"Leading British scientist defends findings on climate; Leaked e-mails seem to uncover panel dissension" November 24, 2011|By Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press
LONDON - The British climatologist ensnared in a major new e-mail leak took his case to the public yesterday, arguing that he and his colleagues’ comments have again been taken out of context.
The University of East Anglia’s Phil Jones was a major player in the controversy that erupted two years ago over the publication of e-mails that caught prominent scientists stonewalling critics and attacking them in sometimes vitriolic terms.
The University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit is one of the leading centers for the study of how world temperatures have varied over time, and Jones came under particular scrutiny following the 2009 disclosures - receiving death threats over allegations that he was a leading a conspiracy to hype the dangers of climate change.
That is what it has been, and it was the last of the agenda-pushing issues to fall for me. It still hurts. I was a believer for so long.
Jones and his colleagues have since been vindicated by a series of independent investigations, but the university’s reputation was dented by criticism that it refused to share data with skeptics.
Jones said that his “heart did sink a bit’’ when he heard about the most recent leak, which apparently consists of old messages held back the first time around.
The university and other climate scientists believe the leak was delayed until now “to cause maximum disruption’’ to the imminent UN climate talks next week in Durban, South Africa.
Hey, I'm reading a newspaper that specializes in promoting agendas.
When quizzed about e-mails that captured him and other researchers disparaging each others’ work or raising pointed questions about the accuracy of climate models, Jones framed it as part of “the cut-and-thrust of scientific debate.’’
????
Several excerpts also seemed to be aimed at how to best present scientific findings to the public, but Jones said it was “foolish to think that scientists don’t think about the how their message is received.’’
Jones was also asked about a message he wrote suggesting that e-mails could be deleted to dodge freedom of information requests. Both he and his university have been criticized for obstructionist attitudes toward Britain’s right-to-know law, and the university says it is now far more open about sharing data.
Why hide anything if there is nothing to hide?
In his response, Jones appeared to suggest that the public need not interest itself in the inner workings of groups such as the International Panel on Climate Change, which produces authoritative reports on the future of the world’s weather.
UNREAL!!!
“Why do people need to know who wrote what individual paragraph?’’ Jones said.
Other excerpts from 5,000-odd e-mails being circulated seemed to cover some of the same ground as the 2009 release, which unleashed an international furor over allegations that scientists were working to manipulate the science behind climate change. Several inquiries have refuted the charges.
Like I'm going to believe some cover-up inquiry.
University of East Anglia’s vice chancellor Edward Acton, who flanked Jones as he addressed journalists, predicted less of a storm this time.
“There’s is so much deja vu about it,’’ Acton said.
Yeah, it does feel like I'm being lied to again.
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Related: CLIMATEGATE
"Climategate (Part II); A sequel as ugly as the original
Steven F. Hayward | The Weekly Standard
December 05, 2011
Climategate I, the release of a few thousand emails and documents from the CRU in November 2009, revealed that the united-front clubbiness of the leading climate scientists was just a display for public consumption. The science of climate change was not “settled.” There was no consensus about the extent and causes of global warming; in their private emails, the scientists expressed serious doubts and disagreements on some major issues. In particular, the email exchanges showed that they were far from agreement about a key part of the global warming narrative—the famous “hockey stick” graph that purported to demonstrate that the last 30 years were the warmest of the last millennium and which made the “medieval warm period,” an especially problematic phenomenon for the climate campaign, simply go away....
The new batch of emails, over 5,300 in all (compared with about 1,000 in the 2009 release), contains a number of fresh embarrassments and huge red flags for the same lovable bunch of insider scientists. It stars the same cast, starting with the Godfather of the CRU, Phil “hide the decline” Jones, and featuring Michael “hockey stick” Mann once again in his supporting role as the Fredo of climate science, blustering along despite the misgivings and doubts of many of his peers. Beyond the purely human element, the new cache offers ample confirmation of the rank politicization of climate science and rampant cronyism that ought to trouble even firm believers in catastrophic climate change....
