How to mislead with slippery language

We read:

NOAA Makes It Official: 2011 Among Most Extreme Weather Years in History

Just past the halfway point, 2011 has already seen eight weather-related disasters in the U.S. that caused more than $1 billion in damages

The devastating string of tornadoes, droughts, wildfires and floods that hit the United States this spring marks 2011 as one of the most extreme years on record, according to a new federal analysis.

The key, of course, is that little word "among" and his friend "one of". To put some flesh on Mr. "among", consider 1934:



All regions of the country were over 100 degrees.

80% of the US was experiencing drought.



1934 used to be the hottest year – before USHCN and GISS worked their magic.



SOURCE




IPCC used Greenpeace campaigner to write 'impartial' report on renewable energy

The United Nation’s climate change body was at the centre of a new row today after it admitted using a Greenpeace campaigner to help write an ‘impartial’ report on green energy. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a study last month claiming that the world could meet nearly 80 per cent of its energy by 2050 from renewable sources such as wind farms and solar panels.

But the full version of report published this week revealed that one of the lead authors was an employee of Greenpeace – a group that fiercely opposes nuclear power and which has campaigned on the perils of global warming for decades.

The revelation is another blow to the credibility of the IPCC which was set up to offer impartial, rigorous and science-based advice to politicians.

Last year, it was at the centre of a major row when it was forced to admit that it had exaggerated the threat of global warming to glaciers.

The latest report was produced by the IPPC’s Working Group 3 – a panel of experts that tries to predict the likely impacts of climate change. The working group has come under fire for relying on so-called ‘grey literature’, reports published by charities, campaign groups and environmentalists instead of high quality independent research published in academic journals.

The latest gaffe was flagged up by environmentalist Mark Lynas, author of the award-winning book Six Degrees. ‘I have lost confidence in the Working Group 3,’ he said. ‘The point needs to be strongly made to the IPCC that no campaigner should be a lead author of a report and put in charge of peer reviewing their own work. ‘That it allowed its headline conclusion to be dictated by Greenpeace is an extraordinary failure and one which cannot simply be forgotten.’

The latest row centres on an IPCC report into renewables. When the summary report was published in May, the IPCC’s six page press release highlighted a key finding that green sources could provide 77 per cent of the world’s energy by 2050. However, the source of this claim only emerged when the full 1,554 page report was published this week.

It appears as just one possible scenario for the future in chapter 10 and was based on a report co-authored by Dr Sven Teske, an employee of Greenpeace International. Dr Teske’s report was originally published by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council, an industry body that promotes wind turbines and solar panels. An updated version was published in a minor academic journal last year. Dr Teske was also one of 10 lead authors who wrote chapter 10 and so had a say in whether his own study was included in the finished document.

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Warmist Mark Lynas comments on the above story:

And why – when confronted with this egregious conflict of interest and abuse of scientific independence – has the response of the world’s green campaigners been to circle the wagons and cry foul against the whistle-blowers themselves?

That this was spotted at all is a tribute to the eagle eyes of Steve McIntyre. Yet I am told that he is a ‘denier’, that all his deeds are evil, and that I have been naively led astray by him.

Well, if the ‘deniers’ are the only ones standing up for the integrity of the scientific process, and the independence of the IPCC, then I too am a ‘denier’. Indeed, McIntyre and I have formed an unlikely double-act, posing a series of questions – together with the New York Times’s Andy Revkin – to the IPCC report’s lead author Professor Ottmar Edenhofer, to which he has yet to respond.

Here’s some classic closing of ranks by Stefan Singer, of WWF, riding to the rescue of his embattled Greenpeace colleagues in a comment on my original blog post:

Yes, I am biased as well, I am Director for Energy Policy at WWF, we “scandalously” dared to publish a global energy scenario a few months ago showing how the world can go to even 95% renewables by 2050 and even more “shocking” we also showed in that scenario how global energy consumption can indeed be reduced globally with substantive energy conservation and efficiency policies without curtailing growth and economic activities.....

Moreover, if we want to combat climate change effectively (which I realise not everyone supports on this exchange), what is wrong with showing that renewables can contribute 80% or even more to global energy supply? Mark Lynas, in case you take that serious [sic], you should thank Greenpeace and NGOs to drive that debate.

I suspect Mr Singer, and all my other green critics, are intentionally missing the point. I’d have loved to have had a fully independent study conducted by the IPCC on the prospects for renewable energy over the coming century. I’d have been even happier had that independent IPCC study concluded that 80% renewables by 2050 is a realistic option.

