Tag: IPCC

The fastest ever collapse of any modern political movement

The latest links from Climate Depot via Marc Morano:
Flashback 2008: Scientist: ‘Global warming’ is sub-prime science, sub-prime economics, and sub-prime politics, and it could well go down with the sub-prime mortgage’ Paper: UN climate chief Pachauri used ‘bogus’ climate claims ‘to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds’ UN IPCC Exposed: ‘Dozens’ of instances where WWF reports have been cited as the sole authority for contentious claims, including one about coastal developments in Latin America’ Obama must call out the UN IPCC to keep his inaugural pledge to ‘restore science to its rightful place’ Australian Herald Sun: ‘Could the Nobel Prize be withdrawn’ from UN IPCC? ‘Al Gore needs to be leading this charge (for Pachauri’s resignation) in the US. Where is he, and why is he silent?’ Na na na hey hey hey goodbye! Pew Survey: Global warming ranks dead last as concern for Americans — 21 out of 21 – ‘Global warming ranks at the bottom of the public’s list of priorities; just 28% consider this a top priority, the lowest measure for any issue tested in the survey’ ‘Pachauri must resign’ Calls for Pachauri to resign: ‘His position is becoming more and more untenable by the day…UN IPCC ‘will continue to leach credibility while he remains in charge’ Flashback 2006: Morano Debates Pachauri at UN Conference in Kenya — Calls UN an ‘echo chamber’ where ‘dissent was being suppressed and demonized’ Houston Chronicle Credits Climate Depot with Warming Movements Collapse!: Morano debating Scientists is ‘just a wipeout’ — ‘It’s an NFL team playing a high school team’ UN Climate Con is Ending! Shock Revelation: UN scientist admits fake data was used in IPCC report ‘purely to put political pressure on world leaders’ – UN IPCC Scientist: Phony glacier claim designed to ‘impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action’ – UK Mail – Jan. 24, 2009 UK Guardian: Global Warming Bubble Bursts: ‘Banks are pulling out of the carbon-offsetting market’ Flashback: 2009: Paper: ‘Don’t let Climategate melt down your portfolio…don’t get stuck with investments tied to global warming’ Flashback 2009: Carbon Bubble Fears! Asian Development Bank warns failure to ‘reach climate deal could lead to a collapse of carbon market’ ‘And now for UN’s Amazongate’: ‘Made false predictions’ on Amazon rainforest, referenced non-peer-reviewed paper produced by WWF Paging George Orwell: Stern Review ‘mysteriously changed’ – Prof. Pielke, Jr.: ‘As much as 40% of the Stern Review projections for the global costs of unmitigated climate change derive from its misuse of (extreme weather paper)’ The IPCC scandal: the African data was sexed up, too China surprises summit — Declares it has ‘open mind’ about global warming: ‘Alternative view that climate change is caused by cyclical trends in nature’ Global Warming ‘is rapidly morphing into the greatest scandal in the history of science since the belief in a flat earth’

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UK Parliament to investigate Climategate

For those of you following the Climategate scandal (and if you haven’t bought our book on the subject yet, you can do so by clicking here: Climategate: The CRUtape Letters), this may be of some interest. The Select Committee on Science and Technology will be investigating Climategate. They have three areas of focus, as explained below. What implications does the scandal have for the integrity of scientific research, is the previously announced review likely to be adequate and most importantly, how independent are the other two international data sets? Unlike many UK investigations, this one might be fruitful, as it is not looking for someone to blame–it’s looking for ways of fixing a system. They are inviting your submissions. See below for details. SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Select Committee Announcement

22 January 2010

NEW INQUIRY

THE DISCLOSURE OF CLIMATE DATA FROM THE CLIMATIC RESEARCH UNIT AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA

The Science and Technology Committee today announces an inquiry into the
unauthorised publication of data, emails and documents relating to the
work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East
Anglia (UEA). The Committee has agreed to examine and invite written
submissions on three questions:
– What are the implications of the disclosures for the
integrity of scientific research?
– Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent
Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate (see below)?
– How independent are the other two international data
sets? (footnote 1)

The Committee intends to hold an oral evidence session in March 2010.

Background

On 1 December 2009 Phil Willis, Chairman of the Science and Technology
Committee, wrote to Professor Edward Acton, Vice-Chancellor of UEA
following the considerable press coverage of the data, emails and
documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The
coverage alleged that data may have been manipulated or deleted in order
to produce evidence on global warming. On 3 December the UEA announced
an Independent Review into the allegations to be headed by Sir Muir
Russell.

