Climate Conversation Group

Looking for information on China’s coal use I came across this fact-free summary of the “fight” against CO2 (emphasis added).

Coal already contributes 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions—the IEA projects this figure to grow to 50 percent over the next 25 years. Greenhouse gas emissions—which again reached record levels this year—are driving global climate change, the impacts of which we’re already seeing through more extreme weather events, droughts, and rising sea levels.

Say it ten times every day for 20 years and it becomes part of the air we breathe — people accept it.

But it’s hideous, because it’s still a pack of lies.

Old oak tree.

Open letter to environmentalists from A. Tree

The global temperature datasets are slow.

We usually have updates within 30 days of the end of a month, but most are about three months behind, with UAH four months slower than normal.

UAH MSU 7-2012
GISTEMP 8-2012
NCDC 8-2012
RSS MSU 8-2012
HadCRUT3 8-2012

Anyone know why?

Murrays Bay beach in ambiguous mood last May.

The picture was taken long before Christmas, but the image is emblematic of the endless dualities presented by life even in its essential neutrality. We receive good and bad, sorrow and joy, luck and hardship, wealth and poverty, sickness and vigour – we play with nothing but what we’re given and for which if we’re wise we’re thankful. Christmas and the New Year is a season for reflection, as light and dark alike reflect on the moist land. See, there is the oh so neutral water you are obliged to live in — you might as well dive in boldly as timidly dip your toe. May you be at home there. May your prosperity be prolonged. May you be inspired and inspiring. May your joy soar.

Merry Christmas to all

This is from Newsweek on 10 December and I know it’s been expertly dealt with elsewhere, but it’s so questionable I can’t ignore it. From notes I made at the time, the links below start to argue with their alarming premise.

Hurricane Sandy’s recent devastation of New York and neighboring states reminded Americans of what Hurricane Katrina demonstrated in 2005: global warming makes weather more extreme, and extreme weather can be extremely dangerous. But flooding coastlines aren’t our only worry. Climate change is also imperiling the very foundation of human existence: our ability to feed ourselves.

Three grains—wheat, corn, and rice—account for most of the food humans consume. All three are already suffering from climate change, but wheat stands to fare the worst in the years ahead, for it is the grain most vulnerable to high temperatures. That spells trouble not only for pasta but also for bread, the most basic food of all. (Pasta is made from the durum variety of wheat, while bread is generally made from more common varieties, such as red spring.)

“Wheat is a cool-season crop. High temperatures are negative for its growth and quality, no doubt about it,” says Frank Manthey, a professor at North Dakota State University who advises the North Dakota Wheat Commission. Already, a mere 1 degree Fahrenheit of global temperature rise over the past 50 years has caused a 5.5 percent decline in wheat production, according to David Lobell, a professor at Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment.

via Bakken Oil Boom and Climate Change Threaten the Future of Pasta – Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

But here are production figures that contradict that story: Read more… »

Only in the USA

Carbon Emissions Projected to Remain Flat for Decades – Forbes.

So the good news is the alarmists might be slightly pleased and quieten down a bit.

The bad news is the price of slowing the pace of the Western industrial miracle that’s been relentlessly pulling the world out of poverty, ignorance, sickness, early death and misery for over two centuries.

Will the alarmists reflect on the poverty, lack of medical care, loss of education and general reduction in levels of happiness this will bring?

Anyway, this slow-down concerns emissions only from the US. Considering they emit less than China does, it can’t make much difference to the global climate.

Peter Griffin: Tornadoes don’t indicate extreme weather is increasing – NZ Herald.

Old news alert (6 Dec) – I’m catching up.

This is good news. Nobody wants tornadoes to increase. Of course, there are other indications that extreme weather will increase – is perhaps already increasing – so please don’t stop worrying.

But it’s disappointing to see the Herald recycling posts from SciBlogs.

Let us hope so

From Judith Curry comes a remark of such simple goodness I pause in admiration and slowly nod my agreement. Of course there’s hope for the IPCC!

