Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t fobdangerclose and ralfellis – Philippe Verdier, weather chief at France Télévisions, the country’s state broadcaster, has been suspended for publicly criticising Climate Alarmism.
According to The Telegraph;
Every night, France’s chief weatherman has told the nation how much wind, sun or rain they can expect the following day.
Now Philippe Verdier, a household name for his nightly forecasts on France 2, has been taken off air after a more controversial announcement – criticising the world’s top climate change experts.
Mr Verdier claims in the book Climat Investigation (Climate Investigation) that leading climatologists and political leaders have “taken the world hostage” with misleading data.
In a promotional video, Mr Verdier said: “Every night I address five million French people to talk to you about the wind, the clouds and the sun. And yet there is something important, very important that I haven’t been able to tell you, because it’s neither the time nor the place to do so.”
He added: “We are hostage to a planetary scandal over climate change – a war machine whose aim is to keep us in fear.”
Frankly I’m shocked. Just a few months ago, January this year, in the wake of a horrifying terrorist attack on their offices, France rallied to support Charlie Hebdo’s freedom of expression, their freedom to satirise and speak out on sensitive issues such as religion. France prides herself that no subject is taboo. But apparently offending the Climate Taliban is a step too far – that gets you suspended from your government job.
France’s motto, Liberté, égalité, fraternité – except when you want to talk about climate change.
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The dice are on the carpet.
*is*
It the die cast? Or is it cut?
You cannot keep a government job and tell the truth.
And it’s clear he knew he couldn’t keep his job and tell the truth. The blurb on the book makes that clear.
But he still told the truth.
Good man – France should be proud of him.
Official the France Televisions group management is none of the government business, with an “independent” president, controlled by “independent” CSA (Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel, the TV “regulator”).
In practice, there are more “independent” when members of the “right” (closet socialists) are governing (with continued attacks against Nicolas Sarkozy from France 3).
Oh so true
Hummm, if he leaves his country, he could actually qualify as the first climate change refugee?……..
Patrick Moore’s book told the truth, but if you haven’t studied the history of communism you might not make the connection. Since the fall of the USSR, much truth has emerged. The Marxism taught since the 1800’s in western universities is not aimed at the cannon fodder, the average middle class, but to push for a return to a system where the new aristocracy (people with lots of $) rules . Climate change is just their latest effort to create a one-world government with them in charge….Just about everything we were indoctrinated into via government schools and universities has now proven to be a false narrative to support a small group to rule over everyone, deciding every aspect of life. If you destroy affordable energy, you essentially return to the pre-industrial age where the rich still have every convenience and everyone else dies early in poverty. We still have the internet but the US government is now aimed at censoring that. Compare the EU, the US and the USSR. The similarities are striking. The government plans every aspect of life. The ‘welfare state’ is just a variation on communism. As Thomas Sowell has noted, the industrial revolution was a positive for the average person, but added nothing to the aristocracy. The Industrial Revolution happened because of abundant fossil fuel energy.
Freedom of the television medias, in France, was considered good… compared to Russian televisions.
Until now.
Nearly every journal has a segment about the deregulation of climate or alternative energies or both.
Actually he did MUCH LESS!!!
He was a member of french propaganda staff (Jean Jouzel & Co) –and may still be, if not ostracized –, and still believes in CAGW.
He only is horrified of “dangerous links between scientists, politicians, economic lobbies, environmental NGOs and religions about climate” (his words), of the way IPCC works, and the ways some people make big bucks out of the scare. He also insist that weather is not climate…
He didn’t use his speech time as a weatherman to tell that, he wrote a book, “Climate investigation”.
For sure a Streisand effect will ensure a big, big success to this book (as Richards in Vancouver said at
October 15, 2015 at 2:58 am ). The book was announced in general indifference in July, it now has massive coverage.
This move of french television will backfire immensely on COP21
So he thinks the science is correct but the corruption is dangerous. In every age, humans have attempted (some succeeded and some failed) to make hay out of science. We have medicine because of it. We have artificial body parts because of it. We live longer because of it. And we eat better because of it.
