Sunday, December 28, 2008

Climate Models.

This deconstruction of (IPCC) climate models by Tim Ball was extracted from the "Right Side News

2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved

The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".

Northeast Siberia braces for extreme cold of -60C

Can you imagine going out to this Stevenson Screen in Verkhojansk and taking a reading in - 60C cold? Let’s count our blessing here in the USA and Canada that we don’t have to deal with these kinds of temperatures, yet.

Monday, December 22, 2008

The only place where CO2 is causing temperature increase is in the IPCC computer models

E. R. Beadle said, “Half the work done in the world is to make things appear what they are not.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does this with purpose and great effect. They built the difference between appearance and reality into their process. Unlike procedure used elsewhere, they produce and release a summary report independently and before the actual technical report is completed. This way the summary gets maximum media attention and becomes the public understanding of what the scientists said. Climate science is made to appear what it is not. Indeed, it is not even what is in their Scientific Report.

The pattern of falsifying appearances began early. Although he works at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Stephen Schneider was heavily employed in the work of the IPCC as this biography notes.

Much of Schneider’s time is taken up by what he calls his “pro bono day job” for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II of the IPCC from 1997 to 2001 and a lead author in Working Group I from 1994 to 1996. Currently, he is a Coordinating Lead Author for the controversial chapter on “Assessing Key Vulnerabilities and the Risks from Climate Change,” in short, defining “dangerous” climate change.” - Pubmedcentral.nih.gov

He continued this work by helping prepare the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) released in April 2007.

Schneider, among others, created the appearance that the Summary was representative of the Science Report. However, he provides an early insight into the thinking when speaking about global warming to Discovery magazine (October 1989) he said scientists need, “to get some broader based support, to capture the public’s imagination…that, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we may have…each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective, and being honest.” The last sentence is deeply disturbing--there is no decision required.

The Summary for Policymakers is designed to convince everyone that global warming is due to human production of CO2. In SPM AR4 issued in April 2007 they say, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” The term “very likely” is from a table reportedly produced by Schneider and means greater than 90%. Professor Roy Spencer says about probabilities in this context. “Any statements of probability are meaningless and misleading. I think the IPCC made a big mistake. They’re pandering to the public not understanding probabilities. When they say 90 percent, they make it sound like they’ve come up with some kind of objective, independent, quantitative way of estimating probabilities related to this stuff. It isn’t. All it is is a statement of faith.”

So they create an appearance of certainty about a human cause of warming. But what is the reality? The only place where CO2 is causing temperature increase is in the IPCC computer models. In every record of any duration for any time period in the history of the Earth, temperature increase precedes CO2 increase. So an incorrect assumption that a CO2 increase will cause temperature increase is built into the computer models. That is damaging enough, but the computer models themselves are completely inadequate to represent global climate or make any predictions about future climate. But don’t believe me. The IPCC Technical Report (“The Physical Science Basis”) produced by Working Group I and released in November 2007, says so.

Problems begin with the definition of climate change used because it requires they only consider human causes. From the United Nations Environment Program (article 1) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over considerable time periods.” But you cannot determine the human portion unless you understand natural climate change. As Professor Roy Spencer said in his testimony before the US Senate EPW Committee, “And given that virtually no research into possible natural explanations for global warming has been performed, it is time for scientific objectivity and integrity to be restored to the field of global warming research.”

Media and public are allowed to believe the IPCC make climate predictions, but they don’t. The First Assessment Report (Climate Change 1992) said, “Scenarios are not predictions of the future and should not be used as such.” While the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios says; “Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts. Climate Change 2001 continues the warnings; “The possibility that any single in emissions path will occur as described in this scenario is highly uncertain.” In the same Report they say, “No judgment is offered in this report as to the preference for any of the scenarios and they are not assigned probabilities of recurrence, neither must they be interpreted as policy recommendations.” This is a reference to the range of scenarios they produce using different future possible economic conditions. Of course, they didn’t build in the recent financial collapse.

Climate Change 2001 substitutes the word projection for prediction. Projection is defined as follows, “A projection is a potential future evolution of a quantity or set of quantities, often computed with the help of a model. Projections are distinguished from predictions in order to emphasise that projections involve assumptions concerning e.g. future socio-economic and technological developments that may or may not be realised and are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty”.

This and similar statements are based on the unproven hypothesis that human produced CO2 is causing warming and or climate change. The evidence is based solely on the output of 18 computer climate models selected by the IPCC. There are a multitude of problems including the fact that every time they run them they produce different results. They use an average of all the runs. The IPCC then take the average results of the 18 models and average them for the results in their Reports.

Tim Palmer, a leading climate modeler at the European Centre for Medium - Range Weather Forecasts said, “I don’t want to undermine the IPCC, but the forecasts, especially for regional climate change, are immensely uncertain.” This comment is partly explained by the scale of the General Circulation Models (GCM). The models are mathematical constructs that divide the world into rectangles. Size of the rectangles is critical to the abilities of the models as the IPCC AR4 acknowledges. “Computational constraints restrict the resolution that is possible in the discretized equations, and some representation of the large-scale impacts of unresolved processes is required (the parametrization problem). “ (AR4 Chapter 8. p.596.)

The IPCC uses surface weather data, which means there is inadequate data in space and time for most of the world to create an accurate model. Limitations of the surface data are surpassed by an almost complete lack of information above the surface. An illustration of the surface problem is identified by the IPCC comment of the problems of modeling Arctic climates.

“Despite advances since the TAR, substantial uncertainty remains in the magnitude of cryospheric feedbacks within AOGCMs. This contributes to a spread of modelled climate response, particularly at high latitudes. At the global scale, the surface albedo feedback is positive in all the models, and varies between models much less than cloud feedbacks. Understanding and evaluating sea ice feedbacks is complicated by the strong coupling to polar cloud processes and ocean heat and freshwater transport. Scarcity of observations in polar regions also hampers evaluation.” (AR4.,Chapter 8, p593.) Most of the information for the Arctic came from the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) and a diagram from that report illustrates the problem.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

systemic BBC bias

Will The BBC be brought back to the world of Journalistic Integrity?
Maybe this will help.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Cooler heads prevailed.

http://news.scotsman.com/world/EU-climate-change-deal-branded.4789652.jp

Industry lobbyists again triumphed this week in Brussels. Coal-fired power plants in East and Central European countries won the right to a delayed payment schedule for emissions credits. German industry won the right to future concessions if a study deems that the EU ETS renders them less competitive on the global market. Although it was never entirely clear what Italy wanted (some believed that the Italian delegation threatened to veto the package to win concessions for the Italian car industry in upcoming negotiations), Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told AFP that "Italy is on the way to getting all it wants.” The gutted agreement infuriated environmentalists.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

‘There’s a lot of rich people backing this cause’

A former lawyer for Enron, shocked to discover that his main job would be to help draft a global warming treaty, tells spiked that censorship and conformism are preventing proper investigation of climate change hysteria.‘I came back to my office and sent an email, essentially saying “Houston, we have a problem”. Did they have any idea what this group, which I was essentially chairing in [former Enron boss] Ken Lay’s stead, was doing? That didn’t go over well. They reminded me that they knew exactly what they were doing, that they had cobbled up businesses on the relative cheap that would – if they got their way – be worth a fortune. That was now their number one priority: windmills, owned by General Electric; gas pipe, owned by General Electric and Warren Buffett; solar panels, now held by BP, and so on.’

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today. How and why we are told otherwise?

Proponents of human induced warming and climate change told us that an increase in CO2 precedes and causes temperature increases. They were wrong. They told us the late 20th century was the warmest on record. They were wrong. They told us, using the infamous “hockey stick” graph, the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) did not exist. They were wrong. They told us global temperatures would increase through 2008 as CO2 increased. They were wrong. They told us Arctic ice would continue to decrease in area through 2008. They were wrong. They told us October 2008 was the second warmest on record. They were wrong. They told us 1998 was the warmest year on record in the US. They were wrong it was 1934. They told us current atmospheric levels of CO2 are the highest on record. They are wrong. They told us pre-industrial atmospheric levels of CO2 were approximately 100 parts per million (ppm) lower than the present 385 ppm. They are wrong. This last is critical because the claim is basic to the argument that humans are causing warming and climate change by increasing the levels of atmospheric CO2 and have throughout the Industrial era. In fact, pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today, but how did they conclude they were lower?

Beavers reported for 'logging'

Green campaigners called in police after discovering an illegal logging site in a nature reserve - only to find it was the work of beavers.
Environmentalists found 20 neatly stacked tree trunks and others marked for felling with notches at the beauty-spot at Subkowy in northern Poland.
But police followed a trail left where one tree had been dragged away - and found a beaver dam right in the middle of the river.
A police spokesman said: "The campaigners are feeling pretty stupid.

You mean they were feeling Normal. These Eco Nut Bars are so much out of Common sense that Nothing can brings them back to the real world.


Sunday, December 7, 2008

CO2 and Temperature Relationship Reaffirmed - Questions Flat Ice Core CO2-Graph During 1000 Years?

The equation is built on data in the big range from CO2 growth 0.5 to 3.5 ppm/year, and all fits fine the very same trend. So in real world today we have a CO2-growth as a function of temperature approximately: CO2 growth (ppm/year) = 2.9 temp.anomaly(K) + 0.7 . And we see that if UAH temperature anomaly should reach - 0.3 K, CO2 growth should stop.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Are There Long-Term Trends in The Start Of Freeze-Up And Melt Of Arctic Sea Ice?

