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Showing posts with label Global Warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Global Warming. Show all posts

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Climategate 2.0: New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate

James Taylor, Forbes.com

A new batch of 5,000 emails among scientists central to the assertion that humans are causing a global warming crisis were anonymously released to the public yesterday, igniting a new firestorm of controversy nearly two years to the day after similar emails ignited the Climategate scandal.

Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: (1) prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions; (2) these scientists view global warming as a political “cause” rather than a balanced scientific inquiry and (3) many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data.

Regarding scientific transparency, a defining characteristic of science is the open sharing of scientific data, theories and procedures so that independent parties, and especially skeptics of a particular theory or hypothesis, can replicate and validate asserted experiments or observations. Emails between Climategate scientists, however, show a concerted effort to hide rather than disseminate underlying evidence and procedures.

“I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process,”writes Phil Jones, a scientist working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a newly released email.

“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden,” Jones writes in another newly released email. “I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”

The original Climategate emails contained similar evidence of destroying information and data that the public would naturally assume would be available according to freedom of information principles. “Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment]?” Jones wrote to Penn State University scientist Michael Mann in an email released in Climategate 1.0. “Keith will do likewise. … We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise. I see that CA [the Climate Audit Web site] claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!”

The new emails also reveal the scientists’ attempts to politicize the debate and advance predetermined outcomes.

“The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out” of IPCC reports, writes Jonathan Overpeck, coordinating lead author for the IPCC’s most recent climate assessment.

“I gave up on [Georgia Institute of Technology climate professor] Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, but its not helping the cause,” wrote Mann in another newly released email.

“I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose” skeptical scientist Steve McIntyre, Mann writes in another newly released email.

These new emails add weight to Climategate 1.0 emails revealing efforts to politicize the scientific debate. For example, Tom Wigley, a scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, authored a Climategate 1.0 email asserting  that his fellow Climategate scientists “must get rid of” the editor for a peer-reviewed science journal because he published some papers contradicting assertions of a global warming crisis.

More than revealing misconduct and improper motives, the newly released emails additionally reveal frank admissions of the scientific shortcomings of global warming assertions.

“Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary,” writes Peter Thorne of the UK Met Office.

“I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run,” Thorne adds.

“Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive … there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC,” Wigley acknowledges.

More damaging emails will likely be uncovered during the next few days as observers pour through the 5,000 emails. What is already clear, however, is the need for more objective research and ethical conduct by the scientists at the heart of the IPCC and the global warming discussion.

James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

 Source: Forbes.com

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Gore: Global warming skeptics are this generation’s racists


By Caroline May - The Daily Caller, 28/8/2011
 
 
One day climate change skeptics will be seen in the same negative light as racists, or so says former Vice President Al Gore.

In an interview with former advertising executive and Climate Reality Project collaborator Alex Bogusky broadcast on UStream on Friday, Gore explained that in order for climate change alarmists to succeed, they must “win the conversation” against those who deny there is a crisis. (RELATED: Bill McKibben: Global warming to blame for Hurricane Irene)

“I remember, again going back to my early years in the South, when the Civil Rights revolution was unfolding, there were two things that really made an impression on me,” Gore said. “My generation watched Bull Connor turning the hose on civil rights demonstrators and we went, ‘Whoa! How gross and evil is that?’ My generation asked old people, ‘Explain to me again why it is okay to discriminate against people because their skin color is different?’ And when they couldn’t really answer that question with integrity, the change really started.”

The former vice president recalled how society succeeded in marginalizing racists and said climate change skeptics must be defeated in the same manner.

“Secondly, back to this phrase ‘win the conversation,’” he continued. “There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won.”

“We have to win the conversation on climate,” Gore added.

When Bogusky questioned the analogy, asking if the scientific reasoning behind climate change skeptics might throw a wrench into the good and evil comparison with racism, Gore did not back down.

“I think it’s the same where the moral component is concerned and where the facts are concerned I think it is important to get that out there, absolutely,” Gore said.

Gore also took shots at Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has lambasted climate change alarmists on the presidential campaign trail, and at other politicians who dare to question the veracity of global warming science.

“This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole, to attack their integrity, and to slander them with the lie that they are making up the science in order to make money,” Gore said.
 

Thursday, July 7, 2011

‘The Plan’ – Agenda 21: The Death Knell of Liberty

by Jim O’Neill, The Sovereign Independent

At the U.N. Summit at Rio in 1992, the Conference Secretary-General, Maurice Strong, said “Isn’t the only hope for this planet that the industrialized civilization collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”

G u l a g B o u n d

“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we
came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages,
famine and the like would fit the bill. // The real enemy then is humanity itself.
- From the Club of Rome’s “The First Global Revolution” p. 71,75 1993

“Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.”
- John Donne (1572-1631)

The death knell for freedom has been tolling for some time, and only now are people starting to hear it. It started tolling faintly, decades back, and has slowly progressed in volume, until today its tolling is impossible to ignore.

The United States of America — that “shining city on a hill” — had a good run of it, and made a gallant effort at establishing liberty for all. But as the old saw would have it, all good things must come to an end.

Liberty, after all, is an aberration in mankind’s history — a light that has flared here and there over the centuries, only to dissolve back into the darkness.

America is barreling towards becoming a bit player on the world’s stage, and its vaunted middle class — once the envy of the world — is on the verge of being eliminated. For the good of the planet, for the good of Gaia. for the good of the collective — freedom is being replaced by servitude, capitalism by socialism, and property rights by “sustainable development.”

I’m not talking about something we need to be on guard against. It is all already in place. It has been going on for quite some time, and it will continue to go on, at a greatly accelerated pace. We are at the “end game” point.

And the Globalists know it. Why do you think the Democratic (and many Republican) political hacks on Capitol Hill are so dismissive of the American people? They are essentially putting on a “dog and pony show” for public consumption, while the final pieces for America’s defeat are slid into place.

