The UK Met orifice...a man called Wayne Mapp...and the Pacific sea level...

...ever vigilant reader Butch (right) spotted this reference to a UK enthusiast (John Graham-Cumming) whose amateur sleuthing led to this glorious headline in the London Times... How I made the Met Office admit its climate-change data was wrong...

...Since my training is in mathematics and computing I thought it best to write self-checking code: I’m unfamiliar with the science of climate change and so having my program perform internal checks for consistency was vital to making sure I didn’t make a mistake.
To my surprise the program complained about average temperatures in Australia and New Zealand. At first I assumed I’d made a mistake in the code and used a pocket calculator to double check the calculations. The result was unequivocal: something was wrong with the average temperature data in Oceania. And I also stumbled upon other small errors in calculations. About a week after I’d told the Met Office about these problems I received a response confirming that I was correct: a problem in the process of updating Met Office records had caused the wrong average temperatures to be reported...more here...

In the grand scheme of things - small potatoes, but for the UK Met. office another awful humiliation. After making absurdly confident and dramatically wrong predictions of BBQ summers and mild winters Met. office workers must be a shamefaced lot. "Well, what do you do for a crust then ? "I uhh, uhh work in the uhh Met. Office..."

...and with a deep H/T to PKH and WhaleOil...are you ready to read of obfuscation, disingenuity and Parliamentary chicanery here in NZ ? This exchange, written in Hansard is a series of straightforward and evaded Parliamentary questions re NIWA (our Met. office) to Mr Wayne Mapp, our Minister of Research, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy. Read it and weep...

...and when the global warming alarmist hysteria was at its height, and the science was all settled, I posted about the ARGOS project; a worldwide network of buoys recording salinity, ocean temperature and sea levels. ARGOS and ongoing experiments, such as the CLOUD experiment at CERN, will answer many questions, provide comprehensive data and fill in some important gaps in climate science. With ARGOS data just in we learn that... (H/T The Hockey Schtick):

... The full 6 year dataset from January 31, 2004 to January 31, 2010 of the ARGO global network of 3198 free drifting ocean floats with GPS...is now available. Using the Pacific Marine Atlas program to plot data from the entire network shows a downtrend in Sea Height over the past six years (January 31, 2004 - January 31, 2010) using data from the entire network...The trendline shows the rate of global sea level decrease to be -.1mm/year or-10mm/century...more here...

This is already being labelled Oceangate, and could well be the last gate to shut the IPCC down. Read more here...This, I hope, is real science coming in, not just alarmist predictions from a poorly set up spreadsheet (ever been crazy enough - I have - to make an investment based on one ? ) and it is providing data that is killing alarmism. Such data hammers nail after nail into the climatastrophe coffin...Won't the worried people of greensleaze, and Prince Charles, Bono and the WWF and all the occupants of Tuvalu be so pleased !

...and with that I'm signing off. Posting will be intermittent and maybe even non-existent for 3 1/2 weeks, as I experience northern hemisphere (UK) global warming first hand. I'll be making full use of night clubs, bars, cosy rooms, internet cafes and getting to net access whenever and wherever I can, all the time keeping warm, dry and very well hydrated. Your comments (including details of crap investments made after consulting crappier spreadsheets) are as always, most welcome. Salut !

The Russian energy avalanche is approaching...

...I posted earlier this week on the next move for the green left now that their fantasy of AGW is losing credibility and international political pulling power. It seems likely that TINA 'there is no alternative' will be wheeled in because of so called 'peak oil' - the finite reserves of fossil fuel energy. Hence of course, 'green' energy; wind, solar, tidal and pedal powered bamboo bicycles. It's TINA, you see...I also mentioned Julian Simon's wonderful book 'The Ultimate Resource 2' whose central theme is technological innovation and ingenuity. Fellow blogger Al Fin observes that Russia is poised to take a huge leap forward by exploiting its colossal energy reserves...
...Russia is full of valuable energy and mineral assets -- enough to make any oil sheikh envious. For a number of reasons, Russia's energy assets have remained largely undeveloped up until now. But with enormous discoveries of unconventional natural gas in North America, and with increasing development of Canada's oil sands, Russia is beginning to understand that if it doesn't develop and sell its energy assets now -- it may never have the chance. As young ethnic Russians disappear from the planet, the ability of Russia to defend its vast mineral wealth is shrinking daily. And as unconventional fossil fuel use, plus nuclear energy infrastructure, plus bioenergy development all expand, the world's need for Russia's product is beginning to shrink. The lesson to Russia: use it or lose it...more here...
...and this just in...“Exxon Mobil (XOM) announced today that in 2009 the company’s proven reserves increased by 133% of the amount of oil produced. Exxon now has 23.3 billion oil-equivalent-barrels of reserves comprised of about half liquids and half gas. It’s the largest amount in the company’s history.Amazingly, Exxon, who has been accused in the past of being too conservative in terms of exploration and development, has been finding more oil than it produces for each of the last 16 years, to the dismay of peak oil proponents.” H/T Heliogenic Climate Change...more here...

