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4/6/2010
Burri: Enviro-alarmism on its way to the scrap heap
As sure as a Smart Car is as good as a beer can if it hits a moving Chevy Suburban, enviro-alarmism is on its way to the scrap heap.
No, that’s not quite right. Never the scrap heap. The nearest recycling center, maybe, but never simply forgotten, left behind, or abandoned. Enviro-alarmism will never go away, no matter how mangled and useless it might be.
Here’s an idea: let’s take today’s global warming enthusiasts – especially the ones who call us traitors for having doubts – and put them in the same room with the global cooling guys from the ‘70s. Let’s make them write essays on how they’d feel today if we’d passed all sorts of life-altering, economically drastic laws back then in order to forestall the New Ice Age.
Not that it would make any difference. That’s the beauty of the liberal world view: Past results have no bearing on current pathologies.
For example, via The Telegraph, the Arctic is simply bursting with ice:
Unusually cold weather, caused by the same patterns that have given Britain its coldest winter for decades, has resulted in levels of ice cover in line with longer-term averages for the first time since 2001.
…It has prompted climate change sceptics to question claims the North Pole could be free of ice during summer by 2013.
There’s that word again. “Skeptics,” spelled British-ly. See, even when things go contrary to script, we’re the ones who aren’t entirely legit.
But, like I said, it doesn’t matter to the enviro-devout. There may be almost enough ice at the North Pole to supply the wet bar at a Kennedy family reunion, but:
Vicky Pope, a scientist with the Met Office, said: "The reality is that greenhouse gases are making the world warmer, but it is a mistake to see short-term changes in weather, currents or Arctic ice cover as evidence of this."
True. Single, short-term anecdotal evidence isn’t science, and we really do want to rely on science. Now, Ms. Pope, if you could just let Al Gore know.
Or maybe we throw a couple more anecdotes onto the carbon-belching fire. For example: a study showing that cows are not, as advertised, carbon-spewing monsters, worse for the environment than cars, even. Take that, carnivore-skeptics!
Or how about this: Cold weather is preventing wind turbines from spinning in Minnesota. Which is fine, really, for Minnesota. It’s not like they have much reason to stay up after dark there anyway.
Wind turbines in Denmark haven’t lived up to the hype, either: they’re not reliable, see, the way coal plants are. So while the Danes have spent literally oodles of money propping themselves up as wind-power kings, they’ve also had to build new coal plants so the lights don’t go out when the wind does.
And then there’s those Smart Cars. Energy efficient, that’s for sure, although still not as good as a rickshaw. Also tiny, and not likely to protect passengers during a collision with anything bigger than a squirrel. Yet, with the Obama administration’s new CAFÉ standards, we’re all that much closer to driving one. And, well:
A 1999 USA Today analysis of crash data found that since CAFE went into effect in 1978, 46,000 people died in crashes they otherwise would have survived. That equates to roughly 7,700 deaths for every mile per gallon gained in fuel economy standards.
That, at least, makes sense, from the radical environmentalist point of view. Human beings are, after all, ruining the planet. What more efficient way to save the planet than to combine better gas mileage with more human deaths?
Lance Burri blogs regularly via his site, The TrogloPundit
COMMENTS
Gee Lance, did you actually read the article you linked to? This from that link;
Dr Mark Serreze, of the NSlDC, said: “What this doesn't show is any indication that global warming is over. If you look at the Arctic as a whole we might get to average amounts of sea ice for the time of year. But the ice is thin and quite vulnerable and it can melt very quickly.”
Vicky Pope, a scientist with the Met Office, said: "The reality is that greenhouse gases are making the world warmer, but it is a mistake to see short-term changes in weather, currents or Arctic ice cover as evidence of this."
Dean Weichmann (Tue Apr 06 05:26:24 2010)
Lance,
I assume that your opinions are based on deep research, long term trends and other facts. If so, please show the body of research you have. I suspect that you have only philosophy to back you up. Please show your research and subject it to the same scrutiny that climate change research has been subject to. Or, explain why your philosophy doesn't require facts.
dave allen (Tue Apr 06 06:52:08 2010)
Global Warming/Climate Change is a hoax, just like the "Silent Spring" ban on DDT. These faulted studies we've seen are akin to grabbing a fishing rod by the tip and trying to lift it up.
I have to wonder if anyone has done any studies to determine how many people have died from mosquito borne diseases since Rachael Carson's famous "research" into how DDT was making eagles' shells thin?
Duke (Tue Apr 06 08:22:17 2010)
Gee, Dean, did you read the column you commented on? I included Vicky Pope's comment in this column.
