I’m sorry for my absence.
I hate not writing here; it’s as though there’s been a death in the family. But academic proofreading at the end of the year goes through the roof and earning money takes precedence over everything.
In case you have things to say, here’s a fresh thread to say it in. Goodness knows, there’s plenty to talk about.
Stay well. I’ll be back in a week or so.
Views: 375
Views: 392
Huub Bakker admonished us, saying:
Guys,
Much as Brandoch may throw unsubstantiated statements and ad hominems around, the responses are also laden with ad hominem attacks. This hardly does anyone on this website any favours.
Richard Treadgold, I see that you slapped Brandoch over the knuckles for calling people liars but then didn’t do the same when Richard C accused Brandoch of lying. [although Richard C made the point that his “accusation” was merely a spoof of what Brandoch had said, it’s a fair point that I rarely admonish “friends” – RT]
I enjoy reading a good discussion of the facts and putting people in their place using facts and references but we really could do without the abuse from both sides. Please enforce politeness and respect on both sides, Richard. People coming to this site to be informed would be horrified with the slanging that is currently going on here and might conclude that sceptics are no better than alarmists.
I agree with him. But with one enormous caveat: I have no wish to rule the world. One reason there are no “Rules of conduct” posted here is to avoid adding to the rules we already endure. Courtesy is enough. Continue Reading →
Views: 381
The NZ Climate Science Coalition’s opponents have attacked it for creating a Trust (the NZ Climate Science Education Trust, NZCSET) for the sole purpose of unfairly (perhaps, in the opinion of some, unlawfully) avoiding costs if they lost the court case against NIWA.
However, there are sensible reasons for creating a legal entity to take someone to court. One of the first questions a judge asks is “who are the parties?” If that simple question cannot be answered by naming a legal entity the case doesn’t get off the ground and the judge just gets annoyed.
So, although the NZCSC did the scientific work in challenging NIWA’s techniques, it couldn’t take the court proceedings. An unincorporated association cannot sue or be sued, as it has no legal existence separate from its multifarious members. Continue Reading →
Views: 470
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will not be attending the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18/CMP8) in Doha, chairman Dr Rajendra K Pachauri has said.
“For the first time in the 18 years of COP, the IPCC will not be attending, because we have not been invited,” he told Gulf Times in Doha.
COP18 is to be held from November 26 to December 7.
Views: 481
Because of the IPCC’s assinine restrictions against early disclosure, this climate scientist cannot be identified.
I’m reviewing the 5AR WG I contribution.
The only thing that should scare the wits out of anyone is how blinkered and defensive the IPCC is.
Something is very seriously wrong when it’s not until Chapter 10 – which means about 600 or more pages into the finished report – that we find the comment that there’s been no significant warming since 1998. Continue Reading →
Views: 403
Some days it’s all too easy to find material for blogging. Here it is, 11:15 pm, I’ve spent all weekend installing software on my new PC (thanks for the early birthday present, Christopher), the All Blacks face Scotland at 6 o’clock in the morning and Andy sends me over to Hot Topic, where I find this among a series of election briefs: Continue Reading →
Views: 406
The Sunday Star-Times claims the NZ Climate Science Coalition has “formed an unlikely alliance” with “the losers of an infamous tax-dodging trial.”
Ha, ha, very funny. The Coalition isn’t even part of the Court case – it’s being brought by the NZ Climate Science Education Trust (NZCSET, or the Trust). Nor has any “alliance” been formed – the only losers are the innocent readers being fed this arrant nonsense. Where does that paper find its material?
If only the reporter had interviewed our chairman. Oh, wait, he did.
Having established those two quite spectacularly incorrect factoids, the doughty environmental reporter continues with three more inaccuracies:
1. That the Coalition doesn’t believe that people cause “climate change”.
2. That NIWA has been awarded costs.
3. That the Trust asked about the judge’s forestry interests as part of its appeal against the Court’s decision on our request for a judicial review.
