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fear mongering
Godzilla Movie a Treat for Anti- “Global Warming Alarmism” Crowd!
Suspend your reality for Godzilla: It’s an anti-global-warming alarmism smash
This film image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows a scene from “Godzilla.” (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures)
(Some light spoilers for Godzilla below. My review is here.)
The film opens at a huge quarry, where humanity’s insatiable thirst for fossil fuels (or diamonds or platinum or something) has uncovered a terrifying secret: a pair of radioactive MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms). The point here, nominally, is that man brings about his own destruction by despoiling the planet. However, it’s worth noting that the one of the MUTOs immediately attacks a nuclear power plant, while the other, later, attacks a repository of nuclear waste. In this, the MUTOs feel like close cousins of the worst of the greens, those folks who demand action on climate change yet mindlessly attack nuclear power—the sole technology that could allow us to maintain our standard of living while reducing carbon emissions.
As the film progresses, the intellectual center of the picture is revealed to be Dr. Ichiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe), who takes an almost zen-like approach to the MUTOs. He believes that Godzilla, who he has been searching for his entire adult life, is not a threat to humanity but a part of Earth’s natural biosphere. The giant lizard exists to “restore balance.” Serizawa also laments the “arrogance of man” for thinking he can control nature; the good doctor believes that the only way to stop the rampaging MUTOs is to let Godzilla fight them and kill them, to let nature run its course. The leaders of men disagree, opting to try and gather all three of the giant creatures into the same area off America’s west coast, where they will be destroyed by a thermonuclear warhead. This plan backfires, leading to a nuke threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of San Franciscans.
There’s a lot going on here, but think about it this way: Serizawa, the only man who seems to grasp the true nature of the issue facing humanity, believes that the ecosphere will heal itself, will restore its own balance. He denounces mankind’s belief that we are able to drastically impact the environment in such a way that would make it uninhabitable. In other words, the Earth is a massively complex system, one that we can’t really damage by pumping a little excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We can, however, make things radically worse for mankind by arrogantly believing in our own ability to ruin, then fix, the world. The nuclear bomb that threatens to wipe out San Fran represents mankind’s fumbling attempts to fix a problem it has no ability to impact—it is a rather explicit denunciation of the urge to “do something!” even though we have no idea what to do. We can make things much worse for ourselves, but we can’t really stop nature from running its course. And nature will be just fine regardless of what we sentient apes believe—or do.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/17/review-godzilla-anti-global-warming-alarmism-block/#ixzz326oV7sRd
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Australian Renewable Energy Agency, On the Chopping Block!
Government axes renewable energy agency.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 15/05/2014
The government plans to axe the funding body for new technologies in renewable energy, ARENA the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, in order to save a billion dollars.
Transcript
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The clean energy industry is voicing dismay over the Government’s plan to axe the key funding body for new technologies in renewable energy.
The dismantling of ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency will save more than a billion dollars. But ARENA says that money would have helped to build a $7.7 billion fleet of projects to develop solar, wave and geothermal technologies.
Kerry Brewster reports.
KERRY BREWSTER, REPORTER: Private investors in this solar demonstration plant in New South Wales say ARENA’s financial assistance was crucial.
ANDREW WANT, VASTSOLAR: Without support from ARENA for that private investment, helping absorb the risk, we would have had no option but to go offshore and try to access similar sorts of grant facilities overseas. We didn’t want to do that. We wanted to develop this technology in Australia for Australian markets.
KERRY BREWSTER: But Andrew Want says his dream of large solar thermal plants powering the nation’s cities has been dashed, with the Abbott Government announcing it will axe the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
According to the Treasurer, $1.3 billion in savings will go towards repairing the budget and funding policy priorities.
ANDREW WANT: Why Australia would want to send investment signals saying, “We are shut for business,” is beyond me.
KERRY BREWSTER: Solar businesses agree.
MARK TWIDELL, SMA: Just at a time when funding is there for the development of the future technologies, we’re scaling it back.
KERRY BREWSTER: Mark Twidell sells German-made solar inverters, but he’s not sure there’ll be an Australian market to sell to.
MARK TWIDELLL: ARENA was supporting the Australian universities, the Australian researchers, the Australian small-to-medium enterprises, getting their products, getting their technologies in order so that they could compete in a global marketplace.
KERRY BREWSTER: ARENA’s CEO says Australia could be the loser if more than a billion dollars of support for world-leading scientific R&D ends.
