McIntyre on CNN

When in doubt, just repeat the mantra…
“Global temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, polar ice caps are melting, ocean acidity levels are rising.”

Disappointing
Stephen McIntyre and Chris Horner failed to challenge the usual Global Warming nonsense. This was a real opportunity missed.

Did Oppenheimer practice these talking points, because I’ve heard other proponents of AGW use the same exact points!? So – GHG’s remain in the atmosphere forever once they are emitted? I learn something new every day.
And asking why the Chinese were investing in hybrid technology as well as solar? It’s called business opportunity and prudent cost avoidance as fossil fuel demand outstrips current production capability.
This kind of give and take has been missing form the public square for far too long. I’m kind of upset as there was so much potential to present a more substantive opposing view as to what Climategate represents – and the mark was missed. All in all though, it was good to see Steve McIntyre, very reaonably, explain why he has concerns about all this. Kind of hard to belittle and demonize someone when they come across as he did.

Hooray for Stephen, hooray for Science!!!!
His closing comment hit the nail on the head

“Global temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, polar ice caps are melting, ocean acidity levels are rising.”
Duh… And what would you expect the earth to do as it is coming out of an ice age! The idiocy that we can dictate the global climate is beyond description.

I see the climate thugs have settled on an approach to the hacked data …
“Yeah, these guys messed up, but so what? There are other scientists who’ve come to the same conclusions”.

WoW, Prof Oppenheimer’s arguments were a joke. There are better opponents on the net. Even I could’ve taken him on the economic stuff and these “mountains of evidence” that show AGW. I’m not sure why McIntyre was so reluctant ..

Peter said: (09:40:58) :
When in doubt, just repeat the mantra…
“Global temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, polar ice caps are melting, ocean acidity levels are rising.”
rickM said (09:51:03) :
Did Oppenheimer practice these talking points, because I’ve heard other proponents of AGW use the same exact points!?
They make nearly irrefutable statements, then throw in their lie at the end: “due to CO2”. The warmists do that every day. We need to say “proof of effect does not prove cause. Other causes are likely because pre-industrial temperatures were much less stable than depicted by this small group of scientists.”
We need to say this over and over and over. Repeat it. Repetition is the key to education.

rickM (09:51:03) :
Did Oppenheimer practice these talking points, because I’ve heard other proponents of AGW use the same exact points!? So – GHG’s remain in the atmosphere forever once they are emitted? I learn something new every day.
Oppenheimer is indeed following a carefully prepared script that revolves around the debunker handbook credo to “deny, defend, delay.” By attempting to re-frame the argument to “massive conspiracy” the alarmists hope to distract the focus from the undeniable fraud perpetrated at UEA by the world’s leading “climatologists. ”
The alarmists claim to have 2,500 “scientists” who have approved the latest IPCC reports – we know that it is more like 25 scientists in fact. Horner is the best communicator of these points and needs to be given more air time to raise the main points – it is the underlying FRAUD – that condemns the entire climate change campaign. The real question is – a few bad apples or is the whole barrel rotten.

“Sunspots. Look at the graphs comparing sunspot activity since 1860 with global sea surface temperatures. They look like matching S curves (unlike the graphs comparing temperatures with CO2 output). Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon notes that 2008 may have been a cold year because sunspot activity was low. The sun has been quiet in 2009 too. “If this deep solar minimum continues,” Dr. Soon explains, “and our planet cools while CO2 levels continue to rise, thinking needs to change. This will be a very telling time and it’s very, very useful in terms of science and society, in my opinion.””
Torquemada in East Anglia
It’s not illegal. But it’s not science.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTdhYTcwZjFjYWM3M2Q2YzI1MGRmMzk5NGRhYjgyZTg=

What’s disconcerting is the idea that 97% of climate scientists agree with the basic premise of AGW. Is that possibly because anyone who had an opposing view either couldn’t get grants or was laughed out of the “club” and is now washing cars for a living?

This guy Chris Horner is an embarrassment.
Seriously, is there really anything remotely resembling compelling evidence that we are now entering a period of global cooling? It’s one thing to say that we are in a fairly extended plateau in global temperatures that is starting to run against the predictions of the warmists; that seems to be quite a reasonable statement. It’s quite another to say that there’s good positive evidence of global cooling. Projecting such a trend is way, way past what the data might possibly signal.
Can’t people respect even the most basic of distinctions?
You want to know why Climate skeptics exude such a bad odor to most educated people? Look no further than Chris Horner.

Honesty shines through and truth be illuminated.
Well done Mr McIntyre.
There is another smoking gun posted by Geronimo at Climate Audit.

Stephen did a good job, especially considering how he was mischaracterized by the whole process.
Oppenheimer sickened me. He thinks that he can preach from his Ivy-League-Academia pulpit, and we just have to accept what he says based on that authority. He did not speak like a scientist. Does he give lectures like that? If so, no wonder more and more students are leaving colleges as mind-numbed zombies.
Cambell “shouldn’t we just clean up the air any way?” 😛 Let’s start with the air filling up that leaky cranium of hers.

Henry chance (09:54:47) :
Actually, it is far colder than the excessive warming they predicted.
Some of us here have been watching the winters hopscotch from North to South and back again in a freezer match.
So many signs in nature, how could anyone miss them?

