An open letter to the U.N from climate skeptics

Published in the Financial Post today:

OPEN CLIMATE LETTER TO UN SECRETARY GENERAL: Current scientific knowledge does not substantiate Ban Ki-Moon assertions on weather and climate, say 125 scientists.

Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations

H.E. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations

First Avenue and East 44th Street, New York, New York, U.S.A.

November 29, 2012

Mr. Secretary-General:

On November 9 this year you told the General Assembly: “Extreme weather due to climate change is the new normal … Our challenge remains, clear and urgent: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthen adaptation to … even larger climate shocks … and to reach a legally binding climate agreement by 2015 … This should be one of the main lessons of Hurricane Sandy.”

On November 13 you said at Yale: “The science is clear; we should waste no more time on that debate.” 

The following day, in Al Gore’s “Dirty Weather” Webcast, you spoke of “more severe storms, harsher droughts, greater floods”, concluding: “Two weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy struck the eastern seaboard of the United States. A nation saw the reality of climate change. The recovery will cost tens of billions of dollars. The cost of inaction will be even higher. We must reduce our dependence on carbon emissions.”

We the undersigned, qualified in climate-related matters, wish to state that current scientific knowledge does not substantiate your assertions.

Read the full letter and signatories here

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Rick Bradford
November 29, 2012 5:14 pm

There is a pervasive group of journalists, lobbyists, activists, NGO types, ‘scientists’, crony capitalists, bureaucrats and politicians who do so well out of climate alarmism that their only fear is that the music will someday stop.
This, for example, is why there is no legacy media criticism, or even mention, of the appalling waste represented by the Doha conference. Insiders are discussing ‘important’ matters with other insiders, and their profligacy is being covered up by more insiders. A genuine consensus.
They act like an occupying power of the colonial era; living high on the hog of resources that do not belong to them and doing everything in their power to suppress dissent and impose onerous regulations on the colonised communities.

Rhoda Ramirez
November 29, 2012 5:15 pm

Nice theater but it’s not really about climate – it’s about a horse to get the UN in charge of the world.

nevket240
November 29, 2012 5:18 pm

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/the-enduring-uncertainty-beyond-the-climate-basics/
is Revkin going ‘soft’ on deniers??
Do you sense the slight shift to a more scientific view and abandoning his faith based view??
regards.

clipe
November 29, 2012 5:28 pm
November 29, 2012 5:29 pm

Bravo!
Let the truth be spoken !

November 29, 2012 5:44 pm

Are they asking for the IPCC to apologize and admit that their recommendations are bunk?

Louis
November 29, 2012 5:47 pm

“The science is clear; we should waste no more time on that debate.”

They’ve been saying the “debate is over” from day one, before the debate could even get started. When are we actually going to have an honest debate on the subject of climate change? Scientists of the past, like Einstein, invited others to prove them wrong. Scientists of today seem to think it’s a waste of time to even engage in debate on their theories.

Patrick (adelaide)
November 29, 2012 5:47 pm

Good letter. Concise, accurate, factual and, I think, respectful. It will not be welcomed, especially when one reads the list of signatories. There are some who will be regarded as controversial, including our host most probably but there’s no avoiding the credentials. Of course, arguing from authority is not liked on WUWT but, at least one can say. look, they are highly credentialed , go challenge *them* on the science.

pat
November 29, 2012 5:52 pm

Revkin’s Doha contribution:
29 Nov: NYT Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin: The Enduring Cloudiness in Climate and Coastal Forecasts
There are many reasons humanity is having a very hard time addressing the buildup of long-lived greenhouse gases contributing to global warming…
One big reason is that while the basics of greenhouse theory have been clear for decades, the most consequential aspects of human-driven climate change remain the least certain…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/the-enduring-uncertainty-beyond-the-climate-basics/
at that point he links to this 46-page pdf, and i stopped reading the rest of his column:
Institute for Empirical Research in Economics
University of Zurich
Working Paper No. 510
Viewing the Future through a Warped Lens: Why Uncertainty Generates Hyperbolic Discounting
Thomas Epper, Helga Fehr-Duda and Adrian Bruhin
September 2010
http://www.iew.uzh.ch/wp/iewwp510.pdf

John Bell
November 29, 2012 5:56 pm

I think the Precautionary Principle should be invoked here, and warmists should have to walk and canoe to their meetings, to reduce greenhouse gasses, and help make (hopefully) positive change, by reducing the impact of climate change. (sarc off) There is a word that gets a lot of usage, “impact” in enviro-speak.

Niff
November 29, 2012 6:05 pm

Absolutely superb. Come on somebody, call these people “deniers”?

Lew Skannen
November 29, 2012 6:06 pm

I agree with the sentiments but I feel we are going to a Politics Gunfight with a Science Knife.

Stuart
November 29, 2012 6:07 pm

So nice to see actual climate scientists speak up. Thank you for posting!

r murphy
November 29, 2012 6:08 pm

Feels like opening presents before Christmas. Are we nearing the tipping point where science trumps ideology?

kbray in california
November 29, 2012 6:19 pm

Don’t forget this one:
http://www.petitionproject.org/index.php
Now up to 31,487 Skeptical American Scientists.
That’s about 50 times the number of “scientists” that are seriously involved in the United Nations IPCC process.
That would put the “scientists” promoting CO2 global warming at 2% of the combined groups.

trafamadore
November 29, 2012 6:21 pm

I think I saw somewhere, I dont remember the exact numbers at all but, that of some 30,000 articles on climate only some 25 make an argument against AGW. So with 5 people per paper, think those 125 are the ones?
Somehow I doubt it…
I also heard in a talk earlier this evening (my stomach growling thru the whole thing) that 96% of all warming is due to humans, and almost 100% since 1970. My “Precautionary Principle” is we should do what we can to stop AGW, but it still wont be enuf.

ol;d construction worker
November 29, 2012 6:33 pm

I wish I could sign the petition but I’m just an old construction worker who has been and still working outside in this weather/climate. I believe we are in a similar weather pattern that we had back in the late 60’s. A the weather pattern that made London Fog coats famous.

clipe
November 29, 2012 6:38 pm
Greg House
November 29, 2012 6:41 pm

There is one thing I do not understand. Why on Earth did those 125 persons choose to write to the Secretary-General of the United Nations? This man has no political power. Who cares what he says about climate or anything else? I can not imagine that anybody does. He has no influence on political decisions.

November 29, 2012 6:49 pm

Moderators, please use your judgment in releasing this comment. I mean no disrespect to anyone.
My apologies to the blog, however, I wondered what has been happening today in in the minds of those who are participants in Doha, Qatar with respect to this particularly powerful letter you know they have viewed.
As soon as I finished reading the list of those who signed the letter,,,, I thought of what crossed the minds of the organizing body.
I wonder what the participants are thinking right now too?

🙂

Neville
November 29, 2012 6:49 pm

Even if every scientist on earth believed fanatically in CAGW there is zero that can be done about it.
See co2 emissions until 2035 from the EIA. The warmist should take their protest to China and India c.
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/emissions.cfm The OECD will increase by 6% and the non OECD will increase by 73% by 2035.
Simple facts, simple maths and a simple graph, so what is it these fools don’t understand? The OECD could all retire to caves and it still wouldn’t make a jot of difference to climate or thr temp.
Meanwhile they’re quite happy to waste trillions $ until 2100 for a big fat zero return on their investment.
They are all completely barking mad with no logic and no reason.

michael hart
November 29, 2012 6:52 pm

Lew Skannen says:
November 29, 2012 at 6:06 pm
I agree with the sentiments but I feel we are going to a Politics Gunfight with a Science Knife.

No. Science holds the Aces. Global-warming is just a busted-flush, waiting to be called.
The problem is, some people will get cold while we wait for the game to end.
E.g. http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/energy-bill-sparks-protests/

November 29, 2012 7:04 pm

Lew Skannen says:
November 29, 2012 at 6:06 pm
I agree with the sentiments but I feel we are going to a Politics Gunfight with a Science Knife.
**********************************************************************************************************************
The pen is mightier than the sword to use an old quote. Just look at the Arab spring and all that is happening in the world. Eventually the truth will prevail. Wrongheadedness will win for a time, but if it is wrong, it will fail.

