Jo Nova has launched a new publication, inspired today by their latest article. Read on.
You might think journalists at a popular science magazine would be able to investigate and reason.
In DenierGate, watch New Scientist closely, as they do the unthinkable and try to defend gross scientific malpractice by saying it’s OK because other people did other things a little bit wrong, that were not related, and a long time ago. Move along ladies and gentlemen, there’s nothing to see…
The big problem for this formerly good publication is that they have decided already what the answer is to any question on climate-change (and the answer could be warm or cold but it’s always ALARMING). That leaves them clutching for sand-bags to prop up their position as the king-tide sweeps away any journalistic credibility they might have had.
I’ve added my own helpful notes into the New Scientist article, just so you get the full picture.
Read the whole story at Jo Nova’s website, and tell her I sent you.
UPDATE: More bullying from scientists
In WUWT comments, Keith Minto points out the New Scientist is listed in the Climategate emails
See: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=796&filename=1179416790.txt
From: “Michael E. Mann”
To: Phil Jones
Subject: Re: More Rubbish
Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 11:46:30 -0400
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
yep, I’m watching the changing of the guard live on TV here!
New Scientist was good. Gavin and I both had some input into that. They
are nicely dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point,
including the HS!
I have been reading this publication on and off since Nigel Calder was the editor. It was quite an curious, edgy publication then, willing to push boundaries (it was the first to publish Sir Alister Hardy’s Aquatic Ape Hypothesis) even though it then arrived 3mts late by seamail from Britain.
Nigel Calder co-authored “The Chilling Stars” with Heinrick Svensmark and made it into a very readable cosmic ray/cloud formation story that has captivated so may of us.
Unfortunately, along the way it lost the ability to question and forgot what the ‘Scientist’ part of its title really meant.
It appears that Mann was discussing this New Scientist article from May 16th, 2007
The 7 biggest myths about climate change
Interestingly, after that fawning article on “a guide for the perplexed” see in the CRU email archive on March 8th there is an email that names one of the authors of the May16th New Scientist article, Fred Pearce, where complaints are lodged about the upcoming March 10th issue and plans are suggested to counter it.
Here are web links for the two people mentioned: Eystein Jansen and Richard Somerville it appears there were BCC’s to CRU, otherwise we’d not have this email in that collection.
Here’s the email: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=784&filename=1173359793.txt
From: Eystein Jansen <eystein.jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Richard Somerville <rsomerville@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: [Wg1-ar4-clas] Responding to an attack on IPCC and ourselves
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 08:16:33 +0100
Cc: wg1-ar4-clas@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Hi,
just a quick reply. I am in on this, and will respond to a draft letter, in the hope that
you will make the first, Richard? I agree that it can be short. It is strange to see this,
knowing that the delegations I spoke to in/after Paris clearly said that the CLAs got it
their way, and that I believe this is the strong common perception we also had as CLAs
about the outcome.
Best wishes,
Eystein
Den 8. mar. 2007 kl. 03.11 skrev Richard Somerville:
Dear Fellow CLAs,
The British magazine *New Scientist* is apparently about to publish several items critical
of the IPCC AR4 WGI SPM and the process by which it was written. There is an editorial, a
column by Pearce, and a longer piece by Wasdell which is on the internet and referenced by
Pearce.
I think that this attack on us deserves a response from the CLAs. Our competence and
integrity has been called into question. Susan Solomon is mentioned by name in
unflattering terms. We ought not to get caught up in responding in detail to the many
scientific errors in the Wasdell piece, in my opinion, but I would like to see us refute
the main allegations against us and against the IPCC.
We need to make the case that this is shoddy and prejudiced journalism. Wasdell is not a
climate scientist, was not involved in writing AR4, was not in Paris, and is grossly
ignorant of both the science and the IPCC process. His account of what went on is
factually incorrect in many important respects.
New Scientist inexplicably violates basic journalistic standards by publicizing and
editorially agreeing with a vicious attack by an uncredentialed source without checking
facts or hearing from the people attacked. The editorial and Pearce column, which I regard
as packed with distortions and innuendo and error, are pasted below, and the Wasdell piece
is attached.
My suggestion is that a strongly worded letter to New Scientist, signed by as many CLAs as
possible, would be an appropriate response. I think we ought to say that the science was
absolutely not compromised or watered down by the review process or by political presure of
any kind or by the Paris plenary. I think it would be a mistake to attempt a detailed
point-by-point discussion, which would provoke further criticism; that process would never
converge.
Please send us all your opinions and suggestions for what we should do, using the email
list [1]wg1-ar4-clas@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
I am traveling and checking email occasionally, so if enough of us agree that we should
respond, I hope one or more of you (not me) will volunteer to coordinate the effort and
submit the result to New Scientist.
Best regards to all,
Richard
Richard C. J. Somerville
Distinguished Professor
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0224
La Jolla, CA 92093-0224, USA
—
Here’s the editorial that will appear in New Scientist on March 10.
Editorial: Carbon omissions
IT IS a case of the dog that didn’t bark. The dog in this instance was the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
For several years, climate scientists have grown increasingly anxious about “positive
feedbacks” that could accelerate climate change, such as methane bubbling up as
permafrost melts. That concern found focus at an international conference organised by
the British government two years ago, and many people expected it to emerge strongly in
the latest IPCC report, whose summary for policy-makers was published in Paris last
month.
It didn’t happen. The IPCC summary was notably guarded. We put that down to scientific
caution and the desire to convey as much certainty as possible (New Scientist, 9
February, p 3), but this week we hear that an earlier version of the summary contained a
number of explicit references to positive feedbacks and the dangers of accelerating
climate change. A critique of the report now argues that the references were removed in
a systematic fashion (see “Climate report ‘was watered down'”).
This is worrying. The version containing the warnings was the last for which scientists
alone were responsible. After that it went out to review by governments. The IPCC is a
governmental body as well as a scientific one. Both sides have to sign off on the
report.
The scientists involved adamantly deny that there was undue pressure, or that the
scientific integrity of their report was compromised. We do know there were political
agendas, and that the scientists had to fight them. As one of the report’s 33 authors
put it: “A lot of us devoted a lot of time to ensuring that the changes requested by
national delegates did not affect the scientific content.” Yet small changes in language
which individually may not amount to much can, cumulatively, change the tone and message
of a report. Deliberately or not, this is what seems to have happened.
Senior IPCC scientists are not willing to discuss the changes, beyond denying that there
was political interference. They regard the drafting process as private. This is an
understandable reservation, but the case raises serious doubts about the IPCC process. A
little more transparency would go a long way to removing those qualms.
—
Here’s the Pearce column:
Climate report ‘was watered down’
* 10 March 2007
* From New Scientist Print Edition. [2]Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* Fred Pearce
BRITISH researchers who have seen drafts of last month’s report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change claim it was significantly watered down when governments became
involved in writing it.
David Wasdell, an independent analyst of climate change who acted as an accredited
reviewer of the report, says the preliminary version produced by scientists in April
2006 contained many references to the potential for climate to change faster than
expected because of “positive feedbacks” in the climate system. Most of these references
were absent from the final version.
His assertion is based on a line-by-line analysis of the scientists’ report and the
final version, which was agreed last month at a week-long meeting of representatives of
more than 100 governments. Wasdell told New Scientist: “I was astounded at the
alterations that were imposed by government agents during the final stage of review. The
evidence of collusional suppression of well-established and world-leading scientific
material is overwhelming.”
He has prepared a critique, “Political Corruption of the IPCC Report?”, which claims:
“Political and economic interests have influenced the presented scientific material.” He
plans to publish the document online this week at [3]www.meridian.org.uk/whats.htm.
Wasdell is not a climatologist, but his analysis was supported this week by two leading
UK climate scientists and policy analysts. Ocean physicist Peter Wadhams of the
University of Cambridge, who made the discovery that Arctic ice has thinned by 40 per
cent over the past 25 years and also acted as a referee on the IPCC report, told New
Scientist: “The public needs to know that the policy-makers’ summary, presented as the
united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by
governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it.”
“The public needs to know that the summary has been watered down in subtle but vital
ways by governmental agents”
Crispin Tickell, a long-standing UK government adviser on climate and a former
ambassador to the UN, says: “I think David Wasdell’s analysis is very useful, and unique
of its kind. Others have made comparable points but not in such analytic detail.”
Wasdell’s central charge is that “reference to possible acceleration of climate change
[was] consistently removed” from the final report. This happened both in its treatment
of potential positive feedbacks from global warming in the future and in its discussion
of recent observations of collapsing ice sheets and an accelerating rise in sea levels.
For instance, the scientists’ draft report warned that natural systems such as
rainforests, soils and the oceans would in future be less able to absorb greenhouse gas
emissions. It said: “This positive feedback could lead to as much as 1.2
================
Here’s the editorial Carbon Omissions and another March 10th article at The New Scientist discussing the WG1 being “watered down”. Looks like they got their way, since the May 17th article was highly pro AGW or as Dr. Mann said:
They are nicely dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point, including the HS!
Your tax dollars at work.
UPDATE2:
Interestingly, due to Climategate, WUWT is now within striking distance in terms of reach and traffic of the New Scientist, and Scientific American. Prior to Nov 19th, WUWT was around the world rank 40K mark on a regular basis, now we’ve moved up. In the USA WUWT is now ranked 4823 according to this analysis.
Click for details at Alexa.
WUWT readers can help close the gap by referencing WUWT articles in letters to the editor, other blog posts, and blog comments where relevant. Thanks for your consideration. – Anthony
Oooh, I really would like a tiff or a big jpg of that, suitable for printing and framing. As to the New Scientist being a “formerly good publication”, hmm – more like Scientific American Lite…. or Popular Science without either the Popular or the Science…
I just read the lates issue of New Scientists which had a short on the CRU e-mails. It included a water tight explaination of why CO2 is responcible for the present warming. I will reproduce thier argument here. The words are not the same but nothing has been lost in the translation:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas which has increased in concentration over the industrial period. We know that this increased concentration of CO2 is causing the warming becasue we haven’t been able to attribute it to anything else e.g. increase in solar energy.
I read through Joe Nova’s article and she has it exactly right. I had already, before reading her article, written to the Non Sicnetist why I continued to not purchase their politcal propaganda.
They are losing money; help them lose more!! Write them and rub their noses in it!