...and, from Charlie Martin, a word of caution...Climategate: Skeptics Can’t Relax Yet — Real Fraud Is Measured in Dollar Signs, Not Degrees...while the world's attention is focussed on academic and scientific misconduct the questions remaining are ...'Once the theory of AGW was politically established, it was inevitable that the so called 'scientific consensus' leaned in that direction. So... how did the theory become politically established, and who are the beneficiaries?
...Al Gore had already been a devotee of the CO2 apocalypse before he lost the 2000 election...He joined in several financial ventures with people like Richard Sandor, who had been a faculty member at Berkeley...and... with Peter Knight, his one-time aide, and David Blood, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and Gore’s campaign manager for 2000. Another part of this group is Maurice Strong, (see the masthead above ) who moved from involvement in the UN “Oil for Food” scam into environmental issues, and now lives in the People’s Republic of China where he advises the Chinese government. Sandor and Blood, along with Goldman Sachs and its then-CEO, Hank Paulson, founded the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), using seed money from the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation. One of the major stockholders, along with Goldman Sachs, is Generation Investment Management (GIM), a trading company co-founded by Al Gore and David Blood...The scientific climate clique of Jones and others provide the scientific basis for the political action, which in turn provides the need for the carbon credits that are created and traded by the carbon and climate cartel of Strong, Gore, Blood, and Knight. (Boy, that sounds like a Steve Reeves movie, doesn’t it?) And the money provided by these trading schemes then supports the science — as long as it’s the “right” science. And this is why we can’t get cocky. There’s no question now that the science must be re-examined. Re-examining the science, though, doesn’t mean that the political and financial machine just stops operating. There’s a lot of money involved. A whole lot of money. Potentially trillions of dollars. So we’re not done yet...more here...

...and, doesn't it strike anyone else as odd, scandalous even, that this issue has not been taken up by the MSM ? Why would that be do you think ?

The Kiwi ETS...will it ever fly ?

...the goony bird is still in gestation. If it hatches it seems doomed to become an expensive and useless indulgence, and fated to degenerate into an embarassed, lonely abomination that ultimately vanishes down its own dollar sinkhole. Reviewing Climategate, its associated IPCC shortcomings and the Kiwi ETS, ex ACT MP Muriel Newman observes...

...What all of this means for New Zealanders is that we are a victim of a global warming scaremongering campaign. Our political leaders have imposed on the country a range of policies based on evidence provided by the IPCC. The problem is that...this so-called evidence has been found to be riddled with fraud and deceit. It is up to the government to extricate us from the consequences. With the disastrous emissions trading scheme ready to kick in later this year, surely the government must postpone it until it has investigated the veracity of the evidence on which this policy is based. With an estimated $1 billion cost, the ETS should be repealed once it is revealed that the evidence does not to stack up... more from Muriel Newman, here... AND meanwhile what's Helen Clark up to these days ?

...The head of the United Nation's Development Agency's, Helen Clark, has called for climate change to be put at the very centre of international development thinking, during her 2-day visit to Australia.While in Sydney, Ms Clark, who's the former New Zealand Prime Minister, used an address to the Lowy Insitute to set out a four-point strategy for moving the development agenda forward...more here...

...and Quote of the Week from the IPCC's Rajendra Pachauri, with H/T to WuWT...

Q: Has all that has happened this winter dented the credibility of IPCC?
R.K.P.: I don’t think the credibility of the IPCC can be dented. If the IPCC wasn’t there, why would anyone be worried about climate change?

...AND news that Kiwi Pete Bethune, skipper of the (late) Ady Gill (left) is being held by the Japanese and may face piracy charges, brought this very interesting article to my attention from Tim Blair in the Sydney Telegraph...Just who is telling tall tales of whales ?

...AND, how long will it be before ICBM's are obsolete technology ? This is great news, that for the first time an airborne laser has shot down a ballistic missile...more here...

...breaking news from the UK, re allegations of child abuse and very high level cover up, here...

The green left fallback and fallover position...

...now the forces of panic and alarm are clearly in retreat re AGW the argument from the green left is typified by this comment from a Guardian reader (left)...The climate change discussion has shifted from a science based decision in my mind, to a logic based decision. Do we continue to put our (human) efforts into exploiting energy sources that are clearly finite (coal, oil, gas et al) or do we shift our efforts to exploiting energy sources that are abundant, and will remain so for millenia (wind, wave, solar et al). On the offchance that emissions do cause global warming, which option is more logical. It's pretty obvious to me!

The commenter is of course simply saying that the science linking CO2 with climatastrophe has been shown to be fraudulent and is now discredited in all respects, and is retreating to the sustainability argument. He obviously hasn't read 'The death of wind farms' either...H/T Andrew Bolt.

Nevertheless, the late great Julian Simon had rather a lot to say about the sustainability argument in his books The Ultimate Resource, editions 1 and 2. (Edition 2 available in full, online, here ) Re the finite supply of oil, Simon observes...

...The history of energy economics shows that, in spite of troubling fears in each era of running out of whichever source of energy was important at that time, energy has grown progressively less scarce, as shown by long-run falling energy prices...The cause of the increasing plenty in the supply of energy has been the development of improved extraction processes and the discovery of new sources and new types of energy... These new developments have not been fortuitous, but rather have been induced by increased demand caused in part by rising population...For the very long run, there is nothing meaningfully "finite" about our world that inevitably will cause energy, or even oil in particular, to grow more scarce and costly. Theoretically, the cost of energy could go either up or down in the very long run. But the trends point to a lower cost...

Julian Simon's predictions about our world put him of course into direct combat with the Malthusian doomsayers of his day, most notably the infamous Club of Rome, whose propaganda assault was spearheaded by the author Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich alleged that Simon was wrong about future commodity prices, and entered in a famous wager in 1980, betting on a mutually agreed upon measure of resource scarcity over the decade leading up to 1990. Ehrlich ultimately lost the bet, and all five commodities that were selected as the basis for the wager continued to trend downward until 2002...From Wikipedia...Simon challenged Ehrlich to put his money where his mouth was. In response to Ehrlich's published claim that "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000" — a proposition Simon regarded as too silly to bother with — Simon countered with "a public offer to stake US$10,000 ... on my belief that the cost of non-government-controlled raw materials (including grain and oil) will not rise in the long run." You could name your own terms: select any raw material you wanted — copper, tin, whatever — and select any date in the future, "any date more than a year away," and Simon would bet that the commodity's price on that date would be lower than what it was at the time of the wager... Ehrlich and his colleagues picked five metals that they thought would undergo big price rises: chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Then, on paper, they bought $200 worth of each, for a total bet of $1,000, using the prices on September 29, 1980, as an index. They designated September 29, 1990, 10 years hence, as the payoff date. If the inflation-adjusted prices of the various metals rose in the interim, Simon would pay Ehrlich the combined difference; if the prices fell, Ehrlich et al. would pay Simon... Between 1980 and 1990, the world's population grew by more than 800 million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history. But by September 1990, without a single exception, the price of each of Ehrlich's selected metals had fallen, and in some cases had dropped through the floor. Chrome, which had sold for $3.90 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.70 in 1990. Tin, which was $8.72 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.88 a decade later...

