The Case for Copenhagen

I'm simply flabergasted that this is the climate change story the Indy runs after an entire week of high profile climate fraud stories breaking elsewhere...and not even a little mention of it?

In case you missed the news, it turns out that crisis has been averted. Hackers have released the scientist's e-mails and it turns out the climate change proponents weren't enitrely honest with us.

It doesn't seem like a case can be made that Copenhagen or Kyototo are in anyway helpful to anybody except those who stand to make billions selling us overpriced and unnecessary "green" technology.

It will be interesting to see what spin the Independent puts on "Climategate"," if indeed it covers it at all.

An easy, all-purpose word to toss around, this "Climate-gate." All too similar to "Watergate," a phrase with much heat and no fire.

Please help me out here, fellas: what exactly in the uncovering of the emails from East Anglia negates the science which details the contribution to global climate change by humans?

Specificity counts.

While slightly embarassing, the hacked emails are nothing but typical private conversations between researchers. Though it's unfortunate that this provides anthropomorphic global warming (AGW) deniers the opportunity to participate in a denialist's favorite pastime: quote mining.

Binky: The specificity you request is easily found on the internet if your willing to look for it. To be clear I'm not questioning climate change, I'm questioning the quality of the Indy's journalism. My point is a good journalist doesn't blindly publish a piece titled The Case for Copenhagen Last Best Hope without comment when on the same day all over the internet papers of repute are publishing headlines like these:

CLIMATE CHANGE 'FRAUD'
Climate scientist at center of e-mail controversy to step down
Penn State Will Investigate 'Climategate'
Inhofe Asks Boxer to Investigate Possible Scientific 'Conspiracy' in 'Climategate'
Australia's Parliament defeats global warming bill
Climategate: it's all unravelling now
North Texas Wakes to Big Snowflakes

If the Indy published this story two weeks ago it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow. To publish this piece today with out even a mention of the scandal reflects institutional bias or journalistic ignorance. Either way I would be personally embarrased to have published this piece as it was without any additional comment.

The irony is that the climate change scientists in question were once accused of the same institutional bias, but today we have thousands of pages of their own words detailing their fraud. And yet the Indy bravely and lovingly marches on in full support with out even a mention of the controversy?

As a reader, I have to question the quality of the journalism being done here.

Anyone that thinks this is no big deal obviously hasn't read the emails.

The emails and files contain exchanges demonstrating that climate scientists were subverting the peer review process by "blacklisting" skeptical researchers and making sure they couldn't get published. There are also admissions that researchers threw out or modified data that didn't support their point of view. There are even episodes of criminal activity, such as deleting emails to avoid disclosing data in a Freedom of Information Act request.

This calls into question all of the claims that current temperatures are unusual. It would be nice to go back and double-check these studies to see if they are correct. However, the CRU has just admitted they threw out the original data used to conduct their studies, making verification of their results impossible.

In sum, we have climate scientists openly admitting that they have deleted and modified data in order to reach a predetermined conclusion, and that they undertook activities, including illegal activities, to keep others from discovering this.

No, this is not "typical."

Contrary to your assertion, I've read the emails, which is why I'm of the opinion that they are slightly embarassing but not the least bit controversial.

"The emails and files contain exchanges demonstrating that climate scientists were subverting the peer review process by "blacklisting" skeptical researchers and making sure they couldn't get published. There are also admissions that researchers threw out or modified data that didn't support their point of view. There are even episodes of criminal activity, such as deleting emails to avoid disclosing data in a Freedom of Information Act request." [citation needed]

Wow. And you call other people "deniers."

Here's the citation to deleting emails in response to a FOI request:

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/email...

There's plenty more on that searchable database that backs up all the assertions I've made.

Like a broken record... slightly embarassing. The hysteria surrounding the subject matter clearly led them to make unwise choices regarding what were likely innocuous emails. Likely just as innocuous as the stolen emails that have caused this outrageous hysteria. Though I'm still confused how this revelation pertains to the veracity of the data gathered by the CRU.

If you think those emails are "innocuous" you're beyond help.

The veracity of the data gathered by the CRU? We have no idea, because the CRU threw out their original data.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news...

Why Copenhagen?...the climate there is dreadful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wt0Za...

LOL.

CRU is not the only center doing research. There are four independent bodies doing their own calculations and they have all reached the same conclusion - global warming is real. The others doing the research are NOAA, NASA and JPM. NASA has excellent archives of raw data available to any researcher wanting to check their results. I believe that CRU only had copies of the raw data - i.e. the data they lost is not the original. People who know very little rush to judgment.

Access to data:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2/

Modeling done by four different, independent institutions that track very well with each other.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/b...

There is no hidden data - see a list of links directly to online data:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/... /

Remember that a large percentage of the American population thought that Saddam was responsible for 911. Well, the same fraud is being swallowed hook line and sinker by the sheeple in this country.

Global warming is real. it is being felt right now by people all over the globe, and there is a 50/50 chance that it can be stopped.

BTW, go up into the Santa Ynez mountains now - there are tons of plants blooming that should not be blooming for a few months. Then go online: http://www.realclimate.org/ and learn as much as you can. It is vital that everyone understand what is at stake.

Actually, the CRU admitted that the the data they threw out was in fact the original data. The admission is in a link I provided earlier. But don't let that stop you from accusing other people of knowing very little about this.

And doesn't the fact that these supposedly independent predictions track very well with predictions now exposed as fraudulent bother you even a little bit?

The emails reveal that people at all of these institutions, and in fact the people who run the RealClimate website, were all in regular communication with each other, and openly discussed topics such as fudging data, hiding the recent decline in temperatures, and blacklisting skeptical researchers.

But don't let any of that stop you from worshiping at the Church of Gore.

Are you aware that East Anglia scientists were discussing records using tree ring dating, as one way to determine global temps. Tree ring methods showed decades of rising temps, but oddly, showed a slight dip for a 3-year period, i.e. the "decline". (It is still a fledgling science.)

BUT---other methods---importantly, temperature records using thermometers, show *** consistently rising *** temps.

The tree ring dating is an adjunct to direct temperature methods. The latter data is the primary indicator of agw.

The deniers are cherry picking and leaping on this to try to make their point, but they are ignorant, uninformed and dangerous.

Read this article as well:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/...

Btw, I have not seen any of, or read any of, Gore's stuff. I get my information from a wide variety of sources.

If Mr. Stewart and the Independent believe in global warming, why is he generating CO2 _flying_ to Copenhagen? (And who's paying for his trip???) Why not lead by example and attend via teleconference?

I agree - I think no-one should fly to Copenhagen. It should all be done via teleconference. It should be a question asked of the attendees. Unfortunately, wage earning and livelihood are tied to a carbon generating way of life - that is a problem.

Tabitha:

You seem to be missing the point about the tree rings. They probably shouldn't be used for climate study at all.

The researchers at East Anglia were warned not to use tree ring data by the U.N. because warmer weather is not the only cause of fatter tree rings. Increased water and carbon dioxide also affect ring size.

Take out the tree ring data and the data shows that the Middle Ages were warmer than today despite and a 40% increase in CO2 since 1750.

The implications of the scandal so far are no small matter in the U.K. An excellent starting point can be found here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/01...

a small summary-

*The Team had conspired in an attempt to redefine what is and is not peer-reviewed science for the sake of excluding results that did not fit what they and the politicians with whom they were closely linked wanted the UN's climate panel to report.

*They had expressed dismay at the fact that, contrary to all of their predictions, global temperatures had not risen in any statistically-significant sense for 15 years, and had been falling for nine years. They had admitted that their inability to explain it was "a travesty". This internal doubt was in contrast to their public statements that the present decade is the warmest ever, and that "global warming" science is settled.

*The Team had tampered with the complex, bureaucratic processes of the UN's climate panel, the IPCC, so as to exclude inconvenient scientific results from its four Assessment Reports, and to influence the panel's conclusions for political rather than scientific reasons.

* The Climate Research Unit at East Anglia had profited to the tune of at least $20 million in "research" grants from the Team's activities.

*They had mounted a venomous public campaign of disinformation and denigration of their scientific opponents via a website that they had expensively created.

*Contrary to all the rules of open, verifiable science, the Team had committed the criminal offense of conspiracy to conceal and then to destroy computer codes and data that had been legitimately requested by an external researcher who had very good reason to doubt that their "research" was either honest or competent.

All I'm saying is that if these guys were my doctors, and they told me I was sick, I'd be finding myself a new medical team.

In a world full of corruption I am very willing to entertain conspiracy theories but in this case it seems that it is the "naysayers" that are conspirators, conspirators to the point where they would break in, steal and then deliberately misinterpret and misuse the illegally mined emails for their ongoing political agenda and gain.

By excluding thousands upon thousands of peer reviewed data and challenging the integrity of varied and diverse professionals, these thieves are obviously deploying a politically motivated smoke screen. The cherry picking of data to prove an error prone agenda is reminiscent of Bush era republican right wingers who would cherry pick details and lead the U.S and our allies into several quagmires. Truth, justice, integrity and process are eschewed by these thieves. The only way to stop these illegal activities is to investigate, determine everybody that is involved with these illegal acts and then prosecute.

Disturber, you pick one of the best known climate change deniers to forward your points. (In fact Monckton appears as the 9 of Diamonds in the Top 10 Deck of Deniers, and argues science matters with the advantage of a degree in Classics: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment... )

A recent example of Monckton's anti-science and conspiracy-laden comments dissected:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/...

Although I suggest the interested reader look at the actual emails and determine what they do or do not reveal, I like what these folks have to say:

::: "More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to 'get rid of the MWP', no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no 'marching orders' from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

:: "Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in 'robust' discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking."

Here's the whole report: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/...

Climategate deniers. LOL.

Disturber - they are not the only players. NASA and NOAA and JPM are highly respected bodies. On another discussion board, a chief scientist described the steps that were taken to preserve all data at NASA and make it available to the public. I believe NASA is the main repository of climate data - they are highly esteemed, and it is tragic that all climate data research has been tarnished by cherry picking the emails of just one outfit. All that one can say about them, is that they are human like the rest of us. I wish this much of a fuss had been made about the very real and deliberate distortions of the movie "The Great Global Warming Swindle". I would certainly not like those Oil Company funded people as my doctors.

