If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites [sic] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabyte) of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)
When you read some of those files -- including 1079 emails and 72 documents -- you realise just why the boffins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin) at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be "the greatest in modern science". These alleged emails -- supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory -- suggest:
One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics [sic], founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:
But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.
Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because -- though Hadley CRU's director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room -- he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:
Manipulation of evidence:
Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:
Suppression of evidence:
Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment - minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:
I'll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.
Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):
……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to "contain" the putative "MWP", even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….
And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.
"I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor." "It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice!"
Hadley CRU has form in this regard. In September – I wrote the story up here as “How the global warming industry is based on a massive lie” – Hadley CRU’s researchers were exposed as having “cherry-picked” data in order to support their untrue claim that global temperatures had risen higher at the end of the 20th century than at any time in the last millenium. Hadley CRU was also the organisation which – in contravention of all acceptable behaviour in the international scientific community – spent years withholding data from researchers it deemed unhelpful to its cause. This matters because Hadley CRU, established in 1990 by the Met Office, is a government-funded body which is supposed to be a model of rectitude. Its HadCrut record is one of the four official sources of global temperature data used by the IPCC.
I asked in my title whether this will be the final nail in the coffin of Anthropenic Global Warming. This was wishful thinking, of course. In the run up to Copenhagen, we will see more and more hysterical (and grotesquely exaggerated) stories such as this in the Mainstream Media. And we will see ever-more-virulent campaigns conducted by eco-fascist activists, such as this risible new advertising campaign by Plane Stupid showing CGI polar bears falling from the sky and exploding because kind of, like, man, that’s sort of what happens whenever you take another trip on an aeroplane.
The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore's Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called "sceptical" view is now also the majority view.
Unfortunately, we’ve a long, long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in AGW, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight.
But if the Hadley CRU scandal is true, it's a blow to the AGW lobby's credibility which is never likely to recover.
The University of East Anglia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_East_Anglia)'s Hadley Climatic Research Unit (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/) [WP] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit) was hacked, and internal documents released (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8370282.stm). Some discussion and analysis (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/#more-12937) of the leaked items can be found at Watts Up With That. The CRU has confirmed that a breach occurred, but not that all 61 MB of released material (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U44FST89) is genuine. Some of the emails would seem to raise concerns about the science as practiced - or at least beg an explanation. From the Watts Up link:
Reader brandaman supplied the link to the archive of pilfered data. Reader aretae characterized the emails as revealing "...lots of intrigue, data manipulation, attempting to shut out opposing points of view out of scientific journals. Almost makes you think it's a religion. Anyone surprised?" And reader bugnuts adds, for context: "These emails are certainly taken out of context, whether they are legitimate or fraudulent, which adds to the confusion."
Referring to skeptics as "deniers" or "denialists" shows substantial contempt for scrutiny and transparency. The idea that people who come to different conclusions cannot be real scientists or that people who fail to be convinced by such a coordinated effort must be branded for their lack of faith leads the objective and naturally skeptical free man to be not simply concerned about, but almost convinced of an agenda which invites confirmation biases and political sway. The irony of this cannot be understated, as the very people attempting to pursue such an agenda reflexively cry out that their tormentors must be acting out of political and financial interest alone.
I posted this at the RealClimate site in response to the spin (and some indignant and political comments):QuoteReferring to skeptics as "deniers" or "denialists" shows substantial contempt for scrutiny and transparency. The idea that people who come to different conclusions cannot be real scientists or that people who fail to be convinced by such a coordinated effort must be branded for their lack of faith leads the objective and naturally skeptical free man to be not simply concerned about, but almost convinced of an agenda which invites confirmation biases and political sway. The irony of this cannot be understated, as the very people attempting to pursue such an agenda reflexively cry out that their tormentors must be acting out of political and financial interest alone.
I posted this at the RealClimate site in response to the spin (and some indignant and political comments):QuoteReferring to skeptics as "deniers" or "denialists" shows substantial contempt for scrutiny and transparency. The idea that people who come to different conclusions cannot be real scientists or that people who fail to be convinced by such a coordinated effort must be branded for their lack of faith leads the objective and naturally skeptical free man to be not simply concerned about, but almost convinced of an agenda which invites confirmation biases and political sway. The irony of this cannot be understated, as the very people attempting to pursue such an agenda reflexively cry out that their tormentors must be acting out of political and financial interest alone.
Are you talking about the holocaust deniers?
They are just like holocaust deniers....they are just skeptics too.I posted this at the RealClimate site in response to the spin (and some indignant and political comments):QuoteReferring to skeptics as "deniers" or "denialists" shows substantial contempt for scrutiny and transparency. The idea that people who come to different conclusions cannot be real scientists or that people who fail to be convinced by such a coordinated effort must be branded for their lack of faith leads the objective and naturally skeptical free man to be not simply concerned about, but almost convinced of an agenda which invites confirmation biases and political sway. The irony of this cannot be understated, as the very people attempting to pursue such an agenda reflexively cry out that their tormentors must be acting out of political and financial interest alone.
