More Fakegate fallout. On February 28, 2012, the report Climate Change Denial in the Classroom was issued by the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism of the Centre for Inquiry (Canada) (CFI). The related news release, Climate Change Denial in Carleton University Course Exposed by National Science Team, was issued on the same day.
I found the media response to this report, as well as the report itself, rather stunning for all the excitement surrounding it. It seemed to be nothing more than some sort of piling on “gotcha journalism” like the sorts we’ve seen in The Guardian and other left leaning newspapers since Fakegate first broke. One the biggest failures in journalism come from the Guardian, where both Leo Hickman and Suzanne Goldenberg ran with stories naming me, without so much as asking me a question first or determining if the documents were real or not. Initially I thought Goldenberg might have a modicum of journalistic sense, having the presence of mind to send me an email asking for a response, but then I discovered she’d run the story without waiting for my response, and then via an update, only including a small portion of my detailed response, as I show in entirety here.
I asked Mr. Tom Harris, who is specifically named in the report, if this course was a requirement for Earth Science undergraduates at Carleton, or if it was an elective.
He responded immediately that it was an elective, and that nobody was required to take it to get their Earth Sciences degree at Carleton. So it seems to me that all of the media angst and smear surrounding this report is simply that they don’t want students to even be able to choose to take it. The fake moral outrage displayed is quite impressive.
I asked Tom Harris to provide background for me, and he has contributed significantly to what follows, and I have edited and added as needed for this story to convey the background from his side of the story (as well as mine).
The CFI report billed itself as “an audit” of the 2011 version of the 2nd year elective course for non-Earth Science majors at Carleton—“Climate Change: An Earth Sciences Perspective” (course designator ERTH2402). ERTH2402 is a “survey” course that presents an overview of many of the most important areas of climate science at the level of an educated layperson. It has attracted a viewing audience in the general public via CUTV, Carleton’s cable TV station seen across Canada and, via the Web, internationally.
The ERTH2402 course was created by Carleton University Earth Sciences Professor Tim Patterson, PhD, and he taught the course for over a decade. Due to his public climate education work with Professor Patterson since 1998, his teaching experience, and his science and technology background, Mr. Tom Harris, Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition, was selected to teach the 2009 version of the course while Dr. Patterson was on sabbatical. 95% of the course material presented to students by Mr. Harris in 2009 was the same as that presented by Dr. Patterson in 2008.
The 2009 version of ERTH2402 was taught successfully with approximately 500 students completing the course. Consequently, Mr. Harris was invited to teach ERTH2402 three more times—twice in 2010 and again in 2011, achieving consistently high student ratings. A total of about 1,500 students completed the course in the four sessions taught by Mr. Harris (who describes the course here). ERTH2402 was not offered in 2012 but Professor Patterson will teach the course again in 2013.
In September 2010, Carleton University postdoctoral fellow Dr. Christopher Hassell, a contract biology instructor (Conservation Biology) at the university, requested, and was granted access to the lectures for the January – April 2011 term. In his September 13, 2010 e-mail to the university “Video on Demand” staff, Dr. Hassell wrote, “I am not interested in taking the course, but simply desire some background information on the lectures” (see p. 89 in the subject audit report).
Dr. Hassell then worked with three other authors (two other biology PhDs and a communications professional) to complete the 98 page report “Climate Change Denial in the Classroom”. At no point before media release of the “audit” did the authors contact Mr. Harris or inform him of their work. Mr. Harris states he has had no previous contact with any of the authors.
The first main stream media to cover the report was The Guardian (London, UK). Their piece was: “Heartland associate taught ‘biased’ climate course at Ottawa university—Expert audit finds man connected with climate sceptic think tank taught climate course to students at Carleton University.”
Approximately one hour before publication on The Guardian Webpage on Feb 28, the author of the piece, The Guardian’s US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg, left a message on Professor Patterson’s voice mail requesting an interview. Professor Patterson did not receive the message until after Goldenberg’s piece was uploaded to the Guardian’s Website. In her article, Goldenberg wrote, “The head of the earth sciences department, Tim Patterson, did not respond to requests for comment.”
How could he? Sheesh. Ms. Goldenberg’s method here almost ensures that no comment could be made before publication. And judging from how she reported on the 2009 Heartland ICCC, where she immediate jumps in the headline from skeptics to “deniers” it seems clear she has a built in bias, perhaps even an irrational hatred, like we see from other environmental reporters on a regular basis.
Goldenberg did however speak with Mr. Harris earlier in the afternoon. Harris had the presence of mind to ask Ms. Goldenberg if he could record the interview (she gave the OK) and the 26 minute interview may be heard here (MP3 audio) and the verbatim transcript of the discussion you can read here: Tom_Harris_Interview_with_the_Guardian-28-02-12 (1) (PDF)
Mr. Harris also corresponded with Goldenberg by e-mail four hours before the piece went live to ensure she was aware of the details of Mr. Harris’ connection with the Heartland Institute. According to him, when he last taught at Carleton he was not a “Heartland associate” (and still is not) and did not become an unpaid “Policy Advisor” with Heartland until approximately six months after he had completed teaching the Carleton course.
On 28 February 2012 19:36, Tom Harris tom.harris@xxxxxxx wrote:
Dear Suzanne,I forgot to mention that Heartland asked me to be a Policy Advisor a few months back and I accepted (you can see their many advisors at http://heartland.org/experts). There is no remuneration for this position and I have no assigned responsibilities, aside from commenting when interesting items related to my field arise when I want to.
Tom
Mr. Harris explained to Goldenberg that Heartland encourages fair and open dialog on climate change and even hosted a friendly public debate between a “skeptic” and an “alarmist” at their last climate conference in Washington DC seven months ago. In 2010, I also talked about this at WUWT and praised Scott Denning for his choice to embrace skeptics and about the warm welcome he received. Even Joe Romm was invited to the last conference. He declined of course, because even though there would be no cost to him he can’t risk being treated warmly by climate skeptics; it might make his head explode.
This call for open and equal debate on the part of Heartland is also evidenced in their invitation to Dr. Peter Gleick to have him debate James Taylor at the Heartland Annual Dinner, which Dr. Gleick declined shortly before launching his criminal phishing attack on Heartland.
Contrary to Goldenberg’s statement that the review of the Earth Sciences course was “an expert audit”, Mr. Harris in his telephone interview (from the transcript linked above) explained to her that it was conducted by two biologists and a writer, none of whom apparently have significant expertise in Earth Sciences or Climate Science.
According to Mr. Harris, contrary to assertions in the Guardian piece, the 2011 version of the ERTH2402 course was well supported by peer reviewed science literature and was in no way extreme. It merely concluded that we are a long way from understanding the science well enough to be able to make reliable forecasts about future climate. Harris says the course was completely nonpartisan politically and avoided any sort of commercial endorsement.
Goldenberg wrote in her Guardian article:
“A team of scientists, who reviewed the videotapes of Mr. Harris’s lectures provided by the university, found 142 false, biased and misleading claims”.
Mr. Harris advises me that he will release an appropriate response to those claims when he has thoroughly reviewed the CASS “audit” report. However, as of this writing, no problems have yet been raised by Carleton in the course material as taught in 2011. It appears that Carelton University itself has no issue with the course material, only the CASS group and the media seem to have issues.
Suzanne Goldenberg’s Guardian piece condemning ERTH2402 is itself riddled with logical fallacies, misrepresentations, omissions, and errors, some of which were described in a letter to the editor sent by Mr. Harris to The Guardian early on February 29. So far, The Guardian has not responded or published the necessary corrections in either their Letters to the Editor or “Corrections and clarifications” sections.
If they don’t, and I’m predicting they won’t, I’ll carry the letter from Mr. Harris here as a separate post.
Here is a TV interview from yesterday with Mr. Harris:
Sickening gotcha journalism that seems intended to distract from Fakegate and the backlash there. Too bad for them that they’re losing the war.
Between the flood of PETM proves global warming, and the new bromine explosion articles, it seems they’re trying real hard to bury Glieck’s name in the papers.
I clicked on the Guardian link; to the right of the article they show a photo of Gleick with the text
“Peter Gleick on leave from Pacific Institute over Heartland leak
Climate scientist on temporary leave of absence while investigated over leak of Heartland Institute documents”
Remember how they called climategate “hack”?
Note to self: When leftist media calls something a leak, it was a hack or a phishing attack; when they call it a hack, it was a leak. Makes it all a little difficult to read but there ya go.
The warmers’ world is simply REEKING of desperation. For those who may not be aware of the ongoing political farce here in the US, the left is trying to frame the right as wanting to deny contraception to women. They have now tried to stitch it together with – gasp! – global warming!
————————————-
Ramdas told The Daily Caller that the research shows “empowering women to time their pregnancies” and avoid unwanted births would reduce carbon emissions between 8 to 15 percent globally.
“It is common sense that when women are able to plan their pregnancies, populations grow more slowly and as a result so do greenhouse gas emissions,” she explained. “Providing access to contraception and preventative health should be one of the many effective strategies used to fight climate change.”
http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/03/activists-birth-control-can-fight-global-warming/
———————————-
[snip – over the top – Anthony]
sorry – won’t happen again
Just add her to the list of biased mouth pieces of the cultist ideology of climate change. They continue to expose their pseudoscience advocacy.
They are to be mocked in ridiculed. Their lies and overt acts of deception simply need to be recorded and pointed out each time they either open their mouth or type a word. Add those writers and geologists to the ever growing long list with their attempts at subterfuge and beguilement.
Their desperation is becoming increasingly palpable.
Another Climate Fundamentalist.
The Guardian, sadly, has a long tradition of partisan reporting. As a consequence, its circulation has fallen steadily over the years to a current (Nov 2011) around 230 000. It now lags both The Telegraph and The Times. Whereas in former decades its campaigning was for social justice and based on even handed treatment of the truth, it has become mired in an increasingly bitter mindset. Not to agree with the politics of The Guardian is to be cast into the outer darkness and labelled in a way that would be familiar to those dissidents who lived behind the iron curtain. Biased and unchecked reportage is seemingly regarded as acceptable, blindly following the ‘party’ line essential to continued employment.
“CASS discovered that key messages for students contradict accepted scientific opinion. These messages include: denying that current climate change has an anthropogenic cause; dismissing the problems that carbon dioxide emissions cause because CO2 is plant food; denying the existence of the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change; and claiming that we should prepare instead for global cooling.”
The charge is CONTRADICTing OPINION and DENYING the CONSENSUS??
