-
NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!
Free episodes:
P
pixelsmith
Guest
What real environmental crisis?
bobheck
Disco still sucks.
Well Schuyler, perhaps this is a part of what that is about...
India forms new climate change body - Telegraph
I suspect the tip of the iceberg (pardon the pun).
What a great quote from that article:
“There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. I am for climate science. I think people misused [the] IPCC report, [the] IPCC doesn’t do the original research which is one of the weaknesses … they just take published literature and then they derive assessments, so we had goof-ups on Amazon forest, glaciers, snow peaks. "
Jonah's house of cards is tumbling.
According to the results of a one-time questionnaire-based statistical survey published by the University of Illinois, with 3146 individuals completing the survey, 97% of the actively publishing climate scientists (as opposed to the scientists who are not publishing actively) agree that human activity, such as flue gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, is a significant contributing factor to global climate change.<sup id="cite_ref-D.26Z09_0-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> According to additional sources, the majority of scientists who work on climate change agree on the main points.<sup id="cite_ref-Royal_Society_1-0" class="reference">[2]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-Global_Warning_2-0" class="reference">[3]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-Barker_3-0" class="reference">[4]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-Science_Magazine_4-0" class="reference">[5]</sup>
2004 essay by Naomi Oreskes in the journal Science reported a survey of 928 abstracts of peer-reviewed papers related to global climate change in the ISI database.<sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference">[22]</sup> Oreskes claimed that "Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. ... This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies." Benny Peiser claimed to have found flaws in Oreskes' work,<sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference">[23]</sup> but his attempted refutation is disputed<sup id="cite_ref-23" class="reference">[24]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-PeiserMW_24-0" class="reference">[25]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-25" class="reference">[26]</sup> and has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Peiser later withdrew parts of his criticism,<sup id="cite_ref-26" class="reference">[27]</sup> also commenting that "the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact. However, this majority consensus is far from unanimous."<sup id="cite_ref-PeiserMW_24-1" class="reference">[25]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-27" class="reference">[28]</sup> A survey published in 2009 by Peter Doran and Maggie Zimmerman of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago of 3146 Earth Scientists found that more than 97% of specialists on the subject (i.e. "respondents who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change") agree that human activity is "a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures."<sup id="cite_ref-D.26Z09_0-1" class="reference">[1]</sup> A summary from the survey states that:
<table style="border-style: none; margin: auto; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: transparent; width: auto;" class="cquote"> <tbody><tr> <td style="padding: 10px; color: rgb(178, 183, 242); font-size: 35px; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;" width="20" valign="top">“</td> <td style="padding: 4px 10px;" valign="top">It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."<sup id="cite_ref-28" class="reference">[29]</sup></td> <td style="padding: 10px; color: rgb(178, 183, 242); font-size: 36px; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-weight: bold; text-align: right;" width="20" valign="bottom">”</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
In response to claims of a consensus on global warming, some skeptics have compared the theory to a religion,<sup id="cite_ref-29" class="reference">[30]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-30" class="reference">[31]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-31" class="reference">[32]</sup> to scientific support for the eugenics movement,<sup id="cite_ref-32" class="reference">[33]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-linder-oped_33-0" class="reference">[34]</sup> and to discredited scientific theories such as phlogiston<sup id="cite_ref-34" class="reference">[35]</sup> and miasma.<sup id="cite_ref-35" class="reference">[36]</sup>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_consensus
I find it somewhat disengenious that the denialist have but a handful of potential questionable scientific conclusions from amongst the thousands of studies and papers written and yet somehow this becomes the anchor for a worldwide conspiracy to dupe the public, bring on the NWO, form a new "religion" etc etc. They claim they have "science" when they have, in fact, none, not one bit, that unequivocally (or even remotely) calls into question the scientific methods Climate scientist use to come to their conclusion. And whatever they do proffer as proof, continually and almost without exception, has the stink of petroleum about it. See this thread.
The IPCC is not infallible (shock!)
Filed under:
— group @ 19 January 2010
Like all human endeavours, the IPCC is not perfect. Despite the enormous efforts devoted to producing its reports with the multiple levels of peer review, some errors will sneak through. Most of these will be minor and inconsequential, but sometimes they might be more substantive. As many people are aware (and as John Nieslen-Gammon outlined in a post last month and Rick Piltz goes over today), there is a statement in the second volume of the IPCC (WG2), concerning the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are receding that is not correct and not properly referenced.
The statement, in a chapter on climate impacts in Asia, was that the likelihood of the Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035″ was “very high” if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate (WG 2, Ch. 10, p493), and was referenced to a World Wildlife Fund 2005 report. Examining the drafts and comments (available here), indicates that the statement was barely commented in the reviews, and that the WWF (2005) reference seems to have been a last minute addition (it does not appear in the First- or Second- Order Drafts). This claim did not make it into the summary for policy makers, nor the overall synthesis report, and so cannot be described as a ‘central claim’ of the IPCC. However, the statement has had some press attention since the report particularly in the Indian press, at least according to Google News, even though it was not familiar to us before last month.
It is therefore obvious that this error should be corrected (via some kind of corrigendum to the WG2 report perhaps), but it is important to realise that this doesn’t mean that Himalayan glaciers are doing just fine. They aren’t, and there may be serious consequences for water resources as the retreat continues. See also this review paper (Ren et al, 2006) on a subset of these glaciers.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/the-ipcc-is-not-infallible-shock/
There is scientific consensus of Global warming. The data used to prove the theory is sound and proven, ergo, the scientific consensus. And although the science hasn't -yet- "proven" that positive feedback loops will cause "runaway warming", we can sit back and watch the permafrost melt and the oceans turned acidic from CO2 absorption. No one has worked themselves into a "froth" (except Bob maybe), no one is "hysterical" and no one has asked you to join a "religion". That said, the Devil is in the details, and it would be my advice to pay attention to them rather than partner with those who would have you overlook them.
bobheck
Disco still sucks.
Jonah, et al.,
I think it is pretty obvious by now nobody here is going to change the minds of those opposing their views on this subject.
I was typing a rebuttal to Jonah's latest post, listing growing glaciers and articles about the ice sheet thickening in Antarctica and thought, "Why am I doing this? He is just going to counter with his own list of items supporting his viewpoint" and we could continue ad infinitum.
I am done with this.
If you want to claim victory for outlasting me, then so be it, but I respectfully (seriously) totally disagree with you. You win. Congratulations.
I imagine you are a fine person, Jonah, and we might even be friends if we met in a bar and shared a few drinks and made merry. So, in that spirit, tomorrow I am going to sit on my back porch, burn some high carbon charcoal and cook the flesh of a dead animal while swilling beer and very noisily depositing vast amounts of organically produced methane into the air. I'll give the V-8 a rest for a while.
Ciao!
I think it is pretty obvious by now nobody here is going to change the minds of those opposing their views on this subject.
I was typing a rebuttal to Jonah's latest post, listing growing glaciers and articles about the ice sheet thickening in Antarctica and thought, "Why am I doing this? He is just going to counter with his own list of items supporting his viewpoint" and we could continue ad infinitum.
I am done with this.
If you want to claim victory for outlasting me, then so be it, but I respectfully (seriously) totally disagree with you. You win. Congratulations.
I imagine you are a fine person, Jonah, and we might even be friends if we met in a bar and shared a few drinks and made merry. So, in that spirit, tomorrow I am going to sit on my back porch, burn some high carbon charcoal and cook the flesh of a dead animal while swilling beer and very noisily depositing vast amounts of organically produced methane into the air. I'll give the V-8 a rest for a while.