“NASA’s solar website released this statement, this week….
SOLAR MINIMUM: The sun is in the pits of a very deep solar minimum. Many researchers thought the sunspot cycle had hit bottom in 2008 when the sun was blank 73% of the time. Not so. 2009 is on the verge of going even lower. So far this year, the sun has been blank 75% of the time, and only a serious outbreak of sunspots over the next few weeks will prevent 2009 from becoming the quietest year in a century. Solar minimum continues”
Greetings from ‘the Weather Rock’
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17677

This was a set-up. These kind of 10 minute venues really work for people like Oppenheimer. He had his talking points not only memorized, but he clearly delivered what was required of him. Not that any of his spin was necessairily accurate, but the platform was tailored made for his type of spin. If CNN really wanted to pick SteveM’s brain they would have given him an exclusive. Oppenheimer was able to steer the discussion to his benefit. SteveM really hadn’t the time to make his points.
The one point I wished Horner or SteveM could have made was that without Mann’s Hockey Stick and CRUs temp reconstructions, most of the Alarmists theories and studies are problematic. The problems with CRU’s data raise serious questions about both NOAAs and GISS’s temperature analysis. If that point was made, Oppenheimer would have been put on the defensive.

Anthony: I believe we beat Campbell Brown to the scoop. She announced, “The big announcement expected tomorrow: that this decade has been the warmest on record.”
We posted about that just about a month ago:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/10/countdown-to-an-unprecedented-warm-decade-2-months-to-go/

Surprisingly balanced considering this is CNN and more so than NBCABCCBS. I think the skeptics needed to counter the usual defensive AGW argument that other databases show the same temperature trend as the HADCRU, therefore, there is nothing wrong with the science (so move along!). After all, Horner is the one filing suit against the GISS for their raw data since they have stonewalled FOIA requests.

She asks “Is this a global conspiracy?” while laughing…..
Well.. YEAH IT IS.
[snip], they deserve their coming enslavement.

OMG!!!!
Steve McI. needs a public relations coach if he’s going to make such public appearances. He looked terrible relative to the task & sounded unsure & overwhelmed. Certainly not a display of confidence or competence. Again, in such forums & media, image counts. He is holding to this naive proposition that they do (e.g. the fine hairsplitting regarding a particular detail presented in a pedantic monotone – there’s no place for that in a soundbite forum presented to an audience conditioned to catchy catchphrases). In such contexts image dominates over all else — Recall the Kennedy/Nixon debates if there’s any doubt about content & substance triumphing over image…they don’t. He needs to polish his act (and it is an “act”) or stay out of the media & stick to writing (or limit himself to Fox News).
Especially this subject–which has long become an emotionally-charged topic–anyone needs to appeal to some emotion in the audience to be heard in televised media (both visually & aurally). The only people he reached were those that already agreed with him. In other words, he didn’t much help the cause.
The ugly but true fact of human nature at play with this subject is that symbolism triumphs over substance.

Now that CRU data is losing credibility we are increasingly being told that NOAA and GISS show the same warming trends (so they must be true).
As an addict of WUWT I have read various concerns, (Darwin Zero is a good example) but I do not have sufficient knowledge to counter this argument. The timing is right for someone to give an overview of the various databases and to comment on alleged issues with the data.
This would also help with countering another argument that thousands of scientists globally are producing similar evidence. (If the temperature data is suspect and originates from a small clique who massage the data, then thousands of other scientists use the exaggerated temperature trends in models in their particular fields, you can see how this thing grows.
I would very much appreciate some help with these topics and I’m sure others would too.

Mr Tisdale,I linked to your article on the timesonline blog,hopefully they will publish it.I am being moderated,doesn’t usually happen at the times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6948629.ece

Alan W,
I wouldn’t underestimate the positive effect of McIntyre’s performance. I would describe it as insidiously rational. Both Oppenheimer and Horner came across like shills for a cause. McIntyre projected instead an image of someone concerned about the legitimacy of the underlying science.
In the end, the real battle here is over the scientific process. What seems unquestionable to me is that it has largely been hijacked by a group of scientists to reinforce a particular thesis they believe in. Some of these players seem quite dishonest and pretty vicious to me, but the great majority seem instead to be doing nothing worse than engaging in groupthink.
Groupthink poses the greatest peril in areas of science that are subject to considerable uncertainty, and in which ideology or institutional commitment can play a role. The uncertainty allows data to be interpreted in ways favorable to the prevailing paradigm. The ideology or institutional commitment creates powerful, if often completely unconscious, personal incentives to trim the data in ways favorable to one’s beliefs.
What McIntyre has been doing quite effectively over the years, and did quite well in this performance, is to attempt to bring the currently out-of-control scientific process to heel, and to demand that it operate according to correct underlying methodology.
Introducing transparency is an absolutely key part of this makeover. When real transparency takes hold, the argument over global warming will take off on a very different direction, I believe; I suspect it will deeply unsettle a considerable amount of what is now so often described as settled science. It may be, for all we know, that much of the certainty claimed for CAGW hypothesis will nonetheless survive this event. If so, we can at least be reassured that any actions we may take are based on well grounded science.
But emphatically we need to know, and have a right to know.
McIntyre is playing this longer game, I believe — and he’s playing it well.

Picked this up from another website
“284 Plato. Sorry, don’t have the link, but a recent study by volunteers in the US found that virually all of the 1200 or so ground weather stations collecting ground temperatures in the US broke the rules for data collection by being either too close to hot air vents or being surrounded by too much asphalt. That rather indicates that what the US stations have been recording is urban, not global, warming.
by TimT December 8th, 2009 at 6:48 pm ”
Can anyone substantiate this – my source is very reliable on other subjects.

