Image Credit : Hobos 4 Life

Oo, it’s so hard knowing which version of reality to plump for, if you have to judge by the headlines alone.

These articles were published on the same day, based on the same report from the Meteorological Office, in different high quality newspapers :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/26/global-warming-met-office

“World is warming quicker than thought in past decade, says Met Office : Report comes as scientists predict 2010 could be hottest year on record : Damian Carrington, The Guardian, Friday 26 November 2010 : The world warmed more rapidly than previously thought over the past decade, according to a Met Office report published today, which finds the evidence for man-made climate change has grown even stronger over the last year…”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8159991/Global-warming-has-slowed-because-of-pollution.html

“Global warming has slowed because of pollution : Global warming has slowed in the last decade, according to the Met Office, as the world pumps out so much pollution it is reflecting the sun’s rays and causing a cooling effect. By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent, 26 Nov 2010 : The latest figures from more than 20 scientific institutions around the world show that global temperatures are higher than ever. However the gradual rise in temperatures over the last 30 years is slowing slightly. Global warming since the 1970s has been 0.16C (0.3F) but the rise in the last decade was just 0.05C (0.09F), according to the Met Office. Sceptics claim this as evidence man made global warming is a myth…”

I think I’ll go with Damian Carrington’s version, because at least he mentions more than one possible reason for why Global Warming hasn’t been accelerating as much in the last decade as the ones immediately prior.

Despite the slow down in acceleration, the temperatures are still rising, so there’s no need to use the word “cooling” in Louise Gray’s sub-heading.

And there’s no reason at all for Louise to mention the anti-science so-called “sceptics”, who are actually deniers. They would deny the Moon was made of rock, if they could manipulate the tiniest piece of evidence, or twist the most innocent of words, to make it appear that there were uncertainties about the exact composition of the samples taken from Earth’s satellite by the NASA astronauts.

There is still an outside probability that the Moon could be made of cheese, folks, according to the type of argument put forward by the sceptic-deniers.

But as we all know, that’s impossible, because the Moon landings were faked, and in fact, the Moon is only painted onto the sky dome, as it isn’t actually there any more as it was removed during an undocumented altercation between nuclear states some time in the 1990s.

Well, it would seem the wheels have definitely come off the Climate Change sceptic-denier trolley bus, and the passengers are raving, and metaphorically drowning in their own pus-riddled intellectual bile, judging by the spluttered, splattered comments I am receiving on this web log.

Wegman is going down (the anti-science, anti-Hockey Stick Wegman Report, you understand, not the man himself) – and I mean down; down to the depths of dissmissal and reproach, and scorn mountains will be heaped, and his “strange scholarship” will be ribbed and ridiculed and his assertions and claims fobbed off for ever more, it seems, by those whose opinions really count :-

http://deepclimate.org/2010/11/16/replication-and-due-diligence-wegman-style/

http://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/

http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/11/turns-out-climate-skeptics-favorite.html

“Turns out climate skeptics’ favorite report (the Wegman Report) might not be as scientific as Congressman Joe Barton claims…”

We’re talking pit-wise plumbing here, the nether reaches of the pile of tried-and-rejected hypotheses. We’re talking dearie-dearie-me, what a mess have we got here, then ? :-

http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/21/wegman-exposed-experts-find-shocking-plagiarism-in-2006-climate-report-requested-by-joe-barton-r-tx/

Michael Mann was right. You, dear sceptic-deniers, are wrong. Even the Daily Mail newspaper says so, and don’t retort that, of course, the Daily Maelstrom is not exactly the Source of All Validity, and testily question why I trust the Daily Maul when it agrees with me, and not otherwise :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1332347/Influential-climate-change-report-copied-Wikipedia.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

“Influential climate change report ‘was copied from Wikipedia’ : By DAILY MAIL REPORTER : 23rd November 2010 : Research questioning the validity of global warming was copied from Wikipedia and textbooks, it has been claimed. A report by statistician Edward Wegman criticised earlier research led by scientist Michael Mann that said global temperatures were highest in the last century than the previous 1,000 years. But according to plagiarism experts, ‘significant’ sections of the 91-page report were lifted from ‘textbooks, Wikipedia and the writings of one of the scientists criticised in the report’…”

You can take or leave your truth universe, and the Daily Mall certainly does that, but I’ll stick with the data, thanks, the hard-won, carefully-kept, un-fudged, un-compromised actual measurements…

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/all-that-data/

What does it all mean ?

