How far can a Minister of the Crown go in misrepresenting the facts of a matter before he is guilty of misleading the House? That’s not an easy question to answer, but any sensible reading of Rodney Hide’s speech in response to prime minister John Key’s statement to the House yesterday would suggest that if there’s a line to cross, Hide’s not just trodden on the chalk but taken a flying leap into touch.
Hide is certainly parliament’s highest-profile climate “skeptic” (his spelling), with a long track record of spouting the standard climate crank arguments, but yesterday Hide combined a complete misrepresentation of the so-called “climategate” affair with a scurrilous attack on the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, based entirely on the discredited smear campaign emanating from the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition and Richard Treadgold’s “Climate Conversation Group”. Here’s the relevant section of Hide’s diatribe, annotated by me to show just how far from the truth he strayed…
After an opening dig at the ETS, Hide climbs straight into the so-called “climategate” affair:
Climate-gate is now the greatest scandal in the history of science.
Astonishing hyperbole, but straight out of the denial campaign’s play book. Try Googling “greatest scandal in the history of science” and see where the hits are coming from…
It turns out that the prestigious agencies involved in leading climate change science were breaking official information laws,
Where does he get the plural from? One agency — the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK might have failed to meet the relevant freedom of information standards, but it was the subject of a coordinated campaign of frivolous FOI requests at the time, emanating from the Climate Audit blog — details here.
arbitrarily adjusting raw data,
Wrong. The “raw” data, supplied by national met services around the world was processed to create a global temperature record — a far from arbitrary process, and one fully described in the literature.
hiding the reasons for those adjustments,
Wrong. The methodology is fully described in the scientific literature.
then somehow contriving to lose the original unadjusted data so that it could not be independently checked,
Wrong. Most of the temperature data is freely available from national met services. Anyone wishing to independently check the CRU process could obtain the data in the same way as the CRU. Some met services do not make their data available free of charge (NIWA, for example, charged for access to its data until 2004), but will often provide it free to bona fide researchers.
thereby making claims that were not remotely justified by the state of the science,
Wrong. The various global temperature datasets produced by the Hadley Centre and CRU are very similar (though not identical) to those produced by NASA’s Godddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the various satellite data series.
and in some cases simply making it up.
Complete nonsense.
The so-called scientific agencies responsible for the climate-scare have ruthlessly suppressed competing theories and contrary data controlling and manipulating the peer review process.
More nonsense. If this were true, how did McLean et al (2009) slip through the net? The simple fact is that the most vocal sceptics are not working scientists, and do not submit papers to the peer-reviewed literature.
Government sponsored climate science has proved to have more in common with the Spanish inquisition than Popperian science.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Falsifiability is difficult to arrange with only one planet upon which to experiment.
Climate-gate, Glacier-gate, Africa-gate has left the once vaunted IPCC totally discredited.
Although “gates” are certainly proliferating in the media, when the substance of the allegations is examined the “mistakes” turn out to be minor. The IPCC’s fourth report is over 3,000 pages long. It would be a miracle if there were no mistakes in it, but it has certainly not been “totally discredited”.
I have always been a skeptic.
In mid-2008 (well after the publication of AR4). Hide was apparently happy to accept the state of the science as contained in the IPCC reports. Not so “skeptical” then. I wonder what happened to change Hide’s mind? Anything to do with ACT receiving large donations from millionaire climate sceptic Alan Gibbs?
When I started studying environmental science in 1975 many of the same so-called scientists were trying to scare the pants off us all with the coming of a new ice age. That’s because the world had been cooling for thirty years.
Hide studied for a Masters of Science in Resource Management at the Centre for Resource Management studies at what is now Lincoln University. One of his classmates at the time reports that Hide could have passed the paper without any reference to the primary scientific literature. Climate science wasn’t covered.
The “global cooling scare” never happened. There were a few media reports based on some speculative studies, but no “scare”.
