The tipping point has been reached...

...and the burden of proof is now with the alarmists. A subtle change in MSM coverage of the issue has been apparent since Climategate. This excellent post from Samizdata...

...I've just been watching this video, of Lord Monkton laying into the Climategate gang. What makes it so potent is that he is quite bluntly calling them crooks, and calling anyone who still follows their fraudulent prophecies dupes and fools. He names names, and crimes. Yes, crimes. And yes, criminals. Criminals with names. Monkton does all this in his posh British public school voice. Nevertheless, you can almost see him doing that thing that fist fighters do, but with their beckoning hands rather than with their mouths, and pointing at their own chins. Come and get me! Give me your best shot! I say you are a pack of scoundrels. Prove me wrong! I say that the logical thing to do about "climate change" is: nothing. Nothing. Why on earth do you still have the damned nerve to think anything else? Such pugilistic vulgarities are not to be found in the text of the talk. Monkton is too canny, too cool, to get that excited. But that is the subtext. Here is some other evidence that those with the job of chasing crooks are now getting interested in this. I agree with Johnathan Pearce...that the old-school media are definitely, albeit belatedly and with much embarrassment and confusion, starting to notice all this. You can feel that most crucial of propaganda processes happening with Climategate: the reversing of the burden of proof. Unfair to all the fraud detectives...though it undoubtedly was, those noble toilers, until the Climategate revelations erupted, had to prove everything, in defiance of the default position. Their every tiny blemish was jumped upon. Their major claims were ignored. Now the default position is slowly mutating into: It's all made-up nonsense. And the burden of proof is shifting onto the shoulders of all those who want to go on believing in such ever more discredited alarmism. In short, our side is winning this argument, big time...

...this too (H/T PKH) excerpted from a letter to the UK Economist...Nikolay Semyonov, a Soviet scientist and Nobel prize winner in chemistry, wrote that:

“There is nothing more dangerous than blind passion in science. This is a direct path to unjustified self-confidence, to loss of self-criticalness, to scientific fanaticism, to false science. Given support from someone in power, it can lead to suppression of true science and, since science is now a matter of state importance, to inflicting great injury on the country.”

...the writer adds...Semyonov was referring to the ruthless manipulation of Soviet science by Trofim Lysenko and other opportunists. In a similar vein, it is time we recognise that we are becoming prey to a new fanaticism, a religious fervour that runs contrary to rational society...more here...

...AND breaking news from WuWT, a Russian report that the Hadley CRU used selective data only when analysing Russian weather stations so as to reinforce their warming prejudices...This is a very powerful accusation, which if true could change much about the climate science debate. Many papers are based on this dataset which has the highest trend of the major ground datasets...the complete report here...

Another (global warming) myth bites the dust...

...the Himalyan glaciers are shrinking, it's our fault ! According to CNN and the IPCC, they'll be all gone by 2035...it's global warming !
Well no, not exactly... Glacier loss is apparently mainly caused by soot from Nepal, India and China. Hope the news gets to Copenhagen quickly, before they go off on a crazy, expensive and pointless CO2 tangent...

...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...more from WuWT here...

...and quote for the day, in a letter from Pennsylvania State Senator Jeff Piccola, to Pennsylvania State University re Climategate conspirator Michael Mann...from WuWT again...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...

“…anything short of the absolute pursuit of science cannot be accepted or tolerated.”

...suggesting that funding and careers could be at threat. Now there's a thought...

...and for your interest, and because it's the silly season, here's an old school photo of Alfred E. Neumann. See if you can spot the little chap...
...and a long overdue acknowledgment to Denis Dutton and his colleagues at Arts and Letters Daily. If ever a website captures (and holds on to) the promise of the internet it's this one. Refreshed daily with links to media sources, reviews, articles, essays, blogs and comment of interest, it's the first port of call for my morning's reading, and leads me straight to its twin site Climate Debate Daily. And by the way, although it's a bit late, Denis is the author of the very well reviewed The Art Instinct, a copy of which is on my Christmas wish list. Thanks and best wishes Denis !

...and I can't hang up my mouse, without including this blast at the British MSM from Gerald Warner writing in the online Telegraph...So, instead of proving its worth, serving truth and debate, arresting the attention of the public by exposing our rulers’ lies, the MSM are rolling over to become a mouthpiece of the consensus, repelling readers and viewers as they go online, just as citizens in Iron Curtain countries once tuned in covertly to Western media. The internet is the new samizdat. All of this may still be a relatively gradual process while all citizens are being deprived of is information and debate. But when the bill is presented to sustain the phoney religion consecrated at Copenhagen, when taxes rocket, when we can barely see by the light of mercury bulbs, when every amenity of life is threatened – will people still be willing to pay money for newspapers and television channels that tell them to submit to this tyranny, when they could be exploding the myth and freeing society?
It seems less than likely. The Mainstream Media are hanging themselves – it is doubtful that they can any longer be described as mainstream. These are turkeys voting for Christmas...more here...

Why the long face Al ?

...true to the green left principles of overstatement, fear, disinformation and lies, Al Gore blundered badly in Copenhagen. This from the UK Times online...

...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. World leaders — with Gordon Brown arriving tonight in the vanguard — are facing the humiliating prospect of having little of substance to sign on Friday, when they are supposed to be clinching an historic deal...more here...

...and BTW, here's a 1959 picture of the USS Skate, the first submarine to surface at the obviously ice free North Pole...remember that Al ? More, here...

What progressive really means to red greens...

...is progress towards socialism. Never mind that any move towards green left utopia is to turn the clock backwards. It's worth noting again that the green anti-capitalist left, who claim a copyright on the words progressive and caring are the group most prepared to resist real progress and work hard to condemn our most vulnerable and poor global citzens to ongoing poverty. This from Tim Wilson, director of the climate and trade unit at the institute of public affairs, (hardly a rabid right winger) who observes with weary resignation; It's the poor who will pay for the Copenhagen circus...blogging from Copenhagen...

...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. Twenty-odd thousand green activists predominantly from developed countries are overwhelming the 8000 government officials and demanding meetings with delegations so they can push their proposals into any final agreement.
A handful of green, anti-capitalist activists has even infiltrated official negotiations and are representing countries in some negotiating stream...A motley crew of negotiators representing Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ghana and India have put into technology transfer negotiating texts the scrapping of intellectual property rights necessary to attract private investment in the development of climate-friendly technologies that are needed to cut emissions...The irony is that if there were as many people who cared about cutting poverty, the world's poor would be better able to adapt to the consequences of climate change and there'd also be the economic resources to cut emissions and deliver a binding agreement at Copenhagen...more here...

How to explain this persistent and transparent hypocrisy ? Only by appreciating that for the green left this is their last roll of the dice. As I have commented before, this argument defines their cause, and loss of the argument condemns them to total and permanent political irrelevancy.

Cometh the hour, cometh Tony Abbott...

...Australia will "almost certainly" vote next year on the issue of AGW and the huge tax increases that will go with it. Readers of this blog know that AGW is a grand plan to redistribute Western wealth to developing nations, and is a direct reaction to the success and strength of capitalism, and the fruit of capitalism, globalisation. The reactionary green/left anti-capitalist revolt is attempting to cement in place world government via the UN. The clash between the two forces will come to a head next year when Australians will vote in 2010 in a general election that will scrutinise every aspect of the science fraud and international conspiracy behind AGW. The eyes and ears of the world will focus on the debate, and in particular on Tony Abbott who made it happen... From the man himself, writing in The Australian...

...As things stand, there will almost certainly be a climate change election. It won't just be about climate change, but that will be the totemic issue. The government will say that lifting the price of carbon is necessary to help the environment. That might be the case one day, but certainly not now. The challenge is to find ways to improve the environment without a great big new tax.

When Winston Churchill drove to Buckingham Palace in the dark days of 1940 to accept the king's commission, he felt that his whole life had been but a preparation for this moment, or so he recounts in his memoirs. This is not wartime Britain. And I am certainly not Churchill. Still, I feel well equipped to take on the leadership of the party in what are testing times for the conservative side of politics...more here.. and here... and here...

...AND on the eleventh and twelth days of Christmas, my true love sent to me, twelve thousand warmists meeting, eleven guns a smoking,ten computer programmes, nine researchers dancing, eight grants for milking, seven bears a swimming, six doctors lying, five declines a hiding, four suspect graphs, three hockey sticks,two tricks to play and a cross section of a pine tree...

Something is very, very rotten in the state of Denmark...

...so says our brave but endangered columnist Jim Hopkins (aka Jam Hipkins) in his fortnightly offering (see also my posting 27.11.09) in this morning's NZ Herald...

...the heart's not singing 'cos there's sod all to sing about, sunshine! We can't even sing about that anymore without some sobbing celeb sanctimoaniously banging on about our bloody carbon footprint. It's hard to get a tingle in our Jingle Bells when there's a colossally wasteful, doom-on-steroids loath-in happening in Denmark. And tough to get the goodwill going with 30,000 and four hoarse men of the apocalypse screaming "Repent! Repent! The End is Nigh! Last chance to save the planet" at their taxpayer-funded religious rally in wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. That's why we're not shopping,...because we're numb with despair. Because we feel hopeless, bludgeoned by shonky science and dodgy data into a state of abject grovelment - ashamed of our sinful selves and terrified our delicate little planet is going to hell in a (very hot) handcart.
It isn't and it won't. She's a tough old Mother, Earth...more here...

...and on the 10th day of Christmas, my true love sent to me...ten computer programmes, nine researchers dancing,eight grants for milking, seven bears a swimming,six doctors lying, five declines a hiding, four suspect graphs,three hockey sticks, two tricks to play and a cross section of a pine tree...

...I didn't intend to enlarge today's posting, but MUST ADD THIS remarkable and incredible exchange of emails between Tom Wigley of Climategate fame, and (the temporarily stood down) Phil Jones of the CRU. Read this, and judge the truth and integrity of these men for yourself...from Andrew Bolt...

...the person he was rebuking in this email, Michael Mann, was an
author of this same IPCC who had his now discredited “hockey stick” included
prominently in the third IPCC report to “prove” what now seems almost certainly
false - the today’s temperatures are the hottest for more than a 1000 years. The
Keith Briffa he attacked in the first email is also an IPCC author, whose
similar attempt to “prove” there was no medieval warming is now also regarded as
completely discredited. The Phil Jones that Wigley sent the first email to is
another IPCC author, who vowed to keep out sceptical papers from the IPCC, urged
the destruction of evidence and boasted he had used a “trick” to “hide the
decline” in temperatures in another graph used by the IPCC...more here...

Summer warming and whimsy...

...are on this Kiwi's agenda today. And why not ? Copenhagen is making the green left unhappy, (although the news hasn't yet reached my favourite green busker "progressive causes only" Morris ) ...and plenty of cold beer and BBQ's are a feature of our glorious summer, and... Tunku Varadarajan of the online Daily Beast offers a sceptic's A-Z guide to the laughable farce at Copenhagen called Taming AGW...cop this...
...Very nearly a hundred years ago, Ambrose Bierce compiled A Devil's Dictionary, in which he sought to puncture the cultural cant of his time. Here is an attempt—at much shorter length—to prick a very contemporary kind of cant, that which has swollen the debate on climate change to ungovernable proportions.

A is for anthropogenic: as in anthropogenic global warming, or “AGW”), a $10 word for "man-made" which global-warmists wield as proof of expertise—no one more so than Al Gore, who, after having invented the Internet, turned his prodigious mind to the conundrum of AGW.

B is for Björn Lomborg: the Danish professor whose book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, should have put Al Gore out of business forever; for the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) that aren’t ready to abandon the good, carbon-burning life just yet; and for boondoggle (see "ethanol," infra).

C is for the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit: the now-discredited source of much of the data used to fuel climate hysteria. In November, in an episode that was oh-so-predictably dubbed Climategate, a cache of leaked emails showed that researchers systematically hid or manipulated data that was inconsistent with the accepted narrative of man-made climate change..H/T Denis Dutton of Arts and Letters daily...more here...

...and Minnesotans for Global Warming, the Nobel prize winning creators of "Hide the Decline" have just issued a great sequel "It's a Climategate Christmas", here...

...and on the seventh, eighth and ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me; nine researchers dancing, eight grants for milking, seven bears a swimming, six doctors lying, five declines a hiding, four suspect graphs, three hockey sticks,two tricks to play and a cross section of a pine tree...

Tim Flannery, is a white hot warmist turned sceptic...

...and who would of course hate the term denier. (Although he now admits the science of AGW is by no means settled, and therefore must have some doubts re AGW. ) Shock ! horror ! But never mind...we now appear to have a new sceptical chum. Professor Flannery is Chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council and has had to swallow a dead rat and admit "We can't admit we have perfect knowledge, we don't." Flannery is the very highly respected author of the wonderful "The Future Eaters" (an un PC look at species extinction in Australasia) and "Throwim Away Leg", (pidgin for "go on a long walk" ) re his scientific observations and travels in Papua New Guinea, and also the IPCC orthodox "The Weather Makers" which may need major revision after the CRU leaks. More on Tim Flannery and his record here...and, a summary below of the first day's activity and chaos in Copenhagen as seen by Michael Asten, professorial fellow in the school of geosciences at Monash University, Melbourne, and titled Climate claims fail science test, published in The Australian...

...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. We had the "grandfather of climate change", James Hansen, describing the proceedings as counter-productive and "a farce", while the chief Saudi Arabian negotiator to the summit, Mohammed al-Sabban, doubts the current science and suggests there is no longer any point in seeking agreement to reduce emissions. It is therefore certain that the global political debate on managing carbon emissions and climate change will continue well beyond the Copenhagen summit. It is to be hoped that the scientific debate is also permitted to continue...

Results released this year suggest that the degree of scientific certainty falls short of that desirable before we set binding targets and dollar values on carbon emissions. Indeed, Tim Flannery, chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council admitted that: "We can't pretend we have perfect knowledge: we don't"...meanwhile two recent results published by top scientists cast doubt on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's theory about the link between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global warming. These are of of significance because whereas the climate models used by the IPCC rely on software to represent a large number of highly complex Earth processes, these results are equivalent to experimental observations on the Earth itself...more here...

AND what did it take to turn Tim Flannery into a sceptic ? Maybe something like this...

...sent by paleoclimatologist Ed Cook to the CRU's Keith Briffa, outlining his opinions on the current (2003) state of knowledge of past temperatures: "The results of this study will show that we can probably say a fair bit about (less than)100 year extra-tropical NH temperature variability (at least as far as we believe the proxy estimates), but honestly know fuck-all about what the (greater than) 100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know with certainty that we know fuck-all).. H/T Bishop Hill...

...and on the fourth, fifth and sixth days of Christmas, my true love sent to me...six doctors lying, five declines a hiding, four suspect graphs,three hockey sticks, two tricks to play and a cross section of a pine tree...

Karen Fish, a liberal babe with big clues...

The loopy but "progressive, tough and liberal" warmist Karen Fish has worked out why so many people disrespect Al Gore and refuse to accept climatastrophe, and don't all rush off to join greensleaze. It's all in the names, says the appropriately named Ms Fish.
Homer Simpson and James Hansen would no doubt agree. The names are so like so ...wrong says Ms (Red Snapper) Fish...Al Gore and all environmentalists are now being called stupid data changing ignorant frauds, and global warming and climate change a hoax.
How could this be happening? The root problem (is) with the names Climate Change, Global Warming and Environmental... these words are too narrow for the problems they describe and more importantly, people do not understand these words. “Environmental” sounds like a mental enviro. This is why the climategate people are so ready to pillory us over the climategate scandal. They think that we are mentally ill... H/T Tim Blair here...

The Emperor's new clothes...

