Climate Conversation Group

UN “scientists” are taking desperate risks with their reputations, attempting to cover up their deceptions about a climatic peril that doesn’t exist.

Some scientists at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) have become desperate to cover up their hamfisted deceptions aimed at generating support for their hypothesis that mankind is causing the Earth to catastrophically heat up. In their desperation they’re still misleading the public, but also abandoning science and, incredibly, telling actual lies about the climate.

This makes for particularly dangerous implications for public policy. We need to be on our guard.

That this is going on is so easy to discover (but not through the mainstream media) that one cannot help but speculate whether our local journalists either have very strong reason to be sympathetic to these activist scientists or are even actually in league with them. Read more… »

Monday, 21 November, 2011 – 12:40

Campaign Speech on the Emissions Trading Scheme

Don Brash, Leader ACT New Zealand

Bureta Park Inn, Tauranga

Monday 21 November 2011

My talk today is about the economy. It’s one of three that I’ll be giving this week as New Zealanders close in on the polls. This particular one focuses on the Emissions Trading Scheme, one of the most damaging policy choices that New Zealand has made in recent years.

This is an adopted article.

New Zealand’s hyperactive adoption of the world’s only all-sectors-all-gases Emissions Trading Scheme will not save us money on international obligations, because after the Kyoto Protocol expires next year there will not be any such obligations. It will not affect the global climate because New Zealand’s emissions form an utterly trivial fraction of global emissions [0.2% - Ed.]. It will not set an example to the world: if anything it will show the world that trying to lead on climate change policy is counterproductive. It might improve “Brand New Zealand,” but only at an unacceptable cost.

First, though, let me set some context. Read more… »

This damning article from Christopher Booker is best appreciated in the whole — I redact none of it. May our leaders notice it.
Now, to be sure, there’s no sign here of the extreme obsession with global warming that marks the UK government. Thus, there is no local concern with the excesses the UK displays over reducing their carbon footprint.
However, we do exhibit a singular desire to lead the world in defeating the efficiency of our world-leading industry and agriculture.
So we object! This analysis from Mr Booker elucidates some of the excellent reasons why we object.

Is the global warming scare the greatest delusion in history?

By Christopher Booker

First published by The Telegraph

7:00PM GMT 26 Nov 2011

The scare over man-made global warming is not only the scientific scandal of our generation, but a suicidal flight from reality.

This is an adopted article.

To grasp the almost suicidal state of unreality our Government has been driven into by the obsession with global warming, it is necessary to put together the two sides to an overall picture – each vividly highlighted by events of recent days.

On one hand there is the utterly lamentable state of the science which underpins it all, illuminated yet again by “Climategate 2.0”, the latest release of emails between the leading scientists who for years have been at the heart of the warming scare (which I return to below). On the other hand, we see the damage done by the political consequences of this scare, which will directly impinge, in various ways, on all our lives.

It is hard to know where to begin, after a week which opened with The Sunday Telegraph’s exclusive on a blast of realism from Prince Philip Read more… »

The New Zealand Wind Energy Association commissioned a report from Infometrics which was released a few days ago. It claims that New Zealanders could be $390 pa better off with 20% more wind energy than at present.

However, Bryan Leyland has some harsh things to say about it, including that it is “riddled with flaws” and makes a number of “very dubious assumptions”.

The Climate Science Coalition might (probably will) produce a press release with more detail, but watch this space; if they don’t, we will.

UPDATE: The press release from Terry Dunleavy has been published on Scoop.

Our headline says “saving lies” with good reason; when an insider organisation gives out such misleading statements as this economic nonsense (I mean assuming ridiculously high prices for “carbon”) they do so not from ignorance but deliberately.

They lie.

Monday, 28 November 2011, 12:50 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

28 November 2011 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Read more… »

For those hoping our ETS will stem our emissions by requiring a price for them, the Greens have got it badly wrong.