Mr. McIntyre was subdued and reserved; perhaps too much so. However, his demeanor on camera should nullify any AGW proponents attempts to assassinate his character or blow him off as just another tinfoil-hat denier to the voting public.
Chris Horner was loaded for bear and it would have been great to see him use his attorney’s interrogative skills with Oppenheimer. CNN would never let that happen.
Frankly, I would have liked to see Mr. McIntyre challenge Dr. Oppenheimer’s arguments with dispassionate, mathematics-based facts about the corrupted data used by all those other groups Oppenheimer mentioned. The problem with a venue like CNN is that there is never sufficient time to do anything in-depth. A real interview, with tough, probing, show me questions by a real journalist (not a talking head) would be the best possible way to do this. However, I don’t know if there are any real journalists left who could do that sort of interview.

Ken,
“The only people he reached were those that already agreed with him. In other words, he didn’t much help the cause.”
No, I disagree. There will be many educated viewers who will have understood Stephens arguments and seen through Oppenheimer. Of course, there will be many thicko’s who won’t get it. But that’s not the point. You have to step back and take broader perspective. This is one of many broadcasts with many more to come. Some viewers will respond to Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh, other’s to Stuart Varney, and yet other’s to Stephen’s performance here.
There is no “one size fits all” format.

Nick Griffin does a MUCH better job of defending science against the Carbon Cult.

The false logic at the end is astounding.
He posits that you have to accept that there is a massive conspiracy between all 2500+ scientists involved in IPCC (although we know that those 2500+ people did not repeat any of the data analysis and are just nodding dogs, victims of their trust in the peer review process – in fact it is worse since some of them are not scientists and some of them are shaking their heads anyhow) before you can accept that there was any wrong doing at CRU.
We can separate two questions here. i) Is there a massive conspiracy between 2500+ scientists … well, I don’t think there is – and we all need to say so, very loudly; ii) Are some the analyses of the CRU in need of independent and open review with full disclosure of all data and all methods in light of ClimateGate … well, I think so – and that is all we should be asking for.
The AGW alarmists are trying to make out that the “skeptics”, the “deniers”, are “conspiracy theorists” who believe in Rosswell aliens, that JFK was murdered by the government (or who ever you want to pick), 911 was an inside job, the Catholic Church rules the world, wait, no, he Jews rule the world, no wait, scratch that, it is the Freemasons etc… But this is just a desperate and pathetic smoke screen. Unfortunately it might succeed though.
I do not think that any honest person can deny that we need of independent review of the CRU outputs in light of ClimateGate. The CRU ought not object to this, since they are honest scientists and science is based around independent verification. Indeed they should be thrilled to bits that we are so interested in their work that we wish to repeat it. So I do not see what the problem is.

The arguments put forward in the NZ televised debate best represent the real issues. Neither author is a “climate scientist,” Morgan is an Investment Manager most likely with a stake in green energy, Ian Wishart is the author of “Air Con,” a skeptic with a stake in book sales.
http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/climate-change-confusion-you-decide-3241785/video
Morgan, a multi-millionaire who hired a research/ghost writer for his book “Poles Apart” uses a studied, laconic delivery to claim he only cares for the “science.” We are led to believe he’s something of a scientist himself – yet he only refers to one skeptical scientist, Svensmark that, “I had access to.” No mention of the APS Petition, or 30,000 men and women who signed the Orgegon petition, or of Soon, Happer, Dyson, Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Akasofu, Douglass, Loehle, Zoriata, Scaffeta, Pielke, Von Storch, Idsos, etc. ???
Morgan does offer this thoughtful plea: “But for God’s sake, don’t use a hammer to crack a nut!” Indeed! something in Denmark should smell rotten – given the “balance of evidence” Morgan presents. BTW Gareth, I find about the only thing that does the job on a Brazil nut – is a hammer.
Poll results: 77% to 23% for Mr. Wishart’s arguments.

tj (11:06:55) – Frank Caulfield sits on the board of Time Warner , the owner of CNN . He is also a founding partner of Kleiner Perkins . Does that ring any bells ?

There are no “2500 scientists” who support the IPCC conclusions. That’s another part of their big lie.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2009/12/climate-liars-the-political-elites-myth-of-2500-climate-sceintists-has-now-shrunk-to-25-fallout-from-climategate.html
Whenever you hear someone parroting that line, you know they are either ignorant, or lying. That alone should disqualify all of their testimony. If they can’t get such a simple fact correct, why should I trust them on the more complicated material?
It’s the same as the argument in defense of CRU, “yes they were lying about a few things, but you can believe the rest of what they say.” NO!

There may be problems with some of the research —- but magically the data that has been tampered with is just like the real data.
What are the odds of that?

31,000 scientists agree man-made climate change is a fraud, and they signed a petition to Congress to that effect. Is this correct. This should be the immediate counterpoint to their claim their scientists agree.

Fact: Co2 lags Temp increase.
Fact: Co2 is what breeds life on this planet.
Fact: the Vikings once Farmed GREENLAND.
Fact: Michael Oppenheimer fails to admit that the earth has been much warmer then we are today without the massive population we currently have.
Opinion: Michael Oppenheimer is perpetuating the lie that Green House Gasses cause the earth to warm.

