|
Written by Angelo M. Codevilla
|
|
Wednesday, 21 July 2010 17:36 |
|
Once an official or professional shows that he shares the manners, the tastes, the interests of the class, gives lip service to its ideals and shibboleths, and is willing to accommodate the interests of its senior members, he can move profitably among our establishment's parts.
If, for example, you are Laurence Tribe in 1984, Harvard professor of law, leftist pillar of the establishment, you can "write" your magnum opus by using the products of your student assistant, Ron Klain. A decade later, after Klain admits to having written some parts of the book, and the other parts are found to be verbatim or paraphrases of a book published in 1974, you can claim (perhaps correctly) that your plagiarism was "inadvertent," and you can count on the Law School's dean, Elena Kagan, to appoint a committee including former and future Harvard president Derek Bok that issues a secret report that "closes" the incident. Incidentally, Kagan ends up a justice of the Supreme Court. Not one of these people did their jobs: the professor did not write the book himself, the assistant plagiarized instead of researching, the dean and the committee did not hold the professor accountable, and all ended up rewarded. By contrast, for example, learned papers and distinguished careers in climatology at MIT (Richard Lindzen) or UVA (S. Fred Singer) are not enough for their questions about "global warming" to be taken seriously. For our ruling class, identity always trumps.
|
|
Read more... [America's Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution]
|
|
Written by Edward R. Long and Jennifer M. Cohen
|
|
Wednesday, 21 July 2010 17:31 |
|
A survey of the West Virginia temperature record reveals that temperature anomalies were stable or fell from 1905 to 2009. Raw data from a set of meteorological stations show cooling at the rate of ?0.6±0.2 ºC/century, while United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) Version 2 adjusted records for the same station set yield no change, 0.0±0.2 ºC/century. For the 1998-2009 interval the average temperature anomalies of the station set declined at rates of ?6.8±3.6 ºC/century and ?4.8±3.6 ºC/century, respectively for the raw and USHCN Version 2 adjusted data
|
|
Read more... [West Virginia - The State Global Warming Forgot]
|
|
Written by Joseph D’Aleo
|
|
Wednesday, 21 July 2010 01:09 |
|
Recently we shared a story in the Wall Street Pit how NASA has gradually reduced the warm middle 20th century blip and created a more continuous warming. You can see in this 1976 National Geographic graph, a rather significant warm period starting in the 1920s and peaking during the dust bowl era in the United States in the 1930s and only slowly declining heading into the 1950s. It showed more significant cooling in the 1960s and 1970s. The story questioned where to from there.
|
|
Read more... [Progressive Enhancement of Global Temperature Trends]
|
|
Written by Dennis Ambler
|
|
Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:02 |
|
Recent remarks by President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner, promote the idea that the US can no longer be the primary driver of world economic growth and that other world economies must grow in preference to the US, to achieve “global economic growth”.
|
|
Read more... [Changing the Engine of the Global Economy: The Next UN Strategy]
|
|
Written by Christopher Essex
|
|
Saturday, 17 July 2010 09:50 |
|
This one doom has gradually swallowed up all the others, offering the prospect of one magnificent monolithic doom for all of us to marvel and tremble before. It was formerly known as “global warming,” but that famous brand has been changed to “climate change,” for reasons only an advertising agency could understand.
|
|
Read more... [A Review of Garth Paltridge's Book: "The Climate Caper]
|
|
Written by Christopher Monckton
|
|
Thursday, 15 July 2010 17:28 |
|
On Friday, you sent me a list of questions from the Select Committee. Here are the answers. I have taken the liberty of conflating questions 8 and 12. I shall do my best to supply any additional information on request.
|
|
Read more... [Questions from the Select Committee Concerning My Recent Testimony]
|
|
Written by John Abbot and Jennifer Marohasy
|
|
Thursday, 15 July 2010 15:42 |
|
The UK Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) are intended to provide a mechanism whereby information held by public authorities can be accessed by the public. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recently considered the disclosure of information from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia and concluded that e-mails revealed scientists encouraged colleagues to resist disclosure and delete e-mails, apparently to prevent disclosure through FoI requests. The case study presented here focuses on requests under FoI legislation to obtain climate information from the Met Office, particularly relating to assessments of global warming and causal relationships with greenhouse gas emissions. Evidence suggests both the CRU and the Met Office are part of a culture where institutional climate scientists are antagonistic towards disclosure of information. This has serious implications for both the effective operation of FoI legislation and the openness and transparency of climate change assessments.
|
|
Read more... [Accessing Environmental Information Relating to Climate Change: A Case Study under UK Freedom of Information Legislation]
|
|
Written by Dr. Richard Keen and Joe D’Aleo
|
|
Tuesday, 13 July 2010 09:26 |
|
Although I’ve lived in Colorado for 40+ years, Philadelphia is my ancestral home and I keep track of the weather there. Of course, I’m excited about any event that sets records there, and last week’s heat wave set several. Apparently Michael Mann is excited, too, and in his “Victory and Vindication” interview, he said: “Record heat wave in the US that’s part of a larger picture of early summer temperatures that are the warmest on record, which is part of a larger picture of a globe that is running warmer than ever before...”