The point of all this ? Julian Simon's "ultimate resource" was of course the ingenuity of mankind, to respond and to overcome the technological challenges of the day. Our future, Simon reasoned, can be assessed by considering our past. And in the world today...Raw materials and energy are getting less scarce. The world's food supply is improving. Pollution in the developed countries has been decreasing. Population growth has long-term benefits, though added people are a burden in the short run. Most important, fewer people are dying young. These assertions, publicly stated in 1970 and then in the first edition of this book in 1981, have stood the test of time...Our species is better off in just about every measurable material way...And there is stronger reason than ever to believe that these progressive trends (progressive in the true sense of the word) will continue indefinitely. Indeed, the trends toward greater cleanliness and less pollution of our air and water are even sharper than before, and cover a longer historical period and more countries...The increase in availability and the decrease in raw materials scarcity have continued unabated, and have even speeded up. None of the catastrophes in food supply and famine that were forecast by the doomsayers have occurred; rather, the world's people are eating better than ever. The conventional beliefs of the doomsayers have been entirely falsified by events during past decades...

Do you have a dear friend who leans towards green anxieties ? Buy them a copy of this wonderful book. While you're at it, get one for your own library too.

...and for further reading on 'peakoil" see blogger Al Fin, here...

Inconvenient Truths...the NZ perspective...

...I have commented before that pragmatic southern hemisphere policies on climate change are likely to lead the world. I wouldn't have made that prediction 6 or 7 months ago, when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's ETS was the only political option on the table for Australia. However, a lot has happened since then; most of those happenings ending in 'gate'. Exceptions to that terminology though are Copenhagen and Tony Abbott. Both have exploded into the debate and changed it forever.

Here in NZ, conscious of our size we like to think that internationally we "punch above our weight". And certainly with a look at the statistics of sport and child abuse we do a lot of punching. With regard to saving the planet though, our ex-PM Helen Clarke, now pulling levers at the UN, was a dutiful and obedient party liner, eager to destroy our economy if she could . Her successor, John Key has played a more cautious pragmatic line, leaving comment largely up to his Environment Minister Nick Smith. And Smith's most recent pronouncement was "I've had calls...to abandon or defer the ETS. That's not what the Government's going to do. It's a very important first step."Smith is also quoted as saying NZ would do its fair share (to cut emissions) but that "it would not be a world leader".The two sentiments seem very difficult to reconcile. In Australia, Kevin Rudd is now seen as "being alone and exposed" over his failure to maintain support for the ETS. If an Australian election dumps Rudd in favour of Tony Abbott, and the USA so-called 'cap and trade' bill fails, as seems likely, NZ and Europe will be the world's only champions of an ETS. Where I wonder would that leave Nick Smith ? Is he reading this, do you think ? Is anyone even asking ?

...The Business Council of Australia no longer considers the introduction of an ETS as providing business certainty and has put a caveat on support for an Australian scheme that cannot be met.
Given the fiasco of Copenhagen, the BCA has urged the government to change its scheme "in line with other international responses". Further, it has demanded the unconditional target of cutting greenhouse gases by 5 per cent by 2020, the same target as the Coalition's, not be lifted "before we have clear and credible commitments, and actions, from both developed and developing countries that are verifiable and monitored".
That's impossible for nations such as China and India to meet: the BCA may as well have urged an ETS be set up on the moon before Australia lifts its target...more here...

The treason of the scientists (2) ...

...as we enter into the last campaign of the war against the green alarmists, the main perpretators and instigators are being assembled, awaiting sentence. Among them is the creator of the now infamous "hockey stick"; Dr Michael Mann of Penn State University (PSU). Preliminary internal investigation of Mann's behaviour after revelations disclosed by the Climategate emails were as expected, a green whitewash...Penn State's internal inquiry into Michael Mann's alleged scientific misconduct concluded with the virtual exoneration of his behavior, and ignored key evidence in the Climategate scandal. As feared, this inquiry was little more than a whitewash—an assault on academic integrity. Students at PSU are rallying in response to demand "academic integrity" from their faculty, explaining...First, the university's internal review consisted of three Penn State employees who have strong incentives to protect the school's reputation and the millions of dollars it receives from global warming research grants. There was no external oversight. Second, the review consisted of looking at a mere 47 emails (out of thousands in question), interviewing Mann, analyzing materials he submitted, and asking only two biased sources about his credibility. Penn State hardly conducted a "thorough investigation" of alleged wrongdoing by Mann...more from students at PSU here...and (H/T CB at Solyent Green) here...

...and the grandad of the whole scam, nobel prize winner Albert Gore is the target of a petition to strip him of the once treasured and respected award. Micky recommends the petition and advises that the request for the donation can be ignored...here...

...and talking about awards, note that the hero of this blog, the frequently consulted Anthony Watts, of WuWT, has been included in the Times Online Top 30 Science Blogs...here...

The treason of the scientists...

... after we consider our involvement in an ill fated relationship or business venture, we may ask ourselves "how could it happen ?" I imagine that many scientists surveying the wreckage of "climate science" are asking this question and reviewing their involvement and the extent of the stain on their careers. This article by Jerome Ravetz of Oxford University "...environmental consultant and professor of philosophy of science best known for his books challenging the assumptions of scientific objectivity..." looks at the process of entanglement from a science perspective, and includes these observations...

