Update: Alarmist has become a criminal enterprise.
Secretive UN Legal Conference Wants to Outlaw “Climate Change Denial”
Joshua Krause, The Daily Sheepie
When you’re dealing with one of the most controversial debates in modern history, a little tact is in order. Or at least it should be with global warming, because contrary to popular opinion, it is not a settled science. While the majority of people in most countries believe that it’s happening, many of them don’t think that it’s being caused by human behavior.
And don’t believe anyone who tells you that there is a ‘consensus’ in the scientific community. The oft-repeated statistic that claims 97% of scientists believe in man-made global warming, is a joke. That number can be tied to a vague 2009 questionnaire that was only answered by 79 scientists from the climate field, and which ignored the opinions of thousands of researchers from multiple relevant fields. There is no consensus.
You could say that none of this is important, because something can be true even if nobody believes it. In our world however, consensus is the closest we can get to the truth. If everybody agrees on something, then there’s a very good chance that it is a fact.
If however, a sizable percentage of the population that consists of both scientists and laymen disagree with popular opinion, then it can hardly be called a settled science. This situation calls for more research and debate until the truth, whatever it may be, becomes indisputable and everyone can get on board with that reality. You know what it doesn’t call for? Persecuting and prosecuting the minority that has dared to disagree with popular opinion.
And that’s exactly what a secretive UN funded legal conference decided to do last month, when they met to discuss climate change and how the International Court of Justice should tackle it.
The purpose of this strange get-together was outlined in a keynote speech (visible on YouTube) by Philippe Sands, a QC from Cherie Blair’s Matrix Chambers and professor of law at University College, London. Since it is now unlikely that the world will agree in Paris to a legally binding treaty to limit the rise in global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees C from pre-industrial levels, his theme was that it is now time for the courts to step in, to enforce this as worldwide law.
Although his audience, Sands said, would agree that the scientific evidence for man-made climate change was “overwhelming”, there were still “scientifically qualified, knowledgeable and influential individuals” continuing to deny “the warming of the atmosphere, the melting of the ice and the rising of the seas”, and that this is all due to our emissions of CO2. The world’s courts, led by the International Court of Justice, said Sands, could play a vital role “in finally scotching these claims”.
“The most important thing the courts could do,” he said, was to hold a top-level “finding of fact”, to settle these “scientific disputes” once and for all: so that it could then be made illegal for any government, corporation (or presumably individual scientist) ever to question the agreed “science” again. Furthermore, he went on, once “the scientific evidence” thus has the force of binding international law, it could be used to compel all governments to make “the emissions reductions that are needed”, including the phasing out of fossil fuels, to halt global warming in its tracks.
On the surface this sounds like what I was just asking for. There should be research and debates until the indisputable truth is found. However, this hardly sounds like a fair debate. It sounds like Sands is calling for an international court to prove what he thinks is true, rather than seeking the truth with an open mind and a consideration for all parties. He’s really just calling for a kangaroo court to make his science official, which would be followed by prosecuting any institution that disagrees. Frankly, that would be incredibly unethical to do, even if global warming was proven to be true.
What I find interesting about this whole situation, is that I don’t remember hearing about anyone calling for pro-global warming opinions to be made illegal (as a matter of fact, if you can find a single instance of this happening, post it in the comments.) This type of behavior seems to stem exclusively from the other side of the aisle, and it doesn’t do their argument any favors. If this is how top global warming proponents approach science and debate, then it’s hard to imagine anyone taking their assertions seriously in the future.
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France’s top weatherman sparks storm over book questioning climate change
Philippe Verdier, weather chief at France Televisions, the country’s state broadcaster, reportedly sent on “forced holiday” for releasing book accusing top climatologists of “taking the world hostage”
By Henry Samuel, Paris 5:45PM BST 14 Oct 2015
Every night, France’s chief weatherman has told the nation how much wind, sun or rain they can expect the following day.
Now Philippe Verdier, a household name for his nightly forecasts on France 2, has been taken off air after a more controversial announcement - criticising the world’s top climate change experts.
Mr Verdier claims in the book Climat Investigation (Climate Investigation) that leading climatologists and political leaders have “taken the world hostage” with misleading data.
In a promotional video, Mr Verdier said: “Every night I address five million French people to talk to you about the wind, the clouds and the sun. And yet there is something important, very important that I haven’t been able to tell you, because it’s neither the time nor the place to do so.”
He added: “We are hostage to a planetary scandal over climate change - a war machine whose aim is to keep us in fear.”
