Global cooling hits Moscow

White-out in Moscow as the Russian capital endures its snowiest winter in a century

The east coast of America awoke to a thick blanket of snow today in the aftermath of a furious winter storm that battered the region from Maine to New York.

Relentless snowfall and hurricane-force winds swept the Northeast overnight, forcing airports to ground flights and leaving drivers stranded as they abandoned their cars on impassable highways.

But these images show how the hardy residents of Russia's capital have been enduring similar conditions for months, with Moscow in the midst of its snowiest winter in a century.

With more than 85 inches of snowfall recorded so far, this winter is the snowiest Moscow has seen in a hundred years, according to a report on foreignpolicy.com.

According to Moscow's deputy mayor for residential issues the snow in the city this year has already reached one and a half times 'the climactic norm'.

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We're up against extreme dumbness

Have we finally discovered where the  "dumb blonde" concept comes from?

CNN anchor Deb Feyerick asked Saturday afternoon if an approaching asteroid, which will pass by Earth on February 15, “is an example of, perhaps, global warming?”

Moments earlier, before an ad break, she segued from the Northeast blizzard to a segment with Bill Nye “the science guy,” by pointing to global warming: “Every time we see a storm like this lately, the first question to pop into a lot of people’s minds is whether or not global warming is to blame? I’ll talk to Bill Nye, ‘the science guy,’ about devastating storms and climate change.”

She never got to that question in the subsequent interview at about 3:25 PM EST during CNN Newsoom, instead transitioning from a snowfall update: “Talk about something else that’s falling from the sky and that is an asteroid. What’s coming our way? Is this an effect of, perhaps, of global warming or is this just some meteoric occasion?”

Nye resisted confirming her hypothesis.

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Warmists know they're losing

If you play team sports, or even just watch them, there’s very often a moment in the struggle between the opposing teams, when one of them breaks. Sometimes it’s sparked by a single incident but more usually, it’s an acceptance by the whole group that they’re going to lose. The opposition are simply too good. It’s a moment of gestalt realisation, not so much them giving up but more like them accepting that they’re going to lose. It’s subtle, synchronised and solid as a concrete block hitting you right between the eyes. When it occurs, no team bounces back from it....

Whatever unit cohesion they once had is now gone. They’re no longer working together. People are just running in circles. They even start to fight each other. The blame game kicks off, even before the game itself has finished. It’s all your fault. No, it ain’t, it’s your’s. I always said, we should never play this formation. Sorry, when’d you say that? Piss off. Who the f*ck are you anyway?

They start throwing each other to the wolves before they’ve even got off the pitch. All composure has been lost and there’s not a shred of dignity to the thing. Even as a winner, it leaves a bad taste.

Since the turn of the year, I get a definite sense that us climate guerillas are up against a team who know they’re going to lose. It’s an intuition but a strong one. All the signs are there.

They’re like a bad losing team and you can see the former supporters distancing themselves or just plain outright bailing in realtime. It’s as if they don’t want to be the last girl to leave the party, so there’s a quiet but indecently increasing stampede for the exit doors. Even the bemused old geezers like Lovelock know which way the flatulence is blowing. No smoking please.
People are edging towards the exit.

The worst and most humiliating indicator of that change is the tenor of the skeptic blogs. There’s been a subtle shift. Instead of doing the usual mentat deconstruction of climate papers, they’re doing humour. There’s nothing much left to hit so they’re having a bit of fun. They’re relaxing, having a larf really.

Finally, it’s rest and relaxation time. As R&R goes, they have very definitely earned that, after so many years of brutal effort assaulting each of those islands, one after another. They’re veterans, who’ve taken too many places like Peleliu and Okinawa and have a growing sense of the end of the war.

Sure, it’ll drag on but we own them. At this stage in the game, we’re just running down the clock.

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Greens Now Stunned/Stumped By The Massive Environmental Damage From Climate Policies

Last week Austrian Broadcasting network ORF aired the controversial new film "Climate Crimes" in German.

Having seen the film in its entirety for the first time, I was truly horrified by the scale of the environmental destruction and mayhem brought on by the recent climate protection movement. It is truly madness at a whole new level and dimension. If you have the chance to see the documentary, then do so. You’ll be shaking your head throughout the film.