IVOR FRISCHKNECKT, AUST. RENEWABLE ENERGU AGENCY: The University of NSW, the ANU, the University of Queensland, CSIRO, all have incredibly strong programs, many people working in this area, lots of intellectual property being exported, lots of foreign students coming in here to be educated in those programs. We risk losing that. We also risk losing the rollout, so essentially delaying our transition to a renewable energy future and having lower-cost energy technologies available.
KERRY BREWSTER: This week the International Energy Agency said that for the world to meet its carbon reduction targets, 65 per cent of all power needed to be generated from renewable sources by 2050.
Energy specialist, journalist Giles Parkinson, says the race is on.
GILES PARKINSON, RENEW ECONOMY: I watch very carefully what’s going on in the rest of the world. I’ve been to Germany, I’ve been to other parts of Europe, I’ve been to the US. They’re all going fast forward on this and in Australia the rhetoric seems to be that nobody else is doing anything and nor should we, but it’s just not true. In the US they’re investing billions and billions of dollars.
KERRY BREWSTER: Andrew Want says he won’t be in the race if there are no ARENA funds to help attract further private investment.
ANDREW WANT: Investors in Europe, in the States, in Japan are thoroughly confused by why Australia is trying to shut down renewable energy.
KERRY BREWSTER: Mark Twidell, who ran the seed funding body that preceded ARENA predicts a renewable energy brain drain.
MARK TWIDELLL: We will see good technologies, good ideas, good companies seeking to go to other countries in the world and we’ll see those companies that were thinking about installing renewables perhaps starting to think again.
KERRY BREWSTER: The Government must pass legislation to abolish the agency, so its fate rests with the Senate. Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane told Lateline his department will focus on bringing to fruition the 180 research and development projects that have already received close to $1 billion of ARENA investments.
Kerry Brewster, Lateline.
Could it be Guilt, that Makes These People Afraid of Climate Alarmism? I say YES!
Study: Environmentalists Have ‘Substantially Worse than Average’ Carbon Footprints
BY:
May 15, 2014 3:37 pm
People who are worried about climate change emit far more carbon dioxide in their daily lives than the average American, according to data gathered by a new app that can track one’s carbon footprint.
Ian Monroe, the chief executive of Oroeco, told Grist that his app, which syncs social media data and online shopping habits to estimate users’ daily carbon emissions, reveals environmentalists to be some of the biggest “carbon polluters.”
Something that comes as a shock to a lot of our users: The average person who says they care about climate change actually has a substantially worse than average footprint. Generally that’s because they tend to have a bit more money, and they tend to be people who like to think of themselves as multicultural and like to get out and see the world. Which means that they’re flying around a lot, and all that flying generally outweighs any other green lifestyle choices that they’ve made. You have a lot of people who are using reusable bags and water bottles, driving a Prius, maybe eating a bit more of a veggie friendly diet. But then they’re flying to Bali or South Africa or something once a year. They end up having a larger carbon footprint than a conservative guy who drives an SUV in the suburbs of Atlanta but doesn’t fly anywhere.
No Coincidence that Wynne Supports Useless Wind! Her cronies are Invested In It!!!
WYNNE’S BROTHER-IN-LAW THE NEW CEO
OF E-HEALTH, BUT HE ALSO HAS DEEP TIES
TO THE WIND INDUSTRY
How deep does the corruption of this Liberal government go? How great is their arrogance for making sure that their family and buddies make a fortune off the backs of Ontario taxpayers?
Turns out, not only has Kathleen Wynne’s brother-in-law been appointed the new CEO of EHealth, but he’s also on the Board of Directors for two renewable energy companies. The chutzpah and corruption of this gang of thieves just knows absolutely no bounds. He’s also been a lawyer for the past 30+ years.
It’s no wonder the fight against wind turbines seems so useless when the decks are stacked so high against the rural victims of these useless monster machines.
A Google search of his name — F. David Rounthwaite — reveals that he is on the B. o. D. for the following companies.
and
Renewable Energy Developers.(Sprott Power Corp.)
From 1997 to 2010 he was a trustee of Northland Power Income Fund and was lead independent trustee in several transactions of that fund including its acquisition of Northland Power Inc. in 2009. Northland Power has several wind facilities in Ontario, Quebec and B.C.
