Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Banksy - For or Against Global Warming?
Four New Banksy Images Found In London
2:39pm UK, Monday December 21, 2009
Four new images by the elusive street artist Banksy have surfaced over the weekend, with one seemingly attacking global warming sceptics.
The pieces follow the Copenhagen summit. Photo: londonist.com
It found the first beneath Camden Street Bridge - "almost in the back yard of the British Transport Police building".
The second and third pieces were etched under and next to the Oval Road Bridge in the direction of Primrose Hill.
The most provocative simply has the words: “I don’t believe in global warming”, with the writing gradually disappearing into a canal.
Image of man unrolling advert for graffiti. Photo: londonist.com
Another shows a man rolling a graffiti-covered advertisement.
The third has a young boy fishing a dripping ‘Bansky’ tag out of a polluted canal.
Bansky’s artworks use spray paint and stencils and are often satirical in nature
Artwork showing a boy fishing in a polluted canal. Photo: londonist.com
There is debate over his identity as he shuns media exposure, preferring to remain anonymous.
This has only added to Banksy's iconic status as one of the world's greatest street artists.
Some of his pieces have gone for over £50,000 at auction but apparently he has never profited from the sale of any of his works.
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Friday, December 18, 2009
Rajendra Pachauri.......
Panel chief Rajendra Pachauri under attack Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent From: The Australian December 18, 2009 12:00AM Increase Text SizeDecrease Text SizePrintEmail Share
Add to DiggAdd to del.icio.usAdd to FacebookAdd to KwoffAdd to MyspaceAdd to NewsvineWhat are these?THE head of the world's top climate change body has been accused of a conflict of interest over his many business directorships, just days after he used his keynote speech at the Copenhagen summit to attack global warming sceptics.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and head of India's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), has come under attack over his involvement in a long list of fossil fuel, venture capital, alternative energy, research and motor vehicle companies.
In a blog this week that continuously referred to him as a "millionaire businessman", British right-wing commentator Richard North suggested Dr Pachauri was profiting handsomely from his many connections, and that the climate debate was being run by a cartel of scientists with corporate links who were making money from the carbon credits market.
A follow-up column in Britain's Daily Telegraph detailing Dr Pachauri's corporate advisory and director positions ran under the headline: "With business interests like these are we really sure Dr Rajendra Pachauri is fit to chair the IPCC?"
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Related CoverageGood laugh, sweet prince
The Australian, 4 days ago
Proposed greenhouse cuts remain `far short'
The Australian, 4 days ago
Australia demands climate commitment
Adelaide Now, 10 days ago
UN expert likens Abbott to Bush
Adelaide Now, 10 days ago
Danish PM talks up climate deal chances
The Australian, 10 days ago
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
The column also questioned Dr Pachauri's connection with TERI, which is involved in a joint solar energy research project with the CSIRO. "As we learn from its website, this used to stand for Tata Energy Research Institute, but was renamed The Energy and Resources Institute in 2003. Nothing sinister, I'm sure, in its decision to play down the Tata connection; nor in the fact that Dr Pachauri makes no mention of the fact that he is funded by Tata on his website," it said.
During his lightning 36-hour visit to India last month Kevin Rudd met with Dr Pachauri at the TERI headquarters in New Delhi where he announced $71 million in funding for joint Indian-Australian scientific research and fellowship programs.
In a brief email response to questions from The Australian yesterday, Dr Pachauri said: "These are absolute lies, and I am sure those who are trying to perpetrate these are aware of the facts."
A spokeswoman for TERI also denied the organisation had received any money from Tata, other than the 1974 seed funding, which helped create what has become India's premier environmental research body.
"These allegations are baseless and Dr Pachauri has much better things to do than take up such false accusations," she said.
"Let them come up with some serious findings and we will get back to them."
Former Greenpeace International head turned business consultant Paul Gilding defended Dr Pachauri yesterday, saying: "The fact that Pachauri has experience in business makes him more qualified to get involved in the debate about what's fundamentally an economic transformation."
Add to DiggAdd to del.icio.usAdd to FacebookAdd to KwoffAdd to MyspaceAdd to NewsvineWhat are these?THE head of the world's top climate change body has been accused of a conflict of interest over his many business directorships, just days after he used his keynote speech at the Copenhagen summit to attack global warming sceptics.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and head of India's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), has come under attack over his involvement in a long list of fossil fuel, venture capital, alternative energy, research and motor vehicle companies.
In a blog this week that continuously referred to him as a "millionaire businessman", British right-wing commentator Richard North suggested Dr Pachauri was profiting handsomely from his many connections, and that the climate debate was being run by a cartel of scientists with corporate links who were making money from the carbon credits market.
A follow-up column in Britain's Daily Telegraph detailing Dr Pachauri's corporate advisory and director positions ran under the headline: "With business interests like these are we really sure Dr Rajendra Pachauri is fit to chair the IPCC?"
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Related CoverageGood laugh, sweet prince
The Australian, 4 days ago
Proposed greenhouse cuts remain `far short'
The Australian, 4 days ago
Australia demands climate commitment
Adelaide Now, 10 days ago
UN expert likens Abbott to Bush
Adelaide Now, 10 days ago
Danish PM talks up climate deal chances
The Australian, 10 days ago
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
The column also questioned Dr Pachauri's connection with TERI, which is involved in a joint solar energy research project with the CSIRO. "As we learn from its website, this used to stand for Tata Energy Research Institute, but was renamed The Energy and Resources Institute in 2003. Nothing sinister, I'm sure, in its decision to play down the Tata connection; nor in the fact that Dr Pachauri makes no mention of the fact that he is funded by Tata on his website," it said.
During his lightning 36-hour visit to India last month Kevin Rudd met with Dr Pachauri at the TERI headquarters in New Delhi where he announced $71 million in funding for joint Indian-Australian scientific research and fellowship programs.
In a brief email response to questions from The Australian yesterday, Dr Pachauri said: "These are absolute lies, and I am sure those who are trying to perpetrate these are aware of the facts."
A spokeswoman for TERI also denied the organisation had received any money from Tata, other than the 1974 seed funding, which helped create what has become India's premier environmental research body.
"These allegations are baseless and Dr Pachauri has much better things to do than take up such false accusations," she said.
"Let them come up with some serious findings and we will get back to them."
Former Greenpeace International head turned business consultant Paul Gilding defended Dr Pachauri yesterday, saying: "The fact that Pachauri has experience in business makes him more qualified to get involved in the debate about what's fundamentally an economic transformation."
Matthew Knott in Copenhagen 2009
The word that dare not speak its name at Copenhagen: science
December 17, 2009 – 9:52 am, by Matthew Knott
By Matthew Knott in Copenhagen
The Copenhagen climate change summit has been an attention seeker’s nirvana: protester stunts, global warming sceptics and grandstanding politicians have provided colourful copy for journalists locked out of most of the negotiation sessions.
But lost in all the talk of arrests and walkouts and stolen emails have been the voices of those whose work brought this whole crazy circus about: climate change scientists.
Pity the friendly folk at the American Geophysical Union who organised 650 climate scientists to volunteer to assist journalists covering the Copenhagen climate talks through an on-call email service.
Sounds like a good idea. Just one problem: only about 20 journalists have bothered to write in (over 3,500 journalists are here reporting on the conference).
Lack of promotion of the initiative probably played a role – I certainly hadn’t heard of it until yesterday – but the fact remains that scientific issues have been low on the priority list of most journos at COP15.
This isn´t really a surprise. Protesters dressed up as pandas certainly make for better photos than dour climatologists. And sceptics like Ian Plimer provide streams of juicy quotes – global warming is the greatest scientific hoax of all time etc etc – while mainstream scientists tend to shy away from commenting on politics. (Note: I’m certainly not claiming to be holier than thou – my interview with Plimer shows I’ve been as guilt as the rest of ‘em)
It’s natural that reporters are interested above all in political pageantry of the talks, Mark Henderson, one of the experts scientific volunteers, told Wired Science. But the science shouldn’t be lost in all the white noise.
“How will the public judge whether their leaders have done a good job in Copenhagen if they don’t know the likely results on the climate of the agreement reached there?” he asked.
The case of Tuvalu, which last week called for a new treaty limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, is a prime example of a story where increased scientific knowlege among journalists could have produced better reporting.
Tuvalu’s pleas for survival made headlines around the world and the media came out en masse to film the NGO protests that erupted in support of the small island nation.
However, as Matthew England, IPCC author and joint Director of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, told Crikey: “Unfortunately, we´re probably already locked in to 1.5 degrees Celsius warming. Whilst 1.5 degrees is a laudable goal it´s virtually impossible to achieve without a shutdown of all industry.”
This is a reality I didn’t see reflected in most media reports.
Dr England said that emissions reduction targets on the table from rich countries like Australia at Copenhagen are disappointingly low. “Scientifically, if you look at all the climate models and our understanding of past climate change we need to be reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 per cent by 2020,” he said. “At the moment many of the targets are around five to six per cent. There’s a big gap between what is being considered and what the science is saying we should aim at.”
A 25 per cent reduction on 1990 levels is the “very minimum” that developed nations should be proposing. Australia has offered 25 per cent as its maximum target, with 5 per cent as its minimum.
The full interview with Dr England – in which I also ask him about the impact of the Climate-gate emails and his hopes for COP15 – can be viewed below.
December 17, 2009 – 9:52 am, by Matthew Knott
By Matthew Knott in Copenhagen
The Copenhagen climate change summit has been an attention seeker’s nirvana: protester stunts, global warming sceptics and grandstanding politicians have provided colourful copy for journalists locked out of most of the negotiation sessions.
But lost in all the talk of arrests and walkouts and stolen emails have been the voices of those whose work brought this whole crazy circus about: climate change scientists.
Pity the friendly folk at the American Geophysical Union who organised 650 climate scientists to volunteer to assist journalists covering the Copenhagen climate talks through an on-call email service.
Sounds like a good idea. Just one problem: only about 20 journalists have bothered to write in (over 3,500 journalists are here reporting on the conference).
Lack of promotion of the initiative probably played a role – I certainly hadn’t heard of it until yesterday – but the fact remains that scientific issues have been low on the priority list of most journos at COP15.
This isn´t really a surprise. Protesters dressed up as pandas certainly make for better photos than dour climatologists. And sceptics like Ian Plimer provide streams of juicy quotes – global warming is the greatest scientific hoax of all time etc etc – while mainstream scientists tend to shy away from commenting on politics. (Note: I’m certainly not claiming to be holier than thou – my interview with Plimer shows I’ve been as guilt as the rest of ‘em)
It’s natural that reporters are interested above all in political pageantry of the talks, Mark Henderson, one of the experts scientific volunteers, told Wired Science. But the science shouldn’t be lost in all the white noise.