Views: 383
The Sunday Star Times (SST) has today reported that the NZ Climate Science Education Trust (“Climate Trust”) has asked Mr Justice Venning to disclose whether he held any financial interests under the Emissions Trading Scheme when he heard the trust’s recent case against NIWA.
In a discussion on Wednesday about the Climate Trust’s filing with the Court of Appeal, the SST reporter asked me about allegations of judicial bias. He claimed to have information that the appeal was based upon the judge’s forestry investments. I assured him that the appeal made no mention of bias and that this question had arisen only in the course of the current costs argument in the High Court. Continue Reading →
Views: 462
From Forbes, seven months ago, we heard about climate-related changes in the wind for the USA. The measures being proposed at potentially insane costs by the Obama administration include reducing the sulphur content of petrol ($2.4 billion pa), impossible boiler operating standards (reduce GDP by $1.2 billion) and highly restrictive cement production standards (shortfall imported from China, 80,000 out of work, construction costs hiked by up to 36%).
A new report released by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Minority Committee enumerates a slew of planned EPA regulations that have been delayed or punted on until after the election that will destroy millions of American jobs and cause energy prices to skyrocket even more.
Views: 386
Thank you to all our visitors – both voluble and silent – for making this small corner of the free blogoverse a forum both informative and influential.
I just checked last month’s Climate Conversation web traffic figures out of cPanel and I’m mightily pleased. All metrics show record high figures. This is only for the CC sub-domain of WordShine (I really must shift it to climateconversation.org.nz, huh?). Here is the cPanel graph with October highlighted:
The release of the judge’s decision and the recently-filed costs arguments are obvious sources of increased interest. But there have been some notable threads of conversation on climate science which have pitted determined warmists against equally tenacious sceptics. Continue Reading →
Views: 384
Roger Andrews has investigated the warming in New Zealand over the last 100 years and is published at Tall Bloke. He happily confirms the NZCSC audit of NIWA’s 7SS.
I especially like his comment:
An argument can in fact be made that if adjustments this large are needed to make the raw records “correct” then the raw records were far too heavily distorted to have been used to begin with.
h/t – Bob D.
Views: 366
The Telegraph quotes John Hayes, the new energy minister, saying “enough is enough” on wind farms.
It’s quite refreshing to hear the DAGW nonsense called an “article of faith”.
The energy minister said he had ordered a new analysis of the case for onshore wind power which would form the basis of future government policy, rather than “a bourgeois Left article of faith based on some academic perspective”. Continue Reading →
Views: 340
Fervently, fervently.
Look what someone sent me. Gives me hope for a sensible future – although the concluding comments from new Fed Farmers’ president Bruce Wills again confirm that he’s chosen the hogwash side of the climate panic (emphasis added):
New Zealand has been tipped to quit the Kyoto Protocol, designed to cut global emissions.
Government officials next month travel to Doha in Qatar for the latest round of negotiations on the treaty, but with less than four weeks before the summit, acting Climate Change Minister Simon Bridges says the Government has “not made a decision” on its commitment.
“My understanding is that decisions have yet to be made on that matter,” he said.
But the actions of participants in the carbon market, and market signs, suggest the Government is preparing to walk away. Continue Reading →
Views: 373
Simon asked in comments:
What fundamental central and local government policy decisions have been based exclusively on the 7SS?
The question is too restrictive. Possibly the only “exclusive” policy was the decision to spend $70,000 reconstructing the national temperature record using the wrong method and then ignoring public-spirited citizens who found serious faults in it. Continue Reading →
Views: 399
NIWA, in its memorandum to Justice Venning about the costs of our court case, says some curious things. I’ve pulled out a few of the ripostes that the NZCSET’s lawyers have just delivered to the judge and which I’m delighted to share with you. (Bear in mind that the APPLICANT is the Coalition. The DEFENDANT is NIWA.) This one’s a pearler:
29. The defendant alleges in paragraph 17 that the proceeding did not concern climate change…
This is breathtaking. It will surprise their long-suffering supporters – having endured NIWA’s hogwash about the 7SS not being “official” or even a “national” temperature record (“oh, it’s only for study”), and that this organisation of top scientists has no obligation WHATSOEVER to strive for excellence, they now have to stand cringing as their favourite publicly-paid climate scientists argue that the court case had nothing to do with climate change.
