Damian picks cherries

Damian Carrington has engaged in a fairly obvious piece of cherrypicking over the Arctic sea ice minimum and is taken to task for it by Ben Pile.

Comments

[Jiminy Cricket]

Many years ago I visited NZ... drove up to the Fox Glacier...

So Guardian I will take your AX has shrunk by 0.81 metres respectively per year in the 2000s, up from 0.68 and 0.72 metres per year between 1970 and 1990 raise it with this below...

We can all cherry pick, just depends on the view...

From Wikipedia:

Fed by four alpine glaciers, Fox Glacier falls 2,600 m (8,500 ft) on its 13 km journey from the Southern Alps down to the coast, with it having the distinction of being one of the few glaciers to end among lush rainforest only 300 metres (980 ft) above sea level. Although retreating throughout most of the last 100 years, it has been advancing since 1985. In 2006 the average rate of advance was about a metre a week.[5] In January 2009, the terminal face of the glacier was still advancing and had vertical or overhanging faces which were continually collapsing.[6]

[CinbadtheSailor]

I am ashamed to say I was a Guardian reader for many years, however I grew tired of the constant distortion which it seems to produce these days. Unfortunately this is only one example of many.

No wonder the Guardian is going out of business

[Barry Woods]

In the article Damian still seems to think Kilmanjaro is losing its snow cap.. when in fact it is now regaining it.

Some good news for the Guardian and Damian...

Bit of fact checking... Kilamanjaro is actually regaining its snow cap..

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/21/kilimanjaro-regaining-its-snow-cap/

Whilst the cause of loss are known to be human, they were nothing to do with AGW CO2 and temperature..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/12551061

some other good news. I no longer have any problem commenting at the Guardian, comments (mine) not pre-moderated now

[Pete H]

Why would the Guardian change its religion of exaggerating and lying! Now lets sit back and see how David Vance (BiasedBBC) get on at the BBC on Sunday Morning Live

[Rob Schneider]

The Economist has an article published 24 Sept on same theme as Guardian's, but focus is on their assertion that ice is now thinner and they note arctic air is warming twice as fast as the atmosphere and discuss why that might be.

http://www.economist.com/node/21530079

[Barry Woods]

In the everest article they've reverted back to using 'climate change deniers' though :(

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/25/climate-change-himalayas-glaciers-melting?CMP=twt_fd

"The scandal, known as Glaciergate or Himalayagate, was a gift to climate-change deniers when it came to light early last year, and a deep embarrassment to glaciologists. Now they are desperately trying to recover.

"ie The Guardian and the D word:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/02/sea-change-in-climate-journalism-the-guardian-and-the-d-word/

[Mac]

Reality is a far away place for the likes of Damian Carrington.

You sense a loss of traction, faith and credibility at the Guardian.

For the CAGWists things have decidely become bleak. The public simply do not believe them anymore.

[KnR]

Barry Woods the Guardian is the lead with the use of the 'D' word , remember its Monboit who try to create a link between AGW skeptics and Holocaust deniers that was the driving force behind this idea . When all was good in AGW land this journalists was happy to insult and vilify anyone in anyway, that failed to show how committed they were to AGW, with CIF managements full support .

Its a bit of history CIF is very keen that others don't bring up and its very good way to get banned mentioning embarrassing , for CIF , facts which are neither scared nor welcome.

[geoffchambers]

KnR
Monbiot linked sceptics to Iraqi war criminals with his “climate denier cards to collect” gag which he borrowed from war criminal Bush, called Delingpole a rat, Booker a bullshitter, and the rest of us sceptics “scumbags”, but I can’t recall him making the Holocaust connection. Can you quote a reference?

[SayNoToFearmongers]

Cinbad,

I share your shame - as a teenager in the Thatcher years the Guardian spoke for my generation in so many ways, but no organ of news delivery can regain my trust after this prolonged orgy of blatant and utterly shameless deceit. I haven't actually been banned from Komment Macht Frei yet, but can now rarely be bothered to duel with the religious fervour of the addled regulars there. Let 'em rot.

