tagged w/ climate gate
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Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been leaked onto the internet by a person – or persons – unknown. And as before, they show the "scientists" at the heart of the Man-Made Global Warming industry in a most unflattering light. Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, Keith Briffa – all your favourite Climategate characters are here, once again caught red-handed in a series of emails exaggerating the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming, while privately admitting to one another that the evidence is nowhere near as a strong as they'd like it to be.
In other words, what these emails confirm is that the great man-made global warming scare is not about science but about political activism. This, it seems, is what motivated the whistleblower 'FOIA 2011' (or "thief", as the usual suspects at RealClimate will no doubt prefer to tar him or her) to go public.
I particularly like the ones expressing deep reservations about the narrative put about by the IPCC:
/// The IPCC Process ///
Thorne/MetO:
Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical
troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a
wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the
uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these
further if necessary [...]
Thorne:
I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it
which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.
Carter:
It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much
talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by
a select core group.
Wigley:
Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of
dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [...]
Overpeck:
The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s
included and what is left out.
Overpeck:
I agree w/ Susan [Solomon] that we should try to put more in the bullet about
“Subsequent evidence” [...] Need to convince readers that there really has been
an increase in knowledge – more evidence. What is it?
And here's our friend Phil Jones, apparently trying to stuff the IPCC working groups with scientists favourable to his cause, while shutting out dissenting voices.
Jones:
Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital – hence my comment about
the tornadoes group.
Jones:
Useful ones [for IPCC] might be Baldwin, Benestad (written on the solar/cloud
issue – on the right side, i.e anti-Svensmark), Bohm, Brown, Christy (will be
have to involve him ?)
Here is what looks like an outrageous case of government – the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – actually putting pressure on climate "scientists" to talk up their message of doom and gloom in order to help the government justify its swingeing climate policies:
Humphrey/DEFRA:
I can’t overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a
message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell their
story. They want the story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made
to look foolish.
Here is a gloriously revealing string of emails in which activists and global warming research groups discuss how best to manipulate reality so that climate change looks more scary and dangerous than it really is:
Singer/WWF:
we as an NGO working on climate policy need such a document pretty soon for the
public and for informed decision makers in order to get a) a debate started and
b) in order to get into the media the context between climate
extremes/desasters/costs and finally the link between weather extremes and
energy
Torok/CSIRO:
[...] idea of looking at the implications of climate change for what he termed
“global icons” [...] One of these suggested icons was the Great Barrier Reef [...]
It also became apparent that there was always a local “reason” for the
destruction – cyclones, starfish, fertilizers [...] A perception of an
“unchanging” environment leads people to generate local explanations for coral
loss based on transient phenomena, while not acknowledging the possibility of
systematic damage from long-term climatic/environmental change [...] Such a
project could do a lot to raise awareness of threats to the reef from climate
change
Minns/Tyndall Centre:
In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public
relations problem with the media
Kjellen:
I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global
warming
Pierrehumbert:
What kind of circulation change could lock Europe into deadly summer heat waves
like that of last summer? That’s the sort of thing we need to think about.
more at link...
You call this science?Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been... more
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While waiting in the train station on my way out of San Francisco International Airport I noticed a group of business-casual people arriving in the city. The group was commenting on the carbon offset poster in the otherwise empty station. “Keep Our Skies Blue,” the poster read, with the message to buy air travel carbon offset credits at kiosks in the terminals. The loud-talker of the group didn’t understand the message of the poster, and it actually made him angry. “What are they trying to do?” he asked, suggesting that he thought it was some sort of San Francisco hippie exaggeration scam. He seemed more skeptical than inspired and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t going to be buying any carbon offsets. Observing the negative interaction between these travelers and the poster got me thinking about how can we better communicate messages of climate change.
British communications company Futerra has spent the past decade thinking about communicating sustainability messages and they’ve developed an approach based on the words of master salesman Elmer Wheeler, “Sell the sizzle, not the sausage.” If climate change is the sausage, then what’s the sizzle?
For a message of sustainability, the sizzle is a narrative that begins with a compelling vision of low-carbon “heaven.” Our communications must create a desirable picture in the minds of our audience of what a low-carbon future can look like. Creating this picture draws viewers into a world rather than alienating them with the typical visions of climate-change hell. It holds their attention long enough to get to the call to action, and doesn’t get immediately shut out by cynicism.
Our train-station poster attempts to sizzle with a lovely visual, but the generic blue-sky image failed to connect the campaign’s message to a personal situation. In addition, standing in the train station looking at the beautiful San Francisco sky, the poster failed to illustrate a clear difference between the reality of today and the potential of a low-carbon heaven.
To be successfully received, we must offer a clear vision of what the audience wants. Only then can we provide an action plan for what can be done in the near future (five years, not 20 or 30) to make it happen. We should make it clear to people that they have a choice—there are two paths to go down, one towards “heaven” and the other towards unmitigated climate change, and it’s up to them to decide.