It then warmed apparently for twenty-three years. So the same scientists turned global cooling into global warming. When the warming stopped in 1998, and the earth started to cool, the scare switched to climate change. That way the alarmists couldn’t be wrong. They were right whatever the temperature.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established in 1988. Republican strategist Frank Luntz suggested in a notorious memo in 2002 that Republicans should stop talking about “global warming”, and refer only to climate change as less “frightening”.
The world did not stop warming in 1998. Hide is repeating one of the oldest and most widely debunked canards in the crank catechism, but here’s the real irony: 1998 is only the warmest year in the record in the global temperature dataset produced by… wait for it… the Hadley Centre and CRU, the very body Hide has accused of “making stuff up”.
Our own NIWA is caught up in the scandal and its scientific credibility shredded.
NIWA has had nothing to do with any “gate” that Hide has mentioned.
NIWA’s raw data for their official temperature graph shows no warming. But NIWA shifted the bulk of the temperature record pre-1950 downwards and the bulk of the data post-1950 upwards to produce a sharply rising trend. Their warming trend is not a consequence of measurement but of manufactured adjustment.
Hide appears happy to forget that stations that have not been adjusted show the very same rising trend.
Well, there may be good reason for the adjustment.
So, before Christmas, I asked NIWA to disclose the adjustments and their reasons. They said they would.
But they have just told the Climate Science Coalition they don’t have the record of the adjustments.
As I discovered a couple of days ago, that’s not what NIWA told the CSC and Treadgold. The adjustments are described in the literature, and references were provided. Hide is clearly misrepresenting the facts of the matter here, taking his cue from the NZ CSC and Treadgold.
NIWA’s entire argument for warming was a result of adjustments to data which can’t be justified or checked.
A straightforward lie, and a direct attack on the scientists working at NIWA. The shareholding ministers for NIWA are finance minister and deputy PM Bill English, and minister for research, science and technology Wayne Mapp. They should immediately demand that Hide withdraw his allegation, and apologise.
It’s shonky. The entire thing is.
What’s shonky is the “work” done by Treadgold and the CSC. That Hide should rely on stuff that had already been widely and publicly discredited says a very great deal about his willingness to play fast and loose with the facts in order to pursue a political agenda.
But on the basis of shonky science, our government is whacking Fonterra with a $100 million-a-year bill, taxing the average dairy farm $10,000 extra and hiking fuel and power costs to every business and householder in the country.
Even if the science was perfect you wouldn’t have an ETS. But the science is not just settled. It’s descended into a farce.
The only farce here is that a member of the government, the minister for local government, should be prepared to tell lies in the House and participate in a smear campaign concocted by the Climate “Science” Coalition and the “Climate Conversation Group”.
Hide’s performance in the House yesterday was scandalous, and he should be held to account for it. His comments on climate science amount to a pot pourri of misrepresentation, lies and innuendo, and a direct attack on the reputation of NIWA and the scientists working there. Members of Parliament are free to speak their minds in the House — they have absolute freedom of speech, and cannot be sued for libel. But they are also obliged not to mislead the House, and it is clear that Hide’s performance yesterday was misleading in the extreme. There is a wider issue too: if a minister of the crown can lie with impunity about matters outside his ministerial responsibilities, how can the public have any confidence in his statements about areas in which he works? John Key needs to make Hide aware that credibility is hard won and easily lost, and he now has none. But I won’t be holding my breath.
[Update: At the same time as Hide was asserting that NIWA couldn't justify or check the adjustments made to the temperature, NIWA was publishing on their web site that very data. Did he think to check with NIWA before attacking them? Obviously not.]
Related posts:
- Egg/face interface for Hide and the climate cranks
- Who writes Rodney’s rubbish?
- NZ temps: warming real, record robust, sceptics wrong
- Treadgold and the NZ CSC: dogging a fled horse
- Sorry seems to be the hardest word
{ 88 comments… read them below or add one }
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James, the debate is much more meaningful when everyone is on the same page as it were. It is painfully obvious from your comments that your "substantive research" hasnt included reading IPCC WG1 so you know what the science actually is about instead of taking the word of denialist blogs for what it says. This is very different from AGREEING with anything in the IPCC reports, but it sure stops pointless straw man arguments.
