GLOBAL WARNING. One of the world's leading agencies monitoring climate change says there's no link between global warming and the frequency or severity of hurricanes hitting the United States over the past century. 28Feb08
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Goldstein_Lorrie/2008/02/28/4881773-sun.php
See April 28, 2008 "Storm Brewing for Hurricane Forecaster Over Global Warming Debate" article below…
The UN Climate Change Numbers Hoax: IPCC must come clean on real numbers of scientist supporters. It’s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over – ‘2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis’.
But it’s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled. As lies go, it’s a whopper. Here’s the real situation.
Like the three IPCC ‘assessment reports’ before it, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) released during 2007 (upon which the UN climate conference in Bali was based) includes the reports of the IPCC’s three working groups. Working Group I (WG I) is assigned to report on the extent and possible causes of past climate change as well as future ‘projections’. Its report is titled “The Physical Science Basis”. The reports from working groups II and II are titled “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” and “Mitigation of Climate Change” respectively, and since these are based on the results of WG I, it is crucially important that the WG I report stands up to close scrutiny.
There is, of course serious debate among scientists about the actual technical content of the roughly 1,000-page WG I report, especially its politically motivated Summary for Policymakers which is often the only part read by politicians and non-scientists. The technical content can be difficult for non-scientists to follow and so most people simply assume that if that large numbers of scientists agree, they must be right.
Consensus never proves the truth of a scientific claim, but is somehow widely believed to do so for the IPCC reports, so we need to ask how many scientists really did agree with the most important IPCC conclusion, namely that humans are causing significant climate change–in other words the key parts of WG I?
The numbers of scientist reviewers involved in WG I is actually less than a quarter of the whole, a little over 600 in total. The other 1,900 reviewers assessed the other working group reports. They had nothing to say about the causes of climate change or its future trajectory. Still, 600 “scientific expert reviewers” sounds pretty impressive. After all, they submitted their comments to the IPCC editors who assure us that “all substantive government and expert review comments received appropriate consideration.” And since these experts reviewers are all listed in Annex III of the report, they must have endorsed it, right?
Wrong.
For the first time ever, the UN has released on the Web the comments of reviewers who assessed the drafts of the WG I report and the IPCC editors’ responses. This release was almost certainly a result of intense pressure applied by “hockey-stick” co-debunker Steve McIntyre of Toronto and his allies. Unlike the other IPCC working groups, WG I is based in the U.S. and McIntyre had used the robust Freedom of Information legislation to request certain details when the full comments were released.
An examination of reviewers’ comments on the last draft of the WG I report before final report assembly (i.e. the ‘Second Order Revision’ or SOR) completely debunks the illusion of hundreds of experts diligently poring over all the chapters of the report and providing extensive feedback to the editing teams. Here’s the reality.
A total of 308 reviewers commented on the SOR, but only 32 reviewers commented on more than three chapters and only five reviewers commented on all 11 chapters of the report. Only about half the reviewers commented more than one chapter. It is logical that reviewers would generally limit their comments to their areas of expertise but it’s a far cry from the idea of thousands of scientists agreeing to anything.
Compounding this is the fact that IPCC editors could, and often did, ignore reviewers’ comments. Some editor responses were banal and others showed inconsistencies with other comments. Reviewers had to justify their requested changes but the responding editors appear to have been under no such obligation. Reviewers were sometimes flatly told they were wrong but no reasons or reliable references were provided. In other cases reviewers tried to dilute the certainty being expressed and they often provided supporting evidence, but their comments were often flatly rejected. Some comments were rejected on the basis of a lack of space – an incredible assertion in such an important document. The attitude of the editors seemed to be that simple corrections were accepted, requests for improved clarity tolerated but the assertions and interpretations that appear in the text were to be defended against any challenge.
An example of rampant misrepresentation of IPCC reports is the frequent assertion that ‘hundreds of IPCC scientists’ are known to support the following statement, arguably the most important of the WG I report, namely “Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.”
In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”. Of the comments received from the 62 reviewers of this critical chapter, almost 60% of them were rejected by IPCC editors. And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial.
