Recent Posts


Gleick admits his guilt – deception used to get documents in FakeGate – apologizes

BREAKING: Peter Gleick admits admits he’s the one who assumed a false identity and emailed Heartland so he could steal their private documents. His apology marks, finally, a small turning point in the PR scandal and ethical vacuum.

UPDATE: So when will DeSmog retract it’s false claim the documents came from “an insider”? When will they admit they were fooled, didn’t bother to check the veracity, and don’t care about putting out accurate information?

His answer doesn’t quite put all the pieces together. The fake document has a timestamp just prior to DeSmog and others releasing it, so it is not the “anonymous document” he refers too.

At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute’s climate program strategy. It contained information about their funders and the Institute’s apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy. I do not know the source of that original document but assumed it was sent to me because of my past exchanges with Heartland and because I was named in it.

Given the potential impact however, I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this […]

Satire is a beautiful thing: The FakeGaters are asked to take down the fakes… and someone has a moment of fun.

It’s sad to watch the implosion of a Nobel Cause. Well it would be…

But then DeSmog thinks providing fake documents “is in the public interest”. (Is there is a shortage of false and misleading articles around? Who knew?)

This particular parody refers to Charles Johnson (who?).

Hat tip: As Baa Humbug said in posting this in comments: This didn’t take long.

9.1 out of 10 based on 54 ratings

Heartland sends out first legal notice about stolen and faked documents

Let the games begin. As promised, Heartland want justice, starting with the removal of all the fake and alleged documents. DeSmog have overplayed their hand.

–Jo

Support The Heartland Institute today

(Go on, fake smears like the DeSmog one, are designed to intimidate donors, we can rise above!)

——————————————————————————————————–

UPDATE: Joseph Bast explains why Heartland are doing this:

“We realize this will be portrayed by some as a heavy-handed threat to free speech. But the First Amendment doesn’t protect Internet fraud, and there is no right to defamatory speech.

“For 28 years, The Heartland Institute has engaged in fierce debates over a wide range of public policies – school reform, health care, telecommunications policy, corporate subsidies, and government waste and fraud, as well as environmental policy. We frequently and happily engage in vigorous, robust debate with those who disagree with our views.

“We have resorted in the past to legal means only in a very few cases involving outright fraud and defamation. The current situation clearly fits that description, and our legal counsel has advised that the first step in defending ourselves should be to […]

Bob Carter wins the cartoon war :-) A very sweet win.

Thank you DeSmog! Without FakeGate we would not have had this cartoon. (Readership est 850,000)

Cartoon by John Spooner. The Age.

Source:The Age John Spooner: The Age Gallery Spooner: Nat.Lbrary collection

Spooner: The National Times Collection 🙂

TRANSCRIPT:

Julia Gillard to Tim Flannery (top picture) “Tim, sorry to drag you in like this. I’m not that upset that you were so wrong about water shortages now that we’re drowing in the stuff. And how were you to know that there would be no statistically significant increase in warming for the last 15 years of increasing CO2 emissions.”

Julia Gillard to Tim Flannery: (lower image) “No! I want to know why I pay you 10 times what Bob Carter gets and he still wins the argument!”

 

On Wednesday I mentioned the Carter/Flannery disparity in wages:

And if Bob Carter receives an honorarium type amount of $1500 a month, the pull of those big dollars must be powerfully tempting for people like Tim Flannery who struggle along on about $1200 each day he works.

[…]

UPDATE: Heartland documents stolen and key one is fake. No insider leak. FakeGate!

Major embarrassment for Joe Romm, and DeSmog and their unthinking fans.

In the hours after the ClimateGate emails were released, skeptics asked about their authenticity (as we are wont to do). In the hours after the Heartland Documents (including at least one complete fake) were released, the commentators on the other side did not even ask (just as they uncritically accept any weak report in favour of their pet theory).

