Warmists promoting skeptics again

There's no such thing as bad publicity.  Some excerpts from a film review below that give Marc Morano a good plug

"Merchants of Doubt," directed by Robert Kenner, focuses on corporate spin doctors such as those who deny the existence of human-made climate change. (Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)
In Washington, everyone’s always pushing something.

There’s Robert Kenner, sitting in the private banquet room of a Georgetown hotel, in front of a poster for his new documentary, “Merchants of Doubt,” which he has come to town, he says, to “sell.” That choice of words is fitting. Kenner’s movie — a follow-up to the filmmaker’s acclaimed, Oscar-nominated “Food, Inc.” — is all about marketing.

The germ of Kenner’s latest project, a simultaneously entertaining and inciting exposé of professional charlatanism — practiced, most saliently, by those hired to make the case that global warming isn’t real, or at least that there is no scientific consensus on it — sprouted in the director’s head during the making of “Food, Inc.”

Kenner, 65, does admire people such as Marc Morano, a professional climate-change denier and founder of the Climate Depot Web site who is, arguably, the star of Kenner’s film. After a stint in the 1990s reporting for Rush Limbaugh, Morano worked briefly as a flack for Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who famously called global warming a “hoax.”

These days, Morano most often pops up on TV shows arguing against the science of climate change. In front of Kenner’s camera, Morano makes for a jocular — and weirdly unapologetic — advocate for what can only be called ignorance.

“I’m not a scientist,” he jokes, flashing a huge, telegenic grin, “but I play one on TV.”

He also plays dirty. In “Doubt,” Morano recounts with glee how he has published the e-mail addresses of climate scientists, subjecting them to intimidation and flaming attacks from anonymous critics. (Several of the abusive e-mails are read aloud in the film by their recipients, in an evocation of Jimmy Kimmel’s “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” segments.) It makes for a semi-serious tone that masks Kenner’s more sobering message: We’re routinely being lied to, by people who are darn good at it.

But Kenner doesn’t care that other global-warming deniers are unlikely to buy a ticket to his film, let alone be converted by it.

He is optimistic that the last vestiges of climate resistance will one day be swept away, likening it to the sea change that has occurred over the past several years in popular attitudes about same-sex marriage and other once-contentious issues.

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'A Radical Change in Climate Conditions'



Now that meteorological winter 2014-2015 is in the books (though the season isn’t formally recognized as ended until the Spring Equinox on March 20), anti-fossil fuel gurus are warning that, despite frigid cold spells over the Eastern United States, overall it was the 19th warmest on record. “Averaged together,” weather.com reported, “temperatures across the country this winter were 2.1 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th-century mean, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.”

Moreover, based on measurements from the National Snow & Ice Data Center, seasonal ice buildup in the Arctic is on pace to set a new record low. So it’s officially time to freak out, right? Well, no. Before you start preparing for The Great Climate Apocalypse, consider this:

“The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

"Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

"Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.”

That sounds awfully familiar because that’s exactly what alarmists are clamoring about today. Only the excerpt is from an article published by the Associated Press on Nov. 2 … 1922. Nearly a century later, it still appears the climate is, well, repetitious. As are propagandists on a mission.

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"The Guardian" is properly cautious for once

They use words which admit that it is all speculation

Russian scientists have now discovered seven giant craters in remote Siberia, a geologist told AFP on Thursday, adding that the mysterious phenomenon was believed to be linked to climate change.

The discovery of an enormous chasm in a far northern region known to locals as “the end of the world” in July last year prompted speculation it had been caused by a meteorite or even aliens.

A YouTube video of the hole went viral and a group of scientists was dispatched to investigate.

“We have just learnt that in Yakutia, new information has emerged about a giant crater 1km [0.6 miles] in diameter,” the deputy director of the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vasily Bogoyavlensky, told AFP.

He said this brought to seven the number of reported pits.  “Footage allows us to identify minimum seven craters, but in fact there are plenty more,” he said.

All of the craters have been discovered in the remote, energy-rich Yamalo-Nenetsky region in north-western Siberia.

