By Dr. Gordon Fulks
Having just witnessed the Climate Inquisition at work here in Oregon with their cancellation of our planned presentations to the Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) working with establishment Professors like Phil Mote of OSU, it is worth noting how they deal with skeptics at the New York Times.
Joe Bast points to an article written by the NYT’s primary climate alarmist Andrew Revkin where he interviews an author and ‘climate expert’ Naomi Klein about approaches to dealing with the ‘climate catastrophe.’ The Heartland Institute is featured as the example of those “well-funded” entities that are standing in the way of Revkin, Klein, and their political pals having an easy time of redesigning our society.
The Revkin article might be considered a reasonable discussion of the present position of the Climate Inquisition, if it were accompanied by another from the Heartland Institute where they have been given an opportunity to present their side of things. And then for good balance, the NYT should have allowed real scientists to have their say also. But that is far from the reality of today’s world where journalists like Revkin interview other journalists like Klein to ascertain scientific reality. The assumption that these people have scientific backgrounds and know what they are talking about goes unquestioned. They of course do not. And Revkin is supposed to be a journalist who presents all sides of an issue, not just those favored by the newspaper.
The larger issue is whether we have become a society where ideas can be openly presented and discussed without the heavy hand of censorship. Bast correctly points out that the only time his organization gets any ink to present their position and that of the many well-known scientists who have attended their climate conferences is when the Climate Inquisition is interested in attacking them. That is a very sad commentary.
In Oregon, the job of making sure that climate heretics are silenced has fallen to the high priests of Global Warming at our universities: Professors Phil Mote at OSU and Christina Hulbe at PSU need only contact an institution where a presentation is about to be heard and declare it to lack “the best peer-reviewed science,” and the institution like OMSI will immediately cancel the event. Then the OMSI Public Relations department goes into high gear to cover their tracks declaring that their goal is “balance” and “it appears as though the content offered by the three featured speakers at the AMS meeting will not meet OMSI’s standard for science education programs.” Of course, they never saw the material we were about to present, routinely allow alarmist material to be presented, and have not followed up their call for both sides of this issue to be heard.
OMSI like Andrew Revkin at the NYT is in the propaganda business, willingly cooperating with the Climate Inquisition to suppress opposing viewpoints.
Will a nation that allows “scientific organizations” to suppress free and open scientific discussions that are vital to science long endure?
Will a nation that allows a “free press” to suppress free and open discussions that are vital to our freedom long endure?
Clearly, we have already lost some of our freedom, including the right to practice objective science that conflicts with a political agenda.
On the brighter side, the heavy-handed approaches favored by alarmists are easily recognized by a general population that lacks the scientific background to sort out climate facts from climate fictions. The release of both batches of Climategate e-mails helped to reveal to the world what really goes on behind the scenes.
Alarmists would be much more dangerous if they could control their authoritarian tendencies.
GWPF
A new report, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, reveals that the BBC has failed in its professional duty to report accurately and objectively on the issue of climate change, one of the biggest scientific and political stories of our time.
Written by Christopher Booker, one of the UK’s most seasoned journalists, the report critically reviews the BBC’s coverage of climate change issues against its statutory obligation to report ‘with due accuracy and impartiality’.
His report, The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal, shows that the BBC has not only failed in its professional duty to report fully and accurately: it has betrayed its own principles, in three respects:
First, it has betrayed its statutory obligation to be impartial, using the excuse that any dissent from the official orthodoxy was so insignificant that it should just be ignored or made to look ridiculous.
Second, it has betrayed the principles of responsible journalism, by allowing its coverage to become so one-sided that it has too often amounted to no more than propaganda.
Third, it has betrayed the fundamental principles of science, which relies on unrelenting scepticism towards any theory until it can be shown to provide a comprehensive explanation for the observed evidence.
“Above all, the BBC has been guilty of abusing the trust of its audience, and of all those compelled to pay for it. On one of the most important and far-reaching issues of our time, its coverage has been so tendentious that it has given its viewers a picture not just misleading but at times even fraudulent,” Christopher Booker said.
In the foreword to the GWPF report, Sir Antony Jay writes:
“The costs to Britain of trying to combat global warming are horrifying, and the BBC’s role in promoting the alarmist cause is, quite simply, shameful.”
The full report is available here
About the author
Christopher Booker is an author and journalist. He has regularly reported on scientific and political issues related to global warming in recent years in his weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph. His book The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the obsession with ‘climate change’ turning out to be the most costly scientific blunder in history? has been one of the three best-selling books about global warming in the last decade.
