Source:  Climate policy network

CCNet –  29 March 2012
The Climate Policy Network

IPCC Confirms: We Do Not Know If The Climate Is Becoming More Extreme

The full IPCC Special Report on Extremes is out today, and I have just gone through the sections in Chapter 4 that deal with disasters and climate change. Kudos to the IPCC — they have gotten the issue just about right, where “right” means that the report accurately reflects the academic literature on this topic. Over time good science will win out over the rest — sometimes it just takes a little while. –Roger Pielke Jr, 28 March 2012

FAQ 3.1 Is the Climate Becoming More Extreme? [...]None of the above instruments has yet been developed sufficiently as to allow us to confidently answer the question posed here. Thus we are restricted to questions about whether specific extremes are becoming more or less common, and our confidence in the answers to such questions, including the direction and magnitude of changes in specific extremes, depends on the type of extreme, as well as on the region and season, linked with the level of understanding of the underlying processes and the reliability of their simulation in models.–IPCC Special Report on Extreme Events and Disasters

There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change… The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados… The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses.  –IPCC Special Report on Extremes, Chapter 4

Plans to force companies to declare the size of their greenhouse gas emissions have been put on hold and could even be abolished, the environment secretary will tell parliament this week, raising fresh questions over the government’s commitment to fighting climate change. –Kiran Stacey, Financial Times, 28 March 2012 (more…)

Source:  Forbes

by Patrick Michaels

There is no statistically significant warming trend since November of 1996 in monthly surface temperature records compiled at the University of East Anglia. Do we now understand why there’s been no change in fourteen and a half years?

If you read the news stories surrounding a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Boston University’s Robert Kaufmann and three colleagues, you’d say yes, indeed. It’s China’s fault. By dramatically increasing their combustion of coal, they have increased the concentration of fine particles in the atmosphere called sulphate aerosols, which reflect away solar radiation, countering the warming that should be occurring from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. (more…)

Source:  SPPI

by Dennis Ambler

UN climate chief promotes carbon trading in Africa

I would suggest that many people think that the UN policies on “global warming/climate change/wealth re-distribution, emissions trading, etc” emerge only from the annual Conferences of the Parties, (COPS), such as Copenhagen and Cancun, but I would guess that not many are aware of the regular policy forums and meetings which occur almost on a monthly basis, driving forward the climate agenda, regardless of the serious and frequent blows dealt to the purported science behind that agenda.

If you thought the nonsense was all over, forget it. Take a look at the UNFCCC website where they are already in preparation for the COP 17 event in Durban, South Africa, from November 28th 2011 to December 9th 2011. Read the press release from the UN Climate Change Conference held last month in Bonn:

“A central political question that has crystallized during this session is how further emission reduction commitments by developed countries can be taken forward in the broader context of the emerging climate change regime, said United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres. (more…)

Source: Canadian Free Press

By Dr. Tim Ball

The Public and Mainstream Media Still Don’t Grasp the Implications.

Tentacles of Climategate will reach far as information is divulged. People will rush to get on or off the bandwagon depending on their involvement. As a first hand observer, I must outline the history, identify the people involved and provide context.

The “Ad Hoc Committee Report on the ‘Hockey  Stick’ Global Climate Reconstruction commonly known as The Wegman Report said, “Based on the literature we have reviewed, there is no overarching consensus on MBH98/99 (The infamous hockey stick paper).   As analyzed in our social network, there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis. However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility.” Wegman identified most of the people involved with the leaked information from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) – “climategate”. They are still reinforcing each other and refuse to acknowledge the severity of their actions. Mainstream media helps by downplaying the significance or deliberately closing their eyes. It’s deeply disturbing to learn scientists have deliberately twisted science for social and political ends. I watched it happen, now I can set out the history and identify those involved. (more…)

Source:  Climate Depot

by Marc Morano

Climate Depot Exclusive: 321-page ‘Consensus Buster’ Report set to further chill UN Climate Summit in Cancun

Link to Complete 321-Page PDF Special Report

INTRODUCTION:

More than 1000 dissenting scientists (updates previous 700 scientist report) from around the globe have now challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. This new 2010 320-page Climate Depot Special Report — updated from 2007′s groundbreaking U.S. Senate Report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming “consensus” — features the skeptical voices of over 1000 international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC. This updated 2010 report includes a dramatic increase of over 300 additional (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the last update in March 2009. This report’s release coincides with the 2010 UN global warming summit being held in Cancun.

