Hulme: gone soft

Mike Hulme has added his ambiguous contribution to the climate change series on The Conversation. As per usual he’s in effect protesting that those who take the science at its face value are alienating the public. He offers an alternative to the first statement in the open letter from the scientific community which kicked off the series.

Here’s what the scientists said:

“The overwhelming scientific evidence tells us that human greenhouse gas emissions are resulting in climate changes that cannot be explained by natural causes. Climate change is real, we are causing it, and it is happening right now.”

Here’s what Hulme offers in its place: Continue reading “Hulme: gone soft”

Global Warming and Political Intimidation

Climatologist Raymond Bradley has come out fighting in his new short book Global Warming and Political Intimidation: How Politicians Cracked Down on Scientists as the Earth Heated Up. It’s a lively, albeit sobering narrative which recounts his and others’ experience of harassment, character assassination and unfounded accusation from the politicians who serve fossil fuel interests in the US Congress.

Bradley has worked in climatology since the 1970s and explains in the prologue that it’s only as he has gradually learned more about the subject and scientific evidence has accumulated, that, like almost every other climatologist on the planet, he’s become convinced that global warming is a critical issue that requires urgent attention. He was one of the three authors of Michael Mann’s 1998 Nature article and follow-on studies which produced the so-called hockey stick graph demonstrating the recent warming as unprecedented in the last 1000 years. The graph became the focus of attack by deniers who seemed to think that if it was refuted the whole edifice of climate science would crumble.

“Nothing could have been further from the truth, as concern over global warming rests on a vast array of scientific evidence, of which the hockey stick is but a minuscule part.”

Continue reading “Global Warming and Political Intimidation”

On the road again

The Saunders, Oram and Salinger road show — a joint presentation on Maintaining farm productivity and profits in an uncertain climate — is about to go back out on the road, with a busy schedule of meetings lined up for coming months. The first talks are in Whangarei, Kaikohe and Kaitaia on July 14 & 15. Times and organiser details for the full tour, which sees the intrepid trio travel from Kaiatai to Invercargill, are below the fold. I’ll have to see if I can persuade them to add Amberley to their itinerary…

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So many lies – and the liar who tells them

A headline caught my attention yesterday:
Shock News: Disgraced Climategate Scientist Made Top UN Weatherman. It popped up all over the crank web. Climate Realists seemed to get it first, then Morano’s Climate Depot, and soon it was at the gloriously titled “CO2 Insanity“, ICECAP.us and many, many more. Here’s the intro and first sentence:

In a shock move a discredited global warming scientist implicated in climate fraud is appointed to a top job at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Jim Salinger, one of the scientists suspected of criminal misconduct in the Climategate scandal has been elected to the prestigious role of President of the Commission for Agricultural Meteorology of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Climate skeptics are aghast at the news.

The author? One John O’Sullivan. HT readers with long memories will remember him being wrong about everything before. In this case, amongst the untruths and libels in those few words is one simple mistake that makes the entire crank echo chamber look stupid for providing O’Sullivan with a platform. Jim Salinger’s election to the presidency of the WMO Commission for Agricultural Meteorology (CAgM) took place in 2006 — as O’Sullivan’s own reference demonstrates! Salinger remains a member of the CAgM, but the president is now
Dr Byong-Lyol Lee of Korea (full WMO membership list here). O’Sullivan’s “scoop” is a mere five years out of date! But wait, there’s more…

Continue reading “So many lies – and the liar who tells them”

Don Brash: climate clueless™ to the core

The new leader of New Zealand’s far-right ACT Party — the former National Party leader, Don Brash — has confirmed that he’s a fully paid up member of the climate clueless™, a worthy successor to Rodney Hide, and perfectly on side with major ACT Party backer, millionaire Alan Gibbs (who just happens to be on the policy advisory panel of the International Climate Science Coalition). But Brash hasn’t troubled himself with working on a new script for his climate denial, he’s retreading some of the oldest canards in the denial play book. In a speech this afternoon to the annual conference of Federated Farmers, Brash trotted out this remarkable sequence of untruths, half truths and straightforward lies, annotated below for your reading pleasure…

Continue reading “Don Brash: climate clueless™ to the core”