New article hailed as "proof" of climate change

It does support the notion that CO2 has some effect but how much?  The answer to that lies in the term "incredibly precise" below.  They had to use research instrumentation and methods that could detect incredibly small changes.  And that the effects of CO2 are incredibly small is just what skeptics have been saying!  The work vindicates skeptics, if anything.

Beware of the sentence below "This increase is about ten percent of the trend from all sources of infrared energy".  It does NOT say "This increase is about ten percent of all sources of infrared energy".  Ten percent of a TREND was a tiny amount.

So I am giving this study a big tick.  If I were in a critical mood I might mention that it critically involves the assumption that correlation is causation but I am inclined to be big-souled about that on this occasion

I add the journal abstract below


Scientists have witnessed carbon dioxide trapping heat in the atmosphere above the United States, showing human-made climate change 'in the wild' for the first time.

A new study in the journal Nature demonstrates in real-time field measurements what scientists already knew from basic physics, lab tests, numerous simulations, temperature records and dozens of other climatic indicators.

They say it confirms the science of climate change and the amount of heat-trapping previously blamed on carbon dioxide.  'We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there's more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation,' said Daniel Feldman, a scientist in Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division and lead author of the Nature paper.

'Numerous studies show rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but our study provides the critical link between those concentrations and the addition of energy to the system, or the greenhouse effect,' Feldman adds.  He said no one before had quite looked in the atmosphere for this type of specific proof of climate change.

The scientists used incredibly precise spectroscopic instruments operated by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

These instruments, located at ARM research sites in Oklahoma and Alaska, measure thermal infrared energy that travels down through the atmosphere to the surface.  They can detect the unique spectral signature of infrared energy from CO2.

Other instruments at the two locations detect the unique signatures of phenomena that can also emit infrared energy, such as clouds and water vapor.

The result is two time-series from two very different locations. Each series spans from 2000 to the end of 2010, and includes 3300 measurements from Alaska and 8300 measurements from Oklahoma obtained on a near-daily basis.

Both series showed the same trend: atmospheric CO2 emitted an increasing amount of infrared energy, to the tune of 0.2 Watts per square meter per decade. This increase is about ten percent of the trend from all sources of infrared energy such as clouds and water vapor.

Based on an analysis of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s CarbonTracker system, the scientists linked this upswing in CO2-attributed radiative forcing to fossil fuel emissions and fires.

The measurements also enabled the scientists to detect, for the first time, the influence of photosynthesis on the balance of energy at the surface.

They found that CO2-attributed radiative forcing dipped in the spring as flourishing photosynthetic activity pulled more of the greenhouse gas from the air....

The study is good technical work, said climate scientist Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M University, but it is expected — sort of like confirming gravity with a falling rock.

More HERE

Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010

By D. R. Feldman et al.
 
The climatic impact of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is usually quantified in terms of radiative forcing1, calculated as the difference between estimates of the Earth’s radiation field from pre-industrial and present-day concentrations of these gases. Radiative transfer models calculate that the increase in CO2 since 1750 corresponds to a global annual-mean radiative forcing at the tropopause of 1.82 ± 0.19 W m−2 (ref. 2). However, despite widespread scientific discussion and modelling of the climate impacts of well-mixed greenhouse gases, there is little direct observational evidence of the radiative impact of increasing atmospheric CO2. Here we present observationally based evidence of clear-sky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. The time series of this forcing at the two locations—the Southern Great Plains and the North Slope of Alaska —are derived from Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra3 together with ancillary measurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations4. The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m−2 per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m−2 per decade and ±0.07 W m−2 per decade) and have seasonal ranges of 0.1–0.2 W m−2. This is approximately ten per cent of the trend in downwelling longwave radiation5, 6, 7. These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance.

SOURCE

UPDATE: Rog Tallbloke Has even more fun with the above study than I did.  He points out that in Alaska over the study period, the average temperature actually FELL by four degrees.  So rising CO2 must cause cooling, Right?

Another point I did not mention because I saw no point in beating a dead horse concerns the graph below.  It appeared with the original story.



It shows two nicely matching curves, does it not?  But what are the quantities being graphed?  One is CO2 but the other is NOT temperature.  It is a theoretically derived construct called forcing.  Not so impressive.

Kert Davies, a repetitious Greenpeace hit-man

Boston Globe, New York Times, and Washington Post articles cited Kert Davies’ supposedly damaging documents (screencaptures here, here and here), in an effort to trash skeptic climate scientist Dr Willie Soon.

Funny how none of those publications bothers to mention (hiding appearances of bias, we much?) Davies’ former position as Greenpeace’s Research Director.

Regarding the Washington Post article in particular, the comical aspect of it is how the late WashPo editor Ben Bradlee must be spinning in his grave at the sight of Chris Mooney as its author – Mooney being nothing like the thorough reporters who investigated the Watergate scandal under Bradlee’s command, but is instead apparently too much in love with Ross Gelbspan’s ‘industry-corrupt skeptic climate scientists’ accusation, as I described in my 2011 WUWT guest post. Conspicuous by its absence in Mooney’s WashPo bio is his association with Desmogblog, the anti-skeptic site built around the works of Ross Gelbspan.

But, that’s only part of the silliness. It isn’t simply that Kert Davies is also the source of this ‘breaking’ story for nine different science journals, it is the plain fact that there is nothing new in these reports that wasn’t already seen in older reports on Dr Soon which cited Davies just the same way.

The June 28, 2011 Reuters report about Dr Willie Soon’s “$1 million in funding” had the following quote from Davies:

“A campaign of climate change denial has been waged for over twenty years by Big Oil and Big Coal,” said Kert Davies, a research director at Greenpeace US.

“Scientists like Dr. Soon who take fossil fuel money and pretend to be independent scientists are pawns.”

The UK Guardian’s same-day variation written by John Vidal contained the identical quote from Davies, but Vidal skipped the last sentence in the Reuters article where Dr Soon said he’d gladly accept Greenpeace funding. An internet search of just that date and Dr Soon’s name shows just how far and wide those twin stories were spread.

Want to see a fun circular citation in action? Greenpeace’s own ExxonSecrets web site (created and run by Davies) has a page dedicated to Dr Soon, where it cites the above John Vidal Guardian article as the source to say Dr Soon received a million dollars of ‘big oil’ funding. Who did Vidal cite for that? Greenpeace.

All of that was in the summer of 2011. But back in the summer of 2009 — stop the presses — Kert Davies himself gave us the same ‘breaking news’ about Dr Soon’s funding at the Huffington Post (by default, HuffPo shows Davies current “Director, Climate Investigations Center” title, but rest assured that the Internet Archive for his 2009 article shows his then-current “Research Director for Greenpeace US” title):

"Finally. After years of denying its role in the campaign of climate denial, Exxon has revealed a dirty secret, that it has and likely still is directly funding junk scientists. …

The new Exxon Giving report shows straight pipe funding, in the odd but specific sum of $76,106 to the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, home of Dr. Willie Soon…"

Back in 2007, a giant 176 page official complaint was lodged at Ofcom, (the UK’s communications regulator of broadcasts) about skeptic climate scientists seen in the British video “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, and the complaint went so far as to include its criticism of Dr Soon’s non-speaking contribution to the film, while noting his ‘big oil’ funding. Who did the complaint cite for news of that? Kert Davies. Stop the presses! Breaking news!

However, this blog focuses on the origins of the overall smear of skeptic climate scientists. To see how Kert Davies fits into that, we have to go back about a decade earlier.

Prior to starting at Greenpeace in 2000, Davies worked at Ozone Action, the organization that merged into Greenpeace USA in 2000. Prior to that, he worked at the Environmental Working Group, which produced an undated Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR) report titled “Affiliations of Selected Global Warming Skeptics” (“Greenpeace USA née Ozone Action”’s copy here), which says the following near the end of page 2….

"Willie Soon
Suspected fossil fuel funding – Compensation for services to Western Fuels Assoc. funded project"

… and this on its page 3:

"Organizational affiliations are from CLEARS database, compiled from primary sources and media reports. Additional research assistance provided by Ozone Action.

Funding information primarily compiled from:
Ross Gelbspan, The Heat is On. Perseus Books: Reading, Massachusetts. 1997,1998
Ross Gelbspan, “The Heat is On,” Harpers. December 1995.
Ozone Action, Ties That Blind: Industry Influence on Public Policy and our Environment. March-December, 1996. …"

Pages 4 through 10 at that Greenpeace scan collection is of CLEAR’s November 10, 1998 (one month after Davies began working at Ozone Action) report titled “Western Fuels Association’s Astroturf Empire.” Page 7 paraphrases a section of Ozone Action’s “Ties That Blind” report, having these key words:

"According to documents obtained by environmental group Ozone Action and journalist Ross Gelbspan, ICE messaging strategies included targeting “older, less educated males” … and “younger, lower income women.” ICE’s stated goal was to reposition global warming as theory (not fact).”

My educated guess is that Gelbspan and Ozone Action ‘obtained’ those documents (assuming their statement is accurate) sometime around late 1995, since Gelbspan first mentioned them in a December 1995 radio interview. Who did they ‘obtain’ the documents from? Well, the above CLEAR report mentions the same “older, less educated males”/ “younger, lower income women” seen in Al Gore’s 1992 book. Note how Gore’s 1992 book pre-dates Gelbspan’s 1995 radio interview quote of those same words… yet Gore later prominently said Gelbspan discovered that memo set!

I can at least say Kert Davies had ties with Ozone Action as far back as 1997, since Greenpeace saved a copy (screencapture here) of his July 29, 1997 email from his Environmental Working Group address to a person at Ozone Action.

What is the critical missing element to this 20-year collection of ‘breaking news stories’ about skeptic scientists’ funding? Any scrap of evidence proving the skeptics falsified/fabricated data or conclusions as performance required under a monetary grant or paid employee contract. It’s all guilt-by-association and nothing more.

When gullible news outlets unquestioningly cite people from the same enviro-activist clique every time, failing to realize they could win Pulitzers if they turned the tables on sources of smear material, and when they egregiously allow members of that clique to be labeled as ‘reporters’, this all invites one more “Sharptonism” to be applied to the mainstream media:

SOURCE  (See the original for links)





Dem ‘Witch Hunt’ Forces Scientist Out Of Global Warming Research

An investigation by Democratic lawmakers into the sources of funding for scientists who challenge details of the greater global warming narrative has already forced one scientist to call it quits.

University of Colorado climate scientist Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. has been targeted by Arizona Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, the ranking liberal on the House Natural Resources Committee, for his research challenging the claim that global warming is making weather more extreme.

This investigation, and other attacks, have forced Pielke to stop researching climate issues. He said the “incessant attacks and smears are effective, no doubt, I have already shifted all of my academic work away from climate issues.”

“I am simply not initiating any new research or papers on the topic and I have ring-fenced my slowly diminishing blogging on the subject,” Pielke wrote on his blog.

Pielke is one of seven academics under Grijalva’s investigation for allegedly taking money from the fossil fuels industry in exchange for research. Pielke says he’s never been funded by fossil fuels interests — a fact which Grijalva already knows since Pielke disclosed as much when he testified before Congress.

Grijalva’s investigation into climate scientists who scrutinize conclusions about man-made global warming comes after the New York Times published a piece critical of Harvard-Smithsonian scientist Wei-hock Soon for not disclosing his funding from energy companies in his research.

“Companies with a direct financial interest in climate and air-quality standards are funding environmental research that influences state and federal regulation and shapes public understanding of climate scientists,” Grijalva wrote to the presidents of seven universities housing supposedly skeptical scientists.