Scientists say that rather than aliens or meteorites, the holes are caused by the melting of underground ice in the permafrost, which has possibly been sped up by rising temperatures due to global warming.

“The phenomenon is similar to the eruption of a volcano,” said Bogoyavlensky.  As the ice melts, methane gas is released, which builds up pressure until an explosion takes place, leading to the formation of a crater.

The scientists are still trying to estimate what danger, if any, is posed by the holes. Methane is extremely flammable and at least one of the craters is situated near an exploited gas deposit.

An expedition is planned to the latest crater discovered to determine if it was formed in the same manner.

It may be hard to identify other craters which may have formed into lakes over time, said Bogoyavlensky.

“When they appear the craters are empty, and little by little they fill up with water. In the space of two or three years they become lakes and it is difficult to study them.”

He said some may have formed dozens or hundreds of years ago, but went unnoticed in such remote regions.

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Equatorial Glaciers show what drives the climate on earth. It is not CO2. It is the water cycle

Written by Dr Klaus L.E.

Think equator, the place on earth where each day has 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night, no winter or summer seasons, just a tropical paradise on earth. Except for the higher elevations, where there are glaciers. Yes, real natural ice right there on the ground courtesy of Mother Nature. furtwangler glacier

Let’s look at the glaciers near the earth’s equator and you’ll find some on each continent that straddles the equator, i.e. Asia, Africa, and South America. They are:

    Carstensz Glacier, near the peak of Puncak Jaya, Indonesia, island of New Guinea;04°05’S, 137°11’E; elevation ~4,700 m.

    Furtwängler Glacier (Mt. Kilimanjaro), Tanzania, Africa; 03°04.3’S, 37°21’E; elev. ~5,700 m.

    Cayambe Glacier, Ecuador, South America; 0°00’N, 78°00’W; elevation ~5,000 m.

If you want to find them on Google Earth, just copy the bold coordinates (e.g., 04°05’S, 137°11’E) into the search field and it will take you right there. The screenshot (above) is taken from the satellite imagery of the Furtwängler Glacier, as available on Google Earth on Feb. 26, 2015. The information on the bottom of the image (not shown) says “Image © 2015 Digital Globe.”

Of course, climate alarmist prophecies predicted the Furtwängler Glacier to have long disappeared by now. After all, according to Wikipedia, its size was only six hectares in the year 2000. Surely, the additional umpteen ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere since then should have made it disappear entirely by now. What’s the hold-up?

Then there are more glaciers on Mt. Kilimanjaro too, like the Rebmann Glacier on the opposite side of the mountain and even larger than the Furtwängler Glacier . You can visit them all, guided tour packages are available from several outfits, like http://www.climbmountkilimanjaro.com/about-the-mountain/glaciers/ and https://www.gadventures.com.

Perhaps you are wondering why there are any glaciers near the equator to begin with? Isn’t it all tropical paradise with shimmering white-sand beaches and some steaming jungle interiors? Obviously, the answer is NO and the reason is the third dimension.

The Third Dimension

That’s the height or elevation above sea level and it is much more critical than the latitude of your position on the globe. If you have flown in a modern airplane you’ll probably know what I mean. The little flat screen in front of you allows you to not just to watch movies but check up on your current location and the outside temperature. At typical cruising altitudes of 35,000 ft. (11 km) the temperature is around MINUS 40 F (-40 C). It does not matter whether it’s hot or cold at sea level, at an elevation of 5 km or so the temperature is around freezing and it decreases rapidly the higher you go.

Therefore, you are not likely to see much liquid water at those elevations. It is either frozen or invisible vapor and seasonal shrinkage of such high altitude glaciers and snowfields is by sublimation, the process of direct change from the solid to the vapor state. However, this process is not restricted to high altitudes.

You can observe it just as well in low elevation areas that have snow cover in late winter or early spring when the air temperature is still well below freezing. Then the vapor pressure of the “water” molecules in the snow is greater than that in the air and causes the snow to volatilize directly without prior melting.