Before anyone had time to get very far into this vast archive, the climate campaigners were ready with their critical review: Nothing worth seeing here. Out of context! Cherry picking! “This is just trivia, it’s a diversion,” climate researcher Joel Smith told Politico. On the other side, Anthony Watts, proprietor of the invaluable WattsUpWithThat.com skeptic website, had the kind of memorable line fit for a movie poster. With a hat tip to the famous Seinfeld episode, Watts wrote: “They’re real, and they’re spectacular!” An extended review of this massive new cache will take months and could easily require a book-length treatment. But reading even a few dozen of the newly leaked emails makes clear that Watts and other longtime critics of the climate cabal are going to be vindicated....
--MORE--"
But I am starting to heat up:
"Warming threat as permafrost thaws; Scientists warn of gases trapped beneath ground" December 01, 2011|By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Massive amounts of greenhouse gases trapped below thawing permafrost will likely seep into the air over the next several decades, accelerating and amplifying global warming, scientists warn.
Those heat-trapping gases under the frozen Arctic ground may be a bigger factor in global warming than the cutting down of forests and a scenario for which climate scientists had not completely accounted, according to a group of permafrost specialists. The gases will not contribute as much as pollution from power plants, cars, trucks, and planes, though....
That's why the globalist government needs a carbon tax spigot.
Diplomats are meeting this week in South Africa to find ways of curbing human-made climate change....
I don't believe that anymore. It's mostly the sun that is responsible for weather pattern shifts.
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Starting to stink:
"Nations present opening positions at UN climate negotiations; Private meetings held to determine others’ intentions" December 06, 2011|By Arthur Max, Associated Press
DURBAN, South Africa - Key players laid out their opening positions in public at UN climate talks in South Africa and were beginning a round of private meetings to determine each other’s meanings and intentions - which remained murky.
South African authorities said they were deporting three activists from the Greenpeace environmental group who were arrested trying to drape a protest banner from the rooftop of a beachfront hotel....
Canada, Japan, and Russia all announced last year their rejection of Kyoto’s second commitment period, starting in 2013....
Even nations are beginning to realize it's all fart mist.
--more--"
"Canada mum on Kyoto climate pact pullout" November 29, 2011|By Rob Gillies, Associated Press
TORONTO - Peter Kent, Canada’s environment minister, said yesterday that signing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was one of the previous government’s biggest blunders, but he declined to confirm a report that Canada will formally pull out of the treaty.
As United Nations climate negotiations opened in South Africa yesterday, CTV News in Canada reported that Ottawa will announce its formal withdrawal from the Kyoto accord next month.
The report said Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Cabinet have already decided to withdraw from the protocol, but that it will not be announced until Dec. 23. after the conference ends.
Kent said he would neither confirm nor deny the report. “This isn’t the day,’’ he said. “This is not the time to make an announcement.’’
Canada, joined by Japan and Russia, said last year it will not accept new commitments, but renouncing the accord would be another setback to the treaty....
Canada has the world’s third largest oil reserves....
Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more reserves....
--more--"
Related: Deal reached on new route for pipeline
Oh. Canada is ba¢king out over you-know-what.
"US envoy seems to back EU push for climate talks; Speaks at briefing after criticism from Vt. heckler" December 09, 2011|By John M. Broder, New York Times
DURBAN, South Africa - Facing criticism from fellow envoys, environmental activists, and one impassioned heckler, the chief US negotiator at a climate conference here yesterday shifted his position - or at least his language - on a timetable for a new set of international talks.
Todd D. Stern, the Obama administration’s special envoy for climate change, was put on the defensive by a narrative developing here that the United States opposed any further action to address global climate disruption until after 2020, when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a primary UN climate agreement, and voluntary programs negotiated more recently have run their course.
Stern denied that the United States was dragging its feet and, somewhat ambiguously, endorsed a proposal from the European Union to quickly start negotiating a new international climate change treaty.
Good.
His statement to delegates from more than 190 nations at the annual climate conference was disrupted by a 21-year-old junior from Middlebury College in Vermont, Abigail Borah, who told the assembly that she would speak for the United States because Stern had forfeited the right to do so.
“I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot,’’ said Borah, who is attending the conference as a representative of the International Youth Climate Movement. “The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. 2020 is too late to wait. We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty.’’
Borah, who is from Princeton, N.J., added: “We need leaders who will commit to real change, not empty rhetoric.’’
I agree on that, although regarding different issues.
Scores of delegates and observers gave her a sustained ovation. Then the South African authorities threw her out of the conference....