It would appear that the worm that caused the continual typing errors at the Grauniad has now infected the journalists and all the reporting from the ‘newspaper’ will need to be treated with the same caution and lack of trust as their spelling. However, while the typos were obvious lack of quality control the poor reporting seems to be carefully planned and seems intended to be malign.
It is a loss to the press when once reliable news sources betray journalistic ethics in the way displayed by the New York Times and at the Guardian, It is no wonder Peter Gleick felt at home dealing with them.
I know CFI of old. They control Skeptical Inquirer, but their skepticism only goes so far.
Center For Inquiry (CFI) educates on secularism and promotes scientific viewpoints, and has Special Consultative Status at the UN (ECOSOC). They also lobby Congress, The Administation and the State Deaprtment on UN-related issues.
ECOSOC Consultative Status is only granted if the NGO has “.. provided that they can demonstrate that their programme of work is of direct relevance to the aims and purposes of the United Nations ”
To hold this status, ECOSOC’s terms state that they must “..support the work of the United Nations and to promote knowledge of its principles and activities..”.
http://www.un.org/documents/ecosoc/res/1996/eres1996-31.htm
This means CFI cannot produce articles that do not support the UN and its interests, they have to be UN mouthpieces which expains why their supposedly balanced articles are never critical of the IPCC or Global Warming.
Here is a list of over 3000 ECOSOC NGOs, some of which purport to be involved scientific research, but all of which are tied to being UN zombies. They do the UN’s propaganda and viral marketing while UN remains saintly.
http://www.un.org/esa/coordination/ngo/pdf/INF_List.pdf
Check the T-shirts that many of the alarmists wear when nobody is looking. Many are fans of Che Guevera. They view their cause as a ‘revolution’ and employ the same tactics, albeit without guns – yet.
I have commented before that Biological curricula around the world requires a major facelift. They need their faces lifted out of the anti-human, socialist muck. Isn’t there enough science of creatures and plants to occupy them? When I studied engineering, there was too much tough stuff to learn with a mighty burning of the midnight oil to have the luxury of being a social activist. I believe the incredible work load of the engineering student is the reason that engineers as a group aren’t into the touchy-feely-lefty fluff that other ‘disciplines’ seem to be taught and are prone to. Probably it explains why engineers don’t number big in politics and clubby love-ins. Biologists! – steep yourselves in biological studies and make a real contribution. What in the Sam Hill do you know about earth, solar and planetary physical sciences – how can you have an opinion more useful than that of an ordinary citizen.
Unbelievably, the Guardian has managed to plumb new depths of late, with its partisan coverage of Gleick, and its blatant propaganda fest re all things climate.
They have dug a hole that they won’t get out of, while driving many to the skeptical side.
I could not read the linked report past the inclusion of Glieck’s faked money shot line regarding preventing science teaching.
There appears to be increasing desperation from the warmers. I predict a lot of noise this year.
“A team of scientists, who reviewed the videotapes of Mr. Harris’s lectures provided by the university, found 142 false, biased and misleading claims”.
Hey maybe it was “the team”, that would explain why they “found” so much wrong!
“Anyone who uses the term “denier” is not a scientist.”
Agreed. They are activists like Gleick.
Suzanne Goldenberg may be an awarded journalist, but this sort of writing is a deceptive manipulation of the truth and borders on outright lying:
1. “The head of the earth sciences department, Tim Patterson, did not respond to requests for comment.” …..To a message left on his voicemail approximately one hour before publication?
2.Described an “an expert audit” by a “team of scientists”? And it was actually conducted by two biologists and a writer, all without expertise in Earth Sciences or Climate Science?
She either no longer cares about her reputation, or like Peter Gleick is stuck with the mentality of those who have succumbed to their own self perceived sense of importance, and show the truth in that old adage: Power Corrupts.
They think they can do anything for the cause, and it will be OK, simply because they think they are ‘important people’.
This methodology appears to result in a libelous article. The fact that the requests (sic) to Tim Patterson for comment were made via voice mail only an hour before publication is strong evidence of deliberation.
Ignore the acts of desperation. It is an attempt to distract and redirect. Focus on the science. The inexorable struggle for honesty. As my father used to say “never mind what your brother is doing, focus on what you need to do.” I bet he thought I never listened.
People who fall for this type of journalistic manipulation deserve the ridicule and embarrassment that comes from backing the wrong horse.
It does not matter what your detractors say. Can they prove you wrong is what counts. Play the long game.
I would bet money that in the future it will be very difficult to find anyone who will admit they believed in global warming. Unless they are on record as having consumed the kool-aid, of course.
For heaven’s sake what else would you expect, it’s the Guardian – it is a British left wing version of the National Enquirer, with a similar standard of journalism, but with less lurid headlines. Their journalists are usually the last to let facts get in the way of a good story, as this post once again illustrates.
To many in the UK public sector, it is the equivalent of the bible, which helps explain why the country is in such an economic mess.
Any trendy left wing policy or individual receives its automatic support. Anyone daring to offer an alternative to fashionable left wing dogma is automatically abused and smeared, as has happened here.
Global warming is a fashionable left wing cause, that has become more about supporting a bloated, distortion generating, industry of bureaucrats and pseudo-scientists rather than a careful, considered examination of the data and actual observations in climate science.
Sceptical scientists criticise sceptical science course.
In other news, “Dog bites man”.
So much irony here it’s difficult to know where to start.
Good job Tom Harris! Thank you.
DirkH says:
“Remember how they called climategate “hack”?
“Note to self: When leftist media calls something a leak, it was a hack or a phishing attack; when they call it a hack, it was a leak.”
. . .
Fen’s Law:
The Left believes none of the things they lecture the rest of us about.
If it weren’t for projection, they wouldn’t have much to say.
i looked into this smear report two days ago. Yes indeed, if you disagree with the IPCC dogma you are lying or decieving or whatever, according to this CASS gang.
By the way “CASS is an active working group of the Centre for Inquiry Canada” and that mothership is involved in such ‘scientific’ projects as this one:
“KELOWNA, BC–(July 20, 2011) – After more than two months, the “Probably No God” bus ads have been reinstated on BC Transit buses in Kelowna. The Atheist Bus Campaign will finally be complete on Friday, July 22, 2011.
“The atheist bus campaign has been a long uphill battle,” said Loren Price of the Centre for Inquiry (CFI) Okanagan. “BC Transit first denied our right to run the ads, then threatened to pull the ads at the first sign of trouble, and finally appeared uninterested in fully investigating the disappearance of the original ads from their own property.”
http://www.cficanada.ca/news/media_advisory_probably_no_god_bus_ads_resurrected_on_kelowna_transit
In other words, there is no God except the UN for them.
No it wasn’t a leak. It was criminal impersonation. Then there is the forgery. The ‘leak’ description implies the document was real. About as real as the science credentials, or even the education credentials of these propagandist. They are a disgrace. And I think less and less people are afraid of their McCarthy tactics. And for the same reason. They have lost the middle.
Nick Luke:
The Guardian’s offenses to journalistic standards and basic common decency go back much, much further. Because of their adverse reaction to his (eye witness) reports on the forced famine in the Ukraine in the early 30’s, Malcolm Muggeridge resigned from his position on what was then the Manchester Guardian. (He wasn’t able to get a decent journalist’s position thereafter.)
As some posters may recall, I regularly go on about the junk model-based pseudoscience called ‘Conservation Biology,’ which is the bogus foundation of the ‘Species At Risk’ industry, ‘Biodiversity Crisis,’ and which provided the ‘evidence’ of imminent polar bear extinction to their partners in IPCC Climastrology.
So, no surprise who the smearers were here: “In September 2010, Carleton University postdoctoral fellow Dr. Christopher Hassell, a contract biology instructor (Conservation Biology) at the university, requested, and was granted access to the lectures”
I consider ‘Conservation Biology’ to be an even more junkified post-normal ‘science’ than IPCC Climatrology and that will become more evident as the UN shifts from AGW to Biodiversity.
The only way they can get at Tom Harrison is by means of a drive by smear piece fruit fly climate garbage.
I have the good fortune to view Tom Harrison weekly on SUN Media TV about all things climate and the Solar and Wind fiascoes taking place in Ontario, Canada. Which is virtually bankrupt, due in no small part to the insane green policy’s of the Liberal Government driving the debt and energy prices through the roof. However coming back to Tom Harrison, he is brilliant and a great debater. I would bet the farm on him in any Climate debate with ANY one of the Warmist or group of warmist, it would be a slap down With Tom on the skeptics /level headed climate side it is a NO CONTEST. Keep up the good work Tom you are a hero in my eyes.
See Toms article in the Washington post:
HARRIS: Time to get real about climate change
10/10/10 and 350.org based on urban legend, not science
First, no rational scientist denies that climate changes. As professor Tim Patterson of the Department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa testified before a parliamentary committee, “Based on the paleoclimatic data I and others have collected, it’s obvious that climate is and always has been variable. In fact, the only constant about climate is change; it changes continually.” ………………………………….
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/14/time-to-get-real-about-climate-change/?page=all#pagebreak
So, essentially, now the nobs and tools of the “green” industry think introductory courses covering general knowledge is evil taught by evil people?
Will Hickman and Goldenberg and their likeminded ilks be able to stand up to their own logic and level of scrutiny, I wonder? o≈O
Gary Pearse said @ March 3, 2012 at 10:46 am
Things have changed Gary, and they changed years ago. My brother’s second degree was engineering gained at MonashU back in the early 80s IIRC. He was required to take an “elective” outside of engineering and the electives were of the “social” variety. He received a very low mark for his first essay. My mother came home one day to find him crying. When she asked why, he handed her his second essay. He had been given a very high mark and my mother expressed her amazement that he should be crying about it. His explanation: After the low mark for the first essay, he decided to write complete and utter bullshit for the second.
The accusers seem outraged that someone might actually have the nerve to claim that CO2 is not a pollutant? One of the central core requirements of the CAGW alarmist creed is to get people to accept that a harmless trace gas and plant food is a pollutant, and its easy to see why isnt it? Once they have conned and bounced people into believing that it is then the case for restricting emissions is that much stronger, the EPA requires it to be classified as a pollutant in order to enact and engage draconian economy destroying and job killing legislation.