It means that Climate Change is real, it’s happening now, the scientists who are part of the United Nations consensus are right, that burning fossil fuels is definitely a big, big problem, that we are all in trouble, as a species and as part of the wider biosphere, that somehow, very soon, we have to cap and control greenhouse gas emissions, and bring them down sharply, or the grandchildren can forget a decent habitat.

Do you want your grandchildren to be deprived of decent homes, decent livelihoods and a decent quality of life ? Or do you want to invest in the future ?

One Million Climate Jobs, Now ! Better still, make that 500 Million Climate Jobs :-

http://www.climate-change-jobs.org/node/14

Anybody who tells you the Earth is not warming, and the Arctic Ice Cap is not melting before our very satellite viewing sensors is just building a mountain of spittle and froth – a fairy castle of vindictive fakery.

You have been blowing bubbles, you sceptics and deniers – and the bubble edifice has now irreparably, irrevocably burst. Watch out for falling drips of vitriolic slime and saliva – your own, of course !

Predictably, sadly, Niall Firth writing for the Daily Mail, appears to have read a press briefing from Nigel Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, and proceeds to repeat errors :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316469/Royal-Society-issues-new-climate-change-guide-admits-uncertainties.html

“Royal Society issues new climate change guide that admits there are ‘uncertainties’ about the science : By NIALL FIRTH : 30th September 2010…”

First up, the reporter documents the false claim that the Royal Society was “forced” to make changes to its public guidance on Climate Change science because of the views of the sceptic-deniers. Nothing could be more flimsy an assertion :-

“…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…”

Well, actually, the reason the Royal Society has been persuaded to issue new Climate Change guidance is because people (including Niall Firth, apparently) do not appear to have understood the science of Climate Change, as they have been listening to the inaccuracies put forward by the sceptic-deniers.

The aim of this new guidance is to try to make the bare bones of Climate Change science more readable, more accessible for people like Niall Firth, who seem to find it hard to listen to warnings of real dangers.

Another reason why the Royal Society have put out new guidance on Climate Change is that they were accused of seeking to dictate governmental policy in their previous publications.

The accusation of “activists” from the sceptic-deniers appears to have stuck, and so the Royal Society have tried to separate science from policy recommendations and advocacy of particular courses of action with this new publication.

Niall Firth makes much of the “admission” of uncertainty, even though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, has repeatedly pointed out the areas of uncertainty in the science.

And Niall Firth seems to completely fail to understand that the most significant parts of the science are broadly settled :-

“The UK’s leading scientific body has been forced [...] admit that it is not known how much warmer the Earth will become….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. The 19-page guide says: ’It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future, but careful estimates of potential changes and associated uncertainties have been made. Scientists continue to work to narrow these areas of uncertainty. Uncertainty can work both ways, since the changes and their impacts may be either smaller or larger than those projected.’…”

If you read the Royal Society guidance, which I guess Niall Firth has not, you can see that there is a general acceptance that the most likely outcome is more warming, although it is not clear how much more warming is coming our way.

It’s already bad. It’s going to get worse. We just don’t know exactly how much worse that worse is. Partly because we don’t know when humankind is going to stop excess Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

The Royal Society guidance allows for possible cooling influences from known and unknown sources, but its main message is that there will be increasing warmth.