They leapt to their defamatory conclusions in a smear-fest. At least one person out there has probably committed a criminal act. The rest are guilty of small brained unskeptical blind hatred, defamation, and ignorance. And will any of them apologize? I’ll be shocked if even one has the decency or manners.

We should not allow them to forget it. DeSmog=DeSmear. They are a group happy to promote lies with no compunction. They are not interested in the truth, just in the PR. Oh the fool journalists who think the paid hacks at DeSmog ever had anything to say on science that was not biased or deceitful. Richard Littlemore, where is your apology? Instead, knowing the document is faked, he continues to promote it. So does Brad Johnson, and Joe Romm.

[…]

Fakegate: the smog blog exposes irrational rage, innumeracy, and heartland’s efficient success.

The Climate Change Scare Machine Chart

The believers of man-made-weather-disasters are wetting themselves with excitement. It painful to watch grown men drool.

Poor things, they were really wounded by Climategate, and they’ve been waiting, praying that some day someone would level the playing field and show that skeptics were just as petty, shameless, and money-grubbing as their team turned out to be (not to mention hypocritical, deceptive and incompetent). In their dreams.

Instead the hyped non-denier-gate shows just how incredibly successful the Heartland Institute is. Look at the numbers. The skeptics have managed to turn the propaganda around against a tide of money, and it is really some achievement.

Entity USD Greenpeace $300m 2010 Annual Report WWF $700m ” ($524m Euro) Pew Charitable Trust $360m 2010 Annual Report Sierra Club $56m 2010 Annual Report NSW climate change fund (just one random govt example) $750m NSW Gov (A$700m) UK university climate fund (just another random govt example) $360m UK Gov (£234 m) Heartland Institute $7m (actually $6.4m) US government funding for climate science and technology $7,000m “Climate Money” 2009 US government funding for “climate related appropriations” $1,300m USAID 2010 Annual turnover in global carbon markets $120,000m 2010 Point Carbon […]

Crikey: Believers waiting for skeptics to die? We aren’t waiting for them to grow up

Believers in man-made-catastrophe can’t win over skeptics with evidence and reason. Instead the peak “believers” intellectual strategy is to hope the oldies might die off in time to save the planet: Death isn’t an option: climate change activists aren’t waiting for deniers to die.

It’s sexist, ageist, intolerant and illogical: just what we’ve come to expect from “progressives”, eh?

Oh the hubris and arrogance of the terminally immature

Take their conclusion that because skeptics are older, they are less educated, more selfish, and more easily fooled. Doesn’t the alternative sound more likely? Could it be that believers are younger and so more naive, less worldly wise, and throughout history, more likely to be the gullible rollovers — the mere tools of the powers at large? It’s not just that it’s happened before, its a standard repeat theme throughout history.

But hey, it’s not their fault they are young and badly taught. When we don’t teach logic and reason at school anymore, we can’t expect them to recognize that con-men and crooks always pretend to be “helpful” at the start of a scam, and that people who attack the messenger are the one who are losing the debate. Besides, everyone knows […]

The big-freeze: thousands trapped in europe as death toll rises to 600

And who wants Global Warming when you can face avalanches, deep snow, and record cold?

How much fun can you have with 2 meters of snow on your house, and none of that evil coal powered electricity?

What’s happening in Europe and Russia over the last two weeks is not just your average cold-snap. Temperatures reached -28C in Moscow. One point in Russia hit -52.8C (-68F) on Monday.

MOSCOW — Some 215 Russians have died this year in a prolonged period of abnormally cold winter weather, the health ministry said Monday as the overall death toll for Europe rose to well over 600. [National Post]

 

NASA Earth Observatory. Dark blue areas are -15C below average. White areas are average. Deep Red are 15C above. (See the NASA link below for the proper scale):.

The Danube has frozen over from Austria to the Black Sea, and 224 ships (some delivering fuel) have been stuck in their ports. Schools in Bosnia have been closed for days. Trains in Montenegroare at a standstill, and one train with 50 passengers was stranded in a tunnel for three days before rescuers began evacuating people yesterday.

