Reports of Greenland Ice Sheet's demise premature

Another scientific article that won't find its way into the mainstream media. Whenever a journal reports something catastrophic, the MSM can't wait to print it, but unfortunately, that's jornalism. Disasters sell. "Business as usual" doesn't sell.

Last week's Science included an article "Galloping Glaciers of Greenland Have Reined Themselves In" which demonstrates that the demise of the Greenland Ice Sheet has slowed considerably and that Al Gore's hyperbole about a "tipping point" has been shown to be completely wrong.

The report's author, Richard Kerr, puts it like this:

So much for Greenland ice’s Armageddon. “It has come to an end,” glaciologist Tavi Murray of Swansea University in the United Kingdom said during a session at the meeting. “There seems to have been a synchronous switch-off” of the speed-up, she said. Nearly everywhere around southeast Greenland, outlet glacier flows have returned to the levels of 2000. An increasingly warmer climate will no doubt eat away at the Greenland ice sheet for centuries, glaciologists say, but no one should be extrapolating the ice’s recent wild behavior into the future.

Read it here.

The Daily Bayonet - GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

As usual, a great read.

Two major blows to alarmists

I wouldn't hold your breath to see either of these items reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Canberra Times etc., so I thought you would benefit from seeing them here (both courtesy of Watts Up With That):

1. James Hansen's former NASA Supervisor declares himself a skeptic

“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” [Dr John S] Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.

“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote.

[Note: NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! - See: Don't Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom - Get the Facts on James Hansen - UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men' - June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for 'high crimes against humanity' for spreading doubt about man-made global warming - June 23, 2008 ]

2. Forecasting Guru Announces: "no scientific basis for forecasting climate"

Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lacks a scientific basis.

Read them both - in full...

It had to happen!

As sure as night follows day. Penny Wong has linked the heatwave in south-east Australia to "climate change":

"Eleven of the hottest years in history have been in the last 12 [utter horse-shit, Penny - records only go back to 1850 - Ed], and we also note, particularly in the southern part of Australia, we're seeing less rainfall," she said. [Yeah, it's called a drought, and we've had plenty before - Ed]

"All of this is consistent with climate change, and all of this is consistent with what scientists told us would happen."

Excuse me Penny, what about the records for cold being broken all over the northern hemisphere and the decline in global temperatures since 2001? Are they "consistent with" global cooling? Strangely not in Penny's deluded world.

Clueless on climate.

Read it here.

New planet has extreme global warming

WA Today has an article about a distant planet (exoplanet HD 80606b) where the temperature varies from 525 deg C to about 1225 deg C. The article is accompanied by some images of the planet, and if you zoom in as far as you can go, you can just see millions of alien SUVs all pumping out CO2.

Read it here.

Gore muscles in on Obama

As we knew he surely would, urging Obama to urgently cap US emissions.

"How can we afford not to do this?" the Nobel Laureate and Oscar winner, who jokingly called himself "a recovering politician", told the panel, calling for quick action to cap US emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

"In order to repower our economy, restore American economic and moral leadership in the world and regain control of our destiny, we must take bold action now," Mr Gore told the packed committee room. [There's a surprise - Ed]

With the lights dimmed, Mr Gore made a dramatic keynote presentation of 57 slides, highlighting shrinking polar ice caps, melting glaciers, grim droughts, devastating deforestation, and apocalyptic future costs of inaction.

He's probably still showing the same misleading slides from the thoroughly debunked An Inconvenient Truth - and the new president will no doubt swallow it whole. I wonder if it included the "polar bear desperately swimming for land" animation (note it had to be an animation, because they couldn't find any genuine footage...).

How about actually debating the issues in AIT, Mr Gore, instead of continuing to spread lies and deception?

Read it here.

Loony alarmism from Brisbane Times

Not surprising, given the writer is David Spratt, author of the über-alarmist publication "Climate Code Red" (with an accompanying website here), but as always, the Fairfax press will just parrot all of it without any thought.

And the target for CO2 is going down and down. Yesterday 450 ppm seemed to be the "required" level, now it's down to 280 - 320 ppm - a level at which Western economies would cease to operate. But who cares about that when we're saving the planet!!

Serious climate-change impacts are already happening, both more rapidly and at lower global temperature increases than projected. We have passed the tipping point for complete loss of the Arctic's sea-ice in summer.

"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coalmine for climate warming, and now, as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died," says Dr Jay Zwally, a NASA glaciologist.

The Arctic sea-ice is the first domino and it is falling fast. Other dominoes, including catastrophic levels of carbon release from warming permafrost in Siberia, are likely to fall unless we stop emitting greenhouse gases and cool the planet to get the Arctic sea-ice back.

Yawn.

Read it here.

Global warming irreversible for 1000 years

Climate change is "largely irreversible" for the next 1,000 years even if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abruptly halted, according to a new study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The study's authors said there was "no going back" after the report showed that changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level are "largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after CO2 emissions are completely stopped."

So:

• Why does this come as a surprise to anyone? The science is "settled" right?
  
• Why are we wasting trillions of taxpayer dollars on "tackling climate change"?

Read it here.

The Gore Effect at work

Thanks to Theo Spark

ACM quoted on "Junk Science"

ACM was delighted to have its piece "If Michael Mann had been a corporate accountant ... he would have been in jail by now" featured on the excellent "Junk Science" web site on 26 January (see here for the archive).

If you haven't checked it out already, JS is essential reading - highly recommended.

Fairfax - the eco-fundamentalists' media organisation

Fairfax has gone from being a reasonable, if slightly Left-wing, media organisation to resembling something more like "Green Left Weekly", if this editorial in the Canberra Times is anything to go by. Another "D" Word Alert (they just can't help themselves...):

Under the leadership of John Howard, the Liberal and National parties were mostly staunch, even proud, climate-change deniers, happy to ignore the increasingly urgent warnings by the International Panel on Climate Change [shurely "Intergovernmental"? - Ed] and sit on their hands while governments elsewhere in the OECD (with the notable exception of the US) began to take active steps to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Coalition's excuses (that the link between global warming and human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide had not been satisfactorily established, that Australia's share of greenhouse gas emissions was small in any event and that efforts to rein in these emissions were pointless unless all large polluters, including those in the developing world, agreed to undertake remedial action) perfectly matched its conservative ideology and its fear that action would cost jobs. But this stance became increasingly untenable towards the latter part of its term in office.

All copper-bottomed Gore-bull. Those aren't "excuses", but well-founded reasons for caution, which Rudd & Co dismiss out of hand ("Hey, the science is settled, right?"). In fact, such a position has become far less untenable, with the almost daily growing evidence that climate change is a natural, cyclical phenomenon, that CO2 has little to do with it, and that emissions trading schemes are pointless political gestures which will set Western economies back decades whilst at the same time achieving nothing.

And the editorial writers are clearly so up to speed with climate change issues that they cannot even get the name of the IPCC correct!

"The alarmists are the new deniers." © ACM

Read it here.

