The First Big Cracks Appear in the Wall
Guest post by Steven Goddard
During the past few weeks, there have been several warnings of apocalypse from noted scientists. Dr. Hansen warned in The Guardian that President Obama has “four years to save the planet.” James McCarthy, head of the American Association for The Advancement of Science (AAAS) made a similar statement. Nobel Prize winning scientist Al Gore is going to take it a step further at next week’s AAAS meeting. Steven Chu, President Obama’s Secretary of Energy, warned that California will no longer be able to support agriculture or cities due to drought caused by global warming.
Then something remarkable happened.
Today’s Guardian has a lead story unlike anything we have seen before.
‘Apocalyptic climate predictions’ mislead the public, say experts’
Experts at Britain’s top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming. The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent “apocalyptic predictions” about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist.
Nobody has been pushing the global warming story harder than the Met Office and The Guardian. Whom could they be referring to in this passage “scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming?”
Some more quotes from the article.
Pope says there is little evidence to support claims that Arctic ice has reached a tipping point and could disappear within a decade or so, as some reports have suggested. Summer ice extent in the Arctic, formed by frozen sea water, has collapsed in recent years, with ice extent in September last year 34% lower than the average since satellite measurements began in 1979. “The record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer ice increasing again over the next few years,” she says.
“It is easy for scientists to grab attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change.”
The criticism reflects mounting concern at the Met Office that the global warming debate risks being hijacked by people on both sides who push their own agendas and interests.
The Met Office has been badly burned by their seasonal mispredictions of warm UK weather, particularly during the current winter and the last two summers. But particularly interesting to me are the comments about Arctic Ice. I was about to write an article forecasting the return of the Arctic to near normal ice conditions this summer, based on the light polar drift this winter. It appears that The Met Office agrees with that prognosis.
The walls are tumbling down in the UK. President Obama promised to align with the Europeans about global warming. Will he keep his promise?
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall
Pink Floyd
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Well, I for one, have to say the MET is doing a fine job. Pity it’s come to internecine conflict but it would appear things are a bit tense in ‘Merry Old England’.
I have been in regular contact by email with the Met Office, asking them for scientific evidence and criticising them for their forecasts and alarmist propaganda. Here is part of a reply I received from them just one week ago:
“The evidence for man-made climate change is in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
In its Fourth Assessment Review, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that there is unequivocal evidence from observations that the Earth is warming. It further stated and that most of the observed warming since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in man-made greenhouse gas concentrations. By “very likely”, the IPCC means a 90% probability or greater. This broad climate change message has also been strongly supported by the world’s top Academy of Sciences, including the Royal Society in the UK and the National Academy of Sciences in the USA.
The national science academies of the G8 nations and Brazil, China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, have signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stresses that the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action and calls on world leaders to take such action.
In view of this, the Met Office firmly believes that climate research has captured the essential aspects of what is causing our planet to warm. It is now time to move on and look at strategies for adaptation and mitigation; better defining uncertainty and improving regional detail in climate models. This is where our efforts will and should be directed.”
This seems a remarkably quick reaching of the tipping point. Is it the first sign of a retreat from cognitive dissonance?
from CCNet:
MET OFFICE: ‘APOCALYPTIC CLIMATE PREDICTIONS’ ARE MISLEADING
The Daily Telegraph, 11 February 2009
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/milo_yiannopoulos/blog/2009/02/11/now_the_met_office_says_it_too_apocalyptic_climate_predictions_are_misleading
Milo Yiannopoulos
The Guardian’s environment team must have choked on their organic muesli running this one: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/11/climate-change-misleading-claims
‘Apocalyptic climate predictions’ mislead the public, say experts: Met Office scientists fear distorted climate change claims could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions
In an article published on the Guardian website, Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, calls on scientists and journalists to stop misleading the public with “claim and counter-claim”.
Pope says there is little evidence to support claims that Arctic ice has reached a tipping point and could disappear within a decade or so, as some reports have suggested.
“The record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer ice increasing again over the next few years,” she says.
Pope’s original article is the latest in a series of clues that all is not well within the climate change lobby. The great Gerald Warner has been covering the subject recently, with his usual flair:
This has been a bad 24 hours for the climate-change liars, beginning with Christopher Booker’s exposure in The Sunday Telegraph of the fabrication of data to “prove” pretended warming in the Antarctic. As more and more scientists who have not been bought by the United Nations climate clique find the courage to voice dissent from the junk science peddled by the IPCC and a public plunged into economic depression loses patience with this multi-billion-pound scam, it looks as if the great global warming imposture is finally on the retreat.
