UK TELEGRAPH
By Christopher Booker

November 29, 2008

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If the holder of the most powerful office in the world proposed a policy guaranteed to inflict untold damage on his own country and many others, on the basis of claims so demonstrably fallacious that they amount to a string of self-deluding lies, we might well be concerned. The relevance of this is not to President Bush, as some might imagine, but to a recent policy statement by President-elect Obama.

Tomorrow, delegates from 190 countries will meet in Poznan, Poland, to pave the way for next year's UN conference in Copenhagen at which the world will agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. They will see a video of Mr Obama, in only his second major policy commitment, pledging that America is now about to play the leading role in the fight to "save the planet" from global warming.

Mr Obama begins by saying that "the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear". "Sea levels," he claims, "are rising, coastlines are shrinking, we've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."

Far from the science being "beyond dispute", we can only deduce from this that Mr Obama has believed all he was told by Al Gore's wondrously batty film An Inconvenient Truth without bothering to check the facts. Each of these four statements is so wildly at odds with the truth that on this score alone we should be seriously worried.

It is true that average sea levels are modestly rising, but no faster than they have been doing for three centuries. Gore's film may predict a rise this century of 20 feet, but even the UN's International Panel on Climate Change only predicts a rise of between four and 17 inches. The main focus of alarm here has been the fate of low-lying coral islands such as the Maldives and Tuvalu.

Around each of these tiny countries, according to the international Commission on Sea Level Changes and other studies, sea levels in recent decades have actually fallen. The Indian Ocean was higher between 1900 and 1970 than it has been since. Satellite measurements show that since 1993 the sea level around Tuvalu has gone down by four inches.

Coastlines are not "shrinking" except where land is subsiding, as on the east coast of England, where it has been doing so for thousands of years. Gore became particularly muddled by this, pointing to how many times the Thames Barrier has had to be closed in recent years, unaware that this was more often to keep river water in during droughts than to stop the sea coming in.

Far from global warming having increased the number of droughts, the very opposite is the case. The most comprehensive study (Narisma et al, 2007) showed that, of the 20th century's 30 major drought episodes, 22 were in the first six decades, with only five between 1961 and 1980. The most recent two decades produced just three.

Mr Obama has again been taken in over hurricanes. Despite a recent press release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration claiming that 2008's North Atlantic hurricane season "set records", even its own release later admits that it only tied as "the fifth most active" since 1944. NOAA's own graphs show hurricane activity higher in the 1950s than recently. A recent Florida State University study of tropical cyclone activity across the world (see the Watts Up With That? website) shows a steady reduction over the past four years.

Alarming though it may be that the next US President should have fallen for all this claptrap, much more worrying is what he proposes to do on the basis of such grotesque misinformation. For a start he plans to introduce a "federal cap and trade system", a massive "carbon tax", designed to reduce America's CO2 emissions "to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 per cent by 2050". Such a target, which would put America ahead of any other country in the world, could only be achieved by closing down a large part of the US economy.

Mr Obama floats off still further from reality when he proposes spending $15 billion a year to encourage "clean energy" sources, such as thousands more wind turbines. He is clearly unaware that wind energy is so hopelessly ineffective that the 10,000 turbines America already has, representing "18 gigawatts of installed capacity", only generate 4.5GW of power, less than that supplied by a single giant coal-fired power station.

He talks blithely of allowing only "clean" coal-fired power plants, using "carbon capture" - burying the CO2 in holes in the ground - which would double the price of electricity, but the technology for which hasn't even yet been developed. He then babbles on about "generating five million new green jobs". This will presumably consist of hiring millions of Americans to generate power by running around on treadmills, to replace all those "dirty" coal-fired power stations which currently supply the US with half its electricity.

If this sounds like an elaborate economic suicide note, for what is still the earth's richest nation, it is still not enough for many environmentalists. Positively foaming at the mouth in The Guardian last week, George Monbiot claimed that the plight of the planet is now so grave that even "sensible programmes of the kind Obama proposes are now irrelevant". The only way to avert the "collapse of human civilisation", according to the Great Moonbat, would be "the complete decarbonisation of the global economy soon after 2050".

