Willis Eschenbach recently posted about “Baked Alaska“, as well as Out in the Ama-zone now from Dr. Richard North we have “Amazon Alibi in Flames” and the research of the document trail used to push the Sunday Times into a retraction about the so called “Amazongate” issue is interesting and telling. I posted a few thoughts on it here previously. Since this new revelation about the issue needs a wider audience, I’ve reposted Dr. North’s essay below. However, I suggest that readers put his website in your bookmarks as there will likely be more to come. Upon further research by North, it seems that evidence of the citation is missing, and even George Monbiot now has admitted that the IPCC made a mistake. He’s changed his tune from just a short time ago. – Anthony
==================================
By Dr. Richard North –
Returning to The Sunday Times retraction of its “Amazongate” article, readers will recall that the paper declared that the IPCC’s Amazon statement is supported by peer-reviewed scientific evidence.
In the case of the WWF report, it said, the figure had, in error, not been referenced, but was based on research by the respected Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), which did relate to the impact of climate change.
This statement mirrored an earlier statement directly by the WWF, where the organisation claimed that the source for its statement was “Fire in the Amazon, a 1999 overview of Amazon fire issues from the respected Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM – Amazon Environmental Research Institute).”
The source quotation from “Fire in the Amazon,” we are told, reads “Probably 30 to 40% of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon are sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
Well, we have now ascertained that there are three versions of this document. It starts off life as: “Flames in the rain forest: Origins, impacts, and alternatives to Amazonian fires”, published in English at 161 pages.
We then get the Portuguese version at 172 pages, entitled: “A Floresta em Chamas: Origens, Impactos e Prevencao de Fogo na Amazonia.”
In both cases, they are published by the “Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rain Forest” in 1999, with the support of the World Bank and the Ministry of Environment Secretariat for the Coordination of Amazon.
Then it reappears as an IPAM publication, in a revised version 204 pages long, in Portuguese only, with the same title as the shorter version.
English and Portuguese versions are in electronic searchable form and, as far as we can ascertain, the claim: “Probably 30 to 40% of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon are sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall,” is not present in any version. Nor can we find any variation or close approximation, nor any form with a similar meaning.
In The Sunday Times, it is averred that this document does “relate to the impact of climate change.” And so it does … sort of. It describes how “fires may be affecting climate patterns” (above) and indeed, precipitation. But there is absolutely nothing about climate change affecting rainfall, or the forest being destroyed by small (or any) reductions in rainfall.
In its anxiety to cover its back, and prove “Amazongate” false, the WWF may have been party to the promulgation of a provable lie. Or maybe, this is just another of Nepstad’s little “misinterpretations”. Either way, though, the IPCC is in a little difficulty. Not only is its claim unsupported by its original report, newly offered reference doesn’t support it either.
And they thought that The Sunday Times retraction was the end of the matter. It is only starting.
Monbiot, or Mon Bot, responds venomously in his ‘apologia’. Here be the worm.
===================
That pile of lies is getting pretty high, and pretty unstable!
Further research suggests that the origin of the quote was a now defunct webpage aimed at brainwashing children:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/07/amazongate-smoking-gun.html
and another follow up:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/07/perpetuating-lie.html
Can’t these people store all their halftruths in a database so that they can at least appear to be consistent. Oh. I think i found a market niche. Software for professional liars.
ROTLMAO. Moonbat has found a catastrophist’s paper: (from his blog, linked above)
“The first paper, by Cox et al, predicts a drop in broadleaf tree cover from approximately 80% of the Amazon region in 2000 to around 28% in 2100 (Figure 6). That is bad enough, involving far more than 40% of the rainforest. But the forest, it says, will not be largely replaced by savannah: “When the forest fraction begins to drop (from about 2040 onwards) C4 grasses initially expand to occupy some of the vacant lands. However, the relentless warming and drying make conditions unfavourable even for this plant functional type, and the Amazon box ends as predominantly baresoil (area fraction >0.5) by 2100.”
”
and now merrily states that the danger to the Amazon has been understated by the IPCC.
Next thing you know he’ll tell us we’ll die from H2S when all the fish die and start to rot. Go ahead Moonbat, right ahead.
