Guest opinion by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
For Totalitarianism Day (formerly Earth Day), over three dozen weather forecasting organizations have issued a joint (or, in their revealing word, “Collective”) “Global Climate Statement”. It has not exactly made headlines: even the Mainstream media are tired of yet another pietistic, self-serving demand that more taxpayers’ money should be sent in the direction of yet another generously-proportioned trough in which the rent-seekers keep their snouts.
Let’s take this drivelling international-socialist agitprop apart, line by line, beginning with the tediously earnest title:
“Climate developments demand enhanced evidence-based action”.
The problem with followers of any Party Line, and, in particular, of a totalitarian-extremist Party Line such as watermelon environmentalism, is that the Party Line is all, and that any mere evidence, however definitive, is automatically and utterly disregarded to the extent that it does not conform to the Party Line – or, as it is now excitingly rebranded, the “Consensus”.
The first paragraph of the Collectivists’ statement says:
“The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: our planet is warming, largely due to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities.”
Yet it is these very same Collectivists who demand that we seek for “the scientific evidence” in the peer-reviewed learned journals. Four years ago a clutch of Collectivists so wedded to the totalitarian Party Line that their leader has been known to wear an SS-style uniform examined 11,944 reviewed papers published during the 21 years 1991-2011.
They themselves, though they declared and still declare themselves to be supporters of the Party Line to the effect that recent warming was mostly manmade, were only able to record 64 out of the 11,944 papers as explicitly having stated that recent warming was mostly manmade.
Legates et al. (2013), whose co-authors are other-worldly enough not to subscribe to any Party Line on scientific questions, decided to read the 64 papers and found that only 41 of them had actually stated that recent warming was mostly manmade. So the Collectivists’ statement is flat-out inaccurate. The overwhelming evidence from the peer-reviewed journals is to the effect that nearly all scientists do not know and, therefore, do not presume to say whether recent warming was mostly manmade.
Next, the Collectivists say that
“in 2016 a new record for global average temperature was set (approximately 1.1°C above the pre-industrial level)”.
But it is the Collectivists themselves who are always telling us that one cannot take a single year out of context. So let us look at the temperature record since IPCC’s First Assessment Report in 1990 made a prediction (“We predict …”) that there would be 1 C° global warming by 2025, equivalent to 0.75 C° by now. In fact, taking the least-squares linear-regression trend on the mean of the global mean surface or lower-troposphere anomalies from two terrestrial and two satellite datasets, there has been just 0.4 C° warming since 1990, or little more than half IPCC’s central prediction, and below even its least prediction.
Fig. 1 Global warming from 1990-2016 at about half the predicted mid-range rate
The Collectivists continue with their usual tired litany of non-events: sea ice extent allegedly at “record lows” (but we only have 40 years’ proper data, and indications are that there was less sea ice in the 1920s than today, and a lot less in the Middle Ages); sea level “increased to a new record” (but sea level has been rising for 10,000 years, and the “new record” is bare millimeters above the previous year); and that “a wide range of extreme climatic events displaced hundreds of thousands of people across the world” (except that on all measures extreme-weather events show no noticeable increase and many have declined, as even IPCC has been compelled to concede).
Next, the Collectivists tell us
“The Paris Agreement needs to be implemented urgently,”
and that governments, Canute-like, should stretch forth their trembling, liver-spotted hands and command global warming to rise no more than 0.5-1 C° above today’s agreeable global mean surface temperature. However, since the world is warming at only half the originally-predicted rate, there is really no urgency at all. Economically speaking, since the rate of warming is very substantially below prediction, and since the absolute value of global temperature is a lot less than predicted, at any realistic intertemporal discount rate (the U.S. Treasury uses 7% p.a.) there is no case for “climate action” at all. Our wealthier grandsons can well afford to clean up after us, if they are not thanking us for the warmer climate and greener planet that we shall have bequeathed to them.
