Not Surprising In The Least

Where to start? How about at Time:

Climate Expert Peter Gleick Admits Deception in Obtaining Heartland Institute Papers

Last week the climate world was rocked — or at least, strongly buffeted — by the publication of memos that were allegedly from the Heartland Institute, a nonprofit research group that takes a strongly skeptical attitude toward climate science. The memos detailed budget information — including news that groups like the archconservative Koch Foundation and corporations like Microsoft had donated money to Heartland — and detailed strategies that included fighting the teaching of climate science in U.S. schools.

To advocates of climate action, the memos were proof that the Heartland Institute and its allies were playing unfair, seeking to spread doubt about climate science as a way to delay action that could harm corporate interests. A group of climate scientists — many of whom had been victimized by the Climategate e-mail hacks of 2009 and ’11 — even wrote a letter to the Heartland Institute criticizing the group.

For its part the Heartland Institute implicitly acknowledged that at least some of the memos were real — apologizing to donors who had been promised anonymity. But the group claimed that the memo detailing its supposed climate strategy was false and announced that it would prosecute the person who had obtained the documents.

The question was who. And now we know: Peter Gleick, the president of the Pacific Institute and a veteran climate and water expert.

Gleick admitted his actions in a blog post put up Monday evening on the Huffington Post...

I've read every word of the documentation (which can be downloaded from here, I apologize for linking to such a brain dead blog, but they are the tools promoting this), and I must say I have rarely seen anything less shocking, at least in the real documents. Heartland is a free-market institution that promotes free-market thinking and (the horror) spends money to do so. But to the alarmist crowd doing something like creating a website which people can use to look at NOAA weather data more easily is strictly verboten. Presumably data is something which the great unwashed is to be "protected" from, at least until it can be properly "filtered" I suppose.

From the real "2012 Fundraising Plan" document, here is the extent of the climate change talk:

Weather Stations Project

Every few months, weathermen report that a temperature record – either high or low – has been broken somewhere in the U.S. This is not surprising, since weather is highly variable and reliable instrument records date back less than 100 years old. Regrettably, news of these broken records is often used by environmental extremists as evidence that human emissions are causing either global warming or the more ambiguous “climate change.”

Anthony Watts, a meteorologist who hosts WattsUpwithThat.com, one of the most popular and influential science blogs in the world, has documented that many of the temperature stations relied on by weathermen are compromised by heat radiating from nearby buildings, machines, or paved surfaces. It is not uncommon for these stations to over-state temperatures by 3 or 4 degrees or more, enough to set spurious records.

Because of Watts’ past work exposing flaws in the current network of temperature stations (work that The Heartland Institute supported and promoted), the National Aeronautics and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the government agency responsible for maintaining temperature stations in the U.S., has designated a new network of higher-quality temperature stations that meet its citing specifications. Unfortunately, NOAA doesn’t widely publicize data from this new network, and puts raw data in spreadsheets buried on one of its Web sites.

Anthony Watts proposes to create a new Web site devoted to accessing the new temperature data from NOAA’s web site and converting them into easy-to-understand graphs that can be easily found and understood by weathermen and the general interested public. Watts has deep expertise in Web site design generally and is well-known and highly regarded by weathermen and meteorologists everywhere. The new site will be promoted heavily at WattsUpwithThat.com.

Heartland has agreed to help Anthony raise $88,000 for the project in 2011. The Anonymous Donor has already pledged $44,000. We’ll seek to raise the balance.

How nefarious can you get!!?!! DATA!!! IN EASY TO UNDERSTAND GRAPHICAL FORMS!!!?? WHAT BARBARISM!!!!!!!!

And there is this:

Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Schools

Many people lament the absence of educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn’t alarmist or overtly political. Heartland has tried to make material available to teachers, but has had only limited success. Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. Moreover, material for classroom use must be carefully written to meet curriculum guidelines, and the amount of time teachers have for supplemental material is steadily shrinking due to the spread of standardized tests in K-12 education.