Really? What rot. I’d like to shake these men up and make them see sense. Continue Reading →
Views: 882
Unaffordable justice is not justice.
But before payment ever becomes an issue, the very availability of a Court of law is vital, for it guarantees that the ordinary citizen may have his grievances examined by a disinterested judge. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of the unperturbed mind to resolve disputes, remedy wrongs and instil peace; it’s fair to say that nothing else can.
The significance of the Court’s availability increases with the increasing power of one’s adversary, until the adversary is the Crown itself, when the importance of an open Court surpasses everything. For in battling the Crown or the State one stands to lose everything, the combat is so unequal. Only the judge stands between the citizen and the Crown. Outside the courtroom the citizen would be crushed without thought, but before the judge the agent of the Crown will discover that he meets an equal Continue Reading →
Views: 553
It’s time for the regular news services to PAY ATTENTION!!
PUBLISHED: 21:42 GMT, 13 October 2012 | UPDATED: 23:36 GMT, 13 October 2012
Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals a quietly-released Met Office report… and here is the chart to prove it:
Global temperature changes
NOTE: I’ve looked for the original Met Office report but can’t find it. I’m busy right now, so if anyone can locate it, I’d be grateful to learn the url, thanks. [UPDATE: After the Met Office statement, we now know the report referred to doesn’t exist. I’m not very pleased with David Rose of the Mail on Sunday – although he has achieved considerable publicity for the lack of global warming, which is good.]
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
Views: 479
For years we’ve been fed the propaganda that only warming causes less ice (and oh, what a shame!) and now we learn that it causes more ice as well (and oh, what a shame!).
Whether the warmists predict more ice or less ice, it’s still all caused by warming. Amazing.
More ice is bad, it’s caused by our evil kind of warming and our punishment is to give all our toys to the poor people living near the sea. Or far from the sea, so long as they’re poor. The old ice that sinks the earth’s crust into the magma which requires thousands of years to rebound after melting is not evil ice. But this ice is evil. Nor was that old ice caused by warming. But our evil ice is.
Amazing. I’m almost speechless. Continue Reading →
Views: 496
I’ll keep this simple, to avoid ecclesiastical clashes. Last thing I want is a fight to break out between science and religion. Oh, wait …
First, a reader, Rob Taylor, said:
So, in denier fairyland, this all balances out, somehow? Let’s see – crippling drought in one place, horrendous floods in another simply shows that all is hunky-dory?
Then I said:
“Who could approve of them, you twit? But this is Mother Nature. This is God’s will. There’s nothing new here – not for thousands of years. This is life. This is how it goes.”
Another reader, Nick, said:
“this is Mother Nature. This is God’s will” – is that really what you believe? I had been conducting these discussions on the assumption everyone accepted that science rather than divine intervention could explain the weather. Please correct me if my assumption is false. Does anyone else here think that any changes in the climate are “Gods will”?
My meaning here was perverted and then Nick hijacked it. However, together they raise an arguable point about our relationship with our surroundings, so let me explain. Rob made out that we can prevent these natural disasters. His mistake was in believing that we have sufficient influence on the weather to ameliorate droughts and floods. It’s a nutty idea and we don’t. Continue Reading →
Views: 358
From a scientist friend, who comments:
About two weeks after it was noised on various blogs and electronic news sources, and is old “news”, The Australian finally deigns to notice the record Antarctic sea-ice (I wonder whether the SMH and The Age will now me-too the story as well?). Leaving aside the wonderful headline, the article itself is a classic attempt to weasel out of accepting the obvious conclusion. The scientists involved really ARE shameless.
I entirely agree with him. This story presents a deplorable mish-mash of propaganda from a scientist who should be a lot better behaved. Be nice to see this covered in the Herald – or has it been – anyone know?
PAYWALLED AT: The Australian.