In Serbia 11,000 villagers are trapped by huge […]

Toxoplasmosis: could that latent infection affect people’s behavior?

This is disturbing news. What if eating undercooked meat, gardening, or having a cat could give you an infection which stayed with you for life, nested in cysts in your brain? Worse, those cysts somehow affected your personality, possibly putting you at increased risk of suicide, schizophrenia, or car accident? And here’s the stop-you-in-your-tracks point: up to one third of humanity may harbor this protozoan. That is one very successful parasite.

Infection rates are frighteningly high: as much as 10-20% of the population in the US, 30-40% of Czechs, and 55% in France.

Sounds like a plot for a bad sci-fi but we know that Toxoplasma gondii makes small mammals take life threatening risks – an infected rat finds cat-urine “attractive” and runs about more, being fearless, but getting eaten: good for the parasite, not so good for the rat. Our brains may be larger but they are made with much the same building blocks and tools. Rabies is known to stir larger mammals into a rage, and there are “a truckload” of examples from the insect and fish world of parasitic mind control. Hmmm.

Toxoplasmosis is thought to be a nasty parasite that affects pregnant women and immune-compromised people, […]

Skeptics are winning: “the carbon market is dead”

The collapse of the Man-Made Myth continues apace. You may not read headlines as such (at least not in major dailies) but all the signs are there.

People who we never would have imagined speaking against the Big Scare Campaign are now doing so. Key glaciers are not melting and corals are happy. Governments won’t tell you it’s over, but they are behaving that way (the Australian one excepted, due to an election fluke that gave the Greens the balance of power). The Catholic Herald headlined it: Is the ‘anthropogenic global warming’ consensus on the point of collapse?

Source Barchart.

The last year of carbon trading in EUR's continues to fall. (Click to enlarge).

Mini update: The carbon market is being referred to as “dead”. Johannes Teyssen, chief executive of Germany’s EON, urged policymakers to make fixes. “Let’s talk real: the ETS is bust, it’s dead,” Mr Teyssen said in Brussels this week, adding: “I don’t know a single person in the world that would invest a dime based on ETS signals.” [full story: Financial Times]. Point Carbon analysts have downgraded the forecast price of carbon credits for the second time in two months as the carbon […]

When your subsidies undermine your subsidies

For forty years, people have tried to get Solar to work. Now, the worst possible thing for the industry has occurred: The Left are serious about trying to help it.

The Large-Scale Solar Subsidies are bountifully generous on an unprecedented scale that involves taxing everything else that moves, but even that generosity is not enough to compete with…wait for it… the even more insanely lavish Small-Scale Solar Subsidies. Who would have thought? Remember these are the same people who tell us that the “free market solution is best”. They offered three times the going rate for rooftop solar electricity, and through utterly predictable market mechanics, created a glut in rooftop solar panels as every man and his dog rushed in to get free electrons from their roofs, and on good sunny days, even cheques in the mail. Now, the large-scale projects are struggling to get major electricity retailers to sign long-term contracts.

 

THE federal government has delayed issuing key grants under its $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program after a preferred applicant, the Moree Solar Farm, failed to meet a December 15 deadline to reach financial closure on its project.

Solar projects have struggled to secure contracts with retailers, who […]

“Cooking the books” Monckton replies to Cook

When Christopher Monckton debated at the National Press Club in Canberra last July, he showed exactly why the fans of a man-made catastrophe are so frightened of free speech and open debates. With no slides or other images, in a single hour, he still changed the opinions of fully 9% of the audience , including influential journalists who had expected nothing of the kind. The Roy Morgan polling organization tracked the moment-by-moment opinions of a representative sample of 350 people throughout the debate, and Gary Morgan, the CEO, announcing the result, said that in his long experience of polling he had never seen a swing like it in opinion on any subject in so short a time.

