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)





 

Man-Caused Global Warming On Thin Ice....

Here is an opinion worth taking seriously. Does any politician know everything about everything? This man, Mr. Wilde, makes sense....that is all that matters.
Peter


Jun 07, 2008The Death Blow to Anthropogenic Global Warming
By Stephen Wilde, Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society

The influence of the sun has been discounted in the climate models as a contributor to the warming observed between 1975 and 1998. Those who support the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), now known as anthropogenic climate change so that recent cooling can be included in their scenario, always deny that the sun has anything to do with recent global temperature movements. The reason given is that Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) varied so little over that period that it cannot explain the warming that was observed. I don�t yet accept that TSI tells the whole story because it is ill defined and speculative as regards it’s representation of all the different ways the sun could affect the Earth via the entire available range of physical processes. Despite the limitations of TSI as an indicator of solar influence I think there are conclusions we can draw from the records we do have. Oddly, I have not seen them discussed properly anywhere else, especially not by AGW enthusiasts.

This link shows a larger graph of TSI from 1611 to 2001.

Throughout the period 1961 to about 2001, there was a steady cumulative net warming effect from the sun. The fact that the TSI was, on average, level during that period is entirely irrelevant and misleading. It is hardly likely that such a high level of TSI compared to historical levels is going to have no effect at all on global temperature changes and indeed during most of that period there was an enhanced period of positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation that imparted increasing warmth to the atmosphere.

This link contains details of my view that the sun drives the various oceanic oscillations which in turn drive global temperature variations with all other influences including CO2 being minor and often cancelling themselves out leaving the solar/oceanic driver supreme.

Does anyone really think that the CO2 we produce is effective enough to reduce that risk to zero when we have plenty of astronomic evidence of an imminent reduction in solar activity? And, moreover, the real world temperature movements are currently a good fit with the solar driver theory both as regards to warming spell, the subsequent stall and the recent turn downwards. The AGW risk analysis process (if anyone ever bothered with one) is seriously flawed. Read more here.
-->

Unstoppable Skeptic: Dr. Fred Singer

A recent interview with global warming "skeptic" and author and scientist, Dr. Fred Singer, who I've cited many times on my blog. This is the latest.......
Peter

from: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_533589.html

Unstoppable skeptic
In the great, never-cooling debate over the causes and consequences of global warming, it's always clear whose side Fred Singer is on: not Al Gore's. Singer, who was born in Vienna in 1924, was a pioneer in the development of rocket and satellite technology and holds a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton. Now president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project research group (sepp.org), his latest book (with Dennis Avery) is "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years."

I talked with Singer -- who will debate global warming issues with climate scientist Charles Keller Thursday at a sold-out event at Duquesne University -- by phone from his offices in Arlington, Va.:

Q: What did you think upon hearing of Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize?

A: First of all, I was really not surprised. The peace prize is a political exercise. Remember that Yasser Arafat got the peace prize for, ha, contributing to lasting peace in the Middle East. It's very interesting, the peace prize selection committee comes from the Norwegian Parliament, so they're all politicians. The government is a very left-wing government right now. I spoke about it this morning, in fact, and said that if the government changes -- if the Progress Party, which is an anti-immigration party. gains majority control -- it might give a peace prize to Pat Buchanan. It's purely political, unlike the other prizes, which are awarded by the Swedish academies and which are based on committees that know something about the subject.

Q: Have you seen Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"?

A: Yes. I saw a slide show at a presentation, which he made in Washington. I saw the movie and I read the book. They're all the same amount of bunk. They're all very, very well presented -- very skillfully presented from a technical point of view. But the science is really shoddy.

Q: A lot of people have seen the movie but they don't really keep up on this global-warming debate, which is very complex and very nasty sometimes about which science is true and which isn't.

A: It is nasty, but it shouldn't be complex. The issue is very simple. The only really important issue is, is the warming we are experiencing now natural or is it man-made? That's really the only issue. Everything else is commentary.

Q: Now the Gore camp will say global warming is man-made and they'll point to all kinds of things to prove that.

A: And they're all wrong.

Q: Is there anything that they point to where you say, "Yes, that's true but ...?"

A: Yes. There are a lot of things they point to where I say, "Yes, but... ." For example, they say glaciers are melting. Yes, but. It doesn't tell you what the cause is. You see, any kind of warming, from whatever cause, will melt ice. Whether it's natural or man-made warming, the ice doesn't care. It will melt when it gets warmer. This is a trick that they do. They play this trick many times over -- showing the consequences of global warming, which really don't tell you what the cause is. And the only important question is, remember, "What is the cause? Is it natural or man-made?" If it's natural, then there is nothing we can do about it. It's unstoppable. We can't change the sun or influence volcanism or anything of that sort. We're not at that stage yet. It also means that all these schemes for controlling CO2 are useless, completely useless. It's all bunk.