Ciao!
Rick Deckard
Paranormal Maven
I felt exactly the same way the last time I took a break from these forums. The internet is a mirror - you can find lots of links to support your arguments while at the same time overlook those that don't. These types of 'discussions' are binary by their very nature and very often reach a stalemate within a short space of time. I'm still trying to maintain a middle ground on most issues, but it is difficult.
If I had to pick a 'winner' on this thread, it would have to be Schuyler. The problem that Jonah has is that he can only post the 'official' consensus and because we already know what that is, his posts become almost worthless. It's like a Christian posting excerpts from the bible to prove to an atheist that God really does exists - "Look! He does exist because it says so in this book!".
Jonah doesn't seem to realize that a lot of people on this forum are 'agnostic' about a lot of issues. It's not that anyone is saying that humans are not accelerating global warming, it's just that the 'evidence' presented so far is less than compelling - especially when it is revealed that there's a lot of underhand manipulation going on behind the scenes. If the science was settled then all the original data and calculations would be available to everyone to review; but it isn't and that's not scientific.
At the end of the day, I remain unconvinced that AGW is going to be the huge problem that the IPCC says it's going to be. Oil, gas and coal are finite resources, so the planet is going to have to look for alternatives at some point, anyway. Unfortunately, it's not within my power to force the big energy companies to bring alternatives forward, though I wish it was.
I've have provided numerous links to support the AGW theory, from various sources and will continue to do so. I am also very happy to consider legitimate counter arguments from sources of the same quality, preferably peer-reviewed and including the supporting science. What has been offered in this thread contains none of that and as I've shown, most if not all that has been offered does -NOT- come from various institutions of higher learning but rather comes from the bowels of Exxons PR headquarters.
What a surprise. If my problem is that I only post "official" consensus (as opposed to what, unofficial consensus that is comprised of exactly whom?) which is derived from true science and understanding then I guess I'll just have to live with it. So will you.
WTF!...have you been reading this thread? The positions range all over the place, everything from there is no warming to the sun is causing the warming or it's warming and that's A GOOD THING. Look if everyone who's posted here will agree that the earth is warming, CO2 is a driver of that and it's -not- a good thing, then I would gladly call my work finished. But they won't and it isn't.
The main focus of the deniers is the IPCC, which Schuyler above referred to as an "Institution". It is not. It is a panel that brings together the scientific work of many institutions and hopefully presents to the world the results of what that work shows. You notice that -NOT ONCE- have I referred to any positions published by the IPCC preferring instead to go to the sources. I will continue to do so and would just like to say that I'm pleased your all getting a bit winded. Finally, I can start my work.
Heh...
Bent Faith
Says you...
P
pixelsmith
Guest
Jonah, We are not the "deniers", you are. You deny that warming and cooling are normal planetary functions. You deny that AGW is a scam. You deny actual observed science in favor of manipulated data and a corrupt peer review process. You deny that glaciers have a normal growing and retreating process. You deny the fact that nearly ALL of the AGW scientists have been bought and paid for in order to produce warming results from their manipulated data. Shame on you and others like you for setting back the true environmental movement at least 100 years. Shame on you for supporting these corrupt "scientists" and the politicians associated with this scam. Some of us actually care about this planet and the awesome human species that inhabits it for this very cool speck of geological time.
There is no doubt that you have lost this debate. Your eugenics based belief system has failed you and the the pseudo scientists behind the biggest hoax in history. I for one, am thankful that the truth has come out before this hoax went any further.
Now can we get back to the original environmental movement and work together addressing REAL issues?
There is no doubt that you have lost this debate. Your eugenics based belief system has failed you and the the pseudo scientists behind the biggest hoax in history. I for one, am thankful that the truth has come out before this hoax went any further.
Now can we get back to the original environmental movement and work together addressing REAL issues?
P
pixelsmith
Guest
February 04, 2010
IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks
By Marc Sheppard
Unquestionably the world's final authority on the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's findings and recommendations have formed the bedrock of literally every climate-related initiative worldwide for more than a decade. Likewise, virtually all such future endeavors -- be they Kyoto II, domestic cap-and-tax, or EPA carbon regulation, would inexorably be built upon the credibility of the same U.N. panel's "expert" counsel. But a glut of ongoing recent discoveries of systemic fraud has rocked that foundation, and the entire man-made global warming house of cards is now teetering on the verge of complete collapse.
Simply stated, we've been swindled. We've been set up as marks by a gang of opportunistic hucksters who have exploited the naïvely altruistic intentions of the environmental movement in an effort to control international energy consumption while redistributing global wealth and (in many cases) greedily lining their own pockets in the process.
Perhaps now, more people will finally understand what many have known for years: Man-made climate change was never really a problem -- but rather, a solution.
For just as the science of the IPCC has been exposed as fraudulent, so have its apparent motives. The true ones became strikingly evident when the negotiating text for the "last chance to save the planet" International Climate Accord [PDF], put forth in Copenhagen in December, was found to contain as many paragraphs outlining the payment of "climate debt" reparations by Western nations under the watchful eye of a U.N.-controlled global government as it did emission reduction schemes.
Then again, neither stratagem should come as any real surprise to those who've paid attention. Here's a recap for those who have, and a long-overdue wake-up call for those who haven't. [See also The CFC Ban: Global Warming's Pilot Episode]
The Perfect Problem to the Imperfect Solution
The U.N. signaled its intent to politicize science as far back as 1972 at its Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm, Sweden. There, an unlikely mélange of legitimate environmental activists, dyed-in-the-wool Marxists, and assorted anti-establishment '60s leftovers were delighted to hear not only the usual complaints about "industrialized" environmental problems, but also a long list of international inequities. Among the many human responsibilities condemned were overpopulation, misuse of resources and technology, unbalanced development, and the worldwide dilemma of urbanization. And from that marriage of global, environmental, and social justice concerns was born the IPCC's parent organization -- the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) -- and the fortune-cookie like prose of its socialist-environmentalist manifesto, the Stockholm Declaration.
It was seven years later that UNEP was handed the ideal villain to fuel its counterfeit crusade. That was the year (1979) in which NASA's James Hansen's team of climate modelers convinced a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel to report [PDF] that doubling atmospheric CO2 -- which had risen from 280 ppmv in the pre-industrial 1800s to over 335 ppmv -- would cause nearly 3°C of global warming. And although the figure was wildly speculative, many funding-minded scientists -- including some previously predicting that aerosols and orbital shifts would lead to catastrophic global cooling -- suddenly embraced greenhouse gas theory and the inevitability of global warming.
It was at that moment that it became clear that the long-held scientific position that the Earth's ecosystem has always and will always maintain CO2 equilibrium could be easily swayed toward a more exploitable belief system. And the UNEP now had the perfect problem to its solution: anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
After all, both its abatement and adaptation require huge expansion of government controls and taxation. Furthermore, it makes industry and capitalism look bad while affording endless visuals of animals and third-world humans suffering at the hands of wealthy Westerners. And most importantly, by fomenting accusations that "rich" countries have effectively violated the human rights of hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people by selfishly causing climate-based global suffering, it helps promote the promise of international wealth redistribution to help less fortunate nations adapt to its consequences.
Best of all, being driven by junk-science that easily metamorphoses as required, it appeared to be endlessly self-sustaining.
But it needed to be packaged for widespread consumption. And packaged it they surely have. Here's an early classic.