The Independent Review will:

1. Examine the hacked e-mail exchanges, other relevant e-mail exchanges
and any other information held at CRU to determine whether there is any
evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds
with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question
any of the research outcomes.

2. Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling,
subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings,
and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice.

3. Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the University’s policies
and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act
(‘the FOIA’) and the Environmental Information Regulations (‘the EIR’)
for the release of data.

4. Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management,
governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity
and release of the data it holds. (footnote 2)

Submissions

The Committee invites written submissions from interested parties on the
three questions set out above by noon on Wednesday 10 February:

Each submission should:
a) be no more than 3,000 words in length
b) be in Word format (no later than 2003) with as little use of
colour or logos as possible
c) have numbered paragraphs
d) include a declaration of interests.

A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to
scitechcom@parliament.uk and marked “Climatic Research Unit”. An
additional paper copy should be sent to:

The Clerk
Science and Technology Committee House of Commons
7 Millbank
London SW1P 3JA

It would be helpful, for Data Protection purposes, if individuals
submitting written evidence send their contact details separately in a
covering letter. You should be aware that there may be circumstances in
which the House of Commons will be required to communicate information
to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.Source by Thomas Fuller

As Global Warming Movement Collapses, Activists Already 'Test-Marketing' the Next Eco-Fear

By Marc Morano

Climate Depot Editorial As the man-made global warming fear movement collapses and the climate establishment lay in a Climategate ridden tatters, many are asking what next? (For latest on climate movement’s demise go to www.ClimateDepot.com)
As man-made global warming fears enter the ashbin of history, what will environmentalists, UN activists and politicians do to fill the void of a failed eco-scare?
Well, wonder no more….
Some forward thinking green activists and even the UN climate Chief have already taken up the task of test-marketing the next eco-scares to replace man-made global warming.
 One of the most prominent eco-scares now being quietly promoted behind man-made climate fears is the allegedly “growing” nitrous oxide (a.k.a. “laughing gas”) threat to the planet. See: Time for next eco-scare already?! ‘Earth’s growing nitrogen threat’: ‘It helps feed a hungry world, but it’s worse than CO2’The Christian Science Monitor – January 12, 2010 – Excerpt: Nitrous oxide is nearly 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide – considered the leading cause of climate change – and the third most threatening greenhouse gas overall. As man-made climate fears subside and the scientific, economic, cultural and political case evaporates for climate change “action,” expect more and more green activists to take up the mantle for “laughing gas” as a possible replacement eco-scare.
See also: Laughing Gas Knocks Out CO2 – By Doug Hoffman – Oct. 30, 2009 – Excerpt: “In the face of ever mounting evidence that CO2 is incapable of causing the level of global devastation prophesied by climate change catastrophists a new villain is being sought. The leading candidate is nitrous oxide (N2O), better known as laughing gas. A report in Science claims that N2O emissions are currently the single most important cause of ozone depletion and are expected to remain so throughout the 21st century. The IPCC rates N2O as 310 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2 on a 100 year time scale. Is this a greenhouse gas bait and switch, or are the global warming alarmists trying to up the ante.”
Still can’t picture former Vice President Al Gore touting the “laughing gas” crisis as the “moral” challenge of our time in a Oscar-winning documentary? Not to worry, there are many more eco-scares currently being test-marketed.
Gore’s own producer of “An Inconvenient Truth” — Hollywood eco-activist Laurie David — is already test-marketing another eco-scare with potential promise.
“One Word: Plastics.” Yes, just 43 years after the 1967 film “The Graduate”, “plastics” just may be the future! See: AGW RIP? Is It Time for Next Eco-Scare Already? Gore’s producer Laure David touts plastic crisis: ‘Plastic waste is in some ways more alarming for us humans than global warming’ – July 31, 2009
 “The rapid rise in global plastic production is leading to a rise in plastic pollution and its devastating effects on our oceans and our lives.,” Laurie David wrote on July 31, 2009. Selected Excerpts From David’s blog post: “This insidious invasion of the biosphere by our plastic waste is in some ways more alarming for us humans than global warming. Our bodies have evolved to handle carbon dioxide, the nemesis of global warming, indeed, we exhale it with every breath. Plastic, though present in the biosphere from the nano scale on up, is too stable a molecule for any organism to fully assimilate or biodegrade. So we have a situation in which a vector for a suite of devastating chemicals, chemicals implicated in many modern diseases, is now invading the ocean, our bodies and indeed, the entire biosphere. The prognosis for improvement in this situation is grim.”
Still not convinced of either “laughing gas” or “plastics” as the next dominant eco-scare? Don’t worry, we are just getting started. Just how widespread is the test marketing of a new eco-scare to replace the flailing global warming movement? It now has the attention of the beleaguered head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Rajendra Pachauri.
In a remarkable posting on his personal blog, Pachauri openly admitted that man-made global warming was not even the biggest eco-issue! See: Et tu? Head of UN IPCC Pachauri Now throwing global warming under the bus?! There is a ‘larger problem’ than climate fears?! – November 23, 2009
 Pachauri wrote on November 23, 2009: “The question is whether the additional time that the world would now have to arrive at an agreement at the next Conference of the Parties in Mexico will give us time and space to look at the larger problem of unsustainable development, of which climate change is at best a symptom. Human society cannot continue to ignore the vital dependence that exists between human welfare and the health of our natural resources.” The UK Green Party and a UN advisor are already concocting yet another potential new eco-scare that may be an easy transition from failed global warming fears. See: UK Green Party: ‘There exists a more serious crisis than the ‘CO2 crisis’: the oxygen levels are dropping and the human activity has decreased them by 1/3 or ½ – By Peter Tatchell of the UK Green party – UK Guardian – August 13, 2008
 Excerpt: “In the view of Professor Ervin Laszlo, the drop in atmospheric oxygen has potentially serious consequences. A UN advisor who has been a professor of philosophy and systems sciences, Laszlo writes: Evidence from prehistoric times indicates that the oxygen content of pristine nature was above the 21% of total volume that it is today. It has decreased in recent times due mainly to the burning of coal in the middle of the last century. Currently the oxygen content of the Earth’s atmosphere dips to 19% over impacted areas, and it is down to 12 to 17% over the major cities. At these levels it is difficult for people to get sufficient oxygen to maintain bodily health: it takes a proper intake of oxygen to keep body cells and organs, and the entire immune system, functioning at full efficiency. At the levels we have reached today cancers and other degenerative diseases are likely to develop. And at 6 to 7% life can no longer be sustained.”
Wow. Imagine scaring school children with suffocation due to our modern way of life! Documentaries, text books and Hollywood could really instill fear in the kids and adults with scary predictions of Mom and Dad choking to death due to a lack of oxygen created by evil modern society. Mom and Dad turning blue and suffering fatal convulsions sure beats the emotional imagery of a Polar Bear drowning or a building be flooded to due to rising seas. Keep your eye on this one, it just may get some traction.