Sir Antony Jay
Antony Jay has enjoyed a distinguished career as writer, broadcaster and producer. He was a founder and editor of the BBC’s legendary Tonight programme and is famous for his political comedies Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.
Survey shows 17% fall in number of people who would pay ‘much higher prices’ for ‘sake of the environment’
Randeep Ramesh
The Guardian, Wednesday 7 December 2011
There has been dramatic decline over the past decade in the public’s support for tackling climate change in Britain. Backing for higher green taxes and charges has waned and scepticism about the seriousness of the threat to the environment has increased.
The British Social Attitudes survey shows that in 2000 43% of the population would pay “much higher prices” for “the sake of the environment”. Last summer support fell to just 26%, with the poorest sections of society most reluctant to save the planet with their cash.
Over the same period the public has become much more sceptical about the science behind climate change. In 2010 37% said many claims about environmental threats were “exaggerated”, up from 24% in 2000.
Alison Park, research director of the survey, said that the two factors that loomed large in the public’s mind appeared to be the financial crisis which made people much less likely to be able to sacrifice cash or taxes. She also said that “climategate” claims about the veracity of scientific claims in 2009 had also damaged the case of proponents of global warming theories.
On some questions the public is much less bothered because it thinks the issue has been dealt with. Only 28% regard air pollution from cars as “very” or “extremely” dangerous to the environment, down from 54% in 2000.
Chris Huhne has called for Britain to lead the world in cutting carbon emissions, setting himself on a collision course with George Osborne, the Chancellor. The Lib Dem minister, who is responsible for climate change, will arrive at UN talks in Durban, South Africa, today to lead the charge for an international deal to stop global temperatures rising above 35.6F (2C). If the talks fail, it will be embarrassing for Mr Huhne, who has led the way on Britain’s efforts as part of the European Union to get a climate deal by 2015 at the latest.—Louise Gray, The Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2011
Tom Brokaw delivered a strong message in Silicon Valley for climate skeptics. In response to a Fresh Dialogues question about climate change, Brokaw said, “It’s real, we see it in our weather systems,” and made a somber call to action, saying everyone needs to take a part. Brokaw, who has hosted two documentaries about global warming for the Discovery Channel, says he’s planning an expedition to Antarctica with a team of climate scientists to record the glacial melting next January.
Climate Change is real in the HUFFPO (why are we not surprised)
Brokaw cited carbon based fuels and energy consumption as major issues, and stopped short of making specific policy recommendations, but said that the Obama administration missed a valuable opportunity to do something substantial about energy and jobs. “People could have got allied with that,” he added.
He acknowledged his part in contributing to the problem (long commutes in polluting LA traffic to visit his beloved mother), but is now doing what he can to be greener. He recently installed solar power in his Montana Ranch, and enthused about recouping his capital investment in only three years. In this intimate video, he waxes lyrical about the piping hot water and heating system—even during long Montana winters.
Brokaw ended on an upbeat note, saying that he thinks the younger generation will change things for the better.
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Back in 2006 when it all seemed so settled, Brokaw appeared in a special that wasn’t.
BROKAW’S OBJECTIVITY COMPROMISED IN GLOBAL WARMING SPECIAL July 11, 2006
Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw’s lack of objectivity and balance on the issue of global warming appears to have tainted his upcoming Discovery Channel documentary called: “Global Warming: What You Need To Know” airing on July 16.
Brokaw’s partisan past and his reliance on scientists who openly endorsed Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004 and who are financially affiliated with left wing environmental groups, has resulted in a documentary that is devoid of balance and objectivity.
Former Colorado state climatologist (as of July 1, 2006) and professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences at Colorado State University,Senior Research Scientist in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and a Senior Research Associate position in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC). Roger Pielke, Sr, viewed an advance copy of the Brokaw’s special and declared that it contained “errors and misconceptions.”
“The show relied on just a few scientists with a particular personal viewpoint on this subject which misleads the public on the broader view that is actually held by most climate scientists,” Pielke wrote on July 7.
Unfortunately, viewers should not expect a scientifically balanced view of the climate from the former NBC newsman. Brokaw who has been affiliated with the Sierra Club and has recently lavished praise on former Vice President Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth.” Brokaw, who called Gore’s film “stylish and compelling”, has called the science behind catastrophic human caused global warming ‘irrefutable.” Brokaw also chose to ignore all 60 scientists who wrote to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in April of 2006 questioning the science of climate alarmism.
