Disappearing Arctic Ice Is Latest Climate Falsehood

In May, 2008, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) predicted that the North Pole could be ice free during last years melt season. The disappearing northern sea ice has been pointed to by global warming alarmists as visible proof that the Earth was doing a melt down. Today, however, the NSIDC announced that they have been the victims of “sensor drift” that caused them to underestimate the Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers. It turns out that the demise of the arctic ice was greatly exaggerated.
As with the NASA Russian temperature debacle last year and the forced recalculation of US surface temperatures for the last century in 2007, the latest problem was discovered after NSIDC received emails from puzzled readers, asking why obviously sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as ice free open ocean. A statement on the NSIDC web site, published February 18, 2009, explains the current faux pas this way:
As some of our readers have already noticed, there was a significant problem with the daily sea ice data images on February 16. The problem arose from a malfunction of the satellite sensor we use for our daily sea ice products. Upon further investigation, we discovered that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent. The underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February. Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality control measures prior to archiving the data.Once again we have misleading climate change pronouncements being based on data errors, data errors detected by non-UN, non-IPCC, non-peer-reviewed external observers.

Gore Pulls CRED Data From Talk

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Andy Revkin at the New York Times asked Al Gore’s office for their comments on Gore’s use of data from CRED in Belgium in recent versions of his talk to illustrate the impacts of human-caused climate change on disasters. In response, Gore’s office has said that they will pull the slide, as it does not have a scientific foundation.

Kudos to Al Gore who has demonstrated a commitment to scientific accuracy in his presentation. However there are still some issues with their response. Here is how Gore’s office responded to Revkin as related at Dot Earth (please visit their for embedded links):

I can confirm that historically, we used Munich Re and Swiss Re data for the slide show. This can be confirmed using a hard copy of An Inconvenient Truth. (It is cited if you cannot recall from the film which is now several years old!). We became aware of the CRED database from its use by Charles Blow in the New York Times (May 31, 2008). So, it’s a very new addition.

We have found that Munich Re and other insurers and their science experts have made the attribution. I’m referring you particularly to their floods section/report [link, link] Both of these were published in a series entitled “Weather catastrophes and climate change-Is there still hope for us.”

We appreciate that you have pointed out the issues with the CRED database and will make the switch back to the data we used previously to ensure that there is no confusion either with regards to the data or attribution.

As to climate change and its impacts on storms and floods, the IPCC and NOAA among many other top scientific groups have indicated that climate change will result in more extreme weather events, including heat waves, wildfires, storms and floods. As the result of briefings from top scientists, Vice President Gore believes that we are beginning to see evidence of that now.

Switching from the CRED dataset to Munich Re (and Swiss Re) data does not solve the basic problem. As we found in an expert workshop organized in 2006 with Munich Re — The Munich Re dataset has exactly the same problems as the CRED dataset. Attribution of the role of greenhouse gas driven climate change in the increasing economic costs of disasters has yet to occur. So using a different dataset does not address the underlying problem.

So when Al Gore’s office says . . .

We have found that Munich Re and other insurers and their science experts have made the attribution.

. . . they are either cherry picking the selective views of a few people or simply mistaken. The scientific workshop that I co-organized with Peter Hoeppe of Munich Re concluded the following, with unanimous agreement among participants (PDF):

MET OFFICE: 'APOCALYPTIC CLIMATE PREDICTIONS' ARE MISLEADING

'Apocalyptic climate predictions' mislead the public, say experts: Met Office scientists fear distorted climate change claims could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions

In an article published on the Guardian website, Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, calls on scientists and journalists to stop misleading the public with "claim and counter-claim".

Pope says there is little evidence to support claims that Arctic ice has reached a tipping point and could disappear within a decade or so, as some reports have suggested.

"The record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer ice increasing again over the next few years," she says.