The more layers you peel back on this disgusting obscenely corrupt government the more it reeks. They need to be removed from office now.
Thanks to a fellow reader at the Toronto Sun for digging up this information.
More Evidence, that Climate Alarmists are Wrong!
AGW: more Wind & Rubbish.
by Anthony Cox
| 0.3% not 97.1% |
The first bit of rubbish is that Cook’s alma mater the University of QLD has got lawyered up and become litigious to absurd levels about the 97% man John Cook and his ridiculous consensus.
But playing nasty is part and parcel of the alarmist program as many good skeptical scientists have found including the latest Lennart Bengtsson . When you have no facts as the alarmists have not then all you can do is attack the skeptics.
But by far the biggest piece of rubbish from the alarmist camp has been the release of a new paper about Antarctic winds: Evolution of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) during the past millennium. This paper is co-authored by Matthew England. England has written other papers on wind. His past papers describe how winds have driven the missing heat to the ocean bottom which explains the temperature hiatus. The absurdity of that proposition is critiqued here.
England’s latest paper explains how increased winds are cooling the Antarctica but causing droughts in Southern Australia and causing the Western Antarctic Peninsula to rapidly melt.
England’s winds are marvelous things; they can do so many things; stop temperature, cause cooling, droughts and warming; all at once.
The first thing to check is whether Southern Australia is experiencing drought. A cursory glimpse of the Bureau of Meteorology site shows that Southern Australia is not experiencing anything different, drought or otherwise.
There was a drought from 2000-2010 but that was not unusual with the 1920s drought being bigger and rainfall since then has been above normal.
It is also apparent that England is not even sure what cause the droughts and rainfall in Southern Australia. In 2009 England co-authored a paper which concluded it was the Indian Ocean Dipole [IOD] which caused the worst droughts in South East Australia.
So which is it Matthew, the IOD or the SAM causing the droughts; so many choices, so little sense.
And what about these winds. England reckons they’re increasing and causing all sorts of mischief. But are global winds increasing? Not according to McVicar, Roderick et al 2012 who conclude in fact the globe is stilling. And according to Gabriel Vecchi, a prominent AGW scientist:
The vast loop of winds that drives climate and ocean behaviour across the tropical Pacific has weakened by 3.5% since the mid-1800s, and it may weaken another 10% by 2100.
In Australia winds and storms are declining in South East Australia and that comes direct from the BOM’s horse’s mouth and their top AGW scientist Blair Trewin.
In fact, according to AGW theory and another top AGW scientist, Richard Muller, winds should decrease because of a decline in the energy gradients in a warming world. There are plenty of studies and the IPCC which confirm this.
And what about the Western Antarctic Peninsula? England and his team say it is warming due to AGW. In fact the WAP has been accumulating snow since 1850 and that estimates of ice loss in the WAP may be a mistake based on Glacial Isostatic Adjustment [GIA] where the extra ice compacts the ice level and causes people to think there is less ice.
Of course if there is warming in the WAP it may be due to these volcanoes:
The Antarctic has nearly all its volcanoes in the West with a concentration in the WAP. Since air and sea temperatures are going down in the Antarctic any melting in the WAP can’t be due to AGW. This tends to be verified by the rate of sea level rise declining and with movements in sea level correlated with the PDO not AGW.
In short England’s latest paper contradicts his previous papers and other AGW evidence which also contradicts other ‘evidence’. Take away the ‘evidence’ and what you are left with iscontradiction. And that just about sums up AGW.
Climate has Become a Tool for Extorting Money from Taxpayers…
I was victimized for challenging zealots,
says Professor: Poison, plots and a battle
to neuter climate change critics
- Professor Bengtsson’s research suggested carbon dioxide may be less damaging to the planet than feared
- Says he’s been subjected to ‘unbearable’ pressure from other researchers
- Has warned of increasing politicisation of the once ‘peaceful’ science
- Others describe a ‘poisonous atmosphere’ fueled by plotting researchers
Speaking out: Professor Lennart Bengtsson
A leading academic says activists are trying to block scientific reports that question the dangers of climate change.
Professor Lennart Bengtsson said he had been subjected to ‘unbearable’ pressure from other researchers and warned of the increasing politicisation of the once ‘peaceful’ science.
Others described a ‘poisonous atmosphere’ in which researchers plot behind the scenes to block the publication of work that queries the danger posed by climate change.