* by: Graham Lloyd
* From: The Australian
* October 06, 2012 12:00AM
ANTARCTIC sea ice has expanded to cover the largest area recorded since satellite mapping began more than three decades ago, in stark contrast to this year’s record melt on the northern pole.
The expansion continues a trend of increasing Antarctic sea ice cover of about 1 per cent a decade and is at odds with predictions of climate change models that continue to forecast a long-term decline. Continue Reading →
Views: 426
from The Global Warming Policy Foundation
The Street, 4 October 2012
Bill Gunderson
When Al Gore talks, people listen. Just ask the folks who hand out Academy Awards and Nobel Peace Prizes.
Al Gore also talks to investors. Since 2007, the former Vice President in Bill Clinton’s administration has been preaching the benefits of putting your money where his mouth is: Alternative energy.
But if Al Gore has any message for investors today, it might very well be this: “Stay the hell away from alternative energy!” Not that he would say so. At least out loud. Continue Reading →
Views: 357
from The Global Warming Policy Foundation
The Daily Telegraph, 5 October 2012
Britain faces an increasing risk of power blackouts and higher electricity bills in the next four years, power regulator Ofgem has warned in a report.
An “unprecedented combination” of the eurozone crisis, tough EU environmental laws and the closure of ageing coal and oil-fired power stations, has increased “the risk to consumers’ energy supplies”, Ofgem said in its annual Electricity Capacity Assessment on Friday.
The regulator, which first highlighted the problems in its Project Discovery report in 2009, said: “Today’s report shows that these problems have not gone away.” Continue Reading →
Views: 334
from The Global Warming Policy Foundation
Financial Times Deutschland, 5 October 2012
The EU Energy Commissioner opposes a tightening of the EU’s climate targets. Instead, energy policy should focus more closely on the needs of European industry. In Berlin, Günther Oettinger made jokes about the green “do-gooders” in his own party.
Günther Oettinger fears the decline of Europe if energy prices continue to rise and competitiveness deteriorates further compared to the United States and other parts of the world. He wants to convince his colleagues in the European Commission to introduce an industrial policy objective instead of new climate targets. At a meeting of the European Christian Democrats (EPP) in Berlin last night, Oettinger said the share that manufacturing contributes to the GDP of the economies of the EU should increase from currently 18 percent to 20 percent. Within the European Commission, he is fighting for a corresponding definition.
His appearance before a few dozen party members in Berlin’s Adlon Hotel was a day of reckoning with the EU’s energy and climate policies. Energy policy had long been climate policy, he said, but in the future it must be industrial policy. Continue Reading →
Views: 346
In comments, I cited a statement by Jim Renwick from a few months ago. He said:
I feel a kind of morbid fascination with this stuff. It’s a really fascinating science issue – and I’m really interested to find out what’s going to happen to the climate and how much ice is going to melt and what’s the temperature in 2020 going to be and all the rest of it. It’s intriguing, it’s my bread and butter but you know what I feel is – I look at this and say jeez we’re really doing this, we’re doing this experiment, we’re really playing this game with the Earth, we’re gambling with millions of lives and I sort of feel disgusted with myself that I find it interesting from a scientific point of view. It’s certainly interesting, but it’s more than interesting — it’s a very dangerous game we’re playing.
I was illustrating a comment that only a few climate scientists of the alarmist school venture to tell us we’re destroying the world. Most of them are more cautious, almost as though they’re setting up for the long-term defence that they were never really converts to that alarmist view of climate change they claim is the consensus.
The reader Simon said Continue Reading →
Views: 441
Renowden continually misquotes me.
I wrote about the summer low achieved by Arctic sea ice. He maligns me for saying the ice didn’t melt until winds pushed it away into warmer water.
Gareth, criticise me for giving voice to heresy; and by all means, fault my scholarship, my knowledge of climatic or arctic affairs; feel free to mock my “disconnection from reality”; I hope you even pull out a paper by Notz and Marotzke and share the authors’ speculation that, as is apparently obvious to the rest of you, “the most likely explanation for the linear trend [in sea ice decline] during the satellite era from 1979 onwards is the almost linear increase in CO2 concentration during that period.”
