Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[a_majoor]

And a little reminder as to why the climate alarmists are so shrill:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/11/james-hansen-and-the-corruption-of-science.php

James Hansen and the Corruption of Science 

Posted on November 20, 2011 by John Hinderaker in Climate
James Hansen and the Corruption of Science

It recently came out that James Hansen, one of the two or three most prominent global warming alarmists on whose work the IPCC reports rest, “forgot” to report $1.6 million in outside income, as required by his government contracts. Is that significant? Well, yes: A handful of scientists, including Hansen, have gotten wealthy on climate alarmism. They have an enormous financial interest in the faux science they have done so much to perpetrate. It is more likely that the Pope would renounce Christianity than that Hansen, Michael Mann, etc., would change their minds about global warming, regardless of the evidence. (I say that because the Pope has far more intellectual integrity than the climate alarmists.)

Beyond that handful of leading alarmists, if you are involved in any way in climate science, you have a financial interest in alarmism. Even minor climate scientists get consulting contracts and are invited to present papers in exotic locales. And if you are not an alarmist, you have little or no chance of cashing in on the billions of dollars in government grants for climate research. Essentially, the closed world of climate “science” has been bought and paid for, largely with our tax dollars. Under these circumstances, it is remarkable that so many real scientists have been willing to forgo financial advantage and blow the whistle on the alarmists’ frauds.

Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, comments:

    NASA’s James Hansen is back in the news for two reasons. He has a new paper claiming that the Moscow heat wave during 2010 and the Texas heat wave during 2011 provide a form of statistical proof of global warming. The pause in warming must be justified somehow! The study was quickly refuted by several commentators, most devastatingly by Lubos Motl.

    The second reason Hansen is in the news is that he failed to report some $1,600,000 of outside income over several years as required by his contract for government employment. Normally, TWTW would not bother with such, but this is an exception for a number of reasons. One, in 1988 with great publicity, Hansen announced with great certainty that global warming threatens humanity. Two, with great publicity, Hansen declared that President Bush was trying to muzzle him. And, three, he was cited as the scientific advisor of Al Gore’s scientifically disgraceful film. Apparently, Hansen believes that his celebrity status exempts him from the regulations that govern other government scientists.

We can’t say it enough: global warming alarmism is not science. It is politics at best, outright fraud at worst.

 

[Haletown]

And a little reminder as to why the climate alarmists are so shrill:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/11/james-hansen-and-the-corruption-of-science.php

That's how the scam works.

Create fear & hysteria about global warming

Great rich off the scam

Don't report the riches and don't pay taxes



http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

After the clearly demonstrated lack of ethics of all the major proponents of AGW alarmism, you have to wonder who is stupid enough to take what they say at face value any more?

In all seriousness, despite best of intentions, you have to live under a rock not to have heard about Gore, Pauchiri, Hansen and Mann's conflicts of interest....the Greenpeace staffers writing the IPCC report, and obviously the ClimateGate Emails.

It's truly an insight in human nature that people are far more comfortable having their existing views reinforced by liars and spin doctors, then to take the time to critically assess what's actually going on, and change their world views as new information becomes available. 

At this point anyone who doesn't see AGW alarmism is a faith-based belief is truly missing the point....and we all know how easy it is to argue with someone about their religion.

Yikes....

 

[Fishbone Jones]

That's how the scam works.

Create fear & hysteria about global warming

Great rich off the scam

Don't report the riches and don't pay taxes



http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/

It wouldn't suprise me if some of these 'scientists' were also part of the Y2K computer scam. Same con game, different subject.

Just keep hyping the latest scare and stay rich.

 

[Haletown]

Climategate  deju vu

http://tinyurl.com/6vx7497

Thousands of new emails to be digested on the eve of Durban COP.

Another nail to drive in the coffin of the Great Hysterical Global Warming Catastrophic Climate Change  We Are All Gonna Die Scam.

 

[Haletown]

Now that folks have had some time to start reading the emails . . . . 


'FOIA 2011 is right, of course. If you're going to bomb the global economy back to the dark ages with environmental tax and regulation, if you're going to favour costly, landscape-blighting, inefficient renewables over real, abundant, relatively cheap energy that works like shale gas and oil, if you're going to cause food riots and starvation in the developing world by giving over farmland (and rainforests) to biofuel production, then at the very least you it owe to the world to base your policies on sound, transparent, evidence-based science rather than on the politicised, disingenuous junk churned out by the charlatans at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100119087/uh-oh-global-warming-loons-here-comes-climategate-ii/

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[a_majoor]

Climategate 2. These people are supposed to be scientists, but never seem to learn or change their behaviour:

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/11/22/breaking-climategate-two/

Breaking: Climategate Two

Anthony Watts and Jeff Id — and I don’t know how many others — got links this morning to a new bundle of 170 megabytes (compressed) of new emails from the same old people. Apparently FOIA.org has taken the position that these people are consuming money that could be better used.