But, if mankind wants to bury heads in the sand, then when AGW overtakes them all to extinction, possibly that is not a bad outcome either - in comparison to the way the earth has been trashed. Mankind will be getting its comeuppance. Possibly in the silence of subsequent billions of years, as the planet heals, a more sapiens version of homo sapiens will evolve.

Kratatoa , what an interesting, informative comment.

DonMcDermott - your comment got to the heart of the matter. Thanks for that.

From: Ben Santer
Date: Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:58 PM
Subject: Open letter to the climate science community

Dear colleagues and friends,

I am sure that by now, all of you are aware of the hacking incident which recently took place at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). This was a criminal act. Over 3,000 emails and documents were stolen. The identity of the hacker or hackers is still unknown.

The emails represented private correspondence between CRU scientists and scientists at climate research centers around the world. Dozens of the stolen emails are from over a decade of my own personal correspondence with Professor Phil Jones, the Director of CRU.

.........

Phil, Tom, and their CRU and MOHC colleagues conducted this research in a very open and transparent manner. Like good scientists, they examined the sensitivity of their results to many different subjective choices made during the construction of the HadCRUT dataset. These choices relate to such issues as how to account for changes over time in the type of thermometer used to make temperature measurements, the thermometer location, and the immediate physical surroundings of the thermometer. They found that, no matter what choices they made in dataset construction, their bottom-line finding - that the surface of our planet is warming - was rock solid. This finding was supported by many other independent lines of evidence, such as the retreat of snow and sea-ice cover, the widespread melting and retreat of glaciers, the rise in sea-level, and the increase in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. All of these independent observations are physically consistent with a warming planet.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. The claim that our Earth had warmed markedly during the 20th century was extraordinary, and was subjected to extraordinary scrutiny. Groups at the National Climatic Data Center in North Carolina (NCDC) and at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York (GISS) independently attempted to reproduce the results of the Climatic Research Unit and the U.K. Meteorological Office Hadley Centre. While the NCDC and GISS groups largely relied on the same primary temperature measurements that had been used in the development of the HadCRUT dataset, they made very different choices in the treatment of the raw measurements. Although there were differences in the details of the three groups' results, the NCDC and GISS analyses broadly confirmed the "warming Earth" findings of the CRU and MOHC scientists.

More >>
http://tinyurl.com/y8p7jgg

Click on "Show Quoted Text"

Sometimes it's easier to believe a conspiracy than to admit you're wrong. This is the same tactic deployed by Ben Stein and other ID "proponentsists."

There is no hidden agenda behind the effort to blackball the AGW deniers. Some scientists at CRU felt that the editorial board of a certain journal had been infiltrated by AGW deniers and in an effort to retain the legitimacy of their research they discussed no longer publishing in that journal. It was simply an honest effort to differentiate legitimate science from everything else.

As others have noted, had these emails actually contained discussions wherein they admitted manufacturing data, you would still need to explain away the fact that similar data was gathered by other institutions.

All the things you guys say the emails don't say ... they actually DO say.

Debating with you people about your religion is pointless. Instead, I'll post this jaunty song for your enjoyment:

http://minnesotansforglobalwarming.co...

Climategate deniers. LOL.

Tabitha: You mention NASA as another independent research organization " NASA has excellent archives of raw data available to any researcher wanting to check their results." But this morning the Washington Times is publishing this article:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2...

about a researcher about to file a lawsuit against NASA because the organization has " refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s."

You go on to state that "CRU only had copies of the raw data - i.e. the data they lost is not the original. People who know very little rush to judgment."

In fact that is the problem! CRU has admitted to destroying years worth of the original or "raw" uninterpreted data. With out this data they have no basis for their claims of man made global warming because it is impossible to verify and replicate this data by independent sources. I do however agree that people who know very little rush to judgement.

Don McD: You mention the person who released these private e-mails

"deliberately misinterpret(ed) and misuse(d) the illegally mined emails for their ongoing political agenda and gain:By excluding thousands upon thousands of peer reviewed data and challenging the integrity of varied and diverse professionals, these thieves are obviously deploying a politically motivated smoke screen."

There's no dispute about the veracity of the info contained within the leaked e-mails, and what they illustrate is that the AGW proponents have not consistently produced fair unbiased research. You could make the argument that it is in fact the AGW proponents at CRU who have: "exclud(ed)thousands upon thousands of peer reviewed data and challenging the integrity of varied and diverse professionals, these thieves are obviously deploying a politically motivated smoke screen."

NASA is also hiding data from the public? Man, what an inconvenient truth.

Climategate deniers. LOL.

Binky: You characterize Monckton as a denier:

":you pick one of the best known climate change deniers to forward your points. (In fact Monckton appears as the 9 of Diamonds in the Top 10 Deck of Deniers, and argues science matters with the advantage of a degree in Classics: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ga... )"

:but isn't that just a smear tactic people used to discredit someone (ie; a holocaust denier) because you can't make a fair argument based on the facts? Is it possible that he is considered to be a leading "denier" because he has been correct all long about the quality of the science being produced? Like using fatter tree rings ( trees grow better and produce fatter rings when they have optimal heat/light, CO2, and moisture) to infer an increase in warming? What about other famous deniers in scientific history? Columbus was a flat earth "denier." Galileo was an earth centered solar system "denier." Are their contributions to science less valuable because they went against the popular notions of their time?

The point I want to bring this back to though is that the Deck of Deniers appeared in the Guardian before Climategate on Mar 9, 2009. Today Nov 3, 2009 they are running this story:

Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist
Exclusive: World's leading climate change expert says summit talks so flawed that deal would be a disaster

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment...

Which brings me full circle to my original comment which seems to have been largley ignored in favor of defending the AGW viewpoint. What is wrong with the Indy that they produce this fluff piece and not a single mention of the raging climate scandal and it's impact on the Copenhagen summit? In light of the growing controversy I find it to be a stunning example journalistic bias.

It will be interesting to read the authors follow up piece and see if there is any mention of the scandal's impact then.

I appreciate the reference, Disturber. As you accept Hansen as an authority, let's see what he says in this article you cite:

-- He hasn't abandoned AGW, he thinks the world leaders are compromised:

:: "In Hansen's view, dealing with climate change allows no room for the compromises that rule the world of elected politics. "This is analagous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill," he said. "On those kind of issues you cannot compromise. You can't say let's reduce slavery, let's find a compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%."

-- And on the subject of the hacked emails, Hansen says:

:: "Hansen admitted the controversy could shake public's trust, and called for an investigation. "All that stuff they are arguing about the data DOESN'T REALLY CHANGE THE ANALYSIS AT ALL [my emphasis], but it does leave a very bad impression," he said."

You know you've got them beat when they resort to tired logical fallacies: "Are their contributions to science less valuable because they went against the popular notions of their time?" Minority opinions are not valuable simply becuse they are in the minority, they only become valuable when they can produce theory through a testable hyposthesis.

Galileo used evidence through his observations of nature to establish a theory that better explained the motion of the planets within the solar system. We have no such presentation of evidence from the AGW deniers. In fact, the way they've latched on to a handful of stolen emails, separated from thousands of others, lends quite a bit of credence to the notion that they never had a bit of evidence to begin with.

To be fair Binky, in no way am I implying that Hansen is an authority on climate change, the Guardian is. He may or may not be; I'm in no way informed enough to make that judgement.

I'm merey trying to call attention the obvious bias that passes for factual reporting in the Indy. The Guardian has changed it's coverage to reflect current events specificly as it pertains to the Copenhagen Climate Summit. That is to say via Hansen that Copenhagen is "so flawed that deal would be a disaster"

Isn't the point of the article here in the Indypendent that it would be a disaster if we didn't ratify the Copenhagen treaty?

So which one is it? Do we need emission trading to survive as a species or not? Does this ETS practice produce demonstable environmental benefits or is it a another scheme that permits massive financial fraud at the expense of the consumer? Why did the Australian Parliament about face this week and reject their ETS program?

And speaking about Denmark and emissions trading, has anybody else come across this gem at the Copenhagen Post online:

Denmark rife with CO2 fraud

http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/8...

*Authorities in several countries investigate VAT tax fraud stemming from the Danish CO2 quota register

*It is much easier to register here than in other countries, where it can take up to three months to be approved.

*reporters have found examples of people using false addresses and companies that are in liquidation, which haven't been removed from the register.

*Police and authorities in several European countries are investigating scams worth billions of kroner, which all originate in the Danish quota register.

*One of the cases, which stems from the Danish register, involves fraud of more than 8 billion kroner. This case, in which nine people have been arrested, is being investigated in England.

.

FightWoo:

Any science only becomes valuable when they can produce theory through a testable hyposthesis. Galileo kept his documentation that's why he was able to demonstrate the power of his claims. The East Anglia CRU scientists are superstars in their field but no one can test their raw data because they didn't keep it. And because they are a respected authority in their field there's no way to know how their methodolgy influenced other researchers. See this article from the American:

"It's time for climate science to clean house. Whatever investigations come of Climategate, they should not stop with the United Kingdom"

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/...

That's where the scandal lies, these researchers no longer have a testable hypothesis because they have compromised themselves and the scientific method.

Per the Boston Globe:

Columnist Jeff Jacoby observed Wednesday: "Assuming the e-mails are genuine, they are nothing short of scandalous. They reveal celebrated climate scientists apparently conspiring to corrupt the peer-review process, to suppress or finesse temperature data at odds with global-warming alarmism, to silence or discredit climate experts who criticize their work, and to hide or eliminate the raw data on which their own much-trumpeted claims have been based."

I must admit, minority opinions are important to keep science honest, but the minority opinion in this case has been hijacked by ideologues. There is legitimate minority opinion somewhere in that mess, but it has not concluded that AGW is not occuring, it only takes issue with the rate of increase.