But I didn’t say it. NASA did.
So now please kindly redirect all that rude, inaccurate mockery to the proper quarter.
Renowden’s friend Rob Taylor, in comments below, cites one John Yackel in Science Daily. Yackel makes a couple of howlers.
First, he contradicts NASA and insists on talking about the summer Arctic ice “melt”. Obviously he didn’t get NASA’s memo explaining about the storm that shifted the sea ice before it melted.
Second, he asserts that, with the ice gone and the sea surface exposed to the air, “more moisture off the ocean’s surface” will “get into the atmosphere”, making for more violent storms.
Remarkable. Here’s a geographer who doesn’t know that the amount of water vapour in the air depends on the temperature. I learnt that in high school but somehow he missed it at university.
But he also apparently imagines that “the water vapor in the atmosphere makes for more violent storms” – it doesn’t need a higher temperature at all! Well, it’s a new concept, but I’m not sure how it works.
I think it’s nonsense.
Finally, I observe that Rob Taylor claims I’m wrong about something, but none of our friends from the dark side deny that Renowden disagrees with NASA. Renowden is wrong to call this record ice disappearance a “melt” and blame it on global warming and therefore on our considerable, unforgivable sins.
Views: 505
CCNet – 27 September 2012
The Climate Policy Network
This week Silent Spring will turn 50. Rachel Carson’s jeremiad against pesticides is credited by many as launching the modern environmentalist movement, and the author, who died in 1964, is being widely lauded for her efforts. In Silent Spring, Carson crafted a passionate denunciation of modern technology that drives environmentalist ideology today. At its heart is this belief: Nature is beneficent, stable, and even a source of moral good; humanity is arrogant, heedless, and often the source of moral evil. –Ronald Bailey, Reason Online, October 2012
Did cancer doom ever arrive? No. Continue Reading →
Views: 385
Er, no. The report making that claim is dodgy. As a piece of scholarship it’s marked by a strong advocacy.
The report is called the Climate Vulnerability Monitor, it was published yesterday and is produced by Dara: “an independent organisation committed to improving the quality and effectiveness of aid for vulnerable populations suffering from conflict, disasters and climate change.”
According to Dara’s 2011 annual report, its total spending that year was €2.1 million.
The Monitor, described in the Sydney Morning Herald, contains regrettably familiar alarmist distortions. Continue Reading →
Views: 330
NASA has announced that an Arctic storm played a ‘key role’ in a dramatic new summer minimum ice extent recorded in August.
Reuters news service filed a September 21 report based on NASA’s video admission titled: “NASA says Arctic cyclone played ‘key role’ in record ice melt.” The news segment details how the Arctic sea ice was reduced due to “a powerful cyclone that scientists say ‘wreaked havoc’ on ice cover during the month of August.” (Reuters on “Arctic Cyclone” — 0:47 second long segment — Rob Muir reporting.)
Video: Arctic storm breaks up sea ice
Why does everyone feel guilty about the disappearance of the Arctic ice? All it proves is a bit of warming; it most certainly does not prove a human cause for that warming. Continue Reading →
Views: 455
Dear fellow followers of the Climate debate,
As a result of finding out that the Kyoto commitments technically comes to an end on the 31st December, the Scottish Climate & Energy Forum have been investigating the likely consequences of this both in terms of what is likely to happen to the protocol and the wide implications when (as it seems) the protocol effectively ends operation on the 31st December.
We have written this up as a report. The main intention of this report has been to try to find the actual facts and having sorted the chaff from the wheat, ascertain what this might mean (with particular emphasis on Scotland). Continue Reading →
Views: 406
via NZ Herald News.
If readers have knowledge of the effects of this measure on the local fishing industry, please get in touch. Here’s the entire Herald story (from APNZ):
New Zealand has voted against further protection measures for Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins at the world’s largest conservation summit in Jeju, Korea.
New Zealand was one of two countries to oppose further protection measures in a secret vote at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s conference.
A vote was held on New Zealand banning gill and trawl nets in waters up to 100 metres deep – 117 countries and 459 organisations voted for the move.
