The Jedi mind trick falters…

There are dozens of the Downfall of Hitler parodies, but this one stands above. (Click on the square above to see it).

Thank you jlakey1! You made me laugh.

His theme of just how successful the big fake scam was, how close it came to success, and how completely the media prostrated themselves to be the doormats for big bankers and bureaucrats to walk on: “the public were begging for one world government” is so well described, so incisively done… I won’t do a plot spoiler. It’s only 3:54 minutes. Enjoy 🙂

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

10 Wong reasons to tax us

Why tobacco is central to explaining Climate Science…

The Sydney Morning Herald published a speech by Penny Wong (our Minister of Climate Change, Storms, Droughts, and Rainy Days). Sometimes I marvel that humanity ever managed to get civilized.

“Climate Sceptics are all red herrings and quackery”

Get ready for the startling Proof by Motherhood Statements & WhiteWash. I’m loosely Paraphrasing Penny, taking the liberty of including the fuller more accurate message (that I’m sure she would want to share)… [then adding a few thoughts].

A strong global agreement is apparently “manifestly in Australia’s own national interest” (and worth paying billions upon billions for). Why?

10 out of 10 based on 6 ratings […]

The big picture: 65 million years of temperature swings

Greenland Interglacial Temperatures – last 10,000 years. Are we headed for an ice age? (See below for more detail.)

David Lappi is a geologist from Alaska who has sent in a set of beautiful graphs–including an especially prosaic one of the last 10,000 years in Greenland–that he put together himself (and which I’ve copied here at the top).

If you wonder where today’s temperature fits in with the grand scheme of time on Earth since the dinosaurs were wiped out, here’s the history. We start with the whole 65 million years, then zoom in, and zoom in again to the last 12,000 from both ends of the world. What’s obvious is that in terms of homo sapiens history, things are warm now (because we’re not in an ice age). But, in terms of homo sapiens civilization, things are cooler than usual, and appear to be cooling.

Then again, since T-rex & Co. vanished, it’s been one long slide down the thermometer, and our current “record heatwave” is far cooler than normal. The dinosaurs would have scoffed at us: “What? You think this is warm?”

With so much volatility in the graphs, anyone could play “pick a trend” and depending […]

4. Carbon dioxide is already absorbing almost all it can

Here’s why it’s possible that doubling CO2 won’t make much difference.

The carbon that’s already up in the atmosphere absorbs most of the light it can. CO2 only “soaks up” its favorite wavelengths of light, and it’s close to saturation point. It manages to grab a bit more light from wavelengths that are close to its favorite bands, but it can’t do much more, because there are not many left-over photons at the right wavelengths.

The natural greenhouse effect is real, and it does keep us warm, but it’s already reached its peak performance.

Throw more carbon up there and most of the extra gas is just “unemployed” molecules.

This graph shows the additional warming effect of each extra 20ppm of atmospheric CO2.

8.5 out of 10 based on 73 ratings […]

Scandinavia-gate

Yet again, we have a situation where the data doesn’t match the full-gloss coloured graphs produced by the PR agency for global warming called the IPCC.

Frank Lansner and Nicolai Skjoldby have started a new blog Hide The Decline, and posted that Scandinavian data shows clearly that temperatures got markedly cooler from 1950-1970, before they began rising again, and even after the warming, they only appear to be back where they were. But, all the IPCC graphs minimize the cooling. It would be reasonable to conclude from the data that the temperature today in Scandinavia is roughly similar to that of the 1930’s. But, you’d never know this from looking at the IPCC graphs.

Scandinavian Temperatures: 25 data series combined from The Nordklim database (left), compared to the IPCC's temperature graph for the area.

The IPCC needs to come forward and explain why its graphs are so different.

There is no “hockey stick warming” here. There is no unprecedented heat, and there is no good correlation with the rise of carbon dioxide either. Sure, this is just one region, not the globe, but this is yet another example of how the IPCC has not presented an honest assessment of […]

Shock: Phil Jones says the obvious. BBC asks real questions.

Here’s the short version of that BBC interview. (Wow? Was it really the BBC?) This major re-framing of the story and admission of facts are part of the ClimateGate Virus epidemic. Journalists are starting to ask better questions, and researchers are starting to give better answers. OK, it’s not exactly a grilling, but neither is Roger Harrabin allowing the UN to promote its scare campaign without a few seriously-pointed questions. This represents almost as big a turnaround for Harrabin as for Jones (which I’ll expand on below). Only two years ago, he claimed skeptics were funded to spread uncertainty, and likened them to tobacco industry lobbyists. How must he feel to suddenly discover they actually had a case worth considering?

