Bishop Hill Climate cuttings 48
Jan 6, 2011 Climate: Cuttings Still lots of interesting stuff around, so...
First up is the news that even though the legal wranglings over Cuccinelli's attempt to get the Mann emails continue, it is likely that they will be revealed by another route. Christopher C. Horner of the American Tradition Institute’s law center, David W. Schnare, a federal attorney and Bob Marshall is a Virginia Republican delegate have requested the same information as Cuccinelli, but under FOIA, which has few get-out clauses for the university. A response should be swift.
Also interesting is an article in Forbes magazine by Larry Bell, author of a forthcoming book called Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax.
Scientists appear to be very nervous about a new programme in the US House of Representatives called YouCut, where suggestions for spending cuts can be proposed by members of the public. The first focus of the programme is the National Science Foundation and this has led to some apocalyptic predictions. A somewhat more balanced picture is given by New Scientist, although the article still has a feeling of wanting to protect entitlements.
There is shock among the AGW fraternity that some of their number may be (whisper it) conservatives. An article in the LA Times unmasks Kerry Emanuel as someone who "believes marriage is between a man and a woman". Collide-a-scape looks at the same story. Meanwhile, the International Socialism Journal says that lefties should beware of sceptics.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation have written to the House of Commons Transport Committee, calling for an investigation of why the forecast of a cold winter was not relayed to the public. As Benny Peiser puts it:
Not only is the lack of Government preparedness a cause for concern, but we wonder whether there may be another reason for keeping the cold warning under wraps, a motive that the Met Office and the Cabinet Office may have shared: Not to undermine the then forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun.
McIntyre may have had his apology from Crowley but many people think EOS should be apologising too - it was they who published Crowley's false claims and then refused to set the record straight when McIntyre pointed the truth out to them.
The Huffington Post has contacted Matt Briggs to find out how many Ivy League professors are sceptics. Matt suggests they do some non-fallacious research.
More greens wanting to do away with democracy, and given a platform to do so by the Guardian. Haunting the Library has the story, as does Climate Resistance.
Donna LaFramboise wonders why Greenpeace are so keen on donations of corporate stocks and why they don't refuse the stocks of, say, oil companies.
Reader Comments (39)
Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax.
URL: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6593
Here is another one...
'Great Garbage Patch' in the Pacific Ocean not so great claim scientists
When I heard this originally I thought boll...sorry... I thought... nah not buying it...
My 12 year old asked me about this, as in his imagination, from the way it was sold, he thought it would be like a great swirling mass of detritus... even I could work out that was not likely to be the case...
@ Jiminy Cricket -
I always doubted that too - why were there never any photos to accompany the claims? And isn't is telling the way these scares are always somewhere were nobody actually lives who can verify it.
That's an excellent letter from Benny Peiser. As the source of the information about the secret Met Office forecast, aren't those 19 questions what Roger Harrabin should have been asking? I haven't noticed much coverage of this sensational revelation of secret Met Office forecasts on the main news. I wonder why.
@Jiminy Cricket
The expedition was part of research funded by the National Science Foundation through C-MORE, the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education.
"The hyperbole about plastic patches saturating the media rankles White (an assistant professor of oceanography at Oregon State University), who says such exaggeration can drive a wedge between the public and the scientific community."
Hyperbole certainly can!
http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2011/jan/oceanic-%E2%80%9Cgarbage-patch%E2%80%9D-not-nearly-big-portrayed-media
The link to Climate of Corruption has a missing "h" in the url. just fyi.
XX keeping the cold warning under wraps, a motive that the Met Office and the Cabinet Office may have shared: Not to undermine the then forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun.XX
Same reason as they are never "prepared for winter" any more, then.
Only read "Not to undermine the tax collecting potential of as many people as possible thinking Global warming is NOT a con trick."
My only quibble with Benny Peiser's letter is that it apparently takes at face value the Met Office's claim that it informed the government about a cold winter at all.
It wouldn't surprise me if the Met Office was a)either completely lying about informing the government or b)being entirely disingenuous in elevating a casual off the record remark to a faceless suit about the slight possibility of a cold winter to the undeserved status of "advising the government".
It also reminds me of the fake psychic (as if there was any other sort) trick of throwing out so much information that it arguably covers all eventualities or of saying when the sucker says they were thinking of the number 9 "Oh, I almost said 9! That was my second choice!" when they actually predicted 48.
The Met Office's private forecast of a cold winter is of most interest.
The Met Office's own modelling predicted the likelihood of a warm winter. Julia Slingo has stated that Met Office require more supercomputing power to make better seasonal predictions.