The financiers won’t get rich, neither will the Earth become cool, because the price is collapsing here, too.

First Europe (two or three times!) and now New Zealand. When will the government refund all the extra we’ve been paying for petrol and power?

I’m sick of all these claims that we should, or even can, limit the world’s warming to 2 °C.

Here’s a challenge: name a scientist prepared to make this assertion and describe the evidence for it.

It appears to be no more “settled science” than an unsubstantiated urban myth. At the very least, there’s so much uncertainty about the climate sensitivity to warming that we don’t know the effect on temperature of, say, 5 billion tonnes of CO2.

Ignoring for a moment the obvious question of what’s so wrong with two degrees, how do “scientists” reason their way from 2 degrees of warming to (as it says below) 44 billion tons of CO2 in 2020? Read more… »

Now it’s official.

There is no truth in the rumour that humanity is influencing the climate in any measurable way. The proof of that is that our world-leading climatologists don’t believe it.

They only say so in public, the dirty deceivers. Filthy liars, from Britain to America to New Zealand and even our own NIWA.

This deception has been exposed once already, yet they have persisted and built it up all over again. Calling them imbeciles gives honest morons a bad name. Will they never learn that misleading their electorate is not the way to prosper?

Incredible.

UPDATE 5:00 pm NZDT

Gratifying that the MSM are responding right away. Richard Black, at the BBC, takes a laid-back view, opting to invent exculpatory explanations for some of the incriminating-sounding statements.

Still, he essays some concern, too, suggesting: “UEA’s Prof Phil Jones may find some more phrases he wishes he hadn’t written.”

A Google search for “Climategate II” (with quote marks) already returns over 97,000 hits.

Yes, it’s going to be entertaining.

Tallbloke’s Talkshop

Jo Nova

James Delingpole

Watts Up With That

Climate crisis called off

UPDATE 1500 NZDT – see below

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) to a Special Report, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX). (Actually, they haven’t.)

The SPM (I’ll call it the “report” from now on) is remarkable in its candour. The IPCC, once wanting to become the world’s evil overlord, with fingers in public and private pies everywhere to compel compliance with its anti-carbon agenda, acknowledges its ignorance and uncertainty about the climate.

The evil giant has finally spewed forth something wholesome. Read more… »

When Naomi Klein uses the word “denier” and its derivatives no fewer than 28 times* in a single article, she telegraphs her belief that those so labelled cannot be motivated by facts. Jo Nova, once again prepared to fearlessly battle climate bigotry, confronts Klein’s vacuous arguments with her usual cutting perspicacity, real science and humorous mockery of her opponent’s weaknesses.

Though there’s little chance of any direct reply from Klein, the sceptical climate scene is sadly lacking in such talented writers and thinkers as our beloved Jo. Here, she’s done it again, treating another breathless Earth-saver with robust scorn.

Naomi Klein’s lengthy ramble is notable for not commenting on the science or refuting sceptical claims. Instead, she rabbits on about opinion polls, political loyalties, age and ethnic groups and, of course, it’s all about America — the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Read more… »

Bastion of freedom threatens everyone else

A few hours ago China shocked the world.

China has responded to efforts to ban the trading of widely discredited HFC-23 offsets by threatening to release huge amounts of the potent industrial chemical into the atmosphere unless other nations pay what amounts to a climate ransom.

This will have sensitive people trembling in their boots. Those who believe these gases can actually alter the climate and make holes in the ozone layer (which contradicts the science) will have nightmares; the rest of us simply encourage our leaders to refuse to bend to China’s bullying.

This strangely naive description of what’s been going on must have been framed to retain a semblance of decency for the CDM, which was always a rort waiting to be exploited (emphasis added):

China’s threat comes after the European Union and other nations moved to ban HFC-23 credits from internal carbon markets in recognition of the perverse incentives created by these credits under the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The vast amounts paid for HFC-23 offsets have led factories in China and elsewhere to manufacture far more HCFC-22 and its HFC-23 by-product than necessary, just to maximize the amounts paid to destroy HFC-23 through the UN-backed carbon trading scheme.