This is nothing short of hyperbolic nonsense:

"Assuming the e-mails are genuine, they are nothing short of scandalous. They reveal celebrated climate scientists apparently conspiring to corrupt the peer-review process, to suppress or finesse temperature data at odds with global-warming alarmism, to silence or discredit climate experts who criticize their work, and to hide or eliminate the raw data on which their own much-trumpeted claims have been based."

For an outsider it is difficult to discern the difference between something as benign as "normalizing the curve," and something sinister like massaging or outright manufacturing data to make it say something it doesn't. So, to read emails where scientists are speaking candidly about the research process, using phrases like "normalizing the curve," I'm not surprised that people are mildly confused; confusion should be expected. Unfortunately, the denialist community is having a collective orgasm.

I've already addressed the claims that they were blackballing dissenting opinions. Briefly, the researchers were being caddy and were of the opinion that a certain journal had been infiltrated by denialists and had ceased to be a legitimate peer reviewed publication. Again, I understand how this can be interpreted as something sinister. This is going to sound cliche' but it really is a catch-22: If they were to engage the denialists it elevates and legtimizes what can gracefully be called marginal science, if they refuse to do so they're accused of silencing dissenting opinion. For right or wrong most of the scientific community has chosen the later approach.

Disturber - I did not know of the lawsuit under the FOIA against NASA. I read on another board that one of the reasons that the CRU scientists were so protective of their work is that they were being harassed by 50+ FOIA lawsuits and could not get any work done.

I also read that sometimes lawsuits can take time because each email has to be verified for security purposes, especially with NASA, to make sure it can be released. Hence the delay.

From what I have read of the NASA data storage capabilities, I think it would be a very good idea for NASA data to be released. Possibly, by doing this it will become clear that all the furor over CRU was just cherry picking of data.

NASA after all is the outfit that disseminates tons of information about climate, weather, maps, Space Shuttle, etc. I doubt that they have problems.

There is a lot to learn about what is going on - but for someone above to say

"NASA is also hiding data from the public? Man, what an inconvenient truth."

without a shred of evidence is a too convenient untruth. People, like old wives gossiping, just love to jump on any bit of information and to blow it up out of all proportion and trash without reason or conscience.

Fightwoo et al:

Again I really must object to the use of "denier" and even worse "denialist" to characterize a skeptic. Is it not enough to characterize them as skeptics? Do you really feel it's necessary to insult them too? The use of this word trivializes the mass extermination of millions while insulting the intelligence of your readers. It certainly does nothing to elevate your argument while calling attention to your bias.

Six million or more were cruelly put to death in the Holocaust. It happened for real and it's an insult to the memory of these people to defend your viewpoint this way. It is in no way comparable or applicable to the global warming debate except to serve as a tool to stifle dissent when your science isn't persuasive enough. When you can demonstrate that six million died as a direct result of global warming and your critics refuse to see it, then you might have a cause to label them as "denier."

Until that day your science needs to withstand the same scrutiny as everyone else's, if not it deserves to be rejected. But to simply refuse to engage in the process because your opponent's junk science might in some way begin to gain credability is not science and is without merit.

You're wasting your time, Disturber. It's like arguing with a religious zealot about Jesus.

Climategate deniers. LOL.

"Peer Reviewed" does not mean "only accept viewpoints that agree with your agenda"

Bottom Line

Nothing we can do about the possible warming......stopping all carbon production today will not change a thing.

It is all a moot point.

Learn to adapt.

"deniers", hmmm what other well known world event is this word most widely used in conjunction with? Do you think this is a coincidence? Another very common tool that the main stream media employs is to add "er" to the end of any movement that counters their agenda. A very common yet effective schoolyard tactic. "deniers", It very neatly demonizes those who dare to question a mass movement that stands to transfer trillions of dollars of wealth and subvert US sovereignty.

Once "science" has been so highly politicized such as this case and the stakes behind it are worth trillions of dollars to those that are in charge, it no longer becomes an objective matter.

Follow the Money, I can't stress this enough.

The investigation into whether UK scientists manipulated global warming data to support a theory that it is man-made - should be extended to why the BBC never sent David Shukman, their globetrotting environmental correspondent, to anywhere that was actually getting cooler. Like the winters in North America and Central and Eastern Europe?

Dear Tabatha re: NASA

Researcher: NASA hiding climate data

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2...

"The numbers matter. Under pressure in 2007, NASA recalculated its data and found that 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year in its records for the contiguous 48 states. NASA later changed that data again, and now 1998 and 2006 are tied for first, with 1934 slightly cooler."

Here's what I don't get about you Climategate deniers.. The founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman, has teamed up with over 30,000 scientists who want to sue Al Gore for fraud.. Al Gore comes out and says he has a few thousand scientists who stand behind the global warming science, and then starts talking about a "consensus".

You should really be following more intelligent people, IMO. That's just the absolute dumbest thing I've ever heard, and he is practically your messiah.

Let me just say that I love the environment and I think we are poisoning our planet.. BUT NOT WITH CO2!!!! Plants LOVE CO2, our earth has had MUCH higher levels of CO2 in the long long ago.. It's NOT toxic to our environment. Environmentalists the last 2 decades have been sent on a wild goose chase by the elitists.. instead of focusing on toxic chemicals, you've been focusing on something completely harmless!! Exxon, Monstanto, Goldman Sachs, all these companies have enough money to fund the right scientists and debunk climate change if they wanted to.. but they don't.. They aren't fighting climate change science in any real way at all!! (though very minimally, in order for you to be able to provide a story about how some company gave some guy $700,000 one time.. that's NOTHING.. that is pocket change to these people)

No, in fact Exxon, Monsanto, all these companies are VERY SUPPORTIVE of climate change science!! Why? Because they have the most lobbyists, and when the government controls CO2 output and whatnot, THEY will control it, and they will profit off of it.

We need to restore private property rights.. that means you aren't allowed to pollute my property, my air, etc.. it doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want on your own property. During the Industrial Revolution, industry colluded with government and had them instate regulations rather than protecting property rights. Regulations ALLOW companies to negate property rights!! We need to get rid of regulations, start protecting property rights, and stop subsidizing oil as well as our god damn foreign empire at $1 trillion/year that continues giving us our cheap oil!! Let alternatives energies compete on a level playing field! Get the government out of the way, that is by far the best answer..

To be fair to the author, he's probably been working on this piece since before climategate broke.. and Jon Stewart didn't cover the incident until a couple of nights ago.

Ethan is a great kid, I'm sure he will read through these comments and do his own due diligence before his next publication on the topic.

"It very neatly demonizes those who dare to question ..."

The guise of asking questions provides convenient cover to an number of ridiculous inqueries. This is the same tactic deployed by every conspiracy wacko and denialist that ever scurried. Stupid questions should be ridiculed accordingly. These emails have no effect on the science of climate change in general or AGW specifically.

This comment might win the award for strawman of the century: "The founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman, has teamed up with over 30,000 scientists who want to sue Al Gore for fraud" Tantamount to the creationists attacking Darwin on evolution.

And this comment is just laden with oodles of stupid: "Plants LOVE CO2, our earth has had MUCH higher levels of CO2 in the long long ago.. It's NOT toxic to our environment." Please, share more of your "sciency" knowledge with us, loonpt. You've clearly studied hard for that degree from the University of Google.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/...

"Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real - or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails."

Good point R.C. Follow the money trail-

Al Gore is chairman and founder of a private equity firm called Generation Investment Management (GIM).

Before we discuss GIM's business model lets study the resume of GIM co-founder...drum roll please... former Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson. Remember Hank everybody?

*In August 2007, Secretary Paulson explained that U.S. subprime mortgage fallout remained largely contained due to the strongest global economy in decades.

*On August 10, 2008, Secretary Paulson told NBC's Meet the Press that he had no plans to inject any capital into Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.[22] On September 7, 2008, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went into conservatorship.

*Paulson was the designated leader of the Bush Administration's efforts in 2008 to nationalize the cost of bad loans made by financial institutions.

*Working with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, he influenced the decision to create a credit facility (bridge loan & warrants) of US$85 billion to American International Group so it would avoid filing bankruptcy.

to be continued...

...continued from part one...

*On September 19, 2008, Paulson called for the U.S. government to use hundreds of billions of Treasury dollars to help financial firms clean up nonperforming mortgages threatening the liquidity of those firms.[27] Because of his leadership and public appearances on this issue, the press labeled these measures the "Paulson financial rescue plan" or simply the Paulson Plan

*With the passage of H.R. 1424, Paulson became the manager of the United States Emergency Economic Stabilization fund.

*Documents obtained by government watchdog group Judicial Watch reveal that in an October 13, 2008, meeting with executives from 9 major American banks, Paulson told bankers that they would be forced to accept government bailout money, whether they wanted it or not.[29] One of the documents, a talking points memo, gave bankers the ultimatum: "If a capital infusion is not appealing, you should be aware that your regulator will require it in any circumstance."

*The Goldman Sachs benefit from AIG bailout was recently estimated as USD 12.9 billion and GS was the largest recipient of the public funds from AIG.[32] Creating the collateralized debt obligations (CDO's) forming the basis of the current crisis was an active part of Goldman Sach's business during Paulson's tenure as CEO.

*Opponents argued that Paulson remained a Wall Street insider who maintained close friendships with higher-ups of the bailout beneficiaries. If passed into law, the proposed bill would have given the United States Treasury Secretary unprecedented powers over the economic and financial life of the U.S. Section 8 of Paulson's original plan stated: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."[33] Some time after the passage of this bill, the press reported that the Treasury was now proposing to use these funds ($700 billion) in ways other than what was originally intended in the bill.[34]

*In 2008, Time named Paulson as a runner-up for its Person of the Year 2008, saying, with reference to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008: "if there is a face to this financial debacle, it is now his."

So how exactly does GIM make it's money, and with whom are they associated with?

"The basis of most of the IPCC conclusions on anthropogenic causes and on projections of climatic change is the assumption of low level of CO2 in the pre-industrial atmosphere. This assumption, based on glaciological studies, is false."

