Well it is that time of year again, the Arctic ice begins to melt, as it does every year, and all sorts of crazy talk starts coming out. This time from Greenpeace. I am encouraged though, as they have come around to the idea that maybe they are doing more harm than good by overselling the alarmism.
NSIDC also has taken a more moderate tone, announcing that there will “likely be no record low ice extent in 2009“. This is a sharp contrast to last year’s ridiculous press statement from NSIDC’s Dr. Mark Serreze about an “ice free north pole”. Now that Greenpeace has come clean on their statement, maybe Dr. Serreze will finally admit his statement was “a mistake”. – Anthony
From Not Evil Just Wrong:
The outgoing leader of Greenpeace has admitted his organization’s recent claim that the Arctic Ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.”
Greenpeace made the claim in a July 15 press release entitled “Urgent Action Needed As Arctic Ice Melts,” which said there will be an ice-free Arctic by 2030 because of global warming.
Under close questioning by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, said the claim was wrong.
“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” he said.
Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.
The BBC reporter accused Leipold and Greenpeace of releasing “misleading information” and using “exaggeration and alarmism.”
Leipold’s admission that Greenpeace issued misleading information is a major embarrassment to the organization, which often has been accused of alarmism but has always insisted that it applies full scientific rigor in its global-warming pronouncements.
Although he admitted Greenpeace had released inaccurate but alarming information, Leipold defended the organization’s practice of “emotionalizing issues” in order to bring the public around to its way of thinking and alter public opinion.
Leipold said later in the BBC interview that there is an urgent need for the suppression of economic growth in the United States and around the world. He said annual growth rates of 3 percent to 8 percent cannot continue without serious consequences for the climate.
“We will definitely have to move to a different concept of growth. … The lifestyle of the rich in the world is not a sustainable model,” Leipold said. “If you take the lifestyle, its cost on the environment, and you multiply it with the billions of people and an increasing world population, you come up with numbers which are truly scary.”
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(Watch the full BBC interview with Leipold here.)
“Although he admitted Greenpeace had released inaccurate but alarming information, Leipold defended the organization’s practice of “emotionalizing issues” in order to bring the public around to its way of thinking and alter public opinion.”
Translation: “It’s OK for us to lie because we are in the right and we need for the rest of you to see it our way for your own good.”
Apparently Leipold is in training for a government position.
The Arctic Sea is ice-free, and pirate-free now. It’s presently several hundred miles off the NW coast of Africa. On the other hand, the Arctic Ocean seems to have trapped a motley crewe in ice.
Good to hear some tough questioning from the press, which I definitely applaud.
However, the headline to this post goes beyond the mark. Greenpeace as an organization hasn’t recanted anything. Also, the admission made by Leipold depends somewhat on the definition of what they meant by “Arctic.” Personally I find it highly unlikely that the Arctic Ocean/Sea will be ice free in the summer by 2030, but that is certainly less of a stretch than including the Greenland ice sheet in one’s definition of the Arctic, which it is not clear they intended to do. Finally, Leipold did not say, as the above story states, that it was a mistake, he said it “may have been a mistake,” based on a press release he didn’t specifically remember. Certainly a welcome admission, but hardly earth shattering.
I think the more salient point here is that they acknowledge, even proclaim, that they are engaging in emotionalizing the issues (surprise, surprise), meaning that they are openly engaged in advocacy, more than an objective presentation of the facts.
“F. Ross (10:32:15) :
How nice of them to admit the error.
“Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.”
Never heard this figure [3km] before. Misprint? Error? Correct?
Anybody have a credible figure and source”
F Ross – Sorry no hard data but I would guess they may have meant 3 metres not 3 kilometers. What is just is bad is the BBC reporter Stephen Sackur mentioning “Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers ” when in a previous post NSIDC reports the Sea Ice Extent for August 17 2009 was “6.26 million square kilometers”. Not only does the hard hitting BBC reporter get both the thickness and, is that mass or is that extent/area, incorrect but the outgoing Green Peace Leader doesn’t even question it. This is such a comedy of errors it makes my sides hurt from laughing.
“Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.”
I thought that CO2 from fossil fuels brought on unprecedented warming…and now I find out that there were warmer periods???
