New Peer Reviewed Study Rebuts Steig et al Study on Antarctic

In an earlier post on The Polar Ice Caps -Part 3 I referenced a study conducted by Professor Eric Stieg and others that reportedly showed massive warming over the majority of Antarctica despite much evidence to the contrary. Needless to say it captured the media's attention and was for the most part unquestioned by them with the exception of columnists like Christopher Booker of the U.K. Telegraph.

Now it seems there is another peer reviewed study into this same area and not surprisingly when not relying on an outcome to prove a theory, it had very different results:

Entitled Improved methods for PCA-based reconstructions: case study using the Steig et al. 2009 Antarctic temperature reconstruction its abstract can be viewed here. The following is some analysis of the new paper by Climate Research News:

Remember the Steig et al 2009 Nature paper? As Steve McIntyre points out at Climate Audit: “Like so many Team efforts, it applied a little-known statistical method, the properties of which were poorly known, to supposedly derive an important empirical result. In the case of Steig et al 2009, the key empirical claim was that strong Antarctic warming was not localized to the Antarctic Peninsula (a prominent antecedent position), but was also very pronounced in West Antarctic.”

Well, there is a new paper in press in the Journal of Climate:

Improved methods for PCA-based reconstructions: case study using the Steig et al. 2009 Antarctic temperature reconstruction by Ryan O’Donnell, Nicholas Lewis, Steve McIntyre, Jeff Condon

The abstract states:

A detailed analysis is presented of a recently published Antarctic temperature reconstruction that combines satellite and ground information using a regularized expectation-maximization algorithm. Though the general reconstruction concept has merit, it is susceptible to spurious results for both temperature trends and patterns. The deficiencies include: (a) improper calibration of satellite data; (b) improper determination of spatial structure during infilling; and (c) suboptimal determination of regularization parameters, particularly with respect to satellite principal component retention. We propose two methods to resolve these issues. One utilizes temporal relationships between the satellite and ground data; the other combines ground data with only the spatial component of the satellite data. Both improved methods yield similar results that disagree with the previous method in several aspects. Rather than finding warming concentrated in West Antarctica, we find warming over the period of 1957–2006 to be concentrated in the Peninsula (≈0.35°C decade−1). We also show average trends for the continent, East Antarctica, and West Antarctica that are half or less than that found using the unimproved method. Notably, though we find warming in West Antarctica to be smaller in magnitude, we find that statistically significant warming extends at least as far as Marie Byrd Land. We also find differences in the seasonal patterns of temperature change, with winter and fall showing the largest differences and spring and summer showing negligible differences outside of the Peninsula.

Another analysis was provided by Anthony Watts at Watts Up With That:

In a blow to the Real Climate “hockey team” one team member’s paper, Steig et al Nature, Jan 22, 2009 (seen above) has been shown lacking. Once appropriate statistical procedures were applied, the real data spoke clearly, and it was done in a peer reviewed paper by skeptics. Jeff Condon of the Air Vent writes via email that he and co-authors, Ryan O’Donnell, Nicholas Lewis, and Steve McIntyre have succeeded in getting a paper accepted into the prestigious Journal of Climate and asked me to re-post the notice here.

The review process was difficult, with one reviewer getting difficult on submitted comments

[and subsequent rebuttal comments from authors ] that became longer than the submitted paper, 88 pages, 10 times the length of the paper they submitted! I commend them for their patience in wading through such formidable bloviation. Anyone want to bet that reviewer was a “team” member?

As WUWT covered in the past, these authors have demonstrated clearly that the warming is mostly in the Antarctic Peninsula. Steig et al’s Mannian PCA math methods had smeared that warming over most of the entire continent, creating a false impression.

WUWT visitors may want to read this primer which explains how this happens. But most

importantly, have a look at the side by side comparison maps below. Congratulations to Jeff, Ryan, Nick, and Steve! – Anthony

Jeff writes:

After ten months of reviews and rewrites we have successfully published an improved version of Steig et al. 2009. While we cannot publish the paper here, we can discuss the detail. Personally I’ve never seen so much work put into a single paper as Ryan did and it’s wonderful to see it come to a successful conclusion. This is the initial post on the subject, in the coming weeks there will be more to follow.

Guest post by lead author Ryan O’Donnel.

