Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Climategate: James Hansen Finds Complying with FOIA To Be Too Much of a Burden
by Christopher Horner
A “tipping point” appears to be at hand for James Hansen, the longtime Al Gore adviser and godfather of the modern global warming movement.
Hansen now seems so disgusted with the conditions of his employment — on the taxpayer dime — that he no longer sees the conditions as acceptable.
As PJM readers know, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) got caught sexing up the post-2000 U.S. temperatures. I asked NASA for emails and other documents regarding their discussions about this. After more than two years, NASA coughed up some emails under the Freedom of Information Act, revealing internal discussions (and one particularly revealing external conversation) about losing data and other credibility issues. They also revealed discussion about NASA’s data being less reliable than — and indeed reliant upon — the non-existent Climategate temperature history from Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU).
These existed among other revelations (affirmations?), such as absurdly chummy relationships with establishment media and the ducking of questions from the less friendly reporters. (Additionally, there were some other discoveries which we will explore here at PJM and PJTV in coming weeks.)
Now, our FOIAs and those of others are apparently overwhelming Dr. Hansen’s media appearance and screed-writing time. He has taken to NASA’s website for yet another display of angst over his being one of the few honest visionaries fending off the dark forces working to subvert global salvation. Though this time, he doesn’t condemn those such as myself for crimes against humanity, a pleasant surprise.
Hansen writes:
A “tipping point” appears to be at hand for James Hansen, the longtime Al Gore adviser and godfather of the modern global warming movement.
Hansen now seems so disgusted with the conditions of his employment — on the taxpayer dime — that he no longer sees the conditions as acceptable.
As PJM readers know, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) got caught sexing up the post-2000 U.S. temperatures. I asked NASA for emails and other documents regarding their discussions about this. After more than two years, NASA coughed up some emails under the Freedom of Information Act, revealing internal discussions (and one particularly revealing external conversation) about losing data and other credibility issues. They also revealed discussion about NASA’s data being less reliable than — and indeed reliant upon — the non-existent Climategate temperature history from Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU).
These existed among other revelations (affirmations?), such as absurdly chummy relationships with establishment media and the ducking of questions from the less friendly reporters. (Additionally, there were some other discoveries which we will explore here at PJM and PJTV in coming weeks.)
Now, our FOIAs and those of others are apparently overwhelming Dr. Hansen’s media appearance and screed-writing time. He has taken to NASA’s website for yet another display of angst over his being one of the few honest visionaries fending off the dark forces working to subvert global salvation. Though this time, he doesn’t condemn those such as myself for crimes against humanity, a pleasant surprise.
Hansen writes:
Somehow we have to do a better job of communicating. The tricks being used by people supporting denial and business-as-usual are recognizably dirty, yet effective. We are continually burdened by sweeping FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, which reduce our ability to do science and write it up (perhaps this is their main objective), a waste of tax-payer money. Our analyses are freely available on the GISS web site as is the computer program used to carry out the analysis and the data sets that go into the program.Read more.
The material that we supplied to some recent FOIA requests was promptly posted on a website, and within minutes after that posting someone found that one of the e-mails included information about how to access Makiko Sato’s password-protected research directory on the GISS website (we had not noticed this due to the volume of material). Within 90 minutes, and before anyone else who saw this password information thought it worth reporting to GISS staff, most if not all of the material in Makiko’s directory was purloined by someone using automated “web harvesting” software and re-posted elsewhere on the web. The primary material consisted of numerous drafts of webpage graphics and article figures made in recent years.
It seems that a primary objective of the FOIA requestors and the “harvesters” is discussions that they can snip and quote out of context. On the long run, these distortions of the truth will not work and the public will realize that they have been bamboozled. Unfortunately, the delay in public understanding of the situation, in combination with the way the climate system works (inertia, tipping points) could be very detrimental for our children and grandchildren. The public will need to put more pressure on policymakers, enough to overcome the pressure from special financial interests, if the actions needed to stabilize climate are to be achieved.
Climategate Was an Academic Disaster Waiting to Happen
By PETER BERKOWITZ
Last fall, emails revealed that scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England and colleagues in the U.S. and around the globe deliberately distorted data to support dire global warming scenarios and sought to block scholars with a different view from getting published. What does this scandal say generally about the intellectual habits and norms at our universities?
This is a legitimate question, because our universities, which above all should be cultivating intellectual virtue, are in their day-to-day operations fostering the opposite. Fashionable ideas, the convenience of professors, and the bureaucratic structures of academic life combine to encourage students and faculty alike to defend arguments for which they lack vital information. They pretend to knowledge they don't possess and invoke the authority of rank and status instead of reasoned debate.
Consider the undergraduate curriculum. Over the last several decades, departments have watered down the requirements needed to complete a major, while core curricula have been hollowed out or abandoned. Only a handful of the nation's leading universities—Columbia and the University of Chicago at the forefront—insist that all undergraduates must read a common set of books and become conversant with the main ideas and events that shaped Western history and the larger world.
There are no good pedagogical reasons for abandoning the core. Professors and administrators argue that students need and deserve the freedom to shape their own course of study. But how can students who do not know the basics make intelligent decisions about the books they should read and the perspectives they should master?
The real reasons for releasing students from rigorous departmental requirements and fixed core courses are quite different. One is that professors prefer to teach boutique classes focusing on their narrow areas of specialization. In addition, they believe that dropping requirements will lure more students to their departments, which translates into more faculty slots for like-minded colleagues. By far, though, the most important reason is that faculty generally reject the common sense idea that there is a basic body of knowledge that all students should learn. This is consistent with the popular campus dogma that all morals and cultures are relative and that objective knowledge is impossible.
The deplorable but predictable result is that professors constantly call upon students to engage in discussions and write papers in the absence of fundamental background knowledge. Good students quickly absorb the curriculum's unwritten lesson—cutting corners and vigorously pressing strong but unsubstantiated opinions is the path to intellectual achievement.
The production of scholarship also fosters intellectual vice. Take the peer review process, which because of its supposed impartiality and objectivity is intended to distinguish the work of scholars from that of journalists and commercial authors.
Academic journals typically adopt a double blind system, concealing the names of both authors and reviewers. But any competent scholar can determine an article's approach or analytical framework within the first few paragraphs. Scholars are likely to have colleagues and graduate students they support and whose careers they wish to advance. A few may even have colleagues whose careers, along with those of their graduate students, they would like to tarnish or destroy. There is no check to prevent them from benefiting their friends by providing preferential treatment for their orientation and similarly punishing their enemies.
That's because the peer review process violates a fundamental principle of fairness. We don't allow judges to be parties to a controversy they are adjudicating, and don't permit athletes to umpire games in which they are playing. In both cases the concern is that their interest in the outcome will bias their judgment and corrupt their integrity. So why should we expect scholars, especially operating under the cloak of anonymity, to fairly and honorably evaluate the work of allies and rivals? Read more.
Last fall, emails revealed that scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England and colleagues in the U.S. and around the globe deliberately distorted data to support dire global warming scenarios and sought to block scholars with a different view from getting published. What does this scandal say generally about the intellectual habits and norms at our universities?
This is a legitimate question, because our universities, which above all should be cultivating intellectual virtue, are in their day-to-day operations fostering the opposite. Fashionable ideas, the convenience of professors, and the bureaucratic structures of academic life combine to encourage students and faculty alike to defend arguments for which they lack vital information. They pretend to knowledge they don't possess and invoke the authority of rank and status instead of reasoned debate.
Consider the undergraduate curriculum. Over the last several decades, departments have watered down the requirements needed to complete a major, while core curricula have been hollowed out or abandoned. Only a handful of the nation's leading universities—Columbia and the University of Chicago at the forefront—insist that all undergraduates must read a common set of books and become conversant with the main ideas and events that shaped Western history and the larger world.
There are no good pedagogical reasons for abandoning the core. Professors and administrators argue that students need and deserve the freedom to shape their own course of study. But how can students who do not know the basics make intelligent decisions about the books they should read and the perspectives they should master?
The real reasons for releasing students from rigorous departmental requirements and fixed core courses are quite different. One is that professors prefer to teach boutique classes focusing on their narrow areas of specialization. In addition, they believe that dropping requirements will lure more students to their departments, which translates into more faculty slots for like-minded colleagues. By far, though, the most important reason is that faculty generally reject the common sense idea that there is a basic body of knowledge that all students should learn. This is consistent with the popular campus dogma that all morals and cultures are relative and that objective knowledge is impossible.
The deplorable but predictable result is that professors constantly call upon students to engage in discussions and write papers in the absence of fundamental background knowledge. Good students quickly absorb the curriculum's unwritten lesson—cutting corners and vigorously pressing strong but unsubstantiated opinions is the path to intellectual achievement.
The production of scholarship also fosters intellectual vice. Take the peer review process, which because of its supposed impartiality and objectivity is intended to distinguish the work of scholars from that of journalists and commercial authors.
Academic journals typically adopt a double blind system, concealing the names of both authors and reviewers. But any competent scholar can determine an article's approach or analytical framework within the first few paragraphs. Scholars are likely to have colleagues and graduate students they support and whose careers they wish to advance. A few may even have colleagues whose careers, along with those of their graduate students, they would like to tarnish or destroy. There is no check to prevent them from benefiting their friends by providing preferential treatment for their orientation and similarly punishing their enemies.
That's because the peer review process violates a fundamental principle of fairness. We don't allow judges to be parties to a controversy they are adjudicating, and don't permit athletes to umpire games in which they are playing. In both cases the concern is that their interest in the outcome will bias their judgment and corrupt their integrity. So why should we expect scholars, especially operating under the cloak of anonymity, to fairly and honorably evaluate the work of allies and rivals? Read more.
UN climate change chief Rajendra Pachauri says sorry — and switches to neutral
Rajendra Pachauri said he would focus in future on presenting the science on climate change rather than advocating policies
The outspoken chairman of the UN’s climate change body is to adopt a neutral advisory role and has agreed to stop making statements demanding new taxes and other radical policies on cutting emissions.
In an interview with The Times, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, apologised for his organisation’s handling of complaints about errors in its report.
He also apologised for describing as “voodoo science” an Indian Government report which challenged the IPCC’s claims about the rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers.
But Dr Pachauri, 70, rejected calls for his resignation and insisted he would remain as chairman until after publication of the IPCC’s next report in 2014. Read more.
Inconvenient questions: Goldstein
The simple reality is none of the solutions proposed by global warmists actually work
With the fourth global Earth Hour put to bed last night, today let’s ask some inconvenient questions of the global warmists.
First, does the real-world failure of virtually all of your ideas ever give you a moment’s pause?
From the fiasco in Copenhagen, to the collapse of the UN’s Kyoto accord, with its absurd, unrealistic, centrally-mandated, carbon dioxide-reduction diktats, mindful of the old Soviet Union?
Does it never occur to you you’ve barked up the wrong tree rings?
What about the humiliation of Climategate?
The circumventing of freedom of information requests at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia?
The growing controversy over the inaccuracy of those never-ending apocalyptic predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
Does the fact the earliest corporate boosters of Kyoto and carbon trading were the fraudsters at Enron never cause you to wake up in a cold sweat?
How about the fact your “allies” on cap-and-trade are the giant U.S. money houses that just finished wrecking the global economy, now looking to make another quick killing by brokering trading in highly speculative carbon credits, the European market for which, aside from doing nothing to cool the planet, is awash in multi-billion-dollar frauds?
Largely ineffective
What about the 2002 report by Statistics Norway that Norway’s 1991 carbon tax has been largely ineffective in reducing emissions?
