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...

A tipping point for the warmists...

...may have arrived. The blogosphere is in full arousal mode over the latest exposure of climate change data fraud. The sleuth who has "driven a coach and four" as one commentator puts it, through one of the major planks of AGW (the use of tree ring analysis to determine a historical temperature record) is Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit...another blogger writes...

...let’s do a little thought experiment. Suppose you are an AGW advocate who for some reason believes we need to limit our CO2 and economies at all costs, you know in your heart that this is the right course of action. Additionally you fully believe we are heading toward certain doom by heating the earth a few degrees C. Suppose again, you are a good mathematician and you understand the problems with statistical analysis and know how to work around them. Now you are also an expert in the types and styles of proxies available in the field and have a small network of like-minded friends to work with... remember this is hypothetical not accusatory.
Suppose further, that as an expert you are of course aware of the incredibly limited usefulness of trees as thermometers but also aware that trees are known to grow faster in warmer temperatures at times. It cannot be denied. Therefore, wouldn’t it be perfectly reasonable to make papers which reach the correct conclusions using this data (link and below) in the face of all of these known problems? If the conclusions are justified for the good of humanity, aren’t you doing a good and just thing even though the result is probably not accurate?

...and from Tilo at Jennifer Marohasy.com...This means that we either have to conclude that the surface temperature record is wrong, or that the tree ring reconstructions are wrong. If the tree ring reconstructions are wrong, then it is impossible to make the statement that the current climate is in any way unusual. If the surface temperature record is wrong, then the 20th century rise is either not there or it is greatly exaggerated...

...precisely...as leading catastrophist Dr Stephen Schneider observed way back in October 1989... "Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective,and being honest."

...and from the comments...I wish I could find an innocent reason for what CA has reported. Steve McIntyre’s analysis is devastating in its simplicity and wholly fatal to the last 15 years of work by Briffa, Mann and their many co-authors. They who who have hid behind a wall of pride and activism are now exposed.It may however be too late to stop the AGW juggernaut before the economies of the developed world are shackled by the environmental fascists and their leftist political brothers.
I grieve for science and the human species if they succeed...

...and what does it all mean ? Quite simply this expose is likely to destroy the so-called scientific consensus over global warming/climate change. Scientists who have been wavering warmists must now conclude that the science can't be settled if it is built on shonky foundations. I expect more defections towards AGW scepticism...even Dr Strangelove had a conscience...

Tarot cards and the IPCC...

...the fact is on display for all to see. The IPCC is a political, not a scientific body and the collusion of many scientists with its political aims is a bastardisation of science...
...from The Australian editorial 26th September 2009...

...Then there is the science. The public has not been well-served by scientists' contradictory findings on such basic points as whether the world is warming or cooling. Figures predicting sea level rises fluctuate widely. Some have turned scientific method on its head, no longer proceeding through a process of conjectures and refutations, but rather conjectures and affirmation, crossing the line between inquiry and activism. The science has been politicised.

...and the science of climate change continues to shame those who claim the question is settled...

...In a detailed study of the mechanisms and effects of water vapour...Tapio Schneider and Xavier Levine of the California Institute of Technology, and Paul A. O’Gorman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have expanded our knowledge of water's role in climate regulation while showing just how poorly understood the Earth climate system really is...In the end this paper raises more questions than it answers, something many good scientific investigations do. At the end of the paper the authors pose the question, “what controls the static stability of the subtropical and extratropical atmosphere?” After listing five major unsettled questions regarding atmospheric circulation and the dynamic effects of water vapor, the study's authors summarize their findings: “The lack of a theory for the subtropical and extratropical static stability runs through several of the open questions. Devising a theory that is general enough to be applicable to relatively dry and moist atmospheres remains as one of the central challenges in understanding the global circulation of the atmosphere and climate changes.” Without such a theory it is impossible to predict changes in atmospheric circulation, it is impossible to predict changes in the hydrological cycle, it is impossible to predict storm frequencies, intensities and tracks. Future climate cannot be predicted without a theory explaining how climate works, yet the IPCC has confidently made predictions regarding changes in storms, precipitation and climate for decades, even centuries into the future. If something as seemingly simple as water vapor can have such complex and bewildering impacts on Earth's climate why does the IPCC and the climate crisis crowd continue to insist that all fault lies with CO2? It could be that even they realize that blaming global warming on water vapor would give them no political leverage. After all, 70% of our planet's surface is covered with water and not even the most wild-eyed geoengineering proponent would propose we attempt to control the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. What does this have to say about all of those general circulation models (GCM) used by the IPCC to divine the future of Earth's climate? It means they can't accurately simulate our planet's climate engine because they don't know how the atmosphere works. If they don't know how climate works today, how can they tell us what the climate will be like 100 years in the future? The predictors of future climate disaster may as well be using tarot cards...more here... and (left) just for progressive readers...