In a learned comment on Matt Ridley’s analysis of the draft AR5 discussion of climate sensitivity, including aerosols, clouds and water vapour, Professor Curry concludes:

JC summary: The leak of the SOD was a good thing; the IPCC still has the opportunity to do a much better job, and the wider discussion in the blogosphere and even the mainstream media places pressure on the IPCC authors to consider these issues; they can’t sweep them under the rug as in previous reports.

via Climate sensitivity in the AR5 SOD | Climate Etc..

There’s nothing difficult in that statement; it’s quite ordinary, really. So it would be easy to overlook the obstacles to making it. Like the instinct for revenge against the IPCC for making so much of a non-existent climate problem to so many for so long. Read more… »

From P Gosselin at NoTricksZone on 21 December 2012 – h/t Climate Depot.

It’s the worst cold snap in Russia in over 70 years. Hundreds have already frozen to death across Eastern Europe. But you won’t be hearing about this in the mainstream media.

The spate of cold weather that has lasted for weeks in many parts of Europe has now claimed at least 600 lives. Eastern Europe is the worst affected. Read more… »

Actually, what IS climate change, again?

From page 7 of the leaked Summary for Policymakers from the IPCC WGI Fifth Assessment Report comes this statement about CO2 “driving” climate change (emphasis added):

Natural and anthropogenic drivers cause imbalances in the Earth’s energy budget. The strongest anthropogenic drivers are changes in greenhouse gas concentrations and aerosols. These can now be quantified in more detail, but the uncertainties of the forcing associated with aerosols remain high.

Globally, CO2 is the strongest driver of climate change compared to other changes in the atmospheric composition, and changes in surface conditions. Its relative contribution has further increased since the 1980s and by far outweighs the contributions from natural drivers. CO2 concentrations and rates of increase are unprecedented in the last 800,000 years and at least 20,000 years, respectively. Other drivers also influence climate on global and particularly regional scales.

It’s a mere fragment of grit from a mountain of a report, but still curious enough because it raises the definition of the problem, and statements about climate change have no clearer meaning just because we stopped questioning it. Read more… »

From http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/

Full AR5 draft leaked here, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing

Posted by Alec Rawls, 12/13/12

I participated in “expert review” of the Second Order Draft of AR5 (the next IPCC report), Working Group 1 (“The Scientific Basis”), and am now making the full draft available to the public. I believe that the leaking of this draft is entirely legal, that the taxpayer funded report is properly in the public domain under the Freedom of Information Act, and that making it available to the public is in any case protected by established legal and ethical standards, but web hosting companies are not in the business of making such determinations so interested readers are encouraged to please download copies of the report for further dissemination in case this content is removed as a possible terms-of-service violation. My reasons for leaking the report are explained below. Here are the chapters:

Continue reading at Full AR5 draft leaked here.

Also available at WUWT. [Thanks to Mike for reporting my broken WUWT link. My 404 message is: "Sorry, but you are looking for something that is not here" which isn't nearly as good as the Haiku he gave me: "You step in the stream, but the water has moved on. This page is not here." Thanks, Mike - RT]

I’m sorry for my absence.

I hate not writing here; it’s as though there’s been a death in the family. But academic proofreading at the end of the year goes through the roof and earning money takes precedence over everything.

In case you have things to say, here’s a fresh thread to say it in. Goodness knows, there’s plenty to talk about.

Stay well. I’ll be back in a week or so.

Huub Bakker admonished us, saying:

Guys,

Much as Brandoch may throw unsubstantiated statements and ad hominems around, the responses are also laden with ad hominem attacks. This hardly does anyone on this website any favours.

Richard Treadgold, I see that you slapped Brandoch over the knuckles for calling people liars but then didn’t do the same when Richard C accused Brandoch of lying. [although Richard C made the point that his "accusation" was merely a spoof of what Brandoch had said, it's a fair point that I rarely admonish "friends" - RT]

I enjoy reading a good discussion of the facts and putting people in their place using facts and references but we really could do without the abuse from both sides. Please enforce politeness and respect on both sides, Richard. People coming to this site to be informed would be horrified with the slanging that is currently going on here and might conclude that sceptics are no better than alarmists.

