Climate

Now and then the Gorse Fox has to say a few words on the the whole climate change issue.

• Firstly, he should make it clear where he stands – the climate is changing. It’s what climate does.
• Is it warming or cooling? There are scientist who espouse both beliefs – and he uses that word deliberately.
• Is it man-made? No.
• Does man contribute? Yes, of course every person on the planet contributes in some way.

The problem is that Climate Change has moved from a scientific hypothesis – yet to be proven, to a religion. It is no longer science, it is politics, and it is big business. As such it is almost certainly corrupted.

Now in today’s newspaper we see the headline that “A quarter of over 55s are sceptical of Climate Change and thing threats to the environment are an exaggeration”. The Gorse Fox is surprised the number is as low as a quarter. particularly in view of the report that:

A US government-funded survey has found that Americans with higher levels of scientific and mathematical knowledge are more sceptical regarding the dangers of climate change than their more poorly educated fellow citizens

and it goes on to explain

The results of the survey are especially remarkable as it was plainly not intended to show any such thing: Rather, the researchers and trick-cyclists who carried it out were doing so from the position that the "scientific consensus" (carbon-driven global warming is ongoing and extremely dangerous) is a settled fact, and the priority is now to find some way of getting US voters to believe in the need for urgent, immediate and massive action to reduce CO₂ emissions.

Ooops

Perhaps a more worrying development is the news reported this week that “UN Climate Scientists plead for immunity from Criminal prosecution”. As John O’Sullivan reports:

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) issued it’s formal request for immunity from prosecution to “protect” researchers who have provided “evidence” supportive of the man-made global warming scare story.

and towards the end of the article:

Now the penny drops with the UNFCCC. They understand that climate scientists have failed to prove their man-made global hypothesis and are facing increased legal scrutiny. Lawyers are sharpening their legal minds to dissect from the UN’s bloated climate science body the malignant tumor of man-made global warming.  If the UNFCCC  legal immunity gambit can be resisted we may yet see criminal prosecutions for the worst offenders in the climate fraud.

Why, oh why, would any scientist doing genuine research, using auditable numbers, and mathematics want immunity?

It makes you wonder if the BBC are getting twitchy?

Success Rate

The Gorse Fox notes from the BBC that:

The Met Office admits its annual global mean forecast predicted temperatures higher than actual temperatures for nine years out of the last 10.

That seems like the sort of success rate that should attract extra funding! He also notes that apparently:

Professor Watson said the warming bias....  should not affect trust in the Met Office's climate projections, which are based on a different methodology.

Well that's all right because the Gorse Fox already distrusts it, so it saves time.

Unprecedented

The Gorse Fox would like to bring the following to your attention (sent to him by email):

US Weather Bureau Report

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

Oh yes, did he mention that this was published on 2nd November 1922 and was apparently reported by AP and the Washington Post.

Summing up COP15

A commenter on the Telegraph blog summed up the bun-fight as:

"Something that was never going to happen because it does not need to happen hasn’t happened. What a surprise."

Let us just remind ourselves that these eco-warriors have burnt the equivalent of 41,000 tonnes of CO2 at the conference - more than the whole country of Malawi.

HRH

The Gorse Fox was delighted to hear yesterday's comments from Prince Charles on Climate Change... if ever anything was going to convince the Gorse Fox he is right to be sceptical - it is HRH taking the opposing the view.

Balanced BBC

The Gorse Fox had to write a note of complaint to the BBC over a lopsided report on "The One Show". He has no doubt the comment will be moderated out (i.e. not published) so in essence this was the draft... (though the final version was a bit longer but he forgot to copy it before hitting send).

What a travesty. How can the One Show give such a one-sided poorly researched piece on Climate Change. Ben Goldacre should be ashamed of his position. I don't know any climate "deniers".

I do, however, know a lot of sceptics. They have a perfectly valid right to question why $42 Trillion dollars (yes that is the estimated cost) is being wagered on a scientific hypothesis that is not proven nor "settled". Even one of the coordinating lead authors of the IPCC report has said "In the Fourth Assessment, the summary was quietly replaced several months after it was first published because some scientists who were involved complained of misrepresentation." I do notice that as more and more sceptics are examining the science and finding flaws in the data gathering, in the data, in the mathematics and in the shoddy and dishonest way in which it has been published that the "True believers" are becoming more and more vituperous, and unable to backup their position with reliable facts.