Dr. David Wojick has presented Heartland a proposal to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools that appears to have great potential for success. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. He has a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science and mathematical logic from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.S. in civil engineering from Carnegie Tech. He has been on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon and the staffs of the U.S. Office of Naval Research and the Naval Research Lab.

Dr. Wojick has conducted extensive research on environmental and science education for the Department of Energy. In the course of this research, he has identified what subjects and concepts teachers must teach, and in what order (year by year), in order to harmonize with national test requirements. He has contacts at virtually all the national organizations involved in producing, certifying, and promoting science curricula.

Dr. Wojick proposes to begin work on “modules” for grades 10-12 on climate change (“whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy”), climate models (“models are used to explore various hypotheses about how climate works. Their reliability is controversial”), and air pollution (“whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial. It is the global food supply and natural emissions are 20times higher than human emissions”).

Wojick would produce modules for Grades 7-9 on environmental impact (“environmental impact is often difficult to determine. For example there is a major controversy over whether or not humans are changing the weather”), for Grade 6 on water resources and weather systems, and so on.

We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $5,000 per module, about $25,000 a quarter, starting in the second quarter of 2012, for this work. The Anonymous Donor has pledged the first $100,000 for this project, and we will circulate a proposal to match and then expand upon that investment.

See how dastardly that is? It A) admits another side of the debate exists, and B) includs facts the alarmists wish students would remain ignorant of. Those vicious, heartless, bastards!

Anywho, on to the real, and by real I mean fake, fun.

Included in the document dump is one file completely unlike the others, labelled "2012 Climate Strategy." This file is not an original .pdf file like the other memos, reports and minutes. It is a scanned document. Red flag warning immediately should go up when something this incongruous appears.

TO BE CONTINUED-----

(The stupid Blogger editor ate half my post, so I'll have to re-do it later today.)

Climate Talks Go Bust

What a shame:

Talks stalled overnight on procedure, after some developing nations and China rejected a proposal by the Danish hosts to break talks into smaller groups to speed up progress. They insisted that everyone should see Denmark's proposal.

"I fear a triumph of form over substance," said Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

China told participants it saw no possibility of achieving a detailed accord to tackle global warming, an official from another nation involved in the talks said. The official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the Chinese had instead suggested issuing "a short political declaration of some sort."

India's environment minister accused rich countries of planning a "propaganda campaign" to blame developing nations for any breakdown in negotiations. Developing economies are expected to add almost all future growth in carbon emissions.

"We are in the end game," said Jairam Ramesh. "It's only a matter of time before the blame game starts. Already some developed countries are accusing the G77 (developing nation group), Africa. This is completely, incomprehensively wrong."

European environment ministers said talks were in danger.

"We've got a serious situation," German environment minister Norbert Roettgen told Reuters.

I guess I should not say it is a shame. In reality it's a sham. Fundamentally, nothing has changed from 2005 when I wrote:

If the rest of the world wants to commit economic suicide they are welcome to it. What you will see is that the countries who refuse to go along with Kyoto, like the U.S., China and India, will still have thriving economies while the Kyoto countries make their headlong rush for the 19th century.

Of course that won't happen. Countries will start pealing off of Kyoto one by one as the economic realities pile up one by one.

Unfortunately for most of the world, the "leaders" gathered in Copenhagen are not interested in realities of any sort, economic, scientific or political. It is a serious question as to how we human beings have managed to have so many sophomoric leaders all at the same time.

Where have all the adults gone?

Lookout! Here Come The Global Warming Fascists

Really, reading Brad DeLong is a little like reading Mein Kampf, you wonder how so much heat could be generated by so little intellectual ability.

This is all about some chapter on climate in some pop economics book (which I will never read as I have a life), that has the wannabe fascists calling for a virtual book burning. Why is that? Are these guys rabid "deniers," and so the moral equivalent of Charles Manson? No, they are firm believers that "...rising global temperatures are a man-made phenomenon." They just do not care for the case as it has been presented by the propaganda arm of the new Reich, and for that they are being trashed (and most likely libelled.)

