Lock Up The Climate Crooks And Throw Away The Keys

It is difficult to grasp how much money has been wasted and how much human suffering has been caused by the hoax surrounding the decades-long myth of man-caused global warming/climate change.

What began as an innocent-sounding and appearing effort to understand the world's weather systems and patterns and how these affect humans on Earth was morphed into a bottomless money drain on taxpayers in the form of endless government funding of ever-increasing ludicrous projects.  Billions and Billions (Trillions) of dollars or their equivalent have been largely wasted.  Job creation?  Hardly.  It is like paying someone to dig a hole and then having them fill it in.

What have any of these "climate studies", laws, treaties, taxes, caps, trades, etc. actually accomplished?  Are we any safer?  Are our lives any better?  Is there less flooding, fewer tornadoes, a stabilization of sea level, are polar bears any happier?  Is there less "pollution", is the air any cleaner, are the glaciers advancing, or retreating, coral reefs living or dying, do we even really know any of those things, if we did, do they matter?  Has anything been done other than enrich Al Gore and people like James Hansen, the taxpayer-paid, global warming fathers of global warming alarmism?  They ought to be arrested, tried before a well-publicized jury of ordinary people, and if guilty, fined to their last penny, and locked up forever.

As I see the United States sink farther and farther into debt, not to mention the rest of the world, and I see money wasted on projects like mandated wind energy, solar farms, electric vehicles, ethanol fuel from corn, and a host of other things that are uneconomic, impractical, and used by corrupt politicians to manipulate people and simply serve as a means of collecting more taxes, I become a tad bit irritated. 

I care about America.  I'm not being paid by "big bad oil" to share this material and my knowledge and experience, limited as it may be.  I simply care about the world and its people and I hate to see the future being ruined by these so-called "environmentalists" for future generations.  Honestly, it is not for me.  I don't have that many years left.  I don't like seeing people being conned and ripped off.  Everyone is in far greater debt, (and remember taxation and perpetual debt is a form of slavery.)  I trust nobody likes being a slave, even if it is just a partial slave, and especially not a slave to these "climate criminals".
Peter

source

Climate Criminal Peter Gleick and James Hansen in Racketeering Probe?

Written by John O'Sullivan, guest post | March 01 2012

James Hansen being arrested at Keystone protest sit-in.FBI agents are urged to grill others linked to self-confessed climate criminal, Dr. Peter Gleick in the 'Fakegate’ climate counterfeiting scandal. Evidence now points to NASA’s Dr. James Hansen as accomplice in global warming racket.

Dr. Peter Gleick resigned last Thursday as chairman of the American Geophysical Union's Task Force on Scientific Ethics. Ross Rice, an FBI agent and spokesman from the Chicago field office confirmed an FBI probe is under way, “We are currently working with the [Heartland] institute and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago.

Dr. Gleick's rapid fall from grace has mired other top tier climatologists in what may become a full-blown wire fraud and RICO racketeering investigation by federal authorities. Leading critics are sure that the elements of 18 USC 1343 appear already met under admitted facts.
Questions will now need to be asked about the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) role in enabling Hansen to make a notorious presentation to Congress on June 23, 1988; all thanks to a dubious ‘peer-reviewed’ paper of his that AGU brusquely shoehorned through.

Now identity thief Peter Gleick has been exposed as disseminating at least one forged document used to defame the Heartland Institute, a well-known free trade policy think tank. Gleick admitted to Huffington Post readers that he handled stolen documents. His intent was to injure others – a crime under U.S. Law. Actual financial harm occurred due to Gleick's unlawful release of Heartland's donor list and contributions; one donor has since withdrawn funding.

However, none of the documents distributed by Gleick (other than the fake strategy document) reveal any smoking guns against Heartland. But already, astute investigators have found a worrying link between Gleick, Dr. James Hansen and the AGU that may yet point to a real smoking gun in U.S. climate fraud racketeering from 1988.

Gleick, Hansen and the AGU Complicit in the 'Greatest Crime'
Hansen's paper, foretelling of a world of catastrophic man-made global warming was 'peer reviewed’ to sway an otherwise skeptical Congress. The AGU is thus a vehicle of dubious patronage.

Hansen misled elected officials by deceitfully claiming that carbon dioxide (CO2) from ocean out-gassing and other natural vents has different carbon ratios 'signature' than human 'fossil fuel' emissions. Hansen then successfully duped policymakers into believing human CO2 emissions were linked to global warming. But the truth is that there is no way to distinguish between natural or man-made sources of CO2. Hansen's paper was thus not up to the scientific standard necessary for publication and should never have passed proper peer review.

Thus Hansen’s Congressional charade precipitated the U.S. government’s resolve to fight global ‘greenhouse gas’ warming and blow $100 billion tackling a proven non-problem (despite 30 percent rises in carbon dioxide emissions global temperatures have fallen this century).

Federal agents now have a green light to apply RICO statutes, designed to root out racketeering, based on the following facts:
As a self-confessed climate criminal Dr. Peter Gleick faces incarceration. He has already admitted to being implicated in identity theft, stealing private documents and falsifying evidence to defame, and thus injure the Heartland Institute and others. Gleick is linked via the AGU to Hansen's 1988 paper and by association to other scientists suspected of fraud (inc. hockey stick graph conjurer, Michael Mann).
Over the decades such unprincipled alarmists stand accused of filching millions in taxpayer funds by exploiting public fears in a phony global warming narrative.

How RICO Statutes May Be Applied
If the FBI can show that a fraudulent AGW narrative was knowingly implemented by Gleick, Hansen and other key players, then not only can prosecutions for racketeering be swiftly implemented, but the whole climate science house of cards will collapse.

Federal law sets out the meaning of racketeering activity under 18 U.S.C. § 1961. Identity theft and the fraudulent creation of documents that Gleick dishonestly attributed to Heartland clearly qualifies his crimes as possible racketeering offenses under RICO.