Ice cores provide the historic record and data collected at Mauna Loa the recent record. Both records are drastically modified to produce a smooth continuous curve with little variability. This was necessary to confirm the evidence falsely concluded from many 19th century measures that pre-industrial levels were approximately 280 ppm and didn't vary much. So how did they engineer the smooth curves and ignore the fact the 19th century record shows a global average of 335 ppm and considerable variability from year to year.

Most people don't know that thousands of direct measures of atmospheric CO2 were made beginning in 1812. Scientists took the readings with calibrated instruments and precise measurements as the work of Ernst-Georg Beck has thoroughly documented."

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index....

Climate myths: Ice cores show CO2 rising as temperatures fell

http://www.newscientist.com/article/d...

Hahahahahhahahahahahah.... The climate scientists ARE actually backed by Goldman Sachs!!

I totally called it in a previous post, too.. thanks Disturber for posting the evidence for me!!

You guys have been so duped... OMGZ it's CO2!!!

Again, plants LOVE CO2, it's not toxic, just think about it for a little bit. It will come to you.

And let the logical fallacies start a rollin'. Did you really just compare the similarities between Creationism vs. Evolution and the Global Warming debate? In the same breath you've compared Al Gore, an elitist politician on the make to the tune of billions of dollars (with no scientific training) to Charles Darwin, a brilliant scientist who's discoveries are the unifying theories of the life sciences.

FightWoo, just because you use the word "tantamount", that doesn't make your argument any more logical.

So getting back to Al Gore and Hank Paulson's little company GIM. What do they do to make money? For details click here:

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:t...

To summarize:

Al Gore is chairman and founder of a private equity firm called Generation Investment Management (GIM). According to Gore, the London-based firm invests money from institutions and wealthy investors in companies that are going green. "Generation Investment Management, purchases -- but isn't a provider of -- carbon dioxide offsets," said spokesman Richard Campbell in a March 7 report by CNSNews.

GIM appears to have considerable influence over the major carbon-credit trading firms that currently exist: the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) (Chicago as in the adopted home town of President Obama) in the U.S. and the Carbon Neutral Company (CNC) in Great Britain. CCX is the only firm in the U.S. that claims to trade carbon credits.

GIM's "founding partners" are studded with officials from Goldman Sachs. They include David Blood, former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM); Mark Ferguson, former co-head of GSAM pan-European research; and Peter Harris, who headed GSAM international operations. Another founding partner is Peter Knight, who is the designated president of GIM. He was Sen. Al Gore's chief of staff from 1977-1989 and the campaign manager of the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign

CCX has about 80 members that are self-confessed emitters of greenhouse gases. They have voluntarily committed themselves to reduce their emissions by the year 2010 to a level 6% below their emissions in 2000. CCX members include Ford Motor Company, Amtrak, DuPont, Dow Corning, American Electric Power, International Paper, Motorola, Waste Management and a smattering of other companies, along with the states of Illinois and New Mexico, seven cities and a number of universities. Presumably the members "purchase" carbon offsets on the CCX trading exchange. This means they make contributions to or investments in groups or firms that provide forms of "alternative," "renewable" and "clean" energy.

Clearly, GIM is poised to cash in on carbon trading. The membership of CCX is currently voluntary. But if the day ever comes when federal government regulations require greenhouse-gas emitters -- and that's almost everyone -- to participate in cap-and-trade, then those who have created a market for the exchange of carbon credits are in a position to control the outcomes.

And that moves Al Gore front and center. As a politician, Gore is all for transparency. But as GIM chairman, Gore has not been forthcoming, according to Forbes magazine. Little is known about his firm's finances, where it gets funding and what projects it supports

Attacking Al Gore on climate change is tantamount to attacking Darwin on evolution because neither of them represent the strongest evidence in their respective subject matter. That is why attacking Al Gore or his documentary is a strawman argument. I apologize if I was being obtuse, I didn't anticipate needing to explain the concept.

As if we needed more evidence that this is a battle of science against hysteric denialism, Disturber rambles on about Gore, Paulsen and the TARP monies and somehow concludes that this all part of a grand conspiracy to sell some florescent light bulbs. We can continue this discussion when you have more than speculation and conjecture.

That's funny FightWoo, I don't recall saying anything about selling flourescet light bulbs.

Can you show it to me?

Two days later, and still no refutation of the science, just explanations about politics. Quoting myself from the top of the comments:

:: "Please help me out here, fellas: what exactly in the uncovering of the emails from East Anglia negates the science which details the contribution to global climate change by humans?"

The attacks are directed at the people involved, dissection and interpretation of the political motives behind any and all, but refutation of the actual science remains ellusive, random -- an annoying picking at the edges.

No apologies needed. I was simply explaining that in your attempt to move your point along, you presented a logical fallacy generally employed by the slick hucksters that you so blindly follow. As well, your attempt at minimizing the strong-arm transfer of trillions of dollars by comparing it to a "conspiracy to sell some florescent light bulbs" is also a blatant insult to the collective intelligence of those that are informed to both sides of this issue. Apparently your explanation is still a bit obtuse for us feeble minded independent thinkers. Your explanation does not clear up your attempt to compare the two. A straw man argument (which you brought up, not me) occurs when an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. Discussing the fact that Al Gore is being sued by 30,000+ scientists is completely relevant. Al Gore is spearheading the entire Climate Change hoax!

Also, just so I understand this correctly, Darwin did not present strong evidence in his respective field of study?

"We can continue this discussion when you have more than speculation and conjecture."

FightWoo, are you able to read?? You are pimping for Goldman Sachs. That is the facts right there. So is Obama. You need to get out of this false left-right paradigm where the only people benefiting are the ultra wealthy bankers and CEOs. Democrats and Republicans are bought by these people. The only way to defeat the corporations is to not allow the government to prop them up. Government is the source of the problem, they prop them up. Period.

What we need to do is Protect private property rights. Prosecute theft, injury and fraud. That will put them right back to our level so that individuals can compete with them fairly in the marketplace, without destroying the environment. Getting a bunch of "smart" people together to control everything we do is the dumbest thing you can do, because those people will only fight for the interests of the wealthy. The rule of law is much more simple to follow and can be done at a local level. This is the only way to ensure that the corporations do not have an overbearing reach into the lives of everyone.

binky, I've posted plenty of refutations of the science, give me a friggin break. Not only that, climategate IS a refutation of the science. You guys seem to have this notion that there are all these different organizations collecting raw data and analyzing it, but we're showing you how these big organizations (which are secretly funded by the likes of Goldman Sachs) are actually in collusion.. That's what Climategate is!! These scientists talking in these emails ARE from different climate research organizations, and they are colluding on how to manipulate the data!

Binky: the evidence is in the usefullness of their hypothesis to support their prediction of warming:

-They had expressed dismay at the fact that, contrary to all of their predictions, global temperatures had not risen in any statistically-significant sense for 15 years, and had been falling for nine years. They had admitted that their inability to explain it was "a travesty".

Any useful hypothesis will enable predictions, by reasoning including deductive reasoning. It might predict the outcome of an experiment in a laboratory setting or the observation of a phenomenon in nature.

Meanwhile Houston braces for an icy night after record early snowfall -

"A steady snowfall, the earliest in Houston's history, continues this afternoon after flakes began falling shortly after dawn this morning. Meanwhile, temperatures have fallen throughout the day and as of 1 p.m. were sitting at 33 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport. Factor in the wind and it felt like 24 degrees."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl//...

I love that the term "Climategate denier" has stuck.

Still no mention of Climategate on the Indy site. However, I did see this in the news section. I thought the last sentence was especially funny:

>>"A candlelight vigil is to be held on 12/11-in the middle of the two-week UN climate talks in Copenhagen-as part of the 350.org association's effort to shed light on the pressing need to lower the global carbon level from 380 ppm to a survivable 350 ppm. The vigil is set to begin at 6 p.m. on the front steps of the Museum of Art and will proceed around the block. Organizers encourage participants to dress warmly and to bring their own candles."<<

"They had expressed dismay at the fact that, contrary to all of their predictions, global temperatures had not risen in any statistically-significant sense for 15 years, and had been falling for nine years. They had admitted that their inability to explain it was "a travesty".

Trenberth is talking about cooling that occurred in 2008 and 2009 and the explanation most climatologists give is the obvious one, this is due the 11 solar cycle and last year was a particularly strong La Nina year. Trenberth seems to think that the warming affect of CO2 would be enough to overcome that cycle and if you were to read the entirety of the email you would see that two of his colleagues, with whom he is in correspondence with, disagree with him. So do we have a researcher publicly shouting confidence while privately professing uncertainty? Well, if the denialists had bothered to read the email more closely they would see that he was referring to a published paper he had written wherein he expresses the same doubts as in the email and he actually provides a url!

Surely you can find one email to eludes to an elaborate hoax? This can't be the best you can do. Can it?

I am perplexed at the dichotomy that Fightwoo presents as he shows the ability to write yet lacks the ability to read.

Perhaps it is Climate Change that has eroded his comprehension skills?

No, Darwin does not represent the best evidence for the theory of evolution; evolutionary biology has come along way in 200 years. This is entirely off topic, due in no small part to my own digression. I'm going to avoid responding to comments involving anything other than the substance of the emails or the science behind AGW from hence forth. Scouts honor.

FightWoo = Climategate denier. LOL.

I'm sorry but I lost track, can all of you repeat what you said?

Something about Copenhagen being nice this time of year, I think.

Fightwoo, you said you read the e-mails, but if you did read the e-mails you would know that they were talking about the cooling of the last decade or so, not 2007 and 2008.

http://algorelied.com/?p=3177

"Dear all,

>>>>> At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the

>>>>> recent

>>>>> lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to

>>>>> look at

>>>>> the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic

>>>>> trend relative to the pdf for unforced variability. The second

>>>>> is to remove ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations from the

>>>>> observed data.

>>>>> Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The

>>>>> second

>>>>> method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.

>>>>> These sums complement Kevin's energy work.

>>>>> Kevin says : "The fact is that we can't account for the lack

>>>>> of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't". I

>>>>> do not

>>>>> agree with this.

>>>>> Tom."

Here is Kevin's response:

"Hi Tom
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!
Kevin"

Al Gore is canceling his speech at Copenhagen:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.p...