By and large, the scientific community has been in agreement about climate change until now. But I reckon we’re about to see open warfare between experts presenting serious, evidence-based research into the state of the planet and hysterical alarmists like James Hansen, who seem hell-bent on destroying our economy through eye-wateringly expensive and totally unnecessary “emergency measures”.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The criticism by members of the Met Office seems to be of a tactical nature and looks more like an attempt to distract from their own contribution to the apocalyptic hype (see my Met Office comments from 2005: http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Peiser/Peiser_Exeter2005_report.html). Nevertheless, I welcome the belated recognition that hype and fear-mongering is self-defeating. It certainly has helped to drive the wedge even deeper between climate extremists and moderate scientists.
– Benny Peiser
The Met Office is trying to distance themselves from their own past climate hysteria – more rats leaving a sinking ship.
Regards, Allan
And some more quotations from the article:
She adds: “Both undermine the basic facts that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically.”
Dr Peter Stott, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said a common misrepresentation was to take a few years data and extrapolate to what would happen if it continues. “You just can’t do that. You have to look at the long-term trend and then at the natural variability on top.”
Also from CCNet
OPINION: GREEN IDEAS MUST TAKE BLAME FOR AUSTRALIAN BUSHFIRES
The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 February 2009 http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/green-ideas-must-take-blame-for-deaths-20090211-84mk.html
Miranda Devine
It wasn’t climate change which killed as many as 300 people in Victoria last weekend. It wasn’t arsonists. It was the unstoppable intensity of a bushfire, turbo-charged by huge quantities of ground fuel which had been allowed to accumulate over years of drought. It was the power of green ideology over government to oppose attempts to reduce fuel hazards before a megafire erupts, and which prevents landholders from clearing vegetation to protect themselves.
So many people need not have died so horribly. The warnings have been there for a decade. If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but greenies.
Governments appeasing the green beast have ignored numerous state and federal bushfire inquiries over the past decade, almost all of which have recommended increasing the practice of “prescribed burning”. Also known as “hazard reduction”, it is a methodical regime of burning off flammable ground cover in cooler months, in a controlled fashion, so it does not fuel the inevitable summer bushfires.
In July 2007 Scott Gentle, the Victorian manager of Timber Communities Australia, who lives in Healesville where two fires were still burning yesterday, gave testimony to a Victorian parliamentary bushfire inquiry so prescient it sends a chill down your spine.
“Living in an area like Healesville, whether because of dumb luck or whatever, we have not experienced a fire … since … about 1963. God help us if we ever do, because it will make Ash Wednesday look like a picnic.” God help him, he was right.
Gentle complained of obstruction from green local government authorities of any type of fire mitigation strategies. He told of green interference at Kinglake – at the epicentre of Saturday’s disaster, where at least 147 people died – during a smaller fire there in 2007.
FULL STORY at http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/green-ideas-must-take-blame-for-deaths-20090211-84mk.html
EDITOR’S NOTE: see also Roger Pielke Jr.: Trends in Homes Lost to Australian Bushfires http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/trends-in-homes-lost-to-autralian-bushfires-4950
Angry Survivors blame Council ‘Green’ Policy http://www.theage.com.au/national/angry-survivors-blame-council-green-policy-20090211-83p0.html
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(8) NICK STERN: WHAT DO WE WANT? $400 BILLION! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!
The Guardian, 12 February 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/11/stern-climate-change
Governments across the world must commit to hundreds of billions of pounds in green investments within months in a combined attack on the global economic crisis and global warming, according to leading economists including Nicholas Stern.
The team says some $400bn (£277bn) should be channelled to support low-carbon technologies such as home insulation and renewable energy. Given the urgency of both the economic and climate crises, it wants the green investment made by this summer and to total 20% of the £1.4tn likely to be spent globally as fiscal stimulus.
Lord Stern, the former Treasury economist and now chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: “With billions about to be spent by governments on energy, buildings and transport, it is vital that these public investments do not lock us for many more decades into a costly and unsustainable high-carbon economy.”
A report published today, written by many of the team that prepared the influential 2006 Stern Review on the economics of climate change, says politicians should not delay plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions because of the global slowdown. Instead, action to tackle climate change could form a central part of fiscal packages to stimulate national economies.
Lord Stern said: “The rich industrialised countries need to show leadership this year by committing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050, compared with 1990, and their economic recovery plans need to be consistent with this target.”
