Archives - December 2009 For those who yearn for seasons past, here are a few paintings from Little Ice Age Europe:
No one but the utterly naïve greenies believe that the Mann-made global warming hype is anything to do with climate – much less saving the planet. It is, as always,
about power, influence - and money.
Climategate a leak, not a hack Climategate – Outside hacker, internal mole or whistle-blower ?
Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia If you want to know the truth about Climategate, definitely don’t use Wikipedia. “Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy”, is its preferred, mealy-mouthed euphemism to describe the greatest scientific scandal of the modern age. Not that you’d ever guess it was a scandal from the accompanying article. It reads more like a damage-limitation press release put out by concerned friends and sympathisers of the lying, cheating, data-rigging scientists Which funnily enough, is pretty much what it is. Even Wikipedia’s own moderators acknowledge that the entry has been hijacked, as this commentary by an “uninvolved editor” makes clear. (James Delingpole, TDT)
The Winter Games At Copenhagen CHURCHVILLE, VA—Copenhagen was two weeks of uninterrupted game-playing:
Our “con of the week” goes, however, to the British climate “scientists” who have been keeping the world’s “official” temperature records. Moscow’s Institute of Economic Analysis charged last week that the “British Team,” led by the Met Office’s Hadley Centre and the now-infamous Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University, cherry-picked Russian climate stations. They chose stations that supported the theory of recent man-made global warming, and ignored valid stations that did not. This “trick,” Russians say, over-estimated Russia’s warming by more than half a degree Celsius. That’s no small thing; global warming since 1900 has totaled only about 0.6 degree C—and Russia has 12.5 percent of the earth’s land area. (Dennis T. Avery, CGFI)
Time for a Climate Change Plan B - The U.S. president is in deep denial. The world's political leaders, not least President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, are in a state of severe, almost clinical, denial. While acknowledging
that the outcome of the United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen fell short of their demand for a legally binding, enforceable and verifiable global agreement
on emissions reductions by developed and developing countries alike, they insist that what has been achieved is a breakthrough and a decisive step forward.
Of course they do: Bangladesh wants 15 pct of climate fund: minister DHAKA – Bangladesh, one of the nations most vulnerable to global warming, will seek 15 percent of a 30-billion-dollar climate change fund committed at the Copenhagen
summit, the environment minister said Tuesday.
Wishful thinking? David King: There is a way ahead after Copenhagen The climate change talks show, at least, that the world takes the issue seriously. Now we need a truly global carbon-trading scheme (The Independent)
U.S. cap and trade looks out of reach in 2010 WASHINGTON - U.S. lawmakers face an uphill battle enacting a climate bill in 2010 that includes a cap-and-trade market in greenhouse gases, after this month's U.N. meeting in Copenhagen failed to hammer out a global pact on emissions cuts. (Reuters)
GOP warns of harsh climate on energy bill Senate Republicans warned Monday that the bruising fight over health care reform could deliver a knockout blow to another Democratic priority: passage of a climate change
bill in 2010.
Emissions trading best way to go, say economists AN emissions trading scheme is the cheapest and most efficient way to achieve the greenhouse gas cuts the Federal Government is aiming for from the Copenhagen Accord, economists believe. (Ben Cubby, SMH)
No, you idiots! Look to Australia for instruction: Conservatives to push Senate over US climate Bill Senior Conservatives are to lobby Republicans in the US Senate to persuade them to back a climate emissions Bill. As the Tory leadership struggled to prevent party sceptics from dominating the environmental argument after the Copenhagen summit, David Cameron pledged to continue the work started in Denmark in trying to find a legally binding climate change agreement. (The Times)
Chinese and British Officials Tangle in Testy Exchange Over Climate Agreement BEIJING — Chinese officials, stung by criticism in the West that China had sabotaged a legally binding agreement for reducing greenhouse gases during talks in
Copenhagen, fired back on Tuesday, saying that wealthy nations were seeking to sow discord among developing countries in a cynical attempt to avoid reducing their own
emissions.
Were AGW Scientists Completely Sidestepped In Copenhagen? Have to admit, having read an AGW blog about COP-15 I could not avoid committing the sin of wasting time reading the Copenhagen Accord. And yes, there is an interesting and quite telling concept after all. It shows that no scientist, AGW believer or otherwise, has likely participated to the writing of the Accord, or has even been involved in reviewing any of it. I am referring to a concept that is repeated twice:
In there, “the increase in global temperature” is referred in absolute terms. A much more scientific, logical and legal thing to write would have been
To understand the absurdity of the Accord as it stands, imagine the world of 2050, with giant emission reductions already achieved, and powerful models showing that “anthropogenic interference” amounts to +1.7C. Still, if by pure misfortune natural variability sums up to +0.4C, the Copenhagen Accord says we have failed (despite having achieved the wildest dreams of the average 2009 greenie). Imagine now another world of 2050, with no emission reduction at all and “anthropogenic interference” running at +3C. Still, if by pure stroke of luck natural variability sums up to -0.9C (eg a series of giant volcanic eruptions from 2045 onwards), the Copenhagen Accord says we have succeeded (despite having done nothing at all). Sadly, all of that shows how silly is the idea that there is something good in the Accord because it has followed the lead of scientists. In truth, the Accord has made the IPCC irrelevant apart than as a confirming body for whatever the USA and China would like to see agreed upon regarding “climate change”. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)
Climate change alliance crumbling Cracks emerged on Tuesday in the alliance on climate change formed at the Copenhagen conference last week, with leading developing countries criticising the resulting
accord.
Activists should stop talking about global warming and start acting If climate activists had spent the past 10 years acting instead of wasting time at talkfests such as the one at Copenhagen, we would already have a price signal on
greenhouse gas emissions.
The Green Movement's People Problem - Environmentalists need to stop being so misanthropic. The once unstoppable green machine lost its mojo at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. After all its laboring and cajoling, the movement at the end resembled not
a powerful juggernaut but a forlorn lover wondering why his date never showed up.
and a prime example: It's already too late to stop global warming Global warming deniers are tools of special interests politics, or radio/TV personalities. Liberals deserve no praise, either, for they joined the fray late. Someone should be blamed for the inexcusable GW crimes against humanity. Science. Science should have stated clearly long ago that the problem is overpopulation. Population equals industry = CO2 emissions = global warming. (James Cunningham, News-Leader)
Something to guard against: Assembly President hopes next year’s Mexico meeting will forge climate pact 22 December 2009 – While most countries are not happy with the outcome of this month’s summit on climate change in Copenhagen, “really good progress” was made towards a binding agreement “to save the world,” with the United Nations leading the way to possible adoption at next year’s meeting in Mexico, General Assembly President Ali Treki said today. (UN News)
Public Cooling On Global Warming - Fewer and fewer people believe climate change is real. In addition to divisions at Copenhagen between rich and poor countries, climate activists had to contend with some depressing poll results. Four new polls showed declining
support for the belief that global warming is real.
Eye-roller: Methane levels in Southern Hemisphere increasing, says report The amount of methane in the Southern Hemisphere's atmosphere has increased 0.7 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to figures released by New Zealand's National
Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research's (Niwa) Baring Head station.
Study shows CFCs, cosmic rays major culprits for global warming WATERLOO, Ont. (Monday, Dec. 21, 2009) - Cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), both already implicated in depleting the Earth's ozone layer, are also responsible for changes in the global climate, a University of Waterloo scientist reports in a new peer-reviewed paper. In his paper, Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, shows how CFCs - compounds once widely used as refrigerants - and cosmic rays - energy particles originating in outer space - are mostly to blame for climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. His paper, derived from observations of satellite, ground-based and balloon measurements as well as an innovative use of an established mechanism, was published online in the prestigious journal Physics Reports. "My findings do not agree with the climate models that conventionally thought that greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, are the major culprits for the global warming seen in the late 20th century," Lu said. "Instead, the observed data show that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays most likely caused both the Antarctic ozone hole and global warming. These findings are totally unexpected and striking, as I was focused on studying the mechanism for the formation of the ozone hole, rather than global warming." His conclusions are based on observations that from 1950 up to now, the climate in the Arctic and Antarctic atmospheres has been completely controlled by CFCs and cosmic rays, with no CO2 impact. "Most remarkably, the total amount of CFCs, ozone-depleting molecules that are well-known greenhouse gases, has decreased around 2000," Lu said. "Correspondingly, the global surface temperature has also dropped. In striking contrast, the CO2 level has kept rising since 1850 and now is at its largest growth rate." In his research, Lu discovers that while there was global warming from 1950 to 2000, there has been global cooling since 2002. The cooling trend will continue for the next 50 years, according to his new research observations. As well, there is no solid evidence that the global warming from 1950 to 2000 was due to CO2. Instead, Lu notes, it was probably due to CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays. And from 1850 to 1950, the recorded CO2 level increased significantly because of the industrial revolution, while the global temperature kept nearly constant or only rose by about 0.1 C. (InSciences)
John Nielsen-Gammon has published an effective summary and further detailed analysis of the error Madhav Khandkkar reported on in a guest weblog Global Warming And Glacier Melt-Down Debate: A Tempest In A Teapot?” – A Guest Weblog By Madhav L Khandekar. John’s post is titled By the way, there will still be glaciers in the Himalayas in 2035. Excerpts from John’s detective work include “Lost amid the news coverage of Copenhagen and Climategate was the assertion that one of the more attention-grabbing statements of the IPCC AR4 was flat-out wrong: [the IPCC text is] Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).”(IPCC AR4 WG2 Ch10, p. 493).” “To recap, the available evidence indicates that the IPCC authors of this section relied upon a secondhand, unreferreed source which turned out to be unreliable, and failed to identify this source. As a result, the IPCC has predicted the likely loss of most or all of Himalaya’s glaciers by 2035 with apparently no peer-reviewed scientific studies to justify such a prediction and at least one scientific study (Kotlyakov) saying that such a disappearance is too fast by a factor of ten!” The entire post by John is worth reading. (Climate Science)
The
IPCC has long expressed a strong preference for relying on peer-reviewed scientific literature in its reports (PDF)
: Contributions should be supported as far as possible with references from the peer-reviewed and internationally available literature, and with copies of any unpublished material cited.However, the IPCC has evolved such that it increasingly relies on "grey literature" in its reports. Its guidelines (PDF) explain the need for additional procedures to handle grey literature: Because it is increasingly apparent that materials relevant to IPCC Reports, in particular, information about the experience and practice of the private sector in mitigation and adaptation activities, are found in sources that have not been published or peer-reviewed (e.g., industry journals, internal organisational publications, non-peer reviewed reports or working papers of research institutions, proceedings of workshops etc) the following additional procedures are provided.The IPCC asks its authors to be very discerning in what grey literature to include: Critically assess any source that they wish to include. This option may be used for instance to obtain case study materials from private sector sources for assessment of adaptation and mitigation options. Each chapter team should review the quality and validity of each source before incorporating results from the source into an IPCC Report.The IPCC has strict guidelines for obtaining and making available any source from outside the peer reviewed literature. Obviously, the IPCC's claim to authority rests in its claims to have a very rigorous process for vetting information and including only that which the scientific community finds to be accurate and reliable. A former director of the IPCC explained that the report was "probably one of the most peer-reviewed documents you could ever find." A few weeks ago in Copenhagen the current head of the IPCC touted its rigor while explaining the need to act decisively to reduce emissions (PDF): The IPCC assessment process is designed to ensure consideration of all relevant scientific information from established journals with robust peer review processes, or from other sources which have undergone robust and independent peer review. The entire report writing process of the IPCC is subjected to extensive and repeated review by experts as well as by governments. In the AR4 there were a total of around 2500 expert reviewers performing this review process.Given the claims made on behalf of the IPCC, finding flawed information in the report should be cause for serious concern. I have documented how the IPCC has systematically misrepresented the science of disasters and climate change here on various occasions, and it appears that these sorts of errors are not unique. Consider the case of the melting of Himalayan glaciers as discussed in Chapter 10 of the IPCC WG II report (PDF). The IPCC claimed that Himalayan glaciers could be mostly gone by 2035, prompting much concern since the report was released in 2007. For instance, CNN reported in October of this year: The glaciers in the Himalayas are receding quicker than those in other parts of the world and could disappear altogether by 2035 according to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.It turns out that the 2035 value is not just wrong, but when confronted with the error, the IPCC leadership apparently has refused to look into, clarify or even admit that there may be a problem in its report. (Roger Pielke Jr)
From CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 51: 23 December 2009 Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Interglacial Warmth: Does more of the former lead to more of the latter? EXTRA!!
Click here to watch additional videos on various global warming topics, to embed any of our videos on your own web page, or to watch them on YouTube in a higher resolution. Contribute to the Center: Editorial: Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week: Subject Index Summary: Plant Growth Data: Journal Reviews: The Holocene History of Alaskan Land-Based Glacier Activity: What does it reveal about the nature of 20th-century global warming? Climate Envelope Models of Plants and Animals: How good are they for correctly predicting species responses to global warming? Allergenic Pollen in Cities of Northwest Spain: How did it vary between 1993 and 2007? Cotton Response to Rising Air Temperature and CO2 Content: Just how bad can things get, when these two "environmental evils" rise in tandem with each other? (co2science.org)
No Substitute For Fossil Fuels Earlier this year, Congress approved a scheme to pour $80 billion — on top of the tens of billions already spent — into renewables. A government report released last
week indicates the money will be wasted.
An oil company wants to invest its profits in clean-burning American natural gas. A Hungarian billionaire and a "green" politician want to stop it. This is the
real Climate-gate scandal.
Di-methyl-ether (DME) is a fuel that I have been talking about since at least 2006. I have blogged about it, and I have classified it in several of my presentations as a "Sustainable Contender" (including in a slide at last year''s ASPO conference). I want to use this post to explore DME in a little more detail, and explain why I think you should keep an eye on it as an attractive renewable replacement for diesel. [Read More] (Robert Rapier, Energy Tribune)
The Cultural Contradictions of Anti-Nuke Environmentalists Why do environmentalists reject a good bet for renewable energy? Among the thousands of rowdy protesters and activists at last week's Copenhagen climate change conference was the group Don’t Nuke the Climate. Their big moment came when they unfurled a banner inside the Bella Center to mark their displeasure with the idea that nuclear power is a carbon free source of energy. Currently there is a fierce debate within ideological environmentalism over whether nuclear power is an acceptable energy technology for addressing concerns over man-made global warming. Seeing the anti-nuke protestors in Copenhagen reminded me that I had recently read James Gustave Speth's environmentalist manifesto Red Sky at Morning: America and the Global Environmental Crisis (2004) as preparation for an academic symposium on global warming. As I explained in my book, Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse (1993), environmentalism owes a great ideological debt to the anti-nuke movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and in many respects the two have now melded. (Ronald Bailey, Reason)
Solar Shutdown: Feinstein to Block Energy Projects We need to transform to a new, clean energy economy but we can’t build solar panels in the Mojave Desert if California Senator Diane Feinstein has anything to say about it:
Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Another bunch of shameless subsidy farmers: Green energy scheme 'a fraud' KEVIN RUDD'S environmental agenda is under attack on two fronts, with the country's biggest private renewable energy business declaring his green power target at risk of
failure.
Properly Extending the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to the States I recently blogged about an interesting op-ed in which Ken Klukowski and Ken Blackwell of the American Civil Rights Union argue that the Supreme Court need not overturn The Slaughter-House Cases while “incorporating” the right to bear arms against the states. (Josh Blackman fisked the article in more depth here.) This piece was essentially a distillation of the ACRU’s amicus brief in McDonald v. City of Chicago, which ultimately argues, like Cato’s brief, that Chicago’s gun ban is unconstitutional. (Ilya Shapiro, Cato at liberty)
Pandemic flu remains moderate but strikes young: WHO GENEVA - The H1N1 flu pandemic is moderate but infects and sometimes kills much younger people than traditional seasonal influenza, the World Health Organisation (WHO)
said on Tuesday.
US poll shows worry about swine flu shot persists WASHINGTON - Americans who were worried about the safety of the swine flu vaccine are still worried and it may not be easy to convince them to get themselves or their
children vaccinated, researchers said on Tuesday.
Car airbags not a risk to pregnant women NEW YORK - For pregnant women involved in a traffic accident, the impact of an airbag does not seem to raise the risks of most pregnancy complications, a new study finds.
C-reactive protein no cause of heart trouble-study CHICAGO - High levels of a compound called C-reactive protein may be a sign of a future risk for heart attacks, stroke and cancer, though it does not seem to be a cause,
researchers said on Tuesday.
EPA Seeks to Disclose Pesticide Inert Ingredients WASHINGTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requesting public comment on options for disclosing inert ingredients in pesticides. In this anticipated
rulemaking, EPA is seeking ideas for greater disclosure of inert ingredient identities. Inert ingredients are part of the end use product formulation and are not active
ingredients. Revealing inert ingredients will help consumers make informed decisions and will better protect public health and the environment.
They don't say? Being poor could be the greatest health burden Poverty trumps smoking, obesity and education as a health burden, potentially causing a loss of 8.2 years of perfect health, according to a new study.
Role of addiction cannot be ignored in obesity epidemic The causes of obesity are complex and individual, but it is clear that chronic overeating plays a fundamental role. But when this behaviour becomes compulsive and out of control, it is often classified as "food addiction" - a label that has generated considerable controversy, according to a McMaster University psychiatrist and obesity researcher (McMaster University)
Meddling in mosquitoes' sex life could cut malaria LONDON - Interfering in mosquitoes' sex lives could help halt the spread of malaria, British scientists said on Tuesday.
Treasure trove of nearly 300 new plants discovered by Kew experts A massive tree that is a relative of the pea yet rises more than 135ft above the ground is among a treasure trove of plants and fungi discovered by botanists. Wouldn't you think something like this would make them stop an think about the incessant hysteria over a potentially warmer, wetter world?
Ord River dream finally bears fruit CHIA farmer Fritz Bolten believes he's part of the next big thing in Australian agriculture, an expanding Top End food bowl overflowing with a seemingly endless supply of
water.
French Body Says Monsanto Maize Needs More Study PARIS - More research is needed into Monsanto's genetically modified maize MON 810, the only biotech crop commercially grown in Europe, to assess its environmental impact,
a French advisory body said.
December 22, 2009
Still absurdly claiming "hacking" and throwing mud in all directions: Pachauri slams charges about conflict of interest Amit Bhattacharya, TNN 21 December 2009, 01:04am IST NEW DELHI: A report in a British newspaper has accused IPCC chief Rajendra K Pachauri of making a fortune from his links with ‘‘carbon trading’’ companies.
Climategate: 'It's all lies!' lies Pachauri (again) Surely not even an organisation as a corrupt and dishonest as the IPCC can afford to keep Dr Rajendra Pachauri on as its chairman after the weekend’s damning revelations
by Christopher Booker and Richard North?
Terence Corcoran: Climategate Part 2 — A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism There's trouble over tree rings as the Climategate emails reveal a rift between scientists. For Part 1, go here. In the thousands of emails released last month in what is now known as Climategate, the greatest battles took place over scientists’ attempts to reconstruct a credible
temperature record for the last couple of thousand years. Have they failed? What the Climategate emails provide is at least one incontrovertible answer: They certainly have
not succeeded. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
Climategate: Why and When did Keith Briffa change his views on temperatures? An Open Appeal for the Smoking Briffa Emails--if they exist Elsewhere on this site are two Climategate posts based on my reading of the Climategate emails (Part 1 and Part 2). This is an open appeal for an answer to a question I was not able to answer at the time of writing. It is clear that Keith Briffa, a dendrochronologist at the University of East Anglia, changed his views on the last 1,000 years of climate history and ended up adopting Michael Mann's Hockey Stock. Sometime after 1999, his criticisms of Mann stopped. When did he make that switch? And why? I read hundreds of the emails, including the first five years word for word, along with most of 2009, and scores of pages from many other years. I searched for clues. But I work for a daily newspaper, and once I realized there was a great epic story in what I had read so far, I wrote what I wrote. But despite successive dips into the emails, the 2,000+ page document failed to reveal the answer to the question: When did Briffa change is views, and why? The answers must be there somewhere. Or are they? No blog posting or published report that I've seen has produced an explanation so far. If anybody has found the smoking Briffa emails in which he acknowledges and explains why he abandoned his earlier perspectives on the temperature history of the last 1,000 years, please drop a comment, link to key emails or whatever -- either as a comment below or send me an email: tcorcoran@nationalpost.com Many thanks (Terence Corcoran, Financial Post)
Truth Is Victim When The Left Abuses Science Science is one of the great achievements of the human mind and the biggest reason why we live not only longer but more vigorously in our old age, in addition to all the
ways in which it provides us with things that make life easier and more enjoyable.
Climate Change and the Loss of Legitimacy: The List Lengthens Supreme Climate Folly noted that every institution that touches the climate change issue “gets de-legitimized, including the EPA, the presidency, the scientific
community, the mainstream media, and the Supreme Court itself.”
Global warming... or a lot of hot air? Click the tape (next to "play") for the six pieces of the playlist.
Oh... Cornellians build computer climate-change model Researchers are contributing to a new model of climate change that may give more accurate predictions of the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in Earth's
future.
Climategate: The Perils of Global Warming Models If a model has not been proven to fully reflect reality, then it has very limited use and should be treated like a horoscope. Everyone readily admits that things aren’t always what they seem. But are we really applying this knowledge in our daily dealings? Are we consciously ferreting out the illusory from the reality? I think not. For instance, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we aren’t really being run by pandering politicians, self-serving lobbyists, fanatical environmentalists, and greedy Wall Street manipulators. They are the illusion. There is another even more powerful (but much less visible) agent behind all of these puppets. The person behind the screen is the computer programmer. And, just like in the Wizard of OZ, they do not want you to look at this real controller. I’ll probably have to turn in my membership card, but as a computer programmer (and physicist and environmental activist) I’m here to spill the beans about the Wiz. The first hint of trouble is spelled out in Wikipedia’s explanation about computer programmers:
Hmmm. My layperson explanation is that computer programming is all about making assumptions, and then converting these into mathematical equations. The big picture question is this: Is it really possible to accurately convert complex real-world situations into ones and zeros? Hal may think so, but higher processing brains say no. Yet this is continuously attempted, with very limited success. Let’s pull the screen back a bit more. We’ll start with an example about how such a model makes assumptions. (John Droz, Jr., PJM)
Still in the strangling grip of the greenies, we see: Into the heart of the climate debate WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 2009 — Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the world's largest scientific society, today published a major analysis of the divisive issues at the heart of the debate over global warming and climate change. The article appears at the conclusion of the much-publicized United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which sought to seal a comprehensive international agreement on dealing with global warming. An embargoed text is available to journalists upon request. (American Chemical Society)
Time for a Separation of Science and State While many people take for granted the fact that it is dangerous to use articles of faith as the basis for public policy, we often fail to realize that science too
represents an extremely dodgy justification for law. With a population that is often willing to unquestioningly defer to the “experts” on matters they feel are above
their pay grade, the governed run the risk of empowering legislators to pass law that is just as much a product of faith as anything that can be found in your local church or
synagogue.
Apparently we should be grateful to a select few: Gordon Brown Says "Handful" Of States Wrecked Climate Talks LONDON - A handful of countries blocked a legally binding deal on climate change in Copenhagen and the talks process needs urgent reform to prevent something similar happening again, Britain's prime minister said on Monday. (Reuters)
China says Britain sowing discord in climate talks BEIJING: China condemned claims ascribed to Britain's climate change minister that it had "hijacked" negotiations
When Liberal Dreams Collide With Public Opinion In the Bella Center on the south side of Copenhagen and in the Senate chamber on the north side of the Capitol, we're seeing what happens when liberal dreams collide with American public opinion. It's like what happens when a butterfly collides with the windshield of a speeding SUV. Splat. (Michael Barone, Townhall)
The Vacuity Of The Double Climax In Copenhagen And The Congress It was serendipitous to have almost simultaneous climaxes in Copenhagen and Congress. The former's accomplishment was indiscernible, the latter's was unsightly.
Can't end the year without giving Moonbat another run: If you want to know who's to blame for Copenhagen, look to the US Senate Obama's attempt to put China in the frame for failure had its origins in the absence of American campaign finance reform (George Monbiot, The Guardian)
Lefties just can't find enough people to blame: Copenhagen's failure belongs to Obama The American president has been uniquely placed to lead the world on climate change and squandered every opportunity ( Naomi Klein, The Guardian)
Oh dear, Louise needs a cuppa and a good lie down: Copenhagen climate conference: Who is going to save the planet now? After the Copenhagen climate conference failed to stop global warming, the next big question for climate change is who is going to save the planet now? ( Louise Gray, TDT)
COP15: Ed Milliband, Gordon Brown And Some Other “Jokers” You know something very odd has happened in Copenhagen between Friday and Saturday when Luboš Motl and Plane Stupid’s Joss Garman write more or less the same thing about it. In the meanwhile, RC is silent, Stoat is silent, tamino is silent, Desmogblog has a pathetic “let’s be cheerful” attempt at blaming “politicians”, and Monbiot is entering paranoia territory. Finally, a consensus has been reached! 100% of the people all over the world agree that 45,000 humans travelled to Denmark and made a lot of fuss for about two weeks, and all we’ve got is a declaration that is not worth a single paragraph of commentary. Give me another UN conference like this and we’ll be back to the League of Nations. There’s more one should think about and I am sure it will slowly surface in the next few days. One question is who are the losers out of that all, and by that I mean the “jokers” that were presumed to be able to achieve something, proceeded to huff and puff a lot but were then demonstrated able to achieve nothing at all. Among them:
When push came to shove, the Powers That Be did not care at all about the opinions of those listed above. I wouldn’t be too harsh with the Maldives, most of the African nations, etc. They do not have much power to do anything at UN level, anyway. Russia has lost a bit, by not being included in the final five signatories, and for the same reason Brazil, India, and (mysteriously) South Africa have gained a little. But let me say very clearly, as UK taxpayer I find the performance of the Ed Milliband particularly awful, and the absolute unimportance of anything Gordon Brown had to say especially embarrassing. Go, go, Gordon go!! Please! ps looks like it’s high time to get US or Chinese citizenship… (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)
The Crone continues its carbon jihad: Copenhagen, and Beyond The global climate negotiations in Copenhagen produced neither a grand success nor the complete meltdown that seemed almost certain as late as Friday afternoon. Despite two years of advance work, the meeting failed to convert a rare gathering of world leaders into an ambitious, legally binding action plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It produced instead a softer interim accord that, at least in principle, would curb greenhouses gases, provide ways to verify countries’ emissions, save rain forests, shield vulnerable nations from the impacts of climate change, and share the costs. (NYT)
The Copenhagen farce is glad tidings for all After two weeks of increasingly ill-tempered negotiations, one of the European delegates at the Copenhagen summit “to save the planet” had clearly reached breaking
point; or perhaps it was the ingratitude of the people he was trying to save that caused this negotiator to tell the BBC’s science correspondent, Susan Watts, that millions
of Africans now “deserve” to be incinerated.
Everyone, it seems, is disappointed with the Copenhagen Deal drawn up by world leaders, with its promise of more money to tackle climate change and its commitment to stop the planet from warming by more than two degrees. But never mind all that. As spiked kicks off a major online debate about the future of the planet and humanity post-Copenhagen, here is our Alternative Copenhagen Deal. (sp!ked)
Climate change bill tough sell Earlier this year, Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the leader of an effort to write a U.S. climate change bill, argued that domestic cuts in greenhouse gas
emissions would help President Obama pry similar cuts from China and other major developing nations.
Obama Climate-Change Goals Hurt Recovery President Barack Obama's weak Copenhagen accord may make it harder for Congress to pass punitive cap-and-trade legislation that requires greenhouse- gas emission cuts.
Green battle beyond Copenhagen Participants in the UN climate change conference wave as they exit the Bella Center in Copenhagen on Friday, the 13th day of meeting. The conference rammed through a
battle plan against climate change forged by U.S. President Barack Obama and other top leaders, sidelining smaller states.
Don Martin: Frosty provincial relations new climate crisis There is a new climate-change crisis that Canada needs to address in the wake of the Copenhagen conference: the suddenly frosty relations between energy producing and
consuming provinces.
Coming from Hollywood may explain Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s disconnect with reality. In the real world, saying so doesn’t make it so. In Copenhagen last week, he
made the astonishing claim that the Golden State is evidence we need not choose between a clean environment and economic growth because: “We’ve proved that over and over
again in California.”
Climate Change Critics Demand Truth in Government Analysis Senator Saxby Chambliss and Rep. Frank Lucas, ranking members of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees respectively, sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson on December 18 requesting the agency correct the Forest and Agriculture Sector Optimization Model (FASOM) used as the basis for USDA’s analysis of climate change legislation. Chambliss and Lucas noted that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had stated that the FASOM, which is often cited in the climate change debate, is not “current” and “complete.” They sent a similar letter to Sec. Vilsack on December 17 requesting the flawed analysis be corrected and that the Secretary report to Congress upon its completion. (Hoosier Ag Today)
Rudd and Wong on a climate snow job EXACTLY which part of the word "failure" can't Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong understand?
Wong rules out Greens deal to pass emissions trading scheme CLIMATE Change Minister Penny Wong has ruled out doing a deal with the Greens to pass the emissions trading scheme in the Senate.
Put Australia's interests first Developed nations have the best anti-pollution standards
Rudd leaves Denmark with a rotten deal TO secure a Copenhagen Accord Kevin Rudd sold out Australia's long-term negotiating interests and accepted the full cost of any future climate change agreement.
Coalition calls for new estimate on cost of emissions trading scheme to families KEVIN Rudd is under pressure to come clean on the likely cost-of-living impact of an emissions trading scheme if Australia goes it alone before other nations act.
Govt rejects call for 'greenhouse trigger' powers The federal government has rejected a call for the creation of a greenhouse trigger, a move that would give it the power to block emissions-intensive projects.
EU Carbon Closes At 6-Month Low On Copenhagen Accord LONDON - The benchmark contract for European Union carbon emissions futures closed at a six-month low on Monday, having fallen as much as 9 percent in intra-day trade
after a weak U.N. climate deal disappointed investors.
Carbon prices drop in wake of climate talks Carbon prices plunged on Monday in the aftermath of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, dealing a blow to the credibility of the European Union’s carbon-trading scheme. (Financial Times)
Falling carbon price could result in higher bills, energy firms warn Electricity bills could go up as a result of the weekend's feeble agreement on climate change at Copenhagen, energy suppliers have warned.
Bull spit! Low carbon price threatens investment crucial to meet UK green goals - Post-Copenhagen, calls intensify for a floor under the carbon price Copenhagen turned out to be a damp squib – derided by the Prime Minister yesterday as "at best flawed, at worst chaotic". But the failure to reach a global
deal also left UK electricity generators calling for the Government to guarantee the carbon price, or face missing its ambitious green targets.
Why now? The Geoengineering Gambit For years, radical thinkers have proposed risky technologies that they say could rapidly cool the earth and offset global warming. Now a growing number of mainstream climate scientists say we may have to consider extreme action despite the dangers. ( Kevin Bullis, Technology Review)
Q & A Is Global Warming The Same As Climate Change? Today’s question: ”Is Global Warming The Same As Climate Change? The answer is clearly NO. We continue, however, to see the use of climate change and global warming used interchangeably (e.g. see). This is presumably based on the narrow, and scientifically flawed, perspective advocated in policy statements as this (see) “Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. “ However, as documented in the EOS article Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union “……. the natural causes of climate variations and changes are undoubtedly important, [but also] the human influences are significant and involve a diverse range of first- order climate forcings, including, but not limited to, the human input of carbon dioxide (CO2). Most, if not all, of these human infl uences on regional and global climate will continue to be of concern during the coming decades.” I have posted on the need to broaden the science assessment for years, with examples of my posts on this topic Is Global Warming the Same as Climate Change? What is Climate? Why Does it Matter How We Define Climate? Is There a Human Effect on the Climate System? The bottom line message is that climate change involves much more than global warming or cooling. When the two terms are used interchangeably it shows either a lack of knowledge or a deliberate attempt to mislead policymakers and the public. (Climate Science)
A Christmas Story: Some Facts about Greenland The wonderful Christmas season is upon us, and no Christmas story would be complete without snow. If you really like snow, Greenland is the place for you! The snow there
lasts all year long and is 1,000s of feet deep in the interior – a white Christmas is guaranteed every year in this winter paradise.
As this graphic continues to show – year after year, Perth dam catchments rainfall has proved remarkably reliable over 35 years in the face of recent WA Govt propaganda spruiking, “our drying climate”, etc etc. See my late 2007 article, “There never was a rain shortage to justify seawater desalination for Perth’s water supply” and downloadable word doc with several rational proposals vastly cheaper and lower impact than seawater desalination to augment Perth water supply. But the silly WA Govt are going ahead with the plus $Billion new desal plant at Binningup just north of Bunbury.
Clearly, politicians fed climate change rubbish from the ruling public service elite are believing their own incestuous propaganda.
China Secures Oil and Gas Resources: U.S. Fiddles with ‘Green’ Energy Around the world, China is investing in oil and gas resources to fuel its booming manufacturing industries and transportation sector to continue its sky-rocketing economic growth. China is not endowed with very much oil and gas resources of its own. Thus, it needs to partner with countries around the world to ensure availability of future supplies of oil and natural gas that it will need to keep up its current pace of economic growth. The U.S., which does have oil and gas resources, is not following China’s lead in investing in these resources. Instead, the U.S. is looking toward wind and solar technologies to fuel its economy. However, wind and solar power are generating technologies and will not help where oil is needed in the transportation and industrial sectors. Further, wind and solar power have capacity factors that cannot compete with those of fossil fuel generating technologies, and they can create instability issues with the electrical grid. They are also more expensive technologies and must have government support through tax credits to compete at all with fossil-fuel generating technologies. (Mary Hutzler, MasterResource)
After the fiasco at Copenhagen, we must focus on energy security The risks of electricity blackouts and gas shortages in the middle of the next decade are a lot more tangible than whatever will happen to the climate, writes Dan Lewis. (TDT)
Time to rethink, coal chief Keith De Lacy tells 'mate' Kevin Rudd WHEN Keith De Lacy was treasurer of Queensland, a certain K. Rudd was the other can-do man in the then state government. Now that the Prime Minister has come up in the world, Mr De Lacy has a message for him: the Australian coal industry was sold out in Copenhagen, and Kevin Rudd needs to drastically revise his climate change response. These days, Mr De Lacy's main job is with miner Macarthur Coal, which he chairs. His concern after the failure of the summit in Denmark to secure binding international action on global warming is that the Rudd government's decision to persist with emissions trading will do more harm than good to export-exposed industries such as coal. "It (an ETS) will erode our competitive position, while it does absolutely nothing to reduce greenhouse emissions," he told The Australian. "If you replace Australian coal with Canadian coal or South African coal or Indonesian coal, that doesn't do anything for anyone." The non-binding Copenhagen deal, which has been on the end of criticism from both Europe and the developing world, was done between the US and the so-called "BASIC" alliance of Brazil, South Africa, India and China. It has not been lost on a largely dismayed resource sector that South Africa is one of our principal coal export competitors. (The Australian)
An AP piece by Sean Murphy, Many Take Dim View of New-Fangled Christmas Lights (December 21), is another example of some of the problems that occur when an (inferior) product forced on consumers in the name of ”energy sustainability” (aka, the futile climate crusade). Small, unsafe, high-insurance-premium micro cars are bad enough (do these things work on the highway?). But also troubling is the assault on quality lighting–and more lighting per se–that hinder those whose mood is elevated by brightness and the many who have trouble coping with the dark. (Of course some can go too far with holiday lighting, as with any pleasurable activity.) But for many who need light to overcome Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) syndrome, And so this holiday season–the time of year when many turn the winter blues into a winter wonderland–consumers are finding themselves increasingly stuck with LED lighting. Some wonder how ‘green’ the ecolights are compared to what is in your attic. Others have tried and given up on solar LED as the ‘green’ way. (Robert Bradley Jr., MasterResource)
Potatoes and algae may replace oil in plastics - Frederic Scheer is biding his time, convinced that by 2013 the price of oil will be so high that his bio-plastics, made from vegetables and plants, will be highly marketable. Scheer, 55, is the owner of Cereplast, a company that designs and makes sustainable plastics from starches found in tapioca, corn, wheat and potatoes.
Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It's cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and
a 90-year supply is under our feet.
Violence Policy Center Makes It Up as They Go Along — Again The gun-control group that sprang from the Joyce Foundation is using false information and bad research to demonize concealed carry permit holders.
Shooters complain of 'hysterical' police response to legal field sports - Field sports enthusiasts have complained that they are increasingly being targeted by armed police responding to panicky 999 calls from the public. Shooting groups are reporting a growing number of cases where officers in armed response vehicles and helicopters are swooping on people who are legally shooting.
Who deserves the most blame for the wrecking ball that Congress and the president will soon take to the greatest health system in the world? The Republican who gave them
her vote.
Botox spared over tanning beds in U.S. health fight In the rush to fund a U.S. healthcare overhaul, Botox injections to smooth wrinkles will not be taxed, but visiting a tanning salon will be.
People forget that the dose makes the poison When reading newspapers or surfing the web, I am still drawn to the issue of man-made chemicals in commerce. I was trained as a toxicologist, and was employed in that
capacity with a major international petroleum company for over 30 years. How incredibly lucky — to be able to put into daily practice a science that held me in thrall...
and still does. Click here to read more... (Geoff Granville, Financial Post)
Health Canada proposes putting anti-cancer drug into french fries, potato chips Health Canada is proposing an unorthodox way of combatting a food ingredient suspected in some cancers: It wants to let manufacturers put small amounts of a
cancer-fighting drug into potato chips and similar foods to curb production of the harmful chemical.
Dietary estrogens have little effect on cancer risk NEW YORK - Dietary "phytoestrogens" -- plant substances that have weak estrogen-like activity -- have little impact on the risks of developing hormone-sensitive
cancers like breast and prostate cancer or colorectal cancers, new research suggests.
Experts warn of cancer linked to certain herbs HONG KONG - The consumption of popular Chinese herbal products containing aristolochic acid is associated with an increased risk of urinary tract cancer, a study in Taiwan
has found.
No link seen between acetaminophen, birth defects NEW YORK - New study findings offer reassurance to pregnant women that acetaminophen does not appear to raise the risk of birth defects.
Child fitness levels 'declining even in affluent areas' Sedentary lifestyles are making children less fit - even among those who are not obese, a study suggests.
NHS fat fighter clubs for obese kids aged 4 WEIGHT-LOSS clubs for FOUR-YEAR-OLDS are being launched on the NHS in a bid to tackle Britain's obesity crisis.
The brain may feel other people's pain NEW YORK - If you've ever thought that you literally feel other people's pain, you may be right. A brain-imaging study suggests that some people have true physical
reactions to others' injuries.
You'd think they'd at least get this right: Antarctic Researchers Need Solid Sun Block: Study CAPE DENISON - Expeditioners to Antarctic train for freezing temperatures and social isolation, but a study has found there is something else to be wary of -- sunburn.
Green theft down-under: Peter Spencer by Justin Jefferson Last Friday I joined a protest of over 80 people at farmer Peter Spencer’s property in the mountains near Cooma. Peter (61), is now past the twenty-eighth day of a hunger strike, perched high above the ground on a communications tower on his property. Looking down from his eyrie he seemed at first somewhat curious and dishevelled, but when he spoke he was lucid, his arguments were cogent, and passions ran high. Peter Spencer is demanding the Australian government pay fair compensation to him and all Australian property-holders whose property rights were taken without compensation pursuant to the Kyoto Protocol. He also demands a Royal Commission into the way governments acquired those property rights, because it seems to have been deliberately intended to, and did, subvert the constitutional protection against the unjust acquisition of property. Why is Spencer directing his fire at the Federal government, since it was the State government, through the Native Vegetation Act (NVA) that passed the laws restricting farmers use-rights? The answer is because the Federal government moved the States for, benefited from, and paid them to make these unjust acquisitions. The Commonwealth decided to meet its Kyoto Protocol targets to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions by restricting farmers land use across Australia. Farmers made an easy target compared to power stations or other emitters. Under the Australian Constitution, if the Commonwealth wants to acquire a person’s property, it must do so on just terms, i.e. pay fair compensation. Since land-use rights form part of the equity of a property, the taking of those rights, and vesting the control and benefit of them in government bodies, is in effect a compulsory acquisition of property rights. To give you some idea of the scale, Peter Spencer’s property is 12,000 acres, the use-rights of which were in effect confiscated along with his livelihood. One farmer at the protest said these laws cost him $30,000 a year. Another landowner lost $1.2 million worth of equity from a 40 acre block of land. Think of the whole of Australia, and you can see that the value of the property rights thus forcibly acquired without payment, from the entire landscape of property-holders, must run into billions of dollars. Coveting private property, but not wanting to pay for it, what did the Feds do? They got the States to take it instead. Unlike the Federal Constitution, State Constitutions (except one) contain no provision for the payment of fair compensation for the taking of property. NSW legislation requires it, but the NSW State simply overrode that with ordinary legislation, smacking of rule by decree. Using the Commonwealth Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Act the Commonwealth gave NSW $1.2 billion, that it got from the sale of Telstra, for their part in stealing billions of dollars worth of other people’s property. So Mr Spencer’s case is this. He can’t sue the Commonwealth because, though they sponsored the acquisitions of property, acquired the benefit for their purposes, and are constitutionally liable to pay compensation, they didn’t actually do the deed themselves. And then he can’t sue the State because, although they acquired his property rights, they aren’t legally liable to pay for it. In the High Court, the Commonwealth is arguing that the Constitution was not intended to protect against forced acquisitions of property by the executive arm of government! The absurdity, or dishonesty, of this argument should be obvious. If it were accepted, it would make the very idea of private property, and constitutional and limited government, meaningless. And now to compound the offence, faced with Peter Spencer’s hunger strike, the Commonwealth says it’s all a State matter. Either it is entirely appropriate to call for the Commonwealth to fix the problem, since they can obviously use the same measures with the States to fix the problem as they did to cause it. Or the Native Vegetation Acts should be repealed and replaced with nothing. If you want someone to grow beef, or wheat, or tomatoes on their property, you don’t pass a law making it a criminal offence to grow something else. If there is a social need for a person’s property which is to be forcibly acquired, then society needs to pay for it. But if society can’t afford to pay, then it can’t afford to have it and is not entitled to it. To breach this principle, as the Federal and State governments have done, violates basic ethics, blatantly subverts our Constitution, and is already spelling the end of limited government and a free society. All Australians should understand that the Commonwealth is implicated up to its neck in what it blames on its accomplices the States, and should join in demanding a Royal Commission into this devious and appalling abuse, and fair compensation for all persons affected by this unprecedented case of massive governmental theft. (Quadrant)
Environmental groups – bogus information Monday, 14 December 2009 02:31
Dutch cull goats to fight infectious fever VINKEL, The Netherlands - Dutch farms started culling thousands of goats on Monday as part of efforts to fight an outbreak of the highly infectious disease Q fever, which
has been a factor in six human deaths this year.
Indonesia's next big quake due under Mentawais - A massive undersea earthquake is long overdue beneath the Mentawai islands in Indonesia and could cause another deadly tsunami, say scientists mapping one of the world's most quake-prone zones. Unlike the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed around 226,000 people, this tsunami is expected to be smaller but may be just as deadly as it would hit Sumatra's
densely populated coast.
December 21, 2009
Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri The head of the UN's climate change panel - Dr Rajendra Pachauri - is accused of making a fortune from his links with 'carbon trading' companies, Christopher Booker and Richard North write.
Photo: EPA
No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007. Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the world’s top climate scientist”), as a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics he has no qualifications in climate science at all. What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations. These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainable technologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year. (Sunday Telegraph)
To Denmark, From Russia, With Lies Russian analysts accuse Britain's Meteorological Office of cherry-picking Russian temperature data to "hide the decline" in global temperatures. Is Copenhagen
rooted in a single tree in Siberia?
New Study: Hadley Center and CRU Apparently Cherry-picked Russia’s Climate Data Yesterday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA), of which I am President, issued a study (in Russian), “How Warming Is Being Made: The Case of Russia.” The report, prepared by IEA director Natalya Pivovarova, suggests that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (CRU) in Norwich (England) apparently cherry-picked Russian climate data. ( Andrei Illarionov, Cato at liberty)
Terence Corcoran: My climategate email cameo There are more
than 2,000 pages and millions of words in the Climategate emails (get a searchable
archive here), and I am two of those words on one of the pages. This cameo walk-on role doesn't amount to anything in the great 13-year epic chronology of science warfare
found in the email cache, but it is still satisfying to be there -- even more satisfying because my bit part appears in a small chain of emails that leads right up to one of
the top dogs in Climategate, Phil Jones. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
Terence Corcoran: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 1 The scientists seem to have become captive of the IPCC’s objectives Now that the Copenhagen political games are out of the way, marked as a failure by any realistic standard, it may be time to move on to the science games. To get the
post-Copenhagen science review underway, the world has a fine document at hand: The Climategate Papers. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
Obama faces new global warming skeptic: Joe Sixpack As President Obama returns from Copenhagen, polls show that Americans are becoming more more wary of his global warming agenda – and of global warming itself.
Rightly: On environment, Obama and scientists take hit in poll Climate Change As President Obama arrives in Copenhagen hoping to seal an elusive deal on climate change, his approval rating on dealing with global warming has crumbled at home and
there is broad opposition to spending taxpayer money to encourage developing nations to curtail their energy use, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
by
Bob Carter Professor Bob Carter replies to Mr. Barry Jones On December 8, ABC’s The Drum – Unleashed posted an opinion piece of mine entitled “Kill the IPCC”. As submitted the piece was entitled, a little more gracefully, I think, “The bell tolls for the IPCC” [full text published in Quadrant Online here]. But the essential message can be represented by either heading. And that the IPCC should be closed down was indeed the essential message that I wished to convey. For during its 20 year-long existence it has done incalculable economic and political damage (which continues in Copenhagen as I write), but above all else it is the damage that the IPCC has inflicted upon Science that concerns me. Our citizenry used to able to rely upon practitioners of the scientific method to provide dispassionate analysis of the pros and cons of a problem of public concern. But no longer, I fear, as Climategate has recently displayed. After my article was posted, there ensued a day or so of busy emailing at The Drum, which included the writing of over 500 blog postings. The authors of most of these contributions seemed particularly upset that the ABC had permitted the expression of a climate rationalist viewpoint - and allegedly an ignorant one at that – on the website of what they had hoped was a balanced public broadcaster. The rush of emails was shortly followed by an article on The Drum by former Labor Science Minister, Mr. Barry Jones, entitled (doubtless by the editor) “Bob Carter’s attack on reason”, which seems to have been intended as a commentary on, and perhaps a reply to, my own original posting. By December 20, Mr Jones’ piece had attracted a further 792 blog comments, most of which supported his views. In turn, therefore, I now provide this reply to eight of the points that Mr. Jones raises. (Quadrant)
What Scientists Really Think About Global Warming - The answers won't entirely please either side. These are hard times for climate scientists who want government action on global warming. Not only has the Copenhagen summit largely produced discord, but an embarrassing
public release of private e-mails exposed attempts by a group of climate scientists to hide scientific evidence that didn't conform to their beliefs or pronouncements.
How to Manufacture a Climate Consensus - The East Anglia emails are just the tip of the iceberg. I should know. Few people understand the real significance of Climategate, the now-famous hacking of emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Most see the
contents as demonstrating some arbitrary manipulating of various climate data sources in order to fit preconceived hypotheses (true), or as stonewalling and requesting
colleagues to destroy emails to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the face of potential or actual Freedom of Information requests (also
true).
Douglass and Christy about the DCPS and ClimateGate Two years ago, this blog described an interesting paper by Douglass, Christy, Pearson, Singer (click)in the International Journal of Climatology. It argued that the relationships between the surface and upper troposphere warming trends are very different in reality and in the existing climate models. That suggests a serious problem with the models - and implies that the models may overestimate the CO2 sensitivity by a factor of 2 - 4. We don't want to talk about the technical issues here. This article is about the process of peer review and publishing. Today, in the American Thinker, David Douglass and John Christy wrote a fascinating reconstruction of the events that led to the publication of their paper and a certain reply by Santer et al.: A Climatology Conspiracy? (click)Douglass and Christy knew something about the process of peer review and publishing but the ClimateGate e-mails have expanded their knowledge about the procedures - and especially the behind-the-scenes tricks - by a huge factor. So they could reconstruct the events. It's just a stunning reading. I would write a similar summary of the corrupt aspects of the process, but let me reproduce theirs instead. Their reconstruction proves » Don't Stop Reading » (The Reference Frame)
American Thinker: A Climatology Conspiracy? The following article appears today in American Thinker, by David Douglass and John Christy, which tells their story of how scientists involved in Climategate did their best to protect the IPCC global warming party line through manipulation of the peer review process: A Climatology Conspiracy? by David H. Douglass and John R. Christy “The CRU emails have revealed how the normal conventions of the peer review process appear to have been compromised by a team* of global warming scientists, with the willing cooperation of the editor of the International Journal of Climatology (IJC), Glenn McGregor. The team spent nearly a year preparing and publishing a paper that attempted to rebut a previously published paper in IJC by Douglass, Christy, Pearson and Singer (DCPS). The DCPS paper, reviewed and accepted in the traditional manner, had shown that the IPCC models that predicted significant “global warming” in fact largely disagreed with the observational data. “We will let the reader judge whether this team effort, revealed in dozens of emails and taking nearly a year, involves inappropriate behavior including (a) unusual cooperation between authors and editor, (b) misstatement of known facts, (c) character assassination, (d) avoidance of traditional scientific give-and-take, (e) using confidential information, (f) misrepresentation (or misunderstanding) of the scientific question posed by DCPS, (g) withholding data, and more. ” *The team is a group of a number of climate scientists who frequently collaborate and publish papers which often supports the hypothesis of human-caused global warming. For this essay, the leading team members include Ben Santer, Phil Jones, Timothy Osborn, and Tom Wigley, with lesser roles for several others.” READ THE STORY at American Thinker (Roy W. Spencer)
Treating Peer Review Like a Partisan Blog John
Christy and David Douglass provide a detailed accounting of how a comment on one of their
papers was handled in the peer review process (even more detail here). Their
experience, with the gory details revealed by the CRU emails, show in all of its unpleasantness how activist scientists sought to stage-manage climate science from the
inside. I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use [the RealClimate blog] in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we'll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd like us to include.While bloggers are of course free to operate their turf as they see fit, whatever one's views of climate science, climate policy or the Douglass et al. paper, we should all be able to agree that efforts to stage manage the peer review process are not good for science, however they might be justified. (Roger Pielke Jr)
Michael Mann on the "Poor Judgment" of His Colleagues In today's Washington Post, Michael Mann of Penn State University and
CRU email fame, gives us some good news about climate science and some bad news about his colleagues. The scientific consensus regarding human-caused climate change is based on decades of work by thousands of scientists around the world.The bad news is that some of his colleagues exhibited "poor judgment": I cannot condone some things that colleagues of mine wrote or requested in the e-mails recently stolen from a climate research unit at a British university. . . Some statements in the stolen e-mails reflect poor judgment -- for example, a colleague referring to deleting e-mails that might be subject to a Freedom of Information Act request -- but there is no evidence that this happened.I doubt that Professor Mann will be getting many cheery Christmas cards from his CRU-email colleagues. (Roger Pielke Jr)
So what’s cooking: is it the planet, or just the evidence? What we have just witnessed in Copenhagen was a rare spectacle in global affairs: a massive exercise in political groupthink reaching its pinnacle precisely as the
rational foundation for it began to unravel in a very public way.
Lawrence Solomon: Wikipedia’s climate doctor How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles The Climategate Emails describe how a small band of climatologists cooked the books to make the last century seem dangerously warm. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
More on Wikipedia and Connolley – he’s been canned as a Wiki administrator WUWT reader Dennis Kuzara wrote to Wikipedia in response to our earlier article on Wikibullies prompted by Lawrence Solomon of the National Post. He has received an eye-opening reply. Emphasis mine – Anthony ================= Wikipedia replies notable excerpt: > > 4. Has William Connolley been removed as a Wikipedia administrator? If so who has taken his place? In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolley’s administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges
while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. This has now been added to his article. Reply follows: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Shock: UN Finds Earth’s Thermostat Source: Satirical Press With 45,000 people searching for the controls in Copenhagen at the Bella Convention Center, commentators were shocked when it turned up instead in a closet in the basement of the World Meterological Organization (WMO) headquarters in Geneva. “It’s a landmark day for human-kind” said Rajendra Pachuri, Chairman of the IPCC. Barack Obama stood for a standing ovation that lasted 23 minutes and said: “It gives us all hope”. Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia: “We wouldn’t have found this without Obama’s magic touch. Obama rolled up his sleeves in Copenhagen, and the ancient Sumerian map fell out of his shirt.” Tim Flannery, an Australian environmental spokesman, said: We must make sure this thermostat does not fall into the wrong hands. It must be managed by an unelected, unaudited government with infinite powers. Nothing else is safe. Pachuri went on to explain the degree of control the IPCC expected to be able to have:
Nations wishing to apply for adjustments to the thermostat need to file a comprehensive application in 14 languages, in a form expected to be 4,000 pages long. Within 30 minutes of the announcement, new social networks were springing into action on Twitter and Facebook. One, Ice-Age Now (IAN), was lobbying for The Thermostat to be switched down to glacial levels. He said skiers, skaters, and polar bears have been deprived of their full potential since the upper paleolithic era 15,000 years ago. “For most of homo sapiens’ history, temperatures have been a lot lower. It’s time we faced that”. Critics pointed out that he owned property in Texas, which would dramatically improve in value as the ice forced all Canadians to move south, and also that “about 4.56 billion people would starve to death”. Russians were reported to be trying to hack into the WMO to raise temperatures. No one could explain how the Sumerians would have known about the Global Thermostat, especially since they lived 3,500 km away (2,200 miles) from Geneva. But paleoclimate experts noted that the Sumerians had flourished during the Holocene Optimum, which was warmer than today, and that possibly the discovery of the ancient thermostat had been key to the development of human civilization. Over the last 30 years janitors had stored progressively larger vacuum cleaners leaning against the switch, resulting in the climbing world averages. A janitor had accidentally bumped it last week and was possibly responsible for the blizzards that struck Copenhagen and London this week. Training in Global Temperature Control has been added to his Duty Statement. (Jo Nova)
Copenhagen accord keeps Big Carbon in business The Copenhagen summit achieved its main aim, to maintain the carbon-trading system established by the Kyoto Protocol, says Christopher Booker
Photo: Casper Christoffersen/EPA
As fairy-tale snow gently descended on Copenhagen, the great global warming conference degenerated through pantomime, boredom, chaos and anger to its entirely predictable conclusion – a colossal pile of fudge with a very hard and nasty rock hidden at its centre. The "world summit" on climate change was never really going to be about saving the world from global warming at all. Even if the delegates had got all they wanted, it would no more have had any influence on emissions of CO2 – let alone on the world's climate – than the 1997 Kyoto Protocol before it. (Christopher Booker, TDT)
In 2004, it was less than $300 million. But in 2005, the trade really started to soar, ending the year with $10.8 billion-worth of transactions. A year later, in 2006, the
"carbon" market had grown to $31 billion. In 2007, again it more than doubled its turnover, to $64 billion. Last year, it did it again, reaching a colossal $126
billion. By 2020, some estimates suggest the annual value will reach $2 trillion.
Saved - the trillion-pound trade in carbon The city of Copenhagen 'is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport'. So said John Sauven of Greenpeace UK after the climate summit
broke up. And he is right.
Copenhagen Wrap-up: “I have seen the future and it stinks!” I am only just back last night from the Copenhagen UN climate change conference, yet am convinced of the accuracy of my headline – an obvious parody of Lincoln Steffens’ famous 1921 declaration about the Soviet Union, “I have seen the future and it works. ” In this case, however, the future concerns (supposedly democratic) “global governance” and not the workers’ state. For make no mistake about it, Kenneth Andersen is correct. COP15 was only peripherally about “climate change” and almost entirely about UN hegemony. I know. I saw it with my own eyes. And it wasn’t for the first time. This was my second international UN conference in less than one year – the first being the so-called Durban Review Conference in Geneva that purported to review the “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa” of 2001. The latter was as much about real racism as the former was about real climate change. It was also – as will be recalled – something of a farce, with the appearance Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dominating the event as he spewed vitriolic anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Nevertheless, the UN declared the conference a success. It will say the same of Copenhagen, no doubt. At least the presence of the various despots (Chavez, Mugabe, the re-upped A-jad, etc.) was not as damaging this time. It was more of sideshow, compared to the true objective of COP15 – the cementing of UN bureaucratic power under the guise of CO2 regulation. That was why the Climategate revelations were particularly poorly timed for the United Nations. Yes, they were largely ignored or dismissed at press conferences, but they were an overwhelming presence about which many were aware. ( Flemming Rose – the illustrious cultural editor of Denmark’s Jyllands Posten – told me in an interview that these revelations were covered much more extensively in the European press than in the US.) Furthermore, rejecting Climategate as an assault on “settled science” is, of course, risible because the concept of settled science itself is tenuous at best, verging on an oxymoron. As a commenter noted on this site, Einstein upended the settled science of Newton and now Einstein is in question. Yet we are supposed to believe without question some unknown mediocrity at the IPCC because of “majority rule” [sic]. Yes, it’s comical, but it’s quite worrisome, if you examine the true game afoot. Copenhagen was intended as an important advance toward world governance. On the face of it, it’s a beautiful idea. When I was younger, I was highly attracted to it. But my up-close-and-personal encounters with the UN have turned that attraction to near revulsion. It’s very clear that under global government – because of its size and natural inefficiencies – accountability is nigh on to impossible, transparency nothing but a distant dream, very often not even desired. In short, it’s 1984. And COP15 was just that – legions staring at world leaders on Jumbotrons as they blathered platitudes, while negotiations were conducted behind closed doors. (That’s bad enough in our Congress, but on a global scale…?) Well, now jet lag is setting in, so I’m going to shut down for the moment. But I will add that, perhaps fortuitously, my long voyage home (9 1/2 hours from Copenhagen to Atlanta, another 4 from Atlanta to LA) finally gave me ample undisturbed time to finish a book I had wanted to read for a long time – F. A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. How apropos it turned out to be. Hayek had a lot of this figured out in 1944. I recommend to all who haven’t taken the time. It’s just a sign of my own indoctrination that I had read Marx, Marcuse, Gramsci, etc., etc. first. (Roger L. Simon, PJM)
Copenhagen, a $30 billion dollar “success”? A funny thing happened this week. Humanity did a low-orbit bypass of a totalitarian world government, and pulled away, but only a few noticed the near miss. Christopher Monckton has already spoken about the draft treaty with it’s message of setting up a new form of global governance, but without any mention of voting. He spoke again yesterday to Alex Jones and pointed out that in a sense Copenhagen succeeded, despite what everyone is saying. After all, it was never really about saving the environment was it? It was about setting up a world government, and they got the odd $30 billion dollars. Not bad for a failure. “That is the one thing that they are definitely going to succeed in doing here and they will announce that as a victory in itself, and they will be right because that is the one and only single aim of this entire global warming conference, to establish the mechanism, the structure, and above all the funding for a world government.” the British politician, business consultant, policy adviser exclusively told the Alex Jones show yesterday” “They are going to take from the western countries the very large financial resources required to do that.” Monckton said, adding “They will disguise it by saying they are setting up a $100 billion fund for adaptation to climate change in third world countries, but actually, this money will almost all be gobbled up by the international bureaucracy.” “The first thing they will do, and the one thing I think they were always going to succeed in doing at this conference is to agree to establish what will be delicately called ‘the institutional framework’. Now that is a code word for world government.” Big-Government grows one law at a time When I talk to people about the insidious reach of big government one example I’ve been using lately is that of The Netherlands. In the name of “carbon-pollution” the government of the Netherlands wants to have a GPS in every car in order to charge people for their CO2 emissions. Each GPS will track where and when every car moves, radio the data in and an audit office will calculate CO2 emissions based on kilometers driven and the car model. They will also know exactly where people go and how long they stay there for, 24 hours a day. [Source] But there is a better more efficient system for taxing carbon emissions, and with the exquisite sensitivity of being directly connected to the exact amount emitted, Governments could just tax… fuel (and it’s not like they haven’t thought of that already). There is no need for major audits, amassed records, or an invasion of privacy. Plus it’s virtually impossible to cheat. In many ways the GPS solution would be worse for the environment. It would let a poorly maintained car get away with increased emissions without an extra penalty because they would be charged for the average emissions for that car model. Likewise there wouldn’t be as much incentive to pump up your tyres and tune that motor, because if your car was better than average, you don’t save much money, even though you save emissions. It’s too bizarre for words. Yet apparently other state departments (like Oregon) have considered the same thing. The amount of data that would “need” to be maintained and managed is boggling. And the security would be a headache and a half. (Just think how handy it would be to track all your competitors car movements, or your ex-wife’s, or your employees. Just think how many people would like to track you too? Hackers would come, and then they’d know where you went too…) Is there any limit to how large and powerful the reach of any government aims to be? (Jo Nova)
Earth to Gordon Brown: "Not 'til you pry the weapons from our cold dead hands, mate": Gordon Brown calls for new group to police global environment issues A new global body dedicated to environmental stewardship is needed to prevent a repeat of the deadlock which undermined the Copenhagen climate change summit, Gordon Brown
will say tomorrow.
The Telegraph seems to have mounted a temporary recovery from its bout of Copenhagen fever, if the Sunday edition is anything to go by. Most significant of all is a full page article by Booker and North raising questions about the man at the centre of a malodorous web of finance and power, Rajendra Pachauri. This is one of those topics that the establishment media have been desperately trying to bury, though it is, of course, bubbling away among those irresponsible bloggers. The Indian connection is just part of the story, but a very significant one for the British. It is serious enough, for example, that 1,700 steel workers in Redcar have had their jobs stolen and removed to Orissa, but do they know that it is facilitated by the system of carbon credits that their own Government has supported and funded with their taxes through the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) scam inflicted on them by the corrupt bureaucrats of the EU? The hapless and hopeless British Government has stood aside while the country it is supposed to represent is being stripped bare. The once prosperous fishing ports are empty, agriculture is tied up in bureaucratic knots and now the remaining heavy industry is being filched from under the eyes of the uncomprehending populace. Government-created poverty and dependence spread inexorably across the benighted land. Meanwhile, as Booker notes separately, Copenhagen accord keeps Big Carbon in business. Even Matthew d'Ancona, Stuntman Dave’s representative on Earth, weighs in with a piece entitled Copenhagen was the MPs' expenses scandal writ large. The political class, faced with resistance from hoi polloi to their projected impoverishment, have abandoned argument and now resort to puerile name-calling unworthy of the infants’ school playground. Further, the Telegraph’s letters column is dominated by a collection under the heading Climate science should not be reduced to scare stories On another tack, the Telegraph has also, at last, noticed the devastation left behind by that philistine political thug, John Prescott, on the streets of Britain’s towns. The main front page headline in the printed version is Thousands of gardens ‘stolen’ by developers. Your bending author now seldom goes further than the short walk (or, to be more accurate, electric vehicle ride) to the village pub. Over the last forty yards or so, three gardens have disappeared in the last two years, to be replaced by houses wedged in the gaps, so that each house in the row has no surrounding space at all. Many beautiful mature trees have been felled and the result is the worst kind of urban blight in what was once an attractive semi-rural area. Greenery and song birds are a thing of the past. New Labour has certainly left its mark here. Oh, and by the way, the bottom corner of the front page has an article by Chief Hysterian, Louise Gray, and friends, headed Climate summit ends in chaos and ‘toothless’ deal. Even that home of extreme Green propaganda, The Sunday Times, seems to be moderating. The Copenhagen farce is glad tidings for all is the headline for a piece by Dominic Lawson that exposes the inadequacy of our political leaders. Rogue columnist Rod Liddle has a piece noting the threatened retirement of Britain’s Health Tsar Zealot, SIR Liam Donaldson: Watch out, world – Dr Doomsayer may be visiting you soon. This master of the fake statistic has also caused great cultural devastation throughout Britain and much unnecessary panic among the credulous. “Stand not on the order of your going, but go at once.” On the whole not a bad day for reason. (Number Watch)
Much wailing and gnashing...
Divided climate talks end with compromise deal COPENHAGEN — The historic U.N. climate talks ended Saturday after a 31-hour negotiating marathon, with delegates accepting a U.S.-brokered compromise that gives billions
in climate aid to poor nations but does not require the world's major polluters to make deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions.
A Grudging Accord in Climate Talks COPENHAGEN — After two weeks of delays, theatrics and last-minute deal-making, the United Nations climate change talks concluded here early Saturday morning with a
grudging agreement by the participants to “take note” of a pact shaped by five major nations.
Fury As Climate Deal Recognised By UN Delegates at the Copenhagen conference have agreed not to block a deal brokered by the US president - despite criticism by campaigners and smaller nations. ( Sky News Online)
Copenhagen reaction: delegates speak The "first steps towards a low-carbon future" or a "toothless declaration"? Politicians and campaigners give their response to the deal (The Guardian)
Copenhagen: Key questions on climate deal Amid the chaos and confusion of frantic negotiations on the final night of the summit, what kind of deal actually emerged? (Press Association)
Copenhagen Accord: Questions and Answers How will Copenhagen work, how much will it cost, and why is there so much unhappiness with the outcome? (Louise Gray, TDT)
They seem upset: Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure Deal thrashed out at talks condemned as climate change scepticism in action (John Vidal, Allegra Stratton and Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian)
China stands accused of wrecking global deal - Nations stunned by tactics of world's largest polluter. Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor in Copenhagen, and Jonathan Owen in London report China "systematically wrecked" the Copenhagen climate summit because it feared being presented with a legally binding target to cut the country's soaring carbon
emissions, a senior official from an EU country, present during the negotiations, told The Independent on Sunday yesterday.
Copenhagen summit: China's quiet satisfaction at tough tactics and goalless draw The Chinese government expressed quiet satisfaction at the outcome of the Copenhagen talks despite European accusations that it had systematically wrecked the negotiating
process.
Failure in Copenhagen: Gunning Full Throttle into the Greenhouse What a disaster. The climate summit in Copenhagen has failed because of the hardball politicking of the United States, China and several other countries -- and because people just can't seem to fathom how catastrophic climate change will be. They probably won't have long to wait before things become a bit clearer. (Der Spiegel)
With tensions in the dipstick zone: Open Letter to Bill McKibben: Blaming Obama for Copenhagen Is Wrong December 19th, 2009
So, that's what it's supposed to be... POLEYS LYNCHED Copenhagen hopers aren’t coping:
The global warming debate is now officially perfect. (Tim Blair)
Johann Hari: The truths Copenhagen ignored The politicians have chosen low taxes and oil money today over survival tomorrow (The Independent)
Obama's Climate Compromise Leaves a Bitter Aftertaste It might have seemed safe to assume that the drama of the U.N. Climate Change summit in Copenhagen had finally ended when President Barack Obama emerged from a last-minute
bargaining session with leaders of major developing nations to announce a deal. Obama quickly left town, aides saying Air Force One had to rush to beat the major snowstorm
bearing down on Washington. Having agreed terms with the leaders of the U.S., China, India, Brazil and South Africa — the major carbon emitters of today and, even more
importantly, of tomorrow — the President would have seemed to have brought two weeks of often fruitless negotiations, including at least one all-nighter, to a successful
conclusion. Instead, Obama's announcement marked the beginning of the all-nighter that never ended.
Summit Leaves Key Questions Unresolved - U.N. Effort in Copenhagen Sets Stage for Further Haggling Over Emissions Caps, Funds for Poor Nations COPENHAGEN -- The global effort to combat climate change is stuck in essentially the same place after a massive United Nations summit that it was before the confab: with
major emitters deadlocked over how much each of them should have to do to curb the rising output of greenhouse gases.
<chuckle> Some developing nations slam climate accord COPENHAGEN - Several developing nations lined up on Saturday to reject a deal worked out by U.S. President Barack Obama and major emerging economies to help fight global
warming at the end of a U.N. summit.
CLIMATE CHANGE: "We're Not Finished Yet," Civil Society Warns COPENHAGEN, Dec 19 - The climate change summit proved to be a "spectacular failure even according to its own terms," but civil society had "some
successes," such as the inclusion of certain issues on the climate agenda, and making the voice of the South heard loud and clear.
Flimflam man is happy to try to stay aboard though: Don't undersell Copenhagen deal: Flannery Leading Australian environmental scientist Tim Flannery says he is happy with the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations. (Australian Broadcasting Corp.)
Wonder if Kevni paid him for this ? Rudd shines as other leaders fail: Flannery COPENHAGEN Climate Council chairman Tim Flannery says a draft climate accord reached by world leaders is ''good but not perfect'', and described Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's role at the summit as ''outstanding''. (SMH)
Kevin Rudd, talking of Copenhagen, has never said truer words by sheer accident: (Andrew Bolt)
<chuckle> 'Extreme views' of some nations cannot derail Copenhagen: Wong Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says Australia had hoped to achieve more from the Copenhagen conference, but must now move forward and implement the accord.
THERE were 45,000 people at the Copenhagen summit and more than 100 world leaders, but in the end it came down to an extraordinary personal showdown between the leaders of
the world's two superpowers and biggest greenhouse gas emitting countries, China and the US.
Message on climate emotive, but a fraud THE Copenhagen conference was rightly killed by greed, science fiction and a surfeit of hot air emitted by the 45,000 delegates, rent-seekers and assorted hangers-on, all
of whom attempted to defy common sense and cripple the global economy.
Parturient montes: nascetur ridiculus mus From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley in Copenhagen
Copenhagen climate conference: Britain 'could make biggest emissions cuts' Britain may leave Copenhagen committed to making the deepest cuts in its carbon emissions of any industrialised nation .
Climate conference ends in discord The Copenhagen climate conference ended on Saturday without unanimous agreement as the world’s biggest economies backed a limited accord that leaders said would form the basis for a future deal to tackle global warming. Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, acknowledged that the outcome was “not everything we hoped for” but described it as an “essential beginning” as he brought a close to two weeks of fractious negotiations in the Danish capital. Talks had continued through Friday night into Saturday morning in a bid to reach consensus on a tentative agreement struck between the US, China and other big emerging economies on cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and financing to help developing countries cope with climate change. But several developing countries, led by Venezuela and Bolivia, refused to endorse the deal, ensuring that the conference would end without an official agreement. Instead, all 193 countries agreed to “take note of the Copenhagen Accord” without committing to accept it. (Financial Times)
This fiasco will further alienate an angry public I hate to say I told you so, but I have predicted the failure of the Copenhagen summit to agree to binding commitments for over a year. The Copenhagen fiasco was not just foreseeable, it was inevitable. The inability of the international community to break the climate deadlock reflects the incompatible national interests and demands that divide the west and the rest. This is now a permanent feature in what is likely to become an indefinite moratorium on international climate law-making. In light of the Copenhagen non-agreement, there will be increased pressure by EU members states to water down unilateral emissions targets that are conditional on an international treaty. Just like Japan, it will be impossible for Europe or, indeed, the UK to continue with policies that are burdening national economies with huge costs and damaging their international competitiveness. Climate politics face a profound crisis. Revolts among eastern European countries, in Australia and even among Obama's Blue Dog Democrats are forcing law-makers to renounce support for unilateral climate policies. In the UK, the party-political consensus on climate change is unlikely to survive the general elections as both Labour and the Tories are confronted by a growing public backlash against green taxes and rising fuel bills. However, the biggest losers of the Copenhagen fiasco appear to be climate science and the scientific establishment who, with a very few distinguished exceptions, have promoted unmitigated climate alarm and hysteria. It confirms beyond doubt that most governments have lost trust in the advice given by climate alarmists and the IPCC. The Copenhagen accord symbolises the loss of political power by Europe whose climate policies have been rendered obsolete. (Benny Peiser, The Observer)
Rant from insane Greens Senator, Bob Brown: Copenhagen collapse shows the power of polluters over politicians HE collapse in Copenhagen shows the power of the polluters over the politicians.
Beyond Copenhagen: Dialogue, not diktat As it drifts from the present into the past, the Copenhagen climate change conference looks both better and worse. Worse, because a considered reading of the accord, which
was its only tangible output, reveals that it is not just inadequate but in fact utterly empty. Better, because of the novel manner in which this ultimate failure was
reached. As the sight of the daily chaos drops out of view, it becomes easier to appreciate that the rich world was forced to haggle with the bigger emerging economies on
more equal terms than ever before.
Not many people showed up to the small side room where a delegation of House Republicans had a news conference Friday afternoon. In general, the GOP team was there to
spread the word that the science of climate change is a hoax.
Vague Copenhagen climate deal could undermine Canadian industry: expert OTTAWA — The missing details from this week’s international climate change agreement could wind up hitting Canadian industries hard, said the chairman of a government
advisory panel on business and environmental issues.
New climate war looms after Copenhagen The stage is set for a new war over climate change in Australia after the Copenhagen summit yielded a controversial result and ended in chaos. (AAP)
Libs 'vindicated' on ETS, claims Abbott THE failure of world leaders to strike a legally binding deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions ''entirely vindicates'' the Opposition's decision to reject the Government's
emissions trading scheme, Tony Abbott claimed yesterday.
Post-summit forecast not looking good IT IS difficult to know which is in more trouble after the extraordinary last 24 hours of the Copenhagen climate conference - the environment or multilateralism. Probably
the former, but the latter is in bad - some would say irreparable - shape.
THE Copenhagen summit has ended in disappointment and division. World leaders have reached an agreement including a "target" of limiting future global warming to
two degrees Celsius.
Copenhagen climate summit: plan for EU to police countries' emissions - Gordon Brown is drawing up plans for the European Union to become a global warming "policeman", monitoring individual countries' compliance with carbon-cutting targets. The plan emerged from the chaotic Copenhagen conference on climate change, which ended in acrimony any mistrust between world leaders.
“Life in a box is better than no life at all,” playwright Tom Stoppard famously opined, through the personage of Rosencrantz. (Or was it Guildenstern?) That’s lucky
for us, because our energy, environmental and economic policies have certainly put us in a box – and there is no easy way out.
An early Xmas present: AGW loons return from Denmark as sore losers It seems that the Copenhagen summit is finally over. It ended with a vague, non-binding
declaration which almost coincides with the document I posted yesterday morning.
Because the document is so unimportant, I don't really think that you have to investigate which words have changed a bit.
