I shouldn't laugh! Pathetic Warmists excited by alleged temperature change for May of only two HUNDREDTHS of one degree!

That's not data.  It's a statistical abstraction. They don't give many figures below but you can find them here

Driven by exceptionally warm ocean waters, Earth smashed a record for heat in May and is likely to keep on breaking high temperature marks, experts say.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Monday said May's average temperature on Earth of 59.93 degrees Fahrenheit (15.54 degrees Celsius) beat the old record set four years ago.

However, California is having a record hot first five months of the year, a full 5 degrees above normal.

May was especially hot in parts of Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Spain, South Korea and Australia, while the United States was not close to a record, just 1 degree warmer than the 20th century average.

Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb and other experts say there's a good chance global heat records will keep falling, especially next year because an El Nino weather event is brewing on top of man-made global warming.

An El Nino is a warming of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean that alters climate worldwide and usually spikes global temperatures.

May was 1.33 degrees (0.74 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 20th century world average.

The last month that was cooler than normal was February 1985, marking 351 hotter than average months in a row.

This possibly could quiet people claiming global warming has stopped, but more importantly it 'should remind everyone that global warming is a long-term trend,' Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said.  Which is his way of admitting that the temperature change noted is trivially small

Setting or tying monthly global heat records has happened frequently in recent years. The last global monthly cold record was set in December 1916.

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More Warmist clutching at straws

The following study has been hyped by Warmists (e.g. here) and is alleged to show that global warming will kill people.  But if you can read statistics, the hilarity in it never stops.

For a start, they study summer months only, whereas the big killer is winter!  Had they included all seasons, they would have found that global warming will save lives  -- and that would never do!

I am a bit too exhausted from laughing at that one to say much more but I will note that their hazard ratios are a joke.  They are almost unity -- indicating no effect of temperature.  And the The Federal Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Second Edition says (p. 384): "The threshold for concluding that an agent was more likely than not the cause of an individual's disease is a relative risk greater than 2.0."  The bozos below found a relative risk of only half that!
 
Summer temperature variability and long-term survival among elderly people with chronic disease

Antonella Zanobettia et al.

Abstract

Time series studies show that hot temperatures are associated with increased death rates in the short term. In light of evidence of adaptation to usual temperature but higher deaths at unusual temperatures, a long-term exposure relevant to mortality might be summertime temperature variability, which is expected to increase with climate change. We investigated whether the standard deviation (SD) of summer (June–August) temperatures was associated with survival in four cohorts of persons over age 65 y with predisposing diseases in 135 US cities. Using Medicare data (1985–2006), we constructed cohorts of persons hospitalized with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, congestive heart failure, and myocardial infarction. City-specific yearly summer temperature variance was linked to the individuals during follow-up in each city and was treated as a time-varying exposure. We applied a Cox proportional hazard model for each cohort within each city, adjusting for individual risk factors, wintertime temperature variance, yearly ozone levels, and long-term trends, to estimate the chronic effects on mortality of long-term exposure to summer temperature SD, and then pooled results across cities. Mortality hazard ratios ranged from 1.028 (95% confidence interval, 1.013– 1.042) per 1 °C increase in summer temperature SD for persons with congestive heart failure to 1.040 (95% confidence interval, 1.022–1.059) per 1 °C increase for those with diabetes. Associations were higher in elderly persons and lower in cities with a higher percentage of land with green surface. Our data suggest that long-term increases in temperature variability may increase the risk of mortality in different subgroups of susceptible older populations.

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Greenpeace chief commutes - by plane: Executive flies 250 miles from Luxembourg to Amsterdam despite organisation's anti-air travel campaign

A Greenpeace senior executive commutes to work by plane despite the organisation’s anti-air travel campaign, it emerged yesterday.

Pascal Husting, Greenpeace International’s programme director, has been flying 250 miles between Luxembourg and Amsterdam at the charity’s expense since 2012.