The year was 1988, and Colorado Senator Tim Wirth had arranged for Hansen to testify on the subject before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to help sell the dire need to enact national environmental legislation. As Wirth has since admitted, he intentionally scheduled Hansen's appearance on what was forecasted to be the hottest day of the hearings. And in a brilliantly underhanded marketing ploy, he and his cohorts actually snuck into the hearing room the night before and opened the windows, rendering the air conditioning all but useless.
Imagine the devious beauty of the scene that unfolded in front of the cameras the next day -- a NASA scientist preaching fire and brimstone, warning of "unprecedented global warming" and a potential "runaway greenhouse effect," all the while wiping the dripping sweat off his brow. No wonder the resultant NY Times headline screamed, "Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how climate hysteria and not one, but two of its shining stars were born. For coincidentally, that was the same year the IPCC was established by the U.N. Its mandate: to assess "the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change."
How perfect: an organization formed not to prove or disprove AGW, but merely to assess its risks and recommend an appropriate response.
Now it was time to really get to work.
Testing the "Global Warming as Social Injustice" Waters
In 1990, the IPCC issued its First Assessment Report, warning of a natural greenhouse effect being enhanced by human emission activities. Apparently not quite ready to show its cards, the IPCC even admitted that the still-little-understood effects of such factors as carbon sinks, ocean currents, and clouds left many uncertainties as to timing and magnitude.
Meanwhile, the politics pushed forward in earnest. At the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (aka Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, the event's Secretary-General, Maurice Strong, told the opening session that industrialized countries had "developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma." The veteran U.N. puppeteer blamed the "lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class," which included "high meat consumption and large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and workplace air-conditioning, and suburban housing" for the world's environment ills. The solution: "[A] vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations."
From that meeting sprouted the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty. Absent specific numbers, the highly-touted Kyoto precursor nonetheless promised to stabilize greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere to prevent "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." But much less fanfare accompanied the essentially concurrent adoption of Agenda 21: a global contract that bound governments around the world to a U.N. plan to change the way people "live, eat, learn and communicate," all in the name of "saving the earth" from mankind’s mistakes, particularly global warming.
Again we saw a U.N.-crafted convergence of climate "science" and social "justice." While the signing of the UNFCCC would be a gradual process, 178 governments voted to adopt the Agenda 21 on the spot. This was quite a victory, especially in light of the IPCC's complete control over just exactly how such planetary salvation was best realized.
And in 1995, its Second Assessment Report (SAR) upped that ante a bit, stating that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." Oddly, SAR slightly toned down previous projections for future warming and sea level rise based on the newly-considered cooling effects of anthropogenic atmospheric aerosols -- a move the U.N. brass likely regretted two years later.
In 1997, a protocol was added to UNFCCC that attempted to enact national commitments to emission reductions based on SAR recommendations. Fully 160 countries agreed to the legally binding Kyoto Protocol, under which industrialized countries would reduce their collective emissions by 5.2%. However, although a signatory, the United States made ratification all but impossible when its Senate unanimously passed a resolution that year prohibiting U.S involvement in "any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing nations as well as industrialized nations."
It appeared time to ratchet up the rhetoric -- truth be damned.
The Dawn of Outright Climate Fraud
Back in 1989, future Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) Working Group 2 (WG2) lead author Stephen Schneider disclosed several tricks of the trade to Discover magazine:
To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.
And according to MIT's Richard Lindzen's 2001 Senate subcommittee testimony, that's precisely what he witnessed as a Third Assessment Report (TAR) lead author. Among the atmospheric physicist's revelations was the fact that contributing TAR scientists -- already facing the threat of disappearing grant funds and derision as industry stooges -- were also met with ad hominem attacks from IPCC "coordinators" if they refused to tone down criticism of faulty climate models or otherwise questioned AGW dogma. I suppose that's one way to achieve the "consensus" the IPCC loudly boasts of.
As previously discussed here and here, it was in the same 2001 TAR that the IPCC suddenly and inexplicably scrapped its long-held position that global temperatures had fluctuated drastically over the previous millennium and replaced it with a chart depicting relatively flat temperatures prior to a sharp rise beginning in 1900. This, of course, removed the pesky higher-than-present-day temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period of 900-1300 AD, the existence of which obstructed the unprecedented-warming sales pitch.
Truth be told, this little bit of hocus-pocus alone should have marked the end of the panel's scientific credibility, particularly after Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick uncovered the corruption behind it. But thanks to a hugely successful campaign to demonize all critics as big-oil shills, the "Hockey Stick Graph" (aka MBH98) not only survived, but -- after receiving a prominent role in Al Gore's 2006 grossly exaggerated "scary scenarios" sci-fi movie -- actually went on to become a global warming icon. Even after McIntyre finally got his hands on one scientist's data last September and proved that Keith Briffa had cherry-picked data to create his MBH98-supporting series, the MSM paid McIntyre and others reporting the hoax little heed.
Consequently, TAR's false declaration of the 20th as the hottest century of the millennium was widely accepted as fact, right along with its proclamation that the 1990's were the hottest decade and 1998 the hottest year since measurements began in 1861...as was the replacement of "discernible human influence" described six years earlier with the claim of "new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."
So by the time AR4 rolled out in 2007, in which they significantly raised not only the threat level, but also the degree of anthropogenic certitude (to 90%), the IPCC's word was all but gospel to the MSM, left-leaning policymakers, and an increasingly large portion of the population. Indeed, everywhere you turned, you'd hear that "the IPCC said this" or "the IPCC said that." The need to address "climate change" had quickly become a foregone and inarguable conclusion in most public discourse.
At that moment, Kyoto II seemed as inevitable as the next insufferable NBC Green is Universal week, and with it, the U.N.'s place as steward of the planet, which would surely be ratified at the pending 2009 Climate Conference in Copenhagen.
...Until, that is, the mind-boggling magnitude of AR4's deception became glaringly apparent.
Caught with their Green Thumbs on the Scale
Most readers are likely aware that in November of last year, a folder containing documents, source code, data, and e-mails was somehow misappropriated from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU). The so-called "Climategate" emails disclosed an arrogant mockery of the peer review process as well a widespread complicity in and acceptance among climate researchers to hiding and manipulating data unfriendly to the global warming agenda. The modeling source code -- as I reported here -- contained routines which employed a number of "fudge factors" to modify the results of data series -- again, to bias results to the desired outcome. And this, coupled with the disclosure of the Jones "hide the decline" e-mail, provided more evidence that MBH98 -- and ergo unprecedented 20th-century warming -- is a fraud.
The following month, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change had probably tampered with Russian climate data. Apparently, Hadley ignored data submitted by 75% of Russian stations, effectively omitting over 40% of Russian territory from global temperature calculations -- not coincidentally, areas that didn’t "show any substantial warming in the late 20th-century and the early 21st-century."
But Climategate was only the tip of the iceberg. An AR4 warning that unchecked climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was found to be lifted from an erroneous World Wildlife Federation (WWF) report and misrepresented as peer-reviewed science. IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri attempted to parry this "mistake" by accusing the accusers at the Indian environment ministry of "arrogance" and practicing "voodoo science" in issuing a report [PDF] disputing the IPCC. But one in his own ranks, Dr Murari Lal, the coordinating lead author of the chapter making the claim, had the astoundingly bad manners to admit that he knew all along that it "did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research." Apparently, so had Pachauri, who continued to lie about it for months so as not to sully the exalted AR4 immediately prior to Copenhagen.
