Showing posts with label climate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Google Wades into Climate Debate
By John Brandon Published April 05, 2011 FoxNews.com Google is diving headfirst into the climate-change debate with a "21 Club" of hand-picked experts that the search engine giant hopes will drive the conversation -- and guide investments -- in climate change. But it's a discussion that even the club's members say is meant to be one-sided. “If Google included people who challenged that debate, they would be wrong to do so,” said Matthew Nisbet, an associate professor for the School of Communication at American University and one of the 21 Google Science Communication Fellows. “As to whether climate change is happening, humans are a cause and it is a problem -- there is no scientific debate over that," Nisbet told FoxNews.com. A review of the 21 Club confirms Nisbet's comment. The group includes meteorologists, communication specialists, and even weather forecasters, as well as few scientists who research climate change for a living. None argue that the planet isn't in imminent danger. Simon Donner, with the University of British Columbia, recently wrote that unless coral reefs learn to adapt, climate change may rapidly bring on their demise. Noah Diffenbaugh of Stanford University recently concluded that "global warming exacerbates poverty vulnerability in many nations," arguing that the cost of food staples in Bangladesh, Mexico, Indonesia and other countries will jump with the temperature. "There is consensus amongst scientists that humans are changing the Earth's climate," reads the mission statement on the Helmuth Lab website, headed up by Brian Helmuth of the 21 Club. From food to rocks to plants to sea life, the 21 Club believes climate change to be a dramatic problem -- one that requires dramatic action. Eugene Cordero with San Jose University even created the Green Ninja, a climate-action superhero who fights global warming. “Our goal is to foster an open dialogue and provide the tools,” argued Amy Luers, the senior environment program manager at Google.org, the non-profit funded by Google, speaking to FoxNews.com. Depending on what the scientists learn, they may develop a system that shows where climate change is occurring on the globe. Or, using technology such as Google Earth, they might map out detailed models showing the effects of climate change. In other words, some day you might be able to find out that the water near Costa Rica is 1 percentage point warmer since 1980, or that Alaska's glaciers have melted … slightly. Google's position toward climate change should not come as a surprise; the company has historically shown a penchant for Democratic causes. As FoxNews.com reported last October, Google gives more to Democratic politicians than to Republicans, for example. Follow the money So what's Google up to, anyway? Part of the motivation seems to be funding new climate change research. Jack Gold, a research analyst, told FoxNews.com that promoting new research often ends up generating new product ideas. He said having good models for climate change can also feed into the company's own data visualization efforts. The company likely sees the search term “climate change” popping up in search results, too. “They are probably reacting to what people are interested in,” Gold said. Jon Peddie, a consumer analyst with Jon Peddie Research, told FoxNews.com that Google may have other motives in mind. “They are pursuing offshore wind farms along the East Coast of the U.S. and probably want to build a solid case for the need to get off oil,” said Peddie. Whatever the reason for the project, Google has big ambitions: Google.org has already doled out about $100 million in grants, mostly to green tech start-ups and alternative energy consortiums. Google to the rescue? Climate studies also involve enormous data sets from many sources and massive computing requirements for data collection. Google has the computing muscle to help analyze that data and make sense of it. “It includes conventional weather data collected by the meteorological services of the world, at the surface of the Earth and in the atmosphere from balloon-borne instruments and satellites," said Richard C. J. Somerville, a research professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, one of the primary sources of climate-change data. "It also includes satellite and ship and buoy data to give ocean temperatures. It includes measurements of glaciers and ice sheets and sea ice, made from satellites and on the ice itself.” Another key purpose is to make climate-change data more “accessible,” to use the parlance of Google's mission statement -- and more discoverable, of course. The company likely has pure motives, tech analyst Roger Kay told FoxNews.com. But Google is also interested in important issues that make the company look good. “This promotes Google’s overall brand, to be associated with problems and perhaps solutions.” And finally, don't forget that it may all come down to business consideration. Remember all those people searching for "climate change"? “Google won’t be able to sell ads if we wipe ourselves out by not mitigating the effects of climate change,” joked Kay.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
WikiLeaks Cables Confirm Climate Skeptics' Fears -
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http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wikileaks-cables-confirm-the-worst-fears-of-climate-skeptics/?singlepage=true
Just a year ago, the Climategate files — a collection of emails, data, and computer source code — were somehow purloined from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit and made public. Pajamas Media was one of the first news organizations to cover them, with the first breaking news story out within hours of their first discovery (“Hacker Releases Data Implicating CRU in Global Warming Fraud“).
The full consequences are not yet clear, but the files’ release probably led to the collapse of the Copenhagen climate conference — to which the Obama administration had committed no little amount of political capital — and certainly contributed to the public’s increasing skepticism about the supposed consensus of climate science.
In some ways, the most surprising part of the Climategate files was how well they confirmed the dark suspicions of climate skeptics: there really were problems with replicating some of the most quoted results, there really had been some questionable manipulations made so the data would present the “right” picture, and there really was a somewhat covert group, composed of scientists on the “human agency” side of the argument and certain “reliable” environmental journalists, who were working together to suppress counter-evidence and assassinate the reputations of the skeptics.
Almost exactly a year later, Julius Assange and the WikiLeaks website revealed another collection of similarly purloined data. This time, the data was a collection of diplomatic cable traffic among American diplomats all over the world, some of it considered very sensitive — classified SECRET. Again, the purloined messages proved very embarrassing to the authors, although in this case the damage wasn’t just to egos and reputations; the cables did damage to American interests, even to national security.
On December 3rd, the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom published one of a series of stories based on the cables, this one titled “WikiLeaks cables reveal how U.S. manipulated climate accord.” The United States really was applying considerable political and diplomatic pressure on other players; the scientific “consensus” had long since been subsumed by the pressure to score a political win. As the Guardian put it:
Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.
The bribes — sorry, I mean promised aid — was no mean amount of money. The Guardian reports amounts in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. The government of the Maldives set their price at $30 million. With a population of roughly 300,000, that is $100 per person in a country where the average household gets by on $450 a year.
This pressure, however, wasn’t limited to financial transactions: the United States was developing intelligence on the other participants in the conferences.
Seeking negotiating chips, the U.S. State Department sent a secret cable on July 31, 2009, seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change. The request originated with the CIA. As well as countries’ negotiating positions for Copenhagen, diplomats were asked to provide evidence of UN environmental “treaty circumvention” and deals between nations.
At the same time, foreign powers — most probably at least including the People’s Republic of China — used sophisticated social engineering and cyberwar methods to get leverage in the upcoming negotiations.
On June 19, 2009, the State Department sent a cable detailing a “spear phishing” attack on the office of the U.S. climate change envoy … while talks with China on emissions took place in Beijing.
“Spear phishing” is an attack in which a carefully customized email message to a particular person, including personal information and promising something sure to be of interest to the recipient, is used to introduce a “Trojan horse” program, and while the cables don’t actually identify the suspects, it’s the same style of attack, and exactly the same exploit, that the Chinese used on Google.
The Guardian article is an amusing exercise in cognitive dissonance. The CIA wanted to collect intelligence on the other participants: CIA, ooh, bad! But it was to push through the global warming treaty. Wait. Global warming treaty, oooh, good! The Guardian writers clearly had some trouble deciding what they really thought.
By the time the Copenhagen conference came around, domestic political considerations inside the Obama administration had far outweighed whatever scientific basis originally drove the negotiations. On the other side of the table, pious public mouthing of global-warming dogma was replaced by straight-out monetary transactions: if you want our agreement, come up with the most cash. And China, South Africa, Brazil, and India were working the process with both politics and less savory means, to make sure they had the leverage to get what they wanted.
The lesson of the WikiLeaks climate cables turns out to be very much like the lesson of the Climategate files last year. The most surprising aspect of this story is how thoroughly the cables confirm the dark suspicions of climate skeptics.
Charlie Martin writes on science and technology for Pajamas Media.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wikileaks-cables-confirm-the-worst-fears-of-climate-skeptics/?singlepage=true
Just a year ago, the Climategate files — a collection of emails, data, and computer source code — were somehow purloined from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit and made public. Pajamas Media was one of the first news organizations to cover them, with the first breaking news story out within hours of their first discovery (“Hacker Releases Data Implicating CRU in Global Warming Fraud“).
The full consequences are not yet clear, but the files’ release probably led to the collapse of the Copenhagen climate conference — to which the Obama administration had committed no little amount of political capital — and certainly contributed to the public’s increasing skepticism about the supposed consensus of climate science.
In some ways, the most surprising part of the Climategate files was how well they confirmed the dark suspicions of climate skeptics: there really were problems with replicating some of the most quoted results, there really had been some questionable manipulations made so the data would present the “right” picture, and there really was a somewhat covert group, composed of scientists on the “human agency” side of the argument and certain “reliable” environmental journalists, who were working together to suppress counter-evidence and assassinate the reputations of the skeptics.
Almost exactly a year later, Julius Assange and the WikiLeaks website revealed another collection of similarly purloined data. This time, the data was a collection of diplomatic cable traffic among American diplomats all over the world, some of it considered very sensitive — classified SECRET. Again, the purloined messages proved very embarrassing to the authors, although in this case the damage wasn’t just to egos and reputations; the cables did damage to American interests, even to national security.
On December 3rd, the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom published one of a series of stories based on the cables, this one titled “WikiLeaks cables reveal how U.S. manipulated climate accord.” The United States really was applying considerable political and diplomatic pressure on other players; the scientific “consensus” had long since been subsumed by the pressure to score a political win. As the Guardian put it:
Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.
The bribes — sorry, I mean promised aid — was no mean amount of money. The Guardian reports amounts in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. The government of the Maldives set their price at $30 million. With a population of roughly 300,000, that is $100 per person in a country where the average household gets by on $450 a year.