Pope's original article is the latest in a series of clues that all is not well within the climate change lobby. The great Gerald Warner has been covering the subject recently, with his usual flair:

This has been a bad 24 hours for the climate-change liars, beginning with Christopher Booker's exposure in The Sunday Telegraph of the fabrication of data to "prove" pretended warming in the Antarctic. As more and more scientists who have not been bought by the United Nations climate clique find the courage to voice dissent from the junk science peddled by the IPCC and a public plunged into economic depression loses patience with this multi-billion-pound scam, it looks as if the great global warming imposture is finally on the retreat.

By and large, the scientific community has been in agreement about climate change until now. But I reckon we're about to see open warfare between experts presenting serious, evidence-based research into the state of the planet and hysterical alarmists like James Hansen, who seem hell-bent on destroying our economy through eye-wateringly expensive and totally unnecessary "emergency measures".

UK's CO2 plan 'certain to fail'

The UK's plans to cut emissions by 80% by 2050 are fundamentally flawed and almost certain to fail, according to a US academic.

Roger Pielke Jr, a science policy expert, said the UK government had underestimated the magnitude of the task to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

He added that it would be more effective to "decarbonise" economic growth rather than focus on targets.

Professor Pielke made his comments during a speech at Aston University.

Professor Pielke said that a country's greenhouse gas trajectory was determined by three factors: economic growth; population growth; and changes in technology.

This meant, the academic from the University of Colorado suggested, that if people migrate to the UK and the economy boomed, it would be harder for politicians to achieve emissions cuts based on historic levels.

He calculated that the combined effects of possible population growth and economic growth could oblige the UK to increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon intensity of energy at an unprecedented annual rate of 5.4%.

Conversely, if migrants left the UK and the economy slumped, there would be a downturn in emissions, for which politicians would claim unearned credit.

Bad week for hardware: Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite burns up

A satellite launched from California failed to reach orbit today, crashing into the sea near Antarctica and dooming a $273 million mission to study global-warming gases.

Thank God the Science is Settled! Can you imagine how Much more Money these Scientists would need if it was not?

Let's see Obama in his StinkMucus package will spend another 400 Millions to study Climate Change.
At Least now we know were Al Gore will get his 300 Millions he promise to spend Indoctrinating our Kids from... Their Parents!
I could have saved them a lot of Money if they Just ask Me.
The Climate Change all the time... See how easy that was?
Obama will also spend 800 millions in a study for Carbon Sequestration.. Pumping Air Underground ?? somethings tells me it will come back up. Stop The Insanity Please.

Comment is free A collapsing carbon market makes mega-pollution cheap

That there exists something called carbon trading is about all that most people know. A few know, too, that Europe has created carbon exchanges, and traders who buy and sell. Few but the professionals, however, know that this market is now failing in its purpose: to edge up the cost of emitting CO2. The theory sounded fine in the boom years, back when Nicholas Stern described climate change as “the biggest market failure in history” - a market failure to which carbon trading was meant to be a market solution. Instead, it’s bolstering the business case for fossil fuels.

Understanding why is easy. A year ago European governments allocated a limited number of carbon emission permits to their big polluters. Businesses that reduce pollution are allowed to sell spare permits to ones that need more. As demand outstrips this capped supply, and the price of permits rises, an incentive grows to invest in green energy. Why buy costly permits to keep a coal plant running when you can put the cash into clean power instead?

I guess selling AIR was not such a good idea after all.

Europe, Environmentalism and the Current Economic Crisis: A Contrarian View

The main aspects of Europeism, as I see them, can be summarized in the following way:

- the belief in social market economy, and the demonization of free markets;

- the reliance on civil society, on NGOs, on social partnership, on corporatism, instead of classical parliamentary democracy;

- the aiming at social constructivism as a result of the disbelief in spontaneous evolution of human society;

- indifference towards the nation state and blind faith in internationalism;

- the promotion of the supranationalist model of European integration, not its intergovernmental model.

Global warming a manmade political message to be etched in stone with stimulus package $400-million

The US economic stimulus package includes $400 million for climate research, but it isn’t needed because the science is settled. But sarcasm aside, the money will not improve the science because government funding goes to thwart not to advance science. Up to now money was used to prove an hypothesis not disprove it as is the normal scientific method and this practice will not change. Every time evidence emerges questioning the hypothesis it becomes the focus for a counterattack.