Niall Firth regurgitates the views of Benny Peiser, social anthropologist, employee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, without a trace of doubt :-

“…Benny Peiser, Director of The Global Warming Policy Foundation also welcomed the Royal Society’s decision to revise….’The Royal Society now also agrees with the GWPF that the warming trend of
the 1980s and 90s has come to a halt in the last 10 years.’…”

I beg your pardon ?

I’ve read the Royal Society guidance twice, and I find no mention that backs up Benny Peiser’s claim that “the warming trend of the 1980s and 90s has come to a halt in the last 10 years”.

That, I’m afraid, is utter fabrication.

What the guidance does say in paragraph 22 is :-

“When [...] surface temperatures are averaged over periods of a decade, to remove some of the year-to-year variability, each decade since the 1970s has been clearly warmer (given known uncertainties) than the one immediately preceding it. The decade 2000-2009 was, globally, around 0.15 degrees C warmer than the decade 1990-1999.”

Niall Firth needs to make corrections, in my view.

The Royal Society today publishes its latest layman’s summary of Climate Change, and thankfully manages to avoid several representational pitfalls that sceptic-deniers could have leapt on and said “See ! We told you !”

http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/

Unfortunately, to my mind, it still has a few chinks in the door that should have slammed shut and permanently sealed off the sceptic-denier “contributions” on the subject.

Let’s look at the Royal Society narrative of progress by degrees, for example.

In section 28, “Aspects of climate change on which there is wide agreement : Climate forcing by greenhouse gas changes”, it reads :-

“…Application of established physical principles shows that, even in the absence of processes that amplify or reduce climate change [...], the climate sensitivity would be around 1 degree C, for a doubling of CO2 [Carbon Dioxide] concentrations [in the atmosphere]…”

The related material in section 36, “Aspects of climate change where there is a wide consensus but continuing debate and discussion : Climate sensitivity”, goes on to talk about how global warming causes changes in the hydrological cycle, and how water vapour builds up in the atmosphere because of global warming, leading to further global warming :-

“…The more complex climate models, supported by observations, allow climate sensitivity to be calculated in the presence of processes that amplify or reduce the size of the climate response. Increases in water vapour alone, in response to warming, are estimated to approximately double the climate sensitivity from its value in the absence of amplifying processes. There nevertheless remain uncertainties in how much water vapour amounts will change, and how these changes will be distributed in the atmosphere, in response to a warming. Climate models indicate that the overall climate sensitivity (for a hypothetical doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere) is likely to lie in the range 2 degrees C to 4.5 degrees C; this range is mainly due to the difficulties in simulating the overall effect of the response of clouds to climate change mentioned earlier…”

Section 28 is at fault in my mind in three aspects :-

1. The IPCC Working Group 1 review of the science, which is the first of only two formal references in the new Royal Society guidance, makes clear that the likely influence of doubling Carbon Dioxide concentrations, with no other contributions included, would be a global warming of 1.2 degrees C, not 1 degree C :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-2.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-2-3.html

“…In the idealised situation that the climate response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 consisted of a uniform temperature change only, with no feedbacks operating (but allowing for the enhanced radiative cooling resulting from the temperature increase), the global warming from GCMs would be around 1.2 degrees C (Hansen et al., 1984; Bony et al., 2006)…”

2. The second reason that section 28 is at fault is because of what the IPCC says directly afterwards :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-2.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-2-3.html

“…The water vapour feedback, operating alone on top of this [the calculation from basic physics of the effect of doubling Carbon Dioxide], would at least double the response. The water vapour feedback is, however, closely related to the lapse rate feedback [...], and the two combined result in a feedback parameter of approximately 1 W m–2 degrees C–1 [Watts per square metre per degree Celsius], corresponding to an amplification of the basic temperature response by approximately 50%. The surface albedo feedback amplifies the basic response by about 10%, and the cloud feedback does so by 10 to 50% depending on the GCM [General Circulation Model or Global Climate Model]…”

Section 28 should at least have mentioned that more water vapour residing in the atmosphere is an inevitable result of global warming, and that this will compound the warming.

