Climate Conversation Group

The United States Senate meets in the Senate side of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC — to the left of this splendid rotunda.

From the SPPI site comes a remarkable statement from a US Senator reaffirming the primacy of science in the search for truth and emphasising that between the scientific and political arms of the IPCC there are strong contradictions.

Statement by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch Before the United States Senate,
June 10, 2010

EPA Disapproval Resolution

Mr. President, I rise today as an original cosponsor of the Disapproval Resolution of the carbon regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. I would like to start off by applauding Senator Murkowski for her strong leadership on this issue, and I stand squarely behind her effort.

To summarize what has already been laid out today, the EPA has released findings that, one, human carbon emissions contribute in a significant way to global warming; and, two, that global warming – which has been going on for about 10,000 years now — is an endangerment to humans. The EPA’s foundation for its proposal relies on the assumption that both of these findings are true.

Mr. President, I was sorely disappointed – but not too surprised – when I learned that the EPA based it’s “findings” almost entirely on the work by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC. I have no problem with much of the science produced by IPCC scientists, but I have a real problem with the way that science is summarized by the political leaders at the IPCC and by the conclusions drawn by those same political leaders in the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers, which is not a science document. And it becomes immediately evident that the EPA relies very heavily on these political summaries and conclusions rather than actual science produced by the IPCC. Because we now have abundant proof that a wide gulf exists between what the science indicates and what the political leaders at the IPCC pretend that it indicates. Read more… »

The ODT reports Professor Sir Peter Gluckman’s speech last night (you’ll remember him, he’s the PM’s chief science advisor).

As expected, the speech seems to have been mainly waffle with few new facts or arguments.

However, the Professor informs us that New Zealand beech trees and swallows are feeling the heat. This is despite Phil Jones’ claim that there has been no significant global warming for 15 years and a slight cooling during the 21st century. It also betrays David Wratt’s claim that future global warming will be less in New Zealand because of the surrounding ocean. More pertinent is the fact that NIWA’s SSS and ESS don’t seem to detect any warming in this country during the past 50 years. So something else must be affecting the swallows, and Gluckman’s ’science’ (the only factual line in the whole speech) is exposed as being wrong.

Apparently the public is “confused” about the science — “what we know and what we do not know” — and the confusion is all caused by “deniers”. But, Doctor, we have genuine questions… Answer our questions! Beginning with: what’s the evidence?

If Sir Peter gives the PM truly objective advice on climate science, why doesn’t he do the same in his speeches? I think he’s telling John Key just what he wants to hear about global warming, so it doesn’t have to be objective.

There’s more to say about this disgrace.

Marc Morano, tireless champion of climate-change free speech. Hear him being interviewed by Denis Rancourt, on The Five O’Clock Train, CHUO 89.1 FM, Ottawa, Canada, on May 17, 2010. He exposes global warming as a hoax.

Press the Start button with care: you must be prepared to muster a strong determination to press Stop. If you do not, Marc will just carry on; he is all-nigh unstoppable, his passion unmistakable.

I have seldom, aside from university professors, found anyone with such a prodigious memory as Marc demonstrates here.

His instant recall for an eclectic collection of global warming facts, personalities and events is formidable.

He provides us with a handy history in a nutshell, if you can handle the non-stop, breathless delivery. Notice the delicate job Denis Rancourt does in getting Marc occasionally to stop.

Listen to Marc being interviewed on the player below. The interview begins at about the two-minute mark and lasts for about an hour.

John Key and Kevin Rudd walking together up the garden path.

I’m snowed under with work, but even if I cannot do this remarkable event justice with a full report, neither can I continue to ignore it. It must be recorded and acknowledged and praised and have thanks given for it. I will expand the account as I find the time.

It was a seminar on “climate change” arranged by the Napier branch of IPENZ, a society for civil engineers. Invited speakers included scientists from NIWA and scientists from the NZ Climate Science Coalition.