Two of these seven were contacted by NRSP for the purposes of this article – Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand and Dr. Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Canada. Concerning the “Greenhouse gas forcing …” statement above, Professor McKitrick explained “A categorical summary statement like this is not supported by the evidence in the IPCC WG I report. Evidence shown in the report suggests that other factors play a major role in climate change, and the specific effects expected from greenhouse gases have not been observed.”
Dr. Gray labeled the WG I statement as “Typical IPCC doubletalk” asserting “The text of the IPCC report shows that this is decided by a guess from persons with a conflict of interest, not from a tested model.”
Determining the level of support expressed by reviewers’ comments is subjective but a slightly generous evaluation indicates that just five reviewers endorsed the crucial ninth chapter. Four had vested interests and the other made only a single comment for the entire 11-chapter report.&nbs
p; The claim that 2,500 independent scientist reviewers agreed with this, the most important statement of the UN climate reports released this year, or any other statement in the UN climate reports, is nonsense.
“The IPCC owe it to the world to explain who among their expert reviewers actually agree with their conclusions and who don’t,” says Natural Resources Stewardship Project Chair climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball. “Otherwise, their credibility, and the public’s trust of science in general, will be even further eroded.”
That the IPCC have let this deception continue for so long is a disgrace. Secretary General Ban Kai-Moon must instruct the UN climate body to either completely revise their operating procedures, welcoming dissenting input from scientist reviewers and indicating if reviewers have vested interests, or close the agency down completely. Until then, their conclusions, and any reached at the Bali conference based on IPCC conclusions, should be ignored entirely as politically skewed and dishonest.
John McLean is climate data analyst based in Melbourne, Australia. Tom Harris is the Ottawa-based Executive Director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (nrsp.com).
Posted 12/14, By Tom Harris: John McLean 14December2007] http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/968
Hundreds of scientists reject global warming: Basing policy on carbon dioxide levels 'potentially disastrous economic folly', Posted: December 21, 2007, WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59319
Skeptical Scientists Urge World To ‘Have the Courage to Do Nothing' At UN Conference
December 11, 2007 An international team of scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore, descended on Bali this week to urge the world to "have the courage to do nothing" in response to UN demands.
Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher, had a blunt message for UN climate conference participants on Monday.
"Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants.
"The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,)" Monckton added. (LINK)
Monckton also noted that the UN has not been overly welcoming to the group of skeptical scientists.
"UN organizers refused my credentials and appeared desperate that I should not come to this conference. They have also made several attempts to interfere with our public meetings," Monckton explained.
"It is a circus here," agreed Australian scientist Dr. David Evans. Evans is making scientific presentations to delegates and journalists at the conference revealing the latest peer-reviewed studies that refute the UN's climate claims.
"This is the most lavish conference I have ever been to, but I am only a scientist and I actually only go to the science conferences," Evans said, noting the luxury of the tropical resort. (Note: An analysis by Bloomberg News on December 6 found: "Government officials and activists flying to Bali, Indonesia, for the United Nations meeting on climate change will cause as much pollution as 20,000 cars in a year." – LINK)
Evans, a mathematician who did carbon accounting for the Australian government, recently converted to a skeptical scientist about man-made global warming after reviewing the new scientific studies. (LINK)
"We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don't cause global warming. We have the missing [human] signature [in the atmosphere], we have the IPCC models being wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years," Evans said in an interview with the Inhofe EPW Press Blog. Evans authored a November 28 2007 paper "Carbon Emissions Don't Cause Global Warming." (LINK)
Evans touted a new peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists appearing in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society which found "Warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence." (LINK)
"Most of the people here [at the UN conference] have jobs that are very well paid and they depend on the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. They are not going to be very receptive to the idea that well actually the science has gone off in a different direction," Evans explained.