Being a Brasilian I wouldn’t mind incorporating all the Amazon into Brasil, but for now, 40 % of Brasilian raiforest is still only 20 % of the whole Amazon. So where is the scientific reference for the IPCC claim of 40 % of the (whole) Amazon?
DirkH says:
July 3, 2010 at 11:42 am
“ROTLMAO. Moonbat has found a catastrophist’s paper: (from his blog, linked above)
“The first paper, by Cox et al, predicts a drop in broadleaf tree cover from approximately 80% of the Amazon region in 2000 to around 28% in 2100 (Figure 6).
“”
and yes i pasted this excerpt including the year 2000 right from Moonbat’s blog. I don’t know which year he really meant to say… the catastrophist’s paper is here:
http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibcperu.org%2Fdoc%2Fisis%2F7077.pdf&ei=3YcvTPagDMn_OYbn9d4B&usg=AFQjCNEuXCPYDC_PQc2XWK0JTFkTe06jZw
It’s a beautiful piece of fantasy with colorful maps that came out of the GCM’s. Recommended for fans of horror B movies. Suspend your disbelief and enjoy. Don’t think too hard about thermodynamics while reading it; the paper is a little short on that.
Kudos to Dr. North for his dogged and unrelenting pursuit of this IPCC fiasco. Oh how the Moonbat and his ilk crowed over the Sunday Times’ article retraction. Thanks to Dr. North, the obfuscation, misdirection, and outright nose-stretchers by the IPCC, WWF, Nepstad, Moonbat, et al. are coming back to haunt them. I hope (probably in vain) that we will see a follow up in the Sunday Times that provides an update on all of this, and provides at least a partial retraction of their retraction.
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
– 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 – Fire in the Amazon Cartoon Web page
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
– 2000 WWF
“Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation;…”
– 2007 IPCC
This is the relentless march of science?
Joel Heinrich says:
“Being a Brasilian I wouldn’t mind incorporating all the Amazon into Brasil, but for now, 40 % of Brasilian raiforest is still only 20 % of the whole Amazon. So where is the scientific reference for the IPCC claim of 40 % of the (whole) Amazon?”
Can’t wait for all the tiresome Trolls posting on Steve G’s articles to continue our education by means of an erudite dissertation on this!
Or does the whole AGW theory depend entirely on the vagaries of the north polar icecap?
IPCC summary
“Tropical plant species may be sensitive to small variations of climate, since biological systems respond slowly to relatively rapid changes of climate.
…..
Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state, not necessarily producing gradual changes between the current and the future situation (Rowell and Moore, 2000).”
I remember some news articles back in at the middle of this decade which blamed rising temperatures and deforestation for the 2002 – 2005 drought in the Amazon. Here is another view:
————————–
How does the Amazon react to increases in Co2 and temperature?
Reference – pdf
Lloyd, J. and Farquhar, G.D. 2008. Effects of rising temperatures and [CO2] on the physiology of tropical forest trees. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363: 1811-1817.
Send this to Monbiot!
“A new NASA-funded study has concluded that Amazon rain forests were remarkably unaffected in the face of once-in-a-century drought in 2005, neither dying nor thriving, contrary to a previously published report and claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and non-drought years, which suggests that these forests may be more tolerant of droughts than we previously thought,” said Arindam Samanta, the study’s lead author from Boston University.
….
“The way that the WWF report calculated this 40% was totally wrong, while [the new] calculations are by far more reliable and correct,” said Dr. Jose Marengo, a Brazilian National Institute for Space Research climate scientist and member of the IPCC. read more… ”
Reference:
Geophysical Research Letters article citation: Samanta, A., S. Ganguly, H. Hashimoto, S. Devadiga, E. Vermote, Y. Knyazikhin, R. R. Nemani, and R. B. Myneni (2010), Amazon forests did not green‐up during the 2005 drought, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L05401, doi:10.1029/2009GL042154. – published 5 March 2010.
—-
New Study Debunks Myths About Vulnerability of Amazon Rain Forests to Drought
ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2010)
roger says:
July 3, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Can’t wait for all the tiresome Trolls posting on Steve G’s articles to continue our education by means of an erudite dissertation on this!
Or does the whole AGW theory depend entirely on the vagaries of the north polar icecap?
Ditto.
