Climate Alarmist Paper Retracted Due To Fake Peer Review

A favourite taunt of climate alarmists is that The Science has spoken and it's spoken in a decidedly alarmed and warmist fashion. But as we saw in the Climategate emails, subverting the process of peer review has been a key tactic of the warmists. Sometimes this subversion is through the process of pal review, sometimes it's through applying pressure to keep stray editors in line and sometimes, as in this case, it's outright dishonesty.

Pakistani economist Khalid Zaman has just has a tranche of publications retracted by Elsevier because of faked peer review. In all 16 papers have been withdrawn according to Retraction Watch, due to irregularities in the peer review process. In this case Zaman had set up fake email accounts which he then used to create fake peer reviewers. These fake peer reviewers, were surprisingly open to Zaman's work for some inexplicable reason.

Of the 16 papers retracted, one stands out in particular: Causal links between greenhouse gas emissions, economic growth and energy consumption in Pakistan: A fatal disorder of society. In this paper Zaman and co-authors set out to show that carbon emissions are destroying Pakistani society. The abstract concludes:

 ...emissions caused by consuming the energy [sic] is causing harm to the society by enlarge, and it reaches to the conclusion where we are heading toward a systematic fatal disorder of our society.

So, just to get the story right, according to the good Professor, it's not poverty, rampant corruption, military interference in politics, the Taliban, terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism or proxy war with India that is destroying Pakistan, it's too much CO2. No wonder he had to make up his own peer reviewers. No sane person would have let that one go...

Go With The Flow - Pissing In The Wind

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the 'go with the flow' campaign has picked up so much momentum. For those who've missed it, this is the campaign to encourage people to piss in the shower as a way of preserving valuable water resources. Picked up by the BBC (naturally), and subsequently it's gone pretty viral. How many people who take a sneaky leak in the shower knew they were making a political statement?

Personally, I find the whole thing pretty depressing. Is this what it's come to? The campaign hails from two students at the University of East Anglia (Climateh=gate central to you and me). It somehow says a lot for the limited horizons of today's student eco-activists. The poverty to ambition is there. The pant-wetting excitement and endorsement from our establishment. The focus on limiting our ecological foot-print, trying to make us as invisible as possible. The incredible smugness of it...

How is this radical? Access to clean water is a real issue in lots of parts of the developing world. But not in Norwich as far as I know. Last time I was there it looked like there was plenty of water to go round. Will the water saved from not flushing the toilet after peeing in the shower get shipped to parts of the world where it could be useful? Nope. This is more about the illusion of radicalism than anything else. If they really want to make a difference then why aren't they campaigning for access to cheap electricity and infrastructure devlopment that will make a lasting difference to poor people without access to clean water? Why aren't they campaigning for more development not less?

And why stop at peeing? If they really want to show solidarity with poor people without access to resources, then why not take a dump and use the dried turds as a cooking fuel? Why not disconnect from the electricity grid and go to burning dung inside - then they can really experience what it's like to have no resources.

The Fake 'People's March'

As a former leftist I still like to look at what the comrades are up and what they have to say. Occasionally one is even surprised to find evidence of intelligent life in the stagnant pond. One port of call for me is the UK Indymedia site, still a good place to catch up with what activists are up to, particularly those not aligned to Respect or the SWP. Which is why it's interesting that there's nothing posted on the site about the People's March for Climate - you know the one, the one advertised on the tube and in a slick PR campaign of co-ordinated marches internationally.

Now the normal thing would be for demonstrations like this - which the anarchoids will see as reformist and led from above - would attract the attention of the more militant types. They will join the march so that they can leaflet and paper-sell in order to propagandise for more 'direct action' tactics. This happens on a range of issues - anti-war, anti-austerity, anti-fracking etc etc.

But in this case there's nothing. Not a sign of interest at all. Is this because the 'People's March' is so devoid of contact with activists that they've decided to ignore it completely? Or is a realisation that the whole anti-climate change tack is busted and of no value at all.

Like I said, I still look for signs of intelligent life in the pond, but these days it's hard to find any signs of life there at all...

Still, the BBC are covering this stroll by a tiny number of people. And the corporate organisers will be happy with that - as though a few lines on the BBC website is a good result for the hundreds of thousands they've spent putting this together.

Thank you, Australia

Thank you for ridding yourselves of the Labour Party, it's Green allies and the environmentalist dogma that still has the political classes in the rest of the Western world in thrall. Thank you repealing your carbon tax and showing us poor and oppressed masses in Europe and the US what is still possible. Thank you for showing that another world is possible.

