The Naomi Oreskes witchhunt comes to Australia

Jo Nova comments below on the professional slanderer and her Australian apostle, Nick Stekete, writing in The Australian. In good Warmist form, Stekete mentions not one scientific fact in support of Warmism. The way Warmists worship authority is positively North Korean

Some people just can’t think. Naomi Oreskes “reasons” by Remarkable Parallels, which is as bogus a way of thinking as any tea-leaf-incantation that we thought we left behind in the caves.

She thinks that because she can find parallels between Tobacco and Climate Skeptics, therefore skeptics are wrong about climate sensitivity due to a trace gas. Go figure why anyone struggles to analyze ice cores when they could have just done a Google search?

I can find remarkable parallels between Lysenko and modern climate science, but I don’t bother writing a book on it. If I want answers about the climate I look at the data from the planet, not data about personalities.

Mike Steketee (Some sceptics make it a habit to be wrong) has learnt a new way to throw names from Oreskes. Nick Minchin (recently retired Senator from the conservative opposition) is just the latest target of this effusion of confusion. Now anyone who raises points against a policy can be called a “doubt-monger” and the Orwellian destruction of our language advances one more notch.

Naomi Oreskes IS the Merchant of Doubt

Ponder the irony of what Oreskes herself is doing. Is she not profiteering from being a doubt-monger about scientist’s reputations? Is she not a conspiracy theorist about webs of vested interests among conservative speakers? Could it be that her entire reasoning dies by its own sword and her claims turn out to be as hypocritical as they are mindless?

Is there any possibility that governments can become too big, too powerful? Not according to Oreskes. Now anyone who even questions the growth of government power can be spat into the box called “conspiracy theorist” or “ideologue”. The mindless vacuity of Oreskes’ reasoning sucks sensible discussion into the black hole of tribal name-calling. Mike Steketee applauds from the sidelines.

Redefining “extreme”

Can governments become too large? Just ask one of the hundred million victims of states where state-power crushed individual rights to speak. Except you won’t get many answers because those victims not only lost their right to speak, they lost their right to breathe. (Think Soviet Russia, Communist China, Communist Cambodia, Nazi Germany,…)

Nothing made by man has killed more people than overbearing government. Yet now, anyone who even questions the creeping growth of government power is dismissed as an “extremist”. There is no balance allowed in this debate.

Attacking reputations to silence a scientific debate

Ad hominem attacks are always a fallacy in science. Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz held esteemed positions for decades of public service, and yet because they were ever involved with anything to do with a program or study that had the words “tobacco” in it (even if it was just a statistical test on the dangers of passive smoke), their views on global warming are therefore wrong. Thus is the great catastrophe “proved” by Oreskes and her ilk.

Nick Minchin has, of course, committed the unforgiveable sin of declaring that smokers have the right to do what they want, and not to be bossed around by the overbearing domineers who want to meddle with other people’s lives. Thus, he’s uttered the word “tobacco” and didn’t chant the right line, comrade!

What Orsekes and Steketee have discovered is merely that people who don’t want to be sock puppet citizens have principles. They don’t want to foist their own non-smoking habit on anyone else, just as they don’t want to foist an unnecessary carbon scheme on the masses. Some people are not gullible.

Why does The Australian think this transparent failure of reasoning is worth publishing in the first place? Every other newspaper in the country has soaked up the smear campaign as if it was science, but we hope The Australian might be the last hold out bastion of reason, where people don’t self-satirize themselves, and journalists don’t mistake a kindergarten name-calling program for an unbiased historical analysis.

The Questions no one can answer

Oreskes is selling doubt mongering, and the skeptics like Nick Minchin are merely asking questions no one in the western climate establishment can answer. Questions like this:

Where are the global records of raw temperature data used to calculate the global warming graphs? No one can find them.

Where are the latest global results from the ARGO oceanic temperature network, and why aren’t they published monthly on a public website?

Where is the empirical evidence for warming greater than 1.2 degrees? No one can name and explain a single paper that shows long term positive feedback that amplifies the warming, as the climate alarmists assert.

Because those who want to alarm us and control us have not got scientific evidence, they resort to the smear campaign to try to diminish the influence of the great independent minds who seek answers we ought to have.

Mankind faces the “greatest threat ever known” — supposedly. So why are the raw data, adjustments, and methods used to study this threat so difficult to find?

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Wacky Leftist doctors ignore the obvious

Cold is far more dangerous to health than warmth. There is a lot more illness and death in winter than in summer. And they of all people should know that. They should be CHEERING a warmer climate. Though I suppose that cold weather IS good for business

And while it is true that replacing cow-dung fires in India with electric cookers would be a big health improvement, Greenies do their utmost to PREVENT poor countries generating more electricity -- with bans on lending for dam building and demonstrations against power station construction

It looks like the right hand of the Green/Left doesn't know what the left hand is doing

A network of the world’s leading medical academies on Friday urged nations to adopt policies to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollutants because it would have a salutary effect not just on the planet but on human health.