And "Glaciergate" opened the floodgates to other serious misrepresentations in AR4, including a boatload of additional non-peer-reviewed projections pulled directly from WWF reports. These included discussions on the effects of melting glaciers on mudflows and avalanches, the significant damages climate change will have on selected marine fish and shellfish, and even assessing global-average per-capita "ecological footprints." It should be noted here that IPCC rules specifically disqualify all non-peer-reviewed primary sources.
Nonetheless, Chapter 13 of the WG2 report stated that forty percent of Amazonian forests are threatened by climate change. And it also cited a WWF piece as its source -- this one by two so-called "experts," who incidentally are actually environmental activists. What's more, the WWF study dealt with anthropogenic forest fires, not global warming, and barely made mention of Amazonian forests at all. Additionally, the WWF's figures were themselves based on a Nature paper [PDF] studying neither global warming nor forest fires, but rather the effects of logging on rain forests. So the IPCC predicted climate change-caused 40% forest destruction based on a report two steps upstream which concluded that "[l]ogging companies in Amazonia kill or damage 10-40% of the living biomass of forests through the harvest process."
Adding to the glacial egg on the AR4 authors' faces was the statement that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps, and Africa were being caused by global warming. It turns out that one of the two source papers cited was actually a mountain-climbers' magazine. Actually, this is a relatively authoritative source compared to the other: a dissertation from a Swiss college student based on his interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.
The 2007 green bible also contained a gross exaggeration in its citation of Muir-Wood et al., 2006's study on global warming and natural disasters. The original stated that "a small statistically significant trend was found for an increase in annual catastrophe loss since 1970 of 2% per year." But the AR4 synthesis report stated that more "heavy precipitation" is "very likely" and that an "increase in tropical cyclone intensity" is "likely" as temperatures rise.
Perhaps the most dumbfounding AR4 citation (so far) was recently discovered by Climatequotes.com. It appears that a WG2 warning that "[t]he multiple stresses of climate change and increasing human activity on the Antarctic Peninsula represent a clear vulnerability and have necessitated the implementation of stringent clothing decontamination guidelines for tourist landings on the Antarctic Peninsula" originated from and was attributed to a guide for Antarctica tour operators on decontaminating boots and clothing. Really.
And here's one you may not have heard yet. A paper published last December by Lockart, Kavetski, and Franks rebuts the AR4 WG1 assertion that CO2-driven higher temperatures drive higher evaporation and thereby cause droughts. The study claims they got it backwards, as higher air temperatures are in fact driven by the lack of evaporation (as occurs during drought). I smell another "-gate" in the works.
And yet, perhaps the greatest undermining of IPCC integrity comes from a recent study, which I’ve summarized here, challenging the global temperature data reported by its two most important American allies: NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As these represent the readings used by most climate analysis agencies, including the IPCC, the discovery by meteorologist Joe D'Aleo and computer expert E.M. Smith that they've been intentionally biased to the warm side since 1990 puts literally every temperature-related climate report released since then into question.
...Along with, of course, any policy decisions based on their content.
continued....
IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks
By Marc Sheppard
Unquestionably the world's final authority on the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's findings and recommendations have formed the bedrock of literally every climate-related initiative worldwide for more than a decade. Likewise, virtually all such future endeavors -- be they Kyoto II, domestic cap-and-tax, or EPA carbon regulation, would inexorably be built upon the credibility of the same U.N. panel's "expert" counsel. But a glut of ongoing recent discoveries of systemic fraud has rocked that foundation, and the entire man-made global warming house of cards is now teetering on the verge of complete collapse.
Simply stated, we've been swindled. We've been set up as marks by a gang of opportunistic hucksters who have exploited the naïvely altruistic intentions of the environmental movement in an effort to control international energy consumption while redistributing global wealth and (in many cases) greedily lining their own pockets in the process.
Perhaps now, more people will finally understand what many have known for years: Man-made climate change was never really a problem -- but rather, a solution.
For just as the science of the IPCC has been exposed as fraudulent, so have its apparent motives. The true ones became strikingly evident when the negotiating text for the "last chance to save the planet" International Climate Accord [PDF], put forth in Copenhagen in December, was found to contain as many paragraphs outlining the payment of "climate debt" reparations by Western nations under the watchful eye of a U.N.-controlled global government as it did emission reduction schemes.
Then again, neither stratagem should come as any real surprise to those who've paid attention. Here's a recap for those who have, and a long-overdue wake-up call for those who haven't. [See also The CFC Ban: Global Warming's Pilot Episode]
The Perfect Problem to the Imperfect Solution
The U.N. signaled its intent to politicize science as far back as 1972 at its Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm, Sweden. There, an unlikely mélange of legitimate environmental activists, dyed-in-the-wool Marxists, and assorted anti-establishment '60s leftovers were delighted to hear not only the usual complaints about "industrialized" environmental problems, but also a long list of international inequities. Among the many human responsibilities condemned were overpopulation, misuse of resources and technology, unbalanced development, and the worldwide dilemma of urbanization. And from that marriage of global, environmental, and social justice concerns was born the IPCC's parent organization -- the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) -- and the fortune-cookie like prose of its socialist-environmentalist manifesto, the Stockholm Declaration.
It was seven years later that UNEP was handed the ideal villain to fuel its counterfeit crusade. That was the year (1979) in which NASA's James Hansen's team of climate modelers convinced a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel to report [PDF] that doubling atmospheric CO2 -- which had risen from 280 ppmv in the pre-industrial 1800s to over 335 ppmv -- would cause nearly 3°C of global warming. And although the figure was wildly speculative, many funding-minded scientists -- including some previously predicting that aerosols and orbital shifts would lead to catastrophic global cooling -- suddenly embraced greenhouse gas theory and the inevitability of global warming.
It was at that moment that it became clear that the long-held scientific position that the Earth's ecosystem has always and will always maintain CO2 equilibrium could be easily swayed toward a more exploitable belief system. And the UNEP now had the perfect problem to its solution: anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
After all, both its abatement and adaptation require huge expansion of government controls and taxation. Furthermore, it makes industry and capitalism look bad while affording endless visuals of animals and third-world humans suffering at the hands of wealthy Westerners. And most importantly, by fomenting accusations that "rich" countries have effectively violated the human rights of hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people by selfishly causing climate-based global suffering, it helps promote the promise of international wealth redistribution to help less fortunate nations adapt to its consequences.
Best of all, being driven by junk-science that easily metamorphoses as required, it appeared to be endlessly self-sustaining.
But it needed to be packaged for widespread consumption. And packaged it they surely have. Here's an early classic.
The year was 1988, and Colorado Senator Tim Wirth had arranged for Hansen to testify on the subject before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to help sell the dire need to enact national environmental legislation. As Wirth has since admitted, he intentionally scheduled Hansen's appearance on what was forecasted to be the hottest day of the hearings. And in a brilliantly underhanded marketing ploy, he and his cohorts actually snuck into the hearing room the night before and opened the windows, rendering the air conditioning all but useless.
Imagine the devious beauty of the scene that unfolded in front of the cameras the next day -- a NASA scientist preaching fire and brimstone, warning of "unprecedented global warming" and a potential "runaway greenhouse effect," all the while wiping the dripping sweat off his brow. No wonder the resultant NY Times headline screamed, "Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how climate hysteria and not one, but two of its shining stars were born. For coincidentally, that was the same year the IPCC was established by the U.N. Its mandate: to assess "the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change."
How perfect: an organization formed not to prove or disprove AGW, but merely to assess its risks and recommend an appropriate response.
