anyway. That's when a bigger population demands more power; there isn't any; and all that 'generous assistance' is reaching its use-by date and then we face the prospect of the existing power stations going broke or breaking down.
This is when the reality of prime ministerial insanity catches up with Australia. Not even in 'distant 2020' but a few years before that. Because all that so-called assistance doesn't alter the basic reality of the ETS and the government's overall Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
What's in a name? Digressing, one really wonders how Kevin Rudd and his co-destroyer Penny Wong can literally live with themselves, as they spread the same 'pollution' every breath of their lives. As Rudd said yesterday, seemingly proudly, certainly totally unaware of his own stupidity: "the deal will ensure that Australia can achieve its ambitious unconditional target of 5 per cent (reduction in CO2 emissions), conditional target of up to 15 per cent and top-end target of 25 per cent off 2000 levels by 2020." This is the bottom line that isn't altered by all the extra so-called assistance. That once the ETS is in place, we are legislatively committed to cutting CO2 emissions by 5 per cent by 2020, whatever - the nothing - that the rest of the world does.
So if coal-fired power stations emit more as a consequence of their extra assistance, the cuts have to come from somewhere else. Or we pay foreigners for the right to over-emit. Doesn't sound too tough? Just 5 per cent? But factor in our roaring population growth and we have to cut by closer to 33 per cent per person. And do it in just 10 years!
Now committing to something like this this would be bad enough coming from any leader of any country. Directly attacking the wellbeing of its citizens. Especially when that leader knows, and I mean knows, that it is utterly pointless, even in his own misconceived terms, as no-one of major emitting substance is going to follow.
Coming from the leader of a country whose entire economy is built on carbon-based energy and the export of carbon-based products, it is criminally - there really are no other words for it - insane. In the context of my opening reference, it is as if Rudd himself had launched the planes on our Pearl Harbor, our economy.
In this case, double apologies are due to the author of the original quote, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The usual apology for amendment. The additional one for associating it with something and someone so grubby.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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It's no use pretending this isn't a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them.
Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence of attempts to prevent scientific data from being made public.
Worse, some suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by sceptics, or to keep it out of a Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The head of the unit, Phil Jones, should resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.
But do these revelations justify the sceptics' claims that this is "the final nail in the coffin" of global warming theory? Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence. To bury man-made climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed.
More HERE (Sarcasm follows the excerpt above. Is that the best he can do? No alternative evidence offered for his beliefs??)
A victim of the CRU climate conspirators comments
From Hans von Storch -- Director of Institute for Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht and Professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, Germany
A hacker has stolen many e-mails (and other files) from the server at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the United Kingdom. For an account refer to New York Times or to Roger Pielke jr.'s weblog. The hacked mails have been published at several sites, and I got through a journalist a full copy. As far as I myself can judge, and according to responses by others, the files are authentic, but not complete.
Going through the files, which due to the sheer size I can do only in a sampling mode, the mails begin in the late 1990s and extend to about today. They are all mails to/from Phil Jones. There are a number of problematic statements, which will be discussed in the media and the blogosphere. I found the style of communication revealing, speaking about other people and their ideas, joining forces to "kill" papers, exchanges of "improving" presentations without explaining.
Also mails from/to Eduardo Zorita and myself are included; also we have been subject of frequent mentioning, usually not in a flattering manner.
Interesting exchanges, and evidences, are contained about efforts to destroy "Climate Research"; that we in the heydays of the hockeystick debate shared our ECHO-G data with our adversaries; and that Mike Mann was successful to exclude me from a review-type meeting on historical reconstructions in Wengen (demonstrating again his problematic but powerful role of acting as a gatekeeper.)
I would assume that more interesting issues will be found in the files, and that a useful debate about the degree of politicization of climate science will emerge. A conclusion could be that the principle, according to which data must be made public, so that also adversaries may check the analysis, must be really enforced. Another conclusion could be that scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process or in assessment activities like IPCC.
SOURCE
Is East Antarctica Melting?
By Dr. David Whitehouse
The East Antarctic ice sheet is the largest mass of ice on our planet and so its stability and potential contribution to global sea level change is of great interest. It was thought to be relatively stable but new research suggests it may have begun to loose mass, although the true significance of the change is unclear.
Measuring the Antarctic ice sheets is difficult. Over the years estimates of its mass balance has swung between positive and negative values. Radar altimetry observations covering the entire continent between 1992 - 2003 suggested that the ice mass balance was between -5 and + 85 GT/yr, although as usual with ice such estimates have large errors. Another satellite-borne technique, Synthetic Aperture Radar, using observations taken over the past decade, suggested that ice loss exceeded model predictions of snow accumulation. The data also indicated a recent increase in mass loss with 196 +/- 92 GT in 2006.
The latest data uses observations taken monthly between 2002 and 2009 from a pair of satellites flying in formation measuring gravity perturbations. Analysing data from the GRACE satellites is tricky and relating them to ice sheet mass estimates involves several steps and assumptions. The new study - published in Nature Geoscience by J Chen and researchers at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas - say the mass loss for the entire continent is - 190 +/- 77 GT/yr averaged over 2002 - 2009. This is much larger than previous estimates (although consistent with the most recent Synthetic Aperture Radar estimates of 196 +/- 92 GT/yr.)
Loss from the West Antarctic ice sheet is 132 +/- 26 GT/yr. East Antarctica, the researchers say, is losing mass at about 57 +/- 52 GT/yr (note large uncertainty - it could be consistent with zero ice loss). Most of the loss appears to be from coastal regions and to stem from increased ice loss after 2006. The finding is significant because the east of the continent has been regarded as the more stable half. It should be stressed however that although these seem large quantities of ice they are tiny in terms of their significance for global sea level changes.
The importance of this research is that it highlights the close scrutiny needed of the region, especially for the East Antarctic ice cap, to see if its rate of loss increases. At present it is not known if the loss is due to climate change or if such losses are in any way exceptional or cyclical. If the changes persist, and accelerate, then, "Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea-level rise", the researchers write.
Others have expressed surprise at the results. A study in 2005 suggested that the East Antarctic ice sheet was actually gaining mass. What this latest work indicates is the need for more observations, an appreciation of the large uncertainties in individual measurements and the problem of relating them to each other. Overall it would be unwise to draw strong conclusions from this research.
SOURCE
Lawmakers Probe Climate Emails
Congressional Republicans have started investigating climate scientists whose hacked emails suggest they tried to squelch dissenting views about global warming. An aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said investigators are studying the documents, which unknown hackers stole last week from the computer of a prominent British climate-research center.
Investigators are focusing on the correspondence of White House Science Adviser John Holdren, he said. Dr. Holdren, a point man for the Obama administration on climate change, sent one of the hacked emails. In the 2003 email, Dr. Holdren, then at the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole, Mass., defended research by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, a scientist who believes global warming is man-made and who also sent some of the hacked emails.
On Monday, Dr. Holden said: "I'm happy to stand by my contribution to this exchange. I think anybody who reads what I wrote in its entirety will find it a serious and balanced treatment of the question of 'burden of proof' in situations where science germane to public policy is in dispute."
The aide said investigators are also probing the contributions of dozens of climate scientists to reports published by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Environmental Protection Agency, in its recent move to boost regulation of greenhouse gases, based its conclusions on IPCC reports. The IPCC has said the climate is heating up and humans are almost certainly to blame. Those who disagree that the globe is warming, or on the cause or extent of any warming, complain that their views have been excluded.
The documents, hacked from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University in the U.K., show that some climate researchers declined to share their data with fellow scientists, and sought to keep researchers with dissenting views from publishing in leading scientific journals.
Separately, Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), an outspoken critic of the view that humans are causing global warming, said that in light of the emails, he will call for an investigation into the state of climate science if the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works doesn't act soon.
Amid the furor over the released documents, more than two dozen climate scientists will release a report Tuesday arguing that the effects of man-made global warming have intensified in recent years. One of them is Dr. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State. In a 2003 response to an email complaining about a paper in the journal "Climate Research" which questioned assertions that the 20th century was abnormally warm, Dr. Mann wrote, "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." Dr. Mann said Monday that he didn't think there was anything wrong in telling his colleagues that "we shouldn't be publishing in a journal that's activist."
Police in the U.K. are continuing to investigate the attack, and the university there said Monday that it is conducting its own review.
Hans von Storch, editor at the time of "Climate Research," had his own objections to the paper mentioned by Dr. Mann, and resigned shortly after it was published, citing a breakdown in the peer-review process. But Dr. von Storch, now at the University of Hamburg's Meteorological Institute, said Monday that the behavior outlined in the hacked emails went too far.
East Anglia researchers "violated a fundamental principle of science," he said, by refusing to share data with other researchers. "They built a group to do gatekeeping, which is also totally unacceptable," he added. "They play science as a power game."
SOURCE
LA Times Changes Its Mind: Science Doesn't Matter On Climate Bill
That thumping sound you hear is the Los Angeles Times moving the goal posts in the global warming debate. On November 22, while responding to the growing scandal about alleged proof that global warming is a hoax, the Times brushed it off with a puzzling claim that science should have no bearing on climate legislation.
What a difference a few leaked e-mail messages could make: just over a month ago, the exact same paper had insisted science was behind the push for regulation. Now with the validity of that science in doubt, the Times was quick to find a different angle. In an article titled "A Climate Change Dust-up," writers Jim Tankersley and Henry Chu began with reassurance that the scandal was nothing to fear because the hacked e-mail messages would not make a difference either way:
Is it a "Warmist Conspiracy," or a case of an email being "taken completely out of context"? Regardless, the latest dust-up over the science of climate change appears unlikely to affect the dynamics of either a pending debate in the Senate or international climate negotiations in Copenhagen next month.
The whole point of the meeting in Copenhagen has been to limit pollution that supposedly destroys the planet based on evidence gathered and purported by researchers specifically involved in the email scandal. If the very premise of global warming has possibly been exposed as a fraud, why would that not be of interest to those who want to legislate global warming?
Because, according to the Times, the fight to stop possibly nonexistent global warming would be about saving the economy:
But advocates of action to curb global warming dismiss those claims, and political leaders and analysts say the Senate bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions will sink or swim based on economics, not science. "The scientists are going to fight about this for decades," said Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of several Senate Republicans who say they are open to some form of a climate bill. "We should be doing something to curb our emissions that would not harm the economy, and would in fact boost the economy," he said.
So the Times believed in doing something about emissions whether or not we knew that they were harmful. It was suddenly okay for the science to remain unsettled, and in fact, the Senate was encouraged to limit greenhouse gases even if science was unable to prove a connection between carbon dioxide emissions and temperature.
But if the entire logic of this effort to save the economy was based on the hope that green jobs would put Americans to work, someone should have told the Times that President Obama has already been funding green jobs without a climate bill.
Equally preposterous, nowhere did the article explain exactly how limiting a company's carbon dioxide output would cause it to expand payrolls. Not to worry, for according to global warming activists it would all work with or without the data to back it up.
Most amazingly of all, though, was an explanation about the data offered by Phil Jones, one of the scientists involved in the email scandal. When asked about his use of the word "trick" when presenting data, Jones told the Times it was just clever wording:
In the 1999 e-mail, Jones wrote of using a "trick" to hide an apparent decline in recent global temperatures on a chart being prepared for use by a meteorological organization. But in a statement posted on the university's website Saturday, Jones said that the e-mail had been "taken completely out of context" and that there had been no misrepresentation of the data. "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward," Jones said.
The hard-hitting journalism force at the Times failed to ask how a trick was taken to mean anything other than a trick. What possible "colloquial" use of the word could have implied a trick that was not really a trick? Thanks to the Times, Jones got away without having to expound.
This whole notion of scientific tricks being irrelevant to a major debate about international climate legislation represented a major change in thinking at the Times. It was just six weeks ago the paper criticized Bush for hiding scientific data that could be used to sway the debate over legislation. Back then, science had everything to do with it:
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a long-suppressed report by George W. Bush administration officials who had concluded -- based on science -- that the government should begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions because global warming posed serious risks to the country. The report, known as an "endangerment finding," was done in 2007. The Bush White House refused to make it public because it opposed new government efforts to regulate the gases most scientists see as the major cause of global warming.
When scientific findings were there to warn that global warming would kill the planet, the Times was quick to support it; when science was later found to be riddled with tricks that tainted its credibility, climate legislation was suddenly all about fixing the economy.
This is one more example in the long list of ways the liberal media has played fast and loose with the global warming agenda. Even when faced with plausible evidence the whole thing might be a fraud, global warming believers simply found a way to assert that evidence was not necessary.
SOURCE
THE AUSTRALIAN SCENE
Two current articles below
Emissions Trading Scheme will cost Australian families $1100 a year
KEVIN Rudd's Emissions Trading Scheme will increase the average family's bills by about $1100 a year. Based on the Federal Government's own modelling, by 2012 the ETS will add more than 20 per cent to electricity tariffs - a surge of nearly $300 for typical households already reeling in New South Wales from a similar blow from the state pricing tribunal in July. And industry forecasts predict grocery prices could surge 5 per cent once the estimated price of carbon is imposed, making stocking a home larder $520 more expensive, The Daily Telegraph reports.
For those on lower incomes, overall costs are tipped to rise $630. While lower in dollar terms this represents a bigger slice of their outgoings. They will be compensated by taxpayers - the Government yesterday vowed nine in 10 poorer households would receive more than what the ETS added to their bills but middle-income families won't get the same deal.
The Government's latest changes to the proposed ETS actually reduce consumer compensation by $5.8 billion over the next decade. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the high Australian dollar meant the carbon price would be lower, so less compensation was required.
Experts said that higher-earning households looking to limit the financial impact of the scheme would either need to spend up on going green or cut back on power use.
National Institute of Economic and Industry Research head Dr Peter Brain, author of the most commonly cited study into the cost of the ETS for households, said: "It's carrot and stick. It has to be. Otherwise emissions won't decline by anything like the rate required."
Mr Rudd said the latest version of the ETS would ensure that Australia could "achieve its ambitious unconditional target" of a 5 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 when compared with 2000 levels and its conditional target of 15-25 per cent.
Energy price comparison service GoSwitch CEO Ben Freund said: "What the Government wants people to do is shift from cheaper sources of power to more expensive sources like wind and solar. "How do you make people do that? By making the expensive sources of energy more compelling. And you do that by making the cheaper sources of energy more expensive."
Professor Joshua Gans from the Melbourne Business School said the other way middle - and higher - income families could limit the impact was to cut power usage. "The idea of the CPRS is not to cause people to spend more on electricity. It is to change their behaviour so they don't spend more on electricity," Professor Gans said.
Small business owners James and Kylie White, of Botany, said they were worried about how much the ETS was going to cost them. "It's obviously a concern, coupled with the interest rates heading back up," Mr White, 34, said. "Over the last 12 months we have been seeing less and less income and the bills increasing. This is going to make it a little bit tougher."
SOURCE
Infamy, insanity, inanity in Australia's proposed climate laws
We had a prime minister who declared economic war on his own country. And an opposition leader who spent the rest of the day trying desperately to make it unanimous. Finally, succeeding. Or, perhaps not.
As I wrote yesterday this is one case where the devil is not in the detail. So making the detail of the Emissions Trading Scheme seemingly 'better' is without the slightest merit. And indeed is worse even in its own distorted terms. The ETS remains a direct, if slightly diverted attack against our national interest, against the very foundation not just of our economy but of our society. And it is completely incompatible with the government's population growth 'policy,' for want of a better word.
Yes, the extra 'assistance' to the power industry would probably help - literally - to keep the lights on in the short term. But only in the short term, and only if the debts of Victoria's power stations are guaranteed by the federal government, whether directly or indirectly.
There still wouldn't be another coal-fired power station built anywhere in Australia while this insanity prevails - while dozens are built in China and India.
And with nuclear also prohibited, we would face an 'interesting' intersection point between population, power and permits some time around 2015. Not, obviously, that nuclear could have 'saved us' in just five years anyway. That's when a bigger population demands more power; there isn't any; and all that 'generous assistance' is reaching its use-by date and then we face the prospect of the existing power stations going broke or breaking down.
This is when the reality of prime ministerial insanity catches up with Australia. Not even in 'distant 2020' but a few years before that. Because all that so-called assistance doesn't alter the basic reality of the ETS and the government's overall Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
What's in a name? Digressing, one really wonders how Kevin Rudd and his co-destroyer Penny Wong can literally live with themselves, as they spread the same 'pollution' every breath of their lives. As Rudd said yesterday, seemingly proudly, certainly totally unaware of his own stupidity: "the deal will ensure that Australia can achieve its ambitious unconditional target of 5 per cent (reduction in CO2 emissions), conditional target of up to 15 per cent and top-end target of 25 per cent off 2000 levels by 2020." This is the bottom line that isn't altered by all the extra so-called assistance. That once the ETS is in place, we are legislatively committed to cutting CO2 emissions by 5 per cent by 2020, whatever - the nothing - that the rest of the world does.
So if coal-fired power stations emit more as a consequence of their extra assistance, the cuts have to come from somewhere else. Or we pay foreigners for the right to over-emit. Doesn't sound too tough? Just 5 per cent? But factor in our roaring population growth and we have to cut by closer to 33 per cent per person. And do it in just 10 years!
Now committing to something like this this would be bad enough coming from any leader of any country. Directly attacking the wellbeing of its citizens. Especially when that leader knows, and I mean knows, that it is utterly pointless, even in his own misconceived terms, as no-one of major emitting substance is going to follow.
Coming from the leader of a country whose entire economy is built on carbon-based energy and the export of carbon-based products, it is criminally - there really are no other words for it - insane. In the context of my opening reference, it is as if Rudd himself had launched the planes on our Pearl Harbor, our economy.
In this case, double apologies are due to the author of the original quote, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The usual apology for amendment. The additional one for associating it with something and someone so grubby.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Warmist pseudo-scientists admit that the hacked CRU emails are genuine
A leading climate change scientist whose private e-mails are included in thousands of documents that were stolen by hackers and posted online said the leaks may have been aimed at undermining next month's global climate summit in Denmark.
Kevin Trenberth, of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado, said he believes the hackers who stole a decade's worth of correspondence from a British university's computer server deliberately distributed only those documents that could help attempts by skeptics to undermine the scientific consensus on man-made climate change. Trenberth, a well respected atmospheric scientist, said it did not appear that all the documents stolen from the university had been distributed on the internet by the hackers.
The University of East Anglia, in eastern England, said hackers last week stole from its computer server about a decade's worth of data from its Climatic Research Unit, a leading global research center on climate change. About 1000 e-mails and 3000 documents have been posted on websites and seized on by climate change sceptics, who claim correspondence shows collusion between scientists to overstate the case for global warming, and evidence that some have manipulated evidence.