Paul Coppin @ 18:31:11
Scientific American Light? The Non Scientist has been around almost as long, certainly all my lifetime. I used to read it as a “newspaper of record” of what was going on in the various fields of science and engineering. It was always more immediate than SciAm.
However, now, it is a worthless piece of crap.
Its stuff like this, why i dropped “Scientific” American
AlexB,
You’re joking… I hope.
[REPLY – I think so. My ironometer definitely activated. ~ Evan]
New Scientist is deleting most of the comments about the Denialgate article.
My guess is that anyone who doubts in the AGW hypothesis is in violation of the terms of service.
funny how that works.
the battle is not yet won though – as described by this loon
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-sussex-will-be-desert-before-the-climate-deniers-accept-reality-1841895.html
We used to read every issue of New Scientist when I was at school in the 80s, and back then it was one of the most informative science magazines around. Today, though, I wouldn’t even use it to wipe my backside.
I suspect their big problem is that the web has essentially made them obsolete for science reporting, so their only hope of staying in business is publishing alarmist claptrap in the hope of bringing in new readers who can’t miss the latest ‘Oh my Gore, we’re all going to die!’ scare story.
Will be sad to see them go bust, but after the last few years of Warmist nonsense they won’t really be missed.
New Scientist get a mention in the climategate archive:
http://junkscience.com/FOIA/mail/1179416790.txt
…apparently incorporating Mike Mann’s perspective into New Scientist journalism – and, as being ‘dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point’, ‘including the HS!’ (ie. the Hockey Stick). And this was on Thu, 17 May 2007, in case Al Gore’s team are reading (& sometime after the Hockey Stick should have been at history in journalists minds, if not Jones’ and Mann’s, anyway).
I dropped SiAm in the 80’s for this sort of thing. But Non Scientist is even worse. At least they are no longer trying to hide the fact that they are no deeper than the shallow end of the Kiddie pool.
“If we are going to judge the truth of claims on the behaviour of those making them, it seems only fair to look at the behaviour of a few of those questioning the scientific consensus. There are many similar examples we did not include. We leave readers to draw their own conclusions about who to trust.”
Whom do I trust? Not the New Scientist. Science is not about trust, it’s about truth and there’s darn little of it in their publication.
They are comparing works by skeptics that, at worst, contain errors, with deliberate deceptions perpetrated by people upon whose works the entire “science” of AGW depends. “Non Scientist” is too kind a name for this kind of trash.
“The New Scientist” is AGW’s answer to Leni Riefenstahl. Nah! Forget that. Leni Riefenstahl was competent. These guys are more like “Comical Ali” of Iraq.
There are plenty of magazines and sites out there (e.g., Wired, Ars Technica, Scientific American, Physorg, Slashdot, Reddit, etc.) that get their marching orders from the perpetrators (whoever they are) of the GW scam. I’m beginning to believe that this [snip] is way too vast for it not to be centrally controlled or instigated by a small group of powerful people who can throw a [snip]load of money at their pet projects, if need be. Who could those supercrooks be? And I’m not talking about people like Al Gore, greenies or crooked climate scientists, btw. These guys are just paid puppets.
I’m cynical, I know.
I used to read New Scientist occasionally 20 years ago, but even then I found a lot of hyperventilating although some of the articles were thought-provoking.
It seems the mockery level has ratcheted up lately. Street theater in Copenhagen cuts both ways: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/15/polar-bear-phil-jones/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fscitech+%2528FOXNews.com+-+SciTech%2529
One of the lamest defaults for warmers this has been.
“We know that this increased concentration of CO2 is causing the warming becasue we haven’t been able to attribute it to anything else”
One honest translation of that is,
“We prefer to speculate that increased concentration of CO2 is causing the warming because every other cause is only specualtion.”
My impression of the greater truth is we know that many things cause climate to fluctuate but are still in early stages of understanding how to adequately measure the changes. Let alone on what to attribute to the changes.
It also seems logical to assume the various sources of influence on the climate and the degree of each influence is in continual flux as well, with the degree of force from some altering the force of others.
However, and unfortunately, it has become obvious the science of measuring climate has been corrupted and set back a number of years.
OT: The Law of Unintended Consequences:
MILWAUKEE – Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.
How do I subscribe?
Re: TJA (18:52:02)
I hope they (New Scientist) are joking.
“Who you gonna call? Gore busters!!”
It’s a good tune…. LOL
I’m pretty sure that AlexB just forgot his /sarc tag.
“The big problem … is that they have decided already what the answer is to any question on climate-change”
Unlike this site, where open-minded inquisitiveness rules the day…
I used to read Scientific American all the time too. Now it is all about global warming and I can’t even stand to look at it. It makes me want to cry. Their web site is even worse.
I’ve taken to reading Science Daily on line. They seem to publish what ever is out there in a more unbiased way. Of course there are articles about warming because that is where the grant money is. I’ve noticed that even articles about research that has nothing to do with global warming tries to mention it somewhere in the text. Presumably for grant requirements or search engines. Unfortunately, they keep running a link under Science Video News: Research Meteorologist See More Severe Storms Ahead- the Culprit Global Warming. They have been running it for months. I don’t see how it is news anymore and there were no severe storms or hurricanes this season anyway.
They can’t even predict the weather two days from now never mind two years or two decades.
NS has friends in high places…
rom: “Michael E. Mann”
To: Phil Jones
Subject: Re: More Rubbish
Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 11:46:30 -0400
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
yep, I’m watching the changing of the guard live on TV here!
New Scientist was good. Gavin and I both had some input into that. They
are nicely dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point,
including the HS!
I have been reading this publication on and off since Nigel Calder was the editor. It was quite an curious, edgy publication then, willing to push boundaries (it was the first to publish Sir Alister Hardy’s Aquatic Ape Hypothesis) even though it then arrived 3mts late by seamail from Britain.
Nigel Calder co-authored “The Chilling Stars” with Heinrick Svensmark and made it into a very readable cosmic ray/cloud formation story that has captivated so may of us.
Unfortunately, along the way it lost the ability to question and forgot what the ‘Scientist’ part of its title really meant.
I just watched the CNN/Youtube “debate” featuring Daryl Hannah, Thomas Friedman, Byorn Lomborg, et al, wherein Daryll Hannah proclaimed that she does not use petroleum. Later, the commentator noted that she just flew into Copenhaagendaaz on a red eye flight from Africa. How heroic.
Was that an all elecric jet liner?
Tom – I’ve seen the traffic light problem where I live, along with some amazing swerves and near-collisions. It’s amazing that people will blast through a snow-covered traffic light without caring which color might be showing.
I canceled PopSci in the 80s – they were already too politically correct. Sigh. We clearly live in the age of propaganda.
New Scientist has been infested with politically correct hangwringing for many years, reflecting the general mood of guilt and pessimism that afflicts the UK. I speak as a former UK citizen.
Mr Gary said (19:07:20) :
“I used to read New Scientist occasionally 20 years ago, but even then I found a lot of hyperventilating although some of the articles were thought-provoking.”
Many a middle-aged politician now says the same about certain publications that never pretended to be scientific although they disclosed vital statistics … “I only subscribed for the articles on sports cars.”
Who do we trust for science news?
That’s easy, show me the data and how you mesured it and I will show you the truth.
It’s funny reading the news articles on COP15 and Climategate these days. They only discuss the level of Tyranny we are supposed to be willing to accept.
The New Scientist is to News Week as Science is to Weak. I subscribed for a while, but the cover story hype was never lived up to the story in the mag. Needless to say they have become a AGW drum beater for the past while with the usual claims but no evidence. As far as I am concerned they can go to the great pulp recycler in the sky. Scientific American is starting to be a disappointment too. I’ll keep my subscription, but its really not worth much any more.
I let my “Scientific” American sub lapse after they did their hatchet job on Bjorn Lomborg.
I’m currently saving up for a subscription to “Skeptical American”. 🙂
AlexB (18:35:16)
“CO2 is a greenhouse gas which has increased in concentration over the industrial period. We know that this increased concentration of CO2 is causing the warming becasue we haven’t been able to attribute it to anything else e.g. increase in solar energy.”
It is 31F at the moment in central London. I am wearing a black cashmere coat and gloves to stay warm. Therefore, black coats and gloves cause freezing atmospheric temperatures, but maintain body insulation.
I have a scientific question, if someone out there could answer it, I would appreciate it.
If all the ice on the planet were to melt into the ocean today, How much colder would the average ocean temperature be than it is today?
New Scientist often has a problem with anyone who does not subscribe to the party line.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/thunderblogs/archives/davesmith_au08/090919_newsci.htm
Big Bang deniers have the same problem, amongst others.
I almost dropped my subscription to Scientific American after their format change when they dropped the Amateur Scientist and some other regular columns, but gave it a chance. It didn’t take too long to watch them veer into the political correct waters and push the global warming angle when I finally pulled the plug. The same happened to New Scientist and I dropped that subscription as well. I’d agree that they are doing this to build readership, much as reality TV pushes crazies and partially clad nubile bodies to grow viewership. About the only thing NS is now good for is to go to their website and laugh at the comments thrown about after their “stories.”
“Unfortunately, along the way it lost the ability to question and forgot what the ‘Scientist’ part of its title really meant.”
Priceless!
Tom in Texas
That solution is simple: install solar/wind (free energy) powered heaters to defrost the lights.
It’s snowing in Copenhagen.
Scientific American Published a “laundry list” of nuclear weapons which the US had and the Soviets had, back in the ’80’s.
The then Editor went on National Putrid Radio to promote the “nuclear freeze” based on the FICTIOUS list they published.
As I recall the “bad, evil, mean” USA had 30,000 warheads. While the “gentle, kindly, warm, Soviet Union, had only a paultry 10,000 warheads.
The problem was, being the old “Civil Air Patrol” Brat that I was I immediately identified a bunch of “weapons systems” in the Sci Am article which had been decomissioned for years. Namely:
1. Nike/Zeus ground to air, nuclear tipped missles. (I’m not even sure they were ever actually fielded. It would involve putting NUCLEAR WARHEADS on missiles ABOVE GROUND and extremely vunerable to “commando attack” for theft purposes.
2. “Genie Missles”, air to air, 1 kiloton warheads, taken out of the arsenal in the ’60’s (same problem as above, one falls to Earth, unexploded, and you’ve just given someone the fissile material for a bomb.)
