The tipping point has been reached...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why the long face Al ?

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

...There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday. The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row. Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years. In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.” However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.” Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore. The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming. Mr Gore is not the only titan of the world stage finding Copenhagen to be a tricky deal. World leaders — with Gordon Brown arriving tonight in the vanguard — are facing the humiliating prospect of having little of substance to sign on Friday, when they are supposed to be clinching an historic deal...more here...

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

What progressive really means to red greens...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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 ?