Dave, I have exactly what global warming enthusiasts have: anecdotes, stories, scientists and meteorologists who back up my doubts, and a strong sense of overarching hyperbole.
Lance (Tue Apr 06 08:52:42 2010)
Lance, You simply say that Global Warming scientists simply have stories, anecdotes etc which you admit you have. For you to state such about global warming science means that either you do not understand anything about the scientific method, or that you have not read any of the research. Which is it?
dave allen (Tue Apr 06 09:30:18 2010)
Dave,
We're all patiently waiting for the "global warming science" to which you refer.
The numbers are pretty clear for the last 10 years ... nope, it ain't there. However before you jump on me for the 'small sliver' that I just cited - think about the fact that the number of years that 'global warming scientists' are fudging the numbers on are no more than a blip in time compared to the overall lifespan of the planet.
So please check in with some REAL numbers from a valid sample - then maybe some substantive discussion can begin. Until then, Lance is probably right - the Chicken Little movement is probably running out of gas.
Jeff Riedl (Tue Apr 06 09:45:12 2010)
Dave, have you read any of the research? Have you examined the data and the assumptions and the calculations? Do you have the educational background to be able to do any of that? Or are you, like the vast majority of us, relying mostly on news reports and the opinions of others?
Either way, should we have passed all sorts of life-altering, economically drastic laws back in the 1970s in order to forestall the New Ice Age? And if not, how could you possibly have known that? Did you read any of the research?
Lance (Tue Apr 06 09:54:14 2010)
What happened to the glaciers? (or, is that questions too "anecdotal"?)
tomsladek (Tue Apr 06 11:33:06 2010)
I cannot claim expertise in climatology. I have to go by what climatologists say, not by pundits or bloggers or even perhaps the local meteorologist. A recient survey of climatologists in the USA came back with 97% saying that gobal warming is occuring and that it is anthropomorphic.
Here is a link and a quote;
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/
"Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?
About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.
The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.
Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement.
"
Dean Weichmann (Tue Apr 06 13:41:03 2010)
OK, Dave, here you go:
Not surprisingly, the blatant corruption exposed at Britain’s premiere climate institute was not contained within the nation’s borders. Just months after the Climategate scandal broke, a new study has uncovered compelling evidence that our government’s principal climate centers have also been manipulating worldwide temperature data in order to fraudulently advance the global warming political agenda.
Not only does the preliminary report [PDF] indict a broader network of conspirators, but it also challenges the very mechanism by which global temperatures are measured, published, and historically ranked.
Last Thursday, Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo and computer expert E. Michael Smith appeared together on KUSI TV [Video] to discuss the Climategate -- American Style scandal they had discovered. This time out, the alleged perpetrators are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).
NOAA stands accused by the two researchers of strategically deleting cherry-picked, cooler-reporting weather observation stations from the temperature data it provides the world through its National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). D’Aleo explained to show host and Weather Channel founder John Coleman that while the Hadley Center in the U.K. has been the subject of recent scrutiny, “[w]e think NOAA is complicit, if not the real ground zero for the issue.”
And their primary accomplices are the scientists at GISS, who put the altered data through an even more biased regimen of alterations, including intentionally replacing the dropped NOAA readings with those of stations located in much warmer locales.
As you’ll soon see, the ultimate effects of these statistical transgressions on the reports which influence climate alarm and subsequently world energy policy are nothing short of staggering.
NOAA – Data In / Garbage Out
Although satellite temperature measurements have been available since 1978, most global temperature analyses still rely on data captured from land-based thermometers, scattered more or less about the planet. It is that data which NOAA receives and disseminates – although not before performing some sleight-of-hand on it.
Smith has done much of the heavy lifting involved in analyzing the NOAA/GISS data and software, and he chronicles his often frustrating experiences at his fascinating website. There, detail-seekers will find plenty to satisfy, divided into easily-navigated sections -- some designed specifically for us “geeks,” but most readily approachable to readers of all technical strata.
Perhaps the key point discovered by Smith was that by 1990, NOAA had deleted from its datasets all but 1,500 of the 6,000 thermometers in service around the globe.
Now, 75% represents quite a drop in sampling population, particularly considering that these stations provide the readings used to compile both the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) and United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) datasets. These are the same datasets, incidentally, which serve as primary sources of temperature data not only for climate researchers and universities worldwide, but also for the many international agencies using the data to create analytical temperature anomaly maps and charts.
Yet as disturbing as the number of dropped stations was, it is the nature of NOAA’s “selection bias” that Smith found infinitely more troubling.