"It is right before the Copenhagen debate, I'm sure that is not a coincidence," Trenberth said in a telephone interview from Colorado.
At least 65 world leaders will attend the Copenhagen climate summit in December as representatives of 191 nations seek agreement on a new global treaty on limiting emissions of greenhouse gases.
Trenberth, a lead author on the 2001 and 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments, said he had found 102 of his own e-mails posted online. "I personally feel violated," he said. "I'm appalled at the very selective use of the e-mails, and the fact they've been taken out of context."
In one of the stolen e-mails, Trenberth is quoted as saying "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." He said the comment is presented by sceptics as evidence scientists can't explain some trends that appear to contradict their stance on climate change. Trenberth explained his phrase was actually contained in a paper he wrote about the need for better monitoring of global warming to explain the anomalies — in particular improved recording of rising sea surface temperatures.
In another e-mail posted online, and unrelated to Trenberth, the British research centre's director, Phil Jones, wrote that he had used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in a chart detailing recent global temperatures. Jones has denied manipulating evidence and insisted his comment had been misunderstood. He said in a statement Saturday that he'd used the word trick "as in a clever thing to do."
Trenberth acknowledged that language used by some colleagues in the hacked e-mails "looks awkward at best," particularly messages which criticise climate change sceptics.
SOURCE
BBC sat on the hacked emails for over a month
By Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate correspondent for BBC Look North in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire
Very busy with forecast duties right now, but I do intend to write a blog regarding the UK Climate research centre (CRU) being hacked into, and the possible implications of this very serious affair.
I will add comment on this page as soon as I can free up some time. But I will in the meantime answer the question regarding the chain of e-mails which you have been commenting about on my blog, which can be seen here, and whether they are genuine or part of an elaborate hoax.
I was forwarded the chain of e-mails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the worlds leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article 'whatever happened to global warming'. The e-mails released on the internet as a result of CRU being hacked into are identical to the ones I was forwarded and read at the time and so, as far as l can see, they are authentic.
SOURCE
A reaction to the hacked emails from a grassroots AGW believer
A posting on the Christian Science Monitor named "Ron" sums up the impact of the scandal that is rocking the United Nation's global warming establishment. These comments may turn out to be the inconvenient sentiment of many.
As a long time AGW supporter I must say I found the emails very disturbing. I spent hours reading them myself. I don't know if they qualify as “smoking gun” that the AGW science is bust, but I just cannot ignore it.
I feel ashamed for the behavior of our leading scientists. Even more than feeling ashamed – I feel betrayed. For years I trusted that science will prevail over the unsubstantiated skeptic view. These emails reveal a very disturbing picture of ideology overriding science. Science being bent out of shape to support a hypothesis.
They reveal unbelievable arrogance. These people whom I trusted so much think they are
- above the law (destroying email, refusing FOIA, tax evasion)
- above the data (“hide the decline”, remove the cooling blip)
- above their peers (get uncomforting journal editors fired, block skeptic publications)
- above the rest of us (manipulate the message, presentation and media)
I am sick to my stomach. I know there are so many other hard working scientists that have not tainted themselves. But this group – Phil Jones, Ken Briffa, Mike Man, Gavin Schmidt have casted a huge shadow of doubt over the entire field and caused a huge damage to the green movement.
I talked with many of my friends who, like most of us, continue to believe in AGW, and we think that as long as these guys continue to lead the science and the IPCC assessments they will continue to taint all of the good work done by thousands of other scientists.
We need to acknowledge that wrong was done. We need to replace the tainted leadership and continue the research without the air of doubt.
SOURCE
Inhofe calls for hearing into crooked climate change research
The publication of more than 1,000 private e-mails that climate change skeptics say proves the threat is exaggerated has prompted one key Republican senator to call for an investigation into their research. In an interview with The Washington Times on Monday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) announced he would probe whether the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not."
"[T]his thing is serious, you think about the literally millions of dollars that have been thrown away on some of this stuff that they came out with," Inhofe, the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said during the interview. He added that it was "interesting" that the e-mails surfaced only weeks before an important climate change summit would bring world leaders to Copenhagen.
Fueling Inhofe's concerns is last week's news that a blogger hacked into the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (Cru) and published about 1,000 e-mails and more than 3,000 private documents relating to climate change. Some of those communications disparaged climate change skeptics and their views, while others contained conversations about how to best portray climate change research.
The scientists have since insisted their e-mails were hardly deceptive and that their words were taken out of context. Still, their assurances have not settled the concerns of their biggest foes -- including Inhofe, who has long maintained global warming is a "hoax."
However, it is not immediately clear what Inhofe hopes to accomplish with his proposed hearing. U.S. lawmakers and scientists routinely cite IPCC evidence when discussing climate change legislation, but Congress can hardly force the United Nations to halt spending on a program over which it has no jurisdiction.
Rather, Inhofe perhaps hopes to deal a symbolic blow to next month's climate change conference, at which IPCC is likely to play a major role. "The timing couldn’t be better," said the Oklahoma Republican, who previously announced he would attend the December summit as a "one-man truth squad." "Whoever is on the ball in Great Britain, their time was good."
SOURCE
Lord Lawson Calls For Public Inquiry Into CRU Data Affair
In response to recent revelations contained in leaked e-mails originating from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Lord Lawson, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the GWPF, has called for a rigorous and independent inquiry into the matter. While reserving judgment on the contents of the e-mails, Lord Lawson said these are very serious issues and allegations that reach to the heart of scientific integrity and credibility:
"Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals."
"There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay."
Lord Lawson added: "Since the CRU is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and is part of the University of East Anglia, we call on Edmund Wallis, the chairman of the NERC and Brandon Gough, the Chancellor of the UEA, to jointly commission an independent inquiry into the revelations, including, of course, their veracity."
Professsor David Henderson, the Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of the GWPF said: "The evolution of climate policies needs to be linked to a process of inquiry, review and advice that is more open, thorough, balanced and objective than is now the case. This is the mission of the Global Warming Policy Foundation."
SOURCE
Unforeseen climate 'crisis'
A climate crisis of worldwide proportions is unfolding right before our eyes, and not even the most powerful world leaders can do anything to stop it. It looks like 2009 may very well turn out to be the fourth straight year of declining global temperatures at a time when carbon dioxide levels continue to rise - the opposite of what was predicted by vaunted climate models.
Something must be done immediately to either (1) rework the temperature data so it vindicates esteemed climate visionaries, (2) come up with some scientific-sounding mumbo-jumbo as to why long-term weather doesn't conform to authoritative proclamations or (3) simply ignore or downplay the reality hoping people don't finally catch on that they've been had. Perhaps it could at least be claimed that Mother Nature is giving us a reprieve to get our collective global act together before she really lowers the boom. After all, it has worked so well in the past to say that disaster is just around the corner.
Our guess is that the crafty climate chieftains will likely use a combination of the three smoke-and-mirror strategies listed (with a smattering of "denier" bashing thrown in just for fun).
But we wonder, when will ostensibly superintelligent people learn a simple fact that even a forecast is simply a guess at the future based on past and present information? Putting a lot of sincere confidence in your prognostication does not improve its predictive power.
The confidence just helps to make more people believe your forecast. More people buy into it. More people look to you for solutions, for salvation, and the whole thing takes on a life of its own. Knowing that you can in no way know the future for something as complicated as the Earth's climate, at some point your confidence becomes inflated to the point of arrogance - it's unavoidable. Soon you're pushing a confidence game. And, since many in the general public and too many of the high and mighty can look with awe or advantage at the forecasts generated by sophisticated climate models, there will be no lack of sufficient players to keep the game moving. But, before we get into overtime, consider the reality of climate forecasting.
Everyone is aware of the folly of short-term weather forecasts. And, yes we know climate and weather are not the same! So, let's consider short-term climate forecasts. A terrific example is the official U.S. prediction for the hurricane season of 2006. In May 2006, immediately preceding the onset of the Atlantic hurricane season (and again in August 2006), arguably the best hurricane forecasters on Earth couldn't accurately predict even simply the total number of severe storm events.
The forecast was for another season of unusually numerous events (although not expected to be on par with the record-breaking 31 events of 2005, which included 15 hurricanes). But, the forecast was a bust, with only 10 events (five hurricanes and five tropical storms) recorded. Average was closer to at least 15 events ... so much for forecasting climatic conditions better than the weekend's weather.
If we can't accurately predict occurrences in a small portion of the globe in the short range, what then are we to make of the substantially more complicated art of long-range global climate forecasting? We see that the Earth's temperatures don't seem to be playing the game by the climate-wizard's rules. Should we begin to admit that we're not really as smart as we or others think we are; that the tremendous complexity of climate, although better understood than in decades past, is still a long way from being confidently forecasted in decades future? Or would that be too honest?
For now, continuous falling temperatures are truly a global crisis, coming at a time when some very powerful people will soon be meeting in Copenhagen to remedy increasing temperatures. World leaders should stay home and enjoy the weather. Unless, of course, they're not as concerned about changing climate as they are about redistributing wealth.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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A leading climate change scientist whose private e-mails are included in thousands of documents that were stolen by hackers and posted online said the leaks may have been aimed at undermining next month's global climate summit in Denmark.
Kevin Trenberth, of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado, said he believes the hackers who stole a decade's worth of correspondence from a British university's computer server deliberately distributed only those documents that could help attempts by skeptics to undermine the scientific consensus on man-made climate change. Trenberth, a well respected atmospheric scientist, said it did not appear that all the documents stolen from the university had been distributed on the internet by the hackers.
The University of East Anglia, in eastern England, said hackers last week stole from its computer server about a decade's worth of data from its Climatic Research Unit, a leading global research center on climate change. About 1000 e-mails and 3000 documents have been posted on websites and seized on by climate change sceptics, who claim correspondence shows collusion between scientists to overstate the case for global warming, and evidence that some have manipulated evidence.
"It is right before the Copenhagen debate, I'm sure that is not a coincidence," Trenberth said in a telephone interview from Colorado.
At least 65 world leaders will attend the Copenhagen climate summit in December as representatives of 191 nations seek agreement on a new global treaty on limiting emissions of greenhouse gases.
Trenberth, a lead author on the 2001 and 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments, said he had found 102 of his own e-mails posted online. "I personally feel violated," he said. "I'm appalled at the very selective use of the e-mails, and the fact they've been taken out of context."
In one of the stolen e-mails, Trenberth is quoted as saying "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." He said the comment is presented by sceptics as evidence scientists can't explain some trends that appear to contradict their stance on climate change. Trenberth explained his phrase was actually contained in a paper he wrote about the need for better monitoring of global warming to explain the anomalies — in particular improved recording of rising sea surface temperatures.
In another e-mail posted online, and unrelated to Trenberth, the British research centre's director, Phil Jones, wrote that he had used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in a chart detailing recent global temperatures. Jones has denied manipulating evidence and insisted his comment had been misunderstood. He said in a statement Saturday that he'd used the word trick "as in a clever thing to do."
Trenberth acknowledged that language used by some colleagues in the hacked e-mails "looks awkward at best," particularly messages which criticise climate change sceptics.
SOURCE
BBC sat on the hacked emails for over a month
By Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate correspondent for BBC Look North in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire
Very busy with forecast duties right now, but I do intend to write a blog regarding the UK Climate research centre (CRU) being hacked into, and the possible implications of this very serious affair.
I will add comment on this page as soon as I can free up some time. But I will in the meantime answer the question regarding the chain of e-mails which you have been commenting about on my blog, which can be seen here, and whether they are genuine or part of an elaborate hoax.
I was forwarded the chain of e-mails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the worlds leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article 'whatever happened to global warming'. The e-mails released on the internet as a result of CRU being hacked into are identical to the ones I was forwarded and read at the time and so, as far as l can see, they are authentic.
SOURCE
A reaction to the hacked emails from a grassroots AGW believer
A posting on the Christian Science Monitor named "Ron" sums up the impact of the scandal that is rocking the United Nation's global warming establishment. These comments may turn out to be the inconvenient sentiment of many.
As a long time AGW supporter I must say I found the emails very disturbing. I spent hours reading them myself. I don't know if they qualify as “smoking gun” that the AGW science is bust, but I just cannot ignore it.
I feel ashamed for the behavior of our leading scientists. Even more than feeling ashamed – I feel betrayed. For years I trusted that science will prevail over the unsubstantiated skeptic view. These emails reveal a very disturbing picture of ideology overriding science. Science being bent out of shape to support a hypothesis.
They reveal unbelievable arrogance. These people whom I trusted so much think they are
- above the law (destroying email, refusing FOIA, tax evasion)
- above the data (“hide the decline”, remove the cooling blip)
- above their peers (get uncomforting journal editors fired, block skeptic publications)
- above the rest of us (manipulate the message, presentation and media)
I am sick to my stomach. I know there are so many other hard working scientists that have not tainted themselves. But this group – Phil Jones, Ken Briffa, Mike Man, Gavin Schmidt have casted a huge shadow of doubt over the entire field and caused a huge damage to the green movement.
I talked with many of my friends who, like most of us, continue to believe in AGW, and we think that as long as these guys continue to lead the science and the IPCC assessments they will continue to taint all of the good work done by thousands of other scientists.
We need to acknowledge that wrong was done. We need to replace the tainted leadership and continue the research without the air of doubt.
SOURCE
Inhofe calls for hearing into crooked climate change research
The publication of more than 1,000 private e-mails that climate change skeptics say proves the threat is exaggerated has prompted one key Republican senator to call for an investigation into their research. In an interview with The Washington Times on Monday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) announced he would probe whether the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not."
"[T]his thing is serious, you think about the literally millions of dollars that have been thrown away on some of this stuff that they came out with," Inhofe, the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said during the interview. He added that it was "interesting" that the e-mails surfaced only weeks before an important climate change summit would bring world leaders to Copenhagen.
Fueling Inhofe's concerns is last week's news that a blogger hacked into the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (Cru) and published about 1,000 e-mails and more than 3,000 private documents relating to climate change. Some of those communications disparaged climate change skeptics and their views, while others contained conversations about how to best portray climate change research.
The scientists have since insisted their e-mails were hardly deceptive and that their words were taken out of context. Still, their assurances have not settled the concerns of their biggest foes -- including Inhofe, who has long maintained global warming is a "hoax."
However, it is not immediately clear what Inhofe hopes to accomplish with his proposed hearing. U.S. lawmakers and scientists routinely cite IPCC evidence when discussing climate change legislation, but Congress can hardly force the United Nations to halt spending on a program over which it has no jurisdiction.
Rather, Inhofe perhaps hopes to deal a symbolic blow to next month's climate change conference, at which IPCC is likely to play a major role. "The timing couldn’t be better," said the Oklahoma Republican, who previously announced he would attend the December summit as a "one-man truth squad." "Whoever is on the ball in Great Britain, their time was good."
SOURCE
Lord Lawson Calls For Public Inquiry Into CRU Data Affair
In response to recent revelations contained in leaked e-mails originating from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Lord Lawson, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the GWPF, has called for a rigorous and independent inquiry into the matter. While reserving judgment on the contents of the e-mails, Lord Lawson said these are very serious issues and allegations that reach to the heart of scientific integrity and credibility:
"Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals."
"There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay."
Lord Lawson added: "Since the CRU is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and is part of the University of East Anglia, we call on Edmund Wallis, the chairman of the NERC and Brandon Gough, the Chancellor of the UEA, to jointly commission an independent inquiry into the revelations, including, of course, their veracity."
Professsor David Henderson, the Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of the GWPF said: "The evolution of climate policies needs to be linked to a process of inquiry, review and advice that is more open, thorough, balanced and objective than is now the case. This is the mission of the Global Warming Policy Foundation."
SOURCE
Unforeseen climate 'crisis'
A climate crisis of worldwide proportions is unfolding right before our eyes, and not even the most powerful world leaders can do anything to stop it. It looks like 2009 may very well turn out to be the fourth straight year of declining global temperatures at a time when carbon dioxide levels continue to rise - the opposite of what was predicted by vaunted climate models.
Something must be done immediately to either (1) rework the temperature data so it vindicates esteemed climate visionaries, (2) come up with some scientific-sounding mumbo-jumbo as to why long-term weather doesn't conform to authoritative proclamations or (3) simply ignore or downplay the reality hoping people don't finally catch on that they've been had. Perhaps it could at least be claimed that Mother Nature is giving us a reprieve to get our collective global act together before she really lowers the boom. After all, it has worked so well in the past to say that disaster is just around the corner.
Our guess is that the crafty climate chieftains will likely use a combination of the three smoke-and-mirror strategies listed (with a smattering of "denier" bashing thrown in just for fun).
But we wonder, when will ostensibly superintelligent people learn a simple fact that even a forecast is simply a guess at the future based on past and present information? Putting a lot of sincere confidence in your prognostication does not improve its predictive power.
The confidence just helps to make more people believe your forecast. More people buy into it. More people look to you for solutions, for salvation, and the whole thing takes on a life of its own. Knowing that you can in no way know the future for something as complicated as the Earth's climate, at some point your confidence becomes inflated to the point of arrogance - it's unavoidable. Soon you're pushing a confidence game. And, since many in the general public and too many of the high and mighty can look with awe or advantage at the forecasts generated by sophisticated climate models, there will be no lack of sufficient players to keep the game moving. But, before we get into overtime, consider the reality of climate forecasting.
Everyone is aware of the folly of short-term weather forecasts. And, yes we know climate and weather are not the same! So, let's consider short-term climate forecasts. A terrific example is the official U.S. prediction for the hurricane season of 2006. In May 2006, immediately preceding the onset of the Atlantic hurricane season (and again in August 2006), arguably the best hurricane forecasters on Earth couldn't accurately predict even simply the total number of severe storm events.
The forecast was for another season of unusually numerous events (although not expected to be on par with the record-breaking 31 events of 2005, which included 15 hurricanes). But, the forecast was a bust, with only 10 events (five hurricanes and five tropical storms) recorded. Average was closer to at least 15 events ... so much for forecasting climatic conditions better than the weekend's weather.
If we can't accurately predict occurrences in a small portion of the globe in the short range, what then are we to make of the substantially more complicated art of long-range global climate forecasting? We see that the Earth's temperatures don't seem to be playing the game by the climate-wizard's rules. Should we begin to admit that we're not really as smart as we or others think we are; that the tremendous complexity of climate, although better understood than in decades past, is still a long way from being confidently forecasted in decades future? Or would that be too honest?