So what’s Pielke’s connection to all of this? Grijalva’s staff wrote that Pielke “has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress on climate change and its economic impacts.” One “2013 Senate testimony featured the claim, often repeated, that it is ‘incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.’”

Why is Pielke a target? Because White House science czar John Holdren has “highlighted what he believes were serious misstatements by Prof. Pielke,” according to Grijalva’s letter to the University of Colorado.

“Congressman Grijalva doesn’t have any evidence of any wrongdoing on my part, either ethical or legal, because there is none,” Pielke wrote. “He simply disagrees with the substance of my testimony – which is based on peer-reviewed research funded by the US taxpayer, and which also happens to be the consensus of the IPCC (despite Holdren’s incorrect views).”

Holdren said Pielke’s views were “outside the mainstream.” Pielke presented evidence to the Senate that global warming is not causing weather, like hurricanes and floods, to become more frequent or extreme. Holdren, disagreed, and singled out Pielke in a six page statement saying that global warming was making the weather worse.

The main problem with Holdren’s argument is that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which Holdren himself often defers to — has said the evidence favors Pielke’s argument that weather has not gotten more extreme.

The IPCC says that “[l]ong-term trends in economic disaster losses adjusted for wealth and population increases have not been attributed to climate change, but a role for climate change has not been excluded.”

Pielke’s views have gotten him labelled as a “climate denier” by Grijalva and some in the media. But Pielke does not deny that mankind is causing the world to warm. In fact, Pielke wrote a book calling for a carbon tax and has come out in support of the EPA’s carbon dioxide regulations.

“All of this is public record, so the smears against me must be an intentional effort to delegitimize my academic research,” Pielke wrote.

“When ‘witch hunts’ are deemed legitimate in the context of popular causes, we will have fully turned science into just another arena for the exercise of power politics,” Pielke wrote. “The result is a big loss for both science and politics.”

SOURCE




More Hot Air about Hot Air

If it feels like the Left is preaching climate change, you’re not alone. Even liberals think environmentalism is the new religion. Instead of saving souls, they’re saving trees. From pipelines to polar bears, people have watched liberals elevate – not just nature over God, but nature over man. Secretary of State John Kerry has been using his pulpit for global warming so much that he might as well be leading the EPA.

Ironically, his latest sermon came Friday at the swearing-in of the Ambassador-at Large for Religious Freedom. At an event about international religious liberty, leave it to Kerry to talk about the planet, not the persecuted. In introducing the newly appointed Rabbi David Saperstein, Kerry made sure to squeeze in a completely irrelevant political talking point on the environment.

“[W]e have been allies in trying to awaken the world to the dangers of climate change – and let me just say that when it comes to the fundamental health of Earth, folks, we’d better stick to the Creator’s original plan, because there is no Planet B.”

If anything pulls back the curtain on this administration’s mindset, this is it. While hundreds of thousands of Christians and religious minorities flee their homes, or worse, lose their lives, the chief diplomat of the United States is talking about global warming (on one of the coldest days of the year!). With people being marked for extinction, exactly who is Kerry saving the earth for?

SOURCE





High-Profile Dispute Between Farm, Green Group Yields Property Rights Bill

After clashing with a non-profit land trust over the terms and conditions of a conservation easement that sits on her property, Martha Boneta saw no alternative to litigation.

That’s because the Piedmont Environmental Council, which serves as a co-holder of the easement, had overstepped its authority to the point where it was trespassing across her property without any meaningful oversight, Boneta alleged in an interview with The Daily Signal.

But thanks to new legislation that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is set to sign into law, property owners can ask the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation to step in and mediate disputes with land trusts like the PEC. The idea behind conservation easement is for property owners to receive tax breaks in exchange for agreeing to set aside a portion of their property for conservation.

The Conservation Transparency Act, which has been dubbed Boneta Bill 2, passed in the General Assembly earlier this month.

“Until we had this legislation, there was no transparency, accountability or standards placed on land trusts,” said Boneta, who owns and operates Liberty Farm in Fauquier County, Va. “As a result, groups like the PEC were making decisions acting like prosecutor, judge and jury, leaving the landowner with no alternative to full blown litigation that is costly and time consuming.”

As the Daily Signal has previously reported, Boneta had accused the PEC, a non-profit group based in Warrenton, Va. of colluding with government officials to issue zoning citations against her farm.

The PEC serves as co-holder of the Boneta easement with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, a public agency with a board of trustees that meets at least three times per year to take up easement enforcement and policy matters. The PEC details its side of the dispute in an online post available here.

“The bill creates an overarching authority, which did not exist up until now, for property owners to have their complaints heard and to enter into mediation,” Republican Delegate Brenda Pogge, the lead House sponsor, said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “But it cuts both ways. Land trusts that have complaints and concerns can also seek mediation.”

When she initially introduced The Conservation Transparency Act, Pogge encountered a lot of opposition. But she credits the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation and her colleagues in both parties for coming together to produce a bill that attracted broad, bipartisan support.

McAuliffe has indicated that he will sign the bill into law, which would become effective on July 1. Just last year, the Democratic governor signed off on the first Boneta Bill, which protects farmers against zoning practices that were widely viewed as overly burdensome and intrusive.

“There was real need for sunlight here,” Pogge said. “We need to give an ear and an eye to what was happening. The conservation easement program was supposed to make it easier for farmers to keep their property and to receive tax breaks, but instead this turned into a situation where they could be abused and exploited.”

She added:  “My great hope is that this can keep folks out of court and that any future disputes can be resolved through mediation

SOURCE





Global warming: Australian deserts to expand as tropical circulation changes

Just modelling, which has so far always been wrong

Australia's deserts will expand southward and dry periods will lengthen as global warming alters key tropical circulations, according to new research by US scientists.

The researchers studied how the Hadley Circulation – the movement of warm air and moisture away from the tropics – will be affected if carbon-dioxide emissions continue to rise at the rate of 1 per cent per year.

They found evidence of a so-called "deep-tropics squeeze", in which regions closest to the equator will experience increased convection as air rises faster.

Conversely, the drier sub-tropical regions characterised by descending air and resulting high-pressure systems will expand, according to the research published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Our results provide a physical basis for inferring that greenhouse warming is likey to contribute to the observed prolonged droughts worldwide in recent decades," the paper said.

Existing dry zones in Africa-Eurasia, south-west North America and much of Australia will face increased risk of drought, said William K.M. Lau, of the University of Maryland's Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Centre, and co-author of the paper.

"As inferred from the model projections, the global warming effect on expansion of deserts is likely to be already going on," Dr Lau told Fairfax Media.

The paper found that while some components of the Hadley Circulation will strengthen – resulting in increased rainfall in the deep tropics – ther elements will weaken. These findings will aid the understanding of the overall changes under way, he said.

"Detection of changes in the Hadley Circulation has been attempted by many previous authors, with no clear results whether it has strengthened, weakened or [had] no change," he said.

Steve Turton, a climatologist at James Cook University, said the PNAS paper adds to other research indicating the tropical belt is expanding, such as signs that the location of the maximum intensity of cyclone is shifting poleward.

An intensification of deep tropical rainfall would mean more rainfall for regions to the north of Australia, such as Indonesia, Professor Turton said.

A further expansion of the high-pressure belt, on the other hand, means more rainfall missing mainland Australia, and falling in the Southern Ocean instead. "It spells a pretty grim forecast for Australia," he said.

Rainfall is already on the decrease in southern Australia. Important winter rains over south-western WA have reduced by about a quarter since the 1970s, adding stresses to ecosystems and raising doubts about the prospects for wheat farming in the region, Professor Turton said.

Other regions reliant on monsoonal rains, such as the Indian sub-continent, will also likely see a disruption of rainfall patterns, he said.

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.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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Barack Obama Goes Full Stalin

Because I think it is important, I have "photocopied" the post below from Steve Goddard

The level of Soviet style criminal activity at the White House has reached spectacular new lows. On February 20, The White House sent out this E-mail announcing that they were going to start attacking individual scientists who dissented from the White House global warming agenda.

A few hours later, this E-mail was sent out to a large group of prominent skeptics. The author used a stolen identity of Harvard’s Dr. Willie Soon, and obtained the list of skeptic E-mails via hacking. The E-mail pre-announced an attack by the press on an individual scientist.

Today they sent out another E-mail using Dr. Soon’s stolen identity, pre-announcing newspaper attacks on other prominent skeptics.

This behavior by the White House, coordinated with the press corps, is straight out of the Stalin era Soviet Union.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. The White House adopted Soviet era themes from day one.

Any time the White House starts talking about conspiracy theories, you know they are attempting to cover up something really bad they are doing.

They’re still grasping at myths and conspiracy theories, but deniers are on the run.

The White House is attempting to distract from their disastrous performance in the Middle East and elsewhere. So they are focused on imaginary problems and somehow imagining that engaging in criminal activity will alter scientific fact.

Totalitarian regimes around the planet are currently engaged in attacks on dissidents. Yesterday, Egypt sent blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah to jail for five years for being a dissident. Saudi Arabia also has dissident bloggers jailed.

This is 21st century America. We don’t do inquisitions of heretics any more. Unbelievable that this is going on in the US.
SOURCE






More huffing and puffing about donations to skeptics by business

But no huffing and puffing about donations to Greenies by business?


Rep. Grijalva -- who has a long history with the Communist Party, USA.

Note that the NYT accusations which started this mini-witchhunt had zero in them that was new.  The same accusations were made almost word for word in 2011

A key Democratic lawmaker is seeking an expanded inquiry into whether fossil-fuel companies have been secretly underwriting the research of some of the country’s most prominent scientific skeptics of climate change.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D- Ariz.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, sent requests to seven universities asking for detailed records on the funding sources for affiliated researchers who have opposed the scientific consensus on man-made global warming. Grijalva cited concerns over possible conflicts of interest involving scientists who have sought to influence the public debate on climate.

“Companies with a direct financial interest in climate and air-quality standards are funding environmental research that influences state and federal regulation and shapes public understanding of climate scientists,” Grijalva wrote in letters addressed to the presidents of the seven universities. He asked for copies of the scientists’ financial disclosure forms as well as information about the sources of research grants.

The move follows the release of documents that shed new light on extensive financial links between fossil-fuel interests and prominent skeptic Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, a Cambridge, Mass., aerospace engineer. Soon’s loud dissents on mainstream climate science have made him the champion of global-warming skeptics in Congress and around the country.

Soon, who is affiliated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has for years promoted a controversial view that attributes recent warming not to carbon emissions but to fluctuations in solar intensity. But documents from his institute show that his research was underwritten almost entirely by fossil-fuel interests, including the Koch Foundation and the Southern Co. Soon did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Grijalva said Soon failed to properly disclose Big Oil’s support for his work when he testified to Congress and at the state legislature of Kansas — testimony that downplayed the seriousness of man-made climate change. “My colleagues and I cannot perform our duties if research or testimony provided to us is influenced by undisclosed financial relationships,” Grijalva wrote.

The letters were addressed to the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia Tech, Pepperdine, Arizona State and the universities of Alabama, Colorado and Delaware. Each cited a single affiliated researcher at each institution who has appeared before Congress to question whether man-made carbon pollution is contributing to a dangerous warming of the Earth’s atmosphere. In the Senate, Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey also called for an investigation, saying energy companies should disclose their support for climate research.

Smithsonian officials on Monday’s expressed concern over allegations that Soon failed to disclose sources of funding for his reseach. An internal investigation is underway, said a spokesman, adding that the institution “does not support” Soon’s climate conclusions.

SOURCE





Pachauri steps down over claims he sexually harassed a woman working at his office in Delhi

The head of the UN climate change panel has stepped down amid claims he sexually harassed a woman working at his office in Delhi.