Each trip costs Greenpeace £200 and would generate 142kg of carbon dioxide emissions, according to airline KLM.

Over two years this would amount to 7.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions - the equivalent of consuming 17 barrels of oil, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

But Mr Husting defended the arrangement and said he would rather not take the journey but it was necessary because the alternative is a twelve hour round trip by train.

He told the Daily Telegraph: ‘I spend half my life on Skype and video conference calls.  ‘But as a senior manager, the people who work in my team sometimes need to meet me in the flesh, that’s why I’ve been going to Amsterdam twice a month while my team was being restructured.’

He said that from September he would switch to making the trip once a month by train due to ‘the work of restructuring my team coming to an end, and with my kids a little older’.

Mr Husting’s travel arrangements were revealed just days after Greenpeace was forced to apologise for losing £3million of public donations in an unauthorised currency dealing.

In a statement online John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: ‘As for Pascal’s air travel. Well it’s a really tough one. Was it the right decision to allow him to use air travel to try to balance his job with the needs of his family for a while?

‘What kind of compromises do you make in your efforts to try to make the world a better place?

‘I think there is a line there. Honesty and integrity to the values that are at the heart of the good you’re trying to do in the world cannot be allowed to slip away. For what it’s worth, I don’t think we’ve crossed that line here at Greenpeace.’

But Greenpeace members were outraged by the senior executive’s commuting habits and called Mr Pascal a ‘hypocrite’.

Greenpeace volunteer of 30 years, Richard Lancaster, said: ‘I have to say I’m deeply troubled by these revelations - I had hoped and assumed Greenpeace was better than this.

‘I volunteer with Greenpeace but work in the commercial world and if I took a job in another country I’d expect to move to where the job is and if I couldn’t for family reasons I wouldn’t take the job - so I find Pascal’s travel arrangements almost unbelievable.’

According to Greenpeace flying is ten times worse for climate change than taking the train and is responsible for 13 per cent of the UK’s impact on the climate.

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India targets Prince Charles' aide in war on Greenpeace

British Greenpeace activists are a threat to India's economic development, according to an intelligence report

India's intelligence agency has targeted an adviser to Prince Charles and British activists in a campaign against Greenpeace and other foreign groups it claims are a threat to its economy.

The Indian government last week banned direct foreign funding of local campaign groups, after a report by its Intelligence Bureau warned that organisations funded by Greenpeace and other international institutions were growing throughout the country and "spawning" mass movements which now pose a "significant threat to national economic security."

The decision was revealed after the Indian government indicated it was ready to further exploit its large coal reserves and asserted its right to increase carbon emissions for economic development. Prakash Javadekar, the environment minister, said India had a "right to grow" and that it could not address climate change until it had eradicated poverty.

According to the Intelligence Bureau report, Greenpeace and other environmentalist groups had stalled the development of new coal mines, challenged its plans for more coal-fired power stations, and delayed other vital infrastructure projects in campaigns which had reduced India's GDP growth by two to three per cent. Much of their work, it said, is funded by the US-based Centre for Media and Democracy, which the report described as a Democratic Party-oriented group supported by liberals like George Soros and "multiple far-left foundations".

The report, which was leaked last week, singled out Dr Vandana Shiva, an Indian scientist and adviser to Prince Charles on sustainable agriculture.

She has been his long-term collaborator on organic farming since they participated in the Reith Lectures in 2000. He is said to find her inspiring and keeps a bust of her at his Highgrove home. During his visit to India in November last year, the prince visited her organic farm in Dehra Dun to highlight her campaign against the use of genetically-modified seeds.

Dr Shiva has blamed the high cost of GM cotton seeds for the suicides of 284,000 heavily indebted farmers since 1995.

According to the Intelligence Bureau report, "six NGOs, including Greenpeace, are at the forefront of anti-GMO activism in India" and the movement "was initiated in 2003 by Vandana Shiva". It also emphasises her role as a consultant to Greenpeace Australia and her group, Navdanya, as a recipient of foreign donations. Her campaign was highlighted along with other movements blamed for "anti-developmental activities" which included Greenpeace plans for "crop circle" protests against the cultivation of genetically-modified soya and corn. The group had planned to capture the demonstrations on Google Earth, the report said.