Brokaw’s partisan environmental credentials are so firmly established that the former anchor was offered a job in the Clinton-Gore Administration to be the director of the National Park Service in 1993. According to The Washington Post, Brokaw ‘very seriously’ considered the offer at the time but decided to remain with NBC News. “I have a lot of friends in the environmental movement,” Brokaw said. Brokaw’s wife also serves as vice-chairman of the board of directors of the environmental group Conservation International.
In his new Discovery Channel special, Brokaw does not disclose the potential and known biases of the scientists he chose to feature.
For example, Brokaw presents NASA’s James Hansen as an authority on climate change without revealing to viewers the extensive political and financial ties that Hansen has to Democrat Party partisans. Hansen, the director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, received a $250,000 grant from the charitable foundation headed by former Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz..
Subsequent to the Heinz Foundation grant, Hansen publicly endorsed Democrat John Kerry for president in 2004, a political endorsement considered to be highly unusual for a NASA scientist.
Hansen also has acted as a consultant to Gore’s slide-show presentations on global warming, on which Gore’s movie is based. Hansen has actively promoted Gore and his movie, even appearing at a New York City Town Hall meeting with Gore and several Hollywood producers in May.
Hansen also conceded in a 2003 issue of Natural Science (http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns_jeh6.html ) that the use of “extreme scenarios” to dramatize climate change “may have been appropriate at one time” to drive the public’s attention to the issue --- a disturbing admission by a prominent scientist.
Brokaw’s special also features Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University. Brokaw once again fails to disclose Oppenheimer’s partisan and ideological affiliations to viewers.
Brokaw fails to note that Oppenheimer actively campaigned against President George Bush in 2004 and, like Hansen, endorsed Senator Kerry for president. Oppenheimer was affiliated with the partisan group Scientists and Engineers for Change and the green group Environment2004 financially bankrolled in part by the Heinz Foundation where Teresa Heinz-Kerry serves as the chairwoman. Environment2004, which put up billboards in Florida mocking President Bush in the final months of the 2004 presidential election.
Viewers of Brokaw’s program will not be informed that Oppenheimer personally donated to the group Environment2004, a group that was so partisan it encouraged visitors to their Web page to “get involved” in defeating President Bush by playing a game called “Whack-a-Bush.”
In addition, Oppenheimer also serves as a “science advisor” to the left wing and politically charged group Environmental Defense and was a co-founder of Climate Action Network.
Finally, Oppenheimer appeared with Hollywood activist Leonardo DiCaprio and Gore’s movie producer Laurie David on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show.
Brokaw’s Special ‘a disappointment’
Brokaw’s special has led climatologist Pielke to conclude that Brokaw presents “a narrow view of the issue of natural and human climate variability and change.”
“It is a disappointment that this show, hosted by Tom Brokaw, did not use the two hours to present a balanced view on the spectrum of perspectives on the human influences on the climate system,” Pielke wrote.
Pielke has authored more than 275 peer reviewed journal articles on climate. According to Pielke, Brokaw also presents flawed science in his program.
“Rapid glacial retreat is not a new observation, nor are all glaciers retreating. The Grand Pacific glacier in Glacier Bay National Park, for example, retreated 48 miles from 1794 to 1879, and a further 17 miles by 1916. Large masses of glacial ice breaking from the Antarctic continent are not a new feature of this region,” Pielke noted.
The Discovery Channel, the BBC and NBC News Productions jointly produced Brokaw’s global warming special
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Note David Appell however, a hardliner for many years has had his confidence shaken by the emails. He is showing HERE some journalistic integrity, you won’t find elsewhere hyere extarcted by Tom Nelson.
By Michael Barone
Religious faith is a source of strength in many people’s lives. But religious faith when taken too far can prove ludicrous—or disastrous.
On Oct. 22, 1844, thousand of Millerites, having sold all their possessions, climbed to the top of hills in Upstate New York to await the return of Jesus and the end of the world. They suffered “the great disappointment” when it didn’t happen.
In 1212, or so the legends go, thousands of Children’s Crusaders set off from France and Germany expecting the sea to part so they could march peaceably and convert Muslims in the Holy Land. It didn’t, and many were shipwrecked or sold into slavery.
In 1898, the cavalrymen of the Madhi, ruler of Sudan for 13 years, went into the Battle of Omdurman armed with swords, believing that they were impervious to bullets. They weren’t, and they were mowed down by British Maxim guns.