The finding in this data is that there is no clear evidence of a delay in the start of the later summer/early fall freeze up or the start of the late winter/early spring melt despite the well below average areal sea ice coverage.

A priority in the climate modeling community should be an examination of their predictions of trends in the start of freeze up and start of melt dates, in order to see how they conform to the observational data. Also, the reason that the added atmospheric concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases are not changing the dates as expected needs to be provided.

Rethinking Observed Warming

“Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land.”

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Another great article by Tim Ball

Bernard Baruch said, “Vote for the man who promises least; he’ll be the least disappointing.” Barack Obama promised a great deal. He was rarely specific, but his generalities were interpreted to mean he would deal with each voter’s specific concerns. His promise of change was nothing new, but people believed it was different than any thing seen before in Washington. He is not President yet, but already he has demonstrated an inability to satisfy the expectations raised by his eloquence and vagueness. For example, Republicans say his appointments are not change but simply a return to the Clinton regime. Democrats claim he needs experience and the Clinton years were good ones so this does not affect the concept of change he promoted.

Everyone hopes he is successful in resolving at least some of the issues facing the US and the world. However, this assumes in every case that there is a problem that the cause is generally understood, and the solution resolves rather than exacerbates. For example, all the financial fixes may achieve short-term and apparent resolutions, but if they don’t address the fundamental fact that you can’t spend more than you make as an individual or a government you will make the problem worse.

Obama, knowingly and unknowingly, has raised the bar of expectation very high. In the area of climate change he has done it with almost messianic fervor. How else can you interpret the objective to stop climate change? He is not alone in this arrogant objective, but all it means is he is not alone in the fact that it displays a complete lack of understanding of climate and the natural extent of climate change. In his case, he provided evidence when he announced plans to list CO2 as a toxic substance and a pollutant. When he was specific he simply underscored his lack of knowledge and understanding.

This is not surprising as Al Gore is apparently his source of information. Indeed, many were touting Gore as the new climate Tsar in the Obama administration. Even if Gore wasn’t chosen and reports say he has already rejected the possibility, his position as the guru of climate change within the Democratic Party make him impossible to ignore.

A German proverb says, “He who would rule must hear and be deaf, see and be blind.” This is ideal but not realistic. It assumes the leader hears and sees all sides of an issue and reaches a conclusion independent of biased advisers. It also assumes the leader understands the details and complexities of the issue. That is clearly not the situation with Obama and climate change. It is also untrue about Gore. So who becomes the player of influence on climate and energy policy in the Obama regime?

The answer is James Hansen, the same person who has influenced Gore since 1988 when he appeared before Gore’s Senate Committee. Stephen Schneider introduced him at a Stanford University presentation recently as “an iconic leader”.

Schneider made the following statement reported in Discover magazine (October 1989). “Scientists need to get some broader base support, to capture the public’s imagination… that, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of doubts we may have… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” No wonder Schneider defines him as iconic because nobody has practiced what Schneider preached more than Hansen.

John Daly described Schneider as a “Greenhouse Superstar.”

Schneider continued his career in climate even though he is a biologist and his most recent influence was in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. He was an author for the Summary for Policymaker (SPM), the document most important in determining what the media and public know about the science of climate change. It is a political document produced before the final scientific report is produced.

So Schneider has been involved with the deception that is the IPCC from the very beginning.

Schneider operates behind the scenes, but Hansen is very prominent. Despite being a Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), he appears before Congressional Committees sometimes as bureaucrat and sometimes as private citizen. This practice is typical Hansen. He is entitled to his personal opinions, but it is impossible for a committee to consider his views equal to another private citizen in a matter related to his expertise. Professor Bob Carter classifies this behavior as `Hansenism’. After making statements about three generally held but false beliefs about climate and climate change, he says;

Their assertion is a symptom of a disease called Hansenism which has gripped western media sources and political, business and public opinion in a deadly grasp. Hansenist climate hysteria is driven by relentless, ideological, pseudo-scientific drivel, most of which issues from green political activists and their supporters, and is then promulgated by compliant media commentators who are innocent of knowledge of true scientific method.

Carter says Hansenism is more dangerous than Lysenkoism. This was ideological control of genetics by Trofim Lysenko, Director of the Institute of Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which evolved around four main themes Carter identifies as follows:

  • A necessity to demonstrate the practical relevance of science to the needs of society;
  • The amassing of evidence to show the “correctness” of the concept as a substitute for causal proof;
  • Noble cause corruption, whereby data are manipulated to support a cause which is seen as a higher truth; and
  • Ideological zeal, such the dissidents are silenced as “enemies of the truth”.

  • At his Stanford speech Hansen showed photos of his grandchildren and said, “It is a basic conflict between fossil fuel special interests and the interests of young people, nature and animals.” Surely this is a classic case of noble cause corruption to justify the pattern of his behavior.

    From the time of his appearance before Gore’s committee to the speech at Stanford, Hansen continued his tactics. Fear, threats of impending doom, running out of time, are all used and backed by misinformation, unjustified speculation, and inaccurate information. “ Time is running out to prevent catastrophic consequences from global warming,” “We’ve reached a point where we have a crisis, an emergency, but people don’t know that”. They do know about it, but they are less and less convinced as the evidence shows humans and their CO2 are not the cause. In another Hansenism he claims, “There’s a big gap between what’s understood about global warming by the scientific community and what is known by the public and policymakers.” He is right for the wrong reason. It is the IPCC and his own public statements that have created the gap. Data put out by NASA GISS for which he is Director has created serious misdirection.

    His agency claimed 1998 the warmest year in the US and the eight warmest years occurred since 1998. Steve McIntyre showed that the numbers were due to an error and 1934 was the warmest year and four of the top ten warmest years were in the 1930s.

    The incident was classified as an error, but many considered it suspicious in light of a pattern of “errors” and adjustments of the record NASA GISS. All these adjustments made past temperatures lower thus making current conditions apparently warmer. GISS is not alone in this practice. The infamous ‘hockey stick’ achieved the goal of “getting rid of the Medieval Warm Period as reported here.

    More recently NASA GISS claimed October 2008 was the second warmest on record. It was claimed they did not produce the data, but they accepted it and put it out under their name. The error was large and should have raised alarms. Record low temperatures and early snow were reported in many regions, but this was ignored in the eagerness to promote global warming.

    It is not possible to prove the errors were deliberate even though all the changes made were always to enhance current warming. However, the errors are serious enough to require removal for incompetence, especially when combined with with Hansen’s public activities as a bureaucrat. For example, he testified before Congress that oil executive’s should be tried for crimes against humanity. He was testifying in his charade as a private citizen.

    He was also a private citizen when he appeared before a British court recently. He testified for the defense of Greenpeace supporters accused of damaging a coal plant. He said they were justified because it was part of a need to protect the world from global warming. The defendants were acquitted.

    Apparently in 2006, and clearly with justification, concern was growing over the activities of the highly political bureaucrat. Hansen’s defense was a strong offense. He appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform claiming political interference. His claim raises questions about the role of bureaucrats in a democracy. He pursued the topic again in a paper published in early 2008.

    Roger Pielke Jr discussed Hansen’s position at length here;

    Pielke Jr’s most telling comment says; “Hansen does not like the political control of government communications, regardless of who has been elected into power.” If this is true, then Barack Obama will have a problem if he decides to delay action on reduction of CO2. Hansen says at 385 ppm it is well above a ‘safe’ level of 350 ppm. Reduction to that level is necessary as he told the Stanford audience, “To preserve creation, the planet on which civilization developed.” The fact there is no so such thing as a safe level and a reduction will have serious implications for plants, oxygen production and thereby life is what Obama needs to hear. But he won’t because he has promised too much already; he doesn’t understand climate science and Hansen will make him hear when he should be deaf.

    Sunday, November 16, 2008

    scientific blunder

    So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

    Friday, November 14, 2008

    Memo to Gavin Schmidt

    From: He Whose Name You are Not Allowed to Utter

    Gavin, you said:

    [Response: There are still (at least) four stations that have Oct data in place of september data but that didn’t report september data (Kirensk, Irkutsk, Bratsk, Erbogacen). I expect that the SEP=OCT check that NOAA did, just didn’t catch these. Still, this is embarassing - but will be fixed today. Nobody is ‘indifferent’. - gavin]

    As you said elsewhere:

    Why anyone would automatically assume something nefarious was going on without even looking at the numbers is a mystery to me.

    Why would you assume that Erbogacen, Kirensk, Bratsk and Irkutsk did not report September data? I hope that you didn't do so "without looking at the numbers". Just to make things easy for you, here is a script that will do download daily GHCN data for you.

    Monday, November 10, 2008

    Cool hand Luke.

    "What we have here is a complete lack of Communication"

    The Santers response reminded me of the Movie Cool hand Luke.
    The Arrogance of a scientist who has something to hide?
    Every time I read Steve M. I often find myself thinking about"how High is his IQ"?
    It's got to be way up there with the Savants. No wonder scientist with suspect data are so afraid to have Steve M. audit them. He is the Tax man of the AGW world. They Know if they have publish suspect data they will be exposed Like M Mann and his team who got more Exposure then they ever planed. Like Cool hand Luke he can get under their skins and drive them Nuts.

    The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World's Top Climate Scientists.