...are on display. They're dirty threadbare rags, full of patches and holes. Even the pro-green NZ Herald has noticed, with climategate on the front page, and this amazing and very brave cartoon on the op-ed page...and now this in depth analysis and comment on what passes for modern day scientific ideals from the online Weekly Standard...

..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...
...One of the things the CRU emails prove is that the oft-cited figure of 2,000 top scientists is misleading; the circle of genuinely active scientists in the work of CRU and related institutions in this country is very small. Nonetheless, Al Gore and other climate campaigners have leaned heavily on the IPCC process as proof for their assertions that human-caused global warming is a matter of "settled" science. This, even though, in the last IPCC report on the science of climate change in 2007, the terms "uncertain" or "uncertainty" appear over 1,300 times in 900 pages, and the report describes our level of scientific understanding of key aspects of climate as "low" or "very low." The IPCC chapter on the climate models that are the principal tool predicting our future doom refers to "significant uncertainties" in all the models, and admits that "models still show significant errors..." more here...

...and on the first, second and third days of Christmas...my true love sent to me three hockey sticks , two tricks to play, and a cross section of a pine tree...

The inconvenient truth...

...will not go away, and it's thanks only to a broad media power base that the pretence of scientific impartiality still clings to so many of the so called scientists of climate science. This, from Real Clear Politics...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.
I don't think most scientists appreciate what has hit them. This isn't only about the credibility of global warming. For years, global warming and its advocates have been the public face of hard science. Most people could not name three other subjects they would associate with the work of serious scientists. This was it. The public was told repeatedly that something called "the scientific community" had affirmed the science beneath this inquiry. A Nobel Prize was bestowed...What is happening at East Anglia is an epochal event. As the hard sciences-physics, biology, chemistry, electrical engineering-came to dominate intellectual life in the last century, some academics in the humanities devised the theory of postmodernism, which liberated them from their colleagues in the sciences. Postmodernism, a self-consciously "unprovable" theory, replaced formal structures with subjectivity. With the revelations of East Anglia, this slippery and variable intellectual world has crossed into the hard sciences....more here...

...and who was responsible for the CRU leaks ? A discontented insider or an outside hacker ? A Samizdata writer feels it may be the work of the Russians...what if it does turn out to have been the former KGB? Would it not be an irony of historic proportions that an organisation formerly devoted to establishing a global tyrrany has thrown a big hammer-and-sickle into the works of their would-be successors? And, not just ironic, but also just. Because if the warm-mongers get their way, then it is not the powerful and the well-connected that need fear their zealotry. The Al Gores and Zac Goldsmiths of the world can afford to bask in the green glow of personal glory, safe in the knowledge that their opulent lifestyles will not be compromised by so much a sterling silver napkin ring. They will soar (both literally and metaphorically) above it all. No, it is the Average Joe/Jane who will be forced to endure the austerity that their new overlords will demand. It is those who struggle to make ends meet who will be told that the planet can no longer afford their humble family saloon or their two weeks a year in the Algarve. It is the little people who will be stepped upon because they can be stepped upon. Maybe, one day, we will know the true identity of the e-mail hackers. Or maybe we will never know. But I do sort of hope that it does turn out to be some guy called Yvgeny, acting on orders from the Kremlin, tapping away in a windowless room in a drab building on a military base in Krasnoyarsk because then, we will be able to say: congratulations, tovarisch! You have, at long last, established yourself as a Hero of the Proletariat.

Vested interests are an enemy of sound science...

As our politicians and green left celebrities jet away to Copenhagen the international climategate fiasco rumbles on. The weary electorate have long since dismissed Al Gore's eco-porn scenarios, and have lost confidence in so called climate science and its practitioners. How did we ever get into this farcical situation ? ...Follow the money trail... from todays WSJ ...

...the question is...why the scientists behaved this way to begin with, especially since the science behind man-made global warming is said to be firmly settled. To answer the question, it helps to turn the alarmists' follow-the-money methods right back at them. Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents leaked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.
Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?
Thus, the European Commission's most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that's not counting funds from the EU's member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA's climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA's, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. American states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal.
And all this is only a fraction of the $94 billion that HSBC estimates has been spent globally this year on what it calls "green stimulus"...

Harry, the anguished computer programmer summarised the sad shonky mess that climatastrophe rests on..."I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!" This is not the sound of settled science, but of a cracking empirical foundation. And however many billion-dollar edifices may be built on it, sooner or later it is bound to crumble...more here...

Dr Roy Spencer weighs in...

...and comment from this man is received with a degree of respect...Roy W. Spencer received his Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Before becoming a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001, he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has provided congressional testimony several times on the subject of global warming...


My Top 10 Annoyances in the Climate Change Debate
1. The term “climate change” itself.
2. “Climate change denier”.
3. The appeal to peer-reviewed and published research.
4. Appeal to authority.
5. Unwillingness to debate.
6. A lack of common sense.
7. Use of climate models as truth.
8. Claims that climate models have been tested.
9. The claim that the IPCC is unbiased.
10. The claim that reducing CO2 emissions is the right thing to do anyway...read the full article, here...and quote of the day, from the UK Telegraph...

"...At this rate, Copenhagen is going to turn into a comedy convention with the real world laughing at these liars. Now is the time to mount massive resistance to the petty tyrants and hit them where it hurts – in the wallet. Further down the line there may be, in many countries, a question of criminal prosecution of anybody who has falsified data to secure funds and impose potentially disastrous fiscal restraints on the world in deference to a massive hoax. It’s a new world out there, Al, and, as you may have noticed, the climate is very cold indeed..."

"Their shoulders held the sky suspended...

...they stood and earth's foundations stay..." A.E.Houseman wrote about an army of forgotten mercenaries. Although his sentiments are a little melodramatic, they are applicable and could also apply to 2 individuals who are changing our world as we watch. One is the anonymous northern hemisphere whistleblower who leaked the CRU information and data to us, the second is Australian Opposition leader Tony Abbott, whose ascendancy to political leadership over the climate change issue is being watched and debated worldwide. As Andrew Bolt observes in the Melbourne Herald Sun, Tony Abbott has...

... bought the Liberals time - the only thing left that could heal their bloody division over global warming.The Liberals can be healed if they see global warming not as a moral question, but a scientific and economic problem. And events will prove decisive in settling a difference of opinion on those. FIRST, if the world keeps failing to warm, the warming theory itself will crumble. Indeed, it's crumbling already. Rudd's belief that man is heating the world is based almost entirely on the reports of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But thousands of emails uncovered in this month's Climategate scandal show that the scientists most responsible for those reports did not just doctor data, destroy awkward evidence, and censor sceptical scientists. They also show some of them privately admitting that the world seems not to be heating as they (and Rudd) predicted.
"Where the heck is global warming?" raged Kevin Trenberth, an IPCC lead author, to another Climategate scientist: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."
But time won't just settle this argument about whether the world is actually warming.
By next year the UN's Copenhagen summit will be well over and we'll also know then how serious other countries really are about cutting their emissions, too.
If the world's biggest emitters - such as China, the United States and India - keep refusing to agree to their own legally enforceable cuts in emissions, then tiny Australia going it alone will seem even more suicidally mad.
Of course, it cuts both ways. If the world resumes warming with a vengeance, and if the world's big emitters do indeed set real targets, then many sceptics will be forced to shut up.
So time will tell, and time will heal. Time is thus what the Liberals need most, along with a leader who would meanwhile rather die fighting than live crawling. With Abbott, the Liberals finally have both a cause to fight, and time to heal...more here...

...I've said it before, but it's worth repeating. Mick Jagger was right. Time really is on our side...meanwhile Phil Jones has his collar felt...

...and, H/T Theo... Anyone need a new watch ? Buy a Rolex...

Nurse Myra and Tony Abbott...

...Mr Abbott (right) the new Australian opposition leader and next Prime Minister is, according to this morning's NZ Herald...an outspoken, two fisted conservative. M.A. (Oxon.) Rhodes scholar, ex boxer...

...obviously then a man to be reckoned with...“It’s hard to take climate alarmists all that seriously...when they’re as ferociously against the one proven technology that could reduce electricity emissions to zero, nuclear power, as they are in favour of urgent reduction in emissions. For many, reducing emissions is a means to achieving a political objective they could not otherwise gain.”...and "As opposition leader I am not frightened of an election, and I am not frightened of an election on this (climate change) issue...as far as many, many millions of Australians are concerned, what the Rudd government's ETS looks like is a great big tax to create a great big slush fund to provide politicised handouts, run by a giant bureaucracy..."

Abbott's ascendancy is another major blow for the left, (what a week !) particularly the extreme statists. The 2010 election will be a de facto referendum on climate change, this from the Australian...

...Tony Abbott will steer the Liberal Party back to its conservative roots with a 2010 election campaign portraying Kevin Rudd as a Whitlamesque big spender whose climate change policies will smash Australian jobs...more here...

...and while in public Abbott hedges his bets over AGW, (as does John Key ), the Australian electorate is generally as cynical over Al Gore's climatastrophe as their Kiwi cousins...Abbott said he believed climate change was real and humans did make a contribution, but that the extent of that contribution and the measures needed were in dispute, as were the merits of an ETS. "We will have a strong and effective climate change policy, but one thing we are not going to do is damage Australia's export industries, put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage against the world, and we are not going to have the conceit of thinking we can save the world on our own."

And Nurse Myra ? Well, she reminds me of someone I knew well many years ago at St. Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghust. Our paths crossed recently in cyberspace when I stumbled upon her enthralling and edgy blog; Gimcrack Hospital. Nurse also knows a fair bit more than I do about Mr Abbott's past. (An ex paramour maybe ?) as her comment to yesterday's posting showed. Pay her a visit and say hello...

...and quote of the day..."Leute wie Sie standen auf den Mauer-Wachtürmen der roten Sozialisten, Sie überwachten die Wachtürme der braunen Sozialisten. Und, ..., Leute Ihres Schlages werden auf den Wachtürmen der grünen Sozialisten stehen und deren Umerziehungslagern zu klimatologisch korrekten Staatsbürgern."("People like you stood in the guard towers of the red socialists' wall, they stood in the brown[shirt] socialists' guard towers. And people of your stripe will stand in the guard towers of the green socialists and their re-education camps for climatologically correct citizens.")
- Commenter Frank39, who appears to have lived in East Germany, responding on a post on Climategate from the German "Science Skeptical" blog...H/T Samizdata...

Emissions Trading Stinks, (ask Aussies)...Something's in the air...

...sang Thunderclap Newman (a cousin of Alfred E.) back in the 70's. That something was insurrection and rebellion, and it's back. The findings of Climategate; data manipulation, data concealement, climate scaremongering and anti-scientific fraud (in fact all the usual hallmarks of green political chicanery) have led to widespread public anger and an abashed guilty silence from climate alarmists, aware that the whiff of a huge scientific scandal will not be dispelled easily. Christopher Booker, writing in The UK Telegraph says...

... these men (the so called hockey team) have been failing to uphold those principles which lie at the heart of genuine scientific enquiry and debate. Already one respected US climate scientist, Dr Eduardo Zorita, has called for Dr Mann and Dr Jones to be barred from any further participation in the IPCC. Even...George Monbiot, horrified at finding how he has been betrayed by the supposed experts he has been revering and citing for so long, has called for Dr Jones to step down as head of the CRU.

...it's now generally thought that the leak from the CRU was via a whistleblower rather than an outside hacker. It's likely then that there are more revelations to come. One day perhaps we'll know the true motivation behind AGW, and put names and faces to its backers. One day too, we'll understand why so many reputable scientists, politicians, science journals and media personnel have been and still are colluding in such an immense fraud. And the charge of collusion and fraud has been made directly and repeatedly without any mention of legal counter charge. Note this taunt from a letter writer in today's NZ Herald...(Dr) Jim Salinger says he is considering becoming a columnist so he can write what he likes without worrying about the facts. Jim can continue to be a climate catastrophist and ignore the truth without any need for a career change...

One day the gaps in our knowledge re this scandal and the pseudoscience behind it will be filled, and our debt to the courageous whistleblower/hacker will be evident. But while we're waiting for more revelations it's very apparent that this is not a scandal involving a cabal of right wing conservative politicians. If it was it would dominate the headlines and the PC media establishment would leave Tiger Woods relatively undisturbed. But... whatever future revelations may disclose...

...our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific scandal of our age...More here...

...AND STOP PRESS...in Australia, Tony Abbott wins the Liberal leadership stoush, putting Rudd's ETS in doubt...The scene is now set for further ructions within the Liberal party or revolts in the Senate and a Liberal-Nationals Coalition attacking the Rudd Government’s ETS as a new tax. ..more here...

STOP PRESS...

...turmoil within the Australian opposition. Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull's support for Kevin Rudd's ETS is costing him dearly. A ballot for leadership is expected to take place tomorrow. Its outcome may determine a "double dissolution" general elction...

...Expectations that Mr Hockey would agree to challenge came as a Newspoll conducted for The Australian on the weekend revealed a stunning eight-percentage-point collapse in the Opposition Leader's rating among voters. After a week of attempting to force his reluctant party to vote in favour of the Prime Minister's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, Mr Turnbull was rated preferred prime minister by only 14 per cent of voters, down from 22 per cent a fortnight ago... Mr Hockey is likely to contest tomorrow's Liberal leadership ballot under a deal allowing the Liberals to crush Kevin Rudd's hope of a pre-Copenhagen deal on climate change.

...meanwhile an emotional Mr Turnbull (pictured left with possible leadership contender Joe Hockey) pleads with the Australian media to "leave me alone."
More from the Australian here...

A contempt for scientific objectivity...

...whatever the outcome of Copenhagen, whatever stitched up shonky deal is made, the verdict of history and of science will remain the same; climate alarmists are frauds, and their stooges within the science establishments and in the media are guilty of collusion, lies and deceit. The information is now released, and the stink and shame of corruption will follow those who wilfully choose to ignore it...

...In the last few days, the cause of climate alarmism took a big hit when more than a thousand e-mails exchanged by scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) suddenly surfaced online...But notwithstanding the e-mails’ route to publication, their actual content is extraordinary. These behind-the-scenes discussions among leading global-warming exponents are remarkable both in their candor and in their sheer contempt for scientific objectivity. There can be little doubt after even a casual perusal that the scientific case for global warming and the policy that springs from it are based upon a volatile combination of political ideology, unapologetic mendacity, and simmering contempt for even the best-intentioned disagreement. Especially in anticipation of the major climate summit taking place in Copenhagen next month, the significance of this explosive disclosure is hard to underestimate. According to climatologist Patrick J. Michaels, “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud.”...more here...

...and from Ian Plimer in the Daily Mail...They put forward an ideology that is blind fundamentalism, unrelated to scientific facts. Politicians build new bureaucracies and pose as environmental saviours without having to face the consequences of their actions. Heads must roll. Meanwhile, the planet will do what it has always done: change...more here...

...remembering the warning message from George Orwell.. “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell, 1984.

...and here's Rodney Hide's "please explain" letter to Nick Smith...

Our extinguished Poet Laureate...

...writes often in the NZ Herald as Jam Hipkins. His witty and self deprecating columns pierce the PC pretence that abounds here in NZ. Hopkins is an iconoclastic rebel with a fortnightly column and produces politically incorrect satire with bite. Today he's at his very best, brightening our Friday mornings with a column headed Dodgy science gets us all off the hook...