For 300 years science helped to turn Western civilisation into the richest and most comfortable the world has ever seen. Now it seems we have suddenly been plunged into a new age of superstition, where scientific evidence no longer counts for anything. The fact that America will soon be ruled by a man wholly under the spell of this post-scientific hysteria may leave us in wondering despair.

The man who decoded stonehenge

An excellent Daily Telegraph obituary of the scholar Professor John North, who has died aged 74, made mention of his most important discovery without noting its fascinating implications. It was his calculations that showed that Stonehenge was aligned, not with the sun's rising at midsummer as hippies and druids imagine, but with its setting at midwinter. In other words, Stonehenge was built to mark the dying moment of the northern year, when nature turns back again towards new life – that same symbolic moment which so many cultures have celebrated with midwinter festivals such as the Roman Saturnalia and our own Christmas.

When, a year or two back, I paid tribute here to Prof North's highly significant finding, an imaginative sub-editor gave it the memorably neat headline "Have yourself a megalithic Christmas."

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Climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill are quietly watching a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.

While the new Obama administration promises aggressive, forward-thinking environmental policies, Weather Channel co-founder Joseph D’Aleo and other scientists are organizing lobbying efforts to take aim at the cap-and-trade bill that Democrats plan to unveil in January.

So far, members of Congress have not been keen to publicly back the global cooling theory. But both senators from Oklahoma, Republicans Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe, have often expressed doubts about how much of a role man-made emissions play.

“We want the debate to be about science, not fear and hypocrisy. We hope next year’s wave of new politics means a return to science,” said Coburn aide John Hart. “It’s the old kind of politics that doesn’t consider any dissenting opinions.”

The global cooling lobby’s challenge is enormous. Next year could be the unfriendliest yet for climate skeptics. Already, House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) has lost his gavel, in part because his peers felt he was less than serious about tackling global warming.

The National Academy of Sciences and most major scientific bodies agree that global warming is caused by man-made carbon emissions. But a small, growing number of scientists, including D’Aleo, are questioning how quickly the warming is happening and whether humans are actually the leading cause.

Armed with statistics from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climate Data Center, D’Aleo reported in the 2009 Old Farmer’s Almanac that the U.S. annual mean temperature has fluctuated for decades and has only risen 0.21 degrees since 1930 — which he says is caused by fluctuating solar activity levels and ocean temperatures, not carbon emissions. 

Data from the same source shows that during five of the past seven decades, including this one, average U.S. temperatures have gone down. And the almanac predicted that the next year will see a period of cooling.

“We’re worried that people are too focused on carbon dioxide as the culprit,” D’Aleo said. “Recent warming has stopped since 1998, and we want to stop draconian measures that will hurt already spiraling downward economics. We’re environmentalists and conservationists at heart, but we don’t think that carbon is responsible for hurricanes.”

D’Aleo’s organization, the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, is collaborating on the campaign with the Cooler Heads Coalition, a subgroup of the National Consumer Coalition with members including Americans for Tax Reform, the National Center for Policy Analysis and Citizens for a Sound Economy.

More than 31,000 scientists across the world have signed the Global Warming Petition Project, a declaration started by a group of American scientists that states man’s impact on climate change can’t be reasonably proven.

If the project gains traction, it might give skeptical lawmakers an additional weapon to fight cap-and-trade legislation to curtail greenhouse gases — a move they worry could damage the already fragile economy. At the least, congressional aides say, it could caution additional lawmakers from rushing into a hasty piece of legislation.

Many Hill skeptics have varying opinions on whether the earth’s temperature is warming more slowly than some environmentalists predict and how much man is actually contributing to it.

Inhofe’s staff has been steadily compiling a list of global cooling findings. And aides report that they have received countless e-mails from scientists worldwide supporting the theory. While Inhofe hasn’t indicated that he will move forward with the information anytime soon, his aides continue to compile it.

Republicans aren’t the only ones who are wary of hastily passing a greenhouse gas bill. Ten Democrats wrote to Senate leaders earlier this year, citing economic concerns as a key reason why they didn’t vote for the Senate’s cap-and-trade bill.

And despite Democrats’ pickups in the Senate this fall, several of the new Democrats are from conservative, energy-producing states and may not be supportive, either.

But congressional aides say it could be a long wait before lawmakers are comfortable pushing science that contradicts the global warming theory. And until the lobby gains traction, skeptics plan to continue pushing their ideas by arguing for protection of the economy, where they hope to meet middle ground with global warming supporters.