To a great extent the Globalists own the mass media, the entertainment industry, and the Judicial, Executive, and Legislative branches of government.

Why should they worry?

Already, several generations have been indoctrinated, via our school systems, to value globalization and “social justice,” over personal responsibility and free enterprise. They have been repeatedly sold the idea that they should, “Think globally, act locally.”

God has been demeaned, marginalized, and eradicated, at every turn. Our religions are, in many cases, a watered down and diluted mimicry of true spirituality.

The Globalists have come out from the closets, the woodwork, and from under rocks. They know that their time of hiding is at long last over. They are brazen about, and proud of, their anti-American/pro-global stance. Their arrogance and hubris is palpable.

Call them Communists, Marxists, Fascists, or Globalists — call them what you will, they are collectivists who despise America’s middle class, capitalism, and free enterprise.

They have been duplicitous, Machavellian, clever, and patient. And it has paid off — the trap has been sprung. How did this happen? America got hit high, and America got hit low. We suffered sudden catastrophic sneak attacks from without, and insidious long-term betrayal from within.

We were hit low by Alinskyesque “community organizers” in our streets, and propagandists in our schools. We were hit high by “think tanks” like the Trilateral Commission, the CoR (Club of Rome), and the CFR (Council for Foreign Relations).

They have divided us with special interest groups, vociferous “talking point” attacks, and identity politics. They have infiltrated our schools, and indoctrinated our children.

They have opened floodgates using the Cloward-Piven Strategy — overwhelming our judicial system, banking establishment, and border security. They have encouraged corruption and greed at the lowest, to the highest, levels of government. They have twisted and perverted the U.S. Constitution.

They have promoted and encouraged anything and everything that would help bring America down.

They intend on taking over the planet, but first they need to destabilize, and then destroy, the United States of America. Because we are a powerful bulwark of freedom, we have to go first. And to a large extent, go we have.

The Club of Rome (CoR) was founded 1968, in Italy, by Aurelio Peccei, an Italian scholar and industrialist, and Alexander King, a Scottish scientist.

Over the years the list of its members has included ex-presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, diplomats, and billionaires. Its membership roster reads like a “who’s who” of the world’s “movers and shakers.” It includes U.N. bureaucrats, scientists, economists, and business leaders from around the globe

After its inception, it split into two additional branches: The CoB (Club of Budapest), and the CoM (Club of Madrid). The CoB focuses mainly on social and philosophical/religious issues, while the CoM concentrates more on political issues. In addition, there are over thirty affiliated organizations in other countries — such as the USACoR in the United States.

The CoR first garnered public attention with its 1972 report “The Limits to Growth,” which went on to become the best selling environmentalist book of all time. Simply stated, its main thesis is that economic growth cannot continue indefinitely, because of the limited availability of natural resources, particularly oil. It’s sort of an industrialized version of a Malthusian nightmare.

Diagram from The First Global Revolution

Twenty years later, the CoR published The First Global Revolution — a quote from the book appears at the start of this article. This book also made a big splash, and helped to re-energize and expand the whole environmentalist movement.

Another quote from the book worth keeping in mind is, “It would seem that humans need a common motivation, namely a common adversary… sucha motivation must be found to bring the divided nations together to face an outside enemy, either a real one, or else one invented for the purpose….”

“One invented for the purpose.” Enter global warming and greenhouse gases. But something even more important happened the year before The First Global Revolution came out.

At the instigation of the CoR, and their ilk, in 1992 the United Nations held the Conference on Environment and Development — informally known as the Earth Summit — in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

At the Earth Summit, 178 nations signed an agreement called Agenda 21 — so called because it dealt with the United Nation’s agenda for the 21st century.

It consists of numerous chapters detailing the role that different parts of society should play in implementing “sustainable development.” There are chapters for central governments, local governments, businesses, and community organizations.

Ideological model for planned and enforced sustainable development

George Bush senior, then President of the United States, flew down and committed the United States to the U.N. FCCC (Framework Convention on Climate Change) agenda.

Ever since then, the Executive Branch — Republican and Democrat — has been bypassing Congress, and passing “soft laws” foisting Agenda 21 on the American public.

Check out the U.S. Department of Energy website.

Check out the U.S. Department of Agriculture website.

Check out the U.S. Department of the Interior website.

No matter where you go, environmentalism permeates the U.S. Government bureaucracy. Sometimes it’s blatant and out front; other times you may need to dig a little — but it is always there.

The Agenda 21 Globalists wine and dine each other, and hold conventions and conferences around the world. They give each other praise, pats on the back, and prestigious awards. The Norwegian Globalists just gave Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, and for the same reason that they gave one to Al Gore — promoting globalization and Agenda 21.

Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” also received an Oscar from the Hollywood elite. These honors have been bestowed on Gore, not for exposing the truth — for “An Inconvenient Truth” is merely a slickly packaged lie — but because the film spreads the falsehoods of Agenda 21 so well.

It can only be shown to school children in the U.K. if accompanied by a disclaimer. The U.K.‘s “The Daily Mail” reports that “…teachers will have to warn pupils that there are other opinions on global warming, and they should not necessarily accept the views of the film.”

The Daily Mail also noted that the lawyer who successfully sued to have the disclaimer attached, said it did not go far enough. “He said ‘no amount of turgid guidance’ could change the fact that the film is unfit for consumption in the classroom.” Yet American students see it over, and over. With no disclaimer.

In June of 2009, NASA said that global warming is caused by solar cycles — i.e. the sun. Unsaid was the fact that the greenhouse gas theory is full of holes. Actually it’s a fairy tale, a convenient lie to force the world to bend to the will of the globalists.

Under pressure from the Obama Administration NASA now teaches that global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect, and “bad” gases like CO2 — which we humans unfortunately emit each time we breathe. Bad humans!

Al Gore, the CoR, the U.N., and all of the environmental organizations and their adherents, don’t care what the truth is. They could care less about what causes global warming. They have their “outside enemy… invented for the purpose,” and they are not about to let go of it.

The Globalists actually tried Global Cooling first, but for various reasons it didn’t fly. Look at page 22 in the 1974 Annual Rockefeller Report, and you’ll find the mention of a conference called to investigate “…the future implications of the global cooling trend now underway….” Things sure warmed up in a hurry.

So what is the “purpose?” What’s really behind all the global warming hoopla? Power. It’s the same old Marxist/Communist/Fascist collectivist schtick, dressed up in new clothes.

Global warming is all about a power grab by a wealthy elite and their collectivist sycophants — using the U.N. as a cover and tool.

Merely a conceptual work of art, “Power Pyramid” at AdamDodson.org

As always, there are numerous “useful idiots” who swallow the party line whole. Some of them are simply misguided idealists, and some of them are nuts — dangerously nuts.

Behind it all, is a relatively small group of people who are manipulating the world for their own sick, narcissistic ends. It’s a perfect cover. Think about it — who doesn’t feel that fresh air, clean water, and healthy environments are admirable ends to work towards? Any sane person supports such ideals. But hidden in back of the admirable goals are some diabolical designs.
Video, “Michael Shaw Agenda 21

Don’t take my word for it, and don’t dismiss me without research. We all need to know what’s headed our way shortly. If you aren’t aware of these facts already, then educate yourself on the internet. At least check out Green-Agenda.com.

What have we seen since the Obama Administration took over? The brainiacs in charge of America’s finances have been ignoring our debts, and eagerly proposing ways to sink us deeper into the quagmire. A lot deeper.

At first I thought that they were simply corrupt, venal, self-serving idiots — all of which is undoubtedly true, but they’re also destroying America’s financial foundation, cleverly and intentionally.

They want the American dollar replaced by a new global currency. They want America’s middle class to hang in the wind, and die on the vine. They’re Globalists, and they want America to fail. It’s so easy to see, once you realize what’s going on. (See “Chart: IMF Calls For New Global Currency To Replace Dollar.”)

Why else would they add trillions to an already staggering debt? Why else would they try to rush through a Cap and Trade bill that will, in Obama’s words, make electricity prices “skyrocket.” Why else would they jam ObamaCare down America’s throat? Why else would Obama say he’d bankrupt anybody who built a new coal plant?
Video, “Obama: My Plan Makes Electricity Rates Skyrocket

Once you grasp Agenda 21 and the sly machinations of the United Nations, and globalizing NGOs like the CoR, it all makes sense.

It’s “The Plan.” Ruin America’s economy, destroy her middle class, and put a stranglehold on her energy grid.

At the U.N. Summit at Rio in 1992, the Conference Secretary-General, Maurice Strong, said “Isn’t the only hope for this planet that the industrialized civilization collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” (See, “Maurice Strong and the Collapse of Industrialized Civilizations.”)

He also said, “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class — involving high meat intake, the use of fossil fuels, electrical appliances, home and workplace air-conditioning, and suburban housing — are not sustainable.”

Club of Rome member, multi-billionaire George Soros [Gulag Bound link] echoed Strong’s statement last fall, when he told an Australian newspaper, “America, as the center of the globalized financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world. This is now over. The game is out,’ he said, adding that the time has come for ‘a very serious adjustment’ in American’s consumption habits.” (See, “Soros Sees End of US-led Globalized Market System.”)

Forced to cut back on fossil fuel consumption. Forced to cut back on water usage. Forced to give up our property. Forced to eat less. Forced to warm or cool our homes less. Forced to give up driving. Forced to give up these, and many other things that we currently take for granted. It’s “The Plan” — you had better believe it.

Look at what’s happening to California’s Central Valley — once “the world’s breadbasket,” and now a dust bowl. All due to Agenda 21. (See “A Storm Brews over Food, Water, & Power.”)

I assure you that the globalists will not help the farmers. As the saying goes, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” The globalists want the land unplowed. They want it to go “back to nature.” They want to increase the price of food. They want to ruin the middle class farming community. It’s all part of “The Plan.”

It is not just America this is happening to, of course. Australia, Great Britain, Japan, Canada, Germany… Every country is on the verge of being converted into a vassal state—part of a global hegemony run by the U.N and a power elite.

All this will be more easily accomplished with a greatly reduced population. Did I mention population reduction and control?

Behind all the warm and fuzzy terminology about “smart growth,” “sustainable development,” and “think green,” lies a very chilling fact. The Agenda 21 folks want to reduce the earth’s population—substantially.

In 1996, Club of Rome member and CNN founder, Ted Turner, told Audubon magazine, “A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.” A 95% reduction! Recently he has said that getting rid of a mere two thirds of the world’s population would suffice. Getting mellow in his old age no doubt. (See, “Ted Turner: World Needs a ‘Voluntary’ One-Child Policy for the Next Hundred Years.”)

The hard-core environmentalists are all bio-centrists. That is, they believe that humanity is no more important than any other species on this planet. In fact, to hear them tell it, the world would be much better off without any people at all.

Anthropologist and anarchist David Graber put it like this in an L.A. Times book review, “Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. … We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. … Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

At any rate, because these Globalists are bio-centrists, most of them don’t believe in a divine spark in man, or unalienable rights, or God for that matter. In short, they don’t have many qualms about killing people. Something else to keep in mind.

You know the sardonic comment “Well excuse me for breathing?” These people take that statement literally — and probably won’t excuse you. After all, you’re adding to the earth’s carbon dioxide level every time you breath out.

ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability — I know, don’t ask) even has a personal Co2 calculator you can use. ICLEI (pronounced “ick-lee”) believes you should know, and of course want to know, the amount of “your yearly direct personal carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.” To which I say, directly and personally, “Get lost,” or words to that effect. (See “United Nations ICLEI and The City of Spokane.”)

My favorite eco-friendly slogan is “Save the Planet — Kill Yourself.”