This pressure, however, wasn’t limited to financial transactions: the United States was developing intelligence on the other participants in the conferences.
Seeking negotiating chips, the U.S. State Department sent a secret cable on July 31, 2009, seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change. The request originated with the CIA. As well as countries’ negotiating positions for Copenhagen, diplomats were asked to provide evidence of UN environmental “treaty circumvention” and deals between nations.
At the same time, foreign powers — most probably at least including the People’s Republic of China — used sophisticated social engineering and cyberwar methods to get leverage in the upcoming negotiations.
On June 19, 2009, the State Department sent a cable detailing a “spear phishing” attack on the office of the U.S. climate change envoy … while talks with China on emissions took place in Beijing.
“Spear phishing” is an attack in which a carefully customized email message to a particular person, including personal information and promising something sure to be of interest to the recipient, is used to introduce a “Trojan horse” program, and while the cables don’t actually identify the suspects, it’s the same style of attack, and exactly the same exploit, that the Chinese used on Google.
The Guardian article is an amusing exercise in cognitive dissonance. The CIA wanted to collect intelligence on the other participants: CIA, ooh, bad! But it was to push through the global warming treaty. Wait. Global warming treaty, oooh, good! The Guardian writers clearly had some trouble deciding what they really thought.
By the time the Copenhagen conference came around, domestic political considerations inside the Obama administration had far outweighed whatever scientific basis originally drove the negotiations. On the other side of the table, pious public mouthing of global-warming dogma was replaced by straight-out monetary transactions: if you want our agreement, come up with the most cash. And China, South Africa, Brazil, and India were working the process with both politics and less savory means, to make sure they had the leverage to get what they wanted.
The lesson of the WikiLeaks climate cables turns out to be very much like the lesson of the Climategate files last year. The most surprising aspect of this story is how thoroughly the cables confirm the dark suspicions of climate skeptics.
Charlie Martin writes on science and technology for Pajamas Media.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Carbon Trade Ends on Quiet Death of Chicago Climate Exchange-John O’Sullivan
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By John O’Sullivan
Published Nov 7, 2010
Suite101
Republican mid-term election joy deals financial uncertainty among green investors as the Chicago Climate Exchange announces the end of U.S. carbon trading.
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on October 21, 2010 that it will cease carbon trading this year. However, Steve Milloy reporting on Pajamasmedia.com (November 6, 2010) finds this huge story strangely unreported by the mainstream media.
To some key analysts the collapse of the CCX appears to show that international carbon trading is “dying a quiet death.” Yet Milloy finds that such a major business failure has drawn no interest at all from the mainstream media. Milloy noted that a “Nexis search conducted a week after CCX’s announcement revealed no news articles published about its demise.”
Not until November 02, 2010 had the story even been picked up briefly and that was by Chicagobusiness.com (Crain’s). Reporter, Paul Merrion appeared to find some comfort that while CCX will cease all trading of new emission allowances at the end of the year, “it will continue trading carbon offsets generated by projects that consume greenhouse gases, such as planting trees.”
Collapse is Personal Setback for U.S. President
Barack Obama was a board member of the Joyce Foundation that funded the fledgling CCX. Professor Richard Sandor, of Northwestern University had started the business with $1.1 million in grants from the Chicago-based left-wing Joyce Foundation enthusiastically endorsed by Obama. When founded in November 2000, CCX’s carbon trading market was predicted to grow anywhere between $500 billion and $10 trillion. Fortunately before its collapse Sandor was able to net $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake when CCX was sold.
Read the rest of the article at the source: Suite101
By John O’Sullivan
Published Nov 7, 2010
Suite101
Republican mid-term election joy deals financial uncertainty among green investors as the Chicago Climate Exchange announces the end of U.S. carbon trading.
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on October 21, 2010 that it will cease carbon trading this year. However, Steve Milloy reporting on Pajamasmedia.com (November 6, 2010) finds this huge story strangely unreported by the mainstream media.
To some key analysts the collapse of the CCX appears to show that international carbon trading is “dying a quiet death.” Yet Milloy finds that such a major business failure has drawn no interest at all from the mainstream media. Milloy noted that a “Nexis search conducted a week after CCX’s announcement revealed no news articles published about its demise.”
Not until November 02, 2010 had the story even been picked up briefly and that was by Chicagobusiness.com (Crain’s). Reporter, Paul Merrion appeared to find some comfort that while CCX will cease all trading of new emission allowances at the end of the year, “it will continue trading carbon offsets generated by projects that consume greenhouse gases, such as planting trees.”
Collapse is Personal Setback for U.S. President
Barack Obama was a board member of the Joyce Foundation that funded the fledgling CCX. Professor Richard Sandor, of Northwestern University had started the business with $1.1 million in grants from the Chicago-based left-wing Joyce Foundation enthusiastically endorsed by Obama. When founded in November 2000, CCX’s carbon trading market was predicted to grow anywhere between $500 billion and $10 trillion. Fortunately before its collapse Sandor was able to net $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake when CCX was sold.
Read the rest of the article at the source: Suite101
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Guessing At CO2 Emissions | The Resilient Earth
glo.
Guessing At CO2 Emissions
http://theresilientearth.com/
Submitted by Doug L. Hoffman on Fri, 06/04/2010 - 14:51
Supposedly, human activity is responsible for the detected rise in atmospheric CO2 levels over the past century. But do we really know were gas emissions come from and how great they are? As it turns out, greenhouse gas emissions are measured using statistical data without testing the results against the actual increases of these gases in the atmosphere. Regardless, climate change alarmists insist that human emissions must be reduced. A revealing perspective article in the June 4, 2010, issue of Science states “this is like dieting without weighing oneself.” Currently, science is only guessing at where CO2 emissions come from.
Scientists are coming to the realization that claims about greenhouse gas emissions can have integrity only if verified by direct atmospheric measurements. Emissions data are produced by greenhouse gas emitters of all sizes—farms, factories and entire nations. These emissions are often quoted with high precision but, as Euan Nisbet and Ray Weiss state in their article, “misreporting still occurs, whether by simple error, ignorance, or intention.” Read More...
Guessing At CO2 Emissions The Resilient Earth
Guessing At CO2 Emissions
http://theresilientearth.com/
Submitted by Doug L. Hoffman on Fri, 06/04/2010 - 14:51
Supposedly, human activity is responsible for the detected rise in atmospheric CO2 levels over the past century. But do we really know were gas emissions come from and how great they are? As it turns out, greenhouse gas emissions are measured using statistical data without testing the results against the actual increases of these gases in the atmosphere. Regardless, climate change alarmists insist that human emissions must be reduced. A revealing perspective article in the June 4, 2010, issue of Science states “this is like dieting without weighing oneself.” Currently, science is only guessing at where CO2 emissions come from.
Scientists are coming to the realization that claims about greenhouse gas emissions can have integrity only if verified by direct atmospheric measurements. Emissions data are produced by greenhouse gas emitters of all sizes—farms, factories and entire nations. These emissions are often quoted with high precision but, as Euan Nisbet and Ray Weiss state in their article, “misreporting still occurs, whether by simple error, ignorance, or intention.” Read More...
Guessing At CO2 Emissions The Resilient Earth
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The Sham of ‘Settled Science’ — Insider Says There Was No IPCC Consensus
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The Sham of ‘Settled Science’ — Insider Says There Was No IPCC Consensus
Remember that “settled science” that Laurie David’s alleged married boyfriend was forever prattling on about? Well, surprise, surprise… according to the National Post’s Lawrence Solomon, it turns out that it’s not so settled after all.
The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider
The Sham of 'Settled Science'; Insider Says There Was No IPCC Consensus
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The Sham of ‘Settled Science’ — Insider Says There Was No IPCC Consensus
Remember that “settled science” that Laurie David’s alleged married boyfriend was forever prattling on about? Well, surprise, surprise… according to the National Post’s Lawrence Solomon, it turns out that it’s not so settled after all.
The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.Read More...
“Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism.”
The Sham of 'Settled Science'; Insider Says There Was No IPCC Consensus
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Sunday, October 10, 2010
Sinking ‘climate change’
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Written by Cal Thomas
World Mag.com
Three modern myths have been sold to the American people: the promise of a transparent administration (President Obama); the promise of a more ethical Congress (Speaker Pelosi); and the myth of “global warming,” or “climate change.”
The first two are daily proving suspect and now the third is sinking with greater force than melting icebergs, if they were melting, which many believe they are not.
After spending years promoting “global warming,” the media are beginning to turn in the face of growing evidence that they have been wrong. The Times of London recently reported: “Britain’s premier scientific institution is being forced to review its statements on climate change after a rebellion by members who question mankind’s contribution to rising temperatures.”
It gets worse, or better, depending on your perspective. Read More...
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Written by Cal Thomas
World Mag.com
June 3, 10:03 AM
Three modern myths have been sold to the American people: the promise of a transparent administration (President Obama); the promise of a more ethical Congress (Speaker Pelosi); and the myth of “global warming,” or “climate change.”
The first two are daily proving suspect and now the third is sinking with greater force than melting icebergs, if they were melting, which many believe they are not.
After spending years promoting “global warming,” the media are beginning to turn in the face of growing evidence that they have been wrong. The Times of London recently reported: “Britain’s premier scientific institution is being forced to review its statements on climate change after a rebellion by members who question mankind’s contribution to rising temperatures.”
It gets worse, or better, depending on your perspective. Read More...
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Thursday, October 7, 2010
Trees of Medieval Warming Period - MWP Warmer Than Present
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Piancabella Rock Glacier, Sceru Valley, Southern Swiss Alps
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Reference
Scapozza, C., Lambiel, C., Reynard, E., Fallot, J.-M., Antognini, M. and Schoeneich, P. 2010. Radiocarbon dating of fossil wood remains buried by the Piancabella rock glacier, Blenio Valley (Ticino, Southern Swiss Alps): Implications for rock glacier, treeline and climate history. Permaforst and Periglacial Processes 21: 90-96.