New Zealand voted against, saying it was not backed by scientific evidence.
Views: 412
via Watts Up With That?.
WUWT asks: Forget to pay your bill, fellas?
Jim Hoggan’s flagship propaganda outlet, releaser of the Gleick stolen files, Desmogblog.com – is D.O.A.
Go to their site and you get an advertisement from their domain name registrar.
Ralph, in a comment, advises that the site is up again. But when I visit there’s no real site there. Just plain-text climate links which lead to lists of plain-text advertisements. It’s not real.
Where have they gone?
Views: 382
How was academia infected with the climate change madness?
Not the journalists, the businessmen, the bankers, the entrepreneurs, environmentalists, politicians, bureaucrats or even (or especially!) the earth scientists and climatologists — all their infections can be understood to some extent by understanding the various profits that would come to them once they accepted the madness, which slowly but inevitably they almost all did. (We’re talking about departments here, not individuals.)
We need not ask how the man in the street was infected with the madness, for he has been dragged kicking and screaming and had his very money stolen to fund it all. Continue Reading →
Views: 458
Here’s an agreeably restrained response to Brian Rudman’s repellent, unsophisticated bluster against the Coalition. The Herald declined to publish this, but we’re delighted to present it in their stead. If Rudman has the sense I think he has, or the slightest genuine interest in climate change, he’ll pay close attention to Tom’s analysis. – Richard Treadgold
The September 12th column by Brian Rudman of the New Zealand Herald, “One small word, one giant setback for denial”, exemplifies how much of the climate debate has descended into a sort of murky underworld where logical fallacies, personal attacks and made up “facts” all too often replace rational discourse. While Herald editors are to be congratulated for allowing the publication of my letter to the editor correcting some of Rudman’s more obvious mistakes, his piece is worth analyzing as a sample of what other journalists must avoid if a civilized discussion about this vitally important topic is to be possible.
Rudman’s repeated references to “climate change deniers” is a particularly nasty and nonsensical phrase frequently employed by those who want to silence debate about the causes of climate change. Continue Reading →
Views: 449
A court challenge to the validity of the New Zealand temperature record [NZTR] has concluded. The Judgement refused all three parts of the challenge to the NZTR.
The challenge had been initiated by a group of climate researchers called The New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust [the Trust] against the government funded scientific body which prepared the NZTR, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research LTD [NIWA].
The Trust issued a Statement of Claim [SOC] seeking:
A declaration that the New Zealand Temperature Record is not a full
and accurate record of changes in the average surface temperatures
recorded in New Zealand since 1900.
Views: 402
To be a judge in New Zealand is to wield substantial power. Here we have evidence that judicial power can reverse the meaning of a word.
The judgement in our case against NIWA said at paragraph 9:
Both the original statement of claim and the first amended statement of claim were prolix.
The word “prolix” comes from the Latin “prolixus”, which means “extended” (literally “poured out”) or “courteous, favourable”. It has come to mean “tediously lengthy, bombastic, long-winded, verbose, wordy.”
It’s not used as a compliment. When a judge describes your submission as prolix he’s saying “your explanatory skills are poor, you waffle and you have wasted much of my time.” Continue Reading →
Views: 465
The Herald has today editorialised its rancour against climate sceptics and repeated oft-heard unfounded criticisms (h/t – Andy). They make a couple of good points but so many blunders I’ve time for only a brief tour of them. Herald statements in green (emphasis added).
A year ago, James Hansen, one of the world’s top climate scientists, conceded that climate sceptics were winning the argument with the public over global warming. This, he said, was occurring even as climate science itself was showing ever more clearly that the Earth was in increasing danger from rising temperatures.
Just as Hansen didn’t justify his statement then, the leader writer doesn’t justify it now, Continue Reading →
Views: 415
Yesterday, on Marae Investigates, Mr Morgan was asked what he thought about Mr Key saying the King was wrong about Maori owning the water. He replied: “That once again says the Prime Minister is culturally ignorant, and that’s unfortunate.”
via King’s spokesman calls Key ‘culturally ignorant’ – NZ Herald News.