Q: When you say global warming is natural, what is your chief culprit?

A: The sun. The sun. Definitely. The evidence we have shows an extremely strong correlation with solar activity. The (Earth's) temperature follows the solar activity and the correlation is very strong. The mechanism itself is still under some dispute, but we think in some way the sun influences cosmic rays, which in turn influences cloudiness.

Q: That doesn't even count the heat output of the sun, which changes over time, doesn't it?

A: Those are very small and are not enough to account for all the climate changes that we see. What is causing it is not just the heat of the sun, but emissions from the sun that we don't see -- except with satellites and spacecraft -- the so-called solar winds and magnetic fields.

Q: What about the things like the wobble of the Earth on its axis and the Earth's eccentric orbit around the Sun?

A: That's also important, but on a different time scale. For each time scale there is a particular cause. The time scale I'm talking about when I talk about direct solar influences are of the order of decades. The time scales that involve wobbles and orbits of the Earth around the sun involve times scales of 10,000 or 100,000 years.

Q: Can you give a synopsis of "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years"?

A: Yes. Our book -- I co-authored it with Dennis Avery -- basically looks at published papers in the peer-reviewed literature by geologists and other paleo-scientists, oceanographers and so on, who have studied the climate records of the past. Every one of them shows this (roughly 1,500-year) cycle. It was first discovered in ice cores in Greenland. Then it was seen in ocean sediments in the Atlantic. And now it's been found everywhere, including in stalagmites in caves. In all kinds of climate records that you wouldn't think of that have been studied, you see this cycle. It shows warming and cooling -- that's an oscillation -- a slight warming and a slight cooling. It's not a big effect. But it could well account for the current warming. It can well account for the warming that occurred 1,000 years ago. It can well account also for what we call "The Little Ice Age," which occurred roughly 500 years ago.

Q: When people talk about the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica growing or shrinking or melting completely, what should we know about that?

A: Well, the ice sheets of Greenland have not melted in historic time at all, even though it was much warmer 1,000 years ago and very much warmer 5,000 years ago. The ice sheets on Antarctica haven't melted for millions of years, because it's really quite cold there. There is always some melting that takes place during the summer, of course, when the sun shines directly on the ice. But in the precipitation that falls -- the rain and snow that falls -- soon turns to ice and grows the ice sheet back again.

Q: Is the quote-unquote "scientific consensus" that Al Gore and his acolytes are always speaking of growing stronger or weaker?

A: Let me put it this way: Many scientists, unfortunately, support the idea that the human influence on climate is very strong compared to natural influences. We don't. We see the evidence differently. But most scientists disagree with Gore on specifics. For instance, on sea level rise: The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control), which is the U.N.'s climate advisory body, has come out with its report and predicts a sea level rise on the order of a foot and a half per century. Al Gore has a 20-foot rise. So he's way out of line compared to the mainstream science.

Q: People like you, who think that global warming is not a crisis that demands instant or dramatic government action, are regularly accused of being tools of the oil, gas and coal industries. How do you defend yourself from that charge?

A: Ha, ha. Well, there are various ways. In the first place, I've held these views for a very long time. And secondly, I'm not a tool of the oil industry. In fact, when you think about oil -- let's take Exxon for an example -- what the global warmists are trying to do is to demonize coal. Why? Because coal emits more carbon dioxide than oil or gas. Well, if they do that -- if they prevent the use of coal -- it figures that it makes oil and gas more valuable. It drives up the price. Exxon has huge reserves of oil and gas. So, in a sense, Exxon should benefit from global-warming alarmism. I don't know if people have thought about that. It's not been commonly discussed that all these holders of oil and gas reserves benefit financially any time the global warmists prevent the use of coal.

Q: The global warming community thinks we're going to turn to wind and solar and ocean-wave energy to replace fossil fuels.

A: None of that is economic. It will produce some energy at a great cost. Put it this way: If it were economic, it would have been done by now. The only way you can do wind and solar is with large government subsidies. And you ask yourself, "Why should we all subsidize with our tax dollars something which is basically uneconomic?"

Q: Here's my McCarthy Era question: Do you now or did you ever get money or grants or whatever from energy companies?