... As all these anomalies and unsolved puzzles emerged, the neat, compelling picture became troubled and even confused... But the political cause had been taken up by powerful advocates, like Al Gore...

...and was typified by former Colorado senator Tim Wirth when he remarked in the early days of the climate campaign that “we’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” Not surprisingly, after Wirth left the Senate and the Clinton administration he ended up at the United Nations...however...

...We found ourselves in another crusading ‘War’, like those on 'Drugs' and 'Terror'. This new War, on Carbon, was equally simplistic, and equally prone to corruption and failure. Global warming science became the core element of this major worldwide campaign to save the planet. Any weakening of the scientific case would have amounted to a betrayal of the good cause, as well as a disruption of the growing research effort. All critics, even those who were full members of the scientific peer community, had to be derided and dismissed. As we learned from the CRU e-mails, they were not considered to be entitled to the normal courtesies of scientific sharing and debate. Requests for information were stalled, and as one witty blogger has put it, ‘peer review’ was replaced by ‘pal review’. Even now, the catalogue of unscientific practices revealed in the mainstream media is very small in comparison to what is available on the blogosphere. Details of shoddy science and dirty tricks abound. By the end, the committed inner core were confessing to each other that global temperatures were falling, but it was far too late to change course...In needing to treat Planet Earth like a textbook exercise, the climate scientists were forced to break the rules of scientific etiquette and ethics, and to play scientific power-politics in a way that inevitably became corrupt...

...Ravetz then introduces, with a degree of undeserved compassion, the grassroots 'extended peers' and cheerleaders for alarmism and corrupt science; the loathsome greens...

...To have a political effect, the ‘extended peers’ of science have traditionally needed to operate largely by means of activist pressure-groups using the media to create public alarm. In this case, since the global warmers had captured the moral high ground, criticism has remained scattered and ineffective, except on the blogosphere. The position of Green activists is especially difficult, even tragic (!) ; they have been ‘extended peers’ who were co-opted into the ruling paradigm, which in retrospect can be seen as a decoy or diversion from the real, complex issues of sustainability, as shown by Mike Hulme. Now they must do some very serious re-thinking about their position and their role...

...and what of the future for climate science ? What has been learned ?

...Scientists who have been forced to work on the blogosphere have had the invaluable experience of exclusion and oppression; that could make it easier for them to accept that something is seriously wrong and then to engage in the challenging moral adventures of dealing with uncertainty and ignorance. The new technologies of communications are revolutionising knowledge and power in many areas. The extended peer community of science on the blogosphere will be playing its part in that process. Let dialogue commence!...more here...

...H/T and thanks to WuWT...

...and with a bow towards my northern hemisphere roots, and striking a blow for multi-culturalism, all you ever needed to know about Cockney rhyming slang, including the Cockney alphabet, here...

...and in closing for the day, an INVITATION...would you like to monitor the temperature (and morale) of the warmists ? See this exchange...here... although right now (5.26pm.) their site is down. Hope it's not hari-kari all round...

President Shimon Peres historic speech...

... to the German Bundestag on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day is somewhat off topic for this blog, but nevertheless has resonance for all of us. Those of us born immediately after WW2 - the so called baby boomers, grew up within touchable range of war mementoes and war experiences, and this tangible proximity to "the war" has left its mark. I have just finished Ian Kershaw's Hitler biography; the 2nd volume titled Nemesis. This fascination with Nazi Germany is an effort to understand Hitler's appeal to the German people, and his pathological hatred of Jews. It is an effort too, that is countered by an inability that even now prevents me from asking my German golf partner and friend "How could this happen ? And could it ever happen again ?" Is Jew hatred on the rise as we begin to forget the past ?

"...From Konrad Adenauer, who found a common language with David Ben-Gurion, and Willy Brandt, who kneeled in memory of the Warsaw Ghetto heroes, and you, Members of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, from Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl, and other leaders, you strengthened the foundations and ties of friendship.
And institutions, financial organizations, cultural centers, intellectuals and doers, who contributed to the enrichment of these unique relations.
You, President Horst Köhler, you declared at the Knesset in Jerusalem that "the responsibility for the Holocaust is part of the German identity." We very much appreciate this.
And you, Madam Chancellor, Angela Merkel, you have conquered the hearts of our nation with your sincerity and your warmth. You said to the American Senate and House of Representatives that "an attack on Israel will equate (to) an attack on Germany." We shall not forget this...full text of the speech here...

Lest we forget indeed. H/T and thanks to Michael Phillips at ProCommerce...

The hills are alive...

...with the sound of dissent. An anonymous comment a few days back led me to post about Norway, and its bizarre AGW fetish. A fetish that has led the Nobel peace prize committee to give its once respected award to the embarassed and untested President Obama; to honour the IPCC, whose reputation is being shredded every day, and even to award the disgraced and pitiful Al Gore, whose humiliation is as profound as the phony science behind his propaganda.

Since that earlier post, this blog has been visited by Norwegian commenter Geir, who advises us that the Norwegian socialist party in power...

...is led by people who have never worked except for in the politics - we call them broilers, having been bred in cages with one purpose for their lives. Curiously, the party is in Norwegian called: The Worker's Party. So the working class traditionally vote with them. However, both the social democrats and the socialists who rule in coalition with them, are so incredibly fascinated with the leftists in America. Traditionally, they hated America (just look to the 60s/70s and the Vietnam war), so I am puzzled why they embrace the Democrats over there. I think I have found the simple solution:It is not a case of socialism or liberalism in itself. You rather have to divide it into those who opinionate that "we must rule the masses because they CAN'T rule themselves" and those who opinionate "the masses CAN rule themselves". Luckily we see other parties in Norway gaining momentum. The conservatives ("The Right" as opposed to "The Left") has traditionally been strong too...

