Article Archives by Subject:  Environment

11-22-2011

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Michael Mann
Penn State Univ.
Subject: Climategate — Version 2.0

After the original Climategate scandal broke back in 2009, revealing how the scientific method had been corrupted by the incestuous relationship between government funding of research and institutions willing to manufacture politically expedient conclusions in exchange for those funds, it was not as if there was any need to further confirm the junk status of much of what has passed for climate science research. Nevertheless, a second round of emails exchanges from the UK's Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have now been released.

Apparently culled from the same set of files that were taken back in 2009, these exchanges focus more on the political agenda driving the climate message along with the role that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has played in that regard. As James Delingpole, reporter for the British newspaper The Telegraph, succinctly states it:
    "In other words, what these emails confirm is that the great man-made global warming scare is not about science but about political activism.

The new correspondence was released by someone calling themselves FOIA, obviously standing for the Freedom of Information Act, and while the full set of documents has yet to be reviewed, the README. file compiled by FOIA includes a large number of excerpts. Recognizing that these have been taken out of context and will need to be verified by a full reading of the material, here are a few of the more interesting comments from that summary:

Phil Jones of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, discussing the packing of the IPCC:
    Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital — hence my comment about the tornadoes group.

    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 [sic] have to involve him ?)

Bob Carter of Australia's James Cook University, discussing centralized scientific decision-making:
    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.

Tom Wigley from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, discussing deceptions of the IPCC:
    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 [...]

Peter Thorne of the UK's Met Office, discussing the political manipulation of science:
    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.

Jonathan Overpeck from Univ. of AZ Inst. of the Environment, discussing letting the ends justify the means:
    The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what's included and what is left out.

    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?"

Leopold Haimberger from the Univ. of Vienna, discussing manipulating data to fit preconceptions:
    It is interesting to see the lower tropospheric warming minimum in the tropics in all three plots, which I cannot explain. I believe it is spurious but it is remarkably robust against my adjustment efforts.

Phil Jones of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, discussing how to manipulate the message:
    We don't really want the bullshit and optimistic stuff that Michael has written [...] We'll have to cut out some of his stuff.

Michael Mann of Penn State University, discussing the manipulation of the propaganda:
    the important thing is to make sure they're loosing the PR battle. That's what the site [Real Climate] is about.

Steven J Humphrey of the UK's governmental Department DEFRA, discussing the state's agenda:
    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.

    Somehow we have to leave the[m] thinking OK, climate change is extremely complicated, BUT I accept the dominant view that people are affecting it, and that impacts produces risk that needs careful and urgent attention.

Thomas J. Crowley of the University of Edinburgh, discussing how sociology trumps science:
    I am not convinced that the "truth" is always worth reaching if it is at the cost of damaged personal relationships

Mike Hulme of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences, discussing religious influences on science:
    My work is as Director of the national centre for climate change research, a job which requires me to translate my Christian belief about stewardship of God's planet into research and action.

Phil Jones of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, discussing circumventing Freedom of Information laws:
    I've been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process

    [...]

    Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get — and has to be well hidden. I've discussed this with the main funder (US Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.

Keith Briffa of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, discussing circumventing Freedom of Information laws:
    UEA does not hold the very vast majority of mine [potentially FOIable emails] anyway which I copied onto private storage after the completion of the IPCC task

Michael McGarvie, a director at East Anglia, discussing circumventing Freedom of Information laws:
    As we are testing EIR with the other climate audit org request relating to communications with other academic colleagues, I think that we would weaken that case if we supplied the information in this case. So I would suggest that we decline this one (at the very end of the time period)

However, of all the statements made, the most damning are those where the participants speak casually of their fealty to "the cause" of global warming. This clearly demonstrates that it is not truth that they seek, but a preordained outcome that motivates their efforts, and science be damned. Consider the following:

Michael Mann of Penn State University:
    By the way, when is Tom C going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year reconstruction??? It would help the cause to be able to refer to that reconstruction as confirming Mann and Jones, etc.

