Global Warming Hysteria (cooled)

Recent changes to the GISS historical climate data records refute claims by Gore that 9 of the ten hottest years in history occurred since 1995. Yet, these changes went totally unreported. Here is Noel Sheppard:

A change in climate history data at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently occurred which dramatically alters the debate over global warming. Yet, this transpired with no official announcement from GISS head James Hansen, and went unreported until Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit discovered it Wednesday.

For some background, one of the key tenets of the global warming myth being advanced by Hansen and soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore is that nine of the ten warmest years in history have occurred since 1995.

McIntyre has been crunching the numbers used to determine such things as published by GISS, and has identified that the data have recently changed such that four of the top ten warmest years in American history occurred in the 1930s, with the warmest now in 1934 instead of the much-publicized 1998.

As McIntyre wrote Wednesday (emphasis added, h/t NBer dscott):

There has been some turmoil yesterday on the leaderboard of the U.S. (Temperature) Open and there is a new leader.

Four of the top 10 are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900.

Most importantly, according to the GISS, 1998 is no longer the warmest year in American history. That honor once again belongs to 1934.

For more go here.  

Remember Newsweek magazine? The magazine. that made up the story of the desecration of the Koran at Gitmo Bay? The magazine that prompted riots on the streets, at which some died? Well this time they brought their 'incisive' journalistic minds to bear on anyone who thinks the GW (alarmist) science is less than compelling. 

In the recent Newsweek hatchet-job cover story: ' The Truth About Denial' (that is the science behind GW alarmism is anything but conclusive and largely built on prophetic revelation (guesswork), blind faith and the opinions of nitwits who believe man-made computer modelling is more important than actual evidence)  they the magazine decided to go to town on all non-alarmists.

US Senator Inhofe (a leading US sceptic interviewed by Newsweek) has his communication director Marc Morano provide Newsweek with all sorts of key information for their piece.  As it didn't fit their agenda, however, they didn't use any of it. So here is Morano's response to their piece:

Newsweek Magazine’s cover story of August 6, 2007 entitled, “The Truth About Denial” contains very little that could actually be considered balanced, objective or fair by journalistic standards. (LINK)  

The one-sided editorial, masquerading as a “news article,” was written by Sharon Begley with Eve Conant, Sam Stein and Eleanor Clift and Matthew Philips and purports to examine the “well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change.”

The only problem is -- Newsweek knew better. Reporter Eve Conant, who interviewed Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, was given all the latest data proving conclusively that it is the proponents of man-made global warming fears that enjoy a monumental funding advantage over the skeptics.  (A whopping $50 BILLION to a paltry $19 MILLION for skeptics – Yes, that is BILLION to MILLION - see below )

This week’s “news article” in Newsweek follows the Magazine’s October 23, 2006 article which admitted the error of their ways in the 1970’s when they predicted dire global cooling. (See: Senator Inhofe Credited For Prompting Newsweek Admission of Error on 70's Predictions of Coming Ice Age – LINK )

Use of Word ‘Denier’

First, let’s take a look at Newsweek’s use of the word “denier” when describing a scientist who views with skepticism the unproven computer models predicting future climate doom. The use of this blatant Holocaust terminology has drawn the ire of Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. “The phrase ‘climate change denier’ is meant to be evocative of the phrase ‘holocaust denier,’” Pielke, Jr. wrote on October 9, 2006 (LINK) 

“Let's be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system,” Pielke, Jr. explained.

Go here for the rest of this excellent response from Morano.  Ed. For the record, this writer has long taken the view that the time has arrived when it has become worthless to work WITH much of the mainstream media. The time has come to work around it and the mainstream gatekeepers of the news. In other words, say No to the BBC, the NYT et al and address ourselves in the public square of debate ignoring them entirely.

 Last year I wrote a piece for the British Journalism Review (see What Climate Consensus? on the 'Articles' page of this site) which lamented the shoddy enviro-journalism which which marked most climate news analysis pieces.

A journalist (a loose description, you understand) called Peter Wilby, the former editor of the The New Statesman (just to the left of Stalin this organ), in time-honored leftwing activist fashion, entirely ignored the articulated argument and launched an ad hominen attack.  He described me as 'neither a scientist nor a journalist'. Odd really, as I never claimed to be a scientist (and neither is he btw - which doesn't prevent him writing on global warming issues) and I actually make my living as a journalist, which makes the statement just a tad libellous.

