Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[Rifleman62]

If the CPC raised any tax, or introduced a consumption tax, it would be political suicide. I can hear the howls now from Iffy and his gang of media. But, the LieLiberals would do essentially the same thing if they where in government. A Mexican standoff, will the government losing.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The beauty of a carbon tax is that it can be introduced for a social purpose: to save us from ourselves. It needn't be presented as just another way to pick the taxpayers' pockets to pay for bureaucratic waste and ineptitude; it can be presented as morally necessary self flagellation that will, finally, restore us to our self-proclaimed status as moral superpower, once again able to hector the USA for its manifold socio-political failings, for, generally, not being us.

A well planned, simple, single point of payment (the individual consumer) carbon tax will, very, very quickly, raise huge amounts of money that successive governments can waste with glee.

A smart government - such things have existed, in times gone by - would introduce the tax so that it grows, point by point, over about three years; then it would announce that, beginning in the fifth or sixth year, after the next election, the tax will be reduced by a point, on some items - hinting that further reductions may be possible if one keeps re-electing the right party.

 

[sm1lodon]

I'm all for global warming, anyway, even if it were true. I have no need for polar ice caps or caps on C02. Bring on the warming. Warming encourages plant life, which produces humidity, which increases cloud cover, which will equalize the climates worldwide.

Of course, I can't prove this. Just like the global warming terrorists can't prove what they say is a result of my car.

But, as I said, the net result: us having to pay money. The root cause: someone's greed.

 

[Rifleman62]

Say what you want. The LieLiberals and the media will beat it down, distort the truth, and the CPC will be defeated. You cannot raise taxes if you are a CPC government. Canadians are generally not well informed and are selfish. Thanks Trudeau.

P.S. The temporary tax on gasoline to reduce the deficit is a good example of a carbon tax going wrong and a tax policy not to be believed.

 

[a_majoor]

There is one other option, but my Google-fu is weak today.

I seem to recall the Finance Minister claimed to have identified something on the order of $100 billion in wasteful spending across the government, but had no plans to do anything about it since this was all part of the wonderful stimulus we needed to defeat the recession. I'm obviously paraphrasing here, and while I would like to believe there is $100 billion available to be cut, the number might be a lot less...

IF this number was indeed true (or even within an order of magnitude), then the deficit problem simply solves itself as the government cuts that wasteful spending. If the actual amount is indeed $100 billion, then the national debt can be paid off in five years, and another five years would fill the coffers and eliminate the unfunded liabilities of CPP and other federal pensions. That is an argument which might indeed sell to the hard pressed Canadian taxpayer and voter.

Other premutations are possible as well. The government can cut the $100 billion in wasteful spending and then lower income taxes by a like amount, which would be a bit like putting a bottle of Nitrous Oxide to the engine of the economy. The revenue explosion would then (ideally) pay off the debt and service unfunded liabilities.

Being eternally optomistic, I could also foresee that after a few years of deep budget cuts without affecting the day to day lives of 98% of Canadians, voters would become more receptive to further budget cutting as well, creating a virtuous circle. (Maybe I should also check the dosage on those anti-inflammatory drugs as well... )

 

[Old Sweat]

The following abridged letter to the editor, which was published in today's National Post and is reproduced under the fair comments provisions of the Copyright Act, is one of the most original and clever takes on data manipulation I have ever seen. It may even make Edmontonians smile through their frost-bitten lips.

Re: Cold Comfort: Mercury Rises To -20 C In Edmonton, Dec. 15.

Those who believe it may be cold in Edmonton will be cheered to know that the recently published temperatures consist of only raw temperature data. The Climate Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia, U.K., has used its complex and peer-reviewed computer adjustment for that raw data to determine the real temperatures for inclusion in future IPCC reports on global warming.

It must be noted that the CRU-adjusted temperatures for Edmonton continue to show this to be one of the warmest weeks in Edmonton's history and exactly matches the catastrophic and accelerating warming prediction of the proven IPCC computer model.

The Edmonton weather office will replace the raw temperature data in its records with the CRU-corrected data as soon as possible to support future CRU climate research, however, the CRU asks that anyone who may have taken notes or have a memory of the raw temperature data of recent days to erase or otherwise forget it in order to avoid any possible future embarrassment the raw temperature data may cause. It further states that the science remains fully settled and there is no need to invite any silly debate with climate warming deniers who do not understand the CRU's complex scientific methods.