To sustain convictions a pattern of racketeering activity must first be established. This requires the FBI to produce evidence that Gleick, AGU and/or other co-conspirators have engaged in at least two acts of racketeering activity. The law requires that investigators tie together such acts within 10 years of each other.

The burden for prosecutors is not a light one but these riders of the global warming gravy train may well fit the bill as per the test applied by the U.S. Supreme Court. This is the 'continuity-plus-relationship test' applied to determine whether the facts of a specific case give rise to an established pattern.

U.S. Supreme Court guidelines state that co-conspirators "have the same or similar purposes, results, participants, victims, or methods of commission, or otherwise are interrelated by distinguishing characteristics and are not isolated events." (H.J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell Telephone Co.)

Where Does Climate Politics and Law Go From Here?
Other experts share my opinion that there is sufficient probable cause to follow through with a thorough in-depth federal investigation into the Gleick ’Fakegate’ case to see how far the 'post-normal' climate cancer has spread. Certainly, Peter Gleick should be offered a plea bargain deal if he rats out the other racketeers.

Apologists for climate criminals will not be curbed until the leaders of this 'post normal' academic cult are jailed. But whether the Obama government has the stomach to follow through and permit such prosecutions remains to be seen, as Chicago FBI agent, Ross Rice hinted:
“Whether Gleick, a member of the U.S. intellectual elite and a former student and coauthor with John Holdren, Obama’s Science Adviser, is ever charged is a different issue than whether his acts meet the elements of 18 USC 1343.”

Skeptics have already seen how the British police have stalled for two years despite admissions by one British climatologist of his climate crimes (Dr. Phil Jones could still feasibly be prosecuted under the UK Fraud Act).

If national governments won’t put a stop to it then state prosecutors and civil litigants likely will. Indeed, Glieck's crimes may also be prosecuted under California law. Section 528.5 to the Penal Code deals specifically with such impersonation (SB 1411: Internet Impersonation).
While over in Virginia, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is a high-profile prosecutor adamant he will continue the fight on behalf of the Commonwealth’s taxpayers and expose Michael Mann's hidden misdeeds.

Meanwhile, in Vancouver popular skeptic climatologist, Dr. Tim Ball is making strides defending vexatious libel suits filed separately by Dr. Michael Mann and Dr. Andrew Weaver. History will eventually join all such pieces of the puzzle to show how just extensive the climate fraud truly was.

New Species Found

(late addition: dedicated to Andrew Breitbart, a patriot and seeker of the truth.)

Is it rare?  Yes, very.  Is it endangered?  Let's hope not.  (As my usual style, my comments are in italics.)

I just discovered something (someone) very rare indeed, a sceptical (honest) climatologist, and her name is Dr. Judith A. Curry.  Bear in mind Dr. Curry is no lightweight, from her blog:

Judith Curry is Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and President (co-owner) of Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN). She received a Ph.D. in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago in 1982. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, she held faculty positions at the University of Colorado, Penn State University and Purdue University. She currently serves on the NASA Advisory Council Earth Science Subcommittee and has recently served on the National Academies Climate Research Committee and the Space Studies Board, and the NOAA Climate Working Group. Curry is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Geophysical Union.

So where  has Dr. Curry been hiding all these years?  My guess is she has been lost in the vast primitive swamps of politically correct academia where it is career suicide to question the conventional wisdom regarding global warming/climate change.  Why is she coming out now, after so many years in the climate closet?  I don't know, maybe she grew tired of living a lie.  Maybe "climategate" has made being a climate sceptic somewhat academically acceptable.  Maybe she wants to disassociate herself from the scandals at Penn St. (Michael Mann - climate fraud, football and child sex predators).  Maybe she finally feels secure in her career.  I don't know and don't care.  I just welcome her in from the cold and dark.

Here is where I found Dr. Curry sleeping....er.....speaking with the "enemy":
The IPCC May Have Outlived its Usefulness - An Interview with Judith Curry

The enemy in this case is a website titled oilprice .com.  Imagine the horror going through the ranks of Al Gore's global warming true-believers!  They are probably on suicide watch.  It gets better, and I couldn't be happier.  I almost feel vindicated because I've stuck my timid little professional neck out on the line about what I've long called "the myth of man-caused global warming.  This blog is testimony to that.  Here is a thought along those lines:

“The acid test of intelligence is whether the things you believe in turn out to be true.” — James R. Cook

Here is the beginning of the interview with Dr. Curry.

The IPCC May Have Outlived its Usefulness - An Interview with Judith Curry

By James Stafford | Mon, 27 February 2012 23:22 | 22

As the global warming debate increases in its intensity we find both sides deeply entrenched, hurling accusations and lies at one another in an attempt to gain the upper hand. This divide within the scientific community has left the public wondering who can be trusted to provide them with accurate information and answers.
The IPCC, the onetime unquestioned champion of climate change, has had its credibility questioned over the years, firstly with the climategate scandal, then with a number of high profile resignations, and now with the new “Gleickgate” scandal (1) (2) – One has to wonder where climate science goes from here?

We have just had the pleasure of interviewing the well known climatologist Judith A. Curry in order to get her thoughts on climate change, the IPCC, geo-engineering, and much more.
Judith is the current chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and hosts sensible discussions on climate change at her popular blog Climate, etc.
Considered somewhat of a black sheep within the scientific community Judith was a one time supporter of the IPCC until she started to find herself disagreeing with certain policies and methods of the organization. She feared the combination of groupthink and political advocacy, combined with an ingrained "noble cause syndrome" stifled scientific debate, slowed down scientific progress, and corrupted the assessment process.  (continued here.)

Now, let's here a few key comments.  (My observations in italics.)