It seems that stations placed in historically cooler, rural areas of higher latitude and elevation were scrapped from the data series in favor of more urban locales at lower latitudes and elevations. Consequently, post-1990 readings have been biased to the warm side not only by selective geographic location, but also by the anthropogenic heating influence of a phenomenon known as the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI).
For example, Canada’s reporting stations dropped from 496 in 1989 to 44 in 1991, with the percentage of stations at lower elevations tripling while the numbers of those at higher elevations dropped to one. That’s right: As Smith wrote in his blog, they left “one thermometer for everything north of LAT 65.” And that one resides in a place called Eureka, which has been described as “The Garden Spot of the Arctic” due to its unusually moderate summers.
Smith also discovered that in California, only four stations remain – one in San Francisco and three in Southern L.A. near the beach – and he rightly observed that
It is certainly impossible to compare it with the past record that had thermometers in the snowy mountains. So we can have no idea if California is warming or cooling by looking at the USHCN data set or the GHCN data set.
That’s because the baseline temperatures to which current readings are compared were a true averaging of both warmer and cooler locations. And comparing these historic true averages to contemporary false averages – which have had the lower end of their numbers intentionally stripped out – will always yield a warming trend, even when temperatures have actually dropped.
Overall, U.S. online stations have dropped from a peak of 1,850 in 1963 to a low of 136 as of 2007. In his blog, Smith wittily observed that “the Thermometer Langoliers have eaten 9/10 of the thermometers in the USA[,] including all the cold ones in California.” But he was deadly serious after comparing current to previous versions of USHCN data and discovering that this “selection bias” creates a 0.6C warming in U.S. temperature history.
And no wonder -- imagine the accuracy of campaign tracking polls were Gallup to include only the replies of Democrats in their statistics. But it gets worse.
Prior to publication, NOAA effects a number of “adjustments” to the cherry-picked stations’ data, supposedly to eliminate flagrant outliers, adjust for time of day heat variance, and “homogenize” stations with their neighbors in order to compensate for discontinuities. This last one, they state, is accomplished by essentially adjusting each to jibe closely with the mean of its five closest “neighbors.” But given the plummeting number of stations, and the likely disregard for the latitude, elevation, or UHI of such neighbors, it’s no surprise that such “homogenizing” seems to always result in warmer readings.
The chart below is from Willis Eschenbach’s WUWT essay, “The smoking gun at Darwin Zero,” and it plots GHCN Raw versus homogeneity-adjusted temperature data at Darwin International Airport in Australia. The “adjustments” actually reversed the 20th-century trend from temperatures falling at 0.7C per century to temperatures rising at 1.2C per century. Eschenbach isolated a single station and found that it was adjusted to the positive by 6.0C per century, and with no apparent reason, as all five stations at the airport more or less aligned for each period. His conclusion was that he had uncovered “indisputable evidence that the ‘homogenized’ data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.”
WUWT’s editor, Anthony Watts, has calculated the overall U.S. homogeneity bias to be 0.5F to the positive, which alone accounts for almost one half of the 1.2F warming over the last century. Add Smith’s selection bias to the mix and poof – actual warming completely disappears!
Yet believe it or not, the manipulation does not stop there.
GISS – Garbage In / Globaloney Out
The scientists at NASA’s GISS are widely considered to be the world’s leading researchers into atmospheric and climate changes. And their Surface Temperature (GISTemp) analysis system is undoubtedly the premiere source for global surface temperature anomaly reports.
In creating its widely disseminated maps and charts, the program merges station readings collected from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) with GHCN and USHCN data from NOAA.
It then puts the merged data through a few “adjustments” of its own.
First, it further “homogenizes” stations, supposedly adjusting for UHI by (according to NASA) changing “the long term trend of any non-rural station to match the long term trend of their rural neighbors, while retaining the short term monthly and annual variations.” Of course, the reduced number of stations will have the same effect on GISS’s UHI correction as it did on NOAA’s discontinuity homogenization – the creation of artificial warming.
Furthermore, in his communications with me, Smith cited boatloads of problems and errors he found in the Fortran code written to accomplish this task, ranging from hot airport stations being mismarked as “rural” to the “correction” having the wrong sign ( /-) and therefore increasing when it meant to decrease or vice-versa.
And according to NASA, “If no such neighbors exist or the overlap of the rural combination and the non-rural record is less than 20 years, the station is completely dropped; if the rural records are shorter, part of the non-rural record is dropped.”
However, Smith points out that a dropped record may be “from a location that has existed for 100 years.” For instance, if an aging piece of equipment gets swapped out, thereby changing its identification number, the time horizon reinitializes to zero years. Even having a large enough temporal gap (e.g., during a world war) might cause the data to “just get tossed out.”