    They will (see below) allow us to provide some discussion of the synthetic example, referring to the J. Cimate [sic] paper (which should be finally accepted upon submission of the revised final draft), so that should help the cause a bit."

    I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don't know what she think's she's doing, but its not helping the cause"

    [emphasis added]

Berger:
    Phil, Many thanks for your paper and congratulations for reviving the global warming.

    [emphasis added]

04-13-2011

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Mother Earth
Subject: You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

This is a follow up to my previous article on The Origins of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

As I have written elsewhere, the United Nations is the self-appointed international advocate and enabler of the environmentalist cause, pushing forward on every possible front, whether that be through the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and its anthropogenic global warming fiction, or with Agenda 21 and its misdirecting quest for "sustainability". Well, here is the latest chapter out of the UN's play book.

On April 13th, Steven Edwards wrote an article in The Vancouver Sun, describing a draft treaty currently being submitted for adoption by the United Nations. Here are a few excerpts from Edward's article:
    "Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving 'Mother Earth' the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country."

    "The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to `    dominate and exploit' — to the point that the `well-being and existence of many beings' is now threatened."

    "That document speaks of the country's natural resources as `    blessings,' and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities; and the right to be free from pollution."

    "It also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature's complaints as voiced by activist and other groups, including the state."
Well, isn't that special. Men will have the same "rights" as insects, water, soil, rocks, and all other "natural things". In this scheme, there is neither room for the recognition of man's unique nature as a rational thinking being, nor of his specific requirements for survival. And just what sort of definition of a "right" could satisfy these conditions? Only one: the arbitrary whim of some dictatorial regime imposed upon all through the rigid application of force. Don't be swayed by the peripheral rhetoric; this is the sole purpose of such a proposal.

And what about the path to accomplishing this goal? Here is the first and the last step:

    "In a 2008 pamphlet [President Evo Morales'] entourage distributed at the UN as he attended a summit there, 10 `commandments' are set out as Bolivia's plan to `save the planet' — beginning with the need `to end capitalism.'"

    "Ecuador is among countries that have already been supportive of the Bolivian initiative, along with Nicaragua, Venezuela, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda."

Yes, when you think of the great capitalistic centers of the world needing to be rescued from the the horrible consequences of wealth accumulation and production, it is Bolivia, Barbuda, Antigua and all the rest that immediately come to mind.

There is no underlying respect for nature to be found in this proposal; only a blind envy and hatred for civilization and the desire to see it destroyed, whatever the cost.

    "The UN debate begins two days before the UN's recognition April 22 of the second International Mother Earth Day — another Morales-led initiative."

Don't be complacent thinking that lunacy such as this, taking place in the bowels of the UN, has no affect upon us here in the United States.

  • In 1992, President George H.W. Bush signed the UN's Agenda 21 declaration, and as I have written here, the Livable Communities Act of 2010, which implements many of the Agenda 21 goals is currently still pending in Congress.

  • In 1998 Bill Clinton signed the UN's Kyoto Protocol, although it was not ratified by Congress.

  • President Obama would have gladly signed the 2009 Copenhagen Carbon Emissions Accord, had Climategate not sunk that ship.

The greatest thing that any of us can do in the battle against this form of primitivism is to stand firm agains those who propose to invalidate the concept of individual rights. Always demand that people define their terms, and in this way, force them to reveal their unstated premises. And with that in mind, I will close with the following:

    "A 'right' is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action — which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)
    —
    Ayn Rand

Addendum:


[Thanks once again to Allen Small for bringing the Vancouver Sun article to my attention.]
04-10-2011

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Global Warming?
Subject: The Origins of Anthropogenic Global Warming

As longtime readers of this site are aware, since 2009, when the internal documents from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit were first leaks, I have been tracking important information pertaining to the political ramification of the movement to establish the man-made production of carbon dioxide as the primary activity responsible for global warming. All of this material can be found at the Climategate in Review website.