“How will the public judge whether their leaders have done a good job in Copenhagen if they don’t know the likely results on the climate of the agreement reached there?” he asked.
The case of Tuvalu, which last week called for a new treaty limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, is a prime example of a story where increased scientific knowlege among journalists could have produced better reporting.
Tuvalu’s pleas for survival made headlines around the world and the media came out en masse to film the NGO protests that erupted in support of the small island nation.
However, as Matthew England, IPCC author and joint Director of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, told Crikey: “Unfortunately, we´re probably already locked in to 1.5 degrees Celsius warming. Whilst 1.5 degrees is a laudable goal it´s virtually impossible to achieve without a shutdown of all industry.”
This is a reality I didn’t see reflected in most media reports.
Dr England said that emissions reduction targets on the table from rich countries like Australia at Copenhagen are disappointingly low. “Scientifically, if you look at all the climate models and our understanding of past climate change we need to be reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 per cent by 2020,” he said. “At the moment many of the targets are around five to six per cent. There’s a big gap between what is being considered and what the science is saying we should aim at.”
A 25 per cent reduction on 1990 levels is the “very minimum” that developed nations should be proposing. Australia has offered 25 per cent as its maximum target, with 5 per cent as its minimum.
The full interview with Dr England – in which I also ask him about the impact of the Climate-gate emails and his hopes for COP15 – can be viewed below.
Thanks to Acuweather for this post.....
Gore`s Response to Climategate
Running very short on time today, especially with the big storm going on. I also spent 2 hours of my morning shoveling out our long driveway. The snow blower was not an option, as shoveling the snow was like shoveling thick, heavy mud. I am fried, but at least I did not throw out my back this time.
Anyway, I see Al Gore has finally made a response to the climategate story. CNN was fortunate to get the interview. Tell us what you think.
The first thing that came to my mind was the excessive amount of makeup that the CNN artists have applied to Gore's face.
Here is the link to the video interview and partial transcript from CNN International.
Categories: Opinion
Posted on December 9, 2009 2:29 PM
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Running very short on time today, especially with the big storm going on. I also spent 2 hours of my morning shoveling out our long driveway. The snow blower was not an option, as shoveling the snow was like shoveling thick, heavy mud. I am fried, but at least I did not throw out my back this time.
Anyway, I see Al Gore has finally made a response to the climategate story. CNN was fortunate to get the interview. Tell us what you think.
The first thing that came to my mind was the excessive amount of makeup that the CNN artists have applied to Gore's face.
Here is the link to the video interview and partial transcript from CNN International.
Categories: Opinion
Posted on December 9, 2009 2:29 PM
Permalink
Share this:
AccuWeather.com: Global Warming News, Science, Myths, Articles
I tuned in to this site after looking at a weather forecast for my area. I hadn't realised that Acuweather was in the business of blogging............Some good reports.
AccuWeather.com: Global Warming News, Science, Myths, Articles
AccuWeather.com: Global Warming News, Science, Myths, Articles
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Climate-Gate.......What the networks are doing......
ABC and CBS discounted the scientific relevance of the admissions and obfuscations displayed in the ClimateGate e-mails, but on Wednesday night they finally devoted full stories to the controversy and quoted the “most-damning” of the e-mails, the ones referring to a “trick” to “hide the decline” in a temperature measurement and in which a scientist fretted “we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can't.”
The two networks, however, painted the “stolen” e-mails not as laudatory whistle-blowing, but as an unwanted impediment to the left's global warming agenda. “Just as the world seems finally poised to do something about global warming, an inconvenient scandal,” ABC's David Wright began in playing off the title of Al Gore's movie. He despaired that “as the controversy heats up, the consensus about making the tough choices to curb carbon emissions threatens to crumble.”
On CBS, Wyatt Andrews relayed how “to many Republicans, Climategate proves that global warming is a deception,” before he countered: “But if that's true, it's a fraud adopted by most of the world's leading scientists, along with NASA, the U.N., the American Medical Association, and the National Academies of Science of 32 countries, including the United States. To most of them, Climategate is a sideshow compared to one overwhelming fact:” Viewers then were treated to this declaration from the scientist with the “hide the decline” boast: “The last decade is the warmest decade on record.”
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ABC anchor Charles Gibson set up the World News segment:
In Copenhagen right now, world leaders are focused on the long-term and potentially devastating effects of climate change, global warming. And for all the scientific ammunition being presented at the U.N. conference, some stolen e-mails are giving encouragement to global warming skeptics.
Meanwhile, NBC continued its blackout of any embarrassing disclosures in the e-mails as anchor Brian Williams introduced a story:
As we've been reporting, there's been a world conference going on in Copenhagen. It's about climate change and global warming, but that subject heated up here today with a newspaper article by Sarah Palin, and then a return shot from Al Gore.
Reporter Anne Thompson concluded with the usual agenda: “At the climate talks, the bigger issue is American credibility, and will the United States live up to its promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions?”
Earlier rundowns of how the evening newscasts have ignored and dismissed ClimateGate:
Friday: “NBC Nightly News Takes Up ClimateGate, But Frets It Could 'Delay Taking Action'”
Sunday: “ABC and NBC Acknowledge 'ClimateGate,' But Remain Undeterred: 'Science is Solid'”
Monday: “Nets Panic: Clock at Zero in 'Life and Death' Effort to Avoid 'Global Catastrophe'”
Tuesday: “CBS and NBC Trumpet UN Predictions About Warmest Decade Since 1850”
The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide these transcripts of the stories on the Wednesday, December 9 evening newscasts:
ABC’s World News:
CHARLES GIBSON, IN OPENING TEASER: Hot topic: Did scientists skew their research to support theories about global warming?
...
GIBSON, BEFORE COMMERCIAL BREAK: And still ahead on World News, have global warming skeptics found a smoking gun? The controversy over climate change will be our "Closer Look."
...
GIBSON: We began tonight's broadcast with the powerful blast of bitter cold and snow that's blanketing much of the country – and its powerful, to be sure. But its effects will be short-lived. In contrast, in Copenhagen right now, world leaders are focused on the long-term and potentially devastating effects of climate change, global warming. And for all the scientific ammunition being presented at the U.N. conference, some stolen e-mails are giving encouragement to global warming skeptics. David Wright has our "Closer Look."
DAVID WRIGHT: Just as the world seems finally poised to do something about global warming, an inconvenient scandal.
GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Let's start with the science that has been so settled for all these years.
WRIGHT: Skeptics of climate change suddenly have plenty of new fodder.
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI): There is increasing evidence of scientific fascism that's going on.
WRIGHT: 1,000 e-mails dating back more than a dozen years stolen from a top climate research center in Britain.
SENATOR JAMES INHOFE (R-OK): For the taxpayers' sake, let's look at this controversy from top to bottom.
WRIGHT: As the controversy heats up, the consensus about making the tough choices to curb carbon emissions threatens to crumble.
JON STEWART, THE DAILY SHOW: Poor Al Gore! Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh!
WRIGHT: In the e-mails, the scientists are downright dismissive of naysayers. In one message, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore Labs offers to "beat the crap out of" a leading skeptic. In another, Penn State's Michael Mann suggests hiding data from dissenters, writing, "This is the sort of ‘dirty laundry' one doesn't want to fall into the wrong hands."
MICHAEL MANN: Imagine somebody going through all of the emails you ever sent, looking for a single word or phrase that could be twisted.
WRIGHT: One of the most damning e-mail exchanges credits Mann with a "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures. In another, the head of the National Center for Atmospheric Research writes a colleague, "The fact is, we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can't."
KEVIN TRENBERTH, NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH: It shows human nature at work, but I don't think it throws any, casts any aspersions on the science.
WRIGHT: Global warming may be a scientific issue, but it's also a hot-button political debate. So right now, the scientists aren't the only ones on the defensive. Politicians are, too.
LISA JACKSON, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: There is nothing in the hacked e-mails that undermines the science.
WRIGHT: That may be true, but the e-mails threaten to undermine the political effort under way in Copenhagen.
JAMES HOGGAN, HOGGAN AND ASSOCIATES PR: This is going to get worse. They are going to use this and blow it up way beyond anything that the evidence supports.
WRIGHT: At a recent book signing in Chicago, Al Gore was a soft target.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE PROTESTER: Research Climategate! This guy is a fraud! It's a scam!
WRIGHT: The protesters wasted little time posting their antics online, where their message now has a worldwide megaphone. David Wright, ABC News, Washington.
CBS Evening News:
KATIE COURIC: President Obama will be spending a lot of time on Air Force One. He's flying tonight to Oslo where he'll accept the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow. He returns home on Friday. But next week, it's back to Scandinavia for the climate conference in Copenhagen. The U.S. and China squared off there today, each accusing the other of failing to cut greenhouse gases. And Wyatt Andrews tells us the entire conference is taking place under a cloud that's become known as Climategate.
WYATT ANDREWS: To anyone skeptical about the science of global warming-
REP. DARRELL ISSA (R-CA): Climategate.
REP. MIKE PENCE (R-IN): Climategate.
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN): Climategate.
ANDREWS: -Climategate is the biggest scandal ever.
GLENN BECK: They're just cooking the books.
ANDREWS: Climategate is the term being used for a handful of e-mails stolen last month from the influential CRU, the Climatic Research Unit in England. By far, the most embarrassing e-mail is from 1999 in which CRU's director Phil Jones brags that he's used a trick to "hide the decline." "Hide the decline" meaning hiding studies from tree rings that show the earth cooling since 1960 when actual temperatures show a trend toward warming. The phrase "hide the decline" is now so infamous it's being spoofed on YoutTube.
CLIP OF VIDEO WITH CARTOONS OF PROF MICHAEL MANN AND A COW SINGING:: Hide the decline, hide the decline.
ANDREWS: And the fact that global temperatures have gone down in some years was in other e-mails, with one scientist lamenting, "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we cant." To many Republicans, Climategate proves that global warming is a deception.
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI): And at worst it's junk science, and it is a part of a massive international scientific fraud.
ANDREWS: But if that's true, it's a fraud adopted by most of the world's leading scientists, along with NASA, the U.N., the American Medical Association, and the National Academies of Science of 32 countries, including the United States. To most of them, Climategate is a sideshow compared to one overwhelming fact:
PROF. MICHAEL MANN: The last decade is the warmest decade on record.
ANDREWS: Michael Mann is the professor who's being lampooned in that YouTube video. Mann says "hide the decline" was never an attempt to deceive, it was the use of real temperatures to show a real trend.
MANN: Those who deny the existence of this problem, who don't have the science on their side, have instead engaged in a smear campaign to distract the public, to distract policymakers.
ANDREWS: Climategate advocates do want political traction. They hope any uncertainty over manmade global warming might change the President's plan to offer CO2 cuts in Copenhagen next week. Wyatt Andrews, CBS News, Washington.