Adding Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere is not happening in isolation from any other effect. Because the Earth has an atmosphere, increased Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has a warming effect. This automatically and naturally has an effect on the composition of the atmosphere through changes in the cycling of water between the Earth surface, the oceans and the atmosphere. You don’t get one without the other.

It’s a bit ridiculous to suggest that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere could have an effect all by itself – it’s bound to cause an increase in the temperature of the Earth’s surface, which is bound to cause an increase in water vapour concentrations in the Atmosphere.

Global Warming from Carbon Dioxide is not going to be “in the absence of amplifying processes.”

This is established science, and should have been included in section 28, in my view.

3. The Royal Society guidance does not issue the standard caveat about “Climate sensitivity” – that by the time that mankind stops adding Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere, the actual increase in concentration could be a lot more than double.

If CO2 levels more than double, the calculation of the actual temperature rise from the climate sensitivity will have to be adjusted by the relevant factor.

Totally new data set – totally new temperature proxy – totally the same Hockey Stick.

Michael Mann, Phil Jones and all the experts are more than vindicated.

Steve McIntyre, Marc Morano, and your “tribes”, will you stand aside, please ?

You’re just getting in the way of the true course of discovery.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/199607/Climate-change-Failures-of-global-warming-probes-let-down-public-

“CLIMATE CHANGE: FAILURES OF GLOBAL WARMING PROBES ‘LET DOWN PUBLIC’ : Wednesday September 15, 2010 : By John Ingham, Environment Editor : PUBLIC inquiries into the Climategate scandal have failed to restore confidence in the science behind global warming, a report claimed yesterday. It branded as flawed the three inquiries into the leaking of e-mails by scientists at East Anglia university’s world-leading Climate Research Unit. And it called for independent inquiries into the ethos of climate research and the science itself…”

We’re post-modern 21st Century humans. It’s OK to question everything. There’s every likelihood that we control our own destinies by our thoughts; that tobacco doesn’t cause lung and pancreatic cancer; that sexual intercourse between a male and a female is not the cause of human reproduction; that Jesus was Catholic, and not Jewish; that so-called waterborne diseases aren’t caused by microscopic organisms; that infection by the HIV virus doesn’t lead to AIDS; that Barack Hussein Obama is a non-American Muslim; that the CIA planned 9/11 (no, really, they did !); that mobile phone masts are killing bees (well, it can’t be the pesticides, can it ?); the moon landings were staged; that wind power will never amount to much, and that chocolate doesn’t give you spots.

If you want to believe that DDT controls malaria, then go right ahead. We live in a tolerant society, and your knowledge is just as good as mine, really :-

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/indor_goklnay_ddt_and_malaria.php

And of course, it’s entirely reasonable to assert that the Earth is the centre of the Universe, for medieval clerics so believed :-

http://www.catholicintl.com/galileowaswrong/index.html

The theory of evolution, of course, is a hoax :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312210/Ireland-science-minsiter-Conor-Lenihan-pulls-evolution-hoax-book-launch.html

“…The author, who has offered 10,000 euros to anyone who can scientifically prove evolution exists…”

(as found on http://johnquiggin.com/).

If we can question all of this, surely it’s not wrong to question not only the working practices of the world’s largest cooperative of Earth scientists, but the outcomes of their research as well ?

I mean, it’s alright to have people studying Climate Change, and keep them busy and out of our sight; but it they come up with answers, well, then we might have to review the whole process and issue lots of caveats and ho-hums.

To resort to anti-science jibes is so painfully weak a strategy on the part of the Climate Change sceptics it doesn’t have any plasma or platelets in its internal juices.

Trying to smear and slur Climate Change scientists hasn’t worked – so now the approach appears to be to deny the very science.