I have collected several eye-witness accounts which I want to weave together, but for now, just to give a brief report of the night, here is a quick summary from Alan:

Very well organised and run — took all afternoon and into 8 pm, with a dinner break. [Dr David] Wratt/[Prof. Martin] Manning/[Dr Andrew] Tait (NIWA) did not come across very well, to my mind; second-hand used car salesmen comes to mind (especially the first two).

Tait was hopeless; spoke of the precautionary principle, risk mitigation (buy my computer model tool box). Was a dead (not stunned) mullet when Willem asked him how his rainfall projections for the next 100 yrs compared with historic records. Read more… »

The end of the world, poetically speaking.

Gareth Renowden of Hot Topic, famed as much for truffle hunting as end-of-the-world prophecy, has just celebrated his 25th wedding anniversary.

Congratulations. It cannot have been easy.

His latest post reports that while celebrating that significant marriage milestone in Sydney the other day he found this little poem addressed to insensitive climate deniers everywhere and thoughtfully shares it with us:

An Open Letter to Climate Sceptics

Among your loved ones choose
– when the sweet airs fail,
when the rivers run dry –
the hand of whom to hold
until the last breath,
until the last cry.

That’s beautiful. How sad, how compelling, how utterly chilling.

**sniff** Read more… »

A magnifying glass. Such a glass helps to find evidence of things too small for the human eye to distinguish. This offers a useful metaphor when looking for evidence of dangerous human-caused global warming. For, on the one hand, though it is highly likely there is a human influence on the climate at the global scale, nobody has found evidence of it even after the spending of $50 billion over 20 or 30 years and, on the other hand, though evidence is said to be “mounting” and even “overwhelming” nobody will actually say what that evidence is. So on two counts evidence is hard to come by.

Royal Society dwells in rarified realm

In their philosophical banquet hall they dine on pure science. Their table groans under the weight of hypotheses, complex thinking and evidence. Their huge intellects, beyond the ken of we ordinary folk, address issues we cannot imagine and their highly skilled minds devise solutions to problems we didn’t even know existed.

We are grateful when at last the Royal Society academicians let us know what for our good they have decided to do, then we can express our appreciation for the care they take over us.

Yesterday, the Chief Science Advisor, Peter Gluckman, made a speech at NIWA in Auckland. He addressed, as was proper for a scientist in the exalted position of advisor to our Prime Minister, high questions of science and its practise and development. He referred to the Royal Society, in England, celebrating this year the 350th anniversary of its founding. What a wonderful society, wonderfully inspired and courageous in countless periods as it championed the cause of empirical, evidence-based truth and reason.

Too much dogma…

The good Dr Gluckman bemoaned the fact that “too many decisions are still based on dogma rather than knowledge”. How true that is. But see how that barb lands uncomfortably close to our admirable Royal Society. Does he know that the vexed question of anthropogenic global warming, about which he asserted later in his speech quite firmly: “I am not going to enter the debate about whether the world is warming and whether that warming is anthropogenic,” is ruled by the very dogma he appears to deplore? Read more… »

NZ Royal Society. Knowledge or ignorance?

Keith Hunter’s statement asserts: The evidence pointing towards AGW comes from multiple independent lines of argument, each pointing in the same direction. … a few examples follow.

This is his second example:

The amount of extra carbon accumulated in the ocean and the atmosphere matches the known quantity emitted by the combustion of fossil fuels.

How can he be so sure, when nobody else is?

NZ Royal Society. Strength or aggression?

Keith Hunter’s statement asserts: The evidence pointing towards AGW comes from multiple independent lines of argument, each pointing in the same direction. … a few examples follow.

This is his first example:

It is a plain fact that human activities have significantly increased the concentrations of greenhouse active gases in the atmosphere, particularly since the mid-20th century.

Who will tell him that nothing could be further from plain? What does he mean by “greenhouse active gases”? Does he mean that water vapour has increased in the atmosphere? Does he include methane? Nitrous oxide? Or does he only mean carbon dioxide?

Does he exclude the possibility that increased temperature has driven more carbon dioxide from the oceans into the atmosphere?

