Last week on Friday August 1st you may recall that I commented on the release of the Draft report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
In that post I mentioned that “The draft document reads more like a news article in many places than it does a scientific document, and unlike a scientific document, it has a number of what I would call “emotionally based graphics” in it that have nothing to do with the science.”
One of those graphics that tug at your heartstrings turns out to be a fabrication, pure and simple. Here is page 58 of the NCDC authored report:
Click for a larger image. Note the arrow pointing to this photo:
Image above taken directly from the CCSP report.
There’s been a discussion on Climate Audit about this photo, namely that it has the flood waters “photoshopped” in.
When I showed it to my graphic artist at my office he said, “no problem, I can recreate that using any house photo and a Photoshop filter.
I had contemplated having him do just that, but it turns out proving this photo to be a digital fabrication is a lot easier.
Simply go to IstockPhoto.com, where you can buy this photo online:
Click image for original source location
But apparently, the lead authors of the report didn’t see the caveat that comes with the photo:
Here’s another graphical rendering of water by the same photographer/photoshopper. Doomsday in Seattle or as the caption describes it: “An apocalyptic view of Seattle sunken into Puget Sound.”
But the real question is, with so many different photos of real flooded houses available, why did they choose one that was not real? Surely they know such a report will be highly scrutinized?
As I said last week, the use of graphics in the report makes it look more like a news article than a scientific paper, and if principal National Climatic Data Center authors Dr.’s Thomas Karl and Peterson can’t even bother to check if the photos they use are real or not, or even spot such obvious fakes, it makes one wonder just how much fact checking went into the other parts of the report.
Do you think our policy makers, for which this report is intended, would be smart enough to catch such things?
Hat tip: various contributors on this Climate Audit thread
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Warmists assert: Ve vill photoshop und powerpoint you into sub-mission, ja!
I swing from elation to despair every day at the moment.
From a bad place a voice whispers; “do what you like, we have all this media exposure and stuff”.
Well its a pretty good fake, complete with realistic looking reflections on the water. But if they are really using fake photos it seems to me that we should point it out to them and complain like hell about it.
Hmmm I see this is just a daft. Maybe we should let them publish the final version and then start complaining. A good fisherman always lets the fish take the bait, and then sets the hook, before he cranks in his catch.
A fabrication? This has come as something of a shock. Next thing, you’ll be telling us that Al Gore is buying his carbon credits from himself.
That also looks like the rare mid-winter flood. Notice there are no leaves of buds on the shrubs.
It’s also the rare clean water flood. No floating wood, debris, leaves, swimming animals, or anything else. Maybe real floods aren’t photogenic enough.
First Draft – Do not cite or quote.
“Physical and MENTAL health impacts due to extreme weather events are projected to increase”
OK… this caption is just as troubling to me as the fake flood. It should say,
“Mental health has been impacted by the NCDC’s misuse of Government funds to push an agenda….”
I know that this report has negatively affected MY mental health.
Mike
. . . ya but the fishing will be really easy – just drop a line out the bedroom window
Hmmmm, a computer program makes the weather look however you want it to… Somehow I think we have talked about this before….
Mike
Yeah, I seem to recall someone somewhere has climate models that produce whatever output you want. How cool is that?
Where have the real scientists gone, and where do they think this leaves their reputations, and the reputation of science itself. When will it stop.
As I see it, the alarmist must think all the people in America are recent graduates from government schools.
I would assume that use of a “Stock” photo has all the proper model release and property release obtained. For editorial use of photos, the issue is not that important, but if the picture were ever used for commercial or “non-editorital use”, the property owner may hire a lawyer.
But that does not excuse the use of images that was photoshoped to create a flood in an image. This is where you get into ethics. If ends justifies the means….
Well we had cartoon polar bears tiring out in the arctic, why can’t we have cartoon floods to scare us? I’m sure cartoon droughts and cartoon tropical diseases are next.
Anthony, excellent. Take them to the band-saw.
I am not American so cannot persue this, but surely a Congressman or Senator would be very interested in the fraudulant use of public funds?
Henry Galt, are you related to John Galt by any chance? 🙂
Tarpon, they are not “alarmists”, they are hysterics.
Just look at the house on the right at the water line. The water is not level with the house as it should be unless they build houses at a slant in that location.
This type of photoshop is really easy to do, I’ll happily show you some of my photoshop work, some with these type of water effect filters and shadows…
Its the Piltdown Mansion
Someone should ask Industrial Light & Fakery for a refund.
Of course a house which computers say might get flooded should first be flooded by computers.
And I note the mention that wildfires have increased in recent decades. In recent decades (after World War II) the fire suppression policies began to be overturned with a return to the original burning of outdoor spaces. I would not be surprised that official approval of management by fire (I think it’s called “fire management”) is somehow correlated with an increase in fires.
I believe there is a new mental condition called “Climate Neurosis”, so I suppose those afflicted would be Climate Neurotics. Some poor boy did not want to drink water because he felt that some other person would die because of his selfishness. Hmmm, could his parents have a case against these entities that appeal to emotions to change peoples’ behaviors?
Fighting Climate Neurosis,
Mike Bryant
Mosh, that’s one of the best puns I’ve heard in a month. Thanks.
for those who don’t know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
Reply: Anthony, forgive me for commenting on your post, but you are missing the backstory.~charles the moderator
of course photoshopped. penguin-shopped polar bear-shopped CO2-shopped temperatures-shopped ice-shopped maps-shopped graphics-shopped models-shopped stations-shopped please, a link to concentration of atmospheric oxygen. Jeez: You’re Welcome many brahmas, caipirinhas and chopps (no shopped). Are you waiting
Reply: Brahma yes, caipirinhas no, can’t stomach them, haven’t tried a caipiroska yet. Who knows? Maybe this year.~charles the moderator
Though it sounds dodgy, the use of a photoshopped stock image for illustrative purposes is hardly misleading. It’s just been purchased so that copyright issues are easy to solve.
Of far greater concern is the use, elsewhere in the document, of the hockey-stick graph which has been comprehensively disproven. See Climate Audit. This is bad science, mendacious and misleading. Citing a known incorrect item of data should be a disciplinary offence. I hope that any complaints about this paper will draw attention to the graph.