Dwight Christensen, Ottawa.

 

[vonGarvin]

The following abridged letter to the editor, which was published in today's National Post and is reproduced under the fair comments provisions of the Copyright Act, is one of the most original and clever takes on data manipulation I have ever seen. It may even make Edmontonians smile through their frost-bitten lips.

Re: Cold Comfort: Mercury Rises To -20 C In Edmonton, Dec. 15.

Those who believe it may be cold in Edmonton will be cheered to know that the recently published temperatures consist of only raw temperature data. The Climate Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia, U.K., has used its complex and peer-reviewed computer adjustment for that raw data to determine the real temperatures for inclusion in future IPCC reports on global warming.

It must be noted that the CRU-adjusted temperatures for Edmonton continue to show this to be one of the warmest weeks in Edmonton's history and exactly matches the catastrophic and accelerating warming prediction of the proven IPCC computer model.

The Edmonton weather office will replace the raw temperature data in its records with the CRU-corrected data as soon as possible to support future CRU climate research, however, the CRU asks that anyone who may have taken notes or have a memory of the raw temperature data of recent days to erase or otherwise forget it in order to avoid any possible future embarrassment the raw temperature data may cause. It further states that the science remains fully settled and there is no need to invite any silly debate with climate warming deniers who do not understand the CRU's complex scientific methods.

Dwight Christensen, Ottawa.

:rofl:
I suppose that toques aren't needed anymore, then?  And I suppose that the polar caps MUST be melting as I type this, given that it's so much warmer up there in the long Arctic night ;D

 

[a_majoor]

Russia drops the bomb!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/

Climategate goes SERIAL: now the Russians confirm that UK climate scientists manipulated data to exaggerate global warming

By James Delingpole Politics Last updated: December 16th, 2009

160 Comments Comment on this article

Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.

Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North)

A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that aimed to combat global warming.

The incident involved an e-mail server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, East England. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents dealing with the global-warming issue made over the course of 13 years.

Controversy arose after various allegations were made including that climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific evidence and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.

Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.

Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial calculations, are based on HadCRUT research.

What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.

As Richard North says: This is serial.

UPDATE: As Steve McIntyre reports at ClimateAudit, it has long been suspected that the CRU had been playing especially fast and loose with Russian – more particularly Siberian – temperature records. Here from March 2004, is an email from Phil Jones to Michael Mann.

Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it
wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either
appears I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.
Cheers
Phil

And here at Watts Up With That is a guest post by Jeff Id of the Air Vent

And here is what one of the commenters has to say about the way the data has been cherry-picked and skewed for political ends:

The crux of the argument is that the CRU cherry picked data following the same methods that have been done everywhere else. They ignored data covering 40% of Russia and chose data that showed a warming trend over statistically preferable alternatives when available. They ignored completeness of data, preferred urban data, strongly preferred data from stations that relocated, ignored length of data set.

One the final page, there is a chart that shows that CRU’s selective use of 25% of the data created 0.64C more warming than simply using all of the raw data would have done. The complete set of data show 1.4C rise since 1860, the CRU set shows 2.06C rise over the same period.

Not, of course, dear readers that I’m in any way tempted to crow about these latest revelations. After all, so many of my colleagues, junior and senior, have been backing me on this one to the hilt….

Oh, if anyone speaks Russian, here’s the full report.

Do feel free to forward this to your local legacy media and Member of Parliament

 

[Jungle]

Some questions are not welcome in Copenhagen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUtzMBfDrpI&feature=player_embedded

Is this guy a scientist or a politician ??  ;D

Some 30 years ago, Steven Schneider was scaring the world with the coming ice age and ensuing food shortages:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttLBqB0qDko

Apparently, the earth has not warmed in the last 10 to 15 years, and it looks like it might actually cool for the next 2 decades; is Prof Schneider going to go back to the global cooling option ??

