Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Laughing With James Delingpole

James Delingpole is so endearingly consistent in barking up the wrong tree, it’s sometimes easiest just to laugh along with his rambling, unscientific meanderings.

“‘AGW? I refute it THUS!”, he shouts out amusingly in his web log post of today :-

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100022226/agw-i-refute-it-thus-central-england-temperatures-1659-to-2009/

proving to me once and for all he could never be a statistician or a Police Officer, as he doesn’t know enough to detect an outright fabrication when he encounters one.

Categories
Climate Change Media Wind of Fortune

Dominic Lawson : Sussex Farmhouse

Once again, Dominic Lawson fails to realise that many of his readers will simply not connect with him :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/dominic_lawson/article6982310.ece

Only a very marginally low proportion of the British population can identify with, or only hope to aspire to, his perilous predicament.

Stuck down a snowy country lane and running out of heating oil ? Look, mate, you can afford to live in a “Sussex farmhouse”. Isn’t it about time you took your finger out and wrote a fat cheque to get connected to the gas mains ?

Categories
Climate Change Media

Mojib Latif : Old, Non-News

https://mediamatters.org/research/200909240021

The Climate Change Denialists have been trying to resurrect a non-story from Autumn of 2009 – claiming that Professor Mojib Latif is predicting Global Cooling.

He is not, OK ?

Mojib Latif is merely saying that there is some variability, but that the long-term trend is warming. Warming. That’s right. Warming.

Here’s just a selection of the Media and Web Log reaction to this “viral” lie from the denier bloc :-

Categories
Climate Change Media

Richard Betts : Communicating Science

Yes, we’ve all been there. Just idly chatting to someone in the pub, office or outside the school gates, and they say “I don’t rate that Global Warming thing. Look how cold it is today.” Or like a family friend said, on his own, un-tutored authority a couple of months ago, “I don’t think it’s warming up as much as they say it is”.

Don’t fret, Climate Changers, it happens to us all.

The main source of this dissonance between Truth and Deniership is the mainstream media, I’m sorry to say. They really haven’t improved things, when, with just a little more care and attention, they could have done so much to help comprehension of the scale and might of the risks of dangerous Climate Change.

Categories
Climate Change Media

Rod Liddle : Gutter Press

There’s something that’s been threatening to keep me awake at night, and it’s not drinking too much coffee. I don’t drink coffee, normally, by the by. No, it’s this : why does Rod Liddle’s photograph on the The Spectator website look remarkably unlike the way he looks in realtime, that is, today ? Here’s what I mean :-


Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Daily Express : Unreliable Sources

Another pretty poor headline from the Daily Express (and we all know that outrageous headlines sell newspapers), but the majority of the article is OK, until the almost inevitable signs of “balance” by quoting Piers Corbyn and Christopher Booker :-

“…Long-term forecaster and trends analyst Piers Corbyn, of WeatherAction, said: “Global warming is a failed science built on falsified data. It is a sham to say that man has caused it.”…”

Most serendipitously, the Global Warming Science that the genuine research community have been slaving away at for the last, ooo, 25 years, has not been undermined by one freakily cold Northern Hemisphere Winter, or they’d all be out of jobs pretty sharpish.

“…Christopher Booker, author of The Real Global Warming Disaster, said: “It is amazing how this scaremongering from climate change lobbyists keeps arising even though they are constantly being proved wrong. Last year there was snow in Saudia Arabia and still they persist in saying the temperature is going up.”…”

As time goes by, and more evidence is collated and analysed and more theoretical branches are investigated, the more Climate Change Science is shown to be accurate, both in projection and qualitative prediction.

Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Non-Science

Sceptics Have Infected The Guardian

It looks like The Guardian newspaper has been infected with Global Warming scepticism.

I thought the paper was supposed to have some decent editorial process on Science ! But, sadly, clearly, not.