You can see why the CAGW alarmist high priests would be really alarmed and threatened by thought that young people could be presented with the truth. In places of education all over the Western world children and young adults are being indoctrinated into believing a falsehood and a great deal of time and effort has gone into spreading and perpetuating this falsehood. In order to enact drastic hugely expensive and economically destructive anti CO2 legislation CO2 has to be portrayed and presented as a pollutant. Where would the CAGW fraud be if became accepted generally that CO2 is a harmless trace gas and essential plant food without which there would be no life? And that the more CO2 in the atmosphere the more life thrives. This is where the CAGW fraud must move into attack mode because to remove that central plank effectively destroys their entire fraud.
What a change for the Left, going from “Question authority” to “Don’t deviate from the mainstream.” And then establishing this as the standard for teaching climate change.
An unwarrented attack on “climate science education” by the warmist mob. Coming to a school near you soon. What a surprise – not.
[The Guardian
Headline circulation: 229,753
Month-on-month change: -0.15%
Year-on-year change: -17.74%]
[The Guardian was down 17.74% year on year, but this figure is also adversely affected by a complete halt to overseas distribution. In January 2011 the paper was sending 17,000 copies overseas daily on average.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/10/alexander-lebedev-i-circulation
They would to cut down trees, pulp them, dry them, print pulp on them and put the combined pulp in aircraft and fly it to North America. 17,000 copies, every day, for years, while they were telling everyone how to save the trees and not to fly. Year-on-year change: -17.74%, if this trend continues….
The Guardian and the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism, so-called, seem to have forgotten what is the purpose of a university.
The purposed is not to indoctrinate students with the fashionable orthodoxy of the day, rather it is to advance knowledge by questioning the established orthodoxy.
Of course, this applies mainly to mathematics, the sciences, and engineering.
Not regurgitating the prof’s pet ideologies in a humanities essay is the best method of not passing a humanities course.
No, they’re entirely right. It’s taking valuable time away from demonstrating the finer points of plastics: http://bit.ly/zdYlkc
Ms. Golderberg doesn’t put her own opinions in her writing. She finds someone she agrees with and quotes them.
The Pompous Git says:
March 3, 2012 at 11:46 am
Things have changed Gary, and they changed years ago. My brother’s second degree was engineering gained at MonashU back in the early 80s IIRC. He was required to take an “elective” outside of engineering and the electives were of the “social” variety.
My Engineering degree was at Auckland University in the 70s. We were the first group to have to take similar courses to “broaden” our horizons. Limits to Growth and one other similar work that I cannot remember but which has been mentioned recently on WUWT were among the texts. I became a skeptic when we did not run out of oil in 1976 as predicted in LtG.
Wow. I just looked at the first few “claims” in the report. Most of them were “proven” to be false by linking to dishonest activist site skeptical science, run by non-scientists and activists.
It is easy to underestimate your opponent in a debate, and I usually try to take care and avoid this trap. But I think it would be very hard to underestimate this lot.
Goldenberg is not a journalist, she’s a propogandist.
Her distortions of reality are bizarre and one would really have to question her motivation. Is she being paid by some green advocacy group, other than the Guardian, to fabricate this nonsense, or is she really that twisted morally, that she can’t tell right from wrong anymore?
majormike1 says:
March 3, 2012 at 11:50 am
What a change for the Left, going from “Question authority” to “Don’t deviate from the mainstream.” And then establishing this as the standard for teaching climate change.
===================================================
That would be when a pervasive majority of communists had effectively infiltrated academia and journalism.
Today, we see this playing out in climatology.
Following the links we come to this:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-08/#feature
I am sorry to say that an organization that I used to admire has sunk to this level. What produces this degree of certainty and hatred? In science all questions should be on the table. If we can discuss whether neutrinos really travel faster than light without personal abuse then we can certainly discuss the effect of carbon [dioxide] on climate. Maybe I just don’t understand politics.
If you skip to the comment section at the end of the article you will see that a large number of (I assume) regular readers are very upset with this article and some have threatened to cancel their subscriptions. So, maybe there is hope yet.
majormike1 says:
March 3, 2012 at 11:50 am
What a change for the Left, going from “Question authority” to “Don’t deviate from the mainstream.” And then establishing this as the standard for teaching climate change.
Nowadays the left are the establishment.
On the very bright side, that video clip is from a brand new Canadian TV network, Sun News, which provides a Fox-like alternative to the other networks there (the CBC and CTV are both as deep or deeper into the AGW propaganda as the BBC is).
Without that network this side of this story would NEVER have been covered in Canada. And that network has already provided no end of inconvenient coverage of not only the AGW scam but also the inconvenient sources of funds that prop up the usual Canadian ‘environmental’ groups… which are now coming under serious scrutiny. No wonder Desmogblog was so eager to pounce on Fakegate. With their cash flow threatened they are starting to panic.
The worst aspect of this story is the attempt by so called scientists to use the media to silence course material they do not believe in. These two so called experts are true believers, not scientists. I have nothing but contempt for them.
The scary thing is that universities are producing biologists who have bought into the false dichotomy that is AGW. Also, that they thought that Mr Harris would,somehow, be a straw man. Maybe they think associate lecturers are easy targets?
Well done to Mr Harris, you are the sort of lecturer I would have no hesitation in sending my children to, if I had any!
Look, if it was published in The Guardian, it is immediately suspect as left wing agitprop anyway. I don’t think anyone takes anything they read in The Guardian without more than a few grains of salt.
The only people who read it are people who are going to be “spring loaded” to believe everything it says anyway. It is a partisan rag for a partisan readership. In other words, The Guardian is pretty much preaching to the choir anyway. Anyone who is undecided on such issues isn’t reading The Guardian so it isn’t like they are influencing opinions. They are simply part of the echo chamber of people who have already made their minds up anyway. The Guardian is the paper they read for affirmation, not for education.
Sounds like a new intake of university staff, their idealistic young heads crammed full of ideas and enthusiasm. They noticed that some of the older members were unwilling to embrace the new truth and decided to re-educate them. Probably cock-a-hoop that they got in the media but they will regret it. Us old fodies know that in a few years time, when they eventually grow up, they will remember this days work and cringe.
I must have proofread my post ten times, but I still made an error. I meant carbon dioxide and not carbon monoxide. I can pretend that this is an object lesson on the dangers of certainty.
[Fixed. Robt]
Beesaman says:
March 3, 2012 at 12:53 pm
“The scary thing is that universities are producing biologists who have bought into the false dichotomy that is AGW.”
Do not confuse real biologists (an objective science) with the practioners of “Conservation Biology” which is a recently invented “mission oriented” pseudoscience with a political agenda.
Note that it was an identified “Conservation Biologist” at work here and I would bet that the other two unspecified “biologists’ involved were also from the same missionary movement.
It is clear from the evidence that Suzanne Goldenberg and Dr. Christopher Hassell have allowed their extreme warmist bias to compromise their personal integrity.
I look forward to Tom Harris’s rebuttal of the three biologists clandestine CASS “audit” of a course taught originally by expert paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson – I doubt that many, if any of their alleged “142 false, biased and misleading claims” have validity.
The danger is this sort of Pavlovian hatred of “climate common sense” is that it can unhinge violent people, who are already hanging onto reality by a thread.
This (perhaps unintended) incitement to violence is why I recently chose to post the following note on wattsup, and forward it to some of my friends.
Let’s be careful out there.
Full disclosure:
I have known Tim Patterson and Tom Harris for about a decade, and know that they are individuals of the highest intelligence and integrity.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/breaking-gleick-confesses/#comment-898691
On a more serious note:
Desperate people do desperate things.
I know that climate skeptics have received death threats in the past, and some have suffered actual acts of violence.
This is not new – about a decade ago, I counselled some of my colleagues to take precautions to protect their safety and that of their families.
But at that time we were losing the public debate, drowned out by false shouts that “the science is settled”. The global warmists were winning then.
The tables have turned now – there has been no global warming for a decade, and the global warmist elite has been exposed in the Climategate emails as liars, bullies, and fraudsters.
So perhaps now it is even more necessary for global warming skeptics to take reasonable precautions to protect their safety and that of their families.
Desperate people do desperate things.
William Sears said @ March 3, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Maybe you just don’t understand bullshit; neither do I!
I wonder if M.Hulme in comments is Mike Hulme of CRU fame & notoriety.
Beesaman said @ March 3, 2012 at 12:53 pm
You should consider making some; it’s lots of fun and often very rewarding 🙂
Wow! There is not a single dissenting voice in the comments on this blog. Is it because such comments are blocked, or because no one bothers anymore?
Patterson and Harris are both part of the International Climate Science Coalition, which opposes the IPCC and the scores of organizations of professional scientists in different countries that express support for AGW. So it not surprising that the Patterson and Harris have almost identical course content. This is not a valid argument that the curriculum is legitimate science.
REPLY: Hey “eadler” your comment was approved. So much for your whining. – Anthony
Curiousgeorge says:
March 3, 2012 at 10:45 am:
“Check the T-shirts that many of the alarmists wear when nobody is looking. Many are fans of Che Guevera. They view their cause as a ‘revolution’ and employ the same tactics, albeit without guns – yet.”
Weird, isn’t it? Liberals worshiping Che Guevara, a sociopath who routinely tortured animals for fun, and derived special joy from killing puppies. And these people pretend to be benign and enlightened. Obama’s daughter was wearing one of those T-shirts in a photo last year. It seems to me that everything in their world view is based on fiction, fantasy, and PR imagery. Symbolism over substance is their norm.
I say this as a pretty liberal person myself, but one who refuses to join the Borg.
The Other Pamela Gray says:
March 3, 2012 at 10:21 am
“The warmers’ world is simply REEKING of desperation. For those who may not be aware of the ongoing political farce here in the US, the left is trying to frame the right as wanting to deny contraception to women. They have now tried to stitch it together with – gasp! – global warming!…”
________________________________
Follow their logic, Pamela… since we’re all screwed by Global Warming…
Beesaman says:
March 3, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Goldenberg is not a journalist, she’s a propagandist.
Her distortions of reality are bizarre and one would really have to question her motivation. Is she being paid by some green advocacy group, other than the Guardian, to fabricate this nonsense, or is she really that twisted morally, that she can’t tell right from wrong anymore?
*************************************************************************************
I was surprised when her name turned up in this context. In the past she has specialised in using her “talents” in fabricating and twisting with respect to a particular place in the Middle East.
I wonder what goes on in her head. What must it be like living a life bathed in hate, nastiness and “certainty”?
She’s probably just being lazy and submitting under her byline a packaged article from Futerra or Fenton, UK.
