Dennis Bray on global warming and Stalin

Must-read post from Dennis Bray over at Klimazweibel, examining the similarities between Stalin's regime and the conduct of global warming science. He makes ten direct comparisons between the warmism and Stalinism. Here are the first couple to whet your appetite:

1. To begin, Koba’s reign of tyranny, was a reign that was indulged by Western intellectuals.

Climate change, particularly its remediation, is a point of contention. It is, however, indulged by Western intellectuals as if there only facts and no assumptions . (See statement by professional/scientific organization)

2. The Cheka - The Extraordinary Commission - (a soviet state security organization) operated by instilling fear in people. People needed to know they were never safe for the Cheka to operate successfully.

The IPCC and Co. tend to let people know they are never safe and people need to be kept this way if the IPCC and Co is to maintain its existence. (Although recently, the IPCC has been accused of understating the potential dangers of global warming and the public are beginning to have their doubts.)

Lovelock on CRU

Hot foot from demanding the suspension of democracy in order that his pet projects can be put into practice, James Lovelock comments on CRU

Globally-respected scientist James Lovelock praised climate researchers at the University of East Anglia at the weekend stating they were some of “the best in the world”.

Analysis of the Russell evidence

I'm grateful to reader, Messenger, who has prepared this analysis of the evidence submitted to the Russell panel (or at least those submissions that have been published so far).

Critical submissions	67
Defensive submissions	20
Total	87

And here's the really interesting part: no less than 33 of the submissions criticised the inclusion of Geoffrey Boulton on the panel. Muir Russell said, remember, that it was important that his review had the confidence of sceptics.

Has he changed his mind?

Muir's new man

Readers will remember the resignation of Nature editor Philip Campbell from the Muir Russell inquiry - Campbell's position became untenable when he was found to have prejudged the outcome of the inquiry by telling a television interviewer that the scientists involved in the Climategate emails had done nothing wrong.

Click to read more ...

Delingpole on Heartland

James Delingpole reports on his appearance at the Heartland conference.

Wow! Finally in my life I get to experience what it’s like to be a rock star and I’m loving every moment. OK, so the drugs are in pretty short supply. As too is the meaningless sex with nubile groupies. But what do I care, the crowd love me and I love them. God bless America! God bless the Heartland Institute’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change!

Read the whole thing.

Bo Christiansen on hockey sticks

Bo Christiansen has a guest post at Klimazwiebel looking at the way that traditional temperature reconstruction methods like RegEm and CPS underestimate past climate variability. He demonstrates a new method he has developed with Anders Moberg and shows that it is much better at capturing low-frequency variation - i.e. climate trends, although with a concurrent worsening of the high-frequency situation.

Click to read more ...

Select committee allocations

Spy Blog reports on the allocation of House of Commons Select Committee chairs to the different parties. Both the Environment and Science/Tech positions are to be filled by Conservatives.

Please let it not be Tim Yeo.

Our disingenuous man in San José

From Nacion.com, a newspaper in Costa Rica:

Here is some good news for the citizens of San José: in the future you are going to find your city a little quieter and the air less polluted and cleaner. Why? Because the Swiss and British ambassadors have just bought electric cars to use for routine trips in the city.

...[the cars], being electric, don't generate emissions.

That last bit ain't true, electric cars merely displacing emissions from the exhaust to the power station.

Huhne out?

A report on the Spectator website suggests that David Laws has resigned as chief secretary to the Treasury.

His successor is understood to be a Lib Dem, probably Chris Huhne or Jeremy Browne. ...getting Huhne out of the environment office may prove a blessing.

Yes indeed.

Update on May 29, 2010 by Bishop Hill

BBC confirms that Laws has gone but says that his replacement will be Danny Alexander. We're stuck with Huhne.

The Holocene optimum

Current temperatures are unprecedented? Not so says Matt Ridley:

A study of sea sediment cores in the Chukchi Sea shelf in the Arctic Ocean concluded that `during the middle Holocene the August sea surface temperature fluctuated by 5°C and was 3-7°C warmer than it is today.

Yes, you read that right: up to SEVEN DEGREES CENTIGRADE.

Read the whole thing.

Harrabin again

The attitude of the establishment to the sceptics shines through the succession of inquiries into controversial science at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

When at the launch of the Sir Muir Russell inquiry I asked about the credibility of the review panel in the blogosphere, Sir Muir dismissed the enquiry with the flick of a wrist - he had been a senior civil servant and he had run a university, his bona fides were beyond question.

But the blogosphere does not respect past reputations, only current performance. And some of the top performers in the blogosphere are critics of the establishment.

Read the whole thing.

Oz academy dust-up

Hot on the heels of the news that fellows of the Royal Society are arguing over their public position on climate change comes a report that the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering is engaged in a similar battle over how their views should be represented to the public.

A two-page draft [document], posted on a password-protected section of the academy's website, said the academy ''does not believe the science is settled'' regarding climate change.

It said many scientists believed ''climate changes are nothing unusual, based on past geological records''.

An exchange of emails shows the statement has sparked anger and alarm among members. More than 50 of Australia's top agricultural and environmental scientists are among those objecting to the statement. A letter signed by 12 climate scientists has also been circulated to members.

An alternative policy statement, drafted by academy member and Melbourne World Climate Research program director Professor Ann Henderson-Sellers, has been emailed to members.

Briggs writes to Santer

Matt Briggs writes to climatologist, Ben Santer. Very funny.

More coverage of Royal Society rebellion

The newspapers this morning have more coverage of the rebellion in the ranks of the scientific establishment.

Ben Webster in the Times names Sir Alan Rudge as the leader of the rebellion. Rudge is not naming the other signatories though. Webster notes Rudge's involvement in the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Louise Gray in the Telegraph covers the story too.

The Royal Society rewrite in the news

The story that the Royal Society is going to rewrite its climate change position paper appears to be making something of an impact. Here are a few relevant links:

The Royal Society's statement about the background is here. Apparently the rewrite had been, ahem, planned for some time. There's also this:

Click to read more ...