More of your money thrown at "climate change"

Another $10 million of Australian taxpayer dollars that could be far better spent on schools and hospitals is heading down the gurgler in pointless research into the "enormous health risks" of changing weather patterns, reports The Canberra Times:

Senator [Penny] Wong said Australians faced a range of risks, including higher rates of infectious diseases, an increase in bushfire-related injuries, and more heat-related death and illness. ''By 2020, the number of heat-related deaths in our capital cities is projected to double to 2300 a year, we are likely to see more food-safety related illness and dengue fever is likely to spread southwards,'' she said.

''We need to better understand the diversity of these health risks, who will be most vulnerable, and the action governments, individuals and communities can take to reduce the risks.''

Read it here.

Climate madness from Obama

Just six days into his presidency, "Barry" is already making bizarre decisions based on flakey science and a complete misunderstanding of the issues of "climate change". And just for luck, there's another "D" Word Alert. As reported in The Age today:

"We will make it clear to the world that America is ready to lead," Obama said, in an apparent swipe at former president George W. Bush's reluctance to take control of international efforts to combat climate change.

"To protect our climate and our collective security, we must call together a truly global coalition," the president said, just six days after his inauguration, in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

Obama signed memoranda designed to prod the struggling US auto industry to design new fuel-efficient vehicles to lessen US dependence on energy sources which he said bankroll dictators, and to spur the US economy.

"The days of Washington dragging its heels are over," Obama said.

"My administration will not deny facts -- we will be guided by them," Obama said, in an apparent dig at Bush aides accused of subverting science for ideological reasons.

So will Obama not "deny" the fact that the earth is cooling, despite increasing CO2 emissions? Or "deny" the fact that the debate isn't over? Or "deny" the fact that climate models cannot accurately predict the future?

The logic of this announcement is crazy - the US government is already spending billions of taxpayer dollars propping up the struggling car manufacturers in the US, and yet in the name of "climate change", Obama kicks them again hard while they're down...

It's a taste of what's to come.

Read it here.

Global warming to create "ocean dead zones"

So reports the Sydney Morning Herald:

Global warming may create "dead zones" in the ocean that would be devoid of fish and seafood and endure for up to two millennia, according to a study published on Sunday.

Its authors say deep cuts in the world's carbon emissions are needed to brake a trend capable of wrecking the marine ecosystem and depriving future generations of the harvest of the seas. [No surprise there - Ed]
...
"Even if after a hundred years, if you stopped all carbon emissions, the ocean would still need hundreds of more years to cool. These low-oxygen areas would continue to expand and they would peak around 2,000 years from now. The ocean would then slowly recover as it cools."
...
Lead scientist Gary Shaffer of the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen said it was unclear, in the grim light of this study, whether future generations could look to the oceans as a major reserve of food.

The Herald then takes the opportunity to recycle all the usual tired old global warming BS, just in case you'd forgotten it since the last time they recycled it all (probably about a week ago...)

Even ignoring the fact that the earth is entering a cooling phase, where are the all the "dead zones" from previous warmings, such as the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods that should still be hanging around? Why haven't they been identified? Maybe it's because the whole study is based on yet another incomplete and inaccurate "computer model", which professes to simulate climate change over the next 100,000 years...

Read it here.

If Michael Mann had been a corporate accountant . . .

... he would have been in jail by now.

MBH99 [the "hockey stick" paper] is like a bad audit finding. When you find that Bear Stearns or Enron or Citicorp or whoever has fabricated some nonexistent asset on its books, you don't give it a slap on the wrist and tell it to cross the line out. You unleash the forensic guys. You don't find just one cockroach in a kitchen. And you don't tell the health inspector, "sorry, we'll kill it."

MBH99 is not an ancient, irrelevant result. It is the single most publicized piece of research in the history of IPCC climatology. It singlehandedly put Mann in Scientific American's list of America's 100 top young scientists. And it really is not a stretch to compare it to an ape jaw glued to a human skull. The thing reeks. It is data laundering of the worst kind.

The Case for Global Warming Skepticism

Also check out Mencius Moldbug's blog.

Turnbull - more of a Greenie than Rudd

Malcolm Turnbull is set to try to trump the Government's "carbon pollution reduction scheme" by introducing a policy of alternative energy, forestry and carbon sequestration, The Australian reports.

Mr Turnbull's first major policy announcement since he ousted Brendan Nelson from the Liberal Party leadership in September will come in a speech today to a Young Liberals convention in Canberra.

"The Rudd Government, in its haste to implement its poorly designed ETS, has neglected all alternative paths to a low-carbon economy," says a copy of Mr Turnbull's speech.

"We need imagination, we need passion, we need courage and, above all, we need real leadership.

"We cannot afford to blunder on with Mr Rudd's miserable, bureaucratic approach."

Mr Turnbull's plans, for which he will not provide costings, represent a clear attempt to counter Labor attacks on the Coalition's refusal to commit its support to the planned ETS, which has dominated Mr Rudd's agenda for the past year.

Apart from the fact that many of the technologies the policy requires are unproven (and uncosted), Malcolm Turnbull and the Opposition are heading off in completely the wrong direction. Instead of standing firm against the ETS and the IPCC non-science that is behind it, they are attempting to outflank Krudd & Co by adopting even more Greenie policies than the Government, and in the process shifting themselves dangerously to the Left.

As predicted, Turnbull and the Opposition are so cowed by the possibility of Rudd calling them "climate change deniers" that they have sold out their principles to the environmentalist cause.

Contrast this nonsense with the words of Tony Abbott, also in The Australian, where he rightly says:

the party should resist the urge to take populist stances on issues, instead of fighting for what is right.

How ironic - the Opposition policy on climate change outlined above has nothing to do with what is right, and everything to do with populism.

Mr Abbott says those who see unions as "just another sectional interest" and who "heed climate change science rather than green religion" are more important than ever since the defeat of the Howard government.

This is a very disappointing day for climate change policy in Australia. We are now in a position where only one (small) party, the Nationals, has the guts to oppose Rudd's pointless ETS (and despite Turnbull officially reserving his position on it, we know full well he won't oppose it outright).

Read it here and here.

WUWT - Antarctic story was media exercise

From Antony Watts, regarding the Antarctica warming story:

There were some of the pronouncements made in the media, particularly to the Associated Press by Dr. Michael Mann, that marry that paper with “global warming”, even though no such claim was made in the press release about the scientific paper itself.

I agree with Ross Hays [meteorologist who has worked extensively in Antarctica]. In my opinion, this press release and subsequent media interviews were done for media attention. The timing is suspicious, with the upcoming Al Gore’s address to congress, he can now say: “We’ve now learned Antarctica is warming”. A Google News search shows about 530 articles on the UW press release in various media.

If this is true, it is a cheap trick from a bunch of "scientists" with no integrity.

Read his full analysis here.

UPDATED: ABC censors William Kininmonth from transcript/podcast

Thanks to Jennifer Marohasy.

In a piece on ABC radio's AM programme yesterday on the Antarctic warming story (see here), the paper's author, Eric Steig, was interviewed, followed by our old friend and über-alarmist, Barry Brook. Then they interviewed William Kininmonth, who pointed out that there was no evidence of reduction in the cycle of Antarctic sea ice and that it was only around the coastal margins that temperatures exceeded zero degrees celsius during daytime for about one month of the year - the West Antarctic ice sheet has been in place for millions of years and likely to remain so.