...The other (example of monetary muckiness) concerns a gaggle of Newton's heirs, scientific geezers beavering away, recording data, analysing statistics and reporting only what is provable and true. Except these crooks haven't. They've cooked the books. They've lied. They've falsified the facts to induce needless panic and alarum in the bosoms of the groundlings. Along the way, they've blackened the reputations of others who challenged their conclusions, whilst earning for themselves great renown and large amounts of dosh.There's supposed to be an absolute rule in science: if the facts don't fit the theory, the theory must be wrong. But these beneficiaries of massive research grants have adopted a more creative approach. In their world, the First Law of Prestige and Avarice applies; when the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts...But these egregious boffins have done more than remind us that the purest of research is prone to the corruptions of ambition and income. What they've done is wilfully attempt to influence public opinion - and political outcomes - around the world. For these data-bodgers weren't investigating the mating habits of the Lesser Crested Gobsnot. No, they were climate scientists. Or, more precisely, pseudo-scientists, twisting the truth to produce results which they and their employers desired...more here...

As with other MSM, the NZ Herald has reported the scandal around the CRU as a breach of security rather than a gross and grotesque scientific fraud. Jim Hopkins, God bless him and reward him, has shone the spotlight on the elephant in the room. We wait now for further news and comment re NIWA, CRU and Jim Salinger as posted yesterday. The s*** has now hit the fan..

...AND, because it's Thanksgiving...

...and from the usually very unexcitable Bishop Hill...On the code thread, James Smith has just posted this comment:
From the file pl_decline.pro: check what the code is doing! It's reducing the temperatures in the 1930s, and introducing a parabolic trend into the data to make the temperatures in the 1990s look more dramatic.
Could someone else do a double check on this file? Could be dynamite if correct.

The house of cards has collapsed...

...and a easy way to rate the clanging of the alarm bells is to check out the level of debate at the green left site Hot Topic. A stab to their sensitive green collective hearts has been the admission from their UK Guardian spokesman and ally George Monbiot, that the head of the CRU, Phil Jones should resign. Further revelations from the leaked material will strengthen future actions and investigations. From CBS news ...the U.S. Congress may probe whether prominent scientists who are advocates of global warming theories misrepresented the truth about climate change...

This issue will not go away, and has the potential to rival Watergate as a political scandal. It may become the defining issue of the Obama presidency. And talking of scandals, closer to home the NZ Climate Science Coalition has been doing some simple spadework, and what they've found appears to link NIWA, CRU and their ex-employee Dr Jim Salinger, to some more dodgy statistics...

There have been strident claims that New Zealand is warming. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), among other organisations and scientists, allege that, along with the rest of the world, we have been heating up for over 100 years. But now, a simple check of publicly-available information proves these claims wrong. In fact, New Zealand’s temperature has been remarkably stable for a century and a half. So what’s going on? New Zealand's National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) is responsible for New Zealand's National Climate Database. This database, available online, holds all New Zealand's climate data, including temperature readings, since the 1850s. Anybody can go and get the data for free. That’s what we did, and we made our own graph...

...and what the Coalition have found is that the official graph used by NIWA, and largely collated by Dr Jim Salinger, and started by him in the 1980's when he was at the CRU, differs markedly from the data. They therefore conclude...

The shocking truth is that the oldest readings have been cranked way down and later readings artificially lifted to give a false impression of warming as documented below. There is nothing in the station histories to warrant these adjustments and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this...We have discovered that the warming in New Zealand over the past 156 years was indeed man-made, but it had nothing to do with emissions of CO2—it was created by man-made adjustments of the temperature. It’s a disgrace...more here... and here... and now featuring on WuWT here...

It remains to be seen what Dr Salinger will say about all this, but the suspicion is now raised that NIWA understood Salinger's apparent distortion of the data, and may have sacked him as a result...Now Rodney Hide has asked Minister for the Environment, Nick Smith, to "please explain." However, the ball remains firmly in Dr Salinger's court...watch this space.

Some more light relief. What do you think Homer Simpson thinks about climate change ? Check it out...with thanks to PKH here...

...and... We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to suspend the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia from preparation of any Government Climate Statistics until the various allegations have been fully investigated by an independent body...here...

...and for a great overview, with links to blogs, media sources around the world, see The Week, here...

Fraudsters, huckstering snake oil salesmen, profiteers and crooks...

...has he left anyone out ? From Christopher Monckton...This is what they did — these climate “scientists” on whose unsupported word the world’s classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights.
The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud — for fraud is what we now know it to be (link here) — tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years — and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.
Worse, these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset — the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.
Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and “global warming” profiteers — for that is what they are — have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists — they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.
I am angry, and so should you be...more here...
...and news from the US based Competitive Enerprise Institute, a lawsuit pending against NASA GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies)...more here...

...and this little titbit re President Obama and the US Freedom of Information Act...On his first full day in office, January 21, 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of all departments and agencies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The President directed that FOIA “should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.” Moreover, the President instructed agencies that information should not be withheld merely because “public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”

...and to top it off, this from George (Moonbeam) Monbiot of the UK Guardian...It's no use pretending this isn't a major blow... I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them....there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the IPCC... I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.

...and for some light relief, brought to you by Minessotans for Global Warming, and sung to the tune of Draggin the Line, Hide the Decline...here...

The fallout continues...

...and in spite of rebuttals and spin, the credibility of climate science and many of its practitioners has been shattered. Bishop Hill asks...Is this the moment when reputable climatologists start to distance themselves from the Hockey Team? Judy Curry's piece at Climate Audit was the start of it, but now Hans von Storch has called for Mann and Jones to be barred from taking part in future IPCC reviews. Who else is brave enough? Now's the moment ladies and gentlemen...

...you'll also note within the leaked emails the presence of Stephen Schneider, the grandad of climatastrophe, and author of the now infamous 1989 comment..."We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public imagination we have to offer up some scary scenarios,make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have.Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective,and being honest."

If anything encapsulates the drama of the CRU leak, it is the palpable sentiment throughout the emails that the climate scientists involved are obeying Schneider's instructions to the letter. And by so doing, they have torpedoed their cause. Witness international polling re climatastrophe. Obviously the general public have serious doubts re the mechanism and the likely impact of climate change, and these doubts (although hitherto suppressed) still abound within the scientific community. To say otherwise is palpable nonsense. In Kevin Trenberth's words...The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't...See the full searchable data base here...

With such uncertainty within climatology the lie that "the science is settled" is exposed for all to see. So too, is the much trumpeted "consensus". Does this aura of scepticism, doubt and disdain do anything for science ? From Judy Curry...

"...the broader issue is the need to increase the public credibility of climate science. This requires publicly available data and metadata, a rigorous peer review process, and responding to arguments raised by skeptics. The integrity of individual scientists that are in positions of responsibility (e.g. administrators at major research institutions, editorial boards, major committees, and assessments) is particularly important for the public credibility of climate science. The need for public credibility and transparency has dramatically increased in recent years as the policy relevance of climate research has increased. The climate research enterprise has not yet adapted to this need, and our institutions need to strategize to respond to this need."

...and from the UK Taxpayers' Alliance...we're reporting (Professor Phil Jones) and his colleagues to the Information Commissioner this afternoon...

Just one in depth article...

...in a mainstream print journal analysing the content of the leaked CRU emails and datafiles will be enough to trigger further analysis from what have been up to now green left compliant media sources. That journal may well be the WSJ. This editorial could be a start and do the trick...

...This is horrible," said Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute in Washington who is mentioned negatively in the emails. "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."
John Christy, a scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville who was attacked in the emails, said, "It's disconcerting to realize that legislative actions this nation is preparing to take, and which will cost trillions of dollars, are based upon a view of climate that has not been completely scientifically tested -- but rather orchestrated."

Representatives of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the biggest professional scientific organizations, expressed concern that the hacked emails would weaken global resolve to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. The association believes "that climate change is real, it is related to human activities, and the need to counteract its impacts is now urgent," Ginger Pinholster, an association spokeswoman, wrote in an email Sunday...In another, Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to American climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We "will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" ...

The deep throat whistleblower...

...The hundreds of e-mails being made public after someone hacked into Phil Jones’ Climatic Research Unit (CRU) computer system offer a revealing peek inside the IPCC machine. It will take some time before we know whether any illegal activity has been uncovered (e.g. hiding or destruction of data to avoid Freedom of Information Act inquiries).
Some commentators even think this is the beginning of the end for the IPCC. I doubt it.
The scientists at the center of this row are defending themselves. Phil Jones has claimed that some of the more alarming statements in his e-mails have been taken out of context. The semi-official response from RealClimate.org, a website whose roots can be traced to George Soros (which I’m sure is irrelevant), claims the whole episode is much ado about nothing.
At a minimum, some of these e-mails reveal an undercurrent of elitism that many of us have always claimed existed in the IPCC. These scientists look upon us skeptics with scorn. It is well known that the IPCC machine is made up of bureaucrats and scientists who think they know how the world should be run. The language contained in a draft of the latest climate treaty (meant to replace the Kyoto treaty) involves global governance and the most authoritarian means by which people’s energy use will be restricted and monitored by the government...more from Roy W. Spencer here...

...AND, o/t but the Hadron Collider is back in action...

Augie Auer is watching and smiling...

...as the phoney global emergency of climatastrophe is exposed as a fraud. For those not privileged to live in New Zealand, the late Augie Auer was Mr Weather to many of us and a convinced global warming sceptic. Just before his death Augie expressed hope that he "would live long enough to prove the bastards wrong." It wasn't to be. Augie died on 10th June 2007...the hoax of global warming outlived him.

...Global Warming is often called a hoax. I disagree because a hoax has a humorous intent to puncture pomposity. In science, such as with the Piltdown Man hoax, it was done to expose those with fervent but blind belief. The argument that global warming is due to humans, known as the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW) is a deliberate fraud. I can now make that statement without fear of contradiction because of a remarkable hacking of files that provided not just a smoking gun, but an entire battery of machine guns...more here...

...and note this database for searching all the leaked CRU goldmine...

Train whistleblowin'...and the smoking gun...

...further to the leaked documents saga. From blogger Tom Nelson...There's a storm brewing on the Web over e-mails that hackers got hold of in which some scientists at one of the world's leading research centers say things such as the need to "hide the decline" in data about temperatures. Skeptics who have doubts about whether humans are contributing to global warming are pouncing on the revelations.I think a leaker is more likely than a hacker, but find out who to thank in due course. For now, the folks at Hadley (and Michael Mann) are trying to deflect attention from what they wrote to each other by focusing on the legality of how the papers were obtained.This is now being taken up by the MSM worldwide...Tony soprano had some excellent words of wisdom for the motley CRU: “You can’t put the shit back in the donkey.” ...If true, it would seem that being “effective” will have taken precedence over being honest. If true, this could be one of the largest scientific frauds ever perpetrated. Given the impact that this and related climate research has had on climate policy, the world economy, energy generation, and specifically the coal industry, such a revelation would be devastating for climate research as a whole....
UK Guardian...
Sean Hannity...
The Wall St. Journal...
UK Telegraph...
The BBC...
Fox News...
The Australian...
The NY Times...
...from Michelle Malkin... The global warming scandal of the century...
...from Pajamas Media...But then, the whole package is very large — 63 megabytes — and seems to be very internally consistent. Several people have already corroborated a number of the emails as being ones they wrote or received. The package also includes substantial data and computer programs, which are being explored as this is being written.
The best we can say right now is that we should keep our eyes on this. If these files are eventually corroborated and verified, it is a bombshell indeed — evidence that there has been a literal conspiracy to push the anthropogenic climate change agenda far beyond the science.
It will mean the end of some scientific careers, and it might even mean those careers will end in jail.
...and a little bit of levity, with compliments to Neil, posting at WuWT...all together now...

“With those that cry “warm!”, I will differ.

There is Mann, there is Jones, there is Briffa.

Mike’s hockey stick’s junk,

Phil’s data did a bunk, (? got sunk)

And Keith got caught out by a sniffer.”

...I'm about to knock off for a while, but this comment sums it all up very well indeed...
...In preparing cases for court I look at reams of documents each working week and I must say that there are only a few documents that resemble a smoking gun. The most significant scientifically is the one which says “we are nowhere close to knowing where energy is going”. This blasts a big hole in any statement that CO2 is CAUSING anything, and leaves the alarmists with mere correlation at best. Without a causal relationship they have proven nothing other than a need for more research. Collectively, however, the documents show a pattern that, far from testing their hypotheses, these people are actively seeking to overcome each and every inconvenient fact in their quest to manufacture an unequivocal outcome. In the process they add layers of assumption onto layers of assumption and create a veritable house of cards. The IPCC report in the end became so elaborate and flimsy that Kevin Rudd’s spin squad would be proud...more here...

Hot News...posted for the record...

...some are advising great caution, but this appears genuine. In particular note below... "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick...to hide the decline..." see also The Air Vent's take on the issue... This is the biggest news ever broken here. The first thing I have to say is that I have no connection to the source of these files. It was left as a link on my blog... These files are real IMO but they cannot be one hundred percent verified as such. How can we be certain but IMO, real. They were potentially scraped from multiple computers in my opinion by a hacker or an insider involved in some of the endless FOIA requests...

...from WuWT...Breaking News Story: Hadley CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released The details on this are still sketchy, we’ll probably never know what went on. But it appears that Hadley Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown...but here is what I know so far: An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertsied (sic) an FTP file on a Russian FTP server, here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today:

We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too
important
tobe kept under wraps.
We hereby release a random selection of
correspondence, code, and documents...

The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files. It contained data, code, and emails from Phil Jones at CRU to and from many people. I’ve seen the file, it appears to be genuine and from CRU. Others who have seen it concur- it appears genuine. There are so many files it appears unlikely that it is a hoax. The effort would be too great. Here is (sic)some of the emails just posted at Climate Audit on this thread:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7801#comments I’ve redacted email addresses and direct phone numbers for the moment. The emails all have US public universities in the email addresses, making them public/FOIA actionable I believe.
From: Phil JonesTo: mann@vxxxxx.xxxSubject: Fwd: John L. Daly deadDate: Thu Jan 29 14:17:01 2004

From: Timo H‰merantaTo:Subject: John L. Daly deadDate: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:04:28 +0200X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.4510Importance: Normal
Mike,In an odd way this is cheering news ! One other thing about the CC paper – just foundanother email – is that McKittrick says it is standard practice in Econometrics journalsto give all the data and codes !! According to legal advice IPR overrides this.
CheersPhil
“It is with deep sadness that the Daly Family have to announce the sudden death of JohnDaly.Condolences may be sent to John’s email account (daly@john-daly.com)“Reported with great sadness
Timo H‰merantaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Timo H‰meranta, LL.M.Moderator, ClimatescepticsMartinlaaksontie 42 B 901620 VantaaFinland, Member State of the European Union
Moderator: timohame@yxxxxx.xxxPrivate: timo.hameranta@xxxxx.xx
Home page: [1]personal.inet.fi/koti/hameranta/climate.htm
Moderator of the discussion group “Sceptical Climate Science”[2]groups.yahoo.com/group/climatesceptics
“To dwell only on horror scenarios of the futureshows only a lack of imagination”. (Kari Enqvist)
“If the facts change, I’ll change my opinion.What do you do, Sir” (John Maynard Keynes)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Prof. Phil JonesClimatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0)xxxxxxSchool of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxxxxUniversity of East AngliaNorwich Email p.jones@xxx.xx.xxNR4 7TJUK—————————————————————————-
References
1. http://personal.inet.fi/koti/hameranta/climate.htm2. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/climatesceptics
From: Phil JonesTo: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxxSubject: Diagram for WMO StatementDate: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today orfirst thing tomorrow.I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd (sic) from1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annualland and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH landN of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 withdata through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.Thanks for the comments, Ray.
CheersPhil
Prof. Phil JonesClimatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxxSchool of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxxUniversity of East AngliaNorwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxxNR4 7TJUK
—————————————————————————-
From: Jonathan OverpeckTo: “Michael E. Mann”Subject: letter to SenateDate: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 16:49:31 -0700Cc: Caspar M Ammann , Raymond Bradley , Keith Briffa , Tom Crowley , Malcolm Hughes , Phil Jones , mann@xxxxx.xxx, jto@xxxxx.xx.xxx, omichael@xxxxx.xxx, Tim Osborn , Kevin Trenberth , Tom Wigley

Hi all – I’m not too comfortable with this, and would rather not sign – at least notwithout some real time to think it through and debate the issue. It is unprecedented andpolitical, and that worries me.
My vote would be that we don’t do this without a careful discussion first.
I think it would be more appropriate for the AGU or some other scientific org to do this -e.g., in reaffirmation of the AGU statement (or whatever it’s called) on global climatechange.
Think about the next step – someone sends another letter to the Senators, then we respond,then…
I’m not sure we want to go down this path. It would be much better for the AGU etc to doit.
What are the precedents and outcomes of similar actions? I can imagine a special-interestorg or group doing this like all sorts of other political actions, but is it something forscientists to do as individuals?
Just seems strange, and for that reason I’d advise against doing anything with out realthought, and certainly a strong majority of co-authors in support.
Cheers, Peck
Dear fellow Eos co-authors,Given the continued assault on the science of climate change by some on Capitol Hill,Michael and I thought it would be worthwhile to send this letter to various members ofthe U.S. Senate, accompanied by a copy of our Eos article.Can we ask you to consider signing on with Michael and me (providing your preferredtitle and affiliation). We would like to get this out ASAP.Thanks in advance,Michael M and Michael O
______________________________________________________________Professor Michael E. MannDepartment of Environmental Sciences, Clark HallUniversity of VirginiaCharlottesville, VA 22903_______________________________________________________________________e-mail: mann@xxxxxx.xxx Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) xxx-xxxxxhttp://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:EOS.senate letter-final.doc (WDBN/MSWD) (00055FCF)
–
Jonathan T. OverpeckDirector, Institute for the Study of Planet EarthProfessor, Department of GeosciencesMail and Fedex Address:Institute for the Study of Planet Earth715 N. Park Ave. 2nd FloorUniversity of ArizonaTucson, AZ 85721direct tel: +xxxxfax: +1 520 792-8795http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Faculty_Pages/Overpeck.J.html http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/

...It appears that the proverbial Climate Science Cat is out of the bag.

