Seth Borenstein walks back the "hottest year" claim

From a dedicated Warmist like Seth, that shows that we skeptics are getting to them

In a story Jan. 16, The Associated Press reported that the odds that nine of the 10 hottest years have occurred since 2000 are about 650 million to one. These calculations, as the story noted, treated as equal the possibility of any given year in the records being one of the hottest. The story should have included the fact that substantial warming in the years just prior to this century could make it more likely that the years since were warmer, because high temperatures tend to persist.

The story also reported that 2014 was the hottest year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, but did not include the caveat that other recent years had average temperatures that were almost as high - and they all fall within a margin of error that lessens the certainty that any one of the years was the hottest.

An earlier version of the story quoted Rutgers University climate scientist Jennifer Francis as noting that the margin of error makes it uncertain whether 2014 was warmest, or the second, third or sixth warmest year. She said that regardless, the trend shows a "clear, consistent and incontrovertible" warming of Earth. That reference to the margin of error was dropped in later versions.

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Greenpeace pushes veteran activist under the bus

The Greenpeace Nazca lines fiasco only exposes it further. After delaying handing over names of the activists who were involved in the letter-spreading activity, Greenpeace now gives the Peruvian government just 4 names in a secret report. The initial Greenpeace excuse, if you remember, was that it did not know who took part in the activity, and that it needed time to contact each of its 27 subsidiary bodies.

Now the green group has changed tack, submitting the names of only four, claiming the whole activity was a `rouge operation' run by Wolfgang Sadik and his boss Martin Kaiser - an excuse that is wholly implausible and unlikely given that it was fully poised to exploit the action for publicity and fund-raising. Greenpeace further launders such notions as (i) several people in Greenpeace advising against the activity (not impossible but implausible, and immaterial), (ii) Greenpeace decided on the operation after reaching Peru (laughable, considering the logistics and planning including GIS layouts, and such assets as colored bricks and matching t-shirt attire)

The utter untruthfulness involved is evident from what Mark Hertsgaard appears was told by Greenpeace:

    "Sadik and his team went ahead with the action even as others in Greenpeace strongly advised him against it, Townsley confirmed. "The decisions were taken by those responsible while they were in Peru.  At that point, there was no recourse back to Greenpeace International in Amsterdam or Greenpeace Germany in Hamburg. . Certainly there are many people [within Greenpeace] who think that our internal processes weren't followed properly and if they had been, this activity would have been caught and stopped."

Compare the above to what it declared on Greenpeace Netherlands' website:

    "Yellow Colored stones holding the letters in place. Once the aerial photograph is taken, they extract the substances letters away again, without equipment behind. A GIS system enabled them to lay everything on the right place. The preparation of this action lasted about four months. Every step was carefully calculated."

What does one do in the face of such duplicity?

What's worse, of the names submitted, Greenpeace exonerates 3 of the 4 people, shifting all blame on Wolfgang Sadik:

    "Neither Kaiser, Wiedemann nor Fernandez were involved in "the design or the delivery of the Nazca Lines action," Townsley said, adding that Sadik was "the principal architect and coordinator, and he himself has volunteered that information to the prosecutor."

In effect, Greenpeace is pushing one of its veteran activists under the bus. Is Greenpeace trying to protect higher-ups in its renewable energy campaign wing from the fallout and consequences? Absolutely. By its own admisison, this was planned over a long period and it is extremely unlikely none other than Sadik knew about it at Greenpeace.

Young environmentalists should be extremely wary of joining such an organization.

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Greenie terrorism afoot?

A climate change advocate, believed to be a Greenpeace activist and Guardian contributor, has called for the beheading of so-called "climate change deniers", arguing the world would be a better place without them. The comments are merely the latest in a long history of warmists advocating the killing of people who question global warming dogma.

On January 21st, in it's `Climate Consensus - the 97%' section, the Guardian published an article entitled "Matt Ridley wants to gamble the Earth's future because he won't learn from the past", which was illustrated with a fake, but nonetheless rather gruesome image of a severed head.

The article drew hundreds of comments, including one from `Bluecloud' on the day the article was posted, reading "Should that not be Ridley's severed head in the photo?"

Further down he added "We would actually solve a great deal of the world's problems by chopping off everyone's heads.

"Why are you deniers so touchy? Mere calls for a beheading evolve [sic] such a strong response in you people.

