From the “photo fraud on a large scale” department comes this exercise in bullshit (yes, that’s the right word, sorry if I offended your delicate senses) from some “artistic” greens as pointed out by Steve Goddard, and as pushed as some sort of significant event (to fake a satellite shot) over at Joe Romm’s blog. Here’s the ground level photo of the event:
I’ll have to hand it to him, McKibben was able to get a bunch of people to go out and stand in a ditch holding up blue cards and tarps for a photo op to fool a satellite, which is something I’d expect North Korea or Iraq to do.
But, McKibben, as usual with many “artists”, such as the Santa Fe Art Institute who provided the flash mob, is working in the abstract. He’s doing this to “save the planet”, so the ends justifies the means. Here’s the resulting satellite image of their event from Digital Globe, who they duped into donating (according to them) a half million dollars in satellite time:
I put the annotation on it to make sure you don’t get it confused with the “WUWT flash flood mob” that I staged from my spare bedroom this afternoon:
For all of McKibben’s manipulation of some weak minded people standing in a dry river bed holding up blue cards and tarps to fake out a satellite image, I’ll point out I can achieve the very same effect right here with Google Earth (35.660090° -106.016311°, rotated about 90° clockwise) and a paint program without wasting anyone’s time or emitting tons of CO2 to transport people to the event or having them respirate on-site.
From the Santa Fe Art Institute:
What? They are inviting 5000 people to drive from Santa Fe and park at the Mall? How does that fit it with reducing CO2? Oh wait, carpooling, yeah that’s the ticket. Over 1000 people actually showed up (so they say, an enterprising person could click the very top image and select the highest res photo and actually count people) out of the 5000 expected, so at least they succeeded in reduce that carbon footprint a bit.
Well, I daresay I came up with a nearly identical and artful result, and my carbon footprint was a mere fraction of what 350.org duped these 1000+ people into doing.
Then there’s this statement in the invitation:
Human-induced climate change is well-studied and documented and is a result, in large part, of burning of fossil fuels. Major impacts on human health in New Mexico have already been observed and, as warming progresses, they will likely increase. Some of the most profound changes are concerned with water, which is certainly scarce and precious here already. Because New Mexico relies heavily on snowpack for its snow-fed rivers, water stress will endanger ecosystems, economies, physical and mental health.
But, as Steve Goddard points out, that claim from these, plus the caption from Romm in the top photo is, well…BS. Goddard writes:
I worked one summer in the 1980s as a wilderness ranger in the mountains above Santa Fe and have some familiarity with the drainage. The river has been dammed above the city since 1881. There isn’t any water in the river bed because it all gets diverted to the city, Indian casinos and golf courses. National Geographic describes the problem.
Santa Fe suffers from chronic water extraction that leaves its bed a dry ditch for most of the year. “Everybody can agree that a healthy, flowing Santa Fe River is good for the community of Santa Fe,” Fahlund said.
“I think that the governor and the mayor are both solidly behind this, and I think that they are going to put some water back in the river. But it’s a matter of the timing and the permanence of that.”
The city’s growing water needs have drained the Santa Fe’s flow at the expense of dams and wells
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070418-ten-rivers.html
Santa Fe had their second snowiest winter in the forty year WRCC record last year, and five of the top ten years have been in the last decade.
All you have to do is look at Google Earth, just east and west of Santa Fe, to see where all the water from snowmelt ended up:
And as Steve Goddard suggests, this video from Penn and Teller pretty well sums up the premise of 350.org: [warning: adult language, f-bombs]
here’s part 2
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
And my local liberal rag, The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA.) spews forth with this c-rap just in time to attempt to sway the gullible reader:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/11/21/1433059/waves-taller-and-taller.html#storylink=omni_popular
At least toward the end of the article, a more rational viewpoint is presented, but the flashy headline is what most readers will remember. Nice job, TNT. Sensantionalize and use scary words linking recently-monitored enhanced wave heights off of the PNW coasts to human-induced climate change. I just about screamed when I read this drivel (had to bite my tongue – the wife doesn’t like me getting upset over these constantly-found erroneous psuedo-scince things, seems to happen daily though!). To the author’s benefit, the article mixes real science with the usual dogma-based diatribe towards the end…to what purpose?? To lend credibility to garbage almost-science?? I come away with the tast of bile in my mouth…
And the beat goes on in the liberal media….