I haven’t managed to download the files myself yet (it was 4AM, I was asleep, I’m sorry) but Jeff and others have identified some, ahem, interesting emails. The selections I’ve read so far suggest, again, that the “consensus” is political, not scientific: there is a lot more controversy than we hear about, and in several cases people raise or confirm the same objections that people like Steve McIntyre have been making for years.

It also explains why Michael Mann is so anxious not to have his emails released to Chris Horner.

On temperature reconstruction a la Mann’s “hockey stick”:

Wilson:

any method that incorporates all forms of uncertainty and error will
undoubtedly result in reconstructions with wider error bars than we currently
have. These many be more honest, but may not be too helpful for model
comparison attribution studies. We need to be careful with the wording I think.
Jones:

what he [Zwiers] has done comes to a different conclusion than Caspar and Gene!
I reckon this can be saved by careful wording.
Mitchell/MetO

Is the PCA approach robust? Are the results statistically significant? It seems
to me that in the case of MBH the answer in each is no
Wilson:

I thought I’d play around with some randomly generated time-series and see if I
could ‘reconstruct’ northern hemisphere temperatures.
[...] The reconstructions clearly show a ‘hockey-stick’ trend. I guess this is
precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about.
Bradley:

I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should
never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year
“reconstruction”.
Osborn:

Because how can we be critical of Crowley for throwing out 40-years in the
middle of his calibration, when we’re throwing out all post-1960 data ‘cos the
MXD has a non-temperature signal in it, and also all pre-1881 or pre-1871 data
‘cos the temperature data may have a non-temperature signal in it!
Esper:

Now, you Keith complain about the way we introduced our result, while saying it
is an important one. [...] the IPCC curve needs to be improved according to
missing long-term declining trends/signals, which were removed (by
dendrochronologists!) before Mann merged the local records together. So, why
don’t you want to let the result into science?
Cook:

I am afraid that Mike is defending something that increasingly can not be
defended. He is investing too much personal stuff in this and not letting the
science move ahead.
Cook:

One problem is that he [Mann] will be using the RegEM method, which provides no
better diagnostics (e.g. betas) than his original method. So we will still not
know where his estimates are coming from.

And a link to the emails for any Climategate deniers out there:

Here’s a bit torrent link to the FOIA2011.zip file

https://remote.utorrent.com/send?btih=EBD36AFC51AFEF4486028C1940739E6112964629&dn=FOIA2011.zip&message=&sid=e0c7873&cid=6592169267
You’ll need a bit torrent client

BETTER LINK:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ROCGBR37

 

[Haletown]

Dellers summarizes:

Stage 1: they aren’t real emails
Stage 2: they are real emails but they aren’t in context
Stage 3: they are in context, but that’s how scientists work
Stage 4: ok, this isn’t really science, but you guys stole the emails!
Stage 5: this is old stuff
Stage 6: this is nothing
Stage 7: look everyone! Winter storm! See, we have proof of our theories now.

Repeat as needed

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100119271/climategate-2-0-the-warmists-seven-stages-of-grief/

 

[a_majoor]

Climategate 2; the gift that keeps on giving:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/23/mr-david-palmer-explains-the-problem/

Mr. David Palmer Explains The Problem
Posted on November 23, 2011 by Willis Eschenbach

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Whoever took the Climategate emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) are certainly playing the long game. Two whole years they waited before publishing the second group of 5,292 CRU emails, now known as Climategate 2.0. Impressive. I’m mentioned in 17 of the emails, because I made the first Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request to Phil Jones and the CRU to release his taxpayer-funded temperature data collection. Phil at the time was the head of the CRU. His data collection was and is the basis for one of the major global temperature records.

At the time they fobbed me off using a succession of excuses. They claimed the information was available on the web. But they were unable to say where. They put me off and put me off. My contemporaneous account of the CRU and the FOI lunacy is a posting on ClimateAudit entitled [color-black]“Measuring Precipitation on Willis’ Boots“.[/color] (Not my title, that was Steve McIntyre’s). You should read it first for a concise background, it’s important for understanding the following story. I’ll wait here while you read it …

Eventually, after much time, long after I’d given up the chase as hopeless, the CRU folks admitted that the reason they didn’t release the data was that they didn’t have the data. Somewhere along the line, it had been lost.

Mr. David Palmer was the Freedom of Information Officer for the CRU at the time. In the newly released emails, he expresses his frustration with the whole procedure. I absolutely love his honesty at the time, but unfortunately, it’s a shame he didn’t say the same thing publicly. These latest emails fill in some very interesting holes in the story with new information that wasn’t revealed in the first set of Climategate emails.