Afghan child brides...and Western feminists...

Why western feminists support the war in Afghanistan....Stephanie Sinclair travelled around rural Afghanistan photographing child brides in 2003. She returned with a series of moving, upsetting portraits of terrified adolescents born into a world of misogynistic duties and suicidal despair...
...Sinclair asked of a man who had just won someone's daughter in a bet. "Don't you think she's a little bit young ?" He replied: “Well, we have a saying out here that if she doesn't fall down when you hit her with your cap, she's old enough to marry.”
More, including narration of images by the photographer, here... and today from Cranmer...Some Muslim men hold literally to the exhortation of Sura 4:34, which speaks of the treatment of women: 'As those you fear may be rebellious, admonish, banish them to their couches, and beat them.'And Muslim women may indeed suffer such abuse if their hair, necks or faces are seen by men other than their family members...more here...

and, for an extra special treat, visit Johnny Rottenborough here, and Sing Along with Allah...

Obama, climate change and the polls...

...the jibe that a politician is "out of touch" is slung around at every opportunity by political activists. Sometimes the jibe is deserved and the aloof politician suffers the consequences of his/her disdain and arrogance at election time. Election time however for US voters is 3 years away, yet the issue of the day for this blog (and for the international green/left) is the battle for hearts and minds over catastrophic climate change. The battle has now been raging for over 2 decades and the forces on the left have used the multi-billion dollar MSM and entertainment industry to wage it. The result ? Note the most recent poll at left.
Meanwhile, here is the text of a speech President Obama gave to the UN yesterday.
...Did anyone mention hubris?

...Good morning. I want to thank the Secretary-General for organizing this summit, and all the leaders who are participating. That so many of us are here today is a recognition that the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it — boldly, swiftly, and together — we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.
No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change. Rising sea levels threaten every coastline. More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent. More frequent drought and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive. On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees...more here...

Another devastating expose of the green left climate rort...

...I am a climate change sceptic for one simple reason; I despise and distrust the green left. I think they disguise their real left wing aims (click on picture to enlarge) with phoney environmental concerns and lure in the unthinking, well intentioned and weak minded. Other climate change sceptics are less emotional about lefties than I am, and far more scientifically orientated, and are climate change sceptics because they simply doubt the science of catastrophic, human induced climate change. A forum for debate over climate science and the green left influence on it is at JenniferMarohasy.com. A contributor has written a wonderful 14 reason synopsis of his scepticism...have a read, (note the feeble strangled objections from the left) ...an excerpt from the synopsis...

...The mainstream media keep reporting that the current situation is increasingly dire and is much worse than even the previous pessimistic projections. When I examine this statement I find that previous projections predicted rapid atmospheric warming during the last 10 years whereas in fact we have had cooling. They predicted rapid increase in rate of rise of sea level when in fact the rate of sea level rise has recently declined. They predicted a very rapid increase in Arctic summer sea ice loss whereas in fact, for the last 2 years, it has been increasing. They predicted a rapid rise in hurricane incidence and severity when in fact there has been a decline. To me the media’s many claims are not supportable. I also consider it to be beyond simple error. At best it is unpardonable gross carelessness in checking the data they are reporting and at worst it is deliberate bias in reporting...more, here...

It's official. Green is a religion...

...a few posts back I commented on an article by Mick Hume in the UK New Scientist. Hume was presenting climate change as an esoteric entity rather than an explainable and rational scientific phenomenon. Here's a quote...

