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Be Good At Christmas – Help Save The AGWer
If the consensus disappears then it will be game over for the AGWer.
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A continuous struggle…
Reality is causing the Global Warming consensus to melt and what remains is thinner and more treacherous. AGWers need the consensus to hunt so they are having to travel further and further to reach their prey. As the consensus melts the area is also opened up to proper debate and free discussion and scientific exploration adding independent thinking to the many threats the AGWers already face.
Adult AGWer with two members of the public (AGWers-in-the-making)
Did you know…
…AGWers shelter the public from independent thinking in the safety of their “the debate is over” dens when they go hunting for skeptics. But as the consensus melts, these dens are collapsing – leaving the public vulnerable to skepticism and exposed to extreme discussion conditions.
…experts predict that Global Warming consensus could disappear completely in summer by 2011.
AGWer adoption/gift/present pack
Adopt an AGWer today…
…by adopting an AGWer you can help us save the AGWer and its home from the effects of reality and free discussion.
We must act now to try and save the AGWer from extinction.
A “More Likely Than Not” IPCC Mystery
Did the IPCC adhere to its own guidelines, or just twisted them whenever convenient?
(Most of the following text is extracted from a comment earlier today by John DeFayette)
I hope you can help me with an old, nagging questions that I have regarding the IPCC’s AR4. To be clear, I have read the whole of the WG-I report. There is absolutely no need to read beyond that, since WG-II and WG-III are mere science fiction once you understand the lack of conclusion in WG-I.
In my opinion the WG-I report document is well written. For those who can read beyond the summaries the scientific evaluations are mostly honest in their admission of our ignorance regarding our climate. However, the politicians weighed in heavily even with the report’s body, and here is the question:
Who decided, and when was the decision made, to add the uncertainty category “more likely than not” to the uncertainty table (Table 4) in AR4?
Table 4 - Likelihood/Uncertainty
note 12 and Table 2, mentioned in Table 4
The question is fundamental since it turns a perfectly reasonable document into a political club.
Clearly, an honest IPCC panel hammered out a reasonable likelihood scale in July 2005, published as an annex to AR4 in 2007. Table 4 in the uncertainty guidelines document indicates the terminology “as likely as not” for the probability zone around 50% (from 33% to 66%). This is perfectly reasonable, since a 50-50 likelihood or thereabouts has the same meaning as a coin toss. The document further instructs the authors of AR4 to refrain from messing with these terms (note 10).
note 10
To my dismay, I find the final AR4 littered with a new term, “more likely than not” plopped right there at the 50-yard line where I would expect to find a balanced “as likely as not.” A short search leads me to Box 1.1 of AR4 Chapter 1 as well as Box TS.1 in the Technical Summary, where I find that the AR4 authors have simply added the new term “…in order to provide a more specific assessment of aspects including attribution and radiative forcing.”
Box 1.1 Likelihood/Uncertainty table
Box TS.1 Likelihood/Uncertainty table
[NOTE BY MAURIZIO: Box 1.1 and Box TS.1 claim that in AR4-WGI-Chapter 2 “the basis on which the authors have determined particular levels of scientific understanding uses a combination of approaches consistent with the uncertainty guidance note as explained in detail in Section 2.9.2 and Table 2.11“. Neither that Section nor that Table explain anything of the sort.
Box TS.1 reference to Section 2.9.2 and Table 2.11
Section 2.9.2 (part 1)
Section 2.9.2 (part 2)
Section 2.9.2 (part 3)
Table 2.11 (part 1)
Table 2.11 (part 2)
Table 2.11 (part 3)
]
With this wondrous little change the AR4 is no longer a document that must admit that human activity may or may not (we don’t really know) cause an increase in hurricanes, in heavy precipitation events, in heat waves, droughts and more. Instead it says “more likely than not” in these cases. Obviously, the original terminology only allowed for a vague “we don’t know” whether the coin will land heads up; it sounds much better to say that the coin is more likely to land heads up than tails up.
[NOTE BY MAURIZIO: Coincidentally, the category “More likely than not” is the only one overlapping with another category, “About as likely as not“. Whoever decided not to follow the IPCC’s own guidelines, forgot to take notice that (>50%) is a subset of (33% to 66%)]
Scanning the two-year-old news I find no references to enraged citizens. I wonder if it is possible to find the authors who are responsible for this semantic “sleight-of-hand”?
Were AGW Scientists Completely Sidestepped In Copenhagen?
Have to admit, having read an AGW blog about COP-15 I could not avoid committing the sin of wasting time reading the Copenhagen Accord. And yes, there is an interesting and quite telling concept after all. It shows that no scientist, AGW believer or otherwise, has likely participated to the writing of the Accord, or has even been involved in reviewing any of it.
