It seems there’s a purge on at the UN to remove failed climate claims. Last week it was the 50 million climate refugees that never materialized and was covered up, this week it’s the poor of Africa they’ve “disappeared”. This one I stumbled upon quite by accident, doing some research for my previous story: World opinion on global warming: not so hot
In it I noted this – Lawrence Solomon makes an observation: 
In Sub-Saharan Africa, where 54% are not aware that their climate is alleged to be warming, a mere 22% have heard of the global warming issue and predominantly blame humans for the warming. In undeveloped Asia, 48% are unaware that the climate is warming and 27% predominantly blame humans.
I wondered about the 54% in Africa saying:
But one has to wonder, if the people that live closest to the earth (such as natives in sub-Saharan Africa) can’t detect changes around them, are we manufacturing a crisis that we wouldn’t notice otherwise?
So I decided to ask the question: How hard is Africa being hit by climate change? I recalled a catchphrase “Africa hit hard by global warming” that I had read before, so I decided to start with that. My first Google search produced the answer in the form of a UNEP report from 2001, except…. the report isn’t there. But, according to Google cache, it was there just a few days ago. See the process of discovery below.
OK so I visited that web page: http://hqweb.unep.org/documents.Multilingual/default.asp
It is a document aggregation page, full of reports and speeches going back to 2000. But I couldn’t locate any press release from February 2001 as stated in the Google search above.
So I decided to search on that title specifically:
And it gives me the same page, where that doesn’t exist that I can find. Odd.
Then I recalled that UNEP provided a site specific Google search on that page under the header, so I tried that, simply searching for “africa hit hardest”
Bingo. It gave me a URL with a document ID:
http://www.unep.org/Documents.multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=192&ArticleID=2776&l=en
And when I clicked on that…amazingly, it returned me to the default document page:
http://hqweb.unep.org/Documents.multilingual/Default.asp
Try it yourself. Hmmm. That sort of redirect to a default page usually occurs when the internal web page engine can’t find the document requested. On some websites, they trap 404 errors, then redirect so the end user isn’t dumped along the side of the information superhighway. I thought, well, it is a 10 year old document, maybe it was simply deleted on the 10 year mark automatically? Well no, they have this from the year 2000 on that page:
So it could not be some sort of date related automatic deletion of a 2001 document.
Then I recalled that my first search attempt showed a “cached” version, so I decided to check that. Sure enough, it was in Google cache, and it was a capture from April 17th, 2011, just a few days ago. Here it is:
Even if you click on the link at the top of the page cited by Google cache, it takes you to the UNEP default page. So clearly, the article has disappeared from the website.
Curiously, just 5 days after the last snapshot taken by Google cache was saved, April 22nd, the Gallup poll comes out:
And in that Gallup poll website, there’s this inconvenient table:
Which begs the question: If Africans are the “hardest hit by global warming” according to the UN, how can only 54% of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa be unaware of it (and only 49% of Middle East and North Africans)?
Of course, the UN helpfully provided the answer by attempting to disappear it right after the Gallup poll came out. They aren’t aware of it because the “hitting hard” of global warming in Africa simply isn’t happening.
Another bogus climate claim rubbished by reality.
===============================================================
For those interested, I have recovered the full report and have placed it in a PDF document here: UNEP_press_release_Feb22-2001
Jeremy: It wasn’t really someone at the LA times. This is an op ed by Jonas Goldberg a conservative columnist.
Looking at the Gallup Poll, I fear Australasia has also gone missing.
A curious result from “Developed Asia”. Even more loony Green than Western Europe and Canada. Latin America have also bought into the snake oil.
Montag says: “…If people have been hit hard by lead poisoning ever since the ancient Greeks, how come they have not been aware of the harm caused by exposure to even small amounts of lead? Surely, lead poisoning must be a myth!”
False analogy.
As a side note on revised web pages, the page at:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/research/
has been modified. It used to have a clickable link showing all of the grants that had been awarded to CRU UEA. This link is now inactive. I wonder why CRU UEA doesn’t want the public to know what grants they have? Maybe something to do with the granting organizations requiring data be public or fear of people submitting FOIA requests to the granting organizations?
The old site with an active link is a vailable via the wayback machine at:
http://replay.web.archive.org/20090427145952/http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/research/
I first set foot in sub Saharan Africa more than sixty years ago. There has been a little weather variability in that time, but noticeable to the average person only in El Nino times. Up and down southern Africa the climate this year is indistinguishable from the vast majority of years that have gone before. Despite that, here in South Africa we do not lack for AGW hype. For example, we have CFC lamp globes just like everybody else.
I’m reluctant to agree with Montag but it seems, Anthony, that you may be reading too much into this. For three reasons:
1. That Gallup poll is of dubious value – see this – so it probably doesn’t give an accurate picture of sub-Saharan African opinion.
