ClimateGate news

Sunday, December 12, 2010

What did Cancun accomplish?

The Climate Conference in Cancun, Mexico has wrapped up after a long chilling week. So just what was accomplished at this big conflab? Ronald Bailey has a summary at Reason.com. Here's a snippet:

It would be cynical to call it a bribe, but the Cancun agreements were largely reached because the rich countries continued their vague promises to hand over $100 billion in climate aid annually to poor countries beginning in 2020.

Basically the deal on emissions is that countries will agree to agree on cuts at the next climate change conference in Durban. Big developing country emitters like China and India still refused to agree to any legally binding limits on their emissions. Of course, neither did the developed countries.

[...]

I repeat the highlights of the Cancun Agreements below:

(1) As far as I can tell, the COP has indeed kicked the Cancun down the road by agreeing that they "shall aim to complete" further commitments by rich countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions "as early as possible." They do include the saving phrase "and in time to ensure that there is no gap between the first and second commitment period." Translation: Additional cuts should be agreed to before 2012. The telling words are "shall aim to complete." No real promises here.

(2) The shared vision says that the parties set the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions "so as to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels...." The parties will think about trying to hold average temperature increase to 1.5 later after further scientific review in 2015.

(3) The shared vision drops the earlier text that would have required that the world cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent and that developed countries cut their emissions by 80-95 percent by 2050. Instead, the parties will "work towards identifying a global goal for substantially reducing global emissions by 2050" and consider it at the next meeting in Durban.

(4) The shared vision also drops the proposal that global greenhouse gases should peak by 2015.

(5) The text also sets up a process for creating a system for accounting and monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions from developed countries. As far as I can tell from reading the rather opaque text, the U.S. has not been roped into a process that leads to legally binding emissions reduction commitments.

(6) China, India and other emerging countries also have not been roped into legally binding commitments, but if they take mitigation actions that are supported by outside money, those activities will be subject to some kind of international auditing. On the other, the world will have take their words for their domestically funded activities.

(7) The text also says that the parties decide to establish a Green Climate Fund under the authority of the Conference of the Parties with a board of directors consisting of 24 members, half of whom will be from rich countries and half from poor countries. The devloped country parties commit to "mobilizing jointly USD 100 billion per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries."

Not much commitment to reducing carbon emissions there, but that $100,000,000,000 per year ain't no chump change!

And that's what it's always been about.

Update #1: JoNova has a roundup of the media response and says it was all about the PR:
After the awful post-Climategate-and-Copenhagen year, more than anything else, the Big Scare Campaign needed a PR win. And in that sense Cancun was a major victory. Nobody agreed to anything legally binding, Kyoto was not extended, and all they achieved amounted to nothing more than an extension of the yearly junkets, and the promise that the gravy train is not dead yet. But the headlines will warm the hearts of all on Team-Scare-Us. The most important thing for the side that’s losing friends, faith and face, was to regain momentum. They’re trying to stop the death spiral.
Update #2: From the Christian Science Monitor:
To prevent the talks from collapsing, the language had to accommodate the developing countries that are clinging to Kyoto as well as a Japan that wants very little to do with it any longer. Observers described the language as “weak” without a direct call for countries to pledge reductions in the second commitment period. [...]

“Anything that is said about a legally binding outcome in the future must make it very clear that that is a legally binding outcome that would apply to at least all the major countries including China, India, Brazil, and so forth,” says Todd Stern, the US special climate envoy.
The Wall Street Journal:
World leaders at a climate-change conference in Cancun, Mexico, made clear that addressing the issue will be all about money, agreeing that rich countries would spend potentially trillions of dollars to help poor countries develop on a greener path.

But the diplomats postponed hashing out which rich countries would pay how much, and exactly what the poor countries would have to do to get the checks.

The two-week United Nations climate conference in the resort city of Cancun underscored that future global efforts to address climate change will likely depend more on economic incentives than on environmental mandates.
From Reuters:
(Reuters) - Global carbon markets will struggle after the deal reached at annual U.N. climate talks did little to ensure mandatory emissions caps would be extended next year.

Friday, December 10, 2010

The Gore Effect hits Cancun

The Gore Effect: wherever Al Gore goes, so does record cold weather. I don't know if the Goreacle is in Cancun, but there are enough warmists and climate change activists gathered there at the UN conference to trigger an impressive example of the Gore Effect. From Anthony Watts:

The irony, it burns. Do you think maybe Gaia is trying to send the U.N. and the delegates a message? One record low was funny, three in a row was hilarious, a new record low for the month of December was ROFL, but now six straight days of record lows during the U.N. COP16 Global Warming conference? That’s galactically inconvenient. The whole month so far has averaged below normal









E.P.A. Delays Tougher Rules on Emissions

From the New York Times:

The Obama administration is retreating on long-delayed environmental regulations — new rules governing smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers — as it adjusts to a changed political dynamic in Washington with a more muscular Republican opposition.

The move to delay the rules, announced this week by the Environmental Protection Agency, will leave in place policies set by President George W. Bush. President Obama ran for office promising tougher standards, and the new rules were set to take effect over the next several weeks.

Now, the agency says, it needs until July 2011 to further analyze scientific and health studies of the smog rules and until April 2012 on the boiler regulation. Mr. Obama, having just cut a painful deal with Republicans intended to stimulate the economy, can ill afford to be seen as simultaneously throttling the fragile recovery by imposing a sheaf of expensive new environmental regulations that critics say will cost jobs.

The delays represent a marked departure from the first two years of the Obama presidency, when the E.P.A. moved quickly to reverse one Bush environmental policy after another. Administration officials now face the question of whether in their zeal to undo the Bush agenda they reached too far and provoked an unmanageable political backlash.
What next? Will Obama try legislation rather than regulation? I doubt that will fly with the new Republican dominated Congress.

It seems that elections do have consequences.

h/t

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Lord Monckton on the New World Order

Update: Joanne Nova: "The power hungry tyrants learnt from Copenhagen. They realized that they have a far better chance of success by underselling the expectations and sliding in long impenetrable documents in front of underling bureaucrats. The UN wants nothing less than 1.5% of our GDP."

Original Post

Via WUWT, here is the report from the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley in Cancun, Mexico, Dec 9th, 2010 titled The Abdication of the West:

I usually add some gentle humor to these reports. Not today. Read this and weep. Notwithstanding the carefully-orchestrated propaganda to the effect that nothing much will be decided at the UN climate conference here in Cancun, the decisions to be made here this week signal nothing less than the abdication of the West. The governing class in what was once proudly known as the Free World is silently, casually letting go of liberty, prosperity, and even democracy itself. No one in the mainstream media will tell you this, not so much because they do not see as because they do not bl**dy care.