[Pharos]

And today, in the Sunday Times page 16, Jonathon Leake's piece titled 'Ministers believe global warming is unstoppable and are to advise householders on how to protect themselves'

'Britains homes and businesses are to become the new front line in the war against climate change. The government is to warn householders that global warming has become unstoppable - and call on them to protect their properties against the heat, floods and water shortages that scientists predict will accompany temperature rises of up to 4degC by mid-to-late century.' Goes on about needing to raise sockets and floorboards, floodproofing doors windows and airbricks, screening windows against invasive biting insects, etc. etc...

[golf charley]

Is this the fastest Arctic refreeze for sept on record?

[Barry Woods]

Pharos

It will be TEQ's next personal carbon (energy) rationing

[DaveS]

Pharos

I guess that if 'global warming is unstoppable', then the government cannot use the fig leaf of 'fighting climate change' as the excuse for its lunatic energy and 'low carbon' policies.

[WillR]

People are referring to the Graundian and the Economist and will shortly refer to other "newspapers" I'm sure. So I beg you to remember "Who Reads the Newspapers".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M

Ste the right tone for this debate please!

[FrankSW]

Next time you are in a newsagent count how many copies of the Guardian they stock compared to all other papers on the shelf, thats how badly they are doing.

[Pharos]

Barry Woods

Yes. Chilling. We are behind the new iron curtain now- carbon curtain if you like. I saw first hand what it was like in DDR and Czechoslovakia in the late 50's early sixties, and thought 'There but for the grace of British freedom go I'. But now freedom has been all but sucked out of Britains veins.

TEQ's introduction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradable_Energy_Quotas

[September 2011]

(Universität Hamburg, KlimaCampus) just warned (05.09.2011): "Sommerliches Meereis-Minimum in der Arktis: Ein neuer Minusrekord kündigt sich an" (Arctic Summer Sea Ice Minimum: A New Record Announces Itself)!

The above article does not mention that 1979 (satellites) was a special year wrt reliability. "Our" media were quiet for two years or so about the sea ice. Wondering why?

It seems that especially Lars Kaleschke (KlimaCampus) spotted one hole in the ice of this year and that he got nearly all the attention of nearly all the German (language) media: national public broadcasting on TV (primetime news) and the same on Radio in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Once I spotted a somewhat typically "dialog" somewhere else (IIRC):

X: "Are underwater vulcanoes able to melt the arctic ice?"

Y: "No. It is not possible because of the different layers of streams. We have got no scientific paper. But one university writes so on it's web site."

[geronimo]

Barry Woods, it's the new communism, the government has set aside £7bn for the introduction of smart meters for our energy. While smart meters have many advantages for the consumer, they also allow the rationing of energy consumption, something I believe the Greens are planning for our future.

I do hope they do it to everyone then we'll see how the celebrities helping these evil bandits squirm when they find they've only got the same energy usage as their staff. Be nice that.

[Barry Woods]

geronimo.. I gues you haven't seen the all parliamentary report about TEQ's then..

yep carbon rationing. ;-)

http://www.teqs.net/

http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=19261&channel=1&title=TEQ+backers+predict+fuel+and+energy+rationing+by+2020+

[Latimer Alder]

@saynot ofearmongers

If you haven't been banned from Komment Macht Frei you are not trying hard enough. More effort please.

[geronimo]

John Hemmings: ""What is needed is an intelligent response both to climate change and to fuel depletion."

So we ignore shale oil and nuclear so we can have fuel rationing. Over the last few years I've come to the conclusion that the Lib Dems and the Greens, far from being the benign eccentrics in our society I imagined them to be, are the most dangerous people on the planet and threaten and will cheerfully take away our civil liberties and freedoms for the sake of the planet. We already know they'll cheerfully let kids in Africa die to protect the flora and fauna, so why not give everyone a few kilowatts/day for heating and lighting, making sure they don't consume enough to damage the planet.

