Climate Change

[Glacier]

Why do polls show the public is unconcerned about global warming or climate change, yet most politicians continue to support considerable funding for research and the push for remedial action? The Pew Centre consistently place global warming near the bottom (Figure 1).



Figure 1

A UN poll, which should influence activities and priorities of that agency show the same pattern (Figure 2).



Figure 2

Despite this Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon takes extraordinary actions.

The secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, is to join a public march calling for action on climate change this weekend. “I will link arms with those marching for climate action,” Ban told a press conference. “We stand with them on the right side of this key issue for our common future.” His unusual step – high-ranking officials do not normally attend mass public protests – is a measure of how high the stakes are at a summit next week of world leaders, called by the secretary-general, to discuss climate change.

Of course, he has little choice because the evidence and warnings of the dangers of climate change come from his agency. The same is true of most countries; it is bureaucrats in national weather departments who push the UN climate change agenda. The politicians are not in control because they don’t understand the science or are afraid to challenge their government appointed “experts”.

A few countries, such as India, oppose the trend most prominently pushed by President Obama. India accepted the resignation of Rajendra Pachauri from the Prime Ministers Council on Climate Change. As the Indian Express explained,

“The Council decides on broad policy guidelines on climate change, and is headed by the Prime Minister.”

It is possible Pachauri’s charges were an opportunity to sideline the most vehement proponent – it occurred in a country that does not have a stellar record in dealing with rape, let alone sexual harassment of women.

Pachauri’s resignation from his bureaucratic role as head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sparked a mixture of reactions from relief, amusement, and “it’s about time”. It is a useful change but does not deal with the wider problem of total control by bureaucrats. He was just the most exposed, active and biased. The power remains with the national, bureaucratically controlled, weather and climate departments around the world. Pachauri’s actions were all slavish dedications to what the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) people called “The Cause.” His commitment was religious as he acknowledged.

“I will continue to [work on climate change] assiduously throughout my life in what ever capacity I work. For me the protection of planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems is more than my mission, it is my religion.”

As such, it was blind faith and anyone who questioned it was a heretic. Laframboise identified Pachauri’s aloof response to a ruling by a UK regulatory body.

The IPCC is an organization that brings together the best experts from all over the world committed to working on an objective assessment of all aspects of climate change. The relevance and integrity of its work cannot be belittled by misleading or irresponsible reporting.

Pachauri was an extreme and almost unique bureaucrat, but that is one of the few differences between the UN and National bureaucracies.

Author and political commentator Mary McCarthy said, “Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.” The global warming/climate change issue is a frightening, textbook example.

Few are as skilled at exploiting the political opportunities available than Maurice Strong. He took the political agenda of the Club of Rome initiated in the 1960s but explained in their book 1991 Report “The First Global Revolution” and entrenched it in Agenda 21 with the IPCC providing scientific evidence.

Elaine Dewar explained in The Cloak of Green that he went to the UN because

He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, control the agenda.

Strong achieved that agenda with his acknowledged abilities. As Neil Hrab explained,

Mainly using his prodigious skills as a networker. Over a lifetime of mixing private sector career success with stints in government and international groups, Strong has honed his networking abilities to perfection.

What’s truly alarming about Maurice Strong is his actual record. Strong’s persistent calls for an international mobilization to combat environmental calamities, even when they are exaggerated (population growth) or scientifically unproven (global warming), have set the world’s environmental agenda.

He established the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) set up the IPCC. They directed the IPCC objective to produce the science necessary to support their claim that human CO2 was causing runaway global warming.

Appointees of the WMO dominate the IPCC. Strong likely had a hand in the appointment of senior Environment Canada bureaucrat Gordon McBean as Chair of the 1985 meeting in Villach Austria. As Richard Lindzen explained:

IPCC’s emphasis, however, isn’t on getting qualified scientists, but on getting representatives from over 100 countries, said Lindzen. The truth is only a handful of countries do quality climate research. Most of the so-called experts served merely to pad the numbers.

In all countries bureaucrats of national weather departments directed policy and easily challenged politicians who contradicted them – they were the experts. Lindzen knew from his direct involvement with the IPCC:

It is no small matter that routine weather service functionaries from New Zealand to Tanzania are referred to as ‘the world’s leading climate scientists.’ It should come as no surprise that they will be determinedly supportive of the process.