"Ask yourself a simple question: Would the world be a better place without Matt Ridley?  "Need I answer that question?"

The comment has since been removed by moderators, allowing `Bluecloud' to attempt to deny that he had called for violence. On Sunday morning he commented "Oh dear, it didn't take much for the denial industry to start claiming environmentalists are out to chop off people's heads.

"It's clear that when they have no argument to make, they stoop to misquoting deleted posts"

Others also tried to deflect blame, with commentor `ianhassall' writing "Bluecloud's moderated comment is causing quite a stir, isn't it.

"If warmists can't get their point across with the settled science I've got no doubt they'd resort to the sort of violence he's suggesting."

To which Bluecloud replied: "And what violence would that be? Making false claims is easy in the absence of evidence."

Unfortunately for Bluecloud, the evidence is easy to come by on Twitter. Climateologist Richard Tol has tweeted a screenshot of his original comment in full:

Furthermore, the Bishop Hill blog is reporting that others commenting on the Guardian article revealed Bluecloud to be Gary Evans, a Greenpeace funded "Sustainability Consultant", according to his Linked In profile, who has written for the Guardian in the past.

The comment fingering Evans was apparently deleted by the Guardian moderators far in advance of Evan's comment being deleted.

Bluecloud's comment comes a week after a Professor Emeritus of Physics at Princeton University called climate change activism a "jihad against atmospheric carbon" in a new paper for the Global Policy Warming Foundation.

However, this is not the first time that global warming advocates have threatened violence against those who question the theory of anthropogenic global warming. In 2010 Greenpeace's Gene Hasmi wrote: "Pressuring politicians on climate change is not working. We saw that in Copenhagen. Three months later, we also know why. Which is why the global climate movement now must do course-correction. We need to shift targets and go after the real termites that hollowed out and imploded Copenhagen.

"Emerging battle-bruised from the disaster zone of Copenhagen, but ever-hopeful, a rider on horseback brought news of darkness and light: "The politicians have failed. Now it's up to us. We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being climate lobbyists. Screw being climate activists. It's not working. We need an army of climate outlaws."

"The proper channels have failed. It's time for mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and skepticism.

"If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:

"We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. "And we be many, but you be few."

2010 also saw the release of the 10:10 Campaign's supposedly comedic `No Pressure' video, penned by Richard Curtis, in which children and office workers who don't want to do their bit to prevent climate change are blown up by hitting a big red button.

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STOP CLIMATE FEAR MONGERING

CO2 Increases Can Cause Only Minimal Warming

by William M. Gray

ABSTRACT

The massively funded international global warming movement has grossly exaggerated the threat from CO2 gas increases. This warming scare has been driven by a cabal of international politicians and environmentalist groups using erroneous climate model warming predictions to brainwash an uninformed global public. Their purpose was to scare the public into accepting global government and restrictions on their freedoms and lifestyles to prevent a made-up looming climate catastrophe. Truth of their CO2 warming assertions was of little importance. What mattered was the degree to which the public could be indoctrinated to believe the threat. The many large global warming projections have not and will not be realized in the coming years. The science behind these CO2 induced warming projections is very badly flawed and needs to be exposed to the public. We will see only negligible amounts of CO2 induced global warming in the coming decades. The future temperature changes which do occur will be natural and primarily a result of the changes in the globe's deep ocean circulation patterns of which ocean salinity variations is the primary driver. We can and should do nothing about natural climate change but adjust to it. Economic progress dictates that the US and the world continue with and expands their use of fossil-fuels. Any significant shift to the much more costly wind and solar energy sources should not go forward. Such a shift would greatly lower the US and the world's living standards and do nothing to benefit the globe's climate. This global warming charade cannot long continue. Time and truth are on the side of the warming skeptics.

CURRENT CONDITIONS

Increasing amounts of CO2 gas in the atmosphere over the last 18 years have not caused any increase in mean global surface temperatures. Despite voluminous media and scientific claims to the contrary, the global temperature, global sea ice, severe weather, floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, tornadoes, etc. are not showing any of the changes predicted by the warming alarmists and the many numerical modeling simulations on which most of these warming cd Truth of their CO2 warming assertions was of little importance. What mattered was the degree to which the public could be indoctrinated to believe the threat.

