Guest post by Alan Caruba
Full disclosure: Years ago I received a small stipend from The Heartland Institute to help cover the costs of writing articles regarding the global warming hoax, well before it was exposed in 2009 when emails between its perpetrators—the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—revealed the total lack of real science involved. I have continued to expose the hoax without any support from Heartland or any other entity.
A total of six conferences on climate change have been sponsored by The Heartland Institute. I attended the first conference in New York City in 2008 and my initial observation was that virtually no one from the press was there and the meager coverage it received disparaged it.
This week, a major smear campaign against the Institute erupted as the result of an act of deception and thievery that may well result in criminal charges against its as yet unknown perpetrator.
The President of the Institute, Joe Bast, immediately informed its supporters, directors, donors and friends that someone pretending to be a board member had sent Heartland an email claiming to be a director and asking that documents regarding a January board meeting be re-sent.
A clever ruse, but the result was that elements of the confidential documents were then posted on a number of so-called climate blogs and from there to various members of the media who, with the exception of The Guardian, took no steps whatever to verify the authenticity of the documents, some of which Heartland says were either a concoction of lies or altered to convey inaccurate information.
The leading disseminator of the global warming hoax, The New York Times, published its version on Wednesday, February 15th, titled “Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science.”
Suffice to say, the “climate science” served up by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been a pack of lies from the day it first convened. Its “science” was based on computer models rigged by co-conspirators that include Michael Mann of Penn State University and Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia.
The original leak of their emails in November 2009 instantly revealed the extent of their efforts to spread the hoax and to suppress any expression of doubt regarding it. A second release in 2011 confirmed what anyone paying any attention already knew.
The “warmists”, a name applied to global warming hoaxers, launched into a paroxysm of denial that has not stopped to this day. Their respective universities have since engaged in every possible way to hide the documentation they claimed supported their claims. Suffice to say, the global warming hoax was the golden goose for everyone who received literally billions in public and private funding.
We have reached the point where the warmists have been claiming that global warming causes global cooling! Along the way the bogus warming has been blamed for thousands of utterly absurd events and trends. What really worried the perpetrators was the fact that the planet had entered a cooling cycle in 1998.
At the heart of the hoax was the claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) was causing the Earth to heat and that CO2 emissions must be reduced to save the Earth. Next to oxygen, CO2 is vital to all life on Earth as it sustains all vegetation which in turn sustains every creature that depends on it as a source of food. It represents a mere 0.033% of the Earth’s atmosphere and is referred to by warmists as a “greenhouse gas.” It is, as any meteorologist or climatologist will tell you, the atmosphere that protects the Earth from becoming a dissociated planet like Mars.
The New York Times article is a case study in bad journalism and bias on a scale for which this failing newspaper is renowned. The Times reported that “Leaked documents suggest that an organization known for attacking climate science is planning a new push to undermine the teaching of global warming in public schools, the latest indication that climate change is becoming part of the nation’s culture wars.”
Wrong, so wrong. Polls have demonstrated that global warming is last on a list of concerns by the public. It barely registers because the public has concluded that it is either a hoax or just not happening. Teaching global warming in the nation’s schools constitutes a crime against the truth and the students.
The Times article makes much of the amounts some donors to Heartland have contributed, but in each cited case, with one exception, the donations had nothing to do with its rebuttal of global warming science.
“It is in fact not a scientific controversy”, said the Times article. “The majority of climate scientists say that emissions generated by human beings are changing the climate and putting the planet at long-term risk, although they are uncertain about the exact magnitude of that risk.”
The exact magnitude is zero. Thousands of scientists have signed petitions denouncing global warming as a hoax. The Times lies.
A post at The Daily Bayonet on February 14th said it well, “What the Heartland documents show is how badly warmists have been beaten by those with a fraction of the resources they’ve enjoyed. Al Gore spent $300 million advertising the global warming hoax. Greenpeace, the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, NASA, NOAA, the UN and nation states have collectively poured billions into climate research, alternative energies, and propaganda, supported along the way by most of the broadcast and print media.
The Times will continue to publish lies about global warming, as will others like Time and Newsweek magazines. The attacks on Heartland and the many scientists and others like myself who debunk this fraud will continue, but their efforts are just the dying gasp of the greatest hoax of the modern era.
