Warmists as racketeers

Alarmist climate science is essentially a criminal enterprise.

Now that I’ve got your attention, just hang on to that adjective “alarmist”.

Every time the make some doom-laden claim, they get given more money. As each prediction fails, it gets pushed on twenty years and nobody cares, because everyone knows you can’t go up against the la cosa nostra verdi. Every time they get caught out saying one thing in public but exactly the opposite in private, they weasel out of it. They do a criminal things like identity theft, and appear to be above the law. They intimidate anyone who stands up to them and get away with it too, and if they can’t get you, they’ll go after your family.

Attempt to speak out about them in the media, all the strings get pulled and whatever platform you were silly enough to imagine you had just disappears beneath your feet. You can kiss goodbye to ever getting anything published again. Stand up to them, you’ll lose not only your reputation and career, but also your livelihood.

Every time we find a flaw in the science, it somehow always seems to err towards a warmer Earth. That could be an honest error but seriously Boys and Girls, we don’t need to be experts in the bell curve to realise something is up. On any reasonable balance of probability, you’d expect something a bit roughly fifty-fifty. You don’t need to be Descartes to see that one. You sit down at a poker table with someone who is crushing all opposition with every hand all night and there’s one thing you know for sure – they’re cheating.

It’s premeditated, deliberate and totally cynical. Science is their whore, they’ll ride her as they see fit.

We’re into end of days with climate science and a few incidents of late should have disabused you of any lingering hope of any fig-leaf attempt at practising anything vaguely recognisable as serious science. The Karl et al paper was quite frankly a reversion to pulling the entrails out of some small animal and reading the portents for the planet.

It’s the new paradigm, theory now mugs the facts.

How anyone could have put their name to such an abomination is beyond me. Just to top that depth of degradation, the Royal Society on being challenged on why no global warming for nearly two decades, finally conceded that fact but smugly replied the pause would have to extend to fifty years before they started to entertain a doubt.

Get your head straight about these people, they’re nothing better than just cheap street-corner hoods in thousand dollar suits pretending to be respectable.

SOURCE






What Has the Pause Done to the Warming Rate?

Christopher Monckton of Brenchley has a must-read post today on Watts Up With That. “The long and model-unpredicted Great Pause of 18 years 8 months in global mean lower-troposphere temperature as recorded in the RSS satellite monthly dataset is inexorably driving down the longer-run warming rate, when the IPCC’s predictions would have led us to expect an acceleration,” he reports.

Here’s the cool thing (literally). Thanks to the pause, the trend during the full satellite record works out to just 1.21ºC per century. That is substantially below the IPCC’s central estimate in 1990, which (along with NASA scientist Jim Hansen’s overheated prediction in 1988), put global warming on the political map.

Monckton comments:

    "In 1990, the IPCC had predicted near-straight-line warming of 1 K to 2025, equivalent to almost 2.8 K/century. Of this warming, more than 0.7 K should have happened by now, but only 0.26 K has actually occurred. The IPCC’s central estimate in 1990, though made on the basis of “substantial confidence” that the models on which it relied had captured all the essential features of the climate system, has proven – thus far, at any rate – to be a near-threefold exaggeration."

The IPCC knows its models are predicting too much warming. In the graph below, Monckton enlarges the right-hand corner of Figure 10.1(a) from the IPCC’s 2013 Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). CMIP3 is the ensemble of models used in the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), CMIP5 is the ensemble used in AR5. Although CMIP5 predicts less warming than CMIP3 ensemble, it still increasingly diverges from reality.

Note also that a 21st century warming of 1.21ºC is well within the bounds (0.3ºC-1.7ºC) of the IPCC’s lowest projection (RCP2.6), which assumes a 70% reduction in cumulative greenhouse gas emissions from 2010 to 2100 compared to baseline projections. In short, the RSS data show about the same warming rate that climate campaigners urge policymakers to achieve via draconian restrictions on carbon-based energy.

SOURCE (See the original for links and graphics)




Many global warming studies may be wrong as carbon dating found to be highly unreliable for organic matter over 30,000 years old

Radiocarbon dating, which is used to calculate the age of certain organic materials, has been found to be unreliable, and sometimes wildly so - a discovery that could upset previous studies on climate change, scientists from China and Germany said in a new paper.