Description
Based on radiocarbon dating of the fossil wood remains of eight larch (Larix decidua) stem fragments found one meter beneath the surface of the ground at the base of the front of the Piancabella rock glacier (46�27'02" N, 9�00'07" E) in the Southern Swiss Alps in September 2005, the authors determined that the wood was formed somewhere between AD 1040 and 1280 with a statistical probability of 95.4%. Then, based on this information and "geomorphological, climatological and geophysical observations," they inferred that "the treeline in the Medieval Warm Period was about 200 meters higher than in the middle of the 20th century, which corresponds to a mean summer temperature as much as 1.2�C warmer than in AD 1950." Thus, we assign the MWP (at a minimum) to the period AD 1040-1280; and adjusting for warming between 1950 and the present, we calculate that the MWP was about 0.5�C warmer than the peak warmth of the CWP.
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Piancabella Rock Glacier, Sceru Valley, Southern Swiss Alps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reference
Scapozza, C., Lambiel, C., Reynard, E., Fallot, J.-M., Antognini, M. and Schoeneich, P. 2010. Radiocarbon dating of fossil wood remains buried by the Piancabella rock glacier, Blenio Valley (Ticino, Southern Swiss Alps): Implications for rock glacier, treeline and climate history. Permaforst and Periglacial Processes 21: 90-96.
Description
Based on radiocarbon dating of the fossil wood remains of eight larch (Larix decidua) stem fragments found one meter beneath the surface of the ground at the base of the front of the Piancabella rock glacier (46�27'02" N, 9�00'07" E) in the Southern Swiss Alps in September 2005, the authors determined that the wood was formed somewhere between AD 1040 and 1280 with a statistical probability of 95.4%. Then, based on this information and "geomorphological, climatological and geophysical observations," they inferred that "the treeline in the Medieval Warm Period was about 200 meters higher than in the middle of the 20th century, which corresponds to a mean summer temperature as much as 1.2�C warmer than in AD 1950." Thus, we assign the MWP (at a minimum) to the period AD 1040-1280; and adjusting for warming between 1950 and the present, we calculate that the MWP was about 0.5�C warmer than the peak warmth of the CWP.
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Tuesday, October 5, 2010
'Green' Climate Group Thinks Blowing Kids up is Funny -
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Environmentalist Campaign's Horror 'Comedy' Promo: Go Green or Get Blown Up
By Kathleen Gilbert
LONDON, October 4, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A UK-based campaign against global warming has apologized after releasing an extremely graphic promotional short film depicting individuals being blown up for failing to adhere to the campaign.
The film promotes "10:10," a campaign involving a pledge to reduce an individual's carbon emissions by 10% on October 10. Entitled "No Pressure," the short depicts several short segments, evidently intended to be humorous, in which people, including children in a schoolroom, are detonated in a gory mess after they decline to volunteer to help with the new initiative. In each individual segment, shocked onlookers wipe the spattered blood off themselves.
"10:10: hundreds of thousands of people ... all tackling climate change in more than 40 countires. Care to join us? No pressure," states the final voiceover. The voice actress is then revealed to be X-Files actress Gillian Anderson, who is also detonated. The final shot silently displays the campaign's website address against a blood-soaked wall.
After countless viewers of the 10:10 flick reacted in horror, including several groups sponsoring the 10:10 campaign, producers officially pulled the film from the internet, although copies continue to circulate. The original plan to show the flick in UK theaters was also abandoned.
10:10 officials reportedly originally responded to the furor by stating: "We 'killed' five people to make No Pressure - a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change."
Later, the group issued a longer apology pointing out that the film, created by English comedy screenwriter Richard Curtis, was intended to have a humorous effect.
"Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn't and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended," wrote the group on its website. "At 10:10 we're all about trying new and creative ways of getting people to take action on climate change. Unfortunately in this instance we missed the mark. Oh well, we live and learn."
Read More: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10100410.html
Watch the video -
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Environmentalist Campaign's Horror 'Comedy' Promo: Go Green or Get Blown Up
By Kathleen Gilbert
LONDON, October 4, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A UK-based campaign against global warming has apologized after releasing an extremely graphic promotional short film depicting individuals being blown up for failing to adhere to the campaign.
The film promotes "10:10," a campaign involving a pledge to reduce an individual's carbon emissions by 10% on October 10. Entitled "No Pressure," the short depicts several short segments, evidently intended to be humorous, in which people, including children in a schoolroom, are detonated in a gory mess after they decline to volunteer to help with the new initiative. In each individual segment, shocked onlookers wipe the spattered blood off themselves.
"10:10: hundreds of thousands of people ... all tackling climate change in more than 40 countires. Care to join us? No pressure," states the final voiceover. The voice actress is then revealed to be X-Files actress Gillian Anderson, who is also detonated. The final shot silently displays the campaign's website address against a blood-soaked wall.
After countless viewers of the 10:10 flick reacted in horror, including several groups sponsoring the 10:10 campaign, producers officially pulled the film from the internet, although copies continue to circulate. The original plan to show the flick in UK theaters was also abandoned.
10:10 officials reportedly originally responded to the furor by stating: "We 'killed' five people to make No Pressure - a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change."
Later, the group issued a longer apology pointing out that the film, created by English comedy screenwriter Richard Curtis, was intended to have a humorous effect.
"Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn't and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended," wrote the group on its website. "At 10:10 we're all about trying new and creative ways of getting people to take action on climate change. Unfortunately in this instance we missed the mark. Oh well, we live and learn."
Read More: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10100410.html
Watch the video -
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Monday, October 4, 2010
Climate Audit: Oxburgh and the Jones Admission
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Climate Audit: Oxburgh and the Jones Admission
, posted on Jul 1, 2010 at 10:42 AM
A bombshell from the Oxburgh “inquiry”.
Obviously, the most contentious issue in the Hockey Stick controversy has been, uh, the hockey sticks – an area where CRU scientists Jones, Briffa and Osborn have been intimately involved as authors of key proxies, authors of multiproxy studies in the IPCC spaghetti graph, peer reviewers of journal articles and IPCC assessment authors. The core position of Climate Audit in respect to these studies is that the data and methods used in these studies do not permit assertions about the medieval-modern relationship to be made with any confidence. This gets played out in numerous disputes over individual proxies and individual statistical methods, but these do not deflect from the overall issue.
I heard from a reliable source that, during the Oxburgh interviews, Phil Jones admitted that it was probably impossible to do the 1000-year temperature reconstructions with any accuracy. Obviously, this would be a hugely important admission relative to this debate, but the Oxburgh Science Appraisal Panel “inquiry” did not report this admission even though UEA had announced that the Science Appraisal Panel would “re-appraise CRU’s science”.
I accordingly sent the following letter last week to Oxburgh (both to his House of Lords email and the UEA email address used for the “inquiry”), copying the letter to two members of the Parliamentary Committee and two journalists and forwarded it to the Muir Russell inquiry.
Consider first the original announcement by the University of East Anglia on Feb 11 here entitled “New scientific assessment of climatic research publications announced”, stating:
An independent external reappraisal of the science in the Climatic Research Unit’s (CRU) key publications has been announced by the University of East Anglia. The Royal Society will assist the University in identifying assessors with the requisite expertise, standing and independence.
“Published papers from CRU have gone through the rigorous and intensive peer review process which is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research,” said Professor Trevor Davies, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Enterprise and Engagement. “That process and the findings of our researchers have been the subject of significant debate in recent months. Colleagues in CRU have strenuously defended their conduct and the published work and we believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself.”
Or Muir Russell’s comments at their Feb 11 press conference:
Despite all the statements by the university to the public and to Parliament through press releases and evidence to the Commons Committee that Oxburgh’s panel was to “reappraise” CRU’s “science”, Oxburgh says that “science was not the subject” of his “inquiry”.
Given all the statements to the public and to Parliament saying the exact opposite, one would expect Oxburgh, as chair of the inquiry, to have clear and written terms of reference, changing the terms of reference from those presented to the public and Parliament. And here, of course, mystery and inconsistency abound, with Oxburgh saying that his terms of reference were “verbal”. (Who ever heard of “verbal” terms of reference?)
But back to Jones admission that it was “probably impossible to do the 1000-year temperature reconstructions with any accuracy.” I have this information on excellent authority. If so, this would be an important admission given statements by IPCC and others that confidence can be attached to the spaghetti squiggles. The validity of this information needs to be determined – perhaps some of the members of the Oxburgh Panel can confirm this to reporters. Perhaps Jones himself will admit the point.
Maybe the Commons Science and Technology Committee can re-convene and find out what the hell was going on with the Oxburgh “inquiry”.
Read More -
,
Climate Audit: Oxburgh and the Jones Admission
, posted on Jul 1, 2010 at 10:42 AM
A bombshell from the Oxburgh “inquiry”.
Obviously, the most contentious issue in the Hockey Stick controversy has been, uh, the hockey sticks – an area where CRU scientists Jones, Briffa and Osborn have been intimately involved as authors of key proxies, authors of multiproxy studies in the IPCC spaghetti graph, peer reviewers of journal articles and IPCC assessment authors. The core position of Climate Audit in respect to these studies is that the data and methods used in these studies do not permit assertions about the medieval-modern relationship to be made with any confidence. This gets played out in numerous disputes over individual proxies and individual statistical methods, but these do not deflect from the overall issue.
I heard from a reliable source that, during the Oxburgh interviews, Phil Jones admitted that it was probably impossible to do the 1000-year temperature reconstructions with any accuracy. Obviously, this would be a hugely important admission relative to this debate, but the Oxburgh Science Appraisal Panel “inquiry” did not report this admission even though UEA had announced that the Science Appraisal Panel would “re-appraise CRU’s science”.