    November 9, 2008:
    The two papers we had submitted to Geophysical Research Letters have both been rejected, with instructions to not resubmit either one. The first paper showed how none of 18 IPCC climate models, in over 1,000 years of global warming simulations, ever exhibits the negative feedback we have measured from global satellite data.

    The second paper revealed new satellite evidence that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation modulates the Earth's radiative balance by an amount that, when put into a simple climate model, can explain 75% of global warming over the 20th Century....including the slight cooling between 1940 and 1980.

    Since our previous publications have been basically censored by the news media, and I have now experienced scientific censorship (which I suppose was long overdue), I have decided to take my message to the people in a second book.

    In anticipation of trouble getting these papers published, I had already started the book awhile back...it is now about 80% finished, heavily illustrated. The working title is:
    The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World's Top Climate Scientists. My book agent is currently scouting for publishers.

    Saturday, November 8, 2008

    Only Computer Illiterates believe in "Man-Made" Global Warming

    "What people do not understand is that there is no proof of "Man-Made" Global Warming without using irrelevant computer models. Yes computer models have a place in engineering but are utterly useless at fortune telling, I mean "climate prediction". With engineering you can build and test in the real world to confirm the computer model's accuracy. You can do no such thing with the planet Earth and it's climate. You cannot build a planet and it's atmosphere to "test" your computer climate model.

    I am a computer analyst and can program a computer model to do whatever I want. If you program a computer model so that X amount of CO2 increase "forces" X amount of temperature increase then it will happen, this does not make this true in the real world."

    Wednesday, November 5, 2008

    climate models have no predictive value

    Alan Greenspan former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, a position touted as one of the most powerful unelected offices in the world, in a hearing before Rep. Henry Waxman’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said he got it wrong in answer to questions about his role in the recent financial meltdown. His extremely mobile face deadpanned that his economic models, which he had relied on for 40 years, were wrong. He did not apologize; it was merely a statement of fact that portrayed no irrational exuberance. He gave no hint of concern about the massive damage his reliance on the models had done. Huge losses of money among those who exploited the situation his models allowed, garnered no sympathy. However, the dashing of hope at the bottom of the economic pyramid, the disaster of losing one’s home or job, the stress created by worrying about losing either, and a myriad other such stories in the US and across the world appeared to be dismissed with a wave of the academic and intellectual hand.
    There were warnings. In October 2005 Stephen King wrote in the British newspaper, The Independent, “Despite Mr Greenspan’s colossal reputation, I have my doubts that his approach will survive his departure: by giving the impression that all risks can be contained through his own wizardry, Mr Greenspan may have encouraged excessive risk-taking, most obviously with the equity bubble in the late 1990s and, more recently, with the emergence of a housing bubble.” (Story)
    The wizardry was his models. Greenspan likely believes he absolved himself from any blame or responsibility by his statement that it was the model’s fault - I am not responsible or accountable. As the blog site, “Naked Capitalism” puts it, “Being an objectivist means never having to take responsibility for your actions. Greenspan has now decided to pin the financial market crisis on models.” The clichĆ© about models is garbage in garbage out (GIGO), but the issues are who put the garbage in and who decided what happened to the garbage while it was in the model and then how was the garbage used once it was out?
    Ironically, to a certain extent, Greenspan is correct. The models are the problem. Models are useful tools as long as they are used for simple readily measured situations. However, even there they can be wrong. Consider the failures that occur with constructions. The bridge in Minneapolis is a good example. When complexity increases, particularly through interactions between various segments, their use becomes extremely questionable. They depend upon the amount and accuracy of the data on which they are built and in most cases this is less than adequate. They assume an ability to quantify every variable, but this is not possible. Even the largest computers cannot include all variables. Which ones do you leave out? How would you quantify Greenspan’s irrational exuberance? Indeed, how do you quantify human behavior? Greenspan failed to quantify human reaction to policies he formulated based on his model output and in his testimony he admitted he did not anticipate what happened. This is a typical academic response and why the phrase “it is purely academic” means it is irrelevant to the real world. What is remarkable is his naivete and belief in his model and his lack of understanding of human nature. Unfortunately he is not alone in an implicit belief in models and their ability to simulate the complexity of real world conditions. He is not alone in the application of the model outputs as the basis for major public policies. They are the bane of society wherever they are used.
    Models range in form from hardware models, which are simply scale reductions such as a model airplane, to purely abstract models that replace individual components with symbols. These, in the simplest model usually are letters of the alphabet to represent a variable. Everyone is familiar with Einstein’s famous model symbolized in the mathematical formula e = mc2. represents energy, m is for mass and c is for the speed of light. Almost all models in science or social science are mathematical.
    Modeling became dominant in every discipline with the advent of the computer. This allowed for inclusion of vast amounts of data on which complex calculations could be performed. Unfortunately, this gave them a credibility that they didn’t deserve. As Pierre Gallois said, “If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no one dares criticize it.” Working with models in a laboratory or academic environment only requires logic, rigorous method and adherence to scientific standards. Too often today even these are not being met, but they only do damage within academia. However, once you use the output of your models for policy then a social and political responsibility is required and as we see more and more often it is not being met. Greenspan and his model are a disastrous example.
    Economics is a discipline within the general area of the social sciences. The term implies that somehow you can apply the scientific method to individual and group behavior within a society. However, there is a fundamental difference between science and social science and that is the ability to predict. A simple definition of science is the ability to predict. The scientific prediction does not trigger a response or a change, but remains measurable. Social science predictions inevitably produce a response and triggers change that jeopardizes the prediction. For example, if an economist studies a community and produces a predictive report that leaders and innovators in the community react by changing their behavior and thus that of the community. This results in invalidating the original predictive report. Obviously, this is what happened when Greenspan applied his predictive model output to the US economy.
    Greenspan’s model was the basis for US financial policy for the entire time he was Chairman of the Reserve Board after his appointment in 1987. It was also the basis for world economies as the reverberations of the collapse demonstrate. However, it is not the only flawed model influencing global policy and driving it in the wrong direction. The IPCC climate model is the sole source of evidence that human CO2 is causing climate change yet it is being used to create completely unnecessary taxes, policies and hardships.
    The IPCC models are also the source of predictions about threatening future climates. This despite their own warning in their first Report (Climate Change 1992) “Scenarios are not predictions of the future and should not be used as such.” While the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios says; “Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts. By Climate Change 2001 they were saying; “The possibility that any single in emissions path will occur as described in this scenario is highly uncertain.” They later say, “No judgment is offered in this report as to the preference for any of the scenarios and they are not assigned probabilities of recurrence, neither must they be interpreted as policy recommendations” The hypocrisy of these words is provided by the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) they produce.
    Some argue climate models are better than economic models because they are based on physics. If this was true then their predictions would be accurate but they are not. It’s not surprising because they are not validated. This is a standard test in which a model attempts to recreate previous known conditions. Everyone is aware they cannot provide accurate weather forecasts beyond 5 days so it is unreasonable to claim they make accurate climate forecast for 50 and 100 years. The argument that weather forecasts are different than climate forecasts is not upheld because climate is an average of the weather. They are only as accurate as our knowledge of the weather and its mechanisms. At a recent conference on climate modeling in Reading England, Tim Palmer, a leading climate modeler at the European Centre for Medium - Range Weather Forecasts said “I don’t want to undermine the IPCC, but the forecasts, especially for regional climate change, are immensely uncertain.”
    A paper by Demetris Koutsoyiannis et al argues that climate models have no predictive value.
    Failure of the IPCC models is not surprising. They are built on the theory of warming/climate change, which uses the fundamental assumption that an increase in CO2 will cause an increase in temperature. In every record of any duration for any time period in the Earth’s history temperature increases before CO2. However, a major problem is the models focus on human causes as their mandate dictates. As Roy Spencer said in his testimony before the US Senate EPW Committee “And given that virtually no research into possible natural explanations for global warming has been performed, it is time for scientific objectivity and integrity to be restored to the field of global warming research.”
    The IPCC and their totally inadequate and incomplete climate models exploit peoples fears and lack of understanding while driving politicians to completely wrong policy. They present scenarios and warn against using them as predictions yet produce a Summary for Policymakers. Individual IPCC members actively encourage policies.
    Greenspan’s bland and unapologetic statement that his model failed is frightening. It is even more frightening that the solutions do not deal with the fundamental flaws that allowed it to exist. Spending more than you earn is a problem from the individual through to government. He encouraged credit and then chastised the irrational exuberance with which it was adopted. Now those who provided and often exploited the credit shock him.
    The same is true of climate models. They are grossly flawed being built on at least one critically false assumption, on inadequate data, and omit major mechanisms while consistently making inaccurate predictions. The damage of energy and environmental policies based on their output is already extensive and will get worse as politicians plan massive CO2 reductions. The question is how did Greenspan get away with it? Why wasn’t he challenged? How are the IPCC getting away with their deceptions and failed models? Bartholomew and Goode provide the answer succinctly in this paragraph on mass hysteria.
    Many factors contribute to the formation and spread of collective delusions and hysterical illness: the mass media; rumors; extraordinary anxiety or excitement; cultural beliefs and stereotypes; the social and political context; and reinforcing actions by authorities such as politicians, or institutions of social control such as the police or military. Episodes are also distinguishable by the redefinition of mundane objects, events, and circumstances and reflect a rapidly spreading folk belief which contributes to an emerging definition of the situation. (They should add academia as a reinforcing authority.) (Link)
    The “redefinition of mundane objects” applies to weather events and climate change. These natural events have been redefined as unnatural and therefore problematic. They are then wrapped in the larger environmental hysteria.
    It also appears George Orwell was correct when he wrote, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

    Wednesday, October 29, 2008

    How to talk to Climate Alarmist

    How to Talk to a Climate Alarmist: The Skeptics Handbook
    Joanne Nova has written an excellent downloadable 16 page handbook, ‘The Skeptics Handbook,’ which is available form her JoNova weblog:
    http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/

    Saturday, October 25, 2008

    Financial meltdown defrocks deceit of man-made global warming

    The financial debacle and the climate change misdirection fit Abraham Lincoln’s dictum, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” Maybe now politicians the public and the politicians will acknowledge that they can and have been fooled about climate change.

