A Place to Stand

Mike Haseler has written on his blog of the reasons why the global warming fraud grew. I think this is interesting enough to put up a long answer but that it must be long enough to post here as well. His full post is here and well worth it. My answers in italics. His assessment of the factors causing growth of the CAGW fraud and opposition is:

Climatology was a new discipline, where results took decades to come in. It had had very few of its ideas tested and had not the experience of other subjects of finding cherished theories were eventually disproven. So this new subject not only did not have an established culture, but the culture that was developing did not have the caution that comes from having established theories overturned by the evidence. - Though new, and thus also lacking good long term records, it is worth noting that Hubert Lamb, who founded the CRU, before his retiral, never believed the warming scare.. Climatology was not doing badly till the politicians came along, poured money into it and appointed  their own creatures. My opinion is that the reason "climate science", "social science" and "the science of economics" aren't science is because promotion is determined by what government wants and government wants results that support them rather than ones which are accurate. If promotion in astronomy were political it wouldn't be a science now either.

The manned space flights and lunar landings, were one of the first truly global events and created an entirely new perspective for humanity: that of us looking down on our planet as a single entity - The effect of the lunar flights and pictures of Earth were important but the effect of "environmental" scares such as DDT and the Linear No Threshold nuclear radiation one predate the Moon landings. LNT seems to have been faked in 1945. The growth rate in developed countries peaked in 1958/9 which I suggest can only be caused by government/eco parasitism at that point surpassing the increasing rate of technology growth. 

Global communication networks meant that the peoples of earth were no longer isolated from each other. - Agreed. perhaps the most scary thing is how close we are to a de facto world government since such a thing would mean there is no outside competition to keep government efficient and non-parasitic.

The internet strengthened that sense of global “unity”, but also very importantly, it bypassed traditional communication networks through the press and TV. - The internet was minor in the 1980s when CAGW was made the official "Pravda". It has been irreplaceable un the rise of scepticism as a movement.

As a result of the global perspective and globalisation of industry, Global environmental groups grew up, particularly aimed at air pollution and nuclear fears. - As the Indians have demonstrated the importance of western "N"GOs and established wealthy individuals (eg the Club of Rome founders and promoters has been extensive worldwide.

But by the late 1990s, air pollution was already being effectively tackled, and the end of the Berlin wall brought an end to the immediate fear of nuclear disaster. As such environmental groups were bereft of any serious threat on which to focus. - Not just "environmental" groups. Here I would like to direct anybody who hasn't read it to Michael Crichton's State of Fear, which, while masquerading as a thriller is a surgical dissection of not just the "environmental" movement but the carious government promoted campaigns designed to keep us scared and obedient. In particular the chapter Oct 13 9.33AM page 536 in the UK edition is simply a lecture on the history of the media promotion of scares - including how it was provably ramped up several fold  within days of the fall of the Berlin Wall when a (possibly) real scare was no longer available. It was not just, or even primarily, "environmental" groups who were bereft of a useful scare, it was all the apparatus of state bureaucracy. It is also likely that the fall of the USSR ("the end of history") removed the competition on government keeping it a bit honest and not wholly parasitic.

In the 1990s the internet (largely developed for academia by academia) was developing, and increasingly it allowed international communication between academics. As such subject specific inter-university “communities” of academics developed to replace the older intra-university communication which predominated before easy national and international communications. - Crichton's book, same chapter, develops the theory that, under the state pressure mentioned above, academia gave up its traditional role as a manufacturer of knowledge and became a manufacturer of scare stories. As can be seen our press, almost daily, report some silly new "report" by a "researcher" at some uni on how, having asked 20 students they have found that there is a 10% above average statistical correlation between smoking/getting laid/eating salt/owning a hat and feeling ill/having politically incorrect ideas/expecting to die before 100.  

These new international academic communities, being very focussed on their own area of interest, became very insular and inward looking. They found new freedom from the constraints of their old colleagues from other subjects (who hampered them with “traditional” standards) and started defining their own internal community methodologies, working standards, ethical standards with little reference to other subjects. So, those areas without a long history and so without an established culture or established standards of work, were quick to adopt new ideas and those included ideas such as “post normal science” – which rejects many of the traditional foundations of science such as the requirement for the scientific method as the standard for the validity of scientific theories. - Also if you want to be a scientist you can be one in a government approved "new" discipline, and better paid than those stuffy old disciplines - see Mike Hulme's article on how wonderful the Post Normal Science he does is, where all you have to do is say whatever politicians want and how it is able to prove things that, like CAGW could "self evidently" never have been discovered by traditional science. 