OP: What are your personal beliefs on climate change?JC: The climate is always changing. Climate is currently changing because of a combination of natural and human induced effects. The natural effects include variations of the sun, volcanic eruptions, and oscillations of the ocean. The human induced effects include the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, pollution aerosols, and land use changes. The key scientific issue is determining how much of the climate change is associated with humans. This is not a simple thing to determine.  (Nothing new here, just the admission that there are "natural" causes of climate change, as if humans are somehow not "natural", a radical departure from the mainstream liberal ideology.  Peter)

JC: I absolutely think that more effort is needed in determining the effect of the sun on our climate. The sun is receiving increased attention (and funding),  (Again, nothing new, just something obviously long overdue.  Peter)

OP: You are well known in climate and energy circles for breaking from the ranks of the IPCC and questioning the current information out there. What do you see as the reasons for the increase in skepticism towards global warming over the last few years.

JC: Because of the IPCC and its consensus seeking process, the rewards for scientists have been mostly in embellishing the consensus, and this includes government funding. Because of recent criticisms of the IPCCIPCC, and I think this is a healthy thing for the science.  (Again, this is something I and many others have been saying all along.  Add to the blackmail and constant subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle threats climate skeptics have received.  Peter)

OP. What are your views on the idea that CO2 may not be a significant contributor to climate change? How do you think such a revelation, if true, will affect the world economy, and possibly shatter public confidence in scientific institutions that have said we must reduce CO2 emissions in order to save the planet?

JC: Personally, I think we put the CO2 stabilization policy ‘cart’ way before the scientific horse. The UN treaty on dangerous climate change in 1992 was formulated and signed before we even had ‘discernible’ evidence of warming induced by CO2, as reported in 1995 by the IPCC second assessment report.  (Demonizing CO2 was a tactic, clever, but ridiculous from the beginning.  A way of baffling the public with scientific jargon (Bull$hit), collecting taxes, selling carbon credits and enriching Al Gore.  Peter)

OP. You have been noted to criticize the IPCC quite openly in the past on several topics.
Even going so far as to say: “It is my sad conclusion that opening your mind on this subject (climate change controversy) sends you down the slippery slope of challenging many aspects of the IPCC consensus.”

Do you believe that the organization as a whole needs to be assessed in order to better serve progress on climate change? What suggestions do you have on how the organization should function?

JC: The IPCC might have outlived its usefulness.  (Send the entire United Nations packing.  All they do is waste taxpayer's money and spread their one-world-government ideology and socialism.  And send Hillary and her lust for gun control with them.  Peter)

OP. Would renewable energy technologies have received the massive amounts of funding we have seen over the last few years without global warming concerns?

JC: I think there are other issues that are driving the interest and funding in renewables, including clean air and energy security issues and economics, but I agree that global warming concerns have probably provided a big boost.  (To say the least!  There are many reasons to promote the myth of man-caused global warming....try corruption....Solyndra?  Political contributions from liberal environmental groups, a desire to control the energy industries of the world, a desire to rule the world, destroy America........there are many reasons to frighten people about global warming/climate change.  Peter)

 “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace
 alarmed–and hence clamorous to be led to safety–by menacing

it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them

imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken

OP. What do you believe are the best solutions to overcoming/reversing climate change; is a common consensus needed in order to effectively combat climate change?

JC: The UN approach of seeking a global consensus on the science to support an international treaty on CO2 stabilization simply hasn’t worked, for a variety of reasons.(Science does not operate by consensus.  Science must seek the truth and must be apolitical, non-partisan.  Peter)


OP. I saw an interesting comment on another site regarding climate science that i thought i’d get your opinion on as it raises some very interesting arguments:

"Climate science has claimed for 30 years that it affects the safety of hundreds of millions of people, or perhaps the whole planet. If it gets it wrong, equally, millions may suffer from high energy costs, hunger due to biofuels, and lost opportunity from misdirected funds, notwithstanding the projected benefits from as yet impractical renewable energy.
Yet, we have allowed it to dictate global policy and form a trillion dollar green industrial complex - all without applying a single quality system, without a single performance standard for climate models, without a single test laboratory result and without a single national independent auditor or regulator. It all lives only in the well known inbred, fad-driven world of peer review."

JC: I agree that there is lack of accountability in the whole climate enterprise, and it does not meet the standards that you would find in engineering or regulatory science. I have argued that this needs to change, by implementing data quality and model verification and validation standards.  (Bingo, right on the money, Trillions of dollars, millions of people suffer and die on the altar of global warming fear.  Peter)

OP: Do you believe that the language used in papers and at conferences is a problem? The public just wants straight answers to questions: Is the climate warming, By how much, and what will the effects be? Scientists need to step out from behind the curtain and engage the public with straight answers and in their own words. Is this achievable, or is climate science too complex to be explained in laymen’s terms? Or is it because even climate scientists can’t agree on the exact answers?

JC: I think the biggest failure in communicating climate science to the public has been the reliance on argument from consensus. We haven’t done a good job of explaining all this, particularly in the context of the scientific disagreement.  (We have conditioned our people to behave like sheep and follow the herd (consensus).  Of course that is what those who seek to rule us, the liberals, socialists, progressives, Democrats, want....power and control.  Peter)





 

Obama Administration Stupidity About Man-Caused Global Warming

Try and understand the logic of this. ClimateGate, among many recent developments, such as the failure of the climate meeting in Copenhagen, and the revelation that the United Nations Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is hopelessly flawed, fraudulent, and decidedly un-scientific, and the case for man-caused global warming and/or climate change is dead.

With that clear, why is the Obama administration going to spend (waste) another $154 million to try and "capture" and store (sequester) harmless carbon dioxide gas from the burning of coal in a power plant? Let's say it again. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, in spite of what the politically driven, Obama controlled EPA might say. We exhale CO2 with every breath; plants need it to grow, and yet our wonderful government is going to spend another $154 million of taxpayers money to capture this harmless gas and pump it underground. It doesn't get much more idiotic than that.

Note how in the following article, published today in USA Today, that the "green-washed", ignorant reporter(?) and even the Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu uses the term "carbon pollution", when anyone who is half-informed knows he's talking about simple carbon dioxide!