Ok. Let’s assume now that one of the above or yet another not ready for prime time eco-fear catches on, how would the environmental activists go about selling this eco-scare to the public?
For an answer, let’s review a few of the failed eco-alarms of the past 40 years.
The Global Cooling Scare of 1970’s offers vital clues about how the “search-and-replace” tactics are utilized by eco-fear promoters. See: 1974 CIA report on Global Cooling: ‘Embarrassing reading’: ‘All AGW scares are a search-and-replace job from ‘cooling’ to ‘warming’ – Dec. 3, 2009 & Climate Depot’s Factsheet on 1970s Coming ‘Ice Age’ Claims – Oct. 6, 2009
 Ever wonder how Gore and the UN would hype a “tipping point” for various new eco-scares? Newsweek Magazine first used the climate “tipping point” argument in 1975 to urge action to prevent man-made global cooling. Newsweek wrote April 28, 1975 article: “The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.”
Yes, quite literally “a search-and-replace job from cooling to warming.” Also See: Not again! Another 10-year climate ‘tipping point’ warning issued — Despite fact that UN began 10-Year ‘Climate Tipping Point’ in 1989! Climate Depot Factsheet on Inconvenient History of Global Warming ‘Tipping Points’ — Earth ‘Serially Doomed’ – Nov. 15, 2009
 Overpopulation Fears Overpopulation fears have jumped all over the place in recent years. See: Grist Mag. Going Down: Is too few people the new ‘population problem?’ – December 14, 2005 and Could Overpopulation Save The Earth From Global Warming? June 15, 2009. Overpopulation fears can be played any which way advocates would like. Even the guru of overpopulation fears eventually admitted his silliness. See: An Admission finally! ‘The Population Bomb’s’ Paul Ehrlich: ‘I wish I’d taken more math in high school and college. That would have been useful’ – ‘If he were writing ‘The Population Bomb’ now, he’d be more careful about predictions’ – Oct. 8, 2009 – Also see: Climate Depot’s Overpopulation factsheet – August 21, 2009
 Amazon Rainforest Scare The allegedly disappearing rainforest scare was the environmental issue du jour in the 1980’s and 1990’s, long before climate fears took center stage. In fact, In 2000, Climate Depot’s Executive Editor Marc Morano was producer and correspondent for a documentary debunking the myths about the rainforests. Morano’s “Amazon Rainforest: Clear-Cutting the Myths” was greeted with massive controversy. But, just nine years later, the rainforest scare was kaput.