Prof Bengtsson, a top meteorologist attached to Reading University, spoke out after some of his research was rejected by a leading scientific journal.
His study suggested carbon dioxide may be less damaging to the planet than feared – effectively challenging the political consensus and the urgency of the taxpayer-funded drive towards green energy.
An unnamed academic who was asked to help decide if the paper should be published, denounced it as ‘harmful’. The reviewer also warned it would generate bad publicity and have a ‘high’ but ‘strongly negative’ impact on the field of climate change science.
Prof Bengtsson said having research rejected was ‘part and parcel of academic life’, but added that it would be ‘utterly unacceptable’ for an academic to advise against publishing a paper on the grounds that it might bolster the views of climate sceptics.
He told the Times: ‘It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views. The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of climate activist.
‘The reality hasn’t been keeping up with the [computer] models. Therefore, if people are proposing to do major changes to the world’s economic system, we must have much more solid information.’
Prof Bengtsson’s remarks came just days after he resigned from the advisory board of a think-tank that questions the amount of money being poured into combating climate change, after being subject to a ‘witch-hunt’ by fellow academics.
The 79-year-old said the pressure had become ‘virtually unbearable’ and made him fear for his health and safety.
Prof Bengtsson, a top meteorologist attached to Reading University, spoke out after some of his research was rejected by a leading scientific journal.
In his letter of resignation to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, he said: ‘I would never have expected anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.’
Benny Peiser, of the GWPF, said the professor’s case was just one example of a ‘poisonous atmosphere’ pervading climate change research.
He said many scientists with dissenting views were having their research rejected by the editors of scientific journals, and young scientists were censoring their work out of fear for their careers.
‘It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views’
Prof Bengtsson
Prof Bengtsson
Dr Peiser said: ‘Over the last few years, the editors of many of the world’s leading science journals have publicly advocated drastic policies to curb carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, many have publicly attacked scientists sceptical of the climate alarm.
‘Instead of serving as open-minded broker of the contested fields of climate science and climate science, most science editors have opted to take a dogmatic stance that no longer allows for open research.’
David Gee, an emeritus professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, said the pressure on Prof Bengtsson ‘simply confirms the worst aspects of politicised science’.
The Institute of Physics, which publishes Environmental Research Letters, said the decision to not publish Prof Bengtsson was based solely on the paper not meeting the journal’s high standards.
Editorial director Nicola Gulley said: ‘Far from hounding “dissenting” views from the field, Environmental Research Letters positively encourages genuine scientific innovation that can shed light on complicated climate science.’
The “Agenda” Behind Climate Hysteria”!
What’s the Real ‘Climate Change’ Agenda?
A Perfect Storm for an End Run on Liberty
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.” –Patrick Henry (1778)
We’re nearing the hot season in the Northern Hemisphere and, predictably, that means the Left’s alarmist “global warming” rhetoric is heating up. Never mind that most weather forecasts beyond 72 hours are largely speculative; these purveyors of hot gas believe we should accept their inviolable 100-year forecast.
Ahead of this year’s midterm elections, amid the plethora of its domestic and foreign policy failures, the Democrat Party has chosen to make their “climate change” fear and fright campaign an electoral centerpiece. Their strategy is to rally the most liberal cadres of Al Gore’s cult of Gorons, whose religious zeal toward “global warming” is fanatical. Unfortunately, for the rest of America, most who occupy this Leftist constituency are no longer capable of distinguishing fact from fiction.
Though the climate alarmists of the 1970s were driven by rhetoric over the coming ice age, the current climate calamity is one of global warming. But the question about climate isn’t if the weather is varying but why it is varying.
And the answer to that question is far less complicated than the “climate change” agenda, which is not about the weather, but about a political strategy to subjugate free enterprise under statist regulation – de facto socialism, under the aegis of “saving us from ourselves.”
The climate is always changing relative to complex short- and long-term climate cycles, so “climate change” is a superbly safe political “cause célèbre” – sort of like “heads we win, tails you lose.” So, declarations like Barack Obama’s 2014 State of the Union warning – “The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact” – fall into the “keen sense of the obvious” category.
In April, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change released a synopsis ofthousands of climate studies, which contradict the conventional “global warming assumptions.” According to the Cato Institute’s Roger Pilon, “We are now at 17 years and eight months of no global warming.”
Not to be outdone by the NIPCC, however, the Obama administration released its own 800-page apocalyptic National Climate Assessment last week, with such erudite conclusions as, “[W]e know with increasing certainty that climate change is happening now.”