Or last week’s story in the Times of London that the U.K.’s energy regulator has found many of Britain’s wind farms are a bust when it comes to delivering electricity?
That, in the words of Michael Jefferson, professor of international business and sustainability and a former lead author of the IPCC: “Too many developments are underperforming. It’s because developers grossly exaggerate the potential. The subsidies make it viable for developers to put turbines on sites they would not touch if the money was not available.”
Gee. Hard to see that one coming, eh? Who knew that when governments insanely guarantee to pay grossly inflated prices for “green” electricity for 20-25 years, thus handing developers windfall profits from the hides of electricity consumers, many don’t deliver the goods?
Not you, obviously. Or Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Does none of this ever penetrate your Pandora world or your Na’vi brains, as you self-righteously declare yourselves the only people on Earth who care about your grandchildren? (You do realize Avatar was just a movie, right?)
When challenged, warmists with their apocalyptic rhetoric that even responsible climate scientists shun, insist the answers lie in doing more of what hasn’t worked.
For example, putting Kyoto on steroids. Never mind that doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is a good definition of insanity.
Perhaps this blindness is related to the fact that, particularly in Europe, which has led on climate hysteria, the green agenda was driven in large part by Marxists, who, realizing the jig was up when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, quickly shifted their anti-capitalist, anti-western, anti-growth, anti-American rhetoric to “fighting” climate change. Not for nothing are they called green on the outside, red on the inside. Read more.
With the fourth global Earth Hour put to bed last night, today let’s ask some inconvenient questions of the global warmists.
First, does the real-world failure of virtually all of your ideas ever give you a moment’s pause?
From the fiasco in Copenhagen, to the collapse of the UN’s Kyoto accord, with its absurd, unrealistic, centrally-mandated, carbon dioxide-reduction diktats, mindful of the old Soviet Union?
Does it never occur to you you’ve barked up the wrong tree rings?
What about the humiliation of Climategate?
The circumventing of freedom of information requests at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia?
The growing controversy over the inaccuracy of those never-ending apocalyptic predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
Does the fact the earliest corporate boosters of Kyoto and carbon trading were the fraudsters at Enron never cause you to wake up in a cold sweat?
How about the fact your “allies” on cap-and-trade are the giant U.S. money houses that just finished wrecking the global economy, now looking to make another quick killing by brokering trading in highly speculative carbon credits, the European market for which, aside from doing nothing to cool the planet, is awash in multi-billion-dollar frauds?
Largely ineffective
What about the 2002 report by Statistics Norway that Norway’s 1991 carbon tax has been largely ineffective in reducing emissions?
Or last week’s story in the Times of London that the U.K.’s energy regulator has found many of Britain’s wind farms are a bust when it comes to delivering electricity?
That, in the words of Michael Jefferson, professor of international business and sustainability and a former lead author of the IPCC: “Too many developments are underperforming. It’s because developers grossly exaggerate the potential. The subsidies make it viable for developers to put turbines on sites they would not touch if the money was not available.”
Gee. Hard to see that one coming, eh? Who knew that when governments insanely guarantee to pay grossly inflated prices for “green” electricity for 20-25 years, thus handing developers windfall profits from the hides of electricity consumers, many don’t deliver the goods?
Not you, obviously. Or Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Does none of this ever penetrate your Pandora world or your Na’vi brains, as you self-righteously declare yourselves the only people on Earth who care about your grandchildren? (You do realize Avatar was just a movie, right?)
When challenged, warmists with their apocalyptic rhetoric that even responsible climate scientists shun, insist the answers lie in doing more of what hasn’t worked.
For example, putting Kyoto on steroids. Never mind that doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is a good definition of insanity.
Perhaps this blindness is related to the fact that, particularly in Europe, which has led on climate hysteria, the green agenda was driven in large part by Marxists, who, realizing the jig was up when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, quickly shifted their anti-capitalist, anti-western, anti-growth, anti-American rhetoric to “fighting” climate change. Not for nothing are they called green on the outside, red on the inside. Read more.
Earth Hour: Lights off, nobody home
By LORRIE GOLSTEIN
This Saturday, many Canadians will briefly shun electricity.
They’ll sit in the dark for an hour during the fourth annual Earth Hour, the WWF-inspired global “lights out” campaign, symbolically protesting man-made climate change.
Let’s hope those participating, starting at 8:30 p.m., think about this issue seriously, not superficially.
For example, it’s become trendy during Earth Hour to light candles indoors to celebrate the brief absence of electricity.
Problem is, this creates far more indoor air pollution than keeping the lights on.
And if you’re planning a bonfire to show your green credentials, sorry.
Burning wood emits greenhouse gases and air pollution.
In the First World, we’re lucky. We can choose fire over electricity for an hour to show (ineffectively) how “green” we are.
By contrast, 1.5 billion people in the Third World don’t have that luxury.
They don’t have electricity. They’re stuck with fire, fuelled by wood and animal dung, to heat, light and cook in their homes.
As a direct result millions die, every year, decades before their time, choking on indoor air pollution.
Only in the affluent West do we naively romanticize a world without electricity as one of shepherds tending their flocks. Those without electricity know better.
Without electricity, life is nasty, brutal and short. People must stop work when the sun goes down. They can’t preserve food or create sterile medical environments, or any of the other benefits of civilization which prolong life.
Ironically, they are particularly vulnerable to climate change.
A coal-fired electricity plant, however much denounced by First World greens, saves lives in the Third World compared to the alternative, even factoring in smog and pollution, which is why China builds one a week.
How will we face our grandchildren and tell them we did nothing to stop catastrophic death counts caused by climate change, demands today’s smug warmist.
Better ask him how he will face his grandchildren and tell them he campaigned for consigning hundreds of millions to catastrophe by denouncing the very forms of energy by which we powered ourselves out of the Third World, into the First. Read more.
This Saturday, many Canadians will briefly shun electricity.
They’ll sit in the dark for an hour during the fourth annual Earth Hour, the WWF-inspired global “lights out” campaign, symbolically protesting man-made climate change.
Let’s hope those participating, starting at 8:30 p.m., think about this issue seriously, not superficially.
For example, it’s become trendy during Earth Hour to light candles indoors to celebrate the brief absence of electricity.
Problem is, this creates far more indoor air pollution than keeping the lights on.
And if you’re planning a bonfire to show your green credentials, sorry.
Burning wood emits greenhouse gases and air pollution.
In the First World, we’re lucky. We can choose fire over electricity for an hour to show (ineffectively) how “green” we are.
By contrast, 1.5 billion people in the Third World don’t have that luxury.
They don’t have electricity. They’re stuck with fire, fuelled by wood and animal dung, to heat, light and cook in their homes.
As a direct result millions die, every year, decades before their time, choking on indoor air pollution.
Only in the affluent West do we naively romanticize a world without electricity as one of shepherds tending their flocks. Those without electricity know better.
Without electricity, life is nasty, brutal and short. People must stop work when the sun goes down. They can’t preserve food or create sterile medical environments, or any of the other benefits of civilization which prolong life.
Ironically, they are particularly vulnerable to climate change.
A coal-fired electricity plant, however much denounced by First World greens, saves lives in the Third World compared to the alternative, even factoring in smog and pollution, which is why China builds one a week.
How will we face our grandchildren and tell them we did nothing to stop catastrophic death counts caused by climate change, demands today’s smug warmist.
Better ask him how he will face his grandchildren and tell them he campaigned for consigning hundreds of millions to catastrophe by denouncing the very forms of energy by which we powered ourselves out of the Third World, into the First. Read more.
Earth Hour in North Korea a stunning success
Nighttime satellite photo of North and South Korea.
The WWF sponsored Earth Hour has already come and gone in the Korean time zone, and the North Korean proletariat has claimed a stunning victory over its evil capitalist neighbor, South Korea.
Oh, wait.
Seems it is always that way.
I like this line from Alan Caruba at the link above:
Like fire, electricity is truly a gift of the gods. It is the difference between the Dark Age and the present age…
I know WUWT carried this photo before, but it is always good to regularly remind ourselves how much we have to be thankful for.
It also reminds me that if we could get our hands on North Korean surface temperature records, we’d be able to get a minimally UHI polluted signal. – Anthony Read more.
Earth Hour: No Thanks
"Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it is nothing more than an hour devoted to anti-humanism." Read more.
The Face of the Enemy
What are the limits of the left's contempt for human life.
Comment on Global Warming
The Stephen Jones Nature Project, featured in the latest issue of Coco Eco Magazine.
The trillion-dollar question is: who will now lead the climate battle?
The "Science is settled" crowd want the money now! And they will go to any length to get it. This is where the true alarmism should be focused - these true believers scare the hell out of me.
Political and business leaders gather this week in an attempt to revive the world's faltering challenge to global warming. But they face a battle to lift the cloud of scepticism that has descended over climate science and chart a new way forward
Some of the planet's most powerful paymasters will gather in London on Wednesday to discuss a nagging financial problem: how to raise a trillion dollars for the developing world. Those charged with achieving this daunting goal will include Gordon Brown, directors of several central banks, the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, the economist Lord (Nicholas) Stern and Larry Summers, President Obama's chief economics adviser.
As an array of expertise, it is formidable: but then so is the task they have been set by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. In effect, the world's top financiers have been told to work out how to raise at least $100bn a year for the rest of this decade, cash that will be used to help the world's poorest countries adapt to climate change.
"The prices we pay for our goods do not reflect one key cost: the damage that their production does to the planet's climate system," said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the LSE. "We need to find ways to extract payment from those who cause that damage and then use that money to fund developing nations so that they can protect themselves from the worst effects of global warming."
And to raise those funds the Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing has made clear that it will consider everything – from placing levies on international aviation and shipping, to enlarging carbon markets, introducing financial transaction taxes and using the International Monetary Fund's special reserve currency. You name it and it will be run up the flagpole – for success in establishing a developing world finance plan is now considered crucial to the success of next December's UN climate change meeting in Mexico. "Finance is a prerequisite for a climate agreement," said Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climage Change, on Friday. "Developing countries are very sensitive about this. Talks will collapse without strong and secure financing in place."
It sounds familiar, and so it should: these new discussions mark a renewal of global climate talks that ended only three months ago at the Copenhagen UN summit, which failed to set a deal to control emissions of carbon dioxide.
Politicians and negotiators are preparing another assault on the issue, though this time talks will be very different. For a start, climate science has suffered damaging setbacks. There was the leaking from the University of East Anglia's climate research unit of email exchanges between some of the world's top meteorologists as well as the discovery that a UN assessment report on climate change had vastly exaggerated the rate of melting of Himalayan glaciers.
The former revelation suggested some researchers were involved in massaging the truth, sceptics claimed, while the latter exposed deficiencies in the way the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – authors of the report – go about their business. The overall effect has been to damage the credibility of the large number of scientists who fear our planet faces climatic disaster. Trying to restart stalled negotiations will be very hard.
Yet increased scepticism is only part of the problem for negotiators. Since December, new political groupings have emerged. China, India, South Africa and Brazil, known as the "Basics" nations, have assumed climate leadership roles, while the European Union has retreated from the front line. Nothing is quite what it was. Read now.
Political and business leaders gather this week in an attempt to revive the world's faltering challenge to global warming. But they face a battle to lift the cloud of scepticism that has descended over climate science and chart a new way forward
Some of the planet's most powerful paymasters will gather in London on Wednesday to discuss a nagging financial problem: how to raise a trillion dollars for the developing world. Those charged with achieving this daunting goal will include Gordon Brown, directors of several central banks, the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, the economist Lord (Nicholas) Stern and Larry Summers, President Obama's chief economics adviser.