——–

DOING IT OURSELVES. . . a tongue-in-cheek reference to the RC post here:

Improved methods for PCA-based reconstructions: case study using the Steig et al. (2009) Antarctic temperature reconstruction

(Accepted 11/30/10, Journal of Climate)

Ryan O’Donnell Nicholas Lewis Steve McIntyre Jeff Condon

Abstract A detailed analysis is presented of a recently published Antarctic temperature reconstruction that combines satellite and ground information using a regularized expectation-maximization algorithm. Though the general reconstruction concept has merit, it is susceptible to spurious results for both temperature trends and patterns. The deficiencies include: (a) improper calibration of satellite data; (b) improper determination of spatial structure during infilling; and (c) suboptimal determination of regularization parameters, particularly with respect to satellite principal component retention. We propose two methods to resolve these issues. One utilizes temporal relationships between the satellite and ground data; the other combines ground data with only the spatial component of the satellite data. Both improved methods yield similar results that disagree with the previous method in several aspects. Rather than finding warming concentrated in West Antarctica, we find warming over the period of 1957-2006 to be concentrated in the Peninsula (≈0.35oC decade-1). We also show average trends for the continent, East Antarctica, and West Antarctica that are half or less than that found using the unimproved method. Notably, though we find warming in West Antarctica to be smaller in magnitude, we find that statistically significant warming extends at least as far as Marie Byrd Land. We also find differences in the seasonal patterns of temperature change, with winter and fall showing the largest differences and spring and summer showing negligible differences outside of the Peninsula. Region RLS C/Dec E-W C/Dec S09 C/Dec Continent 0.06 ± 0.08 0.04 ± 0.06 0.12 ± 0.09 East Antarctica 0.03 ± 0.09 0.02 ± 0.07 0.10 ± 0.10 West Antarctica 0.10 ± 0.09 0.06 ± 0.07 0.20 ± 0.09 Peninsula 0.35 ± 0.11 0.32 ± 0.09 0.13 ± 0.05 Copyright © 2010 American Meteorological Association (early online release to be available on or around Dec. 7th)

Temperature trend Deg C/Decade .

Some of you remember that we intended to submit the analysis of the Steig Antarctic reconstruction for publication. That was quite some time ago . . . and then you heard nothing. We did, indeed, submit a paper to Journal of Climate in February. The review process unfortunately took longer than expected, primarily due to one reviewer in particular. The total number of pages dedicated by that reviewer alone – and our subsequent responses – was 88 single-spaced pages, or more than 10 times the length of the paper. Another contributor to the length of time from submission to acceptance was a hardware upgrade to the AMS servers that went horribly wrong, heaping a load of extra work on the Journal of Climate editorial staff.

With that being said, I am quite satisfied that the review process was fair and equitable, although I do believe excessive deference was paid to this one particular reviewer at the beginning of the process. While the other two reviews were positive (and contained many good suggestions for improvement of the manuscript), the other review was quite negative. As the situation progressed, however, the editor at Journal of Climate – Dr. Anthony Broccoli – added a fourth reviewer to obtain another opinion, which was also positive. My feeling is that Dr. Broccoli did a commendable job of sorting through a series of lengthy reviews and replies in order to ensure that the decision made was the correct one.

The results in the paper are generally similar to the in-process analysis that was posted at CA and here prior to the submission. Overall, we find that the Steig reconstruction overestimated the continental trends and underestimated the Peninsula – though our analysis found that the trend in West Antarctica was, indeed, statistically significant. I would hope that our paper is not seen as a repudiation of Steig’s results, but rather as an improvement.

In my opinion, the Steig reconstruction was quite clever, and the general concept was sound. A few of the choices made during implementation were incorrect; a few were suboptimal. Importantly, if those are corrected, some of the results change. Also importantly, some do not. Hopefully some of the cautions outlined in our paper are incorporated into other, future work. Time will tell!

A Very Important Letter

In early October 2010 Harold Lewis (Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara) released a letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.

This letter is of great importance because not only does a long standing member of the APS resign because of what he says is "the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life", referring to global warming and the APS's unquestioning acceptance of it, but how they and in particular Callan Jr have stifled any debate on the issue in the most unscientific manner.

Anthony Watts has described this letter as:

This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.

Here is the letter (my emphasis added):

Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act(that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

Once again we see an noted scientific organisation being accused by one of its own members of becoming a prostitute to the glut of funding coming from government and environmental organisations and corrupting it's principles to the core. The long term damage of this is yet to be fully measured, but one can only assume that for some the damage they are doing to their reputations will be irreparable.