Even so, there is a large amount of energy required to volatilize the ice. That energy comes from the sun via radiation, from the air and the remaining water, ice, or snow. How much energy? Let’s do a simple calculation of the water cycle.

Water Cycle

Worldwide, the energy flux between solid or liquid water and its vapor is gigantic.

You can get an idea of that from the total world river flow, estimated to 1,000,000 cubic meter (m^3) each second; the Amazon River alone has a flow of 200,000 m^3/s. That adds up to 3x10^13 m^3 per year, or 30,000 cubic kilometer (km^3) per year. Add to that the amount of rainfall on the ocean surface and the amount evaporated from the land surface and the number is more like 100,000 km^3 or 25,000 cubic miles of water that gets evaporated in a year.

Now you know what drives the climate on earth. It is not CO2. It is the water cycle.

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Global Temperature Trends From 2500 B.C. To 2040 A.D.

Written by Climatologist Cliff Harris and Meteorologist Randy Mann



Recent global climate variation is entirely within natural cyclical variation, cooling trend now underway and is likely to continue to 2030's, according to best data.

Until the early to mid 2000s, global temperatures were more than a degree Fahrenheit warmer when compared to the overall 20th Century mean. From August of 2007 through February of 2008, the Earth’s mean reading dropped to near the 200-year average temperature of 57 degrees.global temps 2500bc to present

Since that time, the mean reading has been fluctuating. But, the recently expired winter of 2013-14 was the coldest and snowiest in modern times in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including the U.S., Canada and Japan.

We, Cliff Harris and Randy Mann, believe that the warming and even the cooling of global temperatures are the result of long-term climatic cycles, solar activity, sea-surface temperature patterns and more. However, Mankind’s activities of the burning of fossil fuels, massive deforestations, the replacing of grassy surfaces with asphalt and concrete, the ‘Urban Heat Island Effect,’ are making conditions ‘worse’ and this will ultimately enhance the Earth’s warming process down the meteorological roadway in the next several decades.

From the late 1940s through the early 1970s, a climate research organization called the Weather Science Foundation of Crystal Lake, Illinois, determined that the planet’s warm, cold, wet and dry periods were the result of alternating short-term and long-term climatic cycles. These researchers and scientists also concluded that the Earth’s ever-changing climate likewise has influenced global and regional economies, human and animal migrations, science, religion and the arts as well as shifting forms of government and strength of leadership. (See Long-Term Chart).

Much of this data was based upon thousands of hours of research done by Dr. Raymond H. Wheeler and his associates during the 1930s and 1940s at the University of Kansas. Dr. Wheeler was well-known for his discovery of various climate cycles, including his highly-regarded ‘510-Year Drought Clock’ that he detailed at the end of the ‘Dust Bowl’ era in the late 1930s.

During the early 1970s, our planet was in the midst of a colder and drier weather cycle that led to concerns of another ‘Little Ice Age.’ Inflationary recessions and oil shortages led to rationing and long gas lines at service stations worldwide. The situation at that time was far worse than it is now, at least for the time being.

The Weather Science Foundation also predicted, based on these various climate cycles, that our planet would turn much warmer and wetter by the early 2000s, resulting in general global prosperity. They also said that we would be seeing at this time widespread weather ‘extremes.’ There’s little doubt that most of their early predictions came true.

Our recent decline in the Earth’s temperature may be a combination of both long-term and short-term climate cycles, decreased solar activity and the development of strong long-lasting La Ninas, the cooler than normal sea-surface temperature event in the south-central Pacific Ocean. Despite the recent rise, sunspot activity since in the late 2000s has averaged near the lowest levels since ‘The Little Ice Age’ ended in the mid-to late 1800s. By 2020, some scientists state that solar activity will plummet once again that could lead to much colder weather across the globe. This recent "cool spell," though, may have only been a brief interruption to the Earth’s overall warming trend. Only time will tell.