The train-station poster does present an action item (buy carbon offsets) but it fails to give the viewer a choice of paths, or explain how buying carbon offsets would put them on one path or the other. The poster lacks a narrative and therefore fails to “sizzle.”
Post Continues: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/05/make-climate-change-sizzle/While waiting in the train station on my way out of San Francisco International... more
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The UK is likely to feel bigger costs from climate change than most other EU countries, a report concludes.
Rising sea levels are likely to impact the nation harder than most, negating economic benefits from increased tourism and possibly farm yields.
The findings come from a study funded by the European Commission, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
It projects a net cost for most EU nations, but a net benefit for a few.
more at link...
These people couldn't predict tomorrow's weather, but you'll still have to pay and even if hell freezes over it will be due to global warming. Once the agenda is set, these psychos will never deviate.The UK is likely to feel bigger costs from climate change than most other EU... more
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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao touched on energy issues in the bilateral summit between the two countries this week.
“I believe that as the two largest energy consumers and emitters of greenhouses gases, the United States and China have a responsibility to combat climate change by building on the progress at Copenhagen and Cancun, and showing the way to a clean energy future. And President Hu indicated that he agrees with me on this issue,” President Obama said during a Wednesday press conference.
But can the United States step up as a leader on clean energy? The proliferation of politicians whom The Nation’s Mark Hertsgaard calls “climate cranks” suggests otherwise.
The biggest consumers
In international climate negotiations, the United State and China are the two key players, and if the world as a whole is to move forward on combating climate change, agreement between Presidents Obama and Hu would be a huge breakthrough. Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard notes that Hu also said the United States and China would work together on climate changes, but, she writes, “I can imagine, though, that the conversation on this subject wasn’t entirely as chummy as the remarks would imply, however. The US last month lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization about China’s subsidies for clean energy, arguing that the country is unfairly stacking the deck in favor of their products.”
At AlterNet, Tina Gerhardt and Lucia Green-Weiskel explain the background to those tensions and to the U.S.’s protectionist bent on clean energy projects. They write, “Energy Secretary Chu recently framed the new relationship between the U.S. and China as a ‘Sputnik Moment.’ Referencing the first satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, which demonstrated its technological advantage and led to the Cold War-era space race, Chu warned that the U.S. risks falling behind China in the clean technology race.”
Stumbling blocks
China’s motivations for growing its clean energy sector may not be leafy green; new energy sources feed the country’s rapidly growing economy. But at least the country is committed to green energy sources, unlike our climate change-denying Congress. As Mark Hertsgaard argues at The Nation, this brand of American has become so pernicious, it’s time to stop adhering to the protocol that dubs them “climate deniers” and start calling them “climate cranks.” He explains:
True skepticism is invaluable to the scientific method, but an honest skeptic can be persuaded by facts, if they are sound. The cranks are impervious to facts, at least facts that contradict their wacky worldview. When virtually every national science academy in the developed world, including our own, and every major scientific organization (e.g., the American Geophysical Union, the American Physics Society) has affirmed that climate change is real and extremely dangerous, only a crank continues to insist that it’s all a left-wing plot.
Climate cranks attack
Unfortunately, climate cranks continue to interfere with both climate scientists and forward-thinking energy policy. At Change.org, Nikki Gloudeman writes about the ongoing saga of climate scientist Michael Mann, one of the climatologists embroiled in the Climategate brouhaha, who is still being attacked by climate-denying groups for his work. Gloudeman reports that although Mann has been investigated and found innocent of any misdeeds several times over, a group with a bias against climate change, the American Tradition Institute, is trying to obtain access to his work.
And in New Mexico, the state’s new conservative governor, Susana Martinez, “has attempted to subvert her own state constitution in order to stop [a] plan to begin reducing her state’s carbon emissions,” reports Dahr Jamail for Truthout. The plan, executed through state rules, would have reduced the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 3%, from 2010 levels, each year. The rules should have been made public, but Gov. Martinez kept them from being published, according to Truthout’s report. A local group, New Energy Economy, is fighting to implement them.
Bright spots
In some states, however, the clean energy economy is moving forward. As Care2’s Beth Buczynski reports, Clean Edge, a clean-tech advisory group, has identified the top ten states for clean energy leadership. They include California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.
“Rankings were derived from over 80 metrics including total electricity produced by clean-energy sources, hybrid vehicles on the road, and clean-energy venture and patent activity,” Buczynski reports.
And, as David Roberts writes at Grist, there is important work to be done at the local and regional level to both prepare for and prevent climate change. His preferred term for this challenge is “ruggedizing”—strengthening a community’s ability to respond to challenges brought on by climate change, such as flooding, droughts, or food shortages. The solutions to these problem, Roberts writes, often have the welcome side effect of decreasing carbon emissions, as well:
For instance, the residents of Brisbane are discovering that when disaster strikes, it’s not very handy to have everyone spread out all over the place and utterly dependent on cars to get anywhere. It’s more resilient to have people closer together, more able to walk or take shared transportation. It just so happens that also reduces vehicle emissions.