India's Rajendra Pachauri pulled out of a meeting in Kenya this week after Indian police started an investigation into the complaint from a 29-year-old researcher.

The 74-year-old, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2002, has denied the claims against him, according to a court order.

But today Mr Pachauri, who has also suffered cardiac problems, ended his 13 turbulent years in charge after announcing he was stepping down.

It has been reported that the woman claims the alleged harassment included unwanted emails, texts and phone messages.

His second term as IPCC chair had been due to end in October 2015.

In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Mr Pachauri said that his inability to travel to Kenya showed he may be unable to ensure the 'strong leadership and dedication of time and full attention by the chair' needed by the panel.

'I have, therefore, taken the decision to step down from my position as chair of the IPCC some months before completion of my term,' he wrote.

He collected the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC in 2007, when the panel shared the award with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

SOURCE




Eco-warrior who placed home-made stinger devices on the road to take out patrol cars 'to give police taste of their own medicine' is jailed for two years

An eco-warrior who disabled three squad cars rushing to New Year Eve call-outs with homemade 'stingers' wanted to 'give the police a taste of their own medicine'.

Emma Sheppard, 33, of no-fixed-abode, left the lumps of wood, embedded with nails across the road from Emersons Green police station in Bristol.

The homemade devices were hidden inside takeaway boxes and covered with leaves on New Year's Eve last.

Bristol Crown Court heard that three police cars were damaged by the improvised devices as they responded to emergency call outs, destroying four tyres and causing £1,500 worth of damage.

Sheppard, who denied she was an anarchist, later said her actions were in protest at the death of a black teenager in America, police brutality in Greece and cuts to legal aid.

The carer, who admitted one charge of conspiracy to commit criminal damage being reckless as to whether life was endangered, remained emotionless as she was jailed.

Judge Neil Ford QC, the Recorder of Bristol, said that anarchists in the city had caused £20 million of damage to police, commercial buildings and mobile phone providers in the past four years.

'Responsibility in relation to these incidents has been claimed by what have been described as anarchist groups,' the judge told Sheppard.

'I must make it clear from the start that your offending cannot be linked to that course of conduct, although of course this forms a backdrop to the sentencing process in this case.'

The judge said Sheppard had been caught trying to flee the scene by police officers who spotted her acting suspiciously with another person, who has not been identified.

'This is particularly surprising for someone of your intelligence and behaviour.  'You targeted police officers who act to protect members of the public.  'This must be a demonstration to others that behaviour like this will be met with custodial sentences.  'Actions carried out as part of a campaign of deception will be met by very serious punishment.'

Bristol Crown Court heard how Sheppard built the devices in protest at officers using them around the UK and other police incidents.

The judge added: 'You have told the probation service that when you carried out this offence you had in mind a very well covered case in America of the police reaction to a black man.

'You said you had in mind police brutality in Greece and your own experiences with police at protests you had attended.

'What you have failed to take into account is who it is who it is that is there to protect the people who suffer from domestic abuse.

'The people who are there for the victims of serious violence, the people who arrive at emergency road collisions.

Officers called colleagues for back-up and the three police cars accelerated out of the police station at Concorde House, a building on an industrial estate.

The first driver passed over the debris but suffered a slow puncture and lost control of the vehicle as he approached a nearby dual carriageway, the court heard.

The second car immediately suffered two punctured tyres and had to stop, while the third vehicle had one of its tyres punctured by the stinger despite trying to avoid it.

'The devices which had been secreted under the debris were a number of handmade stingers, fashioned from blocks of wood,' the judge said.

'Each contained five large, prominent nails.'

Sheppard was arrested and taken to Keynsham station where officers found takeaway containers, a plastic bag and leaves in her pocket.

Prosecuting, Mark Hollier said officers called for back-up after seeing Sheppard and another person dressed in dark clothing with their faces covered.

He said anarchist groups in Bristol had carried out arson attacks on buildings including North Avon Magistrates Court and at a police centre in Portishead.

Mr Hollier said there was no evidence to link Sheppard to previous offences in the city but he pointed out that the stingers were also aimed against police.

'While it is a matter of fact that no harm was caused to any person the potential is manifest,' Mr Hollier said. 'Three police cars were taken out of action.'

Detective Inspector Andy Bevan of Avon and Somerset Police said: 'We have a long and proud history of facilitating peaceful protest and also supporting people who choose alternative lifestyles.

'We respect their right to lead their lives however they choose and the large majority do so in a safe and law-abiding manner.

'Where protest crosses the line into criminality, we'll take a tough stance in order to keep our communities safe and feeling safe.'

SOURCE





UK: Another clueless Greenie

Britain's Green party has been making some headway in recent months but their leader in a rank amateur

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett admitted she suffered an 'absolutely excruciating' radio interview this morning - after a 'mental brain fade' saw her forget how much a key policy pledge would cost.

In the toe-curling exchange, Miss Bennett was asked how much taxpayers would have to spend to meet the Green Party's pledge to build 500,000 new council houses.

Battling with a cough while failing to come up with an answer, she eventually admitted she did not know, before being handed a piece of paper which said it would cost just £2.7billion.

Miss Bennett insisted this could be funded by hiking taxes on private landlords - but then failed to say how much this would raise either.

The Green leader later claimed she had suffered a 'mental brain fade' and apologised to party activists.

The Australian-born politician had hoped to use a party event today to kickstart the Green campaign for the general election on May 7.  But it has been overshadowed by her embarrassing struggle on live radio to spell out the details of a flagship policy.

As she floundered on LBC, she eventually claimed the 5000,000 homes would cost £60,000 each to build.

She said this meant the Green Party's mass house building programme would cost £6billion a year – not the £2.6billion she originally claimed. Over the course of the Parliament this would work out at £30billion.

Hours later at the party's general election campaign at the Royal Society of Arts in London on Tuesday morning, Miss Bennett was asked whether she was letting her party down with such car-crash performances.

The party's former deputy London mayor Jenny Jones leaped to the leader's defence, saying: 'She's not answering that.'

Miss Bennett thanked her for the intervention, but agreed that the interview had been 'excruciating'. She said that she had struggled due to a 'mind blank'.

She said colleagues had been supportive and insisted the costings of her party's housing policy were 'now in my head'.

Earlier, speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Miss Bennett admitted the Greens would not be able to bring in a 'citizen's income' of £72 for everybody before 2020 - despite unveiling it as flagship policy last month.

She also called for Britain and other Western powers to appease Russian leader Vladimir Putin by letting him 'walk away with something' to end the conflict in Ukraine.

Miss Bennett said the Greens would stick to their pledge to slash defence spending if they are in office, despite the increasing threat from Moscow.

She said the UK must understand that Mr Putin has to be able to show the Russian people that he has won something out of the conflict – 'things that we might not necessarily like'.

The Green leader, who revealed her party now had 54,500 members, also defended the policy of taxing wealth - from property to luxury cars - amid claims it would raise only a fraction of the £45 billion claimed by the party.

Ms Bennett told Today: 'What we are talking about is, we don't want to just tax property, because that excludes about two-thirds of wealth, we also want to tax pension pots, holdings in cash, Ferraris, whatever else it might be.'

WHAT DOES GREEN PARTY LEADER NATALIE BENNETT REALLY STAND FOR?

Immigration

Border controls would be torn up because the 'concept of a British national is irrelevant and outdated,' the party says on its website.  National borders are seen as instruments of oppression: 'Richer regions and communities do not have the right to use migration controls to protect privileges from others.'

Defence

Britain would leave Nato and pursue 'immediate and unconditional nuclear disarmament'.  The Armed Forces would be 'severely reduced in number', personnel would be allowed to join trade unions and would have the 'right to refuse orders on the grounds of conscience'.

Welfare

The party would introduce a 'citizens' income' of £72 a week for everybody – replacing all income tax allowances and benefits. Even the richest would receive the hand out - costing taxpayers was estimated at £280 billion — almost three times the budget for the NHS.

Sex and drugs

The sex industry would be decriminalised and 'sex workers' given workplace rights.

Anti-drugs laws would also be drastically relaxed. 'Possession and cultivation of cannabis would be immediately decriminalised,' while trade in the narcotic would be 'fully legalised, controlled and regulated'.  On other drugs, 'small scale possession for personal use would be decriminalised'.

The Queen and the constitution

They plan to abolish the monarchy, evict the Queen and Prince Philip from Buckingham Palace and put them in a council house.

The same approach would be adopted with other members of the Royal Family, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who would be served with an eviction notice from Kensington Palace.

Tax and economy

New taxes on wealth, 'environmental damage', air travel and 'superstar performances'— dubbed the 'Beyonce Tax' — would be introduced to raise funds for 'local cultural enterprises'.

Private schools would lose their charitable status and be forced to pay corporation tax. Inheritance tax would be extended to cover gifts passed on by benefactors while they are still alive, such as jewellery, furniture or antiques.

Private healthcare would be heavily taxed, and, in place of business rates and council tax, a new land tax would be brought in, based on the annual rental value of land.

SOURCE






Australia:  Lies about wind turbine safety from Leftist public broadcaster

ACOUSTIC expert Steven Cooper is considering launching legal action against the ABC’s Media Watch program for its portrayal of him and his research on the effect of the Pacific Hydro wind turbines on local residents.

On the February 16 edition of Media Watch host Paul Barry dished out a stinging criticism of Mr Cooper’s seven-month study conducted at Cape Bridgewater in southwest Victoria — and the ­reporting of it by The Australian’s environment editor Graham Lloyd and Network Seven’s Today Tonight.

However, in damning the report, the Media Watch team hand- picked a group of pro-turbine ­“experts” — with no real expertise in the field — ignored submissions from genuine acoustic experts, misrepresented Mr Cooper, ­selectively and incorrectly quoted the National Health and Medical Research Council, ignored balancing quotes in the newspaper ­reports and made a number of factual mistakes.

Following his utter disbelief at Media Watch’s misrepresentation, as well as pending legal action, Mr Cooper has also sent a letter to the ABC demanding a retraction.

“Media Watch should be investigating themselves because in that very article they presented so much information that was incorrect and not factual,” Mr Cooper told The Australian.

Media Watch opened its attack on the first paragraph of Lloyd’s January 21 front-page story which states: “People living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints caused by the low-frequency noise generated by turbines, a groundbreaking study has found.”

Barry said: “Well, not according to several eminent scientists we talked to and, remarkably, not according to Steven Cooper, the study’s author, who told Media Watch: ‘No, it’s not correct ... You can’t say that noise affects health from this study’.”

Media Watch’s blatant misrepresentation of Mr Cooper is one of the key reasons for his letter ­demanding a retraction and ­pending legal action.

Media Watch selectively quoted the Cape Bridgewater report author to give the impression he rejected certain things in both the Today Tonight report and The Australian’s article when in fact he does not.

Mr Cooper told The Australian his comments were completely taken out of context by Media Watch.

Mr Cooper said by giving his answer in isolation and not explaining the broader context, Media Watch had deliberately misrepresented the facts.

He said that when you looked at all the evidence — not just his report — Lloyd was completely right in his opening.

What the Cooper study found was that sensations, including sleep disturbance, were occurring with specific wind conditions leading to acoustic results.

So despite Media Watch’s nicely edited and manufactured contradiction between the pair, Mr Cooper actually believes Lloyd “is the best journalist writing about wind turbines in Australia”.

In a written response to The Australian, prior to the Media Watch episode, Mr Cooper said: “The study does shows a link between the operation of the wind farm and the disturbances reported by the residents. There is a trend not a correlation (because there is not enough data and that wasn’t the brief). However, one can take the reports of the residents who form the view there is a link to their health impacts.”