But what I don’t want are recycled campaign reports masquerading as ‘proper’ science leading the assessed scenarios – and the media – because their originator has managed to lever himself into a pole position on the team of lead authors. That stinks.

And it stinks doubly because the Greenpeace report was originally co-authored by the European Renewable Energy Council – an industry lobby group whose prospects depend on state subsidies which can be expected to be further increased once its views are given the ‘official’ stamp of approval from the IPCC. So this is in effect worse than my Exxon-Mobil scenario above – because the company employees’ report would have to have been co-authored by the American Petroleum Institute.

There are some very clear lessons here for the IPCC:

- Campaigners – or industry employees – should not be lead authors on IPCC reports, on any of the working groups

- Whilst ‘grey literature’ may be valuable to assess, it should not be assessed by those who have written it

- This rule applies more broadly: no authors should be tasked with ‘independently’ assessing their own work, across all the IPCC working groups

- Press releases and Summaries for Policymakers should not be released until the full report they are based on is also released

- A clear conflict of interest policy should be agreed by the IPCC and implemented immediately, applying to current as well as future authors

Much more HERE




GREEN RINOS: THREAT TO AMERICA

By Sharon Sebastian (Website: www.DarwinsRacists.com)

Two Obama policies that will clamp a vice-grip on the American economy for decades are Obamacare and insidious legislation that has been renamed under its new cover, the “American Power Act.” Once known as Cap and Trade, the benign sounding “American Power Act” is Barack Obama’s coup de gras - his economic death blow to family budgets and the American economy. Broken down, Obama’s American Power Act supports Al Gore’s global warming strategies, socialist-based green movements and the United Nation’s Agenda 21 that targets both the U.S. treasury and America’s Constitutional freedoms. Every member of Congress must be sent the LINKS posted below that detail the growing green threat. Members of Congress can no longer claim ignorance after reading the information within the following articles. All Republicans who support the Obama/UN agenda are Green RINOS waist-deep in Progressive ideology:

(See: Obama & the UN: Agenda 21 - , Lean, Mean and Green, The Smoking Gun – Part One , and Lean, Mean and Green, Takedown of America – Part Two.

Republican presidential candidates must be asked at every juncture if they support Obamacare. Republican presidential candidates must be asked at every outing if they support the American Power Act, formerly known as Cap and Trade, which promotes both the green movement and climate-change agendas. Equally revealing will be their position on the mountains of new EPA regulations coming out of the Obama administration that will stifle the personal lifestyles of average Americans while cutting off our nation’s potential for job growth and energy independence. Reams of regulations will rain down on Americans from the Obama controlled EPA that demand adherence – or face mandated fines and potential jail time. Regulations will be imposed on how much energy you use at home and at work, how much home insulation you have, if your doors and windows meet federal guidelines, the type of appliances you use, etc. etc.

Though the White House claims it is only doing what is best for America by shackling you and your employer with onerous government regulations, there is no better example of duplicity than Obama’s treatment of Israel. Under the guise of making peace, President Barack Obama insisted that Israel give up valued portions of its land and return to its pre-1967 borders. Around the time he did so, another report surfaced worldwide, with little to no mention by the American press, about vast amounts of newly discovered oil shale and gas reserves in Israel. Lawrence Solomon, Executive Director of Energy Probe, details in the Financial Post that Israel has enough shale oil reserves, estimated up to half a trillion barrels, to break the grip of the OPEC cartel. Once considered too expensive to extract, Israel is quickly developing the means to cost effectively obtain oil from oil shale that will bring projected costs down to $35 or $45 a barrel. Solomon also says that natural gas being produced by Israel will be scheduled for planned exportation to Europe. Positioned to be a new oil power, Israel opposes Barack Obama’s desired give-a-way of Israeli lands that include many of their recently industrialized cities? The new call –“Drill, drill, Israel” – is likely to put Obama’s Middle East “landscaping” plan on hold.

Americans have learned the hard way, that the public agenda of Obama rarely matches the private agenda of Obama. Green RINOS who are Obama-light or support the UN’s green agenda must be weeded out, not only from the Republican presidential field, but out of office in 2012.

SOURCE





Green Policies a Substitute For Anti-Capitalist, Anti-American Ideas

By Warner Todd Huston

Those anti-capitalist college professor types that used to sneer at America and supported the murderous antics of the Soviets had for a short time after the fall of the U.S.S.R. no place in which to invest their anti-American ideals. However, it is clear that they have found a new home: greenism. And so, the old left is the new left again, re-born and hiding behind climate change, mythic green energy, and environmental extremism all acting the surrogate for their failed communist-styled ideas.