Climate deal highlights U.N. flaws COPENHAGEN - A weak U.N. climate deal, agreed on Saturday after two weeks of talks pulled back from near collapse, underscored the vulnerability of a process depending on
consensus and may mark a diminishing U.N. role.
After Copenhagen: Time for Plan B - Statement by The Global Warming Policy Foundation LONDON, 20 December 2009 - It is now widely recognised that the misguided Copenhagen Conference was a complete failure. Those political leaders and policy makers who refuse to accept this reality are merely burying their heads in the sand and are forfeiting the trust of the public. "The Copenhagen fiasco was inevitable because the basic approach of current climate policy is fundamentally wrong. The deadlock provides policy makers with an opportunity to recognise that the failure was not accidental but systemic. There must therefore be no more futile conferences with this failed agenda," said Lord Lawson, the Chairman of the GWPF. Following the failure to agree any binding targets and deadlines at Copenhagen, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) welcomes this opportunity to abandon the UN's inherently flawed approach to climate change. Instead, governments would be well advised to adopt a new policy approach that shifts the focus of future negotiations to adaptation to global temperature change, whatever its direction, and to an agenda aimed at helping to increase the resilience of both advanced and poorer countries to such change. (GWPF)
Sharon Begley: Good Riddance to Copenhagen - Can we now try climate talks that actually have a chance of working? That sound you'll hear in 2010 is a can being kicked down the road. Again. In the wake of the failure of the international negotiations in Copenhagen to reach a legally
binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, you'll hear a lot of talk about how the world has two good chances in the new year to achieve what it failed to do at Copenhagen.
Don't believe it.
And you thought it was fractious down-under before Nohopenhagen:
There are few national leaders in the world who had more at stake in Copenhagen last week than Kevin Rudd. He and his government managed to manoeuvre themselves into
having the most to lose if things didn’t pan out – apart from the government of Denmark.
Rudd Government will try again for ETS tax THE Rudd Government will press ahead with its plan to put a price tag on carbon pollution even though the leaders of other nations refused to reach a legally binding agreement on reducing global warming in Copenhagen. (Sue Dunlevy, The Daily Telegraph)
Abbott still wants 'big ETS debate' with Rudd The Federal Opposition has renewed its call for a national debate on the Government's emissions trading scheme in light of the Copenhagen summit outcome. (Australian Broadcasting Corp.)
Rudd fails on climate change: Abbott The Copenhagen conference on climate change has been a "comprehensive failure" for the prime minister, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says. (AAP)
Copenhagen hands Kevin Rudd an emissions trading scheme dilemma THE Rudd government faces a dramatically more difficult task in selling its emissions trading scheme as a result of the weak result from the Copenhagen conference, which
has delayed critical decisions on national targets and international timelines.
Tony Abbott argues for climate change re-think by Kevin Rudd THE weaker-than-expected climate deal in Copenhagen means Kevin Rudd should go back to the drawing board with Australia's scheme to cut carbon emissions, Tony Abbott argued yesterday. (Courier-Mail)
Weak outcome a boost for Abbott Copenhagen's wishy-washy outcome is a boost for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and a setback for the Prime Minister, as they look to an election year in which climate
policy will be a core issue.
Labor's push for ETS discredited: Hunt Labor's argument for emissions trading has been discredited after world leaders failed to reach a binding climate deal at Copenhagen, the federal opposition says. (AAP)
Business calls for carbon plan rethink to cut greenhouse emissions BUSINESS groups have called for a rethink of the Rudd government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, after the Copenhagen climate change talks failed to set targets or
timetables to cut greenhouse gases.
Global Wealth Can Heal the Planet As the Copenhagen climate summit comes to close, it seems fair to say that rarely has a gathering of so many doing so little gotten so much attention. But Copenhagen does
have its uses. For starters, it reminds us that environmentalism continues to be a cover for uglier agendas.
After Copenhagen, It’s Still About Physics, Math, and Money Now that big climate confab in Copenhagen is ending, it’s time to refocus our attention on the issues that matter most when it comes to energy and carbon dioxide: physics, math, and money. [Read More] (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)
Debating Climate Change on Stossel: Economics to the Fore Last week, I appeared on the premier of John Stossel’s new show on Fox Business – a show titled (appropriately enough) Stossel. The topic was global warming and, happily, I had an hour (well, actually only about 43 minutes once you subtract out the commercials) to discuss the issue with John and members of the studio audience. If you missed the show, you can catch it here. My arguments on Stossel tracked those offered here at MasterResource last month. In short, I had no interest in engaging in a debate about the physical science of natural versus anthropogenic climate change. I was entirely interested in the implications for public policy if we accept the most recent IPCC report at face value. I think it’s quite interesting that even if one accepts the common definition of what constitutes “mainstream science” on this issue that one is still hard pressed to put forward a defensible mitigation scheme. Alas, my inbox suggests that a number of people who watched the show thought I was too willing to accept the contention that there has been warming and that man likely has a lot to do with it. Instead, a number of Fox viewers wanted me to launch World War III over the climate record. I didn’t for two reasons. First, I am not a scientist and am more comfortable leaving that debate to those engaged fully in that field. I know that this doesn’t stop a lot of people from holding forth regardless, but it stops me. Second, one can be correct about the climate history being short of what Al Gore or Michael Mann make it out to be without being correct about the contention that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions has little to do with the warming at present. For some reason, that’s an impossible point for many people to grasp. [Read more →] (Jerry Taylor, Master Resource)
Copenhagen: Meeting carbon reduction targets 'implausible' anti-tax group claims MEETING the carbon emission targets under discussion at Copenhagen could require Britain to shrink its economy by almost one-third, a lobby group claimed last night.
Editorial: Freeze global warming regulations Coming from Hollywood may explain Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's disconnect with reality. In the real world, saying so doesn't make it so. In Copenhagen this week, he made
the astonishing claim that the Golden State is evidence we need not choose between a clean environment and economic growth because: "We've proved that over and over
again in California."
Czech President Klaus: Global Warming Not Science, but a 'New Religion' As the Copenhagen Climate conference comes to a conclusion amidst riots by demonstrators and scrambling by policymakers, Czech President Vaclav Klaus has a message for the world: Global warming is a "new religion," not a science. (Gene Koprowski, FOXNews.com)
Reaffirmation of faith: Reaffirming climate science The conclusion that our planet is warming thanks to human activity must not be forgotten amid discussion of research ethics, say climatologists Hans von Storch and Myles Allen. (Nature) Really? One thing is clear, atmospheric temperature variation has no apparent relation to trivially increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels:
UAH MSU: temperatures for 2009 and ranking Looking at UAH daily temperatures, one can estimate the temperature anomaly for December 2009. {7, 12, 22, 26, 34, 34, 17, 2, -1, 2, 1, -3, 1, 3, 3, -3, 7, f, f, f, f, f, f, f, f, f, f, f, f, f, f}in units of 0.01 °C. Because the December 2008 UAH anomaly was just 0.18 °C, the December 2009 anomaly will be 0.28 °C plus minus 0.05 °C (standard deviation of my estimate). To summarize, the 2009 monthly UAH anomalies are {0.3, 0.35, 0.21, 0.09, 0.05, 0.01, 0.42, 0.23, 0.42, 0.29, 0.5, 0.28}and their average is 0.263 °C plus minus 0.005 °C which is statistically indistinguishable from 2006. The annual UAH anomalies from 1995 to 2009 are: » Don't Stop Reading » (The Reference Frame)
A lot of tap dancing going on: Global temperature slowdown — not an end to climate change - A decade of little rise in global temperatures In 1998 the world experienced the warmest year since records began. In the decade since, however, this high point has not been surpassed. Some have seized on this as evidence that global warming has stopped, or even that we have entered a period of ‘global cooling’. This is far from the truth and climate scientists have, in fact, recognised that a temporary slowdown in warming is possible even under increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions. (UK Met Office)
No, it’s not a parody. Kevin Rudd really is creating a force of carbon cops:
Excuse me, sir, but do you have a licence to breathe? (Andrew Bolt)
Who could ever confuse this lot with a "science group"? Science Group Urges Rep. Sensenbrenner to Stop Attacking Scientists Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) posted a question to the National Journal's Copenhagen Insider blog that repeated discredited information about emails stolen from the Clamtic Research Unit at East Anglia University. (sic) Rep. Sensenbrenner also repeated an attack on the scientists who had their emails stolen, accusing them of engaging in "scientific fascism." Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Strategy and Policy Director, attempted to set Rep. Sensenbrenner straight on the blog and urged him to stop his attacks on scientists, which he calls "wrong and dangerous." (Press release) BTW, they mean the University of East Anglia (UEA)'s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) (who knows what a " Clamtic Research Unit" might be - the study of nervous mollusks, perhaps?).
Comment On Tom Karl’s Interview In The Washington Post There is an interview of Tom Karl, Director of the National Climate Data Center titled Global warming: What the science tells us. His responses repeat his advocacy position that he has presented in other venues. However, I want to highlight what one of his answers which is quite a dishonest response. The question and answer are Silver Spring, Md.: Hello, “Many people imply that the CRU temperature data are the exclusive or principal basis for climate change predictions. Please identify some key studies that do not rely heavily on CRU data, and their conclusions. Thanks.” Thomas R. Karl: Hi there – thanks for the question. In fact, there are other global temperature datasets that are calculated by other institutions. For example, NASA calculates an independent global temperature dataset, as does NOAA (here at National Climatic Data Center). The analysis techniques for each of these datasets are all independent of each other and yet they all come to the same conclusion: that global warming is unequivocal….” This is a dishonest answer and Tom Karl knows it. The NASA data set and the CRU data sets are not independent of the NCDC data set. I have discussed the interdependence of the data sets in recent posts (e.g. see and see ). Tom Karl has even conveniently ignored the text from the CCSP 1.1. report [of which Tom Karl was the Chief Editor!]; i.e. In the report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences Final Report, Synthesis and Assessment Product 1.1” on page 32 it is written “The global surface air temperature data sets used in this report are to a large extent based on data readily exchanged internationally, e.g., through CLIMAT reports and the WMO publication Monthly Climatic Data for the World. Commercial and other considerations prevent a fuller exchange, though the United States may be better represented than many other areas. In this report, we present three global surface climate records, created from available data by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies [GISS], NOAA National Climatic Data Center [NCDC], and the cooperative project of the U.K. Hadley Centre and the Climate Research Unit [CRU]of the University of East Anglia (HadCRUT2v).” These three analyses are led by Tom Karl (NCDC), Jim Hansen (GISS) and Phil Jones (CRU). The differences between the three global surface temperatures that occur are a result of the analysis methodology as used by each of the three groups…… This is further explained on page 48 of the CCSP report where it is written with respect to the surface temperature data (as well as the other temperature data sets) that “The data sets are distinguished from one another by differences in the details of their construction.” On page 50 it is written “Currently, there are three main groups creating global analyses of surface temperature (see Table 3.1), differing in the choice of available data that are utilized as well as the manner in which these data are synthesized.” and “Since the three chosen data sets utilize many of the same raw observations, there is a degree of interdependence.” The chapter then states on page 51 that “While there are fundamental differences in the methodology used to create the surface data sets, the differing techniques with the same data produce almost the same results (Vose et al., 2005a). The small differences in deductions about climate change derived from the surface data sets are likely to be due mostly to differences in construction methodology and global averaging procedures.” and thus, to no surprise, it is concluded that “Examination of the three global surface temperature anomaly time series (TS) from 1958 to the present shown in Figure 3.1 reveals that the three time series have a very high level of agreement.” There are also other major unresolved issues with the surface data sets of NCDC, NASA and CRU which Tom Karl continues to ignore; e.g. see Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229 and Tom Karl has a serious conflict of interest, as I have documented in these posts He also keeps showing his lack of knowledge of climate science; e.g. see Tom Karl has clearly demonstrated that he is an advocate and is presenting erroneous information on the robustness of the surface temperature data record as a metric to assess multi-decadal surface temperature trends. We need a new Director of the National Climate Data Center who will provide policymakers with an accurate balanced monitoring of the climate system. (Climate Science)
There is another paper on the role of soot in the climate system in the Himalayas (thanks to Jos de Laat for alerting us to it!). The paper is S. Menon, D. Koch, G. Beig, S. Sahu, J. Fasullo, and D. Orlikowski, 2009:Black
carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 9, 26593-26625, 2009 The abstract reads “Recent thinning of glaciers over the Himalayas (sometimes referred to as the third polar region) have raised concern on future water supplies since these glaciers supply water to large river systems that support millions of people inhabiting the surrounding areas. Black carbon (BC) aerosols, released from incomplete combustion, have been increasingly implicated as causing large changes in the hydrology and radiative forcing over Asia and its deposition on snow is thought to increase snow melt. In India BC from biofuel combustion is highly prevalent and compared to other regions, BC aerosol amounts are high. Here, we quantify the impact of BC aerosols on snow cover and precipitation from 1990 to 2010 over the Indian subcontinental region using two different BC emission inventories. New estimates indicate that Indian BC from coal and biofuel are large and transport is expected to expand rapidly in coming years. We show that over the Himalayas, from 1990 to 2000, simulated snow/ice cover decreases by ~0.9% due to aerosols. The contribution of the enhanced Indian BC to this decline is ~30%, similar to that simulated for 2000 to 2010. Spatial patterns of modeled changes in snow cover and precipitation are similar to observations (from 1990 to 2000), and are mainly obtained with the newer BC estimates.” (Climate Science)
New Editorial “Land-Use/Land-Cover Change And Its Impacts” By Niyogi Et Al 2009 There is an editorial in a new issue of Boundary Layer Meteorology by three internationally well respected climate scientists that supports the need to include landscape change in the assessment of climate. The article concludes with the text “Based on the results from these articles we call for a more deliberate inclusion of LULCC and its impacts in future weather, climate, and climate change related studies.” The editorial is Dev Niyogi , Rezaul Mahmood and Jimmy O. Adegoke, 2009: Land-Use/Land-Cover Change and Its Impacts on Weather and Climate. Boundary Layer Meteorology. Volume 133, Number 3 / December, 2009. DOI 10.1007/s10546-009-9437-8 (Climate Science)
Professors say sea levels sensitive to warmth Two degrees may be all that distinguish a thriving coastal city from a deluged ghost town, according to a study led by University researchers that was the basis for an
article in Wednesday’s issue of Nature.
Sceptical climate researcher won't divulge key program A physicist whose work is often highlighted by climate-change sceptics is refusing to provide the software he used to other climate researchers attempting to replicate his
results.
Obviously not going to happen: The cost of our Copenhagen promise The Copenhagen agreement to work towards keeping the global temperature rise below two degrees centigrade means that the Rudd government’s ETS target for 2020 is too
weak.
According to Climate Camp organiser Emma McIntyre, this tactic was unsuccessful:
Her response:
No! NO! Not the MASS WALK THROUGH TOWN! UPDATE. Another swampy smackdown: (Tim Blair)
Shale gas – a fossil fuel with a future "Everybody knows that this is a game changer," says Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of the $16bn (£10bn) Chesapeake Energy Corporation, the largest independent producer of shale gas in the US. (TDT)
This may be the most misinformation in a single sentence that we have ever seen: Clear-Cutting the Truth About Trees THE Copenhagen climate-change summit meeting is behind us, and did not achieve what was hoped for. There was no lack of good intentions, but they generated conflicts rather than solutions, and the product was a weak agreement to disagree in the future. Forests were part of the discussion, and several things were understood: carbon dioxide is a potentially world-altering lethal pollutant, fossil fuels are the problem, biofuels are part of the solution. But exactly how to pare down the use of fossil fuels and switch to energy sources derived from plant material? That is the problem. (Bernd Heinrich, NYT)
India moves ahead with an ambitious nuclear program to combat global warming More evidence is emerging that the Nuclear Power Corp. of India (NPCIL) is planning to finance future nuclear construction through debt financing. Both local and international sources will be tapped. NPCIL plans to raise at least $6.5 billion from local sources, and another 3 billion euros from international lenders. Local funding will also include equity from NPCIL and at least three Indian partners. Three Billion is being raised locally to finance 4 locally designed 700 MW PHWRs. Another $3.5 billion is being sought to pay for 2 larger Russian PWRs to be built at Kudankulam. In addition equity financing for Indian Nuclear development is expected to come from Large Indian businesses, including the Oil Corporation of India, The National Aluminium Company, and NTCPL. (Energy Collective)
The bad news is that Senator Ben Nelson is not up for reelection until 2012. The good news is that today, December 19, 2009, is the day we got clarity on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid effort to steal medical care and call it “reform.” I hope that Ben enjoys his final two years in the Senate. OK, that’s not quite right. Since it was Ben Nelson of Nebraska that finally got Harry Reid his desperately needed 60th vote for socialized medicine, I hope 1) that the next two year are unpleasant for Sen. Nelson and 2) that he loses in 2012 by a landslide. I’m still not being entirely candid. Nelson is a pathetic pawn in this game. He’s history and I hope he has plans for a new day job. He’ll need ‘em. The really bad news is that the American people are just about to find that their medical care got a whole lot worse and a whole lot more expensive and cumbersome. Why? Because, as Senator Mitch McConnell put it, “This bill is a monstrosity. This is not renaming the post office. Make no mistake — this bill will reshape our nation and our lives.” And how. (Roger Kimball, PJM)
History or Travesty, Health Care Reform Becoming a Reality Whenever politicians start bandying about the word "historic" to describe something they've just done, grab your wallet and lock up the silver. Whenever politicians start bandying about the word “historic” to describe something they’ve just done, grab your wallet and lock up the silver. Chances are, the only thing “historic” they’ve accomplished is in coming up with a more unique and inefficient way to separate the taxpayer’s hard-earned coin from his person. (Rick Moran, PJM)
And they call US spin doctors? Part 4 of 6 - The consequences of misinformation: How the New York Times worked with an activist group to mislead the nation In 2002 a relatively unknown study about consumer perceptions of food safety was published (1). In it, three researchers discovered a startling point: Given the choice
between information delivered by experts and views offered by activists, consumers overwhelmingly sided with negative information, despite the credibility, or lack thereof,
of the source.
The public, therefore, is more easily swayed by emotional appeals and potentially misleading or incorrect information from non-scientific sources even when expressed simultaneously with scientific information. (TheGoodTheBadTheSpin)
Flu pandemic may change US flu approach forever WASHINGTON - The swine flu pandemic may have changed the U.S. approach to handling influenza forever, and for the better, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
Testing group data shows swine flu waning in US WASHINGTON - Results from flu tests show the pandemic of swine flu is definitely on the downswing in the United States, researchers at Quest Diagnostics said on Friday.
Video: Spending is the Real Problem The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell and the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation, have produced videos explaining why Keynesian economics is wrong, presenting the evidence that big government hurts economic growth, explaining how big government hurts economic growth, making the case against the Value Added Tax, and detailing the real fiscal cost of Obamacare. Now Mitchell is back demonstrating that wile Deficits are Bad, but the Real Problem is Spending. Watch:
High Court Rejects Challenge to NRA’s Signature Law In 2005, the National Rifle Association of America enacted a law that probably saved the American gun-making industry from bankruptcy. And just this last week, the Supreme
Court rejected a constitutional challenge to this landmark legislation, ensuring this law stays on the books to preserve America’s culture of lawful firearm ownership.
Blacks Have Less 'Bad Fat' Than Whites - It's a puzzle, because less visceral fat should mean less obesity-linked disease, experts say FRIDAY, Dec. 18 -- Blacks tend to carry around less of a particularly unhealthy type of abdominal fat than whites, even though they suffer more from obesity-linked
illness, researchers report.
Preschoolers in Child Care Centers Not Active Enough (Dec. 18, 2009) — Many young children in child care centers are not getting as much active playtime as they should, according to new research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (ScienceDaily)
Santa's a Health Menace? Media Everywhere Are Falling for It—But the Study Was Meant as a Joke Ashley Merryman Courtesy of Brendan Halyday
Fake sugar may alter how the body handles real sugar NEW YORK - Combining artificial sweeteners with the real thing boosts the stomach's secretion of a hormone that makes people feel full and helps control blood sugar, new
research shows.
Newspapers Endangered…By the Telegraph With the advent of new technology, newspapers are being threatened. Many are expected to go out of business, and the rest will have to change substantially. Many observers fear that journalism will become too driven by speed, and that judgment and deliberation will be lost. Others said that news reporting would be devalued and only those providing analysis and opinion would survive. Worst of all, worries that the new technology will lead to a monopoly over information. A description of the dire situation faced by newspapers today as they face the Internet? No. These are the concerns expressed in the 1840s as the telegraph transformed the news business. This week’s Economist tells the story of how Samuel Morse’s invention was thought to signal the death knell for newspapers, and to thoughtful journalism. Continue reading… (The Foundry)
This is seriously bad: WHO sponsors event at Copenhagen conference to highlight climate change effect on public health The WHO held a "side event" on Thursday at the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen to highlight climate change's effect on public health, CNN reports.
"We're reminding people that climate change is not just an environmental issue or an economic issue - it's a health issue that's actually about people's survival,"
Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, a scientist in the WHO's Public Health and Environment department, said of the event.
North hides nefarious aims under green cloak ENVIRONMENTAL groups from rich countries have for years waged a campaign against those in poor countries who want to harness their natural resources for economic growth.
Their efforts threaten to do lasting harm to the aspirations of millions of poor people in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and must be resisted at all times and in all
places.
More from the virtual world... Exposure to common pesticides may hinder the growth and survival of ESA-listed salmon Biologists determined that short-term, seasonal exposure to pesticides in rivers and basins may limit the growth and size of wild salmon populations. In addition to the
widespread deterioration of salmon habitats, these findings suggest that exposure to commonly used pesticides may further inhibit the recovery of threatened or endangered
populations.
Can nuclear solve the global water crisis? - If a person doesn't drink clean water they will be dead in less than three days. That's why water is the most valuable commodity there is. As the global population expands, demand for water for agriculture and personal use will increase dramatically, but there could be a solution that will produce clean
drinking water and help reduce carbon emissions as well. That process is nuclear desalination.
Saving the Reef from alarmists Finally more scientists dare challenge the shameless apocalypse mongering over the Reef, comparing predictions to performance:
And here’s the scientist with the greatest credibility problem of all on that score:
And even Hoegh-Guldberg’s claim that the shells of shell-fish would have trouble forming has now been debunked. Accountability time. (Andrew Bolt)
Ebb and flow of climate coverage COPENHAGEN has had a language all its own this past fortnight as delegates battled the minutiae of draft agreements. The obscure acronyms of the summit went over the heads
of most of us, but it set us thinking about the way some words related to the environment and green issues are now commonplace.
Western States Take Aim At Antler Gatherers SALMON, Idaho - Overzealous antler gatherers face a new flurry of regulation by U.S. Western states trying to stop harassment of deer and elk during critical, food-scarce
months.
The Dirt on Climate Change - Could soil engineered specifically to maximize carbon storage dampen some effects of climate change? Very possibly. Conflicts tend to scatter people, and ideas, in unexpected ways. After the American Civil War, a flood of so-called Confederados fled the devastated South and set up farms
in the Brazilian Amazon. They planted rice and sugar cane and tobacco, and they prospered. But the lands they settled — primarily high bluffs along rivers — weren't any
more pristine than Alabama or the Carolinas had been. As they plowed, the settlers unearthed vast quantities of potsherds that showed the land had been inhabited before. And
the ceramics weren't the only sign of previous human cultivation: The deep black earth itself, very different from the pale, nutrient-poor soils of much of the Amazon,
quickly revealed that people had been indispensable in creating its fertility.
December 18, 2009
You have to give them points for trying: Battle for climate data approaches tipping point IGNORE the unwarranted claims that hacked emails from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK expose human-made climate change as a conspiracy. Away from those headlines, an equally intense battle is taking place over access to the data showing global warming is real. It reached a peak earlier this year, when the UEA's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) turned down freedom of information (FOI) requests for its temperature records. Last week, the UK's Met Office attempted to quell the growing anger at its lack of openness by "releasing" data from 1700 weather stations around the world. The move was a token gesture. The Met Office has admitted to New Scientist that those figures were already publicly available through the World Meteorological Organization. Much data remains under lock and key. It is tied up in confidentiality agreements with the governments that provided it. The Met Office and the UK government say they are now seeking permission to publish it. What they have not yet publicly revealed is that under a confidentiality agreement between the Met Office and the UK's Natural Environment Research Council, a portion of the UK's own temperature measurements is only made available to "bona fide academic researchers working on agreed NERC-endorsed scientific programmes". Why? So that the data can be sold privately. "We have to offset our costs for the benefit of the taxpayer, so we balance that against freedom of access," says David Britton, a spokesman for the Met Office. (Fred Pearce, New Scientist)
Climategate: This time Al Gore lied Al Gore’s claim last week that the Climategate emails were insignificant relied on two main defences. Both are so flagrantly wrong that it’s not enough to say Gore is simply mistaken. No, Al Gore is a liar. Last week we showed that the first of his Climategate defences was so preposterously wrong that it was doubtful he had even read the leaked emails he tried to dismiss. You see, five times in two interviews he dismissed the emails as dated documents that were at least 10 years old:
In fact, most of the controversial emails, as I showed, were from just the past two years - and the most recent from just last month - November 12, to be precise. So Gore was so wrong on the first count that it was difficult to think of any way an honest man could have made such a mistake. Five times. But now Steve McIntyre has exploded the second argument Gore made. And now all doubt in my mind is gone. Gore must have simply lied. Gore’s second argument was that these emails which seemingly showed Climategate scientists trying to silence or sack sceptical scientists were taken out of context, since the two sceptical papers they referred to were in fact published, after all. Here is the relevant passage in his interview with Slate:
That is actually false. But before I go to McIntyre’s evidence on this, first note Gore’s rhetorical trick - or deceit. His trick is to ignore the mountain of emails that clearly suggest a collusion against sceptics, and the hiding of data, and to suggest instead that the allegations boil down to just a single email about a single instance of two Climategate scientists allegedly blocking two papers. Here are just some of the Climategate emails that Gore ignored, which all seem evidence of the very collusion to hide data or censor sceptics that he denies. They include ones like this (from 2005): Continue reading 'Climategate: This time Al Gore lied' (Andrew Bolt)
Russians Accuse Met Office of Cherry-Picking Weather Station Data THE Met Office was last night facing accusations it cherry-picked climate change figures in a bid to increase evidence of global warming. UK climatologists “probably tampered with Russian-climate data” to produce a report submitted to world leaders at this week’s Copenhagen summit, it is claimed. The Met Office’s study, which says the first decade of this century has been the warmest on record for 160 years, is being used to trumpet claims that man is causing global warming. But experts at the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis say the British dossier used statistics from weather stations that fit its theory of global warming, while ignoring those that do not. They accuse the Met Office’s Hadley Centre of relying on just 25 per cent of Russia’s weather stations and over-estimating warming in the country by more than half a degree Celsius. Daily Express: CLIMATE CHANGE ‘LIES’ BY BRITAIN (CRN)
Russians now saying what I have said for years This digest of Russian media carries a story that the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data. IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations. My report “USSR High Magnitude Climate Warming Anomalies 1901-1996″ – shows example after example of what the Russians are talking about. Climategate is indeed changing our world.
'CRU cherrypicked Russian climate data', says Russian - Newly released info probed as Climategate, um, snowballs A prominent Russian climate sceptic and free-market economist says that the British HadCRUT global temperature database - much of which has now been released to the public following the "climategate" email scandal - has been manipulated to show greater warming in Russia than is actually the case. Andrei Illarionov, a former economic adviser to then-Russian President Putin, is head of his own thinktank in Moscow, the Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA). He is also a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian American thinktank. He has always been a climate sceptic, having vigorously opposed Russia's signing up to the Kyoto protocols. On Tuesday, Illarionov released the following report (pdf in Russian), comparing the newly-released HadCRUT data to records from the Russian meteorological service, which supplied the parts of HadCRUT covering Russia. (Lewis Page, The Register)
D’Aleo: … And Just Like That, the Warming’s Gone (PJM Exclusive) The Russian paint-by-numbers data. The CRU data matching NOAA and NASA. What's left? As James Delingpole, in the Telegraph, noted Wednesday:
Climategate: Faster and Faster, the Dominos Fall With the revelation about the cherrypicked Russian stations (plus six other freshly, independently discovered problems), the real story of how we got here just took a shape. The Climategate files were made public just a month ago, and the email messages that were revealed have already had real impact. The emails show us scientists being petty and political, even corrupt. Suppressing dissenting science and perhaps even violating the law to prevent data from being shared with the rest of the world. They show us people with failings, egos against egos. But the emails themselves aren’t enough to call the overall science of CO2-driven, human-caused climate change into question. The Climategate emails, however, make up only five percent of the Climategate files. The other 95 percent, the programs and data and documents, are where the real story is hiding. That story has begun to come out, in several independent analyses of the data we have, using hints from the emails and from other files and raw data that is available from other sources. (Charlie Martin, PJM)
Fielding threatens IPCC chief with the police Family First Senator Steve Fielding and Lord Monckton demand answers from Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - and not just over his use of dodgy data:
Meanwhile, Monckton is barred from the conference and knocked out by Danish police. (Andrew Bolt)
In this country, even a global warming denialist with a carbon fetish and bad intentions has the right to see the inner workings of government.
Dopenhagen update III: Copenhagen summit battles to save climate deal - Delegates at the climate summit are battling to prevent the talks ending without reaching a final deal. Earlier, a US-led group of five nations - including China - tabled a last-minute proposal that President Barack Obama called a "meaningful agreement". However, it was rejected by a few developing nations who felt it failed to deliver the actions needed to halt dangerous climate change. But the majority of nations are urging the Danish hosts to adopt the deal. To be accepted as an official UN agreement, the deal needs to be endorsed by all 193 nations at the talks. (BBC) Obama brokers a climate deal, doesn't satisfy all - COPENHAGEN — Two years of laborious negotiations on a climate agreement ended with a political deal brokered by President Barack Obama with China and other emerging powers but denounced by poor countries because it was nonbinding and set no overall target for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. But a final session of climate conference delegates that lasted through the night cast doubt early Saturday on whether the president of the conference, Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, could declare the Copenhagen Accord approved. (AP) Climate deal meets furious reception - COPENHAGEN — Fury erupted Saturday at a gruelling climate summit as poor nations ripped into a deal agreed by a core group of world leaders which even its supporters admitted would not stem global warming. (AFP) Accord? Ambitious title, anyway: FACTBOX: Main points of the Copenhagen Accord - COPENHAGEN - U.S. President Barack Obama reached a climate agreement on Friday with India, South Africa, China and Brazil. The deal outlined fell far short of the ambitions for the Copenhagen summit. Here are key points from the agreement, which is titled "Copenhagen Accord." (Reuters) The cranks are cranky: Copenhagen: Obama Announces Climate Deal, UNFCCC Crumbles? - In a late night press
conference at the close of the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, President Obama declared that a "meaningful deal" had been reached with major
emitting nations moments before boarding Air Force One and returning to the United States. While the final structure of "the Copenhagen Accord" is still in
question, the content and reverberations of President Obama's speech today leave little doubt that the UNFCCC process, for all intents and purposes, is dead. Whether it
continues to shamble on like a zombie through sheer force of inertia is yet to be determined... At ’Hagen , greens’ love lost for their poster boy - COPENHAGEN: US President Barack Obama’s hesitant appearance in Copenhagen drew dismay on Friday from environmentalists , conceding that the leader who once embodied their dreams is hamstrung politically. (Economic Times) U.S.-led climate deal under threat in Copenhagen - COPENHAGEN - U.N. climate talks fell into crisis on Saturday after some developing nations angrily rejected a plan worked out by U.S. President Barack Obama and leaders of other major economies for fighting global warming. (Reuters) India, US accept 'Copenhagen Accord'; EU, others still unsure - After two-weeks of almost never-ending disagreements, the climate change conference in Copenhagen has produced a political accord that was weak and vague, devoid of the most basic targets, and, most importantly, unsure of being accepted by everyone. (Indian Express) Deal and No Deal: the Copenhagen Uncertainty Principle - What
in Hell on Earth Just Happened - By the time the world learned of President Obama's announcement about a "meaningful" agreement to close these climate talks,
called the "Copenhagen Accord," Santa-in-chief was already on his Air Force One sleigh. And not a moment too soon. Poor countries reject US-BASIC deal on climate change - Copenhagen, Dec 19 A US-brokered deal with four emerging economies, including India, on climate change that places no legally-binding emission cuts on developed nations ran into rough weather today with a majority of poor countries rejecting it, saying that it was one-sided. (PTI) Americans asked little of Obama, and got little in return - Instead of the transformational leader whose intellect and charm could change the course of history, Barack Obama's anti-climactic visit to Denmark has shown him to be a bit of a wet firecracker. (Globe and Mail) Copenhagen's Lesson in Limits - And we don't mean carbon limits. - Whatever
led President Obama to believe that his personal intercession at the climate-change summit would achieve something major, his very presence in Copenhagen made "a
significant breakthrough" a political imperative, no matter how flimsy. And that's exactly what a senior Administration official called a last-ditch deal—details to
come—in a media leak as we went to press last evening and the conference headed into overtime. Marathon turns into merely ‘a first step’ - After two years of excruciatingly detailed negotiations and two weeks of increasingly frenetic haggling, the ”Copenhagen
accord” agreed by major economies on Friday night is just 2½-pages long.
Dopenhagen, update II: Copenhagen Climate Conference Ends With Whimper, No Legally Binding Pact, No Commitment to Pursue One in 2010 - President Barack Obama called it a "meaningful" beginning to a new global consensus toward limiting green house gas emissions, but acknowledged climate change talks failed to produce a "legally binding" pact and doing so any time soon would be "very hard." (FNC) Analysis: Obama the pragmatist gets what he can - COPENHAGEN — The world is coming to know President Barack Obama, the pragmatist whose stand at a messy global warming summit underscored the way he leads: Let's get done what we can, imperfect as it is. (Associated Press) Obama says 'unprecedented' deal reached on climate - COPENHAGEN — President Barack Obama declared Friday a "meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough" had been reached among the U.S., China and three other countries on a global effort to curb climate change but said much work was still be needed to reach a legally binding treaty. (Associated Press) CLIMATE-COPENHAGEN (INSTANT VIEW): INSTANT VIEW-Reaction to Copenhagen climate deal - COPENHAGEN, Dec 18 - U.S. President Barack Obama reached a climate agreement on Friday with India, South Africa, China and Brazil, a U.S. official said. The deal outlined fell far short of the ambitions for the Copenhagen summit. Here are reactions: (Reuters) Copenhagen Climate Conference Collapses - Ronald Bailey's fifth and final dispatch from the Copenhagen climate conference - World leaders are abandoning the Bella Center like rats off a sinking ship after declaring that a deal has been reached at the Copenhagen climate change conference. Two years ago at the Bali climate conference, it was agreed that the signatories to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol would finalize a binding global treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the Copenhagen meeting. That goal was put aside even before the meeting here got started. In turn, the Copenhagen conference was supposed to resolve major issues like the mid-term reduction commitments by developed countries, how to monitor those commitments, and how to fund adaptation and mitigation in poor countries. Now those goals have been put off to the indefinite future. (Ronald Bailey, Reason) Nations split over Copenhagen ‘deal’ - Some world leaders at the Copenhagen talks on climate change declared on Friday night that they had reached a “meaningful agreement” but admitted it fell well short of their ambitions for the first truly global treaty on cutting greenhouse gases. (Financial Times) Copenhagen Accord -- Full Draft Text - The following is text extracted from a draft of an Accord among Leaders at Copenhagen. (IBT)
Dopenhagen update: Climate Talks in Copenhagen Heading Into Overtime - President Obama remains huddled with other world leaders in the second floor of the Bella Center where talks are being held. On the main floor, it is a scene of high drama and low expectations, with palpable confusion and frustration among negotiators. (Greenwire) New climate draft drops 2010 deadline for treaty - COPENHAGEN — A new draft climate agreement being considered by world leaders at the U.N. summit in Copenhagen drops a previous 2010 deadline for achieving a legally binding treaty to fight global warming. The latest draft obtained by The Associated Press doesn't have a deadline. Like previous drafts it refers to "deep cuts" in global emissions of greenhouse gases but does not give exact figures. (Associated Press) Copenhagen heading for meltdown as stalemate continues over emission cuts - UN fails in last-ditch efforts to get world leaders to commit to a maximum 2C rise as draft texts get weaker (The Guardian) Obama urges climate action, offers no new proposals - COPENHAGEN - U.S. President Barack Obama urged world leaders on Friday to "act together" on an accord to fight climate change, but he did not offer new U.S. commitments to cut emissions that some see as crucial to a deal. (Reuters) House Republicans warn Obama on climate steps - COPENHAGEN - As President Barack Obama labored behind closed doors to break a deadlock over efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Republicans from the U.S. Congress were outside those meetings urging him not to bother. (Reuters) In Copenhagen, greens' love lost for Obama - COPENHAGEN — US President Barack Obama's hesitant appearance in Copenhagen drew dismay Friday from environmentalists, conceding that the leader who once embodied their dreams is hamstrung politically. (AFP) Barack Obama's speech disappoints and fuels frustration at Copenhagen - US president offers no further commitment on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries (The Guardian) Leaders cut safeguards to salvage Copenhagen climate deal - Key safeguards on climate change were sacrificed today in a desperate attempt by world leaders to achieve a compromise at the Copenhagen summit. (The Times) Draft of Copenhagen deal has broad targets, sparse details - Working version of climate change deal calls for 50 per cent cut in 1990 emissions by 2050, but key details will have to be left to later negotiations (Globe and Mail) From dinner to desperation: The 24-hour race for a deal in Copenhagen - The Copenhagen climate change summit had been meticulously planned to produce a streamlined agreement. Instead, it turned into an epic struggle over the shape of a future world economic order (The Guardian) Gordon Brown hints at 'plan B' if Copenhagen talks remain unresolved - Officials say the UK prime minister has prepared a back-up up plan involving talks between a smaller group of nations (The Guardian) Copenhagen climate summit: the talks were another missed opportunity - The Copenhagen climate change conference has been a cause of increasing distress and disappointment, says Helen Baxendale. (Daily Telegraph) Diplomatic frenzy at final day of UN climate talks - COPENHAGEN — A diplomatic frenzy enveloped the final scheduled day of the U.N. climate conference Friday, with President Barack Obama meeting with China's premier as world leaders pressed to salvage a global warming accord amid deep divisions between rich and poor nations. (Associated Press) Obama snubbed by Chinese premier at meeting - COPENHAGEN: President Barack Obama’s first closed-door meeting with world leaders in Copenhagen to forge an agreement to slow climate change had a notable absentee: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. On the last scheduled day of negotiations for a global accord, tensions between the US and China are on the rise. The world’s two largest greenhouse-gas emitters came to an impasse over finance for developing countries, pollution-reduction goals and verification of emissions cuts. (Bloomberg) China 'will honour commitments' regardless of Copenhagen outcome - Wen Jiabao says China will commit and even exceed target in passionate plea for other countries to live up to promises (The Guardian) Copenhagen's Legacy for Investors? Wait And See - Conferences on environmental policy are usually pretty dry with more talk of pacts and policy than cinematic global calamity. The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen did not buck the trend – it was hardly the stuff of blockbusters, but for investors ready to move early, it did open the door to some potentially lucrative opportunities. Even without a landmark agreement on climate change, investment sectors with a stake in the environment could see renewed interest in the wake of the conference. (Smart Money)
Today's psychobabble: Global Warming a Tough Sell for the Human Psyche NEW YORK -- The Copenhagen talks on climate change were convened with a sense of urgency that many ordinary folks don't share. Why is that? One big reason: It's hard for
people to get excited about a threat that seems far away in space and time, psychologists say.
?!! More Wisdom on Activist Climate Science In the FT today Tom de Castella has a worthwhile piece on the lessons that the climate science community should draw from the aftermath of the CRU email hack/leak. Unfortunately, from my vantage point the community is far from learning these lessons. Here is how de Castella ends his piece:
(Roger Pielke Jr)
Horner & Horner Fight Global Warming Alarmism
The Paper that the Australian Government Didn't Want Published Clive
Spash, whose adventures with CSIRO in Australia have been discussed here a few times (here,
here and here)
has posted on his website a link to "the paper" that caused all the "fuss."
The paper focuses on "emissions trading schemes" (ETS) that are the focus of international and many domestic efforts to reign in growing carbon dioxide (and other
greenhouse gas) emissions. Spash includes the following footnote at the outset: This paper has no association with the author's former employer the CSIRO. No such affiliation should be associated with the author in regards to this paper or its citation. Posted on RePEc with permission of the journal editors of New Political Economy. Please cite as: Spash, Clive L. (2010) "The Brave New World of Carbon Trading" New Political Economy vol.15 no.2 forthcoming.Here are a few excerpts from the paper's conclusions (direct link to PDF): While carbon trading and offset schemes seem set to spread, they so far appear ineffective in terms of actually reducing GHGs. Despite this apparent failure, ETS remain politically popular amongst the industrialised polluters. The public appearance is that action is being undertaken. The reality is that GHGs are increasing and society is avoiding the need for substantive proposals to address the problem of behavioural and structural change.The Australian government is pursuing a proposed ETS to reduce its emissions by as much as 25% by 2020. In my own research (PDF) I have shown that the ETS (or any other set of policies) cannot achieve the ambitious emissions reduction targets set by the Australian government. One can understand the political sensitivity of a researcher at a government agency saying the same. More from Spash's conclusion: Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the ETS debate is the way in which an economic model bearing little relationship to political reality is being used to justify the creation of complicated new financial instruments and a major new commodity market. In 2008 the financial sector was in a global crisis having manipulated bad debts and mismanaged its own finances to the point of requiring international banks to seek government bailouts. Yet ETS proposals place a new multi-billion dollar market in the hands of the same people and organisations. Recent experience illustrates how market players continually seek new ways to profit from adapting institutional rules, and regulators struggle to keep-up.Strong stuff. One thing is certain: In trying to suppress Spash's work the Australian government guaranteed that it would receive a much wider reading that it would have otherwise. (Roger Pielke Jr)
The global-warming economics coming out of Washington doesn’t match the global-warming economics of Copenhagen. For instance, according to Senator John Kerry (D-MA) cutting CO2 creates jobs and stimulates the economy. At least that’s what the press release describing his cap-and-tax legislation claims. But in Copenhagen this view of economics gets turned on its head. In Copenhagen Senator Kerry talks about the need to pay other countries to adopt the CO2-limiting regulations that supposedly create jobs and stimulate an economy. If the mandates, regulations, and energy taxes needed for carbon caps are so great for the economy, why do we need to promise hundreds of billions of dollars to other countries to get them to adopt the same? Continue reading… (The Foundry)
China holds the world to ransom - Beijing accused of standing in the way of climate change treaty at Copenhagen as US throws down the gauntlet by backing $100bn fund to help poorest countries China was under intense diplomatic pressure last night to abandon key demands which risk scuppering an international treaty on climate change in Copenhagen.
This is no way to run a planet The leaders in Copenhagen will reach some agreement. Politically, they have to As world leaders arrive in Copenhagen, luggage filled with deficit-financed public funds to facilitate the do-or-the-planet-dies climate deal that is the object of this weekend’s last-minute, round-the-clock deliberations, the question arises: Is this any way to run a planet? “Deliberation” is not the right word, by the way. Nothing done by 200 negotiators at three o’clock in the morning on an artificial deadline will be deliberate. Yet deliberate is exactly what’s needed when contemplating large-scale changes in how the world — the world, the whole world — does business. Click here to read more... (William Watson, Financial Post)
Following the standard CoP script: Leaders to agree to climate change deal - but it will fall short of UN minimum A global deal to address climate change is likely to be agreed today but the commitments it contains on cutting greenhouse gases will fall short of the minimum target set
by the UN’s science body.
It is not China’s style to let the green inspectors rummage around For nations of a nervous disposition, there is an ocean of difference between “transparency” and “scrutiny”: a commitment to the first is a sop, a commitment to
the second is a surrender.
Copenhagen circus ending with a lame act A last-minute deal at Copenhagen is proposed that seems no deal at all:
That’s right. Hot air, no fixed targets, promises of a vast transfer of wealth from the West and everyone flies back home thinking they’ve been warriors for mankind. If the report is true, it’s almost as much as a sceptic could hope for. (Andrew Bolt)
Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Go-It-Alone Emissions Cuts The headline from Gallup is that developed nations should cut their emissions and that is indeed borne out by their numbers, but there are some other figures that need to be highlighted and a point or two to be made. Consider this table: The big take-away for U.S. politicians is that — quite clearly and resoundingly — Americans overwhelmingly favor a plan that includes all nations. In fact, 75-10 is a good ol’ fashioned route for the “everyone” side over the “just us” side. That means any plan that plan that starts with U.S. pain as a means of demonstrating “leadership” on the issue is not going to be well-received. But, as is often the case, how is as important as whether to cut emissions. The question here doesn’t mention how we do that, though our suspicion is that a question posing several alternatives would show a strong preference for innovation, rather than command-and-control policies such as cap and trade or a hefty carbon tax. (The Chilling Effect)
Fox News Poll: Majority of Americans Don't See Global Warming As Crisis While a majority of Americans believe global warming is happening, far fewer see it as a crisis. (Dana Blanton, FOXNews.com)
Live at Copenhagen: How to Make a Bad Climate Deal Worse The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site. It is hard to do any more wrong by the American people than cap and trade. Whether done by domestic legislation or international treaty, significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions (like the 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 in the House Waxman Markey bill which the Obama administration had hoped to match at Copenhagen or get done at a subsequent UN global warming treaty conference) would raise gasoline prices by 58 percent by 2035, electric rates by 90 percent, impose nearly $3,000 in total annual costs on a household of 4, and destroy over one million jobs. Little wonder such measures are stalled in the Senate and are highly unlikely to be done by the Friday end of the climate conference (where in any event they would fail to get the required two thirds vote for Senate ratification). But Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is certainly trying to make a bad deal worse by pledging America’s support for a massive foreign aid package in the name of helping developing nations address global warming. Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Cap and Trade in Practice - How to get paid for laying off workers. The world's carboncrats are beavering away this week on a vast new global cap-and-trade scheme that President Obama wants the U.S. to join. But before we do, maybe Americans should understand how this already works in practice. Union workers, take note. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 required signatories to reduce their carbon emissions, and the European Union in 2005 launched its own cap-and-trade system. The program sets a limit on carbon emissions, and companies are issued free carbon allowances that they can buy or sell based on their emissions needs. Fast forward to this month's news that Corus, Europe's second-largest steel producer, is shuttering a giant U.K. steelmaking plant at Redcar, cutting 1,700 jobs. Corus blames the recession that has cut steel demand and says the British government hasn't done enough to help it. Whatever the truth of that, there's little doubt that cap and trade made the closure much easier. The decline in steel production means European steelmakers have surplus carbon allowances. According to Carbon Market Data, a European research firm, in 2008 Corus had the second largest surplus of EU carbon allowances—7.5 million. The EU is looking for ways to drive today's depressed allowance price of about $21 apiece back up to former highs of about $50, so Corus has the potential for a $375 million windfall. By closing Redcar's annual capacity of three million tons of steel, Corus will produce six million fewer tons of CO2. That means more carbon allowances, which could translate into about $300 million a year if credits hit $50. Corus is essentially being paid to lay off British workers. Corus will also profit if it moves the production to India. As part of Kyoto, the United Nations created the Clean Development Mechanism to encourage Western companies to invest in developing-world factories. Participants are financially rewarded based on the amount of carbon they "save" with more efficient plants. (WSJ)
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner: Don't be fooled in Copenhagen If you gained 50 pounds in 2009, would it make sense to pledge to gain only 30 pounds more in 2010? That's essentially what China and India have promised at the current
climate talks in Copenhagen.
Inhofe in Copenhagen: "It Has Failed ... It's Déjà Vu All Over Again." Inhofe Press Conference In Copenhagen
Why Obama's carbon plans won't work The $US100 billion a year funding offer that the Obama administration tossed on the table at Copenhagen may be a big number, but what does it actually mean?
Poor nations push for 'new world order' in Copenhagen An attempt by developing and emerging countries to create "a new world order" in which Western industrialised nations are no longer dominant is threatening to scupper an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen, warned EU delegates. EurActiv reports from the Danish capital. (EurActiv)
Climate change is one of those issues I know enough about to know how little I really know. And I certainly haven't learned much more during the 193-nation climate talks
that concluded in Copenhagen this week. I'm one of those agnostics willing to accept evidence that the earth is warming but not yet convinced that scientists fully understand
why. And my skepticism has grown greater in light of the recent climategate scandal involving leaked e-mails that suggested prominent climate-change scientists have
manipulated data and tried to stifle dissent in the scientific community.
Chavez on Climate Change: Blame Capitalism President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Hugo Chavez received resounding cheers from the audience after saying, “Seven percent of the world population - some 500 million people - are responsible for half of contaminating emissions. Capitalism is to blame for this.” He also asserted, “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell….let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” If President Chavez means carbon dioxide emissions when he says “contaminating emissions” his point is moot. The scientific evidence simply isn’t there to support that. But even if he’s talking about real pollution, the evidence still isn’t there. Not only has capitalism increased our prosperity and standard of living, it has made us cleaner and healthier in the process. George Mason economist Don Boudreaux explains:
Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Copenhagen con: how the socialists are making capitalists pay First the Copenhagen summit gives Hugo Chavez a standing ovation for savaging capitalism. Then out comes the begging bowl, to be filled by those very same evil capitalists:
But no sooner have those billions been promised, than the anti-capitalists up the ask:
How much is this carpet-baggers’ convention costing us, for heaven’s sake? Recall our prime minister now before our cash is all gone. UPDATE Yes, it’s weather, not climate, but what would the warmists have said if Copenhagen today was unusually warm, rather than unusually cold:
(Andrew Bolt)
One of the reasons some Americans become wary of the United Nations is that it gives a platform to obnoxious bores, several of whom have taken the podium this week at the
UN climate-change conference in Copenhagen .
Chavez (and Marx) a hit at Copenhagen Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez couldn’t resist another opportunity to bash capitalism — and the COP15 Copenhagen Conference on global warming gave him a perfect setup. Protesters against globalization, capitalism, energy use, and other aspects of modern life thronged in the streets, while in the conference center, leaders from rich nations that want to “level the playing field” for CO2 emissions and poor countries looking for massive handouts gave Chavez a warm response. In his harangue posted on YouTube, Chavez hit the “group of countries who think they’re better than us” and that provide a “world imperial dictatorship.” He, of course, made reference and deference to his hero Karl Marx:
Chavez got a lot of applause here too. He tied capitalism to the degradation of the earth: “the destructive model of capitalism is eradicating life.” President Robert Mugabe, credited with destroying the economy of his own country, Zimbabwe, also railed against Western countries and capitalism:
And this is the conference where “world leaders” are supposedly coming together to plan the world’s energy future? It’s a scary thought. (Fran Smith, Cooler Heads)
Global Warming as Groupthink - The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's process institutionalizes groupthink on a global scale. It is easy to mock the thousands of activists, officials and ministers flying to Copenhagen in their jets, driving around in an immense fleet of limousines, and
collectively emitting more carbon dioxide than a small African country—all to force the rest of us to reduce our carbon footprints. But it is one thing to accuse them of
hypocrisy in not living out their beliefs. Casting doubt on their belief that global warming poses an imminent threat to life on this planet is another.
UN: Human Life Threatens Climate! A new UN report reveals the fundamentally misanthropic worldview underlying climate alarmism. “Too Many Births Said to Threaten the Climate” read the headline in the November 19 edition of the French daily Le Monde. The headline refers to the new “State of World Population 2009” report published by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The document is called a “report,” but in light of the unabashed and unrelenting advocacy of which it consists, it might be better described as a “pamphlet.” Subtitled “Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate,” what it advocates is combating “global warming” (“There is no time for delay; we are already on the precipice”) and its novelty is precisely to suggest that limiting population growth could represent a crucial contribution to this end. (John Rosenthal, PJM)
Lord Monckton reports on Pachauri’s eye opening Copenhagen presentation From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley in Copenhagen In the Grand Ceremonial Hall of the University of Copenhagen, a splendid Nordic classical space overlooking the Church of our Lady in the heart of the old city, rows of repellent, blue plastic chairs surrounded the podium from which no less a personage than Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, was to speak. I had arrived in good time to take my seat among the dignitaries in the front row. Rapidly, the room filled with enthusiastic Greenies and enviro-zombs waiting to hear the latest from ye Holy Bookes of Ipecac, yea verily. The official party shambled in and perched on the blue plastic chairs next to me. Pachauri was just a couple of seats away, so I gave him a letter from me and Senator Fielding of Australia, pointing out that the headline graph in the IPCC’s 2007 report, purporting to show that the rate of warming over the past 150 years had itself accelerated, was fraudulent. Would he use the bogus graph in his lecture? I had seen him do so when he received an honorary doctorate from the University of New South Wales. I watched and waited. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Peter Foster: James Hansen and mob rule The climate action group ‘GO’ seeks to influence the politics of climate change through mob intimidation The CBC seemed yesterday to be very much on the side of the protesters who attempted to break into the deadlocked Copenhagen climate talks. Reports expressed
sympathy with the mob’s “frustration” at the “lack of progress.” Inside the Bella conference centre, meanwhile, a bunch of NGOs reportedly tried to help those
storming the barricades to infiltrate the building. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
“It’s the protesters who offer the best hope for our planet,” according to Johann Hari. We’d best take a look at them, then. Oh. UPDATE. In other protest news, Starvin’ Marvin is on his 40th day without food. Maybe he wants to be the new skinny Santa. UPDATE II. No protests against Copenhagen anti-capitalist Hugo Chavez: “The applause was deafening.” UPDATE III. Compare Copenhagen’s screeching greens with the sensible and modest Stephen McIntyre. (Via Treacher) UPDATE IV. Protesters protested! UPDATE V. Protesters attack a harmless poley bear: (Tim Blair)
Live From Copenhagen: USA Awarded a Truly Noble Prize for Refusing to Give Up Sovereignty The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site. Though Barack Obama garnered much attention for his Nobel Peace Prize win, the United States has won three lesser-known, tongue-in-cheek awards at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference from a liberal environmentalist organization that has been critical of America’s refusal to wholeheartedly embrace their radical agenda. And what “ignoble actions” earned the United States these noble prizes? According to the people at Avaaz.org, the U.S. government took home the “Fossil of the Day” award for “stalling negotiation to save life on planet earth.” Along with the Climate Action Network, Avaaz.org runs a daily award show at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. It’s worth noting that Avaaz.org is dedicated to “to clos[ing] the gap between the world we have, and the world most people everywhere want.” Here’s video of the red carpet ceremony, shot by Heritage expert Steven Groves, who is on the scene at the Copenhagen Conference:
We at Heritage applaud this award in part because, climate change and research aside, signing a colossal UN resolution in Copenhagen this week would mean signing over our sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in the United Nations and Europe (not to mention the tremendous economic harm Copenhagen regulations would wreak on the U.S. economy). Here’s to fourth “Fossil of the Day Award.” (The Foundry)
The Crackup of the Global Warming Alarmist Establishment? The arrival of President Barack Obama and over one hundred other heads of state in Copenhagen for a photo op at the UN global warming conference has buried the really big story here. No, it’s not the fact that no agreement will be reached on a new international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That outcome was foreseen months ago. The big news is that the grand alliance pushing global warming alarmism and energy-rationing policies has started to break apart here in a spectacular way. The official United Nations global warming bureaucracy have thrown out the twenty to thirty thousand environmentalists who traveled to Copenhagen to attend the meeting as officially-accredited delegates of non-governmental organizations (or NGOs). The environmentalists are extremely angry and have every justification for being angry. This is potentially momentous because the two wings of alarmism are totally dependent on one another. The UN’s Kyoto bandwagon has been pushed along by the environmental movement and no new treaty to follow the Kyoto Protocol, when it expires at the end of 2012, will have a chance of being adopted without the continuing and unremitting backing of the environmentalists whom the UN has unceremoniously booted out this week. For the environmental groups, Kyoto and its successor treaty are the only viable vehicles for achieving their goals of reducing emissions and putting the world on an energy starvation diet. What has happened this week in Copenhagen is not based on any ideological disagreements. It’s all the result of four things: the size of the room, the number of attendees, total incompetence, and poor manners. The UN chose to hold what was billed as “the most important meeting in the history of the world” in a conference center that only holds fifteen thousand people. The environmental NGOs sent lists of delegates that added up to over thirty thousand. The UN looked at these two numbers and decided everything would work out fine. (Myron Ebell, Cooler Heads)
EverGreens: After Failure, Warmists Will Change Hats And Move On You simply cannot have so many celebrities and political will in one place, and expect them to concede defeat. It is just not in their nature. First, some good news. A lefty organization sent me an indignant press release stating that the Danish police have “aggressed on protesters outside the Bella Center.” By this, they mean that the agitants, who moments before were shouting “Push the police away!,” were physically held back from entering an already crowded room. It is true that it is depressing to see the heretofore useful word aggression turned into another mouth-numbing verb. But it’s heartening to hear that a group of professional whiners were told “No.” True to form, when turned away the perpetually petulant started screaming “Rights!,” by which they mean, as they always do, “My desires, not yours.” And can it be a coincidence that we now hear from Russia — the land where the Climategate emails were first posted — accusations that the Hadley Climate Research Unit fiddled Siberian temperature data? The charge is that scientists only considered stations which showed warming, and tossed those which did not fit their preconceptions. What makes this delicious is that the stations Hadley chose had large chunks of missing data, and the stations ignored had uninterrupted records. This makes sense: it’s easier to homogenize data that isn’t there. The explanations to come will no doubt provide for some light comedy. The best news of all are the rumors that “progress has been halting” in Copenhagen. The word stalemate is showing up with increasing frequency in news reports. Government ministers can’t agree on the best way to take money from their own citizens, give it to an opaque, above-the-law organization, and yet still control it; because, of course, with all that money comes power. Negotiators are skittish about how they can ensure that the money pledged will actually be paid into the pot, and if it does, who gets to dole out the funds. Everybody wants a piece of it, but nobody trusts anybody. However, I believe this is only a spate of temporary sanity. (William M. Briggs, PJM)
Rudd’s latest scientific advisor: a six-year-old girl Kevin Rudd would rather take the word of a six-year-old girl than of a 69-year-old climate scientist as distinguished as Richard Lindzen:
Rudd is against what he’s for in Copenhagen A populist caught out. Kevin Rudd tells Copenhagen negotiatiors that their idea of new taxes is “constructive” , but he tells Australian taxpayers that these taxes are bad:
Rudd is reminded that a great green tax on flying would savage the tourism industry of the most remote of the settled continents: (Andrew Bolt)
Seven times Leigh Sales asks Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard variations of this very simple question about the costs of the Rudd Government’s great global warming tax:
Seven times she gets no direct answer. And Gillard’s refusal tells you how vulnerable Labor suddenly feels. (Andrew Bolt)
Would anyone have noticed Rudd’s scheme? Remember how Kevin Rudd insisted the Liberals had to pass his emissions trading scheme in time for the Copenhagen meeting? Looking at the all-in brawl it’s become, and how it’s essentially a showdown between the US and China, can anyone detect any sign at all that Australia’s example would have made the slightest difference? Don’t tell me it [wasn't] just more baseless Rudd spin… (Andrew Bolt)
All aboard for Hopenchangin:
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s plane to the same destination was delayed when a trolley ran into it. Which is more or less what Copenhagen represents for Australian tourism:
That’s nice of him. No flights for you, little Gracie. Oh, and the next time you write to the PM, please ask him how much all of this will cost you. Because Aunty Julia doesn’t want to say. UPDATE. An unhappy Copenhagen travel development:
Sad. In his case, flying may have proved more sustainable. UPDATE II. Behold the Essex Six, who ask that you honk to stop global warming. Which means you’re driving a car at the time. They haven’t really thought this through. (Tim Blair)
Schwarzenegger's Costly War on Climate Change As the United Nations Climate Change Conference enters its second week in Copenhagen, California will send a delegation to showcase the state’s own climate change
policies. Since his election to office in 2003, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has made global warming and climate change a cornerstone of his gubernatorial legacy. When he
addresses conference delegates this week, Schwarzenegger will boast that under his watch the state has implemented some of the strictest and most comprehensive environmental
regulations in the world. But delegates won’t be presented with the true cost of Schwarzenegger’s war on global warming.
Blunderful Copenhagen kills ETS early poll BARELY a month ago Malcolm Turnbull was leader of the opposition, Kevin Rudd was insisting Australia pass emissions trading legislation before he went to the climate
conference in Copenhagen, action on climate change was the global moral imperative, there was the likelihood of an early double-dissolution election on a carbon emissions
trading system and Tony Abbott was supporting the Liberal leader's position of passing the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in the Senate.
It is amusing to watch advocates of rapid, aggressive carbon dioxide emissions reduction, when confronted with the plain facts of the consensus scientific projections for climate change and its associated damages, move from “science says we must do this or die” to “well, actually, the science is pretty uncertain, so it’s possible that we might die,” and then proceed to some restatement of Pascal’s Wager. Friedman’s Throw Tom Friedman’s recent New York Times column is a perfect illustration of this logic. I’ll quote him at length, before demonstrating that his emission-cuts-as-insurance analogy breaks down once you plug in actual numbers:
Computing the Odds The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading bookie for this game. The current IPCC consensus forecast is that, under fairly reasonable assumptions for world population and economic growth, global temperatures will rise by about 3°C by the year 2100 (Table SPM.3). Also according to the IPCC, a 4°C increase in temperatures would cause total estimated economic losses of 1–5 percent of global GDP (page 17). By implication, if we were at 3°C of warming at the end of this century, we would be well into the 22nd century before we reached a 4°C rise, with this associated level of cost. [Read more →] (Jim Manzi, MasterResource)
Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Dec. 17th 2009 It’s all gone Pete Tong for alarmists in Denmark as the curse of Brown descends and the inconvenience of climategate refuses to go away. Greenpeace was punk’d, Phelim was unplugged and Al Gore turned into the Gaffeinator. It’s all good clean fun in this, your last round-up of 2009. (The Daily Bayonet)
Column - 20 tips to save the planet YOU’LL have freaked at all the reports warning that if we don’t cut our gases, our cities will drown, our farms will turn to dust and giant hurricanes will suck up every last polar bear. But don’t despair. I’ve scoured the papers to find this year’s 20 top tips to cut your gases and help save this planet from global warming catastrophe. And, swear to God, every one of these news items is genuine. (Andrew Bolt)
So cows aren’t the problem after all – in fact, they’re the solution:
Interesting. An earlier report from the same event:
Over to you, vegenoids. (Tim Blair)
It is crucial that scientists are factually accurate when they do speak out, that they ignore media hype and maintain a clinical detachment from social or other agendas. There are facts and data that are ignored in the maelstrom of social and economic agendas swirling about Copenhagen. Greenhouse gases and their effects are well-known. Here are some of things we know: (Lawrence Journal-World)
The Amazing James Randi has stepped into the AGW debate with a reasonable blog, stating truisms several times:
A Skeptic that is skeptical about making Global Warming THE defining issue of our times? Obviously, that’s not something that could be left unpunished. And in fact…there are some slightly ominous remarks by Phil “Jekill” Plait (not the usual reasonable Plait one can find talking about every topic but global warming):
Let’s see how things develop. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)
Climate: James Randi vs mindless consensus pseudoscientists Jorge P. has brought my attention to an essay about
climate change written by James Randi: James Randi Educational Foundation: AGW, RevisitedRandi who may be the world's #1 symbol of skepticism towards pseudoscientific charlatans (and magicians claiming to have special abilities: he reproduced lots of their tricks without any paranormal abilities) turns out to be consistent in his skepticism: he is skeptical towards the climate judgement day pseudoscience, too. Randi's arguments are kind of obviously valid. He enumerates many solar, galactic, geomagnetic, lunar, and other influences that change the temperature by quantities comparable to 1 °C per century and that are not under theoretical control. It follows that the climate "equation" that would reliably predict a century of temperature changes with such an accuracy or a better one cannot be written down at present which is a reason why sensible people shouldn't make far-reaching claims about the future temperature. Randi also mentions the large number of scientists (signed under various petitions etc.) who have reached similar conclusions. His newly discovered skepticism may explain why Phil Plait who is not a skeptic but rather an uncritical irrational believer when it comes to te atmospheric Armageddon theories is no longer the president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. Well, he may have been simply yet diplomatically fired by Randi for having brutally violated the main principle that underlies the work of JREF - scientific skepticism. » Don't Stop Reading » (The Reference Frame)
Little Feedback on Climate Feedbacks in the City by the Bay The Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) here in San Francisco this week is amazing for it’s sheer size: many thousands of Earth scientists presenting talks and posters on just about every Earth science subject imaginable. Today was my chance to try to convince other scientists who work on the critical issue of feedbacks in the climate system that some fundamental mistakes have been made that have misled climate researchers into believing that the climate system is quite sensitive to our greenhouse gas emissions. A tough sell in only 14 minutes. It was standing room only…close to 300 scientists by my estimate. There were only a couple of objections to my presentation…rather weak ones. Afterward I had a number of people comment favorably about the ‘different’ way I was looking at the problem. And while that should be comforting, it is also disturbing. Since when in science did the issue of ‘causation’ become a foreign concept? When did the direction of causation between two correlated variables (in my case, clouds and temperature) become no longer important? If temperature and clouds vary together in ‘sort of’ the same way in satellite observations as they do in climate models, then the models are considered to be ‘validated’. But my message, which might not have come across as clearly as it should have due to time constraints, was that such agreement does NOT validate the models when it comes to feedback, and feedbacks are what will determine how much of an impact humans have on the climate system. Andrew Lacis, who works climate modeling with Jim Hansen, came up and said he agreed with me that, in general, the feedback problem is more difficult than people have been assuming. In a talk after mine, Graeme Stephens gave me a backhanded compliment when he agreed with at least my basic message that the way in which we assume the climate system functions (in my terms, what-causes-what to happen) IS important to how we then deduce how sensitive the climate is to such things as our carbon dioxide emissions. The three organizers of the session were very gracious to invite me, since they knew my views are controversial. One of the three was Andrew Dessler, who works in water vapor feedback. I had never met Andy before, and he’s a super nice guy. They all agreed that there needs to be more debate on the subject. But most of the talks presented followed the recipe that has become all too common in recent years: analyze the output of climate models that predict substantial global warming, and simply assume the models are somewhere near correct. There seems to be great reluctance to consider the possibility that these computerized prophets of doom, which have required so many scientists and so much money and so many years to develop, could be wrong. I come along with an extremely simple climate model that explains the behavior of the satellite data in details that are beyond even what has been done with the complex climate models…and then the more complex models are STILL believed because…well…they’re more complex. Besides, since my simple model would predict very little manmade global warming, it must be wrong. After all, we know that manmade global warming is a huge problem. All of the experts agree on that. Just ask Al Gore and the mainstream news media. (Roy W. Spencer)
Comment On EPA Response To Reviewer Comments On Ocean Heat Content The EPA has published their response to reviewer comments in Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act I am going to respond to one of their responses below (from the EPA url page) EPA Summary of Comment (3-8): Several commenters (3187.4, 7031, 9877) argue that the recent plateau in ocean heat content (from 2003 to 2008) suggests anthropogenic warming is not occurring because it indicates that the climate system is not accumulating heat. The lack of heat accumulation, they state, demonstrates a failure of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis to account for natural climate variability, especially as it relates to ocean cycles. They claim that the recent trends in ocean heat content suggest the Earth’s energy budget is not out of balance owing to GHGs, in contrast to the findings of Hansen et al. (2005). EPA Response (3-8): We have reviewed the assessment literature in light of these comments and disagree with the assertions made by commenters. Just as temperature will not necessarily increase monotonically with increases in GHGs (per response 3-6) neither will ocean heat content on short time scales. Many of the same factors that influence global surface temperature in addition to GHG forcing will also result in short-term variability in ocean heat content such as aerosol emissions (anthropogenic and/or volcanic), solar forcing, and internal variability in the climate system. EPA does not suggest that GHGs are the only factors that would influence the global energy budget, and hence ocean heat content. EPA agrees that internal variability likely plays an important role in the interannual and interdecadal variability of ocean heat content, as indicated by IPCC (Bindoff et al., 2007). But as noted in Volume 2 of the Response to Comments document, the long-term trend in ocean heat content is indisputably upward, which is what we would expect given the anthropogenic heating from GHGs. The IPCC notes that ocean heat content is a critical variable for detecting the effects of the observed increase in GHGs in the Earth’s atmosphere and for resolving the Earth’s overall energy balance (Bindoff et al., 2007) Several commenters (3187.4, 7031, 9877) argue that the recent plateau in ocean heat content (from 2003 to 2008) suggests anthropogenic warming is not occurring because it indicates that the climate system is not accumulating heat. The lack of heat accumulation, they state, demonstrates a failure of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis to account for natural climate variability, especially as it relates to ocean cycles. They claim that the recent trends in ocean heat content suggest the Earth’s energy budget is not out of balance owing to GHGs, in contrast to the findings of Hansen et al. (2005). Though the commenters refer to a recent plateau in ocean heat content, there are published papers which find the opposite, as mentioned in Volume 2 of the Response to Comments document. In fact, this work (von Schuckmann et al., 2009) indicates the global ocean accumulated (between the surface and 2,000 meter depth) 0.77 (plus or minus 0.11) watts per square meter of heat between 2003 and 2008, which is roughly consistent with the 0.86 (plus or minus 0.12) watts per square meter of heat (between the surface and 750 meter depth) accumulated between 1993 and 2003 as documented in Willis et al. (2004); and Hansen et al. (2005). These studies suggest the ocean has and continues to accumulate heat, contributing to an overall imbalance in the Earth’s energy budget, as further documented in two other recent studies by Trenberth et al. (2009) analyzing the period March 2000 to May 2004 and Murphy et al. (2009) (analyzing the period 1950–2004). We have added the following text on this topic to Section 4(f) of the final TSD on this topic: The thermal expansion of sea water is an indicator of increasing ocean heat content. Ocean heat content is also a critical variable for detecting the effects of the observed increase in GHGs in the Earth’s atmosphere and for resolving the Earth’s overall energy balance (Bindoff et al., 2007). For the period 1955 to 2005, Bindoff et al. (2007) analyze multiple time series of ocean heat content and find an overall increase, while noting interannual and inter-decadal variations. NOAA’s report State of the Climate in 2008 (Peterson and Baringer, 2009), which incorporates data through 2008, finds “large” increases in global ocean heat content since the 1950s and notes that over the last several years, ocean heat content has reached consistently higher values than for all prior times in the record. Thus, the TSD’s summary of the current state of the science on ocean heat content as reflected in the underlying assessment literature is reasonable and sound. There are major misinterpretations in the EPA response: An essential test of model performance is a direct comparison with observations. I have discussed in several posts (see and see) the inability of Jim Hansen’s GISS model to accurately predict the accumulation of heat in the upper ocean over the last several years. I do agree that the conclusion in Hansen et al. 2005 that the “Earth is now absorbing 0.85 ± Watts per meter squared more energy from the Sun than it is emitting to space” is well supported by their modeling results for the ten years or so ending in 2003. However, in their paper Hansen, J., L. Nazarenko, R. Ruedy, Mki. Sato, J. Willis, A. Del Genio, D. Koch, A. Lacis, K. Lo, S. Menon, T. Novakov, Ju. Perlwitz, G. Russell, G.A. Schmidt, and N. Tausnev, 2005: Earth’s energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications. Science, 308, 1431-1435, doi:10.1126/science.1110252, they wrote “Our climate model, driven mainly by increasing human-made greenhouse gases and aerosols among other forcings, calculates that Earth is now absorbing 0.85±0.15 W/m2 more energy from the Sun than it is emitting to space. This imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years.” In the response by Jim Hansen to a comment by Christy and Pielke Sr Hansen wrote me with respect to their GISS model predictions that “Our simulated 1993-2003 heat storage rate was 0.6 W/m2 in the upper 750 m of the ocean.” He further writes “The decadal mean planetary energy imbalance, 0.75 W/m2, includes heat storage in the deeper ocean and energy used to melt ice and warm the air and land. 0.85 W/m2 is the imbalance at the end of the decade.” Thus, the best estimate value of 0.60 Watts per meter squared given in Hansen et al can be used to calculate the accumulation of heat in Joules that Jim Hansen predicted in the upper ocean data from 2003 to the present. The observed best estimates of the observed heating and the Hansen et al prediction in Joules in the upper 700m of the ocean are given below: OBSERVED BEST ESTIMATE OF ACCUMULATION Of JOULES [assuming a baseline of zero at the end of 2002]. 2003 ~0 Joules HANSEN PREDICTION OF The ACCUMULATION OF JOULES [ at a rate of 0.60 Watts per meter squared] assuming a baseline of zero at the end of 2002]. 2003 ~0.98 * 10** 22 Joules Thus, according to the GISS model predictions, there should be approximately 6.86 * 10**22 Joules more heat in the upper 700 meters of the global ocean at the end of 2009 than were present at the beginning of 2003. For the observations to come into agreement with the GISS model prediction by the end of 2012, for example, there would have to be an accumulation 9.8 * 10** 22 Joules of heat over just the next three years. This requires a heating rate over the next 3 years into the upper 700 meters of the ocean of 3.27* 10**22 Joules per year, which corresponds to a radiative imbalance of ~+2.0 Watts per square meter. This rate of heating would have to be about 3 1/3 times higher than the 0.60 Watts per meter squared that Jim Hansen reported for the period 1993 to 2003. While the time period for this discrepancy with the GISS model is still relatively short, the question should be asked by the EPA as to the number of years required to reject this model as having global warming predictive skill, if this large difference between the observations and the GISS model persists. The EPA failed to discuss this discrepancy between observations and the model predictions. Despite what they wrote, the climate system, as represented by the upper ocean heat content, has not been accumulating heat over the last 6 years or so. Based on the GISS model predictions, there should be approximately 6.86 * 10** 22 Joules more heat in the upper 700 meters of the global ocean at the end of 2009 than were present at the beginning of 2003. Finally, the EPA is selective (i.e. biased) in terms of what they presented in the justification for their findings. They did not discuss or refute, for example, the conclusions with respect to ocean heat content changes reported in Douglass, D.H. and R. Knox, 2009: Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance. Physics letters A Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55. The EPA Findings perpetuate the culture of ignoring peer-reviewed scientific results which is exemplified in the released CRU e-mails. (Climate Science)
Is “several degrees” of warming “virtually certain,” as NASA claims? Earlier this week, at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, NASA unveiled new data on atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs), notably carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor, from its Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) unit on the agency’s Aqua spacecraft. NASA touted two main findings as “breakthroughs” in GHG research. One supposed breakthrough is the discovery that CO2 is not “well-mixed” through the global troposphere (mid-level atmosphere), but is actually “lumpy” — distributed in higher concentrations in two “belts” circling the globe, especially in Northern hemisphere, which is more heavily industrialized. Now, I suppose this is a breakthrough in the sense that it will allow researchers to improve CO2 “transport models,” which hitherto have assumed that CO2 concentrations are uniform throughout the troposphere. But it would be surprising indeed if scientists did not know until now that industrialized regions have higher CO2 levels than non-industrialized areas. The second supposed breakthrough is the claim that the AIRS data remove “most of the uncertainty about the role of water vapor [feedback]” in climate change. “AIRS temperature data have corroborated climate model predictions that the warming of our climate produced as carbon dioxide levels rise will be greatly exacerbated — in fact, more than doubled — by water vapor,” said climate scientist Andrew Dressler of Texas A&M University. According to Dressler, “We are virtually certain to see Earth’s climate warm by several degrees Celsius in the next century, unless some strong negative feedback mechanism emerges elsewhere in the Earth’s climate system.” Dressler is talking about the assumption, common to all IPCC climate models, that the initial warming from rising CO2 levels increases concentrations of the atmosphere’s main greenhouse gas, water vapor, trapping more outgoing longwave (heat or infrared) radiation (OLR) and increasing global average rainfall. William Gray of Colorado State University, perhaps the world’s leading hurricane forecaster, offers a different perspective on the NASA water vapor data. Gray’s comment follows:
Dr. Gray presents a more detailed examination of these issues in his March 2009 Heartland Institute climate conference paper, available here. (Marlo Lewis, Cooler Heads)
NASA: Quiet Sun Cools the Upper Atmosphere New measurements from a NASA satellite show a dramatic cooling in the upper atmosphere that correlates with the declining phase of the current solar cycle. For the first time, researchers can show a timely link between the Sun and the climate of Earth’s thermosphere, the region above 100 km, an essential step in making accurate predictions of climate change in the high atmosphere. Scientists from NASA’s Langley Research Center and Hampton University in Hampton, Va., and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., will present these results at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco from Dec. 14 to 18. Read more here. (CRN)
Stat Model Predicts Flat Temperatures Through 2050 While climate skeptics have gleefully pointed to the past decade's lack of temperature rise as proof that global warming is not happening as predicted, climate change activists have claimed that this is just “cherry picking” the data. They point to their complex and error prone general circulation models that, after significant re-factoring, are now predicting a stretch of stable temperatures followed by a resurgent global warming onslaught. In a recent paper, a new type of model, based on a test for structural breaks in surface temperature time series, is used to investigate two common claims about global warming. This statistical model predicts no temperature rise until 2050 but the more interesting prediction is what happens between 2050 and 2100. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
Oh... Amazon Losing Ability to Curb Global Warming The Amazon's flying rivers"—humid air currents that deliver water to the vast rain forest—may be ebbing, and in turn drying out the Amazon's diverse ecological
and economic resources and the region's ability to absorb carbon dioxide and curb global warming, an expert said this week at the Copenhagen climate conference.