Media Watch next marched out it’s so called experts to the tune of, “So how come The Australian and Today Tonight got it so wrong?”

Today Tonight wasn’t given much of a chance to defend itself against that allegation as it was not contacted for comment by the show. Today Tonight Adelaide producer Graham Archer told The Australian he was disgusted at the way Media Watch conducted itself and the way it misled the public.

“They didn’t contact us and I would have thought that was the very minimum of journalistic ethics to call somebody to at least give them a chance to respond to whatever the allegations were, I thought that was pretty shoddy,’’ he said.

“Media Watch were taking a particular point of view that went beyond a critique of the media and they were actually pushing a particular barrow and I’m not sure that’s their role.”

Media Watch’s first “expert” was the head of medicine at Adelaide University, Professor Gary Wittert, who said: “The way The Australian reported this study was really the antithesis of good science reporting. I think a newspaper like The Australian should know better.”

Mr Cooper, and other properly qualified acoustics experts, have said The Australian’s reporting of the study was correct in every ­respect.

What Media Watch failed to report was that Professor Wittert has repeatedly given expert evidence to court cases stating that the ­nocebo effect rather than infrasound and low-frequency noise are directly causing the reported symptoms but Mr Cooper’s data from his acoustic investigation suggests Professor Wittert’s ­expert opinion is wrong.

Other experts lined up to slam the report included the Australian National University’s Jacqui Hoepner and Will Grant, who wrote about it for The Conversation. Grant has a PhD in politics and Hoepner is a journalist and neither has either acoustic or medical training.

Then came the most damning of them all, Sydney University’s professor of public health, Simon Chapman. Professor Chapman is also neither an acoustician nor a medical practitioner.

Professor Chapman has declined to ever directly investigate or visit people immediately affected by wind turbines and, despite this, is happy to refer to them very publicly on Twitter as “anti-wind farm wing nuts”.

He is, in fact, an expert on cigarette advertising, a sociologist and a vocal advocate for the wind ­industry.

And this is the supposedly unbiased “expert” Media Watch lined up to say: “Scientifically, it’s an absolutely atrocious piece of research and is entirely unpublishable other than on the front page of The Australian.”

When The Australian’s Gerard Henderson wrote to Media Watch to ask why it had chosen Professor Chapman in support of the view that “scientifically” there was no proven causal link between wind farms and illness, Media Watch producer Timothy Latham replied: “I am comfortable quoting a professor of public health on the matter, who has previously written on wind farms and health concerns and has, according to his CV, a PhD in medicine.”

Chapman is not a medical practitioner. He has previous told people his PhD is in sociology. It was on the topic of “Cigarette Advertising As Myth: A Re-Evaluation Of The Relationship Of Advertising To Smoking”.

When Henderson pointed this out to Latham he replied: “I outlined in my previous email as to why I believe Simon Chapman is qualified to talk about health and wind farms. Therefore no correction or clarification is required.”

The opinion of Media Watch’s “experts” is in stark contrast to those actually trained in the field who understand the significance of what the Cooper study found.

The Cooper study has been reviewed by some of the world’s most highly qualified acoustic experts who were quoted by The ­Australian.

Dr Bob Thorne, a psycho-acoustician who is qualified to assess health impacts from noise and is considered an expert witness in court, said in a written statement that the Cooper report was “groundbreaking” and had made a “unique contribution to science”.

US acoustics expert Robert Rand, the principal of US-based Rand Acoustics, said in a peer review of the Cooper study: “The correlation of sensation level to wind turbine signature tone level in the infrasonic and audible bands brings wind turbine acoustics right to the door of medical science.’’

And after the broadcast, in a line-by-line appraisal of The Australian story, Ray Tumney, principal acoustics engineer with RCA Acoustics, told Media Watch every aspect of it was “true and ­accurate”.

This is some of what he said: “None of the above in the Lloyd article is misleading or inaccurate nor is it overly emotive by ­comparison with current media practice.

“So the only reason for Media Watch to take this on is if Media Watch is simply unable to accept the outcomes of the (Cooper) study and presumably believes that the study is flawed and Mr Cooper is incompetent. This was certainly the impression given by the MW presentation.

“I submit that MW is not qualified to make such a judgment in such a complex technical area and has gotten carried away with itself in this instance because of its own paradigms and beliefs. My view is that for whatever reason MW has lost its objectivity in this case.”

But what is particularly alarming about the program was that Media Watch researcher Flint Duxfield deliberately ignored the large pool of positive reviews about Mr Cooper’s study.

The Australian has written evidence Duxfield was made aware of the significance of the Cooper report in direct interviews with Mr Rand, but did not make that information available to Media Watch viewers.

In an email to colleagues following the Media Watch program, Mr Rand said he had told Media Watch that after the Cooper findings: “It would be unethical of me as a member of Institute of Noise Control Engineering to wait for the years required for such careful medical research work to be ­completed. I have sufficient correlation already from the neighbours’ reports and affidavits and the measurements done thus far to inform others for designing properly to be good acoustic neighbours.” Media Watch did not disclose this information.

Media Watch ’s attempt to discredit the study — and prove why it should not have been headline news — was also riddled with ­errors.

Barry attacked the tiny sample — three households and six ­respondents. But in his peer review of the Cooper research, Dr Paul Schomer, director of acoustics standards and chairman of the American delegation to the International Standards Committee, said: “It only takes one example to prove that a broad assertion (that there are no impacts) is not true, and that is the case here.

“One person affected is a lot more than none; the existence of just one cause-and-effect pathway is a lot more than none. The important point here is that something is coming from the wind turbines to affect these people and that something increases or decreases as the power output of the turbine increases or decreases.”

Barry didn’t bother reporting Dr Schomer’s comments or professional qualifications but said there was what scientists call selection bias, because all those people already had health problems which they blamed on Pacific Hydro’s wind farm at Victoria’s Cape Bridgewater, 1.6km or less from their homes.

But the The Australian has written advice from a professor of epidemiology that selection bias was irrelevant when the study design is identical to a prospective case series with a crossover component, where people are their own controls, and what varies is their exposure to operating wind turbines.

Media Watch was advised of this but did not disclose it on air.

Barry said all those involved in the study knew if the wind farm was operating because they could see the blades. Here again he is wrong. Mr Cooper said the subjects could not see the blades — especially when they were inside their homes, in their beds, and woken up from a sleep.

This is at best a pointer to Barry and his team not reading the research and at worse false reporting to make a point. Duxfield has admitted to Mr Cooper he “skimmed” the report.

If misrepresentation, hand-picking evidence, dodgy reporting and industry-invested “experts” with no qualifications were not enough, the less than 10 minute segment was littered the errors.

Media Watch blankly asserted that Mr Cooper’s theories were dismissed by a Senate inquiry into wind farm noise in 2011.

Wrong — Mr Cooper didn’t give evidence in the 2011 inquiry.

He did give evidence to the 2012 inquiry chaired by Doug Cameron which had two dissenting reports.

Media Watch pointed out that Today Tonight and The Australian “also omitted to tell us that, as Professor Chapman puts it, there are 24 high-quality reviews about wind farms and health, and overwhelmingly they have been found to be safe”. Again any thorough research would find this is not true. Many of the reviews Professor Chapman cites state there is not a lot of scientific evidence.

The National Health and Medical Research Council recently reviewed 4000 pieces of literature and found only 13 were suitable for evaluation and said none could be considered high quality. As a result it said the impact of wind turbines on health remained an open scientific question and that it would call for targeted, high quality research. A priority area is low frequency and infrasound.

But to bend the facts even further to its cause, Media Watch then selectively quoted the NHMRC to give wind turbines a clean bill of health.

The program failed to tell viewers the NHMRC position is that the quality of existing research is poor and that it will fund more high-quality research.

The show chose only to say the NHMRC had declared: “There is no consistent evidence that noise from wind turbines ... is associated with self-reported human health effects.” In fact what the NHMRC statement said was “there is currently no consistent evidence that wind farms cause adverse health effects in humans”.

It is a subtle but very important difference and the NHMRC went on to conclude: “Given the poor quality of current evidence and the concern expressed by some members of the community, there is a need for high-quality research into possible health effects of wind farms, particularly within 1500 metres.”

NHMRC chief executive Warwick Anderson, in a conference call with journalists, said: “It is important to say no consistent evidence does not necessarily mean no effect on human health.

“From a scientific perspective I see the question as still open.’’

Media Watch admitted an error with its reporting of the NHMRC statement but “stands by it’s story and the expertise on those quotes”.

The program said the Pacific Hydro Cape Bridgewater wind farm acoustic study was just that, an acoustic study.

In its presentation Media Watch failed to make available relevant and available information that would have allowed viewers to arrive at a conclusion other than one predetermined by it.

It misquoted authorities, bent facts, wheeled out pro-industry experts and hand-picked evidence in a report full of mistakes.

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.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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The final nail in the coffin of the NYT witchhunt against Dr. Willie Soon?

I was one of the earliest writers to respond to the NYT article by hack NYT journalist Justin Gillis in which astrophysicist Willie Soon was accused of writing for hire.  A quite amusing accusation when you realize that Gillis himself was doing exactly that.  As always, you just have to look at what Leftists say about conservatives to see what is true of Leftists  themselves.

An article just up on Anthony Watts' site does I think blow the whole nasty campaign out of the water.  It points out, as I have done, that the money allegedly coming from business to Soon was in fact paid to the Smithsonian so was in no way clandestine and was part of normal academic procedures.  Far from the money being "undeclared" income that the Smithsonian should look into it was in fact money given to the Smithsonian itself.  If they were to investigate anything they would be investigating themselves!

Unlike what I wrote, however, the latest post has dug up the actual contractual documents and posted photocopies on the web for all to see.

Perhaps  most amusing, however is the revelation about what "deliverables" meant.  Gillis found that word very sinister and implied that Soon had contracted to come to a certain conclusion in his writings.  The photocopies show what was really meant and it was in fact perfectly routine and innocuous. See below.







A new effusion from Warmist apparatchik Dana Nuccitelli

Nuccitelli always writes with great confidence but the key to what he is doing is to trace back his sources.  He usually provides links so you can do that.  And what you find is that his sources are always references to the writings of fellow Warmists.  And on occasions when an actual academic journal article is referenced you will find that either Nuccitelli or the academic author has drawn conclusions far in excess of what the data shows. His book is not one I would recommend for purchase

I’ve just had a book published entitled "Climatology versus Pseudoscience: Exposing the Failed Predictions of Global Warming Skeptics".

The book covers a wide range of climate-related topics, starting with a history of some key discoveries in the field of climate science beginning nearly 200 years ago. Along the way it debunks some common climate myths, progressing forward in time to the 1970s, when scientists’ ability to model the global climate began to advance rapidly. It examines the accuracy of a variety of global warming projections, starting with J.S. Sawyer in 1972, through the recent IPCC reports, as well as some predictions by contrarians like Richard Lindzen.

Accountability was one of my prime motivating factors for writing this book. While contrarians often criticize the accuracy of climate models, their projections have actually been quite accurate. Not only were climate scientists and their models correct to project global warming resulting from the increasing greenhouse effect, but they’ve been quite good at projecting the right amount of warming. Climate scientists don’t take nearly as much credit as they should for these accurate projections.

On the flip side of the coin, climate contrarians have predicted anything from minimal warming to rapid global cooling. Their predictions have generally been terribly inaccurate, and yet the same people who have made these wrong predictions are still treated as credible experts by certain segments of the media. It seems as though their history of inaccurate predictions has no effect on their credibility. When scientists with a history of inaccurate predictions are treated with the same credibility as those who have made accurate predictions, that’s a problem.

