Global warming alarmists try to reposition fear as fact

Do Skeptics ‘Reposition’ Warming as ‘Theory’ or Do Alarmists ‘Reposition’ Fear as ‘Fact’? Revisiting an Urban Legend by Marlo Lewis

... The key climate science question for policymakers and citizens is not whether anthropogenic global warming is real but whether, in Al Gore’s words, climate change is “a planetary emergency — a crisis that threatens the survival of civilization and the habitability of the Earth.” The climate alarm narrative was not a “fact” in 1991 and certainly is not today.

Mounting evidence indicates that the climate is substantially less sensitive (reactive) to greenhouse gas emissions than “consensus” science had assumed. ... the climate trilogy of terror – ocean circulation collapse, rapid ice sheet disintegration, and runaway climate change (the methane “bomb”) – has far less scientific plausibility today than it did in 1991.

Gore and other climate campaigners have been trying for decades to reposition fear as fact. Their j’accuse directed at skeptics is Orwellian. ...

The oceans are not more acidic now

As claimed by the Guardian and carelessly re-Tweeted by the usual suspects:

Fiona Harvey’s article in the Guardian on 3 October 2013 Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years misrepresents the scientific literature. This error has propagated across the Twittersphere. 

... Hönisch et al. 2012, cited by the State of the Oceans report, showed in Figure 4D that the ocean has been more acidic for most of the past 300 million years than it is now. The rate of acidfication may be faster now, but Hönisch’s graph has a resolution of 20 million years, so cannot address that question.

It is unfortunate that an environmental journalist should confuse the rate of acidification with levels of acidity, but appalling that this story was tweeted uncritically by Nature Geoscience and a number of climate scientists other influential accounts. This is not some esoteric area of climate science. It is well known that CO₂ was much higher during parts of the past 300 million years than it is today and therefore ocean surface pH would be expected to be lower. Why was Harvey’s assertion that “[the] oceans are more acidic now than they have been for at least 300m years” not challenged (as far as I can see) by anyone from the scientific establishment?

A little misrepresentation goes a long way in the world of climate scare-mongering.

[via]

Al Gore et al - oil sands ignorami

Ezra further examines Al Gore’s war against Canada’s oilsands and reveals an egregious comparison made by Obama’s anti-oil supporters.



More.

Al Gore's values

Hypocrisy would have to be high up on the list, then his bank account. 
Rex Murphy:

... in the service of broadening his already impressive propaganda effort, [Al Gore] acquired — from CBC no less — a digital channel, renamed it Current TV, and hired as lead star the belligerent and bellowing Keith Olberman ...

Now comes the latest news that Al has sold Current, for the magnificent sum of $500-million, $100-million of which is his alone, ... to al Jazeera — which is to say, effectively to the ruler of Qatar ...  Qatar is about oil, oil and more oil. It is a global warmer’s hell.

In a related story, when Glenn Beck offered to buy the channel from Gore, he was rebuffed ("within 15 minutes") because:

"the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view,"  

..."[Gore] didn’t sell to the highest bidder. We were not allowed to the table. He didn’t sell to the highest bidder. He looked for, who do I ideologically align with," Beck said.

So, global warming alarmist Al Gore's values are aligned with those of Al-Jazeera and it's petro-state dictator.  As Ann Coulter never tires of pointing out "[liberals] are either traitors or idiots..." ["Treason" - p16].  Al is both.

Al Gore's latest scary climate propaganda project

Leveraging fame and profits from "An Inconvenient Truth" (aka an inconvenient pack of lies) Gore is now working on 24 Hours of Climate "Reality": The Dirty Weather Report [my scare quotes].

Anthony Watts calls it "24 hours of Tabloid Climatology™".

Al Gore and Keith Olbermann - liberalism as a mental disorder

Via WUWT come hilarious email exchanges between Al Gore and Keith Olbermann on the way to Olbermann being fired from Gore's 'Current TV'.  They both come off as narcissistic megalomaniacs (certifiably NUTS!).

If the emails are genuine, that Al Gore came within a whisker of becoming POTUS is beyond scary.

Update:   OK, that exchange was straight satire.  I missed the "DC Satire" label at the bottom of the Daily Caller post.  Oops!