Unfortunately, we still have heat left in the oceans to belch out (not much more but enough) so warming will continue for a little while. But without a doubt in my mind, the imbalance of heat goin in versus heat leaving the oceans will end this period of mistaken science held in place by the lure of money. And then there will be hell to pay by the scientific community, which will smear across all disciplines. That will be a sad day because I love science and the discovery process, mistaken or not. But corruption through the glimmer and gleam of the almighty dollar will kill it.
Alas yes
“…which will smear across all disciplines.” Yes! And this is why academics everywhere in any discipline must rock their boats now or find they have no boat soon enough. Good scientists quietly observing the perversion of science will surely suffer for their own silence.
Yes he explicitly rejects the “climatosceptique” qualifier!
He thinks it’s an insult!
And yet just by saying the scientific-political show became a grotesque farce, he is excluded from the group of the nice guys.
“Climate Taliban” – love it!
+ 1.
links to Le Figaro’s French language letter to Hollande fom Verdier:
15 Oct: Breitbart: James Delingpole: France’s Top TV Weatherman Suspended For Expressing ‘Wrong’ Views On Climate Change
For good measure, he has also written an open letter to French president Francois Hollande attacking the forthcoming climate talks in Paris:
“I scarcely hear in your words any sincerity, any intention of acting truly for the environment in a manner measured and constructive…
“In two months, France welcomes the COP21, the conference of nations united for the climate. Your political strategy team has told you that it will all come to nothing, like the 20 before it. Then why continue to pretend to be saving the planet?
You, president of the Republic, cannot support the ultra-politicized scientists of the GEIC, the corporate lobbyists, the NGO environmental groups, nor the self-proclaimed apostles of the new religion of climate.”…
Verdier was inspired to write his book out of disgust at the actions of his foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who last year summoned France’s weathermen and asked them to mention “climate chaos” in their forecasts.
“I was horrified by this discourse,” Mr Verdier told Les Inrockuptibles magazine. Eight days later, Mr Fabius appeared on the front cover of a magazine posing as a weatherman above the headline: “500 days to save the planet.”
Mr Verdier said: “If a minister decides he is Mr Weatherman, then Mr Weatherman can also express himself on the subject in a lucid manner.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/10/15/frances-top-tv-weatherman-suspended-expressing-wrong-views-climate-change/
We are living in an episode from the twilight zone or an Ayn Rand book where there is a pointless conspiracy to do something irrational (stop climate ‘change’ by wasting trillions of dollars on green scams that do not work – significantly reduce total CO2 emission – when 97% of the warming in the last 150 years was due to solar cycle changes rather than the increase in atmospheric CO2).
The planet cyclically warms and cools. The cyclic warming and cooling is not due to chaos, some mysterious magic internal forcing function. The sun causes the cyclic warming and cooling.
There is significant abrupt cooling (complete reversal of the warming of the last 150 years over a period of 2 to 3 years) on the way due to the interruption to the solar cycle. The cooling has been delayed by solar wind bursts from coronal holes on the surface of the sun which masks cooling that would have occurred due to the highest GCR in recorded history for this time in the solar cycle.
There are now holes appearing in the coronal holes as the coronal holes start to dissipate.
There is ocean sediment evidence of ocean surface cooling of 8C to 10C due to increased cloud cover over the ocean and increased wind speed over the ocean which causes increased evaporation.
http://oi59.tinypic.com/11id3f6.jpg
the 1470 cycle looks more like a beat frequency.
>>The 1470 cycle looks more like a beat frequency.
Ferd,
There is no regular frequency to these D-O sudden warming events, because they are created by forest fires, and the forests need a large fuel-load before they can (randomly) burn. These continent-wide fires deposit soot on the ice-sheets, and the sudden low albedo melts much of the ice, warming the world up to 8ºc in just 5-10 years. See the graphic below, to see the link between D-O events and forest fire amonium and sulphates.
As I pointed out in my article on Ice Age modulation, the primary feedback that initiates all Interglacials is albedo, not CO2. Each and every Interglacial period is preceded by 10,000 years of dust storms, which reduces the albedo of the northern ice sheets and allows the Interglacial to begin.