Now it was time to really get to work.
Testing the "Global Warming as Social Injustice" Waters
In 1990, the IPCC issued its First Assessment Report, warning of a natural greenhouse effect being enhanced by human emission activities. Apparently not quite ready to show its cards, the IPCC even admitted that the still-little-understood effects of such factors as carbon sinks, ocean currents, and clouds left many uncertainties as to timing and magnitude.
Meanwhile, the politics pushed forward in earnest. At the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (aka Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, the event's Secretary-General, Maurice Strong, told the opening session that industrialized countries had "developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma." The veteran U.N. puppeteer blamed the "lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class," which included "high meat consumption and large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and workplace air-conditioning, and suburban housing" for the world's environment ills. The solution: "[A] vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations."
From that meeting sprouted the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty. Absent specific numbers, the highly-touted Kyoto precursor nonetheless promised to stabilize greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere to prevent "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." But much less fanfare accompanied the essentially concurrent adoption of Agenda 21: a global contract that bound governments around the world to a U.N. plan to change the way people "live, eat, learn and communicate," all in the name of "saving the earth" from mankind’s mistakes, particularly global warming.
Again we saw a U.N.-crafted convergence of climate "science" and social "justice." While the signing of the UNFCCC would be a gradual process, 178 governments voted to adopt the Agenda 21 on the spot. This was quite a victory, especially in light of the IPCC's complete control over just exactly how such planetary salvation was best realized.
And in 1995, its Second Assessment Report (SAR) upped that ante a bit, stating that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." Oddly, SAR slightly toned down previous projections for future warming and sea level rise based on the newly-considered cooling effects of anthropogenic atmospheric aerosols -- a move the U.N. brass likely regretted two years later.
In 1997, a protocol was added to UNFCCC that attempted to enact national commitments to emission reductions based on SAR recommendations. Fully 160 countries agreed to the legally binding Kyoto Protocol, under which industrialized countries would reduce their collective emissions by 5.2%. However, although a signatory, the United States made ratification all but impossible when its Senate unanimously passed a resolution that year prohibiting U.S involvement in "any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing nations as well as industrialized nations."
It appeared time to ratchet up the rhetoric -- truth be damned.
The Dawn of Outright Climate Fraud
Back in 1989, future Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) Working Group 2 (WG2) lead author Stephen Schneider disclosed several tricks of the trade to Discover magazine:
To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.
And according to MIT's Richard Lindzen's 2001 Senate subcommittee testimony, that's precisely what he witnessed as a Third Assessment Report (TAR) lead author. Among the atmospheric physicist's revelations was the fact that contributing TAR scientists -- already facing the threat of disappearing grant funds and derision as industry stooges -- were also met with ad hominem attacks from IPCC "coordinators" if they refused to tone down criticism of faulty climate models or otherwise questioned AGW dogma. I suppose that's one way to achieve the "consensus" the IPCC loudly boasts of.
As previously discussed here and here, it was in the same 2001 TAR that the IPCC suddenly and inexplicably scrapped its long-held position that global temperatures had fluctuated drastically over the previous millennium and replaced it with a chart depicting relatively flat temperatures prior to a sharp rise beginning in 1900. This, of course, removed the pesky higher-than-present-day temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period of 900-1300 AD, the existence of which obstructed the unprecedented-warming sales pitch.
Truth be told, this little bit of hocus-pocus alone should have marked the end of the panel's scientific credibility, particularly after Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick uncovered the corruption behind it. But thanks to a hugely successful campaign to demonize all critics as big-oil shills, the "Hockey Stick Graph" (aka MBH98) not only survived, but -- after receiving a prominent role in Al Gore's 2006 grossly exaggerated "scary scenarios" sci-fi movie -- actually went on to become a global warming icon. Even after McIntyre finally got his hands on one scientist's data last September and proved that Keith Briffa had cherry-picked data to create his MBH98-supporting series, the MSM paid McIntyre and others reporting the hoax little heed.
Consequently, TAR's false declaration of the 20th as the hottest century of the millennium was widely accepted as fact, right along with its proclamation that the 1990's were the hottest decade and 1998 the hottest year since measurements began in 1861...as was the replacement of "discernible human influence" described six years earlier with the claim of "new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."
So by the time AR4 rolled out in 2007, in which they significantly raised not only the threat level, but also the degree of anthropogenic certitude (to 90%), the IPCC's word was all but gospel to the MSM, left-leaning policymakers, and an increasingly large portion of the population. Indeed, everywhere you turned, you'd hear that "the IPCC said this" or "the IPCC said that." The need to address "climate change" had quickly become a foregone and inarguable conclusion in most public discourse.
At that moment, Kyoto II seemed as inevitable as the next insufferable NBC Green is Universal week, and with it, the U.N.'s place as steward of the planet, which would surely be ratified at the pending 2009 Climate Conference in Copenhagen.
...Until, that is, the mind-boggling magnitude of AR4's deception became glaringly apparent.
Caught with their Green Thumbs on the Scale
Most readers are likely aware that in November of last year, a folder containing documents, source code, data, and e-mails was somehow misappropriated from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU). The so-called "Climategate" emails disclosed an arrogant mockery of the peer review process as well a widespread complicity in and acceptance among climate researchers to hiding and manipulating data unfriendly to the global warming agenda. The modeling source code -- as I reported here -- contained routines which employed a number of "fudge factors" to modify the results of data series -- again, to bias results to the desired outcome. And this, coupled with the disclosure of the Jones "hide the decline" e-mail, provided more evidence that MBH98 -- and ergo unprecedented 20th-century warming -- is a fraud.
The following month, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change had probably tampered with Russian climate data. Apparently, Hadley ignored data submitted by 75% of Russian stations, effectively omitting over 40% of Russian territory from global temperature calculations -- not coincidentally, areas that didn’t "show any substantial warming in the late 20th-century and the early 21st-century."
But Climategate was only the tip of the iceberg. An AR4 warning that unchecked climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was found to be lifted from an erroneous World Wildlife Federation (WWF) report and misrepresented as peer-reviewed science. IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri attempted to parry this "mistake" by accusing the accusers at the Indian environment ministry of "arrogance" and practicing "voodoo science" in issuing a report [PDF] disputing the IPCC. But one in his own ranks, Dr Murari Lal, the coordinating lead author of the chapter making the claim, had the astoundingly bad manners to admit that he knew all along that it "did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research." Apparently, so had Pachauri, who continued to lie about it for months so as not to sully the exalted AR4 immediately prior to Copenhagen.
And "Glaciergate" opened the floodgates to other serious misrepresentations in AR4, including a boatload of additional non-peer-reviewed projections pulled directly from WWF reports. These included discussions on the effects of melting glaciers on mudflows and avalanches, the significant damages climate change will have on selected marine fish and shellfish, and even assessing global-average per-capita "ecological footprints." It should be noted here that IPCC rules specifically disqualify all non-peer-reviewed primary sources.
Nonetheless, Chapter 13 of the WG2 report stated that forty percent of Amazonian forests are threatened by climate change. And it also cited a WWF piece as its source -- this one by two so-called "experts," who incidentally are actually environmental activists. What's more, the WWF study dealt with anthropogenic forest fires, not global warming, and barely made mention of Amazonian forests at all. Additionally, the WWF's figures were themselves based on a Nature paper [PDF] studying neither global warming nor forest fires, but rather the effects of logging on rain forests. So the IPCC predicted climate change-caused 40% forest destruction based on a report two steps upstream which concluded that "[l]ogging companies in Amazonia kill or damage 10-40% of the living biomass of forests through the harvest process."