As environmentalists looked for new issues, some moved into campaigns for anti-globalisation, anti-industrial, and anti-oil (largely from the increase in oil use and the growing number of oil spills). The common thread here was that they were against an industrial economy powered by fossil fuel. - Even more against one powered by nuclear fuel. Essentially simply against anything that would allow human beings to control more energy because, as Mike and others have demonstrated, human progress marches in lockstep with increases (or reductions) in energy use. Inherently those at the top of society are conservative since any change in society can only take them off their perch.

From the 1970s-2000 there was a period when recorded temperature appeared to rise sharply. This coincided with the fall of the Berlin wall, the need for environmental groups to find new issues to campaign on, the rise of the internet. - I would say from 1979 - prior to that we had a decade of what appeared to be decline - which was used as a campaign scare story too.

When it was recognised global temperatures were rising, the scene was set. The environmentalists rushed into this new issue, encouraged by the academics (with no culture of holding back). - True.

The issue of global warming, quickly picked up momentum and unified the academics, environmentalists, and anti-fossil fuelers into one mass global campaign using the new power of the internet. Free from the old gatekeepers of the press, global warming was able to very quickly dominate public discussion. - I maintain that the unifying power was the state. The internet was not a major factor, except perhaps in academia, until well into the 1990s - for example NATO's Yugolsav wars were possible only because there was no internet competition to the state approved media, but this changed for both Iraq and Syria.

This created a new culture in which environmentalist felt free to use their access to the establishment press and their new freedom on the internet to engage  repression and “witch hunts” of any who questioned the idea of CO2 induced warming. - Again I think state power was far more important.

However, something else had changed. In the past, whilst the press often created such “bandwagon” scares, it was ironically often the huge investigative resources of the wealthy press that finally uncovered the truth and brought the scare to a shuddering end. But this time the scare originated from outside the press and after 2000, the internet began seriously eating into the advertising revenue of newspapers as online advertising began to take over. In the past, if one wanted to sell a house, a car, find out what was on – then there was no choice but to buy a newspaper. Newspapers therefore had huge revenues and could afford to employ many journalists to investigate stories to fill the news sections. After 2000, as the internet took over the newspaper revenues crashed. Serious investigative journalism was now a luxury that could only be afforded on major scandals. As the internet took over, newspapers found themselves unable to do much more than copy and paste press releases without checking. - I'm not sure the press was ever that good but you make a good point that now they cannot afford to even try journalism, rather than just rewriting press releases.

Not only did this stop newspapers investigating, it also meant that papers could only afford to print “copy and paste” news. This meant that they focussed on the large institutions whose size guaranteed credibility. This was important as the journalists did not have to waste their limited resources checking up on the source of these stories. Also these institutions were large enough to afford to employ the staff who began doing the journalists job and writing the stories in a  ready-to-print format. - Ok so they don't always much rewrite the press releases. The concentration on large institutuions, almost always officially part of the state or state funded sockpuppets. There are not likely to be more truthful but, because od state power they may be more "credible" - a self reinforcing process. In fact I would say most serious online sources are more reliable than most approved ones, if only because online you can check primary sources. Today even in matters of military intelligence online private sources have a better record of knowing what is going on than the CIA.  

Smaller, less credible groups, without the resources of PR staff, failed to get press coverage. This further exacerbated the divide because only the big established organisations could afford to get the press coverage that got establishment funding. This has always been the case.

As a result, these new campaign groups had no real alternative. They could not get heard in the traditional print media, and so went online. This established a very sharp division in social communication: On the one side the old press, now reduced to “copy-and-pasting” establishment press releases and stories fed to them. On the other the new “peer-to-peer” internet completely bypassing all the establishment and talking to the public directly. This new internet was a “wild-west” atmosphere where anything went and there was no controls over what was said and whilst a lot was said, much of it lacked authority and credibility. The great thing is that we now do have an online alternative.

This is where those opposed to the now establishment orthodoxy of climate now got their message across.

UPDATE - Mike's reply

   Much of the alleged warming trend has been proven a fraud caused by government pseudo-scientists faking their numbers.

   Which, in turn, means that all other figures from government or "environmental" sources are, at the very least, unproven and to may be assumed wrong unless there is sufficient supporting evidence.

Scientists at two of the world’s leading climate centres - NASA and NOAA - have been caught out manipulating temperature data to overstate the extent of the 20th century "global warming".

The evidence of their tinkering can clearly be seen at Real Science, where blogger Steven Goddard has posted a series of graphs which show "climate change" before and after the adjustments.