As an array of expertise, it is formidable: but then so is the task they have been set by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. In effect, the world's top financiers have been told to work out how to raise at least $100bn a year for the rest of this decade, cash that will be used to help the world's poorest countries adapt to climate change.
"The prices we pay for our goods do not reflect one key cost: the damage that their production does to the planet's climate system," said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the LSE. "We need to find ways to extract payment from those who cause that damage and then use that money to fund developing nations so that they can protect themselves from the worst effects of global warming."
And to raise those funds the Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing has made clear that it will consider everything – from placing levies on international aviation and shipping, to enlarging carbon markets, introducing financial transaction taxes and using the International Monetary Fund's special reserve currency. You name it and it will be run up the flagpole – for success in establishing a developing world finance plan is now considered crucial to the success of next December's UN climate change meeting in Mexico. "Finance is a prerequisite for a climate agreement," said Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climage Change, on Friday. "Developing countries are very sensitive about this. Talks will collapse without strong and secure financing in place."
It sounds familiar, and so it should: these new discussions mark a renewal of global climate talks that ended only three months ago at the Copenhagen UN summit, which failed to set a deal to control emissions of carbon dioxide.
Politicians and negotiators are preparing another assault on the issue, though this time talks will be very different. For a start, climate science has suffered damaging setbacks. There was the leaking from the University of East Anglia's climate research unit of email exchanges between some of the world's top meteorologists as well as the discovery that a UN assessment report on climate change had vastly exaggerated the rate of melting of Himalayan glaciers.
The former revelation suggested some researchers were involved in massaging the truth, sceptics claimed, while the latter exposed deficiencies in the way the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – authors of the report – go about their business. The overall effect has been to damage the credibility of the large number of scientists who fear our planet faces climatic disaster. Trying to restart stalled negotiations will be very hard.
Yet increased scepticism is only part of the problem for negotiators. Since December, new political groupings have emerged. China, India, South Africa and Brazil, known as the "Basics" nations, have assumed climate leadership roles, while the European Union has retreated from the front line. Nothing is quite what it was. Read now.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Global Warming : Shut down the IPCC
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has announced yet another “flaw” in their reports. It’s time – once and for all – to be very clear about the obvious. There are serious conclusions to be drawn from the fact that the “flaws” in the UN reports produced bias in only one direction.
The latest announcement admits an error that supported Vegan propaganda against the meat industry. Researchers have also admitted that there is no scientifically supportable case for the IPCC’s exaggerated worst-case sea-level rise (which by the way has been orders of magnitude lower than Al Gore’s), dramatic ice-melts in the Himalayas and elsewhere, danger to the South American rain forest, warming of oceans, etc. etc. etc.
These (perhaps more accurately) “forced confessions” are consistent with public awareness, triggered by Climategate, of the general evaporation of the warmers’ case.
Their case for dire warnings about man-made global warming has always rested on computer models that predict rapid temperature increases. These “models” were nothing more than an alternative method of presenting extremist “climate change theory.” Predictions made by the models have been consistently wrong. Lacking verification, they carry no more weight in serious scientific discussions than computer games with purely imaginary scenarios designed to entertain players.
There is no actual scientific evidence supporting the models or the warmers’ theory on catastrophic man-made global warming. Warmers replaced real temperature data with fake data sets showing the trends they wanted. When the final press for public access to real data came, they destroyed the data.
So, let’s be absolutely clear about the obvious. They knew there was no scientifically supportable case for catastrophic man-made global warming. They lied.
For decades, the IPCC has constructed reports containing junk science to promote a scientifically unsupportable theory on catastrophic man-made global warming. A core group incorporated fake data, filtered out real science and data, and presented conclusions in direct contradiction to scientific evidence and consensus. (Other than a core group of warmers, scientists reviewing the IPCC reports insisted that there is no scientific case for catastrophic man-made global warming.)
So, let’s be absolutely clear about the obvious. The IPCC is a publicly supported lobbying group that used deceptive practices to promote manipulation of energy markets, higher taxes, economic chaos, global political revolution and the illegitimate “cap-n-trade” industry.
Years after the infamous “hockey stick” warming graph has been discredited, it’s still used for far-left political indoctrination aimed at teenagers.
The latest announcement admits an error that supported Vegan propaganda against the meat industry. Researchers have also admitted that there is no scientifically supportable case for the IPCC’s exaggerated worst-case sea-level rise (which by the way has been orders of magnitude lower than Al Gore’s), dramatic ice-melts in the Himalayas and elsewhere, danger to the South American rain forest, warming of oceans, etc. etc. etc.
These (perhaps more accurately) “forced confessions” are consistent with public awareness, triggered by Climategate, of the general evaporation of the warmers’ case.
Their case for dire warnings about man-made global warming has always rested on computer models that predict rapid temperature increases. These “models” were nothing more than an alternative method of presenting extremist “climate change theory.” Predictions made by the models have been consistently wrong. Lacking verification, they carry no more weight in serious scientific discussions than computer games with purely imaginary scenarios designed to entertain players.
There is no actual scientific evidence supporting the models or the warmers’ theory on catastrophic man-made global warming. Warmers replaced real temperature data with fake data sets showing the trends they wanted. When the final press for public access to real data came, they destroyed the data.
So, let’s be absolutely clear about the obvious. They knew there was no scientifically supportable case for catastrophic man-made global warming. They lied.
For decades, the IPCC has constructed reports containing junk science to promote a scientifically unsupportable theory on catastrophic man-made global warming. A core group incorporated fake data, filtered out real science and data, and presented conclusions in direct contradiction to scientific evidence and consensus. (Other than a core group of warmers, scientists reviewing the IPCC reports insisted that there is no scientific case for catastrophic man-made global warming.)
So, let’s be absolutely clear about the obvious. The IPCC is a publicly supported lobbying group that used deceptive practices to promote manipulation of energy markets, higher taxes, economic chaos, global political revolution and the illegitimate “cap-n-trade” industry.
Years after the infamous “hockey stick” warming graph has been discredited, it’s still used for far-left political indoctrination aimed at teenagers.
The IPCC public relations campaign continues, but there seems very little room for new moves. Confessing errors in reports allows the IPCC to attempt to manage the public reaction; superficially a much better approach than the dramatic error of denial. Case in point: After IPCC head Rajenda Pachauri denied that their rapid Himalayan ice-melt claim was scientifically unsupportable, accusing “skeptics” of “voodoo science,” solid evidence turned up that Pachauri knew the claim was wrong. It emphasized the deceptive nature of the IPCC and those in charge. Read more.
The lamps are going out
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.
-- Robert Frost, "Once By The Pacific"
In 1914 Sir Edward Grey said to a friend one evening just before the outbreak of the First World War, as he watched the lights being lit on the street below his office: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
In that instance, it was the Great War that loomed. Now the Great Forgetting looms and, from time to time, it washes across the world. "Earth Hour" is such a dark moment as millions either choose to, or thanks to their compliant or complacent local governments suffer through, an hour in the dark.
Once upon a time we knew enough to curse the darkness. In the aeons long climb from the muck, we have only had the ability to hold back the dark for a bit over a century. Now millions yearn to embrace it and, should they yearn long enough and hard enough, the darkness will embrace them and hold them for much longer than a brief hour of preening and self-regard.
The Big Picture at the Boston Globe site routinely publishes stunning photographs of what is taking place in the world. But at editor Alan Taylor's whim after last year's "Earth Hour", it went a step further in "celebrating" the rise of mass insanity in our age. "Earth Hour 2009" presents a round-the-world tour of cities with each picture designed to fade from light into darkness at the click of a mouse. Proud of his clever variation on a theme, the editor's instructions were -- without a hint of irony:
"[click image to see it fade]"
Of course with a second mouse click the lights came back on. It never seems to occur to the people with the Green Disease, that is perfectly possible to
[click civilization to see it fade]
and get no second click.
"Pater dimitte illis non enim sciunt quid faciunt." ("Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.") -- Luke 23:34 Read more.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Climategate Shows There's No Global Warming Consensus
James Inhofe is an Oklahoma Republican and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Call it the global warming crackup, an unfolding process of contradictory claims about glaciers, weather, and scientists asserting a consensus when none exists. Global warming alarmists can't make up their minds because the entire basis for their energy rationing project has collapsed into a mess of errors, exaggerations, and deceit. Let me explain.
The Obama administration said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the "gold standard" for climate science, yet now the Environmental Protection Agency administrator won't defend it. The IPCC and Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now the IPCC has retracted several false claims concerning, among other things, rain forests shrinking, crops dying, and sea levels rising. We've been told weather is not to be confused with climate, except when you have heat waves or blizzards. We've been told cap-and-trade would create thousands of green jobs, yet the Congressional Budget Office, Department of Energy, National Black Chamber of Commerce, and others say it would mean a net loss of jobs.
We are told that increasing levels of CO2 will increase temperature, yet the key scientist in the climategate scandal says there's been "no statistically significant warming" in the past 15 years—all while CO2 levels have increased. We've been told that there is an "indisputable consensus" that human-caused global warming is happening and pushing the planet to certain disaster. Yet that same scientist—Phil Jones, former director of Britain's Climatic Research Unit, the foremost such center—now says that the vast majority of climate scientists don't agree on what the data are telling us.
What's going on here? When thousands of E-mails were released from the Climatic Research Unit in November, we finally were able to pull back the veil of the so-called climate consensus. As ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I have released a minority staff report that uses these E-mails to show that the world's leading climate scientists apparently discussed manipulating data to fit preconceived conclusions and pressuring journal editors not to publish scientific work contrary to their own. This would violate fundamental ethical principles guiding scientific (and taxpayer-funded) research and, our report points out, may violate federal laws.
The E-mail controversy has been airily dismissed by the Obama administration as nothing more than scientists "lacking interpersonal skills." One Democratic senator called it a "little E-mail squabble." The evidence proves otherwise. At the center of the controversy were the same scientists who wrote and edited the IPCC's reports—the reports alarmists claim form the climate science "consensus." Moreover, those reports provide the critical basis for cap-and-trade legislation and the EPA's endangerment finding regarding greenhouse gases. Yet climategate shows what I've asserted all along: The basis for those disastrous policies is flawed and should be thrown out.
Unfortunately, that's not what EPA is doing. It wants $43.5 million in new funding to regulate greenhouse gases. This is seed money for the most economically destructive regulatory initiative in this nation's history.
Back in 2005, I gave a speech urging reforms at the IPCC, trying to get the United Nations body to produce reliable, objective science. But the IPCC ignored my recommendations. And now, after several embarrassing gaffes—for example, stating falsely that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035—the calls for reform are deafening. Read more.
Future “Artificial Leaves” May Create Hydrogen Fuel from Sunlight and Water
As far as sustainable energy systems go, nothing is quite as perfect as a plant: Through photosynthesis, plants create their own energy using only sunlight and water. For years, scientists have been trying to replicate this process to produce usable energy for people, but it’s proved difficult–until now. A group of Chinese researchers think they’ve come up with a blueprint for an “Artificial Inorganic Leaf” (AIL) that can produce hydrogen fuel using only sunlight and water. The “leaf” is still in its very early design stages, but if scientists can create a working prototype, the world may finally see a cost-effective method of hydrogen fuel production.