...However, in the mid-70s a party was formed simply in order to reduce taxes and fees. They call themselves "The Progressive Party", but are not at all progressive in the usual meaning of leftist and marxist, they are rather liberal and are called populist, which is of course a derogatory term. They appeal to "common sense" and opinionate that people ARE in general capable of seeing what is the best for them. They are the only party skeptical to the climate warming hysteria in Norway...

...such comment of course is music to my ears. Here in NZ, the centre-right ACT party who favour a low flat tax and a minor role for the state has seized the "Liberal" name to avoid it being tortured and misused by the left. Geir goes on to comment that the IPCC...

...in order to strenghten their authority...amassed everything from the tiniest company brochure via greenist propaganda to scientific reports for their own report. The importance wasn't in the content, it was in the authority following the content. So we must question the authority, and not even that,we must bring it completely down...The whole IPCC work is done in order to create the impression of an infallible authority. We are working against the equivalent of a global church. The foundations of which can be eradicated, true, but it takes time.Chesterton is often quoted as saying: When people cease to believe in something, they will not then believe in nothing. They will believe in anything...

...and today, in the UK Telegraph, fresh and extensive new criticism of the IPCC...more here...

Geir, thanks for your comments. They add a dimension to the issue that a Google search never can. There is no doubt that the tide has turned against the IPCC and the church of the green left, and with that tide, a call for more honesty and transparency has come about, largely because of enhanced communication like this. Salut !

...and to conclude...Not impoverishing ourselves will also provide the resources to mitigate damage caused by AGW–if it exists, and if they occur. The time has come to fire the discredited IPCC, ignore Al–the debate is over–Gore, and begin to listen to the Bjorn Lomborg’s of the world...more from Bjorn Lomborg, and First Things here...

The way ahead for the green left...

...will be difficult for them to conceptualise. After all, they have always described their retreat back to socialism as "progressive". However, a great surprise over the last month has been the willingness of the UK Guardian (Moonbeam Monbiot excepted) to examine the scientific failings of the great warmist crusade. In this excellent Guardian article, Ian Katz says "The case for climate action must be remade from the ground upwards." Summarising the green/left disaster to date (without reading between the lines) he concludes with...

"...So far, so grim, but what can be done? "

So grim ? As a commenter writes..."The basis for the predicted catastrophe has been shown to be flawed. Why shouldn't that be a cause for joy? Or is it grief for a lost cause? Don't fret, there'll be another one along in a minute..."

"...First, climate scientists must make a public commitment to greater openness. They should acknowledge that the huge implications and importance of what they do mean the public expect and are entitled to a greater degree of scrutiny of their work. They should repudiate the laager mentality and evasions of the East Anglia researchers. Instead of grudgingly yielding to Freedom of Information requests, they should publish their data and workings online wherever possible.
In the longer term more open ways of reviewing science should be explored. Royal Society president Martin Rees talks about an Amazon-style system where reviewers can openly rate papers online. It is in this spirit that the Guardian will today publish Pearce's full 28,000 word account of the East Anglia emails affair online and invite anyone involved to tell us if we've got it right.
Then, the case for action must be remade from the ground up. It's no good politicians and scientists going on TV and insisting that the overwhelming body of climate science has not been touched by the scandals. They need to go back to first principles and explain how we know that CO2 causes warming, how we know CO2 levels are rising, how we know it's our fault, and how we can predict what is likely to happen if we don't act.
Next, the credibility of the IPCC – or some form of scientific high court – must be restored. In the short term that means appointing independent experts to review any alleged errors in the panel's reports. At the same time the IPCC should renounce, or at least severely restrict the use of grey literature (eg, non-Governmental; greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth etc.) "If that means you can't be comprehensive then don't be," says a senior scientist advocating this course. There is a strong case for more radical reforms: the panel should arguably be replaced by a body controlled by national scientific academies rather than governments.
Those who want action on climate change will meanwhile have to accept a more incremental approach... Even the head of an NGO who has argued passionately for a binding, comprehensive deal tells me: "Maybe you've got to unpick the uber-deal and work out which bits are possible to do now, and build confidence."
Finally, anyone who cares about this issue must fight to keep it alive. With Barack Obama embroiled in a domestic political battle, powerful advocates like Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown likely soon to exit the stage and European leaders notably reticent in Copenhagen, it is hard to see where the political leadership for a global deal will come from. So it may fall to civil society – to individuals, organisations and businesses – to pick up the baton. The choice remains the one described in that global editorial, only now the answer is likely to be decided by us"...more here...

...and who among us could argue with that ? Maintain the freedom of communication within the blogosphere, give the global community full access to scientific data, and let the chips fall where they may, and hope that in falling they destroy green credibility for ever...

...and FYI an update on the the melting Himalyan glaciers... "...a new study by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and NCAR, finds that human-emitted aerosols are the single major contributor to glacial melt in the Himalayas. In this case, increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide are not melting the mountain glaciers, say the authors. Particulate matter, particularly black carbon from cooking fires and coal-fired plants in India, is the real culprit...more from the CSM here...

The Australian ETS is dead...

...and with it the hopes of Australian power hungry super statists. Two factors will have to unite to revive the dead beast, one of which is a renewed trust in the now discredited field of "climate science", the other an alarming upsurge in global temperatures with accompanying climate catastrophes. This morning's NZ Herald reports...

• ...since the Copenhagen summit, support for an ETS - previously steady at 66 per cent - had dived 10 points.
• ...45 per cent preferred Tony Abbott's alternative plan, with 39 per cent supporting Rudd's ETS.
• ...belief that CO2 was a greenhouse gas had slumped from 62 per cent to 54 per cent, the proportion of Australians believing there was a risk of catastrophic climate change had slipped from 55 to 49 per cent.
• ...(The Labor Government's) lead in the two-party preferred vote had narrowed by two points since November, with Labor at 54 per cent and the Coalition at 46.
• ...Preference for Rudd as Prime Minister had slumped from 68 per cent to 58 against Abbott's 31; 10 points ahead of Turnbull's rating when the last Neilsen poll was made in November...more here...