I am referring to a concept that is repeated twice:
(point 1) “recognizing the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius“
(point 2) “reduce global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius“
In there, “the increase in global temperature” is referred in absolute terms. A much more scientific, logical and legal thing to write would have been
“the increase in global temperature due to anthropogenic interference“
To understand the absurdity of the Accord as it stands, imagine the world of 2050, with giant emission reductions already achieved, and powerful models showing that “anthropogenic interference” amounts to +1.7C. Still, if by pure misfortune natural variability sums up to +0.4C, the Copenhagen Accord says we have failed (despite having achieved the wildest dreams of the average 2009 greenie).
Imagine now another world of 2050, with no emission reduction at all and “anthropogenic interference” running at +3C. Still, if by pure stroke of luck natural variability sums up to -0.9C (eg a series of giant volcanic eruptions from 2045 onwards), the Copenhagen Accord says we have succeeded (despite having done nothing at all).
Sadly, all of that shows how silly is the idea that there is something good in the Accord because it has followed the lead of scientists. In truth, the Accord has made the IPCC irrelevant apart than as a confirming body for whatever the USA and China would like to see agreed upon regarding “climate change”.
Australian Whingers?
Recent heavy rainfall in parts of Queensland has prompted large numbers of marsupials to flock to the newly green countryside. Further south, however, a long-standing drought has forced authorities to suspend the culling of kangaroos in parts of New South Wales.
COP15: Ed Milliband, Gordon Brown And Some Other “Jokers”
You know something very odd has happened in Copenhagen between Friday and Saturday when Luboš Motl and Plane Stupid’s Joss Garman write more or less the same thing about it. In the meanwhile, RC is silent, Stoat is silent, tamino is silent, Desmogblog has a pathetic “let’s be cheerful” attempt at blaming “politicians”, and Monbiot is entering paranoia territory.
Finally, a consensus has been reached!
100% of the people all over the world agree that 45,000 humans travelled to Denmark and made a lot of fuss for about two weeks, and all we’ve got is a declaration that is not worth a single paragraph of commentary. Give me another UN conference like this and we’ll be back to the League of Nations.
There’s more one should think about and I am sure it will slowly surface in the next few days. One question is who are the losers out of that all, and by that I mean the “jokers” that were presumed to be able to achieve something, proceeded to huff and puff a lot but were then demonstrated able to achieve nothing at all. Among them:
- Yvo De Boer
- Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCC
- Al Gore and (admittedly, in a considerably lesser amount) Jim Hansen
- Ed Milliband, Gordon Brown and the whole UK government
- France, Germany and all other EU countries (apart, one suspects, from the Czech Republic)
- Japan
- Greenpeace, Avaaz and a list of greenie organizations just too eager to jump on the AGW bandwagon
When push came to shove, the Powers That Be did not care at all about the opinions of those listed above.
I wouldn’t be too harsh with the Maldives, most of the African nations, etc. They do not have much power to do anything at UN level, anyway. Russia has lost a bit, by not being included in the final five signatories, and for the same reason Brazil, India, and (mysteriously) South Africa have gained a little.
But let me say very clearly, as UK taxpayer I find the performance of the Ed Milliband particularly awful, and the absolute unimportance of anything Gordon Brown had to say especially embarrassing. Go, go, Gordon go!!
Please!
ps looks like it’s high time to get US or Chinese citizenship…
So That’s What Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” Is About…
A deal in Copenhagen? Hopefully. A meaningful deal in Copenhagen? Perhaps. Will there be substantive actions in order to stay within the 2C limit? Maybe. Is there going to be a plan to significantly reduce emissions? It’s a promise.
After all, what’s a President that is also the first preventative Nobel Peace Prize winner going to be good at selling? Hope, mostly hope.
The real audacity is in pushing oneself forward almost exclusively counting on the fact that hope is the last to die.
And I hope the USA will get out of Afghanistan by 2011.
Suspence About James Randi
The Amazing James Randi has stepped into the AGW debate with a reasonable blog, stating truisms several times:
scientists are just as human as the rest of us, in that they are strongly influenced by the need to be accepted, to kowtow to peer opinion, and to “belong” in the scientific community
a growing number of prominent scientists disagree (on the IPCC consensus)
science does not depend on consensus
History supplies us with many examples where scientists were just plain wrong about certain matters, but ultimately discovered the truth through continued research
as far as humans are concerned, ten times more people die each year from the effects of cold than die from the heat
In my amateur opinion, more attention to disease control, better hygienic conditions for food production and clean water supplies, as well as controlling the filth that we breathe from fossil fuel use, are problems that should distract us from fretting about baking in Global Warming.