    A clear and present danger: Scientists with political motives

    “Stepping into a political fray is almost unheard of for a scientist, especially one of Weaver’s stature” illustrates his lack of understanding of the formation, mandate, structure and activities of the IPCC, all of which are purely political.

    Wednesday, October 22, 2008

    Wet Droughts and Dry floods

    Global Warming - more wet droughts and dry floods.
    What's next, wet droughts and dry floods?

    Comments and reports about global warming are getting silly and even
    ridiculous.
    We're told cooling is due to warming. More rain and flooding and less rain
    and drought are both due to warming. More hurricanes are predicted while
    fewer occur. Global temperatures declined as much in the first few months of
    2008 as they increased in the previous 100-plus years due to warming. Every
    natural event has now become unnatural.
    What is next on the scary agenda, wet droughts and dry floods?
    More and more people are questioning and learning about the bad science.
    They see and hear the contradictions in the claims, the failure of previous
    disaster predictions. Enough reports trickle through to raise questions
    about previous threats.
    Actually, ridiculous statements and definitive claims of doom are a good
    sign. Good because they are a sign of desperation as evidence accumulates
    that human CO2 is not causing warming or climate change. Good because people
    and governments are changing their positions faced with the evidence and the
    costs already incurred by wrong policies and actions. Good because
    governments are coming to their senses and getting their priorities right.
    Unless you live in B.C.
    Al Gore's 10-year threat implies a tipping point. James Hansen and others
    similarly warn we are close to such a point. Ironically, we are reaching a
    tipping point, but it is not the one they would like. Rather it is the
    tipping point created by their extremism. A point were the increasing claims
    and threats become so irrational and ridiculous that they force people to
    change their perspective even if they still don't understand the science.
    We heard 14 years ago: " In 10 to 12 years we will reach the tipping
    point."
    To the zealots, this obvious discrepancy is easily miss since asking
    question within this new religion is forbidden, let alone being allowed to
    talk to "outsiders," commonly known amongst the converted as "deniers,"
    consequently showing how weak the science they try so desperately to defend
    is.
    Al Gore and James Hansen are still defending the year 1998 as being the
    warmest year in the past 100, while denying that the temperature data show a
    steadied temperature and even a slight decrease of -0.07C in the last 10
    years.
    We are in 2008 and if 1998 is the warmest year as these alarmists claim,
    then they contradict themselves and confirm that we are indeed in the 10th
    year of no temperature increase.
    Japanese scientist, IPCC reviewer and Nobel prize winner Dr Kiminori
    Itosh, is the 11th IPCC AR4 report writer to quit the IPCC and call climate
    fears: "The worst scientific scandal in history! When people come to know
    what the truth is ,they will feel deceived by science and scientists."
    W. Robichaud
    Williams Lake

    Friday, October 17, 2008

    Plants have rights to CO2 at 2,000 ppm

    Chimpanzees are going to get human rights in Europe. They won't be real humans so far, just persons who must get their lawyers who can use anti-discrimination laws to protect their clients and who can bring their guardians new tax breaks. But John Christy is ahead of them:
    Follow the logic. If flowers, trees, etc. have rights, then they should have the right to their original food supply (CO2) in quantities as it was when they evolved (about five times today's value).Another follow the logic: If it is legal to commit the crime of vandalism on power plants to reduce CO2, then it should be legal to run stop signs and red lights because you reduce CO2 as a result. John C.Indeed, half a billion years ago, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was about 2,000 ppm. That's when the plants began to evolve. They have the right to get their optimum atmosphere that has been catastrophically stolen from them. ;-)Anyone who prevents the CO2 from returning to 2,000 ppm should be arrested for damaging the basic human rights of billions of Tree Americans, Potato Americans, and other groups that have been discriminated against so far. :-)And even if someone is a racist and an anti-plants bigot :-) and prefers CO2 to drop, she should allow cars to run red lights because it reduces CO2 emissions, either because the car doesn't have to accelerate again or - even more efficiently - because some nasty CO2-emitting humans will be killed.Now, both John Christy and your humble correspondent are joking: in reality, the "justifications" of the proposed policies are irrelevant in comparison with the important bad consequences that they would have.But the problem with all the jokes in this context is that we are surrounded by thousands of nutcases who are constantly proposing very similar regulations and they seem to be serious about them.

    Scientists Challenge UK Govt Climate Committee to 'Drop flawed science and the Climate Change millstone - Save the economy'.

    "There is no evidence that Carbon dioxide has ever controlled, is controlling or will ever control world temperatures or climate and I challenge the promoters of this nonsense to produce evidence to justify their policies - or drop them, just as 13 world scientists** have similarly challenged the UN."Climate Change policy is a millstone around the UK and world economies. The beneficiaries are oil companies who ram up prices with abandon (taking advantage of limits placed on expansion of coal), bio-fuel producers who are increasing food prices and starvation, and the booming industry of climate change parasites such as carbon traders and nuclear power-mongers."Taxpayers and the developing world are the losers. There is a world recession now upon us which is being made deeper by Climate Change policies and the perpetrators must be called to account. Banks and industry are going bust yet the green fundamentalists want to impose more of this madness on the world. They actually want to increase their burden on the UK economy and deepen the world recession**. "Genuine green policies to defend bio-diversity and reduce waste should be supported but the deceitful manipulation of the goodwill of many people in order to promote policies of mass taxation, expensive and dangerous energy like nuclear power and cuts in world living standards must be stopped. The UK and the world now need cheap energy solutions like coal to diesel technology which can be made smoke free. The danger for honest green campaigners - unless they break from the stranglehold of the Climate Change lobby - is that when the Global Warming swindle is exposed their spirited defence of nature will be forgotten too."CO2 is no problem - it is the Gas of Life (GOL). The problem is Climate Change Policy - not Climate Change which is beyond man's control. Global warming is over. World temperatures have fallen from their peak ten years ago while GOL (CO2) has been rising rapidly. The world was much warmer than now in the Bronze age 4,000 years ago and there was much less GOL (CO2) then. The bounteousness of world vegetation goes up with GOL. We need more GOL not less!







    http://www.lowefo.com/pdf/Letter%20to%20Tim%20Yeo%20MP%208Jul08.pdf



    http://www.uncapsa.org/Topics/IPCC_letter_14April08-1.pdf



    http://www.lowefo.com/pdf/Letter_UN_Sec_Gen_Ban_Ki-moon.pdf

    Wednesday, October 8, 2008

    Reality check…again.

    After reading a few articles about how “well” the Europeans are doing at tackling Global warming. I just had to take a look to see for myself and I wish we all did the same.
    Here is what I found after a single Google click under “EU Cap and trade”.
    Brussels EU leaders clashed last night over how to cut greenhouse gases a year after making climate change their top priority with a series of tough targets. The first signs of a retreat from the much-trumpeted green pledges came from Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, who called for concessions for German car-makers and heavy industry.
    Chancellor Angela Merkel has again reiterated the need for Germany to build coal-fired power plants. Merkel said Germany would only be able to continue meeting its own demand for electricity if it built new power plants .
    Germany wants to limit industry purchases of emissions permits to cover no more than 20 percent of their carbon emissions caps from 2013 to 2020, for government and industry. Germany wants to exempt power plants altogether from having to buy any EUAs in the second trading cycle of the scheme. How are we to built alternative energy and convert our home to be more efficient if we cannot operate our industrial plants?
    The Czech Republic want to block the European Commission's plan to auction carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions permits to energy companies after 2012, government officials said on Tuesday.
    Poland want to block auction.
    If we have to buy 100 percent of allowances from 2013, it would cost 5 billion euros [US$7.6 billion] per year and the price of energy would rise by 50 to 70 percent.
    Britain's climate change emissions is 12% higher than officially stated, according to a National Audit Office investigation which has strongly criticized the government for using two different carbon accounting systems.
    The report says there have been "no reductions in UK emissions" if measured by the national accounts method. The figures contained in the report fly in the face of consistent government claims that it is reducing emissions.
    Using the more stringent accounting standard, the investigation finds "there have been no reductions in UK carbon dioxide emissions" from the 1990 level.
    All is not well in the EU and we better ask our politicians some very hard questions.

    http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Emissions_auctions_to_cost_billions/articleshow/2995544.cms

    www.redorbit.com/news/business/1537676/german_leader_advocates_a_mix_of_powergeneration_sources/


    www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/06/01/2008-06-01T121707Z_01_L01695124_RTRIDST_0_CLIMATE-UN-PREVIEW.

    http://economictimhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,547555,00.html

    es.indiatimes.com/Earth/Emissions_auctions_to_cost_billions/articleshow/2995544.cms

    Tuesday, September 23, 2008

    Chris Landsea Leaves IPCC

    Dear colleagues,

    After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.