Are you talking about the holocaust deniers?
NO. The AGW supporters go so far as to refer to skeptics that way, seemingly deliberately leveraging terminology that puts the skeptics in the same category as holocaust deniers. This makes it hard to imagine they even try to view their data objectively, which was the main point of my post.
Update: The post was deleted by the blog owner without comment. I have since posted "Censorship is good for science!."
Why are you still listening to that inside-the-box commie crap?
They're as much "sceptic" as Pravda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda) is truth! :x
From what I recall their position was that global warming is for the most part nonsense. It may be somewhat caused by man but it is clear that it is a natural occurring phenomenon. Its not clear as to the extent that man has contributed.
Aw man, great time to finally get internet access back. Finally that fucktard Michael Mann is getting his comeupence. One can only hope that he and his cohorts like Dr. Hanson get to spend time in Pound-me-in-the-Ass for the massive fraud they have perpetrated upon the US taxpayers (let alone that done to countries like the UK and New Zealand).
Its funny, but the same sort of attitudes concerning treatment of alternate theories permeates science in all areas it seems. Alternate theories of Evolution aren't taught in school since 'it might give those damned Creationists ammunition'. Plasma Cosmology/Electric Universe theories are routinely disregarded even when the observable evidence (as opposed to ridiculous abstract mathematics of the 'Standard Gravity-based Model') clearly shows that the planets are awash in a sea of plasma (and not a pure vacuum).
It is sad that the late Michael Crichton didn't live to see this as it would probably have tickled him that his book State of Fear was basically proven true.
New headlines on Drudge (http://www.drudgereport.com/):
- UN: Human role in climate change not in doubt... (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N08198995.htm)
Al Gore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore) has studied the Climategate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident) emails with his typically rigorous eye (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html) and dismissed them as mere piffle (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/al-gore-cant-tell-time-thinks-most-recent-climategate-email-is-more-than-10-years-old/):
Q: How damaging to your argument was the disclosure of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit) at East Anglia University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_East_Anglia)?
A: To paraphrase Shakespeare, it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus).
And in case you think that was a mere slip of the tongue:
Q: There is a sense in these e-mails, though, that data was hidden and hoarded, which is the opposite of the case you make [in your book] about having an open and fair debate.
A: I think it’s been taken wildly out of context. The discussion you’re referring to was about two papers that two of these scientists felt shouldn’t be accepted as part of the IPCC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change) report. Both of them, in fact, were included, referenced, and discussed. So an e-mail exchange more than 10 years ago including somebody’s opinion that a particular study isn’t any good is one thing, but the fact that the study ended up being included and discussed anyway is a more powerful comment on what the result of the scientific process really is.
In fact, thrice denied:
These people are examining what they can or should do to deal with the P.R. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations) dimensions of this, but where the scientific consensus is concerned, it’s completely unchanged. What we’re seeing is a set of changes worldwide that just make this discussion over 10-year-old e-mails kind of silly.
In fact, as Watts Up With That (http://wattsupwiththat.com/) [WP] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Watts_%28blogger%29) shows, one Climategate email was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on November 12 - just a month ago (http://www.free-the-memes.net/writings/warming3/ClimateGate2.html). The emails which have Tom Wigley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wigley) seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/climategate_which_one_blew_the_whistle/). Phil Jones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Jones_%28climatologist%29)’ infamous email urging other Climategate scientists to delete emails (http://co2realist.com/2009/11/28/phil-jones-emails-taken-out-of-context/) 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?
UPDATE:
Actually the e-mail archives are named by Unix timestamp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time), ranging from Thu, 07 Mar 1996 14:41:07 GMT through to Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:17:44 GMT. This is a strong indicator they are extracted from an enterprise archive, probably by the FOIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_2000) Compliance Officer and not hacked from individual’s workstations.
There you go...they're not beyond cutting balls off over a myth.Could be worse the Aztecs and the Mayans cut out hearts over a myth.
There you go...they're not beyond cutting balls off over a myth.Could be worse the Aztecs and the Mayans cut out hearts over a myth.
There you go...they're not beyond cutting balls off over a myth.Could be worse the Aztecs and the Mayans cut out hearts over a myth.
Myth? You mean religion. Meh, I guess they are the same.