Michael C. Roberts
Maybe I’m being paranoid but these are the very people we should be documenting carefully, true believers who are so dumb they are dangerous. Never mind I just realised they will proudly document themselves and post it on line.
It is arid in the SW and yet modern technology is able to supports millions int he same place where the Anasazi resorted to cannablism.
Pretty funny that John Coleman presents Arctic temperature as Global temperature in the P&T video, such blatant disinformation is laughable, and P&T complain about other’s bullshit.
A similar stunt was done in Vancouver, Canada today. A small group of people covered a lawn with green paper to form an outline of a “Carbon Boot”. I was glad to see that they didn’t have enough people to fill in all the spaces, and that they were shivering in the cold waiting for the plane to fly over (offsets purchased to compensate) to take the picture.
We might break the record in Vancouver for coldest temperature for this this time of year, beating 1977 as the coldest till now. It might be colder in the next few days than when “scientist” were warning of the coming ice age.
Santa Fe suffers from chronic water extraction that leaves its bed a dry ditch for most of the year. “Everybody can agree that a healthy, flowing Santa Fe River is good for the community of Santa Fe,” Fahlund said.
Actually, everyone agrees that water for drinking and cleaning is more important than a flowing river… at least everyone since 1881.
For once I find myself in agreement with Anthony and Steve. Artistic license is broad, but the Sante Fe River’s current problems are not likely due to climate change. Declines in precipitation are projected for the region and combined with temperature rise that increases evaporation may significantly reduce water availability at the end of the century or before. See: http://www.southwestclimatechange.org/node/790
But, 350.org does not make this clear and leads people to believe they are seeing the effects of climate change happening now. This image from a similar protest in Spain is more truthful (and more beautiful):
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4086/5192180852_5dee2edf6d_z.jpg
The caption says: “Citizens from the Delta del Ebro area in Catalunya, Spain joined renowned urban-artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada to form a giant representation of the face of a young girl who wishes to see the Delta survive the threat of climate change.” Elsewhere they mention the threat of future sea level rise.
Tim Blair destroyed Bill McKibben the lat time he raised his ugly head over the trench:
Tim Blair’s Site
As Blair says in his most eloquent fashion:
Demented end-of-species, end-of-world claims: tick
Non-blinking stare of the Holy Believer: tick
Three layers of clothing due to the, er, heat: tick
I think that the lead-up to Cancun is in stark contrast to Coopenhagen merely one year ago….. the hyped up climate nonsense is down 90%, and I suspect the attendees know that it’s all over, and are just going through the motions, and getting a bit of sunshine before their gravy train runs off the rails permanently.
Not a little bit of thanks is due to your efforts, Anthony, and that of countless others who believe in true science.
Sorry, must have muffed the reference to Tim Blair. Here it is in URL:
<a href="http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/tick_tick_tick/"
Propaganda, propaganda everywhere and mostly it is to unpalatable to drink too.
It would have been a hoot if the the dam operates had decide to release water in preparation for the winter rains while this was going on. That would have been some real performance art!
What an economic boon for Walmart!!!
I’m betting that no less than half the blue tarps were manufactured in China, and bought at Walmart just for this occasion.
What a bunch of chumps.
Proof of why aliens have not visited Earth yet.
Boris,
When slinging the gratuitous slags accusing someone else of being stupid, it is best to take a moment’s time and ensure you’re not making yourself look stupid.
“Can you got 100 words…”
By the way, thanks for making my day! 🙂
Anthony, feel free to refer to warmist effusions as bulls**t. I know from personal experience de-dunging a cowshed that bovine semi-solid body waste is GREEN.
On a planet that has roughly 70% surface area covered by water, we don’t have a water shortage problem, we have a water management problem.
But of course the people of the blue tarp would probably be the ones screaming the loudest if projects were undertaken to move significant amounts of water around – as in enough to satisfy the water needs of the South Western US urban and agricultural uses PLUS making the flash flood sluice they stood in a running watercourse, too.