I agree with him. But with one enormous caveat: I have no wish to rule the world. One reason there are no “Rules of conduct” posted here is to avoid adding to the rules we already endure. Courtesy is enough. Read more… »

The NZ Climate Science Coalition’s opponents have attacked it for creating a Trust (the NZ Climate Science Education Trust, NZCSET) for the sole purpose of unfairly (perhaps, in the opinion of some, unlawfully) avoiding costs if they lost the court case against NIWA.

However, there are sensible reasons for creating a legal entity to take someone to court. One of the first questions a judge asks is “who are the parties?” If that simple question cannot be answered by naming a legal entity the case doesn’t get off the ground and the judge just gets annoyed.

So, although the NZCSC did the scientific work in challenging NIWA’s techniques, it couldn’t take the court proceedings. An unincorporated association cannot sue or be sued, as it has no legal existence separate from its multifarious members. Read more… »

For the first time, it’s being left out of the loop

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will not be attending the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18/CMP8) in Doha, chairman Dr Rajendra K Pachauri has said.

“For the first time in the 18 years of COP, the IPCC will not be attending, because we have not been invited,” he told Gulf Times in Doha.

COP18 is to be held from November 26 to December 7.

Read more… »

– from a reviewer of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, in preparation.

Because of the IPCC’s assinine restrictions against early disclosure, this climate scientist cannot be identified.

I’m reviewing the 5AR WG I contribution.

The only thing that should scare the wits out of anyone is how blinkered and defensive the IPCC is.

Something is very seriously wrong when it’s not until Chapter 10 – which means about 600 or more pages into the finished report – that we find the comment that there’s been no significant warming since 1998. Read more… »

Some days it’s all too easy to find material for blogging. Here it is, 11:15 pm, I’ve spent all weekend installing software on my new PC (thanks for the early birthday present, Christopher), the All Blacks face Scotland at 6 o’clock in the morning and Andy sends me over to Hot Topic, where I find this among a series of election briefs: Read more… »

The Sunday Star-Times claims the NZ Climate Science Coalition has “formed an unlikely alliance” with “the losers of an infamous tax-dodging trial.”

Ha, ha, very funny. The Coalition isn’t even part of the Court case – it’s being brought by the NZ Climate Science Education Trust (NZCSET, or the Trust). Nor has any “alliance” been formed – the only losers are the innocent readers being fed this arrant nonsense. Where does that paper find its material?

If only the reporter had interviewed our chairman. Oh, wait, he did.

Having established those two quite spectacularly incorrect factoids, the doughty environmental reporter continues with three more inaccuracies:

1. That the Coalition doesn’t believe that people cause “climate change”.
2. That NIWA has been awarded costs.
3. That the Trust asked about the judge’s forestry interests as part of its appeal against the Court’s decision on our request for a judicial review.

Um, actually…

Read more… »

– by Barry Brill, Chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

The Sunday Star Times (SST) has today reported that the NZ Climate Science Education Trust (“Climate Trust”) has asked Mr Justice Venning to disclose whether he held any financial interests under the Emissions Trading Scheme when he heard the trust’s recent case against NIWA.

In a discussion on Wednesday about the Climate Trust’s filing with the Court of Appeal, the SST reporter asked me about allegations of judicial bias. He claimed to have information that the appeal was based upon the judge’s forestry investments. I assured him that the appeal made no mention of bias and that this question had arisen only in the course of the current costs argument in the High Court. Read more… »

From Forbes, seven months ago, we heard about climate-related changes in the wind for the USA. The measures being proposed at potentially insane costs by the Obama administration include reducing the sulphur content of petrol ($2.4 billion pa), impossible boiler operating standards (reduce GDP by $1.2 billion) and highly restrictive cement production standards (shortfall imported from China, 80,000 out of work, construction costs hiked by up to 36%).

A new report released by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Minority Committee enumerates a slew of planned EPA regulations that have been delayed or punted on until after the election that will destroy millions of American jobs and cause energy prices to skyrocket even more.

Read more… »

Thank you to all our visitors – both voluble and silent – for making this small corner of the free blogoverse a forum both informative and influential.