A Skeptic that is skeptical about making Global Warming THE defining issue of our times? Obviously, that’s not something that could be left unpunished. And in fact…there are some slightly ominous remarks by Phil “Jekill” Plait (not the usual reasonable Plait one can find talking about every topic but global warming):
I just talked with Randi about it (and sent him some info on AGW), and he’s posting a followup tonight
Let’s see how things develop.
Skeptical Band Aid, or “Do They Know It’s Climategatetime”
The tradition of updating classical songs to the new climate-obsessed world continues with an adaptation of Band Aid’s 1984 Christmas hit:
Do They Know It’s Climategatetime
It’s Climategatetime
There’s no need to be afraid
At Climategatetime, we let in light and we banish data hiding
And from our world of skeptics we can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around mainstream media at Climategatetime
But say a prayer
Pray for the poor hacks
At Climategatetime it’s hard, but when you’re having fun
There’s a world outside your window
And it’s a world of dread and fear
Where the only hope flowing is the bitter sting of catastrophe
And the Climategate bells that ring there are the clanging
chimes of doom
Well tonight of course it’s them instead of you
And there won’t be doubt in mainstream media this Climategatetime
The greatest gift they’ll get is a functioning neuron or two
(Oooh) Where no free thought ever grows
No idea nor investigation flow
Do they know it’s Climategatetime at all?
(Here’s to you) raise a glass for everyone
(Here’s to them) underneath their censorship
Do they know it’s Climategatetime at all?
Feed mainstream media
With some news
Feed mainstream media
Let them know it’s Climategatetime, it is
Feed mainstream media
Let them know it’s Climategatetime, it is
Richard Black Is Not Alone
Anybody wondering how did BBC’s Richard Black manage to post as poorly argued a blog as today’s, wonder no more: a few hours earlier, BBC’s Duncan Kennedy from Rome wrote an article with a gem like this:
In Italy, politics has literally become a contact sport
Looks like Mr Kennedy is reporting despite showing little awareness of his surroundings: between 1947 and 2008, there have been more than 35 political/mafia massacres in Italy. And many more individual assassinations. A “contact sport” indeed.
If that’s the new standard of BBC journalism, expect Richard Black to dive ever lower.
Fun With Climate Change (Weirdest Copenhagen Initiative?)
From the Climate Change Info Mailing List
LGBT Climate Professionals Network event Wednesday evening 2009-12-14 04:59:00
Dear colleagues,
The LGBT Climate Professionals Network (a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered climate professionals founded at COP13 in Bali) is delighted to invite colleagues in Copenhagen to an informal event this Wednesday evening.
To join the network and receive details of the event (currently being finalised) send an email to: […]
Please feel free to forward to all interested parties.
Best wishes,
LGBT Climate Professionals Network==========
I couldn’t find anything in Google about the LGBT Climate Professionals Network.
Friedman’s Climate Change Is The Stuff Of Miracles
(about Tom Friedman’s “Going Cheney on Climate“, IHT print edition, Dec 10, 2009)
From: Maurizio Morabito
To: Letters IHT
Dear Editors
In a slightly unsettling if not miraculous development on his way to fight climate change, Tom Friedman tells us today that Dick Cheney’s “instinct” (treating any “low-probability, high-impact event” as a certainty) “is precisely the right framework with which to think about the climate issue“.
As Mr Friedman rightly points out, Cheney’s strategy concerns “the same ‘precautionary principle’ that also animated environmentalists“. Unfortunately, previous performances bodes badly for the attitude that has brought upon us the Iraq invasion disaster.
It is a fact that everybody wants a green economy with clean air and non-polluting energy for all. Greenhood has become the new “motherhood and apple pie” of politics. It is also a fact that a shared goal doesn’t mean a shared idea on how to reach it. Each one of the various ways to address the risk of catastrophical global warming has its own inherent costs and risks. It is not just about declaring the will to buy insurance “aggressively“: one has to go out and choose which insurance to buy, weighing the various pros and cons.
For example, steel giant Mittal has been recently reported as benefiting around £1,000,000,000 ($1.6 billions) from the European emission trading scheme (cap-and-trade) If Mr Friedman wants to be serious about preparing for climate change, that’s what he should be discussing about.
1970s Global Cooling Consensus A Fact Of History – My Article In Spiked Online
From “Same fears, different name? – Maurizio Morabito uncovers a 1974 CIA report showing that the ‘scientific consensus’ then was that the world was cooling” published on Dec 10 in Spiked Online
[…] We have a ‘widely accepted [by the scientific community]…global cooling trend’, at least judging from Mitchell’s work in 1972; doubts about that growing in the same scientific community from 1975/1976, as per Damon and Kunen’s paper; but not early enough to prevent Newsweek from publishing its 1975 article, one that even mentions a certain Dr Murray Mitchell. That means that pieces of the global cooling puzzle do suggest that cooling was a widely-held view in the 1970s.