I'm not even going to throw out more than my two cents on this replay of the "Night of the Long Knives," but it is simply too good (and stupid) to pass by entirely.

Really, these people have no shame, and, as I said earlier, not a lot of smarts (as Roger Pielke discovered.)

Algore Our Über-Lord

Once again Spiked gets it just right:

As he flies around the world to tell people that they should fly less, or organises rock-star extravaganzas to tell the masses they should live more meekly, some sceptics have asked: ‘Who the hell does Al Gore think he is?’

Well, now we know. He seems to think he is the spokesman for the human species, the legitimate representative of every human being who has ever lived or who will ever live in the future. He thinks he and his supporters ‘control the destiny of all generations to come’, a boast that even the worst dictators in history never dared to make. Al Gore is an enviro-tyrant with delusions of global domination.

In his speech at the climate change conference in Bali last week, Gore expressed some deeply anti-democratic views. He told an audience of 1,000, including NGOs, green campaigners and journalists, as well as UN representatives and government officials, that they should ‘feel a sense of exhilaration that we are the people alive at a moment in history when we can make all the difference’. He suggested the audience should not be worried about being seen as a minority, a tiny brave group that recognises the ‘planetary emergency’ facing Earth and its inhabitants, but rather should consider it a ‘privilege to be alive at a moment when a relatively small group of people could control the destiny of all generations to come’

Actually, in some ways Algore is a doctrinaire Leninist in his belief in himself as the head of a "vanguard party" which will lead the great unwashed into a glorious future. Of course that requires the elimination of the recalcitrant, which in practice has generally meant most everyone alive above a certain age. (Older folks don't take too kindly to the necessary re-education.)

Gore opened his speech in Bali with the words: ‘We, the human species…’ Nothing better sums up his megalomaniacal delusions than those four words. American governments have claimed to speak for ‘We, the people’ (some with more right and legitimacy than others). Outside of the democratic process, tyrannical leaders have often claimed to represent ‘the nation’ or ‘the masses’: apparently they have some special emotional insight into what the people need and desire. But no one has ever claimed to represent the human species before.

Unlike those who merely represent a people or a nation, the self-described representatives of the human species, that ‘relatively small group’ of privileged warriors for planetkind, have a blank cheque to do and say as they please. Legitimate representatives of the people are dependent on the people’s support: they are confined and directed by the electoral process. Representatives of the nation are restricted by borders: their writ extends only to the ends of their sovereign territory. But a wannabe representative of the human species like Al Gore recognises no democratic mandate or territorial border, because he thinks he represents every human being who has ever existed, who exists now, and who will exist in the future: the species itself. Gore’s mandate is timeless and borderless, and it most certainly does not require the rubber-stamping of the mass of the population, that relatively large group of people who apparently do not appreciate the urgency of today’s ‘planetary emergency’.

Just imagine what authority you can command when anyone who wants to disagree with you can be labelled as an "enemy of the species." Presumably, anyone who disagree with Algore can be treated as if they were a rabid dog and be "put down" in the name of the common good. After all as Gore has repeatedly said, "The debate is over." Everything must then be sacrificed to the nexus of environmentalism and action; everything including rationality, personal autonomy, political liberty, and freedom of conscience.

It's a brave new world indeed.

What Is A Forecast?

Just following up on my earlier post of the dissembling and games being played with hurricane "forecasts" by insurance industry lapdog RMS. Basically, Roger Pielke asked RMS if they are standing by their forecast of a 40% increase on insured losses due to hurricanes for the time period 2006-2010, after both 2006 and 2007 resulted in below average losses. From Prometheus:

Yes, we do stand by that forecast, although I should point out that we update the forecast every year, so the 2005 forecast (for 2006-2010) is now 2 years out of date. Apart from questions of forecast accuracy, there's no particular reason for any of our users to use the 2005 forecast at this point (that would be like using a weather forecast from last week).

Think about this for a second. The RMS "forecast" was used by insurance companies as an excuse to raise the rates consumers pay for coverage, because they called for a 40% increase in damages. The original RMS forecast has, to this point, been off by a factor of 20. Actually losses have been 95% less than RMS forecast. But RMS claims, that's okay, because they now have a new forecast which raises losses by another 40%! Based on what exactly? Because the old forecasts have proven so inaccurate?????