*Clicks heels*

Although the email thread begins as a discussion about responding to allegations that there has been "no warming since 1998," Trenberth is referring to the lack of warming in 2008 and 2009 (if you had taken the time to read his paper that he links to this would be clear to you.)

You've cut and pasted an excellent example of an intellectual disagreement between colleagues. When it comes to explaining the decline in the rate of warming, Trenberth does not share the majority opinion. How is this evidence of an elaborate hoax?

By the way, here are (some? all?) of the emails in question:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/

I would posit there are a handful of people who can claim to have read them -- there are hundreds, perhaps thousands.

If someone says they've read some of them, okay... but even to assert reading them does not equate with comprehension.

Some of the scientists involved in the email discussions often beg off understanding some of the data they need to use. (The disciplines involved are various.) For example:

::: "On Oct 15, 2008, at 5:03 PM, Judith Lean wrote:

::: "Hi Yousif,
"Many apologies for not replying sooner to your email - but I've only just returned from travel and am still catching up with email.
"Unfortunately, I am simply a "user" of the surface temperature data record and not an expert at all, so cannot help you understand the specific issues of the analysis of the various stations that produce the differences that you identify. I too would like to know the reason for the differences...."
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/email...

So "loonpt's" example is meaningless, and his claim to knowing the scope of the discussion or the attendant follow-ups, is equally empty and a classic cherry-pick by deniers.

FightWoo:

I have the e-mail string and Trenberth is most certainly not talking about, the 11 year solar cycle or last years particularly strong La Nina year(which in fact it wasn't). He was in fact commenting about a U-turn in BBC climate reporting that forcasts decades of cooling.

The e-mails begin with this observation:

From: "Narasimha D. Rao" >

To: "Stephen H Schneider" >

Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific

Subject: BBC U-turn on climate

Steve,

You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBC's reporter on climate change, on
Friday wrote that there's been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will
force cooling for the next 20-30 years. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as
are other skeptics' views.

[7]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

[8]http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on
-climate-change/

BBC has significant influence on public opinion outside the US.

Do you think this merits an op-ed response in the BBC from a scientist?

Narasimha

To which Trenberth replies:

Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Hi all

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here
in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal
is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about
18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather
(see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last
night in below freezing weather).

Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's
global energy. /Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27,
doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]

(A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)

The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on
2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our
observing system is inadequate.

That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC are tracking PDO on
a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is
the change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn't decadal. The PDO is already reversing
with the switch to El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for first time
since Sept 2007. see
[2]http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitorin
g_current.ppt

Kevin

And for that matter where the heck are the super hurricanes the size of North America that Trenberth began to predict after Katrina happened.

see article here:
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/20...

...The real travesty with Trenberth has been his long-term take on climate, not weather. Trenberth has loudly trumpeted climate alarmism by preaching hurricane panic. See his Scientific American article from 2007. He predicted a trend toward gigantic hurricanes which was depicted by an illustration of a "future hurricane,"

Take a look at his Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) charts from 2005 to 2009. They do not follow his predicted increase of ACE, in fact they are declining.

Wow, it is absolutely amazing the mental gymnastics that people are willing to go through in order to retain their currently held beliefs. Cognitive dissonance does not mix well with scientists, so it is no surprise that the scientists here are the ones taking the longest to comprehend their own failure to study the subject thoroughly enough to begin with so that they might understand the truth about the bunk climate science that they have been clinging to. Talk about cherry picking, there is so much research out there contradicting the GW hypothesis and it's like completely invisible to them.. I also love how they do not think twice about the issues regarding peer review that were displayed in the e-mails. I don't know how anyone will be able to trust mainstream science again.

Speaking of "classic cherry picks", pay no attention to the Mann behind the curtain!

Climategate deniers. LOL.

Met Office to re-examine 160 years of climate data

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news...

Tell us again how this is no big deal. Climategate deniers. LOL.

Dutch: Gore Wrong on Snows of Kilimanjaro

The Netherlands is afire today over a Dutch study concluding Mount Kilimanjaro's snow melt - used as a symbol of AGW by Al Gore - is entirely natural.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/dutch-go...

...findings of a research team led by Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damste - a leading molecular paleontologist at Utrecht University and winner of the prestigious Spinoza Prize - shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.

The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of "a natural process of dry and wet periods." The present melting is not the result of "environmental damage caused by man."

How U.N.'s IPCC and East Anglia's CRU lack of scientific objectivity has already affected us here in the States:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/carlin-c...

"...Alan Carlin - the EPA scientist whose skeptical report was hushed - says the EPA broke tradition and used external work (from the CRU/IPCC) for its proposals (to regulate GHG emissions under the Clean Air Act)...

I cannot think of any instance where the EPA depended so heavily on non-EPA synthesis reports to justify proposed regulatory action in their almost 39 years of existence."

Global Warming truly is similar to a religion in that people personally invest themselves in an entire way of life and belief system that is based on having faith in what they believe. Just like it is very hard to see an opposing point of view if you are a devout Christian that has been indoctrinated into a system by those you trust, as well it is very hard for a global warming believer because you are admitting that the basic fiber of your being is based upon a sham. Most people by nature are stubborn, competitive and don't want to admit to themselves that something that they so personally invested in could be so wrong and invalid. I truly feel sorry for you guys because I do believe that you are trying to do the right thing. And that's what these evil, sinister multinational corporations were banking on. Let's hope that we can get this behind us and start focusing on cleaning up the earth... reducing or eliminating man-made toxic pollution and the tainting of our water supplies and reducing measurable, physical pollution such as trash, bio-waste and toxic waste. I truly care about the state of our natural environments and our urban environments for that matter but the answer is not to enslave the earth's population into a massive tax scam based on emitting what animals emit naturally and what plant life thrives upon.

Disturber, Kratatoa, loonpt...keep going...you have them on the ropes. It is like turning over a large rock and watching the bugs scamper around running for cover. If you listen real close you can just hear the squeaky voices of a few of them yelling about their funding, the rest are just monks in training that will fight to the bitter end to protect their religion. Because to admit that mankind is not the cause would invalidate their lives. I love it!! Daniel Petry

The Left's Climategate: A Scandal for Journalism, Too:

"For Decades, the Media Chose to Champion, Not Scrutinize, Claims of Global Warming Alarmists"

http://www.mediaresearch.org/realityc...

ABC, NBC, CBS scooped by Comedy Central's John Stewart: "Networks Remain Silent on ClimateGate: Day Fourteen and Counting":

http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2009/200...

Yet again the Thursday network evening newscasts on NBC, ABC, and CBS failed to cover the ClimateGate scandal. However, ABC World News did manage to devote a two minute story to the release of singer Susan Boyle's first album.

Day 15: NBC Nightly News Takes Up ClimateGate, But Frets It Could 'Delay Taking Action'

http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2009/200...

FightWoo, binky, DonMcDermott, let's call your position the "Jim Jones Syndrome".

Not long ago it was a coming ice age....then Y2K was going to send us back to the Stone Age...blah blah blah...now man caused climate change.

This despicable hubris is just another arrogant way to enrich a few and impoverish the many. All the while ignoring the real problems facing us. Problems that demand real leadership by real leaders...not religious zealots led by a disgraced vice-president, supported by disgraced scientific "experts".

Isn't it strange how it always comes down to money? Our money...not theirs. What was the down payment the UN wants from us prior to the conference? 10 billion as proof of our good faith? Nope...we have had enough. Daniel Petry

Climategate Part deux: The leaked computer code

http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Env...

"A number of computer scientists and engineers are analysing computer code contained in the files leaked anonymously to the Internet last week, and it will more than likely produce more controversy than the emails that have been the subject of intense discussion so far.

In fact, if the documentation (notes written by authors and fixers of the computer code) is any indication, what we have seen so far is only prelude."

"I want to remind readers that once before we saw a software sausage grinder that turned all data into hockey sticks. This was the analysis tool used by Michael Mann in creating the original Hockey Stick chart, and the way he had it set up it would turn any string of numbers into a hockey stick figure, a point noted by Greiner in his post."

http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Env...

http://cubeantics.com/2009/12/the-pro...

"Now, here is some actual proof that the CRU was deliberately tampering with their data. Unfortunately, for readability's sake, this code was written in Interactive Data Language (IDL) and is a pain to go through.

NOTE: This is an actual snippet of code from the CRU contained in the source file: briffa_Sep98_d.pro

1. ;
2. ; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
3. ;
4. yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
5. valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
6. if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,'Oooops!'
7.
8. yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)

...A review of the code line-by-line

...

The main thing to realize here, is, that the interpol() function will cause the valid temperature readings (yrloc) to skew towards the valadj values.

What the heck does all of this mean?

Well, I'm glad you asked. First, let's plot the values in the valadj array.

http://cubeantics.com/wp-content/uplo...

(cont.)

http://cubeantics.com/2009/12/the-pro...

Agree with "Flabbergasted" - the Indie should bone up!

"No impartial observer could fail to note that this is total codswallop. A formidable array of no fewer than 700+ international scientists, a number of them current or former participants in the IPCC, have registered their scepticism of the theory with the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works."

For more read:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephi...

loonpt, when you find any proof that the code you cite was used by CRU to alter or misrepresent any of the Global Temperature data, let us know.

By the way, my engineering friends tell me that code is for plotting data, not code for producing a data set.

Folks with deep interest in this can see an analysis here: http://residualanalysis.blogspot.com/...

I hear the squeaky voices loonpt, keep going. Daniel Petry

The first analogies are being drawn between the financial instruments that caused the 2008 sub-prime mortage crisis (See my earlier post tying Al Gore to Goldman Sachs) and the newly emerging carbon trading markets. See this article by the FinacialTImes.

France warns on carbon permits abuse-

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b489818a-e1...

"...France sounded a warning over unregulated "dark pools" in the carbon trading market and called for the creation of a single European regulator to prevent future abuses...

..."There is a regulatory vacuum," she said. "BecÂ-ause this is a strange beast, something between commodities and financial instruments, it falls between the cracks.