—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center
The two networks, however, painted the “stolen” e-mails not as laudatory whistle-blowing, but as an unwanted impediment to the left's global warming agenda. “Just as the world seems finally poised to do something about global warming, an inconvenient scandal,” ABC's David Wright began in playing off the title of Al Gore's movie. He despaired that “as the controversy heats up, the consensus about making the tough choices to curb carbon emissions threatens to crumble.”
On CBS, Wyatt Andrews relayed how “to many Republicans, Climategate proves that global warming is a deception,” before he countered: “But if that's true, it's a fraud adopted by most of the world's leading scientists, along with NASA, the U.N., the American Medical Association, and the National Academies of Science of 32 countries, including the United States. To most of them, Climategate is a sideshow compared to one overwhelming fact:” Viewers then were treated to this declaration from the scientist with the “hide the decline” boast: “The last decade is the warmest decade on record.”
Story Continues Below Ad ↓
ABC anchor Charles Gibson set up the World News segment:
In Copenhagen right now, world leaders are focused on the long-term and potentially devastating effects of climate change, global warming. And for all the scientific ammunition being presented at the U.N. conference, some stolen e-mails are giving encouragement to global warming skeptics.
Meanwhile, NBC continued its blackout of any embarrassing disclosures in the e-mails as anchor Brian Williams introduced a story:
As we've been reporting, there's been a world conference going on in Copenhagen. It's about climate change and global warming, but that subject heated up here today with a newspaper article by Sarah Palin, and then a return shot from Al Gore.
Reporter Anne Thompson concluded with the usual agenda: “At the climate talks, the bigger issue is American credibility, and will the United States live up to its promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions?”
Earlier rundowns of how the evening newscasts have ignored and dismissed ClimateGate:
Friday: “NBC Nightly News Takes Up ClimateGate, But Frets It Could 'Delay Taking Action'”
Sunday: “ABC and NBC Acknowledge 'ClimateGate,' But Remain Undeterred: 'Science is Solid'”
Monday: “Nets Panic: Clock at Zero in 'Life and Death' Effort to Avoid 'Global Catastrophe'”
Tuesday: “CBS and NBC Trumpet UN Predictions About Warmest Decade Since 1850”
The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide these transcripts of the stories on the Wednesday, December 9 evening newscasts:
ABC’s World News:
CHARLES GIBSON, IN OPENING TEASER: Hot topic: Did scientists skew their research to support theories about global warming?
...
GIBSON, BEFORE COMMERCIAL BREAK: And still ahead on World News, have global warming skeptics found a smoking gun? The controversy over climate change will be our "Closer Look."
...
GIBSON: We began tonight's broadcast with the powerful blast of bitter cold and snow that's blanketing much of the country – and its powerful, to be sure. But its effects will be short-lived. In contrast, in Copenhagen right now, world leaders are focused on the long-term and potentially devastating effects of climate change, global warming. And for all the scientific ammunition being presented at the U.N. conference, some stolen e-mails are giving encouragement to global warming skeptics. David Wright has our "Closer Look."
DAVID WRIGHT: Just as the world seems finally poised to do something about global warming, an inconvenient scandal.
GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Let's start with the science that has been so settled for all these years.
WRIGHT: Skeptics of climate change suddenly have plenty of new fodder.
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI): There is increasing evidence of scientific fascism that's going on.
WRIGHT: 1,000 e-mails dating back more than a dozen years stolen from a top climate research center in Britain.
SENATOR JAMES INHOFE (R-OK): For the taxpayers' sake, let's look at this controversy from top to bottom.
WRIGHT: As the controversy heats up, the consensus about making the tough choices to curb carbon emissions threatens to crumble.
JON STEWART, THE DAILY SHOW: Poor Al Gore! Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh!
WRIGHT: In the e-mails, the scientists are downright dismissive of naysayers. In one message, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore Labs offers to "beat the crap out of" a leading skeptic. In another, Penn State's Michael Mann suggests hiding data from dissenters, writing, "This is the sort of ‘dirty laundry' one doesn't want to fall into the wrong hands."
MICHAEL MANN: Imagine somebody going through all of the emails you ever sent, looking for a single word or phrase that could be twisted.
WRIGHT: One of the most damning e-mail exchanges credits Mann with a "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures. In another, the head of the National Center for Atmospheric Research writes a colleague, "The fact is, we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can't."
KEVIN TRENBERTH, NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH: It shows human nature at work, but I don't think it throws any, casts any aspersions on the science.
WRIGHT: Global warming may be a scientific issue, but it's also a hot-button political debate. So right now, the scientists aren't the only ones on the defensive. Politicians are, too.
LISA JACKSON, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: There is nothing in the hacked e-mails that undermines the science.
WRIGHT: That may be true, but the e-mails threaten to undermine the political effort under way in Copenhagen.
JAMES HOGGAN, HOGGAN AND ASSOCIATES PR: This is going to get worse. They are going to use this and blow it up way beyond anything that the evidence supports.
WRIGHT: At a recent book signing in Chicago, Al Gore was a soft target.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE PROTESTER: Research Climategate! This guy is a fraud! It's a scam!
WRIGHT: The protesters wasted little time posting their antics online, where their message now has a worldwide megaphone. David Wright, ABC News, Washington.
CBS Evening News:
KATIE COURIC: President Obama will be spending a lot of time on Air Force One. He's flying tonight to Oslo where he'll accept the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow. He returns home on Friday. But next week, it's back to Scandinavia for the climate conference in Copenhagen. The U.S. and China squared off there today, each accusing the other of failing to cut greenhouse gases. And Wyatt Andrews tells us the entire conference is taking place under a cloud that's become known as Climategate.
WYATT ANDREWS: To anyone skeptical about the science of global warming-
REP. DARRELL ISSA (R-CA): Climategate.
REP. MIKE PENCE (R-IN): Climategate.
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN): Climategate.
ANDREWS: -Climategate is the biggest scandal ever.
GLENN BECK: They're just cooking the books.
ANDREWS: Climategate is the term being used for a handful of e-mails stolen last month from the influential CRU, the Climatic Research Unit in England. By far, the most embarrassing e-mail is from 1999 in which CRU's director Phil Jones brags that he's used a trick to "hide the decline." "Hide the decline" meaning hiding studies from tree rings that show the earth cooling since 1960 when actual temperatures show a trend toward warming. The phrase "hide the decline" is now so infamous it's being spoofed on YoutTube.
CLIP OF VIDEO WITH CARTOONS OF PROF MICHAEL MANN AND A COW SINGING:: Hide the decline, hide the decline.
ANDREWS: And the fact that global temperatures have gone down in some years was in other e-mails, with one scientist lamenting, "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we cant." To many Republicans, Climategate proves that global warming is a deception.
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI): And at worst it's junk science, and it is a part of a massive international scientific fraud.
ANDREWS: But if that's true, it's a fraud adopted by most of the world's leading scientists, along with NASA, the U.N., the American Medical Association, and the National Academies of Science of 32 countries, including the United States. To most of them, Climategate is a sideshow compared to one overwhelming fact:
PROF. MICHAEL MANN: The last decade is the warmest decade on record.
ANDREWS: Michael Mann is the professor who's being lampooned in that YouTube video. Mann says "hide the decline" was never an attempt to deceive, it was the use of real temperatures to show a real trend.
MANN: Those who deny the existence of this problem, who don't have the science on their side, have instead engaged in a smear campaign to distract the public, to distract policymakers.
ANDREWS: Climategate advocates do want political traction. They hope any uncertainty over manmade global warming might change the President's plan to offer CO2 cuts in Copenhagen next week. Wyatt Andrews, CBS News, Washington.
—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center
Al Gore
Al Gore should know better.
He's now attacking the Global Warming sceptics in a more openly personal way than ever before. He used to be tolerant of opposing views. Not any longer.
What is the truth behind climate change, changing weather patterns, extremes in flooding and drought?
It's not easy to decipher given the different views of eminent scientists in both camps but when Al Gore joins the fray the waters just get muddier!
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He's now attacking the Global Warming sceptics in a more openly personal way than ever before. He used to be tolerant of opposing views. Not any longer.
What is the truth behind climate change, changing weather patterns, extremes in flooding and drought?
It's not easy to decipher given the different views of eminent scientists in both camps but when Al Gore joins the fray the waters just get muddier!
Al Gore - Looking for a role in life.....
Trouble with Al gore is that although his views on Global Warming have been refuted many times over by reputable scientists he has found himself a little bandwagon for his ego and he ain't going to give it up.....come what may.
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Sarah Palin and Global Warming
Love her or loathe her you certainly get things straight from Sarah Palin. Her views on Global Warming are strident and directly in the camp of the sceptics.
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Sarah Palin : This is where she stands on Global Warming
Sarah Palin all but declared global warming a hoax yesterday when she urged President Obama to boycott the Copenhagen climate change conference and to stand up to the “radical environment movement”.
The former Alaska Governor and possible 2012 presidential contender seized upon leaked e-mails from climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia. The scientists have been accused by global warming sceptics of falsifying data to make the case that the phenomenon is real and man-made, something they deny.
The scandal has become a cause célèbre among climate change deniers and sceptics in the US. A group of Republican politicians has vowed to fly to Copenhagen next week to argue that the threat from global warming is overblown and too costly to act on.
Writing on the editorial page of The Washington Post — which was criticised from the Left for allowing her to argue her case — Mrs Palin said: “The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue. She added: “‘Climategate’, as the e-mails have become known, exposes a highly politicised scientific circle — the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies been pushed in Copenhagen won’t change the weather but they would change our economy for the worse.”
Related Links
Sarah Palin: my life with a Down's child
Beware the fantasy world of Sarah, Warrior Princess
Mrs Palin’s article appears at a time when the scandal over the leaked e-mails is gaining increasing exposure in the US. A poll released on Monday also revealed that only 45 per cent of Americans believe that global warming is caused by human activity, down from 56 per cent two years ago.
Mrs Palin, last year’s Republican vice-presidential nominee, has become a leading voice for her party’s conservative grassroots supporters. Recent polls suggest that she would make a competitive candidate if she chose to make a bid to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.
Her argument that the case for climate change is far from proved is shared by a significant number in Congress. A cap-and-trade climate Bill that Mr Obama wants passed is bogged down in the US Senate, mainly over concerns that it will be too costly, and Democrats are several votes short of seeing it prevail.
Mrs Palin does not deny “the reality of some changes in climate — far from it”, and adds that “I saw the impact of changing weather patterns first hand while serving as governor of our only Arctic state”. She asserts, however, that such weather changes are “natural, cyclical environmental trends,” and that “we can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes”.