Here are the main problems with the article :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jan/07/religion-climate-change

1. The author does not understand the processes that govern the accumulation of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere.

2. The author appears to have no knowledge of how the Earth system as a whole regulated Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere in the distant past within certain limits of extent.

3. The author does not recognise that the current level of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere is much higher than in the distant past. Neither does he offer any explanation for why the level should have strayed outside the long-term boundaries.

4. The author accepts that periods of Earth History with more Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere were warmer than periods with less Carbon Dioxide, but fails to offer a possible mechanism that could draw down Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere now to the regulated boundaries of the distant past.

5. The author does not appear to appreciate that the Younger Dryas cooling event was almost certainly entirely unrelated to Carbon Dioxide levels in the Atmosphere.

6. The author does not appear to appreciate that the Younger Dryas cooling event was not global in scope. Or rather, although there are records of effects almost universally, the effects were not the same everywhere.

7. The author does not recount the extreme warming that ended the Younger Dryas event.

Which is what you would expect, since the main cause of the Younger Dryas event was not the level of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere; and naturally, the levels of Carbon Dioxide still in the Atmosphere caused the temperatures to return to where they were prior to the Younger Dryas cooling event.

The author of the article appears to be a software engineer with an education in biological sciences. I doubt he has ever taken a course in Global Warming Science. I suggest he should. It’s all online if he wants it. Here are David Archer’s lecture videos from the University of Chicago :-

https://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/lectures.html

Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Non-Science

Wolfgang Knorr : Denialist Soup

The new trend on the wires from the amorphous, shifting pack of wildcards that deny the very science of Global Warming – write the wrong conclusion about a piece of research by Wolfgang Knorr from Bristol University – and then circulate it on the Internet.

The research was published late last year, but it’s only in the last couple of days that the Climate Change Deniers have started a serious viral “Public Relations” campaign to promote their mis-quotation. The “Carbon Capture Report” shows an uptick in popularity of covering this paper :-

https://www.carboncapturereport.org/cgi-bin/biodb?PROJID=3&mode=viewpersonname&name=dr_wolfgang_knorr

Categories
Climate Change

Threats From American Zealots

The great thing (not) about trying to get a higher profile for Climate Change is receiving threats, intimidation, criticism and personal abuse by e-mail and in the Comments on this web log. It really gives me joy and confidence (yeah, right) in the humanity of man.

Today I received an interesting little communication that appears to be threatening legal action for having exchanged in e-mail correspondence with Roger Harrabin, a reporter at the BBC.

It suggests that I should recant and repent for having tried to promote Climate Change Science.

It instructs me that Climate Change Science is fraudulent. Oops ! I hadn’t realised ! And there was I relying on the last 120 years of Global Warming Theory and empirical evidence, thinking I was on very firm ground !

Categories
Bait & Switch Climate Change Public Relations

John Humphrys : An End To Fence-Sitting

On 31st December 2009, John Humphrys, well-loved BBC radio interviewer and presenter, amongst other things, wrote an opinion piece for the Daily Mail newspaper.

He weaves a careful argument about why he and others should stop fence-sitting on the issue of Climate Change, but he is still in need of an educational experience to help him understand where the power and drive of Climate Change Denial comes from :-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1239546/JOHN-HUMPHRYS-Noughties-No-Nasties–good-riddance-them.html

Categories
Climate Change

Dr Rajendra Pachauri versus The Sunday Telegraph

There may or may not be legal action. What’s sure is that there will be some kind of reaction.

Categories
Climate Change Geogingerneering Media

The History of Climate Denial Funding

Follow the money : take a peek behind the Climate Change Denier-Sceptic propaganda theatre stage curtain and you will find large Fossil Fuel interests offering financial resources to unseat the Climate Change Science.

Ross Gelbspan calls this a “manufactured campaign”, and lays some of the obligations for rooting it out on those who work in the Media.