FULL STORY at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/11/stern-climate-change
==========
(9) STERN RESULTS: MILLIONS FACE ‘STEALTH TAX’ ON HEATING BILLS TO SUBSIDISE GREEN ENERGY
Daily Mail, 12 February 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1142710/Millions-face-stealth-tax-heating-bills-subsidise-green-energy.html
By David Derbyshire
Millions of families face yet another hike in heating bills to pay for a massive expansion of green energy.
Ministers say that the money raised will subsidise solar panels, wind turbines and wood-burning boilers for hundreds of thousands of homes.
But critics warn that the levy is an ‘insidious’ stealth tax that will hammer households at a time of rising unemployment, falling incomes and economic uncertainty.
We are already paying an average of £410 more on our annual energy bills after price rises last year of 59 per cent for gas and 26 per cent for electricity.
The green levy, or ‘Renewable Heating Incentive’, is part of an energy package to be unveiled today by the Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband.
As well as grants for domestic windmills and solar panels, he will announce plans to insulate seven million homes.
The measures will be funded by the levy on fossil fuel energy suppliers – which will be passed on to us in our household bills.
The Government insists that overall the package will cut energy waste and reduce fuel bills for millions.
‘Not only do we want to cut fuel bills and greenhouse gas emissions, we also want to make Britain less reliant on imports of fossil fuels,’ said a spokesman for the Department for Energy and Climate Change. ‘Fossil fuel prices are more volatile.’
Ministers have no idea at this stage how much the levy will be – or when it will be introduced.
Susie Squire of the Taxpayers’ Alliance said the plan would hit families who are finding it hard to make ends meet.
‘It sounds like another insidious stealth tax at a time of economic recession when people are already struggling,’ she said.
‘Increasing everyone’s bills to subsidise the cost of green energy for a few is nonsense. People should be encouraged to be more energy efficient, but it should be voluntary.’
Professor Ian Fells of Newcastle University, a former government advisor on energy conservation, welcomed plans to insulate more homes.
But he warned that the incentive scheme could see less-affluent families subsidising solar panels for others.
‘All these renewable energy systems are expensive to put in,’ he said. ‘Even solar panels for heating take at least 12 years to pay back the costs.
FULL STORY at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1142710/Millions-face-stealth-tax-heating-bills-subsidise-green-energy.html
We have a saying in greek: one swallow does not bring the spring.
It will take many more such changes to get a tipping point in institude opinions. The UK Met will be counted among the skeptics if it stands alone.
Note to moderator – I only meant to include the story entitled “OPINION: GREEN IDEAS MUST TAKE BLAME FOR AUSTRALIAN BUSHFIRES” in my last post – you can delete stories (8) and (9) if you feel my post is too long.
Thank you for all your good work, Allan
And it is not even a swallow:
The conclusion from the link of the post:
“When climate scientists like me explain to people what we do for a living we are increasingly asked whether we “believe in climate change”. Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity’s activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.”
One could also go to the original article by Dr Vicky Pope, Met Office Head of Climate Change:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090211.html
Here are selected quotes, all emphasis added.
About Arctic Ice tipping point
She is chastising both sides, the “advocates” and the “sceptics”
Finally, Dr Pope’s stance on climate change
No idea where slamming is seen or a blistering attack at a singled out side… balanced, with closing para to emphasize the evidence is overwhelming:
Excerpts:
“What is true is that there will always be natural variability in the amount of ice around Greenland and that as our climate continues to warm, the long-term reduction in the ice sheet is inevitable.”
and
Both undermine the basic facts that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically and swiftly over the coming decades.
and
… Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity’s activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.
So, the reading is the angle of view.
It’s difficult to fathom the Met Office. Largely, they are an inept organisation who have been at the forefront of man-made global warming nonsense. They have certainly been ‘economical with the truth’ on many aspects connected with climate change – and continue to be. Some even might say they have lied.
Having spoken to someone who works there, I have to say their belief is genuine. Unlike some ‘scientists’ who may just be after some grant money, the Met Office seem to actually believe what they’re saying. However, they do remind me of the man who shouted ‘fire!’, then ran out of the room because he had heard the word ‘fire!’.
But it’s all too late for the Met Office. They haven’t just complied with the warming debacle, they’ve been a big part of it. They won’t look good back-peddling now. Perhaps this is their way of seeing that all is not going to plan – and they’re looking for a door out. If so, then we should see these change http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/bigpicture/ especially ‘Fact 2’.
“apocalyptic predictions about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures”
Like those emanating from the Met. Office..?
Deep joy!
Did I just wake up in an alternate universe?
A little off topic. Anthony I appreciate your willingness to allow a free discussion here.
Glad to see reasoned articles are occuring in climate discussion.
“Rember Victoria” From my reading of the brush fire stories in Australia I understand people are blaming the Greenie/enviormentalist movement for preventing reasonable fire control.