The 33-page Note (FCCC/AWGLCA/2010/CRP.2) by the Chairman of the “Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Co-operative Action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”, entitled Possible elements of the outcome, reveals all. Or, rather, it reveals nothing, unless one understands what the complex, obscure jargon means. All UNFCCC documents at the Cancun conference, specifically including Possible elements of the outcome, are drafted with what is called “transparent impenetrability”. The intention is that the documents should not be understood, but that later we shall be told they were in the public domain all the time, so what are we complaining about?

Since the Chairman’s note is very long, I shall summarize the main points:

I found this particularly disturbing.
The world-government Secretariat: In all but name, the UN Convention’s Secretariat will become a world government directly controlling hundreds of global, supranational, regional, national and sub-national bureaucracies. It will receive the vast sum of taxpayers’ money ostensibly paid by the West to the Third World for adaptation to the supposed adverse consequences of imagined (and imaginary) “global warming”.
The rest is here.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Can anyone be Environment minister?

A post at Macleans.ca by Aaron Wherry today entitled The Commons: Anyone can be environment minister described a verbal exchange during Question Period on the latest report from the environmental commissioner. Mr Wherry seems a bit dissatisfied with the answers from Conservative MPs Mark Warawa and Chuck Strahl, who is quoted:

“We welcome the commissioner’s report,” he explained. “We of course are working to address those concerns that were raised. We welcome his suggestions. In fact we are already taking action on preventing and preparing for environmental emergencies, something that he highlighted, strengthening our water monitoring program and investing in climate change adaptation. Those recommendations are welcome and they are consistent with what the government is already doing. [...]

“We are dealing with the Copenhagen accord right now in Cancun to make sure that all major emitters sign on the dotted line,” Mr. Strahl later explained for the benefit of the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair. “There is no use having an accord when the major emitters of the world are not signed on and doing their part. We want all world economies to be part of this program.””
I have included only the above quote from MP Strahl. But if you read the whole article, it becomes apparent that the writer is dissatisfied with the responses. Mr. Wherry is obviously a "believer" and his article seems filled with contempt for not only the responses but the responders.

However, I think that Mr. Strahl's response deserves some study. He says, "In fact we are already taking action on... investing in climate change adaptation". Many would argue that adaptation is a far better response to climate change than an expensive and futile exercise in prevention. Even the UN has admitted that full implementation of the carbon reduction targets in Kyoto would have almost a negligible effect on their climate predictions. So wouldn't the money be better spent on adaptation. Perhaps not an answer that the enviro-marxist crowd wants to hear, but certainly one that's worth persuing.

Mr. Strahl makes another valid point, "There is no use having an accord when the major emitters of the world are not signed on and doing their part." Again, the enviro crowd want Canada to take drastic measures which would surely disadvantage our economy while countries like China, India and the United States who all dwarf us on the emissions scale are bound by no carbon reductions targets. Unfortunately Canada is a very small fish in this big pond and while some think it might be nice to "lead the way" and "set an example", such action would have absolutely no impact on the climate.

The whole anthropogenic global warming scheme is a scam. Always has been. Canada got sucked into Kyoto by the Lliberals under Jean Chretien who then proceeded to do absolutely nothing to reduce emissions. Recent events like climategate have helped to expose the fraud of man-made global warming. The lack of warming over the past decade and a half has helped too. So now that the wheels are falling off the whole climate change thing, why should Canada consider doing anything other than adaptation?

To get back to the question that Mr. Wherry didn't ask but inferred, not just anyone can be Environment minister. The job requires someone who can look at the issue of climate change rationally, see it for what it is and develop a response that is appropriate to the "threat" - while at the same time protecting the country's economy and the jobs that depend on it.

Adaptation seems like a pretty good approach to me.

The Green Collapse

Lawrence Solomon:

The Ontario government paints itself in extreme green. It has outlawed coal — the only jurisdiction on the continent to have done so. It boasts the world’s biggest solar plant. It boasts the western world’s biggest subsidies to the renewables industry. And now, it also boasts the western world’s fastest-growing renewables industry.

But Ontario’s new-found status didn’t arise because Ontario newly increased its level of its subsidies. It arose because the world’s other extreme green jurisdictions — to avert the economic and political ruin that comes of unaffordable green power — recently swallowed their pride, slashed their subsidies and backstabbed their renewables industries. Like its extreme green counterparts elsewhere, Ontario will follow suit soon enough.
Want more?
On Friday, Spain slashed payouts for wind projects by 35% while denying support for solar thermal projects in their first year of operation. Spain’s renewables industry also faces a cap on the number of megawatt-hours eligible for subsidized rates.
More?
Also Friday, France announced a four-month freeze on solar projects and a cap on the amount of solar that can be built, to nip a “veritable speculative bubble” by its rapacious renewables industry. These measures and others continue a retrenchment that saw industry payouts cut twice earlier this year, and that will likely continue as opposition grows to France’s rapidly rising power tax on electricity.
Enough yet? There's more.
Earlier this week, the German government announced it may discontinue the solar industry’s sweetheart tariffs in 2012. This latest announcement follows a surprise reduction in 2009 and another reduction to start in 2011.
You guessed it, there's more...
Also in October, New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, slashed by two-thirds the revenue that homeowners who had installed solar panels would receive, from 60¢ per kilowatt-hour to 20¢.
One last point.
Also in October, the U.K. government announced that withering spending cuts were coming to renewable projects, many of which have already been withering, and not just due to government austerity measures, or to the consumer backlash against rising power rates. Because of fierce grassroots opposition from the U.K.’s 230-odd anti-wind organizations, local governments have shelved or rejected two out of three wind-farm applications that have come before them.
While the rest of the world is retreating from the green energy scam, Dalton McQuinty continues to waste Ontario tax dollars on this pipe dream and endanger our energy future at the same time. Take a look, Mr. McGuinty at the failures of green energy in Europe and you will see our future.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Canada joins in to reject extension of Kyoto

With climate negotiations wasting away in Margaritaville, er Cancun, the AP is reporting that Canada has taken a stand against extending the disastrous carbon emissions targets of the Kyoto Accord.

CANCUN, Mexico - Canada has reportedly aligned itself with Russia and Japan to block the extension of the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres says Canada is one of three countries among the 36 signatories that's opposed to extending their emission targets under the pact.
Bravo, Mr. Harper. Bravo.

Update: More from Le Devoir via Norman Spector:
“Yesterday, Canada stirred a veritable commotion [in Cancun] by aligning itself with Japan to block the extension of the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012 – an extension that would see a new period of obligatory reductions in greenhouse gases agreed to by the 36 parties to the treaty.