Bureaucratic control seems to explain the continued, almost total political support for the IPCC. This support continues despite evidence of corruption, failed predictions and polls showing virtually no public concern. There are some exceptions, noticeably the Obama administration. The political ideology is given scientific support and drive by his Science Advisor, John Holdren. He was involved in the process from the start. He co-authored a book with Paul Ehrlich and was a major player in the Club of Rome agenda. While Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy & Director, Program in Science he participated in the attacks on Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. It appears he is the power behind the most recent attacks on Soon.

Major weather offices with very direct involvement in the IPCC include the UKMO and NOAA. Sir John Houghton was moved from the UKMO to act as the first co-chair of the IPCC. NOAA employee Susan Solomon’s contribution includes co-editing IPCC Reports. It began by working on the progenitor of the Kyoto Protocol, the Montreal Protocol on ozone. Solomon et al’s., paper “Observations of the Nighttime Abundance of OCLO in the Winter Stratosphere Above Thule, Greenland,” Science, Vol. 242, October, p. 550-554, that was used as proof that chlorine from CFCs was causing ozone depletion.

People like Solomon are scientists, but a problem of objectivity develops when government hires them. They are not as openly driven to serve political masters as Pachauri, but the danger is very real. On 3 September 2010 in response to the question “Stifling politics out of science, does that make it devoid of its real social purpose?” Pachauri told the Times of India,

Let’s face it, we are an intergovernmental body and our strength and acceptability of what we produce is largely because we are owned by governments. If that was not the case, then we would be like any other scientific body that maybe producing first-rate reports but don’t see the light of the day because they don’t matter in policy-making. Now clearly, if it’s an inter-governmental body and we want governments’ ownership of what we produce, obviously they will give us guidance of what direction to follow, what are the questions they want answered. Unfortunately, people have completely missed the original resolution by which IPCC was set up. It clearly says that our assessment should include realistic response strategies. If that is not an assessment of policies, then what does it represent?

Laframboise suggests in the article referenced earlier that Pachauri’s excessive commitment is mostly cultural. That may be true about his role as an administrative bureaucrat, but it also underscores a serious problem with bureaucrats doing research anywhere.

I wrote about one dilemma I confronted with a bureaucrat doing research,which contradicted his political leader’s publicly stated position. The conflict with unrestricted scientific research is obvious. You are a bureaucrat and as Pachauri says, “we are owned by governments.” Governments determine the areas of research, but by having publicly held and politically biased positions bureaucrats effectively dictate the results required. I know of another Canadian Federal government researcher who reached a conclusion about an agricultural chemical that conflicted with the government’s public position. While on a two-week vacation they sent him an email offering an early retirement package to his work email. It said if the offer were not accepted within one week it would be automatically invoked. He returned to find his job terminated.

David Anderson, former Canadian Minister of the Environment announced government acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol. In the Press release he said they had consulted with all Canadian climate experts. Eight Canadian climate experts flew to Ottawa for a press conference to announce they were not consulted. Of course, the Minister was referring mostly to the bureaucratic scientists at Environment Canada.

Despite a distrust of politicians, people tend to have greater trust of governments. The trust varies nationally, but even in the US the authority of branches of government benefits from the view that bureaucrats are just following orders and don’t have a political agenda. This is particularly true of issues like weather and climate. People can’t imagine why or how they could have a political agenda.

Bureaucrats have the advantage that what they produce comes with an unseen, unwritten, seal of approval. It is assumed safe for schools. Indeed, the level of political involvement in both NOAA, and NASA provide special weather and climate material for children. Guess what they present?

Two issues that further entrench the power of bureaucrats include that they outlast most politicians and their department policy becomes the base for all other departments. For example, planning for the future of agriculture assumes that the future is warmer with more droughts.

Government’s sole scientific function should be data collection. The data must be available to anyone free of charge since they already paid for it. Government should not do any research because it is guaranteed to be political. Research submitted to a government must be presented written so anyone can understand. The IPCC evades detection of the inadequacies of their research and science by producing a document, the Summary for Policymakers, designed to simplify, but also distort for their political agenda. Under pressure, they finally allowed a more open review system but manipulated, delayed, cherry-picked and made it a mockery.