I think it is pretty clear that Greenpeace meant the sea ice in the Arctic, and just flat out didn’t think about Greenland. That’s what he should have said –“oops, we could have worded that better”.
Not that I am prepared to believe that the arctic sea ice will be gone in summer by 2030 either, but that is certainly a more defensible position from a prediction point of view. At least as of July 15, 2009. And certainly a vast improvement in reasonability compared to NSIDC predicting that maybe 2008 would see that!
Two recruiters from greenpeace sometimes hang out in front of the supermarket. I had a chat with one of them a few weeks ago. It’s amazing how far they will go to try to get some money from you, it really feels like harrassment.
I do agree with them in principle that modern society can be very wasteful and irresponsible, and efforts should be made to curb the waste and minimize our impact. Carbon taxes are not definitely not what I had in mind.
What? Is the Arctic not ice free this year? Woops, the climate has thrown them a curve ball and they swung right through it and missed.
I have changed my earlier negative opinion of Greenpeace’s and Leipold’s climate change scare-mongering tactics. We all need to be scared.
After all, the 2009 Arctic ice melt is the third worst since 2007, so it appears that ice in the Arctic Sea is increasing. At this rate, by 2030 the entire Arctic Sea will be frozen solid and water-free, killing many fishes and causing polar bears to proliferate to the point where they starve from lack of baby seal prey.
And I have the most sophisticated computer climate model yet that indicates this. Sorry, but I can’t share the computer model with any of you anti-ice deniers because it is proprietary and I don’t want to be proven wrong.
Leipold defended the organization’s practice of “emotionalizing issues” in order to bring the public around to its way of thinking and alter public opinion.
“emotionalizing issues”? You meaning telling an untruth? Or in other words lying.
In science, you cannot lie because you think your cause is just. Pachauri of IPCC used the same argument to justify Al Gore’s “exaggerations”.
The next step is to alter your data to give the story you think is true.
In science the data tells you the story and the truth, you do not alter data to tell the story you think is the truth, which is what is happening now with the AGW hypothesis.
Oops should have checked the video. Sakur is referring specificically to the Greenland Ice Sheet and not more general Arctic Ice.
Robinson (10:55:02) :
My eyes, they must need checking. Did I just see a BBC presenter giving a warmist a very hard time live on air? It cannot be true.
Yes it is unusual. But Sackur is a cut above the usual BBC journalist/reporters – he is smart and does some research before interviews. He was not long back from Greenland when he interviewed Leipold. Sackur is the exception though – most of the science / environment reporters are under the spell of the warmists – e.g. the appallingly uncritical coverage of the Catlin expedition by David Shukman – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8047862.stm . Shukman’s worst Catlin report, where he actually filmed someone jumping ito a recently refrozen lead (only a few inches thick) and then commented that that this was evidence of global warming, appears to have been removed from the BBC wesbite. I suspect the higher-ups in Channel 4 News are more circumspect also, I remember watching a C4 news programme in April/May this year, where the presenter (Alex Thomson) seriously suggested that “the Arctic could well be ice free in a year or two”. But this news report did not subsequently appear on the website, presumeably because even a drunk news editor could see it was complete b@lls.
Meanwhile…I wonder if the Arctic icecap melted way long ago into an iceless summer
Study: Global Warming Sparked by Ancient Farming Methods
(CNN) — Ancient man may have started global warming through massive deforestation and burning that could have permanently altered the Earth’s climate, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/18/ancient.global.warming/index.html
Geez! Who pays for these studies?
redneck (11:37:38) :
“F. Ross (10:32:15) :
“Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.”
Never heard this figure [3km] before. Misprint? Error? Correct?
Anybody have a credible figure and source”
“The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering 1.71 million km², roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. ..The thickness is generally more than 2 km (see picture) and over 3 km at its thickest point.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet
[url]http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003593/[/url]
I believe the 3km ice thickness for perrineal ice should actually be 3 meters per this report from 2008
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003593/
Per this report from 2008, I believe the 3km thickness should be 3 meters
The ends always justify the means for the environmentalists. If ya ain’t cheating, ya ain’t trying.
Richard said
“redneck (11:37:38) :
“F. Ross (10:32:15) :
“Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.”