Cutting to the chase: paraphrasing Phil Jones

Stripped of the extras, Jones’ answers boil down to the following (I’ve added a few things he didn’t say [in square brackets], and skipped some questions ):

A) This recent warming trend was no different from others we have measured. The world warmed at the same rate in 1860-1880, 1919-1940, and 1975-1998. [Kinda cyclical really, every 55-60 years or so, we start another round.]

Hadley […]

The great collapse of the global warming myth

Photo adapted from Ron Neibrugge’s beautifully crisp original at Wild Nature Images

This is it: The dam wall is breached.

There are defining moments in any era, and we are right now in the midst of the Great Collapse.

Jan 30, 2010: the hottest hoax

Open Magazine's "Hottest Hoax in the World" Cover Issue

The weekend before last, a magazine cover called it Fraud. This could have been New Scientist, Scientific American, Discover, or any of the other popular science magazines, but it wasn’t. They were all scooped by an Indian publication, Open Magazine, that had only been running for a year.

The climate change fraud that is now unraveling is unprecedented in its deceit, unmatched in scope—and for the liberal elite, akin to 9 on the Richter scale. Never have so few fooled so many for so long, ever.

The entire world was being asked to change the way it lives on the basis of pure hyperbole. Propriety, probity and transparency were routinely sacrificed.

Feb 2, 2010: the Australian abandons the IPCC and the ETS 7.8 out of 10 based on 4 ratings […]

Not FOUR degrees, 1.4 degrees

ADDENDUM BELOW (with answers from Christopher Monckton)

The December SPPI monthly report came out on Jan 23. As usual, it contains graphs of the latest juiciest data: sea levels, ice, sunspots, cyclones, global temperature trends and the latest papers. Here’s a few snippets that caught my eye.

Get ready for 1.4 degrees (or more… or less).

Global Temperature Trends 1981-2009

Call me a cherry picker, but going by the full satellite data record we have and drawing a simplistic straight line, we are rocketing towards 1.4 degrees of warming by 2100, (but only if that trend of the last 30 years doesn’t change, which it is, every year). For those who are new to this, there are two interpretations of the satellite data and this neatly combines both of them (UAH and RSS) and makes one wiggly line out of masses of data. Not surprisingly, the SPPI team have chosen to ignore the surface record of airports and air-conditioners, “ground based thermometers”.

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]

French translation of Skeptics Handbook II

What do you do in your spare time — translate scientific and socio-political texts on atmospheric physics?

French Translation Skeptics Handbook II

There are those who are bridges between populations, who fight to spread information — the antidote to darkness.

This is the first translations of the Skeptics Handbook II, “Global Bullies Want Your Money”. (And if you are wondering, this version of the Skeptics Handbook, which has been out since Nov 19, 2009, is not just an update on Skeptics Handbook I. It is a totally new booklet.)

A big thank you again to Pierre Allemand for his professionalism, dedication and skill in translating the text and artwork. The place to go for French-speakers is to skyfal.free.fr

The Franco roots of English are on display: the Tyrannie, the Risques, the Marche du Carbone!

When the Normans conquered England in 1066 they bought French words. English became a quixotic meld of common Germanic words and polysyllabic French ones. (The farm animals were German, but the meat — the beef, poultry, and pork — was from France.)

The first Skeptics Handbook is also available in French.

Click on the image to download the French version. (2.4 Mb)

(More curious, […]

Australian climate poll: 60% passionate (but half in the dark)

The poll of Australians commission by the Australian Climate Science Coalition is more sophisticated than the BBC poll, and shows a similar trend against the theory of man-made global catastrophe. But, perhaps not surprisingly, as with the nature of fraud and misinformation, the results also contain contradictions. It’s quicksand out there in voter-world. Half the population is no longer sold on the emissions trading scheme, but the other half is unaware of what is unfolding. A bare majority of Australians still want to do “something” to combat climate change (I wonder if the same number of people want to do “something” to combat the weather), but even those who want action don’t want to spend very much.

The full report PDF.