What we don't know about climate

From a comment by Robert Brown at WattsUpWithThat:

... What is the temperature that it would be outside right now, if CO_2 were still at its pre-industrial level?

I don’t think we can begin to answer this question based on what we know right now. We can’t explain why the MWP happened (without CO_2 modulation). We can’t explain why the LIA happened (without CO_2 modulation). We can’t explain all of the other significant climate changes all the way back to the Holocene Optimum (much warmer than today) or the Younger Dryas (much colder than today) even in just the Holocene. We can’t explain why there are ice ages 90,000 years out of every 100,000, why it was much warmer 15 million years ago, why geological time hot and cold periods come along and last for millions to hundreds of millions of years. We don’t know when the Holocene will end, or why it will end when it ends, or how long it will take to go from warm to cold conditions. We are pretty sure the Sun has a lot to do with all of this but we don’t know how, or whether or not it involves more than just the Sun. We cannot predict solar state decades in advance, let alone centuries, and don’t do that well predicting it on a timescale of merely years in advance. We cannot predict when or how strong the decadal oscillations will occur. We don’t know when continental drift will alter e.g. oceanic or atmospheric circulation patterns “enough” for new modes to emerge (modes which could lead to abrupt and violent changes in climate all over the world).

Finally, we don’t know how to build a faithful global climate model, in part because we need answers to many of these questions before we can do so! Until we can, we’re just building nonlinear function fitters that do OK at interpolation, and are lousy at extrapolation.

Yet many scientists, most mainstream journalists, most politicians and government bureaucrats, many millions of  ordinary people, Al Gore and many other flakes remain utterly convinced that AGW is a proven threat to the planet.  And there's a much longer list of things we don't understand about climate.

Al Gore's faked science project

Anthony Watts:

"... I’ve discovered that by watching carefully it reveals an “inconvenient truth” of the worst kind...."

Blundering along with the UK Met

The UK Met Office gets it wrong, YET AGAIN. Peter Foster reviews the litany of blunders:

The British deep freeze of recent weeks (which has also immobilized much of continental Europe) is profoundly embarrassing for the official forecaster. Just two months ago it projected a milder than usual winter. ... the price tag on the country’s unpreparedness for this winter could reach $15-billion.

... Significantly, the Met Office is closely associated with the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, home of Climategate. Both organizations are deeply involved with the IPCC. When it comes to the CRU’s crystal ball, one of its official declared a decade ago: “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” No danger of that for little Britons this year.

... The Met’s blunder follows similar cockups last year and the year before. In February, Met Office scientist Peter Stott declared that 2009 was an anomaly, and that milder and wetter winters were now — for sure — to be expected. He suggested that exceptionally cold British winters such as the one that occurred in 1962-63 were now expected to occur “about once every 1,000 years or more, compared with approximately every 100 to 200 years before 1850.” Now, the Met Office is admitting that the current December may be the coldest in Britain in the past 100 years.

Also, significantly:

... Yesterday, the British-based Global Warming Policy Foundation has called on the U.K. government to set up an independent inquiry into the Met Office’s failures. It also wants an examination of the institution’s politicization. [FYI: Peter's column has been posted at the GWPF web-site.]

Noted also are the predictable reactions of AGW true believers:

... No doubt the warmist crowd will be quick to express outrage at this blatant confusion of global climate with local weather, but that won’t wash. The Met makes its short-term forecasts on the basis of the same brand of massive computer power and Rube Goldberg modelling used to project the global climate. ...

With their usual contradictions:

... Confusing weather with climate isn’t always condemned by alarmists. In March, Al Gore deemed it disgraceful that “deniers” dared to suggest that North America’s East Coast Snowmageddon in any way undermined the Inconvenient Truth of man-made global warming. More snow was obviously due to man. The very next day, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell declared that the lack of snow at the Vancouver Olympics was due to … man-made global warming.

Update: An excellent video via a reader at FPComment:

Al Gore explains geothermal energy

What a moron!

Doubting Al Gore

Peter Foster makes it clear why being a climate heretic is so difficult:

Dealing with acolytes of the Al Gore school of climate change (that is, virtually every government on earth, plus the chattering classes of the entire Western World). ...