There’s something deeply disturbed, and disturbing, about too many of these folks, if you ask me. For example, Yale professor and eco-nut, Lamont Cole, is of the opinion that “To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem.”

You should do yourself a favor and peruse the quotes on Free Republic’s “So you’re an environmentalist…” web-page. If you don’t come away convinced that most of these folks are nuttier than a Payday candy bar, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Many of these “useful idiots” may be crazy and harmless, but they can also be crazy and deadly. Behind them, pulling the strings, and waiting to take over, are the Global Elite and their one world government.

Whether or not America will last as a free republic until the 2012 presidential elections is debatable. Iran’s leadership is aching to nuke Israel, and Israel’s only going to wait so long before taking preemptive measures — and there goes a large chunk of America’s oil supply. And what happens if Egypt comes under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood, and they decide to close the vital Suez Canal? Remember that Obama’s drilling ban, declared unconstitutional, is still in effect. (See “Judge Holds Interior in Contempt over Drilling Ban.”)

Long lines for gas — if you can get any at all; America’s power grid will flicker and intermittently fail. Time for the Globalists to make their final moves.

So America, freedom, and Western civilization goes down the drain on our watch. It’s nothing to be proud of, that is for sure.

Is there no hope then? If there are still enough patriotic Americans who value personal integrity and freedom — there’s a chance we can still turn this thing around, but it won’t be easy. Far from it.

But make no mistake, if we lose this one, America and the world will sink into an abyss of Godless tyranny for a very, very long time.

Laus Deo.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

World may not be warming, say scientists

Jonathan Leake

The United Nations climate panel faces a new challenge with scientists casting doubt on its claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution.

In its last assessment the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the evidence that the world was warming was 'unequivocal'.

It warned that greenhouse gases had already heated the world by 0.7C and that there could be 5C-6C more warming by 2100, with devastating impacts on humanity and wildlife. However, new research, including work by British scientists, is casting doubt on such claims. Some even suggest the world may not be warming much at all.

"The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change," said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.

The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.

These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site.

Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and Alabama.

"The story is the same for each one," he said. "The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development."

The IPCC faces similar criticisms from Ross McKitrick, professor of economics at the University of Guelph, Canada, who was invited by the panel to review its last report.

The experience turned him into a strong critic and he has since published a research paper questioning its methods.

"We concluded, with overwhelming statistical significance, that the IPCC's climate data are contaminated with surface effects from industrialisation and data quality problems. These add up to a large warming bias," he said.

Such warnings are supported by a study of US weather stations co-written by Anthony Watts, an American meteorologist and climate change sceptic.

His study, which has not been peer reviewed, is illustrated with photographs of weather stations in locations where their readings are distorted by heat-generating equipment.

Some are next to air- conditioning units or are on waste treatment plants. One of the most infamous shows a weather station next to a waste incinerator.

Watts has also found examples overseas, such as the weather station at Rome airport, which catches the hot exhaust fumes emitted by taxiing jets.

In Britain, a weather station at Manchester airport was built when the surrounding land was mainly fields but is now surrounded by heat-generating buildings.

Terry Mills, professor of applied statistics and econometrics at Loughborough University, looked at the same data as the IPCC. He found that the warming trend it reported over the past 30 years or so was just as likely to be due to random fluctuations as to the impacts of greenhouse gases. Mills's findings are to be published in Climatic Change, an environmental journal.

"The earth has gone through warming spells like these at least twice before in the last 1,000 years," he said.

Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the chapter of the IPCC report that deals with the observed temperature changes, said he accepted there were problems with the global thermometer record but these had been accounted for in the final report.

�It's not just temperature rises that tell us the world is warming,� he said. �We also have physical changes like the fact that sea levels have risen around five inches since 1972, the Arctic icecap has declined by 40% and snow cover in the northern hemisphere has declined.�

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has recently issued a new set of global temperature readings covering the past 30 years, with thermometer readings augmented by satellite data.

Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said: �This new set of data confirms the trend towards rising global temperatures and suggest that, if anything, the world is warming even more quickly than we had thought.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026317.ece

Friday, January 29, 2010

Glacier Meltdown: Another Scientific Scandal Involving the IPCC Climate Research Group

F. William Engdahl

Only days after the failed Copenhagen Global Warming Summit, yet a new scandal over the scientific accuracy of the UN IPCC 2007 climate report has emerged. Following the major data-manipulation scandals from the UN-tied research center at Britain’s East Anglia University late 2009, the picture emerges of one of the most massive scientific frauds of recent history.

Senior members of the UN climate project, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been forced to admit a major error in the 2007 IPCC UN report that triggered the recent global campaign for urgent measures to reduce “manmade emissions” of CO2. The IPCC’s 2007 report stated, “glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world.” Given that this is the world’s highest mountain range and meltdown implies a massive flooding of India, China and the entire Asian region, it was a major scare “selling point” for the IPCC agenda. As well, the statement on the glacier melt in the 2007 IPCC report contains other serious errors such as the statement that “Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035." There are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas. And a table in the report says that between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840 meters. Then comes a math mistake: It says that's a rate of 135.2 meters a year, when it really is only 23.5 meters a year. Now scientists around the world are scouring the entire IPCC report for indications of similar lack of scientific rigor.

It emerges that the basis of the stark IPCC glacier meltdown statement of 2007 was not even a scientific study of melting data. Rather it was a reference to a newspaper article cited by a pro-global warming ecological advocacy group, WWF.

