Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has won a case against the White House, forcing the release of documents pertaining a climate video created by White House Science Advisor John Holdren. When the content of Holdren’s climate video challenged under the federal Information Quality Act, the White House claimed the video was the “personal opinion” of John Holdren, not an official communication, and therefore not subject to the Act. The newly released emails allegedly cast doubt on this assertion.
On January 8, 2014, the White House posted a controversial video claiming that global warming causes more severe winter cold. Called “The Polar Vortex Explained in 2 Minutes,” it featured the director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), John Holdren, claiming that a “growing body of evidence” showed that the “extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States” at the time was “a pattern that we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues.”
This claim was questioned by many scientists and commentators. (See, e.g., Jason Samenow, Scientists: Don’t make “extreme cold” centerpiece of global warming argument, Washington Post, Feb. 20, 2014 (linking to objection by five well-known climate scientists in the Feb. 14, 2014 issue of Science magazine); Patrick J. Michaels, Hot Air About Cold Air, Jan. 16, 2014 (former state climatologist of Virginia rejected Holdren’s claim.))
In April 2014, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) sent a request for correction of this statement under the federal Information Quality Act, citing peer-reviewed scientific articles debunking it. In June 2014, OSTP rejected this request, claiming that Holdren’s statement was his “personal opinion,” not the agency’s position, and that it thus did not constitute “information” subject to the Information Quality Act, which excludes “subjective opinions” from its reach.
…
When OSTP produced the records on March 4, 2016 (they are at this link), they showed inconsistency in OSTP’s position over time. Although OSTP told CEI in June 2014 that Holdren’s claim was just his personal “opinion,” not “information” that is subject to the Information Quality Act (IQA), this was not the position it originally took in its draft response to CEI’s request back in Spring 2014.
Instead, OSTP described Holdren’s claim in these drafts as “information provided by the government [that] meet[s] ‘basic standards of quality, including objectivity, utility, and integrity,” and constituted “communications from the White House about climate science.” (see pages 1 and 5 of each draft). Accordingly, OSTP argued it complied with the IQA’s standards for the quality of official information.
The following is the video at the centre of this controversy.
If President Obama and John Holdren genuinely think the evidence supports their position, that Climate Change is a serious threat, why don’t they simply stand by the evidence which they believe supports their case? Why did John Holdren, in my opinion, attempt to hide behind legal technicalities, and do everything in his power to obstruct transparency, when challenged about the defensibility of alarmist statements he made about climate change?
Every single thing this govt does is overlain by a thick layer of corruption.
Yet, the sheeple can’t wait to give it more power and scope.
Eric Worrall writes:
That has been the money question all along. It needs to be asked of all the “team” and the compliant alarmist media.
Why does “Dr.” Mann hid his data? Why does NASS/NOAA not share all the reasons for their so-called “adjustments” to the past? Why is there no one temperature for a given day in 1933 for example? Why do only papers considered supportive of the “consensus” get published? What are we hiding? Why are we hiding things?
Why is CO2 the ultimate villain even worse than nuclear war or the Prince of Darkness himself? Why have do they never mention H2O? We have plenty of that stuff and it does far more than CO2 ever did. Why hide that fact?
In other words, if they were really correct they would act differently than they do now.
You are correct Mark, and of curse it is purely political ideology, politicians taxing the very air you breath in a few easy steps…
1. First eliminate the majority of stations. (This gives greater influence to the remaining)
2. Then manufacture a pseudo scientific study on why UHI does not matter. (Creating a false adjustment with “scientific” cover)
4. Then ignore about 50% of the remaining stations, further giving influence to those few that are left.
5. Then homogenize the urban and or parking lot stations, spreading their warmth up to 1200 K.
6. Then continue to make monthly unexplained .01 degree adjustments to past records, invariably cooling the past. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/06/can-adjustments-right-a-wrong/#comment-1877173 (These add up)
7. Ignore the cooling southern ocean SSTs https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/giss-deletes-arctic-and-southern-ocean-sea-surface-temperature-data/
9. Wait for a strong El Nino and generally warm SSTs (The fading blob) and proclaim the “warmest year ever” CAGW to all, while threatening to prosecute climate change “deniers.