...The world's climates will keep on changing, with human influences now inextricably entangled with those of nature. So too will the idea of climate change keep changing as we find new ways of using it to meet our needs. We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilise these stories in support of our projects. Whereas a modernist reading of climate may once have regarded it as merely a physical condition for human action, we must now come to terms with climate change operating simultaneously as an overlying, but more fluid, imaginative condition of human existence...

Hume is postulating a spiritual approach to climate change, an approach that would allow the climate to be used as its devotees interpreted and wished. In so doing though, Hume is signalling and acknowledging the defeat of the green/left science based approach he once championed. Coincidentally, in support of Hume's argument a UK judge has ruled that an employee with extreme green views is acting out of a deeply held belief and that his (political) belief is a spiritual matter...The decision, (favourable to the loopy green employee) which is being challenged by the company, comes two years after the law on religious discrimination was changed so that beliefs no longer had to be "similar" to religious faith to receive protection in the workplace...more here...


...as Counting Cats observes...It shows we are winning. It shows on the subject of AGW that they no longer have scientific powder in their pouches and are having to fight on the grounds of mysticism. The grounds of mysticism is a battlefield where science has slain mystics unnumbered...

Memo to voters. Here's the deal...You go broke...

...official US Treasury figures estimate the cost of cap and trade carbon legislation (aka The Waxman Markey Bill) to be $US1761/year/household... According to CBS “the equivalent of increasing personal income taxes by about 15 percent”. This comes in way over previous claims made by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) that claimed that the legislation would cost $83.95 /year/person.

So, what do taxpayers get in exchange for expensive green legislation ?

Answers on the back of an envelope (Freepost) to:

Nick Smith

Minister of Silly Green Posturing

Parliament Buildings

WELLINGTON.

...and a warning for Nick Smith...I’m betting that the Senate never bothers to even put together a bill that they can vote on. Too contentious, too dangerous for too many Senator’s re-election chances. And the best part is that if US efforts fall apart, (they will) then everyone else in the world who’s facing hard choices will take that as a cue and their efforts will fall apart too.
Copenhagen could easily turn out to be a sad joke...more from WuWT here...

...and Quotes of the day; re education and intellectuals ...By the end of that summer, I had concluded that the population cannot be divided into an intellectual class and a nonintellectual class; instead, I concluded, everyone is to some extent an intellectual. The college professor is an intellectual who, it is hoped, applies his intellect to his teaching and research. The skillful auto mechanic is an intellectual who uses logic to eliminate various possible causes of an engine's failure in order to narrow it down to the actual cause. Everyone is an intellectual. Compulsory schooling has robbed millions of people of the knowledge of their intellectual birthright...more here... H/T Samizdata...

...and re ex-President Jimmy Carter's opinion that opposition to President Obama is race-based...Carter's remark drew the condemnation of Michael Steele, the first African-American to become chairman of the Republican National Committee. "President Carter is flat out wrong. This isn't about race. It is about policy," he said in a statement. "This is a pathetic distraction by Democrats to shift attention away from the president's wildly unpopular government-run healthcare plan that the American people simply oppose."...more from Reuters here...

Our cooling oceans...

...with patience, and ongoing science the myth of catastrophic global warming continues to be exposed. Click on graph at left to enlarge...There has been a change in direction by global warming alarmists, as shown by “Synthesis Report - Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions,” published in Copenhagen and released in June. In that report, those claiming there is a human-induced global warming crisis have abandoned air temperature as a measure of global climate and switched to ocean temperature. The change in focus from air temperature to ocean temperature was predictable given the sustained decline in global air temperature over recent years. The new report claims ocean temperatures are rising, and fast.
This is rubbish, but it will take time to inform the public and politicians that it is rubbish. With the U.S. climate bill and the Copenhagen meeting of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coming up, proponents of carbon dioxide restrictions need only to make the public believe these fables for a few months. All the public education the climate realists have accomplished regarding air temperatures will have to start all over regarding ocean temperatures. Here are some key points to be made: Ocean temperatures can be measured adequately only by the Argo buoy network. Argo buoys dive down to 700m, recording temperatures, then come up and radio back the results. There are 3,000 of them floating around all the world’s oceans According to Argo temperature measurements, the world’s oceans have shown a slight cooling since Argo became operational in 2003. In sharp contrast to model predicted heat build-up ...more here...
...and from Peter Taylor’s new book CHILL: a Reassessment of Global Warming Theory, reviewed here...“The oceans play a crucial role in the absorption and dissipation of heat over decadal and millennial timescales and with distinct cyclic patterns.These patterns are poorly understood and not replicated in global warming models, and any conclusions drawn with respect to those models being able to isolate an anthropogenic global warming signal must be regarded as unproven and unlikely”.

