The revelation that the UN predicted 50 million climate refugees by 2010, it failed , and then the UN “disappeared” the evidence that they ever made such a prediction brightly illustrates a common theme to global warming aka climate change that has been repeated again and again.
Many times, these climate failures get a mention, and then fade into obscurity. When we try to find them later, search engines aren’t as useful or cooperative as we’d like. I want to change that by providing a central repository for such failed claims. I’ll make it a special page, part of our menu bar, with an icon link on the sidebar, suitable for placement on other websites. The Climate FAIL files page exists here.
To populate the page, as a starting seed resource, we have the excellent NumberWatch UK warm list, which lists all manner of claims about global warming, some contradictory, some silly, some serious. It is a good place to start.
Like with surfacestations.org, this project can benefit from crowd-sourcing the work. WUWT readers are already quite sharp-eyed, providing hundreds of items to our Tips & Notes section each month. I see this as simply a logical extension of what is already being done.
Here’s a good example, posted in Tips & Notes today:
Predicator says on 2011/04/16 at 9:10 am
I’ve been searching for those ‘by 2010′ things that didn’t exactly come true. Here’s one find:
Solar costs to match coal by 2010
http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=645
Monday, 9 April 2007
The cost of producing solar power will fall to that of coal-fired electricity by the end of the decade, according to a report by Europe’s Photon Consulting.
There, a perfect example of a testable prediction. That prediction can be easily documented as true/false today with available data at hand. Have at it folks.
I wish to make it clear that this new feature isn’t to be as free form as simply dropping a comment, as I don’t have time to research and chase down every claim, that’s where the crowd-sourcing comes in. I want each entry to be testable, and documented. Let’s use the scientific method, applied to claims made by figureheads, government, science and media.
For each entry, we’ll need the following:
- The claim itself – what was stated as factual or predicted? A clear unambiguous statement, such as “50 million climate refugees by 2010”
- Proof of the original claim – website, documents, photos, audio, video that clearly and unambiguously show the claim being made sometime in the past.
- A test of the of the claim, and the results – website, documents, photos, audio, video that clearly and unambiguously show the claim not coming true or not meeting the claim.
and /or
- Proof of change in the claim (if applicable) – often, when the claim fails to materialize, goalposts get moved, such as we saw with the “50 million climate refugees” story that was originally set with a due date of 2010, is now set for the year 2020.
All of this, once documented fully, will be added to the list. It will give a reference which can be used to debunk overhyped, modified on demand, or simply false claims that we see over and over again.
Some tools to help you are listed below
General purpose search engines
Obviously there’s Google, but Google has clearly made a recent change to algorithms that may not give the results you are looking for, here’s some alternates:
Obvious ones: Bing.com Yahoo.com Ask.com Aol Search
Some “not so obvious” ones:
http://www.dogpile.com/ http://www.yandex.com/
http://duckduckgo.com/ http://www.altavista.com/ http://startpage.com/
=======================================================
Specialty search engines
engine for scientific enquiries: http://www.scirus.com
Google scholar: http://scholar.google.com/
Gooble Books: http://books.google.com/
The Wayback Machine (finds old versions of websites)
Archive.org (even broader search to include audio, images, books)
=======================================================
Archiving tools
Webcite (makes a permanent copy of any web page, free)
Tinypic (free storage of screencaps and images)
Local website archive (free and paid versions, allows saving entire websites to disk)
=======================================================
I’ll add to this list as new ones are suggested in comments.
The new page on WUWT is Climate FAIL Files and is ready to be populated. Start your discussions here and if you have subjects to tackle, list them in comments. I’ll add them as we go.
Discussion will move to a new thread at some point, but let’s start here first.
Here’s how I propose to format the entries:
===============================================================
The Claim: 50 million climate refugees will be produced by climate change by the year 2010. Especially hard hit will be river delta areas, and low lying islands in the Carribean and Pacific. The UN 62nd General assembly in July 2008 said: …it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010.
The Test: Did population go down in these areas during that period, indicating climate refugees were on the move? The answer, no.
The Proof: Population actually gained in some Carribean Islands for which 2010 census figures were available. Then when challenged on these figures, the UN tried to hide the original claim from view. See: The UN “disappears” 50 million climate refugees, then botches the disappearing attempt
The Change in claim: Now it is claimed that it will be 10 years into the future, and there will be 50 million refugees by the year 2020.
================================================================
OK, you know what to do.
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David, UK says:
This raises an interesting question of how to rate a prediction that gives the date as too soon, but it happens much later on.
I would answer this by looking at stock market predictions. Take for example the great run-up in the price of a barrel of oil to around $150 back in 2008. Several reputable experts were predicting that oil would reach $200 and eventually $300 and even $500 and beyond. If based on that advice you committed a significant portion of your savings to the expected rise in oil, chances are you would be struggling to find a second or third job to pay your bills today. Might oil reach $200 or $300 a barrel some day? Some experts believe so, but the original forecast was wrong because they got the time frame wrong.