Then comes the nakedly rent-seeking bit:
“Meteorological and climate services are an essential element of the response to climate change. They provide early-warning information and understanding of present-day climate variability, projections of future changes, and they inform mitigation and adaptation options, …”
…yada, yada.
On the evidence of this Collectivists’ Statement, “meteorological and climate services” are no longer to be trusted to give independent and impartial advice. The correct response of the Trump administration to their latest intervention in politics would be to defund them altogether and make them live by the accuracy of their forecasts. On that basis, IPCC is doomed.
[snip – talk about fakes…fake name, fake email on your part- mod]
Simply,
The UNFCCC and theIPCC need to die. A quick painless death by removal of funding.
The end of the CO2 climate hustle is nigh.
Well done Lord Christopher Monckton
Here is a paper written by an Australian electrician
Electrician says No! to Earth Hour
22/3/2007
At the age of eleven I decided to become an electrician. That was when I first fully appreciated that my treasured toy train was powered by a wonderful invisible force, the same wonderful invisible force which worked the lights and operated the family refrigerator and toasted the bread and powered the radiator which meant we did not have to collect sticks for the fireplace.
When my family came to Australia the big bonus for me was being accepted as an apprentice electrician. All my working life I have been proud of my trade. I am proud to be a member of a splendid worldwide band of great contributors to the modern era, still mostly men but with a welcome burgeoning number of women, the people who turn on the lights for the world. I reckon the easiest way to measure the happiness and prosperity of nations is by the Electricians Index. More electricians equals more prosperity and more happiness. Australia is high on the Electricians Index; North Korea is near the bottom. Also close to the bottom of the Electricians Index is Myanmar, mostly known as Burma. In 2013 Myanmar had a population of 53 million with total electricity consumption according to the International Energy Agency of less than nine million megawatt hours. In the same year Australia with a population of 23 million enjoyed total electricity consumption according to Australian Energy Statistics of 254 million megawatt hours. That is one sixth of a megawatt hour per head per year in Myanmar and eleven megawatt hours per head per year in Australia. To put it another way, each Australian has the benefit of sixty-six times as much electricity as a resident of Myanmar.
The Asia Biomass Energy Office reports that 97% of energy used in the Myanmar residential sector is produced by biomass, which means that almost everyone cooks with wood, contributing to the observed decrease in forests. The same organisation reports that 74.7% of electricity is generated by hydro and 20.5% by gas. That is a total of 95.2% which means that oil and coal are insignificant in electricity generation. That should make the opponents of coal and oil very happy indeed.
But here is something truly amazing. The Worldwide Fund for Nature Australia is a registered charity with the ABN number 57001594074. WWF Australia and has a cute little panda as a logo. WWF Australia is currently conducting an advertising campaign aimed at stopping drilling for oil in the Great Australian Bight. And what is WWF Australia doing in Myanmar? A genuine charity would be working to help the Burmese get access to energy so they can keep their food fresh and educate their children and extend their lifespans and stop cutting down forests to cook their food. Not WWF Australia. WWF activists are in Myanmar now, organising the Burmese participation in Earth Hour. WWF is trying to convince the Burmese that they each don’t deserve even the one sixty-sixth fraction of the electricity which we Australians enjoy.
The naked hypocrisy of WWF and its anti-energy allies is on display. These people do not really hate coal. These people do not really hate oil. What they hate is all energy, which means they hate human progress and they hate humanity. WWF Australia is a fake charity which extracts money under false pretences from gullible Australians, and uses that money to depress living standards and harm the environment in one of the poorest countries in the world.
What Myanmar needs is fewer saboteurs and more electricians.
This proud electrician is unimpressed by plans being made for so called “Earth Hour” on Saturday 25 March – that is the coming weekend. Thousands of misled people across Australia will be lighting candles instead of flicking light switches and some of them will accidentally start fires and threaten the lives of their loved ones.