And another one, just for S&G:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUq0JnaIock&feature=player_embedded

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

I'm not big into conspiracy theories with only the Kennedy assasination stuck in my craw for the last 46 years but Google links for the term "climategate" have gone from a high of 55 million to 23 million last week now down to 13.7 million today.  As the topic is flogged to death on the internet the references decrease?  Has me mystified.

Also many of the first links are people criticizing climategate.

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/021306.html

Wiki's version of the truth as they see it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident

There is so much strange stuff surrounding climategate including the non-reporting by the legitimate media that I have added climategate to my list.  There is either an active conspiracy or a conspiracy of ignorance, usually visually depicted by three monkeys.  I just got my renewal for Time.  I intend to present them with my own editorial comment.  Henry Luce must be spinning in his grave.

 

[a_majoor]

There is either an active conspiracy or a conspiracy of ignorance, usually visually depicted by three monkeys. 

More proof anyone?

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx

Lawrence Solomon: Wikipedia’s climate doctor
Posted: December 19, 2009, 2:53 AM by NP Editor
lawrence solomon, climate change, Wikipedia
How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles

By Lawrence Solomon

The Climategate Emails describe how a small band of climatologists cooked the books to make the last century seem dangerously warm.

The emails also describe how the band plotted to rewrite history as well as science, particularly by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year period that began around 1000 AD.

The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history.

The Medieval Warm Period, which followed the meanness and cold of the Dark Ages, was a great time in human history — it allowed humans around the world to bask in a glorious warmth that vastly improved agriculture, increased life spans and otherwise bettered the human condition.

But the Medieval Warm Period was not so great for some humans in our own time — the same small band that believes the planet has now entered an unprecedented and dangerous warm period. As we now know from the Climategate Emails, this band saw the Medieval Warm Period as an enormous obstacle in their mission of spreading the word about global warming. If temperatures were warmer 1,000 years ago than today, the Climategate Emails explain in detail, their message that we now live in the warmest of all possible times would be undermined. As put by one band member, a Briton named Folland at the Hadley Centre, a Medieval Warm Period “dilutes the message rather significantly.”

Even before the Climategate Emails came to light, the problem posed by the Medieval Warm Period to this band was known. “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period” read a pre-Climategate email, circa 1995, as attested to at hearings of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works. But the Climategate transcripts were more extensive and more illuminating — they provided an unvarnished look at the struggles that the climate practitioners underwent before settling on their scientific dogma.

The Climategate Emails showed, for example, that some members of the band were uncomfortable with aspects of their work, some even questioning the need to erase the existence of the Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years earlier.

Said Briffa, one of their chief practitioners: “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. … I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.” 

In the end, Briffa and other members of the band overcame their doubts and settled on their dogma. With the help of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the highest climate change authority of all, they published what became the icon of their movement — the hockey stick graph. This icon showed temperatures in the last 1,000 years to have been stable — no Medieval Warm Period, not even the Little Ice Age of a few centuries ago.

But the UN’s official verdict that the Medieval Warm Period had not existed did not erase the countless schoolbooks, encyclopedias, and other scholarly sources that claimed it had. Rewriting those would take decades, time that the band members didn’t have if they were to save the globe from warming.

Instead, the band members turned to their friends in the media and to the blogosphere, creating a website called RealClimate.org. “The idea is that we working climate scientists should have a place where we can mount a rapid response to supposedly ‘bombshell’ papers that are doing the rounds” in aid of “combating dis-information,” one email explained, referring to criticisms of the hockey stick and anything else suggesting that temperatures today were not the hottest in recorded time. One person in the nine-member Realclimate.org team — U.K. scientist and Green Party activist William Connolley — would take on particularly crucial duties.

Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.

The Medieval Warm Period disappeared, as did criticism of the global warming orthodoxy. With the release of the Climategate Emails, the disappearing trick has been exposed. The glorious Medieval Warm Period will remain in the history books, perhaps with an asterisk to describe how a band of zealots once tried to make it disappear.

Financial Post
LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com

Normal 0 0 1 32 184 1 1 225 11.512 0 0 0

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute and author of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx#ixzz0aFN0FSL9
The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Photos from a recent meeting of news directors of the major networks:

Any wonders that Wiki is a dirty word around here and in academics.  I have done some Wiki editing on non-contentious historical subjects and probably all of it is still there.  If it were all false, it would probably still be there too.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

I'm not big into conspiracy theories with only the Kennedy assasination stuck in my craw for the last 46 years but Google links for the term "climategate" have gone from a high of 55 million to 23 million last week now down to 13.7 million today.  As the topic is flogged to death on the internet the references decrease?  Has me mystified.