So far, you havent come up with anything that hasnt been well debunked at skepticalscience either. You also dont have to agree with any counter argument there either but it means that the debate can start with why you dont accept the published science that it references.
Also, note the AGW is really a theory of climate build from multiple supporting lines of evidence. Its common for skeptics to regard it as a house of cards where doubt on one aspect will bring it all down. Its not. The theory has foundation is basic physics. Around that are many lines of supporting evidence. The direct, and strong ones, are measurements of energy emitted by the atmosphere. Next up would be model validation in things like stratospheric cooling, arctic amplification, 30 year trends in the temperature record, sea level rise, glacial loss, and ocean heating. Things like paleoclimate provide weaker but important validation. If you really want to bring AGW down without producing a better, alternative theory, then you need to attack the radiative physics and the observed direct validations. Good luck on that.
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Oh, and as for your analysis of temperature stations not matching GISS or like. Well publish it then. I look forward to reading it and seeing how you treated your data and what your methodology was.
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FWIW, I suspect that James and ben's arrival here may have something to do with this Facebook page. Worth watching the TV3 video of Mr Giles' performance. Has Ollie in stitches…
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It's a must see! Rodney has competition.
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Aargh: I tried to fix the links in Kiwiano's comment, and it seems to have been swallowed by the system…
The missing link (which is unmissable) is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B9MqNzQuuk
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I just wish the ACT party would use it's full name – "ACT STUPID" party.
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Yes despite the fact most of the world is jumping off the global warming band wagon alarmist's like yourself cling like dying men on the last life preserver to the "peer reviewed literature". Dont worry, I've read it all myself, the journals and the IPCC reports. And i used to believe it. Problem is it's all so easily debunked by using basic scientific records which are readily available. And you haven't said anything about Ben Santer and Phil Jones admitting they manipulated the results on film for all to see. Phil jones has even admitted on film that the planet has been cooling for the past 8 years. Care to explain why a prominent author of IPCC reports would be saying that.
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"Dont worry, I've read it all myself, the journals and the IPCC reports."
If you're going to write off the science and make up lies then it's not possible for us to have any agreement except that we disagree. Bye.
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I see you're quite fond of attempting to draw parallels. Much of the litererature you refer to has itself been bought into disrepute and had many questions asked about the motives of those writing them and who is paying their salaries. I'm simply refering you to records that have been kept and added to for many years, cryosphere today, how can you deny what their records show? And temperature statistics for each country supplied by the individual countries own research facilities that they quite happily post for anyone to see and do show a cooling in the last 8 years. They are simply statistics not scientific theory and require no peer reviewing. Many governments have come out recently and criticised the IPCC and other journals for incorrectly representing their data. And the university of illinois is a fairly substantial scientific body, my claims match up to their records and they aren't the only ones so what you're saying isn't entirely true. And i'm pretty sure you haven't read all the scientific literature so you're probably not in a position to comment on what they all say. You like most alarmists try to quash any argument by claiming an almost complete consensus on all the science. Trouble is thats just not the case and unluckily for you and luckily for humanity, the pendulum is swinging the other way rapidly. Try looking up polls why dont you, popular opinion is swiftly turning against you. The sheer fact that 30,000 scientists are suing Al Gore for fraud shows that there are plenty in the scientific community that do share my thinking. 30,000 is a huge number not to be readily dismissed. You can keep flogging this dead horse all you like but as time goes on you will be proven wrong.
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Sure it may have been easier to try and discredit that stuff a couple of years ago when not that many of the real facts were widely published. But now an increasing number of the worlds population are waking up to the real facts and despite you not having the time nor the inclination to respond, the number of people sharing james' views are continuing to grow at a huge rate. In several countries people that believe as you do are in a minority. So keep burying your head in the sand if you wish but pretty soon you will be swamped with "trolls". Look at the public opinion polls.