I accordingly sent the following letter last week to Oxburgh (both to his House of Lords email and the UEA email address used for the “inquiry”), copying the letter to two members of the Parliamentary Committee and two journalists and forwarded it to the Muir Russell inquiry.
Dear Dr Oxburgh,This morning, I received the following remarkable response:
I am writing to you in your capacity as Chairman of the Science Appraisal Panel, which reported on April 14, 2010 on the independent external reappraisal of CRU’s science that had been announced by the University of East Anglia in February 2010.
It has come to my attention from a reliable source that, during one of his interviews with the Science Appraisal Panel, Phil Jones (of CRU) admitted that it was probably impossible to do these [1000-year temperature] reconstructions with any accuracy.
Given that this has been one of the most contentious, if not the most contentious issue, in the disputes about CRU’s science, the failure of the Science Appraisal Panel to record this important information appears to me to be a material omission that, in this case, distorts the research record.
Under the circumstances, I request that you forthwith issue an addendum that clearly reports Jones’ evidence on the probable impossibility of doing the 1000-year reconstructions with any accuracy.
Yours truly,
Stephen McIntyre
Dear Dr Mcintyre,Read it again. The “science was not the subject of our study”. Why would anyone have expected that science would be the subject of study of the Science Appraisal Panel? Well, there’s a good reason why they would. The University of East Anglia and Muir Russell said over and over again that the Science Appraisal Panel would, uh, “re-appraise” CRU’s “science”.
Thank you for your message. What you report may or may not be the case. But as I have pointed out to you previously the science was not the subject of our study.
Yours sincerly,
Ron Oxburgh
Consider first the original announcement by the University of East Anglia on Feb 11 here entitled “New scientific assessment of climatic research publications announced”, stating:
An independent external reappraisal of the science in the Climatic Research Unit’s (CRU) key publications has been announced by the University of East Anglia. The Royal Society will assist the University in identifying assessors with the requisite expertise, standing and independence.
“Published papers from CRU have gone through the rigorous and intensive peer review process which is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research,” said Professor Trevor Davies, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Enterprise and Engagement. “That process and the findings of our researchers have been the subject of significant debate in recent months. Colleagues in CRU have strenuously defended their conduct and the published work and we believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself.”
Or Muir Russell’s comments at their Feb 11 press conference:
Our job is to investigate scientific rigor, the honesty, the openness and the due process of CRU’s approach as well as the other things in the remit.. and compliance with rules. It’s not our job to audit CRU’s scientific conclusions. That would require a different set of skills and resources. The University recognizes the need for such an audit. It has asked the Royal Society how this should be done. They have decided they would commission a re-appraisal of the main scientific conclusions of CRU with assistance from the Royal Society to identify the person or persons with the standing and expertise and skill to carry this out.Or the Royal Society press statement on Feb 11 in which Martin Rees stated:
It is important that people have the utmost confidence in the science of climate change. Where legitimate doubts are raised about any piece of science they must be fully investigated – that is how science works. The Royal Society will provide advice to the University of East Anglia in identifying independent assessors to conduct this reappraisal.Or the BBC report of the same day:
However, the panel will not review the past scientific work of the CRU, as this will be re-appraised by a UEA-commissioned study that will involve the Royal Society in an advisory role.Or the UEA written submission to the Parliamentary Committee on Feb 25:
“Colleagues in CRU have strenuously defended their conduct and the published work and we believe it is in the interest of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself,” Professor Trevor Davies, UEA’s pro-vice-chancellor for research, enterprise and engagement, said in a statement.
Royal Society President Lord Rees said that it was important that the public had the utmost confidence in the science of climate change. “Where legitimate doubts are raised about any piece of science they must be fully investigated – that is how science works,” he explained. “The Royal Society will provide advice to the University of East Anglia in identifying independent assessors to conduct this reappraisal.”
2.3 Alongside Sir Muir Russell’s Review, we have decided on an additional scientific assessment of CRU’s key scientific publications; an external reappraisal of the science itself. The Royal Society has agreed to assist the University in identifying assessors with the requisite experience, standing and independence.Or Muir Russell’s written submission to the Parliamentary Committee:
4. The[Muir Russell] Review’s remit does not invite it to re-appraise the scientific work of CRU. That re-appraisal is being separately commissioned by UEA, with the assistance of the Royal Society.Or Acton’s oral testimony to the Parliamentary Committee:
As for the science itself, I have not actually seen any evidence of any flaw in the science but I am hoping, later this week, to announce the chair of a panel to reassess the science and make sure there is nothing wrong.Oxburgh neither confirmed nor denied the Jones admission. Unfortunately, there are no documents of the Jones interview since Oxburgh flouted the Parliamentary Committee recommendation that the inquiries conduct their business in the open, in which they stressed the importance of opennness in achieving acceptance of the inquiry results. Lord Oxburgh in effect spit in the eye of the Commons Committee recommendation by not taking submissions, not transcribing interviews and not even reporting interview notes. Worse, at least one panelist has already destroyed his interview notes.
Despite all the statements by the university to the public and to Parliament through press releases and evidence to the Commons Committee that Oxburgh’s panel was to “reappraise” CRU’s “science”, Oxburgh says that “science was not the subject” of his “inquiry”.
Given all the statements to the public and to Parliament saying the exact opposite, one would expect Oxburgh, as chair of the inquiry, to have clear and written terms of reference, changing the terms of reference from those presented to the public and Parliament. And here, of course, mystery and inconsistency abound, with Oxburgh saying that his terms of reference were “verbal”. (Who ever heard of “verbal” terms of reference?)
But back to Jones admission that it was “probably impossible to do the 1000-year temperature reconstructions with any accuracy.” I have this information on excellent authority. If so, this would be an important admission given statements by IPCC and others that confidence can be attached to the spaghetti squiggles. The validity of this information needs to be determined – perhaps some of the members of the Oxburgh Panel can confirm this to reporters. Perhaps Jones himself will admit the point.
Maybe the Commons Science and Technology Committee can re-convene and find out what the hell was going on with the Oxburgh “inquiry”.
Read More -
,
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Graham-Kerry-Lieberman global warming bill
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Good article, interesting take -
WorldMag.com - May 08, 2010
The unemployment rate is almost 10 percent, food prices are rising, and the price of oil is back over $80 per barrel.
It is in this economic environment that three U.S. senators—Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.—are planning to introduce a bill that would in all likelihood increase utility prices.
The three lawmakers have been putting together a global warming bill this spring, and their proposal is due to be unveiled the week of April 26. Early reports indicate that it will jettison an economy-wide cap-and-trade scheme in favor of one aimed—at least at first—at the electric power industry. In a further effort to bring wary senators aboard, the proposal would allow for more oil and natural gas production and include incentives for the nuclear power industry.
But some conservatives suspect that these add-ons won't amount to much. A much-hyped announcement in March from President Obama about increased offshore oil drilling, for example, left out California and other oil-rich areas. The incentives for building nuclear power plants may also be weak: "From what I've heard there is no meaningful nuclear component," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Business Week. "I've repeatedly said I would not support any proposal that didn't have a robust nuclear power component."
Most analysts say getting to the needed 60 votes for the bill in the Senate will be a daunting task for Democratic leaders. "Some would suggest that as you try to bring certain members on to an initiative, for every one you get on, you have two that leap out of the wheelbarrow," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
The bill also faces an increasingly skeptical public. In the wake of the recent Climategate controversy, in which leaked or hacked email messages showed some leading climate scientists trying to manipulate data and the peer-review process, the public seems to be shifting the burden of proof onto those who say global warming will be catastrophic.
In March, a Gallup poll found that 48 percent of Americans think global warming fears are "generally exaggerated," up from 30 percent in 2006 and 35 percent in 2008. A Pew survey in January showed global warming ranking last among 21 priorities for the president and Congress. Only 28 percent of the public thought fighting climate change should be a top priority.
One irony: As senators debate a bill that would raise energy costs to fight global warming, Americans are already paying more for food. A smaller than normal vegetable crop helped increase food prices by 2.4 percent in March, the biggest jump in 26 years. One of the reasons for the bad vegetable crop: a colder than normal winter.
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/16678
Good article, interesting take -
WorldMag.com - May 08, 2010
The unemployment rate is almost 10 percent, food prices are rising, and the price of oil is back over $80 per barrel.
It is in this economic environment that three U.S. senators—Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.—are planning to introduce a bill that would in all likelihood increase utility prices.
The three lawmakers have been putting together a global warming bill this spring, and their proposal is due to be unveiled the week of April 26. Early reports indicate that it will jettison an economy-wide cap-and-trade scheme in favor of one aimed—at least at first—at the electric power industry. In a further effort to bring wary senators aboard, the proposal would allow for more oil and natural gas production and include incentives for the nuclear power industry.
But some conservatives suspect that these add-ons won't amount to much. A much-hyped announcement in March from President Obama about increased offshore oil drilling, for example, left out California and other oil-rich areas. The incentives for building nuclear power plants may also be weak: "From what I've heard there is no meaningful nuclear component," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Business Week. "I've repeatedly said I would not support any proposal that didn't have a robust nuclear power component."
Most analysts say getting to the needed 60 votes for the bill in the Senate will be a daunting task for Democratic leaders. "Some would suggest that as you try to bring certain members on to an initiative, for every one you get on, you have two that leap out of the wheelbarrow," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
The bill also faces an increasingly skeptical public. In the wake of the recent Climategate controversy, in which leaked or hacked email messages showed some leading climate scientists trying to manipulate data and the peer-review process, the public seems to be shifting the burden of proof onto those who say global warming will be catastrophic.
In March, a Gallup poll found that 48 percent of Americans think global warming fears are "generally exaggerated," up from 30 percent in 2006 and 35 percent in 2008. A Pew survey in January showed global warming ranking last among 21 priorities for the president and Congress. Only 28 percent of the public thought fighting climate change should be a top priority.