The advantage of this type of work—building the clean energy economy, ruggedizing communities—is that leaders don’t necessarily have to agree on the reality of climate change to move forward. But these are only partial solutions, and to address climate change on an international scale, the cranks will need to be quieted.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
President Obama and Chinese President Hu... more
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Nobel Peace Prize winner and champion climate campaigner Al Gore outlined the doom the world is awaiting because of climate change and expressed disappointment at world leaders failing to clinch a treaty to fight the new global terror. Terming the logjam in climate negotiations as a “startling paradox”, the man, whose documentary, The Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar said the year 2010 had seen worst of climate change.
“There was severe drought in Russia and extreme flooding in Pakistan. What more evidence is required for action,” he said at HT Leadership Summit.
His worst fear was that after failure of Copenhagen climate summit the talks where heading towards another “zombie” like the Doha process on World Trade Organisation negotiations. Gore’s solution for the problem was taking the issue back to the grassroots and creating a political storm to compel the leaders to react to climate change.
The former president blamed his own country United States – world second biggest carbon emitter -- for failing to legislate a carbon law to curb emissions, resulting in failure of Copenhagen.
“There are six anti-climate lobbyists for every member of the Senate," he said, adding that such interest groups backed by billions of dollars by polluting companies in US were making an organised attempt to change the public opinion on climate change.
"They believe that by deceiving people and creating false doubts climate science, they can delay the legislation," the Nobel Peace Prize winner for year 2007 with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said.
He like many leaders at the HT Summit had said that a solution to climate crises is not possible without involving business. For this, he recommended a price on carbon, which could be a carbon tax or a price for emissions higher than a particular level for each sector.
Al Gore had a lot of hope for India to take a lead in fighting climate change.
Read More:Nobel Peace Prize winner and champion climate campaigner Al Gore outlined the doom the... more
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Nobel Peace Prize winner and champion climate campaigner Al Gore outlined the doom the world is awaiting because of climate change and expressed disappointment at world leaders failing to clinch a treaty to fight the new global terror. Terming the logjam in climate negotiations as a 'startling paradox' the man, whose documentary, The Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar said the year 2010 had seen worst of climate change.
He like many leaders at the HT Summit had said that a solution to climate crises is not possible without involving business. For this, he recommended a price on carbon, which could be a carbon tax or a price for emissions higher than a particular level for each sector.
more at link...
Solution for Climate Crisis=Price on Carbon
'nuff said!Nobel Peace Prize winner and champion climate campaigner Al Gore outlined the doom the... more
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The UK’s leading scientific body has been forced to rewrite its guide on climate change and admit that it is not known how much warmer the Earth will become.
The Royal Society has updated its guide after 43 of its members complained that the previous version failed to take into account the opinion of climate change sceptics.
Now the new guide, called ‘Climate change: a summary of the science’, admits that there are some ‘uncertainties’ regarding the science behind climate change.
And it says that it impossible to know for sure how the Earth's climate will change in the future nor what the possible effects may be.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316469/Royal-Society-issues-new-climate-change-guide-admits-uncertainties.html#ixzz1140oDBKa
At least there's some aristocrats who want to save their intellectual reputation as 'Anthropogenic Global Warming' becomes exposed as a Ponzi Scheme to install a carbon tax to fund a World Government.The UK’s leading scientific body has been forced to rewrite its guide on climate... more
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ABSTRACT: The long term trends in monthly minimum temperature from 34 California weather stations have been analyzed. These trends can be explained using a variable linear urban heat island effect superimposed on a baseline trend from the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The majority of the prevailing California weather systems originate in the N. Pacific Ocean. The average minimum monthly temperature is a measure of the surface air temperature of these weather systems. Changes in minimum surface temperature are an indicator of changes in the temperature of the tropospheric air column, not the ground surface temperature. The PDO provides a baseline minimum temperature trend that defines the California climate variation. This allows urban heat island effects and other possible anomalous temperature measurement effects to be identified and investigated. Some of the rural weather stations showed no urban heat island effects. Stations located in urban areas showed heat island effects ranging from 0.01 to over 0.04 C.yr-1. The analysis of minimum temperature data using the PDO as a reference baseline has been demonstrated as a powerful technique for climate trend evaluation. This technique may be extended to other regions using the appropriate local ocean surface temperature reference. The analysis found no evidence for CO2 induced warming trends in the California data. This confirms prior ‘Null Hypothesis’ work that it is impossible for a 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration to cause any climate change.