There’s a reason the theme of Heartland’s sixth conference in 2011 was “Restoring the Scientific Method.” Real science does not depend on declaring “a consensus” before the hypothesis has been thoroughly tested, a process that often involves years of effort. Meanwhile, the planet continues to cool.
Eric:
clear sky conditions allows night sky radiation to reach its maximum potential
_________________________________________
You have a strange idea as to what controls the power of radiation leaving the surface or the roof of the house in this example. All that matters is the emissivity and the temperature difference between the top of the surface (or the roof) and the first millimetre of the air. Molecules in the surface don’t “know” whether the sky is clear or not.
After diffusion, conduction and evaporation have brought the temperatures very close to each other, you can then get an idea of how much might be radiated by using the Steffan-Boltzmann equation, provided you use it correctly and deduct a term based on the temperature of the air. So the closer the two temperatures (perhaps 1 to 2 degrees different) the less is the radiation.
As the relative humidity reduces the lapse rate, and as calmer conditions reduce temperature differences that can be caused by wind, you will get less radiation leaving the surface. So what? This is weather, not climate which is averaged over long periods. But I repeat, it has nothing to do with any radiation from the clouds which makes its way back to the surface where it is merely scattered and has no effect. How many times do I have to explain this to you?
Bart says:
February 17, 2012 at 4:27 pm
I will confirm that it is meaningless, as there is an obvious ~60 year cyclical component in the data, and no basis for assuming it should evolve linearly. It’s worse than meaningless. It’s just plain dumb.
See the graph below. Sorry, I cannot do a sine wave with this tool. So in other words, if I were to ask you what the trend was according to Hadcrut3 since 1996, would you say down since the blue line goes down at the end from 2003.5? I am well aware of the 60 year cycle and agree with you about how meaningless a straight line is. But the warmists would disagree that the last 16 years are down just because the last 8 or so years of those 16 years are down. I agree that we do need better tools. In the meantime, we have to use what we have.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1980/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1996/to:2003.5/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2003.5/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1996/trend
Alexander Feht said @ur momisugly February 17, 2012 at 5:39 pm
Do you know that personally, or did your best friend tell you? 😉
Seriously: “People, why do you talk to W. M. Connolley?” Because of the following:
1. We don’t want to give the impression that we don’t have adequate responses to the points he makes.
2. Countering his arguments, and how that is done, is instructive for the many people here who don’t post comments, but do want to learn what this is all about.
I’m sure that if you give this some thought, and I know you are capable, you should be able to come up with further reasons to engage Connolley and his ilk.
Git,
Nonsense.
Connolley is a professional agent provocateur. He has made those points, and heard all kinds of arguments against them hundreds of thousands of times. He is not interested in arguing any points. He knows better than you do that he is lying through his teeth. He is trolling here, side-tracking attention and choosing targets for web site hacking, smear attacks, creating employment problems, and generally make your life miserable elsewhere. This is his occupation in life, and you will learn nothing but grief from this AGW KGB officer.
P.S. Be careful joking about being personal with Goebbels, Git.
I know several people who were, and they could be very, very offended by what you said.
CROSS POSTED COMMENT – I found a website with “resources related to content analysis and text analysis” that might be useful to crowd source the origin of the “fake but accurate” Heartland document. Think of it like those statistical studies of words/letters used in Shakespeare’s plays to determine who the author really was. Would obviously have to obtain some texts from the leading suspect authors of the “fake but accurate” Heartland document.
I also still think it would be useful to find some sort of barely visible “Yellow Dots of Mystery” forensic pattern in the “fake but accurate” Heartland document (e.g. no “yellow dots of mystery” but perhaps shifting of pixels to code the make, model & serial number of the Epson document scanner). Someone with better contacts than I needs to contact a law enforcement evidence technician or the like. Perhaps a local community college forensics program?
> It’s like shaking Goebbels’ hand.
Godwin. You lose.
Alexander Feht said @ur momisugly February 17, 2012 at 11:14 pm
I will mock Goebbels all I want you silly person. My father was a “guest” at one of his “holiday camps”, though happily he managed to escape. Please keep your paranoia to yourself; it’s far from amusing.