Which of course begs the question, where to for tiny NZ ? Apart from NZ and a limited European Union scheme, no other country has yet adopted an ETS, for many very good reasons, all of them detailed in this blog and many others...

...and from The Economist, H/T Anon. comments yesterday, news that the USA are considering an alternative to their ETS Cap and Trade bill, Cap-and-Dividend ...

...and a word of warning, with links to useful sites re the physics of global warming, from blogger CountingCats...It does sometimes feel now as if there’s not as much point in researching this any more – with Climategate and the turning of the tide in the British media, I almost feel as if it’s already all over. That we just need to sweep up the pieces. But it isn’t, and there are people over there thinking that if they can just ride out the storm until the public lose interest again, they can carry on with their schemes as before.
And we not only need to stop them, but we need to remember – to scorch the knowledge into society’s collective memory – so that when the next big scare comes along, which it will, it won’t have dropped down the memory hole again, like all the others, and we might actually have learned something useful from it all...more here...

...and Quote of the Day..."Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial." George Monbiot, The Guardian, 21 September 2006

No way, Norway...

...A commenter posted this over the weekend...No one seems to be asking suitably probing questions of one political body which is deeply involved in all of this, which is the Norwegian Parliament. They are the people who decide who gets Peace prizes, and they have a distinguished history of cock-up: giving the Peace Prize to Obama, Gore and the IPCC is merely the most recent. It's possible that as the news emerges of how much money these two are making out of non-existent AGW/Climate Change the left-leaning Norwegians may feel some remorse; but the Peace Committee will never show it unless they're tried...
To start with, a little searching reveals that Norway is one of the wealthiest nations in the world thanks to its oil and gas exports, and surprisingly has a booming weapons industry with record sales last year...

• The Chairman of the Nobel Committee is Thorbjørn Jagland, a former head of Norway's Labour Party. Voices have called for his resignation from the Nobel Committee after recently winning an election to be secretary general of the Council of Europe. Both leaders of Norway's opposition parties in the new parliament claimed Jagland may wind up in a "double role," face conflicts of interest and won't be able to be as neutral as he should be. A professor at the University of Oslo, Eivind Smith, (a supporter of Swiss style initative and referendum) also believes Jagland's two roles are troublesome.
• Norway nurtures its image as a "peace nation," but its weapons industry is booming. Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported Friday that weapons sales last year amounted to NOK 3.1 billion, up from NOK 646 million in 2001. News magazine Ny Tid noted that exports to the US have increased 20 times since 2001, when the war on terror began. Critics say it's a dilemma for Norway, home of the Nobel Peace Prize, to have an active weapons trade.
• Trade surplus among the largest in the world...Norway's oil and gas revenues have once again propelled it into the top ranks of countries reporting a trade surplus. Only five in the world, including China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, can report a trade surplus bigger than Norway's when measured in terms of dollars or the Norwegian krone...more here...
• And those of us with exotic epicurean tastes also know that... Norway is the founding country of modern commercial whaling. A Norwegian invented the exploding grenade harpoon and harpoon cannon. Norway has killed more whales than any other country, devastating (eating) one whale species after another.

Links have been established over the last year between the IPCC's Rajendra Pachauri and big money here and here, and between Al Gore and US investment house Goldman Sachs and the trillion dollar carbon trading scheme, here... and between Gore and big oil here...
...and bloody hell, reader PKH has directed me towards Christopher Booker's Telegraph article detailing UK taxpayer spending of hundreds of millions of pounds on a bewildering array of "climate-related" projects, often throwing a veil of mystery over how much is being paid, to whom and why. More here...

Reader, never let it be said that we, the so called denialists have big money sponsoring our grass roots campaign. The big money and the political clout and influence arraigned against us is mind boggling.

...However, now that the science behind the global warming panic is unravelling after independant probing and insider leaks, it is timely to direct attention towards the individuals and institutions (ie, the BBC, see left, HT AustralianClimateMadness) that have and will continue to benefit from the ongoing scam. The tiny country of Norway is undoubtedly a big player in both oil and gas revenue and keeping the myth of "runaway global warming" alive. As ever, all the answers will be found by following the money trail. As PajamasMedia put it...

...Since it’s clear the Internet (notably the blogosphere) exposed the dubious science of anthropogenic global warming, thankfully before we all went broke (or more broke than we already are), it’s time to turn to our next assignment – following the money.
Cui bono in this giant metastasizing scam? Yes, we already know that the IPCC’s Rajendra Pachauri may have some ill-gotten gains, not to mention a few scientists who may have flown first class to Bali and other such boondoggles, but they are indeed small potatoes. Big money was – or was intended to be – made with carbon exchanges set up in Europe and the USA. Fraud at the European exchange to the tune of one and half billion dollars is already under investigation by Scotland Yard. But that’s the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As far back as July 2009, the Science and Public Policy Institute published a broadside – Climate Money – alleging that 79 billion had already been spent on this unproven science. That’s an extraordinary sum, even if exaggerated by eighty or ninety percent. Who knows how much has been spent and who has benefited?
Well, we at Pajamas Media would like to know – and we imagine you would too. And speaking of the tip of that proverbial iceberg, this is not only about Al Gore. There are plenty of high rent dots to be connected here with much pertinent information to be revealed and names to be named. I am writing this post to solicit your help. Just as the blogosphere was so instrumental in dissecting the science, it can also help track the money. If you have knowledge or expertise in this area, please contact us at webmaster@pajamasmedia.com. We will forward this on to Charles Martin – our resident guru on all matters climatic – who will collate and report back. Thanks for your help...

The Death of Global Warming...