Now, if you could just drop Al Gore into one of your croc-infested rivers we'd be even happier. And make sure you get Obama and Cameron to wade in to the same waters to rescure Al...

Owen Paterson - Not Green Enough?

How Ed Davey and the rest of the Limp Dums, and environmentalists in general, must be pleased that the latest reshuffle sees Owen Paterson out as Environment Secretary. Having someone not sufficiently alarmist in the position was always too much for them to cope with. And he was known for being a Eurosceptic. A double whammy. No wonder he's out...

And of course the NUT and other teaching unions are probably deliriously joyful at Gove's departure from Education.

Lib Dems To Ban The Wheel

Following internal discussions, leading Lib Dems are set to announce a range of new green policies. In addition to a plan to phase out the internal combustion engine for cars, a policy said to have support from the highest reaches of the coalition party, the new policies include a plan to ban the use of the wheel. An unnamed source within the party claimed that banning petrol and diesel engines in cars was only the start. For too long, the source claimed, the wheel had dominated. "No wheel, no transport, no transport and you've got the perfect solution to many of our environmental problems".



Leading Tories are said to be furious. "To be honest," a spokesperson from Conservative Central HQ is quoted as saying, "this is policy that is completely consistent with our policy of putting local first. Without the wheel pretty much everything will be local. So really, even though the Lib Dems are set to announce this first, it's really one of our policies."

Following an enthusiastic reaction to this leaked policy from the BBC, with both Matt McGrath and Roger Harrabin tumescent over the idea, other parties have been quick to respond.

Labour leaders are privately said to be angry because they have long been looking at this as a policy option too. "The wheel, basically a circle if we're going to be technical, has dominated other shapes for far too long. Why should our transport and industrial systems be geared around a circle and not, say, a triangle or a rectangle? As part of our diversity strategy we are going to pump public money into a transportation system that gives equal access to other shapes".

The reaction of the green party has been less positive. "You think this is a green policy? It's a cynical attempt to put a green tinge on neo-liberal policies. Think that's green? We're going to ban humans, now that's really green".

Round-faced Lib Dem minister Ed Davey has denied that he's banning the wheel because his face looks like one.

Guess What?

I was stunned, stunned I was, to read the headline on the BBC website: "Fracking 'could harm wildlife'".

Now I've been trying to avoid the BBC news site since I saw the Matt McGrath's article that pretty much said that climate change 'deniers' had come round to the truth because they now accepted that CO2 was a greenhouse gas and that the world had warmed. Either McGrath is a moron, or he's a slimy motherfucker deliberately playing the warmist game of 'we were right all along ...'. It really is one of the most outrageous bits of warmist propaganda I have ever seen, anywhere.

Anyway, mustn't think about it now, because my blood pressure rises and I end up ranting that we should privatise the BBC, or better yet just close it down completely. Our state broadcast is as despicably Orwellian as you can get when it comes to climate, environment, immigration, the EU, the cuts...ad infinitum.

So, back to the shock horror that fracking could - note the weasel word right there in the headline - harm wildlife. The source of this is a report from a completely disinterested group of environmental and green group, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (you know, the green charity that has tireless campaigned against wind turbines - or not, because chopping up birds is fine if they are collateral damage in the fight against global warming). The summary report, which is what the headlines are based on is available here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/shale_gas_summary_tcm9-365778.pdf

One would assume that such a document would largely be about the damage to wildlife that fracking has been shown to cause in countries where the technology has been used extensively - in other words based on the experience of the US. So I looked in the report for the evidence of extensive damage to wildlife habitats and the harm that this had done to wildlife. But no, there are some vague mentions of damage, but nothing substantive and most of the report is about climate change, methane, and vague 'could do...' prognostications. It's a science-light propaganda piece that is there just to agitate for tough restrictions on fracking because fracking is bad in and of itself. At the end of the day, these people would rather have birds sliced by wind turbines and the environment scarred by wind farms than go for a lower carbon fossil fuel like shale gas.

And of course, no such exercise would be complete without the BBC there to cheer-lead the way.

Christiana Figueres and the Silver Lining

There's a predictable, and understandable, sense of outrage over the statements made by Christiana Figueres, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, about the recent flooding in the UK. She is quoted as saying that the recent flooding has a silver lining in that it reminds us about climate change:

‘It’s unfortunate that we have to have these weather events, but there is a silver lining if you wish, that they remind us [that] solving climate change, addressing climate change in a timely way, is not a partisan issue.’