The original source of the IPCC statement, it turns out, appeared in a 1999 report in the British magazine, New Scientist that was cited in passing by WWF. The New Scientist author, Fred Pierce, wrote then, “The inclusion of this statement has angered many glaciologists, who regard it as unjustified. Vijay Raina, a leading Indian glaciologist, wrote in a paper published by the Indian Government in November that there is no sign of "abnormal" retreat in Himalayan glaciers. India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, accused the IPCC of being "alarmist." The IPCC's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, has hit back, denouncing the Indian government report as "voodoo science" lacking peer review. He adds that "we have a very clear idea of what is happening" in the Himalayas.” [1]

The same Pachauri, co-awardee of the Nobel Prize with Al Gore, has recently been under attack for huge conflicts of interest related to his business interests that profit from the CO2 global warming agenda he promotes.[2]

Pearce notes that the original claim made by Indian glaciologist Syed Hasnain, in a 1999 email interview with Pearce, namely that all the glaciers in the central and eastern Himalayas could disappear by 2035, never was repeated by Hasnain in any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and that Hasnain now says the remark was "speculative".

Despite the lack of scientific validation, the 10-year-old claim ended up in the IPCC fourth assessment report published in 2007. Moreover the claim was extrapolated to include all glaciers in the
Himalayas.

Since publication of the latest New Scientist article, the IPCC officially has been forced to issue the following statement: “the IPCC said the paragraph "refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers. In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly."


The IPCC adds, "The IPCC regrets the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance." But the statement calls for no action beyond stating a need for absolute adherence to IPCC quality control processes. "We reaffirm our strong commitment to ensuring this level of performance," the statement said.” [3]

In an indication of the defensiveness prevailing within the UN’s IPCC, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chair of the IPCC, insists that the mistake did nothing to undermine the large body of evidence that showed the climate was warming and that human activity was largely to blame. He told BBC News: "I don't see how one mistake in a 3,000-page report can damage the credibility of the overall report."

Some serious scientists disagree. Georg Kaser, an expert in glaciology with University of Innsbruck in Austria and a lead author for the IPCC, gave a damning different assessment of the implications of the latest scandal affecting the credibility of the IPCC. Kaser says he had warned that the 2035 prediction was clearly wrong in 2006, months before the IPCC report was published. "This [date] is not just a little bit wrong, but far out of any order of magnitude. All the responsible people are aware of this weakness in the fourth assessment. All are aware of the mistakes made. If it had not been the focus of so much public opinion, we would have said 'we will do better next time'. It is clear now that working group II has to be restructured." [4]

The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, has made no personal comment on the glacier claim. It appears he is as well shaken by the wave of recent scandals. He told a conference in Dubai on energy recently, "They can't attack the science so they attack the chairman. But they won't sink me. I am the unsinkable Molly Brown (sic). In fact, I will float much higher," he told the Guardian. His remarks suggest more the ‘spirit of Woodstock’ in 1969 than of what is supposed to be the world’s leading climate authority.

Notes

[1] Fred Pearce, Debate heats up over IPCC melting glaciers claim, 11 January 2010, accessed in http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18363-debate-heats-up-over-ipcc-melting-glaciers-claim.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news.

[2] F. William Engdahl, UN IPCC Climate Change chief in Conflict of Interest Scandal, December 27, 2009.

[3] Seth Borenstein, UN climate report riddled with errors on glaciers, AP, January 20, 2010.

[4] Ibid.


Friday, November 27, 2009

The Mosquito: Environmentalism’s Weapon of Mass Destruction


by Eric Englund

by Eric Engd

…when one swallows environmentalism, one inescapably swallows poison.

~ Dr. George Reisman

Environmentalists want you dead; and the sooner the better. Did that get your attention? I certainly hope so. For it is the environmental movement’s objective to radically reduce the human population. As mankind seeks to extend the division of labor, to further explore for and utilize natural resources, to develop new life-improving technologies, and to enhance our quality of life, environmentalists view humanity as nothing more than a voracious parasite raping, pillaging, and sucking the life out of Mother Earth. It is within this context – i.e. rescuing Mother Earth from the human parasite, via massive population reduction – that one comes to understand the environmental movement’s nihilistic push to permanently ban the use of DDT always and everywhere. Ultimately, banning DDT (a safe and cost-effective insecticide) is tantamount to cheering on the mosquitoes to kill as many people as possible with such diseases as malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, and West Nile virus.

Of the aforementioned diseases, malaria causes the most deaths and illnesses worldwide. According to Malaria Foundation International (MFI):

Malaria is responsible for about 500 million clinical cases of disease and about 2.7 million deaths a year, mostly those of children under five and pregnant women. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, malaria destroys 70% more years of life than do all cancers in all developed countries combined. It therefore follows that even a tiny loss in the efficiency of a national malaria control program, occasioned by the loss of DDT or otherwise, would result in a tremendous number of additional deaths from the disease. (emphasis in the original)

Yes, you read that correctly. That is 500 million acute illnesses per year resulting in as many as 2.7 million preventable deaths every year. More about these preventable deaths later (hint: the United States’ outright ban of DDT, in 1972, has had a hand in this large-scale death and misery).

Speaking of bans, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is pushing for a worldwide treaty aimed at permanently abolishing persistent organic pollutants (POPs) – of course greenies are fully backing this treaty. DDT, which is still manufactured and utilized in some parts of the globe, is on UNEP’s list of POPs. Organizations such as MFI, Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM), and the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) are concerned about this ban as no safe and cost-effective replacement has been found for DDT. These groups argue that millions more will die needlessly if the POPs treaty is ratified and enforced.

Members of the above-mentioned pro-DDT groups understand that environmentalists hold the moral high-ground on the emotional issue of DDT. Due to a massive disinformation effort, on the part of environmentalists (and parroted by the U.N.), most people mistakenly believe DDT is a highly carcinogenic/cancer-causing compound which is also devastating to wildlife. What members of MFI, AFM, ACSH and others have yet to come to grips with is that environmentalism’s most fundamental goal is to drastically reduce the human population. In other words, environmentalists want to permanently abolish DDT in order to bring about the deaths of as many people as possible. Hence, the pro-DDT groups’ pleas to save lives are falling upon deaf ears.