For now, continuous falling temperatures are truly a global crisis, coming at a time when some very powerful people will soon be meeting in Copenhagen to remedy increasing temperatures. World leaders should stay home and enjoy the weather. Unless, of course, they're not as concerned about changing climate as they are about redistributing wealth.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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Monday, November 23, 2009
More guesswork
Sounds like the differences they observed were not even statistically significant. Looking at their raw averages would be fun. I predict that any trend detectable will be non-linear (e.g. a recent change of direction) -- which makes any projection into the future a joke
THE East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study. Published yesterday in Nature Geoscience, the same study shows that the smaller but less stable West Antarctic icesheet is also shedding significant mass.
Scientists worry that rising global temperatures could trigger a rapid disintegration of West Antarctica, which holds enough frozen water to push up the global ocean watermark by about five metres. In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) predicted sea levels would rise 18 to 59cm by 2100, but this estimate did not factor in the potential impact of crumbling icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
Today many of the same scientist say that even if heat-trapping CO2 emissions are curtailed, the ocean watermark is more likely to go up by nearly a metre, enough to render several small island nations unlivable and damage fertile deltas, home to hundreds of millions.
University of Texas professor Jianli Chen and colleagues analysed nearly seven years of data on ocean-icesheet interaction in Antarctica. Covering the period up January 2009, the data was collected by the twin GRACE satellites, which detect mass flows in the ocean and polar regions by measuring changes in Earth's gravity field. Consistent with earlier findings based on different methods, they found that West Antarctica dumped, on average, about 132 billion tonnes of ice into the sea each year, give or take 26 billion tonnes.
They also found for the first time that East Antarctica - on the Eastern Hemisphere side of the continent - was likewise losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of about 57 billion tonnes annually. The margin for error, they cautioned, is almost as large as the estimate, meaning ice loss could be a little as a few billion tonnes or more than 100.
Up to now, scientists had thought that East Antarctica was in "balance", meaning that it accumulated as much mass and it gave off, perhaps a bit more. "Acceleration of ice loss in recent years over the entire continent is thus indicated," the authors conclude. "Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea level rise."
SOURCE
Huge numbers of power stations and SUVs in the prehistoric past
A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day.
The findings, recently reported by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the Open University and University of Bristol in the journal Nature could help us understand more about rapid Antarctic climate changes.
Previous analysis of ice cores has shown that the climate consists of ice ages and warmer interglacial periods roughly every 100,000 years. This new investigation shows temperature 'spikes' within some of the interglacial periods over the last 340,000 years. This suggests Antarctic temperature shows a high level of sensitivity to greenhouse gases at levels similar to those found today.
Lead author Louise Sime of British Antarctic Survey said, "We didn't expect to see such warm temperatures, and we don't yet know in detail what caused them. But they indicate that Antarctica's climate may have undergone rapid shifts during past periods of high CO2."
During the last warm period, about 125,000 years ago, sea level was around 5 metres higher than today.
Ice core scientist Eric Wolff of British Antarctic Survey is a world-leading expert on past climate. He said, "If we can pin down how much warmer temperatures were in Antarctica and Greenland at this time, then we can test predictions of how melting of the large ice sheets may contribute to sea level rise."
Notes:
Ice cores are unique climate records, allowing scientists to investigate climate changes over hundreds of thousands of years. The Earth's oldest ice is found in East Antarctica. The three oldest existing ice cores were drilled at Dome C, Dome F and Vostock. The longest ice core -- at 3,650 metres -- comes from Vostock, but the oldest ice core, drilled by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) team, contains a climate record stretching back 800,000 years. Analysis of the ice cores has revolutionized our understanding of how Antarctic climate has varied in the past. Information from ice cores is vital for testing and improving the computer models used to predict future climate.
Interglacials -- recur roughly every 100,000 years between ice ages. The present warm period began around 10,000 years ago and has been relatively stable.
Direct sea level measurements based upon coastal sedimentary deposits and tropical coral sequences have established that global sea level was higher than present during the last interglacial (~125,000 years ago) by approximately 4 to 6 m. This indicates that the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets were smaller than during the present day.
The authors analysed 340,000 years of oxygen and hydrogen isotope data from three ice core sites across East Antarctica, alongside isotope-enabled general circulation model results.
SOURCE
Hacked files of the Climatic Research Unit, Global Warming a deliberate fraud
By climatologist Dr. Tim Ball
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 0.6°C 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.”
You can download the climate change fraud documents here or here.
SOURCE
The Sound Of All Hell Breaking Loose: Now Searchable!
Here's a crazy thought: What if it was Briffa who released the emails? He is known to have been depressed lately and the email below reveals him to be in great conflict over what he is doing. And the now undisputed revelation that his past work depended on the tree rings from just one tree must have hurt him -- JR
The CRU emails are now searchable. Here's one I stumbled across. (Read from bottom up.)
From: Keith Briffa To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Re: quick note on TAR Date: Sun Apr 29 19:53:16 2007
Mike
Your words are a real boost to me at the moment. I found myself questioning the whole process and being often frustrated at the formulaic way things had to be done - often wasting time and going down dead ends. I really thank you for taking the time to say these kind words. I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC, which were not always the same. I worried that you might think I gave the impression of not supporting you well enough while trying to report on the issues and uncertainties. Much had to be removed and I was particularly unhappy that I could not get the statement into the SPM regarding the AR4 reinforcement of the results and conclusions of the TAR. I tried my best but we were basically railroaded by Susan*. I am happy to pass the mantle on to someone else next time. I feel I have basically produced nothing original or substantive of my own since this whole process started. I am at this moment having to work on the ENV submission to the forthcoming UK Research Assessment exercise , again instead of actually doing some useful research! Anyway thanks again Mike.... really appreciated when it comes from you very best wishes
Keith
Keith
At 18:14 29/04/2007, you wrote:
Keith, just a quick note to let you know I've had a chance to read over the key bits on last millennium in the final version of the chapter, and I think you did a great job. obviously, this was one of the most (if not the most) contentious areas in the entire report, and you found a way to (in my view) convey the the science accurately, but in a way that I believe will be immune to criticisms of bias or neglect--you dealt w/ all of the controversies, but in a very even-handed and fair way. bravo! I hope you have an opportunity to relax a bit now. looking forward to buying you a beer next time we have an opportunity :)
mike
(*I believe he's referring to Susan Solomon here.)
A more detailed examination of a different series of emails pertaining to Briffa's work is up at Powerline. [See below -- JR]
SOURCE
The global warming alarmists act like a gang of co-conspirators rather than respectable scientists
One of the hacked East Anglia emails that has gotten considerable play on the web indicates that several alarmist scientists deleted emails that were subject to a Freedom of Information Act request rather than produce them. That's true; here is the context.
On May 27, 2008, David Palmer, who is in charge of "data protection" at the University of East Anglia, wrote to Tim Osborn about a Freedom of Information Act request the university had received from one David Holland: "Please note the response received today from Mr. Holland. Could you provide input as to his additional questions 1, and 2, and check with Mr. Ammann in question 3 as to whether he believes his correspondence with us to be confidential? Although I fear/anticipate the response, I believe that I should inform the requester that his request will be over the appropriate limit and ask him to limit it.... I just wish to ensure that we do as much as possible 'by the book' in this instance as I am certain that this will end up in an appeal, with the statutory potential to end up with the ICO."
Thus, the same day, Tim Osborn wrote to Caspar Amman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado: "Our university has received a request, under the UK Freedom of Information law, from someone called David Holland for emails or other documents that you may have sent to us that discuss any matters related to the IPCC assessment process. We are not sure what our university's response will be, nor have we even checked whether you sent us emails that relate to the IPCC assessment or that we retained any that you may have sent. However, it would be useful to know your opinion on this matter. In particular, we would like to know whether you consider any emails that you sent to us as confidential. Sorry to bother you with this, Tim (cc Keith & Phil)"
The point was to lay foundation for an objection to producing such emails on the ground that they were "confidential." Amman replied: "Oh MAN! will this crap ever end?? Well, I will have to properly answer in a couple days when I get a chance digging through emails. I don't recall from the top of my head any specifics about IPCC. I'm also sorry that you guys have to go through this BS."
Osborn replied: "Hi again Caspar, I don't think it is necessary for you to dig through any emails you may have sent us to determine your answer. Our question is a more general one, which is whether you generally consider emails that you sent us to have been sent in confidence. If you do, then we will use this as a reason to decline the request. Cheers, Tim"
That was followed by this more formal response from Amman on May 30: "In response to your inquiry about my take on the confidentiality of my email communications with you, Keith or Phil, I have to say that the intent of these emails is to reply or communicate with the individuals on the distribution list, and they are not intended for general 'publication'. If I would consider my texts to potentially get wider dissemination then I would probably have written them in a different style. Having said that, as far as I can remember (and I haven't checked in the records, if they even still exist) I have never written an explicit statement on these messages that would label them strictly confidential. Caspar"
In the meantime, though, Osborn and his colleagues had already taken matters into their own hands. On May 29, Phil Jones wrote to Michael Mann, with the subject heading "IPCC & FOI": "Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have with Keith re AR4? ["AR4" is common shorthand for the U.N. IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, which was released in 2007.] 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."
These emails appear to show that, when faced with a legitimate request under Britain's Freedom of Information Act, these global warming alarmists preferred to delete their emails with one another about the crucially important IPCC report --the main basis for the purported "consensus" in favor of anthropogenic global warming--rather than allow them to come to light. This is one of many instances in the East Anglia documents where the global warming alarmists act like a gang of co-conspirators rather than respectable scientists.
SOURCE
The savage battle to suppress scientific dissent
Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.
While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate -- nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal -- public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies.
In one e-mail, the center's director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science. "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes. "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," Jones replies.
Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who comes under fire in the e-mails, said these same academics repeatedly criticized him for not having published more peer-reviewed papers. "There's an egregious problem here, their intimidation of journal editors," he said. "They're saying, 'If you print anything by this group, we won't send you any papers.' "
Mann, who directs Penn State's Earth System Science Center, said the e-mails reflected the sort of "vigorous debate" researchers engage in before reaching scientific conclusions. "We shouldn't expect the sort of refined statements that scientists make when they're speaking in public," he said.
Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute who has questioned whether climate change is human-caused, blogged that the e-mails have "the makings of a very big" scandal. "Imagine this sort of news coming in the field of AIDS research," he added.
The story of the hacking has ranked among the most popular on Web sites ranging from The Washington Post's to that of London's Daily Telegraph. And it has spurred a flood of e-mails from climate skeptics to U.S. news organizations, some likening the disclosure to the release of the Pentagon Papers during Vietnam.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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Sounds like the differences they observed were not even statistically significant. Looking at their raw averages would be fun. I predict that any trend detectable will be non-linear (e.g. a recent change of direction) -- which makes any projection into the future a joke
THE East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study. Published yesterday in Nature Geoscience, the same study shows that the smaller but less stable West Antarctic icesheet is also shedding significant mass.
Scientists worry that rising global temperatures could trigger a rapid disintegration of West Antarctica, which holds enough frozen water to push up the global ocean watermark by about five metres. In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) predicted sea levels would rise 18 to 59cm by 2100, but this estimate did not factor in the potential impact of crumbling icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
Today many of the same scientist say that even if heat-trapping CO2 emissions are curtailed, the ocean watermark is more likely to go up by nearly a metre, enough to render several small island nations unlivable and damage fertile deltas, home to hundreds of millions.
University of Texas professor Jianli Chen and colleagues analysed nearly seven years of data on ocean-icesheet interaction in Antarctica. Covering the period up January 2009, the data was collected by the twin GRACE satellites, which detect mass flows in the ocean and polar regions by measuring changes in Earth's gravity field. Consistent with earlier findings based on different methods, they found that West Antarctica dumped, on average, about 132 billion tonnes of ice into the sea each year, give or take 26 billion tonnes.
They also found for the first time that East Antarctica - on the Eastern Hemisphere side of the continent - was likewise losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of about 57 billion tonnes annually. The margin for error, they cautioned, is almost as large as the estimate, meaning ice loss could be a little as a few billion tonnes or more than 100.
Up to now, scientists had thought that East Antarctica was in "balance", meaning that it accumulated as much mass and it gave off, perhaps a bit more. "Acceleration of ice loss in recent years over the entire continent is thus indicated," the authors conclude. "Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea level rise."
SOURCE
Huge numbers of power stations and SUVs in the prehistoric past
A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day.
The findings, recently reported by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the Open University and University of Bristol in the journal Nature could help us understand more about rapid Antarctic climate changes.
Previous analysis of ice cores has shown that the climate consists of ice ages and warmer interglacial periods roughly every 100,000 years. This new investigation shows temperature 'spikes' within some of the interglacial periods over the last 340,000 years. This suggests Antarctic temperature shows a high level of sensitivity to greenhouse gases at levels similar to those found today.
Lead author Louise Sime of British Antarctic Survey said, "We didn't expect to see such warm temperatures, and we don't yet know in detail what caused them. But they indicate that Antarctica's climate may have undergone rapid shifts during past periods of high CO2."
During the last warm period, about 125,000 years ago, sea level was around 5 metres higher than today.
Ice core scientist Eric Wolff of British Antarctic Survey is a world-leading expert on past climate. He said, "If we can pin down how much warmer temperatures were in Antarctica and Greenland at this time, then we can test predictions of how melting of the large ice sheets may contribute to sea level rise."
Notes:
Ice cores are unique climate records, allowing scientists to investigate climate changes over hundreds of thousands of years. The Earth's oldest ice is found in East Antarctica. The three oldest existing ice cores were drilled at Dome C, Dome F and Vostock. The longest ice core -- at 3,650 metres -- comes from Vostock, but the oldest ice core, drilled by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) team, contains a climate record stretching back 800,000 years. Analysis of the ice cores has revolutionized our understanding of how Antarctic climate has varied in the past. Information from ice cores is vital for testing and improving the computer models used to predict future climate.
Interglacials -- recur roughly every 100,000 years between ice ages. The present warm period began around 10,000 years ago and has been relatively stable.
Direct sea level measurements based upon coastal sedimentary deposits and tropical coral sequences have established that global sea level was higher than present during the last interglacial (~125,000 years ago) by approximately 4 to 6 m. This indicates that the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets were smaller than during the present day.
The authors analysed 340,000 years of oxygen and hydrogen isotope data from three ice core sites across East Antarctica, alongside isotope-enabled general circulation model results.
SOURCE
Hacked files of the Climatic Research Unit, Global Warming a deliberate fraud
By climatologist Dr. Tim Ball
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 0.6°C 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.”
You can download the climate change fraud documents here or here.
SOURCE
The Sound Of All Hell Breaking Loose: Now Searchable!
Here's a crazy thought: What if it was Briffa who released the emails? He is known to have been depressed lately and the email below reveals him to be in great conflict over what he is doing. And the now undisputed revelation that his past work depended on the tree rings from just one tree must have hurt him -- JR
The CRU emails are now searchable. Here's one I stumbled across. (Read from bottom up.)
From: Keith Briffa To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Re: quick note on TAR Date: Sun Apr 29 19:53:16 2007
Mike
Your words are a real boost to me at the moment. I found myself questioning the whole process and being often frustrated at the formulaic way things had to be done - often wasting time and going down dead ends. I really thank you for taking the time to say these kind words. I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC, which were not always the same. I worried that you might think I gave the impression of not supporting you well enough while trying to report on the issues and uncertainties. Much had to be removed and I was particularly unhappy that I could not get the statement into the SPM regarding the AR4 reinforcement of the results and conclusions of the TAR. I tried my best but we were basically railroaded by Susan*. I am happy to pass the mantle on to someone else next time. I feel I have basically produced nothing original or substantive of my own since this whole process started. I am at this moment having to work on the ENV submission to the forthcoming UK Research Assessment exercise , again instead of actually doing some useful research! Anyway thanks again Mike.... really appreciated when it comes from you very best wishes
Keith
Keith
At 18:14 29/04/2007, you wrote:
Keith, just a quick note to let you know I've had a chance to read over the key bits on last millennium in the final version of the chapter, and I think you did a great job. obviously, this was one of the most (if not the most) contentious areas in the entire report, and you found a way to (in my view) convey the the science accurately, but in a way that I believe will be immune to criticisms of bias or neglect--you dealt w/ all of the controversies, but in a very even-handed and fair way. bravo! I hope you have an opportunity to relax a bit now. looking forward to buying you a beer next time we have an opportunity :)
mike
(*I believe he's referring to Susan Solomon here.)
A more detailed examination of a different series of emails pertaining to Briffa's work is up at Powerline. [See below -- JR]
SOURCE
The global warming alarmists act like a gang of co-conspirators rather than respectable scientists
One of the hacked East Anglia emails that has gotten considerable play on the web indicates that several alarmist scientists deleted emails that were subject to a Freedom of Information Act request rather than produce them. That's true; here is the context.
On May 27, 2008, David Palmer, who is in charge of "data protection" at the University of East Anglia, wrote to Tim Osborn about a Freedom of Information Act request the university had received from one David Holland: "Please note the response received today from Mr. Holland. Could you provide input as to his additional questions 1, and 2, and check with Mr. Ammann in question 3 as to whether he believes his correspondence with us to be confidential? Although I fear/anticipate the response, I believe that I should inform the requester that his request will be over the appropriate limit and ask him to limit it.... I just wish to ensure that we do as much as possible 'by the book' in this instance as I am certain that this will end up in an appeal, with the statutory potential to end up with the ICO."
Thus, the same day, Tim Osborn wrote to Caspar Amman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado: "Our university has received a request, under the UK Freedom of Information law, from someone called David Holland for emails or other documents that you may have sent to us that discuss any matters related to the IPCC assessment process. We are not sure what our university's response will be, nor have we even checked whether you sent us emails that relate to the IPCC assessment or that we retained any that you may have sent. However, it would be useful to know your opinion on this matter. In particular, we would like to know whether you consider any emails that you sent to us as confidential. Sorry to bother you with this, Tim (cc Keith & Phil)"
The point was to lay foundation for an objection to producing such emails on the ground that they were "confidential." Amman replied: "Oh MAN! will this crap ever end?? Well, I will have to properly answer in a couple days when I get a chance digging through emails. I don't recall from the top of my head any specifics about IPCC. I'm also sorry that you guys have to go through this BS."
