It’s a shame that the Financial Times saw fit to publish an article with the headline “US senator calls global warming a ‘hoax’”, considering the intense debate going on regarding the science of Climate Change.
On the other hand, it does show up the untidy mind of James Inhofe quite spectacularly, so maybe it is useful :-
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b68c23ea-e0fc-11de-af7a-00144feab49a.html
Richard Lindzen makes an ungracious return to this collection of untidy minds, appearing courtesy of The Times, which is rather disappointing. If any editors of any newspaper know the detrimental value of lying propaganda, it should be those at the top at The Times, which is normally the channel for Government-sourced snapshots and snippets, sometimes deliberate leaks.
The number of outright mistruths and sneaky fiddlings in Richard Lindzen’s statement is astounding.
[ Tongue-in-cheek note for sedate and aesthetic viewers : apologies for the excruciatingly brash, unappealing and over-complex nature of the video above and the nasal twangs and high-pitched, high-speed ranting of the speakers in the above presentation. They’re Americans. You need to forgive them. ]
Those who laughed and joked with Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner over the Freakonomics investigations may well have cause to blanche and run away screaming at their latest tome, Superfreakonomics.
As the last week of Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband naysaying the Climate Change deniers does not seem to have had much impact on turning around the great ship of democratically expressed scepticism on Global Warming, Ed Miliband has turned to Public Relations on telly.
Who do you trust ? Professor Ian Plimer or 100 years of science ? I know what my money’s on, and it isn’t the Australian geologist with mining interests.
That doesn’t stop British journalists going with Professor Plimer. They are sorely in need of some decent education, in my view. Unless they’re going with a sensational story to get revenue. In which case they still need a decent education in the history of Climate Change scepticism and denial, so they know how divisive it is amongst the population. Publishing Climate Change denial makes the Media seem irresponsible, from my viewpoint.
I want to touch on just a snippet from a recent Daily Express article in order to demonstrate my resistance to Ian Plimer :-
Professor Mike Hulme has been the science chap the BBC nearly always call, of late, when they want to inject an alternate view into a piece on Climate Change.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm
“Chaotic world of climate truth” Viewpoint by Mike Hulme, 4 November 2006
The author of the book “Why We Disagree About Climate Change” has been bravely trying to reframe Climate Change, not as a problem of science, but a problem of society. To some extent, I regard his work as useful. On the other hand, I find some of his work a mind trap.
Congratulations go to David Davis, who appears to have singlehandedly found the way to split the British Conservative Party for good, by coming out as a Climate Change sceptic, and thereby effectively challenging David Cameron for the leadership (which Davis will lose, like he did the last time, I reckon) :-
He writes :-
“The row about whether global warming exists gets even more virulent. The case is not helped by the fact that the planet appears to have been cooling, not warming, in the last decade. Last week, the row was fuelled after a hacker revealed emails between the world’s leading climate scientists that seemed to show them conspiring to rig the figures to support their theories. So it is unsurprising that more than half the public no longer believe in global warming.”
Without forceful words or frenetic accusations, George Monbiot calmly and methodically shreds the Climate Change denier-sceptics in this snippet from RealNews.
We’ve had Oxbridge Classics and Language graduates denying Global Warming in the Press in the last couple of weeks; now we’re on to the political commentators.
Why Global Warming Science is a matter for adversarial politics, you know Left and Right, liberal and conservative, I don’t know.
Global Climate Change is affecting us all, and pretty much the same steps will need to be taken by whichever party is in power, in whichever country. It doesn’t really have a political flavour. It’s not a matter of choice, or choice of policy. Climate Change policy is not based on political ideology.
Now, I believe in fairness, fair play and being a good sort, a good sport.
And so for that reason, I’ve been toying with the idea of suggesting that if you’ve been in email contact with a Climate Change denier, and you think the information exchanged would be interesting to others, to post that email correspondence here in a comment.
Truth is, I’m intrigued to know what Climate Change deniers (or “sceptics”) say to each other in private correspondence, and how it is that they have managed to coordinate over the “Climategate” affair when they are in different countries. I’m guessing it’s all been done by email, of course, so I would be interested to read what they’ve been saying to each other.