Next thing you know, they’ll be calling Key a “denier”. Then all who oppose them.
Views: 345
A thought-provoking post just went up at WUWT. It’s by Thomas Fuller concerning Stephan Lewandowsky’s ill-born “poll” of climate sceptics and his subsequent paper “revealing” them as believers in various wacky conspiracy theories. Fuller gives an electrifying insight into the attacks on sceptics as suffering a disease of the mind. For he cites a tactic from the days of slavery. Continue Reading →
Views: 371
Well of course they do.
via Maori have always owned water – 3 News.
Earlier today King Tuheitia told the national hui on the issue that Maori have always owned water.
The big chiefs and the long-time activists were at Turangawaewae to discuss one issue – water – and looking for one thing – unity.
So, King Tuheitia told the hui “we’ve always owned the water”; you’re quite sure that the hui didn’t tell him? Because I was under the firm impression that the purpose of a hui was to find the will of the people, not to announce it to them.
Just one question: why do Maoris say they own the water, when no other race on Earth believes that they do?
Do they know what water is?
Views: 359
It crops up repeatedly: but there was no medieval warm period (MWP), therefore the modern warming is unprecedented.
The CO2 Science web site has a long-running project to examine records all over the world concerning temperatures in the medieval period. Their overview page makes a great introduction to the project. They cite material from hundreds of scientists and institutions. Really quite impressive.
So when will the warmists stop saying there was no medieval warm period?
Views: 749
To the Editor
Climate Conversation
13th September 2012
Two lies are used to promote the world’s highest carbon tax – the lie that carbon dioxide is “pollution” and the lie claiming that Australians are “the world’s biggest carbon polluters”.
Calling carbon dioxide “pollution” makes no more sense than calling mothers’ milk “poison”. Yet Australia’s Climate Commissioners continue to propagate this outrageous lie.
Carbon dioxide is “mothers’ milk” to all plants, and plants are “the daily bread” to all animals. Life is a carbon cycle. No life could exist on Earth without adequate carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Current levels are well below those optimal for life, and below levels which have prevailed for most of Earth’s history. If there is a crisis regarding CO2, it is the question: “where has it all gone?”
And to say that Australians are the world’s biggest carbon polluters (per capita) is lying with statistics. Continue Reading →
Views: 372
via BBC News – Everest Sherpas in glacial lake study warning. – h/t Ron.
“The situation has become such that many Sherpas in the region do not even want to hear the words ‘climate change’.”
The Mount Everest region’s Sherpas have said they are angry at the way studies of glaciers and glacial lakes have been conducted in recent years.
They say the studies do not involve them and that results are often spread through alarmist media reports that cause panic among locals in the area.
Views: 377
In November 2009, about a week before the international climate change conference in Copenhagen, the CCG and the NZCSC (the Coalition) released a paper we’d been working on for some time — “Are we feeling warmer yet?” (AWFWY).
On pages 13 and 14 of his affidavit to the High Court, Dr Wratt devotes six paragraphs to our paper and contrives to misrepresent it – obviously trying to give it a bad name. First, he correctly quotes a sentence from the paper:
There are no reasons for any large corrections.
Then he observes:
“NZCSC members… appear to ignore the fact that good scientific practice requires adjustment for site changes before temperature series are analysed for long-term changes.”
Thus he establishes two things:
1. The paper finds no reasons to make large corrections, but it should.
2. The paper makes no corrections, but it should.
Fairly straightforward and not hard to understand. Except that: Continue Reading →
Views: 431
Professor de Freitas from time to time advises the NZ Climate Science Coalition, but he does not speak for it. Nevertheless, this op-ed in today’s Herald gives such a clear view of the issues touching our court case that it deserves a hearing here.
One assumes scientific analysis is objective, so it may come as a surprise that this was challenged in a New Zealand High Court case, the results of which were released last week.