When the raw data is used, there is little if any evidence of global warming and some evidence of global cooling. However, once the data has been adjusted - ie fabricated by computer models -  20th century 'global warming' suddenly looks much more dramatic.

This is especially noticeable on the US temperature records. Before 2000, it was generally accepted - even by climate activists like NASA's James Hansen - that the hottest decade in the US was the 1930s.

As Hansen himself said in a 1989 report:

In the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases — in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the country.

    The well known "environmentalist" Mother Jones site has put up a thread saying that the 1970s global cooling scare never happened.

    They are, of course, wholly dishonest.



       Well I guess that shows the normal level of honesty to which they aspire.

      Then Mother Jones censored my posts while, at the same time allowing some disgusting and, as they knew, wholly dishonest attacks on me to stand.

      Clearly that is not something which anybody in the alarmist movement who was not a wholly dishonest Fascist, would ever fail to dissociate themselves from.

     That would be none so far.

      Not one Beeboid; not one alarmist politician in the LabNatConDems who has the remotest trace of honesty or human decency.

      Not one who isn't an obscene, lying, thieving Nazi whore, willing to support any lie and with less human decency than a rabid dog.
      Not one of the windmillers, warming alarmists, antifrackers, child scaring teachers, parasitic "civil" servants, anti-nuclearists, peak oilers, who can be trusted to ever tell the truth more than a pile of dog shit can.

      Just saying.

     We'll see if that holds up, or if there turns out to be a single one of them willing to go on Mother Jones here and say they are not only corrupt, lying, thieving, murdering Nazi whores but also represent something other than the highest standards of honesty the "environmental" movement aspires to.

"After a decade of study of the subject, I can assert that DDT has no adverse effects on human health, period.” - Also shows even the claim of it thinning eggshells was a fraud.

Meanwhile the eco-Nazis continue to 1.5 million people (mainly African kids so nobody cares) every year.
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The medieval warm period in Japan. The Japanese consider cherry blossom as a national symbol and have always celebrated, and recorded, the day each year it appears. Shows beyond dispute that the ecofascists, who always claimed it was only a European phenomenon (on the basis that European records only recorded it in Europe) were, once again, lying.
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Rather fun - a reservoir has been emptied because a kid peed in it. The management acknowledge that they regularly find animal's bodies there, presumably some of them have peed to at some time. This lunacy is drawn from the way the opponents of the nuclear industry are unable (or unwilling) to understand the concept of dilution. It is the application of the false LNT theory in a new area and inevitably, as with nuclear, means ignoring far "worse" instances that have always occurred naturally.

   An indication of the way public sector engineering is now done by political apparatchiks not engineers. Some time there will be an unamusing tragedy.
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The magnificent Matt Ridley showing that e-cigarettes save lives by getting people off the far more lethal normal cigarettes. This, of course, is opposed by the ban-everything fascists, whose smoking ban has always been about power and care nothing about health. That means thousands of unnecessary deaths annually but that is not the tragedy I mentioned but, as Stalin said, only a statistic.

"If somebody invented a pill that could cure a disease that kills five million people a year worldwide, 100,000 of them in this country, the medical powers that be would surely encourage it, pay for it, perhaps even make it compulsory. They certainly would not stand in its way.

....... In Britain alone two million now use these devices regularly. In study after study, scientists are finding e-cigarettes to be effective at helping people quit, to show no signs of luring non-smokers into tobacco use and to be much safer than their noxious competitors.....

The NHS is confident that these devices are about 1,000 times less harmful than cigarettes. The government confirmed this figure in a parliamentary answer to me. It’s the tar in smoke that kills, not the nicotine — a substance that is about as harmful as caffeine.

.... e-cigarettes proved 60 per cent more successful as a method of quitting than nicotine patches, gums or going cold turkey. By a country mile, free enterprise devices are outstripping the health results of medicinally regulated devices. And for many vested interests that is the problem...

Do the maths. If e-cigarettes are 1,000 times less harmful than cigarettes, then for every youngster who goes from smoking to vaping, there would have be a thousand going the other way before there is net harm
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Shale could add £50 bn to the UK economy if the bastards would let it.
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According to our government approved media abortionists are always good and black people are always the nice victims. Here is news where even the media have difficulty supporting the black abortionist.
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EU becoming even less energy competitive
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900 year study shows no sign at all of current warming. Both Mediaeval warming and Little Ice Age do show up.
 

     Jerry Pournelle has used and answered my comments here. I was writing in response to a new "scientific" claim that the West Antarctic ice sheet is collapsing which is "irreversably" going to soon increase sea levels by 10 feet.
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Putting "Inevitable" Glacier Disappearance in Perspective 

Remember when, for several years the IPCC continued to proclaim that all the Himalaya glaciers were going to have melted by 2035? They even denounced skeptics who disputed it as doing "voodoo" science. 