However, this part of the interview has been censored from the online transcript and the podcasts (both of the segment itself and the whole programme). This kind of censorship of sceptical views, if it took place, is unacceptable, and in breach of the ABC's charter.

UPDATE: The ABC have belatedly posted the audio of the interview with William Kininmonth on the AM website (with no transcript) and citing the lame excuse that it was only in the Radio National version and wasn't included in the main programme "for space reasons" - how very convenient. As Jennifer says in her comment: "Not good enough."

A few laughs for a Friday afternoon...

Enjoy! Just to give you a taste of what to expect, Tim's avatar consists of a picture of the great man in front of a Photoshopped image of waves crashing into a suburban house à la Day After Tomorrow...

Tim Webster on 2UE

Actually, a moat round my house would be rather quaint - like an old English castle...

The Daily Bayonet - GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

Back after a break, during which the Roundup was issued by Skeptics Global Warming, here is the Daily Bayonet's Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round Up. Enjoy!

UPDATED: Another Antarctic scare story

This time from AAP, as reported in The Australian.

ANTARCTICA is melting - and that spells big trouble for Australia. Scientists used to think Antarctica was bucking the trend on global warming by getting cooler. Now it seems they got it wrong.

US researchers have pored over data from satellites and weather stations in the biggest ever study of the frozen continent's climate - and found it's warming after all. Scientists now estimate the melting of Antarctica's massive ice sheets will cause the world's sea levels to rise by one to two metres by the end of the century.

They then wheel out Prof Barry Brook (a favourite of these pages...):

"That's bad news if you live near the Australian coast," Prof Brook said. [Gee, really? - Ed]

"In some areas where you've currently got housing, you'd probably have to abandon those areas."

He said the sea would penetrate up to 1km inland in flat areas like South Australia's lower lakes. Large areas which don't see flooding now would get flooded by king tides. House prices for coastal areas would probably drop, Prof Brook said.

But, as usual, there is more to the story than meets the eye. It appears that the researchers used a "statistical technique" using both surface station data and satellite data to make a "new estimate" of temperature trends. How convenient (the quote "Lies, damned lies and statistics" springs to mind...).

The scientists found temperature measurements from weather stations corresponded closely with satellite data for overlapping time periods. That allowed them to use the satellite data as a guide to deduce temperatures in areas of the continent without weather stations. (source)

"Deducing" temperatures? Sounds like flakey modelling to me. And let's just look at some of the authors of the study:

• Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann
• Scott "Hockey Stick" Rutherford
  
• Drew Shindell from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (ie. James Hansen)

And as a final irony, it claims that the successful reduction of the ozone hole over the Antarctic (another Greenie cause célèbre) will cause further warming. You just can't win, can you?

As Climate Research News so brilliantly puts it:

But wait! There is more fun to be had here - Real Climate, which includes Michael Mann, have previously said, “A cold Antarctica and Southern Ocean do not contradict our models of global warming.” You just can’t lose when playing the ‘consistent with climate models’ game can you!? Presumably, the findings of this new paper don’t contradict climate models either.

Read it here.

UPDATES:

• Watts Up With That cites volcanic activity as the most likely cause of any warming; and
• Marc Morano deconstructs the whole thing very nicely over at the Inhofe EPW Press Blog
• Climate Audit is on the case as well here
• The Age goes into full "told-you-so" mode as it labels the report "Clear Evidence Emerges of Antarctic Warming" - not so fast...
  

Krudd & Co - Carry On Regardless

As the economy slows dramatically, and thousands of jobs are lost across all industry sectors, it is lamentable to see that Rudd has his blinkered eyes fixed firmly on forcing through his crazy emissions trading scheme at all costs.

Mr Rudd says the Government will not ignore the problems caused by climate change while it deals with the global financial crisis.

"These are both real challenges responsible Governments can't afford to walk away from either, you have actually got to rise to the challenge, with both I believe we have got the balance right," he said.

There's only one real challenge, I'm afraid, and you're making it worse. Pure climate madness.

Read it here.

Wong defends GG's comments on climate change

Well there's a surprise.

Governor-General Quentin Bryce had every right to enter the climate change debate, despite her role typically calling for a more apolitical approach, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says (source).

OK then. Here's a little poser for you... what do you think Penny Wong would have said if the GG had come out as an AGW sceptic? Can you imagine Penny saying that the GG has every right to participate in the debate? It would be outrage on all sides, "shouldn't meddle in politics", not her place, inappropriate for representative of the Queen to get involved, harumph harumph...

As usual, double standards rule in the climate change debate.

Deluded GG urges "climate action"

OK, now I am sure that Quentin Bryce has lost the plot completely. Someone needs to sit her down, with a cup of milky tea, and explain just exactly what the role of Governor General is, because she clearly hasn't a clue. It is certainly not to act as a shill for the climate change lobby and the Rudd government. Here are the words of former Governor General Michael Jeffery, which Bryce could do well to remember:

“One always tries to throw in ideas or suggestions without treading on any political toes because as a Governor-General you simply can’t do that,” he says. “It’s not your role to become controversial, to be agin the government or agin the opposition for that matter.” His job, he says, is “to help the machinery of government”, in the broadest sense. (Source)

Not Quentin Bryce, however, who blunders in, feet first, to one of the most political issues of our time, that of "climate change", and reveals herself to be an out and out alarmist at a renewable energy conference:

"We all have the responsibility - to each other and to our children for generations to come - to prevent the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change," Ms Bryce said.

"We must act swiftly, act smartly, and act together."
...
Ms Bryce said climate change was partly to blame for Australia's crippling drought. [No it isn't, there were far worse droughts before "climate change" was fashionable - Ed]

She talked up her country's efforts to tackle climate change.

"Australia will play its full part in the global effort to make sure we seize that opportunity."

All wrong in so many ways, but as GG, her words get reported and people take notice. Her role, like that of the Queen is primarily ceremonial and for her to get so involved in a deeply political issue is inappropriate in the extreme.

Read it here.

(h/t WipeOut)

Obama in Wonderland

As reported in The Australian:

"With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the spectre of a warming planet," [Obama] said today in his inaugural address, vowing to pioneer a green revolution in renewable energy.

"We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost," Mr Obama said.

"We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do."

Sorry in advance for not buying into the whole Obama thing, but WTF? This is all just hot air. "Roll back the spectre of a warming planet"? Playing God already? Has your science adviser not told you that the planet has been warming and cooling for 4.5 billion years? Wait, it's John Holdren, he wouldn't have.

And "restore science to its rightful place"? What, you mean, uncorrupted by politics and self-interest, as it currently is thanks to AGW alarmists like Gore and Hansen? That would be a good thing.

And as for solar and wind power, dream on, and watch your economy die.

Empty words from an empty suit.

Read it here.

AGW flaws - a cut-out-and-keep guide

Here at ACM, one tends to get bogged down wading through heaps of RSS feeds, overwhelmed with yet more dire alarmist stories in our media, grovelling around in the minutiae, and sometimes it's helpful just to remind oneself of the big picture: the fundamental flaws in the AGW alarmists' arguments.