Their recent analysis of sediment from the largest freshwater lake in northeast China showed that its carbon clock stopped ticking as early as 30,000 years ago, or nearly half as long as was hitherto thought.

As scientists who study earth’s (relatively) modern history rely on this measurement tool to place their findings in the correct time period, the discovery that it is unreliable could put some in a quandary.

For instance, remnants of organic matter formerly held up as solid evidence of the most recent, large-scale global warming event some 40,000 years ago may actually date back far earlier to a previous ice age.

"The radiocarbon dating technique may significantly underestimate the age of sediment for samples older than 30,000 years,” said the authors of the report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics.

“Thus it is necessary to pay [special] attention when using such old carbon data for palaeoclimatic or archaeological interpretations," they added.

Their work was detailed in a paper in the latest issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

For over 50 years, scientists and researchers have relied on carbon dating to find the exact age of organic matter.

Prior to that, they had to depend on more rudimentary and imprecise methods, such as counting the number of rings on a cross-section of tree trunk.

This all changed in the 1940s when US chemist Willard Libby discovered that carbon-14, a radioactive isotope, could be used to date organic compounds.

His theory was that all living creatures have a constant proportion of radioactive and non-radioactive carbons in their body because they keep absorbing these elements from the environment.

Some examples of climate change can be seen over much shorter time periods. National Geographic photographer James Balog deployed revolutionary time-lapse cameras designed to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers in the Arctic. Photo: AP

But as soon as the creature dies it stops absorbing these and sheds any trace of carbon-14 at a decay rate of 50 per cent every 5,700 years.

By measuring the remaining amount of carbon-14 in a sample, scientists could estimate the time of death up to 60,000 years ago.

Before that, all traces of radiocarbon would be too small to detect.

But the method had one major flaw: it didn’t account for changes in the proportion of radioactive and non-radioactive carbon in the environment; and if these had changed, the estimate would most likely be wrong.

Many events can affect the levels of carbon-14 in the atmosphere, such as the burning of fossil fuel or the detonation of an atom bomb.

In the new study using samples taken from Xingkai Lake near the Sino-Russian border in Heilongjiang province, the scientists used both radiocarbon dating and another method known as optically stimulated luminescence.

Using light to measure the amount of free electrons trapped in quartz, the team was able to tell how long the samples had been kept away from sunlight, and therefore estimate when it was that they first fell in the lake.

By comparing results from the two methods, they found that carbon dating became unreliable beyond a range of 30,000 years.

The great lakes are widely believed to have appeared in China due to the massive melting of ice sheets during an exceptionally warm period some 40,000 years ago, and sediment from Xingkai Lake served as key evidence.

But the new study suggests that the sediment might be over 80,000 years old, possibly formed during an ice age.

"The carbon-14-based mega-lake hypothesis was even incorporated into modelling work to interpret regional climate dynamics,” the paper reported.

“[It] traces its link to atmospheric circulation systems such as the Asian monsoon.”

The new finding is important because it aligns with rising concern about the reliability of carbon dating, said Professor Liu Jinyi, specimen curator with the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing.

"Many alternative methods to date objects are now available, but carbon dating is still the most popular because we have used it for a long time with such ease and comfort," said Liu, who was not involved in the study.

"But the method should be limited to young samples, and more efforts should be made to improve its accuracy," he added.

SOURCE





Bavaria jibs at cost of "renewables"

The German state of Bavaria will press the federal government to reduce supports for renewable energy, a high-ranking local policymaker said on Tuesday, calling the cost of green power a threat to economic growth.

“We have to step on the brakes of electricity costs. Germany’s energy transition must not become a decisive disadvantage and a risk to our welfare,” said Ilse Aigner, deputy prime minister of the south-western German state and minister for energy.

Aigner’s views matter because Bavaria has to be in line with Germany’s overall energy goals and her party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), has leverage over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government, led by the CSU’s bigger sister party, the CDU.

She could therefore influence a federal debate planned for this autumn, after the Berlin government settled a number of energy-related disputes in July.

Critics say that the 21 billion euros ($23 billion) that German industrial and household consumers pay annually to subsidise green energy, largely through surcharges under the renewable energy act (EEG), slow competitiveness and spending in the broader economy.

Reform measures are due to be agreed by mid-2016, ushering in renewable energy tenders instead of fixed prices from 2017.