"Indian Scientists: Himalayan Glaciers are Not Melting 

Andrew Orlowski, The Register 

Top Indian physicists have concluded Himalayan glaciers show little sign of retreat – in one of the largest studies of its type ever carried out." 

http://www.thegwpf.org/indian-scientists-himalayan-glaciers-are-not-melting/ 

I would be willing to take a bet that this new Antarctic glaciers melting story will also not stand up to scrutiny. And that when it is dropped it will get less media hoo-ha than the initial announcement has.
Neil Craig

I had much the same feeling. The credentials of the framers of the latest report seem to be in order, but how can you tell? The Manmade Climate Change Believers have engaged in many questionable, and some outright fraudulent, practices, and the Scientific Consensus establishment does not seem to have come down on them hard, as they should. I try to keep this a place for rational discussion, and I fully agree to the proposition that one is entitled to one’s own opinion, but there are facts – data – that must be agreed to.

In the case of Climate Change some data are not disputable. It has been getting warmer since early in the 19^th Century. This is observed all over the globe, in almanacs, growing seasons, scientific expeditions that recorded both land and sea temperatures, etc.

What cannot be agreed to is the precision of the measured lower temperatures in, say, 1825. Most of those were taken with mercury thermometers, and we have no idea of just how precisely they were calibrated. I know that the old mercury thermometer that we used at our house in the 1930’s purported to give body temperature to 1/10^th degree Fahrenheit. I also know it was subject to mechanical manipulation, and it was relatively delicate. The large red liquid thermometer outside the house was marked in 1 degree intervals, but it was large enough to let you estimate another decimal place.

Apparently the climate science community has decided that by 1870 data gathering and recording were good enough to allow establishment of an annual average global temperature accurate to 0.1 degree C. I have my doubts about this, but they are all what you would call “common sense” arguments, not data. Having had to establish temperatures accurate to 0.1 degree C in a laboratory, I know something of the difficulties involved. We only wanted a point skin temperature of an astronaut in a full pressure suit. Actually we wanted the temperature of a small copper disk to which we had soldered a thermocouple. The disk was smeared with a thermal conducting paste and taped to the back of the astronaut’s arm (others were placed at locations about his body); we assumed that the temperature of the disk was closely enough coupled with the actual skin temperature, and since all the disks and thermocouples were as identical as our technicians could make them, and all were taken on a setup that included a reference copper plate/thermocouple in a bowl of ice made from distilled water, this would have to do. After all, it was the relative temperatures taken in different conditions that we needed.

But that experience has made me leery of any temperatures said to be accurate to a tenth of a degree (C or F), and particularly of averages taken over vast areas. I would be hard put to come up with “the” temperature of Los Angeles right now to a tenth of a degree. It’s hot outside my house, hotter in the sun than in the shade. There’s a warm compressively heated wind from the high deserts fighting a cooler wind from the sea. If you then ask me to give you the average temperature in Los Angeles for the day (which would include the night) I’d have to argue that it can’t be done. We can take a series of measurements and average them, but the exposed to the sky temperature will depend on the cloud cover both day and night, while the temperature in the shade will depend entirely on air temperature and thus be more sensitive to which wind, Santana or ocean, prevailed at that location. I could go on listing difficulties, but you get the idea. Anything exposed to the night sky will be colder if there are not clouds. If there are clouds and it is not exposed to that 4 degree Kelvin dark, that changes things. But if it is exposed to the night sky at night it is exposed to the blazing sun by day. Unless there are clouds. At this point I begin to babble.

And when I see that the consensus of temperature rise from 1870 to present is measured to 0.1 accuracy (about 0.8 C), I just have to wonder how reliable that is. Surely different techniques and data gathering locations are used now from those employed back then. Yet it is widely reported that the Earth’s temperature rose by 0.8 degree C between 1870 and present

(https://www.google.com/search?q=earth+temperature+1870+to+present&sa=X&biw=1005&bih=473&tbm=isch&imgil=RxbUv-HjO79I9M%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcRPof3yjHmOVhfkNlH6-Yg4gmzdvUElWTBGMKbu3Ve7y0Bk1ydBpw%253B670%253B717%253B4Jwy4vvzj7WnOM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fen.wikipedia.org%25252Fwiki%25252FCurrent_sea_level_rise&source=iu&usg=__9Nry8HpHXiTQoKuPzztCXDHFEQ4%3D&ei=VdpzU4OfHcKgogSG94DICw&ved=0CIMBEPUBMA0#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=RxbUv-HjO79I9M%253A%3B4Jwy4vvzj7WnOM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fupload.wikimedia.org%252Fwikipedia%252Fcommons%252F5%252F5e%252FTrends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level%252C_1870-2008_%28US_EPA%29.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fen.wikipedia.org%252Fwiki%252FCurrent_sea_level_rise%3B670%3B717). That makes 0.1 degree fairly significant. And even this rise is disputed by those who find a cycle at work http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/03/german-scientists-show-climate-driven-by-natural-cycles-global-temperature-to-drop-to-1870-levels-by-2100/