Jeff Id, over at The Air Vent, has a great article based on a post in a thread at Watts Up With That, which brilliantly summarises the gaping holes in the alarmists' case. Here's a quick extract:

Based on this flakey data, folks build castles in the sky. They do this with computer models. (I’m a ‘computer guy’ by trade and managed a Cray supercomputer site that did modeling for plastic flow so this one galls me.) The models are ‘not very good’ to put it charitably. The don’t match reality. Their predictions are regularly shown to be bogus. When you do get a little look at how they work, it is not convincing. They leave out major, perhaps even dominant, features of climate. (Cloud formation of all sorts, cosmic rays that lead to cloud formation, variation in the sun, many most or all of the various ocean oscillations and heat transfer anomalies ENSO, AMO, etc.) Oh, and we have a specific admission by at least one of the modelers that they deliberately made the model run fast for more dramatic effect. That 50 year doom? Even their model would say it’s 150 years away if not run on ‘juice’. We have public quotes from ’scientists’ in the field saying they need to punch up the results to create stronger public responses…

Great stuff. Read it all here.

OT: Obama worship reaches crazy new heights

I hope Barack Obama has been practising his "walking on water" trick very hard, as it will be expected of him pretty soon when he finally takes office. That's after he's cured cancer, fixed up the world's economy, achieved world peace ... and all by March 1st!

What is more, the disappointment will be all the more intense when the US public realises, after maybe a year, maybe less, that he's not divine, just another human being - a socialist/Marxist human being in fact, who will wreck the US economy, erode freedom of speech in an attempt to appease Islam, and plunge headlong into carbon trading schemes based on smoke and mirrors.

I'm sure I'm not alone in finding the adulation, hero-worship, and the almost religious devotion to the Obamessiah to be way over the top, and I have serious reservations about Obama's prospects as President. There have been a hell of a lot of empty promises from a man who appears to be the archetypal style-over-substance victim.

And a lot of utter nonsense spouted, especially in relation to "climate change". By appointing John Holdren (see here), a well known alarmist, as his science adviser, we can see where US policy in that area will be heading during the next four years.

The Age however cannot contain itself and gushes even more praise over "the one" under the headline "World can't wait for Obama's new era", and gleefully trashes George W Bush's record, describing him as one of the worst US presidents. I'm not even going to quote anything from it - it is nauseating, sycophantic tripe - in other words, typical Age fare.

Read it here (if you dare...)

Antarctic scare story from the ABC

Under the doom-laden headline "Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse" the ABC breathlessly attributes the possible loss of the Wilkins Ice Shelf to "climate change caused by heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels." It reports that 25,000 sq km of ice has been lost "in total" - since when, we are not told.



Wow, 25,000 sq km sounds like a hell of a lot of ice...! But, as always, the reality is different. The total Antarctic sea ice area varies from about 2.5 million sq km to nearly 15 million sq km, meaning the total loss claimed is only 1% of the minimum and about 0.15% of the maximum sea ice extent. Furthermore, in April 2008, the sea ice anomaly compared to the 1979-2000 average was up nearly 2 million sq km! Even now, it is up on the average. So even though ice is being lost here, it is being made up even more over there...

Read it here.

Climate sense from Bob Carter

Writing in The Australian, Professor Bob Carter discusses the current cooling trend and wonders why the alarmists are "denying" that fact (he's clearly picked up on my recent post about alarmists being the new deniers...!)...

Thus using several fundamentally different mathematical techniques and many different data sets, seven scientists all forecast that climatic cooling will occur during the first decades of the 21st century. Temperature records confirm that cooling is under way, the length and intensity of which remains unknown.

Yet in spite of this, governments across the world - egged on by irrational, deep Green lobbying - have for years been using their financial muscle and other powers of persuasion to introduce carbon dioxide taxation systems. For example, the federal Labor government recently spent $13.9million on climate change advertising on prime time television and in national newspapers and magazines.
...
Introduction of a carbon dioxide tax to prevent (imaginary) warming, euphemistically disguised as an emissions trading scheme, is a politician's, ticket clipper's and mafia chief's dream. All will welcome a new source of income based on an invisible, colourless, odourless, tasteless and often unmeasurable gas. No commodity changes hands during its trading, and should carbon dioxide emissions actually decrease because of the existence of a carbon dioxide market (which is highly unlikely), the odds are that it will have no measurable effect on climate anyway. Nonetheless, the glistening pot of gold which beckons to be mined from the innocent public is proving nigh irresistible, and it is going to need a strong taxpayer revolt to stop it in Australia.

Read it here.

Canberra Times takes on the Petition Project

We'll start with a definition today, as this is key to what follows:

Argument from Authority is an informal logical fallacy, formally known as argumentum ad verecundium, where an participant argues that a belief is correct because the person making the argument is an authority. (SkepticWiki)

The Canberra Times has taken over first place in the league table of AGW scaremongers from its stable mates The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald thanks to the work of Rosslyn Beeby and various opinion writers. In an article today, all the old tired clichés are pulled out of the bag one by one, including the "D" word, comparisons with tobacco lobby, funding of sceptics by "Big Oil", and of course, rubbishing of the Petition Project:

As far as can be judged, some of the 31,000 were not graduates, very few were qualified in scientific disciplines, and almost none had any knowledge of climate change. The petition was organised by a Dr Frederick Seitz, a former president of the US Academy of Science in the 1960s, who worked as a consultant to the tobacco lobby in the 1970s, and who, apparently, has published little research of his own on any subject in 40 years, none of it on the science of climate change. The common strategy in climate change denial is not to offer serious scientific, economic or policy arguments against effective action, but to utilise prejudice, fear and inertia to undermine the case for action.

This is the classic, and fallacious, argument to authority. These 31,000 have "no" qualifications, therefore their opinion is not worth listening to. And it avoids the far more difficult task of addressing their actual arguments (which the writer doesn't even try). Conversely, however, the fact that 31,000 signatures are on a petition likewise has little "authority" by itself. However, it demonstrates effectively that there is no consensus.

But as the writer appeals to authority, I am entitled to do the same. If he had bothered to take ten seconds do any research on the Petition Project he would have found the following information about the signatories:

• 9,021 PhD; 6,961 MS; 2,240 MD and DVM; and 12,850 BS or equivalent academic degrees;
• Atmospheric, environmental, and Earth sciences includes 3,697 scientists trained in specialties directly related to the physical environment of the Earth and the past and current phenomena that affect that environment;
• Physics and aerospace sciences include 5,691 scientists trained in the fundamental physical and molecular properties of gases, liquids, and solids, which are essential to understanding the physical properties of the atmosphere and Earth; and
• Engineering and general science includes 9,992 scientists trained primarily in the many engineering specialties

Whilst there are many scientists here that are not climate scientists, they are trained in a science discipline to a level that they can see, like me, that the wool is being pulled over their eyes, simply by looking at the evidence available. Proper scientists would never, ever, say, in respect of such a frighteningly complex and (relatively) poorly understood system such as the earth's climate, that the debate was over or that the science was settled.

Again, as the writer has relied on authority, I am entitled to do the same (again). There were not 2500 scientists involved in the review of the IPCC's 2007 report. As John McLean points out in his detailed expose of the IPCC review process (link - PDF):

more than 40 of the 53 authors of the crucial chapter of the IPCC 4AR had either worked together, co-authored papers together and in all probability acted as peer reviewers for each others' work. Instead of being the product of a set of authors with a wide range of views, as the IPCC mandates, the key chapter comes from a narrow coterie of scientists.

