Climate Conversation Group

Nature Climate Change just published a paper called “Hotspot of accelerated sea-level rise on the Atlantic coast of North America” written by Asbury H. Sallenger Jr, Kara S. Doran & Peter A. Howd, of the USGS. Hey, another climate scientist named Sallenger but not called Jim!

Is this paper a credible source? John Droz, jr, is spearheading support for proposed, unprecedented, “anti-green” legislation in North Carolina that would make it illegal for state agencies to use accelerated SLR projections as a basis for state rules and regulations. The bill is called HB-819. Read more… »

The turbulent science that blames humanity for climate change marks itself with smoke and mirrors. Opportunities to settle the truth are somehow sidelined. Tricks are employed to obscure the truth. When direct measurements show a negative temperature trend, indirect methods are sought to show the desired warming.
 
Then it is that we hear that polar ice is disappearing, polar bears are in peril, coral reefs are bleaching, there’s more rainfall, less rainfall, seasons are being disrupted, extinctions are occurring, glaciers are retreating, there’s more extreme weather, and on and on.
 
But these events, where true, and they often are simply untrue, are influenced by factors other than warming, so the believers also use slippery reasoning to pretend they’re caused by warming. We’re fed stories of disaster that could only be true if the temperature were going up, but it’s propaganda: when the science fails, the believers resort to misdirection. Even if it were warming, so what? What’s the cause? Believers never address the cause of warming – though that’s essential if we’re trying to stop the warming – because by now everyone thinks it’s themselves.
 
Rather than taking tales of alarm at face value, we try to investigate them. So to the humble North American Mountain pine beetle…

Mountain pine beetle.

The Mountain Pine Beetle is tiny — about 5 mm long (same as the word “tiny”), but it packs a mighty punch: it can flatten forests.

The little beetles make interesting reading in the light of claims that the current outbreak in parts of the USA and Canada is caused by global warming.

Those claims are frivolous. Epidemics have been observed since Europeans arrived in America, long before the recent warming. In any case, the current epidemic is waning and could be over. Read more… »

Oil prices have plunged again.

After meandering lower for the last two weeks, the Brent price has suddenly dropped about 7 US cents in a couple of days, West Texas about the same.

Surely our petrol prices will be lowered again? Is the Commerce Commission watching? Perhaps the AA?

Over three months, there’s been a very consistent drop. The Saudis will be pleased at the controlled plunge, happy they’ve avoided panic selling and hoping for higher prices in the long run.

Unfortunately it means the Western economies are still in the doldrums. Maybe China can save us?

Anybody been following the reasons behind the oil price slump?

h/t – Mike Jowsey

E.M. Smith, known in blogworld as Chiefio, replied at Jo Nova to Paul Bain’s response to Jo’s letter critical of Bain’s Nature “paper” on climate scepticism, which uses the deplorable term “deniers”.

Here is Jo’s delicious letter to Bain, wherein she takes a rational machete to tangled thickets of climate denial and produces an irrefutable exculpation of climate sceptics:

Sent to me three days ago from Outside The Beltway Group (thanks!) – You can link here to Rupert’s MS Word document for distribution.

14 June 2012.

Rt. Rev. Michael Langrish
Bishop of Exeter
The Bishop’s Office
The Palace
Exeter, EX1 1HY

Dear Bishop Langrish

Earlier in the week I listened to what you had to say following the welcome decision to withdraw the diocese’s application to erect wind turbines in Devon. I see that your remarks have now been republished in The Daily Telegraph. In particular, it is striking that you consider that you and your staff were subjected to abuse by objectors. Well, I was not part of any such exchanges and do not condone, in your own words, ‘bullying tactics’. On the other hand, I cannot help pointing out – to a churchman and so an ethical standard bearer, most especially – that such tactics are an absolutely routine component of the dialectical arsenal favoured by climate change proselytisers, Read more… »

New pinnacle for climate sceptics

Steve McIntyre reaches new heights in his resolute scrutiny of climate science and raises the bar for fellow sceptics. For the lead author of a new paper has acknowledged McIntyre’s work in identifying an error so serious it may alter the paper’s results and has certainly forced a delay in its publication.

But note that although McIntyre “also” identified “this data processing issue”, he wasn’t first – the team beat him to it.

Anthony at WUWT describes the story and Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit is the story. Here’s the letter to Steve from the paper’s senior author, David Karoly. Read more… »

… our demise occurs!

Here’s an argument against the validity of climate catastrophe, straight out of the “too good to be true” basket. It goes something like this:

“After several centuries of humanity’s meandering technological development, the odds are remote that, at precisely the time of our demise, we developed computer hardware and models sophisticated enough to predict our imminent demise.”

Computers are now sophisticated enough to model our demise but not so sophisticated that they know more than we do. The likelihood of our demise actually being imminent is vanishingly small because:

1. We don’t know how the climate works.
2. There’s been no warming since 1995, despite a 20% increase in CO2.
3. The atmosphere (since 2001) and the ocean (since 2004) have been cooling.
4. Models fail hindcasts, thus inspiring no confidence in their forecasts.
5. The IPCC, from whom the government takes its advice, is utterly discredited.
6. There’s been no alteration in natural rates of sea-level change.
7. We don’t know how the climate works.

But don’t believe me – ask any climate scientist (warmist or sceptic) and they’ll tell you we don’t know how the climate works.

h/t – GJB

For if it had no defects, why did you study it?

But if you studied it, why did you never deny the claim that it was settled?

Climate scientists of New Zealand: you have deceived us.

_______

The RSNZ is planning to announce progress in climate science since the AR4 in 2007.

Since 2007 and earlier, from Al Gore down, these arrogant shouts around the world have escaped challenge by the scientific establishment: “the science is settled” on climate change! The claim has been around for most of the century.

The Royal Society of New Zealand has never, to my knowledge, used the phrase “the science is settled.”

It did set up the government-funded Science Media Centre (SMC), with its Sciblogs department, which re-blogs numerous odious posts from such celebrated centres of scientific excellence as Hot Topic and Open Parachute. And those blogs and their manic commenters provide all the spittle-lipped propaganda you could ever wish for the “settled science” believers without needing contributions from the respected scientists at the RS. Read more… »

Close your eyes. Think of glaciers. Now, exguesstrapolate.

This comment from Historical Imagery of Greenland Glaciers Lessens Sea Level Rise Alarm at WUWT is too good to be allowed to languish in the comments section:

*****
Severian says:
June 4, 2012 at 10:00 pm

As for extrapolations and such, remember what Mark Twain said:

“In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Read more… »

Are you getting used to it?

First, random stopping of any innocent person on the public street, with no cause needing to be shown, to catch the occasional miscreant. You got used to that. Now it’s mere local body bureaucrats breaking into our formerly sacrosanct houses to enforce some obscure little bylaw about keeping pets. Ready to march down the Queen Street, are we? I wish. But by now we’re all too used to it!

Week after week we chase the couldn’t-care-less dog owners to renew their licence. They want the dog — we let them have it. Why can’t they pay up on time? Sure, we put the price up 300%. But we go to a lot of trouble and expense in administration. Like I say, we chase the little buggers all year long, and it’s always the same culprits.

So there I am, I can hear the dog in the house, and the owner’s obviously not home. I want that dog. There’s only one thing the owners understand, and that’s losing their precious bloody pet. I’m going in. I find a window ajar and unlock the front door. Don’t tell me I need a damned search warrant.

Read more… »