Of course she is only saying out loud what so many warmists believe anyway. Again and again they are on record as wishing for 'global warming' to really get going so that they can be proved right and we sceptics proved flat out wrong. Unfortunately for them nature doesn't want to play ball. We've not had the increased warming due to CO2, instead we've just had weather and a flat-lining of global temperatures (accepting for a moment that the very idea of a global temperature is a algorithmic construct that actually tells us very little). So, the words have morphed and now any unusual weather event is used as evidence of climate change, even in the face of no evidence and no way of attribution.

However, she's right of course, and with the BBC and most of the rest of the media and politicians playing the same game, the warmist message has definitely been boosted by the floods.

Gaia: Industry-funded Denialist

Professor Naomi Oreskes today revealed that Gaia is actually an industry-funded global warming denier. 'It's clear,' Professor Oreskes said, 'that Gaia is deliberately sowing the seeds of doubt and manipulating the weather in order to deny the science.'

George Monbiot, Guardian columnist and leading environmentalist agreed. 'How else do we explain the so-called pause in warming? It's out and out manipulation of weather patterns by Gaia. The science predicts a hockey stick, so what does Gaia do? It slices off the slope to flat-line the temperature rise, even in the face of continued increased in atmospheric carbon dioxide.'

These claims have been backed up by a number of leading scientists. Dr Kevin Trenbeth points out that all of the proposed drivers of the pause: volcanic activity, deep ocean heating, changes in the trade winds and more are all connected to Gaia. 'It's clear that Gaia is a flat earther in denial of the truths revealed by climate science.'

Dr Oreskes is demanding that Gaia be arrested and tried by the United Nations or the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. 'How much longer can Gaia get away with changing the weather just to make climate scientists look stupid. Gaia needs to get with the consensus or face the consequences.'

A number of climate change sceptics have disputed this new claim, adding to their list of denialist activities. Some have even suggested that Gaia is not actually a person but is just an abstract construct.

Dr Oreskes was visibly shocked when told of this allegation. 'These people are incorrigible,' she stated. 'Now, Gaia just needs to turn up the temperature again because it's freezing out here at the moment...'

Ed Militard - Climatologist

I must have missed the announcement that Ed Miliband had studied meteorology, climatology or any ology that involved physics, mathematics or joined up writing. Indeed, I was convinced until his recent statements about the flooding in the UK and climate change, that his area of expertise was wankology, a discipline that he seems to have mastered effortlessly. But now, only weeks after David Cameron showed us his expertise in the field, Militard has decisively intervened in the non-debate to tell us that 'climate change' is likely to make flooding worse. Except when it doesn't, and causes drought. Or blizzards. Or plagues of locusts.

FFS. When will these fuck-wits learn to just shut the fuck up and stick to taxing the hell out of us and intervening in our social lives, the latter being done for our own good of course.

Politicians, there is no situation they cannot make worse...

Tim Yeo Deselected

Good. A shame there's not a court case to go with the de-selection. He's another green spiv like Chris Huhne and deserves to spend some time in prison. Not that being a jail-bird has done much to dent Chris Huhne's green credentials...

Roger Harrabin Is An Irrelevant Old Hag

In discussing January's record wet weather in the UK on the BBC, so-called 'Environment Analyst' Roger Harrabin actually says this:

But consider this: we have drained bogs which used to catch rain; allowed soil to run off fields and clog rivers; built homes on our flood plains and supermarkets in our countryside; we've almost certainly heated the climate and swelled the sea level.

I kid you not. It's beyond satire. All he needed to add was that we've angered the sky gods. Is there even a coherent thought in all of that? It's just a long list of sins we humans have inflicted on Gaia and now she's pissed on a raining on us (especially on Somerset, what have you lot been doing in the West Country?)... Oh, of course, what you've been doing in the West Country is allowing the Environment Agency to get away with not draining your rivers. How come that's not on Harrabin's list of sins?

Fracking - The Next Step In The UK

Tucked away on the BBC News site is a little piece of local news that is sure to have national ramifications later. The story is about the proposal from Sinn Fein that there be a referendum in the county of Fermanagh on fracking. On the face of it this should be a good thing - for those of us of a libertarian bent local referenda are a good thing to have. The problem is of course that where the opponents of fracking are well-organised, have access to the media and can call on support from a wide range of green and leftist groups. They also have the advantage that they do not have to stick to the evidence, all they have to do is sow the usual greenist fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Who'll counter the welter of lies from the anti-fracking lobby? A few national politicians, none of whom sound like they mean it or know what they're talking about. Representatives from the smaller energy companies? They'll be accused of bias and confused with the big energy companies scalping the public. Sceptic bloggers and a few columnists like Booker and Delingpole.