The alarmists are the new deniers.

Read it here.

Governor-General gets political - yet again

On three occasions since the start of this blog have I had to comment on Governor-General Quentin Bryce overstepping the bounds of her duties as representative of the Queen in Australia by getting involved in political matters, in particular climate issues (see here, here and here).

And now she's at it again, off on a jolly to Abu Dhabi to speak at the World Future Energy Summit (a fancy title for a gathering of eco-fundamentalists discussing solar and wind power), sharing the stage with Lord Stern, Tony Blair and none other than IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri. So clearly no politics there, then...?

She displays an extraordinary lack of judgement on these matters, and is showing herself to be wholly unsuitable for the role of GG of Australia.

Read it here.

Update on Munich Re story

You may recall on 30 December last year I posted about the global reinsurer Munich Re linking disasters to climate change. Roger Pielke Jr over at Prometheus reported on the same issue. Now Munich Re have responded to Roger's original post here.

Random climate madness

A couple of bizarre headlines from the UK's Telegraph newspaper, which seems to be reporting any old nonsense these days:

Shiny leafed crops could help reduce global warming, claims study

and

Paint cities white to tackle global warming, scientist says

I present them without comment. Make of them what you will.

Read it here and here.

Heard Island - "barometer of global warming"

Or so says the Sydney Morning Herald in its usual style of doom-and-gloom alarmism. Under the headline "Seeing Heard is believing in global warming" (which I had to read about four times before understanding it...) it wails:

The latest bulletin from Heard Island in the Southern Ocean says temperatures are up, rapid retreat of glaciers continues unabated, and a peninsula has been split by the sea to create a new island.

No possibility of all this being caused by anything else, other than global warming? No? Just wondered, because Heard Island is in fact one enormous volcano... as is its neighbour, McDonald Island, which (the article itself concedes) has doubled in size in only a few years.

From the Australian Heard Island website:

Volcanic activity has been observed at Heard Island since the mid 1980s, with fresh lava flows on the southwest flanks of the island.

I wonder what lava flows do to glaciers? Or local temperatures? And I wonder what volcanic activity does to land levels? Move them around a bit maybe?

Personally, I won't be relying on this particular "global warming barometer"...

Read it here.

Climate madness from American Meteorological Society

Like waiting for a bus, you wait ages for a "scientific organisation selling out to climate change alarmism" story, only for two to come along at once. Following on from my last post, here's another scientific institution abandoning impartiality and embracing politics, the American Meteorological Society, which has awarded its highest honour to none other than bonkers warming alarmist James Hansen (thanks to Jennifer Marohasy). Hansen, as any fule kno, is in charge of the highly suspect GISS surface temperature record which only a couple of months ago was discovered copying data from one month to the next... Hansen also:

has only contempt for so-called climate change sceptics claiming they operate like tobacco scientists and he has suggested that CEOs of fossil energy companies should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

So pretty well balanced, then. As Jennifer so rightly says:

It seems we live during a period where passion is valued much more than wisdom even by scientific societies.

Read it here.

Engineers vote themselves $6 billion

Vested Interest Alert: The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering has, unsurprisingly, announced that Australia requires a "technology revolution" in order to "tackle climate change" and that the bill for such revolution will be a cool $6 billion.

The report argues that emissions trading, which will put a price on carbon pollution from 2010, is "necessary but not sufficient" to tackle climate change.

Without massive spending on technology, Australia will not meet its promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the report says.

Like the Royal Society in the UK, which has abandoned all trace of its historic heritage as a body for impartial, sceptical investigation of science, and made clear that "the debate is over" on climate change, here we have another science related organisation swallowing the alarmist agenda (and cashing in as well).

As I have said before, science goes out of the window when you follow the money... Both the Royal Society and the ATSE have become political, not scientific, organisations. How many more of the world's prestigious scientific bodies will sell out for a quick buck in the climate change economy?

Read it here.

Heathrow runway given go-ahead

This should be one to watch in the months ahead. You will recall the protest at the third runway earlier this week, and the purchase of land by celebs (and Greenpeace) in order to thwart its development. The UK Government has given the go-ahead for the new development citing the fact that it will create 65,000 jobs and will add GBP 7 billion to the economy every year.

In a bizarre turn of events, however, the Conservatives, usually the party of economic good sense, have opposed the development, vowing to scrap the plan if they win the next election.

Conservative transport spokeswoman Theresa Villiers said: "Be in no doubt, this is a bleak day for our environment. Labour's plans for a third runway at Heathrow would inflict devastating damage on the environment."

We sure live in strange times - when Labour governments are more concerned about the economy and Conservatives more about the environment...

Read it here.

1939 was still hotter than 2009...

Despite temperatures climbing into the mid-40s yesterday in Australia, records weren't broken despite the fact that we've had 70 years of "global warming" since they were set in 1939 ...

David Evans, a former adviser to the Australian Greenhouse Office, the precursor to the Department of Climate Change, said that although events such as those of January 1939 were too localised to draw implications on global warming, the 70 years since these maximums were reached was enough to "make you sceptical".

"The debate has changed," he said. He predicted that by 2010, the only people who would believe in global warming would be "those who have a financial interest in it, the politically correct and those who believe in big government. Everyone else will think it's a load of rubbish."

But there's always an alarmist on hand to redress the balance:

National Climate Centre head David Jones said the fact the maximum temperatures were set so long ago in no way disproved global warming. He said 1939 was a freak once-in-a-century event.

I wonder if he'd be saying the same if the records had been broken yesterday. Would he be saying that that too was a freak once-in-a-century event? Or do you think he may just possibly link it somehow with "global warming"? Answers on a postcard.

Read it here.

Pots and kettles

The liberal press are up in arms about Barnaby Joyce's comments about climate change this morning, alleging that he made comparisons with Nazi Germany. The Canberra Times misleadingly states that he "drew parallels with the Holocaust", and goes on gleefully to report, under the headline "Joyce slammed over eco-Nazi blast":

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke called on Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull to get Senator Joyce to retract his comments.

"Surely, even Malcolm Turnbull would draw the line at the comparisons that Barnaby Joyce made today," he told reporters in Sydney.

"I would hope that even Malcolm Turnbull would say that comparisons with Nazi Germany ... are out of line and should be publicly refuted and that's something Malcolm should do today."

Joyce was making the valid point that it is the AGW alarmists themselves who first made use of the offensive word "denier" in a cheap attempt to put AGW sceptics in the same boat as Holocaust deniers, and Joyce's comments about "goosestepping" and "eco-totalitarianism" are tame by comparison. But again, the press have succeeded in turning reality upside down, dancing to the tune of political correctness, branding the attacker the victim and vice versa.

The whole thing proves the point that in the area of climate change scepticism, it is easier to attack the messenger than the message.

Read it here.

Bravo Barnaby!