See: Jan. 30, 2009: New York Times: ‘Galloping jungle’: Farmlands revert back to nature as saving the rainforests becomes ‘less urgent’ – ‘For every acre of rainforest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing’
NYT Excerpt: Here, and in other tropical countries around the world, small holdings like Ms. Ortega de Wing’s – and much larger swaths of farmland – are reverting back to nature, as people abandon their land and move to the cities in search of better livings. These new “secondary” forests are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rain forest – an iconic environmental cause – may be less urgent than once thought. By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster. “There is far more forest here than there was 30 years ago,” said Ms. Ortega de Wing, 64, who remembers fields of mango trees and banana plants.
Also see: ‘Save the trees’ more political myth than environmental truth – Jan. 2009
 Old eco-scares don’t die, they just fade away. The failed rainforest scare inspired this 2009 satire of the death of global warming movement. Spoof: NYT in 2019: Scientists Now Say Global Warming Fears Fading Away – Claim There Never Was Warming Consensus – By Marc Morano
 Other eco-scares that did not pan out include the 1970 and 8190’s baseless scares about resource scarcity and predictions of famine. (Excerpt: The ultimate embarrassment for the Malthusians was when Paul Ehrlich bet Julian Simon $1,000 in 1980 that five resources (of Ehrlich’s choosing) would be more expensive in 10 years. Ehrlich lost: 10 years later every one of the resources had declined in price by an average of 40 percent.) Plus other eco-scares like “ocean acidification” and others too numerous to mention.
It will be a compelling battle to try and replace the mother of all eco-scares — man-made global warming — but Climate Depot is confident that one of these test-marketed new eco-issues will catch on and you may soon see massive denials from environmentalists and UN officials that claims of a man-made global warming crisis never really existed (echoing the claims that there was no widespread concern about global cooling in the 1970’s) See: Spoof: NYT in 2019: Scientists Now Say Global Warming Fears Fading Away – Claim There Never Was Warming Consensus – By Marc Morano
 Already we have some of the most insulting attempts to shift the focus away from the “warming” aspect of “global warming.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) — in true “Climate Astrology” fashion — dismissed the lack of global warming on March 4, 2009 by declaring: “Climate change is not just about temperatures going up. It’s also about volatility.”
Not to be outdone, Sen. Stabenow followed up her climate analysis with this claim about touchy-feely warming: “Global warming creates volatility and I feel it when I’m flying. The storms are more volatile,” Sen. Stabenow explained in August 11, 2009.
No wonder, climate fear promoters are now openly demanding exaggeration and wishing for death and destruction to convince the public of man-made climate fears. “You have to find ways to exaggerate the threat,” Nobel-Prize Winning Economist Thomas Schelling said in a July 14, 2009 interview with The Atlantic.
Lest there be any doubt that desperation time has set in for the promoters of man-made climate fears, Schelling removed it.

Schelling continued: “I sometimes wish that we could have, over the next five or ten years, a lot of horrid things happening — you know, like tornadoes in the Midwest and so forth — that would get people very concerned about climate change.”

Let’s get this straight. A prominent promoter of man-made global warming is now openly wishing for death and destruction of Americans in order to convince them that man-made global warming is a threat? Climate Depot encourages Schelling and Sen. Stabenow to continue their utter climate silliness. Quite simply, alarmism leads to skepticism. No wonder more ‘More Americans believe in haunted houses than man-made global warming’.

In the end, science rules the day.
Related Links: Climategate Prompts UN scientists turn on each other – Nov. 27, 2009) Oct 2009: Losing Their Religion: 2009 officially declared year the media lost their faith in man-made global warming fears

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GLACIERGATE: The disintegration of the IPCC


By Will AlexanderI was in the process of packing my bags for home when there was another explosion on the Internet. The IPCC’s claim that climate change will result in massive melting of the Himalayan glaciers is false. This was disclosed in the UK Sunday Times and rapidly spread to other newspapers and the Internet. The Australian carried a headline article yesterday (Monday) and a full page plus two other articles in this morning’s edition.