[Inhofe EPW Press Blog Note: Several other recent peer-reviewed studies have cast considerable doubt about man-made global warming fears. For most recent sampling see: New Peer-Reviewed Study finds 'Solar changes significantly alter climate' (11-3-07) (LINK) & "New Peer-Reviewed Study Halves the Global Average Surface Temperature Trend 1980 – 2002" (LINK) & New Study finds Medieval Warm Period '0.3C Warmer than 20th Century' (LINK) For a more comprehensive sampling of peer-reviewed studies earlier in 2007 see "New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears" (LINK ) – For a detailed analysis of how "consensus" has been promoted, see: Debunking The So-Called "Consensus" On Global Warming – LINK ]
‘IPCC is unsound'
UN IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports since its inception going back to 1990, had a clear message to UN participants.
"There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any effect whatsoever on the climate," Gray, who shares in the Nobel Prize awarded to the UN IPCC, explained. (LINK)
"All the science of the IPCC is unsound. I have come to this conclusion after a very long time. If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails," Gray, who wrote the book "The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001," said.
"It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics, and the mathematics," he added.
‘Dangerous time for science'
Evans, who believes the UN has heavily politicized science, warned there is going to be a "dangerous time for science" ahead.
"We have a split here. Official science driven by politics, money and power, goes in one direction. Unofficial science, which is more determined by what is actually happening with the [climate] data, has now started to move off in a different direction" away from fears of a man-made climate crisis, Evans explained.
"The two are splitting. This is always a dangerous time for science and a dangerous time for politics. Historically science always wins these battles but there can be a lot of casualties and a lot of time in between," he concluded.
Carbon trading ‘fraud?'
New Zealander Bryan Leland of the International Climate Science Coalition warned participants that all the UN promoted discussions of "carbon trading" should be viewed with suspicion.
"I am an energy engineer and I know something about electricity trading and I know enough about carbon trading and the inaccuracies of carbon trading to know that carbon trading is more about fraud than it is about anything else," Leland said.
"We should probably ask why we have 10,000 people here [in Bali] in a fut
ile attempt to ‘solve' a [climate] problem that probably does not exist," Leland added.
‘Simply not work'
Owen McShane, the head of the International Climate Science Coalition, also worried that a UN promoted global approach to economics would mean financial ruin for many nations.
"I don't think this conference can actually achieve anything because it seems to be saying that we are going to draw up one protocol for every country in the world to follow," McShane said. (LINK)
"Now these countries and these economies are so diverse that trying to presume you can put all of these feet into one shoe will simply not work," McShane explained.
"Having the same set of rules apply to everybody will blow some economies apart totally while others will be unscathed and I wouldn't be surprised if the ones who remain unscathed are the ones who write the rules," he added.
‘Nothing happening at this conference'
Professor Dr. William Alexander, emeritus of the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a former member of the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, warned poor nations and their residents that the UN policies could mean more poverty and thus more death.
"My message is specifically for the poor people of Africa. And there is nothing happening at this conference that can help them one little bit but there is the potential that they could be damaged," Alexander said. (LINK)
"The government and people of Africa will have their attention drawn to reducing climate change instead of reducing poverty," Alexander added. [11 Dec 07, http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=c9554887-802a-23ad-4303-68f67ebd151c; Posted [email protected];
BALI, Indonesia]
GLOBAL WARNINGS: Not Enough Parking for Private Jets Going to UN Climate Conference
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/11/23/not-enough-parking-private-jets-going-un-climate-conference
Faith in a Climate of Fear – global warnings: part 1
http://ncregister.com/site/article/7341
Why melting of ice sheets 'is impossible'
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=73f39d90-644f-4117-880c-204c3a4fe4a3
Climate change: The deniers
http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/posted/pages/climate-change-the-deniers.aspx
3.08
Global Warming Schemes Will Curb Freedom, Czech President Says
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200803/CUL20080305b.html
Scientists Skeptical of Global Warming Alarmism Join Forces
http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000006737.cfm
The media snowjob on global warming
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=b6301dfc-7ee1-4c9b-9a58-2ef1f3eb8443&k=66577
Basic Greenhouse Equations "Totally Wrong" says former global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol
http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm
The Earth might be warming up but its people are going cold on their own future — and no-one in authority seems the least bit concerned.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/demographic_winter/
Hundreds of scientists reject global warming – Basing policy on carbon dioxide levels 'potentially disastrous economic folly'
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59319
Weather Channel Founder: Sue Al Gore and those who sell carbon credits to expose global warming fraud
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/03/04/weather-channel-founder-sue-al-gore-expose-global-warming-fraud
World's Oldest Tree Rewrites Climate History, Challenges Global Warming
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/17/worlds-oldest-tree-rewrites-climate-history-challenges-global-warming
How the world was misled about global warming and now climate change
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2704
Gore Used Fictional Video to Illustrate ‘Inconvenient Truth’
http://newsbusters.org/stories/al_gore_used_fictional_video_inconvenient_truth.html?q=blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/22/abc-s-20-20-gore-used-fictional-film-clip-inconvenient-truth
“Global warming”, now called “climate change”, is not about saving the planet, it’s about increasing government control of your life.