The book discusses the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming and the details of our 2013 study that was the latest to arrive at that result. It also looks at the scientific evidence that underlies that expert consensus. After all, the consensus itself is just an indicator of the strength of the underlying scientific evidence. Climatology versus Pseudoscience is extensively researched, with over 100 references to peer-reviewed climate studies.

One chapter focuses specifically on some recent scientific research on continued global warming and the causes of the temporary slowdown of surface warming. This is an important topic, because the temporary so-called ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ has been so overblown in the media.

In fact, holding the media accountable for inaccurate and unrepresentative climate coverage was another factor that motivated me to write this book. The less than 3% of contrarian climate scientists like fossil fuel-funded Willie Soon (and worse, contrarian non-experts) have received a disproportionate media coverage. This is why people vastly underestimate the expert consensus on human-caused global warming, and it’s one of the main reasons why people don’t view climate change as an urgent issue. This problem of false balance in climate reporting has even plagued normally reliable media outlets like the BBC and The Telegraph.

Finally, the book considers what our future holds. The more global warming we cause, the more dangerous climate change impacts we’ll trigger. These potentially include widespread species extinctions, crop failures leading to famines, costly loss of coastal property, and so forth. However, the book ends on a note of optimism. There are palatable policy options that could take us a long way toward avoiding the worst climate change impacts while allowing economies to keep growing, and improving air quality and public health as a side benefit.

My hope is that this book will serve as a useful and understandable resource of climate science information, highlight the credibility gap between mainstream climate scientists and contrarians, and show that we have a clear path forward toward minimizing the threats posed by rapid global warming. We just need to choose to take that path.

SOURCE




There should be more billboards like this








It's an Ice Age for Sure

By Alan Caruba

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire.
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate.
To say that for destruction ice Is also great.
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost, American poet.

Robert W. Felix borrowed from the poet Robert Frost for the title of his book, “Not by Fire, But by Ice”, first published in 1997 and devoted to the science of magnetic reversals and the Earth’s ice ages. I read it first in 2010 and was absolutely floored because Felix makes a very strong case for a reversal that would lead to a widespread extinction of life at some point in the future. In the near, more predictable future, he said the Earth was heading into a new ice age.

“What would happen if a magnetic reversal occurred right here?” asked Felix. “The same things that happened in the past. Earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, giant snowstorms, rising land, plummeting sea levels—you name it—tectonic activity would go bonkers.” Don’t believe him? Think about the disappearance of the dinosaurs some 65.5 million years ago.

The Earth had been in a cooling cycle that began in 1996 when the sun entered a cycle of reduced radiation. Such cycles were well known and most dramatically tied to the mini-ice age that occurred between 1300 and 1850. Solar observers had noticed many centuries ago that when there were few sunspots—magnetic storms—on the surface of the Sun, the Earth got colder.

This has become especially dramatic because, on February 17 a post on http://thesiweather.com/category/climate-info/ called for a discussion of the fact that “The Sun has gone quiet again during the weakest solar cycle in more than a century.” The post says, “If history is a guide, it is safe to say that weak solar activity for a prolonged period of time can have a negative impact on global temperatures in the troposphere which is the bottom-most layer of Earth’s atmosphere—and where we all live.”

“There have been two notable historical periods with decades-long episodes of low solar activity. The first is known as the ‘Maunder Minimum’, named after solar astronomer Edward Maunder, and it lasted from 1645 to 1715. The second one is referred to as the ‘Dalton Minimum’, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton and it lasted from 1780 to 1830.” Together they are referred to as the “Little Ice Age.”

There are quite a few scientists forecasting a new ice age. The last ice age began approximately 1.6 million years ago in the Pleistocene epoch. We are currently in the Holocene epoch that began about 11,000 years ago and is regarded as an interglacial period of general warmth.

In his book, “Dark Winter: How the Sun is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell”, John L. Casey, a former White House national space policy advisor, says that whatever warming has occurred has ended as the result of “solar hibernation”, a term he applies to the reduction of energy output of the Sun. The “climate change” that is occurring is a long-term reduction in the Earth’s temperatures with, says Casey, “a high probability of increased earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.”

In “Cold Sun”, another book by Casey, his says that “The most likely outcome from this ‘solar hibernation’ will be widespread global loss of life and social, economic, and political disruption. You must prepare for this life-altering event now!”

In January 2012, Matt Ridley, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, noted that “The entire 10,000-year history of civilization has happened in an unusually warm interlude in the Earth’s recent history. Over the past million years, it has been as warm as this or warmer for less than 10% of the time, during 11 brief episodes known as interglacial periods.”

Those who kept warning of a “global warming” with dire results misinterpreted the climate. Ridley noted that “It’s striking that most inter-glacials begin with an abrupt warming, peak sharply, (and) then begin a gradual descent into cooler conditions.” That is what is occurring now.

None of this has anything to do with carbon dioxide, ozone, or any other element of the Earth’s atmosphere. It is entirely the result of the lower solar radiation of heat.

The United States should be taking steps to ensure a sufficient supply of electricity to cope with the lower temperatures, but has been wasting billions to support “renewable” energy, wind and solar, that is costly and ineffective. The U.S. Energy Department projects that solar power will make up 0.6 percent of total U.S. electricity generation in 2015. Wind power which is funded in part by taxpayer subsidies to stay in business has received $7.3 billion over the past seven years, but produces a minimal amount of electricity to justify its cost.

At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency’s “war on coal” has forced many plants providing electricity to close. A significant disruption of electricity over an extended period of time will cause many deaths due to the cold weather. It is inevitable.

At the same time, instead of providing a source of food, tons of corn are being turned into ethanol in the name of reducing carbon dioxide even though CO2 plays no role whatever in a “global warming” that is not happening.

It’s not just another typical winter. The U.S. and much of the northern hemisphere is experiencing increased cooling that is seen in record-breaking and record-setting new amounts of snow and ice. This is a trend tied to the Sun’s and the Earth’s cooling cycle.

That is of no concern to those who are using “global warming” and “climate change” in order to bring about a transformation in the global economic system from capitalism, the most effective creator of growth and wealth, to socialism, a pathetic, failed system of income redistribution controlled by a central government. Directed out of the United Nations, their absurd claims are supported by the media and many deluded politicians.

Is the U.S. government responding in a sensible way? No. When President Obama speaks of “climate change” he means “global warming.” The result over the past three decades has been the waste of billions for “research” and other schemes tied to this huge hoax.

Real climatologists, meteorologists, and scientists paying attention to both the past and to present events are forecasting more intense and longer winters—for now a Little Ice Age

SOURCE





Companies Benefiting From Energy Department’s Newest Solar Farm Also Recipients of Export-Import Bank Financing

This week, the Obama administration praised the opening of a solar farm in California, which was constructed with the backing of a $1.5 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

But the project’s critics argue it “reeks of cronyism,” and they’re finding themselves in lockstep with opponents of the controversial Export-Import Bank, as the solar farm’s owners are also some of the bank’s biggest beneficiaries.

Earlier this week, The Daily Signal reported on the inauguration of the Desert Sunlight solar farm, which was built with the backing of a taxpayer-funded loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. Three firms—General Electric, NextEra Energy and Sumitomo Corporation—own the solar farm located in California’s Mojave Desert. First Solar, Inc., a Tempe, Ariz.-based firm, developed it.

At the farm’s inauguration, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell praised the project for helping to “move our nation toward a renewable energy future.”

However, opponents criticized the farm’s construction for serving as an engine of cronyism.

“If the Desert Sunlight solar firm is the ‘beginnings of a renewable energy future,’ then the future doesn’t look bright for taxpayers, ratepayers and all Americans who think mega-corporations should make a living by selling their products, not by selling a bill of goods,” The Heritage Foundation’s Mitchell Tu and David Kreutzer wrote for The Daily Signal.

In addition to benefiting from the Department of Energy’s now-defunct 1705 loan program, two of the four firms involved also are significant beneficiaries of funding provided by the Export-Import Bank: General Electric and First Solar.

The Export-Import Bank provides taxpayer-backed loans and loan guarantees to foreign countries and companies for the purchase of U.S. goods. The bank’s charter is set to expire June 30, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are beginning to wade into the debate over whether its life should be extended.

Ex-Im supporters, who include President Obama and moderate Republicans, say the bank creates U.S. jobs and helps small businesses compete in the global market.

“Last year, we financed the shipping of over $27 billion in goods; over $10 billion of that was directly from small businesses, so almost 40 percent came from small businesses, more than from any other category in the mix,” Ex-Im Chairman Fred Hochberg said this week in Iowa.

However, its critics, including House Financial Services Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling and liberal Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida, believe it helps a handful of big businesses. Similar to the Desert Sunlight solar farm, bank opponents also argue it serves as an engine of cronyism and corporate welfare.

According to public data, General Electric has benefited from more than $1.3 billion in taxpayer-backed loans and loan guarantees provided by Ex-Im since 2007. The company is often regarded as one of the biggest beneficiaries of Ex-Im funding, alongside Caterpillar and Boeing.

Similarly, First Solar has benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from the bank.

In 2011, bank officials authorized $573 million to support the company’s projects in India and Canada. Then, in 2012, Ex-Im provided two loans totaling $57.3 million to finance the export of solar panels to India. First Solar manufactured the panels.

“If a company cannot secure financing from the private sector, it should reevaluate its business model. If a company is reliant upon multiple handouts, that is simply unsustainable and reeks of cronyism,” said @DanHoller of Heritage Action for America.

Additionally, First Solar is expected to be one of the green-energy firms that receives loans and loan guarantees through Ex-Im’s $1 billion partnership with India. President Obama announced that the bank would finance the exports during a visit to India last month.

“If a company cannot secure financing from the private sector, it should reevaluate its business model. If a company is reliant upon multiple handouts, that is simply unsustainable and reeks of cronyism,” Dan Holler, spokesman for Heritage Action for America, told The Daily Signal. “It is the type of corporate welfare that no politician can justify.”

Heritage Action, the sister organization of The Heritage Foundation, is one of Ex-Im’s more outspoken opponents.

SOURCE







Name Your Enemy

“If you don’t call it something, you can’t connect the dots,” said Rudy Giuliani talking about ISIS. “If you can’t connect the dots, you can’t really combat it … you can’t have the battle of ideas … If you are going to debate it, you have to call it what it is.” The same can be said about the organized attack on fossil fuel development and use in America. If you don’t acknowledge a battle of ideas exists, you can’t connect the dots, and you can’t really combat it.

It has recently been revealed that Russia is laundering tens of millions of dollars through Bermuda, which the California-based Sea Change Foundation doles out to some of the most prominent and politically active anti-fossil fuel groups such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resource Defense Council. Reports indicate that OPEC countries funded the anti-fracking movies Gasland and Promise Land. Of course, we know that billionaire activist Tom Steyer—with no guile—announced $100 million in the 2014 election cycle for candidates who opposed the Keystone pipeline.

Not only does the anti-fossil movement exist, it is organized and well-funded. It can also resort to extreme tactics—even violent ones known as “civil disobedience.” According to the Huffington Post (HP), the FBI has been looking into activists’ involvement in highway blockades that delayed northbound shipments of equipment to Canada’s oilsands. The report claims that, for example, an FBI agent and a local detective called on Herb Goodwin in Bellingham, WA, telling him: “We’re here to ask whether you’ll answer some questions for us about Deep Green Resistance”—a radical environmental movement that believes the biggest problem with the planet is human civilization itself and calls for “decisive ecological warfare” and “direct attacks against infrastructure.” Despite the possible intimidation, Goodwin says he won’t stop protesting. “He’s among the nearly 100,000 people who have signed a pledge to engage in civil disobedience, should the Obama administration approve the Keystone XL pipeline.”

