THE BBC'S CLIMATE BIASES -- AGAIN

An email from David Tyler [D.Tyler@mmu.ac.uk]:

I am planning to put in a complaint about the standard of Iain Stewart's coverage of the Climate Sceptic issue (BBC 2: The Climate Wars). He had plenty of clips showing them in denial, but very little allowing them to say why they take a dissenting position. He presented the Hockey Stick graph in a positive light, giving viewers very little appreciation of the scientific controversies that it has generated. For example, material the BBC itself has reported was omitted completely.

The Great Global Warming Swindle documentary got a mention, and the evidence for climate being driven by the sun was conceded to be relevant before the last few decades, but Stewart suggested that the temperature plots providing the demonstration for this finished prematurely. He provided an updating, which he said demonstrated the sceptics were wrong - but the global temperature data he presented showed an exponential increase - the reality is that the graph has plateaued since 2000. He provided no opportunity for a sceptic to comment on the point he was making and presented his own view as definitive. He did not work through the implications for the Hockey Stick graph if climate was driven by solar energy prior to 1960. He showed some clips of Christopher Monckton talking about his dissenting views, but this did not explore the science.

The body language of Stewart suggested that he was not interested in exploring the reasons for dissent. This programme is declared to be a feature by the BBC, but it shows a highly polarised perspective: science vs politically-inspired dissent. Viewers would come away with the view that climate sceptics are funded by organisations with vested interests, and that their dissent cannot be described as science. This message is a complete distortion of the situation, and consequently is not in the public interest.





ENERGY CRISIS: BRITAIN URGED TO DUMP CLIMATE GOALS

British climate and energy policy is incoherent and needs an overhaul, dumping carbon targets and building more coal and nuclear power stations to stop the lights going out, a pro-nuclear scientist said. A report entitled "A Pragmatic Energy Policy for the UK", by Professor Ian Fells and Candida Whitmill, said renewables would not fill the impending energy gap so old nuclear and coal plants had to be kept going while new ones were built urgently. "Current UK energy policy is not fit for purpose. Something has to be done about it if we are not going to run into serious problems around about the middle of the next decade," Fells, an advocate of nuclear power, told reporters.

The government should guarantee a minimum electricity price to the power companies for the next 30 years to give them a secure investment outlook to finance the 4 billion pounds each nuclear power plant is likely to cost, he added. "We are looking at something that looks like a slow motion train crash," Fells said, accusing the government of vacillating over climate change and energy policy, starving the power industry of direction and reducing investment to a minimum.

The same held true across Europe where nuclear power was resurgent as governments woke up to the fact that they had delayed important baseload energy investment decisions for too long and placed too much reliance on intermittent renewables.

Environmentalists were outraged at the recommendations in the report, issued on Wednesday. "Professor Fells has a long standing love affair with the technologies of the 20th century, but as time goes by his fetish for coal and nuclear power looks increasingly naive," said Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr. "All over the world jobs are being created in the renewable energy sector, but Britain has been left behind for too long by the negative, white flag approach to climate change that this report represents."

The report, commissioned by industrialist Andrew Cook, who told the news conference he feared a complete societal breakdown if there were widespread power cuts, said energy security had now to be given absolute priority over climate change policies. It was a view echoed by Whitmill: "Today's credit crunch is a head cold compared with the double pneumonia this country will suffer if we don't implement an energy policy urgently."

Whitmill said one-third of Britain's electricity generating capacity was set for shutdown within 12 years either due to old age or European Union carbon emissions restrictions that come into force in 2015. The report said Britain, facing a yawning gulf between electricity demand and supply, had to breach the EU rules and keep the old coal plants going even though this went completely counter to climate policy of cutting carbon.

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EU LAWYERS KNOCK OUT VEHICLE EMISSIONS REGULATION!

The EU parliament's legal affairs committee, which met on September 9th, has ruled that a regulation forcing car makers to cut average CO2 emissions is illegal. The legislation, which would see car producers having to make sure average emissions were 130 g/km or below for their model ranges, would allow authorities to levy substantial fines if it wasn't complied with. However, the ruling by the committee has prompted fears that negotiations on targets, fines and start-dates may have to start from scratch next year.