John Cook of un-SkepticalScience tried to rescue something from the event for the “cause”, but here Monckton shows how the claims that Monckton was “confused”, “lying” and “misrepresenting evidence” all come to naught, and if John Cook only had the manners (or curiosity) to ask Christopher first, he would have found that out before airing his poor research and logical errors in public. Monckton quotes peer reviewed references ad lib, and does calculations off the top of his head. Cook makes out […]

Jonova a finalist for the 2012 bloggies :-) see thinly disguised plug here!

Cheerio! Thanks to the dedicated souls who nominated it, this blog is a finalist in 2012 Web Bloggies Award. (Ta Pat, Val, Baa). 😀 ! That’s a success on its own (it’s already bringing in new readers). Cheers!

With your help, we can reach a wider crowd. The different traffic, new links and other bloggie-spin-offs can help your favourite sites rank higher in searches and means the messages you want to share travel past new eyes. (Shameless hinting…) And all you need to do is vote and spread the word (so email, facebook, letter boxing, billboards ;-)). Some excellent blogs have made the finals, it’s smorgasbord of skeptics, and Anthony Watts has helpfully listed my favourites, so below is his detailed guide to making your vote count. My one sentence version is: Click here to vote, put ticks in the grey circles next to your choices (one in each category you care about), do the “catcha” funny word to prove you are human, then wait for the email, AND verify the link to prove you are not a troll. You need to do all those steps to be counted. Thank you to all who take those few minutes.

It’s time […]

8 reasons to dump that cheating doctor (Trenberth et al are wrong in the WSJ)

Hand back your science degrees Trenberth et al.

Thirty eight of the worlds top, most consequential climate scientists sought to slap down the Nobel prize winner, astronaut and glitterati of science, and all they could come up with was a logical fallacy and a single paragraph of incohate, innumerate, and improbable evidence. It’s hand-waving on stilts.

Is that the best they can do?

Trenberth and co try to rebut No Need to Panic About Global Warming, but those 16 eminent scientists quoted evidence and pointed out major flaws in the assumptions of the theory. They described forms of scientific malpractice, and called for open debate. In comparison, the 38 climate “scientists” offered hardly more than argument from authority, “Trust Us: We’re Experts” they said as if the lesser beings, who were mere Professors of Astrophysics, Meteorology, and Physics, were too stupid to know the difference between a doctor and a dentist. I mean, sure the 16 skeptics could be wrong, but if the evidence is so overwhelming, why can’t the 38 experts find it?

Q: What kind of doctor is a scientist who can’t reason?

A witchdoctor.

First — the Fallacy

1. “Do you […]

On misanthropology

misanthropology (from Urban Dictionary): the scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of hatred in humans misanthropology-the opposite of optimistology.

Lost word, sighted on the Neologism thread at (Diggingintheclay) that inspired The Doomsians are Panixilated post.

For what it’s worth, I think misanthropology is often just a veneer, it’s not a real hatred at all, but just the semblance of it. It’s much more small minded. It’s not about “hating humans” so much as it is about impressing the chick (or boy) next door. A kind of competition to get to snob-land first: ‘I look down on humans more than you do.” (Which translates loosely as: I, the exalted one, speaks from a greater height, fellow misanthropist….)

It’s about status, eh. Like everything.

7.8 out of 10 based on 44 ratings

Unthreaded weekend

Put those “other comments” and news here. Thanks!

Jo

5 out of 10 based on 19 ratings

Global cooling coming? Archibald uses solar and surface data to predict 4.9°C fall (!)

David Archibald, polymath, makes a bold prediction that temperatures are about to dive sharply (in the decadal sense). He took the forgotten correlation that as solar cycles lengthen and weaken, the world gets cooler. He refined it into a predictive tool, tested it and published in 2007. His paper has been expanded on recently by Prof Solheim in Norway, who predicts a 1.5°C drop in Central Norway over the next ten years.