And after the last article that included a retraction within minutes, they continued to dogpile Steve and this blog. What a stark contrast. The IPCC and WWF COULD have made an error originally, but instead of a mea culpa they spin this lie even further, pressuring a retraction from the Times. And, oh, the chest thumping that took place after said retraction.
You would think that the ethical supporter of AGWT would recognize the error and publicly take their lumps. How can you respect someone’s supposed scientific integrity if they are only vociferous others mistakes but mum on their (or their group’s) own?
WWF= Wolrd Wide Fake
Jimbo,
Don’t know where the problem is, but this can’t be saying what was intended. If a species is living close to its optimum temperature range, it would have the maximum “distance” to move to get to a dangerous position.
Funnily enough, the alarmist Cox et al paper that Monbiot is now citing, has as its lead author, someone from the CRU – and it relies on doom and gloom computer predictions.
Could it be that Monbiot is being spoon fed by the CRU?
His buddies at the Hadley Centre may be helping. CRU – probably not. CRU does temperature record and research.
Shub Niggurath says:
July 3, 2010 at 12:35 pm
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
– 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 – Fire in the Amazon Cartoon Web page
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
– 2000 WWF
“Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation;…”
– 2007 IPCC
This is the relentless march of science?
———
Well, this kind of ‘science’ at least. Unfortunately Climategate and its aftermath prevented future evolution of this alarming finding. Otherwise, we may have got to this by now:
““At least 40% of the Amazonian forests could suffer catastrophic impacts from any change in precipitation there, or anywhere; researchers warn that the extinction of the little known Amazonian polar bear is evidence that we may have already reached an irreversible tipping point and that a global carbon trading market enforced by a World Watermelon Fund research-industrial complex is the only only ‘for the children.’ ”
You grossly misrepresent what Monbiot has said. In his “correction,” he states clearly that it was wrong only to cite the WWF – not that the underlying facts are wrong. The entire rest of the column is used to state explicitly what published papers are the true basis for the Amazon claims. To simply say that Monbiot has “admitted” something without saying that he admits it sarcastically is a disservice to the truth. Shame – you should know better.
(So admitting the source of lies was wrong to use but still repeating the same lies as true is okay? Sorry, the shame isn’t on our side here. – the mods)
“Dave Dardinger says:
July 3, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Jimbo,
they could find “no evidence for tropical forests currently existing ‘dangerously close’ to their optimum temperature range,” as is often suggested by climate alarmists.
Don’t know where the problem is, but this can’t be saying what was intended. If a species is living close to its optimum temperature range, it would have the maximum “distance” to move to get to a dangerous position.”
Very good! For them, everything is dangerous. I think they’re living in constant paranoia, or maybe a bipolar disorder (manic-depressive) state of mind. Ooops. I accuse the enemy of being mentally disturbed. Must be because i have a manic warmist at my place of work.
Do you know why the 40% figure is important?
Because the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation thinks so?
“The Foundation says its primary objective is to achieve “the effective management of 370 million hectares of forested landscapes” which it says are needed to maintain the climatologic function of the Amazon Basin and protect the region’s biodiversity ”
What is the total area of the Amazon forest?
815 million hectares
What is 370/815 ?
45%
What will happen if this 45% of the forest is not “effectively managed”?
“The 370 million hectares represents 45 percent of the region’s 815 million hectares of rainforest and is considered a threshold below which the Amazon rainforest ecosystem may tip towards a radically different landscape dominated by dry savanna.”
Just so it is clear – if 45% of the forest is not “effectively managed” (whatever that is) – the entire system will flip to a dry savanna. No need of droughts, fires, deforestation, “slight reduction of precipitation”…
!
Who is the “the largest and most influential sponsor of conservation in the world’s biggest rainforest”?
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1206-moore.html
Hu Duck Xing said on July 3, 2010 at 11:03 am:
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
(ref)
After 12 years with no significant warming, total failure of the hockey stick, Climategate, and exposure of the IPCC’s draft world-conquest game plan at Copenshaggen, the AGW religionists’ reaction was completely predictable: desperately increasing their lies and propaganda. It’s a travesty.
MarkB says:
July 3, 2010 at 2:04 pm
“You grossly misrepresent what Monbiot has said. In his “correction,” he states clearly that it was wrong only to cite the WWF – not that the underlying facts are wrong.”