|
|
Read more... [Riding the Heat Waves]
|
|
Written by William O'Keefe and Jeff Kueter
|
|
Tuesday, 13 July 2010 09:16 |
|
The book Merchants of Doubt, written by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, ostensibly provides insight and understanding about the challenge to the climate science orthodoxy. Although cloaked in the appearance of scholarly work, the book constitutes an effort to discredit and undermine the reputations of three deceased scientists who contributed greatly to our nation. These men were accomplished scientists, leaders of universities and major research organizations, advisers to government, and the founders of the George C. Marshall Institute. This book questions their integrity, impugns their character, and questions their judgment on the basis of little more than faulty logic and preconceived opinion.
|
|
Read more... [Clouding the Truth: A Critque of Merchants of Doubt]
|
|
Written by Christopher Monckton
|
|
Monday, 12 July 2010 15:23 |
|
Christopher Monckton has issued an extensive and detailed critique and refutation of a widely circulated 83-minute personal attack on him by one J.P. Abraham, a lecturer in fluid mechanics at the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota.
|
|
Read more... [Response to John Abraham]
|
|
Written by Editor, Christopher Monckton
|
|
Friday, 09 July 2010 14:50 |
|
Cancun is coming – and it will pointlessly cost you dear The authoritative Monthly CO2 Report for June 2010 discusses the failure of the Climategate enquiries to do their job, and the coming Cancun Conference, which will be pointlessly expensive for all.
|
|
Read more... [SPPI Monthly CO2 Report: June 2010]
|
|
Written by Willis Eschenbach
|
|
Sunday, 04 July 2010 14:20 |
|
There have been lots of articles lately discussing the retraction by the UK Sunday Times of their claims about Amazongate. Folks like George Monbiot are claiming that their point of view has been vindicated, that Amazongate is “rubbish” and that skeptics have been “skewered”. So I decided to follow the tortuous trail through the Amazon jungle, to see where the truth lies.
|
|
Read more... [Out in the Ama-Zone]
|
|
Written by Jim Hollingsworth
|
|
Sunday, 04 July 2010 09:48 |
|
While scientists the world over continue to study and debate what part man has played (if any) in the gentle warming that took place mainly in the latter half of the last century, Dr. James Hansen is absolutely certain. The purpose of his book is to scare us into taking immediate and drastic action to control greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide. Although Dr. Hansen is a scientist, his work is more political than scientific. He makes an emotional appeal and he does it by attempting to build fear that there will be no world left for our grandchildren to live in.
|
|
Read more... [A Review of James Hansen's Book: "Storms of My Grandchildren...]
|
|
Written by Dennis Ambler
|
|
Sunday, 04 July 2010 09:39 |
|
At the time, Dr Pachauri demanded an apology and hinted at legal action if none were forthcoming. I am not aware of any such response, so it was somewhat of a surprise when an apology did appear this month in the Telegraph, not to Dr Pachauri, but to the Tata group, who felt they were maligned by comments in the Pachauri article. What is the background to this and why did the Telegraph apologise?
|
|
Read more... [The Daily Telegraph, Tata & Dr. Pachauri - An Apology Too Far?]
|
|
Written by Kent Hawkins
|
|
Wednesday, 16 June 2010 11:53 |
|
It is the irony of ironies. Taxpayer and ratepayer-forced subsidies for utility-scale wind-power also subsidizes emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). The same would be true under a national renewable portfolio standard as proposed in pending federal legislation.
|
|
Read more... [Subsidizing Co2 Emissions Via Windpower: The Ultimate Irony]
|
|
Written by David C. Archibald
|
|
Wednesday, 09 June 2010 00:10 |
|
The first thing to be aware of is that the warming effect of carbon dioxide is strongly logarithmic. Of the 3° C. that carbon dioxide contributes to the greenhouse effect, the first 20 ppm has a greater effect than the following 400 ppm. By the time we get to the current level of 384 ppm, each 100 ppm increment will produce only about 0.1° of warming. With atmospheric carbon dioxide rising at about 2 ppm per annum, temperature will rise at 0.1° every 50 years. If that is true, you will ask, how does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) get its icecap-melting figure of 5° for doubling of the preindustrial level to 560 ppm?
|
|
Read more... [Warming or Cooling?]
|
|
Written by Jason Scott Johnston
|
|
Wednesday, 09 June 2010 00:07 |
|
This paper departs from such faith in the climate establishment by comparing the picture of climate science presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other global warming scientist advocates with the peer-edited scientific literature on climate change.
|
|
Read more... [Global Warming Advocacy Science: A Cross Examination]
|
|
Written by Joseph D'Aleo
|
|
Saturday, 05 June 2010 11:01 |
|
Hansen, NOAA NCDC, Hadley CRU/UKMO all have reason to find warmth and verify their scary projections from their tinker toy models despite the many shortcomings found in these models. Hansen has a proven history of manipulating data to come closer to verifying projections.
|
|
Read more... [Jim Hansen Reality Check]
|
|
Written by Joseph D'Aleo
|
|
Saturday, 05 June 2010 10:47 |
|
Both Drs Gray and Klotzbach and NOAA and many in private industry are predicting a very active Atlantic tropical season.
|
|
Read more... [Musings on the 2010 Hurricane Season]
|
|
Written by Nicola Scafetta
|
|
Saturday, 05 June 2010 10:43 |
|
We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 oC and 0.25 oC, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon’s orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21st century. It is found that at least 60% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate oscillations. The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030-2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators.
|
|
Read more... [Empirical Evidence for a Celestial Origin of the Climate Oscillations and its Implications]
|
|
|