Unsettled Climate

Originally a Guest Post of mine at Watts Up With That

The first edition of New Scientist (UK) of 2011 has a review of 2010 and a preview of 2011 section…

…and they are rather optimistic that the world has finally moved on from the climategate emails.

Those Cursed Climate emails – New Scientist Jan 1, 2011

Thousands of them were hacked off the servers of the University of East Anglia, home to one of the UK’s leading research units, in November 2009. In 2010, their content was dissected, re-dissected, and then dissected some more, amid claims that some climate scientists had engaged in fraudulent behaviour. Four independent reviews exonerated them, and datasets were made public that were previously under lock and key. And finally, the world moved on.”

(behind a paywall, but in their blog) 

This would just appear to be the time-honoured PR strategy  ‘Nothing to be seen here, move along please’ and an attempt at controlling a message.  So there is to be no optimism from New Scientist that the world could now be safe from Thermageddon (NS October 2010).

It seems that the great CAGW delusion, early 21st century ‘modern end of the world cult’, cultural phenomenon or whatever else history will call it, has not quite yet had its bubble pierced.

In 2010, I personally thought that perhaps the lowest point of climate science reporting in the UK, was the New Scientist, Age of Denial issue with a Special 10 page report.

 
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Updated from a guest post at Watts Up with That

In The Telegraph (UK newspaper), it was reported that Roger Harrabin, an environment analyst at the BBC, told the Radio Times:

“The trouble is that we simply don’t know how much to trust the Met Office. How often does it get the weather right and wrong. And we don’t know how it compares with other, independent forecasters.” – The Telegraph

Boris Johnson – The Mayor of London, is arguably perhaps the most democratically personally elected politician in the UK. As over 1.1 million London voters voted for him directly for the elected office of Mayor. This is compared to a UK Member of Parliament, who might win their seat with as little as 20,000 votes. In many seats, if you wore the right party badge a ‘mascot’ might get elected. Whilst the public are voting for a person, it is the party they represent that is being voted for.

In my opinion, no other Conservative candidate could have won that election to become Mayor, at a time (May 2008) when the Labour Party were still very much in power in the UK. Boris Johnson won peoples votes despite him being a Conservative for many members of the public that voted for him.

Thus, for a high profile Conservative like Boris to write glowingly about (arch sceptic) Piers Corbyn and criticise the Met Office, is in my opinion very significant politically in the UK. Especially in light of the fact that Boris wrote this before the Met Office started denying they had predicted mild winters and before their ‘secret’ prediction statement.

Boris Johnson cares whether London (including Heathrow airport) and himself is made to look bad in the eyes of a world audience. I wonder what Boris thinks about the Met Office ‘secret’ prediction?

As Boris is in the position of power, knowing whether or not London and Heathrow received the ‘secret’ warning’.
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Happy New Year everyone!

At a friends dinner party last night, we were watching the BBC coverage of the London fireworks and the midnight countdown. A compilation track of music was being played by the BBC.. Just after Big Ben sounded in the New Year I had a little chuckle when London Calling (The Clash, 1979) came on,

in the chorus (not played):

“The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in”

Proof, perhaps that the 70’s ice age scare was very real and had made it into popular culture. Watts Up has an interesting article  ‘Time Covers and Global Warming’ on a similar theme.
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Sometimes if you are wrong, even if you have the very best intentions, the results might be considered harmful. I and other sceptics of the CAGW delusion think that the worlds poor need direct help now, not ‘potential help’ later.

Sir John Houghton (June 2010 – slide 45) – Co Chair 2001 IPCC Ar3 – ‘Hockey Stick’ report

“Haven’t we first to tackle World
Poverty, then Climate Change?

NO,

because unless
we tackle Climate Change now,
the plight of many of the poorest
will be enormously worse”

Sir John Houghton, no doubt sincerely believes that tackling future ‘climate change’ (man-made) is more important than the issues and hardships facing the worlds poor now.

Sir John also considers (slide – pg 10) that  ‘climate change’ action is very urgent saying we have seven years grace (The 10:10 Campaign seems to think planetary doom is in 4 years, here, here)

“God is Creator
Science is God’s science”
and
“Pharoah & Joseph had
7 YEARS
So have we

2016″

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Update from the comments: The Guardian have removed some critical comments mentioning George’s involvment with the Campaign Against Climate Change, which indulges in similar practices. (my three never got past pre-moderation)

These astroturf libertarians are the real threat to internet democracy – Guardian

As I see in threads on my articles, the online sabotaging of intelligent debate seems organised. We must fight to save this precious gift   

George must have forgotten that he is Honoury President of the Campaign Against Climate Change………    

……and they send out Skeptic Alerts to do just this to man made global warming sceptical blogs and newspaper comments sections, including the Bishop Hill blog, James Delingpole and Christopher Booker at the Telegraph. 

There are a number of people commenting at CiF, that have been allowed to point out about the CaCC ‘astroturfing’, presumably the moderators at CiF have a sense of humour after all to allow this.  I am currenly still pre-moderated out of existance at the Guardian…..   

Yet a ‘luke warmist’ (in the nicest, best possible description) has risen to the apparent hypocracy of the article, given the evidence that has been supplied and been allowed to comment.  
 
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Following the good news in a Met Office Study that alarmist sea level rises of 2m – 4m by 2100 is wrong. The Guardian report the Met Office study and choose a headline to highlight a new alarmist message rather than parade this good news, which is buried away in the article.

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Alarmist Doomsday warning of rising seas ‘was wrong’, says a Met Office study – Daily Mail (6 December 2010) (Telegraph & Guardian)

Last year around the time of the Copenhagen Cop 15 climate conference, the public were bombarded on television and in the newspapers with alarmist messages of projected sea level rises due to man made climate change, of 2 metres  or even higher (4 metres by some lobby groups). Whilst the IPCC 2007 AR4 report only had a worst case scenario of 59 cm, the 2m announcements were no doubt made to persude politicians and policy makers of the urgency of signing a new agreement. 

A year later, whilst the Cancun Cop 16 climate conference is underway, does the good news that these alarmist sea level predictions were wrong make similar headlines?  No, it was buried away on pg 19, with maybe half a column of coverage.
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Who is causing the climate change alarmism – where does the 150,000 climate change deaths a year ‘fact’ come from. Although the 10:10 campaign, has their founder – Franny Armstrong – saying 300,000 deaths a year, did they just double it to make the climate change message more urgent?

Greenpeace say 150,000 deaths a year due to climate change (man made – presumably) on the Greenpeace website.  Is that just an eco lobby group being alarmist, or do they get their message from elsewhere?

The executive summary of The Institute of Public Policy Research document – ‘Positive Energy’ -2007, has it’s second sentence, to frame the entire document with an urgent ‘climate change’ message:

Behind the stories, real people are allready being hit, with climate change now killing 150,ooo people a year (1)

The IPPR is a major ‘progressive’, UK think tank that has adviced the UK Government over the last decade.

Here it is reported as a proven fact  – now killing – designed to give an explicit urgent message to governments and policy makers

I had to buy the report to find the reference, which was not included in the Executive Summary, Continue reading →

expanded from a guest post at Bishop Hill

Since the beginning of November the Campaign Against Climate Change has been heavily targeting the Bishop Hill blog in their Skeptic Alerts emails to their activists. I imagine this may be why Bishop Hill has had rather more ‘warmist’ guests than usual.
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