This is a story that does not add up.
How were the Met Office able to forecast privately a cold winter when their own seasonal model was predicting the opposite with it only lacking the computing power to be more precise?
It would not surprise me that the 5% chance of colder winter is what the Met Office are spinning as a successful forecast in the hope that people will forget the 95% that was wrong.
Was Roger Harrabin making it up? FOI requests will show. Perhaps the Met Office had read Piers Corbyn's forecast and was using that as the basis for it's secret forecast to the government.
Can the Ministry of Defence be FOI'd?
FOI for the October forecast is already in hand.
O.T. I've been a bit puzzled in recent years why many governments seem to refuse to contemplate any criticism of Tobacco Control policies and Climate Change policies. In respect of Tobacco Control, it would appear that this is because they are bound by Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to "protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry". WHO guidelines on Article 5.3 further state that
The measures recommended in these guidelines aim at protecting against interference not only by the tobacco industry but also, as appropriate, by organizations and individuals that work to further the interests of the tobacco industry.
That is to say that governments that have signed and ratified the Convention are bound by the terms of the treaty to ignore any representations by organizations or (equally importantly) individuals who oppose its provisions (and who may therefore be deemed to be furthering the interests of the tobacco industry).
My question is: is there a similar UN treaty in respect of Climate Change, which binds governments to ignore any representations from, say, oil companies or their proxies seeking to "interfere with" any climate change legislation set out in the treaty? Or is it that the failed Copenhagen talks of 2009 marked the point where governments refused to sign such a binding and muzzling treaty?
Regardless of the answers to the above questions, to what extent have governments around the world already been compromised by entering into similar treaty agreements with the UN in areas quite separate from Tobacco Control or Climate Change?
@ Jiminy Cricket -
I always doubted that too - why were there never any photos to accompany the claims? And isn't is telling the way these scares are always somewhere were nobody actually lives who can verify it.
Jan 6, 2011 at 10:35 AM | Unregistered CommenterHauntingtheLibrary
I tend to agree with you both and have traversed the Pacific many times without any sign of the flotsam BUT, having watched the filth running down rivers in Africa, India and Asia and taking into account the amount of plastic bags I dragged out when fishing in the UK...It does not mean, simply because we are "deniers" that we should not clean our acts up! The scientists involved did go on to say that the plastic broke into smaller and smaller particles but does not decay.
Our argument is about the false models and CO2's negligible effect. Let us not give a distraction for the the trolls to get us off topic.
Forbes is mainstream and Bell rings clearly except for the shitty metaphor at the end.
===============
So Polly 'Ecocide' Higgins has popped up in the Graun again.
I feel the will to live ebbing away...
Jiminy Cricket
Re the not-so-great plastic garbage patch.
Debunked!
I am genuinely grateful for the link you provide. Like you, I instinctively doubted this one from the very moment I heard it, but have never got around to researching it.
I remember some beardie prat of a trustafarian (a Rothschild was it?) making a great song and dance about this last year, and in my heart of hearts I knew the fool was grandstanding.
Super-rich, 'green' and a show-off. What's not to like, eh?
Thanks greatly for the link to William Briggs' discussion of what may or may not define a climate skeptic. I couldn't resist repeating my wholly rigorous formulation for the Open Climate Initiative in June last year. That went down well, didn't it my friends? Comments from the brains and boffins of Bishop Hill very welcome.
JC
I am sure the Marine Pollution Bulletin and Environmental Research journal will be severely embarrassed by this debunking of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This was the journal that orginally published research(?) that promoted the idea that the oceans were collecting huge amounts of garbage in oceanic gyres. It transpires it is a myth, but one that has been reported and broadcast all around the world. This research by Oregon State University professor of oceanography Angelicque White highlights how thoroughly environmental activism has corrupted large parts of science.
Mac
A little while back, Aynsley Kellow's book Science and Public Policy was available at a still hefty but massively discounted £25. I bought a copy, and attest that it was £25 very well spent indeed.
He provides a clear and disturbing analysis of exactly how environmental activism has corrupted environmental science, although he does not address the plastic gyres, which is a shame given how well they exemplify 'virtual' environmental 'science' trumping evidence-based environmental science.
BBD
What is really interesting about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is how institutions and organisations supposedly dedicated to science have taken this piece of environmental bull to heart. Even the Smithonian Institute promotes this nonsense. There is even a TED Conference talk by Capt. Charles Moore about it.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_plastic.html
This must be the one exception to the rule - Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO)
The only rubbish we are dealing with here is only in the minds of environmentalists.