Stinks Of Desperation By The Alarmists.

In my previous post entitled Failing To Convince, Climate Activists Threaten Instead, I examined how the pro climate change activists and extremists had ramped up their use of direct threats to those who had dared to challenge their position. At the end of September 2010 a UK organisation called 10:10 released a movie to YouTube that depicted people who failed to instantly sign up to their campaign of reducing carbon emissions by 10% being exploded and their detritus being splattered all over those believers who stood near them (presumably as a warning never to disagree again or face the same fate). I will link to a copy of the video here, however, I do so with this warning: This film contains scenes that some viewers may find distressing. Not suitable for children



After its released10:10 released the following statement.

Sorry.
Today we put up a mini-movie about 10:10 and climate change called 'No Pressure'.

With climate change becoming increasingly threatening, and decreasingly talked about in the media, we wanted to find a way to bring this critical issue back into the headlines whilst making people laugh. We were therefore delighted when Britain's leading comedy writer, Richard Curtis - writer of Blackadder, Four Weddings, Notting Hill and many others – agreed to write a short film for the 10:10 campaign. Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn't and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended.

As a result of these concerns we've taken it off our website.

We'd like to thank the 50+ film professionals and 40+ actors and extras and who gave their time and equipment to the film for free. We greatly value your contributions and the tremendous enthusiasm and professionalism you brought to the project.

At 10:10 we're all about trying new and creative ways of getting people to take action on climate change. Unfortunately in this instance we missed the mark. Oh well, we live and learn.

Onwards and upwards,

Eugenie, Franny, Daniel, Lizzie and the whole 10:10 team

But 10:10 are not alone in their use of controversial images. This poster is from ACT Responsible, (a Left-wing advertising executive group) used this for a Cannes conference:

And this video designed to scare children was used to open the Copenhagen conference in 2009:



In another act of desperation of different kind, is the Climate Change Committee put together by the Gillard Government of Australia and their new coalition partners The Greens. As Herald Sun Columnist Andrew Bolt reports in his article Gillard rigs her warming “consensus”:

The fix is in, and shame on any commentator who falls for this childish spin:

THE Australian Greens have secured a deputy chair position on a new parliamentary climate change committee, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced.

The committee will receive independent advice from four experts - Ross Garnaut, Will Steffen, Rod Sims and Patricia Faulkner.

Ms Gillard will chair the committee while Climate Change Minister Greg Combet and Greens climate spokeswomen Christine Milne will serve as co-deputy chairs.

Ms Gillard said the committee would start from the position that a carbon price was required to reduce pollution and encourage investment in low-emission technologies.

Note already that the committee skips what should be the start of any discussion. As in: is a carbon price actually worth the pain? Will cutting our emissions actually achieve anything? Is a rise in global temperatures actually good for us? Isn’t it suicidal to slash our tiny emissions before the rest of the world - and especially the biggest emitters - agree to do likewise?

So right away this committee is fundamentally rigged to dodge debate and produce the “right” result. What’s sold by Gillard as an exercise to achieve “community consensus” is a con - this is the consensus you reach simply by excluding everyone who doesn’t agree with you. In fact, Gillard today made that explicit:

“Parliamentary members of the committee will be drawn from those who are committed to tackling climate change and who acknowledge that effectively reducing carbon pollution by 2020 will require a carbon price,” Ms Gillard said.

This is why the Coalition will not be taking up of the offer of two seats on the committee, which will be stacked instead by ideologues, including Greens leader Bob Brown:

There will also be two Greens and representation from the independent MPs. Independent Tony Windsor already has indicated his willingness to be a member of the committee.

Another con. On the committee’s agenda will be the carbon “levy” - actually tax - that Gillard repeatedly ruled out before the election, when there were nervous voters to fool:

The committee will consider mechanisms for introducing a carbon price, including a broad-based emissions trading scheme, carbon levy, or a hybrid of both.

Contrast that to this solemn promise of just six weeks ago:

There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

A carbon tax is actually a demand of the Greens, which now seems in charge of Labor’s global warming agenda. After all, Ross Garnaut had already done an extensive report for the then Rudd Government on exactly these questions, among others, and settled on an emissions trading scheme. Holding yet another inquiry just buys Labor more time for further delay, but also offers the Greens a prize - the hope of getting something even tougher and more damaging to our economy. Note that this committee aims to produce a “consensus” among its members (two of them Greens) that will actually form the Government policy.

