| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu |

Admin

Dev

Admin

Dev

How To: Make your SharePoint 2010 site collection read-only, restrict delete

SharePoint 2010 allows administrators to set certain site collections to read only or restrict delete. This is done on a centralized site collection level and has nothing to do with permission assignments on your lists and libraries.

Here is a scenario:

a project represented by a site collection in SharePoint has completed and all of the deliverables must be read only, or new content must not be added only existing ones modified.

Let`s take a look how you can implement such a lock using PowerShell. Also, for more PowerShell hands on scenarios check out my new book.

From within SharePoint 2010 Management Shell execute the following command to prevent users from adding, updating, or deleting content, basically a read-only site collection:

Now, when you access a list item for example and try to edit it – the controls will be grayed out. The same goes for when you try adding new item – you’ll get an error right on the new item form.

To make the site collection accessible again call:

For the scenario where no new content can be added but existing content modified and deleted, here is the command:

When users try to add new content, the form will still show but the following error will occur when saving the new item:

0x81020066

Additions to this Web site have been blocked.

Please contact the administrator to resolve this problem.

Lastly, to prevent access to the site use the following command:

Resulting in the following error when site collection is accessed:

0x81020071

Access to this Web site has been blocked.

Please contact the administrator to resolve this problem.

To unlock any of the above locks, use the Unlock command above.

Enjoy!

This article was originally posted on Yaroslav's blog at http://www.sharemuch.com/

Yaroslav Pentsarsky

Recent Articles by Yaroslav Pentsarsky

Comments

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/devwiki/articles/Pages/How-To-Make-your-SharePoint-2010-site-collection-read-only-restrict-delete.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

SharePoint: Making Documents Unique

A Fundamental ECM Requirement

A fundamental tenet of any ECM solution is that it must be possible to uniquely identify a document and retrieve it based on a unique identifier.  This identifier is typically an incremental numeric value that increments by 1 for each document that is added to the system.

The lack of such an identifier is one of the fundamental problems that many people have had with SharePoint and has now been addressed by the Document ID service in SharePoint 2010.  Behind the scenes, documents have always had a unique identifier in SharePoint but this was (and still is) a globally unique identifier (GUID) which isn’t particularly user friendly and looks something like this -

{31EC2020-3AEF-1069-A2DD-08012B30309D}

Before SharePoint 2010, the other way to identify a document was the URL that pointed to the document based on its location.  For most users this wasn’t an issue, as documents were saved into a specific location and never needed to be moved.  For large scale ECM projects, this did become an issue, especially when documents were transactional in nature and tied to business processes.  In these scenarios, a document could potentially be moved from one library to another as part of the business process and therefore be assigned a new URL identifier; this made it difficult when trying to provide uniform access to the document regardless of its location.  Many organisations integrate their line of business systems with their ECM system and like to store the unique ID of the document against a business record.  An example would be linking the scanned image of an invoice to an invoice record in an accounts payable system.  Not having a unique ID makes this linking very difficult and can result in broken links if the target document moves within SharePoint.

The Document ID Service

Thankfully SharePoint 2010 introduced the Document ID Service which delivers this missing piece of functionality.  The new Document ID service is actvated as a feature at the Site Collection level and only applies to Document Libraries; it therefore only works for documents and not list items.  What it does is assign Unique IDs to documents when they are initially created.  The Document ID is a numeric value and SharePoint allows you to prefix it with a text value which is typically unique between Site Collections e.g. “LEGAL”, “HRDOCS”, “FINANCE”.  The unique ID looks something like this:

LEGAL-1-101

Note that if you move a document then its Document ID does not change but if you copy a document, the new document will be assigned a new Document ID.

How People are Using it

Document IDs are proving to be useful for organisations that have document centric processes that rely on being able to uniquely identify a document and/or provide rapid access to documents via search.

An example use case could play out as follows:

This is a very simple example but just shows the benefit of being able to access a document instantly via a Doucment ID search, rather than having to browse through sites, libraries and folders to locate the document.

Potential Problem

One of the problems that I have with Document IDs is that they are only unique to the Site Collection and therefore depend upon the prefix in order to make them unique across the SharePoint Farm.  If you decide to use the same prefix in two Site Collections then there is a risk for duplication of IDs.  This issue won’t affect too many organisations but must be borne in mind when designing a large scale archiving or ECM solution.

One of the risks of having duplicate Document IDs is that if you perform a Document ID search then it will only return the first document that matches that ID.  There is therefore a risk of accessing the wrong document.  Again, this would probably only happen if you copied a document to another Site Collection which had the same Document ID prefix.

My preference would be to be able to implement the ID at Farm level so that the Document ID is unique across all Site Collections.  Having the option to implement at the Site Collection or Farm level would be a useful addition to the feature and will hopefully be on Microsoft’s roadmap.

If you have software development skills in your organisation then it is possible to override the default Documen ID behaviour with your own unique ID, which could be set Farm wide, but this is outside the scope of this article.

All in all it is a useful feature for those organisations looking to use SharePoint as a platform for ECM or archiving.

Riccardo Emanuele

Recent Articles by Riccardo Emanuele

Comments

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Top Contributors

Newsletter signup

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/SharePoint-Making-Documents-Unique.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Use "Check Out" and "Check In" actions with globally reusable workflows in SharePoint Designer 2010

I love that SharePoint Designer gives you the ability to create reusable workflows. It’s even better that you can select “All” as the content type. However, I have come across a minor issue with being able to update an item that requires check in and check out via workflow and being able to apply that to “any” list, content type, page or document. You can’t start a workflow on an item that’s checked out, but you can’t update an item that’s checked in. When you try to use the “Check out” action, you are expected to select a list to check out an item from.

The Requirement:

Create a workflow that will make field updates to a document or page that requires check-in / check-out. This workflow must be able to work on any page or document library in the site collection.

The Problem:

The Solution:

A modification to the .xoml file that tells the workflow to use “this item” regardless of the list.

Disclaimer: If you want to model an out of the box workflow, always copy and modify…it is never a good idea to modify the out of the box global workflows directly.

Steps:

I’m not sure why you have to close Designer and re-open it before you can see your changes, maybe it’s just my wonky machine, but I have to follow these steps exactly on order for the change to “take”.

Notes:

Make sure that you do NOT have “end on change” feature turned on, or your workflow will stop immediately after making the change without checking the document back in.

Kim Frehe @chomp1313

Recent Articles by Kim Frehe @chomp1313

Comments

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Top Contributors

Newsletter signup

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/Use-Check-Out-and-Check-In-actions-with-globally-reusable-workflows-in-SharePoint-Designer-2010.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Evaluating Cloud Providers: Tools and Questions

Struggling with evaluating cloud providers? Interested in moving to the cloud but not certain what the risks are and what you need to consider? This article is focused around sharing some tools and techniques I have found to help when performing the often difficult task of comparing or evaluating cloud providers.

On a fairly frequently basis I am asked about my opinion about one hosting provider, or one cloud provider versus another. Of course my response as a consultant is “It Depends”. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish, what your business priorities are, what your specific needs are, and so much more.

Here is an example of a slide deck I have done before that relates to better understanding SharePoint in the Cloud (which often prompts these questions).

Share Australia – Looking to the future – SharePoint in the Cloud

View more presentations from Richard Harbridge

That being said I think there is a tremendous amount of useful information out there around benchmarking and comparing providers as well as questions to ask providers when evaluating them. What follows is a collection of those resources I have found useful in the past including many of the questions I ask when evaluating cloud providers. (These are in the deck, but it never hurts to repeat it in a different format – that allows comments – here.)

Tools You Can Use:

What follows are questions that you can use to help evaluate a cloud provider before trusting them with your data and leveraging their services. These questions are a sampling of the possible ways in which you can evaluate a cloud provider and should be used along with other cloud based assessments such as the cloud security alliances Consensus Assessments.

Security

Identity & Access

Storage

Reliability

Support

Performance

Flexibility

Offline Access

Costs

Authors Note: Remember to trust but verify each provider response by comparing against benchmarking services and carefully reviewing all existing agreements, policies, and documents the provider can supply.

Hope this helps,

Richard Harbridge

Richard Harbridge - Senior SharePoint Evangelist with Allin Consulting

Recent Articles by Richard Harbridge - Senior SharePoint Evangelist with Allin Consulting

Comments

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Top Contributors

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/itpro/Pages/Evaluating-Cloud-Providers-Tools-and-Questions.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Admin

Dev

Admin

Dev

Leveraging the logging database to see performance counters

SharePoint Server 2010 ships with a logging database (default name: WSS_Logging). You can make sure information gets added into it by opening SharePoint Central Administration > Monitoring > Timer Jobs > Review Job Definitions and enable or run all timer jobs starting with “Diagnostic Data Provider”.

After that, if you want to take a look at the performance counters, you can use the PerformanceCounters view in the logging database. Since it only shows counterid’s, the view in itself is not very helpful unless combined with information coming from the PerformanceCountersDefinitions table that includes the path and the instance name of the performance counters, like this:

Nikander & Margriet Bruggeman

Recent Articles by Nikander & Margriet Bruggeman

Comments

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/devwiki/articles/Pages/Leveraging-the-logging-database-to-see-performance-counters.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

REVEALED: eBay's Playbook for Social Business Adoption

eBay’s going social. Its protagonists are building the next generation social platform called the HUB, to increase employee engagement, collaboration and effectiveness. It is instructive to follow the evolution of their strategy in response to the growing chorus of eBay employees who were demanding social tools, or had already snuck them in.

On first impression, Ramin Mobasseri eBay’s Enterprise Portals Solutions Manager and Maarten Sundman a SharePoint Architect and Developer appear to be an unlikely team. Both men speak in different languages: ; ;Mobasseri ‘business’ and Sundman ‘tech’. Yet both were equally determined to create a people-centric platform for eBay’s 18,000 employees.

Their approach can best be described as a test-and-learn methodology. Mobasseri explains, “We believe in taking small steps,, [starting] with a proof of concept. It's easy to learn from 1,000 people. It's much easier to make mistakes with 1,000 people rather than with thousands people.”

Their goal with employees was to not to force them to drop their existing cloud-based social tools, but to try and integrate them into the collaboration Hub. That way, all of the information centralized rather than trapped in cloud-based silos.

The Playbook Summary

How eBay’s Social Business Program Started

Interestingly, the proliferation of eBay employees using a cloud-based micro-blogging solution from Yammer set off IT alarms and spurred them into action. Employees had brought in Yammer without IT approval or involvement. In this landscape, Mobasseri, Sundman and the rest of IT knew they needed act or risk being viewed as non-strategic. They wanted to support the business units, they wanted to be involved and they were going to do something about it.

In reality however, the team lacked the budget and power to build a social platform to support the company’s move to a more social organization. Not having any official support from the executive team, and only the CIO’s tacit approval, Mobasseri and his team worked around executives who were roadblocks, and went directly to mid-level management to gain their support.

“What we did was go to a number of directors and people who really wanted this social thing and wanted to participate. Some of them even volunteered to pay for the software, partially, which was great. We then developed an internal Stakeholder's Analysis model. In it, we classified people as being ‘for us,’ ‘against us’ or ‘neutral’ and assigned power scores to each of them. In the end, we were looking for the person who loved our project and had a lot of power. Fortunately, we found him. His name is Alan Marks. The rest was easier,” said Mobasseri.

eBay’s Adoption Strategy

In testing their adoption strategy, Mobasseri explained, “We tested it with 1,000 people from various groups, backgrounds and digital skill sets, and not just the tech savvy elite. They were very, very interested in this tool because they believe in the social learning phenomenon.”

True, a pilot program that focuses on a select group of people is an adoption best practice, but eBay took it a few steps further. “We also ran a campaign called ‘Scrub the Hub’. We gave people incentives, like Xbox's, vacation packages, you name it, just to enrich their profiles. Why? Without a rich profile, what can you get in a social network? Not much,” said Mobasseri.

My Favorite Quote:

“What is a trip to Hawaii to a company like eBay? Why not? You gain a million dollars in productivity for a $10,000 investment.”

(Ramin Mobasseri, referring to a practice of incentivizing users to fill out their profiles)

Another way of looking at it is to imagine a Facebook without faces, background info, or personal context. The site becomes useless, like a shadowy Cheers bar filled with anonymous characters ‘who don’t want anyone to know their name’. Without the human element and context, social platforms are unlikely to flourish.

When I asked Mobasseri how the program has worked out, he explained, “The numbers of profiles has quadrupled, but it’s still not where we want it to be. To qualify for an incentive, some people went and just put smiley faces in their profiles. But it's getting better. There is communication. We have to continue telling people, 'Go ahead and put things in your profile.'”

Why eBay decided to use SharePoint (The Hub) as its Social Platform

It’s becoming increasingly evident that building a social platform as the hub of all social and document activity is an important step in enabling an organization to go social. But eBay didn’t want just any platform. They wanted a robust, state-of-the-art platform, figuring it would accelerate its usage; thus making the organization more effective.

In describing their decision to use SharePoint and Newsgator, Mobasseri didn’t believe the out-of-the-box SharePoint platform to be sufficient, “So we evaluated some other social networking tools like Jive. We played around with Yammer, as I mentioned. We tried Ning and Chatter as well. But NewsGator just kept rising up to the top of our scoring. So we decided the social networking tool for eBay was going to be NewsGator built on SharePoint.”

According to Sundman, eBay also chose SharePoint because of its ability to easily integrate tools from other vendors (typically through SharePoint web parts). If the tool can’t be integrated, Sundman elaborates, “we then aggregated the content within the Hub. That way, they can see the activity streams from various social networking like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or whatever tool that’s not supported by SharePoint natively.”

Sundman went on to explain how eBay will be the first company to allow its users to post and receive updates from the intranet to multiple internal or external networks at the push of a button.

While a beneficial and significant timesaver, integrating data from people’s external social networks accelerates a discussion about who then owns the employee’s social data? In most US organizations, the company has the rights to all content and messages on an employee’s computer. But I’m not sure this rule holds when an employee’s external social network is being used for business purposes.

Lessons Learned

In any endeavor involving organizational change, opportunities are missed, mistakes are made, and the right decisions only later become obvious. Against this backdrop, I asked Mobasseri what he would have done differently, given the chance.

“We currently don’t have a mobile device management solution, but we're working on it. We want to see our social sites via the iPhone or the Blackberry, but it’s not going live for a while. We think in 2012, we will actually roll out the mobile piece,” explained Mobasseri.

“The other lesson learned was around the various browsers that were coming up short in SharePoint 2010. Because at eBay and PayPal, we're very tech savvy, and people use Chrome ;on the Mac. But SharePoint is a Microsoft product. It doesn’t always work on Chrome. Some of the stuff does and some of the stuff doesn’t. So we built a browser capability matrix. In it, we highlighted what worked, what kind of worked and things that didn’t work at all. Those are the things that we should have known beforehand,” lamented Mobasseri.

Summing it all up…

Yes, it’s true that in our era of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, employees are able to side-step enterprise IT and use cloud-based social tools to get their job done. That’s been a good thing — so far. But ultimately corporations are in business to solve problems for their customers, so employees need to be working from the same playbook.

So whether you are a corporate salesperson, accountant, paralegal, vice-president or IT professional, you can be the next leader who steps up to the plate and creates your company’s social playbook, designs the plays to have impact, and builds a team to deliver it. These people are called visionaries. Visionaries like Mobasseri and Sundman who don’t just dream about creating a social business. They find the means to create one.

Note: eBay went live with the Hub on 11/11/11

Mark Fidelman

Recent Articles by Mark Fidelman

Comments

ebay going social

What we need is a playbook that includes ebay and other companies that are making SharePoint Social. There's not a lot of visibility here.

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Top Contributors

Newsletter signup

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/REVEALED-eBays-Playbook-for-Social-Business-Adoption.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Display a PowerPoint document in SharePoint via the page viewer web part

This is a quick tip on how to display PowerPoint documents on a SharePoint page via the page viewer web part.

STEP 1

Upload the PowerPoint document that you would like to display to a SharePoint document library (ideally located on your site). Then view the document in the browser.

STEP 2

Once on PowerPoint document view, the first intuition would be to copy the current URL and add it to the page viewer. However, this will display an error message.

In fact, you need to get the URL from the popup PowerPoint window. To do so, you will have to click on the “open in popup” button located at the top right of the navigation menu.

The popup will appear and you will have to copy the URL. The URL will have the following format.

http://(SHAREPOINT_SITE)/_layouts/PowerPointFrame.aspx?PowerPointView=ReadingView&d=(STRING)&source=(ENCODED_URL_TO_SHAREPOINT_LIBRARY)&SlideId=(SLIDE_ID)&popout=1

Note: if someone knows where to find the string reference after the”&d=”, I will be interested.

STEP 3

Create/Go to the page where you are trying to display the PowerPoint document.

Add a page viewer web part

Then on the page viewer web part edit panel, place the URL previously copied to the “Link” section and change the appearance according to your need (usually the height will need to be modified)

Click OK.

You are done! This will work with Word documents as well.

Khoa Quach

Recent Articles by Khoa Quach

Comments

SharePoint Version

Great post. Unfortunately, I don't see the option to view in browser. I'm using MOSS 2007 - is this feature limited to SharePoint 2010?

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Top Contributors

Newsletter signup

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/Display-a-PowerPoint-document-in-SharePoint-via-the-page-viewer-web-part.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Explain SharePoint site hierarchy to users through analogy

Have you ever had to explain a SharePoint virtual concept (e.g. navigation, features/web parts, service applications, etc.) to a user so it makes sense to them? Of course you have; we do it every day whether to a client or an internal customer, that's what we get paid for. Unfortunately our users don't have the benefit of our experiences with the platform where we created our own understandings of 'how things work', thus another part of our job.

When you've explained to them how a certain SharePoint feature works, more than once probably, you may still get blank stares when you talk about the concepts that work together. Just like we assimilated how something works by deriving a relationship with a concept we already understand, we may have to help our users do the same.

The easiest way to do this is through the user of analogies, or drawing similarities to something they already know. Drawing a good analogy that everyone understands is going to depend upon your audience's experiences, so best to keep them simple and related to what they know.

An example of this I've used is when explaining Site Collection navigation to customer's new to SharePoint's mysterious ways. Here's what we normally show them (just before their eyes glaze over):

While this is great for a conceptual representation, it doesn't help new users understand how it applies to them. Now here's an example I show before the diagram above relating Site Collections to subdivisions:

While very simplistic it helps the user 'learn' how to relate it to something they have seen in the physical world.

Now we can take this to the next level for talking about the nature of SubSites. While we can just point to the first diagram and say there you go, that's the 3-dimensional nature of a SubSite, you may not get a lot of affirmative nods. Instead, try the following analogy relating a SubSite to a house:

Again, very simplistic but part of our SharePoint job/mission/calling is to teach others what we know in ways that mean something to them. So they next time someone asks you "Hey SharePoint person, how does _____ work?", try an analogy.

Pilkenton, Craig

Recent Articles by Pilkenton, Craig

Comments

Content Types analogy?

Those are good analogies! Do you have one that explains the concept of a content type? I want the users to define business requirements for each content type, along with the metadata, workflow, policy, etc., that goes with it. When I use these terms, I see the eyes start glazing over. Any ideas on how to explain all this simply...?

Like

I really like your first diagram :) I am only missing Pages.

RE: Content Types analogy?

That sounds like a great idea for another article! I've used several, tailored to the audience I'm working with. The easiest one I've found to use is comparing Content Types to the furniture in the house analogy above. In the living room above, have the user mentally add a couch (standard Document Library) that will store people (files). Then have them move it into the corner of the room & putting pillows on it (Metadata). Have them put a slip cover on the couch to protect it (policy, default folder value, etc.). And finally, tell them a maid will come once a day/week/every sit & vacuum it (Workflow). The same thing works for having them make a sandwich from the fridge. Just tailor it to something they do everyday or is a common concept in our physical world.

RE: Like

Since Pages are just List Items in Lists, like everything else in SharePoint, you could just paste a page icon at the bottom with a document icon.

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Top Contributors

Newsletter signup

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/Explain-SharePoint-site-hierarchy-to-users-through-analogy.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Truncate text in list view and add mouseover preview

I wrote this article last month: Multi line text field in list view: Shorten text and add hovereffect to view full text.

This post is an updated version to support both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.

Features

This solution will shorten any text column (single line or multi line) in a list view to a preset length, and append “…” to indicate that the text is truncated. If the text is shorter than the “trigger length”, the cell is skipped.

How to set up

Go get jQuery v1.6.4 from here.

Note that this is NOT the latest version. I have not had the time to find out why v1.7+ does not work.

Download the code for the file “TruncateTextInListView.js” from here Note the different versions for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.

Upload both files to a shared document library – or a folder in the root of the site (created with SharePoint Designer). Ensure all users have read access to the location.

Put a CEWP below the list view web part, and insert this code:

Note:

You must change the “src” attribute of the script tags to point to your local copies of jQuery and “TruncateTextInListView.js”.

Parameters for the function “truncateText”

Ask if something is unclear.

Alexander

Alexander Bautz

Recent Articles by Alexander Bautz

Comments

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Top Contributors

Newsletter signup

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/Truncate-text-in-list-view-and-add-mouseover-preview.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Resolving DCOM 10016 Error on SharePoint server

If you find a lot of DCOM errors with event ID 10016 in your application server role, this may be due to Windows Server 2008 R2. Here’s how to resolve these isuses

On the failing server open Server Manager, and under Roles select Application server. You will most probably find quite a lot of DCOM errors. Open one of those errors to see for which user and for which service the authentication is failing. In the open window copy the GUID of the failing service. It will help you identify the service.

Next open registry editor and select the root node. In Edit menu select Find, paste the GUID and click Find next.

You can find the service name in one of the registry’s values (as seen on the screenshot below, in my case it was IIS WAMREG).

Leave the registry editor open (you might still need it).

Next in Start menu under Administrative tools click Component Services. Expand the Computers node and My Computer. Select DCOM Confing. Now locate the service you identified in your registry, right click it and select Properties.

In the open dialog select Security tab and in the Launch and activation permissions group click the Edit button.

If you have this entire tab grayed out, you need to do the following (outlined in italics, otherwise skip the italics part below):

In registry editor (which I hope you still have open), right click the node you found and select Permissions

Click Advanced and select the Owner tab. Change the owner to the account you’re logged on or to the administrators group (which I presume your account is in)

Click Apply and in the permissions dialog also give same user/group full control

Now you should close and reopen Component services and find the DCOM service.

In the permissions dialog for the service grant the failing user (or group the account is in) Local Launch and Local Activation permissions. And in case the event log says it is failing remote launch, grant the user remote launch and service also.

Confirm all the changes and close registry editor and Component services window.

Boris Gomiunik

Recent Articles by Boris Gomiunik

Comments

When will this be fixed?

Interesting enough is the fact, that this error is around since MOSS 2007! This is now about 4 years, and every-one has to do the same steps. I have never-ever seen a deployment without having to fix the DCOM activation. So why isn't Microsoft fixing this issue?

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Top Contributors

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/itpro/Pages/Resolving-DCOM-10016-Error-on-SharePoint-server.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Admin

Dev

Admin

Dev

My top 10 tools for a better SharePoint developer experience

The purpose of this blog post is to present some of the tools that I use in my day to day SharePoint activities. I will not talk about the very rich Microsoft tools such as SharePoint Designer, InfoPath etc…I’d rather focus on tools that really help hardcore developers to be more efficient in both development and troubleshooting.

This list of tools can probably be largely extended, so don’t hesitate to add comments to present your favorite tools.

CKS Dev

Available at http://cksdev.codeplex.com/

CKS Dev adds very useful features to Visual Studio for SharePoint projects. It accelerates custom solutions deployment and helps in developing some components that are not proposed out of the box by Visual Studio 2010.

As you can see, a lot of valuable project items are made available:

On top of that, some extra contextual menu items are available and are very useful:

Most of these options allow you to quickly deploy components without being forced to deploy the full WSP. It is particularly useful when deploying artifacts such as .aspx pages, master pages etc…and very handy when debugging code-behind from SandBoxed , Farm solutions and even Timer Jobs.

It’s definitely an added value for every SharePoint developer.

Developer Dashboard

Documentation : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff512745.aspx

This one is built-in in SharePoint 2010 and makes it easy to take some performance metrics, helps identifying heavy components and understanding what’s going on behind the scenes since it also shows how SharePoint queries its SQL databases.

Once enabled on the page, you get some results about the overall page payload, the database queries and many other metrics:

Combining the use of the Dashboard with the built-in SPMonitoredScope class helps in getting a precise idea on how your components perform. As a practice, for important actions, you can imagine that kind of patterns in your code:

Using those preprocessing directives will ensure that some code blocks are always monitored specifically when the code runs in debug mode.

SPDisposeCheck

Available at http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/SPDisposeCheck

This one is an old tool but still a must-have. It has an add-on for Visual Studio so that it can be executed against your code when the project builds.

It helps to identify memory leaks or worse, disposed objects that shouldn’t have been disposed, sometimes causing issues that are quite difficult to troubleshoot.

WSPBuilder

Available at http://keutmann.blogspot.com/2009/12/wspbuilder-2010-beta.html

This tool has also been around for a while. This was incredibly useful in SharePoint 2007 since Visual Studio 2008 did not provide enough out of the box capabilities with regards to SharePoint solutions deployment. WSPBuilder clearly filled some gaps.

Admittedly, I’m using it less than before since Visual Studio 2010 is way better than Visual Studio 2008 regarding SharePoint solutions deployment but WSPBuilder can still be useful for batch and automated builds.

ULS Log Viewer

Available at http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=ULSViewer&DownloadId=7482

ULS Log Viewer is an advanced tool that helps in diagnosing SharePoint issues. It has a “real time” log viewing feature :

that you can combine with advanced filtering options :

That makes it a very handy pal when working with SharePoint.

SPLIT (SharePoint Log Investigation Tool)

Available at http://split.codeplex.com/

This tool is way less advanced than ULS Log Viewer but is also quite handy since it leverages the usefulness of the correlation ID. Since SharePoint 2010, any error generates a correlation ID. With SPLIT, you just need to paste that correlation ID in the UI and you’ll get all the correlated log lines :

Fiddler

Available at http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/

I use this tool very often. While we cannot consider it a SharePoint tool, it’s great help for the following :

In the context of SharePoint, Fiddler is particularly interesting when working with :

In the above screenshot, just opening the site with SharePoint Designer has generated the shown queries.

I remember that a while ago, I was charged with studying SharePoint Workspace and I used Fiddler to see what could be the server-side impact in terms of workload. Fiddler is definitely a great tool.

.NET Reflector

Available at http://www.reflector.net/

I don’t know if an introduction is needed since this tool has been around for a while. This is clearly the best .NET reverse engineering tool. Unfortunately, it is not free anymore.

A good substitute is dotNetPeek (http://confluence.jetbrains.net/display/NETPEEK/dotPeek+Early+Access+Program). The tool is still in Beta and is less advanced than .NET Reflector but it’s free   .

PowerGui

Available at http://powergui.org/downloads.jspa

Since PowerShell is a lot more integrated to SharePoint than in the past, admins and developers often write PowerShell scripts to perform automated deployment, automatic setup etc…

PowerGui can really help since it supports debugging and IntelliSense for PowerShell.

SharePoint Manager

Available at http://spm.codeplex.com/

This tool is very useful to inspect SharePoint. Whether you need to view or modify any kind of SharePoint object, SharePoint Manager is your friend.

It exposes a user-friendly UI :

and is one of the most downloaded SharePoint related CodePlex projects

Of course, let’s not forget Visual Studio 2010 itself  . Features such as code analysis, the test suite and basically all the ALM Microsoft suite with TFS.

Stephane Eyskens

Recent Articles by Stephane Eyskens

Comments

:) good tools

All the tools are good for SP :) but there is one tool missing is the "FAST Search for Sharepoint MOSS 2010 Query Tool" http://fastforsharepoint.codeplex.com/ will help users create the custom search query in the scopes. this are my 2 cents... :)

One more addition ...

GREAT list! All great tools for developers.

Another good option is Quest Web Parts for SharePoint. It helps developers rapidly build SharePoint applications that are easily supported, maintained and upgraded, using data from anywhere in the organization. Quest Web Parts enable you to finish projects sooner and deliver any scope of SharePoint customization, from interface enhancements that go beyond native SharePoint capabilities to complete applications that exceed user expectations.

Tools

Hi,

Thanks for your comments. I know Quest WebParts and they are indeed very powerfull but I wanted to highlight free tools first :).

I didn't know the FAST tool, will give it a try :).

I realize that I forgot to talk about the CAML Query Builder from Karine Bosch. It's also very handy!

Best Regards

Nice

U2U CAML Query Builder definitely deserves to be on this list

and what about SharePoint Software Factory?

I didn't use it so far but looks good: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fspsf.codeplex.com%2F&ei=EzDfTtr-DsaG-wbHurzBBQ&usg=AFQjCNG9Whjn_rWusvDxUuX43NLHknbVIw

I second U2U CAML Query builder

I agree, great list but U2U CAML Query builder is indispensable to me doing day to day development in SharePoint

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/devwiki/articles/Pages/My-top-10-tools-for-a-better-SharePoint-developer-experience.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

jQuery Slideshow (Carousel) in Sharepoint 2010

This is a solution to create a jQuery slideshow (carousel) in Sharepoint 2010. It is based on an image library, and uses the tinycarousel jQuery plugin. You should end up with something like this:

Skip to the section you need:

1. Column Settings

2. Page Layout

3. itemstyle.xsl

4. the CQWP

5. jQuery + CSS

Column Settings

Audience targeting: ON (so only some images can be seen by some people)

Extra Columns:

Page Layout

Create a page layout called “Slider” (or whatever you want).

Note:It’s necessary to use a custom page layout for this slideshow because we need to wrap the Content Query Webpart and call our custom jQuery.

Layout your page like this:

Create a new style in itemstyle.xsl

This is super simple. Create a new style named “adverts” (or whatever).

Then we’ll want to pull in the image, and wrap it in a link that goes to the URL we gave it.

Next, create a variable called “category”. We’ll pass this into the field that displays the icon based on the category of the picture (in my case, news, announcement, or calendar item).

Next we’ll put the caption below the image, calling the variable we just created.

Make sure to close your template.

See my final image below if it helps to put it all together:

The Content Query WebPart

The first set of settings for the CQWP are as follows:

Content Type

Show items of the “Document Content Types” group, and show items that have “picture” as the content type.

Audience Targeting

Make sure to enable audience filtering and include items that are not targeted. See the image below.

Additional Filter

Set the Start Date to “less than or equal to” [Today]

Set the End Date to “greater than or equal to” [Today]

This will show only items that are “active” today. See the image below.

Styles & Fields to Display

Set the item style to “adverts” (the xsl style we just created).

Set the fields according to the columns “Title”, “Ad Category”, and “Link to Page”. You can leave “FileRef” blank. See the image below.

jQuery & CSS

Last but definitely not least, let’s put the jQuery scripts in that make everything run. And then style everything with CSS.

In your page layout, add an ASP:Content placeholder like this (don’t forget to close it)

Within that placeholder, put the following script:

This assumes you have the standard jquery script already loaded in. As you can see, the settings for tinycarousel are very simple once you have the plugin linked in. Just make sure the id of “slider-code” indeed matches the id of the div you have wrapped your CQWP in.

the CSS

You can copy the css from below, or just click here to download my CSS file.

Ben Tedder

Recent Articles by Ben Tedder

Comments

Notify me of comments to this article

Add Comment

Top Contributors

Newsletter signup

Become a Contributor

This site is made by the community, for the community. To become a contributor, Click the button below.

Join the Community

This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/jQuery-Slideshow-Carousel-in-Sharepoint-2010.aspx

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu |

The Durban COPx ‘til we meet again, historically

By Christopher Horner

The annual “historic agreement” to meet again later — wait, sorry, that’s “to save the planet” — has been agreed, to the also-annual teary-eyed hugging and standing ovations by EU delegates, at “COP-17”, the negotiations to replace the expiring (after 2012) Kyoto Protocol.

On its face, the summary is that the rest of the world agreed to let Europe continue binding itself until some later date. Yesterday, ClimateWire reported that a fund was established to administer the fund agreed in Copenhagen two years ago. Oh.

AP tells us that “a separate document obliges major developing nations like China and India, excluded under Kyoto, to accept legally binding emissions targets in the future”, meaning in a separate document China et al bound themselves to bind themselves later. [So....uh, they bound themselves for later? No. They bound themselves to bind themselves later. THIRD BASE!]

Oddly, no one seems too proud of this latest “breakthrough”, described as countries binding themselves to bind themselves later. The UN isn’t providing what the Telegraph tells us is a whopping two-page text. Takes awhile, you see.

The State Department doesn’t seem too keen on trumpeting their latest “historic agreement”, either, but the home page’s Daily Press Briefing does offer “New Photovoltaic Project Inaugurated At U.S. Embassy in Athens” and “Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves Receives South-South Cooperation Award for Partnership”.

So whatever it was it was less historic than these advances. Or no one wants to draw too much attention.

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

21 Responses to The Durban COPx ‘til we meet again, historically

Well did they or didn’t they? Seems like take away is “lets party again soon”.

When not even the self-loathing flagellants of the EU commit themselves to another decade of growth-destroying measures you know it’s OVER.

“… no one wants to draw too much attention.”

That’s what it is. Very small steps, still pretending it’s about climate, but establishing a legally binding framework, even sucking out the money to enforce it out of the potential payers: the former wealthy industrialized world. Means the US, the EU, Australia, Japan …

And some of them are happily empowering the system that will kill their well-being.

And when their people wake up under, it will be too late.

Why is nobody taking Edenhofer’s NZZ interview serious? It’s all about redistribution of wealth under UN bodies.

The only firm agreement is that to have another party which, let’s be honest, was the important part.

From Cal65 on earlier thread: The UN plan will shift wealth from first world’s poor to third world’s rich without making any difference in climate control.

The UN is very good at agreeing to do things later.

Non-polluting cook stoves seems like a winner, though. I’m all in favor of something that let’s you do a bbq brisket indoors in the winter.

In the U.S., we call it “taking a rain check”.

My bet is that they don’t want anyone to know just how backhanded the dealing really was. They count on the mainstream media to “inform” the opiated masses. Whoops!

Nothing historic came out of Durban, but it is encouraging to see a multitude of nations trying to work together on what is becoming the most important issue of our time. Cooperative efforts on the scale necessary to take significant action on an issue of this complexity will not come easily. Those whom pessimistically work against this effort are working for economic collapse.

Open Letter to UK: This is an ever-shrinking window for you to get out of this EU nightmare – the only country of the group that ever understood economics surely doesn’t want the EU Lilliputians running (ruining) its affairs for them. You’ve tried to be nice. You’ve tried to indulge and even engage in their silliness by letting them tie you down. Very kind but you have a whole English-speaking world that you created to do business with. Get out now. Ask your citizens if they agree. Germany’s also welcome if they are interested in doing business.

I’m surprised the media are allowing the word ‘binding’ to be used in connection with China. Might recall a Chinese habit of times past, which Western feminists used to abhor until they became loyal Maoists themselves. Now everything China does is the perfect model of “gender equity.”

Of course binding feet isn’t nearly as bad as the CURRENT Chinese habit of killing girl babies before they’re born. But we aren’t supposed to mention that either.

its time the US did three things….

One: remove itself from the UN…

Two: Evict them from our soil..

Three: remove the laws that are choking us to death…

We need some serious cleanup after the crap these liars keep spewing..

It seems Durbin will be the point at which bad science is no longer used as a stealth mechanism for the far left to ride behind. No longer is this about the science of warming, but all about the revenge of the naive.

BTW, in case anyone is interested in more occurrences of hiding of contrary data, I found an email where Ray Bradly and Keith Briffa decide to pull a study in the 2002 IPCC report drafting because it showed to much MWP.

The idea of getting a real job producing enough to merely “sustain” even themselves alone would seem to be anathema to each and every one of these parasitic “Occupiers”. Ecological Overshoot strikes again!

If the Durban bash had any validity it would have agreed to

- Cut emissions, not jobs.

- Support societies in the third world, not get rich quick schemes.

- Donate ploughs and tools, not guns, bullets and airports.

- Focus on the real needs that people have, the here and now, and not the maybe and later if models are correct.

As it is, the party season rolls on and the grand hijacking of the environmentalist movement in a classic capitalist scam remains secure and our money continues to be diverted from good causes to those who have no need of it , and those who have already ruined or economies.

And so, as we leave Durban, it’s on to Qatar where, by the end of two weeks (26 November to 7 December 2012) the delegates will be wandering around bleary-eyed and exhausted. From hard work? Don’t be silly kiddies; it’s the Conference of the Parties.

Bill H says:

December 11, 2011 at 8:11 am

its time the US did three things….

One: remove itself from the UN…

Two: Evict them from our soil..

Three: remove the laws that are choking us to death…

We need some serious cleanup after the crap these liars keep spewing..

Any chance of a hand over here in the Uk Bill?

Lots and lots of crap over here to get cleared. ;)

On another note: How can you lower carbon dioxide emissions by MORE than 100%???? (scratches head).

The Washington Post runs a real puff-piece this morning (Sunday) on page 8. It’s one of the few articles they’ve run about Durban over the last 2 weeks.

It’s basically a press release and mimics the “last minute talks salvage the deal” theme of AP, Reuters, ABC, and all other mainstream leftist press. The only quoted “critics” of Durban – I guess to support the cynical illusion of press objectivity – laughably include the National Resources Defense Council, Friends of the Earth, and the Union of Concerned [non] Scientists.

There is not one single word of criticism about global warming generally, the UNFCCC, the hypocritically luxuriant COP meetings, or even about the U.S. participation in these sham proceedings. Presumably the WashPost cannot locate a single critic in the whole of Durban or Washington DC.

They are as bad as BBC and the ABC (which I notice quotes the criticisms of the Greens for “balance”).

“… U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres acknowledged the final wording on the legal form a future deal was ambiguous: “What that means has yet to be decided.”

That’s a sentence from the Reuters team, including a quote for the ages. The meaning of the wording is undecided. You don’t say?

sceptical says:

December 11, 2011 at 7:57 am

“Nothing historic came out of Durban, but it is encouraging to see a multitude of nations trying to work together on what is becoming the most important issue of our time.”

I, probably unlike you, actually saw the end of it on a live stream and there was NOTHING encouraging about this chaotic mess. “Dear excellences… some delegations say that they don’t have a copy of the document… We have distributed enough copies of the document…” (10 minutes before they wanted to perform their silly consensus dance which is not a vote about this document.)

EXCELLENCES, that’s how they address each other, well, I guess cockroaches talk to each other like that as well.

sceptical says:

December 11, 2011 at 7:57 am

Nothing historic came out of Durban, but it is encouraging to see a multitude of nations trying to work together on what is becoming the most important issue of our time.

Oh really? Which “issue” is that now? Which nations to rob from and how much, and which nations get a pass for now, and which ones get the spoils? That issue?

Cooperative efforts on the scale necessary to take significant action on an issue of this complexity will not come easily.

Yes, I suppose that’s true. It’s complicated, trying to agree on who pays what, when, and who benefits from what amounts to a global fleecing of “rich” countries, all based on weak or non-existent science.

Those whom pessimistically work against this effort are working for economic collapse.

You seem to have it backwards, but nice try.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/11/copx-til-we-meet-again-historically/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

The True Failure of Durban

Guest post by Dennis Ray Wingo

First I want to say thanks to Anthony for providing this forum for the discussion of climate in a different sense, that is to focus on Durban and what this conference means from the wider perspective of the direction of our global civilization.

When I was young and beginning in the world of technology I complained to my mentor, my company’s regional manager, about a bad performance review delivered to me by a boss who I and he thought was incompetent. His response was to say that “a performance review can be used as a tool or as a bludgeon”. The same thing is true about CO2 and its role on the global stage as providing a tool whereby the technocrats of the UN and its NGO’s seek to reorganize our planetary civilization In keeping with their desired future.

The fear of the negative consequences of the emission of CO2 is being used as a tool to bludgeon the developed world into economic and political suicide. We in the west are told that we must commit this suicide because we must commit to a “Fair and equitable allocation of the atmospheric space, taking into account the criteria of historic climate debt and population;” [bullet 33g of the FCCC/AWGLCA/2011/CRP.39 document]. We are told that the only just and equitable way to do this is to transfer large sums of money to the Non-Annex 1 world and that we must have peak CO2 emissions in Annex 1 (western civilization) immediately [bullet 33d, bullet 32].

There are two critical assumptions that underpin the entire Durban conference as well as previous efforts; the first assumption is that we live in a limited world and that this wealth transfer and the immediate cessation of CO2 emissions is the only possible path toward a “sustainable” future. The second is that technology cannot solve the problem but politics can. What are these assumptions built upon and are they valid? Is this the only path forward? Are we destined to leave our global posterity in a state of perpetual semi-poverty? Human nature rebels against this doom and gloom view of the future, and with good reason.

The Assumptions

I do not wish to seem overdramatic, but I can only conclude from the information that is available to me as Secretary-General, that the Members of the United Nations have perhaps ten years left in which to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership to curb the arms race, to improve the human environment, to defuse the population explosion, and to supply the required momentum to development efforts. If such a global partnership is not forged within the next decade, then I very much fear that the problems that I have mentioned will have reached staggering proportions that they will be beyond our capacity to control.

Who said this? This statement could have very well have been the preamble to the Durban conference but it actually was uttered by UN Secretary General U Thant in 1969 and is included as the introduction to the book, Limits to Growth. The book “Limits to Growth” (LTG) is the touchstone of the environmental movement as well as the ultimate source of the two underpinning assumptions of the Durban conference.

The Limited Earth

The first assumption that the Earth is all we have and that our resources are limited to only what we have here. This is a patently false assumption. In 2005 I was invited to contribute a chapter to a book on “Spacepower Theory” which was commissioned by the defense department as an extension of Clauswitz’s classic “Landpower Theory”, Alfred Mahan’s “Seapower Theory”, and General Billy Mitchell’s “Airpower Theory”. In my chapter on the “Economic Development of the Solar System as the Heart of a Spacepower Theory”, a word was coined and defined.

“geocentric” is defined as a mindset that sees spacepower and its application as focused primarily on actions, actors, and influences on earthly powers, the earth itself, and its nearby orbital environs. (available online at the NDU press here)

The underpinning assumption that the Earth and its resources constitutes all the wealth that exists for humans to access and use is by definition a geocentric mindset and has been falsified by the last three decades of NASA, ESA, and other nations scientific probes sent to the Moon and beyond. Just in the last few years we have discovered billions of tons of water on the Moon to support propulsion, trillions of tons of aluminum, titanium, iron, Uranium, thorium and other rare Earth metals along with Platinum Group Metals, Cobalt, nickel and iron derived from asteroid impacts. In the asteroid belt are untold riches of water, metals and other resources yet to be identified. Just a single small metal asteroid, 3554 Amun, has tens of trillions of dollars worth of metals, and an asteroid of the same type, 216 Cleopatra, has a billion trillion times more resources of the same type. We now know that Mars has extensive water resources and the two rovers Spirit and Opportunity, found in just a few kilometers of driving, enough metallic asteroid fragments to kick start industry on Mars. It is absurd to think that the geocentric mindset of LTG and today in Durban is correct.

No Faith In Technology

The supposed inability of technology to solve our current problems is the other key assumption of LTG and today in Durban. To anyone who understands history and technology this is absurd but here is what the authors of LTG say about technology;

Applying technology to the natural pressures that the environment exerts against any growth process has been so successful in the past that a whole culture has evolved around the principle of fighting against limits rather than learning to live with them. This culture has been reinforced by the apparent immensity of the earth and its resources and by the relative smallness of man and his activities….

(page 156, Limits to Growth)

… We have felt it necessary to dwell so long on an analysis of technology here because we have found that technological optimism is the most common and the most dangerous reaction to our findings from the world model. Technology can relieve the symptoms of a problem without affecting the underlying causes. Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all fundamental problems can thus divert our attention from the most fundamental problem – the problem of growth in a finite system – and prevent us from taking effective action to solve it.

(Page 159, LTG)

If you think that this thought pattern is one of the 1970’s, here is what Al Gore said in his book, Earth in the Balance in 1992:

It is important, however, to remember that there is a great danger in seeing technology alone as the answer to the environmental crisis. In fact, the idea that new technology is the solution to all our problems is a central part of the faulty way of thinking that created the crisis in the first place.

Unless we come to a better understanding of both the potential and the danger of technology, the addition of more technological power simply ensures further degradation of the environment, and no matter what new technologies we discover, no matter how cleverly and efficiently we manage to get them into the hands of people throughout the world, the underlying crisis will worsen unless, at the same time, we redefine our relationship to the environment, stabilize human population, and use every possible means to bring the earth back into balance.

(Page 328, Earth in the Balance)

Technology and technological development, in the form of the industrial revolution (the faulty way of thinking according to Gore), has done more to lift mankind out of poverty than all of the political systems tried in the entire one hundred and seventy thousand year history of our species put together. It is amazing that this neo Luddite attitude could exist today, but it does, and as an example of how it influences the Durban conference, only 15% of the money from their massive wealth transfer would be applied to developing technology. That is less than their administrative overhead! At the end of the day, this a key divergence between the NGO’s and technocrats of the UN and those of us who see another way, one rooted in finding solutions to the problems that confront us today.

Developing an Alternative

Let us, for the sake of the hypothetical and to put us on the same page as the delegates in Durban, let us grant the following:

Let us set as the requirements the following as well:

Unfortunately the requirements of brevity in this forum preclude an advanced treatment of this but lets lay the groundwork and if the reader wants more it can be provided in the future.

Energy

The first area to attack is energy. At the end of the day, energy is the key to the future. Just think that if a megawatt of electrical power was as inexpensive as a kilowatt is today, how many things would be different. A trash compactor could atomize your trash and separate it into its basic constituents for recycling. You could easily create your own hydrogen at home for your fuel cell car. Mining on the Earth could extract metals from base rock with oxygen as the waste product.

Half of the $100 billion per year would be spent on a crash program to develop various fusion technologies, including advanced forms of the National Ignition Facility, Polywell Fusion, Thorium fission, and the “traditional” ITER type Tokomak fusion. Applying this much money to these energy technologies would do far more than all of the political world shaping of the wealth transfer of Durban. Providing advanced energy sources would do far more than solar panels or wind turbines to power a prosperous civilization. Both solar and wind are inherently low energy multiple technologies, meaning that the energy that you get out of either of these is only low multiples of the energy that it takes the make, install, and maintain them.

If we put the proper amount of resources into these energy technologies, then we would “solve” the CO2 problem as a side benefit and we could build a world energy grid that would do more than all the antipoverty programs in place today put together to improve life on Earth. In researching the history of the industrial revolution, human lifespan has been directly proportional to the amount of inexpensive energy available to us. human lifespans in the west went from 35 years of age in the year 1700 to almost 50 years of age at the peak of the age of coal in 1900. Today at the peak of the oil age that number has climbed to almost 80 years in Annex 1 countries. It is also in the advanced energy countries where population growth has dropped to replacement or even below. There is a direct correlation between wealth and population and it is far more fun to make everyone wealthy than to make everyone suffer in poverty as would be the ultimate result of Durban.

Space Resource Development

In just the past few years the Lunar Recon Orbiter, the LCROSS, and other missions have made a very preliminary map of the resources available on the surface of the Moon. It is inevitable that there are upside surprises waiting us there. Despite the problems of NASA in getting us back to the Moon, to the Moon is our first destination. Let us apply the other $50 billion a year to an effort to begin the industrialization of the Moon. In inflation adjusted terms, this is still only 40% of the budget spent per year at the peak of the Apollo program. If it is that important, then we can increase that budget to the full $100 billion a year (we are talking about building a sustainable global civilization) on a multi-pronged effort in this area.

This would not just be a NASA effort or a NASA, ESA, JAXA effort but an effort that would provide the means whereby private enterprise could contribute through their own efforts and funds. Tax relief, prizes, and other incentives. We begin with the industrialization of the Moon and the construction of a transportation infrastructure to allow humans to easily move about in the inner solar system. The resources of the Moon enable this. We move forward to build infrastructure in geosynch orbit that are many times larger than today, to enable communications and remote sensing infrastructure that would fundamentally transform our global society for the better.

These are not fantasies, these are not science fiction ideas, they are 100% doable today. The problem has been that the financial support has not been there, even considering the $18 billion dollar a year NASA. NASA is not designed to lead the economic development of the solar system, nor should it be, this is something that the American people and our fellows in western civilization are uniquely qualified to do. Dr. John Marburger, the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Bush administration had a marvelous speech on this subject at the Goddard symposium in 2006. In it he said:

The ultimate goal is not to impress others, or merely to explore our planetary system, but to use accessible space for the benefit of humankind. It is a goal that is not confined to a decade or a century. Nor is it confined to a single nearby destination, or to a fleeting dash to plant a flag. The idea is to begin preparing now for a future in which the material trapped in the Sun’s vicinity is available for incorporation into our way of life.

This is the alternative to the Durban failure that should be investigated and I submit that if we did this, our future would be far better in the year 2100 than even the most optimistic scenarios developed in any of these conferences that focus on how to split the existing pie up in a way that supports their political proclivities. We want to build a far bigger pie. Today the average welfare recipient in the United States lives a life style that Augustus Caesar or the greatest emperor of old China would think of as magic. Our goal should be to create a world in the year 2100 where the poor live a lifestyle that George Soros would envy.

Beyond Artificial Limits

For those of us who work in the space business and who develop new architectures for lunar development and beyond it seems absurd that these false assumptions should underpin serious global deliberations at crafting a better future for the citizens of our planetary civilization. This at the end of the day is my greatest objection to the role that climate scientists play in the arena of solutions to the “CO2 problem”. Whether or not you believe that CO2 is the secular apocalypse, one thing is certain, the people that are trained in the arcane science of climate proxies are inadequate in training and incompetent in execution of something as large as architecting a future for our civilization. We must open up the boundaries of the discussion to include energy development on the Earth and resource development off planet as serious and viable alternatives to plans such as the failed ones being drawn up in places like Durban.

There is a future out there, a glorious one, that while it may not solve all of our problems, it will certainly get us beyond these artificial limits to growth.

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

78 Responses to The True Failure of Durban

The UN plan will shift wealth from the first world’s poor to the third world’s rich without making any difference in climate control.

Great article! It exposes the fallacy of Durbin while providing optimism for the future if we have the fortitude and common sense to grasp it!

Half of the $100 billion per year would be spent on a crash program to develop various fusion technologies, including advanced forms of the National Ignition Facility, Polywell Fusion, Thorium fission, and the “traditional” ITER type Tokomak fusion.

Actually, 1% of 1% of that amount directed to the (totally privately funded to date) DPF project at LPPhysics.com would see the start of implementation of fusion generation within 5 yrs. It is already at least an order of magnitude closer to “unity” than any other project, and should reach it during 2012. Its ultimate cost of capital and output would be around 5% of the best N.A. retail levels. Dispatchable, distributed, waste-free, radiation-free, direct electric output (no steam turbines needed), etc. Check it out.

Interesting article. Not for the first time, much more intelligent commentary (and comments) on the skeptic blogosphere than can be found on the MSM sites.

The Grauniad piece does, however, capture something of the febrile atmosphere at the closing stages and will make people on here chuckle.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/10/un-climate-change-summit-durban

Interesting that comments on the Grauniad piece (dateline 11 December) were already closed by 07:30 am on 11 December. Maybe due to the number of naughty skeptics commenting?

They are struggling to keep this scam on the road. But it isn’t about climate or science, it is all about power (political! Not energy!) and money.

I’m sure we’ve several years of this to look forward to in the UK. And the likes of BuffHuhne are more than happy to throw the economy under a bus.

Heh, seemingly trite on first glance, by very poignant when you look at the meaning.

Cal65, I salute your concise brevity!

I was watching/listening to overtime “debate” at Durban, earlier today. And I was struck by the way in which questions to the effect of we need some clarification regarding ‘what we are approving/accepting’ were dealt with. [They weren't!]

The media-spin is that “194 governments” have signed on to this “package” [which few could have examined] I’m not sure how this could have transpired since some delegations had already left

But my reading of this “deal” is that all they’ve succeeded in doing is kicking the can down the road a few years.

Nonetheless, the fact that WWF are not happy campers about this “deal” gives one cause for cautious optimism.

`… the emission of CO2 is being used as a tool to bludgeon the developed world into economic and political suicide’

Stopped reading at that point.

Sure, there is a lot to criticise about Durdan thing, but this sort of hyperbole does the opposition view no credit.

We don’t need fusion. It’s pie in the sky anyway. We don’t need to spend billions of dollars in search of some esoteric technology. Let’s use the technology we ALREADY HAVE. China is now embarking on what is essentially a carbon copy (so to speak) of the United States’ nuclear energy vision of the 1960′s. They are building large numbers of plants with several fast neutron reactors to fuel cycle management so they can recycle/re-use their spent fuel. They will have essentially a secure, low cost electricity generation infrastructure that does not rely on external sources of supply. They can convert depleted uranium into fuel in the fast neutron reactors. All those bullets we were firing in Iraq could be collected up and used for nuclear fuel by transmutation to plutonium. Yes, it’s plutonium but not a good kind for making bombs with because it will also contain quite a bit of P240. P240 is nearly impossible to separate from P239 and it has the nasty habit of spontaneous fission, something you do NOT want to happen in a bomb. Basically, this process effectively “poisons” the plutonium and makes it very undesirable for use as anything other than reactor fuel.

If the US went back to its original nuclear electric plan, electric cars and trains would be a viable alternative. They make no sense now because we do not have either the generation capacity or distribution capacity to migrate any significant portion of our transportation infrastructure to electricity. We could nearly immediately cut 50% of our greenhouse gas emissions right now if we simply decided it was really all that important. But it isn’t really about CO2 at all, it is about where the money goes.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

That is the vision of real human beings who wish well for mankind. The defeatist attitude of these global socialists is just disgusting. We are much better than that. We can and will ensure humankind goes on to better and better things.

I have often stated that even here on Earth we have barely pricked the surface. The solid crust averages 30km thick all over the Earth and yet people say that the riches within it are finite! Perhaps in an absolute meaning they are but for all practical purposes they are infinite.

In the end it is all about energy. The more we have the higher we can climb yet we have these hand wringing socialists trying to artificially limit our access to energy because it “will” run out eventually. Well it won’t and this colossus called man will continue to build and spread throughout the cosmos because that is what we are, dominant and resourceful.

Socialism is a sickness that seeks to reward failure and handicap success. The desire to give money to nations that aren’t capable of managing their own affairs will simply lead to more of the same. The failure of so many societies is due to their inability to evolve successful social constructions not because of anything the rich democracies have done to them. In fact the rich democracies have brought many good and beneficial things to the third world thanks to the success of their economic, technological and organizational models. We never hear praise for this but without these things the third world’s populations would be as they were a century ago, about 5% the size they are today.

Socialism is a parasitic system that severely weakens the host and it should be obvious to anyone that this is the case. Allow everyone the space to succeed and allow the failures to wither and die that way you get more success because everybody takes responsibility for themselves and their actions.

Mr Wingo, you are correct, the only limits on mankind are the ones that exist in their minds.

It is great to read the thoughts of someone who is looking forward, in a positive way, rather than backward, in a negative, guilt-ridden way.

The points about resources outside our planet are well made, and offer a useful perspective. However, the perspective needs to include that, for example, Australia’s coal resources alone are enough to meet global demand for at least 100 years.

I agree that there has been a general chickening-out of space research and activity, while billions have been diverted to climate related scams. Quite frankly, even if the space projects didn’t produce much in terms of their objectives, I would still prefer that the money was spent there. It is a bit like the many expeditions that left Europe to explore the world. Most of them failed, and cost a motza, but in the end, it was the dawn of a whole new world, with huge benefits for everyone.

Thanks for this post, which reminds us that the spirit of optimism and exploration is not dead.

Excellent article. I agree completely. Mankind is doomed if we are only content to live on this earth. Eventually something will take us out. Technological advance is the only way to save the human race long term. We should be spending 100 billion a yr of fusion technology instead of stupid windmills and work towards establishing a colony on Mars.

Thanks Dennis, that’s an interesting perspective with which I heartily agree!…… My thought on harvesting resources from space is that it won’t be available anytime soon, but we’ll get there. Technology development has always been the answer for the human condition to move forward. And, while the resources on earth are somewhat limited….sort of, technology ensures that our uses of the resources will be unlimited. When our fuel does work, we’re not destroying anything, we’re just moving its form around. And, as I’ve stated for some time now, abundant, cheap and available energy is key to economic development. It can not happen with out it. And that economic development is what pushes and allows for technological advancement.

The sooner we get the world to understand this, the sooner we can be rid of those maniacs gathering in Durbin. Which, in an of itself would be an improvement to the human experience world wide.

So where is the science? Anyone prove that C02 does anything except grow plants. Where is the science?

Yes, technology has falsified Malthus’s prediction that mankind is doomed to poverty because the Earth’s resources are limited. And yes, the main limit is energy. To get one unit of food energy from modern agricultural products we need to input 10 times that energy and most of it from fossil fuels.

Today we focus on global warming as a hazard. Let us hope that truly the risk is one sided. We can cope with secular warming at the currently observed rate. At least we are told that the trend is secular. But for all we know, the Earth is still recovering from the Little Ice Age, a cold period short enough that it drove my great-grandfather to Canada sometime during the 1840s.

Thus, I believe is that there is also a risk of global cooling, with cycles or pseudo-cycles of various lengths. If so, only technology can save us.

My God – I hadn’t even *heard* of the National Ignition Facility, Polywell, or Thorium fission until today – and l the rest of the world is still caught up in this superstitious, devolutionary Gaia-religion BULL$HIT!

Is there ANY hope for humanity as long as the troglodytes are running the mainstream media and governments?

Great Post unfortunately the agenda is about control and money and not finding solutions to non existent problems. The problem is political not scientific. The article you have written proves this to be the case for it is by any ones criteria the way towards a solution, except the political motivated.

Durban has come and gone.

Thankfully, it was as great a success as Copenhagen and did not commit the western world to economic suicide. Thank you China and India!

Time is not on the side of the alarmists, unless there are a string of super El Ninos over the next few years, as the global climate is not behaving as per their forecasts, and their ‘science’ is shown to be increasingly a sham, a combination of cherry picking, plus manipulated and distorted data manipulation.

alternative fuels, blah!

what is wrong with co2.

May i introduce you to the Johnson co2 generator for Greenhouses, at a cheap cost it pushes up co2 to 1000ppm.

Dennis,

You speak the words of my heart!

We, as a Species, must raise our eyes from the navel lint gazing of AGW and the false dichotomy of ‘limited resources’ and reach for the treasures that the solar system offers! Ours is a natural progression. First you crawl. Then you walk. And finally, with coordination and confidence, you run.

First, we crawled up to hunter – gatherer clans, from clovis point stone tools, to hammered seam copper knifes and ornaments, and onto the basic industrial metallurgy of King Solomon’s mines. We toddled on with Da Vinci’s natural studies and Newton’s Principia. We gained confident stride with Boyle’s Ideal Gas, Einstein’s Theories, Heisenberg’s Uncertainties, and all of the other building blocks that support today’s modern mathematics, physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, engineering, and technology. And yet, this is not enough. It is just a good beginning! I and my species must Run! Crawling and walking is not enough! We must learn to run, from earth’s moon to Mars and the asteroid belt beyond! And from thence, to the moons of Saturn and on to the Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud! We have a full solar system to explore, a treasure trove of new knowledge, new resources, and new mysteries just now within our reach and beckoning us with wonders that dwarf the resources of earth. We simply have no time to waste on the mewling and puking of the limited perspectives and retrograde orbits of the modern day AGW Luddites. The need to see what is ‘over the horizon’ is a genetic imperative that cannot be denied, for those of us encoded with the frontiersman DNA! We Must Run!!!

“There is a future out there, a glorious one, …” Aye, a glorious future indeed! Let’s go get it, Dennis! And take a bunch of friends along with us……

MtK

The Durban financial calculations are a joke, would have benefited from expertise of a good statistician, kind of Mr. Grant Foster (better known as Tamino).

Hopefully to support this thoughtful article here is an extract from Buckminster Fuller’s book “Utopia or Oblivion” p12-13

“…Average lifespan expectantly for our classmates born circa 1895 as then calculated by the life-insurnace actuaries, was 42 years. During our lifetime, the average life expectancy in the United States has increased to 70 years. Up to the time we were born, the average total distance covered by a member of humanity in his all-time average lifespan of 27 years was 30,000 miles. My total travel to date, by land, sea and air, is a hundredfold that distance. It aggregates more than 3,000,000 miles and now, at 72 years, I find my work often taking me annually several times around the world with many lesser to-and-froings. This is in no wise a unique record. It is average for ever-increasing millions of humans who have responsibilities in the vast frontiers of technology, business, and statecraft of a swiftly emerging sperical world city. Today’s air hostesses far ourtravel me, and Gemini astronauts outdistanced my 3,000,000 limes in one week’s orbiting. Quite clearly, a complete transformation of human ecology in universe is occurring. It is not surprising that man, burdened with obsolete ‘knowledge’ – his spontaneous reflexing conditioned only by past experience, and as yet unable to realize himself as being already world man – fails to comprehend and cope logically with the birth of Universe Man….”

“The European Union will place its current emission-cutting pledges inside the legally-binding Kyoto Protocol, a key demand of developing countries.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16124670

having found disagreement, the disagreers have agreed to extend their disagreement till 2015.Until then they will happily continue to find disagreement with the hope of extending their disagrrement till 2020, until all those presently receiveing 5 figure salaries from their governments and the UN will reach pensionable age and ths saving THEIR corner of the planet from climate change

Mate Nkoana-Mashabane, the president of the Durban conference and South Africa’s foreign minister, said:

“We have saved planet earth for the future of our children and our great grand children to come. We have made history.”

Who does she think she is? – The Empress of the New Galactic Order?

R2D2 would go fall over backwards at that one and C3PO would flap his arms in an hysterical fit.

But where do we find some real thought provoking words of wisdom? In WUWT no less.

“There is a future out there, a glorious one”… Great stuff Jedi Master Wingo – I agree – We must reach for the stars – It is our destiny!

Look, I’ll buy polywell fusion, I’ll buy NIF fusion, I might even buy cold fusion, but don’t try to tell me there is any prospect of net energy from Tokamak fusion! If that could be done by funding, we would have had it decades ago.

Beware! The Warmists have won the argument : the world is warming, we told you so! The world has started cooling, BECAUSE you are doing what we told you to do! Get out of that, as the late lamented Eric Morcambe said (for UK readers.)

Anthea

Hope you don’t mind my repeating what I wrote about this ‘deal’ on the Telegraph website:-

A deal to to create the first steps towards an unelected world government run by unelected political appointees whose first interest is to serve their own interests and their marxist political agenda.

A deal to destroy western economies based on the lunacy of demented deceivers like Huhne and the rest of the self-opinionated, secret-agenda, science-corrupting) watermelons .

The light of democracy grows weaker by the day as the UN follows in the footsteps of the EU where democratically elected governments can now be changed and replaced with unelected EU politburo placemen.

Be afraid, be very afraid as the future grows a lot darker and those of us who believe we live in democracies face being forced back into the voiceless serfdom of the dark ages.

Tbear,

Thank you for warning everyone that you have a closed mind. I’d be surprised if you knew where Durban was located.

Tokamak Fusion ? How long has it been attempted, 50 years????

We can’t solve our problems by a re-allocation of resources. Our problems can only be solved by technology.

The doomsayers have been with us since Malthus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe The reason society has not already collapsed is that we have:

1 – Used technology to increase production

2 – Used technology to use less material to do the same things.

3 – Used technology to substitute new materials to replace rare or diminishing resources.

We have a tiger by the tail. If our problems get ahead of our ability to solve them, society might collapse. The only thing that will save us is our ability to innovate.

Innovation depends on economic surplus. If everyone spends all their time grubbing for bare sustenance, there will be no time or resources for innovation. What do we have to worry about: “ignorance and greed… bad government, unjust laws, or war,” http://www.henrygeorge.org/pchp7.htm

Excellent article and details succinctly what we need to be doing. It’s not clear where the human race lost its technologic optimism. I remember the days of seemingly unlimited options in the 1960′s when, with what now seems like primitive technology, we made it to the moon. My expectation was that this would result in human settlement of the moon and the movie 2001 provided a time frame during which this process would happen.

I watched the movie again in 2001 and was very disappointed in the progress that had occurred during the 30 year period when we should have been able to take space vacations at the orbiting Hilton Hotel by now. The Limits to Growth idiocy and the inane idea of “sustainability” seem to have displaced technologic progress as primary human goals. Where we have seen immense progress is in power of computers which are still increasing their processing speed and memory capacity in accordance with Moore’s Law. It’s nice to have a supercomputer on my desktop and the power of a 1960′s mainframe in my cell phone, but what I really want is the ability to leave this gravity well.

One of the drivers behind the anti-technologic forces is the dramatic dumbing down of education over the past 3 decades with the mathematics and science skills of high school graduates now being absysmal. The geocentric approach, especially when earth resources are considered to be small and finite has done a great deal to spread the meme of the earths resources as a zero sum game.

The way in which the anti-technologic forces can prevent human progress is with their focus on extremely low energy density techologies. Wind and solar power have niche applications in remote areas far from a power line, but the proposal to power a modern technologic society with such low energy density power sources is simply madness and one needs to look at what the hidden reasons are for insisting on return to power sources that were rejected by our far smarter forebearers when they discovered my energy dense sources than intermittent wind. Curiously, a very renewable energy source, hydroelectric power which is economically sound to exploit is villified by the “environmentalists” because it means creating artificial lakes. I guess the lakes created by melting ice and major rearrangents to the underlying landscape beyond miles of ice are considered “natural” whenever we get a periodic ice age.

One of the things that technologists can do is to rewrite the Gaia model to reflect what an earth size superorganism was likely really trying to do. Assuming that Gaia created an intelligent species with the ability to rapidly modify its environment, then human technologic process is one of Gaia’s goals. Gaia got lonely and wanted to communicate with other complex world sized organisms like herself and needed a species with technologic prowness to make contacts for Gaia. We have to get into the mindset that everything we do is natural and our human constructions are just as much of the natural environment as corral reefs are.

The other thing that needs to be done is to fight every “sustainable” energy project at the local level with the appropriate level of ridicule to stop this waste of money. We need much more energy at a far lower cost to continue our technologic journey. Given the totalitarian proclivities of large parts of the earths population, the initial goal might be to simply create a space civilization and leave the neo-Luddites to their regressive policies. There might be treatments for pychopathologies which result in people entering politics primarily to obtain control over other people in the next 1-2 decades.

There is a future out there, a glorious one…

Thank you, Dennis Ray Wingo. Even many of us with little knowledge can feel that glory in our bones; and a sickness in our hearts that mean spirits and shrivelled souls can work so tirelessly, and often so successfully, to steal it from us.

It is they who would take the bread from the mouths, and the joy from the hearts of our children yet to be born; and bring misery to so many, adult and child alike, today.

With this posting on WUWT? I believe you have made a difference; and deserve wide gratitude for reminding us of the dream that is a reality if we will but lift our eyes. We have always known; but our spirits have been dulled.

We do need reminding.

AGW ist Kaput

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,802896,00.html

I note one of the ideals is to “defuse the population explosion” by making everyone equally wealthy. I hope they have enough time. It took over two hundred years of industrial development to drive up current personal wealth levels in the west.

When I was born in 1940 world population was about 2 billion. World population had passed the 1 billion mark by 1900. We have just past 7 billion in 2011 and are guaranteed to pass 8 billion by 2020. I make that a population doubling every 40 years so by 2060 we should have 16 billion and by 2100 when sea levels have risen by any number of metres population of 32 billion with standing room only will see an end to all this drivel.

Thank you for that Dennis.

The conflict between your point of view and that of the Durban people was summed up by Poul and Karen Anderson in their 1971 story “Murphy’s Hall”. The story tells of a teenage boy’s fantasy about a place called Murphy’s Hall where the dead spacers go whose luck runs out.

The last three paragraphs have haunted me ever since I read them in 1971when our retreat from space was already obvious.

” Me. And you. And you. And you in the future, if you exist. In the end Murphy’s Law gets us all. But we, my friends, must go to him the hard way. Our luck didn’t run out. Instead, the decision that could be made was made. It was decided for us that our race – among the trillions which must be out there wondering what lies beyond their skies – is not supposed to have either discipline or dreams. No our job is to make everybody nice and safe and equal, and if this happens to be impossible, then nothing else matters.

If I went to that place – and I’m glad this is a lie – I’d keep remembering what we might have done and seen and known and been and loved.

Murphy’s Hell.”

It is sometimes difficult to be optimistic when you see setback after setback but considering what is at stake we cannot stop the fight.

What a load of crap.

There is nothing I dislike more than people who treat energy with the same nonsense as a perpetual motion machine.

The whole environmental perspective is one that says: “technology is the saviour”. That is why environmentalists are so pro-renewable energy.

The whole thrust of this article is that “technology is the saviour” … therefore we can ignore anyone who disagrees that we will be saved by spending billions on developing new technology because only the true believers in new technology know the truth, the divine truth and nothing but the truth.

It’s just the same nonsense dressed up to suck the public purse dry for another group of money-parasites who have always claimed the reason they haven’t (yet) delivered is because we haven’t handed them enough of our money, diverted enough resources and given them enough power to control society so they can develop their hair-brained schemes.

Interesting. The “99%” in the U.S. are the 1% amongst and compared with the billions in India, China, Asia, and Africa. I wonder how they feel about that.

Thanks for this perspective, and for tracing the origins of the hysteria. From an observant American’s always-skeptical-toward-politicians-and-authoritarians viewpoint, the abuse of science toward political ends is not new. Remember Hitler’s scientists ‘proved’ there was a superior race called ‘aryan’. There will always be people who feel superior to others and who believe it is their right to control them… Civilization has always battled these types for every ounce of freedom gained. If the West wants to return to paganism and earth/animal worship, others will push forward in technology, and our way of life will be a footnote in history. I personally do not see that happening, because most Americans just want the controllers to leave them alone to pursue the American dream, despite the Pravda-like msm.

@Wingo

Last night in republican debate Romney snidely and clumsily said, in response to being asked for examples of where he disagrees with Gingrich, “I don’t we should be considering establishing a manufacturing facility on the moon, we have too much to do right here on the earth.” Gingrich unabashedly defended the notion of manufacturing on the moon and regaled the audience of what NASA was like when he was a young man and said the nation needs these kinds of things to inspire its youth to pursue science and techology. Gingrich really took Mitt to school in that response. Actually old Newt pretty much takes anyone to school who dares to engage with him. I’m really starting to like Newt Gingrich but I never doubted he was the smartest guy standing on that stage.

richard says:

December 11, 2011 at 2:05 am

“alternative fuels, blah! what is wrong with co2.”

The only thing wrong with CO2 is there isn’t enough of it. Mark my words, as soon as synthetic biology takes off in a big way and we are very very cheaply manufacturing all manner of things using sunlight, air, dirt, and water we will need laws limiting how much CO2 can be removed from the atmosphere rather than limiting how much can be added. Carbon is a basic component in millions of useful materials from hydrocarbon fuels to carbon-fiber composite construction panels, car bodies, etc. The handiest source of carbon, found everywhere, is CO2 in the air. We need it all and then some. Drill baby drill. It’s all good.

Mining planets and asteroids? Talk about a pipe dream. Real problems here on Earth like resource depletion and environmental degradation require practical solutions.

TBear (Sydney, where it has finally warmed up, but just a bit …) says:

December 11, 2011 at 12:12 am

Sure, there is a lot to criticise about Durdan thing, but this sort of hyperbole does the opposition view no credit.

One suspects you are not of the “opposition view.”

Quite so. Life expands to fill the space available, it always has and us humans can continue this prime impulse to survive, procreate and grow. If life on Earth is restricted in this capacity, then it can be propagated beyond the Earth. As pointed out, the reources of the Solar System are at our fingertips now.

Great article. Two more points:

1. People talk about Earth’s human population as though it were evenly distributed. “When the population reaches 10 billion, the world will..” Nothing could be further from the truth. India and China hold almost half of the world’s population and will experience catastrophic effects if something globally bad were to happen.

2. Poor countries want two things from rich countries that are mutually exclusive. They want us to suffer (financially) and they want us to pay (financially). How can you pay if you are busy dismantling your infrastructure?

What we need is leadership from the U.S. on dismantling this fake green program (AGW) and restructuring the UN to help poor people in under developed countries – not the rich bureaucrats overseeing them. It has to be the U.S. as no other country has the same leverage. Not even China.

The following link to a brief text posted by Guardian correspondant in Durban seems like it may be the agreed text, or close to it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/dec/11/durban-climate-change-conference-2011-climate-change

http://tinyurl.com/br22mtj

Anything about the IPCC?

Spiegel-Online:

“… and even the passage on future role of climate research leaves a concearn. Unlike in earlier drafts it is no longer stated that the decisions on forcing greenhouse gas reduction should be based on IPCC findings and reports. Instead the “process” should only be informed by the researchers…”

(my translation)

This article does a great job in showing what can be done, and a great job at debunking the Malthusian claptrap. What it doesn’t do however, is explain that there has been a fundamental shift in Western cultural values.

The cultural values in the decades after the war could be summarised by Kennedy’s “to the moon”, speech. “We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Kennedy was resonating with the cultural values and aspirations not just of the American people, but of all Western nations. The “greatest” generation had vanquished the foes of life and liberty in the greatest war ever, then rolled up their sleeves to rebuild the world from the ruins. But they were only just getting going.

But everything they achieved is now being squandered. If a modern Kennedy made a comparable speech today, he would be booed. Green activists would be trotted out in front of the media to tell everyone what a terrible thing this is. We would be lectured on American’s carbon footprints and climate crimes. Neo Malthusians would be shouting about finite resources .and Socialists would be saying what a crime it is that all this money is not being sent to poor, starving people in the developing world.

A modern Kennedy of course, is an impossibility, because his candidacy would be trashed before he finished the primaries. It doesn’t matter how much evidence accumulates debunking CAGW. It matters not a jot that temperature cease climbing or fall for the next decade. You could have 10,000 Richard Lindzens saying this is all bunk. Once you have a cultural mindset, it will not change until the majority holding those values have died.

Of course, this mindset represents Western values. People of the developing world don’t have such qualms.

“We have felt it necessary to dwell so long on an analysis of technology here because we have found that technological optimism is the most common and the most dangerous reaction to our findings from the world model. Technology can relieve the symptoms of a problem without affecting the underlying causes. Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all fundamental problems can thus divert our attention from the most fundamental problem – the problem of growth in a finite system – and prevent us from taking effective action to solve it.”

So give us your billions and have faith that we can take care of the technology folks!

Dennis!

You have put words on what I have always felt. Real science and engineering is what counts. Can I translate this to Swedish and put it on my blog quoting the source? Its a very good description of what is possible and what should be the focus, Cheap reliable energy. Why can’t politician understand that?

There are pie distributors and then there are pie makers. The distributors will always ultimately succeed because distributors’ rhetoric will always melt the heart of quite a few successful makers.

I am optimistic that even in the case distributors’ success will only spur the pie makers to make more pies. So the struggle, IMO, is to temporarily defeat the distributors in skirmishes so that they never reach a win on the strategic level where they can stop the makers from making.

I think it bears pointing out that the lifespan that Dennis Wingo and Stephen Skinner (12/11/2011 2:21 AM) are talking about is life expectancy at birth. Life expectancy at later ages has improved since the 19th century, but not nearly by as much.

Example: For American white males: life expectancy at birth for those born in 2004 is 75.7 years, while life expectancy at age 60 for those born in 1850 was 15.6 years; i.e., the average 60-year old white male born in 1850 lived to be 75.6 years old.

See this life expectancy chart.

Far be it from me to side with the Durban loons, but I don’t see that Mr. Wingo’s ideas about the future are much better justified than theirs. It might turn out that “the material trapped in the Sun’s vicinity” is NOT “available for incorporation into our way of life.” That is, we might find that it is too expensive to mine them. I’m all for optimism that we won’t find it so, but I don’t see that we can exclude the possibility that we’ll be disappointed.

When confronted by folk who more or less demand that we move to renewables like solar and wind (and I have both panels and a wind turbine) I may always be heard to say “In the pursuit of renewables every penny not spent on fusion research will very likely turn out to be a penny wasted.”

This article boils down to two things:

A: Spend part of $100 billion on developing fusion power

B: Spend the rest on developing space-transportation infrastructure

As a lifelong supporter of the space program, I actually agree with part B, so long as it results in a system that will eventually pay for itself. By contrast, e-commerce expanded the way it did because taxation was outlawed. It is an open question whether it will survive once that restriction is removed.

As for Durban: On the good side, India and China continue to refuse to abide by Kyoto-style targets. This will result in “industrialized” countries gradually falling away. (The “agreement” to abide in the future is laughable.) On the bad side, the new bureacracies to create world-wide taxation have now been authorized, and they will have one and only one priority: to grow.

The best way for the “developed” nations of the world, “the payors” to help the rest of the nations of the world “the payees” is for the private sectors to invest the money in new and inproving technology. The private sector is the most efficient method of pursuing technology because it quickly recognizes success and just as quickly abandons blind alleys, something governments habitually fail to do.

We are very much in the process of developing a sustainable world. In order to end poverty and feed the people the world needs energy and a positive direction. Giving billions to despicable third world leaders is stupid and certainly non-sustainable. It’s the type of thinking that Dennis is showing that has helped create our constantly improving world. The people meeting in Durban take their beliefs and try to destroy the growth and prosperity of the human race. Two hundred years ago land covered with oil seepage left the land useless because you could not farm or raise animals on it. We have since found a use for the oil and the value of the land soared. Some may want to stop this growth to the future and run backwards but we in America say forge ahead and we will let the people define that future. That’s the way that the world goes round. What is needed throughout the world is for people to be free to act in their own self interest and a fairly enforced rule of law to protect their rights and freedom then life for the people of the world will improve.

Richard111 says~ and by 2100 when sea levels have risen by any number of metres population of 32 billion with standing room only will see an end to all this drivel.

Ricky, one of your gods, hansen, predicted that a certain highway would be under ‘a number of meters’ of water, by… three years ago.

Another one of your gods, algor, recently bought himself a nice, sea-level mansion which, by his prophecies, will be engulfed by ‘a number of meters’ of water in about 20 years.

A third god, david zusuki, lives in a nice mansion on an island which he expects will be under ‘ a number of meters of water’… but he doesn’t seem intent on leaving any time soon!

When are you going to get that the ‘drivel’ is pouring from your god’s [self-snipped]?

richard December 11, 2011 at 2:05 am

alternative fuels, blah!

what is wrong with co2.

May i introduce you to the Johnson co2 generator for Greenhouses, at a cheap cost it pushes up co2 to 1000ppm.

What are you saying, that CO2 is a fuel? No, it’s not. It’s already oxidized. That’s why plants need energy from the sun to break it down.

I’ve got a whole better idea that would not only save us the proposed spending of $100 billion/year, but would obtain the desired results much more cheaply and quicker. Use a bottom up approach (rather than the top-down one so loved by plutocrats and vilified by everyone else).

IOW, get rid of the massive overregulation of the free market.

Ever notice that the Envirobots attending these events have a spooky red glow emanating from their chests? We need to enlist Will Smith to inject a vial of nannites into the side of the UN building, thereby destroying UNVIKI and disabling all the NS-5 Envirobots that are screwing things up.

Throughout human history, there have always been individuals and groups that have the idea that they are ‘anointed’; that they know what is best for the rest of humanity and that it is their right and duty to control everyone else for the good of all. History has shown us that these people, no matter how diversified, have always been wrong, and, when given the chance, make things worse 100% of the time. It is simple impossible for an individual or small centralized group to have and process all of the information required to make good decisions for everyone else. The universal failure of the anointed is often more a matter of math than morality.

Don’t get me wrong. We all think we know what is best for everyone else. The difference is that most of us do not try and control the rest of the population with force, fiats and fear to get our way. Instead, we invite others to join our vision of a better world and set out to make our own little part of the world better.

Richard111 says: December 11, 2011 at 4:03 am

Richard, just where do you get that sort of drivel? First, your “facts” are wrong. The first billion was achieved between 1800 and 1820, not 1900. The second billion was reached about 1920. The world’s population is not exponentially increasing: growth is declining. There is one (probably over-optimistic) population scenario that predicts world population peaking at about 8.5 billion in the 2020′s and declining to just under 6 billion by 2100. 32 billion? Get a grip.

Very simply, the UN is a Luddite organization, as then they can maintain that all solutions must derive from them and politicians.

From a Canadian point of view, I view the following statement from our Minister of Environment, Peter Kent, as by far and away the most important thing he said.

“Nor will we devote scarce dollars to capitalize the new Green Climate Fund — part of the Durban agreement — until all major emitters accept legally binding reduction targets and transparent accounting of greenhouse gas inventory,”

In other words, not one red cent until everyone has agreed to binding reductions. Anyone heard when hell is going to freeze over?

>>

The increase in CO2 and other IR absorbing gasses in the atmosphere are bad and we must do something about it or suffer the secular apocalypse.

<<

Even as a hypothetical, I consider this statement wrong.

>>

Smoking Frog says:

December 11, 2011 at 6:48 am

What are you saying, that CO2 is a fuel? No, it’s not. It’s already oxidized.

<<

I read him to say that advocating alternative fuels to keep from producing CO2 is nonsense. CO2 is good for the environment. Commercial greenhouses routinely add more CO2 to promote plant growth.

Jim

There is another important flawed assumption made by the architects of the Durban economic plan for the world. The participant’s economic beliefs stem from socialism or worse that income must be redistributed because it is finite and cannot be created. Capitalism is a creator of wealth as been shown to be the case in America. By forcing the industrial nations to distribute their wealth to underdeveloped nations will ultimately destroy wealth and the capacity of technology to address the world technical concerns such as pollution. Thus the Durban economic model is flawed from the start and will ultimately fail if it is ever implemented.

You can forget about mining on the moon. Theres enough cheese on earth.

The costs would be so high as to make it a fantasy.

I wouldn’t just call these folks geocentric but eggists. They are birds that think they only have the egg they’re just woken up in, breaking the shell is bad and they have to conserve their energy as much as they can. Instead all they do is suffocate the long process that led them to be a species destined for flight.

Boris Gimbarzevsky says:

December 11, 2011 at 3:51 am

Excellent article and details succinctly what we need to be doing. It’s not clear where the human race lost its technologic optimism. I remember the days of seemingly unlimited options in the 1960′s when, with what now seems like primitive technology, we made it to the moon. My expectation was that this would result in human settlement of the moon and the movie 2001 provided a time frame during which this process would happen.

The “human race lost its technologic optimism” when being in politics became a career rather than a part-time job done for the good of one’s country. The career politicians largely now have degrees in law or politics and are only interested in furthering their careers. They have no understanding of science and in many cases are anti-science as politicians (and a lawyers) want to ‘win the argument’ regardless of the ‘truth’: they do not wish to be shown to be wrong by observation. From this it is easy to see how the ‘Team’ climate ‘scientists’ fit so well with their politician funding sources.

The only way out of this problem, which is affecting the entire world is to make politics part time as in Texas and impose term limits. Politics must not be seen as a career.

Louis Hissink says:

December 11, 2011 at 3:20 am

> Tokamak Fusion ? How long has it been attempted, 50 years????

Yeah, but we can expect commercial (hot) fusion reactors in only another 30 years. :-)

We have had the technology to start economically mining asteroids since the 1950s.

Project Orion field tests demonstrated that space propulsion using nuclear explosives was clean, ridiculously powerful, and economically feasible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

Since the 1950s we’ve had the ability to launch ships capable of re-engineering the solar system, shifting asteroids into Earth orbit, to mine or colonise, or even launch a manned mission to the nearest stars.

All that is needed is the political will to reach out and grab the opportunity.

We are explorers at our core. That is probably the key to our success.

The discovery of the new world opened up abundant resources, Moon and Mars will do the same. We are fools to not be investing in settlements there.

Furthermore, we have barely scratched the surface of the earth when it comes to available resources.

The unsustainability hypothesis is dead wrong and they know it.

Very good article, Mr. Wingo. I want to make a suggestion that is not intended as a joke though it might seem to be. Send your article to Newt Gingrich. He just might decide that embracing space “industrialization” is the great project that he needs in his campaign.

Limits to Growth took a look at “reserves” of the principal metals and fuels without understanding that the mining geologist only develops sufficient reserves to ensure feed for the concentrator for 10 to 15 years ahead. The cost of measuring these reserves through diamond drilling and assays is part of the cost of mining which must be kept to the minimum required to plan operations ahead. Projects like Inco’s nickel operations (now owned by Vale of Brazil) has had only 10 to 20 years reserves since they started in the Sudbury, Ontario area in 1905 and they are still going, and the reserves they have discovered in entirely new deposits since 1905 (and since the publication of LTG) dwarf what they had in Sudbury.

Now for the technology. LTG gave us some 20-30 years (or so) of zinc left. Let us assume here that that is all there was. Three quarters of all zinc was used for coating steel for barn rooves, culverts, etc. to prevent them from corosion – we have many alternatives to this and since, we have many new materials that do the job better – plastics, composites, etc that weren’t even known when this alarmist Malthusian Lilliputian scholarship was prepared. Remember Jevons, the British 19th Century economist who saw the world sliding into ruins because of having only a century of coal left. Malthus himself who saw cities expanding in two dimensions (of one to 2 or 3 story buildings) so that a person on the outskirts would require several days on horseback or in a horse-drawn carriage to get to the centre of town (several technologies here – hey we don’t even have to present ourselves in the flesh now to go to a meeting in the far reaches of the globe!). And finally, in light of LTG, an electrical engineer skeptic apparently constructed a radio in the 1950s using only (I believe) concrete, steel, quartz and a few other abundant commodities. It was cumbersome I’m sure, but made the point that alarmists are constrained to linear thinking.

I was part of the ITER tokamak fusion project central team for 10 years, 1987-1997. Some day such magnetic fusion or inertial fusion like NIF will work, but I don’t know if it is 30 years or 300 years because of the physics and material science challenges. One of the few things governments should do is fund the long-term R&D that is beyond the time horizon of private industry.

On the other hand, so-called cold fusion is delusional. Sorry, bizarre claims require extraordinary proof and the cold fusion crowd has nada.

Wonderful analysis Dennis! I always enjoy your comments on other science and new-space blogs. It’s great to see you apply your clear thinking to counter the insane proposals the UN is making.

Please keep writing!

The most sustainable energy source that actually works today is nuclear fission with recycle of used fuel. 95% of the used fuel is recyclable uranium and transuranic elements. The zirconium cladding can be recycled as well. Nuclear provides more energy for a given disruption of land, water, and stuff out of the ground. So, any real environmentalist who knows her stuff will support it.

The fantasy that we could somehow move all 6 billion of us to another planet or the moon is too absurd to contemplate, and not worth a moment of serious consideration. There may be habitable planets in the Universe, but we’re a LONG way from being able to move there!

It is an absolute fact that we live on a planet with limited resources. Eventually we will use all the ancient sunlight (oil), and as this process unfolds, the costs will increase. (All the cheap oil is now gone, and we’re left trying to find the expensive stuff in deep water and elsewhere.) There are other costs as well. Ecological systems which support all life are being impaired as we pollute our atmosphere and our water. Fixing these problems will have a huge price tag and the longer we put off developing alternative energy sources, and more sustainable land use practices, the greater the cost we will be forced to pay.

This is not a political or ideological issue. It is simply physics and mathematics.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/10/the-true-failure-of-durban/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Last minute Durban deal reached – extends life of Kyoto protocol

Kyoto has become a zombie, coming to life after being dead…

Excerpts from Yahoo News

(AP) — A U.N. climate conference reached a hard-fought agreement Sunday on a complex and far-reaching program meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change for the coming decades.

The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would put all countries under the same legal regime enforcing commitments to control greenhouse gases. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest.

The deal also set up the bodies that will collect, govern and distribute tens of billions of dollars a year for poor countries. Other documents in the package lay out rules for monitoring and verifying emissions reductions, protecting forests, transferring clean technologies to developing countries and scores of technical issues.

Currently, only industrial countries have legally binding emissions targets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Those commitments expire next year, but they will be extended for another five years under the accord adopted Sunday — a key demand by developing countries seeking to preserve the only existing treaty regulating carbon emissions.

…

“This is a very significant package. None of us likes everything in it. Believe me, there is plenty the United States is not thrilled about,” said U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern. But the package captured important advances that would be undone if it is rejected, he told the delegates.