Scientists from the State Key Lab of Matrix Composites at China’s Shanghai Jiaotong University designed the AIL blueprint using biomimicry. By using spectroscopic techniques to study leaves of Anemone vitifolia, a plant native to China, scientists gained a better understanding of how to focus and guide solar energy into light-harvesting sections of the leaf. Plus, they learned more about the macro- and microstructures of plants’ photocatalysts. By infiltrating leaves with titanium dioxide (a photocatalyst) and platinum, researchers believe they’ve created a design for a fully functioning AIL.
Creating hydrogen fuel means splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen (electrolysis). While scientists have achieved this feat before, making hydrogen fuel has been exceedingly expensive, so it wouldn’t really be practical when compared to powering cars with gasoline or electricity. But by using sunlight with the AIL, scientists may finally create a cheap way to produce hydrogen fuel. Unlike traditional cars, which spew tons of greenhouse gas emissions, hydrogen-powered vehicles emit only water vapor. Read more.
Plasma technology offers clean fuel breakthrough
A GlidArc reactor, which uses plasma technology to create clean biofuels (Photo)
The same process that illuminates big-screen plasma TV’s can now create ultra-clean fuels, according to a scientific report presented earlier this week. According to Prof. Albin Czernichowski from France’s University of Orleans, a device called a GlidArc reactor has successfully been used to create clean fuels from waste materials, utilizing electrically-charged clouds of gas called “plasmas.” One of the fuels is a form of diesel that reportedly releases ten times less air pollution than conventional diesel.
The GlidArc process takes its name from a gliding arc of electricity, that produces a plasma within the reactor. The plasma allows chemical reactions to take place at much lower temperatures than would otherwise be required - one of these reactions is the gasification of locally-available waste, biomass or other substances. The resultant clean mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas can then be synthesized into biofuel.
The report suggests that the refrigerator-sized reactors could be fed materials such as post-harvest corn leaves and stocks, waste cooking oil from restaurants, or even the byproduct glycerol created in the production of other biofuels. The GlidArc-created biofuels could apparently be used in existing diesel, gasoline or kerosene engines, with no modifications.
“Low-tech and low cost are the guiding principles behind the GlidArc reactors,” stated Czernichowski. “Almost all the parts could be bought at your local hardware or home supply store. We use common ‘plumber’ piping and connections, for instance, and ordinary home insulation. Instead of sophisticated ceramics, we use the kind of heat-resistant concrete that might go into a home fireplace.” He added that an average person could build one in a few days, for about $US10,000. Read more.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Endangered Findings
by Patrick J. Michaels
Now that health care is done (for the time being), expect global warming to be high on the Obama administration's "to do" list. But cap-and-trade legislation and its alternative, a direct tax on carbon-based fuels, can't be passed via "reconciliation" and are far short of the needed 60 Senate votes.
As a result, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is itching to step in and dictate how and how much we can drive, fly, consume, or make. This the agency made clear in its "endangerment finding," a necessary precursor to regulation, released last December.
Expect the administration to use 2010 global-temperature data as backup for the EPA's regulatory power grab. Global temperatures shot upward around the beginning of this year thanks to El Niño, a warming of the tropical Pacific that takes place every few years. The average global temperature has a reasonable chance of beating the last high, set back in 1998 (also an El Niño year).
Meanwhile, a number of studies point to sources other than greenhouse gases as explanations for the modest warming trend of the late 20th century. This could doom the EPA's finding. But do not expect it to go quietly.
The EPA did no scientific research of its own to buttress its endangerment finding, relying on the 2007 report of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a similar "Synthesis Report" from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program as the basis for its conclusions. According to these reports:
Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid–20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [greenhouse gas] concentrations.
"Most" means "more than one-half," and the IPCC says "very likely" means a probability of between 90 and 99 percent. This claim may have constituted the "settled" science of climate change in 2007, but things have become greatly unsettled since then.
The rise in global surface temperatures as measured by the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (yes, the "Climategate" folks) is 0.70 degrees Celsius since 1950, or a little over a tenth of a degree per decade. But the most recent refereed science literature argues otherwise.
Soon after the IPCC report, David Thompson and several others (including Climategate's Phil Jones) published a paper in Nature showing a cold bias in measurement of sea-surface temperatures from the early 1940s through the mid 1960s. Accounting for this drops the rise in temperature to 0.55 degrees Celsius. Read more.
Now that health care is done (for the time being), expect global warming to be high on the Obama administration's "to do" list. But cap-and-trade legislation and its alternative, a direct tax on carbon-based fuels, can't be passed via "reconciliation" and are far short of the needed 60 Senate votes.
As a result, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is itching to step in and dictate how and how much we can drive, fly, consume, or make. This the agency made clear in its "endangerment finding," a necessary precursor to regulation, released last December.
Expect the administration to use 2010 global-temperature data as backup for the EPA's regulatory power grab. Global temperatures shot upward around the beginning of this year thanks to El Niño, a warming of the tropical Pacific that takes place every few years. The average global temperature has a reasonable chance of beating the last high, set back in 1998 (also an El Niño year).
Meanwhile, a number of studies point to sources other than greenhouse gases as explanations for the modest warming trend of the late 20th century. This could doom the EPA's finding. But do not expect it to go quietly.
The EPA did no scientific research of its own to buttress its endangerment finding, relying on the 2007 report of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a similar "Synthesis Report" from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program as the basis for its conclusions. According to these reports:
Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid–20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [greenhouse gas] concentrations.
"Most" means "more than one-half," and the IPCC says "very likely" means a probability of between 90 and 99 percent. This claim may have constituted the "settled" science of climate change in 2007, but things have become greatly unsettled since then.
The rise in global surface temperatures as measured by the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (yes, the "Climategate" folks) is 0.70 degrees Celsius since 1950, or a little over a tenth of a degree per decade. But the most recent refereed science literature argues otherwise.
Soon after the IPCC report, David Thompson and several others (including Climategate's Phil Jones) published a paper in Nature showing a cold bias in measurement of sea-surface temperatures from the early 1940s through the mid 1960s. Accounting for this drops the rise in temperature to 0.55 degrees Celsius. Read more.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Another Casualty of Climategate?
Could it be yet another knock-on effect of the crumbling of the United Nations ‘climate consensus” facade? One of Kofi Annan’s old-boy clubs appears to be in trouble.
Since retiring from the United Nations, Kofi Annan — among his other activities — has been serving as president of a Geneva-based foundation, the Global Humanitarian Forum, headquartered in a delightful villa smack near the front gates of the UN’s palatial Geneva office complex — and especially fond of promoting “climate justice.” The foundation fields a board crammed with UN retreads from Kofi Annan’s days as UN Secretary-General, and is supposed to be devoted to “exemplary” programs in humanitarian assistance (something that can hardly be said of the UN itself under Annan’s 1997-2006 management). Among the board members are Annan’s former special adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi; former head of the UN’s world Food Program, Catherine Bertini; former UN humanitarian coordinator, Jan Egeland; former head of the discredited old Human Rights Commission, Mary Robinson; and former heads of the IMF and World Bank – Michel Camdessus and James Wolfensohn… you get the idea. Also on the board is a name that climategate buffs will recognize – head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri.
If that sounds like a recipe for success, apparently this mix is less appealing than when all these folks were empowered to tap directly into torrents of tax dollars (especially U.S. tax dollars) — though this foundation does seem to have received plenty from assorted governments. But not enough, it now seems. The foundation’s web site is reporting that due to “disappointing receipts from donors,” the board is “urgently considering options for the future direction of the organization.”
I don’t have details at this point on why, exactly, donors have been losing interest. Could it possibly be that this climate-crusading crew has become somewhat less enticing a bet? Read more.
Since retiring from the United Nations, Kofi Annan — among his other activities — has been serving as president of a Geneva-based foundation, the Global Humanitarian Forum, headquartered in a delightful villa smack near the front gates of the UN’s palatial Geneva office complex — and especially fond of promoting “climate justice.” The foundation fields a board crammed with UN retreads from Kofi Annan’s days as UN Secretary-General, and is supposed to be devoted to “exemplary” programs in humanitarian assistance (something that can hardly be said of the UN itself under Annan’s 1997-2006 management). Among the board members are Annan’s former special adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi; former head of the UN’s world Food Program, Catherine Bertini; former UN humanitarian coordinator, Jan Egeland; former head of the discredited old Human Rights Commission, Mary Robinson; and former heads of the IMF and World Bank – Michel Camdessus and James Wolfensohn… you get the idea. Also on the board is a name that climategate buffs will recognize – head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri.
If that sounds like a recipe for success, apparently this mix is less appealing than when all these folks were empowered to tap directly into torrents of tax dollars (especially U.S. tax dollars) — though this foundation does seem to have received plenty from assorted governments. But not enough, it now seems. The foundation’s web site is reporting that due to “disappointing receipts from donors,” the board is “urgently considering options for the future direction of the organization.”
I don’t have details at this point on why, exactly, donors have been losing interest. Could it possibly be that this climate-crusading crew has become somewhat less enticing a bet? Read more.
Oops: Chief Climategate investigator failed to declare eco directorship
The peer leading the second Climategate enquiry at the University of East Anglia serves as a director of one of the most powerful environmental networks in the world, according to Companies House documents - and has failed to declare it.
Lord Oxburgh, a geologist by training and the former scientific advisor to the Ministry of Defence, was appointed to lead the enquiry into the scientific aspects of the Climategate scandal on Monday. But Oxburgh is also a director of GLOBE, the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment.
GLOBE may be too obscure to merit its own Wikipedia entry, but that belies its wealth and influence. It funds meetings for parliamentarians worldwide with an interest in climate change, and prior to the Copenhagen Summit GLOBE issued guidelines (pdf) for legislators. Little expense is spared: in one year alone, one peer - Lord Michael Jay of Ewelme - enjoyed seven club class flights and hotel accommodation, at GLOBE's expense. There's no greater love a Parliamentarian can give to the global warming cause. And in return, Globe lists Oxburgh as one of 23 key legislators. Read more.
Lord Oxburgh, a geologist by training and the former scientific advisor to the Ministry of Defence, was appointed to lead the enquiry into the scientific aspects of the Climategate scandal on Monday. But Oxburgh is also a director of GLOBE, the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment.
GLOBE may be too obscure to merit its own Wikipedia entry, but that belies its wealth and influence. It funds meetings for parliamentarians worldwide with an interest in climate change, and prior to the Copenhagen Summit GLOBE issued guidelines (pdf) for legislators. Little expense is spared: in one year alone, one peer - Lord Michael Jay of Ewelme - enjoyed seven club class flights and hotel accommodation, at GLOBE's expense. There's no greater love a Parliamentarian can give to the global warming cause. And in return, Globe lists Oxburgh as one of 23 key legislators. Read more.
El Nino Alone Illustrates Why IPCC Science Is Wrong
Sea-level height data of El Nino, red streak at Equator. Source: NASA/JPL Ocean Surface Topography Team
By Dr. Tim Ball
IPCC Reports claim with certainty that increases in global temperature since the 19th century are due to human addition of CO2. There are a multitude of problems with the claim not least the omission or lack of understanding of major temperature altering mechanisms. We are in the middle of an El Nino event, more commonly called El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) that is modifying temperatures beyond human effect (Figure 1). As Happ notes, “The gorilla in the climate change closet is ENSO. Until the mechanism responsible for the fluctuation in tropical temperatures that feeds into global temperatures is described and the resulting contribution to global temperature is quantified we have no hope of quantifying the temperature change that is due to ‘anthropogenic’
Global warming advocates made much of the warm temperatures and lack of snow for parts of the recent Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Skeptics pointed to the cold and snow on the east side of the continent. The pattern was created by the waves in the Polar Front separating cold polar air from warm tropical air pushing north on the west side and south on the east side.