Fortunately, most people are all too clever for that piece of shenanigans, but I suspect that a few may slough off :-

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-09-09-the-rights-climate-denialism-is-part-of-something-much-larger/

“The right’s climate denialism is part of something much larger : 09 September 2010 : David Roberts : …It does seem to me that the [ political ] right’s climate denialism hasn’t been properly linked to the larger phenomenon of epistemic closure on the right [ "libertarian", yet "conservative" wing ]. When Jim Manzi, everyone’s favorite sensible conservative, criticized fellow conservative Mark Levin for peddling intellectually shoddy skeptic arguments in his bestselling book Liberty and Tyranny, Levin went nuts, joined by a half-dozen other NRO writers. How could they not? The very same skeptic talking points in Levin’s book appear in thousands of blogs and comment sections across the interwebs. If they are intellectually bankrupt, a whole lot of people are going to look stupid. Regardless, to restrict discussion to climate science — how many scientists say what, who signed what statement, how many peer-reviewed papers say what — misses the forest for the trees. Climate denialism is part of something much broader and scarier on the right. The core idea is most clearly expressed by Rush Limbaugh: “We really live, folks, in two worlds. There are two worlds. We live in two universes. One universe is a lie. One universe is an entire lie. Everything run, dominated, and controlled by the [ political ] left [ "liberal", yet "socialist" wing ] here and around the world is a lie. The other universe is where we are, and that’s where reality reigns supreme and we deal with it. And seldom do these two universes ever overlap…” …”

How ignorant will we all appear in ten years’ time ?

Dr Judith Curry will probably be wasting a lot of her valuable time in future, as she has started her own “balanced” web log :-

http://judithcurry.com/

Several commentors appear quite relieved that she has decided to stop (pa)trolling their websites and has gone off to draw all the sceptic hormonally-charged untrained non-scientists beta males to hers.

Phew ! Now perhaps we can get on with the Science and the Data in peace !

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/09/curry-blogs.html

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/about_time.php

It’s a thankless task, engaging in dialogue with the voracious, capacious sceptics. Hopefully she gets paid for her trouble.

Excruciatingly, she’s in store for recurring complaints from Climate Change Scientists.

The dude from The Way Things Break has written some up-beat positive completely non-offensive non-sarcastic grilling for her :-

http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/welcome-to-the-blogosphere-dr-curry/

“Welcome to the blogosphere, Dr. Curry! : Posted on September 12, 2010″

Comment #1

“Thank you Dr. Curry! I know that some might try to hector you with petty complaints, like “she uncritically repeats nonsense from Wegman, Pat Michaels, CEI, and books she doesn’t seem to have actually read.” But I can’t thank you enough for really opening up the “debate” about climate change. If it wasn’t for your boosterism, I would never have seen Steve McIntyre’s published 2kyr NH temp reconstruction, Anthony Watts’ plot of “reliable” surface station temp trends and how they compare to the total average, Tom Fuller’s quotes from polar bear and ice sheet dynamics leading researchers, and so on. I know that some might say that you’re legitimizing anti-science voices for no good reason but they simply haven’t seen the incredible published results you have. Perhaps those (epic results) can be your first postings? I’d also be interested to hear about your latest Antarctic sea ice paper in light of previous work, but I understand that the relevant conversation is happening at WMC’s blog. Cheers!”

Comment #2

“Judith Curry writes: “I refuse to label as “anti-science” anyone that is questioning scientific evidence.” As well you should. Such a label would imply that they only attack science, rather than build it up with their own positive contributions. But as I mentioned, thanks to your tireless promotion of people like Steve McIntyre, I became aware of his own, self-proclaimed “expert” published reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the past 2000 years. Far be it for anyone to accuse him of tribalism and bias! He is truly a productive addition to the field of paleoclimatology. Similarly, through your attempts to legitimize Anthony Watts’s blog, I have learned that we’re actually experiencing cooling, that we’re warming because of the sun, that we’re warming because of CFCs, that we’re warming because of cosmic rays, that we’re cooling, that we’re warming because of ENSO, that we’re warming because of PDO, that we’re cooling, and that we have no idea whether or not we’re warming or cooling because the surface temperature record is worthless. On that last point, I also found Anthony’s published temperature record from sites that have his expert approval to be quite revealing, especially as compared to the so-called “real” surface instrumental record. Through Anthony’s very informative and not at all mendacious blog, I also found some of Tom Fuller’s journalism. Tom has made it quite clear that he contacts experts in the field in order to accurately convey the state of science to his audience, so I found his recent interviews with polar bear biologists and glaciologists to be the very opposite of dishonest and misleading. To label such upright, hard-working members of the blogscience community “anti-science” just doesn’t do them justice, does it? When might we look forward to your discussions of their productive, published work? That certainly would still the wagging tongues who bizarrely think that their actions to date constitute little more than an attempt to delegitimize the field of climate science. Cheers!”