A similar but more peaceable fate is befalling believers in what I think can be called the religion of the global warming alarmists.
They have an unshakeable faith that manmade carbon emissions will produce a hotter climate, causing multiple natural disasters. Their insistence that we can be absolutely certain this will come to pass is based not on science—which is never fully settled, witness the recent experiments that may undermine Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity—but on something very much like religious faith.
All the trappings of religion are there. Original sin: Mankind is responsible for these prophesied disasters, especially those slobs who live on suburban cul-de-sacs and drive their SUVs to strip malls and tacky chain restaurants.
The need for atonement and repentance: We must impose a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, which will increase the cost of everything and stunt economic growth.
Ritual, from the annual Earth Day to weekly recycling.
Indulgences, like those Martin Luther railed against: private jet-fliers like Al Gore and sitcom heiress Laurie David can buy carbon offsets to compensate for their carbon-emitting sins.
Corporate elitists, like General Electric’s Jeff Immelt, profess to share this faith, just as cynical Venetian merchants and prim Victorian bankers gave lip service to the religious enthusiasms of their days. Bad for business not to. And if you’re clever, you can figure out how to make money off it.
Believers in this religion have flocked to conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto and Copenhagen, just as Catholic bishops flocked to councils in Constance, Ferrara and Trent, to codify dogma and set new rules.
But like the Millerites, the global warming clergy has preached apocalyptic doom—and is now facing an increasingly skeptical public. The idea that we can be so completely certain of climate change 70 to 90 years hence that we must inflict serious economic damage on ourselves in the meantime seems increasingly absurd.
If carbon emissions were the only thing affecting climate, the global-warming alarmists would be right. But it’s obvious that climate is affected by many things, many not yet fully understood, and implausible that SUVs will affect it more than variations in the enormous energy produced by the sun.
Skepticism has been increased by the actions of believers. Passage of the House cap-and-trade bill in June 2009 focused politicians and voters on the costs of global-warming religion. And disclosure of the Climategate emails in November 2009 showed how the clerisy was willing to distort evidence and suppress dissenting views in the interest of propagation of the faith.
We have seen how the United Nations agency whose authority we are supposed to respect took an item from an environmental activist group predicting that the Himalayan glaciers would melt in 2350 and predicted that the melting would take place in 2035. No sensible society would stake its economic future on the word of folks capable of such an error.
In recent years, we have seen how negative to 2 percent growth hurts many, many people, as compared to what happens with 3 to 7 percent growth. So we’re much less willing to adopt policies that will slow down growth not just for a few years but for the indefinite future.
Media, university and corporate elites still profess belief in global warming alarmism, but moves toward policies limiting carbon emissions have fizzled out, here and abroad. It looks like we’ll dodge the fate of the Millerites, the children’s crusaders and the Mahdi’s cavalrymen.
Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner (www.washingtonexaminer.com), is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
Mark Duchamp
Opposition to wind farms has been growing in Denmark. Because of this, the Danish energy company DONG had taken the decision to no longer erect wind turbines in the countryside, and to put them offshore instead. But wind farms at sea cost twice as much to build and to maintain, and the price of electricity for households is already, in Denmark, 100% more expensive than in most of Europe. So the new government elected in September wants to build more wind farms onshore, in spite of their adverse impacts on the health of neighbours.
To help placate angry country dwellers, noise limits are being reviewed by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and a public consultation is underway. But there is much controversy. Dr Mauri Johansson, a Danish physician specialised in community health and occupational medicine (now retired), accuses the EPA of manipulations to the detriment of the health of neighbours. He is not alone: a team of researchers from Aalborg University led by Professor Henrik Moeller, an internationally-renowned acoustics specialist, are also putting in doubt the work of the Danish government. They are themselves supported by Kerstin Persson Waye, professor of occupational and environmental medicine at Gothenburg University, Sweden.
In a nutshell, under the proposed EPA regulations, for 33% of neighbours it will feel “as if a truck is idling just outside their homes”. Dr Johansson and Professor Moeller are at odds with their government, which claims against all evidence that “Denmark is leading the fight against low frequency noise from wind turbines.”
Canadian physician Dr Robert McMurtry, formerly Dean of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario, and formerly Assistant Deputy Minister of Population & Public Health, at Health Canada, wrote a letter supporting Professor Moeller:
“Truth has become a casualty. Sadly there are many ill-consequences to the policies for the installation of industrial wind turbines (IWT), not the least of which are adverse effects on human health. I have met more than 40 people whose lives have been devastated when IWT became their bad neighbor. It is also clear that this is a global phenomenon and yet the denial by many of those in authority continues.”