To remove any doubt that greenies want you dead, let these environmentalists/monsters speak for themselves:

  • Jacques-Yves Cousteau, environmentalist and documentary maker: "It’s terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized, and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn’t even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable."
  • John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal: "I suspect that eradicating smallpox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems."
  • Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University population biologist: "We’re at 6 billion people on the Earth, and that’s roughly three times what the planet should have. About 2 billion is optimal."
  • David Foreman, founder of Earth First!: "Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental."
  • David M. Graber, research biologist for the National Park Service: "It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil-energy consumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."
  • Alexander King, founder of the Malthusian Club of Rome: "My own doubts came when DDT was introduced. In Guyana, within two years, it had almost eliminated malaria. So my chief quarrel with DDT, in hindsight, is that it has greatly added to the population problem."
  • Merton Lambert, former spokesman for the Rockefeller Foundation: "The world has a cancer, and that cancer is man."
  • John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club: "Honorable representatives of the great saurians of older creation, may you long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be blessed now and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man by way of a dainty!"
  • Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the World Wildlife Fund: "If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
  • Maurice Strong, U.N. environmental leader: "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"
  • Ted Turner, CNN founder, UN supporter, and environmentalist: "A total population of 250–300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
  • Paul Watson, a founder of Greenpeace: "I got the impression that instead of going out to shoot birds, I should go out and shoot the kids who shoot birds."

Obviously, pleading with environmentalists to save lives (by not banning DDT) would be no different than imploring Hitler to save Jews. How can anyone rationally negotiate with members of a movement bent on eradicating human beings? Part of the answer is for DDT supporters to go on the offensive and expose the green nihilists for what they are – anti-human cowards advocating the deaths of billions. Only through exposing such evil intentions can the humane pro-DDT organizations reclaim the moral high-ground and work toward saving millions of innocents.

To be sure, it will take some work to re-educate people about the safety and efficacy of DDT. So here is a brief history.

In 1935, while working at J.R. Geigy A.G., Paul Hermann Muller undertook his research in the specialized field of synthetic contact insecticides. Dr. Muller’s objective was to synthesize an insecticide with the following seven characteristics:

  1. Great insect toxicity.
  2. Rapid onset of toxic action.
  3. Little or no mammalian or plant toxicity.
  4. No irritant effect and no or only a faint odor (in any case not an unpleasant one).
  5. The range of action should be as wide as possible, and cover as many arthropoda as possible.
  6. Long, persistent action, i.e. good chemical stability.
  7. Low price (= economic application).

After four years of creative and intensive work, Dr. Muller synthesized DDT (this compound was originally made in 1873, but never received any particular attention). In his research, Paul Muller found that DDT met all of the above-listed criteria except for "rapid onset of toxic action." Field trials demonstrated that DDT was effective against a wide variety of pests including the Colorado beetle, common housefly, louse, and mosquito. In 1940, a Swiss patent was granted for DDT.

During the short time DDT had seen commercial use, the safety and efficacy of this insecticide had become apparent on an international scale. In 1948, Dr. Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Professor G. Fischer, of the Royal Caroline Institute, stated the following in his Nobel presentation speech:

Dr. Paul Muller, I have tried to give a brief survey of the historical development of DDT. Your discovery of the strong contact insecticidal action of dichloro-diphenyl-trichloromethylmethane is of the greatest importance in the field of medicine. Thanks to you, preventive medicine is now able to fight many diseases carried by insects on a way totally different from that employed heretofore. Your discovery furthermore has, throughout the world, stimulated successful research into newer insecticides.

Estimates, pertaining to how many lives DDT has saved, range up to 500,000,000 – truly, one of the most important compounds ever synthesized by mankind.

So how did, in 1972, such a life-saving insecticide become banned in the United States; thus, severely impacting malaria eradication on a global scale? In 1962, Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring. Much the way environmentalists are currently using psychological terror tactics to frighten people into believing in global warming, Rachel Carson’s book smeared DDT by outright lying and putting forth wild hypotheses of doom and gloom. Renowned entomologist, Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, painstakingly dismantled Rachel Carson’s reckless book in his article The Lies of Rachel Carson. Nonetheless, media-generated hysteria fueled by junk science and Rachel Carson’s lies, provided the political cover needed for EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus to ban DDT in the United States. Mr. Ruckelshaus, not surprisingly, had close ties to the Environmental Defense Fund.

William Ruckelshaus and Rachel Carson, unequivocally, are responsible for tens of millions of deaths. For, once again, they created an international backlash against DDT making it difficult for third-world countries to eradicate malaria-carrying mosquitoes – as many third-world leaders caved into the political pressures emanating from the U.S., Europe, and the United Nations. To death-mongering environmentalists, Ruckelshaus and Carson are heroes. To decent caring people, these two vile characters bring to mind such evil fiends as Mao, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler (keep in mind that Nazism was a green movement as well).

There are countries, thankfully, which have refused to cave in to the anti-DDT dictates of the United Nations, environmental groups, and politically-correct governments. Countries such as Ecuador, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Thailand, and Uganda continue to successfully battle malaria through the use of DDT. In fact, the inside of a house can be safely sprayed with DDT at an annual cost of about $1.44. The occupants experience no ill health effects while mosquitoes either avoid the house or die after coming in contact with a treated surface. Conversely, just look at the deadly results of those countries that no longer allow the use of DDT.

At this point, let there be no question that environmentalists are your enemy. Much the way Bolsheviks labeled kulaks as vermin, lice, and parasites, John Davis – the aforementioned editor of Earth First! Journal – has stated the following: "Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs." This is biocentrism and is a fundamental underpinning of environmentalism – i.e. a man, is a dog, is a rat, is a mosquito, is a slug. Hence, using biocentric "logic," mosquitoes are soldiers in the environmental movement’s army air corps. The mission, for these mosquitoes, is to collectively become a weapon of mass destruction and kill as many humans as possible. Make no mistake, environmentalists are fighting to permanently ban DDT so that their mosquito-soldiers aren’t prevented from spreading crippling and deadly diseases in order to reduce the human population. There is no other explanation as to why such a lifesaving, and safe, insecticide remains in the crosshairs of the greenies. We need to save DDT and, in turn, eradicate the green army air corps.