    With this open letter to the community, I wish to explain the basis for my decision and bring awareness to what I view as a problem in the IPCC process. The IPCC is a group of climate researchers from around the world that every few years summarize how climate is changing and how it may be altered in the future due to MANMADE global warming. I had served both as an author for the Observations chapter and a Reviewer for the 2nd Assessment Report in 1995 and the 3rd Assessment Report in 2001, primarily on the topic of tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons). My work on hurricanes, and tropical cyclones more generally, has been widely cited by the IPCC. For the upcoming AR4, I was asked several weeks ago by the Observations chapter Lead Author - Dr. Kevin Trenberth - to provide the writeup for Atlantic hurricanes. As I had in the past, I agreed to assist the IPCC in what I thought was to be an important, and politically-neutral determination of what is happening with our climate.

    Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane section for the AR4's Observations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in a press conference organized by scientists at Harvard on the topic "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity" along with other media interviews on the topic. The result of this media interaction was widespread coverage that directly connected the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today. Listening to and reading transcripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media. These media sessions have potential to result in a widespread perception that global warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.

    I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. TheIPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.

    Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of Climate, 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today. It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century (Michaels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate, 2005, submitted).

    It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming. Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity. My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCCand then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy.

    My concerns go beyond the actions of Dr. Trenberth and his colleagues to how he and other IPCC officials responded to my concerns. I did caution Dr. Trenberth before the media event and provided him a summary of the current understanding within the hurricane research community. I was disappointed when the IPCCleadership dismissed my concerns when I brought up the misrepresentation of climate science while invoking the authority of the IPCC. Specifically, the IPCCleadership said that Dr. Trenberth was speaking as an individual even though he was introduced in the press conference as an IPCClead author; I was told that that the media was exaggerating or misrepresenting his words, even though the audio from the press conference and interview tells a different story (available on the web directly); and that Dr. Trenberth was accurately reflecting conclusions from the TAR, even though it is quite clear that the TAR stated that there was no connection between global warming and hurricane activity. The IPCCleadership saw nothing to be concerned with in Dr. Trenberth's unfounded pronouncements to the media, despite his supposedly impartial important role that he must undertake as a Lead Author on the upcoming AR4.

    It is certainly true that "individual scientists can do what they wish in their own rights", as one of the folks in the IPCCleadership suggested. Differing conclusions and robust debates are certainly crucial to progress in climate science. However, this case is not an honest scientific discussion conducted at a meeting of climate researchers. Instead, a scientist with an important role in the IPCCrepresented himself as a Lead Author for the IPCChas used that position to promulgate to the media and general public his own opinion that the busy 2004 hurricane season was caused by global warming, which is in direct opposition to research written in the field and is counter to conclusions in the TAR. This becomes problematic when I am then asked to provide the draft about observed hurricane activity variations for the AR4 with, ironically, Dr. Trenberth as the Lead Author for this chapter. Because of Dr. Trenberth's pronouncements, the IPCCprocess on our assessment of these crucial extreme events in our climate system has been subverted and compromised, its neutrality lost. While no one can "tell" scientists what to say or not say (nor am I suggesting that), the IPCCdid select Dr. Trenberth as a Lead Author and entrusted to him to carry out this duty in a non-biased, neutral point of view. When scientists hold press conferences and speak with the media, much care is needed not to reflect poorly upon the IPCC. It is of more than passing interest to note that Dr. Trenberth, while eager to share his views on global warming and hurricanes with the media, declined to do so at the Climate Variability and Change Conference in January where he made several presentations. Perhaps he was concerned that such speculation - though worthy in his mind of public pronouncements – would not stand up to the scrutiny of fellow climate scientists.

    I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound. As the IPCCleadership has seen no wrong in Dr. Trenberth's actions and have retained him as a Lead Author for the AR4, I have decided to no longer participate in the IPCCAR4.

    Sincerely, Chris Landsea

    IPCC and Climate

    Kevin Trenberth, an advisor to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made some startling admissions regarding the IPCC's use of computer General Circulation Modules (GCMs) (h/t Moonbattery). Professor Bob Carter, a geologist writing for Australia's News.com, has the scoop:

    In a remarkable contribution to Nature magazine's Climate Feedback blog, Trenberth concedes GCMs cannot predict future climate and claims the IPCC is not in the business of climate prediction. This might be news to some people.

    Among other things, Trenberth asserts ". . . there are no (climate) predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been". Instead, there are only "what if" projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios.

    You do remember that the IPCC has been leading the charge with Al Gore on the whole "scientific consensus" on man-made global warming.

    Carter also relates that in a paper to be presented at the 27th International Symposium on Forecasting in New York this week, Scott Armstrong and Kesten Green find other discrepancies within the relevant chapter in the IPCC's latest report.

    http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3618

    http://orangepunch.freedomblogging.com/2008/06/18/japanese-ipcc-scientists-says-global-warming-worst-scientific-scandal/

    Big Brother Government’ most ignored issue in 2008 presidential race

    http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4921

    (Editor’s note: Lost in the personal smear slinging in the 2008 presidential race, is the increasing and alarming Big Brother Role of the government. While arguments heat up out on the hustings, the government has moved in with a billions of dollars bailout of the foundering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The dangerous assumption that government can do something better than private industry, the massive involvement of government in something as basic as housing are all part of the larger question Dr. Tim Ball poses in this article. A persistent advocate that global warming is not man-made, Ball warns us that most contemporary governments now seek to remove personal freedom, coupled with the demand of more taxation: “At no time since World War II has the question of the size of government been more critical in a U.S. Election…)”
    George Bernard Shaw said, “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” The comment raises many questions about what is at the heart of the current US election. First among these is the role of government. Should they have the power to take money from Peter to give to Paul? How much money should they be allowed to take? What impact does the transfer of wealth have upon Peter and Paul? How much does the action affect the willingness of Peter to produce surplus wealth or the desire of Paul to accept responsibility for his lack of wealth and do something about it? Edith Hamilton said, “When the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and never was free again.”
    Two interests evolved from my study of the impact of climate change on the human condition. One was the realization that drought is the single most devastating climate effect on flora and fauna and thus the people of the region. Second was the need to put any problem in a historical context. As a result I taught courses at the University level in water resources and political geography. The dictum I laid out for students especially in the latter, was geography was the stage and history the play performed upon that stage. You could study them independently, as is unfortunately the case in modern academia, but you only develop a more complete understanding when they are combined. For example, you only develop a clearer understanding of the growth of the fur trade and its impact on North America if you know how cold it was at that time. The greatest fur trading company that controlled one twelfth of the world’s land surface received its charter in 1670 just 13 years before there was a recorded 1 m (3 feet) of ice on the Thames River in London, England.
    To understand the current US election, you must put it in the context of history. It is likely that the amount and role of government is as crucial a decision today as the original decision to break from Britain and establish a new country. However, they are very similar decisions. Both are about limiting the extent and power of government. The only difference is that one broke free from external imposition of government while the other is about preventing or at least controlling the internal imposition of government.
    The original and primary role of a nation state government was to defend the nation. The government raises the money to perform this function, that’s required basis. Some people are aware that income tax was introduced as a temporary measure to pay for war. Unfortunately, governments like people are loath to surrender a source of income and the power that it provides.
    We are a brief 63 years on from the end of World War II. While many have focused on the successful defeat of fascism and the defense of freedom, few think about the social and political effects. Some of these appear trivial but are actually quite profound. For example, necessity and practicality led to women wearing pants. Society also realized that women could perform jobs and roles previously the exclusive domain of men. Thank goodness for Rosie the riveter. On a world scale European colonies, particularly those of the British Empire, realized that Britain needed them as much as they needed Britain. Although the Empire was in decline prior to the war, this profound psychological shift lead rapidly to decolonization.
    Since national governments had the role of defending the nation they were given the power to do what was necessary. I recall how dramatic the implementation of that power was when Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau determined the insurrection of separatists in Quebec was sufficient to implement the War Measures Act. This effectively removed the rights of individual citizens and provided the government with the power to act without accountability. Many expressed their concerns but to no avail. The majority, frightened by kidnapping and murder, were relieved to have the government take charge. Exploitation of these fears and the desire to be protected among the majority of the citizens is why dictatorships invariably invoke an outside threat to take absolute control.
    During the World War II, allied nations that remained free from invasion saw their governments take considerable control. In England, it was extreme with the government even controlling through the use of ration books to type and amount of food as well as clothing to which citizens were entitled. Many don’t know that some of this rationing extended beyond the end of the war. I recall as a child the joyous year 1952 when candies (Sweets in England) were finally free of rationing.
    While that marked freedom from extreme government control it did not mark the end of the larger role government had assumed. In Britain, the government of Winston Churchill was defeated by the Socialist government of Clement Atlee within a few months of the end of the war. It was reasonable for the people of Britain to look forward to a new form of life after the hardships and sacrifices they had made. The problem was the new government did not want to give up much of the power it inherited, especially since it serviced their political desires of greater government control. Although the events in Britain were more extreme than elsewhere, almost every country emerged from the war with greater government control of many aspects of everyone’s life.
    Eventually, it was the cost of servicing such a government, in most cases funded by the former temporary but now permanent income tax that confronted the trend. Leaders like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, led the charge against the cost of government. Interestingly, they didn’t really tackle the question about the role and extent of government in a nation and individual’s business. In fact, one can argue that it was the failure of Margaret Thatcher to deal with the social and economic fallout created by the reduction of government that led to her defeat.
    In the current US election, the question of the role and extent of government is central. Ironically, it is more clearly defined because of the candidates. One clearly espouses a socialist view with a dramatically increased role for government. The other, although opposed to a larger government, clearly believes it has a significant role. Even selection of a more conservative Vice President did not address the question. Corruption, self-advancement, largess to cronies are moral and criminal issues regardless of political views. So both parties agree that governments will continue to exist, they only disagree on the extent. The question and challenge is defined, but how do we have that debate? The vast majority are agreed that communism with absolute government control and anarchy with no government control are not the answer, but beyond that there is great divide among the citizens about what should be in government hands and what should be left to individual citizens and private industry.
    The debate is greatly complicated by the fact that few citizens have any experience of life with a dramatically reduced government. Listening to your fellow citizens provides measure of the difficulty. They will complain about too much government, too many taxes and too much red tape, yet you can hear the same people say about a problem, “Why doesn’t the government do something about this?” You can add to this the number of people, usually over half of any society, who prefer not to have responsibility or have to make decisions for themselves. They, like Paul, have benefited from the government robbing Peter to carry out those functions for them. They are not disposed to surrender a lack of personal responsibility and largess governments provide. Maybe the good news is that many of them don’t even exercise their right to vote.
    One side in the debate presents the traditional argument for the role of government as defense of the nation against terrorism and radical Islam and now a growing resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia. The other side essentially ignores these concerns dismissing them as bogeymen of the power elite exploited to maintain power. However, they exploit a much greater bogeyman, the total collapse of the ecosystem.
    Global warming and climate change skillfully confused with pollution have become the new enemy. It joins the general argument that industrialized humans are destroying the planet and thus becomes the outside threat most governments seek to remove personal freedoms and demand more taxation. In Britain, economist and politician Ed Miliband, brother of the Foreign Secretary David Miliband said, “I want a society where there is intergenerational equity.” This is doublespeak for the argument that we are wrecking the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the standard exploitation of fear and guilt, but is it true?
    The short answer is no. The world is in far better shape than environmentalists and media present. It is a very rare event when they report an improvement or identify and correct an earlier erroneous story. Before we surrender any more freedoms or money, we should assess the real situation. This is difficult because first you have to take the people from where the media have taken them. The media has created a virtual reality world and government agencies are disposed to identify problems to perpetuate themselves. As Mary McCarthy said, “Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.” While there are some problems, they are not usually the ones identified. Often we are diverted from real pollution and other issues. For example, the Canadian government spent billions on climate change while not even meeting their own targets for air pollution reductions. However, pollution levels were reduced, although not adequately or fast enough. Few people are aware that there are reductions in virtually all levels of pollution in the US and most western nations. Developing nations acknowledge the pollution problems, but generally take the view of the Indian government who said development to eliminate starvation trumps any immediate attempts to deal with climate change or pollution.
    At no time since World War II has the question of the size of government been more critical in a US election. Ironically, the question is made more complicated by the surrender of individual freedoms to a monolithic government for the common good, an effort required by the war. Despite threats posed by terrorism, rogue governments, religious extremism and dictators, the real enemy that provides the greatest threat for more government that needs to justify removal of freedoms and increased taxes is the environment, especially global warming and climate change. It is not an adequate justification from any perspective. Besides as H L Mencken said, “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” So we come back to the question Abraham Lincoln posed: “Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain itself.” It is a question that must be answered but few have experience of less government.