Jamie (https://slashdot.org/~jamierel=nofollow) found a long and painstaking piece up at The Economist asking and provisionally answering the question: "Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever open-minded to denialist humbug until it's shown to be wrong (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/12/trust_scientists)?" The author, who is not named, spent sevaral hours picking apart the arguments of one Willis Eschenbach, AGW denialist, who on Dec. 8 published what he called the "smoking gun" - it was supposed to prove that the adjustments climate scientists make to historical temperature records are arbitrary to the point of intentional manipulation. The conclusion:
"[H]ere's my solution to this problem: this is why we have peer review. Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand. So for the time being, my response to any and all further 'smoking gun' claims begins with: show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here. Otherwise, you're a crank and this is not a story. And then I'll probably go ahead and try to investigate the claim and write a blog post about it, because that's my job. Oh, and by the way: October was the hottest month on record in Darwin, Australia (http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/nt/20091030.shtml)."
On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) claimed that the Hadley Center for Climate Change had probably tampered with Russian-climate data (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/).
The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations. The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley CRU survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
Yeah, when I was young green and stupid I always particularly hated that. I guess I thought being green meant hating Bush, not trusting the democrats, and eating a whole lot of granola... :lol:
- Blizzard Dumps Snow on Copenhagen as Leaders Battle Warming... (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=a5wStc0K6jhY)
(http://d.yimg.com/a/p/rids/20091217/i/r760902939.jpg?x=295&y=345&q=85&sig=VEYXOEO5oCIv4g9eVCP_Kw--)
- More on the way; Temps set to drop even further... (http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/88-national/47775-winter-weather-whips-nation.html)
Around here we have always refereed to the environmentalist and Green Party people as Watermelons. They are green on the outside all red on the inside.
[...] So we need liberty to save polar bears, whales and bunnies! [...] |
Many municipalities have switched to LED traffic signals because they burn brighter, last longer and use 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs. But they also emit less heat, meaning they sometimes have trouble melting snow (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-led-traffic-lights-29-dec29,0,3473513.story), causing problems across the Midwest. In Wisconsin, snow blanketed LED traffic lights in some towns, leading to crashes at intersections where drivers weren't sure whether to stop or go. The unintended consequences of the green technology were also identified as a 'contributing factor' in the death of an Illinois woman hit by a driver who blamed the snow-covered energy-efficient signal (http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/photo/2009-12/51332464.jpg) for giving the appearance of a normal green light instead of a left-turn signal. 'We can remove the snow with heat, but the cost of doing that in terms of energy use has not brought any enthusiasm from cities and states that buy these signals,' said the CEO of an LED traffic-signal manufacturer. 'They'd like to be able to take away this issue, but they don't want to spend the money and lose the savings.' In the meantime, some towns are addressing sporadic problems by dispatching crews to remove snow or ice from signals using poles, brooms, and heating devices.
Researchers Build Machine That Turns CO2 Into Fuel
Pollution = fuel
Global Warming is over!!!.... even though it never started
http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/11/25/new-machine-turns-co2-into-fuel/
Most of the carbon dioxide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide) emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere), but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.
However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.
Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.
To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Bristol) reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.
In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
Just a reminder that the burden of proof is on the alarmists to prove that: climate change is occurring AND that it is anthropogenic AND that the change is economically significant AND that it's harmful AND that it can be altered through human behaviour AND the socialist plan they're pushing would be effective AND that their plan will do more good than harm AND that their plan is the best of all alternatives, including the free market / property rights based ideas on how to attribute liability for externalities like pollution.
The CIA has just joined up with climate researchers to re-launch a data-sharing initiative (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/science/earth/05satellite.html?partner=rss&emc=rss) that will use spy satellites and other CIA asets to help scientists figure out what climate change is doing to cloud cover, forests, deserts, and more. The collaboration is an extension of the Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis program, which President Bush canceled in 2001, and it will use reconnaissance satellites to track ice floes moving through the Arctic basin, creating data that could be used for ice forecasts.
Even though the program is "basically free" in terms of CIA involvement, the Times notes: "Controversy has often dogged the use of federal intelligence gear for environmental monitoring. In October, days after the CIA opened a small unit to assess the security implications of climate change, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, 'not spying on sea lions.'"
Link: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (http://newsminer.com/pages/full_story/push?article-%E2%80%98Frozen+Gore%E2%80%99+sculpture+returns+in+Fairbanks+to+fuel+climate+change+debate%20&id=5444000&instance=home_lead_story)
Two Fairbanks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairbanks,_Alaska) businessmen are still so annoyed by former Vice President Al Gore's stand on global warming that they have commissioned another "Frozen Gore" ice sculpture for display in front of a liquor store. This year's version features Gore blowing smoke - but only when a truck exhaust is connected. Businessmen Craig Compeau and Rudy Gavora say they'll commission the sculpture annually until Gore comes to Fairbanks to debate climate change. "Before we start carbon taxing ... let's try and educate ourselves," Compeau said.
The Frozen Gore Web site (http://www.compeaus.com/frozen.html) also has pictures of last year's creation.