But let’s get to the remaining deceit here. The four “independent experts” appointed by Gillard to advise the committee include people who are either not expert (in global warming policies, at least) or not independent.

Take Patricia Faulkner, who has no expertise in global warming policies at all and seems to have been chosen instead for her Leftism, social activism and bureaucratic skills - all the hallmarks of a classic apparatchik:

Patricia Faulkner has had an extensive career covering both the public and private sectors. She is currently the chair of the Australian Social Inclusion Board and the Chair of Jesuit Social Services. Jesuit Social Services is a small welfare based organisation that looks after people at the margins of society. She is also a Chair and Member of a range of health care and government advisory services boards, including the Federal Government Health and Hospitals Infrastructure Fund; and, the Council of Australian Governments Reform Council. She has spent 10 of the last 20 years as a partner with KPMG leading both their health and social policy sectors.

Then there’s the alarmist Will Steffen, who is indeed a climate scientist, but not one independent of this Government;

Professor Will Steffen is Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, and is also Science Adviser to the federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

Add Treasurer Wayne Swan to the committee, and the Government’s global warming policy is being decided (so far) by three Labor ministers, two Greens and an independent who knows little about global warming but is sure we must Do Something. And the six of them will be guided by four experts who turn out to be an alarmist scientist, a welfare activist, a big business representative and an alarmist economist.

Be scared.

This committee is little better than a propaganda outfit, designed to sell a “solution” already agreed upon in the broad - and which in detail may break one of Gilllard’s most solemn election promises. The “community consensus” it pretends to be developing is no more than a fix and a fraud.

UPDATE

Need more evidence of deceit and broken promises?

Julia Gillard, September 9. on her deal with the independents:

Indeed, this process, born of parliamentary deadlock, has resulted in more openness, transparency and reform in how we conduct our Parliament and the business of government than at any other time on modern Australian politics. Throughout this process of forming a new government we’ve been open with the Australian people. To quote Rob Oakeshott, sunshine is the best disinfectant, and we’ve agreed to far-reaching reforms that make me as Prime Minister and our government and how it functions more accountable to the Australian people. So, let’s draw back the curtains and let the sun shine in; let our parliament be more open than it ever was before. That’s real reform, and that’s the direct result of the election.

Julia Gillard, September 27, on her deal with the Greens for this climate committee:

The Committee will ensure its deliberations and papers remain confidential to the Committee and the Cabinet until a final position is agreed or all parties to the Committee agree otherwise.

Yet when other non Green Senators express interest in joining this Labor/Green committee, this was the result (again via Andrew Bolt):

The Leninism of the Greens is revealed - and their power over Gillard, too:

THERE was no room for Nick Xenophon on the government’s multi-party climate change committee...

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet ... said the committee, chaired by Julia Gillard, was “small and tightly focused” and there was no room for anyone else, even though the Coalition had refused to fill two seats set aside for it…

Senator Xenophon said he was bitterly disappointed that despite writing and making representations to the Prime Minister and Mr Combet requesting a seat, he was excluded from the committee.

Sources close to Senator Xenophon said at least two Labor Party figures had told him “the Greens vetoed his presence”.

“Christine Milne was fingered as the one who insisted Nick not be on the committee,” a well-placed source said.

A spokesman for Senator Milne yesterday said the claim was “untrue”. South Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said there was “no space available” for Senator Xenophon on the committee. “The committee decides that, and at this stage he’s not on there.”

Wasn’t this a committee to build “consensus” on global warming policies? Not only does it exclude those who disagree with the Greens position that we must put a price on carbon dioxide emissions, but now it’s excluding those who might challenge Greens power, too.

And this (again via Andrew Bolt) :

I’d thought she’d broken her ludicrous promise already, days after the election, but consider it really broken now:

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has ditched her election policy of a climate change citizens’ assembly.

The excuse?

“I thought it was important that we harness community members to rebuild a broad general public consensus on how to tackle climate change, how to price carbon,’’ she said.

“There is not one way of doing that. There is not one way of harnessing and involving community members. Obviously the multi-party climate change committee today is looking at going to work through ways of doing that.’’

Actually, there is one importance difference between the deservedly derided Citizens’ Assembly and this climate change committee that Gillard claims will do the same job of persuasion. The citizens’ assembly was intended to get 150 uninformed people holding different beliefs on global warming to come to a “consensus”. The climate change committee is intended to get half a dozen uninformed Labor, Greens and independent MPs all holding the same belief on global warming to come to a “consensus”.

Somehow the citizens assembly seemed to have more integrity to it.

It all stinks of desperation from those that committed themselves to a course of action, yet have failed to convince the public that theirs is the right course of action. So instead they use either threats, violence or stacked committees to bluff, cagoule or simply scare the public to their view point. The question must always be asked, if the science was settled and so very convincing, why is there the need for all of this other stuff. Surely presenting the undeniable facts would be enough and would leave anyone denying them looking foolish. Yet they haven't been able to do that so now they resort to type.

Failing To Convince, Climate Activists Threaten Instead

In what can only be seen as that latest tactic by Greenpeace in their evangelical approach to Climate change is to directly threaten those members of the wider public who have not been convinced by their arguments, hectoring and abuse of the past. In an article by Paul Joseph Watson entitled: Greenpeace To Global Warming Skeptics: “We Know Where You Live” we find the following:

An article carried by the official Greenpeace website written by a Greenpeace member urges climate activists to resort to criminal activity in an effort to reinvigorate momentum for their stalling global warming agenda, while ominously threatening climate skeptics, “we know where you live”.

The article, written by Greenpeace activist “Gene” from India, calls for “mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and skepticism”.

“Gene” then has a special message for roughly half of Americans who, in the wake of the climategate scandal, are now skeptical of man-made global warming – “We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few.”

“Gene” quotes another climate activist who calls for an army of greenies to break the law and take retribution against anyone who stands in their way.

“The politicians have failed. Now it’s up to us. We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being climate lobbyists. Screw being climate activists. It’s not working. We need an army of climate outlaws.”

Greenpeace has not issued a retraction of the comments, preferring instead to buffer the blog at both beginning and end with desperate-sounding explanations insisting that the author has peaceful intentions. The organization has obviously been taking a hammering for this as it worsens into another public relations disaster.

This is by no means the first time global warming adherents have resorted to physical threats in an effort to bolster their rapidly crumbling credibility on climate change issues. In June last year, a global warming activist posted an article on the Talking Points Memo website entitled “At What Point Do We Jail Or Execute Global Warming Deniers?”

Shortly after the article was retracted, a comment traced back to another prominent global warming activist which appeared on the Climate Progress blog threatened Skeptics that “an entire generation that will soon be ready to strangle you and your kind while you sleep in your beds.” Website owner Joe Romm defended the comment as “clearly not a threat but a prediction”.

For years, climate Skeptics have been the target of campaigns to denounce them as criminals and traitors on the scale of the Nazis, with calls for Nuremberg trials. A July 2007 Senate report detailed how skeptical scientists have faced threats and intimidation.

“Is this really the kind of caring, sensitive message this charity ought to be conveying to the world?” asks James Delingpole. “Not to judge by the comments below. Happy Easter, Greenpeace PR department! I think you’re going to have a busy next few days…”

As a recent Psychological Science study highlighted, warmists tend not to adhere to the caring, sensitive image they portray when it comes to their own private lives.

“Those who wear what the authors call the “halo of green consumerism” are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal,” summarizes the Telegraph’s Iain Hollingshead. “Faced with various moral choices – whether to stick to the rules in games, for example, or to pay themselves an appropriate wage – the green participants behaved much worse in the experiments than their conventional counterparts. The short answer to the paper’s question, then, is: No. Greens are mean.”

Despite Greenpeace’s efforts at damage control, there can be little doubt as to the true context of the article. By first encouraging climate activists to “break the law” in pursuit of their stalling political agenda, “Gene” has greased the skids for criminal activity. Concluding with the threat to climate Skeptics that “we know where you live,” is clearly a form of intimidation and an invitation for “an army of climate outlaws” to take physical retribution against people who disagree with them.

Imagine if Infowars put out an article urging its readers to break the law in order to combat the IRS, imagine if we told IRS agents, “we know where you live”. We’d be raided quicker than a heartbeat and Alex Jones would be demonized all over the establishment media as a dangerous extremist. Indeed, a mere peaceful letter-writing campaign urging governors to resign was leapt upon by the media and the federal government this past weekend as a concerning portend of the “extremist” threat posed by constitutionalists despite the fact that there was no indication of violence.