It was the chair of the conference herself, Christiana Figueres, who confirmed the identity of the three countries opposed to extending Kyoto beyond 2012. She spelled out that Russia, the final country to have ratified Kyoto – thereby giving it international binding legal effect – had joined with Japan and Canada to form what from now will be known as the ‘Group of Three.’”
It sounds like Canada has (finally) decided to do the right thing about Kyoto. I'll be watching for more on this in upcoming days. I'm sure that PM Stephen Harper is going to get a roasting in the liberal news media here. But I'm just as sure that he has calculated the backlash and is ready for it.

Climategate Round II

Could Wikileaks bring us the next round of Climategate? Some iinteresting posts from the Guardian:

Close reading of the cables released by WikiLeaks reveals in excruciating detail the US tactics deployed to achieve its aim of overwhelming the opposition to the Copenhagen accord.
Well, we know that the Copenhagen thing didn't work out so well for the warmists, but it is interesting to learn of all the behind the scenes manipulation and intimidation that went into the effort.
Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats and promises of aid to get support for Copenhagen accord [...]

Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.

The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial "Copenhagen accord", the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.
Looks like they have lowered their expectations for Cancun.
Cancún climate talks doomed to fail, says EU president. Herman van Rompuy dismisses Copenhagen climate summit as 'incredible disaster' and expects Cancún to be no better. [...]

Van Rompuy said the Copenhagen climate change talks had been "an incredible disaster". Looking forward to the current negotiations in Cancún in Mexico, the European leader predicted that these would be a disaster too.

Wasting away in Margaritaville

To say that Rex Murphy has a way with words is to say that Michelangelo was pretty good with a paint brush. Rex offers his thoughts on the big climate party in Cancun.

Perhaps they know that this show of theirs is on its last legs, the jig is up, the great game is over. After the unsuccessful 2009 Copenhagen conference, they had to have realized that even Al Gore and all Al Gores’ grim little men would never be able to put the whole rickety, tendentious machine back together again. After Copenhagen, and especially after Climategate, even the true believers must have lost heart. Witness this year’s confabulation. Notice who’s not there?
Right. The world's leaders are conspicuously absent from this latest warmist gathering. The shine is off the apple. And this group of self-serving elites is becoming more and more irrelevant.

With my apologies to Jimmy Buffett:
Wasting away again in Margaritaville
Searching for a transfer of wealth
Some people claim that there's a carbon to blame
But I know... it's nobody's fault

Friday, December 3, 2010

Senator Jim Inhofe

on Copenhagen, Cancun and the death of Cap & Trade.


h/t: Captain Ed

As if we needed proof...

UN moonbattery confirmed.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also "the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you -- because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools."
While these UN elites cavort in sunny Cancun, a couple feet of global warming gets dumped on Buffalo, NY.


Oh wait! It appears that we're freezing because of global warming!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Burying the Kyoto Accord once and for all

The Kyoto Accord has been on life support for a while now. Warmists who were hoping for some form of resuscitation at the big climate conflab in Mexico this week must surely be disappointed by this news:

Talks threatened with breakdown after forthright Japanese refusal to extend Kyoto emissions commitments.

The delicately balanced global climate talks in Cancún suffered a serious setback last night when Japan categorically stated its opposition to extending the Kyoto protocol – the binding international treaty that commits most of the world's richest countries to making emission cuts.
Given that Japan was the birthplace of this disaster, it seems only fitting that the Japanese should be the ones to drive the silver stake through it's heart.

h/t: WUWT

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Putting the brakes on the EPA

From the Politico, Jerry Lewis pledges to strip funds for climate rules.

Specifically, Lewis said he wants to target EPA’s “ongoing arbitrary interpretation of the Clean Air Act” to begin regulating greenhouse gases in January. He said he will refuse to support federal funding to regulate greenhouse gases in the 112th Congress “unless Congress passes bipartisan energy legislation specifically providing the authority to do so.”
Lewis is hoping to be chair the powerful House Appropriations Committee come January and as such, would have his hands on the purse-strings.

h/t: Captain Ed

Monday, November 29, 2010

Dalton's green follies will cost us all

Lawrence Solomon says that with it's newly announced energy plan, Ontario is digging itself an $87-billion grave:

All told, the province plans to spend $87-billion on a 20-year plan that will bring Ontario a system highly dependent on nuclear, wind and solar, all of which have a track record of being unreliable and all of which, by the government’s own reckoning, will contribute to much higher power rates in future.
Ontario's Long Term Energy Plan.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

"we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy"

Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer is an economist and Co-Chair of Working Group III of the United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was interviewed recently by Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore...
Emphasis added. English language version above is from the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Foster: Canada dodges carbon suicide

Peter Foster in the Financial Post:

Mr. Harper has always clearly grasped-- apparently unlike the majority of his international counterparts--that the greatest threat facing humanity is not climate change, but climate-change policy.
Good for Canada's unelected, conservative Senate.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Welcome to the wacky world of green power

Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail

Welcome to the wacky world of green power, where misguided governments have sparked a massive corporate feeding frenzy (at taxpayers’ expense) to achieve little or nothing of any social benefit.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Good news

Senate Democrats abandon comprehensive climate bill

The Dems have an overwhelming majority in the House and a "super-majority" in the Senate and they still can't put together enough votes on their "cap & tax" climate bill. But that's good news for consumers who won't be straddled with yet another massive tax by the Obama administration.

Watch them blame the Republicans for this.

h/t: SDA

Update: I couldn't resist adding the very cool video. Kinda sums things up.



video h/t: Allahpundit

Thursday, June 17, 2010

58 days

is way too long to respond the greatest environmental disaster in decades.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

When failure was not an option

From Watts Up With That? Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist Dr. H. Harrison Schmitt comments on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico:

President Obama’s Administration and its supportive media repeatedly say our 1970 Apollo 13 experience is analogous to the effort to contain and cap the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Not hardly!

(...)

“Failure was not an option” for Gene Kranz and his Apollo 13 flight controllers and engineers. In contrast, failure clearly has been an option for President Obama and those claiming to have been on top of this situation “from day one” in his White House and in the Departments of Interior, Energy and Homeland Security.

With no single, competent, courageous and knowledgeable leader in charge of a comparably competent, courageous and knowledgeable team as we had with Apollo 13, the Administration has been doomed to failure from the start. The President, without any experience in real-world management of anything, much less a crisis, has no idea how to deal with a situation as technically complex as the Gulf oil spill.
Be sure to read the whole thing.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Who gets the hockey stick?

There's lots of speculation about why this partnership is coming to an end after 40 years. Lots more speculation about who will get which mansion? Will Tipper get California and leave Tennessee to Al? Why the split? Did Tipper just get tired of the hypocrisy? the narcissism? or is she getting out before the lawsuits start and there's still something to get? Who gets the Prius the private jet? the hockey stick?