Admittedly, such an agreed view did not last the whole decade: rather, it concerned the 1972 to 1975 period. Says who? Says the CIA, in a unique report I was recently able to re-discover in the British Library […]
This article is much longer than the Spectator’s and contains all the evidence one should need to establish that there was a scientific consensus on global cooling in the period 1972-1975.
Al Gore Reverts To Sore-Loserhood, Resorts To Slander
Is this the best sign catastrophical AGW is beyond the sell-by date? Now we have Al Gore suggesting, in an interview to Italian archwarmist newspaper La Repubblica, that everybody not convinced about global warming being “the biggest threat to our civilization” is on the pay of the “big CO2 polluters“.
Particularly risible the list of “global warming facts” (can’t wait to see Tamino, Greenfyre or RealClimate excoriate it):
“The climate is changing. Glaciers are melting. Droughts happen more often. Southern Europe is threatened by desertification. And climate refugees are already abandoning the lowlands of Bangladesh, for example, threatened by rising sea levels. The melting of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica are threatening catastrophic sea level rises. Floods are getting worse. Tropical diseases are moving from the Equatorial regions to Europe and other temperate zones. These are facts“
Well, at least the “facts” don’t include hurricanes any longer.
World Exclusive: CIA 1974 Document Reveals Emptiness of AGW Scares, Closes Debate On Global Cooling Consensus (And More…)
An eye-opening “global cooling consensus” CIA document dated 1974 has just been re-discovered in the British Library by Yours Truly and is extensively mentioned today in the (printed) pages of The Spectator (UK) and Il Foglio (Italy).
(updated 20091203 – 1042am GMT – the (suitably degraded) scan of the Spectator article is at the bottom of this blog)
(updated 20091203 – 1105am GMT – HOLD IT-THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THE SCRIBD LINK!! – ANOTHER ONE WILL BE PROVIDED SHORTLY – the CIA document is now online thanks to Guido Guidi and Climate Monitor)
(updated 20091203 – 1143am GMT – the PDF of the CIA document is now available online thanks to Guido Guidi and Climate Monitor)
“A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems” will make quite an embarrassing reading, especially for:
- the most obdurate catastro-warmists (when they will notice that almost all AGW scares are a search-and-replace job from “cooling” to “warming”), and
- the history deniers fixated on ‘demonstrating’ that a scientific consensus about Global Cooling in the 1970’s were a ‘myth'(*)
And there is more (much more), from ever-improving climate models promising to become good in a few years’ time to the unsettling apparent ease with which Government agencies then (as now) could get scientists to agree on whatever they needed them to agree on.
Nobody aware of the CIA document’s contents should be able to avoid a good chuckle after reading any of the current AGW reports on famine, starvation, refugee crises, floods, droughts, crop and monsoon failures, and all sorts of extreme weather phenomena; on climate-related major economic problems around the world; on Africans getting in climate troubles first; and so on and so forth.
Why? Because it is all too clear that those scares cannot be real, since they have already been mentioned verbatim in all their dramatic effect, but about Global Cooling.
The whole lot of them, they are just empty threats, instruments of doom-and-gloom policy manipulation with no relation to reality.
It is deeply ironic that it takes a 35-year-old document, available on the web so far only in title, to show the absolute vacuity of the vast majority of pre-COP15 reports and studies. It is time to ditch everything we hear about collapsing ice sheets, disappearing glaciers, species extinctions, and each and every “it’s worse than we thought” report by “scientists”.
It is time to become climate adults.
As I wrote for The Spectator:
This might be the most important lesson of the 1974 report on global cooling: that we need to grow up, separate climatology from fear, and recognise – much as it pains politicians and scientists – that our understanding of how climate changes remains in its infancy.
(stay tuned for the full text of the Spectator article, and the PDF of the PDF of the CIA document)
(*) Anybody thinking about Thomas C. Peterson, William M. Connolley, and John Fleck’s largely mistitled “The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus” (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Volume 89, Issue 9, September 2008, pp 1325-1337)? Well, think again after reading this little gem of theirs:
By the early 1970s, when Mitchell updated his work (Mitchell 1972), the notion of a global cooling trend was widely accepted, albeit poorly understood
As I wrote a little more than a year ago: “Widely accepted”: check. “Global cooling”: check.. There was a global cooling consensus among scientists, at least up to 1974. And it went on to appear in Newsweek, The Washington Post, The New York Times and many more media outlets around the world, at least up to 1976.
CASE CLOSED.
UPDATED: This is the scanned Spectator article
The CIA's 'global cooling' files (title)
The CIA's 'global cooling' files (text)
Expect A Major Announcement On Thursday Dec 3
A major announcement about the history of climate change is expected in mainstream media and this website for Thursday, Dec 3 2009.
The Unbearable Nakedness of CLIMATE CHANGE 