Osborn replied: "Hi again Caspar, I don't think it is necessary for you to dig through any emails you may have sent us to determine your answer. Our question is a more general one, which is whether you generally consider emails that you sent us to have been sent in confidence. If you do, then we will use this as a reason to decline the request. Cheers, Tim"
That was followed by this more formal response from Amman on May 30: "In response to your inquiry about my take on the confidentiality of my email communications with you, Keith or Phil, I have to say that the intent of these emails is to reply or communicate with the individuals on the distribution list, and they are not intended for general 'publication'. If I would consider my texts to potentially get wider dissemination then I would probably have written them in a different style. Having said that, as far as I can remember (and I haven't checked in the records, if they even still exist) I have never written an explicit statement on these messages that would label them strictly confidential. Caspar"
In the meantime, though, Osborn and his colleagues had already taken matters into their own hands. On May 29, Phil Jones wrote to Michael Mann, with the subject heading "IPCC & FOI": "Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have with Keith re AR4? ["AR4" is common shorthand for the U.N. IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, which was released in 2007.] 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."
These emails appear to show that, when faced with a legitimate request under Britain's Freedom of Information Act, these global warming alarmists preferred to delete their emails with one another about the crucially important IPCC report --the main basis for the purported "consensus" in favor of anthropogenic global warming--rather than allow them to come to light. This is one of many instances in the East Anglia documents where the global warming alarmists act like a gang of co-conspirators rather than respectable scientists.
SOURCE
The savage battle to suppress scientific dissent
Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.
While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate -- nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal -- public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies.
In one e-mail, the center's director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science. "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes. "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," Jones replies.
Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who comes under fire in the e-mails, said these same academics repeatedly criticized him for not having published more peer-reviewed papers. "There's an egregious problem here, their intimidation of journal editors," he said. "They're saying, 'If you print anything by this group, we won't send you any papers.' "
Mann, who directs Penn State's Earth System Science Center, said the e-mails reflected the sort of "vigorous debate" researchers engage in before reaching scientific conclusions. "We shouldn't expect the sort of refined statements that scientists make when they're speaking in public," he said.
Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute who has questioned whether climate change is human-caused, blogged that the e-mails have "the makings of a very big" scandal. "Imagine this sort of news coming in the field of AIDS research," he added.
The story of the hacking has ranked among the most popular on Web sites ranging from The Washington Post's to that of London's Daily Telegraph. And it has spurred a flood of e-mails from climate skeptics to U.S. news organizations, some likening the disclosure to the release of the Pentagon Papers during Vietnam.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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Sunday, November 22, 2009
Some graphic evidence of CRU crookedness
A picture is worth ...
Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?
The secret emails of the CRU have got a LOT of attention in the press by now. Even the NYT has weighed in, contrary to its usual practice of ignoring news it doesn't like. So it is difficult to know what to reproduce here but I have chosen two pieces below -- JR
By James Delingpole
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.
I asked in my title whether this will be the final nail in the coffin of Anthropenic Global Warming. This was wishful thinking, of course. In the run up to Copenhagen, we will see more and more hysterical (and grotesquely exaggerated) stories such as this in the Mainstream Media. And we will see ever-more-virulent campaigns conducted by eco-fascist activists, such as this risible new advertising campaign by Plane Stupid showing CGI polar bears falling from the sky and exploding because kind of, like, man, that’s sort of what happens whenever you take another trip on an aeroplane.
The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called “sceptical” view is now also the majority view.
Unfortunately, we’ve a long, long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in AGW, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight. But if the Hadley CRU scandal is true,it’s a blow to the AGW lobby’s credibility which is never likely to recover.
SOURCE
The Warmist conspiracy: the emails that most damn Jones
An excerpt from Andrew Bolt's latest comment:
These are the emails that should have Professor Phil Jones most worried about his future. Jones, head of the CRU unit whose emails were leaked, has been under most fire so far over one email in particular in which he boasted of using a ‘“trick" to “hide the decline” that would have otherwise spoiled his graph showing temperatures soaring ever-upward.
But far more serious - at least in a legal sense - may be his apparent boasting of destroying data to stop sceptics from checking this alarmist work. If, as some emails suggest, he destroyed it to thwart FOI requests from Professor Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre, who’d already exposed as fake the Michael Mann “hockey stick”, Jones, one of the most active of the IPCC lead authors, could even face criminal charges.
(Note: in saying that, I should add that these emails may simply be poorly worded, out of context or even altered by the whistleblower who leaked them. Jones may also not knowingly have done anything wrong, and there is no proof that he did anything against the law. UPDATE: Several updates on Jones below, including his “selfish” wish to see global warming “regardless of the consequences” just to be proved right.)
Whether laws were broken or not, the emails prove beyond doubt how resistant Jones and his colleagues were to having their work properly scrutinised by anyone not of their “team”. No wonder, perhaps, when the documents reveal Jones has so far attracted $25 million in grants.)
The most damning emails on this point are the following, starting with 1107454306.txt, in which Jones refers to MM - McIntyre and McKitrick:
Jones admits he was warned by his own university against deleting data subjected to an FOI request from McIntyre - or anyone:
Makes you wonder very strongly what Jones is trying to hide, doesn’t it? Also makes you laugh all over again at his claim once that the data being sought had, sadly, been ... um, lost.
In1212063122.txtm, Jones urges another colleague, Michael “Hockey Stick”, Mann, to join in the deleting - at least of emails about the IPCC’s controversial ARA report on man-made warming which Jones co-authored, and which claimed warming was “unequivocal” and “most likely” caused by humans:
For years Jones has made clear his determination to keep crucial data from the eyes of sceptics:
And when Jones is really forced to the point of handing over his data, he considers ways to may checking it more difficult or annoying:
But Jones figures a way out:
More HERE
WHY NASA SHOULD CLEAN UP ITS OWN HOUSE
NASA's rocket scientists have been debunking on their official website the current "end of the world" hysteria generated by the latest Hollywood Armageddon movie -- 2012. In an alternately serious and mocking entry titled "No, The World Isn't Going to End in 2012" at www.nasa.gov, they explain that no, come Dec. 21, 2012, the supposed end of the Mayan calendar, the world isn't going to be destroyed by (a) unusual solar activity, the theory in 2012, or (b) getting clobbered by another planet -- another popular scenario.
Now, if only NASA's space cadets could get their own doomsday climatologist -- James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies -- to stop preaching end-of-the-world hysteria about man-made global warming, they might do some good.
Because as long as Hansen, one of Al Gore's senior scientific advisers on An Inconvenient Truth (enough said) and the first climatologist to start banging the Armageddon drum on global warming 20 years ago, keeps racing around the world hysterically preaching we only have a few years left to save the Earth -- his latest number is four, according to a recent interview with the Sunday Observer -- NASA will remain a maze of contradictions, hypocrisy and unintentional irony.
If you look at the movie trailers for An Inconvenient Truth and 2012 on the Internet, you'll see both used many of the same marketing techniques to scare the bejeebers out of everyone in hopes of getting them to buy a ticket -- pounding, ominous music and narration and scary slogans overlaid with scenes of destruction -- some of which, even in the "documentary" An Inconvenient Truth, are imaginary.
In debunking that the world is about to end -- which NASA said it did because it was getting so many inquiries about 2012 -- Don Yeomans, senior research scientist, writes: "Incorrect doomsday predictions have taken place several times in each of the past several centuries. Readers should bear in mind what Carl Sagan noted several years ago; 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.' " Indeed.
NASA scientist, David Morrison, who posted a YouTube video on the 2012 controversy, is quoted in the New York Times saying he did it because: "I get angry at the way people are being manipulated and frightened to make money. There is no ethical right to frighten children to make a buck." In his video, Morrison said some young people who contacted NASA were so scared, they were contemplating suicide.
Right. NASA, heal thyself.
Hansen, who once charged the Bush administration with silencing him -- which obviously didn't work because he never shuts up -- has been preaching environmental Armageddon for years, albeit, he would say, not to make money, but to save the planet for his grandchildren. And unlike the makers of 2012, he believes his rhetoric.
Which would be fine if Hansen -- whose views are extreme even for a climate scientist -- was speaking as a private citizen. But how does a NASA "scientist" get to run around preaching democracy isn't working, get arrested for civil disobedience and lecture the U.S. Congress that energy company executives should be tried for "high crimes" against humanity?
If NASA is so concerned about hysterical claims of Armageddon scaring children, it should worry less about science-fiction movies and more about cleaning up its own house. As for 2012, that's when the Kyoto accord expires. Not the Earth.
SOURCE
Greenies partly responsible for British flood disaster
And they're not repentant. People are disposable
Furious Cockermouth residents have complained that fears over disturbing salmon spawning has made the flooding problem far worse this year. Residents had called for the river bed to be dug into by 10ft in order to prevent flooding following discussions about the problem with the authorities earlier this year. But they claim their plan was rejected by the Environment Agency because it would interfere with salmon laying their eggs in the River Derwent.
Today residents reacted with fury and complained that the authorities are treating salmon as being 'more important than people.' Jacqui White, Gote Road, Cockermouth, said: 'I attended a meeting with Natural England earlier this year when we told them we wanted to dig 10ft deeper so that the waters wouldn't flood and alleviate any flooding. 'But the officials there stood up and told the meeting that the salmon in the river were more important.' Jacqui added: 'I've been here 16 years. I know the area is prone to flooding, and it was bad in 2005, but this year is definitely the worst."
Fiona Tunstall, 38, was left in tears after her terraced home was flooded in Gote Road yesterday. She said: 'The authorities seem to think salmon is more important than people and their houses.' 'The residents of this street had a meeting with Natural England and other authorities because they wanted to dig 10ft down into the riverbed around this street. 'Natural England wouldn't let them because would be detrimental to salmon to do that.
'If it had been dug, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess now. 'My kitchen and living room are under about 4ft of water yesterday. My carpets, and my sofa and everything else are under water now. 'We have lost everything. 'My four-year-old Ryan, just cried and cried. 'I don't know what we are going to do. We'll have no electricity and no water, I don't know how I'm going to feed us. 'Something needs to be done. It's ridiculous. I've got not contents insurance. 'I'm so angry with the Environment Agency. They didn't contact me even though I gave them my phone numbers ages ago. I gave them that because they give you a phone call or a text to warn you your house is under threat, but obviously I never got that. 'I don't want to go back to my house.'
Maggie Robinson, Natural's England's Freshwater Advisor for the North West Region, said: 'The River Derwent has been designated as a site of special scientific interest and an important area of conservation. 'It's one of the most important rivers of its kind in Europe. 'It has some of the rarest species of fish in Europe, the river has Atlantic salmon and three different species of lamprey. 'The river, although being nutrient poor, supports some important species of moss and other river fauna.
'Digging into the bed of a river isn't always the best thing to do because it can undermine the channel and riverbed which can cause more deposition cause problems. 'Atlantic salmon are considered throughout Europe to be rare. Salmon dig into reeds in the gravel on the riverbed and they lay their eggs in the reeds.
SOURCE
Australia: Conservative politicians are "coming out" over their disbelief in global warming
The Libs' Senate leader is encouraging climate sceptics to speak out. Nick Minchin, the Liberals' Senate leader, is playing a very edgy political game as he tries - in a direct challenge to Malcolm Turnbull - to get the Opposition to vote down the emissions trading scheme. It's high risk for Turnbull, Minchin and the Liberals. Minchin is openly rejecting the science on climate and encouraging other Liberal sceptics to speak out. This is audacious behaviour by the fourth most-senior person in the Opposition, who's in the leadership group.
But it seems likely Minchin, chief of the Liberals' conservative wing, is more in tune than Turnbull with the party's grassroots. Sources report the rank and file has become more critical of the ETS in the past three months, and Minchin's outspoken comments have been getting positive feedback.
The obvious downside for Turnbull is that his pro-ETS view has become increasingly out of sync with the membership (which, of course, should not be equated with the public). However unhelpful Minchin's comments, he's reprising views he expressed in the Howard years. By 2007, the then prime minister, previously himself a sceptic, had shifted, in the desperate hope of getting some ''cred'' on climate, and the government started to look to an ETS.
But Minchin, though government Senate leader, was having none of it. Saying ''scepticism is one of the all-time great Australian attributes'', he told The Age's Katharine Murphy the science of global warming wasn't settled, and ''to have some Mickey Mouse thing in Australia might make some people feel good but will do nothing for emissions and it will hurt the Australian economy''.
If a greater cause demands, he can, however, be flexible on the issue. When in July last year Turnbull and environment spokesman Greg Hunt were trying to stop then Opposition leader Brendan Nelson moving to the right on emissions trading, Minchin backed the Turnbull-Hunt line, presumably fearing that if they were thwarted, the leadership of Nelson, who he supported, would be undermined (it was anyway, even though Nelson gave in).
Minchin is one of the most experienced and savvy Liberal MPs. He is also among the toughest factional warriors, and yesterday was accused by moderate Liberal backbencher Mal Washer of using the climate change issue to pursue the factional war between conservatives and small-l liberals in the party.
In personal style, Minchin is friendly, relaxed and open (perhaps partly because he was always around journalists - his mother was in the federal parliamentary press gallery; his wife worked in The Age's Canberra bureau before their marriage). But in views he's an ideologue, with strong stands on issues ranging well beyond climate. When Howard in 2006 was trying to reassure people he wouldn't bring in even more severe industrial relations changes after WorkChoices, Minchin was caught on tape advocating another wave of reform. He has also championed unfashionable causes such as voluntary voting.
As the emissions trading issue inches towards its dangerous climax, Minchin seems emboldened.
He said last month that even if the Government met all the Opposition's demands, there was no guarantee the party room would approve the legislation (which begged the question of why you'd bother with negotiations).
Then last week came Four Corners, where Minchin said a majority of the Liberal Party wouldn't accept the position that humans were the main cause of global warming; it would be difficult for Coalition members to vote for the scheme, he said.
Addressing the Senate yesterday, Minchin began by congratulating Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce (who won't vote for the scheme in any circumstances) for his ''erudite contribution to this debate''.
In interviews this week, Minchin did not take a backward step. But he insisted it was not about Turnbull's leadership. At one level this might be correct, despite Minchin battling to keep Turnbull out of the leadership after the last election, and later attempting to prop up the failing Nelson. Joe Hockey, the most likely alternative, is a left-winger; his views on climate would be no more acceptable to Minchin than Turnbull's. Minchin would find Tony Abbott's opinions congenial, but knows Abbott lacks one vital attribute - numbers.
Minchin is not, however, going to do Turnbull any favours or worry excessively if his in-your-face campaign against the legislation undermines Turnbull, who has declared that having a credible climate policy is for him a leadership issue.
The tough line taken by Minchin is empowering other hardliners. Earlier, it was thought most critics would be inclined to roll over if they didn't have the numbers. Now their behaviour is unpredictable, which means that if Turnbull gets party support for a deal, the number of Liberals crossing the floor in the Senate could be quite large, putting up in lights how split the party has become.
The irony would be that Minchin, bound by shadow cabinet solidary, would be forced into formal lockstep with his leader.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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A picture is worth ...
Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?
The secret emails of the CRU have got a LOT of attention in the press by now. Even the NYT has weighed in, contrary to its usual practice of ignoring news it doesn't like. So it is difficult to know what to reproduce here but I have chosen two pieces below -- JR
By James Delingpole
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.
I asked in my title whether this will be the final nail in the coffin of Anthropenic Global Warming. This was wishful thinking, of course. In the run up to Copenhagen, we will see more and more hysterical (and grotesquely exaggerated) stories such as this in the Mainstream Media. And we will see ever-more-virulent campaigns conducted by eco-fascist activists, such as this risible new advertising campaign by Plane Stupid showing CGI polar bears falling from the sky and exploding because kind of, like, man, that’s sort of what happens whenever you take another trip on an aeroplane.
The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called “sceptical” view is now also the majority view.
Unfortunately, we’ve a long, long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in AGW, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight. But if the Hadley CRU scandal is true,it’s a blow to the AGW lobby’s credibility which is never likely to recover.
SOURCE
The Warmist conspiracy: the emails that most damn Jones
An excerpt from Andrew Bolt's latest comment:
These are the emails that should have Professor Phil Jones most worried about his future. Jones, head of the CRU unit whose emails were leaked, has been under most fire so far over one email in particular in which he boasted of using a ‘“trick" to “hide the decline” that would have otherwise spoiled his graph showing temperatures soaring ever-upward.
But far more serious - at least in a legal sense - may be his apparent boasting of destroying data to stop sceptics from checking this alarmist work. If, as some emails suggest, he destroyed it to thwart FOI requests from Professor Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre, who’d already exposed as fake the Michael Mann “hockey stick”, Jones, one of the most active of the IPCC lead authors, could even face criminal charges.
(Note: in saying that, I should add that these emails may simply be poorly worded, out of context or even altered by the whistleblower who leaked them. Jones may also not knowingly have done anything wrong, and there is no proof that he did anything against the law. UPDATE: Several updates on Jones below, including his “selfish” wish to see global warming “regardless of the consequences” just to be proved right.)
Whether laws were broken or not, the emails prove beyond doubt how resistant Jones and his colleagues were to having their work properly scrutinised by anyone not of their “team”. No wonder, perhaps, when the documents reveal Jones has so far attracted $25 million in grants.)
The most damning emails on this point are the following, starting with 1107454306.txt, in which Jones refers to MM - McIntyre and McKitrick:
At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:
Mike, I presume congratulations are in order - so congrats etc !
Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it - thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !
Jones admits he was warned by his own university against deleting data subjected to an FOI request from McIntyre - or anyone:
From: Phil Jones
To: santer1@XXXX
Subject: Re: A quick question
Date: Wed Dec 10 10:14:10 2008
Ben,
Haven’t got a reply from the FOI person here at UEA. So I’m not entirely confident the numbers are correct. One way of checking would be to look on CA, but I’m not doing that. I did get an email from the FOI person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn’t be deleting emails - unless this was ‘normal’ deleting to keep emails manageable! McIntyre hasn’t paid his £10, so nothing looks likely to happen re his Data Protection Act email.
Anyway requests have been of three types - observational data, paleo data and who made IPCC changes and why. Keith has got all the latter - and there have been at least 4. We made Susan aware of these - all came from David Holland. According to the FOI Commissioner’s Office, IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on, unless it has anything to do with our core business - and it doesn’t! I’m sounding like Sir Humphrey here!
Makes you wonder very strongly what Jones is trying to hide, doesn’t it? Also makes you laugh all over again at his claim once that the data being sought had, sadly, been ... um, lost.
In1212063122.txtm, Jones urges another colleague, Michael “Hockey Stick”, Mann, to join in the deleting - at least of emails about the IPCC’s controversial ARA report on man-made warming which Jones co-authored, and which claimed warming was “unequivocal” and “most likely” caused by humans:
From: Phil Jones To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008
Mike,
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.
I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil:
For years Jones has made clear his determination to keep crucial data from the eyes of sceptics:
From: Phil Jones To: mann@xxx.edu
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
Date: Mon Feb 21 16:28:32 2005
Cc: “raymond s. bradley” , “Malcolm Hughes”
Mike, Ray and Malcolm,
The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here ! Maybe we can use this to our advantage to get the series updated !