Indeed the level of destruction with respect to loss of eco-systems, biodiversity, erosion, etc. brought on by the “green economy” is far beyond anything man-made climate change was ever fantasized of causing by the year 2100. The current damage caused by the “green economy” is real, and it’s happening here and right now. Worse, it’s all taking place with the official green stamp of approval.

In the film, environmental economist Nico Paech says:  "Climate protection as it is practiced now is throwing the baby out with the bath water.”

The green economy, intended to rescue the climate from a man-made climate catastrophe in a computer, is in reality systematically accelerating the wide-scale destruction of the environment today by at least a factor of ten.

Many greens are having their eyes opened for the first time, and are now grudgingly admitting that something has gone terribly awry. Wiping out the Earth’s eco-system to rescue the climate is not what they had in mind.

Yet they still refuse to acknowledge that they’ve erred with the climate science, and that all the destruction was unnecessary.

They still insist the computerized catastrophe is real, approaching fast, and that we need to act rapidly. The only thing they’re admitting is that the “green energy” sources of hydro-power and biofuel are no longer options. In their view the human race is now in a dilemma because so many sources of energy must never be used. There’s no painless way out.

After showing the Climate Crimes documentary, ORF held a discussion round. The theme of the discussion round was what needs to be done to get out of the (imagined) energy dilemma?

Four experts joined moderator Michael Hofer were Kurt Remele (ethics and theology expert), Angela Köppl (economics expert in the field of environmental economics, energy and climate protection and Angela Kallhoff (philosophy). The other was co-author of Die kalte Sonne, geologist Sebastian Lüning. Clearly the discussion was not to focus on climate science. For moderator Hofer and the 3 other guests, the science is settled in their view, and there was no need to discuss it. Thus the discussion focused on environmental ethics and man’s responsibilities.

Near the end of the discussion round, moderator Hofer asked each guest to tell us what has to be done to get out of the environmental dilemma. The three greenies were more or less unanimous, telling the audience that we will have to change our behaviour, get away from the model of growth, expand public transportation, consume less, and to even eat less meat.

Lüning, the only guest with a different opinion, said that it was necessary to get back to science and real environmental protection. In Lüning’s view, the discussion had been taken over by extreme elements on both sides, and that it had to get back to the center. He also encouraged more critical thinking, and that we not immediately believe someone just because they have a doctor title.

Earlier in the discussion round, Lüning commented that there was too much fear-mongering by a number of opportunistic parties, for example re-insurers. Lüning said that the huge environmental backfire we’ve seen in the green movement so far should say something about the science.

Lüning also reminded the other guests and Hofer that climate science is not settled, and cited a recent study showing soot was a far greater factor in climate than previously thought.

He also pointed out that much more could be done locally and regionally with far less money, and with a far greater impact, than to try to solve the globe’s problems by tweaking a single trace gas.  Lüning said: “There are lots of high impact things that can be done for relatively little money.”

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An eminent naturalist becoming increasingly strange in his dotage

No, David Attenborough: Africa hasn't warmed by 3.5 degrees C in two decades

It's not often one looks to the Guardian's environment pages for an incisive and thorough critique of green propagandising. But hats off – really – to Leo Hickman for this ruthless deconstruction of an erroneous claim made by David Attenborough on his latest BBC nature documentary that in the last twenty years Africa has warmed by 3.5 degrees C.

3.5 degrees C in two decades? That would indeed be a remarkable temperature rise in anybody's money. (Remember, since 1850 global mean temperatures have risen by about 0.8 degrees C – and we're supposed to find that worrying and significant). Which is why, you might have thought, the BBC would have spotted so obvious an error and removed it before the programme went out.

To his credit, this troubled Leo Hickman, too.

"I'd never heard this arresting claim before. If that rate of temperature rise continued over, say, a century, then those parts of Africa would see a deathly rise of 17.5C?! Could that claim really be true?"

So began his wild goose chase to track down the source of the BBC's factoid. As you'll see from his superb piece he never got a terribly satisfactory answer.