“We may already be witnessing…runaway Climate Change” is his conclusion on the consequences of 20 years of delay in setting effective policy.

Virtually no group in society escapes Gelbspan’s probing gaze. He invites comments :-

https://climateprogress.org/2009/12/27/watch-ross-gelbspans-video-on-climate-change-and-the-fossil-fuel-industry-fossil-fuel-funded-disinformation-campaign-launched/

Categories
Climate Change

Wood for Trees : Truth for Emails

It’s no joke that the United Nations in Copenhagen for the Climate talks, the world’s most important meeting for years, gets undermined by criminal activity and a mass propaganda exercise. I’m talking about “Climategate” of course : hacking in to an institution’s computer to steal e-mails and then stringing out an entirely falsifiable narrative on the basis of some frustrated and chance remarks in over ten years of private exchanges is criminal and would be considered malpractice and illegal in any court considering malicious intent and inappropriate appropriation.

Categories
Big Picture Carbon Commodities Climate Change

Shocking News : I Agree With James Delingpole

Well, I agree with parts of a couple of paragraphs. Got you looking, though, didn’t it ?

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020288/climategate-we-won-the-battle-but-at-copenhagen-we-just-lost-the-war/

Delingpole writes : “Copenhagen never really had anything to do with “Climate Change”. Rather it was a trough-fest at which all the world’s greediest pigs gathered to gobble up as much of your money and my money as they possibly could, under the righteous-sounding pretence that they were saving the planet.”

I think that he’s partially on the right track : for many, many people, Climate Change is something they can make money from. Creating a commodity from a previously unvalued polluting gas, creating positive value from a negative waste product, is only going to lead to the massive-est market on Earth. And we all know who’s going to gain from that Carbon Trade, don’t we ? Not you and me, that’s for sure.

Categories
Bad Science Carbon Commodities Climate Change Emissions Impossible Media Non-Science Public Relations

Answer the Question, Professor Plimer

George Monbiot goes head to head with Professor Ian Plimer, but fails to get a straight answer out of the Australian mining geologist.

Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Zombie Denial : Undead Arguments Rise Again

What is it with Global Warming denial arguments ? Just when you think they’ve finally bitten the dust, up they pop again to stagger and stomp menacingly towards you in rather unconvincing make up, spattered in stage paint blood.

Today it’s the zombie return of the “urban heat island” bogeyman, courtesy of that top science boffin, James Delingpole :-

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100019956/climategate-the-lawyers-move-in-those-scientists-are-toast/

“…you need first to be aware of one of the most contentious points about Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) – the reliability of weather station records and the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI)… Put very simply, there is great concern among sceptics that the data records used to support the IPCC’s claims about “unprecedented” and catastrophic late 20th century global warming are untrustworthy… these records rely on a dwindling number of weather surface stations whose readings have been skewed either by relocation or by the warming effects of the cities which have grown around them over the years…”

Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Non-Science Political Nightmare Public Relations Social Change Unutterably Useless Utter Futility

The Daily Hoaxpress ?

The Daily Express newspaper (ably echoed by its cousin The Daily Telegraph) issued an outright Global Warming denial on its front page today :-

https://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146139/100-reasons-why-global-warming-is-natural

“100 REASONS WHY GLOBAL WARMING IS NATURAL : ‘No proof that human activity is to blame’ : Tuesday December 15,2009 : By Martyn Brown : CAMPAIGNERS yesterday attempted to pour scorn on “tenuous” global warming theories by issuing a dossier detailing 100 reasons why climate change is natural and not man-made. The list includes the controversial claim that there is “no scientific proof” that rising levels of greenhouse gases are caused by human activity…”

Intrigued, I actually went to the trouble of purchasing the print edition of the newspaper, so I could gen up. On page 5, the headline “‘There’s little we can do about global warming'”. Oh, so tens of thousands of people in Copenhagen, Denmark, negotiating about the need to reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions, are all wasting their time ? I think not.