http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_20048.shtml
Large Families Aren't Dooming the Planet, Says 'Demographic Winter' Producer
http://christiannewswire.com/news/590016334.html
Gore's Alarmism Failing: Concern for Global Warming Same as 19 Years Ago!
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/21/gores-alarmism-failing-concern-global-warming-same-19-years-ago
Blizzard forced Edmonton Earth Day festivities to be relocated
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2008/04/21/5343616-sun.html
Vancouver region Friday night and Saturday represented the latest snowfall ever on record.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=be4b2831-e1ca-4d91-a8d0-426ce36fe059
May 2008
Greenpeace founder now backs nuclear power, says there is no proof global warming is caused by humans,
http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/360625.html
The campaign against climate change could be set back by the global food crisis
http://www.nysun.com/news/food-crisis-eclipsing-climate-change
Comment listed below this article:
I used to be a critic of global warming, but lately I see clear evidence of it. It's called "Spring". I expect this trend will continue for about 5 more months followed by a cooling period.
April 28, 2008
STORM BREWING FOR WILLIAM GRAY: HURRICANE FORECASTER SAYS HIS DISPUTE WITH SCHOOL FOCUSES ON GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE. By pioneering the science of seasonal hurricane forecasting and teaching 70 graduate students who now populate the National Hurricane Center and other research outposts, William Gray turned a city far from the stormy seas into a hurricane research mecca.
But now the institutio
n in Fort Collins, Colo., where he has worked for nearly half a century, has told Gray it may end its support of his seasonal forecasting.
As he enters his 25th year of predicting hurricane season activity, Colorado State University officials say handling media inquiries related to Gray's forecasting requires too much time and detracts from efforts to promote other professors' work.
But Gray, a highly visible and sometimes acerbic skeptic of climate change, says that's a "flimsy excuse" for the real motivation — a desire to push him aside because of his global warming criticism.
Among other comments, Gray has said global warming scientists are "brainwashing our children."
Now an emeritus professor, Gray declined to comment on the university's possible termination of promotional support.
But a memo he wrote last year, after CSU officials informed him that media relations would no longer promote his forecasts after 2008, reveals his views:
"This is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the Department's capitulation to the desires of some (in their own interest) who want to reign (sic) in my global warming and global warming-hurricane criticisms," Gray wrote to Dick Johnson, head of CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and others.
The university may have moderated its stance since last year. Officials said late last week that they intend to support the release of Gray's forecasts as long as they continue to be co-authored by Phil Klotzbach, a former student of Gray's who earned his doctorate last summer, and as long as Klotzbach remains at CSU.
When Klotzbach leaves, he will either produce the seasonal forecasts at his new position, or end them altogether.
Not only does this internal dispute reveal a bit of acrimony at the end of Gray's long career at CSU; it highlights the politically charged atmosphere that surrounds global warming in the United States.
"Bill Gray has come under a lot of fire for his views," said Channel 11 meteorologist Neil Frank, a former director of the National Hurricane Center and a friend of Gray's. "If, indeed, this is happening, it would be really sad that Colorado State is trying to rein in Bill Gray."
CSU officials insist that is not the case.