Odd idea to update the proxies with satellite estimates of the lower troposphere rather than surface data !. Odder still that they don’t realise that Moberg et al used the Jones and Moberg updated series !
Francis Zwiers is till onside. He said that PC1s produce hockey sticks. He stressed that the late 20th century is the warmest of the millennium, but Regaldo didn’t bother with that. Also ignored Francis’ comment about all the other series looking similar to MBH.
The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick. Leave it to you to delete as appropriate !
Cheers
Phil
PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data.
Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!
And when Jones is really forced to the point of handing over his data, he considers ways to may checking it more difficult or annoying:
Options appear to be:
Send them the data
Send them a subset removing station data from some of the countries who made us pay in the normals papers of Hulme et al. (1990s) and also any number that David can remember. This should also omit some other countries like (Australia, NZ, Canada, Antarctica). Also could extract some of the sources that Anders added in (31-38 source codes in J&M 2003). Also should remove many of the early stations that we coded up in the 1980s.
Send them the raw data as is, by reconstructing it from GHCN. How could this be done? Replace all stations where the WMO ID agrees with what is in GHCN. This would be the raw data, but it would annoy them.
But Jones figures a way out:
At 04:53 AM 5/9/2008, you wrote:
Mike, Ray, Caspar,
A couple of things - don’t pass on either…
2. You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting in FOI requests for all emails Keith and Tim have written and received re Ch 6 of AR4. We think we’ve found a way around this…
This message will self destruct in 10 seconds!
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
More HERE
WHY NASA SHOULD CLEAN UP ITS OWN HOUSE
NASA's rocket scientists have been debunking on their official website the current "end of the world" hysteria generated by the latest Hollywood Armageddon movie -- 2012. In an alternately serious and mocking entry titled "No, The World Isn't Going to End in 2012" at www.nasa.gov, they explain that no, come Dec. 21, 2012, the supposed end of the Mayan calendar, the world isn't going to be destroyed by (a) unusual solar activity, the theory in 2012, or (b) getting clobbered by another planet -- another popular scenario.
Now, if only NASA's space cadets could get their own doomsday climatologist -- James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies -- to stop preaching end-of-the-world hysteria about man-made global warming, they might do some good.
Because as long as Hansen, one of Al Gore's senior scientific advisers on An Inconvenient Truth (enough said) and the first climatologist to start banging the Armageddon drum on global warming 20 years ago, keeps racing around the world hysterically preaching we only have a few years left to save the Earth -- his latest number is four, according to a recent interview with the Sunday Observer -- NASA will remain a maze of contradictions, hypocrisy and unintentional irony.
If you look at the movie trailers for An Inconvenient Truth and 2012 on the Internet, you'll see both used many of the same marketing techniques to scare the bejeebers out of everyone in hopes of getting them to buy a ticket -- pounding, ominous music and narration and scary slogans overlaid with scenes of destruction -- some of which, even in the "documentary" An Inconvenient Truth, are imaginary.
In debunking that the world is about to end -- which NASA said it did because it was getting so many inquiries about 2012 -- Don Yeomans, senior research scientist, writes: "Incorrect doomsday predictions have taken place several times in each of the past several centuries. Readers should bear in mind what Carl Sagan noted several years ago; 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.' " Indeed.
NASA scientist, David Morrison, who posted a YouTube video on the 2012 controversy, is quoted in the New York Times saying he did it because: "I get angry at the way people are being manipulated and frightened to make money. There is no ethical right to frighten children to make a buck." In his video, Morrison said some young people who contacted NASA were so scared, they were contemplating suicide.
Right. NASA, heal thyself.
Hansen, who once charged the Bush administration with silencing him -- which obviously didn't work because he never shuts up -- has been preaching environmental Armageddon for years, albeit, he would say, not to make money, but to save the planet for his grandchildren. And unlike the makers of 2012, he believes his rhetoric.
Which would be fine if Hansen -- whose views are extreme even for a climate scientist -- was speaking as a private citizen. But how does a NASA "scientist" get to run around preaching democracy isn't working, get arrested for civil disobedience and lecture the U.S. Congress that energy company executives should be tried for "high crimes" against humanity?
If NASA is so concerned about hysterical claims of Armageddon scaring children, it should worry less about science-fiction movies and more about cleaning up its own house. As for 2012, that's when the Kyoto accord expires. Not the Earth.
SOURCE
Greenies partly responsible for British flood disaster
And they're not repentant. People are disposable
Furious Cockermouth residents have complained that fears over disturbing salmon spawning has made the flooding problem far worse this year. Residents had called for the river bed to be dug into by 10ft in order to prevent flooding following discussions about the problem with the authorities earlier this year. But they claim their plan was rejected by the Environment Agency because it would interfere with salmon laying their eggs in the River Derwent.
Today residents reacted with fury and complained that the authorities are treating salmon as being 'more important than people.' Jacqui White, Gote Road, Cockermouth, said: 'I attended a meeting with Natural England earlier this year when we told them we wanted to dig 10ft deeper so that the waters wouldn't flood and alleviate any flooding. 'But the officials there stood up and told the meeting that the salmon in the river were more important.' Jacqui added: 'I've been here 16 years. I know the area is prone to flooding, and it was bad in 2005, but this year is definitely the worst."
Fiona Tunstall, 38, was left in tears after her terraced home was flooded in Gote Road yesterday. She said: 'The authorities seem to think salmon is more important than people and their houses.' 'The residents of this street had a meeting with Natural England and other authorities because they wanted to dig 10ft down into the riverbed around this street. 'Natural England wouldn't let them because would be detrimental to salmon to do that.
'If it had been dug, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess now. 'My kitchen and living room are under about 4ft of water yesterday. My carpets, and my sofa and everything else are under water now. 'We have lost everything. 'My four-year-old Ryan, just cried and cried. 'I don't know what we are going to do. We'll have no electricity and no water, I don't know how I'm going to feed us. 'Something needs to be done. It's ridiculous. I've got not contents insurance. 'I'm so angry with the Environment Agency. They didn't contact me even though I gave them my phone numbers ages ago. I gave them that because they give you a phone call or a text to warn you your house is under threat, but obviously I never got that. 'I don't want to go back to my house.'
Maggie Robinson, Natural's England's Freshwater Advisor for the North West Region, said: 'The River Derwent has been designated as a site of special scientific interest and an important area of conservation. 'It's one of the most important rivers of its kind in Europe. 'It has some of the rarest species of fish in Europe, the river has Atlantic salmon and three different species of lamprey. 'The river, although being nutrient poor, supports some important species of moss and other river fauna.
'Digging into the bed of a river isn't always the best thing to do because it can undermine the channel and riverbed which can cause more deposition cause problems. 'Atlantic salmon are considered throughout Europe to be rare. Salmon dig into reeds in the gravel on the riverbed and they lay their eggs in the reeds.
SOURCE
Australia: Conservative politicians are "coming out" over their disbelief in global warming
The Libs' Senate leader is encouraging climate sceptics to speak out. Nick Minchin, the Liberals' Senate leader, is playing a very edgy political game as he tries - in a direct challenge to Malcolm Turnbull - to get the Opposition to vote down the emissions trading scheme. It's high risk for Turnbull, Minchin and the Liberals. Minchin is openly rejecting the science on climate and encouraging other Liberal sceptics to speak out. This is audacious behaviour by the fourth most-senior person in the Opposition, who's in the leadership group.
But it seems likely Minchin, chief of the Liberals' conservative wing, is more in tune than Turnbull with the party's grassroots. Sources report the rank and file has become more critical of the ETS in the past three months, and Minchin's outspoken comments have been getting positive feedback.
The obvious downside for Turnbull is that his pro-ETS view has become increasingly out of sync with the membership (which, of course, should not be equated with the public). However unhelpful Minchin's comments, he's reprising views he expressed in the Howard years. By 2007, the then prime minister, previously himself a sceptic, had shifted, in the desperate hope of getting some ''cred'' on climate, and the government started to look to an ETS.
But Minchin, though government Senate leader, was having none of it. Saying ''scepticism is one of the all-time great Australian attributes'', he told The Age's Katharine Murphy the science of global warming wasn't settled, and ''to have some Mickey Mouse thing in Australia might make some people feel good but will do nothing for emissions and it will hurt the Australian economy''.
If a greater cause demands, he can, however, be flexible on the issue. When in July last year Turnbull and environment spokesman Greg Hunt were trying to stop then Opposition leader Brendan Nelson moving to the right on emissions trading, Minchin backed the Turnbull-Hunt line, presumably fearing that if they were thwarted, the leadership of Nelson, who he supported, would be undermined (it was anyway, even though Nelson gave in).
Minchin is one of the most experienced and savvy Liberal MPs. He is also among the toughest factional warriors, and yesterday was accused by moderate Liberal backbencher Mal Washer of using the climate change issue to pursue the factional war between conservatives and small-l liberals in the party.
In personal style, Minchin is friendly, relaxed and open (perhaps partly because he was always around journalists - his mother was in the federal parliamentary press gallery; his wife worked in The Age's Canberra bureau before their marriage). But in views he's an ideologue, with strong stands on issues ranging well beyond climate. When Howard in 2006 was trying to reassure people he wouldn't bring in even more severe industrial relations changes after WorkChoices, Minchin was caught on tape advocating another wave of reform. He has also championed unfashionable causes such as voluntary voting.
As the emissions trading issue inches towards its dangerous climax, Minchin seems emboldened.
He said last month that even if the Government met all the Opposition's demands, there was no guarantee the party room would approve the legislation (which begged the question of why you'd bother with negotiations).
Then last week came Four Corners, where Minchin said a majority of the Liberal Party wouldn't accept the position that humans were the main cause of global warming; it would be difficult for Coalition members to vote for the scheme, he said.
Addressing the Senate yesterday, Minchin began by congratulating Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce (who won't vote for the scheme in any circumstances) for his ''erudite contribution to this debate''.
In interviews this week, Minchin did not take a backward step. But he insisted it was not about Turnbull's leadership. At one level this might be correct, despite Minchin battling to keep Turnbull out of the leadership after the last election, and later attempting to prop up the failing Nelson. Joe Hockey, the most likely alternative, is a left-winger; his views on climate would be no more acceptable to Minchin than Turnbull's. Minchin would find Tony Abbott's opinions congenial, but knows Abbott lacks one vital attribute - numbers.
Minchin is not, however, going to do Turnbull any favours or worry excessively if his in-your-face campaign against the legislation undermines Turnbull, who has declared that having a credible climate policy is for him a leadership issue.
The tough line taken by Minchin is empowering other hardliners. Earlier, it was thought most critics would be inclined to roll over if they didn't have the numbers. Now their behaviour is unpredictable, which means that if Turnbull gets party support for a deal, the number of Liberals crossing the floor in the Senate could be quite large, putting up in lights how split the party has become.
The irony would be that Minchin, bound by shadow cabinet solidary, would be forced into formal lockstep with his leader.
SOURCE
***************************************
For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
*****************************************
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Floods hit UK as nation suffers heaviest rain on record
Warmists assured us for years that global warming would bring drought, so this proves ...?
The full and devastating impact of England's worst recorded day of rain was still emerging today as tributes were paid to a policeman swept away by floodwaters while trying to save others. PC Bill Barker was helping motorists stranded on a bridge over the Derwent in the Cumbrian town of Workington when it collapsed. His body was discovered hours later on a nearby beach.
The Environment Agency said that the flooding across the region was so severe that such an event was likely to happen once in 1000 years. The rainfall, on to an already saturated terrain, was the highest level measured in England since records began.
Meteorologists recorded 314mm of rain in 24 hours and flood warnings remained in place across the North West of England, parts of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The bridge from which PC Barker fell to his death was one of at least four to be washed away. Cumbria County Council issued a warning to motorists and pedestrians to avoid using such crossings as they could be extremely dangerous. Hundreds of homes and businesses were evacuated, many of them ruined by floodwater and mud.
Emergency services continued to rescue those still trapped overnight. They urged anyone who had gone to see the destruction for themselves to leave because their vehicles were blocking roads and hampering efforts to reach the worst-hit areas.
The rescue operation continued overnight in Cockermouth, the town worst hit by the flooding, with people being winched to safety. The two rivers that run through the town burst their banks, blocking roads and forcing more than 200 people to be helped to safety.
SOURCE
Hadley hacked: warmist conspiracy exposed?
Andrew Bolt below digs in to the deliberate fraud exposed in the released emails from Britain's premier climate "science" organization. The post is a long one so I reproduce only the opening blast below. I have however also posted a copy of the whole thing here, "just in case"
8.15 PM UPDATE: The Hadley CRU director admits the emails seem to be genuine:
So the 1079 emails and 72 documents seem indeed evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory - a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science. I’ve been adding some of the most astonishing in updates below - emails suggesting 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. If it is as it now seems, never again will “peer review” be used to shout down sceptics.
This is clearly not the work of some hacker, but of an insider who’s now blown the whistle. Not surprising, then, that Steve McIntyre reports:
But back to the original post - and the most astonishing of the emails so far…
***************
Hackers have broken into the database of the Hadley GRU unit - one of the world’s leading alarmist centres - and put the files they stole on the Internet, on the grounds that the science is too important to be kept under wraps.
The ethics of this are dubious, to say the least. But the files suggest, on a very preliminary glance, some other very dubious practices, too, and a lot of collusion - sometimes called “peer review”. Or even conspiracy.
A warning, of course. We can only say with a 90 per cent confidence interval that these emails are real.
(ALTERNATIVE link to the files. And another link.)
UPDATE
Ethics alert! (my bolding - and I’ve update this post with the full alleged email, now):
Nice. This could be fun.
UPDATE 2
Surely these emails can’t be genuine. Surely the world’s most prominent alarmist scientists aren’t secretly exchanging emails like this, admitting privately they can’t find the warming they’ve been so loudly predicting?:
This has to be a forgery, surely. Because if it isn’t, we’re about to see the unpicking of a huge scandal. I mean, the media will follow this up, right? In the meantime, use with care.
Much more here
Meteorologists' climate change survey
Published in the October 2009 issue of “Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society” (BAMS), a new survey indicates that a significant number of professional meteorologists doubt that manmade sources of greenhouse gases are the cause of global warming. The survey was vetted by an advisory board of climate experts, including representatives from NOAA, the NWS, UCAR, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, and many members of the AMS.
Meteorologists’ climate change survey results:
* When asked about the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) statement that “Most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced,” a full 50% either disagreed or strongly disagreed. 25% were neutral and only 24% said they agreed or strongly agreed;
* 52% of the meteorologists disagreed with the statement that “Global climate models are reliable in their projections for a warming of the planet.” Only 19% agreed with the statement;
* Almost a third of respondents agreed (19%) or strongly agreed (10%) that “global warming is a scam”;
* When the meteorologists were asked to identify the “greatest obstacle to reporting on climate change,” their top answer (41%) was “too much scientific uncertainty.”
The credibility of global warming theories (and fear-mongering theorists) and any international climate controls are fading with each passing day. Each day another nail is prudently driven into the coffin of proposed U.S. climate legislation such as the Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer Bills.
SOURCE
Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out
From the mainstream German magazine "Spiegel"
Climatologists use their computer models to draw temperature curves that continue well into the future. They predict that the average global temperature will increase by about three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, unless humanity manages to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, no one really knows what exactly the world climate will look like in the not-so-distant future, that is, in 2015, 2030 or 2050.
This is because it is not just human influence but natural factors that affect the Earth's climate. For instance, currents in the world's oceans are subject to certain cycles, as is solar activity. Major volcanic eruptions can also curb rising temperatures in the medium term. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in June 1991, for example, caused world temperatures to drop by an average of 0.5 degrees Celsius, thereby prolonging a cooler climate phase that had begun in the late 1980s.
But the Mount Pinatubo eruption happened too long ago to be related to the current slowdown in global warming. So what is behind this more recent phenomenon?
The fact is that the sun is weakening slightly. Its radiation activity is currently at a minimum, as evidenced by the small number of sunspots on its surface. According to calculations performed by a group of NASA scientists led by David Rind, which were recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, this reduced solar activity is the most important cause of stagnating global warming.
Latif, on the other hand, attributes the stagnation to so-called Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). This phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean allows a larger volume of cold deep-sea water to rise to the surface at the equator. According to Latif, this has a significant cooling effect on the Earth's atmosphere.
With his team at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Latif has been one of the first to develop a model to create medium-term prognoses for the next five to 10 years. "We are slowly starting to attempt (such models)," says Marotzke, who is also launching a major project in this area, funded by the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology.
Despite their current findings, scientists agree that temperatures will continue to rise in the long term. The big question is: When will it start getting warmer again?
If the deep waters of the Pacific are, in fact, the most important factor holding up global warming, climate change will remain at a standstill until the middle of the next decade, says Latif. But if the cooling trend is the result of reduced solar activity, things could start getting warmer again much sooner. Based on past experience, solar activity will likely increase again in the next few years.
SOURCE
Revenge of the Climate Laymen
Global warming's most dangerous apostate speaks out about the state of climate change science
Barack Obama conceded over the weekend that no successor to the Kyoto Protocol would be signed in Copenhagen next month. With that out of the way, it may be too much to hope that the climate change movement take a moment to reflect on the state of the science that is supposedly driving us toward a carbon-neutral future.
But should a moment for self-reflection arise, campaigners against climate change could do worse than take a look at the work of Stephen McIntyre, who has emerged as one of the climate change gang's Most Dangerous Apostates. The reason for this distinction? He checked the facts.
The retired Canadian businessman, whose self-described "auditing" a few years ago prompted a Congressional review of climate science, has once again thrown EnviroLand into a tailspin. In September, he revealed that a famous graph using tree rings to show unprecedented 20th century warming relies on thin data. Since its publication in 2000, University of East Anglia professor Keith Briffa's much-celebrated image has made star appearances everywhere from U.N. policy papers to activists' posters. Like other so-called "hockey stick" temperature graphs, it's an easy sell —one look and it seems Gadzooks! We're burning ourselves up! "It was the belle of the ball," Mr. McIntyre told me on a recent phone call from Ontario. "Its dance card was full."
At least until Mr. McIntyre reported that the modern portion of that graph, which shows temperatures appearing to skyrocket in the last 100 years, relies on just 12 tree cores in Russia's Yamal region. When Mr. McIntyre presented a second graph, adding data from 34 tree cores from a nearby site, the temperature spike disappears.