Table 20: ACSC Poll of Australians Jan 2010

The things we know for sure: Skepticism is growing in Australia since Climategate (and all the other gates) and the failure of Copenhagen. There is a great deal of ignorance out there on both sides of the fence. (The science communication on this topic has been poor, worse, and awful.) The population is politically split: The half that doesn’t believe in the scare […]

Monckton tour: a sellout with extra dates in Perth, Sydney

Christopher Monckton’s tour here has been so successful that extra dates have been booked for Perth (now Monday night and Tuesday night this week) and also a huge final show in Sydney on Friday with none-other than Alan Jones as MC. (For people not in Australia, Alan Jones is one of the most popular talk-back radio celebrities here). All up, Monckton will has spoken to around 6000 people live, and countless thousands through a packed schedule of radio interviews around the country.

UPDATE: Sydney has become a hot debate with Tim Lambert aka Deltoid (see below). You must pre register to avoid disappointment for the Sydney final event on Friday. (download PDF!) The email to: ‘cool@exemail.com.au’ OR FAX: (02) 4861 2029

Monckton has played to packed houses everywhere, this one was in Newcastle. Photo: Thanks to Stefan.

Videos from one of the Melbourne speeches are linked below in two parts–they are excellent quality footage. Thanks to Case Smit and John Smeed for bringing the man and his wife Juliette this far around the world. Kudos to Ian Plimer for accompanying him.

Melbourne Part II

In Noosa, his talk was so popular that 350 […]

Seismic shifts in opinions

A new BBC poll shows a major shift in public opinion in the UK since just last November. Look at the swing. Of the 41% of people who then said the cause of climate change was “well established,” more than 1 in 4 have switched sides. These people made up the major base of the active support, yet they are now questioning the assumption that man-made gases are driving the change.

Only 26% of people think “climate change is happening, and is now established as largely man-made”; on the other hand, 25% are so skeptical, they don’t believe climate change is happening at all.

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]

Pitman: paid $190,000 a year to throw baseless insults

Last week a paid public servant spoke untruths, but instead of being exposed by the media, he was aided by our taxpayer-funded public broadcast network. Andy Pitman spoke about the socio-economic position of a group he avoids, and let down UNSW, abused the title “Professor”, and misled the public.

The journalists allowed the baseless smears to be broadcast without question, not just once, but twice.

Professor Andy Pitman on ABC Radio: Eleanor Hall interviews Andy Pitman on glaciers.

Robin Williams thought it was so “useful” he rebroadcast the same factually incorrect, irrelevant material on his “science” show. Oops.

It’s hard to cram more anti-truths into one declaration:

“My personal view is that climate scientists are losing the fight with climate sceptics. That the sceptics are so well funded, so well organized, have nothing else to do, they kind of don’t have day jobs, they can put all of their efforts into misinforming and miscommunicating climate science to the public, whereas the climate scientists have day jobs and this isn’t one of them. All of the efforts you do in an IPCC report is done out of hours, voluntarily, for no funding and no pay, whereas the sceptics are being […]

Liberal policy removes rewards for bankers

Abbott still panders to the fake carbon scare, but takes the bankers and futures traders right out of the equation by ditching emissions trading:

“A coalition government would create a $1 billion fund that would be used to purchase initiatives aimed at reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has announced.”

The Coalition will have to find $3.2 b, compared to Rudd’s $40-$114 billion money-go-round.

Mr Abbott said the criteria by which the coalition would judge the bids for spending would fall into four categories. It must involve a reduction in emissions and it must improve the environment. ‘Third, there must be no increase in cost to consumers”, … (fourth, no lost jobs).

So the Libs take the policy that gives them the back door escape route — they can say that nothing about their scheme is bad, even if the science of climate change turns out to be “absolute crap”.

It’s a lot better than the Turnbull-led effort in Nov 2009 of dancing with the trading scheme on offer, except that I wish the Liberals would be brave — stand up to the science bullies, and just say Who needs any policy at all on a topic […]

Falling public opinion falls faster

Newspoll results are out in Australia tonight. Surprise. The opposition that opposes the Great Big (baseless) Tax is having its best results since it got wiped out two years ago, slashing a 26 point lead to just 4 points.

On primary vote support, the Abbott-led Coalition has secured 41 per cent support, with the Liberals securing 37 per cent and the Nationals 4 per cent, compared to Labor’s 40 per cent, with the distribution of preferences – including a significant 12 per cent Greens vote.

The result represents a significant turnaround from the high-water mark support for the Rudd government during its first year. Two years ago Newspoll recorded a 26 point lead for Labor, at 63 per cent to 37 per cent for the Coalition, in February 2008. The gap narrowed to 61 per cent for Labor and 39 per cent for the Coalition in April 2008, and again to 59 per cent and 41 per cent in October 2009.