There are significant lists of scientists who refute the infantile claims made by Ben Goldacre, and it was a shame that the BBC were too cowardly, or too wedded to their biased position to allow the other side of the debate to be voiced.

MAD - Mob Affective Disorder

In a superb piece today entitled "Beyond Debate?" we see this question raised by Martin Cohen

Is belief in global-warming science another example of the "madness of crowds"? That strange but powerful social phenomenon, first described by Charles Mackay in 1841, turns a widely shared prejudice into an irresistible "authority". Could it indeed represent the final triumph of irrationality? After all, how rational is it to pass laws banning one kind of light bulb (and insisting on their replacement by ones filled with poisonous mercury vapour) in order to "save electricity", while ploughing money into schemes to run cars on ... electricity? How rational is it to pay the Russians once for fossil fuels, and a second time for permission (via carbon credits) to burn them (see box page 36)? And how rational is it to suppose that the effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere take between 200 and 1,000 years to be felt, but that solutions can take effect almost instantaneously?

The Gorse Fox suggests that he is right on the money and that what we are seeing is a form of mob hysteria.

Coercion

As the climate debate starts to get down and dirty we find that 1700 scientists have agreed to sign a statement defending the “professional integrity” of global warming research, according to The Times.
It then goes on to admit:

One scientist said that he felt under pressure to sign the circular or risk losing work. The Met Office admitted that many of the signatories did not work on climate change.

We will soon see this 1700 number quoted without clarification - though the 3000+ scientists who signed the opposing view last year are always questioned as to their "climate" credentials.

And we also find that in Australia, one sceptical newspaper reporter's kids have been targeted with mail villifying their dad.

What really troubles the Gorse Fox is that this is only necessary because there is doubt and these tactics are reminiscent of schoolchildren having tantrums because some disagrees with them.

Loose change

45Trillion dollars.

That's the UN estimate of how much agreement at Copenhage will cost. Just thought you should know...

Freedom of Speech - cyber warfare

The Gorse Fox has always been troubled by the bad manners of people who shout down people who are giving their opinion (however daft). he sees that as bullying.

Over the weekend he was enjoying an online debate regarding Climate Change. There was a good exchange of views and it remained polite, reasoned and informed. Suddenly we saw retrospective edits being made, links and clips being vandalised, and non-standard views being clobbered. Another participant caught someone in the act and they exchanged messages. It would appear that the vandal has been paid to vandalise and "Waves" that discuss AGW until Copenhagen is finished.

Somehow this seems so appropriate - at a time when the leaked emails show the attempts made to suppress contrary views and data - we find a paid effort to suppress contrary views and data.

Gordon Brown and Climategate

It is funny to see that it is reported "Gordon Brown: [believes] climate-change sceptics are 'flat-earthers'. What a relief. He's been so right about everything else, after all!!!

More smelling salts please

News at Ten have finally reacted to "Climategate" and started to report (several days behind the curve) on what's going on. Obviously the noise from the blogs around the world, the number of written comments, and the upswelling of comments from politicians around the world made the BBC increasingly isolated in ignoring the incident.

Please pass the smelling salts, the Gorse Fox feels quite faint!

Ignore CO2

Interesting quote just extracted from a German scientific report "Falsication Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics":

The main strategy of modern CO2-greenhouse gas defenders seems to hide themselves behind more and more pseudo-explanations, which are not part of the academic education or even of the physics training. A good example are the radiation transport calculations, which are probably not known by many. Another example are the so-called feedback mechanisms, which are introduced to amplify an effect which is not marginal but does not exist at all. Evidently, the defenders of the CO2-greenhouse thesis refuse to accept any reproducible calculation as an explanation and have resorted to unreproducible ones. A theoretical physicist must complain about a lack of transparency here, and he also has to complain about the style of the scientic discussion, where advocators of the greenhouse thesis claim that the discussion is closed, and others are discrediting justified arguments as a discussion of "questions of yesterday and the day before yesterday"

The paper is good reading (but contains lots of maths).