"I was told that it came from a report published in 2006 by the "Working Group on Climate Change". The full title of the report was "Africa – Up in Smoke 2: The second report on Africa and global warming from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development" and it was "written and compiled" by Oxfam and the New Economics Foundation, with the support of a wide range of environmental and development NGOs such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF, Cafod and the Institute of Development Studies."

This, in turn, takes him to a report produced by Christian Aid; and thence to the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia – which has a stab at citing a "peer-reviewed" article in Nature, which doesn't support the claim made in the programme either.

What's rather touching about this is that Hickman is so surprised. Those of us who follow Donna Laframboise's research, for example, will have long been wearily familiar with the extent to which the IPCC's supposedly authoritative reports depend on "grey literature" – ie propaganda – produced by activists at organisations like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Cafod, etc.

Hickman writes:

"Personally, I find it bizarre – and frustrating – that an otherwise exemplary series, which took years to film, has been tainted – in my mind, at least – by such a sloppy piece of research. Why rely primarily on a seven-year-old report published by an NGO? Why not just directly ask climatologists who would have the latest available data to hand? And how did the BBC's researchers even come across such an obscure fact? You get the sense they simply Googled "Africa temperature rise" and went for the first thing they found."

I agree. But it's so much nicer – and frankly more damning – when instead of my saying it comes from someone on the other side.

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GREENIE ROUNDUP FROM AUSTRALIA

Three recent reports below

Leftist  leader against carbon tax

WESTERN Australia's Labor leader Mark McGowan has distanced himself from Prime Minister Julia Gillard by saying he opposes the carbon tax ahead of next month's state election.

But Mr McGowan says he does support an emissions trading scheme.

A Newspoll commissioned by The Australian newspaper shows voters find Mr McGowan likable and caring but most think Premier Colin Barnett is a better economic manager.

The poll, published on Monday, shows 54 per cent of voters believe Mr Barnett is more capable of handling the state's economy, compared to 33 per cent support for Mr McGowan.

But the leaders are tied at 81 per cent when it comes to having a vision for the state.

Responding to the poll, Mr McGowan said he opposed a carbon tax but was in favour of an emissions trading scheme, and he would support the mining tax only if WA got back the exact share it put in.

"We see Western Australia as being more than just mining, whilst acknowledging the importance of mining," he told News Ltd.

Newspoll has pointed to a landslide election win for the WA Liberals on March 9, putting it ahead of Labor 57 to 43 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

Australian Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt says Mr McGowan's comments show why Labor cannot be trusted on the environment.

He worries Labor could be "opening the door" for its MPs to vote against existing climate change law if it loses the September 14 federal election.

"Is this the first signal that WA federal MPs might not vote to keep this package," Mr Bandt asked reporters in Canberra.

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese defended Mr McGowan's stance.

"I notice that he also said that he supported an emissions trading scheme," he told Sky News.

"Of course what we have is a fixed price on carbon evolving into an emissions trading scheme."

Mr Albanese talked up support in WA for Labor, citing big federally-funded infrastructure projects such as the Great Eastern Highway, Perth CityLink project and Gateway project.

Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella said Mr McGowan knew Australians were hurting from increased costs of living because of the carbon tax.

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Climate boffins dine out on $1740 taxpayer dollars

A DOZEN Climate Change authority executives dining out at a posh Italian restaurant to get to know each other better left tax-payers with an almost $2000 bill.

The dinner was held so the executives of the outfit created in July to review and make recommendations about the carbon tax and other federal government green schemes could meet in "an informal setting" to better their "collective decision making" capacity.

Executives dined at swish Melbourne eatery The Italian Restaurant and Bar on a $135-a-head menu of New Zealand king salmon, calamari, caprese salad, southern supreme beef, gnocchi with oyster mushroom and vanilla panna cotta with dark chocolate.

The dinner, which the authority planned to spend $1620 on but receipts show a cost of $1740, on November 20 last year was the night before a major board meeting.

"It is bad enough that Labor established a raft of new bureaucracies to manage its carbon tax but now it seems that those bureaucracies are literally dining out on the taxpayer," Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham.

"Many Australians will rightly wonder why the carbon tax they're paying through their higher electricity prices is being used to pay for expensive dinners.

He said the Coalition would scrap the agency if it won the September election.

A spokeswoman for the authority said the meeting was to allow authority members to meet informally.