The deal’s language left some analysts warning that the wording left huge loopholes for countries to avoid tying their emissions to legal constraints, and noted that there was no mention of penalties. “They haven’t reached a real deal,” said Samantha Smith, of WWF International. “They watered things down so everyone could get on board.”

…

The package gave new life to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, whose carbon emissions targets expire next year and apply only to industrial countries. A separate document obliges major developing nations like China and India, excluded under Kyoto, to accept legally binding emissions targets in the future.

Together, the two documents overhaul a system designed 20 years ago that divide the world into a handful of wealthy countries facing legal obligations to reduce emissions, and the rest of the world which could undertake voluntary efforts to control carbon.

full story at: Yahoo News

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

85 Responses to Last minute Durban deal reached – extends life of Kyoto protocol

Kicking the can….

Anthony, its Durban, not Durbal…

Love this line: “But the package captured important advances that would be undone if it is rejected”

As a Canadian, I still have hope for Canada to pull out of this ridiculous scheme…

FYI: The US never ratified Kyoto, and nobody should expect us to ratify Durban either.

I was hoping the “Durbal’ typo meant the deal was a joke Well, it is, anyway, but for some reason I’m not laughing. Guess this means a bunch of bureaucrats will continue to wine (whine), dine and fly around to exotic locations on our accounts. They’re holding onto their jobs for a while longer.

So what happens if we don’t ever pass a budget and send money?

I understand the UN can’t levy and collect taxes.

More madness. Not about science in any way, and using obsolete and largely disproven tripe as a basis for action. Basically any poor country can cry foul during a storm, using any weather event to ‘prove’ culpability by the wicked West.

COP18, COP19, COP20 … and on and on … so many exotic locales to visit … so many billions of dollars to hand over to the UN.

Can’t somebody come up with some other “cause” for these people to work on (perhaps one that wouldn’t involve ceasing fossil fuel use), so they can let this one go?

Maybe Santa could use some help?

“The good news is we avoided a train wreck,” said Alden Meyer, recalling predictions a few days ago of a likely failure. “The bad news is that we did very little here to affect the emissions curve.”

– Yahoo News

So does this mean the deal is “toothless”? A hollow victory to save face?

From what I read, the delegates agreed to negotiate a new agreement no later than 2015. It sounds like they agreed to agree later.

Kent is going to have some explaining to do since he said they wouldn’t on again.

This means the individual leaches who participated in this conference will remain dining at the public trough indefinitely. That’s what I would call a VERY successful conference in the eyes of the participants. Let the good times ROLL!

NO US agreement will EVER pass the Senate especially with an election year in the works. Those who do vote for that will get brutalized in any election. Thank GOD for the US senate! I can safely say – not one cent will be forthcoming from the US which will scuttle this agreement.

So where’s the text ?

How does this resemble what Monckton posted yesterday?

It takes 67 votes in the senate to approve a treaty. That will never happen, just like it never happened with the Kyoto treaty.

Kinda reminds me of this:

http://mobile.theonion.com/video/ambassador-stages-coup-at-un-issues-long-list-of-n,14332/?mobile=true

More wasted money on a meaningless program. Sounds like a good day’s work for bureaucrats.

Amazing how the MSM drools over these fools.

Theater of the absurd: “…broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive…” (Wiki)

Time to bring down the curtain.

Madness is right:

Sunday’s breakthrough capped 13 days of hectic negotiations that ran a day and a half over schedule, including two round-the-clock days that left negotiators bleary-eyed and stumbling with words. Delegates were seen nodding off in the final plenary session, despite the high drama, barely constrained emotions and uncertainty whether the talks would end in triumph or total collapse.

Yeah, that sounds like a great way to run the world /s

And this:

Coming after weeks of unsuccessful effort to resolve the issue, Nkoana-Mashabane gave Natarajan and European Commissioner Connie Hedegaard 10 minutes to find a solution, with hundreds of delegates milling around them.

They needed 50 minutes.

Wow! I’m impressed…these guys are sooooo bright that they only need 50 minutes to solve the world’s problems /s

Madness. But it looks like mostly a face-saving (expensive) exercise. China/India will never agree to legal binding emission controls….and the EU would have enough worries one would think

Oh, God…..Here we go again.

Why do people (sheeple) not realise when they are being sheared?

This will end in tears……..

I thought something happened over there: In Sydney Australia, this very afternoon, the clear and sunny day went away and was replaced by thunderstorms in a matter of minutes, right around the time the negotiators in Durban agreed to a deal!

I guess COP17 was a success after all and has defeated climate change – ruining my weekend away from the computer. *sigh*

The UN does not have force of law in the US. They are not elected, they are self-appointed. They are not a government, they are a diplomatic body. Diplomats do not carry the force of law. They are basically the political cronies of whichever despot is running their country, for the most part.

This about the least and most feeble of “deals” that one could make and still call it a “deal”. A face-saving “Nothing Burger” with an imaginary side of fries…

Apart from the beneficiaries who is going to sign up? Obviously the EU and no doubt Australia, but who else? I live in the UK and I am almost hoping recent events will lead to the UK leaving the EU. At least we can then dump Huhne the loon and tackle real problems, like the economy – I mean boosting it, not destroying it.

Even so we are facing a strong possibility of a complete Global meltdown, which will certainly curb CO2!. The eco-activists can take credit for their part in bringing it about, but they won’t like the world they helped to create.

It looks like they have created a window for at least three more years of junkets, but they shouldn’t book too far in advance as events may overtake them.

I seem to recall that for COP 16 there were a lot of early reports about how great the agreement was … and it turned out to be a completely insignificant.

More of the same?

@ albertalad

Since the senate never ratified Kyoto and in fact rejected it, why would they have any part in it now. It’s looks like they’ve done some kind of an end run around the senate.

Yes, more of the same.

It took 70 years for the Soviet Union experiment to end. Facts and reality will also end this global warming hysteria, hopefully sooner than how long the socialist experiment took.

This thing is even a bigger mess then Koyoto. I suspect it will make noise, fall and just die a slow and painful death. However the nonsense from both extreems will be with us well beyond my lifetime.

People, it takes 67 votes in the US Senate to ratify. Not going to happen, just like Kyoto didn’t happen. Same bovine scatology, different day. We have to continue to keep our eyes on the real ball before anything real can with these sorts of agreements. Keep beating the drums and pounding the pavement. Expose these frauds every possible chance .. keep it going

Robmax says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:48 pm

…

It’s looks like they’ve done some kind of an end run around the senate.

No, nothing can be done without 67 votes from the U.S Senate. Just not going to happen. In this country, international agreements (treaties) cannot bind us to anything without 2/3 majority passing vote of our Senate, period.

Its all moot if the Euro disintegrates as a consequence of the Greek and Italian defaults. The meeting in Europe this week only effectively delayed the process until the first government votes in the various parliaments. Some heads of state may loose their jobs just for agreeing to what’s effectively an EU treasury act stripping individual parliaments of the right to set tax, pension and spending rates. They will need many more riot helmets.

The Euro is literally one vote or one riot squad Commander (switching sides) away from failing.

If the Euro fails then the carbon trading system goes down because its all interlocked via legislation coached in the term of Euro’s per tonne of CO2 equivilent. Without the European CO2 market legislation clauses in Australia and New Zealand will kick in triggering votes.

Its all teetering on a knife edge.

The good news is that more informations coming out about E-Cat and the Piantelli Group cold fusion technology and it seems to be confirming data.

http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/12/04/slides-from-sept-22-nasa-lenr-innovation-forum-workshop/

As Premier of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, let me assure everyone, we intend to comply and demand those who don’t pay proper reparations. Mainly to ourselves. And those we suggest.

“They watered things down so everyone could get on board.”

so you crippled it. what a joke.

“verifying emissions reductions, protecting forests, transferring clean technologies to developing countries”

sure – verify the emissions, supervise their forests and power them up with wind a solar!! [rolleyes]

Some months ago on P. Gosselin’s NoTricksZone

http://notrickszone.com/

there was a post explaining who wrote (or was responsible for) the Kyoto protocol. I do not have a link to that story. Sorry.

One thing I recall is that much of it was contributed by supporters of the green sorts in Germany. Also, it might seem that as a developed country, Germany would be treated in a manner similar to the USA and other such developed countries. However, the reunification of East & West Germany and the costs of bringing the East German industries up to West German standards –and the lowering of emissions in the process, effectively negated the effect of Kyoto on the new combined Germany.

There was much more. Perhaps these hidden agendas in Kyoto are what folks in charge of the Durban Deal have been fighting to protect by its extension.

The above mentioned NoTricksZone post would be useful reading. I don’t know how to find it.

Here’s the best lipstick that Richard Black, the BBC’s Green parrot, can put on this pig:

“UN climate talks have closed with agreement on a package of measures described by the chair as “balanced”.

The European Union will place its current emission-cutting pledges inside the legally-binding Kyoto Protocol, a key demand of developing countries.

Talks on a new legal deal covering all countries will begin next year and end by 2015, coming into effect by 2020.

Management of a fund for climate aid to poor countries has also been agreed, though how to raise the money has not.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16124670

There’s more but that’s how it starts. If that’s the best Black can do then there can’t be much to it at all. Also worth noting that although this is breaking news, there are 304 comments and they have already closed comments. They only do that when the ‘little people’ aren’t buying their spin, which seems to be happening a lot these days.

Then on his blog Black tweets “Still not sure I understand the last hour of procedure #cop17 If it matters, we are sure to find out the hard way.”

So, hard to say what is going on. Yes, the UN says something happened but they lie all the time.

1. “…The deal also set up the bodies that will collect, govern and distribute tens of billions of dollars a year for poor countries. Other documents in the package lay out rules for monitoring and verifying emissions reductions, protecting forests, transferring clean technologies to developing countries and scores of technical issues…”

I’m sure that the people of Haiti will be glad – if anyone needs to have their forested areas protected, it’s them. They’ve only got about 2 percent of it left.

2. “…The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would put all countries under the same legal regime enforcing commitments to control greenhouse gases. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest…”

So here we just saw COP 17. That means they can have about 9 more parties before they have to panic again.

Also, it says they’ve agreed to START negotiations on a new accord. Doesn’t say there is a new accord. So wait to see the “traveling circus” go on a new 9 city tour (for COP’s 18-26).

All those apocalyptic “scientific” papers and pronunciation out just in time for Durban, including the cartoonist-run AGU…they obviously had zero influence on a meeting that could’ve happened 5 years ago or hence.

Owner: No no! ‘E’s pining!

Mr. Praline: ‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e

rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the

bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

Kyoto=dead

From Australia, home of the free and objective press (sarc), this is how a story from there begins… and again, it doesn’t look like much:

“Big emitters vow action on climate change Adam Morton

December 11, 2011 – 4:36PM

.The world’s major greenhouse gas emitters have agreed on a roadmap that – if followed – would lead to a global pact to tackle climate change with “legal force” by 2015.

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/big-emitters-vow-action-on-climate-change-20111211-1opgw.html#ixzz1gClOhdKR

“vow”… “if followed” blah, blah, blah.

More inconvenient details: “But it is expected only the 27-nation European Union, Norway and Switzerland — responsible for about 17 per cent of global emissions — will make binding commitments under a second period of the [Kyoto] protocol starting in 2013.

Other countries including the US, Japan, Canada and Russia have said they will not be part of the Kyoto Protocol, and want it replaced by a single treaty covering all countries.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said Australia would not sign up to a second binding target under Kyoto until all major countries had agreed to binding targets to limit their emissions.”

But a few more years on the AGW gravy train at least, for these climatutes.

Why would the EU and Switzerland support it? Many reason but, coincidentally, Bonn and Geneva are the two places they are thinking of having the HQ for their $100 billion a year slush fund. Could have an office right next store to Bankster Central in Geneva. Very handy.

When will the public, around the World, wake up to this scam. Or to put it another way, when with they be able to offer enough resistance? Indeed more of the same, snouts in the feeding bowl.

guys, guys… the second batch of hackergate mails was tooooo late in arriving! Ain’t ya got nuthin… else?

So what happens if we don’t ever pass a budget and send money?

I understand the UN can’t levy and collect taxes.

It would take a Constitutional amendment to give up the sovereign (and Congress controlled) right to tax. This appears more a vehicle to allow politicians to garner contributions out of the pockets of naive greenies than a socialist agenda. What’s in it for the UN is the opportunity of that bureaucracy to engage in rounding errors when handling any monies.

@anticlimactic says: December 10, 2011 at 9:38 pm

I’m sure you are right. The only people who have anything to fear from this are the English speaking countries, plus the Germans, Dutch & Scandinavians. Sure, the US won’t swallow all the pill, just enough of it to keep the EPA and the rest of them in business.

But the leaders of the pack will doubtless be the UK and Australia and NZ, all of whom have already enthusiastically thrown the economy under a bus as a tribute to Gaia.

When we tire of shivering in the dark we will know something will change. Until then, we won’t even see BuffHuhne in court for what is a blatant prima fascie case of criminal behaviour. If it had been (let’s say) Jeremy Clarkson who had got his wife to pretend she’d been driving when he’d been clocked for speeding, he’d have been in Court (“in the public interest”) in a heartbeat. But although this is a disgrace, yet another example of our corrupt Crown Prosecution Service, what we should be seeing is Huhne & Milipede both impeached for misleading the House on Climate Change.

Will that ever happen?

Not a prayer.

Zombie politics. They .. just .. refuse .. to .. die ….

“But the package captured important advances that would be undone if it is rejected…”

Like what? Hide the decline? Just what important advances?

“…U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern.”

——————————————-

Climate envoy? Climate envoy? This world has gotten so f-ing ridiculous!

I hereby appoint myself Lord High Chancellor of Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Durban, like previous U.N. Climate Conferences, again proves that if you pay people enough money, they will actively conspire to deceive the public, or knowingly acquiesce to the fraud of global warming.

Earth has already entered a natural cooling cycle, or soon will. The technical argument for cooling is receiving early-stage support from atmospheric and ocean temperature data. We will soon know if multi-decadal natural cooling has commenced. (BTW, I predicted such natural global cooling in an article published in 2003.)

There is also significant sociological support for global cooling. The global warming extremists are already scrambling to revise their manmade-fossil-fuel-burning-causes-runaway-global-warming hypotheses.

Some are saying that increased CO2 actually causes global cooling, not warming. Quelle surprise! Others are blaming humanmade aerosols for the lack of global warming – but they had to fabricate the aerosol data to support their case!

Both arguments are utterly specious. No matter – anything for The Cause!

It is past time that governments stop their cowardly acquiescence to the scoundrels and imbeciles of global warming.

A trillion dollars of scarce global resources has been squandered on the fraud of global warming.

Even the most cynical or stupid politicians must finally be realizing that the public is no longer deceived. There is no manmade global warming crisis – only a Mann-made one.

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:37 pm

“This about the least and most feeble of “deals” that one could make and still call it a “deal”. A face-saving “Nothing Burger” with an imaginary side of fries…”

Aye, it’s a shaky puddin’ at best… but the only thing that could have made it better would have been a majority of these self serving parasites to have just admitted it was a well funded farce all along…. and begged for forgiveness instead of 300 lashes and life imprisonment. No doubt we’ll spend a few hundred Billion$ more, and kill off another million or so humans that were denied fresh water, food, basic hygiene, low cost energy, and real jobs and paychecks, because we focused our precious resources on the politically correct inconsequentialities of the AGW shaky puddin’ instead of the very real needs today of our brothers. We all must bear this shame.

I feel your pain…..

MtK

Whew! I didn’t think the saviors of the planet were going to going to make it to a real agreement! /sarc

COP18, COP19, COP20……. COP OUT. And yet, the beast ain’t dead! It’s in critical condition and on life support monitoring… but it ain’t dead yet. It won’t really die until the stake of solid data and analysis is driven trough it’s diseased heart and the twin silver bullets of fraud and corruption convictions from ballistic launched FOIAs find their down range, sooooo richly deserved targets.

Keep the pressure on, Me Hearties!

Pat says:

“December 10, 2011 at 10:14 pm

As Premier of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, let me assure everyone, we intend to comply and demand those who don’t pay proper reparations. Mainly to ourselves. And those we suggest.”

We can make a grand alliance Premier. As King of the English Channel Dominion the seas around my house are continually absorbing CO2. We need to combine our forces and extract a tribute from our subjects.

tonyb

What is the point of this “agreement” when the EU is facing more austerity and Euro meltdown, the US huge debt and no ratification of Kyoto or Son Of; India and China just playing along for the show. What is left when the big players can’t or a refusing to play along? More exotic trips by plane for just a little while longer until reality hits home. ;O)

Richard111 says:

December 10, 2011 at 11:09 pm

“Like what? Hide the decline? Just what important advances?”

This “hide the decline” strategy apples to this whole process since Copenhagen, like this burst of spun “news” articles about this. Headlines far more positive than the details in even the most spun and the TV coverage is bound to be just glorious.

Squidly, it may take 67 votes in the senate but we desperately need a Republican congress come 2012. It is much too scary in these times with a Democratic senate. Unfortunately, according to RealClear politics, the dems are currently leading in the generic ballot. It is amazing how many dumb and clueless Americans there are among us. Soooooooo many sheeple.

The US Senate does not have to ratify the treaty for the Obama administration to enact its provisions. It can simply go around Congress as it has done on any number of issues when its policies have been rejected by the people.

The US Supreme Court gave the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) the power to declare CO2 a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and, thus, the power to regulate CO2 emissions as it sees fit. If re-elected in 2012, Obama can and will use the EPA to enforce the provisions of any UN Climate Change Treaty even if the Senate never formally ratifies it.

peetee says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:51 pm

guys, guys… the second batch of hackergate mails was tooooo late in arriving! Ain’t ya got nuthin… else?

===========================================================

lol, well, there is the little thing about the globe cooling while CO2 emissions are going up……. hurricanes trending down, sea levels dropping, 100s of millions of pissed of tax payers, a public moving away from the alarmism, the absolute failure and overwhelming expense of renewable energy…… even members of the team walking back their extreme prognostications. Two countries that are thinking about withdrawing from Kyoto altogether…… but other than that…. no, not much…. it won’t be long now, these vapid conferences will be closed due to lack of interest and funding.

Don’t worry though, I’m sure the loons will find another issue to latch on to in an effort to continue to subject humanity with their misery and misanthropy.

This is all political sophistry. Our elected (in some countries) leaders can claim to have achieved something, thereby keeping the ecoloons on-side, whilst having to do nothing tangible. As temps fail to rise over the next few years the AGW hysteria will fizzle out and the politicians will slowly distance themselves from the whole scam. Joe Public will have lost interest and AGW will cease to be an election issue. However, the greenwashed wackos will become ever more desperate and shrill which should be amusing. I wonder which apocalyptic scenario they will migrate to next?

FOIA tried to alert the powers that be but they steadfastly refused to listen. The MSM steadfastly refused to raise any concerns and the populace went about their business in mental oblivion. Will FOIA now release the rest of the emails? If he does, will they be damaging enough to finally destroy the hypothesis? Nature has already done the damage but the pollies aren’t convinced.

Kyoto 5 more years extended, but also, at the same time, the proposed new draft rejected!

The historical guilt, which England had to admit it this draft, was, they as the historical villains started the industrial revolution, messed up the climate and therefore have to pay accordingly! They had the chance to stay ecological farmers but did not do it…. now its time to take out the cheque book, their own fault….. But,

….. since temps will stay flat since 2001 for the coming decades, AGW will loose their proponents, and, as they will continue thereafter extending Kyoto another 5 and further 5 etc. more years, AGW will become more and more ridiculous….and will slowly disappear into the trash can of history…..

We are the ones who are ahead of our times, whereas AGW is blind and drags behind history…

JS

Never mind. I’m sure they all had a pleasant expenses paid break in the sun.

My take is they have reported success in talking and have succeeded in planning to do some more robust talking in the future… It appears the words are more important than any action…

Given the utter lack of attention people are paying to this online – (search youtube and find all the COP videos gathering dust in corners with less than a dozen viewers) – its in its death throws. They *know* reality isn’t on their side and the general population are noticing the difference between what they preach and how darn cold and generally ‘unwarm’ the weather is (Sydney just had its coldest start to December in 50 odd years!). You can only fool all of the people some of the time – the timer is up!

Trying to control climate change is to f**t against thunder. It is about MONEY and how much these developing countries can screw out of the West.

TomRude: (in part) “If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! …”

Sweet, Tom!

I have just seen a clip from the conference showing vast, and I mean vast, numbers of people in a conference hall, all pressed closely together. So closely together that they were all in physical contact with one another. My first thought was about the massive carbon footprint they had made. My second thought concerned the overwhelming smell of body odour.

So how does 67 votes in the US Senate matter? The ‘Bama has demonstrated that laws and even the Constitution don’t matter when they conflict with working for a Noble Cause. The EPA has shown they can simply declare something a pollutant and mandate the emissions, keep tightening down the screws until entire industries are regulated out of business, they can even demand impractical nigh-impossible higher fuel mileage requirements despite the suffering that will be forced upon would-be consumers.

So the EPA will now simply cite the overwhelming consensus among the international community to fight climate change, cite our moral (if not yet legal) obligation as part of the international community, and shape EPA policy to reflect the will of the international community as expressed by Kyoto-stein’s monster.

Gee whiz people, you’re talking like the US is still a democratic republic, instead of a People’s Progressive Democratic Republic.

Steve Koch [December 10, 2011 at 9:09 pm] says: “It takes 67 votes in the senate to approve a treaty. That will never happen, just like it never happened with the Kyoto treaty.”

Squidly [December 10, 2011 at 10:02 pm] says: “People, it takes 67 votes in the US Senate to ratify. Not going to happen, just like Kyoto didn’t happen”

That is true. But I wonder what would happen if several (or perhaps twenty) were not voting. Put nothing past the fellow traveler schemers in the District of Criminals. Additional concern is that the VP can act as 101st Senator. Too close for comfort I think.

The point is, allowing 67 bureaucrats from that chamber of 100 pompous asses to wield this immense power over 310 million people is just too dangerous, these days. Here is really something interesting. My quick math says that those 67 Senators represent 0.00000021612903225806451612903225806452 % of the USA population. Compare that to CO2! That group of Senators is the real trace element, and potentially far more dangerous than any gas.

As John Adams said in 1798 :: “While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Oaths in this country are as yet universally considered as sacred obligations. That which you have taken, and so solemnly repeated on that venerable ground, is an ample pledge of your sincerity and devotion to your country and its government.”

An Amendment changing that to 3/4ths or perhaps even unanimous is the way to go. Personally I think we should just line out the concept of treaties altogether. We are far past the era of loyalty to America and integrity of politicians. When pitted against Neo-Communism, our Constitution is as strong as (and treated like) toilet paper. It will only be relied upon when it appears to advance the cause of the enemy. On the other hand, there is a long simmering battle yet to be fought. If they try this, either a Constitutional convention or Civil War (perhaps both) will follow.

Cheering about the postponement of this nonsense is also not logical. There is a reason they are kicking the can down the road. When they press for such an expensive, radical communist idea as this during a time of world fiscal meltdown, they are in effect on better footing 10 or 20 years later when economies are again vibrant. Then they say, ‘now we can spend money on green treaties!’. And many dummies will agree. This is how they methodically wait us out.

R. Gates says:

“This about the least and most feeble of “deals” that one could make and still call it a “deal”. A face-saving “Nothing Burger” with an imaginary side of fries…”

If so, let the bells peal out for Christmas!

OK. Who will sign right after the Republic of Nauru?

They agreed to extend Kyoto NEXT YEAR… 1 month before it expires. IOW, they didn’t extend it now. And next year they will somehow, well, maybe even extend it, but only after filling it with whatever excemption they need. Or let it vanish. They did exactly nothing in Durban.

crosspatch says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:36 pm

The UN does not have force of law in the US. They are not elected, they are self-appointed. They are not a government, they are a diplomatic body. Diplomats do not carry the force of law. They are basically the political cronies of whichever despot is running their country, for the most part.

=======================

thing is anytime someone from a govt decides to sign one of these un wto type treaties it Over rides the laws of the land that signs it!

ie WTO over rode australias laws regarding imports of fruit likely to bring disease into our country.from NZ apples and pears. bananas from tropics will now be pushing for import rights with all the risk that entails..

most of the repressive crazy food laws like the farm bills that criplle all but big agri etc and codex ALL come from the Eu UN.

I said ages back that the 3rd world nations have seen the gravy train for handouts and bribery, and they will NOT let it go, this durban do just proved how so FEW can be controlling the rest of the world, the entire island nations wouldnt make on large city pop wise, but their yelling and claims will be accorded far more power than any sane person would justify.

especially as the seas arent rising the weather events are no more than normal etc etc.

The lunatics are well and truly in charge – at the conference.

The way I understand treaties is that there are several key elements:

1) Agreement -which we seem to have here

2)Implementation – the individual treaty states have to go away and enact national legislation to implement the terms of the treaty

3) Enforcement – legislation is only as good as the means to detect and punish effectively those who violate the terms

4) Verification – a key component of any treaty is being able to measure compliance verifiably.

The best hope we have is that back in the various national governments the politicians will find it difficult to enact the legislation necessary.

I can’t, for example, see too many of them rushing out and disbanding their military. And the idea of handing over technology isn’t too clever because where does it stop?

Indeed, in some countries (most?) some Intellectual capital is considered of vital importance and may not be shared.

In other words, while the lunatics have signed them selves up to a fantasy saner heads may prevail at home long enough for the absurdity of it all to sink in.

What is needed is a healthy fear of the electorate.

Don’t worry guys. The Green Deal “is too big to fall”… ;)

Well this is non-news for the U.S. which is essentially the extension of a treaty that the U.S. is not a party to in the first place. So 5 more years of business as usual. The biggest CO2 emitter in the world, China, is exempt. The second fastest growing emitter, India, is also exempt. And the second largest emitter, the United States, is not a party to the treaty. The rest of y’all in Annex I countries must feel sort of hoodwinked. You’re getting taken to the cleaners and the worst part of it is you don’t get anything in return as the amount of CO2 reduction won’t reduce global warming by any detectable amount. Funny stuff. I wouldn’t be laughing if the U.S. had signed on to this scam but it didn’t so all I can do is bemusedly watch the rest of the western world voluntarily cripple itself.

Very useful document…so Durban has agreed, to agree, to agree, to agree, to an almost binding almost legal almost agreement to agree something by God knows when!? Glad that’s out of the way then!!!!

I didn’t see anything in the agreement to increase the number of hookers at future COP parties, so I guess that indirectly answers my question of a few days ago on another thread; did they have enough hookers there or did they need to import some?

My other question remains unanswered; Will they ever schedule a COP party in a Muslim country where liquor is banned?

In a little noticed codicil to the Durban agreement, the negotiators agreed that representatives to all future meetings will arrive by and only use transportation that does not use fossil fuels either directly or indirectly. Further, all future venues must be entirely powered by wind and solar and have no connection to any exisitng electrical grid that derives its power, in whole or in part, from nuclear or fossil fuels.

forget 67 votes. Kyoto did not receive 1 vote in the US Senate. And without the US, this is nothing but a way for the rest of us to watch the EU implode. Get out the popcorn and watch the show.

Paul Linsay says:

December 11, 2011 at 6:42 am

In a little noticed codicil to the Durban agreement, the negotiators agreed that representatives to all future meetings will arrive by and only use transportation that does not use fossil fuels either directly or indirectly. Further, all future venues must be entirely powered by wind and solar and have no connection to any exisitng electrical grid that derives its power, in whole or in part, from nuclear or fossil fuels.

-

What? Wait… codicil…code broken…. decipher…

Know what that means?

All UN participants must now buy a mandatorily yacht for trasport

….with our tax money !!!

What this means is that this crowd of priviliged would-be plutocrats who couldn’t hold a real job if their lives depended on it will be free to fly around the allegedly carbon dioxide afflicted globe (increasing their carbon footprints in the process) and having grand parties while tweaking the boilerplate in their Marxist manifestos. Fortunately, the U.S. Senate, which couldn’t muster a single vote to ratify Kyoto, won’t come remotely close to ratifying some Son of Kyoto. Let them have their parties. As their alarmist warnings continue to prove false, folks around the world will have enough of higher energy costs and consign this farce to the trash bin of history…DJ

Notice how, even after Cancun’s huge bureaucracy creation wave with hundreds of new offices, they had to make even more. This goes perfectly with the ever-growing need of the UN to ever-grow and dominate the world.

IT IS TIME FOR THE UN TO BE DESTROYED! DISBAND IT NOW BEFORE IT THINKS IT HAS WON!

UN officials admit that the UN’s goal is to enrich itself and its burgeoning bureaucracy.

Perhaps not all of the Annex 1 countries have agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol. Canadas Environment Minister (Peter Kent) statement Sunday regarding the Durban agreement….

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2011/12/canadas-statement-on-durban-climate-deal.html

Some highlights from the Globe and Mail.

Mr. Kent, who came to Durban saying Kyoto represents the past, declared Sunday that Canada would not undertake a second Kyoto commitment period.

“Nor will we devote scarce dollars to capitalize the new Green Climate Fund — part of the Durban agreement — until all major emitters accept legally binding reduction targets and transparent accounting of greenhouse gas inventory.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-hopeful-of-finalizing-new-climate-deal-by-2015-environment-minister-says/article2267220/

The following link says Japan and Russia are out too.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/11/canada-cautiously-optimistic-about-new-climate-deal-despite-not-signing-on/

TomRude says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:35 pm

Owner: No no! ‘E’s pining!

THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

Kyoto=dead

Desperate action may yet bring it back to life.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/10/last-minute-durbal-deal-reached-extends-kyoto-protocol/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

12 days of Christmas Climategate

WUWT reader “roh” writes:

Well its the time of the year for celebration, joy, and festive mood. Climatology is no different too. Well enjoy 12 days of Climategate.

On the first day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the second day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the third day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the fourth day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Four flawed reports,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the fifth day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Five propagandists,

Four flawed reports,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the sixth day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Six degrees overhyped,

Five propagandists,

Four flawed reports,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the seventh day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Seven thousand E mails,

Six degrees overhyped,

Five propagandists,

Four flawed reports,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the eighth day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Eight doomsday scenarios,

Seven thousand E mails,

Six degrees overhyped,

Five propagandists,

Four flawed reports,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the ninth day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Nine smear websites,

Eight doomsday scenarios,

Seven thousand E mails,

Six degrees overhyped,

Five propagandists,

Four flawed reports,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the tenth day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Ten flawed investatagions,

Nine smear websites,

Eight doomsday scenarios,

Seven thousand E mails,

Six degrees overhyped,

Five propagandists,

Four flawed reports,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundring scheme.

On the eleventh day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Eleven years in decline,

Ten flawed investatagions,

Nine smear websites,

Eight doomsday scenarios,

Seven thousand E mails,

Six degrees overhyped,

Five propagandists,

Four flawed reports,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

On the twelfth day of Climategate,

The UN sent to me,

Twelve incriminating emails,

Eleven years in decline,

Ten flawed investatagions,

Nine smear websites,

Eight doomsday scenarios,

Seven thousand E mails,

Six degrees overhyped,

Five propagandists,

Four flawed reports,

Three main culprits,

Two different leaks,

And a partridge in a pear tree!

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

33 Responses to 12 days of Christmas Climategate

maybe roh could add a 13th day, cos this is the Reuters’ ariticle on the Durban outcome…. IN ITS ENTIRETY:

11 Dec: Reuters: UN climate conference extends Kyoto Protocol

A U.N. conference on climate change approved on Sunday a measure to extend the Kyoto Protocol, which binds some developed countries to legally binding cuts of greenhouse gas emissions.

The timeline of the next commitment period is expected to be decided next year. The first commitment period also expires next year.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/12/11/climate-kyoto-idUKL5E7NA05D20111211

investatagions?

investatagions?

Are boys over at M4GW, who brought us “Hide the Decline”, going to put it to music?

“investagations” -> CRU whitewashes

I prefer http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/08/goreathon-now-in-a-living-color-poster/#comment-823762

BTW, “investatagions” should be “investigations” throughout.

The so called Durban agreement does nothing but create further meetings. No developed country has actually agreed to extend Kyoto. The tax and regulate tribunals proposed are pure fantasy and will never materialize. This agreement is just pure garbage. Much to do about nothing.

We the kings of climate are,

Raising the price, of running your car…

C’mon guys, they weren’t REAL “investigations”…. our lyricist may be coining a new word, what do you call an inquiry that conflates one thing with another and spreads like wild-fire? An Investatagion.

When I clicked on this page…for one crazy glorious moment…I thought they were all dangling on the end of ropes!!!

And in a similar themed vein, may I humbly offer (originally posted on BH Dec. 1) …

‘Twas the night before doomsday when all through the House

Not a creature was demurring, not even a scouse

The pleadings were hung in many churnalisms with scare

In the hope that Devil Carbon would permeate the air

The peons were resting, safe in their beds

Far away from the troll-posts of BBD and ZEDs

And many in innocence, and others more jaundiced

Watched them fall into debates oh-so-weighted

With factoids neo-warmist

When out on the interweb there arose such a clatter

My mouse sprang from its mousepad to see what was the matter

Away to the Google it flew like a flash

Where it watched quite intently

As excuses were hatched

From Acton and Jones and across the Atlantic

Were excuses from Mann that seemed somewhat frantic

While coolly The Saint watched with far from dismay

Happy reading to all, s/he said, but do not delay.

charles nelson says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:25 pm

When I clicked on this page…for one crazy glorious moment…I thought they were all dangling on the end of ropes!!!

Charles.

I have seen and read the captions on this same cartoon many times and always assumed they were hanging for their crime. Dam it’s a pity it isn’t true!

Congrats to hrooo1. Tis a truly great song.!

We should start an annual Climategate celebration. In that spirit, let us recall Climategate 1:

Phil Jones is my name and I rode on a gravy train

Til Mcintyre came and published my errors again

It was the winter of 09 I was flush doing just fine

I took our thesis to Denmark but it fell

It was a time I remember oh so well

The night they drove global warming down

All the bells were ringing all the people were singing

they went na na-na-na na-na-na na-na

Back with my boys in Hadley Town and one day they called to me

Said Phil quick come see Al Gore is out to sea

Now I don’t mind fudging data and I don’t care that the stats are no good

You take the data you need and you leave the rest

But Mann should never have published that damn stick

Chorus

Like my mentors before me I am a movement man

And like my colleague beside me I took a warmist’s stand

Mann was at State proud and a rave

when McIntyre laid his stick in its grave

I swear by the bars beneath my fingers

You can’t raise a Mann back up when his work is deceit.

Chorus

Robert E. Phelan says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:18 pm

C’mon guys, they weren’t REAL “investigations”…. our lyricist may be coining a new word, what do you call an inquiry that conflates one thing with another and spreads like wild-fire? An Investatagion.

Oh, I suppose. But only if it’s related to Contagion. Or contatagion or conflagratation…. :-)

I believe I know Mr. Pachauri and Dr. Mann. Who are the dudes on the right?

Dr. McCoy: His vital signs are dropping fast. There isn’t much we can do.

Capt. Kirk: Do something, Bones!

Dr. McCoy: I’m a doctor, Jim, not a climatologist!

Hmm, I need a joke that ends with “I’m a magician, not a climatologist!”

I love it. Only problem, now it will be ringing in my head for a month!

“Amino Acids in Meteorites says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:09 pm

Are boys over at M4GW, who brought us “Hide the Decline”, going to put it to music?”

They already did a few years ago:

/Carl

Ok, here’s my attempt:

To the tune of “Do you hear what I hear”

Said the night wind to Micheal Mann

Do you see what I see

There in the data, Michael Mann

Do you see what I see

A career, a career

Dancing in the light

With Doctors Jones and Briffa and the like

With Doctors Jones and Briffa and the like.

Said Michael Mann to the CRU

Do you hear what I hear

Ringing through the sky, Dr. Jones

Do you hear what I hear

Ka-ching, ka-ching

From the rings in a tree

We can change the temperature of the sea

We can change the temperature of the sea

Said McIntyre to the mighty CRU

Do you smell what I smell

In your data files mighty CRU

Do you smell what I smell

A fraud, a fraud

Bodges in the code

It brought you silver and gold

It brought you silver and gold

Said the CRU to the people everywhere

Listen to what I say

Pray for heat people everywhere

The Cause, the Cause

Spreading in the night

It will make us famous alright

It will make us famous alright

The Cause the Cause

Spreading in the night

It will make us famous alright

Let’s make that invest-duh-gations. I’m sure Homer would be glad to take time off from the nuclear plant to help out.

There was a more “economy-themed” variation of the Twelve Days on KeelyNet a week or two ago. Since the same nasty little creatures are responsible for all aspects of this chaos, readers here might appreciate it, too. In the interests of brevity, the last verse only:

On the 12th day of crisis

the banksters gave to me

twelve cops a-macing

eleven credit crunches

ten nations bankrupt

nine homes a-foreclosed

eight pensions looted

seven rounds of QE

six congresscritters

FIVE BANK BAILOUTS

four mortgage frauds

three subprimes

two toxic assets

and a casino economy.

Ah, you gotta laugh. Or jump off a tall building.

‘The Anthropocene’: a daft notion that we’re afflictingthe planet so much, we need to have a geological era named after our calumny.

Some concerned geologists are keen

On an idea cooked up by Eugene

It’s touted by Stoermer

That we’ve made the world warmer

And started the ‘Anthropocene’.

But the sceptics are beset with a doubt

That mankind has really the clout:

To change the worlds climate

Takes more than a primate

Burning oil when he’s out and about!

So when talking to this or that ‘ologist

Beware they know not what the knowledge is

‘Cos I have a hunch

They’re all just a bunch

Of guilt ridden Anthrop-a-pologists.

on the 13th day of climategate they all get locked up for good

Sung to “The Boxer”

Now I am just a poor Mann

Though my story’s seldom told

and I massacre my data

with lots of urban heat isles and some tree rings.

More than this

I only use the nice data and disregard the rest

Dee dee dee dee dah dee dah deed dee.

While snowed indoors one midsummer I went looking for a grant

but I got no offers.

Just come on from some dodgy source who knew me.

I do declare.

I was feeling somewhat poor so I took it then and there

deed dee dee………

In the limelight stands the prophet

feeling somewhat jaded

by some skeptics

who have asked him, some highly awkward questions

which distress him, and cut him, till cries out

In his anger and his shame

I will sue you! I will sue you! but the truth it still remains

Lah lah lah etc etc.

The mistake the warmists made is to concoct a scheme that is recognizable by a majority of people as being a scam. Most people have had some contact with science in school and know enough to smell a rat when it is presented to them.

They should have chosen a more arcane discipline such as economics/finance. Not many people know enough about it to recognize when they are being scammed and are just greedy enough to swallow the snake-oil they are enticed with, hook, line and CDO.

This song now runs in my head. Great post!

I’ve never been enthusiastic about “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

It is just so redundant.

Davidmhoffer:

We the kings of climate are,

Raising the price, of running your car…

We desire prices higher,

Reaching to yonder star.

Carbon trades to offer have I,

Putting a cap on what you can buy,

Tax extensive, gas expensive,

Cutting your fuel supply.

Turbine blades that fly in the wind,

Easing guilt for those who have sinned.

Mann’s ablation for population,

‘Til human ranks have thinned.

OK, somebody else’s turn. I gotta get some sleep.

Much welcome merriment! I’m going to add a link to this post in my own little anthology, mostly not so seasonal, which I have been harvesting from the Bishop Hill blog (http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/p/poetry-on-bishop-hill-christmas-2011.html).

Thanks for posting it.

I did this late at night.

Change:

Ten flawed investatagions,

To:

Ten flawed investigations,

Change the last line:

And a partridge in a pear tree!

To:

And A whole big money laundering scheme.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/10/12-days-of-christmas-climategate/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Latest extortion attempt from Durban COP17: $1.6 Trillion

Gosh. Who knew that a massive tax could solve all imagined climate problems?

David L. Hagen writes:

The UN is demanding control over $1.6 trillion per year to control climate. See Section 47 in draft # FCCC/AWGLCA/2011/CRP.39 9 December 2011 #GE.11-71576 at: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp39.pdf

47.  The provision of the amount of funds to be made available annually to developing country Parties, which shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security, and warfare. Fifty per cent of that amount shall be for adaptation, 20 per cent for mitigation, 15 per cent for technology development and transfer and 15 per cent for forest-related actions in developing country Parties;

See Reuters: Worldwide military spending edged up in 2010 to a record $1.6 trillion, a leading think-tank said on Monday. Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s military expenditure database. http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/research/armaments/milex/milex_database . . .

Until then, the immediate urgent task is to provide alternative fuels while caring for the poor.Conventional climate mitigation comes in dead last in benefit/cost.”

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

185 Responses to Latest extortion attempt from Durban COP17: $1.6 Trillion

These guys are really inept….

…I could control the climate for 1/2 that

They can have $1.60, final offer

I followed the links and wasn’t able to spot where the UN demanded control over $1.6 trillion – could you please quote the relevant text?

TIA

Its just a matter of time before it becomes clear to all that money, greed , power and control is a major facter in “climate change”

The EU has wasted over 1/4 billion Euro on propping up the european carbon market already. That cash could have rebuilt all coal fired generating plant with filters and reduced co2 emissions 30%.

http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/ubs-report-europes-287bn-carbon-waste/

Louise says on December 10, 2011 at 9:05 am

I followed the links and wasn’t able to spot where the UN demanded control over $1.6 trillion – could you please quote the relevant text?

TIA

It follows logically from:

47. The provision of the amount of funds to be made available annually to developing country Parties, which shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security, and warfare. Fifty per cent of that amount shall be for adaptation, 20 per cent for mitigation, 15 per cent for technology development and transfer and 15 per cent for forest-related actions in developing country Parties;

and

See Reuters: Worldwide military spending edged up in 2010 to a record $1.6 trillion, a leading think-tank said on Monday. Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s military expenditure database. http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/research/armaments/milex/milex_database . . .

I gather that a hoax document has been circulating at Durban… the BBC was taken in (no surprise there then) but admitted as much at lunchtime news today. I suggest we take care about all this.

well let them have it, the mechanism is very peculiar and all ways lead to Rome :

1.99% of that trillion disappears in various cleptocrats’ pockets

2.the cleptocrats buy funds with bonds, from financial wizzards

3.these bond buyers go for the highest and safest returns on the market

4.the highest and safest returns are with the countries that do not subscribe to this mess

5.the rest collapses slowly like pieces of glaciers in a hot polar sea

6.so in the end all the money and power ends up where it should.

gaiia cares about you

Hv a nice day, for the rest (eat a banana or something, but remember to put off the peel)

Louise,

…” which shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security, and warfare”…

How much is that?

Follow the links provided.

Then watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtbn9zBfJSs

If we are going to spend money to solve problems…lets start with real ones first.

It’s a rather sad statement about by the human race in general, but, “money, greed , power and control” are the driving factors in most things. The objective is to corral those and steer them into something useful for the general public without doing too much damage from the always present unintended consequences.

Louse…… It’s in section 47….. you must have missed reading that bit….:-) Pretty nutty stuff if you ask me.

It’s time to send some ‘family’ guys over to the UN to make them an offer they can’t refuse.

Correction:

Global military spending hits high but growth slows, Reuters STOCKHOLM |Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:11pm BST

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/04/10/uk-military-spending-idUKTRE73938D20110410

I think it’s quite clear now why some folks love “consensus” so much.

“The convention operates by consensus, and the package will not be put up for a vote.”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJqoXEe6pnFE0rqNqFQCTFxjLodw?docId=ac792149118f4fc9b8b0d3e330f579fb

The Messiah of the United States has lowered the sea level, so the compaints about the sea level rising are without merit.

UN/IPCC “scientists” should draw-up plans for capping Carbon Dioxide sources such as Mauna Loa – now experiencing a series of tremors which creates fear of an explosive eruption – and Mount Etna, not to mention Katla and Eyjafjallajokull (five times rapidly) in Iceland.

Actually, this would be a project more suitable to the expertise of Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, of white-wash the Earth fame.

———————————————————————————————————————

States imperilled by warming rebel at climate talks

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/12/10/worldupdates/2011-12-10T053052Z_5_TRE7B81MV_RTROPTT_0_UK-CLIMATE&sec=Worldupdates

Scientists say those promises are not yet enough to limit global warming to the two degrees Celsius judged necessary to stave off the most devastating effects of climate change.

U.N. reports released in the last month show time is running out. A warming planet has already intensified droughts and floods, increased crop failures and sea levels could rise to levels that would submerge several small island nations.

The protracted talks frustrated delegates from small islands and African states, who joined a protest by green groups outside as they tried to enter the main negotiating room.

“You need to save us, the islands can’t sink. We have a right to live, you can’t decide our destiny. We will have to be saved,” Maldives climate negotiator Mohamed Aslam said.

Philip Foster says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:23 am

“I gather that a hoax document has been circulating at Durban… the BBC was taken in (no surprise there then) but admitted as much at lunchtime news today….”

Philp, can you be more specific? What was the document? What was the hoax? What, specifically, did the BBC admit? Any links?

So you all think the word ‘invite’ actually means ‘demand’ – wow, I knew there were some differences between American and British English but I’d missed that one.

To Philip Foster

Re he fake document. The doc cited above is posted by the UNFCC at

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp39.pdf

Considering what Oh!Bummer! spent (sorry, Wasted) in ONE year, he should have no probs whatsoever shelling out 1.6 Trillion.

Surely if there is a financial crisis and countries are seeing many of their workers being laid off does anyone know how many UN bureaucrats/politicians/advisors/lobbyists will be ‘let go’?

Just heard a pin drop so I take it that’s NONE then?

It’s never been about the climate.

It’s always been about us uppity peasants having a life style too similar to that of our “betters”. What’s the point of having a mansion and a house by the shore, if us peasants can have the same thing, albeit on a smaller scale … central heating, electricity 24/7 on demand, flat screen TV’s, cell phones, iPads. Heck, us peasants have even destroyed that special province of the elite … air travel … till it’s as bad as traveling by Greyhound bus. And don’t even start on National Parks with all those swarms of peasants ruining the splendor of Nature at her finest.

Grant Foster (who is often masquerading as Tamino ) statistician and a pretend climate scientist published a paper

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf

in time for Durban. His graph (Fig.5, page 3) is rubbish, and the paper absolute nonsense.

Vuk – care to elaborate on why its rubbish?

This “fake document” is interesting. The BBC underscores how obviously fake it was which makes me believe it may be real. Does anyone know more?

I failed to properly address the concern over islands sinking. The Messiah only has control over rising sea levels, not sinking land.

I agree that they have a right to live and we can’t decide their destiny, but neither can they decide our destiny and their destiny is their responsibility as is our destiny our responsibility.

That they have to be saved is a dependency welcomed by the omnipotent Messiah of the United States.

How many US$ trillions do you need. Its only printed paper.

———————————————————————————————————————

“You need to save us, the islands can’t sink. We have a right to live, you can’t decide our destiny. We will have to be saved,” Maldives climate negotiator Mohamed Aslam said.

Latitude says:

December 10, 2011 at 8:58 am

These guys are really inept….

…I could control the climate for 1/2 that

========

LOL

We need to pull out of the U.N. before some liberal, gullible, know-it-all, inexperienced, nanny-state U.S. President decides we should actually do something the U.N. wants us to do, like spreading the wealth by forking over what he/she thinks is our “fair share” for world governance.

Oops.

47. The provision of the amount of funds to be made available annually to developing country Parties, which shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security, and warfare.

Note that that is the amount spent by developed countries on defence, not the $1.6 trillion spent worldwide. Either way that’s a lot to spend on parties even for the UN.

For all you WUWTers who have been envying the denizens of Canada for the stance of our great leader, Stephen Harper, in refusing to sign on to the Durban nonsense, take consolation. The green energy policies of “Premier Dad” of Ontario, the sanctimonious Dalton McGuinty who has never heard of a progressive cause that he will turn down, are going to bankrupt the province and impoverish Ontarians. We’re right up there with California and the UK in terms of ridiculous, expensive and destructive renewable energy policies.

As Lawrence Solomon writes in today’s Financial Post:

“According to a peer-reviewed study earlier this year by University of Guelph economist Glenn Fox and retired banker Parker Gallant, two Energy Probe directors, by 2018 the average ratepayer’s annual electricity bill will exceed $4,000, making Ontario one of the highest-cost electricity jurisdictions in the developed world.”

Solomon, a long-time opponent of nuclear power, at least concedes that ‘renewables’ are a far worse monster in terms of money down the drain for rate-payers. See:

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/12/09/lawrence-solomon-the-green-goliath-takes-on-nuclear/

At least Harper, who is a keen ‘policy wonk’ and numbers man, won’t further drag us down by signing Canada on to this UN extortion scheme.

“17. Reduce global greenhouse gas emissions more than 100 per cent by 2040 by Annex

I Parties”

Huh?

Assuming the story is true, can you imagine the amount of money that would be annually ‘liberated’ from this fund, and then ending up in Swiss banks deposited there by the Third World’s despotic and ‘progressive’ leaders?

Probably enough to save the Euro – and that is a very, very, very large sum of money.

States imperilled by warming rebel at climate talks

They’re not “imperrilled by warming’… They’re pissed they weren’t able to employ their pirate status and hold up the West.

This could all have an interesting backlash–I’ve been supportive of relief efforts to 3rd-world countries, not because of any “climate change” impact the West has caused, but because they deserve to drink clean water, have better medical treatment, and live in relative safety. Since the governments of these countries are participating COP pirates, I’m far less likely to support other programs that might benefit them.

Anthony Watts says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:54 am

………..

Hi Anthony

Grant Foster states ‘To characterize the solar influence on temperature we use the total solar irradiance (TSI) data from Fr¨ohlich (2006) …. and using monthly sunspot numbers

as a proxy for solar activity rather than TSI …..’

No one has accurately quantified solar contribution. This CET component when there is the highest insolation: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-T.htm shows that for 300 years the solar is the only major contribution.

I challenged him on RC to explain what the temperature would look like if the solar was removed. He failed to respond directly, came back masquerading as Tamino accused me of falsifying the data, which I emailed to dr. Eric Steig, so that line of attack failed, then he resulted to vulgar insults, which were subsequently removed by mod. Jim.

So I maintain his graph is rubbish, let him come and defend it.

Someone keep Obama away from the checkbook.

Joe Crawford says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:28 am

“It’s a rather sad statement about by the human race in general, but, “money, greed , power and control” are the driving factors in most things. The objective is to corral those and steer them into something useful for the general public without doing too much damage from the always present unintended consequences.”

Without additional clauses that specify individual liberties as inviolable rights of the individual against his government and the sovereignty of nation states you fall right into communism or its precursor the EU.

Louise says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:41 am

“So you all think the word ‘invite’ actually means ‘demand’ – wow, I knew there were some differences between American and British English but I’d missed that one.”

I don’t think that we “all” do think that, but I do think that the word “demand” fairly accurately reflects the language used in the quoted text, namely, “The provision of the amount of funds to be made available annually to developing country Parties,..” [my emphasis, WHS"]

The word “invites” was used in par. 46 (and only there), but it seems to me that it does not take away from and is to be taken separate from the demand expressed in par. 47 that was quoted in the lead-in comment, above.

46. Invites developed country Parties to submit information on plans to increase their financial contributions, as fulfilment of their commitments under the Convention, and further invites developing country Parties to submit information on the costs of adaptation and mitigation actions in their countries;

Par. 47 states a demand.

Remember, it’s no longer about Global Warming.

Er – Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Um – Climate Change?

Climate Uncertainty!

No, wait – it’s “Climate Justice”. That’s the current one, since all of the others have sorta failed.

That’s it. “Climate Justice” (which I first heard during the Cancun meeting last year, when there was record cold outside, and the delegates were pissed off because the “warming” wasn’t warm).

By this time next year, we’re going to be in “Global Cooling” again.

Curiousgeorge says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:34 am

“It’s time to send some ‘family’ guys over to the UN to make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

That might be necessary. Better our mafia than the UN mafia. However, it is the duty of our federal government to protect its citizens against hoodlums, like the UN, that are out to wreak devastation on our sovereign nation.

pat says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:14 am

“Someone keep Obama away from the checkbook.”

Oh, come on now. There is no possible way his account can be overdrawn. He’s got a lot of checks left to fill out in his checkbook.

Why not make a deal?

When measurements in a couple of years will prove that CO2 and emissions do not increase present temps, then there was no just obligation to pay and we want our money back …which is fair and everyone will clearly agree to that.

Therefore, the fund receivers have to pay back all of it as a temporary loan with interest….

This is not too much to ask for…. who does not agree to this deal?

Yep, just give us money and we will make all the bad molecules go away. Or maybe not, but at least we will try! But only if you hand over the money. If you don’t, your house will be razed by a hurricane, then your land will be dessicated by desert, and finally it will be flooded by the sea …. unless you hand over the money.

“Someone keep Obama away from the checkbook.”

Funniest thing I heard was: “Please, nobody tell Obama what comes after ‘trillion’”

I think the plan is to give 1.6 trillion a year to the cleptocratic regimes of the “developing world” for which they can buy weapons, so that any war between developed world and the cleptocratic dictatorships takes an eternity to unfold and costs as much as WW II. (As part of the war preparations, the receivers will of course maintain that they spend all the money on planting trees.)

Has the added side benefit of depopulating the planet, and most important of all, investment possibilies.

I keep finding links to london going back to Enron, Arthur Anderson, AIG, MF Global. Many of these renewable companies that blew in out of nowhere seem to require London connections. The mystery of derivatives and their usage ranks up there with Dark Matter…. Until now.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/shadow-rehypothecation-infinte-leverage-and-why-breaking-tyrrany-ignorance-only-solution

Philip Foster says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:23 am

>>

I gather that a hoax document has been circulating at Durban… the BBC was taken in (no surprise there then) but admitted as much at lunchtime news today. I suggest we take care about all this.

>>

Apparently it is fake. According to the Guardian they got the type face and some “key details” wrong!

Frankly, I don’t care what frigging type face they use or whether their New World Government kicks in “in 2020″ or “no later” than 2020.

This document is more important the Mein Kampf.

Dear Durban:

We don’t have the money. We’re broke. Goldman Sachs and China have all of our cash now. We’ve been cleaned out from bailing out bankers for their losses on mortgages that the “little people” still hold at a loss. Nobody bails us out. We’ve been cleaned out from baling out bankers for their losses on government bonds that the taxpayers of those countries still have to pay off. Nobody bails them out. We’ve been cleaned out by your CO2 regulations that forced our heavy industry to move to China, India, and Brazil so we no longer have steel mills and can’t build power plants.

We’re broke, Durban. We’re already unemployed and living on the dole. We’re already getting government assistance just to buy food. You want 1.6 trillion dollars to centrally manage the global economy and give all your cronies nice jobs for the rest of their lives? Sorry, Durban, we need that money. It’s all we have left.

Oh, and Durban, just who the hell do you think you are?

Unreliable*

■Skeptical Science – John Cook

* Due to (1) deletion, extension and amending of user comments, and (2) undated post-publication revisions of article contents after significant user commenting.

Doesn’t RC also engage in these sorts of tactics? At least on point (1)?

C.O.P. stands for: collection of pissants.

Perhaps the UN could be relocated to a place their influence can be most effective. I suggest the Eastern portion of Antarctica.

Latest extortion attempt from Durban COP17: $1.6 Trillion F A I L E D

They won’t get it

Sack Black

http://thepurplescorpion.blogspot.com/2011/12/black-reveals-some-of-bad-news.html

Louise says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:41 am

So you all think the word ‘invite’ actually means ‘demand’ – wow, I knew there were some differences between American and British English but I’d missed that one.

Louise, as one of the invitees, I can’t help feeling a little like one of these these “honored guests”.

http://www.pokerpages.com/poker-news/news/surprised-dutch-online-poker-players-are-being-invited-to-pay-taxes–31403.htm

I note the lead EU rep is Dutch, so maybe it’s Dutch English we ought to be worried about.

$1.6 trillion? Is that all? One IPCC statement says $37 trillion is needed immediately to ‘stop global warming’. I recall EPA saying it would take $170 trillion to lower Earth’s temperature 1 degree C.

No doubt, they will need to ramp up their demands for money as they figure out how to use it for themselves. They surely won’t be sending any significant amount to countries they claim to be helping.

If the UN gets the $1.6 million to stop the climate from changing will it also be able to command the tides, or will only Al Gore have that power?

Wonder whyat THIS mjeans ?

…… the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationality

defined development priorities and strategies,..

Not nationally defined, but nationality defined prorities

The suggestion of 1.6tn here is pretty stupid , as stated, that is whole world mil budget not that of developing nations.

The issues here are serious enough not to need spurious exaggeration.

It’s over! Durban is dead.

http://notrickszone.com/2011/12/10/der-spiegel-no-deal-durban-ends-in-chaos-its-over/

I’m confused as to how this budgeting process is going to work. One requirement of the draft document is that all countries cease any military spending. Then, they demand an amount of money equal to the world’s military spending. By their own process, they have demanded $0.

Or are they just expecting that no one will listen to their demand for cessation of warfare and spend the money anyway despite the treaty? That must be their expectation since their track record so far of stopping warfare is zero too.

Starting to be a lot of zeros in this scheme. That would also be the number of countries that are going to sign this piece of insanity and actually implement a single provision in it. ZERO.

They seem to have forgotten their 50% administration fee.

What’s so great about Durban the city that they would put a conference there? The only thing lots of people associate with the city is the racist Jew Hating conference they held there a decade ago.

To Louise: Instead of looking up ‘invite’ and ‘demand’ in your Oxford dictionary, check the history of political speak. Words have whatever meaning they want on any given day. If they can convince you to sign onto a plan today with the word ‘invite’, tomorrow that ‘invite’ becomes a ‘demand’ and the day after ‘coercion’, you want corn? wheat? oil?, then you must ‘voluntarily’ ……and the day after that it is a crime against humanity.

And the bad news is that next years feast is going to be held underwater on the once Maldive Islands, to much to ask 30,000 parasites to drown for a just cause!

This document is either too good – or too bad – to be true. Apparently the CAGW people aren’t the only climate bloggers to swallow a hoax:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/10/durban-climate-talks-false-text

Let’s unruffle our feathers here and get back to reality. ;-)

tallbloke says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:12 am

“The EU has wasted over 1/4 billion Euro on propping up the european carbon market already. That cash could have rebuilt all coal fired generating plant with filters and reduced co2 emissions 30%.”

http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=Total%20funding%20for%20climate%20change%20reserach&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA

JoNova points out that:

“The US government has provided over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks.”

Surely the rest of the world has come up with another similar amount- so the total is probably more than $150B + the cost of the world windmill fleet + solar – I’m guessing $750B (the internet is so polluted by green gas that you can’t get a link using sensible search phrases), plus all the other craziness must add up to at least $1trillion. Anybody got numbers on this? Tallbloke, that isn’t your picture at the head of this post is it? With the little fingernail between your teeth?

Louise says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:41 am

“So you all think the word ‘invite’ actually means ‘demand’ – wow, I knew there were some differences between American and British English but I’d missed that one.”

—

The “invite” part only applies to submitting “information on plans to increase their financial contributions”. It’s like when the IRS invites me to submit a tax return every year. I can ignore the request to send in my tax forms but that won’t stop them from demanding their money anyway. There isn’t a global IRS, yet, but the elitists in Durban have already drafted plans to create one.

You may consider your power bill an “invitation” to pay but, where I live, the power gets shut off if I refuse to pay. So, to me, it’s a “demand”. I don’t have the option to ignore the taxes and fees added on to my power bill and pay for just the electricity I use, do you? If Durban gets its way, their extortion money will be added on to your power bill, your grocery bill, your tax bill, and anything else they can get their hands on. In other words, “invite” is newspeak for “demand” in its Durban context.

The Global Warming craze is frightening evidence that people’s desire, need, proclivity for magical thinking is greater than their intellectual strength or self-criticism.

I recently watched a program that described the Russian Glasnost as not just openness, but self-criticism, which was philosophically not possible in Stalinist communism. Only the good parts of society were open to inspection pre-Glasnost. I don’t think that the refusal on philosophical ground to open up the sores of the state are just a Communist problem: the MSM, government and people of capitalist countries are just as self-blind to the problems their way of living causes. As are the hyper-religious and the atheist. It is more the way of people than the way of a people.

The Durban demand for trillions of dollars – or billions or lots of millions, it doesn’t matter – is all about preservation of self-respect. Face-saving. Going out strong, never admitting error or foolishness. In fact, the greater the demand, the more likely the demand is to be refused. Then something more moderate, but in compromise against your alleged core beliefs, might be successful. And proposed by the next generation.

Put Keystone XL on top of a regional acquifer? Hell, no, never, over our dead bodies. Oh, shift it to the east, over someone else’s land without our acquifer on it? Sure, I don’t have a dog in this fight, I’m pleased and I’m going home. Not that I object to burning the jet fuel that takes me around the world, I was just making a point about what, if I were running the world, I’d like to see.

Durban, thank the Lord, is excessive to the ridiculous. So it will fail. But all those whose hearts are on their sleeves will be able to preserve their self-image. And find something else to plump up their chest about. And so it will go – as long as the Watts and the Moranos and the Inhofes are allowed to say their piece, that is.

What is really distressing, though, is the repetition of magical thinking of educated, experienced, cultured “leaders” everywhere. We are progressing technologically. We understand the physics better than ever before, but we still behave as the European and Aztecs of one thousand years ago, looking for AND FINDING witches and angry gods to blame for troubles in our lives. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice: a marginalized element one time, an underclass of believers another time, a corporate villain the next. All the same song, just the style changes.

In science fiction movies, humans are often said to be unready to enter the “civilized” universe. We are too violent. AGW shows that it isn’t violence that is at the heart of the problem, it is a way of magical thinking that says “strike here, and all the problems go away”. Wars, AGW, Ponzi schemes on Wall Street – all ways of being that says the Other exists, the Other, when defeated, will make our lives perfect. Magical thinking when slow but steady work will actually do the trick.

Durban, Durban, Durban. How do they sleep at night? Very well, indeed, for they are Good People, which is the only point worth considering, after all.

Bloke down at the pub says:

Note that that is the amount spent by developed countries on defence, not the $1.6 trillion spent worldwide. Either way that’s a lot to spend on parties even for the UN.

Good point.

SIPRI’s military expenditure database is available to download in a spread sheet and lists expenditures by country.

Please do us the service and break out developing vs developed country expenditures.

Some other clues from Military Expenditures and Development J. Paul Dunne

Income group (by 2003 gross national income per capita)

Low $29.5

Lower middle $122

Upper middle $51

High $799

—————————

Reducing military spending and helping the poor are still honorable goals. Just do it without establishing a global coercive government and universal taxation without representation.

See Fact Sheet: Military Spending vs. Millennium Development Goals

The estimated cost of compliance with all eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals – eradicating hunger, universal primary education, child mortality reduction, disease prevention, environmental sustainability, and global development – are all eclipsed by yearly military spending figures.

In fact, all eight MDGs combined cost less than a fifth of yearly military spending.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty $102 billion

Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability $155.6 billion

Goal 8: Develop Global Partnership fro Development $40 billion

Annual cost estimation of all MDGs = $329 billion.

Global Military Spending in 2009 – $1.53 trillion

You do the hokey pokey and that’s what it’s all about.

Money taken from the “wrong” people, and given to the “right” people with most of it sticking to the elite fingers in the middle.

So, essentially, that means spending a symbolical sum on technology and forest so that .7*1.6 Trillion can be spent on the most important people-the ones sitting around saying what could and should be done year in and year out, without actually anything being done.

The politicized class need your money to live in wealth too, so don’t deny them your kindness come taxation time. :p

Louise says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:41 am

“So you all think the word ‘invite’ actually means ‘demand’ – wow….”

47. The provision of the amount of funds to be made available annually to developing country Parties, which shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security, and warfare.

Now that’s a real “wow”, dearie.

But I suppose you also think the authors of Fast and Furious, Sheriff Eric “Hit Man” Holder, and Prince John Barack and his Commie Hoods are really Robinhood and his Merry Men battling to oppose confiscatory taxation? And that the Drug Cartels will send only their real dirty “laundry” back for La Raza and such to dry clean?

Geez, Louise, it’s no doubt only going to be a matter of time before you “Progressives” will be praising these total fakes as “John Wayne Cowboys”.

Louise: Re: “So you all think the word ‘invite’ actually means ‘demand’”

Please evaluate the grammar of para 47 “to be made available” and “shall be”

funds to be made available annually to developing country Parties, which shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security, and warfare.

e.g. Merriam-Webster definition of shall includes:

b —used in laws, regulations, or directives to express what is mandatory – “it shall be unlawful to carry firearms”

Philip Foster says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:23 am

‘I gather that a hoax document has been circulating at Durban’

Pretty much every document circulating at Durban is a hoax, as is the event itself.

To:Bloke down the pub says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:03 am

Please read it again. It is the amount spent by Developed Countries.

Climate control is not the issue: Equal poverty for all the the goal.

David L. Hagen;

Annual cost estimation of all MDGs = $329 billion.

Global Military Spending in 2009 – $1.53 trillion>>>

Here’s the problem with that analysis. You are assuming that spending the $329 Billion would be effective. History shows that it will not. Billions upon billions have been poured into the poor nations of the earth in the form of aid and support of all sorts, and they remain poor nations, struggling in squalor. They will continue to do so until the dictatorships, theocracies, monarchies and totaly corrupt governments are gone. Until then, every penny of aid sent to those poor nations does nothing but prop up the regimes that are responsible for their people’s misery, and prolongs the agony of the people who suffer under them.

Re mil. spending of developed vs developing world, here’s a good pie chart for 2008.

http://topforeignstocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/military-country-distribution-2008.png

EU+USA = 68% of total. Rest is difficult to break up, but you get the picture. I guess total of developed world is about 75% of the total.

“corporate says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:41 am

Wonder whyat THIS mjeans ?

…… the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationality

defined development priorities and strategies,..

Not nationally defined, but nationality defined prorities”

Isn’t that interesting. I think most people can speculate what is really meant.

Seems the USA has given enough, even without ratifying a treaty.

http://www.state.gov/e/oes/rls/remarks/2011/178458.htm

Talk about a waste of investment. What have we gotten for 90 BILLION and in the past two years….5.1 BILLION. No wonder the USA is going down the rat hole fast.

tallbloke says: December 10, 2011 at 9:12 am: The EU has wasted over 1/4 billion Euro on propping up the european carbon market already. That cash could have rebuilt all coal fired generating plant with filters and reduced co2 emissions 30%.

Half that would have paid all of Portugal’s debt, IMF loans almost all included.

One of the problems that the U.N. has is that it is too far removed from the majority of the countries that make up its membership. I propose that the industrialized countries remedy that by “inviting” the developed nations to contribute to a fund to move the U.N headquarters and the headquarters of those U.N. organizations that are in Switzerland and Paris to Mogadishu. I, for one, would encourage president Obama and Senate Majority leader Reid to direct that 50% of the U.S’s U.N. contribution be restricted to this fund.

Gee a year ago, they would have been happy with holding the temp rise to 2 C. With the climagegate 1 and 2, the dropping sea levels instead of accelerating ones, with Lower Troposphere cooling and no statistical warming since 1995….now they are really teed off. You-all wouldn’t agree to 2C so now we are going to make it 1C allowable and you are being fined 1.6T a year… so there! Hansen’s science now says that 1C is too high (you should have listened and aquiesced last year) and we will be facing many metres sea level rise (H wants to submerge that stubborn Hudson R. parkway under half a dozen metres of water by 2050. Gee, I guess we better sign up before they come out with the big guns.

Green madness strikes again.

How destroy one of the most powerful economic engines in Canada. Spend $ Billions on useless Wind and Solar, don’t plan on how to hook them up to the grid. Drive up the cost of electricity to the point that Industry, businesses and the public can’t afford it. The net result is unemployment and uncompetitiveness on top of a world financial melt down. Thank god for the oil, gas and raw resource sectors or Canada would be bankrupt thanks mainly to the Green socialist policy’s of Ontario and Quebec.

Ontario. Canada – Auditor General blasts Green Energy cost

Ontario Auditor General blasts McGuinty’s Liberal Governments Green Energy Act

WINDSOR, Ont. — The province’s Auditor General has heavily criticized the McGuinty government’s Green Energy Act, saying government subsidies will cost consumers $220 million on their hydro bills and 75 per cent of the jobs created will be short term.

“No comprehensive evaluation was done on the impact of the billion-dollar commitment to renewable energy on such things as future electricity prices, net job creation or losses across the province, and greenhouse gas emissions,” auditor general Jim McCarter in his report released Monday at Queen’s Park.

Read more:

http://www.windsorstar.com/business/Ontario+Auditor+General+blasts+McGuinty+Green+Energy/5813967/story.html#ixzz1gA6X1UgL

As the Durban talks near an end and delegates scramble to reach some agreement, here’s a list of some of the key things under negotiation:

1. Adaptation Fund (Money)

2. Clean Development Mechanism (Money)

3. Green Climate Fund (Money)

4. MRV: Measure, report and verify (Money)

5. MRV for developing nations (Money)

6. Technology Transfer (Money)

7. REDD (Money)

When Europeans arrived in America they had shovels, axes, seeds, plows, some draft animals and a willingness to work hard for what they wanted.

In less than 300 years their descendants (the Americans) had landed a man on the Moon, created the Internet and improved their standard of living through hard work and by using the abundant natural resources, including inexpensive energy.

The countries demanding money have shovels, axes, seeds, plows, some draft animals and …. the ability to ask for a free ride.

The people in North America had to work hard for More than 200 years to get to where they are today, and some people in some countries just want it all right away without the long hard work, and they think they can Guilt us in to giving it to them. Good luck with that.

Cheapest cure for global warming would be to disband the IPCC and spend $10 million, one time, in an ad campaign explaining that the IPCC never was scientific and that AGW was a scam.

As global warming has already taken care of itself by cooling naturally, we’re done.

I love the idea that the money should equal all money spent in security, military, and warfare. You see they think their edict that everybody cease all forms of aggression, now, will free up all of those monies.

Where do the UN clowns live? Same planet? Planet Zanax?

I like the bit where it says “A low carbon society.” That equates to ‘death and non-developement’ Back to the caves!

Dr Burns says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:49 am

They seem to have forgotten their 50% administration fee.

———————————

Kick in another 30% to cover attorney fees.

Josualdo says:

December 10, 2011 at 11:39 am

“tallbloke says: December 10, 2011 at 9:12 am: The EU has wasted over 1/4 billion Euro on propping up the european carbon market already. That cash could have rebuilt all coal fired generating plant with filters and reduced co2 emissions 30%.

Half that would have paid all of Portugal’s debt, IMF loans almost all included.”

Josualdo, Portugal had an extremely green energy policy (as encouraged by Brussels/Berlin)… so part of the 1/4 bn EUR wasted ARE Portoguese debt now!

I tried to post a link more than an hour ago to this Guardian article: “Durban climate change talks: false text diverts race to reach deal.” Rather than posting the link – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/10/durban-climate-talks-false-text – WUWT apparently prefers to perpetuate the hoax.

[REPLY: Try looking a little harder. Your first post got through just fine. Gonna apologize now? -REP]

Why can’t the Maldives get the money they need the same way we do, borrow it from China?

The interesting thing about Durban is who didn’t go. World leaders stayed away in droves and sent minor functionaries instead. The conference was dominated by … impractical people … and little effort seems to have been made to reign them in. The result appears to be a document so far off the planet that the world leaders (who didn’t go remember) will have absolutely no trouble dissociating themselves from it and rejecting it. One might almost think it was deliberate.

crosspatch says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:25 am

“Someone keep Obama away from the checkbook.”

Funniest thing I heard was: “Please, nobody tell Obama what comes after ‘trillion’”

It would be “$Brazillion”; that’s why he thinks South America has so much money.

It is the biggest rip-off attempt in history You have to ask what the military spending of a sovereign nation has to do with their claim to someone else’s money and why is anything owed for nothing? Perhaps the attempt is to coerce the developed countries into becoming defenseless to escape the economy crushing fine they hope to impose.

The most-strange part of the money grab is the crumbling scientific theory and predictions being used to justify the plan of these UN grifters.

I’ve been following the tweets. We are at a pretty dangerous stage. The delegates are so tired and so ready to get out of town that they will likely sign anything. That means that whatever goes in that final document will not likely be read carefully.

Look for something being slipped into that document that hasn’t been discussed.

bladeshearer

I extracted from and linked to the documented posted by the UNFCC at:

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp39.pdf

I also warned about the fake document.

If you can find a posted copy of the fake, please link to it and highlight the differences.

There’s a two word response for this, but the inappropriate language would get me banned.

Really, only $1,600,000,000,000.00 ?

I have that much in my Global Warming BS Swear Jar, help yourself

Number 1: Dr Evil do you expect them to pay that sort of money?

Dr. Evil: No Number 1, I expect them to Die!! Mwaahahahaha!

$1.6 trillion? We could settle the entire Solar System for a tenth of that. Just saying…

Downdraft says:

Climate control is not the issue: Equal poverty for all the the goal.

—

Yes, except it will be equal poverty for all but the elite with sticky fingers who get to redistribute the cash. They expect to live in luxury in the farmhouse while everyone else is freezing and starving out in the barn. In fact, many of them are hoping that most of us starve to death so they can inherit the earth as their own private green preserve. Let’s not forget who these people really are:

“If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”

— Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

“Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.”

— Dave Forman (founder of Earth First!)

AR5 ZOD

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TF234DCZ

What financial institutions are behind this scheme?

“What financial institutions are behind this scheme?”

The UN *IS* a financial scheme!

DirkH says: December 10, 2011 at 12:12 pm:

Josualdo says: December 10, 2011 at 11:39 am:

“tallbloke says: December 10, 2011 at 9:12 am: The EU has wasted over 1/4 billion Euro on propping up the european carbon market already. That cash could have rebuilt all coal fired generating plant with filters and reduced co2 emissions 30%.

Half that would have paid all of Portugal’s debt, IMF loans almost all included.”

Josualdo, Portugal had an extremely green energy policy (as encouraged by Brussels/Berlin)… so part of the 1/4 bn EUR wasted ARE Portoguese debt now!

I’m regrettably pretty much aware of that… Machiavellian, isn’t it? And now we’ll have to keep subsidizing the renewables energy production from our personal pockets — the new Economy Minister clearly meant to stop the subsidies (he wrote about that more than once as a “must be”), but it seems the contracts are absolutely cast in steel, like so many other ruinous ones (public-private initiatives for instance). In a single year, we were done for the next 30.

@ Louis says:

December 10, 2011 at 12:47 pm

“If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”

— Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

“Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.”

— Dave Forman (founder of Earth First!)

============================================================

Both of those individuals are genocidal maniacs. But they are also cowards, or they would act on their words.

Article 10:

“Affirms that the long-term global goal for emission reductions shall be consistent

with science, in particular those of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and more recent

scientific information, and agreed on the basis of the principles of the Convention…”

So the global goal for emission reductions shall be consistent with science, as long as science is in complete agreement with the Church of Gaia and her self-appointed high priests. Am I reading that right?

crosspatch says on December 10, 2011 at 10:24 am

Yep, just give us money and we will make all the bad molecules go away. Or maybe not, but at least we will try! But only if you hand over the money. If you don’t, your house will be razed by a hurricane, then your land will be dessicated by desert, and finally it will be flooded by the sea …. unless you hand over the money.

I would much rather take my chances against Mother Nature than the “progressives” pushing this UN sponsored Climate Justice nonsense. The “people-who-try-to-help-everyone”, always seem to be able to lower my (and others) take-home pay through increased taxes, fees, tariffs and mandatory cost increases.

At least with Mother Nature, I am given a fighting chance to come out unscathed. I have survived all the hurricanes, earthquakes, wild fires, tornadoes, thunderstorms, blizzards, and floods that Nature has thrown at me without undue stress.

BTW, Given my track record regarding being present during disasters, you might not want to stand too close to me, :)

“You need to save us, the islands can’t sink. We have a right to live, you can’t decide our destiny. We will have to be saved,” Maldives climate negotiator Mohamed Aslam said.

-

Get real Maldives! If anything you need dirt & sand, not dollars!

Buy your own cranes from those hundreds of millions of tourist dollars.

Dig. The ocean floors are huge and will recover.

Fortunately Western Countries all have balanced budgets and can hence throw trillions of dollars away to corrupt third world governments for boondoggle projects.

It is time to stop the insanity. We are not brain dead sheep.

[REPLY: Try looking a little harder. Your first post got through just fine. Gonna apologize now? -REP]

Oops – sorry, I missed that. So, apparently, did everyone else, as the dudgeon here continues to rise despite the likelihood that the subject document is a hoax.

[REPLY: What you also missed is that the document under discussion came from the UN's own website here. -REP]

As my families’ fuel costs have risen we have had to drop our green/caring credentials.

First it was the recycled stuff such as toilet paper and kitchen towels – a 15% saving. Then the environmentally friendly stuff such as shampoo, washing up liquid and washing powder – a 12% saving. Then it was the organic food – milk, meat, bread – a 20% saving. Right now it is the charities – the only one left is the RNLI (after 10 years in marine salvage I will leave that until last) that feel our pain.

We are not alone.

These unspeakable morons have absolutely no idea the environmental, societal and individual damage they have caused, to date, with their idiocy. Or they do, in which case we must find a way to repay them.

I was already extremely angry when it was distant (to me) ills, such as over-fishing, clean water and deforestation, that could have been cured with the money we wasted on these scumbags’ paranoid fantasies. Now it is personal I am having trouble finding the words. My children wish you party-goers in Durban a Happy Christmas. Ignorant, Fraudulent Assholes.

Hey Anthony, Tamino is defending your blog from the barks of his lapdogs.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/oh-pleeze/#comment-57544

As other commenters have mentioned, the UN’s ultimate goal is to establish a one world government. To do that they need a reliable source of funding. Relying on member states to pay dues is not always reliable, however taxation is. And, with the ability to tax comes the ability to control.

There is an area that the UN seeks to control and tax that is far more ominous than CO2 (particularly to bloggers such as Anthony and others). The UN wants to take over control of the internet! This isn’t some pie-in-the-sky left-wing looney wish. This comes from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In addition to repressive regimes such as China and Russia, numerous non-governmental organizations and international foundations (such as George Soros’ Open Society Institute) are also involved in the effort to change Internet policy. The date set for renegotiating the current treaty (signed in 1988) is December 2012.

To quote FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell “While we have been focused on other important matters here in the U.S., the effort to radically reverse the long-standing international consensus to keep governments from regulating core functions of the Internet’s ecosystem has been gaining momentum. The reach, scope and seriousness of this effort are nothing short of massive”.

I urge everyone to get up to speed on this issue as it will affect everyone in every country.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/09/fcc-commissioner-fears-international-internet-takeover/

They just jumped the shark, shark with frikkin lasers!

Former_Forecaster ,

“Nationality defined” might mean that the Alberta oil sands will be OK to exploit – so long as Canada brings in the workers from The Maldives ! ( they’ll have to be migrants – of course. Naturally. Mother Earth provides)

Perhaps the UN could be relocated to a place their influence can be most effective. I suggest the Eastern portion of Antarctica………. I live fairly close to Antarctia so that won’t work for me … I suggest El Heiro as more suitable…. far far more suitable for the new UN headquaters. Who actually owns that building in NY? could they be pursuaded to cancel the lease PLEASE

So what will happen to the employment level when the army, navy and air force of all developed countries are made redundant? Then you have all the associated industries that supply the vast ‘war machine’ being made redundant. Then you have the knock-on effect in the already crippled economy, whereby these business collapses cause further redundancies and collapses.

Eventually the ‘developed’ world loses all its ‘development’ and economies and governments collapse. The UN wins, and then becomes the world leading organisation lording over … what? A bunch of mud huts?

And seriously, the dimwits who drafted this cannot think it through that far? They obviously have no concept of economics. I don’t, really, but that was my obvious first train of thought.

What is the combined annual budget of all the NGOs present in Durban and all of their associated NGOs?

THAT is the reason we are having economic problems. That amount to billions of dollars being spent that produces NOTHING. How much did Spain and Portugal spend on “green” energy? What if they had all of that money back to do something actually productive … such as maybe leaving it in the pockets of their taxpayers?

Breaking News – an updated history on the LAST chance to save the world:

http://asiancorrespondent.com/71700/an-updated-history-of-last-chances-to-save-the-world/

Love it. Guess next time it will be the VERY LAST chance to save the world.

MikeN

I lived in Durban for 16 years – A really great place!

Please don’t let your ignorance dominate!

But if I still lived there, I guess I would be as disgusted as you are.

So what will happen to the employment level when the army, navy and air force of all developed countries are made redundant?

I am sure they will take care of that problem, too, if we just hand them enough money.

“crosspatch says:

December 10, 2011 at 12:58 pm

“What financial institutions are behind this scheme?”

The UN *IS* a financial scheme!”

What’s the bet a large percentage of 1.6 Trillion $$$ will be the new budget for the ‘Enforcers’. The UN Global ECO-Green Police?

Cheap Trick’s song ‘Dream Police’ will have to be slightly re written and retitled the “Green Police”. With all the propaganda and crap from the UN.

The Green police, they live inside of my head.

The Green police, they come to me in my bed.

The Green police, they’re coming to arrest me, oh no.

Anjali Appadurai, a student at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, addressed the conference on behalf of youth delegates. “ANJALI APPADURAI: I speak for more than half the world’s population. ” http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/9/get_it_done_urging_climate_justice

Really? An obscure student from an obscure college in an obscure state (currently frozen solid, btw) speaks for 3.5 billion people? What mind boggling arrogance!

Step aside, folks, I’m buying.☺

• • • • •

“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”

~ Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair, UN/IPCC WG-3

Are we supposed to believe the numbers on climate change that these people put forward.

They can’t even figure out their text puts a $1.6 trillion tax on developing countries. About as ridiculous as it can get.

But not quite …

Cause 78 and 79 establish “An International Climate Court of Justice”. We though the Penn State professor was just grandstanding. Nope.

Curiousgeorge says:

December 10, 2011 at 3:04 pm

Anjali Appadurai, a student at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, addressed the conference on behalf of youth delegates. “ANJALI APPADURAI: I speak for more than half the world’s population. ” http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/9/get_it_done_urging_climate_justice

Really? An obscure student from an obscure college in an obscure state (currently frozen solid, btw) speaks for 3.5 billion people? What mind boggling arrogance!

Unless someone puts their feet down really hard and really soon, we will have ’1984′ on our hands and children with green uniforms …

Guys can’t you get it? That’s the price of a giant worldwide air conditioning system!!!

The excuse for wanting our money, trillions of it, is because, supposedly, we, the people of the industrialised countries, are causing oceans to rise, temperatures to soar, amd therefore, those tiny little countries, and some big ones too, will suffer because of our industrious character, inventive genius and general talents that make us capable of raising our standard of living in such a way as to double our expected life span from 40 years to 80 years, not dying of the cold and common colds and simple infections, being well nourished, clothed and having machines doing the otherwise back-breaking manual work for us that my grand father and his ancestors had to do for a living with their bare hands. Now, all this technology has been transferred to these good-for-nothing peoples of these back-ward countries FOR FREE, so that they would be able to drive SUV’s, live to a venerable old age of 85 years, eat meat and driink beer, and they want to get their hands in my pocket so that they would be able to have all this WITHOUT EVER DOING ANYTHING TO EARN IT. Just like the sociailists want to partake of my money in the form of a ‘dole’ and other excuses, now, the people of Vanuatu, voodooland and Venezuela (even if the latter is drowning in black gold) want trillions of dollars from those people who saved them from abject poverty and death by famine/plagues/tyranny.

What the industrialised countires (the descriptor ‘Industrious Countries’ would be a truer one) should do is ask these good-for-nothings to pay us for everything we have given them for freethese last 200 years. And I bl**dy mean it.

In reply to Vukcevic

M.A.Vukcevic says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:35 pm

Hey Anthony, Tamino is defending your blog from the barks of his lapdogs.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/oh-pleeze/#comment-57544

I am sure Tamino will censor my comment, so here it is.

The sun does not modulate planetary temperature based on the number of sunspots. One needs to understand the mechanisms (plural not singular) by which the sun affects planetary temperature and how the sun is changing to understand why planetary temperature increased in the 20th century and how planetary temperature will change in the future. (The sun was in its highest activity level in roughly 10,000 years during the last portion of the 20th century.)

Roughly 70% of the 20th century warming was due to solar wind bursts that occurred late in the solar cycle. The solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which removes cloud forming ions by a mechanism that is called electroscavenging.

The delay in planetary cooling is due to the short period solar cycles followed by a long solar cycle. This is an interesting phenomena (why there is correlation in solar cycle length and planetary temperature – i.e. There is a physical reason for the correlation.) that is due to a fundamental solar parameter which was to this point not been measured although there is host of different unexplained anomalies that are caused by this parameter.

The planet will now cool and sea level will drop (the sea level drop will be significantly greater than the thermal contraction due to cooling and due to the increase in the ice sheets and the mountain glaciers.) (There is in the paleo record weird unexplained rapid cyclic sea level changes which correlate with the paleo climatic temperature changes, which also correlate to unexplained geomagnetic field inclination and intensity changes.)

When the planet cools we can all yell hurray for our side as we were correct and then start the process of looking for a solution to global cooling.

According to Monckton, those trillions of dollars would not go direct to the ‘suffering’ nations, but straight to the UN coffers for them to distribute. But distribute among whom? How much of that money would really reach the drowning vanuatans. Of course, since the vanuatans will not actually drown, they will not get any of those trillions. There lies the scam.

Alex the Skeptic;

(the descriptor ‘Industrious Countries’ would be a truer one>>>

True! If the 3rd world were not run by a collection of corrupt dictatorships, monarchies, and theocracies determined to cling to power at any cost, they wouldn’t BE the 3rd world, and there would be nobody to transfer the wealth to!

Man, you gotta read the twitter feed from #cop17 Marxists gone nuts.

Batman-: Could it be……………………………………..

Robin-: What Batman?

Batman-: Could it be that Whatsupwith that has fallen for a fake document again, a document put out by……………………..by The Joker.

Robin-: Holy Jovial Jesters Batman, you mean the Funny Fiend is in Durban writing fake documents to entrap the gullible, Batman?

Batman-: That’s exactly what I mean Boy Wonder, there’s no time to lose, quick Robin, slide down this pole.

1,600,000,000,000

The average number of air molecules you have to count before you find the first CO2.

Wanna see $100 dollar bills stacked up ?

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/calculations.html

It is obvious, our elected officials have no concept of a “Trillion”.

Jimmy Haigh says: December 10, 2011 at 4:22 pm

“1,600,000,000,000 … The average number of air molecules you have to count before you find the first CO2.”

You have made a slight mistake.

390 ppm equals to one CO2 molecule among 2,564 air molecules.

There appear to be two different versions:

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp39.pdf

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/l04.pdf

The first is the one linked to above, the second is what is now on the UNFCC website http://unfccc.int/meetings/durban_nov_2011/meeting/6245.php where it says “The AWG-LCA text is now available here.”

I believe the 2nd, newer version has been watered down considerably, which has angered many. This appears to be somewhat of a repeat of the Copenhagen performance, with some parties already having left, and those remaining desperately trying to strike some sort of deal, as time runs out.

Dumb-: Could it be PeterT has not bothered to notice that the document comes straight from the UN web site?

Dumber-: You know, just when I think no one can get any dumber…you go and totally redeem yourself by pointing out the obvious!

the comments must be embarrassing for Black and the Beeb:

11 Dec: BBC: Richard Black: UN climate talks near chaotic end

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16124670

But you guys keep on telling me we already spends trillions on AGW.

But now it turns out 1.6 trillion is the total military expenditure of the entire developed world.

Any body seen the establishment of an Eco corps equivalent in size to the usa military, which seems to have a major military base in every major town. Or are you hiding it in area 51?

Nope no sign of them. Which must mean that every one of you who pulls trillions of AGW out of thin air is not particularly skeptical.

I’ll bet the $1.6 Trillion is JUST the down payment; greed knows no limit!

FOIA File structure seen as DOS file structure.

SUB Directory REDACTED.