The former Alaska Governor and possible 2012 presidential contender seized upon leaked e-mails from climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia. The scientists have been accused by global warming sceptics of falsifying data to make the case that the phenomenon is real and man-made, something they deny.
The scandal has become a cause célèbre among climate change deniers and sceptics in the US. A group of Republican politicians has vowed to fly to Copenhagen next week to argue that the threat from global warming is overblown and too costly to act on.
Writing on the editorial page of The Washington Post — which was criticised from the Left for allowing her to argue her case — Mrs Palin said: “The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue. She added: “‘Climategate’, as the e-mails have become known, exposes a highly politicised scientific circle — the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies been pushed in Copenhagen won’t change the weather but they would change our economy for the worse.”
Related Links
Sarah Palin: my life with a Down's child
Beware the fantasy world of Sarah, Warrior Princess
Mrs Palin’s article appears at a time when the scandal over the leaked e-mails is gaining increasing exposure in the US. A poll released on Monday also revealed that only 45 per cent of Americans believe that global warming is caused by human activity, down from 56 per cent two years ago.
Mrs Palin, last year’s Republican vice-presidential nominee, has become a leading voice for her party’s conservative grassroots supporters. Recent polls suggest that she would make a competitive candidate if she chose to make a bid to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.
Her argument that the case for climate change is far from proved is shared by a significant number in Congress. A cap-and-trade climate Bill that Mr Obama wants passed is bogged down in the US Senate, mainly over concerns that it will be too costly, and Democrats are several votes short of seeing it prevail.
Mrs Palin does not deny “the reality of some changes in climate — far from it”, and adds that “I saw the impact of changing weather patterns first hand while serving as governor of our only Arctic state”. She asserts, however, that such weather changes are “natural, cyclical environmental trends,” and that “we can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes”.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Sceptics meet in Copenhagen........
It was a ragtag group of mostly ageing male academics and politicians, no more than 100 in total, crammed into a small meeting room in central Copenhagen – a far cry from the 15,000-strong United Nations climate change summit taking place on the other side of the Danish capital.
But the global warming sceptics holding their rival conference in the city insisted the momentum was shifting in their direction after the leaked “climategate” emails exposed questionable practices among some of the world’s leading climate scientists.
“The average person is starting to wake up to the fact that something is wrong,” said Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist whose book, ‘Heaven and Earth: Global Warming – the missing science’, has become a bible for climate change sceptics. “The average person does not like to be talked down to by arrogant bureaucrats or arrogant scientists.”
If a shift is taking place, there was little sign of it at the sceptics’ conference on Tuesday. No delegates from the UN talks appeared to have turned up and the media presence was a tiny fraction of the army of reporters embedded in the other conference. There were not even any activists or mainstream scientists on hand to challenge the sceptics’ arguments.
Recent opinion polls in the US, UK and other countries, however, suggest Mr Plimer and his allies may be striking a chord with a growing section of the public as climate change drops down the list of people’s political priorities.
Craig Rutter, executive director of CFACT, a sceptics’ organisation, said the leaked emails, in which climate scientists discussed ways to avoid making their raw data public and slung insults at sceptics, had crystalised public doubts about the consensus behind global warming. “People know that when someone hides their data or resorts to name calling, they are not confident of their facts,” he told the conference. “Alarmists have been cooking the books to get the results they wanted and putting climate propaganda ahead of science.”
There was a clear right-wing slant to much of the rhetoric, with Mr Rutter describing efforts to cap carbon emissions as the “greatest threat to human freedom since the fall of 20th century totalitarianism”, while other speakers warned that the costs of action, in terms of increased energy prices and suppressed economic activity, would cause more human misery than the impact of climate change itself.
“The governing classes worldwide have gone bonkers and taken leave of their senses,” said Lord Christopher Monckton, a former longtime adviser to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and now a leading sceptic.
It was not all political bombast. Several serious scientists, with long paper trails of academic work behind them, delivered power point presentations filled with data and diagrams attempting to show why the mainstream consensus was wrong.
Nils Axel Morner, an expert in sea level changes at Stockholm University, claimed that sea levels had shown no change in the Maldives or Bangladesh – two of the countries considered most at risk from climate change – for the past 30 years. Moreover, the sea level rises predicted by mainstream scientists were far in excess of what should be expected based on the rises that occurred when ice sheets melted at the end of the last ice age, he argued.
Perhaps the main message was a call for greater humility about the limits of knowledge and the fallibility of predictive models. One speaker after another accused mainstream climate scientists of betraying the sceptical spirit of scientific discovery and of selling their souls to a political propaganda programme in return for lavish government funding.
“Science should be anarchic, not dogmatic,” said Mr Plimer. “As soon as you hear the word ‘consensus’, you are talking politics. As soon as you hear the word ‘believe’, you are talking religion.”
Mr Pilmer questioned how scientists could so confidently predict future temperature changes when so little was understood about the causes of past changes, such as ice ages. He pointed to volcanoes and solar radiation as greater influences on climate than man-made carbon emissions. “I cannot respect a theory that looks at one trace gas as being the only variable that drives a very complex, dynamic, chaotic system called the earth.”
He and other sceptics poured scorn on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the 2,000-strong group of scientists responsible for establishing a link between man-made emissions and global warming – and took pride in their absence from the panel.
“Science doesn’t go on a vote,” said Mr Plimer. “Albert Einstein didn’t go around his mates and say, ‘I’ve found this equation E=MC squared, let’s take a vote on it’.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
But the global warming sceptics holding their rival conference in the city insisted the momentum was shifting in their direction after the leaked “climategate” emails exposed questionable practices among some of the world’s leading climate scientists.
“The average person is starting to wake up to the fact that something is wrong,” said Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist whose book, ‘Heaven and Earth: Global Warming – the missing science’, has become a bible for climate change sceptics. “The average person does not like to be talked down to by arrogant bureaucrats or arrogant scientists.”
If a shift is taking place, there was little sign of it at the sceptics’ conference on Tuesday. No delegates from the UN talks appeared to have turned up and the media presence was a tiny fraction of the army of reporters embedded in the other conference. There were not even any activists or mainstream scientists on hand to challenge the sceptics’ arguments.
Recent opinion polls in the US, UK and other countries, however, suggest Mr Plimer and his allies may be striking a chord with a growing section of the public as climate change drops down the list of people’s political priorities.
Craig Rutter, executive director of CFACT, a sceptics’ organisation, said the leaked emails, in which climate scientists discussed ways to avoid making their raw data public and slung insults at sceptics, had crystalised public doubts about the consensus behind global warming. “People know that when someone hides their data or resorts to name calling, they are not confident of their facts,” he told the conference. “Alarmists have been cooking the books to get the results they wanted and putting climate propaganda ahead of science.”
There was a clear right-wing slant to much of the rhetoric, with Mr Rutter describing efforts to cap carbon emissions as the “greatest threat to human freedom since the fall of 20th century totalitarianism”, while other speakers warned that the costs of action, in terms of increased energy prices and suppressed economic activity, would cause more human misery than the impact of climate change itself.
“The governing classes worldwide have gone bonkers and taken leave of their senses,” said Lord Christopher Monckton, a former longtime adviser to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and now a leading sceptic.
It was not all political bombast. Several serious scientists, with long paper trails of academic work behind them, delivered power point presentations filled with data and diagrams attempting to show why the mainstream consensus was wrong.
Nils Axel Morner, an expert in sea level changes at Stockholm University, claimed that sea levels had shown no change in the Maldives or Bangladesh – two of the countries considered most at risk from climate change – for the past 30 years. Moreover, the sea level rises predicted by mainstream scientists were far in excess of what should be expected based on the rises that occurred when ice sheets melted at the end of the last ice age, he argued.
Perhaps the main message was a call for greater humility about the limits of knowledge and the fallibility of predictive models. One speaker after another accused mainstream climate scientists of betraying the sceptical spirit of scientific discovery and of selling their souls to a political propaganda programme in return for lavish government funding.
“Science should be anarchic, not dogmatic,” said Mr Plimer. “As soon as you hear the word ‘consensus’, you are talking politics. As soon as you hear the word ‘believe’, you are talking religion.”
Mr Pilmer questioned how scientists could so confidently predict future temperature changes when so little was understood about the causes of past changes, such as ice ages. He pointed to volcanoes and solar radiation as greater influences on climate than man-made carbon emissions. “I cannot respect a theory that looks at one trace gas as being the only variable that drives a very complex, dynamic, chaotic system called the earth.”
He and other sceptics poured scorn on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the 2,000-strong group of scientists responsible for establishing a link between man-made emissions and global warming – and took pride in their absence from the panel.
“Science doesn’t go on a vote,” said Mr Plimer. “Albert Einstein didn’t go around his mates and say, ‘I’ve found this equation E=MC squared, let’s take a vote on it’.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
BBC News - Ed Miliband clashes with Lord Lawson on global warming
Lord Lawson beats on littler Ed.................
BBC News - Ed Miliband clashes with Lord Lawson on global warming
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BBC News - Ed Miliband clashes with Lord Lawson on global warming
'Global warming' threat is a big lie | LoHud.com | The Journal News
Yep- a great big lie........not that it's happening. But that its totally man's fault!
'Global warming' threat is a big lie LoHud.com The Journal News
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'Global warming' threat is a big lie LoHud.com The Journal News
Where are the Emails for Climategate?
I've trawled the Web to see if I can find and read these emails. I can't find them!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Report: Cooling Temperatures Don’t Disprove Global Warming - Science News - redOrbit
They want to be able to distort facts and figures whenever they want. See the recent bad boy behaviour of indecent scientists at the university of East Anglia.
Then they want to refute evidence when it clearly shows a distinct cooling in some areas.
Now I know that dealing with and assessing the science is very difficult but this is a case of having your cake, spitting it out, trying some sandwiches and eating them.....then spitting them out.
Who you going to believe?
Report: Cooling Temperatures Don’t Disprove Global Warming - Science News - redOrbit
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The aftermath of flooding....and the cause?
Countless peoples have been affected in the last few years.
Climate change, diverse weather patterns are with us - but what causes them remains a little more of a mystery.
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BBC News - UN hits back at climate sceptics amid e-mails row
Their presentation of scientific fact was no more than a manipulation of their data, an attempt to dupe everyone into believing that things are very much worse as regards global warming than the real facts show. Emailgate goes on and the UN gets involved.
For shame - Professors of Non Truth.
Now they're hitting back after being found out.........Read below for even more distortion.
BBC News - UN hits back at climate sceptics amid e-mails row
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Thursday, December 3, 2009
BBC News - Climate e-mail hack 'will impact on Copenhagen summit'
BBC News - Climate e-mail hack 'will impact on Copenhagen summit'
Will some of those who attack the sceptics now take a more studied and scientific view please.