Out of all the major parties, only the Nationals have had the guts to stand up to Krudd & Co's pointless ETS, opposing it outright, and are going to vote against it in the Senate. The Liberals, on the other hand, blatantly chasing popularity, will support it. Barnaby Joyce, Nationals Senate Leader, is rapidly becoming a bit of a hero in this blog for saying all the right things:

"The view across the National Party is that the reasons put forward to justify an emissions trading scheme are just a load of rubbish," Senator Joyce told The Australian, in the strongest reservations to be expressed by a senior Coalition figure about an ETS.

"Malcolm Turnbull will probably come on board with the ETS but that doesn't mean the National Party will support it."

Senator Joyce was derisive of the Rudd Government's 5 per cent reduction target for emissions. "Australia accounts for 1.5per cent of emissions worldwide, so 5 per cent of that is three-fifths of five-eighths of nothing," he said.

"It's nothing but blatantly ridiculous tokenism."
...
Senator Joyce said he was disturbed at how climate change sceptics were being treated. "This has become a form of religious fanaticism and these environmental goose-steppers are pretty scary. You're branded a denier. The last time that word was in vogue, it related to the Holocaust."

He said it was meaningless that most climate experts believed global warming was induced by human activity. "History is replete with examples of experts getting it wrong," he said. "Look at Y2K, look at what the doomsayers predicted about population explosions, food shortages, fuel running out, communism taking over the world. None of it happened."

Right on the money. On the other hand, the Liberals, afraid of being branded "deniers" by Rudd, are swallowing the alarmism.

"We should be giving the planet the benefit of the doubt by changing the way we live," [Chrisopher Pyne] said.

The benefit of the doubt? That's probably one of the most ridiculous justifications for a crucial policy decision in the history of Australian politics! Such is the madness of climate change.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Of course, the Sydney Moonbat Herald can't let the opportunity to smear a sceptic pass, so runs an article under the headline:

Joyce slams "Nazi environmentalists"

Nice.

Celebs buy land at Heathrow in protest at "climate change"

More barking madness from celebs who seem to know so much about the earth's climate. Not Australian, but it's from my homeland, so that's OK...

In order to thwart plans for a third runway at Heathrow, a rag-tag bunch of enviro-celebs have purchased a football field-sized chunk of land and are going to divide it up and sell it to people concerned about "climate change". And of course, where there are shiny celebs in the foreground, there's always the dog-on-a-string brigade in the background:

"We've bought a piece of land slap bang in the middle of the proposed third runway site at Heathrow," Greenpeace said in a statement on its website.

"The government plans to go ahead with airport expansion across the country even though this means we'll have no hope of meeting our climate emission targets."
...
Actor [shurely "actress"? No, hang on, this is The Age after all - Ed] Emma Thompson said it was "laughably hypocritical" of the government to expand Heathrow while at the same time say it was committed to reversing climate change.

"I don't understand how any government remotely serious about committing to reversing climate change can even consider these ridiculous plans," she said.

"We'll stop this from happening even if we have to move in and plant vegetables."

Personally, I'd love to see Emma Thompson planting vegetables in a small allotment in the sleepy hamlet of Sipson, just north of Heathrow - if she does it for long enough, there'll be a gift shop and tea room. But there's bad (good?) news. If the runway gets the go-ahead, the land will be compulsorily purchased anyway, making the whole gesture utterly pointless. Here's the full list of shame:

• Emma Thompson (to be expected)
  
• Alister McGowan, impressionist (ditto)
  
• Zac Goldsmith, Conservative Party green adviser (should know better)
• Dr Simon Lewis, climate scientist (no surprise there)
• John Sauven, Greenpeace (next)
• Susan Kramer, Liberal Democrat MP (ho hum)
• John McDonnell, Left wing Labour MP (yawn)

Read it here and here (and everywhere, for that matter).

Climate nonsense from Christopher Pyne

Christopher Pyne is the Opposition education spokesman, and he has disappointingly revealed himself to have been taken in by the alarmism of the Rudd government in an article in the Sydney Institute Quarterly. Mr Pyne believes that the Liberals should position themselves as the party "most committed to tackling climate change", a pointless aspiration which takes the Liberals in completely the wrong direction.

Here are some of the things he had to say:

• "There is a demonstrable need to address the release of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere."
• "The view that the activity of the human race has added to changes to the climate and the warming of the Earth, is not a view with which one will get any argument from younger generations and which is increasingly accepted by all generations."
• By leading on solutions to the issue of climate change, the new generation of Liberals can demonstrate that they believe progress is in the interests of the party and the country [from the Sydney Morning Herald report on the same article]
  

So the fact that a bunch of brainwashed teenagers think that AGW is real is enough to convince you, is it? On the contrary, as education spokesman, Mr Pyne should be campaigning to ensure that children are not brainwashed in schools by repeated uncritical showings of An Inconvenient Truth...

As I have said before, the Opposition should have the courage to reject Krudd & Co style alarmism, and look dispassionately at the evidence for AGW, which is shrinking rapidly by the day. But I haven't got any money on it...

Read it here.

We know so much about our planet...

... that we can't even predict a tide properly, let alone determine the climate 100 years in the future. Headline on ABC website this morning:

Biggest king tide in 18 years hits east coast

And, of course, CSIRO can't help playing the "climate change joker":

The CSIRO's Dr Kathleen McInnes says climate change could make things much worse.

"In 50 years' time, when we get that much global sea level rise occurring anyway, this is the sort of thing we might be experiencing every two weeks," she said.

Then in The Age this afternoon:

Sydney's king tides 'just a ripple'

Sydneysiders and tourists descended on Sydney Harbour to witness the natural spectacle of a king tide, but were greeted by nothing more than the normal serene waters lapping gently onto harbour foreshores.

The Nature Conservation Council of NSW had predicted sea levels on Monday would peak up to two metres above normal, with Sydney's highest tide due at Middle Head at 9.50am (AEDT).

Read it here and here.

Sydney Morning Herald - spinning good news into bad

The double-standards in reporting issues relating to the climate is hilarious, especially in the alarmist press like Fairfax: any bad news is immediately linked to "global warming", whereas any good news is spun so that it's not really good news at all! Heads I win, tails you lose.

The "good news" in this case is that out of three models of glacier retreat in Greenland, the one that most closely fits the data has little to do with "global warming". However, here is how the Moonbat Herald spins it, having grudgingly conceded that the third model fits best (but whilst at the same time noting that even this third model is still related to "global warming" - phew). Count how many times the good news is caveated. And for good measure there is an "Everything's Actually Happening Faster Than We Thought" Alert:

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted in 2007 that sea levels could creep up by 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) by 2100 due to thermal expansion driven by global warming.

Such an increase would be enough to wipe out several small island nations and seriously disrupt mega-deltas home in Asia and Africa.

But [the] IPCC failed to take into account recent studies on the observed and potential impact of the melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, prompting the Nobel-winning body to later remove the upward bracket from its end-of-century forecast. [No mention of the myriad other factors the IPCC "failed to take into account", but which don't advance the "consensus" like, er, the sun?]

A new consensus [Science has nothing to do with consensus] has formed among experts that levels could rise by a metre or more by 2100, according to Mark Serreze of the National Now and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorodo.

"What has puzzled us is that the changes are even faster than we would have though possible," he said in a recent interview. [When has a global warming alarmist EVER said that something is happening more slowly than predicted...?]