An article titled Climate Models Go Cold, recently published in the Financial Post, contains the text of a speech given at an Anti-Carbon-Tax Rally in Perth, Australia, by David Evans. Mr Evans, a mathematician and engineer who has earned six professional degrees, consulted with the Australian Greenhouse Office and Department of Climate Change for nine years, modeling carbon pools in forest and agricultural systems, which exposed him to the current state of climate data and resulted in his transformation from a global warming alarmist to a skeptic.

To summarize, Evans explains how the original idea that carbon dioxide production was predominantly responsible for the earth's global warming was based upon a climate model hypothesis formulated in the early 80s, which by the mid 90s had been completely disproved as a result of three decades of atmospheric temperature measurements. Here are the details, with all quotes coming from Evan's essay:

The first point Evan makes is that a significant assumption, folded into all of the climate models, was based upon an unproven hypothesis for which there was no corroborating data back in 1980.

    "Let's set a few things straight. The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess ..."

    "Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much."

    "Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet's temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. ... The disagreement comes about what happens next."

    "The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas."

    "This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide."

What was now needed was some empirical data to test the hypothesis. This was provided by weather balloon temperature data.

    "The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism."

    "Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up ... During the warming of the late 1970s, '80s and '90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide."

Evans provides a summary of the atmospheric data in his PDF article, The Missing Hotspot, and this is also discussed in two articles by Joanne Nova titled The Missing Hotspot and Found: The Hotspot? Not.

Evans states that the decision to willfully ignore the new data and continue using discredited climate models was the moment when climate research stopped being a science and shifted into a well funded political propaganda machine.

    "This evidence first became clear around the mid-1990s."

    "At this point, official "climate science" stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters."

    "There are now several independent pieces of evidence showing that the earth responds to the warming due to extra carbon dioxide by dampening the warming. Every long-lived natural system behaves this way, counteracting any disturbance. Otherwise the system would be unstable. The climate system is no exception, and now we can prove it."

And the final conclusion?

    "Even if we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide tomorrow, completely shut up shop and went back to the Stone Age, according to the official government climate models it would be cooler in 2050 by about 0.015 degrees. But their models exaggerate 10-fold — in fact our sacrifices would make the planet in 2050 a mere 0.0015 degrees cooler!"

    "Finally, to those who still believe the planet is in danger from our carbon dioxide emissions: Sorry, but you've been had. Yes, carbon dioxide is a cause of global warming, but it's so minor it's not worth doing much about."

'Nuff said.


[Thanks to Allen Small for originally bringing the Evan article to my attention.]
05-06-2010

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Petition Project
Subject: American Scientists Reject Anthropogenic Global Warming

Over 31,000 American scientists have signed a petition stating that there is no convincing evidence that human-related activities are causing catastrophic climate change, and urge the U.S. government to reject the Kyoto global warming agreement, along with all other similar proposals.

If you agree, and have a Bachelor of Science degree, or higher, in an appropriate scientific field, then I encourage you to visit the Global Warming Petition Project website, print out a copy of the petition, sign it, and mail it in, adding your voice to the effort to restore sanity, not only to the study of climate, but to all fields of scientific endeavor.

03-05-2010

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Michael Mann
Subject: Climategate in Review

In order to facilitate better research into the facts surrounding the Climategate scandal, all of the information relating to global climate change has been consolidated on a single page, allowing easier updates. For more information, go to:
02-14-2010

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Subject: Climategate Update: 02-14-10

All of the information relating to climate change has been consolidated to a single page. For more information, go to:
02-08-2010

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U.N. Climate Chief
Rajendra Pachauri
Subject: Climategate Update

All of the information relating to climate change has been consolidated to a single page. For more information, go to:
12-17-2009

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George Monbiot
Subject: Redefining Humanity

In an article titled, This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity, published in The Guardian, George Monbiot lays bare the soul and the intend of the entire environmentalist movement.

Describing the Copenhagen climate summit, he states:
    "This is the moment at which we turn and face ourselves. Here, in the plastic corridors and crowded stalls, among impenetrable texts and withering procedures, humankind decides what it is and what it will become."

And like all good socialists, the issue for Monbiot is not what will we, as individuals, become. The only relevant question is what will be the transformation for humanity as a whole — with all of the inconsequential individuals simply forced to conform to the collective will.