2. In any case, people may possibly have noticed heavier rainfall and more mosquitoes (even increased temperatures) without knowing that these phenomena were associated with something called “global warming” – not everyone understands the interpretation of that phrase as visitors to this blog understand it. If indeed they’ve even heard of it.
3. Er … most sub-Saharan Africans don’t live in Rwanda or Zimbabwe.
REPLY: The one thing that nobody seems able to explain is why was that press release there on April 17th, then gone today, while older documents remain on the web page which contained a link to it. If anyone can explain that, especially in light of UNEP was caught removing another document with a bold claim last week (50 million climate refugees that never mateialized) I’m listening – Anthony
Montag says:
April 27, 2011 at 10:15 am
The post is about withdrawn documents. Your comment is about being a skeptic of climate skepticism. Your sarcasm is wasted by being off-point.
Now we need the UN to ‘disappear’.
What can we expect from a political body selling hubris to the world at astronomical costs putting countries like Syria on the seat of the UN council for human rights?
I’ve never seen such a corrupt overpaid bunch of mafiosi in my life.
Robin Guenier says:
April 27, 2011 at 10:49 am
In any case, people may possibly have noticed heavier rainfall and more mosquitoes (even increased temperatures) without knowing that these phenomena were associated with something called “global warming”
They may possibly have, and then again, they may not. Have you?
In general, I agree.
However, this statement “So it could not be some sort of date related automatic deletion of a 2001 document” is not necessarily true.
It could be related to some other deletion. Maybe they save panel reports but not press releases.
I only bring this up, because I think the skeptic’s own logic should be solid. A better statement would be “it probably is not part of some sort of automatic deletion.”
Mr. Watts, ” They aren’t aware of it because the “hitting hard” of global warming in Africa simply isn’t happening.”
A bit of a jump to a conclusion. You offer no evidence of your conclusion in this post. I am skeptical of the conclusion you draw without evidence.
REPLY: Define then, “hitting hard” in the context of the UN global warming claim. If you live somewhere, and are “hit hard” by some effect, natural, man-made, you usually know about it. The fabricated ones are the ones you miss. – Anthony
sceptical,
As with all alarmists, you have the scientific method backwards. It is you who have failed to show verifiable evidence for CAGW.
From c. 1879 – 1928, linguists compiled the classic Oxford English Dictionary by literally reading everything ever written and recorded in the Mother Tongue.
Now that paleo-Climate Hysterics are purging their archives, hiding the decline in Warmist credibility, realist task-forces might begin a systematic assessment of all things IPCC since 1999 if not 1988. Lord knows what asininities may stand revealed… but absent such concerted effort, you can bet that Railroad Bill Pachauri is e’en now ensuring that his Ministry of Truth will not be scrutinized unduly.
AGW catastrophists can no more withstand exposure than Dracula can sunlight. The lids of their coffins open, but their day-of-reckoning ain’t here yet.
I searched on Alta Vista for ‘climate change + africa hardest hit.” The is a plethora of news articles and NGO cited drivel that are listed. This following is from a Madagascar environmental science blog, Mongabay.com:
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0410-africa.html
“Climate change will worsen drought, hunger in Africa
mongabay.com
April 10, 2007
Africa will suffer the brunt of climate change reports the latest installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC says that the projected increases in greenhouse gas emissions will put up to 1.8 billion more Africans “at risk of water stress” this century. Modest rises in temperature will reduce water availability in parts of the continent.
“Between 75 and 250 million people in Africa will be at risk of increased water stress with a one degree C rise; between 350 and 600 million with a two degree C climb and up to 1.8 billion if temperatures rise by three degrees C which could happen by around 2080,” stated a release from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The report says that rising sea levels, especially in coastal East Africa, could cost as much as 10 percent of GDP. Tourism is also expected to take a hit as wildlife migrates and becomes endangered and temperatures climb, making the climate less hospitable to visitors.”
I speculate that the IPCC report cites the disappeared UN Report.
I quit using Google and Bing after noticing that that the search presentations are quite biased and politically oriented.
Robin Guenier says:
April 27, 2011 at 10:49 am
“2. In any case, people may possibly have noticed heavier rainfall and more mosquitoes (even increased temperatures) without knowing that these phenomena were associated with something called “global warming” – not everyone understands the interpretation of that phrase as visitors to this blog understand it. If indeed they’ve even heard of it.”
Careful, you might find yourself in a controversy over just what effects can be associated with global warming. The mosquitoes canard has been known since the premiere performance of “An Inconvenient Truth.” In my humble opinion, Warmista do not have a clue what observable phenomena can be associated with global warming. There is not one of them who has spent a life working the land. Being an eco-tour-guide does not count.