When so-called “right-wingers” or libertarians merely write letters urging peaceful political change, they are demonized as terrorist hate-mongers, but when greenies openly call for criminal behavior allied with thinly veiled threats of physical violence, it’s no big deal.

Will CNN and MSNBC devote weeks of endless coverage to Greenpeace’s threats towards people they disagree with? There’s more chance of Keith Olbermann awarding Rep. Hank Johnson (a major global warming adherent) his “worst person in the world” gong for hilariously warning that the island of Guam could capsize like a boat due to overpopulation.

Another example is this recent video from Greenpeace of a hooded youth who has clearly been so wound up with their hype that he snarls his way through his presentation and log of climate claims that adults are killing his world:

“By the time I grow up there won’t be any fish left in the sea,” he snarls at the camera.

“Clean air will be a thing of the past, polar ice caps will be gone, oceans will rise, entire countries will disappear ... There could be famine, worldwide epidemics ...

“We’re not just talking about the future, we’re talking about my future.”

Believe all that and you’re excused the threat this boy makes next: “Starting today, the lines are drawn. You have to choose sides. You can be for my future or you’re against it. You’re a friend, or you’re an enemy.

“I may be just a kid a today, but tomorrow will be different ...

“You’ve had your chance to fix this problem. Now we have ours. We won’t be cute. We won’t be patronised. We won’t be denied our future.”

Once again we see an organisation with the word "peace" in it's title has becom so totalitarian and militant in it's beliefs that it is now prepared to enlist child soldiers to its ranks to fight it's climate war against the very populace from which it rose. But again this is not surprising given their total hatred and contempt for the human race that they advocate such extreme measures as:

“All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants ... In those programs’ places, programs encouraging human sterilisation and infertility must be pushed ..

...“For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human’s lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!!”

Demanded James J. Lee who burst into Discovery Channel’s Maryland headquarters to demand the station do more to save the planet from the Armageddon we’re told will be caused by global warming and held three hostages at gunpoint until police shot him dead, thus reducing his population.

“put something in the water, a virus that would be specific to the human reproductive system, and would make a substantial proportion of the population infertile”.

Suggested Dr John Reid, a former Swinburne University academic, in a lecture on the (Australian) ABC’s Ockham’s Razor program with fellow warmist Robyn Williams. Needless to say this wasn't challenged in any way.

“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control,”...

...“A program of sterilising women after their second or third child” and “the development of a long-term sterilising capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired”, which “opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control”.

Were the ideas though about by President Obama's chief science adviser, John Holdren, when he co-wrote his 1977 book, Ecoscience.

Whilst none of those mentioned above were or are members of Greenpeace, Paul Watson who was a co founder of Greenpeace and is the current Captain of the Sea Shepard anti whaling ship is and he says the following about the human race:

“We need to radically and intelligently REDUCE HUMAN POPULATIONS to fewer than one billion” because humans are “the AIDS of the Earth” and “our viral like behaviour can be TERMINAL both to the present biosphere and ourselves”.

It seems it is a common attitude towards humanity from those that see themselves as the ultimate warriors for the environment, that they want "your" "population reduced" by any means fair or foul.

IPCC Continues To Fail In Its Bid For Accuracy

At the start of September 2010 yet another blunder was discovered about the IPCC's 4th Assessment Report. This blunder involved Plagiarism of a book written in 1993 titled Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species. The book was authored by an Australian epidemiology professor named Anthony McMichael.

Professor McMichael is a known believer in AGW and is not above releasing alarmist statements to support his beliefs(my emphasis added): "As climate change advances we must realise that it endangers more than the economy, infrastructure and valued species. Climate change, ominously, is disrupting and weakening Earth's life-supporting capacity. This poses a profound, and growing, risk to human wellbeing, health and survival."

In her post The Book the IPCC Plagiarized author Donna Laframboise examines this closely:

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?

Stacking the Deck I suspect it had a great deal to do with another book he wrote – the one that appeared in 1993 titled Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species. This book’s central theme is that human activity is undermining the planet’s ecosystem. Its tone, language, and analysis are similar to hundreds of other environmental treatises published in recent decades.