Developing story – more later...

The year of the sceptic...

...The worst kept secret in the world is finally out; the climate change summit in Copenhagen is going to be little more than a photo opportunity for world leaders...and as such a disaster for the green/left. Their failure comes at a high cost. Despite the millions of dollars spent by Al Gore, the Hollywood elites, and the United Nations, climate alarmism has failed, and with Copenhagen a certain failure, it's safe to say that (US) cap-and-trade is dead. Thus efforts to pass the largest tax increase in American history have clearly failed, handing the American people a tremendous victory...with H/T and thanks to blogger Tom Nelson...and this below from the Wall St. Journal this morning...

"'Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all,' President-elect Obama said of global warming last November. ‘Delay is no longer an option.' It turns out that delay really is an option-the only one that has world-wide support...see Revenge of the Climate Laymen, from the WSJ here....AND THIS below from Senator James Inhofe...

...Mr. President, through my position as the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee since 2003, I have been the lead Senator standing up and exposing the science, the costs, and the hysteria behind global warming alarmism. And I will be travelling to Copenhagen, leading what I call the "Truth Squad" to say exactly what I said six years ago in Milan, Italy: The United States will not support a global warming treaty that will significantly damage the American economy...I also said in Milan that the science is not settled. That was an unpopular view back then. But today, since Al Gore's science fiction movie, more and more scientists, reporters, and politicians are questioning global warming alarmism. I proudly declare 2009 as the "Year of the Skeptic"-the year in which scientists who question the so-called global warming consensus are being heard...more here...

...and bloody hell, credit where it's due. Take a bow George W. Bush and John Howard, who refused to sign the ludicrous Kyoto protocol and struck a blow for rationalism...

Mercy, mistress mercy...

...the frenzied attempts by the dominatrix that is the IPCC to whip the public into a hysterical panic over climate change have failed. Throughout the world global warming fatigue is setting in despite the best efforts of academic and non academic green/left activists...In Australia, a more fundamental shift towards skepticism seems to be occurring, despite the Labor government’s efforts to push the country in a greener direction. A poll in July by the Lowy Institute showed the number of Australians willing to shoulder “significant costs” to tackle global warming had fallen to 48%. This is down from 60% last year and 68% in 2006. In both America and Australia the public seems to be growing more doubtful, even in the face of ever shriller warnings from the IPCC and its minions.
“Where do you go after ‘unequivocal’?” asks Roger Pielke Jr., a science policy scholar at the University of Colorado, a reference to the measure of certainty the IPCC applied to its core findings in its 2007 report. By sounding the alarm too loudly, Pielke and others say, climate change campaigners could be causing the public to tune them out or could even provoke a backlash. Indeed, where do you go? Like a compulsive gambler doubling down on a bad hand, the climate change extremists continue to bet on their visions of pending disaster. It looks like the IPCC, the UN agency that cried “wolf” over climate change, is about to discover the consequences trying to deceive the world...more here...

Playing for time with global warming... and spectator sports...

...the weekend treat for many Kiwi's was the success of the All Whites over Bahrain and our inclusion in next year's World Cup. The weekend's great yawning bore on the other hand, was the totally ridiculous display that is present day international rugby, particularly as played over the weekend by Italy and the All Blacks. If ever sport can be said to have degenerated into farce, and have lost all spectator appeal it is this, our national sport. (But see addendum below.) By contrast, football here in NZ is in ascendancy. We have recently been treated to thrilling trans-Tasman competition courtesy of the Wellington Phoenix, (thanks to Terry Serepisos) under-17 success in the Uganda tournament, superb women's football in Christchurch last year, and now World Cup qualification.

And what has all this got to do with global warming ? Only the fact that total farce is also being played out on the world stage and here in NZ too. Australia we are told, will exclude agriculture from its ETS, while NZ is determined to hobble its main economic linchpin, and will tax agriculture heavily, and is likely then to subsidise Australian dairy exports. The USA have determined that they will not pass domestic climate change legislation this year thus relegating next month's Copenhagen conference to an expensive international high carbon footprint junket for attendees. And apart from all this we are still expected to believe, despite rebuttal, that the science behind all this posturing and expense is settled beyond doubt, and that global catastrophe awaits if we do not reform our ways. What a load of cobblers !

At least the reality of the opposition to green/left hysterics is being noticed more, and the main media are now having to dilute their scare stories. See Chris de Freitas from yesterday's NZ Herald, here. And every day that passes, new research and new information adds to our sceptical armament and knowledge...from WuWT...“The more people learn about the supposed issue of ‘climate change’ and how green extremists intend to control our lives, the more skeptical they become,” said Jeff Davis, president of Minnesota Majority...Last week, key US Senate Democrats said it is unlikely there will be any additional action on climate-change legislation this year. The Obama administration had hoped to seal a deal on domestic cap-and-trade legislation prior to attending the Copenhagen conference in December. Earlier this month, The Times reported that all hope is lost for a deal in Copenhagen and that a world treaty on climate change will likely be delayed by up to a year. Davis warns now is not the time for treaty opponents to rest on their laurels. “We may have bought ourselves some time,” said Davis. “But green extremists will be back in-force trying to advance both domestic cap-and-trade legislation and an international climate treaty that will rob us of our liberties and grant government more control over our lives.”

...and from Samizdata...Often I read, in various Climate Alarmist articles, words to the effect that "time is running out on a global climate deal"... which is great news if it is actually true. It suggests to me that perhaps they realise that the "universally accepted" One True Apostolic Eco-Faith is really the very epitome of a paper tiger as there is far from a genuine consensus on the subject.
So if time is running out, it would seem hard to overstate the importance of running interference and generally throwing spanners into the works for as long as possible. To prevent the latest transnational 'tranzi' red-wrapped-in-green statist power ploys, friends of liberty need to do whatever they can to 'run out the clock' and then encourage as much international political recrimination post-failure as possible, in order to keep the ball out of play for as long as possible. I think it is time to suggest creative but practical ways to help sow discord and disunity amongst the predatory political elites (and their supporters) of the various countries seeking to extend ever more control over their national subjects under the cloak of green politics.
Certainly if overtly totalitarian measures like carbon rationing are ever brought in, truly the time for unambiguous direct resistance to the state will have arrived, so preventing things getting to that stage is more than a little important...

I take all my cruel words about rugby back. As tedious as the Italy match was, France v the All Blacks yesterday (the 29th) was a true sports spectacle. Skill, confidence, speed, power and flair demolished an opposition who also played with credit and daring. Wonderful stuff.

Apocalypse delayed...and World Cup fever...

......President Barack Obama and other world leaders have decided to put off the difficult task of reaching a climate change agreement at a global climate conference scheduled for next month, agreeing instead to make it the mission of the Copenhagen conference to reach a less specific “politically binding” agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future...At a hastily arranged breakfast on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting on Sunday morning, the leaders, including Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the prime minister of Denmark and the chairman of the climate conference, agreed that in order to salvage Copenhagen they would have to push a fully binding legal agreement down the road, possibly to a second summit meeting in Mexico City later on...H/T PKH... more here...

...and that my friends is very nearly that. What will it take to awaken the sense of urgency and panic over climate change again ? Green left activists who have bet their political credibility on climatastrophe must be having many sleepless nights, and their compliant scientist friends will be similarly aware of their own credibility problems together with the knowledge that their gravy train is coming off its rails.

As a sign of the times our local NZ Herald graciously allowed warming sceptic Chris de Freitas space for rebuttal of its recent alarmist article, here... and the best news of all this weekend from Wellington's "cake tin", NZ qualifies for the World Cup ! Mark Paston (right) man of the match...more here...c'mon the lads !

Who the hell are you to deny global warming ?

...a greenie Libertarian (right) writes...Q: I consider myself a strong free-market advocate and a fan of Ayn Rand’s writings. However, I find your denial of rising global temperatures to be contradictory to Rand’s view that we should follow the facts of reality based on reason and objective knowledge. You are not a climate scientist (your bio says “PhD in theoretical physics”), so how are you qualified to draw conclusions about global warming? If the only fact we have on which to base a conclusion is that many experts support the existence of global warming, then isn’t it only rational, under Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, to conclude that global warming is, in fact, a problem...

...the answer here...

Stop Press !

USA Democrats throw in the towel re climate bill...from WuWT...WASHINGTON... Key Senate Democrats Tuesday said it is unlikely there will be any more major committee action on climate-change legislation this year, the strongest indication yet that a comprehensive bill to cut greenhouse-gas emissions won’t be voted on until at least next year.
Although the Senate Environment Committee last week approved a version of the bill, the proposal will face strong revisions from moderate Democrats, particularly from senators on the Finance and Agriculture committees.
“It’s common understanding that climate-change legislation will not be brought up on the Senate floor and pass the Senate this year,” Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus said on the sidelines of a caucus lunch...more here... AND from comments...
...and of course, next year is election year and with unemployment likely headed to 12% and the Republicans surging in the polls, there is no way that any of the moderate dems touch these... this will not even be voted on, much less passed, and the next Congress is going to be much more conservative than this one. The passage of Waxman-Markey in the House now looks like it is going to be the high-water mark of the warmist crusade – it looks to be all downhill from there for the movement. Let it stand as a monument to hubris for all time. There are a lot of fascinating domino’s that are going to fall as a result of this failure in the Senate:
1) The Senate will not pass this bill – not this year, not next year, not ever.It would be political suicide, and they know it.
2) cap and trade will thus never be implemented in the United States.
3) Copenhagen, already set to fall apart, fades into insignificance as it becomes clear that the US, India, and China all refuse to adopt any kind of mandatory limits on their economic outputs.
4) Other, smaller countries such as Australia will abandon their efforts because it will be futile to restrict their economies when none of the largest economies are going to reciprocate...
5) some kind of voluntary agreement will be negotiated, (but)
6) all voluntary agreements will fail to be implemented, because they will merely be political lip service to an idea whose time has passed. So pay no attention to them when they occur, they will all be nonsense.
7) Eventually even scientists will give up the cause, as it become clear that there will be no great money or power flowing from supporting it.
8) within a decade or two, Warmism will be looked at like Phrenology, as a great pseudo-scientific delusion that was overthrown by events.

How could they do this ? Don't they know we'll all fry if Copenhagen doesn't result in a comprehensive agreement to roll back capitalism ? Or at least cripple the domestic economies of the developed world for 20 years ? WTF are they thinking of ?

Scientific consensus ? Baloney !

...for many global warming/climate change sceptics the alarm bells rang loud and clear when politicians and green/left political "activists" announced that the jury had returned, and that the science of climatastrophe was settled. Over these last few years the AGW debate has largely stayed out of the MSM, it has instead been fought through blogs, and day by day, poll by poll the news is that the general public are getting the message. Re recent US polling see this.

Now from the University of Bristol, UK, more bad news for the warmists and further reinforcement that computer based climate change models are worthless...

...New data (9.11.09) shows that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected.
The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO2 should start to diminish as CO2 emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket. Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol found that in fact the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has only been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, which is essentially zero...

...This work is extremely important for climate change policy, because emission targets to be negotiated at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen early next month have been based on projections that have a carbon free sink of already factored in. Some researchers have cautioned against this approach, pointing at evidence that suggests the sink has already started to decrease...MORE HERE...

It was 20 years ago yesterday...

...that the shameful edifice called the Berlin wall came crumbling down. People imprisoned by the wall voted with their feet and streamed into West Germany. I belonged then to Amnesty International, and wondered how it could be that an organisation devoted to human rights could pay so little attention to this omnipresent and monstrous insult to freedom. It occurred to me then that the victims of oppression receive only half hearted acknowledgment if their oppression is deemed to be based on good intentions. Hence the (very appropriate) attention given to the Nazi's and the victims of the Holocaust with countless books, films and anniversaries. And hence too, the relative lack of attention to the victims of communism. So, on this auspicious anniversary of freedom, how about this for an idea ?

...A proposal for May Day:
May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their regimes. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes' millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century's other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so. I suggest that May Day be turned into Victims of Communism Day. I am, of course, open to suggestions for the official name of this day of commemoration. Maybe someone will come up with a better one than I have.
The main alternative to May 1 is November 7, the anniversary of the communist coup in Russia. However, choosing that date might be interpreted as focusing exclusively on the Soviet Union, while ignoring the equally horrendous communist mass murders in China, Camobodia, and elsewhere. So May 1 is the best choice.
UPDATE: I don't claim that this idea is original, as I suspect that it has been suggested before. But whether original or not, I think it should be pursued, perhaps in conjunction with the opening of the Victims of Communism Memorial, scheduled for June 12... more here...

...and from the This Can't be True, and Isn't department...

Journalists across the nation, moved by the plight of a troubled Muslim psychiatrist whose "understandable emotional turmoil" broke out in gunfire last week at Fort Hood, Texas, will hold a major fundraising event in the coming weeks in honor of the accused shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan... more here... and from the genius that is Iowahawk...

...Connecting the dots: Tax returns show anti-government extremist carefully itemized deductions
Like many Town Hall protesters, Hassan motivated by rage, pattern baldness
Phone records: suspect tried to join Hair Club for Men
Tearful Pelosi pushes Congress for new Tea Party regulations: "our lives are at stake" ...more here...

Chill, dude...

...to add to the literature exposing the fraud of climatastrophe is Peter Taylor's book Chill. Taylor scrutinises the scientific research that underpins concern about global warming and finds that it is unconvincing. As a life-long environmental campaigner Taylor is well placed to consider the role that activist organisations have played in this process. UK blogger Harmless Sky has published a chapter (link below) from Chill, inviting the following comment...