Will some of those who attack the sceptics now take a more studied and scientific view please.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
42 Science & Technology EIR July 25, 2008
The Alarmist ‘Science’
Behind Global Warming
Lord Nigel Lawson, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer during the
Thatcher years and author of Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at
Global Warming, was interviewed by Gregory Murphy on July 10.
EIR: I’d like to start
with you describing how
hard it was to get your book
published.
Lawson: Well, I decided
to write this book, and I
gave the outline to my
agent. And he thought it
would be fine. But there
was extraordinary resistance
to it, so he said, you’d
better write it first. This is
very odd, because I’ve published
books before, and
each time, I have just given
an outline of the book, and
had absolutely no difficulty finding a publisher before the
book was written. But, it wasn’t like that this time.
So I wrote it. Even then, he sent it to any number of London
publishers, and couldn’t get anybody to take it. It was
quite clear that it was so politically incorrect that they wouldn’t
take it. Eventually, he found an American publisher—Peter
Mayer—who has a small London subsidiary, and that’s how it
came to be published. But it was very striking. That is to say,
it’s not something that I’ve ever come across before, and I’ve
written a number of books.
EIR: Would the subject matter of the book have been part
of the problem in finding a publisher?
Lawson: Yes, it was indeed. It was not so much the subject-
matter, because there’s a lot of interest in the subject. But
it was the fact that I took a view that was not politically correct:
There’s a kind of informal censorship—in England, anyway—
that it is not considered acceptable to hold a view which
is contrary to the new religion of global warming.
EIR: Your hearings in the House of Lords, in the Committee
on Economic Affairs, produced a report, which I found quite
helpful in sorting out some of the details on this highly uncertain
science of climate. I found it quite balanced in how it was
being presented, because you had both Sir John Houghton, first
chairman of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), and noted MIT climate researcher
Richard Lindzen speak on it. So you could see both sides. Did
you gain in your understanding on the climate from that kind of
discussion, as a policy-maker?
Lawson: Yes. Before that inquiry, I was extremely skeptical
of the economic sense in the policy which was being recommended
by the government and by governments in Europe
at the time. But I assumed that the science was absolutely
clear—cut and dried. It was only in the course of that inquiry
that I discovered that there was considerable uncertainty about
the science—not uncertainty as to whether there’s such a thing
as the “greenhouse effect”; there obviously is such a thing as
the greenhouse effect. But how large an effect it is, is extremely
uncertain.
It depends—as you well know—on complicated things in
the interaction between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and
EIR Science & Technology
Courtesy of Nigel Lawson
Lord Nigel Lawson
July 25, 2008 EIR Science & Technology 43
clouds, among other things. And the science of clouds is extremely
uncertain. It’s not a criticism of the scientists; it is extremely
complex.
And so, I discovered in the course of this inquiry, that it
was not merely that the economic prescription was, in my
opinion, not cost effective—and even if it was cost-effective,
nobody had looked to see whether it was cost-effective at that
time. But even the science itself was uncertain.
Global Warming and Iraq’s ‘WMD’
EIR: After the House of Lords report was released, Prime
Minister Gordon Brown had Lord Nicholas Stern produce a
report, which you described in the lecture that you gave to the
Center on Policy Studies, as, in a very real sense, the story of
the Iraq War writ large. Could you elaborate on that?
Lawson: What I had in mind there, was that the Iraq War
was based on the alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
And that without looking into it sufficiently clearly,
the United States and the United Kingdom, and one or two
other countries, went to war to get rid of the Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction, which it subsequently turned out they didn’t
have in the first place. And they hadn’t been properly looked
at, properly investigated.
In a similar way, we’re now told, [that there is a threat] of
mass destruction of the planet by warming. And then panic
measures are introduced, even though the threat is hugely exaggerated
(see Figure 1). Quite a similarity.
EIR: You have referred to the alarmist Stern Report in
your book, as another “dodgy dossier.” Which I thought was a
very good comparison, because that’s the sense I got when I
read it back in 2006. But I noticed one thing: The prevailing
media want to use the word “climate change” in their discussion
of this issue. In your book, you stayed with the term “global
warming.” Is there a reason that you stayed with that?
Lawson: Yes, I do it very deliberately. Because, of course,
the climate is always changing all the time, and in different
parts of the world, in different ways. And so therefore, there is
evidence of some kind of change in the climate.
But that is not what the issue is: The issue is, whether in
fact, globally, the Earth is getting warmer. If so, what is this
caused by? Is it largely man-made carbon dioxide concentrations,
or is it totally different reasons? And which [one] has a
huge bearing on what is sensible to do about it; and of course,
how big is the threat?
And, if there is no warming, which so far this century—although
the century’s young—but so far this century, there’s
been no further warming. If there is no further warming, the
Anthony Watts/surfacestations.org
The graph shows the University of Alabama at Hunstville (UAH) monthly temperatures for the lower Troposphere, taken by satellite since
1979, proving that Al Gore’s “global warming” ended in 1998. From January 2007 until May 2008, the temperature decrease has been
.774° C, which is larger than all of Gore’s hyped global warming for the entire 20th Century, which was only .6° C.
FIGURE 1
UAH Monthly Means of Lower Troposphere LT5.2, Global Temperature Anomaly 1979-2008
(Temperature ˚C)
44 Science & Technology EIR July 25, 2008
fact that there may be storms somewhere in the world, or unusual
weather patterns somewhere, is really nothing new, and
may have nothing to do with carbon dioxide concentrations.
The “greenhouse effect” can only cause other changes via
warming. And if the warming isn’t happening, then the climatic
variation is for different reasons altogether. And even if
the warming is happening, there’s a question of how much of
it is, as they say, due to the carbon dioxide. So, we need to focus
on what the issue is. And the issue is, the issue of warming
and why, and how serious is it?
Implausible Assumptions
EIR: Yes, that’s exactly the sense I’ve been trying to convey
in the articles I’ve written so far. I noticed that in most of
your presentations that I’ve looked at, you have pushed the prescription
of adaptability as the proper method to deal with
warming (if there is any), as opposed to the IPCC’s carbon-cutting,
emission-trading systems—what they call “mitigation.”
The IPCC spends very little time describing that adaptability,
and basically they use assumptions that say, this really
couldn’t work too well. Could you describe some of the assumptions
they use?
Lawson: There are two assumptions in particular that
they use, which I think are, to say the least, implausible. The
first is that they consider adaptation in terms of the technology
we have at the present time. But they’re looking 100 years or
more ahead: It is quite clear, that over those next 100 years,
technology is going to develop; we don’t know precisely how,
but it’s unrealistic to think it’s not going to develop, considering
how much development of technology there has been in
the past hundred years.
It’s going to develop, and therefore, the ability to adapt is
going to increase over time. So, to have your fixed point of the
adaptation as we can do it at a moment, is an implausible and
unrealistic assumption to base
your views on.
The other assumption which
is implausible, is, they do admit—
they curiously enough
state, in terms of Australia and
New Zealand, but I suppose it
must mean it applies to other developed
countries like the United
States, and United Kingdom,
Europe generally—they say
that, it’s all very well, of course,
these highly developed countries,
wealthy countries, they
can adapt to a considerable extent.
But the problem is with the
developing world: They’re the
people who are going to suffer,
because they lack—and I put
this word in metaphorical quotation
marks, but this is a very important concept in the IPCC’s
report, if you read it, as I’m sure you have done—“they lack
adaptive capacity.”
Now, I think that is patronizing, and misleading on a number
of counts: It’s misleading, because many of them, in fact,
do have the adaptive capacity now. It’s misleading because the
whole assumption of the IPCC is that developing countries are
going to grow very fast, and it’s this growth, which leads to the
growth of emissions, which leads to their projective temperature
increases—they’re going to grow very fast, and as they
grow, their adaptive capacity will increase in many cases.
Finally, it’s misleading and false, because, although of
course there will be some countries, no doubt, that will be less
successful in becoming more economically developed, there,
we can help them. We in the West—it is not a huge cost to devote
much of our overseas aid programs, to helping them, if it
should be the case. But if it should be the case that they need,
for example, better sea defenses, we can help them build the
sea defenses! The fact that they don’t have the adaptive capacity
to do it on their own, doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
So for all those reasons, I think that [the IPCC’s] estimate of
the capacity to meet the problem of warming, should it occur,
through adaptation, is totally unrealistic, and unduly pessimistic.
The result of which, of course, of this inadequate adaptation
which they assume, is that they tend to exaggerate what would
be the damages caused by global warming, should it occur.
The Benefits from Warming
EIR: Yes, I’ve noticed the really catastrophic consequences
that they associate with food production, human
health, and the rise in tropicial diseases, like malaria—things
like that.
Lawson: Yes, they say that. But if you look at each individual
thing, it is incorrect. It is quite clear what game they are play-
Lord Nigel Lawson compares the alarmist “Stern Report” on climate change, authored by Nicholas
Stern (left), to Tony Blair’s “dodgy dossier,” which “documented” Iraq’s non-existent weapons of
mass destruction.
Council of the EU
July 25, 2008 EIR Science & Technology 45
ing. And I’ve no doubt that most of them are well-
intentioned.
But they think they have got to paint the
most alarmist picture possible, in order to stir political
leaders into action. I’m sure they genuinely believe
that action is desirable. But they are deliberately
painting an alarmist picture, in order to persuade
politicians to take it seriously.
But this is an alarmist picture; it is not an objective
picture. And indeed, even if you read the
IPCC’s own report, you find they contradict themselves
time after time. For example, you mentioned
two things, food and health: This is based on an inadequate
assessment of the capacity to adapt, and
in food it’s particularly large, because of the development
of bioengineering, and genetically modified
crops, which is continuing to advance all the
time, that technology.
But they say, an increase in temperature of up to
3° Centigrade, which is more than their median
forecast for the next hundred years, would actually
improve global food production. Which is not surprising,
but it’s because the warming is often good,
and carbon dioxide has this fertilization effect on plants, and
they grow better. So, the alarmism is clearly unwarranted, even
from their own findings, which are, as I say, unduly pessimistic,
because of their inadequate estimate of what can be done,
or what would be done, through adaptation.
The other thing, in health: They say all these things about
health, but if you look at the table, where they show—this is
buried away—the table shows health effects, and the only
health effect which they list as virtually certain—the number
of grades is “certain” down to “possible”—is reduction of
cold-related deaths. But again, in some areas, you don’t find
this at all.
And right away, along with the whole picture, they underplay
the undoubted benefits that come from warming. I’m not
saying there aren’t damages, too, from warming, should it occur.
But you also have to recognize that there are benefits as
well, and see what the net effect is. And they downplay the
benefits to the most extraordinary degree.
EIR: Yes, that’s the assessment I had from looking at
their reports.
Lawson: And on the health thing: They downplayed it a
little bit in the latest report, the 2007 report. But the big thing
in their 2001 report—they say this, and Gore makes much of
this in his book and film, “An Inconvenient Truth”—is the
huge increase in malaria.