Ace has a good thread going and the comments are worth reading.

Update: Alan Caruba weighs in and he's not sympathetic.

After his election defeat Al Gore put in a call to David Blood, an 18-year veteran of Goldman Sachs. As stated in a new book ‘Killing Wealth’, “Together they began talking about the potential for the largest swindle in history.” In 2003, “Mr. Gore and Mr. Blood had established Generation Investment Management and created a $1 billion fund to invest in the ‘green technologies’ that would save the planet.”

Thereafter, in collusion with a handful of climate scientists, Gore led the most sophisticated and diabolical campaign to convince people and entire governments that “the Earth has a fever” due to too much carbon dioxide. It would require, he said, green technologies to save the Earth from global warming.

These are, by the way, the same technologies that have reaped millions in subsidies and grants from the U.S. government for those desperate to convince everyone that a zillion wind turbines or acres of solar collectors were a better source of energy that a few coal-fired or nuclear plants.

This is the same global warming scheme that enriched a number of university scientists like Michael Mann of the University of Virginia and government hacks like James Hansen who, as director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, started the hoax with his 1988 testimony about global warming before Congress. Their data has since been debunked.

There was, Gore told everyone, a climate crisis and, in the process he grew rich, hailed the first “carbon billionaire” for his various investments.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Nationalizing the risk and privatizing the profit

Mortgaging our future in the age of the bailout.
Here's the Hannity interview with the producers of Generation Zero.

Gen Zero Hannity Special from Citizens United on Vimeo.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Maxime Bernier

Do you think it's impossible for Canada to produce a political leader who believes in small government, free markets, individual freedoms and is skeptical of the whole man-made global warming hype? I present to you this interview with Former Industry Minister Maxime Bernier (MB) from Conversations from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FC) - emphasis added.

FC: Politicians around the world are back pedaling on the topic of global warming. Most of the important countries have postponed plans to bring in carbon taxes and the majority of the public now believes that humans are not the cause of global warming. Why did you choose to express your own skepticism earlier this year contrary to the Canadian political mainstream?

MB: Because I was tired of it and I just wanted to express what I believe in. I am in politics to do that. We must look at all the studies and it’s obvious that there is no scientific consensus on this issue. I just wanted to tell that reality to Quebecers and Canadians. I’m very pleased that there are more and more people who now are skeptical like me. Before investing more money I think we need to know a bit more about the causes and the consequences of climate change.
Not only has Bernier expressed his skepticism about anthropogenic global warming, he's also hinted that he's interested in the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, post Stephen Harper. He's by no means free of controversy and scandal, but you gotta like what he has to say.
FC: Why did you go into politics?

MB: To promote what I believe in: free markets, less government and more individual freedom. I think that Canadians are responsible people and they don’t need a big government.
and this...
FC: You are skeptical that governments can spend money more efficiently than the average Canadian. Why is that?

MB: It’s just based on the historical data. I think that people know better what is good for them than bureaucrats or politicians in Ottawa. So just leave the money in the pockets of the people. They will save money and they will spend money and we will have more prosperity in our country. I don’t think that taking money from one person to give to another is useful. We need to have some programs. We need to have small government but right now, you are working half the year just to pay taxes to different governments (municipalities, provincial and federal) I think we are paying too much taxes in this country.
I couldn't agree more. Here's a politician who calls 'em the way he sees 'em. What a breath of fresh air this is!

Keep your eye on Maxime Bernier.

h/t: SDA

Study finds increased gov’t spending results in unemployment

You knew the stimulus wouldn't work. Here's why.

...the results of the new study by Harvard Business School will certainly shock some Keynesian academics — and high-ranking government officials. Instead of providing a stimulating effect to the economy, government spending creates pressures on private industry to reduce staff and investment.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Come to the USA

Ray Stevens puts thing in perspective...

Friday, May 14, 2010

Spain changing course

Only time will tell if it's enough to save them, but at least it shows that when the political will is there, major changes can be made. From Investors Business Daily, Spain is Escaping the PIIGS:

As Europe fashioned a $1 trillion bailout fund and prepared for the worst, Spain did what no one thought a socialist state could ever do: It cut public-sector workers' salaries 5% and held off their raises for 2011. Pensions were frozen for all but the poorest.

Better still, all the big money-wasting "green" and "alternative energy" projects — which a Spanish university study exposed as job killers — were scrapped. That's right, all the global warming measures put in place because of the "emergency" were dumped.
While climategate exposed the fraud of global warming, it's taking an unprecedented financial crisis to spur action. Even a leftist state when pinched can recognize the uselessness of combating the Mann-made faux emergency called global warming and take steps to put an end to the wasteful spending it demands.
Not surprisingly, markets rallied on this amazing show of will, whose message was that Spain is not Greece.

It's a heartening story to see a nation on the precipice decide to walk back from the cliff instead of jump. Up until now, socialist states from all over — from Venezuela to Greece — have always resorted to blaming others when the money ran out.
It's not going to be easy for Spain, but that's the point. Doing the right thing isn't usually an easy thing to do. There will surely be opposition and turmoil and there's no guarantee that Spain will succeed. But they're heading in the right direction.

Other nations should take a look at Spain's responsible response and ask themselves if they want to follow the example of Greece into the black hole of debt or suck it up and find the balls to take action like Spain. Sooner or later, they will have to.

As they say, "socialism works great until you run out of other people's money".

Meanwhile, in the USA:

Thursday, May 13, 2010

How GM paid back their government loan



Can you say "Government Motors"?

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Fixing debt with more debt

It doesn't make sense to anyone with the fiscal experience of running a household budget. But that's exactly what the world's leaders are proposing. Terence Corcoran writes in the Financial Post

The great muddle of Keynesian economics is crashing in on statists everywhere. The spending that was supposed to save Europe and the world economy is driving it to ruin. The Keynesian economists and forecasters who promised it would work and were plucking "green shoots" out of the economic desert failed to see the debt crisis rolling up behind them. As Peter Foster wrote on this page last week, the world is in the grip of Keynesian contagion, not the private or capitalist meltdown so many of the G20 leadership blamed when the crisis first struck.
This obsession with Keynesian economics will bring us nothing but economic disaster. Seriously. Are there any leaders willing to follow the Hayek school of thought?

Here's an amusing yet brilliant video comparing Hayek vs. Keynes plus analysis from mises.org:



On a more serious note, an interview with Freiderich Hayek:

Alarmists regroup: new strategy formulated

Climategate has taken such a toll on the global warming agenda that alarmists are taking a new tact. Academics urge radical new approach to climate change:

The UN process has failed, they argue, and a global approach concentrating on CO2 cuts will never work.

They urge instead the use of carbon tax revenue to develop technologies that can supply clean energy to everyone.
All this stems from a group of academics who have issued a paper, called the Hartwell Paper with this surprising admission (emphasis added):
The paper says that the outcome of December's UN climate summit, plus the "ClimateGate" affair and inaccuracies within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report, means "the legitimacy of the institutions of climate policy and science are no longer assured".

So, successfully tackling climate change initially means re-framing the issue.

In an article for the BBC's Green Room series, another of the authors, Mike Hulme, writes: "Climate change has been represented as a conventional environmental 'problem' that is capable of being 'solved'.

"It is neither of these. Yet this framing has locked the world into the rigid agenda that brought us to the dead end of Kyoto, with no evidence of any discernable acceleration of decarbonisation whatsoever."
They are advocating a new, non-United Nations approach towards "decarbonisation", which not surprisingly contains a "carbon tax" aimed at developing new "green" energy technologies while concentrating on short term reduction in carbon emissions.

Division in the ranks? Not all alarmists think this is such a good idea.
"The paper's focus away from CO2 is misguided, short-sighted and probably wrong," said Bill Hare from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
The alarmists can regroup and reframe the issue all they want. Their problem is their junk science has been revealed and they no longer enjoy the blind faith following of the public in general.

We have all become skeptics.

And we have no appetite to commit a major portion of our economy to try to solve a problem that no one can prove exists.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Hide the Decline II

It seems a certain Professor and key proponent of Mann-made Global Warming is displeased with the video "Hide the Decline" published online by Minnesotans for Global Warming. Via Anthony Watts:

Penn State University’s Michael Mann, one of the central figures in the Climategate scandal, has threatened legal action against Minnesotans for Global Warming (M4GW) over the group’s popular satirical YouTube video “Hide the Decline.” The No Cap-and-Trade Coalition, a group that includes M4GW, responded today at an event at the National Press Club, releasing Mann’s threatening letter and an updated version of the “Hide the Decline” video.

“We understand why Michael Mann is eager to silence public discussion of the hockey stick scandal,” said Jeff Davis of No Cap-and-Trade, “but truth is an absolute defense.”
In response, M4GW have released an updated - I think better - video, Hide the Decline II.

Hide The Decline II from No Cap And Trade Coalition on Vimeo.



Update: I've linked to this video at Vimeo, since the sheeple at YouTub have decided to take it down. It should work OK now.

Friday, April 16, 2010

The cost of green energy

Despite continued decline in Ontario's electricity demand, prices are soaring as we move away from coal towards "green" energy.

Price of electricity jumps 12 per cent
The price for the energy portion of an electricity bill is going up on May 1
Ontario is rapidly pricing itself out of the market when it comes to electricity.
Ontario is getting less and less electricity at higher and higher prices. It's only going to get worse
And cheap electricity has long been one of the big attractions for industry to locate here. Industry that provides jobs.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Bernier cautions about climate science

Many of us have been disappointed with the Harper government's handling of the climate-change issue, with their stance on limiting carbon emissions and support for Copenhagen. Well, perhaps this is the first chink in the armour.

Canada's ex-foreign minister Maxime Bernier has written a letter to LaPresse in which challenges climate change science. Here's an English version via Norman Spector in the Globe & Mail

“Environmental groups in Copenhagen criticized our government for blocking an agreement … and again when Jim Prentice announced our targets at the end of January ... But with each passing week we see the wisdom of the government’s moderate position … since December, a debate has broken out in the media over the science of warming, a debate that had been stifled due to political correctness … the numerous errors by the IPCC add to alternative theories of warming that have been put forward over the years.

We now recognize that it’s possible to be a “skeptic,” or at least to keep an open mind about nearly all critical aspects of the warming theory. For example, while no one questions whether there has been warming, there is no consensus among scientists as to its degree.

Moreover, we realize that during the period of greatest concern about warming – the last decade – temperatures have stopped increasing! Meanwhile, the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere, said to be the cause of warming according to the official theory, is still increasing. Some very serious scientists believe that we are under-estimating the influence of the sun and other factors that have nothing to do with carbon emissions.

Mojib Latif, a German researcher associated with the IPCC who essentially supports the warming theory, said last fall that temperatures may decline for two decades before warming resumes. No model predicted this. But the same models claim to predict the number of degrees of warming by the end of the century. And that’s only one of the “certainties” about which there is no consensus.

What is certain is that it would be irresponsible to spend billions of dollars and to impose unnecessarily stringent regulations to solve a problem whose gravity we still are not certain about. The alarmism that has characterized this debate is no longer appropriate. Canada is wise to be cautious.”
The original letter is here.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Climategate meets the Law

via Pajamas media:

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today asked the Obama administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation” — the actions of climate scientists revealed by the Climategate Files, and the subsequent admissions by the editors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

Senator Inhofe also called for former Vice President Al Gore to be called back to the Senate to testify.

“In [Gore's] science fiction movie, every assertion has been rebutted,” Inhofe said. He believes Vice President Gore should defend himself and his movie before Congress.

[...]

Senator Inhofe is asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether there has been research misconduct or criminal actions by the scientists involved, including Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Science.
Senator Inhofe's blog.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Cheap gas from coal

Fossil fuels, coal in particular, have been given a bad rap by the environmental movement. Well some researchers at the Unviersity of Texas at Arlington say they've found a practical way to make synthetic crude from inexpensive coal.

"We're improving the cost every day. We started off sometime ago at an uneconomical $17,000 a barrel. Today, we're at a cost of $28.84 a barrel," said engineering dean Rick Billo.

That's $28 a barrel versus $75 we pay now for imported crude.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Challenging the EPA

The EPA isn't getting a free ride on its decision to regulate CO2. We reported earlier that Utah, Texas and Virginia had challenged the ruling. Now another big player, non-government this time, has waded into the fray:

The world’s largest private sector coal business, the Peabody Energy Company (PEC) has filed a mammoth 240-page “Petition for Reconsideration,” a full-blown legal challenge against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The petition must be answered and covers the entire body of leaked emails from ‘Climategate’ as well as those other ‘gate’ revelations including the frauds allegedly perpetrated under such sub-headings as ‘Himalayan Glaciers,’ ‘African Agricultural Production,’ ‘Amazon Rain Forests,’ ‘Melting Mountain Ice,’ ‘Netherlands Below Sea Level’ as well as those much-publicized abuses of the peer-review literature and so called ‘gray literature.’ These powerful litigants also draw attention to the proven criminal conduct by climate scientists in refusing to honor Freedom of Information law (FOIA) requests.