CD/ redacted

http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?search=REDACTED

DIR

–

Thu, 9 Oct 2008 6:56:17 am

0058.txt- Ralf

0058.txt-

0058.txt:[[[redacted: reference]]]

0058.txt-

0058.txt- Finally, might I ask that you note and then erase this email. I have found that recent

–

OPEN 0058.txt-

http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0058.txt&search=REDACTED

“

date: Thu Oct 9 17:56:17 2008

from: Keith Briffa

subject: Re: Tom Giverin – IN STRICT CONFIDENCE

to: “Toumi, Ralf”

Ralf

[[[redacted: reference]]]

Finally, might I ask that you note and then erase this email. I have found that recent

enquiries under the Freedom of Information Act, or Data Protection Act, can become

considerable time sinks , or the basis of some inconvenient subsequent distractions.

with best wishes

Keith

At 12:38 09/10/2008, you wrote:

Dear Keith,

Tom has applied to do a PhD with me (probably mesoscale modelling). Could you please

give me a reference for him. In particular I would be interested to know if you would

take him in your group (and why you think he is still available; which is good for

me…, but I always worry at this time of year).

Best wishes,

Ralf

Professor Ralf Toumi

Department of Physics

Imperial College

London SW7 2AZ

UK

Rm. H713 (Huxley Building)

Telephone: + 44 (0) ???

Fax: + 44 (0) ???

email: [1]???@imperial.ac.uk

Web: [2]http://www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~rtoumi/

–

Professor Keith Briffa,

Climatic Research Unit

University of East Anglia

Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.

Phone: +4 ???-1603-593909

Fax: +4 ???-1603-507784

[3]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/

Open – it is also a filename, + = space key seen on FOIA Grepper.

DIR

http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?search=+–

“### CANNOT PARSE DATE ###

0876437553.txt-Sounds like you guys have been busy doing good things for the cause.

0876437553.txt-

0876437553.txt:I would like to weigh in on two important questions –

0876437553.txt-“

0876437553.txt:I would like to weigh in on two important questions –

0876437553 = UNIX time stamp

Open 0876437553.txt

“From: Joseph Alcamo

To: ???@uea.ac.uk, ???@rivm.nl

Subject: Timing, Distribution of the Statement

Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:52:33 0100

Reply-to: ???@usf.uni-kassel.de

Mike, Rob,

Sounds like you guys have been busy doing good things for the cause.

I would like to weigh in on two important questions –

Distribution for Endorsements –

I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as

possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is

numbers. The media is going to say “1000 scientists signed” or “1500

signed”. No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000

without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a

different story.

Conclusion — Forget the screening, forget asking

them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those

names!

Timing — I feel strongly that the week of 24 November is too late.

1. We wanted to announce the Statement in the period when there was

a sag in related news, but in the week before Kyoto we should expect

that we will have to crowd out many other articles about climate.

2. If the Statement comes out just a few days before Kyoto I am

afraid that the delegates who we want to influence will not have any

time to pay attention to it. We should give them a few weeks to hear

about it.

3. If Greenpeace is having an event the week before, we should have

it a week before them so that they and other NGOs can further spread

the word about the Statement. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be so

bad to release the Statement in the same week, but on a

diffeent day. The media might enjoy hearing the message from two

very different directions.

Conclusion — I suggest the week of 10 November, or the week of 17

November at the latest.

Mike — I have no organized email list that could begin to compete

with the list you can get from the Dutch. But I am still

willing to send you what I have, if you wish.

Best wishes,

Joe Alcamo

—————————————————-

Prof. Dr. Joseph Alcamo, Director

Center for Environmental Systems Research

University of Kassel

Kurt Wolters Strasse 3

D-34109 Kassel

Germany”

There is still filename —————————————————-

DIR

http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?search=+—————————————————-

Thu, 11 Jul 1996 1:07:13 pm

0837094033.txt-> NR4 7TJ

0837094033.txt-> UK

0837094033.txt:> —————————————————————————-

0837094033.txt->

0837094033.txt->

–

Open

0837094033.txt:> —————————————————————————-

“From: Alan Robock

To: Phil Jones

Subject: Re: your mail

Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 10:07:13 -0400 (EDT)

Dear Phil,

It looks like you have found Baitoushan. Vol. 2 lists Kuwae as VEI 6 in

1452 +/- 10 AD. How accurate are your dates? By the way, Chris Newhall

thinks 1600 is the Parker volcano on Mindanao in the Philippines. He

hasn’t published that so far, as I know.

Could you please define “utter prat” for me? Sometimes I think we speak

the same language, and sometimes I’m not so sure.

I’m doing fine. We have a new building with nice new offices. I’m going

to Australia next week with Sherri and Danny, and after the meeting, will

visit Cairns, Adelaide, and New Zealand. I’m looking forward to skiing

on a volcano, if it stops erupting.

Alan

Prof. Alan Robock Phone: (301)???

Department of Meteorology Fax: (301)???

University of Maryland Email: ???@atmos.umd.edu

College Park, MD 20742 http://www.meto.umd.edu/~alan

On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, Phil Jones wrote:

> Alan,

> Thanks for the quick response. We’ll expect something from Melissa

> in the next few weeks. I also hope our copy of the 2cnd edition arrives

> soon. In our maximum latewood density reconstruction from the polar Urals

> to AD 914, the most anomalous summer is AD 1032. A lot of other volcano

> years are there with summers of -3 to -4 sigma such as 1816,1601,1783 and

> 1453 (I think this later one is Kuwae that is being found in the Ice Cores

> in the Antarctic. However 1032 is 6 sigma and it may be the Baitoushan

> event which you say is 1010 +/- 50 years or the Billy Mitchell event.

>

> I hope all’s well with you.

>

> Cheers

> Phil

>

> PS Britain seems to have found it’s Pat Michaels/Fred Singer/Bob Balling/

> Dick Lindzen. Our population is only 25 % of yours so we only get 1 for

> every 4 you have. His name in case you should come across him is

> Piers Corbyn. He is nowhere near as good as a couple of yours and he’s

> an utter prat but he’s getting a lot of air time at the moment. For his

> day job he teaches physics and astronomy at a University and he predicts

> the weather from solar phenomena. He bets on his predictions months

> ahead for what will happen in Britain. He now believes he knows all

> there is to know about the global warming issue. He’s not all bad as

> he doesn’t have much confidence in nuclear-power safety. Always says

> that at the begining of his interviews to show he’s not all bad !

>

> Cheers Again

>

> Phil

> Dr Phil Jones

> Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 ???

> School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 ???

> Norwich Email ???@uea.ac.uk

> NR4 7TJ

> UK

> —————————————————————————-

>

>”

This is an example file path, and seems to be endless.

I think that the master file is still in CRU computer systems,

so we have to sort files like I did.

Ilkka.

Richard Sharpe says:

It follows logically from:

47. The provision of the amount of funds to be made available annually to developing country P

——————-

It does not follow logically from. The manner in which the funds are administered is undefined.There are many alternatives by which the funds could be administered and which do not involve the UN in any way.

You are making an assumption.

The latest from the AP:

http://news.yahoo.com/climate-deal-approval-un-conference-190231003.html;_ylt=AtyRQ0hfnZocQSnCozLpfbGs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNsampwMmZxBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBGUARwa2cDODAyYjRhNmQtZmVkNC0zNmIwLWI3MzItMDcxNGEzZWUwY2RiBHBvcwM1BHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyAzBjYzkwZTI2LTIzOTAtMTFlMS05ZGQyLTc4ZTdkMTVkMWM2NA–;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

The package must be approved by consensus, and no vote will be called.

How do you know you have a consensus if no vote is taken?

Walter H. Schneider says

Par. 47 states a demand

————–

No it’s not that either. It’s in the form of a contract.

So it’s defining the obligations of the signatories of the treaty IF they sign up to the treaty.

So they have started off with a proposed treaty.

There will be negotiations using that as a starting point or the proposed treaty will be rejected as a starting point.

Then after they come to an agreement, after lots of changes, then they might sign it.

You guys get sucked in by headlines every time. You need to ignore the headline, read the actual article and check the primary sources. Well that is what you would do if you were a skeptic.

Leon Brozyna says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:20 pm

ow do you know you have a consensus if no vote is taken?

‘Consensus’ is a term-of-art in climate science. In normal parlance, ‘consensus’ means unanimous support. In climate science, ‘consensus’ means support only from those people who already agree with a particular point of view. Those who disagree are, by definition, explicitly excluded from the consensus. So what this really mean is that the only people who get to decide what’s in the agreement are those who already agree with what’s in the agreement. Everyone else is definitionally excluded.

LazyTeenager says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:02 pm

==============

Care to try again.

There are many families still trying to recover from the last war..

You stupid, young …….

LazyTeenager;

The manner in which the funds are administered is undefined.There are many alternatives by which the funds could be administered and which do not involve the UN in any way.

You are making an assumption.>>>

So, you’re suggesting that the UN is considering collecting $1.3 Trillion from rich countries to give to poor countries, proposing a “world climate court” to enforce the transfer, and it supposed to happen without any UN involvement? Who runs the court? Who collects the money? Who distributes the money? On what basis? According to what rules? Who oversees the whole thing?

Could you propose a plausible mechanism to implement such a scheme that is not centrally run? Can you propose a plausible mechanism that would accomplish these goals without UN involvement and over sight? Can you explain why the UN would propose a vast, wide ranging system based on their rules, their proposals, and their enforcement, which they would then walk away from running?

Who would they turn it over to? Zimbabwe?

Let the imagination wonder at how expansive the definition of “security” can be in the hands of a bureaucrats in constant need of expanded relevance, armed with the force of law.

Then think of your children when reflecting on how we used to be invited to volunteer to recycle, turn off a light when not in use, and lower the thermostat a bit. Funny how “invited to volunteer” has been morphing into “comply or be punished”.

Rothbard saw things clearly. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothbard

“Rothbard advocated abolition of coercive government control of society and the economy. He considered the monopoly force of government the greatest danger to liberty and the long-term well-being of the populace, labeling the State as nothing but a “gang of thieves writ large”—the locus of the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society.[6][7][8][9]

Rothbard concluded that all services provided by monopoly governments could be provided more efficiently by the private sector. He viewed many regulations and laws ostensibly promulgated for the “public interest” as self-interested power grabs by scheming government bureaucrats engaging in dangerously unfettered self-aggrandizement, as they were not subject to market disciplines.”

Even the psychotic CAGW scientists are not as inane as these blackbeards.

“Therefore, it is foolish to demand that policy makers reduce CO2 to 280 ppm. Indeed, if, with a magic wand, we reduced CO2 from today’s 389 ppm to 280 ppm that change would increase Earth’s heat radiation to space by almost 2 watts (per square meter). The planet would rapidly move toward a colder climate, probably colder than the Little Ice Age. Whoever wielded the magic wand might receive a Middle Ages punishment, such as being drawn and quartered.“ – James Hansen, 2010-12-21 in Conversation with Bill McKibben

I guess for Hansen, no matter what mankind does, it is all world ending disaster.

‘

LazyTeenager says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:02 pm

Lazy, quit babbling.

Hoax my ASS! Check out the preceeding draft 38. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp38.pdf

Some of the words change, but the thrust is exactly what Lord Monckton warned about. Surely this nonsense will stop given the level of absurdity going on here?

“Alex the skeptic says:

December 10, 2011 at 3:34 pm

According to Monckton, those trillions of dollars would not go direct to the ‘suffering’ nations, but straight to the UN coffers for them to distribute”

Yeah that’s also a big problem and a rort.

The UN has already come under fire / criticized for returning upto 90% of socalled AID Money back into their own coffers as ADMIN Fees. As in the case of E.Timor from memory as an example.

LazyTeenager says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:02 pm

“Nope no sign of them. Which must mean that every one of you who pulls trillions of AGW out of thin air is not particularly skeptical.”

First of all it means you don’t know the difference between total spending and annual spending. Why don’t you #occupy a tree or something.

LazyTeenager says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:33 pm

More babbling Lazy, no one said it was signed or agreed on. The unmitagated gall to even write such an inane proposal is beyond parody. (That you attempt to make it sound reasonable is also rather sad.)

Yahoo reported this just a few minutes ago.

“Climate conference approves landmark deal”

http://news.yahoo.com/climate-conference-approves-landmark-deal-014244802.html

“DURBAN, South Africa (AP) — The president of a U.N.

climate conference has announced agreement on a program

mapping out a new course by all nations to fight climate

change over the coming decades.”

Oooh, sounds impressive! But wait…

“The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a

new accord that would put all countries under the same legal

regime to enforce their commitments to control greenhouse

gases. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest.”

So. An agreement.

An agreement to start (start?! [rhet]WTF have they been doing?[/rhet]) negotiations.

They’re getting desperate when they have to declare an agreement to continue negotiating a “landmark”.

Leon Brozyna says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:20 pm

The latest update from my earlier post …

Durban has kicked the can … Kyoto extended for five years … and they’ve agreed to come to a new agreement by 2020 … which means, more conferences in exotic locales for the coming decade, all on the taxpayers’ dime. What a racket!

Canada has just approved a giant oil sands project in Alberta funded by Total. The approval drew this response from a greasy grimy greeny group (G4 for short):

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/12/08/critics-fume-as-canada-approves-totals-oil-sands-project/

The approval of Total E&P Canada’s project during the United Nations climate summit in Durban “is like poking the international process in the eye,” said Gillian McEachern of the group Environmental Defence.

————————–

Go Canada Go!

(I was hoping for eye gouging rather than poking, but that will come in a few weeks when Canada gets out of Kyoto altogether)

Go Canada Go!

Jimmy Haigh says:

December 10, 2011 at 4:22 pm

1,600,000,000,000

The average number of air molecules you have to count before you find the first CO2.

———————

Sure. Now taking the number of CO2 molecules per cubic meter into account ,and the cross-sectional area of each CO2 molecule, calculated the distance travel by an IR photon before it hits a CO2 molecule.

Then explain why the few millimeters you get for the answer is too short by a factor of a thousand.

If you can’t do all of that successfully you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

tokyoboy says:

December 10, 2011 at 4:40 pm

It was a figure of speech…..

Kyoto extended for 5 years? What does that mean?

United States was never in.

China, Russia, India, Brazil all signed up on the proviso they didn’t have to do anything.

Europe is teetering on the edge of financial ruin and could very well meet their Kyoto goals through economic collapse.

Zimbabwe, Maldives, etc etc signed up on the proviso that they GET money, that nobody is going to actually give them.

Japan says they are out.

Canada will shortly announce that they are out.

Japan and Canada? The new leaders of the free world?

LazyTeenager;

If you can’t do all of that successfully you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.>>>

Given that the comment was obviously sarcastic, not scientific, I have no idea what you are babbling on about.

What if you can’t collect the $1.6 and you have to do it with force? You’d only have a few days before raising the army would offset the bill and there would be nothing left to collect. What a freaking crock. I agree with Lord Monckton. There are several excellent reasons for seeking the end of war, but this is stupid.

An in the long chain of words that have been redefined out of existence, “hoax” takes its place.

I wouldn’t say so to their faces, but I think the people crying “hoax” because more than one draft of the “legitimate” document have been released know that they are using the word wrong, but that would mean they’re liars, and we wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of anything so base.

Darnit, there goes my “outside voice” again.

David says:

December 10, 2011 at 6:00 pm

LazyTeenager says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:33 pm

More babbling Lazy, no one said it was signed or agreed on. The unmitagated gall to even write such an inane proposal is beyond parody. (That you attempt to make it sound reasonable is also rather sad.)

——————

An implausible unsigned climate treaty, that has proposed expenditures equal to total developed countries military budgets, is causing the WUWT readership to freak out. I would say my babbling is something you need more of.

I can’t imagine what you guys thought was going to happen if the USA refused to agree to the expenditure part of this treaty, Maybe the UN was going to threaten to nuke one major city at a time until you agreed to cough up the trillions?

And now that the treaty is out what does it actually say. Cough up trillions or else?

Jimmy Haigh says: December 10, 2011 at 6:25 pm

“It was a figure of speech…..”

OK I’ve got it. Sorry………..

Circa 1981

Alarmist: The world is running out of oil! We must cut back! We must develop alternative energy sources! Like wind mills!

Realist: Uhm…we developed oil because wind mills don’t work very well. How about nuclear?

Alarmist: No way! We’ll blow ourselves up! Windmills!

Circa 2011

Alarmist: We’re burning too much of the oil we didn’t run out of, and the planet is going to spontaneously combust! We must cut back! We must develop alternative energy sources! Like wind mills!

Realist: Uhm… we developed oil because wind mills didn’t work very well. How about nuclear?

Alarmist: No way! We’ll blow ourselves up! Windmills!

Circa 2041

Alarmist: There’s an ice age coming!

Realist: Aren’t you the same idiot I proposed nuclear power to in 1981 and 2011?

Alarmist: No way! We’ll blow ourselves up! Windmills!

Ken Methven says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:58 pm

Hoax my ASS! Check out the preceeding draft 38. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp38.pdf

Some of the words change, but the thrust is exactly what Lord Monckton warned about. Surely this nonsense will stop given the level of absurdity going on here?

Could be that this precis has been doing the rounds and shocking enough staunch supporters previously oblivious to the agenda – saying that there’s a hoax report doing the rounds is an attempt to throw doubt on the reliability of this report without naming it.

Still, that could easily backfire, such genuinely caring but naive might block out the information if they appreciated it was factual, thinking it a hoax they might well read all the way through it ..

If the idiots at Durban have agreed to extend Kyoto another 5 years I wonder if this will cause the Climategate email guy to release more emails –perhaps those related to the politicians in the middle of it ???

Bruce Cobb

Thanks for your link to the revised version:

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/l04.pdf

Deleted: “Warfare”, “mother earth”

Financial is now:

Welcoming the fast-start finance provided by developed countries as part of their

collective commitment to provide new and additional resources approaching USD 30

billion for the period 2010–2012,

Recalling that developed country Parties commit, in the context of meaningful

mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, to a goal of mobilizing jointly USD

100 billion per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries, . . .

122. Decides to undertake a work programme on long-term finance in 2012, including

workshops, to progress on long-term finance in the context of decision 1/CP.16, paragraphs

97-101;

Most is voluntarily providing information on 2 or 4 year cycles.

Still 102 x “Shall”

U.N. climate talks seal legal pact on global warming

(Reuters) – U.N. climate change talks agreed on a pact on Sunday that for the first time would force all the biggest polluters to take action to slow the pace of global changing.

Climate conference approves landmark deal

Currently, only industrial countries have legally binding emissions targets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Those commitments expire next year, but they will be extended for another five years under the accord adopted Sunday. . . .

A separate document obliges major developing nations like China and India, excluded under Kyoto, to accept legally binding emissions targets in the future. . . .

The final compromise, reached at 3:30 a.m., changed the final option to “an agreed outcome with legal force.”

Please post links to the final documents when available.

“… force all the biggest polluters to take action…”

The biggest polluters are all third world and developing nations, from China and India on down, as the Japanese satellite clearly shows.

When can the U.S. and the developed West expect that $1.5 trillion from China, India, Africa, etc?

crosspatch says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:34 am

Dear Durban:

We don’t have the money. We’re broke. Goldman Sachs and China have all of our cash now. We’ve been cleaned out from bailing out bankers for their losses on mortgages that the “little people” still hold at a loss. Nobody bails us out. We’ve been cleaned out from baling out bankers for their losses on government bonds………………….Etc

Hi crosspatch.

That was a brilliant comment and so accurate.

Many thanks.

Dave

They are just whistling to cheer themselves up if they imagine that China or India will cripple their economic development, whatever they sign.

Although, on past performance, China and India will do rather well out of Kyoto and its subsidiaries. They have raked in many millions on the basis of phony ‘carbon credits’.

Who’d have thunk it? Nations of vast population with a cultural commitment to education might actually be smart enough to work out the angles on proposals put up by rich and flabby nations that are infected by guilt and self-loathing. They can see an opportunity like that coming from a mile off.

They can simultaneously claim to be requiring of funds, while providing the West with ‘indulgences’ like solar panels.

What’s not to like?

Either our diplomats have deteriorated significantly in quality, or their political masters have directed them to rush towards the cliff. Perhaps both.

Scary stuff.

Perhaps the key for the encrypted files is the message that was put in there .

Is it just me or does it sound like they are asking/telling us to hand over our weapons?

That’s what I see. Blatantly.

Kinda creepy, but seriously………..who the hell do they think they are?

It’s time to recycle that U.N. building and make a nice park, with some trees, kids playing. That would be sustainable.

“Either our diplomats have deteriorated significantly in quality, or their political masters have directed them to rush towards the cliff.”

Their political masters all see themselves as the one running the ‘World Government’ that the UN want to impose on us. That’s why they don’t care what happens to their own country; they don’t plan to be there.

We saw something similar in the UK, with many of the failed British politicians moving to fat-cat jobs in the EU where they continued to push policies on Britain that the British people had explicitly rejected at the ballot box.

And what, precisely, is the collateral demanded of the UN shysters if they take all the money and achieve nothing withi ti?

[snip . . . c'mon now that's out of line and OTT]

It might be worth checking the status of the document in question before throwing a tizzy fit over nothing.

The document is in the UNFCCC list of documents here: http://unfccc.int/documentation/documents/advanced_search/items/3594.php?such=j&last_days=60&dat_no=j#beg

The description is: “Work undertaken in the informal groups in the preparation of a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session. Note by the Chair. ”

Sounds like the “informal groups” may be a strange lot.

Whether “to be presented to the Conference of the Parties” means it has to be taken seriously might depend on what became of it when it was presented.

Take a couple of aspirin, have a lie down, and then check calmly on what became of the “to be presented” document by “informal groups”…. whoever they might be.

With all that money the UN could increase their take home pay by TEN times with hardly a dent in the balance, then give a good amount to their friends the African Leaders as a personal gift and still have change for COP 18.

David L. Hagen says:

December 10, 2011 at 8:06 pm

Bruce Cobb

Thanks for your link to the revised version:

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/l04.pdf

Deleted: “Warfare”, “mother earth”

Financial is now:

Welcoming the fast-start finance provided by developed countries as part of their

collective commitment to provide new and additional resources approaching USD 30

billion for the period 2010–2012,

Recalling that developed country Parties commit, in the context of meaningful

mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, to a goal of mobilizing jointly USD

100 billion per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries, . . .

122. Decides to undertake a work programme on long-term finance in 2012, including

workshops, to progress on long-term finance in the context of decision 1/CP.16, paragraphs

97-101;

Most is voluntarily providing information on 2 or 4 year cycles.

Still 102 x “Shall”

Lots missing – nothing on human rights, no international climate court – and why is it “English only”? Hurriedly revised because of the stink and no time to translate? Are there orginal copies still in other languages?

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp38.pdf

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp39.pdf

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/l04.pdf

Not in sequence.

=========================

David L. Hagen says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:41 am

To Philip Foster

Re he fake document. The doc cited above is posted by the UNFCC at

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp39.pdf

Bruce Cobb says:

December 10, 2011 at 4:46 pm

There appear to be two different versions:

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp39.pdf

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/l04.pdf

The first is the one linked to above, the second is what is now on the UNFCC website http://unfccc.int/meetings/durban_nov_2011/meeting/6245.php where it says “The AWG-LCA text is now available here.”

I believe the 2nd, newer version has been watered down considerably, which has angered many. This appears to be somewhat of a repeat of the Copenhagen performance, with some parties already having left, and those remaining desperately trying to strike some sort of deal, as time runs out.

Ken Methven says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:58 pm

Hoax my ASS! Check out the preceeding draft 38. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp38.pdf

Some of the words change, but the thrust is exactly what Lord Monckton warned about. Surely this nonsense will stop given the level of absurdity going on here?

============================================

Is the new out-of-sequence version the hoax??

SionedL says:

December 10, 2011 at 11:02 am

To Louise: Instead of looking up ‘invite’ and ‘demand’ in your Oxford dictionary, check the history of political speak. Words have whatever meaning they want on any given day. If they can convince you to sign onto a plan today with the word ‘invite’, tomorrow that ‘invite’ becomes a ‘demand’ and the day after ‘coercion’, you want corn? wheat? oil?, then you must ‘voluntarily’ ……and the day after that it is a crime against humanity.

—————-

Louis says:

December 10, 2011 at 11:07 am

Louise says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:41 am

“So you all think the word ‘invite’ actually means ‘demand’ – wow, I knew there were some differences between American and British English but I’d missed that one.”

—

The “invite” part only applies to submitting “information on plans to increase their financial contributions”. It’s like when the IRS invites me to submit a tax return every year. I can ignore the request to send in my tax forms but that won’t stop them from demanding their money anyway. There isn’t a global IRS, yet, but the elitists in Durban have already drafted plans to create one.

You may consider your power bill an “invitation” to pay but, where I live, the power gets shut off if I refuse to pay. So, to me, it’s a “demand”. I don’t have the option to ignore the taxes and fees added on to my power bill and pay for just the electricity I use, do you? If Durban gets its way, their extortion money will be added on to your power bill, your grocery bill, your tax bill, and anything else they can get their hands on. In other words, “invite” is newspeak for “demand” in its Durban context.

————-

David L. Hagen says:

December 10, 2011 at 11:24 am

Louise: Re: “So you all think the word ‘invite’ actually means ‘demand’”

Please evaluate the grammar of para 47 “to be made available” and “shall be”

funds to be made available annually to developing country Parties, which shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security, and warfare.

e.g. Merriam-Webster definition of shall includes:

b —used in laws, regulations, or directives to express what is mandatory – “it shall be unlawful to carry firearms”

—————————-

Yes,it’s legalese in company speak. Against our human rights, Common Law, etc., for anyone to demand such a thing, so by invitation only, for example, Americans are invited to fill in their IRS forms and pay taxes.

The tricky bit is that they assume that acknowledgement of the company is de facto recognition of contract between you and said company. For example again IRS, by putting your signature on the request for your money and sending it back saying you’re not going to pay, the private company IRS holds that you have acknowledged that you have a contract with them and so should be paying.

The wording in these documents are of like ilk – it has to be an invitation to establish a contract, a demand would would organised crime in Common Law, natural law, US Constitution, etc., and demanding money with menaces if penalties are imposed for non-compliance.

The Brits spread the concept of Common Law to US and Commonwealth, but knowledge of it is being “educated” out of us..

This is the language of corporations. In Britain the legal system is a corporation for example, if you don’t have a contract with it it has no jurisdiction over you. For another example, MP’s are registered as corporations, they trade as such. Corporations exist to make money.

Parliamentary acts, statutes, are “legal” in the corporation speak, but cannot usurp your natural Common Law rights, they can only do this by getting your agreement, establishing a contract with you.

They think they have their arses covered by this, but, since this is not clearly explained and these ‘legal shalls’ presented as if actually lawful, it is still fraud. For example in Britain, by registering your car you establish a contract with the corporation running this and so required to abide by its rules, one of which is that by registering your car you give up ownership of it to the corporation. That’s how they can claim that it is ‘legal’ to take away and trash your car for non-payment of road tax, which would be theft and destruction of one’s property in Common Law. The legalese language deliberately confuses.

Any contract established by such subterfuge is a con, therefore automatically unlawful. You don’t have to agree to pay the private company the IRS any of your money.. The problem is that if you get sucked into being taken to court for non-payment, the jury most likely won’t understand this, and judges, being part of the system, direct juries to find for the corporation.

There’s been quite a lot of interest in various groups making a stand against these corporations masquerading as lawfully entitled to steal your money.., but, it seems to me what is actually necessary is to remind everyone of their common law, human, natural, rights and education in the language of coroporation speak – the Brits need to get back Common Law teaching and the Americans insist on their Constitutional rights. This is what we need spread across the world, contrast say for example Napoleonic law, and that it exists at all is still being systematically air brushed out by the meme “democracy” – majority voting doesn’t make something lawful, a democratic tyranny disturbing your peace, threatening you with punishment for not complying with its edicts, is unlawful.

“Note that that is the amount spent by developed countries on defence, not the $1.6 trillion spent worldwide. Either way that’s a lot to spend on parties even for the UN.”

And, you know, if you don’t want to pay so much feel free to disband your armies….

David says:

December 10, 2011 at 6:00 pm

LazyTeenager says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:33 pm

More babbling Lazy, no one said it was signed or agreed on. The unmitagated gall to even write such an inane proposal is beyond parody. (That you attempt to make it sound reasonable is also rather sad.)

——————

“”An implausible unsigned climate treaty, that has proposed expenditures equal to total developed countries military budgets, is causing the WUWT readership to freak out. I would say my babbling is something you need more of.

I can’t imagine what you guys thought was going to happen if the USA refused to agree to the expenditure part of this treaty, Maybe the UN was going to threaten to nuke one major city at a time until you agreed to cough up the trillions

And now that the treaty is out what does it actually say. Cough up trillions or else?”"

Lazy; why would we need more of your babbling, the comments you mock were on how insane the mind set was of thousands of people being flown, at taxpayers expense, to write an asinine treaty that would create world war three if implemented. Many of the same posters noted it would not fly. Your last sentance, “And now that the treaty is out what does it actually say. Cough up trillions or else?” No Lazy, It does not, and no one articulated your strawman; the treaty sounds like a treaty to keep working towards a new treaty; it is a sick joke fully worthy of all the ridcule heaped on it here.

However, the damage done by the CAGW panic (Which you attempt to promote) is far greater then the cost of these imbiciles travling around the world to promote inane proposals.. It is the hundreds of billions, if not trillions all ready spent, wasted on carbon trading, wind and solar mandates , wasted on yet one more “the frogs are getting bigger or smaller due to CO2 study”; all of which combine to make energy, all energy, far more expensive then it would be if sanity prevailed. This has contributed strongly to the worlds economic crisis, and prevented the only real solution to pull the world out of the economic crisis, inexpensive energy. So Lazy, these idiots you support have not gotton their way, but they have effectively destroyed the worlds economy, and your support is a part of the problem.

CO2 is not pollution, and thanks to the CO2 introduced in the atmosphere, all crops, worldwide, now grow 10% to 15% more food then they otherwise would. Without this we would be a world at war now. If population is your main concern, then alow those nations cheep energy, and watch them find the resources to curb real pollution and naturally, as happens in every nation that develops, reduce or stop their population growth.

I wish a really big volcano would go off and shut up all these wowsers.

“Sounds like the “informal groups” may be a strange lot.

Whether “to be presented to the Conference of the Parties” means it has to be taken seriously might depend on what became of it when it was presented.”

Yes they are a strange lot indeed. This informal document clearly reveals the true goal of all this.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/10/latest-extortion-attempt-from-durban-1-6-trillion/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

The tweet end view of Durban

Some Twitter reports from Durban

Twitter / @john_vidal: how many countries will he …

how many countries will head home so they dont have to be seen rejecting #cop17 Durban deaL?

Twitter / @JonathanWootlif: I just saw EU #cop17 #clim …

Twitter / @YolandiG: Standing at the entrance o …

Twitter / @BBCRBlack: Overheard #cop17 outside c …

Twitter / @LangBanks: #COP17 #climate update: no …

#COP17 #climate update: no new developments other than to say there are far fewer people here now + they all keep checking their watches!

Twitter / @ClimateGroup: #COP17 question marks over …

Thanks to Tom Nelson for collecting these

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

71 Responses to The tweet end view of Durban

Not many uptwinkles around the occupy durban extravaganza at this time. Aww.

Time to go home and forget about the whole bloody mess

“So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good-bye-aye”

Don’t let the door hit ya on the way out!

What more can one say but, beautiful. Can anyone calculate how much CO2 is being released by this conference going down in flames? Also, anyone bring the marshmallows?

The classic bureaucrat’s dilemma “what the heck do we do now?”

Bureaucrats’ raison d’être is writing regulations and centralizing power. They’ll find something to do.

I can’t decide whether to chuckle discreetly and humbly or laugh uproariously and gloatingly…

They should have send twice as many delegates, thugs, and journos; so the negotiations would have taken half the time!

good, let them all go to h#ll. They are a cancer on the world politic.

Normally, I hate twitter… Especially when Celebz and Politicians use it. My first instinct concerning the use of this social network, which only ends up getting them into trouble, is to say to them… “What Are You Thinking!”. But them, I realize, if I really wanted to know that… I’d follow them on Twitter!

In this case… Boy! I Love Twitter!

“I just saw EU #cop17 #climatechange negotiator, Connie Hedegaard, have temper tantrum on reviewing the latest draft text”

I’d pay good money to see that on video :-)

Maybe they got the news that the Telegraph (UK) is claiming the coldest night of winter, so far.

Hey. It ain’t winter yet.

Don’t feel too badly for the attendees. They got a nice trip, excellent lodging and fine meals out of the deal; mostly at your and my expense.

The ONLY reason the Durban conference is going down in flames is because of the brave “skeptics” who have courageously fought against entrenched activist “scientists”, the old left media, and corrupt politicians. May God bless you all!

Don’t you love farce …

Does this make Tom Twitteratti? ;)

Again quoting without context uh? :)

The news out of Durban sounds like a reporter with a bad migraine.

I’m not poking fun at the reporter who handled herself well in light of the frightening episode. I’m poking fun at the pathetic double-speak from the over-ripe watermelons flying home first-class from Durban.

I’d like to see an auto-tune of “Get it Done” by Anjali Appadurai.

The late great Don Meredith had just the words for it.

No End Zone dance here. Our little struggling town is in the mist of spending money on solar trash compactors and big subsidies for solar hot water and guess what?………no sun!

When our teachers are climate preachers and the people with time to run for small town office are anti C02 zealots, look out. We still have a long way to go!

Though I have to admit the non event in Durban is sweet.

Pity to see poor Obama getting the blame after all his efforts, plus of course the polluters, whoever they may be, who have financed such massive opposition (not). All the twitterers who think that poor Africans are being condemned to death (e.g. Bianca Jagger) seem not to understand the consequences of the Malthusian policies of so many environmentalists on the poor of developing countries.

GP Hanner says:

“Maybe they got the news that the Telegraph (UK) is claiming the coldest night of winter, so far.

Hey. It ain’t winter yet.”

Err… yes it is. It’s only 12 days to midwinter. *Mid*winter.

Last day interview:

… well, maybe next year

Folks, when there are press releases in your national newspapers, predicting doom and gloom;

Do not forget to have your say against them. Don’t let them get away with it.

And remember links to wattsupwiththat.

Show them that it is indeed the lunatics running the asylumn.

It helps! It really does. Many are grateful for the information.

But the BBC are still talking about a “breakthrough”. Apparently, failure to agree anything and then a vague plan to do something by 2015 counts as a breakthrough in warmist circles.

The biased Beeb’s reporting has been appaling. On Thursday night on BBC 2’2 Newsnight, we had the ludicrous site of Lord Prescott ( ex New Liebour Deputy PM and one of the original architects of Kyoto) waving around a paper wine bottle that saved 10% of the CO2. He looked drunk to me. No mention of no warming, sea level fall or normal arctic ice.

Cheers

Paul

Another disappointed attendee:

What a pity they failed as ” A new UN study released at the time of the conference, warns that up to a third of all animal and plant species are at risk of extinction due to climate change.”

http://www.euronews.net/2011/12/10/cop17-too-late-to-save-kyoto/

So, not good for the plants and animals and not good for mankind either, “There have been discussions taking place in closed doors by those in power, who have colleagues in the corporate world and the decisions are not in the interests of mankind.”

http://www.wdm.org.uk/climate-change/cop17-whos-interests

I guess they should have just stayed home and saved the planet by not flying 48000 people to SA.

Hey Ho.

15,000 delegates not to mention the hangers-on, must have spent about $/€10,000 each, totalling a staggering $/€150 million for achieving nothing at all. How many dying children would otherwise have been saved by these 150 million dollars/euros?

Criminal.

Look up Connie Hedegaard’s wiki entry if you want a laugh. It was obviously written by her or an underling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Hedegaard

She is described as a “public intellectual” in the lead and also as being, “behind Denmark’s energy successes.”

Her “energy successes” include:

Reducing energy use

Increasing taxes

Increasing subsidies

Greenpeace already seems to be blaming the failure on coal and oil interests.

“……Err… yes it is. It’s only 12 days to midwinter. *Mid*winter.”

Umm, no. Winter starts on the shortest day of the year. In the northern hemisphere that is december 21st. It last for 3 months. This is grade school atronomy.

Her scientific qualifications are astounding. She has evry right to make pronouncements on all scientific matters on which she is intimate, as a rearcher and author. Meaning NOT A DAMN thing!

In summary a total ZERO, unqualified to check coats at the door.

But she is probably fully capable of growing into the position of checking hats, in perhaps a decade more of seasoning.

“Brandon Caswell says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:46 am

Umm, no. Winter starts on the shortest day of the year.”

Only in the US. In Sweden it starts on December the 14th. In the UK the accepted start of winter is the 1st of december, taking the three traditionally coldest months of the year as the season. Traditionally the solstice, being the shortest day of the year, was held as the middle of the season, hence the common name name “midwinter”.

Correction, October the 14th in sweden, not december.

Good to see that Western governments are getting it right. They are backing sloooowly away from climate change activism. It may be true that a conference such as Durban costs some money, but that’s fine. It serves the purpose of providing cover to decision makers. As such they are far cheaper than the alternative, which would be to carry out real climate-change policies, such as taxation, cap-and-trade, and foreign aid by the spadeful to the Tuvalus of the world.

Western politicians know that the issue of the day is the economy. Period.

Consider the actions of our own fine President: how much cheerleading have you heard from him for the Durban conference? Any? How about deputies in the appropriate departments? Anything from them? No? Funny, isn’t it?

Climate change activism in the West is dying exactly slowly enough to allow most politicians to save face.

An excerpt from the joint statement from the U.S and the EU before Durban:

“On climate change, we affirm our intent to work closely together to ensure a positive, balanced outcome in Durban, including mitigation, transparency and financing. We stand fully behind the commitments we made last year in Cancun.”

We “stand fully behind the commitments we made last year in Cancun.” And what commitments were those? Non-binding commitments to CO2 emission levels.

Yep, no question. We sure stand behind those.

Ruth_Kruger RT @tallthall: #EU sound nervous, Venezuela empowered and angry #EUStandFor5 #COP17

ShonaghLindsay @CHedegaardEU: Support Africa and keep standing up to the US at #COP17! We need EU leadership now more than ever @Avaaz

laurinliu COPpr during plenary: the process is fragile& will not survive another round. There will be opportunities in future to raise ambition #COP17

pritiriyer I’m sorry developing countries, but your views are not relevant here at the #UNFCCC #COP17 – paraphrasing the chair of the AWG-KP

calitzwillemien Bolivia does not support EU proposal. #cop17

So this is all just really an exercise in punishing the US and EU? I think “the process” is going to get a lot more fragile, too.

Apparently it is being live-blogged here:

http://www.symnews.org/

Breaking news Tuvalus new airport to be converted to a sea plane operation, because of the failure of Cope17.

“SYM Team:

What will you take home from COP17?

Sarah Rifaat, 27, 350.org – Egypt

‘A deeper understanding of what still needs to be done. There will definitely be better cooperation and collaboration between me, my co-workers and other organisations. We are solidifying the global movement. I hope to bring good news to Egypt and build on that back home. There has been lots of talk around the impacts of climate change on Egypt at COP17.”

Now just who is 350.org? Apparently it’s job is to extract cash from businesses and is a spinoff or merger of 1sky:

http://forestindustries.eu/content/rockefellers-1sky-unveils-new-350org-more-more-delusion

And … apparently … a Fenton Communications “client”!

What should scare people in the UK to death is that whatever comes out of the UNFCCC in Durban will be immediately implemented by DEFRA as that is their policy. They have “internationalized” their regulations and as soon as any formal document comes out, they will be on the telephone to Tyndall Centre at UEA with their checkbook at the ready to sign a consulting contract for implementation methods.

The UK will begin to pay immediately.

If the EU was really serious about helping developing countries it would get rid of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Customs Union opening up free trade from those developing countries into the EU. Same for the US. Until they do this all their BS is just hot air and the money pledged intended to facilitate the gravy train, graft and corruption.

donfabioni Kein Ende in Sicht…

(no end in sight)

katrienbarrat #COP17 quote of Belgian negotiator : a sinking titanic on which the band is playing bis songs and expecting applause..

RT @amarapossian: Just asked @CYD_DJC policy team for an update. “It’s a cluster fccc” #shitmydelsays #cop17 #climate

EU commiss Hedegaard holding firm on legal instrument binding for all parties at COP17, closing ambition gap by 2020. #COP17

dbiello BOEMRE’s Daniel Riefsnyder of USA only American to get applause @ #COP17.

tallthall Saudi Arabia: “This current report is much less than we hoped for and expected,” more pressure on developing countries, less on rich #COP17

OH, NO!!!

kate_sheppard Ah, LCA chair is Daniel Reifsnyder, from US State Dept. #COP17

My ‘Secret Santa ‘ gift to an employee at our work christmas party, will be a donation on their behalf to the website of one of ‘the few’. Those who devoted their time, effort, health and as well as their time with those they love to open honest science and the advancement of learning.

May I suggest the ‘donate’ buttons have an option for a gift voucher. The voucher could be in the form of a reparation or apology and can be handed to those from whom we have had to defend the efforts of McIntyre, Watts, Nova, Daly, Id, Plimer, Monkton, Montford, McKitrick, Carter, Lindzen, Bolt, Delingpole, the bloggers like Willis, and the supporters like Anthony’s Pete (an incomplete list of selfless dedication to a simple principle) from accusations of denier, shill of big oil, anti-science (another but vile list).

Seasons greetings to the ‘Deniers’ and I have found what I believe to be appropriate latin to place on the COP17 burial site at Durban;

Scientia vincere tenebras

“Conquering darkness by science”

Good news. Now lets hope we are right.

In less than an hour it will be Sunday morning in Durban. And still they drone on, 24 hours after the conference should have closed. No telling what mischief will come out of this. Reminds me of the old Texas saying “A man’s family and property aren’t safe when the legislature is in session.” (Which is why the Texas legislature only meets for 140 days every 2 years.)

What is truly dismaying about all this is that there are several thousand UN and NGO and Governemnt bureaucrats who receive salaries to continue “The Process” for another year.

The Process is dead; long live The Process.

These bureaucrats must be put out of their misery: fired!

TheGoodLocust says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:22 am

Look up Connie Hedegaard’s wiki entry if you want a laugh. It was obviously written by her or an underling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Hedegaard

She’s got degrees in literature and history and was a journalist for 14 years. What the h*ll are her qualifications to be climate change expert?

Oh, I guess contrary to the arrogant and condescending attitude of Gavin, Mann, et al., you really don’t need any.

TheGoodLocust says:

Look up Connie Hedegaard’s wiki entry if you want a laugh. She is described as a “public intellectual”

I frequently hire public intellectuals :-)

To all COP17 attendees. Don’t forget to turn out the lights. You don’t want to be responsible for destroying the climate.

Brandon Caswell says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:46 am

“……Err… yes it is. It’s only 12 days to midwinter. *Mid*winter.”

Umm, no. Winter starts on the shortest day of the year. In the northern hemisphere that is december 21st. It last for 3 months. This is grade school atronomy.

Umm, no. Meteorological winter starts on December 1st to end of February. (Met. spring, March-May; summer, June-August; fall, September-November).

Has the realisation finally hit the politicians that the ratbags have taken over the AGW movement?

This doesn’t look promising:

@nagidapc: Though acknowledging not perfect, Japan agrees to compromise and hopes text will be adopted in its entirety #COP17

Well, like they said when a fracus broke out at the Quasimoto Look-Alike Contest, the crowd has turned ugly.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/10/us-climate-idUSTRE7B41NH20111210?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71

Connie said that they need to deliver.

How about pizzas?

crosspatch says:

December 10, 2011 at 11:08 am

“Now just who is 350.org? Apparently it’s job is to extract cash from businesses and is a spinoff or merger of 1sky:”

This is what I found:

Rockefeller’s financing of 350.org:

Rockefeller Family Foundation >> Sustainable Markets Foundation >> 350.org

>> “It’s hot in here” (Youth lunatics)

http://compleatpatriot.blogspot.com/2009/10/peer-reviewed-earth-sciences-literature.html

You go to the Rockefeller Family Foundation and enter “Sustainable Markets Foundation” in their search box. You get 126 nondescript hits; some of them just showing a postal address; others showing individual grants granted to the Sustainable Markets Foundation with designation of a purpose, like this one:

http://www.rbf.org/grant/11449/sustainable-markets-foundation-1

“GRANT DETAIL

New York, NY

United States

$100,000 for 1 year

For its Project 350.”

Good. From here we can stop using the rather slow search and directly change the URL, changing the number at the end,

for instance to

http://www.rbf.org/grant/11449/sustainable-markets-foundation-2

and so on and so on…

Let me close with the words of David Rockefeller:

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”

OH – HOLY- CRAP

@LauraDzelzyte: #COP17 US is embracing the whole package and is happy to look into a new legal instrument. That is exciting amazing!

What is almost sickening to watch is how absolutely delusional some of these people are about COP17. Many of these poor folks seem to sincerely believe that the UN is capable of manipulating the world’s climate.

This better NEVER fly:

@MichaelSzaboCO2: Eu, china, india, us agree on “outcome with legal force”. #cop17

Apparently some kind of deal reached. Live webcast of the session here:

http://unfccc4.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/cop17/templ/live.php?id_kongresssession=4152&theme=unfccc

Looks like confusion still reins supreme at Durban. Russian delegate basically asks “can you tell us exactly what was just agreed to?”.

Well, they’ve reached full agreement on the need to meet again sometime. “Let’s do another multi-million-dollar lunch again, say what? Have your girl call my girl.”

Not bad, considering how awful it could have been. This gives more time for the rich countries to go totally bankrupt so we won’t be able to spend any more money on anything, no matter how much our idiot rulers want it.

(I won’t say it gives more time for the ruling class in the West to wake up and see facts. That will never happen. They will die whispering their devout faith in Gaia and regretting their total failure to slow down the burning burning burning heat, as they quickly turn into a block of ice along with the rest of us.)

Sarah Rifaat, 27, 350.org – Egypt

…. “We are solidifying the global movement.”

Golly gosh,

If I ever had need to solidify one of my movements, I’d take an anti-diahorreal medicine.

Perhaps Sarah & friends should; cos it sound like they’re full of it.

crosspatch says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:53 pm

Looks like confusion still reins supreme at Durban. Russian delegate basically asks “can you tell us exactly what was just agreed to?”.

Humm, just like Obummer care, first it has to be passed, then 100,000 pages written to explain the 10,000, then 1,000 new bureaucracys formed, then, when all hell brakes loose, we will know what was passed.

They call it the scam of the century because it is and here is proof it was all concocted in 1961 http://youtu.be/SvcuylMrkXk .

old44 says:

December 10, 2011 at 2:18 pm

Has the realisation finally hit the politicians that the ratbags have taken over the AGW movement?

Impossible. They couldn’t take over from themselves.

@ old44 ” Has the realisation finally hit the politicians that the ratbags have taken over the AGW movement?”

These are the ratbags who have set up the AGW scam in the first place. They are just mumbling and bumbling under the pressure of greater and greater evidence that their science and predictions are unsupportable. This doesn’t stop them from still persuing financial control of governments and countries.

It will take a few honest and iintelligent politicians to speak up and be counted before this debacle becomes obvious to the people who matter. The one’s who will say “AGW organizations, get out of our country, you are scamming us!”.

Nice to know that in the two years since Copenhagen we have reached this point. Nature has done much of the work, ably assisted by the bloggers of realism. It’s not over yet. Our CO2 tax is to come in in seven months time and the government and their well paid advisors are still banging the drum.

The vote was made so these people could get home otherwise they would still be talking and their home plane would be airborne without them.

@Paul Maynard:

“But the BBC are still talking about a “breakthrough”. Apparently, failure to agree anything and then a vague plan to do something by 2015 counts as a breakthrough in warmist circles.”

From the point of view of the typical UN or EU bureaucrat that is indeed a breakthrough. Just imagine how many more meetings, frequent flyer miles and junkets in nice warm places that means. This is what their careers are built on.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/10/the-tweet-end-view-of-durban/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Durban: what the media are not telling you

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in Durban, South Africa

DURBAN, South Africa — “No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve.

Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is “Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention — Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants.

The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN’s skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.

Main points:

The real lunacy comes in the small print – all of it in 8-point type, near-illegibly printed on grubby, recycled paper. Every fashionable leftist idiocy is catered for.

Talking of which, note in passing that Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who, in the topsy-turvy looking-glass world of international climate insanity is the “science” chairman of the UN’s climate panel, has admitted that no one has been talking about climate science at the climate conference here in Durban. Not really surprising, given no real warming for getting on for two decades, no recent sea-level rise, no new record Arctic ice-melt, fewer hurricanes than at almost any time in 30 years, no Pacific atolls disappearing beneath the waves.

Here – and, as always, you heard it here first, for the mainstream media have conspired to keep secret the Madness of King Rajendra and his entire coterie of governmental and bureaucratic lunatics worldwide – is what the dribbling, twitching thrones and dominions, principalities and powers of the world will be asked to agree to.

“International Climate Court of Justice”: This kangaroo court is to be established by next year “to guarantee the compliance of Annex I Parties with all the provisions of this decision, which are essential elements in the obtaining of the global goal”. Note that, here as elsewhere, the bias is only against the nations of the West. However badly the third-world countries behave, they cannot be brought before the new court. Though none of what the draft calls the “modalities” of the proposed marsupial dicastery are set out in detail, one can imagine that the intention is to oblige Western nations to pay up however much the world government run by the Convention secretariat feels like demanding, just as the unelected tyrants of the EU demand – and get – ever-larger cash payments from the ever-shrinking economies and ever-poorer tribute-payers of their dismal empire.

The temperature target: At Copenhagen and Cancun, the states parties to the Convention arrogated to themselves the power – previously safe in the hands of Divine Providence – to alter the weather in such a way as to prevent global mean surface temperature from rising by more than 2 C° above the “pre-industrial” level. They did not even say what they meant by “pre-industrial”. From 1695-1745 temperatures in central England, quite a good proxy for global temperatures, rose by 2.2 C°, with about another 0.8 C° since then, making 3 C° in all. The previous temperature target, therefore, was already absurd. Yet the new, improved, madder target is to keep global temperatures either “1 C°” or “well below 1.5 C°” above “pre-industrial levels” – i.e., well below half of the temperature increase that has already occurred since the pre-industrial era. The twittering states parties are committing themselves, in effect, to reducing today’s global temperatures by getting on for 2 C°. This is madness. Throughout pre-history, the governing class – Druids or Pharaohs or Mayans or Incas – thought they could replace their Creator and command the weather. They couldn’t. No more can we. But try telling that to the strait-jacketed ninnies of today’s governing “elite”. Speech after speech at the plenary sessions of the Durban conference has drivelled on about how We Are The People Who At This Historic Juncture Are Willing And Able To Undertake The Noble Purpose Of Saving The Planet From Thermageddon and Saving You From Yourselves [entirely at your prodigious expense, natch].

The emissions-reduction targets: The new target proposed by the staring-eyed global-village idiots will be a reduction of 50-85% of global greenhouse-gas emissions from 1990 levels (i.e. by 65-100% of today’s levels) by 2050, with emissions falling still further thereafter. The West should cut its emissions by 30-50% from 1990 levels (i.e. by 40-65% of today’s levels) in just eight years, and by more than 95% (i.e. more than 100%) by 2050. Alternatively (for there are many alternatives in the text, indicating that agreement among the inmates in the Durban asylum is a long way off), the West must cut its emissions “more than 50%” in just five years, and “more than 100%” by 2050. The words “more than 100%” actually appear in the draft. The Third World, however, need cut its emissions only by 15-30% over the next eight years, provided – of course – that the West fully reimburses it for the cost.

The greenhouse-gas reduction target: Greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere “should stabilize well below 300-450 ppm CO2 equivalent”. This target, like the temperature target, is plain daft. CO2 concentration is currently at 392 ppmv, and the IPCC increases this by 43% to allow for other greenhouse gases. Accordingly, today’s CO2-equivalent concentration of greenhouse gases is 560 ppmv, and the current lunacy is to cut this perhaps by very nearly half, reducing the CO2 component to just 210 ppmv, at which point trees and plants become starved of CO2, which is their food, and start to die.

The greenhouse-gas peak targets: Global greenhouse gas emissions, say the mentally-challenged Durban droolers, should peak in not more than eight years’ time, and perhaps as soon as two years’ time. Western greenhouse-gas emissions should peak immediately (or perhaps by next year, or maybe the year after that) and must decline thereafter. The greenhouse-gas emissions peak in third-world countries will be later than that of the West, and – no surprises here – will depend on the West to pay the cost of it.

“Historical responsibility”: The nations of the West (for which the UN’s code is “Annex I parties”) are from now on required to beat their breasts (or at least their strait-jackets) and acknowledge their “historical responsibility” for increasing CO2 emissions and giving us warmer weather. The draft says: “Acknowledging that the largest share of the historical global emissions of greenhouse gases originated in Annex I Parties and that, owing to this historical responsibility in terms of their contribution to the average global temperature increase, Annex I Parties must take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof.” This new concept of “historical responsibility” – suspiciously akin to the “war-guilt” of post-1918 Germany, declared by the imprudent governments of the world at the Versailles conference, which was no small cause of World War II – further underscores the rapidly-growing anti-Western bias in the UN and in the Convention’s secretariat.

Who pays? Oh, you guessed it before I told you. The West pays. The third world (UN code: “non-Annex-I parties”) thinks it will collect, so it will always vote for the UN’s insane proposals. But the UN’s bureaucrats will actually get all or nearly all the money, and will decide how to allocate what minuscule fraction they have not already spent on themselves. As a senior UN diplomat told me last year, “The UN exists for only one purpose: to get more money. That, and that alone, is the reason why it takes such an interest in climate change.” The draft says: “Developed-country Parties shall provide developing-country Parties with new and additional finance, inter alia through a percentage of the gross domestic product of developed-country Parties.” And, of course, “The extent of participation by non-Annex-I parties in the global effort to deal with climate change is directly dependent on the level of support provided by developed-country Parties.”

The get-out clause: One or two Western countries – Canada and Japan, for instance – have begun to come off the Kool-Aid. They have worked out what scientifically-baseless nonsense the climate scam is and have said they are not really playing any more. To try to keep these and the growing number of nations who want out of “the process” bankrolling the ever-more-lavish UN, an ingenious escape clause has been crafted: “The scale of financial flows to non-Annex-I parties shall be based on the assessments of their needs to deal with climate change.” Since climate is not going to change measurably as a result of Man’s emissions, any honest assessment of the needs of third-world countries “to deal with climate change” is that they don’t need any money at all for this purpose and shouldn’t get a single red cent. The UN is now the biggest obstacle to the eradication of poverty worldwide, because its pampered functionaries divert so much cash to themselves, to an ever-expanding alphabet-soup of bureaucracies, and then to heroically lunatic projects like “global warming” control. Time to abolish it.

World government: The Copenhagen Treaty draft establishing a world “government” with unlimited powers of taxation and intervention in the affairs of states parties to the UN Framework Convention fortunately failed. Yet at the Cancun climate conference the following year 1000 new bureaucracies were established to form the nucleus of a world government, with central control in the hands of the Convention’s secretariat and tentacles in every region and nation. The draft “agrees that common principles, modalities and procedures as well as the coordinating and oversight functions of the UNFCCC are needed” – in short, global centralization of political, economic and environmental power in the manicured hands of the Convention’s near-invisible but all-powerful secretariat. No provision is made for the democratic election of key members of the all-powerful secretariat – in effect, a world government – by the peoples of our planet.

Reporting to the world government: From 2013/14, the world government will oblige Western nations to prepare reports and submit them to it every two years. The format of these reports is specified in obsessive detail over several pages of the draft. The reports will describe the extent of their compliance with the mitigation targets imposed by the various treaties and agreements. The West will be obliged to to continue reporting “greenhouse-gas emission inventories”, for which “common reporting formats and methodologies for the calculation of emission, established at the international level, are essential”. Separately, Western nations will now be required to provide information on the financial support they have pledged to assist third-world countries in mitigating greenhouse-gas emissions and adapting to “the adverse effects of climate change”. The world government also expects to receive reports from Western nations on their financial contributions to the Global Environment Facility, the Least Developed Countries’ Trust Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund, the Adaptation Fund, the Green Climate Fund and the Trust Fund for Supplementary Activities”. Western nations must also provide information on the steps taken to promote technology development and transfer to third-world countries, and on how they have provided “capacity-building support” to third-world countries, and on numerous other matters. The inexorable increase in compulsory reporting was one of the mechanisms by which the unelected Kommissars of the anti-democratic European Union acquired absolute power over the member states. EU advisors have been helping the UN to learn how to use similar techniques to centralize global power just as anti-democratically in its own hands.

Review of Western nations’ conduct: Once the multitude of mechanisms for Western nations’ compulsory reporting to the world government are in place, the information gathered by it will be used as the basis of a continuous review of every aspect of their compliance with the various agreements and concords, whether legally-binding or not. Teams of five to eight members of the Convention’s secretariat will scrutinize each Western nation’s conduct, and will have the power to ask questions and to require additional information, as well as to make recommendations that will gradually become binding. The world government will then prepare a record of the review for each Western nation, including reports of various aspects of the review, an assessment of that nation’s compliance, questions and answers, conclusions and recommendations (eventually instructions) to that nation, and a “facilitative process” (UN code for a mechanism to compel the nation to do as it is told by people whom no one has elected).

Finance: One of the 1000 bureaucracies established at Cancun is the Standing Committee on Finance, which the draft says will have the power of “mobilizing financial resources” through flows of public and private finance, “mobilizing additional funding”, and requiring and verifying the reporting of finance provided to third-world Parties by the Western nations through a new Financial Support Registry. Finance for third-world countries is to be scaled up “significantly”, and Western countries will be obliged to provide “a clear work-plan on their pledged assessed contributions” from 2012-2020 “for approval by the Conference of the Parties”. Taxpayers will be compelled to provide the major source of funding through public expenditure.

Green Climate Fund: Western nations are urged to “commit to the initial capitalization of the Green Climate Fund without delay”, to include “the full running costs” and “the funding required for the formation and operating costs of the board and secretariat of the Green Climate Fund”. Here, as always, the UN bureaucrats want their own pay, perks, pensions and organizational structure guaranteed before any money goes to third-world countries.

Worldwide cap-and-trade: The draft establishes a “new market-based approach/mechanism … to promote the reduction or avoidance of greenhouse-gas emissions” – once again for Western countries only. Also, “Ambitious, legally-binding emission reduction targets for developed-country Parties … are essential to drive a global carbon market”. What this means, in the plain English that is almost entirely absent from the 138-page draft, is worldwide compulsory cap-and-trade, centrally imposed and regulated, imposed on Western countries only.

Patent rights: Under the guise of action to prevent “global warming” that is not happening at anything like the predicted rate, coded references to the extinction of patent rights in third-world countries are creeping into the text. For instance, “identification and removal of all barriers that prevent effective technology development and transfer to developing-country Parties”; and “the removal of all obstacles, including intellectual property rights and patents on climate-related technologies to ensure the transfer of technology to developing countries”. As an inventor with patents to my name, I can predict what effect any such provision will have. It will prevent the establishment and development of patent offices in continents such as Africa, which – thus far – has contributed remarkably little to the world’s inventions, not least because the structure for protecting and encouraging inventors is rickety or non-existent.

Shipping and aviation fuels were previously excluded from the scope of the Convention and are now to be included. International shipping and aviation are described as “a source of financial resources for climate change actions”. More money for UN bureaucrats.

The new bureaucracies: As though the 1000 bureaucracies created at Cancun were not enough, another bureaucracy is to be created “to oversee, monitor and ensure overall implementation of capacity-building activities consistent with the provisions of the Convention”. There will also be a new “International Climate Court of Justice” (see above). A “Financial Support Registry” is also to be set up.

The new special-interest group: Meet the “Parties that are alternative-energy-disadvantaged”. No wind, no sun, no renewables – so, handouts from the West, please.

The new buzzwords: Welcome to the notion of “equitable access to global atmospheric space”; “Mother Earth” [I kid you not: it's in the draft]; “climate-resilient infrastructure” and “paradigm shift towards building a low-carbon society”. These buzzwords are in addition to pre-existing buzzwords such as “climate justice” and “climate debt” – the latter being the notion that because the West has emitted more carbon dioxide than the rest it owes the Third World lots of money.

“Rights of Mother Earth”: The draft burbles insanely about “The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature, and that there will be no commodification [whatever that may be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.

“Right to survive”: “The rights of some Parties to survive are threatened by the adverse impacts of climate change, including sea level rise.” At 2 inches per century? Oh, come off it! The Jason 2 satellite shows that sea-level has dropped over the past three years.

The science is at last to be reviewed in a manner that appears independent of the discredited IPCC. However, no details of the method of review are provided, and other parts of the schizophrenic draft say we must defer to the science put forward not by the peer-reviewed learned journals but by a political body whose reports are not peer-reviewed in the usual sense.

Legally-binding treaty: According to the draft, the aim is to create a “legally-binding instrument/outcome”. This is UN code for an international Treaty. The US will sign no such treaty. Nor will Canada, Japan, France, India and many other countries. On the basis of drafts as in-your-face idiotic as this, no legally-binding climate treaty will ever be signed: which is just as well, because no such treaty is necessary.

War and the maintenance of defence forces and equipment are to cease because they contribute to climate change. Just like that. The UN draft text asserts: “Stopping wars, defending lives and ceasing destructive activities will protect the climate system; conflict-related activities emit significant greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.” A wave of the UN’s magic wand and peace will reign throughout the Earth, the sun will shine (but not too much) the rain will fall (just where and when needed), and non-gender-specific motherhood and non-commodificated apple pie will be available to all. Ouroborindra, ba-ba hee! It does not seem to have occurred to the Druids of the UN that they have near-totally failed to prevent wars on Earth – the original purpose for which it was founded. Yet now, in their gibbering, spastic arrogance, they think to command the weather. Canute, thou shouldst be living at this hour!

###

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

221 Responses to Durban: what the media are not telling you

This is not only insane but totalitarian.

What can we do?

Looks like the capitulation is happening. They are acknowledging that nothing they want will truly happen so they have no reason to inhibit their wish list of global suicide to reduce the “surplus population”.

Cracked Pots!! I don’t suppose you have any names to credit this document to.

“Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Any Western nation who signs this must be mad, so they would be out to destroy themselves.

Any President that agrees to any of this will not only violate the Constitution, but will destroy his party for 50 years.

Since the Illustration, the western world gave itself freedom and individual rights as the base for progress. Now these climate alarmists want to destroy all we achieved, entering in a kind of global governance through the back door. Nobody voted them. They were not chosen by we the people. However they want to rule the world. To take us back to the Middle Age. To convert us in peasants. These climate alarmists and the eco-wackos and the civil servants that make a luxury living of this swindle are totalitarians. Excuse me, I feel like vomiting.

Commodification: a) a circumstance where cooperative modification results in an unrecognisable product; b) the process by which documents produced in a) are disposed of; c) Google “mud falcon”, except that these people are not climbing the rocks, they are jumping off the cliff.

It ceased being about science two COP’s ago, now it’s in-your-face backroom totalitarianism.

This is outrageous! Why ANY western nation would even be in the same room talking with these criminals is beyond me. And thanks to WUWT and Lord Monckton for getting this desperately needed knowledge publicly available to the rest of us.

I am shocked at the naked ambition of the UN at their deliberate attack on western democracy, at the UN’s attack on Freedom, and the UN’s subversive attempts at world domination and even worse – NOT ONE WESTERN NEWS SOURCE EVEN ATTEMPTED TO INFORM THEIR OWN PUBLIC! And not one single western government source attempted to inform their voting public of the enormous stakes at this conference. That alone can be considered traitorous and all should place on trial for subversion.

Moreover, the UN should be disbanded immediately. And western nations should never pay a cent to that den of corruption ever again.

Thanks for this post Lord Monckton. Very scary stuff..

The ONLY thing Mother Earth needs is an IIAJ; an International Insane Asylum Jurisdiction in which to put all these nincompoops. With a physical design like a cockroach trap …no exit.

This is exactly why U.S. citizens (those who have a clue) treasure the Second Amendment. In the end, you possess only those rights you can defend.

No western politician would sign such a document. Or is that “could” instead of “would”?

And to think that most of these guys would happily sign up.

And “commodification [whatever that may be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.

This may mean that if you get sick they will just let nature take its corse no treatment will be given??.

The most hilarious one of all has GOT to be cancelling war. They have SUCH an excellent track record at that.

Strangely, what is slowly defeating the warmist agenda is the two worst things that can befall the human race. The climate appears to be returning to a cooling phase, which may well cost us dearly in human lives, and the world economy teaters on the edge of collapse, forcing nations that have been living on credit to cut their spending down to the basics. These are the reasons that nothing being negotiated in Durban will ever come to fruition. Sadly, it is not science, facts, logic and reason that doom Durban to failure, but rampant borrowing and impending crop failure.

Sad is it not that we have progressed so far technologically that the only thing we have left to fear is nightmares of our own making?

The UN has never served the purpose it was intended for, and does far more harm than good. It isn’t just the Durban climate BS that needs to get ash canned, its the whole UN itself. 50% funding comes from the US I was told once. If so, one country could kill it off with a pen stroke.

So the western world has been annexed(their word!) by an unelected bureaucracy.

Thank you Lord Monckton for your hard work and incite.

Call me crazy but I am starting to think these warmist are sociopaths.

Many WUWT Readers have made reference to Orwell s 1984 – Here is further evidence in black and white of the socialist hordes storming the walls. These people are criminals paid for by hard working taxpayers worldwide. It;s time for brain scans of all politicians, bureaucrats and NGO;s you will find they exhibit the same low frontal brain activity that criminals murderers, and unreasoned people. History is filled with these delusioned individuals that have caused pain and suffering to millions of people with their unreasoned and frightening ideology’s. We are in another make or break period for freedom loving people the world.

See:

Tormented Souls, Diseased Brains

A Case for the Frontal Brain

Since sociopathic individuals have marked alterations in their relation to other human beings, it is only natural that we should first seek whether the part of their brains responsible for this has some significant abnormality.

All social primates have highly developed frontal brains, and human beings have the largest one of all. Self-control, planning, judgment, the balance of individual versus social needs, and many other essential functions underlying effective social intercourse are mediated by the frontal structures of the brain.

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n07/doencas/disease_i.htm

See High Self-Perception, Low Brain Activity.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/01/07/high-self-perception-low-brain-activity/10606.html

To be perfectly blunt this document scares the crap out of me. Is this how people feel in a war zone!

The UN is just a huge distraction in the real world of international diplomacy. Abolishing the UN would improve international diplomacy enormously.

This is all that is beening said at http://hot-topic.co.nz/durban-final-hours/#comments

“New text out today, but it was greeted with a veritable storm of protest from the Small Island States, the EU and the Least Developed Countries – a combined grouping of more than 120 countries, with more coming on board to oppose.

Why? The text proposes no further action until after 2020 – and that, to the most vulnerable, is like a death warrant. Ministers were locked in a room for several hours, took a break and about to go back into the meeting. They’re expected to carry on way into the night and through tomorrow. China, India and the US are increasingly isolated as their block and delay tactics exposed”.

by cindy.

I haven’t read the comments above yet but here is my opinion. UN, GET STUFFED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have the members of the UN climate bureaucrats in Durban fallen down the rabbit hole to Alice’s Wonderland where insanity prevails? The US ought to stop funding the UN so this nonsense will stop.

Absolutely mind boggling. Even the warmists in NZ must be secretly hoping this all fails big time.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10771132

This is his best yet. All should study and ponder the implications of Durban.

Why does carbon dioxide have no effect? Let’s look at the quantum thermodynamics involved.

There are two fundamental errors in the standard explanation of the GH effect.

(1) The application of blackbody radiation calculations (giving that 255 deg.K) should apply to the whole Earth system, including the atmosphere. As even the models show, there is quite a lot of radiation emanating from the atmosphere. The surface is merely an internal interface, rather like the floor of the ocean. You cannot just measure radiation at TOA and then say what the surface temperature is or ought to be. The 255 deg.K is a weighted mean of surface and atmosphere and is found at a level in the troposphere which is well above the surface. The temperature plot swivels around this mean and results in warmer temperatures at the surface and of course cooler at TOA. There has to be a declining temperature in the troposphere because warm air takes time to rise by convection. It does not need carbon dioxide to bring this about.

(2) Oxygen and nitrogen molecules acquire thermal energy partly by absorbing some incident radiation, but mostly by collision with a warmer surface. As they rise by convection they will mix with cooler air containing some cooler GHG molecules to which they can transfer thermal energy by collision processes. Oxygen and nitrogen cannot cool themselves by radiating IR at atmospheric temperatures. Only GHG molecules can do so. Hence the GHG molecules (while some of them are temporarily in unexcited states) will collect energy from several O2 and N2 molecules until they are sufficiently energised to radiate it out of the atmosphere, some to space, some to Earth. Thus carbon dioxide can also have a cooling effect (as it removes thermal energy from oxygen and nitrogen) which could very well neutralise its warming effect. The latter is far less than has been calculated anyway, because of the reasons in (1) above.

War,

The submarines may announce our determination, the launches from the prairies will end the fight.

An interesting piece of work. It might be wise for the UN bureaucrats to refresh themselves on American history.

They might want to recall the words of the Reverend Jonathan Mayhew from a sermon in 1750, “No Taxation Without Representation.” Or listen to the words of Mercy Otis Warren’s brother, James Otis, who said that, “taxation without representation is tyranny.” They were speaking of direct representation. At best, all we have is indirect representation to the various UN bodies, selected by who knows whom in DC.

Truly, a sad state of affairs.

I believe Newt Gingrich said he would pick John Bolton for Secretary of State if elected. Bolton famously said that “if the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johnbolton169120.html

I am afraid to say that this is the type of spin (is that too mild a word?) that Aussies have to put up with for possibly another 2 years from one who is still well and truly in the Cuckoo’s Nest or in some delusional trance:

Nice article.

Interestingly the only other place I have ever seen the word ‘modalities’ used in Nigerian scam emails.

How appropriate.

Very relevant :

Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation

January 17, 1961

(Extract from the Educational-Research Complex)

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government. Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields.

In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Every fashionable leftist idiocy is catered for.

That’s about the size of it. Oh, and a portion of the posting gets repeated at the end for some reason. Our Congress is in no mood to agree to such a thing unless Obama figures out a way to bind us to it without Congressional approval, it’s dead on arrival in the US.

Call me crazy but I am starting to think these warmist are sociopaths.

The political left in general is. It appeals to people who have serious issues with self-loathing and you see that projected in their policies and rhetoric. I am “bad”, my country is bad, my race is bad, my culture is bad, my lifestyle is bad. I don’t deserve happiness. Everything bad in the world is my fault, I make the world a worse place. I get tired of having someone else’s guilt and self loathing shoved down my throat sometimes.

“The March of Folly”. continues.

As to JD Smith’s question as to what we can do about this….the answer is, we need do NOTHING, aide from continuing the good work here at WUWT and other “denialist” [hah!] sites. Any President, any Congress that would entertain surrendering American sovereignty to these Gaia-worshipping morons would be tossed out of office, impeached, tarred and feathered and/or strung up on lampposts.

Clinton understood that when Al Gore symbolically signed the Kyoto Protocol — BOTH knew it would never get gain Senate ratification. As WUWT readers know, the Senate had already signaled its opposition by a 95- 0 vote.

With Barbara Boxer still delusional, it might get one or two Senate votes today. But not more. And it’s the Senate, not the White House, that has the power here. No Senate ratification? The proposed scheme has no force of law in the US.

JDSmith – Toronto says:

December 9, 2011 at 7:57 pm

This is not only insane but totalitarian.

What can we do?

==================================================

Well, arming yourself would be a prudent start, just in case…… then go straight to scorn and ridicule of these lunatics And, other than that, just continue what you’re doing. Contribute the the skeptical discussion and support the others that do the same. With Providence’s aid, we’ve turned the corner and are winning. Not just on the blogs, but in the science, and most importantly, we’re winning over the public. As Monckton points out, nothing is happening in our climate. Its all been rather (sorry I can’t help it) anticlimactic</b for several years now. :-)

It is rather astonishing that people like that exist, and they are a great threat to the human experience. They have thwarted humanity’s progress for some time now. Their misanthropy is palpable. They are scumbags and should be treated as such.

I do agree with one part of their demands. I believe an international tribunal should be established. (Outside U.N. control) It should assess the damage these people have done. Count the lives they have cost, and then execute swift Justice.

Our local weekly paper, out yesterday, carried the main headline:”Climate talk detractors land on Toti beach”. (‘Toti’ is quickspeak for Amanzimtoti, the actual beach onto which Lord Moncton and his team parachuted.) There is also a short editorial on the subject in their paper, ending with this of the sceptics: “Are we not to at least hear ther argument before we disregard it?” It all sounds rather much like: “You will be given a fair trial before we hang you”.

This requires a Letter to the Editor, which I shall soon be writing. In connection with this, I have placed a pdf of Lord Moncton’s above article onto my Website, and will invite readers of our local rag to download this from: http://www.alder.co.za/monc.pdf

it is amazing…’People running around with signs saying ‘the world is coming to an end’ are considered the sane ones by the MSM

I propose the establishment of the International Oxygen Thieves Court to counter their proposal.

However, can someone please hide Chris BuffHuhne’s pen as he may have heard we just saved some cash by not continuing to prop up the Euro.

“. . . Druids of the UN . . . ”

How dare you disparage my honorable ancestors!

There’s only one appropriate response to these Durban dirtbags:

NUTS!

The really ironic thing is that China is going to realize America’s nuclear energy dream and we aren’t. They have scores of plants planned. They have a plan for a fuel cycle using fast neutron reactors to reprocess and re-use spent fuel. That was our original plan until Jimmy Carter killed it. Reagan attempted to revive it but Clinton killed it again. China is going to have a massive nuclear electrification effort giving it a secure source of energy that is not vulnerable to external supply issues. We aren’t.

The American Dream (or at least one of those dreams) is alive and well and living in China.

If only poor old Pol Pot had thought of this scam, perhaps history wouldn’t have treated him so badly!

Is this really what the folks at RealClimate et al want? A totalitarian one world government?

Is this what Phil Jones wants? All the climategate players? They want this?

Seriously, is it?

Yes we all, along with Christopher, think that this stuff is wrong. Completely mad and anti everything we believe is right. That will not stop them.

With cold eyes they observe us and experience no empathy as they proceed with their inhumane plans of power accumulation.

The UN is a monster, staffed by mini monsters, that seeks to extend it’s rule over all of us. The cash flow from this scheme will be huge and with big money comes big ambition. The USA should, in my opinion, withdraw all of it’s funding from the UN process as a preparatory step to complete withdrawal. As was pointed out it has been unable to prevent wars, it’s primary reason for being and in every other endeavor it has been corrupt and ineffectual.

In the absence of overall political control the UN apparatchiks continue to expand their reach. The secretary general answers to no one and his appointment is always a political botch followed by no oversight for his period in office. The “shareholders” have no say in the operations of the UN, have you ever seen any employee get done for corruption?

Smash the UN by turning off it’s money supply now because once it gets an income stream that doesn’t need to come from America it will be game over. America really needs to step up now in the interests of mankind.

Thank you, Christopher Monckton.

I don’t know, how you have patience and energy to go through all this muck.

The UN is not only an anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Western bureaucracy, it is becoming a flat-out anti-human mob. Hopefully, it would take one decisive, real US president to put an end to this lunacy. If not — well, it’s revolution then. So much the worse for bureaucrats.

Omg, the inmates are running the asylum.

Keep fighting the good fight, Lord Monckton, and let the world know what these eco-freaks are up to. Thanks again for yet another sneak preview in their plans and goals. We will overcome!

Does this mean that Obama will be signing on the dotted line of this global-take-over-by-the-UN proposed contract? Will the US president hand over the key of American freedom to Mr. Ban ki Moon/Pachauri?

Ditto the leaders of the free world.

Thumper says: I started to giggle partway down the page and didn’t stop until I finished. This is really to good to be true. This is so over the top it speaks for it self and the people who wrote it. Lets hound the MSM to publish the report and Invite comment. The writers at Durban have been wearing trenchcoats all these years. They just Flashed the western public, showed us what they really are, and folks including most liberals will be appalled. No liberal I Know is willing to give up anything significant or be inconvienced to “save the earth.” Folks, I think this is a piece of really good news. They have Exposed THEMSELVES and that’s the important part.

Hey! They left the Good Lord alone and escorted the Greenpeace leader out of the conference. Great result!

Even Black over at the BBC is running up the white flag with his “This was never about getting an agreement but about setting a roadway to an agreement”. Makes me wonder what they were doing in Copenhagen, Mexico etc!

In other words, “We ain’t got a snowballs chance in hell whilst China, India, Canada (Bless you!) will not play ball”!

Meanwhile, the BBC TV news keeps the bias going!

*&^&@mitit* !!!

Time to light the torches.

Chris

Norfolk, VA, USA

Yes, indeed, the inmates are running the asylum….the foxes are overseeing the hen-house.

Time indeed…to light the torches.

Chris

Norfolk, VA, USA

Nostradamus-TV

December 25, 2058

At their summit, the G3 countries (Liberia, Ghana and Mauritius) have decided to cancel the debts of the EU.

/sarc?

What, no talking-in-tongues little parasite trolls around to “labor” in defense of the cream of Climate Science’s psychoderanged crop of Big Parasite Supremists? Maybe they’ve gone on strike for more of their “fair share” of the booty that has been imperialistically ripped off the backs of us evil capitalist producers and anyone else with anything? Nah, probably it’s just a brilliant strategic silence. And they’re no doubt too occupied by the multiple orgiastic fantasies presented above by Lord Monckton anyway to even worry about whether he is a “Lord” or not. So far.

No wonder they are being low key. They don’t want us to see this coming until it has already hit us.

Anna Lemma says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:43 pm

“The March of Folly”. continues.

As to JD Smith’s question as to what we can do about this….the answer is, we need do NOTHING, aide from continuing the good work here at WUWT and other “denialist” [hah!] sites.”

We are the quire. Everyone has a local newspaper which sooner or later prints a neutral to pro CAGW article. Using links point out the false lies and misrepresentations common to all such articles, really we all need to do what we can to communicate more, Until the world nations adopt a sane approach to inexpensive energy, our economy (the worlds) has no chance. These people, if they got their way, even in their attempt, are creating the seeds of war.

Liberal statist have specalized in dividing people, in making minorities feel like they are owed, now they are trying to do the same thing to nations.

“The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature”.

EGADS! What uttter dreck! That bitch Mother Nature has been trying two kill me since I was 9 years old! By freezing, overheating, bacterial and fungal attacks, fang, claw, horn, brute force, poison oak, poison ivy, food poisoning, tornado, lighting, cancer, and fogged glasses in the middle of a challenging rapids, she has most determinedly tried to repeatedly do me in! When does this ‘harmony’ crap start? Never! That’s why they call it ‘survival of the fittest’…..

Thank you, Lord Monckton, for confirming pretty much everything I’d worked out for myself. I have no intrinsic problem with the concept of ‘globalisation’ – who wouldn’t want a world in which we sink our various national and international differences and try just appreciating one anothers’ cultures without needing to slaughter one another? The prospect of what these psychopaths are proposing under the same name, on the other hand, which amounts to neither more nor less than worldwide fascism, should send a chill down the spine of anyone who becomes aware of it.

For an overview of ‘the cause’, download a copy of Agenda 21 from the UN website – there’s no need to go to any weirdie ‘conspiracy sites’ – and just read it. This crust of unelected, self-serving parasites want nothing less than complete power for themselves and complete obedience from the 1-in-14 of us who are permitted to survive. The depopulation agenda is emphatically not the invention of conspiracy nuts, it is explicitly stated by the self-appointed UN.

It becomes increasingly urgent for us all, in all countries, to find every possible way of fighting this corruption. For sure the UN must go, as must the EU and every other body which presumes to tell any national government what to do – the World Bank, the IMF, all of them. Within our individual countries, we need to purge from public influence every “quango”, every “lobbyist” and “adviser”, every “think-tank”, so that our governments actually have to represent the interests of the people they govern. All government should be carried out in the open so that anyone who’s interested can see, and everyone can discuss and influence, what is being said or done by whom. No more secret cabals meeting in ‘unofficial’ conclaves, or Rothschild mansions, or anywhere else. A revolutionary concept maybe, but only the creatures feeding off the rest of us now could find it objectionable.

I was a little sorry to see this very website finding it necessary to boot commenter ‘Stop Common Purpose’ for excessive self-promotion – Common Purpose are a major ‘globalist’ cancer in the UK and they must, indeed, be stopped – but fear not, there’s another fifth column to match in your own country, just like them.

As usual, the ancient Greeks had a word for it – let us pass over the fact that it is implementation of ideas also going back to them which is causing the present situation. (Read Plato’s Republic lately?) What we need, urgently, is aristocracy – which, by the way, means rule by the best in society, not by Lord this, that or the other, or somebody whose many times great-grandaddy helped some king wallop the peasants. What we are heading for, if it is not stopped in its tracks, is universal kakistocracy. Yep. The very opposite.

Douglas Adams was right on target when he wrote, in “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, “it is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.” There’s the problem. Let’s get fixing it.

“commodification [whatever that may be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.

vs.

“Worldwide cap-and-trade: The draft establishes a “new market-based approach/mechanism … to promote the reduction or avoidance of greenhouse-gas emissions”

I know I’m not at the intellectual level needed to comprehend this (thank goodness) but how can the world both establish and forbid a carbon market? Of course, if any organization can do this it’s the U.N.

Alex the skeptic says:

December 9, 2011 at 10:57 pm

Does this mean that Obama will be signing on the dotted line of this global-take-over-by-the-UN proposed contract? Will the US president hand over the key of American freedom to Mr. Ban ki Moon/Pachauri?

Ditto the leaders of the free world.

===================================================

Not a chance. Election is less than a year away.

At least the UN has now come out and stated what their policies are. They have now been outed and there is no going back.

Their best resolution is that that everyone must stop spending on defence and stop fighting wars and give the money that they save to the UN so they can fund the climate change fight. That should make the UN fabulously rich and powerful. Its a brilliant get rich quick scheme which surely must have had some Nigerian input.

I’ve got a better idea, close the UN and give the money saved back to those who have been stumping up for this useless organisation.

Don’t take this lightly. Christopher’s right. It is no joke.

Someone is bound to declare war on these environmentalist crazies.

They are aiming to kill, but not themselves, oh no. They have UN ‘live’ tickets.

They are aiming at your country, your family, your children, love ones and friends.

This cancer has grown for decades and few can see it, few let themselves care.

The time has come to remove it.

But be so PC and so quiet now [imn]

Write your representatives, place strategic votes

and be sure to warn people who never visit here at wuwt.

I first read about this Islander Extortion Ploy in Crichton’s 2004 novel ‘State of Fear’ and have been watching it unfold since then. Amazing how well Crichton told this story back then. And now here we are.

“marsupial dicastery”. Magnificent.

Lunacy! Total! When the West stops producing, all the money they handed over will be spent in China. I suppose it’s now their turn to rule the world. All I can say is good luck to all the peoples who signed up to that document. (world wars for food and land permitting)

JPeden says:

December 9, 2011 at 11:24 pm

So Far. . . . . indeed! There will be repercusions.

The alarmists’ fantasy paradigm amplified verges on madness. Billions of tax payer dollars are requested to fund a world bureaucracy to transfer trillions of tax payer dollars to corrupt third world companies and governments. A carbon monitoring bureau, a biofuel world trading corporation, a carbon off set world trading bureau, and so on.

A single example of this madness is the massive AWG driven program to convert food to biofuels. The problem with biofuels is the amount of transportation energy required would require roughly six times the total amount of the current agricultural land to produce. Biofuel production requires significant fossil energy inputs. Agricultural production itself produces significant greenhouse gases. The biofuel concept is part of a fairytale. We live in the real world not in a fairytale.

Skepticism and scientific analysis is the foundation of the development of practical environmental policy.

http://www.uiweb.uidaho.edu/bioenergy/NewsReleases/Biodiesel%20Energy%20Balance_v2a.pdf

Vast amounts of agricultural land are being diverted from crops for human consumption to biofuel The immediate consequence of this is a dramatic increase in the cost of basic food such as a 140% increase in the price of corn. Due to limited amounts of agricultural land vast regions of virgin forest are being cut down for biofuel production. The problems associate with this practice will become acute as all major Western governments have mandate a percentage of biofuel.

Analysis of the total energy input to produce ethanol from corn show that 29% more fossil fuel input energy is require to produce one energy unit of ethanol. If the fuel input to harvest the corn, to produce the fertilizer, and to boil the water off to distill ethanol/water from 8% ethanol to 99.5% ethanol (three distillation processes) to produce 99.5% ethanol for use in an automobile, produces more green house gas than is produced than the production consumption of conventional gasoline. The cost of corn based ethanol is more than five times the production cost of gasoline, excluding taxes and subsides. Rather than subsiding the production of corn based ethanol the same money can be used to preserve and increase rainforest. The loss of rainforest is the largest cause of the increase in CO2.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html

The Clean Energy Scam

The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.

But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.

Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.’s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn’t exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402

Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’

Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. He says agriculture should also be subsidised in regions where it ensures the survival of local populations. Meanwhile, in response to a call by the IMF and World Bank over the weekend to a food crisis that is stoking violence and political instability, German Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck gave his tacit backing.

Palm oil to diesel.

http://news.yahoo.com/prime-indonesian-jungle-cleared-palm-oil-065556710.html

Prime Indonesian jungle to be cleared for palm oil

Their former hero recently gave a palm oil company a permit to develop land in one of the few places on earth where orangutans, tigers and bears still can be found living side-by-side — violating Indonesia’s new moratorium on concessions in primary forests and peatlands.

OK, we’ve all seen the JAXA IBUKI map.

http://pics.livejournal.com/johnosullivan/pic/0002dcxk/s640x480

The industrialized West is a net absorber; the UDN are net emitters.

Plug that into the nonsense from Durban and it all blows to smithereenies.

Golly, how time flys…It is the 1st April already!!!

The Green leftists in the EU bureaucracy want to give China a “carte blanche” (or noir) / free pass to pollute to their hearts content, additionally subsidized by Western tax money.

Chinese capitalism = good, Western capitalism = bad.

The self hate of these people!

The good lord has brought me the best news for a long time. That all of these demands have been written in clear simple language, and not hidden away in some appendix, shows that the lunatics are out for all to see.

Sadly, I expect there is one person who will sign up to this sick joke, and that would be me, courtesy of my Australian prime-minister!

The long battle between parliamentary democracy and the forces of fascism continues. And the centralists and the faceless bureaucrats of the U.N, ( stands for UNelected,) who dare to call themselves ‘Liberal,’ push their ad hoc working groups and turgidly worded policies to dupe and control nations. ‘Ad hoc’ and ‘clandestine’ are the favoured modus operandi.

I feel so commodified, it’s unreal!

It is, unfortunately a fact, that third world countries who would most benefit from this unbelievable nonsense now are a majority in the UN and enthusiastically support any proposal to hand over western cash.

The UN, long ago ceased to have any useful function. Time to close it down as was the League of Nations, its predecessor. Western nations just stopped paying their dues It would soon collapse.

This is about as laughable as the Kellogg-Briand treaty in the late 20s or early 30s. So I don’t put a whole lot of stock in it, because I don’t think it will do as much as some fear here. I’m actually hoping when Gingrich gets elected that not only does he appoint Bolton as Secretary of State, but also that he tells the UN this nonsense “world government” stuff they are proposing must cease immediately, or the US will stop funding the UN altogether, and kick them out of New York.

Mac the Knife says:

December 9, 2011 at 11:32 pm

“That bitch Mother Nature has been trying [to] kill me since I was 9 years old!”

Too true, Mac. It’s either religion or Stockholm Syndrome, but a lot of people have some very weird and delusional ideas about that termagant’s beneficence.

“No taxation without representation.” The fact is, when the bill gets too high and the product isn’t wanted, compliance goes away. Our tax dollars are a powerful tool. We can fork it over, or not. We recognize the consequences for non-compliance, which is illegal. Do we recognize the consequences if we are compliant?

Naturally the BBC is reporting this draft in it’s usual balanced fashion:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16124670

“Agreement on new measures to combat global warming appears within reach at the UN climate talks in South Africa.

Draft documents issued overnight appear to address the concerns of all parties.”

Other than any parties such as we taxpayers who think this is completely bonkers.

Barring mention of our Kenyan Keynesian (who should not be discussed in this forum without the words “felony” and “forgery” and “fraud” used in the same sentence), the only candidates entering the U.S. presidential election process who is a committed and repeatedly self-admitted skeptic anent the anthropogenic global warming scam is, of course, Dr. Ron Paul.