Stop Press...more tragedy and panic...

...A charity pantomime in aid of paranoid schizophrenics and homosexuals descended into chaos yesterday when somebody shouted ' He's behind you!'

...H/T NMH...

...and...A new climate magazine drawing together major stories and blog-postings on global warming has launched today. "Climate Reality" is a free monthly that its publishers hope will fuel further public debate about the science behind global warming theory, and challenge media complacency on the climate change issue...get it here...

"The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in /Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin /A nuclear error, but I have no fear /London is drowning-and I live by the river..."The Clash 1977 “London Calling”

Lest we forget...

...today is the anniversary of heroism, cowardice and religious fanaticism. Heroism known and unknown, in the air on United Airlines Flight 93, and on the ground after the aircraft hit. One New Zealander was on board United 93; Alan Beaven, who would have used his strength and courage in the final hours of his life to help defeat the terrorists. Alan Beaven was one of over 3000 victims of Al Queda on September 11th 2001. We owe it to them all to maintain the struggle and the rage against the cavemen of Islam...The Twin Towers were all about modernity and the future. Islam is all about the past and about the demand that it be imposed on the present and the future...Every year when September 11th comes around, we must remind ourselves of the triumph of our Constitution, our dedication to freedom and liberty, and our capacity to defeat the enemies of these inalienable rights.Our grandparents defeated the Nazis and the imperialistic Japanese. Then they and our parents held steadfast against the Soviets for nearly five decades. We fought in Korea and we fought in Vietnam. The current generation’s bravest and best have been fighting our enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq.We must draw on the reservoir of courage they bequeathed us and, for my part, we must never let lose of the anger we felt eight years ago when a handful of evil men attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, with yet another intended target.Al Qaeda? Hunt them! Find them! Kill them!Do not listen to the appeasers, the Blame America crowd. Surrender is not an option...more from Alan Caruba at Warning Signs here...

I remember that with one jab...

...of my needle in the Punjab, I have cured the beri-beri and the dreaded dysentery...as the Peter Sellars, Sophia Loren song goes. Deepak Lal is a Punjabi gentleman who wishes to cure the west of its hand wringing CO2 fetish. Take some time with this and relish Indian outrage expressed in clear, uncompromising English...Nothing is more hypocritical and immoral than rich Westerners driving their gas-guzzling SUVs emoting about the threat to Spaceship Earth from the millions of Indians who want to drive Nanos... (See also "When Poor People Pollute, the Tato-Nano and Eco-Crime, here )...Whilst the salving of their consciences by buying carbon offsets (as Al Gore claims to do every time he jets around the world) is akin to the Papal indulgences sold by the Catholic Church, which allowed its richer adherents to assuage their guilt and ‘fornicate on clean sheets’. For Gore to have the lights on his mansion blazing throughout the night, and seek to restrict the emissions from Indian power stations, when most Indians don’t even have an electric light bulb, is deeply wicked...This is particularly heinous as the claim by the IPCC that, it is scientifically proven, CO2 emissions are the cause of global warming, is increasingly being questioned by climatologists. Particularly, as since 1997, both the terrestrial and more accurate satellite temperature readings (which are not contaminated by the ‘heat island’ urbanisation effect) show global cooling, even though there has been a large increase in CO2 emissions. This is also the period in which the sunspot activity in the Sun has ceased...This new and growing scientific evidence that human CO2 emissions have little to do with climate change makes the current Western political obsession to curb carbon emissions at a vast economic cost extremely foolish. For India it would mean not only reversing the current trends in poverty alleviation, but a vast increase in the numbers of the poor who would otherwise be pulled out of poverty. India should have nothing to do with Copenhagen. If this means there is no climate change treaty, it might also save the West from its current path to committing economic hara-kiri...more from Deepak Lal in New Delhi, here...