El Nino in the Pacific enhanced the situation. Everything about the winter was normal but that is not what alarmists claim.
Historical El Nino
Many incorrectly think El Nino is a new phenomenon resulting from global warming. Scientific awareness and its influence on global climate are new, but people who sailed the Pacific like the Inca knew it well. Spanish sailors knew and named it after the little Christ child because it occurred near Christmas. The opposite pattern, La Nina, means a little girl.
Inca priests went high in the Andes in the spring to study the Pleiades star formation. They used the difference between a clear or shimmering cluster for a rainfall prediction and when to plant potatoes. Atmospheric conditions vary between unstable and stable conditions as the Pacific Ocean switches between El Nino and La Nina. These determine the precipitation pattern Quinn and Neal produced a detailed record of El Nino events from 1522 to 1987 in a publication ironically edited by Raymond Bradley and Phil Jones of CRU notoriety.
Sir Francis Drake was a first class navigator but needed someone who knew the Pacific currents when he rounded Cape Horn in 1579. He captured a Spanish vessel and used the navigator de Moreno to avoid the El Nino currents and reach the west coast of Canada. De Moreno became ill near Oregon and was put ashore to increase his chances of survival. He promptly walked to Mexico and reported his story to Spanish authorities.
Science of El Nino
Early in the 20th century Sir Gilbert Walker produced the first scientific discussions of alternating wind patterns in the Pacific subsequently named the Walker Circulation.
In 1924 he introduced the term Southern Oscillation (SO), which is now used as an Index (SOI) to measure the difference in pressure between Darwin in Australia and Tahiti.
Figure 2 is a schematic of El Nino and La Nina showing the reversal of surface ocean currents that creates alternating warm and cold water on each side of the Pacific. Precipitation patterns are also affected and countries like Australia use ENSO to try and make accurate weather forecasts.
They are forecasting a decline in the current El Nino. Others are not so sure, which underlines the problems with understanding the mechanisms. Read more.
Meat, dairy diet not tied to global warming
by Jennifer Harper
Forget all that indecorous talk of animal flatulence, cow burps, vegetarianism and global warming. Welcome to Cowgate.
Lower consumption of meat and dairy products will not have a major impact in combating global warming — despite persistent claims that link such diets to more greenhouse gases. So says a report presented Monday before the American Chemical Society.
It is the bovine version of Climategate, complete with faulty science and noisy activists with big agendas.
Cows and pigs have gotten a "bum rap," said Frank Mitloehner, an air quality expert at the University of California at Davis who authored the report. He is plenty critical of scientists and vegetarian activists such as Paul McCartney who insist that livestock account for about a fifth of all greenhouse-gas emissions.
He also is critical of highly-publicized campaigns that call for "meatless Mondays" or push the motto "Less Meat = Less Heat," a European campaign launched in December during the Copenhagen climate summit. Talk of pricey air pollution permits of a "cow tax" for already cash-strapped farmers has surfaced in the U.S. and abroad.
Mr. Mitloehner said the claims that livestock are to blame for global warming are both "scientifically inaccurate" and a dangerous distraction from more important issues.
He has traced the problem back to a 2006 United Nations report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," that read: "The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents). This is a higher share than transport."
Yes, livestock are major producers of methane, one of the greenhouse gases. But Mr. Mitloehner faults the methodology of the U.N. report, contending that the calculations were off.
In the report, the damning livestock "emissions" included those of the digestive variety — along with gases produced by growing animal feed and actual meat and milk processing. But the transportation analysis factored in only fossil fuel emissions from cars.
"This lopsided analysis is a classical apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue," Mr. Mitloehner said.
Livestock burps have been vilified for a decade, however.
In 2000, Australian scientists reported that cows and sheep created 90 percent of methane emissions in that nation. German scientists went so far as to create fist-sized indigestion pills for their burping cows. Two years ago, Argentine scientists resorted to strapping plastic tanks to the backs of their cows to collect and measure their gaseous outputs.
"We certainly can reduce our greenhouse-gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk. Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries," Mr. Mitloehner said.
The focus of confronting climate change, he said, should be on smarter farming, not less farming. Read more.
Forget all that indecorous talk of animal flatulence, cow burps, vegetarianism and global warming. Welcome to Cowgate.
Lower consumption of meat and dairy products will not have a major impact in combating global warming — despite persistent claims that link such diets to more greenhouse gases. So says a report presented Monday before the American Chemical Society.
It is the bovine version of Climategate, complete with faulty science and noisy activists with big agendas.
Cows and pigs have gotten a "bum rap," said Frank Mitloehner, an air quality expert at the University of California at Davis who authored the report. He is plenty critical of scientists and vegetarian activists such as Paul McCartney who insist that livestock account for about a fifth of all greenhouse-gas emissions.
He also is critical of highly-publicized campaigns that call for "meatless Mondays" or push the motto "Less Meat = Less Heat," a European campaign launched in December during the Copenhagen climate summit. Talk of pricey air pollution permits of a "cow tax" for already cash-strapped farmers has surfaced in the U.S. and abroad.
Mr. Mitloehner said the claims that livestock are to blame for global warming are both "scientifically inaccurate" and a dangerous distraction from more important issues.
He has traced the problem back to a 2006 United Nations report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," that read: "The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents). This is a higher share than transport."
Yes, livestock are major producers of methane, one of the greenhouse gases. But Mr. Mitloehner faults the methodology of the U.N. report, contending that the calculations were off.
In the report, the damning livestock "emissions" included those of the digestive variety — along with gases produced by growing animal feed and actual meat and milk processing. But the transportation analysis factored in only fossil fuel emissions from cars.
"This lopsided analysis is a classical apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue," Mr. Mitloehner said.
Livestock burps have been vilified for a decade, however.
In 2000, Australian scientists reported that cows and sheep created 90 percent of methane emissions in that nation. German scientists went so far as to create fist-sized indigestion pills for their burping cows. Two years ago, Argentine scientists resorted to strapping plastic tanks to the backs of their cows to collect and measure their gaseous outputs.
"We certainly can reduce our greenhouse-gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk. Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries," Mr. Mitloehner said.
The focus of confronting climate change, he said, should be on smarter farming, not less farming. Read more.
The Times they are a changing!
This is a huge admission by a public institution.
Chris Rapley goes all fair and balanced
Chris Rapley used to be the director of the British Antarctic Survey, a position he used to great effect as part of the campaign to scare us all into believing in global warming.
He now runs the Science Museum in London and seems to have altered his views somewhat:
The times they are a-changing. Read more.
Chris Rapley goes all fair and balanced
Chris Rapley used to be the director of the British Antarctic Survey, a position he used to great effect as part of the campaign to scare us all into believing in global warming.
He now runs the Science Museum in London and seems to have altered his views somewhat:
The Science Museum is revising the contents of its new climate science gallery to reflect the wave of scepticism that has engulfed the issue in recent months.What is more, he has come over all reticent about his own views on global warming, refusing to offer an opinion one way or the other.
The decision by the 100-year-old London museum reveals how deeply scientific institutions have been shaken by the public’s reaction to revelations of malpractice by climate scientists.
The museum is abandoning its previous practice of trying to persuade visitors of the dangers of global warming. It is instead adopting a neutral position, acknowledging that there are legitimate doubts about the impact of man-made emissions on the climate.
The times they are a-changing. Read more.
Climategate: the whitewash continues
By James Delingpole
The Royal Society (Motto: Nullius in Verba Unless It’s About Global Warming In Which Case We’re Happy To Believe Whatever Unsubstantiated Drivel We’re Fed By Michael Mann, Phil Jones, et al) has announced who’ll be chairing its “independent” inquiry into the science behind the Climategate scandal.
So the chairman of this “independent panel” has a direct financial interest in the outcome.
The Royal Society (Motto: Nullius in Verba Unless It’s About Global Warming In Which Case We’re Happy To Believe Whatever Unsubstantiated Drivel We’re Fed By Michael Mann, Phil Jones, et al) has announced who’ll be chairing its “independent” inquiry into the science behind the Climategate scandal.
And guess what? The man could scarcely be more parti pris if they’d given the job to Al Gore.
His name is Lord Oxburgh and, as Bishop Hill reports, he is:
- President of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association
- Chairman of wind energy firm Falck Renewables
- A member of the Green Fiscal Commission
So the chairman of this “independent panel” has a direct financial interest in the outcome.
Oh and here, Bishop Hill has also noted, is another member of the panel – Kerry Emanuel – at an MIT debate already showing the kind of open-mindedness we can expect in his judgement on the significance of the Climategate emails:
“What we have here,” says Kerry Emanuel, are “thousands of emails collectively showing scientists hard at work, trying to figure out the meaning of evidence that confronts them. Among a few messages, there are a few lines showing the human failings of a few scientists…” Emanuel believes that “scientifically, it means nothing,” because the controversy doesn’t challenge the overwhelming evidence supporting anthropogenic warming. He is far more concerned with the well-funded “public relations campaign” to drown out or distort the message of climate science, which he links to “interests where billions, even trillions are at stake…” This “machine … has been highly successful in branding climate scientists as a bunch of sandal-wearing, fruit-juice drinking leftist radicals engaged in a massive conspiracy to return us to agrarian society…”Read more.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A Summary of Richard Tol's look at the IPCC AR4 Report
By Richard Tol
The Fourth Assessment Report of Working Group 2 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been widely criticised for being overly pessimistic about the impacts of climate change. The IPCC has admitted that errors were made, but argues that the mistakes were just that. However, all errors point in one direction: alarmism about climate change. This suggests, at least, an inadvertent bias.
In the previous guest posts, I (in one case jointly with Chris Green) argue that Working Group 3 also contains mistakes, and that most errors point in one direction: optimism about the impacts of climate policy. The other mistakes reveal the inability of the IPCC to constructively engage with valid criticism. I also looked at the reviewer comments and the responses. The errors were identified during the review process, but made it into the final report nonetheless.
In the post about population projections, I show that the IPCC misquotes a paper that cast doubt on the IPCC SRES scenarios. In the post about exchange rates, I demonstrate that the IPCC misrepresents or omits papers that criticise the IPCC SRES scenarios. These two cases suggest that the IPCC has lost the ability to be self-critical.
In the post about double dividends, I show that the IPCC’s claims that climate policy would stimulate economic growth and create jobs are not based on peer-reviewed literature. Furthermore, the IPCC fails in its role as policy advisor. Ecological tax reform could promote growth and employment – but only under very narrow conditions. An honest broker would spell out those conditions. A stealth advocate would suggest that those conditions are rather easily met – as does the IPCC.
In the post about technological progress, I show that the IPCC emphasizes the results of studies that show that the costs of emission reduction are lower than previously thought, while suppressing or misquoting studies that show the opposite – despite credible evidence that the latter papers are closer to the truth. The IPCC assessment is certainly incomplete, but I would argue it is biased.
In the post about selection bias, I demonstrate that the IPCC summarises the results of multiple abatement studies in a misleading way, failing to alert the reader to the fact that the estimates of the costs of stringent emission reduction are unrepresentative of the literature and severely biased downwards. This is deception pure and simple.
In the post about double-counting, we show that the IPCC confuses carbon savings due to “market forces” with carbon savings by “climate policy”. This again would suggest to the unsuspecting reader that emission reduction is cheaper than it really is. The IPCC again did this in spite of protests by the referees. The IPCC deliberately puts the reader on the wrong foot.