William M. Connolley said @ur momisugly February 17, 2012 at 11:46 pm
Mr Connolley, you (the collective you — warmists) lost the day you called us “denialists” and called for “Nuremberg-type trials”.
Git,
A bit of paranoia helped me to survive in some more than unpleasant situations.
And, let me assure you, your amusement is not among the goals I would pay any attention to.
You don’t even understand that it wasn’t Goebbels that you “mocked.”
Life is not a game. It is war.
Alexander Feht said @ur momisugly February 17, 2012 at 11:14 pm
and @ur momisugly February 18, 2012 at 1:23 am
Your veiled threats have been recorded Mr Feht; just in case you follow through on them. Meanwhile laissez les bons temps roulez as they say…
Forget about your vulnerable ego for a moment, Git (whatever your real name is). There are no threats here, veiled or unveiled. But you are badly mistaken in your approach toward Connolley.
Let us apply some simple logic here:
You must agree that Connolley has heard all our arguments many times, as we heard many times all the arguments environmental fanatics are capable to concoct. You must agree that Connolley will never concede any of our points, and that finding the truth, scientific, moral, or otherwise, cannot be his goal here.
Ask yourself, then: what is his real goal? What is he doing here, and why?
For me the answer is clear: he is here to make trouble, because his side is losing badly, and he knows it. Powerful establishment machine, with all its money and media resources, still hasn’t found another worthy cause to claim global domination, and Connolley still relies on its support. But now his masters, feeling how weak their position has become, demand more and more from their knaves. Connolley spent most of his adult life in forum flame wars and arcane Wikipedia censorship; he is known to be one of the most skillful trolls and hypocrites among green totalitarians.
Therefore, as his only possible goal here is to cause damage, the best policy would be to ignore him (if Mr. Watts insists on allowing this despicable person to post here). That is all.
The Pompous Git says:
February 17, 2012 at 9:39 pm
Alexander Feht said @ur momisugly February 17, 2012 at 5:39 pm
It’s like shaking Goebbels’ hand.
Do you know that personally, or did your best friend tell you? 😉
Seriously: “People, why do you talk to W. M. Connolley?” Because of the following:
1. We don’t want to give the impression that we don’t have adequate responses to the points he makes.
2. Countering his arguments, and how that is done, is instructive for the many people here who don’t post comments, but do want to learn what this is all about.
I’m sure that if you give this some thought, and I know you are capable, you should be able to come up with further reasons to engage Connolley and his ilk.
===============
Worries me when people recommend ignoring an aggressor.. Perhaps Mr Feht doesn’t know the joke, ‘how far is it from Lubyanka Square to Siberia?’ One step.
3. From being in the of the forefront of the attack and hierarchy to boot, he will have the latest, if any, misinformation memes as produced by their science fiction department.
Has he shown any such here? Maybe he’s not as hierarchy as he thinks himself. The ‘useful idiots’ were always the first to go once the ‘change of mind’ had been established, knew too much of the workings..
Re: ‘how far is it from Lubyanka Square to Siberia?’
I was born in Siberia, and spent some time on Lubyanka Square.
I don’t find this joke to be funny, and never heard it in Russia.
Alexander Feht said @ur momisugly February 18, 2012 at 2:48 am
My ego is far from vulnerable nor am I likely to forget it unless I lose consciousness. Since you appear incapable of following the hyperlink, my name is Jonathan Sturm. You can also find me by Googling “pompous git”.
Fine by me.
I doubt that we have heard all their arguments; they appear capable of inventing new ones, otherwise OK.
This is entirely speculative. While it may be true, it is also entirely irrelevant. You haven’t addressed the reasons I gave for allowing Mr Connolley to post here:
1. We don’t want to give the impression that we don’t have adequate responses to the points he makes.
2. Countering his arguments, and how that is done, is instructive for the many people here who don’t post comments, but do want to learn what this is all about.
Anthony allows all sorts of people to post here, “despicable” or not; it’s his blog and his right. The only thing he seems to “insist” on is following the blog rules. Your manifest contempt for people who disagree with you greatly weakens the credibility of anything you might have to say.
The Pompous Git says:
February 18, 2012 at 2:03 am
Alexander Feht says:
February 18, 2012 at 1:21 am
“You don’t even understand that it wasn’t Goebbels that you “mocked.”