Thanks for your hard work on this one, Anthony!! This is like an Internet version of Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”!!
I’ve noticed these “disappearing articles” for some time now. A few years ago, the UNFCCC website announced an news item that said that “rice paddy agriculture was the largest source of manmade GHG emissions.”
My jaw dropped….it is probably a factual statement (due to methane having a GHG equivalent of 21 x CO2, and also high emissions of N2O), but I couldn’t believe that such a contradictory article would be let loose! Forget fossil fuels etc., go after the poor Asians??
Unfortunately, no matter how many times I’ve looked via Wayback Machine etc., I have never been able to find that particular entry. Word to the wise – if you see a “plum” floating by, grab it for future reference!!
Smokey, as with all alarmists, you have changed subjects by offering an unrelated response.
To begin to learn about the evidence for AGW, I would reading the IPCC reports which are available online.
Perhaps the press release disappearing is releated to the posts disappearing from this site.
Anthony:
You ask why “nobody seems able to explain is why was that press release there on April 17th, then gone today …” Here’s a suggestion: like you, the UN thought that the Gallup poll finding disproved their “hardest hit by global warming” claim, so immediately “disappeared” the claim.
The only point I’m making is that, for the reasons I set out in my earlier post, the poll probably did no such thing. That doesn’t, for course, mean that the claim was valid. But establishing that would require real data, not a dubious poll.
REPLY: The poll is data, and I’ve never heard of anyone accusing Gallup of running “dubious” polls. They conduct them with integrity and control. I hear what you are saying, but in the previous episode last week where the 50 million climate refugees document was “disappeared” the UNEP did that in response to a blogger asking a question; “where are they” and then the answer “they don’t exist” being picked up by MSM, specifically Fox News. The Gallup poll is getting some similar press coverage. I believe this to be more than coincidence. – Anthony
sceptical,
The entire issue is about CAGW. You call scientific skeptics “alarmists” and label youself a sceptic. Psychological projection of your own faults onto others; Orwell called it “doublethink.”
I’m no climate alarmist my friend, and you are certainly no skeptic. And BTW, I have read the UN/IPCC reports; each one gets progressively less scientific. AR-1 was at least arguable. By AR-4 it was just WWF propaganda.
Can I hope the UN continues to “disappear” content until there’s no UN left? Am I being to optimistic? Gosh, one can only hope.
Aside from the disappearing act, the article itself is just crappy scaremongering. Yes, mosquitoes thrive in wetter, warmer microclimates. But there is no empirical evidence to show that CAGW is actually causing this. Only speculation and arm-waving.
The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene published a 2006 paper by Minakawa et al which found land use change was the major player in how mosquito populations change.
Something you will never find on a warmist website:
http://ccb.colorado.edu/ijas/ijasno2/georgis.html
It was written some time ago but, I think you will agree, puts paid to any nonsense about man causing climate change in this part of Africa
Anthony —
My apologies, I must have misread the post; I thought you were seeking the report to which the press release referred.
The page you link, where the press release used to be — http://hqweb.unep.org/Documents.multilingual/Default.asp
— has a limited content. With the exceptions of the two items you show from that page, all documents seem to be from Oct 2001 to March 2004. UNEP’s primary archive of press releases appears to be http://hqweb.unep.org/newscentre/default.asp?ct=pr&scope=all . But it too does not contain the press release in question. It does go back in time that far (and farther), e.g. it contains a press release of 19 Feb 2001 on the publication of the TAR WG II volume.
There are just so many things to comment on so early in the blog!
Montag: lead poisoning? There is lead in all soil. Same for mercury, uranium, thorium and lotsa other things. Granite is radioactive. There are so many ‘dangers’ one can wave hands about. Get a grip. Global warming, now that we know it doesn’t exist in the near term, has fallen below background lead as a danger to anyone. Turns out we evolved on this planet, you see.
Anthony wrote: “The UN isn’t stupid enough to remove the WGII report, but apparently they ARE stupid enough to start removing (twice now) other documents that make bold claims that have not been proven true after years.”
Seems to me it is more like prophecies than claims. These projections or predictions or prognostications were of course based on models grounded in solid climate science and agreed to by something like 97% of the scientists whose income depends on inflation of the scare. (I always wondered about the other 3% who were dependent but honest enough to disagree.)
The whole point of science and engineering (like, climate engineering) is to be able to make accurate predictions. Lacking any ability to make meaningfully correct predictions indicates it is not science as ordinary engineers and physicists and geologists and dare I say, climatologists are concerned. If a random guess consistently outperforms the ‘climate science’ of 2001, then we have something like:
_____1_____ = Truth
Climate science
There are a LOT of contaminated and shrill documents out there which need to be expunged. It’s going to be an interesting year.