... Not merely do mouths gape, but eyes roll at any dimwit's failure to grasp that there is "consensus" on the issue. Indeed, to dissent is seen not merely as evidence of mental deficiency but moral turpitude.

[...]

Anyone can join a mob. However, publicly bucking near universal orthodoxy and facing the disapproval and ridicule of brainwashed friends, enemies and peers takes great courage and integrity.

Peter Foster, and all the stalwarts at FP Comment, one of the few mainstream outlets to consistently voice climate dissent, deserve our thanks, support and admiration.

Muzzling AGW skeptics

Al Gore’s invocation of the Nazi comparison (previous post) in describing the AGW hysterics’ struggle to save the planet is one more example of an attempt to silence dissent. As Lubos Motl said, it’s Gore and his fellow climate alarmists who are looking like Nazis.

Lorne Gunter picks up on the same theme in his column today:

If you visit drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures-- the site of a scientist who, for 30 years, has used satellites to monitor global temperature -- you will see that as of the end of June, the Earth is no warmer than it was in 1979.

.... And while there have been more warm years than cool ones in the past decade-and-a-half, the trend, since at least 2003, has been downward.

... since Al Gore released his movie An Inconvenient Truth in October 2006, the Earth's temperature has lost 0.74F, almost exactly the amount the UN's climate panel claims was gained in the entire 20th century.

... Still, if anything, the rhetoric of global warming and climate change has become even more frenzied since 2006, not less, even to the point where scientists skeptical of the warming theory are being gagged by the Obama administration and the UN.

... when evidence arose last week that the EPA had killed an internal report claiming that much had changed in the past year and that a reassessment of climate predictions was needed, ... EPA climate analyst Alan Carlin was told his conclusions would have "a very negative impact on our office."

... Similarly, UN scientists gathering in Copenhagen this week to discuss what must be done to save polar bears, have excluded Canadian researcher Mitch Taylor, perhaps the world's foremost polar bear expert, because (according to a memo to Dr. Taylor obtained by London's Daily Telegraph) of "the position you've taken on global warming." According the hosts of the conference, Dr. Taylor's views doubting man-made warming "are extremely unhelpful."

"Very negative impact", "extremely unhelpful" - for one thing to governments' ability to sell a carbon tax which Obama needs to fund his socialist universal healthcare plan.

Al Gore plays the Nazi card

Via WUWT:

Al Gore invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill yesterday when he urged political leaders to follow the example of Britain’s wartime leader in the battle against climate change.

... Speaking in Oxford ... Mr Gore said: "Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will ..."

Mr Gore admitted that it was difficult to persuade the public that the threat from climate change was as urgent as that from Hitler.

Sure. And in Gore’s fevered brain he’s playing Churchill. Get real Al. Dealing with a natural phenomenon is in no way equivalent to fighting a war to defeat an evil totalitarian regime bent on murder, mayhem and global domination. Suggesting such an equivalence is beyond idiotic.

Of course Gore’s analogy is based on the assumption that the climate ‘problem’ is AGW and that skeptics are the enemy. His analogy is still way over-the-top. Political and intellectual adversaries engaging in vigorous debate is how free societies are supposed to operate. Drawing an equivalence between what should be a free debate and a war to defeat Hitler is obscene.

However, for those who insist that a Nazi comparison is valid, two can play that game. Lubos Motl, for instance, agrees that the Nazi analogy is a good one. Except that it’s Gore and the AGW alarmists who are playing the Nazi role and the skeptics are playing the persecuted Jews:

... I don't think that comparisons to Nazis should be taboo. The AGW movement is becoming radical enough for thoughtful comparisons of Nazism and environmentalism to gain importance.

... Assuming that I ask you to optimize the analogy, where do we stand today? My guess is that with the AGW activists today, we are in the situation of Germany in 1936 or so. It's not yet a "crisis" but the global warming realists enjoy a comparable treatment as the Jews in 1936. The fighters against climate change are slowly (or quickly?) taking over the scientific institutions and international organizations.

... Some pogroms against power plants may resemble a modest version of the Night of Broken Glass - but we're not there yet. It is up to us whether 2011 will be similar to 1938, too.