Meanwhile current reports are that the ice is building up in Antarctica (Antarctic sea ice hit 35-year record high Saturday ).

I suspect you have good reason to doubt the inevitability of Antarctica land ice melting into the sea. All that ice forming down there must surely cool the water at the critical interface?
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Bishop Hill has a scoop, (or perhaps just news the MSM refuse to report) which shows our government deliberately lying to promote windmillery. We were told, officially, the recent blackout in eastern Scotland was nothing to do with the variability of windmills. If this newspaper letter from an engineer, is true, which it feels like, we were lied to:

SIR, I was amazed to learn that a Scottish Hydro Electric transmission spokeswoman said “repairs are being carried out on the faulty relay” that allegedly caused the power cut on April 16 (“works to fend off blackouts”, PandJ, May 10).

I have been an electrical engineer for over 40 years and have never heard of anyone “repairing” a hermetically sealed relay switch.

The relay switch operated perfectly on the windy night of April 16 when it detected a sudden surge of voltage and frequency that fell outside acceptable parameters.

A relay switch has two states: on and off. All of these relay switches operated perfectly on the night, independent of the relay switch at Knocknagael Substation which is, itself fed by at least two windfarms, Farr and Moy.

This was what is known as a “rolling blackout”. It is ludicrous to suggest that all lights went out all over the north at 8.30pm exactly. My area went out at 8.43pm when the blast of wind reached Novar windfarm and toggled the relay switch to off to protect its local circuit and so on up the coast.

Grid operators can switch windfarms on and off remotely – if there is a risk of too much wind generating too much “wrong time” low-grade electricity with what is known in the industry as “flicker”. The grid cannot handle more than 10% of flicker contaminated electricity at any given nanosecond and this limit was exceeded on the night.

The operators were caught on the hop. With no electricity, all the windfarms had to be isolated manually.

The spokeswoman goes on to say that they will be making changes to how the protective equipment operates. This is code for shutting down windfarms even earlier in windy conditions so that the operators get more and more constraint payments for not generating when the wind speed is just right.

Andrew H Mackay, Tain
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     Meanwhile, also via Bishop Hill, in an example of the totalitarian pressure being put on science by, in particular, the Obama government:

The Swedish climatologist, who has published more than 200 papers, said he received hundreds of emails from colleagues criticising his decision to switch to the organisation.

.... described him as a 'crybaby'. 

However, the main pressure came from the US, where a government employee refused to be a co-author on a paper because of his links to the controversial group.

Prof Bengtsson, who had only been in the position for three weeks, told Mail Online: 'There were quite a lot of people who were upset when I joined GWPF.
'I received emails from colleagues all over the world telling me it was a "questionable" group.

'But what made me the most upset was when a colleague from the US resigned as co-author of a paper, simply because I was involved....

He believes one of the reasons for this is the US Government's expanding role on climate change.

'The public are concerned that recent weather phenomenon have been as a result of climate change. But it is a natural occurrence,' he said.

'Some people like my views, other people don't, that is the way when it comes to science.' ....

'I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy.

Lord Lawson, the former Tory Chancellor condemned the behaviour as 'appalling' and said the reference to 'McCarthyism' was 'fully warranted'.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2629171/Climate-change-scientist-claims-forced-new-job-McCarthy-style-witch-hunt-academics-world.html#ixzz31mcRIQ1M
    I guess that is how you get a "97% consensus of climate scientists the particular state funded computer modellers they chose to ask
 

      Mike Haseler is doing a statistical collation of the opinions of global warming sceptics.

      Interestingly while we are told 97% of "climate scientists" believe in "climate change" the percentage of sceptics believing in that is 98% - its just we accept it happens and always has but don't say it is catastrophic.
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A sceptical consensus: the science is right but catastrophic global warming is not going to happen
The Scottish Climate & Energy Forum has been conducting a survey on the background and attitudes of participants to online climate discussions. The survey had a massive response which will take time and resource to process. However initial analysis already shows that the actual views and backgrounds of participants are in sharp contrast with some high-profile statements being made about the participants. Therefore I felt we should make these initial results known as soon as practical to avoid further damage, both to the reputation of those involved in the online debate, as well as those making the unfounded and presumably mistaken accusations of “denial”.
As such, I am releasing the following statement regarding the survey.