This claim is the centrepiece of the IPCC assessment reports as well as Al Gore’s documentary An inconvenient truth.

The IPCC has repeatedly maintained that its conclusions are based on peer-reviewed papers in recognized scientific journals. It has now been disclosed that this claim never passed through the peer-review process.

The following is my summary of the sequence of events derived from media reports of the past two days.

1996. A member of the Russian Academy of Sciences predicted significant Himalayan glacier melting by 2350. Somewhere along the line this was fraudulently transformed to 2035.

1999. An Indian glaciologist Sayed Hasnain speculated in a short telephone interview with the New Scientist that all the glaciers in the central and western Himalayas could soon start disappearing. He did not mention the year of 2035 in his interview.

2005. The environmental group WWF published a report in which it described the New Scientist report as disturbing.

2007. The IPCC published its fourth assessment report. One of the report’s central claims was that the world’s glaciers are melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. It sourced this prediction to the WWF report.

2009. The Indian government reported that there was no substance in claims of large scale melting of the glaciers. The chairman of the IPCC described his government’s report as voodoo science. He has since been widely criticised for his statement.

2010. Hasnain revealed in an interview with the New Scientist that he had never repeated the prediction in a peer-reviewed journal as it was speculative.

There has been no official response to this issue by the IPCC. It cannot afford to remain silent, particularly after the Climategate exposures and the failure of the Copenhagen discussions.

News headlines

When the Climategate scandal broke, the public had difficulty in appreciating its significance. However, Himalayan glaciers like polar bears are readily appreciated. Can the IPCC survive yet another challenge to its scientific honesty and integrity?

The following are some headlines during the past two days.

IPCC IN TROUBLE OVER FALSE CLAIM.

IPCC MISLED WORLD OVER HIMALAYAN GLACIER MELT DOWN.

CLIMATE SCIENCE ON THIN ICE.

GLACIERGATE COULD NOT HAVE COME AT A WORSE TIME FOR THE UNITED NATIONS PEAK BODY ON CLIMATE.

UNITED NATIONS BLUNDER ON GLACIERS EXPOSED.

MELTING CLAIM BASED ON SPECULATION.

UNITED NATIONS GLACIER BLUNDER A 300-YEAR MIX-UP.

UK Sunday Times article

The following is the original exposure in the UK Sunday Times as reported in CCNet of 18 January.

(1) IPCC MISLED WORLD OVER HIMALAYAN GLACIER MELTDOWN
The Sunday Times January 17, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece
Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings

A warning that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. (My emphasis.) The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.

The IPCC’s reliance on Hasnain’s 1999 interview has been highlighted by Fred Pearce, the journalist who carried out the original interview for the New Scientist. Pearce said he rang Hasnain in India in 1999 after spotting his claims in an Indian magazine. Pearce said: “Hasnain told me then that he was bringing a report containing those numbers to Britain. The report had not been peer reviewed or formally published in a scientific journal and it had no formal status so I reported his work on that basis.

“Since then I have obtained a copy and it does not say what Hasnain said. In other words it does not mention 2035 as a date by which any Himalayan glaciers will melt. However, he did make clear that his comments related only to part of the Himalayan glaciers. not the whole massif.”

The New Scientist report was apparently forgotten until 2005 when WWF cited it in a report called An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China. The report credited Hasnain’s 1999 interview with the New Scientist. But it was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper so it was not subjected to any formal scientific review. Despite this it rapidly became a key source for the IPCC when Lal and his colleagues came to write the section on the Himalayas.

When finally published, the IPCC report did give its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was “very high”. The IPCC defines this as having a probability of greater than 90%.

The report read: “Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.”

However, glaciologists find such figures inherently ludicrous, pointing out that most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick and could not melt fast enough to vanish by 2035 unless there was a huge global temperature rise. The maximum rate of decline in thickness seen in glaciers at the moment is 2-3 feet a year and most are far lower.

Professor Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, said: “Even a small glacier such as the Dokriani glacier is up to 120 metres [394ft] thick. A big one would be several hundred metres thick and tens of kilometres long. The average is 300 metres thick so to melt one even at 5 metres a year would take 60 years. That is a lot faster than anything we are seeing now so the idea of losing it all by 2035 is unrealistically high.”

Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as “voodoo science”.