CONCLUSIONS: The dominant factor that determines the climate of the State of California is the variation in N. Pacific Ocean temperatures related to the PDO. This has been clearly demonstrated by an analysis of the long term minimum temperature data from 34 widely spaced California weather stations. The PDO record provides a baseline that can be used to identify urban heat island effects and anomalous data in the station records. This provides a powerful technique for investigating climate change in California and may be extended to other Western States and other areas of the world where there is an ocean influence on the climate that may be used to provide a local reference. Unexplained ‘adjustments’ made to weather station records for use in climate trend analysis have now become a major concern.[7,8] This technique may also provide an independent reference for the analysis of climate trends in weather station data to detect such ‘adjustments’. This analysis used a simple linear fit to the station data. By combining the weather station data with other meteorological data and climate simulations, a more detailed analysis of the effect the PDO and other factors on the climate of the State of California may be performed. However, this is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach and each data set needs to be examined carefully on a case by case basis to evaluate all of the factors that may bias the data. These results also confirm earlier work which demonstrated that it was impossible for the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration to cause any climate change.[2] There is no CO2 ‘signature’ in any of the temperature records that were analyzed. The recent decrease in the PDO with the triple peak ‘signature’ from 1985 onwards is clearly visible in most of the temperature data sets. Predictions for CO2 induced global warming indicate a monotonically increasing ‘equilibrium surface temperature’ for this period. The empirical concept of CO2 induced global warming has no basis in the physical reality of climate change.
Note: Dr. Roy Clark's work on the CO2 'null hypothesis' is incorporated in the post Why greenhouse gases won't heat the oceansABSTRACT: The long term trends in monthly minimum temperature from 34 California... more
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THE world’s leading climate change body has been accused of losing credibility after a damning report into its research practices.
A high-level inquiry into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found there was “little evidence” for its claims about global warming.
It also said the panel had emphasised the negative impacts of climate change and made “substantive findings” based on little proof.
The review by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was launched after the IPCC’s hugely embarrassing 2007 benchmark climate change report, which contained exaggerated and false claims that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035.
*** DEBATE: IS CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING JUST A CON?...***
The panel was forced to admit its key claim in support of global warming was lifted from a 1999 magazine article. The report was based on an interview with a little-known Indian scientist who has since said his views were “speculation” and not backed by research.
Independent climate scientist Peter Taylor said last night: “The IPCC’s credibility has been deeply dented and something has to be done. It can’t just be a matter of adjusting the practices. They have got to look at what are the consequences of having got it wrong in terms of what the public think is going on. Admitting that it needs to reform means something has gone wrong and they really do need to look at the science.”
Climate change sceptic David Holland, who challenged leading climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia to disclose their research, said: “The panel is definitely not fit for purpose. What the IAC has said is substantial changes need to be made.”
The IAC, which comprises the world’s top science academies including the UK’s Royal Society, made recommendations to the IPCC to “enhance its credibility and independence” after the Himalayan glaciers report, which severely damaged the reputation of climate science.
It condemned the panel – set up by the UN to ensure world leaders had the best scientific advice on climate change – for its “slow and inadequate response” after the damaging errors emerged.
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/196642
Among the blunders in the 2007 report were claims that 55 per cent of the Netherlands was below sea level when the figure is 26 per cent.
It also claimed that water supplies for between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa will be at risk by 2020 due to climate change, but the real range is between 90 and 220 million.
The claim that glaciers would melt by 2035 was also rejected.
Professor Julian Dowdeswell of Cambridge University said: “The average glacier is 1,000ft thick so to melt one at 15ft a year would take 60 years. That is faster than anything we are seeing now so the idea of losing it all by 2035 is unrealistic.”
In yesterday’s report, the IAC said: “The IPCC needs to reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures to handle ever larger and increasingly complex climate assessments as well as the more intense public scrutiny coming from a world grappling with how to respond to climate change.”
The review also cast doubt on the future of IPCC chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri.
Earlier this year, the Daily Express reported how he had no climate science qualifications but held a PhD in economics and was a former railway engineer.
Dr Pachauri has been accused of a conflict of interest, which he denies, after it emerged that he has business interests attracting millions of pounds in funding. One, the Energy Research Institute, is set to receive up to £10million in grants from taxpayers over the next five years.
Speaking after the review was released yesterday, Dr Pachauri said: “We have the highest confidence in the science behind our assessments.
“The scientific community agrees that climate change is real. Greenhouse gases have increased as a result of human activities and now far exceed pre-industrial values.”THE world’s leading climate change body has been accused of losing credibility... more
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(follow the link and read the entire article, below is the last few paragraphs)
Science as a contact sport
This is the difference between doing science from the inside and observing it from the outside. We attack each other's ideas mercilessly, and those attacks are not ignored. Sometimes, it turns out that the objection was the result of a misunderstanding, and once the misunderstanding is cleared up, the objection goes away. Objections that are relevant result in ideas being discarded or modified. And the key to this is that the existence of confirmation bias is both acknowledged and actively fought against.
You will note that in the two clear cases of confirmation bias, once it was confirmed, scientists stopped pursuing the claim. Those that continued to try and publish were quickly isolated. In the third case, we see how hard it can be to detect confirmation bias. Nevertheless, the debate surrounding the work remains robust, and new evidence is presented as it becomes available. Critically, neither side of the debate is actively suppressed.
This is why I have been using the term "denier." If you carefully examine the debate in the climate science community, you will find that objections are considered carefully and seriously—even the ones that originate from the likes of McIntyre and McKitrick. However, once a problem is addressed to the point where another problem is bigger, scientists move on.
