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...

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...

From the Manchester Guardian again...

...an organ which risks becoming a regular source of global warming scepticism (in spite of the over-excited George "Moonbeam" Monbiot, its environmental editor), this from Patrick Michaels...

...so, Antarctic cooling and warming are both now consistent with computer models of dreaded global warming caused by humans. In reality, the warming is largely at the beginning of the record – before there should have been much human-induced climate change. New claims that both warming and cooling of the same place are consistent with forecasts isn't going to help the credibility of climate science, and, or reduce the fatigue of Americans regarding global warming. Have climate alarmists beaten global warming to death? The Pew Research Centre recently asked over 1,500 people to rank 20 issues in order of priority. Global warming came in dead last. We can never run the experiment to see if indeed it is the constant hyping of this issue that has sent it to the bottom of the priority ladder. But, as long as scientists blog on that both warming and cooling of the coldest place on earth is consistent with their computer models, why should anyone believe them? More here...

...and again in the Guardian, this time from Bjorn Lomborg (right), re the forthcoming round of climate change talks in Copenhagen. (Waterloo may be a more apt venue for the alarmists,)... doomed to failure he thinks... more here...

...and Roger Pielke Snr. alerts us to the curse of "yellow journalism"...
...since papers and weblogs have documented that the warming is being over-estimated in recent years, and, thus, these sources of information are readily available to the reporters, there is, therefore, no other alternative than these reporters are deliberately selecting a biased perspective to promote a particular viewpoint on climate. The reporting of this news without presenting counter viewpoints is clearly an example of yellow journalism;
“Journalism that exploits, distorts, or exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract readers.”
When will the news media and others realize that by presenting such biased reports, which are easily refuted by real world data, they are losing their credibility among many in the scientific community as well as with the public...more here

...and a very interesting (albeit a bit pointy headed) debate re AGW at Skeptiko, here...