Adding to the glacial egg on the AR4 authors' faces was the statement that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps, and Africa were being caused by global warming. It turns out that one of the two source papers cited was actually a mountain-climbers' magazine. Actually, this is a relatively authoritative source compared to the other: a dissertation from a Swiss college student based on his interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.
The 2007 green bible also contained a gross exaggeration in its citation of Muir-Wood et al., 2006's study on global warming and natural disasters. The original stated that "a small statistically significant trend was found for an increase in annual catastrophe loss since 1970 of 2% per year." But the AR4 synthesis report stated that more "heavy precipitation" is "very likely" and that an "increase in tropical cyclone intensity" is "likely" as temperatures rise.
Perhaps the most dumbfounding AR4 citation (so far) was recently discovered by Climatequotes.com. It appears that a WG2 warning that "[t]he multiple stresses of climate change and increasing human activity on the Antarctic Peninsula represent a clear vulnerability and have necessitated the implementation of stringent clothing decontamination guidelines for tourist landings on the Antarctic Peninsula" originated from and was attributed to a guide for Antarctica tour operators on decontaminating boots and clothing. Really.
And here's one you may not have heard yet. A paper published last December by Lockart, Kavetski, and Franks rebuts the AR4 WG1 assertion that CO2-driven higher temperatures drive higher evaporation and thereby cause droughts. The study claims they got it backwards, as higher air temperatures are in fact driven by the lack of evaporation (as occurs during drought). I smell another "-gate" in the works.
And yet, perhaps the greatest undermining of IPCC integrity comes from a recent study, which I’ve summarized here, challenging the global temperature data reported by its two most important American allies: NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As these represent the readings used by most climate analysis agencies, including the IPCC, the discovery by meteorologist Joe D'Aleo and computer expert E.M. Smith that they've been intentionally biased to the warm side since 1990 puts literally every temperature-related climate report released since then into question.
...Along with, of course, any policy decisions based on their content.
continued....
P
pixelsmith
Guest
.....
It's Time for some Real Climate Justice
Here in the states, left-leaning policymakers and their cohorts in the MSM have thus far all but ignored both the reality and implications of the fraud unveiled by Climategate, Glaciergate, Amazongate, and the myriad other AGW-hyping scandals that seem to surface almost daily. Remarkably, most continue to discuss "climate pollution" and "carbon footprints" and the "tragedy" of Copenhagen’s failure, even as the global warming fever of their own contagion plunges precipitously. The president appears equally deluded, as passing a "comprehensive energy and climate bill" (as though the climate might somehow be managed by parliamentary edict) was one of the many goals he set forth in his State of the Union address last week.
But their denial will be short-lived as even the last vestiges of the green lie they so desperately cling to evaporate under the heat of the spotlight suddenly shining upon them.
For outside of the U.S., many news organizations and politicians already get it. Some are calling for Pachauri's resignation, and others for a full investigation into his possible financial conflicts of interest. There have also been demands for a complete reassessment of all IPCC reports, including a suggestion from the Financial Times that, given the IPCC's "central role in climate science," an independent auditor must be commissioned to "look at all the claims in the 2007 report and remove any that were not soundly based."
At least one American, AGW believer Walter Russell Mead of American Interest Online, agrees: "A highly publicized effort that includes serious skeptics and has bipartisan backing is the only way to get American public opinion on board the climate change train." And China's lead climate change negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, suggested that "contrarian views" be included in 2014's AR5.
But when the Australian suddenly recommended "applying a healthy degree of scepticism to scientific claims that drive policy," paleoclimatologist Bob Carter told me he just couldn't help laughingly writing the editors to welcome them to the ranks of the majority of scientists who "practice exactly the technique that [they] belatedly recommend" -- the skeptics.
Indeed, this abrupt challenge to their own "consensus" mantra that they’ve spoon-fed the public for years rings decidedly hollow. Those "serious skeptics" and the holders of those "contrarian views" are the same scientists the IPCC deliberately excluded from its proceedings with impunity. They're the same people whom the media have ignored or ridiculed for years, along with their conventions -- like Heartland's ICCC 1, 2, and 3 -- and innumerable contrarian reports. In fact, a superb rebuttal to AR4, Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) -- produced by Dr. S. Fred Singer, Dr. Craig Idso, and thirty fellow scientists -- has received no MSM attention whatsoever, despite its availability here since last June.
Besides, the time for credibility makeovers has long passed. As U.K. Professor Phillip Stott recently observed:
[A]s ever, capitalism has read the runes, with carbon-trading posts quietly being shed, 'Green' jobs sidelined, and even big insurance companies starting to hedge their own bets against the future of the Global Warming Grand Narrative. These rats are leaving the sinking ship far faster than any politician, many of whom are going to be abandoned, left, still clinging to the masts, as the Good Ship 'Global Warming' founders on titanic icebergs in the raging oceans of doubt and delusion.
Stott compared the IPCC's fall to that of the Berlin Wall. And he's spot-on -- for just as the latter symbolized the doom of European communism, so does the former signal the death knell for global socialist-environmentalism.
Let's get real -- given the enormousness of the booty these grifters attempted to extort from the entire developed world, not to mention the extraordinary depth of their hubris, it isn't rehabilitation that's required here, but swift justice. In 2006, IPCC cheerleader Grist Magazine's staff writer David Roberts received a pass when he called for the Nuremberg-style war-crimes trials for the "bastards" who were members of the global warming "denial industry." Surely, it's now clear that the members of the global warming "fraud industry" are the true "bastards" who should be hauled before an international tribunal for crimes against humanity...any tribunal, that is, other than the U.N.'s own International Criminal Court in The Hague.
We'll deal with their accessories-after-the-fact in the Congress, the White House -- and consequently, the EPA -- in due time.
And the first such judgment is already scheduled -- for November.
American Thinker: IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks
It's Time for some Real Climate Justice
Here in the states, left-leaning policymakers and their cohorts in the MSM have thus far all but ignored both the reality and implications of the fraud unveiled by Climategate, Glaciergate, Amazongate, and the myriad other AGW-hyping scandals that seem to surface almost daily. Remarkably, most continue to discuss "climate pollution" and "carbon footprints" and the "tragedy" of Copenhagen’s failure, even as the global warming fever of their own contagion plunges precipitously. The president appears equally deluded, as passing a "comprehensive energy and climate bill" (as though the climate might somehow be managed by parliamentary edict) was one of the many goals he set forth in his State of the Union address last week.
But their denial will be short-lived as even the last vestiges of the green lie they so desperately cling to evaporate under the heat of the spotlight suddenly shining upon them.
For outside of the U.S., many news organizations and politicians already get it. Some are calling for Pachauri's resignation, and others for a full investigation into his possible financial conflicts of interest. There have also been demands for a complete reassessment of all IPCC reports, including a suggestion from the Financial Times that, given the IPCC's "central role in climate science," an independent auditor must be commissioned to "look at all the claims in the 2007 report and remove any that were not soundly based."
At least one American, AGW believer Walter Russell Mead of American Interest Online, agrees: "A highly publicized effort that includes serious skeptics and has bipartisan backing is the only way to get American public opinion on board the climate change train." And China's lead climate change negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, suggested that "contrarian views" be included in 2014's AR5.
But when the Australian suddenly recommended "applying a healthy degree of scepticism to scientific claims that drive policy," paleoclimatologist Bob Carter told me he just couldn't help laughingly writing the editors to welcome them to the ranks of the majority of scientists who "practice exactly the technique that [they] belatedly recommend" -- the skeptics.