However, being a magnanimous fellow I let the matter go. After all, how do you communicate with a journalist who is plainly suffering from NDCF (No Discernible Cerebral Functioning)?  I mention this only to illustrate precisely what the thinking world is up against in the mass media more generally -- a syndrome which may well be explained by the following:  

I have often wondered how the media are in such lock step on Global Warming. Well, I wonder no more. Recently, I came across a website for the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ).  http://www.sej.org/  This website is veritable tool box for any budding reporter assigned to the global warming beat. If you're an editor at the Palookaville Post, all you have to do is send your cub reporters to this site and they'll have everything they need to write an article that fits the template and action line perfectly.

For the rest of this article go here - to The American Thinker website. 

"There is nothing particularly unusual about current weather and climate change – it is generally well within long-term normal patterns. However, the public believes otherwise due to a combination of the way in which people have been taught to view nature, political exploitation of science and the hidden motives of environmental extremists.   How did this happen and where are we headed if climate change hysteria continues unchecked?

"Western education automatically assumes a ‘uniformitarian’ view of the World, a concept that change is gradual over long periods of time.  As a consequence, sudden or extreme changes are considered abnormal by most of society.  Yet even a cursory examination of climate records reveals variations in centuries past that are far faster and more severe than anything we are experiencing today.

For the full article by Dr Timothy Ball and Tom Harris go here to Canada Free Press.  

It was James Hansen and others who kicked off the great global warming delusion back in the 1980s. Now he's at it again claiming the world has just ten years - less than he previously thought - before it reaches the climate "tipping point".

The trouble with scientists who make these apocalyptic statements of course is that they are then forced to make more and more extreme statements to justify them as their whole reputation is now at stake. Presumably, in ten years time, when Hansen's ludicrous predictions are finally outed NASA will finally be forced to sack him. For now though...

Even "moderate additional" greenhouse emissions are likely to push Earth past "critical tipping points" with "dangerous consequences for the planet," according to research conducted by NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute.

With just 10 more years of "business as usual" emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, "it becomes impractical" to avoid "disastrous effects."

The study appears in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Its lead author is James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

The forecast effects include "increasingly rapid sea-level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones," according to the NASA announcement.

Recent Climate Reports Underestimated How Soon

By heralding the new research paper, NASA is endorsing science that places considerably more urgency on the need to reduce emissions to avoid "disastrous effects" of global warming than was evident in the recent reports from the world's scientists coordinated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

As the tipping points pass, "there is an acceleration, potentially uncontrollable, of emissions of vast natural stores of greenhouse gas," according to Hansen, who reviewed the study for ABC News today.

Source: ABC News 

Ed. Just one further thought. Every time a skeptic writes a piece they are accused of "taking the oil dollar" (that's because that is much easier than actually engaging with the argument). Would it be too much to suggest that ABC paid Hansen for this study? 

Take out the "suddenly" for this first paragraph (where has the writer been?) and you have a fine take on global warming alarmism with some important insights from an Asian perspective in this fine article 'Too much Hot Air' from the India Times. Well worth reading.

Global warming is agitating our minds, particularly after the report of the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Four issues are under debate. Is the earth warming in an unprecedented manner, hitherto never seen in history? Are industrialisation and higher lifestyles responsible for this warming? Which countries and regions are the highest emitters of global greenhouse gases? And, can massive technological breakthroughs curtail future emissions to acceptable levels?

Instead of having a dispassionate debate, global warming has suddenly taken on an alarmist hue. Dissenting views are looked upon with suspicion or disdain. Doomsday ayatollahs are nothing new to human history.

Planet Gore:

Brussels lambasted the US and Australia yesterday for their inaction in cutting carbon dioxide emissions and stressed Europe's leading role in the battle against global warming. What Mr Dimas knew - but did not tell the scientists, apparently - is that the EU's programme for cutting carbon, its two-year-old emissions trading scheme (ETS), remains in disarray. In 2006, industry emitted about 30m tonnes less than permitted. German emissions rose 0.6% while overall EU emissions went up by 1%-1.5% because of resumed growth in the eurozone.
--David Gow, The al-Guardian, 3 April 2007

 Planet Reality:

US carbon-dioxide emissions declined by 1.3 per cent in 2006 even as the world's largest economy expanded by 3.3 per cent, the White House announced late Wednesday. The US Energy Information Administration issued a so-called flash estimate of carbon-dioxide emissions that showed a decline of 78 million metric tons last year in the United States. In a statement, US President George W Bush touted the report as validating his energy and climate-change policies.
--Associated Press, 24 May 2007

Jacques Ellul once wrote: "The propagandist uses a keyboard and composes a symphony." He might, had he been alive today, have been thinking of the mass media's current obsession: global warming scaremongering.  Ellul (as Konrad Kellen wrote in the Introduction to Ellul's book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes) saw propaganda as "a greater threat to mankind than any of the more grandly advertised threats hanging over the human race."