...This fascinating chapter by Peter Taylor... raises a subject little discussed in the AGW debate: the vocabulary and debating style of many warmists, and the extraordinary prevalence of Marketspeak borrowed from the world of commerce. The most frequently encountered sociological analysis of the warmists is the Watermelon theory, which holds that greens are reds in disguise, frustrated lefties latching on to a pseudo-scientific theory as a replacemant for Marxism, in order to further their programme of world domination. I’ve long felt that a more convincing theory could be found by looking at the social and educational changes which have led to the number of university educated leaping from near nothing to 30% of the population in a couple of generations. The French sociologist Emmanuel Todd has remarked on the profound inegalitarian results of this. Whereas the acquisition of universal literacy had obvious democratic and egalitarian effects, the rise of a large university educated class has the opposite effect, leading to a proportion of the population inhabiting a kind of elitist cultural ghetto, cut off from the masses. He applied this analysis to the sorry state of the Socialist Party in France, but the same kind of analysis could be applied to the Green movement and its obsession with global warming. My generation of the newly university educated often drifted into marketing and advertising. Being overpaid and over-educated, we aped our intellectual betters by adopting the posture of the social sciences, pretending to be psychologists or social anthropologists, and developing a pseudo-science of marketing jargon to justify our existence.The current generation of environmental activists, journalists, NGOers etc. are following the same route. The old social structures of church, trade union and political party no longer attract, and a new social structure is being constructed around science (the only solid basis remaining). The Greens’ adoption of a business model and its associate jargon is due to their cargo-cult-like belief that the jargon is responsible for the success of the model (i.e. the modern technological capitalist world) rather than being an unimportant and irritating offshoot...

...so there we have it. Not all greens are reds, many are just simple minded jargon addicted yuppies, looking for a sensitive new age utopia...

Whooa ! Here's another tipping point...

...that tips the warmists ever further towards irrelevance...A new study in the journal Science has just shown that all of the climate modeling results of the past are erroneous. The IPCC's modeling cronies have just been told that the figures used for greenhouse gas forcings are incorrect, meaning none of the model results from prior IPCC reports can be considered valid. What has caused climate scientists' assumptions to go awry? Short lived aerosol particles in the atmosphere changing how greenhouse gases react in previously unsuspected ways. The result is another devastating blow to the climate catastrophists' computer generated apocalyptic fantasies.
In a stunning article entitled “Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions,” a group of researchers from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University in New York, led by Drew T. Shindell, have called into question the values used to calculate the “forcing” due to various greenhouse gases...more from The Resilient Earth here... shouldn't the public be told of this ? After all we/they are expected to pay for the green left warming fantasy...

...and from George Will writing in the Washington Post...Intelligent people agree that, absent immediate radical action regarding global warming, the human race is sunk. That is a tautology because those who do not agree are, definitionally, unintelligent. Britain's intelligent Prime Minister Gordon Brown gives scary precision to the word “immediate.” By his reckoning, humanity now has about 30 days to save itself. He says that unless a decisive agreement is reached at the 192-nation summit on climate change that opens Dec. 7 in Copenhagen, all is lost.
So, all is lost. The chances of a comprehensive and binding treaty are approximately nil...more...

See if you can resist this...

...Bill Bryson on the Large Hadron Collider... Is the LHC sexy or not ? Talk about getting women interested in science. The name Hadron of course, as I've pointed out before, is obviously an ad man's invention, being an anagram for ...In the event that it fell to you to identify the most exciting place on the planet, the likelihood is small, I imagine, that you would pack a bag and travel at once to Switzerland. Still less, I dare say, would you turn your back on Geneva and head out past its western suburbs and into the pleasant but uneventful countryside beyond. There, in a broad valley shared with France, stands a collection of buildings that look like the leftovers from a 1960s Festival of Bad Design.
This is it. You have found it. This is CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Over the next few days the people who run the place will cautiously restart the immensely large machine (almost 27 kilometres around) known as the Large Hadron Collider and begin swooshing particles around it in a way that will, when it is fully humming, recreate conditions as they were in the Universe one millionth of a millionth of a second after the beginning of the big bang...more from the London Times here...and click here to see a PDF graphic of the LHC...

G W Bush and President Obama...confronting the cost of war...

...with the passage of time a more realistic assessment of the qualities of President Obama and his predecessor are being made. When I began this blog in July last year, I wrote ...I offer this link from The American Interest magazine to a well articulated argument that (arch buffoon/war criminal/warmongerer) GW Bush, is in fact likely to be remembered as a great president who rolled back jihadism and defined the struggle against terror in terms that the terrorists could understand. I stand by that...Consider too, this recent reflection from DefenseTech re left wing criticism of Bush regarding a lack of empathy with grieving families of war dead...

...Yes, President Obama's Oct. 29 trip to Dover Air Force base in the dark of night to greet a C-17 car­ry­ing fallen Americans killed in Afghanistan was a vivid exam­ple of the real­ity of that war and should pause to those who call for increased com­mit­ment there. And it was hon­or­able of Obama to see for him­self the human cost of his deci­sions — as every com­man­der and chief should. But to reflex­ively defend the photo op engi­neered to cre­ate news about the president’s “sober­ing reminder” by claim­ing that the man who got us into Afghanistan in the first place never faced them is just plain bunk.
I had the honor to speak with nearly a dozen fam­i­lies of Marines killed in Iraq and Afghanistan a few years ago as part of a project with the Military Times news­pa­pers. We wrote a wide-ranging inves­tiga­tive piece on the con­duct of the ser­vices dur­ing the killed-in-action noti­fi­ca­tion process and the sup­port they pro­vided along the way.
It was an intim­i­dat­ing assign­ment, but one I cher­ish to this day. For, unlike Dowd, who I doubt has ever spo­ken with the fam­ily of a fallen ser­vice­mem­ber, I was forced to con­front the world I obliquely reported from afar — to hear the qua­ver­ing voices of moth­ers whose sons had been oblit­er­ated by road­side bombs.
And you know who else did that very same thing dozens of times in his eight years as pres­i­dent? The same man Dowd falsely accuses of declin­ing to con­front the real­ity of his war dead.
In my con­ver­sa­tions with those who sac­ri­ficed a son, a hus­band, a brother, or a boyfriend, all were uni­ver­sally grate­ful for George W. Bush’s sin­cere — and pri­vate — con­ver­sa­tions with them either before or directly after an event or speech at a mil­i­tary base. As a rou­tine, Bush would meet behind closed doors with fam­ily mem­bers who’d lost loved ones as part of his stop at mil­i­tary installations.
These were not sim­ply pro-war, anti-war, pro-Bush or anti-Bush fam­i­lies — they were all of the above. Some were against the Iraq war; oth­ers were stead­fast, despite their unimag­in­able sac­ri­fice, for vic­tory there. But to a man and women, these griev­ing Americans appre­ci­ated the president’s heart­felt com­pas­sion and deep under­stand­ing of their sac­ri­fice — and of the weight of the deci­sion to send poten­tially more of America’s young to their deaths.

Eat less meat to save the planet ? Burger off...

...nicked unashamedly from Spiked...click left to enlarge the B/K message...The truth is that eating meat, jetting around the globe and so on do not fit in with the hairshirt mentality of environmentalists, either the radical ones or the ones in officialdom. For greens, humanity should be apologising for its very existence and doing everything in its power to make the smallest possible impact on the Earth. If the treehuggers want to stay at home eating lentils and composting, that’s up to them; different strokes for different folks, as they say. However, when the leading lights of the climate change industry like Stern try to tell us that we’ve got to change our wicked ways – often on the basis of flimsy or overblown evidence – there’s only one thing to say: burger off...

...and from the UK Economist, courtesy PKH, a retired professor of physics writes...
...Indur Goklany questioned whether global warming has caused an increase in droughts and floods... Letters, October 10th. In fact, the answer is already well settled. That question was examined thoroughly by the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange. In its 2001 report, one chapter, titled "Has climate variability, or have climate extremes, changed?", concluded that there was no discernible increase in storms, hurricanes, floods or droughts. A re-examination of that issue therefore seemed unnecessary in the IPCC's 2007 report. Concerning rising sea levels, this is a more complex issue since a natural increase of 1-2mm a year has been occurring for many centuries. However,over the past few decades no anthropogenic signal in sea-level changes has been detected. This is firmly backed up by precise satellite altimetry. Meanwhile it was just last month that Professor Mojib Latif of the University of Kiel in Germany, a renowned climate expert and IPCC author, presented his latest work at the World Climate Conference in Geneva. His findings show that the mean global temperature has actually declined since 2001. Moreover, his computer models predict a further temperature drop over the coming decades. All of this beckons the question: just where are the supposedly detrimental effects of anthropogenic CO2?

Horst-Joachim Luedecke, Retired professor of physics, Heidelberg, Germany

Fair comment from a sceptic...

"I'll take the AGW proponents seriously when they agree to a full public debate with the skeptics. If the science is as rock solid as they claim then they should welcome the chance to humiliate the climate realists. How about Al Gore vs. Vaclav Klaus, Lord Stern vs. Bjorn Lomborg, Dr. Suzuki vs. Prof.Prof Pat Michaels, Michael Mann vs. Steve McIntyre? Fat chance. The adherence to AGW hinges on preventing the public from hearing both sides of the debate..." UPDATE, see this re a debate on December 1st...
...AND speaking of Al Gore...according to Andrew Bolt ...This is big. Al Gore is now saying carbon dioxide isn’t actually to blame for most of the warming we saw until 2001: Gore explored new studies - published only last week - that show methane and black carbon or soot had a far greater impact on global warming than previously thought. Carbon dioxide – while the focus of the politics of climate change – produces around 40% of the actual warming. Gore acknowledged to Newsweek that the findings could complicate efforts to build a political consensus around the need to limit carbon emissions. Which suggests not only that Gore was wrong to claim the science was “settled”, but that the hugely expensive schemes to “stop” warming by slashing carbon dixoide emissions will be less than half as effective as claimed...more here...

...now what does all this suggest to you ? To me it seems clear that there is a call for some serious repositioning among the warming hysterics, and to get the most "progressive" deal from Copenhagen some uncomfortable backdowns will have to be made. Perhaps Al should acknowledge for starters that An Inconvenient Truth was BS propaganda of the worst order. Any other suggestions ?

...and, as you know, there's a big one in Scunthorpe, but an even bigger one in Ethiopia...

Quote(s) of the day...and the LHC at CERN...and Jew hatred...

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C.S.Lewis.

Patrick Moore (founder of Greenpeace) now views the environmental movement as having lost its original mission of ecological protection and is now occupied with encouraging class envy and anti-capitalist rhetoric."The environmentalists try to inject guilt into people for consuming, as if consuming by itself causes destruction to the environment. There is no truth to that. You have the wealthiest countries on earth with the best looked after environment...Poverty, not wealth, is one of the biggest threats to the Earth's ecological health...Look at the environmental destruction caused by poverty. They have no money left to reforest, they have no money left to prevent soil erosion, there is no money to clean their water after they make it dirty... (Environmentalists) are mainly political activists with not very much actual science background who are using the rhetoric of environmentalism to push agendas that are more political than they are ecological..."

...and for those following the Large Hadron Collider experiment in the deepest recessess of the Swiss Alps, note that the collider is being warmed up right now for its second run (it suffered a calamitous breakdown a year ago.) As Slugger puts it...They might not know it, but this will be this generation’s moon-landing. It might seem arcane, unknowable and downright confusing, but this will be -in all likelihood- an epoch-making event in human understanding. So whilst everything else might well be grim, be glad you were there when another couple of pieces of the jigsaw were put in place...A concise and fascinating posting from The Salted Slug, here.

...and from the did you know ? and is it true ? department..."Jews are officially barred from stepping on Saudi Arabian soil. Henry Kissinger was given special permission by the House of Saud to enter the Jew-hating kingdom."

...more here...

For Copenhagen read Waterloo...

...and the spectre of total failure and defeat for the green left. And of course with failure at the Copenhagen summit later this year will come defeat for all future green scare stories. The big green guns have all been wheeled out (including Sikh Prince Charles), shot their collective bolts and failed to hit their targets. Their failure is two pronged; a failure of the underpinning science of AGW which has been shown to be wilfully astray in many instances, and the resultant failure to terrify the population into concerted (green approved) action...

Christopher Brooker in the UK Telegraph writes...When historians look back at the much-touted Copenhagen "climate conference" of December 2009, they may be unable to resist a wry smile at all the last-minute efforts made to keep warmist hysteria at fever pitch. Inevitably the biggest coverage last week went to Lord Stern's call for us all to save the planet by giving up meat. He presumably means that we should kill off all cows, sheep and pigs, say goodbye to wool and leather, and abandon large tracts of our countryside to brambles and bracken (and the wind turbines his lordship is also keen on).

This coincided with a new book by two New Zealanders, solemnly explaining that a major part of the climate change catastrophe is due to meat-eating pets. A large dog, they claim, is the cause of more greenhouse gas emissions each year than a Toyota Land Cruiser driven 6,000 miles. So goodbye also to dogs and cats.

Then there was the official Australian report, supported by their quaintly named Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, calling for a ban on all new buildings anywhere near the sea, lest warming should plunge them below the waves (this in a country 80 per cent of whose people live on the coast).

Finally, as if to confirm that belief in global warming has become a substitute for religion, we had the statement from Lambeth Palace on behalf of all Britain's "faith groups" (led by the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, but also including Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians and presumably Rastafarians). They called on the governments of the world to ban fossil fuels, thus restricting any further warming of the planet to precisely 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Presumably we shall see wind turbines sprout from every church, mosque and synagogue, to keep all those clerical word-processors churning out yet more "faith-based" advice to the world's politicians.

More to the point perhaps was the attempt by the EU's leaders, met in solemn conclave in Brussels on Friday, to pretend that they can offer anything significant when they join the rest of the 20,000 delegates in Copenhagen next month. Predictably, the great divide was between the richer countries of western Europe and their poorer partners in eastern Europe, who are nothing like so keen on shelling out 100 billion euros a year to bribe China, India and the rest into curbing their "carbon emissions".

A second great divide at Copenhagen will be between the developed and developing worlds in general, which will make it impossible to agree on any mandatory emissions reduction targets. The third great divide –though unlikely to be aired much at Copenhagen – is between the bogus science favoured by all the politicians and the real science, which now points out with increasing authority that this is a problem which never really existed anyway.
All this makes it unlikely that Copenhagen will end in anything but a gigantic pile of very costly fudge. But naturally our politicians will fall over backwards not to admit anything of the kind...

California Dreamin' is a green nightmare...

...ahh California, the cradle of cool, the State of the Nation, where the American dream was first dreamt. Where, (with apologies to Garrison Keillor ) the women are all beautiful, the men are all handsome and the children are all above average...Not however, any more. California is in the death grip of a huge demented green monster, more destructive and frightening than anything seen in any of Arnie's Terminator movies. Arnie's neighbour state, Oregon is in similar financial crisis due to "green" jobs and tax breaks which are in effect breaking the taxpayer...more here... Look out, the green giant is heading our way too...This article from the current online City Journal, is in response to Time magazine's rose coloured, spin doctor cover story...Time magazine applauds California’s voters for approving “huge bonds” for stem-cell research and a high-speed rail line, and its politicians for adopting “first-in-the-nation greenhouse-gas regulations, green building codes and efficiency standards for automobiles and appliances that have rearranged the national energy debate.” These expensive innovations are going to pay for themselves, it appears, because California is “by far the national leader in green jobs, green patents, supply from renewables and savings from efficiency. It’s also leading the way toward electric cars, zero-emission homes, advanced biofuels and a smarter grid.” Which is all terribly exciting, unless it turns out that the green economy of the future is always in the future...California’s achievement of creating 10,000 green jobs annually has been overwhelmed by the loss of 700,000 jobs in the state since the start of the recession.
Worse, the state’s economic policies are based not on environmental planning but on “environmental preening,” according to Troy Senik, author of the forthcoming California at the Crossroads. The state is committed, by law, to greenhouse-gas emissions in 2020 that are no larger than its emissions in 1990. Since California’s population (like every state’s) will be much larger 11 years from now than it was 19 years ago, this goal will be impossible without “massive economic regression,” according to Senik. “Such is the fate of Californians: to live in a state where environmentalism is a religion and economics a superstition.” ...more here...