Vision TV (Toronto?) is giving us reruns of “Yes, Minister”. Even though I have probably seen them all at least once, AND enjoyed all the scripts from the two paperbacks, I still watch and enjoy the programs because of the eternal truths contained in them. I am sure that Sir Humphrey Appleby, with his Oxford (??) degree would be right at home with the intellectuals and progressives who are trying to foist belief in AGW onto all of us.
IanM
dogparliament says:
March 3, 2012 at 10:45 am
I know CFI of old. They control Skeptical Inquirer, but their skepticism only goes so far.
Center For Inquiry (CFI) educates on secularism and promotes scientific viewpoints, and has Special Consultative Status at the UN (ECOSOC). They also lobby Congress, The Administation and the State Deaprtment on UN-related issues.
ECOSOC Consultative Status is only granted if the NGO has “.. provided that they can demonstrate that their programme of work is of direct relevance to the aims and purposes of the United Nations ”
To hold this status, ECOSOC’s terms state that they must “..support the work of the United Nations and to promote knowledge of its principles and activities..”.
http://www.un.org/documents/ecosoc/res/1996/eres1996-31.htm
This means CFI cannot produce articles that do not support the UN and its interests, they have to be UN mouthpieces which expains why their supposedly balanced articles are never critical of the IPCC or Global Warming.
Here is a list of over 3000 ECOSOC NGOs, some of which purport to be involved scientific research, but all of which are tied to being UN zombies. They do the UN’s propaganda and viral marketing while UN remains saintly.
http://www.un.org/esa/coordination/ngo/pdf/INF_List.pdf
———–
Incredible. Learn something new every day. More and more reasons to shut down the UN, or at least take away their funding!
This is the same UN that brought cholera to Haiti (and denied it), brought AIDS to Cambodia and many other places and harbors corrupt perverts that prey on locals where ever they go. What’s not to love about them? /sarc
How much evidence of their malfeasance needs to pile up before things change? Having human rights abusers chair committees on human rights? Corruption on an epic scale, like food for oil.
That they are out of control should be self evident:
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/Agenda21.pdf
They’re drowning in their own muck and the more they kick the deeper sink.
Ignorance of the truth is one thing – who is not ignorant in at least some things?
Carelessness with the truth is, for a journalist, a failure of professionalism.
But active distortion of the truth (less politely called ‘lying’) is unacceptable for any person.
In the end, no-one places any reliance on what a liar might say.
In my mind, all that Ms Goldenberg has achieved is to raise questions as to all of her work – past, present, or to come.
(P.S. …”past, present, or to come.” It wasn’t me!!!)
Eric Adler
“Is it because such comments are blocked, or because no one bothers anymore?”
The fact your post is up here dismisses the blocked bit and as for the cannot be bothered that is a failure of the weak minds who run off rather then stand their ground !
William Sears says:
March 3, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Following the links we come to this:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-08/#feature
…If you skip to the comment section at the end of the article you will see that a large number of (I assume) regular readers are very upset with this article and some have threatened to cancel their subscriptions. So, maybe there is hope yet.
Definitely heartening, very good and here’s a funny one:
#29 Genuine Skeptic:…”Anyway, I am sure you know all this, and the article was just a joke to test the skeptical credentials of your readers.”
I thought university students were supposed to be adults, perfectly able to decide for themselves what course to take (or what kind of government to elect, for that matter). What is more, they are educated ones, who can read and understand scientific literature, so anyone who would try to deceive them in this respect, could easily find himself in a pretty difficult situation.
Have some journalists actually gone out of their mind to the extent questioning academic freedom?
Listen to the interview, Goldenberg flat out lies when talking about the title of the report. A little thing but if she is willing to lie about that…
I listened twice through to Tom Harris’ phone conversation with Ms. Goldenberg and it appears she never heard a word he said, not in a reasoning sense. Seemed she was just trolling for a hit on a Heartland connection, obsessively. It is the warmista failure to reason, or even to experience the pleasure of reasoning, of taking another point of view, factoring in new evidence, that sickens and saddens me, and appalls when you consider this is the mindset the warmista want imposed on the young.
Reminded of the experience recorded by Elinor Burket (So Many enemies, So Little Time: An American Woman in All the Wrong Places) teaching master’s classes in Kyrgyzstan in 2001 (arrived the week before 9/11). She was an inspired and inventive teacher, but the hardest thing was to prompt the students to think, to initiate…they had been, with their culture, so accustomed to not make waves, to wait to be told what to do/think. The chilling North Korean model that seems so attractive to control freaks. I believe the Peter Gleicks and Ms. Goldenbergs would be horrified at the awareness that such is the world and result to which their actions and efforts tend. …they know not what they do….
There is such a stark difference in the heart of the people side versus the warmista. Many thanks for such a site where each is free to be what it is, for all the world to see.
@William Howard
Regarding that “sceptic”.com article – things like that make me think the universe is having us on: the author is named Prothero. Prothero was one of the major antagonists in ‘V for Vendetta’ – being the propaganda mouthpiece for the Norsefire government.
When I went for an interview for the Civil Service I was told to read the Guardian for a fortnight beforehand as all the current news topics would be drawn from it and I would have to give the correct responses according to it’s dogma to be even considered for a position. Needless to say I have never read it since.
Happily the majority of its circulation is in official offices, hotels and the like and very few copies are sold over the counter at news agents. If you don’t read the Guardian now you never will.
I have been told that it is excellent for sleeping rough as the pages are large enough to stuff up your shirt and down your trousers for extra insulation. It also makes excellent toilet paper although one may get a blue arse as often the ink is not properly fixed.
As a newspaper it is also good when wrapped around plants to protect them from frost.
Again the large paper size comes in handy for origami and papier mache.
I have seen it used by builders to stuff into holes so that they can apply cement over it without having to buy expensive wire base; some insolubility comes in handy here as with the toilet paper use.
It makes an excellent fire lighter when scrunched up tightly, though there has been a move towards fire retardant paper. This is because most of the papers are left in unsold stacks and the garbage in them reacts like any other compost to give off heat.
Even Civil Servants buy the Telegraph for the crossword as the Guardian one is either so encrypted that you would need an Enigma machine, or as sharp as a kindergarten alphabet book. Without consistency a Civil Servant just cannot function. Worse than asking a Frenchman if he wants a croissant after 10 am.
The only thing that the Guardian is not good for is reading. It is packed with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes and it wouldn’t see a fact coming if it came on the tip of an arrow and hit it between the eyes.
Someone asked if it has links to NGO’s or Warmista cells. It does not need them as it is itself an activist rag. It needs no other links. It has some spectacular fails… It invested heavily in the Sarah Palin emails( http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/11/palin-emails-response-criticism-guardian ) and when she turned out to be just a slightly eccentric but honest politician they quietly swept it under the carpet. It also joined some group of international newspapers at the time of Copenhagen with a statement to save the planet, which not only failed to catch on it lost the paper even more circulation. (Can’t find the link)
Fearing the Guardian is like the elephant fearing the mouse. One more good stomp and it will be gone, leaving a blue tinged scrap of miss spelled news print frozen in the coming ice cap for future anthropologists to find and marvel at the incredible inaccuracies.
(Add excess commas, and, parenthesis to your taste)
Its name should be the Center Against Inquiry.
“Fake moral outrage translated to smear” — unfortunately, the moral outrage is probably genuine, which says more about their morals than anything else.
I get this a lot, people who have no formal training, qualifications or experience in Earth Sciences, Climate Science, Meteorology or any form of oceanography or atmospheric sciences, who are instant experts in global warming cos they watched “an inconvenient propaganda” or read a piece in “New Scientist” and happen to have a degree in a non related biological field. Usually I try to ignore them these days because it’s too painful. However, its really annoying when non- experts do things like this – isn’t there a code of ethics for this?
“Fake moral outrage……….”
I too am outraged.
All science students have to read the following IF they want to clear their heads.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/02/why-cagw-theory-is-not-settled-science/
I meant
All science studentS
According the EPA Act, oxygen and water are all pollutants.
Letter to the editor by Ray McHugh.
Suzuki Parody
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3488512
Pointman’s “chewing at the ankles”
‘You have to put yourself in their place to understand their inner turmoil. They are believers. They have been brought up in the faith. They learned about the threat of the evil deniers, paid by evil corporations to spread lies and deceptions – mostly to stupid, gullible people, or to other wicked people. That’s simple and clear enough, and would have been reinforced all but daily in the media, and within their circles of chosen ones. Imagine their horror then to come across a professor in a university delivering an entire lecture course which undermined the Revelations of Gore and the Holy Insights of Hansen. Surely, of all sheltered, solidly socialist places, a university should be a safe haven from such non-conformist views? You can see they would be upset and puzzled.
Four junior priests of the faith took it upon themselves to study videos of the offending lectures, and then put together a 96 page document to capture the horror of them, and add some attempts of their own to refute the heresies. Hearing of this report, the missionary agreed to do a telephone interview with the heretic himself, and thereby no doubt display both her courage and willingness to deal with such people in the name of the cause. Perhaps she might show him the error of his ways, or at the very least publicise more awfulness to bring shivers of horror to her own small band of followers. But, goshdarnit, it turned out that the heretic was polite and rational and well-informed and not at all obviously unhinged or evil.’
More of that here: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2012/03/church-of-co2-alarm-tenets-challenged.html
This is a bit circular, since I reference and quote the above post here on WUWT.
Al Gored says:
March 3, 2012 at 12:43 pm
On the very bright side, that video clip is from a brand new Canadian TV network, Sun News, which provides a Fox-like alternative to the other networks there (the CBC and CTV are both as deep or deeper into the AGW propaganda as the BBC is).
Without that network this side of this story would NEVER have been covered in Canada. And that network has already provided no end of inconvenient coverage of not only the AGW scam but also the inconvenient sources of funds that prop up the usual Canadian ‘environmental’ groups… which are now coming under serious scrutiny. No wonder Desmogblog was so eager to pounce on Fakegate. With their cash flow threatened they are starting to panic.
I think and hope that is a major part of it. We have little funding to lose. They have billions–and it is vulnerable. We need to run a LOT of follow-the-money stories on skeptic blogs.
I keep telling you to look at USA’s NSF requests-for-proposals. Likewise other countries.’
That and find out the reality that CO2 is utterly vital to human physiology, not just plants. There is an optimum concentration. And the optimum atmospheric concentration is at least double today’s and almost certainly 10 times to 200 times higher.
Goldberg is a piece of shoescrape.