Yes, that ought to do it.
“the White House claimed the video was the “personal opinion” of John Holdren, not an official communication, and therefore not subject to the Act.”
Good God, where does one start? Why, if this is a matter of personal opinion is the American taxpayer paying for it? Why, if it is being paid for with tax dollars, aren’t all of the underlying information and research publicly available without a fight? And finally…what gives John Holdren the right to use public money and resources for his own personal project?
At least, the Obama administration is consistent. On day 1049 of the IRS scandal, the 6th Circuit Court ordered them to release records relating to the IRS’s alleged persecution of conservative groups.
I used to think they were evil, now I’m pretty sure its stupidity. Holdren actually believes the hooey!
Bob M, They aren’t mutually exclusive.
Note that “growing body of evidence” does not equal “evidence.” Evidence is not a tumor.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/webform/notes-holdren-what-do-you-want-hear
Markstoval asks: “Why do only papers considered supportive of the “consensus” get published? What are we hiding? Why are we hiding things?
Well I do not know the answer , but like many here have dark suspicions about the motives , but in any case the question is becoming , IMO , almost irrelevant .
There are other nations ready and willing to tackle the issue of AGW without the idealogical constraints that US and EU scientists may encounter.
As evidence look at the contents of a recent issue of Science Bulletin , published by Springer Press , supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences:
http://link.springer.com/journal/11434/61/5/page/1
Note the following articles :
On GHG observation from satellites : http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11434-016-1022-1
Although paywalled it refers to the TANSAT CO2 observing satellite due to be launched in 2015 (was it?) and the many refinements to the acquisition software to reduce errors .
Or the article on natural (PDO) as against anthropogenic contribution to warming in the 70s and 90s
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11434-016-1012-3
Plus many articles , some free, on alternative energy materials science which is at least as good as anything published by , say , the Electrochemical Society.
Compare the impression these articles and many others published by chinese scientists to the state of science in Obama’s administration run by the pathetic Holdren and one either wants to weep at the state of western science or rejoice that a new,fresh , approach will take over the “consensus”. (They might of course eventually agree with the current western based consensus).
He wants it withheld because in the beginning he pushing to do a video about the population bomb … until a staffer reminded him that he tried that decades ago and it was a bust …
It should be ” A growing body of Adjusted Evidences”
Like Pinocchio’s nose.
Wait a minute! This past winter has been the “warmest winter evah!!” According to Holdren’s theory, we should have had more Polar Vortex events this winter than evah before. Yet we experienced none, or at most one, in North America…. Hmmm….
I honestly didn’t recognize Dr. Holdren. He looks completely different when he’s showered and shaved (or groomed). Amazing.
Past science advisers never got their postings past certain internal bureaucrats. Now those bureaucrats are saying I told you so.
I’m not sure which is worse, unproven claims of evidence for extraterrestrial life from a meteorite announced by the Clinton WH or Holdren preaching that extreme cold is cause by global warming. Either way, they are not good role models for science education in America.
He does look like a Global Warming televangelist.
The movie says that as the world warms the temp extreme differences lessen, Doesn’t that lessen the probability of extreme weather (amplitude and frequency)? They want their cake and eat it too.
Stephen
Just because the US President’s science advisor said warming lessens the probability of extreme weather does not mean it actually lessens the probability of extreme weather. It simply means he said it lessens the probability of extreme weather.
See the difference?
We have definitely fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole on this one.
Holdren would be a better pick over at Census. There he could control population growth…..at least on paper.