And who is to decide this bold new direction for humanity? Well, for Monbiot that's a moot point as the decision has already been cast, with the consequences of that foregone decision sprinkled throughout the remainder of the article. Consider such prescient observations as the following:
    "The meeting at Copenhagen confronts us with our primal tragedy."

    "Now we find ourselves hedged in by the consequences of our nature, living meekly on this crowded planet for fear of provoking or damaging others. We have the hearts of lions and live the lives of clerks."

    "The summit's premise is that the age of heroism is over."

    "[I]t is ... a battle between two world views. The angry men who seek to derail this agreement, and all such limits on their self-fulfilment, have understood this better than we have."

    "[F]ossil fuels have granted the universal ape amplification beyond its Paleolithic dreams. [... allowing] us to live in blissful mindlessness"

    "The angry men know that this golden age has gone; but they cannot find the words for the constraints they hate. Clutching their copies of Atlas Shrugged, they flail around"

    "All those of us whose blood still races are forced to sublimate, to fantasise. In daydreams and video games we find the lives that ecological limits and other people's interests forbid us to live."

    "There is no space for heroism here; all passion and power breaks against the needs of others. This is how it should be"

As Ayn Rand once wrote:
    "Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer — and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."

This article perfectly summarizes the real issue behind the environmental movement. I agree that it is concerned with nothing less than the redefinition of humanity. And the vision of that new humanity is as a passive video-gamer, vicariously placated by virtual-acts that were once undertaken in reality. With our lion hearts caged, and all thoughts of heroism ground out of existence, we will all voluntarily accept our new place as clerks and stewards of the planet, and sacrifice ourselves in service to "other people's interests". Nothing more can be expected when the "original sin" of our human nature unavoidably leads to "primal tragedy".

Monbiot articulates the polarity that exists between environmentalists' view of mankind and those held by Ayn Rand. So, who's the destroyer and who's the savior? The choice is yours. Either lay down you copy of Atlas Shrugged and accept your redefined role as a hapless, mindless sheep — or grasp your copy firmly in hand and wield it as the tool it was intended to be, standing proudly in the long tradition of our Paleolithic ancestors who knew how to dream of a better future and then work creatively to realize it.

[Thanks to Robert Tracinski for bringing this article to my attention.]
12-04-2009

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Google
Subject: Climategate begets Googlegate

In a nice piece of investigative work, Harold Ambler reports on his website, Talking About The Weather, about Google's apparent attempt to minimize the damage being done by the Climategate scandal, by removing the term "Climategate" from Google's auto-suggest function. Harold reports that as the scandal was initially breaking, it was possible to type the letters "c-l-i" and see a suggestion for "climategate" displayed. As the news reports continued to mount, the number of relevant hits for climategate continued to rapidly rise, currently yielding just under 30 million hits. Despite this, Harold notices that as of December 1st, Google would no longer offer "climategate" as a suggestion.

Why?

Harold contacted a person in Google's global communications department and asked for an explanation, but received no satisfactory answer. Read his article for the entire disturbing story.

Note that as of December 4th, Google will suggest "climate gate" as a possible entry (currently with about 10 million hits), but "climategate", with three times as many entries, has still gone missing.

To fully understand this story, it is important to know that Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO and Chairman, has been a vocal supporter of Barack Obama, and an advisor to the current administration on energy policy. Quoting from Wikipedia,
    "He [Schmidt] proposed that the easiest way to solve all of the United States' problems at once, at least in domestic policy, is by a stimulus program that rewards renewable energy and, over time, attempts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy."

This shows that he is not a disinterested party with regard to this topic. Could these results be benign. Possibly. However, it is certainly not obvious that an unbiased mathematical algorithm would operate in this manner, thus leading to the speculation that the results are being massaged in service of a political agenda.

[Thanks to Robert Bidinotto for bringing this article to my attention.]
11-24-2009

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Heaven and Earth
Subject: Climategate: The Selling of the Big Lie

All of the information relating to climate change has been consolidated to a single page. For more information, go to: