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.

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.

"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.

On vacation

This old dog is taking a vacation for a while... so posting here will be sporadic. In the mean time, I recommend that you get you climate fix at one of the following excellent blogs... or choose from one of those listed in the sidebar.

Watt's Up With That?

Climate Audit

Everything you'll ever need to know about history

Glenn Beck's Live free or die.



Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Oh, and if you're young, just jump right to parts 5 and 6.

Rex Murphy on Climategate

Given Mr. Murphy's recent departure from the Globe and Mail, I thought this clip from December deserved another look:

KUSI Special Report Global Warming: The Other Side

The complete hour-long report is now available on line. Click below to watch each segment of the KUSI Special Report, Global Warming: The Other Side

Climategate part two?

First it was the release of hundreds of astounding emails and data files from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University.

Now get ready for Climategate Part Two: NASA Caught in Climate Data Manipulation; New Revelations Headlined on KUSI-TV Climate Special

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Thursday, January 14, 2010
Source: KUSI-TV

Climate researchers have discovered that NASA researchers improperly manipulated data in order to claim 2005 as “THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” KUSI-TV meteorologist, Weather Channel founder, and iconic weatherman John Coleman will present these findings in a one-hour special airing on KUSI-TV on Jan.14 at 9 p.m. A related report will be made available on the Internet at 6 p.m. EST on January 14th at www.kusi.com.

In a new report, computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo discovered extensive manipulation of the temperature data by the U.S. Government’s two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Ashville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. Smith and D’Aleo accuse these centers of manipulating temperature data to give the appearance of warmer temperatures than actually occurred by trimming the number and location of weather observation stations. The report is available online at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.

The report reveals that there were no actual temperatures left in the computer database when NASA/NCDC proclaimed 2005 as “THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” The NCDC deleted actual temperatures at thousands of locations throughout the world as it changed to a system of global grid points, each of which is determined by averaging the temperatures of two or more adjacent weather observation stations. So the NCDC grid map contains only averaged, not real temperatures, giving rise to significant doubt that the result is a valid representation of Earth temperatures.

The number of actual weather observation points used as a starting point for world average temperatures was reduced from about 6,000 in the 1970s to about 1,000 now. “That leaves much of the world unaccounted for,” says D’Aleo.

The NCDC data are regularly used by the National Weather Service to declare a given month or year as setting a record for warmth. Such pronouncements are typically made in support of the global warming alarmism agenda. Researchers who support the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also regularly use the NASA/NCDC data, including researchers associated with the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that is now at the center of the “Climategate” controversy.

This problem is only the tip of the iceberg with NCDC data. “For one thing, it is clear that comparing data from previous years, when the final figure was produced by averaging a large number of temperatures, with those of later years, produced from a small temperature base and the grid method, is like comparing apples and oranges,” says Smith. “When the differences between the warmest year in history and the tenth warmest year is less than three quarters of a degree, it becomes silly to rely on such comparisons,” added D’Aleo who asserts that the data manipulation is “scientific travesty” that was committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda.

Smith and D’Aleo are both interviewed as part of a report on this study on the television special, “Global Warming: The Other Side” seen at 9 PM on January 14th on KUSI-TV, channel 9/51, San Diego, California. That program can now be viewed via computer at the website http://www.kusi.com/. The detailed report is available at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.

h/t: Watts Up With That?

Update: here's the video trailer from KUSI-TV in San Diego.

Global Warming: a means to an end

Writing at Canada Free Press, Dr. Tim Ball says that President Obama knows little and cares less about global warming or climate change. For him, it’s simply a means to a political end.

Obama pursues the claim that CO2 is causing global warming regardless of the lack of scientific evidence and the corruption of science exposed in files leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Global warming was the vehicle chosen by the Club of Rome to achieve one world government as stated in their 1974 publication “Mankind at the Turning Point.” “It would seem that humans need a common motivation… either a real one or else one invented for the purpose... In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. (My emphasis). Global warming was chosen and then “invented” and now we know how.

Thwarted by the evidence and a cooling world Obama avoided Congress through Lisa Jackson, his appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They identified CO2 as a pollutant to impose draconian, arbitrary regulations with the ability to cripple or shut down industries as they see fit. The great engines of capitalism and democracy are now firmly in the hands of left wing bureaucrats. Shannon L. Goessling, Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel has filed a lawsuit against the EPA saying, “The scientific basis for the EPA Endangerment Finding is flawed, based on questionable and potentially fraudulent data, and certainly does not rise to the level of certainty necessary to upend the American economy, toss millions out of work, and which promises little or no climate change benefit over the next half-century. Using the Clean Air Act as a weapon and a shield does not justify the bigger agenda of command-and-control.”

Update 1: More on the above quote from the Club of Rome.

"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself."

- The Club of Rome's The First Global Revolution (1991) by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider - Page 75

Some more quotes from so-called environmental leaders. You've seen some of them here before, but this is an excellent compilation.


Update 2. More on the book Mankind at the Turning Point: The Second Report to The Club of Rome by Global Research.ca

In 1974 the book Mankind at the Turning Point: The Second Report to The Club of Rome [1] was published. This report states the need to create an "organic" or a truly interdependent society as the only way to save the world from the almost overwhelming world problematique.

According to The Club of Rome, the world problematique is the set of interlocking world problems, such as, over population, food shortages, non-renewable resource depletion, environmental degradation, etc. With the use of absurd, exponentially based computer models, the complete unravelling of society and perhaps the biosphere was predicted. Not surprisingly the only solution capable of adverting global catastrophe is the development of an organic society. As I will show, a global organic society is only a euphemism for totalitarian world government.