From David Palmer to Phil Jones, regarding my FOI request, email #1184, April 2007 (emphasis mine):

    Gents,

    My head is beginning to spin here but I read this as meaning that he wants the raw station data; we don’t know which data belongs to which station, correct?  Our letter stated:

    “We can, however, send a list of all stations used, but  without sources. This would include locations, names and lengths of record,  although the latter are no guide as to the completeness of the series.”

    Can we put this on the web?  Perhaps I am being really thick here but I’m not sure if putting this on the web will actually satisfy Mr. Eschenbach - we’ve said we don’t have data sources, he says the external websites don’t have them, so who does? Are we back to the NMS’s? [National Meteorological Services  -w.]  I am happy to give this one more go, stating exactly what we are putting on the web and seeing if that suffices. Should Mr. Eschenbach still insist that we actually possess the information in the form he requests, I can then only give the file to Kitty Inglis for review and then we move on formally….

    Cheers, Dave

Dave is right, there’s yer problem. “We don’t know which data belongs to which station, correct?”. That’s staggering, it’s gotta be in the running for some kind of truth in advertising award. Shame he wasn’t that honest with me. Instead, he worked hard to obscure that fact.

Phil Jones isn’t having any of it, though. He replies to David Palmer’s email on 23 April 2007 (emphasis again mine)

    Dave,

    …

    I do not want to make the raw data available, as it will involve more and more requests. We make the gridded data available and that should be enough.

    I think it would be worthwhile having a meeting involving a few more people in the light of the Keenan letter and what has been said on the Climate Audit website from Friday.

    This to my mind is bullying and virtual harrasment. This is not for any reasonable scientific point. It is quite simply harrasment. These people are self appointed.

    Cheers

    Phil

My conclusion after all this time is that Phil truly didn’t get it. He actually didn’t understand. He was not the owner of private data. He was the curator of public data. He didn’t understand that FOI requests are legal documents. Throughout the whole episode he treated them as some kind of optional request to grant or not as he saw fit. In this he was aided and abetted by David Palmer.

Upon reading this email, I was very curious to find out what had gotten Phil’s knickers in a twist regarding “what has been said on the Climate Audit website from Friday”. Upon looking up the ClimateAudit post from Friday, April 20, 2007, I laughed when I found out that what Phil was referring to as “bullying and virtual harassment” was the post I cited above and requested that you read. I’m sure you picked up on how I was “bullying and virtually harassing” Professor Jones.

So that was what Phil was complaining about—me pointing out the foolishness of their various excuses. And on that basis he said that would not make the raw data available, as though me laughing at his transparent dodges were a valid exemption to an FOI request.

I note that over at RealClimate they are desperately trying to spin this as two-year-old turkey. However, it’s not just my case that has new information. Regarding a host of other issues, the recent emails contain much previously unrevealed evidence of the perfidy, subversion, misdirection, and malfeasance practiced by the Climategate un-indicted co-conspirators. Among many other things, they provide clear evidence of the destruction of incriminating emails. This was not just “boys will be boys”. This was the leading lights of the AGW supporting scientists, working together to deny access to publicly funded climate data, and twisting, bending and breaking the scientific norms, FOI regulations, and possibly the law in the process. And that’s just what they did in my case, that doesn’t even begin to touch their other misdeeds that they discuss in detail.

The discouraging part is that, to this day, not a person among them has admitted that they did anything incorrect in the slightest. Not one has acknowledged that they went a ways, not just a little ways, but a long ways over the line of ethics, morality, and honesty. No one has said they did a single thing wrong, no one has admitted they evaded an honest FOI request. Silence.

And silence, unfortunately, has also been the overwhelming response of the climate science community to their misdeeds. The miscreants say nothing, their supporters say nothing, they keep awarding each other honors and prizes, and they hope it will go away.

Ah, well. The saddest part is that the new revelations of the unthinking, off-hand venality of these main scientists of the AGW movement have lost their power to shock. That is a tragedy for climate science in particular and for science in general.

Finally, my particular thanks to Steve McIntyre for his part in all of this. Not that he advised me or told me to file the FOI in question, he didn’t do either. That was my own idea and choice. But his dogged persistence, his insistence on and demonstration of transparency of code and data, and his general Canadian generosity, honesty, and geniality have been an inspiration to me. His work is generally an example of the scientific method at its cleanest.

My best regards to all,

w.

PS—Interestingly, whoever released the emails also released a whole host of other CRU emails in a password protected archive. The purpose of this archive remains obscure, and the password has not been provided. At a minimum the publication of the archive ensures that the other emails will not be lost in a hard drive crash, or seized by the authorities. Whether it constitutes a warning or a message, and to whom it might be addressed, is unclear. Grab a beer and some popcorn, this story’s not over.

 

[Haletown]

Ooopsy!

"“Global warming rate less than feared: study”:

    High levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may have less of an impact on the rate of global warming than feared, a study said Thursday.  The authors of the study funded by the US National Science Foundation stressed that global warming is real, and that increases in atmospheric CO2, which has doubled from pre-industrial standards, will have multiple serious impacts. 