A week after the HP story was published; Canada’s February 17 Globe and Mail featured this headline: “‘Anti-petroleum’ movement a growing security threat to Canada, RCMP say.” The article references a January 2014 leaked report put together to support Canada’s “strategy to ensure critical infrastructure (CI)” and to “be used to assist in the protection of Canada’s CI.” Amongst the report’s “key findings” are these points:

A growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels;

The anti-petroleum movement focuses on challenging the energy and environmental policies that promote the development of Canada’s vast petroleum resources;

Violent anti-petroleum extremists will continue to engage in criminal activity to promote their anti-petroleum ideology; and

These extremists pose a realistic criminal threat to Canada’s petroleum industry, its workers and assets, and to first responders.

While the above was written about Canada, the same could be said about the anti-petroleum movement in America—but we’ll never see a similar report. As Desmog Canada posted in response to the RCMP document: “The striking thing is that the U.S. has identified climate change as one of the greatest threats to national security, yet here in Stephen Harper’s Canada it is the people trying to stop climate change that are identified as the threat.”

Perhaps ISIS learned from the anti-petroleum movement. The report states: “The use of social media, including the use of live-streaming, provides the anti-petroleum movement the ability to bypass the traditional news media, to control and craft its message, and to promote a one-sided version of the actual events, leading to broadly based anti-petroleum opposition.” And, “the issues within the anti-petroleum movement are complex, divisive, controversial, and polarizing.” Sound familiar?

Obviously, you can find some ideologically driven, violent-extremist factions of the anti-petroleum movement, but you have to question why they do this, to reach what goal.

With Russia and the OPEC countries—which appear to be funding much of the activity—the answer is easy. They want to protect their turf, their market share. The new American energy abundance threatens their dominance—especially as we begin to repeal the crude-oil export ban, which will give our allies a friendly alternative for fuel.

But what about the others?

Each week as I write my weekly column, I call my mother—a former English teacher, a professional speaker, the author of more than forty books—and read her my draft. Early on, she’d repeatedly ask: “Why are they doing this? They are going to ruin America.” I’d have to concede that was the only answer you could conclude—especially for me, who focuses on this every single day.

But then the People’s Climate March took place in New York City and around the country. The marchers carried placards with slogans such as: “Fracking is a crime,” “Capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure,” and “System change, not climate change.” Suddenly, the motives became perfectly clear. Because energy and freedom connect so closely, the anti’s attack fossil fuels first.

We see the fight playing out in the manmade climate-change debate, the anti-coal protests, the efforts to ban fracking, and the Keystone pipeline controversy.

Addressing the Keystone pipeline, Dave Barnett, special representative for the Pipeline and Gas Distribution Department of the United Association, told me that he has sat at the negotiating table across from representatives from the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council—just to name two. He was told: “We know that your Members at the United Association have the proper training to build safe pipelines and it’s not the safety of the pipelines we are really concerned about. It’s building an infrastructure project that will tie us to oil usage for the next 50 years that we oppose.”

Then they went on to say: “It never was about the pipeline, it’s about the use of fossil fuels. Stopping the pipeline was just a way to stop the flow of oil.”

Due to the well-funded and organized anti-petroleum movement, aided by the media, the entire “green” narrative has become so embedded into the collective psyche, it may seem like America as we know it, is on the way to being brought down.

But it is not as dire as it may seem.

First, while vocal, the anti-petroleum movement represents a small percentage of the general population that self-identifies as “strongly liberal.”

Second, they are not as successful as they appear. While they have gotten some fracking/drilling bans passed, for example, state supreme courts continue to overturn those bans. We’ve seen this happen last year in Colorado, last month in New Mexico, and last week in Ohio. We will likely see the same results in Texas, regarding the local ban in Denton.

Undaunted, those opposed to petroleum will now try to get their way by use of ballot measures. The automatic votes will come from the “strongly liberal”—who likely do not read this column. Readers of this column also represent a small percentage of the general population: those who care enough about what happens in America to educate themselves and be engaged in the issues. Most people sit in the middle—unaware and unengaged. But many of them will vote. The messaging they hear will influence who they vote for and how they vote.

Will voters hear the messages of the “strongly liberal” anti-fossil fuel movement—or, that of their educated and engaged friends who think more like they do? We fight in a battle of ideas that we can win.

Each week, I “connect the dots” through this news-based column. By using current news, I offer you talking points that you can use to share with your friends. For example, you can ask: Did you know that:

foreign countries are funding the anti-fossil fuel campaigns of environmentalists?

last week a third state shot down local fracking and/or drilling bans?

the Keystone pipeline has support of the majority of the population, except those who self-identify as “strongly liberal?”

Canada has identified the anti-petroleum movement as a violent threat to its security?

From there, you can share what you’ve learned. Each week I provide links to the research so you can back up your position with facts. This isn’t just a battle for fossil fuels, it is an ideological fight for America that must be turned around.

First, we have to name the enemy. Then, in this battle of ideas, we must commit to reaching out to family members, neighbors, and friends to educate and engage them. In this debate, let’s call it what it is.

SOURCE






Climate change will halve inflow to South Australia's biggest reservoir, Mount Bold, Goyder Institute warns

More baseless prophecy.  The graph below shows that, if anything, rainfall has been INCREASING in recent years



The flow of water into the biggest reservoir in South Australia is expected to halve over the next century, scientists say.

The Goyder Institute has released climate change modelling for South Australia which paints a bleak picture.

The data includes modelling that Mount Bold reservoir, the state's largest water catchment just south of Adelaide, will see a big reduction in inflow.

As a changing climate brings hotter weather and less rainfall by the end of the century, the scientists say the reservoir will be dry at times.

Institute director Michele Akeroyd says the Onkaparinga catchment which feeds Mount Bold reservoir will change significantly in the next few years.

"The worst-case scenario indicates a halving of inflows into the Onkaparinga catchment over the century. That is against the high emissions scenario, and if you look at the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) data, we are actually tracking on that scenario at the moment," she said.

The SA climate change projections are the product of a five-year study. Previous reports took a statewide view, but the latest report details likely effects for various regions.

Goyder report warns:

SA average annual rainfall could decline 7.8 - 17.4 per cent by end of century.

The Goyder Institute said the changing climate would see the Goyder Line move further south.  The Goyder Line is a line drawn across maps of SA to indicate a rainfall boundary beyond which the inland is considered unsuitable for agriculture.  Rainfall north of the line is considered unreliable for cropping and only suitable for grazing.

The Goyder Institute said the modelling's best-case scenario was carbon emissions maintained at current levels. That would still reduce the inflow to Mount Bold reservoir by one-third by the end of the century.

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.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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Massachusetts Democrat Senator goes "ad hominem"

Senator Edward J. Markey has jumped on the bandwagon set in motion by the recent NYT article about Dr Willie Soon.  He's got nothing intelligent to say about climate change so is attacking those who do.  But a debate about persons tells us nothing about the truth or falsehood of what those persons say.  The test of truth its agreement with reality and 18 years of global temperature stasis is a reality that heavily favors the skeptics, not the Warmists.

The fact is that a small minority of skeptics do receive some funding from business.  But pro-Warming organizatons receive much larger sums from business.  For instance early in this century Exxon gave Stanford $100 million and BP gave Princeton $20 million.  So why is funding from business wrong when it goes to skeptics but right when it goes to the Green/Left?  There is no intelligent answer to that question.  It is just tribalism at work

Senator Edward J. Markey is calling on coal and oil companies to reveal whether they are funding scientific climate change studies after his staff reviewed newly obtained documents illuminating the relationship between a researcher for a Cambridge-based institution and energy interests.

The Massachusetts Democrat will send letters to fossil fuel companies, trade organizations, and others with a stake in carbon fuels, aiming to reveal other climate-change-skeptical scientists whose work has been subsidized by those parties, a Markey spokesman said via e-mail.

“For years, fossil fuel interests and front groups have attacked climate scientists and legislation to cut carbon pollution using junk science and debunked arguments,” Markey said in a statement. “The American public deserve an honest debate that isn’t polluted by the best junk science fossil fuel interests can buy. That’s why I will be launching this investigation to see how widespread this denial-for-hire scheme stretches within the anti-climate action cabal.”

The documents reviewed by Markey’s staff were obtained by Greenpeace, the environmental group, through the Freedom of Information Act. They show a relationship between Dr. Willie Soon, a solar researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and several fossil fuel companies who’ve funded his research on climate change. The Cambridge-based center is a joint project of Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution, though Soon is employed by the Smithsonian side. The center has previously said that Soon’s views are his alone and not reflective of the institution.

In 2013, the Boston Globe profiled Soon, who has spent much of the past decade studying the sun’s effect on climate change and downplaying the role of carbon emissions. Some climate scientists and environmental groups have questioned the scientific basis of his work.

Willie Soon, a Harvard-Smithsonian Center astrophysicist, has established himself as a front-line combatant in the partisan crossfire over the climate.

Since 2001, Soon has received more than $1 million in grants from the ExxonMobil Foundation, Southern Company, the Texaco Foundation, the American Petroleum Institute, and other organizations either affiliated with fossil fuel companies or active in undermining carbon’s role in climate change, according to documents that have been previously reported. Soon also is affiliated with the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank known for its conferences on climate change skepticism.

SOURCE





NOAA AND NASA-GISS, ‘You Have Done Enough’

On January 16, 2015, Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein published a story titled “The heat is on; NOAA, NASA say 2014 warmest year on record.” Within days of this publication information was cited that NASA and NOAA data showed 2014 global temperatures weren’t statistically different from the years 2005 and 2010.

Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein wrote a February 19 article titled “U. S. winter has been a tale of two nations” in which NOAA said January 2015 was the second warmest January in history behind 2007.

Further citations of NOAA and NASA-GISS temperatures by Science Writer Borenstein include: “Warming Earth heading for hottest year on record,” “NOAA:  Globe sets 5th hottest-month record of 2014,” and “Global warming makes for hottest June ever.” In response to Seth Borenstein’s December 2, 2014 article “Hotter, weirder:  How climate change has changed Earth,” Paul Homewood wrote the article “Educating Seth Borenstein” which refutes claims of wilder weather, hotter temperatures, rising oceans, and reduced sea ice.

The land surface temperature data used by NOAA and NASA is subject to errors in measurements at temperature stations that were rural 100 years ago and are now in urban areas due to population growth.  This is called the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE) which results in local temperature increase due to accumulations of concrete and asphalt.  A more accurate means of measuring global temperatures is by satellites that map most of the earth’s surface.  The influences of UHIE are small due to urban areas being such a small portion of the earth’s area.

Professors John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama (Huntsville) post global temperature data for the period from December 1979 to present.  Their data is shown as a temperature anomaly which is the difference between measured temperatures and the 30-year average temperature from 1981 to 2010.  The three warmest annual temperatures from 1979 were 0.420 degree C. for 1998, 0.400 for 2010, and 0.275 for 2014.  Over the 204 months that span 1998 to 2014, 50 months were higher than the corresponding month in 2014.  Clearly 2014 was not the warmest year in the period of satellite temperature measurements from 1980 to 2014.

Satellite temperature data for January 2015 was 0.35 degrees C.  Temperatures for 1998 was 0.47, 2007 was 0.42, 2010 was 0.56, and 2013 was 0.51.  Clearly January 2015 was fifth warmest in the 37 years of satellite measurements.

The satellite data shows essentially a pause in global warming since 1998 or a period of 17 years.  During this period atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increased the highest rate (2 parts per million per year) in thousands of years.