But the real chicanery begins in the next phase, wherein the planet is flattened and stretched onto an 8,000-box grid, into which the time series are converted to a series of anomalies (degree variances from the baseline). Now, you might wonder just how one manages to fill 8,000 boxes using 1,500 stations.
Here’s NASA’s solution:
For each grid box, the stations within that grid box and also any station within 1200km of the center of that box are combined using the reference station method.
Even on paper, the design flaws inherent in such a process should be glaringly obvious.
So it’s no surprise that Smith found many examples of problems surfacing in actual practice. He offered me Hawaii for starters. It seems that all of the Aloha State’s surviving stations reside in major airports. Nonetheless, this unrepresentative hot data is what’s used to “infill” the surrounding “empty” Grid Boxes up to 1200 km out to sea. So in effect, you have “jet airport tarmacs ‘standing in’ for temperature over water 1200 km closer to the North Pole.”
An isolated problem? Hardly, reports Smith.
From KUSI’s Global Warming: The Other Side:
“There’s a wonderful baseline for Bolivia -- a very high mountainous country -- right up until 1990 when the data ends. And if you look on the [GISS] November 2009 anomaly map, you’ll see a very red rosy hot Bolivia [boxed in blue]. But how do you get a hot Bolivia when you haven’t measured the temperature for 20 years?”
Of course, you already know the answer: GISS simply fills in the missing numbers – originally cool, as Bolivia contains proportionately more land above 10,000 feet than any other country in the world – with hot ones available in neighboring stations on a beach in Peru or somewhere in the Amazon jungle.
Remember that single station north of 65 latitude which they located in a warm section of northern Canada? Joe D’Aleo explained its purpose: “To estimate temperatures in the Northwest Territory [boxed in green above], they either have to rely on that location or look further south.”
Pretty slick, huh?
And those are but a few examples. In fact, throughout the entire grid, cooler station data are dropped and “filled in” by temperatures extrapolated from warmer stations in a manner obviously designed to overestimate warming...
...And convince you that it’s your fault.
Government and Intergovernmental Agencies -- Globaloney In / Green Gospel Out
Smith attributes up to 3F (more in some places) of added “warming trend” between NOAA’s data adjustment and GIStemp processing.
That’s over twice last century’s reported warming.
And yet, not only are NOAA’s bogus data accepted as green gospel, but so are its equally bogus hysterical claims, like this one from the 2006 annual State of the Climate in 2005 [PDF]: “Globally averaged mean annual air temperature in 2005 slightly exceeded the previous record heat of 1998, making 2005 the warmest year on record.”
And as D’Aleo points out in the preliminary report, the recent NOAA proclamation that June 2009 was the second-warmest June in 130 years will go down in the history books, despite multiple satellite assessments ranking it as the 15th-coldest in 31 years.
Even when our own National Weather Service (NWS) makes its frequent announcements that a certain month or year was the hottest ever, or that five of the warmest years on record occurred last decade, they’re basing such hyperbole entirely on NOAA’s warm-biased data.
And how can anyone possibly read GISS chief James Hansen’s Sunday claim that 2009 was tied with 2007 for second-warmest year overall, and the Southern Hemisphere’s absolute warmest in 130 years of global instrumental temperature records, without laughing hysterically? It's especially laughable when one considers that NOAA had just released a statement claiming that very same year (2009) to be tied with 2006 for the fifth-warmest year on record.
So how do alarmists reconcile one government center reporting 2009 as tied for second while another had it tied for fifth? If you’re WaPo’s Andrew Freedman, you simply chalk it up to “different data analysis methods” before adjudicating both NASA and NOAA innocent of any impropriety based solely on their pointless assertions that they didn’t do it.
Earth to Andrew: “Different data analysis methods”? Try replacing “analysis” with “manipulation,” and ye shall find enlightenment. More importantly, does the explicit fact that since the drastically divergent results of both “methods” can’t be right, both are immediately suspect somehow elude you?
But by far the most significant impact of this data fraud is that it ultimately bubbles up to the pages of the climate alarmists’ bible: The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report.
And wrong data begets wrong reports, which – particularly in this case – begets dreadfully wrong policy.
It’s High Time We Investigated the Investigators
The final report will be made public shortly, and it will be available at the websites of both report-supporter Science and Public Policy Institute and Joe D’Aleo’s own ICECAP. As they’ve both been tremendously helpful over the past few days, I’ll trust in the opinions I’ve received from the report’s architects to sum up.