"We are a newly established agency, we have got nine authority members from diverse backgrounds and locations to date they have had one opportunity to meet informally," she said.

"We wanted to provide them with an opportunity for an informal gathering with both the board members and senior executives to get to know each other a bit better.

"They need to be able to be a collective decision making body so it is important they know each other.
"It was the night before one of our critical board meetings."

Authority members at the dinner included Bernie Fraser, Lynne Williams, John Marlay, Professor David Karoly, Heather Ridout, Elana Rubin, Professor John Quiggan and CEO Anthea Harris, the spokeswoman said.

In its first five months the authority has spent a total of almost $4000 on catering with one bill for a stakeholder meeting with authority staff at Sydney's Sofitel Hotel expected to cost $645.

Catering for meetings at Climate Change Authority offices has varied between $21.80 during staff interviews and $442.80 for a staff planning day in October, an answer to budget estimates has revealed.

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CSIRO not scientific when it comes to climate:  Report

Below is a summary of a much larger and very thorough document to be found here

Respected unpaid climate analyst, Malcolm Roberts, of Brisbane, Australia compiled the 'CSIROh! Report' on the invitation of ABC Radio’s Steve Austin. Across 29 pages Roberts details a litany of evidence proving that the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency, corruptly and unlawfully misrepresented science, climate and Nature.

Austin asked of Roberts, “Please read through the Australian scientific paper and identify where you believe the CSIRO data has been falsified or is wrong.” To complete his task Roberts engaged in detailed correspondence with CSIRO’s Chief Executive Dr. Megan Clark and CSIRO’s Group Executive-Environment Dr. Andrew Johnson; extensive analysis and research of CSIRO reports and discussions with former CSIRO scientists including former chief research scientist Professor Garth Paltridge.

With evidence presented by the above authorities Roberts put Aussie government’s climate science under the microscope to expose how bias and propaganda misled the public to support the government’s tax on carbon dioxide (CO2). Even-handedly Roberts concedes, “CSIRO has many fine people and a proud heritage. In areas outside climate it appears to have capability and credibility. That is threatened by CSIRO’s politicization.” But, critically, his findings reveal that CSIRO had no empirical scientific evidence whatsoever that human CO2 caused warming (see Appendix 2). Instead, the reports shows a dearth of actual evidence but the policies so far enacted are implicated in causing the needless deaths of more than 40 million people, mainly in Third World regions.

Four Failures to Find Fault

The key litmus test applied by the study was the requirement that CSIRO’s science should provide “yes” answers to these four key questions:

1. Is global ATMOSPHERIC temperature warming unusually in either amount or rate

and is it continuing to rise?

2. Does the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in air control or determine Earth’s temperature?

3. Does human CO2 production determine the level of CO2 in air?

4. Is warming catastrophic or even damaging?

Roberts, who also provides research for the Galileo Movement, demonstrates that CSIRO failed to show any actual “causal relationships” to validate even one “yes” answer. On the contrary, Roberts identified evidence that shows CSIRO scientists used taxpayer funds rather to advocate for global governance at United Nations (UN) conferences than evince empirical data to support their position. Roberts says, “This is consistent with CSIRO’s actions supporting implementation of UN Agenda 21, the UN’s campaign pushing global governance. It bypassed Australia’s parliament and people and threatens Australia’s sovereignty and our personal freedoms.”

What the study shows in answer to those four key questions is a very different reality as follows:

1. Global atmospheric temperatures peaked in 1998. Temperatures have since been flat

with every year since colder than in 1998. Since the start of atmospheric temperature

measurement in 1958 temperatures cooled slightly from 1958 to 1976. A sudden small

2. Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in air are a consequence of temperature, not a cause.

This is the reverse of UN IPCC, CSIRO and government claims. It applies throughout

Earth’s history and over every duration. It’s true seasonally and long-term;

3. Nature alone determines levels of CO2 in air. This is the reverse of UN IPCC, CSIRO

and government claims. It means that cutting or increasing human CO2 production

cannot affect CO2 levels in air. It’s useless to cut human CO2 production;

4. Warmer periods in Earth’s history are highly beneficial to people, humanity, civilization and the natural environment. This is the opposite of UN IPCC, CSIRO and government  claims. Warmer periods are scientifically classified as optimums.