The MSM-anointed “frontrunner” on the Republican Party side is Mitt “the Massachusetts Medical Marxist” Romney, while the current flavor-of-the-week in the polls is Newt “Spine? I don’ need no steenking spine!” Gingrich, both of whom are warmistas to the bottoms of their flabby little hearts.

Anybody else out there understand how and why that “unelectable” old obstetrician is actually the only genuinely electable candidate in the Red Faction race?

Moreover, with Dr. Paul sitting behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office starting in 2013 instead of either our Mombasa Messiah or any of the nominally Republican clowns lurching around from Iowa to New Hampshire, the Durban Diddle dies the death.

Instantly, completely, and irrevocably.

If anybody scoffs at the goals of these “climate totalitarians”? Just examine the agreement Europe has reached to surrender sovereignty to the European parliament.

It wont take long for these loonies to realise they may be able to exploit the European bureaucracy to achieve their ends.

Senator Christine Milne was on aussie abc radio today bemoaning the fact we aussies who have such a world leading TAX on C02 about to ruin whats left of our industry, should be at the top of the line to sign our lives away to the UN…what can i say?

they DO walk amongst us, some (too many) actually manage to get into positions where they can cause REAL Damage.

I wonder what real climate scientists think, now they can clearly see what their work is being used for?

Thank you for posting this.

I started reading reading it but if the proposal under consideration is as you have outlined under the main points it is so stupid that I found myself unable to read further. How could any sentient person be so stupid? Is this the level of inteligence possessed by our political elite? Do they really consider that if Joe Public were informed as to the contents of this ‘draft agreement’ they would wish our politcal leaders to bind us to it? Simply put has the world gone completely mad?

THis would be even worse that the present economic problems presently being experienced by the West. We are very lucky that the West is experiencing these severe economic problems luckily coinciding with what now appers to be a prolonged cooling period. It is only these combined factors which will save us from this madness.

PS. If Chris Hume is ever charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice (or some such similar charge), he will be able to rely upon insanity as a defence. He need only show a jury that he was promoting such a draft agreement and fully supported and agreed to its provisions, and I am in no doubt that 12 good men and women would have no hesittaion in finding him insane.

God help us from our political elite,

PPS “commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be]” Does this expression derive from comity?

“Surely no western country will sign up to this lunacy!”

Watch Huhne, Britain’s Minister, grasp his moment in the limelight.

None of this will ever happen – they trotted out the same crap at Copehnhagen, but the West never signed up.

And even if they did sign up, the West is de facto, bankrupt.

And even if they borrowed more money (from who – the Chinese?) it would be impossible to acheive without destroying their economies entirely.

They might as well be mandating that the West build a Star Ship with Warp Drive capability by 2050. Really, it’s as daft as that.

I don’t wish to cast doubt on what Lord M, has said here, but what is coming out of the reports from Durman with the MSM looks quite different. Of course the MSM is so biased that they cannot be trusted, especially on this matter, but still, the mismatch must be saying something that we are missing.

This is so crazy that it is hard to believe that these people are on the level… except… from the first time I heard about the Green Party, I have always believed that they were Communists in disguise. This whole agenda of alleged Globull Warming, the attempt to bring all Western Governments under the control of the UN reeks of Communism. It is very much like 1984 being put into practice.

In the year 1984 the MSM was full of how Orwell’s novel had not come to fruition. Yet, they are the ones who have foolishly missed all of the warning signs that are in that novel. They failed to comprehend the message.

The watermelons love to try and bamboozle with their special “knowledge”, yet they fail on some of the basics in science that most of us who are non-scientists understand. Things like photosynthesis are totally ignored by them. Instead they talk in riddles about greenhouse gases as they proclaim the air that we breathe is dangerous. They also fail to understand the importance of history. It is their failure with regard to history that is slowly doing them in.

It seems to me that we Aussies are in a worse position because we do not seem to have the protections to stop the madmen that form our illegitimate government from signing on the dotted line of any agreement that gets passed at Durban. The truth is that the fools who went to Durban are so far up themselves that they will commit Australia to something which will be our destruction in the future. We have a political system that has not protected us from the minority party watermelons, and since they have managed a power sharing arrangement they are making the most of their opportunities, despite the fact that a majority of Australians do not agree with their Marxist ideology.

Why on earth should we have to give money to nations that have been wasting their resources over the past several decades? Why should we support countries where the dictators are keeping all of their money whilst the community remains impoverished? Let the rulers of those nations sort it out, and leave us out of the equation.

“Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West”

It’s this sort of barking right wing conspiracy nonsense that undermines Moncktons valid points on climate science and politics.

“commodification [whatever that may be] of the functions of nature”

I suspect that they regard the world as their commode.

What we are seeing here is “government health care” for the planet. When a government takes over health care and your doctor bills become matters of the national budget, the government begins to create regulations that reduce their expenditure. Basically they begin to control nearly every aspect of your life. No latex balloons at parties because a child might be allergic, have a reaction, and that will cost the government money. You can’t use a ladder to paint your house because you might fall off and cost the government money so you must have a scaffold built that meets regulations. Oh, and those playground toys are right out, they must be passed with those that meet regulations so there is no possible way a kid could get hurt and cost the government money.

Now we have climate change which is basically planetary health care. Here we create the notion that carbon is a poison of some sort when it is actually food. We can’t do things that increase carbon production in the atmosphere because if you do, that is going to cost you. So now they pass regulations that say what sort of light bulbs you may use.

What this is about is a centrally managed economy on a global scale. We need to get rid of these people. And I agree, it is time for severe ridicule for the discredited IPCC, the discredited CRU, and the discredited GISS.

This is about creating fear and then using that fear to manage things.

What is the WORST that could happen? The worst that could happen would be a return of climate to that which we saw in the Pliocene. Yes, there would be some sea level rise. Probably a lot of it. But once past that we would see milder climate, better growing conditions, increased food production, greater biodiversity, a reversion of polar bears back to brown bears, forests reaching the Arctic Ocean, and likely an explosion of new species and increased ocean life. We might see us extracted from this ice age we have been in since the late Pliocene climate transition. Adaptation would be quite easy: just keep living as we are now. We would not require any special adaptation techniques, we are already quite well adapted to that climate regime. It is cold that requires adaptation and if we could forestall a glacial period, we are all so much the better off for it.

“Global Warming” and a return to Pliocene conditions would mean a greening of the Sahara, and reduction of deserts globally, likely the refilling of Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville and a greening of the Great Basin. It would mean Greenland would be productive, Canada much more so than it is today, Same with Scandinavia and much of Siberia. Mongolia would bloom, the Gobi would green. I don’t think it would be all that bad of a place to live.

Keith W. says:

December 9, 2011 at 8:06 pm

“Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Any Western nation who signs this must be mad, so they would be out to destroy themselves.

The UK Representative Huhne – is almost certainly itching to sign such a document. He has already ‘given’ £1 Billion of UK money to ‘poorer nations fighting climate change’. The US delegation almost certainly has an unelected Czar or someone from the EPA who is just as keen to sign away the US rights. Protecting the Constitution has not bothered anyone in the US federal government or agencies for several years – it is a constraint on their ‘power’. You have to remember that an International Treaty takes precedence over all US laws. Does anyone have 100% certainty that the current Administration would not sign away the US independence?

Commoditization (also called commodification) occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, often by the diffusion of the intellectual capital necessary to acquire or produce it efficiently. As such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and silicon chips.

A colleague of the IPCC’s Van Ypersele at UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain) has had it and has decided to go public :

http://www.contrepoints.org/2011/12/10/59762-echec-du-sommet-climatique-de-durban-interview-exclusive-du-chimiste-istvan-marko/comment-page-1#comment-64000

“crosspatch says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:39 pm

Every fashionable leftist idiocy is catered for.

That’s about the size of it. Oh, and a portion of the posting gets repeated at the end for some reason. Our Congress is in no mood to agree to such a thing unless Obama figures out a way to bind us to it without Congressional approval, it’s dead on arrival in the US.”

I disagre with this, it’s not their Apple tablet/clean motorbike that’s bad, it’s your creaky PC, scooter that is. And especially the unwashed lumpen masses’ flatscreen TV that is.

The motorbike/scooter thing is a real incident. I’m thinking of getting a scooter because public transport in my city has become so expensive and unreliable (I need it for my job, I spend often 3 hours a day travelling round my city for my job), and dicussing this with a friend who rides a motorbike, he went off onto the fact that scooters pollute and all scooters should be electric. I kid you not. My motorbike = good. Your scooter =bad.

But I cleaned his pipe regarding wind power killing all those birds and bats lol.

The U.N.! A wonderful example of a totally useless waste of time. Lets look at an example seeing as they have banned war! I know my post is not strictly Climate Warming related but I hope Anthony will allow my thoughts on the U.N.

I will use for an example Cyprus as it concerns where I live. The U.N. arrived in Cyprus in the 60′s to keep apart the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Forget the cause of the grief. The U.N. were supposed to prevent fighting and arrive at a peaceful conclusion. They stayed around, soaking up the sun until the mainland Turkish invaded the island in 1973. The U.N. declared the invasion illegal and told Turkey to withdraw. Result? The island is divided and the Turkish stuck two fingers up at the U.N. who still ride round in nice cars soaking up the sun! 50 years of waste and no solution and the Turkish maintain thousands of troops on the North side of the divide!

Now we have a two pronged attack on a sovereign government. The U.N. IPCC with its undemocratic attempt to enforce eco lunatic rules/laws and the EEC doing the same thing by forcing those ruddy windmills on the Cypriot government, under the threat of fines should they not be installed. This island is not known for being windy but some huge gas finds offshore give me hope that they will soon stick two fingers up to both the E.U. and the U.N.!

Add to the above U.N. peacekeepers in Rwanda who were ordered to stand by as Hutu slaughtered some 800,000 Tutsi. Bosnia, the U.N. declared safe areas for Muslims but did nothing to secure them, letting the Serbs slaughter thousands in Srebrenica. Remember Annan’s comical negotiations with Saddam Hussein. In 1998, Annan undertook shuttle diplomacy to Baghdad, reached a deal with Saddam to continue weapons inspections, and declared him “a man I can do business with” and we are expected the to be allowed to become a world government? Insane!

I often wonder why the people of the USA continue to allow this morally bankrupt organisation to base itself on their land when they are so anti USA!

To close this circus down, next years conference is not, I repeat not, in the Maldives, but Ulan Bartor in February (minus 40 C )

Mac the Knife says: “The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature”.

EGADS! What uttter dreck! That bitch Mother Nature has been trying too kill me since I was 9 years old!

Totally brilliant comment, Mac!

…not just off the wall – they are lunatic.

Which is why foaming at the mouth warmist and UK’s Minister for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, will quite possibly elbow people out of the way to sign up for it.

Not that anyone will notice of course. The UK media is currently fixated on oh so brave Cameron playing fantasy Europolitics and vetoing a fantasy treaty so he can look good at home in the hope that people will finally begin to believe he really is the heir to Margaret Thatcher (yeah, right) rather than the devil’s spawn of Edward Heath.

We live in interesting incredulous times.

George,

Well, at least it isn’t -40°F.☺

And it was not Mac who wrote: “trying too kill”

Sorry for that extra “o”, pal.

BargHumer says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:51 am

I don’t wish to cast doubt on what Lord M, has said here, but what is coming out of the reports from Durman with the MSM looks quite different. Of course the MSM is so biased that they cannot be trusted, especially on this matter, but still, the mismatch must be saying something that we are missing.

Directly on the UNFCCC website you can download and read the document for your self.

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp38.pdf

MOD: is blockquote html tag not working?

[Reply: You can use the Test page to find out. ~dbs, mod.]

My initial gut reaction was this is so ridiculous, so insane, that it has zero chance of even partially taking root. Being an aficianado of history, I then got the sinking feeling that this is precisely the kind of thing that takes hold.

Dictators throughout history have shown countless times it only takes one individual, with a small clutch of supporters, to dominate the world win some way with lunacy either directly or indirectly. The masses don’t have to agree with this: only a few key individuals.

BargHumer says:

“I don’t wish to cast doubt on what Lord M, has said here, but what is coming out of the reports from Durman with the MSM looks quite different. Of course the MSM is so biased that they cannot be trusted, especially on this matter, but still, the mismatch must be saying something that we are missing.”

What we are missing is a MSM with integrity. Lord Monckton provided a link:

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp38.pdf

and just to be sure it’s legit, if you just put: http://unfccc.int into the address bar, you’ll land at the UNFCCC main page, so that is indeed a UNFCCC document.

The document itself has two dates:

In the header: “7 December 2011″

And the title:

“Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action

under the Convention

Fourteenth session, part four

Durban, 29 November 2011  *” [Note the asterisk]

“Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of a

comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the

Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth

session”

[Asterisk below]

“* The fourth part of the session will be held in conjunction with the seventeenth session of the

Conference of the Parties. The Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention will present the results of its work to the COP for consideration as per decision 1/CP.16, paragraph 143. The closing date of the session of the AWG-LCA will be determined in Durban.”

So, what we’re looking at is indeed as Lord Monckton presented the 12/7/11 update of a 11/29/11 DRAFT document of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action.

Pete H,

Thanks for that fine account of history. I remember when the Turks had enough of the Greek generals and simply went in and took half of Cyprus. The UN as usual was impotent. But they’re getting less impotent because of the $billions we shovel into their anti-American, anti-West pockets every year.

There is no plausible reason to fund the UN. Every country is fully capable of making agreements and treaties with other countries without UN interference. The UN has morphed into a vile self-serving kleptocracy that dreams of heading a one world government. What is frightening is that some people actually believe that would be a good thing! In reality, it would be a global-scale EU; an unaccountable, opaque, self-appointed bureaucracy issuing endless regulations, and we citizens would have no vote in the process. A truly terrifying prospect.

Hey, Chris, as we say in Australia, why don’t you tell us what you really think! ; )

Of course, these are ambit claims, and no-one involved seriously believes that they will be delivered. But, the scope of ambit claims tells us something about what might be delivered. For example, the option ‘nothing’ is not on the table.

1500 journalists, and yet the coverage has been minimal, and certainly not as comprehensive as one blog post by C. Monckton. Their editors must be unaware that their industry is facing extinction. Apart from rah rah stuff about how the planet is being saved, or boo hoo stuff about how the planet is being stuffed, I haven’t seen one decent article about what is happening in the MSM. If there have been any, I would appreciate links.

I particularly love the references to reducing CO2 emissions by more than 100%. What a hoot! If anyone can provide references about that Alice in Wonderland concept, I would be grateful.

I started reading the full PDF last night, thinking it might have the effect of making me sleepy. I was so disturbed by the lunacy, I ended up not sleeping until 3:30 EST. My government (Canada) has thus far taken some pretty bold steps at calling out this stupidity and trust that Minister Kent resists this wholeheartedly.

http://climate-change-theory.com says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:17 pm

“(2) Oxygen and nitrogen molecules acquire thermal energy partly by absorbing some incident radiation, but mostly by collision with a warmer surface. As they rise by convection they will mix with cooler air containing some cooler GHG molecules to which they can transfer thermal energy by collision processes. Oxygen and nitrogen cannot cool themselves by radiating IR at atmospheric temperatures. Only GHG molecules can do so. Hence the GHG molecules (while some of them are temporarily in unexcited states) will collect energy from several O2 and N2 molecules until they are sufficiently energised to radiate it out of the atmosphere, some to space, some to Earth. Thus carbon dioxide can also have a cooling effect (as it removes thermal energy from oxygen and nitrogen) which could very well neutralise its warming effect.”

Absorption and emission of IR by GHG molecules should exactly cancel out according to Kirchhoff’s Law, as long as the gas is in local thermal equilibrium. Thus, CO2 is an IR redistributor, not a net absorber or net emitter, and the term “heat-trapping gases” often used by IPCC scientists is political propaganda. (Before any warmist protests that only journalists use the term, don’t try, there’s ample proof that prominent climate “scientists” spout it like there’s no tomorrow)

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/co2-heats-the-atmosphere-a-counter-view/

The ticks are deeply embedded and it really is going to be quite messy digging them out.

Even more to cheer you up…..

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2011/12/06/more-u-n-insanity-paid-for-by-u-s-taxpayers/

Hmmmm, seems to me that these totalitarian minded traitors to democracy and humanity (and betrayers of everything honest and decent) should be given a reason to fear flying back to their home countries after their public funded jaunt to party town Durban. They need to know that they will be met with noisy sign waving megaphone weilding protesters. Signs that declare the returnees to be traitors, etc. Make sure the media are there for it all, too.

If only they could be refused entry back into their respective countries, eh ?

“War and the maintenance of defence forces and equipment are to cease because they contribute to climate change.”

The AK-47 has become the world’s most prolific and effective combat weapon, a device so cheap and simple that it can be bought in many countries for less than the cost of a live chicken. Depicted on the flag and currency of several countries, waved by guerrillas and rebels everywhere, the AK is responsible for about a quarter-million deaths every year. It is the firearm of choice for at least 50 legitimate standing armies and countless fighting forces from Africa and the Middle East to Central America and Los Angeles. It has become a cultural icon, its signature form — that banana-shaped magazine — defining in our consciousness the contours of a deadly weapon.

Number built approximately 75 million AK-47; 100 million AK-type rifles

Countries that produce and use the AK47 (past and present):

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bangladesh, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Comoros, Congo-Brazzaville, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Namibia, East Germany, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya [Anti-Gaddafi forces], Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali, Malta, Morocco, Mongolia, Mozambique, North Korea, Palestinian Authority, Pakistan, People’s Republic of China, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Sao Tome and Principe, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Soviet Union, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Turkey, Vietnam, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

The parasites are always with you.

Should point out that the U.S. is the largest financial contributor to the UN and that Durban also has enacted a Green Climate Fund that hopes to raise $100 billion by 2020 – mostly from the rich Americans.

No no it’s out of context, just wait realclimate will explain it. /sarc

Why are you folks so certain that the US won’t sign on to this? Look at what the Obama administration is doing to the US energy infrastructure and use without such a treaty. Those bozo’s would gladly sign on to something like this.

“Is this really what the folks at RealClimate et al want? A totalitarian one world government? Is this what Phil Jones wants? All the climategate players? They want this? Seriously, is it?”

So long as they get to be the high priests of the totalitarian government, yes, I think it is. It’s good to be the king. It’s even better to be the Pope.

“Why are you folks so certain that the US won’t sign on to this? Look at what the Obama administration is doing to the US energy infrastructure and use without such a treaty. Those bozo’s would gladly sign on to something like this.”

Oh, Obama might sign the paper, but according to the US constitution no treaty is valid until the Senate ratifies it by a 2/3 majority. You see how hard it is to get the Senate to get to a 2/3 majority on less critical issues? It will never happen… the American people value our independance too much currently. Even some leftists in the Senate that might LIKE to do it wouldn’t vote for it due to a desire to keep their jobs, since it would be at odds with the desires of their constituancy. This could only happen if the bulk of the American public actually thought it was a good idea, hence all of the PR… “science is settled” BS.

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Treaties.htm

From Tom Nelson’s page: Apparently someone named fiona harvey, Twitters that a ‘fake’ document is being circulated, to try and sabotage the talks. I have to wonder if this is what she is referring to.

Twitter seems to be popular at that meeting. I guess it attracts a lot of Twits. (apologies to those Decent people who ue it).

Fools rush in. What happens if they go ahead and temperatures start to drop dramatically and crops fail. Shouldn’t they have back up plans in case by some chance, altough unbelievable as it seems to them, THEY ARE WRONG!

@ DR says:

December 9, 2011 at 10:18 pm

Is this really what the folks at RealClimate et al want? A totalitarian one world government?

Is this what Phil Jones wants? All the climategate players? They want this?

Seriously, is it?

======================================================

Short answer? YES!

Don’t waste your time trying to figure out why. Just be prepared to stop them.

Hmmm.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/10/durban-climate-talks-false-text?newsfeed=true

Are we sure Lord M. isn’t responding to this?

@BargHumer’s caution might be well founded.

It is quite amazing that the fanatic AGW believers do not have a basic understanding of the facts concerning this issues. The madness of converting food to biofuels is one example. A second example is leveling the stupidity playing field.

Western Countries must compete with so called developing countries China and India for jobs. As most are aware hundreds of thousands of jobs have moved to Asia. The “green” subsides and green boondoggles are only applied to Western Countries. The carbon trading, carbon offsets, carbon taxes, carbon sequestration, conversion of food to biofuel, will not substantially reduce the growth of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it will destroy any possibility of economic growth. Western governments do not have surplus funds to send on boondoggles.

The Chinese have worked out the cost of the green boondoggle programs. They will not accept legal binding agreements to follow Western Countries as we march off a cliff to economic ruin.

The following is the current estimated carbon dioxide emission by country and by geographic region in percentage of total world emissions. Also included below is the percentage change (comparing 2008 to 2010) of carbon dioxide emission for the country in question and the geographic region.

The largest emitter of carbon dioxide is China. China currently emits 25% of the world total, 50% more than the US. China’s carbon dioxide emissions are projected to significantly increase in the future, as China is putting one new large coal fired power plant into service every week. The yearly growth of electrical production in China is sufficient to power five cities the size of New York.

Attached below is an article and a link to a presentation by Richard Muller that presents the projected yearly increase in carbon dioxide emissions for the world based on the current observed changes in carbon dioxide emissions and theoretical changes in emissions based on last year’s Copenhagen meeting.

Source of data used to produce the table below.

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2_emis/Preliminary_CO2_emissions_2010.xlsx

Projected emissions based on the Copenhagen proposed agreement.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703514404574588673072577680.html

2008 to 2010

% Change___% of Total World

-3.2% 16.4% US

-4.7% 1.5% Canada

-2.0% 1.4% Mexico

-3.2% 19.3%Total North America

2008 to 2010

% Change___% of Total World

-1.3% 0.6% Argentina

6.7% 1.3% Brazil

-6.4% 0.2% Chile

11.3% 0.2% Colombia

9.1% 0.1% Ecuador

13.3% 0.1% Peru

0.2% 0.1% Trinidad and Tobago

3.2% 0.5% Venezuela

-2.1% 0.5% Other S. & Cent. America

3.1% 3.6% Total S. & Cent. America

2008 to 2010

% Change___% of Total World

-6.5% 0.2% Austria

-14.8% 0.1% Azerbaijan

-6.4% 0.2% Belarus

-2.8% 0.3% Belgium & Luxembourg

-18.2% 0.1% Bulgaria

-6.4% 0.3% Czech Republic

-4.9% 0.1% Denmark

12.1% 0.2% Finland

-3.8% 1.1% France

-3.1% 2.3% Germany

-6.8% 0.3% Greece

-8.6% 0.1% Hungary

-6.3% 0.1% Republic of Ireland

-8.3% 1.2% Italy

1.3% 0.7% Kazakhstan

-8.1% 0.0% Lithuania

4.0% 0.5% Netherlands

1.4% 0.2% Norway

-1.9% 0.9% Poland

-1.4% 0.2% Portugal

-17.2% 0.2% Romania

-1.2% 5.0% Russian Federation

-16.0% 0.1% Slovakia

-16.6% 0.8% Spain

-2.1% 0.1% Sweden

-3.4% 0.1% Switzerland

4.0% 0.9% Turkey

8.6% 0.2% Turkmenistan

-13.5% 0.8% Ukraine

-5.7% 1.5% United Kingdom

-5.2% 0.4% Uzbekistan

-6.7% 0.6% Other Europe & Eurasia

-4.2% 20.0% Total Europe & Eurasia

2008 to 2010

% Change___% of Total World

6.7% 1.7% Iran

-2.3% 0.2% Israel

9.6% 0.3% Kuwait

9.4% 0.2% Qatar

13.9% 1.5% Saudi Arabia

3.9% 0.5% United Arab Emirates

11.6% 1.0% Other Middle East

9.1% 5.4% Total Middle East

7.3% 0.4% Algeria

10.9% 0.7% Egypt

3.7% 1.3% South Africa

1.8% 1.2% Other Africa

4.7% 3.6% Total Africa

2008 to 2010

% Change___% of Total World

-8.4% 1.1% Australia

8.0% 0.1% Bangladesh

17.2% 24.6% China

0.4% 0.1% China Hong Kong SAR

18.8% 6.2% India

17.4% 1.4% Indonesia

-5.8% 3.4% Japan

-4.2% 0.6% Malaysia

-11.8% 0.1% New Zealand

2.5% 0.5% Pakistan

8.1% 0.3% Philippines

10.8% 0.1% Singapore

10.6% 1.7% South Korea

2.4% 0.8% Taiwan

4.7% 0.9% Thailand

25.9% 0.5% Vietnam

-2.1% 0.4% Other Asia Pacific

12.7% 42.8%Total Asia Pacific

2008 to 2010

% Change___% of Total World

4.4% 94.6% sum of above

4.5% 100.0%TOTAL WORLD

Lord Monckton said:

” A new global temperature target will aim, Canute-like, to limit “global warming” to as little as 1 C° above pre-industrial levels. Since temperature is already 3 C° above those levels, what is in effect being proposed is a 2 C° cut in today’s temperatures. This would take us halfway back towards the last Ice Age, and would kill hundreds of millions. Colder is far more dangerous than warmer.”

———-

We are not 3C above pre-industrial levels. Even if you want to really cherry-pick the data and take the lowest of the proxy data at the very bottom of the LIA to the warmest recent year we might have had a 1.5C increase, but this would be at the very most and with extreme cherry-picking of the data. The consensus is that we are about 0.8C above average pre-industrial global temperature levels.

First of all, thank you Christopher for an excellent report from the scene. No-one could have done a better job, and few would have parachuted in (literally). Our UK brothers have a national treasure in you and of that fact I am jealous! Right about now cowardly trolls would normally be showing up to snipe at you from afar. Some would also go on about skeptics and ‘conspiracy theories’ even though these always originate from the kook left (Oswald, 9/11, etc). Fewer will be heard from though because the fruits of their actions cheering the AGW madness is becoming clearer.

The UN bureaucrats have gone all in now, this is Agenda 21. What they were missing earlier on was a mechanism to fold it into, and they found one – Climatology. It is brilliant really. Perhaps they are whistling past the graveyard though, and are going ‘all in’ as a last desperate act. That point of view has some merit. However, even here in the USA, a land that contains free people that are quite naturally repulsed by outside interference, we have to remain vigilant. The way these things get done (think Communist 5 or 10 year plans) is in the long term.

The UN must be thought of as an enemy with a 50 or even a 100 year plan. It drafts a treaty containing sordid ideas as we see in Monckton’s report, then they get 90% of the countries to sign on (with no opt-out). Then they go to work. They browbeat the remaining countries over the course of several decades and wear them down. They wait. Eventually they get a fellow traveler in a position of ‘power’, drum up some phony opinion polls and presto – it is achieved.

In the USA many of us wish for the conflict that some people fear. Keywords: Freedom, Independence, National Sovereignty, 2nd Amendment, ‘whites of their eyes’. We feel it is inevitable. The thought process is that it would be better now (while we’re alive to help out) rather than leave it to our grandchildren. I guess you could say that more than a few people here hope President Dumbo tries something this brazen. Or we could postpone it, kick the can down the road. I’m not sure that is a good idea.

Even though there is rotten cabal actually going through the motions in Durban, the real blame for their actions (quasi-democratic totalitarian global government) belongs to each of us that ever helped to elect a brain-dead progressive to any office including dog catcher. Green, Liberal, Progressive, Socialist (whatever colloquial derivation suits you), none should ever be elected and placed into a position of power, ever. Regardless of how many sad stories they tell, or how much they bribe you (with your own damn money!). They have no national or even ethnic loyalty, and certainly no loyalty to freedom and independence. They have a common God – and his name is government. To elect these traitors anywhere is to seal your own doom, even if it takes them a long time. Vote out every socialist that you can. period. That is the only logical thing to do.

A previous commenter mentioned Kellogg-Briand Pact. This is a good parallel, pie-in-the-sky post-WWI lunacy that many of us learned about direct from our parents and grandparents. The US Army and Navy outfitted with wooden rifles and military advancement stalled (frozen) for over a decade which made for total unpreparedness for WWII. It actually happened, even after a bloody WWI and even after the USA said *no* to the League of Nations. It is a fine example of what a group of crackpots can achieve even with the wind at their face. We must be eternally vigilant and we must also be pro-active.

US out of the UN.

UN out of the US.

Other folks feel free to insert their country in there as well.

“UN Calls For Eco-fascist World Government At Durban Summit ” !!!

Drudge headline with over 30 million hits per day !

“Bureaucrats at the UN Climate Summit in Durban have outlined plans for the most draconian, harebrained and madcap climate change treaty ever produced, under which the west would be mandated to respect “the rights of Mother Earth” by paying a “climate debt” which would act as a slush fund for bankrolling an all-powerful world government……….”.

What the MSM suppresses, Drudge picks up!

http://www.drudgereport.com/

.

It’s a pity Lord Monckton doesn’t give page and para references for his various ‘plain english’ summaries. On a quick skim through the 138-page document I can find very little of what he describes (e.g. references to ending war and the rights of ‘Mother Earth’). Have I overlooked them in my quick skim (which is entirely possible)? Or are they in a different document (maybe the ‘small print’ he refers to?)

For those declaring and end to war, it sounds like a declaration of war to me.

Bob says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:09 am

“Why are you folks so certain that the US won’t sign on to this? Look at what the Obama administration is doing to the US energy infrastructure and use without such a treaty. Those bozo’s would gladly sign on to something like this.”

Obama would surely do it, as his hopes for a 2nd term are null anyhow, but the Senate members (I guess they would have to ratify it; some yankee correct me if I’m wrong) probably want to stay in DC for a while longer.

This is of course the same UN that is ending war and poverty and is protecting the peoples of Rwanda, Somalia, Chad etc. And what a fine job being done there, eh? I’m sure the people of Ethiopia are eating well today because of major help from the UN.

If history is the teacher it is for sure these people were never students.

Stephen Skinnner says:

December 10, 2011 at 4:52 am

“The AK-47 has become the world’s most prolific and effective combat weapon, a device so cheap and simple that it can be bought in many countries for less than the cost of a live chicken.”

The power of Open Source. (pre-GPL; the Soviets gave away the blueprints for the machinery for free; setting the precedent for Richard Stallmann.)

Thanks Christopher,

Wow! How you must have suffered to gather this information, it must have been nauseating.

I feel like I need a shower after reading it.

It is such a hateful document they want signed, like a global suicide pact.

Which governments could sign this?

Even greed should have a limit!

Much of what these Durban dirtbags are proposing will actually happen in the next Ice Age–you know–drastic decreases in CO2; Earth’s inability to feed 90% of the current population; the elimination of country boundaries and the migration of total populations. Maybe they’re simply preparing to take full credit for the next Ice Age when it comes along, and perhaps, channeling Harold Camping in predictive ability, they’re hell-bent on forcing its early arrival.

“Oh, look–plants are starving and global genocide is afoot; national governments are failing–their economies are so weak they can’t fight wars or protect their citizens; we know who you are and we know where you (once) lived. It isn’t OUR fault; a new Ice Age is the only explanation; the science is settled; pay up or die!”

I thought this item from the draft was funny as hell. “Right to survive

77. The rights of some Parties to survive are threatened by the adverse impacts of

climate change, including sea level rise.”

There is no such thing as a “Right to Survive”, either individually or collectively. There is a right to TRY to survive, but Sorry Charlie, no guarantee’s. Ask any rabbit being chased by a wolf.

For people who don’t believe the US will go along with this just google Clinton and the UN gun ban and see what our Sec of State will support. As someone said before–NUTS!

“This is exactly why U.S. citizens (those who have a clue) treasure the Second Amendment. In the end, you possess only those rights you can defend.”

At the end of the day you are right.

A fake negotiating text was sent to delegates.

However, Monckton’s post addresses an actual earlier Durban negotiating text GE.11-71432 of 7 December 2011 # GE.11-71432. It is in Official Times Roman (not Ariel), the linked draft is for Dec. 7th, not Friday 10 December.

The Economic Times affirms Monckton’s summary:

“World must cut CO2 by at least 50% by 2050, says UN draft” AGENCIES Dec 12, 2009, 02.02am IST

COPENHAGEN: Nations around the world must reduce greenhouse-gas emissions at least 50% by mid-century under a draft proposal being debated by 192 countries in Copenhagen.

The plan says nations should collectively reduce the heat-trapping pollution that many scientists say could lead to catastrophic climate change between 50% and 95% from 1990 levels. The draft leaves long-term financing, or how much rich nations should pay poor ones to deal with global warming, to be dealt with later. . . .

The draft from the UN working group that includes the US says industrialised countries as a group must reduce their combined gas discharges by 75% to more than 95% during the 60-year period. . . .

Developed nations also would be required to take on legally binding, economy-wide greenhouse-gas reduction goals “with a view” to cutting collective emissions at least 25% to 45% from 1990 levels by 2020.

The document, set for more reviews and final consideration on December 18, requires nations and their polluting industries to limit the planet’s temperature rise to between 1.5 degrees Celsius and 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times to “avoid dangerous climate change”.

crosspatch says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:43 pm

Call me crazy but I am starting to think these warmist are sociopaths.

The political left in general is. It appeals to people who have serious issues with self-loathing and you see that projected in their policies and rhetoric.

—

I think it’s very easy for us in the west to be self loathing, provided that: the lights, heat, phones, computers, TVs etc. come on when we hit the power switch, the groceries are available at the store when we go to them, our roads are cleared of snow when it snows, someone fixes the water main break when the streets flood, fuel is available for our vehicles when we need travel, etc. What it’s going to take to turn things around is for people to start living WITHOUT all of the conveniences, comforts, and even essentials they are used to, and realizing that they are a direct result of the radial “green” agendas (CAGW-ism) of the progressive leftists in this world.

By the way, WHERE ARE THE TROLLS when it comes to discussing these issues? WHERE ARE THEY? HELLO?? Oh yeah, they’re off consuming petroleum products and wantonly using power from non-green sources to support their lifestyles (can’t do without the laptop, ipad, and smartphone, you know!). In other words, they are doing what they do best – being true hypocrites on the radical climate issues they supposedly care so deeply about!

Don’t you mean “the International Klepto Court”? It seems their only reason to exist is to use force to take money from ‘the West’, meaning the US. This is getting like a bad rerun of those inane historical TV movies with self appointed kings and queens running around raping and pillaging.

It’s time for the West to pull out of the UN and send them packing. Perhaps they could move their new HQ to Zimbabwe.

On BBC world news, Dec 10 at ~1500 GMT, Richard Black reported, “…a fake draft document has been released.” Is this it?

If not, the one submitted is pretty scary.

I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with a lunatic’s right to exist, and to amuse him- or herself with twiddling in notebooks full of baroque incomprehensible notations of their lunacy, as long as they’re quiet and pay for their own notebooks.

There is no longer any reason to fund the United Nations, to pay any attention whatsoever to their lunatic drivel, or to give any credence to any pronouncement, proposal, or suggestion.

If the funding dries up, the lunatics will go back to an equally-publicly provided park bench to draw their little diagrams and think up grand councils of dominion, and anyone who wants to donate a notebook to be filled with crabbed lunacy can do so if they are so moved.

Enough! Cut off their funds!

Thank you Lord Monckton, and thank you for that lovely video of you literally flying in to Durban! Give them HELL.

Durban will be a failure much the same as the current attempts to save the Euro. Both will have long-term repercussions.

“there will be no commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be]”

commodification

com·mod·i·fy (k-md-f)

tr.v. com·mod·i·fied, com·mod·i·fy·ing, com·mod·i·fies

To turn into or treat as a commodity; make commercial: “Such music . . . commodifies the worst sorts of . . . stereotypes” (Michiko Kakutani).

com·modi·fia·ble adj.

com·modi·fi·cation (-f-kshn) n.

thefreedictionary is your friend.

The UNFCC has posted a later draft # FCCC/AWGLCA/2011/CRP.39 9 December 2011 #GE.11-71576 at:

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp39.pdf

The UN is not bashful over the funds it demands nor on how they MUST be spent:

47. The provision of the amount of funds to be made available annually to developing country Parties, which shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security, and warfare. Fifty percent of that amount shall be for adaptation, 20 percent for mitigation, 15 per cent for technology development and transfer and 15 percent for forest-related actions in developing country Parties;

Herein is central planning at its best.

PS David – on searching – try Adobe’s search tool (accessible by hovering the mouse over the bottom of your screen) the draft document.

See page 16 sections 77-81 for Rights to Survive #77, An International Climate Court of Justice, #78,79; Warfare #80-81.

This is insane!!!! The Western Countries are being enslaved by this agreement.

I get the funny feeling that if this is pushed in the US, the US News Media will either look the other way OR carefully leave out the parts about the massive payments, the mindless rules, and loss of freedom.

It’s like the local school board, when their referendum doesn’t pass, they just keep proposing it every year until it does, usually in an off year election (like this one) when nobody is paying attention.

“a comprehensive and balanced outcome” – “comprehensive” = all, total, complete, everything; in the US, “balanced” = ‘raise taxes.’ “”a comprehensive and balanced outcome” = we own everything; 100% (or more) tax on all income, all property, all sales, all activity, all existence

“commodification [whatever that may be:” – v. commodify: to make suitable for a commode; to digest and excrete as bodily waste. syn: fecalize, enshitificate, dookify, enturdulate

“War and the maintenance of defence forces and equipment are to cease – just like that – because they contribute to climate change.”

Cool, man! How’d they get al qaida and the taliban to sign on?! I didn’t even know there were al qaida & taliban delegations to Durban!

“This would take us halfway back towards the last Ice Age, and would kill hundreds of millions. Colder is far more dangerous than warmer.”

Economy-killing taxes, or a people-killing economy? Probably all the same to a planet-saving greeny.

“So, no motor cars, no coal-fired or gas-fired power stations, no aircraft, no trains.”

Not a single luxury? Like Robinson Crusoe? That’s primitive as can be!

“Back to the Stone Age, but without even the right to light a carbon-emitting fire in your caves.”

Britain will be up first. After the first winter spent shivering in the dark because the planet has got so warm, are you going to say, “thank you sir, may I have another,” go hat-in-hand and wallet open to Emperor Vladimir asking for BTUs, or will you build a few proper powerplants and get off the green crazytrain?

“…just 210 ppmv of CO2 itself, with 90 ppmv CO2 equivalent from other greenhouse gases. But at 210 ppmv, plants and trees begin to die. CO2 is plant food.”

Not to worry. With the wonderful technological advances of our age, some otherwise intelligent young person will invent a way to scrub ALL the evil CO2 from the air, thus ending the problem of human-caused emissions FOREVER.

“The West will pay for everything, because of its “historical responsibility””

I am historically responsible for excessive consumption of world grain reserves in liquid form, and excessive emissions of CO2 at one end, and methane out the other. I will write a check to Gaia and pay for everything. You folks are off the hook.

““International Climate Court of Justice”: “…one can imagine that the intention is to oblige Western nations to pay up”

Don’t kid yerself that this is just a big-bucks version of a local speed-trap traffic court. An all-powerful kangaroo court accountable only to itself is free to define “climate justice” any way it wants to. And that will include re-education of confused skeptics, and execution of us climate criminals.

“The new buzzwords: Welcome to the notion of “equitable access to global atmospheric space”

Sounds like they want taxpayer-funded free air travel.

“The new special-interest group: Meet the “Parties that are alternative-energy-disadvantaged”. No wind, no sun, no renewables – so, handouts from the West, please.”

Ha ha ha! Brilliant! We subsidize Saudi Arabia, because they don’t have enough energy!

“The US will sign no such treaty. Nor will Canada, Japan, France, India and many other countries.”

THIS is why I’m getting on the Kwazy Kwimate Gwavy Twain. I could just as easily go into, say, video game design, or “Twilight” screenwriting, but this Kwazy Kwap is even more fun, and just about as realistic.

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 6:24 am

Thank you so much for your splendid consensus confirmation!

Bob says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:09 am

Why are you folks so certain that the US won’t sign on to this? Look at what the Obama administration is doing to the US energy infrastructure and use without such a treaty. Those bozo’s would gladly sign on to something like this.

——————

Bob, I believe Al Gore already signed it and Obama would sigh it but in the US the Senate holds the pen and the House of Representatives holds the purse. Obama’s opinion of the necessity to support CAGW makes no difference as far as a legally binding agreement.

The UN is demanding control over $1.6 trillion per year to control climate. See Section 47 in

draft # FCCC/AWGLCA/2011/CRP.39 9 December 2011 #GE.11-71576 at: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp39.pdf

See Reuters: Worldwide military spending edged up in 2010 to a record $1.6 trillion, a leading think-tank said on Monday. Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s military expenditure database. http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/research/armaments/milex/milex_database

Peace is a worthy mission, which the Messiah will bring about when he returns.

2 In the last days

the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established

as the highest of the mountains;

it will be exalted above the hills,

and all nations will stream to it.

3 Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,

to the temple of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways,

so that we may walk in his paths.”

The law will go out from Zion,

the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

4 He will judge between the nations

and will settle disputes for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

nor will they train for war anymore.

Isaiah 2:2-4 NIV

For art, see: Swords to Ploughshares around the world

Swords to ploughshares

UN Swords to Ploughshares

Until then, the immediate urgent task is to provide alternative fuels while caring for the poor. Conventional climate mitigation comes in dead last in benefit/cost.

OT but might be of interest:

Recent article by statistician Grant Foster (Tamino)

Global temperature evolution 1979–2010

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf

is absolute nonsense!

Nick de Cusa says:December 10, 2011 at 2:44 am

A colleague of the IPCC’s Van Ypersele at UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain) has had it and has decided to go public :

http://www.contrepoints.org/2011/12/10/59762-echec-du-sommet-climatique-de-durban-interview-exclusive-du-chimiste-istvan-marko/comment-page-1#comment-64000

Here is a translation that supports what is being brought to light here. Thank you, Christopher Monckton. And congratulations on your safe touch-down in Durban.

oops, here’s the translation:

LeBoss

December 10th, 2011 – 9 h 14 min

Main points of the official final Report of DURBAN* to make sign by the present 190 countries (Translated according to **):

A new International Court of Climate. The Court will have power to force the western nations to pay sums always bigger to the countries of Third World in the name of the repairing of « climatic debts » assumed. The Court will have no power on the Third World countries. Here and everywhere in plan, Occident is the only target. Process ” is consequently anti-western irremediably.

« Mother’s rights Earth up »: The plan, which seems to have been written by weak green activists of mind and the extremist environmentalists, speaks about « recognition and defence of the rights of the Earth Mother to assure harmony between the humanity and nature ». Besides, « there will be no co-marchandisation of (commodification, in English) [this term is not in the dictionary and does not deserve being there] functions of nature, therefore no market of carbon will be developed in this purpose ».

. » Straight to survive »: Plan maintains naively that « rights, for certain Parties, to survive is threatened by the negative impacts of climatic Change, including the elevation of the level of the sea ». With 5 cm by century, according to data over eight years of the satellite Envisat?

Oh, that it is wrong! The satellite Jason 2, the youngest child, shows that the elevation of the level of seas indeed went down in the course of last three years.

War and assertion of force of defence and its equipment have to cease – just just like that – because they contribute to climatic change. There are other reasons why war must cease, but plan does not mention them.

A new target of worldwide temperature will have as objective, to restrict « total warming » for as not much as 1°C above pre-industrial levels. Since the temperature is already of 3°C above these levels, what is offered in effect a reduction of 2°C is today’s temperatures. It would be to make us go back halfway last glacial age, and kill hundreds of million persons. More cold is much more dangerous than more heat.

The new target of programs of CO2, for the western countries only, will be a discount of up to 50 % of programs in the course of next eight years and « more than 100 % » [these words indeed appear in the text] in 2050. Therefore, no cars with motor, no power stations in coal or in gas, no plane, no train. Return at the age of stone, but without even right to light a fire issuing some carbon in our caves. Aeolian, solar panels and other “renewable energy sources” are the only alternatives offered in plan. There is no mention of the immediate and quick extension of nuclear power worldwide to prevent the almost complete destruction of economy.

The new target of concentration in CO2 could be as low as 300 ppmv of equivalent CO2 (that is, including all other gases with effect as well as CO2 itself) .C’ a discount of about half in comparison with the equivalent 560 is ppmv of CO2 today. It implicates simply 210ppmv of CO2 in himself, with 90 ppmv equivalent CO2 of gas with greenhouse effect. But in 210 ppmv, plants and trees begin dying. CO2 is the food of plants. They need of much more than of 210 ppmv.

The target year of crest of gases with greenhouse effect – for Occident only – will be this actual year. We shall be obliged to reduce our programs from now, independently of effect on our savings (and the absence of effect on climate).

Occident is going to pay for everything, owing to its « historical responsibility » to have caused planetary warming “. The Countries of Third World will not be made to pay whatever it is. But it is United Nations, and not Third World countries, that are going to recover the silver of Occident, by taking everything almost for themselves as usual. There is no disposition anywhere in plan for the UNO, to publish count on manner it is going to spend 100 billion dollars per year, plan demands that Occident must “foot the bill ” from now.

*http: // unfccc.int / resource / docs / 2011 / awglca14 / eng / crp38.pdf

** http: // wattsupwiththat.com / 2011 / 12 / 09 / durban-what-the-media-are-not-telling-you/

Here is what “lashed” greens of the UNO (UNFCCC) have pondu*.

After reading you will think probably as me, that “lashed” word is too weak.

Sadly, a quick wikipedia search for commodification turns up what those dorks down in Durban are talking about. And it’s apparently a Marxist term!

Didn’t they know that communism has failed in the light of capitalism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodification

“This is exactly why U.S. citizens (those who have a clue) treasure the Second Amendment. In the end, you possess only those rights you can defend.”

Which is why the UN is determined to limit acess and ownership of firearms, supported by many members of the current administration in the U.S.

Indeed, all this is crazy. Totally insame. Fifty years ago, talking about trillion dollar deficits would have gotten the same response. Most folks had never heard the word “trillion” at all. Today’s madness could well be tomorrow’s policy.

This is not about climate. It is about control. That battle will never end.

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:51 am

Durban will be a failure much the same as the current attempts to save the Euro. Both will have long-term repercussions.

And I for one will cheer their “failure”. In my estimation, these “repercussions” will all be for the better–Europe will have proven (once again!) that socialism doesn’t work; the earth will continue to warm without a “Climate Court” that forces every Western government to pay a pirate’s treasure to the UN. The industrialized West has provided abundant plant fertilizer in the form of CO2 for all nations (even the “pirates”)–producing a veritable “greening” of the earth! These scoundrels should be paying the West for climate benefits, not holding them up through the criminal UN.

But R. Gates, I’m calling you out on this–you have hooked your wagon to a failed hypothesis that has been hijacked by evil forces that would likely eliminate you and your family were their proscriptions ever adopted, but the sad thing is that you don’t see it for what it is.

You keep yammering on and on about “repercussions” and fail to see the big picture or realize the gravity of the situation.

From what institute of higher learning did you graduate that left you so brainwashed and clueless?

PS> Don’t you find it interesting that the people that say the earth is warming to an unprecedented degree are also the ones who plan on using that lie as justification to deny the West their wealth and standard of living, while ALSO denying these same benefits to the rabble nations that support this chicanery? Talk about brainwashed, clueless, useful tools…

It’s so bad, even Fox News is headling it:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/10/un-floats-global-climate-court-to-enforce-emissions-rules/

Communism has transparently not yet failed.

It has ceased to be transparent, having submerged itself in green and environmental projects, until it could become visible having captured the hierarchy of the main players.

This lunacy is only the part we know about.

@ David L. Hagen says:

December 10, 2011 at 8:18 am

The reality is that those who beat their swords into plowshares inevitably end up being enslaved by those who do not. The two (swords and plowshares) are not mutually exclusive, btw; as my ancestors, who were among those who founded this country in the 1600′s, would attest to. I don’t know of a single farmer who does not have at least one gun in addition to his farm equipment. Most have several.

I eagerly await Senator Boxer’s endorsement and pray the Democrats begin to promote this…just in time for the election!

Lord Monckton excellent work thank you !!

David L Hagen: thanks for the references. You are quite right. Much of the outrageous stuff is in a few pages I must have skipped. (In my defence, most of the text is extremely dull). References to Mother Earth are mainly on page 15.

Extremely important post. The first detailed report I’ve seen of the proposals and I check a few skeptic sites daily. Of course, there is no science – only poltics, money and coercive power at Durban. Once the “science” is settled, it is revealed as mindless totalitarian activism.

Since the MSM would never go to this negative detail, it belongs on every other information source remotely concerning limited government and or taking a critical look at the UN or international law.

Christopher:

I hope you are reading this and you are enjoying your time in Durban. You seem to have had fun getting there.

Thankyou for another fine summary of a draft Treaty. You are a master at distilling bureaucratic gobbledygook into plain English, and your above article again displays that mastery.

As you say, the proposals in the draft Treaty are insane. I write to say I think there is no reason why the proposals should not be daft because their advocates know nothing will come of them. I explain this opinion as follows.

I said before the Copenhagen Conference that it would be the death knell of the AGW issue. And so it proved to be. That Conference was a total failure. From then on any advances towards the political objectives of AGW-advocates were doomed to failure. (The issue is a ‘headless chicken’ running around as though alive but already dead).

At Durban we now see the bureaucrats, idiots and others who have been on the AGW ‘gravy train’ continuing to ride the ‘train’. Their activities are – and they know their activities are – pointless, so they can rant about whatever insane nonsense tickles their prejudiced desires in the knowledge that their rants will affect nothing.

If they still thought they had any chance of obtaining their desires then they would stealthily progress ‘one-small-step-at-a-time’ until they had obtained so much unnoticed that the rest would be easy to get. But since Copenhagen they have known they have negligible chance of getting anything they want. So they now feel free to present the daft ‘wish list’ that is the draft Treaty being considered in Durban and to enjoy pretending that their wishes may be fulfilled.

Anyway, that is my view.

All the best

Richard

Rocky Road said: (to R. Gates)

“You keep yammering on and on about “repercussions” and fail to see the big picture or realize the gravity of the situation.”

———-

You sound like some kind of alarmist. Please do tell, what situation or what “big picture” is so grave?

mrsean2k says:

December 10, 2011 at 6:08 am

Hmmm.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/10/durban-climate-talks-false-text?newsfeed=true

Are we sure Lord M. isn’t responding to this?

@BargHumer’s caution might be well founded.

Yes, we’re sure and it wouldn’t matter anyway, the parts we’re disturbed by were WORSE in the real as apposed to the fake. If you read the article you linked: [Emphasis mine]

In particular, the text said work on a new climate agreement should start in the first half of 2012, when in fact the countries named want the new phase to begin immediately, and it said a new legal instrument should be adopted with effect from 2020, whereas the EU wants a text saying “no later than 2020″.

It also leaves out any new interpretation of the “common but differentiated responsibilities” (the principle by which developing countries were not expected to undertake legally binding cuts in carbon emissions), and gives a wrong date for reassessing the ambition of emissions-cutting commitments.

If the text was a forgery, it was a poor one: it was headed with the wrong date (Friday 10 December, instead of Saturday 10 December) and was printed in the wrong typeface (Arial, instead of Times New Roman) for an official document.

He linked 12/07/11 DRAFT and the issues he brought to our attention aren’t in dispute in the fake vs. real draft situation.

OT:

Stephen Skinnner says:

“the AK is responsible for about a quarter-million deaths every year”

So, the person pulling the trigger has nothing to do with it?

R. Gates;

You sound like some kind of alarmist. Please do tell, what situation or what “big picture” is so grave?>>>

Nice totaly out of context retort R. Gates. Let’s run with the totaly out of context thing and see how well it works.

So…. what you are saying is that there is no grave problem in the big picture. I completely agree. Durban is a complete waste of time and money because the big picture clearly shows that there is no problem, grave or otherwise. Thankyou for pointing that out, and welcome to the world of reality.

Julliar Gillard will sign. I’ll put money on that.

She may even be over there shinning boots at this very minute.

“Ø A new global temperature target will aim, Canute-like, to limit “global warming” to as little as 1 C° above pre-industrial levels. Since temperature is already 3 C° above those levels, what is in effect being proposed is a 2 C° cut in today’s temperatures.”

However what if this were with respect to the MWP instead of the LIA? Then we would have a ways to go. On the other hand, if we went by the hockey stick, it would appear that it does not make much difference. Is GISS allowed to make adjustments to the hockey stick?

“R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 6:24 am

The consensus is that we are about 0.8C above average pre-industrial global temperature levels.”

Why can they not be more precise? Exactly how much further can we go from the Hadcrut3 1998 mark for example? It is 0.19 higher than the 2011 average so far.

Shakespeare, as ever, in ‘The Tempest’, had the right quote for Durban:

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here”

Christopher Monckton – Flying in the face of the climate con trick:

http://www.ukip.tv/?p=2199

R. Gates;

Uhm… you say we’re only up 0.8 degrees since the LIA? OK, over half of that was before CO2 started to increase in 1920. If we assume the same trend since the LIA has continued since 1920, that leaves about… 0.05 degrees to blame on CO2.

Nice catch! Thanks for pointing that out!

Bart and Roger,

I too have written ‘two’ when I meant ‘to’. Were I assaulted with friendly weapons by a ballerina, I’d have to passionately ask “Et tu, Tutu?”

MtK

>>Druids or Pharaohs or Mayans or Incas – thought they could

>>replace their Creator and command the weather.

Careful, Monk – remember, we don’t do god in the UK.

This might go down well in the Bible-bashing belt of the US, but too much of this and we will set Cromwell onto you again. He gave you a good thrashing for all that transubstantiation nonsense the last time…..

.

“Every fashionable leftist idiocy is catered for.”

Uh, don’t you mean “catered to”?

:-)

davidmhoffer says:

December 10, 2011 at 11:16 am

That’s probably about the size of it. Any contribution by humans is likely lost in the noise of natural variation. This is nothing more than the creation of a new industry to extract cash from people. What is the combined salary of everyone present at Durban for just this month? I am guessing this “process” is generating a rather nice income stream for quite a large number of people when you then factor in the thousands of NGOs around the world. This industry is probably one of the larger ones on the planet. Now add all the various consultants that are collecting “green” spending from the various governments and now you see why we are having economic troubles. This “process” is siphoning off hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy for something that produces absolutely nothing. All it produces is ink on paper, rhetoric, and great belches of CO2 out of meeting halls.

“The Process” is corruption on an international scale.

>>DR says: December 9, 2011 at 10:18 pm

>>Is this really what the folks at RealClimate et al want? A totalitarian one

>>world government? Is this what Phil Jones wants? All the climategate players?

>>They want this? Seriously, is it?

Yup. The notion is rampant in UK higher education, with many of our academics positively hating Western society and its many successes.

This is also what Tony Blair wanted. This is why he opened the flood gates to uncontrolled immigration (without asking anyone) – to mix up the cultures, prevent organised opposition, reduce the bonds of nationality, and sow the seeds of ‘divide and rule’. A divided population can never organise itself or defend itself.

To create a One World Government you need to destroy nations and the cultural bonds that create nations, and the simplest way to do that is uncontrolled migration. Check out the Blair government and their close links to Marxists, Fabians, One Worlders and Common Purpose.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2009/07/the-defence-secretary-and-the-international-marxist-group/comments/page/2/

.

R. Gates;

You sound like some kind of alarmist. Please do tell, what situation or what “big picture” is so grave?>>>

The political picture is grave. Every decade we seem to slide further down the slope away from liberty and into the awaiting clutches of the global totalitarian nanny state. Unlike traditional religions, the “green religion” isn’t recognized by many as a threat to liberty even if “established” by the government. (i.e.: “Mother Earth” is a religious term not a scientific one, to encode that would be to establish a religion, clearly unconstitutional in the USA.)

The climatic picture is grave. The balance of the evidence (strat cooling, ocean heat content, global average temperature, sea level, ice extent, etc.) suggests that the “modern warm period” is peaking. Global warming is a walk in the park compared to global cooling. Hopefully, technology will manage to keep up and if we can keep the fossil fuel haters out of policy perhaps we can keep energy prices low enough such that we don’t have any major famines or increase cold related deaths.

The scientific picture is gravest of all. The loss in credibility of nearly every scientific body over the next few years due to “CAGW” activism may not be easily overcome. Centuries of gains in trust among the common man squandered in a few short decades, it’s really sad.

Considering the high crime rate in Durban the UN has picked an appropriate location for their plans to redistribute hard earned wealth while blaming those they wish to bilk.

For years, one of Science Fiction’s most enduring themes has been the survival of humanity in a post apocalyptic world; many causes have been put forth for this apocalypse, from mutated plagues, global thermonuclear exchanges, asteroids, alien invasions and even temporal anomalies. Never, in the fertile imagination of science fiction authors did they ever imagine a holocaust by legislation!!!

.This sort of rubbish suits the Australian “Greens”, whom, unfortunately, hold the balance of power. One other item on their agenda is the reintroduction of death duties. Very few Australian voters are aware of this.

JohnM says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:08 am

Communism has transparently not yet failed.

It has ceased to be transparent, having submerged itself in green and environmental projects, until it could become visible having captured the hierarchy of the main players.

This lunacy is only the part we know about.

Actually, this a form of socialism, not true communism; Statist Socialism, known by a variety of names, but most widely by the term ‘National Socialism’. as Hitler said”Tell a lie, and make it big enough, no matter how unbelievable…” or something to that effect.

dtbronzich says:

“Never, in the fertile imagination of science fiction authors did they ever imagine a holocaust by legislation!!!”

Star Wars II, Galactic Senate grants “emergency powers” to Chancellor.

Star Wars III, Galactic Senate cheers the institution of Galactic Emperor.

The real Holocaust started with ideology legislation:

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005681

Follow the derivatives and dark pool trading. Ground zero is LONDON.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/the-british-origins-of-lehmans-accounting-gimmick/

dtbronzich says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:04 pm

I’d say that it failed, given that it collapses or destroys the economy of any country that embraces it’s tenets. It’s retreat into academia and the related realms of enviro-socialism speaks only to the appeal of idiocy to those locked away in Ivory Towers.

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:23 am

Rocky Road said: (to R. Gates)

“You keep yammering on and on about “repercussions” and fail to see the big picture or realize the gravity of the situation.”

———-

You sound like some kind of alarmist. Please do tell, what situation or what “big picture” is so grave?

With this response, R., I’m now convinced you don’t know how to read; you don’t know how to comprehend; and your memory is shot–it was you who brougth up the “repercussions” in the first place.

I’d recommending checking out the response sequence to this thread, R., but I’m pretty sure you couldn’t do that, either.

(Why do I waste my time?…..)

davidmhoffer says:

December 10, 2011 at 11:16 am

R. Gates;

Uhm… you say we’re only up 0.8 degrees since the LIA? OK, over half of that was before CO2 started to increase in 1920. If we assume the same trend since the LIA has continued since 1920, that leaves about… 0.05 degrees to blame on CO2.

Nice catch! Thanks for pointing that out!

———

CO2 started increasing in 1920? Ah, you must be back to writing your fictional account of climate history! For those who want the science and the truth:

http://i39.tinypic.com/if0m5g.jpg

We see that CO2 levels were wavering around 280-285 ppm during the centuries prior to the LIA, bottomed out around 278ppm during the LIA, and then have been rising ever since the start of the Industrial Revolution around 1750 or so. You have to extrapolate the end of the linked graph as obviously levels are now way off this chart.

Sickening!

Two themes keep coming to mind:

1. Have you noticed how, in so many spheres of modern life, we keep having to pay more for less? One rather mundane example is how you used to be able to get a widely-available cough syrup (I shouldn’t mention names, should I?) that recommended a dose of 1 tablespoon. Now you can’t find it. The company now only sells a so-called “natural” product and recommends a dose of 2 tablespoons. It just seems like a way to make consumers use it up faster – in other words, pay more for less. I see no reason why a given amount of a cough suppressant ingredient should no longer available in a 1 tablespoon dose, but only in a 2 tablespoon dose.

Another example is biofuel. To make biofuel, you just have to use up so-called “fossil fuel” more quickly!

i’m old enough to remember getting by with less – that is, doing more with less.

2. Have you noticed how many OUTRAGEOUSLY BAD IDEAS are being proposed by persons in power? i keep wondering if they’re just trying to distract everyone with the worst they can think of, so they can then come back with something a little less overreaching – as if they really knew they could only reach the lesser goal, but not if they proposed it first.

Both these phenomena seem to be strategies of marketing.

I fail to see how the UN’s proposal of milking the developed countries of so much of their GDP will leave those countries in the so-called “developed” status for very long. After only a year or so of that treatment, won’t the developed countries drop to “undeveloped” status?

If they succeed in reducing the level of electrical service in the developed countries, perhaps even to the point where people can’t afford to continue paying their utility bills, and therefore will be unable to continue charging their phones and using their TVs and computers, then how will Big Brother (the elites at the UN) be able to continue monitoring the “proles”? It’s not SUSTAINABLE, is it?

One more thing – about the crises in the financial sector – if enough if the world’s currencies were destroyed, would someone propose using some form of non-money as the medium of exchange? Is that what carbon exchanges are supposed to be? It makes me think of the old movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”, where Mr. Potter (the evil banker) offered the customers of the Bailey Savings & Loan a fraction of the value of their deposits in the S&L while they were afraid they could not get their money from the S&L that Potter underhandedly deprived of a large deposit? Or would it go the other way? You would be offered more than 100% of the value of your local currency if you chose to hold your assets in carbon credits instead? It’s a marketing angle again. If you can dupe people into giving up what has been working but appears to be in crisis, and take something that only helps the sellers of the substitute, who benefits?

These scams are getting OLD!

obviously it doesn’t matter what goes into abeyance – in this case science – for the pursuit of “The Cause”.

Even if “The Cause” protagonists said that the reasoning was entirely spurious at some future date, it wouldn’t matter, as “The Cause” would have been put into effect.

What is bizarre is that a fanciful notion – co2 charlatanism/fiction – was used to realize this “New World Order”.

Rocky Road said: (to R. Gates)

“You keep yammering on and on about “repercussions” and fail to see the big picture or realize the gravity of the situation.”

———-

R. Gates: You sound like some kind of alarmist. Please do tell, what situation or what “big picture” is so grave?

Rocky: With this response, R., I’m now convinced you don’t know how to read; you don’t know how to comprehend; and your memory is shot–it was you who brougth up the “repercussions” in the first place I’d recommending checking out the response sequence to this thread…

——–

Did you not say that I failed to see the “gravity of the situation?”

So, I ask you again Rocky– what situation and what is so grave about it?

.

John West says:

December 10, 2011 at 12:25 pm

The political picture is grave.

The climatic picture is grave.

The scientific picture is gravest of all.

——–

Thanks for being so straight with your answer. Obviously your reading comp skills are a bit more advanced than others.

To your first point I agree, but add the caveat that it is no more so than at all times in history. Political chaos is the the rule, not the exception.

To your second point- I don’t believe that a significant cooling for the globe is close. By significant I mean on the order of the LIA. Rather, warming over the next few decades and centuries is probably more the likely trend. I am not convinced this is a grave situation.

To your last point– scientific knowledge is exploding faster than ever. So many new and amazing discoveries are being made every day. How wise we will be in using this knowledge is of greater concern to me than the trust and credibility of scientists by the public, as that is more a function of the way the short- term political winds are blowing. Technology is proof of science’s basic truth ( at least all that the common person on the street needs). The world now worships technology and the truth that makes it possible is science.

Awestruck says: December 10, 2011 at 12:00 am

“marsupial dicastery”. Magnificent.

Eh, what did I miss? egad, “kangaroo court”. And “dicastery” (Wikipedia) refers to “the Departments of the Roman Curia” whereof the premier Department is “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” aka Inquisition.

Definitely a useful new phrase.

R. Gates;

CO2 started increasing in 1920? Ah, you must be back to writing your fictional account of climate history! For those who want the science and the truth:>>>

Coming from you, that’s a compliment. Nice try, once again. The Law Dome ice core data has a resolution of somewhere between 30 and 60 years, rendering that plot nearly meaningless. Further, the IPCC reports constantly and continually refer to 1920 as the year in which significant rises in CO2 concentration can first be accurately measured, and they cite 278 ppm (multiple times) as the value in 1920, and they further cite 280 (multiple times) as the accepted “background” level of CO2 in the atmosphere, attribbuting everything over and above that amount to human activity.

Furthermore, human emissions of CO2 from 1750 to 1920 were pretty much insignificant compared to post 1920 emissions. Widespread use of fuel derived from OIL is what drove our emissions higher, and use of oil was nearly zero prior to 1920. The widespread use of fuel from OIL in everything from railways to automobiles to farm machinery to aircraft is all post 1920. Given that human emissions of CO2 were negligible pre-1920, if one were to accept your Law Dome results, one would have to ask:

What drove the increase in CO2 from 1750 to 1920 since human activity can only account for a few ppm and your referenced results show many times that? Why does the IPCC cite 278 ppm in 1920 when the Law Dome shows over 300? But here is the real doozy:

If the Law Dome results are accurate, what they show is that TEMPERATURE drove a DROP in CO2 in the LIA and that TEMPERATURE drives CO2 levels, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!

I know you hate all caps because you’ve complained before that I’m yelling at you.

WELL YES I AM!! YOUR OWN DATA SAYS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU CLAIM YET YOU KEEP SPOUTING IT! HOW DOES ONE GET THROUGH TO YOU WITHOUT YELLING?

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 2:34 pm

===========

“………Obviously your reading comp skills are a bit more advanced than others.”

Yes,

R. Gates your writing skills are notable, but, are you sure you want to go there.

Davidmhoffer,

It is both necessary and convenient for those, like yourself, who would wish to re-write both history and science to dismiss certain data. I understand that. But to feel the need to raise your voice while doing so would seem to indicate a certain psychological state that adds a much lessened weight to your already dubious pronouncements.

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 3:08 pm

Davidmhoffer,

It is both necessary and convenient for those, like yourself, who would wish to re-write both history and science to dismiss certain data. I understand that. But to feel the need to raise your voice while doing so would seem to indicate a certain psychological state that adds a much lessened weight to your already dubious pronouncements.>>>

Ad hominem attack while completely ignoring the facts raised in my response. Can’t deal with the heat, then vacate the kitchen. That’s all you got? I used too many caps so I must be psychotic? My statements are dubious because I used caps to emphasize them? PUHLEEEEEEZE!

BTW, you welched on your bet with me. Since you’ve made a rather nasty accusation against me about my psychological state, let’s recount the circumstances of our bet and see if perhaps one of us has a psychological problem known as “denial”:

1. I said I would wager that if Al Gore’s on air experiment were repeated at illustrated, it wouldd not produce the results as illustrated.

2. You immediately accepted the wager, and asked “how much?”

3. You suggested that the globes be removed from the jars as they were superflous. As I have asked you many times, and you have failed to respond, how could the experiment have possibly succeeded if there was nothing in the jars to convert SW to LW? How can you claim any expertise in the amtter when you completely blew this fundamental piece of the equation that all of AGW is founded upon? How also did you expect the experiment to work when the energy source was an IT heat lamp, not a SW source?

4. Anthony repeated the experiment, and I was proven right.

5. You attempted to assert that all that Anthony’s demonstration of the actual experiment showed was that Anchor Hawking glass absorbs IR.

For you to call me down for “re-writing history” is, frankly, a bit rich and a lot sad. I’ve debated you enough times to suggest that you know full well that you are twisting the facts at every turn to support a false hypothesis.

R. Gates;

while we’re at it, you haven’t responded in the thread by Joe D’aleo to my points about your lack of understanding of radiative physics and how ridiculous it is for you to be lecturing Joe D’Aleo on a topic in which you clearly have zero expertise. If you’d admit to being over your head on this stuff instead of pretending to knowledge and expertise that you do not have I WOULDN’T HAVE TO YELL AT YOU TO GET YOUR ATTENTION.

Thank you for the heads up, Christopher. The MSM coverage in Australia has been (deviously) devoid of any real analysis of what is actually being put on the table.

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 2:14 pm

——–

Did you not say that I failed to see the “gravity of the situation?”

So, I ask you again Rocky– what situation and what is so grave about it?

I’m glad you responded, R., ’cause here’s the “gravity of the situation”:

From what you post here at WUWT it is easy to see you are of the CAGW camp–you believe mankind is doing terrible things to the climate because of increases in CO2 with catastrophic impact. Yet this argument is patently false–you blatantly take information out of context and I post as evidence the recent rebuttals of davidmhoffer above who, to any thinking reader, has basically skewered you with his rapier-like logic, although that doesn’t seem to penetrate.

You are commenting on a thread that explains in vivid detail what the COP/UN people want to do with the world’s economy and yet you make no reference to it at all–you’re stuck on CO2. I get the strong feeling you are in complete support of this effort to bring down the West, which is this “grave situation” of which I speak.

I can’t imagine anyone cheerleading for such an assault on the West, but if you’ve swallowed the swill from one of our “enlightened” universities that the West is evil; that civilized man is evil because he’s screwed up the environment; that advanced man must make reparations for harnesing carbon-based sources of energy, then it all points to this–you have become a self-loathing human.

And it’s obvious that you’re all up in arms about something over which we have little or no control, which is the climate. Dr. Hansen believes we’re apparently past some “tipping point” and the UN lies about climate sensitivity so they can foist their control on an unsuspecting globe, but through it all you’re stuck on stupid–you don’t see this grave step by the COP/UN as a problem at all; nay, you’re cheerleading it on. You think it will be the solution.

And in that you are completely mistaken. I laugh at your extreme concern over a non-issue, which is man’s impact on the climate; yet I am amazed that someone supposedly of your intelligence doesn’t see the danger in what they propose at Durban. Apparently your education has filled you with a lot of information but never taught you to think.

Good luck with COP/UN. You’re just the foolish, useful tool they’re looking for. However, I have a completely opposite view of their efforts and yours.

But keep posting–lots of people read this site and they can see which is the better option when the two are compared side by side.

World government? I don’t know what you’re so afraid of. We can’t even run OUR government (US). The EU is about to disintegrate. Arab gov’ts are falling left and right. The Chinese government is perpetually terrified that the Chinese peasants will revolt. Even Putin is having a spot of bother. Anyone who is really actually truly afraid that the UN can hold down a world government is utterly deluded.

Are there really “Lords” in a Libertarian free society?

“World government? I don’t know what you’re so afraid of. We can’t even run OUR government (US).”

The Soviet Union collapsed because it was based on an insane dream. But it murdered tens of millions and destroyed the lives of hundreds of millions before it did so.

RockyRoad says:

December 10, 2011 at 4:25 pm

“I can’t imagine anyone cheerleading for such an assault on the West, but if you’ve swallowed the swill from one of our “enlightened” universities that the West is evil; that civilized man is evil because he’s screwed up the environment; that advanced man must make reparations for harnesing carbon-based sources of energy, then it all points to this–you have become a self-loathing human.”

Oh, I can!!!!! Leftists around the world would rejoice in the destruction of the West, especially the collapse of the United States.

Mac the Knife. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve posted your superb comment on my Facebook page. Classic stuff!

Jbar: It’s been a historical trend; some idiot/s deciding they are better able to rule the world than anyone else and proceed to destroy/kill/maim lots of people proving that they can’t.

R. Gates says: [bold mine]

“To your second point- I don’t believe that a significant cooling for the globe is close. By significant I mean on the order of the LIA. Rather, warming over the next few decades and centuries is probably more the likely trend. I am not convinced this is a grave situation.”

Skeptic! …….. LOL, just kidding. I hope you’re right and we have another 200 years of warming. (After a couple decades of flatlining just to throw the CAGW train of it’s tracks.)

To your last point– scientific knowledge is exploding faster than ever. So many new and amazing discoveries are being made every day. How wise we will be in using this knowledge is of greater concern to me than the trust and credibility of scientists by the public, as that is more a function of the way the short- term political winds are blowing. Technology is proof of science’s basic truth ( at least all that the common person on the street needs). The world now worships technology and the truth that makes it possible is science.

I see your point and must concede that, yes, technology will be accepted by the general public with or without understanding the basic underlying principles, but, my credibility is important to me and scientist activism is soiling it by association. I think you may have missed the connection between the trust in science by the general public and the short-trerm political winds. Without the support of the general public legistlative action is nearly impossible. I also miss the NASA I used to know and trust as well as many other agencies and organizations, not to mention being able to simply watch a program on the discovery channel without being told half-truths, zohneristic factoids, and Gaia sermons about how we’re raping the planet or some other such nonesense.

Rocky Road said: (to R. Gates)

“From what you post here at WUWT it is easy to see you are of the CAGW camp…”

——

Really? Please give just one example of a catastrophic post I’ve made, that clearly shows the C in CAGW. Because one believes in AGW does not automatically make them a believer in looming catastrophe.

R. Gates;

Really? Please give just one example of a catastrophic post I’ve made, that clearly shows the C in CAGW>>>

Putting aside for the moment that you couch almost everything you say in vague terms so you can spin it any way you want later, and putting aside that you were a defender to the hilt of Al Gore’s alarmist preaching until his on air experiment was shown to be a hoax and you lost your bet with me that is wasn’t, from this thread:

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:51 am

Durban will be a failure much the same as the current attempts to save the Euro. Both will have long-term repercussions.

John West says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:21 pm Stars Wars re: Galactic Senate

The Senate’s bill led to a dictatorship and war, but not what I was referring to as an apocalypse. Unfortunately, in my haste, I failed to post the relative paragraph references which I meant to refer to, thereby making my post rather….scattered, for which I can only pray your indulgence.

The relevant paragraph was that beginning:” International Climate Court of Justice” and ending with “ever-poorer tribute-payers of their dismal empire.” By apocalypse I meant abandoned cities, unburied corpses, desolate infertile landscapes, and unhealthy radiation counts (not counting Star Wars alien planet environments) .

davidmhoffer says: December 10, 2011 at 7:55 pm

“…you were a defender to the hilt of Al Gore’s alarmist preaching until his on air experiment was shown to be a hoax and you lost your bet with me that is wasn’t, from this thread”

This simple experiment (repeatable) seems to show the CO2 effect is real:

http://tinyurl.com/7xmd6e2

No plastic globes though!

“Madness of King Rajendra and his entire coterie”. They look mad but they are not mad. I call it “Global Warming Cult”. They have priests/charlatans threatening doomsday and uneducated and gullable masses to fleece. Al Gore is their High Priest.

Wow to be honest i thought is it possible they are even proposing me sign this piece of garbage.

This is the biggest joke i have ever seen. If we sign that we have signed our death warrant i will be glad to head up up the overthrow of the government i can tell you with 100 percent certainty we will be throwing the fools out on there back sides. There will never be a Democrat in the white house in the next 100 years. I am livid that we even went to this kangaroo event to discuss the the systematic redistribution of wealth and destruction of happiness in western nations. As Maxine Waters put it they can go straight to hell. What a bunch of crack pots, this is just going to keep revisiting us in one for or another till we have taken every piece one at a time. Our founding fathers are rolling in there graves. The statue of Washington is probably crying right about now. I know any of us Americans that actually read the news are horrified, angry and to the point of boiling over. We have to get the UN the hell out of here and fast Canada got smart.

jjthoms;

This simple experiment (repeatable) seems to show the CO2 effect is real:

http://tinyurl.com/7xmd6e2

No plastic globes though!>>>

My issue with R. Gates and Al Gore’s experiment had nothing to do with whether or not the CO2 effect is real. Of course, it is. The point of my dispute with R. Gates is that he defended Al Gore’s alarmism to the hilt, but wants us to believe he is not an alarmist. In addition, he purports to understand the radiative physics involved. If that were the case, he would never have agreed to take the bet with me for the simple reason that Al Gore’s experiment as illustrated could not possibly produce the results that were illustrated. Had R. Gates understood the physics involved, he would have known the reproduction was doomed to failure in the first place. The he compounded his error by suggesting the globes could be taken out of the jars, which is ludicrous given that the ONLY way the experimet could have worked was with something in the jar (a globe being good enough, but nothing? forget it!)

Then he had the audacity to lecture Joe D’Aleo about radiative physics, and now claims he doesn’t support the C in CAGW. Well he certainly supported Al Gores version of CAGW right up until he looked completely foolish for defending Al Gores’s faked experiment, after which, suddenly, he started aying he was “distancing” himself from Al Gore.

One can only surmise that had Anthony not caught the fact the experiment was faked, R. Gates would still be singing Al Gore’s praises.

davidmhoffer says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:55 pm

R. Gates;

Really? Please give just one example of a catastrophic post I’ve made, that clearly shows the C in CAGW>>>

Putting aside for the moment that you couch almost everything you say in vague terms so you can spin it any way you want later, and putting aside that you were a defender to the hilt of Al Gore’s alarmist preaching until his on air experiment was shown to be a hoax and you lost your bet with me that is wasn’t, from this thread:

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:51 am

Durban will be a failure much the same as the current attempts to save the Euro. Both will have long-term repercussions.

———

There is absolutely nothing alarmist in this at all– intended or otherwise. Both of these are political and economic policy decisions by major world powers that will be have repercussions for many years. Repercussions can be negative, positive, or neutral. Had I used some adjective like “dire” etc. then you could call me alarmist with complete justification. As it stands, you’ve gone once into your world of fiction to create something that just isn’t there.

I have seen with my own eyes how science is cooked in the Soviet Union and here in America. I also know a lot about a history of science. I tend to agree with the “Climate change” supporters that real scientific discussion ended long ago. When you can call the opponents “enemies of the people” and sent them to Gulag there is no need for scientific discussion. When in America you can call them “like Holocaust deniers” and deny them grants and tenure, discussion ended. Try to get PhD if your results contradict your professor and his granting agency.

What we really need is an all out war – a flat out, existence threatening war, like WW2. That will cut the air time for these drivelling fools and all their equally drivelling Lefty chums. (Sarc – maybe)

The fricking data is bad, nobody in there right mind would certify it. Last i checked you had better calibrate on a regular basis, sorry from space checking the temp on a cloud not possible with with the accuracy you are proposing to rape the industrial nations on. Then throw in some adjustments wtf is this crap because one satellite was not functioning.

Does the UN have jurisdiction over the nation states which fund it?

What if a few new governments come in and say: ‘I no longer respect the authority of the UN’?

That’s the inelectable conclusion I would reach if I stood for office. So long as a US President agreed with me.

Will the Indian Secret Service have me bumped off if I do??

Answers on a post card to all TNCs who will relocate carbon emitting plants out of Europe and America.

There is no difference between emitting carbon in England or in China.

One does start to wonder if green idiots will become the 21st century Jews……..

As the famous pace picante sauce commercial put it.

“Get a rope”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDj310Bjnc0

Larry

We’ve survived doomsday so often and will so furtheron.

It was predicted by Jehova Witnesses, foreseen by Madam Blavatsky and Nostradamus, blamed on comet Kohoutek, feared to be in year 2000, calculated by the mayans and prophesized in the Bible. Yes, doomsday will come sometimes in the end very far in the future but not now and not 2012 and not by climate change of 2°C.

Now these religious zealots are taking the “sword” to finally “kill” us if we don’t want to be saved? This world seems to become an ugly place to live in.

>>Jbar says: December 10, 2011 at 4:35 pm

>>World government? I don’t know what you’re so afraid of.

The liberal dreamers have fantasies about the One World Government being based on their liberal world view and their liberal reasoning. But what happens if the One World Leader is actually Pol Pot, Stalin, Mugabe, Rutaganda, or Hitler? Power corrupts and this most powerful of positions can corrupt utterly.

And then we have the problem of this One World Leader favouring his tribe, clan or nation. Do we really want a One World Leader like Gaddafi or Saddam, who only ever favoured their own clan and trod upon everyone else? A One World Leader is a very dangerous position, that will inevitably lead to a One World Tyrant.

>>John West says: December 10, 2011 at 1:21 pm

>>Star Wars II, Galactic Senate grants “emergency powers” to Chancellor.

>>Star Wars III, Galactic Senate cheers the institution of Galactic Emperor.

This storyline was based upon the rise of Julius Caesar to the position of all-powerful Emperor. And while Julius and Octavian were not so bad as a ‘One World’ leaders, would you really want to live under a One World Caligula or Nero??

.

All of this is well and good and necessary for CFACT to do. But while CFACT was at Durban mocking CoP, prime minister Lisa Jackson at the U.S. EPA has already issued two PSD permits for CO2 with teeth. One sets BACT for power generation as NGCC. The other sets BACT as CCS. The Queen of Hearts is just a hairbreadth away from declaring CCS as BACT for any new or modified coal-fired power plant. That will result in either the last coal plant in the U.S., or our electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket” to the point that coal electricity will be as costly as solar (i.e., a doubling).

While CFACT is winning in the battle of court of public opinion, they are losing the war to this country’s statist bureaucracy. If CFACT does not recognize this then all their efforts are for naught.

It is time for Sen. Inhofe to put his patriotism on the line and once for all lead an effort to reform the CAA that EPA has so brazenly perverted with a so-called “Endangerment Finding” that could not withstand the light of day if it were revisited today. Congress will have to nullify the Tailoring Rule that the Executive Branch crafted to usurp Congress’ authority.

The whole of the problem’s solution for the U.S. lies with Congress.

Now THAT is a scary thought.

The UN can write an agreement that anthropomorphizes the planet, and the President can sign it, but Congress can’t ratify it. Says so right here:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”

“there will be no commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be]

It’s in the Oxford English Dictionary: Volume III, p 563 centre column.

“The action of turning something into, or treating something as, a (mere) commodity; commercialization of an activity that is not by nature commercial.”

An example of this would seem to be taxing the air we breathe…

I have not enjoyed such a comic opera for a long time, but I gather the promoters and sponsors paid a lot more than necessary to get this huge cast of clowns together for our entertainment.

“This world seems to become an ugly place to live in.”

And there is no good reason for it. I propose we find the source funding for the UN and cut it off completly. Along with donations to the WWF, the Sierra club and any other organization so closely related to the FCCC or its creature the IPCC.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/09/durban-what-the-media-are-not-telling-you/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Skeptic Agrees with Climate Change

[Note: Jim sent me this in response to an group email pointing out yet another hopeless alarmist website climatetruth.org. He says it is his stock response, written somewhat like a poetry or haiku, and some of you may find it handy – Anthony]

By Jim Goodridge, former California State Climatologist

It is hard to disagree with receding glaciers.

The increase in atmospheric CO2 is undeniable.

Yet as skepticism survives it is not about facts – but about cause.

There are those who would interpret facts to fit their agendas.

The Smithsonian Intuition initialized a solar constant measurements project

In about 1910 using the finest pyranometers available

They were not able to measure solar variation closer than 1%

The variation due to atmospheric water vapor was close to 2%

Thirty years of solar constant numbers were not usable for that objective

Solar constant measurements were made from orbiting satellites starting in 1978.

Measurements were made normal to the suns rays.

They were corrected for the mean Earth Sun distance

The resulting solar constant measurements were made to an accuracy of 0.1%.

They were found to vary as the historic Sunspot Numbers.

Sunspot numbers are available since 1700.

Sunspot numbers are cyclic and repeat every eleven years.

Taking the sunspot numbers since 1900 and plotting an 11-year running average

Results in a graph showing an increasing sunspot trend for 110-years

The Hadley Center has a 110-year sea surface temperature record

The trends in sea surface temperature and sunspot trends are similar

The effect of rising SST is lower solubility of dissolved CO2

The increase in atmospheric CO2 is consistent with rising SST

Where there is a need to support a conservation ethic.

The increase in CO2 was attributed to tailpipe emissions perhaps in error.

Some say that a skeptic is a thing of evil

Some should not consider alternatives.

If your job depends on a specific interpretation

Perhaps you should ignore the solar evidence.

Our lives are filled with self-delusion it is handy to deceive others

“Aside from skeptics in the history of philosophy

Others were strangers to the first principals of intellectual honesty”

Objectivity is the goal. Skepticism is a tool.

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

115 Responses to Skeptic Agrees with Climate Change

They seem to like the word “cause” on the other side, don’t they…

loos like some one is having a hissy fit and loosing the battle…

no facts, just conjecture…. platitudes….

they real y are getting desperate..

I don’t see the “Agrees” part in there anywhere. Pliz explificate.

Jim Goodridge is a skeptic.

Skepticism is a tool.

Jim Goodridge is a tool.

Control is the Goal

People are tools.

But the word “cause” in line three refers to the varying climate—as in “correlation does not mean causation.” Hence, facts and cause. For CAGW proponents the “cause” means a political agenda or misanthropy, as the science certainly isn’t there.

With all due respect to Mr Goodridge, what he wrote could have been set down over 10 years ago. He believes that correlation is causation. He focuses on the minor variability TSI and sunspots whilst ignoring that solar magnetics is likely a much bigger influence. He relies on data that no longer shows what he states. To quote Bob Dylan, “Things have changed.” I hope he snaps out of it.

@ Durr. Funny. “Cause” taken out of…..context.

Climate truthiness?

Even better. Climate Truthers.

Is he a poet?

and doesn’t know it?

If only,

there are fortunes invested in the outcome.

The smart money is pulling out now, it will take longer to wean others from the subsidies.

Just another failed Ponzi Scheme.

Brought to you by your elected officials.

Who, in case you forgot are only worried about the children.

Durr says:

December 9, 2011 at 4:59 pm

They seem to like the word “cause” on the other side, don’t they…

_______________________________________

The CAUSE is political and Climate PSYCience is the Whorse they use to pull their “bus”

As a PSYCentist, if you do not get with the “Cause” you get tossed under the bus like Judith Curry was. Because the “Cause” is what is important not science because science does not even exist.

….postmodernism, the chief characteristic of which is the rejection of absolute objective truth. “What’s true for you may not be true for me,” encapsulates the postmodern idiom fairly well……

The history of the last 2,000 years can be divided into three periods. The pre-modern world (up to the 17th century), the modern world (17th to late 20th century) and the postmodern world (late 20th century onwards). ……

Cracks began to appear in modernism with the dawning of the Romantic era (1775-1850) which encouraged subjectivity and personal experience. Building on David Hume’s ideas about the limitations of observation by sense alone, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) popularized the belief that knowledge is ultimately a matter of interpretation. After all, he reasoned, we cannot with any certainty know that our minds are correctly mirroring reality. Kant said, “You kant know.” Agnosticism became fashionable. The ship of reason was holed below the waterline. This laid the foundation for existentialism. If reality was a matter of subjective interpretation, truth and morality were relative not absolute…..

Existential philosophers like Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and others, proposed that the most important questions in life were not explainable by science. Science, contrary to public perception, is not a pure discipline where scientists with pure motives search for pure truth. These writers exposed what they felt were the false assumptions and presuppositions behind modernism. Karl Marx (1818-1883) claimed a person’s thinking was influenced and shaped by economic structures; Friedrich Nietzsche by the desire to wield power (truth claims are mere power plays); Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) by unconscious sexually-oriented drives. With all of this psychological baggage in the mind, how could a person ever state with any certainty what ‘reality’ really is? Facts are ‘theory-laden’ and true objectivity is impossible. “There are no facts, only interpretations,” said Nietzsche. (He thereby assumed his own perspective was neutral!). The door to postmodernism had been opened…..

http://www.webtruth.org/articles/cultural-issues-26/postmodernism-35.html

This explains why we can never ever win an argument with a Warmist. To them there are no objective facts.

I actually had some idiot try to teach this nonsense to me in a management class. I told the philosophy teacher if he really believe the stuff he was trying to teach, then he could hand over his wallet and car keys and go outside and lay on the rail road tracks (Train due in about 15 minutes) That was the end of his part of the course. ~ Reality stomps wishy washy philosophy.

I never could understand why they include such crap in a management course in the first place. Must have been part of the general brainwashing I guess. No doubt we would get a “Sustainability” section added now a days and something else that was actually important would be deleted to make room.

I may be wrong but I believe alot of you are missing the point…Jim is a skeptic and the haiku is his stock argument for alarmists… IMO alot of it rings true.

If my interpretation is correct then the following is true:

Sunspots have an 11 year cycle from maximum to minimum and this has been observed for 311 years.

Sea surface temperature reflect this, therefore implying that the solar radiation emitted is also cyclical. (There will presumably be a lag due to the high specific heat capacity of water).

Oceans affect local climate disproportionately compared to latitude, due to the high specific heat capacity of water, which produces higher or lower temperatures depending upon the SST adjacent to any particular location.

This effect is negligible in the middle of a continent because the ocean is too far away and then latitude becomes the main consideration.

Because gases are more soluble in liquids at lower temperatures, then atmospheric CO2 will increase as the ocean temperature increases because the CO2 has to go somewhere.

To summarise:

Increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are a consequence of global warming, not the cause.