November 29, 2012 7:08 pm

Greg House says:
November 29, 2012 at 6:41 pm
There is one thing I do not understand. Why on Earth did those 125 persons choose to write to the Secretary-General of the United Nations? This man has no political power. Who cares what he says about climate or anything else? I can not imagine that anybody does. He has no influence on political decisions.
=======================================================================
No political power? Debatable. But there’s no question that The UN wants their leader, whoever that may be at the time, to have political power.
There are a lot of names signed to that letter that know what they are talking about. (What was all that talk about “The Consensus”?)
Dismiss this as a “PR shot” if you like…but it’s a shot it in the right direction even if you don’t aprove of the target.
Maybe the problem is this shot might be heard?

November 29, 2012 7:16 pm

You get your PR attention any way you can. The 125 are correct but they are still thinking the issue is one of science. It is not and never has been it is and always has been political and economic power stemming from faith and ideology.

November 29, 2012 7:29 pm

Though this letter strikes a good cord, it will fall on deaf ears. The UN has an agenda to make national sovereignty a thing of the past. Empowered by a friendly media they can put their fingers in their ears and go la-la-la……la while they continue to use AGW as a sledgehammer toward their ends. The majority of Americans seem to be skeptics so it isn’t likely that legislative action is where the AGW agenda is advanced. It will come from the executive branch in new regs issued by various departments as well as executive orders straight from the president, which by the way, will make the UN very happy.

Greg House
November 29, 2012 7:51 pm

Gunga Din says: “But there’s no question that The UN wants their leader, whoever that may be at the time, to have political power.”
==========================================================
He is not a leader of the UN. There is no leader there.

David Ball
November 29, 2012 7:59 pm

Dennis Nikols says:
November 29, 2012 at 7:16 pm
“The 125 are correct but they are still thinking the issue is one of science. ”
Have you even read Dr. Ball’s articles? I doubt it, because you would know he has been fighting on both fronts for a long, long, time.

RobertInAz
November 29, 2012 8:26 pm

” Why on Earth did those 125 persons choose to write to the Secretary-General of the United Nations?”
The IPCC is essentially part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Chartered and supported by same. http://unfccc.int/2860.php.
——————–
The nice thing to see with all of the “climate scientists” on the list is signing this letter is not seen as a career limiting move.

November 29, 2012 8:33 pm

Judith is not on the list. She would’ve been right below Walter Cunningham.

November 29, 2012 8:39 pm

Greg House says:
November 29, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Gunga Din says: “No political power? Debatable. But there’s no question that The UN wants their leader, whoever that may be at the time, to have political power….
==========================================================
He is not a leader of the UN. There is no leader there.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
But they want a Fuehrer.
CAGW is the current excuse to empower one.

November 29, 2012 8:45 pm

Whether any exists or not, I’m sure evidence can be found to indict the signatories of this letter as shills for Big Oil.

RobertInAz
November 29, 2012 8:48 pm

“is Revkin going ‘soft’ on deniers??”
My conclusion is no.
His post concludes with: “Give a read and test your cultural filters by seeing how that conclusion makes you feel.” and a link to The Cultural Cognition Project. http://www.culturalcognition.net/
The cultural filters demonstrated by the project’s selection and description of cultural filters is a bit of a hoot.
While citing the most excellent analysis of the uncertainty of cloud models discussed here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/11/28/clouds-and-magic/. He falls back to the tried and true precautionary principle: “Uncertainty is the reason for acting in the near term, and that uncertainty cannot be used as a justification for doing nothing.” This even with flat temperatures.

Jim Clarke
November 29, 2012 9:04 pm

Revkin recommends that we read a paper with this as its conclusion:
“Uncertainty is the reason for acting in the near term, and that uncertainty cannot be used as a justification for doing nothing.”
Is this what passes for wisdom? I am sure the same argument was used by ancient high priests to continue human sacrifices. I cannot believe that any intelligent or sane person would argue that ignorance (uncertainty) justifies action! The only things that ignorance justifies is education and insurance. Carbon mitigation, with its zero return on investment, is not insurance.

Greg House
November 29, 2012 9:15 pm

Jim Clarke says: “I cannot believe that any intelligent or sane person would argue that ignorance (uncertainty) justifies action!”
======================================================
An evil intelligent person would. There are quite a few around.

Greg House
November 29, 2012 9:23 pm

Gunga Din says: “But they want a Fuehrer. CAGW is the current excuse to empower one.”
====================================================
And this should be a reason to write to an irrelevant person?

November 29, 2012 9:25 pm

RobertInAz says:
November 29, 2012 at 8:26 pm
” Why on Earth did those 125 persons choose to write to the Secretary-General of the United Nations?”
The IPCC is essentially part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Chartered and supported by same. http://unfccc.int/2860.php.
——————–
The nice thing to see with all of the “climate scientists” on the list is signing this letter is not seen as a career limiting move.
==================================================================
If I misread your intent, sorry in advance.
Fear and intimidation are tools used by those not as nice as the rest of us. We read stories of a mother or a father killing their own children. We can’t imagine any parent doing such a thing. Yet a few do. There are Green Goons out there that would take pleasure or at least think it was “for the greater good” if they could get anyone who doesn’t tow the green line fired from their job or harmed in some way. I comment as “Gunga Din” for a reason. Where I work we had an envirionmental audit. I could be in less trouble if I showed up drunk than if I didn’t know where the recycle bin was. The people doing the audit were nice. But they report to someone higher up. Fortunately, such audits don’t happen often. It used to be they never happened. I do have EPA licenses for what I do and used to do. But they go back to before the EPA went “green”. The EPA then just wanted to protect the environment so it could be used by people then and for years to come. What I do is a job that, over time, became a “career”.
My name on such a list wouldn’t mean much. Wouldn’t mean anything really.
If people think that these guys are all retired and aren’t risking anything (other than the ire of Mann), there’s an “H” of alot of knowlege and experience in that list list that shouldn’t be dismissed lightly.

November 29, 2012 9:33 pm

RobertInAz says:
November 29, 2012 at 8:26 pm
==========================================================
I looked at a few of your previous comments and realized that, yes, I did misread your intend. Sorry again. Cranial density does not improve with age.

November 29, 2012 9:43 pm

Gunga Din says:
November 29, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Greg House says:
November 29, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Gunga Din says: “No political power? Debatable. But there’s no question that The UN wants their leader, whoever that may be at the time, to have political power….
==========================================================
He is not a leader of the UN. There is no leader there.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
But they want a Fuehrer.
CAGW is the current excuse to empower one.
————————————————————————–
Oh no. That’s why he refuses to disappear into the sunset. No no, please not Gorebbels ….
…. please say it ain’t so.

November 29, 2012 9:51 pm

November 29, 2012 at 6:21 pm | trafamadore says:
—————————————————————-
Tralfamadore, if you’re trolling here for sympathy for your ” precautionary principal ” you’d be better off at the SS site. There’s nothing that mankind can do to prevent any changes in climate whether cooling or warming … Mankind is nothing more more than the proverbial ant on an elephants rump.

Robert A. Taylor
November 29, 2012 10:03 pm

The letter has:

The NOAA “State of the Climate in 2008” report asserted that 15 years or more without any statistically-significant warming would indicate a discrepancy between observation and prediction.

As a CAGW skeptic I wanted to have the exact quote from the report to use, and accessed the PDF document @NOAA.gov. For anyone else who wants it, the exact quote from pg 123 is:

”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.

This is under the pg 122 heading:

DO GLOBAL TEMPERATURE TRENDS OVER THE PAST DECADE FALSIFY CLIMATE PREDICTIONS?

Actually there are no page numbers on those two pages, and they are highlighted with a blue background rather than the normal white.

Phillip Bratby
November 29, 2012 11:12 pm

I can hardly wait to see this reported by the BBC. They love to report everything about the UN.

davidmhoffer
November 29, 2012 11:15 pm

Greg House says:
November 29, 2012 at 9:23 pm
Gunga Din says: “But they want a Fuehrer. CAGW is the current excuse to empower one.”
====================================================
And this should be a reason to write to an irrelevant person?
>>>>>>>>>>>>
The “irrelevant” person made a public statement to try and become relevant, and some other people made a public statement to try and ensure that he doesn’t become relevant. Don’t know how much easier it could be to understand….