This is carefully calculated deception. I think Americans are beginning to catch on. Will Congress? Will Obama? Not any time soon. They have their agenda to follow. To heck with logic and common sense.
Peter

Clean coal? Obama funds research to capture carbon

Source

Al Ranson, a project manager for Alstom, readies a new facility last month that will capture the carbon dioxide produced by We Energies' coal-fired power plant in Pleasant Prairie, Wis.

CAPTION

None

Can coal really be clean? Environmentalists may be skeptical, but President Obama is moving ahead with efforts to create non-polluting coal.

On Tuesday, the Department of Energy announced that it will give up to $154 million to NRG Energy, a Texas-based company, to create a facility that will capture coal's carbon and store it underground, thereby reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. It's one of several such federally funded coal projects.

"Advancing our carbon capture and storage technology will create new jobs in America and reduce our carbon pollution output," Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize for physics, said in a statement.

In his State of the Union address, Obama called for a diverse mix of clean energy sources, including -- to the dismay of many environmentalists -- nuclear power plants and "clean coal technologies."

"We're highly skeptical," Bruce Nilles, the Sierra Club's national coal campaign director, says of Obama's plans to clean coal by capturing its carbon, according to a recent story by McClatchy Newspapers. He and other critics say it will be too costly to retrofit existing coal plants with such technology.

The Sierra Club says coal, which provides about half of U.S. electricity, should instead be phased out by 2030 and replaced by renewable power sources and energy efficiency, including efficient uses of natural gas.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, like other environmental groups, says there's no such thing as "clean" coal. France Beinecke, president of its New York City chapter, says "every single step in the coal power cycle is dirty," but she agrees with Obama's plan to fund efforts to clean it.

NRDC believes that a technology known as carbon capture and storage for coal plants should be included in the (climate) bill. This is what President Obama was referring to as "clean coal." We don't think that term is appropriate, but the technology really will reduce global warming pollution from power plants.

How does this technology work?

It removes carbon dioxide from coal's smokestack emissions, compresses it and pumps it deep underground, where it's stored. Such techniques for large coal plants have doubled the cost of producing power, so research is aimed at finding more cost-effective methods.

NRG Energy, which will match the Energy Department's funding, will build a 60-megawatt carbon capture demonstration facility at its plant in Thompson, Texas.

"Development and deployment of these carbon capture technologies at scale, not only in the United States but also worldwide as well, is essential if we are to meet successfully the challenge of global climate change," David Crane, president and CEO of NRG Energy, said in a statement.

Scheduled to begin operating in 2013, the project is designed to capture 90% of incoming carbon dioxide, compress it and use it to enhance oilfield recovery operations.

A report to be released Wednesday by Advanced Resources International, a research and consulting firm, says capturing carbon and pumping it into oil reservoirs could increase U.S. oil production.

Links To IPCC Report On Climate

These links will take you to the entire United Nation's IPCC latest report on global warming and climate change.
Peter


OK. Let's take the IPCC and their latest report. Here are all of the Chapter and Titles, in PDF:
IPCC WG1 AR4 Report

Front Matter pdf (0.3 MB)

Summary for Policymakers pdf (3.7 MB)

Technical Summary pdf (18.6 MB)
Frequently Asked Questions (extracted from chapters below) pdf (7.2 MB)

Historical Overview of Climate Change Science pdf (5.1 MB)

Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing pdf (7.7 MB)

Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change pdf (24.2 MB) webpage

Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground pdf (8.4 MB)

Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level pdf (15.0 MB)

Palaeoclimate pdf (7.7 MB) webpage

Couplings Between Changes in the Climate System and Biogeochemistry pdf (7.8 MB)

Climate Models and their Evaluation pdf (5.9 MB) webpage

Understanding and Attributing Climate Change pdf (5.4 MB) webpage

Global Climate Projections pdf (18.8 MB) webpage

Regional Climate Projections pdf (10.6 MB) webpage
Annexes: (1)Glossary, (2)Authors, (3)Reviewers, (4)Acronyms pdf (0.4 MB)

Index pdf (0.4 MB)

Uncertainty Guidance Note for the Fourth Assessment Report pdf (0.1 MB)

Errata for the Working Group I Fourth Assessment Report pdf (0.2 MB)

Source:

Graphic Depiction Of The Deception And Distortion Of The IPCC And Al Gore

The following are graphics included in the article highlighting the distortions and deceptions presented by the IPCC and Al Gore. These are extremely gross errors on a vastly important subject of global warming and climate change. If we can not trust the United Nations and a former Vice-President and Nobel Prize winner, what can we do? Speak up!
Peter

Source


Gore predicts an imminent 20ft sea-level rise: but …

Gore does not believe his own prediction. He has bought a $4 million condo near Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco (marked “A” above).

The UK High Court judge’s verdict on sea level.

Zonal mean predicted atmospheric temperature change (ºC/century, 1890-1999), from two natural causes, three anthropogenic causes and a combined cause, simulated by the IPCC’s PCM model. The “hot-spot” signature of greenhouse warming is visible in (c) and (f) (IPCC, 2007, p. 675, based on Santer et al., 2003, & see IPCC, 2007, Appendix 9C).

Tropical mid-troposphere “hot-spot”: predicted (CCSP, 2006), but not observed (HadAT, in IPCC (2007).

Left panel: Surface global temperature data, 1979-2004 (HadCRUt). Centre panel: Satellite global microwave sounding unit data for 0 to 400 hPa (surface to 5 miles up), 1979-2004. (Christy et al., 2000, updated). Right panel: Radiosonde global temperature data for 850 to 300 hPa (1 mile to 6 miles up), 1979-2004 (Angell et al., 1999, updated). The UN’s computer models do not predict this steep real-world decline in the rate of global temperature change with altitude. Five miles above the tropics, temperature has actually been falling for 25 years.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley is an international business consultant specializing in the investigation of scientific frauds. He is a former adviser to UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and is presenter of the 90-minute climate movie Apocalypse? NO! He wrote this oped for Hawaii Reporter. He can be reached at mailto:monckton@mail.com and more of his studies and reports can be found at http://www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org/

The Truth About Global Warming and Climate Change You Will Not Hear....