If you consider model outputs from 2003 or 2004 as facts, even though Catastrophist Cox (et.al.) himself says in the conclusion of his (et.al) paper: “The modelled Amazonian dieback phenomenon
is therefore qualitatively understood, but
we are still a long way from being able to estimate
the probability of such an ecological
catastrophy occurring in the real Earth system.”, so if you consider that a fact, then i think….
…i have a bridge you might be interested in.
MarkB says:
“You grossly misrepresent what Monbiot has said.”
Monbiot grossly misrepresents just about everything he writes.
Mann seems to get by with fudging numbers.
The WWF. What do they claim? At some point their endeavor to shake down donors for millions will come undone.
The WWF says the end justifies deception?
Algore is in trouble. One by one the light shines on the corruption.
“Smokey says:
July 3, 2010 at 2:53 pm
MarkB says:
“You grossly misrepresent what Monbiot has said.”
Monbiot grossly misrepresents just about everything he writes.”
Yeah. Either he has not looked at the paper or he willfully misrepresents it.
The conclusion on page 154 of the paper : “Amazonian forest dieback under climate-carbon cycle projections for the 21st century”
states.
The modelled Amazonian dieback phenomenon
is therefore qualitatively understood, but
we are still a long way from being able to estimate
the probability of such an ecological
catastrophy occurring in the real Earth system.
ah – back to earth.
Romm is demanding apologies from all the media and the planet on July 1. http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/01/media-retracted-attack-on-ipcc/#comment-283487
Looks like he fell for it also. Tells me they don’t do the homework on the George Soros media site.
Equatorial rain forests are a phenomenon that live only during interglacial periods. During glacial periods, climate is too dry at the equator to support them and the area becomes grassy savanna. Some rain forest will form in bands around the tropics to the North and South of the equator, though, during glacial periods.
The rain forests that today are deemed so “vital” to the environment are, like today’s great coral reefs, relatively short lived phenomena that are the oddity rather than the norm over the past few million years. Both will die “soon” as we slide into the next glaciation.
They also get climate backwards. Warmer climates are wetter climates. Cold climate is dry climate. A cooling of the climate would result in greater drought threat to the rain forests than a warming would.
http://bit.ly/cNOEQB
Apr. 15, 2008
San Francisco, CA — The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (www.moore.org) today announced the appointment of Daniel C. Nepstad, Ph.D. as the new chief program officer for its environmental conservation programs.
Is this a rerun of old news, or is there a retraction of the retraction on the initial assertion
at http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/01/corruption-of-science.html ? I also think you may have misrepresented old GB a little, but good for a laugh!
Oops… should have been “only hope ‘for the children.”
Monbiot claims by one of his peer-reviewed sources “the entire Amazon basin as desert by the 2080s”.
Really? Has it already started? I mean, this takes some time …
I refer you and Monbiot to my comments and references 1 funded by the alarmists NASA and a scathing comment from a member of the IPCC:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/03/flaming-the-amazon/#comment-422481
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/03/flaming-the-amazon/#comment-422472
The IPCC got it wrong! Get over it!
We’re with Jorge Kafkazar! No doubt the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF) has a meticulously wrought, long-term plan to “manage” first the Amazon Basin, then Brazil and contiguous State entities, eventually South America as a whole and finally, voila! all geopolitical landmasses in the Northern Hemisphere.
Gordon and Betty Moore will of course “manage” Gaia’s interests only after ridding Mother Earth of polluting humanity, “swarming maggots” as John Holdren, Obama Banana’s death-eating “science advisor” (sic) is wont to put it. Facts? Objective, rational argument? Nihilistic Luddite sociopaths infesting GBMF, and others of their ilk, don’t need no stinkin’ Science.
Being outrageously wrong (or outrageously anything- the key word is outrageous) is how one tricks the unwary in to taking him seriously and is a perfectly reliable method of keeping an opponent distracted while a partner burgles his house.
I rather like the Moonbat. His reluctance to contemplate defeat in spite of overwhelming logic to the contrary is commendable. Granted he been found to be a sandwich short of a picnic but just gotta admire his truculence to admit defeat. He’s a bloke, make no Nemistake, irrespective of his employers inability to make other than a massive loss he, as Winston famously said, keeps Buggering on!