One irony: As senators debate a bill that would raise energy costs to fight global warming, Americans are already paying more for food. A smaller than normal vegetable crop helped increase food prices by 2.4 percent in March, the biggest jump in 26 years. One of the reasons for the bad vegetable crop: a colder than normal winter.
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/16678
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Christian Theologian on Earth Day: ‘Climate Change Is the Totalitarian’s Dream Come True’
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Good Article in full...
CNSNews.com - Thursday, April 22, 2010
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer
For E. Calvin Beisner and his colleagues at the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation (CASC), every day is Earth Day because Christians are called by God to be good stewards of the planet and its inhabitants.
Beisner believes that it is not carbon emissions but global warming activism and international climate treaties that are a threat to the nation’s future and the world’s poorest populations.
“Climate change is the totalitarian’s dream come true,” Beisner, founder of the CASC, said at a conference on Thursday at the Family Research Council in Washington. “It offers a rationale for government intrusion into every aspect of life for every person on Earth.”
Beisner, who is also the national spokesman for the CASC, is a teacher and author who frequently speaks on the connection between religion and environmentalism.
Beisner painted a chilling picture of what would happen if the United States signed on to the kind of international climate-change treaty proposed at a United Nations conference in Copenhagen last year.
“Global warming alarmists see each new human being in terms of his or her ‘carbon footprint,’ and already many are saying that the best way to fight global warming is for everyone to have just one child so that the population will shrink,” Beisner said.
The enforcement of a U.N.-style treaty would mean a global government’s intrusion into how people live their private lives – “everything from the temperature at which you keep your house to whether to drive a large, crash-worthy vehicle or a small car that conserves fuel but is a death trap in an accident,” Beisner said.
In his speech, Beisner said that Christians should be concerned about global warming policies because they affect myriad issues, such as the sanctity of human life, individual liberty, the survival of free enterprise and free markets in the United States, compassion for the poor around the world, and a sovereign America with the kind of limited government envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
Christians are commanded by God to care for the poor, which Beisner said would suffer the most from the kind of environmental controls and alternative energy plans proposed by both the United Nations and the U.S. Congress.
“The Bible requires us to care for the poor,” he said, detailing how the policies focused on cutting the use of fossil fuels, for example, will hurt the poorest people by increasing the cost of energy and limiting its availability in the world’s poorest places where access to abundant energy supplies can prevent disease and premature death.
“Global warming legislation is part of a concerted effort to push environmentalism to the fore in American politics and culture,” Beisner said. “And environmentalism is hardly limited to good stewardship of God-given natural resources.
“Secular environmentalism, in contrast to creation stewardship, is at heart a false religion,” Beisner said.
“It degrades human beings, the crown of God’s creation, deifies nature in its untouched state as the ideal – contrary to God’s mandate for man to fill, subdue, and rule the Earth – and disregards the poor, who often are harmed by environmental policies like banning DDT, a cheap and safe insecticide that could largely eliminate the malaria-bearing mosquitoes that cost millions of lives every year in the Third World,” he added.
Beisner also said the cap-and-trade legislation proposed by Democrats in Congress to limit carbon emissions and allow the trading of “carbon credits” will harm an already struggling economy by killing jobs and slowing or even reversing economic growth.
Beisner said his organization late last year released a comprehensive research project, “A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global Warming.”
This project, he said, “provides solid Biblical, scientific, and economic basis for not only rejecting belief in dangerous manmade global warming, but also for rejecting policies meant to fight it.”
Beisner concluded by citing one of the founding principles of the CASC, which states that the Earth is not a fragile entity made randomly by chance but the creation of an almighty God, who sustains it.
“Raising the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from 27 thousandths of one percent to 39 thousandths of one percent, or even to 108 thousandths of one percent, is not going to cause catastrophic global warming that will, as Al Gore puts it, threaten to destroy human civilization and wipe out 90 percent or more of all species,” Beisner said.
“Our God is a more intelligent designer than to make a system so fragile, and a better judge to call such a system ‘very good’ after he made it,” Beisner said.
Read More http://cnsnews.com/news/article/64598
.
Good Article in full...
CNSNews.com - Thursday, April 22, 2010
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer
For E. Calvin Beisner and his colleagues at the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation (CASC), every day is Earth Day because Christians are called by God to be good stewards of the planet and its inhabitants.
Beisner believes that it is not carbon emissions but global warming activism and international climate treaties that are a threat to the nation’s future and the world’s poorest populations.
“Climate change is the totalitarian’s dream come true,” Beisner, founder of the CASC, said at a conference on Thursday at the Family Research Council in Washington. “It offers a rationale for government intrusion into every aspect of life for every person on Earth.”
Beisner, who is also the national spokesman for the CASC, is a teacher and author who frequently speaks on the connection between religion and environmentalism.
Beisner painted a chilling picture of what would happen if the United States signed on to the kind of international climate-change treaty proposed at a United Nations conference in Copenhagen last year.
“Global warming alarmists see each new human being in terms of his or her ‘carbon footprint,’ and already many are saying that the best way to fight global warming is for everyone to have just one child so that the population will shrink,” Beisner said.
The enforcement of a U.N.-style treaty would mean a global government’s intrusion into how people live their private lives – “everything from the temperature at which you keep your house to whether to drive a large, crash-worthy vehicle or a small car that conserves fuel but is a death trap in an accident,” Beisner said.
In his speech, Beisner said that Christians should be concerned about global warming policies because they affect myriad issues, such as the sanctity of human life, individual liberty, the survival of free enterprise and free markets in the United States, compassion for the poor around the world, and a sovereign America with the kind of limited government envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
Christians are commanded by God to care for the poor, which Beisner said would suffer the most from the kind of environmental controls and alternative energy plans proposed by both the United Nations and the U.S. Congress.
“The Bible requires us to care for the poor,” he said, detailing how the policies focused on cutting the use of fossil fuels, for example, will hurt the poorest people by increasing the cost of energy and limiting its availability in the world’s poorest places where access to abundant energy supplies can prevent disease and premature death.
“Global warming legislation is part of a concerted effort to push environmentalism to the fore in American politics and culture,” Beisner said. “And environmentalism is hardly limited to good stewardship of God-given natural resources.
“Secular environmentalism, in contrast to creation stewardship, is at heart a false religion,” Beisner said.
“It degrades human beings, the crown of God’s creation, deifies nature in its untouched state as the ideal – contrary to God’s mandate for man to fill, subdue, and rule the Earth – and disregards the poor, who often are harmed by environmental policies like banning DDT, a cheap and safe insecticide that could largely eliminate the malaria-bearing mosquitoes that cost millions of lives every year in the Third World,” he added.
Beisner also said the cap-and-trade legislation proposed by Democrats in Congress to limit carbon emissions and allow the trading of “carbon credits” will harm an already struggling economy by killing jobs and slowing or even reversing economic growth.
Beisner said his organization late last year released a comprehensive research project, “A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global Warming.”
This project, he said, “provides solid Biblical, scientific, and economic basis for not only rejecting belief in dangerous manmade global warming, but also for rejecting policies meant to fight it.”
Beisner concluded by citing one of the founding principles of the CASC, which states that the Earth is not a fragile entity made randomly by chance but the creation of an almighty God, who sustains it.
“Raising the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from 27 thousandths of one percent to 39 thousandths of one percent, or even to 108 thousandths of one percent, is not going to cause catastrophic global warming that will, as Al Gore puts it, threaten to destroy human civilization and wipe out 90 percent or more of all species,” Beisner said.
“Our God is a more intelligent designer than to make a system so fragile, and a better judge to call such a system ‘very good’ after he made it,” Beisner said.
Read More http://cnsnews.com/news/article/64598
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010
When to Doubt a Scientific ‘Consensus’
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By Jay Richards - Tuesday, March 16, 2010
A December 18 Washington Post poll, released on the final day of the ill-fated Copenhagen climate summit, reported “four in ten Americans now saying that they place little or no trust in what scientists have to say about the environment.” Nor is the poll an outlier. Several recent polls have found “climate change” skepticism rising faster than sea levels on Planet Algore (not to be confused with Planet Earth, where sea levels remain relatively stable).
Many of the doubt-inducing climate scientists and their media acolytes attribute this rising skepticism to the stupidity of Americans, philistines unable to appreciate that there is “a scientific consensus on climate change.” One of the benefits of the recent Climategate scandal, which revealed leading climate scientists manipulating data, methods, and peer review to exaggerate the evidence of significant global warming, may be to permanently deflate the rhetorical value of the phrase “scientific consensus.”
Even without the scandal, the very idea of scientific consensus should give us pause. “Consensus,” according to Merriam-Webster, means both “general agreement” and “group solidarity in sentiment and belief.” That pretty much sums up the dilemma. We want to know whether a scientific consensus is based on solid evidence and sound reasoning, or social pressure and groupthink.
Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd. Many false ideas enjoyed consensus opinion at one time. Indeed, the “power of the paradigm” often shapes the thinking of scientists so strongly that they become unable to accurately summarize, let alone evaluate, radical alternatives. Question the paradigm, and some respond with dogmatic fanaticism.
Good Article to continue reading in Full....
Read More http://www.american.com/archive/2010/march/when-to-doubt-a-scientific-consensus
Jay Richards frequently writes for the Enterprise Blog and is a contributing editor of THE AMERICAN.
FURTHER READING: Richards wrote “Greed Is Not Good, and It’s Not Capitalism” and “The Miser versus the Entrepreneur” on why Ayn Rand is so popular today. The American Enterprise Institute’s Steven Hayward explains why many are “In Denial” about Climategate, while Kenneth Green suggests “The Beginning of the End for Cap-and-Trade?”
.