It distresses me as much as anyone to see or hear of sea creatures caught up in plastic detritus, but I’ve often wondered how it gets to be there in the first place, apart from the obvious jetsam from ships. The contents of my bins are collected, sorted and disposed of in landfill or incinerators, which I would expect to apply to most people, but this doesn’t stop all the hand-wringing in Europe about plastic carrier bags, which form a very small proportion of the waste. In fact, one 4-pint milk* container could be used to make 40 carrier bags, so they are really the wrong target.
*Before you ask, we’ve tried to arrange doorstep deliveries, but the local milkman won’t supply us - something about the house being haunted!
"Garbage In, Garbage Out"
LOL!
Mac
Welcome to post-normal environmental 'science' where values are king, not observation and deduction.
For an eye-popping introduction to the sheer wrongness of a really major environmental claim, take a look at Stephen Budianski's excellent discussion of the species-area relation and supposed mass extinctions:
http://budiansky.blogspot.com/2010/09/teflon-doomsayers.html
Kellow's book runs in a similar vein.
@ Richard Drake
Your definition echoes and condenses my own informal definition of the spectrum of CAGW scepticism, which breaks sceptics down into those who
1/ don't believe the climate is changing at all
2/ think that it is changing, but that it's within the recent normal cycle
3/ think that it is changing, that it's beyond the recent normal cycle, but is still natural
4/ think that is changing and that humanity has something to do with it
5/ think that it's changing, that humanity has a lot to do with it, but that it's beneficial
6/ think that it's changing but that it;s impossible to predict technology, population, and energy price 100 years into the future, and thus all projections about effect are frivolous
7/ think that it's changing, that humanity has a lot to do with it, that it's harmful, but that it cannot be corrected
8/ think that it's changing, that humanity has a lot to do with it, that it's harmful, but that corrective measures are being advanced as a mask for a quite different agenda
9/ think that it's changing, that humanity has a lot to do with it, that it's harmful, but that mitigation will be more harmful economically than warming
10/ think that it is best ameliorated in 100 years' time when, on 100-year trends, the economy will be 8 times larger, and thus mitigation cheaper as well as better defined
11/ regard all the scientists involved in advocating it as third-rate minds who demonstrably do not hesitate to mislead, distort, propagandize, commit crimes, and plain outright lie to preserve their income, status, and career
12/ disagree on principle with any course of action supported by the Mafia, the Camorra, Enron, and other organised criminals, because consensus must include the undesirables too, and they're part of it
13/ consider CAGW to be a religion whose adherents would insist it was the one true way regardless of any evidence presented
14/ have noticed that the Left likes CAGW, and who oppose it because the Left is always wrong.
I reckon almost everyone who identifies as a sceptic identifies as one or more of the above.
The ploy that ecofascists routinely resort to is to try to bucket all of 2 to 14 with 1, which is the least sustainable position. They then argue, by association, that those who are of view 9 or 10 or whatever have no better arguments than those proffered by those who cleave to view 1, ergo all sceptic opinions are of equal non-merit.
In a way, there is a lunatic consistency of dishonesty to their doing this. Their "case" essentially rests on a claimed weight of homogeneous identical opinion. That case is of course a lie, but they are essentially saying "we all hold one opinion and therefore so must you". The intolerance for a plurality of pro-CAGW opinion, and the assumption of an equal stereotypical non-plurality among everyone else - whether everyone else is the Right, or minorities, or sceptics - is what marks CAGW out unerringly as a tool of the idle public sector Left.
Talk of the floating rubbish dump in the Pacific gyre reminds me of the Friendly Floatees (28,800 plastic bath toys) washed overboard in a storm in the North Pacific in 1992. By 2007 some had arrived in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees
I'm grateful like others for being alerted to the Telegraph debunking - or, more strictly, decimating squared - of earlier reports of the Great Garbage Patch in the Pacific. Why am I amazed. Why are we ever amazed. Because to disbelieve everything completely - or to be an instant expert on everything we read o hear - is also not an option. Sigh.
And thanks Justice4Rinka for such a comprehensive response. You've already picked up I'm sure that I wanted something as lightweight as possible that would still work - be clear and unambiguous, in other words - and the results be informative in an opinion poll of the general public, taken regularly over time.
There is a great deal to be gained from teasing apart positions within the sceptical camp but I wanted an adequate first base - a partition of humanity, in the mathematical sense, with every individual belonging to one and only one category. I saw that as essential to openness in the broadest sense - and in climate science and policy we have learned I think that we need openness in the broadest sense. There are many interesting sub-questions after that.