This letter is an excellent, brief summary of why there is growing opposition to the idea than man is causing global warming and climate change because of carbon dioxide emissions. First and most importantly, it is not true. Secondly the proposed attempts to limit these carbon emissions are and will be a futile and enormous waste of resources that would be far better invested in solving real global problems. Look at the list of signatories to this letter. These are people who are being called "denialists", and other slanderous names. To claim there is a scientific "consensus" on this issue is ludicrous.

There are many, many other scientists, engineers, economists and intelligent people of great variety who agree, given the chance to be heard.

Peter



Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations

Dec. 13, 2007

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon

Secretary-General, United Nations

New York, N.Y.


Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by ­government ­representatives. The great ­majority of IPCC contributors and ­reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.

Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:

1. Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

2. The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.

3. Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.

The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

Yours faithfully,

[List of signatories]

Copy to: Heads of state of countries of the signatory persons.

Close

source: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164002

Global Warming Consensus? No Way, Not Even Close

It has been said by the United Nation's IPCC so many times, and repeated by the mainstream media, that there is "a consensus" among scientists that global warming is caused by man's activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This assumption, so widely accepted could not be farther from the truth.

It doesn't take much of a search of the Internet, or here on this blog, if I may say so, to find a tremendous amount of highly credible scientific studies demonstrating much doubt about the causes of global warming and climate change. To say the "debate is over" because there is a "scientific consensus" on the subject is simply an outright lie.
Peter

source:

They call this a consensus?
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post Published: Saturday, June 02, 2007
"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled."

S o said Al Gore ... in 1992. Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren't sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn't think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.

Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a scientific consensus, as do the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder and more frequent.

More than six months ago, I began writing this series, The Deniers. When I began, I accepted the prevailing view that scientists overwhelmingly believe that climate change threatens the planet. I doubted only claims that the dissenters were either kooks on the margins of science or sell-outs in the pockets of the oil companies.

National Post's Deniers series: Scientists who challenge the climate change debate
The series
My series set out to profile the dissenters -- those who deny that the science is settled on climate change -- and to have their views heard. To demonstrate that dissent is credible, I chose high-ranking scientists at the world's premier scientific establishments. I considered stopping after writing six profiles, thinking I had made my point, but continued the series due to feedback from readers. I next planned to stop writing after 10 profiles, then 12, but the feedback increased. Now, after profiling more than 20 deniers, I do not know when I will stop -- the list of distinguished scientists who question the IPCC grows daily, as does the number of emails I receive, many from scientists who express gratitude for my series.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing that a scientific consensus exists on climate change. Certainly there is no consensus at the very top echelons of scientists -- the ranks from which I have been drawing my subjects -- and certainly there is no consensus among astrophysicists and other solar scientists, several of whom I have profiled. If anything, the majority view among these subsets of the scientific community may run in the opposite direction. Not only do most of my interviewees either discount or disparage the conventional wisdom as represented by the IPCC, many say their peers generally consider it to have little or no credibility. In one case, a top scientist told me that, to his knowledge, no respected scientist in his field accepts the IPCC position.

What of the one claim that we hear over and over again, that 2,000 or 2,500 of the world's top scientists endorse the IPCC position? I asked the IPCC for their names, to gauge their views. "The 2,500 or so scientists you are referring to are reviewers from countries all over the world," the IPCC Secretariat responded. "The list with their names and contacts will be attached to future IPCC publications, which will hopefully be on-line in the second half of 2007."


An IPCC reviewer does not assess the IPCC's comprehensive findings. He might only review one small part of one study that later becomes one small input to the published IPCC report. Far from endorsing the IPCC reports, some reviewers, offended at what they considered a sham review process, have demanded that the IPCC remove their names from the list of reviewers. One even threatened legal action when the IPCC refused.

A great many scientists, without doubt, are four-square in their support of the IPCC. A great many others are not. A petition organized by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine between 1999 and 2001 claimed some 17,800 scientists in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol. A more recent indicator comes from the U.S.-based National Registry of Environmental Professionals, an accrediting organization whose 12,000 environmental practitioners have standing with U.S. government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. In a November, 2006, survey of its members, it found that only 59% think human activities are largely responsible for the warming that has occurred, and only 39% make their priority the curbing of carbon emissions. And 71% believe the increase in hurricanes is likely natural, not easily attributed to human activities.

Such diversity of views is also present in the wider scientific community, as seen in the World Federation of Scientists, an organization formed during the Cold War to encourage dialogue among scientists to prevent nuclear catastrophe. The federation, which encompasses many of the world's most eminent scientists and today represents more than 10,000 scientists, now focuses on 15 "planetary emergencies," among them water, soil, food, medicine and biotechnology, and climatic changes. Within climatic changes, there are eight priorities, one being "Possible human influences on climate and on atmospheric composition and chemistry (e.g. increased greenhouse gases and tropospheric ozone)."

Man-made global warming deserves study, the World Federation of Scientists believes, but so do other serious climatic concerns. So do 14 other planetary emergencies. That seems about right. -

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of Energy Probe Research Foundation. Email: LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com.

Noted Climate Scientist Dismisses Importance of CO2 In Climate Change....And More

I have posted articles about and by Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. on this blog previously. He is speaking out again here about some of the key issues involved in the global warming/climate change debate. Most importantly, he rejects the notion that atmospheric CO2 is the primary driver of climate change. He is very critical of the United Nation's IPCC. He thinks the current computer climate models are inadequate to predict future climate changes and should NOT be used to make policy decisions. Please read the article for more information.

Also note that these views are from a highly respected climate scientist, and Professor (now retired) and affiliated with two major universities.
Peter

source: http://www.ecoworld.com/home/articles2.cfm?tid=445


Beyond Global
Warming
NOTED CLIMATE SCIENTIST ROGER PIELKE SR. REJECTS THE NOTION THAT ELEVATED CO2 LEVELS ARE THE SOLE CULPRITS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
by Ed Ring

Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr."Scientific rigor has been sacrificed,and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow."