And the dust eras are caused by a lack of CO2 killing all the plant-life. So yes, CO2 does cause Interglacial warming, but only by getting so low in concentration that all the plants die and the world becomes a dust-bowl, reducing the albedo of the ice sheets and allowing them to melt. So the Green alarmists were right about CO2 being a vital forcing agent – just not in the way they thought:
Ice Age modulation by albedo, without CO2 feedbacks.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri15/ralph_ellis_oct15.html
.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n9/images/ngeo2495-f2.jpg
due to the interruption to the solar cycle
There has been no ‘interruption’ of the solar cycle.
Keep ’em honest Leif!
Oh boy, I can hardly wait. Abrupt cooling. I can say ha, ha, I was correct, I know how to solve holistic problems. There was sufficient observational evidence to solve a set of linked scientific problems. The trick is to summarize the observations and provide a physical explanation that eliminates the paradoxes.
The solar cycle 24 interruption is the most important scientific event in the history of science, based on how it will affect the planet’s climate and how it will change the foundations of science. The politicians and the scientific community will need to explain how it is possible after being told hundreds of thousands of times the science is settled that the entire scientific basis of CAGW, past and future climate change, outlined in the silly IPCC reports was in correct.
Just as rocks do not jump up hill, the earth’s climate does not jump or tip without a forcing function from one state to another. The massive forcing function of the our planet’s climate is the sun. The sun is significantly different than the ‘standard’ model. There are hundreds of astronomical observations and analysis results that support that assertion.
Greenland Ice Sheet Temperatures Last 100,000 years
http://www.hidropolitikakademi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4.gif
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/440/1/012001/pdf/1742-6596_440_1_012001.pdf
The Antarctic peninsula is outside of the Antarctic polar vortex and hence records the temperature of the Southern sea. The Antarctic peninsula ice cores shows cyclic warming that matches what we have recently observed. Obviously the past cyclic warming and cooling was not caused by atmospheric CO2 changes.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/05/is-the-current-global-warming-a-natural-cycle/
The solar cycle 24 interruption is the most important scientific event in the history of science
It is not what you know that gets you into trouble, but what you know that ain’t so.
>>William.
>>The massive forcing function of the our planet’s climate is the sun.
No. You do not need a solar influence.
As I pointed out in my article on Ice Age modulation, the primary feedback that initiates all Interglacials is albedo, not CO2. Each and every Interglacial period is preceded by 10,000 years of dust storms, which reduces the albedo of the northern ice sheets and allows the Interglacial to begin.
The dust eras are caused by a lack of CO2 killing all the plant-life. So yes, CO2 does cause Interglacial warming, but only by getting so low in concentration that all the plants die and the world becomes a dust-bowl, reducing the albedo of the ice sheets and allowing them to melt. So the Green alarmists were right about CO2 being a vital forcing agent – just not in the way they thought:
Ice Age modulation by albedo, without CO2 feedbacks.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri15/ralph_ellis_oct15.html
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”
Courage by definition has consequences.
The operations that took place, will take place on the sun are due to chaos.
Thus goes the universe.
Thus goes our weather.
All as time curves in on itself.
Just wait for the next logical step: Making the expression of non-consensus approved climate opinions grounds for being fired and even unlawful.
Philippe Verdier, weather chief at France Télévisions, the country’s state broadcaster, has been suspended for publicly criticising Climate Alarmism.
If anyone had any doubts about the facts of climate science being supressed at the highest levels of Europe’s governments , this should remove any doubt. This man was a state employee .These leaders come here and preach global warming threats while back home they punish their own people for telling the truth . Things seem to have not improved there despite all the wars and conflicts about freedom and human rights . No one is allowed to question state views . This type of government is known by other despised descriptions. Are not these freedoms of expression the values that North American young men went there to defend . Was it all for nothing ?
We are living in Michael Crichton’s book “State of Fear” http://www.michaelcrichton.com/state-of-fear/
When my grandfather went to France and Belgium to fight in 1917, he was no going to defend the government’s right to suppress opposition!
The article by the THE INDEPENTENT adds a little more
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-weatherman-philippe-verdier-sparks-anger-over-book-questioning-climate-change-a6695726.html
here is what THE INDEPENDENT quoted what Pilippe says
“The book primarily attacks the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying the organisation “blatantly erased” data that was contrary to their conclusions and doubts the accuracy of the IPCC’s climate models.
It also claims top climate scientists have been “manipulated and politicised”.
A particularly controversial chapter of the book describes the “positive results” of climate change in France, a country expected to be one of those least affected by the phenomenon.