The world's most famous climate change expert is in the midst of a massive controversy, as the leading environmental science institute he heads scrambled to explain data it promulgated for a U.N. report.
The world's most famous climate change expert is at the center of a massive controversy as the leading environmental science institute he heads scrambled to explain its assertion that the Himalayan glaciers will melt completely in 25 years.
Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch/) (IPCC) and director general of the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Dehli, India, said this week that the U.N. body was studying how its 2007 report to the United Nations derived information that led to its famous conclusion: that the glaciers will melt by 2035.
Today, the IPCC issued a statement offering regret for the poorly vetted statements. "The Chair, Vice-Chairs, and Co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures," the statement says, though it goes short of issuing a full retraction or reprinting the report.
Pachauri told Reuters on Monday that the group was looking into the issue, and planned to "take a position on it in the next two or three days."
The IPCC's 2007 report, simply titled AR4 (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/contents.html), claimed that "glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world, 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."
Contacted by FoxNews.com at TERI (http://www.teriin.org/), officials would not respond to a request for additional comment. IPCC is expected to withdraw the report's claim eventually.
Hundreds of millions of people in India, Pakistan and China would be severely affected if the glaciers were actually to melt. There are some 9,500 Himalayan glaciers.
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh questioned the findings of the 2007 report during a news conference.
"They are indeed receding and the rate is cause for great concern," Ramesh said of the glaciers. But, he said, the IPCC's 2035 forecast was "not based on an iota of scientific evidence."
One of the key elements in the growing scandal is the revelation that IPCC based some of its public proclamations on non-peer reviewed reports.
"The data, all the data, needs to come to light," says Dr. Jane M. Orient, president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (http://www.ddponline.org/) and an outspoken skeptic on climate change.
"Thousands of scientists are capable of assessing it. The only reason to keep it hidden, locked in the clutches of the elite few, is that it decisively disproves their computer models and shows that their draconian emission controls are based on nothing except a lust for power, control and profit."
The IPCC "made a clear and obvious error when it stated that Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035," added Patrick J. Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, in an interview.
"The absurdity was obvious to anyone who had studied the scientific literature. This was not an honest mistake. IPCC had been warned about it for a year by many scientists."
A letter just released to the Science Web site underscores the mistake. Written by J. Graham Cogley of the department of geography (http://geology.wwu.edu/dept/index.shtml) at Canada's Trent University, it points out that "the claim that Himalayan glaciers may disappear by 2035 ... conflicts with knowledge of glacier-climate relationships, and is wrong."
The dustup is the latest scandal in global warming science, coming after the disclosure of attempts to shade climate-science research findings at the U.K.'s East Anglia University and the failed talks in Copenhagen by environmental policymakers last month.
The IPCC report had indicated that the total area of Himalayan glaciers would shrink from 500,000 square kilometers to 100,000 square kilometers within 25 years. The study cited a 2005 report by the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental advocacy group. The WWF study cited a 1999 article in New Scientist magazine that quoted another expert, who speculated that Himalayan glaciers could disappear within forty years.
The speculative comments were not peer reviewed, and other reports have indicated that the glaciers are not retreating abnormally.
"Most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick and could not melt fast enough to vanish by 2035. The maximum rate of decline in thickness seen in glaciers at the moment is two to three feet per year, and most are far lower," Don Easterbrook, a professor emeritus of the department of geology at Western Washington University, told FoxNews.com.
Pachauri, the IPCC chief, is under attack on another front, as well, as newspaper reports in India have commented repeatedly on his reportedly lavish lifestyle. TERI receives funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, both of which did not respond to requests for comment from FoxNews.com. Reports indicate that there also are concerns in the United Kingdom surrounding 10 million British pounds in funding for TERI, and questions about TERI's objectivity.
"It's about time that somebody started following the money trail to the big interests that want to prosper from the green regime, while the rest of the economy is crushed," Orient told FoxNews.com. "It's not as though the amount were a trickle."
From Stefan Molyneux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Molyneux) / FreeDomain Radio (http://freedomainradio.com/) YouTube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/stefbot) -- Global Warming Skepticism: Interview with Warren Meyer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgKgDCR5KKQ) --
[youtube=560,340]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jgKgDCR5KKQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jgKgDCR5KKQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/youtube]
(http://images.smh.com.au/2010/01/31/1081514/0102Mucci_cartoon-420x0.jpg) (http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/facts-conveniently-brushed-over-by-the-global-warming-fanatics-20100131-n6fr.html)
Here are 10 anti-commandments, 10 selected facts about global warming which have been largely ignored amid the orthodoxies to which we are subjected every day. All these anti-commandments are either true or backed by scientific opinion. All can also be hotly contested.