I just checked last month’s Climate Conversation web traffic figures out of cPanel and I’m mightily pleased. All metrics show record high figures. This is only for the CC sub-domain of WordShine (I really must shift it to climateconversation.org.nz, huh?). Here is the cPanel graph with October highlighted:

CCG traffic summary for October 2012. Four days plus a few minutes of the fifth day of November’s traffic are included, making the stats package divide by 5, not 4. If you divide the Monthly Totals for November by 4 you see a considerable increase in all metrics over the October daily averages. It’s early days, but shows the growth continues into this month for a while at least.

The release of the judge’s decision and the recently-filed costs arguments are obvious sources of increased interest. But there have been some notable threads of conversation on climate science which have pitted determined warmists against equally tenacious sceptics. Read more… »

Roger Andrews has investigated the warming in New Zealand over the last 100 years and is published at Tall Bloke. He happily confirms the NZCSC audit of NIWA’s 7SS.

I especially like his comment:

An argument can in fact be made that if adjustments this large are needed to make the raw records “correct” then the raw records were far too heavily distorted to have been used to begin with.

h/t – Bob D.

The Telegraph quotes John Hayes, the new energy minister, saying “enough is enough” on wind farms.

It’s quite refreshing to hear the DAGW nonsense called an “article of faith”.

The energy minister said he had ordered a new analysis of the case for onshore wind power which would form the basis of future government policy, rather than “a bourgeois Left article of faith based on some academic perspective”. Read more… »

Let us fervently hope so

Fervently, fervently.

Look what someone sent me. Gives me hope for a sensible future – although the concluding comments from new Fed Farmers’ president Bruce Wills again confirm that he’s chosen the hogwash side of the climate panic (emphasis added):

New Zealand has been tipped to quit the Kyoto Protocol, designed to cut global emissions.

Government officials next month travel to Doha in Qatar for the latest round of negotiations on the treaty, but with less than four weeks before the summit, acting Climate Change Minister Simon Bridges says the Government has “not made a decision” on its commitment.

“My understanding is that decisions have yet to be made on that matter,” he said.

But the actions of participants in the carbon market, and market signs, suggest the Government is preparing to walk away. Read more… »

Simon asked in comments:

What fundamental central and local government policy decisions have been based exclusively on the 7SS?

The question is too restrictive. Possibly the only “exclusive” policy was the decision to spend $70,000 reconstructing the national temperature record using the wrong method and then ignoring public-spirited citizens who found serious faults in it. Read more… »

UPDATE1

So shut up, you lot!

NIWA, in its memorandum to Justice Venning about the costs of our court case, says some curious things. I’ve pulled out a few of the ripostes that the NZCSET’s lawyers have just delivered to the judge and which I’m delighted to share with you. (Bear in mind that the APPLICANT is the Coalition. The DEFENDANT is NIWA.) This one’s a pearler:

29. The defendant alleges in paragraph 17 that the proceeding did not concern climate change…

This is breathtaking. It will surprise their long-suffering supporters – having endured NIWA’s hogwash about the 7SS not being “official” or even a “national” temperature record (“oh, it’s only for study”), and that this organisation of top scientists has no obligation WHATSOEVER to strive for excellence, they now have to stand cringing as their favourite publicly-paid climate scientists argue that the court case had nothing to do with climate change.

Really? What rot. I’d like to shake these men up and make them see sense. Read more… »

NIWA displays an unattractive arrogance toward challengers.

The question arises, m’lud, of costs

Unaffordable justice is not justice.

But before payment ever becomes an issue, the very availability of a Court of law is vital, for it guarantees that the ordinary citizen may have his grievances examined by a disinterested judge. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of the unperturbed mind to resolve disputes, remedy wrongs and instil peace; it’s fair to say that nothing else can.

The significance of the Court’s availability increases with the increasing power of one’s adversary, until the adversary is the Crown itself, when the importance of an open Court surpasses everything. For in battling the Crown or the State one stands to lose everything, the combat is so unequal. Only the judge stands between the citizen and the Crown. Outside the courtroom the citizen would be crushed without thought, but before the judge the agent of the Crown will discover that he meets an equal Read more… »

How much more ‘official’ do we need?