Dangerous organisations, some like WWF Australia pretending to be charities, will be trying to convince Australians that electricity is a bad thing and should be switched off for an hour. “Switch off to the future” is the theme.
The proponents of Earth Hour want us to have a future like North Korea, which when viewed at night from space shows barely a glimmer in contrast to all the happy glow of prosperity visible from South Korea and increasingly from China.
The proponents of Earth Hour are out to control the minds of our children. This is not a game. Earth Hour is a deadly serious plan intended to recruit innocent youngsters to the wicked cause of bringing down the modern era and dragging us back three centuries. Without coal and without electricity modern medicine is impossible and human lifespans will be halved.
Perhaps worst of all, the proponents of Earth Hour are determined to crush the hopes of the poor and disadvantaged of the world, who unanimously yearn for the inexpensive energy which most of us in Australia take for granted. Until recently almost all Australians could depend upon reliable baseload power. Sadly, the saboteurs are making the decisions in South Australia and Victoria is not far behind.
Do not let the saboteurs get away with it. Not for an hour, not even or a minute. So if your six year old or your ten year old comes home with the intention of turning off the family’s power on Saturday, draw a line in the sand and rescue your child from recruitment into the evil ranks of the appalling enemies of civilisation. Make no mistake, they have declared war on the modern era and they are determined to recruit your children as child foot soldiers in that war.
When Earth Hour strikes, I’ll proudly have all my lights turned on. Join me.
Good post Michael. I just wish the MSM would allow it.
And with Bill Nye videos being screen in Australian schools the brainwashing runs long and deep.
So we have an Australian electrician vs 33 Meteorological professional societies and institutions. Who should we listen to, do you think?
Straw man, Seaice. That very articulate Australian electrician was arguing against the corruption of greens led by fake charities. He wasn’t arguing against your 33 rent-a-quote scientivists. I’d rather listen to him than you and Nye any day of the week. But then, there’s not a sentence in his comment that you could gainsay. Which is why you used a straw man.
Just for once Seaice1, try and put aside your bias on AGW and read Michael Darby wrote. There is a lot of truth in what he has said. Don’t let your blinkered bias blind you from seeing the rest of a very big picture. Please tell me what you disagree with in his post.
Which one is the parasitic bureaucratic entity (professional societies)? Which features political types that gravitate to senior executive positions (professional societies)?
“Societies” leadership which fail to submit their statements to their membership make MEANINGLESS statements.
Yet another in the endless, increasingly tiresome and silly Appeal to Authority arguments, this time coming from seaice1.
Those using scientific institutions or the IPCC as their authority figure in their argument fail to recognize two things: (1) Science is not infallible and CAN get this wrong initially, and (2) that scientists and science institutions are perfectly capable of being corrupted by the politics surrounding fossil fuels and the money flowing to them from government. If seaice1 doesn’t think the health of their bank accounts and the bank accounts of their institutions is not a prime driver of the behavior of these institutions and their meteorologists, then I own a famous bridge in Brooklyn that I will sell to him at a great price.
And if seaice1 is gullible enough, I will even throw in a bunch of swampland in South Florida absolutely FREE!.
Harry, strawmen are all it’s got.
seaice says “who should we listen to?”
Blame the Seaicess of this world for the dictators and tyrannies oppressing us. For without people following blind arguments from authority, dictators would have a much tougher time. The Seaicess of this world telling people not to think or consider arguments for themselves but rather listen to the authority have done the most harm to mankind in all history.
Shame Shame and more Shame Seaice for you are making the world worse not better. You encourage ignorance rather than encourage free thought.
These arguments to listen to authority are an abomination. They have no place here or anywhere.
It is interesting that nobody here seems to have kept up with the fallacy arguments. Appeal to Authority fallacy.
“Definition: Using an authority as evidence in your argument when the authority is not really an authority on the facts relevant to the argument. As the audience, allowing an irrelevant authority to add credibility to the claim being made.”
“It’s important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence.”