@Pompous
“After the low mark for the first essay, he decided to write complete and utter bullshit for the second.”
Carleton has good engineering and architecture departments. But the social sciences always seen (to me) to follow a sort of serial monotheism with a new god every few years. Ottawa U (which we called The Zoo) is more in LaLaLand than Carelton. I don’t completely agree with the analysis that all things nutty are Leftist plots. We can’t attribute to conspiracy what can also be explained by stupidity, ignorance or both.
I agree that there is no time for anything other than cramming when taking engineering but we dinosaurs (1970) were also required to take a non-engineering elective. I have always been glad that I took “Argument and Reason’ because it taught me how to examine the structure of an argument based on premises and the possiblity that the premises were incorrect. As much AGW ‘argument’ (which is the right word) is based on faulty, false or weak premises, it follows that the conclusions are going to be wrong more than they are right.
The tactic taken by a losing side is often to divert attention from the weaker points of their argument and supplicate emotional responses tied to the better or more believable points. Alone, that is an indicator of impending doom for the debater. That such desperate actions are now employed points to the internal realisation there is something Deeply Wrong with the initial stance. Expect the number of strong supporters to decline and those remaining to be come more hysterical as reality bites deeper.
Eric Adler, quite a few AGW believers post on this site. Some post quite cogent arguments. But the type of person who would try to defend MS Goldman’s article would never sully their cranium with WUWT, that would be akin to committing blasphemy.
That anti-logic scribe at The G won’t stop her gutter tactics until someone sues her.
Always check the History at the bottom of her articles; I haven’t seen a single one related to Heartland that hasn’t been edited after publication.
e.g.
Heartland associate taught ‘biased’ climate course at Ottawa university
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 22.55 GMT on Tuesday 28 February 2012. It was last modified at 14.55 GMT on Thursday 1 March 2012
The Pompous Git says:
March 3, 2012 at 11:46 am
When I was a student in mining engineering, the students in our department numbered about the same as the sociology department. However, there were only 3 professors for Mining and 27 for Sociology. We called the Sociology Dept the “do nothing end of campus” for obvious reasons. Many of the sociology graduates could only find work teaching–you guessed it–sociology. Unfortunately, those on the AGWCF side teach their brood to perpetuate their saem “take” on “climate change”–any independently thinking person wouldn’t be so easily brainwashed.
How sad.
This controversy led to me read the report, rather than rely on the media reporting. The main point made by the CASS report, is that this survey course teaches conclusions based on so called skeptical web sites, such as Heartland and the ICSC, with no reference to the conclusions of the IPCC, and the scientific literature that supports AGW. It therefore presents a misleading picture of the state of climate science to non science majors. In addition, the report points out, that many of the points made by the course are based on papers that have been thoroughly refuted in the scientific literature. Both Paterson, who originally taught and developed the course, and Harris, are associated with a number of organizations who don’t accept AGW,
Meanwhile the courses in Climate Science for science majors at Carelton University, which are more rigorous, teach the mainstream climate science as accepted by the major professional scientific organizations.
There is something that smells bad there to say the least.
REPLY: yes, its the fact that the report bypassed any complaint process to Carleton, and went straight to media. That sure does smell doesn’t it? – Anthony
Berényi Péter says:
March 3, 2012 at 2:39 pm
“I thought university students were supposed to be adults, perfectly able to decide for themselves what course to take (or what kind of government to elect, for that matter). What is more, they are educated ones, who can read and understand scientific literature, so anyone who would try to deceive them in this respect, could easily find himself in a pretty difficult situation.
Have some journalists actually gone out of their mind to the extent questioning academic freedom?”
The point made by the writers of the CASS report, is that this course was for non science majors. It gave only the skeptic side of the story, which seemed to echo the ICSC web site, and did not
provide a balanced list of scientific or popular science literature for the students to consult.
That practice is not defensable in the name of scientic freedom. It is clearly abuse of power.
If the students had the expertise to do this on their own, they wouldn’t need the course. .
REPLY: Sometimes I think you, like the Shawshank warden, are just being obtuse: “It gave only the skeptic side of the story,” Mr. Harris just said otherwise, why not simply call him a liar right now and get it out of your system? -Anthony
Eric Adler says:
March 3, 2012 at 6:33 pm
… In addition, the report points out, that many of the points made by the course are based on papers that have been thoroughly refuted in the scientific literature. Both Paterson, who originally taught and developed the course, and Harris, are associated with a number of organizations who don’t accept AGW,
Meanwhile the courses in Climate Science for science majors at Carelton University, which are more rigorous, teach the mainstream climate science as accepted by the major professional scientific organizations.
Yeppers. You’ve proved that the bought-and-paid-for “mainstream science departments” are putting out bunkum and fraud and crude stereotypes as their religious-level dogma, rather than proper analysis and critical thinking of the measured results.
What of waste of (taxpayer) time and money in those so-called “science” divisions. But at least some of the Carleton students are learning to think. In the other class 8<)
The report makes many erroneous claims of error. A simple example is Claim 24, where professor Harris notes that apparent sea level is the result of both change inland level and in sea level, and gives the example …”in Halifax, the sea level rise that they’re seeing is half because of sea level rise and half because the land is falling.‛”
To prove this claim false the report says that since 1920 the land in Halifax has been subsiding at about 16cm per century while the sea has been rising about 16cm per century. To me this is pretty substantive confirmation of the statement they are labeling as erroneous.
The authors of the attack on Prof. Harris appear to be so blinded by their ideology that that cannot see the truth when they themselves write it.
In many other cases the strawman method of argument is used, where the report authors rebut something other than what Tom Harris said.
I predict that the rebuttal will be devastating.
Yeah? There’s climate skepticism in my classroom too. You know why? Because I teach SCIENCE, not pseudo science. And you know what else? Academic freedom, baby. I can teach what I want as long as they score well on STAR.
Yeah.
Since the host of this blog was the driving force behind the SurfaceStation.org project this supposedly false claim and the associated commentary might be of interest:
“Claim 15. ‚Current resurvey of 1221 US Historical Climatological Network found 70% of stations severely compromised. Only 4% at proper standards.‛
RESPONSE: Some existing climatological network stations do need to be brought in line with current standards. However, NOAA is aware of these kinds of problems and responded by comparing the best 70 stations with the full 1218 station dataset, and found almost identical trends [24]. A recent, comprehensive, analysis of station quality further indicated that station quality did not alter the warming trends in temperature data [25].”
As with many of the alleged errors listed in the report, the original statement is accurate and factual.
Eric Adler says: “The point made by the writers of the CASS report, is that this course was for non science majors.”
No, this is wrong. As explained in the original article, the course is for non-Earth Science majors (although some actually sat in out of interest). Many science students–physics, chemistry, biology and of course environmental sciences–not to mention environmental studies and all branches of engineering have taken the course, literally hundreds of the 1,500 students who took ERTH2402 when I taught it.
I got an e-mail yesterday from one of the students in environmental studies who just told me that many students who took my course are in her class and they are very angry about the attacks on the course. They know that I covered both sides of the science (how could one ignore something everyone knows about?), even showing excerpts of UNEP and Greenpeace videos (which we then critiqued). They also know I gave them plenty of science references, far more than they wanted, I am sure. They also know that I dealt with any and all objections prompted and effectively, sharing any needed clarifications and corrections with the class right away.
Eric Adler has been black listed from my e-mail account since he sent a nasty e-mail speaking about us as deniers, etc. That sort of ad hominem logical fallacy simply poisons the debate and is not constructive to the development of rational environmental policy formulation. My students recognize logical fallacies in the debate when they see them, whichever side the attacks are coming from.
Tom Harris
Instructor – ERTH2402 2009, 2010, s011
Executive Director – ICSC
REPLY: Mr. Adler has been previously banned from WUWT for such similar behavior. He’s a well known troll with poor manners. I had hoped he’d changed, I see now that the has not and it is was a mistake on my part to think he would. – Anthony
Another mistake by Adler: “Patterson and Harris are both part of the International Climate Science Coalition”. I already explained to Adler in my answer to the one e-mail that got through before I blocked him that Professor Patterson has not been part of the ICSC since January 2011. Interesting that Adler did not correct this mistake in the above posting.
Looks like desperation, several have commented earlier. Fanatic frenetic dogmatic oblivious to facts desperation, it looks to me like the warmista journalists are irrationally searching for their own personal fraudulent swords to fall upon in imitation of their hero.
A term need to be coined to describe these amazing acts of idiocy (and examples of really bad journalism), perhaps Gleicked? Gleickism would describe this definitive unsavory unscientific climatic belief system and Gleickerites would describe the mindless chanting followers whose only desire is to glorify those who ruin science and to terrify the legitimate teachers and people of science.
Tom Harris says:
March 3, 2012 at 7:33 pm
“Another mistake by Adler: “Patterson and Harris are both part of the International Climate Science Coalition”. I already explained to Adler in my answer to the one e-mail that got through before I blocked him that Professor Patterson has not been part of the ICSC since January 2011. Interesting that Adler did not correct this mistake in the above posting.”
A distinction that makes no difference to the argument, unless Patterson left because of profound disagreement with the position of the ICSC on climate change.
dogparliament
Thanks for the link to the list of ECOSOC NGOs
a 2011 version is at: http://www.un.org/esa/coordination/ngo/pdf/INF_List.pdf
and a sorted text file is now at: http://tome22.info/General/UN-Consultatives-2011-V2s.txt
There is more detail on 20 of them on http://tome22.info/ but not yet accessible by the EcoSoc status
The 20 are:
AAAS-American Association for the Advancement of Science
CI-Climate Institute
CIEL-Center for International Environmental Law
COM-Club of Madrid
EI-European Institute
GCI-Green Cross International
GLOBE-GLOBE International
ICC-International Chamber of Commerce
IIED-International Institute for Environment and Development
IISD-International Institute for Sustainable Development
NRDC-Natural Resources Defense Council
RFF-Resources for the Future
SEI-Stockholm Environment Institute
Sierra Club
UNF-United Nations Foundation
WBCFSD-World Business Council for Sustainable Development
WEF-World Economic Forum
WRI-World Resources Institute
Woods Hole Research Center
WorldWatch Institute
Charlie A says:
March 3, 2012 at 6:58 pm
“The report makes many erroneous claims of error. A simple example is Claim 24, where professor Harris notes that apparent sea level is the result of both change inland level and in sea level, and gives the example …”in Halifax, the sea level rise that they’re seeing is half because of sea level rise and half because the land is falling.‛”
To prove this claim false the report says that since 1920 the land in Halifax has been subsiding at about 16cm per century while the sea has been rising about 16cm per century. To me this is pretty substantive confirmation of the statement they are labeling as erroneous.”