1. The pin-up species of global warming, the polar bear, is increasing in number, not decreasing.
2. The US President, Barack Obama, supports building nuclear power plants.
Last week, in his State of the Union address, he said: ''To create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.''
3. The Copenhagen climate conference descended into farce.
The low point of the gridlock and posturing at Copenhagen came with the appearance by the socialist dictator of Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, whose anti-capitalist diatribe drew a cheering ovation from thousands of left-wing ideologues.
4. The reputation of the chief United Nations scientist on global warming is in disrepair.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is being investigated for financial irregularities, conflicts of interest and scientific distortion. He has already admitted publishing false data.
5. The supposed scientific consensus of the IPCC has been challenged by numerous distinguished scientists.
6. The politicisation of science leads to a heavy price being paid in poor countries.
After Western environmentalists succeeded in banning or suppressing the use of the pesticide DDT, the rate of death by malaria rose into the millions. Some scholars estimate the death toll at 20 million or more, most of them children.
7. The biofuels industry has exacerbated world hunger.
Diverting huge amounts of grain crops (as distinct from sugar cane) to biofuels has contributed to a rise in world food prices, felt acutely in the poorest nations.
8. The Kyoto Protocol has proved meaningless.
Global carbon emissions are significantly higher today than they were when the Kyoto Protocol was introduced.
9. The United Nations global carbon emissions reduction target is a massively costly mirage.
10. Kevin Rudd's political bluff on emissions trading has been exposed.
The Prime Minister intimated he would go to the people in an early election if his carbon emissions trading legislation was rejected. He won't. The electorate has shifted.
None of these anti-commandments question the salient negative link between humanity and the environment: that we are an omnivorous, rapacious species which has done enormous damage to the world's environment.
Nor do they question the warming of the planet.
What they do question is the morphing of science with ideology, the most pernicious byproduct of the global warming debate. All these anti-commandments were brought into focus this past week by the visit of the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, better known as Lord Christopher Monckton, journalist by trade, mathematician by training, provocateur by inclination.
Last Wednesday a conference room at the Sheraton on the Park was filled to overflowing, all 800 seats sold with a standing-room only crowd at the back, to see the Sydney public appearance of Monckton, a former science adviser to Margaret Thatcher. At the end of his presentation he received a sustained standing ovation.
Monckton is the embodiment of English aristocratic eccentricity. His presentations are a combination of stand-up comedy, evangelical preaching and fierce debating. Almost every argument he makes can be contested, but given the enormity of the multi-trillion-dollars that governments expect taxpayers to expend on combating global warming, the process needs to be subject to brutal interrogation, scrutiny and scepticism. And Monckton was brutal, especially about the media, referring to ''all this bed-wetting stuff on the ABC and the BBC''.
There has also been a monumental political failure surrounding the global warming debate. Those who would have to pay for most of the massive government expenditures proposed, the taxpayers of the West, are beginning to go into open revolt at the prospect.
Last week the Herald reported that Monckton told a large lie while in Sydney.
On Tuesday it reported: ''He said with a straight face on the Alan Jones radio program that he had been awarded the Nobel, a claim Jones did not question.''
The Herald repeated the accusation on Thursday. It was repeated a third time in a commentary in Saturday's Herald.
In 2007 the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the former US vice-president Al Gore. The prize committee, in citing its selection of the IPCC, said: ''Through the IPCC … thousands of scientists and officials from over 100 countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of [global] warming.''
Thousands of people were thus collectively and anonymously part of the prize process.
So what lie did Monckton tell about the prize? Despite the gravity of the accusation, the Herald never published the offending remark. Here, for the record, is what he actually said:
Monckton: ''I found out on the day of publication of the 2007 [IPCC report] that they'd multiplied, by 10, the observed contribution to sea-level rise of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet. By 10! I got in touch with them and said, 'You will correct this.' And two days later, furtively, on the website, no publicity, they simply relabelled, recalculated and corrected the table they'd got wrong.''
Alan Jones: ''But this report won a Nobel Prize!''
Monckton: ''Yes. Exactly. And I am also a Nobel Prize winner because I made a correction. I'm part of the process that got the Nobel Prize. Do I deserve it? No. Do they deserve it? No. The thing is a joke.''
The GW alarmists typically acknowledge that over 95% of total CO2 emissions are non-anthropogenic, but they say the 1-5% that is is throwing the global equilibrium out of whack. That's kind of silly because CO2 is only 0.0387% of the atmosphere. Increasing it to 0.0389% for a few decades is not the end of the world - earth has experienced increases many orders of magnitude higher in the past. The burden of proof remains in their field, where it has been for decades, and they only thing they've managed to prove so far is their capacity for violence and deceit!