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No I've just looked at that now and Mr Giles is a muppet.
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Yes, CO2 is really interested in public opinion polls. If enough people say they don't believe in AGW, then CO2 will just stop absorbing IR, just like that!
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Since you like to reference the IPCC, can you explain why they've manipulated their findings(their own admissions) and why one of their most prominent authors phil jones has admitted that there has been cooling for the last 8 years. He also said that he was at a loss to explain it. None of you seem willing to explain the IPCC's shortcomings and self admitted lies and errors. Because there sure are several of them. If all the "denials" have been successfully debunked then why do the IPCC feel they need manipulated data. Surely if all the science was agreed upon then this would not be necessary. Your last paragraph sounds good but things like, temperature records, sea level rise, glacial loss and ocean heating have been manipulated. Love it how they say the sea is going to rise by 23 feet. Ha, at the most 23 inches, how do they get these things so wrong. But please, explain the IPCC admitted falsifications.
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The problem I essentially have is that from what I have looked at including Nasa and Hedley centre both show that cooling has occurred since 2002, also the University of Colorado have a temperature graph from 1979-2008, which is readily available and shows that since 2005 the earth has given back most of its warming since 1980. Also I have referred to the University of illinois' website which does side by side analsis satellite pictures of the cryosphere in which you can match any day of any month of any year side by side and it shows massive increases in ice `content especially south of the arctic from 2007 onward eclipsing any ice levels at any time before that as far back as 1980, these are very reliable sources surely, where can i find proof that it hasn't in fact cooled since 2002? Also i have mentioned the medieval warm period in which vikings colonised much of greenland and is acommonly held concensus among most scientists despite lack of co2 emissions what say you of that?
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Ben, a word to the wise. All of your claims are false.Please do just a little bit of research here or at Skeptical Science before attempting to engage in "debate". If you're not willing to put in the hard yards to understand the problem we face, then I'm certainly far too busy to respond to your comments.
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Simple. He didn't.
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Same as last time James. Go check your claims at Skeptical Science. You'll find they don't hold water.
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I have looked at skeptical science, several times now. And I've done plenty of research, so there should be no need for you to keep saying that. And i used to believe the same as you. If you guys think that website is the gospel in spite of all the other sites and data available out there then perhaps you are not so wise and should do a little more research. Probably not a lot of point in your case until you are prepared to open both eyes. And i reiterate the IPCC are on film admitting their lies and it has been reported numerous times. Simply saying the claims are false doesn't mean or prove anything. And for the umpenth time can someone on this site explain why the IPCC lied on so many issues? They've admitted it, its on film, saying its a false claim is not even remotely true. The final report that was to go before the copenhagen summit had in it 5 paragraphs where the UN's own scientists said they no definate evidence linking man to global warming. The report went before Ben Santer who edited out those 5 paragraphs before it was presented to the summit. He is on film admitting that he did this, get it, ON FILM. Therefore not false, explain please gareth.
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Hi guys thats an intersting comment regarding the 1940s to 1970s cooling and I welcome the fact that someone has actually addressed 1 of my issues and I will endeavour to learn more on this fact. One thing has leapt to my mind and that is this: Saying that aerosol was the cause of the cooling implies that it had and has more of an impact on climate than co2, and infact does much more than neutralise its warming capablity which is as explained by global warming theory.
Before the 1940s, despite using fossil fuels albeit at a lower rate. the co2/aerosol ratio would still have remained the same and should still have had a cooling affect as opposed to a warming affect from the co2? how is it that a large increase in the use of fossil fuels would cause aerosol to become a bigger factor in temperature change than the previous period when the co2/ aerosol ratios were the same? that doesn't make logical sense to me at all.
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Show me the film, Ben. Show me the film.
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Consider this Gareth, with several institutes and universities having conflicting data and findings to skeptical science not to mention the actual temperature records supplied by many different countries that dislike the IPCC for their lies. Is there not the slightest chance that skeptical science could be wrong. Especially with many doubts being cast from all corners about the peer reviewed literature. Doesn't carry the same weight it used to, with all the funding from people that expect certain outcomes whether they be true or not. One thing is definate gareth you are not quoting an exact or even agreed upon science. There are many dubious claims and statements about the consensus side of things on your infallible website.
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James and Ben are obviously playing games with the site, to say nothing of cluttering up my inbox. Perhaps if we treat them with ignore they'll go away.
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What the public opinion polls do show is that with all the conflicting data out there the public find the data disproving global warming to be more believable. And its heading more in that direction all the time.
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The facts are not decided by opinion poll. The laws of physics aren't decided by ideology.
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There are no data disproving AGW. There is plenty of propaganda saying that, but the data are still comprehensively showing that there is a problem.
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Most worldwide polls show less than 40% support for the theory that anthropogenic warming is an important issue. Every poll shows a decrease in public support of anthropegenic warming being a problem in the last 2-3 years in most cases by between 10-15%. My point being the disdainful arrogance displayed by most on this site, which is highly condascending; should at least be sensitive to the fact that this is a far from settled deal. The bible of this site is clearly skeptical science and despite the many competing website e.g science and public policy, cryosphere today, University of Alabama, which clearly dont rate a look in. This issue is far from settled and its quite staggering that in all the abuse and condascension there hasn't been any word to the contrary on the Medieval warm period which was warmer than today and the cooling since 2002, I bet no one has looked up the hacked climategate emails which completely villify Professor Phil Jones one of the leading scientists at the IPCC who is now disgraced and resigned, his emails are appalling and all but prove the massive corruption going on, these emails are truely appalling look them up. Gareth responded that "Remarkably nothing you just said is true" in a passage of mine that referred to the cooling from 1940s to 1970s yet I have received a response regarding the cooling from another on this site. If Gareths statement is true there was no cooling then. Interesting
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Ben, you are overlooking the obvious points that I and others here are making to you.
1. Your sources aren't remotely representative of the scientific consensus on AGW.
2. You are simply wrong in saying that there is not scientific consensus on most of the science underpinning AWG and conclusions of the IPCC reports.
(Although I suspect it's pointless to do so, I nevertheless recommend that you actually read the IPCC reports, after all, these are in essence the world's most comprehensive and authoritative surveys of the current state of scientific knowledge on the subject. I suggest you read that recommendation again. And once again for its implication to sink in.
- Or, of course, it's all a clever conspiracy.)
So Ben, how about going away, do some real research, (or better still, come back after the 30,000 plaintiffs have won their case).
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You mean you havent seen it? And you had me believe you had all the facts down. Go to youtube and type it in, pretty obvious really.
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Gareth has to say that otherwise he is effectively admitting that his book is a load of cobblers.
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The hell you have, son! All you've done is memorize some routinized drivel we've all seen 73 times already (yes, I made it my business to count them all and then averaged out the result!)
Rightwing student-union types – sheesh!
(And: me fail English? That's unpossible?)
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Hi guys thats an intersting comment regarding the 1940s to 1970s cooling and I welcome the fact that someone has actually addressed 1 of my issues and I will endeavour to learn more on this fact. One thing has leapt to my mind and that is this: Saying that aerosol was the cause of the cooling implies that it had and has more of an impact on climate than co2, and infact does much more than neutralise its warming capablity which is as explained by global warming theory.
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And do your averaged out results confirm the common concensus that there has been cooling since 2002?, and include 1940s to 1970s cooling? that would be an appropriate average if it did. the reason my routinized drivel remains routinzed is because it is the achilles heal of global warming alarmists and it can't be answered i'e Medieval warm period, 1940s to 1970s cooling. also the central england temperature records from 1659-2009 show more warming from 1700 to 1730 than the whole of the 20th century thats 9 times the rate of warming. ( i'm not sure if you've heard that particular drivel but have a look) or mayb thats more conspiracy theory from me!
