by Gareth on January 4, 2011
Over the holiday period I’ve had a number of people point me at the latest “essay” by Don “Cooling-gate” Easterbrook — it was featured in full at µWatts, translated into German and Dutch, and made headline material for Morano: Geologist: 9,099 Of Last 10,500 Years Warmer Than 2010. I was a little surprised. I thought that recent temperatures were the warmest for at least hundreds, and probably thousands of years. But this is Easterbrook, and he’s up to his old tricks. He’s “hiding the incline” in temperatures by mangling the data from Greenland ice cores. Has he learned nothing since I last looked at his “work”? Apparently not.
Easterbrook’s argument is so flimsy and his presentation of data so dodgy that even the normally uncritical crowd at µWatts voiced grave doubts about his analysis. But there were a number of loose ends left over from my last look at Greenland ice core data, and so I took the opportunity to do a little more research. Playing fast and loose with the facts, and making schoolboy errors in the process, is not a good look for a professor emeritus. But that’s what Easterbrook’s been doing…
[now read on…]
by Gareth on January 3, 2011
Albert the Knowledge Penguin explains the real story of climate change, from the science to the politics, and gets it right. Read the rest of the story here. British cartoonist Darryl Cunningham has clearly done a lot of research, got a good grasp of the issues — and he eviscerates the Koch and Scaife-funded campaign to derail action. Great pay off line, too.
by Bryan Walker on January 2, 2011
I’d like to offer a post in praise of Greenpeace. I’m not an active member of the organisation, though I give modest financial support because I am often thankful for its clear voice and actions on climate change. A look through Greenpeace NZ’s latest magazine reminded me of the range of its climate change concern and prompted this acknowledgement.
The backward-looking Gerry Brownlee receives short shrift in a piece which makes my criticisms of him on Hot Topic look timid by comparison. Here’s Greenpeace’s take on NZ reality:
“We are a renewable energy powerhouse with an embarrassment of riches in smart thinking, engineering and scientific capability which enables us to deliver world beating climate change solutions.”
Brownlee, instead of focusing government thinking and support on this reality, proposes:
“…that we reach for the pick axes and start digging for the black stuff – be it coal or oil. Come forth, explore, exploit and burn is his rallying cry as practically no part of God’s Own is exempt from the whims of the highest bidder.”
Brownlee is playing Russian roulette with our pristine coastlines, our international reputation and with the climate. Moreover his focus on resuscitating the dying fossil fuel industry is denying our clean tech companies (more than 250 of them) the opportunity to conquer the clean technology world. The government must wake up to the 21st century.
[now read on…]
by Gareth on January 1, 2011
New Zealand temperatures have been cooling since 1909, a penetrating analysis of NIWA’s new national temperatures series by Friends of Gin and Tonic, the self-proclaimed “#1 AGW Denial Site in Canada & Australia” has revealed. FoGT explain that in the absence of a full statistical analysis of the new series by Treadgold and the NZ C”S”C, their statistical experts have taken a look at NIWA’s data.
The data series, directly from NIWA, incorporates their new adjustments and can therefore be expected to be as ‘warm’ as they reckon they can get away with. Using techniques from Canada’s Friends of Science and leading blog climatologist the Baron von Monckhofen, we fit to this seven-station compilation seven trends which together cover the entire period 1909-2009. Despite the data adjustments each of these trends is negative, demonstrating convincingly that New Zealand has been consistently cooling throughout the 1909-2009 period. Furthermore, careful inspection of the graph reveals another important fact: the gradients of the three regression lines on the right of the figure show that cooling has accelerated since 1970. These two key observations from the New Zealand data agree with what scientists who are not members of the conspiracy have long been saying about trends globally.
My sources suggest that this shocking discovery is causing consternation in the NZ climatological community, but I haven’t been able to obtain an on-the-record comment at the moment because they’re having a New Year barbie on the beach at Island Bay and haven’t got any stats textbooks with them.
by Gareth on December 31, 2010
This a guest post by the Climate BS Awards committee.
Welcome to the 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award. 2010 saw widespread and growing evidence of rapidly warming global climate and strengthening scientific understanding of how humans are contributing to climate change. Yet on the policy front, little happened to stem the growing emissions of greenhouse gases or to help societies prepare for increasingly severe negative climate impacts, including now unavoidable changes in temperature, rainfall patterns, sea-level rise, snowpack, glacial extent, Arctic sea ice, and more. These physical impacts will lead to sharply increased disease, military and economic instabilities, food and water shortages, and extreme weather events, among other things. Without appropriate risk management action, the United States will be hit hard. There is no safe haven. Yet confusion and uncertainty about climate change remain high in the minds of too many members of the public and Congress.
Why? In large part because of a concerted, coordinated, aggressive campaign by a small group of well-funded climate change deniers and contrarians focused on intentionally misleading the public and policymakers with bad science about climate change. Much of this effort is based on intentional falsehoods, misrepresentations, inflated uncertainties, and pure and utter B.S. about climate science. These efforts have been successful in sowing confusion and delaying action – just as the same tactics were successful in delaying efforts to tackle tobacco’s health risks.
To counter this campaign of disinformation, we are issuing the first in what may become a series of awards for the most egregious Climate B.S.* of the Year. In preparing the list of nominees, suggestions were received from around the world and a panel of reviewers – all scientists or climate communicators – waded through them. We present here the top five nominees and the winner of the 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award.
[now read on…]
by Gareth on December 28, 2010
Stave One: The ghost of global warming
Global warming was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by Lindzen the clergyman, Spencer the clerk, Morano the undertaker, and lauded from the rooftops by Christopher, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who sat in his library before the roaring log fire enjoying a fortifying glass of 40-year-old 60% proof Glenfarclas.
Global warming was as dead as a doornail.
About Tannochbrae Manor the snow lay deep and crisp and even. The weeks preceding Christmas had brought blizzard after blizzard to the glens of Scotland, and the Laird had only just managed to regain the old house after his Mexican trip. The roads were now impassable, with drifts ten feet deep blocking the drive and snow half way up the front door. Old Scrotum, the wrinkled retainer, was attempting to keep a path open to the woodshed, but now that the ghillie McShane had taken to his bed complaining of frostbite, he was fighting a losing battle. Monckton sipped his whisky (no ice, no water — they were for heathens), and pondered plans for a network of tunnels to be dug around the Manor if there was no respite from this vicious winter.
[now read on…]
