This is a week of extremes in quotes about climate. On one end of the scale we have professor Steven Schneider with a set of quotes so beyond the absurd, that he now has his own “jumping the shark” TV sitcom moment.
On the other end, we have the New Scientist, shocking warmists and skeptics alike with some hardcore doubt about the outcome of the Muir-Russell and other Climategate inquiries. They write:
But what happened to intellectual candour – especially in conceding the shortcomings of these inquiries and discussing the way that science is done. Without candour, public trust in climate science cannot be restored, nor should it be.
and…
Russell’s team left other stones unturned. They decided against detailed analysis of all the emails in the public domain. They examined just three instances of possible abuse of peer review, and just two cases when CRU researchers may have abused their roles as authors of IPCC reports. There were others. They have not studied hundreds of thousands more unpublished emails from the CRU. Surely openness would require their release.
All this, plus the failure to investigate whether emails were deleted to prevent their release under freedom of information laws, makes it harder to accept Russell’s conclusion that the “rigour and honesty” of the scientists concerned “are not in doubt”.
Full article here at The New Scientist
Other parts of the UK press seem also to be waking up!
BLACKOUT BRITAIN FACES BIG TURN OFF
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/187749
This is very good news, that a national daily puts this story on the front page. Elsewhere however the Highways Departments are shutting off motorway lights (at night no less) to reduce our CO2 emmissions, and as an aid to astronomers.
Well, at least those nice folks in The Maldives can sleep much more safely now that UK drivers will be in the dark.
‘Highways’ won’t be so happy when the first lawsuit hits the doormat though!
I have just spent 5 days at Mana Pools on the Zambezi River and on the long drive there and back I spent a fair bit of time listening to NPR.
Well fellas I just have to tell you that AGW broke into so many discussions including turtles being moved away from oily beaches to that whole NPR Science Friday thing that I despair. I mean, really, I thought the Beeb was bad but NPR seem to have devoured the Kool-aid and the bowl it was served in.
Today some fliberty gibbet was telling me that Honey Bee Hive collapse was down to global warming too. Can’t somebody do something to get NPR back from the delusional edge.
Oh and yes, Mana was fabulous as always. Rich, diverse , scary and uplifting, living in Zimbabwe has it’s rewards.
wes george says:
July 19, 2010 at 4:15 am
We are witness to the decline and fall of a cultural paradigm that also posed as a scientific hypothesis. I doubt history will designate AGW as a proper scientific hypothesis however, at least not in its later incarnation. AGW has more in common with phrenology or the Enron scandal or a modern variety of tulip mania – a sociopolitically pathological phenomena, to be sure, but not a proper scientific hypothesis.
———————-
I understand what you are saying but you are wrong, as unlike phrenology, AGW was (and is) supported by individuals across the entire width of the scientific ‘community’, especially biologists, and it was, and continues to be, based around the premise that human-generated carbon dioxide is responsible for a warming atmosphere. It has a several full scientific hypotheses that are difficult to test in real-world conditions, but these hypotheses exist, including the one just stated. It also is based on the theory that human-generated carbon dioxide, as it increases, will trigger runaway global heating, overcoming all natural negative feedback systems in the process. The use of models does not negate the scientific nature of the theory. That is why, contra some opinion pieces posted at WUWT and elsewhere, which focus on the political foundations of CAGW, it is essential that the science be exposed. Yes the social engineering ‘cockroaches’ (that I referred to in a post on another thread here – I was not calling the warmists ‘cockroaches’) will draw on the propaganda and will find other causes if (when) this one fails, but it will be hard for them to find another Trojan horse of such global appeal.
The critical shortage of funds throughout the world after the financial shenannigans on the part of the banksters seems to, at last, be inducing a mood of sobriety and caution. The carbon trading schemes, which were set fair to make their inventors huge fortunes have been flatlining for some time and the Warmist scare stories are becoming increasingly ridiculous and desperate as the general public (with some notable exceptions) are now beginning to recognise the Green agenda for what it is, an audacious and unprincipled scam aimed at wrecking the economies of the developed world and driving the citizens in those economies back to a brutal pseudo-medieval lifestyle. Many more people are now reading important public documents, such as the three ‘Climategate’ inquiry reports, with much more care and precision before they make judgements. Those sober and careful judgements are now coming in and it seems that the Post-Normal era in science and politics is coming to a close, and not before time. I am delighted that the New Scientist is now using its critical and ethical faculties and employing those faculties to underpin their collective editorial judgements.