Members of the committee, according to cleangreencars, apparently stated they had "utmost misgivings" about the way fines would be collected from car makers and how these would then be used as revenue for EU budgets. "This decision is extremely serious," said Jay Nagley, cleangreencars' publisher. "The committee said that the proper legal basis for the regulation is Article 175 of the EC Treaty which deals with environmental laws. "But it has been drafted under Article 95, which prevents market distortions. This isn't just a technicality; the whole legal basis of the regulation could be challenged."

The new car CO2 regulation is self-evidently an environmental measure, so it is hardly surprising that this question has been raised. It appears that the EU wanted a single pan-European regulation, so has tried to squeeze it through under single market rules in Article 95. However, this looks like putting the cart before the horse as the regulation is primarily an environmental measure. What the EU is trying to avoid is a rule which would allow far more flexibility. If proposals were to be re-drafted under Article 175, one country could set tougher CO2 limits than those in a neighbouring state.

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FAILED FINANCIERS HAVE CLOSE TIES TO GORE, HANSEN AND CARBON TRADING

Great prophets!

Al Gore's carbon trading business GIM was banked with Lehman Bros. It will be interesting to see how this will play in the future but I suspect that this increases the risk of participating in Carbon trading. Merrill Lynch, was also deeply involved in this business.

Last year Lehman Brothers released a long and highly publicized report about climate change in which they preached about decarbonization, trying to make their investors keep getting high profits from the Kyoto carbon trade scheme and the support of huge public subventions. All that, of course, with the applause of the usual choir of politicians, the entire media and the Greens.

A year ago they couldn't predict their bankruptcy but were predicting the climate 100 years ahead. Thousands of green militants have been using the Lehman report as a proof of global warming and impending chaos. Lehman Bros said it! sacred words! Its scientific advisor is James Hansen! The report is the basis for policies on climate change in Spain, Argentina and several other countries playing the progress game; it is used by economy professors playing the climatologists; by newspapers editorials, and even by a State Secretary: Lehman Bros, said it!

Lehman Brothers spoke in his report about the climate in 2100 and its economic and financial projections, about climate change costs several decades away. They dared to recommend their investors what they considered a central value of the carbon ton in 50 years from now. Their sources and support references were taken from the IPCC AR4, AR3, and so on. Really impressive.

But even with their high ability to peek into the future, they couldn't predict their demise one year ahead though there were many people that had been warning about this present crash for years. But Lehman Bros were recommending investments 30, 50, 100 years ahead. Some days, reality imitates fiction. Who was Lehman Bros' 'scientific' adviser on climate? You guessed it, James Hansen, the same guy that wants to drive the world to bankruptcy as he did with Lehman's Bros.

But the story has some connections with Hansen being the 'scientific' adviser to Al Gore, who's the Chairman of the Board of the Alliance for Climate Protection. As seen in Alliance's website, the managing Director is none less than: Theodore Roosevelt IV. Managing Director, Lehman Brothers, Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change.

Theodore Roosevelt IV is Managing Director at Lehman Brothers and a member of the Firm's senior client coverage group, which oversees the Firms client and customer relationships. Mr. Roosevelt is an active conservationist. He is Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Vice Chair of the Wilderness Society, and a Trustee for the American Museum of Natural History, The World Resources Institute, the Institute for Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming, and a Trustee of Trout Unlimited.

The Lehman reports in two parts can be found on this site 'Intellectual Capital'. In "The Business of Climate Change ll", the following acknowledgement is made: "On the scientific side, we are grateful to Dr. James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who, at the end of a particularly informative dinner hosted by Ben Cotton of the Man Group, gave generously of his time to clear up a number of scientific questions that had been niggling us. Dr. Peter Collins and Richard Heap of the Royal Society provided valuable input and brought us up to date on the more controversial areas of scientific developments in the domain of global climate change." H/T John McLean

Lehman's failure provides a preview of our future if more companies bank their future on the speculative advice of these advocacy scientists, politicians and environmental groups, while ignoring short term realities.