CRUX OF THE FLAWED SCIENCE

(Water-vapor feedback and surface evaporation cooling)

There are many flaws in the global climate models. But the largest flaw is a result of the climate model's inability to realistically deal with the small horizontal scale (and model unresolvable) changes brought about by the globe's thousands of individual deep cumulonimbus (Cb) cloud elements (Figure 1). An increase in the totality of these deep Cb convective units adds drying to the upper troposphere (Figure 2). This is in contrast to the assumptions implicit in the General Climate Model (GCM) simulations which increase upper tropospheric water-vapor as a result of enhanced rainfall and Cb convection associated with rising levels of CO2.

Much more HERE






A Warmist troll unmasked

In the beginning, a British academic with an anonymous political blog that no one read attempted to call anyone who mocked climate model validations using "retrospective predictions" as "ignorant" at the world's most viewed climate website - Watts Up With That. After crying about how the honorable Richard S. Courtney treated him, he went back to whine about it on his political blog. But since no one reads it and seeing how he had become "Addicted to Watt" he needed a new strategy. Using his extensive research education and experience he setup a new WUWT troll blog with the original idea to plagiarize the name of another WUWT troll blog.

On April 13, 2013 and only three days out from his pummeling at WUWT by Mr. Courtney the "Wotts Up With That Blog" was born! Yet, after less than 9 months of intense trolling and having the same dismal impact he did with his left-wing political blog, he changed the name of his troll blog to the oh-so-clever, "...and Then There's Physics".

So who is this anonymous academic blogger?  Meet Ken Rice, a Reader of Astronomy and Public Relations Director at the Institute for Astronomy, within the School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh (UK).

When not trolling WUWT or whining about posting there, Ken enjoys following, "skeptics are like holocaust deniers" Caroline Lucas and the "Gay-shaded author of romantic M/M short stories and novels" Nick Thiwerspoon.

While after only 20 years as a physicist he finally took off the training wheels and published a review paper all by himself, having it accepted on September 3, 2014. Who would have believed his undoing would be linked to such an accomplishment?

Ken also appears highly obsessed with Dr. Richard Tol, likely due to the fact that Dr. Tol has over 16,000 more citations than he does.

For all those banned and trolled by Ken please feel free to contact him, as I am sure he would love to hear from you.

W. Kenneth M. Rice
Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh,
Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, UK EH9 3HJ
Phone : +44 131 6688384
Fax : +44 131 6688416
Email : wkmr@roe.ac.ukM

SOURCE






Wind turbines kill up to 39 million birds a year!

Big Wind hides evidence of turbine bird kills - and gets rewarded. Here's how they do it

In 1984 the California Energy Commission said "many institutional, engineering, environmental and economic issues must be resolved before the industry is secure and its growth can be assured." Though it was not clearly stated, the primary environmental issue alluded to was the extreme hazard that wind turbines posed to raptors.

Since the early 1980s, the industry has known there is no way its propeller-style turbines could ever be safe for raptors. With exposed blade tips spinning in open space at speeds up to 200 mph, it was impossible. Wind developers also knew they would have a public relations nightmare if people ever learned how many eagles are actually being cut in half - or left with a smashed wing, to stumble around for days before dying.

To hide this awful truth, strict wind farm operating guidelines were established - including high security, gag orders in leases and other agreements, and the prevention of accurate, meaningful mortality studies.

For the industry this business plan has succeeded quite well in keeping a lid on the mortality problem. While the public has some understanding that birds are killed by wind turbines, it doesn't have a clue about the real mortality numbers. And the industry gets rewarded with subsidies, and immunity from endangered species and other wildlife laws.

Early studies identified the extent of the problem

To fully grasp the wind turbine mortality problem, one needs to examine the 2004 report from the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA). The study lasted five years (1998-2003), and researchers did not have full access to all the Altamont turbines.

This careful, honest effort analyzed turbine characteristics in relation to mortality and estimated mortality from body counts compiled in careful searches. Researchers then adjusted mortality numbers by examining statistical data based on searcher efficiency and other factors, such as carcass removal by predators and scavengers. The report even suggested that the mortality estimates probably erred on the low side, due to missed carcasses and other human errors.

This study stands in marked contrast to studies being conducted today, especially the Wildlife Reporting Response System that is currently the only analysis happening or permitted at most wind farms. The WRRS is the power companies' own fatality reporting system, and allows paid personnel to collect and count carcasses. It explains why mortality numbers are always on the low side and why many high-profile species are disappearing near turbine installations.