Based on these predictions, it appears that much warmer readings may be expected for Planet Earth, especially by the 2030s, that will eventually top 1998's global highest reading of 58.3 degrees. It’s quite possible we could see an average temperature in the low 60s.

We at Harris-Mann Climatology, www.LongRangeWeather.com, believe that our prolonged cycle of wide weather ‘extremes,’ the worst in at least 1,000 years, will continue and perhaps become even more severe, especially by the mid 2010s. We've already seen a huge, disastrous "Mega Storm" hit the East Coast in late October of 2012. The Great Plains and Midwest has recently experienced the worst drought since the 'Dust Bowl Days' of the 1930s in 2012. Since the turn of the century, we've seen widespread flooding, crop-destroying droughts and freezes and violent weather of all types including ice storms, large-sized hail and torrential downpours.

The harsh conditions will likely lead to additional crop damage or losses resulting in higher food prices. This has been already the case since 2011.

Dr. Wheeler also discovered that approximately every 102 years, a much warmer and drier climatic cycle affects our planet. The last such ‘warm and dry’ peak occurred in 1936, at the end of the infamous ‘Dust Bowl’ period. During that time, extreme heat and dryness, combined with a multitude of problems during the ‘Great Depression,’ made living conditions practically intolerable.

The next ‘warm and dry’ climatic phase is scheduled to arrive in the early 2030s, probably peaking around 2038. It is expected to produce even hotter and drier weather patterns than we saw during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

But, we should remember, that the Earth’s coldest periods have usually followed excessive warmth. Such was the case when our planet moved from the Medieval Warm Period between 900 and 1300 A.D. to the sudden ‘Little Ice Age,’ which peaked in the 17th Century. Since 2,500 B.C., there have been at least 78 major climate changes worldwide, including two major changes in just the past 40 years.

By the end of this 21st Century, a cool down may occur that could ultimately lead to expanding glaciers worldwide, even in the mid-latitudes. Based on long-term climatic data, these major ice ages have recurred about every 11,500 years. The last extensive ice age was approximately 11,500 years ago, so we may be due again sometime soon. But, only time will tell.

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A Changing Climate in the Global Warming Debate

 There’s a new mood in the air among those attuned to the cultural influences that affect scientific inquiry. Fluttering against our inclinations to look the other way is a nagging realization that what we must now study is science itself, before it’s too late and before we’re completely blind to the new reality that modern science is failing us. The monomaniacal obsession with CO2 in the science of global warming is now seen to have taken on a compulsive dimension with all the earmarks of a dementia; and, we have to be concerned about the future wellbeing of the very institution of higher learning.

 What we’re seeing is a refusal to admit simple truths, such as the inhumanity of depriving the Third and Developing worlds of energy. We’ve come face-to-face with the possibility that a belief in global warming theory is more than a symptom of a small, culturally and socially disordered subgroup of society. The anxiety, fear, hypochondria, hysteria, phobias and quixotic societal maladaptation to challenges in the world around us can no longer be treated by simply throwing more money at the specter of climate change.

 Some scientists in wide-ranging fields from philosophy, psychology, sociology and religion to economics and ethics, are looking more closely at the psycho-cybernetics underlying what has come to be called, climate change: a movement that is partly science, politics and religion; and, in large part, a heavy-handed dose of self-defeating neurosis. We may never agree on the reasons for the birth of the AGW phenomenon –i.e., the shared belief that modernity and humanity simply going about the business of living are heating the globe with disastrous consequences for all.

    Scientific disciplines, like economies, can and do experience booms and busts.  We document a boom in climate science, sustained by massive levels of funding by government entities, whose scientific direction is set by an extra-scientific organization, the IPCC, which has emerged as a “big player” in the scientific arena, championing the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming.  We note the difficulties in obtaining definitive empirical clarity due to the complex nature of climate, the feedback between the effects of the IPCC’s advocacy and the government’s willingness to fund the science, the ideological and political agendas at play, the dangers to the integrity of scientific procedure in the context of ideological bias, and the poor performance of the “crony capitalist” enterprises that have grown on the back of politicized science. (Butos, WN, McQuade, TJ. Causes and Consequences of the Climate Science Boom)