By Jay Richards - Tuesday, March 16, 2010
A December 18 Washington Post poll, released on the final day of the ill-fated Copenhagen climate summit, reported “four in ten Americans now saying that they place little or no trust in what scientists have to say about the environment.” Nor is the poll an outlier. Several recent polls have found “climate change” skepticism rising faster than sea levels on Planet Algore (not to be confused with Planet Earth, where sea levels remain relatively stable).
Many of the doubt-inducing climate scientists and their media acolytes attribute this rising skepticism to the stupidity of Americans, philistines unable to appreciate that there is “a scientific consensus on climate change.” One of the benefits of the recent Climategate scandal, which revealed leading climate scientists manipulating data, methods, and peer review to exaggerate the evidence of significant global warming, may be to permanently deflate the rhetorical value of the phrase “scientific consensus.”
Even without the scandal, the very idea of scientific consensus should give us pause. “Consensus,” according to Merriam-Webster, means both “general agreement” and “group solidarity in sentiment and belief.” That pretty much sums up the dilemma. We want to know whether a scientific consensus is based on solid evidence and sound reasoning, or social pressure and groupthink.
Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd. Many false ideas enjoyed consensus opinion at one time. Indeed, the “power of the paradigm” often shapes the thinking of scientists so strongly that they become unable to accurately summarize, let alone evaluate, radical alternatives. Question the paradigm, and some respond with dogmatic fanaticism.
Good Article to continue reading in Full....
Read More http://www.american.com/archive/2010/march/when-to-doubt-a-scientific-consensus
Jay Richards frequently writes for the Enterprise Blog and is a contributing editor of THE AMERICAN.
FURTHER READING: Richards wrote “Greed Is Not Good, and It’s Not Capitalism” and “The Miser versus the Entrepreneur” on why Ayn Rand is so popular today. The American Enterprise Institute’s Steven Hayward explains why many are “In Denial” about Climategate, while Kenneth Green suggests “The Beginning of the End for Cap-and-Trade?”
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Friday, July 16, 2010
Climate Deal unlikely this year - Skirmishes at UN climate conference
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Excerpts From Fox News - April 11, 2010
Climate talks had nearly ground to a halt in April, with delegates squabbling over how to conduct negotiations for the rest of the year on a new agreement to control global warming.
The talks about talks appeared near breakdown over minor procedures, but that was because of a deep divide over the hastily crafted political deal struck at the Copenhagen last December by President Barack Obama and a small group of other world leaders.
There you go. Our arrogant president, making things easy for everyone...yet again.
The lengthy battle was supposedly over the authorization of a committee chairwoman to prepare a draft negotiating text for the next meeting in June. But down deep, the rancor during Copenhagen had not faded and the split between industrial and developing countries continues.
The agreement they are trying to prepare for is meant to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which had provisions capping greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries. It expires in 2012. The new deal would be expanded to include emissions by swiftly developing countries like China, which has already passed the US as the world's biggest polluter.
The Copenhagen "accord," thrown together in the final 36 hours at Copenhagen, now means little or nothing to anyone. It set a goal of limiting the increase in the Earth's average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) from preindustrial levels, but did not specify how that would be done.
Of course not. That would take actual thought. Obama and the others were only there to look good for the cameras.
Many countries — even among the 120 countries that supported the Copenhagen Accord — denounced the closed-door manner in which it was done (although that was standard operating procedure for Obama) and voiced disappointment that its emissions requirements were voluntary.
Bolivian delegate Pablo Solon also protested the cutoff of funds from the U.S. Global Climate Change initiative as "a very bad practice" and an attempt to put pressure countries to support the agreement. Solon said Bolivia would not change its policies.
So...American citizens aren't the only ones feeling forced into things by Obama...
Read More http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/11/official-climate-deal-unlikely-year/
Excerpts From Fox News - April 11, 2010
Climate talks had nearly ground to a halt in April, with delegates squabbling over how to conduct negotiations for the rest of the year on a new agreement to control global warming.
The talks about talks appeared near breakdown over minor procedures, but that was because of a deep divide over the hastily crafted political deal struck at the Copenhagen last December by President Barack Obama and a small group of other world leaders.
There you go. Our arrogant president, making things easy for everyone...yet again.
The lengthy battle was supposedly over the authorization of a committee chairwoman to prepare a draft negotiating text for the next meeting in June. But down deep, the rancor during Copenhagen had not faded and the split between industrial and developing countries continues.
The agreement they are trying to prepare for is meant to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which had provisions capping greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries. It expires in 2012. The new deal would be expanded to include emissions by swiftly developing countries like China, which has already passed the US as the world's biggest polluter.
The Copenhagen "accord," thrown together in the final 36 hours at Copenhagen, now means little or nothing to anyone. It set a goal of limiting the increase in the Earth's average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) from preindustrial levels, but did not specify how that would be done.
Of course not. That would take actual thought. Obama and the others were only there to look good for the cameras.
Many countries — even among the 120 countries that supported the Copenhagen Accord — denounced the closed-door manner in which it was done (although that was standard operating procedure for Obama) and voiced disappointment that its emissions requirements were voluntary.
Bolivian delegate Pablo Solon also protested the cutoff of funds from the U.S. Global Climate Change initiative as "a very bad practice" and an attempt to put pressure countries to support the agreement. Solon said Bolivia would not change its policies.
So...American citizens aren't the only ones feeling forced into things by Obama...
Read More http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/11/official-climate-deal-unlikely-year/
Monday, July 12, 2010
Increase in Arctic ice confounds Global Warming Nuts
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From Daily Mail - 3rd April 2010
Is Al Gore wrong again?
Makes you kind of doubt he'll stand in front of large groups spouting rhetoric much anymore.
- Well, he really doesn't need to, anyway. He's pretty well set, financially, for the rest of his life. The inconvenient truth about his newest energy-eating mansion is that it comes with a swimming pool, spa, fountains, six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine baths. He's just continuing his "cut-down-on-your carbon-footprint" hypocrisy. This world-class rat already had a Mansion in Tennessee that burned 12 times the rate of the ordinary U.S. household and uses more electricity in one month than most American homes use in a year. It included energy-eating features that such as floodlights to highlight his trees...
ANYWAY - We digress.
The amount of sea ice covering the Arctic dramatically increased in March, reaching levels, they say, that had not been seen at that time of year for nearly a decade.
Returning ice - after years of declining cover - astonished the climate scientists.
Dr David Whitehouse, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation think-tank, said: 'The recent observations make the 2007 projections that the region would be ice free by 2013 look very unrealistic.'
Read More http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1263207/Increase-Arctic-ice-confounds-doomsayers.html
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From Daily Mail - 3rd April 2010
Is Al Gore wrong again?
Makes you kind of doubt he'll stand in front of large groups spouting rhetoric much anymore.
- Well, he really doesn't need to, anyway. He's pretty well set, financially, for the rest of his life. The inconvenient truth about his newest energy-eating mansion is that it comes with a swimming pool, spa, fountains, six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine baths. He's just continuing his "cut-down-on-your carbon-footprint" hypocrisy. This world-class rat already had a Mansion in Tennessee that burned 12 times the rate of the ordinary U.S. household and uses more electricity in one month than most American homes use in a year. It included energy-eating features that such as floodlights to highlight his trees...
ANYWAY - We digress.
The amount of sea ice covering the Arctic dramatically increased in March, reaching levels, they say, that had not been seen at that time of year for nearly a decade.
Returning ice - after years of declining cover - astonished the climate scientists.
Dr David Whitehouse, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation think-tank, said: 'The recent observations make the 2007 projections that the region would be ice free by 2013 look very unrealistic.'
Read More http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1263207/Increase-Arctic-ice-confounds-doomsayers.html
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Thursday, July 8, 2010
CRU cleared of wrong doing? NOT: Parliamentary Trickery
.
On March 31, 2010, after one day of hearings in London, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published its report on the disclosure of climate data from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, (CRU). The Committee concluded that there was no basis for accusations of dishonesty and no attempt to mislead on the part of the scientists.
Hogwash.
Steve McIntyre explains why the decision by the House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee to vindicate Phil Jones and his crew after just one day of inquiry is bogus. Tree Ring data was some of what was hidden and discarded by the Climatic Research Unit.
Steve McIntyre, posted on Mar 31, 2010 at 1:30 AM
"their suggestion that Jones and others were doing nothing more than “discarding data known to be erroneous” is simply absurd. There was no testimony to the Committee (nor has it ever been suggested) that the tree ring data was measured incorrectly or that the data was “erroneous” – the data is what it is. The tree ring data goes down instead of up – but that doesn’t make it “erroneous”. It only means that the data is a bad proxy – something that was concealed from IPCC readers. It is discouraging to read such bilge."
One commenter posted, "….”it was merely the deletion of inconvenient data”….
What a wonderfully powerful technique! Just think of the new horizons this opens up for scientific progress"
Read More http://climateaudit.org/2010/03/31/tricking-the-committee/
.
On March 31, 2010, after one day of hearings in London, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published its report on the disclosure of climate data from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, (CRU). The Committee concluded that there was no basis for accusations of dishonesty and no attempt to mislead on the part of the scientists.
Hogwash.
Steve McIntyre explains why the decision by the House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee to vindicate Phil Jones and his crew after just one day of inquiry is bogus. Tree Ring data was some of what was hidden and discarded by the Climatic Research Unit.
Steve McIntyre, posted on Mar 31, 2010 at 1:30 AM
"their suggestion that Jones and others were doing nothing more than “discarding data known to be erroneous” is simply absurd. There was no testimony to the Committee (nor has it ever been suggested) that the tree ring data was measured incorrectly or that the data was “erroneous” – the data is what it is. The tree ring data goes down instead of up – but that doesn’t make it “erroneous”. It only means that the data is a bad proxy – something that was concealed from IPCC readers. It is discouraging to read such bilge."