Without a doubt, we're winning...

...and by "we", I mean the "denialists" as the green left like to call us. And with that level of disdain they shoot themselves in their minute green brains, because Mr and Mrs Public have a keen sense for censorship of dissent...

A question...are the so-called climate skeptics so far out there that their views don’t qualify as within the realm of reason? Consider that the skeptics are holding their own, if not actually prevailing, in the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans on climate.
No significant federal legislation has passed and it’s not clear that any will any time soon. Polls indicate that Americans aren’t so concerned about global warming. Democrats on Capitol Hill have been advised to give up on global warming and, instead, to focus on “clean energy.” How powerful must the skeptics arguments be when this small, under-funded, rag-tag “band of brothers” has held off for more than 20 years the onslaught of the giant eco-industrial lobbying machine....Finally, consider Obama chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel’s effort to denigrate and dismiss Fox News as a media outlet with a “point of view.” The White House may not like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, but at least those two don’t pose as unbiased journalists...more from GreenHell blog, here...

...and why are global warming/climate change sceptics winning ? For several reasons; the main one being that alarmists have overstated their case, and that the small kernel of truth in their argument has been hyperinflated to the point of farcical hysteria. Consider this...

...and this...it may well be that global warming is best tackled with a variety of cheap fixes, if not by pumping SO2 into the stratosphere then perhaps by seeding more clouds over the ocean. Alternatively, as "SuperFreakonomics" suggests, we might be better off doing nothing until the state of technology can catch up to the scope of the problem. All these suggestions are, of course, horrifying to global warmists, who'd much prefer to spend in excess of a trillion dollars annually for the sake of reconceiving civilization as we know it, including not just what we drive or eat but how many children we have. And little wonder: As Newsweek's Stefan Theil points out, "climate change is the greatest new public-spending project in decades." Who, being a professional climatologist or EPA regulator, wouldn't want a piece of that action? Part of the genius of Marxism, and a reason for its enduring appeal, is that it fed man's neurotic fear of social catastrophe while providing an avenue for moral transcendence. It's just the same with global warming...more from the Wall Street Journal here...

Time to eat the dog, (but not the cat)...

...from PKH, this gem...the carbon footprint left by domesticated animals is out of proportion to the size of their paws. A medium-sized dog has the same impact as a Toyota Land Cruiser driven 6,000 miles a year, while a cat is equivalent to a Volkswagen Golf. But rabbits and chickens are eco-friendly because they provide meat for their owners while a canary or a goldfish has little effect on the environment. At the same time a pair of hamsters do the same damage as running a plasma television, suggests the book Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living. New Zealand based authors Robert (Bunty) Vale and Brenda Vale base their findings on the amount of land needed to grow food for pets ranging from budgerigars to cats and dogs. They say an average Collie eats 164kg of meat and 95kg of cereals a year, giving it a high impact on the planet. But a pair of rabbits can produce 36 young annually, which would provide 72kg of meat and help decrease the owner's carbon footprint. Mr Bunty Vale, (right) an architect who claims to specialise in sustainable living, (for everything other than edible animals of course) said: "There are no recipes in the book. We're not actually saying it is time to eat the dog or the pussy. "We're just saying (farting loudly) that we need to think about and know the (ecological) impact of some of the things we do and that we take for granted." He explained that sustainability issues require us to make choices which are "as difficult as eating your dog". Mr Vale added: "Once you see where cats and dogs fit in your overall balance of things, you might decide to keep the cat but not also to have the two cars and the three bathrooms and be a meat-eater yourself." ...or have the private jet and fleet of Hummers and an open cast coal mine and participate in intensive rabbit farming. And while we're on the topic, what about the CO2 added to carbonated drinks, and belched out with gusto every day ? When will green left groups target Pepsi, Coke, and all the international brewing giants and demand that they replace their CO2 in our beverages with a non-greenhouse gas? When do the fun police start stepping in ?


Stop Press !!...Just weeks before an international conference on climate change, the United Nations signaled it was scaling back expectations of reaching agreement on a new treaty to slow global warming. Janos Pasztor, director of the secretary-general’s Climate Change Support Team, said Monday “it’s hard to say how far the conference will be able to go” because the U.S. Congress has not agreed on a climate bill, and industrialized nations have not agreed on targets to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions or funding to help developing countries limit their discharges... Copenhagen most likely won’t produce a treaty, but instead will push governments as far as they can go on the content of an agreement...more from WuWT here...

...and anyway, what is Copenhagen really all about ? A columnist in the Australian tells all here...

Oh frabjous day, calloo callay...

...the link to this article from a commenter below had me chortling with joy this morning, headed ...Science Museum's climate change poll backfires...(see disgruntled museum curator Mr Rintin Fintin Bintin at left) ...A poll by the Science Museum designed to convince the nation of the perils posed by climate change has backfired after being hijacked by sceptics... The museum’s Prove It! website, (link here ) which is designed to influence politicians at the Copenhagen climate summit in December, allows members of the public to pledge their support, or lack of it, to the environmentalist cause. But so far those backing the campaign are out-numbered nearly six-to-one by opponents. By Saturday, 2,385 people who took the poll said “count me out” compared to just 415 who said “count me in”, after being asked whether they agreed with the statement: “I’ve seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove they’re serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen.” The website, which accompanies a major new exhibition at the venerable South Kensington museum, claims to offer "all the evidence you need to believe in climate change"...more from the UK Telegraph here... and note the FINAL results here after multiple votes were discounted...
...and this from Clive James, writing in the BBC news in praise of global warming/climate change scepticism, sliced deep fried golf balls and potato chips...In Montaigne's day you could get into terminal trouble for taking scepticism too far, which is probably one of the reasons why not even he pushed it on the subject of religion. Since then, a sceptical attitude has been less likely to get you burned at the stake, but it's notable how the issue of man-made global warming has lately been giving rise to a use of language hard to distinguish from heresy-hunting in the fine old style by which the cost of voicing a doubt was to fry in your own fat...more here...
...AND (off topic totally) quote of the day, from the misogynistic, hedonistic, dangerous and deluded bounder and cad Roissy...Many men are crippled by doubt. They have no understanding of the possible. To these men I say: Stop listening to the jealous naysayers, the bitter betas, the furious fembots, the condescending scolds, the cackling c**ts, your Mom, your Dad, your drinking buddies, your aging ex, your fat girlfriend, your boss, society, the world. They don’t have your best interest at heart. They never did, and they never will. You have no idea just what you are capable of as a man. Game is that powerful...read more from Roissy, about Game, here...

The BBC and global warming...

...Damian Thompson of the UK Telegraph happily kicks for goal with this article, and writes with palpable glee about recent BBC discomfort (see posting 12.10.09). This about face from the BBC is significant of course, because it shows a crumbling of the compliant united media front that maintains the whole global warming/climate change charade and heartens the green left...

“Whatever happened to global warming?” is the title of an article by Paul Hudson that represents a clear departure from the BBC’s fanatical espousal of climate change orthodoxy. The climate change campaigners will go nuts, particularly in the run-up to Copenhagen. So, I suspect, will devout believers inside the BBC. Hudson’s story was not placed very prominently by his colleagues – but a link right at the top of Drudge will have delivered at least a million page views, possibly many more.
Hudson’s piece is a U-turn – not because he has joined the ranks of sceptics who reject the theory of man-made global warming, but because at last he has written a story about the well-established fact that the earth’s temperature has not risen since 1998, and reports seriously the theories of climatologists (themselves not sceptics) who believe that we are in for 30 years of cooling caused by the falling temperatures of the oceans...a commenter answers...

...You miss the point, Damian.
The story was changed to climate change when they realised that global warming did not wash. The eco-marxists will continue regardless, because it’s the man-made bit that they want to focus on, not dear old Mother Earth and her menstrual cycle. The struggle is about controlling human behaviour, for therein lies power on earth. Right-thinking people believe in liberty, self-control, individual responsibilities and obligations as well as freedoms, capitalism & private enterprise, property ownership, freedom of movement and choice of mode of transport. These are all anathema to the left. So all human behaviour is bad (except that of tribes that is (sic) not white, western, conservative, Christian, etc etc). As a catholic, you will understand original sin – this is it, re-incarnated for the age of anti-Christianity. These people hate all forms of individual, non-collectivised behaviour. The BBC is part of the project – after all, without the collective, how would they get their TV tax revenue? How would they disseminate their message?
1984-style, the script changes but the conflict continues and Big Brother is watching over you...more here...

...and Deborah Hill Cone, writing in the NZ Herald puts another crack in the green media wall...the most powerful organised psychosis these days does not worship God but the environment : the Godless religion of global warming...

The green/left hate and fear this man...

...Dr Roy W. Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshal Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. While Spencer is known for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work, for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society's Special Award, he has in recent years become better known for his denial of the (so called) scientific consensus that human activity is primarily responsible for global warming. (From Wikipedia.)

...Unquestionably, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed to build the scientific case for humanity being the primary cause of global warming. Such a goal is fundamentally unscientific, as it is hostile to alternative hypotheses for the causes of climate change...more here...

...While popular press reports would lead one to believe that all reputable scientists now agree that manmade global warming will be a serious problem, there is a sizeable minority of reputable scientists who disagree. They have published peer reviewed papers on the subject, yet they are largely ignored by mainstream climate scientists. .. recent evidence support(s) the view that our climate is relatively immune to mankind’s emissions of carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere...more here...

..."There's probably a natural reason for global warming...We will look back on it as a gigantic false alarm...The Earth isn't that sensitive to how much CO2 we put into the atmosphere... I think we need to consider the possibility that more carbon dioxide is better than less."
Asked in December 2008 what his advice was for then-President-Elect Obama, Spencer responded, "He should put off the environmentalists indefinitely... Tell them we have to fix the economy first before we can afford unaffordable renewable energy 'solutions.'...

...I hope that the (Senate Works) Committee realizes that, if true, these new results mean that humanity will be largely spared the negative consequences of human-induced climate change. This would be good news that should be celebrated, not attacked and maligned. And given that virtually no research into possible natural explanations for global warming has been performed, it is time for scientific objectivity and integrity to be restored to the field of global warming research ...more here...

None dare call it fraud...

...Understanding the AGW scams is essential. Here are just a few of them...

Michael Mann’s hockey-stick-shaped historical temperature chart supposedly proved that twentieth century warming was “unprecedented” in the last 2000 years...the hockey stick was based on cherry-picked tree-ring data and a computer program that generated temperature spikes even when random numbers were fed into it.

...This year, another “unprecedented” warming study went down in flames. Lead scientist Keith Briffa managed to keep his tree-ring data secret for a decade, during which the study became a poster child for climate alarmism. Finally, McKitrick and McIntyre gained access to the data... (and found) a case study in how to lie with statistics...

...Meanwhile, scientists associated with Britain’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) also withheld temperature data and methods, while publishing papers that lent support to climate chaos claims, hydrocarbon taxes and restrictions, and renewable energy mandates. In response to one request, lead scientist Phil Jones replied testily: “Why should I make the data available, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”...When pressure to release the original data became too intense to ignore, the CRU finally claimed it had “lost” (destroyed?) all the original data...

...The supposedly “final” text of the IPCC’s 1995 Second Assessment Report emphasized that no studies had found clear evidence that observed climate changes could be attributed to greenhouse gases or other manmade causes. However, without the authors’ and reviewers’ knowledge or approval, lead author Dr. Ben Santer and alarmist colleagues revised the text and inserted the infamous assertion that there is “a discernable human influence” on Earth’s climate...

...Highly accurate satellite measurements show no significant global warming, whereas ground-based temperature stations show warming since 1978. However, half of the surface monitoring stations are located close to concrete and asphalt parking lots, window or industrial-size air conditioning exhausts, highways, airport tarmac and even jetliner engines; all of which skew the data upward...

...With virtually no actual evidence to link CO2 and global warming, the climate chaos community has to rely increasingly on computer models. However, the models do a poor job of portraying an incredibly complex global climate system that scientists are only beginning to understand; assume carbon dioxide is a principle driving force; inadequately handle cloud, solar, precipitation, ocean currents and other critical factors; and incorporate assumptions and data that many experts say are inadequate or falsified...Not one correctly forecast the planetary cooling that began earlier this century, as CO2 levels continued to climb.

...Al Gore’s climate cataclysm movie is replete with assertions that are misleading, dishonest or what a British court chastised as “partisan” propaganda about melting ice caps, rising sea levels, hurricanes, malaria, “endangered” polar bears and other issues. But the film garnered him Oscar and Nobel awards, speaking and expert witness appearances, millions of dollars, and star status with UN... And as in the case of Briffa, the IPCC and journals typically ignore and refuse to publish contrary studies.

Scandals like these prompted EPA analyst Alan Carlin to prepare a detailed report, arguing that the agency should not find that CO2 “endangers” human health and welfare, because climate disaster predictions were not based on sound science. EPA suppressed his report and told Carlin not to talk to anyone outside his immediate office, on the ground that his “comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision,” which the agency supposedly would not make for several more weeks...The endless litany of scandals underscores the inconvenient truth about global warming hysteria...it will mean massive pain for no environmental gain...more from GlobalWarming.org here...

Wazzup George ?

...Billionaire George Soros, one-time railway porter, will invest $1 billion of his own money in clean energy technology to combat climate change, says The Guardian. He will also create an organization to advise policy makers on environmental issues, which will receive an annual stipend of $10 million over the next 10 years. Soros, founder of the hedge fund Soros Fund Management LLC and the policy think tank The Open Society Institute, made the announcement this week at a meeting in Copenhagen organised by Project Syndicate, an international association of 430 newspapers...Who will get to pocket the $10 million? Soros says that he's on the prowl for profitable opportunities, but that he "will also insist that the investments make a real contribution to solving the problem of climate change...more from New Scientist here...

...very interesting indeed. I wonder though if he sought Bjorn Lomborg's advice (I note Lomborg is listed as a "thought leader" with Project Syndicate above) re the disbursement of all this dosh ? I wonder too, if his network of 430 newspapers carry much sceptical AGW news ?...and I wonder too, if George Soros is concerned over the deaths of future populations who will be deprived of cheap and efficent energy ?...Wind power, biomass power and animal power were abandoned when the greater energy intensity of fossil fuels became available by use of the steam engine. The increased energy supply enabled more people to exist and the human population exploded. The population is now about 6.6 billion and all estimates indicate that the present population growth will continue and is likely to peak at around 9 billion in the middle of this century. That additional more than 2 billion people requires additional energy supply. Billions of people - mostly children - will die from lack of energy without that additional energy supply. Reducing the energy supply would kill more millions - probably billions - of people. Replacement of fossil fuels by wind and solar is not possible because the laws of physics do not allow it. Only an increase to nuclear power could make much reduction to use of fossil fuels and that reduction is limited because many activities require energy that is not only available where there is a wire...a perceptive commenter here...

...AND not that we're mean or anything, but just for a laugh... women drivers, here...

Where the USA goes, we go...

...with apologies to the late Peter Fraser...The most remarkable aspect of the evolving U.S. debate over climate legislation is how quickly it is evolving in the direction of Republican policy preferences while Democrats, especially the most left-leaning, are silently accepting this revolution, if not helping it along...