    Sunday, September 21, 2008

    smear sites

    Smear Sites:

    Science of The Smear (Herald Sun, Australia)

    The following websites are widely used to smear Scientists and Sources Skeptical of "Man-Made" Global Warming:

    http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/

    Run by the world renowned Climate Experts:

    - Mark Hoofnagle, PhD Physiology
    - Chris Hoofnagle, An Attorney
    - Peter A. Lipson, A Practicing Internist


    http://www.desmogblog.com/

    $$$ Funded by James Hogan (James Hoggan & Associates) and John Lefebvre (Former President of Netseller Group)

    - Who is James Hoggan? (Financial Post, Canada)
    QUOTE (Financial Post)
    So who is James Hoggan? He's a public relations man, based in Vancouver. His firm, James Hoggan and Associates, is positioned as a feel-good local operation with clients in all the "right" public and private sectors. He also sits on the board of the David Suzuki Foundation.

    One of his side efforts is a blog operated out of Hoggan and Associates. Funded by retired Internet bubble king John Lefebvre, the blog has one full-time and three part-time staff. They spend their time tracking down and maliciously attacking all who have doubts about climate change and painting them as corporate pawns.

    There has been no mention on the blog, nor on The Fifth Estate, of James Hoggan's client list. They include or have included the National Hydrogen Association, Fuel Cells Canada, hydrogen producer QuestAir, Naikun Wind Energy and Ballard Fuel Cells. Mr. Hoggan, in other words, benefits from regulatory policy based on climate change science.

    But it is as a climate commentator that Mr. Hoggan gets carried away. On The Denial Machine, Mr. Hoggan is allowed to go on at some length about how climate skeptics are not true scientists, are not qualified, or have no expertise.

    That takes some gall. Here's a totally unqualified small-town PR guy making disparaging comments about scientists he says are unqualified while he lectures the rest of us on the science. "If you look in the scientific literature, there is no debate," he tells Mr. McKeown. It doesn't seem to bother Mr. McKeown that Mr. Hoggan has no expertise. It is also a little rich to have a member of the Suzuki Foundation board pronounce other scientists unfit and unqualified for climate assessments, while geneticist David Suzuki roams the world issuing barrages of climate change warnings at every opportunity.

    - Multi-billion-dollar charges for B.C. man (The Vancouver Sun, Canada)
    QUOTE
    Lefebvre, 55, was arrested by FBI agents at his Malibu home and charged with conspiring to promote illegal gambling by transferring billions of dollars of cyberspace bets placed by U.S. citizens with offshore gaming companies.

    - Blog Funder Guilty of Money-Laundering (Heartland Institute)
    QUOTE
    John Lefebvre, the top financial benefactor of the DeSmog Blog, is facing substantial prison time after pleading guilty to federal money-laundering charges. The DeSmog Blog is operated by a small group of public relations people who specialize in attempting to discredit respected scientists and policy analysts who disagree with alarmist global warming theory. Ironically, DeSmog Blog's favorite tactic is to claim scientists and policy analysts who disagree with alarmist global warming theory are funded by "dirty money." The revelation of the blog's major source of funding as a convicted money launderer may undermine DeSmog's attempts to smear the integrity of respected, law-abiding scientists who disagree with them.


    Exxon Secrets

    $$$ Funded by Greenpeace

    - Greenpeace (Discover the Networks)
    QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
    Founded in 1970 as a loose assortment of Canadian anti-nuclear agitators, American expatriates, and underground journalists calling themselves the "Don't Make a Wave Committee," Greenpeace is today the most influential group of the environmental Left. [...]

    In the early 1990s, the organization turned its attention to the purported threat that chlorine posed to the world's water supplies. At the time, Greenpeace asserted that it would accept nothing less than the blanket prohibition of the element. "There are no uses of chlorine which we regard as safe," declared Greenpeace activist Joe Thornton, [...]

    Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore left the organization and now laments that the group has become "dominated by leftwingers and extremists who disregard science in the pursuit of environmental purity."

    According to a December 20, 2005 New York Times report, "the F.B.I. investigated possible financial ties between [Greenpeace] members and militant groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front." [...]

    An expose of Greenpeace's fundraising practices carried out in 2003 by Public Interest Watch (PIW), a nonprofit watchdog group, led to a report disclosing that Greenpeace uses its Greenpeace Fund, a tax-exempt entity debarred from engaging in political advocacy and lobbying by the IRS tax code, to illegally direct funds to Greenpeace Inc., a tax-exempt organization permitted to engage in lobbying and advocacy but not to accept tax-deductible funds. PIW calculated that in 2000, $4.25 million was provided by the Greenpeace Fund in this way.

    Greenpeace is heavily funded by many foundations, among which are the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Bauman Family Foundation, the Blue Moon Fund, the Columbia Foundation, the Compton Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, the Nathan orgasmings Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, Ted Turner's Turner Foundation. The organization has also drawn support from numerous celebrities, including singers Sting, Tom Jones, and Elton John, who have sponsored its "save the rainforest" campaigns. In 2004, Greenpeace received $15,844,752 in grants, and held net assets of $1,893,548. That same year, the Greenpeace Fund received grants totaling $6,866,534 and held net assets of $7,532,018.

    - Greenpeace (Activist Cash)
    QUOTE (Activist Cash)
    Greenpeace was originally the brainchild of the radical “Don’t Make a Wave Committee,” a group of American draft-dodgers who fled to Vancouver in 1969 and, supported by money from anti-war Quaker organizations, got into the business of forcibly blocking American nuclear tests. Over the years the group has loudly made its feelings known on a variety of issues (nuclear testing, whaling, and global warming, for instance), and its Amsterdam-based activist moguls pull the strings on what is estimated to be a $360 million global empire.