“Never underestimate the ability of Congress to offer nonsolutions to problems that do not exist,” said Marc Morano, communications director for the Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “We could spend weeks arguing the mounting scientific evidence refuting man-made warming fears,” he added, “but it’s the economic arguments that have the most immediate impact.”

At the Cato Institute, senior fellow Patrick Michaels, a contributing author of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said most of Washington is already too deeply entrenched in the global warming mantra to turn back.

“You can’t expect the scientific community to now come to Washington and say this isn’t a problem. Once the apocalypse begins to deliver research dollars, you don’t want to reverse it,” said Michaels. “Washington works by lurching from crisis to crisis.”

Despite the growing science, the world’s leading crusader on climate change, Al Gore, is unconcerned.

“Climate deniers fall into the same camp as people who still don’t believe we landed on the moon,” said the former vice president’s spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider. “We don’t think this should distract us from the reality.”

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Related Link:

‘Planet Has Cooled Since Bush Took Office’ & Global Warming Theory has ‘failed consistently and dramatically’ – November 20, 2008

Posted By Marc Morano - 5:35 PM - Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov

Click Here to Read Part One of this Report:

Part TWO: ‘Planet Has Cooled Since Bush Took Office’ – Scientists Continue Dissenting – Gore Admits 'I've failed badly' - Global Sea Ice GROWS!  

PlanetGore: New Book: Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed -  by Christopher C. Horner

Excerpt: Dennis Prager, interviewed the author yesterday. You can listen to it here... It was good enough that I am going to listen again.” Chris Horner discusses Red Hot Lies, the latest GISS data manipulation, and his interesting Enron experiences with the ever-sensible Glenn Beck.

Glenn Beck on nwe book ‘Red Hot Lies’

Glenn Beck interviewed Chris Horner, author of Red Hot Lies, on his radio show today. They discuss Horner's book, James Hansen, cap and trade, and the scare tactics employed by alarmists toward anthropogenic global warming skeptics.

NBC's Curry Climbs 'Poster-Child' for Climate Change: 'Today' show anchor misleads viewers about declining Mt. Kilimanjaro ice during network's 'green' week. – November 20, 2008

Excerpt: ‘Tis the season for global warming alarmism on NBC. It is “green” week after all.  Just like last year, “Today” hosts have ironically traveled to the “Ends of the Earth,” spewing carbon emissions all the way. (The network said it will “offset” the emissions.) This year, Ann Curry has been reporting from Tanzania, where she was attempting to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. […]  But what Curry didn’t tell viewers was that “most scientists who study Kilimanjaro’s glaciers have long been uneasy with the volcano’s poster-child status,” according to Seattle Times science reporter Sandi Doughton.

UK 'Committee will recommend five-year carbon budgets for different parts of the economy' – November 20, 2008

Excerpt: The approach is rather like that of a desperate dieter padlocking his pantry. If all goes according to plan, a climate-change bill will be passed next week that takes the power to set carbon-reduction goals away from politicians and enshrines them in law. A climate-change committee will recommend five-year carbon budgets for different parts of the economy, such as power generation, transport and manufacturing, with the ultimate goal of cutting emissions by 80% from their 1990 levels by the time 2050 rolls around. Modelled partly on the Bank of England’s Monetary-Policy Committee, which was set up in 1997 to take interest-rate decisions out of the hands of ministers, the new Committee on Climate Change (now headed by Lord Turner, the head of Britain’s financial regulator and before that the author of important pension reforms) will publish on December 1st the first three carbon budgets, covering the period until 2022.

UN IPCC Scientist Mocks Warming Fears! The Absurdity of a Reliable Average Global Surface Temperature

By IPCC reviewer and climate researcher and scientist Dr. Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001)

Excerpt: The absence of any scientific justification for the existence of a reliable average global surface temperature is just one of the many absurdities of the assumptions which are made by the basic theory of computer models which assumes that the energy of the earth can be regarded as in equilibrium, with a constant temperature, and sunshine (day and night), and “balanced” with energy coming in equalling that going out.  Since there is no part of the earth where this “balance” exists, it could not possibly exist on average.