Support for the Danish and Swedish academic opposition to the new, lax legislation on wind turbine noise being concocted in Copenhagen has been coming from a number of noise engineers, acousticians, doctors, psychologists and nurses in the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc. who have expressed in conferences and in the media their concern about the failure of governments to address properly the wind farm health problem. To name a few: Dr Nina Pierpont, USA, author of “The Wind Farm Syndrome”; Dr Sarah Laurie, Australia, Medical Director of the Waubra Foundation; Dr Bob Thorne, Australia, Psychoacoustician; and Dr Carl Phillips, a Harvard-trained epidemiologist specializing in public health policy, formerly tenured professor in the School of Public Health, University of Alberta, who wrote about governments denying the health problem: “The attempts to deny the evidence cannot be seen as honest scientific disagreement and represent either gross incompetence or intentional bias.”
Per Clausen, chair of the Unity Lists Energy Committee in the Danish Parliament, is concerned by the preferential (lax) treatment being applied to noise from wind farms. He understands that his government wants to speed up the deployment of wind turbines, but is opposed to applying double standards in favour of any industry, to the detriment of its neighbours’ health. (1)
European and North American wind farm health victims, represented by EPAW and NA-PAW, are concerned that the improperly-conducted, double-standard studies of the Danish EPA will be used as a model by governments world-wide. They remind the health authorities that the Australian Senate, after hearing evidence in a special public enquiry on wind farms, recommended that infrasound & low frequency noise issues be properly investigated. The above shows that this is not being done. A parallel may be drawn with the bogus tobacco studies conducted years back, which resulted in class action lawsuits.
Amos Aikman, The Australian
DRAMATIC forecasts of global warming resulting from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide have been exaggerated, according to a peer-reviewed study by a team of international researchers.
In the study, published today in the leading journal Science, the researchers found that while rising levels of CO2 would cause climate change, the most severe predictions - some of which were adopted by the UN’s peak climate body in its seminal 2007 report - had been significantly overstated.
The authors used a novel approach based on modelling the effects of reduced CO2 levels on climate, which they compared with proxy-records of conditions during the last glaciation, to infer the effects of doubling CO2 levels.
They concluded that current worst-case scenarios for global warming were exaggerated.
“Now these very large changes (predicted for the coming decades) can be ruled out, and we have some room to breathe and time to figure out solutions to the problem,” the study’s lead author, Andreas Schmittner, an associate professor at Oregon State University, said.
Scientists have struggled for many years to understand how to quantify “climate sensitivity” - how Earth will respond to projected increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
In 2007, the UN’s peak climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warned that a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels would warm the Earth’s surface by an average of 2C to 4.5C, although some studies have claimed the impact could be 10C or higher.
Professor Schmittner said it had been very difficult to rule out these extreme “high-sensitivity” scenarios, which were very important for understanding risks associated with climate change.
The study found high-sensitivity models led to a “runaway effect” under which the Earth would have been covered in ice during the last glacial maximum, about 20,000 years ago, when CO2 levels were much lower.
“Clearly that didn’t happen, and that’s why we are pretty confident that these high climate sensitivities can be ruled out,” he said.
Professor Schmittner said taking his results literally, the IPCC’s average or “expected” value of a 3C average temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 ought to be regarded as an upper limit.
“Many previous climate-sensitivity studies have looked at the past only from 1850 through to today, and not fully integrated paleoclimate data, especially on a global scale,” he said. “If these paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future, as predicted by our model, the results imply less probability of extreme climatic change than previously thought.”
However, he cautioned that extreme climate change could still occur in some areas.
By Steve Goddard, Real Science
Curly – Permanent Drought In Australia
Speaking to a packed house at the University of Western Australia last night, Professor Ross Garnaut said the drying of the South-West has been predicted by climate change scientists, and climate changes in the region are directly attributable to carbon levels in the atmosphere
http://www.perthnow.com.au/
Moe – Too Much Rain In Australia Causing Sea Level To Fall (John Cook)
Larry - 75 Metres Of Sea Level Rise
“If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice - that’s a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster - a guaranteed disaster,” Hansen told the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
In summary, the permanent drought in Australia is producing too much rain, which is causing sea level to rapidly fall to catastrophically high levels.
