Interesting words from Lovelock in the Guardian.

Not very good words about climate scientists, especially at the CRU. However, some disturbing words about democracy

Comments on this at Bishop Hill

From Wikipedia:

In political jargon, the term useful idiot was used to describe Soviet sympathizers in Western countries and the attitude of the Soviet government towards them. The implication was that though the person in question naïvely thought themselves an ally of the Soviets or other Communists, they were actually held in contempt by them, and were being cynically used.

The term is now used more broadly to describe someone who is perceived to be manipulated by a political movement, terrorist group, hostile government, or business, whether or not the group is Communist in nature

There seem to be a lot of useful idiots around at the moment

Christopher Booker covers the latest "independent" climategate enquiry.

Is there anyone we can trust anymore?

TonyN at Harmless Sky has done some digging in the UEA emails to find a rather illuminating story on the Summary for Policy Makers in IPCC AR4 WG1

Check it out here

There are also some interesting follow-ups in the comments about the sea-level rise for the 20th century.

Scientists have just announced a new study that links Earth Hour with Global Warming.
Dr Eric Beard of the University of West Brighton has stated that :

"There is an unequivocal link between the hour when we switch the lights off for Earth Hour, and the corresponding increase in the birth rate nine months later. An increase in population has an undisputed link between CO2 emissions, and therefore Global Warming"

An independent study has found a corresponding link between the lack of things on the telly and the birth rate. This was shown in the three day week introduced by Britain PM Edward Heath in the 1970's

Cindy Berkensteiger, of the Global Institute of Climate TV Studies, has stated this:

"The lack of interest of things on the telly and its links to climate change is unequivocal and is fully supported in the peer-reviewed literature.

We need to now adopt adaptation strategies as we are already beyond the point of no return"

Simon Cowell was unavailable for comment.

I have noticed that I have been getting a few Google hits on "The Hockey Stick Illusion" by A W Montford (aka Bishop Hill) so I thought I'd better write a bit more about it.

I am not going to do a book review since others have done this so well.

I am almost finished my first pass at the book, and like many before me, I am probably going to read again to absorb all the detail.

It is a fascinating read.With 450 pages of text and 270 references, it is a cross between a scientific reference and a detective novel.

I can't pass any judgement on the veracity of the story, except that the emails and references stack up. If Mann, Jones et al want to write a rebuttal, then I'd happily read that too.

However, from what I can see, this is not a great picture of modern science.

The last time I looked, this was getting 24 5 star reviews on Amazon UK, which must be a record

Congrats to Bishop Hill

http://blogs.technet.com/betaexams/

There are six new beta exams just released for .NET 4.0.

They are running over April, so I have now booked myself in for all six in a four week period.

Bishop Hill posted this video recently.

It's a pretty interesting and civil discussion between Lindzen and Dowlatabadi, who have both contributed to IPCC reports in some way.

It is interesting in how much the two agreed on. Specifically, on the limitations of proxy reconstructions and Global Climate Models. Also, the issue of aerosol emissions in Asia (specifically in China) was raised, which relates to cloud formation.

Wrapping up, the interesting point was made that too many scientists are wrapped up in the message and not the science.

The video is about an hour long, but is well worth the watch.

 

From the BBC

"New York City officials have agreed to pay up to $657.5m (£437m) to thousands of rescue and clean-up workers at the Ground Zero site of the 9/11 attacks.

The settlement would compensate more than 10,000 plaintiffs who say they were made sick by dust from the collapsed World Trade Center towers"

Two thousand or so citizens die in the 9/11 attacks, and people are claiming for "dust injury"?

What is wrong with us?

Well, since it's beer o'clock on a Friday afternoon, what better than a little light-hearted satire from the "Daily Mash"

Wonderful! I will be bookmarking this site for my news...

"SCIENTISTS have discovered the world's first Guardian-reading spider and are already bored of its never-ending torrent of opinions about everything.

And it thinks The Wire is better than Hamlet

The Monbiot spider is a vegetarian for socio-political reasons, spins a sustainable quantity of low-carbon web and believes Gordon Brown can still turn it around by next June.