I am pleased that you bring up specific criticisms of the report. This is the ground that really should be explored in this thread.
You don’t quote the part of the statement that the report believes is misleading.
“‚What you think is sea level rise might not in fact be sea level rise at all. It might in fact be ground level drop. In fact, in Halifax, the sea level rise that they’re seeing is half because of sea level rise and half because the land is falling.‛ ”
The intent of Harris’ statement intent is to cast doubt on data that shows rise in sea level, by implying that the data used by scientists might mistake ground level drop for sea level rise, with Halifax used as an example. The CASS report points out that this implication is incorrect:
“In general, subsidence is taken into consideration where it is present, and we have good evidence of sea level rise at tectonically stable sites [36]…..”
That means the Halifax data that Harris cites, does not indicate that scientists are confused between sea level rise, and ground level drop.
Tom Harris says:
March 3, 2012 at 7:25 pm
“I got an e-mail yesterday from one of the students in environmental studies who just told me that many students who took my course are in her class and they are very angry about the attacks on the course ……”
Do you have a reading list posted for your course on the internet?
Does Carlton have a file of course evaluation comments we can look at?
Eric Adler says: March 3, 2012 at 1:24 pm
… So it not surprising that the Patterson and Harris have almost identical course content. This is not a valid argument that the curriculum is legitimate science.
Dear Mr. Adled,
“It not surprising that the Patterson and Harris have almost identical course content” because they are both teaching the same FACTS. These FACTS have not changed is decades, unlike the constantly changing fictions of the IPCC and acolytes of the global warming “Cause”.
I just want to clear up something. I think there’s some confusion between The Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptic Magazine. The Center for Inquiry mentioned above publishes The Skeptical Inquirer (SI). That periodical began publication in 1976 as The Zetetic. It changed its name to The Skeptical Inquirer after a couple of years. I was a charter subscriber to The Zetetic/SI and continued my subscription for more than three decades to that once outstanding magazine. I reluctantly cancelled my subscription a few years ago when it became the Unskeptical Regurgitator of alarmist CAGW junk science. I couldn’t take it.
Skeptic Magazine, first published in 1992, is an unrelated but similar periodical to which I never subscribed. That is where the above linked article is from (or its website). It appears that magazine too has gone bad. It’s all very sad.
Allan MacRae says:
March 3, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Dear Mr. Adled,
“It not surprising that the Patterson and Harris have almost identical course content” because they are both teaching the same FACTS. These FACTS have not changed is decades, unlike the constantly changing fictions of the IPCC and acolytes of the global warming “Cause”.
Your use of insults shows that you don’t have a valid argument.
Your claim that FACTS involving climate change have not changed in decades is clearly false. One important example is the rapid acceleration of the loss of Arctic Sea Ice since 1979 Another as well as the change from decreasing to increasing global temperatures during that time.
Eric Adler says:
March 3, 2012 at 8:49 pm
Must have changed the definition of acceleration too. Who pays you to come up with this nonsense, Mr. Addled?
@Eric Adler at 8:22PM You say “You don’t quote the part of the statement that the report believes is misleading.”
Unlike you and the report authors, I cannot read minds. I see nothing to support your claim that “The intent of Harris’ statement intent is to cast doubt on data that shows rise in sea level, by implying that the data used by scientists might mistake ground level drop for sea level rise, with Halifax used as an example. The CASS report points out that this implication is incorrect:”
Both you and the CASS report authors are truly contortionists if you manage to infer that intent from Harris’s statement “What YOU think is sea level rise might not in fact be sea level rise at all. It might in fact be ground level drop. In fact, in Halifax, the sea level rise that they’re seeing is half because of sea level rise and half because the land is falling.‛ ”
Emphasis on YOU added. You, in this context clearly means his student audience, not climate scientists calculating sea levels.
Eric, it amazes me at how hard you stretch to distort relatively simple, straightforward language. Were you involved in drafting or reviewing the CASS report?
Crispin in Johannesburg said @ March 3, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Dunno about you, but the Git found the Logic class at UTas the most difficult class he ever took, but also the most rewarding. We had quite a few computer science and mathematics students as well as philosophy. It’s a required unit for Philosophy of Science. And yes, it is sufficient to understand logic to realise that much CAGW argument is in error as The Good Lord Monckton so frequently demonstrates.
That Carleton university course flap reminds me of the ACLU which can be relied on to be on the wrong side of every issue.
The authors of the 142 point critique were:
Dr Christopher Hassall, Ms Carley Centen, Dr Cliff Beninger, and Dr Chris Hebbern
I went through the first 50 of their “points” before I realized that these learned fools are completely clueless. Whatever makes sense from a scientific perspective, these guys are against it.
The
hatchet-jobreport was authored by aPR HackCommunications Specialist and several Biologists?As Gomer Pyle would have said, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”
I’ve known a few pretty scientific Biologists, but as a group they’re as addle-pated as most of the other ” . . ologies.”
movielib says:
March 3, 2012 at 8:37 pm,
Re: Skeptical Inquirer:
Wow – 30 years? I subscribed for a few years in the late ’70s, mid-’80s, and a year in the late ’90s, but by then I’d gotten bored – seemed that all they did was debunk ghost stories, expose psuedo-medical frauds (both worthwhile, but tiresome after awhile), and commiserate among themselves about The Burden of Skepticism.
Sometime after I was skepticised by Mcintyre & McKitrick, and Crichton, around 2005, I picked up a copy at a downtown bookstore to read on the train. Shock. Same old ghost stories, but now with fawning admiration for and unapologetic kow-towing to the Climate Cabal. I think it was the AGU that had recently released a position statement; they had a copy of it, complete with a picture of the current AGU president. Total, unblushing acceptance of Argumentum ex Auctoritate As I recall, that was the sum total of SI’s argument.
In 50 years, maybe less, historians of science — which discipline we hope by then will have regained some of its pre-Oreskesian rigor — will write wonderingly of how the “exact” sciences squandered their credibility, so painstakingly accumulated over the previous 400 years, in a single generation.
Eric Adler says: March 3, 2012 at 8:49 pm
Allan MacRae says: March 3, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Note correction of 2 typos; my apologies. My comments in CAPS below.
MacRae:
Dear Mr. Adler,
“It not surprising that the Patterson and Harris have almost identical course content” because they are both teaching the same FACTS. These FACTS have not changed in decades, unlike the constantly changing fictions of the IPCC and acolytes of the global warming “Cause”.
Adler / MACRAE:
Your use of insults shows that you don’t have a valid argument. WHAT INSULTS, MR. ADLER?
Your claim that FACTS involving climate change have not changed in decades is clearly false. I WAS REFERRING TO THE SCIENCE, MR. ADLER, OBVIOUSLY NOT VARIABLES SUCH AS GLOBAL TEMPERATURE – CLIMATE HAS ALWAYS CHANGED. THE WARMISTS’ POSITION ON THE SCIENCE KEEPS SHIFTING, GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER TO THE SKEPTICS POSITION AS THE WARMISTS’ ALLEGED STRONG POSITIVE FEEDBACKS TO CO2 DECLINE AGAIN AND AGAIN. BTW, THERE ARE NO STRONG POSITIVE FEEDBACKS – THERE NEVER WERE. THAT CLAIM WAS JUST ONE COMPONENT OF CAGW BS.
One important example is the rapid acceleration of the loss of Arctic Sea Ice since 1979. OF COURSE THERE HAS BEEN SOME WARMING SINCE 1979 AND SOME LOSS OF SEA ICE. WE KNOW THAT BECAUSE THE WEATHER SATELLITES WERE LAUNCHED IN 1979. HOWEVER, AS SHOWN BY NEWER SATELLITE DATA, SEA ICE HAS BEEN RELATIVELY STABLE SINCE AT LEAST 2005. http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current.png
Another as well as the change from decreasing to increasing global temperatures during that time.
FALSE – THERE HAS BEEN NO GLOBAL WARMING IN THE LAST DECADE OR SO, AND SOME SLIGHT COOLING, DESPITE SIGNIFICANT INCREASES IN CO2. http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
DO YOU NOT SEE THIS AS A PROBLEM FOR THE CAGW HYPOTHESIS? I CERTAINLY DO.
YOUR CAGW HYPOTHESIS IS ABOUT TO BE FALSIFIED, OR ALREADY IS. WHY DO YOU THINK THE WARMIST TERM “GLOBAL WARMING “ IS NOW CALLED “CLIMATE CHANGE” – BECAUSE THERE HAS BEEN NO GLOBAL WARMING FOR A DECADE OR SO.
WILL GLOBAL WARMISTS REPAY THE TRILLION DOLLARS IN SCARCE GLOBAL RESOURCES SQUANDERED DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING FRAUD? WILL THEY EVEN APOLOGIZE FOR ALL THEIR BLATANT FALSEHOODS? I THOUGHT NOT.
GOOD DAY MR. ADLER.
When warmists attack my mental image is always the last scene in ‘Invasion of the bodysnatchers’ when Donald Sutherland points at the unconverted and squeals like a pig!
Maybe I missed the reference but Carleton University is in Ottawa, capital of Canada.
The CASS audit is an attempt to enforce ideological conformity. Lysenkoism at its best.
Environmental correspondents, if not eco-activists themselves, will move in those circles in probably both a professional and social way. Even if they were inclined to give objective reporting it would be a major step as it would most likely lead to complete ostracisation, as as happened to others who stopped propagandising on the quasi-science of AGW.
As measures to ‘counter’ AGW have such a negative impact on so many peoples lives I regard them as enemies of humanity.
A man with a mission, obviously:
http://katatrepsis.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/carleton-university-is-being-too-honest
Wow!
Thank You So Much for bringing this !
I used to read The Guardian. What am I going to have to read now?.
I have read the Guardian paper, but I also have listened to the phone conversation between Goldberg and Harris. And I am amazed at the changes, the omissions etc in the paper which was supposed to be based on the phone conversation.
But even more than that, I am really upset at the rudeness of the woman “journalist”, who kept interrupting, going back to questions that had already been answered by Professor Harris, doubting the truth of what he said…
And the Guardian does not seem to have listened at all to what Harris was saying ; namely, that the changes that occur now have to be dealt with, and the people who suffer from them now, protected from the consequences of those changes.