McMichael declares that “humans cannot live apart from nature, remote from the great web of life.” He frets that we are too distant “from the rhythms of natural systems.” He speaks of environmental degradation as “an unprecedented moral problem” and says people in rich countries live a wasteful, “ecologically distorted lifestyle.”

His language is not the tentative sort used by dispassionate scientists. Back in 1993 he didn’t say there was concern that carbon dioxide might eventually “disrupt various of the biosphere’s natural cycles,” he confidently proclaimed that it would. Like a long line of other eco thinkers, he believes environmental challenges require a wholesale “reordering of social values.”

McMichael’s Planetary Overload arguments rely on a Greenpeace report about global warming. His book frequently cites articles in non-peer-reviewed publications such as New Scientist and Scientific American. McMichael is, in other words, an environmentalist whose day job happens to involve the study of public health. He has no expertise in most of the topics his book discusses.

He is, of course, entitled to his personal opinions. But was he the best choice to lead an IPCC chapter? Let’s rephrase that: if one wished to deliberately stack the deck, to ensure that a certain perspective would dominate the climate bible’s first health chapter, would someone who had expressed views similar to McMichael’s not have seemed like the perfect candidate?

There is a straight line between what the UN’s 1995 climate bible told the world about health issues and what McMichael had already written in his 1993 book. Although Planetary Overload isn’t included among the 182 references listed at the end of the health chapter, entire passages of the climate bible were lifted directly from it. A selection appears below:

McMichael’s 1993 book, page 150:
Sandstorms in Kansas (USA) and in the Sudan have been accompanied by increased illness and death from bronchitis and asthma.

Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 578:
Sandstorms in Kansas (USA) and the Sudan have been accompanied by increases in bronchitis and asthma.

McMichael’s 1993 book, page 155:
In Egypt, for example, the water snails tend to lose their schistosome infections during the winter months (January-March). However, if temperatures increase, snails may spread schistosomiasis throughout the year, thus increasing the already heavy parasite burden in rural Egypt.

Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 574:
In Egypt, for example, water snails tend to lose their schistosome infections during winter, but if temperatures increase, snails may mediate schistosomiasis transmission throughout the year.

McMichael’s 1993 book, page 155:
Arboviral infections span a wide clinical spectrum, from those that cause mild feverish illness or subclinical infections to those causing severe and often fatal encephalitis (brain inflammation) or hemorrhagic fever. Under favourable environmental conditions, an arboviral disease can become epidemic (population-wide), from a local endemic base – in much the same way that cholera has recently broken out…

Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 575:
Arboviral infections span a wide clinical spectrum, from those that cause mild feverish illness or subclinical inflections to those causing severe and often fatal encephalitis (brain inflammation) or hemorrhagic fever. Under favorable environmental conditions, an arboviral disease can become epidemic (population-wide), from a local endemic base or by its introduction to a previously unaffected area.

McMichael’s 1993 book, page 154:
In eastern Africa, a relatively small increase in winter temperature would enable the malarial zone to extend ‘upwards’ to engulf the large urban highland populations that are currently off-limits to the mosquito because of the cooler temperatures at higher altitudes – e.g. Nairobi (Kenya) and Harare (Zimbabwe). Indeed, such populations around the world, currently just outside the margins of endemic malaria, would provide early evidence of climate-related shifts in the distribution of this disease.

Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 574:
Hence, it is a reasonable prediction that, in eastern Africa, a relatively small increase in winter temperature could extend the mosquito habitat and thus enable faciparum malaria to reach beyond the usual altitude limit of around 2,500 m to the large, malaria-free, urban highland populations, e.g. Nairobi in Kenya and Harare in Zimbabwe. Indeed, the monitoring of such populations around the world, currently just beyond the boundaries of stable endemic malaria, could provide early evidence of climate-related shifts in malaria distribution.

McMichael’s 1993 book, page 165:
Already in Africa, there are over 100 million people who are ‘food insecure’, many of them in the arid Sahel region, home to approximately 35 million people.

Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 577:
Already in Africa, more than 100 million people are “food insecure,” many of them in the arid Sahel region.

McMichael’s 1993 book, page 166:
A rise in temperature could also have significant effects on the growth and health of farm animals. Young animals are less tolerant of a wide range of temperature than are adult animals.

Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 577:
An increase in temperature and temperature extremes could also affect the growth and health of farm animals; young animals are much less tolerant of temperature variation than are adult animals.