In sum, the review process of the IPCC failed miserably. AR4 of WG3 substantially and knowingly misrepresents the state of the art in our understanding of the costs of emission reduction. It leads the reader to the conclusion that emission reduction is much cheaper and easier than it will be in real life.
Dr Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research was one of the lead authors of Chapter 11 where most of the “errors” originate. He has since been appointed as the co-chairperson of WG3 for the Fifth Assessment Report of 2014. Read more.
The Fourth Assessment Report of Working Group 2 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been widely criticised for being overly pessimistic about the impacts of climate change. The IPCC has admitted that errors were made, but argues that the mistakes were just that. However, all errors point in one direction: alarmism about climate change. This suggests, at least, an inadvertent bias.
In the previous guest posts, I (in one case jointly with Chris Green) argue that Working Group 3 also contains mistakes, and that most errors point in one direction: optimism about the impacts of climate policy. The other mistakes reveal the inability of the IPCC to constructively engage with valid criticism. I also looked at the reviewer comments and the responses. The errors were identified during the review process, but made it into the final report nonetheless.
In the post about population projections, I show that the IPCC misquotes a paper that cast doubt on the IPCC SRES scenarios. In the post about exchange rates, I demonstrate that the IPCC misrepresents or omits papers that criticise the IPCC SRES scenarios. These two cases suggest that the IPCC has lost the ability to be self-critical.
In the post about double dividends, I show that the IPCC’s claims that climate policy would stimulate economic growth and create jobs are not based on peer-reviewed literature. Furthermore, the IPCC fails in its role as policy advisor. Ecological tax reform could promote growth and employment – but only under very narrow conditions. An honest broker would spell out those conditions. A stealth advocate would suggest that those conditions are rather easily met – as does the IPCC.
In the post about technological progress, I show that the IPCC emphasizes the results of studies that show that the costs of emission reduction are lower than previously thought, while suppressing or misquoting studies that show the opposite – despite credible evidence that the latter papers are closer to the truth. The IPCC assessment is certainly incomplete, but I would argue it is biased.
In the post about selection bias, I demonstrate that the IPCC summarises the results of multiple abatement studies in a misleading way, failing to alert the reader to the fact that the estimates of the costs of stringent emission reduction are unrepresentative of the literature and severely biased downwards. This is deception pure and simple.
In the post about double-counting, we show that the IPCC confuses carbon savings due to “market forces” with carbon savings by “climate policy”. This again would suggest to the unsuspecting reader that emission reduction is cheaper than it really is. The IPCC again did this in spite of protests by the referees. The IPCC deliberately puts the reader on the wrong foot.
In sum, the review process of the IPCC failed miserably. AR4 of WG3 substantially and knowingly misrepresents the state of the art in our understanding of the costs of emission reduction. It leads the reader to the conclusion that emission reduction is much cheaper and easier than it will be in real life.
Dr Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research was one of the lead authors of Chapter 11 where most of the “errors” originate. He has since been appointed as the co-chairperson of WG3 for the Fifth Assessment Report of 2014. Read more.
Why not do this for Climate Science??
Search engine collects historical resources
Once complete, it will give academics or members of the public a single site that lets them search all the collections.
Once completed the search engine will index digitised books, newspapers, manuscripts, genealogical records, maps and images that date from 1500-1900.
"There are a number of electronic resources that have been created by universities and by commercial providers," said Professor Robert Shoemaker from the University of Sheffield which is heading the project. "They are all available, and all separate and some require subscriptions."
"What we are trying to do is join them up to create an integrated search facility so you do not have to conduct more searches than necessary," Professor Shoemaker told BBC News.
"We are creating a kind of sophisticated Google for those selected range of resources that we know are of high quality," he said.
Much of the work involved in the Connected Histories project will be tagging and annotating entries so classification systems are standardised.
"We want to provide a level of structured searching by names, places and dates," he said. "That information is provided on some databases and in some cases we'll have to identify it ourselves."
In general, said Professor Shoemaker, the different collections possess different types of materials so there is little overlap between them.
Currently 12 institutions have signed up to contribute their collections but more are expected to join in the future.
The initial partners include the University of Sheffield, the Institute of Historical Research, the University of Hertfordshire and King's College, London.
The first phase of the Connected History project should be completed by March 2011.
Once complete, said Professor Shoemaker, the search system will make it much easier for anyone, be they academics, amateur genealogists or curious citizens, to get at all relevant sources.
"Our hope is that this becomes perceived as the place to go when finding sources for British history," he said.
"I think in the fullness of time we should expect that everything will be on the web and we need a way to interrogate that material," he said. "It is designed to be infinitely expandable." Read more.
The project will unite documents and records held in separate institutions
A search engine is being created to help historians find useful sources.
The Connected History project will link up currently separate databases of source materials.
Once complete, it will give academics or members of the public a single site that lets them search all the collections.
Once completed the search engine will index digitised books, newspapers, manuscripts, genealogical records, maps and images that date from 1500-1900.
"There are a number of electronic resources that have been created by universities and by commercial providers," said Professor Robert Shoemaker from the University of Sheffield which is heading the project. "They are all available, and all separate and some require subscriptions."
"What we are trying to do is join them up to create an integrated search facility so you do not have to conduct more searches than necessary," Professor Shoemaker told BBC News.
"We are creating a kind of sophisticated Google for those selected range of resources that we know are of high quality," he said.
Much of the work involved in the Connected Histories project will be tagging and annotating entries so classification systems are standardised.
"We want to provide a level of structured searching by names, places and dates," he said. "That information is provided on some databases and in some cases we'll have to identify it ourselves."
In general, said Professor Shoemaker, the different collections possess different types of materials so there is little overlap between them.
Currently 12 institutions have signed up to contribute their collections but more are expected to join in the future.
The initial partners include the University of Sheffield, the Institute of Historical Research, the University of Hertfordshire and King's College, London.
The first phase of the Connected History project should be completed by March 2011.
Once complete, said Professor Shoemaker, the search system will make it much easier for anyone, be they academics, amateur genealogists or curious citizens, to get at all relevant sources.
"Our hope is that this becomes perceived as the place to go when finding sources for British history," he said.
"I think in the fullness of time we should expect that everything will be on the web and we need a way to interrogate that material," he said. "It is designed to be infinitely expandable." Read more.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Was there a Medieval Warm Period?
YES, according to data published by 809 individual scientists from 482 separate research institutions in 43 different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from the Southern Canadian Tundra, Southwestern Keewatin, Nunavut, Canada.
Description
Starting from the northern edge of continuous forest, which in the early 1960s crossed Canada's Ennadai Lake at about 60°45'N, 101°W, the authors presented evidence -- based on buried soil and charcoal characteristics and their radiocarbon dating -- "of forests at least 280 km north of the present tree line about 3500 years ago and at least 90 km north about 900 years ago," as well as evidence that forests were "farther south than at present" during the intervening interval of time, going on to state that they "correlate the first advance with the Climatic Optimum and the second with the Little Climatic Optimum," which is otherwise known as the Medieval Warm Period. Based on these findings, the three researchers concluded that the ancient more northerly forests "were associated with periods of relatively mild climate." Hence, we conclude that the warmth of the MWP in this part of Canada was more significant than it was at the time of their study; and, based on the uncertainties associated with their radiocarbon dates, extended at least from about AD 1000 to AD 1200. Read more.
Description
Starting from the northern edge of continuous forest, which in the early 1960s crossed Canada's Ennadai Lake at about 60°45'N, 101°W, the authors presented evidence -- based on buried soil and charcoal characteristics and their radiocarbon dating -- "of forests at least 280 km north of the present tree line about 3500 years ago and at least 90 km north about 900 years ago," as well as evidence that forests were "farther south than at present" during the intervening interval of time, going on to state that they "correlate the first advance with the Climatic Optimum and the second with the Little Climatic Optimum," which is otherwise known as the Medieval Warm Period. Based on these findings, the three researchers concluded that the ancient more northerly forests "were associated with periods of relatively mild climate." Hence, we conclude that the warmth of the MWP in this part of Canada was more significant than it was at the time of their study; and, based on the uncertainties associated with their radiocarbon dates, extended at least from about AD 1000 to AD 1200. Read more.
Our blue gold
I don't think selling our water will bring the best return. If we use it to produce Hydrogen fuel we will become incredibly rich and powerful. This article does highlight the other great opportunity that will present it self this century. i.e. low cost water desalination. 
In the past few years, several domestic think-tanks have researched this issue, and concluded that there is a potentially lucrative market for Canadian water. The Montreal Economic Institute has determined that Quebec could earn up to $65-billion annually by exporting 10% of its renewable freshwater resources. The Frontier Centre for Public Policy estimates that Manitoba could earn US$1.33-billion annually by exporting just 1% of the fresh water flowing into Hudson Bay, via a pipeline to American markets, thereby ending Manitoba's status as a have-not province. Read more.
When Not To Believe The Science Of Scientists
Several recent polls have found “climate change” skepticism rising faster than sea levels on Planet Algore (not to be confused with Planet Earth, where sea levels remain relatively stable).
Many of the doubt-inducing climate scientists and their media acolytes attribute this rising skepticism to the stupidity of Americans, philistines unable to appreciate that there is “a scientific consensus on climate change.” One of the benefits of the recent Climategate scandal, which revealed leading climate scientists manipulating data, methods, and peer review to exaggerate the evidence of significant global warming, may be to permanently deflate the rhetorical value of the phrase “scientific consensus.”
Even without the scandal, the very idea of scientific consensus should give us pause. “Consensus,” according to Merriam-Webster, means both “general agreement” and “group solidarity in sentiment and belief.” That pretty much sums up the dilemma. We want to know whether a scientific consensus is based on solid evidence and sound reasoning, or social pressure and groupthink.
Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd. Many false ideas enjoyed consensus opinion at one time. Indeed, the “power of the paradigm” often shapes the thinking of scientists so strongly that they become unable to accurately summarize, let alone evaluate, radical alternatives. Question the paradigm, and some respond with dogmatic fanaticism.
We shouldn’t, of course, forget the other side of the coin. There are always cranks and conspiracy theorists. No matter how well founded a scientific consensus, there’s someone somewhere—easily accessible online—that thinks it’s all hokum. Sometimes these folks turn out to be right. But often, they’re just cranks whose counsel is best disregarded. Read more.
Climategate: A Veteran Meteorologist Exposes The Global Warming Scam
A distinguished, award-winning television weatherman in San Francisco, Brian Sussman deftly melds easy-to-understand scientific facts with provocative commentary. Sick of twisted “facts” mass-marketed to manipulate basic living decisions and common-sense energy consumption, Sussman indicts a cabal of elitist politicians, bureaucrats and activists who front the environmental movement to push intrusive, Marxist-derived policies in a quest to become filthy rich.
By tracing the origins of the current climate scare, Sussman guides the reader from the diabolical minds of Marx and Engles in the 1800s, to the global governance machinations of the United Nations today. Climategate is a call to action, warning Americans that their future is being undermined by a phony pseudo-science aimed at altering every aspect of life in the United States and the world.
About the Author
For more than 20 years Brian Sussman served as the region's most celebrated television science reporter and meteorologist. Admired for founding nonprofit that uses television profiles to place adoptive children with permanent families, Sussman's radio program "Right Thinking from the Left Coast." Read more.
The "hydrino economy"
The "hydrino economy" is a twist on the "hydrogen economy", inasmuch as the hydrino is a new species of hydrogen discovered and developed by Randall Mills of Blacklight.