Furthermore, the human race needs CO2 to grow more plants, since thanks to human stewardship the amount of plant biomass is expected to increase tremendously as we irrigate the deserts and other areas with relatively little rainfall, farm seaweed, build multistory greenhouses and massive floating cornfields on seas and oceans, etc, etc, etc. The one thing that Earth is good for is farming - all pollution-producing activities can eventually be moved to space!
Space is where solar energy begins to make actual economic sense, where raw materials (i.e. asteroids) are much easier to mine without much gravity getting in your way, where transporting those materials is cheaper with zero air resistance, where massive nuclear power plants and robotized factories can be built without putting any residential neighborhoods in danger, etc, etc, etc. I bet that if free markets are just allowed to work then by the end of this century we'll actually have to import CO2 back to Earth just to fertilize our crops!
Yeah, a fine example disproving element #3 of the above question.
I recently brought up a similar point about CO2 being plant-food on the FSP forum (http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?topic=19992):QuoteThe GW alarmists typically acknowledge that over 95% of total CO2 emissions are non-anthropogenic, but they say the 1-5% that is is throwing the global equilibrium out of whack. That's kind of silly because CO2 is only 0.0387% of the atmosphere. Increasing it to 0.0389% for a few decades is not the end of the world - earth has experienced increases many orders of magnitude higher in the past. The burden of proof remains in their field, where it has been for decades, and they only thing they've managed to prove so far is their capacity for violence and deceit!
Furthermore, the human race needs CO2 to grow more plants, since thanks to human stewardship the amount of plant biomass is expected to increase tremendously as we irrigate the deserts and other areas with relatively little rainfall, farm seaweed, build multistory greenhouses and massive floating cornfields on seas and oceans, etc, etc, etc. The one thing that Earth is good for is farming - all pollution-producing activities can eventually be moved to space!
Space is where solar energy begins to make actual economic sense, where raw materials (i.e. asteroids) are much easier to mine without much gravity getting in your way, where transporting those materials is cheaper with zero air resistance, where massive nuclear power plants and robotized factories can be built without putting any residential neighborhoods in danger, etc, etc, etc. I bet that if free markets are just allowed to work then by the end of this century we'll actually have to import CO2 back to Earth just to fertilize our crops!
Congestion pricing to reduce car travel. Elimination of curbside parking. A carbon tax "of some kind," not to mention taxes on plastic and paper bags. Advocating vegetarianism and veganism, complete with "Meatless or Vegan Mondays." Those are just some of the proposals put forth by the Cambridge Climate Congress, an entity created in May 2009 to respond to the "climate emergency" plaguing the Massachusetts city.
Going green will not be optional in Cambridge, Mass., if the Cambridge Climate Congress has its way. It will be mandatory.
There will be congestion pricing to reduce car travel. Curbside parking will be eliminated. There will be a carbon tax "of some kind," not to mention taxes on plastic and paper bags. And the Massachusetts city, home of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will advocate vegetarianism and veganism, complete with "Meatless or Vegan Mondays."
Those are just some of the proposals put forth by the Congress, which was created in May 2009 to respond to the "climate emergency" plaguing Cambridge. Once the Congress settles on its recommendations, they will submitted to the City Council.
"This emergency is created by the growth of local greenhouse gas emissions despite the urgent warnings of climate scientists that substantial reductions are needed in order to reduce the risk of disastrous changes to our climate," the Climate Congress reported in proposals issued on Jan. 23. "This proposal is made in the belief that an effective local response is, if anything, made more urgent by so far inadequate global agreements and federal policies for emissions reductions. It is made in the belief that our City should lead by example."
Click here to see the Climate Congress recommendations. [PDF] (http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/021210_cambridge.pdf)
While the group's proposals remain a work in a progress, some experts say the potential measures it advocates are "heavy-handed" and incongruous. But others say the city just might be onto something, particularly if the taxes associated with the plan are used to make buildings and transportation more efficient.
Dr. Ken Green, a resident scholar on environment and energy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington-based think tank, said he found an "overall redundancy" in the proposals, specifically regarding a carbon-based tax coupled with congestion pricing, increased parking meter rates and parking tickets.
"That's just a revenue-raiser for the city," said Green. "There's an overall incoherence of having a carbon tax and three or four indirect taxes."
To best reduce emissions in the near-term, Green suggested a revenue-neutral carbon tax, meaning that little -- if any -- of the funds raised would be retained by municipal government. The vast majority under such a plan would be returned to the public.
"It creates an incentive to become more energy efficient to either avoid the tax or keep as much of any rebate as possible," Green said. "But if they do the [carbon] tax, they should get rid of almost all of the other things. If the point is to put a price on carbon, pick one price, make it transparent and then get rid of the other regulations, which end up overpricing carbon. So if you had your carbon tax, you don't need your congestion pricing because people are already paying the tax in their gasoline."