...could it be that even the most left leaning are aware that the American voter will not tolerate a return to pre-industrial poverty ?

...The climate bill is rapidly moving from a bill that would move money around and do little to reduce emissions, to a bill that will move money around and accommodate a Republican-preferred "all of the above" energy policy that is very carbon intensive. The take over of climate policy by the Republican agenda is the most over-looked aspect of this entire debate. Perhaps those covering the horse race can't see the forest for the trees. I wonder what will happen if drilling in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) were to become an explicit part of the climate bill negotiations? Are left-leaning Democrats willing to give that away in silence as well?...more from "the honest broker" Roger Pielke Jnr, here...

...and from the workers paradise of Cuba, the voice of blogger Yoani Sanchez...This coming Saturday, July 26, Raúl Castro will speak in Santiago de Cuba. Broadcasting live on TV, he will address a people who still remember last year’s speech in which he mentioned “structural changes,” “a glass of milk for everyone,” and “the fight against the invasive marabu weed.” More than just listening to the announcement of new measures, we Cubans are preparing ourselves to confirm how little has been accomplished in the past twelve months.
The time for promises, and for magical solutions to overcome our underdevelopment, is definitely behind us. The political discourse, without a doubt, has begun its descent. But this doesn’t mean that some day it will touch down. A man with maximum powers continues to pilot the plane, while nobody tells us, over the loudspeakers, if we are maintaining our altitude or heading into a nosedive, if we have the wind at our backs or if the engines are about the explode. Only silence, interspersed with calls for discipline and sacrifice, comes from the speakers of this Soviet-era IL-14 airplane.
We don’t expect pirouettes in the air, nor caramels under our tongues to help us withstand the turbulent ride. What we do want is for the pilot to show his face, to tell us our itinerary, and for us to decide the course. We don’t need this speech on Saturday to turn into an exaltation about floating on air; we would prefer a clear report on how and when we can board a different flight...more here...

Quote(s) of the day...

...all courtesy of WuWT...Copenhagen was essentially kicked into the long grass yesterday at another event, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s Climate Change Summit in New York. There, along with Chinese leader Hu Jintao, U.S. President Barack Obama more or less shuffled climate control policy off into the great dreamscape of unattainable plans and long range objectives. Like equality for all and peace in our time, the world will have to wait for sweeping and binding climate policy. Terence Corcoran, Financial Post, 22 September 2009...

...The UN Climate Change Summit in New York managed to produce a concrete result. It has nothing to do with CO2 reduction targets, however, but with a simple political insight: Forget Copenhagen! The chances that the Copenhagen summit will deliver more than just a non-binding framework agreement decreased further on Tuesday. They now tend towards zero. Therefore, it would be best to postpone the climate conference until the United States is ready to agree to clear progress in negotiations. Otherwise, there is a real danger that a compromise formula in Copenhagen would make any progress impossible for years to come because the big climate sinners could hide behind the agreement. Editorial, Financial Times Deutschland, 22 September 2009...

Initially, many climate activists had hoped this year would yield a pact in which nations would agree to cut their greenhouse gas emissions under the auspices of a legal international treaty. But recent announcements by China, Japan and other nations point to a different outcome of U.N. climate talks that will be held in December in Copenhagen: a political deal that would establish global federalism on climate policy, with each nation pledging to take steps domestically. Juliet Eilperin and Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 23 September 2009...

None of the alarmists and their supercomputer climate models ever predicted even a 30-year respite in their apocalyptic scenarios. Neither did they predict the sun, that thermonuclear furnace in the sky that has more influence on earth’s climate than any number of Ford Explorers, would suddenly go quiet for an indefinite period. Latif and others conclude that, at the very least, we have time to think about it and analyze and learn. We don’t have to fight global warming by inflicting global poverty. More things on Earth affect climate than are dreamed up in computer models. Investor’s Business Daily, 22 September 2009...

...AND far be it from me to pass comment on the Nobel Peace prize award to the POTUS, because Iowahawk has said it all...here...

The flag is being raised on the hill...

...these must be very trying times for those in the scientific community who have staked their reputations, their careers, their whole professional future on catastrophic global warming. Worse (for them) is still to come...

“...I have been researching and reporting on the environmental movement since 1992 and specifically on man-made global warming science over the past decade...The past few weeks have, without a doubt, seen the most dramatic acceleration of developments against the claims of a so-called 'consensus.' The Houston Chronicle science reporter Eric Berger's latest admission (below) merely reflects an inescapable reality: Man-made global warming fears are quickly descending into the ash heap of history. Even top UN IPCC scientists are now openly questioning these claims.” Berger joins other reporters and media outlets in recent times who are being swayed by latest science...more here...

...says Eric Berger...For a long time now, science reporters have been confidently told the science is settled. That the planet is warming and humans are unquestionably the primary cause. We've been told to trust the computer models -- the models which show a markedly upward trend in temperatures as carbon dioxide concentrations increase. And I've trusted the scientists telling me this.
It seems pretty clear that the models forecast a steady upward trend in global temperatures as long as carbon dioxide levels rise. (Which they have). Yet according to satellite and surface temperature measurements the global average temperature has essentially remained flat for the last 12 years. This strikes me as somewhat curious. When An Inconvenient Truth came out I believed the movie to be scientifically accurate. Carbon dioxide levels were rising and so were temperatures. And hurricane activity, especially after the disastrous 2005 season, was out of control. But a funny thing happened on the way to the end of the world: hurricane activity on the global scale is near historical lows. And the Earth seems to have, at least temporarily, stopped warming...more here...

...and, on the BBC's about face, this from Samizdata...This is not the usual BBC line, is it? Whatever your opinion of A(nthropogenic) G(lobal) W(arming) - mine has for quite a while been that it is wall-to-wall made-up nonsense - I think you will agree that this is quite a moment, as is further illuminated by the fact that Instapundit has just linked to the above piece. Which is how I just heard about it. I wonder if the BBC feels inclined to switch to being AGW-skeptic in order to try to make difficulties for David Cameron...I just have a question. Is it right that this marks a big shift for the BBC, or have I not been paying attention properly? This is entirely possible...But whatever the truth of that, I will certainly keep my eyes and ears open for what others, especially people like Bishop Hill, make of this, in the days and weeks ahead...more from Samizdata...

...and from the Comments on Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit...When the history of the Hockey Stick fiasco is written, you will have a very honorable place in it. And it will be written, and it will be taught in classes for many years to come. It is a real classic episode in science with all the instructive themes, importance of the subject, initial acceptance of the findings, obfuscation or concealment of the evidence, and finally refutation and repudiation. We're just now at refutation, and what everyone is afraid of is what comes next. It will be ugly, but there is no way the principals can avoid it now, as they are probably realizing with increasing dismay...

Look look ! A flying pig !

Who would have thought it ? A BBC NEWS headline "What happened to global warming ?"

From Paul Hudson, the BBC climate correspondent no less... This headline (above) may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might the fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998. But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. So what on Earth is going on?
Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming. They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this? ...Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting ...claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures. He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.
If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.... So what can we expect in the next few years?
Both sides (of the climate change debate) have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly. It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998). Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely. One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.

...This is a significant tipping point in the debate. The BBC, once regarded as paragons of media impartiality, lost their well earned laurels by famously doctoring President Obama's acceptance speech in favour of climate alarmism...see Harmless Sky here... they now appear to be hedging their climate change bets. However, irrespective of this, two things are perfectly clear. The climatastrophe scenario; a crude attempt at terror propaganda, has clearly failed. So too, has the attempt to bluster and intimidate by declaring that the science is settled. Note the movement towards cosmic ray/cloud/warming, cooling scenarios. The panic in other words is over. So too then, should be fruitless and draconian "remedies"...more here...

...and totally O/T, but my nomination for the highly coveted Piece Prize ? Silvio Berlusconi of course...more from the loathsome and highly entertaining Roissy here...

Newspeak, and new science...and world socialism...

...the inconvenient fact about global warming/climate change is that the planet has been much warmer than today without our modern day SUVs, flat screen TV's and air conditioning. This fact, and the knowledge that Greenland used to be green, (see the Viking farm under the sand in Greenland, here) and that climate models have proved to be a laughable failure, is a big problem for the hand wringing green left, who like to portray our few decades on this earth as ones deserving alarm and guilt...hence the need for climate propagandists to attempt to rewrite history and distort and misrepresent science. Many people have exposed the whole farcical scam; it's only held together now by the fact that the MSM refuse to accept it. This is an excellent expose from The American Thinker...
...During testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Hearing on Climate Change and the Media in 2006, University of Oklahoma geophysicist Dr. David Deming recalled “an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change” who told him that "we have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period." In June of this year, Deming identified the year of that email as 1995 and the source only as a lead author of that month’s Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States report.
Many believe that man to be Jonathan Overpeck – which Prof. Deming didn’t deny in an email response - who would later also serve as an IPCC lead author. So it comes as no surprise that this reconstruction, which did indeed “get rid of the Medieval Warm Period,” was featured prominently in the subsequent 2001 TAR, particularly in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM), the highly-politicized synopsis which commands the bulk of media and political attention...alarmists know all too well that as long as citizens are convinced that warming is both enduring and unprecedented, such inconveniences as the missing hot spot, laughably mistaken climate models, 800 year CO2 /temperature latency and perhaps even current cooling can be cleverly obfuscated with Goebbels-like double-talk and outright lies. And without the Hockey Stick’s counterfeit portrait of runaway 20th century warming, climate crisis peddlers’ credibility levels are reduced to those of used car salesmen. Not where you want to be when hoping to sell the instinctively absurd premise that the actions of mankind can influence temperatures in either direction.
So they cheat. And they lie. And they have from the very beginning...more here...

...and... A taste of what's to come at Copenhagen...here is an excerpt from the treaty draft... a few people have already started reviewing the treaty, and what they are finding is less of a climate treaty and more of a blueprint for world socialism. One example, via WuWT from page 122 of the draft:
17. [[Developed [and developing] countries] [Developed and developing country Parties] [All Parties] [shall] [should]:](a) Compensate for damage to the LDCs’ economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees;(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures...more from the Coyote Blog here...

I thought you'd like to know...

...because those of the green left who care so deeply and passionately for the planet must be delighted and relieved; that in Geophysical Research Letters, authors Tedesco and Monaghan observe that the amount of melting ice in Antarctica between October 2008 and January 2009 (the most recent local summer) ...wait for it...was the lowest figure in the (satellite) recorded history - i.e. from 1980. The graph to the right (click to enlarge) was adapted by World Climate Report from Tedesco M., and A. J. Monaghan, 2009. An updated Antarctic melt record through 2009 and its linkages to high-latitude and tropical climate variability... Geophysical Research Letters...

...“A 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during austral summer 2008–2009 according to spaceborne microwave observations for 1980–2009. Strong positive phases of both the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM) were recorded during the months leading up to and including the 2008–2009 melt season.”
Not even a little peep from the climate alarmist media about this news. Now, if the melt had been a record high…more from Climate Research News here...

Nohopen hagen...the build up...

...as December draws closer, the international climate talkfest in Copenhagen looms. From Copenhagen, an outcome for NZ could be one of bizarre national economic suicide. For a small and inconsequential country like ours with a population of only 4.5 million, it would be a case of economic suicide that could only be explained by slavish adherence to the ideology of international paymasters. It certainly couldn't be because of concern for the people of New Zealand, or the wider Pacific community or because of scientific certainty... Your alternative suggestions re this are very welcome... So by the way, is an explanation for the near silence over this from Cabinet Minister Rodney Hide (who has responsibilities for Local Government, Regulatory Reform and Commerce), and who famously declared "global warming" to be a hoax...but however... this is important, from...
... Professor Chris de Freitas, climate scientist and associate professor at the University of Auckland, a timely warning and a summation...with H/T to Not PC... and from NZCPR...

... the Government has committed New Zealand to cut up to a third of current emissions by 2020. The emissions trading scheme is a first step, but this alone cannot guarantee such a massive reduction. Sweeping legislation restricting the use of oil, coal and natural gas will be required, along with far-reaching reforms in pastoral farming to cut methane release. The economic and social implications for New Zealand are immense...Given the enormity of the social and economic disruption associated with emissions reductions, we need to be convinced that the benefits are worth the enormous costs. The US federal government has spent 80 billion US dollars on climate research on the assumption that human caused rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a problem. Despite this, no one has yet found even a shred of objective scientific evidence that humans are causing damaging global climate change...
...The planet has warmed and cooled several times over the past 150 years, all within the range of natural climate variability. There are no published scientific papers that show irrefutable proof that any of this is human-caused. Proof is not to be mistaken for the output of hypothetical climate models, none of which has been shown to reliably predict climate. Proof is not merely evidence of warming coupled with the default conclusion “it must human-caused” when we don't know how else to explain it. This is nothing more than admission of ignorance. Even the IPCC acknowledges changes we have seen may be natural...
...The notion of an unchanging climate has been used to deceive us. It is a conveniently forgotten fact that most of the industrialised world went into hysterics during the forty years of global cooling beginning in the late 1930s. It has been replaced by global warming hysteria over a temperature rise over 100 years of less than one degree, a trend that started before modern industrialisation caused atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to rise.
According to MIT atmospheric scientist, Professor Richard Lindzen, hysterics over changes in global mean temperature of a few tenths of a degree “will astound future generations”. Lindzen says “such hysteria simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth, and the exploitation of these weaknesses by politicians, environmental promoters, and, after 20 years of media drum beating, many others as well.” “Climate change” has become a pseudo religion, and much of the blame lies with the media. Rather than focus on hard climate science, the media have instead become enthusiastic advocates for scientifically unfounded alarmism. There are many well-documented examples of this.
In a letter to the New York Times, Dr. Martin Hertzberg, an atmospheric scientist who featured in the 2009 ‘U.S. Senate Report of More Than 700 Dissenting Scientists on Global Warming’, accuses the newspaper of “continuously regurgitating fear-mongering, anecdotal clap trap of global warming propagandists”. He said “your coverage of the climate issues is a reflection of either extreme negligence or simply scientific illiteracy”. But the real reason may be simpler: talk of impending climate catastrophe is interesting, whereas sober analysis of climate data is boring.
The IPCC has been complicit in the scaremongering and exaggeration. The IPCC is a governmental institution that selectively accepts and rejects critical comments from expert reviewers of its reports, as my climate science colleagues and I can prove, having been part of the IPPC-managed review process. Surprisingly, given the great costs and social impacts of emissions reducing policies, there is no government “ombudsman” or any means to “audit” what is going on in the IPCC, or to tell if all the extravagantly funded research has been a good investment. The IPCC has been a major driver of global warming hysteria, which has overshadowed concern for real global-scale problems. It is a matter of social responsibility if limited resources could have been better spent on uncontroversial environmental problems such as air pollution, poor sanitation, provision of clean water and improved health services - which we know affect hundreds of millions of people.
Fifty years ago it became clear that global carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were increasing. It was assumed that this was the prime contributor to an observed period of global temperature increase. On this basis, the carbon dioxide data were used in climate model projections for future global warming. By 2006, despite the ongoing rise in global carbon dioxide emissions, data showed that mean global temperature rise had slowed, and currently shows signs of falling. A similar thing happened from 1940 to 1980 during the post Second World War industrial boom when carbon dioxide increased rapidly, but was accompanied by 40 years of global cooling. In contrast, there was a distinct global warm period in medieval times when carbon dioxide levels were much lower than they are now.
Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is currently higher than at any time in the past 600,000 years, yet global temperature was much higher during all the major warm interglacial periods that occurred during this time, despite much lower levels of carbon dioxide.
Government decision-makers should have heard by now that the basis for the longstanding claim that carbon dioxide is a major driver of global climate is being questioned. If they have not heard, one wonders where they obtain advice on climate matters. Apparently, much of it comes from the eight-member Climate Committee of the Royal Society of New Zealand. At least six of the eight members of that Committee are people with direct or indirect links to the IPCC, or have actually been part in the IPCC process of reporting. Thus, it is not surprising that the Committee’s view coincides that of the IPCC, with no semblance of independence. The belief that science can be determined by “authorities” proclaiming to speak on behalf of entire scientific communities belongs to the medieval period.
That there is not one government scientist in New Zealand associated with climate issues who is willing to speak out against global warming alarmist claims says a lot about how the country is governed. This and the emissions trading scheme are proof that ideology has been permitted to trump science.
The United Nations is gearing up to create a sense of urgency about climate change in the hope that the meeting in Copenhagen can produce a solid agreement to replace the failed Kyoto treaty. But nature refuses to oblige. Eighteen years of global warming came to an end in 1998. Currently, we are in the eleventh year of a global temperature stasis. Sea levels, which have been rising for the past 300 years, show no sign of acceleration. Antarctica is cooling. Hurricane activity is down and does not appear to be connected to carbon dioxide emissions. Annual average Arctic sea ice extent, which is determined largely by wind and ocean currents, is increasing once again - the recent decline was hardly alarming as it was less than that which occurred in 1930s.
In the lead up to the December meeting in Copenhagen, what is needed is careful reflection on the consequences of actions taken as a result of widespread carbon phobia. If any good is to come from Copenhagen, it is that the anxiety about climate may allow the global community to see the need to pull together on truly pressing global problems. It is a wonderful opportunity to call for an era of global unity and the beginning of a new chapter international co-operation to address the planet’s real and most pressing problems ...more here...