Mr. Briffa denounces Mr. McIntyre's work as "demonstrably biased" because it uses "a narrower area and range of sample sites." He says he and his colleagues have now built a new chronology using still more data. Here, as in similar graphs by other researchers, the spike soars once again. Mr. McIntyre's "work has little implication for our published work or any other work that uses it," Mr. Briffa concludes.
He and his colleagues may well ignore Mr. McIntyre, but the rest of us shouldn't. While Mr. McIntyre's image may use data from fewer sites, it still has nearly three times as many tree cores representing the modern era as Mr. Briffa's original.
Yet Mr. McIntyre is first to admit his work is no bullet aimed at the heart of the theory of man-made climate change. Rather, his work —chronicled in papers co-written with environmental economist Ross McKitrick and more than 7,000 posts on his Climateaudit.org Weblog— does something much more important: It illustrates the uncertainty of a science presented as so infallible as to justify huge new taxes on rich countries along with bribes to poor ones in order to halt their fossil-fueled climbs to prosperity. Mr. McIntyre offers what many in the field do not: rigor.
It all started in 2002 when—as many might given the time and Mr. McIntyre's mathematics background —he decided to verify for himself the case for action on climate change. "It was like a big crossword puzzle," he told me. "Business was a bit slow at the time, so I started reading up."
Prior to the Briffa graph revelation, he had also caught a statistical error that undercut another exalted "hockey stick" graph prominently featured by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC, this one by Michael Mann, head of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center.
Alerts about review boards' seemingly lax standards litter his blog, highlighting in particular the IPCC, which has used both the Mann and Briffa graphs in its reports. In 2007, Mr. McIntyre found a technical gaffe that forced NASA to correct itself and admit that 1934, not 1998, was the warmest year recorded in the continental U.S.
"At the beginning I innocently assumed there would be due diligence for all this stuff. … So often my mouth would drop, when I realized no one had really looked into it." Even more innocently, he assumed the billion-dollar climate change industry would welcome his untrained but painstaking work. Instead, Mr. McIntyre is subjected to every kind of venom—that he must be funded by Big Oil, by Big Business, by Some Texan Somewhere. For the record, the 62-year-old declares himself "past my best-by date, operating on my own nickel."
James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute, has dismissed him as a "court jester." Mr. Mann replied to an emailed query about Mr. McIntyre by decrying "every specious contrarian claim and innuendo against me, my colleagues, and the science of climate change itself." Others are more thick-skinned: "You mention his name in my community, people just smile. It's a one-liner to get a laugh out of a group of climate scientists," affirms Stanford University's Stephen Schneider.
One wonders what is so funny, when it is not only the Canadian hobbyist fueling skepticism, but also figures from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center that now show thickening Arctic ice; from the U.K. Met (Meteorological) Office showing falling temperatures that contradict modeling predictions; and other studies that suggest natural factors in climate change are being dramatically underestimated.
Climatologists say they will only take Mr. McIntyre seriously if he creates his own temperature reconstructions and submits them for peer review. But the best science should stand up even to outside scrutiny. And if Mr. McIntyre has a credibility problem with climatologists, climatologists' predictions are increasingly viewed skeptically by the public.
A Pew report last month revealed that the number of Americans who believe humans are causing climate change has dropped 11 percentage points in the last 18 months to 36%; that the number who feel there is solid evidence that the earth is warming has fallen by 14 points to 57%; and that those who think the issue is "very serious" has sunk nine points to 35%.
Mr. McIntyre declares no interest in debunking The Theory in toto, nor in discouraging efficient energy use. His blog will disappoint those seeking anything more political than technical analyses.
In fairness, researchers are far from the loudest voices telling "skeptics" like Mr. McIntyre to sit down, shut up and surrender their lightbulbs without further question— that megaphone belongs to the politicians and activists pushing centrally-planned economies in the name of saving the Earth. Here, we see that contempt for laymen is not universal: Al Gore's ignorance is happily overlooked given his power to push billions in research funding. The same goes for Barack Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, and everyone else declaring "the debate is over."
I asked 10 climatologists what they thought was the most reliable method of predicting climate, and got nearly as many answers. People in the field compare climate studies to health studies —another complex mechanism with uncontrollable factors, where best practices will always be debated.
Climate researchers know their prescriptions don't carry the certainty laymen assume from that which is labeled "science," yet most shy from a straightforward account of this uncertainty. "Methods certainly need to be continually refined and improved. I doubt that anyone in the paleoclimate community would disagree with that," says Rob Wilson of the University of St. Andrews's School of Geography and Geosciences. "However, can the nuances of methodological developments be communicated to the laymen —and would they want to know? I do not think this would help." Maybe not, but letting people feel duped by hyperbole is proving even more harmful to the warmers' cause.
"I never said I was proving or disproving anything…. I just don't think we should be thanking the people who make it harder to find out what's true," Mr. McIntyre says. The climate establishment will probably never thank Mr. McIntyre, much less follow his example. The rest of us should do both.
SOURCE
Australian climate change negotiations hit stumbling block
CLIMATE change negotiations between the Rudd Government and the Opposition have hit a stumbling block just days before an agreement was to be taken to the Coalition party room.
But problems at the negotiating table are being dwarfed by the groundswell of climate-change sceptics and growing speculation that Malcolm Turnbull's leadership could be challenged by Liberal frontbencher Tony Abbott.
It comes as Liberal negotiator Ian Macfarlane, who met Climate Change Minister Penny Wong twice yesterday and will again tomorrow, has admitted for the first time he was facing hurdles. "It's (the negotiations) really got complicated," Mr Macfarlane told The Courier-Mail. "We've had a setback. But I remain optimistic." Mr Macfarlane would not delve into the specifics of the negotiating hurdle, although questions have been raised within Labor and Liberal circles as to how the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme could afford to have expensive amendments.
Mr Macfarlane has taken to the negotiating table five "buckets" with core issues. With agriculture sorted out late last week, it leaves Coalition demands for more money for electricity generators, big polluters, small-to-medium business and coal.
D-day is approaching for the Coalition, which wanted amendments presented to shadow cabinet on Monday. Mr Turnbull has said the Coalition would support amendments only if he had the majority support of the party room. There are only four sitting days left this year and the Government has demanded a vote be taken before Parliament rises.
Former Liberal MP Bruce Baird yesterday said Mr Abbott might have his eye on the top job, but a spokesman for Mr Abbott outrightly rejected any suggestion of a leadership challenge. Mr Turnbull would not answer questions about Mr Abbott, but on the CPRS said: "Our support for the Bill will depend on the outcome of these negotiations. "The idea that you take a unilateral view and either wave it through willy nilly or knock it back willy nilly regardless of how it might be amended, I don't take that view."
SOURCE
***************************************
For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
*****************************************
Warmists assured us for years that global warming would bring drought, so this proves ...?
The full and devastating impact of England's worst recorded day of rain was still emerging today as tributes were paid to a policeman swept away by floodwaters while trying to save others. PC Bill Barker was helping motorists stranded on a bridge over the Derwent in the Cumbrian town of Workington when it collapsed. His body was discovered hours later on a nearby beach.
The Environment Agency said that the flooding across the region was so severe that such an event was likely to happen once in 1000 years. The rainfall, on to an already saturated terrain, was the highest level measured in England since records began.
Meteorologists recorded 314mm of rain in 24 hours and flood warnings remained in place across the North West of England, parts of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The bridge from which PC Barker fell to his death was one of at least four to be washed away. Cumbria County Council issued a warning to motorists and pedestrians to avoid using such crossings as they could be extremely dangerous. Hundreds of homes and businesses were evacuated, many of them ruined by floodwater and mud.
Emergency services continued to rescue those still trapped overnight. They urged anyone who had gone to see the destruction for themselves to leave because their vehicles were blocking roads and hampering efforts to reach the worst-hit areas.
The rescue operation continued overnight in Cockermouth, the town worst hit by the flooding, with people being winched to safety. The two rivers that run through the town burst their banks, blocking roads and forcing more than 200 people to be helped to safety.
SOURCE
Hadley hacked: warmist conspiracy exposed?
Andrew Bolt below digs in to the deliberate fraud exposed in the released emails from Britain's premier climate "science" organization. The post is a long one so I reproduce only the opening blast below. I have however also posted a copy of the whole thing here, "just in case"
8.15 PM UPDATE: The Hadley CRU director admits the emails seem to be genuine:
The director of Britain’s leading Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones, has told Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition tonight ..."It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails."…
TGIF asked Jones about the controversial email discussing “hiding the decline”, and Jones explained what he was trying to say….
So the 1079 emails and 72 documents seem indeed evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory - a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science. I’ve been adding some of the most astonishing in updates below - emails suggesting 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. If it is as it now seems, never again will “peer review” be used to shout down sceptics.
This is clearly not the work of some hacker, but of an insider who’s now blown the whistle. Not surprising, then, that Steve McIntyre reports:
Earlier today, CRU cancelled all existing passwords. Actions speaking loudly.
But back to the original post - and the most astonishing of the emails so far…
***************
Hackers have broken into the database of the Hadley GRU unit - one of the world’s leading alarmist centres - and put the files they stole on the Internet, on the grounds that the science is too important to be kept under wraps.
The ethics of this are dubious
A warning, of course. We can only say with a 90 per cent confidence interval that these emails are real.
(ALTERNATIVE link to the files. And another link.)
UPDATE
Ethics alert! (my bolding - and I’ve update this post with the full alleged email, now):
From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.
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. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX
University of East Anglia
Norwich
.
Nice. This could be fun.
UPDATE 2
Surely these emails can’t be genuine. Surely the world’s most prominent alarmist scientists aren’t secretly exchanging emails like this, admitting privately they can’t find the warming they’ve been so loudly predicting?:
From: Kevin TrenberthTo: Michael MannSubject: Re: BBC U-turn on climateDate: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer
Hi all
Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming ? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.
This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).
Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)***
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.***
This has to be a forgery, surely. Because if it isn’t, we’re about to see the unpicking of a huge scandal. I mean, the media will follow this up, right? In the meantime, use with care.
Much more here
Meteorologists' climate change survey
Published in the October 2009 issue of “Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society” (BAMS), a new survey indicates that a significant number of professional meteorologists doubt that manmade sources of greenhouse gases are the cause of global warming. The survey was vetted by an advisory board of climate experts, including representatives from NOAA, the NWS, UCAR, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, and many members of the AMS.
Meteorologists’ climate change survey results:
* When asked about the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) statement that “Most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced,” a full 50% either disagreed or strongly disagreed. 25% were neutral and only 24% said they agreed or strongly agreed;
* 52% of the meteorologists disagreed with the statement that “Global climate models are reliable in their projections for a warming of the planet.” Only 19% agreed with the statement;
* Almost a third of respondents agreed (19%) or strongly agreed (10%) that “global warming is a scam”;
* When the meteorologists were asked to identify the “greatest obstacle to reporting on climate change,” their top answer (41%) was “too much scientific uncertainty.”
The credibility of global warming theories (and fear-mongering theorists) and any international climate controls are fading with each passing day. Each day another nail is prudently driven into the coffin of proposed U.S. climate legislation such as the Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer Bills.
SOURCE
Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out
From the mainstream German magazine "Spiegel"
Climatologists use their computer models to draw temperature curves that continue well into the future. They predict that the average global temperature will increase by about three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, unless humanity manages to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, no one really knows what exactly the world climate will look like in the not-so-distant future, that is, in 2015, 2030 or 2050.
This is because it is not just human influence but natural factors that affect the Earth's climate. For instance, currents in the world's oceans are subject to certain cycles, as is solar activity. Major volcanic eruptions can also curb rising temperatures in the medium term. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in June 1991, for example, caused world temperatures to drop by an average of 0.5 degrees Celsius, thereby prolonging a cooler climate phase that had begun in the late 1980s.
But the Mount Pinatubo eruption happened too long ago to be related to the current slowdown in global warming. So what is behind this more recent phenomenon?
The fact is that the sun is weakening slightly. Its radiation activity is currently at a minimum, as evidenced by the small number of sunspots on its surface. According to calculations performed by a group of NASA scientists led by David Rind, which were recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, this reduced solar activity is the most important cause of stagnating global warming.
Latif, on the other hand, attributes the stagnation to so-called Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). This phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean allows a larger volume of cold deep-sea water to rise to the surface at the equator. According to Latif, this has a significant cooling effect on the Earth's atmosphere.
With his team at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Latif has been one of the first to develop a model to create medium-term prognoses for the next five to 10 years. "We are slowly starting to attempt (such models)," says Marotzke, who is also launching a major project in this area, funded by the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology.
Despite their current findings, scientists agree that temperatures will continue to rise in the long term. The big question is: When will it start getting warmer again?
If the deep waters of the Pacific are, in fact, the most important factor holding up global warming, climate change will remain at a standstill until the middle of the next decade, says Latif. But if the cooling trend is the result of reduced solar activity, things could start getting warmer again much sooner. Based on past experience, solar activity will likely increase again in the next few years.
SOURCE
Revenge of the Climate Laymen
Global warming's most dangerous apostate speaks out about the state of climate change science
Barack Obama conceded over the weekend that no successor to the Kyoto Protocol would be signed in Copenhagen next month. With that out of the way, it may be too much to hope that the climate change movement take a moment to reflect on the state of the science that is supposedly driving us toward a carbon-neutral future.
But should a moment for self-reflection arise, campaigners against climate change could do worse than take a look at the work of Stephen McIntyre, who has emerged as one of the climate change gang's Most Dangerous Apostates. The reason for this distinction? He checked the facts.
The retired Canadian businessman, whose self-described "auditing" a few years ago prompted a Congressional review of climate science, has once again thrown EnviroLand into a tailspin. In September, he revealed that a famous graph using tree rings to show unprecedented 20th century warming relies on thin data. Since its publication in 2000, University of East Anglia professor Keith Briffa's much-celebrated image has made star appearances everywhere from U.N. policy papers to activists' posters. Like other so-called "hockey stick" temperature graphs, it's an easy sell —one look and it seems Gadzooks! We're burning ourselves up! "It was the belle of the ball," Mr. McIntyre told me on a recent phone call from Ontario. "Its dance card was full."
At least until Mr. McIntyre reported that the modern portion of that graph, which shows temperatures appearing to skyrocket in the last 100 years, relies on just 12 tree cores in Russia's Yamal region. When Mr. McIntyre presented a second graph, adding data from 34 tree cores from a nearby site, the temperature spike disappears.
Mr. Briffa denounces Mr. McIntyre's work as "demonstrably biased" because it uses "a narrower area and range of sample sites." He says he and his colleagues have now built a new chronology using still more data. Here, as in similar graphs by other researchers, the spike soars once again. Mr. McIntyre's "work has little implication for our published work or any other work that uses it," Mr. Briffa concludes.
He and his colleagues may well ignore Mr. McIntyre, but the rest of us shouldn't. While Mr. McIntyre's image may use data from fewer sites, it still has nearly three times as many tree cores representing the modern era as Mr. Briffa's original.
Yet Mr. McIntyre is first to admit his work is no bullet aimed at the heart of the theory of man-made climate change. Rather, his work —chronicled in papers co-written with environmental economist Ross McKitrick and more than 7,000 posts on his Climateaudit.org Weblog— does something much more important: It illustrates the uncertainty of a science presented as so infallible as to justify huge new taxes on rich countries along with bribes to poor ones in order to halt their fossil-fueled climbs to prosperity. Mr. McIntyre offers what many in the field do not: rigor.
It all started in 2002 when—as many might given the time and Mr. McIntyre's mathematics background —he decided to verify for himself the case for action on climate change. "It was like a big crossword puzzle," he told me. "Business was a bit slow at the time, so I started reading up."
Prior to the Briffa graph revelation, he had also caught a statistical error that undercut another exalted "hockey stick" graph prominently featured by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC, this one by Michael Mann, head of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center.
Alerts about review boards' seemingly lax standards litter his blog, highlighting in particular the IPCC, which has used both the Mann and Briffa graphs in its reports. In 2007, Mr. McIntyre found a technical gaffe that forced NASA to correct itself and admit that 1934, not 1998, was the warmest year recorded in the continental U.S.
"At the beginning I innocently assumed there would be due diligence for all this stuff. … So often my mouth would drop, when I realized no one had really looked into it." Even more innocently, he assumed the billion-dollar climate change industry would welcome his untrained but painstaking work. Instead, Mr. McIntyre is subjected to every kind of venom—that he must be funded by Big Oil, by Big Business, by Some Texan Somewhere. For the record, the 62-year-old declares himself "past my best-by date, operating on my own nickel."
James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute, has dismissed him as a "court jester." Mr. Mann replied to an emailed query about Mr. McIntyre by decrying "every specious contrarian claim and innuendo against me, my colleagues, and the science of climate change itself." Others are more thick-skinned: "You mention his name in my community, people just smile. It's a one-liner to get a laugh out of a group of climate scientists," affirms Stanford University's Stephen Schneider.
One wonders what is so funny, when it is not only the Canadian hobbyist fueling skepticism, but also figures from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center that now show thickening Arctic ice; from the U.K. Met (Meteorological) Office showing falling temperatures that contradict modeling predictions; and other studies that suggest natural factors in climate change are being dramatically underestimated.
Climatologists say they will only take Mr. McIntyre seriously if he creates his own temperature reconstructions and submits them for peer review. But the best science should stand up even to outside scrutiny. And if Mr. McIntyre has a credibility problem with climatologists, climatologists' predictions are increasingly viewed skeptically by the public.
A Pew report last month revealed that the number of Americans who believe humans are causing climate change has dropped 11 percentage points in the last 18 months to 36%; that the number who feel there is solid evidence that the earth is warming has fallen by 14 points to 57%; and that those who think the issue is "very serious" has sunk nine points to 35%.
Mr. McIntyre declares no interest in debunking The Theory in toto, nor in discouraging efficient energy use. His blog will disappoint those seeking anything more political than technical analyses.
In fairness, researchers are far from the loudest voices telling "skeptics" like Mr. McIntyre to sit down, shut up and surrender their lightbulbs without further question— that megaphone belongs to the politicians and activists pushing centrally-planned economies in the name of saving the Earth. Here, we see that contempt for laymen is not universal: Al Gore's ignorance is happily overlooked given his power to push billions in research funding. The same goes for Barack Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, and everyone else declaring "the debate is over."
I asked 10 climatologists what they thought was the most reliable method of predicting climate, and got nearly as many answers. People in the field compare climate studies to health studies —another complex mechanism with uncontrollable factors, where best practices will always be debated.