Roger Pielke Sr. is a retired professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, and a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Since July 2005 he has written and maintained Climate Science, a blog that serves as a scientific forum for dialogue and commentary on climate issues. With William R. Cotton, he is the co-author of Human Impacts on Weather and Climate (Cambridge University Press, 2007). And over the past summer he co-hosted a conference entitled "Land Use and Climate Change," in Boulder, Colorado. While Dr. Pielke rejects being characterized as a "global warming skeptic," his work is unwaveringly critical of the current conventional wisdom regarding climate change and what to do about it. EcoWorld Editor Ed Ring recently caught up with Dr. Pielke, who had the following to say on the topic:

EcoWorld: How would you say that current conventional wisdom regarding climate change has gotten it wrong?

Pielke: In terms of climate change and variability on the regional and local scale, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) report on surface and tropospheric temperature trends, and the U.S. National Assessment [of Climate Change] have overstated the role of the radiative effect of the anthropogenic increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in relation to a diversity of other human climate- forcing mechanisms. Indeed, many research studies incorrectly oversimplify climate change by characterizing it as being dominated by the radiative effect of human-added CO2. But while prudence suggests that we work to minimize our disturbance of the climate system (since we don't fully understand it), by focusing on just one subset of forcing mechanisms, we end up seriously misleading policymakers as to the most effective way of dealing with our social and environmental vulnerability in the context of the entire spectrum of environmental risks and other threats we face today.

EcoWorld: What about experts' predictions of rising sea levels, extreme weather, melting polar ice caps, and so on?

Pielke: Global and regional climate models have not demonstrated themselves to be skillful predictors of regional and local climate change and variability over multidecadal time scales. For example, in the case of sea ice, the models are consistent with the decrease in Arctic sea ice in recent years, but they cannot explain the multiyear increase in Antarctic sea ice (including a record level this year). With respect to extreme weather, a much more important issue than how greenhouse gases are altering our climate is society's greatly increased vulnerability to extreme weather events - a direct result not of changes in weather but of increased settlement by expanding human populations into low-lying coastal regions, floodplains, and marginal arid land.

EcoWorld: But what about the northern icecap shrinking this September to possibly its smallest size in history (exposing more than 1 million square miles of open water) or the comments of Robert Correll, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, regarding recent observations in Greenland ("We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea")? Is something new and alarming happening?

Pielke: These examples represent selected observations that promote the view that human-input carbon dioxide is dominating climate change. However, the climate is - and always will be - changing. Thus, although human activity certainly affects the way in which climate varies and changes, actual global observations present a much more complex picture than that represented by the two examples listed above. For example, Antarctic sea ice reached a record maximum coverage in 2007, and the globally averaged lower atmosphere has not warmed in the last nine years (and, in fact, is cooler than it was in 1998). In addition, there are regions of the world where glaciers are advancing (such as New Zealand, parts of the Himalayas, and Norway). However, this information - which conflicts with the projections of the multi-decadal global climate models and the 2007 IPCC report - has been almost completely ignored by policymakers and the media.

Human Impacts on Weather andClimate, by Roger Pielke, Sr.,and William R. Cotton Cambridge University Press

EcoWorld: What role have alterations in land use played in climate change?

Pielke: Changes in land use by humans and the resulting alterations in weather and hydrology are major drivers of long-term regional and global climate patterns - yet the 2007 IPCC Statement for Policymakers largely ignores their importance (despite extensive documentation in research literature). Along with the diverse influences of aerosols on climate, land use effects (caused, for example, by deforestation, desertification, and conversion of land to farming) may be at least as important in altering the weather as the changes in climate patterns associated with the radiative effect of carbon dioxide and other well-mixed greenhouse gases. Moreover, land use and land cover changes will continue to exert an important influence on the Earth's climate for the next century.
The reason for this is that even if the globally averaged surface temperature change over time ends up being close to zero in response to land use and land cover change and variability, the regional changes in surface temperature, precipitation, and other climate metrics could be as large as or larger than those that result from the anthropogenic increase of greenhouse gases. Moreover, people and ecosystems experience the effects of environmental change regionally, not as global averaged values. Thus, the issue of a "discernable human influence on global climate" misses the obvious, in that we have been altering climate by land use and land cover change ever since humans began large-scale alterations of the land surface.

EcoWorld: What were the main conclusions to come out of your recent conference focusing on the land use changes that affect the Earth's climate?

Pielke: This meeting reconfirmed the first order role of land management as a climate forcing mechanism. These findings supported the conclusions of the 2005 National Research Council report "Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: Expanding the Concept and Addressing Uncertainties," which identified land use change as having a major effect on climate. Unfortunately, the role of land surface processes was underreported in the body of the IPCC report and was essentially ignored in the IPCC Statement for Policymakers.

EcoWorld: Sticking with land use changes: Do you think that tropical forests create a thermostatic effect that moderates extreme weather? And following on that, do you think tropical deforestation could be as significant a driver in climate change as anthropogenic CO2?

Pielke: Tropical deforestation clearly has an effect on both regional and global climate that is at least as important as the radiative effect of adding CO2. When forests are removed, not only does the climate system lose the biodiversity and other benefits of that environment, the vegetation loses its ability to dynamically respond in ways that reduce extreme weather fluctuations. For example, when trees access deeper water through their roots, the resulting transpiration of water vapor into the atmosphere (making rain more likely) can help ameliorate dry conditions when the large-scale weather pattern is one of drought.

EcoWorld: What is your criticism of the IPCC?

Pielke: Mainly the fact that the same individuals who are doing primary research into humans' impact on the climate system are being permitted to lead the assessment of that research. Suppose a group of scientists introduced a drug they claimed could save many lives: There were side effects, of course, but the scientists claimed the drug's benefits far outweighed its risks. If the government then asked these same scientists to form an assessment committee to evaluate their claim (and the committee consisted of colleagues of the scientists who made the original claim as well as the drug's developers), an uproar would occur, and there would be protests. It would represent a clear conflict of interest. Yet this is what has happened with the IPCC process. To date, either few people recognize this conflict, or those that do choose to ignore it because the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed, and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow.