August 22, 2005

Eric Englund [send him mail], who has an MBA from Boise State University, lives in the state of Oregon. He is the publisher of The Hyperinflation Survival Guide by Dr. Gerald Swanson. You are invited to visit his website.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/englund/englund28.html

Thursday, November 26, 2009

The deceit behind global warming

No one can deny that in recent years the need to "save the planet" from global warming has become one of the most pervasive issues of our time. As Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, claimed in 2004, it poses "a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism", warning that by the end of this century the only habitable continent left will be Antarctica.

Inevitably, many people have been bemused by this somewhat one-sided debate, imagining that if so many experts are agreed, then there must be something in it. But if we set the story of how this fear was promoted in the context of other scares before it, the parallels which emerge might leave any honest believer in global warming feeling uncomfortable.

The story of how the panic over climate change was pushed to the top of the international agenda falls into five main stages. Stage one came in the 1970s when many scientists expressed alarm over what they saw as a disastrous change in the earth's climate. Their fear was not of warming but global cooling, of "a new Ice Age".

For three decades, after a sharp rise in the interwar years up to 1940, global temperatures had been falling. The one thing certain about climate is that it is always changing. Since we began to emerge from the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago, temperatures have been through significant swings several times. The hottest period occurred around 8,000 years ago and was followed by a long cooling. Then came what is known as the "Roman Warming", coinciding with the Roman empire. Three centuries of cooling in the Dark Ages were followed by the "Mediaeval Warming", when the evidence agrees the world was hotter than today.

Around 1300 began "the Little Ice Age", that did not end until 200 years ago, when we entered what is known as the "Modern Warming". But even this has been chequered by colder periods, such as the "Little Cooling" between 1940 and 1975. Then, in the late 1970s, the world began warming again.

A scare is often set off - as we show in our book with other examples - when two things are observed together and scientists suggest one must have been caused by the other. In this case, thanks to readings commissioned by Dr Roger Revelle, a distinguished American oceanographer, it was observed that since the late 1950s levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere had been rising. Perhaps it was this increase that was causing the new warming in the 1980s?

Stage two of the story began in 1988 when, with remarkable speed, the global warming story was elevated into a ruling orthodoxy, partly due to hearings in Washington chaired by a youngish senator, Al Gore, who had studied under Dr Revelle in the 1960s.

But more importantly global warming hit centre stage because in 1988 the UN set up its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC). Through a series of reports, the IPCC was to advance its cause in a rather unusual fashion. First it would commission as many as 1,500 experts to produce a huge scientific report, which might include all sorts of doubts and reservations. But this was to be prefaced by a Summary for Policymakers, drafted in consultation with governments and officials - essentially a political document - in which most of the caveats contained in the experts' report would not appear.

This contradiction was obvious in the first report in 1991, which led to the Rio conference on climate change in 1992. The second report in 1996 gave particular prominence to a study by an obscure US government scientist claiming that the evidence for a connection between global warming and rising CO2 levels was now firmly established. This study came under heavy fire from various leading climate experts for the way it manipulated the evidence. But this was not allowed to stand in the way of the claim that there was now complete scientific consensus behind the CO2 thesis, and the Summary for Policy-makers, heavily influenced from behind the scenes by Al Gore, by this time US Vice-President, paved the way in 1997 for the famous Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto initiated stage three of the story, by formally committing governments to drastic reductions in their CO2 emissions. But the treaty still had to be ratified and this seemed a good way off, not least thanks to its rejection in 1997 by the US Senate, despite the best attempts of Mr Gore.

Not the least of his efforts was his bid to suppress an article co-authored by Dr Revelle just before his death. Gore didn't want it to be known that his guru had urged that the global warming thesis should be viewed with more caution.

One of the greatest problems Gore and his allies faced at this time was the mass of evidence showing that in the past, global temperatures had been higher than in the late 20th century.

In 1998 came the answer they were looking for: a new temperature chart, devised by a young American physicist, Michael Mann. This became known as the "hockey stick" because it showed historic temperatures running in an almost flat line over the past 1,000 years, then suddenly flicking up at the end to record levels.

Mann's hockey stick was just what the IPCC wanted. When its 2001 report came out it was given pride of place at the top of page 1. The Mediaeval Warming, the Little Ice Age, the 20th century Little Cooling, when CO2 had already been rising, all had been wiped away.

But then a growing number of academics began to raise doubts about Mann and his graph. This culminated in 2003 with a devastating study by two Canadians showing how Mann had not only ignored most of the evidence before him but had used an algorithm that would produce a hockey stick graph whatever evidence was fed into the computer. When this was removed, the graph re-emerged just as it had looked before, showing the Middle Ages as hotter than today.

It is hard to recall any scientific thesis ever being so comprehensively discredited as the "hockey stick". Yet the global warming juggernaut rolled on regardless, now led by the European Union. In 2004, thanks to a highly dubious deal between the EU and Putin's Russia, stage four of the story began when the Kyoto treaty was finally ratified.

In the past three years, we have seen the EU announcing every kind of measure geared to fighting climate change, from building ever more highly-subsidised wind turbines, to a commitment that by 2050 it will have reduced carbon emissions by 60 per cent. This is a pledge that could only be met by such a massive reduction in living standards that it is impossible to see the peoples of Europe accepting it.

All this frenzy has rested on the assumption that global temperatures will continue to rise in tandem with CO2 and that, unless mankind takes drastic action, our planet is faced with the apocalypse so vividly described by Al Gore in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth.

Yet recently, stage five of the story has seen all sorts of question marks being raised over Gore's alleged consensus. For instance, he claimed that by the end of this century world sea levels will have risen by 20 ft when even the IPCC in its latest report, only predicts a rise of between four and 17 inches.There is also of course the harsh reality that, wholly unaffected by Kyoto, the economies of China and India are now expanding at nearly 10 per cent a year, with China likely to be emitting more CO2 than the US within two years.