Sea Levels and Temperature in the Previous Interglacial There’s a new paper in Nature suggesting higher sea levels and temperature during the previous interglacial, which, of course, didn’t have man-made CO2 in the atmosphere: Probabilistic assessment of sea level during the last interglacial stage Abstract: With polar temperatures ~3–5 °C warmer than today, the last interglacial stage (~125 kyr ago) serves as a partial analogue for 1–2 °C global warming scenarios. Geological records from several sites indicate that local sea levels during the last interglacial were higher than today, but because local sea levels differ from global sea level, accurately reconstructing past global sea level requires an integrated analysis of globally distributed data sets. Here we present an extensive compilation of local sea level indicators and a statistical approach for estimating global sea level, local sea levels, ice sheet volumes and their associated uncertainties. We find a 95% probability that global sea level peaked at least 6.6 m higher than today during the last interglacial; it is likely (67% probability) to have exceeded 8.0 m but is unlikely (33% probability) to have exceeded 9.4 m. When global sea level was close to its current level (≥-10 m), the millennial average rate of global sea level rise is very likely to have exceeded 5.6 m kyr-1 but is unlikely to have exceeded 9.2 m kyr-1. Our analysis extends previous last interglacial sea level studies by integrating literature observations within a probabilistic framework that accounts for the physics of sea level change. The results highlight the long-term vulnerability of ice sheets to even relatively low levels of sustained global warming. (CRN)
Past Sea Level Rise and Adaptation off Orkney A unique discovery of submerged man-made structures on the seabed off Orkney could help find solutions to rising sea levels, experts have said. They said the well preserved stone pieces near the island of Damsay are the only such examples around the UK. It is thought some of the structures may date back thousands of years. Geomorphologist Sue Dawson said that people have survived and adapted in the past and it is that adaption to climate change that needs to be learned from. Caroline Wickham-Jones said: “The really interesting thing about this bay is the stories relating to things under the sea and sea-level change. Our ancestors were dealing with similar problems to ourselves and we’d like to see how they coped with it.” BBC News website: Rising seas ‘clue’ in sunken world off Orkney (CRN)
What part of "Take a hike, Chucky!" don't they get? Climate Deal On Ships And Planes Seen Slipping Away COPENHAGEN - Climate negotiators warned on Wednesday they may miss the opportunity to cap emissions from shipping and aviation and so miss out on billions of dollars in taxation to help poor countries cope with climate change. (Reuters)
Stumbling Climate Talks Seen Knocking EU Carbon LONDON - Dwindling prospects a strong climate deal at a U.N. summit in Copenhagen were likely to knock carbon permits under the European Union emissions trading scheme,
traders said, and prices fell to a two-week low on Thursday.
Nonsense, Peak Oil, and Oil Prices We are nowhere close to the end of the oil age. A careful examination of the facts shows that most arguments about peak oil are based on anecdotal information, vague references and ignorance of how the oil industry goes about finding fields and extracting petroleum. [Read More] (Michael C. Lynch, Energy Tribune)
Funding cuts 'threaten to kill UK's nuclear research programme' They predicted that the cuts will leave the UK incapable of training the technicians required for a planned new generation of nuclear plants. The Science and Technology Facilities Council announced which projects would by slashed from its portfolio in order to fill a £40 million hole in its budget. Two of the country’s three largest nuclear research projects will be scrapped completely. Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey, said: “At a time when the UK are planning on building eight new plants, to be killing off the entire discipline is mind-bogglingly stupid.” (The Times)
Scientists Demystify Utility of Power Factor Correction Devices (Dec. 18, 2009) — If you've seen an Internet ad for capacitor-type power factor correction devices, you might be led to believe that using one can save you money on your residential electricity bill. However, a team including specialists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have recently explained* why the devices actually provide no savings by discussing the underlying physics. (ScienceDaily)
"The Wind Farm Scam" by John Etherington (the UK environmental civil war builds)
It may be a bit too late to order copies of the just published 198-page The Wind Farm Scam (Stacy International, 2009) by British ecologist John Etherington as a holiday gift, but it’s well worth getting (and giving) copies of the book as soon as you can secure them. The book should be required reading for every high school, college, and university student — especially in those institutions offering energy and environmental programs. Although the book written about the UK experience, most of its facts about “wind farms” are applicable worldwide. It explains wind energy—and its limitations and environmental insults—in easily understood terms It explains why wind will never provide a significant, reliable source of electricity. As in the US, “wind farms” in the UK are being built primarily because of government fiat and huge government-forced subsidies, not because of their true environmental, economic, or energy benefits. Apparently, the tax breaks and subsidies in the US are even more attractive than those in the UK since two major oil companies, BP and Shell, have pulled out of UK “renewable” energy programs with the intent of focusing their attention (and renewable rent seeking) on the US and Canada. Personally, I found Dr. Etherington’s well-researched and clear-headed discussion of wind energy a very welcome relief from the wind energy madness now underway in the US. For example: [Read more →] (Glenn Schleede, MasterResource)
That Tap Water Is Legal but May Be Unhealthy The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks — and still be
legal.
NDEP issues statement about safe drinking water in Nevada UPDATED December 17, 2009
Obesity, Inactivity Keeping Heart Health Stats Down - Treatments have improved, but Americans fall down on prevention, experts say THURSDAY, Dec. 17 -- While physicians and surgeons are getting better at treating heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems, too many Americans are ignoring the
basic rules for preventing them, according to new statistics from the American Heart Association.
What's new about this? Scientists developing food to prevent overeating London, Dec 17 In a bid to fight the global epidemic of obesity, Dutch scientists are developing a new generation of foods that would prevent people from overeating by releasing "anti-hunger" aromas. (PTI)
Proximity to Convenience Stores Fosters Child Obesity, Study Finds (Dec. 18, 2009) — Childhood obesity is directly related to how close kids live to convenience stores, according to the preliminary findings of a major Canadian study presented at the Entretiens Jacques-Cartier in Lyon, France. The ongoing study is named QUALITY for Quebec Adipose and Lifestyle InvesTigation in Youth. (ScienceDaily)
Forest Service will rewrite environmental-impact rules After striking out three times, the U.S. Forest Service is embarking on another rewrite of the basic planning rule that balances logging against fish and wildlife and
clean water in national forests.
Following SA’s example, the Northern Territory government takes action against plastic bags:
And how did that work out?
Wait a second. Wasn’t Woolworths the target of Kevin Rudd’s price justice plan? And now green policies have delivered the grocery giant a minor windfall? Just another example of unintended consequences. (Tim Blair) December 17, 2009
Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages. Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (James Delingpole, TDT)
Met Office 'manipulated climate change figures' say Russian think tank An explosive new claim that the Meteorological Office in Britain 'manipulated' climate change figures has come from a leading Russian think-tank founded by a former
adviser to Vladimir Putin.
Russian IEA claims CRU tampered with climate data – cherrypicked warmest stations I wonder if they used this station, which is famous in Russia? See details here Steve McIntyre reports on Climate Audit that there’s an email from Michael Mann that is relevant:
More bullying from the team. ============================= Guest post by Jeff Id of the Air Vent It’s true, and it’s huge. Today another example of CRU having their foot on the scale, Russian papers are reporting that the Russian surface station data was sorted by CRU to use the highest warming stations only.
Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Gary Richmond wrote a very nice essay about the Climategate and the poor standards in climate science: Open Science and Climategate: The IPCC/CRU needs to take a leaf out of CERN's Book (click)He argues that the IPCC and friends should imitate CERN - which Richmond has enthusiastically written about previously - and adopt the philosophy of open source software etc. There's a lot of wisdom about the essence of science (and the importance of skepticism and verification), peer review (and how it was devastated), the Harry file in the hacked/leaked CRU documents (and what software standards have been violated according to this file), comparisons with sub prime coding and other things in the software industry (and some promotion of the free software framework - well, I would stay skeptical), questions why professional IT guys were not hired in the climate science (who would also choose different programming languages to deal with the formatting issues), interactions with politics (which partly provide the answer to the previous point), and other things. Recommended. » Don't Stop Reading » (The Reference Frame)
Really funny: Group to expose climate science profiteer Washington, D.C. – PolluterWatch was launched today to expose and push back the polluting industry's propaganda. The project aims to legally obtain, organize and post
large numbers of emails by top global warming “deniers” and top polluting industry lobbyists that “served” in the Bush Administration.
What, no one laughed? That’s the scary bit:
It is surprising how much baggage can be carried by one little word. Have you ever noticed the difference in modern communication between “Science” and “The Science”? The first is a term we have used for centuries and is part of the common language, but just add that little definite article and you enter a whole new world of belief, prejudice and hostility. Likewise, there is a world of difference between “Earth” and “The Planet”. Again one is just a word in our common tongue, but the other phrase immediately sets a whole agenda as soon as you hear it. Mass political and religious movements seem to develop a need for a jargon of their own, just as thieves develop their own cant. It gives them identification and a sense of belonging. Fortunately for the rest of us it also enables us to spot them and, if wise, avoid them. (Number Watch)
Oh... Climate change e-mail scandal underscores myth of pure science The East Anglia controversy serves as a reminder that when the politics are divisive and the science is sufficiently complex, the boundary between the two may become indiscernible. (Daniel Sarewitz and Samuel Thernstrom, LA Times)
Johnny Ball booed by an aggressive audience Johnny Ball, a TV legend from BBC of the 1970s and 1980s who popularized mathematics and science - see e.g. The Red Planet - was booed by a far-left audience during a Christmas party of the fans of science and atheism. The reason? His AGW skepticism. See The Telegraph: Johnny Ball booed by atheists over climate change denialShame on you, these people - if you deserve this name at all. You're just pathetic, folks. You're members of a gang of narrow-minded idiots who seem to believe that the more obnoxious left-wing fanatics you are, the more scientific you become. Or at least you successfully pretend that you believe that. Except that it is not true at all. Science has no permanent correlation with politics and if there exists a correlation today, left-wing politics and science are on the opposite sides of the barricade. Johnny Ball is apparently an atheist himself. It's just amazing to watch what kind of a radical hardcore is evolving inside the community of left-wing self-described champions of science who are actually not champions of science at all. (The Reference Frame)
Paul Reiter, one of the world’s greatest experts on mosquitos, nails Al Gore on yet another deceit:
Reiter also gives yet more evidence at the corruption of the scientific process that is at the heart of the IPCC. UPDATE Yet another Gore whoopsie, this time on extra “tree mortality” thanks to global warming. At what stage can we call this fraud a bare-faced liar? It’s odd that not one of his many, many mistakes errs on the side of calm. (Andrew Bolt)
Climategate, Copenhagen and the EPA Perhaps it's the rule of threes--that similar significant events are grouped as triplets. Celebrity deaths and/or scandals, sporting achievements, all have been the cause of speculation. Let's add the politics of climate change to the list. I was hoping to look at how Climategate has influenced the debate one month after the release of emails and documents that appear to show climate scientists and paleoclimatologists (The Team) trying to massage presentations, prevent publication of contrary points of view and evade the requirements of the UK's Freedom of Information Act. But I find that the effects can't be teased out from consequences of two other events--the COP15 summit in Copenhagen and the Obama administration's decision to allow the EPA to proceed with its endangerment finding for CO2. (Thomas Fuller, Examiner)
The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site. As the developed and developing worlds continue to spar here in Copenhagen over the terms of a comprehensive climate change treaty, a key United Nations official let the actual truth slip out as to what this conference is really about. Janos Pasztor—the Director of U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s Climate Change Support Team—was characterizing the nature of the talks between the rich and poor nations of the world when he said the following: “This is not a climate-change negotiation … It’s about something much more fundamental. It’s about economic strength.” The nations at the negotiation, he added, “just have to slug it out.” That is a remarkable statement, and may turn out to be the most truthful comment made during this entire two-week conference. Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Putting our economy in the hands of Chavez fans These maniacs in Copenhagen are voting on your future:
UPDATE And at the end of this first clip, Chavez rouses the rabble with more anti-Americanism, too:
Cash Is King, Even at Copenhagen Although apparently brief, the suspension of the Copenhagen climate conference after a walkout by the Group of 77 developing countries confirms that the talks are as much about money as about healing the world’s climate. [Read More] (Geoffrey Styles, Energy Tribune)
How you’ll pay for the Third World’s great climate shakedown Kevin Rudd is considering a deal that will see us hand over hundreds of millions of dollars each year to countries such as China and Zimbabwe as a bribe to sign a global warming treaty:
With Rudd and West handing over cash like that, I’d be a warming believer, too, if I were an African or Chinese despot. This is the greatest gathering of carpetbaggers in our history, and our sorry role under Rudd is to fill those bags until they say “when”. UPDATE For Heaven’s sake, just how much of our money is Rudd shipping overseas in his warming crusade?
An urgent question: Mr Rudd, how much are you spending at Copenhagen? UPDATE 2 The ABC finally gets a price - on just Rudd’s Copenhagen downpayment:
That’s each year, of course, and just the beginning. (Andrew Bolt)
Copenhagen 'a big gravy train' OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott says the climate change summit in Copenhagen is turning into a gravy train for some countries.
They gotta point: Agreement Reached in Copenhagen... The U.N. Shouldn't Be in Charge of Climate Change Policy After waiting hours in the cold with intermittent periods of snow on Monday and Tuesday in unsuccessful bids to get into the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) of the
United Nations Conference on Climate Change, many of those who have long-supported a strong global response to the threat of global warming began questioning the wisdom of
leaving these decisions to the United Nations.
Ed, you are years too late, mate: Copenhagen summit veering towards farce, warns Ed Miliband Climate talks at least 18 hours behind schedule as world leaders set to arrive in Copenhagen (John Vidal and Allegra Stratton, The Guardian)
Analysis: 48 hours to go and no progress at Copenhagen summit With a little over 48-hours left of the two-week Copenhagen climate change conference, there has been no significant progress on any of the major issues.
Good indication there'll be no deal: Climate talks resume in Copenhagen after major delay Formal negotiations have reopened at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen after a delay of nine hours.
China Sees No Chance Of Climate Deal - Source COPENHAGEN - China has told participants in the U.N. climate change talks that it sees no possibility of achieving an operational accord this week, an official involved in the Copenhagen talks said on Thursday. (Reuters)
Climate talks on brink of failure as time runs out - Gordon Brown holds series of meetings in desperate bid to help salvage deal Gordon Brown was last night engaged in a major round of shuttle diplomacy to try to save the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, which yesterday became bogged down in intense
procedural wrangles.
It’s the end of the world - again Environmentalists claiming that the Copenhagen summit is ‘the last chance’ to save the planet sound like a broken record. (Patrick Hayes, sp!ked)
Prospect of Global Warming Pact Fades in Copenhagen (Update3) Dec. 16 -- World leaders will arrive in the Danish capital of Copenhagen in the next three days to agree on an accord to fight global warming. There may be nothing to
sign.
EU says Kyoto Protocol not enough to win climate battle COPENHAGEN, Dec. 16 -- A battle is brewing over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, with the European Union saying Wednesday it was not enough to curb climate change and an
agreement that was legally binding for all was needed.
Wary Nations Face Cultural Divide on Climate Treaty's 'Transparency' COPENHAGEN -- Trust between nations is in short supply at the U.N. climate talks. Dealing with it has emerged as the linchpin in the negotiations of a new global warming
treaty.
Really? Copenhagen: World leaders 'face public fury' if agreement proves impossible Miliband warns heads not to stall on technicalities as some progress is made between the biggest polluters US and China (Suzanne Goldenberg, Jonathan Watts and John Vidal, The Guardian)
This could see them out of office: Jet, ship tax to fund climate poor: Copenhagen deal AFRICAN nations, led by Ethiopia and backed by France and Britain, have presented a plan to break the deadlock at the Copenhagen talks by raising billions of dollars to
help poor countries cope with climate change through levies on international aviation and shipping and possibly even a controversial global financial tax.
Climategate: European Carbon Credit Trading System Plagued by Fraud A main aim of the Copenhagen climate conference is to expand the EU’s fraud- and corruption-plagued carbon trading scheme into a global system for trading carbon. The European Union’s flagship cap-and-trade carbon credit trading system is plagued by massive fraud and is effectively under the control of organized crime, according to a December 9 statement issued by European police. Europol, an EU-wide criminal intelligence agency similar to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, says bogus trading at the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) has exceeded €5 billion (U.S.$7 billion) over the past 18 months alone. Europol says that in some EU countries, up to 90 percent of the entire market volume is fraudulent. News of the scale of the fraud, which comes just weeks after hundreds of hacked emails suggest that scientists have manipulated and exaggerated global warming data, will cast further doubt over the effectiveness of carbon trading as a way to curb emissions. It may also provide fresh ammunition to critics of the Obama administration’s plans to implement a cap-and-trade system in the United States that is largely based on the European model. (Soeren Kern, PJM)
Copenhagen – On the heels of the 90s "tech bubble" and recent "mortgage bubble," participants at the U.N. COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen are being
warned by the Washington D.C.-based National Center for Public Policy Research not to create a new "carbon bubble" based on an artificial market in carbon credits.
Nations Capping Carbon Emissions Mocked as "Suckers" at Climate Change Conference... With Suckers Copenhagen, Denmark – Hundreds of candy suckers are being distributed at the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark today to mock nations that are
imposing harsh limits on their carbon emissions at great economic cost for little or no environmental benefit. The group distributing them is the Washington, D.C.-based free
market National Center for Public Policy Research.
Wary Nations Face Cultural Divide on Climate Treaty's 'Transparency' COPENHAGEN -- Trust between nations is in short supply at the U.N. climate talks. Dealing with it has emerged as the linchpin in the negotiations of a new global warming
treaty.
A Greenpeace demonstrator dresses as death on horseback to represent the impact of climate change outside Parliament in Copehagen. AP View Enlarged Image Copenhagen: When an overblown environmental conference culminates with Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lecturing the West on virtue, color it another shakedown. The United Nations' Copenhagen Climate Conference is going fast into meltdown. It may be because it's not about climate anymore, but fitting a noose on the world's productive economies and extracting wealth transfers. Poor countries have gone from defending their right to economic development as a reason for exemptions to emissions cuts to claiming a "legitimate" right to vast wealth transfers from the West to prevent emissions. They call it "climate justice." (IBD)
He seems safe from ever having to try to deliver: John Kerry vows to get climate laws passed if Copenhagen deal succeeds Senator tries to settle doubts about US commitment to emissions cuts but says China must meet accountability demands (The Guardian)
<chuckle> Evo Morales stuns Copenhagen with demand to limit temperature rise to 1C Bolivian president warns of climate 'holocaust' in Africa as Hugo Chávez blames capitalism for climate change ( John Vidal, The Guardian)
Live at Copenhagen: Great news - Copenhagen is a disaster The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site. “Collapsing in chaos” is a phrase the media is using to describe the Copenhagen climate conference, and that certainly is the feeling among many here at the Bella Center. Little has gone right, and indeed many registered participants were never even let in. The Danish minister in charge has resigned. Now, those of us who managed to make it in may get turned away for the crucial last two days Thursday and Friday. Substantively, it looks as though little has been accomplished towards binding emissions targets to replace the expiring provisions in the existing Kyoto Protocol. The reason is simple - reducing carbon dioxide emissions is prohibitively expensive. The citizens of none of the 192 nations represented here really want this done to them. Certainly not Americans, whose concern for global warming is plummeting while concern for the economy and jobs remains high. Not the Europeans whose words are rarely backed up by actions- many have not reduced their emissions under Kyoto yet are asking for tougher targets here. And not developing nations who insist on being exempted from any binding targets while demanding aid packages in the hundreds of billions annually, well above anything the developed world is willing to offer. Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Prospects
for U.S. climate legislation hinge on a successful outcome at Copenhagen, says
Senator John Kerry (D-MA): If international climate change talks falter this week, chances for the United States approving its own carbon pollution-reduction plan will seriously erode, U.S. Senator John Kerry warned on Wednesday.Meantime, negotiators in Copenhagen await leadership from the United States as the basis for an international agreement: Everyone is waiting to see if President Obama will improve the offer from the US when he joins the conference on Friday. There is a widespread reluctance among other countries to make significant concessions until the country which has caused most of the problem takes more of its fair share of the burden of solving it.But the United States won't go further than its legislative process will allow: . . . the United States poured cold water on the notion that it would deepen its offer of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, as outlined by President Barack Obama in the run-up to the conference. Unless President Obama can spring a substantive surprise this week in Copenhagen, guess who is going to once again be the bad guy in the negotiations? (Roger Pielke Jr)
Stotty's Corner "Hier stehe ich."
Now the Front Page - Global Warming is Going Down Like Nine Pins [Photo: by Zellreder, reproduced under the GNU
Free Documentation License, Version 1.2] Read more... (Emeritus Professor Philip Stott, The Clamour of the Times)
So where are these weapons of mass warming really? Why didn’t they tell us before the science wasn’t half as settled as they pretended? Did they lie to build the case for war against warming?
Rudd fends off Tuvalu bullying claims at Copenhagen KEVIN Rudd today brushed off accusations of bullying by tiny Pacific nations at Copenhagen climate change talks as the "slings and arrows" of the negotiations.
How much would you spend to insure against an impossible outcome? Planetary Airbags to Cushion Climate Change The current climate talks in Copenhagen have exacerbated the controversy between climate skeptics and environmentalists. The arguments used by both denialists and
supporters of the anthropogenic climate change idea have hardly changed since the late 1980s when the effect of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere first hit the headlines.
The Precautionary Principle and Global Warming How much risk from climate change should there be before we spend trillions of dollars to address the problem? Those advocating that we upend the global (and particularly the U.S.) economy to stave off climate change resort to a concept called the “precautionary principle“. Simply stated, it is that if there is some risk of an irreversible disaster in taking an action, then that action should be foregone. In this formulation, the risk is climate change that will be disastrous for humanity, and the action to be foregone is continuing to add the carbon dioxide that is ostensibly causing it to the planetary atmosphere. The beautiful thing about the principle (at least for them) is that, because it doesn’t assign any particular probability to the risk (i.e., it is uncertain), then it doesn’t matter whether the science backing it up is known to be valid, because even if the science has only a small probability of being correct, the principle applies. The original advocate of the precautionary principle was the mathematician Blaise Pascal, who came up with a famous “wager.” To wit: we can’t calculate the probability of the existence of God, but if he exists, the cost of believing in him is small, and the wages for not doing so is eternal damnation. Therefore, it makes sense to believe. Many in the centuries since have pointed out the flaws in the argument. For instance, there is a non-zero probability that God will consign you to perdition if and only if you believe in him. Thus, to avoid this fate, the only safe course is to be an atheist. Which points out the flaw in the principle in general. While it doesn’t require a precise accounting of the odds, it also doesn’t necessarily provide guidance as to what to do if there’s any chance that the proposed cure (or “insurance policy”) is worse than the feared disease. And a good case can be made (as has been by people such as Bjorn Lomborg) that in fact there is not just an excellent chance, but almost a certainty that this is the case with most of the proposed solutions to anthropogenic global warming. (Rand Simberg, PJM)
Cope Notes #1: The Snows of Kilimancrazy Before I head out to the demonstration this morning, I thought I’d throw up the first of my notes on the Copenhagen Climate Conference. First the good news: it’s snowing out (big flakes, beautiful) and I didn’t drink too much last night. Now the bad news: The rest. This whole event so far, what I can see of it anyway, is just silly. Basically, it’s a combination of a trade fair for eco products that are being flogged everywhere (I’m staying in a CO2 neutral hotel – you can see it on PJTV), third world operators looking for hand-outs (a couple of African scientists admitted to one of the skeptic scientists they knew AGW was a schuck, but it was a great oppo to get some cash) and leftover, re-upped hippies doing what they do — demonstrate and carry-on. I’m supposed to join them as they storm the Bella Center (conference central) today, for what I’m not sure. Well, I’m being disingenuous. It’s partly for a soupcon of more money for developing nations mixed with a dollop of the death of capitalism — the latter of which would be disastrous for them since they are the sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie on the dole from their parents. But what do they care? It’s action — and I’ll try to be there. But that’s the big problem here. It’s CROWDED. The whole place is crawling with journalists like rodents in a pirate ship. One estimate I heard was thirty thousand. They line up for hours for to get into events only to find their accreditation is lost. This may be Scandinavia, but it is wildly disorganized. I don’t think anyone anticipated the numbers. Certainly not the UN that is used to organizing events like Oil-for-Food. You have to root around for what’s important. Last night I headed out with some folks to an event that was supposed to be for ClimateSpark.org, supposedly a party/meet-and-greet with “industry” movers and shakers, some of whom reputedly knew AL GORE. (Gore’s name is thrown around here like Tom Cruise’s in Hollywood.) Unfortunately, very few showed, and yours truly high-tailed it in a matter of minutes. Speaking of Gore, I haven’t bumped into him yet, but he has now heard of me (sort of), according to Variety. If I run into him, I’ll certainly let you know. Meanwhile, his face blares out from the front page of the daily “Cope 15 Post.” He blathers on about acid in the issue, a point that was apparently discredited but Al didn’t realize or care. Further down that front page is a far more telling little boxes ad. It reads: “Want to reach everyone involved with the Climate Conference? Call our sales team now on 33 32 33 00.” Sales team? More later. (Watch Roger’s report: The Real Copenhagen: Hippies, Goofballs and Climate, Inc.) (Roger L. Simon, PJM)
These bears having nothing to teach us At last a bear cull worth backing:
Just who out there is so dull of mind as to think they have something to learn about climate science from people dressed like this: (Andrew Bolt)
An Open Letter to Chairman Pachauri Written by Lord Monckton and Senator Fielding For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here.
Still trying to pay people not to develop: Climate Talks Near Deal to Save Forests COPENHAGEN — Negotiators have all but completed a sweeping deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests, and in some cases, other natural landscapes like
peat soils, swamps and fields that play a crucial role in curbing climate change.
Al Gore tries to cool ‘climate spin’ by correcting claims of North pole thaw Al Gore’s office issued a formal correction yesterday to a speech the former US Vice-President had given earlier in the week that started the latest in a series of
“climate spin” rows.
Q & A Is The Human Addition Of Carbon Dioxide The Primary Human Climate Forcing? Today, I am going to start a series of Q&A posts with respect to the climate issue. The first question is Is The Human Addition Of Carbon Dioxide The Primary Human Climate Forcing? This is the focus of the Copenhagen meeting. The clear answer, based on a wide range of peer-reviewed papers is NO. The human addition of carbon dioxide is an important climate forcing, as I have posted on previously (e.g. see) but it is not the only important forcing and does not appear to even be the most important (e.g. see our paper Matsui and Pielke, 2006 with respect to aerosols where the forcing of wind circulations from the heterogenous spatial distribution of human caused aerosols was around 6oX greater than that of the radiative effect of CO2). As I wrote in the post Is The Human Input Of CO2 A First Order Climate Forcing? Thus, while I agree that the human addition of CO2 is a first order climate forcing, the claims that it is the primary human climate forcing is not supported by the science. This means that attempts to “control” the climate system, and to prevent a “dangerous intervention” into the climate system by humans that focuses just on CO2 and a few other greenhouse gases will necessarily be significantly incomplete, unless all of the other first order climate forcings are considered. Moreover, as I have written on extensively, climate change is much more than global warming and cooling (e.g. see and see). Human caused climate change can occur even in the absence of global warming (such as from land use change). This makes attempts to mitigate climate change a much more daunting problem than assuming that all we need to do is control the human emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion into the atmosphere. Thus the Copenhagen COP15 meeting is only addressing a relatively small portion of the issue of how human climate forcings influences society and the environment. Moreover, natural climate variability and change in the past, even without significant human intervention., has played a major role in society; e.g see Meko, D., C. A. Woodhouse, C. A. Baisan, T. Knight, J. J. Lukas, M. K. Hughes, and M. W. Salzer (2007), Medieval drought in the upper Colorado River Basin, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L10705, doi:10.1029/2007GL029988 and Rial, J., R.A. Pielke Sr., M. Beniston, M. Claussen, J. Canadell, P. Cox, H. Held, N. de Noblet-Ducoudre, R. Prinn, J. Reynolds, and J.D. Salas, 2004: Nonlinearities, feedbacks and critical thresholds within the Earth’s climate system. Climatic Change, 65, 11-38. We need a robust and effective set of comprehensive policies to address adaptation and mitigation to the entire spectrum of human- and natural- caused climate change and variability, such my son has proposed (e.g. see the end portion of the text in his post of October 30, 2009). The Copenhagen COP15 completely fails in this requirement. (Climate Science)
Cloud Feedback Presentation for Fall 2009 AGU Meeting UPDATED 12/16/09 1415 PST with final pdf version of talk…and press release, 1425 PST. I decided to make my invited presentation on estimating cloud feedbacks from satellite measurements available here (final version-pdf): Spencer-Forcing-Feedback-AGU-09-San-Francisco-final. There will be a UAH press release on Wednesday, December 16, which is embargoed until 11 a.m. PST (1 p.m. CST). UAHuntsville Press Release Chicken and egg question looms over climate debate SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (Dec. 16, 2009) — Which came first, the warmer temperatures or the clearer skies? Answers to that and similar “chicken and egg” type questions could have a significant impact on our understanding of both the climate system and manmade global warming. In an invited talk scheduled for today at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in the Moscone Convention Center, Dr. Roy Spencer from The University of Alabama in Huntsville will discuss the challenge of answering questions about cause and effect (also known as forcing and feedback) in the climate. “Feedbacks will determine whether the manmade portion of global warming ends up being catastrophic or barely measurable,” Spencer said recently. Spencer’s interest is in using satellite data and a simple climate model to test the simulated feedback processes contained in climate models that are used to forecast global warming. “I am arguing that we can’t measure feedbacks the way people have been trying to do it,” he said. “The climate modelers see from satellite data that warm years have fewer clouds, then assume that the warmth caused the clouds to dissipate. If this is true, it would be positive feedback and could lead to strong global warming. This is the way their models are programmed to behave. “My question to them was, ‘How do you know it wasn’t fewer clouds that caused the warm years, rather than the other way around?’ It turns out they didn’t know. They couldn’t answer that question.” One problem is the simplicity of the climate models. Because cloud systems are so complex and so poorly understood, all of the climate models used by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change use greatly simplified cloud parameters to represent clouds. But the calculations that set those parameters are based on assumed cause-and-effect relationships. Those assumptions might be working in the wrong direction, Spencer said. “What we have found is that cloud cover variations causing temperature changes dominate the satellite record, and give the illusion of positive feedback.” Using satellite observations interpreted with a simple model, Spencer’s data support negative feedback (or cooling) better than they support positive feedback. “This critical component in global warming theory – cloud feedback – is impossible to measure directly in the real climate system,” Spencer said. “We haven’t figured out a good way to separate cause and effect, so we can’t measure cloud feedback directly. And if we don’t know what the feedbacks are, we are just guessing at how much impact humans will have on climate change. “I’m trying to spread the word: Let’s go back to basics and look at what we can and cannot do with measurements of the real climate system to validate both climate models and their predictions.” A former NASA scientist, Spencer is a principal research scientist in UAHuntsville’s Earth System Science Center. (Roy W. Spencer)
There is a new paper Huss, M., M. Funk, and A. Ohmura (2009), Strong Alpine glacier melt in the 1940s due to enhanced solar radiation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L23501, doi:10.1029/2009GL040789 with the abstract “A 94-year time series of annual glacier melt at four high elevation sites in the European Alps is used to investigate the effect of global dimming and brightening of solar radiation on glacier mass balance. Snow and ice melt was stronger in the 1940s than in recent years, in spite of significantly higher air temperatures in the present decade. An inner Alpine radiation record shows that in the 1940s global shortwave radiation over the summer months was 8% above the long-term average and significantly higher than today, favoring rapid glacier mass loss. Dimming of solar radiation from the 1950s until the 1980s is in line with reduced melt rates and advancing glaciers.” Excerpts from the paper read “The drivers for these long-term variations cannot be detected based on the available data sets as they do not resolve all components of the energy balance. ……We therefore caution against using classical temperature-index models calibrated in the past for projecting snow and ice melt in glaciological and hydrological studies and to calculate future sea level rise. “Our data sets provide evidence that the extraordinary melt rates in the 1940s can be attributed to enhanced solar radiation in summertime. Models for past and future glacier changes should take into account the effect of decadal radiation variations as they significantly alter the relationship between glacier melt and air temperature.” This is yet another study that documents the inability to properly describe the climate system when it is oversimplified by focusing on just the metric of surface air temperature anomalies. The higher Alpine glacier melt in the 1940s, also provides evidence that this climate event is not primarily caused by a long-term trend in the global warming (or cooling). (Climate Science)
Claims getting sillier by the minute: IPCC forecasts 9m sea-level rise if temperatures meet 2C threshold Hundreds of millions of people around the world would be affected as low low-lying coastal areas became inundated, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warns ( Alok Jha, The Guardian)
NASA says AIRS satellite data shows positive water vapor feedback From this NASA press release I’ll have more on this later. The timing of this release is interesting. › Play animation (Quicktime) | ›
Play animation (Windows Media Player) Moustafa Chahine, the instrument’s science team leader at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., unveiled the new product at a briefing on recent
breakthroughs in greenhouse gas, weather and climate research from AIRS at this week’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. The new data, which span the
seven-plus years of the AIRS mission, measure the concentration and distribution of carbon dioxide in the mid-troposphere–the region of Earth’s atmosphere that is located
between 5 to 12 kilometers, or 3 to 7 miles, above Earth’s surface. They also track its global transport. The product represents the first-ever release of global carbon
dioxide data that are based solely on observations. The data have been extensively validated against both aircraft and ground-based observations.
Comments On A New Paper “A Strong Bout Of Natural Cooling in 2008″ By Perlwitz Et Al 2009 There is a new paper Perlwitz, J., M. Hoerling, J. Eischeid, T. Xu, and A. Kumar (2009), A strong bout of natural cooling in 2008, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L23706, doi:10.1029/2009GL041188 with a remarkably convoluted way to rationalize recent cooling in North America so that it conforms with the IPCC perspective of global warming. The abstract reads “A precipitous drop in North American temperature in 2008, commingled with a decade-long fall in global mean temperatures, are generating opinions contrary to the inferences drawn from the science of climate change. We use an extensive suite of model simulations and appraise factors contributing to 2008 temperature conditions over North America. We demonstrate that the anthropogenic impact in 2008 was to warm the region’s temperatures, but that it was overwhelmed by a particularly strong bout of naturally-induced cooling resulting from the continent’s sensitivity to widespread coolness of the tropical and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures. The implication is that the pace of North American warming is likely to resume in coming years, and that climate is unlikely embarking upon a prolonged cooling.” Excerpts from the paper read Our appraisal of the natural SST conditions in the Nino 4 region, with anomalies of about 1.1 K suggests a condition colder than any in the instrumental record since 1871…..We illustrated that North America would have experienced considerably colder temperatures just due to the impact of such natural ocean variability alone, and that the simultaneous presence of anthropogenic warming reduced the severity of cooling. “This, and similar recent attribution studies of observed climate events [Stott et al., 2004; Hoerling et al., 2007; Easterling and Wehner, 2009] are important in ensuring that natural variability, when occurring, is not misunderstood to indicate that climate change is either not happening or that it is happening more intensely than the true human influence. In our diagnosis of 2008, the absence of North American warming was shown not to be evidence for an absence of anthropogenic forcing, but only that the impact of the latter was balanced by strong natural cooling. Considering the nature of both the 2008 NA temperature anomalies and the natural ocean variability that reflected a transitory interannual condition, we can expect that the 2008 coolness is unlikely to be part of a prolonged cooling trend in NA temperature in future years.” This paper is an amazing example of ignoring the obvious. None of the models anticipated this record cooling in the Nino 4 region. These sea surface temperatures are very much a part of the real climate system, which the IPCC claims can be skillfully predicted decades into the future. Yet, the model simulations (which themselves are just hypotheses; e.g. see) are being used to claim that this cooling is just a short-term blip on a long-term upward trend. The authors, of course, may be correct that the warming will recommence and continue into the future. However, while they did not intend this message, what they have shown convincingly is that natural climate variations exceed what the IPCC models can skillfully simulate. This should give pause to anyone who claims that these models are skillful predictions of the climate in the coming decades. (Climate Science)
Shell's promise of a bright future turns out to be yet another false dawn Oil company has been splashing out on ads about its shallow commitment to low-carbon technologies during Copenhagen (Fred Pearce, The Guardian)
Three previous posts have examined the emissions problem related to intermittent industrial windpower that is firmed up with fossil-fuel generation.
This post deals with issues raised in comments and other feedback received to date. Further comments and debate on new issues will continue this series. (Kent Hawkins, MasterResource)
Will your digitized health care data be secure? Probably not, unless there are some big changes in the culture of how health care organizations operate. My latest HND piece examines this issue, and details some of the latest horrific data breaches. Yes, it is way worse than you probably thought. How about a "missing" hard drive with seven years' worth of personal financial and medical info on 1.5 million Health Net customers, for example? The Feds have mandated that medical records go digital by 2014, and naturally, all the IT companies are offering their (very) expensive solutions. Unfortunately, though, technology is only a small part of the answer, and unless the health care industry figures out a way to bring DOD type data security to your local hospital—and get the little people on board—things could get ugly. Read the complete article. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)
Global warming is a prime example of what is killing the major media A raft of reasons are advanced to explain why newspaper circulation and the ratings of major networks are falling faster than a rock down a well. Global warming encapsulates many of the media failings that have contributed to their own problems. Can you think of one element of the global climate controversy that has been introduced by the major media? Can you think of one example where the major media has actually contributed to the public's better understanding of any of the issues involved? Major media have bought the party line. They have accepted without questioning the pronouncements of principal establishment figures and have bought into the symbology used by environmental groups and advocates. Had this generation of reporters and editors been working 30 years ago, we would still be fighting in Vietnam. (Thomas Fuller, Examiner)
Academic probably even takes himself seriously... Santa 'global ambassador for obesity' SANTA Claus has been accused of acting in ways that could "damage millions of lives".
Dirty air makes for wheezy kids: study NEW YORK - Small particles from traffic and heating oil combustion may cause children younger than two to wheeze and cough, according to a new study.
Childhood brain power tied to adult heart health NEW YORK - People who had greater intellectual ability as children may have fewer heart disease risk factors in middle-age, a new study suggests.
Crank of the Week - December 14, 2009 - Sandra Upson Maybe it was just supposed to justify a boondoggle trip to Finland or her actual tree-hugger tendencies coming to the fore, but in this month's IEEE Spectrum magazine, Associate Editor Sandra Upson turned a report on the world's only working nuclear waste repository project into an eco-rant that any Greenpeace member would be proud of. Visiting Finland's Olkiluoto Island, where the industrious Finns are quietly taking care of their nuclear future, Ms Upson transformed what should have been an uplifting example of what serious minded engineers can accomplish when government makes a decision and then gets out of the way, into a distopian hit piece. The article starts out as one would expect for an piece in Spectrum, the official magazine of the IEEE—a respected society of professional engineers—lots of technical details about how precisely engineered the process of welding the massive copper casks of waste will be and all of the intricate precautions that are designed into the storage facility. In America, nuclear waste disposal has been a political football for decades which finally ended with the selection of the Yucca Mountain site, in Nevada. The Obama administration has since canceled the Yucca Mountain project after wasting some $9 billion of taxpayer money over the course of 20 years. America now has no plan at all. Unlike the United States, the Finns are a serious, methodical and practical people. After realizing that the best source of energy for the 21st century would be nuclear, they decided that they would keep their nuclear power plants running at least until 2080. Knowing that this would mean something had to be done to handle the radioactive waste created by the plants, back in 1983 the Finnish parliament mandated that the country’s two nuclear power plant companies set aside funds and begin planning immediately for disposal to begin in 40 years. Their solution is a repository, named Onkalo, which is set to open in 2010. That is about the same time Finland's fifth nuclear power plant will come on line (there is talk of building a sixth plant as well). The repository plan is impressive: waste is to be placed inside of iron containers, sealed inside of welded copper casks and then buried, surrounded by bentonite clay, under more than 1,000 ft of solid rock (Project research and development director Johanna Hansen stands between a 1-meter-wide copper canister and its iron interior in the picture on the right, taken from the article). After doing a thorough review of the site and plans for the repository, Upson's article took a turn for the strange when the author started speculating on what effect the onset of the next ice age could have on the deeply buried repository. Despite the fact that Onkalo is carved into rock that has been geologically stable for more than 1.8 billion years the author proclaimed: “In as little as 20 000 years, Finland may enter an ice age, and advancing ice sheets kilometers thick could carve out the rock and force more water into its fractured depths. The liquid may then diffuse through the bentonite barrier, eat through the copper, and carry off still-hot radionuclides. No one can be sure.” Did she think to consult with a geologist or two, or was the opportunity to cast aspersions on Finland's plans too enticing? At least the article quoted Michael Apted, chairman of an advisory group to Finland’s nuclear safety authority, as saying “We’re talking millions of years for water to get through clay.” Because in the next paragraph Upson totally abandons any pretense of rationality for a flight into the imagined depths of a future ecological nightmare:
Hermaphroditic fish? Finned flamingos? Cockroaches reigning supreme? Maybe Ms. Upson always suspected that this would happen but I doubt most people do. The question is, why end a perfectly serviceable article in an engineering magazine with such utter tripe? Here are the Finns, perhaps the only nation on the planet taking a rational scientific and engineering approach to meeting their future energy needs in an ecologically responsible way, and this twit uses an article on how they are doing it as an opportunity to slide off the deep end into the seventh level of tree-hugger hell. IEEE should be highly embarrassed that their flagship journal printed such balderdash. At least the article should have ended on an upbeat note, right? Not a chance. Upson caps off her crackpot musings this way: “Then perhaps, as one epoch slides into the next, whoever remains will come to Onkalo to study, with great curiosity, their distant ancestors’ struggle with the dark side of Earth’s bounty.” While the real scientists and engineers of the world are busy “struggling with the dark side,” perhaps Ms Upson should seek therapy for those frightening visions—or alternative employment. Any number of green advocacy groups would be happy to have her if this article's last few paragraphs are an indication of her mindset. Perhaps she can use this Crank of the Week as a reference. (The Resilient Earth)
Put down the coke or the rainforest gets it Having lost the war on drugs, the UK police now want to wean young people off cocaine by flagging up its eco-impact. (Nathalie Rothschild, sp!ked)
Still waiting, yearning, for the apocalypse Humans have never lived lives so long, healthy, comfortable and secure. Yet such plain facts cannot disrupt the theoretical certainties of a Guardian columnist such as Madeleine Bunting:
In fact, catch Bunting on another day, and she’ll confess: UPDATE Another eco alarmist demonstrates the pleasures of preaching austerity from first class:
‘We need a planetary one-child policy’ Malthusianism is so widespread that greens can now openly sing the praises of China’s population authoritarianism. (Brendan O’Neill, sp!ked)
Sing Along: 'This Land Is EPA's Land' Posted 06:55 PM ET Regulations: The Clean Water Act is being rewritten to give a government bureaucracy the power to regulate every body of water from the Mississippi River to a rain-flooded field. The first casualty may be American coal. With all the concern for the harm that cap-and-trade and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant might do to the American economy and free markets, the Environmental Protection Agency is doing quite enough damage with an existing law on the books — the Clean Water Act. Congress plans to revise it to make it an even more powerful bludgeon against industry, energy producers and just plain folks. The 1972 Clean Water Act was originally intended to protect the "navigable waters of the United States" — you know, the kind boats travel down. It was broadly and quickly interpreted to any pool of water in America capable of supporting a bathtub variety boat. The word "navigable" was forgotten and ignored, and even those trying to improve the environment were not immune. In the name of clean water and wetlands-protection, people were literally being arrested for putting dirt on dirt. In August 1987, Bill Ellen was hired to construct a 103-acre wildlife sanctuary, including 10 duck ponds, on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, on land so dusty it had to be watered down to protect construction workers' safety according to federal regulations. But in September 1989, after three days of torrential downpour, angry government officials descended on his sanctuary looking for wetlands. Having found incriminating puddles, they arrested him for having the previous March dumped two loads of dirt where one federal agency said it was okay. It was also charged that the droppings of the migratory birds drawn to his ponds constituted waterway pollution. For his crime against humanity, Bill Ellen was sentenced to six months in prison and four months of home detention. Guess he didn't notice the boats. Such abuses of the law in which every puddle was considered protected eventually led to two Supreme Court decisions, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States in 2001, and Rapanos v. United States in 2006, which partially reined in these excesses. The Clean Water Restoration Act of 2009 (S. 787), legislation that would challenge these Supreme Court rulings, is now moving through the Senate. Introduced by Sen. Russell Feingold, this legislation seeks to re-establish the nearly unlimited powers of the Clean Water Act. "Well, this bill removes the word 'navigable,' so for ranchers and farmers who have mud puddles, prairie potholes — anything from snow melting on their land — all that water will now come under the regulation of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency," warns Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. Aside from striking "navigable," the bill defines U.S. waters as "all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters, and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams)," as well as "mudflats, sand flats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows" etc. Virtually everywhere water is or collects, even on a temporary basis, is covered. Some 500 more jobs will have to be saved or created to make up for the 500 workers who will be laid off next year in West Virginia by Pittsburgh-based Consol Energy. The coal company blames lawsuits under the current Clean Water Act and other laws for the action. The EPA is currently suspending 79 such surface mining permits in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. The agency says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant "enhanced" review. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says she's not against coal mining, but wants to see it "done in a way that minimizes impact to water quality." This is not about clean water any more than cap-and-trade is about climate change. It is about increasing government power over every aspect of our lives. Every breath we take, and every drop we drink, they will be regulating us. (IBD)
Panel: Great Lakes not losing extra water TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Lakes Huron and Michigan are not losing extra billions of gallons of water daily because of navigational dredging as a Canadian group contends, a
scientific panel said Tuesday.
Turning children into Orwellian eco-spies Frank Furedi recalls being educated through fear in Stalinist Hungary, and is disturbed that the same tactics are now used by environmentalists. (Frank Furedi, sp!ked)
Surely Greenpeace would approve of this homage to their tactics:
(Thanks to several applauding readers.) (Andrew Bolt)
“WHAT’S the deal with fish oil?”
December 16, 2009
Not a weighty tome but a big breakthrough into the mass market: Better late than never to hold this debate The tide has turned. The Daily Express’s 100 reasons here. (Andrew Bolt)
The focus belongs not just on CRU, but on all of the organizations which gather temperature data. All now show evidence of fraud. The familiar phrase was spoken by Marcellus in Shakespeare’s Hamlet — first performed around 1600, at the start of the Little Ice Age. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” is the exact quote. It recognizes that fish rots from the head down, and it means that all is not well at the top of the political hierarchy. Shakespeare proved to be Nostradamus. Four centuries later — at the start of what could be a new Little Ice Age — the rotting fish is Copenhagen. The smell in the air may be from the leftover caviar at the banquet tables, or perhaps from the exhaust of 140 private jets and 1200 limousines commissioned by the attendees when they discovered there was to be no global warming evident in Copenhagen. (In fact, the cold will deepen and give way to snow before they leave, an extension of the Gore Effect.) But the metaphorical stench comes from the well-financed bad science and bad policy, promulgated by the UN, and the complicity of the so-called world leaders, thinking of themselves as modern-day King Canutes (the Viking king of Denmark, England, and Norway — who ironically ruled during the Medieval Warm Period this very group has tried to deny). His flatterers thought his powers “so great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back.” Unlike the warmists and the compliant media, Canute knew otherwise, and indeed the tide kept rising. Nature will do what nature always did — change. (Joe D'Aleo, PJM)
DOE sends a “litigation hold notice” regarding CRU to employees – asking to “preserve documents” UPDATE: I’ve confirmed this document, see below the “read more” line. It appears bigger things are brewing related to CRU’s Climategate. WUWT commenter J.C. writes in comments: I work at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. I’ve been following the Climategate scandal since its inception. The first time many of my coworkers had heard of the situation was when I asked them about it. Well, well, well. “December 14, 2009 DOE Litigation Hold Notice DOE-SR has received a “Litigation Hold Notice” from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) General Council and the DOE Office of Inspector General regarding the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Accordingly, they are requesting that SRNS, SRR and other Site contractors locate and preserve all documents, records, data, correspondence, notes, and other materials, whether official or unofficial, original or duplicative, drafts or final versions, partial or complete that may relate to the global warming, including, but not limited to, the contract files, any related correspondence files, and any records, including emails or other correspondence, notes, documents, or other material related to this contract, regardless of its location or medium on which it is stored. In other words, please preserve any and all documents relevant to “global warming, the Climate Research Unit at he University of East Anglia In England, and/or climate change science.” Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
“…anything short of the absolute pursuit of science cannot be accepted or tolerated.” While Dr. Mann has made statements in the press during the last week to the effect of “I welcome this investigation” I wonder if he’s seen some of the correspondence being sent to PSU regarding him. Here’ s one from Pennsylvania State Senator Jeff Piccola that has some very pointed language. PDF of letter is here Sen-Piccola-Letter-on-PSU-Prof-Michael-Mann And here is one of the letters to Senator Piccola that prompted his letter to PSU: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Inconvenient Question to Al Gore Journalist and filmmaker Phelim McAleer (Mine Your Own Business, Not Evil Just Wrong) attempts to ask Al Gore a question about 'Climategate' emails at the UN Climate Change Conference. Al Gore's Press Secretary grabs his McAleer's microphone and UN security guard pulls the cable from the microphone. For more Inconvenient Questions and answers about The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria visit www.noteviljustwrong.com
10 Global Warming Doomsday Predictions Have you ever seen one of those wild-eyed people with a sandwich board around his neck standing on the corner, screeching incoherently about how the end of the world is
coming? Now, what if those people were insisting that you were really the crazy one? What if the newspapers agreed with them and the politicians wanted to pass taxes and
spend hundreds of billions to implement their ideas? Sound too unbelievable to be true? Well, guess what? It's happening.
New Scientist becomes Non Scientist You might think journalists at a popular science magazine would be able to investigate and reason. In DenierGate, watch New Scientist closely, as they do the unthinkable and try to defend gross scientific malpractice by saying it’s OK because other people did other things a little bit wrong, that were not related, and a long time ago. Move along ladies and gentlemen, there’s nothing to see… The big problem for this formerly good publication is that they have decided already what the answer is to any question on climate-change (and the answer could be warm or cold but it’s always ALARMING). That leaves them clutching for sand-bags to prop up their position as the king-tide sweeps away any journalistic credibility they might have had. (Jo Nova)
Superficially attractive but... Trusting Nature as the Climate Referee Imagine there’s no Copenhagen. Imagine a planet in which global warming was averted without the periodic need for thousands of people to fly around the world to promise to stop burning fossil fuels. Imagine no international conferences wrangling over the details of climate policy. Imagine entrusting the tough questions to a referee: Mother Earth. That is the intriguing suggestion of Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph in Ontario who, like me, is virtuously restricting his carbon footprint by staying away from Copenhagen this week. Dr. McKitrick expects this climate conference to yield the same results as previous ones: grand promises to cut carbon emissions that will be ignored once politicians return home to face voters who are skeptical that global warming is even a problem. To end this political stalemate, Dr. McKitrick proposes calling each side’s bluff. He suggests imposing financial penalties on carbon emissions that would be set according to the temperature in the earth’s atmosphere. The penalties could start off small enough to be politically palatable to skeptical voters. If the skeptics are right and the earth isn’t warming, then the penalties for burning carbon would stay small or maybe even disappear. But if the climate modelers and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are correct about the atmosphere heating up, then the penalties would quickly, and automatically, rise. “Either way we get a sensible outcome,” Dr. McKitrick argues. “The only people who lose will be those whose positions were disingenuous, such as opponents of greenhouse policy who claim to be skeptical while privately believing greenhouse warming is a crisis, or proponents of greenhouse gas emission cuts who neither understand nor believe the I.P.C.C. projections, but invoke them as a convenient argument on behalf of policies they want on other grounds even if global warming turns out to be untrue.” (John Tierney, NYT)
Nothing can surprise about the climate debate any more. First, UK homeopath-slayer Dr Ben Goldacre lays his climate cards on the table. Now his comrade in arms across the pond, James Randi, has done the same – only completely differently. (Climate Resistance)
EPA's Greenhouse Gases Notice Sets Stage for Regulation Writing, Lawsuits U.S. EPA published its finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health in the Federal Register today, setting a stage for a series of rules to begin regulating the
heat-trapping emissions.
Worry Over Global Warming Cools Even as the Copenhagen conference generates headlines, polls show Americans' concern is tepid Even as this month's Copenhagen conference generates front-page headlines, polls show Americans' concern about global warming is tepid. If marketers wish to tap into
consumers' green sentiment -- of which there is plenty -- survey data and some expert opinion give reason to think a focus on global warming will be a tough way to do it.
He's still at it: Maurice Strong’s Outlook on COP15 Climate Change Negotiations Maurice Strong: The climate change challenge requires us to make changes in the fundamental nature and functioning of our economic system and resist the temptation
merely to patch up the existing system to enable to continue, however, temporally, on the pathway that led to its crisis.
Time for a Smarter Approach to Global Warming - Investing in energy R&D might work. Mandated emissions cuts won't. The saddest fact of climate change—and the chief reason we should be concerned about finding a proper response—is that the countries it will hit hardest are already among the poorest and most long-suffering. (Bjørn Lomborg, WSJ)
Finally got one right: "Nature does not negotiate," warns UN head on arrival in Copenhagen With talks at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen ailing significantly—but by no means hopeless—the UN Secretary-General, Ban-Kai Moon, arrived today announcing: "We do not have another year to negotiate. Nature does not negotiate." (Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com)
Here he is -- the best friend the Australian Republican Movement's got: Copenhagen climate summit: Prince Charles warns climate change will drive starvation and terrorism The world has only seven years before climate change causes a “point of crisis” that will drive food shortages, terrorism and poverty, the Prince of Wales has warned. (TDT)
Just think - fomenting all this fear and adversarial "negotiation" is the path to a Nobel "Peace" Prize :-)
Climate summit organisation in disarray EUOBSERVER / COPENHAGEN - It was billed as the most important meeting in history. Naturally, as the whole purpose is to save the planet, or at least keep it inhabitable
for human beings. But the UN climate conference in Copenhagen itself has so far been pretty uninhabitable for many of the human beings trying to attend.
World leaders 'could boycott failing Copenhagen talks' European ministers worked to salvage a deal at the Copenhagen climate summit today as fears grew that some world leaders, scenting failure in the negotiations, could
decide to stay away.
Why? U.N. chief calls for compromise at climate talks COPENHAGEN - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Danish conference hosts warned ministers on Tuesday to compromise at deadlocked global talks to salvage agreement on a new U.N. climate pact. (Reuters)
Rudd's climate change strategy under fire as leaders converge on Copenhagen KEVIN Rudd's climate change agenda is under fire from three fronts this morning with India, the G77-China bloc and former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton
attacking Australia's approach.
D'oh! Copenhagen negotiator accuses Rudd of lying The chief negotiator for China and the small African nations at Copenhagen has accused Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of lying to the Australian people about his position on
climate change.
"My Government Went to COP 15 and All I Got Was This Lousy Economy" Copenhagen – Members of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have convened in Copenhagen to negotiate for a
climate treaty likely to devastate the economies of compliant nations.
Lack of long-term aid threatens climate deal The United Nations has conceded that a deal in Copenhagen on climate change might not include promised financial aid for developing countries, an admission that will infuriate poorer nations and potentially scupper a broad-based agreement. (Financial Times)
U.S., Europe at Odds Over Emissions COPENHAGEN -- The top U.S. climate negotiator brushed back European calls for faster short-term reductions in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, saying that by many measures
the U.S. already matches or surpasses the European Union in fighting climate change.
Trade Disagreements Fuel U.S.-China Tension at Climate Talks Dec. 16 -- China is demanding that a global agreement to cut greenhouse gases prohibit nations from imposing trade sanctions, further pitting the world’s No. 1 emitter
of greenhouse gases against U.S. lawmakers.
China and U.S. Hit Strident Impasse at Climate Talks COPENHAGEN — China and the United States were at an impasse on Monday at the United Nations climate change conference here over how compliance with any treaty could be
monitored and verified.
China, US refuse to budge on climate emissions COPENHAGEN — The world's two biggest carbon emitters, China and the United States, Tuesday warned they would not shift on the offers for tackling their pollution, a question lying at the heart of the UN climate talks here. (AFP)
U.S. Emissions Target "Protectionist": German Minister COPENHAGEN - U.S. greenhouse gas emissions targets pledged ahead of United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen have "protectionist aspects," Germany's
environment minister said on Tuesday.
India fears Copenhagen climate talks may collapse COPENHAGEN: With no signs of breakthrough in the tough negotiations in climate change conference here, India
Peter Foster: Canada’s Galileo government The Copenhagen agreement will increase bureaucracy and Swiss bank accounts without helping the planet UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon announced this week on his way to Copenhagen that “There is no time for posturing or blaming.” Good heavens, if there is no time for
the UN’s two main activities, the climate talks must really be in peril. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
'Death of Kyoto would be death of Africa': AU The African Union on Tuesday estimated that the Copenhagen summit on climate change could lead to the "death warrant for the Kyoto Protocol," the only instrument
currently regulating emission of greenhouse gases.
Emissions Rights Could Negate New Climate Pact: EU COPENHAGEN - Trade in controversial carbon rights under the Kyoto Protocol after 2012 could undermine emissions targets agreed under a new global climate pact, the
European Union environment commissioner said on Tuesday.
Their greatest achievement: Copenhagen Summit Carbon Footprint Biggest Ever: Report COPENHAGEN - The Copenhagen climate talks will generate more carbon emissions than any previous climate conference, equivalent to the annual output of over half a million Ethiopians, figures commissioned by hosts Denmark show. (Reuters)
Businesses hold world hostage over carbon credits - Even U.N. climate chief tied to new, 'green' extortion scam WND research reveals the European Union's cap-and-trade exchange is vulnerable to a sophisticated form of corporate extortion in which EU bureaucrats in Brussels are
manipulated into paying hundreds of millions of dollars in carbon permit bribes to keep companies from moving jobs to Third World nations.
Reward third world klepotocrats? Not sure what that's supposed to help really: Copenhagen: why can't we write off Third World debt at the same as dealing with the environment? As climate change negotiations get into full swing ahead of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, debate over the basis upon which developed countries should compensate developing countries for their historic emissions intensifies. ( Fraser Durham, Director, CarbonSense)
Gordon Brown throws yet more millions at Third World in climate change 'bribe' Gordon Brown is offering hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to try to bribe Third World countries into signing a climate change deal.
We have long noted the fall of our once great media institutions, such as The Times and the BBC into the maw of the climate/ world-governance movement, but the descent of the Daily Telegraph into this gaping abyss of nonsense propaganda is harder to take. It was always far, far from perfect, but there was clearly an attempt to maintain a balanced view, plus the fragile hold of Christopher Booker in his small, irregular columns of reason. In recent weeks, however, there has been a sea change. Presumably some sort of coup has taken place. For the centre of the paper is now occupied by Greenies of the wildest disposition. They are Geoffrey Lean and Louise Gray, plus attendant courtiers. No wonder that EU Referendum has taken to dubbing it The Scarygraph. Oddly enough, the web version of the journal still seems to demonstrate some effort to keep on an even keel, with quite a different emphasis. This makes it harder to illustrate a commentary as it is hard to find links to the pieces that actually align with the printed page. Page 12 of the edition of December 15th is typical. It is dominated by pictures of fluffy Emperor penguin chicks, cuddly koalas and a clown fish. Believe it or not, this last is at the top of the list of these endangered species. Apparently, the acidification of the sea by carbon dioxide has caused his fish to lose its sense of smell so that it cannot find its protective host. Come off it! The only reason that the clown fish is there is that it was the sympathetic hero of a Disney cartoon. Until then the great majority of the population had never heard of it. The bottom right hand corner of the page is reserved for the ersatz sceptic, Bjorn Lomborg, damaging to science as usual, but the rest of it is taken up by the dynamic duo, who have been drumming up the Copenhagen hysteria for weeks. By the way, the intrusion of ocean acidification is no accident. You might not have noticed, but this has been opened up as a second front after setbacks on the warm front. The vital strategy is to keep up the war on carbon, both as a proxy for energy and the mainstay of western economies, to say nothing of the little matter of all life on Earth. One of the stories that the establishment media have been energetically burying is the emerging detail of the financial web of intrigue surrounding Dr Pachauri, the prime driver of the climate scam at the UN. You can read all about it at EU Referendum, but to find it at The Telegraph you have to delve into the web version and the still independent blog of James Delingpole. By the way, you can also find within those confines a pointed comment on the suicide of the establishment media, which the editors of the Telegraph would do well to contemplate. As for our erstwhile hero, Boris Johnson, just another fall of the mighty. (Number Watch)
Rudd's ETS a 'transfer of wealth' TONY Abbott will today accuse Kevin Rudd of attempting to use his proposed emissions trading system to disguise an old-fashioned Labor-style attempt to redistribute wealth
to the poor.
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has attacked Kevin Rudd's stance on carbon emissions, saying the Prime Minister was going to Copenhagen ''with an open cheque written on the
Australian people''.
Natural Disasters At Decade Low In 2009-UN Report COPENHAGEN - The world this year suffered the fewest number of natural disasters in a decade, but floods, droughts and other extreme weather continued to account for most
of the deaths and economic losses, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.
From CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 50: 16 December 2009 Editorial: Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week: Subject Index Summary: Plant Growth Data: Journal Reviews: The "Little" Medieval Warm Period in the Bahamas: The "junior partner" of the Medieval Warm Period surfaces once again, manifesting itself in a study of coral growth rates in the vicinity of the Bahamas. How Best to "Weatherproof" Earth's Corals Against Warming-Induced Bleaching: You mean it can actually be done??? Evolution to the Rescue: Can earth's many life forms evolve rapidly enough to survive rapid climate change? Effects of Warming and Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment on Wheat Photosynthesis and Biomass Production: Just how severely do the "twin evils" of the radical environmentalist movement impact wheat productivity? (co2science.org)
There is a news release that indicates the major effect of soot on the climate, including glaciers, in the Himalayas (thanks to Charles Martin for alerting us to this!). The news release dated December 14 2009 is New Study Turns Up the Heat on Soot’s Role in Himalayan Warming Excerpts from the news article are “……the new research, by NASA’s William Lau and collaborators, reinforces with detailed numerical analysis what earlier studies suggest: that soot and dust contribute as much (or more) to atmospheric warming in the Himalayas as greenhouse gases. This warming fuels the melting of glaciers and could threaten fresh water resources in a region that is home to more than a billion people.” “The Indo-Gangetic plain, one of the most fertile and densely populated areas on Earth, has become a hotspot for emissions of black carbon……. Winds push thick clouds of black carbon and dust, which absorb heat from sunlight, toward the base of the Himalayas where they accumulate, rise, and drive a “heat pump” that affects the region’s climate.” “Over areas of the Himalayas, the rate of warming is more than five times faster than warming globally,” said William Lau, head of atmospheric sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Based on the differences it’s not difficult to conclude that greenhouse gases are not the sole agents of change in this region. There’s a localized phenomenon at play.” “He has produced new evidence suggesting that an “elevated heat pump” process is fueling the loss of ice, driven by airborne dust and soot particles absorbing the sun’s heat and warming the local atmosphere and land surface. A related modeling study by Lau and colleagues has been submitted to Environmental Research Letters for publication.” “……said Lau. “We need to add another topic to the climate dialogue.” This news study reinforces the conclusion that a broader perspective of the role of humans in the climate system is needed, and that the radiative effect of CO2 may not the dominate human role as concluded by the IPCC report and as being discussed in Copenhagen. (Climate Science)
Drip by drip, like a glacier melting in the sun, the claim that man is changing the climate is dissolving into irrelevance. The recent findings of Swiss researchers expose
another hole.
Climate change blamed for Great Lakes decline Canadian-U.S. study attributes discernible drop in water levels in Huron and Michigan to drier weather (Globe and Mail)
Looking to the land for climate change solutions The high alpine grasslands in the heart of Asia have been home to yak and sheep herders for centuries. But they are starting to disappear from much of this vast area. One
major reason is overgrazing and depletion of the soil. Some parts of the grasslands are now called the "Black Beach" - a parched moonscape that has had its
nutrients sucked out of the earth.
US counting on cows to reduce emissions COPENHAGEN -- The United States is counting on cows to help save the planet.
Micronesia will be sunk by a Czech coal plant, wrote a protest memo This story seems to be beyond parody. You couldn't make it up except that Michael Crichton was able to predict the story in his State of Fear which included a class action lawsuit on behalf of the people of the island nation Vanutu: 7th space: Climate victims fight backThe Czech ministry of environment has received a request from the Federated States of Micronesia for a transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment of our biggest coal-burning power plant in Prunéřov ["proo-neh-rzoff", Google Maps], the 18th largest institutional producer of CO2 in the world whose further expansion has been scheduled. It may be the first time in the human history when such a transboundary, 13,000-kilometer (along the surface) lawsuit occurred. The idea is that the carbon dioxide emissions from our power plant will lead to a sea level rise that will sink the islands of our Micronesian friends. So let me perform the Environmental Impact Assessment for them. » Don't Stop Reading » (The Reference Frame)
Exxon finds good use for its money ExxonMobil’s announcement that it was buying XTO Energy for $41bn ($31bn stock and $10bn in debt) is a good answer to the critics who have been looking for the world’s
biggest publicly listed oil company to do something besides pay dividends and buy back shares with its huge stockpile of cash.
China Puts Coal (Lots of it) in Copenhagen’s Stocking While political leaders and environmental activists are gathered in Copenhagen to talk about carbon footprints, cap-and-trade schemes, and a “carbon-constrained world” China continues burning coal at record rates. And that coal consumption means that all of the rhetoric in Copenhagen will largely amount to nothing. [Read More] (Xina Xie and Michael J. Economides, Energy Tribune)
Electricity prices set to rise by 62% by 2013 NSW households will need to brace themselves for the first impact of the Federal Government's proposal to cut emissions, with electricity prices expected to rise steeply
over the next few years.
Power bills could send people 'into poverty' SOME customers could be paying almost $900 more for a year's electricity by 2013, as the impact of the Federal Government's proposal to cut carbon emissions is felt in the
household budget for the first time, with one group warning the increases ''will send many households into poverty''.
Other than this, and the higher prices and power blackouts, it won’t hurt a bit, honest:
And then there are the fines the United Nations will impose on us - fines some countries already face under the Kyoto Protocol:
Climate change a smokescreen for Kevin Rudd's high taxing agenda AN election fought over the emissions trading scheme will be an election on tax.
Another one of those, uh, "dreadful Bush Administration initiatives": Global Methane Partnership The International Methane to Markets Partnership is publishing its first comprehensive report detailing the achievements of its 31 partner governments. Methane gas capture
and use projects supported by the partnership since its creation in 2004 are currently reducing emissions by more than 27.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent
annually -- equivalent to the annual emissions from 5 million passenger vehicles.
How quickly things date: ETS should consider rightful ownership of emissions Climate change has become the global catch phrase of the 21st Century and decisions made at the current United Nations talks in Copenhagen will have a lasting influence on
the global economy and the mining industry.
U.S. Unveils a $350-Million Energy-Efficiency Initiative at Copenhagen Solar lanterns and more efficient appliances are part of a new U.S.-led effort to deploy clean energy across the globe to combat climate change and other ills ( David Biello, SciAm)
“While the details of a binding agreement may not be completely worked out in Copenhagen, it is more important than ever that participants send a strong, indicative and ambitious signal that can guide energy investment and policy decisions globally,” said Nobuo Tanaka, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), today at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP-15) in Copenhagen. “This conference is the most important climate meeting to date, as we urgently need a framework that goes beyond 2012, the end of the Kyoto Protocol first commitment period. The economic crisis, with the resulting fall in global energy-related CO2 emissions of around 3% in 2009, gives us a unique window of opportunity to change our current, highly unsustainable energy path,” said Mr. Tanaka. “Current pledges point in the right direction, but fall short of what is needed to keep the global temperature rise to around 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The IEA proposes an energy policy and technology blueprint that can deliver ambitious climate goals to be agreed in Copenhagen, with energy efficiency at the core of CO2 reduction strategy in both the near and long term.” (Source: International Energy Agency)
As some countries have reservations on carbon capture and storage (CCS) the emerging technology will not be added to the UN-backed carbon reducing mechanisms here in Copenhagen. (CoP15)
Americans may live longer and cost more: study WASHINGTON - Americans may live significantly longer in the future than current U.S. government projections, and that could mean sharply higher costs than anticipated for
Medicare and other programs, researchers reported on Monday.
The Three Senators Who Could Save You From Government-Run Health Care Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) may have announced that he expects to vote for Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) health bill this afternoon, but that leaves Reid with just 59 votes. He needs to get all three of the following holdouts to sign on the dotted line by Christmas: Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) Reid’s health bill would change all that, forcing Americans to subsidize elective abortions for the first time in more than 30 years. Nelson told Face the Nation this Sunday: “I still have the unique issue of abortion. I’ve said I can’t support the bill with the abortion language that’s there.” Continue reading… (The Foundry)
HGWA: Plasticizer may be tied to boys' breast enlargement NEW YORK - A report out today points to yet another possible harmful effect of exposure to phthalates -- a controversial plastics chemical used widely in the manufacture
of consumer products.
Federal Group Proposes Curbs on Marketing Food to Kids WASHINGTON -- A working group made up of officials from several federal regulatory agencies Tuesday proposed restricting marketing of foods and beverages that contain
significant amounts of sugar, sodium and saturated fat, in response to concerns about childhood obesity.
Psychotherapy Offers Obesity Prevention for 'at Risk' Teenage Girls (Dec. 15, 2009) — A team of scientists at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the National Institutes of Health has piloted psychotherapy treatment to prevent excessive weight gain in teenager girls deemed 'at risk' for obesity. (ScienceDaily)
Smart Growth: Lower Carbon Footprint Not Recent reports from the Urban Land Institute and other planning advocates insist that so-called smart growth—a term meaning more compact urban development, combined with heavy investments in mass transit as an alternative to driving—is an essential tool in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In heeding this call, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress want to impose a national land-use planning policy that threatens the property rights of every landowner in the country. (Randal O'Toole, MasterResource)
On wasting productive farmland in order to waste even more environmental asset in the form of atmospheric carbon dioxide -- damn fools! USDA chief says carbon bill won't hurt farmland WASHINGTON - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Tuesday downplayed his department's analysis that U.S. climate legislation will result in carbon-capturing trees taking over
millions of acres of farmland, saying "more current" studies do not foresee that result.
Increased funds show results in malaria battle: WHO LONDON - Increased funding is starting to pay off in the battle against malaria but prevention and treatment must be increased to try to halt the killer disease, the World
Health Organization said on Tuesday.