The "logic" presented is that we need not evaluate the old forecasts because new forecasts are available. What garbage. You can only evaluate any methodology based upon past results. You make a prediction and then you compare that prediction to actual events. Period. But, using RMS' rules, their methodology can never be evaluated because they will always be issuing new "forecasts." Baloney. A forecast for the period 2006-2010 is not "out of date," because we haven't reached 2010 yet. Period. A new forecast for the dates 2008-2012 doesn't take the place of the older forecast because it covers a different period of time. It is a forecast of something else.

RMS' response wasn't complete nonsense, however:

One curious property of the loss distribution is that it is very skewed. As a result the real losses would be expected to fall below the mean in most years. This is compensated for in the average by occasional years with very high losses.

Yes, that is obviously the case. Two years of low loss totals does not mean you can say there is a "trend" towards less loss occurring generally, any more than a Katrina type event can allow you to make the opposite conclusion. The point is RMS has to be committed to the 2006-2010 forecast win, lose or draw. It seems unlikely that they will be able to make the case for their 40% increase, barring another Katrina. If their "forecast" fails and RMS and the insurance industry don't take that into account, then they are engaged in nothing but an attempt to bilk their customers.

The One Step, Two Step

It is a simple plan. It only requires two steps: A) Destroy the economy, and B) Impose a neo-fascist state to do away with messy democratic governance. The only trouble they are having is, usually, you need a destroyed economy BEFORE you can impose the fascist state, and today you need the fascist state before you can destroy the economy.

It's a quandary.

Transport policy-makers should start preparing now for a dramatic reduction in motorised travel that will be brought about by carbon rationing, one of the country's leading environmental thinkers told LTT this week.

"Just start reading the runes because what's going to happen is the demand for road, rail and air travel is going to start falling away just as soon as we have rationing," says Mayer Hillman in an interview with the magazine.

Hillman, senior fellow emeritus at the Policy Studies Institute, says carbon rationing is the only way to ensure that the world avoids the worst effects of climate change. And he says that the problems caused by burning fossil fuels are so serious that governments might have to implement rationing against the will of the people.

"When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life, the end of life on it," he says. "This has got to be imposed on people whether they like it or not."

You know what advocates of liberal democratic theory (you know, folks such as John Locke, Thomas Jefferson and the like) advise in such circumstances? Armed resistance. No wonder these new fascists are even trying to ban kitchen knives in the UK.

H/T Blue Crab Boulevard

Maybe Gore Will Have To "Disappear" These Scientists...

...after all, he already said they didn't exist. Then who is writing letters like this?

Dec. 13, 2007

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon

Secretary-General, United Nations

New York, N.Y.


Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by ­government ­representatives. The great ­majority of IPCC contributors and ­reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.

Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:

• Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.
• The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.
• Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.

The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

Yours faithfully,

Oh I'll leave you hanging a second here. Who could have possibly written such a statement?? They must all be working for the oil industry, right?? Or the pseudo-fascist AEI, right?? It's gotta be!!!! Al Gore said so!!!!!!!!!!

Don Aitkin, PhD, Professor, social scientist, retired vice-chancellor and president, University of Canberra, Australia

William J.R. Alexander, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Member, UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000

Bjarne Andresen, PhD, physicist, Professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Geoff L. Austin, PhD, FNZIP, FRSNZ, Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant, former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg

Ernst-Georg Beck, Dipl. Biol., Biologist, Merian-Schule Freiburg, Germany

Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen, PhD, Reader, Dept. of Geography, Hull University, U.K.; Editor, Energy & Environment journal

Chris C. Borel, PhD, remote sensing scientist, U.S.

Reid A. Bryson, PhD, DSc, DEngr, UNE P. Global 500 Laureate; Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research; Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography, and of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin

Dan Carruthers, M.Sc., wildlife biology consultant specializing in animal ecology in Arctic and Subarctic regions, Alberta

R.M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Richard S. Courtney, PhD, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.