Never heard this figure [3km] before. Misprint? Error? Correct?
Anybody have a credible figure and source”
“The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering 1.71 million km², roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. ..The thickness is generally more than 2 km (see picture) and over 3 km at its thickest point.”
Greenland’s ice mass sits above sea level though with a central ice sheet elevation of over 10400′, The Arctic Ice Sheet is paper thin by comparison at only 2 meters for annual ice and 3 meters for perrineal ice
I’m not sure to what extent Greenpeace or the other advocates of AGW (or vegetarianism or animal rights or any of the single interest pressure groups) care all that much about the precise accuracy of their press releases.
I’ve written enough of them in my time to know that the aim is to create an impression. In 99% of cases you can do that without resort to fabrication or outright lying but there are certainly ways of getting Joe Public to believe that ALL the Arctic ice is melting without saying so.
If he spots the error and cares to pick you up on it then you apologise for the bad phraseology or the typist who picked up the wrong draft from the PRO’s office or whatever excuse is the most convincing at the time.
Or you come right out an apologise for getting it wrong (see my link above with the Greenpeace re Brent Spar). How many people with even the slightest of greenish-tinged credentials (which is quite a lot of us these days, one way and another) believe you when you tell them Greenpeace dumped their ship in the ocean and then admitted to getting their facts wrong about Brent Spar? Not one in ten, I’ll bet you.
From the previous post.
“Rescue Me! Another polar expedition trapped in ice”
I believe most have lost the ability to discern reality
from their own lies.
Greenpeace training video.
Repeat after me: The ice is melting, the ice is……
F. Ross (10:32:15) :
How nice of them to admit the error.
“Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.”
Never heard this figure [3km] before. Misprint? Error? Correct?
Anybody have a credible figure and source?
I believe the figure is correct, it was referring to the thickness of the Greenland ice cap.
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/EmmanuelleStJean.shtml
“”” Glug (10:32:09) :
George, try looking at volume not area and this inconsistency is removed. “””
You are probably correct Glug; unfortunately I haven’t any idea about what; such as what inconsistency ?
When you have a pretty much single valued function like the ice graph Anthony puts over on the left, and the summer melt back in May,June, July leads to the minimums of Sept; you don’t expect it to be the same as the annual average. Likewise I would expect to find the January maximum to always be above the annual average.
Remember half of all the people on earth are of below average intelligence; well below median intelligence anyway, and for such a population, I would expect mean and median to be pretty much the same thing.
“”” Sam the Skeptic (11:12:18) :
DouglasDC
Didin’t Greenpeace scuttle Rainbow Warrior after the French turned it into a heap of useless metal in NZ? “””
And considering just how many young Kiwi men gave their lives trying to save those Frenchies from their own self made mess (twice); and then they go and attack up in a cowardly unprovoked attack.
So next time you Frenchies get your panties in a bunch; fix it yourselves, and don’t ask us for any help.
George; lest we forget.
Most AGW claims are emotionalizing rather than science, like the 25 m rise in sea level Hansen predicts by 2100.
From what I gleaned from the clip, Mr. Sackur was referring to the Greenland ice-cap, not the Arctic Basin sea ice. On sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, particularly the Arctic Basin, there is little/no chance that it will disappear by 2030. According to the National snow and ice data centre (check this blog), the retreat is slowing and still at 2.4 million sq’ miles – that’s a lot of ice!!
I regularly watch Mr. Sackur, he is a sapient, investigative journalist not given to suffering fools lightly. He is a cut above the ‘camera cutie’ normally seen news-reading, they ‘buy’ the AGW guff hook line and sinker, Sackur, he possesses a certain gravitas.
However, he is not a climatologist/meteorologist/geographer/geologist etc and I think he slightly had his wires crossed, one guy talking about sea ice and the other referring to ice-cap. Mr. Sackur made a recent programme on/for the beeb about Greenland, which I watched ( by the by, I do not work for or even like the beeb!), here;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8167209.stm
Green peace? I used to hold a certain sympathy for their whale conservation stuff, then they got politics, very much like the WWF, good once, then political shenanigans abounded – another waste of time, all about money and power not truth or integrity.