Wednesday, October 02, 2019



Dr. Tim Ball on victory over Michael Mann

Upbeat Canadian skeptic climatologist, Dr Tim Ball, gives his first video interview after his epic legal victory over alarmist Dr Michael E Mann, dubbed “the science trial of the century.” Ball again challenges the defeated Mann to “come out and debate anytime, anywhere!”



At the very start, Dr Ball speaks of the disturbing trend in society for people in positions of power to rush to law to silence critics. Clearly, despite relishing defeating Dr Mann, Ball would much prefer scientific disagreements be kept out of the courtroom.

“These are called SLAPP lawsuits, that’s an acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. Why have I received lawsuits? Why not all the other skeptics out there who have challenged what is being said – why have they focused on me?”

Dr Ball jokes that he would like to think that the lawsuits are because he’s the most brilliant guy in the world, but anyone who knows him, knows that it isn’t that. It is, in fact, because Dr Ball is a bona fide climatologist; a scientist who hold a PhD in the study of historical climate change.

Dr Ball points out that the irony is this requirement only goes one way; no one criticizes Al Gore (or Greta Thunberg, etc) for not being qualified (they aren’t in the slightest!). The hypocrisy reveals the deep political bias that Ball says has pervaded the climate debate for 30 years.

“I have the knowledge of the history to argue these alarmist claims were all nonsense. So, I ended up with three lawsuits, all from the same lawyer (Roger McConchie), all from members of the UN IPCC. The first lawsuit, my wife and I agreed we couldn’t afford to fight it so we withdrew what I wrote. That turned out to be a good thing, ironically, because a few months later we got a second lawsuit from Andrew Weaver. My wife and I said we are not going to be legally bullied; we’re going to fight this.”

“Weaver was a professor of climatology at the University of Victoria but didn’t have any training in climatology. I knew from the first time I interviewed him he knew nothing. But this is the problem; they create a ‘climate model’ and suddenly they are a climate expert.”

Andrew Weaver, despite knowing nothing about climate, was appointed the lead modeler for the UN IPCC. After that he left his university post and became the leader of the Green Party in British Columbia. He now sits in the British Columbia legislature with his political bias now disclosed by his activities.

“The lawsuit that he brought against me – I won that one – the courts threw that one out. So that was the first victory. “

The second lawsuit that came shortly after the Weaver one, was brought by the ‘world’s leading climate scientist’ Michael E Mann of Penn State University.

“Mann had produced this model of the historical climate record that was, in fact, complete fake news. He completely re-wrote the climate history. I knew immediately when I saw it what was wrong with it, so, of course, started open attacks on it. Shortly afterwards I got served the lawsuit. It was a defamation lawsuit, as they all are, which tells you all about this being an attack on free speech. I have given a presentation of what Mann had done and how he had done it – how completely false it was. For example, he used one tree record for a thousand years and then adds onto that the instrumental record to create the ‘hockey stick’ shape graph. It is completely scientifically illegal to attach data from one source to another source. Yet that is what he did.”

A smiling Tim Ball then says, he naturally linked the fact Mann was at Penn State and flippantly used word play to create his now famous quip that Mann ‘belongs in the state pen, not Penn State.’

“I thought that was pretty good!” laughs Dr Ball. “But within hours I had a lawsuit from him. That lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial on February 20th 2017 but Mann, himself, backed out on that. Yet he now accuses me of delaying the thing. He just weaselled out – backed right out on it.”

Dr Ball explains that Mann was given almost nine years to prepare for the case. “I’m ready to go any time he wants!” exclaims a defiant Dr Ball.

Ball laments that cowardly Mann is: “now going on the internet saying I’m the one who’s caused the delay. But I will meet him any time and any place he wants! Name it and I’ll be there” scoffs Ball. Indeed, Mann and his shyster lawyer never stop lying and misrepresenting the facts.

“But he’s got a PR campaign going on there now saying that I’m the weasel and the one who won’t face up to the realities, so I’ve just sent an email to my lawyer where we are preparing a response to this to go on the internet explaining what the actual truth is"

Despite his humiliating defeat and bogus assertion he would appeal the decision (he can’t – the deadline has expired), Mann is still threatening lawsuits and making ridiculous climate claims.