N’ere let the scorn o’ Foes defeat ye,
When you alone hae Powers tae beat ya’
Keep digging George, keep digging!
Dundee deserves a new hero…
Thanks for the geological perspective. I do believe that 90% of the last million years, the normal state of the Earth’s climate has been an ice age and all the AGWers are worried about is the Earth getting warmer!!! We at WUWT know what they should really be worrying about!!!
The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute admits it has received “lots of private foundation money” from billion-dollar funds such as the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trust to help fight British Columbia fish farms and pressure stores and restaurants to boycott their products.
More: http://www.financialpost.com/Salmon+farm+battle+about+competition/3169217/story.html#ixzz0sfNFKBVP
Bias statement: my interest leans far more to the science than the politics. In general my reading suggests many large scale biological responses to a warming world are “unsettled” areas of research. In the case of the Amazon, one study cordoned off an area of pristine forest with a representative population of trees and shielded the canopy to prevent rain reaching the trees in question. In the early years the trees seemed little affected. At around year 5 a disproportionate amount of tree mortality and ill-health presented. The researchers concluded it was because the soil moisture content the trees tapped into took that long to deplete. Based on this, conclusions from a single year of drought (either way) would seem premature.
Could the quote be a weird extrapolation like being the reverse of 60-70 percent is not sensitive to small changes.
It doesn’t really take much once something goes viral, whether it’s a news story or a “fact”, to keep it going long enough for to become a myth or urban legend. When it comes to “fact” all that is needed is to take away the time stamp, then the “fact” just keeps on getting repeated for ages and as it gets repeated it also warps slightly by every repeat.
Some people actually use statistics from the 60s like it still applies today. Or the 90s lol.
Jimbo’s post of June 27, 2010 at 5:53 pm is worth another look.
Jimbo says
Just for fun here is how the Amazon reacts to the dry season – it goes greener!!!
Amazon Rainforest Greens Up in the Dry Season
Defying Dry: Amazon Greener in Dry Season than Wet
Large seasonal swings in leaf area of Amazon rainforests
[Oops… should have been “only hope ‘for the children.”]
Works as originally written too. You know how incoherent these people get once they get wound up.
The reason that Warmists lie, and then lie again to cover up their first lie, is because they have a deep and irrational emotional need to be right, whereas ‘skeptics’ find intellectual satisfaction from doing the detective work needed to get at the truth.
Does Monbiot ever do the kind of patient digging that we see on this site, or that North has just demonstrated?
No. Nor do the rest of them; they just run around in circles recycling each other’s comments and, all too frequently, vulgar abuse. (On that note, let’s call him Monbiot, shall we….?)
MikeA says:
July 3, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Is this a rerun of old news, or is there a retraction of the retraction on the initial assertion
at http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/01/corruption-of-science.html ? I also think you may have misrepresented old GB a little, but good for a laugh!
Same author, later dates, in the original links, really just shows how hard it is for the average reader/voter to work their way through the WWF nonsense science and art of lying defences, and the art of the IPCC in spinning issues to avoid exposing holes in their (formerly) much vaunted adherance to pure scientific research backed up by impeccable peer reviewed referencing (Myth).
Pauchuri’s lofty stance has crumbled and become tarnished by simple, but much more in depth peer review – no one now, accepts the mob cry, (propaganda) on the beautiful appearance of the emperor’s clothes, without checking and believing their own observations.
Shub Niggurath says: July 3, 2010 at 2:34 pm
“Do you know why the 40% figure is important? [….]”
I can think of at least 60 Billion reasons …. (hey … it’s the new green economy – money doesn’t grow on trees you know)
As we spend more of our time examining ” Mammoth flatulence causes …” claims and pulling apart Playstation fantasies of Amazon rainfall the scammers head to the Bank with the swag. They are like those Hollywood bank bandits, throwing [peer reviewed of course] $100 bills from the back of the getaway truck. The bag ‘o’ loot is long secure in its new home while the idiots are still brawling over bills fluttering in the street.
Climate Science – 5% more leaf fall this year? Consider those leaves already fallen and coloured dark red. Give me a week or so and I can “iteratively homogenize” the leaf count data and re-base this years “leaf anomaly” using spring as the base line…
REDD is becoming synonymous with corruption, yet the most powerful players in the game are the World Bank, with partners WWF and Woods Hole Research Center (Nepstad’s employer).