Stern smiled as if the applause were for him and then continued with his prepared remarks.
Afterward, at a briefing for reporters, he dismissed charges that the United States was blocking any action on climate change until after 2020.
“It is completely off base to suggest that the US is proposing that we delay action until 2020,’’ Stern said.
He detailed a number of domestic and international actions that the United States has taken and said that he and other administration officials were working on others, like finding ways to raise tens of billions of dollars to help poor nations adapt to a warming planet....
That's where your carbon taxes come in.
The 17th annual meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is scheduled to conclude tonight. A number of issues are nearing resolution, although others - including the status of the Kyoto Protocol as well as the form and timing of future negotiations - remain up in the air.
--more--"
"Climate treaty negotiators struggle to reach deal" December 10, 2011|By Arthur Max, Associated Press
DURBAN, South Africa - Negotiators from Europe, tiny islands threatened by rising oceans, and the world’s poorest countries sought to keep alive the only treaty governing global warming and move to the next stage, struggling against an unlikely alliance of the United States, China, and India.
Bleary-eyed delegates worked through the night Thursday and all day yesterday, and the two-week UN conference stretched past the hour it was supposed to end, with the negotiators looking ahead to a second and final night of meetings expected to last until dawn today.
Btw, how did all the globalists get there, and what was the carbon footprint? When the elite stop traveling the planet in airplanes and limousines maybe I'll start listening.
Delegates from the 194-party conference are trying to map out the pathway toward limiting global emissions of greenhouse gases for the rest of this decade, and then how to continue beyond 2020.
Scientists say that unless those emissions - chiefly carbon dioxide from power generation and industry - level out and reverse within a few years, the Earth will be set on a possibly irreversible path of rising temperatures that lead to ever greater climate catastrophes....
I'm sorry, but I'm just jaded when it comes to the fear these days. I'm all feared-out after the last ten years.
A noisy demonstration of dozens of chanting, singing, and horn-blowing protesters - all activists accredited to attend the conference - tried to disrupt a plenary meeting but were blocked by UN guards.
The controlled-opposition people playing their part.
Ten protesters, including Greenpeace director Kumi Naidoo, were barred from entering the building for the rest of the conference.
“Leaders have been sleepwalking us into a crisis of epic proportions,’’ Naidoo told the Associated Press.
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Hey, they got a deal done, 'kay?
"Global climate deal up for approval at UN conference; Document will overhaul system on emissions" December 11, 2011|By Arthur Max, Associated Press
DURBAN, South Africa - A package of documents was submitted to a marathon UN climate conference yesterday that would set a new course for the global fight against climate change for decades to come....
There was no guarantee the package would be approved, and objections and amendments were submitted from the floor. The convention operates by consensus, and the package will not be put up for a vote....
Excuse me, they didn't get a deal done -- but I'll bet it was a good vacation.
Earlier as negotiations dragged on, some ministers and top negotiators left Durban with no assurance of an agreement. European Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, drawn and fatigued after two nights with minimal sleep, warned that failure in Durban would jeopardize new momentum in acting against global warming.
I know the feeling from blogging. That's why I shut it down before midnight most nights.
South Africa’s foreign minister and chairman of the 194-party conference, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said the package of four documents, which were being printed as she spoke, were an imperfect compromise, but they reflected years of negotiations on issues that had plagued UN climate efforts....
A separate document obliges major developing nations such as China and India, excluded under Kyoto, to accept legally binding emissions targets in the future, by 2020 at the latest.
Together, the two documents overhaul a system designed 20 years ago that divides the world into a handful of wealthy countries facing legal obligations to reduce emissions, and the rest of the world, which could undertake voluntary efforts to control carbon....
The package also would set up the structure and governing bodies of a Green Climate Fund, which will receive and distribute billions of dollars promised annually to poor countries to help them adapt to changing climate conditions and to move toward low-carbon economic growth. But the document made no specific mention of how those funds would be mobilized....
So despite the "failure" the globalist plan incrementally increases.
The remaining document of more than 50 pages lays out rules for monitoring and verifying emissions reductions, protecting forests, transferring clean technologies to developing countries and scores of technical issues. In the final hours, talks focused on unresolved differences....
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Related: Technology may be key to climate fight