... But structurally speaking, the current fight against global warming (i.e. alarmism) is similar to the fight against Nazism, indeed. It's not quite the same thing but the number of similarities is sufficiently high for us to learn a lesson or two.

If there’s a Nazi comparison to be drawn Lubos makes a far better one.

Al Gore, "liar"

Yesterday Al Gore testified before a congressional hearing. Lord Monckton wasn't permitted to speak but Newt Gingrich did a good job of exposing Gore's usual lies and distortions:




Also, here's Lord Monckton with Michael Savage (April 24th about 1/3 in).

Lord Monckton is chief policy adviser for the Science and Public Policy Institute.

[h/t]

Dem "cowards" protect Gore

From this report at WUWT:

UK’s Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24...

... “The House Democrats don’t want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.”

The Goracle blows off Earth Hour

Al Gore's mansion at Earth Hour (from WUWT):
.
Drew Johnson reported:

"I pulled up to Al’s house, located in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville, at 8:48pm – right in the middle of Earth Hour. I found that the main spotlights that usually illuminate his 9,000 square foot mansion were dark, but several of the lights inside the house were on.

"... The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion.

"I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees."

And note the three SUV's in the driveway.

Update: Algore responds and "Drew Johnson stands by his story".

Fusion - the end of a gravy train?

Plentiful, clean power from nuclear fusion has been an elusive dream for decades. Billions have been spent pursuing it.

Apparently there have been some encouraging developments recently. Two of my favourite UK bloggers have been following them:

The Devil’s Kitchen has lots of background, commentary and links.
Roger Thornhill suggests a key fringe benefit of success:

Gore's face when that happens. I want a Gore-cam set up so we can see the moment his gravy train is shunted into the siding and lifted onto the flatbed headed for the scrap yard.

Now there’s something we can all get behind.

Bali-hoo

CBL has been on a Bali-induced tear recently, ripping away at Al Gore and other AGW fanatics. A short round-up:

Selective interpretation. Last year the warm winter weather was proof positive of looming climate disaster. This year the cold weather is, well ... cold.

AGW = Al Gore Windbag.

Assault on reason. Lemon does a masterful take-down of a fawning review of Gore’s recent book assaulting reason. See also Big Fat Lying Liar.

Impact of Kyoto compared to doing nothing: on global climate - not much; on the global economy - enormous

Al Gore’s ‘carbon-offsets’. What offsets?

Giga-death. By Bjorn Lomborg’s estimates, the number of dead innocents resulting from Kyoto-esque schemes would dwarf the slaughter perpetrated by Stalin and Mao.

Turn your LIGHTS ON for Earth Day. Count me in!

Well done, Brian!

A ‘Peace’ prize for junk science

Two excellent columns in Saturday’s ‘Post’ on the Nobel Peace Prize.

Terence Corcoron concludes:

Peter Foster agrees and says that Gore’s and IPCC’s work have nothing to do with ‘peace’:

Global warming theory has been in political and scientific trouble for some time, but who knew it had sunk so low it needed a boost from the Nobel Peace Prize committee?
Mr. Gore is by no means an anomaly when it comes to Peace Prizewinners being peddlers of nonsense, tellers of whoppers, or even promoters of political strife.
... the prize was awarded to Mr. Gore and the IPCC "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." But what does that have to do with peace?
[...]
... Al Gore's and the IPCC's idea of a good cause involves -- as with Mr. Strong -- demonization of Western lifestyles and promoting the belief that, until we change, we deserve to be attacked morally, and perhaps even physically. It's a funny basis for a Peace Prize.

Update: Mark Steyn's contribution.

The prize has elevated junk science, gross exaggeration and outright misrepresentation to high international stature, the most prestigious award in the world, discrediting all who work honestly to find the facts and do the right thing.

Al Gore's big prize

So, Al Gore shares the Nobel Peace Prize for climate hysteria with the U.N. IPCC. I guess the Nobel committee hadn't gotten around to reading the British High Court's findings on how economical with the 'truth' Gore was in "An Inconvenient Truth".

Oh, well! Al's in good company - Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter, etc - which is proof positive that climate hysteria is strictly a political matter.