And that taking care now of those people, and in an effective way, is much more urgent than taking care, in a much more expensive, and a speculative way at that, of the people 50 years from now. Because we know what the weather is now, but can not be sure of what it will be in 50 years…
And they are surprised at the plain everyday people like myself who would love to contribute to organizations, like The Heartland Institute, which try to make open discussions on science open to one and all…
Gary Pearse @3:46: good point about the under-representation of engineers (and others doing “hard math stuff”) in the ranks of the climate activists. They don’t have time to go to the rallies and beat bongo drums against carbon pollution. They are also trained to detect BS at femtomolar levels. And having worked so hard to learn how to do real stuff, and not just sling lines from their Post-Modern Word Power Spin Kit(tm), they probably too much intellectual self-respect to play along.
There is a cool little book called “The Politics of Science” that has essays showing how these scares are used over and over to gain power. One of the essays by a nuc power expert bewails the fact that while he and his fellows were learning how to build the nuc power systems, they were being silently outflanked on the same campuses by the activists who were learning THEIR profession: how to rabble-rouse and foment fear, who to network with in the government and NGO and media communities. They never knew what hit them. Same here.
Ugh. The “eadler” again? Its presence on a comments thread discourages reading and participation; nausea is so unpleasant!
anticlimactic says: March 4, 2012 at 2:25 am
Thanks for the visual. I’ll never be able to listen to Gore, Mann, Hanson, Suzuki, Gleick, et al. in the same way ever again! I might even be able to “enjoy” their prater now. 😉
Anthony,
Perhaps you could shine a spotlight on junk journalism at other “news”papers while you’re at it…
The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. had a ludicrous editorial “THE DIRTY TRUTH BEHIND THE WAR ON SCIENCE” that included the following gem:
‘… The most revealing documents, however, lay out Heartland’s plans to spend $100,000 to build an anti-climate change curriculum for schools that shows “that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.”
There’s your smoking gun. ‘
This editorial was published AFTER the 2012 Strategy document was identified as a fake by the entire blogosphere and Heartland, yet The Star-Loser highlighted it anyway as if the fiction was fact – ironically a sad commentary on their journalistic incompetence.
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=U3RMLzIwMTIvMDIvMTcjQXIwMTQwMw%3D%3D&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom
To date I’ve seen neither a correction nor a retraction. This is knee-jerk ignorant “journalism” perfectly suited to uncritical acceptance of every alarmist soft-lob press release.
Amthony! You were completly right to ban Eric Adler in the first place, Because you are a kind and forgiving person you changed your mind. YOU were wrong, Go back to your origjibal correct judgement,
Allan MacRae
@March 4, 2012 at 1:00 am
You originally claimed that the FACTS have not changed in decades. Now you say that you meant scientific theory has not changed. FACTS are not scientific theories.
Your claim that the reduction in Arctic Sea Ice has not been accelerating is wrong. The plot that you have shown, which looks at a series of annual plots, obscures the time dependence through the years. The season in which the ice cover has the largest variation from year to year is summer. Average Arctic Sea Ice coverage in July and August has been trending downward at an accelerating rate.
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20110906_Figure3.png
The winter coverage is not that revealing, because the temperature in the Arctic region is always low enough to freeze the ocean surface in the winter. Multi year ice is decreasing faster than sea ice coverage or sea ice area.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/future/sea_ice.html
Your claim that there has been global cooling is based you your interpretation of a noisy UAH plot overlaid with a sinusoidal curve. If you look at a plot of annual global temperature averages, you can easily see that global warming is still happening. The steady forcing due to the increasing level of GHG’s is modulated by internal noise due to El Nino’s, aerosals, variations in solar radiance etc. The GISS surface temperature data and UAH show the same dependence, with UAH showing more sensitivity to El Nino.
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/gissuah.jpg
BobM says:
March 4, 2012 at 6:33 am
Besides being mentioned in the strategy document, which Heartland has disowned, the project to pay Wojick for a curriculum for Global Warming Lesson plan was listed on page 19 of the Heartland Budget, a document which they do not disown, giving a figure of $75,000 in 3 quarterly installments.
Charlie A says:
March 3, 2012 at 9:43 pm
If you look at the report, it refers to a number of statements made by Harris, that cast doubt on the significance of the currently observed rise in sea level. Viewed in this context, it is fair to conclude that a statement about how land subsidence can be confused with sea level rise, is designed to cast doubt on the sea level data itself.
Eric Adler says: March 4, 2012 at 8:19 am
You write and quote nonsense, Mr. Adler.
I predicted global cooling in an article written in 2003. The IPCC predicted runaway global warming in 2001.
To date, none of the global warmists’ very-scary predictions have materialized.
Based on the IPCC’s perfect track record of being dead wrong, I suggest you bundle up.
What a thorough and witty writeup about this propaganda outlet! Nicely done. The next time someone cites that rag as a source I am going to link them back to your description so they know what they are dealing with.
P.S. amazingly enough, practically your entire review also applies to our very own New York Slimes. Cheers!
One way to tell you have been assimilated as a propagandist for the Church Of AGW is when you spout off things involving numbers that are impossible to justify but for your strong faith in the cause.
I count just 32 data points for Arctic sea ice extent year-to-year since 1979. In that small sample you have somehow …
[1] determined a trend which you call: “loss of Arctic Sea Ice”
[2] deduced a velocity for this trend and determined it is increasing: “acceleration of the loss of Arctic Sea Ice”
[3] and still had enough data points leftover to further deduce that the trend is not just accelerating but doing so quickly (exponentially perhaps?): “rapid acceleration of the loss of Arctic Sea Ice”
All this in just 32 data points? You should be an accountant. Financial records maintained by the average business can use someone with your creativity and imagination.
All kidding aside, this is where *you* should have been skeptical. You don’t even need to consider the obvious fact that data beginning in 1979 is by definition ‘cherry picking’ from the peak of a cold period to question the meme, all you need to ponder is how such dramatic and catastrophic conclusions can sanely be drawn from this small a data set. Think man!
Allan MacRae says:
March 4, 2012 at 8:58 am
“You write and quote nonsense, Mr. Adler.
“I predicted global cooling in an article written in 2003. The IPCC predicted runaway global warming in 2001.
To date, none of the global warmists’ very-scary predictions have materialized.
Based on the IPCC’s perfect track record of being dead wrong, I suggest you bundle up.””
It is my understanding that the very scary projections are not for the current period, but rather for 50 to 100 years in the future. I don’t see why it is significant that they haven’t materialized to date.
Looking at a graph of global annual average temperature, one sees a steady increase since 1980, despite a number of short term peaks and plateaus such as we are currently experiencing. These are due to internal variation due to solar cycles, volcanoes and El Ninos. None of these has had any lasting influence on the trend since 1980. The IPCC is projecting a long term trend, and the short term internal variation does not disprove their projections.
The Guardian’s daily circulation over the last 12 years.
Year 2000 = 401,560
Year 2005 = 376,816
Year 2010 = 302,285
Year 2012 = 229,753
I see a massive drop in the last 2 years. Keep it up chaps, at this rate your will be gone in the next 12 years or less and the likes of Suzanne Goldenberg will have to find another job. ;>)
With references
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation#Circulation_1950.E2.80.931999
Blade says:
March 4, 2012 at 9:09 am
“I count just 32 data points for Arctic sea ice extent year-to-year since 1979. In that small sample you have somehow … ”
I haven’t extracted a quadratic expression for the 32 points to derive coefficients and confidence levels. I am relying on the the opinions of leading experts in Arctic Sea Ice who publish in the peer reviewed literature, for my interpretations of the data.
If you don’t like the 32 points, look at longer term data which uses ship logs to infer sea ice coverage over a 107 year period:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=826
The recent trend in summer Arctic sea ice decline is quite striking. Since the data only goes to 2007, we have to look at the succeeding 4 years to see the acceleration.
Another strong indicator of Arctic Sea Ice decline is the reduction in multi year ice, due to the reduction of the rate of ice formation in the winter.
REPLY: This sea ice diversion has nothing to do with this thread, we DO have a thread on sea ice where it can be discussed factually, though that probably excludes Mr. Adler – Anthony
[snip – this is not only off topic to the story, but please learn to cite something other than a blogger who won’t put his own name to his publications, like Gleick, he’s got a fake name used to push his points – Anthony]
Mr. Adler,
We do not agree.
The future of global warming, or more probable global cooling (in my opinion), will decide this question.
In 2003 with Tim Patterson’s input, I wrote in the Calgary Herald that global cooling would recommence by 2020 to 2030, based on Tim’s work on the Gleissberg Cycle. At that time, NASA predicted a strong SC24, which has not materialized. If anything, global cooling may commence sooner.
You can read our 2002 article on the science of climate change at
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
The eight-point summary* includes a number of predictions that have all materialized, in those countries in Western Europe that have adopted the full measure of global warming mania. My country, Canada, was foolish enough to sign the Kyoto Protocol, but then wise enough to ignore it.
To date, our predictive record is infinitely better than that of the IPCC – since none of the IPCC’s scary predictions have materialized.
Over and out.
Regards, Allan
________________________
* Summary:
Kyoto has many fatal flaws, any one of which should cause this treaty to be scrapped.
1. Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.
2. Kyoto focuses primarily on reducing CO2, a relatively harmless gas, and does nothing to control real air pollution like NOx, SO2, and particulates, or serious pollutants in water and soil.
3. Kyoto wastes enormous resources that are urgently needed to solve real environmental and social problems that exist today. For example, the money spent on Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all the people of the developing world in perpetuity.
4. Kyoto will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and damage the Canadian economy – the U.S., Canada’s biggest trading partner, will not ratify Kyoto, and developing countries are exempt.
5. Kyoto will actually hurt the global environment – it will cause energy-intensive industries to move to exempted developing countries that do not control even the worst forms of pollution.
6. Kyoto’s CO2 credit trading scheme punishes the most energy efficient countries and rewards the most wasteful. Due to the strange rules of Kyoto, Canada will pay the former Soviet Union billions of dollars per year for CO2 credits.
7. Kyoto will be ineffective – even assuming the overstated pro-Kyoto science is correct, Kyoto will reduce projected warming insignificantly, and it would take as many as 40 such treaties to stop alleged global warming.
8. The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.
________________________
Eric Adler says: “Wow! There is not a single dissenting voice in the comments on this blog. Is it because such comments are blocked, or because no one bothers anymore?”