 The AGW phenomenon – largely typified by Left versus right thinking – has given rise to a host of cultural disorders and a societal schizophrenia based on a fear of climate change, all while demanding change of all sorts, irrespective of the consequences. The fear mongering about the causes of foul weather and disease – of droughts and storms, cancer and death – and, the Left’s hatred of president Bush, then Governor Palin, then the ‘Tea Party’ and ultimately conservatism is the preferred way of thinking of this new order. The Left’s demonizing of Christianity, capitalism and the wisdom of the Founders with its pogrom against Christ, the productive and the Constitution – as apocalyptic beasts that must be slain by progressivism – all while being blind to the evils of radical Islam and communism, is a unifying mark of Leftist consensus-thinking. The believers of global warming have become the supporters of liberal fascism, complete with an antipathy to Middle East Jews.

 What principles do the followers of Climatism look to for spiritual guidance? What could typify Leftist-thinking more than their respect for the beliefs of people like Ward Churchill, Chairman Mao, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and pastor Jeremiah Wright (“No, no, no, not god Bless America: god Damn America”)? Are we witnessing the decline and fall of Western civilization and the rise of a dysfunctional, unconscious incompetent, secular, socialist herd of nihilists: a society corrupted on the inside and rotting from the head down with no respect for Western philosophy, traditions, principles, morals, ethics, ideals? Have we forgotten that Americanism holds at its heart the foundational belief that every individual has the God-given right to be free of the tyranny of the many?

    The very nature of the IPCC’s organization, from its politically motivated appointments of senior staff, to its process of producing allegedly scientific summaries by negotiated compromise, to its toleration of the intervention of political operatives into the production of the most publicized reports of the state of the science, has served to make it the purveyor of tainted science… And as a herding-inducing Big Player in science, the IPCC has provided synergy for the interventions of Big Players of a different sort, the government entities who have seized on the IPCC-generated consensus to fund the climate science boom thereby justify increasing economic interventions citing the threat implied in the AGW hypothesis. (See, Butos, et al., Ibid.)

 Sure, sure, it is true that a belief in global warming has been exposed as being something more than science and even politics; but, more interesting now is the blind acceptance of this new religion within the consciousness of so many Westerners, and most especially among the elitists of Leftist-thinking academia. The answer may be very simple: perhaps, they don’t love their country and simply have no respect for Western culture and traditions. Not even the scientific method can hold their allegiance. Their slowly unfolding counter-cultural vision of Utopia is where they want to live but they just can’t seem to get there except by making the rest of us feel guilty for living.

    I’ve been mocked, vilified, besmirched… simply for expressing the view that the case for global warming and climate change, and in particular the emphasis on the damage caused by carbon dioxide, the so-called greenhouse gas that is going to do for us all, has been massively over-stated… Blinded, maybe even brainwashed by the climate-change zealots, we are spending so much money on reducing carbon emissions that there is a danger of us bankrupting ourselves – and future generations – to solve a problem that in the opinions of a growing number of scientists and opinion-formers has been wildly exaggerated… those who have been worshiping so ardently at the altar of reduced carbon emissions… may find that they have been deifying not just a false god…

I want a clean, green planet. But this obsession with controlling carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is now as dangerous as it is ridiculous… how worried they are about global warming, rising sea-levels and, having seen alarmist films such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth… And this breaks my heart. I want children to be excited about the future, not cowed by it. I want them to grow up in a world which is going to be better than the one their parents knew, not significantly worse. I want them to grow up excited by technology and new inventions, not worrying about where the electricity is going to come from to power them. ~Johnny Ball (Beware the global warming fascists…, 22-Feb-2011)

Scientific booms do burst, but in areas where the phenomena are complex and not well understood, the busts can be quiet and long drawn out… and create an ideal breeding ground for incentives that motivate ideologically biased people to circumvent normal constraints in the name of pursuing a “greater good.” ~Butos, et al., Ibid.

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