More serious, however, has been all the evidence accumulating to show that, despite the continuing rise in CO2 levels, global temperatures in the years since 1998 have no longer been rising and may soon even be falling.

It was a telling moment when, in August, Gore's closest scientific ally, James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was forced to revise his influential record of US surface temperatures showing that the past decade has seen the hottest years on record. His graph now concedes that the hottest year of the 20th century was not 1998 but 1934, and that four of the 10 warmest years in the past 100 were in the 1930s.

Furthermore, scientists and academics have recently been queuing up to point out that fluctuations in global temperatures correlate more consistently with patterns of radiation from the sun than with any rise in CO2 levels, and that after a century of high solar activity, the sun's effect is now weakening, presaging a likely drop in temperatures.

If global warming does turn out to have been a scare like all the others, it will certainly represent as great a collective flight from reality as history has ever recorded. The evidence of the next 10 years will be very interesting.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Climategate: how the MSM reported the greatest scandal in modern science

Here’s what the Times has had to say on the subject:

E-mails allegedly written by some of the world’s leading climate scientists have been stolen by hackers and published on websites run by climate change sceptics.

The sceptics claim that the e-mails are evidence that scientists manipulated data in order to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming.

(Yep – definitely an improvement on their earlier, non-existent coverage; but not exactly pointing up the scandalousness of this scandal).

And the Independent:

(Yep. Nada).

And here’s how The New York Times (aka Pravda) reported it:

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

(Yep. That’s right. It has only apparently caused a stir among ’skeptics’. Everyone else can rest easy. Nothing to see here.)

And here’s how the Guardian has reported it:

Hundreds of private emails and documents allegedly exchanged between some of the world’s leading climate scientists during the past 13 years have been stolen by hackers and leaked online, it emerged today.

The computer files were apparently accessed earlier this week from servers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, a world-renowned centre focused on the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change.

(Oh. I get it. It’s just a routine data-theft story, not a scandal. And a chance to remind us of the CRU’s integrity and respectability. And – see below – to get in a snarky, ‘let’s have a dig at the deniers’ quote from Greenpeace).

A spokesman for Greenpeace said: “If you looked through any organisation’s emails from the last 10 years you’d find something that would raise a few eyebrows. Contrary to what the sceptics claim, the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, Nasa and the world’s leading atmospheric scientists are not the agents of a clandestine global movement against the truth. This stuff might drive some web traffic, but so does David Icke.”

Here’s the Washington Post:

Hackers broke into the electronic files of one of the world’s foremost climate research centers this week and posted an array of e-mails in which prominent scientists engaged in a blunt discussion of global warming research and disparaged climate-change skeptics.

The skeptics have seized upon e-mails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Britain as evidence that scientific data have been rigged to make it appear as if humans are causing global warming. The researchers, however, say the e-mails have been taken out of context and merely reflect an honest exchange of ideas.

(Ah, so what the story is really about is ’skeptics’ causing trouble. Note how as high as the second par the researchers are allowed by the reporter to get in their insta-rebuttal, lest we get the impression that the scandal in any way reflects badly on them).

Here is the BBC:

E-mails reportedly from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), including personal exchanges, appeared on the internet on Thursday.

A university spokesman confirmed the email system had been hacked and that information was taken and published without permission.

An investigation was underway and the police had been informed, he added.

(Ah yes, another routine data-theft story so dully reported – “the police had been informed, he added” – that you can’t even be bothered to reach the end to find out what information was stolen).

Meanwhile, the Climategate scandal (and I do apologise for calling it that, but that’s how the internet works: you need obvious, instantly memorable, event-specific search terms) continues to set the Blogosphere ablaze.

For links to all the latest updates on this, I recommend Marc Morano’s invaluable Climate Depot site.

And if you want to read those potentially incriminating emails in full, go to An Elegant Chaos org where they have all been posted in searchable form.

Like the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal, this is the gift that goes on giving. It won’t, unfortunately, derail Copenhagen (too many vested interests involved) or cause any of our many political parties to start talking sense on “Climate change”. But what it does demonstrate is the growing level of public scepticism towards Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. That’s why, for example, this story is the single most read item on today’s Telegraph website.

What it also demonstrates – as my dear chum Dan Hannan so frequently and rightly argues – is the growing power of the Blogosphere and the decreasing relevance of the Mainstream Media (MSM).

This is not altogether the MSM’s fault. Partly it is just the way of things that more and more readers prefer their news and opinion served up in snappier, less reverent, more digestible and instant for.

But in the case of “Climate Change”, the MSM has been caught with its trousers down. The reason it has been so ill-equipped to report on this scandal is because almost all of its Environmental Correspondents and Environmental Editors are parti pris members of the Climate-Fear Promotion lobby. Most of their contacts (and information sources) work for biased lobby groups like Greenpeace and the WWF, or conspicuously pro-AGW government departments and Quangos such as the Carbon Trust. How can they bring themselves to report on skullduggery at Hadley Centre when the scientists involved are the very ones whose work they have done most to champion and whose pro-AGW views they share?

As Upton Sinclair once said:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.”

So don’t expect this scandal to be written up in the MSM any time soon. But why would you want to anyway? It’s all here, where the free spirits and independent thinkers are, on the Blogosphere.

UPDATE: I particularly recommend Bishop Hill’s superb summary of some of the key points of the CRU correspondence.

Also, Andrew Bolt’s summary of the correspondence likely to be most damaging to the reputation – and career, we can but pray – of Professor Phil Jones, the head of the CRU.

And do check out Watts Up With That, whose traffic went through the roof yesterday, enabling to demonstrate scientifically that Hockey Stick is after all a genuine phenomenon – and not merely a figment of Michael Mann’s overactive imagination.