A: Sure. I'd love to get more, but they only did it once, I think. It was unsolicited, unannounced, and I cashed the check immediately. I've been wishing for more, ha, ha, but they haven't given me any more. Now, don't forget that what they've given me amounts to a tiny fraction of 1 percent of our total cumulative budget (at SEPP.org ). And don't forget that the energy companies give hundreds of millions of dollars -- which is at least 10,000 times as much as we're getting -- to researchers everywhere who are working to show that global warming exists and is human-caused.

Q: Do you have any explanation why the Al Gore camp has won the global warming argument in the mainstream media?

A: That's not really my field. I'm not sure they've won the argument in the media. I'm sure there are still many people in the media who are skeptical of Al Gore's arguments -- and they should be.

Q: Should they be skeptical of your arguments as well?

A: Some are skeptical of my arguments, yes, of course. That's because they haven't looked into it. In other words, I'm very convinced that when I talk to somebody one-on-one and show them the evidence, they will agree with me.

Q: You plan to debate Dr. Charles Keller in Pittsburgh next week --

A: Right. I will show the evidence, and if he's honest, he'll agree with me.

Q: What in general is your chief argument going to be with him?

A: My chief argument will be that the actual data show that the climate models don't work, and the actual data show that the cause of the global warming can not be a greenhouse effect.

Q: Have you debated him before?

A: Yeah, we had a debate about 10 years ago.

Q: What have you learned since then?

A: A great deal.

Q: As you've watched this global-warming debate evolve, are you optimistic that good science, honest science, will trump politics?

A: Yes, I'm optimistic because eventually it must do that. The problem is the word "eventually." In the meantime, a great deal of damage can be done to our economy as various schemes are being put forward to control CO2 emissions -- essentially to control the use of energy.

Source

John Daly, Early Global Warming Skeptic

From:
http://www.john-daly.com/obituary.htm


John Lawrence Daly 1943 - 2004
John Daly was born in Bournemouth, UK, on 31 March 1943. His father was subsequently killed when his merchant vessel, Lancastrian Prince was sunk by German U boats off Newfoundland with the loss of all who were on board. John never saw his father.

After the war John’s mother, Mary Daly, was faced with the financial difficulties of raising both John and his sister Nicky in post-war Britain. Consequently, John was sent to live with his uncle in Cobh, Southern Ireland, and grew up surrounded by his cousins. Later on he was able to return to England to live with his mother and to study to become a ship’s radio officer.
He went to sea at the age of 17 for the Blue Funnel Line, where he travelled the world’s oceans, with extensive shore visits to many countries. At sea he became an autodidact, teaching himself through omnivorous reading, and developing his powers of analysis. A merchant seaman is always concerned about the weather, and a radio operator is always receiving weather reports. Thus John was able to study weather, climate and astronomy while actively observing them. Thus began his lifelong interest in climatology.

After three years at sea, John was successful in securing a position as a civilian radio officer for GCHQ at Cheltenham (the successor to the famous Bletchley Park intelligence organisation). In this job, however, he found himself "bored out of his mind" and resigned after only 2 years. After a further 2 years in the merchant navy with Bibby Line, he met Amy Taylor, (his best-friend’s wife’s sister) and after a two-week courtship they were married in 1968 at a registry office in Manchester. This was the beginning of a strong and devoted partnership, which lasted until his death.

John and Amy then settled at Milford Haven, Wales, where John worked as a radar service engineer for Decca. During this period in Wales, two daughters, Emma and Rachel were born. Intellectual restlessness however, took him to the university at Aberystwyth where he took out an honours degree in economics. He also had an active role in University politics, holding elective positions in the Student’s Guild during each of the 3 years he was there.
In 1980 the Daly family emigrated to Launceston, Tasmania, where John established a company manufacturing the two marine electronic devices he had invented (Daly Bilgeguard and Daly WatchGuard). Although this was commercially successful, by 1992, he found it intellectually insufficiently challenging. So the business was sold and John having already moved into teaching electronics and economics, became a full-time senior-secondary college teacher.
It was at this time he became particularly interested in the global warming issue. His first public foray into this issue was a 1989 monograph "The Greenhouse Trap" published by Bantam Books, which is still relevant to the debate.