3. Decommissioned Atlas/Centar missles.
4. Decommissioned Bomark missles.
At the same time, there was absolutely NO mention of the surface ship SSN Missles which the Soviets had on many of their surface navy ships. Amounting to hundreds to perhaps as many as a couple thousand warheads. Medium range, granted. (300 to 900 miles) but capable of wreaking havok along the coasts of the USA.
I petitioned the local NPR affiliate to get “Fairness doctrine” equal time. I was given that time, at a time spot equivalent to the spot by the editor of Sci America.
It was just the “local” station, but I recieved calls and congratulations from 4 states surrounding the state I was in.
Sci America? Let’s call it what it is: UnScientific and UnAmerican.
The deletion of comments at New Scientist is the ultimate in irony.
Charles Platt (19:31:51) : wrote
quote New Scientist has been infested with politically correct hangwringing for many years, reflecting the general mood of guilt and pessimism that afflicts the UK. I speak as a former UK citizen. unquote
I blame the science fiction writers and, more particularly, the editors. While the USA and the ROW were reading upbeat stories about technological solutions, we were forced to wallow in sleazy and unpleasant tales of deviant diddlings, ethically dubious and science-free tales which fitted the frequently barking world view of the editor, and PC navel-gazing goings-on in ever grubbier and narrower settings.
NS is making the same mistake that UK SF made: it is confusing the wishes and views of its editors and writers with what its readers want.
Hmmm… Platt, Charles Platt… Where have I heard that name before?
JF
(Only teasing, Charles, you never turned one of mine down.)
The fraudsters are sure a tight knit group. You wonder why they never spent any time on real science, instead of just cooking the books. The striking thing to me is how journalism joined the hoaxers.
I say again, I sure hope enough real scientists stand up to save science, seekers of truth, as we knew it. Before it all goes down the drain of political science. It’s circling the drain right now. Worth remembering, public trust is not a renewable resource.
P Wilson (19:55:47) :
AlexB (18:35:16)
“CO2 is a greenhouse gas which has increased in concentration over the industrial period. We know that this increased concentration of CO2 is causing the warming becasue we haven’t been able to attribute it to anything else e.g. increase in solar energy.”
“It is 31F at the moment in central London. I am wearing a black cashmere coat and gloves to stay warm. Therefore, black coats and gloves cause freezing atmospheric temperatures, but maintain body insulation.”
Yes, but I have heard this argument before, some, some not including the Sherlock Holmes Law, “whatever is left has to be it”. It’s true, there is no direct evidence of any gg affecting global temperatures. One in particular I remember offhand is Hansen’s “circumstantial evidence”.
“Although greenhouse gases haven’t been caught “red-handed”, circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that carbon dioxide and its co-conspirators methane and nitrous oxide are creating a predicament for Earth’s climate.”
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/
“I’m currently saving up for a subscription to “Skeptical American”. :-)”
The damndest thing is, there are couple of “skeptic” type mags out there. They are full on AGW cheerleaders, though.
American Scientist is still OK. Actually does science articles. SciAmNot and Non Scientist are rags. And not just because of the AGW crap. All sorts of preachy left wing politics that isnt remotely related to science.
The weather outside is frightful,
[warmth?}…………….is delightful,
Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow.
(old song)
Thanks to Jo Nova for her fearless and tireless devotion to the truth!!
——–
Here’s a little more satire to digest from a Canadian friend of mine. Takes one minute to watch….and his point is valid. LOL
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
“Rob M. (20:08:05) :
It’s snowing in Copenhagen.”
Can you get video of it and upload it on Youtube?
I subscribed to SA for 40 years and got some good information from it. Some time in the 80’s they changed most of their editorial staff to women and there was a shift towards pseudo-science ( in my opinion ) but I kept on with it. In the 90’s they went back to a more main stream science reportage but carried more op-ed pieces and some edutainment , but I kept with it.
Now with their rather excited, groupy, support of the non existent science for CO2 warming I have finally given up and when my subscription lapses in February I will not renew .
The NS , which I used to borrow from my English friend each week , was always a political rag pushing a left / liberal agenda but it was current and carried some very interesting and well written science articles. I stopped reading NS when my friend returned to the UK.
When I read , on line here, the apologia for CO2 and the CRU gangsters I went through a few back issues on line. I am very glad I have never bought a NS and I certainly wouldn’t hold anything they publish in much esteem.
It’s all a bit of a bugger really. I am a civil engineer involved mainly in irrigation infrastructure , earth dams and water distribution and keeping up with trends in science was both work and a consuming interest. What to read now? How do I know what’s true? There was never any climate change here in Zimbabwe but I was told by the big science papers that I was just not sensitive enough to detect it and yet the concern was supposedly about humans !
Let’s hope those boys at CERN don’t [snip] us all I don’t think I could take it and that would force me into politics. Mind you that’s what science seems to have become anyway.
“Neo Scientist” would be a more appropriate name for it.
Now don’t be too hard on AlexB. See:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18238-why-theres-no-sign-of-a-climate-conspiracy-in-hacked-emails.html
The offending party is determined pretty much the same way it’s been done since the Stone Age: “You have made the volcano angry! Prepare the virgins!” “But how do you know something we did made the volcano angry?” “What else could it be? The stars are congenially configured; no bolt of lightning split the sacred tree; the consensus among my fellow priests is that it’s your wicked ways, your fudging on your tithes.”
o/t but google is still at it:
a comment from a blog which u will find is factual, if u click on the link:
“Here’s a very interesting thread on the Google Help Forum. Is Google Censoring Climategate?
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?tid=25112ee0c29cbd01&hl=en
Out of 42 replies so far only 2 were in Google’s favour. And one of those was written by a Google employee and it was awarded best answer even though it only received 1 vote. The majority of other replies received between 11-25 votes.
They have the gall to put themselves first in plain sight. So when you click on the forum title you only get the ‘best’ reply and that is the biased one from Google. You then need to click on another link to get the complete list of comments.”
google has lost all credibility too.
Michael asked.
“I have a scientific question, if someone out there could answer it, I would appreciate it.
If all the ice on the planet were to melt into the ocean today, How much colder would the average ocean temperature be than it is today?”
I doubt anyone can give you that answer. The ocean’s weight constantly changes, due to salinity levels, as well as temperature.
Then there is the issue of how water is effectively ‘under the ocean’. It’s not as if the ocean floors are impervious to water. The tremendous pressure would almost certainly mean that the oceans’ mass would continue to permeate the rock stratas for some considerable depth.
For a calculation to be of any value, it would also have to take such factors into account.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Determining-the-Weight-of-an-Ocean-126979.shtml
What we do know is the rough proportion of fresh water to saline.
The amount of fresh water is thought to be about 2.5% of all the water on the planet.
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/total_global_saltwater_and_freshwater_estimates
Therefore, given that sort of percentile difference, I would anticipate that is unlikely that the oceans temperature would be affected in any significant way.
But that, as I stress, is only speculation. Considered speculation, but speculation all the same.
Aqua Fyre
Um, DR, do you have any data on the size of the wind turbine necessary to keep 3×8 to 16 or more traffic light shrouds snow free? And have you thought of the cost of the heated shrouds and the necessary wiring? Solar can not be expected to be of much help in a snow storm can it? How much federal subsidy money will it take to pretend this is a better idea than going back to incandescents in snow country, in the winter? Just another thought, I wonder if LED traffic light shrouds are more likely to be used as nest boxes by pigeons? Sorry, but my twentynine years turning engineers bright ideas into functioning electronic test equipment have left me prone to the automatic generation of ugly questions.
“New Scientist” is an appropriate title for a magazine inspired by the methods used by the new type of scientists we have learned about recently.
I used to be a voracious reader of Scientific American, Popular Science, Science digest etc. When I was in high school I probably had a ton of those old magazines in my room carefully stacked in month year order. I also saw the general drift into political activism, and away from fact and new technology based science. In the Mid 1980’s into the 1990’s I started only buying them over the counter after I had thumbed through the issues to see if they had at least one article worth reading. About 1992 I stopped even looking at them as I was only buying one or two issues a year when they accidentally covered something useful.
It is a shame an entire generation has lost ready access to those at one time fine magazines and their “cutting edge” coverage of what was new in science and technology.
Larry
REPLY: Your experience parallels mine. I was a National Geographic subscriber for years, in addition to those other magazines you list. One by one I dropped them as they became more political. Nat Geo was the last holdout for me, as it had sentimental value which started as a gift subscription from my parents. Finally reason gave way to sentiment, and it too no longer graces our home. I once aspired to write for Scientific American, specifically the Amateur Scientist column when they actually showed you how to build apparatus and conduct experiments. Now even that holds no interest for me anymore. – Anthony
“Aqua Fyre (20:38:22) : wrote
Michael asked.
“I have a scientific question, if someone out there could answer it, I would appreciate it.
If all the ice on the planet were to melt into the ocean today, How much colder would the average ocean temperature be than it is today?”
I doubt anyone can give you that answer. The ocean’s weight constantly changes, due to salinity levels, as well as temperature.”
Thanks for your considered answer Fry,
I mean Aqua Fyre
Dear Editor,
I believe this first issue rates right up there with the vast majority of other “peer-reviewed” journals about this new-fangled movement that most are now calling “climate changeology”. And to be candid, I LIKE it!
Just look at the title: “NonScientist”. Can’t be any more truthful than that. And the yellow header “Why Scientific Fraud is really OK” right next to a smiling Goracle. How absolutely appropriate; he’s smiling with complete acceptance. To the right of his beaming head is “Climate Change: Our favourite religion”, which discounts any possibility that it is based on anything tangible. The subheaders are very effective, too: “We defend corrupt scientists & attack unpaid volunteers”, which gives us an excellent expose` of their modus operandi (where do I contribute?). But really, you kept the best for last: “It’s the last place you’d expect to find logic and reason”. Amen, amen, and amen!
I believe this covers deserves the nation’s highest recognition and reward for accuracy in journalism and bravery considering the well-oiled machine supporting this mega-deception. You have absolutely NAILED the whole anthropogenic global warming scam and hung it around the neck of it’s largest spokesman. OUT-STANDING!
Now, will you have follow-up issues featuring Michael Mann and Phil Jones? They can be shown searching through the forest for that one special tree–not for Christmas, heavens no!–they need a special tree again to skew the data. I’d also love to see a center-fold devoted just to Gavin Schmidt. In a bikini, of course, since this winter is turning out to be such a hottie. Brrrrrrrrr.