A sceptical consensus: the science is right but catastrophic global warming is not going to happen

A recent survey of those participating in on-line forums showed that most of the 5,000 respondents were experienced engineers, scientists and IT professionals most degree qualified and around a third with post graduate qualifications. The survey, carried out by the Scottish Climate and Energy Forum, asked respondents for their views on CO2 and the effect it might have on global temperatures. The results were surprising. 96% of respondents said that atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing with 79% attributing the increase to man-made sources. 81% agreed that global temperatures had increased over the 20th century and 81% also agreed that CO2 is a warming gas. But only 2% believed that increases in CO2 would cause catastrophic global warming.
So what's going on?

Above all, these highly qualified people - experts in their own spheres - look at the published data and trust their own analysis, so their views match the available data. They agree that the climate warmed over the 20th century (this has been measured), that CO2 levels are increasing (this too has been measured) and that CO2 is a warming gas (it helps trap heat in the atmosphere and the effects can be measured). Beyond this, the survey found that 98% of respondents believe that the climate varies naturally and that increasing CO2 levels won't cause catastrophic warming.

What next?

Overwhelmingly participants in this large scale survey support the science, however this is not how they have been portrayed in the media and this has led to deep and bitter divides between those who hold different viewpoints. This debate should be based on the evidence and that not only includes the scientific evidence on the climate, but also the evidence of the real participants involved in the debate. Given the huge number of responses and detail of questions a full assessment will take up to one year to complete. This is a huge commitment from an organisation that has no outside funding and is reliant on one full-time volunteer (Mike Haseler). We will therefore be approaching the Scottish and UK government with a view to obtaining funding to complete the analysis.

             http://scef.org.uk
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    By coincidence Mike also wrote a blog article on how online education is going to provide a far better and cheaper service than conventional universities. I forwarded this to Jerry Pournelle who thought it worth linking to on his remarkably good Chaos Manor site:

     
Online learning
http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/the-end-of-the-uk-university-ii/#more-2972
A friend of mine discussing online learning replacing traditional universities. Pretty much what you have said but if you have a few minutes to kill…..

    Some time ago it was noticed that the number of sites recording temperature worldwide were being reduced. The suspicious might conclude that this was not because modern measurement systems allow measurements at sites where measurement has been ended,

    Here are 3 new examples, all from the latest SEPP Newsletter. Anybody interested in whether we are experiencing alleged catastrophic global warming or whether it is a totalitarian lie promoted by state parasites (I don't think there is a 3rd option) should follow SEPP. You can sign up for it on
SEPP www.sepp.org
The Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
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 Last week, TWTW reported that the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean array of buoys is failing for lack of maintenance. These buoys monitor the warming and cooling events in the equatorial Pacific, known respectively as El Niño and La Niña, which are important natural for climate change. About 50% of the NOAA-maintained buoys are not reporting. The budget for maintaining the buoys fell from about $10-$12 million to $2-3 million. Somehow Washington can spend $22.6 billion in 2013 on climate change but not maintain critical instruments on understanding weather and climate change. The amount for buoys is tiny compared to DOE spending on renewables.

TWTW Reader Timothy Wise reminded us of a GAO report last February, which stated that there is a significant timing gap between the end of scheduled life existing satellites, and replacement with new satellites. The US has two complementary sets of satellites, polar-orbiting ones, and geostationary ones. They are used by weather forecasters, climatologists, the military, etc. According to the GAO report, the timing gap between end of scheduled life and replacement with new satellites could span from 17 to 53 months or more, depending on how long the current satellite lasts and any delays in launching or operating the new one. As reported in past TWTWs, based on three separate, but somewhat overlapping government reports, the US has spent some $165 billion on climate change since 1993, but the US cannot spend the money needed to maintain critical instrumentation. Another source for funds is the $8 Billion in "Energy Payments in Lieu of Tax Provisions in the FY 2013 Federal Climate Change Expenditures. A new report will not come out until early 2015. See link under Measurement Issues.

and

+++Government abandons temperature records+++
By Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, Feb 4, 2014
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/b...
Carbon dioxide is still a greenhouse gas of course, but it is startling to realise that the government has effectively abandoned the temperature records as evidence for global warming. Everything comes down to the climate models.
[SEPP Comment: If the data does not agree with the models, discard the data?]