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/021306.html

Search for "Climategate" using deifferent search engines results in following hit numbers December 7 2009, 23.40 CET:
Google: 31.300.000 hits
Yahoo: 24.700.000 hits
AltaVista: 41.700.000 hits
Bing.com: 56.900.000 hits

Is Google cooking numbers?

12.3 million hits today.  I find the management of information for political purposes as scary today as when the Nazis or Communists did it.

Tiger Woods has 52 million hits - I better quit while I'm behind.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/021306.html

12.3 million hits today.  I find the management of information for political purposes as scary today as when the Nazis or Communists did it.

Tiger Woods has 52 million hits - I better quit while I'm behind.

Today - 95.1 million.  I guess they must have questioned their sagging credibility.  Still scares me how a topic can be manipulated for political reasons.

Results 1 - 10 of about 95,100,000 for climategate.

 

[Scott]

Are you done talking to yourself? Spare tinfoil, this time of year, should be used for cookies....

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Are you done talking to yourself?

No!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html

No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007.

Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the world’s top climate scientist”), as a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics he has no qualifications in climate science at all.

What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.

Now I'm done.

 

[a_majoor]

I'm not!

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/12/pachauri-basques-in-glory.html

Pachauri in expenses scam
Posted by Richard Tuesday, December 22, 2009 IPCC, Pachauri

Not only has Dr R K Pachauri, chairman of the UN's IPCC been developing a very significant portfolio of private interests, evidence is mounting that he has been carrying out his business activities for these organisations under the guise of his UN duties, and charging the expenses to the UN.

This has emerged in part from an official document published by the IPCC Secretariat late August 2008 in response to public questions about Pachauri's "carbon footprint" arising from his globe-trotting activities.

Under the title "Outreach activities carried out by the IPCC Chairman", covering his itinerary for January 2007 to July 2008, the main purpose was to reassure the public that, while engaged on UN activities he had indeed flown many miles, in each case the UN had paid "carbon offsets" for the flights – details of which were listed against each "official" engagement.

However, unwittingly, this document has revealed more than either the UN – and certainly Dr Pachauri – had intended. It provides effective proof that, on more than one occasion Pachauri was indeed using UN funding for his own commercial interests.

One egregious example of this comes on 7 July 2008, when – in amongst his 443,243 miles flown in the 19-month period - Dr Pachauri is recorded by the UN as having travelled 1,432 miles from Abu Dhabi, where he was attending the Zayed Future Energy Prize Award, to visit Delhi for what is officially described as "Visit of Basque delegation to TERI".

There, he meets José Antonio -Tontxu- Campos Granados, Minister Of Education, Universities And Research and Esther Larrañaga Galdos, Minister Of Environment And Land Use Planning, both from the Basque Government. No other business is recorded that day, or at all until 14 July when, at the UN's expense, he flies 3,446 miles to Vienna for a UN ceremony.

However, while the UN records this as official business, the Basque delegation is perhaps unaware of this. On one of its own official websites, it records that the delegation visited the TERI offices to meet its Director General, Dr RK Pachauri, in order to sign a collaboration agreement between TERI and their own research institute, the Basque Institute Centre on Climate Change (BC3) – which had only been set up the previous April.

Interestingly, the research director of BC3 is Professor Anil Markandya, formerly of Bath University and lead author for Working Group III (on mitigation of climate impacts) in the IPCC 4th Assessment and a contributing author for Working Group II (on identifying the impacts of climate change). Markandya was, therefore, working with Pachauri's IPCC on the report which gained his boss a share in the Nobel Prize.

Whether a fee was paid by the Basques to TERI is not clear, but the deal is agreed for three years, amounting to adding to BC3 staff, from September, a series of "top-level international experts" from TERI, while a number of Masters students are sent to India.

There, we find that they are to partake in a new Masters programme "to train students in sustainable development", taught at the TERI University based in Delhi. The programme is to be funded to the tune of $900,000 by the Chicago-based John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation which, as we reported, also sponsors Pachauri's TERI North America operation in Washington.