France is keen to apply the lessons learnt from the sub-prime crisis to Europe's newly emerging carbon trading market"

I am very disappointed by the way Indy cover all Climate change issues. This kind of highly biased journalistic is not the think I expect from my favorire newspaper. After all it is called "Independent" and making headlines like "Climate chaneg deniers cost the earth" is not I would expect form decent newspaper. Calling names is not a civilzed way of solving global problems. How about "Eco-Natzis use fraud to get billions". Not pleasant yes? Lets forget about lying scientist getting billions. If you use fraud to get money you should go to jail. But this is not the most important question now. What is important is the climate change human made and if it is what is the best way to solve the issues.

Is the best policy spending trillions just to slow this inevitable process with say 20 years or to spend the same money to take advantage of it and to feed the dying and develop the whole world for good, like providing education and health.

And to spend some money on something constructive like nuclear fussion?

What we need is civilzed dialog not eco-junky name calling here.

And I do not see this hapennning in Independent righ now.

loonpt: This one from the Wall Street Journal is just for you; enjoy!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001...

Climategate: Follow the Money-
Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.

, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s. Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums.

Which brings us back to the climategate scientists, the keepers of the keys to the global warming cathedral. In one of the more telling disclosures from last week, a computer programmer writes of the CRU's temperature database: "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!"

This is not the sound of settled science, but of a cracking empirical foundation. And however many billion-dollar edifices may be built on it, sooner or later it is bound to crumble.

Copenhagen summit: Denmark rushes in laws to stop carbon trading scam - Climate change summit host embarrassed as criminals make most of lax laws to pocket VAT on emissions trading

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment...

The fraud occurs when a trader of carbon credits in one EU country buys some from another country free of VAT, then sells them on, charging the VAT to the buyer. The seller then disappears without handing the VAT to the taxman.

Also from the Wall Street Journal:

Has Anyone Read the Copenhagen Agreement?
U.N. plans for a new 'government' are scary.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001...

The "scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention" that starts on page 18 contains the provision for a "government." The aim is to give a new as yet unnamed U.N. body the power to directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and environmental affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty.

Tabitha, in an earlier posting you reference the editorial by Nature and write...

"The deniers are cherry picking and leaping on this to try to make their point, but they are ignorant, uninformed and dangerous.

Read this article as well:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v46...

There is an interesting analysis of that editorial here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/03...

..where they go to say:

1. For a scientific journal to use the label "denialists" is in my opinion unconscionable, and highlight's Nature's own bias...The scientific integrity of one of the foremost scientific magazines has been tarnished by the use of a cheap slur.

2. The claims of harassment are ludicrous. The very foundation of science is based on the ability of other scientists to perform replication via data sharing...Besides, UAE has a person specifically assigned to handling FOIA requests. Jones had the data to fill the requests, all he had to do is hand them to the FOIA officer.

3. For Nature to claim that:

Researchers are barred from publicly releasing meteorological data from many countries owing to contractual restrictions...Is pure rubbish. The majority of weather stations that report data used in the CRU are from public airports worldwide. It is public data.

4. Nature assumes it was a hack in, but the evidence points to a leak, or even a carelessly left file on a public FTP site at CRU (which has happened before)

Mistakes in Al Gore's new book begin with the cover

http://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Balti...

The storm near Florida is spinning the wrong way.

The hurricane on the equator is impossible following the Laws of Physics.

Complete countries such as Cuba and many in Central America that disappear under water.

The ice at the north pole completely disappears, but the ice at the arctic circle remains

What, we still have a Climategate denier posting here defending this fraud?!? You're a good soldier, binky.

I wonder if a reputable, (notice that we now have to say "reputable"), behaviorist could analyze, and compare, the similarities between global warming fanatics, and the individual beliefs that are manipulated to brainwash and create religious zealots. Are they using the religion of global warming to fill a void in their lives. Daniel Petry

I think I've been misunderstood, by my dear colleague "Kratatoa." I fully accept the idea that a scandal exists that has come to be known as 'Climate-gate.' As has been already noted, the unfolding of the hubbub bears remarkable similarity to the so-called 'Whitewater' scandal, lubed-up by the now predominate networks within the WWW.

What I deny, however, is that it has any bearing on the science behind AGW.

What I also accept is that 'Climate-gate' has everything to do with politics and the political influence of business interests, and as predicted, this rather lengthy thread has been dominated by much political/social commentary and no refutation of the science.

Kratatoa, bink (and crew) are more like monks participating in the ecclesiastical tribunals in Spain during the Inquisition.

They are charged with trying and convicting heretics and to combat or suppress heresy. We have not gotten to the point of the "Rack" yet...but give them real power and just stand back. Daniel Petry

..."Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) had their attorneys file three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA. Chris Horner, representing CEI, said NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies failed to comply with the Freedom of Information Act for the past three years. Some Goddard employees were mentioned in the CRU hacked account now known as Climategate.

...a report on Sea Ice itself showed that melting has stopped and the ice expanded. The scientists, baffled, tried to come up with an excuse. These questionable tactics were highlighted to much scrutiny. Then last winter, a report of faulty NASA sensors revealed that ice the size of California in the arctic had been shown as missing, but was there the whole time. However the reports on Acrtic ice never reflected the return of the missing section, making it look like less is present." See link and additional comment below.

http://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Balti...

"...The New York Times did mention this in Andrew Revkin's dotearth Blog , but decided not to post any material that was not meant for the public the see. That never stopped them with the Pentagon Papers. But rather than go down a political road here, my real concern is that this is being ignored by NBC, ABC, and CBS. "

Hi binky: I'm glad to see you are still participating. I have a story for you about GISS director, the esteemed Dr. James Hansen who we have discussed above. You will be interested to know that he has declared this last October to have been the warmest on record.

As you may recall, this is consistant with his position after Climategate in which you defended him by saying...

"-- He hasn't abandoned AGW, he thinks the world leaders are compromised."

Please comment on this article here:

http://84rules.wordpress.com/2008/11/...

In which we learn that Dr. Hansen "...used bad data. In fact, he recycled old data to make his measurements. He used Russian data from September and inserted it into October."

Also "...This isn't the first time Dr. Hansen has had his claims debunked. His famous "hockey stick" model was shown to be a fraud in 2007 when it was discovered that the satellites taking the temperature readings were improperly calibrated. When the temperatures were adjusted for the proper calibration, it turns out that the hottest years on record were in the 1930's, not the 1990's."

binky:

We also have analysis of Dr. Hansen's proposals to President Obama, in which he states, "A carbon tax is honest, clear and effective. It will increase energy prices, but low and middle income people, especially, will find ways to reduce carbon emissions so as to come out ahead."

See article with links to the primary documents here:

http://84rules.wordpress.com/2009/01/...

with regard to his carbon tax on petroleum products he states:

"The most effective way to achieve this is a carbon tax (on oil, gas, and coal) at the well-head or port of entry. The tax will then appropriately affect all products and activities that use fossil fuels."

"The public will support the tax if it is returned to them, equal shares on a per capita basis (half shares for children up to a maximum of two child-shares per family), deposited monthly in bank accounts. No large bureaucracy is needed. A person reducing his carbon footprint more than average makes money. A person with large cars and a big house will pay a tax much higher than the dividend. "

See analysis of this plan in part 2

of Dr. Hansen's proposals to President Obama part 2

The analysis of Dr. Hansen's proposals:

"...First, if Hansen honestly believes that Washington would enact any kind of tax without creating bureaucratic positions to oversee such a tax, then he really has no street smarts at all.

Second, why does it have a maximum share for two children? Is this Hansen's way of telling people how many children they are allowed to have? A way of implementing dictatorial population control?

Third, another thing that Hansen doesn't realize is that the ultimate effect of his proposal would be to subsidize the American people for paying higher fuel prices. In other words, force higher prices by enacting a tax, and then redistributing the tax proceeds so that people can turn around and pay the higher prices. There is no net gain there at all and nothing gets done. Money simply passes from one set of hands to the other and there is absolutely no productive result to show for the transfer.

And another point that shows how out of touch Hansen is with reality is that he actually makes the claim that paying higher fuel prices (and all other inflationary costs that result from such higher prices) would stimulate the economy!

I remind you that this is the same Dr. Hansen who declared this last October to be the hottest October on record after he improperly used data from September and inserted it into October.

Snow predicted for Sacramento... up to 4 inchs in the foothills.

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story...

The cold storm system dropping from the northeast out of Canada will be unusual since the coldest temperatures will bypass Northern California communities such as Red Bluff and Redding but drop Sacramento Valley temperatures Monday to a record 27 degrees.

That's the coldest for Dec. 7 since the National Weather Service began tracking temperatures in Sacramento in1849.

The city of Sacramento last had 2 inches of snow in February 1976.

Matthews said a trace amount of snow has fallen in the area four times since then - most recently on Jan. 28, 2002.

binky, you are a denier because you refuse to admit that the Climategate leak demonstrates that one of the central claims of the global warming crowd (that temperatures are higher now than ever) is based on scientific fraud.

That makes you a Climategate Denier.

May we all follow the gentile example of Professor Watson from UEA's CRU graciously talking down a misfortunate and misguided global warming denialist. Have we finally found a more p.c. term for denialists?

*caution: use of profanity

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8WDcQ...

Oh, and don't miss the family friendly bonus: Begley goes Balistic!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jam...

BBC News reports-"Himalayan glaciers melting deadline 'a mistake'"

"...The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.

Mr Cogley says it is astonishing that none of the 10 authors of the 2007 IPCC report could spot the error and "misread 2350 as 2035".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia...

The climate is warming. Human actions are clearly having some effect, probably a lot. The world is also clearly unable to take meaningful action, sadly IMHO. We need to start taking steps to deal with the effects as we are pretty unlikely to be able to much to alter the inevitable. I advise you to not waste your time and energy arguing with the rapidly shrinking minority of folks who stubbornly refuse to accept the obvious. Sorry to be so negative but we've dithered too long and too much money is at stake and we've passed the point of no return so we better start getting prepared for what will hit the fan over the next 50 years.