Indeed, this abrupt challenge to their own "consensus" mantra that they’ve spoon-fed the public for years rings decidedly hollow. Those "serious skeptics" and the holders of those "contrarian views" are the same scientists the IPCC deliberately excluded from its proceedings with impunity. They're the same people whom the media have ignored or ridiculed for years, along with their conventions -- like Heartland's ICCC 1, 2, and 3 -- and innumerable contrarian reports. In fact, a superb rebuttal to AR4, Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) -- produced by Dr. S. Fred Singer, Dr. Craig Idso, and thirty fellow scientists -- has received no MSM attention whatsoever, despite its availability here since last June.
Besides, the time for credibility makeovers has long passed. As U.K. Professor Phillip Stott recently observed:
[A]s ever, capitalism has read the runes, with carbon-trading posts quietly being shed, 'Green' jobs sidelined, and even big insurance companies starting to hedge their own bets against the future of the Global Warming Grand Narrative. These rats are leaving the sinking ship far faster than any politician, many of whom are going to be abandoned, left, still clinging to the masts, as the Good Ship 'Global Warming' founders on titanic icebergs in the raging oceans of doubt and delusion.
Stott compared the IPCC's fall to that of the Berlin Wall. And he's spot-on -- for just as the latter symbolized the doom of European communism, so does the former signal the death knell for global socialist-environmentalism.
Let's get real -- given the enormousness of the booty these grifters attempted to extort from the entire developed world, not to mention the extraordinary depth of their hubris, it isn't rehabilitation that's required here, but swift justice. In 2006, IPCC cheerleader Grist Magazine's staff writer David Roberts received a pass when he called for the Nuremberg-style war-crimes trials for the "bastards" who were members of the global warming "denial industry." Surely, it's now clear that the members of the global warming "fraud industry" are the true "bastards" who should be hauled before an international tribunal for crimes against humanity...any tribunal, that is, other than the U.N.'s own International Criminal Court in The Hague.
We'll deal with their accessories-after-the-fact in the Congress, the White House -- and consequently, the EPA -- in due time.
And the first such judgment is already scheduled -- for November.
American Thinker: IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks
Plant Life
Skilled Investigator
pixelsmith,
What real environmental crisis?
I"ll ask you the same thing. "Now can we get back to the original environmental movement and work together addressing REAL issues?"
What real environmental crisis?
I"ll ask you the same thing. "Now can we get back to the original environmental movement and work together addressing REAL issues?"
Bent Faith
Says you...
For almost 2000 years (up until the late 19th century) blood-letting was the most common practice performed by medical doctors because it was, by consensus, the best way to treat disease.
I believe in the future the "consensus" for artificial global warming will be looked at as being as idiotic as blood-letting, geocentrism, and alchemy.
Rick Deckard
Paranormal Maven
Suits me - you'll be talking to yourself. In the meantime, I'll carry on enjoying the time I have left on this rock, while the alarmists worry themselves into an early grave...
---------- Post added at 05:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:23 PM ----------
It's been some time since I last read an IPCC report - has their position changed on water vapour?
Greenhouse gases ranked by their contribution to the greenhouse effect:
- water vapour, which contributes 36–72%
- carbon dioxide, which contributes 9–26%
- methane, which contributes 4–9%
- ozone, which contributes 3–7%
Last time I looked, they basically side-stepped the future influence of water vapour on climate change with an "insufficient data" label. That started the alarm bells ringing right there.
So, has that changed? Are we gonna have a water vapour foot-print too? Are we gonna have meters embedded in our lungs?
Probabilistic Forecast for 21st Century Climate Based on Uncertainties in Emissions (without Policy) and Climate Parameters
by Sokolov, A.P., P.H. Stone, C.E. Forest, R.G. Prinn, M.C. Sarofim, M. Webster, S. Paltsev, C.A. Schlosser, D. Kicklighter, S. Dutkiewicz, J. Reilly, C. Wang, B. Felzer, J. Melillo, H.D. Jacoby (January 2009)
Joint Program Report Series, 44 pages, 2009
Superseded by Reprint 2009-12
Abstract
The MIT Integrated Global System Model is used to make probabilistic projections of climate change from 1861 to 2100. Since the model's first projections were published in 2003 substantial improvements have been made to the model and improved estimates of the probability distributions of uncertain input parameters have become available. The new projections are considerably warmer than the 2003 projections, e.g., the median surface warming in 2091 to 2100 is 5.1°C compared to 2.4°C in the earlier study. Many changes contribute to the stronger warming; among the more important ones are taking into account the cooling in the second half of the 20th century due to volcanic eruptions for input parameter estimation and a more sophisticated method for projecting GDP growth which eliminated many low emission scenarios. However, if recently published data, suggesting stronger 20th century ocean warming, are used to determine the input climate parameters, the median projected warning at the end of the 21st century is only 4.1°C. Nevertheless all our simulations have a very small probability of warming less than 2.4°C, the lower bound of the IPCC AR4 projected likely range for the A1FI scenario, which has forcing very similar to our median projection. The probability distribution for the surface warming produced by our analysis is more symmetric than the distribution assumed by the IPCC due to a different feedback between the climate and the carbon cycle, resulting from a different treatment of the carbon-nitrogen interaction in the terrestrial ecosystem.
Link to full document (1084 kB PDF)
Report 169
http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=2003
MIT - What a bunch of Academic hoaxers and charlatans.....:
Rick Deckard
Paranormal Maven
Current computer models of chaotic systems are near worthless.
The climatologists have to do one of two things to convince me that they can predict the climate for the next 100 years:
1 - demonstrate their ability to track every single atom and energy emission in the solar system (and perhaps beyond), record the state of all those elements at a specific instant in time, before finally running a simulation of how each individual elements will interact with the others for the next 100 years
or
2 - demonstrate their ability to travel forward in time, take temperature readings and return to present, while at the same time demonstrating that their visit to the future has in no way affected the natural time line to that future
Only then will I have any confidence in their predictions.
Actually, point 1 wouldn't work anyway because of unpredictability of nature. So that just leaves number 2.
Basically, you cannot predict the future of a chaotic system, based on past performance - short-term weather forecasts have repeatedly demonstrated that - but this is what we're being asked to believe by the promoter's of the AGW theory.
The climatologists have to do one of two things to convince me that they can predict the climate for the next 100 years:
1 - demonstrate their ability to track every single atom and energy emission in the solar system (and perhaps beyond), record the state of all those elements at a specific instant in time, before finally running a simulation of how each individual elements will interact with the others for the next 100 years
or
2 - demonstrate their ability to travel forward in time, take temperature readings and return to present, while at the same time demonstrating that their visit to the future has in no way affected the natural time line to that future
Only then will I have any confidence in their predictions.
Actually, point 1 wouldn't work anyway because of unpredictability of nature. So that just leaves number 2.
Basically, you cannot predict the future of a chaotic system, based on past performance - short-term weather forecasts have repeatedly demonstrated that - but this is what we're being asked to believe by the promoter's of the AGW theory.