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But what about the warming before the1940s? if that wasn't indeed natural warming then it must have been according to increased co2 emissions according to global warming theory, so why would there be an increase in temperature if the sulphates and soot were still present in coal power stations and domestic fires at the time of the warming? why weren't the aerosols countering the temperature increases from the co2 at that time? and why then would an increased output in the 40s cause aerosols to suddenly become the bigger factor in influencing climate than co2 that doesn't really add up .And if it is to be claimed that the increase in temperature before the 40s wasn't from human emissions etc then that has to be an admission that natural warming was occuring.
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so what? of course natural factors have an impact. it's just that in the last few hundred years humans have deforested most of the planet and then dug up and burned much of the carbon that has been sequestered over millions of years and that is having a major measurable and observed impact.
If you really think your logic has the power to disprove AGW please do take your revelations to a higher authority than the comments on a blog. The heartland institute and Exxon urgently need you to get this stuff published because so far there is not a single credible scientific paper that has passed peer-review successfully challenging the basic tenets of AGW. I know you're probably going to go ahead and ring the scientist conspiracy bell. We all love that…
Good luck with that.
This might help answer some of your questions about aerosols: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming and there's a good documentary called 'global dimming' to look out for as well.
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There are many factors that influence climate. The major forcings are (in no particular order): solar, CO2, methane, volcanic activity, aerosols. Then there is water vapour and clouds, which actually contribute most of the greenhouse effect – water vapour is considered a feedback rather than a forcing, because water vapour changes in response to other changes, rather than driving changes in the energy balance of the atmosphere itself. See here for instance.
If you are interested in attribution, read here and here to start with.
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James – please avoid the straw man arguments. This is all addressed in WG1. For a quick look, try
http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-on...
for more.
Don't guess the forcings – look them up. Basically, increased CO2 emissions hang around for a long time so you get a cumulative effect whereas aerosols are very short lived.
Lots of factors affect climate. Noone disputes this. The basic issue is not what affected climate in past but what is causing the CURRENT warming because the forcings that we measure suggest that anthropogenic factors, primarily GHG, are to blame. If you are going to insist on "its natural" – then kindly venture WHAT natural cause you think is doing it because so far science struggles to find one. You would also need to explain why an extra 3-4W/m2 of warming from increased GHG concentrations in the atmosphere is NOT warming us.
For the past, see WG1 for papers that have modelled past forcings and compared to temperature record. Chapter 6, 6.6.3, p476 forward.
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A couple of points, James. First of all, there is no such thing as "global warming theory". There is Greenhouse theory, first proposed by Fourier in the 1820s, subsequently expanded and confirmed, notably by Arrhenius in 1896 and Gilbert Plass in the 1950s. There are no climate scientists who dispute the basics of Greenhouse theory, not even sceptical climate scientists such as Lindzen, Spencer etc. If the Greenhouse effect did not exist, Earth would be a frozen ball of ice with a mean global temperature of about -18°C.
All of the items you have brought up are easily explained by Greenhouse theory, which accepts that there are many factors other than CO2 that influence climate. I wonder why you think a warm MWP would invalidate Greenhouse theory?
Second, Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a hypothesis (strictly a collection of hypotheses) that posits three things:
1) Atmospheric CO2 has been steadily increasing since the 19th century
2) Mean global temperatures have been increasing since the same time, and
3) The increase in CO2 is caused by fossil fuel emissions.
1 and 2 are observations that have been confirmed by several sources. 3 is confirmed by changes in C12/C13 isotope ratios.
The only real question that is debated by scientists is over exactly what the contribution of CO2 is. Some people suggest that CO2 is only responsible for a tiny fraction of the recent warming, and it is other factors that have been at play. The problem with that is that none of the other known factors have changed enough in recent times to have been the main cause of warming, whereas CO2 has. All of the evidence to date indicates that it is the combination of burning fossil fuels and land use changes that have increased atmospheric CO2, and that this is causing warming of a large enough degree that significant climate changes are in store.
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Thanks, CT, for such a clear exposition of the essentials of AGW that even an ACT droid should be able to follow it – not that I'm holding my breath…
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