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