Peabody is, in effect, challenging the right of the current U.S. federal government to introduce cap and trade regulations by the ‘back door.’
via climategate.com

Update: There's more.
Industry groups, conservative think tanks, lawmakers and three states filed 16 court challenges to U.S. EPA's "endangerment" finding for greenhouse gases before yesterday's deadline, setting the stage for a legal battle over federal climate policies.
Update 2: John O'Sullivan offers general legal strategies for challenging what is fast being recognised as the greatest criminal fraud of all time.
Common law tells us that governments cannot impose climate regulations on their citizens by regarding similar facts differently on different occasions. This principle is known among legal practitioners as stare decisis (i.e. judges are obliged to obey the set-up precedents established by prior decisions). I’ve examined two of the recently filed climate skeptic petitions filed by U.S. corporations. In both there is the common argument that ‘arbitrary and capricious’ governmental climate-related decisions have been imposed upon the people. These EPA regulations, they argue, must be over turned because the science that underpins them has been proven to be fraudulent and significantly based on subjective elements. Thus, the basis of the EPA’s decision to determine that carbon dioxide is a pollutant is unlawful due to the ‘arbitrary and capricious’ components within the EPA’s fact finding process.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

How Al Gore Wrecked Planet Earth

Walter Russell Mead asks...

How did the climate of carelessness at the IPCC develop — and why were warning voices from inside the movement ignored in the rush to get all the alarming but unverified predictions into print?

Friday, February 19, 2010

Global Warming: Meltdown

KUSI TV in San Diego has aired a special report Global Warming: Meltdown by weatherman John Coleman on the latest developments in Climategate and as a response to the critics of his previous special, Global Warming: The Other Side. Says Coleman:

The “Climategate” revelations that began in mid December have crescendoed into a series of almost daily embarrassments for the UN IPCC. This telecast covers as many of them as we can cram into an hour. The program can be viewed in segments. With the intro to each segment you will find links you may use to find more information on the topics covered. If this is the first time you are hearing about my efforts to debunk the bad science behind the global warming frenzy, you will find a wealth of information, videos and links to sites on the colemanscorner page of KUSI.com/weather/.
Here is the special in 9 video segments:



















Or view them directly at KUSI.

Virginia joins fight against EPA

Via Climategate.com:

This week, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed a petition that challenges the EPA’s recent finding that CO2 and other greenhouse gases contribute to alleged climate change.



Good for Virginia for standing up to the EPA.

Previous: Utah and Texas.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

EPA battle heats up

It was reported here the other day in Utah vs the EPA that there's a fight brewing between some states and the federal government's EPA.

Texas joins the battle:

DALLAS, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Texas and several national industry groups on Tuesday filed separate petitions in federal court challenging the government's authority to regulate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
If Obama and the Dems think they can accomplish by regulation what they cannot achieve by legislation, they may find out it ain't going to be that easy.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Inhofe: ‘CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE' IN THE IPCC

Senator James Inhofe's speech on climategate to the US Senate:

Mr. President, I rise today to highlight several recent media reports uncovering serious errors and possible fraud by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.

I can already hear the question: just what is the IPCC? Many in this body may not be familiar with it. But I hope the Senate becomes more acquainted with it very soon, if only because of its sheer importance to the debate we're having on global warming and cap-and-trade legislation.

For now, you need to know just 3 things about the IPCC: (1) the Obama Administration calls it "the gold standard" of climate change science; (2) some say its reports on climate change represent the so-called "consensus" of scientific opinion about global warming; and (3) the IPCC and Al Gore were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2007 for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change..."

Put simply, what this means is that, in elite circles, the IPCC is a big deal. So when ABC News, the Economist, Time Magazine, and the Times of London-among many others-report that the IPCC's research contains embarrassing flaws, and that the IPCC chairman and scientists knew of the flaws, but published them anyway-well, you have the makings of a major scientific scandal.

Where to begin?
A good place is here.

Climategate: the final days

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Climategate Rally at Penn State

The warmists may not like it, but the climate debate is not settled. Case in point, this demonstration on the campus of Penn State.


I love that picture of the two warmists holding their "global warming is real" sign in the snow. Click to watch the video.

The rally came on the heels of released results from an internal peer investigation earlier this week.

The committee decided that there is no substantial information to pursue an investigation into three of the four misconduct allegations against Dr. Mann.

Leading the local Young Americans for Freedom group requesting an external investigation, Samuel Settle told WJAC-TV Friday that he doubts the committee of peers could be unbiased.

“For the sake of the university, for the sake of his reputation, for the sake of our reputations as students and community members, we need to come out and make it clear to the university that this is not what we consider acceptable,” said Settle. “We ask; we demand an external investigation of this."

Bette Jackson believes that an independent probe into academic misconduct allegations is necessary.

"I know if I were Dr. Mann, I would want impartial people to take a thorough look at my career and make sure that there were no blemishes on it," said Jackson.

Utah vs the EPA

I smell a fight brewing here between states like Utah and the federal government that wants to accomplish by regulation (EPA) what it can't pass by legislation (cap & trade). This via the Guardian:

Utah delivers vote of no confidence for 'climate alarmists'

Carbon dioxide is "essentially harmless" to human beings and good for plants. So now will you stop worrying about global warming?

Utah's House of Representatives apparently has at least. Officially the most Republican state in America, its political masters have adopted a resolution condemning "climate alarmists", and disputing any scientific basis for global warming.

The measure, which passed by 56-17, has no legal force, though it was predictably claimed by climate change sceptics as a great victory in the wake of the controversy caused by a mistake over Himalayan glaciers in the UN's landmark report on global warming.

But it does offer a view of state politicians' concerns in Utah which is a major oil and coal producing state.

The original version of the bill dismissed climate science as a "well organised and ongoing effort to manipulate and incorporate "tricks" related to global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome". It accused those seeking action on climate change of riding a "gravy train" and their efforts would "ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty".

Sounds reasonable to me. But that language proved a little too strong for the Utah legislature.

By the time the final version of the bill came to a vote, cooler heats apparently prevailed. The bill dropped the word "conspiracy", and described climate science as "questionable" rather than "flawed".

However, it insisted – against all evidence – that the hockey stick graph of changing temperatures was discredited. It also called on the federal government's Environmental Protection Agency to order an immediate halt in its moves to regulate greenhouse gas emissions "until a full and independent investigation of climate data and global warming science can be substantiated".

The poor reporter couldn't help herself... "against all evidence" ...is she kidding? Michael Mann's hockey stick has been long discredited.