The Club of Rome is a premiere think tank composed of approximately 100 members including leading scientists, philosophers, political advisors and many other characters who lurk in the shadows of power.

The start of a mini ice age?

Interesting post by David Rose in the Daily Mail:

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013.
According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

Note to all the warmists: it's time to re-think that global warming thing.

Update: this video via Captain Ed illustrates the costs of a cooler climate far outweigh those of a hotter one.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The true price of the warmists' folly

Christopher Booker in the Telegraph:

Impeccable was the timing of that announcement that directors of the Met Office were last year given pay rises of up to 33 per cent, putting its £200,000-a-year chief executive into a higher pay bracket than the Prime Minister. As Britain shivered through Arctic cold and its heaviest snowfalls for decades, our global-warming-obsessed Government machine was caught out in all directions.

For a start, we saw Met Office spokesmen trying to explain why it had got its seasonal forecasts hopelessly wrong for three cold winters and three cool summers in a row. The current cold snap, we were told with the aid of the BBC – itself facing an inquiry into its relentless obsession with “global warming” – was just a “regional” phenomenon, due to “natural” factors. No attempt was made to explain why the same freezing weather is affecting much of the northern hemisphere (with 1,200 places in the US alone last week reporting record snow and low temperatures). And this is the body on which, through its Hadley Centre for Climate Change and the discredited Climatic Research Unit, the world’s politicians rely for weather forecasting 100 years ahead.

Related.

Those skeptical meteorologists

Katie Fehlinger takes a look at a recent survey of meteorologists and what they think about climate change.

Rex Murphy

Pushed from the Globe & Mail... Jumps to the National Post.

It looks like it was a foray into the right-leaning opinion pages that finally landed him in hot water with the new Globe management. The Cross Country Checkup host – and long-time CBC host and pundit – penned an A-section screed for the Financial Post, December 5th, on climate change.

One of the few voices of sanity at the CBC and in the Canadian media in general. The always eloquent Rex Murphy is the Globe's loss and the Post's gain.

h/t: sda

Record cold

While much of the planet has been engulfed in record cold weather, one must wonder how the warmists will "hide the decline" this winter. There's been lots and lots of coverage of these record lows from China and Korea to India, Russia, Europe, the UK, Canada and the US. Even normally sunny warm Florida was not immune, where frozen iguanas are dropping from trees.

More bad news for snowbirds looking to escape the harsh winter conditions:

(CNN) -- Key West, Florida, the southernmost point in the continental United States, hit a 131-year low of 47 degrees Thursday and the forecast promised more of the same as icy cold swept across the Southeast.

Temperatures on Sunday and Monday at the tip of the Sunshine State are expected to be in the low-to-mid-40s.

The fast-moving cold that gave Florida the chills also combined with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico to dump a dangerous mix of ice and snow throughout the Southeast, coating roadways with a slick glaze.

Numerous school systems throughout the region closed.

At least nine deaths around the country have been blamed on the round of winter weather this week.

The fact of the matter is extreme cold is more hazardous that the combined effects of tornadoes, storms, lightning, floods, hurricanes and heat waves. Oh yeah, and it won't be good for the price of orange juice either.

Ocean Acidification: the next frontier

With the credibility of global warming and climate change falling faster than our recent temperatures, alarmists are scrambling to find new reasons to convince us to limit CO2.

The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) – a DC think tank – has produced a science-based critique of a recent film produced by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The SPPI paper is entitled Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification – A New Propaganda Film by the National Resources Defense Council Fails the Acid Test of Real World Data.

In late 2009, NRDC released a short 21-minute film entitled Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification. Featuring Sigourney Weaver as its narrator, the film highlights the views of a handful of scientists, a commercial fisherman, and two employees of the NRDC, as they discuss what they claim is a megadisaster-in-the-making for Earth's marine life.

The villain of the story is industrial man, who has "altered the course of nature" by releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide or CO2 into the air via the burning of the coal, gas and oil that has historically fueled the engines of modern society. Once emitted into the atmosphere, a portion of that CO2 dissolves into the surface of the world’s oceans, where subsequent chemical reactions, according to the NRCD, are lowering the pH status of their waters. This phenomenon, they theorize, is reducing marine calcification rates; and if left unchecked, they claim it will become so corrosive that it "will cause sea shells to dissolve" and drive coral reefs to extinction "within 20 to 30 years."

“Typically, the NRDC chose to present an extreme one-sided, propagandized view of ocean acidification in their film,” says SPPI president, Robert Ferguson. “The part of the story that they clearly don't want the public and policy makers to know was just released in our newest review of the peer-reviewed scientific literature,” added Ferguson.

h/t: wooeb news

BBC host fries head of the Met Office

For your amusement. Enjoy.


I don't watch the BBC so I don't know who Andrew Neil is, but we need more journalists willing to ask questions like he does.

h/t The Daily Bayonet.

Global warming delusion

PJM: A poll of climate scientists reveals they still believe in AGW, though they do not believe their models are any good. Now that's delusion.

Socialism's greatest lie

Sultan Knish

Socialism's greatest lie is that it promises the people something for nothing, services and programs of all kind that will either be "free" or more affordable than the free market variety. But just like the ads promising you a free iPod or a chance to make millions from home while you yawn, socialism is not something for nothing, instead more often it's nothing for something.

h/t Newsbeat 1

Monckton: Caught Green Handed

Cold facts about the hot topic of global temperature change after the Climategate scandal by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, published by SPPI (pdf format)

Read it.

Where's the CO2?

Via Science Daily: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds

To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.

In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

h/t: Drudge