Tag: deniers

CRU Frauds Destroy Environental Movement Credibility

The Globe and Mail reports that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime. University of East Anglia CRU climate scientist Mike Hulme worries that denying the academic dishonesty and shabby efforts of fellow climate scientists to destroy CRU data will “set back climate science back twenty years”. Phee-yew! And that’s criticism from inside the tent.

The first thing I did this morning was grab a bucket and scoop the water out of the bathtub and pour it by hand in the washing machine. My wife ordinarily does this and has, cheerfully, for years. She’s the heavy-lifter environmentalist chez kidneystones. The temperature inside our new home in Tokyo right now in December is about 55 degrees. The windows are open to let in the sunshine. I’m wearing a turtleneck and a warm-up jacket as I type. We don’t own a car, don’t own an air-conditioner and turn on the electric heat in winter only when a hat and extra sweater won’t suffice. We recycle assiduously whenever we can. In short: we’re into environmentalism.

We defend environmentalism easily. The savings from recycling water appear on our water bill. We have hard data we share willingly with neighbors. The work I do in the social sciences includes history of science. That, too, I publish and share. Good work withstands scrutiny. A few people I respect, however, are currently making the case that science cannot withstand scrutiny and that breaking into computers to get access to data matters more than what is discovered.

The break-ins are very likely part of a larger effort to discredit climate science. Why? Because climate science appears to be pure bullshit and there appears to be clear evidence of collusion to control access to core data. For years, climate science skeptics, critics, deniers: call them what you will, have petitioned the CRU for access to the raw data. They were stone-walled at every turn. Fact or fiction?

Prof. Jones wrote that climate skeptics “have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone.”

How can anyone defend Jones? We shouldn’t need to remind anyone of the Bush efforts to conceal WH email, or the challenges critics of the war have faced trying to get information about who knew what and when. Real questions exist about the core samples and the methodology underpinning climate science claims.

Rather than bring the data to the light of day, climate scientists threatened to destroy or delete their work. Had Jones and company simply allowed all-comers access to the core data underpinning their claims there would have been no ‘criminal’ hack. Why wouldn’t Jones and company let others see their core work? The only plausible explanation, IMHO, is Jones et al knew their work would not stand up to aggressive examination.

When so-called ‘progressives’ defend stonewalling, data-deletion, and academic dis-honesty, environmentalists know that there’s even more reason to bring the facts, all of them, to the public. The cover-up and the CRU fraud both stink.  

Prime Minister Rudd (Australia) Spanks Global Warming Deniers (incl Republicans)

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spoke at the Lowy Institute. Entitled Check Against Delivery, this is one of the strongest statements seen from a Head of Government of a ‘developed’ nation on climate change and, more specifically, contains very strong denunciation of those deniers and delayers and self-proclaimed “skeptics” who are obstructing movement to mitigate climate change in Australia … and, even more so, the United States.

The full speech is highly (HIGHLY) recommended reading.  This is one of those cases where each read drives one to differing ideas as to which part to quote, which item merits the most attention.

But, as is sometimes best, let us start with the end and what might be termed as a beginning toward strong governmental confrontation of those so ready to mislead and deceive:

My message to the climate change skeptics, to the big betters and the big risk takers is this:

You are betting our children’s future and the future of our grandchildren.

You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition – on a gut feeling; on a political prejudice you have about science.

That is too big a risk, too radical a departure from the basic conservative principles of public policy.

Malcolm, Barnaby, Andrew, Janet – stop gambling with our future.

You’ve got to know when to fold ’em – and for the skeptics, that time has come.

The Government I lead will act.

Rudd has chosen a quite direct challenge to those fighting against action, ready and willing to disseminate falsehoods and deception in their efforts to guard their current fiscal and other interests even at the cost of creating grave risks for all humanity.

George “Global Warming Denier” Carlin !?!

This video is the rage among the Global Warming denial sect, as they pass it around and post it with great glee following Carlin’s death. Their RIP is a celebration that George was one of theirs.

You got people around you.

The country’s full of them right now, people walking around all day long, every minute of the day, worried about everything …

the greatest arrogance of them all, Save the Planet.  …

I’m getting tired of this shit.

Celebrate George “Global Warming Denier” Carlin!

Hold on a second now …  

Zen and the art of earth maintenance

A stumbling point for me in the practice of Buddhism is optimism.  I do not do optimism.  My thoughts on optimism parallel Ambrose Bierce.

Optimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong… It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

I am particularly prone to pessimism (realism) when it comes to the response of our species to climate change. In reading the parable of the Burning House from the Lotus Sutra, I am tempted to wonder (which is as close as I come to hope).

Skeptical about Skeptics? Check this out …

Being skeptical about Global Warming skeptics’ arguments has proven, to date, to be a healthy and sensible way to deal with their truthiness claims and arguments.  The Heartland Institute‘s distribution of a list of scientist supposedly doubting Global Warming yet again verifies the value of being skeptical about Global Warming skeptics.

DeSmogBlog decided to take a look at Heartland‘s list: emailing the scientists to ask them about the situation. From 500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares:

  • The Heartland “article purports to list scientists whose work contradicts the overwhelming scientific agreement that human-induced climate change is endangering the world as we know it.”
  • “DeSmogBlog … emailed 122 of the scientists … calling their attention to the list.”
  • “in less than 24 hours – three dozen of those scientists had responded in outrage, denying that their research supports Avery’s conclusions and demanding that their names be removed.”

Hmmm, maybe Heartland should change the title from 500 scientists to 464 scientists maybe have documented doubts of man-made global warming scares until, of course, they are asked whether they agree with this article’s assertion.

Even the global warming accepters are in denial

This diary was suggested by two recent pieces on abrupt climate change: Joseph Romm’s piece on Salon.com (The cold truth about climate change), and a paper in the journal Risk Analysis which was seized upon by columnist John Tierney in a column for the New York Times: “Global Warming Paradox”?  I discuss these articles in order to suggest that there is a general state of denial as regards the social and economic causes of abrupt climate change, thus to suggest that therein lies the discovery of social and economic solutions.

(crossposted at Big Orange)

Oops, they did it again [White House gets caught editing climate change report]

Hasn’t the White House learned anything?  Apparently not, since they’ve just been caught editing yet another scientist in their effort to minimise the dangers of climate change (not Jim Hansen this time).

Who was it?  Dr. Julie Gerberding, the head of the CDC, who had her fourteen page strongly worded report on the dangers of climate change to your and my health censored edited by the Bush administration to six milquetoast un-post-consumer-recycled pages…

More below the jump.