View a video of Rowan University's validation of BlackLight's 50 kW hydrino reactor. That screen also gives an option to download Rowan's technical papers.
View a video of Rowan University's validation of BlackLight's 50 kW hydrino reactor. That screen also gives an option to download Rowan's technical papers.
In general, the chemical power released during the formation of hydrinos from hydrogen can be harnessed for motive power by several types of systems. The BlackLight Process has four principal applications to motive power, (i) on-board powering of the drive train with the game-changing CIHT technology, (ii) charging of electric vehicle batteries (iii) generation of combustible fuels, specifically hydrogen gas by electrolysis of water, and (iv) a hybrid electrical vehicle powered by heat that is converted to electricity to charge batteries that drive electric motors. The advantages and disadvantages are considered for the most to least competitive design.
Global Warming: 'Take this snow and shovel it again, Al Gore!'
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Global warming returned to Dallas -- just in time for the first day of Spring. Al Gore, grab that shovel and get busy. We all recall the last bout with "Global Warming" in Dallas, which left Dallas buried in as much as twelve inches of snow. This time around, perhaps in honor of Spring, it appears that we only have two to five inches.
If you are planning to travel to Dallas in March, anticipating the weather can be tricky. Expect variations of weather to range from hot, high winds, bitter cold, high winds, snow, ice, high winds, and thunderstorms.
Packing Essentials: Shorts, pants jacket/coat; Umbrella; sandals; ankle boots or other close-toed shoes; jeans; short sleeved shirts;long sleeved shirts plus a good credit card for shopping in case you lose it all during a tornado.
If you really want to talk about the politics and science of global warming, think and think again before claiming the "science is settled" - check out what genghis_ken from Flame-Free Politics has to say below:
Global Warming
The UN has delayed - in effect eliminated - the deadline for countries to declare themselves associated with the "accord" reached in Copenhagen. The deadline set there was the end of January, but now it's basically . . . any time at all.
The UN's IPCC has admitted and apologized for its Himalayan glacier blunder.
But that doesn't alter the science, which is settled.
The IPCC's 2007 report made the claim that 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest was endangered by global warming.
The World Wildlife Fund was once again the source. However, the WWF report was taken out of context. It was a report on the effect of forest fires. Well, they're warm, aren't they?
And the 40 percent number did not originate with WWF, which apparently "borrowed" it from a letter to the editor of Nature magazine, the subject being harmful logging activities.
So . . . take a half cup of forest fires, add a half cup of harmful logging, and bring to a boil. Yup, that's global warming alright, and a much better process than peer review.
But that doesn't alter the science, which is settled. Read more.
Climategate: Shameless Science
By James Lewis
Without a blush of shame, this week’s Science magazine just ran an article called “Contributions of stratospheric water vapor to decadal changes in the rate of Global Warming.” After wiping off the unnecessary words we’re left with: “Global Warming would be here — except for that damned water vapor.” It’s the “woulda coulda shoulda” of the True Believers.
Al Gore’s Ptolemaic epicycles are being rolled onto the scientific stage, to be piled higher and deeper until they fit the curve of real temperatures – a nearly flat line with a little bit of jitter. You could just turn it into a single equation: T = 70°F on an average day, for the average weather station around the world.
But … if you’ve been betting your whole career on planetary doom, you might try adding enough stratospheric water vapor to your predicted (but never observed) global warming, and yes, then your computer model can still explain why global warming ain’t happening.
Personally, I’d go for the flat line. It’s a lot simpler.
Oh, global warming is so 2009. Last year they told us it was already happening. Run for your lives, kids! It was “settled science.” Rational skeptics were “deniers” and James Hansen wanted them all in jail for “crimes against humanity.” Obama promised with that great messianic reverb on his woofers to “stop the seas from ri-ising!” ‘Cause … ’cause the polar bears were dying! Vanuatu was slipping under the ocean! And it’s all your fault! And we need the money! (That’s nine trillion dollars, according to Lord Nicholas Stern, the British economist who gave us the official price tag.)
Alas, now they’re telling us that Warmageddon has been postponed. Dr. Phil Jones testified that no warming has been observed for 15 years. But hellfire and brimstone are still a’comin’! You jest wait, Jed!
I sometimes wonder if Al Gore was scared as a young child by an Elmer Gantry revival meeting back in rural Tennessee. Maybe his Dad, Al Gore Sr., took little Al along for a little politickin’ at the tent meetin’, and he learned all about Hell and damnation from the preacher.
Early childhood trauma from too many raucous Tennessee revival meetings — it might explain a lot, including Al Jr.’s endless, fervent preaching about things he knows nothing about. This man can’t handle open-minded questions. He’s just like Elmer Gantry. Talk about rock-solid fundamentalism. Read more.
Without a blush of shame, this week’s Science magazine just ran an article called “Contributions of stratospheric water vapor to decadal changes in the rate of Global Warming.” After wiping off the unnecessary words we’re left with: “Global Warming would be here — except for that damned water vapor.” It’s the “woulda coulda shoulda” of the True Believers.
Al Gore’s Ptolemaic epicycles are being rolled onto the scientific stage, to be piled higher and deeper until they fit the curve of real temperatures – a nearly flat line with a little bit of jitter. You could just turn it into a single equation: T = 70°F on an average day, for the average weather station around the world.
But … if you’ve been betting your whole career on planetary doom, you might try adding enough stratospheric water vapor to your predicted (but never observed) global warming, and yes, then your computer model can still explain why global warming ain’t happening.
Personally, I’d go for the flat line. It’s a lot simpler.
Oh, global warming is so 2009. Last year they told us it was already happening. Run for your lives, kids! It was “settled science.” Rational skeptics were “deniers” and James Hansen wanted them all in jail for “crimes against humanity.” Obama promised with that great messianic reverb on his woofers to “stop the seas from ri-ising!” ‘Cause … ’cause the polar bears were dying! Vanuatu was slipping under the ocean! And it’s all your fault! And we need the money! (That’s nine trillion dollars, according to Lord Nicholas Stern, the British economist who gave us the official price tag.)
Alas, now they’re telling us that Warmageddon has been postponed. Dr. Phil Jones testified that no warming has been observed for 15 years. But hellfire and brimstone are still a’comin’! You jest wait, Jed!
I sometimes wonder if Al Gore was scared as a young child by an Elmer Gantry revival meeting back in rural Tennessee. Maybe his Dad, Al Gore Sr., took little Al along for a little politickin’ at the tent meetin’, and he learned all about Hell and damnation from the preacher.
Early childhood trauma from too many raucous Tennessee revival meetings — it might explain a lot, including Al Jr.’s endless, fervent preaching about things he knows nothing about. This man can’t handle open-minded questions. He’s just like Elmer Gantry. Talk about rock-solid fundamentalism. Read more.
What if you held a Debate and only one side showed up
It is very difficult to debate Monckton on this subject and win - so the warmists would rather snipe from the sidelines safely within the confines of settled science. The alarmist spin is that this is now simply a PR issue that can be overcome with a good advertising campaign.
Climate change debate now a one-man show
When lawmakers began touting Lord Christopher Monckton's visit to Utah a few months ago, the idea was to have a freewheeling debate on climate-change science.
That matchup never materialized, and now the Third Viscount of Benchley is set to take the stage solo, twice on Tuesday at Utah Valley University's MacKay Events Center in Orem, for a presentation he hopes will be entertaining and informative.
If you're thinking now about writing it off as another stodgy science lecture, you might want to think again.
To begin with, Monckton and his subject are provocative.
In a telephone interview Friday, he acknowledged his lack of formal training in the hard sciences but also defended his qualifications to criticize the climate-science mainstream, as well as the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Monckton said he has a solid understanding of science -- he's lectured physicists, solved complex problems for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and poked holes in the IPCC's findings.
Plus, he said, he has scientific training in architectural studies that made it possible for him to build his own home, which is still standing.
"I do have some scientific knowledge, but it would be wrong of me to claim that I am any kind of qualified climatologist," he said. "I just quietly get on with the science. Then I tell people what I think the science shows."
He said he will talk Tuesday about why global warming is not a crisis. He also will discuss what he sees as the economic and moral pitfalls society faces in trying to control it. And Monckton insists visitors won't hear any partisanship from him.
"I am no campaigner nor do I do any campaigning on either side of the issue," he said. "All I do is look at the science." Read more.
Climate change debate now a one-man show
When lawmakers began touting Lord Christopher Monckton's visit to Utah a few months ago, the idea was to have a freewheeling debate on climate-change science.
That matchup never materialized, and now the Third Viscount of Benchley is set to take the stage solo, twice on Tuesday at Utah Valley University's MacKay Events Center in Orem, for a presentation he hopes will be entertaining and informative.
If you're thinking now about writing it off as another stodgy science lecture, you might want to think again.
To begin with, Monckton and his subject are provocative.
In a telephone interview Friday, he acknowledged his lack of formal training in the hard sciences but also defended his qualifications to criticize the climate-science mainstream, as well as the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Monckton said he has a solid understanding of science -- he's lectured physicists, solved complex problems for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and poked holes in the IPCC's findings.
Plus, he said, he has scientific training in architectural studies that made it possible for him to build his own home, which is still standing.
"I do have some scientific knowledge, but it would be wrong of me to claim that I am any kind of qualified climatologist," he said. "I just quietly get on with the science. Then I tell people what I think the science shows."
He said he will talk Tuesday about why global warming is not a crisis. He also will discuss what he sees as the economic and moral pitfalls society faces in trying to control it. And Monckton insists visitors won't hear any partisanship from him.
"I am no campaigner nor do I do any campaigning on either side of the issue," he said. "All I do is look at the science." Read more.
Friday, March 19, 2010
A response from a climate change skeptic
In response to Ray Grigg's article "A Message for Climate Skeptics", I felt some feedback from a self described climate skeptic might be in order.
Ray, you correctly point out that the IPCC is finally admitting mistakes in their 2007 report. But for you to state that the Himalaya glaciers could melt a mere 100 years later than predicted is not very scientific since there is no basis for any rate of melting that can be considered reliable at this point. That's why the IPCC has set up an independent inquiry to find out how such poor science made it into the peer reviewed literature. There were other mistakes. Articles from Green Peace and the World Wildlife Fund also were referenced in the report, perhaps this could explain the advocacy that the IPCC became known for? These are not impartial organizations and do not produce credible scientific papers. Mistakes as obvious as how much of the Netherlands is below sea level also found their way into the "peer reviewed" report. The report stated 55 per cent is below sea level, in fact the correct number is less than half at 25 per cent.
You incorrectly claim that skeptics say that there has been no climate change. That is not a credible position even among skeptics. What we object to is the certainty that humans are somehow in control of changes in the climate and that any climate change that we cause will be negative or rapid. Changes we are seeing are not rapid and if record snowfall across the northern hemisphere for this winter doesn't count as climate, then neither should record heat waves in 2005 or an unusually low arctic sea ice extent in 2007. Climate changes. It always changes. Nothing will change that.
Now to the issue of the leak or hacking of emails at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK (AKA - climategate). You again start off well and admit that the conduct of some of their researchers was not becoming of true scientists. However, you still take their side and erroneously state that they were justified in their actions because they were under attack by the high volume of freedom of information request that were being filed. I reject your reasoning.