In Search of New Waters, Fish Farming Moves Offshore As wild fish stocks continue to dwindle, aquaculture is becoming an increasingly important source of protein worldwide. Now, a growing number of entrepreneurs are raising fish in large pens in the open ocean, hoping to avoid the many environmental problems of coastal fish farms. (John McQuaid, e360)
December 15, 2009
Moderator: Henry D. Jacoby
About the Lecture
Confused? You might BE a psychologist Some scientists just keep looking in the wrong places for answers. Here’s Stephan Lewandonsky, professorial fellow of psychology, in The Age trying to answer the most important question in modern science and economics. He refers to ClimateGate and asks if the stunning accusations of serious misconduct are true? Watch the flat out assertion backed by a non-sequiteur:
This does not even make sense within the confines of it’s punctuation. Is there a new Natural Law of Thermodynamics that says it’s impossible to withhold data? The data is gone, even Phil Jones, head of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit admits he has withheld it and won’t ever provide it:
We know the emails are real. Phil Jones has said as much. He admits he has withheld data for years, and that he’ll delete it as well if he has too. So it’s not “fantastical” to think that data is being withheld, it’s documented. (Jo Nova)
Climategate means they're gonna need a bigger boat I hope I'm not betraying my age by referring to Steven Spielberg's classic move 'Jaws' in my headline. It comes from the moment when Roy Scheider first sees the shark that has been terrorising the beach population. Here I use it to refer to the task that faces those who believe strong action is needed to combat global warming. It's as if Climategate (the leak of over 1,000 emails detailing chicanery and shenanigans among The Team of climate scientists and paleoclimatologists that produced The Hockey Stick and other scary fictions) triggered a flood of pent-up queries and complaints about the data that The Team says is proof that our planet is in peril, but that scientists and engineers are saying may not even be data--it may be fiction. Let's start with AJSrata, a blogger whose work I ran across only today. This very plain language description of both the flaws of IPCC data and what it would take to correct them is instructional, to say the least. He will immediately be branded a denialist in the pay of Big Oil, of course (and hey--sooner or later alarmists will stumble upon a critic who actually is), but his explanation is compelling and should be evaluated. London's Daily Mail online has a plain language description of what it took to 'hide the decline' and why The Team needed to do it. The story will not increase your respect for Michael Mann, Phil Jones or the rest of The Team. Obviously, if you haven't read Steve McIntyre's explanation of the 'trick' that puts 'hide the decline' into context, you should do so. Is it possible that GHCN temperature measurements for Antarctica (which show a warming trend unlike other measurements) are dependent on one station? And that the one station is perched on the Antarctic peninsula that juts into the warmest part of the ocean nearby? And that the station measurement device is actually contaminated by the urban heat island effect? Jeff Id at The Air Vent makes the case. Echoes of Tom Lehrer--it's so simple, that only a child can do it. A 4th grader teases out the urban heat island (UHI) effect and asks some questions that might be tough to answer. (Thomas Fuller, Examiner)
What’s going on? CRU takes down Briffa Tree Ring Data and more Odd things are going on at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Widely available data, existing in the public view for years, is now disappearing from public view. For example this link to Keith Briffa’s Yamal data: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009/ Now redirects to a generic page of UEA. Try it yourself. Now here is what that page says: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
The hidden policy pitfalls of Climategate and the future of global warming The leaked emails from East Anglia University have revealed apparent misconduct by climate scientists and paleoclimatologists that in some cases rises to the level of
criminal activity. But are there more important consequences of their behaviour? I think so.
Deprogramming Children After Global Warming Scam The opening film at the Copenhagen “climate meeting” was an apt reminder of the long-term damage done by global warming propagandists. A little girl has nightmares
about being alone in a desert where her life is threatened by floods and hurricanes.
Greenhouse gas change fuel for lawsuits? WASHINGTON—The Environmental Protection Agency's finding last week that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare could bolster global warming-related
litigation against emitters of such gases, legal experts say.
Tide is turning on climate change Suddenly the doomsayers aren't having it all their own way, as people stubbornly refuse to be terrified, says Eilis O'Hanlon (Irish Independent)
Look out Al! The press are starting to tell people how fullovit you really are :-) Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up
There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday. The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row. Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years. In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.” However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast. “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.” Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore. The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming. Mr Gore is not the only titan of the world stage finding Copenhagen to be a tricky deal. (
Who is calling global warming's tune? I guess we can relax about Climategate, now that IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri has said everything's okay. Pachauri said he doubted that trust in the IPCC would be damaged by the affair. “People who are aware of how the IPCC functions and are appreciative of the credibility that the IPCC has attained will probably not be swayed by an incident of this kind,” he said. Just today, I was discussing with some commenters here the subject of tainted associations with Big Oil and large energy firms. There are those who say that because Steve McIntyre's boss once gave a lecture at a thinktank that once received funding from an oil firm, that his comments on global warming are tainted. (Thanks to Bishop Hill for that). What then are we to make of the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri? I think after reading this article in EUReferendum, you will at least join me in acknowledging him as very familiar with energy issues. Some quotes from the article: (Thomas Fuller, Examiner)
A nice little earner for the IPCC chief, and Rudd chips in The head of the IPCC, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, sure makes a good living from the great global warming scare. But with so many business ties with the alarmism industry, isn’t he too hopelessly compromised to be at the head of the United Nation’s climate change organisation? Oh, and don’t think Kevin Rudd has missed the opportunity to steer some business Pachauri’s way, which might prove coincidentally to be a useful investment in Rudd’s ambitions to become UN secretary general:
The press asks the question (finally): Rudd ducks questions of ETS cost KEVIN Rudd has refused to directly address Tony Abbott's claim that Labor's proposed carbon emissions trading system will cost average Australian families $1100 a year.
There are way too many events related to the climate to describe all of them, especially when I am a bit busy. So just a few of them.
The Daily Mail has always been a bit of a curate’s egg – good in parts. Much of it involves irritating insubstantial scares, the dull doings of so-called celebrities etc. It has the great merits however of featuring several sound columnists and not subscribing to the environmental self-censorship adopted by the rest of the establishment media. Now it has created a breakthrough by actually showing to ordinary people just one example of the sort of scam that is being perpetrated in order to filch the hard earned pennies from their deflating pockets. It is almost a small miracle that a popular newspaper has shown its readers what “hiding the decline” actually means by a simple graphical illustration. This does not, of course, convey the sheer scale of obfuscation that has been going on over the years, but it is a dramatic beginning. Meanwhile, Tony Blair, who will shortly be called to give evidence about the alleged threat of WMD, attacks sceptics on Global Warming and pronounces the evidence for it overwhelming. If you believe that Sir, you will believe anything. Many of us think it represents the greatest fraud in human history (by a long, long way), but what are a few billions here and there when you are a world figure? (Number Watch)
Should be an award for reporters this dumb: Abbott's warriors place their trust in an ancient virtue Minchin and Joyce are proud of holding doubts about the science, writes Rick Feneley. Few non-scientists are better read or briefed on climate change than Nick Minchin, which raises the question: why does he remain such a determined sceptic in the face of so much science? (SMH) Minchin is well-read and well-briefed on the topic, which probably explains why he is a skeptic...
Why we are less than excited by Lomborg: A Blessing in Disguise For all the good will and great intentions that fill the Bella Center, it’s becoming clear that COP15 is not going to produce a comprehensive agreement to limit
emissions of greenhouse gases
It's the poor who will pay for Copenhagen's circus MORE people attend UN conferences than make a meaningful contribution, but even by UN standards delegates are describing the Copenhagen climate conference as a circus.
Poor old Moonbat doesn't know if he's coming or going... This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity It's hard for a species used to ever-expanding frontiers, but survival depends on accepting we live within limits (George Monbiot, The Guardian)
China supports amendments to Kyoto Protocol Copenhagen: China supported the G77 and other developing countries for removing obstacles and speeding up work on amending the Kyoto Protocol, Xie Zhenhua, China’s chief
climate change official, told the press later on Dec 14.
Frustrations heat up as climate change talks resume After a half-day suspension, emission reduction talks have resumed in Copenhagen, but those promoting significant action on climate change are concerned the talks are
missing the point.
Our world is on an unsustainable path that threatens not only our environment, but our economies and our security. It is time to launch a broad operational accord on
climate change that will set us on a new course.
It is only logical that President Obama will sign the Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty if one results from this week's negotiations. His worldview demands it. His past
statements and ongoing actions presage it.
Tensions Increase as Poor Nations Stage a Protest - Hopes Dim for Tough Decisions on Money COPENHAGEN -- Tempers flared Monday at the United Nations climate summit as poor nations staged a walkout to protest what they called inadequate aid offers from rich
countries, and the U.S. and China jockeyed for position.
Well d u h ! Australia 'trying to kill Kyoto' Developing nations have staged a two-hour walkout at the Copenhagen climate talks, accusing the developed world, led by the European Union, Australia and Japan, of pushing
to "kill the Kyoto Protocol".
'Get to work', urges Copenhagen climate summit head The president of the UN climate summit has urged delegates to "get to work" after protests from developing nations forced a suspension of several hours.
Of course, it's the UN: Copenhagen another costly UN failure? No one really has any idea what climate change deal might come out of Copenhagen. While most Albertans probably sympathize with the general objective-- burning less carbon-based fuel--there are two ways to get there: A sensible way which will probably work, and the political Copenhagen way which will prove to be another costly United Nations failure. (Danielle Smith, Calgary Herald)
Prospect of Copenhagen climate deal recedes as key elements unravel Gordon Brown will arrive in Copenhagen tonight as world leaders face the humiliating prospect of having little of substance to sign on Friday, when they are supposed to be
clinching a historic deal on climate change.
Doesn't the NYT fact check any of its reporters & their nonsense any more? Australia’s Rudd Looks for Success in Copenhagen SYDNEY — Fresh from failing — twice — to pass his widely contested plan to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd headed to
Copenhagen on Monday hoping to succeed internationally where his domestic agenda has thus far fallen short.
He thinks he's important, anyway: Climate cuts not sufficient, says PM KEVIN RUDD has rejected as inadequate the offers by all major developed and developing nations to cut carbon emissions.
I feel better already: Rudd heading to troubled climate summit Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will arrive at the Copenhagen climate summit on Tuesday, where negotiations are hanging by a thread. (AAP)
Time running out for climate deal: Rudd Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has acknowledged time is running out for a global deal on climate change as he prepares to enter the fray in Copenhagen.
Forget it -- Australia will not be cutting emissions: Down and dirty: farm soil will offset emissions in Australia's carbon cut scheme IT WAS a candid remark in a private briefing. But unfortunately for the Government, comments by an Australian climate negotiator late last week in Copenhagen have pretty
much let the cat out of the bag on where Labor intends to find any ambitious cuts to Australia's 2020 greenhouse gas emissions.
Lack of money could hurt forest deal A proposal aimed at saving the world's tropical forests suffered a setback Sunday, when negotiators at the U.N. climate talks ditched plans for faster action on the
problem because of concerns that rich countries aren't willing to finance it.
Look how dangerous this carbon obsession is: New science estimates carbon storage potential of US lands - Nation's forests and soils store equivalent of 50 years of US CO2 emissions The first phase of a groundbreaking national assessment estimates that U.S. forests and soils could remove additional quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the
atmosphere as a means to mitigate climate change.
World's Top Polluter Emerges as Green-Technology Leader BEIJING -- Xu Shisen put down the phone and smiled. That was Canada calling, explained the chief engineer at a coal-fired power plant set among knockoff antique and art
shops in a Beijing suburb. A Canadian company is interested in Mr. Xu's advances in bringing down the cost of stripping out greenhouse-gas emissions from burning coal.
Funny: Analysts: EU cap-and-trade is working Poll of leading energy firms finds that EU emissions trading scheme is driving investment in low-carbon technologies (James Murray, BusinessGreen)
UN Carbon-Capture Decision Faces Delay to Next Year at Earliest Dec. 15 -- Climate-treaty negotiators proposed delaying until at least 2010 a decision on letting companies in industrialized nations offset their emissions by investing
in carbon-capture projects in the developing world.
Sounding totally wired: The Psychology of Climate Change Denial Even as the science of global warming gets stronger, fewer Americans believe it’s real. In some ways, it’s nearly as jarring a disconnect as enduring disbelief in evolution or carbon dating. And according to Kari Marie Norgaard, a Whitman College sociologist who’s studied public attitudes towards climate science, we’re in denial. ( Brandon Keim, Wired)
United Nations Kicks NGOs Out of COP-15 Climate Conference Washington DC: The United Nations announced today it is permanently banning thousands of accredited non-governmental organizations* from the COP-15 climate conference in
Copenhagen.
A good question for today would be whether a fraud on the scale of the one being consummated at the Copenhagen "Earth summit" has even been attempted before in
human history.
Climategate: McIntyre and the ‘Divergence Problem’ It’s been less than a month since the Climategate files were first disclosed, but they’ve already had a dramatic impact on the debate over climate change. On the one hand is the dominant so-called consensus — that human emission of greenhouse gases has been the primary cause of an unprecedented warming of Earth’s climate. On the other hand, there has been an underground opposition trying to make itself heard. What the disclosure of the files did was demonstrate that these opposition voices had been suppressed unfairly and unscientifically. As a result, the raw data that had been withheld is becoming available to outside researchers. This new openness is already having results. (Charlie Martin, PJM)
Hockey Stick over Time - Narrated
The fanciful pap is flying thick and fast... Loss of ice heralds an emergency The planet's ''canary in the coal mine'' is showing disturbing symptoms and we have only years, not decades, to save it.
“rotten” sea ice – not even in Denmark There’s plenty of stories about how Arctic sea ice is now “rotten”. There’s darn few that talk about yearly comparisons or what other scientific outlets are saying about the claim. As many WUWT readers know, 2007 was the minimum year of summer extent in sea ice, a year that is routinely held up as a cause for alarm. Another cause for alarm has been the “decline of multi-year sea ice”. Most recently we’ve gotten claims of “rotten ice” in the news media. That “rotten” ice is “duping the satellites” they say. This all from one fellow, Dr. David Barber on a ship that took a short expedition in the Arctic and observed what he called “rotten ice”. Here’s Dr. Barber using the poster child for sea ice loss in a presentation. Seems that his “rotten” message resonated, even the media in Alaska (who can observe sea ice on their own) are saying it: New study: Arctic ice is rotten (Anchorage Daily News) Over at the Greenbang Blog, they say that: ‘Rotten’ sea ice creates false impression of Arctic recovery They cite: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Taiwan's sea levels on the rise due to global warming TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Like many countries around the world, Taiwan's sea levels have risen steadily as a result of global warming and measures need to be taken urgently to
combat an increased threat of flooding, local environmental scientists said Sunday.
Warmest Ever, or Getting Cooler? You might hear climate change "deniers" saying recent temperatures show global cooling. But then you hear climate "scientists" say that the last ten
years are the warmest on record. Who's right?
CHURCHVILLE, VA - Why do global warming researchers ignore the sun, the ultimate source of earth’s heat? Especially as we know virtually all of our warming occurred before 1940 while 85 percent of the human-emitted CO2 came after 1940? Dennis Bray of Germany’s Institute for Coastal Research just polled an international group of climate researchers on what they believe and why. In light of the recent leaked documents from East Angelia University’s Climate Research Unit, the poll seems to provide important answers. (Dennis T. Avery, American Daily)
Copenhagen climate conference: sunspot theory for global warming attacked - The theory that signs of global warming could be the result of sunspots rather than carbon dioxide emissions caused by humans has come under attack from climate scientists. Sceptics about man-made climate change frequently cite research apparently linking natural variations in solar activity with fluctuations in temperatures on Earth.
Can't have a day without an eye-roller: Pacific islands will have to be abandoned to the sea An eminent Australian scientist says the real problem will come when low-lying, densely populated Asian nations are flooded (The First Post)
Or two. Well-worn nonsense retreaded: Koalas to starve as the world warms: IUCN Koalas are highly vulnerable to climate change and face starvation, a leading conservation group has warned.
Louise gray can't resist: Copenhagen climate conference: Top ten species in danger from global warming The clownfish that inspired Disney film Finding Nemo and Australia’s iconic koala bear are just some of the species that could be wiped out by climate change, according to a new study. (TDT)
Oh... More pores could ease global warming - By boosting the number of pores in leaves, scientists hope to one day absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere. TOKYO: Japanese researchers last week said they had found a way to make plant leaves absorb more carbon dioxide - an innovation that may help ease global warming and boost
food production.
Sheesh... Australian Firm Hopes to Cash In by Giving Away Light Bulbs SYDNEY — How can a company give away millions of products, help poor people, address climate change and turn a profit? A boutique energy company run by the unlikely
partnership of an Anglican priest and a handful of business executives thinks it has the key.
Eek! A bomb! Under the icy north lurks a ‘carbon bomb’ Tropical deforestation is a climate change crisis, but scientists fear for boreal wilderness, too (Boston Globe)
Sunshine speeded 1940s Swiss glacier melt: scientists GENEVA: A surge in sunshine more than 60 years ago helped Swiss mountain glaciers melt faster than today, even though warmer average temperatures are being recorded now,
Swiss researchers said Monday.
Climategate: Australian records under scrutiny A seminal study into global warming by those at the centre of the ClimateGate controversy is now under scrutiny, with claims that the selection of weather data from
Australia may have created an exaggerated warming trend.
Arctic Ocean drilling draws disapproval - Salazar announced an exploratory drilling plan in the Chukchi ANCHORAGE - While some federal agencies are expressing caution on Arctic development, the federal Minerals Management Service continues to forge ahead with petroleum
exploration drilling off the shores of the remote northern Alaska coast.
U.S. should share oilsands environmental costs: Prentice Environment Minister Jim Prentice and former prime minister Paul Martin both say the United States should pay for some of the environmental costs of Alberta's oilsands, to
help fight climate change.
For crying out loud... Clean coal plan gets fast track A MAJOR clean coal power plant and carbon storage project is being considered for planning approval in Queensland, even though a feasibility assessment has not been
completed and a site is yet to be found, along with the necessary $4.2 billion in funding.
No! Consider carbon capture, not cap and trade As world leaders congregate in Copenhagen for climate-change discussions, one solution to the increasing CO2 concentrations lies right beneath our feet.
Dan Lewis: Our politicians must act on energy before the lights go out in Britain BRITAIN is at great risk of electricity and gas shortages from the middle of the next decade. Thanks to a toxic combination of technical innocence, political naivety and
economic illiteracy, few disagree that this might happen.
Coal remains king in China, despite climate change vow The choking soot that coats Linfen is testament to an inconvenient truth behind Beijing's promises to curb its greenhouse gas emissions: cheap and carbon-belching coal
remains king in China.
In Exxon Deal, Signs of the New Gusher Over the last decade, a handful of the nation’s small energy companies pulled off a coup. Right under the noses of the industry’s biggest players, they discovered huge
amounts of natural gas in fields stretching from Texas to Pennsylvania.
350: The Most Important Number in the World for Global Warming When Kevin Garnett led the Boston Celtics to the 2008 NBA Championship, his memorable post game interview included him screaming, “Anything is possible!” – A slight rendition of his shoe sponsor Adidas’ motto, “Impossible is nothing.” At Copenhagen where world leaders are gathering to discuss policies to ratchet down the emission of carbon dioxide, the goals of some proponents of a climate treaty are as close to impossible as you can get. Many global warming activists believe 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the upper limit before we reach climate disaster. For reference, we are currently at 390ppm and we were at 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution. Bill McKibben, founder of the group 350.org says, “It’s the most important number in the world. It’s the line between habitability on this planet and a really, really desolate future.” What does it take to reach 350 ppm? In short, a miracle. Energy chemist Nate Lewis of the California Institute of Technology ran the numbers and found that for the earth not to surpass 450ppm by the year 2050, 26.5 of the 45 terawatts the world uses would have to come from carbon-free sources (assuming low population and economic growth). What would this< /a>entail? (The Foundry)
Alex Salmond's nuclear opposition 'threatens climate change targets
Yes, envy... that's it, envy.... On Green Technology, Germany Is the Envy of the World Danish statistician Bjørn Lomborg argued in SPIEGEL last week that efforts to halt global warming should be postponed. Fritz Vahrenholt, head of the renewable energy operations at German energy company RWE, disagrees. Never before has there been a better chance for a global climate deal, he says. (Der Spiegel)
Will nonfood beets be an ethanol feedstock? FARGO, N.D. — “Energy beets.” That’s what a small group of agribusiness leaders want you to call them.
Nicholas Kristof: STATS winner of the worst “science” journalist of the year Columnist promotes “fear-based science” as a solution to breast cancer and other diseases.
Lung cancer overtakes breast cancer among women MORE women are being diagnosed with lung cancer than breast cancer for the first time as many refuse to give up smoking.
Does loneliness raise breast cancer risk? A new report suggesting that loneliness trebles the odds of developing breast cancer is the latest addition to a long list of recognised risk factors — such as being
tall or having one breast bigger than the other — that cause widespread anxiety but do precious little to help in the fight against the disease.
Zhu Zhus Won't Kill You - How the media fell for a bogus health scare. In early-December, something terrible happened in the world of the Zhu Zhu pets: Mr. Squiggles, one of four electronic hamsters, was declared unsafe. There was too much
antimony in his fur, said Good Guides, a San Francisco-based environmental group that bills itself as "the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the
health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home."
HWGA: Atrazine: As bad for wildlife as it is for weeds? The widely used herbicide atrazine may be responsible for a host of health problems seen in fresh water fish and amphibians, according to researchers who evaluated a group of published studies that examined the chemical's effects. (EHN)
Back to the old dioxin myth: Decades-old dioxins pollute river, divide US community The signs posted along Michigan's Tittabawassee River warning of dangerous dioxin levels don't really worry fisherman David Mitchell.
They get their wish and then some: Australian doctors debunk vaunted swine flu potency Sydney - If only worries about climate change were as overblown as the alarm over swine flu. The pandemic H1N1 virus has proved to be not as serious as predicted, Jim
Bishop, Australia's chief medical officer, admits. "The fact is that everyone ... with mild illness will get over this very quickly and with a short illness and that
will happen whether anti-virals are used or not," he said.
But don't worry, the media have an endless supply of scares for you: Sick of swine flu? Toxic algae could be the next big threat WASHINGTON -- With a new theory surfacing that toxic algae rather than asteroids killed the dinosaurs, scientists are still trying to unravel the mystery of what caused a
massive algae bloom off the Northwest Coast that left thousands of seabirds dead and may have sickened some surfers and kayakers.
Should health care reform include payment for intercessory prayer? A provision to allow payment for the healing power of third party prayers has been dropped for now - but it's worth going where journalists feared to tread and ask, what's
the scientific evidence for prayer?
Rescue workers adjust for obesity Todd Stepp remembers an unusual call for help his family-owned towing company received more than a decade ago.
Food Industry Faulted for Pushing High-Calorie, Low-Nutrient Products (Dec. 14, 2009) — A new study criticizes the nation's food and beverage industry for failing to shift their marketing efforts aimed at children. The report said television advertising continues to contribute to epidemic levels of obesity, despite industry promises of reform. (ScienceDaily)
Less TV time may help overweight adults burn more calories, researcher says Adults may stave off weight gain by simply spending less time watching television, according to a new study. Overweight adults who cut television time in half burned more calories as a result. (PhysOrg.com)
Man Drinks Glass of Fat in New York City Anti-Soda Video YORK — The New York City health department has released a nauseating video in an effort to prevent people from drinking sugary beverages.
Have a Coke and a Tax - The economic case against soda taxes With the federal deficit reaching $1.4 trillion and most state budgets deep in the red, policy makers are desperately searching for new sources of revenue that the
tapped-out American public might support. They think they’ve found one at the corner store: a tax on carbonated beverages. Charging a few more cents for a soft drink,
legislators claim, will not only refresh exhausted state and federal revenues; it will make us thinner.
Childhood obesity 'still rising in poorer families' The childhood obesity epidemic could be levelling off in affluent homes but rising among those from disadvantaged backgrounds, research suggests.
Child obesity trends 'suggest class divide is emerging' - Child obesity levels have been rising for decades A widening class gap is likely to be seen in the coming years in childhood obesity, a study suggests.
Obesity increases the risk for obstructive sleep apnea in adolescents, but not in younger children Westchester, Ill. – A study in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows that being overweight or obese increases the risk for developing
obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in adolescents but not in younger children.
Every year, Americans are getting heavier; not surprisingly, so are our pets. The latest research indicates that half of all pets are overweight or obese. This closely
mirrors the obesity epidemic in the human population.
A Cheap Way to Chop up Nitrogen Nitrogen atoms are needed to make many important chemicals from drugs to fertilizers. But getting those atoms into chemicals is challenging, because nitrogen molecules are tough nuts to crack. They consist of two atoms sharing a stubborn triple bond, which chemists can break up only by scorching them with temperatures of up to 500°C. And that results in the simple chemical ammonia, which needs further processing to produce more complicated compounds. Now chemists have bypassed the energy-intensive reaction and devised a new one that splits molecular nitrogen at room temperature and synthesizes a common fertilizer. (ScienceNOW Daily News)
December 14, 2009
WARMERGATE - Special report by David Rose, Mail on Sunday So The Mail is the sole remaining paper actually engaged in journalism? What happened to The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian? FOIA2009.zip has been in the wild for almost a month, where are the media?
Online version: SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Climate change emails row deepens as Russians admit they DID come from their Siberian server The claim was both simple and terrifying: that temperatures on planet Earth are now ‘likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years’.
Peter Foster: The Goracle speaks on Climategate The emails, far from being meaningless or out of context, show alteration of data and attempts to rig the peer review process True believers in catastrophic man-made climate change have been waiting for Al Gore to lead them through the Valley of Climategate. This week, The Goracle spoke. Appearing on CNN, he claimed that the emails to and from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia were more than 10 years old and amounted to a mere discussion of “arcane points.” What this was really about, he said, was an example of “people who don’t want to do anything about the climate crisis taking things out of context and misrepresenting them.” But then what would you expect Mr. Gore to say about his co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize? If they go down, he goes down. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
Al Gore and the Wizards of Climategate In trying to minimize the importance of “ClimateGate,” Al Gore sounds like the Wizard of Oz, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"
Poor Clive, still the believer: Trust the public on climate change It is not enough for climate scientists and environment ministers to go to Copenhagen and tell each other how right they are. They also need to convince the public.
National politics – the democratic process – is awfully inconvenient sometimes, but cannot be waved away.
Climategate: Disdain for the Scientific Method Compare the obfuscation and arrogance of the implicated scientists to the openness and humility of Albert Einstein. It has become a common defense of global warming alarmists against the Climategate scandal to argue that the emails, leaked from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), show science working — perhaps at its best. Yet a judicious reading of the emails shows that nothing could be farther from the truth. The emails display a disturbing disdain for the scientific method itself. Specifically, the emails indicate that some of the world’s most prominent climate scientists have abandoned the basic scientific principle of subjecting empirical evidence, and the treatment of that evidence, to external scrutiny, so that findings can be verified and — when necessary — abandoned or revised. (Ian Murray and Roger Abbott, PJM)
“Maybe the emails have started to open people’s eyes.”
Two Thoughtful Essays with Clarity and an Absence of Cant “So science was not speaking with one voice on the matter. It only seemed to be, because the media, on the whole, was giving no other story. Then this Climatic Research
Unit thing happened, and it was the end of the monologue. The dialogue has begun again.
Gordon the Big Engine Huffs and Puffs with Brussels Gordon the Big Engine huffs and puffs, and annoys everybody [the base picture of a 8F class locomotive is courtesy of The Stanier 8F
Locomotive Society Limited, and it is reproduced here under the GNU Free Documentation License,
Version 1.2] Read more... (Emeritus Professor Philip Stott, The Clamour of the Times)
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Obama has no power to make climate deal: US lawmaker US President Barack Obama is heading to the Copenhagen climate talks with empty promises on curbing US greenhouse gas emissions that he cannot fulfill, a top lawmaker said
Sunday.
Kerry-Lieberman-Graham-Boxer-Waxman-Markey Yesterday, Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) unveiled an outline of their cap-and-trade proposal. Interestingly, their version of a national tax on American energy is hard to distinguish from earlier proposals such as the House-passed Waxman-Markey or the Senate committee-passed Boxer-Kerry. All of these proposals have one thing in common: they hurt the economy. However, the Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham take great care in their 5-page document to detail the benefits of their proposal, and implicitly suggest why it is superior to each. Let’s debunk the major claims. Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Senator Lieberman’s Honest Quote on Cap and Trade Senators Lieberman, Graham, and Kerry have come forward with a bold, new proposal on global warming… or not. Here is Senator Lieberman’s description of the “new” proposal:
Who will be punished under this re-badged clunker? The Center for Data Analysis estimated that cap-and-trade legislation will cost the economy $7-9 trillion in lost national income and lead to millions of lost jobs (even after credit for any green jobs). Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Two U.S. Senators Unveil Alternative Climate Bill WASHINGTON Two more U.S. Senators jumped into the climate bill debate on Friday, offering a proposal that would cap planet-warming emissions but reduce the role of Wall
Street in carbon markets.
Countering Kerry's Catastrophic Climate Claims On November 10, 2009, Kenneth P. Green was invited to testify before the Senate Committee on Finance about global warming. A summary of his testimony appears below. During the course of his testimony, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) asked Green a number of questions about the science of global warming. His responses are printed here. (Kenneth P. Green, AEI Online)
Inhofe: Climategate Will End Cap-and-Trade Battle Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe tells Newsmax that the climategate scandal is the “clincher” that kills once and for all the cap-and-trade proposal to curb greenhouse gas
emissions.
Copenfrauden: The Scandals Behind Global Warming Forget the dire economic consequences of a Copenhagen climate change treaty for a second and think about the fraud involved. Carbon Trading Fraud Take the European Union, for instance, which implemented a carbon trading scheme analogous to a cap and trade system. And it has been fraught with fraud. French officials are investigating a $230 million carbon trading fraud scheme and this is only the tip of the iceberg in what is a startling revelation and huge blow to the climate talks in Copenhagen:
Continue reading… (The Foundry)
The joys of paying people not to be productive: Steel firm Corus could get £90m 'pollution payoff' after closing plant and axing 1,700 jobs Steel firm Corus could qualify for millions of pounds' worth of Government environmental credits for a plant it is closing with the loss of 1,700 jobs. The Department of Energy and Climate Change yesterday confirmed that Corus's foreign owner, Indian steel giant Tata, was 'likely' to get its £90million allocation of carbon credits, including an allocation for the 150-year-old steel works in Redcar, Teeside, the mothballing of which was announced last week. The decision prompted fears last night that Tata could profit from the closure by selling on the permits or using them at its other plants. The credits allow firms to emit a certain level of pollution each year. Though issued for free, they can be sold to other firms. Over time the aim is to cut carbon emissions by issuing fewer credits. (Daily Mail)
What links the Copenhagen conference with the steelworks closing in Redcar? The carbon credits boom is already costing British jobs, says Christopher Booker. What is the connection between Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian railway engineer who has been much in evidence at the Copenhagen climate conference, as chairman of the
UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and an Indian-owned steel company's decision to mothball its giant Teesside steel works next month, ripping the heart out of
the town of Redcar by putting 1,700 people out of work?
Climategate: ‘Hello,’ the UN Secretary General Lied (Thomas Friedman, Too) Faster? Please. Yet another proclamation that global warming is "accelerating, much faster than we anticipated," as activists have been telling us since the late '90s. Using his best Chuck Schumer imitation, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon jumped in front of some cameras at Copenhagen and assured us that his cause was noble. His demeanor was serious. Contemplative. He searched his vocabulary for the precise phrase to convey his deepest conviction … and you could see his eyes sparkle when he hit upon the shim-sham-inducing word, accelerating, to describe what was happening to global warming. Good Lord! I thought to myself. This is bad! If global warming is accelerating, if it is worse than we have predicted — happening three times faster than any scientist ever feared in his worst nightmare — then, by golly, we sure ought to do something! But as I was jumping up to write a check to the Sierra Club, I remembered. Hadn’t I heard Ban Ki-moon’s phrase somewhere else before? I had. And often. (William M. Briggs, PJM)
Seth Boringtheme: The push for 350: Contradictions and carbon levels COPENHAGEN -- As police cracked down on climate protesters, church bells tolled 350 times Sunday to impress on the U.N. global warming conference a number that is gaining
a following, but is also awash in contradictions.
Climategate: AP asks believers to give the all clear Why doesn’t AP just cut out the middleman and publish the Climategate scientists’ press releases? (Andrew Bolt)
To scare or not to scare, that is the question The recently released Copenhagen Diagnosis assessment has been accomplished by 26 scientist, down from 4000 or so that contributed to the Fourth IPCC Report. These 26 have been described to be 'leading scientists', raising the question ‘what are they leading us to’?. (Klimazwiebel)
2010 is looking hot: Get ready for a barbecue year, say weathermen After the fiasco of this year's 'barbecue summer' prediction, you might have thought the Met Office would have hesitated before making such grand statements again. But yesterday it declared that 2010 will be a 'barbecue year'. Forecasters say it is likely to be the hottest year globally since records began nearly 160 years ago. (David Derbyshire, Daily Mail)
Met Office Criticised for Political Lobbying LONDON, 11 December 2009 - The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) today criticised the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UK Met Office for their political intervention in the international negotiations currently taking place in Copenhagen. The Met Office claims that preliminary temperature data for 2009 show that global temperatures continue to rise and that the argument that global warming has stopped is flawed. According to the Met Office, the final temperature data for 2009 will not be made available until early next year. A spokesperson, however, stated that the preliminary estimates were released by the Met Office in order to influence the negotiations at the Copenhagen Summit. "We are very concerned that both agencies have overstepped their scientific remits, which are supposed to provide governments with balanced advice and empirical data, and not to lobby politically," Dr Benny Peiser, the Director of the GWPF said. The GWPF is also concerned that global temperature data is being misrepresented to give the impression of continuous global warming. In reality, there has been no statistically significant warming trend for the last decade. The GWPF says this is a vital fact that must not be ignored. (GWPF)
Media finally taking Deep Throat's advice? Is Blair trying to cash in on climate change?: Ex-PM arrives at summit to urge greenhouse gas deal Tony Blair turned up in Copenhagen yesterday to preach to world leaders about the dangers of climate change.
Cool heads better than hot air in Copenhagen - There's no point wrecking the global economy further until we know much more about climate change, says Ruth Dudley Edwards WITH its thousands and thousands of delegates, officials, journalists and protesters, the hundreds and hundreds of planes (commercial and private), and the trains and cars
and limos required to transport people, food, drink and equipment, the Copenhagen climate summit is on course to create more C02 than would a medium-sized African country. It
looks set to deliver little other than pious rhetoric and ambiguous promises, and I'm glad, as I deplore bad decisions and ruinous expenditure based on dodgy science and
scaremongering.
Looks like Thomas may finally be getting a handle on the climate "debate": Did Climategate kill Copenhagen? COP15, the global warming summit currently underway and underwater in Copenhagen, was meant to be some combination of a coronation, papal blessing and environmental
Woodstock. It isn't turning out that way. Could the scandal involving leaked emails from a UK university be the reason why?
Doesn't matter how often they say it: Europeans Pay Companies to Pollute More BRUSSELS, Dec 12 - Some of the world's most polluting companies are receiving financial support from the European taxpayer to promote the continued use of the fuels that
cause global warming, according to a new report.
The comic capers of chuckle king Kevin Rudd before climate change talks in Copenhagen CLIMATE talks in Copenhagen still have several days to run, but I'm calling it early. Australia wins. No other nation can possibly match the level of comedy that we've brought to this international save-the-planet chucklefest. ( Tim Blair, The Daily Telegraph)
What’s Rotten for Obama in Denmark WASHINGTON — President Obama jets off to Copenhagen later this week to try to place an American stamp on a global climate change agreement. He will be trailed by a cloud
of diplomats and bureaucrats all proclaiming the progress his administration has made on global warming in its 11 months in office.
Copenhagen stalls decision on catastrophic climate change for six years The key decision on preventing catastrophic climate change will be delayed for up to six years if the Copenhagen summit delivers a compromise deal which ignores advice
from the UN’s science body.
Go ahead, drop it anyway: Japan to drop CO2 pledge if no broader climate deal TOKYO - Japan threatened on Friday to drop a pledge to cut greenhouse emissions by 25 percent by 2020 if the Kyoto Protocol is extended without setting emission reduction goals for the United States and China. (Reuters)
China emissions could double by 2020: experts BEIJING – Despite China's pledges to improve energy efficiency, its carbon emissions could double by 2020 as compared with 2005 levels, surpassing limits seen as key to
fighting global warming, experts say.
Copenhagen: US, China clash in climate ping-pong COPENHAGEN — They sang each other's praises in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit, but China and the United States traded sharp barbs in a superpower standoff
that has helped set the UN talks on edge.
Rising Tide of Dueling Climate Proposals Swamping U.N. Summit COPENHAGEN -- Crunch time draws near at the global warming summit.
What does "1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels" mean? The dignified representatives of the world's countries who gathered in Copenhagen enjoy many childish games. But one of the favorite ones was a pissing contest: who can
restrict the rise of the global mean temperatures more toughly? » Don't Stop Reading » (The Reference Frame)
The Crone's editorial writers actually seem surprised: This Week in Copenhagen We didn’t expect much from the first week of the global warming conference in Copenhagen. Countries need to do a little posturing before getting down to the hard work,
which is supposed to start on Monday. But the belligerent talk from China seemed to go well beyond the usual positioning.
Crunch Time in Copenhagen: Will Week Two Make a Difference? The first week of the annual U.N. climate change summit is usually a relatively sedate affair. Sub-ministerial level diplomats (or "sherpas," so called because
they do most of the work) quietly exchange drafts of negotiating texts and trial balloons, while a small number of environmental journalists and activists follow the
proceedings. It's not until the second week of talks, when ministers, heads of state and protesters show up, that the summit really takes off.
Certain to be contentious: Russia says no plans to sell Kyoto carbon rights MOSCOW - Russia does not plan to sell its unused Kyoto Protocol emissions rights and instead wants to carry them into a new climate change agreement, a senior Kremlin
official said on Friday.
Farmers Must Earn Carbon Market Rewards: Report COPENHAGEN - Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack said on Saturday farmers worldwide must be rewarded for fighting global warming, for example using carbon markets which
would add to public climate cash.
U.S. Climate Negotiator 'Lacks Common Sense,' Chinese Diplomat Says COPENHAGEN -- Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei lashed out today at U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern, calling "extremely irresponsible" his recent
pronouncement that no American climate change funding would go to China.
Summit Is Seen as U.S. Versus China COPENHAGEN -- The political script for a big climate-change conference in this Danish city has U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders flying in later this
week to christen a new era of global environmental cooperation. In reality, the summit is shaping up as a pivotal economic showdown between the U.S. and China.
Geopolitics - China's strategic game: China To Back African Compensation Demand At Climate Summit Ethiopian PM Meles warns Africa will be watching to see whether funds being pledged by European countries are real, or recycled (VOA News)
Copenhagen climate change summit in deadlock over rival texts The Copenhagen climate change summit is likely to end with two rival texts because the main countries cannot agree on the key question of how to share the burden of
cutting emissions to a safe level.
EU pledges to repay "climate debt" The Financial Times and others report that the EU has promised to pay EUR
2.4 billion per year to the third world. This amount should be repeated thrice, between 2010 and 2012, to give them a total of EUR 7.2 or 7.3 billion.
Copenhagen climate summit: Gordon Brown pledges £1.5bn to European fund Gordon Brown has said Britain will pay £1.5 billion to a European Union climate change project despite the British recession and his Government’s huge deficit. (TDT)
But the greenies promised... EU climate cash pledge 'not enough' say small nations Developing countries and aid agencies have derided the latest pledges by richer states to tackle global warming.
All about the handouts: G77 walks out of COP15 meeting Tension between developing and developed countries builds as climate summit enters its fifth day
As they should: Saudi Arabia Tries To Stall Global Emissions Limits Saudi Arabia is a major dissident at the global climate conference in Copenhagen, where representatives of more than 190 countries are trying to agree on a new
international initiative to combat climate change.
Australia ‘Pushing Hard’ for Climate Deal, Swan Says Dec. 13 -- Australia, the world’s biggest coal exporter, will be “pushing hard” for an agreement on climate change at Copenhagen this week, Australian Treasurer
Wayne Swan said in a statement.
We’re up by 82 per cent:
This is a measure of progress. We’re winning. And if any local warmers want to cry about it, they should ask themselves a few questions first, including: Have I had any children since 1990? Have I flown anywhere? Do I own nice televisions and computers that I didn’t own in 1990? How much better is the car I drive? And so on, until the link between emissions and quality of life becomes evident. UPDATE. Our politicians are also contributing. Fairfax political correspondent Stephanie Peatling reports:
Another eco-success from Canberra! But even worse, according to Peatling, is that our politicians are driving poisonous cars:
Isn’t carbon dioxide meant to be the current gas of fear? Peatling, formerly her paper’s environmental correspondent, should know. (Tim Blair)
Major Emitters Must Join Climate Pact: Australia COPENHAGEN - A U.N. climate pact must expand the circle of countries in the fight against warming, Australia said on Saturday, but officials at talks in Denmark have a
long way to go to seal the outlines of a global deal.
Australian emissions proposal divides Copenhagen Australia has led the charge on proposed land-use rule changes to the new global climate deal.
Copenhagen talks won't save the planet, Australia warns AUSTRALIA has formally warned the Copenhagen climate summit that negotiations to save the planet are not on track.
December 7, 1941. “A day which will live in infamy”, according to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. How ironic then, that the Copenhagen Convention opened on December 7, 2009, exactly 68 years after that fateful day which led to direct US involvement in World War 2. Let us hope that what results from Copenhagen is nowhere near as catastrophic. Many reading this article have no doubt heard of the infamous draft treaty that some hoped would be ratified at Copenhagen. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apparently was heavily involved in the drafting of the treaty, yet when asked about it in Parliament he dissembled and in general refused to answer questions relating to it. Rudd was quite happy to sell off portions of Australia’s sovereignty in the hopes of ingratiating himself with the international community, and more particularly the United Nations (tragically, thousands of Australians have sacrificed their lives defending that same sovereignty that Rudd is so comfortable just surrendering). It is well known in Canberra circles that Rudd’s long term goal is Secretary General of the UN; prime minister of Australia is a mere stepping stone. (Dennis Jensen, Quadrant)
Copenhagen failure 'won't harm business' Australian company leaders overwhelmingly think a failure of world leaders to reach agreement at the Copenhagen climate summit will not harm business, a new survey shows.
U.N. Sets High Bar On Emissions Cuts COPENHAGEN -- The United Nations proposed that rich countries pay to help poor ones curb pollution, while cutting their own emissions by at least 75% and possibly more
than 95% by 2050 -- a suggestion that heightened tensions between the U.S. and China over climate change.
Australia may foot huge climate change bill for China AUSTRALIA faces having to make a hefty payout to help developing countries such as China and India cope with climate change in order to clinch a deal in Copenhagen.
Luxury digs at climate talkfest AUSTRALIAN government officials are living it up in a 127-year-old luxury hotel amid criticism that the Copenhagen climate change conference has become an overpriced
talkfest that will do nothing to halt global warming.
And the anarchists come out to play: Copenhagen police detain 900 in climate change rally Police in the Danish capital Copenhagen say 900 protesters have been detained following a huge climate change rally.
Apparently unlimited supply of useful idiots: Copenhagen Protesters Detained COPENHAGEN -- Danish police outnumbered protesters on Sunday, detaining more than 200 people on a second day of demonstrations as environment ministers met for informal
talks to advance negotiations on a new pact.
Check out the off-the-planet stunts: Copenhagen climate change conference: protests and art installations
What would a Greenpeace supporter know? Christopher Monckton holds a Socratic dialogue on climate data with a Greenpeace supporter. It’s the wanting to believe that is the key in this debate, and also the reason why facts barely count. The disgraceful role of the media in creating this scare is very clear: This line from the Greenpeace fan, in dismssing Monckton’s data on a lack of recent warming, is a classic:
A fascinating and illuminating discussion. UPDATE Against Monckton’s courtesy and data, warmists at Copenhagen from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition offer abuse, heckling, smears and the old sticker-on-the-back trick: Judge for yourself where reason lies. And where the new fascism resides. Oh, and sponsoring these young barbarians are these guilty:
You may wish to inform some of these business where you are taking your business in future. (Andrew Bolt)
After climate talks, scientists worry about enforcement COPENHAGEN — Ray Weiss looks at the chanting protesters, harried delegates and the 20,000 other people gathered here for a global warming summit and wonders: What's the
fuss all about?
The real Copenhagen conference Reality check from Copenhagen Two Copenhagen climate conferences took place last week. The UN Copenhagen conference was attended by politicians, 16,500 bureaucrats, thousands of journalists, activists and NGOs. Hundreds of limos, over 100 private jets and huge amounts of energy were expended by more than 30,000 attendees. Many of the attendees were ascientific agitators with a political agenda. Australia’s prime minister had a Copenhagen photo opportunity whistle stop in his dedicated jet and expended more fuel on this trip than the Arkaroola Wilderness Resort does in a year. Your taxes payed for 114 Australian bureaucrats to attend this junket yet some 71 UK delegates attended. The UK Taxpayers’ Alliance calculated the conference cost as much as the GDP of Malawi. If such funds were used to provide electricity and drinking water to Malawian families, then land clearing, wood and dung burning and disease would decrease. Now, that would have been true environmentalism! The carbon footprint of these moralising folk, most of whom are self-appointed, is astronomical. Never fear, their great sacrifices are saving the planet. Saving us from wanton energy expenditure, hypocrisy, blackmail and irrationality at Copenhagen would be a good start. (Ian Plimer, Quadrant)
Well, kind of... Naked Copenhagen - Temperature is increasingly at the mercy of the developing world. Imagine a "dream" agreement emerging from Copenhagen next week: The U.S. agrees to cut greenhouse emissions 80% by 2050, as President Barack Obama has been
promising. The other developed countries promise to cut emissions by 60%. China promises to reduce its CO2 intensity by 70% in 2040. Emerging economies promise that in 2040,
when their wealth per capita has grown to half that of the U.S., they will cut emissions by 80% over the following 40 years. And all parties make good on their pledges.
Carbon rises 800 years after temperatures Ice cores reveal that CO2 levels rise and fall hundreds of years after temperatures change In 1985, ice cores extracted from Greenland revealed temperatures and CO2 levels going back 150,000 years. Temperature and CO2 seemed locked together. It was a turning point—the “greenhouse effect” captured attention. But in 1999 it became clear carbon rose and fell after temperatures did. By 2003 we had better data showing the lag was 800 ± 200 years. CO2 was in the back seat. AGW replies: There is roughly an 800-year lag. But even if CO2 doesn’t start the warming trend, it amplifies it. Skeptics say: If CO2 was a major driver, temperatures would rise indefinitely in a “runaway greenhouse effect.” That hasn’t happened in 500 million years, so either a mystery factor stops the runaway greenhouse effect, or CO2 is a minor force. Either way, CO2 is trivial, or the models are missing the dominant driver. Amplification is speculation; it’s a theory with no evidence that it matters in the real world. Conclusion: Al Gore’s movie was made in 2005. His words about the ice cores were, “it’s complicated.” The lag calls everything about cause and effect into question. There is no way any honest investigation could ignore something so central. Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center http://cdiac.ornl.gov (See references at the bottom also). A complete set of expanded full size graphs and print quality images is available from my Vostok Page. Extra notes, references, and discussion about this page The media blackout on “the lag” continues The lag in the ice cores is old news to skeptics, but most people in the public still have no idea. This is page 5 of the HTML version of The Skeptics Handbook (the first booklet). I should have posted it long ago. This graph series and data is so compelling. It’s one of the most basic features of climate science evidence, and yet it is so misused. Even tonight, I did a radio interview for NewstalkZB, New Zealand, and the pro-climate scare spokesman still referred to both the fraudulent Hockey Stick Graph and the Vostok Ice Cores as if they helped his case. Between 1999 and 2003 a series of peer reviewed papers in the highest journals came out showing that carbon rises hundreds of years after temperature, and not before. What amazes me is that fully 6 years after Caillon et al in 2003 published their definitive paper, people still think the ice cores are evidence supporting the scare campaign. “The climate is the most important problem we face”, yet somehow not a single government department, popular science magazine or education department thought it was worth doing a close up of the graph and explaining that there was a definitive, uncontested long lag to the general public and that carbon always followed temperature? The Al Gore style version (of which there are hundreds online, see below) hides the lag by compressing 420,000 years into one picture. If the public had known that
temperatures lead carbon, Al Gore would not have been able to get away with using it they way he did. In 2008 I marvelled that with billions of dollars available to agencies and education campaigns, no one had graphed the lag as a close up. Why did it take an unfunded science communicator to get the data and graph it “as a hobby project”? I wanted to see that long lag, I wanted to be able to point at a graph and explain the lag to all the people who have no idea. If you want to explore the thousands of years of those famous ice cores, the Vostok page has the full set of graphs, and this page right here is the place to comment and ask questions. References Petit et al 1999 — as the world cools into an ice age, the delay is several thousand years. Fischer et al 1999 — described a lag of 600 ±400 years as the world warms. Monnin et al 2001 — Dome Concordia – found a delay on warming from the recent ice age 800 ± 600 years Mudelsee 2001 — over the full 420,000 year Vostok history, Co2 lags by 1,300 ± 1000 years. Caillon et al 2003 — analysed the Vostok data and found a lag of 800 ± 200 years (Jo Nova)
Self-appointed moralists cloud meeting's agenda TWO Copenhagen climate conferences took place this week.
Climate talks neglecting food crisis, says UN The Copenhagen climate talks are neglecting a food crisis, which requires measures that can both curb climate change and boost food production, the head of the UN's food
agency has said.
Coca-Cola warns green taxes could cut its profits by 50pc Coca-Cola and Unilever have warned that their profits could halve over the next decade unless they reduce their emissions, as business leaders in Copenhagen called for a global fixed price on carbon dioxide. (TDT)
Lawrence Solomon: The gas of life Western carbon dioxide emissions increase plant yields in the Third World. So why are they asking for reparations? At Copenhagen, Third World countries are demanding hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations from the West for the consequences of the West’s fossil fuel burning,
among them droughts and crop failures. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
First episode of Stossel on Global Warming.
Old Hay and Alpine Ibex Horns Reveal How Grasslands Respond to Climate Change (Dec. 10, 2009) — How do plant ecosystems react to rising concentrations of the greenhouse gas CO2 in the atmosphere over the long term? This fundamental
question is becoming increasingly pressing in light of global climate change. Researchers from the Chair of Grassland Science at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM)
have now -- for the first time worldwide -- taken up this issue for grasslands. The scientists found their answers in two unlikely places: in horns of Alpine ibex from
Switzerland and in 150-year-old hay from England.
Disagreement Over What Constitutes a Forest May Be Achilles' Heel of REDD Plan (Dec. 10, 2009) — Disagreement over what constitutes a forest could undermine an agreement to protect forests, which is expected to be one of the bright spots at the UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen, according to an analysis by the Alternatives to Slash and Burn (ASB) Partnership for Tropical Forest Margins. (ScienceDaily)
The Indy is trying hard: Sunspots do not cause climate change, say scientists - Key claim of global warming sceptics debunked Leading scientists, including a Nobel Prize-winner, have rounded on studies used by climate sceptics to show that global warming is a natural phenomenon connected with
sunspots, rather than the result of the man-made emissions of carbon dioxide. Skeptics do have some key claims:
Confirmation Of The Dependence Of The ERA-40 Reanalysis Data On The Warm Bias In The CRU Data There is a remarkable admission in the leaked e-mails from Phil Jones of the dependence of the long term surface temperatures trends in the ERA-40 reanalysis on the surface temperature data from CRU. This is a very important issue as ERA-40 is used as one metric to assess multi-decadal global surface temperature trends, and has been claimed as an independent assessment tool from the surface temperature data. The report ECMWF Newsletter No. 115 – Spring 2008 overviews the role of ERA-40 in climate change studies. (Climate Science)
1970s Global Cooling Consensus A Fact Of History – My Article In Spiked Online From “Same fears, different name? - Maurizio Morabito uncovers a 1974 CIA report showing that the ‘scientific consensus’ then was that the world was cooling” published on Dec 10 in Spiked Online
This article is much longer than the Spectator’s and contains all the evidence one should need to establish that there was a scientific consensus on global cooling in the period 1972-1975. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)
Mystery volcano eruption solves ‘cool decade in the early 1800s’ puzzle London, Dec 10: Researchers believe that a newly detected 19th-century volcanic eruption may solve the mystery of the ‘cool decade in the early 1800s’.
Natural scientist Peter Taylor is afraid we are not preparing for a global cool-down that could be part of a long-term cycle
The Precautionary Principle Run
Amock
By Harold Ambler, Talking About the Weather In the December 9th New York Times, columnist Tom Friedman tells his readers that the precautionary principle demands that the world take aggressive action to curb the risks of damaging climate change, even if the likelihood of it is only one percent. To support his claim, he writes: “The evidence that our planet, since the Industrial Revolution, has been on a broad warming trend outside the normal variation patterns - with periodic micro-cooling phases - has been documented by a variety of independent research centers.” Question: Does Tom Friedman know that the ocean-atmosphere system has been cooling since the Holocene Optimum? Where to start? Very few, if any, scientists contend that the beginning of the Industrial Revolution sparked a nearly instantaneous rise in temperatures. The rise in temperatures that
most of the CRU scientists and most mainstream scientists consider to be non-normal is the one that began in 1975 and ended in 1998.
In today's Denver Post Vincent Carroll discusses how my work has been received among the activist scientists associated with the clique of the CRU emails. Carroll does a very nice job in accurately presenting my views. Here is how it starts:
Read the whole thing here, and feel free to come back to discuss or ask questions. (Roger Pielke Jr)
A Memo To The Global Warming Cult Dear global warming fanatics,
Oh... Bank of England urged to give climate scientist a warm welcome 14 Dec 2009: Monetary policy committee needs a green advocate, says former chief scientific adviser (The Guardian)
A letter to parents who are not gullible Clive Hamilton, (failed Greens candidate and “intellectual” Australian) couldn’t persuade skeptical adults he’s right about carbon pollution, so instead of improving his arguments, he’s trying the same lines out on our kids. This is a message for parents in response to Clive Hamilton’s letter to children of “deniers”. Hi there, Clive Hamilton has written to your kids. If you’re like me, almost everything he said about you was a lie. How do you answer your children if they say “you are paid a lot of money to try to stop laws about pollution and what you do will kill poor kids?” After you explain the truth, and point out that this man, a/ wouldn’t know, and b/ has an interest in promoting the fake scare, it might be time to give them a skill for life. The most dangerous people in the world are the ones who pretend to have good intentions, and there’s a way to tell the fake heroes from the real ones. Fakes don’t like debates, open discussions or other opinions, they don’t want their ideas exposed to the light of polite conversation, or the plasma arc glare of real evidence. To keep everyone in darkness, fake heroes throw names instead of talking politely. They try to intimidate people who disagree to keep them from speaking. Sometimes they even tell lies. (And they tell themselves it’s OK, because the ends justifies the means…) Hamilton does all he can to pull the plug on the shining lights. He wants eminent physicists like Will Happer, censored. Happer is a Princeton University professor of
physics and former Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy. But Hamilton calls Happer a “Denier” and says his words “are
dangerous“. Just because Happer has excellent credentials doesn’t mean he’s right, but Hamilton does not even think he deserves to be heard. If Hamilton really wanted to save the environment he’d want to see all the studies on how the suns magnetic field might affect clouds and rainfall, and find out what astrophysicists are saying, or how there have been hundreds of examples where carbon rose, but temperatures fell or visa versa over decades and centuries and even millenia. Only by getting better information could he help the worlds poor, or the worlds polar bears. There’s no danger of that happening. (Jo Nova)
Another porky: Coral climate crisis puts 250 million at risk: U.N. More than 250 million people risk losing their livelihoods because of dying tropical coral reefs in what a senior U.N. environmental economist said on Saturday was part of
a double climate crisis facing the world.
Paging Dr. Goldacre… Warmer Zombies on the Climate Ward On BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions last night, and in his Bad Science column in the Guardian today, Dr Ben Goldacre lays into what he calls the ‘zombie arguments’ of climate sceptics:
Goldacre’s sulphites example is very poorly chosen, and for a professional sceptic, he appears remarkably willing to defer uncritically to zombie lists of zombie arguments. Moreover, if zombie arguments are what bothers him, what about those deployed by the living dead of the climate orthodoxy? Here are some of the claims repeated ad nauseam by and in support of the climate change orthodoxy, along with our responses: (Climate Resistance)
Historical video perspective: our current “unprecedented” global warming in the context of scale One of the favorite buzzwords of alarmists is “unprecedented” when talking about present day warming. Yah, the Earth’s never, ever, been hotter, the “hockey stick” proves it, it’s unprecedented, and its all your fault! Well, we’ve known it’s unsubstantiated spin for quite a long time. NOAA apparently has too, because the data presented in this video is in fact from NOAA and is from the year 2000 on their website. But you don’t see it publicized much. Why? Well, because it totally destroys claims of “unprecedented warming” in our present day. The source of inspiration is from my post Hockey stick observed in NOAA ice core data. And the source of inspiration for that is from J. Storrs Hall, writing here. WUWT reader “docattheautopsy” produced a YouTube video for us for distribution for which I’m grateful and you can see below. I’ve also produced an animated GIF which is done somewhat like a video, since not all blogs and websites can support video. Here is the low-res version at 480 pixels wide. As you go back in time, our “unprecendented” temperatures of the present day don’t seem quite so large, when put in perspective of geologic time. Here are the permalinks to both the low-res and hi-def versions: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Farmers outsmart nature, adapt to weather shifts GORAKHPUR, India – As world leaders and top scientists in Copenhagen debate how to deal with climate change, farmers a world away in flood-prone areas of northern India
are taking it into their own hands to adapt to shifts in the weather.
Many US Farmers Skeptical About Climate Change As climate negotiators meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, many scientists say that farmers around the world will have to adjust to more extreme temperatures, droughts and floods as a result of global warming. But in the United States, the nation's largest farmers' organization, the American Farm Bureau Federation, opposes any strong actions to counter climate change, either in Copenhagen or in the U.S. Congress. (VOA News)
Cloud Feedback Presentation for Fall 2009 AGU Meeting I decided to make my invited presentation on estimating cloud feedbacks from satellite measurements available here in Pdf form: Spencer-Forcing-Feedback-AGU-09-San-Francisco. While it is a draft version, I doubt that the final version will be significantly different. There will be a UAH press release on the day of presentation, December 16. (Roy W. Spencer)
GISS “raw” station data – before and after I’ve been following this issue a few days and looking at a number of stations and had planned to make a detailed post about my findings, but WUWT commenter Steven Douglas posted in comments about this curious change in GISS data recently, and it got picked up by Kate at SDA, which necessitated me commenting on it now. This goes back to the beginning days of surfacestations.org in June 2007 and the second station I surveyed. Remember Orland? That nicely sited station with a long record? Note the graph I put in place in June 2007 on that image. Now look at the graph in a blink comparator showing Orland GISS data plotted in June 2007 and today: (WUWT)
Would You Like Your Temperature Data Homogenized, or Pasteurized? A Smoldering Gun From Nashville, TN Guest post by Basil Copeland The hits just keep on coming. About the same time that Willis Eschenbach revealed “The Smoking Gun at Darwin Zero,” The UK’s Met Office released a “subset” of the HadCRUT3 data set used to monitor global temperatures. I grabbed a copy of “the subset” and then began looking for a location near me (I live in central Arkansas) that had a long and generally complete station record that I could compare to a “homogenized” set of data for the same station from the GISTemp data set. I quickly, and more or less randomly, decided to take a closer look at the data for Nashville, TN. In the HadCRUT3 subset, this is “72730” in the folder “72.” A direct link to the homogenized GISTemp data used is here. After transforming the row data to column data (see the end of the post for a “bleg” about this), the first thing I did was plot the differences between the two series: The GISTemp homogeneity adjustment looks a little hockey-stickish, and induces an upward trend by reducing older historical temperatures more than recent historical temperatures. This has the effect of turning what is a negative trend in the HadCRUT3 data into a positive trend in the GISTemp version: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Some rare balance on the taxpayer funded ABC for a change Article by Alan Moran pointing out that the behaviour of pro IPCC scientists as revealed in the Climategate
emails, is nothing new. There is much to tell about the BoM of the early 1990’s.
How reliable is any of the weather data used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to claim we warmed until 2001? We’ve seen bizarre adjustments made to raw data to create warming trends in Darwin and Orland, for instance. Now Anthony Watts discovers that the one station used by a supplier of IPCC data to measure warming in the Antarctic is sited not just in the small part of the continent that’s warming, but in a settlement that’s boomed with new sources of “urban"-type heat, from an air strip and a hanger to a cluster of toasty new buildings. Here is that place, the Rothera research centre: (Andrew Bolt)
In Africa, adapting to a warmer climate has already begun The world's poorest continent is the least responsible for global warming. It is also the most vulnerable to its effects (Globe and Mail)
STUDY: No Climate Change in Any Region of Africa In the first part of this series it was established that between 1995 and 2009 no statistically significant climate change--neither warming nor cooling--occurred in any of
the ten most populated cities in the United States. The following represents the second part of this
STUDY: No Climate Change in Australia In the first and second parts of this series it was established that between 1995 and 2009 no statistically significant climate change--neither warming nor
cooling--occurred in the United States or in any region of Africa. The following represents
STUDY: No Climate Change in Asia In the first three parts of this series it was established that no statistically significant climate change--neither warming nor cooling--occurred between 1995 and 2009 in
the United States, any region of Africa, or Australia.
This idiocy, again: Copenhagen climate summit: ocean acidification an ‘underwater time-bomb’ Ocean acidification is an "underwater time-bomb" that threatens fish stocks, marine life and coastal communities around the world, a Natural England report has warned. (TDT)
Willingly or Not, We Must Prepare for Geoengineering COPENHAGEN, Dec 10 - So what do we do if COP15 does not bring adequate emission reduction targets or if the targets are not implemented by countries? What if we are faced
with an ecological crisis in the next 15-20 years?
Sheesh! How to survive a 'fearful age'? If the habitat for humans goes seriously south, so too may our species The other day I attended a preview screening of "The Road," the new film of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic 2006 novel of the same name.
Subsidy farmers: Businesspeople join the ranks of climate treaty proponents An army of chief executives attending the international climate talks in Copenhagen urge government officials to curb emissions and unleash a new wave of so-called clean energy investment. (LA Times)
Jack Mintz: Our costly climate plan Attacking the energy industry is bad news for all of Canada, but especially Alberta and Saskatchewn As climate change delegates amass in Copenhagen to forge a new treaty, governments are going out of their way to ignore the elephant herd in the room – tainted
scientific results, growth-killing targets to curb greenhouse gases and massive transfers to developing economies. Eventually, people will realize that climate change policy
is complex, difficult to analyze and based on suspect model forecasts. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
Brisbane is a long way from Copenhagen, and not only in distance. As a cast of thousands generate hot air at the UN conference in the Danish capital, electricity suppliers
in the Queensland capital are contemplating plans for coping with another five years of sweltering summers.
Wind turbine noise warnings were dismissed by civil servants - A warning about the health effects of noise from wind turbines was removed from a government study following pressure from civil servants. Consultants recommended lowering night-time noise limits because the sounds made by spinning blades were enough to disrupt sleep patterns.
China: Climate Change or Hot Air? The mainland earns billions in carbon-offset sales. But by taking credit for projects that would have been built anyway, it may not be playing by the rules (Business Week)
Chinese Wind Power: All About Other People’s Money As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to talk about cutting carbon dioxide emissions, much of the focus is on placating China, because without significant action by the Chinese, the entire effort is a farce. Thus, many leaders have agreed to subsidize China’s alternative energy industry and the Chinese are all too willing to play along. And nothing reveals how China has been gaming the system than the wind sector. [Read More] (Michael Economides and Xina Xie, Energy Tribune)
Geothermal Project in California Is Shut Down The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials
that the government project will be abandoned.
U.S. needs to focus more on vaccine safety -report CHICAGO - The United States needs to establish a permanent group that advises the government on vaccine safety and spend more money to address safety concerns about
vaccines, the Institute of Medicine said on Friday.
China worries swine flu vaccine campaign faltering BEIJING - China's vaccination campaign against the H1N1 flu strain is not proceeding as fast as it should be partly because people are needlessly worried about the safety
of the vaccine, officials said on Friday.
Figures... Boy, 12, suspended for 'crisp dealing' in school that banned junk food A schoolboy has been suspended for 'crisp dealing' at a school which has banned fatty drinks and snacks.
Fat in diet won't affect weight gain over time NEW YORK - People who want to maintain a healthy weight over time shouldn't obsess about their fat intake, new research shows.
CELEBRITY-endorsed fad diets do more harm than good, with doctors saying they may actually be fuelling the current global obesity crisis.
Real howler: Full moon brings out inner 'werewolf': study SOME people are more violent and exhibit ``werewolf'' tendencies during a full moon, a study published in the respected Australia Medical Journal reveals.
Fear depopulation, not overpopulation Diane Francis authored a very disturbing and 40-years-outdated column on Tuesday (“The real inconvenient truth: The whole world needs to adopt China’s one-child
policy,” Dec. 8). Such rhetoric about overpopulation flies in the face of the depopulation dynamics that are striking fear into many politicians and economists around the
world. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
As the Copenhagen conference unfolds it is possible to detect the outlines of the grim future dystopia that will emerge if the stealthy and remorseless proponents of global eco-fascism are allowed to remake our world in their image. Consequently, the opportunity exists for an artistic and literary critique of the Brave New Green World these fanatics wish to impose on us all. Once again we face the totalitarian temptation that has bedevilled modern history, that all-encompassing will-to-power that possesses ideological fanatics and drives them to transform themselves (and all of us) into mere components of a great Totality, an immense unified and holistic system where every person becomes an obedient and unquestioning functionary mobilized in the pursuit of a single goal, an ultimate solution: in the twentieth century entire generations were sacrificed to ensure the triumph of the race, the Volk, the people, or the proletariat; in the twenty-first century similar demands are being made for sacrifices on a mass scale to appease the earth goddess Gaia, conceived as the wrathful, relentless, unyielding, and omnipresent source of all life, value and meaning. Gaia – She who must be appeased. (Merv Bendle, Quadrant)
With unemployment at its highest levels in more than 25 years, the Obama Administration is trying to show that it is focused on jobs. Last week's White House "Jobs
Summit" brought together business, labor, academic and environmental leaders to talk about how the government can foster job creation. Unfortunately, the summit agenda
repeated much of the same nonsense we've been seeing from the Administration for the last year.
Amazon Projects Undercut Brazil's New Green Path PORTO VELHO, Brazil - Straddling one the Amazon's main tributaries and flanked by dense jungle, a construction pit the size of a small town bustles with bulldozers and
nearly 10,000 workers blasting huge slabs of rock off the river bank.
Twenty thousand years ago, North America had a more impressive array of big animals than Africa does today. The continent was populated by mastodon, several species of mammoth, giant ground sloths, saber-toothed cats and bison twice the size of their modern counterparts. By 10,000 years ago most of these animals were gone, including the 10 species that weighed more than a ton. Many drastic changes occurred during this interval, including the arrival of Homo sapiens to the new world. Many have cited humans as the cause of this great megafaunal die-off: were H. sapiens causing mass extinctions even during the stone age? Many changes took place at the end of the last glacial period. The transition to the Holocene interglacial was a wild affair: the climate flipped from cold to warm, then back to cold during the 1000-year chill of the Younger Dryas, before rapidly rewarming to our more familiar, more comfortable climate. There was also an increase in large fires, and the types of vegetation changed drastically. After people arrived the stone aged Clovis culture flourished for less than 1000 years. One popular theory is that the first Americans rapidly hunted the continent's megafauna (big animals) to extinction and then, with the disappearance of their major food source, suffered a population collapsed themselves. Alternatively, some scientists have argued that an extraterrestrial object struck Earth ~13,000 years ago, triggering the Younger Dryas, starting fires, killing the megafauna, and putting an end to the Clovis culture. A new study entitled “Pleistocene Megafaunal Collapse, Novel Plant Communities, and Enhanced Fire Regimes in North America,” just published in Science, seeks to answer the question of what killed the Mastodons. Interestingly, the researchers investigated the decline of North America's largest animals by studying a tiny organism—the [spores] of the Sporormiella fungus. As Jacquelyn L. Gill et al. explain:
As explained in a perspective article in the same issue of Science by Christopher Johnson of the School of Marine and Tropical Biology, at James Cook University in Australia: “Sporormiella is a fungus that produces spores in the dung of large herbivorous vertebrates. Lots of dung means lots of spores, so Sporormiella gives an index of the biomass of large herbivores. The spores accumulate in sediments along with pollen and charcoal, allowing changes in biomass of large herbivores to be matched exactly to sediment records of vegetation and fire, which can in turn be dated and aligned with other archaeological and environmental records.” Simply put, the more spores the more dung, the more dung the more big critters.
Gill et al. analyzed sediments from a lake in Indiana looking for spores and found that megafaunal decline began ~14,800 years ago and took more than a thousand years (see the figure). Furthermore, large vegetation changes and an increase in fire came after this decline ruling out changes in plant life or fire as primary causes of the megafaunal extinction. Climate change also looks implausible because vegetation changes followed megafaunal decline—climate change would most likely have affected megafauna by changing vegetation, not the other way around. Finally, all this happened long before the proposed extraterrestrial impact so there is no smoking cosmic gun either. Was it we evil humans that destroyed native America's megafauna menagerie? According to Gill et al., “human impacts remain plausible, but the decline predates Younger Dryas cooling and the extraterrestrial impact event proposed to have occurred 12,900 years ago.” They further state “This evidence excludes rapid-extinction hypotheses such as an extraterrestrial impact or a Paleo-Indian blitzkrieg.” If humans hunted these animals to extinction they must have been people present before the Clovis culture arose, but the existence of such people has been controversial itself. So the earliest Americans are not off the hook yet—so much for the noble savage living in harmony with nature. There is another interesting conclusion that can be drawn from this study. Before 14,800 years ago, the environment around the site studied by Gill et al. was open savanna. Parkland dominated by grassy pastures, scattered with spruce and rare broad-leaved trees—an environment where wildfire was rare. As the big animals began to disappear, trees increased, no longer suppressed by the large herbivores. The result was a transitory spruce/broad-leaf woodland, the like of which does not exist today. The changing environment of 14,000 years ago caused an increase in major fires which helped speed the transition and kill off the remaining megafauna. Eventually, much of North America would be covered in forest. North America during the late Pleistocene. Painting by Karen Carr. The point here is that the megafauna didn't just live in their environment, they actively helped to maintain the conditions most conducive to their survival. As they declined in number it was as though nature turned against them, altering the environment and hastening the animals' demise. Megafaunal extinctions elsewhere would have had similar consequences during the glacial-interglacial transition, triggering significant restructuring of the world's ecosystems. Though this was a catastrophe for some species it was a blessing for others, who would take their places and prosper within the changed ecosystems. There is one inescapable conclusion: man is not the only species that alters the environment to suit its own needs. All animals have some impact on their environment, the interactions of large herbivores with vegetation and fire can be seen at work in Africa today. So, the next time some save-the-environment-from-the-evil-humans activist type tries to tell you people are destroying the natural world ask them which world they mean, because there is no unaltered “natural” environment. The only unaltered pristine environment, indeed, the only world where climate doesn't change, would be one with no life at all. Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
December 11, 2009
Climategate reaches the British House of Lords The House of Lords meets in a lavishly decorated chamber, in the Gothic style, in the Palace of Westminster (see below). Image from Wikipedia
House of Lords, 8 December 2009: Lord Turnbull: My Lords, on first reading the Committee on Climate Change’s latest progress report, I found it an impressive document. It was broad in scope and very detailed. But the more I dug into it the more troubled I became. Below the surface there are serious questions about the foundations on which it has been constructed. There are questions in four areas-the framework created by the Climate Change Act 2008, the policy responses at EU and UK level, the estimate of costs and finally the scientific basis on which the whole scheme of things rests. I will consider each in turn. Unlike many of those involved in the climate change field, I have no pecuniary interest to declare, but I am a founder trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which seeks to bring rationality, objectivity and, above all, tolerance to the debate. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Lord Monckton on Climategate: Whistle Blower, Not A "Hacker" Climategate emails were released by a whistle blower, not a hacker according to analysis by CFACT Advisor Lord Christopher Monckton. Sign the petition at www.allpainnogain.org and follow CFACT's Mission Copenhagen at www.cfact.tv
Who can forget the classic confrontation between Humphrey Bogart and Alfonso Bedoya in “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Now it’s being reprised in living color,
featuring banditos from East Anglia, Penn State, Washington and the UN.
The skeleton of climate change Imagine if, on the eve of the Second Vatican Council, some young monk's conscience got the better of him and he leaked to the world the fact that the Catholic church had
been hiding the actual Earthly skeleton of Jesus of Nazareth.
Finally acceptable to question the orthodoxy? Beyond debate? 10 December 2009 The Copenhagen summit is in full force, and so too is the idea that man-made global warming is incontrovertible. But Martin Cohen argues that the consensus is less a triumph of science and rationality than of PR and fear-mongering Is belief in global-warming science another example of the "madness of crowds"? That strange but powerful social phenomenon, first described by Charles Mackay in 1841, turns a widely shared prejudice into an irresistible "authority". Could it indeed represent the final triumph of irrationality? After all, how rational is it to pass laws banning one kind of light bulb (and insisting on their replacement by ones filled with poisonous mercury vapour) in order to "save electricity", while ploughing money into schemes to run cars on ... electricity? How rational is it to pay the Russians once for fossil fuels, and a second time for permission (via carbon credits) to burn them (see box page 36)? And how rational is it to suppose that the effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere take between 200 and 1,000 years to be felt, but that solutions can take effect almost instantaneously? Whether rational or not, global warming theory has become a political orthodoxy. So entrenched is it that those showing any resistance to it are described as "heretics" or even likened to "Holocaust deniers". (THE)
Physics Group Splinters Over Global Warming Review As the science scandal known as ClimateGate grows, the largest U.S. physicists' association is finding itself roiled by internal dissent and allegations of conflict of
interest over a forthcoming review of its position statement on man-made global warming.
Thanks to Jorn in Germany for the graphic (with my additions) The collateral damage from the emails is large This doesn’t just bring down the scientists who wrote the emails, it brings down all the institutions and organizations that were supposed to have exacting standards and ought to have exposed this years ago. These men, whose work was so bogus, were lauded by the IPCC, published in Nature and Science, and defended by the National Academy of Science. This evidence of collusion, falsification, hiding data, and consistent deceit blows away the infrastructures of the practice of science. It doesn’t hurt the scientific method, but it destroys the premise that the IPCC expert review means anything, that peer review is capable of even picking up outright fraud, and that the National Academy of Science is functional. In other words, all the human processes of science, the journals, the famous peer review, the committees with international reviewers: they have also been exposed as corrupted to some degree. This is much more than just the downfall of three or four men. Of the 26 names on the Copenhagen Diagnosis, 12 are connected to the email scandal. It implicates almost half the lead team. The IPCC only had 60 reviewers of the one chapter that matters (Chapter Nine), and some of them reviewed their own work, many had vested interests, and now a significant number have been caught by the scandal. The legal claws means it won’t just go away Phil Jones has stepped down pending an investigation. Mann is now under investigation by Pennsylvania State University. Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) had their attorneys file three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA. Chris Horner, representing CEI, said the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies failed to comply with the Freedom of Information Act for the past three years. We’ve discussed some criminal charges in detail. The top two auditors have been suspended. (Jo Nova)
Over at The Huffington Post, Stanford's Steve Schneider makes this
remarkable claim: The amazing scientific thing that nobody seems to be covering is that the "hockey stick" was never used as proof of anthropogenic global warming by IPCCThis statement is just not true (maybe that will help to explain why no one seems to be covering it). Consider the image below of a BBC news story which covered a 2001 press conference on the occasion of finalizing the IPCC Third Assessment Report. The man in the photo is John Houghton, head of the IPCC at that time. Look carefully in the background, that is the "hockey stick" graph up on a screen at the press conference. Well, this is perhaps circumstantial evidence. What did the IPCC actually say in its report? In 2001, the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC TAR included a section with the following heading: There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.In that section it reported (emphasis added): There is a longer and more closely scrutinised temperature record and new model estimates of variability. The warming over the past 100 years is very unlikely to be due to internal variability alone, as estimated by current models. Reconstructions of climate data for the past 1,000 years (Figure 1b) also indicate that this warming was unusual and is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin.What was Figure 1b? Why, the "Hockey Stick"! If climate scientists want to regain lost credibility, and indeed not see it diminish further, they are going to have to stop playing the rest of us for fools. One way to do that is avoid saying things that are not true. (Roger Pielke Jr)
Climate Depot's Morano on FoxNews.com's 'Strategy Room'
Climate conspiracy? The hacked e-mail scandal called the very science behind global warming into question.
Megan McArdle at the Atlantic believes that some of the data analysis and modeling problems now being found in the AGW thesis are due to confirmation bias in which researchers’ observations are anchored on what had previously been reported. She looks at the devastating exposition on Watts Up With That? and asks “Climategate: Was the Data Faked?” But she’s not willing to concede the existence of a conspiracy, which she believes would have required too many conspirators. Instead, she posits the existence of an unconscious bias and quotes Richard Feynman on how error crept in Millikan’s electron experiment to illustrate her point:
Confirmation bias “is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.” A similar, but subtly different kind of problem affected the Space Shuttle program. Let’s call it ‘incentive bias’. NASA grossly underestimated the probability of a launch failure and set it at 1:100,000 because that’s what it was bureaucratically believed to be. What it bureaucratically had to be. Richard Feynman, who was asked to look into the causes of the disaster knew this number could not possibly be right. But he also knew how powerful an influence a bureaucratic bias could be. There was a consensus on how safe the vehicle was on launch among rocket scientists. But there was only one problem: it had to be wrong. (PJM)
More man-made warming - this time in Alaska It’s the adjustments to the raw data - and almost always upwards - that produces so much of the 20th century warming. So how sound is the science behind those adjustments? We’ve earlier marvelled at the amazing adjustments by which the IPCC created this warming in Northern Australia: From these raw results: Now climatologist Dr Richard Keen of the University of Colorado wonders how this warming in Alaska was produced by a supplier of IPCC data: When Keen finds a warming in fact of just this: Says Keen:
UPDATE Professor Sinclair Davidson says the Rudd Government is right - Tony Abbott is hundreds of billions out when he says the Government could cost us $400 billion if it caves into the pressure at Copenhagen. Trouble is, the true cost is even more. (Andrew Bolt)
Why The CRU (and GISS and NCDC) Global Surface Temperature Anomalies Are So Important To Policy Yesterday, I posted on the two questions below and gave the answers for each question
Today at the Copenhagen meeting, the following is one of the news reports This news article includes the text “More than half the world’s countries say they are determined not to sign up to any deal that allows temperatures to rise by more than 1.5C – as opposed to 2C, which the major economies would prefer. But any agreement to reach that target would require massive and rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions combined with removal of CO2 in the atmosphere. An extra 0.5C drop in temperatures would require vastly deeper cuts in carbon dioxide and up to $10.5 trillion (£6.5tr) extra in energy-related investment by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.” This is why the second question and its answer is so important. It is clear in the peer reviewed literature (e.g. see and see) that the IPCC (and COP15) is using a data set (which the CRU, NASA and NCDC analyses use) that has a significant warm bias when used as the metric for global warming (e.g. see), as well as an erroneous attribution of the majority of the warming to human added carbon dioxide (e.g. see and see);
This focus on a global average temperature threshold (of +1.5C or 2C), as reported in the news article, and the assumption that reaching this threshold is primarily a function of the emissions of CO2 is inaccurate. The participants at COP15 have been mislead (and the leaked CRU e-mails illustrate why, as alternative viewpoints such as I have expressed in this e-mail have been squelched) . (Climate Science)
The 2009 ‘Most Alarming Alarmism by an Alarmist’ Award Welcome to the inaugural ‘Most Alarming Alarmism by an Alarmist’ Award.
Tax fraud loses EU carbon trading billions: Europol Tax fraudsters have targeted the EU's carbon emissions trading system, pocketing about five billion euros (7.4 billion dollars), the Europol police agency said Wednesday.
World Agenda: Oil-for-Food scandal 'a warning for all at Hopenhagen' Delegates to the climate change conference in Copenhagen should remember the dread words “Oil-for-Food”.
Administration Warns of 'Command-and-Control' Regulation Over Emissions The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in way that could hurt business. (FOXNews.com)
Global Warming as a Political Tool On Monday, Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, formally announced that her agency now considers carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant, subject
to government regulation. The "finding" comes two years after the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 falls under the EPA's jurisdiction. Hey! Nice house!
Perry asks EPA to retract greenhouse gas finding LA PORTE, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw its finding that greenhouse gases threaten the public health and welfare of Americans, alleging the conclusion is based on "manipulated data." ( Associated Press)
What part of "fuggedaboudit" don't they understand? Senators hope compromise will gain votes for climate bill WASHINGTON -- Senators working on a compromise climate bill unveiled the basics of their plan for the first time on Thursday, including encouragement for new nuclear power plants, a continued use of coal and a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target that's lower than what the Senate had been considering. (McClatchy Newspapers)
Nothing Surprising in Leaked Copenhagen Draft Agreement (Updated) The leaked draft accord has outraged activists and developing nations but contains no real surprises. Update Imagine if a Bush administration official had said this: “Asked about arguments by diplomats and some protesters that the United States should provide hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to developing nations as reparations, Mr. Stern, the special envoy for climate change, bluntly fired back at a news conference. ‘I actually completely reject the notion of a debt or reparations or anything of the like,’ he said. ‘For most of the 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, people were blissfully ignorant of the fact that emissions caused a greenhouse effect. It’s a relatively recent phenomenon.’” In truth, Arrhenius famously posited the greenhouse effect in 1896. The Industrial Revolution is generally accepted as having begun in or about 1850. The greenhouse effect is not the same as the modern left’s claim that economic activity must be held in check because Man’s contribution is creating dangerous climate change. But the ignorance is fairly revealing: it’s not about the climate or the science to these people. Do I need to tell you that the New York Times’ highly political science reporter Andrew Revkin did not blink at this? The paper has not always been so forgiving of misunderstandings of the matter by political officials. (Christopher Horner, PJM)
What did the dopey beggars expect? Britain angers poor nations with plan to switch cash from health to climate National aid budgets dedicated to reducing global poverty would be raided to establish a “climate fund” to help developing countries to adapt to climate change, under a British plan tabled yesterday in Copenhagen. Money earmarked for education or health would be diverted into projects such as solar panels and wind farms. The proposal has angered developing countries, which are demanding that all the money in the climate fund be additional to the 0.7 per cent of income that industrialised countries have pledged to give as overseas aid. Poor nations had hoped that the British plan, devised with Norway, Australia and Mexico, would establish the principle that the climate fund be entirely new money. (The Times)
Stotty's Corner Friday, 11 December 2009 “We need to purge the debate of the unpleasant religiosity that surrounds it, of scientists acting like NGO activists, of propaganda based on fear, for example, the quite disgraceful government advertisement which tried to frighten young children - the final image being the family dog being drowned - and of claims about having ‘10 days to save the world’. Crude insults from the Prime Minister do...
Thursday, 10 December 2009 “A plague o' both your houses!” [The dying Mercutio in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Act 3, Scene 1]
The Developing World Always Knew: Global Warming is Neocolonialism Thursday, 10 December 2009 The ‘’Danish text’ has raised “trust issues” between rich and poor countries [Ban
Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, December 9]. Read more... (Emeritus Professor Philip Stott, The Clamour of the Times)
John Coleman on the “six legged monster” Guest post by John Coleman – KUSI-TV, Weather Channel Founder David and Goliath The 21st century Goliath is Global Warming. It is a powerful six-legged monster. In no order of strength, those legs are: (1) The big money climate change scientists and their powerful institutions from governmental centers to Universities, (2) The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which is a Geneva-based, highly funded bureaucracy controlled by one-world government political activists, (3) Environmentalists who seek to use threats of climate chaos to stop the use of fossil fuels and return to a simpler, more “natural”, primitive lifestyle, (4) Government at all levels whose political leaders find dealing with global warming is their opportunity to save us all from disaster cementing their status and success, (5) The media populated by people who love to warn us of impending disaster and give us the advice we need to cope, who believe in Al Gore and his political party and who know that “the sky is falling” is the best headline of them all, (6) Al Gore, who uses his status as a successful former Senator and Vice President to provide a platform to promote his message of doom and gloom, a message he learned in his only college science class and must have truly believed for many years but should see now is only an empty threat. The total financial resources and power structure behind Goliath are staggering. Goliath now occupies Copenhagen. For the 15th time, Goliath is meeting to publicize his long list of threatened consequences if do not head his demands. The ice will melt, the coasts and islands will flood displacing millions and killing tens of thousands; the polar bears and eventually thousands of other species will die as habitats are destroyed; hurricanes will become superstorms wrecking havoc on the coastal cities killing tens of thousands; heat waves will kill more hundreds of thousands as they grip the planet; drought and heat will destroy our agriculture starving untold millions more. He tells us this is because of our carbon footprints left by our burning of fossil fuels emitting exhaust of carbon dioxide. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Can't have a CoP with a poley bar threat: Russian polar bears adapt to warming, threats grow MOSCOW, Dec 9 - Russia's polar bears are adapting their behaviour to overcome the "catastrophic effects" of global warming, but new migration routes are pushing
them dangerously close to humans, a leading researcher said.
And silly claims: Is devoured polar bear cub a victim of global warming or act of nature? The gory photos of male polar bears devouring cubs, dragging shredded carcasses around and creating a bloody mess on the white snow of Canada's North have caused a stir on
the Internet and in reports that link the activity to climate change.
Same old nonsense: Climate change to render 1 billion homeless Climate change stands to drive as many as one billion people from their homes over the next four decades, the International Organisation for Migration said in a study on
Tuesday.
Dopier by the day... Climate change fears may worsen depression - Experts: More natural disasters means more mental health woes Deadly heat waves, home-wrecking hurricanes, neighborhood-scorching wildfires: When you stop to think about it, global warming can be downright depressing. Now, scientists
are starting to validate that feeling.
Holdren has another dose of tipsy earth syndrome: Obama's Top Science Adviser to Congress: Earth Could Be Reaching Global Warming ‘Tipping Point’ That Would Be Followed by a Dramatic Rise in Sea Level John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and President Barack Obama’s top science adviser, told Congress last week that the
Earth could be approaching a series of “tipping points” that could drastically alter the climate and Earth’s natural systems and cause the sea level to rise
dramatically.
Major eye-roller: Copenhagen Must Deliver Emissions Cuts at or Beyond Current Proposals to Keep Below 2 Degrees Joint Statement from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, the United Nations Environment Programme, Ecofys, Climate Analytics, the Sustainability Institute, the European Climate Foundation and ClimateWorks. (UNEP)
You go, guys! Vulnerable nations at Copenhagen summit reject 2C target Alliance of Small Island States say any deal that allows temperatures to rise by more than 1.5C is 'not negotiable' ( John Vidal, The Guardian)
Why Russia Doesn’t Care About Copenhagen MOSCOW - The rest of the world’s passions may be boiling over in Copenhagen this week, but Russia is paying no attention. There is an impression that the government and public opinion – quite in the classical liberal laissez faire spirit - share the conclusion that global warming has a moderate and non-unprecedented nature, its impact on human health and wildlife is largely positive and that carbon emissions are hardly the primary factor in climate shaping. Thus, it is not a crisis and there is no need to resort to massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. How has such an absurd situation arisen in modern Russia with strong statist traditions? Isn’t objectively existing global climate change impacting it? Continue reading… (The Foundry)
New Socialism Planning Heist In Copenhagen In the 1970s and early '80s, having seized control of the U.N. apparatus (by power of numbers), Third World countries decided to cash in. OPEC was pulling off the greatest
wealth transfer from rich to poor in history. Why not them? So in grand U.N. declarations and conferences, they began calling for a "New International Economic
Order."
True! Copenhagen climate conference - Climate change puts us all in the same boat. One hole will sink us all Global warming does not respect borders. A mindset shift is required if world leaders are to save us from ourselves ( Kofi Annan
Bait the trap with a Nobel & lookit you catch :) Release $200 billion in climate funds: poor nations to Obama COPENHAGEN — Poor countries on Thursday challenged Barack Obama as he received his Nobel prize to steer the US back into the Kyoto Protocol and help free up 200 billion dollars in funds to fight climate change. "That's the challenge that President Obama needs to rise to. This is what we expect from him as a Nobel prize winner," said Lumumba Stanislas Dia-Ping of Sudan, representing 130 countries in a bloc called the Group of 77 and China. "This is what we expect from him as one of the advocates of new multilateralism," Dia-Ping told reporters at the UN climate talks. "That is what we expect of him as someone who is a member of both the developed and developing world -- his extended family, his brothers, his cousins, his uncles are still in that continent (Africa) of which he is proud to be a member." (AFP)
Obama’s Nobel Prize Speech Wrong on Global Warming In the midst of resolving conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama briefly mentioned another war in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: the war on climate change. He said,
Interestingly, the more attention the Climategate scandal receives, the firmer the Obama administration is that the scientific consensus is, in fact, a consensus. First Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson and now President Obama. But the truth is there is a lot of scientific dissent refuting the claim that doing nothing will result in more natural disasters. It’s easy to blame hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, floods, tornadoes and every other natural disaster on manmade global warming since they’re all climate-related but the correlation simply isn’t there. There is no consistent long-term pattern. Climatologist Roy Spencer pointed out after Hurricane Katrina that we had similar hurricanes in a less industrialized world: “Certainly, the previous huge hurricanes that we had in the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, didn’t have anything to do with mankind’s production of CO2 because we hadn’t produced very much by then, and I find it just irresponsible that anyone would claim that this hurricane was caused by global warming.” Continue reading… (The Foundry)
U.S. sees robust climate talks, no "reparations" COPENHAGEN - President Barack Obama's top aides promised on Wednesday "robust" negotiations toward a global climate change deal this month, but firmly stated the United States does not owe the world "reparations" for centuries of carbon pollution. (Reuters)
K.Rudd on tour: Aussie footprint 1817 tonnes, and counting THE Australian delegation to the Copenhagen climate change conference could number 114, official documents reveal.
Rudd defends huge Copenhagen delegation Kevin Rudd has defended the size of the delegation Australia is taking to the Copenhagen climate summit.
Naturally the population panickers can't stay out of it: The real inconvenient truth - The whole world needs to adopt China's one-child policy The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.
Calls for forced population control as a means to conquer global warming are in the news this week. We knew the Copenhagen climate conference would keep drawing out the
cranks.
Global Warming Weekly Round-Up, Dec. 10th, 2009 Has the Universe forsaken Al Gore? Why did the Nepalese cabinet climb the mountain and what’s the Sun been up to these days? (Daily Bayonet)
Well duh! Britons ‘won’t change to fight global warming’ Most Britons are not prepared to change their lifestyle to help combat climate change, according to a YouGov/Channel 4 News survey of more than 2,000 adults, as the
Copenhagen summit on climate change gets underway.
Roger Pielke Jr is one of the nicer misanthropic twits around but that doesn't stop him making stupid arguments: Up, Down or Sideways In an earlier post I made the case that one needs to know only two things about the science of climate change to begin asking whether accelerating decarbonization of the economy might be worth doing:
And the answer is ... no! My concern about the potential effects of human influences on the climate system are not a function of global average warming over a long-period of time or of predictions of continued warming into the future. A point that my father often makes, and I think that he is absolutely right, is that what maters are the effects of human influences on the climate system on human and ecological scales, not at the global scale. No one experiences global average temperature and it is very poorly correlated with things that we do care about in specific places at specific times. Consider the following thought experiment. Divide the world up into 1,000 grid boxes of equal area. Now imagine that the temperature in each of 500 of those boxes goes up by 20 degrees while the temperature in the other 500 goes down by 20 degrees. The net global change is exactly zero (because I made it so). However, the impacts would be enormous. Let's further say that the changes prescribed in my thought experiment are the direct consequence of human activity. Would we want to address those changes? Or would we say, ho hum, it all averages out globally, so no problem? The answer is obvious and is not a function of what happens at some global average scale, but what happens at human and ecological scales. In the real world, the effects of increasing carbon dioxide on human and ecological scales are well established, and they include a biogechemical effect on land ecosystems with subsequent effects on water and climate, as well as changes to the chemistry of the oceans. Is it possible that these effects are benign? Sure. Is it also possible that these effects have some negatives? Sure. These two factors alone would be sufficient for one to begin to ask questions about the worth of decarbonizing the global energy system. But greenhouse gas emissions also have a radiative effect that, in the real world, is thought to be a net warming, all else equal and over a global scale. However, if this effect were to be a net cooling, or even, no net effect at the global scale, it would not change my views about a need to consider decarbonizing the energy system one bit. There is an effect -- or effects to be more accurate -- and these effects could be negative. Of course, not mentioned yet is that action to improve adaptation to climate doesn't depend at all on a human influence on the climate system, warming or cooling or whatever. Adaptation makes good sense regardless. So clearly my policy views on adaptation are largely insensitive to any issues related to global average temperature change. The debate over climate change has many people on both sides of the issue wrapped up in discussing global average temperature trends. I understand this as it is an icon with great political symbolism. It has proved a convenient political battleground, but the reality is that it should matter little to the policy case for decarbonization. What matters is that there is a human effect on the climate system and it could be negative with respect to things people care about. That is enough to begin asking whether we want to think about accelerating decarbonization of the global economy. To fully assess whether accelerated decarbonization makes sense would require us to ask, are there any other good reasons why accelerated decarbonization might make sense? And it turns out, there are many. And that discussion will have to await a further post. (Roger Pielke Jr)
Bull spit! Ocean acidification rates pose disaster for marine life, major study shows Report launched from leading marine scientists at Copenhagen summit shows seas absorbing dangerous levels of CO2 (The Guardian)
Ocean Absorption Of CO2 Not Shrinking Recent claims by climate change alarmists have raised the possibility that terrestrial ecosystems and particularly the oceans have started loosing part of their ability to absorb a large proportion of man-made CO2 emissions. This is an important claim, because currently only about 40% of anthropogenic emissions stay in the atmosphere, the rest is sequestered by a number of processes on land and sea. The warning that the oceans have reached their fill and their capacity to remove atmospheric CO2 is accompanied by the prediction that this will cause greenhouse warming to accelerate in the future. A new study re-examines the available atmospheric CO2 and emissions data and concludes that the portion of CO2 absorbed by the oceans has remained constant since 1850. Wolfgang Knorr from the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, has published a study in Geophysical Research Letters entitled “Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?” Knorr combines data from ice cores, direct atmospheric measurements, and emission inventories to show that the fraction of human emitted CO2 that remains in the atmosphere has stayed constant over the past 160 years, at least within the limits of measurement uncertainty. Here is the paper's abstract:
This work directly contradicts studies that claim to have shown that the uptake of atmospheric CO2 by the ocean has already slowed. Knorr's work is backed up by a study in Nature by S. Khatiwala et al.: “Reconstruction of the history of anthropogenic CO2 concentrations in the ocean .” Noting that buring fossil fuels has increased the level of to CO2 in the atmosphere, the authors state “the ocean plays a crucial role in mitigating the effects of this perturbation to the climate system, sequestering 20 to 35 per cent of anthropogenic CO2 emissions.” They found that sequestration by the oceans had not diminished significantly and that land plants have greatly increased their absorption of the gas. Quoting from the paper:
Some have suggested that reducing human CO2 emissions by 50% would bring atmospheric levels into equilibrium. This new report raises the possibility that, if human emissions were lowered, absorption levels by the oceans and land plants might decline as well, maintaining the growth in overall atmospheric CO2 levels. It also seems possible that, if man's release of carbon dioxide is greatly reduced, the terrestrial biosphere could shift from a net absorber to a producer of greenhouse gas. The change in sources and sinks over time is presented graphically in figure S3 from the paper's supplementary information, shown below:
These observations imply that all the hoopla about reining in CO2 levels may be working at odds with nature, that Earth's environment already has mechanisms in place to regulate changing levels of greenhouse gases. The observation that the terrestrial biosphere was a source of CO2 until the 1940s, and has subsequently become a sink, indicate that the problem is not as simple as shutting down factories and banning SUVs. With nature regulating GHG levels on its own, perhaps we have time to look more closely into the matter before we leap off an economic cliff at the urging of the IPCC and the likes of Al Gore. Ocean Acidification Reconsidered Many climate scientists and ecologists seem to seek the dark cloud instead of the silver lining for any new discovery. A case in point is concern over increased ocean acidification due to the absorption of greater amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. While the previous panic over bleached coral reefs seems to have abated (see “Bleached Coral Reefs Bounce Back”), researchers continue to warn that many species of invertebrates will disappear as the oceans acidify. But new observations indicate that the effects of increased CO2 on marine environments will be more complex than previously predicted. In fact, a new study shows that some of these species may benefit from ocean acidification, growing bigger shells or skeletons that provide more protection. Because different ocean creatures use different forms of calcium carbonate for their shells, marine scientist Justin Ries of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, hypothesized that not all ocean organisms would respond the same way to increased acidity. Ries and two colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Anne L. Cohen and Daniel C. McCorkle, exposed marine organisms from 18 marine species to four levels of seawater acidity. As described in an article from ScienceNOW, the first environment matched today's atmospheric CO2 levels. The second and third were set at double and triple the pre-Industrial CO2 levels, conditions the IPCC has predicted to occur over the next century. The fourth CO2 level was 10 times pre-Industrial levels, a level not seen since before the onset of the Pleistocene Ice Age more than 3 million years ago.
Blue crabs, lobsters, and shrimp thrived in the highest CO2 level, growing heavier shells, the researchers reporte in Geology. Ries speculates that these bottom dwellers are somehow better able to manipulate CO2 ions to build their shells, even though fewer ions are available to them in an acidic environment. Exactly how they accomplish this remains unknown. Meanwhile, American oysters, scallops, temperate corals, and tube worms all fared poorly, growing thinner, weaker shells. Clams and pencil urchins, who's exoskeletons dissolved at the highest CO2 levels, were the biggest potential losers. In all a thought provoking study, but we don't need to borrow trouble. Barring any massive natural outgassing of greenhouse gas, CO2 levels will not rise as high as those in the fourth test environment, at least not in the foreseeable future. The atmosphere did experience similar CO2 levels during the middle of the Cretaceous period about 100 million years ago. “This is an interval in which many of these organisms lived and apparently did okay, despite the extremely elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 that existed at that time,” Ries said. “The take-home message is that the responses to ocean acidification are going to be a lot more nuanced and complex than we thought.” As usual when Earth's climate changes, there are winners and losers but life carries on. For Earth to experience such conditions the Pleistocene Ice Age must come to an end, which implies the melting of all significant glaciers, a tremendous rise in sea levels and other climatic changes scientists can only guess at. On the bright side, if Earth is transitioning back to pre-ice age conditions mankind really doesn't have any say in the matter—at least our conscience will be clear. That High Temperature Record As a final note, it has become fashionable to declare current global temperatures as the highest in more than a million years, implying that anthropogenic global warming has resulted in a climate that is out of the norm for interglacials during the Pleistocene Ice Age. An article in the November 19, 2009, edition of Nature by David Noone has revealed that, using temperature estimates derived from isotopes in polar ice cores, interglacial periods were rather warmer than previously thought. How much higher is hard to say exactly given the limits of measurement accuracy for the proxy data but “the last warm period, the Eemian, occurred around 128,000 years ago, and from various proxy measurements it is widely accepted that temperatures then were higher than those during modern pre-industrial times.” According to the USGS, during the peak of the last interglacial period, around 125 thousand years ago, sea level was about 6 m (20 ft) higher than present. This estimate is based on dating of emergent coral reefs on tectonically stable coastlines distant from plate boundaries. These data indicate that global ice volumes were significantly lower than present, by an amount equivalent to the present volume of the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets. This in turn suggests that temperatures were higher for longer than today in order to melt that volume of ice—all without human help. Despite these findings, global warming alarmists continue to issue bombastic statements that are known to be false—what kind of scientists are these people, who purposely mislead the public? Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
Who Is Big Global Warming’s Daddy? USA Today’s house editorial today bemoans the fact that Climategate “gives ammunitiion to the skeptics,” but concludes that “the overwhelming scientific consensus remains that the Earth is warming, largely because of human activity, with potentially calamitous consequences involving melting ice caps, rising sea levels and shifting agricultural patterns.” So do they get a skeptic to fill the daily “Another View” slot they offer to rebut their editorial? No — they get another alarmist! Under the panicky-but-now-tired headline “We need to act quickly!”, Melanie Fitzpatrick of the Union of Scientists Concerned About Their Grant Funding writes:
I guess Ms. Melanie missed the memos about the vast wealth that flows to alarmist science and environmental pressure groups, which they extract both from taxpayers and extort from those same “polluters” she’s talking about. And what a shock — she’s yet another politically disinterested, principled scientist who contributes to the Huffington Post. (Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute)
They figure they have to be right sometime? Next year to be the world’s warmest on record, Met Office predicts Next year is “more likely than not” to be the world’s warmest year on record and man-made climate change will be a factor, according to the Met Office.
STUDY: No Climate Change in the United States As established in the correlation study below, between 1995 and 2009, no statistically significant climate change--neither warming nor cooling--occurred in any of the ten
most populated cities in the United States: (1) New York City; (2) Los Angeles; (3) Chicago; (4) Houston; (5) Phoenix; (6) Philadelphia; (7) San Antonio; (8) Dallas; (9) San
Diego; or (10) San Jose (San Francisco Bay Area).
Geomagnetic Forcing of Earth’s Cloud Cover During 2000-2008? I’ll admit to being a skeptic when it comes to other skeptics’ opinions on the potential effects of sunspot activity on climate. Oh, it’s all very possible I suppose, but I’ve always said I’ll start believing it when someone shows a quantitative connection between variations in global cloud cover (not temperature) and geomagnetic activity. Maybe my skepticism is because Now…where was I? Oh, yeah. So, since I’ve been working with 9 years of global reflected sunlight data from the CERES instrument flying on NASA’s Terra satellite, last night I decided to take a look at some data for myself. The results, I will admit, are at least a little intriguing. (Roy W. Spencer)
Presentation In Copenhagen December 6 2009 On Sunday December 6, 2009 I gave the following presentation Pielke Sr., R.A. 2009: Concerns On The IPCC Report: The Actual State Of Climate Science. Conference with Respect to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15), Copenhagen, Denmark, 6 December 2009 at a meeting in Copenhagen organized by the Danish People’s Party to the European Parliment [which was convened by Morten Messerschmidt who is a Member of the European Parliment; his goal was to provide a forum to present alternate viewpoints to that of the IPCC; I appreciate his leadership in this much needed venue!]. The speakers at this meeting were mostly supporters of the first hypothesis in our EOS article Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union that “Human influence on climate variability and change is of minimal importance, and natural causes dominate climate variations and changes on all time scales. In coming decades, the human influence will continue to be minimal.” I was the only speaker who supported the hypothesis “Although the natural causes of climate variations and changes are undoubtedly important, the human influences are significant and involve a diverse range of first- order climate forcings, including, but not limited to, the human input of carbon dioxide (CO2). Most, if not all, of these human influences on regional and global climate will continue to be of concern during the coming decades.” There were no speakers who presented the IPCC view (since the organizers wanted alternative viewpoints), although I had recommended that speakers be invited to present and debate this viewpoint. I have a few comments on the talks and a recommendation to the climate skeptics. First, there were several informative talks including one by Henrik Svendsmark on the role of the Sun in the climate system. The talk and data presented by Leighton Seward on the effect on vegetation by added CO2 was quite informative. From a science perspective, I benefited by the new information I learned. However, this was basically a skeptics meeting, and I was the exception since, while I find major fault with the IPCC’s narrow focus on CO2, I do accept that human activity is significantly affecting the climate system, and that added CO2 (among a diverse set of other climate forcings) is significant. What I find puzzling in the conclusions of the skeptics is that, even though the evidence for a human signature on the climate at local and regional scale is irrefutable, they do not reject the first hypothesis listed above. If there is any debate, it is the extent these human climate forcings alter hemispheric scale circulation patterns. The importance of the long-range transport of the aerosols input into the atmosphere through human activity (e.g. industrial emssions, biomas burning) is certainly very clear. Thus, I do not see how anyone cannot accept that the first hypothesis listed above is rejected [for the same reason, of course, I cannot understand, why it is not clear to everyone that the IPCC and Copenhagen focus primarily on CO2 is based on a refuted hypothesis]. I suggest, that if the skeptics would recognize that the first hypothesis has been rejected and accept the second hypothesis, they would have greater visibility and effectiveness in the discussion of the science. All of the presentations and discussions were video taped, and I will announce on my weblog when they are available. (Climate Science)
Much Ado About Blogs: Anarchy vs. Tradition As we all know blogs have become a fashionable means of communication made possible by modern technology. The question is, ‘What does this mean for science?’. Is it a reasonable means of communicating science to an open global audience? Is it a reasonable means for intra scientific discussions? How do we keep values from tarnishing scientific objectivity? Can they operate as an alternative to the peer review process associated with journals? And, of course, many more questions. Here we can address a few of these question. First, what is the perception, from climate scientists, concerning the traditional means of peer reviewed journals as a means of communicating findings in the climate sciences?* (Dennis Bray, Klimazwiebel)
Anatomy of an Apocalypse, Or: Al Gore Flunks Logic (and the Polygraph) Back when Al Gore was running for President, Mark Steyn described him as our first alien candidate. Mark wasn’t expressing doubt about Gore’s native country. He wasn’t a birther avant la lettre. Rather, he was expressing doubt about Al Gore’s manner — weirdness incarnate — and, ultimately, his sanity. The presidential election of 2000 seems awfully long ago, more, somehow, than the 9 years it’s actually been. A lot has happened in the world. Yet time cannot wither nor custom stale Al Gore’s infinite monotony. Back in 2000 he was hectoring us about the environment. In the interim, he has just kept hectoring on. Most people, having absorbed the climate data, have quietly stopped talking about global warming. Instead, they now warn about climate change. Why? Because it seemed every time someone would organize a conference to bemoan the dangers of global warming, the event would get snowed out. So most politicians have given up on “warming” and have embraced “change.” More nebulous but somehow less embarrassing. (PJM)
Tropical forests affected by habitat fragmentation store less biomass and carbon dioxide - Conserving continuous forests is important for mitigation of climate change São Paulo/ Leipzig. Deforestation in tropical rain forests could have an even greater impact on climate change than has previously been thought. The combined biomass of a large number of small forest fragments left over after habitat fragmentation can be up to 40 per cent less than in a continuous natural forest of the same overall size. This is the conclusion reached by German and Brazilian researchers who used a simulation model on data from the Atlantic Forest, a coastal rain forest in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, around 88 per cent of which has already been cleared. The remaining forest fragments are smaller, so the ratio between area and edge is less favourable. The reason for the reduction in biomass is the higher mortality rate of trees at the edges of forest fragments, according to the results published by researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and the University of São Paulo in Ecological Modelling. This reduces the number of big old trees, which contain a disproportionately high amount of biomass. (Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres)
Funny: A lingering pool of disbelief - Despite a decade of record drought, Australian farmers refuse to buy into climate change SWAN REACH, AUSTRALIA -- Before climate change strangled his lemon trees, Hermann Markovsky would drift off to sleep to the murmur of black swans in a lagoon beside his
citrus farm.
From today's NYT: China’s rapid consumption growth is good news for the whole world. For the first time, China, not the United States, is a locomotive helping to pull the global economy out of a slump. But China’s tiny appetite for American exports means that the main benefit has gone to commodity exporters and to businesses in China.It is hard to reconcile claims that China has already transformed its economy to one of low-carbon growth with reports like this:
(Roger Pielke Jr)
Climate: Contested 'Plan B' in wings if diplomacy fails Just five years ago, anyone who talked of easing Earth's climate crisis by fertilising the seas with iron, scattering particles in the stratosphere to reflect sunlight or
building a sunshade in space courted ridicule.
Coal industry already under attack before EPA “finding” The announcement of new powers to regulate carbon dioxide will allow the EPA to hammer the energy sector, particularly coal production and coal-burning electrical plants. However, environmental activists have hardly sat silent on the sidelines before the EPA “finding” that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a danger to human health. As KDKA in Pennsylvania reports from deep within coal country, nuisance lawsuits over mining cost Bickmore, West Virginia 500 jobs this week: (Ed Morrissey, Hot Air)
Oh... Big Utility Turns Bullish on Carbon Capture The head of American Electric Power Co., the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the U.S., said advances in technology would allow the company to eliminate the emissions
from its coal-fired power plants by 2025.
North Sea coal to be burnt underground Vast coal deposits lying deep beneath the North Sea will be burnt in situ to generate up to 5 per cent of Britain’s energy needs, under new plans approved by the
Government last week.
The Left, Nuclear Power, and Copenhagen: Rejecting the Viable With thousands of politicians and environmentalists meeting in Copenhagen to discuss ways to achieve major cuts in global carbon dioxide emissions, one might assume that the need for drastic increases in nuclear power capacity would be an obvious solution – a path forward upon which factions on both the Left and the Right could agree. Alas, that is not happening. Instead, the Green/Left in the US continues its decades-long opposition to nuclear, all the while insisting that the only way forward is through greater use of alternative energy sources like solar and wind. (Robert Bryce, MasterResource)
2020 target not impossible but neither is a new dark age The Scottish government is just about on course to reach its target of generating half the country’s electricity from renewable energy sources within the next ten years
— but, if the lights are to stay on, it has to find a replacement for its major power stations.
India’s Electricity Shortage Puts Chinese Workers in Spotlight - Political friction with China is affecting India’s electric power sector. The two countries have long had an uneasy relationship. Recently they have squabbled over re-drawing borders, territory, Tibet and the Dalai Lama. And of course, the two countries fought a brief war in 1962. In the latest bit of diplomatic tit-for-tat, New Delhi has curbed visas for Chinese technicians eligible to work in India, a move that seems to have boomeranged on the Indian power industry. Over the past few months, at least 3,000 Chinese workers who had been working in India were either deported or had their visas revoked. Most of them were engaged in turnkey power projects that are at an advanced stage. That in turn, has caused repercussions throughout the India electricity sector, which badly needs new power generating capacity. The controversy began after Indian media outlets reported on the “separate” visas issued by Chinese authorities to Indian passport holders from the states Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh. While India’s sovereignty over Kashmir is disputed by Pakistan, China lays claim to areas in Arunachal. Other problems include repeated Chinese incursions along the Indo-China border, a tussle between the two countries to exercise influence over the Indian Ocean, and China’s negative comments about Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh. Estimates suggest that the visa revocations will lead to the delay of the startup of nearly 4000 megawatts of power-generation capacity. Central Electricity Authority (CEA) Chairman Rakesh Nath has said that pleas have come from most Indian electrical power producers to end the visa crisis due to shortage of skilled labor force that can be readily filled by Chinese. (Priyanka Bhardwaj, Energy Tribune)
Swine flu has killed 10,000 Americans since April CHICAGO - Swine flu has killed nearly 10,000 Americans, including 1,100 children and 7,500 younger adults, and infected one in six people in the United States since
arriving last April, health officials said on Thursday.
UK study confirms H1N1 far less lethal than feared LONDON - H1N1 pandemic swine flu is far less lethal than feared, British scientists said on Wednesday, but public health officials should not be complacent in fighting it
and vaccination campaigns should continue.
Germ-free kids may risk more adult illnesses: study WASHINGTON — Parents who let their kids romp in the mud and eat food that has fallen on the floor could be helping to protect them against maladies like heart disease
later in life, a US study showed Wednesday.
Birth weight, early weight gain may hasten puberty NEW YORK - A relatively low birth weight and early-age weight gain may increase the likelihood of early puberty, hint findings from a German study. Earlier onset of
puberty has been linked to certain cancers, high blood sugar and obesity.
The New Science Of Obesity - What research tells us about why we gain weight and how we can best lose it. Americans are fatter than ever and it's seriously harming our health. More than 72 million adults are obese, and that figure is expected to soar to 103 million by 2018.
The problem is so bad that it could even cause life expectancy to start to decline, according to some demographers.
The public speaks out against crummy formaldehyde science We got a few direct e-mails in response to the "More bad science on formaldehyde health effects" posting. In composite, they asked the following questions:
Here are my answers... 1. There are certainly some others out there, but most of them work for trade associations that are quite narrowly focused, whereas the opposition (EWG, NRDC, USPIRG, GoodGuide, etc.) simply focus on "evil industry." Thus, we see the effects of divide and conquer. Also, the trade associations hardly ever get aggressive in attacking the fear entrepreneurs. If they did, maybe they wouldn't get invited to all the right cocktail parties. One exception is the American Council on Science and Health. 2. Most scientists don't care because the bar has been set too low, and they have to play the game to survive. The holy grail is simply getting the paper published. Whether or not it is a crock does not matter. Editorial standards are non-existent, since there are too many journals that need material. Consequently, almost anything can now be published somewhere. 3. Yes, virtually everyone IS "on the take" to bend science in the direction of where the money is flowing. I would add that most of the granting agencies are very PC, and know surprisingly little about practical science. Indeed, some agencies such as the EPA make their impractical approach a badge of honor. Making matters worse is that Congress, like most Americans, know little of science, and can be easily buffaloed. After all, who wants to be against "children's health" or the "environment"? (Shaw's Eco-Logic)
William Watson: Our 30 fat years Data shows consumption has grown in veritable leaps and bounds Ottawa’s Centre for the Study of Living Standards issued a new report this week on the progress of its index of economic well-being, which it has been developing and
tracking for a number of years. Click here to read more... (William Watson, Financial Post)
Environmental groups – bogus information You have to wonder when the public will finally grow weary of claims by environmental groups more interested in fund-raising than truth-telling. Example: Go on the
Environmental Working Group Web site, ewg.org, and look at its latest fund-raising ploy warning consumers about the dangers of, gasp, hand sanitizers.
Fishy sustainability myths debunked POPULAR thinking about how to improve food systems often misses the point, according to results of a three-year global study of salmon production systems from Dalhousie
University, Ecotrust and the Swedish Institute for Food & Biotechnology.
December 10, 2009
Whoa! Top scientists rally to Met Office's defence More than 1,700 scientists have agreed to sign a statement defending the ‘integrity and honesty’ of global warming research (The Times)
Physicists Stick to Warming Claim Post-ClimateGate The professional association for physicists is facing internal pressure from some of its most distinguished members, who say the burgeoning ClimateGate scandal means the
group should rescind its 2007 statement declaring that global warming represents a dire international emergency.
Climategate: Al Gore’s Political Tin Ear The Goracle believes the Climategate emails "do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus." I’ve said a few times that the Climategate emails remind me of the Spycatcher affair, with all the efforts of the alarmist establishment to suggest that there’s nothing to see in the emails simply meaning that ordinary people really want to see them (hence the “Tiger Woods Index” issue). Today, Al Gore proves to be economical with the truth in his interview with Slate:
Unless Gore is just speaking clumsily, and simply means the most recent email he read was ten-years-old, he’s lying, misinformed, or both. The last email actually dates to Nov. 12 2009. The emails as a whole outline a campaign of disinformation and distraction that has lasted for 13 years. Who is really in denial here? (Iain Murray, PJM)
Is it unreasonable to suggest his charge of theft against the fossil fuel industry is totally without merit? By Peter Foster The spinning from the climate industry in the wake of Climategate has been as fascinating as the incriminating emails themselves. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
Also: Oil industry linked to CRU funding effort! Following up on Weaver's Web, Peter Foster's column this morning on Andrew Weaver, Canada's leading climate modeler and climate crime victim, we have news: The break-in at Doc Weaver's office, which he linked to the evil fossil fuel industry's attempt to discredit global warming policy, turns out to have been one of numerous break-ins at the University of Victoria. On Dec. 2, an official university-wide email warned that "there have been a number of office and lab break-ins across campus in recent days–initially Science & Engineering buildings, but now Cornett & BEC. Psychology has had several offices and labs broken into, and last night there were break-ins in second-floor offices in BEC. Entry seems to be happening by jimmying/forcing locks." This news comes from none other than Steve McIntyre (the man who broke Mr. Weaver's hockey stick) on his world-famous Climate Audit blog. A UVic informant sent Steve a copy of the internal email after reading that Doc Weaver was publicly blaming the oil industry for the break-in at his office, where a computer was stolen--implying a connection to the Climategate CRU email scandal. Aren't those oil industry guys smart and sophisticated--there they are wandering around the University of Victoria, jimmying locks in the psych labs. Are those lab tests on cognitive impairment part of the climate modelers tool kit? Steve McIntyre has an even better explanation of what's going on:: "GCM (General Crime Modelers) believe that the break-ins at the Psychology Department at the University of Victoria are the proverbial “smoking gun” that proves the teleconnection between American fossil fuel interests and the Russian secret service, that resulted in Climategate." On the funding front, though, the latest CRU Climategate email revelation has members of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit actively soliciting funds from...the fossil fuel industry, including Shell, BP and --what horror!--Exxon. Whether they got any dirty oil money isn't known, but you can read the details at climategate.tv This line is good: "Had a very good meeting with Shell yesterday...I expect they will accept an invitation to act as a strategic partner." And: "I'm talking to Shell International's climate change team, but this approach will do neatly for the new foundation." By the way, climategate.tv is a subject of great suspicion at desmogblog, where they speculate that climategate.tv is itself actually funded by the fossil fuel industry. Gosh, those oil guys are really really smart. They fund everybody! I have reason to believe, in fact--based on the same high-quality line of reasoning and evidence that led Doc Weaver to link his office break-in to big oil-- that desmogblog may also be getting funding from unnamed sources that could be related to fossil fuel giants. Why not? — Terence Corcoran (Financial Post)
Global Warming Naysayers Turn up Heat - To Many Skeptics, "ClimateGate" Is Proof Global Warming is Based on Deception To anyone who is skeptical about the science of global warming, "ClimateGate" is the biggest scandal ever.
US Republicans vow to rain on Copenhagen parade WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers critical of efforts to battle climate change said they would fly next week to the Copenhagen summit to undercut President Barack
Obama's promises of strong US action.
"Science" responds to Climategate The response of the climate-science establishment to Climategate has been disappointing if predictable. The guild mentality has come to the fore. Campaigns are under way to defend the integrity of science from a scurrilous smear campaign. The message is simple: you are either with us or you are a barbarian. The first line of response to the leaked or hacked emails, you recall, was to say that they showed science going on as usual--even science at its best, some argued. "Trick" did not mean trick; "hiding the decline" did not mean hiding the decline. These were innocent phrases torn out of context. As for the expostulations of harry_read_me, and discussing ways to punish or silence dissidents, and musing over the deletion of data that might be demanded under FOI requests, er, this is all just part of the healthy cut and thrust of normal scientific enquiry. We all have to let off steam now and then. No conspiracy. Nothing improper. That did not work--too many of the emails speak for themselves--and the scandal refused to die down. The next line of response was to say that the emails involved just a few individuals, and implicate no more than a sliver of information about global warming. Even if you threw out everything the Climatic Research Unit had done, such is the weight of other research that nothing would change. (The newly empowered EPA administrator added a nice wrinkle last night on the PBS Newshour. The work in question was done abroad. Other research was done by Americans. So no cause for alarm. Well, no cause for lack of alarm, if you see what I mean.) (Clive Crook, The Atlantic)
Climategate and the Hamster Effect Like rodents trapped in a cage with a snake, climate scientists and journalists scurry and dig, hoping to avoid the inevitable. Witnessing the spectacle of climate warmists scampering hither and thither in the face of predatory evidence that they and their pet theories may be doomed, I’m put in mind of the behavior of hamsters who suddenly find themselves trapped in a cage with a hungry snake. The ensuing drama is instructive.First the hamsters freeze as if in a state of petrifaction induced by utter disbelief. When it dawns on them that they have what looks like an insoluble problem on their tiny paws, they begin to shake and fidget, and soon they are darting feverishly from one side of the cage to the other, endlessly back and forth, seeking an escape hatch which simply isn’t there. It occurs to them that they are cornered, there is no way out, and they start digging furiously into the sand floor, emitting plaintive squeals of fear and despair as the snake slowly uncoils from its torpor and begins its relentless approach. One feels for the caged hamsters. They are, after all, in an unenviable position, and being swallowed whole by a snake is certainly nothing to make light of. One may analogously sympathize with many of our climate warmists who, confronted with megabytes of recently released data indicating that the climate models have been rigged, the source materials contaminated, suppressed, or lost, and the empirical results fudged to consort with a pre-existent theory, are now reproducing the ritual actions of our unfortunate hamsters. Poor benighted creatures, but for all our empathetic concern we can at least take comfort in the fact that we are not in their place. (David Solway, PJM)
Last year, my column "Global Warming Rope-A-Dope" (12/24/08) started out: "Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to
destroy the planet. Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil." New evidence proves that
climatologists and environmental policy advocates have not only fed us lies, engaged in scientific and academic fraud but committed criminal acts as well.
Why Science Is Not Final Arbiter Of Truth Regardless of what the politicians decide at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the game has changed.
Carlin: The Politicization of the EPA — an Administration’s Radical Gamble (PJM Exclusive) Alan Carlin — the EPA scientist whose skeptical report was hushed — thinks Obama and the EPA just placed a terrible bet with the politically motivated CO2 endangerment finding. (More at PJTV: Whistleblower an Inconvenient Voice in Obama's EPA) On Monday, the EPA announced its endangerment finding for greenhouse gases. One can infer from the timing of the announcement that the administration may have taken this action at this time in order to bring something to the table at the Copenhagen COP15 meeting. From a scientific viewpoint, it was an odd time to do so — given that the very recent Climategate disclosures would presumably have taken some time to digest and analyze for their possible effects on vital conclusions. So the timing may have been based more on the political, rather than the scientific, factors involved. But from a larger viewpoint, the U.S. president who was going to find a way to resolve partisan bickering in Washington has now embarked on a major escalation of the conflict — by using the power he holds over executive branch agencies to fight his enemies in Congress over the issue of global warming. Although the EPA has always been, organizationally, an arm of the administration in power, until this administration the EPA has generally been able to maintain the appearance (if not the reality) of being science-based. That is now much harder to maintain. Originally, the rumor was that the purpose of the endangerment finding would be to pressure Congress into approving a cap and trade bill. Now, it appears fairly clear that the administration will not be able to gather the needed votes in the Senate to pass the bill — at least this year, and probably even next year, either with or without an endangerment finding. So there would seem to be little reason to push the endangerment finding now — unless they intended to use it as the basis for negotiating at COP15. (PJM)
We don't need a cap-and-trade deal. What we need is a RICO trial.
This week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided that the air we exhale, carbon dioxide, is toxic and poses a danger to our well-being. The EPA plans to use this “endangerment” finding to issue costly new emissions regulations on Americans – once again putting Washington in charge. This deeply undemocratic process is an arrogant attempt by the Obama Administration to enact by regulation what they could not pass through the people’s Congress. Such a disturbing and cynical effort to take away your voice should cause all Americans to stop and wonder “what is next?” (John Culberson, Townhall)
Crank of the Week - December 7, 2009 - The US EPA The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared greenhouse gases a danger to public health this week, in a move that could pave the way for future regulation. This is seen by many as a fallback move by the Obama administration in case the moribund Cap and Trade bill fails in congress. With perverse logic that could only be understood by a politician, carbon dioxide, a substance that is essential to life on Earth and to maintaining our planet's habitable ecosystem, has been lumped in with the likes of DDT and asbestos. The announcement comes on the first day of the Copenhagen climate summit and is seen by many as a sop to ecologists and global warming activists prior to President Obama's appearance at the end of the conference. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a written statement that the finding, which declares carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases a threat to public health, marks the start of a US campaign to control greenhouse gas emissions. “These long-overdue findings cement 2009's place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” she said. This marks new heights in political arrogance, for an organ of government to think that they should regulate the natural components of Earth's atmosphere in accordance with their own muddleheaded designs. (The Resilient Earth)
Junk Science: The Environmental Protection Agency's sneak attack on the U.S. economy and our freedoms, curiously timed for the opening day of the Copenhagen climate
charade, won't go unchallenged. Nor should it.
EPA Attempt to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Kill Jobs, Critics Warn Congressional Republicans and business groups are denouncing the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health.
Regulating CO2 with Common Sense is a Contradiction in Terms Of the many alarming comments Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson made to attendees at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, a select few stood out as particularly daunting. On the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the EPA dropped its own economic bomb, asserting that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are dangerous pollutants and a threat to human health and the environment. Consequently, the EPA is preparing to implement costly regulations on the economy to cut carbon dioxide emissions. But Jackson said we can take common sense without sacrificing our economy. Specifically she said,
Continue reading… (The Foundry)
A Survey of the Perspectives of Climate Scientists Concerning Climate Science and Climate Change (.pdf) Conducted by: No surprises but perhaps reasons for concern:
What Consensus? Public, Scientists Doubt Climate Crisis According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the "Climategate" e-mails leaked from a British university have done nothing to undermine the United Nations' view
that climate change is accelerating due to humans.
Open Letter to Secretary-General of United Nations His Excellency Ban Ki Moon 8 December 2009 Dear Secretary-General, Climate change science is in a period of ‘negative discovery’ - the more we learn about this exceptionally complex and rapidly evolving field the more we realize how little we know. Truly, the science is NOT settled. Therefore, there is no sound reason to impose expensive and restrictive public policy decisions on the peoples of the Earth without first providing convincing evidence that human activities are causing dangerous climate change beyond that resulting from natural causes. Before any precipitate action is taken, we must have solid observational data demonstrating that recent changes in climate differ substantially from changes observed in the past and are well in excess of normal variations caused by solar cycles, ocean currents, changes in the Earth's orbital parameters and other natural phenomena. We the undersigned, being qualified in climate-related scientific disciplines, challenge the UNFCCC and supporters of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to produce convincing OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE for their claims of dangerous human-caused global warming and other changes in climate. Projections of possible future scenarios from unproven computer models of climate are not acceptable substitutes for real world data obtained through unbiased and rigorous scientific investigation. Specifically, we challenge supporters of the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused climate change to demonstrate that: (Copenhagen Climate Challenge)
Climate Change and the Precautionary Principle In his column today, my colleague Thomas Friedman argues eloquently for a Dick Cheney-esque, “one percent doctrine” approach to climate change, which would treat caps on greenhouse emissions as a rational way to “buy insurance” against a potentially catastrophic outcome. Along the way, he cites Cass Sunstein on the “precautionary principle,” which (per Sunstein) holds that “it is appropriate to respond aggressively to low-probability, high-impact events.” It’s worth noting, though, that Sunstein himself is somewhat skeptical of using the precautionary principle as a guide to policymaking. Further on in the blog post cited in Friedman’s column, he points out that “a firm response” to a low-probability risk “might impose costs and create risks of its own.” And in a Boston Globe essay last year, he made a similar point:
This doesn’t mean that Sunstein is opposed to action on global warming. But he argues that any action needs to be subjected to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis:
This is where I think there’s room for serious skepticism, of the Jim Manzi or Bjorn Lomborg variety, about the proposals being bruited about in Copenhagen this week — not on the underlying science of climate change, but on the question of whether policymakers are likely to produce an agreement whose benefits actually exceed its costs. (Ross Douthat, NYT)
James Hansen vs Marc Morano: a debate There will be a Morano-Hansen debate on foxnews.com (just the website) tomorrow, i.e. on Thursday! Let's admit, Hansen is pretty courageous - or suicidal - to try to
debate a brighter, more informed, faster, more articulate, more balanced, trained, younger, professional skeptic.
That's a great opportunity for Twelve Days of Global Warming by the Minnesotans for Global Warming.
Climate Skeptics Need Mental Help? Talk about an inconvenient truth. In ever-increasing numbers, Americans are becoming skeptical about the scientific argument that there's a man-made global-warming crisis
that requires immediate and drastic government action. The media's enablers of the radical environmental left have a response: Maybe America just isn't smart or curious
enough to save the planet. In fact, they say our growing denial is making us nationally irrational.
U.S. Halfway to Kyoto Goals... With No Government Regulation The worst nightmare of the left is about to come true: The United States is about to achieve the carbon emissions goals set by the 1997 Kyoto Accords. Once seemingly
beyond reach, the United States is already halfway toward meeting the stringent Kyoto goals for reduction in carbon emissions without a cap-and-trade law or a carbon tax or
carbon dioxide being declared a pollutant.
Video: Copenhagen’s Implications for American Sovereignty In response to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference December 7th through 18th, The Heritage Foundation is launching a video series to cover all the details and aspects of the climate summit. We’ll address all the angles (climate, energy, national security, sovereignty, trade, and more) and provide you with everything you need to know about Copenhagen. Steven Groves, Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow in Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, discusses what YouTube sensation Lord Monckton made a wildly popular topic: a climate change treaty’s threat to American sovereignty.
Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Rompuy: "2009 is also the first year of global governance, with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in
Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet."
Redistributing America's Wealth at Copenhagen The Obama administration has a habit of waiting until late on Friday to release news it believes to be unpopular. Such was the case last Friday when White House spokesman Robert Gibbs put out a statement announcing that President Barack Obama was changing the date of his visit to the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen from Dec. 9 to Dec. 18 -- when a deal on a climate-change treaty is more likely to be announced -- and that the president is now promising to hand out billions in new foreign aid. (Terry Jeffrey, Townhall)
All without legitimate purpose: Climate Deal Likely to Bear Big Price Tag WASHINGTON — If negotiators reach an accord at the climate talks in Copenhagen it will entail profound shifts in energy production, dislocations in how and where people
live, sweeping changes in agriculture and forestry and the creation of complex new markets in global warming pollution credits.
Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg has made famous the phrase “Copenhagen Consensus” which posits that money aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions would be better spent addressing other health and welfare challenges, like preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS. [Read More] (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)
Electricity for the Poor – What Copenhagen Really Needs to Confront When you fly overnight from Johannesburg to Europe the lights become thin just north of Lusaka, Zambia, a few more in Zambia’s Copper Belt and then nothing (and I mean nothing) until the North African coastline. For most of this 11-12 hour flight there are no artificial lights below. From the Sahara on south, but excluding South Africa, a region that is home to more than 400 million people consumes less electricity than New York City. The World At Night (courtesy of Bert Christensen. Click to enlarge.)
Apparently some are bothered by the prospect that Africa could light up. We Don’t Want What You Have (Wanna Bet?) Many of those who would save the earth from the scourge of modern energy want us to believe that it is no big deal that as many as 1.5 billion people, more than three fourths of the population of the world’s poorest countries, lack any access to modern energy. They still use wood and charcoal for cooking, and sometimes a bit of kerosine for lighting. For most of these people the only realistic way to gain access to modern energy is to leave the village or town and move to the city. Oh, the financial tests that rural electrification projects have to pass . . . . And then there’s the carbon footprint. No, people in sub-Saharan Africa don’t want air conditioning, running water or computers. Just ask the IPCC. Or, you could ask the people who flock to the small number of enclosed shopping malls in Africa – even with no cash for purchases the air conditioning (and Wi-Fi) are nice. The International Energy Agency has looked at the issue of energy poverty. They conclude that for less than a 1% increase in CO2 output everyone in the world could be connected to the modern energy economy. [Read more →] (Donald Hertzmark, MasterResource)
Sarah Palin decries 'hoax' of climate change data Sarah Palin all but declared global warming a hoax yesterday when she urged President Obama to boycott the Copenhagen climate change conference and to stand up to the
“radical environment movement”.
Copenhagen summit: rich nations guilty of 'climate colonialism' Poor countries have accused the rich world of “climate colonialism” as a rift between the two sides widened at the Copenhagen climate summit. (TDT)
Copenhagen Summit: wealthy nations accused of 'carbon colonialism' Britain and its partners at the Copenhagen climate summit were accused of 21st century "carbon colonialism" today over a draft agreement that developing nations say would discriminate against them. (The Times)
Climate policy experts respond to outcry over Danish text Despite anger from developing countries over the leaked document, the negotiations are still on track for success (The Guardian)
Ban Ki-moon reasserts leadership in Copenhagen climate talks Danish text raised 'trust issues' between rich and poor countries but won't derail deal, says UN secretary-general (The Guardian)
THE first cracks appeared among developing countries at the UN climate talks today, revealing divisions between emerging giants and nations most exposed to the ravages of
global warming.
Tuvalu call for Copenhagen Protocol splits developing nation bloc THE powerful developing nation bloc has been split at the Copenhagen talks by a proposal from a Queanbeyan-based Australian representing the tiny pacific Island of Tuvalu.
Danish Police Seize Protest Equipment COPENHAGEN — Nearly 200 makeshift shields, scores of paint bombs and other equipment, including nine platforms with crude staircases, were seized early Wednesday in a police raid on a building that city officials had provided as free housing for activists visiting Copenhagen during international climate talks here. (NYT)
Global Warming Debate: John Christy vs. Gavin Schmidt
(Eyeblast.tv)
(last updated 9:05 a.m. 9 December 2009). I get so many questions from readers about a variety of global warming issues that I thought I would whip up some Q&A for those who want to understand the views of skeptics a little better. I will try to update these with links and additional answers as time permits. Climate science is complex and the study of it is highly specialized. Nevertheless, there is a common theme that runs through the claims of the global warming establishment, from Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Weather and climate events that happen naturally are being increasingly blamed on the activities of humans. So, causation is at the root of most beliefs about global warming and climate change. As one digs further into the science, the direction of causation also emerges as a key theme, and it is one that can totally change the degree to which it appears humans affect the climate system. In my own area of research I have found that mixing up cause and effect when examining how cloud cover varies with temperature has greatly misled the scientific establishment regarding how sensitive the climate system is to our addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Not all skeptics believe the same things, though, so some skeptics will object to some of what I have listed below. These represent my opinions, not all of which are necessarily ascribed to by other skeptics. Additional details on many of these issues can be found throughout this website, including a Q&A list I published on April 19, 2009. The following list, in no particular order, are my responses to common claims and accusations about global warming skeptics. If other scientists or laypersons want me to add to the list, or want to argue for changes, email me and I will update it as appropriate. Please be sure to check back for the latest update (posted above). (Roy W. Spencer)
Sunspotless Day tally now puts 2009 in 5th place, closing in on 2008 Today marked the 17th straight day without a sunspot. It will according to spaceweather will mark the 260th sunspotless day this year and the 771st spotless day this minimum. This moves 2009 into 5th place in the top 20 spotless years since 1849, when that kind of assessment became reasonable. See the enlarged image here. See how the sunspot number has not recovered from the expect minimum (declared by NASA first in December 2008!!!). See the enlarged image here. This long cycle and the last 3 suggest that the phasing of the 213 year and 106 low solar cycle may be at work as it was in the late 1700s and the early 1800s, the so-called Dalton Minimum (below, enlarged here), the age of Dickens. Those days, snow was common in London. Ironically last winter was one of the snowiest in London in many a decade. Snow will fall next week in England (and Copenhagen). More later.
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-------------------------------- Minnesotans For Global Warming announces our new Christmas Album “It’s A Climate Gate Christmas”. Actually there is no album all we have is the commercial.
This follows their parody for “Draggin the Line” by Tommy James and the Shondells about Climategate.
and their famous Minnesotans for Global Warming
(Icecap)
Many of us have seen the article by Willis Eschenbach over at the Anthony Watts site,
“Smoking gun at Darwin Zero” (SGDZ) . I disagree with Willis that the strongly warming GHCN Darwin 0 data has been used by CRU. Darwin grid cell – trend for CRUT3 (I think they are wrong to join Darwin Post Office to Airport like that) No sign of Darwin Zero here.
ABC misses Climategate, finds Lesotho Unseasonal weather in Lesotho
Is someone going around hitting politicians with stupid sticks? Carbon storage identified AUSTRALIA'S eastern states have a greenhouse gas storage capacity of up to 450 years for clean-coal technology, a geological survey by the Federal Government has found.
UK To Cash In On Closed Steel Plant Carbon Permits LONDON - Britain's climate efforts were questioned on Wednesday after it said it would auction off rather than cancel millions of carbon permits to come from a closed
steel plant, equal to one percent of UK greenhouse gas emissions.
Wind turbines in Germany: possible blackouts When I was going through Germany a week ago (the train is mostly moving along the Moldau and Elbe rivers, both in Czechia and Germany), it was impossible not to notice the
huge number of wind turbines over there (something that I noticed in France half a year earlier, too). German "pinwheels" overload the Czech power grid (EN)Every year, a huge excess of wind-generated electricity from Northern Germany causes problems to the grids in Czechia, Poland, Austria, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland. » Don't Stop Reading » (The Reference Frame)
Determined to destroy investment and innovation: Plan to cap electricity bills to stop consumer exploitation - Ofgem keen to ensure energy firms invest in low carbon economy Electricity bills could be capped to stop consumers being exploited and to make sure energy companies invest the £200bn needed for Britain's transition to a low carbon
economy, the Guardian has learnt.
Green taxes: Now old boilers are given the scrappage treatment If the boiler in your home is old and inefficient, you will be able to claim £400 from the Government off the cost of buying a new one – which could then shave as much
as £230 a year off your heating bills, as well as pumping less carbon into the atmosphere.
You mean... poverty is like, bad for you? Life may be shorter in poorer neighborhoods NEW YORK - Residents of poor neighborhoods may die sooner than residents of wealthier neighborhoods - regardless of what they eat, how active they are, or other individual
risk factors, new research suggests.
Australia clears way for animal-human transplants AUSTRALIAN scientists can soon resume their research into the controversial field of animal to human transplants, because the nation's five-year moratorium will be allowed
to lapse.
Tax sugary drinks to fight the flab, says expert LONDON - If Barry Popkin had his way, sugary drinks would be taxed like cigarettes, and the levy would go up and up until societies were weaned off them and stopped piling
on weight.
D'oh! EU Demand Scant For Non-Rain Forest Palm Oil HAMBURG - Europe's food industry is proving slow to buy palm oil certified under a new scheme as produced without destroying tropical rain forests, the head of Germany's
edible oil industry association OVID said on Wednesday.
USA Today has been running a lengthy series on the condition of food sold through federal school lunch programs, and today’s installment is particularly interesting. It turns out that fast-food chains like Jack in the Box and Burger King – predatory capitalists who want nothing more than to make filthy lucre off of unsuspecting hungry people — have much higher meat quality standards than does the selfless government sworn to protect the public. How can that be? Oh right: As I wrote in my paper “Corruption in the Public Schools: The Market Is the Answer,” companies that have to attract and keep customers to stay in business have a huge incentive to avoid such things as, you know, sending their customers to the hospital! Not so government bureaucrats or educationists, who are getting your tax dollars no matter what. This is a basic, basic reality that is all but totally ignored by people who insist we need government to protect us from evil corporations. And it is doubly ignored (if that’s logically possible) in education, where the assumption is that government must provide the schools if they are to be any good, and that profit-seekers are handmaids of the devil. And so I ask (only slightly tongue-in-cheek): How many more children have to get E. coli before we allow freedom in education? (Neal McCluskey, Cato at liberty)
Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the OPT On the BBC’s Horizon tonight, Sir David Attenborough, patron of the Optimum Population Trust, tackles the question How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? Except he doesn’t. He comes up with an answer alright – 15 billion if we all live like the average Indian, 2.5 billion if we all live like we do in the UK, and 1.5 billion if we all live like fat, horrible Americans. It’s all derived entirely from standard ecological footprint stuff. Attenborough tells us that:
We were looking forward to hearing a good argument for why that might be. It’s Sir David Attenborough, after all. There wasn’t one. Just lots of footage of people without access to enough food, water etc. No historical or political context. Just lots of simplistic environmental determinism. Apparently even the Rwandan civil war/genocide/whatever you want to call it was the result of too many people. Nice. And of course…
Happily, for anyone wanting arguments for why Malthus, Attenborough and sustainability are wrong, here are some we prepared earlier: In Praise of Unsustainability
Deforestation threatens Kilimanjaro ice cap KILIMANJARO, Tanzania, Dec 8 - At the foot of Africa's snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, images of the mountain adorn the sides of rusting zinc shacks and beer bottle labels,
but the fate of the real version hangs in the balance.
Figures... MPs’ expenses: Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband buys 831 pints of bottled water for his office - Britain’s Climate Change Secretary bought 831 pints of bottled spring water for his office in two years, despite official advice that it is bad for the environment. Ed Miliband, who is at the centre of Labour’s attempts to reduce energy use and carbon emissions, had a water cooler installed in his constituency base and has claimed
more than £1,500 on his expenses to have it topped up since then.
Biotech crops improving sustainability: US study IN light of ongoing debates on global food security, agricultural sustainability and climate change, it is important to recognise the benefits biotechnology brings to
world agricultural production.
CORAL SEA ‘NO TAKE’ ZONE A VERY REAL THREAT: BOSWELL The Nationals’ Senator Ron Boswell believes that a Coral Sea ‘No Take’ zone is a very real threat after the Rudd Government’s successful proclamation of the Coral
Sea Conservation Zone.
December 9, 2009
Climategate and the First Rule of Holes When you are in one, it is best to stop digging. All right, class, what’s the First Rule of Holes? That’s right: “If you are in one, stop digging.” Events this weekend suggest that this isn’t covered in the usual climatology graduate program. (PJM)
A powerful argument against climate alarmism is the failed worldview of modern neo-Malthusianism, which has promoted fear after fear with an intolerant, smartest-guys-in-the-room mentality. Remember the “population bomb” where many millions would die in food riots? Well, obesity turned out to be the real problem. Remember the Club of Rome’s resource scare? In 1972, 57 predictions of exhaustion were made regarding 19 different minerals. All either have been falsified or will be. Remember the global-cooling scare promoted by, among others, the Obama administration’s science czar, John Holdren? (Yes, global cooling was a big deal, although it was not a “consensus.”) And all of the above doom merchants were uber-confident and still are loath to admit they were ever wrong. Holdren, for example, is sticking to his prediction that as many as one billion people could die by 2020 from (man-made) climate change. That’s about ten years, folks. Climategate/Climate McCarthyism Now to today. Error and intolerance rule in the global warming scare. Read the flaming emails from the principals of Climategate. Read about Joseph “Climate McCarthyism” Romm by his critics on the Left. Read the latest from (non-Climategater) Michael Schlesinger, who lost his cool against New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin. And of course there is John Holdren, now science advisor to President Obama, who said this to me when I asked him to critically review my essay evaluating his 2003 criticism of Bjorn Lomborg, “The Heated Energy Debate.” Holdren responded:
A strange intellectual dude. Remember Julian Simon Today’s Climategate is predictable with some of the same players at work–and many new ones as well. Remember how Paul R. Ehrlich treated his intellectual rival Julian Simon? The Stanford University biologist refused to debate Simon or even meet him in person. He insulted Simon repeatedly in print. Ehrlich even scolded Science magazine for publishing Simon’s 1980 breakthrough essay “Resources, Population, Environment: An Oversupply of Bad News,” with the words: “Could the editors have found someone to review Simon’s manuscript who had to take off this shoes to count to 20?” (quoted in Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource II, 1996, p. 612). [Read more →] (Robert Bradley Jr., MasterResource)
The Tip of the Climategate Iceberg - The global-warming scandal is bigger than one email leak. The opening days of the Copenhagen climate-change conference have been rife with denials and—dare we say it?—deniers. American delegate Jonathan Pershing said the
emails and files leaked from East Anglia have helped make clear "the robustness of the science." Talk about brazening it out. And Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the
U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and so ex-officio guardian of the integrity of the science, said the leak proved only that his opponents would stop at
nothing to avoid facing the truth of climate change. Uh-huh.
Sen. Inhofe Discusses Climategate, “The Greatest Scandal in Modern Science” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), ranking Member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), spoke to bloggers at The Heritage Foundation’s weekly Bloggers Briefing today and focused his remarks on the controversial “Climategate” scandal — the series of leaked e-mails that have blown holes through the theory of man-made global warming. As Sen. Inhofe sat down to speak, he opined that he was just in the Senate trying to convince Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to investigate the subject of the e-mails, instead of the people who uncovered the e-mails. Sen. Inhofe was the leader of the global warming opposition ten years ago when he chaired the EPW Committee; when a blogger asked him what he thought about the emergent news that the science was flawed, the Senator quipped, “Redemption.” Senator Inhofe is not alone in his views on “Climategate.” The UK Telegraph called it the “greatest scandal in modern science,” and the UK MET is reevaluating over 160 years of climate data because “public opinion of man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.” Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Sen. Inhofe & Rep. Markey on Climate Change BLITZER: A huge global warming conference about to begin in Copenhagen right now; lots of serious views under way, serious debate unfolding.
Famous weather scientist: Climategate 'tip of iceberg' - 'Conspiracy would become manifest' if all climate research e-mails unveiled The Colorado scientist described by the Washington Post as "the World's Most Famous Hurricane Expert" says the "ClimateGate" e-mails from the United
Kingdom that revealed possible data manipulation are evidence of a conspiracy among "warmists," those who believe man's actions are triggering possibly catastrophic
climate change.
To hide a conspiracy accuse everyone else of conspiring? 'Climategate' dominates Copenhagen talks as Government's top scientist accuses hackers of sabotage The 'climategate' emails that appear to show British researchers manipulating data on global warming may have been leaked to undermine the Copenhagen talks, the
Government's chief scientist claimed yesterday.
Sympathy play? Hacked email climate scientists receive death threats CRU scientists receive torrents of abusive and threatening e-mails since leaks that began in mid-November 2009. From environmentalresearchweb, part of the Guardian Environment Network Two of the scientists involved in "Climategate" – the e-mail hacking incident at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, UK – have
been emailed death threats since the contents of their private e-mails were leaked to the world. No further information can be revealed about these particular threats at
present because they are currently under investigation with the FBI in the United States.
Climategate: Gore falsifies the record Al Gore has studied the Climategate emails with his typically rigorous eye and dismissed them as mere piffle:
And in case you think that was a mere slip of the tongue:
In fact, thrice denied:
In fact, as Watts Up With That shows, the most recent Climategate email was from just two months ago. The emails which have Tom Wigley seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year. Phil Jones’ infamous email urging other Climategate scientists to delete emails is from last year. How closely did Gore read these emails? Did he actually read any at all? Was he lying or just terribly mistaken? What else has he got wrong? (Andrew Bolt)
Wigley denies: “I did not choke on the deceit” Sheesh, I try to do Climategate scientist Tom Wigley a favor by suggesting he was principled enough to have choked on the deceit he was witnessing, and this is how he repays me:
In fact, he refuses to accept the accolade of being the kind of principled man who could well have been the whistleblower, had be been inclined:
Wigley claims in the above ABC interview that he got perfectly good answers from his angry demands for answers from fellow Climategaters to what he was witnessing. Oddly enough, he did not pass on what those answers really were, other than to suggest that any destruction of material was of no consequence. (How would he know? Did he hold an inquiry?) In this interview he dodged answering questions about the apparent fraud of Climategate scientist Wang Wei-Chyung that had got him so upset in private emails, or about the bizarre decision of Climategate scientist Keith Briffa to pick an unrepresentative group of tree rings to show a warming rather than the cooling that a bigger sample would have showed. He did not address what he meant when he wrote of “dishonest” IPCC presentations. He seemed to deny what the University of East Anglia has in fact confirmed - that raw data was destroyed. He denied what emails again confirm - that requests for data for checking by sceptics were blocked. Let me now repeat what I wrote last week about Wigley and his emails, which to me showed he did indeed choke on the deceit he was witnessing. After each email, I’ll run the explanations and excuses Wigley gave the ABC today. Ask yourself: was he being totally frank? (Andrew Bolt)
Defenseless Enviro-Thugs Go on Offense At a time when leftist enviro-tyrants ought to be hanging their heads in shame, they are, instead, taking the offensive. They are not only dismissing the staggering
ClimateGate scandal as insignificant but also redoubling and accelerating their push to enslave the world with their progress-swallowing treaties, laws and regulations.
E-Mail Controversy Shifts Debate From Economy to Climate Science -- but for How Long? The controversy surrounding the hacked e-mails of climate scientists has given new life to the skeptic camp that had been largely relegated to the sidelines during this
year's legislative fight and, in the minds of opponents, handed them a potent new weapon against the climate bill.
Moonbat is recovering, scuttling back to his comfort zone: The climate denial industry is out to dupe the public. And it's working Think environmentalists are stooges? You're the unwitting recruit of a hugely powerful oil lobby – I've got the proof (George Monbiot, The Guardian)
"A mocker resents correction; he will not consult the wise." (Proverbs 15:12)
Climategate: Beyond the Sleazy Science, Rotten Economics The United Nations “climate” summit is upon us, already qualifying as the world’s biggest emitter of hypocrisy –with the Telegraph reporting on the convergence in Copenhagen of “1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges. And here’s the beauty of this grand scam. Not only is it based on unsound “findings” with the UN claiming a “consensus” that never was, based on “science” that was something other than scientific. Beyond that, if anyone cares to venture further, lie boundless vistas of bad economics. (Claudia Rosett, PJM)
SPPI has a new blog Check it out here.