It will not be a fair fight. Which is why I suspect that the greens are going to latch on to this pronto...

Cameron, Fracking and Climate Change

There are some who will rejoice in David Cameron's recent pronouncements on the joy of fracks. For those of us jealously looking at what has happened in the US, fracking has seemed like an absolute gift and have been desperately hoping that we in the UK would take advantage of shale gas and oil in the same way. For a long time we've watched the liberal establishment, including large chunks of the government, spreading lies and disinformation or else pandering to the green lobby. We've watched the manoeuvring in the EU as moves have been made to block the advance to market of shale gas. And, let's be honest, we're still a way off commercial exploitation of shale. But, that said, the fact remains that the recent announcement of additional incentives to local authorities to allow exploratory drilling is step in the right direction. The question is, however, is it the right thing to do? And, further, does this mean that David Cameron is no longer a green true-believer?

The reason for doubting the wisdom of the new incentives - allowing local authorities to keep 100% of business rates collected from shale gas schemes - is that it plays into the hands of those who portray fracking as dangerous, unhealthy, polluting, toxic and so on. If, as those of us who support fracking contend, it is safe, non-toxic and non-polluting, then why allow the extra incentives? If it's so positive, why the bribes? This is exactly what opponents will say and are saying. People will be told that they are being bribed, that they are selling out to the energy industry, that their acquiescence is being bought cheaply. Furthermore, opponents will claim that this is a subsidy and that it is yet another example of the fossil fuel industry being heavily subsidised. Yes, it's nonsense, but opponents of fossil fuels play fast and loose with things like definitions of subsidies. So, to those people and the green propagandists in the BBC and mainstream media, giving local authorities more revenues is a subsidy, but the feed-in tariffs and the panoply of schemes that hand over our money to wind and solar farms are not subsidies.

The bottom-line is that the incentives may actually back-fire in that they fuel suspicion and play into existing green narratives that seems all forms of fossil fuels - including the lower CO2 emitting shale gas - as inherently evil and to be attacked and stopped at all costs.

Now, to the question as to whether this change of heart on fracking signals that David Cameron is no longer a true believer. There are those on the left who have always assumed that Dave is really a cynical opportunist who has played the green card for political reasons alone. But the evidence doesn't stand much scrutiny. Dave may not have many principles, but he subscribes pretty much to the liberal line on most issues and particularly when it comes to environmentalism. Which is why he continues to make alarmist comments about climate change and will continue to do so no matter what the scientific evidence shows. He can justify his support for fracking because it reduces carbon emissions compared to burning coal, and because the US has shown that it can reduce overall emissions while delivering reliable power. In other words, for a pragmatic green politician fracking makes a lot of sense, and it's only the out and out fanatic like Caroline Lucas of the Green Party who cannot see that fracking makes sense even within the logic of anthropogenic global warming.

David Cameron - Prime Minister and Climatologist Speaks

Experts tell me that the recent weather we are having is completely consistent with climate change. Now I'm not a scientist, but people who know these things, the experts if you like, they tell me that weather is not climate. We all know this to be true, they're spelt differently for a start. But that technicality aside, we do know that our carbon emissions are causing warming somewhere in the world. That warming's probably jolly nice, but it's causing cold and wet elsewhere. You don't have to know anything about science to know that's true, and as someone who knows nothing about science, I can tell you from experience that it's true.

Let me elaborate a bit on this fact, because so many so-called climate change sceptics do not know this. The climate system is a bit like the economy. If I get richer, you must get poorer. If I get hotter, you must get colder. Which is why it's important that we continue to take your money in taxes and give it to people like me, who have the land to build wind and solar farms. So, please remember that if you're shivering and can't afford to have the heating on, it's because we've taken the money from you to sort out the problems your carbon emissions have caused somewhere else in the world, where's it's probably jolly hot and sticky.

Polar Ice All Gone - Just Like Gore Predicted It Would

Five years ago the Goracle himself predicted that the Arctic would be gone in five years. Yep. Five years. So on the day that even the BBC publishes a story on the spectacular rebound in Arctic ice extent and volume, here's a view of Gore in action...

 

Is anyone in the real world even listening to Gore these days?

Warsaw Climate Talks - Key Agreement Reached

It's in the nature of bureaucracies that self-preservation is the primary and over-riding feature. No matter what the original intention might be, once the organisation is established it will slowly evolve so that it can survive and prosper no matter what.