Comment #3 : “Judith Curry writes: “I think the auditors and citizen scientists in the blogosphere have made a remarkable contribution in stimulating public interest in climate science and actually raising and addressing issues that the public is interested in and cares about.” Quite so! They certainly have done much to prolong the public debate about things that have long since been agreed upon in the field itself. I’m sure that I’m not alone in marveling at your useful role in adding a veneer of respectability to their efforts. On a completely unrelated note, I believe that you have referenced Conway and Oreskes’s latest book, Merchants of Doubt, and have attempted to draw a sharp distinction between the actors and activities laid out in that book and the “not anti-science” crowd that you are tirelessly promoting. I recently read the book as well, and I have to say that I’m in agreement with you! One of the key tactics in MoD was not a direct denial of the main aspects of a problem (like tobacco-cancer or acid rain), but rather the continual stressing of uncertainties and disagreement at the expense of what was not really in question. This had the effect of manufacturing doubt in the public discourse that simply didn’t exist in the relevant scientific fields. Thankfully, this is nothing at all like the dynamic that you’ve been fostering. How crazy would that be, right? If someone on the one hand could recognize this tactic for what it is when applied to other fields and groups, but not himself see that he was doing exactly the same thing… But listen to me prattling on about hypotheticals that would never actually happen in the real world, completely off topic in a thread devoted to your creation of a climate blog that promotes positive contributors to science like McIntyre, Watts, and Fuller. I can’t for the life me imagine how I got on such a tangent…”

What wit ! What brightness !

The not-widely-awaited “investigation” into the official inquiries into “Climategate” from the Nigel Lawson “social experiment”, the “Global Warming Policy Foundation”, looks to me rather like a botched piece of cosmetic surgery on first scan.

I’d recommend avoiding it, as it seems to me like a total waste of valuable time, based, as I believe it is, on an obvious absence of leg-shaped support.

I wouldn’t have bothered spending five vacant minutes commenting on it unless I knew my various sceptic readers were standing by, eagerly salivating over tearing me to shreds about any statements I might make.

Lunch, boys ?

If you are a proper Climate Change researcher, unless you’ve got the time and funds and staffing to launch an investigation into how the Climategate Media circus was ever allowed to happen, I’d suggest you avoid entering into any kind of discussion about this latest seemingly vapid wraith of veneer.

http://www.thegwpf.org/climategate/1532-damning-new-investigation-into-climategate-inquiries.html

I am sure you will detect what looks like irascible sniping from Andrew Montford (as known as “Bishop Hll”) in various newspaper reports that follow on from this outpouring of apparently obsessive introspection into a non-scandal that’s deader than a century-old donkey’s fetid tail.

But nothing will trounce the ultimate truth – Climategate will never breathe another modecule of serious Media oxygen, even if it lives on in rabid obscurity in Internet zombie-blog-land.

The question is, for you, have they “gone too far this time” ?

Here’s some e-mail traffic :-

from: Bob Ward
sent: 31 August 2010
subject: Express Denial

If you want to have a good chortle, have a look at this ‘Debate’ just launched on the website of the ‘The Daily Express’:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/196681/DEBATE-Is-global-warming-just-a-con-

Apart from its one-sided title (‘Debate: Is ‘global warming’ just a con?’), I particularly enjoyed the illiterate reference to “LOSS OF CREDIBITY”. Well, after all, ‘The Daily Express’ should know about loss of credibility!