The biggest half-truth was that there are 3 other institutions that came to the same conclusion based on the real data. All 4 institutions keyed off the same mangled data.
McIntryre was uneasy, but look at the compressed stream of half-truths emitted that he had to choose which lie to confront.
I am impressed with Horner’s ability to transcend the minefiled laid down by AGW.
The warming advocates message in the room lasts about as long as it takes to step outside, if that.
Campbell Brown was terrifly confused about this huge conspiracy necessary.
It’s not a massive conspiracy, Campbell, it’s all about a ‘cornering of the market’ in terms of what gets the official seal of approval, and who has been excluded from the process.
The only ‘settled’ in ‘the science is settled’ is that the process was seized and walled off at key origin points. There was no need for massive conspiracy, just make sure that dissenting opinion is both silenced and banished from publication
.
It truly is the Scam of the Century.
Witness the Carnival of Carnivores at Copenhagen.

Washington Times: Researcher: NASA hiding climate data

By Stephen Dinan
The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.

I think the only thing that will convince the warm-mongers and their followers is a massive ice age! this is utter insanity! no one wants to hope for that!
otoh, CNN doesn’t have the ratings that FNC has and FNC is actually talking about it. Doing a pretty poor job but at least better than CNN.
Could Campbell Brown was rude (derogatory and sarcastic) but we’ve all seen worse (the scientists themselves in the emails).
Oppenheimer was just a jerk.

TheGoodLocust th (11:57:16) :
There wasn’t enough time to address all of it.
McIntyre and Horner said all they needed to.
Why?
The AGW line sounded like rhetoric, it smelled like rhetoric, and it tasted like rhetorical SPAM.
And that is exactly why Public Opinion is dropping like a rock against AGW.
It stinks of condescending attitude. It’s just as infuriating to listen to for us as it is for Mainstream America.
We are not alone anymore.

Plato Says (11:09:40) :
Picked this up from another website
“284 Plato. Sorry, don’t have the link, but a recent study by volunteers in the US found that virually all of the 1200 or so ground weather stations collecting ground temperatures in the US broke the rules for data collection by being either too close to hot air vents or being surrounded by too much asphalt. That rather indicates that what the US stations have been recording is urban, not global, warming.
by TimT December 8th, 2009 at 6:48 pm ”
Can anyone substantiate this – my source is very reliable on other subjects.

You are referring to the surface stations survey run by the author of this blog at http://www.surfacestations.org/
Yes the surface stations are a scientific mess and have major data integrity problems which only adds to the garbage in garbage out problem with anything that depends on surface station weather/temperature data.
Larry

Steve stayed on topic and got his information across.. and made a very good point at the end… IMO it was “I just want the facts..”
John Roberts had the nerve to say that the guy that stepped down was physically ill… Oh please..

“…the EPA declared there is scientific evidence that global warming from green-house gas emissions does pose a threat to American’s health…”
“…the connection between greenhouse gases, like CO2, carbon dioxide, and global warming, is as solid as the link between smoking and lung cancer…”
As a matter of my usual curiosity, where is the EPA scientific evidence that Carbon Dioxide is posing a threat to American’s health?
Where is that solid link between Carbon Dioxide, including man-made CO2, and global warming?
Could it be that scientific facts are being kept from the tax-payer who has footed the bill for IPCC’s garbage in, garbage out “science?”
Michael Oppenheimer’s mouthing is not worthy of comment.

What a chance missed. Very poor performance from our side. Oppenheimer is full of it but he came off with a seemingly better argument. He could have (should have) been called on all his points, but the other two were duds. We owe more to McIntyre than we can calculate, but he did not present well. Too bad, but one cannot be everything and he is obviously not the spokesperson type.

Thanks Steve and Chris Horner for attempting to set the record straight. No one would have much luck with Campbell Brown, however; she was rabidly for Obama during the nomination and election cycle and would make certain that the warmist slogans got repeated — of course, by a “university professor” — we all can bow down now.
I enjoyed the pleasure of being “face-to-face” with Steve McIntyre. You are one of my heroes because your efforts over the years truly have been of heroic proportions. Thanks to you scientists and citizens are as far along as we are in understanding how the climate models work and about input data and the code — we now know the methods the pseudo-scientists used to hide all declines and that they infest the American homogenized data right along with that of CRU.
No one has to disagree that there has been global warming from the 1650s to today; from 1850 to today; from 1978 to 1998. There has been a Medieval Warm Period, a warming from the Little Ice Age, and warming along with positive PDO and AMO, but there has not been a hockey stick globe-on-CO2-fire.
With gratitude.

Plato Says (11:09:40) :
See the link right below the “Donate” button on the right-hand side of this page. It’s the SurfaceStations.org project.

This was CNN, not so much of McIntyre who had small spots to answer to quite specific questions. I actually liked McIntyre’s calm appeareance. He could do nothing to clips that CNN added and to answer to the argument of 2500 scientists.
PR is so much about what it looks like. Talk about red hot lies is not the thing to do now. Linzen, Spencer and Pielke would have been better selections instead of that.

Please forgive me for a naïve, hypothetical, absurd off-topic question. If, when all is said and done, the US of A and the rest of the world end up as part of the British Commonwealth, what would we need the UN for? Would it not just close down and take the IPCC with it, end of discussion?

I would have said to the host: Do you want to save the earth from CO2?….Then Stop breathing! because you are producing an approximate amount of 900 grams per day of carbon dioxide by merely exhaling righ now!