One commenter posted, "….”it was merely the deletion of inconvenient data”….
What a wonderfully powerful technique! Just think of the new horizons this opens up for scientific progress"
Read More http://climateaudit.org/2010/03/31/tricking-the-committee/
.
Monday, July 5, 2010
NASA Data Worse Than Climate-Gate Data, Space Agency Admits
.Excerpts From Fox News - March 30, 2010
And the problems with Climate change data continue: NASA put a man on the moon, but it can't tell you what the temperature was when it did. By its own admission, NASA's temperature records are worse than the Climate-gate data.
...NASA concluded that its own climate findings were inferior to those maintained by both the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) - the source of leaked Climate-gate e-mails - and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center...
"NASA's temperature data is worse than the Climate-gate temperature data. According to NASA," wrote Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who uncovered the e-mails. Horner is skeptical of NCDC's data as well, stating plainly: "Three out of the four temperature data sets stink."
Global warming advocates have argued that minor flaws in "Climate-gate" data aren't important, since all the major data sets arrive at the same conclusion -- Global warming. But skeptics say there's a good reason for that: They all use the same data.
James M. Taylor, senior fellow of environment policy at The Heartland Institute. said,
"There is far too much overlap among the surface temperature data sets to assert with a straight face that they independently verify each other's results."
"The different groups have cooperated in a very friendly way to try to understand different conclusions when they arise," said Dr. James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in the same 2007 e-mail thread. GISS had previously stated that separate analyses by the different agencies "are not independent, as they must use much of the same input observations." (Dr. James Hansen is also one of the head scientists that Senator Inhofe has wanted to call in for questioning in relation to falsified data.)
...Corrections are needed, Dr. Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Weather Underground, said, "since there are only a few thousand surface temperature recording sites with records going back 100+ years." As such, climate agencies estimate temperatures in various ways for areas where there aren't any thermometers, to account for the overall incomplete global picture.
...But NASA is less confident, having quietly decided to tweak its corrections to the climate data... In an updated analysis of the surface temperature data released on March 19, 2010, NASA 'adjusted' raw temperature station data to account for inaccurate readings caused by heat-absorbing paved surfaces and buildings in a slightly different way.
Wrong placement of the temperature stations is a problem repeatedly underscored by meteorologist Anthony Watts on his SurfaceStations.org Web site. Last month, Watts told FoxNews.com that "90 percent of them don't meet [the government's] old, simple rule called the '100-foot rule' for keeping thermometers 100 feet or more from biasing influence. Ninety percent of them failed that, and we've got documentation."
Read More http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/30/nasa-data-worse-than-climategate-data/
.
And the problems with Climate change data continue: NASA put a man on the moon, but it can't tell you what the temperature was when it did. By its own admission, NASA's temperature records are worse than the Climate-gate data.
...NASA concluded that its own climate findings were inferior to those maintained by both the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) - the source of leaked Climate-gate e-mails - and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center...
"NASA's temperature data is worse than the Climate-gate temperature data. According to NASA," wrote Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who uncovered the e-mails. Horner is skeptical of NCDC's data as well, stating plainly: "Three out of the four temperature data sets stink."
Global warming advocates have argued that minor flaws in "Climate-gate" data aren't important, since all the major data sets arrive at the same conclusion -- Global warming. But skeptics say there's a good reason for that: They all use the same data.
James M. Taylor, senior fellow of environment policy at The Heartland Institute. said,
"There is far too much overlap among the surface temperature data sets to assert with a straight face that they independently verify each other's results."
"The different groups have cooperated in a very friendly way to try to understand different conclusions when they arise," said Dr. James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in the same 2007 e-mail thread. GISS had previously stated that separate analyses by the different agencies "are not independent, as they must use much of the same input observations." (Dr. James Hansen is also one of the head scientists that Senator Inhofe has wanted to call in for questioning in relation to falsified data.)
...Corrections are needed, Dr. Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Weather Underground, said, "since there are only a few thousand surface temperature recording sites with records going back 100+ years." As such, climate agencies estimate temperatures in various ways for areas where there aren't any thermometers, to account for the overall incomplete global picture.
...But NASA is less confident, having quietly decided to tweak its corrections to the climate data... In an updated analysis of the surface temperature data released on March 19, 2010, NASA 'adjusted' raw temperature station data to account for inaccurate readings caused by heat-absorbing paved surfaces and buildings in a slightly different way.
Wrong placement of the temperature stations is a problem repeatedly underscored by meteorologist Anthony Watts on his SurfaceStations.org Web site. Last month, Watts told FoxNews.com that "90 percent of them don't meet [the government's] old, simple rule called the '100-foot rule' for keeping thermometers 100 feet or more from biasing influence. Ninety percent of them failed that, and we've got documentation."
Read More http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/30/nasa-data-worse-than-climategate-data/
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Monday, June 28, 2010
Germans Giving Up on Global Warming
.
Partially from Fox News via Der Spiegel - March 29, 2010
Germans citizens are losing faith in global warming following Climate-gate scandals, according to a new report in Der Spiegel.
The report indicates that just 42 percent of Germans are worried about global warming, down from the 62 percent in 2006.
German news site The Local analyzed the results from the poll. Many people have little faith in the information and prognosis of climate researchers, The Local explained, with a third questioned in the survey not giving them much credence.
This is largely due to mistakes and exaggerations propagated in a report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
- Following a leak of thousands of e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, an endless catalog of mistakes, lies, coverups, and faulty assumptions by scientists working on the IPCC's report has been detailed in the past few months, all lumped under the name Climategate.
According to The Local, Germany’s Leibniz Community, an umbrella organization including many climate research institutes, broke ranks by calling for the resignation of IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri.
Read More http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/29/achtung-germans-giving-global-warming/?test=latestnews
Partially from Fox News via Der Spiegel - March 29, 2010
Germans citizens are losing faith in global warming following Climate-gate scandals, according to a new report in Der Spiegel.
The report indicates that just 42 percent of Germans are worried about global warming, down from the 62 percent in 2006.
German news site The Local analyzed the results from the poll. Many people have little faith in the information and prognosis of climate researchers, The Local explained, with a third questioned in the survey not giving them much credence.
This is largely due to mistakes and exaggerations propagated in a report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
- Following a leak of thousands of e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, an endless catalog of mistakes, lies, coverups, and faulty assumptions by scientists working on the IPCC's report has been detailed in the past few months, all lumped under the name Climategate.
According to The Local, Germany’s Leibniz Community, an umbrella organization including many climate research institutes, broke ranks by calling for the resignation of IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri.
Read More http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/29/achtung-germans-giving-global-warming/?test=latestnews
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Eat Less Meat, Reduce Global Warming -- Not!
.
From Fox News - March 23, 2010
The largely reported link between global warming and cattle farming -- pushed by a United Nations report on "Livestock's Long Shadow" -- was also largely inaccurate, explains one scientist.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner of the University of California said in a presentation before a national meeting of the American Chemical Society that the misleading claims came from a 2006 U.N. report. That report stated livestock was "responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions," describing the figure as "a larger share than transportation."
According to Mitloehner, the claim is inaccurate because the numbers for livestock were calculated differently from the transport figures.
"This lopsided analysis is a classical apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue," he said.
He argued that these claims distract society from effective solutions to global climate change, citing campaigns for "meatless Mondays" and a European campaign, called "Less Meat = Less Heat," launched late last year.
Numerous other mistakes in U.N. reports have been uncovered in recent months, following the leak of thousands of e-mails from the University of East Anglia' Climate Research Center in England, a scandal labeled "Climate-gate."
- In Climategate, scientists at the Climate Research Center were caught covering up data that showed global warming has not occurred for the last 15 years. Then, the UN's IPCC researchers were forced to admit that their forecasts of melting Himalayan glaciers, disappearing polar ice caps, and dwindling Amazon rainforests were based on junk science and data obtained by activists, not scientists.
Read More http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/23/eat-meat-reduce-global-warming/
.
From Fox News - March 23, 2010
The largely reported link between global warming and cattle farming -- pushed by a United Nations report on "Livestock's Long Shadow" -- was also largely inaccurate, explains one scientist.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner of the University of California said in a presentation before a national meeting of the American Chemical Society that the misleading claims came from a 2006 U.N. report. That report stated livestock was "responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions," describing the figure as "a larger share than transportation."
According to Mitloehner, the claim is inaccurate because the numbers for livestock were calculated differently from the transport figures.
"This lopsided analysis is a classical apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue," he said.
He argued that these claims distract society from effective solutions to global climate change, citing campaigns for "meatless Mondays" and a European campaign, called "Less Meat = Less Heat," launched late last year.
Numerous other mistakes in U.N. reports have been uncovered in recent months, following the leak of thousands of e-mails from the University of East Anglia' Climate Research Center in England, a scandal labeled "Climate-gate."
- In Climategate, scientists at the Climate Research Center were caught covering up data that showed global warming has not occurred for the last 15 years. Then, the UN's IPCC researchers were forced to admit that their forecasts of melting Himalayan glaciers, disappearing polar ice caps, and dwindling Amazon rainforests were based on junk science and data obtained by activists, not scientists.
Read More http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/23/eat-meat-reduce-global-warming/
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Sunday, June 20, 2010
A Pending American Temperaturegate
.
Good Article...
From American Thinker, February 24, 2010
"We have been repeatedly told (perhaps "lectured" is a better word) the past twenty years that global warming is occurring. With Climategate and subsequent confessions and bailouts by scientists at the CRU, Penn State, Arizona State, IPCC, et al., we are learning that little to none of the factual content in their "peer reviewed" articles is true. The Medieval Warming Period did occur, and it was warmer than currently; the oceans are not going to flood the plains; and the Arctic Ocean may not be turning into a summer water park. Of course, the mainstream media, especially in the United States, has reported little of this news, and President Obama appears not to be well-informed. But now the global warming story grows more interesting because here in America, we may have our own little "gate." I will call it ATG, for "American Temperaturegate."
NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) informs us, based on their "Adjusted Data" for the period from the last decade of the 19th century to 2006, that the temperature for the contiguous U.S. has increased at a rate of 0.69oC/century. NCDC arrives at this conclusion by massaging raw data from a set of meteorological stations located in the contiguous U.S. which they selected on the basis of a 2.5-degree latitude- and 3.5-degree-longitude grid.
The most-asked question, most recently by D'Aleo and Watts, is whether the NCDC's reported increase is correct. Perhaps the value is due to a dominant use (over-selection) of stations in urban locations or because of other issues, such as leaving out stations at higher altitudes for the more recent history and retaining them for the more distant past.
Here, one aspect is considered -- that of the Urban Heat Island Effect, which is tagged as UHIE.
We selected two sets of meteorological stations (48 each, with one station per each of the lower 48 states) from the NCDC master list. The stations in one set were at rural locations -- a rural set. The stations in the other set were at urban locations -- an urban set. The NCDC latitude and longitude station coordinates were used to "fly over" the locations on a computer, using a GPS map application to confirm the rural and urban characteristics. For each of the 96 stations, the NCDC's raw and adjusted temperature data were entered into a spreadsheet application and studied. The "raw" data are the annual average temperatures of the measured data. The "adjusted" data are the annual average temperatures the NCDC derived from the raw data by making a set of "corrective" assumptions for time of day, type of instrument, etc. and guessing the temperature at stations for missing data based on temperatures of other stations at the same latitude and/or region. For a more in-depth understanding of the NCDC protocols for converting raw data to adjusted data, click here. A summary of the findings is in the following table. The values in the table show that the NCDC's rate of increase of temperature, 0.69oC/century, is based on an over-selection of stations with urban locations.
Station Set oC/Century, 11-Year Average Based on the Use of
Raw Data
Adjusted Data
Rural (48)
0.11
0.58
Urban (48)
0.72
0.72
Rural + Urban (96)
0.47
0.65
The values in the table highlight four important considerations:
1) The rate of increase for rural locations, based on as-measured (raw) values, is small (if not, in effect, zero) at 0.11 oC/century.
2) There is definitely a UHIE in that the urban raw data has a rate of increase of 0.72oC/century. This tells us that man has caused warming in urban locations. This finding should not surprise anyone. On the other hand, because the rural value is 15% of the urban value, the UHIE has not caused warming in the rural locations, and it certainly has not caused a global sense of warming other than the aspect that the urban location values when averaged with the rural values produce an average increase which is larger than that of the rural alone.
3) The rural + urban value for the adjusted data, 0.65oC/century, is still less than the 0.69oC/century published by the NCDC. Thus, likely, there are more urban than rural sites used by the NCDC.
4) And this is the "Temperaturegate" aspect: The NCDC's massaging -- they call it "adjusting" -- has resulted in an increase in the rural values, from a raw value of 0.11oC/century to an adjusted value of 0.58oC/century, and no change in the urban values. That is, the NCDC's treatment has forced the rural value to look more like that of the urban. This is the exact opposite of any rational consideration, given the growth of the sizes of and activities within urban locations, unless deception is the goal.
The criticism this makes of the NCDC's treatment of historical data for the contiguous U.S. is the same as a recent Russian paper made of the HadCRUT treatment of historical temperature data for Russia.
Edward R. Long holds a Ph.D. in physics. He is a retired NASA scientist who is a consultant on radiation physics for space flight and on energy/climate in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Read more http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/a_pending_american_temperature.html
,
Good Article...
From American Thinker, February 24, 2010
"We have been repeatedly told (perhaps "lectured" is a better word) the past twenty years that global warming is occurring. With Climategate and subsequent confessions and bailouts by scientists at the CRU, Penn State, Arizona State, IPCC, et al., we are learning that little to none of the factual content in their "peer reviewed" articles is true. The Medieval Warming Period did occur, and it was warmer than currently; the oceans are not going to flood the plains; and the Arctic Ocean may not be turning into a summer water park. Of course, the mainstream media, especially in the United States, has reported little of this news, and President Obama appears not to be well-informed. But now the global warming story grows more interesting because here in America, we may have our own little "gate." I will call it ATG, for "American Temperaturegate."
NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) informs us, based on their "Adjusted Data" for the period from the last decade of the 19th century to 2006, that the temperature for the contiguous U.S. has increased at a rate of 0.69oC/century. NCDC arrives at this conclusion by massaging raw data from a set of meteorological stations located in the contiguous U.S. which they selected on the basis of a 2.5-degree latitude- and 3.5-degree-longitude grid.
The most-asked question, most recently by D'Aleo and Watts, is whether the NCDC's reported increase is correct. Perhaps the value is due to a dominant use (over-selection) of stations in urban locations or because of other issues, such as leaving out stations at higher altitudes for the more recent history and retaining them for the more distant past.
Here, one aspect is considered -- that of the Urban Heat Island Effect, which is tagged as UHIE.
We selected two sets of meteorological stations (48 each, with one station per each of the lower 48 states) from the NCDC master list. The stations in one set were at rural locations -- a rural set. The stations in the other set were at urban locations -- an urban set. The NCDC latitude and longitude station coordinates were used to "fly over" the locations on a computer, using a GPS map application to confirm the rural and urban characteristics. For each of the 96 stations, the NCDC's raw and adjusted temperature data were entered into a spreadsheet application and studied. The "raw" data are the annual average temperatures of the measured data. The "adjusted" data are the annual average temperatures the NCDC derived from the raw data by making a set of "corrective" assumptions for time of day, type of instrument, etc. and guessing the temperature at stations for missing data based on temperatures of other stations at the same latitude and/or region. For a more in-depth understanding of the NCDC protocols for converting raw data to adjusted data, click here. A summary of the findings is in the following table. The values in the table show that the NCDC's rate of increase of temperature, 0.69oC/century, is based on an over-selection of stations with urban locations.
Station Set oC/Century, 11-Year Average Based on the Use of
Raw Data
Adjusted Data
Rural (48)
0.11
0.58
Urban (48)
0.72
0.72
Rural + Urban (96)
0.47
0.65
The values in the table highlight four important considerations:
1) The rate of increase for rural locations, based on as-measured (raw) values, is small (if not, in effect, zero) at 0.11 oC/century.
2) There is definitely a UHIE in that the urban raw data has a rate of increase of 0.72oC/century. This tells us that man has caused warming in urban locations. This finding should not surprise anyone. On the other hand, because the rural value is 15% of the urban value, the UHIE has not caused warming in the rural locations, and it certainly has not caused a global sense of warming other than the aspect that the urban location values when averaged with the rural values produce an average increase which is larger than that of the rural alone.
3) The rural + urban value for the adjusted data, 0.65oC/century, is still less than the 0.69oC/century published by the NCDC. Thus, likely, there are more urban than rural sites used by the NCDC.
4) And this is the "Temperaturegate" aspect: The NCDC's massaging -- they call it "adjusting" -- has resulted in an increase in the rural values, from a raw value of 0.11oC/century to an adjusted value of 0.58oC/century, and no change in the urban values. That is, the NCDC's treatment has forced the rural value to look more like that of the urban. This is the exact opposite of any rational consideration, given the growth of the sizes of and activities within urban locations, unless deception is the goal.
The criticism this makes of the NCDC's treatment of historical data for the contiguous U.S. is the same as a recent Russian paper made of the HadCRUT treatment of historical temperature data for Russia.
Edward R. Long holds a Ph.D. in physics. He is a retired NASA scientist who is a consultant on radiation physics for space flight and on energy/climate in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Read more http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/a_pending_american_temperature.html
,
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
More Americans Agree: Global Warming Is Exaggerated
.
The Christian Post, Thursday, March 11
48 percent of the public think that global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41 percent in 2009 and 31 percent in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question. Gallup noted that the percentage of Americans who believe global warming is generally overblown is the highest on its record.
“The last two years have marked a general reversal in the trend of Americans’ attitudes about global warming,” reported Gallup. “[T]he public opinion tide turned in 2009, when several Gallup measures showed a slight retreat in public concern about global warming. This year, the downturn is even more pronounced.”
There was also a change in opinion on what causes global warming. Exactly half of the public believes that human activities are mainly responsible for the increase in the Earth’s temperature over the last century. This is a significant drop from the 61 percent in 2007 that held this view and the 58 percent in 2008.
The percentage of Americans who believe the warming of the Earth is mostly due to natural changes in the environment has steadily increased in recent years. In 2010, 46 percent hold this view, up from 38 percent in 2008 and 35 percent in 2007.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100311/more-americans-think-global-warming-is-exaggerated/index.html
.
The Christian Post, Thursday, March 11
48 percent of the public think that global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41 percent in 2009 and 31 percent in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question. Gallup noted that the percentage of Americans who believe global warming is generally overblown is the highest on its record.
“The last two years have marked a general reversal in the trend of Americans’ attitudes about global warming,” reported Gallup. “[T]he public opinion tide turned in 2009, when several Gallup measures showed a slight retreat in public concern about global warming. This year, the downturn is even more pronounced.”
There was also a change in opinion on what causes global warming. Exactly half of the public believes that human activities are mainly responsible for the increase in the Earth’s temperature over the last century. This is a significant drop from the 61 percent in 2007 that held this view and the 58 percent in 2008.
The percentage of Americans who believe the warming of the Earth is mostly due to natural changes in the environment has steadily increased in recent years. In 2010, 46 percent hold this view, up from 38 percent in 2008 and 35 percent in 2007.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100311/more-americans-think-global-warming-is-exaggerated/index.html
.
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