They'll also ban flying and travelling in cars, you wait and see. (Given the chance that is).

[David]

Not only The Guardian - but - guess who..? The good ol' Biased Broadcasting Corporation. This morning (25th) on 'Breakfast', they resurrected the 'story' of the guys who 'rowed to the Pole' - and had one of the team on the programme - with some VERY carefully edited video clips of the journey. Although the guy being interviewed did at one point mention (very quickly) that it was the '1996 magnetic pole' that they 'rowed' to - inevitably he trotted out the old mantra that 'as the polar ice is receding, we could never have done this before'. (Cue reference to the satellite-generated graphs - but) NO challenge whatsoever from the presenters - same old, same old....

[BBD]

geronimo

We agree wrt Lib Dems and Greens being very dangerous. Anti-nuclear, renewables-hyping energy fantasists with a really nasty authoritarian streak.

However, the menace they represent may not be quite as we see it now. Remember Roger Pielke Jr's 'iron law' of climate policy:

So the LDs and the Greens are stuffed. Everything they believe in will condemn them to the political graveyard. They just haven't worked it out yet because they're too f***ing stupid.

In the mean time, their failures and loopy energy policies (UK wind; agonisingly slow process on nuclear build-out) mean more emissions, not less. Those here who think this matters see the LDs and Greens as a serious threat to the future, not its custodians, as they arrogantly and foolishly imagine.

[BBD]

geronimo

Sorry - summat went wrong with the tags. Let me try again:

We agree wrt Lib Dems and Greens being very dangerous. Anti-nuclear, renewables-hyping energy fantasists with a really nasty authoritarian streak.

However, the menace they represent may not be quite as we see it now. Remember Roger Pielke Jr's 'iron law' of climate policy:

When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out every time. Climate policies should flow with the current of public opinion rather than against it, and efforts to sell the public on policies that will create short-term economic discomfort cannot succeed if that discomfort is perceived to be too great. Calls for asceticism and sacrifice are a nonstarter.

The "iron law" thus presents a boundary condition on policy design that is every bit as limiting as is the second law of thermodynamics, and it holds everywhere around the world, in rich and poor countries alike. It says that even if people are willing to bear some costs to reduce emissions (and experience shows that they are), they are willing to go only so far...

To succeed, any policies focused on decarbonizing economies will necessarily have to offer short-term benefits that are in some manner proportional to the short-term costs. In practice, this means that efforts to make dirty energy appreciably more expensive will face limited success.
...

The unavoidable reality is that policy makers and those they represent are committed to sustaining economic growth, bringing populations out of poverty, and expanding access to energy. Emissions reduction goals will not be achieved by policies that seek to stimulate innovation by constricting, much less by reducing, economic activity.

So the LDs and the Greens are stuffed. Everything they believe in will condemn them to the political graveyard. They just haven't worked it out yet because they're too f***ing stupid.

In the mean time, their failures and loopy energy policies (UK wind; agonisingly slow process on nuclear build-out) mean more emissions, not less. Those here who think this matters see the LDs and Greens as a serious threat to the future, not its custodians, as they arrogantly and foolishly imagine.

[September 2011]

Do you remember Guardian's article -- that time by Monbiot -- shortly after climategate where Monbiot gave a prize to Christopher Booker ("Winner of climate change denial's premier award revealed") and the recommendation to his, Monbiots, opponents, "to take a one-way solo kayak trip to the north pole, to see for him or herself the full extent of the Arctic ice melt"? That was 21 January 2010 - but at that time, since 2007 something has happend with the arctic sea ice extent, inconvenient for Monbiot... and the summerly kayaks at the north pole.

I also remember there were major underwater volcanoes spotted near the north pole and they were extraordinary active "lately". Do you know of any study that examines underwater volcanoes (maybe for some years (cf. "climate science")) in the (ant-)arctic or even their impacts on (sea-) ice (cf. above)?