EcoWorld: How effective are current climate computer models in helping us understand global climate trends?

Pielke: Using global climate models to improve our understanding of how the system works represents a valuable application of such tools, but the term sensitivity study should be used to characterize these assessments. In sensitivity studies, a subset of the forcings and/or feedback of the climate system are perturbed to examine their response. Since the computer model of the climate system is incomplete (meaning it doesn't include all of the important feedbacks and forcings), what the IPCC is really doing is conducting a sensitivity study.
The IPCC reports, however, inaccurately present their assessment as a "projection" - one that's widely interpreted by policymakers and others as being able to skillfully forecast the future state of the climate system. But even one of the IPCC's leading authors, Kevin Trenberth, has gone on record reminding people of the limitations of the models used in its projections. Says Trenberth, "There are no predictions by IPCC & and there never have been." He further states, "None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state, and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate."
Indeed, says Trenberth, "The current projection method works to the extent it does because it utilizes differences from one time to another, and the main model bias and systematic errors are thereby subtracted out. This assumes linearity. It works for global forced variations, but it cannot work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle."
Thus, as clarified even by one of the key IPCC contributors (who has a vested interest in the acceptance of the 2007 IPCC report), current climate models clearly cannot accurately model observed real-world changes in climate. Global model results projected out decades into the future should never be interpreted as skillful forecasts. Instead, they should be interpreted as sensitivity studies on limited variables. When authors of research papers use definitive words (such as "will occur") and display model output with specific time periods in the future, they are misleading policymakers and other people who use this information.

EcoWorld: What policies should be considered to deal with climate change? Is reducing CO2 emissions part of the solution?

Pielke: Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions can only serve as a useful "environmental currency" as long as it provides the benefits needed to reduce the risk to critical environmental and social resources. As such, it needs to be part of a win-win strategy that provides a diversity of benefits. With energy efficiency and energy independence, for example, everyone benefits. As the "currency" for these benefits, however, greenhouse gas emission reduction represents an unnecessarily blunt instrument if there are more effective ways to reduce the risks to societal and environmental resources. Moreover, greenhouse gas policies can produce serious unintended negative consequences such as an increase in carcinogenic emissions when biodiesel is used, or reductions in biodiversity and alterations in climate when land management practices convert large areas to biofuels.
Greenhouse gas emission reductions, relative to other environmental currencies, should be evaluated with respect to their ability to reduce risk to essential social and environmental resources. In this framework, greenhouse emission reductions are only useful if they provide real benefit to those resources. Thus, if a policy made for other reasons also happens to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you clearly have a win-win situation. The current focus on using reductions in CO2 emissions as the primary currency for achieving benefits to society and the environment, however, clearly represents a very flawed approach.

China Tells The West What We Can Do With Our Ideas About Global Warming....

source:


China Says West Should Deal With Warming
By MICHAEL CASEY – 13 hours ago

BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Developing countries led by China squabbled with the West over mandatory emission cuts at the Bali climate change conference, as activists accused Canada on Saturday of undermining the negotiations by insisting on targets for poor nations.

China, which some believe has surpassed the U.S. as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, questioned the fairness of binding cuts when its per capita emissions are about one-sixth of America's. It said, too, that it has only been pumping pollutants into the atmosphere for a few decades, whereas the West has done so for hundreds of years.

"China is in the process of industrialization and there is a need for economic growth to meet the basic needs of the people and fight against poverty," said Su Wei, a top climate expert for the government and member of its delegation at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bali.

"I just wonder whether it's fair to ask developing countries like China to take on binding targets," Su said Friday. "I think there is much room for the United States to think whether it's possible to change (its) lifestyle and consumption patterns in order to contribute to the protection of the global climate."

Delegates from nearly 190 nations are attending the Dec. 3-14 meeting in Bali and are likely to agree to launch negotiations that will lead to an international accord to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming. They also are expected to set a deadline for completing negotiations and agree on some of the issues to be discussed.

The protocol, which was rejected by the United States, commits three dozen industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse gases an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels between next year and 2012, when it expires.

Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, who is president of the conference, said discussions on starting post-Kyoto negotiations were on track and that "God willing" an agreement would be reached by next weekend.

"There is no deadlock," he said. "I would think about 85 percent of those in the room have the same direction."

However, Climate Action Network Canada, a coalition of Canadian environmental groups, said Canadian negotiators in Bali have been told to "demand that poorer nations accept the same binding absolute emission reduction targets as developed nations."

"The Kyoto Protocol is built on the recognition that industrialized countries are largely responsible for the problem of climate change, and must take the lead in tackling it," said Steven Guilbeault of the environmental group Equiterre. "Canada is trying to rewrite history by putting the burden of emissions reductions on poorer countries."

Climate Action Network Canada provided reporters a one-page document that it described as a leaked copy of Canada's negotiating stance. It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the document, and a spokesman for the Canadian delegation did not respond to a request for comment.

The chief U.N. climate scientist, Rajendra Pachauri, said it was next to impossible to expect the developing world to agree to cuts when their per capita emissions are so much less than the West.

"What is absolutely essential is to see that the developed countries establish a record of action and commitment, which I think will induce and provide a moral basis for developing countries to assume the burden," Pachauri said.

"In the absence of that, I don't think anything is going to happen. With per capita levels being so different, it's not likely that anybody in the developing world would accept commitments."

Angus Friday, chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States, many of which are threatened by sea level rises, said developed countries had a "moral responsibility" to show leadership on the issue and act first to tackle global warming since they have contributed far more to the problem than poor countries.