On the Issue of Legal Costs

The judge in the Mann-v-Ball case ruled that the defeated Mann must pay Ball’s legal costs, which are in excess of US$700.000. But Mann has already indicated he won’t pay. Dr Ball explains that he and his wife expended all their savings in fighting the case:

“ We don’t regret that, we knew what we were doing and I’m so grateful for my family’s support. But then after, John O’Sullivan [Principia Scientific International] over in England, who has been battling this too, he helped me set up a website and I got a lot of donations from people to help with the legal costs.”

Dr Ball then reveals to the public for the first time that he then got a lot of help from the famous New York hedge The Top 5 Individual Donors for Election 2016fund manager, Bob Mercer.

“He (Mercer) just said ‘Look, I’ll provide all the legal funds you want.’ So, Mercer arranged everything through my lawyer. Mercer’s only comment to me was ‘Michael Mann is a charlatan and he needs to be exposed.’”

Ball goads Michael Mann for his cowardly avoidance of open debate – the proper arena to determine the merits of scientific disputes.

The rest of the interview reveals interesting background information on the myth of the ’97 percent’ consensus on climate change, exposing how the UN was corrupted by Maurice Strong to pursue socialist ideology via Agenda 21.

Dr Ball gives a huge boost to skeptics by hinting of his plans to continue the battle to expose the corruption of climate science. In that venture he is being ably backed by a consortium of like-minded skeptics and advocates who want to see more open science and true accountability in a sea change in the way government research is managed.

SOURCE 





Book Review: "Black Dragon: Breaking the Frizzle Frazzle of the Big Lie of Climate Change Science" by Geraint Hughes

Reviewer J.A. Cook

This isn’t the first book I have reviewed on climate science (see here and here). I had never heard of Geraint Hughes before but upon opening this book for the first time, I know he understands the lies we are being fed and seeks to debunk them one by one.

The first myth Hughes debunks is the nonsense about how a greenhouse actually works. For most young people, like myself, we were taught in school that back radiation heats the greenhouse, that the glass of the greenhouse returns the sun’s heat to the ground thus increasing the temperature however. But this is an unscientific falsehood.

A greenhouse actually works due to convection. A strong convection current within the greenhouse creates a cycle of warming and cooling. The sun heats the earth which causes the air close to the ground to heat up and rise, it is trapped by the glass where it cools and falls back to the earth where the cycle repeats. Knowing this is the lynchpin of the Greenhouse Gas Theory.

The ‘greenhouse’ analogy completely falls apart already just knowing this, but Hughes continues to pick apart every lie the Alarmists use. The mission of the book is achieved step by step exposing the shocking truth that mainstream science claims about the Greenhouse Gas Theory are pure junk science garbage.

Most books I’ve encountered that focus on climate science are daunting to read. They require an understanding of physics and thermodynamics in order to carefully follow  what we are being told.

Within the first 25 pages of ‘Black Dragon‘ I gleaned more insight into these issues than I found in my five years of senior school studying GCSE Physics.

Hughes makes the task easier by completely breaking down the science and equations he is using so that anyone can understand them. He then explains the physical application of this science and how it in no way relates to the Greenhouse gas Theory – which he repeatedly disproves.

Since I am a college undergraduate currently studying Bioscience – Chemistry, Biology and Psychology, one thing Hughes debunks really fascinated me; Hughes beautifully exposes the ubiquitous Climate Change in a Bottle experiment.

My old science teacher actually used this experiment to ‘educate’ us about Climate Change, but it completely misses out some glaringly obvious things that would affect the results.

For example, the experiment completely neglects the fact that the density of both Air and Carbon Dioxide are different and the specific heat capacity of both these gases is different, which would affect the rate at which these gases absorb IR.

Now, is this deliberate deception or simply the product of incompetence and misunderstanding among ‘experts’?

For me, the whole Climate Change narrative seems to be a case of the more you look, the less you see. What I mean by this is the more you focus on what you are being told, it reveals itself as completely wrong. Cautious (skeptic) minds need to take a step back and view it objectively – then everything becomes a lot clearer.

The whole section on Venus was interesting to read. Those spouting alarmist nonsense would have us believe Venus’ high temperatures are caused by a runaway greenhouse effect. But Venus’ temperature is due to its natural structure and formation, however, the interesting thing about this section isn’t the debunking myth about Venus but what we learn about Venus itself.