All that said and put aside for a minute, the eastern pattern of encroaching cold does mimic glacial advance quite well. A fairly stable blocking high West of the Rockies could set this looping Arctic vortex pattern up. But that blocking high would need a fairly stable heat source to keep it going. That could be a Northern Pacific blob that has built up over time from left over El Nino waters circulating and getting stuck off the coast for a long time. The outer edge of the huge gyre that is a permanent feature of the Northern Hemisphere’s Pacific Ocean could continuously feed warm water to that location.
In summary, I have often wondered how cold air from the polar vortex gets stuck into a fairly stable loop that allows glacial advance in the pattern we see from left over geologic evidence. A blocking high caused by a warm blob off the North Pacific coast could be it.
This “private opinion” parallels the New Zealand experience, of official government temperature records being not official government temperature records ,when the court case started.
Never mind that the taxpayer fully funded these creations, when held to the light, suddenly taxpayers discovered they had been paying for the “personal opinion of a grad student.”
Suffering legislation imposed, citing this opinion as fact.
Yet no one in the massive bureaucracy was ever held responsible.
Climatology is beyond parody.
The mockery of the CAGW meme was written long before this latest mass hysteria.
The Emperors New Clothes, being the title of that fable.
The emperor’s new clothing is a lab coat.
This administration is dishonest and secretive. Think IRS scandal.
EPA pretends they do not make digital records and must copy hand-written notes and explain observers’ “shorthand”.
Hillary hired new College Graduates with basket weaving degrees who “researched” videos then pretended the videos were available on Egyptian internet. Conflated that concocted nonsense with Benghazi in LYBIA.
The list of deception and obfuscation is endless. The defenses in Court are so ridiculous Judges are threatening sanctions. Judges appointed by Clinton and Obama are losing patience.
It seems in the UK the problem of illegal secrecy is about as bad. New Zealand seems to be infected as well as Australia. The French Government fires people for exposing what they hide.
Leftists lie: it is what they do. Robespierre, Hitler, Lenin and Stalin, Mao, the Castros and the “NEW LEFT”.
It may not be all politics as it seems Government employees cannot be disciplined if they pretend not to possess knowledge ( yes some sarcasm too).
Is it me or does it seem like the pejorative alarmist and others fail to fully describe the sheer evil and ignorance of these people and their ilk?
“A growing body of evidence..”
Yes, and look, it’s changing again. The evidence is getting stronger and stronger. Remember the “Pause”? Look again, it’s gone! ARGO float evidence not performing the write song and dance? Gone! replaced by engine intake thermometers that get the real thing. 9,000 thermometers not holding their end up? Two thirds of them deserted, now you can feel the heat! Remember in 2007, GISS still had the mid 1930s as the record high for the USA? Not gone, but pushed down 0.6C to make 1998 the hottest year. Oops, new adjustments make 2014 and 2015 the hottest years. No wonder Moshe is so grizzly these days, he probably has to spend his time bending the BEST to the consensus fit every year so it doesn’t become SECOND BEST.
Well if the surface has not warmed since 1998, and the oceans have not warmed since 2003, how come we see the signs of “global warming” now?
The growing circumpolar vortexes have been explained in a multitude of different ways, but this one falsifies itself. Since there is no premise (global warming) there can be no conclusion (growing vortexes). The logic is flawed. It is a false syllogism.
The other problem with Holdrens assumption is that growing polar vortexes are just as likely to appear if the Artic cools more than latitudes south of it, by Holdrens own logic, because this too would cause a temperature / pressure difference between these two areas.
Now since the same effect can be a result of both warming and cooling, Holdrens “evidence” falls flat on it’s face. growing vortexes can therefore not prove anything about cooling OR warming.
So we are bact to the temperature data to find out weather it is warming or cooling.
What would You look for to find out if it is warming outside:
a) The termometer
b) Melting ice / snow
c) Sunshine
d) More wind
Holdren would choose d), where the rest of us probably would choose a), b) and c), one of these thre or any combination, but NOT d).