Deniers, however, do not move on. Even if the objection is shown to be completely spurious—for instance, creationists often falsely claim that evolution is in conflict with the second law of thermodynamics—deniers do not give them up. In effect, this means that anything you say and do to help them understand your work is ignored completely. This is why some figures in the climate debate end up the denier camp and outside the science camp.(follow the link and read the entire article, below is the last few paragraphs)... more
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http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/06/13/the-ipcc-consensus-on-climate-change-was-phoney-says-ipcc-insider/
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.
“Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism.”
Hulme, Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia – the university of Climategate fame — is the founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and one of the UK’s most prominent climate scientists. Among his many roles in the climate change establishment, Hulme was the IPCC’s co-ordinating Lead Author for its chapter on ‘Climate scenario development’ for its Third Assessment Report and a contributing author of several other chapters.
Hulme’s depiction of IPCC’s exaggeration of the number of scientists who backed its claim about man-made climate change can be found on pages 10 and 11 of his paper, found here.
Financial Post
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and the author of The Deniers.
Club of Rome documents in the 1960s show that the whole global warming movement is nothing but NWO propaganda.http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/06/13/the-ipcc-consensus-on-climate-change-was... more
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Greenpeace To Global Warming Skeptics: “We Know Where You Live”
Will CNN and MSNBC devote weeks of endless coverage to the violent extremist threat posed by radical greenies?
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 5, 2010
An article carried by the official Greenpeace website written by a Greenpeace member urges climate activists to resort to criminal activity in an effort to reinvigorate momentum for their stalling global warming agenda, while ominously threatening climate skeptics, “we know where you live”.
Greenpeace Threatens Global Warming Doubters: “We Know Where You Live”…VIDEO...http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/greenpeace-threatens-global-warming-doubters-%E2%80%9Cwe-know-where-you-live%E2%80%9D-video/Greenpeace To Global Warming Skeptics: “We Know Where You Live”
Will... more
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http://www.prisonplanet.com/climategate-investigation-a-monumental-whitewash.html
One down, two to go: First “investigation” into data fixing scandal clears scientists, says warming is real
A Parliamentary investigation into the climategate scandal has cleared the scientists involved of any data fixing and subversion of the peer review process, and notes that the scandal provides no evidence to challenge the notion that human activity is causing catastrophic global warming.
The House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee Report (PDF), the first of three investigations into climategate, produced its report after only a single day of oral testimony.
The report concludes that UN IPCC affiliated scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, led by director Phil Jones (pictured at the hearing), did not tamper with data in an effort to exaggerate the threat of global warming.
The Report states that “The scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact”.
The committee added that it found nothing sinister in Jones’ use of the words “hide the decline” and “trick” with regards to data on temperature changes.
The committee contends that when Jones stated “hide the decline” in an email to his colleagues, he was referring to discarding erroneous data, rather than deliberately concealing it.
The report also states that Jones’ use of the word ‘trick’ “appears to be a colloquialism for a ‘neat’ method of handling data.”
The Committee pulled this explanation from testimony by the CRU itself, which stated:
…as for the (now notorious) word ‘trick’, so deeply appealing to the media, this has been richly misinterpreted and quoted out of context. It was used in an informal email, discussing the difficulties of statistical presentation. It does not mean a ‘ruse’ or method of deception. In context it is obvious that it is used in the informal sense of ‘the best way of doing something’. In this case it was ‘the trick or knack’ of constructing a statistical illustration which would combine the most reliable proxy and instrumental evidence of temperature trends.
Scientist Steve McIntyre, who is mentioned over 100 times in the hacked emails has consistently explained how this explanation is insufficient and falls flat on its face.
On his blog, Climate Audit, McIntyre rebuts the Parliamentary Committee’s conclusion, noting:
“Contrary to [the University of East Anglia's] claims, there is no valid statistical procedure supporting the substitution of tree ring proxy,”
“This is absurd.” McIntyre added, “The trick was not a “neat” way of handling data, nor a recognized form of statistical analysis. The trick was a clever way of tricking the readers of the IPCC 2001 graphic into receiving a false rhetorical impression of the coherency of proxies – a point understood at the beginning by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, but now misunderstood due to continued disinformation.”
McIntyre points out that at no time did even the CRU itself contend that any of its data was “erroneous”, so to conclude that it had to dispose of such data is ludicrous:
In addition, their suggestion that Jones and others were doing nothing more than “discarding data known to be erroneous” is simply absurd. There was no testimony to the Committee (nor has it ever been suggested) that the tree ring data was measured incorrectly or that the data was “erroneous” – the data is what it is. The tree ring data goes down instead of up – but that doesn’t make it “erroneous”. It only means that the data is a bad proxy – something that was concealed from IPCC readers.
McIntyre submitted notes to the Science and Technology Committee on this very detail of the matter, however, it seems his detailed description has been completely disregarded.
The idea that the “trick” was not to conceal data that was out of step with the scientists warming thesis also falls down when you consider that the code within the CRU’s climate models prove that temperature numbers were “artificially adjusted” to hide the decline in global warming since the 1960’s.