It’s time for the regular news services to PAY ATTENTION!!

PUBLISHED: 21:42 GMT, 13 October 2012 | UPDATED: 23:36 GMT, 13 October 2012

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals a quietly-released Met Office report… and here is the chart to prove it:

UPDATE BELOW

Global temperature changes

NOTE: I’ve looked for the original Met Office report but can’t find it. I’m busy right now, so if anyone can locate it, I’d be grateful to learn the url, thanks. [UPDATE: After the Met Office statement, we now know the report referred to doesn't exist. I'm not very pleased with David Rose of the Mail on Sunday - although he has achieved considerable publicity for the lack of global warming, which is good.]

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

Read more… »

For years we’ve been fed the propaganda that only warming causes less ice (and oh, what a shame!) and now we learn that it causes more ice as well (and oh, what a shame!).

Whether the warmists predict more ice or less ice, it’s still all caused by warming. Amazing.

More ice is bad, it’s caused by our evil kind of warming and our punishment is to give all our toys to the poor people living near the sea. Or far from the sea, so long as they’re poor. The old ice that sinks the earth’s crust into the magma which requires thousands of years to rebound after melting is not evil ice. But this ice is evil. Nor was that old ice caused by warming. But our evil ice is.

Amazing. I’m almost speechless. Read more… »

I’ll keep this simple, to avoid ecclesiastical clashes. Last thing I want is a fight to break out between science and religion. Oh, wait …

First, a reader, Rob Taylor, said:

So, in denier fairyland, this all balances out, somehow? Let’s see – crippling drought in one place, horrendous floods in another simply shows that all is hunky-dory?

Then I said:

“Who could approve of them, you twit? But this is Mother Nature. This is God’s will. There’s nothing new here – not for thousands of years. This is life. This is how it goes.”

Another reader, Nick, said:

“this is Mother Nature. This is God’s will” – is that really what you believe? I had been conducting these discussions on the assumption everyone accepted that science rather than divine intervention could explain the weather. Please correct me if my assumption is false. Does anyone else here think that any changes in the climate are “Gods will”?

My meaning here was perverted and then Nick hijacked it. However, together they raise an arguable point about our relationship with our surroundings, so let me explain. Rob made out that we can prevent these natural disasters. His mistake was in believing that we have sufficient influence on the weather to ameliorate droughts and floods. It’s a nutty idea and we don’t. Read more… »

From a scientist friend, who comments:

About two weeks after it was noised on various blogs and electronic news sources, and is old “news”, The Australian finally deigns to notice the record Antarctic sea-ice (I wonder whether the SMH and The Age will now me-too the story as well?). Leaving aside the wonderful headline, the article itself is a classic attempt to weasel out of accepting the obvious conclusion. The scientists involved really ARE shameless.

I entirely agree with him. This story presents a deplorable mish-mash of propaganda from a scientist who should be a lot better behaved. Be nice to see this covered in the Herald – or has it been – anyone know?

Please note the frank distortion in the original headline: the sea ice hasn’t expanded “against the odds”, it has simply defied certain (wrong!) predictions. Emphasis added, my comments in green. – RT

PAYWALLED AT: The Australian.

* by: Graham Lloyd
* From: The Australian
* October 06, 2012 12:00AM

ANTARCTIC sea ice has expanded to cover the largest area recorded since satellite mapping began more than three decades ago, in stark contrast to this year’s record melt on the northern pole.

The expansion continues a trend of increasing Antarctic sea ice cover of about 1 per cent a decade and is at odds with predictions of climate change models that continue to forecast a long-term decline. Read more… »

from The Global Warming Policy Foundation

The Street, 4 October 2012

Bill Gunderson

When Al Gore talks, people listen. Just ask the folks who hand out Academy Awards and Nobel Peace Prizes.

Al Gore also talks to investors. Since 2007, the former Vice President in Bill Clinton’s administration has been preaching the benefits of putting your money where his mouth is: Alternative energy.