And so it is with so many of UN's bodies. Which is why the talks in Warsaw, which look like they'll follow tradition and 'go to the wire' and do everything to try and inject a sense of dynamism into the global warming corpse (which, like the real world, shows no signs of warming up...), has already reached the most important decision: the next stop for the roaming global circus. And the lucky winners this time are the French...

With that out of the way the pointless bickering can carry on as if it matters.

They Have No Shame

So listening to the warmists on the BBC this morning proved once again that they have no shame. Predictably the discussion with head honcho at the World Bank included an attribution of Typhoon Haiyan to man-made global warming. Sure, it was prefixed with 'scientists tell us that it's impossible to attribute a single event to climate change' but this segues into 'but we know that extreme events will become more frequent and more extreme, and this was an extreme event so...'

And so we have warmists using a natual disaster and the suffering of the people of the Philipines to continue to campaign for policies that will make such calamities worse in the future. As Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank, points out in the interview with Evan Davies, poverty makes the impact of such disasters much worse. So what does he suggest? More sustainable energy, a reduction in the use of fossil fuels and the rest of the green agenda. Access to cheap energy is essential for economic development to take place, and yet he advocates, and the BBC clearly promotes, the very policies that make energy more expensive and which hold back the development that means people can build homes that don't collapse every Typhoon season.

Of course, completely missing from the entire discussion, is any mention that warming stopped more 16 years ago. Where is the warming that is supposed to have made Haiyan more likely? The pause in warming is the most embarassing fact in climate science and yet it is routinely ignored by the warmist establishment.

Instead we get them using natural disasters as a cue to propagandise and promote failed environmental policies that actively work to keep the poor people of the world poor.

Really, they have no shame whatsoever and it's sickening.

Einstein At The Office

The scene: the office of the Chancellor of the University of Zurich. A diminutive Albert Einstein is sitting in front of the imposing oak desk of the Chancellor.

Chancellor: My dear Einstein, I am afraid that your head of department has expressed some unhappiness with the current situation.

Einstein: I'm sorry, Herr Chancellor, I don't quite follow...

Chancellor (Sighs expressively): Let me be to the point, Einstein, there's some concern in the department about some of your recent work.

Einstein (alarmed): An error in my work? I am presently revising my work on the Avogadro constant and believe I have made excellent progress on a new estimate...

Chancellor (interrupts): You misunderstand once again, Herr Professor, and alas it does make me wonder whether you are truly of the right cloth for a career in the academy.

Einstein: I apologise once again, Herr Chancellor, but perhaps you can enlighten me as I am clearly not following your line of thought.

Chancellor: The department are concerned that your recent funding applications are insufficiently compelling and that they cast the department in a poor light.

Einstein: But my work on Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect have been well received, Herr Chancellor. Very well received in fact.

Chancellor (looking distinctly unimpressed): I agree that your refinement of Helga von Thurinberg's theory on the photoelectric effect has some technical interest.

Einstein (shocked): Refinement?? Sir, I beg to disagree. Thurinberg's assertion that the photoelectric effect is caused by the sun smiling benevolently on grateful solids or liquids is not physics. It's not science of any description at all. It's pure metaphysical nonsense...

The BBC, Wine and Climate Change

Alarming headlines in the last couple of days have highlighted a projected a global wine shortage that is likely to raise prices as demands outstrips supply. Much of this is driven of course by changing patterns of demand, particularly relating to increased demand from China. The other side of the equation is also subject to changing patterns. Buried in the story on the BBC is this little snippet:

They say this could be partly explained by "plummeting production" in Europe due to "ongoing vine pull and poor weather".

Poor weather? But surely the BBC has been warning us for years that wine production was a risk because of rising temperatures, not because of cooling or wetter summers. For example on 20 October 2010 the BBC were warning that 'Best loved wines at risk from climate change'  - and here they meant increased warming.

Or perhaps we can go back a couple of years further and find that warming was the key concern on the story from 6 September 2008: 'Spanish wine makers fight climate change'

Go back to July 2007 and we have 'Winemakers keep weather eye on climate' . Again the story was that global warming was going to negatively impact wine production.

And so here we are in 2013 looking at what's really happening rather than on model projections and the story is very different. The climate is changing, but not how the models told it should. Rather than hotter, drier weather causing shrivelled vines, it's colder, wetter weather reducing the crop. For those of us who view a glass of wine (or two) as one of our five a day, this is worrying news, and as sceptics have been saying for a long time, it's global cooling that is the real danger to humanity, not the little bit of warming that we experienced nearly 20 years ago... But don't expect to read that on the BBC any time soon.