Science czar's guru called for more carbon - CO2 promoted as greenhouse gas needed to fight global starvation This is the first of a three-part series of articles exploring Obama administration science czar John P. Holdren's self-acknowledged intellectual debt to geochemist
Harrison Brown. The second part, to be published tomorrow, will feature Brown's endorsement of government-enforced eugenics as a necessary measure to prevent global
over-population.
Carbon Dioxide Regulations Display EPA’s Arrogance Carbon dioxide is dangerous and a threat not only to human health but our entire planet. How do we know? The Environmental Protection Agency told us so, officially announcing that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are “the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.” But there’s two important points to make regarding “carbon pollution.” One is that we don’t really know how much carbon dioxide is affecting earth’s temperatures. The second is that we may be underestimating the benefits are carbon dioxide on our planet. Continue reading… (The Foundry)
EPA finding doesn’t clear air on carbon The Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that carbon dioxide represents a threat to human health starts a process that regulatory experts say will take years to
resolve.
Um, no... Clean-thinking America prepares to fire the starting gun in its dash for gas Carbon dioxide is dangerous, says Lisa Jackson, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is dangerous, like the growling exhaust pipe of a
25-year-old Chevy Corvette or the sulphurous plume from a coal-fired power station. Overnight, America has decided: carbon-dioxide pollution is a public health hazard and
emitters will be shunned like cigarette smokers.
EPA's Carbon Proposal Riles Industries - Airlines, Utilities, Others Say New Rules Would Undercut U.S. Firms; Some Want Congress to Act Industry groups vowed to fight an Obama administration proposal to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, even as some companies prepared to comply with restrictions they regard as inevitable. (WSJ)
Industry reacts to EPA climate ruling NEW YORK -- Political, costly, and likely to choke off growth. That's how the energy industry and companies that use a lot of energy describe the Environmental Protection
Agency's announcement Monday that greenhouse gas emissions are a danger and must be regulated.
The Environmental Protection Agency has declared carbon dioxide, a gas necessary for life on Earth, to be a health hazard that has to be managed. What follows will be a useless bureaucratic exercise. The announcement was made by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson — the same official who admitted under oath in July that no matter what the U.S. does about carbon emissions, it will have little impact on global CO2 levels if China and India don't limit their output. And those two countries have made it clear: While they may make politically correct pledges to cut emissions, they will not sign any binding agreement that will force them to do so. Despite their constant screeching about the dangers of carbon emissions, don't expect the EU nations to scrupulously comply with binding agreements either. Until the recession slowed their economies, they were not on track to meet the emission targets set by the 1997 Kyoto accord. (IBD)
Do Sloppy Policy Arguments Matter? Part I The subject of this post is the EPA endangerment finding. But the focus is not on whether or not the
finding is appropriate. I am not a legal expert, but I am of the view that the Obama Administration is perfectly justified in advancing the finding, which as I understand it
requires a very low scientific threshold -- do specific human activities lead to changes in the environment? And might those changes potentially lead to some degree of harm?
I think that both of these thresholds are easily met, though the politics of implementation are likely very difficult. However, the finding itself is not the focus of this
post. This post focuses on how some of my research is presented in the EPA endangerment finding and in the EPA response to public comments.
It has been observed that the outstanding characteristic of those leaked e-mails is that there is not one joke in them. Like Islam, the New Left do not do jokes. We noted recently that the big change in university life has been the absence of laughter. As the new generation gradually took control of the universities they pursued relentless campaigns over such things as the control of language and tobacco. It was all done in those plonking tones adopted by the po-faced when they are on mission. Jokes were for the frivolous oldies. As with the Spanish civil war, tobacco was only a rehearsal. The methods developed for the campaign, such as using CDC and EPA to manufacture fake statistics, would be ready to be reeled out when the final push came. While the Right thought they were in control in the Thatcher/Reagan years, the New Left were quietly infiltrating institutions, most crucially the schools. Education became a cultureless brain-washing exercise. The crucial move is the by-passing of democracy, as the EU bureaucrats did so successfully in establishing control over a continent. Now the EPA is being used as a means to by-pass democracy in the USA. By declaring the very stuff of life, carbon, to be a hazard to life, again on faked data, they have given the President power to ignore the elected representatives of the people. Make no mistake about it; Socialist International now has control of America as well as Europe. The small but welcome flurry of democracy in Australia has become a side issue. The impact of the Climategate whistleblower is in the process of being shrugged off by the privileged throng who have converged on Copenhagen in their limousines and private jets. Their naïve supporters (Lenin’s “useful idiots") take to the streets with painted faces demonstrating against the stuff they are made from. The silent majority do not do demonstrations, but if they do not soon bestir themselves they will be silenced forever in the Orwellian future that looms so ominously. (Number Watch)
Carbon trading's not clearing the air In the last week alone, it has been at the heart of a major funding dispute with China and political chaos in Australia. But despite its growing importance, the world of
carbon trading remains opaque, almost unknown by the average investor even as it becomes an enormous global industry.
Capping Emissions, Trading On The Future Whatever the results of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, one thing is for sure: Draconian reductions on carbon emissions will be tacitly accepted by the most
developed economies and sloughed off by many developing ones. In essence, emerging economies get to cut their "carbon" intensity--a natural product of their
economic evolution--while we get to cut our throats.
Copenhagen climate summit: Behind the scenes at the sceptics' conference In the charming backstreets of downtown Copenhagen, where Hans Christian Andersen, once wrote his famous stories, the climate sceptics gathered. They came from far and wide, from business and science, to dispel the biggest fairy tale of them all: global warming. (TDT)
Copenhagen climate summit: UN watchdog calls on US to ‘show me the money’ Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), has called on America to increase funding for poor countries to deal with climate change. (TDT)
Sensenbrenner: No New Laws Until Climate Data 'Scientific Fascism' Ends A Republican lawmaker said Tuesday he is going to attend the Copenhagen conference on climate change to inform world leaders that despite any promises made by President Obama, no new laws will be passed in the United States until the "scientific fascism" ends. (FOXNews.com)
Copenhagen: Let the Games Begin! 25,000 bureaucrats, factota, hangers on, and representatives of various environmental organizations have just converged on Copehagen for the UN’s latest “Conference of
the Parties (COP) to its infamous 1992 climate treaty. Expect a lot of heat, not much light, and a punt right into our next election.
Rep. Joe Barton to heat up Copenhagen climate change summit For anyone thinking the Copenhagen climate change summit would just be a celebration of measures to defeat global warming, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, has news:
Danish text: changing the third world to permanently impoverished PC colonies The Guardian and others
report a political nuke that has exploded in Copenhagen and which has been added to the ClimateGate: The Danish text (13 pages, full)This newly leaked document - penned by various American, British, Danish, and other socialist politicians - was supposed to be the "draft agreement" to be agreed upon in Copenhagen (pretty unlikely). The document was meant to liquidate some basic "Kyoto"-like qualities cherished by the poor countries. Its main principles are the following:
A Haitian delegate just realized that she's been pissed upon by the PC socialist crap from the rich world. As the Guardian admits, the obvious plan was to keep this "draft agreement" secret and prepare its publication for the visit of Obama: this particular puppet was supposed to bring enough "momentum" to force the poor countries to agree with anything so that the behind-the-scenes negotiations of the "guys who really matter" are enough. I hope it can't happen right now because the representatives of the third world seem to be devastated and shocked and they will be able to stop it. The global warming proponents represent a truly distasteful mixture of global socialism, regulation, selfishness, hypocrisy, and the good old racism - including the desire not to allow other nations to do things that you're allowed and able to do, ever - and imperial ambitions to rule the world. Let me assure the poor countries that if they need a war to fight against this horrible AGW thing and the immoral people who are responsible for it, they shouldn't be afraid to begin because such a war would quickly become a civil war in the civilized world, too. And we will win. (The Reference Frame)
Adrian MacNair: Let the Copenhagen wealth transfer begin Part of the problem with the climate change issue is that it isn’t seen as an ongoing review of scientific models and theories about human impact on planetary warmth. It has taken on a political and religious tone which makes any attempt to peer review the consensus subject to ridicule. We know that dissidents of the consensus evidence were shunned and blacklisted according to the hacked [or leaked] Climatic Research Unit emails from the University of East Anglia. Those who have challenged the prevailing urgency of action have been mocked, ridiculed, and relegated to the status of apostates. (National Post)
Drive My Car - Limos at the COP15 Copenhagen Americans for Prosperity investigates the "carbon-conscious" way many U.N. delegates are getting to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15).
Dominic Lawson: Roll up, roll up for the great Copenhagen emissions-fest - Do world leaders truly believe what they say about the imminence of planetary disaster? According to the climate change catastrophists, there is now only a fortnight left to "save the planet" – two weeks being the scheduled length of the
Copenhagen conference held to find a solution to "man-made global warming".
Their next gravy train? Scientists at Climate Talks Say Major Changes to the Nitrogen Cycle Cannot Be Ignored An international group of scientists say there is an immediate need for a global assessment of the nitrogen cycle and its impact on climate.
Greens' Real Target: U.S. Economy The 16,000 delegates to the two-week-long orgy of self-flagellation known as the Copenhagen Climate Conference want to shrink global output of CO2 not because of hard
science, but out of envy.
Stotty's Corner What the UK Met Office is Not Telling Us A modern reproduction by Hamish Laird of Thjodhild's church, with Eriksfjord in the background, as it might have been at Brattahlíð
[anglicised as Brattahlid], the Estate of Eric the Red, which flourished in Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). Brattahlíð hosted the first Greenlandic
parliament.
Climate Delegates Lead by Example Cocktail chatter at the Bella Center, Copenhagen, site of the Great Climate Conference [the base photograph of the Bella Center is © http://www.mysona.dk/,
and it is reproduced here under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Copenhagen Day 1: the Cracks Appear Despite UK Pollyanna Press Listening in the UK to the news coverage of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, one gets the idea that all has started in a rosy pink glow. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Just what is it about this issue? Our media loses all its usual bite, and turns to sentimental goo. It is "see
no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". (Emeritus Professor Philip Stott, The Clamour of the Times)
Copenhagen Consequences Video: China is the Main Culprit In response to the December 7th through 18th Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, The Heritage Foundation is launching a video series to cover all the details and aspects of the climate summit. We’ll address all the angles (climate, energy, national security, sovereignty, trade, and more) and provide you with everything you need to know about Copenhagen. Yesterday, Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst Ben Lieberman discussed how the Byrd-Hagel Resolution should guide U.S. criteria for an international climate treaty. Up next is Derek Scissors, Heritage Research Fellow in Asia Economic Policy in the Asian Studies Center, discussing China’s role at Copenhagen.
Continue reading… (The Foundry)
China Demands More From Rich To Unlock Climate Talks COPENHAGEN - China led calls by developing nations for deeper emissions cuts from the United States, Japan and Europe at U.N. climate talks on Tuesday, as a study showed that this decade will be the warmest on record. (Reuters)
Poor Demand More From Rich To Unlock Climate Talks COPENHAGEN, Dec 8 - Developing nations demanded deeper emissions cuts from rich nations, particularly the United States, at U.N. climate talks in Denmark on Tuesday, as a study showed that 2009 is the fifth warmest year on record. (Reuters)
Pressure on PM to triple emissions cuts as nations force his hand THE world's biggest climate change conference has opened in Copenhagen with Kevin Rudd under immediate pressure to triple Australia's unconditional emissions-reductions
target.
Copenhagen deal could cost us $400bn, says Abbott AUSTRALIANS could be hit with a tax bill of up to $400 billion under a draft deal leaked from the Copenhagen summit, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said.
Trust the data or trust Wong’s meeting Tony Abbott goes in even harder:
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong’s idiotic response?
Let’s be clear about Wong’s deceit and stupidity. Tony Abbott is saying no more than what the data actually says: . He is also saying no more than what IPCC authors and even Tim Flannery now admit when they concede ”we can’t account for the lack of warming” and we are going through ”a slight cooling trend”. So Abbott is talking science. But Wong’s response is merely to claim but, but, but … we politicians are holding a meeting. What do you think is the best evidence of the current climate? The data or Wong’s meeting? Who do you trust most to tell you the truth about the climate: Abbott or Wong? (Andrew Bolt)
Climategate: ‘The Copenhagen Diagnosis’ Fails Logic 101 The new IPCC report, a briefing for the Copenhagen attendees, fails to understand that a rise in temps does not constitute proof that man caused it. Our leaders have gathered in Copenhagen. There, in their winter of discontent, they pledge to do something about climate change. Before everybody arrived, to make sure those leaders were briefed, they were given a document outlining the evidence for man-made global warming (a.k.a. climate change, or AGW). This is “The Copenhagen Diagnosis.” Stephen It’s-Getting-Cold-No-Wait!-Hot-Out Schneider and many other environmental persons took up pen to detail the best — or at least, most frightening — arguments for action. It is thus important to understand this document to discover whether the information offered is convincing … or even relevant. (William M. Briggs, PJM)
Puncturing the Climate Balloon by Bill Gray
Citizens buying advertising against climate change politics This is rather unique, and it shows the conviction that some individuals have. I’ve often thought that a full page ad in the NYT might get some action, but I really think volume is the answer now on an individual scale, just like Gore’s “we” campaign. I’m sure that thousands of letters to the editors are being launched right about now from folks who think a lot like Mr. Bell. Climategate and Copenhagen have stirred up a hornet’s nest. Unfortunately, ads don’t become web searchable, so we have this image and the PDF below. An email sent to me reads: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Just one more baseless scare - like the 26 before A fascinating new paper comparing global warmism to past scares concludes this one is much like the rest - just as dodgy and just as likely to peter out. It’s the work of South Australian academic Dr Kesten C. Green and American forecasting expert J. Scott Armstrong: (Andrew Bolt)
The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero by Willis Eschenbach People keep saying “Yes, the Climategate scientists behaved badly. But that doesn’t mean the data is bad. That doesn’t mean the earth is not warming.” Let me start with the second objection first. The earth has generally been warming since the Little Ice Age, around 1650. There is general agreement that the earth has warmed since then. See e.g. Akasofu . Climategate doesn’t affect that. The second question, the integrity of the data, is different. People say “Yes, they destroyed emails, and hid from Freedom of information Acts, and messed with proxies, and fought to keep other scientists’ papers out of the journals … but that doesn’t affect the data, the data is still good.” Which sounds reasonable. There are three main global temperature datasets. One is at the CRU, Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, where we’ve been trying to get access to the raw numbers. One is at NOAA/GHCN, the Global Historical Climate Network. The final one is at NASA/GISS, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The three groups take raw data, and they “homogenize” it to remove things like when a station was moved to a warmer location and there’s a 2C jump in the temperature. The three global temperature records are usually called CRU, GISS, and GHCN. Both GISS and CRU, however, get almost all of their raw data from GHCN. All three produce very similar global historical temperature records from the raw data. So I’m still on my multi-year quest to understand the climate data. You never know where this data chase will lead. This time, it has ended me up in Australia. I got to thinking about Professor Wibjorn Karlen’s statement about Australia that I quoted here:
The folks at CRU told Wibjorn that he was just plain wrong. Here’s what they said is right, the record that Wibjorn was talking about, Fig. 9.12 in the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, showing Northern Australia: Figure 1. Temperature trends and model results in Northern Australia. Black line is observations (From Fig. 9.12 from the UN IPCC Fourth Annual Report). Covers the area from 110E to 155E, and from 30S to 11S. Based on the CRU land temperature.) Data from the CRU. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Smoking Guns Across Australia: Where’s the warming? Looking at 16 other locations. If there was enough money, fame and power on the table (think seismic proportions, money that moves the economic landscape), would it be possible to take a small unproven
scientific theory as an excuse and, with the best PR teams in the world, promote it, support it, and make it appear unquestionable?
Climate claims fail science test THE UN Climate Change Summit started this week in Copenhagen with far more dissent than its organisers hoped for from two extremes of the climate change debate
Nature will decide Earth's future AS the core samples from deep underground pass through the logging sensor before me, the rhythmic pattern of ancient climate change is clearly displayed. Friendly, brown
sands for the warm interglacial periods and hostile, sterile grey clays for the cold glaciations. And for more than 90 per cent of recent geological time the Earth has been
colder than today.
Climate change sceptics speak out NOT everyone believes in human-caused climate change. Here, some of Australia's most respected scientists have their say on this very divisive debate. (Daily Telegraph)
Global Warming: Worst When It’s Not Global Warmageddon is such an insidious enemy that it is at its worst when it isn’t even occurring. Damn! How does one fight at enemy like that? If that statement seems impossible, then I must refer you to two recent press reports. [Read More] (Mac Johnson, Energy Tribune)
It's worse that we thought!™ Earth more sensitive to carbon dioxide than previously thought The Earth's temperature may be 30-50 percent more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature
Geoscience this week
?!! Met Office publishes evidence for global warming The Met Office today has released temperature records from over 1,500 weather stations from across the globe. (Directgov)
MET office releases data and claims last decade is hottest on record From the BBC website: Welcome to the world of cherry picking! Have a look at Roger Pielke Jr.'s Cherry Picker's Guide to Global Temperature Trends What I find remarkable about this MET office news is that it combines the release of the CRU related dataset with a statement about the seriousness of the situation. This has to be seen as a political statement at what is perceived as a crucial juncture. (Reiner Grundmann, Die Klimazwiebel)
What the records actually show: And what the Copenhagers fail to add - that while it’s warmer than average, the warming trend stopped nearly a decade ago, against their predictions and their theory: (Andrew Bolt)
On Day 2 of the Copenhagen climate conference, the United Nations announced that the current decade is the warmest on record. Please allow us to unravel this web of
deception.
The Earth Is Crying Out for Help As national leaders and others assemble in Copenhagen for the climate change negotiations, the whole subject must seem a mystifying cloud of acronyms, numbers and data.
But as important as all these are in crafting an action plan, they completely obscure the fact that the planet works as a biological as well as a physical system.
The Fraser Institute: New Video Urges Canadians to 'Question the Hype' on Global Warming VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Dec. 7, 2009) - The Fraser Institute, one of Canada's leading economic think tanks, has released a new video urging Canadians to
question the unfounded claims and fear-mongering promoted by global warming activists.
Four Colossal Holes in the Theory of Man-Made Global Warming Repeating the words "scientific consensus" over and over and telling sad stories about polar bears does not qualify as "science." So, why is it that the people who insist that Man-made global warming is based on science, not politics, always get shaky and defensive when people want to actually talk about the reasoning behind it? (John Hawkins, Townhall)
From CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 49: 9 December 2009 EXTRA!! Carbon Dioxide: The Breath of Life: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recently declared carbon dioxide to be a dangerous air pollutant. Nature, however, suggests just the opposite. Hear the testimony – and see the results – of the man who breathed life into plants. Click here to watch other short videos on various global warming topics, to embed any of our videos on your own web page, or to watch them on YouTube in a higher resolution. Editorial: Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week: Subject Index Summary: Plant Growth Data: Journal Reviews: Simulating 21st-Century Precipitation: How well do current climate models perform this important task? The "Twin Evils" of the Radical Environmentalist Movement: What is their effect on a highly-farmed watershed? CO2 Effects on Tropical Marine Fish Embryos and Larvae: What are they? ... and how bad are they? CO2 Effects on Micronutrients in Plants: Does atmospheric CO2 enrichment increase or decrease foliar micronutrient concentrations? (co2science.org)
Stop stealing plant food! Big Utility Turns Bullish on Carbon Capture The head of American Electric Power Co., the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the U.S., said advances in technology would allow the company to eliminate the emissions
from its coal-fired power plants by 2025.
Consol Idling Two Mines, Blames Environmentalists NEW YORK - Coal miner Consol Energy Inc launched an attack on environmentalists on Tuesday, blaming ecological "activism" for forcing it to idle two mines in
West Virginia that employ nearly 500 workers.
Dark Side of a Natural Gas Boom DIMOCK, Pa. — Victoria Switzer dreamed of a peaceful retirement in these Appalachian hills. Instead, she is coping with a big problem after a nearby natural gas well
contaminated her family’s drinking water with high levels of methane.
Heathrow’s third runway passes the carbon test Climate change advisers have decided that an extensive building programme at Heathrow — including the construction of a third runway — can proceed without jeopardising
the Government’s carbon emissions targets.
Hopping on the bandwagon in an attempt to make themselves relevant? IAEA provides services to cope with a changing climate The changing global climate threatens life-sustaining resources. Fresh water reserves and arable land are shrinking. Weather-related catastrophes, such as heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts, are becoming more frequent and destructive. Climate change imperils livelihoods, presenting one of the most difficult global challenges confronting the international community. (e! Science News)
Viable Alternatives to Fossil Fuels Still Decades Away As the Climate Change talks get underway in Copenhagen this week, there is much attention focused on alternative energy sources that produce little or no greenhouse gas pollution. Some of these energy sources - like wind, solar, biomass and geothermal - are also attractive because they are renewable and offset the need for imported oil, gas or coal. But, it will be a long time before any of these energy sources will be a large-scale alternative to fossil fuels. (VOA News)
Study confirms low mortality for swine flu WASHINGTON - One of the most systematic looks yet at the swine flu pandemic confirms that it is at worst only a little more serious than an average flu season and could
well be a good deal milder, researchers said on Monday.
U.S. panel says Zhu Zhu hamster toys are safe NEW YORK - Zhu Zhu toy hamsters do not violate U.S. standards for levels of the chemical antimony, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said.
Time to rename GoodGuide the BSGuide By now, everyone in the toy industry has heard of the absurd junk science work done by poseur Dara O'Rourke. O'Rourke used X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) to measure antimony on the surface of the Zhu Zhu Pet Mr. Squiggles Toy Hamster, and determined that they exceeded federal standards. However, this is nowhere near the correct way to do the test! In essence, what he did is the equivalent of touching a steak to determine if it is at the proper temperature, rather than using a thermometer. After garnering all the publicity that could be mustered by attempting to take down the most popular toy of the season—and one that people can easily afford—the clueless O'Rourke had to issue a "correction." Note that O'Rourke lists his credentials as follows: Dr. Dara O'Rourke is a professor in the Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, and formerly a professor at MIT. He studies the environmental, social, and health impacts of global supply chains. Too bad he doesn't know anything about appropriate testing methods, but runs half-ass tests, as part of his scare tactics. Aren't you glad that someone who didn't even take the time to check how the feds test a toy, before running his media scare, has had appointments at two prestigious universities? This is very reminiscent of what the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics also does. For what it's worth, his pitiful lack of practical scientific knowledge, and lack of attention to detail, are pretty much in keeping with many of the green radicals. Thankfully, the comments on GoodGuide's blog are almost completely negative. That such a phenomenal mistake could have been made should destroy whatever credibility he still has, and I hope the Zhu Zhu people are considering litigation. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)
Hmm... Testosterone "prompts fair play, not aggression" * Study finds testosterone does not induce aggression
Cigarette pack warnings make stressed smokers light up CIGARETTE pack warnings that remind smokers of the fatal consequences of their habit may actually make them smoke more as a way to cope with the inevitability of death.
Millions in U.S. Drink Dirty Water, Records Show More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New
York Times analysis of federal data.
Crowder to hear motions Monday in atrazine suits Madison County Circuit Judge Barbara Crowder is set to hear motions in a series of cases filed over alleged water contamination involving a popular weed killer.
December 8, 2009
Some time starting in mid November 2009, ten million teletypes all started their deet-ditta-dot chatter reeling off the following headline: "Hackers broke into the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit...." I hate that. It annoys me because just like everything else about climate-gate it's been 'value-added'; simplified and distilled. The contents of FOIA2009.zip demand more attention to this detail and as someone once heard Professor Jones mutter darkly, "The devil is in the details...so average it out monthly using TMax!" The details of the files tell a story that FOIA2009.zip was compiled internally and most likely released by an internal source. The contents of the zip file hold one top-level directory, In comparison, What people are missing entirely is that these emails and files tell a story themselves. (Small Dead Animals)
Climategate: Why We Can’t Trust the Data
Starting today, world leaders are beginning a two-week meeting in Copenhagen in a bid to change the entire direction of the global economy. They will do so, not on the basis of empirical scientific facts about global warming, but on alarmist computer-modelled predictions based on a swath of raw temperature data. Oh yes, and the scientific integrity of those doing the feeding and interpreting the results. [Read More] (Energy Tribune)
'Climategate' at centre stage as Copenhagen opens The "Climategate" row took centre stage on the opening day of the Copenhagen climate summit today as the world's leading oil exporter intervened to question the scientific consensus on man-made global warming. As 15,000 delegates from 192 nations began what was billed as the "last, best chance" to avert a catastrophic rise in sea and air temperatures, Saudi Arabia's chief climate negotiator, Mohammed al-Sabban, spoke from the floor to say that e-mails hacked from a UK research centre had shaken trust in the work of scientists. He was not the first to mention the Climategate scandal. In his opening address to the conference, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the hackers had been trying to undermine the work of his organisation. (The Times)
Reporters really are hopeless these days... Pachauri Defends UN Climate Science After Leaked E-Mail Flap Rajendra Pachauri, the top United Nations climate-change scientist, said the panel he heads is “transparent and objective,” dismissing allegations by global- warming skeptics that UN data were manipulated. (Bloomberg)
Another chuckle: Leaders defend climate science A powerful defence of the science of climate change is being launched at the Copenhagen conference as the UN and world leaders push back on claims by climate sceptics and
call for deeper cuts in greenhouse gases from wealthy nations.
Public trust in climate science hit by 'Climategate' OPINION: The climate change conference begins under a cloud of suspicion following leaked e-mails suggesting global warming evidence has been fabricated, writes RICHARD TOL RECENTLY, E-MAILS and other documents were apparently stolen from a computer belonging to the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia. The CRU is a major data centre for climate research. Senior staff at the CRU have been influential in the formulation of policy advice in the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United Nations. The stolen data was posted on the internet and has been the subject of much debate and speculation since. Some have argued that the e-mails conclusively demonstrate that climate change is a fabrication of a small clique of environmentalists masquerading as scientists. That is plain nonsense. But what was in the e-mails, and what are implications for the science and policy of climate change? The e-mails contain a lot of chit-chat. There is complaining about colleagues, and discussions about ending other people’s careers. There are e-mails about tax evasion and bending budgets to fit the rules. This is not pretty, but none of our business. Other things do matter. The e-mails reveal a systematic effort to deny legitimate freedom of information requests. They contain evidence that the rules of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were deliberately broken to include a paper that supports a particular point of view. The e-mails show an intolerance of views and facts that do not support the received wisdom of the people involved. One of the stolen documents reveals that a key result, the instrumental record of the global mean temperature since 1850, cannot be reproduced. This is serious stuff. Reproducibility of results and open-minded discussion are cornerstones of scientific conduct. (Irish Times)
The Nixon strategy? The Stolen E-Mails: Has 'Climategate' Been Overblown? The controversy over e-mails stolen from global warming researchers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at Britain's University of East Anglia has become so divisive that
there is even disagreement over what to call it.
Advocating, not reporting: In Face of Skeptics, Experts Affirm Climate Peril Just two years ago, a United Nations panel that synthesizes the work of hundreds of climatologists around the world called the evidence for global warming
“unequivocal.”
Climategate; The Supporting Cast - Thought Police Anyone?
Typically, he was only concerned about being fooled. To his further shame he is now in denial of the extent of the deception. True, the scale and extent appears unbelievable because it uses the deception of the Big Lie – too big to believe. However, I know it’s believable because I watched it develop and grow. Particularly since 1985 when the conference in Villach Austria conjoined the CRU with the fledgling Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Tom Wigley and Phil Jones attended but were already developing the phony climate science Maurice Strong needed to pursue his goal of destroying western economies. For example, in a 1983 article Wigley was convincing climate science of a falsely low pre-industrial level of CO2. Early attempts to challenge what they were doing followed normal academic processes and little interference occurred. For example, a book review I wrote based on the bad science became a Review Editorial In Climatic Change (Volume 35, Number 4 / April, 1997.) (Tim Ball, CFP)
Business Fumes Over Carbon Dioxide Rule Officials gather in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit, but business leaders are focusing even more on Washington, where the Obama administration is expected as early as Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant. An "endangerment" finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions -- even if Congress doesn't pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is expected. Many business groups are opposed to EPA efforts to curb a gas as ubiquitous as carbon dioxide. (WSJ)
EPA: Greenhouse Gases Threaten Public Health and the Environment Science overwhelmingly shows greenhouse gas concentrations at unprecedented levels due to human activity
EPA Formally Declares CO2 a Dangerous Pollutant Step aside, elected Members of Congress. If you can’t pass cap and trade legislation, The Environmental Protection Agency will move in with massively complex and costly regulations that would micromanage just about every aspect of the economy. They announced today that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten public health and the environment. Since 85 percent of the U.S. economy runs on fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide, imposing a cost on CO2 is equivalent to placing an economy-wide tax on energy use. The kind of industrial-strength EPA red tape that the agency could enforce in the name of global warming would result in millions of dollars in compliance costs. These are unnecessary costs that businesses will inevitably pass on to the American consumer, slow economic growth and kill jobs. Although the crafted rules say only facilities that emit 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year or more will be affected, businesses fear the exemption may not hold up in court and could now be imposed on many smaller commercial buildings, farms, restaurants, churches and small businesses. Even EPA administrator Lisa Jackson acknowledged top-down regulations would be more costly than a cap and trade system, saying, “Legislation is so important because it will combine the most efficient, most economy-wide, least costly, least disruptive way to deal with carbon dioxide pollution,” she recently stated, adding that “we get further faster without top-down regulation.” Of course, this isn’t a legitimate argument to pass cap and trade legislation. Cap and trade, a climate treaty and EPA regulations are the three ugly step-sisters of climate policy. Yet they’re trudging forward anyway. Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Even CSM knows this was a really dumb move: Copenhagen, EPA, and climate change: Obama's false move - The EPA ruling on global warming and carbon emissions is the wrong way to win over the Senate and to cut a deal in Copenhagen, Denmark. By the Monitor's Editorial Board
Reaction To EPA's Climate Change Declaration Business groups reacted with alarm and environmentalists with applause to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's formal declaration Monday that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, clearing the way for federal regulation. (Reuters)
White House Issues Economically Ruinous “Endangerment” Rule Today the Obama administration issued a final ruling that greenhouse gases “endanger” health and human welfare. Here’s an wonky explanation of why this is a big deal: Under the Clean Air Act, an “endangerment” finding means that the EPA will have to grant a waiver to those states (such as California) that want to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. The EPA has already agreed to do so. When “pollutants” that “endanger” human health and welfare are regulated, the EPA must expand its regulatory program to include “stationary” sources. The EPA has already announced that it will do so. This is where Obama wants to get off the “endangerment” train, with the ability to regulate stationary and mobile sources (i.e., industry and cars) with almost complete discretion. These “endangerment” powers give the President tremendous leverage in a number of complex negotiations. For example, the Obama administration already has told Congress that it will regulate greenhouse gases unless lawmakers deliver a cap-and-trade bill to his desk. The “endangerment” prerogatives also are the President’s bargaining chip in Copenhagen, where he plans on scoring his first diplomatic victory since his election night. The problem is that the President can’t stop what he has started. Under the statutory language of the Clean Air Act, the regulation of mobile sources tripwires regulations for all stationary sources that emit more than 250 tons of a designated pollutant. For greenhouse gases, that’s pretty much everything larger than a mansion. These stationary sources would have to get a Prevention of Significant Deterioration permit for any proposed modification, as would any new source. They would also have to get operating permits. The upshot is that millions of buildings would be subject to regulations. To get around this, Obama’s EPA proposed a “tailoring rule” that would change the language of the CAA so that the threshold would be 25,000 tons. The legality of this is very much in doubt, as it amounts to the executive branch legislating, and is therefore a violation of the separation of powers. Also under the Clean Air Act, any “pollutant” that “endangers” human health and welfare, and which is regulated for stationary and mobile sources, becomes subject to National Ambient Air Quality Standards. As described above, the Obama administration is in the process of fulfilling all these NAAQS criteria. Last week, two environmentalist groups petitioned the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under NAAQS. Soon the EPA will have no choice. Once the NAAQS kicks in-and it will-the American economy is screwed. The government won’t be able to permit anything larger than a mansion. Taken to the extent mandated under the Clean Air Act, the EPA would probably have to order the shut-down of most industrial suppliers and users of conventional energy. There’s only one remedy for this otherwise inevitable regulatory nightmare. The Congress must pass H. R. 391, legislation offered by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) that prohibits the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. (William Yeatman, Cooler Heads)
EPA: CO2 Threatens the ‘Public Health and Welfare of the American People’ Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, today made final her determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
This Endangerment Finding will begin a cascade of crippling new regulations of the American economy and of the way people are allowed to live. Already EPA has proposed new auto regulations based on the Endangerment Finding requiring that requires that the average car sold in 2016 get the same fuel mileage as today’s Smart Car. The Competitive Enterprise Institute petitioned EPA earlier this month to delay the Endangerment Finding until the scientific case for global warming alarmism could be reviewed in light of the Climategate scandal. EPA ignored that petition, so now CEI will file suit in federal court to overturn the finding on the grounds that the science does not support it. Myron Ebell is director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, director of Freedom Action, and chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition. (PJM)
Oh... Kevin Rudd pledges to repay ETS rise FAMILIES will pay little or nothing for Labor's emissions trading scheme, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pledged yesterday.
Avery: Are Politics Realigning for a Non-Warming Planet? (PJM Exclusive) Recent events suggest Climategate has already shifted politics towards the reality of a world without man-made global warming. As the Copenhagen climate conference tirelessly discusses the “evidence of climate change,” it also asserts the need for massive energy taxes and energy “rationing” to prevent still more climate disruption. That’s a bait-and-switch tactic. The discussion has never been about the planet’s historically variable climate. It’s always been whether humans caused climate change. To date, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has never offered any evidence of a “human fingerprint” on the modest (0.5 degrees Celsius) warming that occurred between the 1850s end of the Little Ice Age and 1940. They haven’t even given us a convincing story about the 0.2 degree Celsius warming that occurred from 1940 to 1998 (part of that tiny warming has disappeared). James Hansen’s predictions of massive overheating, given to the Senate in 1988, have been overtaken by a quiet sun and a telling drop in global ocean temperatures. The public has noticed there’s been none of the long-predicted runaway warming — or any warming at all since 1998. They’re reading the Climategate emails of the “consensus scientists” confessing they don’t know why warming stopped. That’s a huge confession. The public cares less and less for tired scare stories of a parboiled planet. Are the world’s political parties now suddenly realigning on the basis of non-warming? Have global warming taxes become the Greens’ defining moment? (PJM)
Lord Monckton: Global Warming big scientific fad The United Nations Climate change conference has opened in the Danish capital Copenhagen. RT's Laura Emmet has talked to one man who'll be there - who's also one of the most outspoken critics of global warming theory. (Russia Today)
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. If you are one of those who have not yet heard the peroration of Christopher Monckton’s speech in Minnesota hear it now. Then hear it again. Then pass it on to your friends and neighbours. Regular readers will know that Number Watch is not inclined to make obeisance to those in the public eye. Christopher Monckton is different. Despite his arts background, he has amply demonstrated that he understands both the physics and mathematics of the global warming scare. He is a giant among dwarfs on the international scene. He has an intellectual mastery of the facts coupled with the gift of oratory. He is the Winston Churchill of his time, standing virtually alone in defiance of the antidemocratic forces that threaten to take over the world. If you are American you have the extra incentive that you are elected to pick up the bill for the international socialist takeover. Already, Carol Browner of Socialist International is being granted control over your industries and economy. The incompetent and impotent prime minister of Great Britain signed away his nation’s sovereignty in private and in shame, having resiled from a solemn manifesto promise to give his people a referendum before doing so. The incompetent and impotent leader of the opposition is not prepared to do anything about it. The President of the United States is poised to surrender the sovereignty of his nation in equally squalid circumstances. (Number Watch)
Al Gore Reverts To Sore-Loserhood, Resorts To Slander Is this the best sign catastrophical AGW is beyond the sell-by date? Now we have Al Gore suggesting, in an interview to Italian archwarmist newspaper La Repubblica, that everybody not convinced about global warming being “the biggest threat to our civilization” is on the pay of the “big CO2 polluters“. Particularly risible the list of “global warming facts” (can’t wait to see Tamino, Greenfyre or RealClimate excoriate it):
Well, at least the “facts” don’t include hurricanes any longer. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)
Figures... Obama to Meet With Gore Over Climate Change An official says President Obama plans to talk with former Vice President Al Gore at the White House on Monday as the president prepares for his appearance at a major international climate summit in Copenhagen. (AP)
Video: Copenhagen Should Follow Byrd-Hagel Resolutions In response to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference December 7th through 18th, The Heritage Foundation is launching a video series to cover all the details and aspects of the climate summit. We’ll address all the angles (climate, energy, national security, sovereignty, trade, and more) and provide you with everything you need to know about Copenhagen. Up first is Senior Policy Analyst on Energy & Environment Ben Lieberman discussing a 1997 Senate Resolution that should guide U.S. policy for Copenhagen.
The importance of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, passed unanimously with a 95-0 vote before the Kyoto Protocol, is two-fold. Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Go Tony! Abbott fuelling sceptics: UN THE head of the world's top climate research body has compared Tony Abbott to former US president and climate sceptic George W. Bush and conceded the failure of
Australia's cap and trade carbon bill has given momentum to climate naysayers worldwide.
Hmm... the peasants are revolting: Official: Tory voters say climate change exaggerated This is bad news for the Cameron team: the PoliticsHome website has just released an opinion poll showing that nearly three quarters of Conservative voters believe that the issue of climate change is exaggerated by the media. And so do a majority (51 per cent) of all voters. What is more, fully 46 per cent of all voters feel that it is given too high a priority by government. (The figure for Conservative voters on that question is no less than 56 per cent.) So perhaps making global warming the iconic symbol of Tory modernisation was not such a great idea? This may be very damaging indeed: it could be one of the factors that is convincing many Tory and potentially-Tory voters that the party is more concerned with being fashionable (in Leftwing terms) than it is with addressing their real concerns. (Janet Daley, TDT)
Low-budget Terminator promo? Please help the world - COP15 opening film "Please Help the World", film from the opening ceremony of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) in Copenhagen from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. Shown on December 7, 2009 at COP15.
Lawrence Solomon: Climategate gang is writing the script for Copenhagen The Copenhagen Diagnosis, a year-long study to be unveiled at the Copenhagen climate change meetings that begin today, was designed to dramatize how little time we have left to save the planet from catastrophic climate. But the Copenhagen Diagnosis, which is billed as an update to the last report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has a credibility problem. The Climategate gang - the same crew now discredited by emails that emerged showing a conspiracy to cook the books - had a dozen of its members in charge of producing the Copenhagen Diagnosis. More credibility problems: The Copenhagen Diagnosis relies on data from the Hadley Centre of the UK meteorological office and the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University - two bodies that may now need to set aside the data altogether and start over. The suspect data --- known as HADCRUT - is a merged dataset comprised of marine temperatures provided by the Hadley Centre and land-based temperatures from the Climate Research Unit. Because the CRU portion of the data is so suspect with so much of the public, the Met Office has announced a three-year year investigation in which it will re-examine 160 years of temperature data. The Met took this step, which makes official the view that the world has been relying on suspect data, over the objections of the UK government, which fears waiting until 2012 before having solid data. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is among the most vocal of global warming advocates, having said that Copenhagen is the last chance to save the world from environmental disaster and characterizing those who disagree as "behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics." The IPCC, has also announced an investigation into the Climategate scandal, as has East Anglia University and Penn State University, home to another infamous member of Climategate: Michael Mann. Mann is the author of the hockey stick, the icon of the global warming adherents which purported to show that the Earth warmed rapidly in the 20th century. That graph was later found to be bogus, as hearings into it before the U.S. Congress determined. Yet now Mann is back - he is one of the authors of the Copenhagen Diagnosis -- and so is his hockey-stick graph! All told, 12 of the 26 Copenhagen Diagnosis authors are implicated in the Climategate scandal, including Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, a much criticized Lead Author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. The prognosis for the Copenhagen Diagnosis is grim. (Financial Post)
Copenhagen Conference Begins While The Global Warming Scare Ends The United Nations climate change conference begins in Copenhagen today, but it may spell the beginning of the end to the global warming scare. For nearly two years, this meeting was touted as the biggest global warming conference since the 1997 meeting in Kyoto, Japan. That conference resulted in the Kyoto Protocol, with emissions reduction targets for developed nations. These targets expire in 2012, thus Copenhagen was seen as the pivotal time and place to expand the Kyoto approach into the future. American wisely stayed out of Kyoto – which has been a failure, as developing nations like China were exempted from reductions, and many developed nations have failed to live up to its commitments - but many thought President Obama would sign the U.S. up to a post-Kyoto deal. But economic, political, and scientific reality is intruding. Even with the President promising to attend the conference on the critical final day, it does not look like much will come of Copenhagen other than the usual consolation agreement to try again next year. Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Zealots... Is "Going Green" the Enemy of Climate Change Reform? America's green tech fad isn't just failing to reverse global warming. It's actually hurting the effort to fight climate change.
Copenhagen summit: Europe turns on US and China over weak emission targets The European Union has rejected the new carbon emission targets tabled by the United States and China and said they were much too weak to prevent catastrophic climate change. The dispute between the three main players at the Copenhagen climate change summit overshadowed the first day of negotiations and dashed hopes that a deal on emissions was imminent. The EU called on President Obama to announce a more ambitious target next week, when he arrives in Copenhagen for the last day of the conference on December 18. But the US insisted that the provisional offer made 10 days ago by Mr Obama was “remarkable” and in line with what scientists had recommended. Mr Obama has proposed to cut its emissions by 4 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, although he has said this is subject to getting the approval of Congress. The EU has made a legally binding commitment to cut its emissions by 20 per cent over the same period. It has also said it would increase the cut to 30 per cent if other countries committed to “comparable action”. (The Times)
U.S. urged to do more on climate The Obama administration's opening bid in the climate talks beginning Monday in Copenhagen is not impressing some key constituencies.
Our Latest Cartoon: Goodies for the Copenhagen Crowd Our latest cartoon is up! This riffs on the story that the president may seek a $10 billion package from “rich nations” to fight global warming. Of course, no nations will be rich nations if they pass cap and trade. And no word on what the internal emails say… (The Chilling Effect)
Cracks appear in G-77 bloc on Day One COPENHAGEN: The opening day of the meeting of 193 countries on climate change at Copenhagen was meant to be an occasion for reinforcing political rhetoric and niceties.
But even before the meeting began, dark news of cracks within the biggest bloc of developing countries -- G-77 plus China -- started showing up.
Opportunity to ask 'em all to go home? Send your greetings to COP15 During the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15), the Danish government invites the entire world to send their greetings to the conference. Greetings are
submitted through www.greetings.cop15.dk and are composed of 150 characters of text.
Divisions run deep in Copenhagen The Copenhagen climate talks have opened with a declaration that the 12 days of negotiations represent an historic opportunity for the world, but deep divisions between
delegates have already emerged.
The Warming Faithful Gather in Copenhagen The UN Climate Change Conference has the unmistakable feel of a religious gathering. (Bruce Bawer is in Copenhagen covering the conference for PJM and PJTV. See also Roger L. Simon: Climategate — Why Obama Switched His Copenhagen Itinerary) Well, here I am at the Vatican in Rome, where thousands of pilgrims from every corner of the earth crowd St. Peter’s Square, their eyes trained on the glorious basilica within which the College of Cardinals is gathering in secret conclave to settle the all-important question: Who will stand in the shoes of the fisherman? Oops, sorry, I got a little confused there for a second. In fact I’ve just arrived in Copenhagen. But you’ll have to excuse my mistake, because it’s already clear that being here during the next few days is going to be very much like attending some kind of massive religious gathering. The faithful — over 16,000 strong — are here, of course, for the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference, a.k.a. COP15 (“COP” as in Conference of the Parties), at which they supposedly hope to achieve a provisional international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus rescue our beloved blue planet from the fate envisioned in any number of bad Roland Emmerich movies. (PJM)
Flashback to Bali: UN tactics to silence dissent There were 12 of us skeptics among 12,000 believers at the Bali UNFCCC in 2007. We were a rag-tag team of passionate people, some of whom had PhDs, and most of whom were not paid to be there. We came because we were angry about the way science was being exploited. It was a convention on a scale I had not seen before. Not just 2,000 for a weekend, which would be big, but 12,000 for two entire weeks, which was an extravaganza. The UNFCCC meetings define the term “junket”. These mass climate conventions happen every year in locations like Nairobi (Kenya), Poznan (Poland), Montreal (Canada), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Milan in Italy. Copenhagen is COP 15, meaning there have been 14 before it. (And at two weeks each, that’s over six months of non-stop PR and “staff incentives”.) Is there any larger yearly congregation in the world? From the outset the UNFCCC did everything it could to maintain the appearance that it is a fair, transparent, and scientific based organization. Yet on the ground, it did everything it could to make sure that there would be no dissent, no debate, and no free speech unless it was their official line. (Jo Nova)
<guffaw!> Australia tells Copenhagen Summit what it wants AUSTRALIA has told the Copenhagen summit it's time for "bold action'' on climate change.
Rudd's Chamberlain moment - Australia’s climate messiah The front page headline said it all: “Rudd’s Copenhagen Dash” (Weekend Australian, 5-6/12/2009). The RAAF has Kev’s Big Jet on the tarmac, with the engines
running, and the crew sleeping in the aisle, awaiting their master’s command. Finally! Australia has its Messiah, its climate change champion, ready to rush around the
world to galvanize the Copenhagen conference, stiffen the wilting resolve of the participants, and deliver the world in one climactic act from the carbonized catastrophe that
awaits us all. What a Wagnerian vision! What a time to be alive!
Missed this one last week: The Mathematics of Global Warming The forecasts of global warming are based on mathematical solutions for equations of weather models. But all of these solutions are inaccurate. Therefore, no valid scientific conclusions can be made concerning global warming. The false claim for the effectiveness of mathematics is an unreported scandal at least as important as the recent climate data fraud. Why is the math important? And why don't the climatologists use it correctly? (Peter Landesman, American Thinker)
There was an article in the New York Times on December 6 2009 by Andrew C. Revkin And John M. Broder titled “Before Climate Meeting, A Revival Of Skepticism”. The text attributed to me is “Roger A. Pielke Sr., for example, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado who has been highly critical of the United Nations climate panel and who once branded many of the scientists now embroiled in the e-mail controversy part of a climate “oligarchy,” said that so many independent measures existed to show unusual warming taking place that there was no real dispute about it. Moreover, he said, “The role of added carbon dioxide as a major contributor in climate change has been firmly established.” I want to correct a significant misstatement in one part of the above text. (Climate Science)
Three Distinctly Different Climate Science Perspectives There needs to be recognition that there are three distinctly different viewpoints with respect to the extent that humans alter the climate system. (Climate Science)
Censorship? What censorship? Heads Up: NPR's On Point Just
FYI, today I'll be on NPR's On Point with Michael Mann (PSU), Juliet Eilperin (Wash Post) and
Carroll Doherty (Pew Research Center for People and the Press) for a discussion fro 10-11AM EDT. I'll post up a link to the archive when available.
Climate change report calls for passenger tax on flights to reduce CO2 Watchdog says air travel cannot continue to grow unchecked if UK's emissions targets are to be met (Dan Milmo, The Guardian)
AT the international climate talks in Copenhagen, President Obama is expected to announce that the United States wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to about 17
percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. But at the heart of his plan is cap and trade, a market-based approach that has been widely praised but does little
to slow global warming or reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It merely allows polluters and Wall Street traders to fleece the public out of billions of dollars.
Rio Tinto focus moves towards coal Rio Tinto Ltd is moving its investments in carbon capture and storage technology away from natural gas as a feedstock towards coal and petcoke.
That's lovely, now stop doing it: New Materials May Aid in Capturing Carbon To sequester carbon dioxide as part of any climate-change mitigation strategy, the gas first has to be captured from the flue at a power plant or other source. The next
step is just as important: the CO2 has to be released from whatever captured it so that it can be pumped underground or otherwise stored for the long term.
Coal throbs at the heart of India growth engine KORBA, India - A thin coat of coal dust covers everything from trees to houses in Korba, a coal mining town in central India which lies at the heart of the country's
struggle to balance economic growth with climate change concerns.
Ethanol: Unintended Consequences
Of all the environmental boondoggles of recent years, the biggest must be corn ethanol. As MasterResource’s Ken Green wrote in an article summarizing ethanol’s impact on the environment:
In a recent speech, Green elaborated, pointing out
(Robert Bradley Jr., MasterResource)
Developers Baffled By Chinese Wind Farm Rejections LONDON - Project developers are baffled by a U.N. climate panel's decision to block 10 Chinese wind farms from receiving carbon financing, saying the move could slash
investment in Chinese wind and other forms of clean energy.
Health Care vs. the Value of Human Life - Don't believe the left would cut medical costs by rationing care? Check out their formulas to calculate your life's value. Under the Democrats’ proposed health care reform legislation, we know that the government will have to determine some sort of rationing system in order to control costs.
We are aware that part of the rationing will be absorbed in the discrimination that the bill inflicts upon the elderly; we know that it cuts $500 billion from Medicare. What
has remained puzzling is how exactly this rationing will be determined for the rest of us. Similarly elusive is how the new Health Benefits Advisory Committee will decide
whether or not you get certain medical treatments, regardless of the opinion of your doctor. After all, how do you put a dollar value on a human life?
Aussies avoiding swine flu jab: expert Australia has the opportunity to prevent a "second wave" of swine flu early next year and yet it is being largely ignored, says a medical expert.
More bad science on formaldehyde health effects Now that the research dollars for benzene/cancer have dried up, people like Dr. Luoping Zhang—of UC Berkeley's School of Public Health—have to find another cash cow.
Lucky for her, formaldehyde is under great scrutiny, and lucky for her that formaldehyde is far more ubiquitous than benzene ever was.
Waterpipes no safer than cigarettes: study NEW YORK - If you thought that smoking tobacco through a waterpipe was safer than cigarettes, think again: Compared to cigarette smoking, a waterpipe -- also called a
hookah or shisha -- delivers more deadly carbon monoxide and roughly the same amount of addictive nicotine, according to a new study.
Steady Drop in Cancer Deaths Gives Experts Hope Less smoking, earlier detection, and improved treatments are credited for gains against lung, colon, prostate, and breast cancer (Business Week)
Body mass and waist size can predict heart disease LONDON - Measuring body mass index or waist size in overweight people can accurately predict the risk of heart disease, Dutch scientists said on Monday. (Reuters)
Getting a 'Head Start' on Obesity Prevention Almost 1 million preschool children from low-income families are enrolled in Head Start, a national program for young children that readies them for school. While the program provides them with educational and social skill enhancement, a study authored by Temple University researchers finds that it also goes above and beyond the current federal recommendations for promoting healthy eating and exercise habits among this group of children who are at high risk for obesity. (ScienceDaily)
Group to start project to cut indoor fuel burning CANCUN, Mexico - An advocacy group on lung health plans to work with health authorities in 12 countries from 2010 to reduce indoor fuel burning, which causes respiratory
diseases and lung cancer and kills 2 million people a year.
Humanure: Goodbye, Toilets. Hello, Extreme Composting For more than a decade, 57-year-old roofer and writer Joseph Jenkins has been advocating that we flush our toilets down the drain and put a bucket in the bathroom instead.
When a bucket in one of his five bathrooms is full, he empties it in the compost pile in his backyard in rural Pennsylvania. Eventually he takes the resulting soil and
spreads it over his vegetable garden as fertilizer.
December 7, 2009
Oh dear... Stolen E-Mail, Stoking the Climate Debate AS world leaders prepare to meet tomorrow in Copenhagen to address global warming, skeptics are pointing to e-mail hacked from a computer server at a British university as
evidence that the conference may be much ado about nothing. They say the e-mail messages show a conspiracy among scientists to overstate human influence on the climate —
and some accuse The Times of mishandling the story. The public editor can be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com
and firefighting, too: That Climate Change E-Mail The theft [ read: "release" since there is no evidence of any theft -- Ed. ] of
thousands of private e-mail messages and files from computer servers at a leading British climate research center has been a political windfall for skeptics who claim the
documents prove that mainstream scientists have conspired to overstate the case for human influence on climate change.
Having learned nothing from Climategate part of the cartel still try to discipline their NYT enviro-puppy (by smacking him over the nose with a rolled up newspaper?): Climate Scientist Threatens Boycott of NYT Reporter Michael
Schlesinger, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois, sends
an message to Andy Revkin of the New York Times (via his widely circulated email distribution list) threatening some sort of boycott -- whatever that means -- of Revkin
among climate scientists, for having the gall to mention my views and those of my father. The reference to prostitutes in the email presumably comes from
this post at Dot Earth where Revkin mentioned a funny news story in his Twitter feed, (emphasis added). Andy:You'd think that after the actions of certain activist scientists to suppress certain perspectives was revealed in the CRU emails that there would be a little bit more self-awareness in this community. Ironically enough, the public editor of the NYT today cites my father to help justify why the CRU email story is "a story, not a three-alarm story." The irony is that my father is trying to help restore some lost credibility to the climate science community even as these activist climate scientists continue their attacks. Real Climate also put up a post criticizing Revkin for citing my views. Revkin responded there (emphasis added): As for Roger Pielke, Jr., he’s absolutely not a climatologist and noted at the outset that he’s an interested observer. You’re right that he’s not the ideal choice to be commenting on climate sensitivity issues, but to imply that he doesn’t deserve a seat at the table is troubling. Here’s why. He has been an author on dozens of peer-reviewed papers related to climate change, with a particular focus on the climate/hurricane/disaster losses arena. Just go to http://j.mp/PielkeGoog for a sample. Given how many climate scientists have begun speaking out about policy choices (Pielke’s realm) hard to see how he can be excised from discussions.In response, Eric Steig, the post's author, tries to explain (emphasis in original): I in no way intended to suggest that Roger should be excluded from the table. . . . getting an opinion in addition to Pielke's is particularly important, given that he has repeatedly demonstrated a remarkable ability to mislead readers about the facts. (Roger Pielke Jr)
Some more noninvestigative journalism: Hacked climate e-mail rebutted by scientists A group of the nation's top scientists defended research on global climate change Friday against what they called a politically motivated smear campaign designed to foster
public doubt about irrefutable scientific facts.
Climategate: Be Skeptical Of Envirojournalism Someone who is paid to find evidence of environmental catastrophes would probably find them more often than someone whose pay doesn’t depend on finding them. That’s
something to keep in mind when you read environmental reporting on Climategate.
Understanding Climategate's Hidden Decline Close followers of the Climategate controversy know that much of the mêlée surrounds an e-mail in which Climate Research Unit (CRU) chief Phil Jones wrote about using
“Mike’s Nature Trick” (MNT) to “hide the decline.” And yet, seventeen days and thousands of almost exclusively on-line op-eds into this scandal, it still seems that
very few understand exactly which “decline” was being hidden, what “trick” was used to do so, and why Jones’s words have become the slogan for the greatest
scientific fraud in history. Notice how Briffa’s series (green) begins to trend sharply downward around the mid-20th century. Jones’s series (red) soon follows, but less sharply, and then it
begins to trend higher. Mann’s (blue) appears to flatten out around the same year that Jones’s begins to fall. Meanwhile, all three have broken with the measured rising
temperatures of the late 20th century. Since the release of CRU’s FOI2009, alarmists have continued their claim that there’s nothing deceptive about the “trick” and that it has been openly discussed in
scientific journals like Nature since 1998.
A one-stop source for information about the biggest scientific scandal in a century. What It’s About On the night of November 19, a compressed file containing 1,073 emails and almost 3,600 other files mysteriously appeared on a download site in Siberia. These emails and files had somehow been taken from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the UK. This became known as Climategate. The CRU and its director, Dr. Phil Jones, are important because the CRU is a central point for data collection, storage, and analysis of climate data. And Dr. Jones is one of the lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR4 report, which is the basis for much of the current political drive for CO2 limits. The theory IPCC favors for climate change is that human-caused CO2 emissions are causing the climate to warm beyond what would naturally happen. (Charlie Martin, PJM)
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article by Daniel Henninger critical of scientists who allowed the culture of Climategate to develop in their professions.
Petr Chylek: Open Letter to the Climate Research Community I am sure that most of you are aware of the incident that took place recently at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The identity of the whistle-blower or hacker is still not known. The selected release of emails contains correspondence between CRU scientists and scientists at other climate research institutions. My own purely technical exchange of emails with CRU director Professor Phil Jones is, as far as I know, not included. I published my first climate-related paper in 1974 (Chylek and Coakley, Aerosol and Climate, Science 183, 75-77). I was privileged to supervise Ph. D. theses of some exceptional scientists - people like J. Kiehl, V.Ramaswamy and J. Li among others. I have published well over 100 peer-reviewed papers, and I am a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Optical Society of America, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Within the last few years I was also honored to be included in Wikipedia’s blacklist of “climate skeptics”. For me, science is the search for truth, the never-ending path towards finding out how things are arranged in this world so that they can work as they do. That search is never finished. It seems that the climate research community has betrayed that mighty goal in science. They have substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view. It seems that some of the most prominent leaders of the climate research community, like prophets of Old Israel, believed that they could see the future of humankind and that the only remaining task was to convince or force all others to accept and follow. They have almost succeeded in that effort. Yes, there have been cases of misbehavior and direct fraud committed by scientists in other fields: physics, medicine, and biology to name afew. However, it was misbehavior of individuals, not of a considerable part of the scientific community. Climate research made significant advancements during the last few decades, thanks to your diligent work. This includes the construction of the HadCRUT and NASA GISS datasets documenting the rise of globally averaged temperature during the last century. I do not believe that this work can be affected in any way by the recent email revelations. Thus, the first of the three pillars supporting the hypothesis of man-made global warming seems to be solid. However, the two other pillars are much more controversial. To blame the current warming on humans, there was a perceived need to “prove” that the current global average temperature is higher than it was at any other time in recent history (the last few thousand years). This task is one of the main topics of the released CRU emails. Some people were so eager to prove this point that it became more important than scientific integrity. The next step was to show that this “unprecedented high current temperature” has to be a result of the increasing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. The fact that the Atmosphere Ocean General Circulation Models are not able to explain the post-1970 temperature increase by natural forcing was interpreted as proof that it was caused by humans. It is more logical to admit that the models are not yet good enough to capture natural climate variability (how much or how little do we understand aerosol and clouds, and ocean circulation?), even though we can all agree that part of the observed post-1970 warming is due to the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Thus, two of the three pillars of the global warming and carbon dioxide paradigm are open to reinvestigation. The damage has been done. The public trust in climate science has been eroded. At least a part of the IPCC 2007 report has been put in question. We cannot blame it on a few irresponsible individuals. The entire esteemed climate research community has to take responsibility. Yes, there always will be a few deniers and obstructionists. So what comes next? Let us stop making unjustified claims and exaggerated projections about the future even if the editors of some eminent journals are just waiting to publish them. Let us admit that our understanding of the climate is less perfect than we have tried to make the public believe. Let us drastically modify or temporarily discontinue the IPCC. Let us get back to work. Let us encourage students to think their own thoughts instead of forcing them to parrot the IPCC conclusions. Let us open the doors of universities, of NCAR, NASA and other research institutions (and funding agencies) to faculty members and researchers who might disagree with the current paradigm of carbon dioxide. Only open discussion and intense searching of all possibilities will let us regain the public’s trust and move forward. Regards,
How Climategate Ranks in a Media Interest Index The lack of coverage of Climategate by the mainstream news media over the last 2 weeks has been breathtaking. Richard North at the EUReferendum blog advanced a way to measure media bias of this kind with what he calls his “Tiger Woods Index”, where he compares the number of Google search web matches to Google search news matches. The idea is that if the media are avoiding an issue, then the number of news matches relative to web matches will decrease. If the media are overly obsessed with an issue compared to what the public is discussing on web pages, then the number of Google search news matches will increase relative to the number of web matches. I decided to play around with this idea with searches on several names and phrases of my own. Since “media bias” is such an ugly phrase, I will characterize the resulting statistics as a Media Interest Index. I found that for issues where the news media seems to have about the same level of interest as the public, the ratio of web page matches to news page matches was somewhere in the range of 500 to 1,000. By using a totally scientific process (since I’m a scientist) to compare the media’s interest to the public’s interest, I decided that a ratio of 1,000 would represent equal media and public interest. Please do not ask for the data I used, since I will either hide it or delete it before I give it up. (Roy W. Spencer)
Barbara Hollingsworth: Who's who on climate fraud FOR A SPECIAL GRAPHIC LAYOUT, CLICK HERE.
HUNTSVILLE, AL -- How do global warming proponents handle a problem like Huntsville climatologist and global warming skeptic Dr. John Christy?
'M and M' stick in craw of climate-change crew Steve McIntyre, 62, is a Toronto retiree. He plays squash, dabbles with numbers and insists he never set out to stir up any trouble.
Speculation of the day: Were Russian security services behind the leak of 'Climategate' emails? Suspicions were growing last night that Russian security services were behind the leaking of the notorious British ‘Climategate’ emails which threaten to undermine
tomorrow’s Copenhagen global warming summit.
Climategate: how the conspirators gagged on their deceptions I’ve wondered whether Climategate scientist Tom Wigley, an Australian, finally choked on all the fraud, fiddling and coverups he was witnessing from fellow members of
his Climategate cabal.
We-don't-want-to-talk-about-it-gate Americans honor the courageous informant, the gutsy citizen who stands against the savagery of the profit-mongering conglomerate. Well, sometimes. It appears, believe it
or not, that there are those who aren't religiously tethered to this sacred obligation.
What If Climategate was Cancergate? Senator Barbara Boxer has said that the e-mails supposedly stolen from a computer at the Climatic Research Unit in the UK should lead to prosecution of the hacker who did it. This rather obvious attempt to divert attention from the content of the emails, to the manner in which the e-mails were obtained, led my wife to make an interesting observation. What if the intercepted emails uncovered medical researchers discussing the fudging and hiding of cancer research data, and trying to interfere with the peer review process to prevent other medical researchers from getting published? There would be outrage from all across the political spectrum. Scientists behaving badly while the health of people was at stake would not be defended by anyone. So why should it be any different with Climategate? Unnecessary restrictions on (or price increases for) energy use could needlessly kill millions of people who are already poverty stricken. Cancer research affects many of us, but energy costs affect ALL of us. (Roy W. Spencer)
Climategate? What Climategate? - Congressional Democrats are Climategate deniers. The scandal involving leaked or purloined emails from the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia finally reached Capitol Hill this week, but not in the way you'd expect. Democratic committee chairmen ignored the evidence of scientific skullduggery at the influential research unit, even as its head Phil Jones stepped aside this week to make way for an investigation. Senator Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment Committee, did rouse herself to comment on the emails, saying their release should be treated as a criminal matter. "You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'Email-theft-gate,'" she said. "Part of our looking at this will be looking at a criminal activity which could have well been coordinated." In the House, the Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on what Chairman Ed Markey said was "the urgent consensus view . . . that global warming is real, and the science indicates it is getting worse." But the only witnesses were officials from the Obama administration, who support dramatic action on climate change. Republicans asked to have a global-warming skeptic appear but were denied. (John Fund, WSJ)
UN panel promises to investigate leaked 'climategate' e-mails The United Nations panel on climate change has promised to investigate claims that scientists at a British university deliberately manipulated data to support the theory
of man-made global warming.
So much for investigation: UN defends scientists over leaked emails The United Nations panel on climate change has strongly defended scientists at the University of East Anglia in Britain who are at the centre of a row over the alleged
manipulation of data.
Climategate meets Arseholegate.mov The Climategate debate hots up. Finally the BBC pays some attention to the growing scandal (only 2 weeks late) and has a mini-debate involving Warmist/Alarmist Professor
Andrew Watson (speaking from somewhere in UK academia) and leading AGW-sceptic Marc Morano (speaking via satellite link from the US).
A lot of us have more than one email account — one for personal use, and one for work. We do that for several reasons. We want to keep our private lives separate from our professional activities. We don’t want bosses and co-workers to know everything that goes on at home. Employers have the right to know what staff members are doing with their work-time and company resources — which includes official email accounts — so those things are subject to scrutiny. If we work for the government (and therefore taxpayers), then we are subject to even greater oversight. So we isolate our personal electronic correspondence and in most cases employers don’t bother to ask about it — and if they did, they’d have some pretty upset employees on their hands. So here we have Penn State University Climategate-ologist Michael Money-Mann outraged over outsiders viewing his “private” correspondence:
Unless it’s his own employer taking a look:
Where’s the outrage, Mike? If these truly were personal correspondence, you’d have a right to be upset and insist that no one view your emails. Of course that’s not the case — you work for a public university, and sent messages to public university addresses of other scientists. It’s more likely that you are expecting Penn State to cover your rear end. You’re probably right. Let’s break down the alarmist-activist-Leftist-scientists’ primary line of defense, helpfully parroted by the formerly mainstream media: That “they’ve stolen personal emails.” 1. “They’ve” — implies someone from the group of skeptics they disdain was the one to pilfer and expose their messages. But CRU, Mann, and the rest of their cabal have no idea who exposed the records. 2. “stolen” — CRU, Mann, etc. cannot prove the records were extracted by an outside entity. They may have been exposed by a whistleblower. Those types are often celebrated as heroes when they scandals are revealed. 3. “personal” — We’ve already addressed that above and elsewhere. 4. “emails” — yes, and so much more. They don’t even want to talk about the corrupted source code, which a software engineer — who is not a climate skeptic — interviewed by BBC said was, let’s say, less than professional. But expect the made-up story of “stolen personal emails” to continue — at least until they are discredited about that as well. (Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute)
Lawrence Solomon: Dirty climate data Climategate
emails prove that we must redo the science with data and a process that can be trusted The data from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University — headquarters for Climategate — is now discredited. This discredits any findings by other research
bodies that relied on the Climategate data. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
Climategate reveals 'the most influential tree in the world' Leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit show how the world's weightiest climate data has been distorted, says Christopher Booker (TDT)
Met Office to re-examine 160 years of climate data The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by
leaked e-mails.
Climategate: Obama’s Science Adviser Confirms the Scandal — Unintentionally What a close analysis of Dr. John P. Holdren's statement from December 2 reveals. When the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on the state of climate science on December 2, the Republicans were ready to focus it on the Climategate fraud scandal. And the first witness, President Obama’s science adviser, Dr. John P. Holdren, was ready to respond. Instead of summarizing his written testimony in his oral remarks, Holdren read a prepared statement on Climategate. He said that the controversy involved a “small group of scientists” and was primarily about one temperature dataset. He said that such controversies were not unusual in all branches of science and that they got sorted out through the peer review process and continuing scrutiny. Holdren also said that openness and sharing of data was important, which is why the Obama administration is strongly committed to openness. In the case of the disputed dataset (the “hockey stick” graph), the National Academies of Science (NAS) undertook a thorough review of it and all other similar datasets and concluded that the preponderance of evidence supported the principal conclusion of the research. Holdren concluded by predicting that when the dust settles on this controversy, a very strong scientific consensus on global warming will remain. Well, that sounds pretty plausible, but anyone who has followed Dr. Holdren’s amazing career knows that he is a master of plausible buncombe that disguises his “outlandish scientific assertions, consistently wrong predictions, and dangerous public policy choices,” as my CEI colleague William Yeatman has put it. Everything that Holdren said in his opening statement is incomplete and misleading. But explaining that is a job for another day. The point is that the alarmist establishment and environmental pressure groups have settled on these talking points in order to try to contain and sanitize the scandal. When Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) and other Republicans on the committee challenged Holdren’s analysis of Climategate, the president’s science adviser responded by repeating that it was just a small group of scientists engaged in some narrow research. Any mistakes or misdeeds on their part couldn’t possibly compromise the scientific consensus, which is as strong as it is vast. But when asked about some of his own extreme statements and predictions, Holdren replied that scientific research had moved on from the latest UN assessment report in 2007. The most up-to-date scientific research was contained in a report written by some of the world’s leading climate scientists and released last summer. Holdren mentioned and referred to this report, Copenhagen Diagnosis, several times during the course of the hearing. I remember when Copenhagen Diagnosis came out because nearly every major paper ran a story on it. Global warming is happening even faster than predicted, the impacts are even worse than feared, and that sort of thing. I also remembered that the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis included many of the usual conmen who are at the center of the alarmist scare. So I asked my CEI colleague Julie Walsh to compare the list of authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis with the scientists involved in Climategate. I’m sure it will come as a shock that the two groups largely overlap. The “small group of scientists” up to their necks in Climategate include 12 of the 26 esteemed scientists who wrote the Copenhagen Diagnosis. Who would have ever guessed that forty-six percent of the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis belong to the Climategate gang? Small world, isn’t it? (Myron Ebell, PJM)
Climategate II: Revenge of the Climate Modelers It has been two weeks since Climategate revealed that some of the IPCC’s leading researchers have conspired to manipulate temperature data, hide data from other researchers, and bully those scientists who do not agree with them by interfering with the peer review process. (If you haven’t heard about Climategate, it might be because you are still watching ABC, CBS, or NBC. Google ‘Climategate’, though, and you will get 20,000,000 to 30,000,000 web page matches.) Supporters have claimed that there is nothing to see there…that the Climategate e-mails released to the world by a whistleblower just show how scientists normally work. This is a particularly bad strategy, and the public knows it. Scientists do NOT behave this way…at least not in my world. Others have claimed that a few bad apples do not spoil the whole IPCC barrel. Well, if it wasn’t for the fact that these are the core people who gave us the primary thermometer evidence of 20th Century warming (Phil Jones), and the Hockey Stick temperature reconstruction which conveniently did away with the previous 10 or more centuries of natural climate change (Michael Mann), I might be inclined to agree with them. (Roy W. Spencer)
A corrupt cabal of global warming alarmists are exposed by a massive document leak. Slowly and mostly unnoticed by the major news media, the air has been going out of the global warming balloon. Global temperatures stopped rising a few years ago, much to the dismay of the climate campaigners. The U.N.'s upcoming Copenhagen conference--which was supposed to yield a binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction treaty as a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol--collapsed weeks in advance and remains on life support pending Obama's magical intervention. Cap and trade legislation is stalled on Capitol Hill. Recent opinion polls from Gallup, Pew, Rasmussen, ABC/Washington Post, and other pollsters all find a dramatic decline in public belief in human-caused global warming. The climate campaigners continue to insist this is because they have a "communications" problem, but after Al Gore's Nobel Prize/Academy Award double play, millions of dollars in paid advertising, and the relentless doom-mongering from the media echo chamber and the political class, this excuse is preposterous. And now the climate campaign is having its Emperor's New Clothes moment. (Weekly Standard)
It’s time for climate science to clean house. Whatever investigations come of Climategate, they should not stop with the United Kingdom.
Suppressing science - Is Climategate world's biggest hoax? On the eve of next week's Copenhagen climate summit, the evidence couldn't be more embarrassing for proponents of global warming. Leaked e-mails from the University of
East Anglia's Hadley Climate Research Unit (CRU), one of the world's leading climate change research centres, indicate that prominent scientists cooked the books to make the
case for man-made global warming.
UN hits back at climate sceptics amid e-mails row The UN's official panel on climate change has hit back at sceptics' claims that the case for human influence on global warming has been exaggerated.
Climategate: UN warming boss admits emails look “very bad” The real denialism. The UN’s top global warming official both admits the Climategate scientists emails looks “very bad” and needs investigation, yet somehow retains complete confidence in the science this cabal produced:
UPDATE Meanwhile mainstream newspapers betray their fundamental principles by preferring group think to scepticism:
Never have you had a clear example of the herd thinking that most imperils the mainstream media. (Andrew Bolt)
Pope Brunius I Roots Out the Heretics, but the Debate Goes On My apologies for an absence of posts. I have been heavily engaged in radio and television interviews for the past 48-hours, helping to feed, I fear, the current media frenzy over the hacked/leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia and the imminence of Copenhagen. I thought it might be of interest, however, if I made two of my media interventions available here. (Clamour of the Times)
A devastating response to “There’s nothing to see here, move along” Guest post by John A The usual armwaving denial that we should not trust our own lying eyes was delivered by a Harvard Professor in the Boston Globe:
In the words of Frank Drebin: “Nothing to see here, move along!” And then comes this response (comment 13) to which I’ve added a few paragraph breaks and one piece of emphasis: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Canada's public television commentary says Climategate spells doom for Copenhagen "Let there be no more talk that the science is settled."
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news and public affairs operations may not quite have caught up with Climategate, but the CBC's Rex Murphy has. Most CBC listeners and viewers might be wondering what he's talking about. Since the story broke two weeks ago with the release of emails from the world's leading climate institute, there has only been one news report on the network and the only analysis item was on Anna Maria Tremonti's The Current -- a pooh-poohing academic from the United States who said there was nothing in the emails worth talking about. Where has Quirks and Quarks been? The radio network's vaunted science show, Quirks and Quarks, has yet to even acknowledge the existence of scientific debate over temperature records, let alone the email scandal. As far as I can tell, not once in the history of the show has Quirks and Quarks' host, Bob McDonald, sought to explore the work of Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick--the two Canadians whose hockey stick deconstruction is now at the centre of a global science meltdown. While Quirks and Quarks did nothing, the world's leading climate scientists spent a decade in behind the scenes debate over temperature data, squelching dissent and keeping mainstream scientists and media marching to the global warming official tune. Don't you think that would be of interest? And how come Bob McDonald missed a decade of debate? Instead of tackling the real science issues, this week's edition of Quirks and Quarks--according to on air promotions--is going to focus on a side issue, the even shakier
science of rising sea levels.
Lawrence Solomon: Even before Climategate, the public suspected fraud 59% of Americans say it's at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, according to a Rasmussen survey released yesterday. 35% say it's Very Likely and just 26% say it's not very or not at all likely that some scientists falsified data. "This skepticism does not appear to be the result of the recent disclosure of e-mails confirming such data falsification as part of the so-called Climategate scandal," notes Rasmussen. "Just 20% of Americans say they've followed news reports about those e-mails Very Closely, while another 29% have followed them Somewhat Closely." Rasmussen speculates that the UN's credibility problem undermines the credibility of the scientists associated with it. "One reason for this skepticism may be the role the United Nations has played in promoting the global warming issue. Only 22% of Americans consider the UN to be a reliable source of information on global warming. 49% disagree and say the international organization is not reliable on that topic. 29% aren't sure." The Rasmussen survey also finds just 25% of Americans believe most scientists agree on global warming. (Financial Post)
For two years, our space agency has refused Freedom of Information requests on why it has repeatedly corrected its climate figures. A leading researcher threatens to sue
to find more inconvenient truths.