Renewable energy already amounts to over 25 percent of the national electricity mix, driven by the political desire to move to a low-carbon economy.

In Bavaria, it is 30 percent and growing, thanks to a high sun intensity encouraging photovoltaics, as well as hydroelectric, biomass, and geothermal industries.

Bavaria’s industry leaders, including heavyweights such as BMW and Siemens, say high electricity prices already hurt them as well as neighbouring Austria, whose power market is aligned with Germany’s.

SOURCE




More genetic engineering hysteria

No evidence of harm but bans on the way

Meat and milk from the offspring of cloned animals could be banned in Britain after a decisive vote at the European Parliament.

Shoppers have been unknowingly eating the so-called ‘Frankenfoods’ for the past four years because they can be sold without any labelling.

But yesterday MEPs voted for legislation that would permanently ban the cloning of farm animals in Europe and stop the sale of products from clones or their descendants.

Cloning of animals for food is currently subject to a temporary ban in the EU’s 28 member states, but the sale of products from the offspring is allowed.

The new legislation will stop the importation of products derived from cloned animals or their offspring, meaning embryos or sperm from clones could no longer be used by farmers.

Until now there have been no restrictions on importing semen which has come from a cloned animal. This has made it likely that tens of thousands of pigs and cows in Europe are the offspring of cloned stud animals from America, where cloning for commercial purposes is allowed.

MEPs yesterday argued that the majority of European shoppers are against consuming products from cloned animals and their offspring. Italy’s Giulia Moi, who proposed the clone ban, said it would protect the health of future generations.

She said: ‘This sends the message to our trade partners that we are not willing to put our own health, our families’ health, and future generations’ health at stake using products of dubious quality of this nature.  ‘We want to be sure that we don’t go down a path from which there is no return.’

The proposal for legislation was yesterday approved by the European Parliament in Strasbourg by 529 votes to 120. Labour and Green MEPs voted for the move, which the Tories and Ukip tried to block.

MEPs will now begin negotiating with the European Commission and member states on a draft law to introduce a ban.

Labour MEP Paul Brannen, who is the party’s agriculture spokesman, said: ‘There are strong concerns over the welfare and conditions of cloned animals, and that is why we have voted for the EU ban on animal cloning.

‘Labour MEPs believe animal welfare, food standards and biodiversity in our farming system will be protected, and we will continue to work for this.’

Fellow Labour MEP Glenis Willmott added: ‘Cloning farm animals might be a scientific advancement, but it has no environmental, social or health benefits. It takes animal husbandry in entirely the wrong direction, merely making intensive farming even more intensive.

‘There is substantial evidence that cloned animals and the surrogate mothers who carry them can suffer health and welfare problems.’

But a Defra spokesman said: ‘The Food Standards Agency has advised that food from cloned farm animals and their descendants is safe to eat. Any such ban would be disproportionate in terms of both food safety and animal welfare. All farm animals are protected by EU and national welfare legislation.’

Meat, milk, cheese and other dairy products from the offspring of cloned animals have been allowed since 2011, when the British Government and European Commission sabotaged calls for a ban.

SOURCE





GREENIE ROUNDUP FROM AUSTRALIA

Four current reports below: Refugees, flowering trees, uranium and Pacific islands

Moron-talk: Global warming plays havoc with Auburn cherry blossom festival (?)

What complete rubbish!  For a start, there has been no statistically significant global warming for 18 years.  So observed variations in seasons over that period cannot be attributed to that.  All that is being observed is that seasons vary from year to year -- as they always have.

Like many Brisbane people, I like crepe myrtles.  I have eight of them in my back yard.  There must be millions of them in Brisbane.


I have 17 metres solid of blossoming trees in my back yard in January -- in three colours

In tropical North Queensland, where I originally come from, we used to call them Christmas bushes, because they began flowering in early December.  In sub-tropical Brisbane flowering normally begins in January.  It can be early January or late January.  And in some years you can get some blossom in late December.  It's just a natural cycle.  It always has been variable and it always will be.  And there is no doubt that the flowering times of cherry trees will also vary by weeks -- JR


Cherry blossom festivals bring to mind beauty, tranquillity and the traditional Japanese song Sakura Sakura: "Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms, Across the spring sky, As far as you can see."

