My favorite Climategate email so far

Just spent a few minutes skimming through the emails and this one caught my eye.

From: Kevin Trenberth
To: Michael Mann
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600
Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , "Philip D. Jones" , Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate

In laymen terms Trenberth is saying that since an unverified, unvalidated computer model has predicted more warming than has been observed empirically, the empirical observations (i.e. weather stations) must be wrong. .

Title this one: who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.

Climategate – a new spin on Mann made global warming

By now news of the data theft at Britain’s Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has is widespered. Thousands of emials and messages between the world’s preminent climate scientists have been made available and it doesn look good.

When I woke up and sat down with my morning bowl of cereal and read about all of this I thought it was a hoax … it just seemed to good to be true. I though for years that global warming advocates were scaring the shit out of people using questioable climate models nut I could have never imagined that they were intentionaly and systematiclay misrepresenting their data.

Its like something out of Michael Criton’s “State of Fear”.

This must have taken them by surprise because the damage control has been weak and hastily put together. A blog titled Real Climate, where many of the individuals discussed in the database congregate, has posted their best attempot at a response to this:

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of
any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate
research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global
warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching
orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid
will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

There’s not much else of any substance in the response except to repeat that they did nothing wrong.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The emails detail many disturbing behaviors including:

- collusion between the researchers to destroy and/or hide information subject to FOIA requests
- organized efforts to block publication of contradictory scientific papers

- discussions on how to conceal data sharing with critics

- discussions on how to conceal and dilute inconvenient data points

Some of these will surely be investigated further and with regard to the destruction and concealment of FOIA requested data, criminal charges are a real possibility.

And the most wonderful thing is we have only scratched the surface of what’s been made available.

For anyone interested, a searchable database of the data can be found here.

Ocean Acidification = More Junk Science

As part of the multi pronged deluge of the public, one of the less often repeated, but more dramatic prognostications from the global warming .... err I mean "climate change" crowd is that the oceans are becoming too acidic and that will kill all the pretty coral life in the oceans.

Example:

The bleaching of coral, higher temperatures as well as ocean acidification, triggered by industrial carbon dioxide dissolving in sea water, contribute to the destruction marine habitats globally.

The chemistry is simple enough: more CO2 in the atmosphere means more CO2 dissolved in the oceans turning into carbonic acid and making oceans acidic. However like most areas where science and politics cross histrionics tends to rule the day

According to Wikipedia the PH of the ocean in the 1700’s was 8.179. How they know this or can even estimate it to three fucking significant digits is beyond me, especial y when one considers that the concept of PH was only developed around 100 years ago. At any rate, they now say that the PH of the ocean is 8.104. So, in 300 years the PH of all the world’s oceans, on average, has dropped by .075 basis points and that this drop is responsible for the destruction of the oceans corals. I realize PH is a logarithmic function ..... but come on people! 75 thousandths of a basis point?

Are coral and other shelled critters so sensitive to PH, that a drop of 75 thousandths of a basis point responsible for the current distress of the worlds corals reefs?

Fertilizers runoff, industrial pollution, sewage, over fishing …. yes, but a of 75 thousandths drop in PH driven by higher CO2?

It should be laughable if so many “serious” people didn’t try and jam it down our throats.

It’s a sales job, clever marketing much like Carl Sagan’s nuclear winter, and has all the hallmarks of junk science: suspect models that cant be verified, apocalyptic conclusions, and suspect inferences from historic data.

Earth Day

I don’t know what you all did for earth day but I hope you had fun. I spent the afternoon polishing my 1963 Cadillac Sedan Deville with harp seal skin interior and optional 28 barrel carburetor. I then sat my family down for some frittata made with endangered condor eggs and we capped the evening off with a redwood bonfire.

In light of the festivities I though I would post a reminder of all the preditcions made during th efrist earth day.

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” -Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.” -Life Magazine, January 1970

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” - Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Read the rest here.

Its not to say that we shouldn’t be good stewards, I personally think it is a virtue to be a good steward … its just a gentile reminder that people have used their positions in the scientific elite to push their personal political agenda which was thinly wrapped in environmental gobbledygook.

On Natural Living

I don’t remember who I stole this from .. so props to anonymous.

Jim Carrey, America's Scientitian

This is the definition of whooped, so under the thumb of ones partner that you begin to regurgitate the same inane rantings.

I've also heard it said that no evidence of a link between vaccines and autism has ever been found. That statement is only true for the CDC, the AAP and the vaccine makers who've been ignoring mountains of scientific information and testimony. There's no evidence of the Lincoln Memorial if you look the other way and refuse to turn around.

Here's an thought for you Jim, maybe its not the vaccines that caused your girlfriends’ sons autism but the 8 bazillion lines of coke she did in the bathroom of Reilly's Daughter back home in Chicago.

Eight out of ten scientitians agree!

Naturally, now that the Dear Leader reigns triumphant over our land, the politicization of science is over.

Case in point:

The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.

"This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council.

"Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution."

Allen Hershkowitz's title "senior scientist" certainly does sound authoritative enough.

Come to find out that Hershkowitz PHD was in political economics from CCNY, not exactly the kind of qualifications one would expect to see from a “senior scientist” but naturally that makes him an expert voice for the media.