...has been formally announced by influential US commentator Walter Russell Mead... (and Mr Seal and his mates don't look too unhappy about it) H/T Wattie...

...The global warming movement as we have known it is dead. Its health had been in steady decline during the last year as the once robust hopes for a strong and legally binding treaty to be agreed upon at the Copenhagen Summit faded away. By the time that summit opened, campaigners were reduced to hoping for a ‘politically binding’ agreement to be agreed that would set the stage for the rapid adoption of the legally binding treaty. After the failure of the summit to agree to even that much, the movement went into a rapid decline.
The movement died from two causes: bad science and bad politics...Hyping the threat increasingly doesn’t look like an accident: it looks like it was a conscious political strategy.
Now it has failed. Not everything that has come out of the IPCC and the East Anglia Climate Unit is false, but enough of their product is sufficiently tainted that these institutions can best serve the cause of fighting climate change by stepping out of the picture...The global warming meltdown confirms all the populist suspicions out there about an arrogantly clueless establishment invoking faked ’science’ to impose cockamamie social mandates on the long-suffering American people, backed by a mainstream media that is totally in the tank...more here...

...leaving many questions still to be answered. One of them being, will Al The Fat Controller and The Railway Engineer say sorry for all the fuss, and give their Nobel's back ? And the UK Spectator covers the role of the bloggers, here...

...AND some timely words of caution from Climate Resistance...There is a curious consensus is emerging between some alarmists and some sceptics, that figures such as Phil Jones and Rajendra Pachauri ought to step down. On the one hand, this should be welcomed as an acknowledgement that there’s something wrong with the process. But it isn’t. Instead, it merely suggests that the problem with climate change alarmism has just been the failure of just a few individuals, bending a statistic here and there, or massaging data slightly when it’s inconvenient. This is not the case. If we start from the argument that the IPCC, and many other climate research institutes have been established (or have moved this way) to fulfil political needs, then the problem is the politics that existed well before that scientific process produced any data, corrupted or not...more here...

Australia will lead the world...

...in its response to climate change, and its leadership and pragmatic policies will advance its economic and political place in the world, poised on the Pacific rim. With northern hemisphere politicians and scientists hopelessly compromised by foolish prior commitments and predictions, based on their own shonky science and yesterday's ideology - and with no hope of curbing global CO2 emissions, particularly from the growing economic giants of India and China, Australia is about to embark on an analysis of climate change which will lead to policies that will not constrain its economy or jeapardise its environment. Australia will debate on and then develop its own energy solutions, and will take into account the development of a nuclear power industry. This article from Gary Johns, a minister in the Keating (Labour) government, gives a good overview of the (unique)Australian position and hints at the way ahead, particularly if Aussie voters have enough sense to elect Tony Abbott (above, with his eyes fixed on his prey)...

... The political prize will be awarded to the party that relieves (the public) of their dilemma; concern over climate change, even though there are no solutions to the apparent problem. Climate change has now peaked as an issue; the politics are just too hard...the opposition has promised to establish forums to further debate climate change policy. This sounds like the path to reposition the electorate to the only game in town on climate change: adaptation and investment in energy technology research and development...there is a risk to the environment in waiting for the technology to catch up, but that won't change the minds of several billion Chinese, Indians, Indonesians and South Americans.These people are not in the same game as the West, they want to lift their standard of living, and they will not be assisting in carbon abatement.
If in future historians of public policy dig through the entrails of climate change they will find a fascinating combination of millenarianism, ego-driven scientists, business that preferred to use the environment as a sales device, a propensity by governments to allow NGOs to get too close to the policy process, a media that mistook stunts for debate, lying former politicians, and current politicians who wanted to ride the hero's wave, retiring before their purported policies bore no fruit. There is good science and there is good economics, they each need time to guide the way. The job of the politician in this debate is to buy time...more here.

...And Stop Press ! wanker-by-definition head of greenpeace (UK) calls for Pachauri to go. Call me sentimental and old fashioned, but if the toads at greenpeace want him out, then maybe we should try rehab. for him...more here...

Granny gets it right...AT LAST...

... repeated signals from the the NZ Herald indicate a new degree of realism and respect for the AGW sceptical cause. This editorial this morning calls for new leadership with the IPCC; criticises our own climate researchers and recorders, and the local and international network of green left agitators including the WWF, keen to make political capital from the fable of so called "global warming"...

Climate debate needs facts, not anecdotes...More than one mistake has been found recently in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, set up by the United Nations to provide authoritative reports on global warming, and the errors are hardly peripheral...If the Himalayan debacle was bad enough, the panel references to disappearing ice in the Andes, the European Alps and Africa are even more embarrassing. They turn out to have been based on a student dissertation and an article in a climbing magazine...It is not encouraging to hear a New Zealand contributor to the report, climate scientist Jim Salinger, defending it on the grounds that it accords with interviews from somebody as illustrious as the late Sir Edmund Hillary...The IPCC's reputation is not helped now by the argument of authority its supporters have employed for so long. Criticism was dismissed as conceit in the face of a "scientific consensus" that by implication could not be wrong. Well the consensus has been wrong, or at least careless on several points...Governments need dispassionate scientific assessments of it, not anecdotes, unchecked papers and agitators' propaganda. The IPCC urgently needs new leadership and a return to strict scientific rigour if it hopes to be taken seriously again...more here...

What is missing from this editorial of course, is a mea culpa from the Herald for giving warmist hysteria such predominant cover for so long. What is also needed now are questions to the academies of science, including scientific publications of renown, who have colluded in this attempt to deceive the world. There is much more to come, and as the scandal unfolds fraud charges will need to be addressed...

...and The Washington Times editorial simply says...the man-caused catastrophic global warming theory is dead, and it needs to be buried. Evidence had been mounting for years that there were problems with the global warming model; most telling was that the globe refused to warm up. Carbon emissions continued apace, but the world began cooling. This is why true believers abandoned the "global warming" brand name and tried to shift the debate to the more ambiguous label "climate change," which is something the rest of us like to refer to as "weather." More, here...

