Newsbytes: Climate Scientists Turn Skeptical As Climate Predictions Fail

 From The GWPF by Dr. Benny Peiser

British Government Abandons Climate Change Education For Young Children

The Mail on Sunday today presents irrefutable evidence that official predictions of global climate warming have been catastrophically flawed.The graph on this page blows apart the ‘scientific basis’ for Britain reshaping its entire economy and spending billions in taxes and subsidies in order to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. The graph shows in incontrovertible detail how the speed of global warming has been massively overestimated. Yet those forecasts have had a ruinous impact on the bills we pay, from heating to car fuel to huge sums paid by councils to reduce carbon emissions. The eco-debate was, in effect, hijacked by false data. –David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013

Academics are revising their views after acknowledging the miscalculation. Last night Myles Allen, Oxford University’s Professor of Geosystem Science, said that until recently he believed the world might be on course for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than five degrees this century. But he now says: ‘The odds have come down,’ – adding that warming is likely to be significantly lower. Prof Allen says higher estimates are now ‘looking iffy’. –David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013

Many scientists say the pause, and new research into factors such as smoke particles and ocean cycles, has made them rethink what is termed ‘climate sensitivity’ – how much the world will warm for a given level of CO2. Yesterday Piers Forster, Climate Change Professor at Leeds University, said: ‘The fact that global surface temperatures haven’t risen in the last 15 years, combined with good knowledge of the terms changing climate, make the high estimates unlikely.’ –David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013

Professor Judith Curry, head of climate science at the prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said: ‘The models are running too hot. The flat trend in global surface temperatures may continue for another decade or two.’ Avowed climate sceptics are more  unequivocal. Dr David Whitehouse, author of a new report on the pause published on Friday by Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, said: ‘This changes everything. It means we have much longer to work things out. Global warming should no longer be the main determinant of anyone’s economic or energy policy.’ –David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013

The implications of the inconvenient truth we publish today are profound. Since the Kyoto Treaty in 1997, Britain has been impoverishing itself in a lonely quest to cut its CO2 emissions – even though the world’s powerhouse economies, such as China and America, have refused to set any limits. It is clear that the science, supposedly ‘settled’, is deeply uncertain, while growing numbers of experts now say that the effects of greenhouse gases are much less bad than they feared: any warming is going to happen much more slowly than they thought a few years ago. –Editorial, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013

The Met Office figures come as a report by the Global Warming Policy Foundation claims there been no “statistically significant increase” in global temperatures in 16 years. Dr Benny Peiser, director of the foundation, said: “The biggest surprise for climate scientists is the discrepancy between the predictions and the reality of ongoing warming standing still. It suggests that the climate models on which these predictions are based are flawed. Scientists are beginning to reconsider whether their previous, more doom-laden predictions, were overegged. We should reconsider all policies that may turn out to be hugely wasteful and potentially economically disastrous.” —Daily Express, 18 March 2013

Mysteriously, anything can be produced as evidence of global warming – hot weather, cold weather, wet weather and dry. Climate change has become a religion and any diversion from the orthodox view is pounced on as evidence of heretical wickedness. Those who beg to differ about the global warming creed are held up as wicked rather than merely sceptical. But now new data from the Met Office is at odds with the doomy computer predictions from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The new data show that the pace of climate change has been wildly overestimated. –-Editorial, Daily Express, 18 March 2013

De rigueur though it may be to describe Sir David Attenborough as a “national treasure” and our “greatest living naturalist”, it really is time he was called to account for the shameless way in which he has allowed himself to be made the front-man for one particular propaganda campaign that has stood all genuine scientific evidence on its head. Last week yet another report picked up on the part Sir David has played in promoting what the facts show to have been no more than a colossal scare story. . –Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 17 March 2013

A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks. But man’s resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view. –Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails 1956

Debate about climate change has been cut out of the national curriculum for children under 14, prompting claims of political interference in the syllabus by the government that has failed “our duty to future generations”. The latest draft guidelines for children in key stages 1 to 3 have no mention of climate change under geography teaching and a single reference to how carbon dioxide produced by humans impacts on the climate in the chemistry section. There is also no reference to sustainable development, only to the “efficacy of recycling”, again as a chemistry subject. The move has caused alarm among climate campaigners and scientists who say teaching about climate change in schools has helped mobilise young people to be the most vociferous advocates of action by governments, business and society to tackle the issue. –Juliette Jowit, The Guardian, 18 March 2013