Throughout the book Hughes makes insightful and interesting points with strong evidence to prove why the various (sometimes competing) theories on Greenhouse Gas are incorrect.

One of the key things that will stick with me is that difference between Oxy and CO2 gas planets, Oxy or oxygen gas planets and Carbon Dioxide gas planets have very different temperatures for one simple reason – how emissive the abundant gas is.

Oxygen is far less emissive than CO2, therefore Oxy planets have higher temperatures, because of this it is impossible for CO2 to be the cause of global warming and Climate Change. While this isn’t the most comprehensive book I have read on the subject (it is quite short, just 152 pages), it is one of the most informative.

I highly recommend reading Black Dragon: Breaking the Frizzle Frazzle of the Big Lie of Climate Change Science if you have an interest in the subject, or even if you are just curious about the climate ‘hype’ –  it is aimed at non-experts, so anyone should ‘get it.’

SOURCE 





Climate Change Fears Used To Justify Radical Agendas

Exaggerated claims and fearmongering to push a political narrative isn’t a new tactic, which explains how the thoughtful, former House Speaker Paul Ryan became a caricature in a campaign ad pushing an elderly women over a cliff or how President Lyndon Johnson blew up a virtual 3-year-old girl in the famous Daisy ad, insinuating his opponent wanted nuclear war.

But the hyperbole of the climate change movement puts such efforts to shame as they preach both that their worldview is correct and undebatable and that all who oppose them are “evil” — deserving, one assumes, whatever they get because in about 10 years it’s all over.

While the environment is not the kind of issue I usually address, a new trend forces me to confront an agitated and organized movement.

Convinced that people are the problem, in all our forms, abortion is now emerging as a “solution” to climate change, pushed forward in an atmosphere of fear.

The anti-child movement being developed, named things like #NoFutureNoChildren, equates population control with climate control, making the answer to the world’s problems a reduction in the number of people.

As I travel across the country speaking to college and university student groups as head of Students for Life of America, I hear this often as earnest and fearful students say that they are not going to have children, while others fret about children enduring a “post-apocalyptic Mad Max hellscape.”

Celebrities add to this tension. Prince Harry recently said he and his celebrity wife would only have two children because of climate concerns.

Speaking to Elle magazine, Miley Cyrus said, “We’re getting handed a piece-of-shit planet, and I refuse to hand that down to my child. Until I feel like my kid would live on earth with fish in the water, I’m not bringing in another person to deal with that.”

British musician Blythe Pepino founded “BirthStrike” because of her fears for the environment, even though she told CNN, “I really want a kid … I am in a position to be an activist. It’s a stronger calling than motherhood, even though I still mourn the idea.”

And when the elites get together at the highest levels, using government to control outcomes comes next. Case in point, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who turns a jaundiced eye toward his fellow humans.

At a CNN event, Mr. Sanders praised the abortion lobby in the U.S. that allows the procedure through all nine months of pregnancy, for any reason at all, and sometimes with taxpayer funding.

But worldwide abortion is the thing we really need to change the temperature, he indicated, “especially in poor countries around the world.”

Following that thinking, will an income test become law before people can attempt a child? It seems a one-percenter kind of arrogance to assume that money means someone is better suited to parenthood.

Disrespect for human life also leads to all kinds of Hollywood-esque policy conclusions.

Stockholm School of Economics professor and researcher Magnus Soderlund has suggested that eating “human meat” (better known as cannibalism) is a way to reduce gases and create food “sustainability” despite the known health risks when eating human flesh.

Late-night movie buffs might remember Oscar-winning Charlton Heston in “Soylent Green,” an apocalyptic horror flick that aired the same year that Roe v. Wade became law, in which food shortages and global unrest were to be soothed with “Soylent Green,” a sustainable protein source that was supposed to be algae.

Except it turned out that, as the great actor screamed at the end, “Soylent Green is people. Soylent Green is People!”

As a mother of four, also upsetting is how adults are using children’s stress over the environment to score political points.

Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg’s anxiety over the environment reflects, as The Federalist’s David Harsanyi notes, a child’s “narrow, age-appropriate, grasp of the world.”

Of course, she is scared and upset as schools parrot information on an issue in which all the solutions are draconian, life-ending events.

Yet, rather than helping her process her fears, she is brought out to argue for a dramatic government takeover of all international business and government, with a chilling line that seems borrowed from Sting, “We will be watching you.”