And, they are electrically NOISEY!
As in EMI (Electro-Magnetic Interference) generation; they create radio interference through the use of an electronic power supply and ballast/current limit technique that creates a broad spectrum of RF energy that ‘clobbers’ weak signals … I recall first seeing the effects about 8 yrs ago working 10 Meter mobile …
.
.
Pops(19:31:10) ” We clearly live in the age of propaganda”. Beautifully stated but sad at the same time. My heart weeps for the generations that are being misled into chains.
Would an appropriate name be Nude Scientist, as in, “the emperor has no clothes”?
Does anyone have a link to a video of a lecture on cosmic rays and clouds by a physicist at CERN (possibly Jason Kirby)?
Thanks
ecph (20:41:34) :
“New Scientist” is an appropriate title for a magazine inspired by the methods used by the new type of scientists we have learned about recently.
————-
Maybe Post-Normal (or Retarded) Scientist would be better.
The New Scientist has been crap for at least 25 years and is now definitely post-modernly crap.
Back then, in the heyday of the embryonic biotechnology industry, they would have major articles on some “scientist” in the UK who had made a major breakthrough in some field or other. To anyone in the know (like me), the “scientist” in question had maybe read and comprehended a paper by the actual inventor(s), or had a beer with him/her at a conference.
I only read it because my mate had a subscription and gave me his hand-me-downs.
This is my all time favourite (sic English spelling) temperature proxy from the Retarded Scientist:
“English wine production is once again thriving and the extent of the country’s vineyards probably surpasses that in the so-called Medieval Warm Period. So if you think vineyards are an accurate indicator of temperature, this suggests it is warmer now than it was then.”
May 2007, seriously, complete with a whole team’s complement of hockey sticks:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11644-climate-myths-it-was-warmer-during-the-medieval-period-with-vineyards-in-england.html
Fred Pearce is a long term NS journalist and author. He wrote “He Knew he was Right”,a biography of James Lovelock. I have a soft spot for Lovelock, he is an independent researcher and a highly original thinker, the book tells the life story of Lovelock, but it is overwhelmingly the story of man made CO2 and its effect on climate. I was angry reading the it, trying to pull out sections on Lovelock’s life amongst large swaths of CO2 propaganda padding. If I was Lovelock, I would have been insulted.
It was when our ABC radio (Australia) science reporter Robyn Williams invited Fred Pearce on to ‘explain’ the Hadley CRU emails on his Science Show that I groaned. It was “worse than I thought”…..take a look.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2758445.htm
One more. On the bright side, my kids should be able to breeze through school now that nobody has to show how they arrived at their answer. This is the new scientific method, is it not?
Interesting tidbit of information … for the fifth straight year the Great Lakes has ice this time of year. In the 10 years before that there was ice at this time in only four of the years.
Reference: Canadian Ice Service
1. Some quotes of “1975 ´Endangered Atmosphere´Conference, Where the Global Warming Hoax Was Born,” Special Report, Fall 2007, 21st CENTURY Science & Technoloogy, by Majorie Mazel Hecht, at http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/GWHoaxBorn.pdf:
1.1 “Global Warming” is, and always was, a policy for genocidal reduction of the world´s population. The preposterous claim that human-produced carbon dioxide will broil the Earth, melt the ice caps, and destroy human life, came out od a 1975 conference in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, organized by the influential anthropologist Margaret Mead, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in 1974. (Hecht, p. 64)
1.2 It was at this government-sponsored conference, 32 years ago, that virtually every scare scenario in today´s climate hoax took root. Scientists were charged with coming up with the “science” to back up the scares, so that definitive action could be taken by policy-makers. (Ibid)
1.3 Eugenics and the Paradigm Shift
Mead´s population-control policy was firmly based in the post-Hitler eugenics movement, which took on the more palatable names of “conservation” and “environmentalism” in the post-World War II period. As Julian Huxley, the vice president of Britain´s Eugenics Society (1937-1944), had announced in 1946, “even though it is quite true that radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.” Huxley was then director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (Ibid, p. 64-65)
1.4 In the United States, where nuclear plant construction was poised for takeoff, the dream of a nuclear-powered economy was under ferocious attack from the top down. The real “Dr. Strangelove,” RAND nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, counseled U.S. Presidents on his strategy for winning a nuclear war, at the same time that he advocated an end to civilian nuclear energy. In one report after another, “experts” paid by the Ford Foundation, among others, argued that nuclear power was not economical, not safe, and just plain no good. Thus was scientific optimism ushered out. (Ibid, p. 65)
1.5 In the intevening 32 years [1975-2007], most of our scientific institutions have been taken over by an anti-science ideology, typified by the views of a Stephen Schneider or a John Holdren. How can there be a science when the mind and its capacity for creativity is denied, when man is put equal to beast, and when man´s advancements are percieved as ruining the pristine confines of a limited world? Such pessimism is a formula for a “no future” world. (Ibid, p. 68)
2. The leftist agenda, amongst it, the Global Warming Hoax, is the rule of a few elites, and foremost Al Gore, IPCC, Phil Jones (CRU/UEA), Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann (PSU), over the masses. The masses need not to think for themselves, the elite will do it for them. At the same time the masses are propagandized into believing that they really are thinking for themselves.
If those leftist masses would only consider and hear the people trying to escape Cuba, North Korea, Zimbave, and other “People´s Paradises.”
Another interesting observation from this graph
This date:
1972 – 1981 No year had ice on this date.
1982 – 1991 2 years had ice on this date.
1992 – 2001 4 years had ice on this date.
2002 – 2009 7 years had ice on this date.
Certainly looks to me like Great Lakes ice is increasing over the past several decades.
I’ve been waiting for this question to be asked in a news article.
“So if carbon dioxide produced by industry is not the cause of observed global warming, then what is?
Well, a Danish research group led by Henrik Svensmark has found an exact match with the level of sun spot activity on our sun. What is more, the match is spot on over the period of the last 1 500 years.
This scientific mechanism actually fits the evidence!
What happens is that cosmic rays impinge on the Earth from outer space, and these rays produce clouds much like high-flying jets leaving contrails behind their engines.
More cloud means global cooling because not as much sunlight reaches the ground to warm it. Less cloud leads to global warming. The sun creates a magnetic bubble around the Earth, which acts as a shield to incoming cosmic rays, preventing some of them from reaching the Earth.”
Scientific evidence of global warming blows hot and cold
http://www.br.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=5277396
Well there’s also Nude scientist – with Mr Mann on the cover!
http://twawki.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/nude-scientist-2/
OT but has someone noticed that there have been two consecutive all-time record minima for Edmonton, last year, and then this year?
The remarkable thing is that THIS year’s record low for the 13th surpassed last years….by a FULL 10 degrees celsius.
Quick…..quick….batten the hatches the polar bears are drowning the Alps are melting we are all going to boil…..
Tell that to the Edmontonians…
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Edmonton+shatters+cold+record/2336460/story.html
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
PC (21:02:23) :
Here you go – Jasper Kirkby
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists
Wow, I used to religiously buy the ‘New Scientist’ every week. Monthly, I would scratch my then generous thatch trying to work out the puzzle that martin g had posed!
When did the aardvarks of advocacy take control?
I don’t know but, one thing is clear, it did happen. The proof is in the ink on the page. The deceit is apparent, the political message is clear. This is not science, this is propoganda!
New Scientist- I once revered you.
Et tu- SAm
Isn’t funny how things go….
So far all the people defending climate gate as ‘nothing to see here please move on’ seem to have fallen into the time honored ‘lair’s trap’ by actually implicating the emails even more…..this is like a replay of every other cover up we’ve ever seen…..A sure sign that these people are frantically trying to MAKE THIS THING GO AWAY!!
Isn’t it funny how much faith people put into the UN and it’s hired help? The UN, the organization that gets an “A+” for incompetence in pretty much everything it touches…….It is responsible for sitting back and watching over the extermination of literally millions of people since the end of the second world war.
Earth to humans???????? Hello?????? Hello??????
Love the Dollar pyramid symbolism. This guy knows the game. 🙂
Thanks for that, philincalifornia. Have already forwarded on. Kirkby is on to something.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
“My suggestion is that a strongly worded letter to New Scientist, signed by as many CLAs as possible, would be an appropriate response.
“Prepare the Testy Letter!”
“My suggestion is that a strongly worded letter to New Scientist, signed by as many CLAs as possible, would be an appropriate response. I think we ought to say that the science was
absolutely not compromised or watered down by the review process or by political presure of any kind or by the Paris plenary. I think it would be a mistake to attempt a detailed
point-by-point discussion, which would provoke further criticism; that process would neverconverge.
“Please send us all your opinions and suggestions for what we should do, using the email
list [1]wg1-ar4-clas@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
“I am traveling and checking email occasionally, so if enough of us agree that we should respond, I hope one or more of you (not me) will volunteer to coordinate the effort and submit the result to New Scientist.
“Best regards to all,
“Richard
“Richard C. J. Somerville
“Distinguished Professor
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0224
“La Jolla, CA 92093-0224, USA”
I am astounded that alleged scientists are obsessed with image-making and PR bullying to make themselves look good. Is this what they’ve been spending all that research money on? How can their respective institutions/employers justify this appalling teenage behavior? These egomaniacal fanatics, wallowing in self-generated publicity and semi-stardom, are pathetic. And the rest of the scientific world accepts this? Ugh.
Note how Mr. Somerville signs his letter to PEOPLE HE KNOWS. The vanity and self-importance are truly mind-boggling.
We all have that big orange ball in the sky to thank for screwing it up for them.
I stopped reading the New Scientist, Scientific American & National Geographic some time ago. I also stopped watching Daily Planet this year and I’m seriously thinking of cancelling my subscription to BBC World as well.
AGA (Anthropogenic Global Alarming) anyone? Rather Home Counties centric but it’s pretty early in the morning.
I haven’t seen History Channel mentioned here (and on now). The show is on the Sahara, concerning the cycles of desert to vegetative every 20,000 years due to the earth’s wobble starting 3 million yrs ago.
The last vegetative state retreated about 5,500 yrs ago and in 100-200 yrs it became desert. Therefore, the N. Africans can look forward to the return of the Sahara re-vegetation in about another 14,750 years from now.
