For those of you who don’t know yet, Kenji is our family dog. Kenji is also a official dues paying member of the Union of Concerned scientists. see: Friday Funny – The newest member of the Union of Concerned Scientists because as Kenji’s membership proved, you don’t need to be a scientist to join, all you need is a valid credit card.
Like any UCS member he gets propaganda informational mailings from them, for example, this one today:
This was followed by another embedded email, because, they haven’t heard from Kenji and they are trying to get him to re-up his membership. Only one problem though; their lead claim is completely false, not once but twice. I’ve underlined the lead claim in red:
Citation #1 (at the bottom) refers to this article in Fox Nation on April 30th 2012:
1. Note the source date and source wire service: April 29 (Reuters) the original Reuters story is here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/29/us-wind-farms-climate-idUSBRE83S0BG20120429
Fox news didn’t make the claim of warming, Reuters did by reporting the story on the science from a press release. Fox News simply carried the Reuters story verbatim as many other news outlets did.
And, they were not the only major news outlet to run with a headline like that. Environmental reporter Louise Gray at the Telegraph had a nearly identical headline:
But of course, the paid political activists at UCS aren’t upset about that headline, because even though she reported the story accurately, Louise is part of the team on the UCS side of the argument. The National Science Foundation was the source of the story in their press release here. UCS wouldn’t dare be upset about that one.
2. Note also that the study results are peer reviewed in Nature Climate Change authored by SUNY in Albany by examining satellite data comparing wind farms and other areas.
Here is the paper:
Zhou, Liming, Yuhong Tian, Somnath Baidya Roy, Chris Thorncroft, Lance F. Bosart and Yuanlong Hu 2012: Impacts of wind farms on land surface temperature. Nature Climate Change. doi:10.1038/nclimate1505
And the abstract (bold mine):
The wind industry in the United States has experienced a remarkably rapid expansion of capacity in recent years and this fast growth is expected to continue in the future. While converting wind’s kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines modify surface–atmosphere exchanges and the transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the atmosphere. These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate.
Here we present observational evidence for such impacts based on analyses of satellite data for the period of 2003–2011 over a region in west-central Texas, where four of the world’s largest wind farms are located. Our results show a significant warming trend of up to 0.72 °C per decade, particularly at night-time, over wind farms relative to nearby non-wind-farm regions. We attribute this warming primarily to wind farms as its spatial pattern and magnitude couples very well with the geographic distribution of wind turbines.
The study methodology isn’t controversial, and the results make sense given that wind farms create turbulence, which mixes the atmosphere more effectively, especially at night. The raises the overnight observed Tmin, which in turn raises the Tavg temperature, creating a local warming trend.
Temperature Differences near Wind Farms
This graph shows the night-time land surface temperature differences near wind farms between 2010 and 2013. Credit: Liming Zhou et al., Nature Climate Change
Orchardists and viticulturists have known of this mixing effect by wind turbines for years, which is why all over California we have powered wind turbines placed in orchards and in vineyards like this one to ward off frost by increasing the vertical mixing of the atmosphere, bringing warming air downward to mix it with cold air near the ground:
Of course, if it was the other way around, and something that produced energy caused some local warming that wasn’t part of the anointed “clean energy” solution set held dear by UCS, they’d be all over it saying it contributed to global warming.
We see examples of this sort of bias almost daily in MSM stories about “climate change” and global warming.
When UCS says this about Fox News: But their twisting of facts is anything but a joke.
It is clear that UCS is the ones twisting the facts, and the joke is on them.
Even my dog can see through the charlatans at UCS; they aren’t in it for the science, they are in it for the money when they use slimeball tactics like this for fundraising drives.
And finally, maybe UCS will find a way to get upset about this story carried on WUWT recently:
- Rethinking wind power – Harvard study shows it to be overestimated (wattsupwiththat.com)
Or maybe this one:
- Wind farms will create more carbon dioxide, say scientists (telegraph.co.uk)
And ask for even more money to counter these “twisted facts”.
Let the bloviating for dollars commence!
A little humor at UCS expense thanks to Josh:
- Sunday Silliness – Kenji takes on the UCS Chicken Little (wattsupwiththat.com)
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Two Days Left! Don’t let the leftist Thomson-Reuters win (who have the inventor of the Global Warming scare, Crispin Tickell, on the board)…
Steve[Paris} says February 26, 2013 at 11;43 pm
‘Is there any truth in the Pfizer defund’s Heartland?’