The report named four British environmentalists and cyber-experts among 12 foreign activists it said were planning to organise protests against coal fired power stations and had been involved in upgrading Greenpeace India's computer security systems. It discussed the work of Matt Philips, a British energy analyst and cited a claim by Pakistan's former intelligence chief that his previous employer, the charity Save the Children, was linked to the American CIA spy agency.

Two other British activists, Fiona Stewart and Emma Gibson, had visited Greenpeace's headquarters in Bangalore in January an "upgraded its communications systems and installed sophisticated and encrypted software in its servers and computers", the report said.

Dr Vandana Shiva said India's Intelligence Bureau's report was an "attack on civil society" which she said she would defend.

She had decided to campaign against the introduction of genetically-modified seeds into India in 1987 after she attended a conference at which agricultural chemicals industry representatives said they would "take patents on seeds so they could collect royalties from every farmer, in every season, in every country of the world", she said in the Asian Age newspaper.

Her court action against the genetically-modified seed company Monsanto delayed its plans to cultivate Bt Cotton in India for four years. Her NGO Navdanya has since collected a vast seed bank to help farmers cultivate low cost organic crops and avoid the debts she believes have been caused by the costs of using genetically-modified seeds.

The report was "biased" in favour of foreign companies she blames for farmers' debts and suicides, she said.

"They're not allergic to foreign funding for defence or railways but only foreign funding to build civil society", she said.

Greenpeace India said the report was a "malicious" attempt to speed up environmental clearances for coal and nuclear power projects and a "concerted effort by parties with a vested interest to ensure elimination of any opposition", said its India director Samit Aich.

India was the world's fastest growing carbon gas emitter in 2012 but has rejected calls to reduce them as unfair. Its ministers say western economies were to blame for polluting the Earth's atmosphere during their industrialisation and that India's own development cannot be held back to meet new emission targets.

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India invokes 'right to grow' to tell rich nations of its stand on future climate change negotiations

In what may be a strong signal to rich nations on the issue of climate change, New Delhi on Tuesday said the developing countries, including India, have a "right to grow" and in the process their "net emission (of greenhouse gases) may increase".

Though India reiterated its commitment to reduce emissions, it made its preference clear. It said the country cannot address the challenges of climate change unless it eradicates poverty through economic growth.

Underlining that the problem of emission has not been created by the developing nations and hence responsibility for addressing it should not be solely put on them, environment minister Prakash Javadekar said, "We have to reduce our carbon emissions. But, I (India) have not created the carbon emission problems, which have been done by others. But I am not into any blame game. The issue is that I have a right to grow. India and developing countries have right to grow. These are the emerging economies".

His statement assumes significance in the light of a meeting of 'governments, leaders from finance, business, local government and civil society' in New York in September this year to "bring bold and new announcements and action" to keep the earth below the globally agreed two degree temperature rise.

Noting that poverty is an "environmental disaster", Javadekar said "unless we tackle poverty, unless we eradicate poverty, we cannot really address the climate change."

"To that end, we need to grow. Our net emission may increase," he said while speaking at a function on the occasion of the "World Day to Combat Desertification".

The remark is expected to further strengthen the resolve of the BASIC group of nations on the issue of climate change. This bloc of four biggest emerging economies - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - has consistently been articulating developing countries' point of view at every forum while seeking bigger actions from rich nation to cut down emissions as part of their historical responsibility.

Although the new government in India has not undermined the efforts to deal with the problem, the remark has certainly indicated hardening of stand by India as far as role of rich nations is concerned towards their 'bigger' responsibility to not only cut down emissions but also help out poor nations in taking various mitigation and adaptation measures.