The financial motivations behind concern for the rainforests cannot be overstated … the racket is worth billions and is the other half of cap and trade … there is no money in “cap” unless you have a ready supply of carbon credits to “trade”. The plan is that rainforests are the carbon credit “production machine” – putting new life into the phrase money grows on trees.
Richard North says:
July 3, 2010 at 11:11 pm
“REDD is becoming synonymous with corruption, […]”
Headline, from your link: “United Nations warned that corruption is undermining grants to stop logging”.
The UN warns against corruption? So they’re worried that somebody else steals the money they had already earmarked for themselves.
Is it significant that comments on George Monbiot’s latest article were closed after just 6 hours and 71 comments? Normally even the most rabid commetatorsin that paper get at least 24hrs to be slagged off by the public (and defended by their few remaining chums). And about 300 comments.
The Guardian debate in London on Climategate next week should be very interesting. George Monbiot is chairing, Doug Keenan is speaking and Steve McIntyre has said that he will be in London that day..whether as a member of the audience or on the panel has yet to be decided. I suspect that George may come in for some awkward questions about this topic too.
@Mods@ Please delete this link if you feel that it is not WUWT’s job to advertise another journal’s event, but it might be useful for European based readers to know about it and possibly to attend
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/guardian-debate-climate-science-emails
TomRude says:
July 3, 2010 at 1:30 pm
WWF= Wolrd Wide Fake
__________________________________
Gee, and I thought it stood for World Wide Fraud Inc.
Were you aware the 20% of the WWF funding comes from our pockets? (Tax dollars) see: http://www.undueinfluence.com/wwf.htm
Is it a coincidence that Times Newspapers and Sky TV are both owned by Murdoch?
Sky is currently running a scam scheme with WWF whereby viewers can adopt a jaguar and help ‘Save the Amazon Rainforest’. Does this Sky/WWF scheme have anything to do with REDD and might this explain how quickly The Times retracted?
Time was when a newspaper like the Guardian and a reporter like Monbiot would be all over this story like a rash instead of defending the money men.
Latimer Alder says:
July 4, 2010 at 12:30 am
…The Guardian debate in London on Climategate next week should be very interesting. George Monbiot is chairing, Doug Keenan is speaking and Steve McIntyre has said that he will be in London that day..whether as a member of the audience or on the panel has yet to be decided. I suspect that George may come in for some awkward questions about this topic too….
@Mods@ Please delete this link if you feel that it is not WUWT’s job to advertise another journal’s event, but it might be useful for European based readers to know about it and possibly to attend
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/guardian-debate-climate-science-emails
_______________________________________________________________________
Oh I do hope Dr North, and Lord Monckton among others are there with a list of probing questions. Time for George to be on the hot seat for a change.
The KEY point is Richard North’s. WWF and every other environmental (ist) org is tied up in buying the Amazonian forest for CO² Trading. Let’s hope that Lula cottons on and nationalises the whole lot without compensation. Now that would be hilarious.
And one should not forget the Murdock familly in all this. They are currently fund raising for this lot through their SKY TV channels
Richard North,
“REDD is becoming synonymous with corruption, yet the most powerful players in the game are the World Bank, with partners WWF and Woods Hole Research Center (Nepstad’s employer). ”
WWF seem to be in partnership with BSkyB as well, judging by the tv ads. Apparently, the viewer can donate a sum of money to WWF which will be matched by BSkyB. If I can understand what’s going on, it seems that people making donations will be providing the financing for WWF to lease forest from the Brazilian government, and get nothing as the WWF and presumably BSkyB sit back and rake in the carbon credits issued by the UN. I say the donors will get nothing – they will of course get the satisfaction of knowing the have enriched the WWF and BSkyB.
If society is going to go down this route of monetizing the rainforest, then it should at least be done in an open and transparent way. A much more honest approach would be for private investment companies to invite investors to finance leasing of the rainforest in return for an income based on the profits from carbon certificates. Although this is also a completely unnecessary solution to a non-problem, I would find it less disgustingly dishonest than what WWF are doing.