Naming Climategate

The Gorse Fox was amused by this entry in James Delingpole's blog in the Telegraph:

Climaquiddick, they’re calling it now. Why? Because the liberal media aren’t reporting it with the glee and enthusiasm and foaming self-righteousness they accorded Watergate. Instead, they’re giving it the grudging, embarrassed non-coverage the libtard MSM invariably does to a story they’d rather, ahem, drown.

Climategate

As the US Media, the Telegraph, and the Mail start to acknowledge the ramifications of the revelations from the Climate Research Unit - it is interesting to watch the frantic rush by the BBC and other debate-suppressors to release as many "Climate Change" stories as possible this week to divert the focus.

It was also interesting to see the University of East Anglia recognise the damage that has been done to its reputation and the announcement that it will release all of the data as soon as possible... strangely enough that's all that people wanted to start with. You see when a massive political and media hype-machine kicks into gear people automatically get suspicious. When scientists won't release their data - people suspect they are hiding something. When every climatic event is put down to man made CO2, and when every possible worst case scenario is spouted as fact, people switch off. Put all of these together and you have a perfect storm of distrust. Lay out all the data, describe the facts and show how they are incontrovertibly supported by the data and you will get consensus and support.

It reminds the Gorse Fox of Starfleet (and for that matter, many large corporations). They get a good idea, and they "brand" it. Because it's a good idea the brand is suddenly extended to a mishmash of ideas or products - not realising that this actually dilutes the brand rather than reinforcing it.

Next they'll come for the Gorse Fox

The Gorse Fox has written to his MP.

 Dear xxxxxx

I am sure that you have been made aware of the recent incident where data was leaked from the Climate Research Unit. This appears to have confirmed that some of the facts for which we are told scientists have a consensus are not what they seem. It is clear that models have been developed with little of no traceability, data is stored and managed in a haphazard fashion, and the scientists have obfuscated at every turn. The emails show they have stifled reasoned debate and used their high-level contacts to discredit or remove critics from their review panels. We are patronisingly told that some of the information is being taken out of context, and that some is too complex - well I'm sorry, but when I am paying for this research (as a taxpayer) I want to understand how they came to their conclusions.

Let me nail my colours to the mast. 

Do I believe there is Climate Change? Absolutely. Climate is a dynamic system - it is constantly changing.
Is it caused by man's emissions of greenhouse gases? No.
Do man's emissions contribute? Possibly.
Should we reduce pollution? Yes - it's good housekeeping.
Should we conserve resources? Yes of course - we are only custodians of the planet for future generations.
Should we worry about the increase on CO2? Not really. It has only increase from 280 to 380 parts per million in the past 100 years.

Reasoned debate has been stifled in the wider community also. The Government propaganda machine runs TV adverts regarding CO2, the BBC admits that it will not permit critical views to be aired, the Guardian suppresses or deletes forum comments that are not "on message" and our discredited Prime Minister is leading us headlong to the precipice of that is the Copenhagen Climate summit. Even today the BBC's website was showing the totally discredited "hockey stick" graph. I am fed up with being told the science is settled, when it clearly is not. 

• From report by Japan Society of Energy and Resources (JSER): Three of the five researchers disagree with the UN's IPCC view that recent warming is primarily the consequence of man-made industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. One of the five contributors compares computer climate modelling to ancient astrology. (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/jstor_climate_report_translation/)

• 31,000 US Scientists signed a petition refuting the claims that the human release of CO2 will cause catastrophic warming of the planet. (http://www.petitionproject.org/)

• A further 160 US Physicists wrote an open letter to senators claiming there is no consensus (http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3606/Team-of-Scientists-Open-Letter-To-US-Senators-Claim-of-consensus-is-fake)

• 60 German scientists wrote to Angela Merkel describing this as pseudo-religion (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2308036/posts)

It is time that we there was a free and open discussion of these matters and that the Government stopped relying on hysteria and propaganda, and the BBC were forced to show even-handed coverage of the topic. (For goodness sake, they allow the BNP more air time than climate debate). Reading the degree of comments that have added to the various blogs and fora that have exposed this latest leak, it is quite clear that I am far from being in the minority in wanting genuine debate, open access to data, and peer reviews of the science. The scientific method has nothing to do with consensus - it is about creating an hypothesis that can then be tested and critically analysed.