Are you cliaming that the meteorolical societies are not authorities on this subject? It is importt to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts or scientific concensus.
It is clearly not a fallacy to prefer the statement of an expert body with clear expertise and experience that qualifies them as “authorities” over an individual with no such credentials.
That is clearly not an argumet from authority fallacy.
Cited from where? Wikipedia with its William Connoly “edits”? Loosely, in the course on logic I took some 40 years ago, appeal to authority was arguing that the subject was settled because X approved of it, and not using any of the actual arguments the cited “authority” used.
1905: Here we have a Swiss patent clerk against all of the physics associations in the world since Newton and the Royal Society in 1687. Whom are you going to believe?
I think that the continuing mantra by the warmists “the science is settled”, speaks volumes. It clearly isn’t, because if it was then all their “prophecies” would have come true, which they haven’t. The question then, is who are they trying to convince that what they say is true, themselves or us?
Police and military folks, ultimately, I’m rather sure, andrewmharding . .
Under Obama, the armed forces were ordered to believe in CACA. They saluted and did so. Now, not so much.
PACOM is back to preparing to defend against the Norks, rather than “climate change”.
Gotta love Joe Bastardi
Lord Monckton:
I do hope you can find the time to consider the implementation of Agenda 21 that is occurring in Brighton and Hove (Sussex.) The Council here are implementing a plan to reduce the materials consumed in Brighton by 2/3rds. The plan itself is called “One Planet Brighton” and it claims that Brighton today consumes material resources as if we had 3 planets, and that we should therefore reduce that to one planet’s worth – hence the name.
As part of this plan we should also give politicians direct political control of “Happiness” and “Culture. The plan is literally “totalitarian.”
I evidence this in my blog article :- http://steelydanswarandpeace.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/sustainable-happiness-is-no-laughing.html
The Government have also already decided to do this to all of Wales in one go:- try googling “One Planet Wales”
I would be honoured if you also read my article:-
http://steelydanswarandpeace.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/ipcc-reports-are-poltics-not-science.html and develop it to make clear that the pronouncements of the IPCC are political not “scientific”
“in 2016 a new record for global average temperature was set (approximately 1.1°C above the pre-industrial level)”.
I prefer teh text “in 2016 a new record since the little ice age for global average temperature was set (approximately 1.1°C above the the post glacial minimum of the little ice age)”.
Before taking “evidence based action,” maybe they should look at the evidence. Recent analysis of the 275 year Central England Temperature series shows no statistical relationship between CO2 emissions and temperature rise, none at all.
https://cliscep.com/2017/04/28/correlation-between-emissions-and-warming-in-the-central-england-temperature-series/
It’s all over folks.
No long term thermometer data record shows warming, not just the Central England data.
Long Term Temperature Records contradict NASA GISS
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/03/12/climate-science-on-trial-temperature-records-dont-support-nasa-giss/
Bingo!!!
Congress Should Investigate the Claim of Scientific Consensus
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/congress-should-investigate-the-claim-of-scientific-consensus/
EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Should Take the Gloves Off; Turn the Crippling EPA Regs on Wind and Solar
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/epa-chief-scott-pruitt-should-take-the-gloves-off-turn-the-crippling-epa-regs-on-wind-and-solar/
EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Should Counter-sue The Climate Loons
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/epa-chief-scott-pruitt-should-countersue-the-climate-loons/
Ceteris Paribus; Less is More, Use Only Data Sets That Don’t Require “Adjustments.”
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/ceteris-paribus-less-is-more-use-only-data-sets-that-dont-require-adjustments/
“The most difficult thing of all to predict is the future.” -Yogi Berra
Yogi Berra NEVER Ever said what you just wrote in quotations YOU made that up; it’s fake news.
Yogi Berra did say something like that; but he did NOT say what you claim he said.
You should delete your quotes; or why don’t you look up EXACTLY what Yogi Berra DID say, because he didn’t say what you said he did.
G
Fake news? Moi?