Malaria has very little to do with temperature. That is well
known. Prof. Paul Reiter of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, who
gave evidence to our Economics Affairs Committee investigation
which you referred to earlier, is probably the world’s
leading authority on malaria—he’s a professor of epidemiology.
He was associated with the IPCC originally, and he pointed
out that what they had to say about malaria, was plain
wrong! After all, malaria was endemic in Europe during the
little Ice Age: It’s got virtually nothing to do with temperature!
And they refused to change what they had written. And
so he was forced to resign from the outfit.
You know, they have a message, and they’re not interested
in expert, scientific evidence, if it conflicts with the message.
In our domestic affairs, we had a heat wave in Europe [in
2003]; I refer to it in my book. It was a regional heat wave, it
wasn’t a global heat wave, but there was one in Europe. And
there were a number of deaths, particularly in France, for particular
reasons of elderly people, as a result of dehydration.
And the Ministry of Health in this country, was sufficiently
concerned about it, to have a study about what would be the
consequences for health if the predictions of the conventional
computer models of temperature increase by 2050 were to occur,
what would be the health result by 2050? And they found
that there would be, by that time, 2,000 more deaths a year
from dehydration; and 20,000 a year fewer deaths from hypothermia!
But you very seldom hear this pointed out.
And, there was, incidentally, a French academic study
done about France, where they’d suffered the most from this
heat wave, which came to the same conclusion.
The Globe Cannot Outsource Its Emissions
EIR: Since we’ve seen the end of the G8 summit in Japan,
there’s a lot of talk, about cutting emissions. The question I
have, is, about the cost to the economy of this. And, if we
didn’t spend the money on these emission-cutting schemes, is
it plausible that we could afford to have health care, fresh
water,
and real development in the developing countries,
which would actually, in turn, cut their emissions?
In his super-hyped docu-fraud, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore asserts that the
worldwide increase in malaria is caused by Global Warming. In fact, Lawson
states, “malaria has very little to do with temperature. . . . After all, malaria was
endemic in Europe during the little Ice Age!”
46 Science & Technology EIR July 25, 2008
Lawson: I don’t know how much it would cut their emissions,
but it would certainly do far more good for the people.
It would certainly relieve these problems they do have, of
hunger, and drought, and malnutrition, and disease, and premature
death. It would certainly help them far, far, more. And
it would also actually cost considerably less.
EIR: Yes, that’s the sense I had. You’ve written in your
book, and said in your other presentations, that the biggest
problem right now in the developing world is massive poverty.
Lawson: That’s right.
EIR: And impeding their use of carbon-based fuels to further
their development, will actually do more harm to them,
than global warming ever could.
Lawson: That’s absolutely right. And that is why I think it
is most unlikely, that either China or India—I think it sounds
like Russia will, too, or one or two other big countries—but it’s
certainly most unlikely that either China or India will agree to
cut back their emissions drastically, which is what they’re told
they should do, as we are told we should do. And I think it’s
most unlikely. And even if they were to sign up for it, for a quiet
life, I’m quite sure they wouldn’t, in fact, implement it.
And if they take that view of signing up and not implementing
it, they are doing no worse than those of us who did
sign up to ratify the Kyoto agreement, and have done [nothing]—
because that was only a 5% reduction of carbon dioxide
emissions, but, in fact, it is quite clear that if anything,
there is going to be at least a 5% increase [in emissions] by the
end of the Kyoto period. And, of course, it really wouldn’t be
much bigger than that.
I think this is something people don’t fully realize, and I
don’t think I spelled it out with sufficient clarity in my book:
The reason that the Kyoto signatories have missed the target
by a relatively small amount—instead of a 5% reduction, it’s
something like a 5% increase—is because they have, in a
sense, outsourced their emissions. Because so much of manufacturing
industry has moved from the developed world to
China and India, and parts of the developing world, that the
emissions are no longer coming from the developed world,
which has made it relatively easy for us to have a lower growth
of emissions. But if if you are seeking—which they are in the
G8 meetings—a global cutback, there’s no way the globe can
outsource its emissions to Mars or wherever.
Selling Indulgences
EIR: When you think about these emissions-cutting
schemes, it brings the medieval indulgences back to mind. It’s
really: You can sin all you want, but as long as you can pay,
you’re okay, and somehow that’s going to solve the problems:
And that was not the case then, nor is it the case now.
Lawson: No, I think that, looking back, the sale of indulgences
by the medieval Church, was much less damaging,
much less harmful, than what is proposed now.
EIR: Yes, definitely. Considering now, you have a rise of
this, what you described as “eco-fundamentalism,” this moving
into the Age of Unreason—
Lawson: Yes, which is very worrying.
EIR: Yes, you have [global warming alarmist scientist]
James Hansen, the other day, making statements that skeptics
and oil executives should be put on trial for crimes against humanity!
Lawson: It is, it is. It’s a very alarming trend.
Book Review
Questioning the Global
Warming Religion
by Gregory Murphy
An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at
Global Warming
by Nigel Lawson
New York: Overlook Duckworth, Peter Mayer
Publishers, 2008
149 pp., hardcover, $19.95
Lord Nigel Lawson’s latest book is short, but polemical, attacking
the orthodoxy of the “new religion” of global warming.
Lawson’s previous book was a diet book (co-written with
his daughter, the chef and television personality, Nigella Lawson),
and now it appears that he wants to reduce the hysteria
around Al Gore’s global warming swindle. As such, it should
be required reading for all policy-makers.
In particular, Lawson’s arguments against the fraud of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) needs to
be understood by all the policy-makers of the world before
they pass an international agreeement to cut carbon emissions,
which would kill billions of people both in the developed
and the developing world. On this point, Lawson, who
was the treasury secretary in the Thatcher government, doesn’t
directly call the policies of the IPCC genocidal, which is the
major shortcoming in his book.
Lawson’s book has been attacked for saying that the science
of global warming is uncertain. Most of the attacks on the
book have been focussed on his statements that there has been
no global warming this century. But, in fact, the temperature
records from Britain’s leading climate research center, the
Hadley Center and the Climate Research Unit at the University
of East Anglia, indicate that global warming ended in 1998, a
July 25, 2008 EIR Science & Technology 47
fact noted by Australian Climate Researcher Bob Carter.
Al Gore’s warmaholic friends have attacked Lawson for
not being a scientist, but these people cannot have read the
whole book, or they would have noticed that Lawson states
very clearly that he is not a scientist—but then, neither are the
vast majority of those who espouse the currently fashionable
madness of global warming.
The ‘Dodgy Dossier’ of Warming
The book is an extended version of a lecture that Lawson
gave to the Center for Policy Studies in London in 2006. In it,
Lawson says that a constructive parallel for the British government’s
so-called Stern Report on the economic effects of
climate change is Tony Blair’s notorious “dodgy dossier” of
sexed-up intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
Lord Nicholas Stern, he says, “sexed up” his report by claiming
that global warming would cause more
damage than the two world wars and the
Great Depression combined.
The strongest feature of the book is Lawson’s
view that the only solution for global
warming, if warming were, in fact, a problem,
is to pursue the policy of adaptation. The
IPCC tries to ignore this as much as possible,
and it only gives honorable mention to this
type of solution. The IPCC’s own scenarios
are actually written by the Austrian-based International
Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis (IIASA), which denies the existence
of human creativity. That is why it is important
that Lawson pushes the adaptation possibility,
because that solution is based on the
idea that human creativity can find solutions to any problems
that may arise in the future.
Furthermore, the policy of adaptation is not one that has to
wait until there is an international agreement, as required by
the IPCC carbon-emissions cutting scheme. The presumed
problems that the IPCC points out—like sea-level rise and severe
drought conditions—could actually be solved right now:
The developed nations could help the developing nations to
build better sea defenses, and to start building nuclear desalination
plants to supply potable water.
Lawson estimates that for the cost of cutting carbon emissions,
the world could have all the fresh water, public health care,
and increased food production needed, which would be a better
solution to what he calls the largest environmental problem today:
widespread, and growing poverty throughout the world.
And unlike global warming, the problem of poverty is not a hoax.
Lawson has said that these small-minded solutions that Al
Gore promotes, such as changing your light bulbs and driving
a hybrid car, “are trival to the point of total irrelevance. What
would be required is for all transport to be 100 percent electric,
and all electricity to be generated by nuclear power.”
pOne problem with Lawson’s book is that he presents the
global warming hoax as a post-Cold War “red is now green”
outlook. This is the same view taken by other free-marketeers,
including the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus.
Klaus has gone so far as to say that environmentalism is the
new communism. This erroneous outlook severely misses the
point that the environmental movement is really just an antihuman
extension of the finanical oligarchy’s drive to reduce
the world’s population to 2 billion people and create a feudal
fascist world empire as a solution to the onrushing global economic
meltdown.
Otherwise, Lawson’s critique of environmentalism hits
the mark. He attacks the march of unreason represented by the
rise of the new religion of global warming as part of the larger
rise of eco-fundamentalism, or, more simply put, eco-fascism.
Lawson writes: “So the new religion of global warming, however
convenient it may be to politicians, it is not as harmless
as it may appear. Indeed, the more one examines
it, the more it resembles a ‘Da Vinci
Code’ of environmentalism. It is a great story,
and a phenomenal bestseller. It contains a
grain of truth—and a mountain of nonsense.”
Lawson continues, “We appear to have
entered a new age of unreason, which threatens
to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly
disquieting. It is from this, above all,
that we really do need to save the planet.”
As a prime example of what Lawson is
talking about, one only need look at the briefing
that NASA’s resident global warming nut
case, James Hansen, gave to the House Select
Committee on Energy Independence and
Global Warming June 23, in which he declared that climate
skeptics and oil executives should be put on trial for “crimes
against humanity.”
This little book is a refreshing reminder that not all of
the world’s policy-makers are in league with Al Gore and
his backers among the financial elites, in rolling the world’s
population back to dark age levels. His short presentation of
the uncertainty of the climate science is very accurate, and
he makes the point that computer models cannot forecast
the future because they are based on failed assumptions
generated by anti-human Malthusians who deny human
creativity, which is the greatest force for defeating poverty.
In all, Lawson’s book, even with its few shortcomings, is
a much needed attack coming from a policy-maker on Al
Gore’s global warming swindle.
. The registered British charity Optimum Population Trust issued a statement
on July 11, stating that the optimum world population would be 2 billion
people. Optimum Population Trust’s board of directors is a collection of malthusian
genocidalists which includes Sir Crispin Tickell, former U.K. Permanent
Representative to the United Nations Security Council, and a leading
promoter of the fascist global warming hoax; primatologist Jane Goodall, and
“population bomb” freak Paul Erhlich.