“It’s politically incorrect and taboo to vaunt the merits of climate change because there are some,” he writes.
Benefits of climate change cited in the book include the warmer weather bring larger numbers of tourists, lower electricity bills in milder winters, and better wine and Champagne, “
Even as I am critical of the French limiting the free expression of climate science information by their state weather man , I have to remember that there is a similar struggle going on here in North America where fellow scientists call on racketeering type of government investigations on fellow scientists who happen to disagree with their flawed science . One senator even called for prison terms for climate warming doubters. In Canada, David Suzuki called for similar jail terms for doubters when he appeared on AUSTRALIAN and US TV networks . So this attempt to muzzle climate science expressions and information is a problem that has affected many on both sides of the ocean.
Just another “proof” that there is NO academic freedom and that a Free Press does not exist. How very depressing. GK
To all who claim “je suis ….”, they better read and realize that Verdier is a believer in global warming and in fact complains mitigation is not going fast enough. On the way, he certainly denounces what we all have denounced for years.
So I suggest caution in making him a martyr of climatoscepticism…
“What’s shameful is this pressure placed on us to say that if we don’t hurry, it’ll be the apocalypse,” – seems pretty reasonable to me. I don’t mind lukewarmers, its the people who demand we act immediately on our fear, rather than basing decisions on evidence, who concern me.
And “Je suis Charlie” never meant “Charb’s drawings are always clever and funny” or “I am a religion hater socialist” or “I believe nuclear power is poisoning people” or “I want Justice to forbid the FN” (Front National, far left party with nationalism, ie far right).
TomRude Well, the higher principle involves his right to say what he thinks, n’est-ce pas?
I agree with you all who commented. I am just suggesting caution not rejection.
Not the first, won’t be the last.
There’s a great report in French here http://www.scmsa.eu/archives/SCM_RC_2015_08.pdf and an English summary here http://www.scmsa.eu/archives/SCM_Global_Warming_Summary_2015_09.pdf by French mathematicians who denounce the battle against global warming as absurd, costly and pointless, based on information and ideas that lack scientific validity. Of course, it has been ignored by the mainline media and the country’s politicians don’t want to hear debate about the dogma they have espoused. A former environment minister, now deputy president of the conservative opposition party, Les Republicains, said the other day critics of the global warming hypothesis are “conards”, Latin root a six-letter word beginning with c, usually translated as cretinous or bloody idiots. French maths people are generally recognised for their excellence, so perhaps the minister is the one who should revise her views.
“Je suis moi-même issue du milieu scientifique, j’ai fait des études scientifiques. j’ai le plus grand respect pour la controverse scientifique, la diversité des points de vue, y compris des opinions minoritaires, mais il y a un moment où on sait”
http://www.lamontagne.fr/page-5/france-monde/actualites/economie-politique/politique/2015/10/12/nkm-et-les-climato-sceptiques-il-y-a-un-temps-ou-les-choses-sont-sues_11621021.html
My approx. translation:
“I am myself from the science community, I have studied sciences, I have the greatest respect for scientific controversies, diversity of point of views, including minority views, but there a point where we do know”
She is really full of it!
She previously said that as a minister she wouldn’t read the IPCC scientific report, or even the IPCC summary for policymakers, but only a summary made by her team of the IPCC summary; so she knows none of the science.
She truly is an idiot.
NKM is “an X”: she went to Polytechnique!
In French, “you don’t need to have studied at Polytechnique to get that!” (“il faut pas avoir fait l’X pour comprendre ça!”) means “you don’t need to be rocket scientist to get that!”. “Faire l’X” (study at Polytechnique) means “being extremely intelligent”.
Most famous “X” include:
– Augustin Fresnel
– Augustin Louis Cauchy
– Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot
– Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron
– Henri Becquerel
– Henri Poincaré
Some known politicians went to X: Alain Lipietz (green), Bruno Mégret (nationalist), Karine Berger (socialist), Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (“les Républicains”, “right conservative” whatever that is – there are only enviro-socialist parties in France, but with different shades of nationalism and Rousseau-ism).
I don’t remember if I found this link here at WUWT or somewhere else, so I apologize if you’ve seen it. The insanity never stops.
http://youtu.be/S_E3A0oud4M
Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity?