UN recruits North American youth to join fight against climate change

Excerpt: The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) enlisted the help of North American youth to help tackle climate change at a summit kicking off today in the United States city of Chicago. Kick the Carbon Habit” education campaign is being launched at a three-day event featuring 20 youth representatives, between the ages of 18 and 22, from the US and Canada. The new project seeks to raise awareness of the importance of resource conservation, and UNEP stressed the importance of education and youth leadership in addressing global warming.

Children Raise US$ 21,000 for the Fight Against Climate Change - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Excerpt: In a ray of hope amid the current economic crisis, children from around the world have pulled together and raised US$21,000 for the fight against climate change.
As part of the Paint for the Planet event organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), children's paintings were auctioned at New York's Harvard Club to raise money for children in areas affected by climate-related disasters. Proceeds will go to UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund.

Student believes propaganda: Polar 'bears are expected to go extinct within a decade' – November 6, 2008

Excerpt: We learned from our facilitators the effect that global warming has on these bears and how it has already diminished their population. There are about 900 polar bears in Churchill and only 20,000 bears remaining in the entire world. You may think this is a large number, but did you know that bears are expected to go extinct within a decade?

Polar Bear Reality Check:

Get the facts on Polar Bears – U.S. Senate Minority Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears – January 30, 2008

Excerpt: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s.  A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.”  The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts.

Film-makers taking on 'global warming hysteria' - Will do for Gore what 'Fahrenheit 9/11' did for Bush'

Watch: Movie Trailer – Not Evil, Just Wrong

Another Dissenter: CO2 Warming fears are ‘simplistic approach’ -- ‘Earth's climate is ridiculously complicated’ says AccuWeather Meteorologist Mark Paquette – November 15, 2008

Excerpt: An increase in a greenhouse gas leads to warming, right? Simple answer, in my opinion, is yes. A more complicated answer, and one that seems to be most accepted by most of the commenters, is not necessarily, as the earth's climate system is very complex. -The simple answer is yes, an increase in carbon dioxide leads to warming on the planet. This is a very simplistic approach and assumes that nothing else in the climate system changes, and all the warming observed in the earth's climate is directly attributed to the change in the levels of carbon dioxide. -As we all know, the assumptions made directly above are not true. The earth's climate is ridiculously complicated, and carbon dioxide is not the only thing that influences the climate that is changing. In fact, probably EVERYTHING in the earth's climate system changes at one time or another. So, earth's changing climate can not be entirely attributed to carbon dioxide levels rising. -Below is just my opinion, and please comment on it. The increase in carbon dioxide levels will, by itself and no other changes in the climate system, lead to warming in the earth's atmosphere. However, this warming may or may not be seen in actuality. It may be hidden, or masked, by factors that are cooling the climate. On the other hand, if warming of the climate is shown to be occurring, the increase in carbon dioxide levels are playing a role in this warming, but are not entirely responsible for all of the warming as many other factors are involved.

Another Dissenter: Former U.S. Navy Meteorologist Slams UN IPCC ‘Alternate models of climate change are not even considered’- November 17, 2008

(Dr. William DiPuccio worked as a weather forecaster in the US Navy and as a Meteorological Technician for the National Weather Service Central Weather Service.

Excerpt: We should be cautious about placing our faith in climate models that vastly oversimplify the actual climate system.  Supporting evidence for the IPCC’s projections does not warrant the high level (90%-95%) of confidence exhibited by its authors.  Much less should these projections be used, at this point, for making public policy decisions.  Though the latest IPCC report (2007) concludes that global warming, due to increased CO2, is a virtual certainty, the authors themselves raise fundamental doubts about our scientific understanding of radiative forcing agents and climate change, both past and present. […] All climate scientists agree that the recent flattening and decline in global temperature over the last decade is due to natural variability.  Though this decline was not anticipated by climate models, IPCC supporters are confident that warming will resume in the next decade or so. But, as climate scientist Roger Pielke Sr. has observed, it seems that no matter what changes take place in weather or climate—i.e., extreme heat or extreme cold—they are said to verify the IPCC's hypothesis.  Consequently there can be no falsifying evidence against it, at least not on a decadal scale. In the mean time, the media will continue to hype this issue, focusing on the most sensational statements and events.  Apocalyptic views, like those of Al Gore and James Hansen (NASA), have dominated the public discussion and classroom education.  Yet, these views do not even represent the IPCC’s projections, which are far more conservative and a lot less theatrical.  Of course, alternate models of climate change are not even considered.  This one sidedness only proves how desperately good education is needed on this issue. 