...AND, considering an investment in carbon credits ? ...Back on September 2nd, 2006/2007 instruments were selling as low as 20 cents and held that way until Sept 8th. So this is a boost. See the table below. Zimbabwe money notes are doing pretty well on Ebay. Right now they are actually more valuable than carbon credit notes...more here...

AND, from Smokey, and observation that...only one CO2 molecule out of 34 is emitted by human activity, the rest are natural emissions...

Global warming contortions and backdowns...

...are now becoming the norm. Even the UK New Scientist magazine, a past staunch cheer leader for green climatastrophe is looking sheepish, admitting...Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world's top climate modellers (Mojib Latif of the Liebniz Institute of Marine Sciences, and an IPPC author) said ... we could be about to enter one or even two decades during which temperatures cool....and that natural variability is at least as important as the long-term climate changes from global warming...

In other words, the much loved planetary emergency is over.

Breaking with IPPC orthodoxy, Latif said Northern Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) cycles were probably responsible for some of the strong global warming seen in the past three decades. "But how much? The jury is still out," he told the conference...more from Fred Pearce and New Scientist here... and this from Mick Hulme... in a New Scientist article interestingly titled Climate Change : No Eden, No Apocalypse...

...The world's climates will keep on changing, with human influences now inextricably entangled with those of nature. So too will the idea of climate change keep changing as we find new ways of using it to meet our needs. We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change (are you listening Al Gore ?) and mobilise these stories in support of our projects. Whereas a modernist reading of climate may once have regarded it as merely a physical condition for human action, we must now come to terms with climate change operating simultaneously as an overlying, but more fluid, imaginative condition of human existence...

So here we have the new (age) green approach to climate guilt... It remains too, to be seen what contribution to this new thinking the ongoing results from the ARGOS sea temperature project, satellite monitoring and the CLOUD experiment will provide, but two things are now very clear...the AGW mirage is collapsing, and greens tell lies...

Another doubting Thomas writes...

...I'm the science reporter for the Houston Chronicle, the daily newspaper in the petrochemical capital of the United States, if not the world. I've been called a global warming skeptic by environmentalists, and I've been called an environmentalist toady by the skeptics. I'm neither of these things. Rather, I'm just trying to grasp what is happening to the planet's climate, and how humans are impacting it. 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 ...the key point here is that scientists are acknowledging that natural variations are playing a very important role in our present and future climate, perhaps cooling it. Therefore it stands to reason that natural variations might also have played a role in the temperature run-up of the 20th century. Do not misunderstand me. I am not a climate change skeptic. I do not deny that the planet warmed 0.6°C in the 20th century. I do not deny that humans played some part in that significant warming.
But I am confused. Four years ago this all seemed like a fait accompli. Humans were unquestionably warming the climate and changing the planet forever through their emissions of carbon dioxide. The problem is that some climate scientists and environmentalists have been so determined to see something done about carbon dioxide emissions -- now -- that they have glossed over the uncertainties....more from Eric Berger here...
...and it is this dogmatism, inspired by political ideology not science that will bring the AGW house down...

You light up my life...

...I have on my bookshelves a gift from a dear friend, now dead, the late William Manchester's book "A World Lit Only by Fire". It is a wonderful collection of fact and anecdote about medieval Europe; its cruelty, superstition, bigotry and its fear of heresy. Looking at this satellite image of the Korean peninsula is to look backwards and forwards at the same time. Backwards at the underdeveloped, fearful and idelogically constipated North Korea and forwards to what 50 years of capitalism have achieved for South Korea.
If the green/left have their way, if, as Maurice Strong (founder of the UN Environment Programme) hopes; that the industrialised nations collapse, then the lights will go out again, and not just all over Europe and South Korea...more here...and here...
...and for a UK perspective...It is ironic that this week’s stories about the Government admitting that we face the possibility of blackouts should have originated with the Tory Party, whose own energy policy has long been indistinguishable from the Government’s — windmills, ‘carbon capture’, ‘smart meters’ and all. The truth is that, if David Cameron comes to power in nine months’ time, there will be no bigger headache confronting him than how to avoid precisely the disaster which his spokesman was yesterday warning about. If there is one issue to which he and his colleagues should now be giving their fullest attention it is how to keep Britain’s lights on without prices going through the roof. And that will mean abandoning a lot of that childish Milibandian make-believe which now threatens us with as great a crisis as any our politicians have ever landed us with...more from Christopher Booker, here...