So, China is the gold standard of “green” living? This is the same China that is building coal fired power plants a thousand at a time and had to shutdown their Capitol for a month just to make the air semi-breathable for the Olympics?
That China?
I was disappointed with the interview. I realize it’s CNN and they are going to tilt the coverage but to allow the untrue statements that “the data has been there for everyone to challenge” and “that CRU has it right because all the other data agree with it” to go without remarked was sad to see.

RE: anna v (12:38:58) :
I knew I should have used around my comment

SMc did exactly what SMc does best. He was himself. Why should the Statical David who slew the Climatic Goliath aka the Hockey Stick need to present himself any differently. He came over as honest, authorative and quietly spoken.
Certainly not as the rabid, fanatical nut-job that “sceptics” are often portrayed.
He clearly commanded respect from those in the broadcast.
He deals with facts, refuses to be diverted, is ruthless when others dilute arguments with opinion and never gives up. Don’t believe go to Climate Audit and dig around through the archives!
Clearly he was nervous. So what! He’s a newbie to televised debate but make no mistake, his dogged persistence and intelligence has made him the most feared
man in the world to the Paleo establishment!
I owe to Steve, as well as host Anthony, much. This is the man who opened my eyes to the possibility that not all was well in the state of climatology. Got to admit that much of what he wrote went right over my head. What was patently clear, however, was the integrity and razor-sharp intellect that underpinned his site.
We, the public, are asked to trust the experts when it comes to matters outwith our capabilities. I trust SMc.
The more that listen to Steve, the more will embark on the journey that I took.
Thank you sir

*sigh*
CNN is still biased. Even here where they tried to present a fair and balanced report on the issue, the lead reporter couldn’t keep herself from laughing at the skeptics on at least three occasions.

I get so tired of hearing how other data sets are so robust. Is there no way to get the info out that the USA data is corrupt in that the stations themselves are in disrepair or poorly situated… and that they have also been cooked many times by James Hansen, etc?
Stephen

Globe and Mail’s Avner Mandelman with some very wise words about Global Warming:
Similar irrational manias included global cooling in the 1970s (when investors were urged to invest in thermal insulation, and the like); the Club of Rome’s fear that we’re running out of resources; the Internet dot-com bubble, when insane stock prices for companies without revenues were the norm; and others of the same ilk: mass hysterias that allowed a few media-savvy promoters to take the money of the many, by preying on their credulity, their emotions or both. Like global warming now.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/features/the-buy-side/dont-let-climategate-melt-down-your-portfolio/article1389653/#

Bret Baier on Climategate, American Physical Society Members Dispute 12-08-09

it is quite funny this japanese reconstruction, because before today, never heard about it, and since a couple of days it seems emphasized by alarmists: see Oppenheimer in the video, I just saw the post from Lucia about Steig comments on Revkin/Pielke saying which lead me to RC
“1) independent assessments of the surface temperature data (such as by the Japanese Meteorological Agency) ” why not say “such as GISS”? japanese look more independent from US and UK? what a joke
I am sure will hear about it more and more…
when has it been released? any info about it? they still use GHCN provided by NCDC…. is it peer reviewed ? 😉
last update of their page “Global Average Surface Temperature Anomalies” is 2008/9/9…
but I don’t recall seeing anything about it in AR4 nor latest 2009 compendium about climate change.
Weird feeling….
and quite funny (I dl all JMA reports 2003-2008) they changed their graph in 2005:
2003-2004: reconstruction from 1880; anomaly in 2002 or so: +0.5 °C; anomaly between 1890 and 1900 goes down about -0.9 °C
2005-2008: reconstruction from 1890; anomaly in 2002 or so: +0.3 °C; anomaly between 1890 and 1900 goes down about -0.7 °C
wait another 3 years and we’re flat…
many such small differences but no apparent back-changes since 2005

I believe McIntyre said he was a bit nervous about doing this but I think he did a really good job of coming off as the balanced rational one- as much as you can hope for given the short time to answer. If it was me I would hve been inclined to call Oppenheimer a lier every time he opened his mouth. These guys just don’t seem to have any sense of when they they are attributing way more to the data than it can support. For me, the question is whether it is cognitive dissonance or orchestrated lying.

This low Sun activity is dam peculiar.
Solar wind
speed: 289.9 km/sec
density: 0.6 protons/cm3
Sunspot number: 0
Updated 07 Dec 2009
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 15 days
2009 total: 258 days (76%)
Since 2004: 769 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days

Lord Lawson and Ed Milliband on BBC

Horner missed a softball, when Oppenheimer claimed that the other three datasets (two in the US, one in Japan) independently confirmed the CRU conclusions. Why didn’t Horner jump in and tell the audience that all those datasets are really sharing most of their (massaged) data, and are not independent at all?
We are letting the slick Alarmists like Oppenheimer, with his quick talking points, ride all over us, because we don’t have articulate spokesmen who can get on TV and make a convincing case.
How about it Anthony? You know the arguments, and you know how to use the camera. You’re the logical choice!
/Mr Lynn

Further to my post above, I suggest readers here contact the news media, especially the TV networks (broadcast and cable) and recommend Anthony Watts as a spokesman for the ‘skeptics’. Maybe start with Bret Baier at Fox, since he and his producers are likely to be the most receptive.
/Mr Lynn

The seas could fall up to 30 feet if the solar minimum keeps up. Some countries could benefit more than others. The UN should be planning for a redistribution of land in the wake of the increasing solar minimum.

Yet another of Michael Oppenheimer’s falsehoods is that “green” jobs are a goldmine waiting to be tapped, and we must hurry if we don’t want to miss out on the opportunity.
Let the Chinese and Germans have it, I say.
http://faultlineusa.blogspot.com/2009/12/gone-with-windmills-wrestling-with.html
And keep it as far away from America as possible.

Did I hear someone in that second video actually claim that CO2 stays in the atmosphere ‘forever’?
I think it was Michael Oppenheimer.
I did hear him bring up the ‘2500 scientists’. Unimpressive of him, and telling.
He also brought up George Bush. It doesn’t settle a scientific argument to bring up a politicians name.

If you’re not a skeptic, You’re not a scientist.
This would be a great headline for one of those ads people are putting in the news papers.

Hey, does anyone here have some rebuttals for each of the points on this paper: http://www-personal.buseco.monash.edu.au/~BParris/BPClimateChangeQ&As.html

Gary Plyler (09:50:45) :
It’s going on 3 weeks since the emails and data hit the internet, and John Roberts has “looked at this for several days”.
I caught that too.
Campbell Brown said, “And back with me, who has been doing a lot of research on all of this, is our very own CNN’s John Roberts..” Later he said he’s been looking in to it for a few days—6:50 to 6:57 of part 1.
I think many people caught that.

I should have been a journalist.
Looking For Climategate’s Deep Throat, would be the name of a story by me. Oh well someone else can use it.

LAKSHMI MITTAL, Britain’s richest man, stands to benefit from a £1 billion windfall from a European scheme to curb global warming.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/industrials/article6945991.ece

Plato Says (11:09:40) :
by TimT December 8th, 2009 at 6:48 pm ”
Can anyone substantiate this – my source is very reliable on other subjects.”
You couldn’t mean Anthony’s site, could you? – http://www.surfacestations.org/
YOu could also try searching this blog for surfacestations, I’m sure.

All the President’s Men|Deep Throat: The Outer Edges

What a stupid distracting way the stick the speakers in boxes and show text on the side.

Copenhagen climate summit: global warming ’caused by sun’s radiation’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6762640/Copenhagen-climate-summit-global-warming-caused-by-suns-radiation.html

Steve did really good.
And he did a 1000 times more before that panel.

Minor correction to earlier post; actual quote from Oppenheimer in video 2 was “for decades, for centuries, even for millennia.”
Apologies for misquoting. Must try harder.

Some Notes:
CNN – John Roberts, College Dropout
I have told everyone that Steve McIntyre is NOT a spokesperson, he is however a brilliant analyst. So I do not see the surprise or shock of his performance as this is his demeanor if you have seen him in any of his other interviews. Pat Michaels, Richard Lindzen, Chris Horner and Marc Morano are all better spokespeople.
Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D. Chemical Physics
Oppenheimer repeated various lies,
1. There are no 2500 scientists,
The UN Climate Change Numbers Hoax (Canada Free Press)
2. CO2 Residence Time of hundreds of years is nonsense,
Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 (PDF) (Tom V. Segalstad, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Geology)
Potential Dependence of Global Warming on the Residence Time (RT) in the Atmosphere of Anthropogenically Sourced Carbon Dioxide
(Energy Fuels, Volume 23, Number 5, pp 2773–2784, April 2009)
– Robert H. Essenhigh
4. Sea Ice is NOT retreating in Antarctica,
Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking (The Australian)
3. We are not dependent on Middle East Oil,
– Only 16% of U.S. oil imports come from the Middle East (EIA)
And of course Mrs. Brown repeated the pollution lie,
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is Not Pollution

Poptech (19:39:16) :
Well, how’s about we do a pop quiz.
Those questions you ask and others.
Let’s test drive it here, and then mabye it can appear on places like Fox News, etc.
Call it “Test Drive your ClimateGate knowledge” T/F and Multiple Choice stuff.
Think this is worth a poll, Anthony?

tj (11:06:55) :
These reporters are not liberals, they work for some of the most ultra conservative people on the face of the earth. Stay out of the left/right box they try to put you in — by pretending to be in one themselves. Communism and fascism are the alpha and the omega of a circle of totalitarian rule. They are the same thing.
Only to correct your idea, tj, that Fascism is right wing/conservative. The NAZI’s were Socialists. State control of everything unites them with Communists. It’s basically a distinction without a difference between them.

Makes it all look like a stalemate, at best, and that skeptics are still “light years behind” at worst. Came across as just a sound-bite, not meant to be anything more than that, I think. However…
Good point made by Chris Horner, though, that fighting CO2 doesn’t nessecarily mean fighting real pollution. Also, that McIntyre was at least given the time/space to shed light on mention the MWP is a plus. The average person who hasn’t been keeping up with this will have something to look into (if they were ignoring the usual repeats and eurruption of interuptions, that is)

liberalbiorealist (10:09:25) :
“This guy Chris Horner is an embarrassment.”
No he is an attorney. [lol]
liberalbiorealist (10:09:25) : “You want to know why Climate skeptics exude such a bad odor to most educated people? Look no further than Chris Horner.”
Well to extend your ad hom….your absence of criticism of the the Gore-like Oppenheimer (any relation to…..???) shows that you have no ability to be objective on this situation.
Yeah Chris is an atty. Big deal. Something those in pursuit of justice and those have in pursuit of the Scientific Method have in common: The TRUTH.
And frankly….Mr. Horner makes a better apologia than you do here.
He can take care of himself.
The same can not be said, about you.
Chris (another one)
Norfolk, VA, USA

REPLY: Apparently he’s never seen Joe Romm. Horner is a saint compared to Romm’s rantings. – A

“We need to get off fossil fuels” – these sort of juvenile remarks by economic illiterates such as Oppenheimer would lead to mass starvation and destroy every economy on the planet. Please tell me what is so evil about energy sources that have given us the highest standard of living and life expectancy of anyone on the planet? The reality is we use “fossil fuels” because they are the most economically efficient sources of energy. People who make idiotic statements like Oppenheimer have no remote clue about where our energy comes from, how or why it is used.
Facts about U.S. Energy Usage:
– 50% of U.S. electrical generation comes from coal (EIA) (22% Natural Gas, 19% Nuclear, 6% Hydroelectric, 2% from “Renewables” and 1% from Oil)
– Coal Power plants being built today emit 90 percent less pollutants (SO2, NOx, Particulates, mercury) than the plants they replaced from the 1970s (NMA)
– Emissions from coal-based electricity generation have decreased overall by nearly 40 percent since the 1970s while coal use has tripled (NMA)
– Only 16% of U.S. oil imports come from the Middle East (EIA)
– The largest supplier of oil to the U.S. is Canada (EIA)
– The third largest supplier of oil to the U.S. is Mexico (EIA)
– Only 1% of the United States electrical generation comes from oil (EIA) (50% Coal, 22% Natural Gas, 19% Nuclear)
– The U.S. uses 25% of the world’s oil supply because it produces over 25% of the world’s economy (World Bank)
Getting off “fossil fuels” is the equivalent of returning to the 19th century. If there were other sources of energy that could replace fossil fuels we would be using them. This is what people do not understand, markets will always use what is the most efficient form of energy available so long as governments get out of the way. What governments are trying to do is force the usage of expensive and unreliable forms of energy. The average person has no idea that this means energy costs over 10x what they are paying now and this is for the developed world, these sorts of costs on the third world will lead to genocide.

I have to say I am quite disappointed: Oppenheimer completely controlled the panel and McIntyre and Horner did not challenge any of the recycled AGW claims. I will give McIntyre a pass because this was the first time he was on television, but for Mr. Horner this is just unacceptable.
This was a golden opportunity to share the skeptics’ side of the story and, frankly, Mr. Horner blew it. Truly depressing.

JoeyD, McIntyre himself has underlined that he is not a climate skeptic (in the sense most of his readers are) and has no opinion on climate policies/politics. So if you are waiting for (C)AGW critical sound bites from him you are waiting in vain I’m afraid.
Personally I admire his stance and persistence. There is no need for him to undermine his integrity and scientific neutrality by attaching his scientific criticisms to climate politics.
I hope I haven’t misinterpreted anything, but as a long time reader of CA it seems the criticism of McIntyre in this thread is bit misguided and based on a misunderstanding of his stated position and views (or lack of them).

Iceberg 1700 km from WA.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/981660/giant-iceberg-headed-for-wa
Doesn’t that mean that the ocean is very cold?

eRtwngr (10:07:25) :
What’s disconcerting is the idea that 97% of climate scientists agree with the basic premise of AGW.
You also have to be careful with the wording of polls. What you said isn’t really what the poll said. It didn’t say 97% of climatologists agree with AGW.
What it more likely was saying is does man affect climate. Even if you think man’s effect on climate is minuscule or irrelevant you still think man affects climate—very small but still existing.
There is a wide range of possible meanings in such a question. There should be more nuanced questions asked in these polls.

JoeyD (21:04:55) :
This was a golden opportunity to share the skeptics’ side of the story and, frankly, Mr. Horner blew it. Truly depressing.
I think you should have reason to feel optimism. There was a time not too long ago that you would have never seen Steve McIntyre on CNN, or anywhere else on American tv. The fact that he was on tv tells me something good is brewing.
ClimateGate is the shot heard ’round the world.
And I think you’re right about Steve M’s inexperience and Michael Oppenheimer seeming control of the interview. Michael Oppenheimer, and all others of his ilk, have had the ear of the media for 20 years. They have felt at home and have been speaking uninterrupted—until now.
But I think Michael Oppenheimer showed insecurities today. 🙂

“REPLY: Apparently he’s never seen Joe Romm. Horner is a saint compared to Romm’s rantings. – A”
Yah. Agreed.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Congratulations, Steve. Short. To the point. And substantial. And your talking points stood up well against those made by people who do the talking-head thing for a living. I’d have to say that’s a home run.

I am disappointed that no one confronted Oppenheimer regarding his preposterous claim that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for “thousands of years”. He should have been asked some of the following questions: What are the reactants in the photosynthesis reaction? (CO2 and H2O) Why do greehouse owners pump CO2 into their greenhouses? (It drives the photosynthesis reaction and plant growth) What about the studies that show a 35% plus increase in plant growth when CO2 is doubled? What is the pH of Carbonic Acid in comparison to Sulfuric and Nitric Acid? ( about 5 compared to <1. Remember, pH is logarithmic, not arithmetic) What is the Ksp of Calcium Carbonate, and isn't it true that it precipitates out in the ocean as organic and inorganic Calcium Carbonate (Limestone)? Where did the huge beds of limestone on the ocean floors come from? Etc.. Any good grade school science student could have confronted him with questions like this!

John K. Sutherland (10:45:44) :
I never heard so many blatant lies issue from one person’s mouth in rapid succession, as I did with Oppenheimer.
It really was pathetic that he brought up George Bush. At the same time though in that he brought politics into it he belied his political leaning–he didn’t just stick to talking about scientific data which is what all scientists are supposed to do. He knows he doesn’t have the power to sway people with his science alone so he put weight into his argument with politics. There should have been no need to bring up George Bush if instinctively he knew his science was enough
Thankfully he stuck to the same worn out script we’ve all been hearing for years. I think that’s all the warming alarmists have. And people have turned a deaf ear to that script a long time ago. It just isn’t good enough.
Nothing like beating a dead horse, hey Mr. Oppenheimer?

mkurbo (21:58:11) : “Please stop trying to remove the liberal/left label. It’s a pseudo intellectual argument.
The AGW movement was born of the far left, nurtured by the liberal left and sold to the masses by the mainstream left – period. Those are the facts and to remove them is disingenuous and revisionist history.
1.) it’s not left vs. right, it’s just labeling the movement correctly.
2.) Putting your head in the sand and wishing it was only about the science is what put us in this mess. Play the whole game or don’t play at all (and let them steamroll you…)”
Uh huh….and the more you polarize, the more de-volved your argument becomes.
Who’s head in what motha***** sand, mkurbo???
No head in the sand, snow, or any other surface.
Just trying to band together different factions….who (for lack of a better cause) might agree to band together for this common enemy: the behemoth of AGW.
Lose your political ties, mkurbo, stop listening to Rush so much (yeah yeah, I listen to him to), have a couple of drinks, and come talk to me in the morning.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free….

Michael (12:34:27) :
31,000 scientists agree man-made
The Oregon Petition
http://www.oism.org/pproject/

Who are those artificial humanoids on CNN? Campbell Brown ? Anderson Cooper? Pinheads with opinions and agendas, just what we need more of. The Cooper Pinhead just said he was tired of listening to scientists, so he was going to the arctic and get the real poop! he would be keepin’ those glaciers honest, believe you me. These kind of people impersonating Walter Cronkite or other real journalists make ‘me want to hurl’!
What’s the deal with the small non sexual men on TV, those like Cooper paired with amazon looking babes, who can barely pronounce Kabul properly, but they can flex those lips to let you know what you’re missing!

philincalifornia (21:44:01) :
Naaah, not at all. The first thing I would think if I saw a huge iceberg off San Francisco is errrmmmm “Global Warming” !!!!!
—————————-
And how about the snow from the early Monday morning hours snowfall that still can be seen in the hills above Alamo and Danville west side of 680! Not to mention Mt. Diablo still is half covered from the same snowfall.

1. How good is NASA data? Check this out.
http://zapruder.nl/images/uploads/screenhunter3qk7.gif
2. Global Warming, Climate Change, retreating glaciers, rising sea levels, etc. are all distractions to confuse the public, and divert attention from demanding proof of the idea that humans are causing AWG.
3. According to 2001 report of IPCC, less than 5% of the co2 in the atmosphere is from human sources. Where are the papers that show that the probability of the human portion of co2 causing the global warming is greater than 0%???
4. Studies during the 1960’s & 70’s showed that co2 from each year was absorbed by the earth in a logrithmic manner, ie, 50% gone in 5 to7 years, 75% in 10 to 14 years, 87 1/2%in 15 to21 years and so on. in 1000 years there would be so few left that Mr. Oppenheimer cound count them without having to take off his shoes.

I don’t believe it’s a conspiracy – just a shared mindset that allows people to distort and conceal with a good conscience.
See “Climategate: The good shepherds”:

I find CNN’s poll that 97% of “scientists” believed that man was “responsible” for global warming, hilarious.
Talk about nebulous statements and likely cherry-picked polling (like CNN hasn’t done that several times before).
So CNN is a REAL news channel? Well, so were TASS and PRAVDA in their estimation.

You don’t need a conspiracy on a large scale.
If 10-20 people generate the “data” that another 2,000 rely on, the the “conspiracy” involves 10-20, not 2,000. The other 1,980 are merely dupes, even if they’re doing it for the grant $$$.

And those whose job it is to explain weather and climate to the world on a daily basis would heartily disagree in far greater numbers with the “consensus”. This reminds me of the history of Autism. Nearly all research scientists at one time thought that Autism was the result of poor mother-child interaction. When mothers found the internet and started talking to one another, they discovered a random nature to the affliction and a false notion that it was tied to mothering style. Turns out they were right. The folks on the frontline who experience a phenomenon everyday and then get to compare notes with other folks who do the same thing form the most important function in the chain of scientific steps: observation. Is this step beneath ivory clad scientists? One wonders.

eRtwngr (10:07:25) :
What’s disconcerting is the idea that 97% of climate scientists agree with the basic premise of AGW.
Notes about this “survey”,
Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change – Doran 2009
– 7054 scientists did not reply to the survey
– 567 Scientists Surveyed do not believe man is causing climate change
– The “97%” is only 75 out of 77 “specialists” out of the 3146 who participated in the survey out of the 10,257 Earth Scientists who were sent an invitation.
Result = Joke.

photon without a Higgs (21:40:04) & Buddenbrook (21:21:11)
I wasn’t suggesting that McIntyre comment on the policies, I was suggesting that McIntyre and Horner should have challenged Oppenheimer’s claim that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for “thousands of years” or “the glaciers are melting, globe is warming, blah blah blah.” Instead, they completely ignored those points and acted like they themselves accepted them as truth.
Skeptics finally have the spot light, let’s not blow it (again).