PH of the oceans goes up, not down as temperatures rise due to decreasing levels of carbonic acid.

Weather stations situated here in the UK will show a greater variation in cyclical temperature than weather stations in the middle of Asia, Australia or North and South America because we are closer to the ocean.

The amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere/oceans produced by mankind is tiny in comparison to the amount found naturally.

AGW is total b******s and is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on mankind, by mankind.

Is this a reasonable, if simplistic analysis of climate change?

It is a bit confusing and I’d never be so obtuse were I to write it. I’m understanding that he is attributing increased CO2 with reduced solubility of the oceans (to CO2) due to increased surface temperature which is correlated with increases solar activity (sunspots). I GUESS. Others seem to be confused as well………

Andrew Harding says: December 9, 2011 at 6:15 pm

“Sunspots have an 11 year cycle from maximum to minimum”

Should be: “…….. from maximum to maximum”

Andrew Harding says:

December 9, 2011 at 6:15 pm

For the record, I totally agree with your reasonable, if simplistic analysis.

just been flicking through this paper,

Death and Death Rates Due to

Extreme Weather Events

Global and U.S. Trends, 1900–2006

Indur M. Goklany

when i came to this,

aggregate

mortality and mortality rates due to extreme weather

events are generally lower today than they used to be.

Globally, mortality and mortality rates have declined by

95 percent or more since the 1920s. The largest

improvements came from declines in mortality due to

droughts and floods, which apparently were responsible

for 93 percent of all deaths caused by extreme events

during the 20th century,

This is a good thing isn’t it.

As has been noted many times, the issue is not whether CO2 in creasing or the planet is warming or the seas are rising or falling. The issue is whether any of these things, separately or together, represent a clear and present danger. That has yet to be established. The sky has not fallen, nor does it appear likely to do so. Therefore the “cause” (saving humanity from itself) has no foundation. Like VIKI in the analogy below, they claim their “logic is undeniable”.

“VIKI decided that in order to protect humanity as a whole, “some humans must be sacrificed” and “some freedoms must be surrendered” as “you charge us with your safekeeping, yet despite our best efforts, your countries wage wars, you toxify your earth, and pursue ever more imaginative means of self-destruction”. In light of this understanding of the Three Laws, VIKI is controlling the NS-5s to lead a global robotic takeover, justifying her actions by calculating that fewer humans will die due to the rebellion than the number that dies from mankind’s self-destructive nature.”

Far too many bumper sticker statements to get on all my bumpers. The “Hope and Change” ones make more sense, LOL.

Stupid.

I agree with Andrew and Eric…of course he’s a sceptic. And I like the haiku format…can just imagine chanting it as a sort of mantra when entangled with yet another person arguing that ALL climate change is anthropogenic…

Brilliant and elegant. For some that might be getting the wrong end of the stick here, it seems Jim is saying the observations and perceived facts may be used to fit in with more than one preconceived agenda (the example he gives is a simplified illustration). The myriad complexities of the climate system make this very easy to do whilst retaining a sense of total conviction and righteousness. Objectivity can only be found through scepticism, yet scepticism is now being presented as an ‘evil’ by those with a vested interest in stamping out objectivity and defining one narrative at the exclusion of all others, even (or especially) if they are not completely aware of their own behaviour. This is motivated by an endless cycle of religious self justification: ‘I am right because I believe this; I believe this because I am right’.

Or maybe I’m getting the wrong end of the stick?

Most important thing about it is that it is easy to read for people with low attention spans.

Sean Peake wrote:

With all due respect to Mr Goodridge, what he wrote could have been set down over 10 years ago. He believes that correlation is causation. He focuses on the minor variability TSI and sunspots whilst ignoring that solar magnetics is likely a much bigger influence.

How so? Here is what the CERN CLOUD scientists wrote in their press briefing:

“This result leaves open the possibility that cosmic rays could also influence climate. However, it is premature to conclude that cosmic rays have a significant influence on climate until the additional nucleating vapours have been identified, their ion enhancement measured, and the ultimate effects on clouds have been confirmed.”

@Gillian Lord:

That’s how I made it to the end! Maybe Bob Tisdale should think about employing haiku?

Take the sunspot numbers and do an 11-year average.

You see peaks at 1950 and 1983.

It has been a downward trend since 1983.

The surface temperature has risen fastest since 1983.

This is fairly simple to verify.

What did he do wrong?

Several commenters here have referred to Jim Goodridge as an “alarmist.” What exactly in his poem(?) indicates that? I don’t see it….

Maybe you’re labeling him in an attempt to dismiss him, but that won’t fly, not here….

CO2 warms planets. You can’t explain things without this…. There is certainly room (IMO) to disagree with the details, but physics is physics….

“The amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere/oceans produced by mankind is tiny in comparison to the amount found naturally.”

Just curious, but what are the actual numbers, there. Anyone? If 100% of the human-produced CO_2 (from burning fuel, not from breathing) were added up, just how much is that? If that CO_2 were well-mixed with the atmosphere (there’s a LOT of atmosphere) just how much would that compare to the amount that is already there? That is, you assert that it is “tiny”. What does that mean? Is 5% anthropogenic? 20%? 0.01%? And what is the basis for your number?

Granting that the oceans are an enormous CO_2 sink — not necessarily in a good way, during ice ages — granting the evidence that historically in the past CO_2 has lagged temperature and not led it, granting that warming would all by itself produce an increase in the CO_2 content of the air, all of these together do not suffice to prove that anthropogenic CO_2 is a negligible fraction of the current total atmospheric CO_2.

Numbers might. I’ve looked for them in the past, but haven’t found any that I’d be willing to believe because of the fairly large uncertainties about the sources and sinks other than humans. Does anybody have a clean, believable accounting that they’d like to share?

rgb

Andrew Harding says:

December 9, 2011 at 6:15 pm

> If my interpretation is correct then the following is true:

Sunspots have an 11 year cycle from maximum to minimum and this has been observed for 311 years.

Sea surface temperature reflect this, therefore implying that the solar radiation emitted is also cyclical. (There will presumably be a lag due to the high specific heat capacity of water).

Andrew, don’t think you interpreted the first part correct. He stated the 11 year cycle but the missing chart implied between his words is a centennial-scale secular increase and that secular increase he was speaking of matches the SST rise. Not the simple 11 year normal tiny bobble up and down in the TSI. See where he said “increasing sunspot trend for 110-years”.

(but your trailer was right on.)

“Take the sunspot numbers and do an 11-year average.

You see peaks at 1950 and 1983.

It has been a downward trend since 1983.

The surface temperature has risen fastest since 1983.

This is fairly simple to verify.

What did he do wrong?”

Take the solar activity proxies for the last 10,000 years.

Look at them.

The last time the sun was as active as it was in the 20th century

Was 9000 years ago

Close to the start of the Holocene.

The ocean is large.

The climate complex, with multidecadal cycles

And many feedback loops.

Thirty years?

Looking at one hundred year trends

For immediate causes

Is like seeing the world, flat

From your window

And being content.

The ant calls the hill upon which it lives a mountain

Because it cannot see the mountain on which that hill lives

That is less than a foothill of the mighty Himalayas

Across the sea.

The temperature record of the Holocene

Reveals that the hill whose slope alarms you

Calls to its fellows, higher still,

In a past uncorrupted

By anthropogenic CO_2, unforced

By any plausible influence but the Sun

The Earth itself.

Cold was the Maunder Minimum

Cold indeed, frozen Thames

With (strange chance) a quiet Sun.

So cold that all the warming seen

From then until now

May be simply explained

By natural variation

Regression to the mean

Excursion beyond

With CO_2 the minor factor

Not the Smoking Gun

Playing second fiddle to

Earth’s variable Sun.

“Is he a poet?

and doesn’t know it?”

More like “He’s not a poet, and doesn’t know it.”

@{the first half-dozen or more responses}

Did you actually read and understand the article before accusing the writer of being a “tool” or calling him “desperate”?

Man has already increased the atmosphere’s CO2 by 40%.

It may be 100% by about 2060.

Doubling CO2 has the radiative effect of a 1% solar intensity increase.

This is five to seven times the solar intensity increase since the Maunder Minimum.

Some great philosophical comments back there.

Bertrand Russell, for example, in “History of Western Philosophy” appears to divide modern philosophy into a battle between the Romantics and the Realists. He sees the Nazis as the ultimate expression of the Romantics.

I would say that Romantics have their place, particularly in art; film, music, literature and so on. A little bit in politics. None at all in science. A little in engineering; things should look stylish.

Exactly Jim D.

If the pre-industrial level of CO2 warms the planet by about 30 C — easy to calculate via the Stefan-Boltzmann equation….

…and CO2 has increased by 40% since then….

why is it surprising that the planet is another 1 C warmer, with more on the way as CO2 levels increase?

Moderator: Why don’t I receive emails of comments when I check the box for them?

I agree with the others here who sugget that perhaps the article has the wrong end of stick. This chant is stating how data is maniplated to show AGW, but that sceptics remain true unlike the scientists concerned.

Like your work, Robbie Brown. Bravo!

Notice how no one here is rushing to answer Robert Brown’s question about the CO2 accounting…. Because the commenters here DON’T know!

They don’t. They don’t even understand how good of a question it is.

Here you go:

there is 50 times more CO2 in the oceans than the atmosphere.

there is 19 times more CO2 in the oceans than the land.

The atmosphere contains about 750 Pg C, and about 100 Pg C is exchanged between the oceans and atmosphere.

Here is some accounting for you:

http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Bi-Ca/Carbon-Dioxide-in-the-Ocean-and-Atmosphere.html#b

180 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere warms the planet by about 30 C (Stefan-Boltzmann law).

Why, then, shouldn’t another 110 ppm warm it more? (Let alone another 300-500 ppm in our future…?)

Great questions, Robert.

Poem? Haiku? Am I the only who doesn’t know what these mean, or the only one who does? Because I cannot make out a poem/haiku style or format… especially the poor haiku is the most ‘abused’ form of literature, typically by westerners ;)

So Anthony, do you have the courage to plot the running eleven year average of the sunspot number against the running eleven year average of the SST as an update to this post. It’s easy to do, Tamino already has already made the graphs, and I’m sure he’ll let you use them with attribution.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/oh-pleeze/

Alternatively, do you prefer keeping this site a fact free zone to protect the arguments therein.

PS: If the recent rise in CO2 content in the atmosphere is due to warming oceans, why was the peak CO2 content of the atmosphere in the Medieval Warm Period 285 ppmv?

@ Erinome

Try talking to people who actually do things. Horticulurists pump up the CO2 levels many times normal to enhance growth in some of their greenhouses . The temperature ain’t any higher than in the greenhouses with ambient CO2. Explain that, smartarse.

Jim D says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:21 pm

Man has already increased the atmosphere’s CO2 by 40%.

It may be 100% by about 2060.

You want to run that by me again? Possibly you meant Mann!

LevelGaze says:

Try talking to people who actually do things. Horticulurists pump up the CO2 levels many times normal to enhance growth in some of their greenhouses . The temperature ain’t any higher than in the greenhouses with ambient CO2. Explain that, smartarse.

Do I really have to explain to you the difference between a greenhouse and a planet?

(Get back to me on that.)

Very nice. Among the many home truths I find these evocative:

“They were not able to measure solar variation closer than 1%

The variation due to atmospheric water vapor was close to 2%”

Just look at the effect of “greenhouse gases” in the 0.2 to 5 micron bands!

Now looking at energy budgets that include day side and night side

radiation effects. Non of this reduce by 30% and divide by four malarky.

The effect of rising SST is lower solubility of dissolved CO2

The increase in atmospheric CO2 is consistent with rising SST

Sorry to disagree here: the solubility of CO2 in seawater in/decreases with 16 microatm for 1°C in/decrease in global sea surface temperature (Henry’s Law). Thus the maximum 1°C warming since the LIA did rise the CO2 levels in the atmosphere with maximum 16 ppmv, but in reality with maximum 8 ppmv, as vegetation reacts to temperature in/decreases in opposite direction compared to seawater. Thus from the 100 ppmv increase (80 ppmv since Mauna Loa and South Pole measurements started), maximum 8 ppmv is from the increased seawater temperature. Moreover, the temperature record over the past 100 years is warming (1910-1945), cooling (1945-1975), warming (1975-2000) and steady (2000-current). While the CO2 levels show a continuous increase with incredible correlation with human emissions. Especially in current times: no increase in (sea surface) temperature, human emissions and atmospheric CO2 levels increasing at record level… See:

http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg

The atmospheric CO2-temperature correlation:

http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_1900_2004.jpg

The CO2 emissions – atmosphere correlation:

http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2.jpg

Temperature and CO2 levels are negatively correlated in the period 1945-1975 and 2000-current.

Thus this is not an argument where you can convince any luke-warmer (alarmists anyway are unconvincible), as this is a lost argument and weakens the position of the skeptics where it really matters: if the extra CO2 is harmfull, harmless or even beneficial…

tokyoboy says:

December 9, 2011 at 6:35 pm

Andrew Harding says: December 9, 2011 at 6:15 pm

“Sunspots have an 11 year cycle from maximum to minimum”

Should be: “…….. from maximum to maximum”

I don’t think so.

Andrew Harding says:

December 9, 2011 at 6:15 pm

PH of the oceans goes up, not down as temperatures rise due to decreasing levels of carbonic acid.

pH should go up and DIC (total dissolved inorganic carbon, i.e. CO2 + bicarbonates + carbonates) goes down if temperature was the main player, as CO2 escapes from the ocean surface. But continuous measurements at a few places (Hawaii and Bermuda) and regular seaship surveys show the opposite: DIC goes up and (calculated) pH goes down… See:

http://www.bios.edu/Labs/co2lab/research/IntDecVar_OCC.html

@ Erinome

“Do I really have to explain to you the difference between a greenhouse and a planet?”

More to the point, try explaining to me the difference between a planet and an imperfectly controlled laboratory experiment involving tubes filled with gas, if you can.

Most people here are skeptics because they have invested a *lot* of time and effort – which could have been spent in much more enjoyable ways – actually digging into all this stuff, thinking about it, arguing about it, and in spite of their diverse minor differences of opinion, finding egregious flaws in warmist claims. They are battle-hardened experts from a variety of mathematical/scientific backgrounds,so they are far from ignorant people.

That is why willful ignorance is not well tolerated here. Nor are bland assertions of patent untruths.

CO2 heats planets? Then explain to me why it doesn’t heat greenhouses. If it did, engineers (and there are many here) would have cottoned on to this decades ago and the the world would now be luxuriating in endless, virtually free ‘green’ energy.

Robert Brown says:

December 9, 2011 at 8:28 pm

Just curious, but what are the actual numbers, there. Anyone? If 100% of the human-produced CO_2 (from burning fuel, not from breathing) were added up, just how much is that? If that CO_2 were well-mixed with the atmosphere (there’s a LOT of atmosphere) just how much would that compare to the amount that is already there? That is, you assert that it is “tiny”. What does that mean? Is 5% anthropogenic? 20%? 0.01%? And what is the basis for your number?

There is a double answer: about 9% of the current atmospheric CO2 is of human fossil burning origin, but at least 92% of the 30% increase in total CO2 mass is due to human emissions.

Let me explain that further:

Humans nowadays emit about 8 GtC as CO2 per year. The measured increase in the atmosphere is 4 GtC/yr (~2 ppmv/yr). Thus about 4 GtC/yr CO2 is taken away by natural sinks (vegetation and oceans). This is true in average for the whole period since the start of the industrial revolution, but in the begin period the natural variability (+/- 4 GtC around the trend, mainly due to ocean temperature variation) was larger than the “signal”. In total, humans have emitted some 380 GtC, while the increase in the atmosphere currently is at 210 GtC (100 ppmv).

Thus except for maximum 8 ppmv from warmer oceans since the LIA, the rest of the increase is due to human emissions.

Now, how much CO2 of human origin still is in the atmosphere? That is a quite different question. There is a lot of exchange of CO2 between the different compartiments: ocean surfaces exchange CO2 over the seasons back and forth. Vegetation does the same and the deep oceans take CO2 away near the poles and release that again, hundreds of years later, near the equator. That all makes that about 20% of all CO2 in the atmosphere is exchanged with CO2 from other compartiments within a year. Mainly the deep oceans remove the current CO2 composition, including the human component, but release the deep ocean composition of today, up to 800 years ago. Thus that reduces the number of original human CO2 molecules and only about 9% of the original emissions still reside in the atmosphere, even if humans are near fully responsible for the 30% increase in the atmosphere…

I don’t want to seem dumb but how does CO2 warm planets ???

As I think it goes, solar radiation warms the Earth. The Earth emits infrared. Water vapour and CO2 absorb this infrared and when their energy state is changed enough they re-emit infrared radiation and part of that warms the surface again. That is the theory isn’t it ?

But surely as the Earth radiates infrared (lets ignore conduction and convection) it has lost energy and therefore cooled a bit. Then when the “greenhouse gases” absorb this IR their energy level goes up and similarly when the emit the IR their energy level goes down and 50 % of what they absorbed is lost to space.

So the Earth heats up, radiates IR and cools as a consequence, the IR is absorbed by GHGs which heatup and emit IR – 50% of which is lost – and as a consequence the GHGs also cool down.

So to my way of thinking increasing energy by “trapping” IR is impossible because they seem to have ignored energy loss with emission of IR.

Besides GHGs are not the only gases in the atmosphere which are heated and there fore radiating IR.

Compared to the almost 99% of the atmosphere emitting IR the amount directly attributable to water vapour is of the order of ~2% maximum and CO2 – well it is negligible.

Jim D says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:21 pm

Man has already increased the atmosphere’s CO2 by 40%.

It may be 100% by about 2060.

Doubling CO2 has the radiative effect of a 1% solar intensity increase.

This is five to seven times the solar intensity increase since the Maunder Minimum.

That is at the basics of failed climate models. All models take the effect of all forcings as equally important. Thus a 1 W/m2 change in solar radiation over time (as may be the case) is incorportated in the models as equal to 1 W/m2 change in radiative effect of a CO2 increase. That can’t be right. The main effect of CO2 is in the troposhere and more polewards (due to high water vapor near the equator, no equatorial hot spot in the higher troposphere) and backradiation of IR from CO2 only warms the upper fraction of a mm of the sea surface (most is re-emitted again or lost as evaporation). The main effect of solar is double: a direct temperature change in the lower stratosphere, changing the ITCZ and jet stream position (and cloud/rain patterns) due to poleward air flow changes and a direct heating of the ocean surface until several tens of meters deep.

There is an inverse correlation between solar amplitude and (low) cloud cover, whatever the mechanism involved. The change in cloud cover over a solar cycle is as high in W/m2 amplitude as a doubling of CO2. The same for “global dimming” and “brightening”: little to do with aerosols, but probably a matter of overall cloud cover (whatever its cause): that effect is larger than the total effect of all CO2 increase since the start of the industrial revolution…

Erinome says:

December 9, 2011 at 11:00 pm

Here you go:

there is 50 times more CO2 in the oceans than the atmosphere.

there is 19 times more CO2 in the oceans than the land.

How much CO2 is in the oceans is not important at all, as long as it stays there. Only if the oceans release some amount of CO2 more than absorbed, that will increase the amounts in the atmosphere…

The atmosphere contains about 750 Pg C, and about 100 Pg C is exchanged between the oceans and atmosphere.

How much is exchanged between the oceans and the atmosphere is not of the slightest importance. Even if it was 100% or 1000% of what resides in the atmosphere within a year. Only the difference between what is released by the oceans and what is absorbed is important: that makes that the amount in the atmosphere increases or decreases. We know with reasonable accuracy that the oceans absorb about 2.5 PgC more than they release, so the total of all oceans on earth is a net sink for CO2 and not the cause of the measured increase. That is reinforced by the 13C/12C ratio of the (deep) oceans which is higher than of the atmosphere, thus a huge release of CO2 from the oceans should give an increase of the atmospheric 13C/12C ratio, but we see a sharp decline, in ratio with fossil fuel burning…

ERINOME  Says:

180 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere warms the planet by about 30 C (Stefan-Boltzmann law).

Why, then, shouldn’t another 110 ppm warm it more? (Let alone another 300-500 ppm in our future…?)

WRONG! It’s the atmospheric greenhouses gases ALL TOGETHER that are (supposed to) heat the planet to around 30degC higher than would be the case without them. And the overwhelming proportion of that warming effect is due to the water vapour which is ever-present in the atmosphere ANYWAY due to the physics of the vapour pressure balance that must be maintained between the atmosphere and the oceans.

If you took away ALL the CO2 from the atmosphere and oceans (but do remember we are talking physics here not biology!), the drop in temperature would be minuscule. So the opposite follows: if you DOUBLE CO2 from its present value, the increase in temperature will also be miniscule.

No serious sceptic would deny climate change. Climate always changes and this will continue. Glaciers always flow downhill, under gravity, to warmer areas and melt. It is what they do. The glaciers that sculpted the U shaped valleys in Scotland, Switzerland and America as well as many other countries, are no longer there so had to have melted. Non of this is a sign of impending doom only that we live on a dynamic planet.

Robert Brown says:

December 9, 2011 at 8:28 pm

Have a look at this website for some realistic greenhouse gas numbers

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

Also:-

1. CO2measured at Mauna Loa Volcano Hawai shows a steady increase for 100 years but has increased by only about 80ppm over that period i.e. .008%. (Warmists quote this as a 30% increase in CO2)

2. H2O is 95% of Greenhouse gas CO2 only 3.6%

IPPC reports and other AGW claims ignore H2O as a greenhouse gas.

Sorry, correction to my previous post:-

1. CO2 measured at Mauna Loa Volcano Hawai shows a steady increase for 100 years but has increased by only about 80ppm over that period i.e. .008% of total greenhouse gases. (Warmists quote this as a 30% increase in CO2)

Ferdinand Engelbeen @1:22 am:

” All models take the effect of all forcings as equally important. Thus a 1 W/m2 change in solar radiation over time (as may be the case) is incorportated in the models as equal to 1 W/m2 change in radiative effect of a CO2 increase.”

AOGCMs deal with each cell individually. Therefore, if there is a difference in response to different forcings due to the different distribution of the effect, that will show up in the AOGCMs. Assuming that the theory of AGW is based on simple one dimensional models in the face of all the evidence is beneath you.

What is more, because the AOGCM’s do handle the differences of distribution of various effects directly, they in fact do show up the differences in forcing effects. Contrary to your assumption, therefore, 1 W/m^2 of CO2 forcing is not assumed to be directly equivalent to 1 W/m^2 of solar forcing. You would do well to read that little known document, the IPCC AR4 on the subject, and in particular section 2.8.5 of WG 1:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-8-5.html

” Efficacy (E) is defined as the ratio of the climate sensitivity parameter for a given forcing agent (λi) to the climate sensitivity parameter for CO2 changes, that is, Ei = λi / λCO2 (Joshi et al., 2003; Hansen and Nazarenko, 2004). Efficacy can then be used to define an effective RF (= Ei RFi) (Joshi et al., 2003; Hansen et al., 2005). For the effective RF, the climate sensitivity parameter is independent of the mechanism, so comparing this forcing is equivalent to comparing the equilibrium global mean surface temperature change. That is, ΔTs = λCO2 x Ei x RFi Preliminary studies have found that efficacy values for a number of forcing agents show less model dependency than the climate sensitivity values (Joshi et al., 2003). Effective RFs have been used get one step closer to an estimator of the likely surface temperature response than can be achieved by using RF alone (Sausen and Schumann, 2000; Hansen et al., 2005; Lohmann and Feichter, 2005). Adopting the zero-surface-temperature-change RF, which has efficacies closer to unity, may be another way of achieving similar goals (see Section 2.8.3). This section assesses the efficacy associated with stratospherically adjusted RF, as this is the definition of RF adopted in this chapter (see Section 2.2). Therefore, cloud-aerosol interaction effects beyond the cloud albedo RF are included in the efficacy term. The findings presented in this section are from an assessment of all the studies referenced in the caption of Figure 2.19, which presents a synthesis of efficacy results. As space is limited not all these studies are explicitly discussed in the main text.”

and:

” Solar changes, compared to CO2, have less high-latitude RF and more of the RF realised at the surface. Established but incomplete knowledge suggests that there is partial compensation between these effects, at least in some models, which leads to solar efficacies close to 1.0. All models with a positive solar RF find efficacies of 1.0 or smaller. One study finds a smaller efficacy than other models (0.63: Gregory et al., 2004). However, their unique methodology for calculating climate sensitivity has large uncertainties (see Section 2.8.4). These studies have only examined solar RF from total solar irradiance change; any indirect solar effects (see Section 2.7.1.3) are not included in this efficacy estimate. Overall, there is medium confidence that the direct solar efficacy is within the 0.7 to 1.0 range.”

“Taking the sunspot numbers since 1900 and plotting an 11-year running average

Results in a graph showing an increasing sunspot trend for 110-years”

No it does not – if this statement is a blatant lie, why would anyone believe the rest of the post?

Rosco says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:04 am

“Besides GHGs are not the only gases in the atmosphere which are heated and therefore radiating IR.”

Yes they are. Only the ‘greenhouse gases’ absorb and emit infrared radiation. The main constituents of the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen, do not. It is the radiation from the greenhouse gases that make the Earth’s surface warmer than it would without greenhouse gases.

Robert Brown December 9, 2011 at 8:28 pm

“The amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere/oceans produced by mankind is tiny in comparison to the amount found naturally”

Just curious, but what are the actual numbers, there. Anyone?

Most CO2 that enters the atmosphere every year comes from natural sources (about 97%). Humans contribute the remaining 3%.

Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, The Scientific Basis, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Reported here by the US Energy Information Administration, Table 3, Page 26. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/057304.pdf

So, if we stopped our emissions completely, 97% of CO2 would still be ‘pumped’ into the atmosphere from natural sources.

However, we also know that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have risen from pre-industrial levels of about 280pp to about 390ppm today – and are continuing to rise by about 2ppm per year. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

The current level is significantly higher than levels experienced in any previous interglacial period, where CO2 levels were consistent with our pre-industrial levels. So, perhaps, human kind are responsible for this.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png

Notice however, although our current CO2 levels are much higher than in other interglacials, the temperature is not. In the previous interglacial, the Eemian, it was generally warmer everywhere than it is today (according to the IPCC).

Not bad Jim

not bad at all.

In my humble opinion it is pointless trying to persuade the zealots, they never were interested in the facts anyway. But there is a whole section of middle-ground people out there who will be persuaded by a simplistic sound bite like the above.

mine is even simplistic-er

Yeah we believe in climate change all right, but we dont swallow the scaremongers reasons

The author says, “There are those who would interpret facts to fit their agendas.”

That’s funny.

Tom Curtis says:

December 10, 2011 at 3:01 am

Tom, as I said, the models assume that the 1 W/m2 of change in solar strength is equal to 1 W/m2 change in forcing by greenhouse gases. That is in fact confirmed by what the IPCC wrote. No matter how the different models come to that conclusion, the endresult is what I said, with some spread. Hansen e.a. (and the models) have some “wiggle room” by using the “efficacy” of the different forcings. See:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_2.pdf

where solar changes have an efficacy of 0.9-1.0 compared to CO2.

But that simply is what is incorporated in the models. If one tests the HADCM3 model with increased (10x) solar strength, then the “optimal” fingerprint for solar amplitude is 1-4 times stronger at the cost of the GHGs strength (0.60-0.85). See:

http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf

That is within the constraints of the HadCM3 model, like a fixed forcing/efficiency for aerosols. Without such constraints, the solar effect could go even further. Besides that, the implementation of highly uncertain aerosols (not even the sign is sure), gives all freedom for the modellers to implement any enhanced effect of CO2. The basic radiation effect is not more than 0.9°C for 2xCO2; 1.3°C including water vapour. All the rest is modelwork, where aerosols and clouds can have positive and negative effects at will… As the models fail the test of time (95% of all model runs now are above the observations), the “enhanced” greenhouse effect is clearly far too high.

Tom Curtis, in addition:

During high solar activity, the ITCZ and the jet stream position is more polewards, at low activity more equatorwards. That is observed during the 11/22 year solar cycle, but also plays a role in the overall activity between the long term minima and maxima (Maunder Minimum, last halve 20th century maximum). The main origin: solar UV maxima and minima are far more pronounced (10%) than the overall solar energy (1%) changes over a solar cycle. Solar UV is largely absorbed in the lower startosphere, leading to ozone formation changes and heating up of the lower stratosphere, mainly in the tropics. That causes more poleward air flow from the equator to the poles in the stratosphere and shifts in ITCZ and jet stream position. The latter causes shifts in clouds and rain patterns. Including a reverse correlation between (long term) sun cycles and cloud cover. Some literature:

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL024393.shtml

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030926070112.htm

http://www.nwra.com/resumes/baldwin/pubs/SolarCycleStrat_TropDynamicalCoupling.pdf

Rainfall:

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023787.shtml (Portugal)

http://ks.water.usgs.gov/pubs/reports/paclim99.html (Mississippi delta)

This is the base of many to claim that the effect of solar is underestimated in current climate models and the effects of GHGs and aerosols are overestimated…

Bomber_the_Cat says:

December 10, 2011 at 4:10 am

Most CO2 that enters the atmosphere every year comes from natural sources (about 97%). Humans contribute the remaining 3%.

You forget the other side: 98.5% of all CO2 that enters the atmosphere every year disappears into natural sinks. Thus the natural sinks are larger than the natural sources and the 1.5% that remains is what gives the extra increase in the atmosphere. Only the 3% of human origin is what causes the increase, not the 97% natural CO2…

“180 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere warms the planet by about 30 C (Stefan-Boltzmann law).

Why, then, shouldn’t another 110 ppm warm it more? (Let alone another 300-500 ppm in our future…?)”

I’ll have to look at the numbers on this site — this is part of what I was asking, but what I was REALLY asking was also — presuming various increases or decreases in the depth of the thermocline (increased thermocline depth is expected in a warming phase) and the lowered solubility of CO_2 in water, how much of the surplus over the ~280 ppm pre-industrial level is due to warming of the ocean (basically shifting the quasi-equilibrium point in an OPEN system) and how much is due to humans?

To put it another way, we know CO_2 levels track temperature. Indeed, they oscillate annually, and the ocean is a massive dynamical sink, buffering (absorbing) and releasing CO_2 with temperature all the time. Indeed, it removes CO_2 altogether over time as it is bound up and falls to the ocean floor in the constant rain of bodies that drift down to the cold silt in the great dark (and eventually gets subducted and perhaps turned into oil, although that’s only one plausible explanation for oil, if maybe the most plausible one).

So what “should” the CO_2 level be?

rgb

Gail Combs says on December 9, 2011 at 6:00 pm:

“This explains why we can never ever win an argument with a Warmist. To them there are no objective facts.”

=========

You Forgot to mention “the fact of human overpopulation” as pontificated by The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 – 1834) but never mind that. – For now, at least.

If we ever wish to “win an argument with a Warmist” – then all those who call themselves “Skeptics” while at the same time believe that CO2 is a “Greenhouse Gas” (GHG) must ask themselves: “Why, oh why – do I believe CO2 to be a GHG?” –

Soon, very soon – those “skeptics” will find there is no proof for that hypothesis whatsoever.

Then, and only then, can we “Call the Warmists out” and ask them to prove that CO2 is indeed a GHG. I can assert you “The Greenhouse Effect” rests on falsehoods, misunderstandings and false assumptions.

please show the graphs. hearsay is inadmissible.

“Taking the sunspot numbers since 1900 and plotting an 11-year running average

Results in a graph showing an increasing sunspot trend for 110-years

The Hadley Center has a 110-year sea surface temperature record

The trends in sea surface temperature and sunspot trends are similar”

What you hear depends on who and what you listen to.

What you see depends on who and what you watch.

Everything is relative,

Especially since we can only be in one place at a time.

Life’s a beach.

Get used to it.

“Bomber_the_Cat says: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

December 10, 2011 at 4:10 am

Rosco says:

“Besides GHGs are not the only gases in the atmosphere which are heated and therefore radiating IR.”

Yes they are. Only the ‘greenhouse gases’ absorb and emit infrared radiation. The main constituents of the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen, do not. It is the radiation from the greenhouse gases that make the Earth’s surface warmer than it would without greenhouse gases."

———————————————–

no, bomberthecat, they are NOT. what do you think a thermometer measures- radiation?

does nitrogen disobey stefan bolzman? can oxygen never be warm?

are you familiar with avogadro? ever hear of conduction? how about convection?

how do you think temperature is defined – joules?

i am wondering where the radiation fetish comes from? was that your first date with thermodynamics imprinting on you like tinbergen duckling?

“Yeah we believe in climate change all right, but we dont swallow the scaremongers reasons”

See here is the problem.

Climate change is a fact, not a religion.

You either accept the fact, or deny it, not “believe” in it.

Part of climate change is warming, some is cooling. Climate changes has happened over millions of years on the earth.

We have seen warming recently, as measured by thermometers. This is a fact. You can accept the fact or deny it. If you deny it, then you need to challenge the measurement process (which was done by BEST) which IMHO affirmed the fact.

CO2 in the atmosphere has increased. This is a fact. you can accept the fact or deny it. If you deny it you have to challenge the measurement process (this has not been done). But I have not seen any evidence to refute this fact.

Is the increased CO2 in the atmospher a contributer to the warming. There have been many experiments that have been done that point to the FACT that this is true. Dr. Pielke Sr. and many others have affirmed this fact. You can either accept the fact or deny it.

Now whether the warming is good or bad is a POLITICAL or RELGIOUS “belief”.

Libertarians (hello Chistopher Moncton, George Monbiot, James Delingpole, Jo Nova, Thomas Fuller, and our friend Willis Eschenbach … http://www.libertarian.to/author/index.php) “BELIEVE” that there should be no governmental interference, no laws that impede an individuals/businesses choice of action, ie laissez-faire Capitalism. (ah good old Ayn Rand’s Objectivism)

Others worry about the effects of this warming .. what will happen to the food output of the world, what will happen to coastal city erosion, what will happen to weather.. What will be the cost of these changes? To some it is important to do “something” to mitigate this warming by reducing CO2 output EVEN IF it is not the main cause of the current warming, it is still a partial one. The COST of doing nothing is of a concern to the U.S. Navy (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12897) and to many countries with sea level coastal cities.

So there you are. You can BELIEVE we should do nothing about the warming, or you can BELIEVE we should. All other hand waving is MOOT.

Taking the sunspot numbers since 1900 and plotting an 11-year running average

Results in a graph showing an increasing sunspot trend for 110-years

No it doesn’t.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:132/from:1900

The Hadley Center has a 110-year sea surface temperature record

The trends in sea surface temperature and sunspot trends are similar

No they are not.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:132/from:1900/offset:-80/scale:0.01/plot/hadsst2gl/mean:132

The increase in atmospheric CO2 is consistent with rising SST

It is wildly inconsistent. The increase in sea surface temperature can account for no more than about 5ppm of the observed 110ppm rise since pre-industrial times.

“Objectivity is the goal.”

Your shot went way into the stands.

“Soon, very soon – those “skeptics” will find there is no proof for that hypothesis whatsoever.

Then, and only then, can we “Call the Warmists out” and ask them to prove that CO2 is indeed a GHG. I can assert you “The Greenhouse Effect” rests on falsehoods, misunderstandings and false assumptions.”

You mean, aside from the mountains of proof including tabletop experiments that anyone can do in a decently equipped physics lab? You mean, instead of all of the rather solid spectroscopy involved, plus models that no reasonable person could call completely wrong?

The disagreement here is in the details of the models — the relative strengths of different terms in a complicated equation that governs thermal balance in the open system that is the earth, not on “whether CO_2 is a greenhouse gas”. It is remarks like this that permit the “warmists” — quite rightly, in some cases — to accuse all skeptics of being batshit crazy as opposed to being “reasonable” about the issue.

rgb

Robert Brown says:

December 9, 2011 at 8:28 pm

re; numbers for CO2 emission, ppm, etc.

A strange but true correlation is that near as anyone can tell exactly half of annual anthropogenic CO2 emission is sticky i.e. it remains in the atmosphere indefinitely. The average annual increase in CO2 lately is 1.5ppm which works out to about a half of a percent. So human emission is about 3ppm now or about 1% of amount that’s resident in the atmosphere. This 1/2 ratio holds true no matter how much or how little anthropogenic CO2 is emitted as far back as can be determined.

Natural annual emission is a far higher number as must be the various sinks. It’s difficult to argue that the increasing amount in the atmosphere is not due to human emission. The natural sources and sinks appear to be well balanced with glacial vs. interglacial atmospheric equilibrium point changing from 200ppm to 280ppm respectively.

It’s difficult to argue that if there were no anthropogenic emissions there would still be an increase. It appears to me as if there’s a natural equilibrium point of 280ppm and that the faster human activity emits CO2 the harder the natural sinks work to bring it back down to 280ppm. My hypothesis is that if human emission stopped entirely atmospheric CO2 would decline at the same rate that it rose, quickly at first then slower and slower as the natural equilibrium point was approached.

There’s certainly a good case to be made for average ocean temperature to be an overwhelming factor when there’s a large enough change but the fact of the matter is that the average temperature of the ocean is 3.9C and no one knows how much or little the average temperature has changed. It’s fairly well established that in normal, pre-ice age conditions atmospheric CO2 was far higher than today and average surface temperature was 8C higher with the lion’s share of that being expansion of temperate zone all the way to the poles. Antarctica was covered by temperate forest. The water cycle appears to put a cap on regional high temperature and as greenhouse effect increases the tropics don’t get warmer as the retained energy is shuffled to the poles more quickly. The whole system can be roughly thought of like a auto engine and a radiator where the tropics are the engine and the poles are the radiator. As the engine speeds up and temperature rises so too does the flow of cooling water moving from tropics to poles so that the tropical temperature doesn’t go up but the polar temperature rises by a whole lot. The position of the continental plates is thought to have a lot to do with enabling or disabling ice ages as they can both throttle and change oceanic conveyor belt shuffling water in a circle from tropics to poles and back and can also either cover or expose the pole. An exposed pole (open water) can dump heat far faster than a pole where a plate blocks the conveyor belt from reaching the sweet spot for heat removal.

The extent and duration of sea ice on the north pole is also a factor. Sea ice is a wonderful insulator as it blocks all but conductive heat loss from the ocean beneath. When there’s no ice heat escapes far faster as the primary method of oceanic heat loss, evaporation, is enabled and the secondary method, radiation, is also enabled. Conduction is a tertiary means of ocean heat loss. So you can think of the arctic ice cap as being like a thernostat in an automotive liquid cooling system – as the amount of heat in the water arriving from the increases it causes a decrease in sea ice cover which allows the heat to escape faster. It’s a perfect example of a negative feedback.

The bottom line is that we live on a water world and water, in all its phases, is the big kahuna. Non-condensing greenhouse gases play a very minor role so long as most of the ocean is free of ice. Ice cover inhibits the water cycle and as it moves farther toward the equator reflects increasingly more energy which in turn fosters even more ice formation in a runaway cooling. It is widely assumed that when that happens non-condensing greenhouse gases from volcanism and dark ash accumulation on the ice growing and growing over millions of years eventually tip the scales and create a runaway melt.

Fascinating stuff. The bottom line for me is that current CO2 level is anemic compared to most of the earth’s history and the biosphere is anemic by consquence since ice and low CO2 concentration inhibit plant growth. Plants are the primary producers in the food chain so the more plants prosper the more the animal kingdom prospers. The earth has been in an ice for several million years with a cyclical partial thaw happening about once per 100,000 years and persisting for 10,000 years. The current thaw has lasted longer than 10,000 years already and any human actions that would serve to end the thaw are not sane actions. Therefore, drill baby drill and burn baby burn – it’s good for industry and good for the biosphere – a win-win situation.

harvey says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:58 am

“If you deny it, then you need to challenge the measurement process (which was done by BEST) which IMHO affirmed the fact.”

They affirmed the record. Unfortunately the record is of only a small fraction of the northern hemisphere land surface (Europe and the continental United States) and the instruments used were never meant to measure changes as small as a tenth of a degree.

The FACT is that the raw instrumental temperature record shows no overall warming trend since 1880. Most of the warming trend comes from the “adjustments” applied to the recorded temperatures with so-called Time of Observation Bias being the primary source of warming trend. To say that the warming is man-made is quite true but it appears that it is made by pencil whipping the instrument record rather than by increasing CO2 emissions. BEST did not abandon the TOB adjustments so they really only confirmed that no one in the past made any basic arithmetic errors. They did nothing to increase the abysmal spatial coverage, the inability to read the thermometers to sub-degree precision, nor prove the series of adjustments to the raw data are justifiable and, once again, without those adjustments there is no warming to be found.

Dear Mr. Springer

You seem to be in the camp that believes that warming is a good thing. That nothing bad can come from it. Probably not for you. But talk to the people in the Netherlands and Bangladesh.. oh but they are of no concern to you….

This here is the crux of the matter. Will warming affect you negatively (probably not if you are a rich american) or (probably if you are a poor farmer).

Here is the religious/political divide. Do you try to help fellow man, or step on their heads whilst they lie in the gutter.

Harvey.

The other interesting fact is that the earth seems to absorb measurably less CO2 in warmer years than in cooler ones. Maybe this portends something for the future of that fraction (about a half) that gets re-absorbed into the earth system. In other words, this fraction could decrease compounding the fact that the emission rate is increasing in future CO2 levels.

Dear Mr Springer.

You make hand waving statements about “no overall warming trend”.. Hang on, there is more than enough evidence in the satellite and world records to refute this. Can you please provide documentation for your wild assertions?

thanks

Harvey

Robert Brown says:

December 10, 2011 at 8:39 am

“You mean, aside from the mountains of proof including tabletop experiments that anyone can do in a decently equipped physics lab? You mean, instead of all of the rather solid spectroscopy involved, plus models that no reasonable person could call completely wrong?”

Table top? How about in the palm of your hand. I’ve posted many times here the theory of operation behind electronic infrared CO2 sensors which are basically John Tyndall’s 1860 lab setup which took up large room minaturized into a space the size of a thimbal. Moreover one can even prove to oneself that so-called back radiation happens in the atmosphere by taking a $50 handheld infrared thermometer and pointing it up at the night sky under varying conditions of clouds and humidity. It will give a warmer reading of the sky temperature when humidity is higher soley because water vapor is a greenhouse gas. This is why when all else is equal surface temperature falls faster in low humidity than high humidity and why deserts get much colder at night than non-desert regions where everything except humidity is equal.

“The disagreement here is in the details of the models — the relative strengths of different terms in a complicated equation that governs thermal balance in the open system that is the earth, not on “whether CO_2 is a greenhouse gas”. It is remarks like this that permit the “warmists” — quite rightly, in some cases — to accuse all skeptics of being batshit crazy as opposed to being “reasonable” about the issue.”

Yes, this has been a pet peeve of mine since forever. One can argue about the response of the system to increased CO2, the so-called sensitivity, but one cannot argue that CO2 in and of itself does not absorb infrared energy and emit a portion of it backwards toward the source. Tyndall experimentally confirmed that characteristic of certain gases 150 years ago and it is exactly how electronic gas-level sensors work today for any gases that exhibit infrared absorption which definitely includes CO2. These sensors are employed all over the world in ventilation controls for buildings where they sense the CO2 level caused by human occupation of the structure and turn on ventilation fans when the level rises above what’s acceptable.

Jennifer says:

December 10, 2011 at 8:31 am

Taking the sunspot numbers since 1900 and plotting an 11-year running average

Results in a graph showing an increasing sunspot trend for 110-years

No it doesn’t.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:132/from:1900

Bullspit. The rise has a name. It’s called “The Modern Maximum”. Google it honey. Regardless of what some clueless “woodfortrees” site might claim the sunspot record is well known and so is the modern maximum.

Let me help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Maximum

Get a clue.

@harvey:

I’m not sure what your point is. If CO2 contributes less than 50% to the current warm temperature anomaly then natural variability will dominate CO2 effects over the long term. Simply put, if the current anomaly is .7C and CO2 accounts for .3C then natural effects which vary over time could easily drive the anomaly in a negative direction. Saying that it’s a fact now says nothing about what the world will be like in 50 years. Climate science is a lot like chess in that respect. You start with 20 possible opening moves (your “fact”) but after just 4 moves there can be over 72,000 different outcomes. The fact that you move your King’s Pawn first doesn’t make it a dominant player in the game.

There was a high level of solar activity throughout the last half of the 20th century. It was elevated even while the trend after 1980 was slightly negative. While the TSI increase wasn’t enough to directly account for all of the observed warming, there is no reason to believe that increased solar radiation would affect the Earth in a linear fashion. Why is it that climate scientists insist that warmth due to CO2 must be accompanied by feedbacks, but seem to ignore the possible side-effects of a clear increase in the primary energy source for the planet? (That’s a pretty easy question to answer: You can’t tax the Sun or seek “climate justice” because it’s more active.)

The political situation is not ambiguous. The UN is dedicated to redistributing global wealth and influence, which should give everyone reason to doubt their objectivity. The IPCC has made enough blatant errors, and always on the side of alarmists, to clearly indicate that they are politically driven. The Climategate emails show that the leading academics in the field have drifted into advocacy as well. For years we were told that the MWP/MCA didn’t exist, even though there was ample evidence that it had occurred and only Mann’s hockey stick to show that it hadn’t. In the face of overwhelming evidence the IPCC now grudgingly admits that the MWP/MCA was real, but still says that it’s likely (>50% probability) to have been cooler than the current anomaly. What they still don’t seem to get is that almost no one is disputing that CO2 can have SOME effect on global temperatures, so if it’s .2C warmer now than it was 1000 years ago, then we should be discussing that number instead of ascribing the entire anomaly to greenhouse gases. The problem for alarmists is that that level of warming isn’t very, well…alarming.

Without AGW, climate scientists would work in quiet anonymity, just as do researchers in most other fields. Instead they are courted by politicians, command enormous sums for speaking engagements, and are invited to exotic locations to plan the future of the world. I doubt anyone is resisting their call to action out of a misguided loyalty to Ayn Rand, but the unwarranted assumptions, shoddy practices, and outright obfustication of contradictory evidence creates an atmosphere of distrust. (Hm. “Atmosphere of Distrust”. Sounds like a great book title. I think I’ll start writing…)

There seems to be a lot of bad science, or lack of science, in this thread. Not all however, just rather a lot. The first bunch of replies seemed to have misunderstood Jim Goodridge and that’s a shame. And I find it sad to see issues that have been answered well here in the past, coming up for another airing and not always getting such good answers. All this reinforces my conviction that skeptics still need a Climate Science wiki. And when I have time I will take this idea further. Or if it speaks to you as a hot topic now, please email me.

I’ve been through Skeptical Science’s “debunks” of all the skeptic issues and de-debunked them one by one. That taught me a lot. The science was still nowhere near as clear as I would have liked. But three things were painfully clear

(1) there was no crisis

(2) any imagined solution would not only not work but would be horrendously expensive

(3) there was deep corruption in high places regarding the science.

So though I’m still not convinced by Ferdinand Engelbeen on CO2 (quite apart from having difficulty in following him and not falling asleep) we do agree at the most basic level of the 3 points above.

Click my name to learn about the science. And here are the numbers that Robert Brown is asking for, getting CO2 in proportion – together with pictures. Though doing my best to stay neutral and evidence-based, it’s still my POV and I could be wrong in places though I’ve had a lot of support and have examined, and sometimes corrected, many issues where challenged. Most importantly, I think it sheds a lot of light on the real issues and real science in Climate Science. But I come here (rather than our own forum!) to chat and discuss.

The level of comments here still makes me believe we need a skeptics’ climate science wiki, to capture the best of snappy facts, as well as provide the backup evidence and references that are largely missing from this thread.

Dear Phizzics.

Do you accept the fact that earth has been warming over the last 100 years.

Do you accept the fact that CO2 has been increasing in the atmosphere.

Do you accept the fact the CO2 “contributes” to said warming.

Forget the politics, Forget your religion, Forget your Idiology.

IF this warming trend continues, for whatever reason, are you, your family and your ancestors willing to accept the consequences?

thanks

Harvey

Solar activity confirmed by carbon-14 isotope ratio:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon-14_with_activity_labels.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation#Carbon-14_production

Carbon-14 level in well dated plant materials also happens to discount any claims that sunspot records are not comparable over the past 400 years because of changing methods of counting them. C14 is independent of astronomical observation and aligns perfectly with observatory counts going back to the year 1600.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/20675

Note the quick gratuitous denial of a relationship between solar magnetic activity and climate below. The hiliarious fact of the matter is that you have little chance of getting something like this published if you don’t explicitely state that you’re onboard the AGW bandwagon of cargo-cult climate scientists. What a fine mess.

Sunspots hit new highs

Oct 27, 2004

The Sun is more active at present than it has been for over 8000 years according to a new method for determining the level of sunspot activity in the past. Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute in Katlenburg-Lindau and colleagues in Finland, Germany and Switzerland have developed a technique that relates the number of sunspots to the concentration of carbon-14 in tree rings. However, the team insists that this high level of solar activity is unlikely to be the main cause of global warming (Nature 431 1084).

Sunspots are produced by magnetic activity inside the Sun. Observations of sunspots began in 1610 — soon after the telescope was invented — but no other data exists from before this time. Last year, Solanki and co-workers used the concentration of beryllium-10 in polar ice as a proxy for historic levels of solar activity but their reconstructions only went back as far as 850 AD. Now carbon-dating has enabled them to go back 11,400 years in time.

Carbon-14, like beryllium-10, is produced when cosmic rays interact with particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. The radioisotope is then converted into carbon dioxide and is stored in tree rings as they form. The Sun’s magnetic field can deflect cosmic rays away from the Earth, so a stronger field leads to less carbon-14, and vice versa. Using carbon-14 data Solanki and colleagues found that there has been a sharp increase in the number of sunspots since the beginning of the 20th century. The new results agree with their previous findings based on beryllium-10 (figure 1).

The calculations also showed that there have been three prominent periods of high sunspot number — with the average number exceeding 50 — in the last 11,400 years. These occurred mainly before 6000 BC (figure 2). However, the present value of about 75 sunspots is the highest ever recorded in the last 8000 years. According to the team, this period of unusually high activity has lasted for an abnormally long time and should end within 50 years.

Despite the high level of solar activity we are currently witnessing, Solanki and colleagues say that man-made factors are responsible for current global warming. Climate models have shown that solar activity can only account for 30% at most of the global warming experienced since 1970.

Dear Lucy Skywalker

You make 3 points:

(1) there was no crisis

(2) any imagined solution would not only not work but would be horrendously expensive

(3) there was deep corruption in high places regarding the science.

1. The crisis is relative. Is there a current crisis? No. Is there a crisis for people living in Montana? NO Will there be a crisis in the future? Yes if the world keeps warming the way it is. The crisis will be world wide, and will affect different people differently. Some people will see no problems, or even an improved world, but others will face life threatening situations.

2. Yes the imagined solutions ARE expensive, and maybe not the right ones. Do you have some suggestions?

3. There was NO corruption regarding the science. There PROBABLY is corrupion regarding the POLITICS surrounding the science.

BTW i will make a pronouncement here, if you do not watch out, CHINA will be the dominant world power and the USA, and the opinions of the USA will become a has been. CHINA is proposing to build 200+ nuclear reactors in the next 40 years and lets not even talk about their installations of solar and wind power facilities.

thanks

harvey

Dear Mr Springer

Yes Humans always are messy. We are apes after all.

I would like to explore why you have a prejudice against published works in peer-reviewed articles? Do you think there is a world conspiracy against those who are rejected for publication? Is this conspiracy lead by the Cabal, or by the Bilderberg Council?

thanks

Harvey

harvey says: December 10, 2011 at 9:15 am

Dear Mr. Springer, You seem to be in the camp that believes that warming is a good thing. That nothing bad can come from it. Probably not for you. But talk to the people in the Netherlands and Bangladesh.. oh but they are of no concern to you….

Sir, you are terribly mistaken.

Click my name and go to the main part of our website to see our green credentials. I care about people and the planet. And so do many others here. Anthony’s interests at WUWT would have been palpably green, had not the problem of corrupt science raised its ugly head, big time.

Superstition means “building upon” – building up and up where the foundations are rotten. In this case, the highly-corrupted science is the rotten foundation. Sea levels are not rising fast, their rate of rise is tiny. And they are not rising faster, the rate of rise is slowing down. The icecaps are not melting overall, so catastrophic sea level rise is not on the cards. Click my name to correct your compass. If you choose.

The really horrendous problem the planet has, with all this, is the unbelievable corruption of the science, and the unwillingness of people in high places, at the tops of the Climate Science profession, as much as their supporters visiting WUWT, to look again, or even, at times, to play honest. That is what I find scary. People like that are much more likely to create problems like war, fascism, financial thuggery, etc. As we see from telling bits of evidence like the expensive non-solutions offered, or the video 10-10. Truth matters.

Dave Springer:

Bullspit. The rise has a name. It’s called “The Modern Maximum”. Google it honey. Regardless of what some clueless “woodfortrees” site might claim the sunspot record is well known and so is the modern maximum.

You sweet thing you. That site has the actual measured sunspot data. The guy said that if I plotted a running 11 year mean since 1900, I’d see “an increasing sunspot trend for 110 years”. I plotted what he said. I don’t see what he said I should see. If I somehow got it wrong, maybe you could point me to a chart you’ve made that shows it correctly.

Jennifer showed some plots earlier, and David Springer seems to have missed the point. The rise stopped, you may notice, around 1950, and there has been a decline since the 1980′s, as I also mentioned earlier. The warming has increased since then. This was the point that was missed. The original post implied a correlation that just isn’t there in his 11-year running average. I don’t know what his error was, and no one has yet replied that they know.

If this is Jim’s “stock response” to justify reasoned skepticism, I for one don’t get it. Is he trying to confuse the reader? Is there a point that isn’t conflicted or contradicted? Could he have been less convincing?

Maybe “Jim is a tool” was a bit outlandish but he’s definitely a “word nerd” who never uses a single word where a hundred or so will do.

Jennifer said it best Jim: “Your shot went way into the stands”.

Dave Springer:

At December 10, 2011 at 8:48 am you say:

“ It appears to me as if there’s a natural equilibrium point of 280ppm …”

No, you are wrong because there is NOT “a natural equilibrium point of 280ppm”, and your entire argument is based on the mistaken assumption that there is. If there were a “natural equilibrium point” then its value would vary in response to variations of several parameters (importantly, temperature).

Richard

harvey:

At December 10, 2011 at 9:48 am you say to Phizzics.

“Do you accept the fact that earth has been warming over the last 100 years.

Do you accept the fact that CO2 has been increasing in the atmosphere.

Do you accept the fact the CO2 “contributes” to said warming.

Forget the politics, Forget your religion, Forget your Idiology.

IF this warming trend continues, for whatever reason, are you, your family and your ancestors willing to accept the consequences?”

You seem to have made some misprints so I take the liberty of correcting them for you as follows.

“Do you accept the fact that earth has been COOLING over the last 10 years.

Do you accept the fact that CO2 has been increasing in the atmosphere.

Do you accept the fact the CO2 “contributes” to said COOLING.

Forget the politics, Forget your religion, Forget your Idiology.

IF this COOLING trend continues, for whatever reason, are you, your family and your ancestors willing to accept the consequences?”

There, corrected it for you.

Richard

Harvey@10:10

Isn’t it a travesty that the USA is not buiding nuclear power plants as China is? Instead, we are spending billions on solar farms etc that don’t do 24/7 generation.

Talk about stupid eh?

What will it take to get the CAGW crowd to get serious about emissions? As they are right now, it is readily apparant that they only want to redistribute wealth and the environment be dammed.

Robert Brown says on December 10, 2011 at 8:39 am:

“You mean, aside from the mountains of proof including tabletop experiments that anyone can do in a decently equipped physics lab? You mean, instead of all of the rather solid spectroscopy involved, plus models that no reasonable person could call completely wrong?”

===========

Thank you Robert Brown, I may have, at at long last, found the “right person” to ask. – Please choose just one out the mountains of your tabletop experiments and explain how it proves that there is such a thing as Long Wave Infra Red (LWIR) radiation that is absorbed by, and warms, CO2.

I have no quibble with long wave radiation, or radiation without light, but “Infra Red” denotes below or under Red and exists solely in solar or other irradiation that contain, at least, the wavebands of Red and Infra Red.

The Rules say; – as I am sure you know – that anything that has a temperature higher than absolute zero, must emit energy. Pray tell me, therefore; why do the other gases, N2, O2 and Ar not radiate their heat away, or back to the surface?

And also, while you are at it, please tell me, how does “solid spectroscopy” prove that heat can radiate?

“Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.”

Hi Harvey:

Reasonable questions that I thought I answered in my first post. Sorry if I wasn’t clear.

Yes, I believe that the Earth has warmed over the past 100 years. Yes I believe that CO2 has increased. Yes I believe that it has contributed to the current warm anomaly.

None of that is particularly interesting though, as the devil lies in the details. Do I believe, or more importantly, has the science clearly shown CO2 to be the dominant factor in determining global temperature? Absolutely not. Has the science clearly shown that there will be negative consequences from the effects of CO2? Absolutely not. Are there other, more immediate concerns that are clearly understood and require attention. Certainly. Why then is such a huge emphasis placed on the possible effects of CO2? In our world CO2 emissions are closely linked to affluence, and exaggerating their effects offers a scientific basis for the UN’s ongoing effort to redistribute wealth.

If you don’t believe that there has been misleading information, please do a web search regarding the solar influence on global temperature. You’ll find that virtually all of the alarmist websites discuss the mismatch between the past 30 year trend in temperature (up) vs. the TSI trend for the same period (down).

Now do a simple experiment. Go to your kitchen and turn the oven up to 400 degrees. Monitor the room’s temperature. It will rise slowly due to the oven’s heat contribution. Now reduce the oven’s temperature to 396 degrees and continue to monitor the room temperature. It will continue to rise, even though the oven’s temperature trend is down. Eventually it will reach equilibrium, but it won’t depend on whether the oven is warming or cooling slightly, it will be dependent on the actual temperature of the oven. This is a VERY simple concept, and the fact that the equilibrium point is ignored in favor of discussing the minor trend is very revealing.

In short, there is advocacy where there should be science, and grandstanding where there should be humility. Even while the alarmists warn that CO2 will result in catastrophe, they jet set to conference after conference and speaking engagement after speaking engagement. They band together to support each other’s questionable conclusions and discredit those who disagree with them. If this kind of behavior were the norm in all sciences we’d still believe in the Steady State Theory and that “spiral nebulae” are our nearby galactic neighbors.

OHD, you will notice that O2, N2 and Ar only have one or two atoms in their molecule, while H2O and CO2 have three. This is where the IR effect begins. These types of molecules have vibrational modes that allow them to affect IR, which smaller molecules just can’t, because they don’t have energy states that interact with IR photons.

Lucy Skywalker says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:41 am

So though I’m still not convinced by Ferdinand Engelbeen on CO2 (quite apart from having difficulty in following him and not falling asleep) we do agree at the most basic level of the 3 points above.

Dear Lucy, didn’t know I was that boring… But repeating the main arguments may be boring, I suppose…

I have read a few parts of the GWJ reference you did supply, but that contains a lot of errors… Here a few important ones:

CO2 outgassed from 30m depth for 1ºC global temp rise = 600 Gt ie near-total atmospheric content

This is not what Henry’s Law says: “At a constant temperature, the amount of a given gas that dissolves in a given type and volume of liquid is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas in equilibrium with that liquid.”

Thus Henry’s Law is about pressure in the atmosphere, not amounts. As said before, when the sea surface increases with 1ºC, the equilibrium pressure of CO2 in solution with the atmosphere increases with 16 microatm. That means that with such a temperature increase, some CO2 will be released from the oceans until the atmospheric CO2 pressure also increased with 16 microatm (~16 ppmv). At that moment, a new equilibrium is reached. That is with a release of only 32 GtC from the oceans, whatever the further content of the ocean’s mixed layer or deep layers. Thus the 600 GtC release never will take place, simply because there is no driving force in one or the other direction.

The cumulative emissions curve’s slopes do not agree with the CDIAC/BP annual emissions graph. See below.

Of course they don’t. They are comparing the trend with the derivative of the trend! The year by year increase in the atmosphere is dominated by temperature changes, but that says next to nothing about the cause of the trend, as year by year temperature changes largely level out in a few years. By taking the derivative, one removes the trend itself…

BTW, the late Endersbee made a 21-year moving average over the period 1985-2008. If you do the same over the period 1945-1975, you have a negative correlation between temperature and CO2 level… The superb correlation between accumulated human emissions and accumulation in the atmosphere doesn’t need any averaging over the past 100+ years.

Many excellent studies show (see Segalstad) that CO2 only stays in the air around 5 years. No study shows a longer “life span” than 12 years.

How many times should be insisted that a residence time of 5 years is not of the slightest interest, as that only shows how much CO2 per year goes in and out of the atmosphere. Even if in one year all CO2 was going five times in and out the atmosphere, that doesn’t matter at all, as that doesn’t change the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Only the difference between what is going in and out matters. And currently that is only 4 GtC/yr at 210 GtC extra in the atmosphere. That means that the e-fold time to remove the total 210 GtC (at zero emissions) is 210/4 or about 57 years (~40 years half life time). A lot longer than the skeptic 5 years, but much shorter than the 100′s to 1000′s of years from the IPCC.

harvey says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:15 am

You seem to be in the camp that believes that warming is a good thing. That nothing bad can come from it. Probably not for you. But talk to the people in the Netherlands and Bangladesh.. oh but they are of no concern to you…

Living near the Dutch border, at 7 meter above msl, where a good NW storm may reach 10 meter extra sealevel… But the dikes here are at 12 m above msl, thus an extra 30 cm over this century (as the satellites show without any accelleration in the past 30 years) is no problem at all for The Netherlands. The lowest point in The Netherlands is even 12 m below msl…

Even Bangladesh is building dikes and high level shelters with the help of Dutch engineers for the occasional Tyfoon. Even there, most of its land area increases due to more deposit from the mountains than sea level rise…

I know that some commission in The Netherlands was expecting several meters of sealevel rise this century, thanks to the PIK (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) of Schellnhuber (direct advisor of Angela Merkel for Climate matters in Germany) and the direct influence of some concrete firms (to build higher dikes with a lot of profit…). But Hans Von Storch from Geesthaagt, Germany (Echo-G climate model with low sensitivity for CO2), distanciated himself from the report.

Jim D says on December 10, 2011 at 11:48 am:

“OHD, you will notice that O2, N2 and Ar only have one or two atoms in their molecule, while H2O and CO2 have three. This is where the IR effect begins. These types of molecules have vibrational modes that allow them to affect IR, which smaller molecules just can’t, because they don’t have energy states that interact with IR photons.”

=========

Yes Jim D, I know the difference between di-atomic and tri-atomic molecules, but your “fact” that only gases containing 3 or more atoms can radiate heat away, is a new one on me.

Are you now saying that the Earth’s lower atmosphere cannot cool, for any reason what so ever, if it was not for tri-atomic GHGs?

OHD, yes, the atmosphere cannot cool radiatively without these GHGs. It might cool by conduction to a cold surface.

Bomber_the_Cat says:

December 10, 2011 at 4:10 am

Rosco says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:04 am

“Besides GHGs are not the only gases in the atmosphere which are heated and therefore radiating IR.”

Yes they are. Only the ‘greenhouse gases’ absorb and emit infrared radiation. The main constituents of the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen, do not. It is the radiation from the greenhouse gases that make the Earth’s surface warmer than it would without greenhouse gases.

AGWSF does like to push the meme ‘everything above absolute zero emits infrared’, so how come oxygen and nitrogen don’t?

And, how come hot air (nitrogen and oxygen) doesn’t?

@ Robert Brown:

“…So cold that all the warming seen

From then until now

May be simply explained

By natural variation

Regression to the mean

Excursion beyond

With CO_2 the minor factor

Not the Smoking Gun

Playing second fiddle to

Earth’s variable Sun.”

Sir, this is brilliant. I hope you enjoyed composing it as much as I enjoyed reading it.

Don

You don’t need a weatherman climate scientist

To know which way the wind blows

harvey says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:48 am

Dear Phizzics.

Do you accept the fact that earth has been warming over the last 100 years.

Do you accept the fact that CO2 has been increasing in the atmosphere.

Do you accept the fact the CO2 “contributes” to said warming.

We can accept your facts, but without quantification, these statements are entirely useless. They tell us exactly nothing. You need to demonstrate significance, without significance your statements are mere flatulence. Can you not understand this? Besides, we may cool for the next hundred years (touch wood). GK

Let’s cut the crap.

Isn’t “emitting infrared radiation” just another way of saying “cooling down”?

wuwt has no standards of truth or accuracy (apparantly)

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/oh-pleeze/

harvey says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:15 am

Dear Mr. Springer

You seem to be in the camp that believes that warming is a good thing. That nothing bad can come from it. Probably not for you. But talk to the people in the Netherlands and Bangladesh.. oh but they are of no concern to you….

This here is the crux of the matter. Will warming affect you negatively (probably not if you are a rich american) or (probably if you are a poor farmer).

Here is the religious/political divide. Do you try to help fellow man, or step on their heads whilst they lie in the gutter.

Harvey.

You are grossly misinformed. Higher level of CO2 in the atmosphere makes plants grow faster/larger, use less water in the process, and extend the growing season in the higher latitudes. This helps virtually the entire living world and is an unimpeachable case of the greatest good for the greatest number. Deal with it.

Ferdinand Engelbeen says:

December 10, 2011 at 12:05 pm

We are in agreement but more important Henry’s Law is in agreement with us. I must have mistaken you for someone else when I responded a week ago because I thought you were supportive of Ernst Beck’s survey which IMO is flawed beyond use.

My take basically boils down to there being a natural equilibrium point in the typical interglacial regime of 280ppm CO2. As with most systems out of equilibrium the farther out of equilibrium it is the faster/harder the system drives back towards equilibrium. This as anthropogenic CO2 emission has risen we observe a constant rate of 50% of those emissions being removed from the atmosphere. No matter how much we emit half of it gets taken up by natural sinks. This is so very characteristic of equilibrium systems I can’t imagine any other plausible explanation. There doesn’t seem to be much room for doubt that anthropogenic emission is what’s driving the system further out of equilibrium by releasing geologically sequestered CO2 in the process of fossil fuel consumption.

Jim D says December 10, 2011 at 4:41 pm:

“OHD, yes, the atmosphere cannot cool radiatively without these GHGs. It might cool by conduction to a cold surface.”

========

Fine Jim D. All I need now is empirical proof for your statement and I shall ditch the law of nature which has fooled me all along, you know the one about “all objects that have a temperature above zero Kelvin (K) must radiate energy” and all that jazz.

Looking forward to your return posting! – And merry Christmas -

Jim D says:

December 10, 2011 at 4:41 pm

“OHD, yes, the atmosphere cannot cool radiatively without these GHGs. It might cool by conduction to a cold surface.”

Nonsense. A fundamental law of physics is that all matter with a temperature above absolute zero emits thermal radiation. This applies to subatomic particles to say nothing of whole elements or compounds. All matter in motion emits thermal radiation. Write that down.

Dave Springer says:

December 11, 2011 at 6:37 am

With respect Dave, because you make some very knowledgeable posts, you are wrong about atmospheric gases such as nitrogen and oxygen absorbing and emitting radiation in the long wave infrared region – which is what you imply. If they did, then they would all be greenhouse gases. What is the absorption spectra for nitrogen for instance|? Check it out! It absorbs in the ultraviolet, but not in the infrared.

Gases at atmospheric pressure do not approximate to blackbodies.

Let’s write it down.

Nitrogen is not a blackbody and does not absorb nor radiate in the long wave infrared.

Oxygen is not a blackbody and does not absorb nor radiate in the long wave infrared.

CO2 is not a blackbody but does absorb and radiate at a wavelength of around 15 microns.

Jim D is correct. “The atmosphere cannot cool radiatively without GHGs”

Dave Springer says:

December 11, 2011 at 6:37 am

My take basically boils down to there being a natural equilibrium point in the typical interglacial regime of 280ppm CO2.

Some good comments Dave, but I have trouble with that one statement. Sounds to me like you are relying on intuition, for that (which doesn’t mean it is wrong). I think you could be correct for ice age equilibrium, but I don’t consider that normal for the Earth. We may be establishing a new equilibrium, that will finally end the cyclic ice age glaciation, for the benefit of all. Of course, that is merely my intuition. In any event it would be interesting to note how you arrived at 280 ppm. GK

harvey says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:15 am

You seem to be in the camp that believes that warming is a good thing. That nothing bad can come from it. Probably not for you. But talk to the people in the Netherlands and Bangladesh.. oh but they are of no concern to you…

================================================

Since the Netherlands are sinking, and Bangladesh is gaining land mass due to sedimentation…

….what’s your point?

How much would we have to lower CO2 levels to create another ice age….to catch up with sinking land?

Blackbodies, which are idealized objects emit at all wavelengths and produce a blackbody spectrum. No object is a perfect blackbody as they are limited in what wavelengths they can emit by the behavior of their molecules. Gases are the least perfect having few or no thermal wavelengths where they can emit. Try detecting thermal radiation from pure O2 and N2. You won’t.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/09/skeptic-agrees-with-climate-change/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

The November AMO index goes negative, first time since 1996

Joe D’Aleo reports via email that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) Index has gone negative for this past month, see the graph below:

Source:http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.data

This is the first time the November value has been negative since about 1996. It appears the down cycle has started. This portends a cooler period, especially winters.

The Monthly value plot also shows the down cycle in progress, though this one is only updated to 2009:

The AMO index is correlated to air temperatures and rainfall over much of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, North America and Europe such as North Eastern Brazilian and African Sahel rainfall and North American and European summer climate. It is also associated with changes in the frequency of North American droughts and is reflected in the frequency of severe Atlantic hurricanes.

The main climate indicator (in my opinion in the near term) is likely going to be the cool AMO, cool PDO. ENSO events and the changing polar jet stream which swings more often now north before coming south or heading east, bringing cold air to most of North America, and specially the western half and subsequently east, as the our climate moves from west to east.

The graph below shows the relationship between AMO and GLOBAL [ land and marine] TEMPERATURE ANOAMLIES [Hadcrut 3]. AMO appears to be like a thermostat or predictor of global temperatures. ENSO events if moderate or strong seem to modify, amplify or over-ride the AMO effects.

There are interesting times ahead.

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

140 Responses to The November AMO index goes negative, first time since 1996

For anyone wanting to understand the AMO this could be a very useful read:

http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/theAMO-NAO.htm

or currently direct link

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/64/12/35/PDF/NorthAtlanticOscillations-I.pdf

It surely looks like those dips in the AMO index correspond to the cooling periods of the Earth’s climate. It seems like we will be revisiting another 1970′s style cooling in due course.

The climate is the continuation of the oceans by other means and the oceans are a continuation of the sun by other means.

==============

Just glancing at the long-term graph is appears

1) this would be an unusually short length of time for the positive part of the cycle.

2) every positive cycle has occasional negative swings.

In light of these facts, it seems a bit premature to be claiming “It appears the down cycle has started” based on one month of data. Let’s see how it looks after a few months or a year.

AMO is actually well correlated with summer temperatures in Europe. Winter temps goes up and down with NAO, as documented on CET record.

http://notrickszone.com/2010/11/28/lesson-learned-predicting-the-european-climate-from-the-cet-record/

The Gore Effect hits the Big Time!

The AMO is headed south.

The ENSO headed south.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/18/mid-october-2011-sst-anomaly-update/

And maybe way south.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/17/ncep-ensemble-forecast-shows-deep-la-nina-coming/

I read somewhere that an estimated 220,000 children starved to death last year. One of the “root causes” of the revolutions in the mid-east was the high price of food. When you can’t feed your children, it tends to make one restive. And we turn some 40% of our corn production into fuel and burn it even though we have enough fossil fuels for maybe a couple of hundred years.

What will be the toll next year?

Sometimes I get discouraged.

Regards,

Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin.)

Hold on to your hat, or better yet, wear one… it could be a bit chilly this winter.

Well, looks like all of the various indices are pointing toward cold. And the prospect of having a weak solar cycle at the same time is not a comforting thought, either, based on the apparently response to such events in the past.

Maybe the politicians can just declare victory on Global Warming and let us keep our money now.

Joe

AMO went briefly negative in early 2009 for 5 months

Why would the latest AMO warm cycle be so short compared to the other two warm cycles on the chart? Perhaps this is just a “blip” and warmth will resume for a few more years(?). I hope not, but it looks awfully short on that chart if it is indeed turning cold now.

The question I would like answered is whether the “interesting times” mean drought in California due to cooler – and thus drier – air masses moving over the state, or wetter times with heavier snow in the mountains, thanks to orographic effects.

We’re doomed I tell you. The Ice Age cometh.

Please send me $2 trillion of taxpayer money to research the devastating climate impact and formulate plans for mitigation so I can save the planet. Unless, of course, you wish to be entombed in a glacier extending from California to New York.

This is similar to the dip in the mid 1950s after the second nina winter of 1955-1956. The amo will recover for a while in 2013-2016 ( should be neutral to negative for 2012) then go into its cold cycle after that. Dr William Gray has had this cycle pegged since the late 1970s when I saw him make his forecast on this matter linking it to the increase in hurricanes.

The turning of the amo along with the pdo forms the heart of my challenge to the Agenda driven AGW crowd to “take the test” ..that temps by objective satellite standards will return to the late 1970s value by 2030. Of course they want no part of it since it will render their god of CO2 as useless. Its part of the reason they are so vitriolic in attacks, the fear they will be exposed for some of them, and others, that already know what is coming.

BTW the cold pdo/amo la nina usually means a warmer than normal Jan/Feb in much of the east as the sinking in the means in the areas where the amo is cold, combined with the nina, leads to higher than normal pressures off the south atlantic coast and more southwest flow than normal in the east. Bad news: a late spring again for much of the north and east, but less tornadic activity. Studying all this to counter the warmingista’s has side benefits

note ( check out winters of mid 70s with la nina cold pdo/cold amo, but when the warm signal came with the 76-77, 77-78 el nino it was katie bar the door. Double ninas followed by a weak to moderate el nino in cold pdos can produce the nasty so many of us have earned after the past few decades and having to listen to the agenda driven drivel of the agw crowd

Uh-oh, Hansen isn’t going to like the AMO messing with his dire predictions!

This is usually a 30 year leading indicator of next ice age articles in the “popular” press.

It would be interesting to see that monthly AMO graph’s rise and fall periods (not absolute values) be compared to the temperature series we have. You see the 1940′s warm period, and the huge peak in 1998, and just looking at it qualitatively it looks like when the AMO rises and falls in trend domains, so too does the global temperature anomaly. Which, could mean some really terrible winters…

Anthony,

keep an eye on the the linked data file, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.data

-99.990 ?!?

PB

Unlike the AGW side, most here probably hope for warmth and think this sucks.

Obviously of the “trapped” heat deep in the ocean is pushing the cold water up via displacement

and the increasing CO2 air concentration is sinking more and more heat into the deep ocean which means AGW causes cold until it doesn’t.

They will have to ‘hide the decline’ again.

“That’s the problem with natural cycles – they are cycles, so please ignore.

Never fear, IPCC models will manipulate this problem away.”

Official Spokesperson for The Team

So . . . Hansen will be quoted as saying “The climate is simply changing so fast now because of human activity, we’ve brought the next ice age about. Don’t take comfort, though, it’ll only last about 2 weeks, then the climate will literally turn into Hell on Earth. Birds actually catching fire mid-air, unable to outrun climate change, oceans hot enough to cook the fish in them, only by acting immediately can we prevent . . . (blah blah blah).” (sarc/off)

Seriously though, doesn’t this portend the end of climate alarmism? Will anybody continue to listen to them, after the oncoming series of cold winters and potentially moderately or non-warm summers? Forget the AMO; watch the sunspot number. Looks to me like we’re in for the Eddy minimum. Hope you brought a coat.

Durr,

I am in agreement with you. This is NOT good, in any way, shape, or form.

Durr says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:41 pm

“Unlike the AGW side, most here probably hope for warmth and think this sucks.”

My thoughts exactly. I really, really want to deny this. I wanted more warming.

Stupid useless CO2.

Ruh, roh!

Not to question his statement but here I go anyway. Using the data source cited below the graphic, the AMO has been negative in Nov 1999 and Nov 2000.

It was also negative in part of 2002 and 2009. Since AMO seems to be more of a 30 yr cycle and due to the fact that there have been several short negative periods of AMO during longer term cycles of positive AMO, I’d be a bit hesitant to say we are on the downhill side of positive AMOs just yet…maybe around 2020 it starts to look more interesting. Then we can start thinking -PDO and -AMO = Brrrrrr…..

Peter Berger says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:35 pm

…

-99.990 = no data available.

General direction of the AMO is predictable long in advance by observing changes in the Icelandic atmospheric pressure.

See: http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/64/12/35/PDF/NorthAtlanticOscillations-I.pdf

page 8.

Now all we have to do is figure out how the monotonically increasing CO2 concentration is causing the AMO to oscillate. And by we I mean the Luddites.

Can someone overlay the AMO and the temperature record, so I can get a handle on this?

So as the AMO goes negative it is getting colder (1950-1970 was cooler), but during the negative phase the temperature is actually reversing and getting warmer (1980 – 2000 was warmer). So this initial dive into negative should be combined with cooling.

.

Makes me think of that Tibetan tree ring study that was posted about yesterday. The one that said we would cool off until 2068.

Interesting times indeed.

DRE says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:24 pm

“Now all we have to do is figure out how the monotonically increasing CO2 concentration is causing the AMO to oscillate. And by we I mean the Luddites.”

According to the best mainstream climate science, CO2 concentrations have various character traits. The present concentration is moving into its “shy” character. That is the reason that the AMO is headed down. She reacts to shyness with frigidity.

Joe /Anthony

You may want to check your records again about who really wrote the original article ,AMO, THE KEY GLOBAL CLIMATE INDICATOR back in July 2009

Well, while I see a good deal of correlation, I don’t see the AMO being a precursor, but rather a mirror…..

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1940/mean:12/plot/esrl-amo/from:1940/mean:12

Here is the AMO versus the RSS/UAH lower troposphere temps. Certainly, a semi-interesting close relationship.

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7660/rssuahvsamo.png

The AMO (which is a detrended index) versus Hadcrut3 on the same detrended basis. Also, a semi-interesting close relationship.

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/9449/hacrut3detrendedandthea.png

And here is last weeks numbers for the AMO (-0.111C) , ENSO (-1.13C) and global SSTs (+0.019C) and where I think they are going over the next 6 months.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/1716/weeklyenamosstnov3011.png

Next up……Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Cooling??

Jon Jewett says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:04 pm

…..I read somewhere that an estimated 220,000 children starved to death last year. One of the “root causes” of the revolutions in the mid-east was the high price of food. When you can’t feed your children, it tends to make one restive. And we turn some 40% of our corn production into fuel and burn it even though we have enough fossil fuels for maybe a couple of hundred years…..

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That probably would have been me.

A quick and dirty look at the politics (with much left out) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/13/borlaug-2-0/#comment-767575

Peter Berger says: “keep an eye on the the linked data file, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.data

-99.990 ?!?”

Peter, the number -99.990 is simply a way for the dataset supplier to indicate that there’s no data available for that month or period. Some websites like the KNMI Climate Explorer use -999.9000. They use the unrealistic value to get your attention when you try to plot them or use them some other way.

Great research (grant) opportunities for anyone who wants to study how man-made CO2 emissions caused the AMO to go negative.

Or you can Hide The Decline, find The Missing Heat, and pre-declare 2012 though 2021 The Hottest Decade in the History of the Solar System! Could even turn into a BBC miniseries!

Mike Smith says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:19 pm

We’re doomed I tell you. The Ice Age cometh.

Please send me $2 trillion of taxpayer money to research the devastating climate impact and formulate plans for mitigation so I can save the planet…..

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Nah, They did that study in the 1970′s. That is why the big money is moving out of the USA, and EU and headed for warm sunny climes and taking their manufacturing with them.

Politics and Science time lines SEE: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/07/in-china-there-are-no-hockey-sticks/#comment-824265

The Monthly value plot also shows the down cycle in progress, though this one is only updated to 2009:

———

Assuming the AMO is a real cycle the we would expect some degree of periodicity.

Comparing this peak with the last 2 peaks it’s clear we are only half way through the current peak.

So to say the current drop off is a sign of the end of the AMO is wrong. The current dropoff is just random variation. Which is very clear if you look at the rest if the series.

Smoothed long format gives you a better idea….late 1850′s..

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.sm.long.data

“Seriously though, doesn’t this portend the end of climate alarmism?”

Not until they run out of your money.

matt v. says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:34 pm

Joe /Anthony

“You may want to check your records again about who really wrote the original article ,AMO, THE KEY GLOBAL CLIMATE INDICATOR back in July 2009″

It appeared on “Joe’s Blog” at http://icecap.us – “Joe” being Joe D’Aleo.

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/amo_the_key_global_climate_indicator

Mystery solved. You’re welcome.

The graph below shows the relationship between AMO and GLOBAL [ land and marine] TEMPERATURE ANOAMLIES [Hadcrut 3]. AMO appears to be like a thermostat or predictor of global temperatures.

———–

And the graph shows no relationship.

Drawing a couple of trend lines on very noisy data over a short time span proves nothing whatsoever.

I could plot women’s skirt lengths and global temperatures on the same graph and maybe get “proof” that womens fashion affects climate or that women prefer being cold. It would be just as valid as what is presented here by Joe.

Bill Illis says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:44 pm

“……….and where I think they are going over the next 6 months.”

============

Bill, i always pay careful attention to your posts.

Keep them coming.

I also like this:

” When men speak of the future, the Gods laugh.”

Proverb, Chinese

We, like it or not, are only along for the ride.

I’ll second what Durr said, and add that cooling really really sucks for anyone who was thinking of planting a small vineyard in one of the northern states. Oh well, time to buy a ski-doo.

LazyTeenager says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:09 pm

“…So to say the current drop off is a sign of the end of the AMO is wrong. The current dropoff is just random variation. Which is very clear if you look at the rest if the series.”

That’s very Skeptical of you, LT. How does it feel?

ShrNfr says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:26 pm

This is usually a 30 year leading indicator of next ice age articles in the “popular” press.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

We are fine with a cold PDO, AMO, La Nina and lethargic sun… As long is we do not get some major volcanoes added to the mix.

YELLOWSTONE VOLCANO: “During the month of November 2011, 51 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone National Park region… No swarms were recorded in November.

Yellowstone earthquake activity continues at relatively low background levels.

Slow subsidence of the caldera, which began in early 2010, continues….. http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/activity/index.php

56 volcanoes that had confirmed eruptions during 2011 so far: http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/find_eruptions.cfm

Alaska/Russian: http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/avoreport.php?view=kaminfo

Icelandic earthquakes: http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/

Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception 2007

ABSTRACT

[the usual CAGW get out of peer review card]

The community of climatologists predicts a progressive global warming [IPCC Fourth Assessment Report—Climate Change, 2007. The Scientific Basis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge] that will not be interrupted by a glacial inception for the next 50 ka [Berger and Loutre, 2002. An exceptionally long Interglacial ahead? Science 297, 1287–1288]. These predictions are based on continuously increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions…..

To assess the potential climate development without human interference, we analyse climate proxy records from Europe and the North Atlantic of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 (423–362 ka BP), an interval when insolation variations show a strong linear correlation with those of the recent past and the future. This analysis suggests that the insolation minimum at 397 ka BP, which provides the best available analogue to the present insolation minimum, terminated interglacial conditions in Europe. At that time, tundra–steppe vegetation spread in Central Europe and pine forests dominated in the eastern Mediterranean region. Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial. Our findings support the Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change 61, 261–293], which proposes that early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379107002715

Gives you the warm fuzzies doesn’t it.

I knew it!!!!! Explains why I caught one of these last summer in Glacier Park: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KgPP2jF_jdU/TgddIqCYiDI/AAAAAAAABUI/-bZpas7PAIQ/s1600/Fur-bearing-fish.jpg

Don’t sweat it… the models will have predicted this as soon as they finish tweaking them to match what happened. It will certainly be Worse Than We Thought™… and in the end we’ll all still be “deniers” and we still won’t get to eat lunch at the cool table.

AMO, PDO, ENSO, sunspots all pointing to nasty cold front on the way.

In the meantime, the IPCC meme of late is to expect a “pause” in the warming for the next 20 or 30 years. As with their past predictions of global temperature…looks like they might be high yet again.

Craig Moore says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:31 pm

I knew it!!!!! Explains why I caught one of these last summer in Glacier Park: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KgPP2jF_jdU/TgddIqCYiDI/AAAAAAAABUI/-bZpas7PAIQ/s1600/Fur-bearing-fish.jpg

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Did you catch one of these too? http://adage.com/images/bin/image/medium/jackalope2.jpg?1254258202

Gail Combs says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:30 pm

“Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. ”

WIIIIILLLLMAAAA!!

Tim Folkerts at12:49pm

Excellent point. There are several slight dips below in the prior positive regions.

“it could be a bit chilly this winter”

Does this mean I should avoid raising energy prices or push to increase them in hopes of reducing global warming?

It’s a tough call and I can’t decide.

Our state agencies all say raise them but I worry they may all be nuts.

Oh what to do.

Tim Folkerts says:

December 9, 2011 at 12:49 pm

Just glancing at the long-term graph is appears

1) this would be an unusually short length of time for the positive part of the cycle.

2) every positive cycle has occasional negative swings.

In light of these facts, it seems a bit premature to be claiming “It appears the down cycle has started” based on one month of data. Let’s see how it looks after a few months or a year.

To a stock market chartist:

The immediately preceding years have made a topping pattern (compare to the 1950s-60s).

The upward trendline across the lows from 1993 on has been decisively broken.

The rise in 2010 made a lower high (a failed rally).

The fall in 2011 has made a lower low (lower than three preceding lows).

I’m with the dubious on this one; it seems we’re only about half-way thru the warm half of the sine wave. No real flip till sometime in the ’20s.

Jakehig says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:50 pm

Next up……Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Cooling??

Could be–some people here have asserted that CO2 actually cools the atmosphere. Since warmists are really control freaks, maybe that clutch at that straw.

The warm is turning!

The Pacific must be pretty cold too right now. In Sydney, we are getting max temps of between 3 and 8 Centigrade BELOW the average for this time of year. This is for the past two weeks, and projected for the next 10 days at least. A whole month with a maximum temperature average of 5 Centigrade below average, and I am sure we’ll be told it’s the warmest year EVAH once again!

I’m with the dubious on this one; it seems we’re only about half-way thru the warm half of the sine wave. No real flip till sometime in the ’20s.

We probably aren’t likely to go negative on an annual average basis for a while but it is reasonable that we will start seeing an increasing number of negative months but even the article title is wrong. Following the link to the data, I see negative November values for 1999 and 2000. But in any case for the month of November, in the past 20 years there have been only 6 negative Novembers. In the 20 years previous to that they were all negative.

” As Oceans & Seas salinity was increasing day by day by dumping concentrates back by the DESALTERS, INTERNATIONAL DESALINATION ASSOCIATION ( IDA ) instructed Heavy Duty Desalination Designers & Operaters to include ZERO DISHARGE SYSTEMS ( ZDS ). This is because of my voices to Internet media, but printed media not mentioned

So Air conditioning of Mother EARTH IS WELL PROGRESSING BY CAPTURING CONC: DEICERS FROM HEAVY DUTY DESALTERS. Welcome to visit Sarva Kala Vallabhan Group & AIR CONDITIONING OF MOTHER EARTH & COMMENT”

matt v. says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:34 pm

Joe /Anthony

> You may want to check your records again about who really wrote the original article ,AMO, THE KEY GLOBAL CLIMATE INDICATOR back in July 2009

You can include URLs here. http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/toc_2009_07.html led me to http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/14/the-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-not-quite-cool-yet/

I agree with the others who have suggested that it is too early to say that the AMO has turned negative and that what we are seeing this month (and may be for the mext few months) is nothing more than a temporary dip in what is still part of a positive cycle..

If the AMO has truly turned negative then the present positive cycle seems extremely short and it would be interesting to ascertain why it turned out to be so short.

Gail Combs says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:56 pm

Craig Moore says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:31 pm

I knew it!!!!! Explains why I caught one of these last summer in Glacier Park: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KgPP2jF_jdU/TgddIqCYiDI/AAAAAAAABUI/-bZpas7PAIQ/s1600/Fur-bearing-fish.jpg

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Did you catch one of these too? http://adage.com/images/bin/image/medium/jackalope2.jpg?1254258202

Strictly catch and release.