Javadekar articulated India's point of view barely three weeks after the new government showed some seriousness and gave new nomenclature to the environment ministry by adding 'climate change' as its core functioning. The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) is now the ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) under the new government.

Interestingly, Javadekar had showed the same seriousness while speaking at a function to mark the 'World Environment Day' on June 5. He had said that India would provide a "new vocabulary to the world in environment conservation" as New Delhi was more conscious to its role.

It is to be seen whether his remark was merely a 'rhetoric' or something which meant real works on the ground to fight the challenge of climate change.

In certain quarters, the change in narrative is only seen as India's new found zeal to 'project' its efforts to the global community more proactively now. New Delhi will possibly highlights its own works to deal with climate change more proactively while seeking rich nations to work more.

India too had voluntarily pledged to reduce its carbon emission by 20 to 25%, over the 2005 levels, by the year 2020. But, it has been blamed for not doing enough to deal with the issue of greenhouse gas emission.

Amid this backdrop, Javadekar had on June 5 said India should not be portrayed as a "villian" in the debate on climate change but should instead provide new dimensions to the discourse.

"The world has always provided a vocabulary (on climate change) and we have reacted. We will provide a new vocabulary to which the world will react and we will take the discourse to a new height because we bother about climate change. We will work by keeping energy efficiency as the central theme," he had said.

But, the question now is whether this "right to grow" pitch will find a prominent place in the climate change discourse when rich and poor nations sit together to work out a global climate deal?

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An Australian environmental authority attacked for allowing development

A parliamentary inquiry is to be held into the performance of NSW's Environment Protection Authority after a string of controversies that have dogged the agency, including botched prosecutions, accusations of cover-ups, mismanagement and a referral to the corruption watchdog.

Labor's environment spokesman, Luke Foley, successfully moved for the inquiry in the NSW Upper House on Thursday after warning that the EPA appeared more focused on protecting polluting industries than looking after the community and human health.

It also follows the introduction of a private member's bill last year by opposition MP Ron Hoenig calling for the EPA to be stripped of its powers to prosecute serious environmental offences because it was "incompetent" and does not have the "guts" to go after environmental criminals. Mr Hoenig wanted the powers to be given to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

EPA chief executive officer Barry Buffier said the inquiry would be an "opportunity to increase public awareness and understanding about the important role we play in protecting the communities and environment of NSW".

The inquiry comes after months of revelations by Fairfax Media about controversies over the EPA's performance, including its management of coal dust pollution in the Hunter, the mercury and other toxic chemical contamination in the Botany Hillsdale region and its alleged failure to protect koala habitats in the Royal Camp State Forest.

It also follows the EPA's abandonment of its biggest ever prosecution case, which was launched against the chemical company DuPont for allegedly polluting the ground and killing trees and plants around its Girraween site. DuPont had maintained it was not responsible for the pollution.

Community groups around the state, which have led the complaints about the EPA, have welcomed the inquiry saying it is in the best interests of the people.

The Hunter Community Environment Centre spokesman Dr John Mackenzie said they were pleased it would focus on the agency's repeated mishandling of coal dust monitoring in the region, which was referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption earlier this year.

"We are hopeful that the inquiry will improve the EPA’s ability to be a strong and effective environmental regulator," said Dr Mackenzie. "This inquiry is also vital for restoring community confidence in the EPA, given that its performance in recent years has fallen well shy of community expectations."

Botany resident Sharon Price said: "We look forward to a long-awaited, positive outcome."

The inquiry will specifically look into the land contamination issues at Botany and Hillsdale, the coal dust pollution in the Hunter, and the ground water contamination in the Piliga by Santos. Mr Foley has raised concerns about exploration company Santos being given a ''pathetic $1500 fine for the contamination of a water aquifer with uranium at levels 20 times higher than safe drinking water guidelines''.

It will also look into the regulation of cruise passenger ships at the White Bay Cruise Terminal and the regulation of forestry practices in Royal Camp State Forest.

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