This from the meteorologist:
The biggest gaps and greatest uncertainties are in high latitude areas where the data centers say they 'find' the greatest warming (and thus which contribute the most to their global anomalies). Add to that no adjustment for urban growth and land use changes (even as the world's population increased from 1.5 to 6.7 billion people) [in the NOAA data] and questionable methodology for computing the historical record that very often cools off the early record and you have surface based data sets so seriously flawed, they can no longer be trusted for climate trend or model forecast assessment or decision making by the administration, congress or the EPA.
Roger Pielke Sr. has suggested: “...that we move forward with an inclusive assessment of the surface temperature record of CRU, GISS and NCDC. We need to focus on the science issues. This necessarily should involve all research investigators who are working on this topic, with formal assessments chaired and paneled by mutually agreed to climate scientists who do not have a vested interest in the outcome of the evaluations.” I endorse that suggestion.
Certainly, all rational thinkers agree. Perhaps even the mainstream media, most of whom have hitherto mistakenly dismissed Climategate as a uniquely British problem, will now wake up and demand such an investigation.
And this from the computer expert:
That the bias exists is not denied. That the data are too sparse and with too many holes over time in not denied. Temperature series programs, like NASA GISS GIStemp try, but fail, to fix the holes and the bias. What is claimed is that "the anomaly will fix it." But it cannot. Comparison of a cold baseline set to a hot present set must create a biased anomaly. It is simply overwhelmed by the task of taking out that much bias. And yet there is more. A whole zoo of adjustments are made to the data. These might be valid in some cases, but the end result is to put in a warming trend of up to several degrees. We are supposed to panic over a 1/10 degree change of "anomaly" but accept 3 degrees of "adjustment" with no worries at all. To accept that GISTemp is "a perfect filter". That is, simply, "nuts". It was a good enough answer at Bastogne, and applies here too.
Smith, who had a family member attached to the 101st Airborne at the time, refers to the famous line from the 101st commander, U.S. Army General Anthony Clement McAuliffe, who replied to a German ultimatum to surrender the December, 1944 Battle of Bastogne, Belgium with a single word: “Nuts.”
And that’s exactly what we’d be were we to surrender our freedoms, our economic growth, and even our simplest comforts to duplicitous zealots before checking and double-checking the work of the prophets predicting our doom should we refuse.
Go to www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/climategate_cru_was_but_the_ti.html for the graphs that accompany the article.
The fact is that scientists get moeny from GRANTS, and there are no grants to find that the earth's fluctuations are natural!
emily matthews (Tue Apr 06 15:12:43 2010)
Or try this one:
What a fascinating week. The leaked e-mails and computer code from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit have become the greatest scientific scandal of our age. The head of the CRU has been forced to step down. Scientists who cooperated with the CRU in other locations, including the United States and New Zealand, are now under investigation.
I’ve been warned, incidentally, that any discussion of global warming will elicit complaints from one side or the other, so I would be better off not bringing it up. The notion that climatology is unacceptable in polite conversation is a huge problem. I’ve been following this debate for over 15 years and have worked with some of the important scientists who have advocated openness and more debate in climate research. Real scientists consider this a legitimate scientific issue, not a partisan one.
Moreover, the CRU scandal is enormously relevant to many investor issues. I’d rather lose readers who are offended than fail to keep the rest of you informed. If you’re getting your news from the mainstream media, you may not know yet how damaging this event has been to the credibility of the U.N. and those in the administration who support CO2 controls. (The Canadian press, however, is doing a far better job of covering the story.)
I told subscribers to my newsletter Breakthrough Technology Alert about a year ago, by the way, not to invest in so-called green technologies that rely on subsidies and regulatory interventions. That advice stands now more than ever. Polls show that about three-quarters of Americans consider the scientific theory of anthropogenic global warming false or even fraudulent. Given growing anger over deficits and terrible unemployment statistics, harmful environmental measures passed now are likely to be overturned or blocked after the 2010 election cycle.
I saw this coming for several reasons. One is that the lack of scientific ethics exposed by the CRU whistle-blower is not really news. It has been obvious to those of us who were paying attention for a very long time. The leaked documents make it clear, however, to those who don’t understand the mathematical subtleties of regression analysis or program in Fortran.
For the first time, the general public is learning that the CRU climate model, which the U.N. relies on, purposely hid the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). This obfuscation was necessary because the MWP was not just warmer than it is now; it had a generally positive impact on humans. The University of East Anglia now admits, in fact, that the CRU has no real evidence that the climate is warming and says it will take at least three years to recompile and analyze the data.
The climatological-industrial complex, however, is forging ahead as if nothing has happened. Supporters of an incredibly expensive cap-and-trade scheme, in the middle of the worst economic downturn in modern history, are undeterred. Even without the invention of Enron, cap and trade, the EPA is dead set on treating and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
You know that stuff you exhale in high concentrations: CO2? The EPA apparently thinks pollution results even with miniscule increases in the 0.038% trace levels of CO2 found in the atmosphere. Obviously, slightly elevated CO2 levels have never resulted in cataclysm before. So why does it say so now?
Its theory is that the planet’s ability to absorb CO2 is maxed out. Additional CO2, it says, will therefore result in skyrocketing CO2 levels. This theory, however, is completely unsupported by evidence. Dr. Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol just published as study in Geophysical Research Letters showing that the portion of the atmospheric CO2 absorbed by plant life, mostly in the oceans, has remained stable since 1850.
In fact, it is the failure of the CRU model to properly address the role of the oceans that convinced me long ago that it’s fundamentally missed the boat. Only about 10% of the Earth’s heat storage is atmospheric. About 90% of the Earth’s energy storage takes place in the waters of the oceans. Water, after all, stores far more energy than air.
Furthermore, ocean temperatures are far easier to measure accurately. Many land-based temperature stations have been compromised due to changes in local conditions, mostly increased urbanization. This is not the case with oceans. NASA has more than 3,000 robotic buoys that dive and surface continually all over the world collecting ocean temperature data at different depths. This information has been transmitted via satellite to NASA since 2003. Compiled, it shows clearly that ocean temperatures are falling.
If the oceans were bleeding heat into the atmosphere, we would see higher air temperatures. The Climategate e-mail leak shows, however, that even CRU knows that atmospheric temperatures have fallen since the late ‘90s. This means, I believe, that we are in an extended period of global cooling, not a temporary turnaround. University of Rochester physicists have published recently data showing the historic and central role ocean temperatures play in climate and climate change.
The fact that the U.N.’s climate gurus have destroyed data, hid inconvenient truths and subverted the peer-review process is not, by the way, proof that anthropogenic global warming could not possibly occur. Nor does it prove we are not in a natural period of cooling caused by solar cycles. The only thing it does prove is that models are junk and that the most powerful government-anointed climate scientists have no idea what’s going on — as the leaked e-mails stated over and over again.
This is the big lesson. It isn’t science that has failed. Science isn’t dying, as Daniel Henninger said recently in The Wall Street Journal. Real science is a process of discovering the truth through transparency, experimentation and verification. Look around you. You can see the fruits of real science in the increased length and quality of life that we all enjoy. Science is alive and well in the private sector.
Climategate is a failure of politicians and bureaucrats involving over $90 billion in tax-funded research grants. It is complicated by passionately cheerleading environmentalists who have turned their movement into a kind of religion.
The corruption of scientists by government monies is by no means new. It won’t be the last time, either. Nevertheless, the courage of the CRU whistle-blower demonstrates the robustness of science. The truth has come out.
It remains to be seen if the political drive to control human activities and profit from political wealth transfers will prove more powerful, in the short run, than the truth contained in the leaked e-mails and computer code. In the long run, however, I have no doubt that those who embrace fraud will be outed, if not punished.
My focus is on identifying those transformational technologies with the greatest potential for profit and growth. Those opportunities will not go away even if the fraud inherent in the CRU’s sham models are used to hobble the American economy with destructive cap-and-trade taxation or onerous EPA regulation of CO2. India, Russia, China and many other countries have made it clear they will never adopt such economy-killing measures — especially during a period of economic downturn and high unemployment. They stand more than willing to host the revolutionary disruptive industries that are coming onto the scene today. Many of our top scientists and small caps are already being wooed to relocate elsewhere.
Fortunately, polls show that nearly three-quarters of the American people are extremely angry with the government right now. The old media, which are lobbying for some sort of bailout, will continue trying to cover it up. Having not only endorsed the concept of anthropogenic global warming, but attacked skeptics as subhuman, it is impossible for many to admit they were wrong. Science and technology, though, have already provided alternate avenues of information dissemination. The unwillingness of the old media to report one of the most important stories of this young century is evidence they deserve to fail.
The reversal on cap and trade by Australia, along with a likely change in the government, in large part because of Climategate, ought to act as a warning to the administration. If not, then the people will grow angrier yet and we’ll see another iteration of the revolution next year at the ballot boxes. Science cannot be stopped or even perverted for long.
by Patrick Cox
emily matthews (Tue Apr 06 15:14:32 2010)
"What happened to the glaciers? (or, is that questions too "anecdotal"?)
Indeed Tom. What happened to the Hudson River? It reliably froze solid in the Colonial era. Or the Thames, where Londoners would roast oxen on.