So called scientists and so called capitalists...

...are groups that are by no means immune to the lure of the big dollar. "Greed is good" said Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street, and of course he was right, although he should have said capitalism, rather than greed. And capitalism when left unfettered to compete, and untainted by government subsidy, delivers prosperity to billions of people. When big government dangles big bucks it distorts capitalism (and of course science) and produces lies, thievery and pious platitudes ...another example of double-speak on climate change, focusing on some utility companies that are preening about their environmental conciousness, while preparing to take climate change legislation to the bank. As Kimberley A. Strassel writes in the Wall St. Journal:
"The carbon-based free lunch is over," declared Exelon CEO John Rowe, neglecting to mention that his company's free lunch is only beginning. Under the House's climate-change bill, a few utilities-primarily those that have made big bets in renewable and nuclear energy-are poised to clean up once Congress hands them carbon emission credits. The bill sets aside 35% of the free credits for utilities. Exelon and other "renewable" utilities will get a huge piece of that pie.
An internal memo produced by Bernstein Research in June described how Mr. Rowe met with investors to rejoice that the House legislation will allow Exelon to rake in additional revenue-by some estimates, up to $1.5 billion a year. Others will pay for this Exelon privilege, of course-notably, Midwestern customers of traditional coal utilities who will see their energy prices double. But hey, all's fair in love and lobbying.
It's disgusting, but certainly not surprising. Liberals who purported to hate "corporate greed" should recognize that big government and big business are often co-conspirators in gaming the system. Limiting government so that politicians can't dole out rewards to business (and, yes, to unions, donors, and other interest groups) is the best way to ensure a truly level playing field and protect the American people from this kind of thievery...H/T to Independent Womens Forum ...more here...

Unprecedented warming ?

...a basic tenet of Al Gore's climate porn movie "An Inconvenient Truth" and all green left climate hysteria is that recent warming of the planet is without parallell in our history...well Al et al, it's still bad news week...

Postings here last week have been about a major problem with historic tree ring data, data that was used to create Al's infamous "hockey stick" graph. Today we have news from the ANDRILL experiment in Antarctica of a scientific breakthrough; the proof of "a sudden, remarkably warm period in Antarctica that occurred about 15.7 million years ago and lasted for a few thousand years...."

ANDRILL is a multinational collaboration between the Antarctic Programs of the United States, New Zealand, (ta ra !) Italy and Germany...We all analyzed the new samples and saw a 2,000 fold increase in two species of fossil dinoflagellate cysts, a five-fold increase in freshwater algae and up to an 80-fold increase in terrestrial pollen,” said Warny. “Together, these shifts in the microfossil assemblages represent a relatively short period of time during which Antarctica became abruptly much warmer.”

Real climate science is ongoing, the complex mechanisms of climate change are little understood, and every day we see evidence that incorrect assumptions have been made about our contribution to climate change...from the comments... I do not, for the record, think that the frantic efforts to lower CO2 emissions to 19C levels are a rational response to this, partly because of the lack of evidence that it will work, partly because warming is not the problem. The problem is, we may get climate fluctuations large enough to threaten us, and right now we have no idea what we would do about it...more here...

...and as an interesting aside...The Central England Temperature (CET) record, starting in 1659 and maintained by the UK Met Office, is the longest unbroken temperature record in the world. Temperature data is averaged for a number of weather stations regarded as being representative of Central England rather than measuring temperature at one arbitrary geographical point identified as the centre of England.A Scottish statistician, Wilson Flood, has collected and analysed the 351 year CET record. Here is the comparison of the 18th Century with the 20th Century:Wilson Flood comments: “Summers in the second half of the 20th century were warmer than those in the first half and it could be argued that this was a global warming signal. However, the average CET summer temperature in the 18th century was 15.46 degC while that for the 20th century was 15.35 degC. Far from being warmer due to assumed global warming, comparison of actual temperature data shows that UK summers in the 20th century were cooler than those of two centuries previously...click on graph to enlarge ...h/t A Western Heart...

...and just because it's Monday...

Re Keith Briffa (tree ring hugger)...and IPCC assumptions...

...regarding the ongoing saga of corrupted data, and the significant influence this has had on alarmist assumptions made by the IPCC and their much beloved catastrophic global warming; Jennifer Marohasy observes...

...THE IPCC and most others who believe in anthropogenic global warming (AGW), have been influenced by the work of climatologists relying on tree-ring data to reconstruct past climate because the thermometer record only goes back to about 1850. The claim that there has been an unprecedented upswing in temperatures over the last 100 years making 1998 the hottest year of the last thousand years, has for example, been based on reconstructions from tree-ring data.

...In response to recent suggestions by Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre that the official reconstructions may have been fudged, Keith Briffa (right) from the Climate Research Unit associated with the UK Met. Office, has responded explaining that there was no cherry picking of data in the development of the reconstructions used by the IPCC and others, rather, the methodology is not yet robust.
Given this admission from a leading UK climate scientist, it would perhaps be appropriate for the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, to now advise world leaders that there are potential problems with the methodology used in the develop of key assumptions underpining the consensus view on anthropogenic global warming and that until further notice, the big meeting in Copenhagen should be postponed...

...Dr Briffa responds...We have not yet had a chance to explore the details of McIntyre’s analysis or its implication for temperature reconstruction at Yamal but we have done considerably more analyses exploring chronology production and temperature calibration that have relevance to this issue but they are not yet published. I do not believe that McIntyre’s preliminary post provides sufficient evidence to doubt the reality of unusually high summer temperatures in the last decades of the 20th century...We will expand on this initial comment on the McIntyre posting when we have had a chance to review the details of his work...more here...

...the battle is on, and the eventual outcome of Dr Briffa's work will help settle the whole issue...

...and meanwhile, a possible reaction from the financial markets ?...We knew this was coming. Carbon Financial Instruments are now trading for 10 cents per metric tonne on the Chicago Climate Exchange. I wonder if the investors are reacting to the Hockey Stick Implosion news? As reported on WUWT, less than one month ago it was 25 cents a tonne, and a year ago it was over 1 dollar. The all time high was May 2008 at over 7 dollars a tonne. Today: poof...more here...

...the new authors used trees from the Yamal Peninsula, Northern Siberia, so their hockey stick was supposed to be an "Arctic hockey stick". Yamal means the "end of the world" in the local native language of the "Nenets" tribes ...spoooky...more here...

...AND, off topic, but fun...The Scottish brewer BrewDog, of Fraserburgh was criticised for an 18.2% alcohol content beer. So it has now produced a 1.1% alcohol beer and given it a label of “Nanny State Beer” ...H/T Kiwiblog...

Treemometers and scientific scandal...

...global warming/climate change sceptics like myself are enjoying the public expose of some of the shonky science used by the green left to further their political agenda. The stories in this post and below and the links they contain will no doubt one day make a book. (And maybe a film...Dan Brown could really get into it, the religous mumbo jumbo, apocalypse scenarios and skullduggery is all there.) The heroes and leading figures in this saga deserve public accolades...let's stay on the trail...

...A scientific scandal is casting a shadow over a number of recent peer-reviewed climate papers. At least eight papers purporting to reconstruct the historical temperature record times may need to be revisited, with significant implications for contemporary climate studies, the basis of the IPCC's assessments. A number of these involve senior climatologists at the British climate research centre (CRU) at the University East Anglia. In every case, peer review failed to pick up the errors...Controversy has been raging since 1995, when an explosive paper by Keith Briffa at the CRU asserted that the medieval warm period was actually really cold, and recent warming is unusually warm. Both archaeology and the historical accounts, Briffa was declaring, were bunk. Briffa relied on just three cores from Siberia to demonstrate this.

...Mann too used dendrochronology to chill temperatures, and rebuffed attempts to publish his measurement data. Initially he said he had forgotten where he put it, then declined to disclosed it. (Some of Mann's data was eventually discovered, by accident, on his ftp server in a directory entitled 'BACKTO_1400-CENSORED'.)

...The scandal has serious implications for public trust in science. The IPCC's mission is to reflect the science, not create it...As the panel states, its duty is "assessing the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change. It does not carry out new research nor does it monitor climate-related data." But as lead author, Briffa was a key contributor in shaping (no pun intended) the assessment. A small group was able to rewrite history...When the IPCC was alerted to peer-reviewed research that refuted the idea, it declined to include it. This leads to the more general, and more serious issue: what happens when peer-review fails - as it did here?
The scandal has only come to light because of the dogged persistence of a Canadian mathematician who attempted to reproduce the results. Steve McIntyre has written dozens of letters requesting the data and methodology, and over 7,000 blog posts. Yet Yamal has remained elusive for almost a decade.
Footnote:
The Royal Society's motto from the enlightenment era is Nullius in verba. "On nobody's authority" or colloquially, "take nobody's word for it". In 2007, the Society's then president suggested this be changed to "respect the facts"....more here...

Maori welfare slavery/dependency...

...is under the media spotlight once again, but it doesn't require any patronising nanny state "tough love" as the NZ Herald sub-editor suggests. What is needed is a much, much different remedy. For crying out loud, welfare slavery/dependency cries out for political leadership...can you hear me Pita Sharples ?

Lindsay Mitchell writing in the NZ Herald has pointed out the elephant in the room. It's a big hungry beast, we feed it regularly, and it's thriving and it certainly makes a huge noise and stink, yet we manage to avoid talking about it, for fear of appearing insensitive and (gulp,horror) right wing and racist.

Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia know Mr Dumbo is there, but close their eyes and hold their noses because they don't have the political courage to face up to him...

...It is a fact (says Lindsay Mitchell) that the more that is done for people, the less they will do for themselves. That includes caring for and nurturing their families. Until voters and politicians recognise this, New Zealand is going to keep on fighting a battle with childhood deprivation, transience, physical and mental ill-health, educational under-achievement, and crime - all disproportionately affecting Maori.
Distributing taxpayer funds into poor, and increasingly not-so-poor, homes has been going on for decades and every year there are people advocating for more. They claim to be trying to solve the problems associated with poverty when, in reality, they are worsening them....more here
...and why are politicians making the problem worse, year by year ? Simply because they know that the subtle slavery of welfare dependency guarantees them votes from the slaves...

Addendum: further to the broken hockey stick saga below, some random comments...
...Almost daily the credibility of the scientific community is being trashed by those prepared to manipulate data to ‘prove’ their predetermined outcome to support the AGW/Climate Change agenda of alarmism – in addition those scientists not prepared to speak out against the totally unproven hypothesis should be ashamed...
...Even those of a non-scientific bent can understand this and see that the scientific methodology has been seriously abused by the climatology community...
...this quality of reporting and whistle-blowing would have been common-place in our mainstream media only a few years ago. The fact that it no longer is, (indeed, the Guardian is actively censoring any public mention of this story), is depressing. But perhaps what we are witnessing is the slow and painful death-throes of the dead-tree press (no pun intended), to be replaced by a far more alert, honest and responsive reporting on the web - of which your writing here is a prime (and hopefully, historic) example...with grateful thanks to Bishop Hill.. who has translated the story into Laymanese. See below...

How the global warming industry is based on one big lie...

...the story behind yesterday's post has reinforced the belief that fraud and deception are behind the global warming scare. The drama has been taken up worldwide by the MSM...here's James Delingpole from the UK Telegraph...

...For the growing band of AGW “Sceptics” the following story is dynamite. And for those who do believe in Al Gore’s highly profitable myth about “Man-Made Global Warming”, it will no doubt feel as comfortable as the rectally inserted suicide bomb that put paid to an Al Qaeda operative earlier this week. (F***ing terrorists with their bum blasts...see this post...) Now read on....Those of you who saw An Inconvenient Truth may remember, if you weren’t asleep by that stage, the key scene where big green Al deploys his terrifying graph to show how totally screwed we all are by man-made global warming. This graph - known as the Hockey Stick Curve - purports to show rising global temperatures through the ages. In the part representing the late twentieth century it shoots up almost vertically. To emphasise his point that this is serious and that if we don’t act NOW we’re doomed, Al Gore - wearing a wry smile which says: “Sure folks, this is kinda funny. But don’t forget how serious it is too” - climbs on to a mini-lift in order to be able to reach the top of the chart. Cue consensual gasps from his parti pris audience.
Except that the graph - devised in 1998 by a US climatologist called Dr Michael Mann - is based on a huge lie, as Sceptics have been saying for quite some time. The first thing they noticed is that this “Hockey Stick” (based on tree ring data, one of the most accurate ways of recording how climate changes over the centuries) is that it seemed completely to omit the Medieval Warming Period...the Met Office, its Hadley Centre in Exeter and the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at University of East Anglia are among the primary drivers of global climate change alarmism. Their data has formed the basis for the IPCC’s “we’re all doomed” reports; their scientists - among them Professor Phil Jones and tree ring expert Professor Keith Briffa (left) have been doughty supporters of Mann’s Hockey Stick theory and of the computer models showing inexorably rising temperatures.
Hence their misleading predictions of that “barbecue summer” we never had. As Booker says: “Part of the reason why the Met Office has made such a mess of its forecasts for Britain is that they are based on the same models which failed to predict the declining trend in world temperatures since 2001...We “Global Warming Deniers” are often accused of ignoring the weight of scientific opinion. Well if the “science” on which they base their theories is as shoddy as Mann’s Hockey Stick, is it any wonder we think they’re talking cobblers?...more here ...and here ...and here... and a layman's guide to the whole sorry saga, from the indefatigable Bishop Hill...

...and to close from Jennifer Marohasy...This week’s claims by Steve McInyre that scientists associated with the UK Meteorology Bureau have been less than diligent are serious and suggest some of the most defended building blocks of the case for anthropogenic global warming are based on the indefensible when the methodology is laid bare...It is indeed time leading scientists at the Climate Research Centre associated with the UK Meteorological Bureau explain how Mr McIntyre is in error or resign.

PS Dr Briffa replies...Due to illness, Keith [Briffa] is currently away. He will not be able to respond to emails for some time. He is not currently accepting invitations to review papers or proposals...

...and this apparently is no mere excuse. The sceptical community wish Dr Briffa a speedy recovery from his kidney disease and look forward to continued debate re all of the above...