Climate researchers know their prescriptions don't carry the certainty laymen assume from that which is labeled "science," yet most shy from a straightforward account of this uncertainty. "Methods certainly need to be continually refined and improved. I doubt that anyone in the paleoclimate community would disagree with that," says Rob Wilson of the University of St. Andrews's School of Geography and Geosciences. "However, can the nuances of methodological developments be communicated to the laymen —and would they want to know? I do not think this would help." Maybe not, but letting people feel duped by hyperbole is proving even more harmful to the warmers' cause.
"I never said I was proving or disproving anything…. I just don't think we should be thanking the people who make it harder to find out what's true," Mr. McIntyre says. The climate establishment will probably never thank Mr. McIntyre, much less follow his example. The rest of us should do both.
SOURCE
Australian climate change negotiations hit stumbling block
CLIMATE change negotiations between the Rudd Government and the Opposition have hit a stumbling block just days before an agreement was to be taken to the Coalition party room.
But problems at the negotiating table are being dwarfed by the groundswell of climate-change sceptics and growing speculation that Malcolm Turnbull's leadership could be challenged by Liberal frontbencher Tony Abbott.
It comes as Liberal negotiator Ian Macfarlane, who met Climate Change Minister Penny Wong twice yesterday and will again tomorrow, has admitted for the first time he was facing hurdles. "It's (the negotiations) really got complicated," Mr Macfarlane told The Courier-Mail. "We've had a setback. But I remain optimistic." Mr Macfarlane would not delve into the specifics of the negotiating hurdle, although questions have been raised within Labor and Liberal circles as to how the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme could afford to have expensive amendments.
Mr Macfarlane has taken to the negotiating table five "buckets" with core issues. With agriculture sorted out late last week, it leaves Coalition demands for more money for electricity generators, big polluters, small-to-medium business and coal.
D-day is approaching for the Coalition, which wanted amendments presented to shadow cabinet on Monday. Mr Turnbull has said the Coalition would support amendments only if he had the majority support of the party room. There are only four sitting days left this year and the Government has demanded a vote be taken before Parliament rises.
Former Liberal MP Bruce Baird yesterday said Mr Abbott might have his eye on the top job, but a spokesman for Mr Abbott outrightly rejected any suggestion of a leadership challenge. Mr Turnbull would not answer questions about Mr Abbott, but on the CPRS said: "Our support for the Bill will depend on the outcome of these negotiations. "The idea that you take a unilateral view and either wave it through willy nilly or knock it back willy nilly regardless of how it might be amended, I don't take that view."
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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Friday, November 20, 2009
Warmist secrecy cracked by hacker
Hadley CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released. The details on this are still sketchy, we’ll probably never know what went on. But it appears that Hadley Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown. I’m currently traveling and writing this from an aiprort, but here is what I know so far:
An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server, here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today: "We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents"
The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files. It contained data, code, and emails from Phil Jones at CRU to and from many people. I’ve seen the file, it appears to be genuine and from CRU. Others who have seen it concur - it appears genuine. There are so many files it appears unlikely that it is a hoax. The effort would be too great.
More HERE
Galileo silenced again
The American Geophysical Union is sending science back four hundred years
By: Willie Soon and David R. Legates
Four centuries ago, “heretics” who disagreed with religious orthodoxy risked being burned at the stake. Many were the dissenting views that could send offenders to a fiery end. In 1633, the astronomer Galileo Galilei may have come within a singed whisker of the same fate, for insisting that the sun (and not the Earth) was at the center of the solar system. In the end, he agreed to recant his “heresy” (at least publicly) and submit to living under house arrest until the end of his days. Growing evidence ultimately proved Galileo was right, and the controversy dissipated. Theology gave way to nature in determining the truth about nature.
We wish that were the case today. Unfortunately, lessons learned 400 years ago have yet to be adopted where the Church of Anthro-Climatism is involved. Burning dissenters at the stake may no longer be an option – perhaps because it would send prodigious quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, many other ingenious punishments are often meted out, to ensure that dissent is kept within “acceptable” limits, or dissenters no longer dissent.
Just recently, as scientists who specialize in environmental science, climatology, and solar variability, we welcomed the acceptance of our scientific session, Diverse Views from Galileo’s Window: Researching Factors and Processes of Climate Change in the Age of Anthropogenic CO2. The session was to be hosted at the upcoming Fall 2009 Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco.
Our session was to focus on “knowledge that spans an extremely diverse range of expertise” and provides “an integrated assessment of the vast array of disciplines that affect and, in turn, are affected by the Earth’s climate.” Our ultimate goal was to stimulate discussion at this professional meeting, prior to the upcoming UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth assessment report.
We developed this session to honor the great tradition of science and scientific inquiry, as exemplified by Galileo when, 400 years ago this year, he first pointed his telescope at the Earth’s moon and at the moons of Jupiter, analyzed his findings, and subsequently challenged the orthodoxy of a geocentric universe. Our proposed session was accepted by the AGU.
In response to its acceptance, we were joined by a highly distinguished group of scientists – including members of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, France and China, as well as recipients of the AGU’s own William Bowie, Charles Whitten and James MacElwane medals. Our participants faithfully submitted abstracts for the session.
But by late September, several puzzling events left us wondering whether the AGU truly serves science and environmental scientists – or simply reflects, protects and advances the political agendas of those who espouse belief in manmade CO2-induced catastrophic global warming.
On September 14, Dr. Nicola Scafetta of Duke University contacted us, to say the AGU had cancelled his previously-approved 12-paper session on Solar Variability and Its Effect on Climate Change, since it did not have enough papers. He asked if the papers from his session could be merged into our session; since they fit our theme well, we accepted his papers.
The merger was approved by the AGU Planning Committee. Thus our Galileo session now had grown to a total of 27 papers and was approved as a poster session at the Fall Meeting.
However, a few days later, after first approving our session and after we had assigned time slots for these new papers at AGU’s request, the Planning Committee revoked its approval and summarily dissolved our session. Now the committee claimed our session was “thematically divergent,” and divided the papers in our original session among six different sessions.
To cover its tracks, the committee created a new session called Diverse Views from Galileo’s Window: Solar Forcing of Climate Change with 15 papers – including the 12 from Dr. Scafetta’s original session that it had cancelled. That reduced the focus of this session to just solar forcing of climate, and eliminated discussions of the impact of anthropogenic CO2 that we had planned for our original session. The remaining papers from our cancelled session were moved to five other sessions, thereby undermining our original intent: comparing solar variability and manmade carbon dioxide as factors in planetary climate change.
In responding to us, the Planning Committee defended its actions by asserting: “none of [the papers in our session] have to do with the Galilean moons of Saturn [sic], which have to do with climate change or solar activity.” That claim reflects either a poor grasp of our purpose or a failure to read our proposal – and leads the question, Why wasn’t this issue raised when they originally decided to accept our session?
Our session proposal had clearly intended to honor Galileo’s observations of Jupiter’s (not Saturn’s) moons, which had led him to challenge the orthodoxy of the geocentric universe. We wanted to highlight how current research into the climatic effects of anthropogenic CO2 is challenging the supposed “scientific consensus” that humans are causing catastrophic climate change.
This arbitrary dissolution of our original session has serious implications for proper scientific enquiry. Our request that the session be reinstated has gone unheeded, despite the fact that the AGU has reinstated at least one cancelled session in the past. We have repeatedly been told that the decisions of the Planning Committee are final, though it has made clearly contradictory decisions regarding our session.
Reduced sunspot activity and solar energy output, stable or even cooling planetary temperatures, concerns over the high cost of proposed cap-and-trade legislation, political developments in Washington and Copenhagen, and other factors have caused more people to question manmade global warming disaster claims. This has led to consternation among scientists and organizations that have supported those claims.
However, as scientists, we are profoundly concerned by this behavior from a professional society that is supposed to serve science and its members. The AGU certainly had the right to reject our proposed session at the outset or before the solar variability session was merged with it. But given the topic of our session and the good faith approach we have taken in accepting papers from the cancelled solar variability session, it seems odd (at the very least) that our session was summarily dissolved, and that the AGU refuses to discuss the matter.
The AGU action is hardly reasonable. Indeed, it is counter-productive to the scientific method and to promoting open scientific discussions. It smacks of censorship. Something is rotten in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Scientific inquiry has once again been silenced … just as it was 400 years ago. The AGU should be ashamed. Its members should be outraged.
SOURCE
Reader’s Digest responds to boycott by skeptics
Removes its name as supporter of Copenhagen Climate Treaty
Reader's Digest has responded to a boycott initiated by www.NoCapAndTrade.com by having its name removed from a list of corporate supporters of the Copenhagen Climate Treaty.
Mr. William Adler, vice president of global communications at Reader's Digest, sent an email to the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition asking that Reader's Digest be removed from a list of 20 organizations that are being boycotted due to their support of the Copenhagen Treaty. Mr. Adler stated Reader's Digest had been incorrectly listed as a supporter of the Copenhagen Treaty at www.Hopenhagen.org. A review of the Web site confirmed that Reader's Digest's name had been removed as a "friend of Hopenhagen."
"Smart organizations like Reader's Digest are starting to realize that lending their brand to radical environmental movements is bad for business," said Jeff Davis, organizer of the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition. "We hope other organizations named in the boycott wake up and recognize this fact as well."
There are a total of 19 remaining organizations targeted by the boycott, including Google, Pepsi, Nike and BP America. The complete list of boycotted companies can be seen at www.NoCapAndTrade.com/boycott/.
SOURCE
Revealed: The design flaw in energy saving lightbulbs means they become dimmer over time
Energy-saving lightbulbs being used in millions of homes could lose up to 40 per cent of their brightness over the next few years, engineers warned yesterday. A design flaw in compact florescent bulbs mean they become dimmer as they age, a report by the Institution of Engineering and Technology said. Millions could need replacing long before their advertised lifespan of five or six years is reached.
The Government is phasing out traditional bulbs in order to meet Europe's climate change targets. Although other types of low energy bulb are available - including halogen and LED lights - most households are being encouraged to use compact fluorescent lamps. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says CFLs use a fifth of the energy of traditional bulbs, saving a typical home at least £37 a year and cutting the UK's carbon dioxide emissions by five million tons.
However, independent retailers and critics say many of the low-energy alternatives are ugly, expensive and produce poor quality light. Doctors have warned that CFLs may cause rashes in light-sensitive patients.
A report in Engineering and Technology Magazine now warns that CFLs lose 'a significant amount of brightness' over time. Even a good quality bulb could lose 20 per cent of its light over its 8,000-hour lifespan - while cheaper bulbs could dim even more. The problem is made worse because some manufacturers exaggerate how much light comes from CLFs in the first place, the report says. 'Consumers could end up with a CFL nearing the end of its life that emits just 60 per cent as much light as a supposedly equivalent incandescent bulb,' the report says. That means a CFL that begins life as bright as a traditional 100watt bulb, could become as dim as a 60watt bulbs.
CFLs give off light when a current passes through a gas-filled tube. The gas glows with ultraviolet radiation which lights up a coating of white phosphor on the inside of the tube. Over time, this coating loses some of its ability to light up.
Other low-energy bulbs don't have the same problem. A halogen light - which uses 70 per cent of the energy of a conventional bulb - remains bright throughout its life. LED bulbs - which are beginning to appear in conventional bulb shapes and brightness - are also more reliable.
Editor in chief of Engineering and Technology Dickon Ross said most people were unaware that CFLs eventually lost their brightness. 'Our article goes someway to explaining consumers' dissatisfaction with CFLs and it's interesting that the major manufacturers have switched their focus to the development of LED lighting,' he said.
The Energy Saving Trust, which is funded by the Government, confirmed CFLs did lose brightness but claimed most people would not notice the difference. Trust-approved bulbs should never fall below 76 per cent of their initial brightness, it added.
SOURCE
NZ leader puts his faith in science, not politicians in Copenhagen
John Key is probably not going to Copenhagen or entertaining much hope that other world leaders who do so will come up with a deal on climate change. Not a big, binding and lasting deal. Not one that might be called historic or that locks the United States and China, the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, to solid targets and action.
No, the Prime Minister of New Zealand is ''95 per cent'' sure he'll not be pressing the flesh in Denmark next month, and reckons he will not miss much, even though Greenpeace has offered to pay his fare. ''There is not going to be a deal,'' he told the Herald. ''What you will get out of it, is you'll get a high-level political statement and work program in 2010.''
Mr Key, who marked a year in power yesterday, is no denier or sceptic. He believes the world has a ''moral obligation'' to deal with climate change, and that consumers - more to the point, voters - broadly agree that action is necessary but ''you don't necessarily write a cheque to eastern European countries because they are polluting less''.
The central question is, what do you do? On a political level, Mr Key and his conservative National Party are in the process of a delicate flip. With support of the Maori Party he is rolling back the emissions trading scheme introduced by the previous Labour government. His scheme will be less ambitious and punitive - and is being attacked from within and without New Zealand. The farmers want it scrapped and accuse Mr Key of being ''obsessed'' by carbon emissions.
At stake is the country's reputation for being clean and green. The only time Mr Key loses his smile is when mention is made of a recent opinion piece in Britain's Guardian newspaper which claimed New Zealand had offered ''two fingers to the global community'' for allowing greenhouse gases to rise 22 per cent since signing the Kyoto treaty.
Mr Key calls the article ''bollocks'' and the writer, Fred Pearce, a green activist. The truth is, he says, the growth of emissions has been completely offset by planting 600,000 more trees. But the Prime Minister is acutely aware of the influence of consumers as regulators.
Australia's decision to exempt farmers from the ETS falls has, Mr Key concedes, ''put pressure on us''. Primary production accounts for about 48 per cent of the economy (against about 16 per cent in Australia) and half of all greenhouse emissions come from agriculture.
New Zealand's efforts are being made all the trickier due to two factors: the population is growing, from 3.2 million in 1990 to about 4.4 million now; and about 70 per cent of its energy already comes from renewable sources.
Mr Key is nonetheless optimistic solutions will be found that do not compromise living standards. The answers lie in science, he believes. ''All roads lead to technological solutions.''
SOURCE
A climate scare in Trafalgar Square
Ghost Forest, a new art installation, wants to frighten us into changing our greedy, planet-wrecking ways
A twenty-first century tribute to the Royal Family? A satirical swipe at the Labour government? A mistaken delivery address? At first, it’s difficult to know what to make of the large hunks of dead wood currently cutting a dash in London’s Trafalgar Square.
That is, until you read the info-boards positioned around the installation or encounter the press-released promotional material. At which point Ghost Forest’s meaning, or better still, its message, will become all too clear: all this modern stuff, this industrial development, has come at an environmental cost we’ve been able to ignore for too long. Why? Because it’s always been over there, in Africa, in South America. But not any more. In the form of huge tree stumps it’s been brought close, dumped in our figurative backyard. To quote its creator, the journalist-cum-artist Angela Palmer, it is an awareness-raising, visual expression of the ‘connection between deforestation and climate change’.
Featuring nine huge tree trunks (plus one injured one) which have been dragged across, and then ferried over from the Suhuma forest reserve in western Ghana, Ghost Forest is perhaps not the most appropriate name. With each trunk assigned its own slab on which to lie, a more accurate one would’ve been ‘The Tree Mortuary’. Which is certainly how it feels to walk around it. The trunks are arrayed like a body parts, their angry tangle of roots straining out like the veins and capillaries of gigantic limbs at one end, while at the other end there is just a clean, surgical, lumberjack’s cut. It’s as if you’re being encouraged to look at the results of planetary surgery, to survey the casualities of man’s open-heart conquest of nature. Palmer is clearly not insensible to the effect, judging by her anthropomorphic language. The roots are like ‘nerve-endings’, she says, the rainforests themselves, ‘the world’s “lungs”’.
This isn’t to say unsuspecting visitors were entirely clear as to what the stumps mean. Speaking on Monday, Palmer seemed unconcerned: ‘Many observers will see the stumps as beautiful sculptural objects; others will perhaps see the installation as a scene of devastation, others may see the tree stumps posited in the no-man’s land between the past and the future. For others the installation may represent an overt piece of political activism – a call to arms. I am equally comfortable with all responses.’ Beautiful sculptural objects? A no-man’s land between the past and the future? The most common response, from what I could see, was to stand next to the planet’s ripped-out lungs, and grin for the camera. After all, it’s not everyday some kindly artist leaves nine three-metre wide trunks around central London.
This surely missed Palmer’s point. Because whatever Palmer says, there was a point, a big, blunt change-your-ways point to Ghost Forest. Little wonder those reporting its opening on Monday were in no doubt as to what Ghost Forest was saying. In the words of Art Daily, ‘Ghost Forest’ is ‘a powerful visual statement about climate change’. ‘[A]s a microcosm of planetary overconsumption of expendable resources’, concluded the Londonist, ‘it’s a powerful statement’. Hence this Sunday it will leave London and head to Thorvaldsens Plads in Copenhagen to ‘raise awareness’ before the start of the UN climate change summit in December.
The reviewers had clearly read the promotional material. And this was the problem with Ghost Forest as art. In clued-up reports, in interviews on the Ghost Forest website, and on the 300-word-long, on-site info boards, the meaning of Ghost Forest was all too articulated. If the installation itself was ambiguous, a selection of barely worked-up Ghanaian tree stumps, its message was clear and overwrought. In fact the message could have done without its truncated embodiment in the wooden sculptures – the content here had no need of its form.
Overtly didactic art is nothing new, but what marks a project like the Ghost Forest out is the extent to which the hectoring content is liberated from the material in which it was to be represented. Little wonder that the UK foreign secretary’s special representative for climate change, John Ashworth, was able to praise it before it actually existed as an installation – after all it was the message, not its formal realisation, that was valuable. ‘We need to reach people in other ways as well’, he told Palmer. ‘Since the crisis we face is about who we are before it is about what we should do, the role of art will be critical. So I applaud what you are doing, and wish it success. You will in effect be confronting some of those who pass through Trafalgar Square with the consequence of their choices.’
Confront people with the consequence of their choices? This is art as behaviour-changing device. As Palmer explains on her website: ‘Its location in Trafalgar Square is key: it is one of the world’s most visited tourist sites and the epicentre of Western industrialisation over the past 200 years.’ In other words, for didactic purposes, plonking it in the centre of London allows it to tell as many people off as possible, from tourists to Christmas shoppers. It’s tricky to avoid The Message if you have to walk the long way round it.
Then there’s the element of juxtaposition, of bringing the distant near, of shoving the natural in the face of the social. In the midst of a developed society, ‘an epicentre of industrialisation’, the mortified tree stumps, symbols of the underside of industrial progress, exist to discomfit, to unsettle. They are signs that something is wrong. This is a gesture premised on the perceived complacency of the public, their selfish behaviour. And as if the distaste for the lives of modern citizens wasn’t writ large enough, Palmer is prepared to take her fetish for the primitive and animistic one step further: tomorrow, an Amazonian chief is going to bless the trees in a special ceremony.