In 1995 he established his website "Still Waiting For Greenhouse" (www.john-daly.com). He was one of the earliest pioneers in the use of the Internet to disseminate information and arguments concerning one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of Western Civilisation, that is, the attempt to de-carbonise the world economy on the grounds that increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide will result in climatic catastrophe.
John was concerned that the legitimacy of these de-carbonisation campaigns was based solely on scientific theories that were both highly questionable and unsupported by empirical evidence. Although self-taught, John was a gifted scientist. He was particularly talented at presenting complex scientific climate data in a format that was easily read and understood by the layperson. As a result, his web site appealed to those who wanted to gain understanding of the various scientific arguments pertaining to the greenhouse effect in order to be able to contribute to the political issues surrounding the global warming debate.

The website acquired a huge readership from all over the world; a readership which included many well-qualified academics and scientists of repute, who have publicly recognised his scholarship and his scientific acumen. The non-scientists also appreciated John’s website both for its content, and because it represented the voice of an independent and gifted scholar who saw something seriously wrong with establishment climatology, and took it upon himself to demonstrate why it was wrong.

Since the birth of the website, more than two million hits have been registered. Although his talents and achievements were recognised abroad, particularly in the US, his antagonists in university and government science circles within Australia rarely lost an opportunity to refer to him as a "school teacher"; they often addressed him, with mock deference, as Dr Daly ; and in their submissions, usually referred to the unanimity of "elite scientific opinion" concerning their predictions of global warming and its anthropogenic causes.

The achievement in which he took greatest pride was his work on the survey benchmark chiselled into a cliff face at the Isle of the Dead, a small two-acre island inside Port Arthur that was used as a cemetery by the prison authorities a century and a half ago. The eminent Antarctic explorer, Sir James Clark Ross, had this survey mark inscribed in 1841 to indicate zero point, or the mean level of the sea (MSL). The survey mark was re-measured in 1888, subsequent to severe earth tremors, and found to be 34cm above MSL This mark is still clearly visible, but its position is now just over 12 inches (31.5 cm) above today’s MSL, suggesting a rise of less than 3cm over an entire century. The IPCC, however, claims that during the 20th century, sea levels have risen between 10 and 20 cm globally, a claim not supported by actual tidal data from the National Tidal Facility (NTF) in Adelaide, which indicate a maximum rise of only +0.3 mm/yr, (equivalent to a rise over a century of just 3 cm).

John Daly studied both the science and the history of the Ross benchmark and came to the conclusion that there has been very little rise in sea level at the Isle of the Dead. This was a serious problem to his antagonists at the CSIRO (CSIRO is Australia's "Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation"), who published a paper in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) which argued that the benchmark demonstrated that sea levels had risen at the Isle of the Dead by 13cm, a result which was in accordance with the IPCC estimates of 10-20 cm sea level rise during the 20th century.

John’s rebuttal of their arguments was refused publication in the ‘peer-reviewed’ GRL, and the documentation justifying this refusal demonstrates, with considerable force, that the term "peer review" now means "mate’s review", and that peer review has become an instrument of filtering out critical arguments which would damage the global warming "consensus".

The history of science is replete with examples of the abuse of power by those whose authority and prestige in the scientific world were threatened by critics from outside. Today the situation is more critical than in the past because those in power usually control massive research budgets funded by the taxpayer and, more importantly, control the information flow to political leaders who have no time to master other sources of information in order to be able to contest the issue with their official advisers.

The global warming debate is as much a religious as it is a scientific issue, which is why it is conducted with such passionate intensity. John Daly always conducted himself with good humour and courteous civility. The Internet has very recently provided the means whereby those outside the corridors of power can speak truth to each other, wherever they might live around the world and because, in the end, the corridors of power cannot be sealed off from the rest of the world, the truth will permeate into those corridors.

Just as the invention of the printing press destroyed the capacity of the ecclesiastical and political authorities of the 16th century to control what was written and spoken, the Internet has made possible open, independent, uncensored forums to be established, and for unfettered debate to occur outside official circles. One of John’s great legacies is the use of the Internet to publish scientific articles that had been rejected through the ‘peer-review’ control system.
Because of the Internet, the spectre of public nakedness now haunts the global warming establishment. This is due in no small part to the long hours which John Daly spent in his tiny study in Tasmania, corresponding around the world with admirers, interlocutors, and detractors, and preparing the next material to be loaded onto "Still Waiting For Greenhouse".
About midday on Thursday January 29, 2004, after being interviewed for a UK radio show, John Daly was suddenly struck down by a heart attack. As news of his death was sent around the world, condolences to his family and tributes to his massive contribution poured in. His life is testimony to the fact that one person, if armed with intelligence, energy, perseverance and a commitment to the truth, can change events. John Daly was above all valiant for truth and his memory will long endure.
Ray Evans & Rachel Daly