One of the latest examples of this surrogacy is indulged by the University of Maryland's Gar Alperovitz with a piece in The Nation entitled "The New-Economy Movement."

In this piece, Alperovitz not only openly admits that the so-called "new economy" thinking is simply today's dumping grounds for ages old, communist philosophy -- evinced in buzz words like social justice, egalitarianism, and sustainable communities -- he claims they will never be satisfied and that as time moves on, the demands of these enviro-centric economic theories will grow "much more radical."

Alperovitz begins his piece contrasting his subject with our "American creed that capitalism as we know it is the best, and only possible, option," and his praise of those "new economy" ideas that "runs directly counter" to our national philosophy. Alperovitz posits that his "new economy" based on old anti-capitalist ideas hiding behind greenism is taking over the mindset of the elites. Why? Why else but because "the threat of a global climate crisis grows increasingly dire," of course.

Like all other communist greenies, the only thing Alperovitz has to sell is fear itself.

Gar Alperovitz is most well known for his a-historical treatise that posits that President Truman's use of the Atomic Bomb to end WWII was a crime against humanity. Alperovitz has been accused by many historians of cherry picking facts that support his point of view and ignoring all else. That fits nicely with someone that hates capitalism and America like Alperovitz does. It also perfectly fits someone that still clings to communist doctrine in the face of well over 100 years of its failure.

Back in the 1970s Alperovitz was also a legislative aide to the terminally silly Senator Gaylord Nelson, a progressive from Wisconsin and one of the founders of "Earth Day" observances. Nelson, it will be remembered, was sold on the communist idea of "zero population growth" and wished for the stagnation of American society to “save the planet.”

In his Nation piece Alperovitz reports on several large companies that are pursuing the sort of profits-killing green policies that excite him. One thing is clear after reading his piece, though. None of these businesses will be able to sustain these programs without governments shoring them up. They are all economically unsustainable. But making money is as far from Alperovitz' mind as can be. His chief concern is socialist-styled ideals, not business.

Alperovitz wraps up his piece by predicting that his communist inspired "new-economy" ideas will grow. He also takes the prosaic step of claiming that his communist green ideas are somehow just like the Civil Rights movement and gay rights. Like all enviro-communists who want a sheen of legitimacy to be spread protectively across their old, failed ideas Alperovitz is desperate to make people think that the Civil Rights movement and the green religionists are one and the same, that both are/were striving for legitimate human rights. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

As I mentioned, Alperovitz ends his piece with a prediction that as greenism grows it will get bolder and begin to demand "much more radical" changes in our government, society, and economic decisions. This warning follows apace with normal left-wing maneuvers. They begin with lies on their lips saying they "only" want some small level of change, some "human rights" that need to be assured, but as they gain success their real agenda is slowly rolled out and more radical, harsher, and more anti-capitalist demands become de rigueur.

But Alperovitz' piece is instructive. It reveals that greenism is a mere facade behind which ages old communist ideas hide. Anti-capitalism is the real thrust behind the green movement and this "new economy" movement is just the latest vehicle for those creaking, failed communist-based ideas.

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Writer on the Leftist "Salon" is lying through his teeth about recent weather events

Whenever there is an unusual weather pattern, members of the Holy Church of Global Warming Moonbats start spreading new scare-tactics. Usually it sounds something like:

This planet is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions. Old Testament real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of Gilligan's Island Re-runs! Earthquakes, volcanoes, another Rocky Movie rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, Elliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner living together... mass hysteria!

And just as common is the fact that scientists dispute their contention. It happened when both Time and Newsweek blamed this spring's tornado activity on Global Warming (contradicting earlier claims by the Magazines which blamed tornadoes on Global Cooling) and it's happening now when Salon is blaming the extremely hot temperatures in the American West:

Arizona is burning. Texas, too. New Mexico is next. If you need a grim reminder that an already arid West is burning up and blowing away, here it is. As I write this, more than 700 square miles of Arizona and more than 4,300 square miles of Texas have been swept by monster wildfires. Consider those massive columns of acrid smoke drifting eastward as a kind of smoke signal warning us that a globally warming world is not a matter of some future worst-case scenario. It's happening right here, right now.

...Nonetheless, we have been experiencing a historic drought for about a decade in significant parts of the region. As topsoil dries out, microbial dynamics change and native plants either die or move uphill toward cooler temperatures and more moisture. Wildlife that depends on the seeds, nuts, leaves, shade, and shelter follows the plants -- if it can.