...and the red/green church under the spotlight here...My desire to live a free, mundane life is a fundamental cog in our messy, glorious, capitalist democracy. It is built on millions of such small entrenched postitions. Red-filtered, my desires are despicable and bourgeois and must be beaten out of me with indoctrination or force. Green-filtered, my small desires are despicable acts of ecological vandalism. My house is a carbon factory. My desire to travel, to own stuff, to eat meat, to procreate, to heat my house, to shower for a really, really long time; all are evil. The word evil is used advisedly. Both the green and red positions are infused with overpowering religiosity. Dissenters from the consensus are shunned apostates. Professor Ian Pilmer, the Australian geologist and climate change sceptic, could not find a publisher for his book Heaven and Earth, which questions the orthodoxy about global warming. He is the subject of hate mail and demonstrations...Our intransigent refusal to choose green will be met by a new militancy from those who believe we must be saved from ourselves. Ultra-green states cannot arise without some form of forced switch to autocracy; the dictatorship of the environmentalists...more from Timesonline, here...

...and totally off topic, but extraordinary, Normandy 1944 then, and now...

Fairy tales from Copenhagen...

...the city of Hans Christian Andersen and the venue for November's climate change talkfest will be a watershed for the green/left. When the Kyoto agreement was signed notable dissenters were George W. Bush and John Howard...time has proved their dissention correct. Kyoto was an unworkable fraud and the lesson taught to the world by its failure, and the resolution of Bush and Howard will not be lost. Many deep greens will be losing sleep over the likely Copenhagen outcome...according to Spiked magazine....

...Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is organising the talks, told the BBC: ‘You’re looking at hugely divergent interests, very little time remaining, a complicated document on the table and still a lot of progress to be made on some very important issues like finance.’ No doubt, some kind of agreement will be signed in Copenhagen, even if it is simply to carry on talking, but the notion of an effective, binding deal to substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the next few decades seems an awfully long way away. Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth, that may be no bad thing. The idea of bringing down GHG emissions, without the technological means to do so, is coming up against the very rational desire to improve living standards.
The first thing to note is the relative failure of the Kyoto protocol itself. In more than half of all industrialised countries, GHG emissions have increased since 1990. Germany and the UK have seen substantial falls in emissions (at least, as measured by the treaty). The UK’s emissions reductions are largely due to a shift from coal-fired to gas-fired power stations, and much of the fall occurred before Kyoto was signed.The ‘saving grace’ is the utter collapse of the economies of Eastern Europe and Russia after the end of Stalinist rule there. The result has been huge reductions in emissions as great swathes of heavily polluting industry have been wiped out. Kyoto just about succeeded in its own, narrow terms, but due to one-off, entirely coincidental changes rather than anything to do with the treaty itself...The problem of climate change is one that will unfold over decades, so we have time on our side if we put the research effort in now. Another Kyoto-style deal is likely to be an expensive mistake.In Copenhagen, the city of Hans Christian Andersen, a global deal that arbitrarily seeks to cut emissions at the expense of future living standards would be an ugly duckling that will never become a swan.

We're all progressives now...

Quotes of the day "...How can you spot a communist sympathizer in the U.S. Congress? You can visit the website of the “Progressive Caucus” where, as of February 2009, more than 80 members of the House, including two from the Senate, self-identify themselves as progressives. “Progressive” was the term communists used after the McCarthy era. It is still in use today..." More from Alan Caruba at Warning Signs here...

"...The tragedy is that for seven years, politicians of all parties have refused to face up to Britain’s fast-looming energy gap because they have all been bewitched by 'the great green dream’, that we could somehow save the planet by generating much of our electricity from ‘renewables’, such as building thousands more wind turbines...Almost the only politician who realised this was John Hutton, the former energy minister, who last year reversed Government policy by announcing that we needed at least a dozen new nuclear and coal-fired power stations to fill the gap. As he starkly declared to the 2008 Labour conference: ‘No coal and no nuclear means no power, no future.’ Two weeks later, however, Hutton was moved to another department, and Britain’s energy policy was handed over to Ed Miliband, a ‘green’ zealot...more from Christopher Booker here...