Reuters reported this evening that the Mexican police had arrested a gang of kidnappers targeting the poo-bahs attending the ‘Kick the Cancun down the road’ farrago. The gang had detailed information on the security plan for the conference. RATS! It would have been hilarious watching the various governments pondering over whether to waste big bucks ransoming their worthless enviro-weenies.
Boris says:
November 21, 2010 at 7:04 pm
“which is something I’d expect North Korea or Iraq to do.”
Can you got 100 words without saying something incredibly stupid?
REPLY: The fact that I’ve irritated you enough to get angry pleases me immensely. – Anthony
Little Kim is probably irritated too. Not a fair comparison. The North Koreans are first class clones who put on spectacular synchronized pageants. This simple gathering of lemmings looks more like Pied Piper material, drawn from a place where The Warming is already causing the “mental health” issues they warn about.
Or is it a tent city for ‘climate refugees’?
P.S. This ‘artist’ actually states that “Major [climate change related] impacts on human health in New Mexico have already been observed.” Really? Like what? Or is it OK to say anything when playing ‘artist.’
Fascinating. I wonder if the participants knew that. Somehow I doubt it.
As Penn & Teller observe, this is BS. There wasn’t any water running through Santa Fe when I lived there as a child 50 years ago.
The picture led me to wonder how long it’ll be before we seen a return of marching flagellants, this time in environmentalist green.
Great point about the blue tarps DJ Meredith!
They’re probably those cheap plastic ones. You know, the ones made from oil derivatives? They were probably made in China in one of those downstream processing plants. You know, the ones the Chinese fire with coal because it is cheaper than oil? Now the machinery is all electric motors of course, so the electricity only had a 50% chance or so of coming from fossil fuel, but then they were sent on a diesel powered cargo ship, transferred to a diesel powered semi-trailer, and then stacked in a warehouse with a forklift, most likely propane powered. You would have thought they would have used local hand woven tarps made of plant fibers from local crops.
What’s that you say? $5.99 instead of $225.00? Yeah, well, that’s why Cancun will fail, ain’t it?
That most people don’t really understand the science I get. What I don’t get is how little most people understand how much more expensive it is to make a simple thing like a tarp without fossil fuel and how many items they take for granted that are made from byproducts and/or would be massively more expensive to manufacture any other way.
But hey, who needs ziplock bags and tupperware and plastic water bottles and pill vials and plastic tarps anyway?
The water was already visible, but they were looking for it in the wrong place.
I suspect many of the tarp holders would be upset if the city let the water flow and drew more water out of wells, making the water level go down at more distant places.
I suspect the protesters could buy water from the city and dump it in the river, but they don’t want to actually have to pay the same way every other water user in the city is paying.
I wonder if the satellite company got a tax writeoff for their donation.
Anthony: Are you going to do a post on the Wegman Report, and put to rest the allegations that are being lobbed by the MSM and the blogosphere? Dan Vergano at USA Today has a new story on the “shocking” plagiarism contained with the Wegman Report. If you need more material, Deep Climate has uncovered a whole host of problems with the “independent” Wegman Report, which apparently consisted little more than re-running the problematic R code (hint: it involves cherry picking) from McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) and reproducing their graphs. Oh, and he’s also apparently refusing to give up emails requested by George Mason University for their review of the plagiarism charges!
REPLY: This is what the Tips and Notes page is for, rather than spamming this thread. I already ran a couple of posts on this several weeks ago. USA today is just now catching up. “Deep Climate” is not a reliable source since he refuses to put his name to his posts. And, if you read John Mashey’s report which is what “Deep Climate” is pushing, you’ll realize what a trumped up bunch of conspiracy theory it all is. I’m looking forward to seeing it all in court, when true discovery can happen.
Don’t clutter up this thread with responses, they’ll be snipped as this is off-topic. – Anthony
REPLY: The fact that I’ve irritated you enough to get angry pleases me immensely. – Anthony
Nice. 🙂
They have their ways of showing they are losing.