    But the more severe estimates, such as those put forth by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are unlikely, the researchers found in their study published in the journal Science…."

Sorry about that little mistake . . .  what's a few hundred $billion in bad Public Policy decisions around the world.

http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/11/24/study-funded-by-national-science-foundation-concludes-global-warming-rate-less-than-feared/

 

[a_majoor]

More to bury the Climategate deniers:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2066240/Second-leak-climate-emails-Political-giants-weigh-bias-scientists-bowing-financial-pressure-sponsors.html

Climategate scientists DID collude with government officials to hide research that didn't fit their apocalyptic global warming

    5,000 leaked emails reveal scientists deleted evidence that cast doubt on claims climate change was man-made
    Experts were under orders from US and UK officials to come up with a 'strong message'
    Critics claim: 'The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering'
    Scientist asks, 'What if they find that climate change is a natural fluctuation? They'll kill us all'

By Rob Waugh

Last updated at 11:13 PM on 25th November 2011

 
Former Chancellor Nigel Lawson was strongly critical of those who supported the 'Climategate' scientists

More than 5,000 documents have been leaked online purporting to be the correspondence of climate scientists at the University of East Anglia who were previously accused of ‘massaging’ evidence of man-made climate change.

Following on from the original 'climategate' emails of 2009, the new package appears to show systematic suppression of evidence, and even publication of reports that scientists knew to to be based on flawed approaches.

And not only do the emails paint a picture of scientists manipulating data, government employees at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are also implicated.

One message appeared to show a member of Defra staff telling colleagues working on climate science to give the government a ‘strong message’.

The emails paint a clear picture of scientists selectively using data, and colluding with politicians to misuse scientific information.

‘Humphrey’, said to work at Defra, writes: ‘I cannot overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the government can give on climate change to help them tell their story.

'They want their story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made to look foolish.’

Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the centre of the affair, said the group findings did stand up to scrutiny.

Yet one of the newly released emails, written by Prof. Jones  - who is working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - said: 'Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden.

'I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.'

The University of East Anglia, where most of the emails originated - none of the newly released emails appear to be post 2009, but clarify the extent of government involvement in the scandal

In another of his emails, he wrote: 'I’ve been told that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is above national Freedom of Information Acts.

'One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process.'

More...

    Climate change fears 'have been exaggerated' say scientists who claim apocalyptic predictions are unlikely

Other scientists are clearly against such a policy, but some seemed happy to collude with concealing and destroying evidence.

One nervous scientist wrote: 'The figure you sent is very deceptive.'

'I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run,' wrote another.

The lead author of one of the reports, Jonathan Overpeck, wrote, 'The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guide what’s included and what is left out.'

A weak performance by Environment Secretary Chris Huhne on Question Time has helped to inflame the row over the second leak of private  UEA emails  - now described as Climategate 2.0.

Former Chancellor Nigel Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation warned against ignoring 'shortcomings' in a letter strongly critical of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It said: 'The BBC, in determining its policy towards the coverage of global warming, which is of course not simply a scientific issue but an economic and a political issue, too, ought to shred that section of the Jones review and revert to the impartiality laid down in its charter.'

He was also strongly critical of sections of the media who lent support to the scientists.

Andrew Orlwowski, UK science site The Register's science correspondent comments on one email that says, 'What if climate change turns out to be a natural fluctuation? They'll kill us all'

'The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering.'

Orlowski says, 'That won't be necessary.'

Clive Crook, a commentator for the Atlantic, who described the earlier inquiries into the Climategate emails as 'ineffectual' and 'mealy mouthed', reportedly said, 'The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me.

'The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering.'

There is other correspondence from scientists such as Prof Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Centre at Penn State University, some of which have a distinct feel of PR 'spin'.

The release of the information echoes the 'Climategate' leaks of hacked private emails two years ago ahead of crunch climate talks in Copenhagen that referred to ways to ‘hide the decline’ in global warming.

A series of independent reviews cleared the East Anglia researchers of impropriety, but they were told they had been too secretive.

Today's leak may also be timed to disrupt the next session of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change next week in South Africa.

The new email leak is accompanied by a text file which appears to protest against the huge expense of anti-warming technologies - highlighting deaths from poverty against the $36 billion expense of 'green' energy

The emails have been released in the form of quotes carefully 'chosen' to show bias, or that scientists were pursuing a particular agenda in their research.

The unnamed individuals who released them chose the 5,000 emails from keyword searches, saying, 'We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics.'

The emails were posted on a Russian server - Sinwt.ru - as a downloadable ZIP file in an apparent attempt to cause disruption in advance of next week's climate change conference in Durban.

They were rapidly reposted on climate-sceptic blogs such as The Air Vent.