The media's part in the mega-hype of the GW alarmism is the epitomizes Ellul's warning. This has, in part, been captured by a rash of exposing reports from the excellent Business & Media Institute in the US.  Here is their highlighting of the problem in 'Climate of Bias' and an excellent debunking review of the mass media's 'warming, cooling,warming, cooling' predictive hype over 100 years in the report Fire and Ice.

 For me though the work here was summed up in the simple, understated but all-encompassing quote:

"It would be difficult for the media to do a worse job with climate change coverage."

Amen to that. 

With special thanks to Laura Curtis for alerting me to this material.  

And here is yet more evidence of the counter-productivity of the media hype on global warming from scientist Mick Hulme who has been conducting research on people's attitudues to media portrayals of a catastrophic future.   Here's a taster:

His (Hulme's) concern is that these exaggerations have given the green light to the media to use the language of fear, terror and disaster when covering scientific reports - even when those reports are much more constrained in their description of the course of likely future events.

He says extravagated claims simply generate a feeling of helplessness in the public. 

"My argument is about the dangers of science over-claiming its knowledge about the future and in particular presenting tentative predictions about climate change using words of 'disaster', 'apocalypse' and 'catastrophe'," he said.

Leonardo DiGorioHere's a taster from an article presaging Leonardo DiCaprio's forthcoming science fiction epic The 11th Hour - a remake of Al Gore's fantasy blockbuster powerpoint presentation An Inconvenient Truth...

True to its doom-laden title, global-warming doc "The 11th Hour" presents the viewer with reams of depressing data, loads of hand-wringing about the woeful state of humanity and, finally, some altogether fascinating ideas about how to go about solving the climate crisis. Co-produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, this latest exercise in celebrity eco-activism lacks the personal touch that helped "An Inconvenient Truth" go green at the box office, but auds might warm to its layered insights and polished presentation, given careful nurturing by Warner Independent and effective showcasing as an educational tool.

DiCaprio and first-time helmer sisters Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners scripted the film's text -- an earnest, sometimes clunkily verbose set of warnings about the dire state of the planet, which DiCaprio more or less recites at the camera. Narration is supplemented by a rapidly edited flood of devastating images that show not just meteorological phenomena such as tidal waves and Hurricane Katrina, but also shots of more basic signifiers of human greed -- deforestation, a bloody slaughterhouse, fishermen draining the ocean of its wildlife and rush-hour traffic in downtown Los Angeles.

Docu's thesis, that mankind's insensitivity to the environment, consumption of limited resources and over-reliance on fossil fuels will soon make the planet uninhabitable for future generations, should by now (hopefully) come as nothing new to viewers.

But the dizzying assemblage of talking heads (among them Stephen Hawking, Mikhail Gorbachev, science reporter Andy Revkin and heads of environmental orgs such as Lester Brown, Tim Carmichael and Wes Jackson), all well-spoken and at times prone to philosophizing, turn "The 11th Hour" into a ruminative essay on what it means to be human in a scarce world.

Their unanimous conclusion is that human beings can't view themselves as a superior species -- a very subtle dig at the traditional (biblical) view that man was meant to have dominion over the earth and all other life forms.

Scientist Roger Pielke Sr. has identified an interesting article in The Economist which amounts to pure biased propaganda on climate change - and confirms another aspect of something I and many others have been saying and writing about for some time: we cannot trust the mainstream media which is today dominated by a leftwing and liberal worldview.  Over to Roger P:

The article appears in the April 21, 2007 issue of The Economist had an interesting article entitled “Dengue Fever: A deadly scourge”. The article starts with:

“Millions at risk as a new outbreak of dengue fever sweeps Latin America”

“There is no vaccine. There is also no good way to treat it—just fluids and the hope that the fever will break. At first it seems like a case of severe flu, but then the fever rises, accompanied by headaches, excruciating joint pain, nausea and rashes. In its most serious form, known as dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF), it involves internal and external bleeding and can result in death. Fuelled by climate change, dengue fever is on the rise again throughout the developing world, particularly in Latin America.