His outspoken views led France 2 to take him off the air starting this Monday. “I received a letter telling me not to come. I’m in shock,” he told RTL radio. “This is a direct extension of what I say in my book, namely that any contrary views must be eliminated.”
The book has been released at a particularly sensitive moment as Paris is due to host a crucial UN climate change conference in December.
According to Mr Verdier, top climate scientists, who often rely on state funding, have been “manipulated and politicised”.
He specifically challenges the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, saying they “blatantly erased” data that went against their overall conclusions, and casts doubt on the accuracy of their climate models.
The IPCC has said that temperatures could rise by up to 4.8C if no action is taken to reduce carbon emissions.
Mr Verdier writes: “We are undoubtedly on a plateau in terms of warming and the cyclical variability of the climate doesn’t not allow us to envisage if the natural rhythm will tomorrow lead us towards a fall, a stagnation or a rise (in temperature).”
The 330-page book also controversially contains a chapter on the “positive results” of climate change in France, one of the countries predicted to be the least affected by rising temperatures. “It’s politically incorrect and taboo to vaunt the merits of climate change because there are some,” he writes, citing warmer weather attracting tourists, lower death rates and electricity bills in mild winters, and better wine and champagne vintages.
Asked whether he had permission from his employer to release the book, he said: “I don’t think management liked it, let’s be honest.”
“I put myself via this investigation on the path of COP 21, which is a bulldozer, and we can see the results.”
The book was criticised by French newspaper Le Monde as full of “errors”. “The models used to predict the average rise in temperatures on the surface of the globe have proved to be rather reliable, with the gap between observations and predictions quite small,” it countered.
Mr Verdier told France 5: “Making these revelations in the book, which I absolutely have the right to do, can pose problems for my employer given that the government (which funds France 2) is organising COP [the climate change conference]. In fact as soon as you a slightly different discourse on this subject, you are branded a climate sceptic.”
He said he decided to write the book in June 2014 when Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, summoned the country’s main weather presenters and urged them to mention “climate chaos” in their forecasts.
“I was horrified by this discourse,” Mr Verdier told Les Inrockuptibles magazine. Eight days later, Mr Fabius appeared on the front cover of a magazine posing as a weatherman above the headline: ‘500 days to save the planet.”
Mr Verdier said: “If a minister decides he is Mr Weatherman, then Mr Weatherman can also express himself on the subject in a lucid manner.
“What’s shameful is this pressure placed on us to say that if we don’t hurry, it’ll be the apocalypse,” he added, saying that “climate diplomacy” means leaders are seeking to force changes to suit their own political timetables.
According to L’Express magazine, unions at France Television called for Mr Verdier to be fired, but that Delphine Ernotte, the broadcaster’s chief executive, initially said he should be allowed to stay “in the name of freedom of expression”.
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Courageous and right on. It is essential that the UN and global governments fail in Paris. The prescribed remedies to small and mostly natural climate changes advocated will have no effect. It is like treating a hangnail by amputating the entire limb.
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All public policies, in France, Europe and throughout the world, find their origin and inspiration in the battle against global warming. The impact on the entire field of scientific research is particularly clear and especially pernicious. There is not a single fact, figure or observation that leads us to conclude that the world’s climate is in any way disturbed. Conclusions based on any kind of model should be disregarded. As the SCM specializes in building mathematical models, we should also be recognized as competent to criticize them. Models are useful when attempting to review our knowledge, but they should not be used as an aid to decision-making until they have been validated. --Calculation Mathematical Society, September 2015
Has anyone been wondering why we’ve been hearing so little about the Arctic lately? It turns out that the Arctic is far less ice free than many thought or expected just some years ago. So wrong can the models be. More Arctic ice and up to 1.5C colder! The new study finds that in 2014 “more ice survived the summer as MYI than in the nine most recent years” and it was only “slightly less than during 1968–2015 on average”. Also “between November 2014 and April 2015, winter air temperatures were between -0.5C and -1.5C colder than during 1980–2010.” --Pierre Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, 27 October 2015
Alan Carlin | October 8, 2015
On August 3, 2015 President Obama and EPA announced their final “Clean Power Plan” regulations, which I call the Skyrocketng Rates Power Plan (SRPP). In addition to all the other problems with the SRPP previously discussed on this blog and in my new book, Environmentalism Gone Mad (available from the book website), the Obama Administration has adopted several sleazy tactics to sell and frustrate opposition to the Plan.