[Jack Hughes]

Ben Pile's blog ( Climate Resistance ) develps some interesting themes not seen elsewhere.

One important theme is that the greens want to go backwards to some imagined pre-industrial era. Skeptics usually want to remain in the present instead. But nobody seems to want to go forwards to a future of new exciting things that will use even more energy to provide new benefits.

Ben returns to this theme again and again - championing the future.

[Rob Burton]

Why is it that people seem to care so much about lack of arctic ice?? I can see the presence of ice being a problem during NH winter (ie Murmansk conveys during WWII for example) but it is such a harsh environment/unpopulated region and a pretty poor proxy for any possible AGW why does anyone care?? There are loads of more important possible problems and proxies around

[Pharos]

According to Indur M. Goklany and Julian Morris:-

'Aggregate mortality attributed to all extreme weather events globally has declined by more than 90% since the 1920s, in spite of a four-fold rise in population and much more complete reporting of such events. The aggregate mortality rate declined by 98%, largely due to decreased mortality in three main areas:

1.Deaths and death rates from droughts, which were responsible for approximately 60% of cumulative deaths due to extreme weather events from 1900–2010, are more than 99.9% lower than in the 1920s.
2.Deaths and death rates for floods, responsible for over 30% of cumulative extreme weather deaths, have declined by over 98% since the 1930s.
3.Deaths and death rates for storms (i.e. hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, typhoons), responsible for around 7% of extreme weather deaths from 1900–2008, declined by more than 55% since the 1970s.

To put the public health impact of extreme weather events into context, cumulatively they now contribute only 0.07% to global mortality. Mortality from extreme weather events has declined even as all-cause mortality has increased, indicating that humanity is coping better with extreme weather events than it is with far more important health and safety problems.'

http://sppiblog.org/news/the-decline-in-deaths-from-extreme-weather-1900%e2%80%932010

Which rather knocks Chief Government Scientist Professor Sir John Beddington's Climate Impacts Report into a cocked hat.

[Shub]

Why is it that people seem to care so much about lack of arctic ice??

The use of the Arctic ice as a barometer (as opposed to ideas in the 1950s) is that
- the ice is required for polar bears to survive, and
- the environmentalist longing that the Arctic ice keep its doors shut forever on a part of the earth virginal landscape.

On the second point, I have always wondered about something.

If you read Robert Laughlin (I know this is the umpteenth time I am quoting RL), he talks about how humankind mythologizes the idea of 'the last frontier'. The frontier is that place which lies unexplored, evoking wonder. Unexpectedly, the existence of the frontier is a source of comfort for modern man - it makes him feel that there are yet places to be conquered.

Imagine going on a trip to the woods, say the Sequioa forests. You trundle along for what seems like ages, reach a breathtaking vantage point only to turn around and see a sign - "No littering. Starbucks 500 meters west". Someone has been there before. Everything that is to be seen has been seen, packaged and sold off as tours.

The environmentalists lamenting about the Arctic (or the Amazon), may in fact be an expression of this longing - of wanting to keep such frontiers on Earth intact. Perhaps to their own horror, it may be an expression of power and a desire to conquer. In all environmentalism, there is a bit of the desire to exert dominion over landscapes that one does not own.

Ben Pile, for instance, will not acknowledge the above. He argues that environementalism is a nothing.

Keith Kloor, on the other hand, you will find, coming in from the other direction. He wonders "who is even talking about polar bears anymore. Pah!". I guess when you are busy in New York and Washington DC trying to bowdlerize the local populace with kids' asthma inhaler scare stories, you can forget why you wanted to do so, in the first place.

Imagine that - trying to take away poor children's inhalers to save the polar bears.

[Stacey]

Carrington is an alarmist joke who as soon as he gets the opportunity ensures critical posts are removed?

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