Willem de Lange, PhD, Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences, School of Science and Engineering, Waikato University, New Zealand

David Deming, PhD (Geophysics), Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma

Freeman J. Dyson, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.

Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University

Lance Endersbee, Emeritus Professor, former dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monasy University, Australia

Hans Erren, Doctorandus, geophysicist and climate specialist, Sittard, The Netherlands

Robert H. Essenhigh, PhD, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University

Christopher Essex, PhD, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Associate Director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario

David Evans, PhD, mathematician, carbon accountant, computer and electrical engineer and head of 'Science Speak,' Australia

William Evans, PhD, editor, American Midland Naturalist; Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame

Stewart Franks, PhD, Professor, Hydroclimatologist, University of Newcastle, Australia

R. W. Gauldie, PhD, Research Professor, Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas; former director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey

Gerhard Gerlich, Professor for Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, Institut für Mathematische Physik der TU Braunschweig, Germany

Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, sc.agr., Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, INTTAS, Paraguay

Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Royal Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Stockholm, Sweden

Vincent Gray, PhD, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001, Wellington, New Zealand

William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University and Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project

Howard Hayden, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut

Louis Hissink MSc, M.A.I.G., editor, AIG News, and consulting geologist, Perth, Western Australia

Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Arizona

Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, AZ, USA

Andrei Illarionov, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity; founder and director of the Institute of Economic Analysis

Zbigniew Jaworowski, PhD, physicist, Chairman - Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland

Jon Jenkins, PhD, MD, computer modelling - virology, NSW, Australia

Wibjorn Karlen, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden

Olavi Kärner, Ph.D., Research Associate, Dept. of Atmospheric Physics, Institute of Astrophysics and Atmospheric Physics, Toravere, Estonia

Joel M. Kauffman, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia

David Kear, PhD, FRSNZ, CMG, geologist, former Director-General of NZ Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Zealand

Madhav Khandekar, PhD, former research scientist, Environment Canada; editor, Climate Research (2003-05); editorial board member, Natural Hazards; IPCC expert reviewer 2007

William Kininmonth M.Sc., M.Admin., former head of Australia's National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization's Commission for Climatology Jan J.H. Kop, MSc Ceng FICE (Civil Engineer Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers), Emeritus Prof. of Public Health Engineering, Technical University Delft, The Netherlands

Prof. R.W.J. Kouffeld, Emeritus Professor, Energy Conversion, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Salomon Kroonenberg, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, economist, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations), The Netherlands

The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson of Blaby, economist; Chairman of the Central Europe Trust; former Chancellor of the Exchequer, U.K.

Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary

David R. Legates, PhD, Director, Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware

Marcel Leroux, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS

Bryan Leyland, International Climate Science Coalition, consultant and power engineer, Auckland, New Zealand

William Lindqvist, PhD, independent consulting geologist, Calif.

Richard S. Lindzen, PhD, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A.J. Tom van Loon, PhD, Professor of Geology (Quaternary Geology), Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland; former President of the European Association of Science Editors

Anthony R. Lupo, PhD, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Dept. of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri-Columbia

Richard Mackey, PhD, Statistician, Australia

Horst Malberg, PhD, Professor for Meteorology and Climatology, Institut für Meteorologie, Berlin, Germany

John Maunder, PhD, Climatologist, former President of the Commission for Climatology of the World Meteorological Organization (89-97), New Zealand

Alister McFarquhar, PhD, international economy, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.