Must See Video: All Things Caused by Global Warming? See Video: 'Global Warming: A Comedy' – November 17, 2008 - Excerpt: Click here to See full video: (Warning, it is funny and painfully accurate) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLxicwiBQ7Q This 9 ½ minute video brilliantly and accurately (it is not a spoof!) shows the absurdity of today’s man-made global warming fear campaign. It appears to have been produced by a group called Conservative Cavalry. They really did their homework and put together quite a show. This video should be shown in classrooms across the country and in newsrooms! The video is based on the website “A complete list of things caused by global warming.” The website is run by Dr. John Brignell, a UK Emeritus Engineering Professor at the University of Southampton who held the Chair in Industrial Instrumentation at Southampton.

New York City to Host Rare Global warming “Solution” Debate in January 2009

Excerpt: On January 13, at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York, Bjørn Lomborg, Peter Huber (Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute), and I will be debating the motion ‘Major reductions in carbon emissions are not worth the money’ with Daniel Kammen, Oliver Tickell, and Adam Werbach in one of the now famous blockbuster IQ2 U.S. debates. The moderator will be John Donvan, correspondent for ABC News ‘Nightline’, and the debate will be recorded for airing on BBC World News Television (reaching 280 million households globally) and NPR nationally.

Paleoclimatologist: Expect Global COOLING --  'There's been no global warming in the 21st century' – November 17, 2008

By Professor Tim Patterson, a paleoclimatologist from the department of Earth sciences at from Carleton University.

Excerpt: A professor from Carleton University may get the cold shoulder from environmentalists when he speaks in London tomorrow. Tim Patterson, a paleoclimatologist from the department of Earth sciences, will give an opposing view to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Patterson is speaking at a Canadian Club of London luncheon. He believes we should expect global cooling rather than global warming in the coming years. "We're off on the wrong foot," he says." Climate change is not caused by humans, but by natural forces, Patterson says. His research indicates cosmic rays from the sun affect temperature by impacting cloud formation. When there are fewer cosmic rays, there are fewer clouds. Fewer clouds lead to warmer temperatures. But Patterson predicts temperatures will drop as a result of the next solar cycle, which is much weaker than usual.

Global WARNING: We are actually heading towards a new Ice Age, claim scientists! - UK Daily Mail – November 13, 2008

Excerpt: It has plagued scientists and politicians for decades, but scientists now say global warming is not the problem. We are actually heading for the next Ice Age, they claim. British and Canadian experts warned the big freeze could bury the east of Britain in 6,000ft of ice. And what's more, the experts blame the global change on falling - rather than climbing - levels of greenhouse gases. Lead author Thomas Crowley from the University of Edinburgh and Canadian colleague William Hyde say that currently vilified greenhouse gases – such as carbon dioxide – could actually be the key to averting the chill. The warning, published in the authoritative journal Nature, is based on records of tiny marine fossils and the earth’s shifting orbit. 

Excerpt: From Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Journal (article from BraveNewClimate.files.wordpress.com)
'Greenhouse theory does not stack up' - Wine Mag by well known West Australian wine maker Erl Happ - I have a sticking point with the ‘science of global warming’. It’s not global. In fact, it is confined in the main to the Northern Hemisphere.....If ‘greenhouse theory’ were correct, warming would be seen in all places and in all seasons. But, the advance in temperature is mostly in the winter and spring. There is an obvious cause for this and it’s the heat stored in the oceans as a result of episodes of tropical warming that are described as ‘El Niño’ events after the most obvious manifestation in the Pacifi c Ocean. In brief, this is the situation as I see it:.....

More from Skeptical Winemaker: LET US BANISH RELIGION FROM SCIENCE! – Skeptical WINE Maker Says

"Let us not confuse environmental religion with observational science. Reliable science explains what we observe. One can not understand the climate system without an appreciation of the in?uence of geography, spatial relations, ocean currents and the physics that drive cloud cover over the tropics. We have managed to banish religion from politics. Now we need to do the same for science." West Australian winemaker. LINK

Parts of Georgia break 'low-temperature mark that stood for 117 years'  - November 19, 2008

Excerpt: The waves of cold, Canadian air washing over the eastern United States brought a record low to Athens this morning, breaking a low-temperature mark that stood for 117 years. The official temperature in Athens sank to 20 degrees, breaking a record set in 1891, said Frank Taylor, spokesman for the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City. The old record was 23 degrees, Taylor said.