Like most people, I care about the environment because I want a safe world for my children and future generations. But killing the preborn, eating the dead and turning control of all human life over to the government isn’t a solution, but rather another set of problems.

Fear of climate change is being used to justify a radical social agenda, including abortion. I wonder if a child in the womb identified as a tree, would that be enough to justify saving that life? This debate is getting out of control.

SOURCE 





Iceberg FIVE times the size of Malta breaks off glacier in Antarctica - the largest in 50 years - but experts aren't blaming climate change

An iceberg five times the size of Malta has broken off Antarctica.  The D28 iceberg was captured by the European Union Earth Observation Program calving from the Amery ice shelf.

Known as 'Loose Tooth', this iceberg is 688 feet thick and contains 347 billion tons of ice –scientists are not connecting this event to climate change, but have concerns about ships traveling in its path.

Although some may point to climate change as the cause for the separation, Scripps and her team say this event is not linked to it. Scientists have said that this is a natural event and this is how 'ice streams maintain equilibrium, balancing the input of snow upstream', according to BBC NEWS.

Amery is the third largest ice shelf in Antarctica, and extends inland from Prydz and MacKenzei bays – both feed into the Indian Ocean.

The 'calving', or breaking away, of a massive iceberg from the Amery glacier has not happened since the early 1960s – a chunk of ice that was 3,474 square miles in area, according to BBC News.

D28 was only 631 square miles, which is just a little smaller than Scotland's Isle of Skye, but still poses a threat to ships traveling in its path.

However, scientists were expecting this Loose Tooth to break off.

Professor Helen Fricker from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography had predicted this event back in 2002 -- suggesting it would calve sometime between 2010 and 2015.

'It is the molar compared to a baby tooth,' Professor Fricker told BBC News. 'I am excited to see this calving event after all these years. We knew it would happen eventually, but just to keep us all on our toes, it is not exactly where we expected it to be.'

'While there is much to be concerned about in Antarctica, there is no cause for alarm yet for this particular ice shelf,' Prof Fricker added.

SOURCE 




Chief UN Climate Scientist Calls the Climate Crisis Narrative "Religious Extremism"

CO2 Coalition Releases First Professional Translation of Controversial Article in Finnish Business Journal

"IPCC reports are read like the Holy Book, where certain sentences are sought to justify their own extreme position. It has the features of religious extremism ....This world will not end.... We are at the best of mankind's time in many ways."

The CO2 Coalition of over 50 climate scientists and energy economists today released the first professional translation of a controversial article that appeared in a Finnish business newspaper on September 6, 2019. The article contained a lengthy interview with Dr. Petteri Taalas, who is the Secretary-General of the UN's World Meteorological Organization. This position makes Taalas the top climate scientist at the UNIPCC, which advises governments on climate science and energy policy.

The article has created controversy, with Taalas being portrayed as both a supporter and a critic of the climate crisis narrative. The CO2 Coalition paid for an impartial, professional translation so that Taalas' opinions can be fairly assessed. The article was translated from the Finnish Financial Newspaper Talouselämä (The Journal) for the CO2 Coalition by Language Innovations LLC, on September 23, 2019.

The headline on the article is: Climate guru Petteri Taalas: Climate change is not yet out of control, but the debate is - "It has the features of religious extremism."

Here is a key excerpt from the article:

The career meteorologist does not see the basis for the apocalyptic scenarios that are being predicted now. According to Petteri Taalas, there are, as of yet, no signs of horror images of climate change, such as the reversal of the Gulf Stream or large-scale methane depletion as the Siberian permafrost melts.

More excerpts and quotations are provided on the CO2 Coalition's website.

Dr. Caleb Rossiter, a climate statistician who directs the CO2 Coalition, said that the full article shows that Dr. Taalas remains convinced that carbon dioxide is warming the planet, but disagrees with claims that the warming is catastrophic for humanity. "We applaud the UN's top climate scientist's rejection of the climate crisis narrative. The scientific data to date show a modest impact of CO2 emissions on temperature, virtually no impact on rates of extreme weather like hurricanes, droughts, and sea-level rise, and a major, positive impact on plant growth. I agree with Dr. Taalas that the media should stop promoting essentially religious views as science."

SOURCE 

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

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