What with the record lower temps and early ice, you’d think that the AGWs would be coming up with some sort of explanation; but nooooo – they are claiming that 2009 was one of the warmest on record. I’ve heard that on the Weather Channel and read it in a few comments sections. It’s like they’re hive-minded.
Good show on your nearly catching up to New Scientist and Scientific American! I was a faithful reader/subscriber of SciAm for over 20 years and dropped my subscription several years ago precisely because of how they seemed to forget the first part of their name. 25 years ago there were numerous discussions about whether the “soft” sciences truly deserved to be called sciences and cautious inquiry about the science behind AGW. 5 years ago all the intellectually bankrupt but politically correct theories and practices were welcome and they moved from cautious inquiry into wholehearted advocacy on AGW. WUWT may not have the wide diversity of material SciAm had in the good old days but at least I can trust you haven’t forgotten the Scientific Method or such things as integrity.
I’ve cut way down on my viewings of the Discovery Channel, History Channel and similar fare due to the soft-headed current programming as well.
philincalifornia,
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists
Thanks for that fascinating link. There is no doubt that Dr. Jasper Kirkby completely destroyed AGW in his presentation. What is amazing is that Kirkby repeatedly emphasized that his talk did not provide any answers but rather posed new questions. Why do you think that is? I think Kirkby was covering his ass because he did not want to be ostracized or marginalized by the well-funded AGW crowd.
It’s amazing because even physicists (who could teach a thing or two to climate scientists, including the proper application of mathematical rigor to data analysis) are terrified of the warmists. How did the warmists amassed so much power?
I have only occasionally looked at the New Scientist website. However, I used to subscribe to Scientific American. Scientific American is a lousy magazine. Quite apart from their PC editorial line, the writing is awful. Or I should say the editing. The articles are written by actual workers in the field, but are uniformized by the editorial staff – put into some kind of standard SciAm prose, an in so doing, they render them wholly unreadable. Also – another pet peave of mine – despite the fact that it’s readership consists mostly of scientists, engineers, high school teachers, and educated laymen (all of whom understand algebra, and most of them calculus) they refuse to ever print even the simplest equation, even when it would explain more than a whole page full of words and graphs. They treat their readers like idiots.
However I like the title “New Scientist” – the idea behind it. Because, when this AGW sham has been exposed, we’re going to need a whole bunch of new scientists.
NEWS FLASH COPENHAGEN! History Channel has discovered that AGW isn’t causing African aridity, but rather the earth’s 20,000 yr wobble! OK, all you Copenhagen African attendees, you can go home now and wait 15,000 yrs for the interplanetary cycles to provide you the next 20,000 year vegetative state. Wow! We’re saved.
That’s a long time. There are the aquifers, but those million year old supplies (drilling has started) will only last about 100 years. Long term? How about nuclear plants powering desalination centers.
Stop blaming developed countries through AGW! The developing countries claims AGW reparations is a fraud. Why did Western Non-Scientists encourage this AGW guilt & reparation fraud? Go crazy explaining that.
Any more info in this? I didn’t know this and was wondering about interplanetary cycles.
ey will only
About time someone highlighted the shocking editotrial line at New Scientist.
Boycott it! I personally will never purchase another copy of NS.
“You could do some searching on George Soros.”
The real machines behind this are outfits such as Fenton Communications and Futerra. They are the PR coordinators that keep all these various “grass roots” organizations “on topic”, write their press releases, coach their people for interviews, make sure they don’t issue conflicting statements, etc.
Can someone please explain what the abbreviation CLA refers to (as in “Dear Fellow CLAs”)?
Anon (21:26:52) :
1. Some quotes of “1975 ´Endangered Atmosphere´Conference, Where the Global Warming Hoax Was Born,” Special Report, Fall 2007, 21st CENTURY Science & Technoloogy, by Majorie Mazel Hecht, at http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/GWHoaxBorn.pdf:
Interesting link, thanks. Makes me look at Margaret Mead in a new light.
New Scientist is widely read by people like me who have a passing interest in Science. People like myself are too busy to give more than a few hours a week to following trends in science, so this magazine is an important instrument in bridging the gap between the scientific community and the public who want to know about what is happening in the world of science.. There are many like me who who rely on this journal and trust the editors not to be politically motivated.
Because I follow WUWT and EUreferendum I have become puzzled and sceptical about the NS. This attempt by NS to debunk climategate really opens my eyes about the how low quality the editorial team at the magazine really are. For me their reaction to Climategate is an own goal.
BUT most people in my situation would never read WUWT; we are not really up to following the detailed debate and rely on NS to provide balanced reportage. I think when NS lose sight of their responsibility they become a serious hazard to the reputation of science in the wider community.
I think it is really important for the scientific community to debunk this magazine and call for higher standards of reporting if it is colluding in propaganda.
“philincalifornia (21:40:09) :
PC (21:02:23) :
Here you go – Jasper Kirkby
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists”
Did you all hear Dr. Jasper Kirby at around 44:00 into this video explaining CHEMTRAILS to you in this video that we see all the time happening when we look up at the sky from time to time? Did you take notes?
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (23:34:55) :
Can someone please explain what the abbreviation CLA refers to (as in “Dear Fellow CLAs”)?
The Country Land & Business Association fits the bill nicely.
http://www.cla.org.uk/Policy_Work/Climate_Change/
pat (20:34:16) 15/12:
“o/t but google is still at it:
a comment from a blog which u will find is factual, if u click on the link:
“Here’s a very interesting thread on the Google Help Forum. Is Google Censoring Climategate?”
Pat, I presume you are talking about the autosuggest feature in Google?
And I assume that your hypothesis is that I should not be able to find references to “ClimateGate” by using the autosuggest feature?
I mounted an experiment, since there is nothing like empirical evidence to make one feel better.
The result: The word “climategate” appeared as the second entry in the list after I typed in the first four letters, i.e. “clim”.
On selecting that suggestion, I received the first page of 20,700,000 references.
So from my simple experimentation, I have to conclude that your hypothesis is false.
Ah, the scientific method. If only it was used in climate science …
I once bought the Non Scientist every week. It gave insights into all types of ideas and questions – sometimes quite cranky. At one time, the letters section was two or three pages long, and full of debate.
The Non Scientist was one of the things that brought me to my own MMGW scepticism. Over time, it had more and more articles peddling the alarmist message, and I wondered why there never seemed to be two sides to that story. By that time, I was exploring discussion elsewhere and following up references to scholarly articles to try to get a better understanding of the issue.
It was interesting to see the front page of the issue containing “Guide For The Perplexed” at the top of this thread. That article set up a number of strawmen argument and took delight in chopping them down. By that point, I was able to see what they were up to, and the lack of balance in their assessment. It was my last purchase of Non Scientist.
Of course, they might call themselves the Climate Liberation Army, too…
RockyRoad (20:51:58) :
“I’d also love to see a center-fold devoted just to Gavin Schmidt. In a bikini, of course,”
Arrgh. Where is a protective snip when you need one …?
Okay , so I am a scientist and an active researcher (chemistry education) like these guys. Every single email seems to indicate that these guys (Mann, et al) are constantly jetting off to a conference every other week. First thought is that they are hypocrits like Algore and his outlandish electricity bill. If I am lucky, I go to a conference once every other year, I consider this a victory. What a joke!
1056478635.txt
From: “Mick Kelly”
To: Nguyen Huu Ninh (cered@xxxxxxxxx.xxx)
Subject: NOAA funding
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 14:17:15 +0000
—-boundary-LibPST-iamunique-1131694944_-_-
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”utf-8″
Ninh
NOAA want to give us more money for the El Nino work with IGCN.
How much do we have left from the last budget? I reckon most has been spent but we need to show some left to cover the costs of the trip Roger didn’t make and also the fees/equipment/computer money we haven’t spent otherwise NOAA will be suspicious.
Politically this money may have to go through Simon’s institute but there overhead rate is high so maybe not!
Best wishes
Mick
Nothing new here. New Scientist had stories about penguins going blind in Argentina due to the Antarctic Ozone hole 30 years ago. There should be a new designation for periodicals like NS, “Taboid Science”.
I don’t think there’s any question where NewScientist stands as far AGW and objectivity after today and this atrocious online article:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/50-reasons-why-global-warming.html
Granted, it was in response to this equally terrible piece:
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146138
but still, the former link is not what you’d expect from a respectable science publication.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists”
Did you all hear Dr. Jasper Kirby at around 44:00 into this video explaining CHEMTRAILS to you in this video that we see all the time happening when we look up at the sky from time to time? Did you take notes?
In case you didn’t take notes, let met give you mine.
Dr. Jasper Kirkby Explains Chemtrails
DR (20:07:35) :
Tom in Texas
That solution is simple: install solar/wind (free energy) powered heaters to defrost the lights.
What my dad used to describe as a “long way round for a short cut”.
Martin B (23:24:01)
Yes, nice name but I’m afraid it’s ‘New Scientist’ as in ‘Brave New World’.
New Scientist has been a Marvel Comics title for many years. Its a pity the newprint smears so badly when used for the only viable purpose
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (23:34:55) :
I suspect CLA stands for Coordinating Lead Author. Each chapter of the AR4 had more than one of them.
crosspatch (23:34:11) :
“The real machines behind this are outfits such as Fenton Communications and Futerra. They are the PR coordinators that keep all these various “grass roots” organizations “on topic”, write their press releases, coach their people for interviews, make sure they don’t issue conflicting statements, etc.”
Have a look at:
http://extrinsic.blog.com/2009/12/03/climategate-behind-the-screen/
Some unscrambling needed here, please.
Under the heading “UPDATE: More bullying from scientists” an email from Mann is shown including the following very unlikely passage. It reads to me like like a blog comment from a skeptic that has become conflated with the Mann email, because It is not present in the original, as anyone checking the url will see.
The extraneous passage:
“I have been reading this publication on and off since Nigel Calder was the editor. It was quite an curious, edgy publication then, willing to push boundaries (it was the first to publish Sir Alister Hardy’s Aquatic Ape Hypothesis) even though it then arrived 3mts late by seamail from Britain.
Nigel Calder co-authored “The Chilling Stars” with Heinrick Svensmark and made it into a very readable cosmic ray/cloud formation story that has captivated so may of us.
“Unfortunately, along the way it lost the ability to question and forgot what the ‘Scientist’ part of its title really meant.”