Desperation in the Air as the Science Melts Away “What is now needed is a reshaping of the debate, in which the global warming partisans acknowledge that their case is not universally accepted, that their remedies
are not necessarily the right ones and that their critics have motives as honest as theirs.” [Leading
article, The Mail on Sunday]
Global cooling in 1976 – deja vu all over again Alan Wilkie – well known TV weatherman on the Australian Channel 7 of a few decades ago. Enjoy the four scanned pages from his 1976 book describing global cooling and
the associated bad effects breaking out here and there around the globe. My reason for posting this just now is the fascinating 1974 CIA article uncovered by Maurizio Morabito. (Warwick Hughes)
The CIA’s ‘global cooling’ files The threat of a new ice age loomed so large in 1974 that American intelligence collated a report on the likely effects. Maurizio Morabito unearthed it A high-priority government report warns of climate change that will lead to floods and starvation. ‘Leading climatologists’ speak of a ‘detrimental global climatic change’, threatening ‘the stability of most nations’. The scenario is eerily familiar although the document — never made public before — dates from 1974. But here’s the difference: it was written to respond to the threat of global cooling, not warming. And yes, it even mentions a ‘consensus’ among scientists. (Spectator)
A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor - An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global Warming Endorse
An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming! The world is in the grip of an idea: that burning fossil fuels to provide affordable, abundant energy is causing global warming that will be so dangerous that we must stop it by reducing our use of fossil fuels, no matter the cost. Is that idea true? We believe not. We believe that idea—we’ll call it “global warming alarmism”—fails the tests of theology, science, and economics. It rests on poor theology, with a worldview of the Earth and its climate system contrary to that taught in the Bible. It rests on poor science that confuses theory with observation, computer models with reality, and model results with evidence, all while ignoring the lessons of climate history. It rests on poor economics, failing to do reasonable cost/benefit analysis, ignoring or underestimating the costs of reducing fossil fuel use while exaggerating the benefits. And it bears fruit in unethical policy that would
In return for all these sacrifices, what will the world get? At most a negligible, undetectable reduction in global average temperature a hundred years from now. (Cornwall Alliance)
EPA about to declare CO2 dangerous – ssshhh! – Don’t tell the trees I can’t find the words to describe the illogic behind the EPA with this ruling. Perhaps it is best to say that bureaucrats don’t understand anything but regulations and leave it at that.
To celebrate, surfacestations.org volunteer Gary Boden sends along this poster: But there’s an interesting twist, just two days ago, the University of Wisconsin says that CO2 is accelerating forest growth. Of course, bureaucrats wouldn’t understand this, because they can’t regulate tree growth. Oh, wait. From the University of Wisconsin-Madison press release: Greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ramps up aspen growth Dec. 4, 2009 The rising level of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be fueling more than climate change. It could also be making some trees grow like crazy. That is the finding of a new study of natural stands of quaking aspen, one of North America’s most important and widespread deciduous trees. The study, by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota at Morris (UMM) and published today (Dec. 4) in the journal Global Change Biology, shows that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide during the past 50 years have boosted aspen growth rates by an astonishing 50 percent. “Trees are already responding to a relatively nominal increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 50 years,” says Rick Lindroth, a UW-Madison professor of ecology and an expert on plant responses to climate change. Lindroth, UW-Madison colleague Don Waller, and professors Christopher Cole and Jon Anderson of UMM conducted the new study. The study’s findings are important as the world’s forests, which cover about 30 percent of the Earth’s land surface, play an important role in regulating climate and sequestering greenhouses gases. The forests of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, act as sinks for carbon dioxide, helping to offset the increase in levels of the greenhouse gas, widely viewed as a threat to global climate stability. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Cap-and-trade: Perennially unpopular On the face of it, there are so many reasons to dislike carbon trading. Setting up a derivatives trading system to achieve something as morally and politically fraught as
climate change just feels wrong, somehow, to many people. Still others (the Brookings Institution is the latest) argue that a carbon tax is superior.
Oh look, the International Emissions Trading Association is after more mandated business: Copenhagen talks must mandate CDM reform-IETA * U.N. offset scheme stalling, needs reviving -IETA
Gibbs: Don't Confuse Copenhagen-bound Obama With Global Warming Facts Despite the unfolding international "climate change" scandal involving the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, President Barack Obama's ideological presuppositions on global warming remain unshaken, and he will still happily attend the Copenhagen global warming conference. (David Limbaugh, Townhall)
For Public, Climate Change Not A Priority Issue Nearly 100 world leaders are expected to appear at the global warming talks that open Monday in Copenhagen. This is an unprecedented showing of leadership for the issue.
Yet at the same time, public opinion of climate change is souring — particularly in the United States.
Good thing the IPCC is "policy neutral" ;-) UN climate science head hopes for more US action COPENHAGEN — By executive action, the Obama administration can boost the U.S. target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions beyond levels envisioned in legislation
working its way through Congress, the head of the U.N. climate science network said Sunday.
My first agreement with Jimmy: Power Failure: Politicians are fiddling while the planet burns. What's a voter to do? Planet Earth is in imminent peril. We now have clear evidence of the crisis, provided by increasingly detailed information about how Earth responded to perturbing forces
during its history and by observations of changes that are beginning to occur around the globe. The startling conclusion is that continued exploitation of all fossil fuels on
Earth threatens not only the other millions of species on the planet but also the survival of humanity itself—and the timetable is shorter than we thought.
With 20,000 delegates, advocates and journalists jetting to Copenhagen for planet Earth's last chance, the carbon footprint of the global warming summit will be the only
impressive consequence of the climate-change meeting. Its organizers had hoped that it would produce binding caps on emissions, global taxation to redistribute trillions of
dollars, and micromanagement of everyone's choices.
Gotta wonder what planet they are on: UN upbeat on Copenhagen global climate deal The UN's top climate official has given an upbeat assessment on the prospects of a global deal at a climate summit which opens in Copenhagen on Monday.
Copenhagen Talks Tough on Climate Protest Plans COPENHAGEN — At an abandoned beer warehouse in this city’s Valby district, law enforcement officials have constructed an elaborate holding facility with three dozen
steel cages to accommodate over 350 potential troublemakers during a United Nations climate conference that gets under way here on Monday.
Assessing Pre-Blame for Climate-Change Summit Next week's Copenhagen summit on climate change already seems doomed to failure, and voices on both sides of the global-warming debate are trying to pin the blame on
Climategate. Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to use Climategate to scuttle the Democrats' cap-and-trade legislation. Even the Saudis -- who like fossil fuels even more
than Tiger Woods likes the ladies -- are getting in on the act, saying the scandal casts the entire case for global warming in doubt.
Gosh this is embarrassing: Obama just can’t give Rudd the slip Kevin Rudd’s chasing of Barack Obama has become truly farcical. Observe… First Rudd wasn’t going to go to the Copenhagen summit unless it was at the end, to be with Barack Obama::
But Obama then announced he would be at the summit at the start instead::
So Rudd decided he might change his flights to coincide with Obama’s: But within hours Obama said he’d changed his mind and go at the end of the summit:
Which - as I predicted - has now prompted yet another rethink by Rudd, the world’s greatest autograph hunter:
(Andrew Bolt)
The stench of corruption hangs in a pall over the delightful city of Copenhagen. The studied stoking of hysteria in the establishment media is in a crescendo, aimed at a climax next week. Those online readers who wonder why The Times was so quiet on the subject on December 3rd should know that all of us subscribers received a glossy colour magazine entitled Eureka. It purports to be a scientific supplement, but this one is a climate change special. As you would expect, most of it is a travesty of science. What is not fraud is subreption. As an example of the latter, there is a side box entitled Why does carbon dioxide in the air change the temperature? It is based on a simple diagram of the earth with arrows going up and down representing radiation: no mention of water vapour, the dependence of energy distributions on source temperature or absorption/emission spectra – in fact nothing to do with the so-called greenhouse effect at all. There is a page of quotations from eleven green extremists in politics and propaganda, with pencil sketches of each of them. Climategate? What Climategate? The only mitigating feature is a single column by Richard S Lindzen; calm, reasoned and entirely lacking in frenzy. (Number Watch)
Naïve or simply stupid? Leading article: One world, one agenda The world has already changed. Whatever is agreed or not agreed at the summit on climate change that begins in Copenhagen tomorrow, momentous change has already occurred.
It was powerfully mapped in one of the finest films ever, Citizen Kane, the story of progress from youthful idealism, via a series of small unplanned steps, to a climax of total corruption by self-absorption. It has recurred often throughout history: those who achieve supreme power through inheritance, usurpation or other political chicanery, favourites of the king, Hollywood divas, pathologically acquisitive industrial moguls etc. Some of them maintain their status to the end of their lives but few survive the judgement of history. Others head during their lives for the mighty fall and end their time in justifiable ignominy. It has not been something that happens in the cloistered world of science, but until now science has been free of the taint of politics and therefore relatively incorruptible. Suddenly, however, political patronage has become a prime motivator for science. In those stories of old, powerful patronage was one of the movers on the path to megalomania. The world governance movement, after the collapse of the new-ice-age scare, discovered in global warming just what it needed to herd the masses in the desired direction. Furthermore it provided a justification for the grinding taxes that would be necessary to implement international socialist rule. (Number Watch)
Realistic, rational Copenhagen - Don't begrudge the scepticism, it can only help the debate CONSPIRACY theorists on both sides of the climate change debate could do worse than have a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down ahead of next week's Copenhagen summit.
That should give them time to realise that the atmospherics around global warming have shifted dramatically. The planet may still need attention but its citizens are no
longer quite so sure what that should involve. In just a couple of weeks here -- and abroad -- the language and temper of the debate has changed.
Climategate: how the Copenhagen Grinches stole Christmas First they try to steal $45 trillion of our hard-earned cash in the name of “combatting climate change”. Now they steal our holidays too: the organisers of the Copenhagen Summit – COP 15 to use its snappy official name – have banned Christmas. (James Delingpole, TDT)
EU Aims To Raid Aid Budgets For Climate Deal: Oxfam BRUSSELS - Anti-poverty campaign group Oxfam accused European politicians on Sunday of planning to "cannibalize" existing development aid budgets and repackage
them as part of a deal to fight climate change.
Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges Copenhagen is preparing for the climate change summit that will produce as much carbon dioxide as a town the size of Middlesbrough. (TDT)
Copenhagen: limos, private jets and an orgy of celebrities The Copenhagen summit of global warmists is now a huge threat to the planet:
(Andrew Bolt)
Today’s question at “Politico Arena“: “Have the greens failed?” My response: If the greens have failed, it’s not for lack of trying. For years now, in everything from pre-school programs to “educational” ads aimed at adults, they’ve been “greenwashing” our brains. In September the Wall Street Journal reported that the EPA was focusing on children: ”Partnering with the Parent Teacher Organization, the agency earlier this month launched a cross-country tour of 6,000 schools to teach students about climate change and energy efficiency.” Yet for all that effort, the public isn’t buying. As Politico notes this morning: ”The Pew Research Center found that by last January, global warming ’ranked at the bottom of the public’s list of policy priorities for the president and Congress this year.’” And “Independent voters and Republicans ranked it last on a list of 20 priorities, while Democrats ranked it 16th.” Meanwhile, “other polling suggests Americans are growing more skeptical of the science behind climate change, with those who blame human activity for global warming – 36 percent – falling 11 percentage points this year, according to Pew.” And that was before “Climategate” came to light. At bottom, the greens face three basic problems. First, by no means is the science of global warming “settled” — if anything, the fraud Climategate surfaced has settled that question. Second, even if global warming were a settled science, the contribution of human activity is anything but certain. And finally, most important, even if the answers to those two questions were clear, the costs — or benefits — of global warming are unknown, but the costs of the proposals promoted by the greens are astronomical. (Roger Pilon, Cato at liberty)
Sigh... Climate pledges put world on track for 3.5 C warming: experts CURRENT pledges from rich and developing nations for cutting carbon pollution will stoke potentially catastrophic warming by century's end, according to a study released
just before the Copenhagen climate summit begins.
“Produce Proof for Scare Forecasts.” A Statement by Mr Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.
Copenhagen backlash hits a government in denial When Julia Gillard faced the media outside Federal Parliament in Canberra on Wednesday she looked shell-shocked. She then proceeded to give the most jittery, hollow,
nonsensical performance of her career. It was pantomime of the lowest order.
Only one in two voters accepts man-made climate change, according to new poll - Nearly one in two voters believes there is no proof that mankind is causing global warming, according to a new opinion poll. The ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph will dismay proponents of "man-made" climate change – including leading scientists and the majority of world
governments – as they gather in Copenhagen for the landmark climate summit.
WASHINGTON -- With 20,000 delegates, advocates and journalists jetting to Copenhagen for planet Earth's last chance, the carbon footprint of the global warming summit will be the only impressive consequence of the climate change meeting. Its organizers had hoped it would produce binding caps on emissions, global taxation to redistribute trillions of dollars, and micromanagement of everyone's choices. (George Will, Townhall)
Greenwash: The last chance to stop global warming...until next time - The Copenhagen summit is part of a never-ending circus that is about so much more than just climate change
Global Warming in the Hot Seat "... to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough-the prime requisite is rightly to apply it." -Rene Descartes
Bull spit! Politically tricky: Holding the temperature rise to two degrees - Carbon sequestration works, but is among the least cost-effective measures Whatever results, or lack thereof, flow from the Copenhagen conference on climate change, taxpayers have a right to know: What works best in reducing greenhouse-gas
emissions that cause global warming?
Parliament turns out the lights to beat green rooftop protesters Usually the Palace of Westminster at night is lit up brightly for the delight of tourists.
Just for chuckles: Big oil's relentless lobby MONTREAL - As world leaders gather in Copenhagen next week for historic negotiations on climate change, a fierce battle continues in Ottawa between environmental groups
and a powerful army of energy, manufacturing and power utility lobbyists to influence Canadian legislation governing greenhouse gas emissions and billions of tax dollars in
clean energy and emission-reduction subsidies.
Easily identified boycott targets: US business leaders counter critics on climate US lawmakers on Thursday rolled out business leaders who back action on climate change, hoping to counter criticism that a deal at this month's Copenhagen summit would hit
the wobbly US economy.
Bellamy: Twenty-Eight Years on TV, Then Blackballed for Challenging AGW (PJM Exclusive) Climategate hits the media. An illustrious career on the BBC and ITV was cut short when Professor Bellamy came out as a global warming heretic. In 1960, I became a professor at Durham University in England. I taught botany to undergraduates and led research teams at Masters, Ph.D., and postdoctoral levels. Between 1969 and 1996, I was a TV personality. The BBC, rapidly followed by ITV, gave me free rein to inform the world about botany, natural history, and the environment. My media popularity brought me many accolades: I was only the second person to have his photo on the cover of Nature. (Beaten to this position by Charles Darwin, no less!) The caption? “Science is Fun.” Back in those days, it was. I regularly got my research papers published in Nature, that august journal. I also was invited to become trustee, president, vice president, or patron of over 30 organizations, including: WWF, Wildlife Trusts, YHA, Population Concern, Marine Conservation Society, Coral Cay Conservation, Galapagos Conservation Trust, Plantlife, and BTCV. I was also bestowed with media and conservation awards from around the world, including the Dutch Order of the Golden Ark, BAFTA’s Richard Dimbleby Award, and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award for Underwater Research. Then the global warming rot set in. Two media colleagues, Julian Pettifer and Robin Page, were publicly sacked by the BBC — in essence, because they could no longer be viewed as non-biased in their opinions. I can only only assume that, to them, I also fell into that category — because from that point on my career on TV came to an abrupt end. Despite my resume of approximately 400 TV shows. Since that time onwards, anyone who sticks their head out for the anti-wind power or anti-global warming arguments has been subject to vilification, never scientific debate. But I am proud to carry on, sticking my head out for both. Professor David J. Bellamy has authored 35 books and presented approximately 400 television programs. (PJM)
One rollicking climate change debate: Corcoran v. Cary Photo: The Post's Terence Corcoran, left, squares off against Anthony Cary, British High Commissioner to Canada. (Tyler Anderson/National Post; Jana Chytilova/National Post) The following is an exchange between Financial Post columnist Terence Corcoran and Anthony Cary, British High Commissioner to Canada since 2007. You seem to see the whole fuss over climate change as a case of mass hysteria. Naïve, self-hating worshippers at the shrine of Gaia have been bamboozled by generously funded hack scientists into thinking that human activity is to blame for every hot summer, hurricane or drought. It is all a plot by socialists who hate the free market and long to control it. It has the hallmarks of a cult. And so on. I am prepared to meet you halfway. I will grant that climate science is in its infancy. There are so many variables, positive and negative feedback loops and cycles within cycles that only fools or rogues pretend to be sure of what is going on. Our climate models are barely predictive. Let us pray that it is all bunk: that we have mistaken short-term cycles for long-term trends; or that we have overestimated the extent of human causation. But surely even you must accept that you could be wrong. You see yourself, perhaps, as a Galileo, valiantly upholding the truth in the face of persecution. But might you not rather be a flat-Earther, closing your ears to the accumulating evidence for a hypothesis you simply refuse to countenance? The problem for policy-makers — for all of us — is that if the great majority of scientists are right, we face a formidable challenge. And the lead times are long, with GHGs emitted today continuing to drive up temperatures for many years to come. Given the scale of the risk and the relatively low cost of responding to it, the case for urgent and radical action as a simple matter of risk-management seems to me incontrovertible. With warm regards, Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
Gore backs out of his planned hand-shaking appearance in Copenhagen. Perhaps because anyone allowed to get that close might be able to ask a question. (Should Al Gore's
Oscar be rescinded? Take the PJTV
Former Vice President Al Gore is the most recognizable face of the anthropogenic global warming movement. He has authored Gone is the dry, stiff Gore who bored us to death in presidential debates during the 2000 election cycle. His passion for global warming has so enlivened him that he speaks of isotopes and carbon emissions with a fervor befitting an old-timey revival preacher talking about brimstone and fire. London’s Times Online actually went so far as to claim Gore’s passion “invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill” when Gore spoke on global warming at Oxford University in July 2009. But putting aside the fact that Gore has honed his public speaking skills, the fly in the ointment is that he’s a fraud. Like the very global warming movement to which he has attached himself, he’s a snake oil salesman whose sales pitch is laced with scare tactics designed to push the public into embracing a radical, carbon-free agenda that rests on a combination of half-truths and outright fabrications. And Gore’s fraudulence is not only seen in the fact that he pawns a lie, but also in the fact that he refuses to abide by the very lie he pawns. (AWR Hawkins, PJM)
Guest Post by Hans Von Storch: The Sustainability of Climate Science The Sustainability of Climate Science Doing science, creating new knowledge, in German: Wissen schaffen, is a social activity. As all social activities, it can be done sustainably. Or not. Studying classical Chinese language or the dramatic living of Christian IV is most likely done sustainably. The present science will have a bearing on future science, in an enriching way, but not in a limiting manner. The present science will not inhibit the legitimacy of future science. The public will be excited about future knowledge as it is about present newly constructed insights. Research about the forest die back in Germany may serve as an example at the other end of the spectrum. The science of forest damages was in the 1980s heavily politicized, and used as support for a specific preconceived "good" policy of environmental protection. The resulting overselling and dramatization broke down in the 1990s, and news about adverse developments in German forests is now a hard sell in Germany. An observer[i] wrote in 2004: "The damage for the scientists is enormous. Nobody believes them any longer."[ii] Of course, the damage was not only limited to the forest researchers, but also to other environmental scientists and politicians as well. And climate research? Often it is done sustainably, but sometimes not. Some institutions and some publicly visible scientists are known for simplifying and dramatizing statements of what one would expect from NGOs, e.g., "Coal-fired power plants are factories of death."[iii] A communication of drama is intended to "move", to initiate "action". The science is supposed to support a preconceived political agenda of something "good". Overselling takes place in the triangle between policy, media and science. It goes with a risk[iv]: The risk for policy-makers is in the possibility that the goals set in this manner cannot be achieved, the ‘‘loss of legitimacy due to taking on too much.’’ The media primarily fear the ‘‘loss of public attention,’’ due to concepts and conceptual fields becoming worn out. For science, the principal risk is the ‘‘loss of credibility due to the particular dynamic of the catastrophe metaphor’’, or any other characteristic misleading concept. Exploiting short-term "advantages" in the public-political discourse by simplification and dramatization for furthering a pre-conceived agenda helps generating attention and short-lived support for this agenda, but can hardly maintained for a long time as required in case of climate change policies. Attributing hurricane Katrina to climate change made headlines, and depicting global warming as an uninterrupted continuous upward trend made the understanding of the concept of global warming easier. But, later, we have to pay a price. There were no more Hurricane-disasters like Katrina's since 2005, and warming is stagnating in the last years. Both facts are not surprising for the climate researcher. They are consistent with the scientific understanding of the phenomenon named "Global Warming". However they are at odds with the simplifying-dramatizing communication strategy and with the resulting medial construction. The maximization of short-term utility goes with a prize: The public will understand that it has been manipulated, and that it had not honestly been advised by its publicly funded social institution "science". Admittedly, manipulated for something, which has been perceived by certain elites as "good" – but what is the principal difference in this respect between Greenpeace and Exxon? The effect is twofold. First, the public will no longer believe in the "story", or consider it merely entertainment – and people will effectively become sceptics. Certainly the contrary of the originally intended effect! Second, the public will be unable to distinguish the social institution science[v] and value-based NGOs – with the latter being considerably cheaper in delivering the same politically useful knowledge claims! (Roger Pielke Jr)
In addition to the excellent Pajamas Media interview, I recommend the also well done interview by Andy Revkin titled Critic of ‘Climate Oligarchy’ Defends Case for CO2-Driven Warming at Dot Earth [although the more complete and accurate title would be "Critic of 'Climate Oligarchy' Defends Case For Human Driven Climate Change"]. (Climate Science)
There is an erroneous statement by Tom Karl, Director of the National Data Climate Center [NCDC] with respect to the role of land use/land cover change on climate. It is so easy to refute his claim, so I am puzzled why he wants to show this lack of knowledge. The excellent news article where the erroneous information from Karl appeared is In e-mails, science of warming is hot debate – Stolen files of ‘Climate-gate’ suggest some viewpoints on change are disregarded by David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, December 5, 2009. (Climate Science)
Himalayan glaciers melting deadline 'a mistake' The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.
Can Global Warming Predictions be Tested with Observations of the Real Climate System? In a little over a week I will be giving an invited paper at the Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, in a special session devoted to feedbacks in the climate system. If you don’t already know, feedbacks are what will determine whether anthropogenic global warming is strong or weak, with cloud feedbacks being the most uncertain of all. In the 12 minutes I have for my presentation, I hope to convince as many scientists as possible the futility of previous attempts to estimate cloud feedbacks in the climate system. And unless we can measure cloud feedbacks in nature, we can not test the feedbacks operating in computerized climate models. (Roy W. Spencer)
Jean Borlee is standing in a prairie field dotted with pumpjacks, round bales of hay, cattle and cow pies because his company, Luxembourg's steel giant Arcelor Mittal SA,
needs help.
Another eye-roller: Climate Bill Can Benefit Farmers Despite Higher Costs, USDA Says Farmers have more to gain than lose from a cap-and-trade regime for greenhouse gases, despite estimates that they could see significantly higher production costs,
according to a new analysis from the Agriculture Department.
More wasted money: Feds give clean coal projects $979M Multibillion-dollar clean coal projects in West Virginia, Texas and Alabama are getting $979 million in federal stimulus funding, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Friday.
China’s Auto Industry Zooms Ahead By Xina Xie, Michael Economides, and Robert BryceDec. 4 2009, 3:11 EST In November, auto sales in China continued their torrid growth, with sales up by 93% compared with November 2008. Furthermore, those Chinese auto transactions accounted for a quarter of total global sales, the highest proportion ever recorded. [Read More] (Energy Tribune)
Stifling Innovation by Subsidizing It In 2007, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program was created in the Department of Energy to support the development of advanced (i.e., “green”) technology vehicles. Last year Congress appropriated $7.5 billion to support a maximum of $25 billion in loans. So far, the subsidies have been dished out to Ford ($5.9 billion), Nissan ($1.6 billion), Tesla Motors ($465 million), and Fisker Automotive ($528 million). (Tad DeHaven, Cato at liberty)
Power Politics: Enron Lives! (From Ken Lay’s “natural gas standard” to cap & trade today) by Robert Bradley Jr.
As director of public policy analysis in my last seven years at Enron, I participated in many legislative and regulatory debates involving electricity, although the public policy thrust of the company was the opposite of what I personally believed was good social policy. While I favored free markets, the business model of Ken Lay (a PhD economist with years of Washington regulatory experience) centered on special government favor. Enron, for example, had seven profit centers geared to government pricing/rationing of carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions. And in the 1990s, the company was squarely behind a Btu tax. Today, Enron would be pushing cap and trade and a federal renewables mandate–and a lot of mandated energy efficiency with its profit centers in mind. Backing Gas Ken Lay’s political niche began innocently enough with a unique, highly focused natural gas strategy, one that would culminate in Enron’s 1995 self-description as “the world’s first natural gas major.” In pursuit of that goal, Lay promoted gas-fired power generation relative to coal. He countered the coal lobby’s contention that the 1970s shortages were the inevitable result of a tiring North American gas resource base. “We had a surplus of regulation, not a shortage of gas,” Lay would say, and Enron backed up its claim by offering utilities long-term fixed-priced gas contracts. Enron also challenged the tendency of electric utilities to opt for coal plants over gas plants because, under public-utility regulation, the former’s higher capital cost created more rate base and thus more profits. Citing new combined-cycle technology, Enron made the case that gas was economically and environmentally superior to coal for new capacity. For example, in March 1992, Enron unveiled “the natural gas standard” in letters, press releases, and speeches. The standard, set forth under Lay’s signature, declared: [Read more →] (MasterResource)
No quick switch to low-carbon energy In the first of two pieces on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, Gert Jan Kramer and Martin Haigh analyse historic growth in energy systems to explain why deploying alternative technologies will be a long haul. (Gert Jan Kramer and Martin Haigh, Nature)
Chevron-Japan gas deal is Australia's largest US OIL giant Chevron Corp has sealed a massive $90 billion contract - the biggest energy deal in Australian history - to supply natural gas to Tokyo Electric Power Company
and sell the Japanese utility a stake in its Wheatstone project.
Bloomberg Drops an Effort to Cut Building Energy Use After intense opposition from building owners, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has dropped the most far-reaching initiative of his plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
PG&E to Buy and Run Own 246 MW Wind Farm Utilities got a boost last year, when the new investment tax credits from the federal government were extended to allow public utilities to qualify for the full credit, to help utilities invest in renewable power. (SciAm)
by Kent Hawkins Posts at Knowledge Problem acknowledge the range of results from Part I and Part II in my series; Katzenstein and Apt; and an article by Michael Milligan et al, Wind Power Myths Debunked, but attribute much of the differences to characteristics of the power system to which wind power is added. However, although results will vary by jurisdiction, the differences I reported are not derived from this consideration but from general issues with respect to wind power integration. Milligan claims low reductions from the theoretical maximum (negligible to 7 per cent), apparently from Gross et al’s literature review, but this does not survive critical assessment. The work of Katzenstein and Apt is cited in the bibliography to Part I, even though they show that as much as 75–80 per cent of the CO2 emissions reductions presently assumed by policy makers is realized. The reason for its inclusion is that the underlying approach is used in the calculator. The difference is that the calculator takes into account the limitations that they acknowledge in their article, for example:
Even so, according to the Knowledge Problem post, they have been criticized as overstating the need for backup power supplies by Mills et al, and that geographic diversity helps to smooth out variability. In an update to the post attention is drawn to the Milligan article. This article contains often used, and questionable, arguments to support the ability of wind to offset fuel consumption and the resulting emissions despite its high degree of variability. The following addresses some examples of these. [Read more →] (MasterResource)
Big electricity role predicted as coal-gas project fires up - Gov't pledges $285M over15 years to Swan Hills Synfuels Alberta Energy Minister Mel Knight says the process of extracting synthetic gas from coal is a good fit with other forms of power generation in the province. John Lucas,
The Journal, File Alberta Energy Minister Mel Knight says the process of extracting synthetic gas from coal is a good fit with other forms of power generation in the
province.
Lars Christian Bacher: Statoil's oil sands pragmatist - Statoil chief discusses priorities in his first Canadian interview When Statoil ASA brought Lars Christian Bacher to Calgary, the company named him president of its Canadian operations and gave him a mandate to get bitumen out of the oil
sands - and, when that's done, think about getting more of the land around Fort McMurray into the portfolio.
Sasol To Study Possible Indonesia Coal-to-liquids Project JOHANNESBURG -- Sasol Ltd. (SSL), the world's largest producer of motor fuels from coal, Thursday said it has agreed to study the viability of an integrated
coal-to-liquids project in Indonesia using its proprietary technology.
New nuclear facilities announced A research centre and factory to support the UK's civil nuclear industry are to be based in South Yorkshire, the government has announced.
No tumour link to mobile phones, says study A very large, 30-year study of just about everyone in Scandinavia shows no link between mobile phone use and brain tumours, researchers reported on Thursday.
Tasers protect police and save suspects: study NEW YORK - Police departments that use "stun" devices like the Taser and other "less lethal weapons" such as pepper spray can expect to see rates of
injury among suspects and officers drop dramatically, according to the first federal government-backed analysis of multiple police department arrest records.
Drug treatment for swine flu getting to kids faster WASHINGTON - More than 80 percent of U.S. children severely ill with H1N1 flu have been treated swiftly with antiviral drugs, a trend that could be saving lives, U.S.
health officials said on Friday.
Chickenpox vaccine may protect kids from shingles CHICAGO - Children who get vaccinated against chickenpox may have a lower risk of developing shingles, a painful rash caused by the chickenpox virus, U.S. researchers said
on Friday.
Pa. school drops required fitness class for obese OXFORD, Pa. — Obese students at a historically black college near Philadelphia won't have to take a fitness class to graduate after all.
Science rescues children from obesity police SOCIAL WORKERS have been told to think again about putting overweight children on “at risk” registers after scientists found that obesity can be linked to a genetic
defect.
Obesity activists a public health threat Did you know your soda is a public health menace?
Obesity Research Not So Reliable? Public health crusaders like Kelly Brownell have long demonized sugar-sweetened beverages in an effort to get governments to tax them. As support for this questionable proposal, they claim scientific research shows a “link” between consumption of sugared drinks and a rise in obesity rates. But a study released this week casts doubt on the whole premise of this demonization campaign. As Food Navigator reports, new research in the International Journal of Obesity finds the supposed “link” between sugary drinks and obesity may suffer from significant biases—the same sort of bias that the food police endlessly complain about. Researchers from the University of Alabama examined how studies on sugar-sweetened beverages were cited in later research. They concluded that the results of two studies—which showed a statistically insignificant link between sugary drink consumption and obesity—were later overstated by future researchers, and then by the media. Why? Because of what these researchers call “white hat bias,” or the tendency to distort results to fit a preconceived notion of who the “bad guys” in the obesity debate are. In this case, the “black hats” are worn by sports drinks, soda, and chocolate milk, even though there is plenty of under-the-media-radar evidence to the contrary. Dietitian Monica Reinagel sums it up:
As we’ve documented, there’s plenty of scientific research that fails to suggest sugary drinks are a unique contributor to obesity. By ignoring the lack of scientific consensus and donning “white hats,” Brownell and other public health activists have simply created a red herring. Is anyone surprised? (Center for Consumer Freedom)
NZ's obesity rate blamed on alcohol A nutritionist says alcohol is a leading factor in New Zealand's obesity rates.
Ilya Shapiro warns us that the U.S. Supreme Court probably will not uphold property rights in a case involving Florida beachfront property. But property rights did receive an unexpected boost in New York yesterday, where an appeals court overturned a taking for the benefit of Columbia University.
New York state is not a particularly friendly venue to property rights, but the judges rightly saw through the claims made by state official to justify seizing property from a private person for the benefit of a private organization. The ruling could be reversed, but nevertheless is an important affirmation that property rights warrant constitutional and legal protection even in New York. (Doug Bandow, Cato at liberty)
Mirror, Mirror on the Newsstand... "Mirror, mirror on the wall, what in the land is greenest of all?”
Federal forests could be tasked with fighting global warming If forests are the planet's lungs, few breathe deeper than those in Oregon.
After Delays, Vaccine to Counter Bad Beef Is Being Tested HOLYOKE, Colo. — Jason Timmerman coaxed a balky calf into a chute on his feedlot one recent afternoon and jabbed a needle into its neck. He was injecting the animal with
a new vaccine to make it immune to a dangerous form of the E. coli bacteria.
Technical Announcement: Man-Made Chemicals Low in Public Wells Groundwater tested from selected community water systems in 14 states contains low levels of man-made organic chemicals, according to studies conducted by the U.S.
Geological Survey.
Sigh... Will Big Business Save the Earth? THERE is a widespread view, particularly among environmentalists and liberals, that big businesses are environmentally destructive, greedy, evil and driven by short-term
profits. I know — because I used to share that view.
Climate Change In Brazil: Follow The Meat PORTO VELHO - At an experimental government farm in the western Amazon's Rondonia state, researchers analyze grass seeds under microscopes, shake soil samples in test
tubes, and measure the milk production of a new breed of cows.
Extinction, Climate Change & Modeling Mayhem Climate and environmental scientists have become dependent on computer models in recent decades. The scientific literature and the popular press are filled with strident warnings of impending natural disasters, all predicated on the output of computer programs. The IPCC has solemnly predicted that climate change will drive thousands of species to extinction if anthropogenic global warming is not reined in. The coprophagous press has uncritically swallowed these computer generated droppings, reporting conjecture as fact and possibilities and certainties. Even though the climate change faithful continue to blindly believe the IPCC predictions, at least some researchers are aware of the glaring flaws in their computer models. In a perspective article in the November 6, 2009, issue of the journal Science, Kathy J. Willis and Shonil A. Bhagwat, both from the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, provide a look at what were termed some “novel conclusions” drawn from several recent modeling studies. Novel here is obfuscated science speak for “not inline with the consensus view.” The studies in question were all attempting to address the impact of climate change on biodiversity—the number and variety of species the Earth's environment can sustain. Here is how the authors described their report:
M. Luoto and R. K. Heikkinen, in their study of the predictive accuracy of bioclimatic envelope models, concluded that the topographic scale incorporated into a model's calculations had a significant impact on the model's accuracy. The study, “Disregarding topographical heterogeneity biases species turnover assessments based on bioclimatic models,” assessed models based on the relation between current climate variables and present-day species distributions. Specifically, models intended to predict the future distribution of 100 European butterfly species. They found that a model that included climate, along with the range of elevations and other topographical variations, predicted only half of the species losses in mountainous areas for the period from 2051 to 2080 when compared with a climate-only model. The inclusion of elevation range as a factor increased the predictive accuracy for 86 of the 100 species. The European peacock butterfly remains unaffected by climate change. In another study, “Climate change and plant distribution: local models predict high-elevation persistence,” C. F. Randin et al. assessed the influence of spatial scale on predictions of habitat loss by species distribution models (SDM). Their bioclimatic model attempted to predict the survival of alpine plant species in the Swiss Alps. When the model was run using a 16 km by 16 km (10 mile by 10 mile) grid cells the model predicted a loss of all suitable habitats during the 21st century. When they changed the model's grid to a much finer 25 m by 25 m (80 ft by 80 ft) cell size the same model predicted persistence of suitable habitats for up to 100% of the plant species. The authors attributed these differences to the failure of the coarser spatial-scale model to capture local topographic diversity, as well as the complexity of spatial patterns in climate driven by topography. These two studies suggest that habitat heterogeneity resulting from topographic diversity may be essential for species survival in a changing climate, but that is not the observation I find to be most important here. What I find revealing is that structural changes to a computational model can have such dramatic impact on the model's results. Note that general circulation models (GCM) operate on scales of tens or even hundreds of kilometers, leading most modelers to admit that they are not very good at predicting things like clouds, precipitation or land cover changes (for a more detailed discussion of GCM programs see “Why Climate Modeling Is Not Climate Science”). Why not run all models with much finer grid scales if that would improve their predictive performance? The main problem is a lack of computer power. IBM p690 cluster at the John von Neumann Institute for Computing. GCM already run on some of the world's largest super computers. Reducing a model's grid size from 100 km to 10 km results in a 100 fold increase in the number of calculations needed for a single time step, too large for even the most powerful super computers. Reducing the grid to 10 m increases the computational burden by a staggering 100,000,000 times. There will be no computer hardware capable of supporting models of this scale for decades. It seems we are stuck with wonky models for the foreseeable future. Missing factors, often ignored in climate models to help reduce code complexity and the number of necessary calculations, can also significantly alter a model's results. Highly variable, often contradictory predictions have been obtained when modeling tropical ecosystems. Many studies have indicated that increased atmospheric CO2 affects photosynthesis rates and enhances net primary productivity, yet previous climate-vegetation simulations have not take this into account. A study examining the “plant food effect” of carbon dioxide was reported in an article, “Exploring the range of climate biome projections for tropical South America: The role of CO2 fertilization and seasonality,” in the July 3, 2009, issue of Global Biogeochemical Cycles. D. M. Lapola et al. developed a new model for tropical South America that included the effects of elevated CO2 levels on vegetation. Contrary to the consensus view—that global warming will damage the world's rainforests—they found that fertilization effects overwhelm the negative impacts arising from rising temperature. Verdant rainforests flourish with rising carbon dioxide levels. Lapola et al. drove their new model with many different climate scenarios predicting conditions at the end of the 21st century, scenarios generated by 14 coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM from the IPCC Fourth Assessment report. One of the widely reported side effects of global warming is supposed to be decimation of the world's tropical rainforests. Rather than the large-scale die-off of tropical plant life predicted previously, tropical rainforests remain the same or became wetter and even more productive. Again, from predicted destruction to even more verdant growth—yet we are asked to believe that the old models are accurate. Not all climate science researchers are blind to the problems and limitations of their computer software playthings. Admitting this in public is another matter, however. As reported in the Washington Times, Kevin E. Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a prominent man-made-global-warming advocate, in a private email wrote: “The fact is we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.” While we are on the subject of the failings of climate modeling and the unsupportable claims made by the IPCC and its associates, I can not help but mention the revelations brought forth by the leaked “climategate” emails. As reported by Marc Morano, on the Climate Depot website, these highly disturbing emails show how Dr Philip Jones and his colleagues at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) have for years been discussing devious tactics to bias climate data and avoid releasing the raw data to outsiders under freedom of information laws. The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a list of the IPCC's scientific elite, such as Dr Michael “hockey stick” Mann who's graph turned climate history on its head 10 years ago by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age; Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa; Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC's 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Dr James Hansen, whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the now suspect CRU. Not satisfied with hoarding their data and manipulating the results, the conspirators acted to suppress open scientific debate by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal that dared to publish their critics’ work. Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute, told The Wall Street Journal: “This is what everyone feared. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone who does not view global warming as an end-of-the-world issue to publish papers. This isn't questionable practice, this is unethical.” As I have said previously on this website, when the lengths to which global warming extremists have gone to “support” their case becomes known, many scientific reputations will be ruined and climate science itself will be cast into disrepute. I had not expected the truth to be revealed so quickly or so dramatically. It is tragic, even criminal, that the mendacity of a number of bad scientists has so poisoned the debate about climate change and its possible implications. Reaction to the scandal ranges from disgust to calls for criminal prosecution and sadly, even denial by climate change true believers. As reported on this blog, there are a large number of serious, dedicated scientists doing good work studying Earth's climate and ecology. These scientists understand the limited scope of mankind's understanding, the lack of accurate historical data, and, above all else, the limitations of computer models. After posting “Global Warming Predictions Invalidated,” I received correspondence from a number of TRE readers asking why I was so dismissive of modeling results. Their argument was that surely—even though myriad corrections and new factors need to be added to existing models—the old models could still be considered valid. Including new factors would simply make the models more accurate, their argument went. WRONG! Computer models are highly non-linear—a seemingly insignificant change to a model's grid scale, time step or a coefficient in an equation can have a dramatic impact on the model's output. As was demonstrated by Randin et al., changing only the grid size of a model can change the result from a loss of all plant habitats to the survival of all affected plant species. From every thing dies to everything lives without changing any of the basic assumptions present in the model. No IPCC climate model predicted the temperature trend over the past decade. Now consider the “travesty” of the IPCC's models not being able to predict the past decade's lack of climate warming and the truth about computer models should begin to sink in—they are not reliable predictors of real-world climate change. The only reason the old models gave answers that appeared “correct” is because those were the answers that the modelers expected. It is easy to deceive yourself when you have a billion dollar computer model to manufacture lies you already believe in. The data were “adjusted” and the models tweaked and tuned until they predicted the future their creators desired, not the future that nature would produce. I reiterate, whether trying to predict temperatures or extinctions, none of the IPCC's computer model projections are valid. Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
December 4, 2009
The story of manmade global warming is over. In reality it never existed except in the minds and hearts of grant-seeking scientists and academics, ratings-obsessed television networks and their misinformed viewers and opportunistic eco-activists. [Read More] (Art Horn, Energy Tribune)
Academy — Take Back Gore’s Oscar! Academy voters Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd call on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rescind Al Gore's award.
For Immediate Release Los Angeles, CA — Today, Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Oscar nominees, called on the Academy to rescind Al Gore’s Oscar in light of the Climategate revelations. Simon, also the CEO of Pajamas Media and PJTV, said the following during his and Chetwynd’s co-hosted Poliwood program on PJTV:
Climategate began on November 19th, when a whistleblower released a series of documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. These documents exposed a coordinated effort among climate scientists to distort the facts regarding man-made “Global Warming.” To view all of these documents, visit: http://www.climate-gate.org/. Click here for the Poliwood Highlighted Version, and here for the Poliwood Full Length Version. (PJM)
The End of the Line for Climate Hysteria? Global warming: the junk science of the modern age. Following the release into the webworld of hacked emails, computer codes, and a raft of supplementary documents recording the antics of sundry paleoclimatolgists at the University of East Anglia’s influential Climate Research Unit, it has now become ice-crystal clear not only that the world has been cooling for the last decade, but that the global warming crusade is an environmental racket of historical proportions. Many “climate skeptics” and independent researchers have long known this to be the case and have understood that the motivating factor behind this massive and unprecedented fraud is the unsavory quest for power and profit on the part of governments, corporations, and ambitious individuals, scientists as well as entrepreneurs. The evidence for data tampering and all manner of hocus-pocus was available some time ago for anyone who cared to look. There is a rapidly growing adversarial bibliography on the subject of climate change which anyone interested in the global warming controversy might do well to consult. A partial list would include: Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery; An Appeal to Reason, by Nigel Lawson; Climate Confusion, by Roy Spencer; Meltdown, by Patrick Michaels; Taken by Storm, by Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick; Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science, by Ian Plimer; Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them, by Steven Milloy; and The Deniers, by Lawrence Solomon. (David Solway, PJM)
Climategate: Science Is Dying - Science is on the credibility bubble. Surely there must have been serious men and women in the hard sciences who at some point worried that their colleagues in the global warming movement were putting at risk
the credibility of everyone in science. The nature of that risk has been twofold: First, that the claims of the climate scientists might buckle beneath the weight of their
breathtaking complexity. Second, that the crudeness of modern politics, once in motion, would trample the traditions and culture of science to achieve its own policy goals.
With the scandal at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, both have happened at once.
Climate science's PR disaster - ‘Climategate' brings a long-running and bitter battle into the open Steve McIntyre is a mild-mannered Toronto businessman who dabbles in statistics as a hobby. But to some climate scientists, he's Public Enemy No.1. They mention him often
in their e-mails and try to make sure his criticisms of their work aren't published. “They're really showing a siege mentality,” he says.
Storm continues to swirl around Climategate, as multiple investigations get under way When e-mails of climate scientists hacked from a British University were published online, the reverberations were heard around the world.
Furor Over Climate Triggers U.K. Probe The British university at the heart of a scandal over climate-change research announced a wide-ranging probe into allegations that its scientists manipulated data about
global warming.
ClimateGate: So, where’s the “Oh, Snap!” email? ClimateGate: So, where’s the “Oh, Snap!” email? Guest post by Christopher Horner, Planet Gore at National Review Online One thing about “ClimateGate” nagging at the back of my mind is the absence of any discussion by ringleader Phil Jones (or others) of the remarkable, shocking discovery that Jones now claims he had that his precedessor destroyed the raw data in the 1980s. That is the data that scientists have for years been seeking from Jones under the UK’s freedom of information law. Against numerous such requests he offered equally numerous excuses for refusing access culminating with the September 2009 claim – when it looked like he’d been cornered and had no excuses not to provide it to Prof. Ross McKitrick who met all of his long-stated qualifications – that in fact he’d lost it. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Throwing Jones to the wolves? Climategate: UN panel on climate change to investigate claims The United Nations panel on climate change is to investigate claims that scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit manipulated global warming data.
The controversy was sparked by the publication of hacked emails on websites run by climate change sceptics, possibly in a bid to derail next week's Copenhagen conference. The websites suggested that scientists had manipulated data to support a theory of man-made climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), told BBC Radio 4's The Report programme the claims were serious and he wanted them investigated. ''We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it,'' he said. ''We certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail.'' (TDT)
No honor amongst sleaze: Climategate: Phil Jones accused of making error of judgment by colleague - Phil Jones, the professor at the centre of a row over climate change data, has been accused of making an error of judgment by his US colleague. Prof Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has been accused of manipulating climate change data following thousands of leaked
documents that suggested academics delete sensitive emails to evade Freedom of Information requests from climate change sceptics.
Pennsylvania State University’s Climategate guy, hockey stick creator Michael Mann, has already come under scrutiny from the school over suspicions that he manipulated data to fit his global warming alarmism faith. For good measure state Senator Jeffrey Piccola, chairman of the Education Committee, wants to make sure PSU president Graham Spanier follows through, as he explained in a letter he sent today:
Piccola’s take-home message for Spanier is if his investigation is a whitewash, then the PA Senate Education Committee will conduct its own look-see-find. Hat tip: Commonwealth Foundation, which on Monday made their own request for an investigation of Mann. (Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute)
Dr. Ben Santer, one of the climate modelers who works on the public dime at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has called all his comrades to join him in a weep-fest over the “crime” of Climategate. Of course this bully who wanted to “beat the crap out of” former Virginia state climatologist Pat Michaels thinks he’s the victim, as he explains in a letter to “colleagues and friends:”
How the Climategate emails were extracted from the UEA CRUnit may or may not have been a “criminal act” — that has still not been determined. But Dr. Thug clearly doesn’t understand how this whole public/private nature of correspondence is categorized. Let me explain. Private emails between two or more parties: These are sent and delivered between personal email accounts such as those set up for individuals and private businesses on services like Google and Yahoo! You know, like the personal accounts that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin utilized last year that were illegally hacked. Public emails subject to open scrutiny and broad dissemination: These only need to be sent by, or delivered to, at least one email address that is a public, government institution funded by taxpayers. An example in Great Britain would be the University of East Anglia, where Phil Jones was once director of the CRU. Another example, in the U.S., would be the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where every employee has a “llnl.gov” email address. That “dot-gov” suffix is a dead giveaway. I suppose there are exceptions in the law for LLNL and other government agencies to withhold documents and emails from the public for national security purposes. Much as Santer might like to think global warming is one of those exemptions, I doubt he could successfully make a legal case for that. So Santer’s messages to Jones and others at UEA were not “private” or “personal” correspondence. If he wanted them to be, he should not have used his llnl.gov email account with his official LLNL affiliation in the signature line. He should know better, since LLNL makes clear those distinctions. But if he did want to communicate with Jones on that level, I doubt he could have conducted official government business — such as discussion of climate data — on a Google account. That would have been evading public scrutiny. A Santer-Jones Google exchange would have had to been about the merits of U.S. vs. European football or something like that. One last thing about Santer: he might want to review LLNL’s “Mission, Vision and Values” statement “that guides the way we accomplish our work and the way we interact with each other, our colleagues, sponsors and stakeholders, and the public.” Included among the values:
How the desire to “beat the crap out of” someone who is a fellow scientist, and who is also a taxpayer who helps pay his salary, is in accord with these above values is something I’d love to hear Santer explain. But from the looks of his whiny letter, he’s of a completely different mindset. He thinks that while he’s on the public payroll that he has the right to intimidate dissenters, and to keep everything he writes in his LLNL role a secret. Clearly he hates accountability to his bosses. Looks like there’s no other choice for him, then, but to quit. (Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute)
Climate change has mutated from a debate into a catechism. With so much at stake, says Fraser Nelson, can we afford to dispense with rational argument?
Climategate – it ain’t just about the weather Climategate is about a lot more than climate. It’s about science and its relationship to politics and profit, the academy, the state and, perhaps most importantly, information control. The manner through which we learn (or thought we did) important knowledge about key aspects of our existence, the way things are hidden, has been exposed in this one instance like the Wizard of Oz. It’s obvious similar methods of control apply to many other information sources in our society. That is why Barbara Boxer is in shrill blaming-the-messenger mode, insisting that any Congressional investigation of Climategate would target the nefarious “hacker.” She realizes a great unraveling could come from this. So do to the global bureaucrats at the UN and the EU as they prepare for the Copenhagen conference. It is also why the mainstream media was so slow to report the East Anglia CRU emails and documents. They know that if you begin to report these things, you have to report on a lot of other things they have so scrupulously chosen to avoid. (Roger L. Simon, PJM)
Yet Another Scandal: the Letter The Times Wouldn’t Publish On November 24, The Times published a disgraceful piece by David
Aaronovitch, which plainly traduced Lord Lawson of Blaby, Dr. Benny Peiser, and the new Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).
‘The Clamour of the Times’ commented on Aaronovitch’s temper tantrum here.
I repeat one of his paragraphs, just as a reminder:
ClimateGate gets even more bizarre ClimateGate is serious. When prominent climate scientists fudge results, refuse FOIA requests, take steps to restrict publication of dissident views, etc., it’s serious business, especially when their global temperature records were used by policymakers to call for a transformation of modern economies. However, there is some humor in ClimateGate. Here’s some odd stuff a commenter on the website Climate Audit picked up as a result of checking out the file HARRY_READ_ME.txt - one of the hacked files. The “Harry” file tells the tortured story of a programmer at CRU struggling to make sense of inconsistent, missing, and incompatible data files and seemingly to try to replicate them. Many of those files had earlier been compiled by someone named “Tim,” who seems to have really made a mess of things. According to the commenter, this “Tim” seems to be Tim Mitchell - who worked at the Climactic Research Unit at University of East Anglia when he was a Ph.D. student and then received his degree. At the time, he also was a member of — no joke — South Park Evangelical Church, as he notes in his religious writings on climate change and religion. Here’s an example:
That does make me a little uncomfortable about this guy being in charge of global temperature records to show we’re destroying the earth. Can’t check out his academic/research papers at CRU. Surprisingly, they’ve been taken down. (Fran Smith, Cooler Heads)
Climategate: stopping the news at our borders Which country’s media is least willing to report on Climategate? John Roskam divides Google mentions per country of origin by population, and confirms your suspicions: (Andrew Bolt Blog)
In the 10 days since we first blogged about “ClimateGate” — the unauthorized release of e-mails and other material from the Climate Research Unit (C.R.U.) at East Anglia University in Norwich, England — it’s become strikingly clear that one’s view of the issue is deeply colored by his or her incoming biases. No surprise there, but still, the demarcation is clear. One of the best indicators: when you stumble onto a blog post about the topic, you can tell which way the wind is blowing simply by looking at the banner ad at the top of the site: if it’s for an M.B.A. in Sustainable Business, you’re going to hear one thing about ClimateGate; if the ad shows Al Gore with a Pinocchio nose, meanwhile — well, you get the idea. (Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics)
COLUMN: Climate change revealing itself as confidence game Have you ever been had, taken for a ride, as in deceived, misled, bamboozled?
Researcher: NASA hiding climate data The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has
landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.
An eye-opening “global cooling consensus” CIA document dated 1974 has just been re-discovered in the British Library by Yours Truly and is extensively mentioned today in the (printed) pages of The Spectator (UK) and Il Foglio (Italy). (updated 20091203 – 1042am GMT – the (suitably degraded) scan of the Spectator article is at the bottom of this blog) (updated 20091203 – 1105am GMT – HOLD IT-THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THE SCRIBD LINK!! – ANOTHER ONE WILL BE PROVIDED SHORTLY – the CIA document is now online thanks to Guido Guidi and Climate Monitor) (updated 20091203 – 1143am GMT – the PDF of the CIA document is now available online thanks to Guido Guidi and Climate Monitor) “A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems” will make quite an embarrassing reading, especially for:
And there is more (much more), from ever-improving climate models promising to become good in a few years’ time to the unsettling apparent ease with which Government agencies then (as now) could get scientists to agree on whatever they needed them to agree on. Nobody aware of the CIA document’s contents should be able to avoid a good chuckle after reading any of the current AGW reports on famine, starvation, refugee crises, floods, droughts, crop and monsoon failures, and all sorts of extreme weather phenomena; on climate-related major economic problems around the world; on Africans getting in climate troubles first; and so on and so forth. Why? Because it is all too clear that those scares cannot be real, since they have already been mentioned verbatim in all their dramatic effect, but about Global Cooling. The whole lot of them, they are just empty threats, instruments of doom-and-gloom policy manipulation with no relation to reality. It is deeply ironic that it takes a 35-year-old document, available on the web so far only in title, to show the absolute vacuity of the vast majority of pre-COP15 reports and studies. It is time to ditch everything we hear about collapsing ice sheets, disappearing glaciers, species extinctions, and each and every “it’s worse than we thought” report by “scientists”. It is time to become climate adults. As I wrote for The Spectator:
(stay tuned for the full text of the Spectator article, and the PDF of the PDF of the CIA document) (*) Anybody thinking about Thomas C. Peterson, William M. Connolley, and John Fleck’s largely mistitled “The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus” (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Volume 89, Issue 9, September 2008, pp 1325-1337)? Well, think again after reading this little gem of theirs:
As I wrote a little more than a year ago: “Widely accepted”: check. “Global cooling”: check.. There was a global cooling consensus among scientists, at least up to 1974. And it went on to appear in Newsweek, The Washington Post, The New York Times and many more media outlets around the world, at least up to 1976. CASE CLOSED. UPDATED: This is the scanned Spectator article (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)
Fraudulent hockey sticks and hidden data These maps and graphs make it clear just how brazen the fraud of the Hockey Stick is.It’s clear that the world was warmer during medieval times. Marked on the map are study after study (all peer-reviewed) from all around the world with results of temperatures from the medieval time compared to today. These use ice cores, stalagmites, sediments, and isotopes. They agree with 6,144 boreholes around the world which found that temperatures were about 0.5°C warmer world wide. What follows is a sordid tale of a graph that overthrew decades of work, conveniently fitted the climate models, and was lauded triumphantly in glossy publication after publication. But then it was crushed when an unpaid analyst stripped it bare. It had been published in the highest most prestigious journal, Nature, but no one had checked it before or after it was spread far and wide. Not Nature, not the IPCC, not any other climate researcher. In 1995 everyone agreed the world was warmer in medieval times, but CO2 was low then and that didn’t fit with climate models. In 1998, suddenly Michael Mann ignored the other studies and produced a graph that scared the world — tree rings show the “1990’s was the hottest decade for a thousand years”. Now temperatures exactly “fit” the rise in carbon! The IPCC used the graph all over their 2001 report. Government departments copied it. The media told everyone. But Steven McIntyre was suspicious. He wanted to verify it, yet Mann repeatedly refused to provide his data or methods — normally a basic requirement of any scientific paper. It took legal action to get the information that should have been freely available. Within days McIntyre showed that the statistics were so flawed that you could feed in random data, and still make the same hockey stick shape nine times out of ten. Mann had left out some tree rings he said he’d included. If someone did a graph like this in a stock prospectus, they would be jailed. (Jo Nova)
NAAQS Petition Confirms Mass v. EPA Is Bottomless Well of Absurd Results Yesterday, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and 350.org petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for carbon dioxide (CO2) pegged at 350 parts per million (ppm). CO2 concentrations are currently about 387 ppm. The CBD is the eco-litigation group that successfully sued the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. I’ll have more to say about the specifics of the CBD-350.org petition (available here) in a later post. For now, I just want to note that the petition is additional confirmation that Massachusetts v. EPA, the April 2007 Supreme Court global warming case, is a bottomless well of absurd results that imperil both our economy and the U.S. Constitution. CEI has been saying from day one – in our comment on EPA’s July 2008 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, our comment on EPA’s April 2009 Endangerment Proposal, our comment on EPA’s September 2009 Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards Proposal, and in columns about Mass. v. EPA when the case was still pending – that an endangerment finding under Sec. 202 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) would satisfy the endangerment test in CAA Sec. 108 and, thus, trigger a NAAQS rulemaking. Not even a global economic depression sustained over many decades would be enough to stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels at 350 ppm — the goal of the CBD-350.org petition. For example, even if the world’s governments could somehow dial back global CO2 emissions to 1957 levels, when the global economy was smaller than one-third its present size, and then hold CO2 emissions constant for the next nine decades, global concentrations would still increase to 455 ppm by 2100. Obviously, when Congress enacted the Clean Air Act, it did not authorize EPA to squash the U.S. economy. Indeed, one of the Act’s main purposes is to protect the “productive capacity” of the American people (CAA Sec. 101). Nonetheless, by misreading the Act to include authority to regulate CO2 as an “air pollutant,” the Supreme Court set the stage for a regulatory chain reaction, including establishment of NAAQS for CO2 set below current atmospheric levels, which would effectively turn the CAA into a national economic suicide pact. This is not the only ”absurd result” that follows from the Court’s misreading of the Act in Mass. v. EPA. According to EPA’s proposed Tailoring Rule, “literal” (i.e. lawful) application of the CAA to greenhouse gases would annually require 41,000 small firms to apply for Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permits and 6.1 million firms to apply for Title V operating permits. In other words, EPA and its state counterparts would have to process 140 times as many PSD permits and 400 times as many Title V permits per year as they do now. The permitting programs would crash under their own weight, construction activity would grind to a screeching halt, and millions of firms would suddenly find themselves operating in legal limbo. A more potent Anti-Stimulus Package would be hard to imagine. To avoid these problems, EPA’s Tailoring Rule proposes, over the next six years, to exempt firms emitting less than 25,000 tons per year (TPY) of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases, even though the statute specifies that PSD and Title V shall apply to sources with potential to emit 250 TPY and 100 TPY of any regulated pollutant, respectively. The Tailoring Rule is actually an Amending Rule. To prevent Mass. v. EPA from turning the CAA into an economic wrecking ball, EPA proposes to play lawmaker and suspend provisions it doesn’t like, violating the separation of powers. Even if the Tailoring Rule survives judicial challenge, which is doubtful, because it flouts clear statutory language, it would in no way lessen the threat of economy-crushing NAAQS regulation of CO2. There is only one sensible course for policymakers to take: Overturn Mass. v. EPA. Congress should enact legislation, such as H.R. 391 introduced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), clarifying that CO2 is not subject to regulation under the CAA for climate change purposes. (Marlo Lewis, Cooler Heads)
GOP turning up heat over e-mail scandal WASHINGTON -- Congressional Republicans yesterday used the red-hot scandal over hacked global-warming e-mails to attack climate researchers for "scientific
McCarthyism" and cast doubt on the phenomenon.
Obama Administration Dismisses Climategate, Vows to Press Forward With Endangerment Finding
Despite ongoing investigations in the US and UK, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson dismissed Climategate during yesterday's Senate EPW hearing, saying she sees no need to
investigate the matter. She vowed to implement job-killing global warming regulations despite growing evidence that the scientific basis of those regulations is crumbling.
"Science and scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my administration on a wide range of issues, including … mitigation of climate change,"
President Barack Obama declared in a not-so-subtle dig at his predecessor soon after assuming office. "The public must be able to trust the science and scientific
process. Public officials should not suppress or alter scientific technological findings."
Democrats Censor Climate Skeptics in Congress The Democratically-controlled Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing yesterday to examine the science behind global warming. Two climate
experts from the Obama administration testified, but when Republicans asked to have a global-warming skeptic at the hearing, Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) refused to allow it.
Boxer, Holdren Defend Motley CRU Warming Scandal: Despite the incriminating e-mails, administration science adviser John Holdren still thinks man causes global warming. And Sen. Barbara Boxer thinks it's
the whistle-blowers who should be arrested.
Obama Science Adviser Urges Climate Action Amid Uproar WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's top science adviser urged lawmakers to act to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, despite the uproar over emails in which some
prominent climate scientists appeared to advocate squelching the views of researchers skeptical that human activity is driving a dangerous rise in global temperatures.
Much hand-wringing: COP15: Climate-Change Conference - As Climate Summit Nears, Skeptics Gain Traction When "Climategate" broke on Nov. 20, with hackers stealing and subsequently releasing more than a thousand apparently dubious e-mails by renowned climate
scientists, the timing couldn't have been more inconvenient for advocates of action on climate change. The major U.N. global-warming summit in Copenhagen was just a few weeks
away, and the U.S. Senate was starting work on a bill that would cap U.S. carbon emissions. It was the eve of a month in which crucial decisions could be made in the global
effort to curb climate change before its effects become truly dangerous.
And increasing desperation: Will 'Climategate' Cast a Shadow Over Copenhagen Summit? The road to the Copenhagen climate-change summit this week has been filled with potholes over political dithering, bitter debates and lingering doubt that an enforceable agreement can be reached. But one thing hasn't been questioned: the essential conviction that global warming is real and that it is caused by human activity. Which may explain why someone recently illegally obtained thousands of e-mails from the personal account of a climate-change scientist at Britain's University of East Anglia and posted them on a website dedicated to debunking the leading theories for the causes of global warming. Faced with nearly universal consensus on the issue, climate-change deniers are apparently adopting ever-more creative tactics to discredit the science behind global warming. (Lisa Abend, Time)
Climate e-mail hack 'will impact on Copenhagen summit' E-mails hacked from a climate research institute suggest climate change does not have a human cause, according to Saudi Arabia's lead climate negotiator.
Copenhagen Climate Conference to Create 'Huge' Carbon Footprint Talk about your global warming . . . When an estimated 16,500 delegates, activists and reporters descend upon Copenhagen Monday for the United Nations Climate Change
Conference, a lot of hot air will follow.
In Letter to Obama, Senators State Conditions for Supporting Climate Bill A group of Senate Democrats who are considered swing votes on pending climate change and energy legislation sent a letter to President Obama Thursday morning detailing
their conditions for supporting any domestic bill or international treaty to address global warming.
Senate Climate Compromise Nowhere Near Ready WASHINGTON - Negotiators in the U.S. Senate are nowhere close to writing details of a compromise climate change bill requiring reductions in greenhouse gas pollution,
Senator Joseph Lieberman said on Thursday.
When President Obama goes to the Copenhagen climate change summit next week, he is expected to once again declare that the U.S. will reduce its carbon emissions 83% by
2050. Even though no legally binding agreement is expected, what Mr. Obama says in Denmark will define the U.S. position in subsequent international negotiations. He will not
say how the cuts will be accomplished. For Americans, the details are worth knowing.
<chuckle> Ed Miliband attacks Tory climate 'saboteurs' The climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, launched a ferocious attack on Conservative politicians who have cast doubt on the science of climate change in the run-up to
the global UN summit in Copenhagen.
Clive Spash resigns from CSIRO after climate report 'censorship' SCIENTIST Clive Spash has resigned from the CSIRO and called for a Senate inquiry into the science body following the censorship of his controversial report into emissions
trading.
The man gets his wish: Top Climate Change Expert Hopes Science Got It Wrong POTSDAM - Germany's top climate researcher says he hopes he and his fellow scientists around the world have got it all wrong about global warming.
New Poll Shows More Skepticism on Global Warming A new poll from Harris Interactive Inc released today found that:
We should remind you of the costs of addressing this ‘problem’ with cap and trade legislation. Heritage analysis projects the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill passed in the House would: Continue reading… (The Foundry)
Americans Skeptical of Science Behind Global Warming Most Americans (52%) believe that there continues to be significant disagreement within the scientific community over global warming.
Rising Partisanship Sharply Erodes U.S. Public's Belief in Global Warming On the eve of major international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, belief in global warming in the United States has slipped to the lowest point in 12 years of
measuring, according to a poll from New York-based Harris Interactive Inc.
Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Dec. 3rd 2009 Where is Al Gore’s secret climategate-proof bunker? Has Heinz saved the planet? Does Hopenchangen have a chance of achieving anything? Dive and discover the answers to these questions, and more. (Daily Bayonet)
Lawrence Solomon: Canada’s environment minister wants to “get to the bottom” of Climategate Speaking of Climategate, Jim Prentice, Canada's environment minister and a participant in the Copenhagen talks next week, told the press today after Question Period that "there were some serious allegations of impropriety and some serious questions about the quality of the scientific work that was done" at the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia University. Mr. Prentice, who views the science overall as being "relatively clear," also sidestepped a question about climate change being a big lie. Question: You don't see this - I mean there are people from your province, from all provinces who see this as the smoking gun that there is some sort of big lie out
there about climate change. You just don't buy that? Mr. Prentice, who has been criticized by environmental activists for failing to make a firm commitment at Copenhagen, indicated today that Canada's position at Copenhagen would not change. (Financial Post)
by William M. Gray
Himalayan lake's flood threat overstated Reports that local inhabitants and travellers to the Mount Everest base camp are in danger from a lake of glacier meltwater overflowing have been exaggerated, a series of
surveys suggests. A team of Japanese and Nepalese researchers say that the damming moraine at the downstream end of Imja Glacial Lake in fact appears more stable than it has
for some years.
Dutch: Gore Wrong on Snows of Kilimanjaro The Netherlands is afire today over a Dutch study concluding Mount Kilimanjaro's snow melt — used as a symbol of AGW by Al Gore — is entirely natural. Newspapers and news sites in the Netherlands today extensively broke the news of the findings of a research team led by Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damste — a leading molecular paleontologist at Utrecht University and winner of the prestigious Spinoza Prize — about the melting icecap of the Kilimanjaro, the African mountain that became a symbol of anthropogenic global warming. Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago. The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.” Professor Damste studied organic biomarker molecules in the sediment record of Lake Challa, near Mount Kilimanjaro, and reconstructed the changes and intensity of precipitation in this part of Africa over the last 25,000 years. They observed an 11,500 year cycle of intense monsoon precipitation. In the dry period between 12,800 and 11,500 years ago, Kilimanjaro was ice-free. At the end of this period, a dramatic climate change from very dry to very wet took place — driven by changes in solar radiation — resulting in the creation of an icecap. At the moment, this part of Africa seems to be at the end of a similar dry period, resulting in the disappearance of the famous icecap. DOSR calls Al Gore’s iconic use of the melting cap of Kilimanjaro “unfortunate” — since it now seems to be mainly the result of “natural climate variations.” The journal Nature published the highly technical article by Professor Sinninghe Damste’s team. The website of Elsevier magazine — the Netherlands’ most circulated political weekly — broke the news as follows: “Dutchman discredits Al Gore’s climate evidence.” Leon de Winter is columnist for Elsevier Magazine in Holland. He is also a bestselling novelist and adjunct-fellow at the Hudson Institute. He is presently living in Los Angeles. (Leon de Winter, PJM)
Al Gore Cancels $1,200 Per Handshake Event In Copenhagen Al Gore apparently has canceled a high-priced speaking engagement during the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen.
Seth Boringtheme trying hard: Global warming may require higher dams, stilts With the world losing the battle against global warming so far, experts are warning that humans need to follow nature's example: Adapt or die.
Copenhagen climate conference: World risks 4C rise even if there is a deal The world could suffer catastrophic climate change even if there is a deal at Copenhagen, scientists have warned. (Louise Gray, TDT)
Another Left-coast eye-roller: Google Earth explores climate risks to California SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Google Inc. launched a new feature in its Google Earth Web site Wednesday designed to let Californians see the risks of climate change.
The Sun: falling into an even deeper funk With Climategate sucking all the oxygen out of the blogosphere, we’ve neglected some of our regular reporting duties here at WUWT. Thanks to Paul Stanko, who has been tracking sunspots for WUWT for awhile now who writes in with this update. It looks like we’ll soon surpass 2008 for the number of spotless days. – Anthony Guest post by Paul Stanko With November now in the past, I’ve got a fresh set of statistics, and it looks like this cycle is falling ever further into an even deeper funk. The attached
graphics are revamped according to Leif’s impromptu peer review and I believe are The 2009 spotless days are now 262 and the cycle 24 spotless days are now 774. On the cycle graph, I now calculated three different sets of spotless days per cycle. Minimum just counted the actual observed and reported days of zero sunspots. Maximum assumed that all missing obs were zero sunspot days. Likely assigned spotless days to the missing obs in the same ratio as the reported obs for that year. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Giving the Chief Scientist cold water Chief Scientist Penny Sackett dismisses the significance of nearly a decade of cooling of the atmosphere, despite predictions of the warmist models:
Hmm. Good question, Chief Scientist, and it’s true one of us is confused. Shall we talk about these measures of ocean temperature, which also show an unexpected fall lately… Or this? Or this: Your call. Sorry? What was that? Er, you did know, didn’t you, that the oceans have been cooling lately, too? And against the predictions of the models? Hello? Chief Scientist? (Andrew Bolt)
Worthy of another run: Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions? Prof. Richard S. Lindzen
Those leaked e-mails are coming in handy: Seas could rise 1.4m, warns Antarctic climate review A review of climate change in Antarctica forecasts that by 2100 the world's seas will have risen to levels previously considered too extreme to be realistic.
Global Warming and the Age of the Earth: A Lesson on the Nature of Scientific Knowledge The world stands on the verge of committing itself to limits on the emission of carbon dioxide that would drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels. If this fateful
decision is made, the economies of developed nations will be strangled. Human prosperity will be reduced. Our ability to solve pressing problems, both human and
environmental, will be severely limited. We have been told that these shackles must be imposed to forestall a hypothetical global warming projected to occur some time in the
distant future. But to date the only unambiguous evidence for planetary warming is a modest rise in temperature (less than one degree Celsius) that falls well within the
range of natural variation.
Eye-roller: Elusive Goal of Greening U.S. Energy The Great Green Hope for lifting America’s economy is not looking so robust.
The Undulating Oil Plateau: Peak without Decline For some peak oil advocates who are nervous about the idea of a post-apocalyptic vision of society, it has become popular to argue for a peak and plateau rather than a peak and decline of 3–5% per year, as some of the original work postulates. This seems more palatable than calling for a global upheaval, Hollywood notwithstanding. The original peak and decline scenario was based on the bell curve popularized by M. King Hubbert. A number have disputed the shape of the curve, arguing for a Gaussian curve instead, for example. But they are avoiding the basic question of causality. The appearance of a bell curve appears to be more coincidence than anything else, since it is not often replicated in reality. The 1998 Scientific American article, “The End of Cheap Oil,” by Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere, contained the laughable figure of several stylized oil fields’ production curves surmounted by a bell curve and the assertion that the one aggregated to the other. More recently, some peak oil advocates have ‘modeled’ national production as following a rise, plateau, decline shape that, in the most general sense, is accurate, but again assumes that all nations follow a fairly similar path, which implicitly assumes that geology determines that path. In fact, in many cases the level of the peak and subsequent production patterns are due more to fiscal terms than geology, as can be seen by several countries where changing government policies led to a reversal of the decline, such as in Argentina or Venezuela. The CERA work does not fall into this pattern, however, not just because the author(s) are not in the peak oil camp in any form. [Read more →] (Michael Lynch, MasterResource)
Really? Why? Future Statoil oilsands phases to be built ready for carbon capture and storage ALGARY - Statoil Canada Ltd.'s future oilsands projects will be designed with carbon capture and storage in mind, the new president of the Norwegian company's Canadian
wing says.
The Green Car of the Year Is a Diesel. Again. LOS ANGELES — For the second year in a row, Green Car Journal has named a German diesel Green Car of the Year. The 42-mpg Audi A3 TDI topped a field that included three hybrids and two diesels to take the award presented today at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The judges praised the cars “exceptional fuel economy and low emissions” and hailed it as “stylish” and “fun to drive.” “The Audi A3 TDI offers it all,” said Ron Cogan, editor of Green Car Journal and GreenCar.com. There’s no shortage of awards and honors doled out in the auto industry, but this one actually means something because all of the cars considered are vehicles you can buy right now. The jury includes greenies like Carl Pope, head of the Sierra Club, and Jean-Michel Cousteau, president of the Ocean Futures Society. But it also includes certified gearheads like Jay Leno and Carroll Shelby to ensure the candidates are cars you’d enjoy driving. (Wired)
More wrecked dreams of money for hot air: Mexico cools on methane burning Two years ago Alejandro Castaño received an offer he could not refuse. AgCert, an Ireland-based company that produces and sells greenhouse gas emission credits, said it
would not only dispose of the organic waste from his pig farms in central Mexico but pay him to do it.
Tamiflu-resistant flu not spreading more widely-WHO * New flu form not transmitted to hospital staff or beyond
Children getting fatter despite massive government health campaigns, Melbourne study finds PRESCHOOLERS are getting fatter and less active despite millions of dollars spent on government health campaigns.
The endless assault on useful chemicals: U.S. lawsuit targets pesticide impact on polar bears ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The U.S. government violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to curb use of pesticides that have been accumulating in the Arctic food chain and in the fat of polar bears, a species listed as threatened, environmentalists charged in a lawsuit on Thursday. (Reuters)
HWGA: Study finds weed killer affects frogs sexually OTTAWA - The widely used weed killer atrazine affects the sexual development of frogs, raising questions about the effects of its use in the environment, the University of Ottawa said on Thursday. (Reuters)
There are a number of scientists who disbelive the theory that an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs. They point to evidence that some species of sauropod may have survived the Chicxulub impact—widely hailed as the smoking gun in the dinosaur extinction—as proof that the event was simply not big enough to be a knockout blow. Now, according to Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University, new information reinforces his claim that a much larger impact that he has named Shiva, actually did the dinosaurs in. Dr Chatterjee has found a bigger crater—much bigger—in India. Estimated to be around 65 million years old, the massive sea floor structure was created at about the same time as a number of other impact craters and the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction event. Although the site has shifted since its formation because of sea floor spreading, the formation is approximately 600 kilometers long by 400 km wide. It is estimated that a crater of that size would have been made by an asteroid or comet approximately 40 km in diameter. The explosion that caused it may have been 100 times the size of the one that created Chicxulub. The Shiva crater is located beneath the Indian Ocean, west of Mumbai, India. It was named by paleontologist Chatterjee after Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and renewal. At the time of the KT extinction, India was located over the Réunion hotspot of the Indian Ocean. Hot material rising from the mantle flooded portions of India with a vast amount of lava, creating a plateau known as the Deccan Traps. It has been hypothesized that either the crater or the Deccan Traps associated with the area are the reason for the high level of oil and natural gas reserves in the region.