Barrow Alaska Received Twice Monthly Snow Average in just 15 Days!

Excerpt: In just 15 days, Barrow, AK has received twice its average monthly November snowfall - on top of a record-breaking October

Scare-Mongering on Steroids: NBC Warns Oceans Could Rise 200 Feet! – Repeats Kilimanjaro Silliness - November 17, 2008

Excerpt: Green Week is upon us again, time for more global warming scare-mongering by the NBC family of networks.  Kicking things off during half-time of last night's NBC Sunday Night Football, Meredith Vieira put Al Gore's alarmism to shame. [H/t reader Mick L.] Gore predicted a measly 20-foot rise in sea levels, enough to drown much of Manhattan. Vieira outdid him by a factor of 10, raising the spectre of a sea-level rise of 200 feet . That exaggerates the increase predicted by scientists by literally hundreds of times.

Reality Check on Sea Level: Scientists Counter Computer Model Sea Level Rise Fears - September 2007

Excerpt: Nearly two dozen prominent scientists from around the world have denounced a recent Associated Press article promoting sea level fears in the year 2100 and beyond based on unproven computer models predictions.

Reality Check on Kilimanjaro - Sampling of Multiple Scientific Studies Disputing Warming Link to Mount Kilimanjaro – November 2008

Science is Settled? Forests may play overlooked role in regulating climate

Excerpt: In a study to be published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists led by a team at the University of New Hampshire show that forests may influence the Earth's climate in important ways that have not previously been recognized.

'Freezing heat': NASA admits it 'blundered' by declaring 'hottest October on record'  (UK Telegraph)

Cold, Hard Facts – Investor’s Business Daily

Excerpt: Despite record snows and low temperatures around the world last month, a major Al Gore supporter says October was the hottest on record. The only thing being cooked here is not the Earth, but the books. James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and global warming alarmist, is Al Gore's favorite scientist, part of that mythical global warming "consensus" that says we are doomed and man is the culprit. On Nov. 10 he announced that last month was the hottest October on record and we were still doomed.

Another Dissenter: Chemist Greenhouse Misconceptions – (Chemist Tom Kondis) – November 2008

Excerpt: As a retired chemist with experience in absorption and emission spectroscopy, I've noticed basic errors in arguments promoted by speculators of man-made climate change and propagated in the popular media. Specifically, they've incorrectly compared absorption behavior of carbon dioxide gas to a functioning greenhouse, erroneously equated infrared (IR) radiation to greenhouse-energizing radiation from the sun, and distorted textbook science. […]  Water vapor, liquid water, ice and snow, far more abundant than carbon dioxide, are all efficient IR absorbers participating in earth's thermal balance. Nevertheless, speculators blame IR absorption by carbon dioxide, approximately 0.035% of the atmosphere, for changing our climate. They haven't verified their unique viewpoint by utilizing IR radiation, synthetic gas mixtures and temperature measurements independent from the influences of poorly understood and incompletely considered natural forces that do control earth's climate and weather. Their arguments lack substance and veracity.

‘Freezing Heat’: Despite Unusual Cold, NASA blunders by declaring October ‘Hottest on Record’ - Admits Lack of ‘Proper Quality Control’ – November 16, 2008 – UK Telegraph

Excerpt: A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. [...] Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s. 

Warmest October ever ...Not! – National Post – November 17, 2008  

Excerpt: Last week, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) -- one of four agencies responsible for monitoring the global temperatures used by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- released its statistics for October. According to the GISS figures, last month was the warmest October on record around the world. […] In fact, quite the opposite had occurred; there had been plenty of stories about unseasonably cool weather. London had experienced its first October snow in 70 years. Chicago and the Great Plains states had broken several lowest-temperature records, some of which had stood for 120 years. Tibet had broken snowfall records. Glaciers in Alaska, the Alps and New Zealand had begun advancing. Moreover, sea ice expanded so rapidly it covered 30% more of the Arctic than at the end of October, 2007. (Of course, you saw few stories about that, too, since interest in the Arctic ice cover is reserved for when it's melting.) So the GISS claim that October was the warmest ever seemed counterintuitive, to say the least.