It is not clear, though, whether they are new, or indeed whether they indicate any kind of conspiracy.

The release of the data was accompanied by a 'press release' in the form of a readme file, which said, 'Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.'

'Poverty is a death sentence. Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.'

'Today's decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline,' said the file.

The identity of the people who posted it was not revealed - although the clear political statement is new.

The file also contains more than 200,000 other emails, which are encrypted, and no password is provided.

Presumably, this is to protect the individuals involved - or simply because the material is so non-controversial or boring that it's not worth releasing.

The University of East Anglia has not confirmed whether the material is genuine.

None of the material appears to be new, either: it seems to date from the first release in 2009.

It also occurs against a rather different scientific background, after  the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature review of climate-science data by prominent climate sceptic Richard Muller, which analysed 1.6 billion temperature records, and concluded that global warming was a genuine effect.

It is still unclear what effect - or combination of effects - is causing the current warming of the atmosphere, which has risen around one temperature in the past 50 years.

Professor Mann, speaking to the Guardian, described the release as 'truly pathetic.'

'Well, they look like mine but I hardly see anything that appears damning at all, despite them having been taken out of context.

'I guess they had very little left to work with, having culled in the first round the emails that could most easily be taken out of context to try to make me look bad.'

A police investigation is ongoing.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2066240/Second-leak-climate-emails-Political-giants-weigh-bias-scientists-bowing-financial-pressure-sponsors.html#ixzz1epsOZRop

 

[a_majoor]

Consensus? Really?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/scientists_in_revolt_against_global_warming.html#ixzz1ev1k9h7u

Scientists in Revolt against Global Warming
By Karin McQuillan

Global warming became a cause to save life on earth before it had a chance to become good science.  The belief that fossil fuel use is an emergency destroying our planet by CO2 emissions took over the media and political arena by storm.  The issue was politicized so quickly that the normal scientific process was stunted.  We have never had a full, honest national debate on either the science or government policy issues.

Everyone "knows" that global warming is true.  The public has no idea of the number of scientists -- precisely one thousand at last count of a congressional committee -- who believe that global warming is benign and natural, and that it ended in 1998.  We have not been informed of the costs to our economy of discouraging fossil fuel development and promoting alternatives.  The public need to know the choices being made on their behalf, and to have a say in the matter.  We are constantly told that the scientific and policy debate on global warming is over.  It has just begun.

What is never discussed is this: the theory of global warming has catastrophic implications for our economy and national security.  Case in point: Obama's recent decision to block the Keystone pipeline in order to placate global warming advocates.  Key Democrat supporters fear the use of oil more than they care about losing jobs or our dangerous dependence on the Mideast for oil.  The president delayed the pipeline by fiat, and the general public has had no say.  (For the impact on our economy, see my article, "The Whole Country Can Be Rich.")

President Obama has spoken out passionately on the danger of developing oil and gas because of man-made global warming.  "What we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return.  And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe."

Obama calls for the debate to end.  He cites hurricanes as proof: "dangerous weather patterns and devastating storms are abruptly putting an end to the long-running debate over whether or not climate change is real.  Not only is it real -- it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster."

Happily, our president is wrong.  The worst hurricanes were in 1926, the second-worst in 1900.  The world's top hurricane experts say that there is no evidence that global warming affects storms.  There is no such thing as a man-made hurricane.  Storm cycles and long patterns of bad weather are entirely natural.  Yet this good news is suppressed by our politicized media.  We hear only one side.

More and more scientists are revolting against the global warming consensus enforced by government funding, the academic establishment, and media misrepresentation.  They are saying that solar cycles and the complex systems of cloud formation have much more influence on our climate, and account for historical periods of warming and cooling much more accurately that a straight line graph of industrialization, CO2, and rising temperatures.  They also point out that the rising temperatures that set off the global warming panic ended in 1998.

It takes a lot of courage.  Scientists who report findings that contradict man-made global warming find their sources of funding cut, their jobs terminated, their careers stunted, and their reports blocked from important journals, and they are victimized by personal attacks. This is a consensus one associates with a Stalinist system, not science in the free world.

Here is how it has worked.  The theory that entirely natural sun cycles best explain warming patterns emerged years ago, but the Danish scientists "soon found themselves vilified, marginalized and starved of funding, despite their impeccable scientific credentials."  Physicists at Europe's most prestigious CERN laboratory tried to test the solar theory in 1996, and they, too, found their project blocked.  This fall, the top scientific journal Nature published the first experimental proof -- by a team of 63 scientists at CERN -- that the largest factor in global warming is the sun, not humans.  But the director of CERN forbade the implications of the experiment to be explained to the public: "I have asked the colleagues to present the results clearly, but not to interpret them.  That would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate."