A sand castle sitting prettily, happily, unaware that just behind it the great ocean is coming in that will sweep it away. Hurrah! That’s what always happens between truth and untruth. What is unreal will pass away; what is real endures. The sand castle depicting our influence on the climate will vanish; the real climate will remain.

It seems urgent to directly attack the lack of evidence for dangerous AGW. Adaptation should be a no-brainer driver of public policy, but since the Greens stand in the way of that, shouting stridently instead for the nonsensical reduction in our emissions of harmless greenhouse gases, based on the falsehood of sinful human interference in the climate, they should be taken on by courageous politicians and electors alike. I note that some time ago Greenpeace took the cowardly decision to simply fail to respond to anyone questioning the causes of global warming, saying the matter was now decided.

They and the rest must be somehow winkled out of their holes to confront the obvious and lamentable lack of evidence, much as NIWA has recently been forced into admitting some shortcomings. Read more… »

The Holy Bible, once widely considered the word of God. A new scripture has arisen in the name of “The Environment” claiming it has the right to avoid change. Though Nature has constantly changed the environment and always will, the new scripture hectors us to spend a lot of time and money to ensure that it doesn’t change. If a change is observed, the religion states that it’s a problem, it’s our fault and we must act in super-human ways to change it back again as soon as possible. Apparently it is our duty to do this because we are fundamentally wicked and selfish and we don’t deserve to be here on this nice planet.

From the Independent, written by Steve Connor, Science Editor, and echoed uncritically by the NZ Herald yesterday, comes an amazing story of faith. It must be faith because it cannot be science — there are too many opinions and the facts are wrong.

With the original Independent headline advertising the ignorance the story is steeped in (Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists) the articles of faith are reiterated for the global warming multitudes.

Harken ye unto them, that ye stray not from the green and carbon-free path of righteousness, I say unto thee, even your sons and your grandsons, keep to these my commandments, yea, even unto the hundredth year from this day, when, verily, these green prophecies shall surely come to pass, but, the Lord says, not before then.

But it’s a message with no punch

First we hear the strong conclusion we are to take from the story to come:

Climate scientists have delivered a powerful riposte to their sceptical critics with a study that strengthens the case for saying global warming is largely the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.

Hear how quickly, as you read that, the idea of a “powerful riposte” dissipates into thin air. So the study merely “strengthens the case” for saying global warming is “largely” the result of our emissions. Well, there’s nothing quite like confidence for persuading people, is there? But they’re not prepared to say this proves anything. This is a message with no punch. Read more… »

Anybody studying global warming comes across a lot of obscure blogs and online magazines which rail at “sceptics” and “deniers” for destroying the earth with their obstructionism and their oil-industry-funded arguments. They seem to think that it’s impossible for intelligent people to have reasonable questions about a complex, controversial topic and that therefore sceptics are being deliberately difficult. So they must be shouted at.

Quite a few of those articles get my careful attention because I’m looking for evidence of dangerous man-made global warming. I reason that when they talk about the overwhelming weight of evidence, they could be about to mention the evidence. But none of them do.

Nobody tells me the evidence

Actually, to be precise, many of them mention the evidence but none of them reveal it. Many of them point to the IPCC’s latest report, AR4, but, though it waffles around a lot, there’s nothing conclusive that links human emissions with damaging climatic effects. If I’m wrong, I challenge anyone to point it out to me.

Some writers give references to this or that piece of the puzzle, which on examination turn out to be full of holes, guesswork or based on modelling.

Others go into admirable detail about what could happen if warming got bad. They cannot be refuted because they’re probably right — it would happen. They don’t show any link between human activities and the warming they describe but they make me feel guilty for disagreeing with them — as if I don’t care what happens to the natural world.

Real Climate (Schmidt), Open Mind (Tamino) have banned me

Evidence does not consist of statements such as “the weight of evidence indicates…” or “there is a mounting body of opinion that…” or “it is highly likely (95% probability) that…”.

This question will probably be ignored. However, I must ask: what is the evidence for dangerous man-made global warming?

What persuaded you that the global climate is being changed to a dangerous degree by human activities? There must have been something that persuaded you!