The more than 300 additional scientists added to this report since March 2009 (21 months ago), represents an average of nearly four skeptical scientists a week speaking out publicly. The well over 1000 dissenting scientists are almost 20 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. (more…)

From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

Cancun, Mexico

I dined with Dr. Roy Spencer as the Atlantic rollers swished and crashed against the long, sandy beach here in Cancun. We ate coconut-crusted camarones. Appropriately, shrimps in the Spanish-speaking world are named after the British Prime Minister, the truest of true believers in the New-Age religion that is the Church of “Global Warming”.

Cameron, or “Dave”, as he matily likes to be known, had been careful not to reveal his blind faith in the febrile fatuities of the forecasters of fashionable fatalism to his followers in Not The Conservative Party before they picked him as their leader: but, in his very first speech as Supreme Shrimp, he made it plain to the fawning news media that Saving The Planet would be his very firstest priority, yes indeedy. (more…)

Source:  Warning Signs

By Alan Caruba

After three decades of trying to push the global warming scam to a point where billions could be made selling and trading bogus “carbon credits”, the global schemers have abandoned it in the wake of 2009 revelations that a handful of rogue climate scientists were literally inventing the data to support it.

If there is one lesson to be learned from and about environmentalists, it is that they are utterly relentless. The ultimate goal is one-world government directed from the United Nations by unelected bureaucrats who are soulless strangers to the truth, to morality, to humanity.

The United States supports this abomination to the tune of billions every year. (more…)

Source:  Health news for Americans

Global Warming is hailed as the new cause for this generation to fight against, to unite us all to save the world from. But is this a genuine threat to our world or is this just another scientific fad that is being over popularized by the media. In my opinion the only thing getting hotter is the rhetoric. Today the theory of global warming is taught much the same way that the theory of evolution has been taught; from the basis that it is an accepted fact, not just one of many scientific theories. The main figurehead of the global warming movement is widely recognized as former Vice President Al Gore, who gained notoriety for his docudrama An Inconvenient Truth.  This article will address not only the alleged facts of the film, but also the motivations behind the making of this film and the blatant hypocrisy that is Al Gore. (more…)

SPPI NOTE: What follows is a series of postings about the lack of qualifications of some key authors of past IPCC reports on climate — which reports are used by governments the world over to justify policy on anything from energy to “social justice” schemes for transferring wealth within and between nations.

Source:  No Frakking Consensus

Lead Author Lacked a Master’s Degree

October 19, 2010

A PhD is an indicator that someone is proficient in their field. If an organization like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims to be comprised of the world’s “best experts” and “top scientists” it’s reasonable to assume that almost all will have earned their PhDs.

As I’ve mentioned, however, Lisa Alexander helped write the 2001 and 2007 IPCC assessment reports, yet only received her PhD last year. Prior to that, she was a research assistant in an arts faculty. It’s puzzling how someone who joined the IPCC a decade prior to receiving her PhD could possibly have been considered one of the world’s top scientists.

It turns out she isn’t alone. Laurens Bouwer is employed by VU University Amsterdam. According to that institution’s website, he too remains PhD-free. Yet a bio dated last month tells us he was a lead author for the the 2001 assessment report, as well as a contributor to the IPCC’s “Special Report on Extremes.” (more…)

Source:  http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/the-non-stop-ipcc-spin-machine/

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) press release issued last week talks about transparency and openness. But don’t be fooled. Preparation of the 5th assessment report – known internally as AR5 – isn’t even fully underway, yet the organization is up to its old tricks.

Take a look at the Notes to Editors on the second page of the press release. This is supposed to be the non-controversial stuff, the basic nuts and bolts. Instead, it’s spin, spin, spin. Here’s a sentence for you:

Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the IPCC reports.