I too used to really enjoy New Scientist. Like many others I stopped buying the expensive subscription when they placed themselves out of scientific scepticism with their comments and articles on global warming. There was no point reading it anymore – it was/is just a mouthpiece for warmists.
Look folks
The reality of all this is that the ‘peer-reviewed publication system’ is what drives scientists.
Their ‘performance reviews’ are almost totally based on ‘publication record’, ‘impact factors’ etc etc. It’s totally in their interests to keep editors onside, both in terms of publishing their work but also, in more general terms, to keep their field as a ‘hot topic’. Which means reviews of the field, which occur from time to time, should be favourable to the continued status of the field in question, at least in the eyes of the scientist…..
In the mid 1990s when I did life sciences research, the top buzz words in cancer research were p53, angiogenesis and gene therapy. You had to get those in your grant proposal somehow. It upped success rates enormously.
Now as it happens, drugs targeting blood vessel growth for cancer (angiogenesis) are now major drug company products and research programmes. p53 research was enormous and hugely valuable, although that protein didn’t become a drug target per se. Gene therapy was pushed commercially too quickly and a few problems emerged. The scientists went back to the drawing board and the field may mature in the next two decades in commercial terms.
That’s the upside of the story.
Equally, if two research groups have different theories about something, the loser’s career may have a serious tail to it. Sometimes the death fights have a better explanation. There was a huge controversy in the 1980s about what protein constituted the ‘gap junction’, a means by which small molecules travel between adjacent cells. A British group said a 16kDa protein, the Yanks a 28kDa programme. Iranian stand-offs, cold wars, you name it, it happened. The truth in the end? The 16kDa protein bound the 28kDa protein as part of a complex!
This is the way some scientists are. Grubby, pushy, ambitious, mean and two-faced.
Those are the manifestations of ‘ambition’ in many people.
Most scientists don’t have the skill of Pele, so they either ride Pele’s coat-tails or they try and nick their ideas, wear them down and make them depressed by being nasty to them.
That’s how life works.
No point dreaming otherwise.
Same in politics isn’t it?
Same in business, isn’t it?
So why do we expect it to be different in science????
Nigel Calder co-authored “The Chilling Stars” with Heinrick Svensmark and made it into a very readable cosmic ray/cloud formation story that has captivated so may of us.
Unfortunately, along the way it lost the ability to question and forgot what the ‘Scientist’ part of its title really meant.
It seems to be a leitmotiv of all fraudsters, to accuse someone else of exactly their own chief fault. As if they know…
Jordan (00:00:57) : I once bought the Non Scientist every week…
Jordan, I think you mean New Scientist here. We’re gonna have to be careful which names we use, now!
I’ll ask this again later if I don’t get a response. I have to ask… how much vital science has been lost because the alarmists were able to pervert the peer-review process and keep valid scientific papers from being published?
How can that damage be undone?
Interesting, I can now get WUWT in China. It was blocked for some time.
M
Non Sensensists might be a good name.
David Corcoran (01:15:20) :
I am not qualified to answer your question in detail, but in a more general sense, I imagine that the only science to come through all this unscathed will be Political Science.
Research is done, papers are prepared, papers are submitted for publication, and are rejected for some reason.
What to do? Rework the papers or publish elsewhere with different reviewers. I suspect the latter is what happens.
To recover what was lost, you must look where it may be found (buddhist wisdom).
Anon (21:26:52) :
… How can there be a science when the mind and its capacity for creativity is denied, when man is put equal to beast, and when man´s advancements are perceived as ruining the pristine confines of a limited world? Such pessimism is a formula for a “no future” world.
…This sounds like the denunciation of Charles Darwin by the Church following “The Origin of Species”. What they want is science to be rejected in favor of faith. Never mind the evidence, if someone believes in a falsehood strongly enough it “becomes” the truth.
David Corcoran (01:15:20) : wrote
“I’ll ask this again later if I don’t get a response. I have to ask… how much vital science has been lost because the alarmists were able to pervert the peer-review process and keep valid scientific papers from being published?
How can that damage be undone?”
+1000
” I’m beginning to believe that this [snip] is way too vast for it not to be centrally controlled or instigated by a small group of powerful people who can throw a [snip]load of money at their pet projects, if need be”
I dunnnow, it seems to me that the ‘vaster’ some [snip] is, the less likely it is that it can be ‘centrally controlled, ‘ and the more likely that the [snip] hits the fan.
Conspiracies are ‘plots’, and plots are necessary (or used to be) to making up fictions. Sherlock Holmes felt in every apparently unrelated crime ‘the presence of this force’, i.e. the organizing force of evil incarnate in Dr Moriarty, the ‘Napoleon of Crime’, who sat like a spider at the center of a web of Manichaean intrigue.
Of course Holmes never existed in what passes for real life, and besides, he was a cocaine fiend, which would account in part at least for the paranoid mentation.
Speaking of Napoleons, in the 1960’s, on __The Man from Uncle__ Napoleon Solo, played by Robert Vaghan, and Ilya Kuriokin, played by David McCallum, battled the evil empire of THRUSH.
Then there is always Austin Powers.
Damn the Illuminati! Phasers on stun!
I’d like to recommend an interesting blog that deserves more visits: Die Klimazwiebel by climate scientists Hans von Storch and Eduardo Zorita, who are not in the “Climategate dirt”. (Don’t worry, they write mainly in English!)
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.com/
Perhaps one reason the green PR has been so successful is that greenie culture has a lot of elements of feminism and postmodernism in it, which makes greenie culture think that aggression, competition, success, and progress are all bad things. Instead they like the notions of equality, diversity, bonding, harmony. But everybody is still human, and we all have some competitive and aggressive urges, which are normal and healthy and we’d usually call them “drives”. But greenie culture puts greenies in a position of having to disown parts of themselves. They disown their own aggression, competition, and drives. But because those things can’t be disappeared—they are part of being human—these feelings continue to exist in greenies, but disowned, so they project them onto others. They project negative aggression, greed, selfishness, and competitiveness onto other groups, like oil companies, and their paid shills, the “sceptics”. I think perhaps this phenomenon, this shadow psychology, is why so many greenies can be so convinced that anybody promoting AGW is sincere and trustworthy, and anybody sceptical of AGW is doing so for nefarious reasons and can’t be trusted.
FWIW I didn’t renew my subscription of NS due to their poor climate coverage.
I stopped reading NS years ago because the science was junk. A typical article will be about some harebrained idea with no scientific merit, often accompanied by a trick photograph and containing the line, “although this idea breaks the laws of thermodynamics…” before going on to explain why time travel is possible. I think people have given it too much credit because they think it is a scientific journal. Bring back Nigel Calder!
Wow…. Did a spotted quoll really build a wind farm?
Nigel Calder’s earlier comment above appears to be correct.
You have a SNAFU in the more bullying from scientists email which has an ending regarding Nigel Calder and NS which is NOT in the original email.
It is missleading folk e.g. Lucy Skywalker
Ok, thanks. Time to read the mails again….
N.S. is full of “researchers may have found” “scientists possiblly have found” Cut the crap please, we want facts not models or hypotheses.
There was never any climate change here in Zimbabwe but I was told by the big science papers that I was just not sensitive enough to detect it and yet the concern was supposedly about humans !
I was wondering where the warming went myself, until Briffa proved it was only hitting one tree on the Yamal Penninsula. So most of us are probably well out of range.
“MILWAUKEE – Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.”
They should put curved horizontal shields /shrouds over the top half of them, to keep off the snow. These used to be common, even on old-fashioned traffic lights. Why were they dropped? Cost? Added bulk in shipping? Increased swinging in the wind?
This is OT, and partially mentioned before in another thread, but is full lyrics to a song on radio right now which I think contains some interesting phrases;
http://www.polyvore.com/endless_red_tape_to_keep/set?id=11468658
Very appropriate IMO.
“This sounds like the denunciation of Charles Darwin by the Church following “The Origin of Species”. What they want is science to be rejected in favor of faith. Never mind the evidence, if someone believes in a falsehood strongly enough it “becomes” the truth.”
Which Church? Anglicans, yes. Roman Catholics, however, have never been overly fretful of evolution. Where would biology be without the ninteenth-century research of Gregor Mendel, who was, of course, a monk?
Of course ‘faith’, the the most robust sense of the word, has no authoritative remit in the rigorous empiricism of the natural sciences. Faith, as St Paul saith, is ‘the testimony of things unseen.’
‘Faith’ cannot be understood as a primitive, inferior version of ‘science’, or ‘rationality’. It falls within a different horizon of human experience.
‘Of course ‘faith’, the the most robust sense of the word,…’
Stuttering fingers. Try ‘in the’.
New Scientist has the same relationship to science as the old BBC programme “Tomorrow’s World” had to the world of tomorrow. Looks like they simply cannot be wrong often enough.
Anthony –
For posts like this one I would like to see you to open a “Humor” department, or “Panorama” or “off Topic” or “Climate Society News” or “Climate Gossip” department.
Although the “alarmist” camp is fighting not any more with scientific data (hidden data just don’t exist) but with press campaigns, your website should stay with the roots: Watt’s up with That? Please don’t get lost in a mix of everything and nothing.
What is a “climate denier”?
Danish minister Connie Hedegaard has resigned as president of the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, describing the move as “procedural”.
Seen this?
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/50-reasons-why-global-warming.html
I feel really sad about New Scientist. I’ve been reading it since I was at school in the 1960’s. It always used to be good.
I started rreading their latest offering, but quickly gave up – it was just a long and eloborate ad hominem argument. If they truly believe in AGW then they should tell us why. This article shows that they have really lost the plot. The people in charge of NS really do not understand what science is any more.
Michael said:
“We all have that big orange ball in the sky to thank for screwing it up for them.”
Amen.
And I think it shows God has a sense of humor. It may be a wry sense of humor, but it’s there nonetheless.
I agree with b.poli (03:35:52) :
Anthony –
For posts like this one I would like to see you to open a “Humor” department, or “Panorama” or “off Topic” or “Climate Society News” or “Climate Gossip” department.
[To make sure that Anthony sees suggestions like this, post on “Tips & Notes.” ~dbs, mod.]
Thanks to the proliferation of independent, highly intelligent bloggers seeking the truth the scientific and journalistic pillars of the New World Order are now falling like dominos. People are fed up with politicized and corrupt science, arrogant spin and propaganda spreading like cancer. No wonder globalist elite power-holders like senator Jay Rockefeller and corporate media mogul Rupert Murdoch express a great deal of animosity toward the Internet:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/07/rupert-murdoch-charging-websites
New Scientist, where conclusion goes in search of hypothesis.