Noletaman, you seem to be missing the point.. global temperatures have been falling for about a decade now which completely contradicts your entire premise. Global warming science is completely bunk, CO2 is not toxic to our atmosphere. The "business interests", as binky puts it, who are actually the global banker interests, are the ones who are funding this scam. There ARE NO REAL business interests against global warming. They throw a little money around to pretend like they are against it, but you have to look at the bigger picture. We've already shown that Goldman Sachs is behind this scam.

Have you ever heard of the Council on Foreign Relations? Cheney was the head of this group at one point before he was Vice President. Well guess what? Not only do they "support" MMGW, but they want to chemtrail our skies with phosphorus and kill everybody. If you support MMGW, you are supporting the elite in their agenda to kill off a large percentage of humanity.

From http://www.newsweek.com/id/224595

"Various methods of geo--engineering employ unorthodox means to cool the planet. Advocates say that some of these proposals could be implemented quickly and cheaply. One concept is known as stratospheric aerosol insertion.

...according to the Council on Foreign Relations, one -kilogram of sulfur could offset the effect of several hundred thousand kilograms of carbon dioxide. Potential downsides: regional ozone depletion, shifts in weather patterns, drought."

The eugenics card.. I pulled it, and this is deadly serious. That is one of the reasons why the elite are distracting environmentalists away from truly toxic pollution to focus on harmless CO2. Look at the big picture.

Oh ya, I said phosphorus above and meant sulfur. Sorry about that.

binky, are you aware of the medieval warming period? It was significantly warmer then than it is now. The medieval warming period was followed by a "little ice age". The American Revolution was fought during the little ice age, and there are numerous references during that period to chilling temperatures below what we see in those same areas today. Those references aren't the science, but they certainly corroborate the science. The end of the 1800s into the 1900s is when we really began to come out of the "little ice age" and that is why we have seen a general warming trend. It has nothing to do specifically with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. In fact, a lot of the short term temperature changes are directly attributed to solar flair activity.

Our earth could sustain higher temperatures and we would be OK. In fact it might make earth more habitable as they have done studies on shallow islands in the South Pacific and shown that the sea had not risen or gone down significantly since the medieval warming period. I'm not making any of this up, you can research it in seconds, information is currently at your fingertips. I am imparting to you the knowledge that I've learned in the past. Use it as a springboard to challenge your own beliefs.

Here's a nice summary of the "hide the decline" comment. This article also contains the interesting revelation that almost half of this century's temperature increase reported by the NOAA is not in the raw data, but due to "data adjustments" the NOAA refuses to explain.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/06...

Father of Gaia says green movement is a bogus money scheme -

http://www.examiner.com/x-1586-Baltim...

"...Most of the "green" stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people..."

loonpt & Kratotoa:
RE: Watts up with that?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/06...

Thanks for posting the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA) info and the link to the wattsupwiththat.com's analysis. Good info and very eye opening! As you both point out, the graph clearly shows the world was in fact much warmer in the medieval period (years 900-1300 AD), followed by a 400 year cold snap that persisted from 1500 until 1900 when temperatures finally begin to gradually rise above the baseline. This chart and analysis clearly illustrate how the last century of warming was hardly remarkable.

Please contrast this information to Professor Watson's (from UEA's CRU) appearance on BBC's Newsnight which I have previously linked to above. Listen carefully to his final remarks as he carefully tries to frame the debate in his favor.

":the temperature of the debate has clouded the issue:which is :has the world warmed in the last 100 years or not?"

This clearly illustrates the modus operandi the Climate Alarmists are resorting to in the current climate debate. Temperatures have been on the rise for the last century. What Climate Alarmists conveniently fail to mention is that this warming is normal and to be expected- especially following a mini-ice age! Also notice how the alarmists prefer to focus on last century's warming rather than this century's cooling!

Also notice how Professor Watson allows the listener to infer that the last century of warming is caused by man...

From the Wall Street Journal:

Officials gather in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit, but business leaders are focusing even more on Washington, where the Obama administration is expected as early as Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.

An "endangerment" finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions even if Congress doesn't pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is
expected.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12601...

See also my previous post:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/carlin-clim...

"...Alan Carlin - the EPA scientist whose skeptical report was hushed - says the EPA broke tradition and used external work (from the CRU/IPCC) for its proposals (to regulate GHG emissions under the Clean Air Act)...

I cannot think of any instance where the EPA depended so heavily on non-EPA synthesis reports to justify proposed regulatory action in their almost 39 years of existence."

Shell Calls for Global Expansion of Cap-and-Trade CO2 Programs

http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2009/11...

How can anybody actually believe that big business is trying to take down the theory of MMGW when they are clearly the ones behind it?

EPA's Greenhouse Gases Declaration -- Putting America On the Road to Ruin

"...Not only would motor vehicles be regulated, so would light-duty trucks, heavy-duty trucks, buses, motorcycles, planes, trains, ships, boats, tractors, mining equipment, RVs, lawn mowers, fork lifts, and just about everything that has a motor. Because there is no control technology for greenhouse gases, the EPA would require complete redesigns and operational changes.

They would also require permitting for businesses and structures that emit as little as 250 tons of greenhouse gases per year. That threshold may make sense for some air pollutants. But for carbon dioxide it's frighteningly low, and would subject millions of never-before-regulated entities to an expensive and lengthy EPA permitting process. Any building over 100,000 square feet would be pulled in, as would numerous smaller buildings that produce carbon dioxide. Small businesses, restaurants, schools, and hospitals that have commercial kitchens with gas burners would all be affected.

The 1970 Clean Air Act is such a bad vehicle to address greenhouse gases that EPA is attempting, illegally, to rewrite the law to suit its purposes. EPA wants to handpick which industries and carbon emitters it will regulate, instead of following the law as written. Not only is it illegal, but it's also ineffective, because state regulators and courts will still be able to use these regulations to shut down the whole U.S. economy...

The 1970 Clean Air Act is such a bad vehicle to address greenhouse gases that EPA is attempting, illegally, to rewrite the law to suit its purposes. EPA wants to handpick which industries and carbon emitters it will regulate, instead of following the law as written.

Fortunately, the EPA is required by law to accept public comments on its proposal. You can do that by clicking here:"

http://www.americansforprosperity.org...

My submitted comment: "Should I start holding my breath now?"

In 1975 US government pushed 'the coming ice age'...

Random House dutifully printed "THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY : coming of the New Ice Age." This may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."

"...You can't blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed's mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today's scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work...

...It's the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line...

...Tree rings show a mini ice age in Europe about the time Stradivarius crafted his violins. Chilled Alpine Spruce gave him tighter wood so the instruments sang with a new purity. But England had to give up the wines that the Romans cultivated while our globe cooled, switching from grapes to colder weather grains and learning to take comfort with beer, whisky and ales.

Yet many centuries earlier, during a global warming, (the MWP!) Greenland was green. And so it stayed and was settled by Vikings for generations until global cooling came along. Leif Ericsson even made it to Newfoundland. His shallow draft boats, perfect for sailing and rowing up rivers to conquer villages, wouldn't have stood a chance against a baby iceberg.

Today, as I peck out these words, the weather channel is broadcasting views of a freakish and early snow falling on Dallas. The Iowa state extension service reports that the record corn crop expected this year will have unusually large kernels, thanks to "relatively cool August and September temperatures." And on Jan. 16, 2007, NPR went politically incorrect, briefly, by reporting that "An unusually harsh winter frost, the worst in 20 years, killed much of the California citrus, avocados and flower crops."

http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/clim...

Hey Kratotoa:

Good idea, I think that the EPA might actually take your suggestion seriously, though!

Let's all just hold our breath and limit CO2 that way! I don't think loonpt will join us, but maybe binky and Fightwoo are willing to put their money where their mouths are, so to speak.

Fightwoo & Binky:

Can we count on you to help by doing the same?

Must see video: Al Gore denies that Ken Lay & Goldman Sachs CEOs helped develop C02 "trading scheme"

Pay attention to the segment beginning about 3 minutes in!

Regarding reports Al Gore met Enrons's Ken Lay at the White House to develope the carbon trading scheme-

"I didn't know him well enough to call him 'Kenny-boy'."

Also watch his denial of associations with Goldman Sachs execs...

Gore's founding partner in his carbon-trading / sustainability investment firm is none other than David Blood, CEO of Goldman Sachs' asset-management division until 2003.

Gore & Blood founded Generation Investment Management, LLC in 2004 giving Gore an obvious conflict of interest in pushing a carbon tax.

Goldman Sachs is implicated all over the still-unfolding fallout from the last derivatives bubble? And have key former-associates in both the Bush Administration (Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, Asst. Sec. Neel Kashkari) AND a key associate in the Obama Administration (Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner)?

This firm must not be allowed to drive a new form of taxation we already can't afford. We must say no to more Blood & Gore.

http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2009/1...

All I can say is "Brrrrr, man!" It's freaking cold out!

"My submitted comment: 'Should I start holding my breath now?' " -Kratatoa-
We can hold our breath much longer than you can, as proven by our ability to swim underwater for much longer periods of time. Once again, we are superior to you humans.

Copenhagen bait and switch! -

"...Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after 'Danish text' leak -

Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment...

"The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document also sets unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as "a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks".

• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;

• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";

• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;

• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.

"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless."

New record for snowfall in Flaggstaff Az: 20.1 inchs. Previous record was 5.0 inchs in 1956. This is 19.7 inchs more than normal for this time of year.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz/gprod.php...

The elite global bankers funded the science for global warming, they own the media and the politicians who have pushed this fairytale on all of us, and now they are using it as a mechanism to control populations and economies. This is nothing new, it was done with our banking system in 1913 when the Private Federal Reserve was created. The Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel, it is not a part of the government.

Look at history, but don't look at mainstream history because the elite control our educational system and the media. It takes a bit more effort to see what the history of this country and the world really is, and it amounts to a constant struggle between man and the globalist bankers who convince governments to allow them to counterfeit money into existence so that they can charge us interest. The banks have been taxing humanity for centuries without providing any valuable services as this method of supplying monies to the populations increases poverty worldwide by forcing nations to incur large debts which they cannot pay off. Whether it is infrastructure or wars, which are often started and always funded (both sides) by the elite bankers. Bankers literally make a "killing" off of wars, and have since Napoleon and even earlier.