    Here in the United States, however, Greenpeace is a relatively modest activist group, spending about $10 million per year. And the lion’s share of that budget in recent years has gone to outrageous attempts to smear agricultural biotech products and place doubts about the safety of genetically improved foods in the minds of American consumers. [...]

    Patrick Moore was one of a dozen or so activists who founded Greenpeace in the basement of a Unitarian Church in Vancouver. Within 7 years, the organization had footholds in over two dozen countries and a $100 million budget. As eco-activists in general found themselves suddenly invited into the meeting-places of business and government, Greenpeace made the decision to take even more extreme positions, rather than being drawn in to collaboration with their former enemies.

    Moore broke with his comrades during this period, and has emerged as an articulate critic of his former brainchild. Referring to Greenpeace’s “eco-extremism” in March 2000, he described the group in Oregon Wheat magazine as “Anti-human”; “antitechnology and anti-science”; “Anti-organization” and “pro-anarchy”; “anti-trade”; “anti-free-enterprise”; “anti-democratic”; and “basically anti-civilization.”

    Writing in Canada’s National Post in October 2001, Patrick Moore offered the following critique: “I had no idea that after I left in 1986 they would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates…. Clearly, my former Greenpeace colleagues are either not reading the morning paper or simply don't care about the truth.”

    Greenpeace Officers:

    John Passacantando, B.A., M.A. Economics (Executive Director)
    Charles Margulis, B.A. Peace and Conflict Studies; Professional Baker (Genetic Engineering Specialist)
    Mike Roselle, High-School Dropout (Forest Campaign Coordinator)


    Grist Magazine

    $$$ Funded by V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation - $3,406,000

    V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation (Activist Cash)


    RealClimate.org

    Hosted by - Environmental Media Services

    Environmental Media Services (EMS) (Discover the Networks)
    QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
    EMS's founder and President was Arlie Schardt, who also served as the National Press Secretary for Al Gore's 1988 presidential campaign, and as Gore's Communications Director during his 2000 bid for the White House. [...]

    EMS officially served as the "scientific" branch of the leftist public-relations firm Fenton Communications; both companies shared the same Washington, D.C. address and office space. For more than a decade, David Fenton (CEO of Fenton Communications) used EMS to run negative media campaigns against a wide variety of targets, including biogenetic foods, America's dairy industry, and President George W. Bush. [...]

    EMS also produced many stories condemning the Bush administration's environmental policies. Among these titles were: "Bush Administration Obscures Truth About Toxic Cleanups"; "President Bush Signs Fatally Flawed Wildfire Bill"; "Earth Day Event To Highlight Bush Administration Assault On Environment, Public Health"; "Bush Administration Report Card: 'F' on Protecting Children"; and "National Environmental Groups Launch Campaign to Defeat President Bush." EMS claimed that the data contained in its press releases constituted "the latest and most credible information" provided by "top scientists, physicians, and other experts." These "experts" included officials of Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

    EMS was heavily funded by the Bauman Family Foundation, the Beldon Fund, the Energy Foundation, the Bullitt Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Columbia Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Nathan orgasmings Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

    - Environmental Media Services (EMS) (Activist Cash)
    QUOTE (Activist Cash)
    EMS is the communications arm of leftist public relations firm Fenton Communications. Based in Washington, in the same office suite as Fenton, EMS claims to be "providing journalists with the most current information on environmental issues." A more accurate assessment might be that it spoon-feeds the news media sensationalized stories, based on questionable science, and featuring activist "experts," all designed to promote and enrich David Fenton's paying clients, and build credibility for the nonprofit ones. It's a clever racket, and EMS & Fenton have been running it since 1994. [...]

    It's called "black marketing," and Environmental Media Services has become the principal reason Fenton Communications is so good at it. EMS lends an air of legitimacy to what might otherwise be dismissed (and rightly so) as fear-mongering from the lunatic fringe. In addition to pre-packaged "story ideas" for the mass media, EMS provides commentaries, briefing papers, and even a stable of experts, all carefully calculated to win points for paying clients. These "experts," though, are also part of the ruse. Over 70% of them earn their paychecks from current or past Fenton clients, all of which have a financial stake in seeing to it that the scare tactics prevail. It's a clever deception perpetrated on journalists who generally don't consider do-gooder environmentalists to be capable of such blatant and duplicitous "spin."

    - Fenton Communications (Discover the Networks)
    QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
    Foremost public relations firm of the political left. Past clients have included Marxist dictatorships in Central America. Represents environmentalist groups, pro-Democratic political action committees, labor unions, and the anti-war movement.

    Founded in 1982 by activist and public relations veteran David Fenton, Fenton Communications (FC) is the leading advertising and public relations firm for advocacy groups on the political left, with locations in Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco.

    FC serves as an "umbrella" for "three independent nonprofit organizations" which it co-founded. These include: Environmental Media Services, which manages publicity efforts for environmental groups; New Economy Communications, a social justice group; and the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty lobby.

    FC expressly refuses to represent "clients and projects that we don't believe in ourselves." Among the clients and projects that FC has worked for are Marxist-Leninist regimes in Central America and Africa, environmental groups, labor unions, and anti-war organizations. In addition, FC has offered its services to pro-Democrat political action committees and law firms, as well as to political campaigns against the death penalty and gun-ownership rights. [...]

    Equally noteworthy has been FC's business partnership with environmental groups. In 1988 and 1989, FC helped one such organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), promote misleading claims about the dangers of Alar, a pesticide then in use by the apple industry. On the basis of NRDC's study of Alar, itself based on exaggerated probabilities rather than concrete empirical data, FC launched a media campaign that stoked consumers' fears and captured the interest of television news programs, daily newspapers and daytime talk shows, fueling a backlash against apple growers. By some estimates, the apple industry suffered $200 million in lost revenue as a result of the FC campaign.

    By contrast, FC and its client prospered. David Fenton subsequently boasted that his firm had "designed" the media campaign "so that revenue would flow back to NRDC from the public," noting that FC had gained "$700,000 in net revenues from it." Fenton Communications today cites the Alar campaign as a significant contribution to the "national debate" on pesticides. [...]

    Joining forces with the Environmental Working Group, FC has also engineered media campaigns exaggerating the dangers posed by pesticides in tap water and baby food.

    In 2003 FC created an ad campaign targeting the automotive industry for the Evangelical Environmental Network. The controversial ads alleged that consumers who bought sport utility vehicles were, in effect, supporting terrorism by using large amounts of fuel imported from the Middle East. [...]

    Arlie Schardt, a senior consultant at Fenton Communications and Chairman of Environmental Media Services, served as Al Gore's national press secretary during his first presidential campaign.

    Fenton Communications Launches Green-Tech Division
    QUOTE
    Fenton Communications has been deeply involved in environmental issues since its founding in 1982. The firm publicized the first reports of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, helped environmental NGOs at the Kyoto Global Warming Summit, and worked with Vice-President Al Gore to publicize the issues

    A Little Testy at RealClimate (Roger A. Pielke (Jr.), Ph.D. Political Science)

    Is Gavin Schmidt Honest? (Climate Audit)

    RealClimate's Touchy Censors (National Center for Public Policy Research)

    The Uncertainty Trap (Roger A. Pielke (Jr.), Ph.D. Political Science)


    Skeptical Science

    $$$ Funded by John Cook

    QUOTE
    I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist


    Sourcewatch

    $$$ Funded by The Center for Media and Democracy

    Sourcewatch (Discover the Networks)
    QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
    SourceWatch seeks to expose what it calls the "propaganda activities of public relations firms" and the activities of organizations working "on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests." These "exposes," which tend to be critical of their subjects, deal predominantly with conservative entities... [...]

    As with the online reference Wikipedia, the contents of SourceWatch are written and edited by ordinary Web users. Says SourceWatch: "You don't need any special credentials to participate -- we shun credentialism along with other propaganda techniques." While stating that it seeks to maintain fairness in the profiles and articles appearing on its website, SourceWatch does acknowledge that "ignoring systemic bias and claiming objectivity is itself one of many well-known propaganda techniques." [...]

    ...The perspectives are mostly leftist; the entries rely heavily on leftist and far-leftist sources.

    Center for Media and Democracy (Discover the Networks)
    QUOTE (Discover the Networks)
    An anti-capitalist, anti-corporate organization that seeks to expose right-wing "public relations spin and propaganda".

    In CMD's view, capitalism generally, and corporations in particular, are the principal root causes of societal ills in the U.S. and abroad. The Capital Research Center, which rates the ideological leanings of nonprofit organizations, places CMD near the extreme far left of the spectrum. The website ActivistCash, which provides "information about the funding source[s] of radical anti-consumer organizations and activists," characterizes CMD as "a counterculture public relations effort disguised as an independent media organization." [...]

    CMD was founded by the leftist writer and environmental activist John Stauber, who continues to serve as the Center's Executive Director. Stauber began his activism in high school when he organized anti-Vietnam War protests and early Earth Day events. The co-author (with SourceWatch founder Sheldon Rampton) of six books, Stauber created the now-defunct website Vote2StopBush.org. He is also an unpaid advisor to several organizations, including the Action Coalition for Media Education, the Center for Food Safety, the Liberty Tree Foundation, the Media Education Foundation, and the Organic Consumers Association.

    The aforementioned Sheldon Rampton currently serves as CMD's Research Director. A graduate of Princeton University, Rampton was formerly an outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, a group established in 1984 to oppose President Reagan's efforts to stop the spread of Communism in Central America, and currently dedicated to promoting a leftist vision of "social justice in Nicaragua through alternative models of development and activism."