Is it just coincidence, I wonder, that scientists have said today the "Global Warming May Stop until 2015" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/charlesclover/3341068/Global-warming-may-stop-scientists-predict.html).

Sir, it is time that the silent majority were heard. I would like to think that you would raise this with Mr Cameron and in Parliament, and will not be satisfied with platitudes about consensus.

Yours Sincerely,

The Gorse Fox

The Gorse Fox is sure a nice warm concentration camp awaits. Resistance cannot be tolerated by the climate taliban. GF just wishes more people would write to their MPs about this... it is high time that the tide was turned.

Warming

It is a warming feeling to realise, whilst reading the comments on the news sites regarding the release of the leaked emails and files from CRU that the Gorse Fox is not alone. It appears that many thinking individuals conclude that

1. climate change is occuring - it always has
2. man may contribute, but is not the cause
3. politicians have created a gravy-train for scientists
4. scientists are censoring debate
5. media such as the BBC and The Guardian are trying to suppress debate
6. research has been fraudulently represented
7. politicians are using it to raise money
8. the silent majority is waking up
9. some of the media are waking up - but they will be vilified by the gliterati, the BBC, and politicians
10. the counter-spin is already beginning in the halls of Westminster and Broadcasting House

Reflecting on Global Warming

The Gorse Fox has been reflecting on the various revelations we have seen of late regarding the fraudulent adaptation of data - and must conclude that a degree of Global Warming is indeed man-made. Man-made by the discredited (but still worshipped by the BBC) scientists.

Global fraud

So we learn from Devil's Kitchen (click link in title) and Bishop Hill that the University of East Anglia's systems have been hacked and their files and emails made public on the web. What they appear to show is that the numbers and predictions that the Global-Warming-fundamentalists have been using are fraudulent.

Are we surprised? Not at all.

Will we hear this part of the story on the BBC or the main news media? Not a chance.

Are we still being conned? Absolutely.

Own devices

The Gorse Fox has been left to his own devices. The Silver Vixen is at the Worthing Patchworkers' coven's exhibition to celebrate their 25th anniversary. Black cats are streaming away from Worthing in fear. Frogs, toads, and newts are taking refuge anywhere they can.

GF, meanwhile, has been catching up on some email and some more reading regarding the climate. The more he reads the more convinced he is that we are being absolutely conned by the media and the politicians... as more and more scientists and scientific groups speak out and go into writing against the "so-called" consensus. Scientific debate is being stifled by media outlets such as the BBC because of their religious fanaticism on the subject... and politicians won't raise the subject for fear of being pilloried by the media. At the same time as more and more scientists are speaking out, the UN (always with their finger on the pulse) have said "the science has become more irrevocable than ever". Well maybe that because some of the figures have been fiddled... GF recommends that you read this article "The Dog Ate Global Warming".

It also amused GF to read (in this article): 

The AGW hypothesis is based on temperature rises between about 1975 and 1998 or about 25 years worth of data.  This is claimed to be definitive yet the last 10 years worth of data shows falling global temperatures.  This is claimed to be a short term aberration and of no consequence.  I do not see how 25 years can be considered definitive beyond dispute while 10 years of data is a short term aberration...

By all means let's save the planet... let's husband its resources and take care not to abuse it. But for goodness sake let's stop this utter drivel that we continually get fed by the politicians and the press. As one commentator (John Marshall) said:

This may be a case of ‘do not be blinded by truth if it distorts your claims’.

And finally a quote that sums it up, from Dr Ritesh Arya

GOD GIVE ME POWER TO CHANGE THINGS I CAN
(POLLUTION & BETTER TECHNOLOGIES)
AND ACCEPT THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE
(GLOBAL WARMING & NATURAL CYCLE):
AND THE WISDOM & SERENITY TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE "
Old Proverb Modified by Dr Ritesh Arya to explain global warming