Last week on Friday August 1st you may recall that I commented on the release of the Draft report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
In that post I mentioned that “The draft document reads more like a news article in many places than it does a scientific document, and unlike a scientific document, it has a number of what I would call “emotionally based graphics” in it that have nothing to do with the science.”
One of those graphics that tug at your heartstrings turns out to be a fabrication, pure and simple. Here is page 58 of the NCDC authored report:
Click for a larger image. Note the arrow pointing to this photo:
Image above taken directly from the CCSP report.
There’s been a discussion on Climate Audit about this photo, namely that it has the flood waters “photoshopped” in.
When I showed it to my graphic artist at my office he said, “no problem, I can recreate that using any house photo and a Photoshop filter.
I had contemplated having him do just that, but it turns out proving this photo to be a digital fabrication is a lot easier.
Simply go to IstockPhoto.com, where you can buy this photo online:
Click image for original source location
But apparently, the lead authors of the report didn’t see the caveat that comes with the photo:
Here’s another graphical rendering of water by the same photographer/photoshopper. Doomsday in Seattle or as the caption describes it: “An apocalyptic view of Seattle sunken into Puget Sound.”
But the real question is, with so many different photos of real flooded houses available, why did they choose one that was not real? Surely they know such a report will be highly scrutinized?
As I said last week, the use of graphics in the report makes it look more like a news article than a scientific paper, and if principal National Climatic Data Center authors Dr.’s Thomas Karl and Peterson can’t even bother to check if the photos they use are real or not, or even spot such obvious fakes, it makes one wonder just how much fact checking went into the other parts of the report.
Do you think our policy makers, for which this report is intended, would be smart enough to catch such things?
Hat tip: various contributors on this Climate Audit thread
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Overcast: you’re right, spot on, (or two spots!) This is actually an ad for water skiing, you can see the slope quite clearly.
[…] 5. 2008 07:51 Wow, who would’ve guessed that fearmongering global warming advocates would have to stoop to using Photoshopped flood images in order to provide “evidence” to support their cause? Convincing proof. As Anthony Watts points […]
… My mind shut down as I read that blurb:
Quote:
The discovery that the sunlight reaching Earth is dimming and the implications that has for global climate change, is examined. Included: how researchers used the days after 9/11, when aircraft were grounded in the U.S., to study how plane vapor trails affect the atmosphere; and how less pollution in the atmosphere may have the unintended consequence of accelerating global warming.
I keep reading it, yet it still doesn’t make sense to me. I guess I wasn’t expecting that on the Public Indoctrination Station.
Climate Fauxtography!…
Wow, who would’ve guessed that fearmongering global warming advocates would have to stoop to using Photoshopped flood images in order to provide “evidence” to support their cause?
Convincing proof.
As Anthony Watts points out, this photo is av…
or Piltdown Manor
which ever pun you like better. When people are convinced of the truth of their beliefs they will go to any length to reinforce them and defend them. The
Actually the Midwest floods occurred due to cool air still pusing southward when it normally would have stopped, clashing with the warmer air.
Katrina? If the 2005 season was an example of warming, is the subsequent lack of hurricanes in the following years an example of cooling? Or was it just
a random atmospheric event?
“Climate change”. The term is a dramatic change from.”Global warming”. Warming states a path that can be defined, assessed for accuracy. Climate change is a vague, ill defined term, deliberately political garbage, that encompasses all changes in weather patters. Climate change has a 100% chance of occurring because the climate has always changed. “Climate change” was adopted as the enviros ran for political cover as the IPCC warming model has fallen apart very rapidly. In fact, the Warming movement now defines global cooling as a part of global warming.
“have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us”
from http://www.donmarquis.com/readingroom/archybooks/moth.html
I should have read this before the fatal redhead. Oh well, live and burn.
Drat! One of these days I’ll learn how to turn off italics.
Photoshopped images have all kinds of things put into them that unsuspecting people will not find, but brings mischievous pleasure to the original artist to see it slip by the buyer.
That is a naked woman. I am guessing the other is either a gremlin or ET.
Since someone asked about John Galt, consider this quote from the “State Science Institute” concerning “Reardon Metal” and how similar in tone it sounds to things we hear everyday now.
“It may be possible that after a period of heavy usage a sudden fissure may appear, though the length of this period cannot be predicted. The possibility of a molecular reaction, at present unknown, cannot be entirely discounted. Although the tensile strength of the metal is obviously demonstrable, certain questions in regard to its behavior under unusual stress are not to be ruled out. Although there is no evidence to support the contention that the use of the metal should be prohibited, a further study of its properties would be of value.”
Anyone who has not read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, has not done so at their own peril. Find a copy and read it at once! Besides having way too many parallels to the world as it is today it is, to borrow a phrase, a ripping good yarn.
Several commentators suggest that the data manipulation and faked photos and graphics should be brought to the attention of a congressman. This is the worst sort of wishful thinking.
The Democrat majority in both Houses of Congress is subject to the strict control of Commissars Pelosi and Reid. The will do nothing. The Republicans are powerless to do anything as shown by their current futile attempt to force the House back into session.
Seek aid from a Democrat and you will get platitudes and hollow promises to investigate. Republicans in the House are powerless. In the Senate Coburn has shown great courage and tenacity by blocking all disputed legislation from being considered. To date, Reid cannot get the 60 votes he needs to submit those bills to a vote.