Compare for example Climate scepticism 'on the rise', BBC poll shows from February 2010 (I assume there have been updates since but the headline to that one, first to register a Climategate effect, seemed worth having in my wiki). Look carefully at the original questions (pdf) - it's a disgrace. I for one would have to lie to take part, because strictly I don't belong to any of the four boxes. I'm sure the answers they got did show an increase of scepticism - but how inadequately. There is nothing here distinguishing 'dangerous' warming from beneficial or mildly harmful. But even that is a matter of interpretation. The key issue surely is whether we agree that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced, in line with what the IPCC advises. (That changes from time to time to time, as the IPCC does. But that I think is a manageable complexity. The rest is crystal clear.)
Very happy for anyone to challenge this though. And I repeat that I think any attempt at taxonomy has value. We owe it to humanity - especially the poorest - to think with laser clarity about this issue.
XX Jan 6, 2011 at 6:58 PM | Unregistered CommenterJustice4Rinka XX
You missed one out.
"Who bloody CARES?"
If you look at the TED Conference talk about oceanic garabage patches you will note how neatly laid out the plastic bottle tops were that were supposedly swallowed by young birds on Pacific islands. I didn't realise that birds had such huge stomachs in which swallowed items are laid out in such precise rows and columns.
@Justice4Rinka
Please put me down for 11 to 14.
There may be trouble ahead ;)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/07/republicans-climate-change
3 Bills against EPA controlling CO2
Justice4Rinka,
You forgot a category -- those who are waiting for enough quality science to be done in order to have enough information to make an intelligent decision about what to believe.
LOL, thanks to Furor, Cynic and Stan.
FWIW I think Stan's stance is an elaboration of 2, which should really read "think that it is changing, but have seen no convincing evidence that it's outside the recent normal cycle". As well as 2, I'm a 6 11 and 12 man myself (100-year projections are frivolous, and the consensus is a meeting of third rate minds, and includes the world's lowlife).
To that list of lowlife I should also have added Osama bin Laden.
It would be quite a good HIGNFY odd-man-out question wouldn't it? Don Corleone of the Mafia, Nigel Farage, Kenneth Lay of Enron, and Osama bin Laden. Who's the odd man out? Nigel Farage, because all the others support the consensus on MMGW.
Slightly 'off topic' - and I may have missed one of the great and good of the Climate Change glitterati being interviewed on the subject - but I haven't seen anyone blaming Global Warming for the floods in Queensland.
It would of course be ridiculous to do so - because as anyone whose seen the footage of the floods around Rockhampton will attest - there's a pole (which unfortunately you only get a fleeting glimpse of) showing previous flood levels - all of which are ABOVE the present levels..! The highest I think I spotted was 1924...
Carbon trading is good for the economy, at least the black economy. h/t the Daily Bayonet's weekly roundup
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/8376-europol-arrests-more-than-100-in-carbon-trading-fraud
Justice4Rinka. You didn't include 15: "Climate is complex, and frankly we don't know very much about it at all."
Yeah, put me down as a fifteen mondo.
Meanwhile, William Briggs has offered John Ferguson and me a new thread on Statistician to the Stars! to get down and dirty on a top-level taxonomy. I think getting this right (ie precision and practicality) could have profound implications for opinion polls across the world - and as a kickoff point for some truly informative interactive experiences online. As ever, tyre-kicking much appreciated.
That's interesting, Richard, not least in that that there is, in scepticism, any taxonomy at all. There are some quite nuanced positions on the sceptic side of the fence, but among the CAGW mugs there appears to be only one, which is "the science is settled and we're all doomed". Anything less than that seems to constitute "denial".
I briefly considered including a category of those who don't care or have a view on the science either way, but are simply Big Oil shills. The thing is, that would be a null set on the sceptic side, but on the ecofascist side would include pretty well all the climate "scientists" (a term which moves closer to being an oxymoron every day), a remarkable number of whom seem to have taken money from the likes of Shell.
I think it's a profound point J4R - that most of the exercises in taxonomy (at least that I remember) are from sceptics. I am starting the other end. There are in fact loads of very important distinctions to be made. Who now supports biofuel subsidies? Hardly anyone. Carbon trading? Not Friends of the Earth or George Monbiot. And on it goes.
But as I've explained on the original Matt Briggs thread, all of that beloongs to a really fascinating secondary question. I still think I've started in the right place. It's not trivial achieving precision without losing intelligibility to the man on the Clapham Omnibus. I'm hoping to put something up in the middle of next week. Thanks for the feedback, as ever.