    An April 2001 commentary in the liberal publication Village Voice said of Rampton and Stauber: "These guys come from the far side of liberal."

    - Center for Media & Democracy (Activist Cash)
    QUOTE (Activist Cash)
    The Center for Media & Democracy (CMD) is a counterculture public relations effort disguised as an independent media organization. CMD isn’t really a center it would be more accurate to call it a partnership, since it is essentially a two-person operation.

    Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber operate, as do most self-anointed progressive watchdogs, from the presumption that any communication issued from a corporate headquarters must be viewed with a jaundiced eye. In their own quarterly PR Watch newsletter, they recently referred to corporate PR as a propaganda industry, misleading citizens and manipulating minds in the service of special interests. Ironically, Rampton and Stauber have elected to dip into the deep pockets of multi-million-dollar foundations with special interest agendas of their own.


    Tobacco Documents

    $$$ Funded by Smokescreen Corporation

    Michael Tacelosky, Smokescreen Corporation - Donated $3000 to the DNC
    Keith Ivey, Smokescreen Corporation - Donated $600 to John Kerry, $300 to Barrack Obama


    Union of Concerned Scientists

    $$$ Funded by Various Funds

    Union of Concerned Scientists (Discover the Networks)

    QUOTE
    The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization with more than 100,000 members. Seeing its mission as building a "cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world," ... It opposes genetically engineered foods, condemns SUV vehicles, and proposes measures aimed at combating what it deems the imminent dangers of global warming. It also opposes the vast majority of American foreign policy decisions, and calls for a unilateral reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles. UCS disseminates to lawmakers and news outlets its opinions about each of these matters, with the intent of ultimately influencing public policy.

    Students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology founded UCS in 1969. "Through its actions in Vietnam, our government has shaken our confidence in its ability to make wise and humane decisions," reads the UCS founding document. That sentiment continues to this day, with UCS condemning American efforts in the War on Terror and the 2003 War in Iraq.

    UCS typically minimizes threats posed by foreign rogue regimes, and challenges U.S. assertions about the intentions and military capacities of those governments. In 1998, for instance, UCS assured the public that American analysts had exaggerated North Korea's ability to produce nuclear weapons, and that the Pyongyang regime was still many years away from being able to develop such an arsenal.

    UCS vigorously opposes America's development of a missile defense system. It also calls for the "adoption of a U.S. nuclear no-first-use policy"; "a U.S. rejection of rapid-launch options, and a change in deployment practices to provide for the launch of U.S. nuclear forces in hours or days rather than minutes"; "the elimination of all U.S. 'tactical' nuclear weapons, intended for use on the battlefield"; "verified unilateral reductions to a total of 1,000 strategic warheads (including deployed and stored), accompanied by warhead dismantlement"; and "a commitment to further reductions in the number of nuclear weapons, on a negotiated and verified multilateral basis."

    UCS admonishes American corporations such as McDonald's and Burger King, asserting that the presence of antibiotics in meat used by fast-food companies contributes to large-scale antibiotic resistance. In 2003, bills based on UCS research aimed at prohibiting the use of eight classes of antibiotics in livestock used by fast-food producers were introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate. Soon after, UCS admitted that the majority of its claims were speculative. UCS has also warned of the alleged dangers of genetically modified food.

    Another issue of concern to UCS is that of global warming. The organization circulated a petition that drew the signatures of some 1,600 scientific experts demanding that the United States ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

    A Union of Concerned Scientists declaration, entitled "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making," charges that the Bush administration "has continued to distort and suppress science in pursuit of its political goals — despite a plea from top U.S. scientists to restore scientific integrity to the policy-making process." According to UCS President Kevin Knobloch, "We found a serious pattern of undermining science by the Bush administration, and it crosses disciplines, whether it's global climate change or reproductive health or mercury in the food chain or forestry -- the list goes on and on." The signers of this document portrayed themselves as objective scientists with no political agenda. But in truth, over half of them were financial contributors to the Democratic Party, Democratic candidates, or a variety of leftist causes. [...]

    UCS is a member of the Save Our Environment Action Center, a leftist coalition that describes itself as "a collaborative effort of the nation's most influential environmental advocacy organizations harnessing the power of the internet to increase public awareness and activism on today's most important environmental issues."

    UCS has received funding from the Beldon Fund, the Compton Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Scherman Foundation, the Blue Moon Fund, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Energy Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Turner Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts.

    Union of Concerned Scientists (Activist Cash)


    Wikipedia

    The Faith-Based Encyclopedia (Robert McHenry, Former Editor in Chief, the Encyclopedia Britannica)

    Wikipedia's Zealots (Financial Post, Canada)
    The Real Climate Martians (Financial Post, Canada)
    The Opinionator (Financial Post, Canada)
    Wikipropaganda On Global Warming (CBS News)

    The Anti Wikipedia Resource


    Biased Sites:

    BBC

    BBC heats up the climate news (Financial Post, Canada)
    The BBC Changes News to Accommodate Activist (The Politics and Environment Blog)
    BBC Article: Global temperatures 'to decrease' (Before and After) (Google Cache)
    Origin - BBC : Balance Restored (Campaign against Climate Change, UK Activist Portal)

    BBC report finds bias within corporation (The Daily Telegraph, UK)
    Bias and the Beeb (Financial Times, UK)
    Bias at the Beeb - official (The Times, UK)
    BBC confesses bias on religion, politics (WorldNetDaily)
    BBC network admits it: We're biased toward left (WorldNetDaily)
    BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’ (The Times, UK)
    BBC viewers angered by its 'innate liberal bias' (The Daily Telegraph, UK)
    Confessions of a BBC liberal (The Times, UK)
    Facebook reveals the BBC as a liberal hotbed (The Daily Mail, UK)
    The BBC's commitment to bias is no laughing matter (The Daily Telegraph, UK)
    The Beeb's Bias (The Wall Street Journal)
    We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News (Daily Mail, UK)
    Why saving Earth is not the BBC's job (Daily Mail, UK)


    CBS

    CBS 60 Minutes Got it Wrong - Again (Video) (5min)
    CBS 'Global Warming Special' Host Likened Warming Skeptics to Holocaust Deniers (NewsBusters)
    CBS News sinks to new low; publishes crackpot global warming story, attributes it to AP, kills it with no retraction (Anthony Watts, Meteorologist)
    CBSNews.com Pulls Story Making Quake/Climate Link Claim (Business & Media Institute)
    In Alarmist Report, CBS's Scott Pelley Ignores Scientist's Key Findings (NewsBusters)


    MSNBC

    MSNBC Finds Penguins at North Pole... But Penguins Don't LIVE at North Pole (NewsBusters)
    MSNBC.com Misquotes Evangelical Leader on Global Warming (NewsBusters)
    MSNBC.com Pumps Up Bias, Shows Gas Price 21 Percent Above Average (NewsBusters)


    NBC

    'Today' show embarrassed by 'video stunt' (WorldNetDaily)
    - Michelle Kosinski rowing a canoe in a "flood" (Video)


    The Weather Channel

    Con job at The Weather Channel (WorldNetDaily)
    Weather Channel Politics: Admit Man Causes Global Warming Or Else (The National Ledger)
    "The Weather Channel" Mess (James Spann, AMS Certified Meteorologist)
    The Weather Channel's 'One Degree' of Propaganda (Business & Media Institute)
    Weather Channel's Cullen Hopes to Push Global Warming Agenda on Weather.com (Business & Media Institute)
    Weather Channel 'likes to call Gore President-elect' (WorldNetDaily)


    Time Magazine

    What on EARTH Are We Doing? (Time Magazine, 1989)
    Endangered Earth Update U.S. Agenda Consumers It's Not Easy Being Green "Waste (Time Magazine, 1989)
    Endangered Earth Update U.S. Agenda Businesses Scrub That Smokestack (Time Magazine, 1989)
    Endangered Earth Update the Fight to Save the Planet (Time Magazine, 1989)
    Endangered Earth Update Now Wait Just a Minute (Time Magazine, 1989)
    Endangered Earth Update Is the Planet on the Back Burner? (Time Magazine, 1990)


    Alarmists:

    David Suzuki

    The Sad Legacy Of David Suzuki (Tim F. Ball, Ph.D. Historical Climatologist)
    Jail politicians who ignore climate science: Suzuki (National Post, Canada)


    George Monbiot

    Mr Green goes motoring (The Times, UK)
    QUOTE
    George Monbiot, the environmental campaigner, scourge of the automobile industry and champion of not owning cars, has finally bought himself . . . a car. Notwithstanding pledges to live a green lifestyle and be a model to others, he has given in to temptation and acquired a secondhand Renault. [...]

    In what can only be described as a comprehensive U-turn, Monbiot has chosen a Renault Clio, an economical hatchback but not the most frugal in fuel consumption or carbon emissions. He bought it from a friend for an undisclosed amount. As zealots will be quick to remind him, it emits 115g/km , 10% higher than a Toyota Prius, the petrol-electric hybrid belovedof CO2 of the green movement.


    Rebuttals:

    Smearing Conservative Writers (The Conservative Voice)

    Frederick Seitz - Vanity Scare
    Roy Spencer - Full Disclosure
    S. Fred Singer - Letter to ABC News from Dr. S. Fred Singer