...and finally (with H/T Theo Spark) ...An elephant asked a camel, "Why are your breasts on your back?" 'Well," said the camel, "I think that's an inappropriate question from somebody whose dick is on his face."

Lest we forget...

...where socialism can take us...on the 70th anniversary of the beginning of WW2...at 4:45 a.m. on Sept. 1, 1939, to be precise—the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein began to shell the Polish military base at Westerplatte. For the Germans, for the Poles, and for the British and French, who immediately declared war on Germany, this was the beginning of World War II. The Soviet Union, having signed a secret agreement with Nazi Germany, did not declare war but was itself preparing to invade Poland and the Baltic States. Which it did, two and a half weeks later, on Sept. 17... The former Allies prefer to remember the bits of the war—D-Day, for example—that contribute to their memory of the 1945 Triumph of Democracy, preferring to forget that the war's initial raison d'être, the independence of Poland and the freedom of Central Europe, was not really achieved until 1989... The majority of Russians, a recent poll shows, do not know that the USSR invaded Poland in 1939...more from Slate here...

...nor I would guess do the majority of the rest of us. Perhaps we all need to reflect on the fact that the Soviet Union today is still attempting to recover from decades of a corrupt ideology, and that Nazi Germany followed a similar course, taking the world down a road to hell...

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Santayana's Law of Repetitive Consequences...

...and how does all this relate to climate change/global warming ?

...I don’t believe that the (U.S.) Administration’s sense of urgency is driven by Copenhagen. Copenhagen simply gives them another argument for swift passage of a bill – any bill. Instead, I think that they need to act quickly before:(a) Obama loses any more popular support(b) Additional data comes in confirming the fact that global temperatures have stopped rising(c) People have time to review the (Waxman Markey) bill and the facts.
We know that the bill is not about reducing global warming since even its supporters admit that it will have a negligible impact. We know that it’s not about raising money since the government is giving away most of the emissions rights. The most likely motive is to shift power to Washington – which is in line with the direction of the Administration’s other actions. Their strategy of moving quickly, attempting to curtail debate, and vilifying the opposition is also consistent with their actions in pushing for the stimulus package and for national health care. I think the goal in each of these cases has been/is to get something – anything – passed in order to get the federal foot in the door...more here...

The green/left on trial...cont...

...a trial that is ostensibly over "global warming" and the green eco-porn fantasy of Thermageddon. A trial though that in reality, would deliberate on green/left credibility. Little wonder they fear it so much...The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has shocked the global warming debate by its formal call to hold a public global warming trial to decide on the “evidence” that mankind is driving a climate catastrophe. The Chamber seeks to have a complete trial “complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect.” Some are referring to the potential for a global warming trial as the “U.S. Chamber of Commerce wanting to put AGW creationism on trial.”
Brenda Ekwurzel of the environmental group Union of Concerned Scientists, is discouraging the idea of a trial. This is the same Ekwurzel who claimed global warming made it “less cool” this summer... More significantly, it is the same Ekwurzel who badly lost a public debate over man-made climate fears in 2007...No wonder the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called for a full trial on global warming claims. Desperation time has arrived for the promoters of man-made global warming fears, as the science of man-made climate fears continues to collapse. [Update: U.S. Govt Scientist: If climate 'trial' occurred 'only those with religious convictions of warming claims would continue to hold any support for man-made global warming': 'Falsehood cannot be sustained indefinitely' - August 26, 2009]...more from Climate Depot here...

...and further to the tragic and untimely death of Teddy Kennedy see 'Kennedy Curse' Claims Life Of 77-Year-Old Tumor-Riddled Binge-Drinker...at The Onion, here...

...and news just to hand...we learn that in deference to The Archbishop of Canterbury and The Royal Commission for Political Correctness, it was announced today that the local climate in the UK should no longer be referred to as "English Weather"
Rather than offend a sizable portion of the population, it will now be referred to as ‘Muslim Weather.’ In other words – ‘partly Sunni, but mostly Shi’ite’...H/T again to Slattsnews...