Science, all science, has been polluted by money, government money, which trys to produce government solutions — So government can produce more money for themselves.
The warmaholics are their own worst enemies. They latch on to any unusual, but not unprecedented, weather event, and claim it is due to AGW. Two prominent events recently relate to hurricanes in the North Atlantic, and Arctic sea ice. However, these pronouncements carry with them a danger. There is an implicit assumption that in the future, things will get more so. When this does not occur, there is trouble.
“Oh! what a tangled web we weave; when first we practice to deceive” Sir Walter Scott. When events do not go the warmaholic way, then they need to invent all sorts of reasons why not. When temperatures did not rise in the 21st century, we got Smith el al in Science, and Keenleyside et al in Nature. “The heat is in the pipeline”.
In September 2010 three events may cast some light on the coming AGW trainwreck. We get minimum ice extent data from the Arctic. Tropical storms in the NA reach their peak. The Royal Society is due to release it’s report on it’s official attitude to AGW. Two committees are due to report this month, and if Sir Alan Runge has had anything to do with it, these committees have operated on a level playing field. If the RS changes it’s official attitude towards AGW, it will be the equivalent of a magnitude 10 earthquake.
Mark September 2010 on your calendars.
There’s another article “When Scientists Sin”, Michael Shermer, in Scientific American, July 2010, that is along these same lines.
I don’t have a link to it.
As the pigs take flight, watch out for falling objects.
As Hell freezes over, take heart in the warming effect of CO2.
£1M paid by Exon to sceptics? A mere drop in the ocean. What has UK Gov spent this year alone on AGW promotion?
I endorse Richard Courtney’s post wholeheartedly.
The lights are about to go out fast in the UK, people will die young & old, all because of a scare story promoted by Global Governance mongers! When the only apparent solution to AGW is Global Government, unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable, & unsackable, run by Marxist Socilaist Intellectul Elitists, with tax-raising powers to tax the poor people in rich countries & give the money to rich people in poor countries, you have to be very worried. It’s typical of socialism, we’re all going to die but lets all die equal & broke, but of course we won’t will we Mr Blair et al, (£20M is his net worth this year since leaving office & increasing)! Am I correct in thinking that one of the sticking points at Copenhagen was that the “poor” countries didn’t want a to sign up to a payment verification system so that the new Global Government could keep tabs on where the money was really going? Or am I being just too cynical?
They don’t care what you think.
Cap and Tax WILL be coming for xmas.
It was never alive – it’s not dead now. It was always a fiction.
The goal has not been forgotten. Hoping for change got you here – it will keep you here.
They are coordinated and have clearly defined goals.
You do not.
They’ve been walking all over you from the beginning and laughing.
And they STILL have the money, so don’t even try to pretend they lost anything – you lost.
Even a sex poodle can be awarded a Nobel piece prize.
Science is not about what you know but who likes you.
On the comments section of the New Scientist there are these comments:
and
Compare and contrast:-
(1) The Times London July 19 Banner headline, front page:-
“Oil Giant gave £1 million to fund climate sceptics”
Authoratative source – why it is Bob Ward, attack dog PR guy from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change (whose only activity seems to be peddling global warming propaganda)!
Where the ExxonMobile money went? The Media Research Centre, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Pacific Research Institute and the Heritage Foundation (and “some other 21 sceptic groups”, unspecified)
And
(2) The Times London July 19 page 42, Business News, half way down a piece headed “Carbon Trust steps up its search for business gems”.
“The Trust has has its annual central funding reduced to less than £88 million, from £100 million.”
So, £1 million from a big oil company for a bunch of business oriented think tanks = bad.
£100 million from taxpayers money to one Quango (out of hundreds!) set up specifically to peddle cAGW alarmism = good.
And this is responsible journalism?
The apparent change of heart is purely a business decision, as stated in:
Scottie says:
July 19, 2010 at 5:02 am
I’m surely not getting a subscription even if this “change of heart” remains, because these are still the same people and they’ll continue up pushing their propaganda on other issues.
-Scott
Thanks Anthony, and your fellow contributors to the truth! You guys have done more than anyone else to publicise the truth about the agw scare. I for one wouldnt have had the knowledge and ability to counter the lies by the so called scientists who were really just opportunists out to feather their own nests at the expense of everyone else. The fight is far from over, but you guys are hammering them!
Richard S Courtney at 4:08 am
…How remarkable! Just what I was going to say, except that my analogy would be that the the global warming horse is dead, but its muscles keep twitching. That’s what we are seeing in some of the media – the still-twitching muscles of the “man-made-carbon-dioxide-is-evil-and-causes global warming” dead horse.