Which does make you wonder. Perhaps Palmer is actually being subversive. After all, like Mark McGowan’s attempt to ‘raise awareness’ about water wastage by leaving the tap running in his London gallery, it took Palmer a large ship, and several tonnes of heavy haulage, to drag a symbol of excessive energy consumption to its current resting place. Add to that the power expended by the electricity generators to keep the lights blazing through the night, and Palmer’s carbon footprint must be at least the size of ten large Ghanaian trees. This must surely be one giant environmentalist wheeze, a satire of sanctimony, right?
Perhaps not: ‘The artist considered carefully the carbon footprint which would be incurred in the project’, the info-board tells us, ‘but felt its potential message to millions of people on the impacts of deforestation would outweigh the carbon “spend”. The carbon cost of “Ghost Forest” will be calculated and offset on a ClimateCare project which has introduced more energy efficient cooking stoves to Ghana, meaning fewer trees are needed to provide cooking fuel.’
This is straight-faced contemporary art all right. It is art for those who know the carbon price of everything and the value of nothing. And art without value is not really art at all.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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Hadley CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released. The details on this are still sketchy, we’ll probably never know what went on. But it appears that Hadley Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown. I’m currently traveling and writing this from an aiprort, but here is what I know so far:
An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server, here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today: "We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents"
The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files. It contained data, code, and emails from Phil Jones at CRU to and from many people. I’ve seen the file, it appears to be genuine and from CRU. Others who have seen it concur - it appears genuine. There are so many files it appears unlikely that it is a hoax. The effort would be too great.
More HERE
Galileo silenced again
The American Geophysical Union is sending science back four hundred years
By: Willie Soon and David R. Legates
Four centuries ago, “heretics” who disagreed with religious orthodoxy risked being burned at the stake. Many were the dissenting views that could send offenders to a fiery end. In 1633, the astronomer Galileo Galilei may have come within a singed whisker of the same fate, for insisting that the sun (and not the Earth) was at the center of the solar system. In the end, he agreed to recant his “heresy” (at least publicly) and submit to living under house arrest until the end of his days. Growing evidence ultimately proved Galileo was right, and the controversy dissipated. Theology gave way to nature in determining the truth about nature.
We wish that were the case today. Unfortunately, lessons learned 400 years ago have yet to be adopted where the Church of Anthro-Climatism is involved. Burning dissenters at the stake may no longer be an option – perhaps because it would send prodigious quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, many other ingenious punishments are often meted out, to ensure that dissent is kept within “acceptable” limits, or dissenters no longer dissent.
Just recently, as scientists who specialize in environmental science, climatology, and solar variability, we welcomed the acceptance of our scientific session, Diverse Views from Galileo’s Window: Researching Factors and Processes of Climate Change in the Age of Anthropogenic CO2. The session was to be hosted at the upcoming Fall 2009 Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco.
Our session was to focus on “knowledge that spans an extremely diverse range of expertise” and provides “an integrated assessment of the vast array of disciplines that affect and, in turn, are affected by the Earth’s climate.” Our ultimate goal was to stimulate discussion at this professional meeting, prior to the upcoming UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth assessment report.
We developed this session to honor the great tradition of science and scientific inquiry, as exemplified by Galileo when, 400 years ago this year, he first pointed his telescope at the Earth’s moon and at the moons of Jupiter, analyzed his findings, and subsequently challenged the orthodoxy of a geocentric universe. Our proposed session was accepted by the AGU.
In response to its acceptance, we were joined by a highly distinguished group of scientists – including members of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, France and China, as well as recipients of the AGU’s own William Bowie, Charles Whitten and James MacElwane medals. Our participants faithfully submitted abstracts for the session.
But by late September, several puzzling events left us wondering whether the AGU truly serves science and environmental scientists – or simply reflects, protects and advances the political agendas of those who espouse belief in manmade CO2-induced catastrophic global warming.
On September 14, Dr. Nicola Scafetta of Duke University contacted us, to say the AGU had cancelled his previously-approved 12-paper session on Solar Variability and Its Effect on Climate Change, since it did not have enough papers. He asked if the papers from his session could be merged into our session; since they fit our theme well, we accepted his papers.
The merger was approved by the AGU Planning Committee. Thus our Galileo session now had grown to a total of 27 papers and was approved as a poster session at the Fall Meeting.
However, a few days later, after first approving our session and after we had assigned time slots for these new papers at AGU’s request, the Planning Committee revoked its approval and summarily dissolved our session. Now the committee claimed our session was “thematically divergent,” and divided the papers in our original session among six different sessions.
To cover its tracks, the committee created a new session called Diverse Views from Galileo’s Window: Solar Forcing of Climate Change with 15 papers – including the 12 from Dr. Scafetta’s original session that it had cancelled. That reduced the focus of this session to just solar forcing of climate, and eliminated discussions of the impact of anthropogenic CO2 that we had planned for our original session. The remaining papers from our cancelled session were moved to five other sessions, thereby undermining our original intent: comparing solar variability and manmade carbon dioxide as factors in planetary climate change.
In responding to us, the Planning Committee defended its actions by asserting: “none of [the papers in our session] have to do with the Galilean moons of Saturn [sic], which have to do with climate change or solar activity.” That claim reflects either a poor grasp of our purpose or a failure to read our proposal – and leads the question, Why wasn’t this issue raised when they originally decided to accept our session?
Our session proposal had clearly intended to honor Galileo’s observations of Jupiter’s (not Saturn’s) moons, which had led him to challenge the orthodoxy of the geocentric universe. We wanted to highlight how current research into the climatic effects of anthropogenic CO2 is challenging the supposed “scientific consensus” that humans are causing catastrophic climate change.
This arbitrary dissolution of our original session has serious implications for proper scientific enquiry. Our request that the session be reinstated has gone unheeded, despite the fact that the AGU has reinstated at least one cancelled session in the past. We have repeatedly been told that the decisions of the Planning Committee are final, though it has made clearly contradictory decisions regarding our session.
Reduced sunspot activity and solar energy output, stable or even cooling planetary temperatures, concerns over the high cost of proposed cap-and-trade legislation, political developments in Washington and Copenhagen, and other factors have caused more people to question manmade global warming disaster claims. This has led to consternation among scientists and organizations that have supported those claims.
However, as scientists, we are profoundly concerned by this behavior from a professional society that is supposed to serve science and its members. The AGU certainly had the right to reject our proposed session at the outset or before the solar variability session was merged with it. But given the topic of our session and the good faith approach we have taken in accepting papers from the cancelled solar variability session, it seems odd (at the very least) that our session was summarily dissolved, and that the AGU refuses to discuss the matter.
The AGU action is hardly reasonable. Indeed, it is counter-productive to the scientific method and to promoting open scientific discussions. It smacks of censorship. Something is rotten in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Scientific inquiry has once again been silenced … just as it was 400 years ago. The AGU should be ashamed. Its members should be outraged.
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Reader’s Digest responds to boycott by skeptics
Removes its name as supporter of Copenhagen Climate Treaty
Reader's Digest has responded to a boycott initiated by www.NoCapAndTrade.com by having its name removed from a list of corporate supporters of the Copenhagen Climate Treaty.
Mr. William Adler, vice president of global communications at Reader's Digest, sent an email to the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition asking that Reader's Digest be removed from a list of 20 organizations that are being boycotted due to their support of the Copenhagen Treaty. Mr. Adler stated Reader's Digest had been incorrectly listed as a supporter of the Copenhagen Treaty at www.Hopenhagen.org. A review of the Web site confirmed that Reader's Digest's name had been removed as a "friend of Hopenhagen."
"Smart organizations like Reader's Digest are starting to realize that lending their brand to radical environmental movements is bad for business," said Jeff Davis, organizer of the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition. "We hope other organizations named in the boycott wake up and recognize this fact as well."
There are a total of 19 remaining organizations targeted by the boycott, including Google, Pepsi, Nike and BP America. The complete list of boycotted companies can be seen at www.NoCapAndTrade.com/boycott/.
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Revealed: The design flaw in energy saving lightbulbs means they become dimmer over time
Energy-saving lightbulbs being used in millions of homes could lose up to 40 per cent of their brightness over the next few years, engineers warned yesterday. A design flaw in compact florescent bulbs mean they become dimmer as they age, a report by the Institution of Engineering and Technology said. Millions could need replacing long before their advertised lifespan of five or six years is reached.
The Government is phasing out traditional bulbs in order to meet Europe's climate change targets. Although other types of low energy bulb are available - including halogen and LED lights - most households are being encouraged to use compact fluorescent lamps. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says CFLs use a fifth of the energy of traditional bulbs, saving a typical home at least £37 a year and cutting the UK's carbon dioxide emissions by five million tons.
However, independent retailers and critics say many of the low-energy alternatives are ugly, expensive and produce poor quality light. Doctors have warned that CFLs may cause rashes in light-sensitive patients.
A report in Engineering and Technology Magazine now warns that CFLs lose 'a significant amount of brightness' over time. Even a good quality bulb could lose 20 per cent of its light over its 8,000-hour lifespan - while cheaper bulbs could dim even more. The problem is made worse because some manufacturers exaggerate how much light comes from CLFs in the first place, the report says. 'Consumers could end up with a CFL nearing the end of its life that emits just 60 per cent as much light as a supposedly equivalent incandescent bulb,' the report says. That means a CFL that begins life as bright as a traditional 100watt bulb, could become as dim as a 60watt bulbs.
CFLs give off light when a current passes through a gas-filled tube. The gas glows with ultraviolet radiation which lights up a coating of white phosphor on the inside of the tube. Over time, this coating loses some of its ability to light up.
Other low-energy bulbs don't have the same problem. A halogen light - which uses 70 per cent of the energy of a conventional bulb - remains bright throughout its life. LED bulbs - which are beginning to appear in conventional bulb shapes and brightness - are also more reliable.
Editor in chief of Engineering and Technology Dickon Ross said most people were unaware that CFLs eventually lost their brightness. 'Our article goes someway to explaining consumers' dissatisfaction with CFLs and it's interesting that the major manufacturers have switched their focus to the development of LED lighting,' he said.
The Energy Saving Trust, which is funded by the Government, confirmed CFLs did lose brightness but claimed most people would not notice the difference. Trust-approved bulbs should never fall below 76 per cent of their initial brightness, it added.
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NZ leader puts his faith in science, not politicians in Copenhagen
John Key is probably not going to Copenhagen or entertaining much hope that other world leaders who do so will come up with a deal on climate change. Not a big, binding and lasting deal. Not one that might be called historic or that locks the United States and China, the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, to solid targets and action.
No, the Prime Minister of New Zealand is ''95 per cent'' sure he'll not be pressing the flesh in Denmark next month, and reckons he will not miss much, even though Greenpeace has offered to pay his fare. ''There is not going to be a deal,'' he told the Herald. ''What you will get out of it, is you'll get a high-level political statement and work program in 2010.''
Mr Key, who marked a year in power yesterday, is no denier or sceptic. He believes the world has a ''moral obligation'' to deal with climate change, and that consumers - more to the point, voters - broadly agree that action is necessary but ''you don't necessarily write a cheque to eastern European countries because they are polluting less''.
The central question is, what do you do? On a political level, Mr Key and his conservative National Party are in the process of a delicate flip. With support of the Maori Party he is rolling back the emissions trading scheme introduced by the previous Labour government. His scheme will be less ambitious and punitive - and is being attacked from within and without New Zealand. The farmers want it scrapped and accuse Mr Key of being ''obsessed'' by carbon emissions.
At stake is the country's reputation for being clean and green. The only time Mr Key loses his smile is when mention is made of a recent opinion piece in Britain's Guardian newspaper which claimed New Zealand had offered ''two fingers to the global community'' for allowing greenhouse gases to rise 22 per cent since signing the Kyoto treaty.
Mr Key calls the article ''bollocks'' and the writer, Fred Pearce, a green activist. The truth is, he says, the growth of emissions has been completely offset by planting 600,000 more trees. But the Prime Minister is acutely aware of the influence of consumers as regulators.
Australia's decision to exempt farmers from the ETS falls has, Mr Key concedes, ''put pressure on us''. Primary production accounts for about 48 per cent of the economy (against about 16 per cent in Australia) and half of all greenhouse emissions come from agriculture.
New Zealand's efforts are being made all the trickier due to two factors: the population is growing, from 3.2 million in 1990 to about 4.4 million now; and about 70 per cent of its energy already comes from renewable sources.
Mr Key is nonetheless optimistic solutions will be found that do not compromise living standards. The answers lie in science, he believes. ''All roads lead to technological solutions.''
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A climate scare in Trafalgar Square
Ghost Forest, a new art installation, wants to frighten us into changing our greedy, planet-wrecking ways
A twenty-first century tribute to the Royal Family? A satirical swipe at the Labour government? A mistaken delivery address? At first, it’s difficult to know what to make of the large hunks of dead wood currently cutting a dash in London’s Trafalgar Square.
That is, until you read the info-boards positioned around the installation or encounter the press-released promotional material. At which point Ghost Forest’s meaning, or better still, its message, will become all too clear: all this modern stuff, this industrial development, has come at an environmental cost we’ve been able to ignore for too long. Why? Because it’s always been over there, in Africa, in South America. But not any more. In the form of huge tree stumps it’s been brought close, dumped in our figurative backyard. To quote its creator, the journalist-cum-artist Angela Palmer, it is an awareness-raising, visual expression of the ‘connection between deforestation and climate change’.
Featuring nine huge tree trunks (plus one injured one) which have been dragged across, and then ferried over from the Suhuma forest reserve in western Ghana, Ghost Forest is perhaps not the most appropriate name. With each trunk assigned its own slab on which to lie, a more accurate one would’ve been ‘The Tree Mortuary’. Which is certainly how it feels to walk around it. The trunks are arrayed like a body parts, their angry tangle of roots straining out like the veins and capillaries of gigantic limbs at one end, while at the other end there is just a clean, surgical, lumberjack’s cut. It’s as if you’re being encouraged to look at the results of planetary surgery, to survey the casualities of man’s open-heart conquest of nature. Palmer is clearly not insensible to the effect, judging by her anthropomorphic language. The roots are like ‘nerve-endings’, she says, the rainforests themselves, ‘the world’s “lungs”’.
This isn’t to say unsuspecting visitors were entirely clear as to what the stumps mean. Speaking on Monday, Palmer seemed unconcerned: ‘Many observers will see the stumps as beautiful sculptural objects; others will perhaps see the installation as a scene of devastation, others may see the tree stumps posited in the no-man’s land between the past and the future. For others the installation may represent an overt piece of political activism – a call to arms. I am equally comfortable with all responses.’ Beautiful sculptural objects? A no-man’s land between the past and the future? The most common response, from what I could see, was to stand next to the planet’s ripped-out lungs, and grin for the camera. After all, it’s not everyday some kindly artist leaves nine three-metre wide trunks around central London.
This surely missed Palmer’s point. Because whatever Palmer says, there was a point, a big, blunt change-your-ways point to Ghost Forest. Little wonder those reporting its opening on Monday were in no doubt as to what Ghost Forest was saying. In the words of Art Daily, ‘Ghost Forest’ is ‘a powerful visual statement about climate change’. ‘[A]s a microcosm of planetary overconsumption of expendable resources’, concluded the Londonist, ‘it’s a powerful statement’. Hence this Sunday it will leave London and head to Thorvaldsens Plads in Copenhagen to ‘raise awareness’ before the start of the UN climate change summit in December.
The reviewers had clearly read the promotional material. And this was the problem with Ghost Forest as art. In clued-up reports, in interviews on the Ghost Forest website, and on the 300-word-long, on-site info boards, the meaning of Ghost Forest was all too articulated. If the installation itself was ambiguous, a selection of barely worked-up Ghanaian tree stumps, its message was clear and overwrought. In fact the message could have done without its truncated embodiment in the wooden sculptures – the content here had no need of its form.
Overtly didactic art is nothing new, but what marks a project like the Ghost Forest out is the extent to which the hectoring content is liberated from the material in which it was to be represented. Little wonder that the UK foreign secretary’s special representative for climate change, John Ashworth, was able to praise it before it actually existed as an installation – after all it was the message, not its formal realisation, that was valuable. ‘We need to reach people in other ways as well’, he told Palmer. ‘Since the crisis we face is about who we are before it is about what we should do, the role of art will be critical. So I applaud what you are doing, and wish it success. You will in effect be confronting some of those who pass through Trafalgar Square with the consequence of their choices.’
Confront people with the consequence of their choices? This is art as behaviour-changing device. As Palmer explains on her website: ‘Its location in Trafalgar Square is key: it is one of the world’s most visited tourist sites and the epicentre of Western industrialisation over the past 200 years.’ In other words, for didactic purposes, plonking it in the centre of London allows it to tell as many people off as possible, from tourists to Christmas shoppers. It’s tricky to avoid The Message if you have to walk the long way round it.
Then there’s the element of juxtaposition, of bringing the distant near, of shoving the natural in the face of the social. In the midst of a developed society, ‘an epicentre of industrialisation’, the mortified tree stumps, symbols of the underside of industrial progress, exist to discomfit, to unsettle. They are signs that something is wrong. This is a gesture premised on the perceived complacency of the public, their selfish behaviour. And as if the distaste for the lives of modern citizens wasn’t writ large enough, Palmer is prepared to take her fetish for the primitive and animistic one step further: tomorrow, an Amazonian chief is going to bless the trees in a special ceremony.
Which does make you wonder. Perhaps Palmer is actually being subversive. After all, like Mark McGowan’s attempt to ‘raise awareness’ about water wastage by leaving the tap running in his London gallery, it took Palmer a large ship, and several tonnes of heavy haulage, to drag a symbol of excessive energy consumption to its current resting place. Add to that the power expended by the electricity generators to keep the lights blazing through the night, and Palmer’s carbon footprint must be at least the size of ten large Ghanaian trees. This must surely be one giant environmentalist wheeze, a satire of sanctimony, right?
Perhaps not: ‘The artist considered carefully the carbon footprint which would be incurred in the project’, the info-board tells us, ‘but felt its potential message to millions of people on the impacts of deforestation would outweigh the carbon “spend”. The carbon cost of “Ghost Forest” will be calculated and offset on a ClimateCare project which has introduced more energy efficient cooking stoves to Ghana, meaning fewer trees are needed to provide cooking fuel.’
This is straight-faced contemporary art all right. It is art for those who know the carbon price of everything and the value of nothing. And art without value is not really art at all.
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