Maurice Strong used his skills to place bureaucrats of each nation in control of the IPCC. Through them they control the politicians. They are the major explanation for the contradiction between the public view expressed in the polls, the failed predictions, the falsified and contradicted science and the politicians. Laurence. J. Peter said,

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time the quo has lost its status.

When the status also fits their personal political agenda they can make it last even longer.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/04/i ... f-iceberg/

[steven lloyd]

Not much of a surprise …

China might be responsible for our horrible winters, says NASA

It turns out that a country on the other side of the world might be to blame for some of the bone-chilling weather we’ve been experiencing over the past few months.

While global warming is still being touted by most experts as the primary reason for the spat of wacky, worldwide weather in recent years, physicists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory believe air pollution specifically from China and India could be responsible for some of it as well.

http://www.theloop.ca/china-might-be-re ... g-to-nasa/

[I Think]

OSLO, March 19 (Reuters) - Arctic sea ice this year is the smallest in winter since satellite records began in 1979, in a new sign of long-term climate change, U.S. data showed on Thursday.

The ice floating on the Arctic Ocean around the North Pole reached its maximum annual extent of just 14.54 million square kms (5.61 million sq miles) on Feb. 25 - slightly bigger than Canada - and is now expected to shrink with a spring thaw.

"This year's maximum ice extent was the lowest in the satellite record, with below-average ice conditions everywhere except in the Labrador Sea and Davis Strait," the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said in a statement.

A late season surge in ice was still possible, it said. The ice was 1.1 million sq kms smaller than the 1981-2010 average, and below the previous lowest maximum in 2011.

With the return of the sun to the Arctic after months of winter darkness, the ice shrinks to a minimum in September.

The U.N. panel of climate scientists links the long-term shrinkage of the ice, by 3.8 percent a decade since 1979, to global warming and says Arctic summertime sea ice could vanish in the second half of the century.

[Glacier]

Meanwhile Antarctic sea ice is at record high levels, such that global sea ice is currently right on average for this time of year.

[I Think]

Glace, you are missing the fact that it is surface ice, possibly freezing because the Antarctic glaciers are releasing huge amounts of fresh water, which is less dense so floats to the surface, and freezes more readily.


http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarct ... ediate.htm


While the interior of East Antarctica is gaining land ice, overall Antarctica has been losing land ice at an accelerating rate. Antarctic sea ice is growing despite a strongly warming Southern Ocean.

Climate Myth...
Antarctica is gaining ice
"[Ice] is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap." (Greg Roberts, The Australian)
Antarctica is a continent with 98% of the land covered by ice, and is surrounded by ocean that has much of its surface covered by seasonal sea ice. Reporting on Antarctic ice often fails to recognise the fundamental difference between sea ice and land ice. Antarctic land ice is the ice which has accumulated over thousands of years on the Antarctica landmass through snowfall. This land ice therefore is actually stored ocean water that once evaporated and then fell as precipitation on the land. Antarctic sea ice is entirely different as it is ice which forms in salt water during the winter and almost entirely melts again in the summer.

Importantly, when land ice melts and flows into the oceans global sea levels rise on average; when sea ice melts sea levels do not change measurably but other parts of the climate system are affected, like increased absorbtion of solar energy by the darker oceans.

To summarize the situation with Antarctic ice trends:

Antarctic land ice is decreasing at an accelerating rate
Antarctic sea ice is increasing despite the warming Southern Ocean
Antarctic Land Ice is decreasing

Measuring changes in Antarctic land ice mass has been a difficult process due to the ice sheet's massive size and complexity. However, since the 1990s satellites have been launched that allow us to measure those changes. There are three entirely different approaches, and they all agree within their measurement uncertainties. The most recent estimate of land ice change that combines estimates from these three approaches reported (Shepherd and others, 2012) that between 1992 and 2011, the Antarctic Ice Sheets overall lost 1350 giga-tonnes (Gt) or 1,350,000,000,000 tonnes into the oceans, at an average rate of 70 Gt per year (Gt/yr). Because a reduction in mass of 360 Gt/year represents an annual global-average sea level rise of 1 mm, these estimates equate to an increase in global-average sea levels by 0.19 mm/yr, or 1.9 mm per decade. Together with the land ice loss from Greenland, this represents about 30% of the observed global-average sea level rise over this period.