Real Climate and Tamino have banned me and Hot Topic insult me and tell me I’m not welcome because I don’t believe them. These people are afraid of honest questions. Still nobody tells me the evidence.

I’m really curious to know how the believers keep going.

A letter sent from: The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

1 January 2010
His Excellency Mr. Kevin Rudd,
Prime Minister, Commonwealth of Australia.

Prime Minister,

Climate change: proposed personal briefing

Your speech on 6 November 2009 to the Lowy Institute, in which you publicly expressed some concern at my approach to the climate question, has prompted several leading Australian citizens to invite me come on tour to explain myself in a series of lectures in Australia later this month. I am writing to offer personal briefings on why “global warming” is a non-problem to you and other party leaders during my visit. For convenience, I am copying this letter to them, and to the Press.

Your speech mentioned my remarks about the proposal for world “government” in the early drafts of what had been intended as a binding Copenhagen Treaty. These proposals were not, as you suggested, a “conspiracy theory” from the “far right” with “zero basis in evidence”. Your staff will find them in paragraphs 36-38 of the main text of Annex 1 to the 15 September draft of the Treaty. The word “government” appears twice at paragraph 38. After much adverse publicity in democratic countries, including Australia, the proposals were reluctantly dropped before Copenhagen.

You say I am one of “those who argue that any multilateral action is by definition evil”. On the contrary: my first question is whether any action at all is required, to which – as I shall demonstrate – the objective economic and scientific answer is No. Even if multilateral action were required, which it is not, national governments in the West are by tradition democratically elected. Therefore, a fortiori, transnational or global governments should also be made and unmade by voters at the ballot-box. The climate ought not to be used as a shoddy pretext for international bureaucratic-centralist dictatorship. We committed Europeans have had more than enough of that already with the unelected but all-powerful Kommissars of the hated EU, who make nine-tenths of our laws by decree (revealingly, they call them “Directives” or “Commission Regulations”). The Kommissars (that is the official German word for them) inflict their dictates upon us regardless of what the elected European or any other democratic Parliament says or wishes. Do we want a worldwide EU? No.

You say I am one of “those who argue that climate change does not represent a global market failure”. Yet it is only recently that opinion sufficient to constitute a market signal became apparent in the documents of the IPCC, which is, however, a political rather than a scientific entity. There has scarcely been time for a “market failure”. Besides, corporations are falling over themselves to cash in on the giant financial fraud against the little guy that carbon taxation and trading have already become in the goody-two-shoes EU – and will become in Australia if you get your way.

You say I was one of “those who argue that somehow the market will magically solve the problem”. Read more… »

Well, this is complete vindication.

Yesterday, I sent “Carbon Dave” Hampton a private email in which I complained about his plagiarism of comments I had posted on his web site. I sent it because he was ignoring my first complaint. I admonished him to admit he had stolen my writing and presented it as his own. Quite unexpectedly, Mr Hampton has just replied and even publicly posted my email on his site. In that post, Mr Hampton admits with much bluster that “it was wrong to do it”. He’s certainly referring to my email but one cannot decipher exactly what “it” is (his writing is not at all lucid). However he does surrender with a “HANDS UP!” and talks about posting my comment so he admits he’s guilty of something and it’s related to my writing.

There’s more tedious detail following, but first I’d like to draw attention to the most important feature of Hampton’s reply to me. When I accused him of stealing my comments, there was no concrete evidence of it. That was because I could not show that my comments were created earlier than his. I hadn’t anticipated the need.

Poirot, we need a confession

What evidence did I have? There was only the date-time stamp on the file containing a copy of my comment and, of course, my clear knowledge of what had transpired. Thin evidence, though, in anybody’s book, because those stamps can be changed and my recollection proves nothing to others. I needed a confession. Perhaps I could shame him into apologising. Read more… »

A couple of days ago, a headline appeared over at Climate Depot, illustrated with a bunch of hypodermic syringes: Don’t call them Climate Deniers, Label them ‘Pushers’ of a Drug called ‘Doubt’. I could see where that was going, so I shot over there to have a look.