Why not admit the truth, which is that China (and others) have deliberately set up shop to manufacture these CFCs solely in order to collect the unreasonably huge bounties (70 times the cost of destroying it) offered by the outstandingly stupid (or frankly self-serving) UNFCCC under its “Clean Development Mechanism”.

China displays clear belligerence in this “climate” official’s direct threat against the very environment his job is meant to safeguard. Read more… »

Owen McShane draws our attention to a report from the Netherlands showing that wind farms are a net cost to human society and the environment.

Who would have thought?

The report is titled Electricity in The Netherlands – Wind turbines increase fossil fuel consumption & CO2 emission, and the author is C. le Pair.

He says the models commonly used to calculate the economic and environmental benefits of wind farms are incomplete and overstate the expected savings.

The conclusion is stark:

The wind projects do not fulfill ‘sustainable’ objectives. They cost more fuel than they save and they cause no CO2 saving — on the contrary, they increase our environmental ‘footprint’.

A decision to invest billions (thousands of millions) of Euros in the construction of wind projects ‘to save fossil fuel and to reduce CO2 emissions’ is irresponsible. There are no savings, THERE IS LOSS!

We do not consider it likely that more knowledge of the factors influencing the present outcomes would change our results appreciably. It is more likely that including the factors we identified as not having sufficient data on, would actually increase the loss.

So far, our New Zealand windfarm operators are happy to go it alone with no overt subsidies, only hidden ones. This post from December 2010 reveals how we help our fledgling wind operators.

But if they start to whinge about losing money, now you know that it’s the nature of wind turbines to cost money and degrade the environment, you won’t let the government waste our money in subsidies, will you?

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Government certified and licensed by the IPCC under the Tropical Grasslands Protocol, successor to the short-lived Antarctic Protocol, after it refused to melt.

Earth’s temperature has never been taken, actually

A story, Analysis confirms global warming data, accounts for urban heat islands, appeared in the Science Media Centre (SMC) on 21 October. I missed it then, but it’s been brought to my attention in correspondence within the Climate Science Coalition.

A member saw the SMC story and commented:

Wratt and Renwick are quick to assert that this non-peer-reviewed temp study reinforces their suspicion that UHI is an insignificant factor. They both refer to numerous other authorities. I thought the leading paper supporting this view was Phil Jones’ China study of about 1991, which he has recently admitted to be based on a mistake. Are there any others which debunk UHI?

This raises several interesting elements which I’d like to follow at some time, but it also prompted this succinct analysis from the evergreen Dr Vincent Gray, who responded: Read more… »

The Associated Press, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, keep to their warmist line. Now they’re keen to highlight a steep increase in carbon dioxide emissions, without letting on that it hasn’t affected the temperature.

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped last year by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst-case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

In 2008, the annual increase was half of the year before. Now there’s a crisis?

It is a “monster” increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past.

Which just means it hasn’t happened before that we know of.

Steve Williams said “it was my aim to shove it up that black arsehole.”

People are upsetting themselves. This was tremendously rude, but they say it was outrageously racist. In my lexicon the rude part of it was “arsehole” (a word I never use), which is not being mentioned.

There were two parts to the comment and one was false. Tiger has an arsehole, so Williams was incorrect to say he is an arsehole, because if you are one you cannot have one.

Of course, our favourite system of criticising people is to name them with a part of our anatomy, from the nether regions. Only a few parts are suitable. It doesn’t work to call someone a chin or an elbow. Although it can enhance the epithet to add their skin colour, which is always suitable for criticism.

Woods is undeniably black. In every photograph of him that I’ve seen, he does not have white skin, he has black skin. But people are objecting to calling him black.

Which means that Williams is being excoriated for telling the truth. Why?