The Alarmist ‘Science’
Behind Global Warming
Lord Nigel Lawson, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer during the
Thatcher years and author of Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at
Global Warming, was interviewed by Gregory Murphy on July 10.
EIR: I’d like to start
with you describing how
hard it was to get your book
published.
Lawson: Well, I decided
to write this book, and I
gave the outline to my
agent. And he thought it
would be fine. But there
was extraordinary resistance
to it, so he said, you’d
better write it first. This is
very odd, because I’ve published
books before, and
each time, I have just given
an outline of the book, and
had absolutely no difficulty finding a publisher before the
book was written. But, it wasn’t like that this time.
So I wrote it. Even then, he sent it to any number of London
publishers, and couldn’t get anybody to take it. It was
quite clear that it was so politically incorrect that they wouldn’t
take it. Eventually, he found an American publisher—Peter
Mayer—who has a small London subsidiary, and that’s how it
came to be published. But it was very striking. That is to say,
it’s not something that I’ve ever come across before, and I’ve
written a number of books.
EIR: Would the subject matter of the book have been part
of the problem in finding a publisher?
Lawson: Yes, it was indeed. It was not so much the subject-
matter, because there’s a lot of interest in the subject. But
it was the fact that I took a view that was not politically correct:
There’s a kind of informal censorship—in England, anyway—
that it is not considered acceptable to hold a view which
is contrary to the new religion of global warming.
EIR: Your hearings in the House of Lords, in the Committee
on Economic Affairs, produced a report, which I found quite
helpful in sorting out some of the details on this highly uncertain
science of climate. I found it quite balanced in how it was
being presented, because you had both Sir John Houghton, first
chairman of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), and noted MIT climate researcher
Richard Lindzen speak on it. So you could see both sides. Did
you gain in your understanding on the climate from that kind of
discussion, as a policy-maker?
Lawson: Yes. Before that inquiry, I was extremely skeptical
of the economic sense in the policy which was being recommended
by the government and by governments in Europe
at the time. But I assumed that the science was absolutely
clear—cut and dried. It was only in the course of that inquiry
that I discovered that there was considerable uncertainty about
the science—not uncertainty as to whether there’s such a thing
as the “greenhouse effect”; there obviously is such a thing as
the greenhouse effect. But how large an effect it is, is extremely
uncertain.
It depends—as you well know—on complicated things in
the interaction between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and
EIR Science & Technology
Courtesy of Nigel Lawson
Lord Nigel Lawson
July 25, 2008 EIR Science & Technology 43
clouds, among other things. And the science of clouds is extremely
uncertain. It’s not a criticism of the scientists; it is extremely
complex.
And so, I discovered in the course of this inquiry, that it
was not merely that the economic prescription was, in my
opinion, not cost effective—and even if it was cost-effective,
nobody had looked to see whether it was cost-effective at that
time. But even the science itself was uncertain.
Global Warming and Iraq’s ‘WMD’
EIR: After the House of Lords report was released, Prime
Minister Gordon Brown had Lord Nicholas Stern produce a
report, which you described in the lecture that you gave to the
Center on Policy Studies, as, in a very real sense, the story of
the Iraq War writ large. Could you elaborate on that?
Lawson: What I had in mind there, was that the Iraq War
was based on the alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
And that without looking into it sufficiently clearly,
the United States and the United Kingdom, and one or two
other countries, went to war to get rid of the Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction, which it subsequently turned out they didn’t
have in the first place. And they hadn’t been properly looked
at, properly investigated.
In a similar way, we’re now told, [that there is a threat] of
mass destruction of the planet by warming. And then panic
measures are introduced, even though the threat is hugely exaggerated
(see Figure 1). Quite a similarity.
EIR: You have referred to the alarmist Stern Report in
your book, as another “dodgy dossier.” Which I thought was a
very good comparison, because that’s the sense I got when I
read it back in 2006. But I noticed one thing: The prevailing
media want to use the word “climate change” in their discussion
of this issue. In your book, you stayed with the term “global
warming.” Is there a reason that you stayed with that?
Lawson: Yes, I do it very deliberately. Because, of course,
the climate is always changing all the time, and in different
parts of the world, in different ways. And so therefore, there is
evidence of some kind of change in the climate.
But that is not what the issue is: The issue is, whether in
fact, globally, the Earth is getting warmer. If so, what is this
caused by? Is it largely man-made carbon dioxide concentrations,
or is it totally different reasons? And which [one] has a
huge bearing on what is sensible to do about it; and of course,
how big is the threat?
And, if there is no warming, which so far this century—although
the century’s young—but so far this century, there’s
been no further warming. If there is no further warming, the
Anthony Watts/surfacestations.org
The graph shows the University of Alabama at Hunstville (UAH) monthly temperatures for the lower Troposphere, taken by satellite since
1979, proving that Al Gore’s “global warming” ended in 1998. From January 2007 until May 2008, the temperature decrease has been
.774° C, which is larger than all of Gore’s hyped global warming for the entire 20th Century, which was only .6° C.
FIGURE 1
UAH Monthly Means of Lower Troposphere LT5.2, Global Temperature Anomaly 1979-2008
(Temperature ˚C)
44 Science & Technology EIR July 25, 2008
fact that there may be storms somewhere in the world, or unusual
weather patterns somewhere, is really nothing new, and
may have nothing to do with carbon dioxide concentrations.
The “greenhouse effect” can only cause other changes via
warming. And if the warming isn’t happening, then the climatic
variation is for different reasons altogether. And even if
the warming is happening, there’s a question of how much of
it is, as they say, due to the carbon dioxide. So, we need to focus
on what the issue is. And the issue is, the issue of warming
and why, and how serious is it?
Implausible Assumptions
EIR: Yes, that’s exactly the sense I’ve been trying to convey
in the articles I’ve written so far. I noticed that in most of
your presentations that I’ve looked at, you have pushed the prescription
of adaptability as the proper method to deal with
warming (if there is any), as opposed to the IPCC’s carbon-cutting,
emission-trading systems—what they call “mitigation.”
The IPCC spends very little time describing that adaptability,
and basically they use assumptions that say, this really
couldn’t work too well. Could you describe some of the assumptions
they use?
Lawson: There are two assumptions in particular that
they use, which I think are, to say the least, implausible. The
first is that they consider adaptation in terms of the technology
we have at the present time. But they’re looking 100 years or
more ahead: It is quite clear, that over those next 100 years,
technology is going to develop; we don’t know precisely how,
but it’s unrealistic to think it’s not going to develop, considering
how much development of technology there has been in
the past hundred years.
It’s going to develop, and therefore, the ability to adapt is
going to increase over time. So, to have your fixed point of the
adaptation as we can do it at a moment, is an implausible and
unrealistic assumption to base
your views on.
The other assumption which
is implausible, is, they do admit—
they curiously enough
state, in terms of Australia and
New Zealand, but I suppose it
must mean it applies to other developed
countries like the United
States, and United Kingdom,
Europe generally—they say
that, it’s all very well, of course,
these highly developed countries,
wealthy countries, they
can adapt to a considerable extent.
But the problem is with the
developing world: They’re the
people who are going to suffer,
because they lack—and I put
this word in metaphorical quotation
marks, but this is a very important concept in the IPCC’s
report, if you read it, as I’m sure you have done—“they lack
adaptive capacity.”
Now, I think that is patronizing, and misleading on a number
of counts: It’s misleading, because many of them, in fact,
do have the adaptive capacity now. It’s misleading because the
whole assumption of the IPCC is that developing countries are
going to grow very fast, and it’s this growth, which leads to the
growth of emissions, which leads to their projective temperature
increases—they’re going to grow very fast, and as they
grow, their adaptive capacity will increase in many cases.
Finally, it’s misleading and false, because, although of
course there will be some countries, no doubt, that will be less
successful in becoming more economically developed, there,
we can help them. We in the West—it is not a huge cost to devote
much of our overseas aid programs, to helping them, if it
should be the case. But if it should be the case that they need,
for example, better sea defenses, we can help them build the
sea defenses! The fact that they don’t have the adaptive capacity
to do it on their own, doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
So for all those reasons, I think that [the IPCC’s] estimate of
the capacity to meet the problem of warming, should it occur,
through adaptation, is totally unrealistic, and unduly pessimistic.
The result of which, of course, of this inadequate adaptation
which they assume, is that they tend to exaggerate what would
be the damages caused by global warming, should it occur.
The Benefits from Warming
EIR: Yes, I’ve noticed the really catastrophic consequences
that they associate with food production, human
health, and the rise in tropicial diseases, like malaria—things
like that.
Lawson: Yes, they say that. But if you look at each individual
thing, it is incorrect. It is quite clear what game they are play-
Lord Nigel Lawson compares the alarmist “Stern Report” on climate change, authored by Nicholas
Stern (left), to Tony Blair’s “dodgy dossier,” which “documented” Iraq’s non-existent weapons of
mass destruction.
Council of the EU
July 25, 2008 EIR Science & Technology 45
ing. And I’ve no doubt that most of them are well-
intentioned.
But they think they have got to paint the
most alarmist picture possible, in order to stir political
leaders into action. I’m sure they genuinely believe
that action is desirable. But they are deliberately
painting an alarmist picture, in order to persuade
politicians to take it seriously.
But this is an alarmist picture; it is not an objective
picture. And indeed, even if you read the
IPCC’s own report, you find they contradict themselves
time after time. For example, you mentioned
two things, food and health: This is based on an inadequate
assessment of the capacity to adapt, and
in food it’s particularly large, because of the development
of bioengineering, and genetically modified
crops, which is continuing to advance all the
time, that technology.
But they say, an increase in temperature of up to
3° Centigrade, which is more than their median
forecast for the next hundred years, would actually
improve global food production. Which is not surprising,
but it’s because the warming is often good,
and carbon dioxide has this fertilization effect on plants, and
they grow better. So, the alarmism is clearly unwarranted, even
from their own findings, which are, as I say, unduly pessimistic,
because of their inadequate estimate of what can be done,
or what would be done, through adaptation.
The other thing, in health: They say all these things about
health, but if you look at the table, where they show—this is
buried away—the table shows health effects, and the only
health effect which they list as virtually certain—the number
of grades is “certain” down to “possible”—is reduction of
cold-related deaths. But again, in some areas, you don’t find
this at all.
And right away, along with the whole picture, they underplay
the undoubted benefits that come from warming. I’m not
saying there aren’t damages, too, from warming, should it occur.
But you also have to recognize that there are benefits as
well, and see what the net effect is. And they downplay the
benefits to the most extraordinary degree.
EIR: Yes, that’s the assessment I had from looking at
their reports.
Lawson: And on the health thing: They downplayed it a
little bit in the latest report, the 2007 report. But the big thing
in their 2001 report—they say this, and Gore makes much of
this in his book and film, “An Inconvenient Truth”—is the
huge increase in malaria.