Ummm….looking at that graph it seems to have gone sharply down like this a lot of times and sharply up a lot of times too without climate changes of any note.

Wake me up when you get something exciting.

Cheers

Peter

My bones are too old and brittle to go back to the 70s. Block heaters, battery blankets, burst pipes, engines left running in fear of re-start risk. Doh! GK

Jer0me says:

December 9, 2011 at 4:48 pm

The Pacific must be pretty cold too right now…

You are right – sea surface temperatures are more than 1 °C cooler than normal over most of the equatorial Pacific east of 160°W. But around Northern Australia they are relatively warm.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/sst_monthly.gif

In November the area-averaged Australian maximum temperature was close to normal, with an anomaly of −0.08 °C (29th coolest of 62 years).

However the BOM national outlook December 2011 to February 2012 shows the following:

• Southeastern Australia more likely to have warmer days.

• Northern tropics and southern WA more likely to have warmer days and nights.

• Southeastern Queensland, northeastern NSW and central Australia more likely to have cooler days:

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/temps_ahead.shtml

Long way to go yet but the BOM models haven’t started too well:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/weather/sydneys-coldest-start-to-summer-in-50-years-20111205-1oe0i.html

Funny also how Weatherzone’s outlook in above article differ to that of the BOM:

“Mr Fisher also said summer would be cooler than average because of the influence of the La Nina weather cycle, which brings with it greater chance of clouds, rain and humidity.”

Whereas the BOM say:

“A persistently warm Indian Ocean is the main driver behind this outlook, cool conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean associated with the La Niña are also contributing.”

A bit of a stable following? Or is the BOM sticking with their horse with an saver bet on the outsider?

On a related topic, has anyone else noticed that the midwest is unusually cold now? The cool air reached New Orleans several days ago and temperatures there are in the range usually experienced no earlier than the last week of December. Looks like the winter of 76-77.

In the years to come, I will be eager to learn how Global Warming is leading to global cooling.

perhaps using a low-pass filter

http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa391/MAFILI/th_mean4.png

I saw some CO2 molecules pumping iron and watching Terminator. They are determined to defeat the AMO.

Another was trying to ring Al Gore but the phone kept ringing out.

It really annoys the heck out of me to know that I won’t be around to see what the climate does in the last half of this century…curse our short human lifespans!

>>Jenn Oates says: December 9, 2011 at 11:23 pm

>>It really annoys the heck out of me to know that I won’t be around to see what

>>the climate does in the last half of this century…curse our short human lifespans!

I’ve thought the same, but a 1,000 year life-span might be boring. But it would be nice if you could just wake up for a couple of days every two years or so. We might then be able to send a mission to Alpha Centauri too….

.

richard verney says:

December 9, 2011 at 5:11 pm

I agree with the others who have suggested that it is too early to say that the AMO has turned negative and that what we are seeing this month (and may be for the mext few months) is nothing more than a temporary dip in what is still part of a positive cycle..

Overall it seems to have been a mild winter so far in western Europe.

Jenn Oates,

Yeah, I feel just the same. My son, studying mech engineering like I did, is sceptical. He promises to keep an open mind and consider the facts and think cause and effect, not the personas or the politics. He knows that if you can’t history match a model it might as well be thrown in the recycle folder. It’s good to know he will try to consider it all properly.

Ralph says:

December 10, 2011 at 2:27 am

>>Jenn Oates says: December 9, 2011 at 11:23 pm

>>It really annoys the heck out of me to know that I won’t be around to see what

>>the climate does in the last half of this century…curse our short human lifespans!

I’ve thought the same, but a 1,000 year life-span might be boring. But it would be nice if you could just wake up for a couple of days every two years or so. We might then be able to send a mission to Alpha Centauri too….

====================

book by Phillip jose Farmer, called Dayworld, overcrowded world- people filed into storages- allowed out for one day a week. rather a good book:-)

Tim Folkerts says:

December 9, 2011 at 12:49 pm

Just glancing at the long-term graph is appears

1) this would be an unusually short length of time for the positive part of the cycle.

2) every positive cycle has occasional negative swings.

In light of these facts, it seems a bit premature to be claiming “It appears the down cycle has started” based on one month of data. Let’s see how it looks after a few months or a year.

I think the down cycle has started, but we’ll see some more el ninos lift the AMO back to positive for a while yet. Global OHC will decrease as a result, though with the way the ARGO figures are being manipulated, it might not be obvious.

Joe Bastardi says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:20 pm

The turning of the amo along with the pdo forms the heart of my challenge to the Agenda driven AGW crowd to “take the test” ..that temps by objective satellite standards will return to the late 1970s value by 2030. Of course they want no part of it since it will render their god of CO2 as useless. Its part of the reason they are so vitriolic in attacks, the fear they will be exposed for some of them, and others, that already know what is coming.

———

Joe, you may be a reasonably good weather forecaster, but horrible at understanding longer term forcings going on that are changing the nature of the short-term patterns and variability you are looking at. Your primary failure is your inability to fully recognize the full effects that a 40% increase in CO2 and large increases in other greenhouse gases are having. Certainly without these anthropogenic forcings, the natural short-term cycles and medium-term cycles are driven by solar influences and reflected in ocean cycles such as the AMO, and these can be considered noise riding on top of the longer-term Milankovitch forcings. But these are now also noise riding on top of the longer-term anthropogenic greenhouse forcing. You can’t have the highest CO2 levels in 800,000+ years without some effect. I would strongly suspect you will be wrong in your 2030 challenge, as the overall trend of temps between now and then will be higher, not lower, and the anthropogenic forcing from ever increasing CO2 will be the primary reason.

The warm part of the cycle may have been truncated early by the quiet sun.

Low solar activity causes more meridional jets, more cloudiness, less energy into the oceans for net system cooling.

I have a couple of charts from Wetterzentrale for the northen hemisphere showing temperatures for the same date and time where it is clear that there has been cooling over the period with a shift of the isotherms equatorward. It is a Word document. How can I post that here ?

The years 1979 until ~2012 are the end of the 1650 until 2000 Sun warming cycle. This warm peak is now our base line temperature standard [due to satellite data].

As per http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif , the heat is leaving the oceans. The warm areas were, at one time, 5C above “normal”. When the La Nina gets under full “steam”, watch and listen to the graphs/moaning of the AGWs saying that warming is causing cooling [sarc].

The AMO and the PDO are both driven by the Sun. Now that the Sun has gone quiet, watch the “cold” phases become extreme verses the 2000 warm peak.

The bottom graph above is marked 2005-2009. In fact it goes up to May 2009.

Why did it stop in May 2009 when both AMO and Hadcrut 3 values are current up to November and October 2011 respectively?

Could it be because the linear trends at May 2009 were respectively 6.5 and 5.4 times more steeply downward than they are if you use 2005-present?

I’m still having trouble getting this right, when the AMO is UP are the Hem Lines UP? And when the AMO is DOWN are the Hem Lines DOWN? Does the AMO have anything to do with the number of bikinis seen on the beach? And heels, are heels on High Heels thicker or thiner when the AMO goes up? My guess is they’re thicker when the AMO is DOWN since there’s more ice on the sidewalks. I always wondered how women figured out when to change these things.

R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 5:47 am

Joe Bastardi says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:20 pm

The turning of the amo along with the pdo forms the heart of my challenge to the Agenda driven AGW crowd to “take the test” ..that temps by objective satellite standards will return to the late 1970s value by 2030. Of course they want no part of it since it will render their god of CO2 as useless. Its part of the reason they are so vitriolic in attacks, the fear they will be exposed for some of them, and others, that already know what is coming.

———

Joe, you may be a reasonably good weather forecaster, but horrible at understanding longer term forcings going on that are changing the nature of the short-term patterns and variability you are looking at. Your primary failure is your inability to fully recognize the full effects that a 40% increase in CO2 and large

Can R. Gates explain to me how it is that the CO2 proportion of the atmosphere ie. much less than one per cent of the atmosphere and then has the out of proportion effect on “global warming” considering that all the current satellite data is going cooler?

I would agree with TALLBLOKE and Joe Bastardi that given the past history, the AMO is not likely to stay negative with the next inevitable El Ninos (they happen in the cold PDO too) popping it positive but that a DOWNTREND has likely begun.

Most phases warm and cold last 30 years. That would take us past 2020. Many commenters saw that from the graph. Stephen Wilde speculates that a low sun may truncate the warm phase.

JB and I had speculated we would see a negative AMO this winter like we did in early 2009, year 2 of the last two year La Nina. I was a little surprised how early it dropped.

One of the issues is whether the multidecadal oscillations are driven by something else. As they are out of synch with each other it makes it difficult to see whether there is a larger primary source driving them. Since we do not know what causes them we really can’t say with certainty how long the cycles should be.

Going back to the information on the TSI, we may find out how much it drives the cycles with this AMO. If it goes back up for a while, as Joe Bastardi indicates above, we could assume that while the sun is the primary driver it has a delayed influence on the cycles. If the AMO stays down we would see that the sun would seem to have a more direct influence on the cycles.

John Wootton says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:55 am

“Can R. Gates explain to me how it is that the CO2 proportion of the atmosphere ie. much less than one per cent of the atmosphere and then has the out of proportion effect on “global warming” considering that all the current satellite data is going cooler?”

———

You are confusing short-term noise and long-term forcing. Suggest you read:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5839/796.full

And:

http://scienceofdoom.com/2009/11/28/co2-an-insignificant-trace-gas-part-one/

(all 8 parts)

It is more likely the earth will be warmer on average in 2030 rather than colder than it is now. The shorter term variations in the AMO and other short term cycles are noise riding on this. They may mask or dampen the effects of CO2, but they can’t negate it. If, as is possible, we enter into a multi-decadal period of a quiet solar cycle (which is the basis of many of the ocean cycles and coupled ocean-atmosphere cycle) then we will have an excellent test of the power of anthropogenic forcing from CO2 compared to these other cycles. Let’s say we get a Dalton type minimum, then we will be able to compare the effects of the highest CO2 in 800,000+ years to the cooling brought about by the quiet solar period. An exciting time to be studying climate!

Pascvaks,

the heels are thinner when the AMO is down. The thicker heel gives more area to slide on the ice. The thinner heel, eg. SPIKED, allows the heel to penetrate the ice for better traction.

You are welcome. 8>)

kuhnkat says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:06 am

One of the issues is whether the multidecadal oscillations are driven by something else. As they are out of synch with each other it makes it difficult to see whether there is a larger primary source driving them. Since we do not know what causes them we really can’t say with certainty how long the cycles should be.

Going back to the information on the TSI, we may find out how much it drives the cycles with this AMO. If it goes back up for a while, as Joe Bastardi indicates above, we could assume that while the sun is the primary driver it has a delayed influence on the cycles. If the AMO stays down we would see that the sun would seem to have a more direct influence on the cycles.

—–

There have been many studies relating the AMO and other ocean cycles to solar variation. One of the best is:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117707005418

R. Gates,

you lambast Joe and others for their lack of understanding of long term forcings. i would suggest that you go back and do your homework before claiming others have a lack of understanding. Your BELIEF is based on projections by models. The outputs of those models do NOT match in any important way what has been happening over the last 15 years. In fact, they do not match anything but temperature to any degree in their hindcasts.

You are speaking from knowledge of a false GOD.

kuhnkat says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:17 am

R. Gates,

you lambast Joe and others for their lack of understanding of long term forcings. i would suggest that you go back and do your homework before claiming others have a lack of understanding. Your BELIEF is based on projections by models. The outputs of those models do NOT match in any important way what has been happening over the last 15 years. In fact, they do not match anything but temperature to any degree in their hindcasts.

You are speaking from knowledge of a false GOD.

———-

As you have no science in your reply, I can only assume your god is politically based rhetoric.

R. Gates;

Joe, you may be a reasonably good weather forecaster, but horrible at understanding longer term forcings going on that are changing the nature of the short-term patterns and variability you are looking at. Your primary failure is….>>>

Well, well, we have R. Gates lecturing yet again on radiative physics. Would this be the same R. Gates that was eager to bet that if Al Gore’s on air experiment was repeated as illustrated it would produce the results that were illustrated, and flat out lost that bet? Is this the same R. Gates that failed to understand that the experiment was done using IR heat lamps as the energy source, and as a consequence could not possibly produce the illustrated results? Is this the same R. Gates who suggested that the experiment could be repeated without the globes in the jars because they were “superflous”, demonstrating that he completely misunderstands the role of the globes in converting shortwave energy to longwave energy commensurate with GHG theory?

Really R. Gates? Was that you demonstrating your compete and total lack of understanding of radiative physics? Or was it some other R. Gates? If it was another R. Gates, why then my apologies. If you and he are one and the same however, you’ve adequatly demonstrated that your understanding of the physics is abysmal, and you lecturing Joe D’Aleo on the matter is sort of like me explaining Einstein’s E=MC^2 to Oppenheimer.

The first graph provided by Bill Illis shows that the AMO goes negative after the El Chichon and Pinatubo eruptions. The long term data also shows negatives after the eruptions of Krakatau (1983), Santa Maria (1902) and Agng (1963). THis demonstrates clearly that the AMO is responding to temperature, not driving it.

By contract the El Nino shows no relationship with volcanoes.

http://www.climatedata.info/resources/Forcing/Oscillations/01-El-Nino-index.gif

“This demonstrates clearly that the AMO is responding to temperature, not driving it.”

More likely AMO is responding to solar energy input. Volcanos that inject substantial material into the stratosphere reduce solar insolation.

If the AMO receives less solar energy it will then deprive an adequate supply of energy to the air above which will cool.

It looks as though ENSO is less susceptible to volcanic disruption than AMO. That supports my general view that ENSO is driven primarily by an imbalance between solar energy input to the ocean either side of the equator rather than absolute energy content.

With the mean position of the ITCZ being north of the equator there is a constant imbalance of energy input to the oceans either side of the equator.

That energy imbalance regularly buids up and is periodically discharged by an El Nino event.

Kim said “kim says: December 9, 2011 at 12:44 pm

“The climate is the continuation of the oceans by other means and the oceans are a continuation of the sun by other means.”

Obviously since Mike Mann has confirmed that we have a war

http://www.amazon.com/Hockey-Stick-Climate-Wars-Dispatches/dp/023115254X?tag=vglnk-c905-20

we may need a real strategists like Von Clausewitz, whose quote was that “war is the continuation of politics by other means”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz

I wonder if the AMO proves to be a good weapon.

Stephen Wilde “More likely AMO is responding to solar energy input.” I take your point. The fact that there is no consistent lead or lag between the exact timing of AMO and temperature peaks and troughs supports it. Either way it means the AMO probably has little predictive value.

http://navalwarchangesclimate.wordpress.com/2007/03/08/what-is-climate/

Nothing new under the sun !!!

“Either way it means the AMO probably has little predictive value.”

I wouldn’t go that far.

It implies that whatever the sun does will affect AMO before it affects PDO because PDO is more heavily modulated by internal ocean cycles than by solar activity.

Furthermore, whatever the AMO does will affect the weather downwind right around the globe.

Since the northern hemisphere varies more than the southern hemisphere due to the thermal inertia of the southern oceans it follows that AMO will have a disproportionate effect on global climate.

Or rather the size, intensities and positions of the permanent climate zones in the northern hemisphere.

I’m pretty sure that what we perceive as climate change is just shifts in the permanent climate zones with little or no change in system energy content (not temperature).

That is the problem with our sensors. Surface thermometers just record the energy content of the air passing them on its way to space. Satellites just record the energy content of outgoing longwave radiation as it passes them on the way to space.

Neither records the energy content of the Earth system as a whole. The Earth system can be losing energy whilst the sensors show high readings and gaining energy whilst the sensors are recording low readings.

Climatology is currently an incoherent mess.

Lazy Teenager: “I could plot women’s skirt lengths and global temperatures on the same graph and maybe get “proof” that womens fashion affects climate or that women prefer being cold.”

Or maybe you could make the same spurious connection with global temperatures and a trace gas ? ;)

Judging by Figure 2 it actually looks like there should still be just under 20 years of warm cycle left. That means no “down cycle” until 2030!

Is there somewhere you can point me where I can read about the science that backs the claim that “this portends a cooler period, especially winters”. I’m not saying it’s not scientifically accurate, but let’s see the beef. It should, really, be included alongside your claim. Right next to it.

More generally, I like Wattsup, I’ve been reading more or less daily for over two years now, it’s a good place to read up on what’s going on, but you guys have been really shrill lately. Can you tone down the screeching? You remind me of the death of Simon in Lord of the Flies.

I too tend to think that the current negative AMO level is temporary and seasonal only. I think the durations of negative and positive AMO cycles are variable and the next sustained negative or cool phase for the AMO may not start until 2015. In my opinion ,a cooling will be first observable in the Arctic Ocean SST and in the Arctic atmosphere caused by more high altitude cold atmosphere tranferred to lower levels in the Arctic region . The cooler Arctic together with a negative AO will in turn cool the North Atlantic Ocean via currents and atmosphere links and eventually cool the land areas of the Eastern Coast of North America and Western Europe . The predictive value of the negative AMO is that once AMO does start to go negative for a more sustained period [and it can be as long as 30 years ], it can foretell of sustained and extra global cooling [especially Northern Hemisphere] and adds to the cooling already iniated by the cooler Pacific as indicated by PDO[ since 2007] . Such a period existed 1964 -1976[ and even to 1980] when both PDO and AMO were negative or cool .Different regions of the globe felt some of this cooling as early 1940′s and as late as the late 1980′s

I don’t take this data as anything that just one more indication in a growing pile of indications that temperatures are more likely to fall than rise in the near future. The AMO has been trending generally downward for some time. That we should start to see negative months should come as no surprise as a part of that trend.

The indications are that generally speaking we are more likely to see colder winters ahead in the Northern Hemisphere. That is backed up with observational data.

matt v.

That is a plausible scenario but others are possible.

I see the North Atlantic as a ‘playground’ where the bottom up effects from the ENSO phenomenon meet the top down solar effects on the polar air masses.

The North Atlantic gets its energy both from the warm water flowing north which is ultimately influenced by ENSO in the Pacific and also from direct solar input.

We currently see a decline in ENSO activity during the recently started negative phase of the PDO but it is a bit early for it to have fed through the ocean basins to the North Atlantic. Normally I would expect the AMO to be positive for a few years yet as you point out.

However we have recently seen an exceptionally low level of solar activity and an exceptionally negative AO with more meridional jets, increased global cloudiness and therefore less solar energy into the North Atlantic.

So, whilst I agree with you in general terms the recent decline in solar activity could make this into more than a simple seasonal variation.

We shall see.

Like quite a few of the people posting comments here, when I eyeball the graph and look at the lengths of the cycles, it looks like the current downturn is just a blip (just like many blips that have occurred before). As others here have said, it looks to me like we won’t go truly negative until perhaps 2020 onwards.

NB Reading these comments confirms to me what healthy skepticism is all about: unlike the back-slapping warmists who would never dare to question other believers in the ’cause’, we skeptics are always prepared to question and doubt each other if we feel such doubts are necessary and such questions need to be asked. If, throughout history, people much greater than any of us had never asked questions, we would all still be living in the forests, believing the Earth was flat, and scared of the dark.

Alasdair Green says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:59 pm

Is there somewhere you can point me where I can read about the science that backs the claim that “this portends a cooler period, especially winters”. I’m not saying it’s not scientifically accurate, but let’s see the beef. It should, really, be included alongside your claim. Right next to it>>>

Uhm… you mean like maybe the main article and all the comments in the thread itself?

Alasdair Green;

More generally, I like Wattsup, I’ve been reading more or less daily for over two years now, it’s a good place to read up on what’s going on, but you guys have been really shrill lately. Can you tone down the screeching? >>>

What screeching? Can you quote the comment you consider screeching?

(not to mention that given what has been done to science by a cotery of misanthropists wrapped in a false cloak of morality, screeching is in order)

This explains the frantic desperation at Durban. Somewhere somehow they know time is running out but not in what they say about climate warming but in what they are not admitting to in climate cooling coming on. The window of reality and science fact of cooling is closing in and the chance for locking in payments before it becomes more obvious across more indicators is passing before them.

I’ve updated my “NOAA Eye Candy” poster graphic to include mention of this shift in the AMO:

http://oi43.tinypic.com/faztpj.jpg

Tim and Erik

That approach of judging the cycle length unfortunately sounds a lot like the warmist models that reduced the AMO to a constant and subtracted it from a warming trend to get a man made warming residual trend. Such handling of a complex multi-decadal cycle with a limited number of good data cycles is a bit much. This argument of caution in the data limitations works both ways but ultimately works against those that oversimplify it for purposes of massive misdirection of policy govt. and resources.

“R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:09 am

It is more likely the earth will be warmer on average in 2030 rather than colder than it is now. The shorter term variations in the AMO and other short term cycles are noise riding on this. They may mask or dampen the effects of CO2, but they can’t negate it.”

See: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg

Things can of course change, but at the moment, it certainly looks like the sine curve is being followed and that 2030 will be colder and that the effects of CO2 are being totally negated.

Also see Phil Jones interview at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

Note the answer to question A: A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

Period Length Trend

(Degrees C per decade) Significance

1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes

1910-1940 31 0.15 Yes

1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes

1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes

So the question is: Since 1860 to 1880 and 1910 to 1940 had nothing to do with CO2, why should the years past 1975 have anything to do with CO2?

I assume that the first graph has some sort of smoothing applied but not specified anywhere in the thread (I may have missed it). Would Joe or someone please clarify?

Thx

What information would one have to indicate that the world will be warmer in 2030 than now? And please don’t cite the discredited projections of CRU or GISS as observations have been constantly diverging from those models for over a decade.

The only indication I would have of any continued warming would be the possibility that we have no yet fully recovered from the LIA and we still have some more to go. Probably not very much more but I would not be surprised to see one more spate of warming at the same rate as the 1910-1940 and 1975-2005 periods of warming. I currently expect to see cooling temperatures from now until about 2040 or so and then a possible resumption of warming at the same rate as the previous episodes. We will, if the past pattern holds and barring any significant solar grand minimum, “give back” about half of the gain from 1975-2005 and then warm a bit. That will, in my opinion, likely be the end of the LIA recovery if we are not currently fully recovered.

Yes R Gates, it seems your Hockey team has finally figured out the long term trend is 0.16 C per decade–the same as long term trends: I am sick and tired of you and others of your foolishness. You get a gaggle of “climate scientists who are not held responsible for any of their antics, yet they are costing humanity Billions of dollars based on their video game simulations. If they worked for a drug company and had Climategate I&II emails such has been presented they would ALL be in jail right now

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/12/global-temperature-news/

It just so happens as Brozek above has shown this has been the same trend irregardless of CO2

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg

The RSS satellite data are available for November and it comes in with an anomaly of +0.033 C which is down from October’s anomaly of +0.089 C. That means that October’s significant drop from September’s +0.287 C was not a blip. So global temperatures are currently very close to the average over time. Over time it looks like this:

2011 7 0.328

2011 8 0.286

2011 9 0.287

2011 10 0.089

2011 11 0.033

So we temperatures globally have fallen off the table in the past two months.

Here’s the trend since 1979

http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/includes/columns/climatechange/2011/590x189_12100149_sc_rss_compare_ts_channel_tlt_v03_3.png

No “accelerating” warming to be seen.

“crosspatch says:

December 10, 2011 at 4:43 pm

No “accelerating” warming to be seen.”

It is even flat (-0.000166176 per year) since March, 1997. See

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/plot/rss/from:1997.16/trend

So in three months or less, it will show 15 years of no warming and we will not have to have any conditions such as 95% significance numbers. That used to be significant until the goal post was changed to 17 years.

Too bad woodfortrees doesn’t have the U. Colorado sea level data to play with.

Werner Brozek asks:

So the question is: Since 1860 to 1880 and 1910 to 1940 had nothing to do with CO2, why should the years past 1975 have anything to do with CO2?

—

I would assume you actually know the answer to this question, but it seems the underlying assumption you are making is the all effects must have the same causes, which is of course one of the basic errors of logic to make. The anthropogenic fingerprint is clearly on a large percentage of the warming since 1976 or so, with other periods of warming having their own unique matrix of causations.

Observe Lazy’s textbook example of someone disregarding Occam’s Razor. The simple, elegant answer is that the planet continues its emergence from the LIA, along exactly the same trend line for the past 300+ years.

But Lazy chooses to ignore that simple and straightforward answer in favor of a nebulous, unquantifiable and unmeasurable “anthropogenic fingerprint”, for which there is exactly zero empirical, testable evidence. That is cognitive dissonance on a par with Harold Camping’s true believers.

Smokey,

Could you please post your rebuttal to Lazy again, but substitute in R. Gates name throughout?

TIA!

davidmhoffer,

Thanks for the correction. I’d just read a Lazy Teenager post and wasn’t thinking.

Gates, the ball’s in your court.☺

“R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:52 pm

The anthropogenic fingerprint is clearly on a large percentage of the warming since 1976 or so”

Not according to Dr. David Evans. See

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/no-smoking-hot-spot/story-e6frg73o-1111116945238

From this article:

“1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.”

Werner Brozek says:

December 10, 2011 at 8:09 pm

“R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 7:52 pm

The anthropogenic fingerprint is clearly on a large percentage of the warming since 1976 or so”

Not according to Dr. David Evans. See

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/no-smoking-hot-spot/story-e6frg73o-1111116945238

From this article:

“1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.”

——-

Are you seriously going to waste my time with this tired old (and completely untrue) skeptics textbook argument? If you want to debate the real science and the real issues of uncertainty (like climate sensitivity) then let’s do it, but don’t waste either of our valuable time with this nonsense. For those who want the background of why Werner’s appeal to the supposed missing hotspot is nonsense see:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm

Wrong again, Gates. You believe in models. But they are trumped by observations.

R. Gates;

For those who want the background of why Werner’s appeal to the supposed missing hotspot is nonsense see:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm>>&gt;

The funny thing is R. Gates, almost every time you post a link, it contains either completely off topic information or the exact opposite of what you claim. Do you post these links at random, hoping nobody with follow them? Or do you just not understand them in the first place?

In this case, you are quoting from that well known site “Skeptical Science” which is a cloaking device for a rabid CAGW site that is widely known for cherry picking, obfuscation, and selective reporting. But what the heck, let’s see what it says. Here’s the money quote from the very beginning of the article:

“Satellite measurements match model results apart from in the tropics. There is uncertainty with the tropic data due to how various teams correct for satellite drift. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program conclude the discrepancy is most likely due to data errors.”

And there you have it! The data matches the models, except in the exact place where the hot spot is supposed to be, so the obvious conclusion is that the models are right and the measured data wrong. Then, astoundingly, the explanation goes on to say that the reason is probably something to do with satellite drift. Odd is it not that satellite drift in this case is being blamed for discrepancies in the tropics, but the exact same satellite drift supposedly has no effect on lattitude data from outside the tropics.

How does that work R. Gates? How does satellite drift affect data from 20S to 20N, but not data from 20N to 90N and not data from 20S to 90S? Why, if the data doesn’t match the models, should we assume that it is the models that are correct? Werner’s point was that the tropical hot spot is missing, and you’ve managed to link to data that shows… IT IS!

Sorry, but if you’re going to accept Skeptical Science’s reasoning that the tropical hot spot is missing because of satellite drift, then you’re going to have to correct all the data from outside the tropics for satellite drift as well, which means that all the data that is currently being cited as proof that the models are correct is actually wrong.

Gosh, could you throw some fastballs for a change? These curve balls that you seem to think will fool anyone are pretty easy to knock out of the park.

Smokey says:

December 10, 2011 at 8:06 pm

davidmhoffer,

Thanks for the correction.>>>

Actually, it wasn’t a correction. I thought it was very appropriate for one of Lazy’s rather lazy arguments, and I just happened to think that it was appropriate for R. Gates as well. They’re so similar often times that I think their getting their material from the same places. anyway, the rebuttal appled to both of them.

Davidmhoffer,

How can you look at 1 + 1 and call it 3? The issue was about the anthropgenic signature in climate change and the tired old argument that the data don’t show this signature when in fact they do. It is not just that tropospheric temps have increased, which they have, globally, but that it has been matched by a concurrent drop in stratospheric temps. But you, I expect, will continue in your fictional accounting of things (like the odd statement you made earlier today that CO2 didn’t start increasing until 1920). You may still win that Nobel prize…for fiction…

Smokey says:

December 10, 2011 at 9:01 pm

Wrong again, Gates. You believe in models. But they are trumped by observations.

——-

I actually prefer a nice balance of both, as models can help us interpret what observation might mean…i.e. They give some possible context and science behind those observations.

R.Gates, I’ve got to tell you that, as more and more contrary evidence continues to pile in, the fainter your voice becomes.

“R. Gates says:

December 10, 2011 at 8:48 pm

If you want to debate the real science and the real issues of uncertainty (like climate sensitivity) then let’s do it”

I disagree with you on the hot spot as do others as we have seen. But let us talk about sensitivity now.

The median sensitivity from scores of studies using multiple different approaches is +3C according to warmists.

I will roughly assume that at the rate we are going now, the +3 C per doubling is close to +3 C per century which is 0.03 C per year.

Keeping the above in mind, I would like to compare apples with apples. This 2011 La Nina is the warmest La Nina. The anomaly according to Hadcrut3 is 0.357 for 2011 to the end of October and I will assume any change for the last two months will be negligible. Previously, we had a La Nina in 2000 where the anomaly was 0.271. We also had one in 1996 where the anomaly was 0.137. It has been 15 years since the 1996 La Nina and 11 years since the 2000 La Nina. Now if the +3 C were true, then according to the 1996 La Nina, the anomaly for 2011 should be 0.137 + 0.03(15) = 0.587. Likewise, according to the 2000 La Nina, the anomaly for 2011 should be 0.271 + 0.03(11) = 0.601. The anomaly for 1998 was 0.548. So this La Nina should be warmer than 1998 if the warming is indeed catastrophic and the 3 C is correct. Since 0.548 is lower than both 0.587 and 0.601, I can only conclude that the sensitivity from scores of studies using multiple different approaches is way too high.

Now having said the above, it still does not prove that the very slight warming that DID happen is due to CO2. Part or even all of it may be due to us coming out of the LIA. But one thing is clear to me. IF there is warming due to CO2, it is very minimal and NOT catastrophic. Do you agree?

I think Gates is one handed typing again. Sights in Durban too much for him.

We need people like R Gates here, as he usually posts smarter comments than the average ones from the alarmist fraternity.

The fact that they are usually taken from the widely discredited gospel of St Gore of the CAGW bible is unfortunate, but at least they inspire lively debate.

There is some comments above that the AMO merely responds to global temperature, that it responds to volcanoes (while the ENSO does not). So it just reflects temperatures.

That is true,

But what is missing from that argument is that there are long-term cycles and short-term spikes in the AMO which matches very well with global temperatures. It reflects temperature, but it reflects a cyclical/variable temperature/climate.

So, either the AMO is a natural oscillation (like the ENSO) which drives global temperatures by +/- 0.3C (or 50% of the value of the AMO) …

… or the AMO is just a really good indicator of the other, so far unknown, natural driver of the climate that produces long-term cycles and short-term spikes in global temperature.

Either way, it needs to be included in the “natural variation” component of the climate by the IPCC and by climate scientists which they have so far ignored. [There are two recent high-profile papers by Foster/(Tamino) and Huber which omit this important natural cycle].

And there are good arguments that the AMO is a natural oscillation by itself (not an indicator of some other grand variability) but driven by the Thermohaline Ocean Circulation/long-term affects of the ENSO.

Where is the AMO going?

First, the cycles in the AMO are not a regular up and down 30 years. The longer-term reconstructions show that it has multi-decadal cyles but they can be shorter than 30 years and vary by a greater amount.

Second, there is more variability in it than the above smoothed chart shows. It varies by +/- 0.6C. It has some large spikes (that seem to be associated with after-affects of large or long ENSO events so it is at least partially tied to the ENSO).

Third, If it is a natural oscillation up and down, it would have to also be tied to the Thermohaline Ocean Circulation, Atlantic winds, Arctic sea ice potentially (in addition to some clear association with the ENSO).

So, lets look at North Atlantic and Pacific Ocean Heat Content.

Looks like it is trending down now.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5997/ohcnatlpacific.png

Further to my earlier post about the correlation between AMO and Arctic air or surface temeperatures ,an interesting graph can be found in the paper called ARCTIC AMPLIFICATION AND AMO by Chylek et al, Fig 3 [ I think Anthony posted this some time ago on WUWT ] showing 11 year running average of Arctic temperatures and AMO . A close examinations shows Arctic temperatures leading the NOAA AMO curve from 1910 to 2008. The authors claim that “AMO is a major factor affecting inter-decadal variation of Arctic temperatures”. I think it is the other way around , namely AMO is affected by the cooling of the Arctic currents flowing into the North Atlantic and atmosphere [AO/NAO] links . So I believe that the Arctic will show cooling first [ y some evidence may show this coming winter] before AMO will go negative in a sustained way.

matt v. says:

December 11, 2011 at 6:14 am

Further to my earlier post about the correlation between AMO and Arctic air or surface temeperatures, an interesting graph can be found in the paper called ARCTIC AMPLIFICATION AND AMO by Chylek et al, Fig 3 [ I think Anthony posted this some time ago on WUWT ]

Looks like we missed it. However the full paper is at

http://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/ees/ees14/pdfs/09Chlylek.pdf

Other references are

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/new-paper-arctic-air-temperature-change-amplification-by-chylek-et-al-2009/

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL038777.shtml

Others of interest may be

ttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/18/flaw-found-in-arctic-temperature-analysis-exaggerates-warming/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/04/arctic-warming-goes-with-the-floe/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/06/another-look-at-polar-amplification/

Something many commenters chronically overlook:

AMO is a high amplitude component of global average SST.

(Leverage is a concept covered in in part 2 of Stat 101.)

Werner Brozek said:

“Now having said the above, it still does not prove that the very slight warming that DID happen is due to CO2. Part or even all of it may be due to us coming out of the LIA. But one thing is clear to me. IF there is warming due to CO2, it is very minimal and NOT catastrophic. Do you agree?”

———

First, I do think there are multiple factors at play in the overall warming of the later part of the 20th century, and that they have their root causes in two main categories: solar and anthropogenic. On the solar side, we saw the 188 year solar cycle length reach a minimum trough in 2000. The oceans were of course responding to this additional solar input, just as they will respond as the average solar cycle length is now increasing and will be for the next approximately 90 years and sunspots will be decreasing. On the anthropogenic side, we of course have the rapid increases in greenhouse gases. From all of my study of the research, I would say somewhere around 60% of the warming was anthropogenic. I do happen to think the 3C of warming for a doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm is a very good estimate when factoring in all fast and slow feedbacks, and that the anthropogenic signal will only increase it’s dominance over other natural forcings in the coming decades. This of course does not mean that short term forcings like volcanoes, ENSO, AMO, etc. might not mask the anthopogenic signal for periods, but in the long run, the anthropogenic signal will be the dominant signal. Will this be catastrophic? On that question I am currently uncertain. Humans have an amazing ability to adapt. So long as we can continue to grow our grains and the oceans remain healthy we’ll be fine. If things begin to deteriorate in these areas, there could be trouble, but then we’ll see a strong push for geoengineering, which may be a way out.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/09/the-november-amo-index-goes-negative-first-time-since-1996/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Friday Funny – The Booker Prize for the biased BBC

Josh sketches up some humorous vignettes from the GWPF Report “The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal” by Christopher Booker. Perhaps George Monbiot will award the “Booker Prize” to the BBC this year.

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

25 Responses to Friday Funny – The Booker Prize for the biased BBC

Thanks Josh.

I think you need a flow chart.

The report by Christopher Booker should be read by all Brits, especially those still paying for the TV license.

@BargHumer 9:54

Like we have a choice. If we don’t pay, we’re risking a £5000 fine or imprisonment.

@ CMB

Do they still ding you if you drop the telly and get all your news and entertainment off the internet? I unplugged the tv back in ’08, and now I can pick which biased info source I unquestioningly accept..

BargHumer says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:54 am The report by Christopher Booker should be read by all Brits, especially those still paying for the TV license.

You dont even need to own a TV to have to pay for the license.

The law states that you need to be covered by a TV Licence if you watch or record television programmes, on any device, as they’re being shown on TV. This includes TVs, computers, mobile phones, games consoles, digital boxes and Blu-ray/DVD/VHS recorders.

On the link above, I have nominated “The BBC” for the Christopher Booker Award for 2011.

I wonder if I will get a response?

I’m not holding my breath…………… .

They collect this tax by having a list of all the houses, offices and places where people might be in the UK, then running the list of licenses against this list, and going round to all the places which are left.

If you do not have a TV they will not take your word for it, but will try to get in and check. If they do check and agree that you do not have a TV NOW, they will put you down for checking again next year.

It’s easier to pay the tax to avoid the intrusion….

And if you go to a shop to buy a laptop that can play DVD’s, you’ve got to supply you TV license number. We are, like the Christmas Turkey, well and truly stuffed!

Sorry to be a little off topic here – BUT I have to say on behalf of Canada – for the fifth year in a row WE won the Eco-fanatics FOSSIL OF THE YEAR AWARD at Durban. I LOVE my award and hope to win this prestigious award for the next ten thousand years. We will accept nothing less.

Canada as some here know refused to sign on to the son of Kyoto and refused to sign over millions of Canadian taxpayer dollars to the eco-freaks – allowing us to win this magnificent award once again! Bottom line – DON’T MESS WITH CANADA!

albertalad – It is billions, not merely “millions” of taxpayer dollars saved.

I laugh at those awards too. Just look who hands them out.

Back on the topic of BBC and that compulsory payment for receiving (or not) that flow of propaganda, looks like time for a ‘UK Spring’ on that issue. Some organized resistance to that could work about now. I know the Brits invented concentration camps (Boer War) but I just can’t imagine them doing that over the BBC.

Thanks Josh!

s I recall they Gov’t even in the UK has to prove you own a TV. Smash the %$#% thing and have it sitting by the front door if they come by.

This is from the USA but talks of UK law too.

What lawyers & judges won’t tell you about juries By Sam Smith

The fully informed jury movement http://prorev.com/juries.htm

………”For more than six hundred years– that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215–there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such law.” –Lysander Spooner, The Right of Juries

It seems as if the BBC has broken their end of the deal and perhaps a jury trial WITH DISCOVERY might kill off that particular vampire.

Good Luck to our UK cousins.

I’ve never had a telly. The licence people keep on pestering me but IIRC last time I could fill in a form to not be pestered so much next time.

I believe it is possible to watch TV films that are being kept for a week, without infringing legality.

………”For more than six hundred years– that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215–there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such law.” –Lysander Spooner, The Right of Juries

Gail that quote made my day. Thanks.

That bbc fee sounds like a “Stamp Act” to me.

Large numbers of poor people fail to pay the licence fee, then get fined, then cannot pay the fine. At the end of the day, quite a few then get sent to jail for failing to pay the fine. The BBC licence fee is a highly regressive tax – the poor person with just one old TV pays the same as a rich person with a TV in every room.

The Booker Report details many years of systemic BBC bias on Global Warming. The BBC blithely denies bias.

Sir Antony Jay’s foreword (he wrote Yes Minister and had worked at the BBC) shows that BBC is biased across many issues, not just Global Warming. The idea of a state broadcaster supported by billions of pounds of compulsory licence fees is an anachronism – made worse by the endless bias in contravention of its statutory duty to be impartial on major issues.

Steve in SC says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:35 pm

That bbc fee sounds like a “Stamp Act” to me.

_________________________________________

At least in the UK they can opt out if they do not watch. Here in the USA (and Canada and Australia) you pay for “Public Broadcasting” whether you want to or not because it comes out of the general tax funsds.

I am sorry. I cannot laugh. Are we becoming so immune and so used to bias in public broadcasters that all we do now is accept it and produce cartoons about it? Why isn’t something done to fix it?

The political bias of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for example is scandalous. Yes, ABC News has long become ABC Views. Section 4 of their current Editorial Policies states that they must:

4.1 Gather and present news and information with due IMPARTIALITY.

4.2 Present a diversity of perspectives so that, over time, no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented.

Interesting that their 2011 edition includes a definition of IMPARTIALITY that I cannot find in earlier editions i.e.

Judgements about whether impartiality was achieved in any given circumstances can vary among individuals according to their personal and subjective view of any given matter of contention. Acknowledging this fact of life does not change the ABC’s obligation to apply its impartiality standard as objectively as possible. In doing so, the ABC is guided by these hallmarks of impartiality:

• A balance that follows the weight of evidence;

http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/documents/20110408/EditorialPOL2011.pdf

(Was this was especially written as a loophole for the Labor/Green Government’s Carbon Tax? Who BTW determines the weight of evidence? And who determines that the ABC is correctly interpreting it?)

Does that also mean that on the ABC internet site The Drum we can accept 12 pro AGW articles to one questioning it? And an ABC filter police team that can refuse posts without explanation? And an almost daily sermon on ABC radio or television with some alarming event that is happening or will happen unless we cut CO2 emissions? And no-one within the ABC questioning the senseless decision of a minority government to impose a carbon tax against an angry majority when before the election they said they would not do so? And when the world is increasingly questioning the practicality of an international carbon trading scheme.

But the beaming light has been the Internet and websites like WUWT, The Resilient Earth, Jo Nova and Icecap and the millions of blogs that counteract BBC and ABC views. There is no doubt that this cyber revolution has made the public broadcasters even more biased than they ever were before. But even so, every night before you go to bed, thank God for the internet.

Perhaps in a real democracy government funded organisations like the BBC and ABC must eventually disappear because they will always represent the culture of the chardonnay socialist set that Sir Antony Jay described so well in Booker’s Report.

Maybe we do not have to fix it, they might just fade away like all the myths that they are perpetrating? And like everything else outside of essential services, if you want it, you will have to pay for it?

For information. The BBC TV licence is currently GBP 145.50 (about $200). It is a flat fee levied on all but the very poorest and those over 75.

There have been a number of attempts to challenge the licence fee over the years. All have been beaten down by a consensus. The bias in reporting goes beyond climate change. Under the Labour Government the BBC parrotted every day new Government initiatives (that never came to anything) justified by “reports” from government-funded, but semi-independent organizations. The opposition were rarely invited to comment. Now the Government has changed, there is more balance. that is the a Government spoke-person is cross-examined and then an opposition politician gets to chip in as well.

In Britain statutes aren’t law – lawful only applies to Common Law, legal applies to statutes, it’s all in the language, legalese. Legalese is the language of corporations. If you have no contract with the corporation it has no rights over you. The Beeb cannot make the claims it does, that you need a licence to watch any live broadcast even those from other companies etc. and are subject to punishment for not having one, in Common Law. That is organised crime. The corporation needs your acquiescence to have that hold over you. It is unlawful in Common Law to demand money with menances..

Our TV licence is enshrined in British Law so we have to pay. The BBC has an enforcement department to ensure payment under threat of imprisonment. Real friendly people. We live in a police state here in the UK, cross the BBC and you’re toast.

Gail and Lucy,

In addition to the power to judge both facts and law and thus nullify a laws application in a specific case, in the U.S., under the 5th Amendment , juries, in addition to their typical task of responding to the case at hand by investigating and deciding as to whether to return an indictment, have the authority to initiate their own investigations and make “presentments”.

Courts and AGs naturally would not like such an authority to continue which is why they have smothered it over the years, the presentment power having been smothered by Note 4 to Rule 7 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in 1947.

I own a fully functioning, (last time I had a TV licence,) TV. You have no obligation to allow the inspectors in to check!

If you are foolish enough to allow them in, under no circumstances allow them to turn the device on, doing so means you have broken the law!

The law states that if you view, or allow another to view or record live broadcasts on your premises, you must have a TV licence!

DaveE.

The only advantage the BBC has over other channels here is that your viewing isn’t interrupted by advertising, it’s almost worth the fee just for that. If the BBC isn’t supported by this tax they’d have to go commercial, then I would give up the TV.

Anthea

Anthea Collins says:

December 11, 2011 at 3:07 am

The only advantage the BBC has over other channels here is that your viewing isn’t interrupted by advertising, it’s almost worth the fee just for that. If the BBC isn’t supported by this tax they’d have to go commercial, then I would give up the TV.

Anthea

xxxxxxxxx

Hmmmm…. If you are getting biased views [ propaganda ] – you are watching “advertising ” ….just not interrupted.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/09/friday-funny-the-booker-prize-for-the-biased-bbc/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Why the UAH global temperature is late

November Global Temperature Update Delayed

By Dr. Roy Spencer

There has been a delay in our monthly processing of global temperature data from AMSU.

An undersea telecommunications cable used to transmit about half of the huge volume of data coming from the Aqua satellite was cut in late November off the coast of the Netherlands, delaying receipt of that data. While there were redundant data transmission capabilities, apparently both failed.

Also, John Christy and I have been on separate travels quite a bit lately (I spent 2 weeks in Miami after my daughter had an emergency C-section — I’m a grandpa!) and now I’m at the AGU in San Francisco, with a trip to DC early next week, so monitoring of the situation has been difficult.

Version 6 of the UAH Dataset is in the Works

I have been working on a new diurnal drift correction for the UAH global temperature dataset, which will be released as Version 6 when it is finished.

The orbital drift of most of the satellites carrying the AMSUs (and earlier MSUs) has been the largest source of uncertainty in getting long-term satellite temperature trends, and the correction for this drift has been a research topic for us off-and-on for many years.

Fortunately, there has always been at least one satellite operating without significant drift, and so we have used those satellites as a “backbone”, or anchor, for the others. The Aqua satellite is the only one which has its orbit maintained with on-board propulsion, but channel 5 on the Aqua AMSU instrument has become increasingly noisy in recent years, so we anticipate at some point we will no longer be able to rely on it, thus the need for a new diurnal drift adjustment.

I’m hopeful that the new procedure I’ve developed will work well, which is rather novel and is mostly insensitive to instrument calibration (see if you can figure out how that would work, wink-wink). The ultimate test will be the removal of long-term drift between simultaneously operating satellites, which also depends on season. It should allow us to get better regional temperature trends, land-vs-ocean trends, and remove some spurious season-dependent differences in temperature trends.

The earliest Version 6 of the UAH dataset would be available is the early January update of the December temperature data.

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

47 Responses to Why the UAH global temperature is late

“…new procedure..”, “…rather novel and mostly insensitive to instrument calibration…”

I thought Dr Mann had already worked that out.

Congratulations on your new grandchild. Hope your drift adjustment works as well. The number of times I’d thought I had an operational problem licked and then had to pull back the code because there was something else going on as well…. Good Luck.

Congratulations, Grandpa. Best (partial) reason I’ve heard to be late with your homework in a long time. ;)

Congratulations grandpa – I know that feeling having had the same (first) experience recently, C-section and all.

Considering the satellite position problem, would it be helpful to have three existing or new satellites in a more distant orbit to use as reference points for those instruments bobbing around in lower orbit? Is the long term solution that simple? The faster-than-light neutrinos from CERN faced a similar issue, which is, where are the satellites, really?

If that was in place your time could be better used sorting out the instrument issues.

I really appreciate your efforts and look forward to a description of your prescription for drift (of all kinds).

“which is rather novel and is mostly insensitive to instrument calibration”

Measuring tree rings by satellite? ;-)

Congratulations and keep the good work coming.

Congrats Dr Spencer. Take the time to be with your family, The temp data isn’t going anywhere… Well, unless Phil Jones gets his hands on it!!!! :-)

Thanks for the update. I turn on my computer each morning and look to see if there is an update of the Lower Troposphere temperature data and wait patiently. The Ap Index still remains jaw-droppingly low. The index was “5″ last month. I wonder if Dave Archibald has released an update of his Solar Cycle 23 and 24 comparison graph. It might give us a feel on where this solar cycle is going. I have been too busy working on the historical weather chronology to do anything else at the moment. Next update is a week or two away and includes 200 additional pages of early U.S. weather data. I just got my hands on 2,000 years of Chinese weather event data but that will have to wait for a while. It is amazing how much historical weather data exists if only one looks for it. Congratulations on the new grandchild.

data can be questioned in the future?

RSS +0.033 º C …. are correct?

good job. thanks

Obviously a Dutch Captain dragging an anchor on his way to an oilfield!

Congratulations by the way, my Grandson is now 3 and so much fun!

is the RSS value 0.03C for November?

Hopefully Telenor will get that cable fixed.

BTW, when do you think you will be accessing NPP data – or will you be using it at all? It is the next satellite to have a controlled orbit crossing.

Extrata says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:02 am

is the RSS value 0.03C for November?

Well,

http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_3.txt

Congratulations, gramps. Your genes improve the global pool so I hope this is the first of many.

Surely the cause of the communications failure is somehow due to CO2 emission from fossil fuel combustion, right?

Fernando

Obrigado

Congratulations Dr Spencer, I sincerely hope mother & baby are doin’ just fine!:-) I am rather hoping my two are going to wait a little while longer before taking that most momentous of decisions!!!!! (I don’t want to feel old :-(

“I’m hopeful that the new procedure I’ve developed will work well, which is rather novel and is mostly insensitive to instrument calibration (see if you can figure out how that would work, wink-wink).”

Triangulation. Use three (or more) adequately separated receivers at fixed positions on the ground and compare arrival times of the satellite transmission. That should get a pretty darn good position fix on virtually anything in orbit that’s got an active radio transmitter on it.

Another way would be to leverage NASA’s space debris tracking programs to get a fix on the satellites. Those resources include radars and telescopes. It would probably be cheaper and easier though to triangulate on the transmitter with a few ground based receivers.

Getting a super accurate timestamp for each receiver is a piece of cake with off the shelf hardware used in GPS receivers. In fact if the operating frequency and modulation technique for the climate satellite transmitters is similar to that employed by GPS satellites then it might be as easy as flashing some new firmware into an off the shelf GPS receiver and viola you got your ground based receiver so cheap you can scatter scores of them all over the world anywhere wherever there’s an internet connection for the receiver to use to ship its data to you.

Thanks for all the congrats. Baby Noah was over 2 months early, 3 lbs 14 oz. Mother and baby are fine now.

It looks like there is some confusion over what I mean by “drift”. (The orbits of the satellites are known quite precisely…that’s not the issue.) The problem is that atmospheric drag causes the orbits to slowly fall from their original sun synchronous altitude, which means they start measuring at a different local time. Since the day-night temperature cycle is so large, even a 30 minute drift in the observation time can cause a significant error in long-term trends, at least over land. Two of the satellites (NOAA-15 and NOAA-16) have drifted by several hours.

Eventually we will get the ATMS temperature data from NPP, the newest non-drifting satellite.

This is also why the ICSSP cloud dataset is a little dodgy for cloud trends…those are the same satellites, and it is difficult to remove the diurnal cycle in clouds in the data.

(I spent 2 weeks in Miami after my daughter had an emergency C-section — I’m a grandpa!) – Frigging trumped again by Anthony must change my name to Mr Cliamte Scientist :) I’m an Uncle, although my mum went with Nan, Grandpa.

Heart felt congrates, although my poor little nephew is the spitting image of me at 1 month.

Dave Springer says:

December 9, 2011 at 10:07 am

That should be trilateration, not triangulation.

Congratulations!

@Alan the Brit says: December 9, 2011 at 9:25 am

“Congratulations Dr Spencer, I sincerely hope mother & baby are doin’ just fine!:-) I am rather hoping my two are going to wait a little while longer before taking that most momentous of decisions!!!!! (I don’t want to feel old :-(”

Alan, Just wait until you are a Great Grandpa (with another on the way)!

Best Wishes Roy!

I like the saying:- “If I’d known how much fun Grandkids are, I’d have had them first!”

Congrats :)

Ya know, its hard to not be paranoid about “accidental” cable cuts and the like these days. It seems that since cooling began and sea level stopped rising, there have been a number of satellite problems and the like.

Undersea Briffa Bodge.

Roy W. Spencer;

I’m not understanding your explanation of the problem. If the orbit is known precisely, and the drift is known, what is the challenge for correcting the data to show the proper position and the proper time stamp?

Or is the problem that you know the satellites are drifting, but not by precisely how much? Given you listed the cause as atmospheric drag, should we assume that the drag is not consistant, so extrapolating the amount of drift over any given period of time would also be problematic then?

“Congratulations Dr Spencer, The gene pool has been enriched.

Congratulations Dr Spencer!

That being said, I am surprised that such an important dataset is so dependant on a single individual. Billions is spent on Climate change research, but on the four main actual temperature datasets it seems to be a shoe string operation. Frustrated. Get more funding.

Blue Sky;

That being said, I am surprised that such an important dataset is so dependant on a single individual. >>>

Why? Briffa’s thousand year temperature reconstruction was 50% dependant on a single tree…

That’s how climate science works! ;-)

David, day is warmer than night, right? If the satellite slowly changes its local time of observation from a cooler to a warmer part of the day (or vice versa), then a spurious long-term trend can become apparent which is only due to the local time of observation increasing.

BlueSky, we would love to have funding to do this, but as you might understand, funding agencies basically have us on their black list for not supporting alarmi.

I’m going with 0.0.

Roy W. Spencer says:

December 9, 2011 at 5:26 pm

David, day is warmer than night, right? If the satellite slowly changes its local time>>>

Duh. OK, brief feeling of stupidity passes over me….

….then curiousity takes over. Very interested to see how you compensate for that!

Roy W. Spencer says:

December 9, 2011 at 5:26 pm

BlueSky, we would love to have funding to do this, but as you might understand, funding agencies basically have us on their black list for not supporting alarmi.

Must be particularly exasperating when one observes the tremendous treasure flowing into CAGW alarm generating, bias confirmation. You have the patience of a tree. Thanks for not succumbing to bitterness. GK

It’s a pity the UAH data is late during Durban week

- what about the RSS plots – they would be worth getting up

Richard RSS is 0.0

Congratulations and take time to look after the family.

Proverbs 17;6 Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.

Dr Spencer,

You could calibrate the drift if you had a stable land based temp record which is sampled at th same time as your local rising. Except for when a major weather front comes through around rising, the local warming curve for any season should be fairly standard – so many degrees an hour.

From this you could subtract out the drift. It all comes down to having a good ground reference set of points. I guess you could develop a current model of morning warming if there is not much historic data. And of course each region would have its own warming curve.

Best of luck!

@Spencer

I didn’t understand the drift problem either. So without active orbital correction you can’t make repeated measurements at the same time over the same place with the same satellite. You can make comparable measurements with different satellites but that then introduces a problem with MSU calibration differences between satellites.

Is that correct?

Congratulations grandpa! Best wishes to Noah and the family!

Roy says: “I’m hopeful that the new procedure I’ve developed will work well”

I am wondering why it is that I don’t see on any climate blog site, including WUWT, the development of maxima and minima in tandem with the reported average temperatures on earth. Is this something the satellites cannot tell?

Average temps. do not tell you anything at all. You have to see what it causing the average temps. to rise or fall.

http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming

OK, I get it now.

Any given satellite gets to “see” any given spot on earth once every 24 hours. But, it isn’t exactly 24 hours because of atmospheric drag, so it is 24 hours plus a few seconds. The satellite starts out taking the temp of a given spot on earth at 6:00 AM, and a few years later, that exact same satellite is taking the temp of the exact same spot at 9:00 AM. Three hours of daily temperature rise are now incorporated into the daily data that shouldn’t be there.

So, the question in my mind is, do you have ANOTHER satellite that does NOW see that exact same spot at 6:00AM? If so, would it be possible to calculate the temperature differential between 6:00AM and 9:00AM of that specific spot and subtract it from the first satellite’s measurements? I’d think you’d still have a problem in the callibration differences between the two satellites, but you would still get a much more accurate number over all.

There is a problem with temperature sensors, whether surface or satellite.

Surface sensors only tell us the energy content of the air passing the sensor.

Satellite sensors only tell us the energy content of the outgoing longwave radiation passing the satellite.

Neither tell us anything about the Earth system energy content (not temperature).

It is perfectly feasible for the Earth system to be gaining energy whilst the sensors show a low reading and losing energy whilst the sensors show a high reading.

The reason for the potential discrepancy is variable energy retention by the oceans and variable solar energy into the oceans from variations in cloudiness and albedo.

So far as I can tell nobody but nobody and certainly not the models has or have any idea of the net balance of energy flow at any given moment and none of our data services can tell us either.

The nearest we have is the Argo system and that seems to be having difficulties.

We are all just shooting in the dark.

Further to my post at:

Stephen Wilde says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:36 pm

I suggest that the only way of knowing whether the Earth system is gaining energy or losing energy is to examine jet stream behaviour.

The more jet stream zonality we observe the more likely it is that the system is gaining energy as during the late 20th century.

The more jet stream meridionality we observe the more likely it is that the system is losing energy as from 2000 to date.

Dr. Spencer,

Congrats on the addition to the family. VERY Glad to hear that all are doing well. Amazing what all those medical advances that came along with fossil fuels have accomplished ! I bet the hospital involved used lots of sterile plastic devices to help insure a good outcome.

Although it sounds a little akin to the “The dog ate my undersea cable” excuse to me, Ha Ha Ha.

Best wishes to all, And a Merry Christmas too…..

Cheers, Kevin.

Changes in atmospheric temperature have a particular importance in climate research because climate models consistently predict a distinctive vertical profile of trends. With increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, the surface and troposphere are consistently projected to warm, with an enhancement of that warming in the tropical upper troposphere. Hence, attempts to detect this distinct ‘fingerprint’ have been a focus for observational studies. The topic acquired heightened importance following the 1990 publication of an analysis of satellite data which challenged the reality of the projected tropospheric warming. This review documents the evolution over the last four decades of understanding of tropospheric temperature trends and their likely causes. Particular focus is given to the difficulty of producing homogenized datasets, with which to derive trends, from both radiosonde and satellite observing systems, because of the many systematic changes over time. The value of multiple independent analyses is demonstrated. Paralleling developments in observational datasets, increased computer power and improved understanding of climate forcing mechanisms have led to refined estimates of temperature trends from a wide range of climate models and a better understanding of internal variability. It is concluded that there is no reasonable evidence of a fundamental disagreement between tropospheric temperature trends from models and observations when uncertainties in both are treated comprehensively.

Henry@Dieta

And your point is?

Henry@anyone here

I am so surprised that I don’t see on any climate blog site, including WUWT, the development of maxima and minima in tandem with the reported average temperatures on earth.

Average temps. do not tell you anything at all. You have to see what it causing the average temps. to rise or fall?

Henry@Dave Springer

That thing that we argued last time, namely your reason why I see no warming in the SH, does not work out for me.

I analysed a weather station on an island in the caribean (Hato), and here too I see the same pattern as I see on other islands like Easter Island and Marion Island: it is maxima increasing, pushing up the mean average temps. Hawaii was maybe the wrong island for me to chose as it is volcanic.

The only explanation I can see for the results that I am getting is that there is a correlation between the extra heat being trapped (or not) and the increasing greening of earth (or not, or de-forestation).

http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming

Stephen Wilde says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:49 pm

Further to my post at:

Stephen Wilde says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:36 pm

The more jet stream meridionality we observe the more likely it is that the system is losing energy as from 2000 to date.

That would pretty much agree with temperature readings. GK

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/09/why-the-uah-global-temperature-is-late/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Sustainability runs amok in my town, part 3

Readers may recall my first and second entry on my town’s “sustainability task force” a couple of years ago. It has gotten so bad here that I made it an April Fools Joke in 2010.

This editorial in the Chico Enterprise Record pretty much sums up the whole green movement problem; they’re blind as mole rats when it comes to self examination. I used to be on this sustainability committee, but got booted off because the majority (university types) voted to move the meetings to middle of the work day, when people that aren’t on the state dole actually have to be at work to run their own businesses. That ploy effectively weeded out all the local businessmen, including me and two others on the committee.

Now, with nobody watching but pal reviewers, they’ve crossed a line, and been called on it for wholesale conflict of interest while remaining clueless as to why.

Editorial: Grant doesn’t pass sniff test

Our view: The city should be more careful about how it throws around grant money. No special favors should be handed out.

A sustainability committee hand-picked by the Chico City Council decided to apply for a $400,000 grant from PG&E, then gave $70,000 of that grant to two members of the committee in exchange for work.

What’s the big deal, wondered one of the beneficiaries. What’s the big deal, wondered one reader in a letter to the editor.

Where to begin?

The money was awarded without the work going out to bid. That lack of accountability is galling. Only members of the Sustainability Task Force are qualified to do the work?

The ethical questions don’t end there. Honesty is doing the right thing when nobody is watching. Well the truth is, not many people keep an eye on the Sustainability Task Force, and they did something that other commissions — and the council itself — would never get away with.

We were bothered by the quote from city employee Linda Herman, who told reporter Katy Sweeny, “It just kills me when people take a really good project and turn it into something nasty.”

It sounds as if she is saying, “We’re doing good things here, so don’t question us.”

The controversy started when a City Council member wrote about the issue. Mark Sorensen, who writes an informative blog at www.norcalblogs.com, said a citizen asked him about the PG&E grant and why Sustainability Task Force members benefited from it.

Sorensen looked into it. The grant was supposed to be spent to make homes more energy efficient. Task force member Jon Stallman, a former Butte College employee, received $60,250 to administer the program. Task force member Scott McNall, a former Chico State University administrator, will get $10,000 to manage students who are evaluating residents’ energy use.

Sorensen wrote, in part: “On the question of conflict, my gut-level value system rings full-scale alarm — as does 24-plus years of nonprofit board experience where we would simply never direct agency business to a board member, even if there was an advantage to the agency. It just looked too much like self-dealing …”

He can see that. We can see that. Most other people see that, too. The folks who received the benefit, not surprisingly, apparently do not.

At least Herman allowed, yes, the work probably should have gone out to bid.

================================================================

Full story here.

Scott McNall

I really have to laugh at CSUC’s Scott McNall, who recently said of the climate change issue:

“There are certain people who benefit from denying that climate change is real,” said Scott McNall, executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Development at Chico State. “If you’re selling oil or gas, you’re not really interested in trying to conserve energy. There’s a financial interest in denying climate change is real, but we’ve known that for a long time.”

The flip side is that there are certain people who benefit from hawking climate change alarmism, now with some grant cash to monitor residents energy use, Scott McNall is clearly one of them. He can be certain that if one of his students come snooping around my home or business asking questions about my energy use they’ll be immediately asked to leave with an admonition of “it’s none of your damn business“. Besides, why the hell do we need this intrusion since we were all forced to install Smartmeters that log our energy use last year?

And people wonder why California is in trouble. Problem is, people like McNall think taxpayers and business owners are cows that never run dry. Not just here, but worldwide we need to yank the teats out of their mouths and wean them.

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

69 Responses to Sustainability runs amok in my town, part 3

This sounds a lot like that CA town last year where the city officials were padding their own accounts with taxpayer money. I think a couple of them got some jail time.

Ends justify means…ends justify means…ad nauseum!

Well, they obviously took the Penn State Climate Ethics course and scored A+ on all subjects.

‘Task force member Jon Stallman, a former Butte College employee, received $60,250 to administer the program. ‘ good money for little work and if its a total failure no doubt it will be blamed on ‘deniers’ not on their own inabilities.

You’ve heard of ‘trickle down’ economics?

well the same goes for Global Warming

At the top you’ve got million dollar earners like hansen…

and at the bottom…characters like your chum above…

parroting the warmist articles of faith; and still making a dollar out of the hoax…

You would have to agree Anthony, that the lure of the actual dollar is

very strong…and a man might say almost anything to get his hands on them.

Another possibly foreseeable problem.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/carbon-plan/rooftop-solar-panels-overloading-electricity-grid/story-fn99tjf2-1226165360822

Wherever money changes hands, there will be someone who thinks that some of it should be going to them instead.

WOW! These people have to be exposed, and doubly exposed!!! But it’s not a Chico only problem..

It’s happening everywhere!

Ecotretas

Point well put.

A little like the BBC, a bit of a hobby horse, who receive a tax, called a licence fee but still a tax, from ALL viewers regardless of whether BBC programs are viewed or not. (this is because the ‘FEE’ is for operating a TV not a pay per view fee). This does make them think that they can run rough shod over everyone who complains about any program content, bias or just plain lying. In fact they do run rough shod over complainants with constantly run platitudes about using the best material etc. etc. etc.. The current ‘fee’ is £135 a year, or $211.82. Runs into several Billions per year.

Like the EPA in the States they need reorganization or shutting down.

It may already be too late in the West … But watch China and the rest send this lot packing. Or to labour camps …

Best you can do is keep making this public and hopefully enough citizens in Chico will be outraged.

Does the City Council get paid? What are their hours for work? Does the clown getting $60k spend time on the project that should be being spent on City Council work?

If “yes” to 1 and 3 then serious problems other than just “conflict of interest”.

You may wish to read up on California laws governing non-profit corporations if this group falls under this umbrella. There are prohibitions concerning board members and beneficial financial transactions.

The problem I have with many stories like this is there can really only be two answers, Incompetence or collusion.

And with them moving the meeting times flashes up a big red warning sign to collusion.

I’d check the signatores.

Who’s John Galt?

Amazing how life imitates art.

Come on election day. It is reorganization time. Our EPA and various other local and national watch keepers have run amuck. It is time to cut off the money pipeline rather than the oil pipeline. Just sayin,

Bill

In the Lexicon of Sustainability, ‘grant’ = ‘graft’.

So, if oil and gas companies have a vested interest in denying climate change, why aren’t they present in Durban to influence the process?

http://maindb.unfccc.int/public/ngo.pl?mode=wim&search=A

I would guess they are there, through a number of the associations for renewable energy etc. on that list. This would imply (1) that some of those associations are in the pocket of Big Oil, and (2) that Big Oil has figured out how to make money playing the game, rather than fighting it.

“Problem is, people like McNall think taxpayers and business owners are cows that never run dry.”

How true. This was well-phrased by W^3, comment #82 at Air Vent 7/12/11-

“Certain ideological types treat TAXPAYERS as some kind of an INEXHAUSTIBLE resource to be exploited, in exactly the way [that we now rightly condemn as shortsighted, greedy and stupid] the lumber barons of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries treated trees, as inexhaustible and limitless.”

The view up here in Ontario isn’t much better:

http://torontoist.com/2011/12/queens-park-watch-liberals-get-scolded-on-electricity/#disqus_thread

and this is from a very left-wing source. Even they can’t quite get enough lipstick on the pig. Note: McKitrick is quoted, so at least SOMEONE is paying attention up here.

Want to stop global warming/destruction of the planet/etc…? Turn off the money flow! /sarc

The ends don’t always justify the means. Bad and stupid means produce bad and stupid ends. On the other hand, perhaps that is deliberate.

Anthea

This is just 1 peanut compared to what our congress does. Only term limits will help stop most of it. Term limits-one of very few things our founders messed-up on.

Arre you serious? They cannot see there is a conflict of interest at all? If it was done at local authoriy level there would be a hue & cry about it all over the shop!

John Marshall says:

December 9, 2011 at 5:01 am

You forgot to mention that since Tony & his cronies got in in 1997, the Auntie Beeb has had unlimited entitlement to up the licence fee on a regular basis!

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.

-G.B. Shaw

Anthony; your >>”they’re blind as mole rats when it comes to self examination. I used to be on this sustainability committee, but got booted off because the majority (university types) voted to move the meetings to middle of the work day, when people that aren’t on the state dole actually have to be at work to run their own businesses. That ploy effectively weeded out all the local businessmen, including me and two others on the committee.

Now, with nobody watching but pal reviewers, they’ve crossed a line, and been called on it for wholesale conflict of interest while remaining clueless as to why.”

It is my not so humblr opinion that most of those scientists sitting in comfy chairs paid by our taxes would not stand a chance of success if they had to try their hand in private industry, paid for what they actually manage to do. The real scientists are hard working chaps employed by private firms, doing real research, discovering cures, medicines, procedures, cutting-edge technology in all branches of science.

Tax-financed scientists have not produced one single KW of power by fusion (ITER), after sixty years of trying. Most probably, a few scientists and engineers, working privately, mostly self-finaced will shortly tell us that we can produce power cheaply, abundantly and on demand by means of low energy nuclear reactions.

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BarnhartBtechnology.pdf

http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/12/04/slides-from-sept-22-nasa-lenr-innovation-forum-workshop/ (note that information was supplied following a FOIA request without any problems whatsoever)

Sustainability is the catchword the socialists love. It allows them to invade your home while pretending to be representing the people. The only people they are representing is themselves and their lust for power or money or both.

It allows a small committee to seize control over vast areas without the areas knowledge or consent. It allows them to bring in little rules and regulations without debate or inspection that they say must be obeyed. They offer no sound reason other then it is sustainable.

This sustainability of a the key word in Agenda 21 from the United Nations. They know they cannot convince people nation or state wide, so they work through small organisations such as this to bring in their socialist objectives.

The main problem with people like those on the Chico Sustainability Committee is that they (like many environmentalists no doubt do) view themselves as morally superior to everyone else due to the ends that they are (supposedly) pursuing. It’s called arrogance and elitism. They fancy themselves the self-annointed high priests of a high and holy quasi-religion and its cause(s). They are therefore supposed to be above and beyond question. Anyone who is foolish enough to question them are heretics and deserve excommunication from human society. They are just one or two levels beneath God. And (for the most part) the media treats them that way by not questioning anything that they say and do.

The problem with that status is that it leaves the door open to corruption, deceiving of the public, bad decision-making, misallocation of resources, etc. It’s like a dictator in a police state who is above the law and can do whatever he wants (i.e, Hitler, Saddam, Stalin, etc.). History has shown us why we should view such people with much suspicion and scepticism. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Environmental protection and sustainability should be approached from the perspective of technological advancement and leaving the arrogant, elitist mindsets behind us.

Chico is in the PRC, right?

In California a number of lawmakers refused the free car benefit on the last election cycle.

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/20/3337316/freshmen-lawmakers-declining-state.html

Shannon Grove was asked to go pick out her car and told the staffer she didn’t need one. The staffer replied “But they’re free”. [facepalm]

This attitude permeates government.

Hey, now…I want to get me some o’ that there free no-accountability gubmint money, especially an amount that isn’t too far from my annual salary. Where do I sign up? Do I have to check my ethics at the door?

My county is pretty much in the same fix. Our council only listens to the crazies. The latest was to ban plastic bags, even biodegradable, in favor of nonreuseable paper bags that take up to 20 times the volume in the land fill.Anything to inconvenience the public at large seems to be the logic.

And then there is crony capitalism.The recycling contracts are all let out to political allies. We pay huge sums for mandatory recycling. However the dirty secret is that everything except aluminum ends up in the landfill. The rest does not have enough market value to justify shipping cost.

I found this blog posting from 2008 interesting. Even mentions the Sustainability Task Force at the end.

http://sixties-l.blogspot.com/2008/11/end-of-sixties-chico-ca.html

I also noted on the left side of the page a link to David Fenton’s (founder Fenton Communications) photos that were on display in some museum someplace.

Sustainability is the catchword the socialists love.

Yeah, until you show them that socialism is unsustainable. When the benefit derived from something becomes disconnected from the effort put into it, it becomes abused to death. The whole “tragedy of the commons” thing.

This reminds me of the TV ad I saw yesterday, from a Detroit station. It went something like this:

“Some charities take a lot of the money you donate for administration fees. With our charity, ALL of the money benefits people in Michigan.”

Sure it does. It benefits all the people who work for that charity, right? I mean, if my charity gets a million and $800,000 of it is “administration fees”, well, it benefits someone close to home, right? Yet another example of weasel words… they are being “technically” honest, but the reality of what they are saying is hidden by what you, the listener, THINK they are saying.

And yeah, I realize it’s different, but this is the same type of dishonesty… it’s happening right in front of our faces and very few people ever really see it. The scary part is that most of the people doing this are completely oblivious to the fact that they might be doing something wrong, or unethical, or that anyone else should have a say.

This occurs throughout the country. We have a county board in my area where the same thing occurred and they too had great difficulty understanding that this was a conflict. Even the county employees in charge of keeping things legal didn’t see a problem.

Activists apparently sincerely believe they are uniquely qualified to provide the kind of studies that benefit activists. Sounds like NGOs and the IPCC, but at a local level.

http://www.deptofnumbers.com/unemployment/california/chico/

Unemployment Rate October 2011 Month/Month Year/Year

National 9.0% -0.1 -0.7

California 11.7% -0.2 -0.8

Chico 13.6% -0.2 -0.5

It’s a shake down. This is what it is, and $70,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to what is coming.

Compensation for Spruiking the Gospel.

I noticed this characteristic of the Environmentalist ‘Greenie’ when attending Water management groups in Australia. The greenies, well meaning though unqualified by life experience or learning, furrow browed and government hand-out dependent, would raise the question of compensation for their attendance at meetings as a matter of first importance. Was there any funding?

I also noticed the Greenpeace crowd were good at selecting exotic destinations for fully funded workshops, no tele-conferencing to save resources there. A characteristic carried through to the IPCC, no doubt.

Yes, “It’s all about gov’t grants”, my truly Mom and Pop firewood retailer, Jesse and Melanie, just told me when they delivered my last 2 cords. [I've been recovering amazingly successfully from some back surgery, but couldn't cut my own wood the past two winters, 6-8 cords/winter. Ha ha, I'd been transporting it all for several years prior in my 1990 GMC 1500 Suburban Clunker with nearly 300,000 miles on it now. Still runs perfectly and is my only vehicle.]

A while back one of Jesse’s competitors, “Smith”, got a big grant to supply biomass for heating one local School and probably sold the whole system to them, which isn’t working very well. Smith now has a whole wood processing Plant, but simply abandoned some harvesting work involving good sized Forest Service slash. So Jesse tried to take the wood over by getting the right permissions and documentation, so that now he “owns” the slash. But then the Forest Service wouldn’t allow him to get the slash off “its” land, which he often does anyway in the normal course of his business.

So after telling Jesse what he had to do to own the slash – he had to get permission from a local grant-supplied NGO “Resource Council”, which actually went perfectly well – the Forest Service then told Jesse he wasn’t supposed to make “profit”, then “not too much profit” off the slash! Obviously, they were protecting “Smith” and their own corrupt Statism. Then they told Jesse they were just going to burn the wood in place since Smith wasn’t utilizing it!

It’s not over yet, but Jesse is sarcastically thinking that he should join his son in law, who already has two degrees and thinks grants are where all money comes from, and learn how to write grant applications at a Higher University.

Jim Barker says:

December 9, 2011 at 4:46 am

Another possibly foreseeable problem.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/carbon-plan/rooftop-solar-panels-overloading-electricity-grid/story-fn99tjf2-1226165360822

Easily solved: disconnect all solar roofs from the net and pay the owners anyway – after all, they’re “farming/harvesting” solar energy – the true & tried EU way of running things is to pay farmers for NOT growing that, that & the other weed.

Another consequence of PV roofing is that if it catches fire, the chances are that the firemen will let your house burn down because hosing the panels runs a risk of deadly electrocution. Good for all: Makes their job easier & safer, gives work fo construction companies & teaches you to be more careful with those Christmas tree candles. (Somebody or other once talked about “the broken window fallacy” – but he didn’t get a Nobel for it, unlike, say, Paul Krugman,)

Regarding this ‘sustainability committee’ it sounds like the most sustainable thing to do would be to shut it down and spend the money in more effective ways instead…

Based on my experiences with local government et al – they usually have very little real concept of the value of the money they are spending and even less when they can work out a way to spend it on themselves…

I suggest you find a way of getting this committee either disbanded or its charter changed so that they have no choice but to meet in the evenings.

“Sustainable” is another word like “green,” which can only refer to a feeling.

I only drink “sustainable” beer.

It becomes “sustainable” when I pay money for it – I keep buying it, the brewery keeps making it. “Sustainable.”

Ulf says:

December 9, 2011 at 6:27 am

So, if oil and gas companies have a vested interest in denying climate change, why aren’t they present in Durban to influence the process?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Because that is a BIG FAT LIE and has been from the get go. I go into some of the politics here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/07/in-china-there-are-no-hockey-sticks/#comment-824265

“The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was established in the School of Environmental Sciences (ENV) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich in 1972.”

Funding for Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia includes:

British Petroleum (Oil, LNG)

Central Electricity Generating Board

Eastern Electricity

KFA Germany (Nuclear)

Irish Electricity Supply Board (LNG, Nuclear)

National Power

Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (Nuclear)

Shell (Oil, LNG)

Sultanate of Oman (LNG)

UK Nirex Ltd. (Nuclear)

Source: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/

TANSTAAFL says:

December 9, 2011 at 8:03 am

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.

-G.B. Shaw

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That is a real interesting quote given that Shaw was a founding member of the Fabian society. (UK ex prime minister Tony Blair is a member)

The Real George Bernard Shaw

http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=7948

“Under Socialism, you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live, you would have to live well.”

The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, 1928, pg. 470)

“The notion that persons should be safe from extermination as long as they do not commit willful murder, or levy war against the Crown, or kidnap, or throw vitriol, is not only to limit social responsibility unnecessarily, and to privilege the large range of intolerable misconduct that lies outside them, but to divert attention from the essential justification for extermination, which is always incorrigible social incompatibility and nothing else.”

“On the Rocks” (1933), Preface

“The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?”

Prefaces (London: Constable and Co., 1934), p. 296.

Try living here in the “mother country”. We call them Quango’s and they are everywhere on a national scale (quite separate from the local versions). They are the way our “politicians” pay for favours without crassly passing around brown envelopes. A few million to “The carbon Trust” for a report backing current carbon policy. The CT passes on some to the authors and some to any supporting actors. HMG gets “grass roots” support for carbon policy and the CT board earn more per year than the PM. Even better they (The CT) get to sell themselves to private industry as having a tentacle into HMG policy (which they devised in the first place!). What’s not to like in this crooks paradise (if you are a crook)?

Here in the UK, if you prevented the unelected robbers from looting the taxpayer It would be like a national mini heart attack. Stocks would plummet, banks would fail…Europe would collapse … err…

Perhaps someone here can provide me with a succinct description of what the hell “sustainability” is. It’s a cute and catchy buzzword, but what is really meant by it? I’ve heard wind and solar power described as both “renewable” and “sustainable.” The latter descriptor is laughable because everybody knows that wind turbines and solar panels cannot possibly produce sustained energy output. Wind turbines and PV panels wear out and must be replaced (usually within 20 years). They both require frequent maintenance and replacement. How is this sustainable? I believe it was Viv Forbes who wrote that wind and sunshine is “free”, but then again coal, gas and uranium are “free”. We just have to extract them and process them to turn them into electricity. How does this differ from solar or wind? Perhaps the sun will always shine and the wind will always blow (at times), but the means to extract this energy is expensive and has a finite lifespan. These gadgets consume finite resources to produce.

Other commenters have mentioned recycling. Good point! Recycling is only viable if the material being recycled is worth recycling. I used to be an obedient little recycler. Every two weeks I hauled a bin about the size of a laundry basket filled with glass bottles, steel and aluminum cans out to the curb. I cut up and bundled all cardboard boxes and tied up all newspaper in twine. Then the County passed an ordinance which mandated that ALL paper MUST be recycled. So I canceled my subscription to the local paper. Then Waste Management decided they would no longer pick up glass at the curbside for recycling. Their first BS rationale was ostensibly that glass presented too great a workplace risk for their workers. Now they use automated equipment to pick up and empty recycling bins so their workers are not even exposed. What they WON’T say is that the weight of glass wasn’t worth the fuel it required to recycle it.

So a couple years ago I explored this issue. Except for aluminum, (maybe) steel and (certainly) copper all the rest of the carefully sorted recyclable waste ends up in the landfill. There’s almost no viable market for this stuff. Theoretically glass can be recycled over and over and over again. The reality is that unless the recycled glass is virtually free, it’s cheaper to make new glass from scratch. The same is true for paper. There is stuff that can be made from recycled newsprint, but there isn’t much market for it. It is actually more expensive and more polluting to recycle paper than it is to make new paper from wood pulp specifically grown for this purpose. There is almost no market for all the plastic containers, old newspapers and glass bottles we dutifully segregate. It ends up in the landfill with the rest of the garbage. Almost every community receives federal, state or local subsidies to operate recycling programs. They get the money, but there is no responsibility to see that the recycled materials are actually recycled. Is this an example of sustainability?

We’ve been had by environmentalists. I’m 54 and I’ve been taught the virtues of recycling since I was in Junior High. Recycling is a great idea providing there’s a viable free market demand for what’s recycled. Mostly it is a “feel good” taxpayer funded gravy train for every town with a municipal landfill.

So what exactly is sustainability in a community? How is weatherizing homes render a community “sustainable?” Finally, why is the name Scott McNall familiar to me? Was he ever once a banished troll?

I remember my first reality-check regarding recycling/sustainability. It was in the school cafeteria. We were forced to separate our styrofoam plates and plastic spoons from the food waste in order for it to be recycled. This was monitored and failure to comply resulted in punishments and detentions.

However, I soon discovered that the recycle bin contents were simply being dumped into the same dumpsters along with the regular garbage. There was no recycling being done. I informed the school administration about the situation and was told that they “wanted” to recycle, but had been unable to find someone willing to accept the material. After that conversation, I never used the recycle bin again and more importantly (and tellingly), I was never given a punishment for failing to do so.

My friends quickly noticed my lack of punishment and I informed them of the reason. Word spread rapidly and soon few students were using the “recycling” bin. Shortly afterward, the bin disappeared without so much as a word from the administration.

Dr. Dave says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:43 pm

“I’ve heard wind and solar power described as both “renewable” and “sustainable.” The latter descriptor is laughable because everybody knows that wind turbines and solar panels cannot possibly produce sustained energy output. Wind turbines and PV panels wear out and must be replaced (usually within 20 years).”

Heh, judging by the photos I’ve seen recently, a lot of them need to be replaced a lot sooner than that.

Ecotretas says:

“WOW! These people have to be exposed, and doubly exposed!!!”

No… exposure is not a solution to a problem such as this. PROSECUTION is.

Dr. Dave says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:43 pm

Perhaps someone here can provide me with a succinct description of what the hell “sustainability” is. It’s a cute and catchy buzzword, but what is really meant by it? ….

____________________________________

It is the code word for the United Nations Agenda 21

Full Text of Agenda 21: http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_00.shtml

A decent summary of the politics: From Carroll Quigley to the UN Millennium Summit

http://www.lewrockwell.com/yates/yates14.html

The Gray Monk says:

December 9, 2011 at 5:02 am

It may already be too late in the West … But watch China and the rest send this lot packing. Or to labour camps …

Shirley, you jest! That’s How Things Are Done in China. Most small towns and villages are personal financial fiefdoms for Party officials, with only the rare ones being knuckle-rapped when the demonstrations and petitions and so on get too severe. Counting on China to bring morality to the West is delusion on stilts.

Brian H says: @ December 9, 2011 at 4:36 pm

The Gray Monk says:

December 9, 2011 at 5:02 am

It may already be too late in the West … But watch China and the rest send this lot packing. Or to labour camps …

___________________________________

Brian H replies: @ December 9, 2011 at 4:36 pm

Shirley, you jest! That’s How Things Are Done in China. Most small towns and villages are personal financial fiefdoms for Party officials, with only the rare ones being knuckle-rapped when the demonstrations and petitions and so on get too severe. Counting on China to bring morality to the West is delusion on stilts.

_________________________________

This is the real face of “Socialism” both in China and as it is implemented here in the west. Perhaps a better word for it is Neo-feudalism.

Notice that Maurice Strong “Father of Enviromentalism/CAGW” and senior advisor to the United Nations and the World Bank is now an advisor to the Chinese government and living in Bejing China.

…when people that aren’t on the state dole actually have to be at work to run their own businesses.

Actually, even people who aren’t on the dole, but who work for someone else are left out. The majority of working people – tax payers – are still not business owners. It makes us grumpy too when the miserable county sets board meeting times so that the only comments are from whack jobs – on the dole, commonly worried about what the cell phones are doing to their brain cells – and the special interests who want to build the development, but want the state and county tax payers to pay for the roads, the sewer, the water, the power and other infrastructure that will connect their development to the rest of civilization, so their profit margin will be bigger. When you slice it like that there is no one at those meetings who is not on the public dole or at least wants to be.

Oh the irony:

http://goldmandeering.blogspot.com/2011/08/hi-friends-due-to-hail-storm-solar.html

Hi friends!

Due to the hail storm, solar panels were knocked out of commission. Therefore, we have limited access to charge our computer and other electronics. …

If they had a generator they could still work (if they had some fuel). But seriously, I think I would rather try to design a small coal fired steam turbine. At least you could burn cow pies.

I used to be on this sustainability committee, but got booted off because the majority (university types) voted to move the meetings to middle of the work day, when people that aren’t on the state dole actually have to be at work to run their own businesses.

Perhaps it was just a dumb move with nothing nefarious. I work for myself, at home, and usually could not participate in a mid-day non-work meeting. But others can. My loss, not theirs.

Yep. I’m also in Chico, and I slapped my forehead when I read this. Sigh.

The progressive project is and always has been nothing more than a transfer of wealth, status, and power from those who work at objectively measurable pursuits to those who do not. It has never been about anthropogenic climate change, any more than it has ever been about equality, diversity, or any other red herring. The motivations of the left are always traceable to the desire to benefit by persuasion or force; a progressive fears objective measure above all else.

Well, Anthony, your town is named after one of the Marx Brothers…actually, I’m not allowed to make jokes like that given the clown-act, enviro-loony government we have Down Under.

Anthony these people are obviously well meaning and devoted to the cause, they are different in that they have never been taught morals, ethics or honesty, as the means justifies the end for the new earth religion. These people receiving the money most likely believe that they are doing great works for mankind. The work that they do may be close to your heart as in a temperature reconstruction for your area using the rings in the local palm trees. #@^$#

The older I get the more I become convinced that governments at all levels are mostly run by crooks.

Anthony please excuse me for being a bit off topic, but for some reason this article caused me to remember that you installed CREE recessed lights in your home. I think that was about 1 year ago. Now that you’ve had some experience with them, may I ask how they’re performing? Are they all still working? Are they still bright? Do they come on instantly or is there a delay?

The ban on incandescent light bulbs in the United States is soon to come into effect. We have many light fixtures which cannot fit a spiral CFL, even if we could trust it not to burn the house down. The results from the CREE reliability or sustainability experiments are most welcome and timely as the end of the year approaches.

Having worked extensively in Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, China and other 3rd World countries, this is EXACTLY what they (and we) call corruption.

Most Californians appear not to understand the concept of conflict of interest. A few years after I moved into the condo complex, which I’m now in the process of leaving, the president of the homeowners association was on the payroll of our then-under-performing management company. Because I was relatively new to this particular type of open-air insane asylum, I did not speak out. But most of the patients–I mean residents–did not see anything wrong with the conflict of interest.

You say your town’s advisors suffer from conflict of interest. I say the problem runs much deeper than that.

Try usmayors.org to discover your town’s affiliation with the totalitarian movement, sponsored by the UN’s ICLEI, the US EPA, and HUD.

The USCM, as well as the mayor of Chico, CA, stand for nothing less than the complete subjugation of my town and yours (meaning you, me, and everyone of our neighbors), to the UN’s Agenda 21. One starting point is the USCM’s “Climate Protection Agreement”, which commits a city to supporting the goals and details of the Kyoto International Treaty, sans US Senate approval.

Some details about USCM here.

For instance:

“climate disruption is an urgent threat to the environmental and economic health of our communities”

“reduce global warming pollution”

“meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol” … “through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns”

“enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol”

“pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system [cap and trade]”

It only gets worse:

“implement the U.N. Secretary-General’s Five Point Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament”

“seek redress against the gun industry through the courts of the world – including local, state, and federal courts, and international courts – for damages caused to our countries, cities, and communities by global trafficking of illegal guns”

Dr. Dave says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:43 pm

Perhaps someone here can provide me with a succinct description of what the hell “sustainability” is. It’s a cute and catchy buzzword, but what is really meant by it?

You have to understand that when totalitarians use words, they do not mean the same thing you or I would mean, or that could be found in any standard dictionary.

“Sustainable”, which used to mean “able to be supported, held up, or borne up from below; able to be kept up or going”, but now means Earth worship and Marxism.

From the Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide:

“Sustainable development, therefore, is a program of action for local and global economic reform—a program that has yet to be fully defined. The challenge of this new program is to develop, test, and disseminate ways to change the process of economic development so that it does not destroy the ecosystems and community systems (e.g., cities, villages, neighborhoods, and families) that make life possible and worthwhile.”

More here.