Lucy Skywalker (01:12:03) :
Sure, the magazine called itself the “New Scientist”. Non Scientist alludes to my conclusion of an unbalanced assessment of MMGW issues. Now it appears to be happy to ad hominem retaliation rather than science. As though: 2* wrong = right.
I’m happy stick with my reference to Non Scientist.
Anthony, thanks for Update 2. It is time to complete the earthquake-like shift from internationally controlled (rotten-at-the core — and corrupt) old media to citizen-scientist new media like WUWT. I think you (and others) should redo the contribution possibilities from only “shameless plug” and “contribute” or “tip jar” to “subscribe” as well, with a number of possibilities — annual, quarterly, monthly — with the amount up to the individual. I realize that probably there are legal reasons why this has not happened before, but perhaps now is the time for change. If so, you would only be following readership patterns.
I make my subscriptions quarterly and have begun the shift from my MANY now-failed-old-world print subscriptions — most of which I have faithfully subscribed to for many years. It wasn’t easy at first, but I am pretty much over the mourning period.
I choose a quarterly subscription to WUWT. Now I am adding other reliable blogs. If most contributing readers did the same, I think there would be a tremendous “greening” of real science and real news and honest commentary — and quality and entrepreneurship would reign once again.
I’ve been a regular NS reader for many years but I stopped buying it this year for the obvious reason: that they have abandoned science in favour of political science. They like to say the proof is ‘overwhelming’ but, after several years of looking, I’m still unable to find this ‘overwhelming’ proof. In fact there doesn’t appear to be a single credible scientific proof that the climate is being driven by CO2. Quite the reverse.
.
Here’s an idea for anyone in the UK. Make a full-size printout of the Non Scientist image. The next time you’re in Smiths, place the printout in front of the stack of NS. Of course, the people at Smiths might not be too happy, but it would be quite amusing – as well as telling an important truth. Final step: take a photo and publish it here at WUWT!
.
I probably won’t buy another copy of NS until they return to science, they have a new chief editor and they print an apology to their readers.
Chris
@pyromancer76
I agree. I would gladly contribute to speed up the demise of the old guard.
“MILWAUKEE – Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.”
They should put windmills on top of all the traffic lights. I know it wouldn’t work but it would be politically correct.
And it would make all the citizens at least feel like they were doing something good for the earth.
Who is “Michael Le Page” who commented the article at the NS magazine? Does he have any reputation?
I went to a presentation by the New Scientist at the Royal Institution about ten years ago. They were looking at the year 2050 and did so in terms that make “Age of Stupid” look like plagiarism.
I gave them up as a serious source of scientific news at that stage and have been a non-contributer since.
It’s sad, really–but many have built their careers or their self-identified enlightenment on various forms of climate-closedmindedness. You mentioned bullying–look at what happened to the ‘science entertainer’ Johnny Ball last night. He introduced generations of British youngsters to science, but has now been booed off the platform of some ‘liberal atheist christmas meeting’ for questioning the carbon religion at christmas;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6825502/Johnny-Ball-booed-by-atheists-over-climate-change-denial.html
Veteran BBC science presenter Jonny Ball is ‘booed’ off stage for not wanting to “see young people scared to death that climate change is going to bring about the end of the world by 2050”.
We live in depressing times…
Excerpts…
Ball, 71, claimed that spiders’ flatulence was more damaging to the environment than fossil fuels, and criticised the “bad science” of global warming during a performance at a Christmas show in celebration of atheism and science.
He said: I knew there would be people vehemently opposed to what I was saying, but I think where I went wrong was accusing the University of East Anglia of cooking the books, and in going on too long and labouring the point.
“I shouldn’t have turned it into a political rant and I won’t be doing climate change again because I didn’t go to be controversial or upset the show.”
“The reason I do this is because I cannot stand by and see young people scared to death that climate change is going to bring about the end of the world by 2050,” he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6825502/Johnny-Ball-booed-by-atheists-over-climate-change-denial.html
Thank you, Joanne Nova, for having the courage to speak the truth and expose the fraud of CO2-induced global warming.
The President of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a climatologist.
NAS reviews the budgets of all federal research funding agencies.
NAS has used research grants to train scientists the way Pavlov used dog biscuits to train dogs.
What a sad, sad state of affairs for science.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Emeritus Professor
Nuclear & Space Science
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Where to start. The photo accompanying the snow in the LED traffic lights story showed the usual horizontal covers, which nicely served to trap the blowing snow. Check the link for the photo. And Thanks! to another commenter for confirming my observation that they generates copious amounts of Radio Frequency Interference.
Publications. I did not see my favorite example of left-shift mentioned. Science News Letter used to provide weekly updates of science headlines with a short story attached. I dropped them a couple of years ago when stories on the cooling side of the climate debate disappeared, and the articles became very PC.
My grandfather gave me a subscription to Pop Science back in the 40s, but I dropped them several years ago when they, along with Sci Am became purveyors of “Hysterical Science” as I have taken to calling it. My collection of Sci Am got caught under a roof leak, and frankly, I was relieved that they went to the shredder.
And, finally, thanks for the link to the Margaret Mead start of this nonsense. I remember when that happened, although it wasn’t apparent at the time what was going to come out of it. By the time I realized the import, the reference was lost in the stacks of journals, and I never had time to search out the information, and you have provided it, for which I am grateful.
It is chillingly orwellian how they try to control the scientific discussion. Completely polite and valid “contrarian” views asking the difficult questions are being deleted and replaced with “This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.”
comment submitted to the New Scientist:
philincalifornia (21:40:09) : and PC (21:02:23) :
Many thanks for the link. It restores my faith in scientists. No overblown claims, no sniping, no tortured statistics, just a hypothesis and a means of investigating it.
And I note that many on-line references don’t include his academic qualifications (in contrast to the puffed-up Somerville).
But of course any findings will be dismissed as he is not a climate scientist.
It’s a pity, as I seem to remember the effects of GCRs on climate being dismissed because an experiment was conducted to measure the effect of cosmic rays on trees by irradiating them. Since no effect was discerned, it was concluded that GCRs could not affect tree rings.
Talk about closed minds!
Skeptic Tank (03:44:58) :
What is a “climate denier”?
I’m glad you asked. It’s a mythical beast like Bigfoot, which loves pollution, and hates polar bears, kittens, puppies, and trees, and which believes there is no such thing as climate, which it believes is nothing but a giant conspiracy by Communists and Socialists to take over the world and impoverish and enslave everyone. Its close cousin is the “climate change denier”, which has all of the same characteristics as the “climate denier” but does acknowledge that there is indeed a climate, but that climate has never changed before, isn’t now, and never will change.
According to Warmlogic, these creatures, like Bigfoot do in fact exist, unless you can prove they don’t.
Thanks Anthony, and thanks to all 2,000 or so WUWT visitors who dropped by in the last 18 hours with their passionate stories. There are a lot of very very unimpressed ex-New-scientist subscribers. It must be hurting their bottom line.
Commentors have been asking for larger files for printing and I’m happy to help. Let me know if you need something bigger. It will be arranged. 🙂
http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/photos/new-scientist/Non-Scientist-cover-4-lrg.jpg 1.7 Mb
Bigger Tif file uploading now:
http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/photos/new-scientist/Non-Scientist-cover-4.tif 3.4 Mb
I only got as far as the first lie in the NS article.
The Laut paper was thoroughly rebutted by Friis-Christensen, see
http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/05_afdelinger/sun-climate/full_text_publications/comment to eos_28_sept_04.pdf
or google
comments on the forum article christensen
The alarmist rag EOS (not a real science journal) refused to publish his response.
The most amusing thing is that what the appropriately named ‘Laut’ refers to as an error is in fact an error in one of his (Laut’s) papers, not a paper by Friis-Christensen!
Fortunately, when I went to the NS site a questionnaire came up so I was able to tell them exactly what I thought of their publication!
Glenn (20:22:18)
Oh, my French teacher wore brown suede shoes, whilst another class french teacher at the same school wore shiny leather shoes. They were both as proficient as each other, yet our class did better than the other with exam results. Therefore, all other factors being equal, brown suede shoes are better thna shiny leather for good French results.
Are you serious?
.
.
Paul Coppin: RE your request for a tiff or jpg.
I simply clicked on the picture of the Goracle, drug it to my Desktop, and right-clicked on it. From the menu that appeared, I selected the Print command. It launched the Photo Printing Wizard, which offered a sequence of Next and Finish buttons. Within this sequence, I selected a color printer for this masterpiece, which turned out as a full-page print. Of course, the quality is minimal and perhaps only suitable as a dart target.
Maybe the master jpg is running around out there somewhere, so good luck.
David Corcoran (01:15:20) :
” … greenie culture puts greenies in a position of having to disown parts of themselves. They disown their own aggression, competition, and drives. … They project negative aggression, greed, selfishness, and competitiveness onto other groups, like oil companies, and their paid shills, the “sceptics”.”
A great insight – and very well put!
Oops, my last post should have been in response to Stefan (02:21:02), and not to David Corcoran (01:15:20)
No offense was intended to either party.
Note to self: Finish what you are doing before going home …
“_Jim (09:17:36) : wrote
Michael (00:25:08) :
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists”
Did you all hear Dr. Jasper Kirby at around 44:00 into this video explaining CHEMTRAILS to you in this video that we see all the time happening when we look up at the sky from time to time? Did you take notes?
Are you serious?”
Yes.
And I quote Dr Jasper Kirkby, “These are not smoke trails, these are clouds which are seeded by jets dumping aerosols into the upper atmosphere. ” There is nothing natural about this”
I call them chemtrails. Perhaps you can give them a name that is less offensive to you.
The 2nd paragraph of the New Scientist article, “Deniergate: Turning the tables on climate skeptics,” reads:
“If we are going to judge the truth of claims on the behaviour of those making them, it seems only fair to look at the behaviour of a few of those questioning the scientific consensus. There are many similar examples we did not include. We leave readers to draw their own conclusions about who to trust.”