Steve C
November 29, 2012 11:36 pm

Congratulations to all involved: thousands of us amateurs agree, despite our lack of official “intellectual weight”. Whether shouting at the self-defined deaf has any effect is another matter, of course, given that their rationale has nothing to do with science. We might hope, too, that the FP will draw this letter to the attention of their peers and maximise its exposure.

John Wright
November 29, 2012 11:59 pm

in Texas says:
November 29, 2012 at 8:33 pm
Judith is not on the list. She would’ve been right below Walter Cunningham.
I just left a word on her open thread to that effect.

RogerT
November 30, 2012 12:33 am

Pity they didn’t get 25 more signatures which would double number of scientists (out of 77) who are responsible for the “concensus” 🙂

mfo
November 30, 2012 3:13 am

Excellent letter. Well done to those who put their names to it. It’s brave to express your views about climate change openly as the NASA astronauts, scientists and engineers did recently. It demonstrates the lie about a consensus.
It shows that the vile holocaust comparison of using the term den**r is simply abuse due to a paucity of intellectual maturity on the part of CAGW activists including Mann (who should be ashamed considering his background).
As the letter relates to the UNFCCC bunfight at Doha it seems appropriate to send it to the UN Secretary General. But it is an open letter so it is naturally for everyone to see and sending it to Ban Ki-moon is more likely to get attention from the press for its main theme:
“There is no sound reason for the costly, restrictive public policy decisions proposed at the U.N. climate conference in Qatar. Rigorous analysis of unbiased observational data does not support the projections of future global warming predicted by computer models now proven to exaggerate warming and its effects.”
Ban Ki-moon will do nothing and no one expects him to. He is a pawn in the New Great Game which encompasses power structures and the CAGW scare. His ability to deal with corruption at the UN is suspect as Inga-Britt Ahlenius expressed to him in a letter in 2010.
Inga-Britt Ahlenius was a Swedish auditor and undersecretary general of the Office of Internal Oversight Services charged with combating corruption at the United Nations. She wrote to Ban-Ki Moon:
“There is no transparency, there is lack of accountability. Rather than supporting the internal oversight which is the sign of strong leadership and good governance, you have strived to control it which is to undermine its position. I do not see any signs of reform in the organisation.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/ssi/wpc/nations2.pdf

Elizabeth
November 30, 2012 3:22 am

Sticky post?

Gail Combs
November 30, 2012 3:24 am

trafamadore says:
November 29, 2012 at 6:21 pm
I think I saw somewhere, I dont remember the exact numbers at all but, that of some 30,000 articles on climate only some 25 make an argument against AGW. So with 5 people per paper, think those 125 are the ones?….
________________________________________
If you want that PhD, if you want Tenure, you do not rock the CAGW boat. There are lots and lots of paper around, I have read several, that have the “Get out of Peer-Review Free Card” “Although our research shows CAGW is a bunch of bunk, our research should not be used to trash CAGW because we do not want to look like we are ‘deniers’.”
So here is a list of papers that do not support CAGW although they may have that “Get out of Peer-Review Free Card” 1100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm
The fact that the “Get out of Peer-Review Free Card” is so common should make it clear to anyone who doesn’t have their mind cemented shut that CAGW is POLITICAL and not scientific. All it takes is ONE paper to disprove a theory and yet CAGW keeps coming back like a zombie from the “Night of the Living Dead ”
“Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.” ~ Thomas Huxley
16 years of no warming in the face of continued rise in CO2 is that ugly fact. There are plenty more but all have been ignored in the pursuit of $$$$.

Gail Combs
November 30, 2012 4:18 am

Gunga Din says:
November 29, 2012 at 8:39 pm
…..But they want a Fuehrer.
CAGW is the current excuse to empower one.
_______________________________________
The globalists even say that. Pascal Lamy is the Director General for the World Trade Organization. Twenty years ago he was Chief of Staff to the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors.

9 November 2009: Lamy sees need for “right global governance” to meet global challenges
“The reality is that the end of the cold war caught everyone by surprise. It was the end of a bi-polar world. A new world order was being born. And yet there was not enough thinking and discussion about its governance structures. There was never a Bretton Woods Conference or a San Francisco Conference post 1989. As a result global governance structures did not adjust. And here lies the root of many of today’s problems. Global challenges need global solutions and these can only come with the right global governance, which today, twenty years later, remains too weak.” …he said:
” …the world is in a state of serious distress. We are in the midst of the worst ever economic crisis and the first to have a global reach. A crisis which has seen a decimation of employment. We are seeing our planet deteriorate due to global warming. With severe droughts and violent floods. With entire islands disappearing under water….”
…What do I mean by global governance? For me global governance describes the system we set up to assist human society to achieve its common purpose in a sustainable manner, that is, with equity and justice…
…governance needs to provide leadership, the incarnation of vision, of political energy, of drive.
It also needs to provide legitimacy, which is essential to ensure ownership over decisions which lead to change. Ownership to prevent the in-built bias towards resistance to modify the status quo.….

CAGW and the economic crash were ENGINEERED to provide legitimacy for ‘global governance.’
Just in case you do not think that national sovereignty is the target. Lamy is quite blunt in stating he thinks national sovereignty is passé. He holds the EU up as the direction the world should go. … on the question of efficiency, Europe scores in my view rather highly. Thanks to the primacy of EU law over national law…
And he restates it here:

…more than half a century ago that the Frenchman Jean Monet, one of the shapers of post-war Europe, said, “The sovereign nations of the past can no longer provide a framework for the resolution of our present problems. And the European Community itself is no more than a step towards the organizational forms of tomorrow’s world.” His assessment was as valid then as it is now….
http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=8216

And again here:

…Yet, with the world becoming ever more interconnected and challenges become truly global, governance remains to a large extent local. The discrepancy between the reality of today’s interdependence, the challenges resulting from it, and the capacity of governments to agree politically on how to deal with them is striking.
For the international system is founded on the principle and politics of national sovereignty: the Wesphalian order of 1648 remains very much alive in the international architecture today. In the absence of a truly global government, global governance results from the action of sovereign States. It is inter-national. Between nations. In other words, global governance is the globalization of local governance.
But it does not suffice to establish informal groupings or specialized international organizations, each of them being “Member driven”, to ensure a coherent and efficient approach to address the global problems of our time. In fact, the Wesphalian order is a challenge in itself. The recent crisis has demonstrated it brutally. Local politics has taken the upper hand over addressing global issues. Governments are too busy dealing with domestic issues to dedicate sufficient attention and energy to multilateral negotiations, be they trade negotiations or climate negotiations….
http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sppl220_e.htm

Alan the Brit
November 30, 2012 4:33 am

Phillip Bratby says:
November 29, 2012 at 11:12 pm
I eagerly await such report also, but I won’t see it, unless it is tucked away a’la Interstella Highway planning application for the destruction of Earth in The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxay, i.e. buried under heeps of paperwork!
Ban is a liar, a deciever, just part of the whole slime that is modern politics. They are not interested in the truth, accuracy of science, demonstrable oberservational emperical evidence, they only want that which they can use to chieve their objective, Socialist Control of the World & ALL its resources, for financial gain (they couldn’t possibly have achieved it without the Bankers et al, nor the Neo-Fuedalists who just want to retain their wealth & status quo), then proceed to execute the New World Order they have created, ration resources to who they see fit, enrich their slimey chums around the Third World, so that their peoples can be even more impoverished & deprived at the expense & enrichment of their friends & tribal buddies! They want revenge for creating wealth, happiness, freedom from tyranny (their of course), improvement of the mind, increased knowledge & understanding, all must be controlled under the NWO Godless Religeon! Depressing I know, but don’t expect a response just like a couple of years ago, the bastard didn’t bother then, why would he bother now, regardless of the order of magnitude increase in signatories to an excellent letter!
🙁 AtB

observa
November 30, 2012 4:53 am

You’re walking down a dimly lit street and you’re aware there’s violence about and so naturally you’re uncertain about the next bloke you come across so WHACK!!
I was uncertain about him your Honour so I used the precautionary principle with great certainty.
And rightly so… case dismissed!