Democracy in action can be ugly.
It these are “experts”, then bigger problems with their report than faked photos… read the text next to the photo, last line… cryptosporidia and giardia are not bacteria… they are protozoa
Paddy: “Democracy in action can be ugly.” Yes, and so can a Representative Republic, which is precisely the show you’re watching. You must have been thinking of The Democracy Hour on another channel. Thankfully, the Republic makes it possible for a minority to block the majority. That’s what the Founding Dads intended — make it difficult to get ANYTHING done. Sometimes it works for you, sometimes it works against you. In this case, I say it’s to our advantage. Lord help us if Reid can get his 60 heads in the Senate in the coming election.
Great discussion, BTW. I’m loving it.
The Democrat majority in both Houses of Congress is subject to the strict control of Commissars Pelosi and Reid. The will do nothing. The Republicans are powerless to do anything as shown by their current futile attempt to force the House back into session.
Paddy
Paddy, the President himself can call Congress back into an emergency, “special session”, and it has to occur – as far as I know. Even Speaker Pelosi agrees that the energy crunch, which affects nearly everyone not “rich” – and may tank the economy/nearly everyone’s wealth for many years, at best – is an emergency, as evidenced by her specific proposal to draw down the Strategic Reserves, which are specifically designed to confront “National emergencies”.
I have no idea why the President would not call Congress back into a special session. If he does not, I’m going to have to have some pretty good explanations for “why not”.
If McCain gets in, all he has to do in the Senate is what Ford did (brilliantly) in the House: forge a coalition of his own people together: If he can hold the dems below 60, he retains the filibuster. If he holds a third-plus-one, he can at least veto any legislation he chooses.
Ford was a consummate intellectual and a brilliant debater (and an all-American athlete) who will go down in history as a clumsy moron because he cleverly worked it out so he was able to veto the “veto-proof congress” over 40 times (a record, and IIRC he was never once overridden). Ford will be forever scorned for his “pathetic” WIN program, which cut inflation by half in two years, hadn’t you heard? (No, I thought not.)
The way most of you feel about Ford is a tribute to the incredible power of a vehemently hostile and dishonest, vicious press. Something we flat-earther, extremist, denier, creationist, lunatic fringe, pseudoscientfic, greedy, heedless, prejudiced, criminally destructive, low-IQ big oil stooges should bear very heavily in mind.
Paddy, the President himself can call Congress back into an emergency
First, it’s not an actual emergency. Second, I think dubya would far rather shake his head sadly and watch Reid and Pelosi twist slowly in the wind (enjoying every minute of it). Besides, look at the effect it’s had on the recent polls.
Reply: Five dollars please~charles the moderator
Saved by Burch Seymour. You Don’t Get Any.
Reply: #%#^@^~charles the moderator
cryptosporidia and giardia are not bacteria… they are protozoa
Your Protists fall on deaf ears.
The way most of you feel about Ford is a tribute to the incredible power of a vehemently hostile and dishonest, vicious press.
Back where I came from, the people who constitute the current “press” wouldn’t have made it through First Grade. I’m serious.
Evan,
I’ve read just about all the Don Marquis I could find on that site. I particularly liked “only thy dust …”. Thanks a heap. Here is a favorite of mine who never fails to entertain day after day. He might be a bit of an acquired taste because he is so shockingly self-honest. One can learn quite a bit about our monetary system while being greatly entertained. Here is his latest:
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Writers/Mogambo/DREssays/MG080508.html
Second, I think dubya would far rather shake his head sadly and watch Reid and Pelosi twist slowly in the wind (enjoying every minute of it). Besides, look at the effect it’s had on the recent polls.
Me, I’d go for the valid and deserved kill.
All in good time, all in good time.
Sometimes you have to let the gamebird hang for a bit. Acquire the desired odeur.
Like the man said, when your opponent is hurting himself, just get out of the way.
Statepoet: He’s very funny.
He’s dead wrong, of course, in almost every particular , like all these populist pessimists (if he thinks real wages haven’t risen since 1968 he is smoking something better than I am).
But he is funny.
Doug:”Thankfully, the Republic makes it possible for a minority to block the majority. That’s what the Founding Dads intended ”
Exactly, they knew that democracy will always fail as soon as the majority realize they can vote themselves all of the minority’s money and property.
And if they’d shown a real flooded house, you’d have complained they were capitalizing on the woes of whoever owned the house.
Can there be a more trivial complaint? How about the paper stock the thing was printed on? The font? The background color for the graphic text box? It was basically green — what sort of message was that supposed to imply?
Some would pray that God should make climate skeptics look silly and trivial, but it would too often be a superfluous prayer.
How about that photo on your masthead, Anthony — is it yours?
REPLY: No it’s not mine, but it’s also not “fabricated” to illustrate a point. It is a photograph of earth’s atmosphere seen from the International Space Station, publicly funded, and thus public domain.
“Can there be a more trivial complaint? How about the paper stock the thing was printed on?” Ed, there’s no printing of this, it is an electronic draft.
Actually yes, I think there could be a more trivial complaint; your complaining about Bush and the Mars announcement on the other thread comes to mind. If you have something of value to say that is factually based, say it, otherwise if you just want to rant about how silly and trivial we are, there’s other blogs for that.