I “know” with more than “increasing certainty” that every time I walk outside, I can detect climate change, and this ever-changing condition is better known as “weather.”
Despite the hot hype, Jason Furman, chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, the week before Obama trotted out his climate assessment, had this to say about sluggish first quarter economic growth: “The first quarter of 2014 was marked by unusually severe winter weather.”
Global cooling? That’s right, economic stagnation is not the result of failed “economic recovery” policies but “unusually severe winter weather.”
Obama’s minister of propaganda, Jay Carney, followed with this explanation: “We had historically severe winter weather which temporarily lowered growth in the first quarter … in other words, a reduction of 1 to 1.5% in GDP as a result of what was historically severe weather, one of the coldest winters on record, the greatest number of snowstorms on record.”
After the White House climate assessment was released, Carney was challenged about the disparity between “historically severe winter weather” and global warming, and responded, “The impacts of climate change on weather are severe in both directions.”
Well there you go – climate change is the default explanation for hot and cold weather.
It was no small irony that last week, Obama chose to promote his administration’s “green agenda” with Walmart as a backdrop – ironic given that most of Walmart’s products are produced in China and other third-world nations, the biggest land, water and atmospheric polluters on the planet.
To that end, columnist Charles Krauthammer notes, “We have reduced our carbon dioxide emission since 1996 more than any other country in the world, and, yet, world emissions have risen. Why? We don’t control the other 96% of humanity. We can pass all the laws we want. We can stop all economic activity and take cold showers for the next 100 years, it will not change anything if India and China are opening a new coal plant every week.”
I would suggest to Charles that it’s called “global climate” because it is not “local climate,” even if China and India reduced their CO2 emissions it would not stop “climate change.”
Further, the administration’s report claims that “climate disruption” has resulted in a global temperature rise of 1.3 to 1.9 degrees since 1895 – and it is no coincidence that the report cherry-picked that starting date because 1890 is recognized as the end of the 300-year “Little Ice Age” global cooling period.
For the record, estimates of the minuscule temperature fluctuation over the last century, if correct, would explain why White House science adviser John Holdren has abandoned the term “global warming,” opting instead for the more ambiguous and all-encompassing phrase “global climate disruption.”
Fact is, we “disrupt” the global climate every time we exhale.
Such linguistic obfuscations would make the old Soviet Dezinformatsia Bureau proud! Of course, the Obama administration has mastered the art of the “BIG Lie” from the top down. (Think about it: Would you buy a used car from any of them?)
However, even the Left’s cherished United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that there “is limited evidence of changes in [weather] extremes associated with other climate variables since the mid-20th century.”
And, regarding the objectivity of all those erudite “climate change” scientists, columnist George Will observed, “There is a sociology of science. Scientists are not saints in white laboratory smocks. They have got interests like everybody else. If you want a tenure-track position in academia, don’t question the reigning orthodoxy on climate change. If you want money from the biggest source of direct research in this country, the federal government, don’t question its orthodoxy. If you want to get along with your peers, conform to peer pressure. This is what’s happening.”
Krauthammer added, “All physicists were once convinced that space and time were fixed until Einstein, working in a patent office, wrote a paper in which he showed that they are not. I’m not impressed by numbers. I’m not impressed by consensus.”
As for those of us who can distinguish betweenfact, fiction and political endgames, and are most decidedly not among Obama’s legions of pantywaist bed-wetters, he unilaterally suspends the revered scientific method and accuses us of “wasting everybody’s time on a settled debate – climate change is a fact. … Climate change is not some far-off problem in the future. It’s happening now. It’s causing hardship now.”
This week, you can expect to hear the Leftmedia trumpet some Antarctic ice melt, but you haven’t heard much about the record ice pack in the Arctic, which is threatening Al Gore’s once-marooned polar bear population, because the ice is too thick for the bears to reach their primary food source, seals.
Let me repeat myself: The climate hype is notabout the weather, but about a political strategy to subjugate free enterprise under statist regulation – de facto socialism, under the aegis of “saving us from ourselves.”
Indeed, Obama’s economic policies and regulations have already moved our nation rapidly toward the brink of statist totalitarianism.
And there was more evidence this week of Obama’s reckless strategy to subjugate our economy and by extension, our national security, to his “climate change” agenda.