Because we demand truth to be varnished, to have some gloss and to sound softer to sensitive souls.

But if the skin is black, it’s black, and why can’t you say so?

This one’s really off the radar.

Wind farms, along with solar power and other alternative energy sources, are supposed to produce the energy of tomorrow. Evidence indicates that their countless whirring fan blades produce something else: “blank spots” that distort radar readings.

Now government agencies that depend on radar — such as the Department of Defense and the National Weather Service — are spending millions in a scramble to preserve their detection capabilities…

Read more at Fox News.

Climate Realists carried a letter from John O’Sullivan on 2 November, claiming ill treatment at the hands of Suite101.com, in terminating their publishing arrangement with him. I note that two of O’Sullivan’s articles are still available at Suite101 but this is his letter:

Friends,

I write to announce my employment with my publishers, Suite101 was terminated today without prior notice or explanation and all my articles published over a two-year period with them are now removed from the Internet. I believe this is in retaliation for my latest article ‘New Satellite Data Contradicts Carbon Dioxide Climate Theory’ revealing the shocking fact that the Japanese ‘IBUKI’ satellite measuring surface carbon dioxide emissions shows that Third World regions are emitting considerably more CO2 than western, industrial nations. Read more… »

Everyone loves well-crafted prose, even when the author of it opposes their point of view. So it is with Matt Ridley, well-known author of The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, in less than a week earning nearly 9000 Google hits on his “Scientific heresy” address to the Royal Society of the Arts in Edinburgh on 31 October, posted at Bishop Hill. Even alarmist Gareth Renowden appreciates Ridley’s wordcraft before scorning his so-called climate science.

Ridley’s given us an admirable piece of work on several levels. His writing is a pleasure to read, he gives good information and clearly sets out his thinking on a tour of the weaknesses in the current alarmist view of the global climate. In doing so he warms the cockles of sceptical hearts everywhere while enraging the alarmists with his “well-known sceptic tropes”. That’s the view according to Renowden. Poor things; claiming emptiness for Ridley’s contentions is a flaccid stand-in for a cogent rebuttal.

Ridley concludes that science “needs heretics” and one can appreciate the radical point that even heretics should be heard. But he leaves unstated his crucial implication that evidence elevates the climate “heretic” above all the cereologists, astrologers and eugenicists in history, while true heretics need no evidence.

Here’s his address, copied from Bishop Hill with appreciation and thanks. I also repost the document Mr Montford prepared, with its helpful diagrams (pdf, 1865KB).

Matt Ridley

Scientific heresy

by Matt Ridley

It is a great honour to be asked to deliver the Angus Millar lecture.

I have no idea whether Angus Millar ever saw himself as a heretic, but I have a soft spot for heresy. One of my ancestral relations, Nicholas Ridley* the Oxford martyr, was burned at the stake for heresy.

My topic today is scientific heresy. When are scientific heretics right and when are they mad? How do you tell the difference between science and pseudoscience?

Let us run through some issues, starting with the easy ones.

Astronomy is a science; astrology is a pseudoscience.

Evolution is science; creationism is pseudoscience.

Molecular biology is science; homeopathy is pseudoscience.

Vaccination is science; the MMR scare is pseudoscience.

Oxygen is science; phlogiston was pseudoscience.

Chemistry is science; alchemy was pseudoscience.

Are you with me so far? Read more… »

Now where should we start?

How confusing is this?

Climate Realists announce that new satellite data from Japanese scientists show carbon dioxide is emitted mostly by the third world, with much less coming from industry in the west. For those asleep in the back, that’s the reverse of our previous understanding (so it’s a confusing result). On the map, pink is where emissions are occurring, green is where absorption is occurring.

Hmm, New Zealand apparently doesn’t exist. Panic!

Life is now officially upside down — the giant northern hemisphere economies are not emitting CO2 after all, they’re absorbing the stuff! Read more… »