But if Al Gore has any message for investors today, it might very well be this: “Stay the hell away from alternative energy!” Not that he would say so. At least out loud. Read more… »

from The Global Warming Policy Foundation

The Daily Telegraph, 5 October 2012

Britain faces an increasing risk of power blackouts and higher electricity bills in the next four years, power regulator Ofgem has warned in a report.

An “unprecedented combination” of the eurozone crisis, tough EU environmental laws and the closure of ageing coal and oil-fired power stations, has increased “the risk to consumers’ energy supplies”, Ofgem said in its annual Electricity Capacity Assessment on Friday.

The regulator, which first highlighted the problems in its Project Discovery report in 2009, said: “Today’s report shows that these problems have not gone away.” Read more… »

from The Global Warming Policy Foundation

Financial Times Deutschland, 5 October 2012

The EU Energy Commissioner opposes a tightening of the EU’s climate targets. Instead, energy policy should focus more closely on the needs of European industry. In Berlin, Günther Oettinger made jokes about the green “do-gooders” in his own party.

Günther Oettinger fears the decline of Europe if energy prices continue to rise and competitiveness deteriorates further compared to the United States and other parts of the world. He wants to convince his colleagues in the European Commission to introduce an industrial policy objective instead of new climate targets. At a meeting of the European Christian Democrats (EPP) in Berlin last night, Oettinger said the share that manufacturing contributes to the GDP of the economies of the EU should increase from currently 18 percent to 20 percent. Within the European Commission, he is fighting for a corresponding definition.

His appearance before a few dozen party members in Berlin’s Adlon Hotel was a day of reckoning with the EU’s energy and climate policies. Energy policy had long been climate policy, he said, but in the future it must be industrial policy. Read more… »

Well, which is it?

Will it be a nightmare or not?

In comments, I cited a statement by Jim Renwick from a few months ago. He said:

I feel a kind of morbid fascination with this stuff. It’s a really fascinating science issue – and I’m really interested to find out what’s going to happen to the climate and how much ice is going to melt and what’s the temperature in 2020 going to be and all the rest of it. It’s intriguing, it’s my bread and butter but you know what I feel is – I look at this and say jeez we’re really doing this, we’re doing this experiment, we’re really playing this game with the Earth, we’re gambling with millions of lives and I sort of feel disgusted with myself that I find it interesting from a scientific point of view. It’s certainly interesting, but it’s more than interesting — it’s a very dangerous game we’re playing.

I was illustrating a comment that only a few climate scientists of the alarmist school venture to tell us we’re destroying the world. Most of them are more cautious, almost as though they’re setting up for the long-term defence that they were never really converts to that alarmist view of climate change they claim is the consensus.

The reader Simon said Read more… »

Renowden continually misquotes me.

I wrote about the summer low achieved by Arctic sea ice. He maligns me for saying the ice didn’t melt until winds pushed it away into warmer water.

Gareth, criticise me for giving voice to heresy; and by all means, fault my scholarship, my knowledge of climatic or arctic affairs; feel free to mock my “disconnection from reality”; I hope you even pull out a paper by Notz and Marotzke and share the authors’ speculation that, as is apparently obvious to the rest of you, “the most likely explanation for the linear trend [in sea ice decline] during the satellite era from 1979 onwards is the almost linear increase in CO2 concentration during that period.”

But I didn’t say it. NASA did.

So now please kindly redirect all that rude, inaccurate mockery to the proper quarter.

UPDATE 30 SEP

Renowden’s friend Rob Taylor, in comments below, cites one John Yackel in Science Daily. Yackel makes a couple of howlers.

First, he contradicts NASA and insists on talking about the summer Arctic ice “melt”. Obviously he didn’t get NASA’s memo explaining about the storm that shifted the sea ice before it melted.

Second, he asserts that, with the ice gone and the sea surface exposed to the air, “more moisture off the ocean’s surface” will “get into the atmosphere”, making for more violent storms.

Remarkable. Here’s a geographer who doesn’t know that the amount of water vapour in the air depends on the temperature. I learnt that in high school but somehow he missed it at university.

But he also apparently imagines that “the water vapor in the atmosphere makes for more violent storms” – it doesn’t need a higher temperature at all! Well, it’s a new concept, but I’m not sure how it works.