Where can I buy his book? I would love to support him.
http://www.amazon.fr/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_6/276-3501745-8225409?__mk_fr_FR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=climat+investigation&sprefix=climat%2Caps%2C200
“Frankly I’m shocked.”
I’m not. >:-(
(And neither are you, really.)
I am actually – I thought France took freedom of expression seriously.
Since “Je suis…”, freedom of speech has been seriously curtailed in France. See people such as Michel Onfray being regularly attacked for daring to question the elite submission to the atlantist/europeanist diktat…
The book could be an effective seed of a movement against the tyranny of climate demagoguery. I believe the French stand more strongly for freedom of speech than the British and Americans, even though much of the rhetoric on the subject is Anglo-Saxon. Mark Steyn, in his speech at the Danish Parliament, noted that only a small minority actively fights for this right. Most happily trade it off for peace and security – witness the official mealy mouthed responses to horrific Muslim terrorist activity in US, UK, (and I have to admit Hollande in France does this, too). But the French don’t hesitate to take to the streets if they are unhappy about an incident or a policy.
It would be a beautiful development if there was a popular uprising in Paris over this blatant punishment for freedom of speech and opinion in the face of the Paris COP which is essentially an attempt to clamp down on and subdue dissent. I hope someone who knows how to make these things happen steps up, because the French love this stuff.
In France it isn’t even allowed to say how many immigrants or recently naturalized people are convicted or in prison:
– “racial” statistics are illegal (and anything can be considered racial)
– inciting to racial hate is illegal (and anything can be considered “inciting”, “hate”, “racial hate”, except anti-white hate is almost never prosecuted) and simply comparing crime rates of immigrants could be, has been, and will be considered “inciting racial hate”
and it seems that nearly everybody accepts that.
– and they banned Uber-taxi service….
No, Uber is legal and currently operating in France.
http://www.leparisien.fr/economie/uberpop-deja-interdit-dans-9-departements-dont-paris-25-06-2015-4893805.php
The Thévenoud law made UberPop illegal.
Thomas Thévenoud had to leave the government because of his “paperwork allergy” (and tax and paying for stuff allergies):
http://www.francetvinfo.fr/politique/gouvernement-valls-2/thomas-thevenoud/impots-pv-kine-les-multiples-impayes-de-thomas-thevenoud_691265.html
“Après ses impôts, ses PV et son kiné, Thomas Thévenoud n’a pas payé ses factures EDF”
“After his taxes, his tickets, his physiotherapist, Thomas Thévenoud didn’t pay his electric bills.”
A proud socialist!
Je suis Philippe Verdier!
The BBC did the same to David Bellamy, back in 2005.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/372566/David-Bellamy-BBC-axed-me-for-rubbishing-global-warming
Bellamy was the UK’s favourite TV environmentalist, until he questioned the wisdom of wind turbines and Global Warming, and then *** poof *** he disappeared. Many did wonder if the KGB had got to him, and he was in a salt mine in Siberia. But no, we have our own KGB in the UK – its called the BBC.
Ralph
Shocking, but not unexpected. The AGW movement has become a religious movement, where the punishment for apostasy is to become a non-person.
Meanwhile, another sensible piece in the mainstream media that you might like to look at. Canada’s Financial Post, which is really the business pages of the National Post, has this article by Terence Corcoran:
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/terence-corcoran-the-climate-activists-and-bureaucrats-will-never-have-paris
He also gives a link to an article by Indur Goklany, which was printed beside the Corcoran opinion piece, which made a WHOLE PAGE of anti-AGW material in a national newspaper.
The NP and FP are somewhat right of centre by Canadian standards, but definitely not fringe material. So perhaps things are getting better when stuff like this is not censored out.. A ray of light in the darkness.
Negative comments on the CBC website, however, get moderated out. Perhaps it’s a thing about publicly owned broadcasters.
@ur momisugly Smart Rock
October 15, 2015 at 1:33 pm
What would you expect from the Communist Broadcasting Corporation? Think Suzuki, Quirks & Quarks, and even the National News. They are always pushing CAGW. Know your enemy. Listen. And comment. Someday they’ll get it. Many of will have frozen to death by then, but they’ll get it … slowly. Not our best and brightest in that “Corporation”.