Experts have revealed that instead of eating flies and having a proper job like everybody else, the creature organises community outreach projects and converts floating seeds and vegetable matter into pungent, inedible casseroles.

Read more from the "Daily Mash"

The Institute of Physics blog has some interesting thoughts on the "Hide the Decline" message that came out of the climategate emails.

Now we know that this refers to the so-called "divergence problem" where tree ring proxy data doesn't match temperature records.

In the blog, there is this interesting quote:

"According to physicist Rasmus Benestad from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and a blogger for realclimate.org, Jones’ reference to "hiding the decline" could have involved removing some tree-ring proxy data from the analysis after 1960 to produce a curve that agrees better with the evidence for global warming. "

Now, call me a conspiracy theorist, but this sounds awfully like "cherry picking" to me.

These quotes come from Climate Audit and tell a similar story:

"If we get a good climatic story from a chronology, we write a paper using it. That is our funded mission. It does not make sense to expend efforts on marginal or poor data and it is a waste of funding agency and taxpayer dollars. The rejected data are set aside and not archived. As we progress through the years from one computer medium to another, the unused data may be neglected. Some [researchers] feel that if you gather enough data and n approaches infinity, all noise will cancel out and a true signal will come through. That is not true. I maintain that one should not add data without signal."

I am unaware of any other area of science where this methodology would be acceptable. If anyone else does, or has a better explanation, then I am all ears.

There is an interesting hour long video of a debate organised by The Brisbane Institute here

The debate was on climate change, and took the form of a debate between Christopher Monckton and Ian Plimer on the sceptic side, vs Prof Barry Brooke and Graham Redfearn on the AGW side.

The main speakers (Monckton and Brooke) were both given 10 minute slots, and then there were some responses from the other two speakers and questions from the floor.

I thought this was a very interesting discussion. For my money, Monckton and Brooke carried the day for each side. Ian Plimer tended to drift off topic (for example, the argument that CO2 is plant food and not poison, whilst a valid one, was irrelevant to the discussion). Graham Redfearn seemed way out of his depth and used a lot of ad hominem  arguments which I am glad to see were quickly dispatched by the moderator. Redfearn's body language at the end of the debate was painful to watch, as was his lack of audience support.

Prof Brooke, was a very measured and reasonable speaker, as was Lord Monckton.

The issues raised by Monckton on climate sensitivity, and the cost/benefits of cap and trade / ETS schemes, are very important, in my opinion, and these issues need to be discussed in the open. This is especially true for New Zealand, which is currently still planning to implement the ETS as envisioned in Copenhagen.

I am very glad to see discussions like this opening up, and at least for some of the panel, open and intelligent arguments being presented to the public.
 

This article by Christopher Booker in the UK Telegraph highlights some very worrying issues in the UK's energy policies proposed by the Conservative Party.

There seems a very real possibility that there will be a major energy crisis in the UK in the next few years, and much of it can be blamed, as usual, on the UK and EU's obsession with climate change.

Lord Monckton on PJTV

Compare this with TVNZ's pathetic attempt.

One may not agree with everything he has to say, but Christopher Monckton is correct in one thing:

The internet is now the mainstream media.

Goodbye, TV and newspapers, you are now no longer needed. You are irrelevant.

WUWT has links to the Youtube videos of Phil Jones in front of the UK parliamentary panel.

I have to say I watched all the video footage and found it all somewhat painful to watch.
There were many questions left unanswered, and many that seemed to disappear into a black hole

I couldn't help feeling sorry for Phil Jones. There are so many others complicit in this scandal, and Phil Jones seems to have been hung out to dry.

The UK media seems to have picked up a bit, ClimateAudit has the links

There seems to be zilch from the BBC.

As for "my own" NZ media, what a joke.

The Guardian's George Monbiot has written a very scathing piece in the Guardian about the solar panel feed-in tariffs for the EU.

As he points out, this method of generating electricity is grossly inefficient.

In terms of carbon emissions, we are talking £430 to save one tonne of CO₂ vs £8 per tonne for a nuclear power station

Insulation and double glazing, by comparison, cost virtually nothing.

I have been saying this for years. I am really glad to see George Monbiot reporting this now. Common sense may finally be returning to humanity in this crazy climate debate. I hope