Adding to his “War on Coal,” Obama has ratcheted up his War on Energy Independence, not only refusing to complete the Keystone XL pipeline but now going after alternative oil exploration methods by implementing new fracking disclosure rules. On top of that, he is undermining alternate transportation options for oil in the absence of Keystone XL with new regulations for trains transporting oil, and specifications for rail cars. Oh, did I mention Obama’s regulatory obstacles to constructing new refineries despite the fact that our current refinement capacity is approaching its limit?
How does this all add up?
According to columnist Terence Jeffrey, “Ultimately, it will not matter if people in government cynically promote the theory that human activity is destroying the global climate as a means of taking control of your life, or if they take control of your life because they sincerely believe human activity is destroying the global climate. Either way, government will control of your life. … In a nation where government can de-develop the economy, stop population growth and redistribute wealth both inside and outside its borders, there will still be droughts, floods and hot summer nights. But there will be no freedom.” In his 1735 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack, Benjamin Franklin observed, “Some are weatherwise, some are otherwise.” While the Left promotes its agenda as “weatherwise” and its detractors as “deniers,” fact is, they are otherwise.
Oh, wait, my bad. “The debate is settled.”
Climate Alarmists are Using Fear as a Sales Gimmick for Faux-green Energy!
Environmental Research Letters strikes back at: ‘Scientists in cover-up of ‘damaging’ climate view’
Environmental Research Letters has published a statement on the growing Bengtsson Climate McCarthyism scandal, now a front page issue in The Times, claiming their innocence over the accusation that it rejected Bengtsson’s paper because of his connection to climate scepticism. Here’s the part of the reviewers report that is at issue:
Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.
Now that Bengtsson has been put on “double-secret probabtion” in the peer review world, and the ERL peer review has become the center of the maelstrom, of course ERL would issue a statement essentially saying “nothing to see here, move along”.
Here is the statement:
============================================================
Statement from IOP Publishing on story in The Times
16 May 2014Bristol, UK
Dr. Nicola Gulley, Editorial Director at IOP Publishing, says, “The draft journal paper by Lennart Bengtsson that Environmental Research Letters declined to publish, which was the subject of this morning’s front page story of The Times, contained errors, in our view did not provide a significant advancement in the field, and therefore could not be published in the journal.”
“The decision not to publish had absolutely nothing to do with any ‘activism’ on the part of the reviewers or the journal, as suggested in The Times’ article; the rejection was solely based on the content of the paper not meeting the journal’s high editorial standards, ” she continues.
“The referees selected to review this paper were of the highest calibre and are respected members of the international science community. The comments taken from the referee reports were taken out of context and therefore, in the interests of transparency, we have worked with the reviewers to make the full reports available.”
The full quote actually said “Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.”
“As the referees report state, ‘The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low.’ This means that the study does not meet ERL’s requirement for papers to significantly advance knowledge of the field.”
“Far from denying the validity of Bengtsson’s questions, the referees encouraged the authors to provide more innovative ways of undertaking the research to create a useful advance.”
“As the report reads, ‘A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.”
“Far from hounding ‘dissenting’ views from the field, Environmental Research Letterspositively encourages genuine scientific innovation that can shed light on complicated climate science.”
“The journal Environmental Research Letters is respected by the scientific community because it plays a valuable role in the advancement of environmental science – for unabashedly not publishing oversimplified claims about environmental science, and encouraging scientific debate.”
“With current debate around the dangers of providing a false sense of ‘balance’ on a topic as societally important as climate change, we’re quite astonished that The Times has taken the decision to put such a non-story on its front page.”
Please find the reviewer report below quoted in The Times, exactly as sent to Lennart Bengttsson.
We are getting permission from the other referees for this paper to make their reports available as soon as possible.
REFEREE REPORT(S):
COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR(S)
The manuscript uses a simple energy budget equation (as employed e.g. by Gregory et al 2004, 2008, Otto et al 2013) to test the consistency between three recent “assessments” of radiative forcing and climate sensitivity (not really equilibrium climate sensitivity in the case of observational studies).
The study finds significant differences between the three assessments and also finds that the independent assessments of forcing and climate sensitivity within AR5 are not consistent if one assumes the simple energy balance model to be a perfect description of reality.
The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low, as the calculations made to compare the three studies are already available within each of the sources, most directly in Otto et al.