Categories
Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations

It’s the Media, Stupid !

Some news organisations try really hard to bring you crack-up-to-date, snazzy, intriguing, hot-off-the-press narrative on the unfolding chaos of Climate Change.

Other news organisations think that writing about “Climategate”, as if it were a genuine challenge to Climate Change Science, is a serious piece of journalism.

But they’re wrong; so, so wrong.

The real story is Climate Change. It’s here, and it’s happening now. And it’s frightening.

Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations

Clive James : Inadequate Commentator

Clive James has openly admitted that he knows nothing about Climate Change :-

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8322513.stm
“In praise of scepticism”, 23 October 2009

and yet he still continues to pass judgement on the way the Science is conducted, and accepts the validity of the arguments of the Climate Change deniers :-

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8408386.stm
“Climate change – a story too often told the same way”, 11 December 2009

I ask you this : since he knows nothing about Climate Change Science, how can he possibly justify accepting the views of the Climate Change deniers ?

Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Non-Science The Data

David Whitehouse Risks Inaccuracy

Dr David Whitehouse has had his personal views on Climate Change Science aired in the Daily Mail this week; yet the newspaper did not seek to offer an article responding to his position, which is somewhat at odds with the general conclusions of mainstream science :-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1235126/What-told-Global-Warming–missing-facts.html

So, in the absence of the Daily Mail permitting a questioning or critiquing of David Whitehouse’s personal views, I shall here attempt to unpack how close he comes to inaccuracy.

Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Non-Science Public Relations Social Change The Data

Climategate : Myles Allen is Confused

Dr Myles Allen, head of the Climate Dynamics group at the University of Oxford’s Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department is confused. “It is odd that we still don’t take climate change seriously”, he writes in The Guardian online, discussing the fact that a good proportion of the British public don’t believe in Global Warming :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/11/science-climate-change-phil-jones

He might need to wake up to the fact that the British Press are being misled, and in turn, misleading the country.

Categories
Bait & Switch Climate Change Public Relations

Hacking The Climate Swiftboating

NEW WEBSITE ! MUST SEE ! The Comeback Real Fightback Truth about Climategate ! :-
https://swifthack.com/

ASTONISHING ! REVELATION ! Climate Scientists happily share data ! :-
https://www.desmogblog.com/stolen-emails-show-scientists-willing-share-data

INCREDIBLE ! EXPLOSIVE ! The “noughties” have been the hottest decade on record ! :-
https://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/00s-hottest-decade-or-record.php

SCANDAL OF THE WEEK ! Sarah Palin gets press coverage for her views on Global Warming ! :-
https://www.freep.com/article/20091208/BLOG36/91208015/1039/ENT04/Palin-calls-global-warming-bogus

Enough of the alerts. Now on to the chewy substance of this posting. If you’re not an American, the term “swiftboating” will probably mean zilch (zero) to you, so you might want to ask the Internet before we continue with our discussion.

Categories
Climate Change The Data

The Only Way Is Up

Image Credit : Anja Niedringhaus

It doesn’t matter which way up Michel Jarraud (Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization) holds the temperature chart. The only way the trend can be understood is upwards. The temperatures are going up.

That’s Global Warming, folks !

Looking at the temperature data from any of the major data sets around the world, it doesn’t take a second to accept that the Earth is warming :-

Categories
Climate Change Media

Climategate : The Great Global Warming Hoax

The machinations of the “Climategate” scandal are continuing to graunch gears and spit out fascinating tidbits of investigative rumour, intrigue and quite possibly conspiracy, too :-

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/was-russian-secret-service-behind-leak-of-climatechange-emails-1835502.html

“Was Russian secret service behind leak of climate-change emails? FSB accused of paying hackers to discredit scientists after stolen correspondence traced to server in Siberia : By Shaun Walker : Monday, 7 December 2009”

Categories
Climate Change Media

Untidy Minds #10 : James Inhofe

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