This began early when the traditional scientific method of disproving a hypothesis was usurped for political purposes. The anthropogenic global warming hypothesis (AGW) assumes:

1. CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere through the ill-named greenhouse effect.
2 An increase in atmospheric CO2 will cause global temperatures to rise.
3. Atmospheric CO2 will continue to increase because of growing human economies using fossil fuels.

The Collapse of Climate Policy and the Sustainability of Climate Science

The political consensus surrounding climate policy is collapsing. If you are not aware of this fact you will be very soon. The collapse is not due to the cold winter in places you may live or see on the news. It is not due to years without an increase in global temperature. It is not due to the overturning of the scientific consensus on the role of human activity in the global climate system.

It is due to the fact that policy makers and their political advisors (some trained as scientists) can no longer avoid the reality that targets for stabilization such as 450 ppm (or even less realistic targets) are simply not achievable with the approach to climate change that has been at the focus of policy for over a decade. Policies that are obviously fictional and fantasy are frequently subject to a rapid collapse.

Greenhouse Theory Disproved a Century Ago

The claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) can increase air temperatures by "trapping" infrared radiation (IR) ignores the fact that in 1909 physicist R.W. Wood disproved the popular 19th Century thesis that greenhouses stayed warm by trapping IR. Unfortunately, many people who claim to be scientists are unaware of Wood's experiment which was originally published in the Philosophical magazine , 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Wood was an expert on IR. His accomplishments included inventing both IR and UV (ultraviolet) photography. Wood constructed two identical small greenhouses. The description implies the type of structure a gardener would refer to as a "coldframe" rather than a building a person could walk into. He lined the interior with black cardboard which would absorb radiation and convert it to heat which would heat the air through conduction. The cardboard would also produce radiation. He covered one greenhouse with a sheet of transparent rock salt and the other with a sheet of glass. The glass would block IR and the rock salt would allow it to pass. During the first run of the experiment the rock salt greenhouse heated faster due to IR from the sun entering it but not the glass greenhouse. He then set up another pane of glass to filter the IR from the sun before the light reached the greenhouses. The result from this run was that the greenhouses both heated to about 50 C with less than a degree difference between the two. Wood didn't indicate which was warmer or whether there was any difference in the thermal conductivity between the glass sheet and the rock salt. A slight difference in the amount of heat transfered through the sheets by conduction could explain such a minor difference in temperature. The two sheets probably didn't conduct heat at the same rate. The experiment conclusively demonstrates that greenhouses heat up and stay warm by confining heated air rather than by trapping IR. If trapping IR in an enclosed space doesn't cause higher air temperature than CO2 in the atmosphere cannot cause higher air temperatures. The heated air in the greenhouses couldn't rise higher than the sheets that covered the tops of the greenhouses. Heated air outside is free to rise allowing colder air to fall to the ground. Atmospheric CO2 is even less likely to function as a barrier to IR or reflect it back to reheat the ground or water than the sheet of glass in Wood's greenhouse. The blackened cardboard in Wood's greenhouses was a very good radiator of IR as is typical of black substances. The water that covers 70% of earth's surface is a very poor radiator and produces only limited amounts of IR as is typical of transparent substances. Water releases heat through evaporation rather than radiation. The glass sheet provided a solid barrier to IR. Atmospheric CO2 is widely dispersed comprising less than 400 parts per million in the atmosphere. Trapping IR with CO2 would be like trying to confine mice with a chain link fence. Glass reflects a wider spectrum of IR than interacts with CO2. The glass sheets reflected IR back toward the floor of the greenhouse. CO2 doesn't reflect IR. At the time of Wood's experiment, it was believed that CO2 and other gas molecules became hotter after absorbing IR. Four years later Niels Bohr reported his discovery that the absorption of specific wavelengths of light didn't cause gas atoms/molecules to become hotter. Instead, the absorption of specific wavelengths of light caused the electrons in an atom/molecule to move to a higher energy state. After absorption of light of a specific wavelength an atom couldn't absorb additional radiation of that wavelength without first emitting light of that wavelength. (Philosophical Magazine Series 6, Volume 26 July 1913, p. 1-25) Unlike the glass which reflects IR back where it comes from, CO2 molecules emit IR up and sideways as well as down. In the time interval between absorbing and reemitting radiation, CO2 molecules allow IR to pass them by. Glass continuously reflects IR. Those who claim that CO2 molecules in the atmosphere can cause heating by trapping IR have yet to provide any empirical scientific evidence to prove such a physical process exists. The experiment by R.W. Wood demonstrates that even a highly reflective covering cannot cause heating by trapping IR in a confined space. There is no way CO2, which at best only affects a small portion of the IR produced by earth's surface, can heat the atmosphere by trapping IR. Contrary to the lie repeated in news stories about climate, science doesn't say that CO2 is causing higher temperatures by trapping IR. Empirical science indicates that no such process exists in this physical universe.