He said

It is Carbon Dave’s Diary, which I’ve not seen before. Dave Hampton’s an engineer and social change advocate (whatever that means). The article that Marc Morano had picked up on was a polemic against climate realists who doubt humanity’s responsibility for global warming. Oddly, there’s a spelling error in the very headline, which is also in the html link. Morano was observant enough to correct it when he posted it, but at this moment it’s still there on Carbon Dave’s site.

His article is funny enough, creatively picturing doubt as a drug to be fed to the gullible. But you can read it for yourself; I have an odd complaint to make about Carbon Dave’s honesty. You see, he’s used my comments as though he wrote them himself — he’s plagiarised them. Maybe I ought to be flattered, but it’s annoyed me. Read more… »

The other day in the Herald, Mr Chris Barton took up the topic of global warming in an article headed “Climate debate adrift on rising tide of lunacy“.

With hardly a mention of the subject, Barton gets stuck into those who question the orthodox view of the subject. He tries various techniques to get the opposition to shut up; in fact, he tries everything except actually, well, listening to them.

He gets a bit confused, too. At one point he says, of the “madness” of the climate change debate, “there is a lot of it about”. But later he’s forgotten that and, trying to mis-characterise the strength of the opposition, he says “Like the rest of the world we have a small but very vocal group spreading their stupidity”.

He picks up on a typographical error by a correspondent and makes merry with the new word as though it represents a marvellous new insight. But it’s just old-fashioned stupidity.

This is a professional journalist who ought to support a vigorous debate for the good of the community, but instead he’s thinking up dirty tricks to silence a well-informed, well-meaning opposition. I’m ashamed of him.

If he wants to be taken seriously, he can address these questions: Why are global mean atmospheric temperatures falling as carbon dioxide rises? Why is the heat content of the oceans falling as carbon dioxide rises? What is the evidence that the temperature increases of the late 20th century were caused by carbon dioxide? What is the evidence that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide will result in dangerously higher temperatures? Is he happy to bring our productive systems into disarray and ruin our lovely environment with noisy, ugly windmills on the basis of climate models that are known to be wrong and without performing any cost-benefit analysis?

If Barton actually observes the climate and its history he will quickly discover for himself why we’re so doubtful that anything dangerous is about to happen. Perhaps then he will hear the shrill voices of alarm as we hear them: as dogs barking and fleas biting but nothing of consequence.

What else can be said to him? I tried this the next day: Read more… »

A letter sent to the NZ Herald. Hope they publish it.

Sir,

Your leader of August 7 headed Seize chance to lead way on climate change, on one level, is easy to support, but on different grounds, for those assumed in your leader are spurious. We must take a lead, indeed—let us be the first to examine the need to respond to climate change.

No matter how far we go along the path towards action, no matter how many people concur that action must be taken, even on marketing grounds, no matter how the arguments for action pluck at our heart strings, no matter that we all want to save the planet, yet if there are no grounds for action, it will be wasted: the taxpayers’ money wasted, the voters’ living spent.

At the risk of sounding repetitive—even a bit shrill, evidence of the catastrophe said to be building around us is yet to arrive, at the very time of decision when its presence is most important. Global air temperatures are recently level, even declining. Even the long-term trend in air temperature is within natural limits. Sea levels are rising no faster than they have for centuries, sea temperatures are not rising, sea ice levels are within normal limits and Tuvalu has still not been evacuated, though an oceanic incursion has been threatened since the 1980s. Glaciers are mentioned only when one is found with pieces conveniently missing; plenty are growing, but unreported. We’re yawning.

The only reason to believe future temperatures will be ruinous are computer models of the climate. But as everyone knows, they are driven in every decisive parameter by human knowledge and its imperfections, not by the climate. They do not deal properly with clouds, which by themselves are capable of overwhelming any temperature change attributed to carbon dioxide or the lack thereof. They do not deal properly with a list of things. They are not reality and they constitute no sort of evidence whatsoever.

So—what is the evidence? Not the propaganda—the evidence!

Regards,

Richard Treadgold
Convenor
Climate Conversation Group