And what the heck happened to Greenland, where Vikings raised dairy cows and farmed? And the eras in recorded history when it's been way warmer than it is right now.
The plural of anecdote is not data. Skewing the data to a prefered result is not science.
Brian Dunbar (Tue Apr 06 15:40:10 2010)
Brian,
So with all this missing data you say the earth isn't warming? Most conspiracy theorists even acknowledge the earth is warming. Lance, yes, I have enough of a background to understand what science is and how science is conducted. Facts and peer review, body of evidence unless proven wrong by better evidence. What you think is if one corner isn't right the whole think is wrong but that's not how science (and facts )work. You're looking for everything to be perfect but hold no such standards for your self. When you come up with valid theories why the earth is warming (and it is warming ) that stand up to the scrutiny climate change science has stood up to then maybe you have a case. Otherwise you're simply taking a position of philosophy.
dave allen (Tue Apr 06 16:15:07 2010)
The inescapable fact is that there have been times when there have been glaciers on a large portion of the earth and times when there was farming in Greenland and dinosaurs roamed.
It's all part of the earth's climate.
Why would we even presume to know that temperatures are going to keep right on spiking (if true at the present time). It makes no sense at all. Based on past performance what went up, will come back down.
C. R. Stevenson (Wed Apr 07 09:13:01 2010)
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September
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August
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July
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June
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May
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April
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March
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February
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January
• Solberg: Healing After an Abortion
• Basketball fans eyeing extension of Miller Park sales tax
• Nanny sex-ed bill goes to Doyle
• A first. Village limits pension contribution for employees
• Nanny State update: Toothbrushing mandated
• Obama pushes education inflation
• WI Investment Board votes to borrow to juice up returns
• So Republicans have brought nothing to the table?
• You have got to be kidding me
• Nygren: Governor Continues Terms of Failure in State of the State
• Sen. Fitzgerald: Governor down the wrong track at high speed
• Phosphorus is the new CO2. $Billions in Wisconsin
• More Obama giveaways
• A reprimand? Would you keep him on the job?
• Burri: Sarah Palin for Prez troubles me
• Quote of the Day – Obama after the pie-eating contest
• Populism, abused and trampled
• Fitzgerald: Senate Republicans Propose Real Job Creation Agenda
• Stripped down health insurance – it’s about time
• Ok GOP, scrap the Party of NO; time to lead
• No way Feingold is a Coakley. Is Wall a Brown?
• Burri: Conservatives off the chart for a RINO?
• Paltry quid pro quo?
• Doyle says ARRA has ‘created or retained’ 44,000 WI jobs
• Does most of the public fall for this stuff?
• When you get signatures, always get a couple extra
• Blame it on the outmoded computers
• Scott Brown victory does not scuttle health bill
• 8th Congressional Candidate Forum, Jan. 25
• Scott Walker Meet-and-greet, Monday, Jan. 18
• Aren’t consumers taxpayers too?
• MORE taxes on investment income - dreadful and wrong
• Join the blaze orange army and say ‘Enough is Enough’
• The future of government-run health care
• Tax on banks is a really bad idea
• Roth, Savard on the stump, grassroots style
• Savard speaking in Appleton, 8 PM, Wed., Jan. 13.
• Rahmlow: Savard, Bies frontrunners for State Senate
• Burri: Failing Political Correctness 101
• School contracts and Race to the Top
• Senator Feingold worrisome and big red flags
• Psephological?
• This is really important. Contact Rep. Kagen. Now. Please.
• This is exactly what we need from Governor Doyle
• This guy is my hero
• Why am I not surprised?
• Talk health reform with Feingold (Th), Petri (today)
• Give the Mayor power over MPS - if he can break contracts
• Burri: Yup, Dems really are going to bypass a conference
• The $2.7 billion Wisconsin deficit no one told you about
• Walker launches county accountability website
• Rahmlow: Why is Van Hollen dodging the Nebraska deal?
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| 2009 |
December
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November
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October
• The Lawton-Bader files
• Yup, it’s the TAX LEVY, not the tax RATE
• Ellis: costly automobile insurance laws must be rolled back
• If not Barrett, who?
• The subsidy game
• Burri: Bailouts, Banks, Health Care, and the Mob
• Attend Appleton Schools budget meeting tonight
• A public option WON’T increase costs? That’s delusional!
• Appleton Schools budget meeting Monday
• Wisconsin should be screaming for accountability
• Burri: If anything, we need more obstructionism around here
• WI on the leading edge - in the wrong direction
• Rep. Montgomery: Utility Customers Join State’s Crime-Fighting Efforts
• Public Conservation and Recreation Lands Total 16.5% of State
• In the crow's nest of the Titanic, shouting 'Iceberg!'