This information was leaked along with the inflammatory emails referring to it and provides the real smoking gun. However, predictably, there is no mention of the coding in the STC report....http://www.prisonplanet.com/climategate-investigation-a-monumental-whitewash.html... more
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Dagum
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Happy week after Thanksgiving!! If you are already planning your local organic Christmas dinner, you may get a kick out of the farm tour we took during our search exploration of how to purchase a sustainably raised and consciously killed turkey.
Last I checked, there were over 120 comments about the fact that the USDA designated PETA as a terrorist organization.
Remember that great little video, The Story of Stuff? The creators recently came out with a new video that uses the same model for storytelling, The Story of Cap and Trade. It's been met with mixed reviews, tell us what you think:
There have been a lot of questions about the emails that were stolen from the British scientist regarding the validity of global warming being a man made occurrence. I was driving across the bay bridge the other day when I got to thinking about blind spots, and how it feels like we're being side swiped when stories like Climate Gate appear in the headlines. If you haven't been able to follow the story, Here is a simple recap and links to some stellar explanations and assessments of the situation. But don't take my word for it~ John Stewart finally came out with a few wise words for the scientists involved.
If you are need of a little upper after that story, well then you'll probably get a kick out of the latest Internet meme: lol cats for climate change. The founder of this website actually requested that I keep his identity a secret (I love secrets). I can tell you it's wasn't founded by Al Gore, but you should know that the person who founded the site is perhaps one of the most driven and dedicated to climate change journalists I know~ and it's good to see that they are finding an outlet for...the softer things in life.
Current Green will be featuring guest bloggers who are attending the Copenhagen climate talks, so if you or someone you know want to guest blog, please send them our way.
And last but not lease, if you find yourself desiring a new way to communicate with your favorite 13 year old, I will leave you with this video opinion about how How Twilight, True Blood, and Buffy are teaching me how to live sustainably and save the planet.
Happy week after Thanksgiving!! If you are already planning your local organic... more
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leahl
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On the days that I drive to San Francisco, I pick up carpoolers. This means I get to play frogger across 5 lanes of traffic to get into the car pool lane. For the few moments it takes to cross the five lanes of traffic all parts of my brain are engaged at once, I am looking ahead, looking behind, and always checking my blind spot. You never know what's going to show up in the blind spot. I got to thinking it's just like working on climate change issues: a constant examination of history, a constant process of visioning the future, and a constant process of checking your blind spot.
The recent scandal that is being referred to as Climate Gate was hiding in the blind spot. The very concept that all of the information we have been basing our stories, our Public Service Announcements, our policies, and most important, our fears upon could be wrong....well that just wasn't on the itinerary.
I have received shocked and at times annoyed requests from the Current Green community about why I didn't jump on this story. And frankly, I mean REALLY FRANKLY, I didn't think it deserved any time. Because really:
Even if it were true, that there are scientists out there who are suppressing information that global warming is not created by humans, does it change anything?
I still go to my faucet and get dirty water, I still go to the fish market and know that we are over fishing the oceans and that the majority of the fish have poisons in them and are dangerous to eat. I still know that the air I am breathing is the cleanest it has been since the 1980's due to the clean air act cutting down on emissions, I still know that the majority of the vegetables made available to most Americans are made from genetically modified seeds, and I still know that the rate of consumption is filling the oceans with plastics. I hate to be Debbie Downer, but really, even if the temperature isn't rising because of human impact, we still have a plethora of critical issues that need to be addressed pronto.
Now that last paragraph just summed up my greatest fear: that people will make the association that human impact on the environment is the same as human impact on climate change. The two issues are so woven together they are nearly impossible to separate. So lets play a game of make-believe. Let's pretend that climate change is not created by humans.
You might be thinking, I don't want to play a game of make-believe. Cut to the chase, what do I need to know? Ok, well fine. Here are the basics:
Josh Nelson of Enviroknow posted a stellar piece, and I appreciated his concise breakdown of info you are probably curious about:
The scientific consensus on climate change remains strong.
The impacts of catastrophic climate change continue to rear their ugly head.
Hacking into private computer files is illegal.
All of the emails were taken out of context.
The story is being pushed by far-right conspiracy theorists.
Scientists are human beings and they talk frankly amongst themselves.
Now you might be thinking, But what's the story and how did this all go down?
1. An undisclosed group hacked into the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England and publicized over 1,000 emails.
2. A majority of them were nit picky gossipy emails. (Can we say embarrassing?) About 40 of them openly discuss the data and how they disagree or want to influence it.
So you might be thinking...I took a basic statistics class in college and know that every number I look at whether it be about business, Wall Street, or climate stats is manipulated in one way or another...Whats all the hoopla about?
There is an uproar that there are people out there who will financially gain in the process of developing new economic systems that support efforts to make a cleaner planet. And of course, if some people will gain, others are set to lose.
But don't let me influence your ideas...let these guys at it: Josh Nelson has led the way in reclaiming the term "climate gate" and has renamed the event "swifthack" which is essentially what happened.