The InterAcademy Medical Panel said in a report that while addressing climate change by moving to a low-carbon economy might be technically and economically difficult, it will pay substantial dividends in health improvements, particularly in poorer regions of the globe.

It said that global climate change poses large risks to human health through increased spread of disease, large-scale displacement of people, malnutrition, fast-spreading infections, pulmonary disorders and increased heat stress. The effects are expected to be greatest in the areas of the world that have contributed the least to carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and are most vulnerable to sea-level rise, malnutrition and crop destruction.

The panel said that while mitigating climate change would be costly, some of those expenses might be offset by lower spending on health care. As an example, the report said that replacing inefficient cookstoves or open fires for cooking and heating would substantially reduce emissions of soot and other health-damaging pollutants. Introducing 150 million low-emission cookstoves in India would prevent as many as two million premature deaths from lung disease and infections in women and children.

The report said that switching to mass transit, bicycles or walking in major cities would reduce pollution and improve cardiovascular health. It also suggested that reducing meat consumption would improve human diets and cut down on climate-altering methane emissions from cattle.

The report, signed by health academies from 40 countries, including the United States, was timed to ignite discussion as negotiators gather in Cancún, Mexico, for the annual United Nations climate change conference.

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UK shivers in record low temperatures

Obviously caused by global warming. EVERYTHING is caused by global warming

PARTS of Britain have experienced record low temperatures, including minus 17 Celsius in Wales, forecasters say, amid warnings of more heavy snow to come. "You are seeing some ridiculously low temperatures - it has been a bit like it is in the middle of Scandinavia," weather forecaster Michael Dukes said.

The temperature in Llysdinam near Llandrindod Wells in Wales plunged to minus 17.3C at the weekend - the principality's lowest ever temperature for November and Britain's coldest for the month since 1985.

The Met Office, Britain's national forecaster, issued severe weather warnings yesterday for large chunks of eastern and southern Scotland and eastern England, warning of heavy snowfalls.

Ireland also experienced heavy snow and Dublin airport was disrupted, with Finance Minister Brian Lenihan among those delayed as the weather made him late for crucial EU talks in Brussels on an international bailout for his country.

Drivers have been urged to be careful in badly-hit areas, and roadside emergency firms in Britain reported a huge surge in calls for help.

The weather has also disrupted several sporting events - Dundee United's match against Rangers in Scotland's Premier League was abandoned and several FA Cup second round fixtures were postponed.

Parts of Scotland and north-east England have already seen well over 30cm of snow since the start of the cold snap last week, and forecasters say the flurries could reach London in the coming days.

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New wisdom from the British Met office: Pollution is good and the sun DOES affect global temperature

The latest figures from more than 20 scientific institutions around the world show that global temperatures are higher than ever.

However the gradual rise in temperatures over the last 30 years is slowing slightly. Global warming since the 1970s has been 0.16C (0.3F) but the rise in the last decade was just 0.05C (0.09F), according to the Met Office. Sceptics claim this as evidence man made global warming is a myth.

But in a new report the Met Office said the reduced rate of warming can be easily explained by a number of factors. And indeed the true rate of warming caused by man made greenhouse gases could be greater than ever.

One of the major factors is pollution over Asia, where the huge growth in coal-fired power stations mean aerosols like sulphur are being pumped into the air. This reflects sunlight, cooling the land surface temperature.

Dr Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice, said pollution may be causing a cooling effect. “A possible increase in aerosol emissions from Asia in the last decade may have contributed to substantially to the recent slowdown,” she said. “Aerosols cool the climate by reflecting the sunlight.”

Another factor that has reduced the rate of warming is a prolonged minimum in the solar cycle, meaning the Earth is receiving slightly less heat from the sun.

Also short term weather patterns such as the tropical storms El Nino and La Nina.

Dr Pope pointed out that the global temperature is still rising and 2010 is set to be the second warmest year on record, according to the Met Office. Other groups, including Nasa, think it will be the hottest year on record at about 0.5C above the 1961-1990 average of 14C. [More false prophecies. But they know that the media will cover for them when it does not come true]

Dr Pope warned that the world should not be lulled into a false sense of security because the warming trend has recently slowed down. In Britain especially, people have been persuaded that global warming is slowing down because of a run of cold winters, including blizzards this weekend. But this is just a short term trend.

In the long term the whole world, including Britain, is warming, according to Dr Pope. “In the grip of a cold spell people find it difficult to understand global warming. But if you look at the long term trends we are in fact experiencing fewer freezing winters and more heatwaves,” she said.

At the moment global temperature rise is 0.8C (1.4F)above pre-industrial levels. [Wow! A fraction of one degree. That's a BIG rise over a couple of hundred years! I'm shaking in my boots!]

More here





Germany shows the way in "Green" folly

It always has. Nature worship goes back a long way in Germany. Even Hitler co-opted it

In Germany, where the government tries to plan pretty much everything, 470,000 people used to work in the Ruhr Valley’s filthy coal mines. That was in 1957, when the country began shoveling billions into an industry it pretty well knew was doomed because (a) its workers regularly command very high salaries, making the product unaffordable and (b) coal mining is practically a guarantor of early death.