I think it’s nonsense.

Finally, I observe that Rob Taylor claims I’m wrong about something, but none of our friends from the dark side deny that Renowden disagrees with NASA. Renowden is wrong to call this record ice disappearance a “melt” and blame it on global warming and therefore on our considerable, unforgivable sins.

CCNet – 27 September 2012
The Climate Policy Network

This week Silent Spring will turn 50. Rachel Carson’s jeremiad against pesticides is credited by many as launching the modern environmentalist movement, and the author, who died in 1964, is being widely lauded for her efforts. In Silent Spring, Carson crafted a passionate denunciation of modern technology that drives environmentalist ideology today. At its heart is this belief: Nature is beneficent, stable, and even a source of moral good; humanity is arrogant, heedless, and often the source of moral evil. –Ronald Bailey, Reason Online, October 2012

Did cancer doom ever arrive? No. Read more… »

Really?

Er, no. The report making that claim is dodgy. As a piece of scholarship it’s marked by a strong advocacy.

The report is called the Climate Vulnerability Monitor, it was published yesterday and is produced by Dara: “an independent organisation committed to improving the quality and effectiveness of aid for vulnerable populations suffering from conflict, disasters and climate change.”

According to Dara’s 2011 annual report, its total spending that year was €2.1 million.

The Monitor, described in the Sydney Morning Herald, contains regrettably familiar alarmist distortions. Read more… »

Arctic sea ice. Where the notion of “rolling hills” gains a whole new dimension.

NASA admission

Arctic cyclone in August ‘wreaked havoc’ on sea ice

via NASA finally admits Arctic cyclone in August ‘broke up’ and ‘wreaked havoc’ on sea ice — Reuters reports Arctic storm played ‘key role’ in ice reduction | Climate Depot.

NASA has announced that an Arctic storm played a ‘key role’ in a dramatic new summer minimum ice extent recorded in August.

Reuters news service filed a September 21 report based on NASA’s video admission titled: “NASA says Arctic cyclone played ‘key role’ in record ice melt.” The news segment details how the Arctic sea ice was reduced due to “a powerful cyclone that scientists say ‘wreaked havoc’ on ice cover during the month of August.” (Reuters on “Arctic Cyclone” — 0:47 second long segment — Rob Muir reporting.)

Video: Arctic storm breaks up sea ice

Why does everyone feel guilty about the disappearance of the Arctic ice? All it proves is a bit of warming; it most certainly does not prove a human cause for that warming. Read more… »

Dear fellow followers of the Climate debate,

As a result of finding out that the Kyoto commitments technically comes to an end on the 31st December, the Scottish Climate & Energy Forum have been investigating the likely consequences of this both in terms of what is likely to happen to the protocol and the wide implications when (as it seems) the protocol effectively ends operation on the 31st December.

We have written this up as a report. The main intention of this report has been to try to find the actual facts and having sorted the chaff from the wheat, ascertain what this might mean (with particular emphasis on Scotland). Read more… »

But what would it cost us?

via NZ Herald News.

If readers have knowledge of the effects of this measure on the local fishing industry, please get in touch. Here’s the entire Herald story (from APNZ):

New Zealand has voted against further protection measures for Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins at the world’s largest conservation summit in Jeju, Korea.

New Zealand was one of two countries to oppose further protection measures in a secret vote at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s conference.

A vote was held on New Zealand banning gill and trawl nets in waters up to 100 metres deep – 117 countries and 459 organisations voted for the move.

New Zealand voted against, saying it was not backed by scientific evidence.

Read more… »

via Watts Up With That?.

WUWT asks: Forget to pay your bill, fellas?

Jim Hoggan’s flagship propaganda outlet, releaser of the Gleick stolen files, Desmogblog.com – is D.O.A.

Go to their site and you get an advertisement from their domain name registrar.

UPDATE 23 SEP 1230 PM NZST

Ralph, in a comment, advises that the site is up again. But when I visit there’s no real site there. Just plain-text climate links which lead to lists of plain-text advertisements. It’s not real.

Where have they gone?

The inexplicable lunacy of the learned

How was academia infected with the climate change madness?