[JLives]

Meanwhile Antarctic sea ice is at record high levels, such that global sea ice is currently right on average for this time of year.

That is misleading. The sea ice is not the concern, the land ice is. That is what is contributing to rising sea levels. https://news.vice.com/article/antarctic ... where-else

[Glacier]

Wait a second. i thought we were talking about sea ice. If we talk about record low sea ice in one area, we should be talking about record high in another for balance sake. It's like how we could focus on back east, and say that this was the coldest winter on record, Global Cooling is here, we are all going to die in another ice age, but then fail to mention how warm it has been out west.

The main reason the oceans are warming is because water expands when heated. land ice melt contributes too but let's not get too silly about that yet. It will contribute more in the future than now.

To say that ice melts on land, and then flows into the ocean, and freezes makes no sense. If the ocean is normally freezing at -2C, but is liquid because the actual temperature is -1C, you are telling me that water melted on land at 0C will flow into the ocean, and bring the freezing point up to -1C by reducing salt, but at the same time not warm the ocean to above that point? If that is the case, then why is the ice not growing faster in the areas of Antarctic where land ice is melting compared to where it is not melting?

[I Think]

The main reason the oceans are warming is because water expands when heated. land ice melt contributes too but let's not get too silly about that yet. It will contribute more in the future than now.

WHAAAT?


Land ice is less saline, so freezes at a higher temp, it is also less dense, so it surfaces, gradually it will equalize in salinity but it does take time.

The oil and gas industries have been tossing out pseudo science since the 60's trying to discredit the many valid arguments pointing to anthropomorphic global temperature rise, don't fall for it, they are spending millions trying to distract you.

[Glacier]

According to NOAA, the polar ice caps have just started to melt. At current rates it will take 23,000 years to melt Antarctic, but NOAA and others say that the melting will increase in frequency. Most of the sea level rise to date has been from a warming ocean, but melting polar ice caps will be the bigger player going forward.

P.S. Here is a very interesting interactive map showing how much sea level has risen. It has gone up quite a bit in some areas, but down in others (like Alaska).

[Ub2]

This is from an article I just recenty found.

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

[Ub2]

UPDATE:

The source report of the Washington Post article on changes in the arctic has been found in the Monthly Weather Review for November 1922. It is much more detailed than the Washington Post (Associated Press) article. It seems the AP heaviliy relied on the report from Norway Consulate George Ifft, which is shown below. See the original MWR article below and click the newsprint copy for a complete artice or see the link to the original PDF below:

[Glacier]

Patrick Moore, Ph.D., has been a leader in international environmentalism for more than 40 years. He cofounded Greenpeace and currently serves as chair of Allow Golden Rice. Moore received the 2014 Speaks Truth to Power Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, July 8, in Las Vegas.

I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of this hypothesis, yet we are told “the debate is over” and “the science is settled.”

My skepticism begins with the believers’ certainty they can predict the global climate with a computer model. The entire basis for the doomsday climate change scenario is the hypothesis increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to unlivable temperatures.

In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.

The idea it would be catastrophic if carbon dioxide were to increase and average global temperature were to rise a few degrees is preposterous.

Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced for the umpteenth time we are doomed unless we reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to zero. Effectively this means either reducing the population to zero, or going back 10,000 years before humans began clearing forests for agriculture. This proposed cure is far worse than adapting to a warmer world, if it actually comes about.

IPCC Conflict of Interest

By its constitution, the IPCC has a hopeless conflict of interest. Its mandate is to consider only the human causes of global warming, not the many natural causes changing the climate for billions of years. We don’t understand the natural causes of climate change any more than we know if humans are part of the cause at present. If the IPCC did not find humans were the cause of warming, or if it found warming would be more positive than negative, there would be no need for the IPCC under its present mandate. To survive, it must find on the side of the apocalypse.

The IPCC should either have its mandate expanded to include all causes of climate change, or it should be dismantled.

Political Powerhouse

Climate change has become a powerful political force for many reasons. First, it is universal; we are told everything on Earth is threatened. Second, it invokes the two most powerful human motivators: fear and guilt. We fear driving our car will kill our grandchildren, and we feel guilty for doing it.