Not again! Global warming rally in DC faces unusual November snow and cold – ‘Gore Effect’ - November 17, 2008

[Note: The “Gore Effect” has a long and storied history. What follows is a sampling of how Mother Nature enjoys mocking global warming fear promoters. 1) First October snow since 1922 blankets London as global warming bill debated – October 2008  # 2) Global Warming Vote on Snowy Day in Washington - Senate committee debates expensive climate change bill snow blanket D.C. – December 2007  # 3) HOUSE HEARING ON 'WARMING OF THE PLANET' CANCELED AFTER SNOW/ICE STORM – February 2007  # 4) NOT AGAIN! DC 'Snow Advisory' Issued on Day of Congressional Global Warming Hearing – March 2007 # 5) Gore decries 'global warming' in bitterly cold NYC – December 2006 # 6) Gore delivers environmental message at Harvard - ...with near 125-year record breaking low temps – October 2008 # 7) Global warming activists urged to focus on Earth Day rallies and ignore snow as it 'piles up outside our windows' – April 17, 2007 # 8) No Joke! Cyclists 'braved freezing cold temps' to promote global warming awareness in New York - October 22, 2008 # 9) Global warming protest in Maryland frosted with snow – January 2008 # 10) Global warming rally in the snow – April 2007  # 11) Snow won't dampen global-warming rallies – April 2007  # 12) Brrr. - Obama to global warming demonstrators: 'This is probably not the weather to hold up those signs...it's a little chilly today' - October 28,  2008 # 13) Global Warming Awareness Walk Braves Snow Storm – March 2007   ]

For collection of “Gore Effect” see here: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/The_Gore_Effect.pdf

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NYT's Revkin song implies carbon based energy is temptation of 'Satan'?  - "Liberated Carbon” – November 14, 2008

Excerpt: Andrew Revkin's key song lyric: "We yearned to burn more than dung and sticks. Then Satan came along and said, 'Hey, try lighting this.' He opened up the ground and showed us coal and oil." Listen here:

'Hard freeze warnings': Record cold hits the Southeast – November 18, 2008

Crime Freeze? South Carolina Police: Record low temperatures practically froze criminal activity overnight – November 19, 2008

Excerpt:  Near zero temperatures Tuesday night caused the number of 911 emergency calls to slow to just a trickle for Greenville County sheriff’s deputies, who were jumping with 3 robberies the night before, a spokesman said. We usually have 200 to 300 calls a night, said Lt. Tim Ridgeway, a sheriff’s spokesman. Right now, we’ve only had a handful of calls, he said. "I bet the whole 12 hours, we don’t get 100 calls," he said.

Ski Paradise: ‘Snow-vember’ Sees Ski Resorts Open Early Around The World – November 17, 2008

Excerpt: ‘Snow-vember’ Sees Ski Resorts Open Early Around The World  Skiinfo.com, is reporting bumper pre-season snow across the northern hemisphere with the Alps, Pyrenees, Scandinavia and the Rockies all receiving huge early snow falls that have brought wonderful powder snow conditions for skiers and boarders on the glacier ski areas that were already open, and led to an increasing number of resorts in Canada, Italy, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the US to open up to a month earlier than planned

'Snow is already falling': Ski industry predicts boom as cold sets in – November 17, 2008

Utah ski resort opens early as 46 inches of snow piles up! – November 10, 2008

Flashback to December 14, 2007: Ski resorts face uncertain future – UK Guardian

Excerpt: Global warming could devastate European ski resorts within decades, forcing lower-altitude resorts to close and threatening winter sports which now attract up to 80 million tourists a year. A report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development yesterday heaped more bad news on Alpine ski resorts, which are already struggling against the warmest weather in 1,300 years, according to Austrian climatologists, with flowers still blooming on some slopes and world ski tournaments being cancelled through lack of snow.

Roger Pielke Jr.: The Polish Loophole Takes Shape

Excerpt: So the question has been, what will it take to get Poland’s agreement to an EU climate policy package? The obvious answer is to somehow create a loophole for Poland to be exempt from the requirements of EU climate policies. Such loopholes are the Achilles Heel of cap-and-trade, and doom the EU plans to policy failure. U.S. cap-and-traders should take note.