It is because unlike eadler, most of us here have a moral compass. Comments are not being blocked, it is just that eadler is the exception, with a Gleick-like lack of ethics.
Adler is the perfect example of a site pest. IMHO, the sooner he is run off the better. He belongs in Tamina’s echo chamber, not here polluting the internet’s Best Science & Technology site.
Eric Adler says:
March 4, 2012 at 9:21 am
(responding to)
Allan MacRae says:
March 4, 2012 at 8:58 am
Based on the IPCC’s perfect track record of being dead wrong, I suggest you bundle up.””
It is my understanding that the very scary projections are not for the current period, but rather for 50 to 100 years in the future. I don’t see why it is significant that they haven’t materialized to date.
Looking at a graph of global annual average temperature, one sees a steady increase since 1980, despite a number of short term peaks and plateaus such as we are currently experiencing. These are due to internal variation due to solar cycles, volcanoes and El Ninos. None of these has had any lasting influence on the trend since 1980. The IPCC is projecting a long term trend, and the short term internal variation does not disprove their projections.
I regret repeating your errors above, but they are – in their significance and their proof of the hypocrisy of your supposed argument – illustrative …
1915 -1940. 25 years of increasing temperatures – Note that CO2 must be assumed steady during this period since measurements in 1958 began at 280, and lower CO2 levels are deadly to plant and animal life. Local CO2 increases were likely in north Europe 1914-1918 and 1938-1945. El Nino and La Nina? Irregular. Volcanoes? Irregular.
1940 -1975. 35 years of decreasing temperatures – based on NASA-GISS Hansen’s records in 1988. (Before he began changing his own “historical” temperature records between 1995 and 2012. Note that CO2 steadily increased during this period. El Nino and La Nina? Irregular. Volcanoes? Irregular.
1980 – 1998. 18 years of increasing temperature, based in large measure on NASA-GISS (and others) manipulation of the US surface temperature records. Total apparent increase? 1/3 of one degree. Latest corresponding actual global temperature measured this month? Lower than this value. Note that CO2 levels steadily increased during this entire period. El Nino and La Nina? Irregular. Volcanoes? Pinatuba was significant. Others? A few..at irregular intervals.
1998 – 2012. 14 years of slightly-decreasing temperatures – while CO2 levels steadily increase. El Nino and La Nina? Irregular. Volcanoes? No major volcanoes.
Now. Just what “trend” are you claiming? What evidence are you using – other than one limited (self-serving cherry-picked) 1980-1998 period?
Are itemized lists of the alleged scientific problems available; together with a short description of the problems?
As I am lead to believe that there have been 5 ice ages in the past, and hence 4 warm periods; and that dinosaurs do not seem to have driven SUV’s; I think that a study of history will allow some light to be shone in the probable sources. Most likely the movement of the solar system in the appropriate galaxy.
Allan MacRae says:
March 4, 2012 at 10:54 am
“In 2003 with Tim Patterson’s input, I wrote in the Calgary Herald that global cooling would recommence by 2020 to 2030, based on Tim’s work on the Gleissberg Cycle. At that time, NASA predicted a strong SC24, which has not materialized. If anything, global cooling may commence sooner.
You can read our 2002 article on the science of climate change at
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm”
It is relevant to discuss this article, because Patterson was an author of the Carleton College course which is the subject of this thread, and it is likely that some of the article was reflected in the course.
The article is full of mistakes, and space allows me to cite only a few examples.
You wrote:
“CO2 is at most a minor contributor to global climate change. The proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere has varied significantly over geologic time. …Strikingly, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today’s value during the Ordovician glaciation, around 440 million years ago. CO2 is simply a minor driver in the many factors that influence climate…”
Since the sun’s brightness was considerably lower 440M years ago, than it is today, the argument doesn’t hold water. In fact, geologic investigation shows that the glaciation was for a short period of time, 500,000 years, and was caused by a reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere, as a result of increasing rock weathering, and reduced volcanic emissions.
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/37/10/951.abstract
You also wrote:
“..detailed analysis of CO2 concentrations indicates that CO2 levels often rose and peaked several hundred years after temperature. These results further emphasize that climate change drives major changes in CO2, not the reverse. Temperature change affects the carbon cycle, which then produces fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentration. ..”
What you neglected to mention is that the ice ages are triggered by fluctuations in solar irradiation due to tilting of the earth’s orbit. Scientists who model this, find that these variations are too weak to explain the variation in temperatures during the ice age cycles. When they include the feedback effects of CO2 and albedo variations due to ice coverage, the temperatures can be accounted for. The climate sensitivity calculated due to CO2 concentrations needed to explain the ice age data, is similar to what results from models which explain the current global warming due to anthropogenic emissions. Two different polls of climate scientists show that 97% accept the theory that human caused emissions of GHG’s are causing global warming today.
There are many more examples of fallacies in the article, but I will stop here.
RACookPE1978 says:
March 4,2012 at 11:18 am
You said to me:
“I regret repeating your errors above, but they are – in their significance and their proof of the hypocrisy of your supposed argument – illustrative …”
You give illustrations of trends in global annual average temperature over certain periods which you claim prove the “hypocrisy of my supposed argument”.
Firstly, I reject your claim that you could possibly prove that the arguments I made were “hypocrisy” based on your illustrations. A hypocrite makes an argument he doesn’t believe in. You don’t know me well enough to conclude that I am a hypocrite. If the argument proves me a hypocrite, then 97% of climate scientists, who accept global warming must also be hypocrites.
Secondly, the illustrations that you produce fail to take into account known factors which were acting continuously during that period, which explain the trends.
1) During the time period 1915 -1950, there was a systematic increase in solar radiance.
2) During the period 1940 -1975, aerosals resulting from SO2 emissions due the dramatic increases in the burning of coal are believed to be responsible for cooling during this period. Some papers published during this period predicted global cooling if the emission trend continued.
3) 1980 – present aerosals stabilized in the US and Europe, but are currently beginning to rise as Asia becomes industrialized. TCurrently in China this pollution is becoming unacceptable. It is likely that if this problem is fixed, global warming will accelerate.
Eric Adler says: March 4, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Mr. Adler,
To the best of my knowledge, you are writing nonsense, and I have nothing more to say to you.
Our 2002 PEGG article was co-authored by Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Harvard U Astrophysicist, and Dr. Tim Patterson, Carleton U Paleoclimatologist. All three of us agreed on the content, based on our many decades of research. Obviously, we are not going to agree with your viewpoint, which echoes that of acolytes of the global warming “Cause”.
One of the best indicators of the validity of one’s science is the track record of one’s predictions. The global warmists have yet to predict anything correctly – none of your very-scary predictions about “runaway global warming” or “wilder weather” have materialized. Based on your dismal past track record, I don’t like your odds for being correct in the future.
Over and out, Allan
The conclusion in the Carlton report is wrong.
“Conclusion
We have demonstrated that the Earth Sciences Department at Carleton University has until recently run a course which down-plays and contradicts the overwhelming scientific consensus on dangerous, man-made climate change”
No consensus says that, at best the fake consensus states human activities add to the warming..
Re: Eric Adler
“Two different polls of climate scientists show that 97% accept the theory that human caused emissions of GHG’s are causing global warming today.”
No they don’t
I suspect you referring to the two most quoted survey’s
Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change (The Doran) and
Expert Credibility in Climate Change. (Anderegg)
The Doran 97% refers to 75 out of 77 scientists who “think human activity is a significant
contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures”
They don’t say it is the dominant factor, or what the effects will be.
They don’t even mention GHG’s
Anderegg’s survey showed 66% convinced, they adjusted the figure to 97% according to
their own biased criteria, and all they state is a belief in the IPCC conclusions that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”
Nothing about the effects or how bad they will be.
Rather distasteful to see a lecturer go after a colleague in such an underhand and aggressive fashion. He clearly wanted to do as much damage to Harris’ career and reputation as possible, with no regard for even the reputation of the university itself.
It’s quite disturbing to see how personally risky it is to question the mob on this issue.
In next year’s course offerings:
CMTH1105: Introduction to Climate-Change Arithmetic. By the end of the course, students will be versed in such subjects as real numbers / imaginary numbers / completely-made-up numbers, standard tables for sine, consine, and decline, as well as methods for ensuring that all data plots result in a positive parabola.
Not to be confused with any of the MATH#### course offerings, which teach actual mathematics.
I think it’s worth reflecting on the amazing irony of self-advertised skeptics going after people tooth and nail if they profess any degree of skepticism about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
They’re the skeptics who say ni, all right!
What you describe, Anthony, is common behaviour by neo-Marxists in other battles.
They have organizations with generic sounding names that are run by neo-Marxists, producing biased reports that media copy quotes from. They are always morallly outraged.
(Indeed, a group hereabouts call themselves the Raging Grannies – my response is that grannies should be setting a proper behaviour example for their grandchildren.)
The tactic is not exclusive to neo-Marxists, but is standard for subjectivists. They have nothing but appearances to go on, since their method of knowledge is emotions not facts.
If you want to get deep into philosophy, you can listen to John Ridpath’s condensed attempt to explain why a bad approach to knowledge leads to a troubled philosophy, due to the confusion and frustration the individual feels. “Force, Freedom, and the Human Mind” is taped lecture, AFAIK never in print, apparently now hard to buy. Takes wading through as it is in substantial part a history of views of the human mind – especially explaining “concepts”.
The following piece asks some interesting questions about the affair:
“Carletongate? Maybe, but if so, it may go in all directions”
See http://sierra-rayne.blogspot.com/2012/03/carletongate-maybe-but-if-so-it-may-go.html
Note especially his conclusion:
“The CASS/CFI report authors then make the following statement in the report on p. 89: “We hope that this demonstrates comprehensively that there was no deception on our part in the acquisition of lecture materials.” In contrast, it seems that an absence of any real or perceived deception would have involved Hassall informing the Carleton system administrator that the course materials were to be used as primary source material (not background information) for a report that will be publicly released (with media releases and media coverage) and which will critically (and negatively) assess said materials being requested. As well, does Carleton have any licensing arrangements for the use and/or release of these protected course materials that CASS/CFI obtained access to? It appears that of the four report authors, only Hassall was a Carleton employee. Did Hassall share the materials with his three co-authors (which seems reasonable, as why else would they be co-authors)? and if so, is this consistent with Carleton’s licensing arrangements/expectations for these materials. This issue needs to be clarified for the taxpayers who paid for the preparation of the materials that were analyzed in this report.”
Tom Harris