Here’s something i missed. The BBC reported a while ago that some of the money raised by Bob Geldof’s hunger relief activities for Ethopia was channeled through a local rebel organization who allegedly used most of it for arms. Geldof disputes it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/03/ethiopia.html
Might serve as good example for what we will get with REDD.
Here’s a report of an Interpol guy warning that the 60 billion REDD fund will attract organized crime. (well, duh, i thought it was organized by them in the first place – oh, he doesn’t mean the UN but some other organized criminals 😉 )
http://planetark.org/wen/53152
And here’s another good example of how you can make sure you get a part of the action; corruption in the WFP (The World Food Programme (WFP) is the food aid branch of the United Nations):
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/27237
Take all this together and REDD might become the one most destabilizing issue of the coming decades.
Richard North said:
REDD is becoming synonymous with corruption, yet the most powerful players in the game are the World Bank, with partners WWF and Woods Hole Research Center (Nepstad’s employer).
REDD is all about carbon trading and a foundation sponsor for the Woods Hole Research Center, a supposed independent science organization , is Goldman & Sachs.
For those interested, direct link to the podcast of the BBC’s report about the Ethiopian aid diversion. Hope the link works. Contains interesting interviews with people who were there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p006dyn3
, one study cordoned off an area of pristine forest with a representative population of trees and shielded the canopy to prevent rain reaching the trees in question. In the early years the trees seemed little affected. At around year 5 a disproportionate amount of tree mortality and ill-health presented. The researchers concluded it was because the soil moisture content the trees tapped into took that long to deplete
Just curious, but what else besides rainfall was prevented from reaching the trees in question by such a canopy? Sunlight too, perhaps? Air circulation lessened which would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide available for the trees, perhaps? Were measurements of the moisture content in the soil the trees tapped into taken as time elapsed?
You know I think I’m past the acceptance stage with regards to the apparent idiocy and superficial posturing of people like George Monbiot. I’m just disappointed. His drive and passion is admirable (sometimes he writes a good post) but his lack of asking the simple questions like ‘Has someone measured that?’ and ‘What does it actually mean to have something peer-review published? Does it mean that what’s published is correct?’ are either something I have completed missed or he doesn’t appear to fully grasp it. That’s okay. Most scientists don’t grasp that you have to measure stuff rather than XBox it (model it to known rules). So the 40% idea here? How would you even start to measure that? And even if it were true that your analysis showed it, why would you be shouting it from the rooftops when any person with sense can see that it’ll take a lot more work and careful investigation to test it.
I despair sometimes this Idiocracy we have. How did all that enlightment and advancement in science come to this?
I know its all emotionally driven anyway.
Here’s one very inconvenniet truth, a damning report about deforestation:
http://www.globalforestcoalition.org/img/userpics/File/briefing%20paper%20bioenergy_final_1.pdf
I posted yesterday a story about it. Journalist Stephen Leahy was none too pleased about it either.
Apparently Monbiott (I’ll reserve the right to withold name calling until a later date)
and IPCC (I remember when I was new to this ACGW stuff and I accidentally called them ICPP in my English class… The class laughed at me in good nature but ICPP is probably a better designation because whenever I look at the side of the global warming I see a lot of … Oh high Anthony 🙂
Moving on… Apparently Monbiott, IPCC, et al. has totally overlooked numerous studies published by the National Geographic and Science, that have said at least 5 times since 2009, that there is a surprising amount of excelerated grow back in the regions where the farms have stopped clear cutting and left. There are huge amounts of CO2 hovering in the area and trees are sucking up the CO2 and are growing in exponential numbers.
I find it amazing how even when articles are written in publications that are predominately on the side of the ACGW, they still put their blinders on and stumble forth with pure nonsense and tripe.
i wish wordpress would let you edit your previous comments… I meant to say Oh hi Anthony not oh high anthony.
Joel Heinrich says:
July 3, 2010 at 11:43 am
In 2008, in the ALCUE Latin american and European nations´meeting, someone introduced in the final text that all signees agree in declaring the Amazon Jungle as a reserve owned by humanity. Fortunately, the brazilian diplomats noticed it and President Lula was to abandon the summit if that text was not changed.
That would be the same as declaring half of the US as a reserve for humanity and governed by the UN bureaucrats.