Incredibly, the APWRA report actually admitted: "We found one raptor carcass buried under rocks and another stuffed in a ground squirrel burrow. One operator neglected to inform us when a golden eagle was removed as part of the WRRS. Based on these experiences, it is possible that we missed other carcasses that were removed." (Chap. 3, pg. 52) It's easy to see how human "errors" keep bird mortality low.

The APWRA study also documented that raptor food sources, turbine sizes and turbine placement all directly affect raptor mortality. It was thus able to identify many of the most dangerous turbines or groups of turbines - those with a history of killing golden eagles, kestrels, burrowing owls and red-tailed hawks.

Studies worsen as turbines proliferate and increase in size

The study also discussed how higher raptor mortality occurred when smaller towers were "upgraded" with larger turbines and proportionally longer blades. These wind turbines offered what raptors perceived as intermediate to very big windows of opportunity to fly through what looked like open spaces between towers, but were actually within the space occupied by much longer, rapidly moving rotor blades.

The result was significantly more fatalities of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, burrowing owls, mallards, horned larks and western meadowlarks. Turbines with slower rotations per minute actually made it appear that there was more space and "greater windows of time." This fooled birds, by giving them the illusion that they had open flight space between the rotating blades.

In fact, the illusion fools people, too. The newest turbines move their blades at 10-20 rotations per minute, which appears to be slow - but for their blade tips this translates into 100-200 mph!

All this was very important, because the industry was moving away from smaller turbines and installing much larger turbines, with much longer blades. However, the industry not only ignored the APWRA findings and rapidly installed thousands of these much larger turbines across America, despite their far greater dangers for birds and raptors. It also kept the APWRA out of the public's awareness, and focused attention on new study results that reflected far less accurate (and honest) searches and surveys.

How the wind industry hides raptor mortality

The APWRA report also looked at the placement of carcasses in relation to turbine types. It documented that the distances carcasses were found from turbine towers increased significantly as turbine megawatt ratings and blade lengths increased. Based on sample of about 800 carcasses, the report revealed that birds were found an average of 94 feet (28.5) meters from 100-Kw turbines on towers 81 feet (24.6 meters) high.

Obviously, taller turbines with longer blades and faster blade tip speeds will catapult stricken birds much further. Figure 1 shows how a turbine 2.5 times larger will result in an average carcass distance of 372 feet (113.5 meters) from the tower. The wind industry is acutely aware of this.

That is why it has restricted search areas to 165 feet (50 meters) around its bigger turbines. This ensures that far fewer bodies will be found - and turbine operators will not need to explain away as many carcasses.

Recent mortality studies like those conducted at the Wolfe Island wind project (2.3-MW turbines) and Criterion project in Maryland (2.5-MW turbines) should have used searches 655 feet (200 meters) from turbines, just to find the bulk (75%-85%) of the fatalities. Of course, they did not do so. Instead, they restricted their searches to 165 feet - ensuring that they missed most raptor carcasses, and could issue statements claiming that their turbines were having minimal or "acceptable" effects on bird populations.

*  Exclude certain carcasses. The 2005-2010 WRRS data show that 347 carcasses (primarily raptors) - plus 21 golden eagle carcasses - were excluded from mortality estimates, because industry personnel claimed they were found outside standard search procedures, said the "cause of death was unknown" (even when the birds' heads had been sliced off), or removed carcasses ahead of a scheduled search.

*  Exclude mortally wounded or crippled birds found during searches, even if they display turbine-related injuries. Even though many birds hit by turbine blades die within days, if they are still breathing when found, they are considered mobile - and thus not fatalities.

*  Simply avoid searching near some of the most dangerous and lethal turbines. The industry justifies this exclusion by claiming that "the number of turbines monitored was reduced and spatially balanced for a randomized rolling panel design." That this "reduction and balancing" excluded the most deadly portion of the Altamont facility was presented as coincidental or part of a proper scientific methodology.

The cold reality is that honest, scientific, accurate mortality studies in the Altamont Pass area would result in death tolls that would shock Americans. They would also raise serious questions about wind turbines throughout the United States, especially in major bird habitats like Oregon's Shepherds Flat wind facility and the whooping cranes' migratory corridor from Alberta, Canada, to Texas.

The techniques discussed here help ensure that "monitoring" studies match the facility operators' desired conclusions, and mortality figures are kept at "acceptable" levels.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

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