I take that to mean that the Nazis were so bad that comparing anyone to them mocks those who suffered. Which is precisely why the Warmists’ use of the “denier” phrase is so offensive.
You guys are on the same side. Stop squabbling.
Personally, though, I agree with The Git – you cannot leave the playing field open to the opposing team. They are classic bullies, and will only retreat when confronted.
Bart said @ur momisugly February 18, 2012 at 11:57 am
I don’t believe we are. Both Connolley and Feht want opposing views suppressed. I don’t.
I don’t think that people who ban skeptics on their site or within their authority should be given an opportunity to speak here. I think that they should be given the taste of their own medicine.
Yes, it’s Mr. Watts’ business to decide, how he wants to apply his own rules on his site. However, I don’t have to agree with everything he does, and I can express my opinion.
While WUWT is extremely useful and informative most of the time, lately there are developments on WUWT that I find deplorable. Seeing Connolley trolling here, and the unmistakable favoritism toward Mr. Eschenbach, who cajoles outside the rules applicable to everybody else, are among these developments.
Bart, unanimous position is impossible among thinking people. “Consensus” is the opposite of thinking.
Alexander Feht says:
February 18, 2012 at 6:47 am
Re: ‘how far is it from Lubyanka Square to Siberia?’
I was born in Siberia, and spent some time on Lubyanka Square.
I don’t find this joke to be funny, and never heard it in Russia.
I did. In Lubyanka Street.
Or the one, ‘there’s a great view from the Lubyanka’ ‘You can see all the way to Siberia.’
http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/1576826
“Yes, it’s Mr. Watts’ business to decide, how he wants to apply his own rules on his site. However, I don’t have to agree with everything he does, and I can express my opinion.”
This is why I like this site. Because, all sides ca express their opinion. Without that there is no debate, no discussion. When I first started investigated this for myself I spent a considerable amount of time just reading such arguments, and checking up on both sides…
Alexander Feht said @ur momisugly February 18, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Nobody is asking you to agree with everything Anthony does. And you seem to have no problems expressing your opinion. The only problem is you demanding others act on your opinion. And if you find Willis and Connolley so distasteful, you can always go away.
Good Lubyanka joke as told by Putin:
A man came to Lubyanka and said:
– I’m a spy and I want to surrender.
– Who’s spy are you?
– I’m an American spy.
– Well, then you ought to go to room #5.
So he went to room #5 and said:
– I’m an American spy and I want to surrender.
– Do you have any firearms?
– Yes, I do.
– Then you have to go to room #7.
He came to room #7 and said:
– I’m an American spy, I want to surrender and I have a weapon.
– Go to room #10.
He came to room #10 and said:
– I’m a spy, I want to surrender and I have a weapon.
– Do you have a communication device?
– Yes, I do.
– Then go to room #20.
He comes to room #20 and says:
– I’m a spy, I want to surrender, I have a weapon and a communication device.
– Do you have an assignment?
– Yes.
– Well, then go and do it – don’t interrupt people’s work!
Alexander Feht says:
February 18, 2012 at 3:55 pm
“I don’t think that people who ban skeptics on their site or within their authority should be given an opportunity to speak here. I think that they should be given the taste of their own medicine.”
That’s like saying, “I think we should beat ourselves with tire irons, so that they can see how painful it is to watch someone do that to themselves.” One of the biggest reasons the wheels are currently falling off their wagon is that they refuse to engage with critics, and their wits have become as dull and flaccid as their arguments through mental rust and lack of exercise.
If I want to hang out at a site where I can pleasure myself with fantasies of intellectual superiority without any inconveniently lucid commenters barging in to shatter the mood, there are a plethora of sites I could choose from already. We absolutely do not need another, and I would not bother coming here if this were such a site.
There is such a thing as winning the battle but losing the war. The Warmists have won quite a few battles. The war is going very badly for them.
Bart says:
February 18, 2012 at 6:04 pm
That’s like saying, “I think we should beat ourselves with tire irons, so that they can see how painful it is to watch someone do that to themselves.”
No, it’s like not giving out visas to the people who declared war to your country, and keep your citizens in jail without trial. How polite are you going to be to a bandit who robs you at the point of the gun? Stop pretending that we and them are equal in any respect.