Just to add a bit to Larryoldtimers comment on the experiment to withold rain from trees with dieback occurring after 5 years, this strikes me as a pretty extreme experiment, witholding all rainfall. It surprises me that the trees lasted that long.
It also has no relevance to the current IPCC claims which talks about sensitivity to small changes in rainfall, not complete deprivation.
“That would be the same as declaring half of the US as a reserve for humanity and governed by the UN bureaucrats.”
It’s actually worse, because the governance is delegated to NGOs such as the WWF. This is a particularly unpleasant and malign form of neo-colonialism, reminiscent of the days of the Hudson Bay Company and the East India Company. Commercial entities are being given a licence to administer and subdue the natives in order to create and protect the market for carbon credits. WWF is said to be hiring ex-special forces personnel for its South American ventures.
I’ve got no problem with skeptics. I appreciate people who withhold judgment until after the first wave of emotion.
On the other hand, a line is crossed when you move from skeptic to denier. Science is frequently inaccurate, often to the point of being 180 degrees from the correct direction. That is no reason to dismiss all science out of hand.
I think that its very likely that the motivations behind many of the “skeptics” here are much less than altruistic or scientific. I know very little about climatology compared to a climatologist. I’m a microbiologist, but I don’t know enough about cancer to review articles for a cancer journal. I find it tragic that so many of you, who are not climatologists (no, geology isn’t really close enough) feel that you even understand the parameters of the discussion enough to value your impressions of the hypotheses and evidence.
Furthermore, the requisite ulterior motive of a fraud is thin at best, and ridiculous when compared to the obvious ulterior motives present in the defense of the status quo by the well-heeled profiteers of the fossil fuel industries.
I’ve read a lot about “climate-gate” and this recent Amazon effect analysis. I have yet to read anything that supports the point of view of AGW deniers. Face it, you are not arguing from the position of a dispassionate, objective analysis. Y’all have an agenda, and you are not doing your agenda a service, because fewer and fewer people are buying what you are selling.
REPLY: I understand where you are coming from. You might want to look up how many colleges offer a degree in climatology. I think you’ll be surprised. Also surprising, James Hansen didn’t start out as a climatologist, neither did Mann. – A
Billy said;
‘Y’all have an agenda, and you are not doing your agenda a service, because fewer and fewer people are buying what you are selling.’
I’m intrigued as to what you believe my agenda to be and what I am supposed to be selling. Many of us here believed in AGW until we looked at the very thin evidence.
tonyb
If you hold on to one of your easily disproved mistakes, and keep holding on to in forever, and you occupy a position of power and influence – you become a fraud, even though the original mistake may not have been so much a fraud.
Hello Billy
Forget all the fossil fuel, skeptic, denier etc etc..all those things. Climate and what’s going on in the blogs will take some time to figure out (if you can spare it). You have a science background – you should be able to read all the blogs (apart of the literature – which is the foundation). You will quickly notice that everyone is mixing opinion from fact, but not matter. Read all blogs, I am sure you’ll come to a good conclusion.
stephen richards says:
July 4, 2010 at 4:48 am
The KEY point is Richard North’s. WWF and every other environmental (ist) org is tied up in buying the Amazonian forest for CO² Trading.
Which kind of makes
Our Self-Annointed Saviors’their claimed “scientific” worries about CAGW just a wee bit dubious, eh – what with the danger of an imminent Amazon CO2 “sink” conversion to Savanna, and all?And, thank you profusely, Richard North!
Billy says:
July 4, 2010 at 11:51 pm
On the other hand, a line is crossed when you move from skeptic to denier.
Or maybe also if you simply become a CAGW “believer” right out of the box and never allow anything to alter your faith? Perhaps, say, by presuming – as you do, without having anything at all to back it up – that, ” its very likely that the motivations behind many of the ‘skeptics’ here are much less than altruistic or scientific,” then adding in the old ~”being paid off by Big Oil, or falling for Big Oil propaganda” propaganda?
Neither of which are arguments which have anything at all to to with the actual Scientific Method-determined credibility of the CAGW claims to begin with! Right?
But since you still claim you can be objective, go for it! I sincerely hope that you can be objective, despite the fact that you’ve obviously gotten off to a very bad start, which I also hope you now realize.