Coren on Ball

Michael Coren had an interesting interview with Canada's foremost climatologist, Dr. Timothy Ball:

“If people knew just how deep and dark this conspiracy is — yes, conspiracy — they’d be amazed,” he explains. “More and more academics are standing up to refute climate-change theories, but it’s still dangerous to do so. It can mean the end of a career, the targeting of someone by well-organized fanatics.”
There's more. Lots more, so be sure to follow the link above.

Perhaps things would be different if the Canadian media had been following the story of climategate. But they wouldn't want the Canadian public informed about what's been going on now, would they? That would be counter productive to the Agenda.

We'll just have to leave real news reporting up to the Brits and the Yanks. And the world wide web. I'm so glad that Al Gore invented the internet.

Friday, February 12, 2010

the Great Manmade Global Warming Hoax of the early 21st Century

Archy Cary at BigJournalism.com reflects on the mainstream media and their role in the now exposed climate change hoax.

Tomorrow’s researchers, examining the archives of the U.S. print media, will marvel at the willful negligence displayed by the MSM outlets, how they failed to apply critical thinking to the “scientific” claims of man-made global warming even as, one by one, those claims were discredited and peeled away like layers of an onion, until there was no onion left.

Impartial analysts will note how the British press most clearly exhibit to their former colonists what Freedom of the Press looks like while the American MSM, like migrating lemmings, silently trudged hip deep through the mounting pile of invalidated claims that screamed of the earth’s imminent death at the hands of man.

Some will ask, “What were they thinking?” The wise will answer, “They weren’t thinking. They were following.” And when the press follows it loses its independence of thought and, thereby, its freedom.

Now the Hoax is fully exposed, buck naked, picked clean. Clean as the wind-driven snow.

Yet, although its premise is dead, the carcass of thought that brought it this far will continue to walk. But it’ll be the walk of the zombie. Stiff, staggering, with flat eyes and muffled voice.

Its false prophets, led by Al Gore — a modern day P.T. Barnum — will continue to push their premise. But their disciples will melt away as the snow will eventually melt in D.C.

So, somewhere inside the Beltway today, a lone vender pushes his cart through the grayness of the day, hawking his now bad goods, calling out, “Carbon credits. Carbon credits. Get your carbon credits here. 90% off list price.”

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Wendt: the Great Global Warming collapse

Even the Globe and Mail has taken notice. Margaret Wendt:

As the science scandals keep coming, the air has gone out of the climate-change movement...

But now, even leading scientists and environmental groups admit the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change.

Friday, February 5, 2010

India goes alone on global warming

More bad news for Rajendra Pachauri and the UN:

The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own Nobel prize-winning scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.

The move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation that his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear. oup headed by its own Nobel prize-winning scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.
While western nations, including Canada, continue to march to the UN's warmist drum, India is taking a new and significantly different course.
Dr Pachauri had dismissed challenges like these as based on “voodoo science”, but last night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalized the IPC [sic] chairman even further.

He announced the Indian government will established a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world’s ‘third ice cap’, and an ‘Indian IPCC’ to use ‘climate science’ to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.
Maybe they will take a less biased look at the science. They can only do better than the UN's IPCC.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Mann investigation to continue

Charlie Martin via Pajamas Media:

When the Climategate story first broke, a lot of adherents of the skeptical view of anthropogenic climate change were mightily excited — proclaiming it the “end of the global warming hoax.” They have been disappointed because the breaking story wasn’t immediately followed by the resignation of everyone involved, the termination of all U.S. action on cap and trade, and tar and feathers for Al Gore.

This was a little unrealistic. There are a lot of vested interests involved, a lot of money that depends on the CO2-driven AGW narrative, a lot of people with wealth and reputations on the line. That’s a lot of inertia, and the narrative won’t change course quickly.

That doesn’t mean nothing is happening, however.
No, not at all. For one thing author of the hockey-stick graph, Professor Michael Mann will be subject to further investigation. Read more...

Update: the Penn State Report

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The death of global warming

The movement died from two causes: bad science and bad politics.

The 10 anti-commandments of global warming

Via Lord Moncton.

1. The pin-up species of global warming, the polar bear, is increasing in number, not decreasing.

2. US President Barack Obama supports building nuclear power plants.

Last week, in his State of the Union address, he said: ''To create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.''

3. The Copenhagen climate conference descended into farce.

The low point of the gridlock and posturing at Copenhagen came with the appearance by the socialist dictator of Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, whose anti-capitalist diatribe drew a cheering ovation from thousands of left-wing ideologues.

4. The reputation of the chief United Nations scientist on global warming is in disrepair.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is being investigated for financial irregularities, conflicts of interest and scientific distortion. He has already admitted publishing false data.

5. The supposed scientific consensus of the IPCC has been challenged by numerous distinguished scientists.

6. The politicisation of science leads to a heavy price being paid in poor countries.

After Western environmentalists succeeded in banning or suppressing the use of the pesticide DDT, the rate of death by malaria rose into the millions. Some scholars estimate the death toll at 20 million or more, most of them children.

7. The biofuels industry has exacerbated world hunger.

Diverting huge amounts of grain crops (as distinct from sugar cane) to biofuels has contributed to a rise in world food prices, felt acutely in the poorest nations.

8. The Kyoto Protocol has proved meaningless.

Global carbon emissions are significantly higher today than they were when the Kyoto Protocol was introduced.

9. The United Nations global carbon emissions reduction target is a massively costly mirage.

10. Kevin Rudd's political bluff on emissions trading has been exposed.

The Prime Minister intimated he would go to the people in an early election if his carbon emissions trading legislation was rejected. He won't. The electorate has shifted.
A more detailed list is here.

Monday, February 1, 2010

No new carbon and cap-and-trade taxes

Here's your chance to say NO to new carbon and/or cap-and-trade taxes.

Global warming alarmists are placing tremendous pressure on the federal government to commit to draconian carbon dioxide reduction measures. Canadians already pay huge carbon taxes in the form of gas taxes, since about one-third of the pump price is tax. Carbon taxes and cap and trade would make power, transportation, and home heating bills rise higher--something Canadians cannot afford.
Go to Taxpayer.com to sign the petition and let Canada's lawmakers know you want them to stop pandering to the alarmists before they completely ruin our economy.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Rex Murphy: So whatever happened to Copenhagen?

The folks predicting climate change apocalypse seem to have fallen curiously mute.

This is why the Copenhagen Conference for all its extravagant hype and buildup simply disappeared from the press and the public mind on the instant of its conclusion. Because, via Climategate, the world caught the first real glimpse of how politicized and manipulated this "greatest issue of our time" had been allowed to become. Saw as well how the sacred impartiality of science, and the great authority of peer review, had been suborned for something as political in its way as the average day's outing in Question Period.
I'm going to take this opportunity to plug Rex's book Canada and other matters of opinion.