As more and more scientific evidence is published that debunks global warming, the enforced consensus is ending.  The Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific institution -- whose previous president declared that "the debate on climate change is over" -- "is being forced to review its statements on climate change after a rebellion by members who question mankind's contribution to rising temperatures. ... The society has been accused by 43 of its Fellows of refusing to accept dissenting views on climate change and exaggerating the degree of certainty that man-made emissions are the main cause."  Most of the rebels were retired, as one of them explained, "One of the reasons people like myself are willing to put our heads above the parapet is that our careers are not at risk from being labeled a denier or flat-Earther because we say the science is not settled. The bullying of people into silence has unfortunately been effective."

In America, Dr. Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize-winner in physics, resigned in protest from the American Physical Society this fall because of the Society's policy statement: "The evidence is incontrovertible: global warming is occurring."  Dr. Giaver:

    Incontrovertible is not a scientific word. Nothing is incontrovertible in science.

    In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?

    The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this "warming" period.

In 2008, Prof. Giaever endorsed Barack Obama's candidacy, but he has since joined 100 scientists who wrote an open letter to Obama, declaring: "We maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated."

Do a Google search: you will find this letter reported in Britain and even India, but not in America.

Fifty-one thousand Canadian engineers, geologists, and geophysicists were recently polled by their professional organization. Sixty-eight percent of them disagree with the statement that "the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled."  Only 26% attributed global warming to "human activity like burning fossil fuels."  APEGGA's executive director Neil Windsor said, "We're not surprised at all. There is no clear consensus of scientists that we know of."

Dr. Joanne Simpson, one of the world's top weather scientists, expressed relief upon her retirement that she was finally free to speak "frankly" on global warming and announce that "as a scientist I remain skeptical."  She says she remained silent for fear of personal attacks.  Dr. Simpson was a pioneer in computer modeling and points out the obvious: computer models are not yet good enough to predict weather -- we cannot scientifically predict global climate trends.

Dr. Fred Singer, first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, and physicist Dr. Seitz, past president of the APS, of Rockefeller University and of the National Academy of Science, argue that the computer models are fed questionable data and assumptions that determine the answers on global warming that the scientists expect to see.

Recently we've had a perfect example of the enforced global warming consensus falling apart.  Berkeley Professor Muller did a media blitz with the findings of the latest analysis of all land temperature data, the BEST study, that he claimed once and for all proved that the planet is warming.  Predictably, the Washington Post proclaimed that the BEST study had "settled the climate change debate" and showed that anyone who remained a skeptic was committing a "cynical fraud."

But within a week, Muller's lead co-author, Professor Curry, was interviewed in the British press (not reported in America), saying that the BEST data did the opposite: the global "temperature trend of the last decade is absolutely flat, with no increase at all - though the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have carried on rising relentlessly."

    This is nowhere near what the climate models were predicting," Prof Curry said.  "Whatever it is that's going on here, it doesn't look like it's being dominated by CO2."  In fact, she added, in the wake of the unexpected global warming standstill, many climate scientists who had previously rejected sceptics' arguments were now taking them much more seriously.  They were finally addressing questions such as the influence of clouds, natural temperature cycles and solar radiation - as they should have done, she said, a long time ago.

Other scientists jumped in, calling Muller's false claims to the media that BEST proved global warming "highly unethical."  Professor Muller, confronted with dissent, caved and admitted that indeed, both ocean and land measurements show that global warming stopped increasing in 1998.

Media coverage on global warming has been criminally one-sided.  The public doesn't know where the global warming theory came from in the first place.  Answer: the U.N., not a scientific body.  The threat of catastrophic warming was launched by the U.N. to promote international climate treaties that would transfer wealth from rich countries to developing countries.  It was political from the beginning, with the conclusion assumed: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (U.N. IPCC) was funded to report on how man was changing climate.  Its scientific reports have been repeatedly corrected for misrepresentation and outright fraud.

This is important.  Global warming theory did not come from a breakthrough in scientific research that enabled us to understand our climate.  We still don't understand global climate any more than we understand the human brain or how to cure cancer.  The science of global climate is in its infancy.

Yet the U.N. IPCC reports drive American policy.  The EPA broke federal law requiring independent analysis and used the U.N. IPCC reports in its "endangerment" finding that justifies extreme regulatory actions.  Senator Inhofe is apoplectic:

    Global warming regulations imposed by the Obama-EPA under the Clean Air Act will cost American consumers $300 to $400 billion a year, significantly raise energy prices, and destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs. This is not to mention the 'absurd result' that EPA will need to hire 230,000 additional employees and spend an additional $21 billion to implement its [greenhouse gas] regime.

Former top scientists at the U.N. IPCC are protesting publicly against falsification of global warming data and misleading media reports.  Dr. John Everett, for example, was the lead researcher on Fisheries, Polar Regions, Oceans and Coastal Zones at the IPCC and a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) senior manager, and he received an award while at NOAA for "accomplishments in assessing the impacts of climate change on global oceans and fisheries."  Here is what he has to say on global warming:

    It is time for a reality check. Warming is not a big deal and is not a bad thing. The oceans and coastal zones have been far warmer and colder than is projected in the present scenarios ... I would much rather have the present warm climate, and even further warming...No one knows whether the Earth is going to keep warming, or since reaching a peak in 1998, we are at the start of a cooling cycle that will last several decades or more.

That is why we must hear from all the best scientists, not only those who say fossil fuel use is dangerous.  It is very important that we honestly discuss whether this theory is true and, if so, what reasonable steps we can afford to take to mitigate warming.  If the theory is not based on solid science, we are free to develop our fossil fuel wealth responsibly and swiftly.

Instead, federal policies are based on global warming fears.  Obama has adopted the California model.  The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 has shed a million jobs in that state.  California now has almost 12% unemployment, ranking 50th in the nation.

The country could be following North Dakota, where oil development has led to a 3.5% unemployment rate, or Texas, which has created 40% of the jobs nationwide since the 2009 economic crash thanks to its robust energy sector.  These are good jobs.  An entry-level job on an oil rig pays $70,000 a year.  A roughneck with a high school diploma earns $100,000 a year in Wyoming's Jonah Fields.  Brazil's new offshore oil discoveries are predicted to create 2 million jobs there.  We have almost three times more oil than Brazil.

When we treat oil and gas companies like pariahs, we threaten America's economic viability.  For global warming alarmists who believe that man-made CO2 threatens life on earth, no cost is too high to fight it.  They avert their eyes from the human suffering of people without jobs, with diminished life savings, limited future prospects, and looming national bankruptcy.

This is not all about idealism. There are crasser reasons of money and power for wanting to close the debate.  Billions of dollars in federal grants and subsidies are spent to fight global warming.  The cover of fighting to save the planet gives the government unlimited powers to intrude into private business and our individual homes.  The government can reach its long arm right into your shower and control how much hot water you are allowed to use.  In the words of MIT atmospheric scientist Dr. Lindzen, "[c]ontrolling carbon is kind of a bureaucrat's dream.  If you control carbon, you control life."

Warming advocates persistently argue that we cannot afford to pause for a reality check; we must not ignore the possibility that global warming theory might be true.  Limiting fossil fuels and promoting green energy are presented as a benign, a "why not be on the safe side," commonsense approach.

There is a lot of emotion and little common sense in this argument.  If a diagnosis is based on a shaky and partly fraudulent theory, ignores much more convincing evidence, and has terrible negative side effects, you don't perform major surgery.  We do not have to run around like Chicken Little on the off-chance that the sky may be falling.

There has been a high economic cost to limiting our oil and gas wealth, with much human anguish because of government-imposed economic contraction.  Responsible government policy requires honest media coverage, unfettered scientific inquiry, and robust political debate.  Our country cannot afford the costs of foolish energy policy based on politicized science and fear.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/scientists_in_revolt_against_global_warming.html#ixzz1exsq0zvn

 

[TheHead]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OB2prBtVFo&feature=feedu

This pretty much shuts down the second last article.  Did you manage to check the context of the quotes in that article?   

 

[GAP]

Canada to pull out of Kyoto Protocol next month
Article Link
CTVNews.ca Staff Sun. Nov. 27 2011

Canada will announce next month that it will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, CTV News has learned.

The Harper government has tentatively planned an announcement for a few days before Christmas, CTV's Roger Smith reported Sunday evening.

The developments come as Environment Minister Peter Kent prepares for a climate conference in Durban, South Africa that opens on Monday, with delegates from 190 countries seeking a new international agreement for cutting emissions.

Issues on the agenda include extending the Kyoto emission targets, a move being championed by Christiana Figueres, head of the UN climate secretariat.

Kent said in the House of Commons on Nov. 22 he won't sign a document at the Durban conference that extends the Kyoto targets.

"Canada goes to Durban with a number of countries sharing the same objective, and that is to put Kyoto behind us," Kent said.
More on link

 

[a_majoor]

In this context, the comments on the survival of Zoroastrianism is frightening:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203935604577066183761315576.html

The Great Global Warming Fizzle
The climate religion fades in spasms of anger and twitches of boredom.

    By BRET STEPHENS
    Like this columnist

How do religions die? Generally they don't, which probably explains why there's so little literature on the subject. Zoroastrianism, for instance, lost many of its sacred texts when Alexander sacked Persepolis in 330 B.C., and most Zoroastrians converted to Islam over 1,000 years ago. Yet today old Zoroaster still counts as many as 210,000 followers, including 11,000 in the U.S. Christopher Hitchens might say you can't kill what wasn't there to begin with.

Still, Zeus and Apollo are no longer with us, and neither are Odin and Thor. Among the secular gods, Marx is mostly dead and Freud is totally so. Something did away with them, and it's worth asking what.