"The danger in the developed world is that the culture of entitlement is not being matched by the culture of responsibility," he said.
Hosted by Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Dishonest Political Tampering With The Science On Global Warming

This message should be read, understood and distributed all around the world, and translated into every language. Of course there will be those who try to discredit Mr. Monckton as they have in the past, but they will fail. There is far too much information coming out from a large variety of scientific sources which support Mr. Monckton's statements. The myth of man-caused global warming needs to be put to rest.
Peter

source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20071205.!15


Dishonest political tampering with the science on global warming
- December 05, 2007
Christopher Monckton, Denpasar, Bali
As a contributor to the IPCC's 2007 report, I share the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Yet I and many of my peers in the British House of Lords - through our hereditary element the most independent-minded of lawmakers - profoundly disagree on fundamental scientific grounds with both the IPCC and my co-laureate's alarmist movie An Inconvenient Truth, which won this year's Oscar for Best Sci-Fi Comedy Horror.

Two detailed investigations by Committees of the House confirm that the IPCC has deliberately, persistently and prodigiously exaggerated not only the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature but also the environmental consequences of warmer weather.
My contribution to the 2007 report illustrates the scientific problem. The report's first table of figures - inserted by the IPCC's bureaucrats after the scientists had finalized the draft, and without their consent - listed four contributions to sea-level rise. The bureaucrats had multiplied the effect of melting ice from the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets by 10.
The result of this dishonest political tampering with the science was that the sum of the four items in the offending table was more than twice the IPCC's published total. Until I wrote to point out the error, no one had noticed. The IPCC, on receiving my letter, quietly corrected, moved and relabeled the erroneous table, posting the new version on the internet and earning me my Nobel prize.

The shore-dwellers of Bali need not fear for their homes. The IPCC now says the combined contribution of the two great ice-sheets to sea-level rise will be less than seven centimeters after 100 years, not seven meters imminently, and that the Greenland ice sheet (which thickened by 50 cm between 1995 and 2005) might only melt after several millennia, probably by natural causes, just as it last did 850,000 years ago. Gore, mendaciously assisted by the IPCC bureaucracy, had exaggerated a hundredfold.

Recently a High Court judge in the UK listed nine of the 35 major scientific errors in Gore's movie, saying they must be corrected before innocent schoolchildren can be exposed to the movie. Gore's exaggeration of sea-level rise was one.
Others being peddled at the Bali conference are that man-made "global warming" threatens polar bears and coral reefs, caused Hurricane Katrina, shrank Lake Chad, expanded the actually-shrinking Sahara, etc.

At the very heart of the IPCC's calculations lurks an error more serious than any of these. The IPCC says: "The CO2 radiative forcing increased by 20 percent during the last 10 years (1995-2005)." Radiative forcing quantifies increases in radiant energy in the atmosphere, and hence in temperature. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 in 1995 was 360 parts per million. In 2005 it was just 5percent higher, at 378 ppm. But each additional molecule of CO2 in the air causes a smaller radiant-energy increase than its predecessor. So the true increase in radiative forcing was 1 percent, not 20 percent. The IPCC has exaggerated the CO2 effect 20-fold.
Why so large and crucial an exaggeration? Answer: the IPCC has repealed the fundamental physicalthe Stefan-Boltzmann equation - that converts radiant energy to temperature. Without this equation, no meaningful calculation of the effect of radiance on temperature can be done. Yet the 1,600 pages of the IPCC's 2007 report do not mention it once.

The IPCC knows of the equation, of course. But it is inconvenient. It imposes a strict (and very low) limit on how much greenhouse gases can increase temperature. At the Earth's surface, you can add as much greenhouse gas as you like (the "surface forcing"), and the temperature will scarcely respond.

That is why all of the IPCC's computer models predict that 10km above Bali, in the tropical upper troposphere, temperature should be rising two or three times as fast as it does at the surface. Without that tropical upper-troposphere "hot-spot", the Stefan-Boltzmann law ensures that surface temperature cannot change much.

For half a century we have been measuring the temperature in the upper atmosphere - and it has been changing no faster than at the surface. The IPCC knows this, too. So it merely declares that its computer predictions are right and the real-world measurements are wrong. Next time you hear some scientifically-illiterate bureaucrat say, "The science is settled", remember this vital failure of real-world observations to confirm the IPCC's computer predictions. The IPCC's entire case is built on a guess that the absent hot-spot might exist.

Even if the Gore/IPCC exaggerations were true, which they are not, the economic cost of trying to mitigate climate change by trying to cut our emissions through carbon trading and other costly market interferences would far outweigh any possible climatic benefit.
The international community has galloped lemming-like over the cliff twice before. Twenty years ago the UN decided not to regard AIDS as a fatal infection. Carriers of the disease were not identified and isolated. Result: 25 million deaths in poor countries.

Thirty-five years ago the world decided to ban DDT, the only effective agent against malaria. Result: 40 million deaths in poor countries. The World Health Organization lifted the DDT ban on Sept. 15 last year. It now recommends the use of DDT to control malaria. Dr. Arata Kochi of the WHO said that politics could no longer be allowed to stand in the way of the science and the data. Amen to that.

If we take the heroically stupid decisions now on the table at Bali, it will once again be the world's poorest people who will die unheeded in their tens of millions, this time for lack of the heat and light and power and medical attention which we in the West have long been fortunate enough to take for granted.

If we deny them the fossil-fuelled growth we have enjoyed, they will remain poor and, paradoxically, their populations will continue to increase, making the world's carbon footprint very much larger in the long run.

As they die, and as global temperature continues to fail to rise in accordance with the IPCC's laughably-exaggerated predictions, the self-congratulatory rhetoric that is the hallmark of the now-useless, costly, corrupt UN will again be near-unanimously parroted by lazy, unthinking politicians and journalists who ought to have done their duty by the poor but are now - for the third time in three decades - failing to speak up for those who are about to die.

My fellow-participants, there is no climate crisis. The correct policy response to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing. Take courage! Do nothing, and save the world's poor from yet another careless, UN-driven slaughter.

The writer is an international business consultant specializing in the investigation of scientific frauds. He is a former adviser to UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher and is presenter of the 90-minute climate movie Apocalypse? NO! He can be reached at monckton@mail.com