Pfizer is presently divesting itself of it’s Agricultural Division which has flat lined in profitability.
There are a lot of promos to boost sales before the IPO.This would burn cash.
The human pharma is going well.If true they don’t seem to need Heartland for anything anyway.
So defunding Heartland is possible.
Kevin Knobloch, Knob-lock? it has to be a joke!
I just skimmed over the UCS claims and had a terrible laughing with each paragraph.
Can such a bag of quixotics really be a serious organization?
Oh my god…
Anthony, you should be glad that Kenji cannot read, otherwise your bills for an urgently needed animal psychologist would be huge!
I got on the email lists of a couple of environmental savior groups. From the tone of the emails, all wanting my contribution, these are mean, nasty people.
So does Kenji plan to renew for the sport of it? Or has he had enough already?
@ur momisugly CodeTech
Have you seen the interview of Jon Stewart by Chris Wallace of Fox a few months ago? Chris admits Fox presents their side of the news, supposedly to counteract the MSNBC side of the news. The documentary Outfoxed a few years ago showed the connection between Fox and the Republican party. I suspect most people who are not die hard Republican might have a problem with the Fox slant, whether they are ‘ignorant’ or not.
Fox is certainly slanted. CNN and MSNBC are certainly guilty of sensationalizing news – to keep viewers willing to turn into that stuff. UCS is certainly slanting their material in an attempt to get more money. Have you ever received junk mail from a charity asking for a contribution (to alleviate a disaster described with the plea)?
Global warming is not a left wing socialist plot. Read the recent book by Henry Bauer, Dogmatism in Scienced and Medicine, to see how often the flow of money affects science and medicine. That corruption is often described here in WUWT. It does not also imply this wild tangential connection to everyone who is left wing.
..but with only two days left, we still haven’t heard from you.
Will I miss out on the latest and greatest ab worker to gather dust under the bed or the free set of steak knives? Tell me I’m not going to miss out on the two for one deal if I’m not amongst the next 500 lucky callers.
“Wind Turbines Create Their Own Clouds”
http://gizmodo.com/5473999/wind-turbines-create-their-own-clouds
Doesn’t Fox have what’s necessary to take on these dumb-nuts? Perhaps they prefer to let WUWT fight there battles for them.
Go Kenji !!!
There is some interesting breaking news morning, off topic but I hope Kenji won’t mind.
Lord Lawson has written to Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, describing comments that Nurse recently made as a ‘lie’.
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/02/Paul-Nurse-letter.pdf
I can understand why Kevin knobloch wants to protect the environment from adverse degradation, which of course we all do. But why does he and his cohorts not have an open mind to climate science which he quite obviously hasn’t. Why does he and his ilk talk about sceptics as ‘attacking science’ ? How can you attack science per se? You can attack – I would prefer to call it question – scientific theories, or offer scientific alternatives to scientific research results, or bogus scientific data. That is the way science has been conducted since time began. Yet people like Knobloch treat those who might put forward sound scientific arguments against the consensus, many presented by scientists who are far more qualified to do so than Knobloch, as complete idiots or deniers who are attacking science. How stupid can you get?
Furthermore, why do these people deny the science that tells us that there has been no warming for 16 years, that the seas are not rising as they forecast, that the snow which they told us would never be experienced by our children, is heavier this year than for many years. That the polar bears are not dying out, or that snow on Kilimanjaro is returning, that coral reefs are not threatened as they like to believe, or that a miniscule increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not been followed by the global warming that they forecast? And why do they not accept that hurricanes and fires across the world are not more prevalent this year than the average over many years, but lie and try to convince us otherwise?
Labelling anyone who has an opposing view on any subject as deniers is silly and juvenile. But if the term that the warmists created is to be used, then there is no doubt whatsoever that it is the Knoblechs of this world that are themselves the deniers who wish to propagate their own agenda at all costs, and close their eyes and ignore any alternative viewpoint that may question their own preconceived position. And finally, I wonder whether we will ever hear, any warmist across the globe saying ‘Whilst I might not agree with some of the sceptics views on global warming, I do hope they are correct, for if they are, life will be so much better for our children and grandchildren’. No, they all live in the hope, and actually long for armageddon rather than see a beautiful world which we live in, a world that can generally look after itself far better than we can, and which will be there for the enjoyment of all humanity for thousands of years to come
You have to wonder if Bill Maher is the clown running the UCS. At least they are demonstrating that it does not take intelligence to put out mailers. But then SPAMMERS told us that, so I guess they really do serve no purpose.