Who is speaking for the plants?

There is no evidence CO2 is causing global warming or climate change but that is the basis for the slur and the proposed actions. As usual little thought is given to the direct and collateral damage such as the economic impacts from increased taxes and cost of doing business. No thought is given to the damage to nature. So you have the paradox of environmentalists screaming to reduce CO2 to save the planet, while putting all life in jeopardy by killing the plants. It is blind faith. But this is not surprising because the great problem of environmentalism as a religion is the failure to do full and proper cost/benefit analyses. For example, all you ever hear about are the down sides to warming when there are actually more up sides. One major downside rarely mentioned is the impact on plants of reduced CO2 levels.

Extreme environmentalists consider plants and animals more important than humans. Ron Arnold, Executive Vice-President of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, said, “Environmentalism intends to transform government, economy, and society in order to liberate nature from human exploitation.”

David Graber, a research biologist with the National park Service said, “Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet.” “Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

Getting rid of everyone permanently solves the problem – David Foreman former chief lobbyist for the Wilderness Society says the optimum number is zero. Ingrid Newkirk of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said, “Mankind is a cancer; we’re the biggest blight on the face of the earth.” “If you haven’t given voluntary human extinction much thought before, the idea of a world with no people in it may seem strange. But, if you give it a chance, I think you might agree that the extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species, Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.”

Show The Science were CO2 cause Global Warming

RE: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST

Dear Ms. Jackson:

Pursuant to the rights granted under the Freedom of Information Act, Title 5 of the United State Code section 552 (“FOIA”), I hereby request the following information:

Evidence that carbon dioxide (CO2) is harmful to the environment and that carbon dioxide is the predominant driver of climate change. Following this paragraph, I present reasons why I do not think that carbon dioxide is harmful to our environment and is not the predominant driver of climate change. I request evidence that disproves each of these statements. “Evidence” does not include computer models that try to forecast temperatures for years, decades or a century into the future.

Our computer models do not model impacts on the climate by thunderstorms, volcanos, or impacts by meteorites and cannot forecast temperatures to within 1degree Fahrenheit for one month into the future and certainly not for a century into the future.

I hereby request evidence disproving the following statements that I believe to be true:

1. Water vapor is the prevailing greenhouse gas and retains heat more than all other gasses combined. Without the greenhouse effect, the average temperature of Planet Earth would be below zero.

2. Plants need CO2 to grow. Wood charcoal is mainly carbon that trees extracted from carbon dioxide in the air. CO2 is what actually greens Planet Earth.

3. Plants grow faster in higher concentrations of CO2 and extract more CO2 from the air. Many operators of commercial greenhouses add CO2 to the ambient air which increases plant growth.