Vieli cautioned that his findings, published in Nature Geoscience, are narrowly focused on one glacier, and that sea levels could still rise higher than the IPCC's original projections. [That's right, the data from one glacier ALWAYS shows less than what's really happening - never the other way round... How do they manage to choose the wrong glacier every time?]

Other Greenland glaciers behave differently, and the dynamics of the Antarctic ice sheet are still poorly understood [Hang on, surely the science is settled, right?], he noted.

Nor should the new study "be taken out of context to suggest that climate change is not a serious threat -- it is," he added. [Perish the thought]

The ice sitting atop Greenland could lift oceans by seven metres, though even the gloomiest of climate change projections do not include such a scenario. [But the Sydney Morning Herald article does, of course!]

Read it here.

UPDATE: The story actually originated from AFP (thanks to Climate Change Fraud), and the other media still gleefully parrot the alarmism...

Garnaut sells his own report to Government

... which it paid for in the first place. But in the world of "climate change", anything goes, and no expense is spared in order to keep the rickety old bandwagon rolling.

In yet another appalling example of the waste of taxpayers' money on climate change, The Australian has revealed that, having given $2.3 million of your tax dollars to Ross Garnaut to prepare his tedious tome, the Government has now handed over the rights, for free, to the Cambridge University Press to sell it worldwide on a commercial basis, with precisely zero profits being returned to the Government. Which means, in a ludicrous turn of events, that the Government's Department of Climate Change had to buy its own copies, at a cost of more than $65,000 (paid for again by yet more of your tax dollars). Quite rightly, the Opposition is furious:

"It is outrageous that the Government has given away for nothing an expensive, taxpayer-funded report to a private company, which in turn is selling it with no return for taxpayers," Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield said.

"Australian taxpayers forked out their hard-earned money for the Garnaut report to be produced and yet they will not receive a single cent from its sale.

"If the report is to be sold, there should be a return for taxpayers."

It is unusual for a major international publishing house to become involved in the printing of a government report and then sell it on a commercial basis.

It's two embarrassments in three days for the Government's crazy climate change policies, with the admission on Wednesday that it's advertising campaign for "Think Climate. Think Change" had cost nearly $14 million. Australian Climate Madness indeed.

Read it here.

The Age - New Year, New Alarmism

Nearly a fortnight has passed since the last Age scare story, but here's the first of the New Year, claiming that "half the planet may be hit by a food crisis by 2100" as a result of, what else, climate change.

According to researchers, there is a 90 percent probability that by 2100 the minimum temperatures in the tropics and sub-tropical regions will be higher than the maximums [sic] so far recorded in those areas.

The affect on crop-growing in those regions would be dire, according to the projections based on direct observations and data culled from 23 computer models on the planet's evolving climate patterns.

Minima greater than the maxima? That would require a temperature rise of 5 - 10 degrees... far greater than even the most crazy projections of the IPCC. And those would be the same computer models that failed to predict nearly a decade of cooling, right?

"We are taking the worst of what we've seen historically and saying that in the future it is going to be a lot worse unless there is some kind of adaptation," added Rosamond Naylor, director of Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment.

At least one thing is right in that quote - adaptation. Climate has changed for ever, and will always change, whether humanity exists on the planet or not. It's about time we started to understand this.

Read it here.

China to increase coal production by 30% by 2015

China puts its economy before nebulous half-baked climate nonsense. Why is Australia not doing the same?

This story puts the final nail in the Government's argument for an early introduction of an ETS. Krudd & Co have been selling us the story (at huge expense - $14m at the last count) that China will participate in a "global agreement" to reduce emissions to be signed in Copenhagen, which is why Australia should be out in front, leading the way with its two-errors-in-four-words "Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme".

Well, I think you can just about forget that, Kevin and Penny, as news comes in that China will be increasing it's coal production by 30% in just six years to meet its ever-growing energy demands.

China is dependent on coal for about 70 per cent of its energy and because of its thundering growth the country has become one of the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases alongside the United States.

Beijing has said that coal, the cheapest and most plentiful source of fuel in China, will remain its major energy source, despite the impact global warming, which is blamed on greenhouse gases, has already had on the country.

The Government should be scrapping this false deadline of 2010 for the ETS immediately, as there is no hope of China being part of any global deal, and consequently no chance of global emissions being reduced significantly. All of which means that Australia's 1.5% contribution to global emissions is less than a fart in a (global warming induced) hurricane.

James Hansen just laid the planet's demise at Australia's feet for continuing to export coal - I wonder what he'll have to say about this?

Read it here.

Climate porn

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Macquarie Dictionary has added the phrase "climate porn" to its database, which is ironic because the greatest purveyor of said climate porn is ... The Sydney Morning Herald.

Read it here.

Krudd & Co waste nearly $14m on climate propaganda

That's $14m of your taxpayer dollars down the drain, spruiking a pointless political gesture that will do nothing for "climate change", even if CO2 was involved... The Opposition, rightly, are horrified:

“This is an outrageous waste of taxpayers' money to run a very extensive campaign that offered no detail or explanation of what the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will look like nor what impact it will have on the everyday lives of Australians,” Senator [Mitch] Fifield said today.

“Even readers of FHM, Cosmopolitan and Women’s Day couldn’t escape these advertisements.”

An outspoken critic of Howard government advertising campaigns when she was in opposition, Senator [Penny] Wong had attacked the previous government for failing to reveal the true cost of taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns.

“Yet in an act of gross hypocrisy, Senator Wong is responsible for placing her Government’s climate change PR campaign in just about every newspaper and magazine and on every television and radio in Australia,” Senator Fifield said.

“There is a legitimate role for government advertising when it explains the impacts of major and complex policy changes to the Australian public.

“But the ‘Think Climate. Think Change’ campaign is nothing more than a slick PR exercise for the Rudd Government. Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for something clearly designed as a booster for Labor’s poll numbers."

Couldn't have put it better. Read it here.

ADF warns of "climate conflict" (maybe...)

The Sydney Morning Herald is in full scaremongering swing this morning with a front page article forecasting more conflicts as a result of "climate change" (surely "global warming"... Ed), and quoting that ever reliable source of balanced comment, James Hansen. Here's a handy summary of the weasel words in the article:

• "May": 4
• "Could": 3
• "Risk": 3

and here's the scary spin from the Herald:

RISING sea levels could lead to failed states across the Pacific and require extra naval deployments to deal with increases in illegal migration and fishing, a Defence Force analysis says.

"Environmental stress" has increased the risk of conflicts over resources and food and may demand greater involvement by the military in stabilisation, reconstruction and disaster relief, the analysis, prepared by Defence's strategic policy division, says.

It warns there is a risk of a serious global conflict over the Arctic as melting icecaps allow easier access to undersea oil and gas deposits.

Those would be the melting ice caps that have exactly the same extent of ice they had back in 1979, right? But when you actually read the report it's even more vague:

"From a defence planning perspective, we don't know how quickly these changes will occur, exactly what their impact will be, or how states and societies will react"

i.e., we know precisely Jack shit, but we'll make lots of scary predictions anyway. Then the Herald wheels out Hansen:

Dr Hanson, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said Australia was making "honest efforts" to tackle climate change but failing.

Carbon trading schemes such as that proposed by the Federal Government would slow the rate of greenhouse emissions too slowly, Dr Hanson said.