Chatterjee presented his latest findings on Shiva to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon, on October 18th. He has identified an underwater mountain called Bombay High, off the coast of Mumbai, which measures 3 miles (5 k) tall from the ocean floor (about the height of Mount McKinley) from sea bed to peak and is surrounded by Shiva’s crater rim. Dr Chatterjee’s analysis shows that it formed from a sudden upwelling of magma that destroyed the Earth’s crust in the area and pushed the mountain rapidly upward. He argues that no force other than the rebound from an impact could have produced this kind of vertical uplift. Here are further arguments from a previous paper:
During the late Cretaceous, India was an island continent much like Australia is today. The sub-continent did not take up its familiar position in the south of Asia until 50m years ago, when it collided with that continent. The late Cretaceous was also a period of great volcanic activity, a time when huge eruptions created fields of basalt as much as two kilometers thinck. Before the discovery of the Chicxulub crater, these eruptions had been put forward as an explanation for the death of the dinosaurs—altering the climate and hastening their extinction. Even after Walter Alvarez's discovery of iridium deposits around the world and the identification of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan, some argued that the eruptions were a major contributing cause to the extinction. The world around the time of the KT boundry. Credit: C Scotese. Further examination of the crater revealed rich deposits of shocked quartz and iridium, minerals that are commonly found at impact sites. More importantly, the rocks above and below Shiva date it to 65m years ago, the time of the KT extinction . Dr Chatterjee therefore suggests that an object 40km in diameter hit the Earth off the coast of India and forced vast quantities of lava out of the Deccan Traps. As well as killing the dinosaurs the impact caused the Seychelle Islands to break away from India. These islands and their surrounding seabed have long looked anomalous to geologists, being made of continental rather than oceanic rock. The seem more like a small part of a continental land mass rather than genuine oceanic islands. Some say that the Shiva complex adds weight to the theory that the K-T extinction was caused by a massive asteroid fragmenting and hitting the Earth in several locations, known as the “multiple impact theory.” Extensive dating research at Chicxulub has suggests that the impact occurred 300,000 years earlier than the dinosaur extinction, meaning there really should be two ejecta layers. That no one had noticed two distinct layers previously could be explained by the fact that the accumulation of sediment in most rocks is so slow that the two layers merged together. After all, 300,000 years is a blink of an eye in geologic terms. Alternatively, it could be that no one has been looking for two layers, so they have not noticed the double signature or have ignored its significance. Indeed, two iridium layers have been found in some places. One such site is at Anjar, an Indian town north of the impact site.
This is an excellent example of how science is continually updated and refined. This new information does not make Walter Alvarez wrong or a bad scientist, any more than Einstein's theories proved that Newton was wrong. It merely shows that there was even more to the cataclysmic events that transpired 65 million years ago than first suspected. As always, science did not rest but continued to seek more evidence which lead to new conclusions. It also underscores what a dangerous place the solar system we live in actually is (see “Forget Global Warming, The Sky Really Could Fall”). It now seems that the Chicxulub strike, as bad as it was, was only a warning shot. The dinosaurs, dominant lifeforms on the planet, didn't take the hint and evolve sufficiently to create a space program capable of deflecting subsequent asteroids: sic transit gloria mundi. The picture that has emerged requires a set of coincidences, but as I have noted before in this blog, given a half a billion years or so and any set of coincidences can happen, perhaps more than once. The true nature of the universe is revealed in the chain of events that transpired. The scenario goes like this: First, two of the biggest impacts in history happened within 300,000 years of each other; second, the impacts coincided with one of the largest periods of volcanic activity in the past billion years; and third, one of them just happened to hit where the volcanoes were most active. As The Economist put it, “what really killed the dinosaurs was a string of the most atrocious bad luck.” Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. Beastly bad luck, old boy. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
Why animal-free meat is a good idea As scientists get closer to creating tasty, nutritious in vitro meat, let’s not turn this into another food scare. (Rob Lyons, sp!ked)
December 3, 2009
From now forward nothing will be quite the same for climate skeptics. It’s true that there is still a major war against unreason, and massive vested money which will fight all the way from the bank, but the ClimateGate story has taken on a reality that cannot be stopped. John Stewart is a liberal (meaning leftie) comedian in the US, and watch him mock Gore, and give people the real import of “hide the decline”. …it’s just scientist speak for using a standard statistical technique for recalibrating data in order to… …TRICK YOU!. He delivers the blows beautifully.
Most people in polls might say they believe we should do something about the climate, but only 10% of them are truly committed followers. The other 90% are dutiful. And because the dutiful followers of the greenhouse crisis are well… dutiful, they aren’t going to object too hard when someone tells them it was all scam, and… they don’t have to pay more money, or apologize for taking long flights, or swap their dog for a goldfish (which has a smaller carbon footprint). That’s why, once this begins to fall, there won’t be any resistance in the polls. And things are changing fast in the trenches of the campaign against the Big Scare. The grassroots effort to inform our representatives has scored a major win. The Australian Senate has finally rejected the ETS. Only two Liberals crossed the floor. Only a week ago there were 33 speakers in the Liberal Party who supported the ETS. Party discipline means some of them still do, but none the less, it’s a transformation. The Australian media reported this awakening as if it were a blood bath of disarray, and it would have looked that way if you believe in the theory of man-made catastrophe. Instead the conservative opposition were picking up the courage to give a voice to suppressed views, and they were reborn in the process. The lack of free speech was what had kept the Australian conservatives down for so long. I wrote in October that Turnbull’s bullying was the core problem. It’s even worse in the Australian Labor Party, where Rudd throws a nasty mix of names at anyone who disagrees. If there was corruption or irregularities in the science, who among Rudds closest allies would have the courage to face the intimidation and speak up? Bullying and suppression of views is never the path to strength. That’s why Turnbull’s leadership failed, and why Rudd’s will too. Christopher Monckton provides a 43 page comprehensive Summary of ClimateGate with the full sordid details of the corruption of scientific process. While Phil Jones head of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit is forced to step down, and Michael Mann is being investigated. Today the Daily Express in the UK did a ground breaking front cover, and no holds barred story. This is significant and curious. The main dailies have had 10 days to phone Professor Plimer and interview him, yet the tabloids are faster to get the core of what this means. (Jo Nova)
The leftie press is trying... Climate science: Inconvenient truths Blinded or at least baffled by science, the uninitiated majority imagine it as the sort of impersonal process a robot might carry out. Days before the Copenhagen climate
conference – where scientific reasoning will make strenuous demands on everyday life – we have all been reminded that the frontiers of technical knowledge are not in fact
advanced by automatons, but by fallible human beings.
The architect of climate fraud steps down, the creator of the infamous "hockey stick" is investigated, and Australia's parliament defeats cap-and-trade. We love
the smell of truth in the morning.
The scientist at the heart of the climate change email scandal was today interviewed by police about the scandal.
Pielke Sr.: Climategate Emails Just a Small Sample of a Broad Issue (PJM Exclusive) The decorated scientist — oft-mentioned in the CRU emails — wants to see the current blatant conflicts of interest removed from climate science. (Also read Bill Whittle: "Ike's Response to Climategate") Professor Roger Pielke Sr. is mentioned often in the Climategate data dump emails — generally unkindly. Professor Pielke is an atmospheric scientist at CIRES at the University of Colorado at Boulder, a professor emeritus at Colorado State University, a former Colorado State climatologist, and an active critic of the IPCC process. (A more detailed biography is appended below.) In a Pajamas Media exclusive, Dr. Pielke kindly agreed to an email interview regarding his reaction to the CRU emails and his opinion of their implications. (PJM)
Opening a Can of Worms: Government and Climate Change Data Since open government is a major initiative of the administration, and so is climate change, one mighty collision is coming soon.
Climategate: it's all unravelling now So many new developments: which story do we pick? Maybe best to summarise, instead. After all, it’s not like you’re going to find much of this reported in the MSM. (James Delingpole, TDT)
Climategate: not news to me, says Shaviv Brilliant young astrophysicist Professor Nir Shaviv says he’s not surprised at all by Climategate, whether it’s the revelation that data was destroyed to prevent checking, or evidence that sceptics were blocked from publication:
Shaviv was also nastily attacked and smeared by RealClimate, exposed in the Climategate emails as an arm of the Climategate conspiracy. But he has known for some time that this warmist bubble would burst:
His own explanation for the warming that stopped in 2001: the effect on cosmic rays on cloud formation. Shaviv is coming to Melbourne this week for Albert Dadon’s Australia Israel Leadership Forum, where I shall be only too pleased to meet him. And a little proud, too, since it was my suggestion he be invited. I hope you’ll hear from him, too, on this visit. Unlike most top scientists, he not only has a blog, but a highly readable one (if too infrequently updated). For instance, there was this after Israel’s Earth Hour: (Andrew Bolt)
Innocent (naïve?) scientists shocked by Nature's naked advocacy: When Nature Attacks Nature has an very strong editorial out about the CRU emails. I'd go so far as to say that it is the most strongly written Nature editorial that I have ever seen, it is just seething in anger:
Nature sees the climate scientists as having done nothing wrong, and expresses hope that the release of the emails will show to the world the endless harassment that climate scientists must put up with: If there are benefits to the e-mail theft, one is to highlight yet again the harassment that denialists inflict on some climate-change researchers, often in the form of endless, time-consuming demands for information under the US and UK Freedom of Information Acts. Governments and institutions need to provide tangible assistance for researchers facing such a burden.And Nature has already decided that so far there is nothing of much concern in the emails warranting a further or deeper look:
The strong editorial is of course expected as Nature is a very public face of the scientific community and its editors probably
feel (and actually have) a responsibility to defend their community. But Nature needs to also be careful as its over-the-top tone and
unrelenting defense of the scientists in the emails does not jibe with either much of public opinion or many of the views expressed by scholars (including this one) about the
significance of the emails. I find, as a scientist, the latest Nature Editorial highly offensive with its tone and repeated use of the word "denialist".One consequence of the emails will be to open up new fault lines within the scientific community as issues that have percolated below the surface emerge now that the ground has shifted. Nature and the broader scientific community needs to tread carefully in taking sides on issues that there is a wide diversity of opinion on within its own community as well as among the broader public. Nature would do well to distinguish a defense of science from a defense of a few individual scientists. (Roger Pielke Jr)
Do Smoking Guns Cause Global Warming, Too? As we now know (and by "we" I mean "everyone with access to the Internet"), the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has just been
caught ferociously manipulating the data about the Earth's temperature.
Let’s Not Call the Whole Thing Off What does Senate Environment and Public Works chairwoman (I assume she doesn’t want to be called “chairman”) Barbara Boxer call Climategate?
Boxer showed her passion for law-and-order at today’s committee meeting.
Considering that a lot of Climategate has to do with the muzzling of scientists that hold views contrary to alarmism, you might think the honorific-conscious senator would be concerned about the exclusion of their research from professional journals. After all, nearly four years ago she demanded an investigation into the Bush administration’s alleged silencing of NASA’s James Hansen:
Got that? TWO committees!! For ONE guy! Who lied about it! (Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute)
Climategate: From Skepticism to Investigation
Those words come from David Harsanyi’s excellent column in the Denver Post. He writes,
New Silicon Graffiti Video: Hide The Decline! I couldn’t let the recent spot of bother at the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit go without doing a Silicon Graffiti video on how climate change has changed over the years. In six and a half minutes, look back at:
Click here to watch:
And for 40 or so previous editions of Silicon Graffiti, click here and keep scrolling and watching.
Since watching the Climategate scandal explode a week before Thanksgiving, debris from the mushroom cloud has rained upon the earth, and there are hints that some folks (other than me and my fellow climate realists) are getting curious about how the alarmists are funded. It used to be the narrative of the formerly mainstream media, when they deemed it worthy to include perspective from the “skeptic” side, always came with a “financed by Big Oil” disclaimer — whether it was true or not. Meanwhile the warmists’ financial gain from the game was irrelevant in the media’s eyes. It’s been widely reported in the blogosphere about the millions of dollars in grants that East Anglia CRUnit director Phil Jones collected for his climate modeling, but so far I haven’t seen much detail about his fellow email correspondents. What about ‘em? Inarguably the next-largest culprit is Michael Mann, Mr. Nature Trick, who is not to be confused with the Nature Boy or the other “Heat“-making Mann. He has had his grants available for public viewing for a while, so I’m surprised I’ve not seen those spread around the ‘Net. They are right there listed in his curriculum vitae. (Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute)
The Science and Politics of Climate Change - Science never writes closed textbooks. It does not offer us a holy scripture, infallible and complete. I am a climate scientist who worked in the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the 1990s. I have been reflecting on the bigger lessons to be learned from the stolen emails, some of which were mine. One thing the episode has made clear is that it has become difficult to disentangle political arguments about climate policies from scientific arguments about the evidence for man-made climate change and the confidence placed in predictions of future change. The quality of both political debate and scientific practice suffers as a consequence. (Mike Hulme, WSJ)
Lawson and the think-tank bent on hijacking global warming debate The leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia could not have come at a better time for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a
"cross-party political think-tank" set up last week to counter the supposed lies and distortions of the climate science community.
All the President's Climategate Deniers "The science is settled," we've been told for decades by zealous proponents of manmade global warming hysteria. Thanks to an earth-shaking hacking scandal across
the pond, we now have mountains of documents from the world's leading global warming advocacy center that show the science is about as settled as a southeast Asian tsunami.
You won't be surprised by the Obama administration's response to Climategate.
Cap-And-Trade Loss A Stunner In Aussie Vote Cap-and-trade in Australia — which just a week ago was declared a certainty — is officially dead.
Copenhagen climate summit: Australia's failure to stop pollution threatens climate change deal Australia has dealt a major blow to any international deal on climate change ahead of the Copenhagen summit by failing to introduce new laws to control pollution. ( Louise Gray, TDT)
Good synopsis of the situation down-under: Kevin Rudd's insincerity cost Labor the ETS PLAYING politics with policy has derailed the Rudd government's legislative, political and election agenda on the emissions trading scheme.
Top Tory David Davis goes to war on Cameron's green crusade A senior Tory MP has issued a direct challenge to David Cameron's environmental policies after warning tough green targets could 'cripple' the economy.
The Global Warming Backlash Continues and Cameron is in Trouble The backlash against ‘global warming’ dogma is continuing apace, and I must update you urgently with respect to two stories on which I commented yesterday.
David Davis warns against climate change 'hair shirt' Green campaigners must end a "ferocious determination to impose hair-shirt policies" to fight global warming, senior Tory MP David Davis has warned.
Carlin: Climategate Will Now Hit the EPA (PJM Exclusive) Alan Carlin — the EPA scientist whose skeptical report was hushed — says the EPA broke tradition and used external work (from the CRU/IPCC) for its proposals. The emails and computer files from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in Great Britain may prove to be of some importance to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) current attempts to control greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. This is because the EPA — perhaps at the urging of others in the Obama administration — has proposed to regulate GHG emissions on the basis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports … and reports primarily based on the IPCC reports. This is highly unusual for the EPA. I cannot think of any instance where the EPA depended so heavily on non-EPA synthesis reports to justify proposed regulatory action in their almost 39 years of existence. As a result of this EPA decision, the EPA’s fortunes in regard to regulating GHGs are directly tied to the fate of the IPCC reports. (Alan Carlin, PJM)
Competitive Enterprise Institute Petitions EPA to Suspend Proposed CO2 Regs CEI is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to halt efforts to control carbon dioxide emissions in light of Climategate information. In light of the Climategate fraud scandal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on Wednesday filed a petition asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act, pending a thorough investigation of and public comment on the newly released information. The still unfolding Climategate scandal produced by the release of thousands of emails and documents from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of East Anglia University in the UK raises new questions and doubts about the scientific basis for the Kyoto climate treaty, the successor treaty to be negotiated later this month in Copenhagen, the Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer climate bills, the EPA’s proposed finding that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions endanger public health and welfare, and other EPA regulatory proposals related to the endangerment determination. (Marlo Lewis, PJM)
<chuckle> Cold comfort: the psychology of climate denial If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it?
The Science Museum Bemoans False Consciousness In the run-up to the Copenhagen conference, the Science Museum in London invited web users to respond to the following statement with a ‘Count Me In’ or ‘Count Me
Out’ vote for their ‘PROVE IT!’ Project:
Terence Corcoran: Skeptics score a win against alarmists The audience shift at the Munk Debate followed a global trend By Terence Corcoran On Tuesday night about 1,100 people participated in a sold-out global warming debate that, in the end, turned downtown Toronto’s new concert hall at the Royal Conservatory of Music into a microcosm of a larger transformation that is sweeping the world. The debate pitted two well known global warming activists of international repute against two well-known skeptics. The skeptics won, shifting the audience’s support away from the drastic global warming action demanded by activists and toward the moderate response of the skeptics, a move that is rapidly becoming a trend everywhere. If global warming is a problem — and many have growing doubts about that — it is not a crisis that warrants draconian policy intervention in Copenhagen or anywhere else.
George Monbiot: Climate change destroys human lives On Tuesday, the Munk Debates took on climate change. The Green Party’s Elizabeth May and The Guardian’s George Monbiot argued that “Climate change is mankind’s defining crisis and demands a commensurate response.” Author Bjorn Lomborg and the U.K.’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, disagreed. Here are the closing arguments of Mr. Monbiot and Mr. Lomborg. The reason I’m concerned about climate change is because of my experiences in northwest Kenya. I mentioned the region before, but I haven’t told you exactly what
happened.
Bjorn Lomborg: Not mankind's defining crisis The Munk Debate on climate change Nobody doubts that George and Elizabeth and everybody else here have their hearts in the right place. That’s not the question. The question is whether George, in his
experience of the people who are suffering in northwest Kenya, is saying they are suffering because of global warming — I would be a little more worried about making that
connection right away but let’s just say that it is so. So we should do something about global warming. Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
Is the Obama Administration planning to sign America up to Copenhagen commitments?
America’s Unnecessary Sacrifice for the Planet As President Obama heads to Copenhagen next week to meet with world leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Summit, there will undoubtedly be countless calls for
tighter restrictions on all the demonized activities that supposedly cause global warming. Burning up carbon-based fuel as they fly in on their private jets, wining and
dining like the elite, attendees of the Summit will spend days pontificating on the dire state of the planet—caused by the evil, greedy men who aren’t in attendance—and
then push radical plans to curb any modern, productive ventures that they perceive as contributing to nebulous “climate change.”
Big Developing States Reject Copenhagen Climate Plan NEW DELHI/LONDON - China and other big developing nations rejected core targets for a climate deal such as halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 just five days
before talks start in Copenhagen, diplomats said on Wednesday.
Australia and climate change: The pitiless blue sky The natural world is at the heart of Australian identity. "I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains," runs a famous poem, but that attachment to the environment does not count for much in national political life. Under John Howard, Australia's former prime minister, the country was notoriously sceptical of international efforts to fight climate change, even though, as a hot dry continent with a growing population, Australia stands to suffer at least as much as anywhere else. ( The Guardian)
Emissions Cuts Would Cost India Dearly - The poor can't afford a big tax on energy usage, or a return to the License Raj of times past. In the pre-iTunes, pre-MTV age, there was usually a multiyear lag before hit songs in the West reached India. Now India is experiencing a similar time-lag on global
warming. Just when fresh doubts about the issue are emerging in the West, India is flirting with the idea of hopping on the global-warming bandwagon at the Copenhagen
climate-change summit next week.
November 2009 UAH Global Temperature Update +0.50 deg. C
The global-average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly rebounded from +0.29 deg. C in October to +0.50 deg. C in November. Both hemispheres, as well as the tropics, contributed to this warmth. The global anomaly for November of +0.50 deg. C is a period record for November (since 1979); the previous November high was +0.40 deg C. in 2004. Following is the global-average sea surface temperature anomalies through November 2009 from the AMSR-E instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite: As usual, the trend line in the previous figure should not be construed as having any predictive power whatsoever — it is for entertainment purposes only. (Roy W. Spencer)
Goklany on Copenhagen and climate change health risks This essay was sent to me just about the time “climategate” broke. I regret the delay in publishing it but it is still relevant to the upcoming Copenhagen conference. – Anthony Mr. Ban Ki-moon, get your priorities straight, and quit wasting the world’s resources on third tier problems Guest post by Indur M. Goklany “Climate change has been my top priority since I took office,” says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in an open letter to the participants of the upcoming Copenhagen conference on climate change. He doesn’t seem to have read the new United Nations World Health Organization report on Global Health Risks. This document allows us to rank climate change among 24 global health risk factors. According to this report, hunger, poverty and a host of diseases easily outrank global warming (AKA climate change) as a global priority. The following two figures rank these health risks based on two different criteria. Depending on which criterion one uses, global warming is either second last or dead last! Figure 1: Ranking global public health priorities based on disability adjusted life years (DALYs) lost prematurely in 2004. DALYs discount years that would have been spent in a disabled condition based on the severity of disability. Note: underweight = hunger. Many of the risk factors — hunger, unsafe water, vitamin A, iron and zinc deficiencies, indoor smoke — are diseases of poverty. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Um, no: Global Warming Threatens China Harvests: Forecaster BEIJING - Droughts and floods stoked by global warming threaten to destabilize China's grain production, the nation's top meteorologist has warned, urging bigger grain
reserves and strict protection of farmland and water supplies.
Comments On The October 24 2009 Economist Article “Of Farms, Folks and Fish” There is an informative article in the October 24th 2009 issue of the Economist titled “Of farms, folks and fish”. [subscription required]. The information provided on water issues in California is quite useful. However, there is one important exception to the otherwise excellent article. This exception involves the erroneous assumption that there is regional climate predictive skill decades from now. The incorrect statement reads [referring to legislation on water policy in California] “Whatever happens, the legislation will not deal with the long-term threats to California and its neighbours. Climate change is already showing up “in the data”, says Mr Quinn. The snowpack of the Sierra Nevada, California’s most reliable water-storage system, is shrinking and may stop yielding predictable run-off in the spring and start producing sporadic and unusable, not to mention disastrous, floods. The delta is already below sea level and, as the sea rises, it may be submerged. Even today the south is a desert wherever irrigation does not reach. It will become even drier.” Climate variability and change certainly are risks in the coming decades, as they have always been in California. However, Mr. Quinn [Timothy Quinn is director of the Association of California Water Agencies] is misinterpreting the always present variability for a monotonic long-term trend. It is prudent to plan to drier conditions in the future, however, there is no scientifically supported evidence that the model predictions of a long-term movement to more drought conditions is a robust result. Planners should continue to develop water infrastructure that is more resilient, which includes plans to store water in the wet years with lots of mountain snow, that is quite likely to continue into the foreseeable future. (Climate Science)
LED Lighting Still Too Costly: Osram CEO LOS ANGELES - Demand for super-efficient LED lighting and other energy-saving lights will grow next year as both consumer awareness and the U.S. stimulus package spark
sales, the head of Siemens AG-owned Osram Sylvania said on Wednesday.
Wind farms fall prey to demands of the golden eagle - Decision to set aside land to protect birds threatens renewable energy plans A vast swath of northern and western Scotland could be set aside to give greater protection to one of the UK's most enigmatic birds of prey.
From today's FT:
What does this mean? If Michael Wara's assertion is taken as in fact the case then the EU has sent to China $1 billion in support of actions that would have occurred
anyway. This means that the EU is able to claim credit for reducing emissions by about the equivalent of 2 years worth of Portugal's emissions (EEA
data), but from a global perspective nothing has actually happened differently than it would have otherwise. Except of course for that transfer of $1 billion from the EU
to China.
Again with this crap? There's no such thing as a chemical-free lunch A huge movement is under way to include more fresh fruits and vegetables in the national school lunch program. It's an important step toward the equitable distribution of
nutritious food, but such a program is unlikely to fix the so-called childhood obesity epidemic, and it shouldn't be justified as such.
Here's Euugh!, at it again: First BPA Detection In U.S. Infant Cord Blood - Study Found More than 200 Chemicals in Cord Blood of African American, Asian and Hispanic Newborns CONTACT: EWG Public Affairs, (202) 667-6982
Response from Personal Care Products Council STATEMENT BY JOHN BAILEY, CHIEF SCIENTIST, PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS COUNCIL
Hmm... For some women, trans fats could be deadly NEW YORK - For women with heart disease, eating too many artery-clogging trans fats may increase their risk of dying suddenly from cardiac arrest, a new study suggests.
Obesity's rise trumps smoking's decline when it comes to life expectancy When it comes to smoking and obesity, what goes up must come down. A new study predicts that in the future, as smoking rates continue to decline and life expectancy
increases, obesity figures will continue to rise, ultimately slowing those rates and contributing to poorer quality of life.
December 2, 2009
Operation: Arrest the Crimatologists - Contest launched for most effective way of spreading the word about climategate The millions of people who are following the twists and turns of the unfolding climategate scandal online are increasingly asking themselves the same question: if a
scientific theory falls in the forest and there’s no reporter willing to cover it, does it make a sound?
Seeing No Evil On Climate-Gate The shameless denial with which major newspapers and networks have treated "Climategate" layers even more scandal on top of the original one: Mainstream media
now co-conspirators with scientific hacks and big government.
Climategate: Why it matters - The scandal we see and the scandal we don't Reading the Climategate archive is a bit like discovering that Professional Wrestling is rigged. You mean, it is? Really?
Climategate’s ‘Josh Steiner’ Moment, Featuring John Tierney and Michael Mann Remember the Clinton aide who testified that he lied to his own diary? The latest from Michael Mann and the NY Times may top that. By now you’ve likely forgotten the name of that Bill Clinton aide who feebly testified that he had lied to his own diary when recording events of the time. But you haven’t forgotten the pitifulness of the spectacle. I suggest we may have just passed that one in Climategate. The following passage is from John Tierney’s column in the New York Times, discussing “Mike’s Nature trick … to hide the decline”:
But isn’t it “Mike’s trick” that is being described here? Grasped and described as such by CRU’s Phil Jones as having been performed on Mike’s graph? By Mike? So — Mike’s defense is that no one had told him what he, himself, was up to? These guys need to call for a RealInvestigation to get to the bottom of their actions. The more they stumble around, the worse they make it for themselves. Christopher Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. (PJM)
White House Balks at ClimateGate, Says Climate Change is Happening When asked about ClimateGate, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed its importance, emphasizing that “climate change is happening.” Of course climate change is happening. Soon we’ll be calling press conferences to declare, “The earth is moving” or “It’s going to get dark tonight.” The reality is the climate has been changing ever since there was a climate, and part of that change was a cooling period as recent as the 1940s to the 1970s giving rise to fears of a coming ice age. When Gibbs spouts this rhetoric, he’s clearly referring to human-induced warming, but since when has climate change become synonymous with manmade global warming? And what does it take for a scientific consensus to stop being one? In fact, the phrase “climate change” is one of climatologist Roy Spencer’s major irritations about the whole climate change debate. He writes, “Thirty years ago, the term “climate change” would have meant natural climate change, which is what climate scientists mostly studied before that time. Today, it has come to mean human-caused climate change. The public, and especially the media, now think that “climate change” implies WE are responsible for it. Mother Nature, not Al Gore, invented real climate change.” Continue reading… (The Foundry)
E-Mail Fracas Shows Peril of Trying to Spin Science If you have not delved into the thousands of e-mail messages and files hacked from the computers of British climate scientists, let me give you the closest thing to an
executive summary. It is taken from a file slugged HARRY_READ_ME, which is the log of a computer expert’s long struggle to make sense of a database of historical
temperatures. Here is Harry’s summary of the situation:
Apologist Responses to Climategate Misconstrue the Real Debate (Quantitative, not Qualitative)
Defenders of the IPCC position on climate science have adopted different strategies in dealing with the scandal of the CRU emails and computer code. Some authoritative voices, notably Judy Curry, have engaged in dialog with skeptics and have reassured PhD students that the “tribalism” revealed in the CRU emails has no place in science. On the other hand, another very common reaction has been to mock the “deniers” for taking certain phrases out of context. This circle-the-wagons strategy tries to convince the public that the CRU episode has absolutely no bearing on the actual science, and that at worst it reveals petty personality flaws. This spin is epitomized in sarcastic pieces which take on the voice of the “deniers” and claim that the laws of physics are all a socialist hoax too. These defenses are self-evidently absurd to anyone who has read the actual CRU emails in question. The public’s faith in the sacrosanct “peer-review process” will be understandably shaken when they read just how this “consensus” was enforced. Furthermore, the real debate was not between ultra-skeptics who say “global warming is a hoax” versus professional climate scientists who say “anthropogenic climate change is real.” [Read more →] (Robert Murphy, MasterResource)
Playing hide and seek behind the trees by Steve McIntyre Even in their Nov 24, 2009 statement, the University of East Anglia failed to come clean about the amount of decline that was hidden. The graphic in their statement continued to “hide the decline” in the Briffa reconstruction by deleting adverse results in the last part of the 20th century. This is what Gavin Schmidt characterizes as a “good thing to do”. First here is the Nov 2009 diagram offered up by UEA: Here’s what UEA appears to have done in the above diagram. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
Phil Jones Steps Down for Inquiry Breaking News: the University of East Anglia has today released the following statement concerning the status of Professor Phil Jones [pictured]: “Professor Phil Jones has today announced that he will stand aside as Director of the Climatic Research Unit until the completion of an independent Review resulting from allegations following the hacking and publication of emails from the Unit. Professor Jones said: “What is most important is that CRU continues its world leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible. After a good deal of consideration I have decided that the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the Director’s role during the course of the independent review and am grateful to the University for agreeing to this. The Review process will have my full support." Vice-Chancellor Professor Edward Acton said: "I have accepted Professor Jones's offer to stand aside during this period. It is an important step to ensure that CRU can continue to operate normally and the independent review can conduct its work into the allegations. “We will announce details of the Independent Review, including its terms of reference, timescale and the chair, within days. I am delighted that Professor Peter Liss, FRS, CBE, will become acting director.” Professor Liss’ interests lie in environmental chemistry; biogeochemical interactions between the oceans and atmosphere; and global change. He has worked in the School of Environmental Sciences at the UEA for some 40 years. The key next step will be the choice of the person to chair the Independent Review. S/he must be respected by all sides in the debate, but especially by sceptical scientists. So watch this space. (Clamour of the Times)
Climategate: Central Figure in Scandal Asked to Step Down (Updated) "Temporary" removal of Phil Jones until an investigation into Climategate is completed. (Update: Washington Post in denial) Update: Climategate: The Washington Post in Denial When I read the Washington Post’s disgraceful editorial the other day on the Climategate scandal, I thought of how far they have fallen since their big moment in the sun, Watergate. In those heady days, editor Ben Bradlee and a team of crack investigative reporters led by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the Watergate cover-up and brought down President Nixon. Of course, they were then on the side of the permanent Washington establishment, who loathed Nixon (as he loathed them), just as they are now on the side of the permanent Washington establishment, for whom global warming alarmism is a deeply held commitment. (Myron Ebell, PJM)
The IPCC must strike out all references to Professor Jones work Now that the University of East Anglia has stood aside Professor Jones, it is
imperative that the IPCC cease referring to his work.
Climategate: The Phil Jones University could break into children's television, big time Damian’s revelation that Futerra has gone so far as to train even CBeebies researchers in “green” communication may offer a lifeline to embarrassed academics at the
beleaguered “University” of East Anglia. The ever-helpful BBC might be able to channel them towards a less challenging audience than those brutal sceptics who are holding
the Phil Jones University up to so much painful ridicule. Might there not be very promising alternative careers for Phil Jones and Michael Mann if a happy collaboration
between CBeebies and, say, Blue Peter could be devised?
The Fraud Is Everywhere: SUNY Albany and Queens University Belfast Join Climategate (PJM Exclusive) Phil Jones tried to hush my paper. SUNY Albany won't discuss the investigation my paper initiated. And QUB ignored my three FOI requests for their data. Some of the emails leaked in Climategate discuss my work. Following is a comment on that, and on something more important. In 2007, I published a peer-reviewed paper alleging that some important research relied upon by the IPCC (for the treatment of urbanization effects) was fraudulent. The emails show that Tom Wigley — one of the most oft-cited climatologists and an extreme warming advocate — thought my paper was valid. They also show that Phil Jones, the head of the Climatic Research Unit, tried to convince the journal editor not to publish my paper. After my paper was published, the State University of New York — where the research discussed in my paper was conducted — carried out an investigation. During the investigation, I was not interviewed — contrary to the university’s policies, federal regulations, and natural justice. I was allowed to comment on the report of the investigation, before the report’s release. But I was not allowed to see the report. Truly Kafkaesque. (Douglas J. Keenan, PJM)
Climategate: Is Peer-Review in Need of Change? In science, as in most disciplines, the process is as important as the product. The recent email/data release (aka Climategate) has exposed the process of scientific peer-review as failing. If the process is failing, it is reasonable to wonder what this implies about the product. Several scientists have come forward to express their view on what light Climategate has shed on these issues. Judith Curry has some insightful views here and here, along with associated comments and replies. Roger Pielke Jr. has an opinion, as no doubt do many others. Certainly a perfect process does not guarantee perfect results, and a flawed process does not guarantee flawed results, but the chances of a good result are much greater with the former than the latter. That’s why the process was developed in the first place. Briefly, the peer-review process is this; before results are published in the scientific literature and documented for posterity, they are reviewed by one or more scientists who have some working knowledge of the topic but who are not directly associated with the work under consideration. The reviewers are typically anonymous and basically read the paper to determine if it generally seems like a reasonable addition to the scientific knowledge base, and that the results seem reproducible given the described data and methodology. Generally, reviewers do not “audit” the results—that is, spend a lot of effort untangling the details of the data and or methodologies to see if they are appropriate, or to try to reproduce the results for themselves. How much time and effort is put into a peer review varies greatly from case to case and reviewer to reviewer. On most occasions, the reviewers try to include constructive criticism that will help the authors improve their work—that is, the reviewers serve as another set of eyes and minds to look over and consider the research, eyes that are more removed from the research than the co-authors and can perhaps offer different insights and suggestions. Science most often moves forwards in small increments (with a few notable exceptions) and the peer-review process is designed to keep it moving efficiently, with as little back-sliding or veering off course as possible. It is not a perfect system, nor, do I think, was it ever intended to be. The guys over at RealClimate like to call peer-review a “necessary but not sufficient condition.” Certainly is it not sufficient. But increasingly, there are indications that its necessity is slipping—and the contents of the released Climategate emails are hastening that slide. [Read more →] (Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource)
When Do We Get to Read the Rest of the UN Emails on Climate Change? The data-manipulating emails of Climategate have made a splash, with damning implications for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But is this just the tip of the UN climate con iceberg? Shepherding, rewarding and promoting global alarm about “climate change” is a whopping beneficiary of this movement (bigger even than Al Gore) — the United Nations global system. Failing to achieve forward motion for peace or nonproliferation, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been grandstanding for more than two years about the UN’s war on the weather — and has made it his chief mission to persuade developed nations to “seal the deal” on a “climate” pact that would constrict production, transfer vast amounts to wealth to some of the worst governments on the planet, and put the unaccountable, opaque and too often self-serving bureaucracy of the UN at the switch. The UN’s IPCC collected the other half of the Al Gore Nobel Weather Prize, but do UN insiders really believe the IPCC is a bastion of untainted science? (If you want to check out who’s providing “guidance” for the IPCC, check out their web site – some of my favorites on the current roster are Iran, Cuba and Sudan). (Claudia Rosett, PJM)
Strategy papers call for United Nations to boss economies and erect world government under pretext of environmentalism (Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com)
GERMANS TRIED TO WARN US OF CLIMATE FRAUD CHURCHVILLE, VA—The airwaves are full of the “secret” codes and emails from Britain’s Hadley climate research center. New Zealand is looking at the upward trend in
the “official” graph of its recent temperatures—while the country’s raw temperature data show no warming. Now researchers are digging into the Hadley data to find if
the rest of the world’s climate data have been similarly “adjusted.”
Climate Agenda: High Price, Low Return Mention politicians in the same sentence with global warming, and the “hot air” jokes almost write themselves. Unfortunately, what world leaders have planned for us
when it comes to climate change is no laughing matter.
Can You Believe It? Alleged Carbon Fraud in...Denmark
First, there were those infamous hacked e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. Now, a mere seven days before the Copenhagen Conference on climate change, this breaking news story takes the breath away. The whole ‘global warming’ shambles is falling apart. Today, The Copenhagen Post declares: “Denmark Rife With CO2 Fraud”: “Denmark is the centre of a comprehensive tax scam involving CO2 quotas, in which the cheats exploit a so-called ‘VAT carrousel’, reports Ekstra Bladet newspaper. Police and authorities in several European countries are investigating scams worth billions of kroner, which all originate in the Danish quota register. The CO2 quotas are traded in other EU countries.” And the fraud may be of massive proportions: “Ekstra Bladet reporters have found examples of people using false addresses and companies that are in liquidation, which haven’t been removed from the register. One of the cases, which stems from the Danish register, involves fraud of more than 8 billion kroner. This case, in which nine people have been arrested, is being investigated in England.” What can one say? We all knew from the start that carbon trading could prove, by its very nature, a crooks’ charter. But such an allegation relating to Denmark, of all places, at the precise moment of the Copenhagen Conference, where such cap-and-trade measures will be at the forefront of debate, must have the Little Mermaid crying so much that sea-levels may indeed rise. Simply staggering! How long can this ‘global warming’ nonsense be tolerated? As Marcellus declares, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” I’m off for a strong, wee dram. (Philip Stott, Clamour of the Times)
Lawrence Solomon: Australia ditches cap and trade in Climategate's aftermath Emboldened following the Climategate scandal, the Liberal opposition in Australia's parliament threw out its pro-Kyoto leader yesterday and then today, under the leadership of global warming skeptic Tony Abbott, voted down the government's plan to pass cap and trade legislation. The proposed legislation, intended to be a feather in the cap of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd prior to his departure for climate change meetings in Copenhagen, failed by a vote of 41 to 33 in the Senate, Australia's upper house. Despite speculation that Rudd would call a snap election on the issue - a threat some expected him to take up because polls show him to be a favourite over his opposition - a cautious Rudd declined to risk an election against his new adversary, a conservative who pledges to oppose any tax on carbon. The government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which faced fierce opposition from industry and agriculture, aimed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 25% from 2000 levels by 2020. (Financial Post)
Oh, the indoctrination and propaganda were inadequate: Please explain: ETS could fail due to ignorance The Rudd Government has failed to explain its far-reaching emissions trading scheme to the public, environmentalists say.
CPRS DEFEAT MASSIVE MISCALL BY MOST BUSINESS GROUPS “The defeat of Rudd’s CPRS in the Senate today shows just how wrong headed most business groups have been over the politics of an ETS,” says The Nationals’ Senator
Ron Boswell.
Party Leaders Beware, Including David Cameron Supporting ‘global warming’ may be increasingly dangerous for some politicians’ survival. Today, political opposition to ‘global warming’ claimed its first big scalp, as the Liberal Party in Australia voted to ditch its Leader in the Australian Parliament, Malcolm Turnbull [main picture]. In a last-minute secret ballot against two other candidates, he lost by one vote to the climate-change sceptic, Tony Abbott, who is now the 32nd Leader of the Opposition. (Clamour of the Times)
What's in a name? That which we call a rose Well, here it comes, the International Conference on Global Governance in Copenhagen. According to the ever-truthful BBC it is the most important meeting in the history of the world. They even might be right this time, following the ease with which the European nations slid into antidemocratic, bureaucratic centralised government and the rise to power of a new movement towards the authoritarian left in America. 16,500 carbon-based entities will produce over 40,000 tones of carbon dioxide to travel to the conference. At least there will be some benefit to plant growth. The potential for new, insane attempts at world economic suicide is limitless. According to The Times the wild-eyed economist in charge of the IPCC is a leading world authority on climate science. His project is to suck gaseous plant food out of the atmosphere. There is one glow on the southern horizon, however, where that glimmer is promising to turn into a beacon of hope, lighting the path of return to rationality. Read all about it in JoNova, which includes this heartfelt acknowledgement to the CRU whistle-blower, with which many of us may concur: Thanks to the ClimateGate instigator, who-ever you are. The Australian people owe you a fortune. Somehow the God of Reason has smiled upon us and our democratically elected leaders are hesitating to give away $7 billion dollars of voter’s money annually (and ad infinitum) to foreign forces in the hope of changing the weather. (WT)2 du jour
They are SO predictable. As promised, the WORSE THAN WAS THOUGHTs are coming thick and fast. The latest got a front page spot in The Times plus two centre pages, a big splash in the Telegraph and, it goes without saying, the ever-truthful BBC. It is a classic too, ignoring the data that there is no warming occurring (fashionably, hiding the decline) and building more computer predictions on other discredited predictions. You may now choose your depth of inundation from the à la carte menu, anything up to 50m (though that one comes only from the exclusive Hansen range). This modest little number comes in at about 1.4 metres; not too elaborate but just enough to enliven forthcoming banquets in Copenhagen (Number Watch)
Climate scientists warn of doomsday hysteria New climate report warns sea-level could rise by up to 2m, but scientists warn against hysteria
Climategate: Imminent Demise of Glaciers Due to … a Typo! The IPCC has been claiming Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035. The research paper they used concluded 2350. “Climategate” is now more than the massive misconduct of one research institution. Following the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) data dump on November 19, many other issues with the political science of climate change are now being let out of the darkness. (See the complete Pajamas Media aggregator and document repository here, and find another PJM exclusive on research misconduct in the climate science community here.) Most people following the climate change debate are aware that many sources claim that the Himalayan glaciers are disappearing “rapidly” — in fact, that they may disappear by 2035, a mere 25 years from now. Today, in a guest post at Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.’s blog, Dr. Madhav Khandekar discusses this bit of folk science (Dr. Pielke is also the subject of an upcoming PJM interview).: (PJM)
Oh snap! CO2 causes some ocean critters to build more shells And some thought ocean acidification would destroy everything.
From the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute press release, just in time for Copenhagen. In a striking finding that raises new questions about carbon dioxide’s (CO2) impact on marine life, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists report that some shell-building creatures—such as crabs, shrimp and lobsters—unexpectedly build more shell when exposed to ocean acidification caused by elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Because excess CO2 dissolves in the ocean—causing it to “acidify” —researchers have been concerned about the ability of certain organisms to maintain the strength of their shells. Carbon dioxide is known to trigger a process that reduces the abundance of carbonate ions in seawater—one of the primary materials that marine organisms use to build their calcium carbonate shells and skeletons. The concern is that this process will trigger a weakening and decline in the shells of some species and, in the long term, upset the balance of the ocean ecosystem. But in a study published in the Dec. 1 issue of Geology, a team led by former WHOI postdoctoral researcher Justin B. Ries found that seven of the 18 shelled species they observed actually built more shell when exposed to varying levels of increased acidification. This may be because the total amount of dissolved inorganic carbon available to them is actually increased when the ocean becomes more acidic, even though the concentration of carbonate ions is decreased. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season is over. Activity was light. More wind will be stirred up next week in Copenhagen, where climate change alarmists will gather to refuel
their fear campaign.
Looking premium increases to pad the bottom line: Munich Re seeks ambitious climate protection targets LONDON - Nov 30 - There is clear evidence that climate change is contributing towards rising natural catastrophe losses and ambitious climate protection targets are needed to tackle the increase, according to Munich Re. (Reuters)
PCC (pre-CoP crap) First comprehensive review of the state of Antarctica's climate - 'Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment' The first comprehensive review of the state of Antarctica's climate and its relationship to the global climate system is published this week (Tuesday 1 December) by the
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The review - Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment – presents the latest research from the icy continent,
identifies areas for future scientific research, and addresses the urgent questions that policy makers have about Antarctic melting, sea-level rise and biodiversity.
Uh-huh... Antarctica protected from global warming by hole in ozone layer A HUGE hole in the ozone layer has protected Antarctica from the impacts of global warming, according to scientists.
PCC (recycled, too) Climate change 'could kill 400,000 children every year' Climate change could kill more than 400,000 children every year in the future because of floods and droughts, according to a leading charity. ( Louise Gray, TDT)
Say what? Harrabin's Notes: Debating the IPCC In his regular column, the BBC's environment analyst, Roger Harrabin, looks at how the affair of the stolen climate e-mails has sparked debate among some scientists about the body which peer reviews climate science. (BBC)
We all need a laugh: Climate change sceptics are 'muddled', says Lord Stern Lord Stern labelled the views of those who are sceptical about the existence of man-made global warming as ''muddled and unscientific''. (TDT)
So what's new? This was always about misanthropy: Population issue enters climate debate For decades, debate over whether to limit global population growth was stifled or ignored, branded as immoral and a return to heartless Malthusian logic.
As if Nohopenhagen didn't have enough problems :-) Meet Al Gore in Copenhagen Have you ever shaken hands with an American vice president? If not, now is your chance. Meet Al Gore in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference in December
2009.
A Conundrum That Awaits In Copenhagen Climate-change skeptics are barking up the wrong smokestack. The shell game being played isn't with the science, it's with the solutions — specifically, the carbon
emissions targets that enlightened world leaders are pledging to meet. That's where the numbers don't add up.
EU 'should cut emissions by 30%' Europe should impose a unilateral cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 30% by 2020, according to climate economist Sir Nicholas Stern. ( Roger Harrabin, BBC News)
Copenhagen climate summit: 50/50 chance of stopping catastrophe, Lord Stern says An ambitious deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions needs to be agreed at the Copenhagen climate summit to give a 50/50 chance of keeping temperatures from rising more than 2C, Lord Stern has said. (TDT)
Australia Carbon Scheme Immaterial To World Prices LONDON - Defeat of Australia's emissions trading plans may temporarily dent political momentum ahead of next week's U.N. climate talks, but succeed or fail, the scheme is unlikely to affect global carbon prices until at least 2013. (Reuters)
Europeans Could Save Planet For $3 A Day: Study BRUSSELS - Europeans could help cut climate warming emissions to much safer levels for just 2 euros ($3) each per day, but they would also have to cut back on driving and meat eating, a report said Tuesday. (Reuters)
Moonbat reverts to type: Canada's image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling The tar barons have held the nation to ransom. This thuggish petro-state is today the greatest obstacle to a deal in Copenhagen (George Monbiot, The Guardian)
Editorial: Global-warming zealots in control Scientific, economic and political realities are reining in worldwide efforts to combat global warming. But not so in California. As others stop short of committing economic suicide, California's overaggressive government could inflict further economic harm on the state. (Orange County Register)
Spain Leads Climate Rhetoric, Lags in Cutting Carbon Emissions Spain won’t be able to meet its carbon-reduction targets by actually cutting its carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, the Spanish government has told the EU Commission it will have to buy its way out through so-called Kyoto mechanisms, like the Poland deal. [Read More] (Andres Cala, Energy Tribune)
From CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 48: 2 December 2009 Editorial: Extra Editorial From 25 November: Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week: Subject Index Summary: Plant Growth Data: Journal Reviews: Earth's Land Surface: Source or Sink of Anthropogenic CO2?: Over the course of the Industrial Revolution, earth's land surface has changed from a carbon source to a carbon sink. Why? The Airborne Fraction of Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions: Is it gradually increasing as the world's land and oceans find it harder and harder to soak up ever greater quantities of the nefarious greenhouse gas? Another Take on the Airborne Fraction of Anthropogenic CO2: Does it support other contemporary work on the subject? ... or does it differ from it? Genetic Variability of Heat Tolerance in Cotton: Is there sufficient variability to enable breeding to accommodate projected increases in air temperature? (co2science.org)
Oil, Oil Everywhere, and Not a Drop to Pump If you had something you needed in your home, would you go to the store to buy it anyway? Of course not! Strangely, however, some members of Congress seem determined to push the country toward making this counterproductive choice. The Congressional Research Service released a report at the end of October, “U.S. Fossil Fuel Resources: Terminology, Reporting, and Summary,” which clearly showed that the U.S. has a considerable amount of oil, coal, and natural gas at its disposal—but most of it hasn't been accessed. (Nicole Kurokawa, Townhall)
Defend oil sands, Cenovus CEO says The Alberta government and its federal counterpart must step up to defend the oil sands, both at home and abroad, pushing the economic and energy-security arguments, says
the incoming chief executive of newly created Cenovus Energy Inc.
D'oh! Oil still fuels the green state of Denmark Something is rotten: Despite wind power, fossil fuels still dominate electricity production (Eric Reguly, Globe and Mail)
New York Eyes Offshore Wind Farms On Great Lakes NEW YORK - New York State is looking for developers to build wind farms on its Great Lakes that could generate 120 to 500 megawatts of power to boost the amount of
electricity that comes renewable sources by 2015.
But Steven, is it a race we should even be in, let alone want to win? U.S. falling behind in clean-energy race: Chu GREENVILLE, South Carolina - The United States is falling behind in the race for clean, renewable energy and risks losing its prominence in high-tech manufacturing, U.S.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Monday.
Germans Miss Out On Cheaper Electricity FRANKFURT - Millions of Germans will pay more for their electricity despite sharply lower fuel prices, footing the bill for utilities' losses, renewable energy and higher
transmission grid charges.
LONDON, Nov. 30 -- Executives at supermajor Royal Dutch Shell are pulling back on their optimism for certain biofuels while others look to batteries as a way to cut
emissions.
Swine flu still down in US but 198 children dead WASHINGTON - Swine flu continues to wane across the United States, but it has killed more than 30 children since the last count, U.S. health officials said on Monday.
Eye-roller: Plastics chemical phthalate may shorten pregnancy NEW YORK - Pregnant women who are exposed to higher levels of an increasingly controversial chemical in certain plastics may deliver their babies slightly earlier than
women with less exposure, results of a study hint.
Oh boy... Insect repellents linked to genital defects in baby boys Women who use insect repellents during the first three months of pregnancy are more likely to give birth to baby boys with a genital defect, according to researchers. Insecticides used in gardening and agriculture may also be linked to genital malformations in boys. (The Guardian)
Iraq sees alarming rise in cancers, deformed babies BAGHDAD - The guns are gradually falling silent in Iraq as a fragile stability takes hold, turning the spotlight on a stealthier killer likely to stalk Iraqis for years to
come.
Two-thirds of US broiler chickens contaminated: group WASHINGTON - Two-thirds of 382 fresh broiler chickens purchased from grocers by a U.S. consumer group were contaminated with one or both of the bacteria that cause most
cases of food-borne illness, the group said on Monday.
Peter Foster: Save our babies from red tape Any free-marketer, like Prime Minister Harper once was, knows that corporate self-interest protects consumers, not legislation My mother once accidentally crushed my thumb in a door. She was a good mother, but accidents happen. A door is in fact still a tremendous instrument for crushing digits,
but should that make doors (or parents?) subject to legislative “recall” as safety hazards? Click here to read more... (Financial Post)
As moms age, more babies born with Down syndrome NEW YORK - The percentage of children born with Down syndrome has increased by about one percent per year since 1979, according to new findings from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Tall kids more apt to become heavy adults NEW YORK - Children who are relatively tall may be more likely than their shorter peers to become overweight young adults, a study published Tuesday suggests.
Smoking skunk raises risk of psychosis, study finds LONDON - People who smoke "skunk" - a potent form of cannabis - are almost seven times more likely to develop psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia
than those who smoke "hash" or cannabis resin, according to research.
Right... Dying To Be Green? Try "Bio-Cremation" VANCOUVER - Worried you haven't been green enough in life? Don't let death come in the way of a more eco-friendly you.
December 1, 2009
Climategate: Caught Green-Handed! The whistleblower deep in the basement of one of the ugly, modern tower-blocks of the dismal, windswept University of East Anglia could scarcely have timed it better.
Climate Change E-Mails Cry Out for a National Conversation With trillions of dollars at stake for the climate decisions that are going to be made next week in Copenhagen, Americans deserve some discussion of the "climate-gate" e-mails. (John Lott, FOXNews.com)
The Economics of Climate Change - The stakes are too high to treat Climategate as just another academic spat. The emails and documents leaked last week from some of the world's leading climatologists offer a rich trove of evidence that scientists were massaging the data and
corrupting the scientific process to support their own preconceptions. But they also offer the beginnings of an explanation for why. In the words of another famous leaker,
follow the money.
When Scientists Become Politicians The recent expose of the e-mails from the scientists at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia, revealing the nefarious nature of their
global warming crusade, does far more than damage the credibility of global warming activists. It damages the foundation of one of the last bastions of truth.
Climategate Document Database from PJTV/Pajamas Media PJTV and PJM now present a complete database of the Climategate documents with a comment section for readers to respond to the individual entries and a way to rank those entries according to interest level. Also available: a roundup of commentary and videos on the subject and Roger L. Simon on "Climategate: Terrified Liars of the UN" (PJM)
ClimateGate - Global Warming Hoax Some of the world's leading climate scientists have been embarrassed by the publication of hundreds of private emails & research documents, stolen by computer hackers
from a British university. Climate change skeptics have hailed the material as proof that research data has been skewed and suppressed.
In my previous
post on Climategate I blithely said that nothing in the climate science email dump surprised me much. Having waded more deeply over the weekend I take that back.
Climategate: Follow the Money - Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God. Last year, ExxonMobil donated $7 million to a grab-bag of public policy institutes, including the Aspen Institute, the Asia Society and Transparency International. It also
gave a combined $125,000 to the Heritage Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis, two conservative think tanks that have offered dissenting views on what until
recently was called—without irony—the climate change "consensus."
CRU Data-Cooking: Recipe Exposed! Thanks to Eric Raymond, famous computer guru and leader of the open-source movement, at ESR, we can see what those sophisticated climate modelers were doing. They’ve found the code from the leaked files, and Eric’s comment is: This isn’t just a smoking gun, it’s a siege cannon with the barrel still hot. Here’s the code. The programmer has written in helpful notes that us non-programmers can understand, like this one: “Apply a very artificial correction for decline”. You get the feeling this climate programmer didn’t like pushing the data around so blatantly. Note the technical comment: “fudge factor”. ; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!! The numbers in a row, in the [ ] brackets, are the numbers the data are to be altered by. If there were no adjustments, they’d all be zero. It’s obvious there is no attempt to treat all the data equally, or use a rigorous method to make adjustments. What could their reasons be? East Anglia Data Adjustments In 1900-1920: “All thermometers working accurately”. In 1930: “Stock market crash and global depression causes artificial inflation in temperatures. Corrected, using inverted Dow Jones index until 1940″. 1940: “Due to WWII, briefly, thermometers work again”. 1945: “Artificial rise due to Nagasaki/Hiroshima effect. Compensated.” 1950 – 2000: “Quality control at thermometer factories must be going to pieces. Thermometers are just reading too low, and it kept getting worse until 1970. Instead of demanding the factories get it right, simply adjust the data. Still not enough. Quality control puts air-conditioning exhaust vents close to thermometers in the field, to further counteract apparent factory problem.” Ladies and gentlemen, I’m seriously concerned. All along I’ve said the world was warming. Now I’m not so sure. How would we know? How does anyone know in the light of all that data fudging? That hacker or leaker of info deserves glory and thanks. Serious postscript: How can anyone defend this? These people work for a team that wants more of your money. Is this not evidence of criminal intent to deceive? (JoNova)
Climategate Scandal Heats Up, As Researcher "Accidentally" Deleted Data It would appear that the Climategate scandal, the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. revealing that scientists
distorted climate change data, is not going to cool off anytime soon.
The end of cap-and-trade - Global warming e-mails should torpedo ridiculous tax scheme Surprise: Hacked e-mails have revealed that sober, empirical, fact-loving scientists at the heart of global-warming research behave like a crazed group of Delta girls
engaged in a flame war to paint the Kappas as a bunch of nasty skanks.
Shocker – CRU’s Jones: GISS is inferior I was working on another project related to the CRU emails and came across this email from Dr.Phil Jones. I was stunned, not only because he was dissing another dataset, but mostly because that dissing hit many of the points about problems with the NASA GISS products we’ve covered here on WUWT and at Climate Audit. Here’s the email with my highlights added. Email addresses have been partially redacted. The original email can be seen at this link: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
What Do We Really Know About Climate Change? A Guest Post by Basil Copeland Like many of Anthony’s readers here on WUWT, I’ve been riveted by all the revelations and ongoing discussion and analysis of the CRUtape Letters™ (with appropriate props to WUWT’s “ctm”). It might be hard to imagine that anyone could add to what has already been said, but I am going to try. It might also come as a surprise, to those who reckon me for a skeptic, that I do not think that anything was revealed that suggests that the global temperature data set maintained by CRU was irreparably damaged by these revelations. We’ve known all along that the data may be biased by poor siting issues, handling of station dropout, or inadequate treatment of UHI effects. But nothing was revealed that suggests that the global temperature data sets are completely bogus, or unreliable. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)
A Myth About The Surface Temperature Record Analyses Perpetuated On Dot Earth By Andy Revkin On the weblog Dot Earth today, there is text from Michael Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois, that presents analyses of long term surface temperature trends from NASA, NCDC and Japan as if these are from independent sets of data from the analysis of CRU. Andy Revkin is perpetuating this myth in this write-up by not presenting the real fact that these analyses draw from the same original raw data. While they may use only a subset of this raw data, the overlap has been estimated as about 90-95%. The unresolved problems with this surface data (which, of course, applies to all four locations) is reported in the peer reviewed paper Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229. I discuss this issue in my recent post Further Comment On The Surface Temperature Data Used In The CRU, GISS And NCDC Analyses where I document that even the CCSP 1.1. report acknowledged this lack of independence. Andy Revkin’s post on the surface temperature record data sets is not journalistically accurate. (Climate Science)
There is a response by Gavin Schmidt on Real Climate with respect to the role of land use change on the attribution of surface air temperature trends [thanks to Charlie Allen for alerting us to it!]. While Gavin has expertise in global climate modeling, his reply illustrates his lack of expertise on the role of landscape processes within the climate system, and, in this example, with respect to the role of land use/land cover change on long temperature trends. (Climate Science)
Evaluation of RMS Hurricane Damage Forecast 2006-2010 In
the spring of 2006 (and annually since), a company called Risk Management Solutions (RMS) issued
a five year forecast of hurricane activity (for 2006-2010). RMS predicted that U.S. insured hurricane losses would be 40% higher than average the historical average. RMS
is the global leader in so-called "catastrophe modeling." Their loss models are used by insurance companies to set rates charged to homeowners, by reinsurance
companies to set rates they charge to insurers, by ratings agencies for evaluating risks, and others.
The Climate Science Isn't Settled - Confident predictions of catastrophe are unwarranted. Is there a reason to be alarmed by the prospect of global warming? Consider that the measurement used, the globally averaged temperature anomaly (GATA), is always
changing. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down, and occasionally—such as for the last dozen years or so—it does little that can be discerned.
Global warming? Don't wait up! The Earth has her own tricks to keep the carbon count in control Perhaps it is comforting to believe that science is an absolute discipline: immune from fads, fanatics and frauds, untroubled by extremists, evangelists, glory-seekers and
bigots. But it is not. It is as vulnerable to the vested interests and biases of its practitioners as any corporate entity or political party.
Tree hater wants to starve plants! Carbon must be sucked from air, says IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri Drastic cuts in carbon emissions may not be sufficient to avoid the worst ravages of global warming and the world will need to suck carbon from the atmosphere to avert permanent damage to the climate, according to a leading world authority on climate science. (The Times)
A hairshirt lecture from above - as in 35,000 feet above, in business class:
Of course, this new asecetic lifestyle cannot possibly be imposed on a man as grand as Pachauri, with such crucial work to do to save us from the gases he belches out the back of his jet:
Add to his business flights this example of “sustainable consumption”:
Jonathan Foreman also wonders whether Pachauri has urged the guests at his global warming party next week to avoid catching those sinful planes:
(Thanks to reader Debbie.) (Andrew Bolt)
Look out! Tipsy time bombs! Climate 'time bombs' stoke scientists' fears Whatever the outcome of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Nature may have some extremely nasty surprises up its sleeve, say scientists.
Another "twice as bad"? Sea level rise will double due to melting of Antarctica Sea levels could rise more than twice as fast as previously predicted due to melting ice caps around the south pole, according to the most comprehensive study into how climate change is affecting the Antarctic. (TDT)
Oh boy... World carbon emissions overshoot "budget": PwC OSLO - The world has emitted extra greenhouse gases this century equivalent to the annual totals of China and the United States above a maximum for avoiding the worst of climate change, a study estimated on Tuesday. (Reuters)
Right... Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney to tell EU: 'Less meat means less heat' Former Beatle Paul McCartney has said that he will interrupt his European concert tour to tell world leaders how eating less meat can lead to less heat.
Oh... Forest Service 'Dramatically Reshaping' Plans in Response to Climate Change Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell has directed the agency's regions and research stations to jointly produce draft "landscape conservation action plans" by March
1 to guide its day-to-day response to climate change.
Commonwealth meeting a failed folly By midnight most nights, the Skywalker bar of the Caribbean Princess was a sea of heaving bodies as young men and women engage in what the Americans call
"grinding" and the Trinidadians call "whining".
Big developing countries form climate change front BEIJING - A clutch of major emerging economies including China and India have forged a united front to put pressure on developed countries at next month's climate change
negotiations in Copenhagen.
Climate talks remain alive, but so do many obstacles By offering concrete emission targets last week, the United States and China have resuscitated global climate talks that were headed toward an impasse. But the details
that have yet to be resolved -- including the money that industrialized countries would offer poorer ones as part of an agreement -- suggest a political deal remains a heavy
lift for the 192 countries set to convene in Copenhagen in little more than a week.
The simple math of CO2 reduction Those who propose draconian measures to curb CO2 production need a math refresher course. Look at the projections. Assuming existing CO2 reduction policies are not
changed, by 2030, human activity will account for about 3.3% of global CO2 production (NASA). By itself, the United States is projected to contribute 15.8% of world human
emissions in 2030 (IEA/EIA). Therefore:
This week’s cartoon: ClimateGate and Copenhagen President Obama is set to go to Copenhagen but more and more emerging details on ClimateGate is likely to make for a bumpy trip. Here’s this week’s toon: (The Chilling Effect)
Climate change is proving a hard sell BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — It seems like proponents for tough measures on climate change have fallen on hard times.
Economic pain, little environmental gain WASHINGTON — A new global warming treaty would be all economic pain and little environmental gain for America even if China and other fast-developing nations sign on as
well. But if developing nations remain exempted, it would be all economic pain and no environmental gain. Either way, America should stay out! At the United Nations'
Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen in early December proponents of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — which expires in 2012 — will try to hash out a new international
agreement for lowering carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, a new global energy tax may be in the works.
Lack of climate debate hobbles policy New Global Warming Policy Foundation to hold open, honest debate Next week, the United Nations climate change conference opens in Copenhagen. Its purpose is (or was) clear: to draft a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in
2012. Click here to read more... (Nigel Lawson, Financial Post)
Carbon-credit dispute threatens new climate deal - Russia wants surplus carried over, but environmentalists call it counterproductive and unearned MOSCOW -- Russia is on track to far exceed its targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions under the Kyoto climate-change treaty, but its success could derail efforts to
reach a new accord against global warming, according to officials and analysts following the negotiations.
Denmark Says No Proposal To Break Climate Deadlock COPENHAGEN - Denmark's Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Monday that his government had not tabled a proposal for an agreement on fighting global warming for
next month's U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen.
The Global Gravy Train Takes A Major Political Hit History will record December 1, 2009 as the day of the first major political damage to the momentum of the Global Warming Scam. For the first time anywhere in a major western democracy, a mainstream party is ready to face an election on “climate change” and face the bullies. The Australian Liberal Party have elected a new leader, held a secret ballot and voted 55 : 29 to defer the Emissions Trading Legislation. Abbot said: “he was not afraid to fight an election on climate change policy. And I am not frightened of an election on this issue.” This will reverberate around the world in the lead up to Copenhagen. The finale of one of the hottest weeks in Australian politics came down to a nail-biting 42:41 finish, but the earlier three-way split had Abbott a clear winner, and the secret ballot leaves no doubt the party doesn’t want to rush into this massive emissions trading legislation. The recent galaxy poll showed 80% of coalition voters don’t want it either.
The fog of the scare campaign has reached a peak and is now clearly lifting, but there is much to do. Abbott after all, supported the emissions trading scheme only a few months ago (though for political reasons rather than scientific or emotional ones). This is a victory for grassroots action and democracy. For those who say the Liberal Party should have been allowed a vote of conscience in the Senate: One, the Labor Party weren’t (and there are skeptics in there who are relieved today); and two, who are we kidding, climate change is not a religion, is it? Hard science should never be decided by the heart. Why would anyone bother launching a weather satellite if a passionate belief could affect the atmosphere? Senator Fielding is pushing for a Royal Commission. Let’s do the sums. Over the next decade with an emissions trading scheme Australians would pay $70,000 million dollars to foreign interests, with no benchmarks to estimate whether we have achieved anything except a symbolic victory. Cost of a Royal Commission: $100 million, or 0.001% of that outlay just to make sure. To twist some cliche’s: Why play games with our children's future? Have a Royal Commission. Take precautions! Spend 0.001% just to check the facts. If Rudd passionately believes the science is settled and the world is warming due to human activity, he will leap at the chance to prove it, right? The press of course, almost to a person, don’t get it. Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald: “Tony Abbott will offer himself as a political opportunist, a man who has switched his position to profit from a surging wave of opposition to Turnbull’s position on climate change.” [SMH]
It never occurs to those driven by ideology and not facts that there is any chance that an international committee could have been corrupted, or that human socio-political processes could be distorted, or that scientists could have been human. The press just can’t see the wave of common sense coming (at long last) as politicians wake up to the global fraud. All credit to the dedicated hard work of men like Denis Jensen (our only science related PhD in Parliament) who’s been pointing out the illogical, unbacked nature of this for about two years to his own party. Senator Minchin’s role has been crucial (the Minchinites won!). Cory Bernardi has been outspoken. This is democracy in action. This is what the start of the road to victory would look like. * Having said that, there is still the faint possibility that some Liberal Senators could cross the floor. It would be an unprecedented political action, but given what has happened so far this week, not out of the question. Keep those emails coming… Click on their names for emails. The full list of senators is here: Michael Ronaldson senator.ronaldson@aph.gov.au, Senator George Brandis senator.brandis@aph.gov.au, Senator Sue Boyce senator.sue.boyce@aph.gov.au, Senator Judy Troeth senator.troeth@aph.gov.au, Senator Maris Payne senator.payne@aph.gov.au, Senator Kroger senator.kroger@aph.gov.au. Click on that picture if you want to see it larger.
Cap and Trade Takes a Big Hit in Australia Breaking news: At a meeting of the Liberal Party’s Members of Parliament today, Malcolm Turnbull was turned out as Leader and replaced by Tony Abbott on a 42 to 41 vote. Abbott then immediately called for a vote of his colleagues on the Labour Government’s cap-and-trade bill to ration energy and raise energy prices. The vote was 54 to 29 against. A number of Liberal Members have risked their careers to stop cap-and-trade, including Cory Bernardi and Nick Minchin as well as Tony Abbott. They should all be honored for their courageous stand. Toppling Turnbull was a necessary step, but it isn’t the end of the story. It is likely that the Senate will now defeat the cap-and-trade bill for the second time. However, a few disgruntled Turnbullite Liberal Senators could provide the votes needed to pass it. If it is defeated, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could then call a general election of both the House and Senate. So the fight is still to be won or lost. (Myron Ebell, Cooler Heads)
Australia opposition dumps chief, carbon laws in doubt CANBERRA - Australia's plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions are set for almost certain defeat in a hostile Senate after the opposition on Tuesday elected a new leader
opposed to the government's carbon trading scheme.
Hopefully prophetic: Australian Climate Row Highlights Copenhagen Rifts CANBERRA - Australia's major rivers are shrinking and farms are gripped by drought as scientists warn of climate change, but that has not convinced some skeptical
politicians to back carbon-trade laws.
December 1st, 2009
The carbon tax debate Australia never had - The current debate is not about the science of climate change. The climate has always changed, it always will. At some level man must be contributing to it. I strongly believe that reducing pollution can only be a good thing not only
for the environment, but also for the Nation’s productive capacity and our kids’ future.
CO2 Trade "Pointless" Versus China Growth-Trader LONDON - Trade in permits to pollute is "largely pointless" when compared with the scale of growth in greenhouse gases in China and must be scaled up, one of the
carbon market's most senior traders said on Monday.
James Hansen on Cap-and-Trade & Copenhagen
There is a civil war on the Left against cap-and-trade as the centerpiece of a U.S. climate bill. Among the leading critics is NASA scientist and Al Gore mentor James Hansen, who reiterated his opposition in Sunday’s The Observer with Copenhagen’s climate summit in mind:
Hansen also stated earlier this month:
Hansen’s earlier criticisms of HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Waxman-Markey climate bill), apply to the current Senate companion, Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act of 2009 (Kerry-Boxer climate bill). (Robert Bradley Jr., MasterResource)
Another one angling for mandated sales: Novozymes Calls For CO2 Target For Washing COPENHAGEN - Makers of washing machines and detergents should agree to cut carbon emissions from clothes washing by 80 percent in five to 10 years, the head of the world's
biggest maker of industrial enzymes said on Monday.
Tree Harvester Offers to Save Indonesian Forest TELUK MERANTI, Indonesia — From the air, the Kampar Peninsula in Indonesia stretches for mile after mile in dense scrub and trees. One of the world’s largest peat
swamp forests, it is also one of its biggest vaults of carbon dioxide, a source of potentially lucrative currency as world governments struggle to hammer out a global climate
treaty. The vault, though, is leaking.
The leftist spin about the global-warming bills in Congress is that they're about, in Nancy Pelosi's words, "Jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs." Here's the reality, courtesy of Max Schultz:
Tens of thousands of Spanish solar workers have been laid off as a result of that country's flirtation with green jobs. Let's not get fooled again. (Iain Murray, NRO)
The Left’s Untenable Position on Nuclear Power The Los Angeles Times may be wrong about energy policy, but it is consistent. On Saturday, the paper published an unsigned editorial titled “No new nukes – plants, that is.” The piece declares that nuclear energy “is not a reasonable solution because plants take too long to build and cost far too much.” California’s paper of record recommends, predictably, that the US invest more money in “renewable power sources such as solar, wind and geothermal,” as well as “solar thermal storage facilities and plants that generate electricity using biomass.” It concludes that “Nuclear power is a failed experiment of the past, not an answer for the future.” That piece reminded me of another Los Angeles Times editorial that I found during some recent research at the Library of Congress. While looking for articles about federal price controls on oil and natural gas, I came across another unsigned editorial from the Los Angeles Times, published in May 1975 called “Natural Gas: What to Do.” At that time, the US was facing a shortage of natural gas, a problem that was largely caused by federal price controls on interstate gas sales. The Times declared that a windfall profits tax should be imposed on the gas producers who “failed to plow most of the profits back into the hunt for new supplies.” The paper went on to conclude that “The choice is not between cheap and expensive natural gas, because there is no such thing as a plentiful supply of cheap gas.” Of course, there’s no way that the Times could have foreseen how the shale gas revolution would overhaul the US natural gas sector. But the paper’s stance on nuclear power is of a piece with the myopia of America’s most influential environmental activists. (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)
Mechanical glitches plague offshore wind farm A multi-million pound wind farm built off the Kent coast to provide energy for 100,000 homes has suffered repeated mechanical problems in the four years since it was
built.
Sharp increase in swine flu deaths in France PARIS - The number of deaths in mainland France from the H1N1 swine flu virus jumped in the last week, according to official data on Thursday.
More than 1,000 deaths in past week from H1N1-WHO * Latest fatalities bring global toll to at least 7,826
Closing schools could cut flu transmission by fifth * Study: reducing close contacts cuts transmission by 21 pct
Black Swan Flu - Why mall Santas do need the H1N1 vaccine. Recently, the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas--a fraternal association "dedicated to the joy of being Santa"--made headlines by requesting that its
members receive priority status for the H1N1 flu shot.
Hope At Last: Scientists Retract Irreproducible Paper Just to show that there are very good Scientists around…
(Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)
Some interesting findings from the JUPITER study JUPITER was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center trial conducted at 1315 sites in 26 countries, involving 17,802 patients. The trial was
financially supported by Astra-Zeneca, manufacturers of Crestor®. The sponsor collected the trial data and monitored the study sites, but played no role in the conduct of
the analyses or drafting of the manuscripts submitted for publication, and had no access to the unblinded trial data until after the manuscript was submitted for publication.
Detergent exposure hard on workers' lungs: studies NEW YORK - People who work in detergent factories are at increased risk of developing respiratory problems, including asthma, probably from exposure to chemicals contained
in detergent, two new studies hint.
It looks like we struck a nerve with at least one Greenie, on our recent Chinese
drywall posting. Lloyd Alter, writing for treehugger.com protests
that the Greens have not been ignoring the problem at all, and then cites three of his own articles, along with another that merely reports existing news. Forget for a moment
that him citing himself, and one other treehugger posting, is hardly an unbiased survey of the Green blogosphere.
Many pregnant women take drugs harmful to baby NEW YORK - With the help of their doctors, women planning to become pregnant should take an inventory of the medications they take, researchers from Canada advise.
Parents' age tied to child's autism risk NEW YORK - Children born to relatively older mothers or fathers may have a higher risk of autism than those with younger parents, a new study finds.
Can Plastic Change Your Sex? - Another weak claim consumes the media. Once upon a time--this week, actually--mothers all over the world woke up and wondered whether their little boys were increasingly behaving like little girls. The cause
for this sudden concern: a new study claiming chemicals in everyday plastics might be feminizing their brains.
Kangaroos May Hold Key To Preventing Skin Cancer: Study SYDNEY - Understanding how kangaroos repair their DNA could be the key to preventing skin cancer, according to Australian and Austrian researchers.
Europe's post-Soviet greening -- gains and failures - Two rivers tell contrasting tales of environmental devastation and redemption in East Europe DNIPRODZERZHYNSK, Ukraine -- Twenty years ago, when the Iron Curtain came down, the world gagged in horror as it witnessed firsthand the ravages inflicted on nature by the
Soviet industrial machine.
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