Roger Pielke Jr. : And here's the Indian loophole

Excerpt: SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Saran, when will India oblige itself to start restricting its own CO2 emissions? Saran: Even though there is no legal obligation on India in this respect, the Prime Minister of India made a commitment that India’s per capita emissions will at no time exceed the average of the per capita emissions of developed, industrialized countries. We have thus accepted a limit on our emissions and at the same time provided an incentive to our partners in developed countries to be more ambitious. The more significant their reductions of emissions, the lower the limit we would need to accept for our own.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts Examines U.S. Temperature Data: ‘How not to measure temperature’ – November 19, 2008

Excerpt: How not to measure temperature, part 74 - Sometimes, words fail me in describing the absolute disregard of the placement of NOAA official climate monitoring sites. For example, this one in Clarinda, Iowa submitted by surfacestations volunteer Eric Gamberg: (Watts Up With That?) Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

'Is that global warming? No, just the sauna' -- Climate summit held at posh Beverly Hills Hotel! - Kansas City Star – November 18, 2008

Experts call for end of flushing toilets – ‘Proposed new toilet tax!’ – November 19, 2008

Excerpt: AS the world celebrates World Toilet Day today, sanitation experts have called for the end of the flushing dunny to save water and provide fertilizer for crops. Leading health advocates have called for the use of "dry" toilets which separate urine from faeces and remove the need to flush.

‘The yuck factor’ – No-Flush Urinals - 'Icky, tricky and costly' - Many say no thanks to no-flush urinals - McClatchy Newspapers – November 18, 2008

[Note: Many environmentalists’ oppose the creature comforts of modern bathrooms. A well documented list is here. See: 1) Reusable Toilet Paper? ‘Family Cloth” urged as eco-friendly replacement for toilet paper # 2) How to Store Used ‘Family Wipes’ # 3) How to Wash Soiled ‘Family Wipes’ # 4) How to Use Cloth Wipes (Family Wipes, Toilet Wipes) # 5) The Latest "Green" Craze: Reusable Toilet Paper?! # 5) The Latest "Green" Craze: Reusable Toilet Paper?! # 6) Background on environmentalist’s war on toilet paper: Excerpt: Ready to Rethink Toilet Paper for Earth Day? - Forests Being 'Slaughtered for Toilet Paper,' Actress Declares - Flashback: NYC Environmentalists Eliminate Toilet Paper in Effort to Save the Planet - Introduction of the Flush Toilet Deplored at Earth Summit - Dry Toilet Conference Declared a Success by Organizers - Diaperless Babies Seen As Earth-Friendly Solution - Flush Toilets Called "Environmental Disaster" - Philadelphia Plumbers Union Pipes Up About Waterless Urinals  #  Ready to Rethink Toilet Paper for Earth Day?  ]

Simulating Arctic Cloud Cover and Sea Ice: How well do simulations of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report models compare with reality? 

Michael Crichton, `Jurassic Park' Creator, Dies at 66 - November 5, 2008 – Bloomberg News

Excerpt: Michael Crichton, the best-selling author of science-infused thrillers including ``Jurassic Park'' and ``The Andromeda Strain,'' has died. He was 66.

Tribute to Michael Crighton’s skeptical global warming views

Flashback: Crichton’s team emerges victorious: NYC Audience Reverses belief in man-made global warming after debate - See: “Scientific Smackdown: Skeptics Voted The Clear Winners Against Global Warming Believers in Heated NYC Debate” - March 16, 2007

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Contact: Marc Morano - 202-224-5762 - Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov  

‘Freezing Heat’: Despite Unusual Cold, NASA blunders by declaring October ‘Hottest on Record’ 

Admits Lack of ‘Proper Quality Control’ 

UK Telegraph

By Christopher Booker

November 16, 2008

Link to Article 

The world has never seen such freezing heat 

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record. 

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years. [EPW Note: For temperature reality checks see: NOAA: U.S. on track for coolest year since 1997  & Earth has had “no statistically significant warming since 1995.”] 

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running. 

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year. 

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.  

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s. 

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped. 

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.   

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