As a result, this damning analysis, says Roberts, shows that CSIRO scientists are deeply enmeshed in producing corrupt UN IPCC reports. The evidence shows the IPCC colluded with CSIRO to enlist contributing scientists of various rank and to have papers referenced and presumably act as reviewers. Without applying any safeguards, CSIRO endorsed UN IPCC reports despite those reports being demonstrably corrupt and pushing a political agenda. UN IPCC contributors and officials are shown to have bypassed and at times prevented scientific peer-review. “As a method of quality assurance, the process of peer-review is now worthless” says the Roberts report.

Evidence reveals that all four UN IPCC reports to national governments and media—1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007—contradict empirical scientific evidence and provide no logical scientific reasoning for their core claim that human CO2 caused, causes or will cause global warming. “The corruption is pervasive, systemic and driven by a political agenda to achieve a political outcome,” says Roberts. Empirical scientific evidence and discussion in Appendix 4 reveals corruption of ground-based temperature data and of CO2 data used by the UN IPCC and CSIRO.The propaganda relied upon by alarmists is ostensibly that collated by former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore, shows Appendix 3.

Major international banking firm Merrill Lynch is implicated in the climate shenanigans. (Appendix 6). They and other international banks are shown to profit enormously from trading in CO2 credits. This relationship raises perceptions and questions about the opportunity for conflicts of interest.

Evidence Proves Natural Forces, not Humans Drive our Climate

This telling Australian report lays out in black and white that our atmosphere is not warming, much less unusually. “Fluctuations since 1958 reveal modest natural cyclic temperature variation.” While ground-based rural measurements reveal the same since 1890. In Appendix 4 it is shown that the strongest natural factors proven by empirical scientific evidence to control global climate. They are El Nino, La Nina and other regional ocean-atmosphere decadal cycles. Scientists have identified many factors driving climate. These include galactic, solar system, solar, planetary and lunar cycles ranging from 150 million years to 11 years. Strong drivers include:

 *  Solar: (1) variations in sun’s solar output; (2) Output of solar particles; (3) Sun’s magnetic field polarity and strength;

 *  Water vapour: (1) atmospheric water content; (2) Cloud cover;

 *  Cyclic regional decadal circulation patterns such as North American Oscillation and the southern Pacific ocean’s El Nino together with their variation over time;

 *  Ocean: (1) temperature; (2) salinity; (3) currents; (4) sea surface temperatures;

 *  Volcanic activity.

The above natural drivers are either omitted from, or downplayed in erroneous unvalidated computerized numerical models used by the UN. CSIRO has thereby used deception dressed up as science to cede sovereignty over Australian science to an unscientific and corrupt foreign political organisation pushing a global political agenda. “CSIRO is thus abetting systemic and pervasive documented corruption of science,” says Roberts.

Tellingly, the prestigious Inter Academy Council’s (IAC) August 2010 review of the UN IPCC showed that there were “crippling deficiencies” in UN IPCC processes and procedures that should have sounded alarm bells that CSIRO is supporting implementation of UN Agenda 21, the greatest threat to Australian sovereignty.

Roberts invites readers to examine the evidence on offer in this new study and to verify for themselves that CSIRO has misled the media. He points to three key falsehoods that any objective examination of the available scientific proves. They are:

1. Human CO2 controls and determines global temperature and climate. False;

2. There is an overwhelming consensus of scientists supporting that claim. False;

3. Catastrophic consequences will result at some unspecified future date from human disruption of global climate: sea level rise, extreme weather, floods, drought, snowfall, fires, ocean pH (alkalinity), disease, species extinction, ... All false.

 “Through the National Press Club and media, CSIRO misled the people and parliament of Australia. CSIRO has been actively engaged in UN IPCC corruption of climate and science, “ concludes the Brisbane climate analyst. How Steve Austin, the listeners of ABC radio and other Australian citizens react to these damning findings remains to be seen.

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

Preserving the graphics:  Graphics hotlinked to this site sometimes have only a short life and if I host graphics with blogspot, the graphics sometimes get shrunk down to illegibility.  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 and here

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