Alberta Slim
November 30, 2012 5:43 am

Well, a Canadian STARTED this CAGW fraud. Maurice Strong set up the WMO and then the IPCC.
“Bring down the capitalists” was his plan. I am now hoping another Canadian, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, will be influential in STOPPING this CAGW fraud.
I sent copies of the letter to the Prime Minister; the Energy Minister; the Environment Minister; the Finance Minister; my MP and a Senator.
Not that it will do any good. But every little bit may help.
BTW. I have numerous articles to these people over the last couple of years.

Zeke
November 30, 2012 6:03 am

It is a noble effort, and addressing it to the UN Secretary-General is appropriate, if only for the reason that money from the developed nations is expected to fill the Green Climate Fund.
For example, 10% of PM Julia Gillard’s carbon tax goes to the UN.
Julie Bishop 3 minute mark, 30 sec.

Jimbo
November 30, 2012 6:44 am

I keep hearing claims of extreme weather on the rise but they never offer the mountains of evidence they paid for. On the other hand there is evidence to the contrary.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/extreme-weather-page/
From the letter:

The U.K. Met Office recently released data showing that there has been no statistically significant global warming for almost 16 years. During this period, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations rose by nearly 9% to now constitute 0.039% of the atmosphere. Global warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather of the past few years.

Jimbo
November 30, 2012 7:07 am

I sometimes wonder who the real deniers are. After 16 years of continued upward rise in co2 global mean temp has been flat. Even IF temps started to fall Warmists would still insist that we must act now. Even 5 or 10 years of cooling and they would still cling onto “warming in the pipeline, we must act now”, while forgetting that (in the absence of major volcanic eruptions) the AGW theory, as it stands, would have been long falsified. Some say it already has at 15 years.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
[14.88 MB]

James Ard
November 30, 2012 7:08 am

Telling Moon the science doesn’t support his statements is an excercize in futility. Does anyone think he cares? These people will only be stopped by the likes of Chris Horner and the others, including Mr. FOI himself, who bring the rats into the light.

Tom Stone
November 30, 2012 7:49 am

“The science is clear; we should waste no more time on that debate.”
In other words, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, or who are you going to believe, me, or your lying eyes?

November 30, 2012 8:09 am

Thanks, Anthony, for helping bring attention to these brave scientists and what they have to say. Voices of reason.
The UN has this dream of world domination by unelected politicians.

Dave
November 30, 2012 8:37 am

Impressive list… but there are many well known skeptics that are missing… Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, McKitrick, McIntyre…

Ryan
November 30, 2012 9:14 am

“Our times demand a new definition of leadership – global leadership. They demand a new constellation of international cooperation – governments, civil society and the private sector, working together for a collective global good.”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Speech at World Economic Forum
Davos, Switzerland (29 January 2009)
It is easy to forget that the UN actually does its work through a whole host of agencies under its umbrella: for example WTO, WHO, UNICEF, ITU. IMF. There is CONSIDERABLE power, influence and cash within the UN and it will attempt to extend its power influence and wealth via the excuse of controlling the global environment. It will do so without any direct influence from the people nor with any scrutiny from independent bodies with the power to take action against UN corruption.

Werner Brozek
November 30, 2012 9:19 am

Robert A. Taylor says:
November 29, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Thank you! I wanted to find it as well, but when I saw how long it was, I gave up.
So where are we now? With 15 years, we are 95% certain something is wrong. And according to Santer, if I have it right, at 17 years we are 100% certain something is wrong. And with RSS having 0 slope for 15 years and 10 months, we must be around 97% certain something is wrong.

davidmhoffer
November 30, 2012 9:26 am

James Ard says:
November 30, 2012 at 7:08 am
Telling Moon the science doesn’t support his statements is an excercize in futility. Does anyone think he cares? These people will only be stopped by the likes of Chris Horner and the others, including Mr. FOI himself, who bring the rats into the light.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
ClimateGate II didn’t even make it into the MSM. This did. That’s not shining light on the rats?

November 30, 2012 9:38 am

James Ard says:
November 30, 2012 at 7:08 am
Telling Moon the science doesn’t support his statements is an excercize in futility. Does anyone think he cares? These people will only be stopped by the likes of Chris Horner and the others, including Mr. FOI himself, who bring the rats into the light.
=========================================================================
If the expectation was that he’d listen, maybe it was an exercise in futility. But he’s not the only one who heard what they said. Some who heard might even start to pay attention.

November 30, 2012 10:00 am

Having been in this fight for well over a dozen years, I concluded some time ago that approaches like the one we just made to the UN S-G do not have a direct effect.
In fact no approaches of this sort make a direct impact by itself.
There are a number of participants in this fight:
UN world governance protagonists,
The Quisling scientists,
The media,
The politicians,
The public,
The immediate beneficiaries.
In this mix, the politicians listen only to what the polls say about the next election.
The media also gauges from which direction the wind is blowing and does not antagonize its readers and thereby its advertising revenue.
The public is not interested in science and becomes only slowly aware of the cost of it all to its collective pocketbook. That is where things are indeed slowly changing.
However, from the point of view of effective advocacy, the science, interesting as it is, is not going to win the day with the politicians who do indeed have the power to pull nations out of accords – as Canada did with Kyoto. Nor with the public.
To the average politician, scientific evidence is “just another opinion”. He seems to be impervious to your and my argument. Politics sets his course.
Letters like this one to Mr Ban serve a purpose, because they address public opinion.
Whether you like it or not, that’s where it has to start.

P. Solar
November 30, 2012 10:12 am

Many thanks for those who do know what they are talking about in this field for correcting Gen.Sec Bim-Bam-Boom’s ignorant comments.
Both this IPCC and UNFCCC (spot the UN in UNFCCC) are were created by the U.N.
The U.N. is, right now, trying to set up a $100bn PER YEAR ‘climate’ slush fund with no accountability and no legal oversight.
Damn sure he’s going to say anything he can to try to push through that little baby.

Gail Combs
November 30, 2012 10:49 am

P. Solar says:
November 30, 2012 at 10:12 am
The U.N. is, right now, trying to set up a $100bn PER YEAR ‘climate’ slush fund with no accountability and no legal oversight.
_______________________________________________
Got any links??

Simon
November 30, 2012 10:53 am

OK, I am going to mention the elephant in the room here and ask the question… how many of the names on that list are practicing climate scientists? And before you all jump down my throat, it is very relevant. While it is nice to have clever people support the cause, in terms of carrying any weight…. this is pretty much a container full of feathers.

richardscourtney
November 30, 2012 11:12 am

Simon:
Your post at November 30, 2012 at 10:53 am is a nice try but a complete fail. It says
OK, I am going to mention the elephant in the room here and ask the question… how many of the names on that list are practicing climate scientists? And before you all jump down my throat, it is very relevant. While it is nice to have clever people support the cause, in terms of carrying any weight…. this is pretty much a container full of feathers.

The signatories to the list have each conducted climate science and almost all have published on climate science in the peer reviewed literature. Their relationship to climate science is stated by the name of each of the signatories.
It is plain daft to assert that anything said about climate science is “pretty much a container full of feathers” when it is said by
1. Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Dr. Sci., mathematician and astrophysicist, Head of the Selenometria project on the Russian segment of the ISS, Head of Space Research of the Sun Sector at the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
2. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, PhD, Professor of Physics, Emeritus and Founding Director, International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A.
3. Bjarne Andresen, Dr. Scient., physicist, published and presents on the impossibility of a “global temperature”, Professor, Niels Bohr Institute (physics (thermodynamics) and chemistry), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
etc.
Richard

Scottar
November 30, 2012 11:18 am

Man- Bear -Pig came out of his cave after the election and looked up at the sky. He shook his head exclaiming “Four more years of snow!” That pretty much sums up CAGW and the climate of politics.

davidmhoffer
November 30, 2012 11:24 am

Simon says:
November 30, 2012 at 10:53 am
OK, I am going to mention the elephant in the room here and ask the question… how many of the names on that list are practicing climate scientists? And before you all jump down my throat, it is very relevant. While it is nice to have clever people support the cause, in terms of carrying any weight…. this is pretty much a container full of feathers.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pretty much all of them if you bother to read the list. The container in this case appears to be your head.