Malaria has very little to do with temperature. That is well
known. Prof. Paul Reiter of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, who
gave evidence to our Economics Affairs Committee investigation
which you referred to earlier, is probably the world’s
leading authority on malaria—he’s a professor of epidemiology.
He was associated with the IPCC originally, and he pointed
out that what they had to say about malaria, was plain
wrong! After all, malaria was endemic in Europe during the
little Ice Age: It’s got virtually nothing to do with temperature!
And they refused to change what they had written. And
so he was forced to resign from the outfit.
You know, they have a message, and they’re not interested
in expert, scientific evidence, if it conflicts with the message.
In our domestic affairs, we had a heat wave in Europe [in
2003]; I refer to it in my book. It was a regional heat wave, it
wasn’t a global heat wave, but there was one in Europe. And
there were a number of deaths, particularly in France, for particular
reasons of elderly people, as a result of dehydration.
And the Ministry of Health in this country, was sufficiently
concerned about it, to have a study about what would be the
consequences for health if the predictions of the conventional
computer models of temperature increase by 2050 were to occur,
what would be the health result by 2050? And they found
that there would be, by that time, 2,000 more deaths a year
from dehydration; and 20,000 a year fewer deaths from hypothermia!
But you very seldom hear this pointed out.
And, there was, incidentally, a French academic study
done about France, where they’d suffered the most from this
heat wave, which came to the same conclusion.
The Globe Cannot Outsource Its Emissions
EIR: Since we’ve seen the end of the G8 summit in Japan,
there’s a lot of talk, about cutting emissions. The question I
have, is, about the cost to the economy of this. And, if we
didn’t spend the money on these emission-cutting schemes, is
it plausible that we could afford to have health care, fresh
water,
and real development in the developing countries,
which would actually, in turn, cut their emissions?
In his super-hyped docu-fraud, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore asserts that the
worldwide increase in malaria is caused by Global Warming. In fact, Lawson
states, “malaria has very little to do with temperature. . . . After all, malaria was
endemic in Europe during the little Ice Age!”
46 Science & Technology EIR July 25, 2008
Lawson: I don’t know how much it would cut their emissions,
but it would certainly do far more good for the people.
It would certainly relieve these problems they do have, of
hunger, and drought, and malnutrition, and disease, and premature
death. It would certainly help them far, far, more. And
it would also actually cost considerably less.
EIR: Yes, that’s the sense I had. You’ve written in your
book, and said in your other presentations, that the biggest
problem right now in the developing world is massive poverty.
Lawson: That’s right.
EIR: And impeding their use of carbon-based fuels to further
their development, will actually do more harm to them,
than global warming ever could.
Lawson: That’s absolutely right. And that is why I think it
is most unlikely, that either China or India—I think it sounds
like Russia will, too, or one or two other big countries—but it’s
certainly most unlikely that either China or India will agree to
cut back their emissions drastically, which is what they’re told
they should do, as we are told we should do. And I think it’s
most unlikely. And even if they were to sign up for it, for a quiet
life, I’m quite sure they wouldn’t, in fact, implement it.
And if they take that view of signing up and not implementing
it, they are doing no worse than those of us who did
sign up to ratify the Kyoto agreement, and have done [nothing]—
because that was only a 5% reduction of carbon dioxide
emissions, but, in fact, it is quite clear that if anything,
there is going to be at least a 5% increase [in emissions] by the
end of the Kyoto period. And, of course, it really wouldn’t be
much bigger than that.
I think this is something people don’t fully realize, and I
don’t think I spelled it out with sufficient clarity in my book:
The reason that the Kyoto signatories have missed the target
by a relatively small amount—instead of a 5% reduction, it’s
something like a 5% increase—is because they have, in a
sense, outsourced their emissions. Because so much of manufacturing
industry has moved from the developed world to
China and India, and parts of the developing world, that the
emissions are no longer coming from the developed world,
which has made it relatively easy for us to have a lower growth
of emissions. But if if you are seeking—which they are in the
G8 meetings—a global cutback, there’s no way the globe can
outsource its emissions to Mars or wherever.
Selling Indulgences
EIR: When you think about these emissions-cutting
schemes, it brings the medieval indulgences back to mind. It’s
really: You can sin all you want, but as long as you can pay,
you’re okay, and somehow that’s going to solve the problems:
And that was not the case then, nor is it the case now.
Lawson: No, I think that, looking back, the sale of indulgences
by the medieval Church, was much less damaging,
much less harmful, than what is proposed now.
EIR: Yes, definitely. Considering now, you have a rise of
this, what you described as “eco-fundamentalism,” this moving
into the Age of Unreason—
Lawson: Yes, which is very worrying.
EIR: Yes, you have [global warming alarmist scientist]
James Hansen, the other day, making statements that skeptics
and oil executives should be put on trial for crimes against humanity!
Lawson: It is, it is. It’s a very alarming trend.
Book Review
Questioning the Global
Warming Religion
by Gregory Murphy
An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at
Global Warming
by Nigel Lawson
New York: Overlook Duckworth, Peter Mayer
Publishers, 2008
149 pp., hardcover, $19.95
Lord Nigel Lawson’s latest book is short, but polemical, attacking
the orthodoxy of the “new religion” of global warming.
Lawson’s previous book was a diet book (co-written with
his daughter, the chef and television personality, Nigella Lawson),
and now it appears that he wants to reduce the hysteria
around Al Gore’s global warming swindle. As such, it should
be required reading for all policy-makers.
In particular, Lawson’s arguments against the fraud of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) needs to
be understood by all the policy-makers of the world before
they pass an international agreeement to cut carbon emissions,
which would kill billions of people both in the developed
and the developing world. On this point, Lawson, who
was the treasury secretary in the Thatcher government, doesn’t
directly call the policies of the IPCC genocidal, which is the
major shortcoming in his book.
Lawson’s book has been attacked for saying that the science
of global warming is uncertain. Most of the attacks on the
book have been focussed on his statements that there has been
no global warming this century. But, in fact, the temperature
records from Britain’s leading climate research center, the
Hadley Center and the Climate Research Unit at the University
of East Anglia, indicate that global warming ended in 1998, a
July 25, 2008 EIR Science & Technology 47
fact noted by Australian Climate Researcher Bob Carter.
Al Gore’s warmaholic friends have attacked Lawson for
not being a scientist, but these people cannot have read the
whole book, or they would have noticed that Lawson states
very clearly that he is not a scientist—but then, neither are the
vast majority of those who espouse the currently fashionable
madness of global warming.
The ‘Dodgy Dossier’ of Warming
The book is an extended version of a lecture that Lawson
gave to the Center for Policy Studies in London in 2006. In it,
Lawson says that a constructive parallel for the British government’s
so-called Stern Report on the economic effects of
climate change is Tony Blair’s notorious “dodgy dossier” of
sexed-up intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
Lord Nicholas Stern, he says, “sexed up” his report by claiming
that global warming would cause more
damage than the two world wars and the
Great Depression combined.
The strongest feature of the book is Lawson’s
view that the only solution for global
warming, if warming were, in fact, a problem,
is to pursue the policy of adaptation. The
IPCC tries to ignore this as much as possible,
and it only gives honorable mention to this
type of solution. The IPCC’s own scenarios
are actually written by the Austrian-based International
Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis (IIASA), which denies the existence
of human creativity. That is why it is important
that Lawson pushes the adaptation possibility,
because that solution is based on the
idea that human creativity can find solutions to any problems
that may arise in the future.
Furthermore, the policy of adaptation is not one that has to
wait until there is an international agreement, as required by
the IPCC carbon-emissions cutting scheme. The presumed
problems that the IPCC points out—like sea-level rise and severe
drought conditions—could actually be solved right now:
The developed nations could help the developing nations to
build better sea defenses, and to start building nuclear desalination
plants to supply potable water.
Lawson estimates that for the cost of cutting carbon emissions,
the world could have all the fresh water, public health care,
and increased food production needed, which would be a better
solution to what he calls the largest environmental problem today:
widespread, and growing poverty throughout the world.
And unlike global warming, the problem of poverty is not a hoax.
Lawson has said that these small-minded solutions that Al
Gore promotes, such as changing your light bulbs and driving
a hybrid car, “are trival to the point of total irrelevance. What
would be required is for all transport to be 100 percent electric,
and all electricity to be generated by nuclear power.”
pOne problem with Lawson’s book is that he presents the
global warming hoax as a post-Cold War “red is now green”
outlook. This is the same view taken by other free-marketeers,
including the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus.
Klaus has gone so far as to say that environmentalism is the
new communism. This erroneous outlook severely misses the
point that the environmental movement is really just an antihuman
extension of the finanical oligarchy’s drive to reduce
the world’s population to 2 billion people and create a feudal
fascist world empire as a solution to the onrushing global economic
meltdown.
Otherwise, Lawson’s critique of environmentalism hits
the mark. He attacks the march of unreason represented by the
rise of the new religion of global warming as part of the larger
rise of eco-fundamentalism, or, more simply put, eco-fascism.
Lawson writes: “So the new religion of global warming, however
convenient it may be to politicians, it is not as harmless
as it may appear. Indeed, the more one examines
it, the more it resembles a ‘Da Vinci
Code’ of environmentalism. It is a great story,
and a phenomenal bestseller. It contains a
grain of truth—and a mountain of nonsense.”
Lawson continues, “We appear to have
entered a new age of unreason, which threatens
to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly
disquieting. It is from this, above all,
that we really do need to save the planet.”
As a prime example of what Lawson is
talking about, one only need look at the briefing
that NASA’s resident global warming nut
case, James Hansen, gave to the House Select
Committee on Energy Independence and
Global Warming June 23, in which he declared that climate
skeptics and oil executives should be put on trial for “crimes
against humanity.”
This little book is a refreshing reminder that not all of
the world’s policy-makers are in league with Al Gore and
his backers among the financial elites, in rolling the world’s
population back to dark age levels. His short presentation of
the uncertainty of the climate science is very accurate, and
he makes the point that computer models cannot forecast
the future because they are based on failed assumptions
generated by anti-human Malthusians who deny human
creativity, which is the greatest force for defeating poverty.
In all, Lawson’s book, even with its few shortcomings, is
a much needed attack coming from a policy-maker on Al
Gore’s global warming swindle.
. The registered British charity Optimum Population Trust issued a statement
on July 11, stating that the optimum world population would be 2 billion
people. Optimum Population Trust’s board of directors is a collection of malthusian
genocidalists which includes Sir Crispin Tickell, former U.K. Permanent
Representative to the United Nations Security Council, and a leading
promoter of the fascist global warming hoax; primatologist Jane Goodall, and
“population bomb” freak Paul Erhlich.
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