Schuyler
Misanthrope
Quit changing the subject. I have said the following so many times I ought to put it in a macro so all I have to do is press F3 and have it spit out. Because I feel Global Warming is a farce has nothing to do with other types of pollution. If there's a bunch of plastic crap in the ocean, let's go clean it up. If fertilizer and sewage run off is causing oxygen starvation in our lakes, let's go clean it up. If the Indians taking apart old tankers has created the most polluted beach in the world, let's go clean it up. Also, let's conserve as many resources as we can. Let's develop alternative energy resources. Let us be as good a steward of the earth as we can possibly be given that we are products of the earth and have just as much right to live here as some so-called endangered species. And for that matter, let's ensure the 'gene pool' stays as diverse as possible. If we had spent as much money on serious clean-up as we have in carbon trading, we'd be a significant percentage through the process.
However, pretending that CO2 itself is a poison is not only absurd, but it will have disastrous results to civilization as we know it. We may as well ban electricity production which would have roughly the same effect. CO2 is a basic result of combustion, including you breathing. To speculate without proof that Nature is inherently unstable and that another degree or two of warming in 100 years will result in a 'positive feedback loop' that will result in runaway melting, more hurricanes, and other disasters flies in the face of everything we know about the historical earth. If Nature were inherently unstable, it would have already happened, but it hasn't, strongly suggesting that Nature is inherently stable and works with negative feedback, not positive feedback. There is no 'tipping point.' This whole thing is based on the presumption of a tipping point we've never seen before.
I and others here have given you ample evidence that Global Warming is BS. the facts and figures are above from a variety of sources, from ice core samples and from actual temperature readings. We have also shown you just how the science behind global warming is extremely shaky on a variety of levels, controlled by a hand full of people who are quick to launch ad hominem attacks on their detractors, accusing them, for example, of being in the pocket of Big Oil when their own careers have depended upon millions of dollars in research grants that specifically require them to find evidence of Global Warming. We have shown how data has been manipulated and the IPCC's own vaulted standards have been repeatedly violated by themselves.
Not only is the science bad, depending on tree ring data from a single tree in Siberia when tree ring data in the modern era, when it can be checked by thermometer readings, 'diverges' from the thermometer readings. That's what the whole issue of "divergence" is about. How can you use tree ring data as a proxy when we know tree rings don't follow temperature well enough to use them? But we have also shown how data has been manipulated. they "hid the decline" in temperature records by cutting off the graph early so you couldn't see the downward trend. Good Lord, man! This is BLATANT manipulation of the data!
And in the face of all the hand wringing, the fact is that in the last ten years the global temperature has grown cooler, not warmer. One of the climate scientists, Keith Trenberth, in an email to Michael Mann, has said:
However, pretending that CO2 itself is a poison is not only absurd, but it will have disastrous results to civilization as we know it. We may as well ban electricity production which would have roughly the same effect. CO2 is a basic result of combustion, including you breathing. To speculate without proof that Nature is inherently unstable and that another degree or two of warming in 100 years will result in a 'positive feedback loop' that will result in runaway melting, more hurricanes, and other disasters flies in the face of everything we know about the historical earth. If Nature were inherently unstable, it would have already happened, but it hasn't, strongly suggesting that Nature is inherently stable and works with negative feedback, not positive feedback. There is no 'tipping point.' This whole thing is based on the presumption of a tipping point we've never seen before.
I and others here have given you ample evidence that Global Warming is BS. the facts and figures are above from a variety of sources, from ice core samples and from actual temperature readings. We have also shown you just how the science behind global warming is extremely shaky on a variety of levels, controlled by a hand full of people who are quick to launch ad hominem attacks on their detractors, accusing them, for example, of being in the pocket of Big Oil when their own careers have depended upon millions of dollars in research grants that specifically require them to find evidence of Global Warming. We have shown how data has been manipulated and the IPCC's own vaulted standards have been repeatedly violated by themselves.
Not only is the science bad, depending on tree ring data from a single tree in Siberia when tree ring data in the modern era, when it can be checked by thermometer readings, 'diverges' from the thermometer readings. That's what the whole issue of "divergence" is about. How can you use tree ring data as a proxy when we know tree rings don't follow temperature well enough to use them? But we have also shown how data has been manipulated. they "hid the decline" in temperature records by cutting off the graph early so you couldn't see the downward trend. Good Lord, man! This is BLATANT manipulation of the data!
And in the face of all the hand wringing, the fact is that in the last ten years the global temperature has grown cooler, not warmer. One of the climate scientists, Keith Trenberth, in an email to Michael Mann, has said:
With this kind of evidence you want us to take carbon emissions back to 1900 levels with a population that will be 4 times greater? It's not going to happen. Really. It's not. So if you think it will, move inland and buy some sunglasses. Meanwhile I'm going to buy a fur coat. If it does get warm, I can always take it off, but if it gets colder, you're going to freeze to death.
Rick Deckard
Paranormal Maven
Cross my palm with silver. You're going to meet a tall dark stranger...
...this really is end-of-the-pier stuff.
Can we close this thread now, its going nowhere fast?
Schuyler
Misanthrope
One of the problems with the entire AGW alarmist theory is the idea of a 'tipping point.' The theory says that as the climate warms this will in turn release other, more powerful greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, resulting in a multiplier effect. In other words, there are two theories involved here: One is AGW itself; the other is the presence of feedback.
Example of Negative Feedback
The example above is of a negative feedback system. If you agitate the ball, it will move, but negative feedback will tend to bring the ball back to rest. the figure below is a positive feedback system. If you agitate the ball, it will fall off an never come back.
Example of Positive Feedback
This second example is like having a car perched precariously at the top of the hill where any slight nudge or gust of wind will knock the car off. This is also what AGW proponents claim. the ACTUAL temperature change they are predicting is between one and two degrees centigrade over the next century. THAT is what, they say, CO2 will do (which, of course, is highly questionable in its own right), but where the 'damage' will occur because of positive feedback components.
Yet here is a graph of what has happened in the past 3,000 years:
So the question becomes: If positive feedback will, indeed, make the globe go ga ga, why did this NOT happen during the Medieval Warm Period, when it was hotter than today? Why did it not happen during the Roman Warm Period when it was hotter than it was today? Why did it not happen during the Minoan Warm Period when it was hotter than it is today? In order to have a valid scientific theory, it must be predictive. Take a look here and you see that it is not predictive. If the earth's climate were governed by positive feedback, it would have gone crazy a long time ago.
Example of Negative Feedback
The example above is of a negative feedback system. If you agitate the ball, it will move, but negative feedback will tend to bring the ball back to rest. the figure below is a positive feedback system. If you agitate the ball, it will fall off an never come back.
Example of Positive Feedback
This second example is like having a car perched precariously at the top of the hill where any slight nudge or gust of wind will knock the car off. This is also what AGW proponents claim. the ACTUAL temperature change they are predicting is between one and two degrees centigrade over the next century. THAT is what, they say, CO2 will do (which, of course, is highly questionable in its own right), but where the 'damage' will occur because of positive feedback components.
Yet here is a graph of what has happened in the past 3,000 years:
So the question becomes: If positive feedback will, indeed, make the globe go ga ga, why did this NOT happen during the Medieval Warm Period, when it was hotter than today? Why did it not happen during the Roman Warm Period when it was hotter than it was today? Why did it not happen during the Minoan Warm Period when it was hotter than it is today? In order to have a valid scientific theory, it must be predictive. Take a look here and you see that it is not predictive. If the earth's climate were governed by positive feedback, it would have gone crazy a long time ago.
Rick Deckard
Paranormal Maven
You do know that Jonah's gonna say "Industrial Revolution", right?
This is based on real technology - Turn CO2 into usable energy using solar radiation: Sundrop Fuels picks up eSolar technology for its solar hydrogen dish | VentureBeat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage#CO2_re-use