Last week the IPCC refused to comment so it has yet to explain how someone who admits to little expertise on glaciers was overseeing such a report. Perhaps its one consolation is that the blunder was spotted by climate scientists who quickly made it public.

The lead role in that process was played by Graham Cogley, a geographer from Trent University in Ontario, Canada, who had long been unhappy with the IPCC’s finding.

He traced the IPCC claim back to the New Scientist and then contacted Pearce. Pearce then re-interviewed Hasnain, who confirmed that his 1999 comments had been “speculative”, and published the update in the New Scientist.

Cogley said: “The reality, that the glaciers are wasting away, is bad enough. But they are not wasting away at the rate suggested by this speculative remark and the IPCC report. The problem is that nobody who studied this material bothered chasing the trail back to the original point when the claim first arose. It is ultimately a trail that leads back to a magazine article and that is not the sort of thing you want to end up in an IPCC report.”

Pearce said the IPCC’s reliance on the WWF was “immensely lazy” and the organisation need to explain itself or back up its prediction with another scientific source. Hasnain could not be reached for comment.

The revelation is the latest crack to appear in the scientific consensus over climate change. It follows the so-called climategate scandal, where British scientists apparently tried to prevent other researchers from accessing key date. Last week another row broke out when the Met Office criticised suggestions that sea levels were likely to rise 1.9m by 2100, suggesting much lower increases were likely.

Copyright 2010, TST

Cease fire

I have received instructions to call it a day and get on with packing my bags.

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VIDEO: Activist Claims Haiti Earthquake 'Caused by Global Warming'

I knew it was coming! You knew it was coming! Many of us predicted this would happen, and sure enough here we have the actor slash activist Danny Glover telling us that the Haiti earthquake was a direct result of global warming and the Copenhagen failure! How can anyone take these psycho environmental activists seriously anymore? This is ridiculous. But you gotta love the fact the video has over 100,000 views and a rating of only one star. You just made yourself look like the total fool you are, Danny. 😉

Penetrating the Smog: How the EPA and the Media Distort Climate Science

As a scientist, I have long been troubled by the way the mainstream media covers science in general and the environment in particular. Long before “global warming” became a watchword and Al Gore started burning tens of thousands of gallons in aviation fuel to lecture people around the world about their profligate energy use, journalists routinely butchered scientifically-focused stories so badly that it would make a high school physics teacher cringe. While many people have been shocked to learn how close the ties between leading global warming alarmists and some environmental reporters are, the only surprise for many of us in the scientific community is that it has taken this long to reveal those connections. For the truth is that global warming coverage in the mainstream media is merely a symptom of a larger disease. Global_Warming_polar_bear The latest boil to burst forth upon the body of environmental journalism began to fester on Thursday, January 7, when the USEPA announced that it was proposing the latest, greatest and most-badly- needed-ever smog standard. (Officially the pollutant is “ground-level ozone”, but we’ll stick with “smog” for convenience). Mainstream media outlets everywhere fell over themselves to heap praise on the EPA for imposing a standard that administrator Lisa Jackson described as “long overdue.” This lead, from the Chicago Tribune’s lead environmental reporter/head Sierra Club cheerleader Michael Hawthorne’s January 8 story, was typical:

“Chicago and other urban areas across the U.S. would need to clamp down harder on air pollution under tough smog limits proposed Thursday by the Obama administration, which scrapped a George W. Bush-era rule that ignored the latest scientific advice.”