The finding of differences between the three “assessments” and within the assessments (AR5), when assuming the energy balance model to be right, and compared to the CMIP5 models are reported as apparent inconsistencies.
The paper does not make any significant attempt at explaining or understanding the differences, it rather puts out a very simplistic negative message giving at least the implicit impression of “errors” being made within and between these assessments, e.g. by emphasising the overlap of authors on two of the three studies.
What a paper with this message should have done instead is recognising and explaining a series of “reasons” and “causes” for the differences.
– The comparison between observation based estimates of ECS and TCR (which would have been far more interesting and less impacted by the large uncertainty about the heat content change relative to the 19th century) and model based estimates is comparing apples and pears, as the models are calculating true global means, whereas the observations have limited coverage. This difference has been emphasised in a recent contribution by Kevin Cowtan, 2013.
– The differences in the forcing estimates used e.g. between Otto et al 2013 and AR5 are not some “unexplainable change of mind of the same group of authors” but are following different tow different logics, and also two different (if only slightly) methods of compiling aggregate uncertainties relative to the reference period, i.e. the Otto et al forcing is deliberately “adjusted” to represent more closely recent observations, whereas AR5 has not put so much weight on these satellite observations, due to still persisting potential problems with this new technology
– The IPCC process itself explains potential inconsistencies under the strict requirement of a simplistic energy balance: The different estimates for temperature, heat uptake, forcing, and ECS and TCR are made within different working groups, at slightly different points in time, and with potentially different emphasis on different data sources. The IPCC estimates of different quantities are not based on single data sources, nor on a fixed set of models, but by construction are expert based assessments based on a multitude of sources. Hence the expectation that all expert estimates are completely consistent within a simple energy balance model is unfunded from the beginning.
– Even more so, as the very application of the Kappa model (the simple energy balance model employed in this work, in Otto et al, and Gregory 2004) comes with a note of caution, as it is well known (and stated in all these studies) to underestimate ECS, compared to a model with more time-scales and potential non-linearities (hence again no wonder that CMIP5 doesn’t fit the same ranges)
Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.
One cannot and should not simply interpret the IPCCs ranges for AR4 or 5 as confidence intervals or pdfs and hence they are not directly comparable to observation based intervals (as e.g. in Otto et al).
In the same way that one cannot expect a nice fit between observational studies and the CMIP5 models.
A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.
I have rated the potential impact in the field as high, but I have to emphasise that this would be a strongly negative impact, as it does not clarify anything but puts up the (false) claim of some big inconsistency, where no consistency was to be expected in the first place.
And I can’t see an honest attempt of constructive explanation in the manuscript.
Thus I would strongly advise rejecting the manuscript in its current form.
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Source: http://ioppublishing.org/newsDetails/statement-from-iop-publishing-on-story-in-the-times
Bishop Hill notes this about the reports:
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Regarding the scientific issues, the journal says it is trying to get permission to publish the referees’ reports and indeed the first of these appears at the bottom of the statement. As far as we can ascertain from this, Bengtsson’s paper focused on similar ground to the Lewis/Crok GWPF report, namely the stark difference between GCM estimates of climate sensitivity and those derived from the observational record and energy budgets. The referee quoted seems to object to this approach because of claimed inadequacies in the nergy budget approach. He says in essence that you wouldn’t expect consistency because the energy budget approach is flawed.
People closer to the climate sensitivity debate need to look at the full review, but noted something rather interesting among the list of objections to energy budget models. This is the paragraph that caught my attention:
Even more so, as the very application of the Kappa model (the simple energy balance model employed in this work, in Otto et al, and Gregory 2004) comes with a note of caution, as it is well known (and stated in all these studies) to underestimate ECS, compared to a model with more time-scales and potential non-linearities (hence again no wonder that CMIP5 doesn’t fit the same ranges).
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It seems to me that Climate Science is reaching a tipping point. After Climategate, we were told that all of those nasty emails were taken out of context, and that “real climate scientists” don’t really act like that, and it is shameful for climate skeptics to label these instances as indicative of systemic problems that are endemic to climate science and the peer review process.
And now, here we are, right back where we started at Climategate.
Global Cooling is What is Really Happening, and it’s NOT our Fault!!!