Another "partner" to the programme is, incidentally, the University of East Anglia, home of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of Climategate fame.

Whatever the finer details of the arrangement with the Basques might have been, however, what is amply clear is that their official visit to Delhi on 7 July to meet Pachauri in Delhi had nothing whatsoever to do with UN business – and everything to do with Pachauri's personal position as Director General of TERI.

For that, at UN expense, Pachauri took a 1,432 miles from Abu Dhabi to get to Delhi and then a 3,446-mile trip to Vienna, totalling 4,878 miles. The direct route from Abu Dhabi to Vienna is 2,637 miles, with Pachauri's private business adding over 2,000 miles to his journey.

Whether there would have been other arrangements in place for Pachauri to have returned home to India in the week that elapsed between 7 and 14 July when he was due in Vienna, we cannot tell. But the fact is that Pachauri's official place of work as chairman of the IPCC is Geneva, where its offices are based. He had no reason to go to Delhi other than on private business, yet he was falsely recorded as representing the UN.

In most jurisdictions, this kind of deception is regarded as theft and most employers treat gross misuse of expenses as a sackable offence. For the gifted and so far untouchable Dr Pachauri, however, this seems to be just another perk of the job.

 

[Kirkhill]

Sorry Scott.  Me neither.  By the way Wattsupwiththat is a particularly interesting clearing house for anti AGW info.

Cheers

From NC Times (California) via Wattsupwiththat

From Global Warming Believer To Skeptic
By: Bradley Fikes —  December 21st, 2009
UPDATE: For whatever reason, Thanks to a link from Climate Depot, this post has drawn an outpouring of commenters. Thanks for stopping by, and thank you, Climate Depot! And thank you for your patience with the comment moderation. I check comments frequently, and will step up the pace to keep the conversation going.

It’s good to see science-minded people from outside climate science weigh in on this topic. The climate science priesthood is at last getting that skeptical examination the unethical and fraudulent Climategate gang has tried to avoid.

I’ve blogged a lot about Climategate and will do more. So please check back often.
———————————————————-

A few years ago, I accepted global warming theory with few doubts. I wrote several columns for this paper condemning what I thought were unfair attacks by skeptics and defending the climate scientists.

Boy, was I naive.

Since the Climategate emails and documents revealed active collusion to thwart skeptics and even outright fraud, I’ve been trying to correct the record of my earlier foolishness. In one of those columns, I even wrote: “And see Real Climate (www.realclimate.org) for global warming science without the political spin.”

In fact, Real Climate was and is nothing more than the house organ of global warming activists, concerned more with politics than with science.

My mistake was assuming only the purest of motives of the global warming alarmists, while assuming the worst of the skeptics. In fact, the soi-disant moralists of the global warming movement can also exploit their agenda for profit.

Climategate jolted me into confronting the massive fraud and deception by top global warming scientists, who were in a position to twist the peer-review process in their favor, and did so shamelessly.

Yet still most media reports desperately minimize Climategate, saying that it doesn’t taint the massive research supporting global warming theory. To them I say, how do you know that? Have you investigated how much of that research was published due to the manipulation of these unethical and fraudulent scientists? Do you know how much research that goes against the global warming activist claims was unfairly suppressed?

Until all this is known, it’s not possible to say with any confidence how much of global warming theory will remain after all the fraud and deceit has been removed. And until climate science is cleaned up, it doesn’t deserve the worship so many in the media unthinkingly give its tainted practitioners.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Today - 95.1 million.  I guess they must have questioned their sagging credibility.  Still scares me how a topic can be manipulated for political reasons.

Tinfoil is impossible to find.  I use aluminum foil.  It has successfully kept aliens from reading my brainwaves so don't knock it..  Sorry but one more.

http://employmentmoney.blogspot.com/2009/10/al-gores-connection-with-google.html

Al Gore has taken a hand in becoming part of Google's search quality team. In other words, Gore will be putting in his two cents about what should be censored on the Internet. Google's weird attachment with politics doesn't seem to fit well with a lot of Internet readers and marketers, including myself.

Small world.