Zeke
November 30, 2012 11:25 am

@Gail Combs
Here you go Gail.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/13749-un-seeking-global-carbon-regime-at-climate-summit-in-doha
Also, please see the above video which documents the commitment of 10% the Carbon Tax in Australia to the UN – an amount which will increase over time.

Jenn Oates
November 30, 2012 11:46 am

The science might not be settled, but these people’s opinions are. Won’t make a bit of difference, unfortunately.

Simon
November 30, 2012 11:55 am

richardscourtney
Sorry I mean actual climate scientists… not scientists.

P. Solar
November 30, 2012 12:11 pm

Gail Combs says:
November 30, 2012 at 10:49 am
P. Solar says:
November 30, 2012 at 10:12 am
The U.N. is, right now, trying to set up a $100bn PER YEAR ‘climate’ slush fund with no accountability and no legal oversight.
_______________________________________________
Got any links??
AFAICR it was on WUWT. re Durban meeting last year. All ministers signed ‘something’ but UN were doing their best to make sure no one knew what the text actually was. Proposed climate fund to be ‘managed’ by world bank. This is fundamentally what Durban was about. AFAICR they signed an agreedment that they would sign something legally binding by 2015.
An annual budget of that size would effectively be the treasury for their nacent world goverment. All in the hands of unelected beaurocrat politicians with the legal immunity of U.N.
What’s could possibly go wrong with such a system?

John Blake
November 30, 2012 12:16 pm

In September 2009, two months before Climategate and three months before the notorious Copenhagen Conference that December, Ban Ki-moon as UN panhandler-in-chief called for an “emergency transfusion” of $10 trillion –repeat, $10-trillion– to kleptocratic transnational agencies, on the premise that absent this amazing sum Planet Earth would be transformed to baking desert by January 2010.
Even the most fulsomely besotted Warmist media stayed clear of BKM thereafter. Though Railroad Bill Pachauri continued to practice “voodoo science” in regard to Himalayan glaciers, and could in no wise be induced to retire from his IPCC perch to soft-core authors’ heaven, observers’ nigh-uncontrollable urge to laugh-out-loud was just too strong.

David A. Evans
November 30, 2012 12:25 pm

A veritable who’s who with a name that stood out for me…
David Deming, PhD (Geophysics)
This is the man who Overpeck first approached to do the job that fell to the Mann.
DaveE.

davidmhoffer
November 30, 2012 1:06 pm

Simon says:
November 30, 2012 at 11:55 am
richardscourtney
Sorry I mean actual climate scientists… not scientists.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Alas, while I had surmised that it was Simon’s head that was the container he suggested was full of feathers, it appears it they have been displaced as the elephant in the room was producing substantial quantities of dung, and it had to be stored somewhere.
Really Simon? You’re that obtuse? READ THE LIST THEY ALMOST ALL CLIMATE SCIENTISTS!

observa
November 30, 2012 2:57 pm

“Sorry I mean actual climate scientists… not scientists.”
Simon trying to appeal to some higher authority in science like ‘climatologist’ or ‘climatology’ is like me and a few mates calling ourselves humanologists and forget all about those lower classes of medicos, shrinks, biologists, etc. It’s what these post normal pseudo scientists have done to cover for their lack of scientific rigour and stuffing cherry picked nonsense at times into computer models.
If a geologist says hang on a bit it’s in the rocks in the ground not the rocks in your heads, they immediately retreat back into the high priesthood of climatology. Same deal with a statistician challenging their statistical methods, etc. It’s what Big Climate and their IPCCs, Gores, etc does or haven’t you been keeping up?

observa
November 30, 2012 3:08 pm

But Simon, even if you believe in the hot Gospel of the self appointed high priests of Big Climate, how are they doing with their prescriptions and do they walk the talk mate? That might give you some clues about them even if you haven’t read a few of their internal emails and stuff.

Gail Combs
November 30, 2012 4:00 pm

Zeke says:
November 30, 2012 at 11:25 am
@Gail Combs
Here you go Gail.
____________________________
Thanks Zeke. I hope you saw the article over at Jo Nova’s
Did Julia really say that? She’s here to help bankers “get their share”?
It seems more and more the elite are ‘coming out of the closet’ about their plans for the planet.

Greg House
November 30, 2012 4:57 pm

Simon says: “OK, I am going to mention the elephant in the room here and ask the question… how many of the names on that list are practicing climate scientists?”
=======================================================
Does it require a tailor to say that the emperor has no clothes?
Another thing is that the statement in the latter is actually rather weak. It is like saying that the (naked) emperor has no tie.

Werner Brozek
November 30, 2012 7:13 pm

Robert A. Taylor says:
November 29, 2012 at 10:03 pm
For anyone else who wants it, the exact quote from pg 123 is:
”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.

That should be page 23, in the middle column in the blue part. However since page 23 is not numbered, you have to go to page 24 and scroll back up a page.

December 1, 2012 2:44 am

Lots of retired guys.
Won’t matter until someone who is CURRENTLY EMPLOYED in a position where he has CONTROL OF GRANTS turns against the consensus.
And that is physically impossible. When you’re immersed in the cashflow, you are absolutely incapable of turning against the philosophy that pays you.

Bean
December 1, 2012 6:03 am

The science was settled when the sun and stars circled the earth in crystal spheres. The science was settled when Newtonian physics was accepted. The science was settled when Einstein proposed the theory of relativity …
Science is never settled. If it was settled, it wouldn’t be science, it would be dogma.
There was an Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its principles still apply.

Bruce Cobb
December 1, 2012 7:22 am

Bravo to the signers, and may there be many more. They have shown great courage, or gumption, with no real upside, other than personal honor, with their reputations as scientists on the line. Those riding the CAGW gravy train, on the other hand…..

December 1, 2012 8:20 am

Simon says:
November 30, 2012 at 11:55 am
richardscourtney
Sorry I mean actual climate scientists… not scientists.
==========================================================================
I think Simon has a point.
To be considered a genuine “climate scientist” one must be able to produce Hot Air.
The signers do not produce Hot Air so they are not qualified to speak no matter what their qualifications.
The only people qualified to disagree with one of Simon’s “climate scientist” are those that continue to agree with them.

trafamadore
December 1, 2012 10:57 am

Gail Combs says: “If you want that PhD, if you want Tenure, you do not rock the CAGW boat.”
So that explains the fuddy-duddy index of the signees: 21 emeritus and 9 others retired? Could.
Of the remainder, 11 Canadians and one from the Heartland Inst.
It’s an unlikely group that you would expect to meet at a science convention, thats for sure.
Your comments on Tenure are probably right, because you haf to get a grant and betting against AGW isnt going to get you one. The other trouble is that it’s hard to get scientifically sound evidence for preliminary results against AGW, and that also does not help in grant-land.
But, grad students, you underestimate. They dont need to be funded, they just need to be upstarts. Of course they do haf to prove or disprove a hypothesis, and unfortunately, AGW seems to not end up in the “disprove” category these days. But you never know, there is always next year!

David Ball
December 1, 2012 11:33 am

trafamadore says:
December 1, 2012 at 10:57 am
“The other trouble is that it’s hard to get scientifically sound evidence for preliminary results against AGW”
Really? You cannot even use spell check and you expect to carry credibility on a statement like that?