But why should we grant that “If”? This is not a “Who Do You Trust More” situation. This is a situation where, regardless of the arguably overstated claims of some “deniers,” the CAWG consensus must reach a very high level of absolute trustworthiness because of its costliness and negative social impacts it entails. If:
A. The “prosecutors” of CO2 have connived at winning a “guilty” verdict by attempting—with some success—to keep counter-arguments and exculpatory evidence out of court, fiddling (however slightly) with the evidence to make it look more damning, and attempting to withhold or destroy evidence;
B. The judges (editorial gatekeepers and the IPCC) have been, to some degree, in cahoots with the prosecution;
C. The accused’s “public defender” has been starved for funding (by the NSF, etc.) in comparison with the prosecution;
D. The prosecution’s allies (sites like RealClimate and environmental groups) have conducted, with assistance from the prosecution, an expensive, successful, and not always scrupulous PR campaign to inflame public opinion and the press, which has had (in conjunction with the factors above) the effect of intimidating some witnesses for the defendant from coming forward; or, for those who do, from being as expansive and forthright as they would otherwise be;
Then a new trial should be held. I.e., a thorough (two-year long) and independent re-examination of all the arguments and evidence by panels of experts, with full input from contrarians, would be proper.
Even though the prosecutors and their allies would like to brush this appeal aside by proclaiming, “Case Closed,” it will eventually dawn on them that, without a retrial, their Guilty verdict will remain only a scrap of paper. I.e., in the current circumstances the US Senate will now never accept any Copenhagen Treaty, nor will the US public. And without US participation, any Copenhagen agreement will be as ineffective as the Kyoto Treaty.
The above is true even if some of the defendant’s friends have stretched a point or two (or three). That doesn’t condemn the defendant.
The tales of the low-energy traffic lights and their problems in the snow, and the possible solutions – solar panels, windmills, furry scarves, monk’s cowls, …etc conjures up the description “Heath Robinson Contraption” in my mind.
Let’s not stop there though. They could become multi-functional devices and double as news-stands for New Scientist.
And they could triple as places to hang the villains of Climategate out to dry.
I call them chemtrails. Perhaps you can give them a name that is less offensive to you.”
Kirby’s photo was labeled “Contrails,” and Kirby called them contrails. Just replay the clip.
However, the criss-cross pattern resembles what are claimed to be chemtrails.
PS: If the EPA insists on implementing its Endangerment Finding, the Republicans will run and win in 2012 on a pledge to revoke it.
(Feel lucky?)
Jesper Berg (04:33:09) :
“No wonder … corporate media mogul Rupert Murdoch expresses a great deal of animosity toward the Internet”
Rupert Murdoch (and Kerry Packer) are actually the architects of their own demise.
Between them they raided a fair proportion of the news media in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States (in alphabetical order). They employed a manufacturing model to centralize the ‘production’ of the news in ‘hubs’, thus getting rid of a large number of specialized journalists, and practically all journalists working at the grassroots level for small-town newspapers.
There is no time for investigative journalism any more – journalists now rely on Press Releases, delivered by “spokespersons” to give them “leads” for their “news” items.
The print media is now is all about advertising revenue – hence the increase in sensationalism and the decrease in impartial analysis. This trend has since been extended to New Scientist, Scientific American, National Geographic, et al.
The blogosphere (and private sector intelligence organizations) are now following the laws of biology, by moving into an environmental niche that has been vacated by its previous occupants.
If you want an in-depth analysis, see “Flat Earth News”, by Nick Davis, published by Vintage Books, and curiously endorsed by the Financial Times; a NewsCorp newspaper.
Roger Knights (11:09:49) : wrote
“I call them chemtrails. Perhaps you can give them a name that is less offensive to you.”
Kirby’s photo was labeled “Contrails,” and Kirby called them contrails. Just replay the clip.
However, the criss-cross pattern resembles what are claimed to be chemtrails.”
Perhaps we should just call them “Unnatural Contrails”, to make it more palatable.
I scrolled through the comments on Deniergate at New Scientist. I noted a large number of the comments are deleted. I know they don’t allow ad hominems, but there couldn’t be that many. Looks like censorship of opinions to me, nothing like allowing all dissenting voices to be heard. I nominate New Scientist to receive the 1st place prize for heavy-handed censorship on the internet.
MikeE (11:02:44) : et al
“The tales of the low-energy traffic lights and their problems in the snow, and the possible solutions – solar panels, windmills, furry scarves, monk’s cowls, …etc conjures up the description “Heath Robinson Contraption” in my mind.”
I think they should mount boom-boxes under the lights. The high energy sound waves would dislodge the snow, and everybody waiting at the lights could join in by pressing their accelerators in time to the beat.
Yeah, that would be mega cool, dude.
philincalifornia (21:05:09) :
“English wine production is once again thriving and the extent of the country’s vineyards probably surpasses that in the so-called Medieval Warm Period. So if you think vineyards are an accurate indicator of temperature, this suggests it is warmer now than it was then.”
Vineyards in England during the MWP were operating as far as North Yorkshire – Hadrians Wall – much further north than is possible today – and grape records certainly exist. The population wasn’t so *urbane* of interested then as now, but neither were they interested in gourmet cooking as much as now, in addition to the fact that the UK population was significantly lower, and less equipped than today. The only vineyards were connected to monastries then. The proliferation in winegrowing today could be said to be democratic and mercantile than confined to monastries.
as the New Scientist propose, such anecdotal factors have to be taken into account.
P Wilson (13:58:20)
the fact that that England was much warmer during the course of the MWP also correlates very well with Greenland ice cores showing that the temperature was higher than today, and the decline with the LIA in England also correlates with Greenland Ice cores. In fact, they both correlate with Vostok ice cores, thus it was certainly warmer globally then than now, and for a much longer period than 20 years.
The article on this matter in the NS leads to gavin Schmidt at realclimate links. He needs correcting of his lack of knowledge on this subject, and he doesn’t seem able to account for any sort of climate change from any source. It looks like he’s studied mathematics or statistics (in oder to master the art of expert data manipulation) than climatology.
I gave up buying New Scientist ten years ago. Even then I realised that they had become the para-military wing of Greenpeace.
They refused, point blank, to write anything that said that wind power was intermittent. I badgered them for months about this, and got various replies indicating that the wind always blew in the UK.
They are all left-wing cranks.
More from new scientist on the subject
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427393.600-battle-for-climate-data-approaches-tipping-point.html
>>However, the criss-cross pattern resembles what
>>are claimed to be chemtrails.
The criss-cross pattern is caused by the upper winds blowing successive contrails downwind. I should know, I make these trails every day.
“IGNORE the unwarranted claims that hacked emails from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK expose human-made climate change as a conspiracy. Away from those headlines, an equally intense battle is taking place over access to the data showing global warming is real.”
Thats is the first paragraph from the article.
Two major objections: The emails contain a lot of exchanges between these data processors (Mann, Jones et al) of how to manipulate data, destroy data or ignore FOI requests, how to delete past highs, and up-scale present temperatures.
Its not a conspircacy as an ambitious gravy train
http://tinyurl.com/ya65hot
“….consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents leaked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he had been awarded in the 1990s.
Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?
Thus, the European Commission’s most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that’s not counting funds from the EU’s member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA’s climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA’s, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. American states also have a piece of the action, with California. apparently not feeling bankrupt enough, devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal”
These AGW money figures are paltry alongside the prospect of carbon trading sums and increases in taxes and utility bills
PC (21:02:23) :
Does anyone have a link to a video of a lecture on cosmic rays and clouds by a physicist at CERN (possibly Jason Kirby)?
Thanks
I haven’t read the rest of the comments yet but thought I’d give this just in case no one else did. I’m an amateur so was hanging on by my fingernails – luckily, somewhat prepared through WUWT, CA, Svensmark’s Cloud Mystery.
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073
Someone should merge Climatology and Scientology myths to spoof both.
L Ron Gore peddles C-meters to measure your carbon footprint. Xenu dumps billions of tons of coal into volcanoes to kill the souls of ancient dinosaurs. Free personality tests reveal if you are a Denier.
P Wilson (14:25:08):
I think you need to mention that your figures exclude additional funding from those charitable foundations that are “concerned with environmental matters”, because they are difficult to quantify.
Me again, there are a number of comments that I’d like to mention but for now, I’ll point out this:
quote:
Rereke Whakaaro (01:36:51) :
David Corcoran (01:15:20) :
I am not qualified to answer your question in detail, but in a more general sense, I imagine that the only science to come through all this unscathed will be Political Science.
Research is done, papers are prepared, papers are submitted for publication, and are rejected for some reason.
What to do? Rework the papers or publish elsewhere with different reviewers. I suspect the latter is what happens.
To recover what was lost, you must look where it may be found (buddhist wisdom).
endquote
When I started looking into what this whole thing was about – already suspecting that much “was lost,” as phrases such as “the debate is over” and “the science is settled” clearly indicated – it seems somehow I did start looking where “it may be found.” I consider it one of the best experiences of my life, to have found WUWT, CA, Air Vent, JoNova and, well, so many others that I can’t even keep up anymore. It’s 1:30 a.m. and I still don’t want to stop.
While I’m a bit depressed that I seem to be rather an exception – so many I know either don’t want to know or couldn’t care less – the biggest threat I see is the increasing attack on Internet freedom of speech, which would render the censorship that exists on various sites minor in comparison. I really wish I’d had this resource long ago (only had DSL access since about 05 and it took awhile to even find out the amount of info available), but I’m enjoying the hell out of it as long as it lasts and, above all, am learning so much from all of you, bloggers and commenters alike. My life has been enriched enormously (even if my hours of sleep have declined).
Nigel Calder (00:59:40)
The quote you gave was my comment that Anthony used (at 19:28:39).I separated my comment from the emails quote by a space. It certainly was not part of the email.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=796&filename=1179416790.txt
Keith Minto (17:04:24) :
“I separated my comment from the emails quote by a space [actually a blank line–RK]. It certainly was not part of the email.”
Unfortunately, you (or Anthony?) didn’t turn off the italics. That gave the strong impression that the italicized material was all from one source. Maybe some other indicator should be inserted by a moderator, like a line of dashes or a preliminary “Minto:”
Perhaps someone might check the climategate files for e-mails to the BBC, Economist, etc… might need some detective work
Re Lecture on Cosmic rays and climate by Physicist Jasper Kirkby of CERN
I’ve typed up most of the lecture, and inserted some of the diagrams, and included the download links and slide show.
Here:
http://neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/node/2525
Might be useful if you want to quote Jasper 🙂