• Is Rep. Nelson a political hack?
• Health care: The road ahead will be brutal
• Kagen's pandering again
• Birthers - good stuff for you
• How much do we bend over backward for seniors?
• The trouble with health care is paying for it
• Two-parent families: The Gold Standard
• Burri: Kids... the joys and blessings
• Very, very worried about health care
• Rep. Huebsch: Wisconsin is proof government health care isn’t the answer
• School district contracts push up tax levy
• What? Obama, the Peace Prize?
• TODAY - hearing on Campaign Finance Reform
• Appleton School District tax levy up way too much
• CBO report is out - and the bill isn't even written yet?
• So, how much do YOU budget for health care?
• Burri: Copenhagen trip was amateurish
• “Sotomayor, you have blood on your hands...”
• Cap and Trade. Always follow the money
• Rep. Kagen gets (almost) free health services
• I actually agree with Rep. Kagen
• Future Wisconsin Conference for Conservatives, October 10, Wauwatosa
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September
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August
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July
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June
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May
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April
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March
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February
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January
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| 2008 |
December
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November
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October
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September
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August
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July
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June
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May
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April
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March
• Important votes Tuesday, including Appleton Common Council
• Democrats are becoming supply siders??
• Further debunking Hillary myths
• WEAC has created an unsustainable monopoly
• From Mark Gundrum: One of the greatest honors an American can experience
• 'Operation Chaos' working?
• Joe Martin the best candidate in Appleton's 8th
• State programs to cut? - Volume II
• Oh the naivete of youth
• Not just disingenuous - flat wrong
• Steve - you will be missed
• Make cuts only AFTER you're elected....
• Getting serious: What programs can we cut?
• Rep. Steve Kagen joining me on Jerry Bader Show today
• Rep. Van Roy: Dental Care Pilot Program
• Has Dave Obey turned the corner on earmarks?
• Speaker Huebsch: Governor turns down Federal Aid?
• Mark Rahmlow: "We're Broke."
• As taxpayers, how do we know if it's a Chevy or a Lexus?
• This is trash talk - about a veteran
• Frank Lasee: Take time to get the Compact right
• 'The Gableman Ad' - is it racist?
• Roth thankful, Kagen shaking money tree
• Gov. Doyle's office not enamored with Freedom of Information
• Governor Doyle will never do it
• Leadership on smoking ban? Not Hanna
• Rep. Van Roy speaks out about smear ads
• You're threatening me about potholes?
• Losing the Hastert seat is NOT a trend and NOT curtians for the GOP
• First suggestion for 'slashing' programs
• Big money-saver for municipalities
• More one time fixes. Nuts.
• Any chances???
• I'm doing the Jerry Bader Show, today, the 11th
• Representative Frank Lasee: Final Waltz of the Season
• Guest Blog: It's not the county's business to be in the nursing home business
• Yup, Hillary won Texas and Ohio
• Gableman/Butler race featured - and it isn't pretty
• Lies from Planned Parenthood and NARAL
• He who sacrifices liberty.....
• Duh.
• The Troha sentencing, Doyle and that $200K
• Guns, passion and "originality"
• How hard is it anyway, to shut down a government program?
• Voting is a PRIVILEGE. And so are property taxes....
• Guest Blog: Governor Doyle, cancel your Ireland trip
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February
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January
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| 2007 |
December
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November
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October
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September
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August
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July
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June
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May
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April
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March
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February
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January
• Lots of ideas. No money.
• The Cigarette Tax - "Poor Policy Instrument?"
• School budget Lite?
• Frankenstein - not in the library, but in the legislature
• A librarian, a legislator, a president
• $1.25/pack - NO, NO, NO, and NO
• Kagen and Reagan in the same breath?
• Menasha: behind the 8-ball, but not biting the dust
• Any way you slice it, Wisconsin government wants (further) in on health care
• The World is Flat...what about health care?
• The PAC - too precious to fail. Day 3
• News follow-ups: Appleton West, Kagen at the White House
• Fox Cities PAC - too precious to fail - Day 2
• Fox Cities PAC - too precious to fail
• New Transit Tax coming your way
• Rep. Petri has his finger in the dike - I guess
• AASD Retirement Costs Burdensome
• Health care, health care, health care, health care
• Water rate increase was no slam dunk
• Education for all is just a bad dream
• New Year's resolutions from a parade snob
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| 2006 |
December
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November
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October
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September
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| 2000 |
May
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