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    That does indeed look like it - even the alarmist pseudo-scientists & political parasites do not not expect that future measurements will support their claims and would rather have absolutely no evidence, even evidence they "collate and interpret", than what they expect to come out. 

    Note, in particular that the only explanation they have for zero warming over the last 18 years is that, in some manner not explained by the Laws of Thermodynamics, all the heat has been going into the oceans. If they believed that they would certainly want the buoys to remain in place so that they could prove it. On the other hand if they believe their explanation is a lie they would certainly wish to nbe able to let the measuring system fail by not paying for maintenance.
 

The average Dutch household could be better off by over £8,000 a year and national income will grow by over £1 trillion [by 2035] if the Netherlands leaves the euro and the EU, according to a new study.
 

        John Brignell has what looks like the last word on the alleged catastrophic global warming fraud. Unless some alarmist can dispute any of it in any factual way:

	Global Warming was a scientific hypothesis, but it has been thoroughly tested and falsified. It is now a dead theory. [Insert Monty Python parrot sketch here].
	There is no scientific theory of Climate Change. It is just a political and commercial slogan. It means bad weather.
	The baseless demonization of that stuff of life, carbon, and its wholly benign dioxide is one of the most destructive perversions in the history of human thought. It has brought Europe, for example, to the edge of the economic abyss.
	The theory and models for global warming rested almost solely on putative positive feedback mechanisms.
	There is evidence that the modellers searched almost exclusively for potential positive feedback mechanisms.
	Positive feedback makes models unstable, so that the outputs always ramp up regardless of inputs. The unscientific secrecy surrounding the modelling programs makes this impossible to investigate.
	The primary input to the weather system, the Sun, is routinely ignored.
	The observed stability of the climate indicates that actual feedback mechanisms are negative and that Le Chatelier-Braun Principle applies.
	The claimed temperature rise over years is very small and inconsequential, also probably below the practicable level of detectability.
	Smoothing processes, such as averaging, preserve low frequency noise, which is often mistaken for trends.
	The attempts to measure and calculate global temperatures have been fraught with dubiety; including ramshackle instrumentation systems, unexplained data adjustments and, frankly, downright fraud.
	The history of the subject  closely follows Langmuir’s laws of bad science (more accurately symptoms of pathological science, I originally wrote “laws” as I did not have a section on symptoms).
	The debate has now reached Langmuir’s symptom number 5. (Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses thought up on the spur of the moment). Searching for the “lost” heat in the deep oceans, for example, is nothing more than a pathetic joke.
	Climate change was symptomatic of the gross intrusion into science by politics. The grotesquely corrupt practices revealed by Climategate, for example, were only exceeded in sleaze by the crudity of the subsequent political whitewash of that sordid episode.
	It has all become extremely boring. ------------------------------------------- Not holding my breath waiting for anything like factual debate from our ruling parasites. Their record of refusing to debate says it all. John is the compiler of the very amusing Warmlist of things the media have promised us global warming is causing. Looking at it shows how very far from in any way honest our MSM are. AIDS, Afghan poppies destroyed, African holocaust, aged deaths, poppies more potent, Africa devastated,  Africa in conflict, African aid threatened,  aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pockets, air pressure changes,  airport farewells virtual, airport malaria, Agulhas current, Alaskan towns slowly destroyed, Al Qaeda and Taliban Being Helped, allergy increase, allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end,  amphibians breeding earlier (or not),  anaphylactic reactions to bee stings,  ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink,  Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk,   anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear,  Arctic tundra lost, Arctic warming (not), a rose by any other name smells of nothing, asteroid strike risk, asthma, Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty,   atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, and so on (read it here) to zoonotic diseases

    This is a graph of world temperatures:



    I find this of interest in relation to the alleged catastrophic warming scare.

   Basically if the scare were true we could all, on average, expect to move to the next warmer band - 5 C warmer.

   If James Hansen's famous prediction in 1988 - 3-9 Fahrenheit warmer and a 1-4 ft sea level rise by 2025/50 - had in any way been true we would surely have noticed 26 years later (with 11-36 years to go), indeed be at least half way there.

   As a Scot I would now expect us to have the sort of climate previously seen on the border between
the yellow & brown zones - western France, Benidorm in Spain, Monte Carlo, central Greece.

   Can't say I have noticed it.

   To be fair I can see that a 5 C rise - from the massive Brown zone to the very small red spots in New Guinea, south Sahara & Andes would make a major change, unless, of course, Hansen's prediction that the increase would be greater at the poles and less near the equator, were true.

    But obviously reality shows none of it is.


