....Global warming, global weirding, climate change -- whatever you prefer to call it -- is not just happening in some distant, melting Arctic land out of a storybook. It is not just burning up far-away Russia. It's here now.

The seas have warmed, ice caps are melting, and the old reliable ocean currents and atmospheric jet streams are jumping their tracks. The harbingers of a warming planet and the abruptly shifting weather patterns that result vary across the American landscape. Along the vast Mississippi River drainage in the heartland of America, epic floods, like our wildfires in the West, are becoming more frequent. In the Gulf states, it's monster hurricanes and in the Midwest, swarms of killer tornadoes signal that things have changed. In the East it's those killer heat waves and record-breaking blizzards.

Gee, they left out the Giligan's Island runs and the New Rocky movie. Maybe its because what Salon is saying above is totally fraudulent.

Lets start with the western drought/hot weather claim. This is what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says about it:

This comes hard on the heels of some of the worst droughts on record across the globe, from Texas to China.

While global warming is an obvious suspect, there's no evidence that it is to blame. Though climate change models predict extended droughts and periods of intense rainfall for the end of the 21st century, they don't explain the current droughts, says Martin Hoerling at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "A lot of these extreme conditions are natural variations of the climate. Extremes happen, heat waves happen, heavy rains happen," he says.

Drought across the southern US - and heavy rains across the north of the country - are a result of La Niña, says Michael Hayes, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. An extended holding pattern in the jet stream, the same type of "blocking event" that caused last summer's heat wave in Russia, is responsible for this year's European droughts, says Michael Blackburn of the University of Reading, UK. As for the apparent convergence of droughts worldwide, Mark Saunders of University College London says current conditions aren't that unusual

How about those horrible tornadoes this past spring? This claim is just as fraudulent, Fox News reported:

Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said warming trends do create more of the fuel that tornadoes require, such as moisture, but that they also deprive tornadoes of another essential ingredient: wind shear.

“We know we have a warming going on,” Carbin told Fox News in an interview Thursday, but added: “There really is no scientific consensus or connection [between global warming and tornadic activity]….Jumping from a large-scale event like global warming to relatively small-scale events like tornadoes is a huge leap across a variety of scales.”

Asked if climate change should be “acquitted” in a jury trial where it stood charged with responsibility for tornadoes, Carbin replied: “I would say that is the right verdict, yes.” Because there is no direct connection as yet established between the two? “That’s correct,” Carbin replied.

According to Grady Dixon, assistant professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University:

"If you look at the past 60 years of data, the number of tornadoes is increasing significantly, but it's agreed upon by the tornado community that it's not a real increase,"he said .

"It's having to do with better (weather tracking) technology, more population, the fact that the population is better educated and more aware. So we're seeing them more often," Dixon said.

But he said it would be "a terrible mistake" to relate the up-tick to climate change.

Salon is also naming Global Warming as the reason many of us in the Northeastern US had to spend so much time shoveling snow during the past two winters. After last year's snow-filled winter the NOAA issued a report in March 2010 which said:

They [NOAA investigators] found no evidence — no human “fingerprints” — to implicate our involvement in the snowstorms. If global warming was the culprit, the team would have expected to find a gradual increase in heavy snowstorms in the mid-Atlantic region as temperatures rose during the past century. But historical analysis revealed no such increase in snowfall. Nor did the CSI team find any indication of an upward trend in winter precipitation along the eastern seaboard.....

....The CSI Team found abundant historical evidence of heavy mid-Atlantic snowstorms whenever an El Niño and a negative NAO acted in concert, further supporting their conclusion that the record-setting snowstorms were the result of natural causes. But could global warming have elevated the potency of this dynamic duo? Again, the CSI Team didn’t find a connection.

Some of you may be thinking "well that was last year," and you would be totally justified except for the fact that two weeks ago the NOAA said, just like last year, this year's snow has nothing to do with man.

I would never make the claim that I am a scientist, or a science expert of any kind, but I can read. Based in that ability I would make the simple proposal to the people at Salon that, before they make claims about global warming, climate change or whatever the moonbats are calling it this week, maybe they should try to gain proficiency at the reading thing. Because if someone like me, who's science training consists of watching Mr. Wizard on a 19 inch black and white television 40 years ago can find scientific information which proves their claim to be nothing but hype and lies they could do the same thing. And while I appreciate the material (especially now that Anthony Weiner resigned) sending out false alarms to the public is usually not the best tactic for a self-described, "award-winning online news and entertainment Web site."

SOURCE

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