A half century later, most of those 140 mines were shut down, and only 34,000 were still working amidst the coal dust. Within four to eight years there will likely be none.

These days unemployment in the area is at 13 percent, although there are cities, most notably in neighborhoods where former Turkish “guest-workers” reside, where it is as high as 25 percent.

CIVIL TOLERANCE! COURAGE! DEMOCRACY! plead large posters slapped onto city walls.

But exhortations from on high aren’t the only means of calming a populace. The Ruhr is trying to go green — forest green: mines have been transformed into mining museums, complete with photographs depicting how awful the mining profession used to be. A beer factory (once owned by mine tycoons to keep workers in a permanent state of stupefication) has been turned into a museum costing $40 million. Wind parks are erected on coal dumps, as are solar panels, and large pieces of modern art.

And how does all this translate into jobs? It just doesn’t. It can’t. It never will. The newest technologies deployed by RWE, a northern German utility company that is designing the charging infrastructure for electric cars manufactured by, among others, Peugeot and Tesla, provide employment for … just 50 people.

And in the US, where, according to Tuesday’s Washington Post, the Obama administration has dropped $90 billion of the economic stimulus package into clean energy technology and training: the same results. The jobs are few — even in Florida, a state where you might think solar energy would have a fairly predictable and easygoing future. The government, any government really, can only do so much with Western economies in their current state: as wild-eyed and skittish as horses fleeing a burning barn.

So right now the United States might as well be the Ruhr Valley, sacrificing one generation, or perhaps two, for the benefit of some vague and indefinite future. Except for one thing: In the Ruhr, all those middle-aged unemployed miners receive a fairly substantial non-working salary until they reach age 60, at which point social security kicks in. In other words, their lives are over, but their existence is cosseted. One can just imagine the results.

I don’t know what to make of Germany’s peculiar resolution to the insoluble. Paying workers not to work is as corrupt as that US specialty, paying farmers not to farm. But I do know that what the US is doing for most of its unemployed right now — i.e., nothing at all — is more indefensible still.

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Latest Warmist gabfest unlikely to achieve anything

It's just a way for Warmists to enjoy a vacation in 5 star luxury. That's why they have so many of these conferences -- at least 2 a year -- while achieving nothing

Today, U.N. negotiators will begin two weeks of meetings in Cancun, Mexico, looking for a way to move the climate action agenda forward, impose global carbon emissions caps and compel countries to pay a series of new international taxes to underwrite environmental programs. Maybe they'll get what they want when hell freezes over.

The mood of climate alarmists going into Cancun is decidedly downbeat. The sense of impending doom they had cultivated over the last decade or so has largely evaporated. The Climategate scandal took a severe toll on the credibility of some of the climate theology's leading high priests, and subsequent investigations into some of the more outlandish claims on which their doomsaying was based found them to be either exaggerated or fabricated. The November demise of the Chicago Climate Exchange - which sought to transfer billions of dollars to political insiders trading in government-rigged carbon markets - signaled that there was no money in the game anymore. Last week, even Al Gore admitted his fallibility when he retracted his earlier support for ethanol fuels. The god bleeds.

Last year's Copenhagen confab was intended to seal a comprehensive global climate deal but turned into an exercise in humiliation. The imagined 2009 treaty - originally billed as "the single most important piece of paper in the world today" - would have instituted global governance of carbon emissions enforced by an international body with the power to levy taxes to force countries to impose its will. But the final, hastily written three-page agreement contained none of those controversial proposals and was simply a nonbinding statement regarding voluntary emissions caps. The most significant event at last year's summit was when the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa unceremoniously snubbed President Obama, who was reduced to barging his way into their meeting uninvited. It was a low moment for the president personally, and a poor showing for what is under most circumstances the strongest country in the world.

The principal goal of this year's meeting seems to be to hang on to the meager gains made in 2009 and to discuss what to do about the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire at the end of 2012. The green utopians are up against more immediate problems than their imagined impending climate catastrophe. The debt crisis in Europe will blunt the enthusiasm of countries in the Eurozone to underwrite expensive new international initiatives. China, India, Brazil and South Africa, among others, will be even less willing to agree to cut back growth than they were when they scuttled the Copenhagen deal. The United States delegation will have to accept the fact that whatever schemes they would like to agree to, any treaty language would have to meet the approval of the incoming more conservative Senate, a highly unlikely proposition. Cancun will be dead on arrival.

One benefit of meeting in Mexico is that the conference will avoid the embarrassment last year when the Copenhagen meeting ended in an unexpected blizzard. It's harder to sell global warming to world leaders who have to flee the city before their flights are grounded by an ice storm. The worst the Cancun conferees will have to deal with is the threat of being kidnapped by heavily armed gangs of drug dealers.

SOURCE

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