Consider the case of global warming, another system of doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen.

As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate. As with religion, it comes with an elaborate list of virtues, vices and indulgences. As with religion, its claims are often non-falsifiable, hence the convenience of the term "climate change" when thermometers don't oblige the expected trend lines. As with religion, it is harsh toward skeptics, heretics and other "deniers." And as with religion, it is susceptible to the earthly temptations of money, power, politics, arrogance and deceit.

This week, the conclave of global warming's cardinals are meeting in Durban, South Africa, for their 17th conference in as many years. The idea is to come up with a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire next year, and to require rich countries to pony up $100 billion a year to help poor countries cope with the alleged effects of climate change. This is said to be essential because in 2017 global warming becomes "catastrophic and irreversible," according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency.

Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the climate apocalypse. Namely, the financial apocalypse.

The U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and the EU have all but confirmed they won't be signing on to a new Kyoto. The Chinese and Indians won't make a move unless the West does. The notion that rich (or formerly rich) countries are going to ship $100 billion every year to the Micronesias of the world is risible, especially after they've spent it all on Greece.

Cap and trade is a dead letter in the U.S. Even Europe is having second thoughts about carbon-reduction targets that are decimating the continent's heavy industries and cost an estimated $67 billion a year. "Green" technologies have all proved expensive, environmentally hazardous and wildly unpopular duds.

All this has been enough to put the Durban political agenda on hold for the time being. But religions don't die, and often thrive, when put to the political sidelines. A religion, when not physically extinguished, only dies when it loses faith in itself.

That's where the Climategate emails come in. First released on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit two years ago and recently updated by a fresh batch, the "hide the decline" emails were an endless source of fun and lurid fascination for those of us who had never been convinced by the global-warming thesis in the first place.

But the real reason they mattered is that they introduced a note of caution into an enterprise whose motivating appeal resided in its increasingly frantic forecasts of catastrophe. Papers were withdrawn; source material re-examined. The Himalayan glaciers, it turned out, weren't going to melt in 30 years. Nobody can say for sure how high the seas are likely to rise—if much at all. Greenland isn't turning green. Florida isn't going anywhere.

The reply global warming alarmists have made to these dislosures is that they did nothing to change the underlying science, and only improved it in particulars. So what to make of the U.N.'s latest supposedly authoritative report on extreme weather events, which is tinged with admissions of doubt and uncertainty? Oddly, the report has left climate activists stuttering with rage at what they call its "watered down" predictions. If nothing else, they understand that any belief system, particularly ones as young as global warming, cannot easily survive more than a few ounces of self-doubt.

Meanwhile, the world marches on. On Sunday, 2,232 days will have elapsed since a category 3 hurricane made landfall in the U.S., the longest period in more than a century that the U.S. has been spared a devastating storm. Great religions are wise enough to avoid marking down the exact date when the world comes to an end. Not so for the foolish religions. Expect Mayan cosmology to take a hit to its reputation when the world doesn't end on Dec. 21, 2012. Expect likewise when global warming turns out to be neither catastrophic nor irreversible come 2017.

And there is this: Religions are sustained in the long run by the consolations of their teachings and the charisma of their leaders. With global warming, we have a religion whose leaders are prone to spasms of anger and whose followers are beginning to twitch with boredom. Perhaps that's another way religions die.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com

 

[Haletown]

It should be a crime to do this to children

http://www.wherewillsantalive.ca/

Suzuki really, really, really needs to give his head a shake for going after children with such fear mongering.

 

[MJP]

It should be a crime to do this to children

http://www.wherewillsantalive.ca/

Suzuki really, really, really needs to give his head a shake for going after children with such fear mongering.

Wow.  Sent a complaint into Advertising Standards Canada. http://www.adstandards.com/en/Standards/consumerSubmission.asp  If they get a myriad of complaints it will make things tough for David Suzuki and his advocacy slush fund. 

 

[Redeye]

It should be a crime to do this to children

http://www.wherewillsantalive.ca/

Suzuki really, really, really needs to give his head a shake for going after children with such fear mongering.

That's brilliant. I love it - sending it around to a people I know, a great way to get more people involved in the discussion, and funny too.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

So it's NOT a gag website?? Wow....

 

[MJP]

That's brilliant. I love it - sending it around to a people I know, a great way to get more people involved in the discussion, and funny too.

Exactly how is playing on the fears of children brilliant?  As a marketing concept it borders on unethical by preying on those that may not have the logical reasoning that most adults have.  I usually prefer to engage a target audience in meaningful debate/argument about why support for my cause is worth it.  Not run around like chicken little pretending the sky is falling unless you give me money.

I don't like left leaning socialists and their lovely welfare state programmes,  but don't sit around scaring my kids about having to pay the growing national debt incurred each year from them.