"This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat," he said. "It could waste another decade, locking in disastrous consequences for our planet and humanity."

Read it here.

Climate madness from James Hansen

We all knew he was a warming-fruitcake, but this confirms our worst fears. Here are a few quotes from a letter by Hansen and his wife to Michelle and Barack Obama (why both, unless to tug at emotional heartstrings?):

[Schmaltz Alert] We write to you as fellow parents concerned about the Earth that will be inherited by our children, grandchildren, and those yet to be born.
...
[Horse Shit Alert] Urgency now dictates a personal appeal. Scientists at the forefront of climate research have seen a stream of new data in the past few years with startling implications for humanity and all life on Earth.

"New data", showing the earth cooling, perhaps? "Startling implications" for alarmists like Hansen (and their nice revenue stream)?

[More Horse Shit Alert] An urgent geophysical fact has become clear. Burning all the fossil fuels will destroy the planet we know, Creation, the planet of stable climate in which civilization developed.

Creation with a capital "C"? What, like in Genesis? Oh, please. "The planet of stable climate" - when has the climate ever been stable? Civilisation has been through far worse than the gentle warming that is currently occurring since the end of the Little Ice Age (oops, those are three dirty words to Hansen, of course), but hey, who cares about the facts when GISS funding is at stake?

I warned you the alarmists would get desperate. I was right.

Read it here and here.

UPDATE: Global sea ice back to 1979 levels, the year measurements began. Does that appear in your stream of "new data", James? [Thanks to Skeptics Global Warming]

Extreme cold means nothing, extreme heat means global warming

Of course it does, you denier you. Records are being broken all over the northern hemisphere for excessive cold, and the Sydney Moonbat Herald remains resolutely silent. Then one hot day in Sydney, and it goes into alarmist overdrive. Under the idiotic headline "If you think it's hot now, wait until next year" the SMH writes:

NSW was bracing for a heatwave today as the Australian Bureau of Meteorology published its annual report showing last year to be one of the hottest on record and predicting more scorching temperatures this summer.

One of the hottest on record? Actually the 14th hottest, since, er, 1850. It was the coolest year since 2001... And by the way, what do surface temperature measurements show? Urbanisation, not climate. Look at the satellite records if you want the true global temperature trend.

"This is entirely consistent with climate change projections," Dr David Jones [of the National Climate Centre] said.

So what about the record cold? Is that "entirely consistent with climate change projections" then? Climate nonsense.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Mercifully, an antidote in The Australian: "The Warmaholics' Fantasy"

Blog to watch: Jo Nova

I have just come across this excellent skeptic blog from a fellow Aussie - I recommend it highly. Check out the handy, pocket sized "Skeptics Handbook" which will floor an AGW alarmist at ten paces...

Visit it here.

UPDATED: Deluded Aussie celeb praises Al Gore and The Climate Project

Thanks to Tom Nelson. The first reaction of any alarmist when faced with a skeptic is to question his or her qualifications to comment on the matter. That, however, doesn't seem to happen in reverse. Anyone, anywhere, can say what the hell they like unchallenged, especially if they're a luvvie or a politician.

In this case, our own Cate Blanchett (climate qualifications unknown, but I'm guessing pretty much zero) fawns nauseatingly over Al Gore (climate qualifications definitely zero) and the whole despicable Climate Project, whose sole purpose, let us remind ourselves, is to disseminate the lies and deception contained within An Inconvenient Truth. She should stick to acting. Under the headline "Climate Change Warriors", she spouts:

“In 2006 the inspirational Al Gore came out to ignite the Climate Project (TCP), which is generously supported by the ACF [Australian Conservation Foundation, which "runs" the Climate Project in Australia], where citizens from all walks of life in Australia are indoctrinated and empowered with the information [and a version of the slide show featured in Gore’s documentary film] An Inconvenient Truth to go out into their communities and spread the word.

“He trained 70 people then [in Sydney]. My husband and I went. We went as citizens and we went as concerned parents. We wanted to do something with our anxiety and to turn our anxiety into action. We were so inspired by the passion of the people doing the training, who were obviously inspired by Al Gore himself. It was the individuals [attending] who were then asking pertinent and specific questions about climate change and had the passion to go back and communicate to their communities.

The rest of the article is full of comments from more celebs, all hopelessly deluded by the contents of AIT and the Climate Project, most of which was debunked years ago. But Cate did get one thing right: "indoctrinated" is certainly the word for it, namely to imbue with a partisan or ideological point of view. Who cares about the real science, when we can indoctrinate an unsuspecting public with outright lies to mislead them into subscribing to our quasi-political agenda.

Dumb and dumber.

Read it here.

UPDATE: With excellent timing Watts Up With That points us to an excellent article by Harold Ambler in (of all places) the Huffington Post which thoroughly debunks everything that Gore and AIT stand for. Read it all, Cate.

UPDATE 2: Gore Lied has a hilarious video to go with it!

The alarmists will be the deniers in 2009

I think we should start using the term "denier" to apply to those alarmists who refuse to acknowledge that the world is cooling, and has been since at least 2001. It's the IPCC who are in denial - denying the clear facts in order to push a pre-conceived agenda. And so it is with most of the mainstream media.

The Australian cannot grasp the fact that spending trillions of dollars tinkering with a harmless trace gas is a complete waste of time, continuing to spread doom, such as the following:

As the chart at right covering the past 10 years shows [not shown], that makes [2008] the third year in a row of falls. Draw a trend line between 1998 and last year and it slopes downwards.

So at least global warming has halted, hasn't it? That is one way of looking at it. Evidence that the earth is cooling certainly has put a new bounce in the step of climate change sceptics.

However, the news does not look so good if we take the longer-term view. The official records going back to 1850 ... show a long-term rising trend. It is not huge - of the order of 0.8C - and it is not without fluctuations but it is unmistakable. It also coincides with increasing carbon dioxide emissions, which we know will continue growing for some time yet, even if the world manages to reach an agreement in Copenhagen this year on future reductions. On this longer view, 2008 is the 10th hottest year of the last 158.

This last paragraph is utter nonsense. Records of 150 years are almost meaningless in climate terms. Temperatures have been rising slowly since the end of the Little Ice Age (which the IPCC deny ever occurred), and so a rise of 0.8C is completely normal, and temperatures were far higher in the Medieval Warm Period (which the IPCC also deny ever occurred). And CO2 emissions didn't even get going until the mid 20th century, so how does this show a "correlation with CO2"?

The article then goes on to quote warming-freak James Hansen, rubbishes a petition of 31,000 scientists who question the "consensus" because it came from an institute:

based in a small rural town and styles itself as a non-profit research institute with six "faculty members" working in protein biochemistry, diagnostic medicine, nutrition, preventive medicine and ageing. It also promotes home schooling as an alternative to "socialism in education".

(what has that got to do with anything? No major institution would dare question the consensus for fear of losing funding, so the fact that it's a small organisation doesn't surprise me in the least) and further complains that the signatories don't have the right qualifications (like the IPCC, of course, but no-one ever mention that), and tries to use the hackneyed "insurance" analogy to persuade us that action is need urgently.

It's the alarmists that are the true deniers.

Read it here.