GLOBAL COOLING UNDERWAY
With global temperature data now available for the first three months of 2014, an interesting trend has clearly emerged: global cooling. No longer is it just a hypothesis. For the first quarter of each calendar year since 2002, it is effectively a fact at reasonably strong statistical significance. Here is the data:
That downward trend since 2002 has a p-value of 0.097 (r=-0.48), which is below the p=0.10 (90%) threshold used in many climate science studies for statistical significance, and very close to the standard p=0.05 (95%) threshold generally employed across the physical and biological sciences. The same level of statistical significance is obtained regardless of whether parametric or non-parametric trend analysis methods are employed.
Some readers may be looking at this plot and thinking that the global climate data since 1880 looks a lot like a cycle, with a stable period (of neither warming nor cooling) of, say, 140 years in length between the approximately 70-year long alternating cool and warm periods. It certainly has that appearance. If such is the case, we would expect a return to “normal” January-March global temperatures by 2050, give or take a decade or two.
In the United States, the January-March 2014 temperature was well below the 20th-century average. There has been no statistically significant trend in January-March temperatures in the contiguous USA since 1980. None, for 35 years and counting. The same lack of trend applies for the December-February temperatures. Depending on how you define winter, either – or both – of these timeframes is considered the wintertime period.
So there has been absolutely no change in wintertime temperatures in the United States since before Reagan was president, and yet the The Guardian is reporting that the latest National Climate Assessment finds climate change to be a “clear and present danger” and that “Americans are noticing changes all around them … Winters are generally shorter and warmer.”
There is no trend – I repeat: no trend – in wintertime temperatures in the United States since 1980.
On an annual basis ending in March, there has been no change in the contiguous U.S. temperature since 1986 (actually, probably since 1985, but we’ll give the alarmists the benefit on this). You get the same result on a calendar-year basis. That’s right: there has been no change in annual temperatures for the United States since Bon Jovi had a number-one hit with “You Give Love a Bad Name,” the Bangles were telling us to “Walk Like an Egyptian,” Madonna was asking her papa not to preach, and Robert Palmer was “Addicted to Love.”
According to Virginia Burkett, the chief scientist for global change at the U.S. Geological Survey, “all areas are getting hotter.” All of them? So bold, yet so inaccurate. The entire Ohio Valley climate division has not seen any significant warming on an annual basis since 1896. The entire U.S. South climate division hasn’t warmed since 1907. Neither has the entire Southeast climate division since 1896.
The National Climate Assessment claims that “summers are longer and hotter.” Hotter summers? There is no trend in the average June-August temperature (aka summer) in the USA since 1930. Same lack of trend for July and August average temperatures.
On an annual basis ending in March (allowing us to use the most complete dataset possible), global warming stopped cold in statistical terms during 1997. And since 2002, the correlation coefficient has – in fact – turned slightly negative. Very weak evidence for global cooling, but on the balance of probabilities, since 2002, there is more statistical evidence for global cooling than there is for global warming. Scientists such as Don Easterbrook, a professor emeritus of geology at Western Washington University, have been making similar predictions for global temperatures.
In the Southern Hemisphere, where climate scientists are now apparently warning that the “Antarctic Ice Shelf [is] on [the] brink of unstoppable melt that could raise sea levels for 10,000 years,” the annual cooling trend since 2003 is even more probable (r=-0.22, p-value as low as 0.34 using non-parametric approaches).
The poor-quality science reporting on climate change is ubiquitous. Over at the Daily Kos, we find a plot of “Global Temperature (meteorological stations).” Given that oceans cover 71 percent of the planet’s surface, what possible meaning could a “global temperature” derived only from “meteorological stations” have? The answer is none. Any talk of a global temperature must include both land and sea data, and be properly weighted according to station type and location. And this assumes that the data itself is correct. Various climate skeptic websites have repeatedly shown that we need to doubt the data itself, not just the analyses.
As the countdown to the proposed climate agreement in 2015 ticks along, expect more of this hysterical nonsense not founded in the underlying data, as well as more concerted and emphatic denials of the global cooling phase we may be entering. One can only hope that the moderately conservative leaders in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom will not fall prey to the hysteria, but instead take a principled scientific stand in 2015 and lead the charge to reject any international climate agreements.
Unfortunately, many crony capitalists – including a number in the fossil fuels industry itself – are starting to see greater financial benefits for themselves by going along with the hysteria, rather than fighting for reality.
Perilous times indeed. The next couple years may not only see the end of America’s economic domination on the world stage, passing the torch instead to communist China, but also witness the final death throes of rigorous, objective science in the public interest.
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 