The smarter AGW scientists are already edging towards the door marked “EXIT” and the rest will be wondering exactly how they were suckered into this shameful degrading, immoral and corrupt scheme in the first place.
As for New Scientist, I’m not so sure about them. Last month they published an article about how the atmosphere is becoming depleted of oxygen and how this is going to affect us. As the depletion rate is only 20ppm per year, the answer is obvious, but it didn’t stop them publishing.
A few weeks ago they, New Scientist, had articles about CAGW from a number of non-scientists who laid into the “deniers” and produced “evidence” that GHG’s were warming the atmosphere and it would be disastrouse ete. etc. I, along with many others I now know, wrote to them to tell them that the articles weren’t new and weren’t scientific and that they had at last exhausted my patience and I wouldn’t be buying their magazine again. I now believe that the negative response from their readers shocked those at NS who believed that climate “deniers” were “troofers” and “creationists” but were also scientists, engineers and mathematicians who have grave misgivings about the quality of the evidence that CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to a global catastrophe, and wanted a more incisive scientific investigation into what are really only assertions by the warmists.
Scott says:
July 19, 2010 at 7:13 am
The apparent change of heart is purely a business decision, as stated in:
=======================================================
It’s been a business decision all along.
People forget that these rags are a business, and like any other news media, disaster sells.
Would anyone buy a headline “nothing happened this week”, of course not.
Scientists want to be published in these rags, so they write in a way that gets them in there. This is part of the corruption of the peer review process. The rags have a say so in what they publish and will bounce it back if it if they don’t think it will sell.
In my continuing attempt to point out poor journalism, NPR radio in Wyoming, this morning at 7:50 AM MDST, included “climate change” as one of the possible causes for the decline in honey bee populations! This may be a new low and adds to the previously reported extremely long list of almost everything in the world which may be caused by AGW.
@Tenuc: “The ship of CAGW is rapidly sinking.”
I wish I could share your optimism, but too many politicians have now nailed their flag to the CAGW mast for it to be shredded and discarded, at least for a generation. I think the next IPCC AR will be the last salvo from the warmists, if they don’t cause panic and mayhem then there is every likelihood that the more intelligent of them will start to back away and that the science will become less and less strident. But it will be a long hard road to get to a stage where our children aren’t being brainwashed by Greens into believing humans are the cause of all the earth’s problems and can be dispensed with.
New Scientist was a staple in out household from the early 60’s and now it… no….wait…what’s that? It’s still arriving in the post? I also stopped subsrcibing for the reason that virtually all articles contained unbearable regurgitations on ‘everything is going to die’, ‘it’s worse than we thought’ CAGW.
To my surprise they kept coming. Not the editorial implants, the mags! Huh.
I presume the environmental armeggedon movement has or is about to identify a new raison d’etre so it is safe to move on. Dunno. The problem with thinking subscribers is they can think!
Perhaps one day I will add (whatever the new ‘green’ disaster is) to my grandchildren’s fireside stories about acid rain, ozone, CO2, black helicopters, international cooperation, Third World Development, Obama and the other terrifying subjects that clutter the minds in a tottering civilisation. Hopefully our grandchildren will build a better world based on intelligent cooperation instead of artificial division.
Humour will out CAGW alarmism…
Bill Clinton: (march 2010)
Noting that it was spring: “otherwise known to Al Gore as proof of global warming.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7495834/Bill-Clinton-pokes-fun-at-Al-Gore-during-Gridiron-dinner.html
A UK TV/Radio personality:
Terry Wogan: (april 2010) predicting people saying in 50 years time
“All those windmills! What were they thinking of?”
Terry Wogan – 10th April 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/terrywogan/7575889/Nobody-likes-a-smart-alec-so-Ill-do-my-gloating-quietly.html
Another ray of hope was The Guardian’s debate which included serious sceptics McIntyre and Doug Keenan
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/barry-woods-on-guardian-panel/
I want to know who leaked the emails. Why has this not been addressed? Is that not an important issue? If it was Briffa, would that not be a bombshell? What the deuce?
A welcome change from a journal that I gave up on a long time ago.
However, some journals are still peddling the “..we are on the edge of disaster due to GW..” line. From Louise Gray today.
See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7895611/Photos-show-dramatic-shrinking-of-Mount-Everest-glaciers.html
Still some life left in the uncritical stance of the MSM.
Ed