Green also said the proposal to ban the production and distribution of plastic bags and bottled water in city limits is as "heavy-handed as government can get" and questioned Cambridge's proposal to institute disincentives for the purchase of non-regional food.
"Trying to grow something out of season in a greenhouse locally may produce more greenhouse gas emissions than having the same food shipped in from a place where it grows naturally," he said. "Studies do not come down uniformly on the side that local is better."
But Richard Rood, a professor of atmospheric, oceanic, and space sciences at the University of Michigan, praised Cambridge's proposal to create a "temperate zone" program, in which building are neither heated nor cooled during the fall and spring.
"That is a place where you might make a difference," said Rood, who writes a blog for Weather Underground.
He also praised the city's proposal to advocate vegetarianism and veganism.
"From a climate point of view, eating less meat would have a climate impact," said Rood, citing increased deforestation, methane production, fertilizer use and greenhouse gases associated with maintaining that land. "Eating less meat is for the environment in many ways.
Regarding the possibility of a carbon tax, Rood, who supports such a move on a national level, said the impact on a city level would be "fairly small." The real positive effect, he said, would be if the plan caught on in other cities if successful.
"In general, if you look at how policy develops, it often starts on regional and local scales and then advances forward," he said. "Cambridge is full of really smart people, so you know, it has the potential."
It still remains to be seen, however, how these proposals will be received by Cambridge residents. Cambridge City Councilor Sam Seidel, who spoke to FoxNews.com after riding his bicycle to his office, said that remains the key unanswered question.
"The challenge in broadest terms is to figure out what makes sense, what doable, but all of that in the context of how much ground we have to cover," he said. "We have to be realistic on what we're going to be able to accomplish."
Seidel said the Climate Congress will next meet on March 6, at which point the next steps regarding the 20-page proposal will be decided. Any success in slashing greenhouse gas emissions will hinge on individual efforts, he said.
"It's my own view that while governmental action is going to be an important part of any successes we're going to have, individual citizens are also going to have to take individual ownership and responsibility for their own actions," he said. "It's only by working together that we're going to see the necessary reductions that climate scientists have been calling for."
Asked if the proposal amounted to a series of taxes, Seidel said, "The goal of truly, accurately evaluating the cost of our decisions is an important part of greenhouse gas emissions reductions, it's really pointing out to people what their choices imply."
| [youtube=96,60]<object width="96" height="60"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nsUdZrG1Fpo&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nsUdZrG1Fpo&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object>[/youtube] | Mini-player to provide background audio while you read the below news article (if you're a fellow "Global Warming" skeptic that is) |
Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report's author now says true estimate is still unknown
Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.
The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n8/full/ngeo587.html), one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/contents.html). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.
At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol (http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/people/siddall.html), said the study "strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results (http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2009/6484.html)". The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.
Many scientists criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/12/04/0907765106.full.pdf) that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.
Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper's estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.
Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: "It's one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science." He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study's conclusion.
"Retraction is a regular part of the publication process," he said. "Science is a complicated game and there are set procedures in place that act as checks and balances."
Nature Publishing Group, which publishes Nature Geoscience (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html), said this was the first paper retracted from the journal since it was launched in 2007.
The paper -- entitled "Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n8/full/ngeo587.html)" -- used fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/29/climate-science-2009) to reconstruct how sea level has fluctuated with temperature since the peak of the last ice age, and to project how it would rise with warming over the next few decades.
In a statement the authors of the paper said: "Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.
"One mistake was a miscalculation; the other was not to allow fully for temperature change over the past 2,000 years. Because of these issues we have retracted the paper and will now invest in the further work needed to correct these mistakes."
In the Nature Geoscience retraction, in which Siddall and his colleagues explain their errors, Vermeer and Rahmstorf are thanked for "bringing these issues to our attention".
Acknowledging flaws in its reports and growing public skepticism toward the theory of manmade global warming, the United Nations hired an independent review panel in March to audit its climate-science arm. The group found plenty of problems.
The InterAcademy Council (http://www.interacademycouncil.net/) [WP] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterAcademy_Panel_on_International_Issues), an independent group of scientists representing agencies from around the world, presented the findings of its five-month investigation Monday morning at the United Nations. The group took issue with the structure, methods and leadership of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch/) (IPCC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change)) - the group responsible for a 2007 report that erroneously forecast the imminent melting of Himalayan glaciers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report#Projected_date_of_melting_of_Himalayan_glaciers), the rate of melt of polar ice caps and dwindling Amazon rainforests.
"The IPCC has raised public awareness of climate change, and driven policymakers," said Harold Shapiro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Tafler_Shapiro), chair of the IAC Committee to Review IPCC and former president of Princeton University. But the controversies that have erupted, and revelations of errors, have put the group under the microscope. "We recommend some significant reforms," he told the U.N.