 

[a_majoor]

Wow. You certainly can't be more presidential than this....:

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/12/21/the-copencabana/

The Copencabana

Small Dead Animals has a translation of a German article which purports to describe how Barack Obama stormed into a meeting of heads of state, acting like it was a scene from a Hollywood movie. Although the Welt article has the most detail, there are collateral reports from other papers which suggest an extraordinary scene took place, although not necessarily confirming the details of Welt.  The question is what happened and what did it signify.

The Welt story follows in its entirety, as translated on Small Dead Animals. But it is a strange story, with odd parts grafted together. Like the Iliad it begins with what might be called the Wrath of Obama as he breaks up a meeting in which the Chinese President, who seemed to be avoiding him, was participating. Then it suddenly becomes a sports drama. The President goes into a huddle with some of his fellow heads of state and then mounts the podium to announce an historic deal. This is the drama that has been highlighted in much of the US coverage, the part in which the President beats the buzzer with a 70 foot jumpshot from the backcourt. Finally, it becomes an escape movie. Because nobody seems to think its a deal who didn’t hear the key lines. No sooner has the President triumphed, then he leaves, with the remaining delegates open-mouthed, not knowing whether their talks have become redundant or are even in conflict with the meteoric One.

    His arrival was immediately followed by a pithy presentation. Right after his arrival at the conference center, he let it be known to those present: “The time for [mere] talk is over.” He would assume leadership of the negotiations.

    Together with Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leaders of Russia, Brazil, Japan, the European Union and of other important countries, Obama went to work. But it did not go quite as the Nobel Peace Prize-winner had imagined. Only Norbert Röttgen, Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety remained optimistic. In spite of the tough negotiations, a compromise can be found, he said. “Today the die will be cast.”

    Instead a fiasco had begun making itself visible and felt. It began during the night of Friday and Saturday. A small group of negotiators assembled from among the 30 important and representative countries, among them Germany, were still discussing the main features and principles to be included in a twelve-point document. It was titled “The Copenhagen Accord” and consisted of a three-page collection of vague aims, without specific legally-binding goals that were to be achieved.

    Although China is among the worst climate polluters and has had a long ascent in becoming an industrial power deserving of respect and recognition, Premier Wen Jiabao was not among the participants in the talks-not that his participation was not desired. To the contrary!

    According to rumors in the Bella Center, US President Barack Obama at about 11 PM, had impatiently asked to speak with Wen Jiabao in order to advance the discussion. But Obama had to wait. Wen, who, it was rumored, had rarely left his hotel room, could not be found. Finally, the US delegation located him in a room set aside for negotiations. A visibly furious Obama, according to reports, stormed into the room. “Are you now ready to talk with me, Premier Wen?” he was reported to have shouted. “Are you now ready? Premier Wen, are you now ready to talk with me?” What a scene for a US president.

    Wen was not alone in the room at the time when Obama quite literally burst into the room, according to participants. At the time, the Premier was in a conversation with India’s head of state, Mammohan Singh and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma. Suddenly the group saw itself forced into a conversation with the US president.

    At the insistence of the impatient Obama, this unplanned and coincidentally-assembled negotiating round and participants, agreed on a minimal compromise.

    Obama should have discussed, coordinated with and agreed to this compromise with his closest partners: the European Union or the G77 Developing Nations. Instead, at about 10:25 PM, he called together a number of American journalists for an impromptu press conference. There he announced, the “Copenhagen Accord” as the conclusion and product of the two-week long conference. He was aware, that many countries would consider the result as insufficient and unsatisfactory. More, however, was not achievable.

    He thought it a significant achievement and milestone that large developing countries like India and China had, for the first time, recognized the necessity of reducing emissions and accepted to limit warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius.

    With that, he packed his bags and flew home. Chancellor Angela Merkel also left and went back to Berlin. Both left Copenhagen without having achieved a clear result. And, what is even more serious, without having bothered about a follow-on to what had been announced as an historic conference. Dealing with climate was left to others. It was a serious mistake that would soon make itself manifest.