President Knobloch’s surname is a corruption of “knoblauch,” which means “garlic” in German. Garlic was used by superstitious societies to ward off vampires. How apropos for the president of UCS.
(BTW, copy-paste not working again for entering a reply, so pardon the spelling errors. Using IE8.)
I must admit that Kenji stayed as a member for that long is shocking. I had expected someone lurking over your website, would inform UCS about it. Pretty funny.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive” __Sir Walter Scott
Code Tech- the Lefty spelling is “Faux News” My old lefty co-worker could see Brit Hume
reporting that the sun rises in the east, but until he saw it on CBS-he wouldn’t believe it….
So wind farms increase localised night-time temperatures, presumably therefore increasing the average (low-+high)/2 and therefore “increasing global warming”. Doesn’t that just demonstrate the simplistic approach to AGW that we’re faced with?
I think that it’s generally the case that “global warming” is in fact primarily a result of increased night-time (low) temperatures in any case, and that max temperatures have hardly changed? I’m sure nobody in AGW-land cares about this not being widely understood, but the general public perception is that warming means higher max temperatures. Imagine if the world suddenly came to see that AGW is simply keeping us warmer at night. It would be something to celebrate!
So is Kenji going to renew his membership?
If he was not a member, would you have known about this?
Mr Knobloch earns the princely sum of $239,866 for running this outfit according to Charity Navigator.
I decided to hunt down the source of the mixing quote. Google came up with an (inflated) estimate of 5,450 matches on my search for |”literally cannot cause” carbon dioxide “mix well in the atmosphere”|. Many of these referred to “10 Dumbest Things Fox Said About Climate Change In 2012” by mediamatters.org. In trying to pick out one of the earlier references, one filed under Joe Bastardi caught my eye.
That went to a list of stories involving Joe, and one simply went to the list of “10 Dumbest…”. Okay, okay, I’ll check it out. It looks like that’s the source of the text in the UCS letter. “Carbon Dioxide ‘Literally Cannot Cause Global Warming'” is #3, “Wind Farms Cause Global Warming” is #5. Each has links to the Fox story.
It turns out that CO2 quote is from an interview with Joe about Mann’s latest book, so Joe was more agitated than usual. 🙂
Oh – here’s the original story, http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/03/09/fox-news-science-again/186029 has the quote spelled out:
It also has comments by Gavin Schmidt et al:
There’s a few things I could pick apart with Gavin’s quote, but all in all, what the heck is Bastardi trying to claim? There’s plenty of convection to keep CO2 (molecular weight 44), and argon (40) mixed in with nitrogen (14) and oxygen (16). Argon is 1% of the atmosphere, if it didn’t mix well, the world would be a very dead place.
Perhaps there is a bit of a difference with height, especially in the stratosphere, but I think checking into tropospheric mixing and settling would be a waste of time.
Googling |bastardi carbon dioxide “mix well in the atmosphere” -mediamatters -matters| yielded one hit – and that referred to the Fox story.
I’d like to see Joe explain just what he meant, but for now, WUWT has derided people for much less. Joe, I think you blew that one big time, you better climb above the argon layer!
CodeTech says:
February 27, 2013 at 12:01 am
“As a rule of thumb, if you want to stir up leftists, especially the most ignorant of them, just mention FoxNews.
Similarly, if you want to determine who is a leftist, just discuss something you saw on FoxNews. They will always reveal themselves, immediately, usually loudly.”
Hey CT, the same thing could be said about WUWT when one is talking to a leftist AGW zealot.
They’re on the same level as the Nigerian Million Dollar scammers, and looking to hit the same gullible marks.
When your entire culture depends on fraud, there’s no restriction on what you can say – in fact, the wilder the lies, the better!
We are no longer dealing with people who are simply wrong – we are dealing with what has become an embedded culture of corruption and dishonesty, dedicated to nothing more than separating the simple minded from their money by any means possible.
Could it be because Fox News is not a leftist organ and tries instead to be more even handed in reporting and talking about the issues than other news organizations?
Nah…….