"The IPCC has yet to review the IAC's findings, so I am not able to comment on its findings," said longstanding chair Rajendra Pachauri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_K._Pachauri) in a press conference following the presentation. But he did note that none of the seven reviews of the IPCC to date had found flaws in the U.N. group.
"The scientific community agrees that climate change is real," Pachauri said.
Despite his confidence, the science underlying climate change has come under great scrutiny. Yet the IAC did not spend its time analyzing the accuracy of climate models and climate science.
"We did not redo the science," said Shapiro. Instead, the IAC focused its attention on the procedures and methodologies of the IPCC, suggesting many areas for improvement.
The rate of melt of the Himalayan glaciers was one touchstone among skeptics of manmade global warming that the group addressed. Shapiro explained that many reviewers noted the lack of substance behind the claim, but their criticism didn't make it into the final report.
It appears that editors "didn't follow through carefully enough on what review editors commented," said Shapiro.
The IAC faulted the IPCC for making this type of mistake in several places, noting that the report includes several statements that are assigned high levels of confidence, Shapiro told the U.N., despite a lack of sufficient evidence behind them.
"We found in the summary for policymakers that there were two kinds of errors that came up - one is the kind where they place high confidence in something where there is very little evidence. The other is the kind where you make a statement … with no substantive value, in our judgment."
Revising and tightening up the complex and lengthy review policy would help to address these issues.
Noted climate skeptic Don Easterbrook (http://myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/) [WP] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Easterbrook), an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, agreed that this type of issue was a problem. "The IPCC report is filled with statements of '90% certainty' without even saying 90% of what or providing any basis for such statements. Yet those pronouncements of certainty were used over and over as though that had been scientifically proven somehow," he told FoxNews.com.
The IAC called for the IPCC to completely revise top leadership, including limiting the duration of people in top positions and "electing a small executive committee to act on its behalf," one that even included non-scientists. This would lend it credibility, Shapiro said.
Questions have arisen about conflicts of interest among top leadership at the IPCC, notably chair Pachauri, who sits on the boards of numerous other climate-related groups. Shapiro stressed that this important issue was one the group did not investigate - "we didn't consider it our charge to investigate that issue," he replied.
Easterbrook thinks this suggestion may not go far enough.
"The IAC report makes several recommendations to fortify IPCC’s management structure, including establishing an executive committee to act on the panel’s behalf and ensure that an ongoing decision-making capability is maintained. This would be a step in the right direction, but if such an executive committee is made up of the same old political cronies, nothing will change," he told FoxNews.com.
The IAC took issue with the IPCC's use of so-called gray literature as well, papers from unpublished or non-peer-reviewed sources. Such material is explicitly against policy, yet authors of the IPCC's reports do not follow the guidelines for evaluating such sources, explained the IAC.
The group recommended that these guidelines be made more specific -- including adding guidelines on what types of literature are unacceptable -- and strictly enforced to ensure that unpublished and non-peer-reviewed literature is appropriately flagged.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (http://www.ucsusa.org/), a nonprofit group that supports the concept of manmade global warming, agreed with the IAC's report, calling it "a great opportunity to strengthen" the group, but not a wholesale call to rework the agency.
"It's a substantial tune up, but not a replacement with a new vehicle," Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy for the UCS, told FoxNews.com. "All the recommendations I've seen are really spot on. We'll see what happens when the IPCC meets in October."
The IAC's assessment will be used at the Oct. 5 meeting that marks the beginning of the IPCC's effort to put out the next report.
"The IPCC has been successful overall, but fundamental changes are needed," Shapiro said.
"He's not completely psycho. Discovery's (TLC's) support of Jon and Kate Plus Eight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Plus_8) [BT] (http://btjunkie.org/search?q=Kate+Plus), 19 Kids and Counting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_Kids_and_Counting) [BT] (http://btjunkie.org/search?q=kids_counting), etc is disgusting. Those parents should be in jail, not rolling in money."
No, I don't do the shop prep stuff.
There isn't a subcontinent or a cultural region on earth where the wealthiest state or nation doesn't already have negative population growth. Once barriers to birth control are removed, fertility rates fall almost overnight! The problem of overpopulation is already solved, we knew it for some time now. The problem of UNDERpopulation would be a lot more difficult to tackle.
Negative population growth is bad news for everything: population becomes older (and thus sicker, less productive, less open to new ideas, etc), with no family people become more dependent on government, the supply of labor declines, prices skyrocket, IQ declines for dysgenic reasons (because the most backward religious zealots do the lion's share of the breeding), wars break out as old shrinking superpowers like Russia can no longer defend their natural resources from younger countries like Pakistan, etc, etc, etc. Instead of building vast greenhouse or factory space-stations and spreading to others stars, humanity could be headed for a new dark age!