I’m off this weekend and part of next week– talk quietly and politely amongst yourselves. Don’t make me come back here.
If you have something worth posting on the front page, flag a moderator. Those that want to do guest posts are welcome to do so also. Again, flag a moderator for attention. I’ll update when I can but I have quite a busy schedule in the next week that will keep me offline for extended periods.
– Anthony
I love open threads!
I’ve noticed there are agw groups who gather together to talk about their worries and goals.
Are there any groups like this for the WUWT crowd?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6554952/UN-food-summit-fails-before-it-begins.html
UN food summit ‘fails before it begins’ Excerpts:
The leaked World Food Summit draft declaration falls short of a UN goal of eradicating hunger by 2025. Instead, leaders are expected to to sign a watered down declaration in Rome next week that calls for vague increases in aid for farmers in poor countries but sets no targets or deadlines for action.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which is organising the three day conference, had hoped to win a clear promise from rich countries to increase the amount they give each year in agricultural aid from $7.9 billion (£4.8 billion) to $44 billion.
“It’s a tragedy that the world leaders are not going to attend the summit,” said Daniel Berman of Medecins Sans Frontières . Aid groups said the summit was a missed opportunity to tackle malnutrition, which kills a child every six seconds, despite the fact that the world produces a surplus of food. Cereal crops this year are expected to be the second largest ever, after a record harvest in 2008.
According to FAO, the number of hungry people rose this year to 1.02 billion people, as a result of the global economic crisis, high food and fuel prices, drought and conflict.
“This scourge is not just a moral outrage and economic absurdity, but also represents a threat for our peace and security,” said FAO’s director, Jacques Diouf, who will embark on a 24 hour fast on Saturday to show solidarity with the world’s hungry.
450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
Tin foil hat time
Some one has got their hands on notes from the G20 meeting.
http://www.bilderbergbook.com/
Timmy Geitner
President optimistic have basic elements in place next year.
Nobody has mandate for specific numbers
Basic US? architecture for financing only thing needed? to do
Has the original summary there as well
Discussion question:
The percentage of the general public skeptical of climate chane/global warming is rising, I suspect because promised ills haven’t happened as promised and it’s too cold in a lot of areas.
The media is showing signs of catching on, though some areas and some radio programs still talk about agw with the same certainty as the Sun will rise tomorrow.What timeline do you expect to pass before the mainstream media starts talking about the demise failure of global warming?
I expected 2009 would be the year some media wakes up to it, though I expected more would have by now. The general public seems to losing faith faster then the media, I assume that comes from not enjoying the promised “barebeque summers” in the UK of late.
AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent is sure bottled up at the moment. It’s flatlined a few times, now for 3 days. Ice is growing W of Greenland but diminishing N of Siberia. I don’t suppose there is any quiet recalibration going on? It’s just that we haven’t seen such a jagged growth line in previous years. They wouldn’t be priming for Copenhagen, would they be? Naaahh….
There seems to be a divergence of aims in the U.N., given that the I.P.C.C. is working to reduce the world’s population by some 95% in order to save the planet.
I hope you’re on a beach somewhere, Anthony –having cabana girls rub suntan lotion on you between rounds of Mai Tais delivered to your beach chair!
REPLY: Sadly no, climate work beckons.- A
Cap N Trade may be on death row awaiting appeal :
On the practical side, Obama has spent more money on new programs in nine months than Bill Clinton did in eight years, pushing the annual deficit to $1.4 trillion. This leaves little room for big spending initiatives….the White House has not dropped plans for an aggressive global warming bill early next year that will be loaded with new spending on green technology and jobs – that would be paid for with tax increases. Democratic lobbyist Steve Elmendorf says the White House focus on deficit reduction could easily kill the cap-and-trade effort. “I think this means cap-and-trade has to go to the backburner,” he said.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29471.html
Eddie Murphy (20:51:18) :
…The leaked World Food Summit draft declaration falls short of a UN goal of eradicating hunger by 2025.
Rising CO2 has led to great increases in crop productivity, more than sufficient to feed everyone.
I think almost all the world’s starvation problems are political in nature, and sending money to poor farmers won’t help. The thugs in power in North Korea and Somalia and Zimbabwe are the real reasons in those countries.
The AGW dunces in power in western countries are responsible for biofuel policies that have take zillions of tons of corn off the food market and raised prices beyond the ability of the third world peoples to pay.
The Luddites in those same western countries have lobbied effectively to stall the spread of genetically improved crop varieties like golden rice, which could help prevent blindness in vast numbers of children.
UN FAO programs won’t do a thing to eliminate hunger, any more that paying a carbon tax will eliminate global warming. The solutions lie elsewhere.
I believe that with the dark and malign forces of authority, as spelled out in the link below, abroad, we, the readers of WUWT, must remain alert and willing to spring to the defence of Anthony should he become their target — and a likely target he is.
So what’s scarier? The most hysterical AGW projections, or the fact that mainstream science has been corrupted by postmodern politics?
I have a question. It might have been answered already on this site, in which case I apologise for my lack of assiduity.
From the start of the industrial revolution (roughly 1750) until about 1950 no one seemed particularly bothered about factories pumping soot and other muck into the air from their chimneys. It was an unpleasant side-effect of providing jobs for millions and an increased standard of living for millions more, but it was seen to be a small price to pay for the huge benefits received.