The New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust (NZCSET) contested the claim by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) that New Zealand air temperatures had climbed by 0.9°C over the past century. The trust maintains that objective analysis of the data shows a trend closer to 0.3°C per 100 years. Continue Reading →
Views: 475
It was a great disappointment that Justice Venning was not prepared to declare NIWA’s data adjustments to be a breach of the Crown Research Institutes Act 1992.
On the law, the Judge found that any review should be “tolerant” and “cautious” because NIWA was “a specialist body acting within its own sphere of expertise.” He declined to rule on the disputed science – while tending to favour the 92-page opinion evidence provided by NIWA’s Dr Wratt (which was not subject to cross-examination).
Where does this now leave the NZCSC’s long-term effort to show that the NIWA temperature adjustments are wrong? Continue Reading →
Views: 573
The court decision has been welcomed by the expected opponents, such as Renwick (who manages to fabricate our statements even when we write them down and file them with the High Court), NIWA (whose publicity, er, I mean legal team made mincemeat out of logic and science) and Hot Topic (but then Renowden wouldn’t know a climate scientist from an astrophysicist).
Now they’re joined by doctors eager to fight climate change, in Doctors Welcome Decision On Treacherous Temperature Case.
The reference to “treacherous” has a nasty effect, doesn’t it? And it means there must be some treachery, right? Well, actually, wrong. Despicably, they don’t justify it. Continue Reading →
Views: 581
Professor James Renwick’s press release yesterday celebrating NIWA’s court “victory” was wrong. The opening paragraph said:
A group of leading New Zealand climate scientists (listed below) welcomed Justice Geoffrey Venning’s ruling to throw out the claim by the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust (CSET, a small group of climate change “sceptics”) that NIWA had acted fraudulently in putting together its ‘7-station’ temperature series.
But the Trust did not claim fraud in its Statement of Claim to the High Court, which nowhere uses any derivative of the word fraud. The Coalition never accused NIWA of fraud and these scientists cannot justify their claim that it did.
This fictitious accusation against members of the NZ Climate Science Coalition and its Trust might have added to the excitement of the press release, but the stimulus came at the expense of the truth.
To people accustomed to hearing ad hominem remarks of the worst kind, accusing climate sceptics of alleging fraud is perhaps of no great concern, but to those devoted to the even-handed, practical pursuit of truth this accusation is deeply distressing.
It must be withdrawn and Dr Renwick must apologise. They need to man up and admit their mistake, apologise and withdraw the press statement.
Would proper scientists expect anything less of others?
Views: 432
Mr Justice Venning has released his judgement in the case between the NZ Climate Science Education Trust (NZCSET) and NIWA.
All three of NZCSET’s requests to the Court were declined. Costs were awarded to NIWA.
I’ll have more to say when I’ve read the judgement in full. In the meantime, Scoop has a story with a number of links.
James Renwick has been admirably quick with a press release from a small group of scientists but he entirely mischaracterises our suit:
Scientific analysis and discussion is carried out through the peer-reviewed literature. The basic science of climate change (global warming) has been established for well over a century, and almost all scientists active in climate research agree that human activity is causing the climate to change. For a small group of scientists to appeal to a court of law to find otherwise is bizarre.
I have evidence, having corresponded with him, that James can read, but did he read what was clearly stated in the judgement? The facts are that our three causes of action concerned the New Zealand temperature record, not any global record, and we discussed only the New Zealand climate, not the global climate. We never discussed the causes, magnitude or future course of global warming.
In repeating this lie about what we said he makes it well-nigh impossible for even a well-informed member of the public to assemble anything but a wrong-headed view of our actual intentions.
In doing so Professor Renwick corrupts his position of influence.
Jo Nova comments on the decision.
Views: 557
Should I liken him to the Prince of Thieves? Is it seemly for a senior establishment figure to earn an income from the cause he espouses for its worth to humanity?
Oh, wait… they’ve been doing that for hundreds of years.
Anyway, for the record, Al Gore will be in Auckland for an expensive, exclusive dinner and speech on Friday, 12th October 2012.
Need I remind everyone of the UK judgement against his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”? The judge required the film to carry a warning about bias when it was shown to schoolchildren. Continue Reading →
Views: 365