One of the sources of surface temperature data is the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) which gives temperature data in the contiguous United States.  Walter Dnes wrote an essay “USHCN Monthly Temperature Adjustments” which gives references  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 that describe in detail monthly adjustments to USHCN data from 1872-to-present.  These adjustments made present temperatures warmer, earlier temperatures cooler, and eliminated the 1930s period of heat waves and droughts.

In the United States there has been no media attention to global temperature adjustments and the population assumes all news reports true.  Reporters take advocacy roles carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels causes global warming.

The United Kingdom has been exceptional in reporting news of bogus temperature data.  British journalist James Delingpole wrote the January 30, 2015 article “FORGET CLIMATEGATE:  THIS ‘GLOBAL WARMING’ SCANDAL IS MUCH BIGGER” which points out the world’s three surface data sources for global temperatures have adjusted their raw data.   The sources are NASA-GISS, NOAA which maintains the dataset known as the Global Historical Climate Network, and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit and Met Office data records known as Hadcrut.   Mr. Delingpole found no satisfactory reasons for temperature adjustments.

The British “The Global Warming Policy Foundation” sends newsletters around the world to inform the public about news regarding global warming and attempts at mitigation.  Its February 9, 2015 newsletter The Biggest Science Scandal Ever refers to three recent publications about adjustments to global temperature data:

The first article is “The Fiddling With Temperature Data Is The Biggest Science Scandal Ever” by Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph, 8 February 2015.  Mr. Booker points out temperature data in the Arctic were adjusted to eliminate warming 75 years ago that caused greater ice melting than seen today.

The second article by Paul Homewood “Temperature Adjustments Transform Arctic Climate History” Not A Lot Of People Know That, 4 February 2015 describes in detail temperature adjustments made to Arctic temperature stations by NASA-GISS.  Almost every temperature measuring station from Greenland in the west to the middle of Siberia in the east was altered to eliminate strong warming in the early 1940s followed by cooling.   This provided NASA-GISS with argumenta global warming takes place today from unprecedented Arctic ice melting.

The third article “Globally Averaged Land Surface Temperatures, 1900-2014 (GHCN) Sea Level Info, 9 February 2015  by Dan Burton describes arguments by Dr. Kevin Cowtan that NOAA’s adjustments are correct are in fact wrong.  Examining Dr. Cowtan’s own data that he claimed inconsequential adjustments showed the warming from 1900 to 2014 was increased by 35 percent.

For another point of view of the controversy over global warming, the Global Warming Policy Foundation published a paper February 10, 2015 by Bernie Lewins “Herbert Lamb and The Transformation Of Climate Science” which re-examined the legacy of the father of British climatology Hubert Lamb (1913-1997).  “After leading and establishing historical climatology during the 1960s, Hubert Lamb became the founding Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU). What is not widely known is that, in contrast to current research directions at CRU, its founding director was an early and vocal climate sceptic.  Against the idea that greenhouse gas emissions were (or would soon be) noticeably warming the planet, Lamb raised objections on many levels. ‘His greatest concern was not so much the lack of science behind the theory,’ Mr. Lewin said, ‘it was how the growing preoccupation with man-made warming was distorting the science.’”

The winter of 2015 is becoming one of the coldest and greatest snow-laden winters in United States history with global warming alarmists still maintaining global warming taking place.  The mainstream media supports this claim.  “Disgraced NBC news anchor Brian Williams said it is “difficult to reconcile in the dead of winter,” when he reported on Jan. 16, the misleading claim that 2014 was the warmest year on record.”

Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein has been the source of NOAA and NASA-GISS temperature data fed to the general public.  In light of adjustments to global temperature data that allowed some reporters to cite 2014 the warmest year in recorded history, it is fitting reporter Seth Borenstein be nominated for the Brian Williams 2015 Award For Accuracy in Science Reporting.

Advocates for energy policies to mitigate non-existent global warming caused by carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels such as President Obama’s Climate Action Plan use global temperature data as the main argument for their actions.   It is senseless to use such questionable data for making decisions that have economic costs of trillions of dollars and lead to lower living standards for those in the United States.  Of possibly even greater consequences are these policies condemn those living in poor countries to perpetual poverty.  It was abundant, cheap fossil fuels of coal, oil, and natural gas that uplifted developed nations from the drudgery, misery, and shortened lifespans of the eighteenth century and earlier.

Perhaps the best response to the falsification of global temperatures is the June 9, 1954 words of attorney Joseph Welch during the 30th day of the McCarthy-Army hearings in which Senator Joseph McCarthy unjustly accused Americans of being dangerous Communists.  Mr. Welch said, “You have done enough.  Have you no sense of decency, Sir?”  Within months of Joseph Welch’s comment, Senator McCarthy was disgraced and ruined.  This hypocrisy of false global temperature data to push the end of fossil fuel use must end.

Congress should hold hearings to determine the veracity of global temperature data. The nation should not waste money having two different agencies collecting global temperature data. NASA-GISS should be eliminated and NASA returned to its mission of studying aeronautics and space exploration.  Those involved with promoting advocacy over science and altering temperature data should suffer consequences.

A hundred years from now, historians will look back on the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and wonder if a universal madness had overcome the planet. The numerous environmental groups, like fleas on a dog, promoting burning fossil fuels caused catastrophic global warming will have some soul-searching explaining to do.  Politicians who succumbed to the same reasoning will suffer a similar fate.

SOURCE





Judge Orders EPA to Stop Clandestine Anti-Mining Collusion

Natural resource industry leaders nationwide shuddered in February 2011 when the Environmental Protection Agency announced its intent to veto the proposed copper, gold and molybdenum-rich Pebble Mine in southwestern Alaska – before the developer even had finished its preliminary design.

Without warning, the EPA had nullified a half-dozen basic laws and seized power to itself without authority.  The shock went viral: “If they can do it to Pebble, they can do it to us.”

It was so stunning that Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, then the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said, “It’s unprecedented—even for the EPA—to attempt to shut down a project before the developer has the opportunity to apply for a permit.”

How could this happen in a nation of laws and due process?

The appalling answer can be found in a 138-page briefing paper Pebble Limited Partners filed last year with its lawsuit against the EPA in the U.S. District Court of Alaska.

The secret behind the EPA’s pre-emptive strike against Pebble Limited Partners was a three-pronged cabal–lavishly funded by left-leaning environmental groups–of environmentalist coalitions, anti-mining scientists and anti-mining assessment consultants who were secretly given illegal access to and power over EPA strategy and decision-making, according to the Pebble group’s brief.

Big Green’s devastating, years-long anti-Pebble campaign was the second-most-expensive environmentalist assault ever, right behind the ongoing war of climate alarmists against climate skeptics. Green forces assumed Pebble was dead.

It is not. In November, U.S. District Court Judge Russel Holland responded to Pebble Limited Partnership’s lawsuit with a preliminary injunction against EPA, ordering the agency to stop its attack. Holland’s ruling does not resolve Pebble Limited Partnership’s complaint that EPA pursued an unlawful, biased and predetermined outcome against it, but it does presume the company could prevail on the merits at trial and gives it time to make its case.

Not only can the Pebble group now obtain documents through the discovery process and question individuals under oath, but the EPA Inspector General’s office also is conducting an investigation into the matter, and several congressional oversight committees have begun to look into it as well.

The EPA is so accustomed to judicial deference that officials couldn’t believe Judge Holland’s ruling. They even sent back a request for clarification, saying, “EPA does not interpret the order as otherwise impacting essentially internal Agency work on this issue, including work related to public comment review or internal deliberations.”

Judge Holland clarified his ruling. The EPA, he said,  is barred from any activity whatsoever to advance its work on the Pebble issue. Period.

Pebble Limited Partners’ all-out counterattack against EPA is highly unusual. Most industries treat regulators with great caution for fear the agency will strike back on subsequent projects.

Pebble CEO Tom Collier told The Daily Signal, “We’re pushing back pretty hard; it’s true. We’re a single-asset company, unlike most under EPA regulation, which have many projects to protect. We’re preparing pointed depositions of some very powerful regulators during the discovery process, something that most could not risk. We will gain access to emails, meeting records and documents that EPA either refused to produce or redacted so completely that all vital information was hidden. The next six months will be interesting times for the EPA and everybody involved.”

Those involved with EPA include not only government officials, but also a number of anti-mine cohorts, according to Pebble Limited Partnership’s brief.

An “anti-mine Coalition” is alleged to have “secretly advised EPA on how the Agency should develop its strategy, made critical recommendations on who EPA officials should recruit, how the Agency could best leverage the Alaska Native Tribes, and how to formulate EPA’s messaging in a way that would minimize anti-federal government backlash among Alaskans,” the brief states.

This coalition, according to the brief, included Trout Unlimited, the Center for Science in Public Participation, The Nature Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation, The Wilderness Society, the Alaska Conservation Foundation and five other groups. The activism of these groups in various anti-Pebble campaigns is confirmed in numerous news stories and IRS grant reports.“ Anti-Mine Scientists” are alleged to have “provided EPA with the tailor-made ‘science’ that the Agency was seeking and meshed with EPA’s predetermined conclusions about the allegedly adverse impact of mining activities.” The brief names 18 scientists, some from major universities.

The “Anti-Mine Assessment Team” allegedly included “individuals who are not employed by the federal government, who provided advice and recommendations to EPA, developed the direction of the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment, and contributed to, and drafted, the Assessment and its Appendices.” The Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment is the document EPA used to justify its pre-emptive veto of Pebble mine. The brief identified 15 individual team members by name.

“Billionaire Club” donors drove much of the coalition with large prescriptive grants. The private foundation of Intel magnate Gordon Moore gave $1.1 million to the Alaska Conservation Foundation for “Pebble mine campaign coordination,” and $833,000 to The Nature Conservancy for “Pebble mine science and risk assessment” – ironic for a firm whose livelihood depends on massive use of copper.

The private foundation of electronics billionaire William Hewlitt gave $150,000 to Trout Unlimited for “prevention of development of Pebble Mine.” The private foundation of the jewelry company Tiffany’s gave $200,000 to The Nature Conservancy and $100,000 to the Alaska Conservation Foundation to kill Pebble, according to IRS Form 990PF reports.

Even in the preliminary study phase, Pebble provided well-paying jobs for the nearby Alaskan Native village of Iliamna. As a result, the median income for a family was $61,250, no families lived below the poverty line and there was no measurable crime rate, unlike most Southwest Alaska fishing towns.

Abe Williams, president of Anchorage-based Nuna Resources, an Alaskan Native organization that supports economic development and boasts 200 associate members, said the EPA’s actions have been devastating

“The people of the entire Iliamna area have seen a massive decline of economic activity and the loss of jobs as the EPA worked collusively with special interests to kill the Pebble project,” Williams told The Daily Signal. “This has left much uncertainty for our hopes to build sustainable economies. We have asked the EPA over and over for a fair and balanced process, but I’m very skeptical about the EPA and its ability to achieve fairness here.”

Tom Collier’s bold leadership of Pebble Limited Partnership’s fight for fairness has given Williams and many workers in Southwest Alaska at least a flicker of hope. Now it’s up to the federal courts.

SOURCE





The climate con goes on

Climate Chaos, Inc. and media allies ban news and books on climate realism

Paul Driessen

Some 200 nations may sign a “modest” Kyoto II climate treaty, say December 2014 media reports from Lima, Peru. But will developing nations agree to stop using coal to generate electricity? No. Curtail economic growth? No. Cease emitting carbon dioxide? Maybe, but only a little, sometime in the future, when it is more convenient to do so, without binding commitments. Then why would they sign a treaty?