This is being directly connected by commentators to climate policies.

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]

Parody in custard

“Speedy” in comments on this site has done a better than excellent job of satirizing the satirists, so I’m reposting one of his comments here for those who missed it.

Bryan Dawe, ABC

The background is that here in the land of OZ, on our ABC (public funded TV, ie arm of big-government) there is a duo called John Clark and Bryan Dawe who do a weekly prime-time spot. Their pattern is to pretend to be a politician or two and bat questions back and forward. At the bottom of this post is a Youtube video of them on “Climate Change” from two years ago. You can see an archive of them here. Deadpan is the usual delivery.

But because the ABC is about 20 years behind in the real news on Global Warming, Clark and Dawe work with the disadvantage of being ABC viewers, and so when the Liberal Party disintegrated over the Emissions Trading Scheme most everyone on the ABC had no idea why it was happening. This is a real handicap for comedians, since to be funny, you have to be one step ahead of the audience.

Thanks to Speedy for sharing his talent. He’s captured […]

Finally! The newly revised and edited ClimateGate Timeline (1.1)

The all new second edition of the ClimateGate Timeline is finally here. This is One Spectacular Poster of the ClimateGate scandal, covering 3 Decade. Behind the scenes, a team of five has diligently worked for hours and hours, checking and double checking quotes and references, adding new information and polishing this remarkable work. […]

A moment of truth in the State of the Union?

Mark From the Hooterville gazette has spotted a very telling moment in Obama’s speech when the crowd laughs. Watch it closely.Without being in the room it’s hard to know who was laughing, and why. A year ago we could have assumed that laughter after a line about “overwhelming evidence” was really the crowd mocking those who don’t believe. But this is different.

“I know there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change…. but…. but… but here’s the thing, even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for clean energy and efficiency is the right thing to do.”

I watched it a few times to be sure I wasn’t misreading it. But the clues are clear. Watch Obama, he is not expecting to say a funny line. His response to the rising laugh tells us the laugh was not part of the plan. A good speaker (and he’s polished) knows intuitively that the way to kill a laugh is to speak over the top of it and interrupt the “moment”. (Professional speakers are coached to pause after delivering a scripted line that’s intended for comic effect). But tellingly, Obama tries twice to interject as the […]

Deltoid creates some sci-comm pollution

Deltoid (aka Tim Lambert) tries to attack Monckton (again). The bottom line? Deltoid agrees that Monckton’s calculations are correct, and accuses him of getting a figure wrong (which Monckton got right). As per form, there is plenty of bluster, and minimal substance. Deltoid repeats over and over that there are lots of mistakes and they’re all “important”, but cannot demonstrate any beyond a squabble over the exact phrasing of whether the IPCC included a formula or not. (It’s debateable, but it’s not important.)

Monckton’s letter to Rudd was big-picture stuff, yet Lambert avoids the heavy-weight items–the falling credibility of the IPCC, the starving poor, the cost-benefit analysis. Deltoid attacks phraseology, job titles, funding, but not the crux of Monckton’s points.

To put some perspective on it: the IPCC has grossly exaggerated climate sensitivity, ignored valid criticisms, and repeatedly used non-peer reviewed references (when it has repeatedly claimed to do otherwise). IPCC lead-authors are under investigation, have withheld data, conspired to delete data, and selectively ignored 75% of the global temperature record because it didn’t give them the “right” answer. (See the four Gates of the IPCC, and Horrifying examples of data manipulation.)

To put a pointier perspective […]

Horrifying examples of deliberate tampering

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse for the cult of the carbon scare.

Now we need to ask if the world has even warmed? I’ve always said, “global warming is real”, but the recent exposĂ©s of shocking corruption in science have made me start to wonder whether even that is true.

Today a study by Joe D’Aleo and Anthony Watts, was announced by the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI).

From their media release:

An extensive survey of the literature and data regarding ground and sea surface temperature records uncovers deception through data manipulation, reports the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI).

Authors veteran meteorologists Joe d’Aleo and Anthony Watts analyzed temperature records from all around the world for a major SPPI paper, Surface Temperature Records – Policy-driven Deception? The startling conclusion that we cannot tell whether there was any significant “global warming” at all in the 20th century is based on numerous astonishing examples of manipulation and exaggeration of the true level and rate of “global warming”.

That is to say, leading meteorological institutions in the USA and around the world have so systematically tampered with instrumental temperature data that it […]