“Latest scientific advice” is, of course, code for “scientific consensus”, a phrase that has become all the rage. A funny thing this “consensus”; when it comes to global warming, or the new smog standard, or a host of other environmental topics, consensus: a) doesn’t matter, and b) doesn’t exist. Jackson’s EPA wants to lower the smog standard for the fourth time since the agency was created. The original Clean Air Act set a standard of 120 parts per billion. It was lowered under the Clinton administration to 80 parts per billion and again, under President Bush, to 75 parts per billion. These Clinton and Bush reductions share a couple of common characteristics: EPA did not pick the lowest proposed number in either case, and the costs associated with each of these new standards played a role in the agency’s final decision. Where these two actions differed was in the reaction of the mainstream media. The Clinton-era reduction was hailed as an environmental triumph. The Bush-era reduction, notwithstanding the fact that it was more stringent than the Clinton-era standard, was decried as an environmental disaster. The EPA’s sin under President Bush is that the agency did not pick an even lower number, like 70 or even 65 parts per billion. That’s the kind of number that the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) wanted to see, and it’s CASAC that provides the media’s basis for claiming that George W. Bush “ignored the latest scientific advice.” In a January 7 press release, USEPA cited CASAC prominently. So you might be wondering: what is CASAC, this purportedly “independent” advisory panel that speaks with the voice of “consensus”? Who are the scientists on this committee? There are seven scientists on CASAC, four of whom have absolutely no qualifications, by either education or experience, to opine on the potential health effects of smog. The other three have spent their lives in academia, performing research – much of it publicly funded – designed to discover new and ever more horrendous ways that minute amounts of air pollutants can cause illness and death. ozone-pollution-smog The three CASAC members who sport public health credentials are: Dr. Jonathan Samet, who has spent most of his career doing research, much of it publicly-funded, about second-hand smoke and who is an advisor to the American Lung Association, which, in turn is one of the biggest organizations to lobby for – no surprise – tighter smog standards; Dr. Helen Suh MacIntosh, whose credentials include a stint on the web as the answer lady at treehugger.com; and Dr. Joseph Brain, a Harvard professor who has spent his professional career studying the effects of minute amounts of things that we breathe and why they are bad for you. Given the make-up of CASAC it is hardly surprising that they would recommend using the lowest proposed number. Had someone thrown out 50 parts per billion, or 20 parts per billion, there’s no doubt that such a number would have become the “latest scientific advice” instead. The reason CASAC didn’t pick 50 or 20 or some lower number is that EPA hasn’t proposed such a number – yet. Eventually, they will. The definition of “clean air” is an always moving, ever-shrinking target. This is known within the EPA as “job security”. According to the EPA, the “scientific community, industry, public interest groups, the general public and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee” all get to play a role whenever the agency sets new standards. This is the way EPA approached the issue under President Bush, President Clinton and every president before them. But now, under President Obama, the agency has effectively handed that authority over to a group of seven scientists, four of whom know nothing about public health and three of whom have spent their careers wearing the kind of academic blinders that leave them unable to perform any sort of reasonable risk vs. reward analysis. It’s every bit as remarkable, and outrageous, as it would have been if President Bush had turned the process over to the American Petroleum Institute. One of the biggest reasons that CASAC and groups like the American Lung Association want the new standard involves asthma. Many believe that alarming increases in childhood and other forms of asthma over the last thirty years are related to increasing rate of smog formation in big cities. Hang on. Did I say “increasing rates” of smog formation? Seems I had this darn graph flipped upside down. According to USEPA monitoring data, smog has been reduced by an average of twenty five per cent in big cities over the last thirty years. If we really want to help kids breathe better, perhaps the best solution is to raise the standard, not lower it. And the consequences of all of this nonsense? It will be expensive, and you and your kids will pay the price down the road, long after Obama has left office. Which is, in a way, what makes this move so devilishly brilliant. The president has written yet another I.O.U., one that helps restore his “green” credibility (which was so damaged after the “Hopenhagen” fiasco), and the bill for implementing this utopian vision won’t come due until long after he returns to community organizing.Source by Rich Trzupek

'Climate science' is an oxymoron. Time for Zero Tolerance of Green agendas

Wow! That Copenhagen package really worked. Global warming has been dramatically reversed. In fact, if Al Gore could see his way to turning the heat back up just a little, most of us would be deeply appreciative… “Climate science” is the oxymoron of the century. There is not a city, town or hamlet in the country that has had its weather conditions correctly forecast, over periods as short as 12 hours, during the past week. This is the “exceptionally mild winter” that the climate change buffoons warned us would occur as a consequence of global warming. Their credibility is 20 degrees below zero. Yet nothing shames them, nothing persuades them to come out of the bunker with their hands high and “fess up”. Patronisingly fobbing off the public with fabricated excuses has become second nature to them. Latterly they have been concocting alibis about the Gulf Stream to explain Britain’s Arctic conditions. Uh-huh? Is it the Gulf Stream that has frozen the Vistula and given Poland a temperature of –25C? Is it the Gulf Stream that has caused the worst blizzards in Beijing since 1951? The entire Northern Hemisphere is frozen. The world looks like a Christmas pudding with icing on the top. That is completely normal, part of the random climate fluctuations with which our ancestors were familiar. Yet fraudulent scientists have gained millions of pounds by taking selective samples of natural climate change, whipping up a Grande Peur and using it to advance the cause of world government, state control and fiscal despoliation of citizens. 2010 should be the year when all that ends. It is time for Zero Tolerance of AGW fraudsters and their political masters. It is time to say: Green taxes? We won’t pay them.
Nor will we vote for or permit to remain in office any politician or party that supports the AGW fraud. This year is one of those rare occasions when we have an opportunity to punish and control our political masters – provided Britons have the will to break with the two-party system. Due to the rise of smaller parties – itself the consequence of the misgovernment of the Lab/Lib/Con consensus – it is a buyer’s market. The rule of thumb should be: any party that supports the global warming scam is ineligible for our votes. It doesn’t matter how ingrained one’s loyalty may once have been to one of the “major” parties, the time has come to impose the popular will on politicians who have learned, since the abolition of capital punishment in 1965, that by forming an anti-democratic consensus they can dictate to the public. The coming general election is going to be an intelligence test. If people realise that voting for the slightly less objectionable choice gets them nowhere, that by holding out for what they really want they can actually obtain it, then we may be able to liberate ourselves from the tree-hugging New/Blue Labour consensus. If we fail to rise to that challenge we shall forfeit the right to complain about five more years of PC oppression. That is the answer: Zero Tolerance of “Green” agendas.Source by Gerald Warner