Dr Robert Davidson says:
April 16, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Hey contrarians, remember that over 97% of the experts (who know better than you) agree with the young people. They are not going to idly put up with your nonsense for much longer – the Civil Rights movement comparison is apt – it’s a moral issue.
===============================================
lol…nice to see the warmists’ Hitler/Mao/Stalin wing checking in…..bet he even sports the little moustache:
“VE VILL NOT TOLERATE DISSENT….ZE GESTAPO IS OND ZE WAY!!!”
Hague Webcams
http://www.dofferhoff.com/
http://www.lahague-tourisme.com/webcams,1,1,227.php
Photos of Hague 2011
http://www.thehaguephotojournal.com/
PaulH says:
April 17, 2011 at 9:45 am
David, UK says:
“This raises an interesting question of how to rate a prediction that gives the date as too soon, but it happens much later on.”
You need a dictionary. The time stamp is part of the prediction. Take an obvious example. If I predict a full moon tonight but it does not occur until next week then my prediction was false, and known to be false as of tonight.
Try this, it may be what is wanted from ABC newswatch [Oz] which reports on the goings on at the ABC there.
All about corals. Here:
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2011/04/past-alarm-worlds-coral-40-gone-by-2010.html
I have put i here because you do not seem t have set up a special posting page for these reports as far as I can see.
Kindest Regards
Marine_Shale says:
April 17, 2011 at 7:14 am
Regarding “Dr” Robert Davidson.
As an Australian I cannot tolerate the not so veiled threat of violence against scientific sceptics who disagree with Mr Davidson.
——–
Are there different comments that show up in Australia? I only see one comment that even remotely has a smidgeon of a threat: DirkH’s “Dr. Davidson, be careful what you wish for; the tables might be turned on *you* more easily than you might imagine”…
all that did was to mirror the implied violence in Dr. Davidson’s own nasty little letter.
Dr. Davidson, no cause that relies on lies, threats and propaganda can in any sense of the word be deemed moral. Sorry you don’t care for the truth, which is the focus of the efforts of Anthony Watts and those who contribute here.
Does anyone here have a link to headlines of the past 25 years predicting catastrophes or especially of the ‘we have just 5 years to act before it’s too late’ kind? I wanted to add some slides to my AGW lecture about the hyped alarmism that began in the 1980s and somehow could not locate any of these. Thanks!
Is Eva Morales related to Lucy?
All bow down to Pachamama.
Why do all our current deity’s names have a -mama suffix?
——————————————————–
Excuse me sir, that cockroach has rights
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/04/16/rex-murphy-excuse-me-sir-that-cockroach-has-rights/
——snip———
And just this week, Bolivia’s president, Eva Morales, hailed national legislation that would enshrine the “rights of Mother Nature” — human rights extended to earth itself. Pause to marvel at the powers of the Bolivian legislature. May we note that Morales is a James Cameron fan? I think we may.
Vice-President Alvaro García Linera describes the country’s new legislation (“The Law of Mother Earth”) as making “world history. Earth is the mother of all.” He also gushed that the law “establishes a new relationship between man and nature.”
The Bolivian legislation, we are informed by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, “has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.”
Remember this the next time someone says that the science of global warming is “settled,” for many environmentalists are inspired not by science, but by spirituality — Andean and otherwise.
What does the new Bolivian law mean? It means that tics that suck the blood, the choking sulphur pits of volcanic vents, the indestructible cockroach, the arid desert wastes and the bleak frigid spaces of the planet’s poles — everything from the locusts that despoil, to the great mountain ranges, the earth and all that is in it, are to have … rights. (About the other planets, Morales is silent.)
———–snip——–
Here is one, through Tom Nelson:
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2011/04/past-alarm-worlds-coral-40-gone-by-2010.html
40% of the worlds reefs will be gone by 2010.
References on the page above suggest about 2% loss. With uncertainty, its unchanged.
and, trying to keep up with the ‘a jones’, I fell behind.
I did not see your post. Sorry, mate.
” Taphonomic says:
April 17, 2011 at 9:29 am
May I suggest that you dedicate this project to the memory of Julian Simon?”
I second that motion!
“Arctic specialist Bernt Balchen says a general warming trend over the North Pole is melting the polar ice cap and may produce an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the year 2,000.”
The Christian Science Monitor 1972
Ring a bell?
September/March average extent
1999/2000 6.2 (millions of square kilometers)
2000/2001 6.3 (millions of square kilometers)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
Lots below which includes references to original sources.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/7115/Laugh-Riot-190year-climate-tipping-point-issued–Despite-fact-that-UN-began-10Year-Climate-Tipping-Point-in-1989
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3826/Not-again-Another-10year-climate-tipping-point-warning-issued–Despite-fact-that-UN-began-10Year-Climate-Tipping-Point-in-1989
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/8405025.stm
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SJ&s_site=mercurynews&p_multi=SJ&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB7304FF9A84273&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
GISS US temperature graph
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.gif
Average sea ice extent for September 2008 – 4.67 million square kilometers
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20081002_seaice_pressrelease.html
40% of coral reefs to be gone by 2010: http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2011/04/past-alarm-worlds-coral-40-gone-by-2010.html#comment-form
Sorry if this is the wrong place!