Bob Ward

Policy and Communications Director
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
http://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham

from: James Pavitt
date: 31 August 2010

Have you seen the headline and front page??? This is the worst case of climate misrepresentation I’ve ever seen. I have made a complaint to the Press Complaints Committee, and urge others to do so too.

Here is my submission:

Please explain how you believe the Code of Practice has been breached

I believe that the item has breached the code of practice in terms of accuracy.

The article concerns a report by the Inter-Academy Council (IAC) into the workings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report was critical of the IPCC, especially regarding a mistake in data about Himalayan glaciers. The Express has exaggerated the report’s findings in a way which misleads readers to assume that the IPCC has been generally untruthful. The IPCC admitted the Himalayan Glacier mistake in January this year [ source: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf ]

Here are some examples of how the Express has misled the reader:

The headline is misleading. “Climate Lies are Exposed”. My understanding of a “lie” is purposeful misrepresentation. There is no evidence provided in the article that the IPCC (the subject of the article) has purposefully misrepresented anything.

Express: “THE world’s leading climate change body has been accused of losing credibility after a damning report into its research practices.”

This is untrue. The IPCC do not carry out research, they collate and re-publish previous research. The report was critical but not “damning”.

Express: “A high-level inquiry into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found there was “little evidence” for its claims about global warming.”

This is untrue and misleading. The Inter-Academy Council (IAC) report did not examine the science behind global warming. The report is complimentary about much of the IPCC’s work, praising it for creating a “remarkable international conversation on climate research both among scientists and policymakers”.

Express: “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. 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.”

This is misleading. The “key claim” referred to is not a key claim at all. The Himalayan error was one paragraph in a 938-page Working Group contribution to the underlying assessment. [ source: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf ]

The article goes on to quote Peter Taylor, an “Independent climate scientist”. Peter Taylor is not a climate scientist; he is the author of a book called “Chill” refuting global warming.

Express: “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.”

This is misleading. The implication is that Dr Pachauri was accused of a conflict of interests in the IAC report. He was accused of a conflict of interests in an article published in the Express [ source: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/156456/UN-climate-change-chief-under-fire ], not in the IAC report.

I believe that the article has been purposefully constructed using untruths and misleading statements and as such it is highly inaccurate.

subject: re Express denial and IPCC?
from: George Marshall
date: 1 September 2010

Dear all

For your interest, this is what Marc Morano makes of the IPCC reports. Morano, former Inhofe staffer and smug self promoter is astute generator of media angles and headlines…if you can stand it, it is worth being on his mailing list for a summary of current denial campaigns

You will also notice clearly here how many of Morano’s links are to UK media. Morano is one of the main gateways through which the US denial machine is fuelled by distortions in the UK media which unfortunately has a reputation in the US for authoritative journalism