Mexico identified 27,000 cases of dengue fever last year, more than four times the number in 2001. In El Salvador, whose population is not much more than 6% of Mexico’s, the number soared to 22,000 last year, a 20-fold increase on five years earlier. Uruguay recently reported its first case in 90 years. In Brazil, 135,000 cases were diagnosed in the first three months of this year, a rise of about a third over the same period last year. Paraguay, the country worst affected in relation to population size, has reported more than 25,000 cases so far this year, six times the total for the whole of last year—and even this is probably an underestimate.”

However, buried in this text is the remarkable claim that this disease is

“Fuelled by climate change, dengue fever is on the rise again throughout the developing world, particularly in Latin America.”

What is the scientific evidence for this statement that the dengue fever is “fuelled by climate change”?

I value reading the Economist but the insertion of such scientifically unsubstantiated claims detracts significantly from the journalistic integrity and accuracy of this magazine. It makes one wonder if other science articles in the Economist, in areas outside of my expertise, are similarly biased.

Climatologist Dennis T. Avery has written an interesting piece on the 'grudging, gradual' shift towards math facts in the GW debate:  

The UN climate change panel told us in 2001 that human-emitted CO2 might drive the planet's average temperature upward by 5.8 degrees C—a bigger average warming than the world has had in the past 100,000 years. The UN's 2007 report scales the possible overheating back a bit, to a maximum of 4.5 degrees—still a very large warming.

But wait! The environmental movement is now conceding that the earth has a natural, moderate climate cycle. Jon Coifman of the Natural Resources Defense Council said recently on the Hannity and Colmes TV show, "The earth has natural temperature and climate cycles. Nobody has disputed that." 

We're glad that the NRDC finally accepts the natural warming cycle as fact. Until Coifman's admission, I don't think the words "natural climate cycle" had ever escaped the lips of a climate alarmist.

For the full article at the excellent Canada Free Press go here.  

Here's an extract from one atmospheric scientists letter on GW:

In the 1970s as a young scientist at the Geophysical Institute I wrote passionate letters complaining that for the first time in the geologic era man was changing the atmosphere of the planet. I argued that continued dumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would be associated with a warming of the entire Earth and pled for attention to this matter. The letters were ignored.

They were ignored because in the 1970’s Newsweek, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times and countless books and articles were warning of the dangers of global cooling.

Things have changed. Global warming is now being noted, and I in the meantime have become a little skeptical about some of the claims being put forth. I’m skeptical despite the fact that “everybody knows that the science is in.” The science isn’t even close to being in.

For the rest of the published letter go here care of Fairbanks Daily News. 

If you wanted a classic example of the scaremongering (its all pure guesswork based on ludicrous computer models - not actual evidence) pseudoscientific media drivel that is driving hysteria...then here is a classic of its genre. It is entitled: Timeline: The Frightening Future of Earth. It is taken from the highly learned site entitled (don't laugh) 'Live Science'. 'Dead Duck' would be more apposite.

Water shortages, disease, famine, pestilence, plague, crop disasters, even the earth's rotation speeding up (Note to self: buy heavier souled shoes), it's all here.  So you don't fall asleep should you choose to read it, try this exercise. After every couple of paragraphs, close your eyes briefly and imagine you are reading a script for Little House On The Prairie. Having said that, it would be IPCC approved.

Try it. You'll see what I mean. ("Oh Jon boy, the crops have failed again...your momma's fallen into the canyon ...there's a plague of locusts on the horizon and your little brother's leg has fallen off...want some grits for breakfast?")

Sceptics of the seriousness of global warming complained on Wednesday of not being heard by the public or policy makers while warning governments to take a second look at the scientific consensus on climate change.

Scientists who doubt the scope and cause of climate change have trouble getting funding and academic posts unless they conform to an "alarmist scenario", said Roger Helmer, a British member of the European Parliament, at a panel discussion on appropriate responses to rising global temperatures.

"If global warming is happening, we can then ask: is it accelerating and is it likely to be catastrophic?" he said. "Many people think not."

Source: Scotsman News -- for the full article go here.  

The sickness inherent in the green movement has surfaced with a vengeance with culture magazine Vanity Fair condemning anyone and everyone who dares to question the zeitgeist which thinks man controls the world's climate.  Oddly, it has chosen to condemn much of the conservative movement to Dante's Hell for refusing to 'believe'.

For the record VF Dante was a practising Christian and a thinking man. My guess is he would have been far more likely to have considered the whole of the modern Green activist movement as prime candidates for his vision of hell.  Not least for believing that man, not God, is in control of his world.   Evidence borne out a refusal to believe that God's Apocalyptic vision (in Revelation, which Dante believed was given to tell us all we need to know about the future) was the final word on the issue, and not man's apocalyptic re-write. 