Ross McKitrick, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph

John McLean, PhD, climate data analyst, computer scientist, Australia

Owen McShane, PhD, economist, head of the International Climate Science Coalition; Director, Centre for Resource Management Studies, New Zealand

Fred Michel, PhD, Director, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Associate Professor of Earth Sciences, Carleton University

Frank Milne, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Economics, Queen's University

Asmunn Moene, PhD, former head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological Institute, Norway

Alan Moran, PhD, Energy Economist, Director of the IPA's Deregulation Unit, Australia

Nils-Axel Morner, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden

Lubos Motl, PhD, Physicist, former Harvard string theorist, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

John Nicol, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Physics, James Cook University, Australia

David Nowell, M.Sc., Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, former chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa

James J. O'Brien, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Meteorology and Oceanography, Florida State University

Cliff Ollier, PhD, Professor Emeritus (Geology), Research Fellow, University of Western Australia

Garth W. Paltridge, PhD, atmospheric physicist, Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia

R. Timothy Patterson, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University

Al Pekarek, PhD, Associate Professor of Geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Dept., St. Cloud State University, Minnesota

Ian Plimer, PhD, Professor of Geology, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia

Brian Pratt, PhD, Professor of Geology, Sedimentology, University of Saskatchewan

Harry N.A. Priem, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Planetary Geology and Isotope Geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences

Alex Robson, PhD, Economics, Australian National University Colonel F.P.M. Rombouts, Branch Chief - Safety, Quality and Environment, Royal Netherland Air Force

R.G. Roper, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology

Arthur Rorsch, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Molecular Genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands

Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, B.C.

Tom V. Segalstad, PhD, (Geology/Geochemistry), Head of the Geological Museum and Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Geology, University of Oslo, Norway

Gary D. Sharp, PhD, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, CA

S. Fred Singer, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia and former director Weather Satellite Service

L. Graham Smith, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Western Ontario

Roy W. Spencer, PhD, climatologist, Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama, Huntsville

Peter Stilbs, TeknD, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Research Leader, School of Chemical Science and Engineering, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, Sweden

Hendrik Tennekes, PhD, former director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute

Dick Thoenes, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

Brian G Valentine, PhD, PE (Chem.), Technology Manager - Industrial Energy Efficiency, Adjunct Associate Professor of Engineering Science, University of Maryland at College Park; Dept of Energy, Washington, DC

Gerrit J. van der Lingen, PhD, geologist and paleoclimatologist, climate change consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand

Len Walker, PhD, Power Engineering, Australia

Edward J. Wegman, PhD, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University, Virginia

Stephan Wilksch, PhD, Professor for Innovation and Technology Management, Production Management and Logistics, University of Technolgy and Economics Berlin, Germany

Boris Winterhalter, PhD, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Finland

David E. Wojick, PhD, P.Eng., energy consultant, Virginia

Raphael Wust, PhD, Lecturer, Marine Geology/Sedimentology, James Cook University, Australia

A. Zichichi, PhD, President of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva, Switzerland; Emeritus Professor of Advanced Physics, University of Bologna, Italy

Notice: all of these scientist were taking exception not with one little facet of the known research, but with enough of the fairy tale the IPCC is selling to sign on to the entire letter above.

So the next time someone tries to sell you "consenus" and Anthropogenic Global Warming remind them that,

A) Science isn't done through consensus, and
B) Even if it was, the idea that "consensus" exists on AGW is a lie.

Stick that in your carbon emitting pipe and smoke it.

H/T to Blue Crab Boulevard

Someone Tell Me When It Is Over

I hate days like these because I can't turn on the f-ing television without seeing something that pisses me off. My wife insists on watching the NewsHour on PBS and I watched until I couldn't stand it any longer. The combination of willfully spread inaccuracies designed to further a leftist agenda coupled with a less willful scientific ignorance they don't have the basic intelligence to mask, was enough to make me want to "add a little more carbon emissions to the world," if you catch my drift. That my wife buys it all hook, line and sinker just makes matters worse... so I'm up here writing this while she is downstairs watching the porno video that is PBS fellating the Goracle and the entire IPCC. ("PBS the Jenna Jameson of news media.")

When will folks realize this media fueled hysteria has made them turn off any semblance of common sense we as a people ever had? I've gotta imagine what I'm feeling is akin to those few in Germany who in 1938 looked at the spectacle of their fellow citizens adoring Hitler and thought "What is wrong with you people?" That it seems to be affecting the entire Western world just makes it seem all the more like a form of civilizational sickness. Maybe Nietzsche was right after all.