But the flowering of 180 trees at Auburn's annual cherry blossom festival has sent many young women into a giddy spin. "It's not quite like an Acca Dacca concert," said Greg Hodges, the curator of the Botanic Gardens with the Auburn City Council.

"People go crazy, it is like watching an old Elvis movie. There are girls jumping up and down screaming; it is not the sort of thing you expect in a garden," he said.  "It is such a quaint beauty in this day and age, and people get very excited."

A record 10,000 people visited last Saturday, and similar crowds – those wearing kimonos or Cosplay costumes get in free – are expected to visit the Botanic Garden's Japanese Garden cherry blossoms this weekend too.

Signs warn visitors not to shake the trees, even though catching a petal or capturing a photo with falling blossoms is a good omen in the eyes of some Asian visitors.

For organisers of cherry blossom festivals in Washington DC, Tokyo and Auburn, the trickiest part of the annual event is forecasting when the trees will flower, and hoping they bloom during the scheduled dates.

Specialists at the Royal Botanical Gardens Sydney say global warming is affecting when traditional late-winter and early-spring plants – from wattles to jacarandas –are flowering. Seasonal variations in rainfall and temperature can complicate timing, too.

Contrary to what most people think, a warm winter causes the cherry trees to bloom later. Mr Hodges said the trees – a mix of  flowering pear, apple, cherry and apricot trees – required a prolonged cold period in winter before they will bloom.

Because this winter was cold, about 70 per cent of the  trees are already past their prime, making him wish he had started the festival a week earlier. The white cherry and the flowering pears are still coming on, he said. Last year, he had the opposite problem. A warm 2014 winter meant there were "hardly any blossoms" in the first week.

Because these festivals are so popular, environmental groups such as WWF in the United States use them to highlight the impact of global warming. During the annual cherry blossom festival in Washington DC, WWF held a public talk on "A Blossoming Problem: The Disruptive Impacts of Climate Change on Nature's Calendar" to discuss how global warming affected cherry blossoms and other plants and animals.

A Japanese study also studied the impact of climate change on culturally significant events such as the timing of flowers on the trees.

It found 92 per cent of festival organisers said global warming was occurring, and it was affecting when trees burst into bloom. Organisers dependent on income from these festivals were more concerned about climate change than others.

SOURCE

Greenie group doesn't want refugees

Aid to live safely and sustainably far more effective, says  Sustainable Population Party

Sustainable Population Party rejects the moral posturing and political one-upmanship surrounding the current Syrian refugee crisis, and calls for sustainable global solutions to the human tragedy of forced migration.

In an ABC Radio interview today, World Vision CEO Reverend Tim Costello says “the [refugee] intake is the pimple on the hippopotamus” and “not really the main game.”[1]

Reverend Costello added “It's actually giving people hope in the camps that they're secure, they're going to be fed, that they don't need to flee - and above all... go back home. That's what they want to do. They just want to go back home, not come here, not go to Europe.”

William Bourke, President of the Sustainable Population Party agrees, saying “Whilst an increased intake should be considered, the current game of moral one-upmanship by politicians is unhelpful and regrettable. The government’s plans to increase the intake by 12,000 will cost a conservative $500 million, or around $40,000 per refugee.[2]

“How many people would $40,000 per year help to live safely in UN camps? According to the UNHCR, a donation of $300 per annum ‘can buy an Emergency Assistance Package to give a family the essentials for survival and shelter’.[3] If we conservatively assume a family is four people, that’s $75 per person. For every one person Australia resettles, we therefore forego the opportunity to help over 500 people in what World Vision’s Tim Costello calls ‘the main game’. Given the scale of the Syrian crisis, $500 million would be better spent helping over 6 million people than 12,000.

”Rather than simplistic moral posturing over increased permanent resettlement numbers, we align with Reverend Costello’s overriding aim to help people live safely now, and ultimately sustainably in their homeland. To achieve this ultimate goal, we also need to address underlying drivers of resource scarcity and conflict in Syria, including rapid population growth.

“Syria’s population has exploded from 3.5 million in 1950 to 23 million today. This growth dilutes natural resources like food and water, and ties into “economic problems, education costs and living costs."[4] At the current extreme growth rate, Syria will reach around 35 million by 2050. This increasing resource scarcity fuels growing conflict between militias and religious groups.