I hope both sides can learn from this and have reasonable discussion instead of the current blame situation where to many express their own one sided opinion or suppress dissent and ignore reasonable information presented by others
“Nobel Prize winning scientist Al Gore”
Is Al Gore a scientist?
Focus on the empirical studies placing an upper limit on global warming due to co2 concentration increase much lower than alarmists, positive aspects of co2 increase and a warmer climate, and basic research on alternative energy sources so that co2 doubling occurs in the 23rd century as the current trend indicates.
Is this sanity for real? And what will it mean for correcting raw-data gathering, honest analysis, and providing transparency of the process? Will a dedication to the SCIENCE of climate change — local. regional, global, and historical — return? Who is speaking for the Met Office now? Will the MO name those “scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming”? Who from the MO is among them?
I notice that this break-in-the-wall occurs at almost the same time as a Congressman’s admission that someones were trying to turn the U.S. financial system into a catastrophe around mid-September last year.
Are apocalyptic-causing visions and actions being disciplined? Will the liars be shunned? Wouldn’t that be a victory for democracy! The final victory would be if the “evil-doers” were tried and punished if (when) found guilty. Oh, I forgot. That would be taking responsibility for the consequences of one’s behavior — hardly happens anymore.
“Nobel Prize winning scientist Al Gore”
Is Al Gore a scientist?
As he won the peace prize, he should be referred to as:
Nobel Prize winning pacifier Al Gore.
It is refreshing to find that, at long last, we are able to read an “official” pronouncement which goes some way to separating different issues which are too often conflated.
Issue one: is the planet warming?
Issue two: if so, is human activity contributing to warming?
Issue three: if so, to what extent?
Issue four: what are the likely direct consequences of human-caused warming?
Issue five: whether or not the planet is warming, is human activity affecting the climate adversely?
Issues six & seven: repeat three and four in relation to non-warming adverse activities.
For far too long the mere fact of warming has been trumpted as a disaster, regardless of its extent and effect; and the mere fact of some human effect has been trumpeted as a disaster regardless of its extent and consequences.
It is only by keeping these (and the many sub-issues and knock-on issues they raise) separate, and subjecting each to searching analysis, that everything can be kept in perspective and facts can be established independently of any political agenda.
An encouraging first step. Let’s hope it is the first of many because many are required to reverse the confusion, hype and political opportunism that is rife in this field.
Steve:
The referal to Al Gore as a “scientist” makes me vomit. Please refrain from using that word to describe him in the future.
Otherwise, thanks for the post…
Some of our posters may not be impressed by this statement from the Met office and I can understand their feelings. However, can you imagine James Hanson or Gavin Schnitt doing anything like this? They can’t even admit to obvious errors in the climate record or the reconstructions.
When I start to think the other side is dishonest or just plain stupid I read or ask questions of people connected to the Met office. They seem more honest, in fact I have a positive impression of the ability and integrity of Tom Wigley though I think he is wrong to fear large scale warming, he doesn’t seem to have near the conceit of the aforementioned Americans.
The final “but we still believe in global warming” attachments to these “backing away from doom” articles makes me wonder if a significant part of their research funding came from Al Gore’s money machine. When the money is from a private source, the source can stipulate the strings attached, and pull them if they don’t like the results of research reportings.
“The criticism reflects mounting concern at the Met Office that the global warming debate risks being hijacked by people on both sides who push their own agendas and interests.”
Apparently this particular group of alarmists, have become circumspect about the alarms. The apocalyptic predictions arise entirely from the AGW camp. They have been continuously shown to be wrong or vastly overstate. IPCC and Hansen have fallen into disrepute. More and more active and retired government officials speak out as skeptics.
The Met office is seeing its house of cards teetering on its self-described apocalypse and are edging back from the precipice. A statement such as this, they hope, will signal their “lack of bias,” – particularly if the billions spent trying to wrestle CO2 into the ground yield little or no climate change. In business it’s called, “Cover Your As*!
Pope:
“Both undermine the basic facts that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically.”
Right, so we must avoid those apocalyptic predictions, eh, Ms. Pope? But also, no word from Pope on the more obvious disaster cutting greenhouse gas emissions “drastically” would involve.
In fact, where the rubber meets the road, the reality based situation and “consensus” is so clear that China and India are pursuing massive coal-based electrification programs as we speak, which the ipcc’s own Kyoto Protocols in fact don’t prohibit them from doing.
Richard Heg (06:22:40) :
Just ask any school girl or boy.
Of course Al Gore is scientist – he won the Nobel Prize after all.