...and this from the Irish Examiner...Careers, reputations, and bureaucracies now depend on there being a climate crisis. Al Gore collects a $200,000 fee for presentations, and that is possibly minor compared to what he will earn in carbon trading fees from Generation Investment Management, which he co-founded and which is an investor in the Chicago Climate Exchange. An article in The Wall Street Journal last October suggested that carbon permits could become the largest commodity market in the world, growing to as much as $3 trillion by 2030. Bernie Madoff got away with his Ponzi scheme for so long because people were afraid to question what he was doing. Surely we should be questioning the so-called global warming scam. More here...

Even the Guardian joins in...

...Fred Pearce today writes in the left leaning Guardian a surprising and uncompromising article that we may have expected in the more conservative and traditional Telegraph or the Times, headlined that...

...Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws...Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based. A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced...Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-­Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up"...more here...
...leading one of the many commenters to write...

...Finally the Guardian is acting like a serious and responsible newspaper. There is plenty more to uncover particularly the spurious link beween the findings of climate research and climate catastrophe. A good start. Now finish the job.

...Other bloggers have commented on the subtle change in media presentation and orientation re AGW after Copenhagen and Climategate. It is almost as if the MSM are collectively re-assessing where the issue is going and deciding to abandon the sinking ship. Now, if the New Scientist follows the Guardian example then that will be two swallows heralding spring...THIS too from the Guardian...

...A global deal to tackle climate change is all but impossible in 2010, leaving the scale and pace of action to slow global warming in coming decades uncertain, according to senior figures across the world involved in the negotiations.
"The forces trying to tackle climate change are in disarray, wandering in small groups around the battlefield like a beaten army," said a senior British diplomat.
An important factor cited is an impasse within the UN organisation charged with delivering a global deal, which today will start assessing the pledges made by individual countries by a deadline that passed last night.
Many of those contacted say only a legally binding deal setting "top-down" global limits on emissions can ultimately avoid the worst impacts of rising temperatures. But a global deal at the next major climate summit in Mexico is impossible, says the former deputy prime minister John Prescott, now the Council of Europe's rapporteur on climate change. "I don't care if it's government ministers or NGOs, if they think you can get a legal agreement all signed up by November in Mexico, I don't believe it." Similar opinions are being expressed worldwide...more here...

Lights! camera ! action !

...when the climate alarmists start to get skewered by the PC MSM (read TV) we will really know that we have traction... A note to Kiwi's re this post. John in this spoof is the voice of John Clarke, a.k.a. our old mate Fred Dagg. This script is a voice over to a 2 year old interview featuring John Clarke as the then Aussie PM; John Howard. Artistic license has substituted John Howard for Rudd's Environment Minister Penny Wong...

Kerry: Tonight, we’re joined by Senator Penny Wong.
Brian: Senator Wong, thanks for joining us – and may I add how lovely you look tonight.
John: Why, thank you Brian.
Brian: You’ve been pretty quiet lately, Senator.
John: Plenty to be quiet about Brian.
Brian: Such as?
John: Climategate, Copenhagen, conflict of interest, Glaciergate. Blizzards in the northern hemisphere. Anything to do with Climate Change, actually. It’s all gone to custard.
Brian: So it’s been a tough few months, then?
John: Been a mongrel, Brian, yes. First Climategate made us all look like a bunch of crooks. Then Copenhagen made us look like a bunch of stupid crooks. And…
Brian: And ???
John: Subsequent events have confirmed the earlier conclusions Brian. The UN head of climate change turns out to be a railway engineer who’s now on the gravy train, and it seems our peer reviewed glacier data is obtained over the phone from a gentleman in the Punjab.
Brian: Who is…?
John: A certified idiot Brian. And as of late, a highly respected and very well credentialed traveler on the gravy train as well.
Brian: Where the wheels are looking wobbly to the point of parting from the vehicle?
John: Cheers for that Brian. Can we change the subject please?
Brian: OK. So, err, Senator, any plans for the future?
John: Not much.
Brian: How about the ETS legislation in February?
John: Not much point really, is there Brian? Blind Freddy can see it’s a crock of it. A total waste of taxpayer’s resources and government’s time. Government exists to maintain and expand the social and economic well-being of its population – not to legislate natural events. No responsible government would even contemplate such a thing.
Brian: Then what will you do instead?
John: After disbanding the Department for Climate Change?
Brian: Dismantle your own department?
John: Of course. It’s about as useful as tits on a bull right now Brian. Yep. Disband the department, resign from parliament and then I think I’ll renovate the en-suite and put in a home entertainment room.
Brian: (Gobsmacked) What!?
John: Home entertainment room Brian. A lot of houses have them these days.
Brian: (Spluttering) Resign?
John: Sorry, should have mentioned it earlier. The Labor Party will be resigning on Monday. We’ll probably be the first government in history to resign in protest at their own incompetence. Brian: (Still gobsmacked.) The Labor Party?
John: Only the feds Brian. Though I hear the New South Wales guys reckon it could be a good idea as well. Kevin might stick around to run a garage sale and hand over the keys. The best thing we can do for the country Brian.
Brian: You can’t be serious!
John: (Laughing) ‘Course not Brian. When do you want to start the interview?

When the establishment's media darlings show some courage and lampoon their traditional liberal political allies and the laughing starts, it's all over...H/T Jo Nova...

...and breaking news...Abbott unveils coalition climate policy...here... and Kevin Rudd warns his troops...there is "no guarantee" Labor will win the next election in the wake of a shock Newspoll finding that the Coalition has overtaken Labor on the primary vote.
The Prime Minister said today the reality was that Mr Abbott would be prime minister if two or three people in 100 changed their vote at the next election...more here..