Melanie Phillips is a journalist with an Oxford education in the English language, according to Wikipedia :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Phillips
She is also a Global Warming denier. I use the word “denier” literally, not emotively, because she denies the facts on Global Warming. If she were to express doubt about Climate Change science, then there would be some wiggle room to allow calling her a “sceptic”. But as it is, she denies it. Outright. Watch, and be amazed ! :-
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/8382037.stm
Super-double irony : Nick Griffin, the anti-immigration right-wing nationalist is going to the Copenhagen Climate Talks as a representative of the European Union, where, no doubt, he will probably attempt to exact a white supremacist’s revenge – throwing whatever spanners (wrenches) he can in the works to stop a global deal to protect the poor and vulnerable from Climate Change :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/nick-griffin-bnp-copenhagen-summit
“…Griffin, who was elected to the European parliament in June, confirmed last night that he would attend as the representative of the parliament’s environmental committee. World leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, are hoping to forge a new global agreement to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. Without such a deal, scientists warn that world temperatures will increase by more than 2C by the end of the century, triggering ice cap melting, sea-level rises, widespread flooding, the spread of deserts and devastating storms. In a speech in the parliament last week, Griffin denounced those who warn of the consequences of climate change as “cranks”. He said they had reached “an Orwellian consensus” that was “based not on scientific agreement, but on bullying, censorship and fraudulent statistics. The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate change is their new theology… But the heretics will have a voice in Copenhagen and the truth will out. Climate change is being used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as anything conceived by Stalin or Mao.” Griffin will be one of 15 representatives chosen to speak on behalf of the EU in Copenhagen…”
I agree with inclusion and tolerance, but this is a step too far ! Griffin’s agenda and purpose seems to consist entirely of exclusion, intolerance, might-is-right, anti-science and inequality. I don’t know how he can represent the European Union in any way…He might as well wear a Ku Klux Klan outfit for all the anti-democratic flames he carries around inside him.
I doth protest.
I must admit : even though I try to read widely, there are some things I miss. I’ve just become aware of a research paper that was published in Geophysical Research Letters in August 2009 :-
There’s been a spate of general ignorance in parts of the Press of late – people pleading the Fifth Amendment – claiming they don’t know enough about Global Warming, so they can’t possibly be expected to utter expertise or erudite commentary (which could get them into deep water). And yet they end up making a judgment anyway, or quoting Climate Change deniers without checking their facts. Here’s a few snippets :-
“…My own response is to assume both sides are capable of twisting the facts. This is not based on scientific knowledge of climate change, since like almost everyone else I don’t have any…”
The core mission of Climate Change deniers (formerly known as “sceptics”) is to take you away from the Climate Change Science and lead you down some dark and unilluminated alley.
Don’t let them.
Don’t get sucked in to their unfounded assertions, their complicated-looking arguments. Don’t get hypnotised by your anger.
The Climate Change deniers want to delay and derail the Low Carbon society. They are not arguing for the benefit of Science. They are “debating” in order to take you away from the things you really need to be doing.
George Monbiot has written another post on his The Guardian weblog, anxiously chewing his own lips to bloody shreds with the stress of the Climategate situation :-
“Pretending the climate email leak isn’t a crisis won’t make it go away : Climate sceptics have lied, obscured and cheated for years. That’s why we climate rationalists must uphold the highest standards of science : Posted by George Monbiot : Wednesday 25 November 2009 : I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can’t possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging. The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people’s denial. Pretending that this isn’t a real crisis isn’t going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We’ll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again. It is true that much of what has been revealed could be explained as the usual cut and thrust of the peer review process, exacerbated by the extraordinary pressure the scientists were facing from a denial industry determined to crush them…”
Look, George love, we’d like to do something useful, but the problem is one of sheer exhaustion. People are tired of the relentless waves of hysteria and mania coming from the “denial community”. Nothing we say makes them stop, not even for one second. On and on they moan and clatter and hammer.
Sometimes I just want to run and plant a big, fat kiss on your boyish little brow, James Delingpole. Or pat your head in a more appropriately respectful, yet somehow patronising fashion.
For time and time again you prove to me that you do not know what you are talking about, squashing your own arguments flat as a pancake.
Here you prove that you (a) do not know how to do investigative journalism and are (b) quite prepared to repeat verbatim, gaffe by gaffe, what other people write :-
If you were only to skim and skate the Internet for a few minutes more, you could find out that there is an perfectly reasonable explanation for the “Kiwi Korrections” :-
https://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/
Of course, since you have not been trained as a scientist, you will probably find yourself unable to fully appreciate how perfectly ridiculous you could appear in some eyes.
But not mine. All of a sudden I just love and adore you, for you have presented me with a golden gift with which I could dismiss your rantings as frustrated twaddle, egged on by a wunch of cynics.
Except I wouldn’t. I’m way too nice.
If you care to actually spend 10 seconds looking at the NASA GISS “Blob Chart” (see link above), you will easily detect a continually warming trend. Yes, there are dips and climbs. Yes, there is variability. No, Global Warming did not stop in 1998.