George

“From: morano@climatedepot.com : Sent: 31 August 2010 16:30 : To: ‘Marc Morano-ClimateDepot.com’ : Subject: UN IPCC IS ‘FOOL’S GOLD’ — ‘LIES EXPOSED’ – PACHAURI to STEP DOWN? — ‘DUMP IPCC PROCESS’ — ‘Rearrange the chairs’ : For latest go to www.ClimateDepot.com [Morano Statement: “This inquiry into the UN IPCC process by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) is everything the previous Climategate ‘whitewashes’ should have been. The IAC has once again revealed that the UN IPCC is merely a partisan error-riddled pressure group campaigning for their cause. Quite simply, the IPCC is the best science that politics and activists could manufacture. Skeptics worldwide should rally around the discredited UN IPCC chief Pachauri. The longer Pachauri stays, the more damage he does to the pitiful IPCC process. Viva Pachauri!”] : Paper: ‘CLIMATE CHANGE LIES ARE EXPOSED’: UN IPCC ‘accused of losing credibility after a damning report into its research practices’ : FOOLS GOLD: ‘IPCC reports are supposed to be the gold standard…This Discredited IPCC Process Must Be Purged’ — ‘We cannot make sane decisions on global warming if the ‘experts’ present us with evidence that is biased…I thought that IPCC reports were reliable, fair and transparent. No longer’ : Climatologist: ‘Dump the IPCC Process, It Cannot Be Fixed’: ‘UN IPCC was created to use the scientific community to build a case for regulating CO2 emissions. Period’ : UK Telegraph: IPCC report raises fresh questions over Dr Rajendra Pachauri’s leadership — ‘The criticism of the management process is quite severe. It is an indirect call for Dr Pachauri to step down.’ : UK Telegraph: ‘Flawed science’: ‘UN IPCC was rightly warned not to stray into what might be seen as scaremongering and policy advocacy’ — Report should ‘trigger the resignation of Pachauri but he insists he wants to stay on to implement any necessary changes in procedure. Yet his – and IPCC’s – credibility have been tarnished by this affair’ : UK Register: Report recommends UN climate panel shakeup — ‘Rearrange the chairs please’ — ‘IPCC’s work included headline-catching statements which couldn’t be justified’ : UK Daily Mail: UN climate experts ‘overstated dangers’: Keep your noses out of politics, scientists told…”

from: John Nissen
sent: 03 September 2010

I agree, James. We should all complain. The article is a slur on IPCC as well as blatantly misleading [1]. The complaints procedure is here [2].

A rebuke of the Daily Express by the Press Complaints Committee would be welcome news, when we seem to be letting the deniers get the upper hand.

Cheers,

John

[1] http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/196642

[2] http://www.pcc.org.uk/complaints/makingacomplaint.html

from: James Pavitt
sent: 2010/9/3

Thank you for this John.

I should point out that the Press Complaints Commission has now written to me to confirm receipt of my complaint and to suggest that they may be inviting input by the IPCC in their investigations.

They have asked my not to forward their communications with me to others.

Their response confirms that any complaint is taken seriously, so I urge everyone who is able to examine the article, make up your own mind whether it is truthful and if you feel it is not, write your own complaint to the commission (details kindly provided by John in the email below).

I may not have covered the issues in my complaint either well or thoroughly – I am sure than many of you are far better qualified than I am to make a fair and thorough complaint. If you feel so moved – please do.

Kind regards,

James Pavitt

from: P Mac
date: 3 September 2010

Good work. Denialism and attacks on IPCC are financed by fossil-fuel industry.

Regards.

[ TED Talks : Flashback to 2005 ! Of course, one of the main problems with his "triage" suggestion is that Climate Change affects all the other problems in his prioritisation list, so even if they get solved once, they'll need solving again... ]

Reports of Bjorn Lomborg’s conversion to the truth about Global Warming may be perilously exaggerated :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/02/climate-change-bjorn-lomborg

“ I note with interest that Bjørn Lomborg has changed his mind on global warming. I also note that he has a book to sell.”

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/08/lomborg-100-billion-needed.php

Beside a book, he is also touting a film :-

http://www.indiewire.com/film/cool_it/#

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-sceptics-uturn-20100831-14fng.html

Has he really changed his tune ? Nope. :-

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/03/interview_bjorn_lomborg

“…In an exclusive interview with FP’s Elizabeth Dickinson, Lomborg says his views haven’t budged an inch. Rather, he argues that the cap-and-trade approach of Kyoto Protocol fame has clearly failed, and it’s time to try a more creative approach — one that doesn’t involve wasting billions of dollars. “At some point,” he says, “we have to ask ourselves, do we just want to keep up the circus of promising stuff but not actually doing it?”…”

http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/01/the-lomborg-deception/

“Lomborg is not a responsible climate commentator.”

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/02/the_lomborg_deception.php

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/02/climate-change-bjorn-lomborg