Climategate: You should be steamed

Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by “Climategate.” If you have not heard, hackers penetrated the computers of the Climate Research Unit, or CRU, of the United Kingdom’s University of East Anglia, exposing thousands of e-mails and other documents. CRU is one of the top climate research centers in the world. Many of the exchanges were between top mainstream climate scientists in Britain and the U.S. who are closely associated with the authoritative (albeit controversial) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the more troubling revelations were data adjustments enhancing the perception that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other atmospheric greenhouse gases. Particularly disturbing was the way the core IPCC scientists (the believers) marginalized the skeptics of the theory that man-made global warming is large and potentially catastrophic. The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations.Climate alarmists would like you to believe the science has been settled and all respectable atmospheric scientists support their position. The believers also would like you to believe the skeptics are involved only because of the support of Big Oil and that they are few in number with minimal qualifications.But who are the skeptics? A few examples reveal that they are numerous and well-qualified. Several years ago two scientists at the University of Oregon became so concerned about the overemphasis on man-made global warming that they put a statement on their Web site and asked for people’s endorsement; 32,000 have signed the petition, including more than 9,000 Ph.Ds. More than 700 scientists have endorsed a 231-page Senate minority report that questions man-made global warming. The Heartland Institute has recently sponsored three international meetings for skeptics. More than 800 scientists heard 80 presentations in March. They endorsed an 881-page document, created by 40 authors with outstanding academic credentials, that challenges the most recent publication by the IPCC. The IPCC panel’s report strongly concludes that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide. Last year 60 German scientists sent a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her to “strongly reconsider” her position supporting man-made global warming. Sixty scientists in Canada took similar action. Recently, when the American Physical Society published its support for man-made global warming, 200 of its members objected and demanded that the membership be polled to determine the APS’ true position.What do the skeptics believe? First, they concur with the believers that the Earth has been warming since the end of a Little Ice Age around 1850. The cause of this warming is the question. Believers think the warming is man-made, while the skeptics believe the warming is natural and contributions from man are minimal and certainly not potentially catastrophic à la Al Gore.Second, skeptics argue that CO2 is not a pollutant but vital for plant life. Numerous field experiments have confirmed that higher levels of CO2 are positive for agricultural productivity. Furthermore, carbon dioxide is a very minor greenhouse gas. More than 90 percent of the warming from greenhouse gases is caused by water vapor. If you are going to change the temperature of the globe, it must involve water vapor. Third, and most important, skeptics believe that climate models are grossly overpredicting future warming from rising concentrations of carbon dioxide. We are being told that numerical models that cannot make accurate 5- to 10-day forecasts can be simplified and run forward for 100 years with results so reliable you can impose an economic disaster on the U.S. and the world.The revelation of Climate­gate occurs at a time when the accuracy of the climate models is being seriously questioned. Over the last decade Earth’s temperature has not warmed, yet every model (there are many) predicted a significant increase in global temperatures for that time period. If the climate models cannot get it right for the past 10 years, why should we trust them for the next century?Climategate reveals how predetermined political agendas shaped science rather than the other way around. It is high time to question the true agenda of the scientists now on the hot seat and to bring skeptics back into the public debate. Neil Frank, who holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University in meteorology, was director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–87) and chief meteorologist at KHOU (Channel 11) until his retirement in 2008.Source by Neil Frank