It's an excellent read - I know, I'm currently about half way through it - of commentary on many subjects by Canada's foremost opinionator.
A cornucopia of comment from Canada’s most opinionated man — a man seen, read, and listened to by millions of Canadians each week.

Canada’s most distinctive commentator presents his fearless and thought-provoking views on a head-spinning range of subjects, from Dr. Johnson’s greatness to Bono’s gratingness, from doubts about Obama to utter belief in Don Cherry, from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s outstanding oeuvre to — well, Pamela Anderson.

The topics are as eclectic and wide ranging as the intelligence that put them together. The perspective is thoroughly Canadian, and so are many of the recurring topics and themes: of our domestic politics and our military involvements abroad, of our national identity, of human rights and human decency. You’ll find assessments of the reputations of Paul Martin, Conrad Black, Adrienne Clarkson, and Tim Hortons; tough but affectionate views of Newfoundland — of course — but also from Rex Murphy’s constant travels across Canada.

But all the world is here, in all its glory and folly. The hard-hitting attacks on politicians, celebrities, those who would ban smoking, and anyone who uses the expression “global warming denial” will have you cheering or tearing your hair out, depending. You will be informed, infuriated perhaps, but always fascinated.
You won't be disappointed.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception?

The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) has released a new study by Joe D’Aleo and Anthony Watts, Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception?

click image to download the report

From SPPI (with emphasis added):
Authors veteran meteorologists Joe D’Aleo and Anthony Watts analyzed temperature records from all around the world for a major SPPI paper, Surface Temperature Records – Policy-driven Deception? The startling conclusion that we cannot tell whether there was any significant “global warming” at all in the 20th century is based on numerous astonishing examples of manipulation and exaggeration of the true level and rate of “global warming”.

That is to say, leading meteorological institutions in the USA and around the world have so systematically tampered with instrumental temperature data that it cannot be safely said that there has been any significant net “global warming” in the 20th century.
From their Summary for Policymakers (catchy title there guys):

click image to enlarge
Robert Ferguson, President of SPPI, said: “The entire case for alarm about ‘global warming’ is of course predicated on the assumption that ‘global warming’ has actually occurred. D’Aleo and Watts sampling of horrifying examples of deliberate tampering with the temperature data from all parts of the world raises very serious questions not just about how much ‘global warming’ occurred in the last century but also about whether there was any significant warming at all.

“The serious question now arises: do these transparent data manipulations by self-interested government agents add to cascading revelations of worldwide scientific and financial fraud?
h/t to JoNova and of course Anthony Watts.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

"it’s clear to us a breach has occurred"

Scientists in the stolen e-mail scandal known as Climategate hid data according to Ben Webster and Jonathan Leake at the TimesOnLine.

The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.

The Information Commissioner’s Office decided that UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late, The Times has learnt. The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months after a breach.
So the UEA gets off on a technicality.
A spokesman for the ICO said: “The legislation prevents us from taking any action but from looking at the emails it’s clear to us a breach has occurred.” Breaches of the act are punishable by an unlimited fine.
But wait. It looks like the University had processes in place which would prevent the complaint process from proceeding in a timely manner.
Mr Holland said: “There is an apparent Catch-22 here. The prosecution has to be initiated within six months but you have to exhaust the university’s complaints procedure before the commission will look at your complaint. That process can take longer than six months.”
Very clever. The University's complaint procedure is designed to waste enough time so that prosecution under the FOI Act is not possible. Sounds like bureaucratic obstruction of justice to me.

White House directs NASA to focus on climate change, forget going to the moon

Man's return to the moon is off. Well, the return to the moon by the USA is off. The Obama administration will nix NASA's Constellation program in its budget on Monday.

"We certainly don't need to go back to the moon," one administration official said.
One could argue that point, citing the developments in science that were driven by the moon program and man's need to explore.

But the White House has a better idea.
The White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects -- principally, researching and monitoring climate change -- and on a new technology research and development program designed to someday enable human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system.
OK, so now Obama has the CIA and NASA focussing on climate change.

Good move Barack.

I guess you haven't heard about Climategate, Glaciergate, Pachaurigate, Amazongate and whatever-is-next-gate.

Desertion from the UN ship IPCC

I might be on vacation but I couldn't ignore this morning's post by Kate at small dead animals.

A catastrophic heat wave appears to be closing in on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. How hot is it getting in the scientific kitchen where they've been cooking the books and spicing up the stew pots? So hot, apparently, that Andrew Weaver, probably Canada's leading climate scientist, is calling for replacement of IPCC leadership and institutional reform.

If Andrew Weaver is heading for the exits, it's a pretty sure sign that the United Nations agency is under monumental stress. Mr. Weaver, after all, has been a major IPCC science insider for years. He is Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, mastermind of one of the most sophisticated climate modelling systems on the planet, and lead author on two recent landmark IPCC reports.

For him to say, as he told Canwest News yesterday, that there has been some "dangerous crossing" of the line between climate advocacy and science at the IPCC is stunning in itself.
The quote above is from an article by Terence Corcoran at the National Post: Climate Agency Going Up in Flames.

With all the evidence of trickery, deceit and outright fraud now exposed via "climategate", reputable scientists are left with little choice than to distance themselves from the IPCC and its cronies. I have a feeling that this is just the first wave.

Update: More from the Windsor Star:
A senior Canadian climate scientist says the United Nations' panel on global warming has become tainted by political advocacy, that its chairman should resign, and that its approach to science should be overhauled.
and from Christopher Booker at the Telegraph: Pachauri: the real story behind the Glaciergate scandal
I can report a further dramatic twist to what has inevitably been dubbed "Glaciergate" – the international row surrounding the revelation that the latest report on global warming by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained a wildly alarmist, unfounded claim about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Last week, the IPCC, led by its increasingly controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was forced to issue an unprecedented admission: the statement in its 2007 report that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 had no scientific basis, and its inclusion in the report reflected a "poor application" of IPCC procedures.

What has now come to light, however, is that the scientist from whom this claim originated, Dr Syed Hasnain, has for the past two years been working as a senior employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi-based company of which Dr Pachauri is director-general. Furthermore, the claim – now disowned by Dr Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC – has helped TERI to win a substantial share of a $500,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along with a share in a three million euro research study funded by the EU.
Emphasis added. Those who dismiss scientific articles from global warming "deniers" always like to cite that these articles have no weight because they are not peer-reviewed. Through Climategate we learned of the efforts of "warmist" scientist to thwart the peer review process for articles they found critical. How do they now explain the revelation that the IPCC itself is full of non-peer reviewed papers of little merit?

Update #2: now there's Amazongate via Prisonplanet:
Here’s the latest development, courtesy of Dr Richard North – and it’s a cracker. It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest.