The more alarmists prefer ad hominem attacks instead of scientific evidence, I will be more skeptical about AGW/ACC.

Hey, as the ground under their feet warps and slides they will be more and more desperate. Just keep hitting them with the truth and facts about their lies and data manipulation. The scientists are now beginning to be heard, the majority of those who did not go for the warmist scam will grow with the change of public knowledge on climate. The ability for these climate data manipulators to hide their misdemeanour’s is over. Now there is real science taking place replication will be essential for any future climate scenarios to be accepted by the public, no longer will lies and made up data be foisted on us.
WELL DONE THE TIPPING POINT HAS ARRIVED.

Well done Anthony. I read the Sachs piece and left a comment. If he really meant what he said he should name names, but I guess he would fall foul of the UK’s stringent libel laws if he did, because he has no evidence.
People like him can’t deal with the fact that honest people are looking for scientific answers, and don’t need a political agenda.
And as I write this, the snow is falling thick and fast once more outside my window in southern England. There’s been more snow over a more protracted time this winter than in any winter I remember and I am 46 years old.
I am very anti-tobacco too BTW, having seen my non-smoking grandmother die of lung cancer because she lived with my pipe-smoking grandfather. There are so many REAL things to be afraid of in the world without Sachs and friends having to make up new horror stories.

This article made it into todays NZ Dominion Post in the NZ Herald. Wellington NZ is a very government-centric place, and many might buy into this BS.
I am happy to say that I put $20 into Steve McIntyre’s tip jar, and I do work indirectly via my bedroom for the oil industry, by creating what I believe to be well crafted software. I also, like Anthony and many here, live a very sustainable lifestyle, unlike Gore, Pachuri et al.
Comments in reply to the article : B0ll0cks, as we say in the UK

Sachs was part of the cadre of ivory-tower Western academic economists who in the 1990s advised the government of Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that what they really needed was a big dose of economic “shock therapy”. In other words, immediately imposing market economics upon a socialist nation in which none of the necessary preconditions of stable free-market capitalism were in effect.
What resulted from that was colossal economic disruption, wrenching unemployment and inflation, the theft of 90% of the national wealth by brutal criminal oligarchs to whom assassination was an ordinary tool of business, and the horrific impoverishment of tens of millions of ordinary Russians, especially older pensioners.
I’m amazed that this man is still able to show his face in public, after having had his professional advice shown to be so catastrophically inept.

Anthony
In every newspaper I read where there are articles on climate change, whether pro or anti CAGW, the overwhelming opinion of the public response is sceptical of CAGW and these show contempt for the proponents. The public is not fooled and eventually the truth will become apparent – even to the likes of Obama and Brown both of whom seem to be bereft of any depth of thinking or common sense.
Your blog is a beacon of light.
Regards
Doug

Mr Watts with all due respect,
In Australia, we dont argue we point at the scoreboard. It’s the only thing that matters, talk is cheap, success is reward.
Some mark themselves on the enemies they put behind them, others mark themselves on the wins that matter.
Personally I suggest you take it as a back handed compliment, you had nothing and now Sachs has nothing except bitching about unfair treatment.
What one newspaper, in a world full of content. Check your clicks sir. THe negotation over sicence will not solved with a debate in psuedo science with a pseudo scientist, an economist who would not know a standard normal curve it it jumped up and ripped his throat out.
Rebut him here and move on.
Don’t get in the gutter. If he was an econometricist of standing all would know.

Comment is free if you agree.
The Guardian was once a great newspaper brought low by this type of gutter journalism and junket science.
The attempts to associate reasonable people to extremist ideas because they won’t sign up to their unfounded alarmism is a disgrace.
Empty vessels make the most noise.

Birds of a feather flack together : AL GORE, JEFFREY SACHS ADDRESS WAY FORWARD ON CLIMATE CHANGE http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P3-1221299571.html
Sachs is not much good at economics either.
(And yes, “flack” is not a typo 🙂 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/flack?jss=0

Anthony… These kinds of articles are written for the Greenie advocates in their ranks, order to gee them up. To instill within them a sense of victimization and to turn skeptics into monsters….. It is classic propaganda 101 for dehumanizing the enemy.
This is and was their familiar ground…. however, I think they are becoming concerned that most people are not listening to them… All they are doing at the moment is mollifying their hard core supporters. Which is not a counter attack or productive, but instead, merely a holding action in a rout.
If this was a battle….. We, the skeptics, are in a prime position to overwhelm them as their action abates with no ground retaken….. We will destroy their position completely in our next thrust….. We will grind their hypothesis to dust under the facts of our observations:-)

I likes the Guardian article. Along with the recent “Whatevergate” article over at realclimate I thought they summarised the current state of play rather well. I reckon that Alan needs to be completely transparent that WUWT and associated activities surrounding climate change activism receives.

Anyone know who makes Horlicks?
Surely the time must be right to buy shares – how else are these, presumably intelligent (and hence deliberately lying and manipulative of the truth), types like Sachs to ever get to sleep?

We have libel laws in this country for a reason. I haven’t read the article (possibly mistaking this forum for Slashdot 🙂 but if the slights are nearly as misplaced as it sounds, you could and should bring suit against him.

Andrew W -” While I agree that the ‘money from big oil’ meme is nonsense, so is the ’scientists exaggerate AGW to get grants’ meme, and that’s a claim often made in the comments here.”
It is a claim that bears considerable substance. If lucrative grants were not involved in promoting AGW how would you explain the behaviour of CRU’s Phil Jones? Did his drive to warp climate data arise from a sense of twisted intellectual masochism? Do I need to mention what has been going on with the IPCC scandals? How many government grants to disprove AGW have been made? AGW equates to money. The “science” underpinning the “consensus” is nonsensical so how come billions have been thrown in its direction?

While we’re all individuals, there is without doubt many prominent lobbyists who have had an association with the coal industry in arguing against coals burnings link to acid rain or with the tobacco industry arguing against tobaccos link to lung cancer who now argue against AGW. Sachs was probably not referring specifically to you Anthony.

YEAH! YOU TELL ‘EM TONY! [snip]

Thank you for expressing your personal pain. From my own experiences I share your bone deep, honest and angry reactions to the tobacco insults. Ironically Al Gore’s own chequered past with the stuff is a more significant connection to tobacco than most sceptics.
However, I’m sorry to correct you but the Guardian article is going to be stunningly surpassed in sliminess by this series from ABC’s Clive Hamilton. I’m so offended by the first article, I can’t post because I run the risk of being almost as abusive as he paints sceptics.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2826189.htm
Tomorrow we find out who’s behind the cyber-bullying campaign. Grrrrr.
Why can’t the warming community understand that the level of reaction they get is a reflection of the huge number of people who disagree with them. The intensity is a measure of how angry we’re getting.
When global warmers decided that we were all going to have to restructure our lives, why did they never consider that the rest of us might want some rock solid proof? And get very vocal when we didn’t get it. Why do they think that a few insults will change our minds?
What little organisation that can be seen in the sceptic community is based on something warmers probably don’t recognise – earned trust. Sceptics very quickly come to know which sceptic sites to trust and which to merely tolerate. I don’t think I need to tell you which heading your site falls under 🙂

Director Jeffrey Sachs looks quite the swashbuckling figure in his dark suit and reddish tie with his hair jauntily parted thus so.
Too bad he didn’t have the courage to do a bit of honest research before writing his recycled and baseless attack article. I wonder if he will have the courage to leave a comment on this blog about Anthony Watts’ and his parents’ experiences with tobacco?
I wonder what he’d think of my experiences with that horribly evil drug, my parents’ usage of it, the breathing difficulties as a child, and other things I could relate. I’m a “climate denier” (ridiculous term: Climate exists and it even gets warmer — and cooler — and there are myriad causes for this, of which I am not all-knowing, but at the same time have a clue) so I suppose I must suppress all my personal experiences and encourage people to use the drug which kills more people than any other drug in the world, including alcohol.
Because I’m evil… uh, I mean Professor Sachs comes across as a intellectually lazy and vacuous moron.

“Nobody I know of in the sceptic community denies that the earth has gotten warmer in the past century.”
You don’t know and nobody knows. There is enough missing data to not support that assertion.

Chris Thorne (00:55:08) : “Sachs was part of the cadre of ivory-tower Western academic economists who in the 1990s advised the government of Russia […]”
I think that he was more than that. He was the central figure both in Poland and Russia. I was a grad student in Poland at the time Sachs’ ‘shock therapy’ scheme was implemented. I will admit that — at least, at the time — I thought that it was the right thing to do. Even in retrospect, it’s hard to imagine a better way to fix the systemic problems which existed at that time in Eastern Europe.
On the other hand, there is no question that the details of the plan could have been managed much better. For example, my landlord, who, the year before, had spent hours haggling over my rent (which ended up less than a hundred dollars per month), was able to steal a manufacturing plant that must be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, today.
What I am saying is that Sachs is a well-respected authority when it comes to the practical implementation of macroeconomic system-wide transformations. From this article, it sounds like he’s a bit like Noam Chomsky, i.e. an unquestioned international expert in his field, but a bit of of a dilettante in other fields.

What a sad little man.
Here comes “Big Coal” to get you.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/no_legal_option.pdf

On the day this article was printed, here in the Home Counties around London and East Anglia we are currently having a blast of global warming, it is snowing this morning and currently 2 – 3″ deep at the moment. As with Copenhagen I think that the Earth Goddess Gaia is just playing one of her little jokes.
Seriously though, I wonder if the main point of the article is just to generate interest for a a new book. After a general introduction he slips in a paragraph about a forthcoming book “Merchants of Doubt” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway.
Many of the readers will fervently agree with his views in the article so this book of course will be of interest to them.

Anthony,
If you contact the Guardian, maybe you can get a right to reply. All newspapers publish provocative opinions, separate from their own editorials. In this case, they have definately crossed the line. A well thought out reply, especially one from somebody like yourself, who can show how ludicrous and offensive such assertions are, would quickly disabuse any readers of any such ideas.
If they don’t allow you to publish a reply, then they will be damning themselves.

Anthony,
The public are not dumb, they know very well what is going on and the vast majority are kind and your integrity is what draws them.
————————————————————–
Thanks again for WUWT.
Send your friends. Enlighten. An excess of knowledge will never harm an open mind.

Interestingly I note from the list of sponsors for Project Syndicate’s “From Kyoto to Copenhagen” conference last year included:
*shock*
Shell and
Dong Energy
– As well as various “green” companies – an obvious conflict of interest judging by Sach’s standards.
See this link:
http://www.project-syndicate.org/conference/
The one person at work who is a moon landing denier is the strongest vocal supporter of CAGW in our organisation. This proves nothing of course (except that we hired an idiot) but it shows how childish Sach’s article is and how lacking in academic rigour. IMO this sort of article only turns people off. It insults over 50% of the population which only hardens resolve. I doubt it turns any skeptics into CAGW believers and I would think the tone would raise alarm bells amongst many fence sitters.

According to my understanding, Jeffrey D. Sachs lacks sufficient background to understand the scientific issues. This disqualifies him as an authority. Obviously, what was written and the way it was written is beyond the pale, even for the Guardian. Like some other respondents, I take this personal public attack on you as a sign of desperation, preceding the imminent implosion of the “case”.
The media playing field has changed, the Internet/blogsphere is more important than the Guardian. With the correct attention on your part to the facts of the issues and the evidence, someone like Sachs becomes irrelevant.

I have evidence that Jeffery Sachs takes money from Mexican druglords. Do you know where my evidence is? It’s in the exact same place as his evidence that people like Watts takes tobacco money. So when Sachs retrieves his evidence, he can get mine too.
I also have evidence for a multitude of unsavoury things that Sachs does, but I’m afraid I’ll get snipped, needless to say these acts would leave Clinton Woods and Gary Glitter red faced. That evidence is also at the same location.
Go get that evidence Sachs and good luck. (moron)

AGW is about as authentic as that hairpiece on Jeffrey D. Sachs’ head.

By the way, others must also have noticed a sudden common theme running amongst the alarmists. From the Aussie Climate Change Minister to this Sachs fool and others all mentioning tobacco all of a sudden along with CC it’s worse than we thought.
Might they have been tele-conferencing or some other way co-ordinating this recent rise in attacks on skeptics?
I’d be interested in a summary of the recent comments by these alarmists and their common theme. But ofcourse if I were to mention the conspiracy word…….

Anthony,
Your repugnance for Sachs slimy diatribe is shared by many, me included. A short time ago, I occasionally wrote a short response to the sillier Guardian warmist articles, but was usually removed by a moderator for unacceptable comments – depsite never using coarse language or Old English, as many of the warmist responders to Guardian articles do, or using ad hominem statements.
I check these articles most days but can no longer see the point of attempting to reason with idiots suffering from religious mania.
As to tobacco, I was bought up in a teetotal and non-smoking household; consequently, when I entered the world of work, I began smoking and drinking, thoroughly enjoying both to excess for many years. However, I have been a non-smoker for a number of years, drink alcohol very moderately so I guess wisdom does eventually come to most of us.
As to the likes of Prof Sachs, a short spell on the staff of a university many years ago dispelled my somewhat idealistic notions of university academics or scientists operating on a purer ethical plane than the average man in the street.
I read Sachs’ article in the Guardian and was disgusted that a newspaper that uses the slogan ‘Comment is free but truth is sacred’ should print such contentless venom.

Perhaps leave nicotine out of this?
I have smoked for over half a century and intend to continue to do so — at the same time I am glass a year drinker of alcohol and despise it for the harm it does to humanity.
So, please don’t show me yours and I’ll not show you mine?
( E.M.Smith (01:33:37) is herewith endorsed.)

I was so furious about this article, coupled with the absurd Michael Mann interview (swift-boating), and Josh Garman (Guardian Feb 15th 2010), that i wrote an article for a UK mag who are publishing a Climategate/temperature piece of mine this week (I’ll link when it’s up), but I fear my anger shone through and the editor didn’t reply.
I listed climateaudit, wattsupwiththat, The Air Vent, Bishop Hill, Jo Nova, pielkes Sr and Jr, Chiefio, among others and wondered how well-marshalled and well-funded they were.

I have said this before on your blog Anthony.
Ad hominem attacks are a sign that you are winning – it is all they have.
And I also repeat “Do not associate with or do interviews with anyone from the BBC”. I watched “Country File” last night with John Craven chatting to kids in school with their nice new windmill. I came away with the impression that the school windmill, about 25 feet high with 3 foot span, was able to provide all the school’s energy, and with the left overs they would provide plenty for the village too. The way he was feeding questions to the kids was shameless.
After watching more greeneie nonsence about artisans making coffins from willow wands, thus bringing work back to the countryside – really I’m not making this up…………
Just imagine what they could do with an interview with you.

Giving credence to an economist’s thoughts on climate is like giving credence to an editorial cartoonist’s thoughts on quantum mechanics.
“Slimed” *was* the right word.

UK Sceptic (01:21:37) :
“If lucrative grants were not involved in promoting AGW how would you explain the behaviour of CRU’s Phil Jones? Did his drive to warp climate data arise from a sense of twisted intellectual masochism?”
Roy Spencer has just posted an analysis of satellite data that is in very good agreement with HadCRUT:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/02/new-work-on-the-recent-warming-of-northern-hemispheric-land-areas/
His conclusions:
“I’ll have to admit I was a little astounded at the agreement between Jones’ and my analyses, especially since I chose a rather ad-hoc method of data screening that was not optimized in any way. Note that the linear temperature trends are essentially identical; the correlation between the monthly anomalies is 0.91.”
Either Spencer is right and there is no evidence that Phil Jones has been warping the data, or Spencer is warping the data as well. Which do you think?

wayne (01:51:50) : mods, could you rule between my paragraphs. The last one concerned WUWT, not Anthony.

I saw the Guardian article.
What I did notice was the consistent comments like:

Again with the ‘deniers’. When are the proponants of AGW going to realise that insulting people you disagree with is never going to make them ‘warm’ to your arguement.
This piece is made up almost in it’s entirety of ad hominum attacks, appeals to authority and insults

At the time I saw the article I think it was 30%-50% of that kind of comment, effectively saying: “please stop this rubbish”.
And pretty much every Guardian article I have seen for the last six months has had a strong – often majority – comment kickback against the nastiness.
It’s sad. I used to think of The Guardian</i< as a great newspaper. But they've given it away for "the cause".
Understanding complex scientific arguments – like climate – is usually a challenge.
If you want to make sure no one buys into your arguments just insult them first. Guaranteed result! Well done, The Guardian!

Folks,
The people we are dealing with had their origins last century with the Fabian Society, and in order to understand them now, you need to understand their history – http://www.keynesatharvard.org.
This is the start of a rather nasty “Empire Strikes Back” battle after the IPCC suffered serious damage (a little like the destruction of the first death star in Starwars) with the various “Gates” etc.
These people are the ebola virus equivalent of humanity, they are dangerous and will stop at nothing to win this one. They have the resources of the state behind them, and that should make you very very fearful.
Do not play their game of faulting the science – it’s the tool they using for something far more sinister as Willie Soon and Lord Monckton of Brencley discovered.

Richard (01:36:38) :
The Guardian newspaper is basically bankrupt, financially, and kept afloat in its Green journalism by AutoTrader, a second hand car magazine. So, Monbiot works for AutoTrader!
Good grief, so are it’s “comradely” sisters in Australia, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, to name two of the greener shades of journalism here.

it is interesing to note how vigorously enablers like North, Sachs and possibly Boulton now step forward and take the driver seats, which have become vacant after so many activist scientist foot soldiers have been discredited.
they surely try to rescue their agendas by any ugly means, however their mission is risky and they know.

Mr. Anthony Watts, thank you for all you have done in the effort to find truth in CC…you deserve a real Nobel Prize! Your Honor has been slimed by not only the Guardian & the too Sachs but a huge Bureaucratic Beast, i.e., USDOE, NASA, Obama, Gordon Brown, Kevin Rudd, UN IPCC and all the shadow entities of the mighty George Soros via his Project Syndicate with it’s membership of 440 leading newspapers in 150 countries….please don’t let them get away with the defamation of your character, FIGHT BACK, the British anbt-defamation laws work for the Saudis, they should work for you. We supporters have your back and we will support your efforts. The Battle for Science has been joined….thanks to Brave men such as you, we will not be denied the truth!

The guy has a slimy man wig as well.

Anthony – do NOT let this man get under your skin.
Keep your cool.
Continue with your program of factual information.
We are behind you.
(he’s obviously rattled or in cloud cookoo land).

Anthony,
I’m a retired PhD in Psychology, specializing in Human Behavior.
I am a skeptic, but try to stand back and observe the behavior of both camps, after all this is what I do best. But first, I am so sorry of your personal losses due to tobacco.
Here are some observations.
Prior to November 17, the skeptics were winning the debate slowly with the use of science with not too many personal attacks on the AGW camp. Since November, the skeptics had a great moral boost with the revelation that the science was indeed corrupt and that resulted in an increase in the taunts directed at the alarmists.
When the scam got started the perpetrators never envisaged the internet and the communications between bloggers would be a threat. In fact it, the internet, is comparable to a termites nest. Collective intelligence, a few alone is nothing, but several million create an intelligence that can “do” and “create”.
A corrupt collection of people with the same aim will destroy themselves from within. Remember, there is no honor among thieves. There will be more and more scientists break ranks and betray their colleagues. Imagine what the rest of the “Team” are thinking now that Phil Jones did that “guarded” interview with the BBC.
In my view, it would be prudent to make a few well calculated steps into the future to completely dismantle this scam, and it won’t be easy. These steps, as I see it, are:-
Let the lawyers take up the fight directly to the perpetrators. They too like the smell of money and will battle hard and long given the right ammunition.
The bloggers with the special expertise, like you Anthony, and Steve McIntyre and all the others with the special skills, keep doing what they do best in dismantling the shonky science.
The other bloggers can then get too again and feed all the other snippets if information back to the blog sites for the experts to work on.
Keep personal attacks to a minimum and say very little. Let the scammers destroy themselves. It must happen.
BTW. I admire your work Anthony !

I don’t know what you people are worried about. The comments section seems to be 99% against Sachs. More silly articles like Sachs simply make it worse for them let them go on doing it! A classic is Monbiot again one of the skeptics best friends LOL

Tom P – from what I understand of the satellite data used by Phil Jones it was highly selective. Pretty much like the surface temperature data was. I am of the opinion that at the root of every great lie there is a grain of truth to give the lie substance.

When debate degenerates to ‘ad hominem attacks’ you’ve won your argument. This is the last resort of the desperate who have run out of worthy ideas.

PS Tom P – Phil Jones himself has gone on public record as admitting there has been no significant warming since 1998. It sort of makes a nonsense of all the warm biased figures that have merged from CRU over the last decade or so.

Tom P (02:33:34):Either Spencer is right and there is no evidence that Phil Jones has been warping the data, or Spencer is warping the data as well. Which do you think?
14 whole years of correlation, I’m sure it confirms your faith.

Of all the nefarious schemes perpetrated by the Warmers and their ilk, the one most egregious is the methodical adjustment factors exposed in the prior post Fudged Fevers of the Frozen North.
We need to dig up as many of those and hit them over the head with it over and over again.
It is a concept even the most inexperienced layperson can understand–they fudged the numbers down then they fudged them up, and without any substantive reasons. It is easy to see where most “global warming” came from (I call it the “honing of the hockey stick”)
Let people like Sachs become the bottom feeders (“Sucks”?) of climate slimes. In fact, let’s start calling a spade a spade: Such folks are indeed “climate slimes”.
I believe the term is fitting.

Sorry, meant 24 years, same insignificance.

Actually despite the Guardian’s typical ignorance acid rain has turned out to be a groundless scare. British acid rain is good for Norway’s trees, says a Norwegian scientific study http://web.archive.org/web/20040630202225/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml
In the normal manner of eco-scares the media give the fact that they were untrue not 1.000th as much coverage as the false hype.
In a similar way the paper’s George Moonbat attacked Martin Durkin’s Great Global Warming Swindle on the grounds that Durkin had, unlike him, opposed the breast implants scare, either not knowing or not caring that this scare had also been proven false.
In fact it is virtually impossible to find any eco-scare (or indeed Guardian campaign) which has not subsequently turned out to be wholly or largely untrue.

It’s a religion and its fervent adherents, who were less than polite to those they liked to term “deniers” even before Climategate, can be expected to become more and more strident and nasty as belief in the AGW religion diminishes. This example is only the start of what we can expect.
I think it has coma as a surprise to the Guardian’s editors – and no doubt they are still coming to terms with it – to find that comments against the AGW religion in response to article’s like Sachs’s are:
– articulate and expressed firmly but in moderate language
– numerous, indicating that a good percentage of Guardian readers are not AGW believers
– receiving a larger proportion of “recommend” clicks than AGW commens.
For example, the comment I posted (below) had received 316 “recommend” clicks when I last looked.
“Nil carborundum” , Mr Watts – someone who knows Latin will translate.
Martin A
____________________________________________________________
My comment posted on Sachs article….
The IPCC and its prophets are discredited.
“Climate change science”, as we have seen from the Climatgate emails – read them if you are doubtful – is based on analysis that is tweaked to produce the desired results and data that has been “value added” in ways that emphasise the desired results.
If your experiments (or your analyses) are not repeatable by others, what you are doing is not science. Richard Feynman, the greatest 20th C scientist, after Einstein, gave a talk on what he called “Cargo Cult Science”. There, you do everything that real scientists do except to apply scrupulous honesty in searching out your own errors.
Jones, Mann and co were aware their work was on dodgy ground – hence their refusal to release their data to enable others to attempt to duplicate their work.
If you attempt to prevent others from finding your errors, as “The Team” did, then what you are doing is worse than not being real science – it is anti-science.
What they were doing was generating propaganda for a cause. The cause they had come to believe in was the AGW Religion – not scientific truth.

Let them do their worst, Anthony.

In his article Jeffrey Sach’s writes;
“The second issue was a blatant error concerning glaciers that appeared in a major IPCC report. Here it should be understood that the IPCC issues thousands of pages of text. There are, no doubt, errors in those pages. But errors in the midst of a vast and complex report by the IPCC point to the inevitability of human shortcomings, not to any fundamental flaws in climate science.”
I note that at the top of his article’s web page, there is a link to a news story titled; “Climate scientists retract sea level paper”.
I’m reminded of the proverb; “There are none so blind as those who will not see”.

er what’s on this about climate wars? Its only a bloody war on the internet – outside its looking pretty freaky – Warmest November on record followed by freak cold weather down to minus 20 in Glasgow, and parts of the Tyne freezing over. Ah – the end of climate change – I hear you cry – well no actually my Auntie lives in Vancouver and they’ve had the warmest winter on record – no snow at all.
even if climate change wasn’t happening and wasn’t down to GHGs – have you not thought of dwindling fossil fuel reserves?? energy security anyone?
A lot of the low carbon solutions (i.e. energy efficiency) measures should be applauded as they will avoid us having us send our troops to different countries to die just to secure future energy resources. It’s a bit of a no-brainer really. It saddens me that there are so many people out there getting so emotional about CC – when there could be using that energy into making positive change instead of moaning on about being swindled and about ‘stealth taxes’ (I know this as my own father harps on about it having being brainwashed by the daily express (he didn’t do any science at school).
As a country we have some serious energy decisions to make, and embarking on a low carbon future would mean we are more resilient and less dependent on volatile foreign energy sources.
Stop bitching, and think about how we want our future to be, support a large scale refurbishment of existing building stock, it’ll help eradicate fuel poverty, create local jobs and kick start the economy….
Yes – the Govt is misguided in lots of areas. However there are a lot of oil and coal companies with a lot of vested interests and a lot of £££ at stake to keep the status quo – just think on that a little would you?

If there was one thing that was clear in the climategate files, it was that Phil Jones was receiving millions of euros in funding from Big Government like the EU. That’s undeniable fact, yet somehow it is moral to receive money from big government politicians who mostly have an authoritarian agenda, and will use the CAGW scare to their benefit.

The Project Syndicate, distributing this article, is a George Soros pet project, pushing the internationalist agenda.
Internationalists view global warming as a tool for furthering global integration through the transfer of power from nation states to international institutions.
The “Global strategists” of the Project Syndicate are the following people: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Haass, Sergei Karaganov, and Kenichi Ohmae.
The three first names are affiliated with the CFR and the Trilateral Commission, the latter is author of books such as “A borderless world” and “Next Global Stage: The: Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World”.

Sachs is a trained economist. I always love it when people have an arrogance so high that they feel they can speak loudly on issues when their knowledge is limited. Sachs also recommended free chemical fertilizer to african farmers as a development strategy. He has no knowledge of the best stratgies for soil fertility management on the fragile soils of Africa. As an agricultural scientist with experience working In Africa I can say his fertilizer advice is harmful to development. Similarly he has limited understanding of the climate change issue.

I skimmed through the comments on that article… and was left with a feeling of awe.
If it was MY pet theory, I sure wouldn’t want most of those guys as my vocal supporters.
Oh well… if ignorance is bliss, they seem very happy. Seems to me they should be more upset about the horrid consequences about to befall the planet, but no, they waste their time scoring “points” against anonymous people they disagree with.
By the way, the Ghandi quote is printed in the AGW alarmists guide to manipulating the rubes, they think it applies to them. (hint: it was a guidebook in the FOIA files)

Sachs’ essay epitomizes the intellectual inbreeding and academic corruption that thoroughly permeates America’s Ivy League institutions today. Too few of the faculty of the most prestigious institutions have minds of their own; they are instead panderers to intellectual fashion and political correctness. It’s telling that the legitimate critics are disproportinately from outside of academe, and even more disportionately from outside of institutions like Columbia. Dr. Sachs, your superficial analyis would earn an F in any decent undergraduate course.

Slightly, OT: Take a look at this article about climategate.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Climategate
Look at the bottom – you get “Related SourceWatch articles” – include “Philip Morris”
So look over the body, and the only appearance of Morris (actually this time spelled “Phillip Morris” with two Ls) is that American Freedom of Information, including a Shelby Amendment, in 1993 that was allegedly drafted by somebody who once did consultancy for Philip Morris.
There is no actual connection between Philip Morris to the University of East Anglia. Or to Phil Jones. Or to Climategate. Or even to any fact, debate, research or issue relating to climate change. Or anything in the body of the article. But they consider it Philip Morris one of the most relevant links. It’s bizarre.

He’s a troll. You addressed his lack of professionalism very well, Anthony. History will look back upon Sachs as an intolerant, unscholarly man who made his voice most well known to all the adorers of politically correct totalitarianism who read the Guardian and who ended up eating his own words like so many before him and to come.

A critique of Jeffrey Sachs’s very expensive vanity project Millennium Villages
http://brasstacks.org.uk/africa/blog/2007/08/25/criticisms-of-the-millennium-villages-some-thoughts/
Key quote: “I don’t, bluntly, think Sachs has been entirely honest in this.”
It would seem that Jeffrey Sachs is not a man who can take criticism.

Anthony, Project Syndicate is a Soros-backed org. Time to put that guy out of business.

ken cole (03:30:06)
The Ice Age hipe in the 70’s was due to cooling and science just trying to use the time frames between Ice Ages to calculate when this one is to occur.
All of science missed the boat in actually exploring into the cause and effect to an Ice Age.
Why does Mars not have water and we do?
What protects our water from evaporating away?
SALT
Has the next Ice Age started? Yes!
The salt in our oceans have changed dramatically on both being saltier in some areas and much less in others to increase evaporation and cloud cover.

Anthony, I have a great respect and admiration for your relentless efforts to build bridges, produce the correct science and promote dialogue.
But there won’t be any honest discussion.
As we concluded many times this is not about science but politics.
Dirty politics!
All that really helps is to continue our path and present the best of the science and inform those open to the truth.
We will really get them when we trigger a political shift which puts us in a position to cut the funding of the institutions promoting the scare, stop the Government propaganda machine, role back the rulings and clean house.
That’s the only way to go.

Dawn Watson (03:58:56) :
Stop bitching, and think about how we want our future to be, support a large scale refurbishment of existing building stock, it’ll help eradicate fuel poverty, create local jobs and kick start the economy….
—————–
Reply:
Absolutely astounding.
First, gutting the current system won’t help make the transition. It should be market driven, not policy driven based on “creative science” as I view AGW. When market forces argue for the transition to something else for what you call “fuel poverty”, it should be done in the most logical, efficient procedure possible and in the correct direction. There are many promising technologies on the horizon right now that should be given the chance to mature before making a solid decision. (And no, we’re not just suddenly going to run out of nuclear fuel, coal, oil or gas.)
While your ultimate aim may be noble from your perspective, the economic hardships faced in getting there may be insurmountable.
Let me offer you some perspective as a mining engineer–one who has worked on projects w/ capital outlay of up to $1.5 Billion.
First of all, you must consider whether the technology you’re embracing (wind, solar, no nuclear, no carbon) even makes sense.
Then, if the capital doesn’t exist to make the transition, it won’t happen; it SHOULDN’T happen.
Do you want to think about that for a moment? Just where is all this money going to come from to jump from a system that’s working efficiently right now (and no, I don’t believe CO2 is anywhere near the main driver in “climate change”–if that is the reason for your position then you need to re-think it) to a system that entails untenable, unreliable components as a solution? Are you willing to just do without electricity when the winds don’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine?
Would you personally finance such an approach? No you wouldn’t, and that’s why it’s is taking hair-brained governments to do the pushing. Well, group think on something like this by politicians is laughable. LAUGHABLE!
So dear mad’am, please take your fanciful attitude someplace else and get logical and real. What you’re dreaming up is all fine and dandy if you got a degree in Art History or Socialism, but it doesn’t work very well in the real world.
What you’re advocating could easily bankrupt nations, leaving them incapable to capitalize the very transition you’re so sure they need to make.
There is a far better way.

Today’s campaigners against action on climate change are in many cases backed by the same lobbies, individuals, and organisations that sided with the tobacco industry to discredit the science linking smoking and lung cancer. Later, they fought the scientific evidence that sulphur oxides from coal-fired power plants were causing “acid rain.” Then, when it was discovered that certain chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were causing the depletion of ozone in the atmosphere, the same groups launched a nasty campaign to discredit that science, too
How fool you are Jeffy!, you are so transparent buddy!, you have just told us, that, instead, YOU and YOUR PEERS, did all that, invented all those tales, from cancer smoking to einstein´s relativity and its multidimensional unexisting and child scaring phantoms!

During the Stalingrad campaign there was an Xmas broadcast from the front line saying…”We are Winning” That was a fake as well!
The Guardian is only good for wrapping up fish and chips Anthony! Never mind mate, what does not hurt you makes you stronger.

A long time back I worked with a fellow whose stock response was “Don’t confuse me with facts—my mind is made up”.
Geoff A

Excellent “rant” Andrew! I love a really good rant and yours is right out there among the best. Every now and then it does the soul good to get it out of your system, doesn’t it? Those who’ve sold their souls to the AGW funding ghouls can never know such cathartic relief. They rant, but something remains stuck inside that can never be disgorged.

This is the latest concerted effort by the AGW promotion community to silence skeptics.
By the way, it is now a plot by us, according to some AGW promoter I listened to on NPR yesterday, that global warming was turned into ‘climate change’.
And just to prove that AGW promoters are not marketing driven, this same person, during the same interview, told the softball reporter that the new name for global warming is ‘climate crisis’.

Dawn,
Do you think that replacing fuels with windmills and solar cells?
Do you think that imposing a $trillion cure for a non-existent problem is a good thing?
And do you realize that Vancouver exists in no small part because it was a place to access the far north yet had light winters?

I put the following response to Sachs’ rhetoric:
Mr Sachs and his readers may be interested to know that, in addition to annual funding from both British and American tax payers, the CRU at UEA have received considerable funds from the following vested interests:
British Petroleum – Oil, LNG
Broom?s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre – Food to Ethanol
The United States Department of Energy – Nuclear
UK Nirex Ltd. – Nuclear
Sultanate of Oman – LNG
Shell Oil, ?Oil – LNG
Tate and Lyle – Food to Ethanol
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate – Nuclear
KFA Germany – Nuclear
World Wildlife Fund – Political Advocates
Greenpeace International – Political Advocates
IPPC AR 4 (2007) has admitted serious errors on the following claims:
Sea-level rises: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall
Himalayan Glacier retreating rates – Non-science based claim, known by IPCC President to be erroneous and forced (by sceptics) to retract.
Arctic sea-ice melting: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Droughts in Africa will lead to sever food shortages – Non-science based claim, since retracted by IPCC.
Increase in levels of Hurrican severity: http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/may_june_july.jpg
Polar Bears are not in decline or endangered. Brazilian rainforests have been denuded because of logging (now to produce bio-fuels!). Antarctic sea and land ice are expanding. etc, etc, etc

Anthony, they can’t help themselves. All True Believers of a faith must demonize the opponents. Us atheists have been this for a long time.

P.S. Suggest that all proud sceptics send sensible, science-based counter-arguments to Sachs. HAPPY HUNTING!!

Anthony,
When a pinheaded coward like Sachs writes such drivel, it really shows that he is gutless, clueless but most of all afraid.
Afraid his carefully constructed lip-lock on the public teat will be terminated and his get rich & famous by flogging fear & hysteria scheme will blow up in his face.
Sachs is just another cheap eco-grifter riding the great AGW ponzi scam to an easy career and a fat bank account.
Getting rich through misrepresentation is a morally reprehensible act . . . . put Sach’s name on the list for the trials to follow.

Anthony:
The Guardian has closed off comments – total was 1037. I have not read them all – it seemed very slow – but judging from the reactions to and recommendations of the comments Sachs’s piece was seen for exactly what it was – a PR hit piece. I suspect that someone, somewhere is putting two and two together and realizing that more and more people are simply not buying the type of ad hominem arguments that Sachs tried to put forward.
I think the ultimate irony is to have somebody with close ties to Soros pontificate about others who actually have no connections to nefarious behind hte scenes actors and interests. Prof. Sachs should be ashamed of himself.

“Yes – the Govt is misguided in lots of areas. However there are a lot of oil and coal companies with a lot of vested interests”
The CAGW meme is causing the USA to ignore its own vast coal reserves. The USA needs to build coal plants, not windmills and solar, or even nuclear, as it gives the lowest cost stable power and acts to lift the American economy. The money for solar and windmills goes straight to China. How daft is that! Coal is 100% made in America!
The belief that the CAGW meme will somehow lead to better energy policy is bogus. It leads to the downfall of the USA.(Obama, take heed!)

The Guardian has closed the comment section and has removed a good number of comments. It’s not likely they were complimentary.
Sachs is astonishingly superficial.

Well paint me a religious Nazi tobaccy fanatic. Not. I too am currently reeling under the thumb of tobacco smoke and will be spending much time in grief soon enough. Tobacco isn’t even on the “last things” list I would support. Flat earther? Again, not. And the holocaust-flavored term is designed to bully, plain and simple. All of those one-liners aren’t even worthy of printed toilet paper. But Smokey, it doesn’t help to be quoting from Pachy’s book.

TinyCo2 (01:26:24) :
Here’s a quote by ABC’s Clive Hamilton earlier:

Prof Hamilton said scientists now have a duty to inform the public about the risks of climate change so action is taken and people are ready to adapt their lifestyles.
“There is a view we should not scare people because it makes them go down their burrows and close the door but I think the situation is so serious that although people are afraid they are not fearful enough given the science,” he said. “Personally I cannot see any alternative to ramping up the fear factor.”

And what, now he’s calling all skeptics terrorists? Yeah, real honest guy, trained in subversion [sarc].

The real trend, alas, is for some intelligent people on either side of important debates to refuse to believe that another intelligent person could come to a different conclusion on the issue at hand. It is so clear to them, that the obvious conclusion to come to is that other intelligent fellow must not “really” not see it –they must have some other agenda causing them to “deny the obvious”.

“Nil carborundum illigitimi”
This much quoted nonsense phrase, usually attributed to an American general (whose name I have mislaid), is not real Latin; it doesn’t even rise to the level of dog Latin.

In a few years time, this fraud will probably be in same jail cell with other climate crooks like Hansen, Mann et al
It`s time to start calling these people what they are – criminals.
Lets stop trying to convince these lying crooks that their criminal fraud is based on is “unsound science”. They`re laughing at us because they know it`s all a con, and they’re doing what all good con men do.
Let start calling for criminal trials. Repeatedly. Repeatedly. Repeatedly
And most importantly – call for an amnesty for the first few that come clean now.

Sachs is one of the reasons I quit subscribing to “Scientific American” years ago. He relies on liberal propaganda rather than
reasoned arguments in his editorials

RockyRoad (05:00:18)
What you’re advocating could easily bankrupt nations, leaving them incapable to capitalize the very transition you’re so sure they need to make
As it has already broken Spain, a destroyed by windmills economy.

Andrew W (01:03:26) :
“””
While I agree that the ‘money from big oil’ meme is nonsense, so is the ’scientists exaggerate AGW to get grants’ meme, and that’s a claim often made in the comments here.
“””
It may not even be conscious but when choosing between coming
to conclusions that will allow you to keep your job versus concluding
something that might lead to a future in used car salesmanship,
you’ll be surprised how creative people can become. I’ve seen it
many times. In many cases it manifests in the simple form of
keeping one’s mouth shut.
Many climate scientists seem to have missed their
true calling in marketing. It may not be as lucrative, but no
one really expects verifiable accuracy from claims for
non-perscription skin care products…

What a pity, Anthony, that you actually seem to be buying into the “second-hand smoke” BS (which, exactly like AGW, is nothing but an excuse for erosion of individual liberty based on fraudulent statistics, viz. the late John Daly’s excellent work on the subject). Sorry to hear that your health was weak in your youth, but your blaming SHS is pretty silly because that “effect” – much like human-caused AGW – simply does not exist outside alarmists’ and regulation maniacs’ phrasebooks. You should rather accept that your natural genetic disposition likely makes your respiratory system your weak spot – much as other individuals over-react to other substances like salt or wheat starch, without these substances being “toxic” per se.
PS: I’m a non-smoker, have been all my life, nor do I have any connection – professional or otherwise – with the tobacco, oil, nuclear or pharma industries.
REPLY: You didn’t grow up in it. -A

Bill Tuttle (02:28:33)
To be fair there are actually economists who’ve kept there common sense, Bjorn Lomborg is just one.

Re the use of “denier”, there has been a petition set up in the UK to stop the Prime Minister using that term.
I doubt that it will achieve that objective, but signing is a good way to register your disgust at the use of such an insult.
For UK residents only @ http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Deniers/
Over 1600 signed so far.

Dated today. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/methane-levels-may-see-runaway-rise-scientists-warn-1906484.html
“During the first half of 2009, globally averaged atmospheric CH4 was [approximately] 7ppb greater than it was in 2008, suggesting that the increase will continue in 2009.”
Odd. My calendar is running fast.

Prof. Sachs doesn’t write articles for fun. His Earth Institute “leads large-scale efforts to promote the mitigation of human-induced climate change”. If there is no “human-induced climate change”, then there is no need to fund the Earth Institute. I wonder whose contribution he secured by writing this article?

From “The Earth Institute, Columbia University” website:
“Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. From 2002 to 2006, he was Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed goals to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by the year 2015. Sachs is also President and Co-Founder of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization aimed at ending extreme global poverty.”
He also authored a book called “End of Poverty” what boldly shows off “Foreword by Bono” on the cover.
I expect no less of an attack than what he gave in that article.

sachs@columbia.edu
This is Sachs email address. I just sent him my thoughts on his knowledge of science. My I suggest that everyone do the same.

Another thought occurs. Does this article set a record for the use of logical fallacies? I think he nailed every single one that I know of, along with some really nice non sequiturs.

Dawn Watson said
“Warmest November on record followed by freak cold weather down to minus 20 in Glasgow, and parts of the Tyne freezing over. Ah – the end of climate change – I hear you cry – well no actually my Auntie lives in Vancouver and they’ve had the warmest winter on record – no snow at all.”
The first part is simply not true-November was merely 1 degree warmer than average in Glasgow-caused by a long stretch of warm southerly winds. Vancouver is the warmest city ever to hold the Winter Olympics and seems to have been chosen for reasons other than its suitability to hold a Winter Olympics. They had the warmest January since records began-in 1937. That is hardly extensive and records commence right at the end of a period similar in warmth to today-the 1920’s and 1930’s.
tonyb