    Even while Obama and Merkel were on their way home, late during the night, the EU Commission, even as they gnashed their teeth, declared themselves prepared to accept Obama’s minimum compromise. Unlike the Europeans, many African nations were not prepared to follow. At the plenary session, Sudan’s head, Lumumba Di-Aping was beside himself. No one is entitled to destroy Africa said the Sudanese who was the spokesman for the G77 Developing Nations. He said the document would mean the death of millions. Finally, Di-Aping aroused outrage in the main meeting hall by comparing the accord to the Holocaust.

    The Pacific island-states also declined to agree to the Obama document. With an eye toward the promised $30 billion in aid mentioned in the final document, the president of the Maldives declared he was not prepared to sell-out his islands for “30 pieces of silver.”

    The erratic and unfocused-appearing Danish president, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, at 8 AM declared that he, as president of the 193 nation-conference, could not agree to the Copenhagen Accord.

    One final last-minute attempt was made to avert the total failure of the climate conference. For that reason, a negotiating session was announced. After hectic bilateral talks, at 10:30 AM, the conference agreed to “recognize the existence of” the Obama Document. With this lowest-level of diplomatic recognition, the outright rejection of the compromise by the United Nations was narrowly avoided. But no more.

The Welt article doesn’t paint a very sympathetic picture of the President, but it’s not at all clear who won the round. The Financial Times says that China “treasures” the agreement, despite being cast as the villain of the conference and defended itself from the charge it had abandoned the Third World. In exchange for what?  We don’t know, but the WSJ describes talks between Duke Energy and the China State Grid to “to build transmission networks in the U.S. with Chinese technology”. Nobody is saying the Duke Energy deal is linked to Copenhagen, but it is not unreasonable to speculate that deals similar to Duke deal were part of the packages that were threshed out in Copenhagen. As an example of what might have gone on, it serves, though it may not be an instance itself.

Money is likely to lie at the heart of the European disappointment with Copenhagen. As MSNBC hints, there were deals done in the Danish capital, but they weren’t the deals the Europeans had set up. Brussels had counted on a UN process to channel the discussion into areas favored by the Europeans. But it disintegrated into a series of backroom deals and the Welt article can now be understood as Barack Obama barging into one and yanking out some of the participants in order to forge his own ‘unprecedented’ agreements. MSNBC writes:

    It’s a climate deal no one loves, especially in Europe. The continent that used to take the lead in advocating climate action is now leading those grousing about what’s been done.

    And it’s not just the results from last week’s climate talks in Copenhagen that upset politicians and business leaders in Europe, but the very process by which nations reached the agreed Climate Accord. Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen was shoved aside as president of the conference in favor of someone from the Caribbean — Philip Weech of the Bahamas’ environment commission. When an 11th-hour deal was finally hammered out, the only leaders in the room were from Africa, North America, South America and Asia. …

    European politicians blame China and other developing countries for cutting the heart of out of the agreement, with Britain accusing Beijing of vetoing a deal for mandatory emission cuts and an EU official complaining that some countries held the entire conference hostage.

    “Never again should we face the deadlock that threatened to pull down those talks,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday. “Never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries.”

    “The vast majority of countries, developed and developing,” supported binding cuts in emissions, British climate change minister Ed Miliband wrote in The Guardian newspaper, but “some leading developing countries currently refuse to countenance this.”

One possible translation of the Brown and Miliband’s statements is that never again should the UN be put in charge of something so vital as setting up a deal. The UN people could not keep it on the European track and it went off on the Orient Express. There are indications that the Europeans indeed got shafted. The carbon trading market is already falling face down with a knife in its back. The WSJ reports that prices are falling on the “weak accord”.

    Prices for carbon-emission permits in Europe are tanking on Monday, with a fall of nearly 10%, the biggest decline in almost a year. That’s a pretty clear sign that whatever the other merits of the “Copenhagen Accord,” it does nothing to actually tighten limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. …

    So where to from here? The near-term prospects for European carbon prices—and, by extension, the vaunted “price signal” for a clean-tech investment rush–don’t look to great. There’s already a glut of permits, which has kept prices lowish. And there’s a fresh set ready to be issued in February, adding even more permits to a market that has more than it knows what to do with.

If there’s a moral to this story it is ‘watch your back’. That probably applies to the voters too. Maybe Al Gore felt better flying over than flying back. He should know better than anyone else that there’s personal and there’s business.