There IS another way!! It is called "sound money". Study Austrian Economics, Peter Schiff (running for Senate in Connecticut, 2010), Ron Paul, G. Edward Griffin and other who advocate liberty for the individual and sound money. That is how we can avoid these types of things and create a better world where more people can live in peace and prosperity independent of any sort of central structure. Central planning and global governance only leads the way for tyranny and the elite to take over everything and screw over the poor and middle class.

Global warming is caused by radiation from the sun, according to a leading scientist

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/cope...

"...He said the last time the world experienced such high temperatures, during the medieval warming period, the Sun and the Earth were in a similar cycle.

...a geologist from Stockholm University, said sea level rise has also been exaggerated by the "climate alarmists" using computer models.

He said observational data from lake sediments, coast lines and trees show sea levels have remained stable.

another geologist from the University of Western Australia, also said the environmental lobby have got it wrong on ice caps. He said the melting of ice sheets is caused by geothermal activity rather than global surface temperatures.

Professor Ian Plimer, from the University of Adelaide, claimed carbon dioxide from volcanoes rather than humans is driving warming as part of a natural process.

Bloomberg notes that the carbon trading scheme will be centered around...

derivatives!

Derivatives are securities whose value is derived from the value of an underlying commodity -- in this case, CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

"...Banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley) intend to become the intermediaries in this fledgling market. Although U.S. carbon legislation may not pass for a year or more, Wall Street has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars hiring lobbyists and making deals with companies that can supply them with "carbon offsets" to sell to clients.

The banks are preparing to do with carbon what they've done before: design and market derivatives contracts that will help client companies hedge their price risk over the long term. They're also ready to sell carbon-related financial products to outside investors.

Among the credit derivatives that grew from the bank's early efforts was the credit-default swap. A CDS is a contract that functions like insurance by protecting debt holders against default. In 2008, after U.S. home prices plunged, the cost of protection against subprime-mortgage bond defaults jumped. Insurer American International Group Inc., which had sold billions in CDSs, was forced into government ownership, roiling markets and helping trigger the worst global recession since the 1930s.

Along with CDSs, the most-notorious derivatives are the collateralized-debt obligations they often insured. CDOs are bundles of subprime mortgages and other debt that were sliced into tranches and sold to investors.

"People are going to be cutting up carbon futures, and we'll be in trouble," says Maria Cantwell, a Democratic senator from Washington state. "You can't stay ahead of the next tool they're going to create."

Cantwell, 51, proposed in November that U.S. state governments be given the right to ban unregulated financial products. "The derivatives market has done so much damage to our economy and is nothing more than a very-high-stakes casino -- except that casinos have to abide by regulations," she wrote in a press release.

Even George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator, says money managers would find ways to manipulate cap-and-trade markets. "The system can be gamed," Soros, 79, remarked at a London School of Economics seminar in July. "That's why financial types like me like it -- because there are financial opportunities."

Subprime Carbon

"Wall Street won't just be brokering in plain carbon derivatives -- they'll get creative."

Carbon isn't like other commodities, Chan says. The government's goal to reduce pollution means it will gradually diminish the number of allowances it issues, and that will be a powerful incentive for speculators to try to corner the market and drive up the price, she says.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pi...

Excluded from the Copenhagen Agenda:
Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) and Climate Change - The manipulation of climate for military

usehttp://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16413

The term "environmental modification techniques" refers to any technique for changing - through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes - the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space. (Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, United Nations, Geneva: 18 May 1977)

"Environmental warfare is defined as the intentional modification or manipulation of the natural ecology, such as climate and weather, earth systems such as the ionosphere, magnetosphere, tectonic plate system, and/or the triggering of seismic events (earthquakes) to cause intentional physical, economic, and psycho-social, and physical destruction to an intended target geophysical or population location, as part of strategic or tactical war." (Eco News)

"[Weather modification] offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary... Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally: It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather: and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies." (US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report)

"The [declassified] documents reveal that both the US, which led the field, and the Soviet Union had secret military programmes with the goal of controlling the world's climate. "By the year 2025 the United States will own the weather, " one scientist is said to have boasted.

The Americans now admit that they invested (GBP)12million over five years during the Vietnam war on "cloud seeding" - deliberately creating heavy rainfall to wash away enemy crops and destroy supply routes on the Ho Chi Minh trail, in an operation codenamed Project Popeye.

It is claimed that rainfall was increased by a third in targeted areas, making the weather-manipulation weapon a success. At the time, government officials said the region was prone to heavy rain. (Weather War?, Daily Express, July 16, 2007)

The manipulation of climate for military use is potentially a greater threat to humanity than CO2 emissions.

Why has it been excluded from the debate under COP15, when the UN 1977 Convention states quite explicitly that "military or any other hostile use of such techniques could have effects extremely harmful to human welfare."

watch this simple video demonstration that contrasts a century of climate data using separate urban and rural data sets:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09...

"...Urbanization, land use, and station siting matter.

Peter, a sixth grader, and his dad, thought so too, and take the data from NASA GISS and show in a simple video how climate trends can be manipulated.

They used a simple pairing of rural and urban sites to show the differences. This shows why homogenization, which smears all the data from urban and rural sites together, is a bad idea, and gives trends that don't exist in reality."

Compare and contrast this list to the Cult of Climate Scientology:

http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/c...

Cults 101: Checklist of Cult Characteristics

Concerted efforts at influence and control lie at the core of cultic groups, programs, and relationships. Many members, former members, and supporters of cults are not fully aware of the extent to which members may have been manipulated, exploited, even abused.

The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.

Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel

The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar-or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).

The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).

The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt iin order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.

Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.

The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

The group is preoccupied with making money.

Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.

Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

The most loyal members (the "true believers") feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

Time to get rid of those useless eaters!

Population control called key to deal -

"Dealing with climate change is not simply an issue of CO2 emission reduction but a comprehensive challenge involving political, economic, social, cultural and ecological issues, and the population concern fits right into the picture," said Zhao, who is a member of the Chinese government delegation.

As a result of the family planning policy, China has seen 400 million fewer births, which has resulted in 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions a year, Zhao said.

The UN report projected that if the global population would remain 8 billion by the year 2050 instead of a little more than 9 billion according to medium-growth scenario, "it might result in 1 billion to 2 billion fewer tons of carbon emissions".

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/20...

She admitted that China's population program is not without consequences, as the country is entering the aging society fast and facing the problem of gender imbalance.

the three comments from the above China Dailey story:

Population control called key to deal

Comments on this article For more discussions,please go to the forum

Total 3

George P 2009-12-10 22:38
There is more money to be made from selling carbon credits to huge factories than there is for selling contraceptives to the poor. Money is the key factor towards any regulation discussion coming out of Norway.

J. L. 2009-12-10 12:12
Michelle Duggar in the United States is now attempting to birth her 19th child as some warped "achievement". She should be the subject of a Michael Moore movie called "Supersized Family". She should be declared an environmental disaster given the carbon footprint she is foisting on the world. That said, there are ethnic and religious factions that share the same selfish pride of numbers. There should be a surcharge on more than three at most as a given condition at any climate summit. Fix the population problem and you protect the climate. Simple as that.

Paul Walther 2009-12-10 09:59
Finally, someone has had the courage to raise the unspeakable issue - population. Very hard to reduce the worlds carbon footprint when we keep adding more & more feet. While there are no easy solutions to managing population growth - it has to be put on the table.


Total 3

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments posted above represent readers' views only.

http://comment.chinadaily.com.cn/arti...

http://www.financialpost.com/story.ht...

From Canada's Financial Post:

The real inconvenient truth
The whole world needs to adopt China's one-child policy

The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.

-If only one child per female was born as of now, the world's population would drop from its current 6.5 billion to 5.5 billion by 2050, according to a study done for scientific academy Vienna Institute of Demography.

-By 2075, there would be 3.43 billion humans on the planet. This would have immediate positive effects on the world's forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.

-Doing nothing, by contrast, will result in an unsustainable population of nine billion by 2050.

The fix is simple. It's dramatic. And yet the world's leaders don't even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.

The point is that Copenhagen's talking points are beside the point.

The only fix is if all countries drastically reduce their populations, clean up their messes and impose mandatory conservation measures.

dfrancis@nationalpost.com

Frigid temperatures follow heavy snow into Midwest

"I've been dreading this day," said Kim Brust, shoveling the sidewalk in front of his Minneapolis home before sunrise Wednesday. "I was starting to enjoy the global warming."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091...

The following video assumes that global warming is real, but what is more important is that they tackle the issue of cap n' trade.

I'll bet a lot of you global warming fans loved that video "The Story of Stuff". If not, go check it out.

Here's an updated video specifically regarding Cap and Trade and how it is a scam and who is behind it (whether global warming is real or not, this is very important!):

http://www.storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/

Wow! Nice find loonpt!

Very good illustration that everyday folks can easily understand. Every concerned citizen really should give it a view.

Thanks!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment...

Eat less meat and dairy: official recipe to help health of consumers and the planet

Shrinking of food and drink industry likely, says report

• Lord Stern: Vegetarian diet is better for the planet

RE: The real inconvenient truth
The whole world needs to adopt China's one-child policy

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?...

What I Meant Was You People Should Only Have One Child

"The whole world needs to adopt China's one-child policy," writes Canadian journalist Diane Francis, mother of two.

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.co...

Haven't seen a thread this *long* in a while.

Disturber, would you happen to be a climate researcher (likely on vacation judging from the number of posts)?

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/11/u...

video from Copenhagen- UN Security Stops Journalist's Questions About ClimateGate...

A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him "inconvenient questions" during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Professor Stephen Schneider's assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.

His microphone was (also) cut off after he asked former vice-president Al Gore about the British court case which found that An Inconvenient Truth had a nine significant errors and exaggerations. Almost 500,000 people have watched the incident on youtube.

I'll take that as a "no".