I’m looking at BBC “global warming” articles. In the first 78 articles (Nov 97 – Mar 99) I’ve found only 5 testable predictions : 1 is anti-alarmist, and 2 have a long time yet to fail. That leaves 2. One is about Larsen B which I expect to bear fruit, and the other is as follows;
Date of claim: 8 Nov 97
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/25507.stm
Webcite: http://www.webcitation.org/5y1FBLsft (provisional)
The claim: Scientists say even a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions (on 1990 levels) would not slow rising temperatures for at least fifty years.
Falsification. ***Can anyone improve on this?***
The Falsification source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8511670.stm
Webcite: http://www.webcitation.org/5y1GQI5U5 (provisional)
Q – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
“Yes, but only just.” Prof. Phil Jones – UEA CRU
And that is _despite_ CO2 emissions being higher than 1990 levels.
I forgot the falsification date: 13 Feb 2010
Anthony, could I suggest that you add a section for “upcoming” predictions, so they can be tracked and verified at the appropriate time? For example, here is “NASA climate scientist” Jay Zwally predicting that, “the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012”:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html
It would be good to capture this information along with a stored capture of the source web site in case it “disappears” before we get to the predicted date.
Anthony,
There is a website which combines several search engines.
http://www.info.com
If you have a PhD, it is generally considered rather unethical to use the Dr. title in circumstances that it does not relate to. ie, A music or arts PhD should not be used as a titled in a science forum, because it is totally irrelevant.
“vigilantfish says:
April 17, 2011 at 10:39 am
Does anyone here have a link to headlines of the past 25 years predicting catastrophes or especially of the ‘we have just 5 years to act before it’s too late’ kind?”
See the following at:
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=MH&s_site=miami&p_multi=MH&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB33CF66D507218&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
Miami Herald – July 5, 1989 – 2E SCIENCE
GREENHOUSE WARMING NATIONS MAY VANISH, U.N. SAYS
A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco-refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the United Nations U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the…
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2011/04/past-alarm-worlds-coral-40-gone-by-2010.html
On Monday 22 April 2002 ABC’s flagship current affairs program, 4 Corners, broadcast the following alarming prediction in a report titled: Beautiful one day.
Across the world, coral reefs are turning into marine deserts. It’s estimated that more than a quarter have been lost and that 40 per cent could be gone by 2010.
From the transcript:
According to the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, 10 per cent of the world’s reefs were lost by 1992.
27 per cent were lost by the year 2000.
And it’s expected 40 per cent will be gone by 2010.
In 1997 the area of the world’s coral reefs was estimated to be 255,000km2.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/ccxb165016ma8792/
If the prediction made on 4 Corners is to be believed, then in 2010 the area of the world’s coral reefs should be around 153,000km2.
Instead, in 2011, one year on from that alarming forecast, we find that the global area of coral reef is estimated to be 249,713km2. Reference-http://pdf.wri.org/factsheets/factsheet_reefs_main.pdf.
This amounts to a change from 1997 figures of -2.1%. Given the unreported uncertainties, there has essentially been no change in global reef area over the past 10 years. Within error, essentially none of the reefs are missing in 2010.
A couple of cost items for PV for those looking at what PV costs:
Sempra has an agreement to sell the output of a large PV system outside of Los Vagas to PG&E. The prices (which will vary based on the time of day and time of the year the power is generated) that PG&E is going to pay for the energy will be availble in a few years- from the CPUC I believe. The current CPUC approval of the contract between PG&E and Sempra is redacted as far as prices go.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Sempras-Copper-Mountain-is-Now-the-Largest-PV-Plant-in-U.S/
The CEC has been keeping track of PV systems prices for a few years- you can sort the data base by ISO, location, system size, residential, commercial, year of installation, etc, as they were initially responsible for distributing the rebate for solar installations. As an FYI the CEC bases rebate amounts on the AC power (to take into account system specific panel and inverter efficiencies) not the DC (or STS ratings). It is interesting to note that the price for PV systems for commercial applications has been dropping big time over the last year.
http://www.californiasolarstatistics.ca.gov/reports/quarterly_cost_per_watt/
This is a very good suggestion.
Some suggestions for searching.
Search for some keywords plus “by 2010” or some other date.
If you find an outrageous claim be sure to save an image copy of the website before you post the address here, in case someone deletes the website.
e.g. Google “sea level” “by 2010”
gives me this amusingly wrong prediction by UCLA students (who of course don’t matter):
http://www.studentgroups.ucla.edu/enigma/writing/fut-his/1991-2010.html
“In 1990 Enigma created its own “future history”, attempting to create a plausible, or at least entertaining, description of the events over the next 130 years of Earth’s history.
…
Global warming becomes a reality — climactic turmoil across the world as weather patterns shift. Desertification becomes a critical problem.
Sea level rises 1 meter by the year 2000, and an additional 2 meters by 2010.”
[Shows the paranoia of 1990!]