This very easy-reading level of visual information, apparently, is not good enough to convince Janet Daley that Global Warming is happening. She just can’t make it out amongst all the noise, probably coming from the Climate Change Deniers.
Whether she knows it or not, she is not telling the truth.
What on Earth motivates the Competitive Enterprise Institute ? It can’t be the Free Spirit of Free Enterprise. I mean, what organisation sincerely devoted to the principles of honest, open competition would employ the weight of the litigation process to make their arguments for them ? And against a weblogger ? For moderating the weblog ? You are joking ? No, I’m not :-
https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/competitive_enterprise_institu.php
“Competitive Enterprise Institute intends to sue blogger over moderation policy : Posted on: November 25, 2009 1:59 AM, by Tim Lambert : Gavin Schmidt has done a wonderful job at RealClimate patiently explaining the context of the stolen emails. He’s made it perfectly clear that the claims of scientific malpractice are without foundation. He must be doing a really good job, because the Competitive Enterprise Institute intends to sue him…”
This should get thrown out of court at the earliest possible second. It is patently ridiculous. If Climate Change skeptics/sceptics want Free Speech, they can run their own, privately-funded weblog. Oh yes. They already do. Several. Large corporations/companies are still outsourcing their resistance to Carbon Control via third parties for a handsome remuneration. Maybe somebody should sue Big Business for repeated, outsourced, attempts to cloud, delay and deny Climate Change science ?
Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) is staying put.
He’s come out loud and proud, defending himself, his Science and his institution, and he’s being backed up by his boss, too :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/24/climate-professor-leaked-emails-uea
Meanwhile…the Scientific American magazine uncovers a genuine cover-up in Climate Science :-
https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=climate-change-cover-up-you-better-2009-11-24
“Nov 24, 2009 : Climate change cover-up? You better believe it : By David Biello…”
George Monbiot has called for the head of the Climatic Research Unit on a plate, but I don’t think Phil Jones should jump, myself :-
“Global warming rigged? Here’s the email I’d need to see : The leaked exchanges are disturbing, but it would take a conspiracy of a very different order to justify sceptics’ claims : George Monbiot, guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 November 2009 : It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them. Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request. Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed…”
Phil Jones shouldn’t be pushed, either, in my view.
Phil Jones should be tasked with clearing up this mess, starting with rooting out and disciplining whoever made these e-mails public.
Stay in post, Phil, and get the job done !
This post is made about Paul Hudson, a BBC weatherman who penned an article sceptical about the Science of Climate Change, and promoting the perhaps pseudo-scientific views of Piers Corbyn, a weather forecaster, entitled “What happened to Global Warming” :-
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8299079.stm
Paul Hudson is also the author of a weblog post on “Climategate”, the “liberation” of years of e-mails from inside the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.
I’m going to cut and paste the whole of his post here, because it contains information regarding the alleged crime that took place when the e-mails were removed from CRU.
Far be it from me to comment on a matter under criminal investigation… Oh, OK then, I will.
As some readers of this post will know, some time in the recent past, a person or persons unknown allegedly took some files from a computer server belonging to the CRU, the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
They may have been “hackers”, “stealing” the files. They may have fabricated them. That is a matter for the Police and authorities yet to decide. The files may have been taken/invented last week : another fact open to investigation.
These alleged files allegedly contained information and e-mails pertaining to work by Climate Change scientists spanning a number of years.
Yet another tree-ring-centric posting from Anthony (pronounced anth-o-knee) Watts, showing his complete obsession with something minuscule and mindblowingly meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
Watts will not allow fact to cloud accusation. All the charts on Global Warming show a sharp rise in the last few decades, from whichever reliable source. But Watts doesn’t see any of that. He’s fixated on Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick graph and trying to pull it down.
Tree rings. Now, trees, especially dead trees, are notoriously random in quality and style and abundance. You have to make reasonable decisions about which to keep in the data set as representative, and which to jettison. It doesn’t invalidate your results. In fact, it shows that you have done sufficient analysis to select the most accurate data.
[ UPDATE : More science on solar irradiation change and how it cannot explain the high levels of recent Global Warming : https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/a-problem-of-multiplicity/ ]
Some people have been asking why I’ve been so picky about Richard Black, the BBC environmental journalist.
I found fault with a blog post of his that had a lot of good, illuminating stuff in it, yet still managed to misdirect people, in my opinion.
What we read in the papers, online and watch on the television has a longlasting effect on us. If the news is skewed, and if it continues to be skewed, we are being manipulated.