4. Man generates 3 billion tons of CO2 annually while plants absorb 75 billion tons of CO2 annually. Plants need all the anthropogenic (man-generated) CO2 plus an additional 72 billion tons of CO2 from natural sources including the oceans

5. The oceans hold 39,000 billion tons of CO2. In high latitudes, cold water adsorbs more CO2 than it expels. In low latitudes, warm water expels more CO2 that it adsorbs.

6. If the oceans release just .000077 of their CO2, that is more than all man-generated CO2.

7. NASA found that the atmosphere of Mars is 95% CO2 and is not effective at retaining heat from the Sun. If an atmosphere of 95% CO2 on Mars is not an effective greenhouse gas, why would less than ½ of 1 percent of CO2 on Earth be an effective greenhouse gas and be the controlling factor for climate change?

8. Some people who claim that CO2 causes global warming use a graph that shows correlation between global temperature and the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere over thousands of years. The point they miss is that the warming occurred hundreds of years before the increase of CO2. Increased CO2 did not cause warming that occurred hundreds of years earlier.

I agree to pay processing fees for this request up to $ 100.00. If there are additional costs, please notify me and get my agreement to pay before incurring such costs.

If you need additional information about the requested items, please contact me at the above address Also, I ask that if for any reason you deny my request or withhold certain information, that you:
1. Provide a list of the denied or withheld materials,

2. Justify these deletions and withholdings by referencing specific exemption in the FOIA, and

3. Release all parts of the withheld material that are not exempt and can be released under the FOIA.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this request.


Respectfully,



Frederick T. Dykes

Copies to: President Obama; all U.S. Senators; all Members of the House of Representatives; The Democratic National Committee; the Republican National Committee; Association of International Automobile Manufacturers; Ford Motor Company; General Motors Corp; Chrysler Corp; Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post; Peter Baker, The New York Times; The Washington Times; Kimberley Strassel, The Wall Street Journal; National Review; The Weekly Standard; ABC; CBS; NBC; Fox News; Glen Beck; Monica Crowley; Sean Hannity.

James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic

Washington DC: NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.

Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears. [See: U.S. Senate Minority Report Update: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims & See Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm ‘Mistaken’ & Gore laments global warming efforts: 'I've failed badly' - Washington Post – November 11, 2008 ]

“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen's supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained. [Note: Theon's full note to EPW reprinted at the end of this report]

“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote. [Note: NASA scientist James Hansen who runs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warnings, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! - See: Don’t Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom - Get the Facts on James Hansen - UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men' – June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for 'high crimes against humanity' for spreading doubt about man-made global warming – June 23, 2008 & NYT's Revkin chides Hansen for promoting sea level claims that are not 'even physically possible' ]

Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.

Philadelphia’s Climate in the Early Days

JANUARY 1790 The average or medium temperature of this month was 44 degrees This is the mildest month of January on record. Fogs prevailed very much in the morning but a hot sun soon dispersed them and the mercury often ran up to 70 in the shade at mid day. Boys were often seen swimming in the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. UNPRECEDENTED!!

Profiles in Cowardice

The story starts, as is the case in so many states, with Gov. Mike Beebe's (video link) creation of the Governor's Commission on Global Warming. In most other states where they've been developed, these panels have been fashioned purely by executive fiat. Arkansas's GCGW was authorized also by a law (PDF) to study potential impacts of global warming and ways to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (the presumed evil behind global temperature uptick). But the GCGW was also given the mandate to "study the scientific data, literature, and research on global warming to determine whether global warming is an immediate threat to the citizens in the State of Arkansas…."

Turns out this area of "study" was only allowed to go so far. As is the standard when the Center for Climate Strategies is granted management control of a state's climate commission (approaching two dozen so far), the prerequisite for CCS to take the job is that no debate of the climate science is allowed. Like the intolerant Al Gore, CCS cannot suffer dissent, flat-earthers, or moonwalk-deniers.

Needless to say, the likelihood that global warming would cause the Arkansas River to flood the William J. Clinton Presidential Library -- or other climate-driven Razorback State catastrophe could-be's -- was never discussed. Instead doom was presumed (PDF) should greenhouse gases continue unabated.