David Roberts of Grist magazine posted a comprehensive discussion on the ramifications of this event, and recently added commentary form an interview on Washington Post with science historian Spencer Weart:
The theft and use of the emails does reveal something interesting about the social context. It’s a symptom of something entirely new in the history of science: Aside from crackpots who complain that a conspiracy is suppressing their personal discoveries, we’ve never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance.
Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers. In blogs, talk radio and other new media, we are told that the warnings about future global warming issued by the national science academies, scientific societies, and governments of all the leading nations are not only mistaken, but based on a hoax, indeed a conspiracy that must involve thousands of respected researchers.
Kevin Granada posted an interview with Michael Mann on Huffington Post. Mann is one of the scientists discussed in the emails, and discussed the emails and what they meant.
And Brian Merchant wrote an articulate piece that included the following points:
...It seems that many skeptics have been so eager to have the theory of anthropogenic global warming 'proven' false they haven't bothered to construct a viable motive for their conspiracies, which are often led by Al Gore and now the scientists at the CRU. Either that, or they simply aren't considering anything at all--their denial is a prolonged reaction against something they feel will cause an infringement upon their personal freedoms, and has no true logical basis.
It's one thing to disagree with the conclusions drawn from studies, believe that more research needs to be done, or deny the findings--it's quite another to actually feel that there's an ill-meaning cabal of elite scientists who are constructing a vast conspiracy. But that's what some people actually believe--
....People's concerns that global warming will force them to give up luxuries and comforts, and will lead to government regulation, has obviously been targeted by oil and coal companies. But while they can stir fear, and spread doubt, one thing they cannot do is provide a valid reason why scientists--the vast majority of those in the field--should conspire to push a hoax onto the international community....
What should we be paying attention to?
The timing of course. Just moments before Copenhagen, one of the most critical meetings in history that will determine world wide policy and the roles and responsibility our countries play regarding the health of our planet... there are people planting seeds of doubt that what we are seeing on the planet isn't created by human activity.
What we are witnessing is people who are deeply entrenched in denial. What makes my skin crawl in fear, is that there are people, organizations, and media companies who are willing to put there time, energy, and money into distracting you from focusing on one of the most important issues of our time: holding your political and business leaders accountable for developing systems and policy that will guarantee that we do not destroy the planet we are living on.
But if you want to go on and freak out about about a few emails from some scientists, go right ahead. I'll freak out with you. I'll sit with you in a pool of concern that there are scientists all over the planet who report that there research is saying one thing, and we are going to give all of our attention to this small group of scientists. I'm going to go play make-believe that they didn't feel so desperate to make their point they were willing to bend the rules and provide just enough fuel to create a very large distraction.
I'm going to make believe that it's ok that Fox news is attacking people who are working to create a safe and healthy planet.
I'm going to play make believe that I'm not confused by the fact that anyone is surprised.
I'm going to play make-believe that this isn't what I'm really thinking right now: Scientific evidence is complex. Remember? They taught that to you in your math class when they showed you how all numbers and statistics are manipulated. And if you didn't know that, stop pointing fingers at Al Gore, scientists, and lobbyist, and start pointing fingers at your government if you didn't receive the education that teaches and develops critical thinking skills you need to survive in the world we live in.
(this post was updated on Nov 1)
Related Content:
Battle Strategy of the eco movement music video (complete with diagrams and floating heads)
Finally, a video that explains Copenhagen: Can you?
On the days that I drive to San Francisco, I pick up carpoolers. This means I get to... more
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leahl
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36018807/ns/travel-tips/
Attention travelers and aliens assigned to monitor our planet from outer space: you may notice major landmarks, tourist attractions, and large areas of many cities and towns around the world going dark for an hour on March 27.
Do not be alarmed. It’s just Earth Hour, a rolling, global black-out designed to draw attention to climate change. First organized in Sydney, Australia back in 2007, during last year’s Earth Hour there were voluntary lights-out events in 87 countries. This year, millions of people, more than 115 countries, thousands of cities and hundreds of major attractions and landmarks worldwide have pledged to switch off the lights for an hour as well.
The carefully choreographed event will kick off Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. local time in New Zealand’s Chatham Islands and then follow time zones around the globe, ending with an hour of darkness in the South Pacific island of Samoa almost 25 hours later. And no matter where you stand on the issue of global warming or the ability of a single, simple event to make a difference, it will be impressive to see so many usually-lit places go dark, if just for an hour.
Where will the lights go out?
The World Wildlife Fund, which organizes Earth Hour, announced earlier this week that there are 45 participating national monuments and landmarks, so far, from the United States alone. Event spokesman Jonathan Barnes says more cities and attractions from around the world are joining every day, and he expects some to be added up to the very last minute. Be sure to check the event Web site if your favorite spot makes it on the list.
more at link...
The World Wildlife Fund is a Rockefeller tax haven and eugenics front group of the New World Order. 115 puppet governments are subject to a blackout drill under the guise of the scientific fraud known as "Climate Change" aka "Global Warming" or "AGW." The name changes as more of the scam gets exposed. This test run acclimates the public to having their power shut off without revolt.