Things didn't have to get to that point, and they shouldn't have. Polite, informal inquiries were indeed made by well known figures in the climate skeptic community for access to the raw data. What you may or may not be aware of, is that most of the FOI requests that were filed were not for the data toward the end. Instead they were filed to gain access to the alleged non disclosure agreement that Phil Jones - head of the CRU - claimed prevented him from releasing the raw data. So far, no such written legal document has ever been revealed. I for one am grateful that there are people out there who are willing to work within the rule of law to uncover the truth instead of subvert the rule of law to keep it hidden. I wish there were more skeptics out there and not just in the area of climate science.
Your final error is that skeptics think they have discredited climate science in general. The climate science community doesn't need our help to do that. When Phil Jones was recently called before a committee of British MPs investigating "climategate", he was asked by one member of the panel - a former scientist - if all previous climate papers had raw data available. His answer was no. The reason?
"Because it hasn't been standard practice to do that."
Jones went on to say that most scientist that he did work with didn't even want to see the raw data. This includes the peer reviewed process. Hmm......
Phil Jones is also on record with this now famous quote in response to one of those earlier informal requests for data before the situation escalated to open warfare:
"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"
Actually, Phil, that's what science is all about.
It becomes even more important when people like Phil Jones are keeping science secret that is then used to drive policy that we all have to live with the world over. Read more.
Ray, you correctly point out that the IPCC is finally admitting mistakes in their 2007 report. But for you to state that the Himalaya glaciers could melt a mere 100 years later than predicted is not very scientific since there is no basis for any rate of melting that can be considered reliable at this point. That's why the IPCC has set up an independent inquiry to find out how such poor science made it into the peer reviewed literature. There were other mistakes. Articles from Green Peace and the World Wildlife Fund also were referenced in the report, perhaps this could explain the advocacy that the IPCC became known for? These are not impartial organizations and do not produce credible scientific papers. Mistakes as obvious as how much of the Netherlands is below sea level also found their way into the "peer reviewed" report. The report stated 55 per cent is below sea level, in fact the correct number is less than half at 25 per cent.
You incorrectly claim that skeptics say that there has been no climate change. That is not a credible position even among skeptics. What we object to is the certainty that humans are somehow in control of changes in the climate and that any climate change that we cause will be negative or rapid. Changes we are seeing are not rapid and if record snowfall across the northern hemisphere for this winter doesn't count as climate, then neither should record heat waves in 2005 or an unusually low arctic sea ice extent in 2007. Climate changes. It always changes. Nothing will change that.
Now to the issue of the leak or hacking of emails at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK (AKA - climategate). You again start off well and admit that the conduct of some of their researchers was not becoming of true scientists. However, you still take their side and erroneously state that they were justified in their actions because they were under attack by the high volume of freedom of information request that were being filed. I reject your reasoning.
Things didn't have to get to that point, and they shouldn't have. Polite, informal inquiries were indeed made by well known figures in the climate skeptic community for access to the raw data. What you may or may not be aware of, is that most of the FOI requests that were filed were not for the data toward the end. Instead they were filed to gain access to the alleged non disclosure agreement that Phil Jones - head of the CRU - claimed prevented him from releasing the raw data. So far, no such written legal document has ever been revealed. I for one am grateful that there are people out there who are willing to work within the rule of law to uncover the truth instead of subvert the rule of law to keep it hidden. I wish there were more skeptics out there and not just in the area of climate science.
Your final error is that skeptics think they have discredited climate science in general. The climate science community doesn't need our help to do that. When Phil Jones was recently called before a committee of British MPs investigating "climategate", he was asked by one member of the panel - a former scientist - if all previous climate papers had raw data available. His answer was no. The reason?
"Because it hasn't been standard practice to do that."
Jones went on to say that most scientist that he did work with didn't even want to see the raw data. This includes the peer reviewed process. Hmm......
Phil Jones is also on record with this now famous quote in response to one of those earlier informal requests for data before the situation escalated to open warfare:
"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"
Actually, Phil, that's what science is all about.
It becomes even more important when people like Phil Jones are keeping science secret that is then used to drive policy that we all have to live with the world over. Read more.
The Potential Of Hydrogen Based Energy
Author : James Nash
This article illustrates the potential of hydrogen based energy systems We want to show you that if the world chooses to follow the hydrogen road then all the basic technology is available now, we are not waiting for research breakthroughs
The cost of changing to a hydrogen-powered world will not be excessive, especially if the external costs of pollution and ill health associated with fossil fuels are taken into account as credits towards the cost of using hydrogen as a clean fuel with no external costs Only when hydrogen enters a market at small volumes is there going to be a cost problem and we will just have to find ways around these temporary obstacles
The following sections will show you how to calculate the cost of changing to hydrogen See for yourself, if you think our input figures are wrong then you can substitute your own and see if a hydrogen powered world is feasible We would be very pleased to have some feedback on this because it is difficult to get well documented information on costs
If global warming is partly or wholly due to atmospheric CO2 produced by the use of fossil fuels, then the hydrogen energy system described here is one way of producing more energy for the world without adding more CO2 to the atmosphere that would make global warming worse
Global warming will have adverse effects on climate and will lead to rising sea levels flooding towns, cities and farmland
We cannot realistically expect to reduce the total world use of energy because only a quarter of the world’s population are using approximately three quarters of the world’s current energy production This a quarter of the world’s population are unlikely to make the reductions in use required to accommodate increases in energy use by the three quarters of the world’s population currently needing more energy supplies
Some people advocate cutting back the consumption of resources and energy generally as the way to a sustainable future But the dynamics (i e increasingly capitalist ) and realities of the world’s population and economies are such that a peaceful global reduction in consumption is not possible What is needed is environmentally sustainable growth of world production to meet human needs This will require an increasing supply of clean pollution-free energy and the recycling of the Earth’s material resources which will also involve using more energy
A hydrogen based system offers totally clean energy supplies with no pollution The system is based on renewable sources of electricity and uses hydrogen as an energy carrier/fuel that is able to replace all existing uses of fossil fuels The hydrogen energy system could meet all the world’s energy needs forever
It is more likely that the argument over what to do about global warming is going to be won by people who say what can be done and not by people who say what cannot be done The hydrogen energy system offers a way out of our energy supply impasse. Read more.
This article illustrates the potential of hydrogen based energy systems We want to show you that if the world chooses to follow the hydrogen road then all the basic technology is available now, we are not waiting for research breakthroughs
The cost of changing to a hydrogen-powered world will not be excessive, especially if the external costs of pollution and ill health associated with fossil fuels are taken into account as credits towards the cost of using hydrogen as a clean fuel with no external costs Only when hydrogen enters a market at small volumes is there going to be a cost problem and we will just have to find ways around these temporary obstacles
The following sections will show you how to calculate the cost of changing to hydrogen See for yourself, if you think our input figures are wrong then you can substitute your own and see if a hydrogen powered world is feasible We would be very pleased to have some feedback on this because it is difficult to get well documented information on costs
If global warming is partly or wholly due to atmospheric CO2 produced by the use of fossil fuels, then the hydrogen energy system described here is one way of producing more energy for the world without adding more CO2 to the atmosphere that would make global warming worse
Global warming will have adverse effects on climate and will lead to rising sea levels flooding towns, cities and farmland
We cannot realistically expect to reduce the total world use of energy because only a quarter of the world’s population are using approximately three quarters of the world’s current energy production This a quarter of the world’s population are unlikely to make the reductions in use required to accommodate increases in energy use by the three quarters of the world’s population currently needing more energy supplies
Some people advocate cutting back the consumption of resources and energy generally as the way to a sustainable future But the dynamics (i e increasingly capitalist ) and realities of the world’s population and economies are such that a peaceful global reduction in consumption is not possible What is needed is environmentally sustainable growth of world production to meet human needs This will require an increasing supply of clean pollution-free energy and the recycling of the Earth’s material resources which will also involve using more energy
A hydrogen based system offers totally clean energy supplies with no pollution The system is based on renewable sources of electricity and uses hydrogen as an energy carrier/fuel that is able to replace all existing uses of fossil fuels The hydrogen energy system could meet all the world’s energy needs forever
It is more likely that the argument over what to do about global warming is going to be won by people who say what can be done and not by people who say what cannot be done The hydrogen energy system offers a way out of our energy supply impasse. Read more.
eHydrogen Solutions Increases Revenue Outlook Based on Pike Research Report Underscoring Demand for the Company's CHP Systems
RENO, NV, Mar 19, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- (PINKSHEETS: EHYD) eHydrogen Solutions, Inc. (eHS), announced today it increased its revenue outlook for its Residential Distributed Energy and Combined Heating and Power (CHP) development projects based on Pike Research's authoritative CleanTech Update, published March 12, 2010.
The report explicitly states the "Residential Energy Efficiency Market (is) poised for strong growth during the economic recovery. This sector, which comprises energy efficient home improvements, high-efficiency appliances, and home energy auditing services, holds the potential to generate significant new revenue opportunities as well as creating a large number of new green collar jobs."
eHs' Residential Distributed Energy and CHP systems specifically target the residential energy efficiency market and are all powered by the Company's On Demand Hydrogen Production (ODHP) systems.
The Company's Distributed Energy and CHP systems are zero-emissions solutions efficiently integrating leading edge energy production, energy storage and space heating technologies into self sufficient, ecologically sensitive applications for residential use. These processes, together with advanced electrolysis technologies, when integrated into a fuel cell, hydrogen powered generator and/or advanced battery storage systems, will enable sufficient hydrogen production to power and heat a home -- with all hydrogen produced on-site.
"Demand for these products and services has increased significantly over the past few years due to a rise in fuel and energy prices, improved awareness and participation in green home certification programs, and through government support. Government programs such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have provided incentives for energy efficient products, services, and retrofits, spurring growth in these sectors. These drivers include increased environmental awareness among consumers, government incentives, utility energy efficiency programs, and new offerings and rebates from product manufacturers." Read more.
Hydrogen power tops the bill at SB
Recent advances in hydrogen fuel cells have brought the technology back to the forefront of environmental thinking.
It's only right then that Sustainabilitylive! will hear from one of UK's leading experts on the technology.
Dr Bruno Pollet, part of Birmingham University's highly regarded fuel cells group, will be talking about the role of hydrogen in transport.
He also heads up the £5.5M Doctoral Training Centre in Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and their applications and a £1.3M hydrogen fuel cell vehicle project, making him arguably one of the nation's leading voice on the technology.
He said: "As reserves of fossil fuels run out and current issues with energy security we need to look for alternatives.
"Hydrogen is naturally abundant and produces only one waste product as a fuel: water when either burnt or used in a fuel cell.
"We are working to make hydrogen a cost-effective practical alternative to fossil fuels, but also to work with collaborators in business to make sure its potential is fully understood and exploited."
Dr Pollet will be speaking between 11.30pm and midday at the SB the event part of sustainabilitylive! on Wednesday April 21. Read more.
It's only right then that Sustainabilitylive! will hear from one of UK's leading experts on the technology.
Dr Bruno Pollet, part of Birmingham University's highly regarded fuel cells group, will be talking about the role of hydrogen in transport.
He also heads up the £5.5M Doctoral Training Centre in Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and their applications and a £1.3M hydrogen fuel cell vehicle project, making him arguably one of the nation's leading voice on the technology.
He said: "As reserves of fossil fuels run out and current issues with energy security we need to look for alternatives.
"Hydrogen is naturally abundant and produces only one waste product as a fuel: water when either burnt or used in a fuel cell.
"We are working to make hydrogen a cost-effective practical alternative to fossil fuels, but also to work with collaborators in business to make sure its potential is fully understood and exploited."
Dr Pollet will be speaking between 11.30pm and midday at the SB the event part of sustainabilitylive! on Wednesday April 21. Read more.
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