“To help address the global population crisis, Australia should also increase its total family planning and reproductive health services foreign aid from $50 million to at least $500 million immediately and to at least $1 billion by 2020, Mr Bourke added.

Press release

Australia's inaction on climate change set to dominate Pacific Island talks

Polynesians and Melanesians are not the most sophisticated people so believe the bull they are told about their low-lying islands getting submerged -- even though it isn't happening -- rather the reverse in a few cases  -- JR

Australia and New Zealand are expected to face strong criticism from Pacific Island leaders disappointed the nations are not doing more to combat climate change.

The issue will likely dominate this week’s Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit in Port Moresby, ahead of the United Nations climate change conference in Paris later in the year.

Pacific leaders want the world to work on restricting the global warming temperature rise to 1.5C, fearing a 2C target will risk the survival of many tiny islands.

Natural disaster recovery will be fresh on their minds. The summit starts on Monday, six months after Cyclone Pam, which flattened much of Vanuatu and caused heavy flooding on Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands.

Host nation Papua New Guinea is grappling with the opposite problem – what could be its worst drought in 20 years and a potential food crisis.

The prime minister, Peter O’Neill, has said El Niño conditions have been exacerbated by the effects of climate change.

The Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are also experiencing a dry spell.

Fiji’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, who is boycotting the summit and will instead send along his foreign minister, had a crack at Tony Abbott at last week’s meeting of his rival club of Pacific leaders – the Pacific Islands Development Forum – that excludes Australia.

He urged Abbott to abandon the “coalition of the selfish” and put the welfare of small Pacific Island neighbours ahead of coal industry interests.

The Abbott government has announced a carbon emissions reduction target of 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2030, which has been criticised for lacking ambition.

New Zealand’s target is a cut of 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.

The summit is expected to sign off on a joint climate change and disaster management strategy for the Pacific.

SOURCE

Australia’s proposed India uranium deal given cautious green light despite ‘risks’

The government-dominated treaties committee has given a cautious green light to a proposed uranium deal with India, but only if the nuclear-armed nation agrees to a number of safeguards.

India is not a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) nor the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT), yet the emerging world leader is in dire need of energy.

As such, the committee report notes that: “It would be fair to say that, in this debate, there are no small risks or benefits. Every issue the committee has dealt with in this inquiry bears significant potential benefits and risks.

“The question for the committee is, then, given the benefits for Australia and India from the proposed agreement, can the risks be tolerated and ameliorated,” the report asked.

To counteract the potential risks of the treaty, including the possibility for Australian uranium to be used in the formation of nuclear weapons, the committee has made six recommendations.

Among them, the recommendation that the bilateral treaty only be ratified if India manages to achieve the full separation of civil and military nuclear facilities, and that the country establishes a new, fully independent, nuclear regulatory body.

It also recommends the International Atomic Energy Agency verify that inspections of nuclear facilities live up to international standards.

India, which is nestled between nuclear-armed neighbours Pakistan and China, is estimated to possess up to 110 nuclear warheads.

Australia should commit “significant diplomatic resources” to encourage India to sign the CTBT and facilitate a regional nuclear arms limitation treaty, the report recommends.

Labor changed its party platform banning the sale of uranium to countries that have not signed the NPT in 2011, paving the way for the deal with India.

The report highlighted the huge economic benefits of the treaty.

“From Australia’s perspective, selling uranium to India would double the size of an export industry, both in terms of income and employment opportunities,” the report said. “Moreover, it will do so in regional and remote Australia at a time when lower commodity prices are having an economic impact on these regions.”

The Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office estimates India’s import requirements for uranium could grow to 2,000 tonnes a year, valued at $200m. The Minerals Council of Australia thinks that could result in a net gain of 4,200 uranium mining jobs.

India currently gets about 50% of its energy from coal, which the report noted is the lesser option when compared with nuclear power. Presently, only 2% of India’s energy is generated by nuclear power.

The committee acknowledges that keeping India isolated due to its status as a non-signatory of the NPT has not resulted in the country ditching its nuclear arsenal. The bilateral treaty, it argued, would give Australia leverage to make changes and strengthen safeguards.

The Greens, in additional comments to the committee’s report, said the agreement was putting “short-term political expedience above global security”.

“As such, the Australian Greens cannot support this agreement and urge others to do likewise,” the comments 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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