Back in June, the IPCC released the list of people who’ve been selected to work on AR5. It said that list contained 831 names  – not thousands. But the situation is really worse than that, since only those individuals assigned to Working Group 1 deal with hard science. (Working Group 2 speculates on how climate change might effect our world. Working Group 3 discusses what might be done in response.) (more…)

Source:  Shub Niggurath Climate

In case, you’ve missed this – global warming has resulted in its fair share of lawsuits, around the world. So it was, that Rajendra Pachauri the UN’s bureaucrat who is heading the IPCC, hung the threat of a lawsuit over the Telegraph’s head. The sword would come crashing down, because Christopher Booker and Richard North, had overstretched their case accusing Pachauri a.k.a ‘Patchy’ of making millions of dollars arising from climate change mitigation.

Can you believe this nonsense that anyone can make any money off climate change? Just for thinking such thoughts, Booker deserves a few lawsuits going his way. (more…)

Source:  No Frakking Consensus

Some people think early editions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report were scrupulously science-based, but that the process became more politicized in recent years. A look at the first appearance of the health chapter – in the 1995 edition – challenges this view. [29-page PDF of the chapter]

The person who headed that effort was an Australian epidemiology professor named Anthony McMichael. According to a 2001 bio, his early research interests included mental health, occupational diseases, the link between diet and cancer, and environmental epidemiology (diseases). In the late 1980s he co-authored a “bestselling guide to a healthier lifestyle” that discussed nutrition and physical fitness.

The bio tells us it was only “during the 1990s” that McMichael developed “a strong interest” in the risks associated with global environmental change. So in the early 1990s, out of all the experts in the entire world the IPCC might have chosen to oversee the writing of a section dealing with climate change and human health, why was McMichael selected? (more…)

Source:  CO2 Science

As the push for binding global targets on anthropogenic CO2 emissions rose to a deafening crescendo — just prior to, during and following the United Nations Fifteenth Conference of Parties (COP15) held in Copenhagen, Denmark, 7-18 December 2009 — two groups of climate alarmists published a pair of papers claiming that even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had underestimated the magnitude of future global warming that they claim will likely result from the continued unbridled burning of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil.

In these two papers, which appeared in Nature Geoscience, Pagani et al. (2010, but published online 20 Dec 2009) and Lunt et al. (2010, but published online 6 Dec 2009) calculated what they call “earth-system climate sensitivity,” based on things that they and others had inferred about planetary conditions during the Pliocene period of some three to five million years ago. (more…)

Statement by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch Before the United States Senate, June 10, 2010

EPA Disapproval Resolution

Mr. President, I rise today as an original cosponsor of the Disapproval Resolution of the carbon regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.  I would like to start off by applauding Senator Murkowski for her strong leadership on this issue, and I stand squarely behind her effort.

To summarize what has already been laid out today, the EPA has released findings that, one, human carbon emissions contribute in a significant way to global warming; and, two, that global warming  –  which has been going on for about 10,000 years now  — is an endangerment to humans.  The EPA’s foundation for its proposal relies on the assumption that both of these findings are true. (more…)

Source:  Quadrant

by William Kininmonth

May 12, 2010

[Open letter to Tony Abbott]

Mr Tony Abbott MP
Leader of the Opposition
Parliament House,
Canberra, ACT

Dear Mr Abbott,

Although I am travelling in the US at the moment I have become aware of the controversy over your comments at an Adelaide school last week, including the public response by [a] scientist with an alarmist global warming bent.

You might be interested in the graph below. The data are temperatures reconstructed from Greenland ice cores and published in the peer reviewed literature. The data confirm pre-IPCC understanding of the climate history of the Earth: Earth warmed from the last glacial maximum about 15,000 years ago when great ice sheets covered North America and northern Europe and sea level about 130 m lower than today. By 9,000 years ago Earth had warmed to the Holocene maximum when temperatures were warmer than today; the Holocene maximum lasted until about 4,000 years ago and there has been irregular cooling since.

The IPCC alarmist claim that Earth’s temperature has been steady for the last 10,000 years but this view is at odds with historical and archaeological evidence (more…)