Our knowledge of they solar dynamo is improving, and David adds the predicted solar activity ’til 2040 to the analysis. Normal solar cycles are 11 years long, but the current one (cycle 24) is shaping up to be 17 years (unusually long), and using historical data from the US, David predicts a 2.1°C decline over Solar Cycle 24 followed by a further 2.8°C over Solar Cycle 25. That adds up to a whopping 4.9°C fall in temperate latitudes over the next 20 years. We can only hope he’s wrong. As David says ” The center of the Corn Belt, now in Iowa, will move south to Kansas.”

He also predicts continuing drought in Africa for another 14 years, with droughts likely in South America too.

If he’s right, […]

2011 was 51st warmest year in Australia!

Despite all the headlines we see, 2011 in Australia was remarkable for its extraordinary averageness. It is a rare year that is more average than 2011 was.

(This email was spotted on it’s way to various government officials. — Jo)

———————————————

Guest post from Steve Woodman 2011 was the 52nd coldest year on record in Australia, colder than 1912, 1914, 1915 & 1919

Alarmist propaganda outlets such as the ABC were clearly disappointed by 2011 and were forced to resort to decadal temperatures rather than individual years to provide it with its headlines 1:

“Last decade equals warmest on record: UN”

The article then goes on to say:

“2011 ranks as the 10th warmest year since 1850, when accurate measurements began”

That may be so in a global sense, but if the ABC took a more local perspective, in Australia, 2011 was below the 1961-1990 average (see the graph below) 2.

8.3 out of 10 based on 49 ratings […]

Dr David Evans: The Skeptic’s Case

A new brief summary of the reasoning and evidence behind the skeptics case. –Jo

———————————————

The Skeptic’s Case Who Are You Going To Believe – The Government Climate Scientists Or The Data? Guest Post Dr David M.W. Evans

We check the main predictions of the climate models against the best and latest data. Fortunately the climate models got all their major predictions wrong. Why? Every serious skeptical scientist has been consistently saying essentially the same thing for over 20 years, yet most people have never heard the message — here it is, put simply enough for any lay reader willing to pay attention.

What the Government Climate Scientists Say

 

Figure 1: The climate models. If the CO2 level doubles (as it is on course to do by about 2070 to 2100), the climate models estimate the temperature increase due to that extra CO2 will be about 1.1°C × 3 = 3.3°C. [1]

The direct effect of CO2 is well-established physics, based on laboratory results, and known for over a century.[2]

Feedbacks are due to the ways the Earth reacts to the direct warming effect of the CO2. The threefold amplification by feedbacks is based on the […]

The doomsians are panixilated

 

Oil on Canvas George Crie (cropped). "Panic Attack or Anxiety PTSD" Neosurrealismart.com.

 

I just love some of these terms. Verity Jones (Diggingintheclay) and E. Michael Smith (Chiefio, see the postscript) are rolling on a neologistic wave, and they’re generating something special. The comments thread on Diggingintheclay is quite abuzz (and this comes from both that and Chiefio’s thread).

Adjixtered: Adjusted without adequate or meaningful explanation

Cliflation: The tendency for anything climate related to be inflated in importance, size, warming tendency, etc. (I think the pronounciation doesn’t capture the “climate” origin, hence I suggest “Climaflation” — as in “The clown fish research has been Climaflated.”)

Empixelated: To uncritically believe anything presented to you by the pixels on your screen. “Jones was sure Mann would be empixelated by the latest runs of HADcrut”. (I think this needs a different example: The Department of Climate Change produced brochureware websites designed to empixililate unsuspecting taxpayers.) (H/t Another Ian for the word “empixilated”)

Envirallax (noun) – the apparent shift in importance of a report, quotation or publication related to climate science due to the difference in belief or opinion on the causes of climate change between two readers (cf. parallax). Related terms […]