Not the journalists, the businessmen, the bankers, the entrepreneurs, environmentalists, politicians, bureaucrats or even (or especially!) the earth scientists and climatologists — all their infections can be understood to some extent by understanding the various profits that would come to them once they accepted the madness, which slowly but inevitably they almost all did. (We’re talking about departments here, not individuals.)

We need not ask how the man in the street was infected with the madness, for he has been dragged kicking and screaming and had his very money stolen to fund it all. Read more… »

Here’s an agreeably restrained response to Brian Rudman’s repellent, unsophisticated bluster against the Coalition. The Herald declined to publish this, but we’re delighted to present it in their stead. If Rudman has the sense I think he has, or the slightest genuine interest in climate change, he’ll pay close attention to Tom’s analysis. – Richard Treadgold

Columnist sets bad example in attack on Climate Science Coalition

– by Tom Harris, Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition

The September 12th column by Brian Rudman of the New Zealand Herald, “One small word, one giant setback for denial”, exemplifies how much of the climate debate has descended into a sort of murky underworld where logical fallacies, personal attacks and made up “facts” all too often replace rational discourse. While Herald editors are to be congratulated for allowing the publication of my letter to the editor correcting some of Rudman’s more obvious mistakes, his piece is worth analyzing as a sample of what other journalists must avoid if a civilized discussion about this vitally important topic is to be possible.

Rudman’s repeated references to “climate change deniers” is a particularly nasty and nonsensical phrase frequently employed by those who want to silence debate about the causes of climate change. Read more… »

From Australian fellow sceptics – the NO CARBON TAX Climate Sceptics Party (NCTCS)

– by Anthony Cox, Solicitor and NCTCS Secretary

A court challenge to the validity of the New Zealand temperature record [NZTR] has concluded. The Judgement refused all three parts of the challenge to the NZTR.

The challenge had been initiated by a group of climate researchers called The New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust [the Trust] against the government funded scientific body which prepared the NZTR, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research LTD [NIWA].

The Trust issued a Statement of Claim [SOC] seeking:

A declaration that the New Zealand Temperature Record is not a full
and accurate record of changes in the average surface temperatures
recorded in New Zealand since 1900.

Read more… »

To be a judge in New Zealand is to wield substantial power. Here we have evidence that judicial power can reverse the meaning of a word.

The judgement in our case against NIWA said at paragraph 9:

Both the original statement of claim and the first amended statement of claim were prolix.

The word “prolix” comes from the Latin “prolixus”, which means “extended” (literally “poured out”) or “courteous, favourable”. It has come to mean “tediously lengthy, bombastic, long-winded, verbose, wordy.”

It’s not used as a compliment. When a judge describes your submission as prolix he’s saying “your explanatory skills are poor, you waffle and you have wasted much of my time.” Read more… »

The Herald has today editorialised its rancour against climate sceptics and repeated oft-heard unfounded criticisms (h/t – Andy). They make a couple of good points but so many blunders I’ve time for only a brief tour of them. Herald statements in green (emphasis added).

A year ago, James Hansen, one of the world’s top climate scientists, conceded that climate sceptics were winning the argument with the public over global warming. This, he said, was occurring even as climate science itself was showing ever more clearly that the Earth was in increasing danger from rising temperatures.

Just as Hansen didn’t justify his statement then, the leader writer doesn’t justify it now, Read more… »

Yesterday, on Marae Investigates, Mr Morgan was asked what he thought about Mr Key saying the King was wrong about Maori owning the water. He replied: “That once again says the Prime Minister is culturally ignorant, and that’s unfortunate.”

via King’s spokesman calls Key ‘culturally ignorant’ – NZ Herald News.

Next thing you know, they’ll be calling Key a “denier”. Then all who oppose them.

A thought-provoking post just went up at WUWT. It’s by Thomas Fuller concerning Stephan Lewandowsky’s ill-born “poll” of climate sceptics and his subsequent paper “revealing” them as believers in various wacky conspiracy theories. Fuller gives an electrifying insight into the attacks on sceptics as suffering a disease of the mind. For he cites a tactic from the days of slavery. Read more… »