What the WWF really wants you to do is die, but first they'll take your money as they set up their 1 world government and global police state. These eco-fascist watermelons (enviro-green shell, commie-red core, filled with black pits of death) are pulling off the greatest con of all time; its all fake. Wake up!http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36018807/ns/travel-tips/
Attention travelers and aliens... more
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Green Fuels Cause More Harm Than Fossil Fuels, According to Report…
Ny Times
Environment Editor
Using fossil fuel in vehicles is better for the environment than so-called green fuels made from crops, according to a government study seen by The Times.
For the Full Story and FACTS On Fossil Fuel Vs. Green Energy....VIDEO.... VIDEO... VIDEO....http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/fact-green-fuels-cause-more-harm-than-fossil-fuels-according-to-report/
The findings show that the Department for Transport’s target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations. The study, likely to force a review of the target, concludes that some of the most commonly-used biofuel crops fail to meet the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission.Green Fuels Cause More Harm Than Fossil Fuels, According to Report…
Ny Times... more
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Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995
By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 5:12 PM on 14th February 2010
* Data for vital ‘hockey stick graph’ has gone missing
* There has been no global warming since 1995
* Warming periods have happened before – but NOT due to man-made changes
The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.
for the full story on Professor Phil Jones " No Warming since 1995" ClimateGate Hoax...http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/climategate-top-scientist-phil-jones-at-center-of-scandal-admits-there-has-been-no-global-warming-since-1995-wtf/
Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.
Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global... more
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Trump cool to global warning
Donald Trump gave a public lashing of Al Gore because of his endorsement of global warming. He said the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Peace Prize back from Gore.
For tho Full Story...on Trump vs Gore... Capitalism doomed?? Photos... VIDEO!!!...http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/donald-trump-climate-campaigner-al-gore-should-be-stripped-of-nobel-peace-prize/
As reported in the New York Post, Trump recently made these remarks at a speech to the members of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester:
Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming, when China and other countries couldn’t care less. It would make us totally noncompetitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America’s stupidity.Trump cool to global warning
Donald Trump gave a public lashing of Al Gore... more
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–-now-it’s-greenpeace-reports-in-the-ipcc-ar4.html
http://www.product-reviews.net/wp-content/userimages/2008/01/greenpeace-questions.jpg
Donna Laframboise, who gave us the list of World Wildlife Fund non peer reviewed studies cited in the IPCC AR4 continues to make lists. Here’s her latest list. Those calm, rational, thoughtful folks at Greenpeace seem to have had a significant hand in the IPCC climate bible.
She writes [3]:
Considered the climate Bible by governments around the world, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is meant to be [4] a scientific analysis of the most authoritative research.
Instead, it references literature generated by Greenpeace – an organization known more for headline-grabbing publicity stunts than sober-minded analysis. (Eight IPCC-cited Greenpeace publications are listed at the bottom of this post.)
In one section [5] of this Nobel-winning report, climate change is linked to coral reef degradation. The sole source for this claim? A Greenpeace report titled “Pacific in Peril” (see Hoegh-Guldberg [6] below). Here [7] the report relies on a Greenpeace document to establish the lower-end of an estimate involving solar power plants (Aringhoff [8]).
Read more at her blog here. [3] In the meantime, here’s the list:
GREENPEACE-GENERATED LITERATURE CITED BY THE 2007 NOBEL-WINNING IPCC REPORT
* Aringhoff, R., C. Aubrey, G. Brakmann, and S. Teske, 2003: Solar thermal power 2020, Greenpeace International/European Solar Thermal Power Industry Association, Netherlands
* ESTIA, 2004: Exploiting the heat from the sun to combat climate change. European Solar Thermal Industry Association and Greenpeace, Solar Thermal Power 2020, UK
* Greenpeace, 2004: http://www.greenpeace.org.ar/cop10ing/SolarGeneration.pdf [9] accessed 05/06/07
* Greenpeace, 2006: Solar generation. K. McDonald (ed.), Greenpeace International, Amsterdam
* GWEC, 2006: Global wind energy outlook. Global Wind Energy Council, Bruxelles and Greenpeace, Amsterdam, September, 56 pp., accessed 05/06/07
* Hoegh-Guldberg, O., H. Hoegh-Guldberg, H. Cesar and A. Timmerman, 2000: Pacific in peril: biological, economic and social impacts of climate change on Pacific coral reefs. Greenpeace, 72 pp.
* Lazarus, M., L. Greber, J. Hall, C. Bartels, S. Bernow, E. Hansen, P. Raskin, and D. Von Hippel, 1993: Towards a fossil free energy future: the next energy transition. Stockholm Environment Institute, Boston Center, Boston. Greenpeace International, Amsterdam.
* Wind Force 12, 2005: Global Wind Energy Council and Greenpeace, http://www.gwec.net/index.php?id=8 [10], accessed 03/07/07–-now-it’s-greenpeace-reports-in-the-ipcc-ar4.html... more
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