Primarily because they expect to get free energy technology transfers, and billions of dollars a year in climate “mitigation, adaptation and reparation” money from Western nations that they blame (and which blame themselves) for the “dangerous climate change,” rising seas and “extreme weather” that they claim are “unprecedented” and due to carbon dioxide emissions during the 150 years since the Industrial Revolution began. These FRCs (Formerly Rich Countries) have implemented low-carbon energy policies and penalties that have strangled their economies, dramatically increased energy prices and killed millions of jobs. But now poor developing countries demand that they also transfer $100 billion per year, for decades (with most of that probably going to their governing elites’ Swiss banks accounts).

Where is this likely taking us? President Obama has long promised to “fundamentally transform” the U.S. economy and ensure that electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.” His edicts are doing precisely that. And now Christiana Figueres, the UN’s chief climate change official, has declared that her unelected bureaucrats are undertaking “probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the [global] economic development model.” [emphasis added] Her incredible admission underscores what another high-ranking IPCC official said several years ago: “Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection. The next world climate summit is actually an economy summit, during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.”

Why would any sane families or nations consign their fates to such insane, perverse arrangements? The arrangements are being imposed on them, through force, fabrication and fraud.

Poor, middle and working class families will get little but more layoffs, further reductions in living standards and longer postponement of dreams. But meanwhile Climate Chaos, Inc. (Big Green, Big Government, alarmist scientists, crony corporatist “green” energy companies, and allied universities and scientific groups) will become richer, gain more control over our lives and livelihoods, and rarely be held accountable for the damage they cause. Retracting their “dangerous manmade climate change” tautologies would endanger their money, power and reputations.

That’s why their hypotheses, assertions, intentions and computer models always trump reality. It’s why they are increasingly vicious and relentless in vilifying realist scientists like Willie Soon who challenge their “97% consensus” and “manmade climate catastrophe” mantras – and in demanding that the news media ignore experts and analyses that do not toe the Climate Chaos line. They denigrate realists as “climate deniers” (deliberately suggesting Holocaust denial) and “oil industry shills” (while hiding their own suspect ethics, data “adjustments,” and Big Green billion-dollar Russian and other funding sources).

Realists get precious little (or no) oil money and constantly underscore the role of climate change throughout Earth and human history. What we contest is the notion that climate and weather fluctuations today are manmade, unprecedented and dangerous. Alarmists deny that Earth’s climate is often in flux, solar and other natural forces drive weather and climate, and atmospheric carbon dioxide plays only a minimal role. Real-world evidence demolishes virtually every alarmist claim.

The climate reality record is presented in a readable, thought-provoking new book, About Face: Why the world needs more CO2; The failed science of global warming, by late U.S. economist Arthur Hughes, Australian geologist Cliff Ollier and Canadian meteorologist Madhav Khandekar. Sea level is rising at only1.5 mm per year now (six inches per century), they note, and there is zero evidence that the rate is escalating or that coastal communities are at risk. Nor is “ocean acidification” a legitimate problem.

Alarmists use it to replace other disproven scares with a new panic. Earth’s oceans have never been acidic. They are mildly alkaline. Their enormous volumes of water cannot become acidic – that is, plummet from an 8.2 pH level 150 years ago and their current 8.1 pH into the acidic realm of 7.0 or lower, due to the tiny amount of atmospheric CO2 attributable to fossil fuel use, in less than five centuries, experts explain.

The tiny effect of rising CO2 levels on climate contrasts sharply with their enormous benefits to plant growth and agriculture. Not only is more CO2 “greening” deserts, forests and grasslands; it is increasing grain and food yields worldwide, and helping people in developing nations live longer, healthier lives.

Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are not in danger of collapsing, the About Face authors demonstrate; in fact, they are growing. Similarly, contrary to another scare, extreme weather events are not increasing.

No Category 3-5 hurricane has struck the United States for a record nine years, and Earth’s temperature has not budged for 18 years. Claims that 2014 was “the hottest year on record” are based on airport and urban measurements that are higher than rural locations and are always “adjusted” upward, with year-to-year differences expressed in hundredths of a degree. Outside those areas, for most of the world – the 70% of Earth’s surface that is oceans and 85% of land area that is mountains, deserts, grasslands, tundra, and boreal or tropical rain forests – practically no data exist. So NASA and other alarmists falsely extrapolate from their manipulated urban data to fill in massive gaps for the other 95% of the Earth.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Northeast is suffering through record snows and its lowest winter temperatures in decades, and America’s East Coast air has been 25-30 degrees F below normal. England’s winter death rate is almost one-third higher than normal: nearly 29,000 deaths in a two-week period in January 2015, largely because people can no longer afford to heat their homes properly, due to UK climate policies.

What’s really going on? Our sun “has gone quiet again, during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century,” dating back to 1906, says Vencore weather analyst Paul Dorian.

Alarmists don’t want to talk about that – or about what is happening in Asia. BP’s Energy Outlook 2035 report forecasts that China’s oil, natural gas and coal use will increase by some 50% and its carbon dioxide emissions by 37% over the next 20 years. India’s energy production will soar 117% – with fossil fuels accounting for 87% of all demand in 2035. Its CO2 emissions will also skyrocket. So even if the USA and EU eliminated fossil fuels, atmospheric carbon dioxide would continue to climb.

Climate alarmists want the newspaper and television media to ignore this information and the “skeptics” who might present it. Bill Nye “the science guy” recently asked MSNBC to link all weather events to climate change. “Just say the words climate change” when you talk about this winter’s cold and snow,” he begged. A new study shows how widespread these repulsive practices have become.

Quoting one journalist, a George Mason University analysis found that U.S. media outlets “pretty much” agree that climate change “is real, it’s happening, and we’re responsible. That debate is over.” As a result, “critics are no longer being interviewed,” the study said. In the view of “mainstream” media outlets, seeking or presenting both sides on the climate issue is a “false balance.” At least one news organization now has an explicit editorial policy “discouraging reporters from quoting climate change deniers in environment or science coverage,” the Washington Examiner noted.

Media reputations are at stake. They’ve been in bed so long with the Climate Chaos complex that acknowledging the critical role of natural forces, the expertise of climate realists, the debate that still rages, or the Grand Canyon between climate crisis claims and real-world evidence would destroy what little credibility the media still has. It would also start the collapse of the Climate Chaos house of cards.

But the real stakes are much higher. They are the businesses, jobs, families, living standards and liberties that will be increasingly threatened if President Obama, EPA, Big Green and the United Nations remain free to impose their climate and energy agenda. Responsible governors, state legislators and members of Congress must get involved, block these actions, and roll back the destructive policies.

Via email




'World's Largest' Solar Panel Business Collapses

by Dr Klaus L.E. Kaiser

The solar photo-voltaic (PV) industry has another victim: Q-CELLS plant in Thalheim, Germany. As of March 1, 2015, the plant will cease production altogether and will only be selling PV panels made in Malaysia, 550 of its previous workforce of 800 will be laid off. Not that long ago, in 2007, the company had a workforce of 1700 and claimed to be the world’s largest producer of PV panels.

The Super-Greens just can’t win. Wind-power by turbine, PV panel manufacturers, ocean wave power device builders and the like have fallen off the renewable energy-cliff, one by one. What’s happening? Were they not supposed to rescue the world from Al Gore’s prophecies of doom and gloom, runaway overheating of the earth from a few parts per million of anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air? Hasn’t the ice cap in the Antarctic disappeared yet? Are there still any polar bears left in the Arctic? If so, why haven’t they drowned yet?

I’m sure you could add more questions to those above. The list of evil effects ascribed to “climate-change-causing-CO2,” and other demons is getting longer each day and it’s getting hard to keep track of them all.

Grand View

You really need to step back and look at things from the right perspective in order to get to the Grand View. Not only has the earth’s climate changed continuously for about 4,000,000,000 years, just because earliest mankind arrived some 200,000 years ago and civilization of any sort perhaps 5,000 years ago, it does not mean that the earth’s climate has given up changing; far from it. Of the immense ice shields covering the northern parts of North America, Europe, and Asia, not much is left.

Most of that land that was covered mile high in ice is now taiga, tundra, or boreal forest. There is no evidence whatsoever that our stone-age ancestors’ fires in some caves in the Pyrenees or elsewhere had anything to do with that. It was a natural phenomenon produced by the sun’s radiation and the earth’s movement in that interplanetary space. Therefore, there is no reason to suspect that in the future things will be any different; nature is going to keep “all options on the table,” all the time.

Nature’s Options

Just don’t be lulled into thinking that the current “climate change” will continue in the same direction as before, forever. In fact, there are many indications that the warming period of the 1970s to early 1990s has already come to an end—-perhaps rather soon and too fast. One, if not the major influence on earth’s climate are the sunspots. In rough terms, the more there are, the warmer it is on the globe. Guess what: the number of sunspots is hitting a one-hundred year low, right now; as of Feb. 18, 2015, there is just one sunspot left. Not that the event was entirely unexpected, most people familiar with the cyclical nature of sunspot abundance had predicted it for a while. However, I surmise, even some of them are a bit surprised about their rapid decline experienced currently.

Sunspot Cycles

The current 11-year sunspot cycle we are in (cycle 24 since the mid 1600’s), had been expected by many observers to show comparatively low activity, though presumably not quite as low as currently seen. Why is that of concern, you might ask?

Over the last few hundred years, ever since the sunspots were continuously observed and recorded in our history, there were two prolonged periods of low sunspot numbers. They coincided with temperature extremes known as the “Maunder Minimum” lasting from around 1645 to 1715 and the “Dalton Minimum” from about 1790 to 1830.

During both of these periods of low sunspot numbers, the northern hemisphere experienced well below normal temperatures. They did not just result in severe colds during the winters but also in shorter summers with crop failures and subsequent starvation by many of the (then much fewer) people in this region. Such times could reappear much faster than thought, especially with that many more mouths to feed on the globe.

If there is any hope to prevent a future starvation catastrophe at all, it must be in the form of much higher agricultural yields than available from traditional seeds and traditional farming methods. So-called organic farming, using traditional plant varieties, without any, or with only very limited fertilization with vital nutrients like phosphorus-, nitrogen, and -potassium supplements can no longer provide all the food required. That is, even if there is no sunspot cycle cataclysm. So, where are we now?

February 2015

While President Obama stated in his recent State of the Union address that “2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record”, apart from the fact that this claim has widely been disputed, even if it were true, you wouldn’t know it from the cold currently gripping this continent. The five Great Lakes, comprising a surface of area of 90,000 square miles are just about frozen over, for the second winter in a row. At the moment, the Lake Superior, L. Huron, and L. Erie are completely frozen over and Lakes Michigan and Ontario partially. That certainly does not happen every winter.

Perhaps some of the polar bears from the (hot) Arctic may show up here soon, just to cool off.

SOURCE




Flashback to 2007

In February 2007 an article by Jay Austin (Assistant Professor, Large Lakes Observatory/ Department of Physics, University of Minnesota, Duluth) appeared in various media which was headed: "Rapid warming of Lake Superior".  Some excerpts:

Lake Superior is Changing. Fast. Lakes like Superior appear to be responding more quickly to climate change than we previously suspected. Our current hypothesis as to why this is occurring has to do with the simultaneous decline in the amount of ice found on these lakes...

This research has recently been accepted for publication at Geophyiscal Research Letters, and was performed by myself and my colleague Steve Colman....

To conclude, summer temperatures in Lake Superior (and Huron and Michigan, by the way) are increasing due to two separate but related trends: summer air temperatures are increasing, and winter ice cover is decreasing. Both of these effects add to produce the observed response of around a degree C per decade increase in Lake Superior water temperatures.

SOURCE. The "rapid warming" didn't go on for long, did it?

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