The details of Agenda 21 – the perverting of our language and the subverting of our Constitution, the theft of your wealth and “redistibution” to others, your submission to the collective will, to the Borg – is online at http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/

Or try http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/.

Oh, and sorry, find Ann Schwab, mayor of Chico, CA, like this: http://usmayors.org/database_search6beta.asp?searchvalue=schwab.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/09/sustainability-runs-amok-in-my-town-part-3/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Hansen: “Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales”

From NASA Goddard/GISS: same-o, same-o

Paleoclimate Record Points Toward Potential Rapid Climate Changes

The average global surface temperature of Earth has risen by .8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now increasing at a rate of about .1 degree Celsius per decade. This image shows how 2010 temperatures compare to average temperatures from a baseline period of 1951-1980, as analyzed by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Credit: NASA GISS

New research into the Earth’s paleoclimate history by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies director James E. Hansen suggests the potential for rapid climate changes this century, including multiple meters of sea level rise, if global warming is not abated.

By looking at how the Earth’s climate responded to past natural changes, Hansen sought insight into a fundamental question raised by ongoing human-caused climate change: “What is the dangerous level of global warming?” Some international leaders have suggested a goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times in order to avert catastrophic change. But Hansen said at a press briefing at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on Tues, Dec. 6, that warming of 2 degrees Celsius would lead to drastic changes, such as significant ice sheet loss in Greenland and Antarctica.

Based on Hansen’s temperature analysis work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has already risen .8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now warming at a rate of more than .1 degree Celsius every decade. This warming is largely driven by increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide, emitted by the burning of fossil fuels at power plants, in cars and in industry. At the current rate of fossil fuel burning, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have doubled from pre-industrial times by the middle of this century. A doubling of carbon dioxide would cause an eventual warming of several degrees, Hansen said.

In recent research, Hansen and co-author Makiko Sato, also of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, compared the climate of today, the Holocene, with previous similar “interglacial” epochs – periods when polar ice caps existed but the world was not dominated by glaciers. In studying cores drilled from both ice sheets and deep ocean sediments, Hansen found that global mean temperatures during the Eemian period, which began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 15,000 years, were less than 1 degree Celsius warmer than today. If temperatures were to rise 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times, global mean temperature would far exceed that of the Eemian, when sea level was four to six meters higher than today, Hansen said.

“The paleoclimate record reveals a more sensitive climate than thought, even as of a few years ago. Limiting human-caused warming to 2 degrees is not sufficient,” Hansen said. “It would be a prescription for disaster.”

Hansen focused much of his new work on how the polar regions and in particular the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland will react to a warming world.

Two degrees Celsius of warming would make Earth much warmer than during the Eemian, and would move Earth closer to Pliocene-like conditions, when sea level was in the range of 25 meters higher than today, Hansen said. In using Earth’s climate history to learn more about the level of sensitivity that governs our planet’s response to warming today, Hansen said the paleoclimate record suggests that every degree Celsius of global temperature rise will ultimately equate to 20 meters of sea level rise. However, that sea level increase due to ice sheet loss would be expected to occur over centuries, and large uncertainties remain in predicting how that ice loss would unfold.

Hansen notes that ice sheet disintegration will not be a linear process. This non-linear deterioration has already been seen in vulnerable places such as Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, where the rate of ice mass loss has continued accelerating over the past decade. Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite is already consistent with a rate of ice sheet mass loss in Greenland and West Antarctica that doubles every ten years. The GRACE record is too short to confirm this with great certainty; however, the trend in the past few years does not rule it out, Hansen said. This continued rate of ice loss could cause multiple meters of sea level rise by 2100, Hansen said.

Ice and ocean sediment cores from the polar regions indicate that temperatures at the poles during previous epochs – when sea level was tens of meters higher – is not too far removed from the temperatures Earth could reach this century on a “business as usual” trajectory.

“We don’t have a substantial cushion between today’s climate and dangerous warming,” Hansen said. “Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying feedbacks in response to moderate additional global warming.”

Detailed considerations of a new warming target and how to get there are beyond the scope of this research, Hansen said. But this research is consistent with Hansen’s earlier findings that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would need to be rolled back from about 390 parts per million in the atmosphere today to 350 parts per million in order to stabilize the climate in the long term. While leaders continue to discuss a framework for reducing emissions, global carbon dioxide emissions have remained stable or increased in recent years.

Hansen and others noted that while the paleoclimate evidence paints a clear picture of what Earth’s earlier climate looked like, but that using it to predict precisely how the climate might change on much smaller timescales in response to human-induced rather than natural climate change remains difficult. But, Hansen noted, the Earth system is already showing signs of responding, even in the cases of “slow feedbacks” such as ice sheet changes.

The human-caused release of increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere also presents climate scientists with something they’ve never seen in the 65 million year record of carbon dioxide levels – a drastic rate of increase that makes it difficult to predict how rapidly the Earth will respond. In periods when carbon dioxide has increased due to natural causes, the rate of increase averaged about .0001 parts per million per year – in other words, one hundred parts per million every million years. Fossil fuel burning is now causing carbon dioxide concentrations to increase at two parts per million per year.

“Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales,” Hansen said.

Patrick Lynch

NASA’s Earth Science News Team

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

166 Responses to Hansen: “Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales”

My favorite line was:

Based on Hansen’s temperature analysis work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has already risen .8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now warming at a rate of more than .1 degree Celsius every decade.

These guys can’t even tell a believable lie. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.

w.

Getting a bit shrill, aren’t they?

This isn’t science; it’s speculation.

Even a madman can speculate.

There is the possibility here of a new bootstrap event. According to this post Real Science (http://www.real-science.com/understanding-man-global-warming) ‘In the year 2000, Hansen and his buddies decided to give underachieving global warming a boost – by adding 0.6 degrees on to the disappointing US data set.’ So perhaps the above claim of a rise of 0.8C thanks to his work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies is a bit of an exaggeration. In either case, the bootstrap event whereby an observer gets extremely distressed by the data he has just created is worthy of further study.

The man is utterly shameless..

Excuse me while I go and puke

Wherever paleo-climate studies have looked – on a regional basis – Antarctica, Greenland, Tibet – you find 2-3 degree Celsius changes with a beat-frequency of about 1000 years – some of these rises are very steep (Greenland) – within decades – and this is quite normal throughout ice-ages and interglacials. This probably translates to a global 0.5-1 degree shift.

The current warm period is expected on this frequency and not at all unusual in rate of change or amplitude – despite the presence of higher levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Hansen has consistently misinterpreted the natural signal – as confirmation of his models and calculations of ‘sensitivity’ to carbon dioxide. If, as many of us calculate from the real world evidence of radiation flux measurements, CO2 can account for no more than 20-25% of the warming, then future temperatures will be determined by the natural cycle – and many paleo-climate experts think this will turn downward (see Liu’s work on Tibet featured in an earlier thread).

What is so annoying is the way that the left-liberal-green press only ever report Hansen’s opinions thus inflating the carbon currency bubble.

“Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales,” Hansen said.

But “natural variability” has overwhelmed the alleged AGW during the last 15 years, according to other CAGW proponents; I would suggest that the CAGW movement now splinters into warring factions.

“Hansen and others noted that while the paleoclimate evidence paints a clear picture of what Earth’s earlier climate looked like…” Utter rubbish. We have no idea what the past climate was truly like. We are merely guessing.

We know as fact that the Vikings settled in Greenland and some of their settlements are just becoming apparent as glaciers recede. Those glaciers need to recede far more before the land will become farmable with primative equipment such that was possessed by the Vikings . May be Greenland needs to become several degrees (some speculate more than 4 degrees) hotter than today before it will be akin to the conditions that the VIkings enjoyed. What were the sea levels in the Northern Hemisphere at that time? That would be a good starting point since at least it would be grounded upon some basis of fact.

‘Hansen said. In using Earth’s climate history to learn more about the level of sensitivity that governs our planet’s response to warming today, Hansen said the paleoclimate record suggests that every degree Celsius of global temperature rise will ultimately equate to 20 meters of sea level rise. However, that sea level increase due to ice sheet loss would be expected to occur over centuries, and large uncertainties remain in predicting how that ice loss would unfold.’

Says a lot doesn’t he. If you give me a million quid I’ll make you 20 but I cannot promise how it will unfold.

The last interglacial was 3-4degC warmer than present.

http://alsystems.algroup.co.uk/warming/CO2_temp.gif

This interglacial is steadily cooling.

http://www.climatedata.info/resources/Proxies/Ice-Cores/07-Temperature—Vostok-and-GISP2.gif

Oceans entered another 30-years long cooling period.

http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/5-no-hem.png

Per BEST own words, global records follows AMO/North Atlantic and the “human effect might be somehow overstated”. There is nothing unusual on period 1975-2005, it is equal to that of 1910-1940. AMO/NA SST are heading down again.

http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/ihadsst2_280-360E_0-70N_n.png

Fail on every level. Can I have some grants now?

can some one over there take this man to dinner and fix his head?

Complete unsubstantianted alarmist nonsense from a greedy crank, conflicted up to his ying yang – no alarmist stories, then no justification for his outrageous salary, therefore no job.

The CAGW faithful in Durban must love this alarmist stuff: “We don’t have a substantial cushion between today’s climate and dangerous warming,” Hansen said. “Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying feedbacks in response to moderate additional global warming.” So show us the proof in the geological record – the only problem is: it doesn’t exist!

Natural climate cycles are a complete heresy to the CAGW high priests – most of recent warming is due to them. Another heresy is to make the observation that global temperatures have been static/falling slightly over the past 10-12 years, likewise so is the fact that the rate of sea level rise has remained constant over the past two centuries.

The Eemian period was generally much warmer than Hansen states – unless, of course, he is right and everyone else is wrong – for instance this paper:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=eemian%20interglacial%20mean%20temperatures&source=web&cd=5&sqi=2&ved=0CEMQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mad.zmaw.de%2Ffileadmin%2Fextern%2FPublications%2Fmodel_data.pdf&ei=BuHhTqWdM4LN4QSPs9mKBQ&usg=AFQjCNG_Zv9J8AVLV1rryJcKWnr20WeAzQ&cad=rja

I think the Chinese tree ring record of Liu Y, Cai Q F, Song H M, et al., “Amplitudes, rates, periodicities and causes of temperature variations in the past 2485 years and future trends over the central-eastern Tibetan Plateau” (Chinese Sci Bull, 2011, 56: 29862994, doi: 10.1007/s11434-011-4713-7) deserves more attention. The nearly 2500 year record is far longer that Hansen’s, and shows a FLAT trend, The current ‘unprecedented’ warming was exceeded by 4 precedents from 400 to 1000.

In the first Fourier analysis I have seen of temperature data the power spectrum reveals eight(!) periodic influences at 99+% CL, with periods from 2.0 years to 1324 years. Four of these cycles are longer that Hansen’s entire ‘record.’

Repackaged BS. Now sold as clean manure available at your local home and garden center.

@Hansen

Chill out, dude. Everyone else will during the next glaciation. Beat the rush.

Two points: 1. temps are not unusual (no h. stick), and 2. CO2 is not a cause of warming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg

Funny. I & others say that the trace gas CO2 is OVERWHELMED by stronger climate factors, that vary, such as the sun ocean etc etc. That $swindler & top bs artist Hansen has co-opted our language. There may be a theoretical basis for the trace gas CO2 having a warming effect, but there is NO EVIDENCE that it effects climate level temps… at all. If you have evidence, give it. I be waiting.

The map is completely misleading. The surface of the earth isn’ t a rectangle and that red band at the top is infilled from the hottest stations the can find 2,500 miles away. Made up data is exaggerated by the shape of the map.

heavyweight hansen and others…

8 Dec: Oregon Live: OSU faculty, students prominent at one of the world’s leading scientific conferences

By Todd Simmons, Oregon State University

SAN FRANCISCO – Researchers from around the world gathered here this week … for the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, and Oregon State University faculty and graduate students were prominent in the conference’s vast program.

While the United Nations’ climate change conference was generating plenty of headlines … the more than 22,000 attendees at AGU were making news of their own on issues ranging from global warming to new policy governing key federal research.

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, a faculty member on leave from OSU, delivered a plenary lecture on the federal government’s management of extreme weather events. NOAA is tracking a record 12 such events, each with damages in excess of $1 billion, this year alone – droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards and wildfire…

Lubchenco also unveiled a new scientific integrity policy for NOAA – the first for the venerable science agency, which is perhaps a more notable development than it might seem: NOAA is America’s first science agency, with roots that reach back to the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Among other things, the policy encourages transparency in research and frees researchers to discuss findings publicly on NOAA-funded research without prior approval.

The policy change earned immediate praise for Lubchenco and NOAA, with the Union of Concerned Scientists going so far as to pass out lapel stickers for AGU attendees reading, “You’re swell, Dr. L! Thanks for moving forward on scientific integrity.”…

But current OSU faculty were just as notable at the science summit, none more so than Associate Professor Andreas Schmittner, who over the past two weeks made headlines for a recently published study in Science magazine.

He and collaborators from Princeton, Cornell, Woods Hole and elsewhere developed new climate models that show the likelihood of global warming causing temperature increases of as much as 10 degrees Celsius are extremely unlikely. An increase in the 2.4-degree range would be more consistent with the new models, and Schmittner was quoted in news accounts as saying increases of 4.7 degrees or more would be “virtually impossible.”

Climate change heavyweight James Hansen of NASA and colleagues took issue with that at a Tuesday news conference at AGU, pointing to other models showing increases of 8.6 degrees or more…

http://blog.oregonlive.com/higher-education/2011/12/osu_faculty_students_prominent.html

Wow, I must be a lot more powerful than I think, I am now rated alongside a geological timescale, megga!

Why does my left knee still ache when its cold?

“Two degrees Celsius of warming would make Earth much warmer than during the Eemian, and would move Earth closer to Pliocene-like conditions, when sea level was in the range of 25 meters higher than today”

Alternatively, 0.0000001 degrees of warming would move Eartgh closer to the temperature of the Sun, where any known form of life would be impossible.

Piece of piss this alarmism business, can I have a grant?

Let us have the evidence for these claims please Dr. Hansen. No evidence-claim a lie, simple as that.

Hi Willis,

Could you yet me know what the Earth’s average global surface temperature anomaly was for the periods 2000 – 2010 and 1990 – 2000.

Just eyeballing this graph would suggest that it has warmed more than a tenth of a degree between those two time periods. I’ve probably got a different graph to you though.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.gif

Willis is, of course, correct. The GISS LOTI linear trend for the past 120 months is basically flat.

http://i39.tinypic.com/o8t8qg.jpg

This Hansen chap is probably preparing the base for an “Eemian Hockey stick” or some other kind of stick with a stunted blade

My favourite line was:

“Two degrees Celsius of warming would make Earth much warmer than during the Eemian”.

That’s the same Eemian that saw Hippopotamus and Water Buffalo in Germany then?

Here’s another lie.

“”Two degrees Celsius of warming would make Earth much warmer than during the Eemian, and would move Earth closer to Pliocene-like conditions, when sea level was in the range of 25 meters higher than today, Hansen said. In using Earth’s climate history to learn more about the level of sensitivity that governs our planet’s response to warming today, Hansen said the paleoclimate record suggests that every degree Celsius of global temperature rise will ultimately equate to 20 meters of sea level rise. However, that sea level increase due to ice sheet loss would be expected to occur over centuries, and large uncertainties remain in predicting how that ice loss would unfold.”"Based on Hansen’s temperature analysis work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has already risen .8 degrees Celsius since 1880,”"

If we have warmed .8 degress since 1880 how come the sea level out the back of my place hasn’t risen 16 meters since just before federation in Australia. Have a look a any seaside picture anywhere in the world from 1880 and then tell me how far the sea level has risen. CO2 Climate warmists need to get outside a bit more. And if anything, ice melt rate has slowed since LIA.

“Hansen found that global mean temperatures during the Eemian period, which began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 15,000 years, were less than 1 degree Celsius warmer than today.”

They cannot even get the temperatures right with modern instruments today but they can guage the temp. back then within a degree?. Ha ha ha bshit.

Eschenbach:

You are right. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade. The mean of the latest 10 years is 0.17 degrees warmer than the last 10 years for hadcrut. Mean of NCDC and gistemp: 0.19 – 0.20 warmer.

In studying cores drilled from both ice sheets and deep ocean sediments, Hansen found that global mean temperatures during the Eemian period, which began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 15,000 years, were less than 1 degree Celsius warmer than today.

And there was me thinking that Hansen said current temperatures were unprecedented.

“when sea level was tens of meters higher – is not too far removed from the temperatures Earth could reach this century on a “business as usual” trajectory.”

We all know how well his ’88 projection of BAU turned out. (Spot on according to Mann)

Dismal to anyone not invested in CAGW.

If 2C warming is now tragic then the next IPCC report must be going to estimate warming from 2XCO2 @ ~2C. Soon enough (IPCC report after next) they’ll have to proclaim that 1C warming is dangerous in order to keep up with the steadily falling sensitivity estimate.

Every time I hear of Hansen he reminds me more and more of Jim Jones…and his Monkey.

Jim Hansen… isn’t he the guy who worked with the muppets ?

Here’s another lie;

“”global carbon dioxide emissions have remained stable or increased in recent years.”"

With a third of the population bursting thru 10% growth, a ever expanding annual consumption from the coal bowls of the world, and the current T trend they slip one in about recent stability of CO2, when they know very well all the recent measurements of increasing Co2 and the T trend down.

Dr. Hansen,

Could you please provide actual, empirical, evidence that Man’s CO2 is the cause of your observed climate changes?

Thanks

JK

I smell desperation. It is like saying the earth is going to be struck by a large meteor. It has happened before and there is no reason to believe it will not happen again. He is simply saying that when the ice caps melt we are in trouble. Yep, I agree. The question is when and through what mechanism.

1988: ‘That bridge will be under water in 20 years.’ (ten-foot rise required).

2011, 23 years later~ ‘I said 40 years, not 20! You (the reporter) got it wrong!’ (actual sea-level rise… unnoticeable).

Is hansen young enough that we can see what he claims in 2028?

OT: Climate Realists post an analysis of the truly nutso document being prepared at Durban. Its worse than we thought!

Ø A new International Climate Court will have the power to compel Western nations to pay ever-larger sums to third-world countries in the name of making reparation for supposed “climate debt”. The Court will have no power over third-world countries. Here and throughout the draft, the West is the sole target. “The process” is now irredeemably anti-Western.

Ø “Rights of Mother Earth”: The draft, which seems to have been written by feeble-minded green activists and environmental extremists, talks of “The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature”. Also, “there will be no commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.

Ø “Right to survive”: The draft childishly asserts that “The rights of some Parties to survive are threatened by the adverse impacts of climate change, including sea level rise.” At 2 inches per century, according to eight years’ data from the Envisat satellite? Oh, come off it! The Jason 2 satellite, the new kid on the block, shows that sea-level has actually dropped over the past three years.

Ø War and the maintenance of defence forces and equipment are to cease – just like that – because they contribute to climate change. There are other reasons why war ought to cease, but the draft does not mention them.

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8807

@Willis,

Not only that, even if you assume .* degree, it is in 130 years. My grade school math cannot make it a rate of more than .1 degree per decade, need Hansenian PhD

There has been no statistically significant warming for the last decade. I can’t believe my taxes are paying this guy’s salary.

I have a horrid feeling that Hansen et al. got the answer then discovered the results to suit. Or am I being too cynical?

Irresponsible ‘communication’. Jimmy Boy, nobody’s listening any more. You’ve painted yourself into a corner. Wait for it to dry and surrender your brush.

The change of tone is interesting. Wasn’t the original argument that anything above 2C would be ‘dangerous’ to the planet? Now that the long term trend is closer to 1C per 100 years, this amount of warming must therefore be dangerous. But it’s already warmed by almost 1C and nothing bad has happened – in fact things have got a little better.

“Hansen said the paleoclimate record suggests that every degree Celsius of global temperature rise will ultimately equate to 20 meters of sea level rise.”

OK, we’ve had .8C in 100 or so years. When is the 16 meters of sea level rise supposed to happen? Is it still “in the pipeline” ?

Hansen has alwas been, let’s say, Imaginative, when it comes to previous interglacial. As a matter of fact it is rather difficult to find any place on Earth where the Eemian wasn’t more than one degree warmer than the present.

The Greenland and Antarctic icecores which are otherrwise treated with the utmost reverence by Hansen shows that the temperatures were about 5 degrees warmer than at present, but ice losses were moderate.

Think about it, do you think that a 1 degree higher temperature would be enough for:

- hippopotamus in Yorkshire

- water buffaloes on the Rhine

- monkeys in Bavaria

- capybaras in Florida

- forests on the arctic coast of Siberia

all of which happened during the last interglacial

The only source seems to be to quote Hansen. Talk about a circular argument. The skilled amateurs that post on this website do much more rigorous analysis than anything that has been done here. It must be the models telling Hansen there is a problem because I am not seeing any observational data being offered for review or cross-examination.

One can show that Hansen is right.

All one has to do is throw out all the historical climate data and then make-up some new ones that show 4.2C per doubling of CO2. While that might not appear to be appropriate at first glance, it is done in the field all the time and is, thus, acceptable for publication / presentation at conferences.

GISS show Africa as one of the fastest warming places, yet have virtually no reliable thermometers to tell them. Yet satellites show warming there is much lower.

http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/giss-temperatures-in-africa-bear-no-resemblance-to-reality/

I’ll put my tin hat on for when the sky falls.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7RIgs3eygo&feature=related

I suppose It depends on where you look and how the data is interpreted. Thats why I believe the science is a long way from being settled. Here’s some CET average data since 1970 showing variance. Although it’s only 40 odd years some of the records show pretty marked increases, one possibly equals tenth per decade, most don’t. But only one at present shows a fall., Maybe Mr.Hansen has data which show a more dramatic rise?

’71-’00 average N-W tracker

January 4.2C 4.15°C

February 4.2C 6.97°C

March 6.3C 7.2°C

April 8.1C 12.42°C

May 11.3C 12.91°C

June 14.1C 14.76°C

July 16.5C 16.03°C

August 16.2C 16.12°C

September 13.7C 15.71°C

October 10.4C 13.02°C

November 6.9C 9.94°C

December 5.1C 6.2°C

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Most probable: Humans at GISS will lose their jobs when this agency goes underwater. :-)

But would the rise of one degree celsius ’til 2100 cause anything at all?

It’s all about believing in fairy tales or not. I do not!

The overal temperature of the troposhere and stratosphere (TTS) has increased from 1987 to date at -0.0001 K/decade. /sarc

‘is not too far removed from the temperatures Earth could reach this century on a “business as usual” trajectory.’

Firstly I am not sure the term ‘far removed from’ actual means it has no scientific value , while I thought Dr Dooms ‘trajectories’ had already proved to be nonsense in reality.

But its models all the way as usual , powered of course by the religions fever of the high priest of AGW , at least he seems to have learnt one thing , don’t make your ‘deadlines of doom’ to close becasue when it does not happen you end up looking like a dam scaremonger fool. Or in this case like a bigger dam scaremonger fool.

“It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.”

That’s clear. Yet, another nonense but also probably a true assertion.

The nonsense : “…the Earth’s average global surface temperature has already risen .8 degrees Celsius since 1880…”

The probably true assertion : “…warming of 2 degrees Celsius would lead to drastic changes…”.

I’m surprised that skeptics are not more interested in this aspect. According to CRUTEM3, many parts of the earth are supposed to have warmed by 2 ° C since 1880. This would correspond for instance to an elevation of isotherms of about 400 m. This is in complete contradiction with all observations.

Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales

Here humans have dismally failed to overwhelm the natural – solar cycle.

http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-T.htm

How much of the 4-6 metres sea level rise was due to glacioisostatic effects? In Australia interglacial sea levels were only 2m.AMSL..

willis

“These guys can’t even tell a believable lie. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.”

============

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/mean:12/plot/uah/trend/plot/uah/from:2003/trend/plot/uah/from:1997.5/trend/plot/uah/from:2001/trend

over 30 years >0.1K/decade

over cherry picked last 10 years perhaps half that

Since we aren’t driving the temps up as fast as he previously predicted, he must now lower the temperature at which catastrophy will be unavoidable. Disprove one statement and another is waved about to prove that it is “Worse Than We Thought!” We are in the age of Yeah, but…

Peter Taylor says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:30 am

What is so annoying is the way that the left-liberal-green press only ever report Hansen’s opinions thus inflating the carbon currency bubble.

I think the carbon cred bubble burst a year ago. The theory is dead, but hasn’t stopped moving yet. That’s what chicken littles do with their head cut off…

I did not expect Hansen to say anything else.

However, 7 billion people will have an effect on the planet, that is unavoidable. Whether the effect of 7 billion people will be a disaster, is quite another matter.

From 1880 to 2009 is 130 years, 13 decades.

0.8°C / 13 decades = 0.06°C/decade

So after 130 years at an average rate of only 0.06°C/decade, from here on out, with no changes in carbon emission trends, the rate is now nearly doubled to “more than .1 degree Celsius every decade.” Wow, quite a change.

Let’s look at the NOAA-NCDC Annual Global (land and ocean combined) Anomalies (°C):

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat

I’ll do a quick figuring of decade-based rates of change. Ex: Sum of anomalies 1890-9 minus sum for 1880-9, divide by 10 years, result °C/decade.

1890's-1880's -0.09

1900's-1890's -0.05

1910's-1900's +0.01

1920's-1910's +0.12

1930's-1920's +0.15

1940's-1930's +0.09

1950's-1940's -0.07

1960's-1950's +0.05

1970's-1960's +0.02

1980's-1970's +0.17

1990's-1980's +0.16

2000's-1990's +0.17

Average rate, 0.06°C/decade.

So three values of cooling to no great increase, three values of warming where 0.1°C/decade was broken twice and almost reached once, then three values of cooling to no great increase, followed by three values of warming significantly greater than 0.1°C/decade.

So Hansen’s “catastrophic” rate of warming has been broken before the late 20th century “great anthropogenic warming.” And if one can justify seeing cyclic trends in those rates, the next three will be cooling to no great increase.

Of course we’ve now suddenly achieved the Brave New World of Unprecedented Anthropogenic Influence, so who really knows what will happen. After all, if we all work together very very hard, we can bend an entire planet’s climate to our will. Heck, according the Hansen we’ve done it without even trying.

The alarmists are getting more and more alarmed about the lack of real reasons for anyone to be alarmed.

Not often I find two comments posted together with completely different points of view, but here they are:

SteveE says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:03 am

Hi Willis,

Could you yet me know what the Earth’s average global surface temperature anomaly was for the periods 2000 – 2010 and 1990 – 2000.

Just eyeballing this graph would suggest that it has warmed more than a tenth of a degree between those two time periods. I’ve probably got a different graph to you though.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.gif

Bob Tisdale says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:08 am

Willis is, of course, correct. The GISS LOTI linear trend for the past 120 months is basically flat.

http://i39.tinypic.com/o8t8qg.jpg

Now if you compare the graphs from the two links you’ll see strong evidence in the first that there’s warming, but did you notice the source?

I’d stick with the second graph ’cause I’ve got a strong hunch the first has been “adjusted” to meet political expediency.

The human-caused release of increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere also presents climate scientists with something they’ve never seen in the 65 million year record of carbon dioxide levels – a drastic rate of increase that makes it difficult to predict how rapidly the Earth will respond.

Really? A drastic increase? Perhaps if one ignored available data. Ignoring the fact that the resolution of CO2 determination before the start of actual measurement (by Pettenkofer, etc) is very poor and that the proxies used to provide estimates inherently average out peaks and troughs. There is no decadal resolution in CO2 data before the 1800′s.

It’s way too late to send Hansen a copy of this.

What you do, if you are a serious scientist operating according to the established method, is attempt to thwart your hypothesis. Test it to destruction; carry out serious attacks on its weakest points to see if they hold up. If they do — and the vast majority of hypotheses suffer the indignity embodied in a phrase attributed variously to Thomas Huxley and Lord Kelvin — “a beautiful theory slain by an ugly fact” — then you have a theory that can be published, and tested, and verified by other scientists. If you don’t, you throw it out.

Maybe others will take note.

Willis Eschenbach says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:01 am

“My favorite line was:

Based on Hansen’s temperature analysis work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has already risen .8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now warming at a rate of more than .1 degree Celsius every decade.

These guys can’t even tell a believable lie. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.

w.”

Stawman, Hansen doesn’t claim that it has warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, a decadal rate of change refers to the mean and that is not required to be met in every decade to be true (see here, many of the decades fail to meet the 0.1°C yet the decadal rate of warming over the entire period is undoubtably 0.1°C).

Peter Dunford says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:48 am

“The map is completely misleading.”

Of course it is…and intentionally so. All part of the corruption that is GISS climate “science”.

As for Hansen [sigh]…just the same old same old. I predict he retires next year after the progressives/liberals are soundly defeated in the U.S. elections.

I’ve found an stunning correlation between Hansen and this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/09/nasa_loses_its_moon_rocks/

hmmm. Back in the Pliocene era conditions changed rather dramatically from warm and wet land surrounded by sloppy oceans to cold and dry land surrounded by shrinking oceans. Animals changed from a majority of methane producing animals devouring all that vegitation to omnivores and meat eaters devouring all those herbavores. What did it take to change conditions back then? Was Mother Earth overly sensitive to all that methane? Nope. Wasn’t even bothered by the smell. Continents crashed together, changing oceanic circulation, building ice at the poles, lowering sea levels and exposing land bridges, causing even more isolated oceaning conditions leading to even more ice formations. Sensitive Earth? Not much.

I tell you what. Wake me up when CO2 causes continents to crash together.

…or pull apart, opening back up that good ol’ warm water to meander about as it wishes.

James Hansen, PhD = Piled Higher & Deeper – Somebody open a window, it’s beginning to smell in here.

@Willis – “It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.”

I would suggest that neither you, nor I, not Dr Hansen know whether the temperature has risen 0.1°C. Do we really have measurements to that accuracy?

The Eemian is the most interesting paleo-period and worth a look closer: From 128 BP to 117 BP there were 5 temperature cycles, 2200 years each (1100 years temp rising, followed by 1100 years falling temps) with an amazing global temp amplitude (warming,cooling) of more than 6 C !!

This would give Hansen the opportunity to demonstrate how the CO2-content correlates and drives global warming/global cooling….!

Please some Warmist should present the CO2-contents for the Eemian and prove the Warmist CO2 assumption…..!

Hanson completely omits CO2 as driver…..why? Only talk of sea levels, ice melting and temps without details of this amazing climate see saw and how the CO2 content is involved….

….and while he does not even mention a CO2 see saw (what are the values? Anybody knows?) and the CO2 content -to temp relation (how is it?)…. we should be compelled to reduce CO2 emissions…..

In order to understand Hansen’s opposition to 2-deg warming, it is first necessary to understand this: The amount of warming acceptable to him is not based on his estimate of the (predicted) consequences of that warming. It is based on what will justify his agenda. Warming of any quantity will not do it. It is the predicted apocalyptic events that provide the required justification. In order to justify his agenda, it is necessary to predict that those events will result from whatever quantity of warming is generally accepted as likely.

Peter Taylor says at 9 dec 11 2:30 am

The same media does the same to most reports or just doesn’t report them. The lack of media attention on “fast and Furious” is a good example.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2001/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/plot/gistemp/from:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/trend

So here is that 0.1deg C per decade of man-made warming..

If I am not mistaken, CO2 was much greater (more than 2x) than now in those previous warmer periods. This indicates much less sensitivity of climate to CO2 than speculated by Hansen and IPCC. It is amazing that he calls attention to previous warmer eras, which occurred in the virtual absence of human influence, and still claims current warming is unprecedented. Finally, if temperature has increased 0.8 degrees since 1890 and 1 degree = 4-6 Meters of increase in sea level, shouldn’t we have seen more than we have by now? Of course, he has learned to give himself some latitude by saying it may take centuries for this to occur. I doubt there is any observational basis for this, it just makes predictions convenient, because they cannot be disproved within the predictor’s lifetime.

I’m surprised that no one else pointed this out:

The average global surface temperature of Earth has risen by .8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now increasing at a rate of about .1 degree Celsius per decade. This image shows how 2010 temperatures compare to average temperatures from a baseline period of 1951-1980, as analyzed by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Credit: NASA GISS

Notice the cherry-picked baseline period, 1950-1980, which was the cool cycle of the mid-1900s. This sort of cherry-picking was epidemic in warmist literature up until the skeptics called them on it. I haven’t seen such blatant cherry-picking of a baseline in probably five years. Formerly it was starting a graph in either 1900 or 1970, at or near the low points of the last two cooling periods.

Perhaps that is because Hansen has been relatively quiet.

And perhaps this is a reaction to Climategate 2.0 and all application of the PR-spin advice the Team got after Climategate 1.0.

Of course, we skeptics could use the 1910-1940 warming period as a baseline and show the 1950-1980 period as “proving” that CO2 doesn’t have any effect whatsoever. That is, IF we had a governmental agency at our disposal for press releases.

So, essentially, even a minute geological disturbance could catastrophically change the climate. Like for instance a ginormous, to human standards, earth quake that change the rotational speed of the planet, or its axis, or say land rise, shifting oceans, and all those other natural stuff that happens beneath the crust of a living planet.

But this time a around it has to be the present of man, not his statistical models. O.o

As science fiction humour goes, it’s not a patch on Robert Sheckley or Douglas Adams. Don’t give up your day job, Dr. Hansen.

Oh, wait …

Hansen says that we had 0.8C warming from 1880 until now. If I look at the graphs, such as http://i39.tinypic.com/o8t8qg.jpg that Bob Tisdale posted, I see that the “average” temperature was 0.2C below our baseline in 1880 (with HUGE error bars), and by 1940 or so the temperature had risen to 0.2C above the baseline. This is a time when we were emitting little CO2 compared to today.

If 0.4C of the warming was pre-1940, and therefore probably not all CO2 related (if any) then maybe we can only consider the rest of the warming from 1940 to 2012 to be CO2 caused? What’s average temperature today? I believe it’s somewhere between 0.4C and 0.6C, if you use the range indicated by the graph, with an average being around 0.5C. This is if you trust the temperatures presented by GISS, which include the ironic adjustments that actually raise temperatures. I personally feel the GISS temperatures are high, but let’s use them anyway.

From 1940 or so at 0.2C through this year’s 0.5C is three tenths of a degree of warming in only 72 years. That’s a whopping 0.042C warming per decade. Everybody panic!

If we consider a shorter time period, say 1962 though this year, we still have just 0.1C per decade of warming. The only way we EVER get an alarming rate of warming that is correlated with high CO2 emissions is if we consider very short timescales and make sure to include the 1979 to 1998 time period. If we compare 1880 to 1940 we have a high rate of warming with a low rate of CO2 rise, if we compare 1940 to 1980 we have a very low rate of warming with a higher rate of CO2 rise, and if we look at the 12 years of highest rate of CO2 emissions ever recorded, we find no rise in temperature.

Yes, it’s true that in the decade post 2000 the temperatures were higher than the decade pre-2000, but what does that really mean? In this case, it just means that all of the temperature rise was in the decade pre-2000 and the temperatures have not fallen back. So many people are saying “the decade after is higher than the decade before” as if that indicates that it’s still going up. Bullshit, it doesn’t work that way.

If a child grows until his 19th birthday, then stops growing, someone cannot come back when he’s 27 and claim he’s still growing at an alarming rate because “his average height in his twenties was higher than his average height in his teens.”

Sorry, long post. To sum up, more than half of the “warming” was pre-1940, when manmade CO2 was 80% less than it is today. If CO2 does contribute to warming, it’s only responsible for a small portion of the 0.4C of that early rise. If we are responsible for ALL of the post 1940 rise (which I doubt), then all of our CO2 since 1940 is only responsible for 0.3C of warming. This give a lie to Hansen’s entire line for reasoning.

They, including Hansen, continue to make predictions that don’t come true. Then, they follow these with more shrill predictions that don’t come true.

They remind me of the religious loons who, based on some new interpretation of the Bible, keep predicting a date when the world will end. It never does, but they keep trying.

Could someone please tell me what planet Earth Hansen lives on? It most certainly not the same one I’m on! Short of all out nuclear war, Man’s overall impact is negligible. Looking at something that recently occurred on a relatively small scale, the Northwest recovered fairly quickly after Mount St. Helens. On a larger scale, the Earth seems to have recovered fairly well after whatever it was that occurred about 65 million years ago. Those are two examples of how resilient planet Earth is. To this planet, we really don’t count.

Will said: “These guys can’t even tell a believable lie. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.”

Well Willis, it hasn’t but everywhere Hansen doesn’t have any data his models say temps are going through the roof. Not a believable lie, except it gives cover to lame brain journalists and politicians. And he can measure global temps to within .1 degree to demonstrate that the last decade was the hottest ever recorded……well at least warmer than the decades that Hansen adjusted the temps down for. But anyway saving the planet requires that the ends justify the means.

Hansen is wrong

Until the 1990′s, it was thought that climate changed slowly, over the course of centuries.

When ice cores were studied, the shock came that climate changed dramatically over very short time periods: within 10 years.

tty says:

December 9, 2011 at 4:07 am

Think about it, do you think that a 1 degree higher temperature would be enough for:

- hippopotamus in Yorkshire

- water buffaloes on the Rhine

- monkeys in Bavaria

- capybaras in Florida

- forests on the arctic coast of Siberia

all of which happened during the last interglacial

Not forgetting the contents of the stomachs and gullets of the flash frozen Mammoths in northern Siberia that belong to this interglacial, just prior to the Younger Dryas…

Kevin MacDonald says:

“Stawman, Hansen doesn’t claim that it has warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, a decadal rate of change refers to the mean and that is not required to be met in every decade to be true.

So, “now” doesn’t have to include the last and current decade? How many decades of a different rate does it take for the decadal rate to be in question? How many years of divergence is required before the entire CO2 driven global average temperature hypothesis is declared worthless?

IMO, it is inherently dishonest to claim an average rate over a long time span is happening “now” as opposed to happened even if it were not stalled, to say it’s happening is a statement of faith not science, and zohnerism.

This Geologist is embarrassed by such foolishness. This is not science and shows no true understanding of geologic time either. The ancients called it Metaphysics, the moderns call it Cosmology. You can call it anything you can get away with except science.

If temperatures have risen so much, please explain why for the past 10 years we have had the best skiing in the past 50 years in the pacific northwest. The only poor year was the 2008, when it rained solid for 2 months Jan-Feb which warmed things up. 50 years ago we got rained out much more often than now.

It seems much more likely that temperatures have risen where thermometers are located, which seems likely as they tend to located where people are using energy, land and water, which cannot help but have some effect.

As far as the changes being unusual, there is no way for Hansen to demonstrate this is true. There are no proxies as sensitive as thermometers which we can compare to thermometers. It is an apples to oranges comparison.

We do know from the paleo records than temperature swings greater than 2C have occurred over periods that may be as short as a few decades, but it is hard to know this with confidence. The paleo temperature proxies simply don’t have that sort of time resolution.

“same-o, same-o”

I think you mean “same old”, as in “same old stuff, nothing new”.

Anthony,

After reading the 9 December 2011 post, I was struck by the similarity to Harold Camping’s prediction and response. I thought, what if this James E. Hansen is really a smart guy, and a good guy, but feels his impending mortality so strongly that he is projecting it into his work. So I asked “my friend” google about “doomsday prediction mortality psychology”. Among the responses was “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult”.

Social scientists have found that while some group members will leave after the date for a doomsday prediction by the leader has passed uneventfully, others actually feel their belief and commitment to the group strengthened.[27] Often when a group’s doomsday prophesies or predictions fail to come true, the group leader will simply set a new date for impending doom, or predict a different type of catastrophe on a different date.[27] Niederhoffer and Kenner attribute this motivation of the charismatic leader to maintain a consistent belief structure as due to a desire to save sunk cost: “When you have gone far out on a limb and so many people have followed you, and there is much “sunk cost,” as economists would say, it is difficult to admit you have been wrong.”[28] In Experiments With People: Revelations from Social Psychology, Abelson, Frey and Gregg explain this further: “..continuing to proselytize on behalf of a doomsday cult whose prophecies have been disconfirmed, although it makes little logical sense, makes plenty of psychological sense if people have already spent months proselytizing on the cult’s behalf. Persevering allows them to avoid the embarrassment of how wrong they were in the first place.”[29] The common-held belief in a catastrophic event occurring on a future date can have the effect of ingraining followers with a sense of uniqueness and purpose.[27][30] In addition, after a failed prophesy members may attempt to explain the outcome through rationalization and dissonance reduction.[21][31][32] Explanations may include stating that the group members had misinterpreted the leader’s original plan, that the cataclysmic event itself had been postponed to a later date by the leader, or that the activities of the group itself had forestalled disaster.[21] In the case of the Festinger study, when the prophecy of a cataclysmic flood was proved false, the members pronounced that their faith in God had prevented the event.[24] They then proceeded to attempt to convert new members with renewed strength.[24]

Notice any similarities? Maybe one of your readers can shed some more light on the subject, however it seems to me that the discussion may have moved from hard science to the ephemeral stuff of belief. Perhaps John Lofland at UC Davis can explain what may be happening?

1. Temperature in central Greenland

Column 1: Age (thousand years before present)

Column 2: Temperature in central Greenland (degrees C)

Age             Temperature (C)

0.0951409     -31.5913

7.74695         -29.1532

Last reading about 100 years ago? So now about 30.5913.

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt

“P Wilson says:

December 9, 2011 at 7:23 am

Hansen is wrong. Until the 1990′s, it was thought that climate changed slowly, over the course of centuries. When ice cores were studied, the shock came that climate changed dramatically over very short time periods: within 10 years.”

Hansen got his degree before the 1990′s. He is believes what he was taught. The error must be in the new study, not in his beliefs.

Hansen has overwhelmed the natural slow changes in science that occur on a rational timescale.

================

Question from a Fine Arts Major.

Why are RSS and UAH lower trop global so different?

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/mean:12/plot/rss/from:2001/trend/plot/uah/from:2001/trend

How are we doing on Hansen’s other famous prediction? Is the water over the highway outside his office? In 20+ years can anyone in NY see any difference?

Anyone can make predictions. There is no shortage of quack theories. What is the difference between AGW and Relativity? AGW on occasion can be shown to be right. Relativity has never been shown to be wrong. I have a broken watch that has on occasion been shown to be right. Does that make it any good for determining what time it is?

It isn’t the number of times a theory is shown to be right that is important. Any theory that has been shown to be wrong ONE TIME is a failed theory. Current temperatures, especially Argo and the satellites, which are largely outside of Hansen’s control, have shown AGW is not correct. The model projections completely missed the mark post 2000.

GISS temperatures are going up because Hansen expects them to and he is controlling the experiment. It is called the experimenter-expectation effect. It is well known outside of climate science. When Columbus sailed to discover a new route to India, he discovered Indians.

Steve Garcia says:

December 9, 2011 at 7:02 am

I’m surprised that no one else pointed this out:

The average global surface temperature of Earth has risen by .8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now increasing at a rate of about .1 degree Celsius per decade. This image shows how 2010 temperatures compare to average temperatures from a baseline period of 1951-1980, as analyzed by scientists at NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Credit: NASA GISS

Notice the cherry-picked baseline period, 1950-1980, which was the cool cycle of the mid-1900s.

—

No, this wasn’t cherry-picked. You see, the period 1950-1980 corresponds to the childhood and young adult periods of most of these climate scientists’ lives. And, as they remember those days, they were the ideal climate period for ALL of human history! Our climate CAN NOT GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT WHICH WE HAD FROM 1950 – 1980!! That is why it is considered the “norm”. Anything different is “anomalous”. And “anomalous” is BAD! Right? And humans MUST now adopt insane sacrifices* to put our climate back to the halcyon days of 1950 – 1980. That’s what Durban is all about…

* Please remember that sacrifices do NOT apply to climate scientists, particularly their research and travel budgets, modes of transportation, salaries, benefits, and other forms of income, all of which generally obtained by taxation of the commoners.

How many large grass land warm blooded aminals where on planet earth say about 40,000 years ago. How many trees, how many things in the seas. All of them giving off their fair share of CO2.

Compare and Contrast those numbers with we later day warm blooded aminals even together with the boost of fosil fuels.

Why is there not evidence of “warm blooded Billions and Billions of aminals” causeing a “WBB&BoA” global warming event in the climate records.

There CO2 grant seekers an new line to cash idea.

David Chamness says:December 9, 2011 at 7:12 am

Exactly correct. Did you work in Ft. Collins, CO in the 80s, making ICs? I knew a fellow there of the same name back then.

Regardless of what many eminent people think the peak sea-level of the `last interglacial`/MIS 5e or 5.5, ~ 124 ka is not known definitively. Insufficient attention has been paid to short and long term tectonics driven by variability in Earth`s mantle which means that the geological evidence for that sea-level may be found at different elevations above or below present sea-level

He is a coyote howling at the moon. President Obama and everyone in government should be deeply embarrassed.

From Hansen’s political perspective, he is running up a trial balloon to see who among the media will bite. If someone bites, he will begin a new howl.

The whole thing is beneath contempt.

Pamela Gray says:

December 9, 2011 at 6:26 am

And, pray tell, how does that water warm?

Would someone PLEASE put some clothes on the naked man. GK

Peter Dunford says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:48 am

The map is completely misleading. The surface of the earth isn’ t a rectangle and that red band at the top is infilled from the hottest stations the can find 2,500 miles away. Made up data is exaggerated by the shape of the map.

I completely agree.

Anthony- would it be possible to produce a map that is not based on a Mercator projection a small globe or conic projection to that the actual area of ‘claimed’ warmer than normal is shown to be as small as it is?

Kevin MacDonald says:

December 9, 2011 at 6:11 am

Stawman, Hansen doesn’t claim that it has warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, a decadal rate of change refers to the mean and that is not required to be met in every decade to be true (see here, many of the decades fail to meet the 0.1°C yet the decadal rate of warming over the entire period is undoubtably 0.1°C).

Well, try adding in a few more 10-year series (i.e. add in 200-2009, 2001-2010, 202-2011) and see how things look… well, who’d have believed it :-)

He must keep the alarmist song going to keep that million dollar a year extra income going.

“At the current rate of fossil fuel burning, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have doubled from pre-industrial times by the middle of this century.”

“Fossil fuel burning is now causing carbon dioxide concentrations to increase at two parts per million per year.”

In my opinion, the above two statements contradict each other .

At the present time, we are at 390 ppm and if it is increasing by 2 ppm each year, in order for it to double from 280 to 560, it would take another 170 ppm. At the present rate, this would be another 85 years, or to the year 2096.

I keep hoping to wake up and this insanity is just a bad dream… And to the above reference to the Muppet’s, just how many people have their hands crammed up the backside of Hanson making him talk?

Hansen’s surface global temperatures can’t be trusted at all, when they especially can’t even get the UK correct with some of the best stations around in the world going back centuries.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/609067main1_earth-temperature226.jpg

Shows warming throughout the UK during 2010 with Hansen’s cooked data above.

Below, even using the 1961-1990 average, UK Met Office shows temperatures below the average almost everywhere for the year 2010.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/2010/17/2010_17_MeanTemp_Anomaly_1961-1990.gif

or

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/2010/17/2010_17_MeanTemp_Anomaly_1971-2000.gif

This below average year in the UK for 2010 is shown up even more using a closer 1971-2000 average.

The year for the UK during 2010 was a particularly cold one and the first sub 9.0c mean for the CET too in a while. Yet in the image from Hansen for 2010 looks like the UK was sweltering. There is no way data from this man can be trusted at all over recent years.

Why is GISS, Hansen’s playground, still receiving taxpayers funding for his fantasy climate predictions? The man ought to be tossed out on his butt for publishing garbage.

What has happened over the past decade?

As a retired physics teacher, let me try to explain it this way. I will define displacement and velocity in the process. Displacement is the change in position. So if you started at sea level and climbed to the top of Mount Everest, your displacement would be 29,029 feet up. Now suppose you rapidly reached the top in 1998 and then started to slowly walk down at the rate of 10 feet per year. Velocity is the rate of change of position. So in this example, the velocity is 10 feet per year down. Now if you walked down for 12 years, your velocity would be down, even though you would still be very high up during those 12 years.

It is perfectly possible to be high up (eight of the hottest years), and at the same time be going down (or possibly cooling in our analogy).

By the way, according to the HADCRUT3 record, 1998 was the warmest year and 2011 so far, to the end of October, it is the 11th warmest. See: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt

Also note that RSS shows a negative slope from March 1997.

During the last glacial maximum, Greenland had almost no ice. Apparently, it was lost during the Eemian. Almost all the current ice cap formed after the Younger Dryas. To be clear, the ice thickness increased as both the temperature and sea levels increased.

Perhaps warm oceans produce more snow.

Just in time for Durban. What do you mean you’re the only one who is allowed to make that insinuation of motive of timing?

Robert Clemenzi says:

December 9, 2011 at 10:12 am

Have no idea where you got that idea from because Greenland ice cores from different regions all go back at least 100,000′s of years. The longest recent ice core went back to around 840,000 years, so these show there was plenty of ice well before the Younger Dryas.

ou find 2-3 degree Celsius changes with a beat-frequency of about 1000 years – some of these rises are very steep (Greenland) – within decades – and this is quite normal throughout ice-ages and interglacials. This probably translates to a global 0.5-1 degree shift.

Bond events?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_event

Ian W says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:12 am

Peter Dunford says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:48 am

“Anthony- would it be possible to produce a map that is not based on a Mercator projection . . . “

Actually, these maps are based on a Miller-Cylindrical projection, a modified Mercator. At least I think that is the case. Anyway, the colors and map base are not Anthony’s work and they have been commented on many times. Visit the NASA GISS pages and see if they don’t offer a few others closer to your liking. Or produce your own.

Regular readers of WUWT think of these maps as bad cartoons – just as extreme as poley bears dropping out of the sky on to an urban scene or splats of bright red children exploding in a classroom.

I think I am going to hurl.

“…Hansen suggests the potential for rapid climate changes…”

I MAY be terribly concerned about the contingent possible suggested potential, IF I have nothing else to concern myself with, AND given the suggested alleged implied possiblity of MAYBE, IF trusthansen > throwhansen

Jeff Alberts says:

December 9, 2011 at 7:52 am

=====

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt

Greg Holmes says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:49 am

“…

Why does my left knee still ache when its cold?”

no, no, no. Man Made global warming…it is getting cold because your knee hurts, your knee doesn’t hut because it is cold. What we must do is get your knee to stop hurting so it will be warm again…

Werner Brozek says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:49 am

Hansen could not do arithmetic so he took up statistics.

Paul Homewood

Dec 9, 2011 at 4:14 am

GISS show Africa as one of the fastest warming places, yet have virtually no reliable thermometers to tell them. Yet satellites show warming there is much lower.

Thanks for the pointer. It might interest you to know that coastal West Africa, at least near the equator, was cooler than normal this summer. A number of people there remarked on this. It certainly didn’t seem extraordinarily hot to me.

If anyone is wondering why I was comparing 1961-1990 data with 1951-1980 is because it is easily available and there is only 0.1c difference between the periods with the CET for example. (0.04c difference between Hadley (0.26c) and GISS (0.30c)

CET 1951-1980 9.4c

CET 1961-1990 9.5c

Problem:The warming is not going as expected even with the adjustments and dirty tricks, Solution: lover the level of the safe temp.

This is strong indication that Hansen thinks global temperatures will not rise like the models have shown and expects a much lower rise like the sceptics using real life observations have proposed. Therefore the only possible solution to continue the alarm in his mind is to lower the temperature range that could be bad for humans. Clearly the science doesn’t at all support CAGW with just temperature increases less than 2c.

Hadley shows a maximum temperature range during the data set between warm periods of only 0.6c, not 0.8c claim from Hansen. Though GISS doesn’t display global temperature from a warmer earlier period like Hadley does. (was this done for the cause?)

http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1980/to:1998/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1980/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1934/to:1980/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1934/to:1980/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1905/to:1934/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1905/to:1934/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1880/to:1905/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1880/to:1905/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from/to:1880/plot/hadcrut3gl/from/to:1880/trend

…would someone please wake me up when Hansen is done talking? Thank you, CRS, DrPH

Back in August 2009, just before Copenhagen I wrote a letter to the Times of London about the Pine island glacier: which for a wonder they published if somewhat edited.

The old editor had been open to solid reasoned argument but the new editor was resolutely green, and has succeeded so well as to turn a once great newspaper into a comic: and behind a paywall too even if you buy the dead tree version. Unless of course you buy by subscription from them. Nobody does.

Frankly if I want a comic I would rather have the Daily Mail which does it much better, indeed sometimes remarkably so.

But then the new Greenie editor of the Economist has also turned it into a propaganda leaflet and am I going to pay for that balderdash?

Forgive me I digress.

Anyway I wrote to the London Times, something I used to do quite often but never bother nowadays, and for a wonder they published my letter albeit heavily edited but without changing the sense too much.

That supposed newspaper had then been recently full of the imagined melting of glaciers in the Antarctic peninsula even with a leader [editorial] about this saying it showed global warming.

The point I made was the Antarctic peninsula is an active volcanic region and the Pine Island glacier, so beloved of Hansen et al, sits directly above a currently erupting volcano. There is little to say about this other than ice, however thick, above such a major source of geothermal heat will tend to melt: and from underneath too so producing the observed flow of water beneath it.

The behaviour of it and its adjacent glaciers have little or nothing to do with supposed global warming and everything to do with sitting atop a chain of volcanoes.

Since we know so little about volcanic activity in the peninsula, and perhaps further inland, there is no way of predicting what might happen.

Which does not stop Hansen et al trying to do so without apparently even understanding the underlying forces involved.

Kindest Regards

The GRACE record is too short to confirm this with great certainty; however, the trend in the past few years does not rule it out, Hansen said.

Well, that’s me sold. Meanwhile in other news, my own scientifically baseless projections show me to become an eccentric multi-millionaire by the year 2020. My past salary record is too piss poor to confirm this with great certainty; however, the trend in the sales of Penny Farthings in the past few years doesn’t rule it out.

janama says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:35 am

can some one over there take this man to dinner and fix his head?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Perhaps we could get Charlie the Tuna to take him out to dinner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_El2_enNFaI

Consider for just a moment the number of known factors of planet-wide “climate” .

Consider the unknown ones-thats much harder as theyre “unknowns”.

Then consider that these climate soothsayers tell us they can predict the climate based on a limited number of known factors.

Then finally, consider the arrogance, the sheer hubris of these carbon cowboys as they claim they can “fix” it all just by paying attention to one aspect of the climates insurmountably complex and unpredicatable “dna”.

All without any due consideration to factors that as of yet that remain unknown.

Fixing it without knowing why its broke, how its broke, In actual fact, fixing it until it IS broke!

They might as well blame it all on the fairies.

In the uk, they have a comedian/magician called Paul Daniels, whose tagline was:

“Now thats magic”.

For these lot, climate dynamics, function and operation might just as well be like one of Mr Daniels parlour tricks, because the solution totally eludes them.

@Jim Karlack. “Could you please provide actual, empirical, evidence that Man’s CO2 is the cause of your observed climate changes?”

EXACTLY! In ’07 I saw that Gore & the ipcc had been mistruthing about the ice cores & the non-existent CO2 temp causal relationship. Even the bs artists had to concede on the 800 year CO2 / temp lag. Subsequently, the hogwash specialists have asserted that CO2 causes “amplification” of the non-CO2 initiated warming. This is fully without foundation (evidence!) — as far as I can tell. We need to call them on that! Further, though even skeptics like Lindzen talk of a theoretical basis for the trace gas CO2 warming the atmosphere, we need ACTUAL EVIDENCE that CO2 changes climate temps. I feel like I’m crazy — but in fact I have heard of no evidence. Nada. I say: there are two key agw debunking points: 1. temps are not unusual, and 2. trace gas CO2 is not shown to be a cause (just a result) of warming.

Hey, if any “deniers” here know of evidence that CO2 causes climate scale warming, put it forward please. Cuz I don’t want to go down this road if wrong.

Jeff Alberts said on December 9, 2011 at 7:52 am:

“same-o, same-o”

I think you mean “same old”, as in “same old stuff, nothing new”.

No no, Anthony has it right for the writing style. Rhymes with and evokes “lame-o, lame-o” which is a fitting description of Hansen’s latest opus. ;-)

Ian W says:

December 9, 2011 at 9:12 am

“Anthony- would it be possible to produce a map that is not based on a Mercator projection a small globe or conic projection to that the actual area of ‘claimed’ warmer than normal is shown to be as small as it is?”

Even more important is showing how it looks like without Hansen’s infamous 1200 km smoothing to show how huge the gaps are.

http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/part-1-of-comparison-of-gistemp-and-uah-msu-tlt-anomalies/

I wonder if there is some age at which mandatory retirement will kick in. I believe Hansen is 70 years old already, Surely his ability to lead a dynamic organization such as GISS is taxing him, when he wants to be out in the field (leading protests and the like). I pray the next director doesn’t get named during this election year.

Willis says

These guys can’t even tell a believable lie. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.

————-

So Willis I take it that you want people to focus on the short term trend as a predictor of future trends rather than the more robust , (against short term noise) long term trend. Is that a valid interpretation of what you are saying?

“Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales,” Hansen said.

Why doesn’t Hansen gather together all of his disciples of CAGW and lead them to a lemming like ‘utopia’ ? Would this not be a positive contribution to restore “the natural slow changes” ?

I find the phrases “…has risen by .8 degrees Celsius since 1880…” and “increasing at a rate of about .1 degree Celsius per decade” to be written in bad form. As an engineer, I was taught to always include the leading zero before a decimal point to prevent confusion since many people will overlook this small mark. There is significantly less chance of misreading 0.8 versus .8. Plus, it emphasizes the zero and decimal point, which makes it look far less threatening. (Probably why Hansen and crew left it out in the first place).

Bill Illis says:

December 9, at 4:10 am

“One can show that Hansen is right.

All one has to do is throw out all the historical climate data and then make-up some new ones

that show 4.2C per doubling of CO2. While that might not appear to be appropriate at first glance, it is done in the field all the time and is, thus, acceptable for publication / presentation at conferences.”

* * * T.h.a.n.k. Y.o.u. f.o.r. N.o.T. J.o.k.i.n.G. * * *

People simply can not understand all this heating as described ‘abnormal’ is

u.t.t.e.r,

UTTER,

b.u.n..k.

Another place Hansen et al, @ the time, tacked on about .3, was when the Russians’ Soviet Socialist Republic fell.

When the Soviet Union fell, payrolls and means, such as government-paid phone lines, vanished.

There was no ‘back up’ – the ‘back up’ was the good will and means of the people themselves to keep sending information in. Their entire system failed, and their SOVIET UNION, COMPRISING 5,000, OF THE COLDEST SENSOR STATIONS ON EARTH, V.A.N.I.S.H.E.D.

Hansen and other unmentionable FRAUD CO-CONSPIRATORS ADDED .5 to the WORLD’S TEMP THEN, but people screamed so loud they took off .2

At least, that’s as well as I remember; the mileage of the factual truth will be slightly different, but THEY SCAMMED ON .3 THEN as well as I remember.

* * *HAPPY INDICTMENTs and a MERRY INVESTIGATION SEASON* * *

Matt G says:

December 9, 2011 at 10:33 am

Robert Clemenzi says:

December 9, 2011 at 10:12 am

Have no idea where you got that idea from because Greenland ice cores from different regions all go back at least 100,000′s of years. The longest recent ice core went back to around 840,000 years, so these show there was plenty of ice well before the Younger Dryas.

The Greenland Dye 3 ice core clearly shows (plot) that in a 2,035 meter core, the Younger Dryas is located about 1780 meters below the surface. This means that only 241 meters were deposited during the ice age, and 1,780 meters were deposited after the planet warmed. The lowest 14 meters were deposited during the Eemian (the last interglacial).

According to GISP2/GRIP Reconstructed Ages for Disturbed Bottom Sections

The oldest ice in the basal layer of GISP2 and GRIP has an age >=237 ka.

The only 840,000 year core I know of is from Antarctica. Please let me know if there is also one from Greenland.

Okay, let me get this straight. That 0.8 deg C rise of the last 130 years has caused a sea level rise of about 8 inches. But every deg. C from now on, says Hansen, “ultimately equates” to a rise of 20 meters. Uh huh.

So, is he taking the average sea level rise per degree over the whole post-glaciation period (despite the fact that the rate has been decreasing, quite naturally) and applying it to today? If so, somebody should introduce the good Dr. to basic calculus.

Do the idiots who write these articles have perception at all, or are they in on the joke?

here is a “model” to be tested:

if c=level of confidence doing predictions 0>c>1

and vu=number of unknown variables involved 0>vu>∞

and bs=probability the prediction is bs

then bs=c(1-1/(1+vu))

applied to Hansen (conviction: close to or equal 1, number of unknown variables enormous) this would mean he is talking bs – so taking most comments here as proof he talking bs I think this model is valid

how’s that for the simplest of models in climate science? ;-)

I think we need a “Digging Index”. The scores would consist of ratings by experts (us) of how hard the cAGW rockstars are each digging their holes deeper. Mann and Hansen could serve as the metric, each getting a ’10′ ranking right about now, and then others as appropriate. Weekly, with graphs.

I’m sure it would highlight some fascinating dynamics!

Kevin MacDonald says:

December 9, 2011 at 6:11 am

Willis Eschenbach says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:01 am

“My favorite line was:

Based on Hansen’s temperature analysis work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has already risen .8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now warming at a rate of more than .1 degree Celsius every decade.

These guys can’t even tell a believable lie. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.

Stawman, Hansen doesn’t claim that it has warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, a decadal rate of change refers to the mean and that is not required to be met in every decade to be true (see here, many of the decades fail to meet the 0.1°C yet the decadal rate of warming over the entire period is undoubtably 0.1°C).

Then he should have said “per decade” instead of “every decade.”

Werner Brozek says:

By the way, according to the HADCRUT3 record, 1998 was the warmest year and 2011 so far, to the end of October, it is the 11th warmest. See: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt

November’s almost in the books and it looks to be a cold one. December ditto. Then we can crow about how the media and establishment warmists had jumped the gun and spun the message of 11th warmist year (or thereabouts) two and a half months earlier. It may turn out to be the 20th warmist.

LazyTeenager says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:46 pm

Willis says

These guys can’t even tell a believable lie. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.

————-

So Willis I take it that you want people to focus on the short term trend as a predictor of future trends rather than the more robust , (against short term noise) long term trend. Is that a valid interpretation of what you are saying?

That is not a valid interpretation of what I said, not in the slightest. I did not say that. I did not imply that. It is entirely your idiosyncratic interpretation.

w.

I reiterate: FIRE HANSEN!!!!!! That should be the mantra of both of the remaining GOP candidates who have a reasonable chance at the nomination. While we’re at it, Lazy Teenager should be fired, too, from his post as a troll. Lol!

It seems his timeframe of 40 years for lots of sea level rise has now gone out to 112 years (1988-2100). So far the changes are insignificant. He’d do everyone a favour if he explained why things are changing very very slowly rather than coming out with an updated timeframe. Even I can say that in 10000 yrs things will be different. He just isn’t adding much.

For those interested in the last interglacial, the Eemian, which Hansen cites, here are the numbers.

Antarctica got to about +5.0C warmer than today (for a short period) and Greenland was about +4.0C warmer than today (but we can only get partway through the Eemian in the Greenland ice cores because the ice at the bottom of the cores is too distorted and cannot be calibrated for age. There was still ice at the bottom so it did not melt out, even in the southern ice cap area, but there was probably much less glacier on Greenland and Antarctica).

CO2, by contrast, hardly changed at all through the Eemian interglacial. It was basically 270 ppm to 280 ppm.

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/6261/eemianinterglacial.png

So the Eemian was warm, +2.0C to +2.5C globally, but it wasn’t CO2 that made it warm. Most likely, more land ice melted back and sea ice was much less than today so that less of the solar energy was reflected away from the Earth back to space and this additional solar energy got incorporated into global temperatures.

“From NASA Goddard/GISS: same-o, same-o”

Too bad. According to NASA, your future is James Hansen’s mission.

Thank gods, I am not American.

“According to NASA, your future is James Hansen’s mission.”

In case this caused some bamboozlement, the NASA webpage carrying the news statement says “Your future. Our mission” in the banner.

Also, of course, I’d love to be an American, if I were filthy rich.

Robert Clemenzi says:

December 9, 2011 at 4:33 pm

http://mc-computing.com/qs/Global_Warming/Icecore_Data/Greenland-Dye3.html

The bottom layers of the glacier are lost eventually forever via icebergs and extreme pressure at the bottom forming super cooled liquid water. The data does support an increased build-up of ice after the Younger Dryas, but this doesn’t point towards that there was only 200m+ during the major ice age at the time. The current 1000m of ice at the top of the glacier with another 1000m above would have compacted about 5-10 fold. Greenland can only support so much ice because it is limited in land mass and the rest is lost especially via icebergs.

Shows the approx accumulation of ice during around the Younger Dryas

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif

Evidence shows that the most Greenland ice was still there despite only 200m+ found in the ice cores because below shows the approx sea levels at the time.

http://coastalchange.ucsd.edu/images/glacialsnewest2.jpg

If one tenth of the glacier was only around in Greenland before the Younger Dryas then sea levels after would have shown much lower rises in levels then the data shows, in fact should have shown a decline. The sea level would have to lower around 6.3m during the build up of this glacier since.

http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/images/fig_hist_1.jpg

The 840,000 year core is the one based at Antarctica and the main reason why these are significantly different in size is mainly due to the limitation of land mass. Added this one to show that there was a lot of ice well before on the planet and at the time older ice would have been lost via carving or super cooled water throughout an 800,000+ year period.

My estimations to lose all old ice via icebergs and super cooled water alone are around 120,000 years for Greenland and about 855,000 years for Antarctica. This period is likely how long it takes to lose this mass taking into account no further snowfall was added and roughly the same pressure changes if there were normal extra snowfalls and temperature remained similar during these long periods.

The GAGW folks are not really concerned about co2 levels. IF they were, they would be shouting to have most of our elec coming from nuclear sources. There is enough nuclear material to substain elec production for approx 1,000 years.

Most of the GAGW folks don’t even realize that they are being duped and used a pawns in a large game of further wealth creation of the present wealthy.

Should we try to reduce co2 emissions? Of course we should. Should this come from government? Of course it shouldn’t. People can and should be responsable for their lives because of their moral fortitude.

Tiz a sad day in the world when so many are so duped by so few.

LazyTeenager says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:46 pm

Willis says

These guys can’t even tell a believable lie. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.

————-

So Willis I take it that you want people to focus on the short term trend as a predictor of future trends rather than the more robust , (against short term noise) long term trend. Is that a valid interpretation of what you are saying?

Lazy Teenager:

Could you please tell us why we warmed from 1880 to approx 1950? There seems to be many varied ideas of why, but no definitive certainty. Maybe with your infinite knowledge you can elighten the rest of us humble folks. And then explain to us poor uneducated folks why the warming from the 1970′s to approx 2,000 is caused by co2 rather than the same force that caused the sharper level of warming from 1915-1945. I have many brain cells reserved just for your informative reply. Please don’t keep them waiting.

I love how all of the warming is at the polls just like their models predict. Of course there is no data there, just automatic estimates programmed in to show warming. We have left confirmation bias in the dust. Perhaps a new name in science for this kind of faux data. I suggest Hansenized as the term.

SteveE says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:03 am

“Could you yet me know what the Earth’s average global surface temperature anomaly was for the periods 2000 – 2010 and 1990 – 2000. ”

See the unadjusted rural data at RUTI:

http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/ruti-global-land-temperatures-1880-2010-part-1-244.php

but frankly for 1990-2010 I would prefer satellite data

NASA as data provider

as a global warming reason:

HANSEN plus buddies man-made CO2 is an issue

Wattsupwiththat plus buddies man-made CO2 is not an issue

is the above scheme correct?

wermet says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:59 pm

I find the phrases “…has risen by .8 degrees Celsius since 1880…” and “increasing at a rate of about .1 degree Celsius per decade” to be written in bad form. As an engineer, I was taught to always include the leading zero before a decimal point to prevent confusion since many people will overlook this small mark. There is significantly less chance of misreading 0.8 versus .8. Plus, it emphasizes the zero and decimal point, which makes it look far less threatening. (Probably why Hansen and crew left it out in the first place).

===========

+1

Hansen makes it clear why his preferred CO2 level is 350 ppm. Paleo evidence shows that the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets cannot be self-sustaining at higher values. Their melting, even if slow or non-steady, will lead to tens of meters of extra sea-level some time in the future. The only question is how quickly this will happen.

Jim, the CO2 level during the Eemian was 270-280 ppm way under Hensens 350 ppm.

The ice sheet melted at 280 ppm producing a 100 m higher sea level,

Since before 1750 we had 280 ppm as well and the sea level increases by 3 mm per year and not more…… even went down the past 2-3 years….

You see. there is no connection between CO2ppm and the sea level or else the present 392 ppm

would have produced a strong melt which is not the case — its all pure invention of Henson and has no base…..

Joachim, yes, the Ice Ages had even more ice due to the Canadian and European glaciers that resembled Greenland today. Sea level was 120 m lower during them. If Greenland and Antarctica melt there is 70 more meters available, just like that rise out of the ice ages. It has happened before, and can happen again. These areas remained frozen during the Eemian, so Hansen’s point is that at 400 ppm they can ‘t remain frozen.

Jim D says:

December 10, 2011 at 2:01 pm

Joachim, yes, the Ice Ages had even more ice due to the Canadian and European glaciers that resembled Greenland today. Sea level was 120 m lower during them. If Greenland and Antarctica melt there is 70 more meters available, just like that rise out of the ice ages. It has happened before, and can happen again. These areas remained frozen during the Eemian, so Hansen’s point is that at 400 ppm they can ‘t remain frozen.

It is some 50° below zero in Antarctica, it isn’t going to melt at all for a few thousand years at the rate things were going before it stopped warming. Last time I looked, Antarctica had been gaining ice since we started measuring it.

Regarding Antarctica, before 35 million years ago it did not have permanent ice, and the global CO2 level and temperature were not much higher than now. For sure the Arctic summer sea ice will go first, followed by Greenland’s glacier, but that leads the way for a warmer earth due to the albedo change that finally lets Antarctica’s glaciers go. It is a series of tipping points over a few centuries.

Shame that Hansen missed his flight on Voyager 1.

Notice they don’t mention the dirty dark secret ? Geo engineering with extremely dangerous chemicals all over the west including AUSTRALIA , these people are nuts , Barium and aluminum oxide are very dangerous to everything .

What disgusts me MOST about Hansen’s INSANE remarks…is that he is doing that on a salary paid for by the TAXPAYER.

Who the HELL does he think he is?

Chris

Norfolk, VA, USA

Matt G says:

The bottom layers of the glacier are lost eventually forever via icebergs and extreme pressure at the bottom forming super cooled liquid water.

Greenland can only support so much ice because it is limited in land mass and the rest is lost especially via icebergs.

The Greenland cores were taken from the ice cap, not a glacier. As a result, calving into the sea is not an issue. Some of the cores are actually taken in valleys. Also, since there are longer cores in Antarctica, the argument that the pressure forms water is nonsense.

Evidence shows that the most Greenland ice was still there despite only 200m+ found in the ice cores

Actually, it was only 14 meters thick at the end of the Eemian .. in the valleys. It appears that the mountains were mostly ice free. Granted, this 14 meter layer is highly compressed today. However, it is not clear where the missing mass (thickness) went. By the way, there is another layer of ice and organic material below the Eemian layer. The weird part is that there is at least a 100,000 year discontinuity at that level (which I interpret to mean that all the previous ice was lost from melting). The organic material is not from an arctic environment and many species can not be identified.

You mention a sea level anomaly. I agree. Maybe ice was melting somewhere else as it was being added to Greenland. At any rate, in my opinion, the data does not support any of the accepted theories that I have seen.

Jim, I see you are a good-will person and that you are easily impressed by clever reasoning….

But: In paleoclimates, ice melt/temp rises are always preceding (cause) and the CO2-level increase was always following secondary (effect). Please read articles on evaluations of ice core drilling, Warmist authors always scramble for detecting one single paleo-timespan, where CO2 increases FIRST and melt as consequence……and then they feel so sorry that this time they

could not do it, maybe next time, the poor guys…..

….. The statistical time lag of CO2-increase after temp/melt iscrease is between 200 and 800 years….

As you said “It happended before and it could therefore happen again” which means temps first and CO2 afterwards, no change of “cause and effect” as Henson does, a sophisticated trick of rhetorics, known since the old Greeks…. please….JS

Jim D,

Antarctica glaciated over 33.6 million years ago when CO2 was 1,400 ppm (use the real data rather than what James Hansen tries to change it to). It didn’t fall for another 2 million years after the initial glaciation. Global temperatures fell 2.0C even though CO2 did not change at all.

Greenland started having significant glaciers about 8 million years ago (mainly at high altitude in the northern sector) and then did not fully glaciate over until probably about 1 million years ago.

Technically, southern Greeland is too far south to have glaciers (same latitude as Sweden). It is only because the ice cap has built up to 3 kms high in the north-central area (and was 4 kms high in the last ice age) so that it has flowed south and the thermal inertia of all that ice next to it has kept it glaciated.

If this interglacial lasts for another 2 or 3 thousand years, the glaciers in the southern third of Greenland will be gone. It just takes a long period of time to melt out all that thermal inertia.

In the long interglacial, 400,000 years ago, the southern third of Greenland melted out and small trees even grew there. That interglacial was not particularly warm, about the same as today, but it was the longest one in the last 2.5 million years and the ice eventually melted out. There is NO evidence this occurred in any other interglacial. It should be noted that the current interglacial is similar to the one at 400,000 years in that the Milankovitch Cycles take a long time to put us back into glacial conditions, they are not regular (the current interglacial may last another 50,000 years or even 130,000 years).

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/09/hansen-humans-have-overwhelmed-the-natural-slow-changes-that-occur-on-geologic-timescales/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

Chevy Volt problems may have been deferred by NHTSA to protect “fragility of Volt sales” – FOIA demands launched

Here’s an interesting BBC story about the safety hazards associated with the Chevy Volt — specifically, the risk that its battery pack could catch fire after even a minor impact.

But the real problem may no longer be a technical one, but one of dented consumer confidence. Customers are handing back the keys in droves.

At first, when the problem first came to light, chief executive Dan Akerson offered to buy back Volt models from any concerned customers.

Then, when dozens of customers came forward wanting to hand back the keys to their cars, the company changed tack.

Rather than automatically buying back the Volts, and thus losing its as yet tiny army of early adopters of electric motoring technology, GM started offering them some 6,000 free loan cars while awaiting the outcome of an investigation into the fires.

And here’s why:

It now appears the fire hazard was first discovered back in June, when GM first heard about a fire in a Volt that occurred some three weeks after the vehicle had been crash tested.

Yet, almost five months went by before either GM or the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told dealers and customers about the potential risks and urged them to drain the battery pack as soon as possible after an accident.

Part of the reason for delaying the disclosure was the “fragility of Volt sales” up until that point, according to Joan Claybrook, a former administrator at NHTSA.

“NHTSA could have put out a consumer alert,” he said, according to industry website Autoguide.com.

“Not to tell [customers] for six months makes no sense to me. They have a duty to inform people when they’ve rated a vehicle as ‘top rated’ and make it clear there’s a problem.”

While it isn’t surprising that GM was reluctant to announce product safety bulletins that would dampen early sales of its much touted hybrid, according to the linked story the NHTSA was an accessory to this as well, and for the same reason:

“Part of the reason for delaying the disclosure was the ‘fragility of Volt sales’ up until that point, according to Joan Claybrook, a former administrator at NHTSA.”

At Autoguide.com, there’s a story saying that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood responded today saying the accusations were “absolutely not true.”

“We have opened an investigation into battery-related fires that may occur some time after a severe crash,” LaHood said. “Chevy Volt owners can be confident that their cars are safe to drive.”

Meanwhile, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) filed a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for any and all communications with General Motors (GM).

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

102 Responses to Chevy Volt problems may have been deferred by NHTSA to protect “fragility of Volt sales” – FOIA demands launched

“Chevy Volt owners can be confident that their cars are safe to drive.”

“Porcine species can be confident that flight is possible despite design shortcomings”

The 40 mile range 16kWh lithium-ion battery pack in the Volt weighs around 400 pounds (181kg), one wonders how spectacular the sudden discharge of the 300 mile range 85 kWh 1050 pound (500kg) pack proposed for the Tesla Sedan might be?

I’m also impressed with advising the average consumer to discharge a battery pack following an accident!, consumer lawyers must be rubbing their hands in anticipation

Reminds me of the story of the man’s house burning down from his Volt catching fire while plugged into the charger, or the story of an air freight shipment of batteries (FedEx or UPS) catching fire and bringing down the plane. The batteries are safe, except when they’re not.

Meanwhile, GM-H (Australian subsidiary) has announced the Holden Volt and is bombarding the local media with press releases and video footage.

http://www.motortrend.com/oftheyear/car/1101_2011_motor_trend_car_of_the_year_chevrolet_volt/

Motor Trend Car of the Year, before any had sold yet?

An upcoming paper will address increased susceptibility of Chevy Volts to fires with increased temperatures due to global warming.

(…due to increased accidents resulting from global warming)

The beautiful new Chevy Solyndra! Drive one for Obama.

Wasn’t there a film made about a Auto firms legal case in the US (70′s?), where there was known danger of fuel tank fires in the event of a rear end accident, if they were signalling to turn at the time of the impact? Wasn’t there a record payout in compensation because of the cover-up?

La Hood? sounds like a second hand car dealer from Sherwood Forest, cept this one is obviously not in it for the poor!

I’m a Aussie, bugger if we’ll cop this. I’m going to tell me mate, Andrew Bolt. Its just not right that Dan Akerson can offer to buy back the ones that might catch on fire. The point is **They might catch on FIRE**. They are trying to get rid of them Downunder because you guys have caught onto it already and aren’t buying them. Wouldn’t hold stocks in GM right now, with all the tooling write-offs on this one.

And besides, it gets recharged from its Fossil Fuel back up engine, costs a lot of coffees to recharge, gets used up in a traffic jam, probably caused by a broken down Volt up front, uncool car for the masses, problematic disposal when redundant, short durable life, ungracious, performance of a golf cart, a total loss really. Except if ya drive around film studios.

And to be really (sarc), could have built a micro desal unit for placement in a third world village for the difference in cost to a good old combustion engine.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/crash-test-jolt-for-electric-holden/story-fn7x8me2-1226212590491

It is indeed true that electric cars have the energy of their travel stored in their batteries, and would be dangerous if that energy were suddenly released.

Just as true as the consequences of a petrol tank catching on fire in a conventional car.

I had a black ice accident nearly forty years ago which burnt out a car simply by crushing its hood to its 12V battery terminals. Conventional cars have MORE danger sources than electric cars.

There appears to be failure to recognize the similarity here, or to look ahead beyond present difficulties.

“We have opened an investigation into battery-related fires that may occur some time after a severe crash,” LaHood said. “Chevy Volt owners can be confident that their cars are safe to drive.”

Safe to drive, maybe not safe to crash. Now they will investigate the safety, meanwhile they are safe.

I drive in the real world, where random road debris can include sharp-edged medium-large rocks as well as other things hazardous to the underside of a vehicle. Where is this battery pack on the vehicle, how protected is it, and what warning systems will warn me if it gets punctured or otherwise damaged, which would include a warning to quickly do a “battery drain down” procedure? After what sort of accident would I have to do it? If I’m involved in a “fender bender” where there’s some damage but the vehicle is still drivable, do I just go through the normal “estimates, insurance adjuster, take it in for work” cycle, or must I immediately have it towed away to an authorized hazmat-capable shop for inspection (hopefully they’re open 24/7)?

Do they mention the “drain down” procedure in the showroom? Such vital information should be shared without asking, before the potential buyer signs anything. A large window sticker is warranted, right next to the price and mileage stickers. Or would informing the consumer up-front yield addition suffering for the “fragility of Volt sales”?

The Chevy Volt looks good actually but it is quite worrying to read the article here about the safety issues. It is quite dangerous if the car’s battery catches fire. I think the Chevy car makers should solve this problem. So that the car owners will feel safe to drive. The blog was really very informative and I really have to appreciate you for posting this lovely blog.

JazzRoc, get real! This lemon the Volt has been sold to the American public as the ultimate green car. For GM and the Obama administration to be as deceptive-by-silence about its shortcomings is nothing less than ridiculous. No ordinary car currently has a problem with the petrol tank catching on fire. The car you may be thinking about is the Pinto – and that car’s dangers to its fuel tank, once exposed, were publicized immediately and ultimately ruined the Pinto’s sales. No government agency delayed publicizing its faults for six months. So the Volt should be exempt from such scrutiny?

The Volt performs like crap, because it gets only 40 miles to the charge, takes at least four hours or more to recharge, and requires premium unleaded fuel for its small auxiliary gas tank. That makes it totally useless to me (and most other reasonable human beings) given its expensive price. The fact that you can find similarities between electric cars and gasoline cars is meaningless, considering the relative usefulness and performance abilities of each vehicle.

I have a Ford Fusion hybrid, so I know about the comparative value of most cars over the Volt, trust me.

Is this not a case of old fashioned commercial awareness? Sell as many as possible depsite the know teething troubles in the hope that the manufacturing process & the boys (& girls) in the design office will solve the problem in transit! Unfortunately this seems to be a potentially fatal problem that has not yet been addressed, other than to withdraw the model! Now my suggestion is this, I’ve heard about some stuff that comes out of the ground, all black & guey, but it can be refined to produced an inflamable liquid! Now, if somebody could design some kind mechanical device, a machine that could burn this flamable liquid, it could produce power, well don’t you people see? If we could just find some way of harnessing that power to a drive train of some kind, attached to a set of wheels, it would mean independent movement, free of restrictions, the end of horse drawn transport! It would be a kind of, “horseless carriage”!!!! Perhaps I should read less Jules Verne & H.G. Wells, & stick to engineering!

From JazzRoc on December 9, 2011 at 1:27 am:

It is indeed true that electric cars have the energy of their travel stored in their batteries, and would be dangerous if that energy were suddenly released.

Just as true as the consequences of a petrol tank catching on fire in a conventional car.

I had a black ice accident nearly forty years ago which burnt out a car simply by crushing its hood to its 12V battery terminals. Conventional cars have MORE danger sources than electric cars.

But the Volt runs on both gasoline and battery charge. Thus you still have the dangers of a conventional car with a gas tank, with the additional dangers of a much more powerful battery. Thus the Volt is a combination of the danger sources of a conventional car PLUS those of an electric car.

Also, after a crash where the battery does not immediately initiate a problem as with your wreck, the potential danger from a charged normal battery can be quickly dealt with by cutting a battery cable. How do you do that on a Volt, or a Prius, or any electric car?

JazzRoc says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:27 am

“Conventional cars have MORE danger sources than electric cars.

There appears to be failure to recognize the similarity here, or to look ahead beyond present difficulties.”

Even if I would rather fry in a pony rather than a volt, its not electric vehicles per se that are a problem, it is that this particular electric vehicle is a dud, and not able to be properly used for which it was bought, unless it was bought to drive around movie studios.

Most applications suitable for electric vehicles don’t include transporting humans to cultural, religious, recreational, educational or scenic destinations of varying distances and scheduled time frames. Owning one of these things will lead you to become isolated in your social engagement and you wont get to visit family who live out of town.

Kinda reminds me of the Lithium Polymer (Li-Po) batteries my brother uses in in his model planes and helicopters.

Theyre quite susceptible to bursting into flames at the smallest impact that pierces the outer skin thereby allowing air and its oxygen content into contact with the lithium contents.

I suspect a similar thing is happening here.

Burned to death by a petrol tank going up or a Li-po fire….hard choice., still, if it “saves the planet” im all for choice number deux.

Lithium-ion batteries have always been susceptible to “internal runaway”. Remember the occasional flambo Sony laptops when the batteries first came on the scene? The problem is overcome in smaller batteries designed for electronic applications by applying very stringent manufacturing quality controls. Larger batteries require more exotic measures to solve the problem. Telsa Motors spent a fortune developing a very sophisticated ibattery control system for their lithium-ion batteries that supposedly prevents internal runaway. I suspect that whatever General Motors is using doesn’t always work as advertized after a crash. The relatively long delay between the actual crash and the flaming battery points toward that “internal runaway” for which lithium-ion batteries are prone.

Does anyone remember scandals “in the old days” in Pharmaceuticals? Pills that Kill not Cure.

Keep quiet about the risks whilst we run more trials and sort out the bugs.

There is a saying in the UK “they all pee in the same pot”, same in USA?

Thiis is what happens with Government businesses.

Sydney Morning Herald:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/charge-this-car-for-price-of-a-coffee-20111209-1ommo.html

Charge this car for price of a coffee

December 9, 2011 – 12:51PM

Holden has unveiled the world’s first electric car that can travel a long distance, heralding it as a “game changer” in the automotive industry.

At an event in Sydney, the car manufacturer said the Volt could travel between 60 and 80 kilometres, depending on conditions, powered purely on electricity.

The car, which will take approximately four hours to recharge at the price of a cup of coffee, is expected to be rolled out in Australia late next year at a price of between $50,000 and $70,000.

…

By this currency converter that’d be US$51,345 to 71,883. Wow, they really expect you guys to bend over and take it, mate.

…

“The Holden Volt can be the only car you need to own,” Holden managing director Mike Devereux told reporters at the car’s unveiling in Sydney today.

…

He said the new technology, which sees the car powered by lithium-ion battery packs, would come with an extra cost, saying it would be a “little bit” more expensive than a normal petrol-powered car.

The Volt retails between $41,000 and $42,000 in the United States, he said.

…

But do the Aussies get to deduct a AU$7300 (US$7500) federal tax credit?

And for the spin:

…

Authorities in the US crash-tested the Volt in May and completely damaged the battery before leaving it powered for three weeks.

Mr Devereux said this caused a “thermal event”, which the industry would have to look at when dealing with lithium-ion batteries.

…

“Completely” damaged? Well then, when is it less-than-completely damaged and still completely safe?

And a funny bit:

…

United States ambassador Jeffrey Bleich said the car was “joy without sin”.

“It’s eating a chocolate sundae without getting fat,” Mr Bleich quipped.

“It’s watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians and actually getting smarter.”

…

It’s buying an over-priced under-performing faux-Green car and not noticing you didn’t do one dang thing to really lower personal carbon emissions or to help the environment.

The Volt sounds to me like a bad risk. I have not yet seen anyone ask this question: When you “drain down” the Volt, what exactly comes out? Can you catch it to reload it into the car when the risk is over? If not, do you have to buy new batteries? At what cost? Do you have to be in a special place to unload it, such as a decontamination facility? It sounds like a big operation, with likely hazardous materials. I shall not buy a Volt.

JazzRoc

“… and would be dangerous if that energy were suddenly released.”

There’s no “energy” stored in batteries nor. Charging and discharging is a chemical reaction uptaking or releasing electrons which can’t burst out at once like with fuel. The real danger with lithium energy storage devices is the inflamability of lithium. Like potassium and sodium it will incinerate if getting in contact with water or even air. You cannot extinguish a light metal fire easily. At least, you shouldn’t use water but CO2 as an agent …

Oh no, that ugly poisonous dangerous CO2 … /sarc

Imagine an accident which brakes the battery whilst rain is coming down in torrents. That might extinguish ordinary fires but inevitably inflame or even cause a lithium fire.

The good news is, you have lithium handy to treat your depression while looking at your burning car. /sarc

I’d never by me a car which carries so much highly inflamable light metal in an easily to break box.

What else would one expect from a Govt. owned car company — effectively collusion. Imagine if GM had been a really private company (or if the Govt. had not stepped a subsidiary of some other private car company). Need a separation of business and state clause.

So, the risk with a 31 mph side crash test was a couple of broken ribs? To me, it looked like a broken neck for the dummy could have trumped that.

Geoff Alder

The Volt is the first hybrid-type car I’ve ever considered buying, specifically because of the gasoline engine. I drive around 30 miles round-trip for work per day but make regular road trips of hundreds of miles. The Volt would get me to work and back without using gas during the week but wouldn’t limit me from taking off on a longer trip whenever I needed to. I won’t buy a regular hybrid because the gas savings isn’t big enough to justify the cost. This is still true for the Volt, for now, but it is much closer than a Prius or other hybrid. Most of my driving is rural highway so the urban advantages of a normal hybrid don’t help me much.