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New oil from oilsand process looking good

If the Capri/Thai processes are successful then Canada's oilsands, other oilsands and heavy oil deposits around the world will have higher recovery rates using a more economic process and the oil will be upgrading in the ground to a higher and more valuable quality. This would be the technology that would crush peak oil for several decades and allow an orderly transition to a post oil world. The processes would enable trillions of barrels of oil to be economically accessed. In a few months the Capri process could be proven out and the energy world would be changed. Oil technology would change the world by unlocking the oilsand and heavy oil around the world. Trillions of barrels of oil would become economically feasible. It world and game changer.

More here





More deceitful climate propaganda in Australia

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Murray Darling Basin chief executive Dr Wendy Craik are adamant that the drought and water crisis in the Murray Darling Basin is caused by climate change. Rudd & Craik have both stated that the science proves the link between the current drought and global warming. But are they telling the truth?

Recently Rudd mocked opposition leader Brendan Nelson for saying that it had nothing to do with climate change.

BRENDAN Nelson was yesterday accused of being "blissfully immune" to the effects of climate change after he said the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin was not linked to global warming. "You need to get with the science on this," the Prime Minister said. "Look at the technical report put together by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology."

Dr Wendy Craik says the current drought affecting Australia's largest river system has the fingerprints of climate change all over it. .

"from the Bureau of Meteorology, the CSIRO and places, there are elements we're seeing in the current water shortage availability that are relevant to climate change. "The reduction in late winter and autumn rainfall is linked by the Bureau of Meteorology to the intensification of the subtropical ridge and that's linked to global warming. "There are features of the current phenomenon that we find ourselves in - water shortage, drought, whatever you want to call it - that are linked to climate change. "CSIRO scientists . say this drought has the fingerprints all over it"

Agmates has on a number of occasions pointed out how dodgy the science is that Kevin Rudd and Wendy Craik are relying on. Now Associate Professor Stewart Franks, a hydroclimatologist and an associate professor at the University of Newcastle School of Engineering, very clearly & precisely explains to Prime Minister Rudd and MDB chief Dr Wendy Craik what the science in fact does say:

IS the ongoing drought in the Murray-Darling Basin affected by climate change? The simple answer is that there is no evidence that CO2 has had any significant role. In fact, the drought was caused by an entirely natural phenomenon: the 2002 El Nino event. In short, the drought was initiated by El Nino, protracted by further El Nino events and perhaps more importantly, the absence of substantial La Nina events. A key claim is that the multiple occurrence of El Nino is a sign of climate change. This is speculative at best. Recent analysis showed the nine-year absence of La Nina was not unusual."

Franks then goes onto deal with Dr Craik's statements:

"Indeed, Wendy Craik, the chief executive of the Murray Darling Basin Commission has stated that temperatures were warmer, leading to more evaporation and drier catchments. This is disturbing to hear from the head of the MDBC, as it is completely at odds with the known physics of evaporation. [ Franks explains the science in detail here]. Craik is not alone in her desire to view CO2-induced climate change as proven and affecting the drought. Numerous politicians, environmentalists and especially scientists have made spectacular leaps of faith in their adherence to the doctrine of climate change over recent years, too many to document here."

Then Stewart Franks delivers a stinging rebuttal to the Prime Minister:

However, the most literally fantastic claim on climate change must go to Kevin Rudd, who has guaranteed that rainfall will decline over coming decades; one can only assume he's based his view on deficient climate models and bad advice. There is no direct evidence of CO2 impacts on the drought, nor is there any rational basis for predicting rainfall in 30 years time.

Franks last statement will put a chill up the spine of each of us that live and work in rural and regional Australia.

One just hopes that sensible and sustainable management from our leaders will enable struggling rural communities to weather the vagaries of climatic and political extremes.

So folks, that is what the science actually says. So why does Kevin Rudd and his long serving Public Servant Dr Wendy Craik keep churning out this global warming alarmist hype? Are Rudd & Craik deceiving the public or are they just hopelessly ill informed by the 100% Government funded CSIRO and BOM ?

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