The most recent was the October 6 appointment of Thomas Reynolds to a new position dedicated solely to “messaging” Obama’s climate change initiative. Before joining EPA two years ago he directed regional media operations for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. According to the New York Times, Reynolds’ EPA efforts have already raised questions as to whether he has violated Federal lobbying laws, which prohibit agencies from engaging in grass-roots lobbying for proposed policies. The issue is whether taxpayer funds should be used by agencies to try to directly influence taxpayers to support an Agency’s programs.
According to another new report, those trying to sell the SRPP fear that opponents will blame increases in electric rates on the SRPP since their research has suggested that voters (correctly) believe such increased electric rates will result from the SRPP despite EPA statements to the contrary. So they have decided on a public relations strategy to blame “evil” power companies and “other polluters” for rate increases rather than their own actions in trying to force states to use expensive and unreliable “renewable” sources of electricity.
Apparently Deliberate Delays in SRPP Publication in the Federal Register
Another sleazy tactic is to make it difficult for opponents to attack the SRPP in either Congress or the courts by delaying publication of these regulations in the Federal Register, which is normally done within a day or two rather than two months and counting for the SRPP. This delay appears to be deliberate.
One possible explanation is that the Obama Administration is trying to avoid an embarrassing loss in either the courts or Congress just prior to the UN COP21 meeting to be held in Paris in early December. If such a loss should occur, it would hurt Administration efforts to persuade other countries of the likelihood of US government action to decrease US CO2 emissions. Since the less developed countries appear to be primarily interested in delivery of the long promised climate financial aid from developed countries, this may not actually make much difference, but it would expose the Administration’s argument that SRPP will encourage an effective world CO2 reduction agreement at the UN for what it is, baseless propaganda.
A second possible reason for this unusual delaying tactic is that it will give EPA more time to threaten and harass states to increase the use of non-hydro “renewable” sources of electricity prior to a possible court decision finding the SRPP illegal. This would increase the likelihood that states will voluntarily force power companies to build non-hydro “renewable” sources in fear that the SRPP will be found legal. This tactic was used with some success in dubious EPA regulations to reduce mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants, which reportedly resulted in widespread adoption of EPA’s required controls before the regulation was invalidated by the Supreme Court in late June for failure to take account of costs. So they may be trying the same tactic in the case of the SRPP.
It is hard to see these sleazy tactics as anything other than a very hard-nosed approach by the Administration to trying to impose SRPP and other CO2 emission reduction regulations. The net result of all these tactics is that ratepayers and tax payers are more likely to pay dearly in terms of increasing rates for electricity and decreasing electric reliability since each month will bring further EPA efforts to force states to build “renewable” sources of electric power.
Alan carried out or supervised economic and scientific research on public policy issues for over 45 years, first at The RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California from 1963 to 1971, and from 1971 to 2010 at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC. in the EPA role her commented unfavorably on the EPA Endangerment Finding here. Icecap was pleased to sponsor Alan’s registration at an early Heartland ICCC conference for which we were a co-sponsor. He later received a well deserved award for his courage in battling his agency.
Weekly rainfall from a strong non-tropical low in the southeast. Some areas had over 25 inches of rain.
There is no question that the flooding in South Carolina is exceptional, even historic.
But a once on 1,000 year event? Sorry, but there is no way to determine that...there are simply not enough rainfall statistics over a long enough period of time to establish such a claim.
But we do have information on previous floods over the last 100 years or so. So, let’s look at how the current event compares.
The greatest multi-day rainfall reported on the CoCoRaHS cooperative rainfall monitoring website was 27 inches in Columbia, SC. The Congaree River crested at 31 ft. there on Sunday:
Enlarged
Congaree River gage height at Columbia, SC.
Here’s a photo taken about the time the river crested:
Enlarged
Photo of Congaree River, Columbia, SC, Oct. 4, 2015, taken about the time of cresting.
Now, for comparison, take a look at a bridge over the Congaree River during the record flood of 1908, when the river crested at 40 ft...about 9 ft. higher than the current flood event:
Congaree River bridge in Columbia, SC, during the 1908 record flood event. Enlarged
Not to discount the misery and likely billions of dollars of damage caused by the current event, but when someone claims that a weather disaster is 1 in a 1,000 year event, they need to back it up.
Unfortunately, there seems to be an trend toward classifying events as “1 in 1,000 years”, when there is no way of knowing such things. This is especially true for floods, where paving of urban and suburban areas causes increasing runoff, making river flooding worse for the same amount of rainfall. This is a big reason why flood events have gotten worse in the last 100 years...it has nothing to do with “climate change”.
For some areas the current flood is no doubt a 1 in 100 year event, or even worse. But remember, it is perfectly normal to have a 1 in 100 year event every year...as long as they occur in different locations.