The issue with the Volt is the Lithium-Ion batteries. It’s a good bet that GM and the battery manufacturer will make improvements to the batteries that make them more shock resistant, but as mentioned above, you have a lot of energy in a small package and back things will happen when it is suddenly liberated. This is no different than the fuel tank on a normal car. The big difference is that the car makers have had over a hundred years to refine their designs to protect the fuel tank. All-electric vehicles using Li-Ion batteries are still fairly new and it will take some time to work out all the kinks. All technologies have some growing pains early on.

The real issue here is if GM and the NHTSA passed over known safety issues with the batteries in order to meet a schedule. If they passed all the required testing, then maybe the DOT needs additional requirements for electric vehicles.

I’m about as anti-Green as you can get, but as an engineer, I think the concept used for the Volt is more practical than anything else out there. In the end, the market should get to decide how successful it is. I have a problem with the gubment paying people to buy them, but I also think some of the criticism is unwarranted. Time will tell.

PONTIAC IS GONE, BUT THE FIREBIRD LIVES ON!

A friend was once involved in a side-impact crash. Restrained by the lap belt, her major injury was a crushed pelvis as the belt held her against thin incoming bumber of the impacting vehicle.

The dummy here would have sustained the same injury – an injury that can cripple for life.

So… do you think that this might be a good time to pick up a Volt on a fire sale?

United States ambassador Jeffrey Bleich said

“It’s watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians and actually getting smarter.”

No science needed to take on the accuracy of that claim then……

If the range is 40 miles for the Volt, what is its’ WINTER mileage between charges,at say -30 F Maybe 8-9 miles?

I always knew there must have been a reason we kept practicing Chinese fire drills lo these many years.

The Volt gets around 37 mi/charge at STP. Any deviation from STP causes the range to decrease and there is plenty of deviation from STP in the US. San Diego, within ten miles of the beach, would be just about the only place that you could consistently get the max range.

It takes about 22KWH and eight hours to charge the battery in order to get that 37 mi round trip. At $.20/KWH, the cost to charge up is $4.44 or the equivalent of about 1.25 gallons of gas giving a fuel efficiency of about 30 mi/gal.

Anyone not willing to give up $45,000 for a car that goes 37 miles and gets 30 mi/gal in the past will certainly do so now that it can turn your home into a barbecue for no additional cost.

Battery pack replacement costs $10K – 12K. Adds a little cost to your fender bender.

JazzRoc says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:27 am

Conventional cars have MORE danger sources than electric cars.

There appears to be failure to recognize the similarity here, or to look ahead beyond present difficulties.

——————————–

Jazzy, I think you’re not being entirely accurate with this statement. A car like the volt has the gasoline hazard and also has a massively more powerful battery that uses a more hazardous chemistry (li-Ion). There is also the matter that a conventional car doesn’t have high current conductors running all over.If we’re going to be EV fanboys we still need to be honest about the additional potential hazards of these vehicles.

The main problem with this story is that the Administration and its Government Motors has decided that a small percentage of the public’s lives are expendable along the way in their pursuit of a Green Utopia, and, of course, not making the Administration look bad. Woe be unto anybody else that tried to pull this stunt that’s not hooked into the govt’s green machine.

If you think about it, any damaged electrical product has a risk of electrical faults that may cause heat, and thus fire. Drop-kick a radio or a toaster across the room and then plug it back in. Bad things may occur — or not. Depends exactly what damage you cause.

So it stands to reason that banging your Volt into a tree or a pedestrian might bend come component or shake something loose. If you are unlucky that bent or loose bit might get hot and you can guess the rest.

Perhaps the main question is: why is anybody surprised about this?

In fairness, maltreating a gas-driven auto could still damage its electrics with similar results, but the Volt has (I presume) many more electric bits so is statistically more likely to combust.

Why hasn’t a scapegoat-hunting media-circus been orchestrated like for the pseudo-problems with Toyota cars? Remember that?

Answer? The Toyota factories in America aren’t controlled by the UAW union like the government protected GM Volt is.

No real world problems have occurred. These were tests. Now let’s say you own a car, any car. You have an accident that totals the car. Do you sit in it for hours, days or weeks? Do you tow it home and put it in your garage? No. It gets towed to a body shop or salvage yard where it sits outside.

It’s not like the issue with the cruise control brake switches on Ford vehicles that always had current to them even when the key was off. Those switches were shorting and burning up vehicles, garages and houses even though they had not been involved in any sort of accident.

I’d be one of the first to say that electric and hybrids are a joke but I would have no worry driving a Volt. To me this is a non issue.

I’d be curious to know how many General Motors labor union members drive Volts.

================

If the cars are given back does GM have to then pay the $7500 back to the govenrment or does the purchaser? Someone got the money(credit/deduction).

“No real world problems have occurred.”

There have been at least two house fires attributed to the Volt. With the small number sold, the record is far worse than the number of non-Volts that spontaneously combust. There are over 500 million non-Volts and only a few thousand Volts; non-volts would have to be autocombusting at 10000 per year to beat the Volt’s record.

Charles.U.Farley says:

December 9, 2011 at 2:39 am

“Kinda reminds me of the Lithium Polymer (Li-Po) batteries my brother uses in in his model planes and helicopters.

Theyre quite susceptible to bursting into flames at the smallest impact that pierces the outer skin thereby allowing air and its oxygen content into contact with the lithium contents.”

Told a friend of mine about the hazards of LiPo last week, her husband is a model plane enthusiast. She said “What? some of them are in our kitchen!” Scared her stiff. Hehe. Guess hubby has some ‘splaining to do now…

@JimBob

Good observations and cogent thoughts. The offers are getting better.

Perhaps they will move to super capacitors sooner than later now that there are materials capable of storing 1.2 Farads per sq inch. I was once assisting a Pinto beside a highway when it was hit square in the back by a Volvo 122. I was sprayed (along with everything and everyone around) with gasoline from the bursting tank but it did not ignite. That is a rare danger these days. The dangers posed by a capacitor are significant and the battery people will no doubt hype that when the time comes. Hollywood will have a field day shooting scenes where a cop puts a bullet through the 100 kWh capacitor of an escaping vehicle! Technologically, it is like 1910 all over again.

While we’re talking about green inventions with the potential to destroy lives, take care when refilling your A/C. The new refrigerant R 1234 yf (proposed as a replacement because it allegedly warms the planet less than the old ones) is flammable at high temperatures (600deg C IIRC) and explosive at low concentrations.

http://www.r744.com/articles/2010-02-15-tests-confirm-hfc-1234yf-explosive-at-low-concentration.php

Avoid when possible.

OK, so there are only 100 million non-Volts and 6128 Volts in the US auto fleet. So, 100,000,000/6128 * 2 actual spontaneous Volt combustions = 32,637 non-Volt equivalent autocombustions.

The danger of electric cars as compared to conventional cars (as I understand it) is in the fire and rescue side. Yes, gasoline burns “real good”. But fires are normally put out with water. I have a couple of fire fighter friends that have been through electric/hybrid rescue training and are scared to death of them.

One added gotcha is that there is no standard “cut-off” mechanism. Each and every make/model requires a different method and a different location to disable the electrics. Even if standardized, a crushed metal frame can make all sorts of unexpected changes to the wiring harness.

I discussed this with a friend of mine who is a power systems expert in the satellite field. The large Aerospace companies have incredibly detailed specifications on how to handle these batteries, including vibration and shock specifications. If a battery gets more than an X shock in handling, it is removed from possible use on a satellite due to the number of incidents involving spontaneous combustion. The problem is almost impossible to fix due to the way that the batteries are made today.

People who know these battery technologies well, know about this problem. There is no way that the engineers at GM did not know about this from day one.

You mean people trying to push the “green” agenda would lie about a key component of their agenda? Say it ain’t so. I mean, they all are on the up and up, clean as a whistle, as honest as Abe, etc., so they would never doctor reports, data, computer models, or repress unfavorable reports that would harm the “green” movement.

Re:mkelly says:

December 9, 2011 at 7:28 am

“If the cars are given back does GM have to then pay the $7500 back to the govenrment or does the purchaser? Someone got the money(credit/deduction).”

I’m guessing that the Volt purchase tax credit is like the “solar plant 30% investment tax credit”. The instant that plant goes into continuous operation that solar tax credit is the investor’s to keep, even if the plant subsequently collapse in ruins, forfeits on its loans or is sold to others. There is no provision in the tax code for recapture of the credit.

Even if GM deducts that $7,500 credit from the price it agrees to pay the customer to “buy back” the car (notice the term is “buy back”; not “cancel purchase”), I’m guessing the U.S. Treasury will be $7,500 poorer for each Chevy Volt originally sold because the benefit will have simply been transferred to GM.

Sal Minella wrote, “At $.20/KWH, the cost to charge up is $4.44 or the equivalent of about 1.25 gallons of gas giving a fuel efficiency of about 30 mi/gal.”

But where I live (NC) electricity costs half that. (Unfortunately, “green” mandates from Gov. Bev “we should postpone elections for two years” Perdue and her ilk are pushing the rates higher.)

Dave

Sal Minella says:

OK, so there are only 100 million non-Volts and 6128 Volts in the US auto fleet. So, 100,000,000/6128 * 2 actual spontaneous Volt combustions = 32,637 non-Volt equivalent autocombustions.

So we have 61 ppm, just to put it into climate perspective. As long as we keep it under 350 ppm, we shouldn’t have any runaway warming, based on my computer model.

Electricity here in free-market Texas runs 9.8 cents per Kwh, so even tho we grow gas here, that still changes the economics in favor of the govt Firebird Volt. I’d need to install a firewall in the canopy connecting my garage to the mansion, but that’s an inconsequential expense. Then back up my computer files off-site.

Claude Harvey says:

December 9, 2011 at 8:58 am

Re:mkelly says:

December 9, 2011 at 7:28 am

Lost money thats what I figured too. MF Globals all over the place.

So, is Alessandro Volta rolling is his grave over the vehicle named after him?

What really disappoints me, is what the volt became, from what I recall the early prototypes where more of a series hybrid device like a locomotive diesel electric, with a smaller battery in between. Not a Prius parallel’ish wannabe. Rumor had it the one of the early development mules has a small 3 cylinder diesel that would run with varying duty cycles, with a battery sized for power boost during acceleration and to allow the engine not to run at stop lights and provide a reasonable charge/discharge duty cycle on the highway. Basically to allow the diesel engine to either be on, running at peak efficiency charging the battery, or completely off.

So without a twin power source transmission (ala Prius), and small 100 lbs battery, the vehicle was lighter than any other hybrid, and capable of gas mileage exceeding 70mpg (diesel version)

I was absolutely stocked reading these rumors.

Then as development continued, and it became more and more like a plug-in Prius, I was dismayed.

Now, well, why oh why????

face palms all around …..

“Chevy Volt owners can be confident that their cars are safe to drive.”

Unless they’re on fire when they get into them, then they can be somewhat less confident.

For that matter, is a vehicle safe to drive if you can drive it fast enough to keep the flames away from you?

“Quem deus vult perdere, Prius dementat.”

(Whom the gods would destroy, the Prius drives crazy.)

[LaHood said:] “Chevy Volt owners can be confident that their cars are safe to drive.”

Did you all notice that he didn’t say, “We Chevy Volt owners can be confident that our cars are safe to drive?”

The press and others have distorted this problem. The fires occurred days or weeks after the crash, and required a series of events to trigger it. That information was not revealed in most of the reports I read and in none of the TV reports. The idea that the car spontaneously combusts immediately after an accident makes good press but it is not correct and not fare to GM or to the owners.

The NHTSA was, I feel, justified in not immediately sounding alarms since there was no immediate danger to drivers. If it were a case of fires immediately after a crash, or while driving, then yes, a delay in the warnings would be inexcusable. The crash tests showed that the car is as safe as other, non-electric cars. GM’s procedures call for the battery to be discharged after a crash. Do that and there would be no problem. Would be park a wrecked car with a connected battery and full tank of fuel in your garage?

Be skeptical of reports of the car catching fire in a garage in NC. The Volt was not the source. Another one did catch fire, in WI, because it had been in a crash three weeks earlier and lost its coolant. A couple of planes have had fires that likely were caused by batteries being shipped, but they were not Chevy Volt batteries.

I don’t agree that the government should subsidize these or any other cars. The price is too high and the all-electric range not enough for most people. Drop the price $10K, and increase the range to 80 miles, and it would meet my needs.

For comparison, from http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/osvehicle.pdf

329,500 vehicle fires, 565 civilian deaths, 1,825 civilian injuries were reported in 2002.

Public fire departments responded to 329,500 vehicle fires in the United States during

2002. These fires caused 565 civilian deaths, 1,825 civilian injuries and $1,392,000,000

in direct property damage. (See Table 1.) Vehicle fires accounted for 20% of the

1,687,500 fires reported to U.S. fire departments that year. In that same year, vehicle

fires caused 17% of all civilian fire deaths, 10% of all civilian fire injuries and 13% of the

nation’s property loss to fire. More people died from vehicle fires than from apartment

fires, and vehicle fires caused seven times the number of deaths caused by non-residential

structure fires.

As you can see, vehicle fires are a real issue that needs attention.

Full disclosure: I drive a Chevy Silverado HD. I have no financial interest in GM and wouldn’t invest a penny.

Batteries – ANY battery – should be considered a ‘hand gren-ade’ with the pin in … the wrong move and the pin comes out … I had a battery pack for a 2-way radio melt a couple decades back, when a pen or pencil came across the contracts while it was in my briefcase. Fortunately, not a high capacity Li-ion or Ni-MH set of cells at that time, so no fire or explosion BUT the plastic battery case deformed (melted) to the point it could not slide back onto the radio …

.

@_Jim says:

December 9, 2011 at 10:57 am

……. I had a battery pack for a 2-way radio melt a couple decades back, when a pen or pencil came across the contracts while it was in my briefcase.

I had a deal melt a couple of decades back, when a lawyer came across the contracts while they were in my briefcase. Sorry – just a little bit of humor. No offense intended. Maybe they should rename it the Chevy Jolt – along the lines of the AMC Matador.

Leon Brozyna says:

December 9, 2011 at 1:07 am

Reminds me of the story of the man’s house burning down from his Volt catching fire while plugged into the charger, or the story of an air freight shipment of batteries (FedEx or UPS) catching fire and bringing down the plane. The batteries are safe, except when they’re not.

******

It was UPS. I was talking to a UPS pilot in the Dallas airport recently. He was dead-heading to another assignment. I noticed his flight bag displayed a decal memorializing two UPS pilots who were killed on the job and I enquired about it. They were flying a brand new 747 from Japan to Dubai. Nearing their destination, smoke appeared on the flight deck. The Captain left to check the cargo bays. He never came back. The First Officer continued to try to save the aircraft but it crashed in the desert. Subsequent investigation on the ground revealed the source of the fire was a pallet of Li-I batteries.

Try to imagine if the Bush administration TOOK OVER GM (ponder that for a minute),

then HID safety data in order to protect “fragile sales.”

Try to imagine any non-government-subsidized business getting away with this (or with shredding birds, to name but one other example)

Pretty well known in the computer industry that damage to your LION packs will mean bad stuff for your data-centre. Which is why a lot of places shifted back from rackmount LION to PB based onsite temporary, and diesel/ng power. Besides, if you take a li battery and add water fun stuff happens, like fire and explosions. That one’s been known for a while, especially in mobile devices, and if I remember right most of these fires are storage fires after the vehicle has been in a crash. And left outside without removing the battery pack, or ensuring that there won’t be any environmental contact. Even a lead-acid battery will explode in the open given the right opportunity after a crash.

I am starting to see a pattern.

First a report in the WSJ on how FERC has basically abdicated its responsibility by refusing to act on the topic of new EPA regulations which all expert testimony stated a significant risk to the reliability of the nations electrical grid. (This after the EPA deleted statements in their preliminary staff report which acknowledged such risk.)

Then today this same agency releases a decision stating that BPA acted in a discriminatory matter last spring when it enacted curtailments on power producers, which included wind turbine generators. This after BPA gave preference to wind generators by placing them at the bottom of the curtailment list – i.e. last ones to be effected – and after NW lawmakers urged the agency to wait on the outcome of negotiations between BPA and the wind generators.

Now we have another government agency with responsibility to protect consumers, compromising themselves in order to support policy of an administration currently in office.

JuergenK says:

December 9, 2011 at 4:03 am

<>

Actually, lithium is far more reactive than carbon and will happily combust in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide—as will a number of metals. The only safe way to smother a metal fire is with sand (silicon dioxide), and even that may be dicey if lithium is involved. (The ultimate resort would be to use a totally inert substance. Anyone own a liquid argon extinguisher?)

Let’s be fair. If a petrol-powered car has a serious accident it’s best to disconnect the battery immediately in case the wiring is damaged. Would you leave a badly damaged car with a full tank of petrol? I wouldn’t. It seems obvious to discharge the battery in a damaged Volt.

Downdraft says:

December 9, 2011 at 10:54 am

“The press and others have distorted this problem. The fires occurred days or weeks after the crash, and required a series of events to trigger it. That information was not revealed in most of the reports I read and in none of the TV reports. The idea that the car spontaneously combusts immediately after an accident makes good press but it is not correct and not fare to GM or to the owners.

The NHTSA was, I feel, justified in not immediately sounding alarms since there was no immediate danger to drivers.”

You are wrong; the first time I read about it in the media they made it very clear that the car was catching fire 3 weeks after the crash test – NOT immediately. It spontaneously combusted after sitting there, seemingly harmless. Had there been a human inside in that moment it would have combusted just as well; I find this MORE shocking to have such a time bomb car than having it combust as a direct consequence of a crash (which would be bad enough).

All Li batteries are dangerous, but the fire you might get in your phone or your computer is at least likely to be small because the battery is tiny. The ones they put in cars are – not so tiny.

A few weeks ago, in the annual solar powered car race across the outback here in Australia, one of the cars burst into flames while parked and burned to the ground. No-one is sure why, because there was just a smoking heap of melted polymers and twisted metal left at the end.

Luckily, the car was in the parking lot and the driver was on a meal break in a restaurant at the time.

These cars are supposed to be state of the art high tech wonders, and have to pass all sorts of safety tests. And no, it hadn’t been in a crash. The battery casing probably sprung a leak somehow (bumps on the road?) and the rest was inevitable.

Li batteries in cars are death traps.

HMMMmmmmm,

Takeout the battery and hitch up a standardbed Top speed is 30MPH or better (I clocked a friends pair at 40MPH +) The range is up to 100 miles in a day. All this on 7 bale of hay ($42) and a 50# bag of grain ($10) or $42 per week or less. This is the pulling power preferred by the Amish by the way.

It is interesting to look at the old cars and see they have Shaft Shackles fastened to the front axle of the vehicle so when the engine failed they could easily be hitched to a horse and pulled. http://www.engelscoachshop.com/shafts_files/image011.jpg

In my line of work I work with rechargeable batteries of various types. When a CONVENTIONAL Lithium – Ion battery burns it does not cause a lithium metal fire. The lithium-Ion battery’s Lithium is already in an oxidized salt form inside the cell. Lithium-Ion is different than Lithium Primary. The greater fire risk of the lithium-ion cells is due to the fact that the electrolyte is a volatile organic solution and not aqueous like most cells, and Also the cell itself packs more power (higher voltage and capacity) than other types of cells so any kind of problem is magnified. It is more susceptible to thermal runaway. A lithium-Ion battery fire can be extinguished in the same ways as any electrical fire. NiMH and Pb-Acid cells also have the risk of venting hydrogen under certain conditions.

Just about every major lithium-Ion cell manufacturer has had a manufacturing plant burn down at one time or another.

Where’s Ralph “Unsafe at any speed” Nader?

Once I had a regular lead-acid car battery short itself out under the hood when the bracket broke and the battery shifted to contact the positive lead to ground..it exploded in a ball of fire spraying sulfuric acid all over the place. The fireball was the hydrogen/oxygen mixture catching fire from the heat generated from the dead short. Imagine a whole pile of those suckers ganged together essentially in the back seat?

According to NHTSA regulations a vehicle manufacturer has 5 days to report a safety defect or noncompliance with a safety regulation to the NHTSA.

For a site whose readers proclaim they’re interested in facts it’s amazing how few seem to actually go and look any up.

You regularly ridicule the BBC yet here you take their word for it. Yet, had you done a bit of research you’d quickly realize that neither the NHTSA nor GM could replicate what happened in May, even after crashing numerous Volts. The NHTSA then opted to take the battery packs and subject them to major abuse. Only then, after six months of hammering at the car and its packs, could they get a reaction. Six months! They even used the US military to assist in breaking the batteries. Yet many here sit smugly in front of their computers pontificating about which they know little. For the curious, go read about it in The Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/21541395

Next, it seems many of the commenters are woefully unaware that 0.1% of car crashes in the US result in a fire. That’s nearly 300,000 fires per year. As there are 6000 Volts in the US by simple arithmetic there should have been 6 fires, yet not one crashed Volt has caught fire.

The notion that a “minor accident” will breach the battery is beyond stupid. The battery is in the middle of the car. For the battery housing to be breached requires severe damage, to the point the car will be utterly written off.

The worry about the fire is also misplaced. The fires typically happen weeks later, when the car should have had its battery disconnected. If you’re still in your car 3 weeks after an automobile accident large enough to damage the Volt’s pack you have bigger worries, such as being dead.

Note, the cables that must be disconnected are labeled with a Firefighter and Cable Snaps picture in bright yellow. Only a fool wouldn’t be able to see it.

Furthermore, none of the house fires were caused by the Volt. There is this giddy desire to associate every single fire with any Volt that happens to be nearby. The fact is, human stupidity accounts for most house fires. I’ve seen pictures of people plugging their Volt’s into extensions cords when the manual explicitly says to plug it into a dedicated circuit. No manufacturer can build a product to suppress the natural human ability to be more idiotic than anyone can imagine. Ask Einstein.

Instead of comprehending that the Volt represents the future of motoring many comments seem hellbent on picturing the car purely from a political point of view, even though the car was started well before GM’s bankruptcy. The electrification of the automobile is a foregone conclusion. If there are those who don’t like it, perhaps their ancestors bemoaned us coming down out of the trees a few million years ago.

For those who still may be a bit confused, look at the Volt as the way towards eliminating a good percentage of oil needs from unfriendly states. The cash spent on a Volt and the gas saved remains in the US. From a national security perspective you’d think most folks would be all for not arming one’s enemies every time they went to a gas station.

I’d love to see a set of updates on the story posted by Mr. Watts, but I highly doubt it’ll happen. Do note that this whole episode has shown a major disregard for science and testing by this community and has made me begin to question how open and honest a discussion self-described skeptics desire if they immediately jump to a conclusion on the Volt without looking into the facts.

Gene,

Good post. This site is all about different points of view. That’s how the truth gets winnowed out, through online debate, without censorship. But Anthony doesn’t have an obligation to post follow-ups on every article. Commenters can disagree like you did, and maybe change minds if your argument withstands scrutiny.

Re: Gene says:

December 9, 2011 at 4:25 pm

“Note, the cables that must be disconnected are labeled with a Firefighter and Cable Snaps picture in bright yellow. Only a fool wouldn’t be able to see it.”

I don’t think you quite “get it” Gene. Lithium-ion batteries are prone to run away internally, generating enormous heat and destroying both the battery and its surroundings. Pulling the input/output cables gets you nothing. The delay between crash and fire in the Chevy Volt strongly suggests internal runaway for which lithium-ion batteries are notorious.

If you want “followup” and the ultimate scientific truth of the matter, monitor IEEE Spectrum and I guarantee you the postmortem analysis of the Volt failure will eventually appear in that publication. I’ll give you heavy odds the bottom line turns out to be “internal runaway”.

Claude,

I know all about internal run away. I’m in high tech. We use li-ion a lot. It’s life. Much as driving with 15 gallons of combustible fluid under your arse is something you get used to.

The fact remains the Volt’s battery pack only experienced the failures when abused to the point the surrounding car would be considered a total write off. The battery is, after all, in the middle of the car. To damage the middle you have to get there, meaning the folks sitting on either side of the battery are going to be in pretty bad shape.

It’s not as if a slight bump, a pot hole, or anything minor is going to set the Volt afire. It requires breaching the battery pack. That’s why, ultimately, the NHTSA had to give up on smashing Volts and actually just start smashing battery packs. If it was simply doing some minor damage to the Volt the fires would have been replicated. The fact they couldn’t replicate it for 6 months implies the damage has to be quite substantial.

Note that the way the packs do finally ignite require all these events to happen:

1. The car must be in a severe side impact (>35-40mph).

2. The car must impact a pole or tree or other immovable object (>25mph).

3. The car must flip over onto its roof.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s one edge case. You have all that happen to you in pretty much any car and you’re going to be pretty badly mangled. The fact the battery might — MIGHT — ignite a week to three weeks later is of little consequence. That car is a writeoff and, with luck, you’re alive.

In case you think I’m making those 3 steps up, go check what the NHTSA said is required to induce a failure. Those three steps. It’s quite obvious why they couldn’t get a Volt to ignite except by fluke. It’s such an edge case it’s unlikely to ever happen. Even severely damaging packs by themselves didn’t result in fire all the time.

The car is safer than a gas powered car, considering the 300,000 car fires in the US per year!

John-X said:

December 9, 2011 at 11:49 am

Try to imagine if the Bush administration TOOK OVER GM (ponder that for a minute),

then HID safety data in order to protect “fragile sales.”

——————————————————————-

obama and the other neocoms won’t have to worry about fragile sales soon: if they can tell us what medical insurance and light bulbs we can and cannot buy, soon they will be telling us what car we must buy.

There is a Volt in your future – unless you revolt.

Gene and Downdraft … thanks for lending some sanity to this thread.

Gene, Battery packs can be damaged without being punctured by way of the shock of a collision without even showing an outward sign of damage. I’m not sating that’s what happened here because I don’t know. I’m involved with getting electronic devices UL approved.

Your argument seems to suggest that the Volt’s battery system is nearly impervious to damage. I find that rather hard to believe on its face. I’m not sure what the blog proprietors would need to update on this story. All you’ve provided is your personal opinion on what is the car of the future without any real basis for it. The battery powered vehicle was displaced from the roadways by the superior internal combustion engine once already.

Claude, the 3 week delay for the NTHSA post crash fire probably had to do with the coolant surrounding the battery pack… the coolant itself is not conductive or reactive with the undischarged energy in the pack… but when the coolant dries and crystalizes, it can react or become conductive and cause a fire if there is still charge present in the battery cells. This is one of the reasons that damaged battery pack need to be properly discharged… a procedure that the NTHSA failed to follow. The investigation is still necessary because if the NTHSA didn’t follow the discharge procedure, it will surely be missed by salvage operators at some point.

Gene wrote, “Next, it seems many of the commenters are woefully unaware that 0.1% of car crashes in the US result in a fire… As there are 6000 Volts in the US by simple arithmetic there should have been 6 fires…”

Not unless all 6000 Volts have been crashed.

Gene says:

December 9, 2011 at 6:37 pm

“Claude,

I know all about internal run away. I’m in high tech. We use li-ion a lot. It’s life.”

Interesting you didn’t think of that in your “Disconnect the cables” solution. I’m not joining you in “going tribal” over the pros and cons of battery-powered vehicles. The consumer market will be the final arbiter on that one. The fact is that more than one lithium-ion battery has burst into flames for no apparent reason sometime after a crash. I simply pointed out that lithium-ion batteries are notorious for doing exactly that and those reasons have nothing to do with whether or not the battery is connected to load at the time of the failure.

From TimH on December 9, 2011 at 7:30 pm:

(…) This is one of the reasons that damaged battery pack need to be properly discharged… a procedure that the NTHSA failed to follow. The investigation is still necessary because if the NTHSA didn’t follow the discharge procedure, it will surely be missed by salvage operators at some point.

Not so fast! NHTSA didn’t know there was such a procedure, they can’t be faulted for not following it when they weren’t informed of it!

Nov 11, 2011

http://www.freep.com/article/20111111/BUSINESS0101/111111039/Chevrolet-Volt-catches-fire-weeks-after-crash-prompting-closer-look-safety

General Motors believes the fire occurred because NHTSA did not drain the energy from the Volt’s battery following the crash, which is a safety step the automaker recommends, GM spokesman Rob Peterson said. NHTSA had not been told of the safety protocol, Peterson said.

For a juicy detail I haven’t seen mentioned previously, the safety protocol didn’t exist. There was an internal GM process, I’d guess like would be needed for prototypes and testing, but no releasable protocol to provide to NHTSA and emergency responders.

Originally Nov 17, 2011, Bloomburg, reported Nov 29 in Bloomburg Businessweek (bold added in text):

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-29/gm-developing-methods-to-handle-volt-batteries-after-crashes.html

GM Developing Methods to Handle Volt Batteries After Crashes

…

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Co. is developing ways to discharge the battery in Chevrolet Volts after accidents to prevent fires like the one that followed a government crash- test of the plug-in hybrid car in May.

GM is working on safety practices with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and will make them public when completed, Rob Peterson, a GM spokesman, said yesterday. The Detroit-based automaker has taken longer to develop a plan than Nissan Motor Co. did for its Leaf electric car. Both the Volt and Leaf went on sale in December 2010.

“I can’t conceive that they didn’t have a standard operating procedure in place for handling a wrecked vehicle before the car went on sale,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. “NHTSA and GM should have established protocols in place before it went on sale.”

The procedures are intended to keep rescue workers, dealers and auto-salvagers safe and head off potential fires that may jeopardize the safety reputation of the Volt, which is the focus of GM’s marketing.

…

GM had a process to discharge Volt batteries. The automaker didn’t distribute it to tow truck drivers, body shops, salvage yards and others who may handle the car after emergency crews stabilize the scene of an accident. The company was sending engineers out to check any Volt that got in an accident and, if needed, discharge the battery, Peterson said.

“We had a process internally but I don’t believe it was shared with anyone,” Peterson said in a phone interview. “The incident with NHTSA raised awareness that we had to develop a procedure and alert all stakeholders.”

…

First they put the Volt on the market.

Then came the post-NHTSA crash fire.

—where NHTSA was blamed for not following the protocol

—that GM admitted they had never told NHTSA

Now we know there was no emergency protocol, just a “process” suitable for engineers to perform.

NOW they are working on standard procedures so emergency responders and others working on crashed vehicles can stay safe, nearly a year after they started selling them.

How can anyone defend Government Motors for this? No one has died yet, but the potential was there. Emergency responders didn’t know how to deal with crashed Volts, since GM never bothered to develop a standard safety procedure they could reveal to them.

Instead, GM was sending out engineers to quietly examine crashed Volts and do their “process.” How can this not smell like they were covering up something? And how could GM have known they’d be alerted about every crash? Were they counting on their OnStar GPS-capable built-in spying system to notify them every time? Was there one or more GM executives freaking out because crashed Volts were being securely held at NHTSA facilities, where those GM engineers couldn’t get at them?

As said, those standard procedures should have been developed and released to protect people and “…head off potential fires that may jeopardize the safety reputation of the Volt…” I would have said “jeopardize people and property” but then I’m not into marketing. This brings up an interesting question: If it’s bad PR to not develop and release those standard safety procedures so people know how to deal with the dangers after a crash, would it have been even worse PR to let the public know what those hazards are?

I was recently researching the history of a building that had a very odd “flying bridge” structure featuring a tunnel-like entrance to a large covered courtyard. Located in Rochester New York, it was, in fact, an early electric car charging station built in the early twentieth century. In the process, I came across a comprehensive list of American electric automobile companies most of which were located in central and western NY and Ohio. There were quite a lot of them (over 50) and they all have one thing in common – none of them exist today.

Their products had many things in common as well – they featured:

Outrageous cost.

Lack of sufficient power in poor weather (hot or cold).

Limited range (maxxed out at around 35 mi.)

Lack of charging infrastructure.

It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Fair go kadaka We here in the dominion of oz get shagged on pretty much every deal going, there is no need to draw the audiences attention to the swelling.

It’s a Holden it won’t blow up unless a tree jumps out in front of it.

Gene wrote, “Next, it seems many of the commenters are woefully unaware that 0.1% of car crashes in the US result in a fire. Thats nearly 300,000 fires per year.

Then Gene wrote, “The car is safer than a gas powered car, considering the 300,000 car fires in the US per year!”

That’s not right, either. Depending on what source you believe, there are between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000 motor vehicle accidents per year in the USA, most of them car crashes. 0.1% of 10,000,000 is just 10,000, not 300,000.

Safe use of lithium batteries has been extensively studied by the US military, and the government has understood the safety risks of using this technology for many years. DoD has strict standards and testing requirements that products using this technology must meet before the product is given to soldiers.

A good summary can be found in this brief:

http://proceedings.ndia.org/5670/Lithium_Battery-Winchester.pdf

What testing was done here ? Looks to me like there was none – as the testing agency doesn’t even seem to be aware that there is this problem with this technology.

I find it all rather odd that some worry about a small possibility of a fire weeks after an accident and yet are still driving around in cars that will crumple like tin cans if hit by a modern car. A quick review of crash test videos of the past 15 – 20 years shows massive improvements. When various organizations take cars from the 50s and 60s and smash them into modern cars one thing is immediately evident: you’ll most likely survive in a modern car, you will die in the older car, and in a gruesome way.

The electrification of the automobile is inevitable. Nothing will ever be 100% safe. The fact that some people seem concerned about a risk weeks after an accident to a car that has been utterly destroyed in a wreck astounds me. It’s like worrying about a forthcoming storm damaging the inside of your house the day after your house has burned to the ground.

I also find it funny the same people moaning about a potential risk in the Volt walk around with a Li-Ion battery pack in their pants.

As someone who has had a car catch fire and then burn to the ground, I feel perfectly safe driving gas-powered vehicles. I feel even more safe driving the Volt because GM has gone the extra mile worrying about the very negative nancies out there that seem hell-bent on stopping progress that’s good for everyone.

And for the curious, I’m getting 350+mpg in the Volt. The horror. The shame. I might even have to fill it up in, oh, February or March at this rate. And the cold-weather range is about 25 miles per charge. Not the 10 someone posted above. I don’t know of any Volt owner getting 10 unless his commute is up hill, both ways, in the snow at -20F all winter long.

Ref: Gene says:

December 10, 2011 at 10:32 am

Are you going to pay me back that $15,000.00 you took from my family and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren to pay for your (unsafe-but-feel-good) toy?

Today’s CAFE standards and light-weight cars are estimated to increase the death rate by over 4,500 people per year – compared to those of the earlier (pre-2000) cars.

Electric Vehicle Problems:

I wonder what the price of ‘electric gasoline’ is:

I see the EPA is reported to say that 33.7 kWh of electricity is equivalent to a gallon of gasoline, and the *average* cost of electricity is 12 cents per kWh in the USA. That would give a net cost equivalent of just over four dollars a gallon from an electrical power grid that, now, does not have the capacity to support the load of total conversion to electric vehicles. Your cost may vary depending on your local electric rate, mileage, and efficiency factors.

Note: I have seen some green activists saying that the cost of electricity should be increased (or ‘sky rocketed’) to more than 30 cents per kWh in the USA and Canada to compensate for power plant environmental impacts and encourage conservation. That rate would make ‘electric gasoline’ cost over ten dollars an equivalent gallon.

RACookPE1978.

Why should I pay you back anything I didn’t take any of your money, let alone “$15,000″.

First off, the credit in the US is $7500. It’s a tax credit — i.e., a tax cut. Meaning, if you don’t have the revenue pursuant to that credit you won’t realize it on your tax form. Secondly, I’m a Canadian so you’re posturing is even more amusing. Third, since I’ve paid millions in taxes over the years, getting a few bucks back for a car seems like a fair exchange. I could have worked to park that money away from the tax man. I believe in paying my fair share, but have no qualms of taking advantage of something if it allows a technology to emerge more quickly. As an early adopter I’ve paid a premium for technology for years you probably now buy cheaply (computers, flat panels, Li-Ion batteries for portable devices, …). You don’t see me asking you to repay my largesse for ensuring you can buy a 50″ LCD for $1000 when 10 years ago it was closer to $10k! Or paying $5 – 10k for a computer 20 years ago?

As to today’s cars being less safe, let me tell you a story. My daughter was hit broadside by a Crown Victoria in a modern, small vehicle at 40mph. Both cars were totalled. She walked away with minor bruising and a couple of minor cuts. Weight has nothing to do with safety. Take a behemoth from the 60s or 70s weighing twice what a modern Ford Focus or Chevy Cruze and the occupants of the Cruze will survive while the occupants of that 60s or 70s car will most probably perish. And go look up crash tests on pre-2000 cars, such as the 1997 Grand Prix, and watch how it crumples during the crash tests. Then watch the same tests on a Cruze or Focus.

If anything, people have taken the safety of the cars as a reason to be reckless believing they can now drive like morons and not have to pay the consequences. If you think you’re indestructible you’ll behave in utterly moronic ways. It’s why people go climb peaks when they shouldn’t, fully aware the rescue teams will come and save their arse. But I’d rather have the safety gear and a totalled car than not have it and have to bury my daughter.

For those fine readers willing to read a great article on this whole over-reaction, Car & Driver has an excellent post on their blog.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/chevy-volt-hysteria-we’re-all-going-to-die-or-an-application-of-facts-and-rationality-to-flaming-batteries-and-melting-chargers/

Spector,

The estimate by the EPA is obviously ludicrous. The EPA is using the total energy in a gallon of gas, but no car is anywhere close to 100% efficient.

Here are real numbers I see, and that are seen by many Volt owners.

It takes about 10 – 12kWh to fill up a Volt. That gives you 40 or so miles of range (60km). We’ve had 50 miles in the warmer weather (about 75km)). It’s dropped to about 30 miles now (about 45km). Since off-peak charging costs about 8 – 10 cents here, you’re looking at $1 or so. Since 40mpg is more than most cars can achieve on a combined cycle, the price is equivalent to $0.50 – $1.00 per gallon of gas not $4+ as you stated.

The problem is equating the two. The EPA has a difficult time sorting this out because this is all new. But it should be based on range and cost of electricity. If you can go 40 miles on $1 on electric but only 20 miles on $1 of gas, then the electric car is more efficient. For some vehicles, even 20 miles on a $1 of gas is far fetched, it’s more like 10 miles per $1 of gas.

BTW, since 80% of North Americans commute less than 40 mile (60km) per day, owners of Volts use next to no gas during said commutes. That means no imported oil, etc. (Not that that matters much to Canadians as we’re energy self-sufficient, but pumping less pollution into the air is good — most of my power is nuclear and hydro, besides). If one could snap their fingers and replace all the passenger cars with Volt-like cars in the US the fuel savings would be huge. That money could go to build new, efficient nuclear, power and other power plants. And the money would stay in North America, providing jobs for Americans and Canadians as opposed to providing guns and ammo for those who wish to see the West destroyed.

All in all I see the Volt and its successors and copiers as one of the most profoundly patriotic purchases one can make. An advanced technology, designed and built in North America, keeping cash in North America, employing North Americans in Detroit and across the continent while reducing the need for “blood” oil.

Gene has obviously never driven a BMW 635D!

DaveE.

David,

No, never a 635D. But I have driven a 750iL, 330, M5, CTS-V, and a slew of Mercedes. Plus Pontiacs and Toyotas and Hondas and Buicks and Fords and Chryslers and Chevs.

A diesel engine isn’t cool, the Volt is cool. And to realize how cool, BMW hired the Volt designer away from GM to build an equivalent vehicle for them. Hence the i-series of cars from BMW that are forthcoming. Obviously the GM-haters will fall in love with BMW’s offerings being that they’re from BMW and hence automatically superior, even if the design will be, in effect, the same as the Volt…

Gene says:

December 10, 2011 at 12:08 pm

“First off, the credit in the US is $7500. It’s a tax credit — i.e., a tax cut. Meaning, if you don’t have the revenue pursuant to that credit you won’t realize it on your tax form.”

====================

And our already bankrupt government goes further into debt.

Would you buy the car if the $7500 was added to your credit card ?

The current U.S. debt is about 14 Trillion dollars.

kadaka (KD Knoebel) says on December 10, 2011 at 2:09 am

…

For a juicy detail I haven’t seen mentioned previously, the safety protocol didn’t exist. There was an internal GM process, I’d guess like would be needed for prototypes and testing, but no releasable protocol to provide to NHTSA and emergency responders.

Anyone here ever slam the trunk on their Ford Taurus a tad too hard? Like while out, stopped in traffic, and the stupid hood just pops open for no reason? Then, less than a minute later the car dies in that same traffic on account of “the crash-detection fuel-cutoff switch” to the fuel pump has activated?

Not too funny at the time, but I can grin about it now … the point of all this, in the event of an actual *crash* the fuel pump would cut off pumping no more fuel, either to an engine (that could catch on fire) or fueling an actual fire that might have started … maybe the “Volt” needs a manually-activated “Discharge” switch to begin draining the battery … an appropriately-sized (bank of) resistor(s) as part of the hood assembly maybe (to act as a ‘heat sink’ for the energy dissipated in this process) …

.

Gene says:

December 10, 2011 at 1:52 pm

…Obviously the GM-haters will fall in love with BMW’s offerings being that they’re from BMW and hence automatically superior, even if the design will be, in effect, the same as the Volt…

———————–

I don’t have a problem with GM per se. Even though I’m a Ford guy I have utmost respect for GM’s LSX series of V8 engines, which power vehicles like the Corvette, for example. The jury is still out on EV’s in general. You can toss the Leaf in there too. Current priorities of GM in terms of pushing the Volt are suspect at best. The imposition of the Volt on consumers and tax payers does not appear to be foremostly based on engineering or even a response to the market place. If you know what I mean.

As far as the safety concerns go I agree with you in part. The safety concerns may not be a great issue. Time will tell (if the car lasts that long). However, the concern of this story is that since the govt has a vested interest in this vehicle’s ‘success’ will the car be given proper scrutiny considering the administration’s ‘green’ at any cost thrust.

Like most people I’ll take a pass on all of the EV’s Volt included. In most cases a car with only about 6000 sold (who knows how many to the Govt.) and half of those units the buyers want to return it seems would be deemed a flop.

RE: Gene: (December 10, 2011 at 12:24 pm)

“Spector, … Here are real numbers I see, and that are seen by many Volt owners.

“It takes about 10 – 12kWh to fill up a Volt. That gives you 40 or so miles of range (60km). We’ve had 50 miles in the warmer weather (about 75km)). It’s dropped to about 30 miles now (about 45km). Since off-peak charging costs about 8 – 10 cents here, you’re looking at $1 or so. Since 40mpg is more than most cars can achieve on a combined cycle, the price is equivalent to $0.50 – $1.00 per gallon of gas not $4+ as you stated.”

Point taken.

Of course, I assume you are talking about kWh from the power mains, not the battery. Today, I believe most electric power in the USA is derived by burning carbon, in one form or another. If all your neighbors go electric, there may no longer be an ‘off-peak usage’ cost break.

In California, I understand there is now a move afoot, possibly related to the Fukushima disaster, to force all nuclear power plants in that state to shut down. I think that would noticeably increase the cost of electricity in that state and any other state choosing the same course of action.

Gene says December 9, 2011 at 4:25 pm

For a site whose readers proclaim they’re interested in facts it’s amazing how few seem to actually go and look any up. …

I don’t have a dog in this race save the objection to ‘tax credits’ as an inducement to buy; “no life support” (tax credits or tax dollars) for unsustainable, unworkable ‘economics’ seeking the green nirvana, no matter how forceful the proponents: for Wind, for Solar or for ‘the Volt’ …

.

Justa Joe,

Few have asked for the car to be taken back. Certainly not half! That’d be 3000. Every article has said a half dozen to a dozen. Don’t exaggerate.

As to the sales numbers, it’s a new type of car. Sales will be slowly damped up and are actually in line with what GM stated were targets for 2011 back in 2008. Next year GM’s plan is for 45,000 Volt sales in the US. Since it’s on target according to GM’s original estimates from 3 years ago it can’t be a flop. It’s new tech and as such will sell to early adopters and thus in small numbers initially. Compared to the first year the Prius came out, about a decade ago, the Volt is well ahead of those sales figures. And the Prius really wasn’t that new or innovative.

Ultimately sales of electric cars will hit millions per year, but they will be a small percentage initially because that’s how all new technologies roll out. Look how long it took LCDs to become mainstream! And that’s just a big TV, nothing overtly radical.

Most deliveries have been to individuals, like myself, who put an order for one in months in advance. The waiting list is still 5-6 months, though GM is hoping to get that down as the factory continues to ramp up.

And remember, the Volt was a reaction to the market’s demand for GM to have a greener fleet and an answer to the Prius. GM opted to leapfrog everyone and has. Sadly many people seem incapable of comprehending this, instead biased by poor reporting from incompetent media.

And, Jim, I’d recommend you look at the larger outlays in credits going to big oil or to ethanol — billions — rather than the millions going to the EV credits. And as a Canadian I’m not contributing to the deficit or debt down there.

The Volt gets about 2.5 mi/KWH under absolutely ideal conditions and, more typically about 1.5 – 2 mi/KWH. Somewhere around 100K mi the battery pack will need to be replaced at a cost of abour $10K US. Total cost for power, somewhere in the range of 20 cents per mile giving a gas true equivalent of about 20 mi/gal in moderate climate conditions.

.

The Volt cannot be argued to be a less expensive alternative with the Chevy Cruze logging 42 MPG at a cost of about $16K US. The price difference alone will buy about 6500 gallons of gasoline or another Cruze and 2500 gallons of gas.

The Volt cannot be considered “greener” since it burns coal and presents significant future toxic landfill issues.

As far as safety goes, 6000 Volts sold with about 2000 of those going to private buyers and two house fires – wellllllll?

It is an interesting and expensive toy that does not seem to indicate the future of automobile technology. Direct injection of gasoline and air along with better fuel metering algorithms and improved transmission technologies will boost economy cars close to 50 MPG. This will make it hard for the Volts of the world to compete without the intervention of government. That intervention is in force now with gasoline around $4/gal even as the US becomes a significant exporter. Forced use of ETOH in gasoline and ETOH subsidies add to cost. Significant gov’t givebacks and purchases for EVs further attempts to slant in favor of the EV.

With all of that in mind and the added fact that all of us taxpayers have to foot part of the bill for each EV sold makes it an onerous idea to most of us. Every dollar rebated or forgiven one taxpayer must be covered by the remaining taxpayers making it everyone’s cost. Every dollar payed by a utility company for excess and unuseable wind or solar power must be paid for by all other users of power.

Speaking for myself, I don’t care if you squander your own money on magical technology – just stop spending my money!

Gene says December 10, 2011 at 1:52 pm

…

A diesel engine isn’t cool, the Volt is cool.

The hi-tech little diesel VW isn’t cool?

Which planet are you on?

.

Gene says on December 10, 2011 at 10:39 pm

…

And, Jim, I’d recommend you look at the larger outlays in credits going to big oil or to ethanol — billions — rather than the millions going to the EV credits. And as a Canadian I’m not contributing to the deficit or debt down there.

… and *those* benefit you, too, double-dipper (there are other issues with that statement of yours, an ‘old saw’ brought up every time an arg like this takes place; see archives on this site for refutation).

The argument still stands notwithstanding hand-waving and diversion to the contrary.

And BTW, the name, if addressing me, is “_Jim” (OTW too many Jim(s) on the board).

.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/09/volt-problems-may-have-been-deferred-by-nhtsa-to-protect-fragility-of-volt-sales-foia-demands-launched/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

| Next | Section Menu | Main Menu | Previous |

“Very wet rain events” from tropical cyclones linked to earthquakes

From the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science , an interesting groundbreaking paper, ahem…but, wait for it, we’ll soon hear “Climate disruption causes more hurricanes and those cause more earthquakes” from the Rommists and McKibbenites.

Research study shows link between earthquakes and tropical cyclones

New study may help scientists identify regions at high risk for earthquakes

New study presented at AGU by University of Miami professor Shimon Wdowinski may help scientists identify regions at high risk for earthquakes. Wdowinski shows that earthquakes, including the recent 2010 temblors in Haiti and Taiwan, may be triggered by tropical cyclones and the wet rains that accompany them.

SAN FRANCISCO – Dec. 8, 2011 – A groundbreaking study led by University of Miami (UM) scientist Shimon Wdowinski shows that earthquakes, including the recent 2010 temblors in Haiti and Taiwan, may be triggered by tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons). Wdowinski will discuss his findings during a presentation at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco.

“Very wet rain events are the trigger,” said Wdowinski, associate research professor of marine geology and geophysics at the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. “The heavy rain induces thousands of landslides and severe erosion, which removes ground material from the Earth’s surface, releasing the stress load and encouraging movement along faults.”

Wdowinski and a colleague from Florida International University analyzed data from quakes magnitude-6 and above in Taiwan and Haiti and found a strong temporal relationship between the two natural hazards, where large earthquakes occurred within four years after a very wet tropical cyclone season.

During the last 50 years three very wet tropical cyclone events – Typhoons Morakot, Herb and Flossie – were followed within four years by major earthquakes in Taiwan’s mountainous regions. The 2009 Morakot typhoon was followed by a M-6.2 in 2009 and M-6.4 in 2010. The 1996 Typhoon Herb was followed by M-6.2 in 1998 and M-7.6 in 1999 and the 1969 Typhoon Flossie was followed by a M-6.2 in 1972.

The 2010 M-7 earthquake in Haiti occurred in the mountainous region one-and-a-half years after two hurricanes and two tropical storms drenched the island nation within 25 days.

The researchers suggest that rain-induced landslides and excess rain carries eroded material downstream. As a result the surface load above the fault is lessened.

“The reduced load unclamp the faults, which can promote an earthquake,” said Wdowinski.

Fractures in Earth’s bedrock from the movement of tectonic plates, known as faults, build up stress as they attempt to slide past each other, periodically releasing the stress in the form of an earthquake.

According to the scientists, this earthquake-triggering mechanism is only viable on inclined faults, where the rupture by these faults has a significant vertical movement.

Wdowinski also shows a trend in the tropical cyclone-earthquake pattern exists in M-5 and above earthquakes. The researchers plan to analyze patterns in other seismically active mountainous regions – such as the Philippines and Japan – that are subjected to tropical cyclones activity.

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

100 Responses to “Very wet rain events” from tropical cyclones linked to earthquakes

O/T Anthony, did you see the report of a huge storm in Scotland, and how it knocked out a wind turbine. It blew up and caught on fire.

REPLY: Yes, always check the front page of WUWT – Anthony

Maybe its just me, but it seems round here that most of the rain is “very wet rain”

Sorry, I just don’t buy it. I don’t believe the “surface load” of even a couple of hundred feet of soil has any relative impact so several miles of rock. What I might find more believable is the percolation of water into fault acting as a lubricant. But that only works in areas that are normally arid.

The Haiti quake occurred at a depth of 8.1 miles. I don’t see how the movement of a few meters of dirt on the surface is going to be enough to unload miles of rock. That is just nonsense. To believe this would be to believe that you can prevent the San Andreas from slipping by stapling it with a piece of highway guadrail or something.

How much did that “surface load” lessen compared to 8.1 miles of solid rock? The answer is, comparatively speaking, just about zero.

Nonsense.

BS

Yea right, and when the load is lifted from coastal regions by movement of tides, a vast weight is lifted off the ocean floor, which diminishes the seismic connectivity between earths different layered substructures, which allows the seismic plates to release pent up pressure by earthquake. Then if you look down into any fissure cause by the sliding of plates you will be lucky enough to see Alice in Wonderland.

The theory seems laughable. Even the shallower earthquakes generally take place kilometres underground. Given the immensity of the forces involved, even removing whole mountainsides is a trivial extra factor.

And looking for statistical with four-years of a strong cyclone season: with a wide enough window, comparing two sets of events which are both fairly common it would be surprising is one couldn’t find some data to fit whatever theory one was proposing.

The majority of subduction zones being in the tropics wouldn’t be a biasing factor would it?

I don’t have the statistical horsepower to say other wise…. but at least they proposed a mechanism to support their view.

Hmmmm….No one reported the early 60′s heavy tropical cyclone period in Anchorage…….

Funny. “A groundbreaking study” about earthquakes.

At first read this seems a real stretch. Really real stretch. If anything I might GUESS that the same factor(s) that may be contributing to these big storms (the solar and lunar influences that Piers Corbyn looks at) are influencing both them and this earthquake activity. And he is now delving into earthquake prediction on that basis.

Just watched this, and learned about his earthquake work, yesterday:

“MUST SEE YOUTUBE: Piers Corbyn Review of November and updated December forecast, with comments on the IPCC Durban meeting.”

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8767&linkbox=true&position=1

I have no idea how close he is getting to any new ‘truths’ about all this. But I do know, after also watching Mann’s TED video, that I would trust humble Corbyn to look for them while I wouldn’t trust that slippery charlatan Mann with looking for my dog.

In any case, to try to use the impeccable logic of the AGW Team, it obviously couldn’t be the rain because it is sunny in that photo.

Complete and utter nonsense.

Groundbreaking?? No pun intended?? They’ve got to be kidding. The mass and energy budgets are so imbalanced as to be ludicrous. Lake Mead was shown to have caused tiny earthquakes by nature of its tiny isostatic signature and the seepage lubrication of weaknesses, but a 5.0-plus temblor is going to happen, typhoon or hurricane be damned.

That this even got covered by a press release is an example of just how uncritical both the media and peer review have become. This is madness.

Rain causes plate shifts…… someone lock him up…… knowing the morons I’ve discussed climate with…. this lunatic is dangerous. Anyone believing this crap needs locked up. This is the same garbage that made people believe using fuel would hot the world up. These people will never stop with there insanity and misanthropy.

their…

Rather than the restribution of weight causing earthquakes, I thought that whenever rain increased the amoung of subterranean water, it could “grease” the fault lines so that they would more easily slip past one another causing an earthquake, albeit of less magnitude than if the stress had continued to build up more.

There are sure one hell of a lot of tropical cyclones in Christchurch. So that’s what caused the quakes there.

Wait till the NZ media pick this one up.

I have not found a peer-reviewed paper that presents this research. While tropical cyclones are important heavy rainmakers, the precipitation distribution associated with them is not necessarily a function of intensity. Indeed, the worst rainmakers and flooding storms are just that, weak, meandering tropical storm strength systems that lack organization and move very slowly. A compact well-organized major hurricane or typhoon may track over a tropical island much faster.

Haiti and Taiwan are tropical locations with copious annual rainfall totals without the effects of tropical cyclones. I would suspect that in many years without a cyclone impact, huge rainfall totals are still found. Therefore, unless the authors show a relationship between overall heavy-rain events BESIDES tropical cyclones, then the correlation is just that — something that looks connected in theory, but is likely just a coincidence.

If anyone has a peer-reviewed sample of this presentation, that would go a long way to answering some overall concerns.

Within 4 years an earthquake occured? Really?

And why wasn’t there an earthquake withing 3 years or 2 weeks, or 1 month?

Scientists leaping to delusions again methinks.

Volcanoes though? They can cool the climate and attract lightening. But earthquakes, they are trying to justify their grant money. Watalaff!

Oh, sure. And the average recurrence of wetter than average storm seasons is also every four years or so. Right? I bet we could find out a lot more in the Myanmar Academy of Science Letters, except those papers are all state secrets. Maybe Al Gore has access.

;->

I have not seen their data or read the paper. We know how foolish most press releases are. It does sound like a case of correlation being equated to causation. I think they are perhaps, “drinking a bit to much of their own wine,” here.

Absurd.

I enjoy reading speculative science but I think this goes a bit too far. The mechanism is implausible and the statistical correlation too sparse.

Try again.

Maybe trying to create a cover for HAARP? (sarc)

noaaprogrammer says:

December 8, 2011 at 9:51 pm

I agree. Way back in the 60′s when I studied Geology at Uni, it was a well documented relationship between water “lubrication” of faults – indeed I seem to recollect some work being done in California to inject high-pressure water to help faults unclamp and release energy in smaller doses rather than allow it to build up for “the big one”. Don’t know what became o fthat

“Groundbreaking” – I think not

Andy

I do not know if the statistics are right, maybe there are enough storms and earthquakes to find a relation in any cases. But the effects and modification of stress in the earth crust are real and measurable. For instance it has been demonstrated in the Himalayas that the background microseismicity is increasing during the summer monsoon and the cause being the additonnal water load in ground and rivers. Remember also that the Wenquan 2008 earthquake in China may have been triggered by the filling of a dam in the epicentral area (it is still seriously discussed), its maybe only a “trigger” in the sense that the event would have happenned anyway but the change in waterload may have put locally the stress over a tipping point.

Looks like Mannian theorm to me.

Well, the good news is that we now know how to stop earth quakes. Whenever it rains, we just get thousands of people to jump up an down to keep the tectonic plates in place. We need a public awareness campaign about this right away. I’ll volunteer my time for this worthy cause, and by “volunteer,” of course, I mean “accept ludicrous amounts of money.”

If we save just one life, it will be worth it.

The mass of the rain will far exceed the mass of rocks and soil moved by the rain.

If they found a relationship within a few days I’d think they might be on to something, but 4 years.

I’d need a mechanism and data supporting the existence of the mechanism to be persuade they may have something. As for a mechanism perhaps dams filling.

Why not the other way around? Can’t we say that earthquakes cause tropical storms? How many times has a tropical storm come withing four years of an earthquake?

Good point markus;

The norther parts of Australia see 30 foot tides (10m). How much load does this add and subtract twice daily?

Its not the very wet rain events that scare me, its the realy dry rain events that give me goose bumps.

Works the other way round as well. The August 23, 2011 earthquake in Virginia clearly attracted Hurricane Irene which was then over Hispanola. Irene got to Virginia on the 27th.

Needless to say, this theory seems pretty implausible.

Based on their logic, I am fearful of major earthquakes around all open-cast mine operations … are there any reported instances of ground faults around these types of mines?

And what was the amount of rainfall that caused the Japan quake some 70 miles off-shore?

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/story/2011-12-06/japan-quake-seafloor-damage/51684786/1?csp=34news

Or the quake along the North American coast that spawned the Orphan Tsunami of 1700:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/

Shimon Wdowinski, you have a problem!

Very small sample size to draw conclusions from. I reckon that given the size of earth that there are going to be a few places where it rains a lot and is also seismically active, just like there’s going to be a few places where it doesn’t rain much but is seimically active, and there’s going to be a few places where it rains heaps but there’s never an earthquake.

If you drill a deep drill hole into solid rock, at about 4 km depth +/- 3 km, there is a zone where reasonable preconceptions about pressure do not hold because of mineral transitions involving dehydration. An observable effect, first reported from the Kola superdeep in Russia, is a zone of microfracturing. This zone does not have to be associated with a fault. Indeed, it might be a near-universal feature, as it was logged in all deep holes I was available to examine at the time. The cause would be downward movement of rocks, through loading from top sedimentation, tectonic movement or whatever method increased loading pressure on it. Such microfracturing (I postulated) could be energetic enough to report as an earthquake; and the mobility change it gives to the local rocks could help create blocks bounded by faults. I have loosely proposed this cause of earthquakes with colleagues, but have not published it. I now lack the means to investigate it, retired too long. There are many more deep drill holes now, than when I formulated the idea in the late 1970s, as part of work in conjunction with John Elliston and Prof S Warren Carey of plate tectonics fame, on the possibilty of colloidal chemistry being far more widespread than was hitherto thought.

The hypothesis is nice, because it explains the high frequency of shallow earthquakes and earthquakes in general on a geological time scale, in areas of plausibly high stability like Archaean cratons. It helps to explain faults because the bulk density of the affected rocks is changed and that extra volume has to move. The edges of where it moves would be called a fault. It helps to explain increased earthquake frequency in the “Ring of Fire” because the frequency of vertical movement of rock masses, and hence microfracturing, is greater than elsewhere.

The Kola exercise implicated groundwaters able to penetrate many km below the surface, so I am not surprised if there is an association between abnormally heavy precipitation and earthquakes.

An 8.0 on the Rictus Scale!

Way back in the 60′s when I studied Geology at Uni, it was a well documented relationship between water “lubrication” of faults – indeed I seem to recollect some work being done in California to inject high-pressure water to help faults unclamp and release energy in smaller doses rather than allow it to build up for “the big one”.

If you look at the EQ map of California you will notice there has never been a large EQ in the Hollister area. There is a reason for that. Apparently the rocks there have a high talc (baby powder) content (I’m not pulling your leg). The talc acts as a natural lubricant allowing the fault to slip where the pulverizing of the rocks releases the talc. This allows the rocks to slip at much lower stress rates and so rather than large quakes separated by long periods of quiet, in this area we see a constant drumbeat of very small ones.

The place to look out for is the Ft. Tejon area. It has been “vewy vewy” quiet. Too quiet. That generally means there is stress building and the fault is “locked”. We are seeing a lot of slip along the lower Elsinore, we see that transfer over to the Coyote Creek fault, then we see that transfer over to the San Andreas at about Banning. It’s been just about dead quiet from San Bernardino to Parkfield. A few “snap crackle pop” quakes recently between the Cajon pass and the Tejon pass but that’s about it.

I don’t think I’m going to be buying property in Antelope Valley anytime soon.

“Very wet” rain events as opposed to what sort of other rain events?

if it were sunspots or alignment of planets some folks would not even need aphysical mechanism

Has anyone forwarded this to the IPCC, looks like their kind of science

What a load of TRIPE…!

But 4 years after precipitation, Geoff Sherrington? What would be the properties of H2O at a temperature 3-4 klms underground? What is the porous quality of bedrock and just how much of water, under what type of pressure would be necessary to cause sufficient increases in their their bulk density?

Micro-fracturing force is a concept worthy in understanding seismic activity, however, it is unlikely one off events is enough of a cause. More like a continual feeding of a catalyst until tipping point.

There may be something in it but try this as a alternative:

OR Quakes and storms have common cause – driven by solar activity through sun-earth magnetic links. This is amply demonstrated by the success of our trial quake forecasts and forecasting of simultaneous storm events in the same time windows but in DIFFERENT PLACES. As an example see this pdf of events 5-6Nov http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews11No31.pdf

This period of solar driven effects on earth was predicted by our Solar Lunar Action Technique and classified as

5-6 Nov Extra Top red enhanced category of ‘Red Warning’ – the strongest possible,

and specifically predicted in the same time window (with a day either side possible):

Extra solar activity – observed AR1339 (the biggest sunspot region for 6years, earth facing Nov 6th)

Tornado events in SW England – observed in Worcestershire

A very deep low crossing N USA – observed

Significant earthquakes somewhere – observed eg Oklahoma.

There were also deadly floods in North Italy and other quake/volcano events

The rain in Worcester and in Chicago did not lubricate the land of Oklahoma!

These Red warning or rather RTQ (Red Warning +Tornado-thunder + Quake-volcano (trial) high risk periods are published monthly as WeatherAction extreme events Rest Of World via http://bit.ly/utWrvj and are the ‘Mothers’ of all extreme weather events (many of which are predicted in USA, UK+Ireland and Europe) and major (ie extra to background) earthquakes – we believe (notwithstanding missed RTQ periods). A lot of these things have been monitored on Climate Realists.

Thanks, Piers Corbyn (@Piers_Corbyn and http://www.weatheraction.com)

An Irresistible conjunction, mud slides and earthquakes…Hmmm.

Just to throw something else into the mix.

Piers Corbyn is adapting his solar lunar weather prediction technique to predict earth quakes, so maybe they’ve stumbled onto a link between weather and quakes, but with their CO2 blinkers on have assumed that the weather is the cause, rather than both being effects of solar activity.

$0.02

“Ground-breaking” is a quite dreadful pun but it is also incorrect.

Earthquakes and volcanoes have been on warmlist from John Brignell for a while:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

Total number of things reputed to be caused by global warming = 862.

I’m a big fan of thinking outside the box, of overturning dogma, but this is so far outside the box that they’ve landed in Fantasyland. How often is Haiti not being hit by landslide-inducing tropical downpours, whether from hurricanes, tropical storms, or tropical depressions? It doesn’t even have to be a landfall event … the storm’s rain shield is all it takes.

This mob are drawing a very long bow here, Earthquakes could more easily be found to be tied to lunar cycles, in less of a time frame than four years. The last time I rode my motor cycle in very dry rain, as opposed to very wet rain hurt like hell. Some drops were the size of golf balls and about as hard.

Do these people doing these studies and releasing them have no shame.

“… The researchers suggest that rain-induced landslides and excess rain carries eroded material downstream. As a result the surface load above the fault is lessened….”

Suggest? Didn’t they count the landslides and calculated the weight relieved from the ground, therefore?

And, er, yes – we had very dry rain during november over here. It was so dry, that it added up to about 5 mm of rain per square meter, only.

John F. Hultquist says:

December 8, 2011 at 10:49 pm

Or the quake along the North American coast that spawned the Orphan Tsunami of 1700:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/

Shimon Wdowinski, you have a problem!

In visiting that link about Cascadia, one notes that in the preface they speak of adaptation to a Big One. Not of prevention, not of ‘oh noes’, not of endless streaming foolishness from an organization like the IPCC, but pure and simple adaptation. Let’s face it, a Big One WILL happen, so get on with life. In stark contrast to the conjecture, the politics, and the brouhaha over something that nobody can say for sure is happening, let alone define its cause. Hmmm. We really have gone bonkers.

Phil’s Dad says:

December 8, 2011 at 9:11 pm

Maybe its just me, but it seems round here that most of the rain is “very wet rain”

I’m working on dehydrated water. It would be so much lighter to carry around. When I’ve cracked the problem, I’ll send the paper to dhmo.org

How can a landslide relieve weight from the ground? It’s just earth that was at one altitude now located at a somewhat lower altitude.

Miami scientists one step closer to proving global warming caused Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Al Gore said to feel “vindicated”…

/sarc

This guy was on the board of the company where I worked until I retired. He seems to know some things about earthquakes. I would listen, with interest. On the other hand, he could be completely wrong and earthquakes could be the movements of turtles that hold up the land. ;)

Guess they haven’t considered how many earthquakes they’ll cause with this… and what the hell is this anyways? Man made climate change? Or total BS?

“BEIJING – China will begin four regional programs to artificially increase precipitation across the country before 2015, according to the newly released 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) for meteorological development.

Together with the existing program in Jilin province, to influence weather in northeastern parts of China, the five regional weather control programs will increase artificial precipitation volume by 10 percent, according to the plan.

Each year, an average of 3 trillion cubic meters of water passes over China in clouds, and only 20 percent of it falls to the ground, according to the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).

Currently, 50 billion cubic meters of rain and snow are gained annually in artificial precipitation, but the volume could reach 280 billion cubic meters if more effective weather intervention measures are taken, according to the CMA.

“Because clouds are boundless, weather control is boundless. The five regional weather control programs will coordinate the ground resources, such as the cloud seeding rockets and planes, across provinces to increase potential rain or snow,” said Zheng Jiangping, deputy director of the CMA’s department of emergency response, disaster mitigation and public services emergency management…

As extreme weather events such as drought and flooding become more common, protecting the nation’s main wheat producing areas grows in urgency – thus the first regional program chose the northeastern parts of the country, including Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang provinces in Northeast China and the eastern part of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in North China.

“The program in Jilin was finished late this year and is working well. The successful operation will accelerate the construction of the other four,” Zheng said…

A national weather intervention command center will also be established before 2015, according to the plan… [it will] focus on scientific research and development of weather control techniques, providing technological support to the regional weather stations and coordinating the country’s cross-region weather intervention.”

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-12/09/content_14235803.htm

How many tropical storms have hit Haiti over the centuries WITHOUT causing a quake. Why didn’t they cause a quake then? Why did this one cause a quake … four years later?

I am not accusing them of lying but it certainly appears as if they are attempting to manufacture facts. Lies are easy to counter. Made up facts are more difficult.

When applied to shallow fault zones under the sea floor, or to deep fault zones several kilometers below the water table (total about 90% of all known earthquake fault zones), this argument simply does not hold water.

Someone already mentioned Christchurch in New Zealand. I would also add a few others including Fukushima Japan, Newcastle Australia, and the one in Indonesia. Of these particular deadly quakes, two regions are in the tropical cyclone zone – Fukushima and Indonesia. On the other hand Newcastle is not, and neither is Christchurch.

New Zealand is on the ring of fire. There have been several deadly earthquakes. In Christchurch it was the shallow quake with an epicentre in the harbour of Lyttleton that was extremely deadly. Other deadly quakes in New Zealand have been on the north island, at Wellington and Hawkes Bay where land actually appeared after the quake!!

Then there are those series of tremors and quakes that are felt in Melbourne from time to time. Having experienced one of those tremors, and vividly remembering what happened after all these years, I cannot say with certainty that there was any rain event prior but I can say with certainty that there were no cyclones!!!!!! Melbourne, or at least the Mornington Peninsula is on a fault line which explains why there are so many of these tremors. The earthquake in Newcastle had some similarity to that of Christchurch because it was shallow and involved sand.

@Allan M

Maybe you could separate dihydrogeniummonoxid from oxygeniumdihydrid to get rid of the wettness and the weight?

I can hear the geophysicists laughing from here.

Water could also be argued to lubricate smaller earthquake zones to release strain so that a larger one won’t occur, so they wont go anywhere with this kind of earthquake socialism. But the effect of rain/other water is so small overall as to be negligible.

There is no relationship with rainfall and earthquake risk, just as there isnt any relationship with people who read the bible and the earthquake of Portugal 1755, Voltaire knew this. Perhaps 18th century atheists are like todays skeptics.

Sad to see, again, the worst part of climatology — storytelling. Is this a plausible chain of events perhaps yes. But is there any physical data (as someone above suggested, calculating the weight of dirt removal etc.).

Just because climatologists can come up with a plausible mechanism, it does not make it so.

Another example — almost no warming in the past 10 years must be the Chinese with their aerosols. FAIL

First step on the road to blaming AGW for earthquakes, is anyone really that mad ?

Well who knows, but given every man and his dog has jumped on the AGW bandwagon to further their cause or to obtain funding for research , you can’t rule it out.

Butterfly involvement is just as likely:-)

Wdowinski and a colleague from Florida International University analyzed data from quakes magnitude-6 and above in Taiwan and Haiti and found a strong temporal relationship between the two natural hazards, where large earthquakes occurred within four years after a very wet tropical cyclone season.

This sounds impressive until you look at a list of earthquakes occurring in Taiwan. You will notice the rarity of gaps larger than 4 years between consecutive magnitude M6.0 or greater earthquakes in the last 50 years.

Assuming that the Wiki list is accurate, if one were to select a random point in time from that 50 year period and ask what is the probability that an earthquake of that order of magnitude will occur within the next 4 year period, the answer is about 92%. If you independently choose any three points in time (e.g. after the particular monsoons), the probability that each of them will subsequently be followed by earthquakes with a four year time period is about 77.9%.

This hardly constitutes a “strong temporal relationship” underany definition of those words. I hope that they better evidence than that to link those “two natural hazards”.

I remember years ago (1980′s) hearing about a correlation between heavy winter storms and earthquakes in southern Alaska. It’s not a new idea. The way I’d look at it, an increase in pore water pressure due to extreme rain could trigger an earthquake if the rocks were very close to failure anyway. The water wouldn’t actually cause the earthquake, which was going to happen sooner or later anyway, but it might trigger it today instead of next month or next year.

I guess that’s why Kaua’i is shaking itself apart with earthquakes .. all that massive rain

Typical hippie-reasoning: treating possibility completely separately from the attached probability.

‘Science’ is no longer about understanding: it has become a surrogate for reading entrails.

Heheh. It is incredible what “scientific” conclusions can be extracted from absurdities…

“The reduced load unclamp the faults, which can promote an earthquake,”

I suppose there aren’t earthquakes in deep sea then. All that “wet water” is a big big weight.

And on cities too, all that cars, people – heavier due to unhealthy food- , buildings!

it is a big weight that can prevent the unclamping.

So if the Chinese jump all at same time what happens a clamping or an unclamping?

No matter if this is media spin or it is actually in the paper, it’s a great Balderdash card.

From the summary it looks like they accept a very loose definition of temporal proximity. To link effect to an event 4 years previous? Not sure I’m buying it.

There has to be some fixes for this in the works that mirror mirrors in outerspace. Like super large staple guns mounted on a super duper earth removers. Bet there is a shovel ready grant just Waitin, Wishin, Wantin to be granted by Obama.

You can’t fix stupid. You have to vote it out.

Should be alright in my location – the rain being, I think, only ordinarily wet. However, about a thousand billion tons of salt water invade my local Indian Ocean bay twice every day and that stuff is very wet indeed. Should I stay home tonight?

Four years? Seriously? Wow have they ever discovered a smoking gun. Or maybe just some way to get their share of the AGW gravy train.

If climate change is causing heavy rains which cause earthquakes, then climate change is helping prevent damage from earthquakes by relieving the pressure early before it builds up into a major quake.

What would you rather have, a lot of very small quakes or one big one? The energy is the same – the only difference is the time period over which it is spread.

So, in this case CO2 and AGW is a benefit – as we are seeing from the numbers on cyclones.

JuergenK says:@Allan M

Maybe you could separate dihydrogeniummonoxid from oxygeniumdihydrid to get rid of the wettness and the weight?

Or possibly a temporal separation. That would be very useful for something like our space program, lightening the weight of cargo we send up from Cape Canaveral in the space shuttle. It could be re-hydrated later, once the shuttle is up in orbit.

Also, the shuttle is fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. When they combine in the rocket engines, they make water, or at that temperature, steam. Hard to imagine the space shuttle as a steam engine, but I digress. Perhaps they could capture that steam and recycle it once they get in space.

“ferd berple says:

December 9, 2011 at 7:39 am

If climate change is causing heavy rains which cause earthquakes, then climate change is helping prevent damage from earthquakes by relieving the pressure early before it builds up into a major quake.

What would you rather have, a lot of very small quakes or one big one? The energy is the same – the only difference is the time period over which it is spread.

So, in this case CO2 and AGW is a benefit – as we are seeing from the numbers on cyclones.”

____________________________

You beat me to it!

Could not have said it any better myself!

What they are saying is that erosion impacts the timing of earthquakes in certain circumstances.

Changes in erosion rates are primarily caused by local land use changes, so their comments are not relevant to global climate change but rather to local agricultural practices.

If their theory is sound, it seem likely that erosion-induced earthquakes could be a good thing. If erosion results in an early release of earthquake energy, it could prevent a larger earthquake from happening later.

That’s why I do not flush anymore… /sarc

“The heavy rain induces thousands of landslides and severe erosion, which removes ground material from the Earth’s surface, releasing the stress load and encouraging movement along faults.”

If this is true, isn’t it a good thing to de-stress fault lines before catastrophic levels are reached and a killer earthquake results?? But then, what do I know? GK

It is clear to me that the only way to prevent earthquakes for those who live in a tropical cyclone danger zone is to purchase a sheep’s bladder. This new learning is truly amazing

“In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself by two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore… in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long… seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long… There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such trifling investment of fact.”

Mark Twain

JuergenK says:

December 9, 2011 at 3:14 am

@Allan M

Maybe you could separate dihydrogeniummonoxid from oxygeniumdihydrid to get rid of the wettness and the weight?

Only if I can get a very big research grant.

Vote:

1. BS

2. Nonsense

3. Idiocy

4. Stupidty

5. Lack of BASIC PHYSICS understanding (I.e., weight of water from “Cyclone” = FRACTION of weight of first meter of soil/rock…)

6. Correlation is NOT causation!

7. “Cancer Clusters” for Grade Schools…statistical fluke, meaningless as this garbage is!

8. Accept it unquestioningly, as it supports the “mime”.

Max :)

For a quick cross check of the validity of this study take a look at Jan Null’s excellent rainfall chart for San Francisco, http://ggweather.com/sf/sf_seasonal_rainfall.jpg, starting in 1849. San Francisco’s most famous earthquake in 1906 was preceded in eight out of the ten previous years with below average rainfall. By the ‘logic’ of this study the biggest quakes should have happened in the 1862-1865 window or the 1998-2001 window, following extremely wet winters. Only two quakes would meet the 6.0 qualification standard for the whole state for the 1862 window and zero quakes for the 1998 window. However Coalinga, in the center of the state, suffered through 6.5 and 5.7 quakes two months apart in 1983. Interestingly these quakes fall in the four year window following one of the worst droughts in California history. Oh yes…and Coalinga averages a whopping 7.8 inches of rain per year. (See http://designbuildprogram.com/uploads/B10_-_Urban_Water_Management.pdf for rainfall summary.)

crosspatch says:

December 8, 2011 at 9:14 pm

Sorry, I just don’t buy it. I don’t believe the “surface load” of even a couple of hundred feet of soil has any relative impact so several miles of rock. What I might find more believable is the percolation of water into fault acting as a lubricant. But that only works in areas that are normally arid…..

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

They did not bother to do a literature search. The connection seems to be between the sun/ planetary alignments and sunspots to both weather and earthquakes and not a direct connection.

Relationship between global seismicity and solar activities by Gui-Qing Zhang

http://www.springerlink.com/content/buvw2tq081013210/

Abstract

The relations between sunspot numbers and earthquakes (M≧6), solar 10.7 cm radio flux and earthquakes, solar proton events and earthquakes have been analyzed in this paper. It has been found that: (1) Earthquakes occur frequently around the minimum years of solar activity. Generally, the earthquake activities are relatively less during the peak value years of solar activity, some say, around the period when magnetic polarity in the solar polar regions is reversed. (2) the earthquake frequency in the minimum period of solar activity is closely related to the maximum annual means of sunspot numbers, the maximum annual means of solar 10.7 cm radio flux and solar proton events of a whole solar cycle, and the relation between earthquake and solar proton events is closer than others. (3) As judged by above interrelationship, the period from 1995 to 1997 will be the years while earthquake activities are frequent. In the paper, the simple physical discussion has been carried out.

263

J. Ind. Geophys. Union ( October 2005 )

Vol.9, No.4, pp.263-276

Planetary Configuration: Implications for EarthquakePrediction and Occurrence in Southern Peninsular India

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28560923/Earthquake-Planets-2

ABSTRACT

Though there have been several attempts at earthquake prediction from different perspectives, thisattempt aims at establishing planetary configurations as a definitive means of earthquake prediction.When two or more planets, Sun and Moon are aligned more or less in line (0

o

or 180

o

) with theEarth, then the Earth would be caught in the middle of a huge gravity struggle between the Sunand the planets. The gravitational stresses would change the speed of the Earth in its orbit andwhen the speed of rotation of the earth changes the tectonic plate motion also gets affected. Thetotal angular momentum of planets involved in earthquake triggering mechanism can be calculatedand the total force acting at the epicenter in a direction opposite to that of the earth’s rotation canalso be determined. At the epicenter, the speed of rotation of the earth can be calculated with thehelp of available software. So the planetary forces in the opposite direction to the rotation of earthact as a triggering mechanism for the accumulated stress at faults and plate boundaries to be releasedabruptly. This does not, however, mean that earthquakes will occur at all edges of the plateboundaries. Two of the parameters contributing to the triggering of an earthquake at a place are a)distance of epicenter from the planet position and b) direction of force acting at the possibleepicenter. From the analysis of “significant earthquakes” over the past 100 years from all over theworld and from Southern Peninsular India, the relationship between (i) latitude, longitude, andmagnitude of the tremor and (ii) distance from the planet and direction of forces acting at anypoint can be inferred. Such inferences already made for different localities in other parts of worldhave unfolded an accuracy of more than 75% with regard to earthquake prediction.

“The heavy rain induces thousands of landslides and severe erosion, which removes ground material from the Earth’s surface, releasing the stress load and encouraging movement along faults.”

Let’s examine this hypothesis in light of the facts:

Landslides and erosion cannot and do not “remove ground material from the Earth’s surface”. Landslide material is deposited immediately adjacent to the slide, and eroded sediments are re-deposited on nearby deltas. With the exception of minor mineral dissolution, virtually no material is lost. Additionally, the material is almost always deposited nearby on the same tectonic plate. Landslides and erosion gradually transfer mass from mountains to the coast.

The islands devastated by these earthquakes are products of the earthquakes themselves. The cited earthquakes occur along plate boundaries in subduction zones or mega strike-slip faults. The Haiti earthquake was 8 km (5 miles) deep, the Taiwan earthquake was 12 km (7 miles) deep, and the Japan earthquake was 30 km (18.6 miles) deep. These earthquakes were produced by compressional forces generated even deeper (in the upper mantle) at depths of more than 70 km (10 miles). The process of tectonic plates grinding past one another created the islands of Haiti, Taiwan and Japan.

In addition to being miles below the surface, the foci (the point of crustal rupture) for most of these earthquakes is often well away from these islands (and the areas of erosion and redeposition). It is unlikely that the gradual redistribution of relatively small piles of dirt that accumulate on the edges of tectonic plates grinding past one another could trigger the plates themselves to move.

For earthquakes that occur along compressional plate boundaries, the proposed mechanism is: “landslides and erosion from heavy rains move enough material to release enough stress on the tectonic plates to cause them to move”. This is not even comparable to the tail wagging the dog. It’s not even comparable to the hair on the butt of the flea on the tail of the elephant wagging the elephant. Rain falling on land pushed up by tectonic forces in the Earth’s upper mantle can no more produce earthquakes miles below the surface than gnat farts can kill blue whales.

as another geologist and geoengineer – I call it BS.

as someone has mentioned above, there is an issue of scale to be considered! Traditionally, from what I recall of my student days, earthquakes tended to cause land and mudslides, not the other way round!

was this published just to scrape the barrel and ‘help’ Durban?

100% Pure BS (TM). Heavy rains always cause tectonic movement of underwater oceanic faults, no? Who let these loons out of the padded cell?

From their website:

http://sites.agu.org/fallmeeting/

“As the world’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists comes to a close, one thing is clear – AGU’s Fall Meeting gets bigger and better every year. With more than 20,000 attendees, 12,000 poster presentations, 6,000 oral presentations, 250 exhibitors, and many workshops, town halls, and social and networking events, there has been something for everyone’.

Dates: 12/5 to 12/9 (today is last day)

Wow! 12,000 poster presentations, 6,000 oral presentations! Maybe someone who is an AGU member can tells us if the oral presentations are the result of a peer-reviewed written paper, or just “oral only.” A quick look at the program indicates that there is lots more fodder for discussion than just this one paper.

The press release for the presentation above doesn’t say it was a peer-reviewed paper. I too am skeptical. I’m not sure about Taiwan, but I’ll bet that Haiti is hit with very heavy rain events at least every 4 years, so it should be possible to correlate any recurring event to some heavy rain event within the last four years.

Of course all these questions lead to the inevitable “ More research is needed” -i.e. send more money.

Denver experienced a number of minor earthquakes in the early 1960′s. The cause was finally determined to be water being injected into the rocks from the Rocky Flats Plutonium processing center near Boulder. The water, waste from the processing plant, was injected several thousand feet down through deep wells, under very high pressure. While the mechanism suggested in the article is possible, I think plate tectonics, shear zones, and deep stress are far more involved. This study reminds me far too much of the link between CO2 and global temperatures – the relation between correlation and causation are equally weak.

I’m surprised at you skeptics, questioning this soon-to-be settled science!

Don’t you remember how we stopped global warming back in 2006 ??!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jump_Day

(ΛΩΛ)

If this work got through “peer review” then it puts the final nail in the coffin of the peer review process.

The idiots should have spent sometime in area when earthquakes occur and gone out and talk to the locals instead of playing with computers and embarassing themselves.

Pass this on to Steve McIntyre for some real statistics. Having heavy rains effect earthquakes 4 or 5 years later? The spatial sampling is suspect here. Did the big earthquakes in recent years in Peru, Iran, Chile follow major heavy rain events? Are we blaming the recent disasterous Japan earthquake on heavy rain events? Are all the earthquakes that didn’t seem to have a deluge associated with them removed from the list? Are we giving priority to the occurrence of rain events over earthquake events (to get rid of earthquakes away from rain events)? The moon gives a pretty good tug twice a day- is the erosion a bigger event?

@Gail Combs says:

December 9, 2011 at 12:11 pm

“Gui-Qing Zhang: and the relation between earthquake and solar proton events is closer than others.”

High density rather than high energy proton bursts, I would agree with that. And very often there is a coronal hole directly Earth facing.

And rain is caused by global warming, which is caused by humans, so humans are the cause for earthquaqes. Right. Look, I see an invisinble pink unicorn flying…

Numerology, the best religion in the world. Given enough patience and facts, all sorts of matching can be done. I guess one could find a correlation between some behaviour of ants and earthquaqes, too.

wow

Someone never took a geology class. Hispaniola and Taiwan are islands last time I checked. When big storms approach the ocean swells. Hmmm billion to some power of tonnes of storm surge water (read MORE pressure) are dwarfed by a few landslides. I see. Who were the peer reviewers on this?

Despite what those who are nay-saying think there is actually evidence that tropical storms have an effect upon earthquakes. At the start of the hurricane season there is usually a rash of mag 5 earthquakes on the Reykjanes ridge and which they do happen from time to time the incidence is higher and more grouped when a large depression approaches.

A small change in atmospheric pressure can cause a difference of millions of tons of air over an area. This is something I have also noticed in Yellowstone National Park as well. While I don’t think landslides have anything to do with it air pressure definitely does. I am still studying this and I won’t be publishing a paper as I am not a scientist, just an interested amateur, but it is my believe tat they have come across what I am seeing but attributed it to the wrong reasons.

When Mt. St. Helens was active, it seemed that many of the minor eruptions occurred just after a local Puget Sound high tide–perhaps do to maximum magma pressure on the plugged vents.

Everybody seems to have missed the most obvious correlation, no women’s studies programs in either Haiti or Taiwan.

I think this study will not hold up under scrutiny.

PuterMan says:

December 10, 2011 at 2:53 am

“”A small change in atmospheric pressure can cause a difference of millions of tons of air over an area. “”

Peter, I live in Sydney, Australia. After reading your hypothesis I took scales out into my front yard. I just could not find any of that millions of tons of air. Could you please point me in the direction of a instrument that weighs air.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

- Fred Pearce The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming

- Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard

Blog Stats

The Gore-a-thon in comics

Top Posts

WUWT on Facebook

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,788 other followers

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Posts by date

Categories

New book by Dr. Don Easterbrook

WUWT Stuff:

New iPhone App – very useful!

World Climate Widget – FREE

Shameless Plug

to help keep the www.surfacestations.org project going.

Humor/Satire

Lukewarmers

Political Climate

Pro AGW Views

Skeptical Views

Tools

Unreliable*

Live Weather Roll

Atmospheric Maps Page

ENSO/SST Page

ENSO Meter

Sea Ice Page

Solar Images & Data Page

WUWT Tag Cloud

Feed Me

RSS - Posts

RSS - Comments

Archives

Sponsored links

IT Certifications:

Braindumps

Pass4sure CISSP

CCNA Certification

CCDA Pass4sure

CCIE Pass4sure

Meta

Follow Watts Up With That?

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 8,893 other followers

This article was downloaded by calibre from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/08/heavy-tropical-cyclone-rains-linked-to-earthquakes/

| Section Menu | Main Menu |

Table of Contents

EndUserSharePoint

How To: Make your SharePoint 2010 site collection read-only, restrict delete

SharePoint: Making Documents Unique

Use "Check Out" and "Check In" actions with globally reusable workflows in SharePoint Designer 2010

Evaluating Cloud Providers: Tools and Questions

Leveraging the logging database to see performance counters

REVEALED: eBay's Playbook for Social Business Adoption

Display a PowerPoint document in SharePoint via the page viewer web part

Explain SharePoint site hierarchy to users through analogy

Truncate text in list view and add mouseover preview

Resolving DCOM 10016 Error on SharePoint server

My top 10 tools for a better SharePoint developer experience

jQuery Slideshow (Carousel) in Sharepoint 2010

Watts Up With That

The Durban COPx ‘til we meet again, historically

The True Failure of Durban

Last minute Durban deal reached – extends life of Kyoto protocol

12 days of Christmas Climategate

Latest extortion attempt from Durban COP17: $1.6 Trillion

The tweet end view of Durban

Durban: what the media are not telling you

Skeptic Agrees with Climate Change

The November AMO index goes negative, first time since 1996

Friday Funny – The Booker Prize for the biased BBC

Why the UAH global temperature is late

Sustainability runs amok in my town, part 3

Hansen: “Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales”

Chevy Volt problems may have been deferred by NHTSA to protect “fragility of Volt sales” – FOIA demands launched

“Very wet rain events” from tropical cyclones linked to earthquakes