Hey, Western world! You can all commit suicide if you want to, you just are not taking me with you.

That's Just Spiffy

There is no God.

Al Gore, UN Panel share Nobel for Peace

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s climate change panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for spreading awareness of man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting it.

In a related development the Nobel committee also posthumously honored Trofim Denisovich Lysenko for his "ground breaking" work in agriculture, and Georg Ernst Stahl for his work solving the mysteries of phlogiston.

Alright...they didn't really do that, but they might as well have.

"Run Away!!!"

Well, what do you know about that: Industrial nations shy away from stiff 2020 goals

Industrial nations were shying away from fixing stiff 2020 guidelines for greenhouse gases cuts at U.N. talks on Friday in what environmentalists said would be a vote for "dangerous" climate change.

A draft text at the U.N. talks dropped mention of steep cuts in greenhouse gases of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 as a non-binding "guide" for rich nations' work on a pact to fight global warming beyond 2012, delegates said.

"We're still working on the text," said Leon Charles, the chair of the session from Grenada after overnight talks on the final day of August 27-31 meeting in Vienna of 1,000 delegates.

The European Union and many developing nations such as China and India wanted industrial states to use the stringent 25-40 percent range to guide future talks to force a shift away from fossil fuels, blamed by U.N. reports for stoking global warming.

But Russia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland objected to setting the stringent range in negotiations about extending the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, the main plan for fighting global warming that runs to 2012, delegates said.

Uh oh. Guess who isn't happy about this?

"This is voting for the apocalypse," said Stephanie Tunmore of environmental group Greenpeace. "The 25-40 percent range is needed to help avert dangerous climate change" such as more powerful storms, rising seas and melting glaciers, she said.

"Japan is willing to let the typhoons roll in and the water flow onto its coastal land. Switzerland is committed to melt all its remaining glaciers," environmentalists said in a newsletter.

Try as they might, Greenpeace has yet to convince anyone that suicide is our best option.

Maybe they should lead by example?

Ah, The Good Ol' Days Of 2006

Remember stories like this:

Drought could turn Amazon into desert, researchers warn

The Amazon rainforest -- soon to be called The Artist Formerly Known as the Amazon Rainforest, and then just some weird little symbol -- appears to be undergoing a second year of drought, and that has researchers seriously alarmed. Starting in 2002, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center simulated drought on a small section of the Amazon and found that after two years, the trees began to die, fall, and release more than two-thirds of their lifetime storage of carbon dioxide.

My God! We are ALL - GOING - TO - DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or not: Scientists See First Signs of Long-Term Changes in Tropical Rainfall

NASA scientists have detected the first signs that tropical rainfall is on the rise, using the longest and most complete data record available.

The international scientific community assembled a 27-year global record of rainfall from satellite and ground-based instruments. The researchers found the rainiest years between 1979 and 2005 occurred primarily after 2001. The wettest year was 2005, followed by 2004, 2003, 2002 and 1998. The study appeared in the August 1 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate. The rainfall increase was concentrated over tropical oceans, with a slight decline over land.

"When we look at the whole planet over almost three decades, the total amount of rain falling has changed very little. But in the tropics, where nearly two-thirds of all rain falls, there has been an increase of 5 percent," said lead author Guojun Gu, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Let's take a look at the data visually, shall we:



The yellow and red areas are those of increasing rainfall during the period 1979-2005, blue and green decreasing. Of course, we also know that precipitation over much of tropical Africa has been decreasing since the 19th century, long before any impact of anthropogenic global warming was possible.

Additionally, I find it odd that there is no depiction of the rainfall change over land from, for example, 1900-1940 or any other similar length of time so they could establish that we are dealing with unusual variability. We've got the data, why not use it, especially if it will back up your contention. Indeed, as we look at the map we see very little unusual variability anywhere in the world, as only the darkest reds and darkest blues delineate anything unusual. Hmmm....interesting.

And, lo and behold! tropical South America is getting more water, not less. You know what you call "more water?" Whatever its called, it is not "a drought."