How the world was bullied into silence

One of the most disturbing aspects of the global warming scam is the number of prominent people and entire segments of society bullied into silence. Consider the case of Dr. Joanne Simpson described as follows. “the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.” Then consider her statement. “Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical...

Global warming, systemic BBC bias and Earth - The Climate Wars

So, let’s start at the beginning. Stewart explains the purpose of the series. At (1.42) he states: “In this series
I’m going to explore some simple big questions. How do we know the climate’s warming up? How do we
know humans are causing it? And how do we know what’s going to happen next? (Cue in tendentious
footage of storms, sea ice and melodramatic catastrophist music.) As the story of global warming has
unfolded, we’ve learnt of the very nature of scientific truth, and about how that has been falsified,
manipulated, twisted and even bought. ”
At (2.54), this is followed up by the introduction of Stewart’s children on a beach with the reminder that, as a
husband and a father (well, a ‘dad’ actually), he has both a professional and a personal interest in global
warming. Not unrelated to this at (9.31) we have the introduction of Dr. S. Schneider, who at (12.12) is
exonerated from his earlier spectacular failures as a scientific investigator. Was there some purpose in
including Stewart’s meandering reminiscences and his magnanimous absolution of Schneider? The answer,
of course, is “Yes”. These were/are rhetorical propagandist ploys. In contrast, perhaps, to the self-serving
motives of AGW dissenters (a thought as yet unspoken, not that that will last long) they are designed, in the
case of the former, to create in the minds of viewers an impression of altruistic disinterestedness and an
honest quest for truth. In the case of Schneider, the conclusion we are expected to draw is that we have here a
man of intellectual integrity and personal modesty. It would be churlish not to sidestep lightly the weasel
words actually employed, which can be summarised as: “Not my fault! I just paint pictures. Can’t help it, if
somebody else misinterpreted what I said”.
Save to note the depths which the BBC and Dr. Stewart are willing to plumb in order to promote their
propagandist agenda, I will make no further comment about the inclusion of his offspring. Of Dr. Schneider,
let me offer a different and more apposite interpretation, however. This is a man who has made a career, and
much lucre, out of promoting extreme environmentalist claims and, in the process, has demonstrated little
hesitation in hopping from one conveniently passing gravy train to another. Given that the BBC has a legal
as well as a moral obligation to respect its own Editorial Standards, perhaps it should be reminded whence
this gentlemen and his friends come, a stand point which your presenter evidently endorses. “To capture the
public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and....

Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age

The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years.

Global Warm-mongering: More Silk from a Pig's Ear

It seems that NASA's James Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), is at it again. He just can't let the data speak for itself. In yet another egregious display of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) arrogance, he changed the temperature data from 1910-2008 to reflect what is clearly a cooling trend to reflect a warming trend. (Y-axis = Annual Mean Temperatures in centigrade; X-axis = Year)

New EU President Klaus, Globaloney Critic, Is a 'Figurehead'; Appellation Was Rarely Used on Predecessor Sarkozy

To say that President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic is not liked by Euro-elitists is a grand understatement.

European media has generally bent over backwards to give European Union politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels respect and the benefit of the doubt. If there is a voter referendum that enhances EU power, the press is for it, and those in countries like Ireland who reject its advances towards smiley-faced socialism are unenlightened.

Even France's widely disliked Nicolas Sarkozy received favorable treatment from the Europhile press during his 2008 stint as EU President.

That has changed now that Klaus, a fervent advocate of democracy and ardent opponent of statism, whatever its disguises -- including "climate change" -- has taken over that office.

David Charter, Europe correspondent for the UK Times Online, led the charge last Friday (the picture and caption above is from the Times's story page), and reported that things are getting quite testy between Klaus and the Europe uber alles crowd:

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.

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.

systemic BBC bias

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

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.

‘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.’

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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 cliché 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.”

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/

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.

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

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

Global warming Quiz

Give it a try!

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

Radical environmentalists part of economic meltdown