If anyone should object to 'faith' being mentioned here alongside 'science' - tell it to the global warming alarmists.   

I see the Sunday Times did its bit for World Fear Year this weekend with its 'science' correspondent warning of 200 million refugees - as a direct result of the IPCC's forthcoming Scary Report IV, it seems.  Now if we could just prevent that report from coming out...

However, its not all bad news. The GOOD news is that as 40% of all animal and plant species will have become extinct by that time there will be plenty of space for them to relocate.

(Note to self:  I gotta stop going on short holidays. I really do find idling down beautiful canal ways in the spring sunshine affects my fear equilibrium.  I would hate to become a GW cynic.) 

I've been away for a few days on a canal boat in Wales (did you know that global warming doesn't affect Wales?) so I missed April Fools Day - but I see the New York Times didn't.  But then, for some publications, every day is April 1st.  In our fear-ridden generation it has become de rigeur to trail the the latest science fiction blockbuster movie, so why not climate prediction report - as absurd as they clearly are in the Nostradamus-esque latest IPCC Report release?

The Good Friday - Good Friday??  - release of Apocalypse-Not-Quite-Yet-But-Sometime...er...possibly... latest does not augur well for mankind, you'll be surprised to hear.  The earth sinking beneath the waves, millions possibly billions dead as temperatures burst thermometers everywhere - and all because Western liberal driving Prius' 'carbon neutral' millionaires refuse to  change their lifestyle. 

Its all just too gloomy.  I think I'll stay home and watch a less gloomy movie this weekend.  Something uplifting. Like Apocalpyse Now.

Cows and tourism are the twin causes of global warming.

According to scientific estimates, the methane gas produced by cows is responsible for 4% of greenhouse gas emissions. And now, German scientists have invented a pill to cut bovine burping.  And tourism's a problem too...

"Tourism is unfortunately one of the vectors of (climate) change at the moment and contributes, through its excesses, to the process of global warming," World Tourism Organisation (WTO) director general Francesco Frangialli told an international conference on meteorology in Madrid this week.

GWH.com hot tip:  If you do go have to go on holiday this year and you see any vacationing bovines - a twin evil! -  why not take some anti-burping pills with you? As well as saving the planet you will can have personal solace as an alternative to carbon/moral responsibility offsets.

The critical heat is certainly growing on Al Gore not least for his patent moral hypocrisy and failure to live the lifestyle he is urging on others. But, in addition, Gore is becoming known for avoiding real debate on the issues. Last week saw three anti-alarmist speakers defeat three GW alarmists in a straightforward genuine debate on the issues in New York City.

Gore himself turned down an opportunity for public debate with Professor Bjorn Lomborg on a visit to Norway.   And this week has seen an open invitation from Viscount Monckton which proposes an internationally televised  debate with Gore in Oxford on any date of Gore's choosing. The proposal is worth reading for its flamboyant medieval character with overtones of chivalry and honor - not something Gore is becoming known for. Here's an excerpt:

"The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley presents his compliments to Vice-President Albert Gore and by these presents challenges the said former Vice-President to a head-to-head, internationally-televised debate upon the question "That our effect on climate is not dangerous", to be held in the Library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History at a date of the Vice-President's choosing.

"Forasmuch as it is His Lordship who now flings down the gauntlet to the Vice-President, it shall be the Vice-President's prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate. May the Truth win! Magna est veritas, et praevalet. God Bless America! God Save the Queen!"

We should not hold our breath however for we should realize that Gore's newfound fame and riches depend not on reason but on cant and propaganda.  Gore is becoming increas9ingly well known for not only avoiding debate but for refusing to answer questions after public appearances too.

Gore simply cannot afford to be engaged upon genuine debate on the science facts as he understands only too well - the facts are not on his side but, for the time being, the media hype is.  To be an also-ran in the race for the planet's top job might be considered bad luck. But to also be outed as the 'deceiver-in-chief' on the top global issue of our age (top issue, only because he made it so) now that's just plain bad  moral judgment and a mark of a wholly unchivalrous character.

And read about the 'heat'  Gore took up on Capitol Hill yesterday.  

Gallup here has an interesting take on its latest poll on 'concern over global warming'.  It poses the very real question: just how influenced is modern culture  by the 'science' and 'fiction' that comes out of Hollywood and its ideological (liberal left) mindset? That's not quite how they put it, but it is what they mean.

Interesting, is it not?