D Böehm
December 1, 2012 11:52 am

trafamadore says:
“…it’s hard to get scientifically sound evidence for preliminary results against AGW…”
That is another example of how completely anti-science many academics are these days. trafamadore does not understand that scientific skeptics have nothing to prove. The onus is entirely on those promoting their evidence-free AGW conjecture. They are the ones who have the onus of providing scientifically sound, empirical, testable evidence showing that AGW exists — and of providing specific measurements of its effect. But as we know, there are no such measurements. An since AGW cannot be measured, it is only a conjecture.
Despite trafamadore’s attempt to turn the scientific method on its head, skeptics are not obligated to “disprove” a conjecture. There is no requirement for “preliminary results against AGW”, as trafamadore claims. That amounts to requiring that skeptics must prove a negative — a common fallacy prevalent among the climate alarmist crowd.
AGW is a conjecture. However, when there is no empirical, testable evidence, or any measurements showing a human signal in the climate record, AGW stops at the conjecture stage. AGW is neither a Hypothesis nor a Theory, since it is incapable of making any accurate or repeatable predictions.
There is a correlation between CO2 and temperature. But it is not the correlation that trafamadore wants. The only empirical measurements show that ∆CO2 follows ∆T. There are no measurements showing that ∆T causes ∆CO2. The fact that there has been no global warming for a decade and a half — as specifically predicted due to the rise in CO2 — casts serious doubt on the AGW conjecture.
AGW may exist. But if it does exist, it is so small an effect that it can and must be disregarded. Too much money has already been wasted chasing that elusive, unproven, speculative will o’ the wisp.

trafamadore
December 1, 2012 12:20 pm

D Böehm: “Despite trafamadore’s attempt to turn the scientific method on its head, skeptics are not obligated to “disprove” a conjecture. There is no requirement for “preliminary results against AGW”, as trafamadore claims. That amounts to requiring that skeptics must prove a negative — a common fallacy prevalent among the climate alarmist crowd.”
Hmmm? Do you not know how the science business works? By disproving hypothesis, that’s our business model. Like Edison with his 2000 light bulbs that didnt work. (Only mathematicians really prove things.) When we actually say we “prove” something, usually what we should be saying is that we have disproved all of the other hypothesis we can think of.
So, in AGW terms, the solar hypothesis of sun variability has been disproved, etc, etc, until the only one left… the CO2 thing you love… has not been disproved. So it sits there until someone thinks of a way to disprove it.
Pretty simple actually. And not so mysterious, I bet bet when you are looking for your cat in the house, you use the scientific method, disproving the living room hypothesis, the kitchen hypothesis, etc, etc, until you find him curled up on your pillow in the bedroom. (Dont forget the various controls, finding control cats in each room, that it’s your cat you found, and that your glasses are okay.)

Jimbo
December 1, 2012 12:24 pm

Simon says:
November 30, 2012 at 10:53 am
OK, I am going to mention the elephant in the room here and ask the question… how many of the names on that list are practicing climate scientists?

If you want to stick to a strict definition then let’s do so. Let’s try Dr. James Hansen or Dr. Michael Mann. You see, if Warmists claim physicists, astronomers, geologists, mathematicians and meteorologists capable of pronouncing on the climate then why not us?
I won’t even go into the theologian and failed politician Al Gore. 😉
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/jhansen.html
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/about/cv.php

Werner Brozek
December 1, 2012 12:29 pm

trafamadore says:
December 1, 2012 at 10:57 am
The other trouble is that it’s hard to get scientifically sound evidence for preliminary results against AGW
No trouble at all!
PDF document @NOAA.gov. For anyone else who wants it, the exact quote from pg 23 is:
”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
Data sets with a o slope for at least 15 years:
1. HadCrut3: since April 1997 or 15 years, 7 months (goes to October)
2. Sea surface temperatures: since March 1997 or 15 years, 8 months (goes to October)
3. RSS: since January 1997 or 15 years, 10 months (goes to October)
See the graph below to show it all.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.0/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/plot/rss/from:1997.0/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1

Jimbo
December 1, 2012 12:34 pm

Simon says:
November 30, 2012 at 10:53 am
———————–
Further to my last comment if Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Michael Mann qualify as climate scientists then according to the list of signatories 70% qualify as climate scientists. Unless of course you with to disqualify Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Michael Mann. 😉

Tapdog
December 1, 2012 12:35 pm

This group of 125 scientists is 60% larger than the infamous 78 (?) whose survey result gave us the “97% of climate scientists agree….” meme.
Some delectable corollaries here…..
e.g.
“Almost two thirds of climate scientists agree that climate warming fears are overstated and not yet fully understood”
“The great majority of climate scientists agree that climate warming fears are overstated and not yet fully understood”

D Böehm
December 1, 2012 1:04 pm

trafamadore says:
“Do you not know how the science business works? By disproving hypothesis, that’s our business model.”
OK, my hypothesis is that there are invisible faeries living in my garden. Go ahead, disprove that.
See, your problem is that there is no more real world, testable evidence for AGW than there is for garden faeries.
[Actually, the faerie example is only a conjecture — just like AGW.]
Because AGW is a conjecture, there is nothing to disprove. Find a way to make AGW a testable, measurable hypothesis, and we will falsify it if possible.
It is amazing how misunderstood the scientific method is among many academics. For trafamadore’s benefit I will propose a testable, falsifiable hypothesis:
At current and projected levels CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere
To falsify my hypothesis, trafamadore only needs to show global damage or harm conclusively due to the rise in ACO2. Any such ‘global harm’ must be directly attributable to human CO2 emissions, and using the scientific method, prove that the rise in anthropogenic CO2 has specifically caused verifiable global harm. Replicable scientific evidence [raw data] is necessary; keep in mind that models are not evidence. Otherwise, no harm = “harmless”. [Upon request I will provide solid scientific evidence proving that more CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere.]
There is an example of an actual hypothesis, as opposed to a conjecture. Falsify it, if you can. You will be the first to do so, and on the short list for a [now worthless] Nobel Peace Prize.
With any luck trafamadore will now understand the difference between a conjecture [an opinion] and a testable hypothesis.

Werner Brozek
December 1, 2012 1:09 pm

trafamadore says:
December 1, 2012 at 12:20 pm
So, in AGW terms, the solar hypothesis of sun variability has been disproved
I would suggest that you view the hour long video:
More WUWT.TV: Interview and presentation with Dr. Sebastian Lüning
He wrote “Die Kalte Sonne” (The cold sun) with Dr. Franz Vahrenholt
Then you may wish to comment on that thread and set Dr. Sebastian Lüning straight.

Greg House
December 1, 2012 1:49 pm

trafamadore says: “So, in AGW terms, the solar hypothesis of sun variability has been disproved, etc, etc, until the only one left… the CO2 thing you love… has not been disproved. So it sits there until someone thinks of a way to disprove it.
Pretty simple actually. And not so mysterious, I bet bet when you are looking for your cat in the house, you use the scientific method, disproving the living room hypothesis, the kitchen hypothesis, etc, etc, until you find him curled up on your pillow in the bedroom.”
======================================================
I have just looked for an elephant in my house using your scientific method. I searched all the rooms except the kitchen. No elephant found, hence it must be in the kitchen.
Wait, I have an idea, how you can easily get 1,000,000 dollar cash. Search for 1,000,000 dollar cash in every room in you house except the kitchen. Didn’t find anything? Congratulations, the cash is in the kitchen!
Back to “the CO2 thing you love”. The hypothesis about “greenhouse gases” allegedly warming the surface by their back radiation was indeed disproved 103 years ago by a simple experiment. It is so easy, you do not even need to make your hands dirty by using “greenhouse gases”(http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html). The experiment demonstrates that back radiation either does not work at all or it’s effect is negligible.

David Ball
December 1, 2012 2:03 pm

Wtf is “trafamadore”? I am familiar with Tralfamadore. Cannot spell, cannot get a reference correct, why is anyone even bothering with this clown?

trafamadore
December 1, 2012 2:16 pm

D Böehm says: “OK, my hypothesis is that there are invisible faeries living in my garden. Go ahead, disprove that.”
Okay, you’re doing okay. Next, remember, H’s are answers to Q’s. So your question is, I think, “What lives in my qarden?” So you must have a whole family of H’s to test then (you know, for rabbits, moles, etc), and some of them will be testable. The faery one, not, unless you have a faery meter, and control faeries to test it with. (I am fairly sure faery meters will be developed when we get a god meter)
AGW? I would argue that we are in the sad process of asking the Q, “What happens if we double the amt of CO2 in the air?”, for better or worse, later in the century.
We should hit 400 ppm CO2 soon, maybe next summer.

Gail Combs
December 1, 2012 2:22 pm

David Ball says:
December 1, 2012 at 11:33 am
trafamadore says:
December 1, 2012 at 10:57 am
“The other trouble is that it’s hard to get scientifically sound evidence for preliminary results against AGW”
Really? You cannot even use spell check and you expect to carry credibility on a statement like that?
___________________________________
David, He is correct. If you can not get funding for the project then you can not get the evidence. This is main way scientific results are controlled by the politicians.
Remember what happened to Dr. Jaworowski.