McMichael’s 1993 book, page 166:
With respect to adverse effects on livestock, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified several infectious diseases – such as the horn fly in beef and dairy cattle and insect-borne anaplasmosis infection in sheep and cattle – which might well increase in response to climate changes.

Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 577:
For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified several infectious diseases – such as the horn fly in beef and dairy cattle and insect-borne anaplasmosis infection in sheep and cattle – that could increase in prevalence in response to climate changes.

McMichael’s 1993 book, page 187:
UNEP predicts that an average 10% loss of ozone (such has become established at middle-to-high latitudes in recent years), if sustained globally over three-four decades, would cause at least 300,000 additional cases of non-melanocytic skin cancer worldwide each year and 4,500 extra cases of malignant melanoma – and possibly double that figure.

Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 578:
The UN environment Programme predicts that an average 10% loss of ozone (such as occurred at middle-to-high latitudes over the past decade), if sustained globally over several decades, would cause approximately 250,000 additional cases of [nonmelanocytic skin cancers] worldwide each year.

It appears unlikely that a good faith, bona fide review of the scientific literature took place prior to the writing of significant sections of the IPCC’s first health chapter. Instead, the climate bible surreptitiously incorporated numerous opinions expressed a few years earlier by the activist-oriented person in charge of writing this chapter.

Then the media told the world that the IPCC’s proclamations regarding global warming and diseases such as malaria were the considered, consensus view of thousands of experts.

Then the following day we find out via Dr. Jo Nova that Dr. Pachauri admits the IPCC just guesses the numbers. She writes:

Such is the pressure finally beginning to bear on the IPCC that Pachauri has been forced into the ridiculous position of trying to rescue credibility by contradicting most of their past PR campaign. He’s taken the extraordinary step of admitting they don’t have hard numbers, hey, but it’s all OK because the IPCC is really a government agency to make policy, not to write scientific reports “that don’t see the light of day”.

So he’s admitting that the IPCC was all about policy prescriptions all along? And the science was just fudged-up window dressing to provide an excuse? Well, who would have guessed.

Hidden beside Pachauri’s declaration that he’s happy about the IAC report, he let slip a corker of a line:

Times of India asks: Anything in the UN probe report you completely or partly disagree with?

They have talked about quantifying uncertainties. To some extent, we are doing that, though not perfectly. But the issue is that in some cases, you really don’t have a quantitative base by which you can attach a probability or a level of uncertainty that defines things in quantitative terms. And there, let’s not take away the importance of expert judgment. And that is something the report has missed or at least not pointed out.

So if you can’t quantify uncertainties (like is climate sensitivity say 0.5 degrees or 6.5 degrees, and with what probabilities) just go with your best guess, call it expert opinion (especially if you only pick and pay the “right” experts) and say that there is a 90% certainty, even if there are no numbers you can add up to get that.

Then after all these years of saying the IPCC is a scientific body, now that they’re exposed as being unscientific, suddenly the excuse is that really they’re policy driven. Watch how far away from science Pachauri is trying to position the IPCC:

Times of India: Stifling politics out of science, does that make it devoid of its real social purpose?

Let’s face it, we are an intergovernmental body and our strength and acceptability of what we produce is largely because we are owned by governments.

(And here was me thinking their strength was their “2500 scientists” and their rigorous review?)

If that was not the case, then we would be like any other scientific body that maybe producing first-rate reports but don’t see the light of the day because they don’t matter in policy-making. Now clearly, if it’s an inter-governmental body and we want governments’ ownership of what we produce, obviously they will give us guidance of what direction to follow, what are the questions they want answered. Unfortunately, people have completely missed the original resolution by which IPCC was set up. It clearly says that our assessment should include realistic response strategies. If that is not an assessment of policies, then what does it represent? And I am afraid, we have been, in my view, defensive in coming out with a whole range of policies and I am not saying we prescribe policy A or B or C but on the basis of science, we are looking at realistic response strategies.

But that is exactly what this committee has recommended that we get out of — policy prescriptions. It is for this reason that I brought out that this what is written in the IPCC mandate. This is a misperception on the part of some people in the scientific community. And I hope I can correct it.

The IPCC can’t be both the last word on impartially declaring the science AND the last word declaring the policy. Either the search for truth runs this agency or the need to push policy does, they can’t answer to both without a conflict.

He’s declaring that their first priority is NOT to figure out exactly what drives our climate.