 

    We have just had the first anniversary of 28 Gate, the BBC being proven to be lying in their claim that it is OK to lie and censor about catastrophic global warming because 28 of the world's leading scientists supported them. I sent this letter to 96 newspapers worldwide, which brings me to a total of 1,000 letters (well about 25 to an average of 40 papers) and not one published on paper, though I have had some on online site.

    Zero in 1,000, when the letters are written moderately competently is not a record even the North Korean media could exceed. It is obviously statistically impossible without massive de facto censorship across our entire mainstream media.

Sir
      The extent to which 28 Gate has been made, in an entirely Orwellian way, has been deleted from the news record is frankly scary.

    We have just passed the 1st anniversary of it being proven that the BBC had, for 6 years, then, continuously and repeatedly lied to promote their censorship of any dissent over the alleged catastrophic global warming consensus. The BBC had claimed to have the support for this of "28 leading scientists", from across the world at a symposium held by them. Helen Boaden, then on suspension over the Saville affair but since promoted to be head of BBC Radio, said under oath, in a court case brought because the BBC refused to identify them, even testified that they were not only leading scientists but that they had been selected for their "multiplicity of views".

    Then the list of names came out and it was revealed they were not 28 of the world's leading scientists. 26 of them weren't scientists at all. Nor were they selected for "multiplicity of views". Every one was an activist, almost all paid by the state. Climate activists, renewables salespeople, 3rd world "aid" activists, and for higher authority a Church of England cleric and a psychological warfare expert from the US embassy.

     The news of this fraud was, obviously, never reported by the BBC. It still hasn't been. More ominously it got little coverage in newspapers, and what there was being almost all by the more trustworthy commenters, who get to choose what they write, rather than in "news" pages.

      And our police, who spend many millions building cases against NOTW reporters and Tommy Sheriden, not only refuse to investigate what appears to be an open and shut case of perjury by Helen Boaden, they refuse even to say why not.

     We may read, in our papers the scandals, lies and airbrushing by the North Korean regime. Would it not be desirable for us to learn of what must be assumed to be worse lies and atrocities of western powers?

Neil Craig

Links for 28 Gate
Initial report http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/principia-scientific-has-interesting.html
ThinkScotland article http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/to-bbc-director-general-tony-hall-open.html
Boaden's perjury reported to police - forwarded to the Met who refuse to comment http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/bbc-perjury-case-for-28-gate-police.html
How Red Nose Day charitable funding was used to promote the fraud http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/principia-scientific-has-interesting.html
Reaches 864 letters http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/unpublished-letters-proof-of-deliberate.html
Last letter to another 40 http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/letters-unpublished-in-septemberearly.html

Censorship worse than NK
Genuine, atrocities carried out by NATO worse than North Korea's and unreported by our media - dissection thousands of living people to steal body organs
http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/eu-report-admits-nato-police-dissected.html
and massacre of at least 210 by our "police" http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/dragodan-massacre-freedom-of_23.html
 

    I saw this letter, which went out to all and sundry in the Scottish & UK media, in the Scottish Daily Mail on Eve, after I thought it had been rejected:
-------------------------

 The Chinese automated Moon Lander has been generally described as 40 years late.

  Well it is 40 years after Apollo perhaps but NASA couldn't do it now and it seems likely that it will be of more scientific use than the Apollo landings because the lander has ground penetrating radar and it will work for several months.

This is a long term prediction of global temperature based on observed natural cycles.

      If so we are heading for a temperature decline of about 2/3rds a degree by 2080. Not fun but not "catastrophic" - warmer than the depths of the little ice age. Possibly a good reason to build solar mirrors.

      Is this certain - of course not. On the other hand I think it is far more scientific than the catastrophic warming alarm on which policy has for 2 decades been based.

    Perhaps we will spend 1% as much, based on this prediction, in promoting a spacegoing civilisation, as the several trillion $s governments have spent on windmillery. Certainly if belief in "the science" is a real factor in government parasitism, they will.

   The date when the catastrophic warming scare became officially accepted and since when dissent has been censored with the remark "the debate is over" in July 1988.

    That was when James Hansen testified to Congress about CAGW.

     Compare the promised catastrophe with the reality of the climate widget above, which shows no effective correlation with CO2 rise (Hansen's promises of 1988 were made just before the 3rd line).

    I thought it might be nice to find out what he actually promised. So here it is.
--------------------------------------------------------------

John Brignell makes an interesting point about the climate alarmists'  claims about positive feedback:

It is the vital secret ingredient that is difficult for most people to understand. It is therefore more valuable to the computer-aided conjurer than all the smoke. mirrors and props are to the stage magician.