The dean of the College of Engineering, which oversees atmospheric sciences, said she spoke with Gray about terminating media support for his forecasts solely because of the strain it placed on the college's sole media staffer.
"It really has nothing to do with his stand on global warming," said the dean, Sandra Woods. "He's a great faculty member. He's an institution at CSU."
According to Woods, Gray's forecasts require about 10 percent of the time a media support staff member, Emily Wilmsen, has available for the College of Engineering and its 104 faculty members.
A professor of public relations at Boston University, Donald Wright, questioned why the university would want to pull back its support for Gray now, after he has published his forecasts for a quarter-century.
"It's seems peculiar that this is happening now," Wright said. "Given the national reputation that these reports have, you would think the university would want to continue to promote these forecasts."
Gray, he said, seems to deliver a lot of publicity bang for the buck. The seasonal forecasts are printed in newspapers around the country and splashed across the World Wide Web.
There also seems to be little question that prominent climate scientists have complained to CSU about Gray's vocal skepticism. The head of CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Dick Johnson, said he has received many comments during recent years about Gray — some supportive, and some not.
The complaints have come as Gray became increasingly involved in the global warming debate. His comments toward adversaries often are biting and adversarial.
In 2005, when Georgia Tech scientist Peter Webster co-authored a paper suggesting global warming had caused a spike in major hurricanes, Gray labeled him and others "medicine men" who were misleading the public.
Webster, in an e-mail from Bangladesh, where is working on a flood prediction project, acknowledged that he complained to Johnson at CSU.
"My only conversation with Dick Johnson, which followed a rather nasty series of jabs from Gray, suggested that Bill should be persuaded to lay off the personal and stay scientific," Webster wrote.
Gray also has been highly critical of a former student, Greg Holland, who is among the most visible U.S. scientists arguing about the dangers posed by global warming.
Gray's comments about Holland include referring to him as a member of a "Gang of Five" that is interested in using scare tactics to increase research funding.
The comment was a reference to the Gang of Four, which terrorized China in the 1960s and '70s while purging the Communist Party of moderates and intellectuals.
"I have registered concern in several quarters, including CSU, on the manner in which he has moved away from scientific debate and into personal attacks on the integrity and motives of myself and my colleagues," Holland said.
Although he ceded lead authorship of the forecasts to Klotzbach in 2006, Gray has remained the headliner in storm prognostication. He annually is among the most popular draws at the National Hurricane Conference.
In recent years, as he has increasingly made sharp public comments about global warming, Gray quickly became one of the most prominent skeptics because of his long background in atmospheric sciences.
His views on the climate — he says Earth is warming naturally and soon will begin cooling — have been applauded by some scientists, particularly meteorologists such as Frank. But they are out of step with mainstream climate science.
The most recent report by an international group of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, concluded that there was 90 percent certainty that human activity had caused recent warming of the planet.
Yet at U.S. universities, threats to the rights of scientists who hold minority viewpoints are generally frowned upon.
A prominent legal scholar, Stanley Fish of Florida International University, said university public relations offices should not pick and choose where resources go, based upon the content of a professor's work.
"If it can in any way be established that (Gray's) global warming views were the basis of this action, then it is an improper action," Fish said.
In his memo, Gray clearly indicates that he believes his academic freedom is imperiled:
"For the good of all of us in the Department, the College and at CSU, please believe me when I say this is not a direction any of you want to go," he wrote. "Our department and college are strong enough to be able to tolerate a dissenting voice on the global warming question."
Woods, Gray's dean, insisted that dissent on global warming is welcomed at CSU.
"He's not the only faculty member in the world who questions global warming," Woods said. "When Bill talks about some of the data, he can make some very good points." [28Apr08, By Eric Berger, Houston Chronicle, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5736103.html]
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Wikipedia's zealots – The thought police at the supposedly independent site are
fervently enforcing the climate orthodoxy – Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=440268&p=1
Why I wrote Deniers – Lawrence Solomon's series becomes a book, providing heft to the claim that climate science is not settled
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=423176
http://www.LifeSiteNews.com NewsBytes 29Apr08