Third, there is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites that support the climate “narrative.” Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; science institutions raise billions in grants, create whole new departments, and stoke a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; business wants to look green, and get huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as wind farms and solar arrays. Fourth, the Left sees climate change as a perfect means to redistribute wealth from industrial countries to the developing world and the UN bureaucracy.

So we are told carbon dioxide is a “toxic” “pollutant” that must be curtailed, when in fact it is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, gas and the most important food for life on earth. Without carbon dioxide above 150 parts per million, all plants would die.

Human Emissions Saved Planet

Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

We have no proof increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the earth’s slight warming over the past 300 years. There has been no significant warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted. Carbon dioxide is vital for life on Earth and plants would like more of it. Which should we emphasize to our children?

Celebrate Carbon Dioxide

The IPCC’s followers have given us a vision of a world dying because of carbon-dioxide emissions. I say the Earth would be a lot deader with no carbon dioxide, and more of it will be a very positive factor in feeding the world. Let’s celebrate carbon dioxide.

~Patrick Moore

[monilynno]

Guess we need to give him less carbon tax.

[highway001]

Glacier...how many experts and converted climate scientists turn out to be paid by the companies opposed to addressing this problem. Scientific American has a great article in this here is an piece and link. "The climate change countermovement has had a real political and ecological impact on the failure of the world to act on global warming," Brulle said in a statement. "Like a play on Broadway, the countermovement has stars in the spotlight – often prominent contrarian scientists or conservative politicians – but behind the stars is an organizational structure of directors, script writers and producers."
"If you want to understand what's driving this movement, you have to look at what's going on behind the scenes."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/


Recently Dr. Wei-Hock Soon, a researcher working at the Harvard-Smithdonian, Gary Palmer, the 49 Nasa signitures...all had their arguments dismantled many found with ties to corporate agendas.

Patrick Moore is no different. He did not co-found GreenPeace despite his claims. He joined in 71' while the organization begsn in 70'. There is even a signed letter in his own hand writing applying. Also just because he had a PhD...in resource ecology...does by no means make him a climate scientist.

But these are small points...when you consider
Patrick Moore, a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry, frequently cites a long-ago affiliation with Greenpeace to gain legitimacy in the media. Media outlets often either state or imply that Mr. Moore still represents Greenpeace, or fail to mention that he is a paid lobbyist and not an independent source…

For more than 20 years, Mr. Moore has been a paid spokesman for a variety of polluting industries, including the timber, mining, chemical and the aquaculture industries. Most of these industries hired Mr. Moore only after becoming the focus of a Greenpeace campaign to improve their environmental performance. Mr. Moore has now worked for polluters for far longer than he ever worked for Greenpeace.

Moore has repeatedly claimed that he left Greenpeace because their policies shifted to the radical left, saying for instance in his testimony, “I had to leave as Greenpeace took a sharp turn to the political left, and began to adopt policies that I could not accept from my scientific perspective.” But Greenpeace has a different view of the situation, saying “what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.” [U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 2/25/14; Greenpeace, 10/10/08]


Patrick Moore often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental “expert” or even an “environmentalist,” while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance. He also exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson, usually taking positions that Greenpeace opposes.

While it is true that Patrick Moore was a member of Greenpeace in the 1970s, in 1986 he abruptly turned his back on the very issues he once passionately defended. He claims he “saw the light” but what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.

Patrick Moore promotes such anti-environmental positions as clearcut logging, nuclear power, farmed salmon, PVC (vinyl) production, genetically engineered crops, and mining. Clients for his consulting services are a veritable Who’s Who of companies that Greenpeace has exposed for environmental misdeeds, including Monsanto, Weyerhaeuser, and BHP Minerals.

hMo//climatecrocks.com/2014/07/01/who-founded-greenpeace-not-patrick-moore/

[highway001]

As for these random quotes, links graphs and voices thst appear with the next time wasting red herring...

Bruce Wielicki, senior Earth scientist in the Science Directorate at NASA Langley, discuss climate change:

"You can't believe a single scientist, but you can believe thousands of scientists," he said, referring to several peer-reviewed science organizations–such as the IPCC group–that have arrived at the same conclusion: Climate change is happening.


If 97% of doctors agreed on a diagnosis ...would you be skeptical?