….Dr. Jaworowski has devoted much of his professional life to the study of the composition of the atmosphere, as part of his work to understand the consequences of radioactive fallout from nuclear-weapons testing and nuclear reactor accidents. After taking numerous ice samples over the course of a dozen field trips to glaciers in six continents, and studying how contaminants travel through ice over time, he came to realize how fraught with error ice-core samples were in reconstructing the atmosphere. The Chernobyl accident, whose contaminants he studied in the 1990s in a Scandinavian glacier, provided the most illumination.
“This ice contained extremely high radioactivity of cesium-137 from the Chernobyl fallout, more than a thousand times higher than that found in any glacier from nuclear-weapons fallout, and more than 100 times higher than found elsewhere from the Chernobyl fallout,” he explained. “This unique contamination of glacier ice revealed how particulate contaminants migrated, and also made sense of other discoveries I made during my other glacier expeditions. It convinced me that ice is not a closed system, suitable for an exact reconstruction of the composition of the past atmosphere.”
Because of the high importance of this realization, in 1994 Dr. Jaworowski, together with a team from the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technics, proposed a research project on the reliability of trace-gas determinations in the polar ice. The prospective sponsors of the research refused to fund it, claiming the research would be “immoral” if it served to undermine the foundations of climate research.
The refusal did not come as a surprise. Several years earlier, in a peer-reviewed article published by the Norwegian Polar Institute, Dr. Jaworowski criticized the methods by which CO2 levels were ascertained from ice cores, and cast doubt on the global-warming hypothesis. The institute’s director, while agreeing to publish his article, also warned Dr. Jaworowski that “this is not the way one gets research projects.” Once published, the institute came under fire, especially since the report soon sold out and was reprinted. Said one prominent critic, “this paper puts the Norsk Polarinstitutt in disrepute.” Although none of the critics faulted Dr. Jaworowski’s science, the institute nevertheless fired him to maintain its access to funding…
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=25526754-e53a-4899-84af-5d9089a5dcb6

Unfortunately this story has played out many many times when ever a honest scientist gets crosswise of $$$ or a political agenda. Lying and cheating pays, honesty gets you fired and ultimately blackballed. BTDT and have the T-shirt.

trafamadore
December 1, 2012 2:23 pm

Greg House says: “I have just looked for an elephant in my house using your scientific method. I searched all the rooms except the kitchen. No elephant found, hence it must be in the kitchen.
Wait, I have an idea, how you can easily get 1,000,000 dollar cash. Search for 1,000,000 dollar cash in every room in you house except the kitchen. Didn’t find anything? Congratulations, the cash is in the kitchen!”
Two examples of papers that dont get published because of incomplete experiments.

RACookPE1978
Editor
December 1, 2012 2:30 pm

OK.
CO2 was steady for 175 years, temperatures rose.
CO2 was steady for 25 years, temperatures dropped.
CO2 was steady for 25 years, temperatures increased.
CO2 was steady for 25 years, temperatures rose.
CO2 has increased about 10% over a 20 year period, temperatures dropped.
CO2 has increased about 10% over a 25 year period, temperatures increased.
CO2 has increased about 10% over a 15 year period, temperatures were steady.
So, CO2 increases to 400 ppm over the next 20 years, temperatures will either drop, be steady, or increase.
Why kill millions of people and force billions of innocents to live in abject poverty while trying uselessly to limit CO2?
You “religiously” try to force a “precautionary principle” on others (but not yourself!) which deliberately and maliciously kills innocents in order to “prevent” a “absolute and beneficial” increase in CO2 in order to “perhaps” prevent an inconsequential and meaningless increase in CO2 that “might” prevent a beneficial increase in temperature!

pax
December 1, 2012 2:32 pm

Oliver the-sun-is-made-of-iron Manuel is one of the undersigned.

Gail Combs
December 1, 2012 3:20 pm

David Ball says:
December 1, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Wtf is “trafamadore”? I am familiar with Tralfamadore. Cannot spell, cannot get a reference correct, why is anyone even bothering with this clown?
__________________________________
For the silent majority who read this site but never comment. I always try to keep in mind that WUWT has a large audience.

D Böehm
December 1, 2012 3:35 pm

“trafamadore” is questioning my faery example by pointing out that I don’t have a faery meter: “…unless you have a faery meter, and control faeries to test it with.”
EXACTLY!! trafamadore might actually be starting to get it: we DO NOT HAVE an AGW meter. We have no verifiable, testable data showing that AGW exists. Therefore, AGW remains an evidence-free conjecture. It may or may not exist. If it does exist, it is clearly too small to bother with, since its effect is too minuscule to measure.
Unfortunately, ‘trafamadore’ shows that he is ruled by his emotions, not by facts, because he uses words like “for better or worse”, and “sad”. He is a frightened True Believer. His mind is made up, and closed air tight. Without any confirming evidence, he believes that AGW will be a global catastrophe.
trafamadore refuses to accept what the planet is plainly telling us: that CO2 is not causing the predicted harm. He will not even attempt to falsify my hypothesis that CO2 is harmless and beneficial. Because like any True Believer, trafamadore’s mind is already made up. Scientific facts only cause cognitive dissonance.
OTOH, regular WUWT readers know that these scares routinely come and go, and that there is always a technological fix if there is ever an actual problem. So far though, AGW is a non-problem. That is a fact, as the planet is demonstrating.

thingadonta
December 1, 2012 4:33 pm

The reason there are periodic scares throughout history without much reference to any data, is the same reason as any other attempt to overthrow an existing order, to gain and control power and resources.
If any group wishes to re-model a society, their evidence and reasons have to be pretty darn good, but first and foremost they generally need the backing of the larger portion of society to do it.
Elements of the climate change movement have specifically targeted and attacked natural resources, in order to gain and control power and resources. Communists targeted economic resources, the old religions targeted social resources, and climate change alarmists target natural resources.
This tendancy to attack the existing order with threats or doom and gloom is so pervasive throughout history it has probably become ingrained into the collective consciousness, where dropouts and misfits instinctively resort to ‘end of the world is coming billboards’ regardless of the current situation or evidence; these people represent the lower end of the social tendancy, (whether at high levels and sophisticated, or at lower levels of the social stratum and rudimentary), of the constant Darwinian internal struggle for power and resources within societies and cultures. The important point to know, is that this tendancy to prophesise doom and gloom isn’t confined to the local village misfit or the daily spam email, it can even pervade high level science and other institutions, such as the world bank. And the people who seem the most prone to believing and promoting it, can be intelligent and otherwise worldly, but they are usually blissfully naive and unaware of the flaws in both human nature and the tendancy to this historic pattern, which makes it all the more likely for them to continmue to be deceived and to self-deceive themselves.
The climate change movement could be onto something true and relevant, if they adopted the methods of verifiable and reproducable empirical science , but their methodology and style reveal that some high level alarmists have abandoned science and prefer to tap into a deeper revolutionary social instinct that is mechanistic and therefore has little to do with external reality, to gain control of natural resources through prophecies of doom and collapse, in order to subvert the broader social system.
Call me paranoid, except that history and the local village misfit attests to it; it has always been the same, different age, different words, but the same underlying desire to fabricate information to control through fear and distortion.

trafamadore
December 1, 2012 4:34 pm

D Böehm: from your “these scares routinely come and go”:
“The great crisis vanished when millions of horses were replaced by motor vehicles. This was possible because of the ingenuity of inventors and entrepreneurs such as Gottlieb Daimler and Henry Ford, and a system that gave them the freedom to put their ideas into practice.”
So, by analogy, you mean to suggest that carbon based energy might be replaced?
RACookPE1978 says: “Why kill millions of people and force billions of innocents to live in abject poverty while trying uselessly to limit CO2? You “religiously” try to force a “precautionary principle” on others.”
But aren’t you doing the same if you are wrong? Sorry, it works both ways. And you are the one betting against the scientists, not me.

David Ball
December 1, 2012 4:45 pm

pax says:
December 1, 2012 at 2:32 pm
So show that he is wrong. Should be easy.

David Ball
December 1, 2012 4:49 pm

Gail Combs says:
December 1, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Gail, with all due respect, that is not what he is saying. Read it again.

David Ball
December 1, 2012 4:50 pm

He is saying there is no science to go up against the AGW meme.