Today we hear of plans to pump muck into the air to reduce temperatures.
If it is right that pumping muck into the atmosphere now will reduce temperatures, it follows (in my simple mind) that the earlier pumping of muck must have had the same effect. I would guess that the effect is primarily local rather than global. I would also guess that the temperature measurements taken in the western world during the age of muck might well be lower than they otherwise would be because of the effect of the muck. Indeed, if the “muck = cooler” theory is correct, it is inevitable that those temperature measurements are lower than they would have been sans muck.
Much of the recent temperature history appears to be based on measurements from land-based instruments in the industrialised world. On the face of it, late 20th century warming must be due in part to the removal of cooling muck.
My question is: has anyone assessed the effect of earlier 20th century mucky air on temperature measurements taken in the mucky-air countries?
NZ Willy (21:19:44) :
diminishing N of Siberia
I haven’t looked in to this. Is it from compaction?
Anthony you should have renewed the Widget; the sunspot is again ZERO.
Some clairvoyant: enter your forecast on the sunspot number ant its consequences please.
K (21:44:26) : “So what’s scarier? The most hysterical AGW projections, or the fact that mainstream science has been corrupted by postmodern politics?”
The fact that the MSM have maintained silence regarding the truth of these issues.
Ric Werme (21:17:48) :
The demise of MSM support for AGW will come on heels of a cold disaster.
Otherwise it’s a slow decay as Media and populace dig into the plans of AGW and discover extremely distasteful things about it.
Smack in the middle of the Great Recession no less.
“Is it from compaction?”
If I were to venture a guess, it is due to winds. Seems like persistent low pressure in the general location of Iceland pulling warm air up from the South.
It would be compacting the ice North of Iceland.
NZ Willy (21:19:44) : “AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent is sure bottled up at the moment. It’s flatlined a few times, now for 3 days. Ice is growing W of Greenland but diminishing N of Siberia. I don’t suppose there is any quiet recalibration going on? It’s just that we haven’t seen such a jagged growth line in previous years. They wouldn’t be priming for Copenhagen, would they be? Naaahh….”
My theory is that cold NH temperatures are the result of heat transfer to the Arctic circle, thus delaying freeze-up. Things should resume as the Arctic night descends, possibly at record rates.
The ice may also be thickening, rather than increasing in extent, but this is unlikely and difficult to prove.
There will be no more traveling over the river and through the woods to visit grandmother. If CO2 legislation passes, we will not even be allowed to have a turkey. Too many resources wasted.
James Hansen has been very quiet lately… is he sensing a turn in the climate? Certainly the climate temperatures have flattened has started to cool during the past decade which is not according to his computer predictions.
Being open-thread night, I thought this would be a good place to the mention that WUWT is approaching its third anniversary.
Looking through the archives, I found this:
Welcome To: Watts Up With That?
http://wattsupwiththat/2006/11/17/welcome-to-watts-up-with-that/
Had a total of 3 comments, and here is a nugget from the second comment, dated Nov. 17, 2006:
Jack Lee (21:02:31) :
“Im very pleased to see you writing this column Anthony! Its sure to be a big hit.”
Jack, if you’re still out there, I’d have to say you hit that one big !
With WUWT closely approaching twenty-four million hits, I would say a very big hit indeed.
Anthony, I hope you get a chance to enjoy a little time off this Tuesday. You deserve it!
I am wondering whether any of you El Nino nuts are prepared to speculate on the chances that 2010 (super?) El Nino will push a new temp record.
I ask because in the GISS 2008 Climate report Jim Hansen held to a prediction of the previous year that there would be another Global temp record in the next 2 years (end 2010):
”Given our expectation of the next El Nino beginning in 2009 or 2010, it still seems likely that a new global temperature record will be set within the next 1-2 years, despite the moderate negative effect of the reduced solar irradiance.” [Hansen]
The (London/UK) Times Saturday 14th Nov front page is all about the results of a survey on climate change.
“Global warming is not our fault, say most voters in Times poll”
Story:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6916648.ece
Comment
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6916347.ece
Environment section response:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6916510.ece
and pdf of (very limited and slightly confusingly presented survey results)
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pdfs/tthstreetpoll2.pdf
The majority of comments on the storys were from skeptics at the time of writign although I have to say some are fairly poorly informed.
The environment section response has a photo of smoke stacks with the caption “The Government’s message on climate change does not appear to be getting through”.
(How do I flag a moderator?)
Hi Moderators
My you’re looking good today 😉
I have a guest post over at Air Vent concerning my project ‘Little Ice age thermometers’ This entails gathering together as many historic instrumental records from around the world as possible and predate the 1850/1880 Hadley and Giss sets
Why scrutinise tree rings when you can examine thermometers records back to 1660 to look for climatic variability?
This first guest post looks at the history of measuring temperatures and pays particular attention to developments around 1850/1880 which includes the creation of the Stevsenson screen which is often viewed as the watershed betwen historic and modern temperature recording.
It includes Ancient Greeks, Romans fighting Vikings, James Hansen and the IPCC so it covers a broad spectrum. The article incorporates some of EM Smiths excellent work from Chiefio.
Future articles will look at the reliability of the historic records and compare them to the reliability of modern records in order to determine if the claims of catastrophic warming is correct.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/little-ice-age-thermometers-history-and-reliability/
Tonyb