Gail Combs
December 1, 2012 4:51 pm

D Böehm says: @ December 1, 2012 at 3:35 pm
trafamadore refuses to accept what the planet is plainly telling us: that CO2 is not causing the predicted harm. He will not even attempt to falsify my hypothesis that CO2 is harmless and beneficial.
_________________________________
Co2 is not only beneficial, it is absolutely necessary for life on this planet. I have nightmares that someone will come up with a CO2 sequestering method that really works and the idiotic politicians will demand CO2 levels be lowered to 100 ppm.
Here is the most famous case of such idiocy

The Indiana Pi Bill, 1897
This is Indiana House Bill No. 246, 1897, known as the Indiana pi bill. Towards the end of section 2 it says plainly that “The ratio of the diameter and circumference is as five-fourths to four,” which means pi is 3.2. The section goes on the criticize (ungenerously, I’d say) past values of pi as “wholly wanting and misleading.”
Purdue Univ.

D Böehm
December 1, 2012 6:30 pm

“trafamadore” says:
“So, by analogy, you mean to suggest that carbon based energy might be replaced?”
No. I was not making an analogy. I was pointing out the fact that you are alarmed by something that has no convincing supporting evidence. A self-serving climate witch doctor cult has you convinced that a tiny trace gas, which has failed to cause any global warming for a decade and a half, is about to cause runaway global warming and climate disruption. That is crazy.
“trafamadore” also responded to RA Cook, again incorrectly:
“…you are the one betting against the scientists, not me.”
Wrong again. There is no scientific “consensus” that CO2 will cause climate disruption and runaway global warming. There is a tiny but loud clique that uses that scare tactic to enrich itself by frightening scientifically illiterate true believers.
The real scientific consensus is reflected in the 31,400+ co-signers of the OISM Petition, which states in part:

The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

The climate alarmist clique has tried repeatedly to get more signatures on its many counter-petitions to the OISM Project. They have failed miserably, getting a total of only a small fraction of the OISM numbers [and many are duplicate signatures]. Thus, they are not the ‘consensus’. Most scientists know the truth: the catastrophic AGW scare is fueled by grant money and status, not by scientific evidence.
The OISM Petition co-signers are from the U.S. only; all have professional degrees, specifically in the hard sciences, and co-signers include more than 9,000 PhD’s. They are mainstream scientists who know and understand science and the scientific method. Furthermore, they did not have the option of emailing in their petition signatures; they had to download and print out their petition forms, sign them, pay the postage and mail them in. The fact that tens of thousands of American scientists went out of their way to take a stand — stating that CO2 is both harmless and beneficial — means more than all the evidence-free climate alarmist nonsense put together.
“trafamadore” is simply a sheltered Chicken Little in his academic ivory tower, who has mindlessly bought into the pseudo-scientific global warming scare. He gets no traction here at the internet’s “Best Science” site because WUWT readers are much more knowledgeable and educated than most blog readers. We have debated every aspect of AGW, and we know all the arguments inside-out. We know that Planet Earth is not cooperating with the relatively small climate alarmist clique, and we know that the planet doesn’t lie. Neither the planet, nor science, nor empirical observations support the catastrophic AGW scare. It is a false alarm. Those perpetuating that false alarm use name-calling and emotion, because they do not have the science or reasonable arguments to support their belief system.
Sixteen years, and counting…

What Did I Tell You!?
December 1, 2012 6:45 pm

Those of you who are with the UN ASK YOURSELVES WHERE this CAME FROM that people in poor countries were going to be offered the opportunity to sterilize themselves.
Ask yourself what good comes from pretense that it is science teaching your children that there may be Magic Gas properties whereby some gases have heat handling characteristics that were never discovered in 50 years’ experience around the world with highly trained men in submarines where the CO2 levels rise and remain in the THOUSANDS of parts per million for YEARS. For DECADES: not ONE thermodynamical, mechanical, hydraulic, electrical, nuclear, electronic, not ONE engineer ever put ONE extra part on a submarine ventilation system due to CO2 heat handling.
Not ONE NOTE on a piece of PAPER or a JOURNAL of SCIENCE ANYWHERE from someone noting the HEAT HANDLING CHARACTERISTIC of CO2/water/methane as DIFFERENT from any other class of gas, associated with it’s spectral frequency resonance..
The ENTIRE INFRARED ASTRONOMY FIELD in it’s ENTIRE HISTORY has no record of it’s adherents taking photos through filters showing the amount of infrared in the atmosphere rising alongside ANY gas classes’ presence.
And there is NO WAY to CHECK THIS STORY?
WHAT????
This MAGIC GAS story has been CHECKED and CHECKED and ONLY the AUTHORITY of EMPLOYEES of the US and other governments, who make money on GRANTS, say they believe it is
IMPOSSIBLE
to
CHECK the MAGICAL GAS STORY.
If you around the world value your grandchildren’s memories of you, you need to ask yourself which sly crimes based on fraud YOU want to be remembered for approving, because before these people ever got fully off the GROUND
they were PUTTING FORTH that PEOPLE
need to be STERILIZED.
You NEED to look at the PEOPLE who CLAIM they BELIEVE in the MAGIC GAS story meaning your tribe
has to all be sterilized
so the other tribes don’t get offended by you breathin.

mbw
December 1, 2012 10:27 pm

One of the “scientists” who signed this letter is Anthony Watts. You guys crack me up.

December 1, 2012 10:31 pm

Louis says: ”Scientists of the past, like Einstein, invited others to prove them wrong. Scientists of today seem to think it’s a waste of time to even engage in debate on their theories”
Louis, both camps prefer not to debate, what doesn’t suit them; because both cams are NOT confident in their theories. .I’ve challenged many of them, from both camps” ”to disprove my proofs, facts and formulas -> they run for cover – like cockroaches, when you turn the lights on.
Warmist are lying; there isn’t such a thing as GLOBAL warming. BUT, the ”Skeptics” bringing proofs as: 1] sunspots were monitored for 6000years (when UN has the day and company that made the filter, to see sunspots at 2005-6AD!!! 2] confusing the real / regular climatic changes with phony GLOBAL warmings is more prolific by the skeptics, than Warmist +++++++ = bureaucrats / politicians shouldn’t be blamed. When a ”Skeptic” compare present temp, against 12-13 century and pretend to know the difference in one hundredth of a degree… bureaucrats / politicians need to choose between two compulsive / chronic liars

Bruce Cobb
December 2, 2012 10:36 am

mbw says:
December 1, 2012 at 10:27 pm
One of the “scientists” who signed this letter is Anthony Watts. You guys crack me up.
That makes one of you. Maybe it’s time to have your head examined. Of course, your type found kids heads exploding because they didn’t toe the line on your Warmist religion, so that could explain it.

mpainter
December 2, 2012 11:24 am

trafamadore
I congratulate you. Not once on this thread have you claimed that the globe is warming, or that the oceans are acidifying, or that the sky is falling. I feel much better about you.

D Böehm
December 2, 2012 2:32 pm

mbw says:
“One of the ‘scientists’ who signed this letter is Anthony Watts. You guys crack me up.”
From my handy desktop dictionary:
scientist |ˈsīəntist|
n. a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences.

Thus, Anthony Watts qualifies as a true scientist.
Pretty sure you’re not, though.
.
psion says:
“Once again, you pretend you know what you’re talking about. Are you a geospinologist with recent scientific publications, Mr. Watts regarding what makes the world go ’round? No?”
As a matter of fact, Anthony Watts is a published, peer reviewed author in the field of climatology. So thanx for the opportunity to expose your pathetic ignorance.
Run along now back to your thinly trafficked echo chamber alarmist blog. You need some new talking points, because it’s clear you can’t think for yourself.

December 4, 2012 4:08 pm

I describe the whole open letter project in “Behind the scenes – preparing the open letter to the U.N. Secretary General on his climate science mistakes” and answer the questions:
– Where did it come from?
– Who wrote it?
– Why are some of the best known climate skeptics not among the now 130+ endorsers?
– Why did most mainstream media not report on the letter?
There is nothing secret about all this so here are the answers to these questions:
http://www.fcpp.org/blog/behind-the-scenes-preparing-the-open-letter-to-the-u-n-secretary-general-on-his-climate-science-mistakes/
Tom Harris
International Climate Science Coalition
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org